Are our brains shrinking? According to my guest this week, the answer is a resounding yes… and he's been warning us about it since 1972.
In this episode of the ReThink Health Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Michael Crawford, a pioneering nutritional scientist and one of the first researchers in the world to identify DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) as essential to brain development and function.
Nearly 40 years ago, his lab discovered that primates deprived of omega-3 fatty acids developed severe self-harming behavior, hair loss, and psychological distress that reversed once DHA was restored to their diet.
Since then, the evidence has only grown. Dr. Crawford walks us through the astonishing story of how the human brain evolved in the sea over 500 million years, why larger-bodied animals are actually worse at making their own DHA, and why average human brain capacity is rapidly shrinking.
We also get into the controversial and often misunderstood topic of mercury in seafood, why pregnant women may be doing more harm than good by avoiding fish, and what groundbreaking new research is revealing about DHA's role in brain development before birth.
You'll learn:
Why brain tissue is fundamentally different from the rest of the body, and why government nutrition guidelines miss this entirely
The staggering economic cost of brain disorders, and why it now outpaces heart disease and cancer combined
The real reason ultra-processed foods are stripped of omega-3s, and why that matters more than you might think
The truth about mercury in seafood, and why its "danger" is far less significant than we've been told
What Japan's coastal restoration projects can teach us about rebuilding our own fisheries and food systems
The best food sources of DHA, including surprising picks for people who don't eat fish
If you're not eating seafood on a regular basis, this episode makes a compelling case for why that one change could matter more than almost anything else you do for your brain.
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