Lifestyle and Brain Health: An Interview with Registered Dietician, Evelyn Cole Kissinger

Part 1

Courtesy of Supreme Master Television

Hallo, happy viewers and welcome to today’s episode of Healthy Living. We all know that our daily food intake and lifestyle have a significant influence on our brain and mood. How does this happen? How can we improve our mental state by opting for a healthy lifestyle? Today we will explore these questions with nutrition expert Evelyn Cole Kissinger. Ms. Kissinger is a registered dietician, lifestyle consultant, lactation consultant and assistant professor in the Department of Health Science at Andrews University, Michigan, USA. She has provided consulting services and conducted health programs for health care centers and the general public since 1982. Ms. Kissinger is the former president of the Seventh-Day Adventist Dietetic Association, which has been promoting the health benefits of plant-based nutrition among medical professionals and community-based health educators for more than fifty years. In sharing information about the benefits of plant-based nutrition on human wellness, Ms. Kissinger has witnessed changes in countless lives. Her presentations and workshops are full of information and inspiration, which leave a deep impression on her audiences.

Food has a very powerful effect on the brain. We know that over the long term that our lifestyle and food will affect the brain. But there are studies that show that it’s actually a meal-by-meal experience. If you walk out of the door without a breakfast, your brain is just not going to work as well. You wouldn’t think about sending your kids off to school without breakfast, but we adults, we think, “Oh, I’m different.” One of the wellness programs that I did with a group of executives in a company, one of the things they told me was, “You know, being on this healthy living program, I’m just thinking more clearly, I can get more done, especially in the mornings. I’m just getting a whole lot more done.” It’s just very important not only for kids but it’s important for adults to think clearly in order to just do the daily things of, “What am I supposed to remember today?” So, food has a very, very powerful effect on the brain.

Before you get into some of the physiology of the brain, can you tell us some of the stories, success stories, how by applying a vegan diet, a holistic diet, people like in prisons and juvenile delinquents have completely changed their approach to life.

We have seen numerous ways that living a healthy lifestyle affects the brain. One of the programs that we do is changing bad habits for good. When people are even addicted to certain substances or behaviors, that when applying healthy lifestyle principles and choosing good foods and exercising, that it’s even so powerful that it can help in recovery from some of these devastating diseases. We have heard people, some of the obvious things in helping with the brain, is that when we have diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure, it actually starts to affect the brain before we see the clinical manifestation of what is going on. And so, when people come to these types of programs and they start to get their blood sugar under control and their cholesterol and their blood pressure goes down, then they say things like, “You know, I just feel like the fog has been lifted. You know I feel like I have control again.” And we have heard of extreme cases of children who have been on medication for ADD

and they see results and those medications can be reduced and even people on Prozac. So there is a direct relationship between our lifestyle and, very powerfully, nutrition, and the disease process and recovery. It’s just very, very powerful, and our book is full of some of what we call deliverance stories where people have seen that when they apply these principles that it not only affects you physically but it affects you mentally.

Now, a I heard about prison where people could check in and they had the option of eating vegan or not eating vegan. Can you tell us about that?

We have done our program in some prisons and they have found that this is something; the prisoners don’t have many choices, but they can choose whether or not they are going eat certain things, and it becomes something that they can do for themselves. And when they learn the difference that it makes and they apply those principles then they feel like they are thinking more clearly, more rationally, they feel like they have got more control and they are more interested in learning, in reading good books, and taking care of themselves in other ways because the choices that we make affect the neurotransmitters in the brain, which make a difference in our mood, our memory, our learning and our behavior. So, it can make a powerful difference in the way we behave as well.

In a prison that we were working with in Michigan, the prisoners found that when they reduced their meat intake, actually cut meat out, and started eating more of the vegetables and fruits and whole grains that there was less tendency towards violence, that they had more control over their emotions and that they were able to handle stress better. So they saw a relationship and that they felt that if they had been following this type of a program on the outside that they would have been able to control their anger, their emotions and the way that they behave in a much more positive way. Because what we eat affects how we are going to respond. When I don’t feel so well, I’m on the edge just little bit more than when I’m eating a different way. So, eating in a positive way, it results in a more positive approach to life, and a more positive approach to even relationships.

When Healthy Living returns, Ms. Kissinger will introduce more about the wonderful benefits of adopting a vegan, meaning animal-free diet, as well as some other key issues regarding a healthy lifestyle. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Healthy Living featuring the relationship between diet and brain health with nutrition expert Evelyn Cole Kissinger.

One of the programs that we have on our video is a school in Wisconsin, and this was a school for troubled children. And these kids were in trouble with drugs, carrying weapons, and they weren’t interested in learning, and they had police officers that were kind of around to make sure that everything was okay. So they wanted to find out: would changing the cafeteria and the foods that they were eating, would that change the behavior of these kids. Pretty radical approach! Some people would think, “Would it really make that much of a difference?” Well they did. So, one day they come into school and the pop machine is gone, the candy machine is gone, and in the cafeteria they have this spread of salad bar, fresh fruits, whole grains, serving them really healthy foods. The teachers were quite frustrated trying to teach, but as they implemented this program they saw a dramatic change in these children, and they saw they became more interested in learning. They didn’t have the scuffs in the hallways of people picking fights with each other. And they become more motivated, working out in the gym even, and taking care of themselves, and so through this process over a year when they evaluated the change, after they had incorporated this program they didn’t have any of the problems that they were having before in the kids not getting along, the challenges with the teachers in the classroom having to stop class to take care of the issues with the behavior. So, the types of foods we eat are going to affect the chemistry of the brain. And that affects my desire to want to learn and the way that I behave.

According to Ms. Kissinger, there are several other key factors in a healthy lifestyle that are also very important for brain health and mood.

What’s important to remember is that it’s our whole body that we’re looking at, that our head is connected to our body, and that whatever affects the body affects the brain, what affects the brain affects the body. And so lifestyle is very powerful and having a healthy body, healthy brain, and I think even a healthy spirit. So getting enough sleep, drinking enough water, getting exercise; when you’re getting exercise that pushes the blood into what I call “the corners of the brain” so that all of those areas of the brain get the blood supply with the nutrients and it takes away the waste products. So getting out there and getting some fresh air, the vitamin D that we get from the sunshine affects the health of the brain, affects the immune system of the body. So it’s a package; to have a healthy brain means having a healthy lifestyle. Also having a healthy brain are the thoughts that we think, what’s going on and what do I say when I talk to myself, because negative thinking can affect health and it can affect the brain. What am I surrounding myself with? What’s the external environment? So, creating a positive environment, and I think it’s very important to have a healthy brain to share love with each other, to have relationships with other people. It expands those neural connections. We have found that social connections affect the health of the brain and also having a relationship with God and trusting so that we are not filled with anxiety, that we’re filled with peace and joy. And that we know that things will work out, and that we can depend, and that we have a God that’s going to take care of us. And I think that can make all the difference. So having a healthy lifestyle, having a healthy environment, and having a healthy connection helps us in having a healthy brain.

Our body, our physical is connected to our mental, which is connected to our spiritual so they all work as one. They can each boost the other, but when I take care of myself physically, that’s going to affect me mentally, and that’s going to perhaps have an effect on my desire for spiritual things as well.

Thank you for joining us on today’s episode of Healthy Living, our show airs every Monday here on Supreme Master Television. Next week, Ms. Kissinger will share with us how to maintain brain health through a balanced, plant-based diet. Please stay tuned for Science and Spirituality, just after Noteworthy News. May your life be filled with abundant vitality, peace and happiness.

Part 2

Courtesy of Supreme Master Television.

Hallo, happy viewers! Welcome to today’s episode of Healthy Living. Today we will continue to explore how food and lifestyle influence brain health with Canadian nutrition expert Evelyn Cole Kissinger.

Ms. Kissinger is a registered dietician, lifestyle consultant, lactation consultant and assistant professor in the Department of Health Science at Andrews University, Michigan, USA. She has provided consulting services and conducted health programs for health care centers and the general public since 1982. Ms. Kissinger is the former president of the Seventh-Day Adventist Dietetic Association, which has been promoting the health benefits of plant-based nutrition among medical professionals and community-based health educators for more than fifty years. In sharing information about the benefits of plant-based nutrition on human wellness, Ms. Kissinger has witnessed changes in countless lives. Her presentations and workshops are full of information and inspiration, which leave a deep impression on her audiences.

On Healthy Living last week, Ms. Kissinger shared her knowledge and experiences on the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Today, she will further present ways to choose the right types of nutrients to maintain optimum health for our brain.  

Nutrition is just very powerful in the function of the brain and it comes from a lot of different directions. Each cell in the body needs at least forty nutrients plus. We’ve learned that there are thousands of phytochemicals and antioxidants that the brain needs, and so we come at it from a lot of different angles. You can’t just do one thing and expect the brain to change across the board. The primary fuel for the brain is glucose. Seventy percent of the fuel in the brain is glucose, and glucose comes from carbohydrates. Well, there are two types of carbohydrates. There are what we call the good carbs and the bad carbs. What we call the bad carbs would be the sugar foods. It’s very common that especially teenagers are going to drink soda. In each ounce of pop there’s about a teaspoon of sugar. So you’ve got a twenty-ounce pop, you’ve got about twenty teaspoons of sugar going down. Have that with a candy bar and you’ve got another nine teaspoons of sugar going in, with a small candy bar. That would be a very typical breakfast or a snack. When anybody eats this type of a food, you have this quick surge throughout the body, but especially in the brain, of all this sugar going in. It creates a higher stress to the body. You’ve got these stresses coming in and all the environment is full of stress and you’re just on edge a little bit more. The good carbohydrates are the foods that have fiber in them. Now what do you know about fiber? Fiber’s found in fruits and vegetables and whole grains and beans. So if you have a breakfast that’s a good fiber source, at least three to five grams of fiber in a serving of your cereal. The best ones would be a cooked cereal with oatmeal or seven-grain cereal. But there are some good ones that come in a box as well. But if you have a nice bowl of cereal with a couple of pieces of whole grain toast and an apple or an orange and a banana and you eat that, the response to the brain is totally different. The fiber in that food is going to provide a slow release of energy to the brain for the next four to six hours. So, it’s going to last from breakfast until lunch. You have this continual supply of sugar at the right rate, so the brain continually gets the fuel that it needs.

Fat is another indispensable nutrient for the body. Called phospholipids, it is a major component of our biological membranes.

So you have this cell wall that’s made of fats. When it’s made of the good fats, and the good fats meaning the monounsaturated fats like olives or olive oil or the nuts and seeds, avocados are these good fats. When you have a diet that has those in them then you have a cell wall that’s composed of the good fats. Contrast that with the saturated fats in meats and fast foods, that cell wall is going to be made of saturated fats.

What about dairy?

Dairy would also be a saturated fat. And with the good fats you have a flexible cell wall. So the cell wall can move as it should. In a saturated fat, it is stiff.

The metabolism in the cell doesn’t work as well because when you have a stiff cell wall the nutrients can’t get in and can’t get out like they’re supposed to. When you have a lot of fats in the diet, its going to start to clog up the arteries and when they get all clogged up the blood can’t get through as well. We know that when that happens in the heart and it gets so closed up that the blood can’t get through, we have a heart attack. Well, that can happen in the brain as well. It can happen as a stroke. So when arteries are clogging up in the heart, they’re clogging up all the way through the body. It’s not just happening in the heart, its happening everywhere.

When these fats clog up our arteries, our ability to think and our memory are affected. There will also be a difference in our moods. As we progress in age, this would also raise the risk of dementia.

Also in the brain, the fats effect the way those nerve cells talk to each other, the way they communicate; you have two nerve cells and there’s a gap between the nerve cells. And in the gap are the neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters affect our mood, and our motivation, our willingness to learn, and the two primary ones – there are 53 different ones in the brain – but two primary ones are serotonin and dopamine. When our serotonin is up, I feel good. When it’s low, I’m going to probably crave sugar and be crabby. When the dopamine is high, where we want it to be, I’m going to be motivated to go out and exercise, to pick up a book and read it. But if I don’t have enough dopamine, I’m going to feel more depressed. So we found that people who are challenged with depression have these lower levels of dopamine and serotonin as well.

How to raise our levels of dopamine and serotonin? This question is asked by many researchers in hopes of helping those who are affected by depression. Dr. Kissinger explains how more medications are not necessarily the answer.

You can raise the serotonin by eating those good carbohydrates, those fiber foods, the whole grains, fruits, vegetables that raise the serotonin. Also, being out in the sun will help to raise serotonin levels. When I do something nice for somebody else, that also. And also with the dopamine, we can raise those by the types of foods we eat, and fat happens to be affected by raising the dopamine levels. And that would be specifically affected by those omega-3 fats. There are two types of good fats. There are the omega-3 fats, and those are found in walnuts, flaxseed – ground flaxseed and soy products, as simple as a little bit of soy milk on your cereal in the morning will start to contribute some omega-3s.

When Healthy Living returns, Ms. Kissinger will discuss more about proteins and other nutrients. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Healthy Living. Today’s show features registered dietician, Evelyn Kissinger on the relationship between nutrition and brain health.

We’ve talked a little bit about the carbohydrates, the fiber and choosing the right types of fats, but also choosing the right proteins are very important as well. I favor the plant proteins, and the research that I know, and the information that I share. So, getting the right mix of those amino acids is going to affect the neurotransmitters, and providing the ability of the brain to make new nerve cells and to expand. So, I would favor getting proteins from the beans, and a lot of people aren’t aware that grains can be a high contributor of the good plant proteins as well, and reducing the amount or maybe even eliminating the protein from the animal products. Because along with that, not only do you have the animal amino acids, but you have the animal saturated fats. Eliminating those can also be an enhancement to the brain as well.

Unlike carbohydrates, fat and protein, our daily need for vitamins and minerals is very small; however, they play an indispensable role in the proper functioning of the human body.

There are a few vitamins and minerals that are very important to the brain. Magnesium is important for helping us to deal with stress, B-12, B-6, the B vitamins, all of the B vitamins are very important for brain health. B-12 is especially important for the nerves and the functioning of the brain as well. Those B-12 sources, the best places to get those, would be a lot of cereals are fortified with B-12; you’ll see that on the cereal box; you can also get it from fortified soymilk, which is another great place, or you may want to consider even a supplement for the B-12 as well. The B-6 and the other B vitamins are found in whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables, and as you eat these fiber foods, these whole grains, fruits, vegetables, beans, you get a package beyond just fiber. You get an array of these nutrients, and some antioxidants and phytochemicals that help the brain to stay healthy.

Today, people are hearing more and more about the benefits of eating the “rainbow spectrum of all colors.” How does food with different colors benefit us from a brain-health perspective?

I like the “eating the colors of the rainbow” or “What color is your plate?” When you see a lot of color on your plate, that can gives you a pretty good indication that you’ve got some balance going on. You’ve probably heard that the berries are good for your brain, the blueberries and raspberries and pomegranates are really good for your brain. Well, they’re very rich in many phytochemicals; ellagic acid happens to be one of them. There are thousands of phytochemicals that are found in foods and we’re just now discovering some of those and the powerful effects that they have on the brain. They can protect the cells from damage, and then if the cells are damaged it actually goes in and repairs the damage.

Aside from nutrients that were mentioned, the human body also needs some trace minerals. These trace minerals play a very important role in maintaining our health.

You’re going to get those trace minerals like zinc and chrominum and selenium that help to balance the appetite. They also help with dealing with stress and they come in the package when you eat with the rainbow of colors. Another great place to get the trace minerals is from nuts and seeds. And I think eating a handful of nuts or seeds every day is a smart thing to do. We found out in the Adventist Health study that eating one ounce

of nuts a day will cut the risk of having a heart attack, dying of a heart attack by 50%. And that’s just one handful of nuts. That’s quite dramatic! And if that’s a protection for the heart, it’s also protecting the rest of the body. Those trace minerals are going everywhere and those healthful fats. We know that before the disease actually shows up that there are changes in the brain and so by reducing the risk of disease, you’re protecting your brain from damage.

We thank you Ms. Evelyn Kissinger for sharing her resourceful knowledge on how to optimize our lifestyle for our overall well-being and brain health. Thank you for joining us today, bright viewers, for Healthy Living. Our show airs every Monday on Supreme Master Television. Please stay tuned for Science and Spirituality, right after Noteworthy News. May your life be filled with love and grace from Heaven!

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