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Nutrition: The Owner's Manual
Nutrition: The Owner's Manual
Nutrition: The Owner's Manual
Ebook51 pages42 minutes

Nutrition: The Owner's Manual

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Cutting-edge, user-friendly, and comprehensive: the revolutionary guide to the brain, now fully revised and updated

At birth each of us is given the most powerful and complex tool of all time: the human brain. And yet, as we well know, it doesn't come with an owner's manual—until now. In this unsurpassed resource, Dr. Pierce J. Howard and his team distill the very latest research and clearly explain the practical, real-world applications to our daily lives. Drawing from the frontiers of psychology, neurobiology, and cognitive science, yet organized and written for maximum usability, The Owner's Manual for the Brain, Fourth Edition, is your comprehensive guide to optimum mental performance and well-being. It should be on every thinking person's bookshelf.

  • What are the ingredients of happiness?
  • Which are the best remedies for headaches and migraines?
  • How can we master creativity, focus, decision making, and willpower?
  • What are the best brain foods?
  • How is it possible to boost memory and intelligence?
  • What is the secret to getting a good night's sleep?
  • How can you positively manage depression, anxiety, addiction, and other disorders?
  • What is the impact of nutrition, stress, and exercise on the brain?
  • Is personality hard-wired or fluid?
  • What are the best strategies when recovering from trauma and loss?
  • How do moods and emotions interact?
  • What is the ideal learning environment for children?
  • How do love, humor, music, friendship, and nature contribute to well-being?
  • Are there ways of reducing negative traits such as aggression, short-temperedness, or irritability?
  • What is the recommended treatment for concussions?
  • Can you delay or prevent Alzheimer's and dementia?
  • What are the most important ingredients to a successful marriage and family?
  • What do the world's most effective managers know about leadership, motivation, and persuasion?
  • Plus 1,000s more topics!
LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateMay 6, 2014
ISBN9780062357632
Nutrition: The Owner's Manual
Author

Pierce Howard

Pierce J. Howard, Ph.D., is director of research and development for the Center for Applied Cognitive Studies in Charlotte, North Carolina. Since the first edition of The Owner's Manual for the Brain was published in 1994, Dr. Howard has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and conducted countless seminars around the world. He is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and the International Test Commission.

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    I really enjoyed reading your book. I read enthusiastically and understood the story. If you have some great stories like this one, you can publish it on Novel star, just submit your story to hardy@novelstar.top or joye@novelstar.top

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Nutrition - Pierce Howard

Contents

A Note to the Reader

Nourishment: Food for the Body, Fuel for the Brain

1  Appetite Control

2  Metabolism

3  Eating Disorders

4  Additives

5  Breakfast

6  Chocolate

7  Fat

8  Mood: The Role of Carbohydrates, Proteins, Fats, and Sugars

9  Omega-3 Fatty Acids

10  Peak Physical Performance

11  Sodium

12  Taste

13  Taste Buds

14  Undernourishment and Performance

15  Violence and Sugar

16  Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies

The Author

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

A Note to the Reader

Please note that all topic numbers and cross-references refer to those in the larger work.

Nourishment

As recently as World War II, scientists as well as the general public considered diet to have little or no influence on mental functioning. Research over the last 40 years, however, has revealed a close relationship between diet and the brain—so much so, in fact, that trendy brain bars are popping up that specialize in juices and foods considered to improve mentation, or mental activity. It is becoming clearer that our brain influences what and how we eat, and that what and how we eat influences our brain. This chapter identifies various specific findings in this arena of the food-brain connection.

Two primary chemical actors head the complex cast of characters in the tense drama of appetite control: chemicals that trigger hunger and chemicals that trigger satiety. If these are in good order, much of the rest of one’s chemical makeup will have a minimal effect on appetite and weight control. Significant discoveries have come on the scene in the last five years, and huge pharmaceutical product development research efforts currently focus on finding acceptable exogenous (externally administered) ways to optimize a person’s hunger-satiety balance. Current estimates based on twin studies consider the genetic influence on weight to be extremely high—around 60–70 percent. Combined with the meager 5 percent success rate of diets, this paints a bleak picture for the role of self-control in weight management. Authorities suggest that we’d be better off changing the environment than trying to change the individual. Do we hear a movement afoot to abolish faux food? New York City Mayor Bloomberg has done his part by successfully promoting a ban on the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces in restaurants and concession stands. (Wait, this just in: a judge has blocked his honor’s ban. Watch for developments!) The environmentalists formed the Sierra Club. How about the Fiber Club for the nutritionists?

Chemicals That Signal Hunger

Sarah Leibowitz, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University in New York City, has identified the area of the brain in which this drama plays out: the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus (see appendix A). Chemical players that

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