As much as we may stick to a healthy diet, sometimes diet alone is not enough to keep us healthy. The brain in particular needs extra vitamins to keep it healthy as you age. Avoiding age related mental decline, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease can be helped by increasing the amounts of certain vitamins. Because of how much work the brain does it has a huge concentration of diverse vitamins. Most of these we can get from our diet if we eat lots of vegetables, fruit and meat that is high in quality. But because of the amount of toxins, especially in processed food, sometimes supplements are necessary.
Which supplements should we consider necessary to keep our brains healthy?
- Magnesium. Magnesium is used throughout the body but nowhere is it as important as in your brain. It helps the nerves in the brain to adapt and avoid getting damaged. It is also necessary in the production of energy. With more than 70% of the population believed to be deficient, many are unable to properly convert sugar into energy. The result of this is diabetes.
- Vitamin C. Besides its use in helping the common cold, vitamin C is a natural antihistamine. Once only used as a cure for scurvy, we’ve now found that vitamin C is essential in producing neurotransmitters. Without these, the neurons in your brain would be unable to communicate with each other. Vitamin C increases serotonin, the happy molecule. It improves your memory, increases your IQ and helps with mental function. It protects against age-related degeneration.
- Probiotics. Though they have nothing to do with actual brain function, they keep the rest of your body healthy which leads to increased brain health. Probiotics help to increase healthy gut bacteria. The bacteria in our gut is also responsible for helping us make good decisions.
Having a healthy brain is reliant on so many different aspects which include our diet, how much time we spend in the sun and quite often where we live. To read more on vitamins for a healthy brain, click here.
