Diet plays a critical role for your brain’s health and cognitive functioning. The food you eat has the power to sharpen and preserve your mind, or spiral it into decline.
It is therefore vital that we understand and implement the right food choices for cognitive health.
Fortunately, Dr. Dale Bredesen details the optimal diet for your brain in his groundbreaking new book, The End of Alzheimer’s.
The diet is called ‘Ketoflex 12/3’ and Dr. Bredesen claims it has the ability to help prevent and reverse cognitive decline.
Ketoflex 12/3 gets its name because it is built around the following principles:
It promotes mild ketosis (keto), which Dr. Bredesen says is optimal for cognitive function. Mild ketosis switches your metabolism from carbohydrate-burning and insulin-resistant (bad for the brain), to fat-burning and insulin-sensitive (good for the brain).
It is flexible (flex) enough to be followed by vegetarians or omnivores.
The diet is primarily plant-based with a focus on non-starchy vegetables, but limited consumption of meat is allowed.
It requires fasting for at least 12 hours between your last meal of the night and your first meal of the following morning (12). It is best to break the fast with water (no ice) with some lemon, as a detoxifying drink.
It calls for a minimum of 3 hours between the end of dinner and bedtime (3). For example, if you go to bed at 11pm, you need to finish dinner by 8pm and not snack after that point.
Here are the specific food guidelines:
