Dear Bill,

Is it true that some foods can make you smarter?

Nutritiously yours,
Smarts Seeker

Dear Smarts Seeker,

Is there such a thing as brain food? Well, you'd think so. You are, after all, what you eat. It's an astonishing insight. If you think about it, your body, everything that you chemically are, is made of the foods you've taken in over the course of your life. How else could it be?

But with this said, or read, somehow I hope you know intuitively that eating page after of page of crossword puzzles may not do much to improve your brain or your mental health, but working the puzzles, working your brain, probably does improve your brain's faculties.

Our brains are more than 50 percent fat. Wow. So calling someone a "fat-head" may not be all bad. But, a diet heavy in fat has been generally shown to be bad for your brain. It's not obvious why this is, but in general, the farther blood has to flow through narrow passages (for example, a few detours through extra fat cells), the harder your body has to work to get any task done, brain tasks included.

Most nerves in your body have an insulating layer of fat around them. This sheath, as it's often called, prevents your nerves from literally, electrically short-circuiting. So, it is reasoned the fat in your head keeps your brain cells at a safe electrical distance from one another.

Successful athletes pay a great deal of attention to what they eat. So, intuitively you might suspect that there are things in your diet that might help you think. For example, there has been a great deal in the news in the last few years about omega-3 oils. Some studies with rats suggest that a diet rich in omega-3 oils helps their brains heal after an injury and generally helps them solve mazes. It could be a memory enhancer.

Omega-3 might better be pronounced "omega minus three." It refers to the molecule's chemistry. One end of a fat molecule is the alpha end; the other is the omega end. Alpha and omega being the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. So, omega-3 means three bonds away from the far end of the molecule. The alpha end in this case, is the end with double carbon bonds. Carbon has the remarkable ability to bond with itself in a single, double, or triple bond. It's the element that makes life go, and we refer to its chemistry as "organic," meaning having to do with organisms.

You may have heard the term "saturated" fat. That means every available chemical bond hanging off of a carbon atom is saturated with a hydrogen atom. Well in this example, omega-3 oil is "polyunsaturated." Poly = multiple pairs of double-bonded carbon atoms. Unsaturated = not every carbon [atom] is "saturated" with hydrogen atoms.

Fat like this is in your brain. What's not obvious is the idea that taking some in through your mouth, particularly a huge amount that would be hard to get in nature, guarantees that it will find its way to your brain. After all, it has to pass through the hydrochloric acid in your stomach.

By way of another example, ginseng is a root that many believe "enhances concentration" and "mental stamina." If that were true, wouldn't every chess champion and Nobel laureate want to walk around with a canteen full of ginseng extract or tea? Wouldn't they all feel a need, akin to hunger? Wouldn't they have done this since the Xia Dynasty (circa four thousand years ago)?

There may be a huge effect that overwhelms or masks any brain chemistry: one's mental focus or concentration. If you're paying attention, it seems like you have a better chance of, for example, remembering a stranger's name, or a directions to an unfamiliar destination. If you're not, uh ... paying attention, well, then ... Where were we?

In general, I encourage all readers to consider claims associated with brain vitamins or drugs. These things almost always claim to provide you with something extra, something you can't get in nature. Many of these products are not sold as drugs per se, nor are they sold as food. Instead, they're often called "diet supplements"; they're to add to what you eat. Read carefully in the literature associated with diet supplements touted as being good for your thoughts; there are phrases like "extra alertness" and "memory function"--vague on even the most insightful day.

But, I've got a feeling that if you eat a balanced, what nowadays is called a Mediterranean diet, you'll get all the brain food you need. Such a diet includes vegetables and fish, things that contain brain chemicals such as omega-3, in a form that your body has evolved to handle. If you take excessive amounts of these chemicals, you're probably just sending any excess above what your body can absorb down the toilet. And if you're fat, it probably won't help your brain. Get rest. Eat right. Think well.