September NEWSLETTER

yonca79

Sep 24

5 min read

September Newsletter

🧠 Brain Longevity Part 3—

Is your Brain sticky-sweet?

Posted by Yonca, Loop Stories Ltd

🐙Dear Loopers,

When we hear the words blood sugar, most of us think of diabetes. Perhaps weight gain, carbohydrates, or that familiar afternoon slump that sends us looking for something sweet. But I would like us to start thinking about something else too: our brain.

Last month, we explored the “Hot Brain” — Dr Dale Bredesen’s inflammatory pattern of cognitive decline. This month we move to Type 1.5, the glycotoxic or “Sweet” pattern, where metabolic dysfunction and inflammation overlap.

I find this particularly important because changes in metabolic health can develop quietly for years. You can have a fasting glucose result that looks reassuring while your body is already producing more insulin to keep it there. In other words, glucose may still look “normal” while the system is having to work increasingly hard behind the scenes.

And the brain is very much part of that system.

🍭 Why “Sweet Brain”?

Insulin is often described simply as the hormone that controls blood sugar, but its role is much broader. It helps regulate how we use and store energy, and insulin signalling also has important functions within the brain.

When we are repeatedly exposed to more glucose than our body can efficiently manage, cells can become less responsive to insulin. The pancreas compensates by producing more. Over time, insulin resistance can be accompanied by inflammation, oxidative stress, vascular dysfunction and increased glycation — the unwanted binding of sugars to proteins and other molecules.

None of this means that eating a piece of cake causes Alzheimer's disease. Cognitive decline is far more complex than that. However, insulin resistance, prediabetes and type 2 diabetes have all been associated with an increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia, including Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. This is why metabolic health deserves a place in any serious conversation about brain longevity.

For me, the useful message isn't “sugar is bad”. It is that metabolic health is brain health.

🧪 Your Glucose Is Only Part of the Story

This is where I return to something we discussed in July: knowing your numbers.

A fasting glucose or HbA1c is useful, but I also like to understand what insulin is doing. Fasting insulin can sometimes reveal that the body is working harder to maintain glucose control before glucose itself becomes obviously elevated.

Depending on the individual, I may also look at triglycerides and HDL cholesterol, waist measurement or waist-to-height ratio, blood pressure and other cardiovascular and inflammatory markers. Sometimes a continuous glucose monitor can provide another fascinating layer of information by showing how an individual's glucose responds to particular meals, sleep, stress, exercise and even meal timing.

No one number diagnoses the health of your brain. What interests me is the pattern.

🥗 What Can We Do About It?

This is where the science becomes very practical, because many of the things that support metabolic health are surprisingly simple.

A meal containing adequate protein, fibre, healthy fats and colourful plants will generally create a very different metabolic response from a meal dominated by refined carbohydrates. Walking after a meal can help muscles take up glucose. Resistance training builds metabolically active tissue. Sleep matters because even short-term sleep disruption can affect insulin sensitivity, while eating very late at night may work against our circadian metabolism.

Even the order in which we eat can influence our metabolic response. Studies suggest that eating vegetables and protein before carbohydrate can reduce the post-meal glucose rise. But when we eat matters too. Our glucose tolerance follows a circadian rhythm and, for many of us, the same meal eaten later in the day can produce a different glucose response from one eaten earlier. Interestingly, emerging research suggests that this isn't identical for everyone: our chronotype and internal circadian timing may influence how we respond to meal timing. Once again, nutrition isn't only about whatwe eat, but also how and when we eat—and how well those choices align with our own biology..

I don't think we need to become frightened of glucose or obsessed with keeping a perfectly flat CGM line. A healthy body is designed to respond to food. What we're looking for is metabolic flexibility — the ability to handle incoming fuel efficiently and move between fed and fasting states without the system constantly struggling.

👉 How flexible are you? Book for a chat with Yonca

🌿 Our Elimination Diet Becomes a Metabolic Experiment Too

This month, my Anti-Inflammatory Elimination Diet group gives us a wonderful opportunity to put some of this into practice.

Although we began talking about the programme last month through the lens of inflammation and the “Hot Brain”, it naturally connects with our Sweet Brain too. When we remove ultra-processed foods and certain commonly reactive foods, and instead build meals around protein, fibre, healthy fats and diverse whole plants, we're changing much more than individual ingredients. We're changing the metabolic information arriving at the body.

For those taking part, I'd therefore like you to notice more than digestion. Observe your hunger between meals, cravings, afternoon energy, concentration, mood and sleep. Do you feel satisfied for longer? Does your energy feel steadier? Is your brain clearer?

The reintroduction stage then gives us another piece of information. This isn't about creating an ever-growing list of foods you're “not allowed” to eat. Elimination is the experiment; reintroduction is where we learn about our individual biology.

And that, for me, is where nutrition becomes much more interesting than simply counting calories.

🌿 A Little Thank You — and Something I'm Working On

A big thank you to everyone who joined me for my September Anti-Inflammatory Elimination Diet. I love guiding people through this process, particularly seeing what they discover when we remove some of the nutritional “noise” and then carefully reintroduce foods.

I've also been thinking about those of you who would like to experience the programme but can't join a group at a particular time. I'm currently working on a self-guided version that you will be able to follow in your own time, while still understanding the important principles of elimination, nourishment and systematic reintroduction.

It's a little project in progress, so stay tuned — I'll share more when it's ready.

And I might add just one final sentence that links it back to this month's Sweet Brain theme:

After all, the aim isn't restriction; it's learning more about your own biology and how food influences your gut, metabolism, inflammation and, ultimately, your brain.

Next month, we'll move from the Sweet Brain to the Cold Brain, exploring what happens when the brain doesn't receive enough of some of the signals and nutrients it needs to maintain and repair itself. We'll look at hormones, menopause, thyroid function, vitamin D, B12 and other forms of trophic support — a subject particularly close to my heart when thinking about women's brain longevity. Until then, keep becoming curious about your biology. The earlier we listen to these signals, the more opportunity we have to respond.