7 Foods To Eat And 7 To Avoid For Brain Health

Here's some food for thought: Some foods help promote thought. Well, brain health, anyway. In fact, there's a lot of evidence that shows what you eat impacts your brain's health and your chances of developing age-related brain disorders like Alzheimer's disease. That's great news, since dementia statistics are not very encouraging. By 2050, the number of people with the disease is expected to more than double, according to the Alzheimer's Association.

Although there are drugs on the market approved to help manage Alzheimer's, according to the Mayo Clinic, it is wise to take care of your brain now and do everything you can to prevent dementia. Fortunately, the solution may be a lot easier than you think. What you eat — or don't eat — as it turns out, can be a strong predictor for your risk of developing dementia later in life, and it can even help your brain in the near term.

For every thing you should be eating, there are usually plenty of equal and opposite things you should not be eating. You may not be super surprised to hear that processed meat is one of them. If you're concerned about your brain, it's officially time to give up your lunchmeat and sausage habit. Sorry about that.

According to 2020 research published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, cured meats contain N-nitroso compounds, which are associated with a higher risk of developing brain tumors. To be fair, you might be able to eat some cured meats if you make sure to also eat fruits, vegetables, and foods rich in vitamin A, which could have a balancing effect on your cured meat consumption. But alas, eating a lot of processed meat is potentially associated with an increased risk of dementia, according to a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. So like everything in life, moderation is a good idea.

As the years go by and science collects more information, some foods fall in and out of favor with dietitians. But one food that's remained pretty steadily in the unhealthy column is sugar, much to the dismay of sweet-loving American palettes.

A 2018 study in Metabolic Brain Disease found that after only a few months on a high sucrose diet, mice developed an early-stage brain disease similar to Alzheimer's. Researchers described "spatial memory deficits" and "increased despair" in their subjects, so even if that doesn't make you feel kind of bad for the poor mice it should at least make you side-eye that innocent-looking slice of chocolate cake.

Research published in Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care noted the connection between type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. Insulin resistance is associated with high-sugar diets, which is one of the features of both Alzheimer's disease and type 2 diabetes, so reducing the amount of sugar in your diet isn't just something you should be doing for your brain but also for the rest of your body.

Most of us understand that there's a negative relationship between chronic alcohol abuse and your health. People who abuse alcohol may develop a host of both short-term and long-term health problems including liver disease, certain cancers, high blood pressure, miscarriage and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, alcohol poisoning, and stroke, according to the CDC. And alcohol abuse has been associated with other chronic problems like poor mental health, social conflict, violence, and an increased risk of fatal accidents.

There is also a growing body of research that links overconsumption of alcohol to brain damage. One study in Molecular Neurobiology even linked ethanol — the type of alcohol produced by fermentation that's found in alcoholic beverages — to an increase in neuritic plaques in the brains of laboratory mice.

It's worth noting that some studies have also found that moderate use of some alcohol like red wine may have a protective effect, though the ingredient most associated with this effect is resveratrol, which is also found in unfermented grapes. So you don't need to drink red wine to get the protective effect, though it's arguably more exciting than just eating grapes. Just remember: Everything in moderation.

While it's generally agreed that fish that contain a lot of omega-3 fatty acids are good for you, that comes along with a caveat that there are some kinds of fish you should avoid for the sake of your brain. For years, pregnant women have been told to avoid top-of-the-food-chain fish like tuna, swordfish, and king mackerel because large, long-lived fish accumulate a lot of mercury over time, and mercury may damage a fetus's developing brain, as detailed in a study published by Yonsei Medical Journal. But more recent research also shows that people who aren't pregnant may be risking their health if they eat a lot of high-mercury fish (via Today's Practitioner). These particular seafood choices are associated with a decrease in cognitive function.

This doesn't mean that the fish themselves are bad for you. In fact, in the absence of mercury contamination, a swordfish steak would be just as healthy as a salmon steak. The study noted that even high-mercury fish contain the omega-3 fatty acids that are associated with brain health, but that their effects are canceled out in the presence of high levels of mercury.

You can add just about anything to your diet as long as you don't add too much of it, but Americans, in particular, do love their white bread, white rice, and white pasta. And the refined carbohydrates that these foods contain are increasingly associated with a myriad of health problems, from diabetes to dementia.

The real problem with these sorts of processed foods is that they tend to have a higher glycemic index than unprocessed foods, which means they can cause a rapid rise in blood sugar (via MedicineNet). More importantly, refined carbohydrates have a high glycemic load, which is a measure of how much glucose there is in a food versus how quickly it gets into your bloodstream, explained Harvard Health. A 2020 study published by the Alzheimer's Association found that eating a lot of refined carbohydrates was strongly associated with an increased risk of dementia in elderly people.

The good news is you don't have to give up your pasta habit or leave the rice out of your Chinese take-out order. There are plenty of alternatives to refined pasta and white rice — whole-grain bread, brown rice, and whole-grain pasta are all healthy alternatives to the refined carbohydrates you eat every day.

Everyone loves a nice burger, and even if your burger of choice is made of black beans or plant-based meat, you probably enjoy it with a side of deep-fried potatoes. Thankfully, trans fats have been banned in the United States; however, deep-fried foods are still associated with health risks, especially cardiovascular disease, according to Harvard Health. And they can have a negative effect on your brain's health, too.

It's true that researchers have found a strong link between trans fats and Alzheimer's disease (via CNN). Still, other research, like one study published in Food Science & Nutrition, demonstrates that fried foods can contain unhealthy compounds like acrolein, which forms in hot cooking oil and is often found in deep-fried fast foods. Acrolein has an association with Alzheimer's disease as well as a bunch of other diseases you really don't want to develop, like heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. All of which are really great reasons why you ought to just go ahead and ditch the deep fryer in favor of that air fryer you've been wanting.

Tofu has long been touted as a great meat substitute, despite it not really tasting anything like any kind of meat, and not really having a meat-like texture, either. Still, it shows up in a lot of vegan recipes, mostly because it's got a lot of protein, which can be hard to incorporate into a vegan diet.

Unfortunately for tofu lovers, though, there are a few studies that link over-consumption of this soy-based product with cognitive decline late in life. According to a Karger study, elderly Indonesian subjects who ate a lot of tofu scored poorly on a memory test. Interestingly, the same effect was not noted with subjects who ate a lot of tempe (another soy-based food). Researchers hypothesized that tempe, which is fermented, contains a lot of folates, which may help balance the potentially harmful effects of phytoestrogens, which are present in both tempe and tofu and may be associated with an increased risk of dementia.