Category: brain function

This graph shows recent results from the test I used to track my brain function. The test is a choice reaction task done on my laptop: see a digit (e.g.,”2″), press the corresponding key as fast as possible. The x axis shows the time of the test. The ticks (“Sat”, etc.) mark the beginning of the associated days. The y axis shows the average percentile of the reaction times. Higher percentile = faster. (Let me explain what “percentile” means: Each reaction time is compared to earlier reaction times with the same stimulus, and its percentile is computed. For example, a percentile of 60 means that 60% of previous responses were slower.) An average of 60 is quite good and 40 is quite bad. I usually do two tests per day, one right after the other, in the late afternoon (e.g., 4:30 pm). Continue reading “Brain Test Phenomenology: Bad Beijing Restaurant?”

This graph shows my brain test reaction times over roughly one year. Each point is a different test; I usually do two tests per day back to back. I assume faster = better. In February 2013 I returned to Berkeley from Beijing. In August 2013 I went back to Beijing. When I returned to Berkeley, my scores got worse (slower). I was shocked. Surely Berkeley is healthier than Beijing. At first I thought it was jet lag, but the scores stayed worse long after that made sense. Then I thought it might be some difference in diet, even though I eat similar food in the two places. I tried to make my Berkeley diet closer to my Beijing diet. This might have helped. I noticed accidentally that chocolate improved my score and started eating chocolate frequently. This artificially reduced the difference since in Beijing I had not been eating chocolate. In Berkeley I started doing two things I hadn’t done in Beijing: alternate-day fasting and whole-body vibration. I don’t know if they made a difference. When I returned to Beijing in September, my scores got better, even though I was not eating chocolate. Eventually I improved my sleep in Beijing but that seemed to make little difference. The comparison is far from perfect — many things varied — but by and large my scores got worse when I went from Beijing to Berkeley and improved when I went from Berkeley to Beijing.

What might have caused this? There are a hundred possibilities but one stands out. In both places, I brew and drink several cups of tea every day. In Beijing, everyone, including me, drinks water from big plastic bottles that are delivered to your house. You can choose pure water or “mineral” water, which has  added magnesium and potassium. In Berkeley I use tap water (Brita filtered). I don’t think potassium affects brain function — for example, eating bananas makes no difference — but there is plenty of evidence that magnesium improves brain function. In Beijing I had tested a magnesium supplement and found no effect, consistent with the idea that I was already getting enough. Magnesium is also believed to improve sleep. In Beijing I seemed to sleep better than in Berkeley. Again, this is consistent with a difference in magnesium levels (more in Beijing). If ordinary magnesium-enriched water improves brain function, it would be significant because it is so easy, in contrast to other ways of increasing magnesium levels.

Six years ago I started using a reaction-time (RT) test (a test where you press a key in response to something as fast as possible) to track my brain function. I took the test daily. It must use only a small part of the brain but I assumed that something that made me faster would probably improve overall brain function. Behind this belief, which I call better RT, better brain, were countless studies of brain anatomy and physiology, which had shown that neurons and glial cells all over the brain share many features. Cells in different parts of the brain are much more alike than different. More support for this assumption was that certain doses of flaxseed oil improved both RT and other measures of brain function, such as balance.

I also assumed that changes that improved RT would probably improve overall health — what I call the better RT, better body assumption. It was less plausible than the better RT, better brain assumption because the cells in different organs of the body differ so much. They have many similarities but also many differences. I believed it for two reasons. (a) Flaxseed oil not only improved several measures of brain function, it improved my gums, no doubt because it reduced inflammation. It had been far from obvious that improving gums was so easy or that flaxseed oil (in the right dosage) would do so. The assumption better RT, better body had made a surprising prediction, you could say, that turned out to be true. (b) The brain gets much the same blood as the rest of the body. (Not exactly the same, because of the blood-brain barrier.) In the same way, all plug-in electrical appliances use the same house current. Just as all appliances have been designed to work well with that current, all our organs should have been shaped by evolution to work well with same mix of nutrients. You can’t feed your brain differently than your heart.

When I discovered that my Agatston score got better, not worse, after a year of eating lots of butter. The Agatston score is currently the best predictor of heart disease.

I recently found more support for the better RT, better body assumption. Several studies have found that RT is a good predictor of health (better RT, better health). Even more impressive, it is a better predictor than many of the predictors we already know of. The RT test used in these studies is close to the test I now use, which I developed independently. The RT test in these studies involves showing a digit (0-4), after which the subject presses one of five keys (labelled 0-4) as fast as possible. My current RT test is very similar but uses 7 digits instead of 5.

A 2005 study looked at the oft-reported correlation between higher IQ and lower mortality. The IQs and RTs of about 900 persons were measured in 1988. Deaths until 2002 were noted. RT was associated with lower mortality, even after taking out associations with smoking, education and social class. RT and IQ are correlated (better RT, higher IQ). When the RT-death association was removed, IQ no longer predicted death. So RT does a good job of capturing whatever it is about IQ that predicts mortality.

A 2009 study compared RT to more conventional health predictors (“risk factors”). About 7,000 subjects were followed from 1984 to 2005. RT in 1984 was a good predictor of all-cause mortality compared to classic risk factors. Smoking was by far the best predictor, followed by RT. RT was a better predictor than physical activity, blood pressure, a questionnaire measuring “psychological distress”, resting heart rate, waist/hip ratio, alcohol intake, and body mass index.

A third study, based on the same subjects as the 2009 study, found that amount of decline (slowing) in RT (from one test to a second test seven years later) predicted death. People with more decline were more likely to die.

All this supports studying how your RT is controlled by your environment, especially what you eat. You have to choose wisely what to study. The point is not to be as fast as possible regardless of everything else. Lots of drugs (stimulants, such as caffeine) decrease RT for short periods of time. I doubt they improve health. (If they harm sleep, they probably worsen health.) What makes sense is to look for two things: 1. Poisons. Things that slow you down. I discovered that tofu did so. I gave several reasons for thinking that tofu affects many people this way, not just me. Billions of people eat tofu, unaware of this possibility. 2. Deficiencies. Study things that are missing from your life now but were likely to be present when we evolved. It is quite plausible that our ancient ancestors ate more omega-3 (in fish, but also in flaxseed) and more animal fat (from big animals, but also in butter) than we do now. My data suggest omega-3 and animal fat are nutrients necessary for health whose importance mainstream nutrition researchers have not fully appreciated.

My RT data have shown me there’s a lot I didn’t/don’t know about how my food affects me. Maybe everyone can say that. Unlike almost anyone else, however, I can reduce my ignorance myself. I don’t need to rely on experts.