Brain foods: the effects of nutrients on brain function (2008) | Hacker News Reader

Brain foods: the effects of nutrients on brain function (2008)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

132 pointslainon27 comments

Marge: "I brought you a tuna sandwich. They say it's brain food. I guess because there's so much dolphin in it, and you know how smart they are."

It seems that a lot of what is discussed in the paper has to do with longer-term effects, i.e. that nutrients can affect neural configuration, e.g. synaptic plasticity.

I have suspected that there are also shorter term effects (i.e. hourly to weekly) caused by food and alcohol intake that probably work through a variety of channels. First, they do impact mood (whatever that is) which certainly impacts my cognitive ability (both problem solving and focus). There are surely blood sugar effects in many people (not myself throughout the day, but people I know well). I have also always wondered why exactly hangovers so drastically impair cognitive performance and I have noticed myself to be more mentally sharp if I go a couple weeks without drinking.

It'll be nice to see how this plays out longer term with more specific nutrients both macro and micro, to find out how we can adjust our diets accordingly (although I would guess that a veggie- and fish-heavy diet is probably the way to go).

> I have suspected that there are also shorter term effects (i.e. hourly to weekly) caused by food and alcohol intake that probably work through a variety of channels.

Is this not a proven fact, though? I'm curious as to why you phrase it as a suspicion when, for example, we know very well that alcohol/caffeine/sugar affect your mood and cognitive abilities in the short term. Did you perhaps mean that you suspect there are other effective chemicals which we assume do not impact mood/cognition?

Yea, this has been a sort of "no shit, sherlock" thing for me. Especially when it comes to alcohol consumption. It effects so many systems in the body, especially neurological. Not only are there toxic metabolites but high dose or chronic alcohol (ab)use will significantly alter the expression of many receptor proteins within the glutamate systems which are vital when it comes to memory and cognition. When it comes to actual food, again it's a no shit situation. We need a large variety of different nutrients for our systems to operate. We can synthesize some stuff on our own, but all of the raw materials come from the diet. If some components are missing for any part of our neurological systems whether they be transmitters, proteins, or even fats to build cell membranes (which change properties with different ratios of available components) then those systems will not be operating as well as they could be.

Is it possible that what you lose in cognitive abilities, you gain in social bonding?

Maybe people should learn how to bond without a psychoactive crutch. That tells me there is a larger issue, if the subject NEEDS alcohol to feel a connection with their fellow human

> Maybe people should learn how to bond without a psychoactive crutch.

I understand what you're saying. At the same time, where do you personally draw the line for what is psychoactive and what isn't? I generally don't think of alcohol as psychoactive in the same sense as LSD or psilocybin. Mood altering might be a better term, but at the same time, I know I'm often more irritable if I'm hungry. Your parent isn't arguing that people need alcohol to feel a connection, only that it might have some benefit (and not even that it is only beneficial: they acknowledge it has downsides).

What we eat, drink, what medications we're taking, how much we exercise--a whole host of factors play into how we experience and react. Do you feel the same way if I know I should generally eat something before going out? Honest question. I'm not sure where I draw the line, though I admit to wanting to.

Alcohol is absolutely as psychoactive as lsd. Maybe not as potent dose wise, but it absolutely does have a massive effect on cognition, perception, and mood. Most people do not realize how massive this effect is because they are usually under the influence. It only becomes apparent when you are observing another who has consumed the substance. If it lends any weight to my statement, I study behavioral neuropharmacology.

Lsd and ethyl alcohol only have different effects, it's the dose that determines how extreme the change is.

I have noticed myself to be more mentally sharp if I go a couple weeks without drinking.

So it's not just me. I've never been a heavy drinker (maybe twice a year I'll have a couple of beers/wine).. but a few years ago, I was working on a difficult bit of code (for several months), and I noticed after one night of a moderate amount of alcohol I couldnt work on the code the next day... like I couldnt hold all of it in my head. It improved somewhat over a few days, but I wasn't 100% until a couple of weeks had passed (based on my ability to work on this code).

When I say moderate, I mean a couple of glasses of wine.. I've never been drunk, so I definitely don't mean anything close to that.

After I noticed this, I tried again a few times (months apart) with the same result; always an improvement at the 2 week mark.. so I stopped consuming alcohol entirely.

I felt like this particular code was unworkable unless I was able to hold it's entirety in my head, which I already found difficult without alcohol. In the past, I never noticed this effect, but most of the time, I was probably working on easier code. So YMMV.. but it made me question whether any amount of alcohol was a good thing when you make your living with your mind.

That probably just has to do with the fact that you don't drink often enough. Someone who drinks a glass of red wine a day won't tend to get drunk (or even buzzy) after drinking. People that only drink once or twice a year, most likely will.

(This obviously also depends on your body type, how much you've eaten beforehand, etc as well)

I tend to drink one glass a day, but also take occasional breaks, and personally I haven't noticed any differences in ability and performance. I've also taken 1-2 month breaks from drinking (without issues -- always good to test once in a while!) but it doesn't really increase or decrease my ability.

It is true that I would get buzzed from a glass... but the effect I'm referring to was 2-14 days after that glass, after you're already sober.

I suspect that 1) alcohol's subtle effects last longer than assumed--in much the same way caffeine withdrawl can last for weeks; and 2) it affects your working memory.. reducing it maybe 10-15%.

I don't think you would notice a 10% decrease in your working memory unless you were working on a particularly difficult problem like I was at the time. Depending on the difficulty of the problems you're working on, it's entirely possible to code while drunk.. But if you've ever tried writing filesystem code, vm subsystem, or another hard problem, being under the influence can make it impossible to make any progress. So there's a wide range, and alcohols affects may not have much impact on the work you do.

I would like to see it studied.. I just thought it was interesting that cossatot mentioned a similar affect from alcohol lasting a similar amount of time.

Alcohol can definitely impair the quality of your sleep. Subtly enough so that if you don't catch up it might take a few days to recover naturally

As someone who recently became more conscious about the effects these substances have on me, I found that alcohol was the toughest one to grapple with.

I knew objectively that I felt "dumber" and more on edge for the next couple days, beyond just the immediate hangover, but the thing that always pulled me back was social acceptability. Not just in the form of peer pressure to drink, but also in the glorification of functioning through hangovers. Seeing people who are able to drink often / in excess and perform at a high level almost seemed like something to aspire to, when in reality my brain / body just can't do it -- at least not to my satisfaction.

I almost never drink, but very occasionally every few years I do. I have to absolutely agree that I feel the effects for weeks afterwards, like a kind of very low level tiredness or dissociation. Certainly will it comes to something like alcohol it makes a lot of sense that the cascade of largely negative effects have an impact.

On the other hand noticing it doesn't mean that it's necessarily too significant, I've never felt seriously impaired as a result of having consumed alcohol in the previous few weeks.

I realized earlier this year I was facing this exact problem - a lot of foods and supplements I was taking was causing a lot of mental fogs and I couldn't figure out what. Alcohol had serious lagging day effects from its impact on sleep and overall productivity.

I wrote https://betterself.io/ in response to this (but I've been a little intimidated to put this on HN since it doesn't do at least five more features (it's always five more ...) before the critics rip it to shreds.

Looks promising. But the sign-up fails.

Slightly surprising to me ... does it still fail for you (I just tried and it worked, but maybe I'm missing something - used Chrome over here)

No mention in this discussion thread yet about the keto diet and ketones being a better fuel source for the brain than glucose. After damage from a couple decades of sugar fueled coding, ketosis killed my brain fog and gave me back the mental endurance of a much younger man.

How about hydration? Anecdotally if I am low on water, electrolytes, or protein, I lose my deepest levels of reasoning.

Anecdotally, the heat this summer depleted my electrolytes, and being one to avoid fructose (Gatorade) and eating out, I found I had to get liquid minerals. Most foods these days use sea salt - no iodine or some other essential salty minerals. Unless I want to break my no fast food, no restaurant general behavior, getting non-sea salt in foods appears "out of consumer fashion".

My wife and I have been researching this because of her recently-diagnosed thyroid problems. As far as we can tell, most food in general doesn't contain iodized salt. Apparently, if you didn't shake it out from a container that says "iodized salt", it probably isn't.

I buy morton lite salt. Has half potassium chloride and half sodium chloride, with iodine. Also says it has a little bit of madnesium carbonate, so pretty decent electrolyte balance.

If it had no sodium, then it would be good. Most people already have way too much sodium in their diets.

Sodium is still an essential nutrient. It's important not to let the pendulum swing too far the other way.

https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/a-low-salt-diet-ma...

As oliveshell said, it is essential. But also the electrolyte balance seems to be more important than simply the amount of sodium.

It may even be that most of the purported negative effects of a high sodium diet are caused by this.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/sodium/...

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/sodiumpotassium-...

For potassium, there's salt substitutes like No Salt. Calcium and traces of magnesium are needed too. Adding any more sodium is horrible idea because of the increased competition for adsorption and the risks (ie hypertension and fluid retention (swelling)) of adding more table salt.

Be very careful with potassium. In large doses it is a poison.

Here's a cautionary tale:

https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/comments/6hhzxh/morton_lite_sa...

With regards to "Contemporary fish consumption versus major depression", there are most likely strong cultural factors at play this chart does account for.

Having lived in Japan and the US, I can say with some certainty Americans are vastly more likely to see a mental health care professional and therefore are vastly more likely to be diagnosed with depression. To this day it is still fairly taboo to see a psychiatrist. Furthermore, given the chart labels one of its data points "West Germany" I am imagining this data is from the late eighties at best, when it was even more taboo to see a mental health care provider.

I would imagine the cultures in Korea and Taiwan may be similar in this regard.

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