Recently I came across a post about "10 Unhealthy Habits That Can Damage the Brain"
https://steemit.com/steemit-health/@rickie/unhealthy-brain-damaging-habits

That post argues that not having breakfast damages your brain and I don't agree with that. I'll explain why with a bit of science.

This is what the post said.

1~ Avoiding Breakfast
Strangely people who avoid breakfast tend to have a lower level of blood sugar. Invariably, this causes insufficient supply of essential nutrients to the brain, causing degeneration of the brain.

I don't agree with that statement, I believe that not having breakfast is very healthy add excellent for your brain (I know it's against common wisdom). I'll explain why.

We have two sources of energy for our brain and rest of the body: glucose (most common) and Ketone bodies. In fact our brain loves Ketone bodies.

After a good long night of sleep and if you took a normal dinner not too late, usually your body has already run out of sugar in the blood and thus the liver has started "burning" fat to create the very efficient Ketone bodies to fuel the brain.

If you take a breakfast (usually loaded with sugars and carbohydrates which are also sugars) the liver will try first to convert that sugar into glycogen and store it on the liver. But the amount of glycogen that it can store is limited so the glucose finally has to go to the blood. Once on the blood the body needs to release insulin so the glucose con be converted into energy (the Ketone bodies do not need insulin to be converted into energy).

The issue with insulin is double:

First, when there is insulin in blood the Ketone mechanism gets deactivated and thus the fat "burning" gets deactivated too. Furthermore, as insulin is trying to reduce the high level of glucose in the blood (which is dangerous) it starts converting the glucose into FAT and tries to store it wherever it can (arteries, muscles, fat tissue...) which degrades your health.

Second, once the level of glucose in the blood has been lowered (consumed or stored as fat) the blood levels of insulin are still high putting the body into hypoglycemia (low glucose levels) which triggers the hunger alarm to recover the sugar blood levels. We then eat sugars or carbohydrates so the glucose levels go up again and insulin is released once more. This creates a loop of hyperglucemia-insulin-hypoglucemia all day long, making most people fat (consuming too much food/sugar and not burning fat) and creating diabetes type II in the long run. This loop also makes us feel tired and less alert because of the alternate excess of glucose and lack of glucose, plus the insulin effect of lowering the blood pressure.

If you do not have breakfast and you do "half fasting" or "intermittent fasting" (at least 12h without eating from dinner to lunch) you get the following benefits:

1.- You keep running on Ketone bodies which are ideal for the brain, you don't trigger the insulin response what makes you feel more alert and stronger (I actually run 10km without having anything for breakfast and nothing till lunch time).

2.- You can get thinner if you want, and if you don't want then you just need to eat a bit more fat because it is your fuel instead of sugar. That fat is burned so it does not accumulate in your body or veins. Your brain is 60% fat and 25% of the cholesterol in your body is stored in your brain, which is only 2% of your body weight, so a good supply of fat and cholesterol is good for your brain.

3.- Also it is reported that with a intermittent fasting the levels of testosterone in men are increased also making muscle growth easier, but you will need to eat a bit more of protein then (some protein is also burned during the ketonic process, but very little). Please note that this is not a high protein diet but more a "high" fat diet instead of a high sugar diet because we switch the fuel that we use (70% fat 20% protein 10% carbohydrates).

4.- Digesting food is a very hard job for our body, it needs many systems working simultaneously and fully focused on the task. This means that those systems (enzymes, etc) are not doing other tasks that they do when the digestion is not in process. If your body is digesting food all day long (every 4 hours or less because of the hyper-hypo glucemic loop) it never rests from digesting. As it never rests, those other systems that are supposed to do other tasks never have the time to do them because they are always busy digesting. One of those other task that are put to a side when digesting is repairing your body, and killing cancerous cells. Yes, your body has a huge mechanism to save you from cancer (that's evolution) but if we don't allow it to work then you already know what happens...

So the ideal is not to have breakfast at all, or to have something without carbohydrates, but then you lose the benefits of the intermittent fasting. Some people take something called bullet proof coffee, although I don't drink coffee because it is carcinogenic and caffeine creates cellular stress making many cells to die.

Another point that I disagree with this person is:

Rarely talking damage your brain

It also depends. There is people that have a huge inner life and don't need to talk to have strong intellectual and brain-stimulating thoughts.

In fact, my experience is that people that don't talk much and only talk when they have something interesting to say are much more intelligent than those that talk all day long about silly things, or those that basically think-talk without any intellectual filtering, which is very inefficient because talking is a very slow processes and thinking can go much faster without making the conversion to movements and sounds.

That is not to say that an intelligent conversation with some one is also good, but not talking does not mean that you damage your brain if you have a strong intellectual activity in silence.

If I had written the article myself, I would have put instead watching programs, serials or films on TV (or computer) does damage your brain. It is scientifically proven that watching TV increases the risk of suffering Alzheimer. This is because when watching TV your brain enters a "passive" mode reducing the brain activity.

I do agree with the rest of the points in the article that can damage your brain, that were:

• Over-eating
• High Sugar consumption: Actually this one is related to having breakfast as most people consume way too much sugar at breakfast (cereals, marmalade, soluble cocoa, honey, syrups, bread, etc... all those convert to glucose).
• Depriving the brain of sleep
• Smoking
• Stressing the brain during illness: I don't know about this one although at first sight it makes some sense.
• Air Pollution: not only for the lack of oxygen but also for the presence of other toxins like lead, mercury, etc.
• Covering the head while sleeping: funny one, who does that?
• Lack of stimulating thoughts

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