reception, Author at Glenville Nutrition Clinic

Why Is Vitamin D Crucial For Brain Health?

We have known for many years that Vitamin D is important for bone health and in the prevention of osteoporosis. However, it is only in recent years that we have realised how important this nutrient is for general health and, particularly, for brain health. Here are just some of the main benefits of vitamin D:

• It plays a major role in breast and bowel cancer prevention
• It is important for your immune function, particularly when you need to fight off colds and flus
• It helps protect your body against conditions as diverse as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, joint pain, dementia, infertility, autism, and allergies
• It reduces the risk of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)

Vitamin D also balances your immune function (if you have an autoimmune problem, it’s especially important to have your vitamin D levels tested), helps control inflammation, has antioxidant properties, and helps to control beta-amyloid plaque build-up. All these benefits are important for your brain health, so getting your levels exactly right is crucial if you are to benefit from them.

Vitamin D Deficiency

Vitamin D deficiencies have also been implicated in autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and inflammatory bowel disease. We get most of our vitamin D quota from sunlight because natural food sources are few. Those most at risk of vitamin D deficiency are those who:

• Don’t go out much in the daytime
• Don’t expose their skin to sunlight
• Constantly wear make-up or cosmetics with built-in sun protection factors

The tone of your skin affects vitamin D production, so the darker your skin, the less your body produces vitamin D. Covering up large area of skin for religious reasons also reduces vitamin D production. It is estimated that we need about 30 minutes exposure to the sun every day to produce enough vitamin D to keep us healthy.

If you are moderately deficient in vitamin D, you have a 53% increased risk of dementia, and your risk of increases by 125% if you are severely deficient. With Alzheimer’s, one study found that those who were moderately deficient had a 69% increased risk, and the risk increased to 122% in those who were severely deficient.

This research showed evidence that these seem to be a threshold level in the blood below which the risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s increases. Levels above 50 nmol/L are the most strongly associated with good brain health. However, I think a level between 80 – 100 nmol/L gives the best overall effect on general health, and this is the level I get my patients to aim for in my clinic.

How To Know If You’re Vitamin D Deficient

A question lots of people ask me when I give talks, is how much vitamin D should I take? The answer, of course, is that it depends on the level of your deficiency. For this reason, I now recommend that everyone gets their vitamin D levels checked, given this nutrient’s far-reaching health benefits, and then supplement to get the level back to normal. We have had instances in the clinics where the lab has even phoned to say there was no vitamin D detected at all.

There is, though, such a thing as too much vitamin D. A vitamin D level that is too low (less then 10nmol/L) increases the risk of all-cause mortality (dying of any cause) – but the same is true if your vitamin D levels are too high (more than 140 nmol/L). That’s why it’s important to get tested regularly, at the clinic we use this test that can be done via the post.

What Vitamin D To Choose?

Choose vitamin D in the form of D3, also called cholecalciferol. There is a cheaper form, called D2 (ergocalciferol), but research suggests that vitamin D3 is 87% more effective at raising and maintaining your vitamin D levels than vitamin D2. Researchers have said that ‘the assumption that vitamins D2 and D3 have equal nutritional value is probably wrong and should be reconsidered.’ Most people (especially older people) do not convert vitamin D2 to the active form that their bodies can use efficiently so it is best to speak to one of our nutritionists for advice.

How To Avoid A Monday Morning Hangover

The fastest way to help the body recover from the effects of a hangover caused by alcohol, rich food and late nights, is to support your body’s detoxification process, restore your blood sugar balance and combat dehydration.

A whole variety of foods can assist these processes, but Dr Marilyn Glenville discusses some of the key players here:

Top tips to avoid a hangover

Drink Water! Even mild dehydration can lead to ‘hangover’ symptoms including fatigue, headache and bad moods. Nutrients cannot move into cells, and wastes cannot move out of the body, without water as a vital means of transportation. Alcohol and caffeine can cause the body to excrete too much water, along with nutrients such as Magnesium, Potassium and Vitamins B and C. These nutrients are particularly needed to help to restore your energy levels and support detoxification by your liver.

As Vitamins B and C are water-soluble, they can be absorbed and used by the body within hours, so they can help ease a hangover fairly quickly.

Take Magnesium, Vitamin C and B complex supplements, and eat fibre-rich wholefoods for a boost of these nutrients and to help balance the level of sugar in your blood.

Try oat porridge with cinnamon powder and fresh fruit for Monday morning’s breakfast. If you are feeling queasy as your body is still trying to digest last night’s takeaway curry, just try some oatcakes with some banana or apple. This also makes a tasty mid-morning snack when your blood sugar dips. It is important not to rely on sugary foods and drinks to ‘prop up’ your energy levels throughout the day, because although you may feel better quickly, you will rebound and feel even worse later on. Using sugar as a crutch to provide a temporary boost of energy to get you through the day, can lead to a bad night’s sleep. This starts off your next day badly and you can fall into the vicious cycle of using sugar and other stimulants daily.

So follow the 4 simple rules to balance your blood sugar and energy levels:

1) Eat little and often (3 moderate meals plus 2 snacks. Avoids gaps longer than 2 – 3 hours between food).

2) Avoid highly sugary & processed carbohydrates (‘white’ bread, pasta and rice; biscuits, pastries, etc). Instead choose wholegrain cereals full of fibre and nutrients, which will release sugar steadily.

3) When eating carbohydrates, also eat foods containing protein and the good omega fats, as they ensure a nice steady release of sugar into your blood.

4) Avoid stimulants (tea, coffee, smoking, recreational drugs, alcohol, etc) which upset your blood sugar balance, leading to fatigue and poor concentration.

If you find you still need some extra energy to get you through Monday, then try some herbal supplements, such as Siberian Ginseng. This gently supports your adrenal glands to help them cope with the stressful effects of the hangover, and ensure they can assist steady energy production through the day. Drinking Green tea can also be helpful as it contains L-Theanine – a nutrient that enables calm but alert thinking, and can offset the small amount of caffeine in the tea. Freshly-squeezed lemon juice in some warm water can help to alleviate nausea and pep up your liver.

Your liver is also very important to help you prevent and overcome ‘hangover’ effects. Not only does it help to regulate your blood sugar, but it works as the ‘filtering factory’ of the body – cleaning out wastes and toxins from your blood. Your liver has to work extra hard for you after a weekend of alcohol and fatty food, so make its job easier by taking Vitamin C and herbal teas or supplements such as Milk Thistle, Artichoke and Dandelion. Include liver-supportive foods such as beetroot, broccoli, garlic, asparagus and also Omega fat-rich foods such as flaxseeds, walnuts and avocado. In the long-term, as Omega fats form the membrane around all your body cells, they are essential for your whole body’s health but especially for your brain function, mood and energy levels.

If the ‘Monday Morning’ feeling is a permanent fixture in your diary, then you should consider consulting one of our qualified Nutritionists to give you an individualised action plan, to help your body minimize and cope with the stress and damaging effects of overindulgence.

A Beginner’s Brain Breakdown

woman looking down to the title of beggings brain breakdown in purple box with a colourful brain painting behind her head

The terms dementia and Alzheimer’s are often used interchangeably but dementia is actually an umbrella term for up to 100 different types of disease, of which Alzheimer’ is just one of them. What’s more, a person can suffer from more than one form of dementia at any one time and that’s because our brain – though all connected – has different parts which all serve different functions.

The type of dementia a person suffers from depends upon which brain function has become impaired – that is, which part of the brain has become diseased. You can start to spot early signs of dementia or disease by identifying the impairments. The main parts of the brain and their functions are:

The Brain Stem

At the base of the brain, this area controls your automatic body functions such as heartbeat and breathing.

The Cerebellum

Is responsible for your balance and posture

The Limbic System

Lies deep inside the brain, includes the hippocampus (the key to your memory) and the amygdala (which plays a role in your emotional health)

The Cerebrum

Compromises the cerebral hemispheres that make up three quarters of the whole brain. The cerebrum is responsible for consciousness, memory, reasoning, language, and social skills. The left cerebral hemisphere is responsible for language; while the right governs our understanding of where we are in relation to the things around us.

The Cortex

Is a thin layer of grey matter covering the cerebrum and containing billions of brain cells. Beneath the grey matter of the cortex is white matter, which is made up of bundles of nerve fibres. These fibres transport nerve signals between parts of the cortex and from the cortex to other parts of the brain.

The Lobes

Which are located in the cerebrum. There are four lobes in each cerebral hemisphere (right and left) with each one having its own vital role to play, as well as working in conjunction with the other lobes:

The Occipital Lobe – at the back of the brain deals with visual information

The Parietal Lobe – in the upper rear part of the cerebrum, handles information from your other senses and enables you to know how to pick up a fork to eat with, or to put one leg in front of the other to walk. You use your left parietal lobe to read, write and process numbers while your right parietal lobe helps you recognise objects as being three-dimensional.

The Temporal Lobe – on either side of your brain (near your temples), these are themselves divided into sections that govern different brain functions including the hippocampus (crucial for forming new memories) which lies inside the temporal lobes, as well as the outer part of the temporal lobe which is where you store your general knowledge or semantic memory. Again, within the semantic memory, the different sides of the brain (left and right) have different functions. The left side stores facts, word meanings and names of objects while the right stores the visual memories that help you recognise familiar faces and objects.

The Frontal Lobe – forms the large and complex management centre of your brain, helping you to solve problems and make decisions. You use this management centre to follow the steps of a familiar task as well as it helping to keep you focused to complete the task, learn a new one or develop complex skills until they become automatic – like learning to drive.

The reason it’s important to recognise the different areas of the brain, especially when it comes to dementia, is you can notice when something is not quite right with a particular function; for example, if your memory is not what it used to be or if you are feeling more reluctant to engage with life or socialising.

Frontotemporal dementia is the second most common cause of dementia in the under 65’s, but less common in older people. This is caused when abnormal proteins prevent the brain cells from communicating with each other as they should. One-third of cases are thought to be genetic. Symptoms may include personality changes, repetitive behaviour, changes in appetite and difficulties with decision making, problem-solving and concentration.
This form of dementia may be confused with depression, psychosis, or obsessive-compulsive behaviour.

As a nutrition clinic, the aspect of self-care in preventing dementia we are most interested in is, of course, diet – and we believe that what you eat can have a huge impact on the health of your brain.

Phytonutrients – And Their Importance For Hormone Health

sources of phytonutrients like grapes, blueberries, kidney beans and broccoli

Phytoestrogens (phyto meaning ‘plant’) are substances that occur naturally in foods and they have a very interesting effect on our hormones.

Calling them phytoestrogens would imply that we are adding yet more oestrogen into our bodies, but these plant oestrogens work in a special way. They have been shown to have a balancing effect on hormones.
A study recently showed that eating soya increased oestrogen levels when they were low and reduced them when they were high. This could explain why soya beans can reduce hot flushes for women going through the menopause (when it is believed that we have an oestrogen deficiency) and reduce the incidence of breast cancer (which is often due to an excess of oestrogen).

Because these foods have a controlling effect on oestrogen, it is important to include them in your diet – particularly when you are suffering from a condition that is sensitive to excess oestrogen; such as fibroids and endometriosis.
Research has also shown that phytoestrogens can help to produce lighter periods, and to lengthen women’s cycles that are too short.

soy beans which are strong phytonutrients

Phytoestrogens also have other positive benefits. Soya beans have been found to contain at least 5 compounds believed to inhibit cancer. The major research has focused on breast cancer because Japanese women only have one-sixth the rate of breast cancer that we have.
It also appears that when Japanese women move to the West, their rate rises to that of the Western woman.

As well as these benefits on the hormones, phytoestrogens also have a positive effect on your cardiovascular health. Studies have shown that soya can lower the level of cholesterol and specially the ‘bad’ cholesterol called LDL.

Finally, these phytoestrogens are found in almost all fruit, vegetables and cereals but they are most beneficial in the form of something called ‘isoflavones’, which are found in legumes such as soya, lentils and chickpeas.

Beans are easy to use and they are great added to salads, soups and casseroles. Most beans (although not lentils) need to be soaked, sometimes over-night, before cooking.

There is still a great deal of confusion surrounding phytoestrogens, primarily in relation to soya, but there is no doubt that it can be a useful addition to your diet – especially if you are interested in, or have, a hormone condition.

If you would like to find out more, or are interested in finding out how you can help balance your hormones/hormone condition, speak to one our expert nutritionists who have been trained to the protocols of Dr Marilyn Glenville PhD – the leading women’s health nutritionist in the UK specialising in hormone health.

Why Xenoestrogens Are Affecting Your Health

Xenoestrogens or ‘foreign oestrogens’ are oestrogen-like chemicals from pesticides or plastics that have been linked to health problems.
In some parts of the world, some of these problems have been dramatic. For example, some fish are growing both male and female sex organs and male alligators are becoming feminised, with hormonal levels altered to the extent that it is making reproduction difficult!

woman holding cleaning chemicals which contain xenoestrogens

What Do Xenoestrogens Mean For Our Health?

Xenoestrogens are stored in body fat and can affect men and women differently. Overweight people tend to have higher concentrations because xenoestrogens are lipophilic (meaning they love fat). They are also appearing everywhere, currently there are over 3900 brands of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides which are approved for use in the UK. Some fruit and vegetables are sprayed up to 10 times before they reach the supermarkets.

The increasing levels of xenoestrogens in our environment has coincided with an earlier onset of puberty. At the turn of the century, the average age of puberty to begin was 15. Now some girls as young as 8 are growing breasts and pubic hair!
It has been found that girls can enter puberty almost a year earlier if their pregnant mother has higher levels of 2 synthetic chemicals – PCB’s and DDT – while they were pregnant.

Women with higher concentrations of certain pesticides in their bodies also run a greater risk of developing breast cancer than women with lower levels.

plastic free packaging to reduce xenoestrogens in food and food shopping

What Can We Do About Xenoestrogens?

Avoid Plastic Containers and Wrap

The first piece of advice would be to avoid (as much as possible) food and drinks in plastic containers or wrapped in plastic as well as trying to buy organic where possible.

Don’t Store Fatty Foods In Plastic

This will allow the xenoestrogens to migrate into the foods with the high fat content from the plastic wrap. Try to remove any food packaging as soon as possible and store in beeswax or glass containers.

Reduce Your Intake Of Saturated Fats

These are two reasons for this. First of all, you will lay down fat stores that will present a welcome home for xenoestrogens and secondly, the fat you take in is likely to contain xenoestrogens from the animal’s environment.

Don’t Heat Food In Plastic

Especially avoid using the microwave. Try to put your food in a bowl, onto a plate or use a glass container to heat instead.

Increase Your Fibre Intake

This will help prevent the absorption of oestrogenic chemicals into your blood stream.

Eat More Cruciferous Vegetables And Phytonutrients

These help reduce toxic forms of oestrogen as well as cruciferous vegetables being high in a substance called ‘indole-3’carbinol’ which encourages elimination.

There’s no doubt that all of us are affected by xenoestrogens, and they may be at the root of more health problems than we know – and they are far more common than we would have first thought!

However, if you follow the advice above, you will dramatically decrease your exposure and be supporting your body to eliminate these as effectively as possible.

If you are interested in finding out more about your exposure to xenoestrogens, or how you can reduce your intake of these ‘foreign oestrogens’ then click here to speak to one of our expert nutritionists.