When it comes to our medical culture, treating disease is the priority. However, as I keep saying, the best way to treat a disease is not to get it in the first place.
And new research is now showing how you can avoid dementia, Alzheimer’s, mood disorders, and other brain issues simply by taking care of your brain structure.
Professor Feng Lei, from the Department of Psychological Medicine at the National University of Singapore School of Medicine explains brain structure by comparing it to a freeway commute. “Take the analogy of road traffic as an example – consider brain regions as destinations, while the connections between brain regions are roads. When a road system is better organized, the movement of vehicles and passengers is more efficient and uses less resources. Similarly, when the connections between brain regions are more structured, information processing can be performed more efficiently.” So, to a large extent, your brain structure determines how well your brain functions.
Recently, Professor Feng Lei was able to show that one of the causes of decreased cognitive function with aging is a decrease in brain structure. And, then he goes on to show that one of the things that can prevent this decrease is drinking tea. Amazing!
Past studies have demonstrated that tea intake is beneficial to human health, and the positive effects include mood improvement and cardiovascular disease prevention. In fact, results of a longitudinal study led by Prof Feng, which was published in 2017 showed that daily consumption of tea can reduce the risk of cognitive decline in older persons by 50%. Following this discovery, Prof. Feng Lei and his team further explored the direct effect of tea on brain structure.
To do the current study, the professor’s research team recruited 36 men and women aged 60 and above, and gathered data about their health, lifestyle, and psychological well-being. They then analyzed the men and women for both cognitive function and brain structure. They used neuropsychological testing to check the cognitive function. They also used brain MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans to determine brain structure. They also looked at the tea-drinking habits of the men and women. The study was carried out from 2015 to 2018.
When they analyzed the results, the professor’s team was not surprised to find that the cognitive function was better in tea drinkers. They had discovered that before. But what was surprising is that the more tea these men and women drank, the better their brain structure was. Overall, the MRI’s showed that individuals who consumed either green tea, oolong tea, or black tea at least four times a week for about 25 years had brain regions that were interconnected in a more efficient way.
Green tea is so good for us in so many ways that I have been making sure to drink at least eight ounces of fresh organic green tea every morning to start my day for the last four years. At first, I did not like the taste all that much. But it didn’t take too long before I got used to it. I also take 3,000 mg of Health’s Harmony 98% green tea extract on most afternoons. You can get that online. It’s nice to know that there’s a good likelihood that my brain structure will hang in longer as a result.
Yours for better health,
Frank Shallenberger, MD