The Care and Feeding of Your Brain: How Diet and Environment Affect What You Think and Feel

265 Pages·1999·2.24 MB·English

by  Kenneth Giuffre

Page 1
The Care and Feeding of Your Brain
How Diet and Environment Affect What You Think and Feel
By
Kenneth Giuffre, M.D.
with Theresa Foy DiGeronimo, M. Ed.
CAREER PRESS
Franklin Lakes, NJ
Page 2
Copyright © 1999 by Trilobot Institute for Applied Cognitive Research
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book
may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known
or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.
THE CARE AND FEEDING OF YOUR BRAIN
Cover design by Rossman Design
Printed in the U.S.A. by Book-mart Press
To order this title, please call toll-free 1-800-CAREER-1 (NJ and Canada: 201-848-0310) to order
using VISA or MasterCard, or for further information on books from Career Press.
The Career Press, Inc., 3 Tice Road, PO Box 687, Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Giuffre, Kenneth.
The care and feeding of your brain: how diet and environment
affect what you think and feel / by Kenneth Giuffre, with Theresa
Foy DiGeronimo.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-56414-380-5 (pbk.)
1. Neuropsychology. 2. Nutrition. 3. Brain—Effect of drugs on.
4. Human ecology. 5. Intellect—Physiological aspects.
I. DiGeronimo, Theresa Foy. II. Title.
QP360.G58 1999
613—dc21 98-48721
Page 3
Dedication
To Lori
Acknowledgements
This book is my attempt to give you good advice on choosing what to do for your brain, based on
the scientific work of some brilliant individuals working in a variety of areas, from medical
neuroscience to traditional Chinese medicine. In doing this, I have attempted to synthesize a
palatable and understandable core of concepts from a wide, diverse, and often contradictory
collection of schools of thought, scientific studies, and essays from the fields of neuroscience,
allopathic medicine, alternative medicine (now termed, more appropriately, "integrative medicine"),
psychology, psychobiology, physics, and philosophy. The result is an abbreviated summary that
owes a great deal of credit to those luminaries whose level of intense focus, example, and devotion
have created a rich body of knowledge from which I was able to draw to help construct a set of
recommendations to influence the "weather patterns" in your brain. My deepest thanks go out to all
of those people who, in some way or another, directly influenced me, provided opportunity for
exploration, and/or helped fuel my relentless obsession with the brain, mind, and consciousness.
In the area of medical neurophysiology, biology, and medicine:
Henry Seidel, Solomon and Elaine Snyder, Richard Traytsman, Rob Udelsman, George Chrousos,
Lynn Loriaux, Ellen Henderson, Sanjay Datta, Dan Carr, Ted Stanley, Roger Wilson, Richard Kitz,
Jeff Cooper, Larry Alessi, Tom Pollard, Jerome Torsney, Tom Sofianidas, Bob Widows, Mark
Schlesinger, Arthur Lacher, Peter Migel, and Julianne Zenn.
In the areas of integrative medicine:
Joe Helms and the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture, Arnold Cianculi, Larry Jackson,
Kris Tom, Larry Burk, Mietek Wirkus, Melinda Connor, Jim Laukes and the people from the
University of Arizona involved in Tucson III, and all my acupuncture patients
Page 4
whose responses to this powerful method of healing continue to amaze and exceed my expectations.
In the areas of philosophy, religion, music, and art:
Eugene Geinzer, Harvey Rich, Frank LoBianco, Mike Rotondo, Tai Hee Kim, William Sneck, Nella
Barkley, J.D. Hughes, and Armand Quinto.
In the areas of computer science, artificial intelligence, and chaos theory:
Steve Ward and Marge Sherald of Ward Systems Group, Fred DeBros and Jimmy Thompson at
Mass General Hospital/MIT, Dave and Terry Anzano at Machinery Control Systems, Dr. Frank
Moss, Eileen Ronca, "Big Doug" Craft, and the Trilobot Institute of Applied Research.
Furthermore, my thanks go out to those great individuals whose contributions I have admired from
afar—many of whose ideas I borrowed and hopefully have done some justice to in this guide,
including:
Douglas Hofstadter, Robert Sapolsky, Vernon Mountcastle, Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, Victor Frankl,
Paul and Patricia Churchland, Terry Sejnowski, Roger Penrose, Stuart Hameroff, Marilyln Schlitz,
J. Allan Hobson, Marvin Minsky, Rupert Sheldrake, Larry Dossey, Andrew Weil, Herbert Benson,
Matt Ridley, Simon LeVay, Rodolfo Llinas, Martin Seligman, Eric Kandel, James Schwartz, David
Ruelle, Richard Feynman, Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, David Bohm, Basil Hiley, Thomas Jessel,
Thomas Merton, Ramon y Cajal, Caroline Myss, James Gleick, Benoit Mandelbrot, Ilya Prigogine,
Phillip Gold, Michael Cousins, Phillip Bridenbaugh, Candace Pert, and Hans Selye.
I give special thanks to Michael Scully for his friendship and his role in helping initiate this work by
introducing me to Theresa DiGeronimo.
I would also like to acknowledge many of the various clinicians, colleagues, and patients who have
recently and in the past inspired me by opening up and sharing their own personal philosophies and
experiences in dealing with the complex weather patterns of their own minds.
Thanks to our agent, Jeff Herman; our editors Sue Gruber, Stacey A. Farkas, and Betsy Sheldon;
and our publisher, Ron Fry.
Page 5
Finally, I am deeply indebted to my wife, Lori, and to my children Jacqueline, Aaron, and Jennifer,
for allowing me to complete this at home and for tolerating my carting around a separate suitcase
full of books, papers, and laptop computer equipment wherever we went in the Summer of 1998.
And to my parents, Rita and Carmelo Giuffré, for taking the kids to their "duck house" when I went
into overdrive in completing the manuscript with my wonderful and exceedingly patient co-author,
Theresa.

Page 7
Disclaimer
This book was written to provide accurate and authoritative information about the topics covered. In
writing this, the Author is not rendering any medical or other professional service, nor does he
intend this to be used as a substitute or in lieu of the reader's personal physician or any other
licensed health professional.
Before utilizing this book, the reader is expected to be familiar with his or her medical history,
including allergies. All treatments, descriptions, and combinations discussed in this book should be
discussed in advance with your physician or health professional, who should be contacted
immediately in the event of any allergic or other unexpected reaction.
The Publisher assumes no liability with respect to the efficacy or the possible side effects of the
treatments and methodologies presented in this work, and all views expressed herein are strictly
those of the Author.
In no event may the names or trademarks of the Author or Publisher be used in connection with the
marketing or distribution of any of the combinations or derivatives described in this book.

Page 9
Contents
Introduction 11
Chapter 1 15
The Big Picture: From Nerve Cells to Brain Function
Chapter 2 27
Alertness: Getting the Brain Ready to Think
Chapter 3 47
Memory: Helping the Brain to Store and Recall
Chapter 4 75
Sex: What's Fueling or Draining Your Sex Drive?
Chapter 5 99
Sleep: Tracking the Source of Sound and Troubled Sleep
Chapter 6 123
Stress, Fear, Anxiety: Causing and Calming the Jitters
Chapter 7 147
Pain: Making It Stop