Thanksgiving: The Neuro Benefits of Practicing Gratitude

Across the U.S., American families and friends will gather on the fourth Thursday of November to unwittingly flood their brains with dopamine and serotonin in a celebration of gratitude rooted in English traditions that date back to the Protestant Reformation.  However, the neuromodulating effects of being grateful can profoundly change your life for the better when practiced on the daily, rather than once a year over a wishbone and your Auntie May’s favorite stuffing. While tradition is important in the human experience and a day set aside to give thanks and reflect on all our blessings is a noble occasion, practicing gratitude daily will lead to a happier, healthier you and even reshape your brain according to scientists, with the key being that you must really feel it for it to wield this powerful influence over your physiology and psychology. Gratitude can act as a natural antidepressant by increasing the neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin, and sending them hurtling down existing neuropathways as well as forming new neural circuitry. This effect is particularly strong when we ask ourselves what we are grateful for and are mindful of it.   Choosing to practice gratitude has been shown in study after study to create new neurocircuitry through which dopamine can influence the reward center of the brain.

Is the Ketogenic Diet the Cure for Multiple Diseases?

The ketogenic diet was developed at John Hopkins hospital in the 1920s as a natural cure for epilepsy, when drugs failed. It is a high fat diet restricting carbohydrates. The diet fell out of favor during the anti-saturated fat campaign started in the U.S. and codified into official government dietary advice in the 197os as a result of the McGovern Report. It is still official government dietary policy today, due to the influence of the vegetable oil industry which produces their products from the highly subsidized corn and soy crops. The Ketogenic Diet in some form or another has been labeled by many different names in recent times, and started gaining traction again with Dr. Atkins and the low-carb fad diets that became popular about 8 to 10 years ago. Today's latest fad diet, the "paleo diet" is another example of a diet based on the ketogenic principles. This diet is not new, however, as it was seen as a therapeutic diet that produced better results than drugs in treating epilepsy way back in the 1920s. Today, the diet is being studied in the medical community with applications to all kinds of diseases. Of course, most of the medical interest in the diet is to try and develop a line of "ketone" drugs to mimic the diet. Ketones, which our body can produce during fasting or "starvation," are an alternative energy source for those who are insulin resistant. Insulin resistance is increasingly being seen as a major cause of many diseases. As a result, the research that is starting to be published on the effectiveness of the ketogenic diet in curing disease is nothing less than amazing. This study is a survey of the diet's use in a variety of neurological diseases.