Caring for the Health of Your Brain

In this compelling short film, Dr. Huda Zoghbi discusses how brain exercises, avoiding mental stress and trauma, and maintaining a healthy diet can improve brain health.

Caring for the Health of Your Brain

Featuring Dr. Huda Zoghbi

Video Transcript:

(transcripción en español, aquí abajo)

Dr. Huda Zoghbi: Exercise is probably one of the best things a person can do for their brain. By exercise, I don’t just mean running on a treadmill. You might try to balance on one foot every day for a minute or two. You might challenge yourself, balancing on one foot, having the other foot up in the air. That automatically is engaging your cerebellum, it’s already trying to help you form new synapses to do that function, and those growth factors help maintain the health of neurons.

A lot of the late onset dementias are not necessarily Alzheimer’s, they are actually vascular disease from either diabetes or hypertension injuries, so being mindful about a healthy diet is just as good for the brain as it is good for the heart.

Adults, when they fall and hit their head, it really can be detrimental, particularly older people over 60, such falls might actually precipitate symptoms of Alzheimer’s and so on and so forth, and not that it’s the fall that made them have Alzheimer’s, but sometimes you have a genetic vulnerability, and you’re functioning on a limited reserve. All of that now is being compromised due to the trauma, so on top of that, you immediately see an onset.

Physical stress, such as trauma is bad, but also constant mental stress. I’m not saying we have to live a zen life every minute of our life, that’s not going to happen, and in fact a little bit of stress is a good thing, but it is really that constant painful stress that could be also compromising, so I think it’s that combination, the exercise, the healthy diet, avoiding trauma, avoiding constant stress, all these together I think would help anybody.

 

Cuidando la Salud de su Cerebro

Dr. Huda Zoghbi: El ejercicio es probablemente una de las mejores cosas que una persona puede hacer por su cerebro. Al hablar de ejercicio, no quiero decir solo correr en una caminadora. Quizás pudiera tratar de balancearse en un pie cada día por uno o dos minutos. Pudiera ponerse un reto adicional balanceándose en un pie, con el otro pie en el aire. Eso automáticamente pone a funcionar el cerebelo. Y ya está tratando de ayudarle a formar nuevas sinapsis para cumplir con esa función, Y esos factores de crecimiento ayudan a mantener la salud de las neuronas.

Muchos de los casos de demencia en la edad avanzada no son necesariamente el Alzheimer. En realidad, son desórdenes vasculares ya sea debido a diabetes o a daños causados por la hipertensión, así que el estar pendiente de tener una dieta saludable es tan bueno para el cerebro como lo es para el corazón.

Cuando un adulto se cae y se golpea la cabeza, puede ser muy perjudicial, principalmente personas mayores de sesenta. Dichas caídas hasta pudieran causar el comienzo temprano de síntomas del Alzheimer, y así por el estilo, y no es que haya sido la caída lo que les haya causado el Alzheimer, sino que a veces uno es propenso por razones genéticas, y estas funcionando con reservas limitadas. Todo eso ahora ha sido debilitado debido al traumatismo, así es que encima de eso, ves inmediatamente el comienzo.

El daño físico, como un traumatismo, es malo, pero también lo es el estrés mental constante. No digo que tenemos que vivir una vida tranquila en cada minuto de nuestra vida. Eso no va a pasar, y en realidad, un poquito de estrés es bueno. Pero es en realidad ese estrés constante y doloroso el que pudiera debilitarlo, así que pienso que es esa combinación, el ejercicio, la dieta saludable, evitar un traumatismo, evitar el estrés constante, todas estas cosas combinadas creo que ayudarían a cualquiera.

How can we cultivate a healthy brain? Is it possible to correct brain damage from disease and trauma? Understanding the neuroscience and physiology of the brain allows us to maintain a healthy brain and restore a brain back to health. In this compelling short film, Dr. Huda Zoghbi discusses how brain exercises, avoiding mental stress and trauma, and maintaining a healthy diet can improve brain health.

Featured Scholars:

Dr. Huda Zoghbi is a professor in the departments of pediatrics, molecular and human genetics, and neurology and neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine and director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital.

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