How to Become Smarter (29 page)

My experience and experience of the many followers of the Atkins diet suggest that, in the context of a low-carbohydrate diet, people tolerate large amounts of meat well. Low-carb diets are also known as ketogenic diets. Although people tolerate ketogenic diets well and these diets help to lose weight, in my experience, they are not the best diets for performance of mental tasks, such as reading and writing. Hence my view is that high-protein diets that contain sufficient amounts of carbohydrates are more effective at improving mental performance than ketogenic diets. Recent research supports this opinion [
933
,
941
].

Some people can live on an all-meat diet for extended periods of time, which is a diet that consists of meat only and excludes everything else. Some ethnic groups in the far North can subsist on meat and fish only during the winter [
58
]. Famous explorer and anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson spent many years studying ethnic groups of the Arctic Circle. In the late 1920s, he invited several prominent doctors to observe him and his assistant as they spent one year eating nothing but meat. The doctors published the results of this experiment in the
Journal of Biological Chemistry
[
251
]. The doctors did not find any health problems in these two people after one year of the all-meat diet. In particular, this diet did not even result in vitamin deficiencies.

Finally, another approach that can reduce fatigue and apathy that result from high-protein diets is cold hydrotherapy. We talked about this approach in detail in Chapter Two. This approach is less effective than the dairy supplementation, and cold showers can change your sleep pattern. Therefore, you should not use them on a daily basis.

Several approaches (listed below in order of usefulness) can reduce negative effects of meat-rich diets such as apathy, fatigue, and low mood:

• Replacing some high-protein meals with meals that consist of dairy protein, such as low-fat milk or a mixture of unprocessed unsalted cheese with low-fat cultured milk.
  
• Switching for several days to a diet that consists of low-fat dairy products, water extract of grains, and fruits and vegetables (the “antidepressant diet”).
  
• Using normal- to high-fat meat and fish and cooking them at temperatures not exceeding the boiling point of water (by steaming or boiling).
  
• Using a vegetarian version of the protein supplement: poultry, fish, and ground nuts; or fish and nuts; or unsalted unprocessed cheese mixed with low-fat cultured milk plus nuts.
  
• Cold hydrotherapy.
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This section summarizes the most effective dietary approaches to improvement of attention function, based on my experience. The modified protein supplement is the following (percentages by weight):

• 30-60%: ground beef (or other types of red meat), chicken (or other poultry) or a combination thereof (1:1); the fat content is 15-25% and the cooking method is boiling or steaming; this can be 150-250 grams (5-8 oz.) of meat per meal;
  
• 2-5%: nuts, such as filbert, walnut, chestnut, pecan, and others; it is best to grind nuts in a meat-grinder (electric or manual) because they are tough on the teeth;
  
• 35-65%, in separate meals: low-fat milk or a mixture of unsalted unprocessed cheese with low-fat kefir or buttermilk (free of dietary supplements such as calcium or artificial vitamins);
  
• it may be
  necessary
  to take dietary fiber supplements with high-protein meals.
  

This is the gist of the
modified protein supplementation diet
, which does not forbid any types of food, but adds large amounts of the above supplement to each meal. This regimen improves attention control. This protein supplement can even serve as a whole meal because it contains all types of nutrients (fats, protein, and carbohydrates). In contrast to the protein supplement described earlier, the
modified protein supplement
does not cause apathy and does not lower mood, in my experience. The best way to consume large amounts of meat in my view is to eat small amounts of meat three to five times a day. It is also a good idea to add raw fruits and vegetables to each high-protein meal.

A high-protein diet that excludes all artificial ingredients (junk food, food additives, and dietary supplements) is more effective at improving attention compared to the protein supplementation. If you add low-fat dairy and
wheat extract
to a high-protein diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, nuts, cooked meat and fish, it will become the
modified high-protein diet
. A sample menu is shown below. The menu below lists essential ingredients of each meal and does not provide any recipes. You can prepare a number of tasty dishes using various combinations of these foods. You can find some recipes in
Appendix I
. The amounts of food listed below are for a person whose energy needs are around 3000 calories per day. You may need to prorate these amounts according to your energy needs by means of this calculator: [
337
].

Breakfast:
A vegetable salad; 150-250 grams (5-8 ounces) of boiled or steamed ground beef; 10-15 grams (~0.5 ounce) of ground nuts (for example, walnuts).

Lunch:
Fruit or fruit salad; 150-250 grams (5-8 ounces) of boiled or steamed chicken or ground chicken; 10-15 grams (~0.5 ounce) of ground nuts.

Dinner:
A vegetable salad; 150-250 grams of unsalted unprocessed cheese mixed with an equal amount of low-fat cultured milk.

The amounts of food listed above may seem large, but this diet is not filling, probably because all types of food in the diet are easily digestible. If you don’t have to perform any attention-intensive tasks, you can replace any one of the daily meals or all of them (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) with your usual food. The above diet improves performance of reading tasks, but is not the best regimen for writing tasks, such as writing of scientific papers. We will discuss this in more detail in Chapter Five.

In addition to improved attention control and reduced impulsivity, the modified high-protein diet seems to cause some other beneficial changes. These changes include improved self-esteem and self-confidence and a patient and friendly attitude toward people in general. (The latter effect may require exclusion of nuts from this diet. In my experience, large amounts of nuts can increase irritability.)

As for the scientific evidence, there are some studies suggesting that increased consumption of fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat, or fish can improve mental abilities [
822
,
838
,
839
,
841
,
851
,
876
,
881
,
887
,
888
,
890
,
892
,
899
-
901
]. Exclusion of food additives and other artificial chemicals from the diet can also improve some mental abilities [
62
-
67
,
929
,
1000
].

The possible undesirable effects of the modified high-protein diet are the following. The diet may slightly increase physical fatigue, but you can prevent this by means of cold hydrotherapy in the morning as described in Chapter Two.
Rare
side effects include insomnia and symptoms of hypomania. Symptoms of hypomania can occur if you stay on this diet for many months or after a positive life event. This rarely happens, but you need to be aware of this risk.
One or more
of the following signs and symptoms can serve as a signal that you may be having a hypomanic episode: a persistent feeling of euphoria or excitement; the need for sleep less than 5 hours a day; the activity level increased to unusual levels, so that you are constantly moving about, pacing the room or unable to relax and sit still; argumentativeness and low self-control; flood of ideas or racing thoughts; grandiose ideas or plans (nondelusional); excessive libido; and hyperhedonia, i.e. pleasure from activities that would normally be boring (for example, looking at the same painting or listening to the same song for hours). These criteria are based on my own experience (a healthy subject without a history of bipolar disorder). They are different from the diagnostic criteria for hypomania in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) [
340
]. The criteria in the DSM-IV-TR serve the purpose of diagnosis of bipolar disorder, whereas the criteria listed above are designed to detect hypomania in a healthy person who is leading an overly stimulating lifestyle. Nonetheless, the DSM-IV-TR criteria may serve the latter purpose too. If you have a history of depression or bipolar disorder, you need to see your doctor if you suspect that you are having a hypomanic episode. If you do not have a history of mood disorders, my advice is to switch to the depressant diet (Chapter Four). Also stop using cold and hot hydrotherapy (Chapter Two). A hot environment (Chapter Two) will help to calm down and will be beneficial, whereas hot hydrotherapy will not be useful. In most cases, the state of hypomania is undesirable because it can lead to foolish business deals, excessive spending, overly optimistic decisions, and activities that have a high potential for painful consequences.

In most cases, the modified high-protein diet does not have any effect on mood, but it may cause overconfidence. This diet can also cause some other character changes; we talked about this in more detail in the section “Potential adverse effects” in Chapter One.

Some researchers reading this book may be interested in testing these two approaches, the modified protein supplement and the modified high-protein diet, in a clinical trial with ADHD patients. They can use the protocol from
endnote L
. The modified high-protein diet must include boiled grains if a person follows this diet longer than a week. Boiled grains are especially important for ADHD patients because diets excluding cooked grains increase impulsiveness (my personal regrettable experience).
The last paragraph
of endnote L explains how to measure possible benefits of this approach in knowledge workers. In conclusion, it bears repeating that unsalted unprocessed cheese and the antidepressant diet, if it contains enough of this food product, are also beneficial for the attention function. They are less effective than the above techniques.

• The “modified protein supplement” consists of boiled meat plus one-tenth amount of nuts and, in separate meals, low-fat milk or unsalted unprocessed cheese mixed with low-fat cultured milk. Some people may have to take dietary fiber supplements with each high-protein meal.
  
• The “modified high-protein diet” excludes all artificial ingredients and consists of the above protein supplement plus fruits and vegetables.
  
• I tolerate the above approaches well and they improve attention control. They will be safe to test in a clinical trial with ADHD patients.
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This book devotes little attention to the function of memory, and I am not aware of any effective biological methods that can improve memory function in healthy people. (There are some relevant studies [
293
,
844
,
926
,
927
,
970
], but I have not verified the validity of these techniques.) In theory, a diet that is free of artificial ingredients, such as the “smart diets” proposed in this book, may improve memory due to the general improvement of functioning of the brain. If you ask my classmates from college (NSU, 1994-1999), many of them will tell you that I have excellent memory. I cannot say with certainty whether I have good or average memory. My academic performance improved when I started experimenting with smart diets, but this does not prove that these diets improved my memory. These diets may have improved attention or fluid intelligence with no change in memory function.

Improved attention control can allow a person to read the same text more times than an average person can. Reduced distractibility will also allow the person to store more information in memory after reading a text once. This is in contrast to a more distractible person who was not paying attention while reading some portions of the text. Thus, improved attention control will improve memorization by reducing distractibility and by increasing the number of reads. Put another way, increased attention control should improve memorization, independent of the memory function.

Another potential benefit of improved attention control is an increased ability to understand complex texts. If attention control is low, then a person may give up after encountering a few unfamiliar concepts in the text. Thus, poor attention control is an insurmountable obstacle to comprehension of complex texts. On the other hand, if attention function is in good shape, then the person will be able to look up the meaning of every unfamiliar word. Good attention control will also allow this person to read some introductory texts on the topic. Thus, little by little, the person with good attention function is bound to understand any unfamiliar text. People with a high IQ can grasp complex texts that are unintelligible to people with an average IQ, but good attention control may serve as a “great equalizer.” This “equalizer” will ensure that, given enough time, people with average intelligence will be able to understand complex texts.