When I was 7 years old, I read in the sequel to Little Women that oatmeal made you smart. So I demanded that my mother feed me oatmeal on the day of my spelling test. I ate oatmeal before every test I ever took from elementary school through grad school. I even made my mother mail me oatmeal when I had a big exam during my semester abroad; later I thanked both my mom and Quaker Oats: I got a perfect score.
My mother chalked up my success to superstition. But I still believe that the oatmeal itself made a difference. And now it looks like science will prove me and the book's heroine, Jo March, right.
Like just about anything we eat, oatmeal influences the way our brains function. Food, after all, gives our bodies the raw materials to build everything from noses to neurons and the ability to operate them efficiently. Some materials make for better outcomes than others, as a flood of studies attest.
Fibrous oatmeal, for instance, slowly and steadily ushered the cereal's cargo of carbohydrates into my system as glucose. My brain snapped up that sugar from the bloodstream and deployed it both as fuel to power its operations and as a component of key chemical messengers, the very neurotransmitters that carry thoughts and memories. Oatmeal revved up my brain and stabilized my mood, memory and concentration—all without the spiky highs or crashing lows of foods like candy bars that dump their payload of sugar quickly.
Unbeknownst to me, my morning oatmeal also supplied ferulic acid. A potent antioxidant lurking in the germ and bran of grains, ferulic acid appears to be a general protector of brain cells, keeping them supple and responsive by nullifying toxins that stiffen them with age—and possibly even reversing some of the cognitive decline of aging.
A bowlful of gruel is hardly the fashionable food of choice. But oatmeal sits, however lumpily, at the cutting edge of a revolution in the way we think about food. Nutritional science is demonstrating that some edibles—call them functional foods—do far more than provide essential nutrients for normal maintenance and development. They furnish biologically active components that create high-class physiologic effects, such as disarming toxins, and impart health benefits. They have the capacity to reduce disease risk—with minimal involvement of health professionals," the nation's food scientists say.
"Food has a greater impact on health than previously known," declares a report released by the Institute of Food Technologists. "New evidence-based science linking diet to disease and disease prevention" has "blurred the line between food and medicine." Nutrients influence body processes at the molecular level, turning our very genes on and off. The emerging understanding of molecular nutrition, says the IFT, "has the potential to revolutionize diet, nutrition and food products, and health care."
Scarcely a week goes by when scientists don't make some discovery about the health-enhancing properties of food, from the cancer-fighting abilities of brussels sprouts to the anti-Alzheimer's effects of anchovies. For the nation's nutritional scientists, that presents a significant problem: There's no longer a clear boundary between foods and drugs. In some cases—antioxidant-rich cranberry juice, for example—the health claims for nutrients actually have to be soft-pedaled, lest they trigger regulations that require foods to undergo the same approval process as drugs. The IFT is urging the Food and Drug Administration to adopt reasonable procedures for demonstrating safety and efficacy of foods that are, well, more than foods—what some people call "nutraceuticals."
Oatmeal in fact inspired one of the earliest druglike claims for a food. In 1997 the Quaker Oats box began touting the cholesterol-lowering effects of the cereal after the FDA evaluated studies linking whole grains to reductions in the blood fat.
Food-boosted health now goes way beyond the heart, all the way to the head. Of course, brain virtuosity also hinges on physical and mental activity, as well as on factors not yet understood. But there's no question that proper feeding primes our brains to reach their fullest potential and maintain their wits for a lifetime.
Everyday nutrients are involved in a dazzling array of sophisticated actions at the molecular level. Nevertheless, the latest research on functional foods highlights six strategic lines of defense on the route from mouth to mind. Some functional food superstars make use of more than one mechanism.
The Telltale Heart: Jogging the Mind
Food doesn't have to reach your head to improve your memory. "There's getting to be a general consensus that what is good for your heart is good for your brain," says James Joseph, a neuroscientist at the Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University in Massachusetts.
Your brain accounts for just 2 percent of your body weight, but it eats up about 20 percent of your oxygen intake. Since it's such a hungry organ, your brain depends on a strong cardiovascular system to ferry in supplies. Healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels keep your arteries clear, leaving them free to transport nutrients to your brain. Clear arteries also reduce risk of stroke, which kills neurons when a blocked or ruptured vessel cuts off blood flow.
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