Brain Proverbs

I thought it was time for a change of pace so I looked up ‘Brain Proverbs’ on the Internet. Who knew? Several countries tout proverbs relating to the brain. Here are a few.

American:

•  We need brain more than belly food.
• Brain is worth more than brawn.
• Where there are no brains, there is no feeling.
•  The less the brains, the bigger the hat.
• You can borrow brains, but you can’t borrow character.

Dutch

• A handful of patience is worth a bushel of brains.

Nutrigenomics

What you eat and drink, can affect not only your own health but that of your descendants. A new field of study, ‘Nutrigenomics,’ studies the effect of foods on gene expression. Food ‘talks’ to your genes and they express themselves (activate or turn off) based on those conversations. Foods not only carry information to your genes, but their instructions may increase or decrease your risk for specific diseases. These nutritional signals may affect processes that include cholesterol levels, hormone regulation, aging, and weight fluctuations. Your biological system may respond to processed foods as to foreign invaders rather than as food, which initiates an inflammatory response. This type of chronic inflammation is now a recognized precursor to a variety of serious illnesses. (Adelle Larec, How to Reprogram Your DNA for Optimum Health.) 

Your Virome, 3

Viruses can kill the organism they invade; eventually disappear (the body kills the virus or there are so few new organisms to infect that the virus tends to disappear; or the virus and its host organisms learn to co-exist. Viruses are able to help spread beneficial bacterial mutations quickly throughout the microbiome and beyond. A 2013 study of the human gut virome tracked the identities, abundance, and mutations of native viruses in one person over 2.5 years. There were 478 relatively abundant viruses, most of which had not been previously identified. A majority of the viruses were bacteriophage, the type that infects bacteria. Eighty percent of the viruses persisted for the entire 2.5 years, but they all mutated: some slowly, some quickly, and some so fast that the virus would be deemed a new species within the 2.5 years. Talk about a miniature micro-star wars . . .

(Enriques, Juan, and Steve Gullans, PhD. Evolving Ourselves. Pg 101-103. NY:Current-Penguin Group, 2015)

Your Virome, 2

When you breathe in viruses after someone sneezes uncovered, the viruses enter your cells, reproduce, release trillions of copies of itself, and proceed to take over other cell. Sometimes viral DNA simply embeds itself in your own human DNA, where it can lie dormant or sometimes come back to life when you least want it, as occurs with recurring cold sores, shingles from a long-past chicken pox, and even some cancers, especially if you immune system is weakened. This is what can happen with Kaposi's sarcoma in immunodeficient patients infected with HIV. Sometimes, a viral code can end up in the DNA in your sperm or eggs, which then gets passed on to future generations. Viruses are champions of DNA mutation, able to carry, exchange, and modify the DNA between cells or from one species to another (e.g., the spread of antibacterial-resistance genes from one bacterial organism to its own species and then on to other bacteria types). More tomorrow.

Your Virome

The human virome is essentially your fourth genome. It interacts directly and indirectly with your other three genomes. Your virome involves the trillions of viruses that are believed to far outnumber both the cells and the microbes within your body. According to authors Enriques and Gullans, there are an estimated 10 billion bacteria in a liter of seawater, there are also 100 billion viruses playing with them. Even more may live inside the soil and dirt that cover your hands. Viruses, and there are at least ten times more of them inside you at any given time than there are bacteria. They live in your intestines, mouths, lungs, skin, and blood, continuously shuttling in and out of your body. Sneeze once, uncovered, and 40,000 droplets, each containing up to 200 million individual viruses, fly across the room at speeds exceeding 200 miles per hour. More tomorrow.

Resistant Starch or RS

Speaking of the human Microbiome, have you heard about Resistant Starch?  Prebiotics are generally classified into three different types, one of which is Resistant Starch or RS—which is emerging as uniquely beneficial to help protect against colorectal cancer. Prebiotics were first identified and named by Marcel Roberfroid in 1995 and they differ from probiotics. Typically, a probiotic is a product or preparation that is taken to introduce live strains of bacteria into one’s Gastrointestinal Tract. Yogurt is one example. Prebiotics, on the other hand, are nondigestible plant fibers that are called resistant because they pass through the small intestine undigested and reach the large intestine (or colon or bowel) intact. Many strains of beneficial bacteria that live in the colon feed on prebiotics. Rather than being live bacteria as in probiotics, think of prebiotics as food and fertilizer for the good bacteria that are already living in your GI Tract. They also are believed to stifle production of undesirable disease-causing bacteria—all of which impacts your Microbiome. 

Your Microbiome

The human microbiome consists of about 100 trillion bacteria and microbial cells—give or take a few trillion—that outnumber human cells something like ten to one. They can significantly affect human physiology. Changes in one’s microbiome can trigger changes in many cellular activities that can be beneficial or contribute to disease. The results of a small study published in Nature revealed that bacteria living in the gastrointestinal system are surprisingly responsive to change in what a person eats. Moreover, these changes in one’s microbiome can happen incredibly fast—within three or four days of a big shift in what you eat. Lawrence David, assistant professor at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy and one of the study’s authors, evaluated ten participants: some with plant-based diet (avoiding animal products) and others with an animal-based diet (eating milk, cheese, and meat). In the subjects eating animal products the researchers saw a significant increase in Bilophila wadsworthia—reportedly the third most common anaerobic bacteria recovered from patients with perforated and gangrenous appendicitis.