Twelve Things You're Eating That Are Causing Brain Fog

Twelve Things You're Eating That Are Causing Brain Fog Although brain fog can be caused by a number of legitimate neurological disorders and injuries it might also be perpetuated by your diet.  In this age of food abundance and processed foods we may simply be making all the wrong choices even when we are eating a supposed “health food”. In order for you to think clearly your brain needs to make energy in the form of ATP (adenosine triphosphate).  It can do this either with carbohydrates that are broken down into glucose or with fats that are broken down into ketones.  Proteins, on the other hand, are largely used to build muscle, so are a last resort for making energy. The best carbohydrate sources for energy production are those that are absorbed slowly so that energy production is longer lasting.  These kinds of carbohydrates are considered to have a low glycemic index.  Examples would be most, but not all, fruits, vegetables and legumes.  Consuming foods with a high glycemic index causes a rapid rise in blood sugar followed by a steep decline.  When glucose enters the blood this is followed by the secretion of insulin from the pancreas.  Insulin is a hormone that removes the sugar from the blood and brings it to your muscles so that you can do work and to your brain so that you can think.  That feeling of brain fog occurs when the blood sugar drops and there is little to no glucose to make energy in the brain.  High glycemic index foods not only produce sharp spikes in blood sugar but also a sharp spike in insulin followed by a steep decline (Fig. 1).

 Fig. 1.  Low-Glycemic vs High-Glycemic-Index Foods

©Cengage Learning

Although the lowering of blood sugar by insulin is super important, insulin is also a hormone that prevents the breakdown of fat and encourages fat storage, which is how we gain weight. Unfortunately, our bodies have not adapted to food abundance and how to deal with the onslaught of foods with a high glycemic index.  In order to help you avoid the sudden drop in blood sugar caused by these kinds of foods here is my list of 12 foods you’re eating that may cause brain fog:

	Food	Glycemic indexa
1	White rice	126
2	Baked potato	121
3	Dates	103
4	White bread	100
5	Parsnips	97
6	Rice cakes	87
7	Bran muffin	85
8	Pretzels	83
9	Corn flakes	80
10	Oatmeal	79
11	Cheerios	74
12	Baked beans	69

©2016 Pearson Education, Inc.

^aGlycemic Index (GI) is a rating scale of the likelihood of foods to increase the levels of blood glucose and insulin.

It is acceptable to eat some of these foods such as oatmeal and parsnips so long as high fiber items such as apples, pears or woody vegetables are eaten with it.  Fiber will slow the absorption of glucose to avoid spikes in blood sugar and insulin.

An alternative strategy for avoiding brain fog is to follow a ketogenic diet, where the majority (~80%) of calories are derived from fats such as avocados, cheeses, nuts, seeds and meat (preferably from grass-fed or free-range animals).  This type of diet promotes production of ketones which readily penetrate the brain to make energy.  However, since this diet is lacking in many plant-based foods it tends to be low in a significant number of vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber, and high in saturated fat which is a recipe for poor bowel and cardiovascular health.  It is possible to utilize exogenously added ketones while consuming complex carbohydrates but definitive clinical data to confirm the utility of this strategy has yet to be published.