Quotes from David Perlmutter

Increase your consumption of healthful fats like extra virgin olive oil, avocado, grass-fed beef, wild fish, coconut oil, nuts and seeds. At the same time, keep in mind that modified fats like hydrogenated or trans fats are the worst choices for brain health.

The best diet for overall health, and specifically for heart, brain, and cancer risk reduction, is a diet that's aggressively low in carbohydrates with an abundance of healthful fat, and this is the central theme of 'Grain Brain.'

The human brain is at particularly high risk for damage by free radicals because of its high degree of metabolism compared to other tissues, while lacking the levels of antioxidant protection found elsewhere in the body.

Antioxidants are chemicals that break down or neutralize the damaging effects of free radicals - chemicals produced as a byproduct of normal cellular metabolism.

Food is medicine. We can actually change our gene expressions with the foods we eat.

Rarely, Type 2 diabetes develops without any readily identifiable predisposing factor. But in the great majority of cases, it is brought on by lifestyle activities, including, and clearly most importantly, dietary choices.

The idea that people are nutritionally deprived because they don't eat grain has no scientific basis.

So-called 'complex carbs' may actually represent a more significant threat to health than simple sugar in that they may not only raise blood sugar, but keep it elevated for a more prolonged period of time.

When we are exposed to a real or perceived threatening situation, powerful things happen in the brain to memorialize aspects of the event, including all manner of associated circumstances like where, when and how it occurred.

Fat is your friend. The brain thrives on a fat-rich, low-carbohydrate diet.

It may seem draconian, but the best recommendation I can make is to completely avoid grains.

Dementia is our most-feared illness, more than heart disease or cancer.

This low-fat idea that's been drummed into our heads and bellies is completely off-base and deeply responsible for most of our modern ills.

Bad things happen. And the human brain is especially adept at making sure that we keep track of these events. This is an adaptive mechanism important for survival.

A fundamental premise in cancer therapy is trying to identify how the metabolism of cancer cells differs from normal tissue. When differences are identified, it often paves the way for treatments that will disrupt the cancer's metabolism while sparing normal tissue.

Far from being entirely dependent on exogenous food sources of antioxidants, our cells have their own innate ability to generate antioxidants upon demand.

Saturated fat is a fundamental building block for brain cells. It's certainly interesting to consider that one of the richest sources of saturated fat in nature is human breast milk.

Throughout our lifetimes, we are constantly regenerating new brain cells in the hippocampus, a process called neurogenesis. New stem cells are constantly being born in the hippocampus that ultimately differentiate into fully functional neurons.

Humans are not the fastest or the strongest animals on the planet, but when it comes to survival, we have had the unique advantage of being clever.

Memory enhancement self-help programs abound and promise improved memory performance by the utilization of any number of seemingly unique techniques focused on the context of how information is encoded.

Our ancestors relied upon their advanced brains to survive during times of food shortage, and fortunately, the human brain is able to utilize body fat as an extremely efficient fuel to sustain function when glucose-providing food is unavailable.

Shoot for a total of no more than 80 grams of carbs in your daily diet. This means favoring vegetables that grow above ground like kale, broccoli, spinach, and cauliflower as opposed to those that store carbohydrate in the form of starch like potatoes and beets.

Carbohydrates, whether derived from gluten-containing foods or other sources, including fruit, sweetened beverages, and starchy vegetables, are dangerous as they relate to brain health in and of themselves.

From the earliest moments of life, children begin to learn the fundamentals of language. The most powerful influence for effective language development are the verbal interactions with caregivers.