By Dr. Linda J. Dobberstein, DC, Board Certified in Clinical Nutrition
Article Highlights:
BDNF's Role in Health: Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) is a crucial protein that influences brain health, metabolism, appetite control, and mood. Low levels of BDNF, often caused by stress, poor diet, and a sedentary lifestyle, can lead to various health issues, including overeating, weight gain, and cognitive decline.
Impact of Lifestyle Choices: Regular exercise, proper meal timing, and a diet rich in essential nutrients like Omega-3 DHA, magnesium, and vitamin D can significantly boost BDNF levels, supporting better mood, metabolism, and cognitive function.
Dangers of the Modern Diet: The American diet, characterized by ultra-processed foods, combined with modern sedentary habits, undermines BDNF production, contributing to a vicious cycle of declining brain and metabolic health. Making mindful, healthier lifestyle choices can help break this cycle and promote long-term well-being.
Did you know that the health of your brain’s repair nutrient, BDNF, impacts your metabolic rate and appetite? However, the levels of BDNF, brain health, and metabolism are often sabotaged by the American Diet, with the prevalence of ultra processed foods. This creates a vicious cycle, leading to declines in mood, appetite control, cognitive function, and metabolism. You can make choices to enhance this vital compound, essential for appetite control, satiety, brain repair and more.
BDNF
Brain Derived Neurotropic Factor, or BDNF, is a critical protein found in your brain, peripheral nervous system, and other tissues throughout your body. It has numerous functions, most notably known for its role in nerve growth, maintenance, regeneration, integrity, neurotransmitter synthesis, and neuroplasticity. It plays a crucial role in your ability to adapt to life, manage stress, and ensure survivability.
Appetite, Metabolism, and Food Relationships
BDNF is at the core of your metabolic homeostasis, regulating your appetite and satiety. It influences your interest in and control over food intake through many mechanisms, including the brain-gut connection via the vagus nerve. BDNF also impacts neuroplasticity in the brain reward areas, including the dopaminergic system, numerous signaling pathways involving GABA, other neurotransmitter activities, and proteins related to appetite, food-seeking behaviors, satiety, mood, stress, and metabolism. Inadequate BDNF levels can lead to lack of satiety, overeating, abdominal weight gain, mood changes, and other adverse changes.
BDNF, Leptin, and Mood
BDNF also interacts with the hormone leptin to keep your metabolism running smoothly, energized, and controlled. Low levels of BDNF impair leptin function in the sympathetic autonomic nervous system, which slows down your metabolism and energy mechanism in the brain’s limbic system. This can contribute to weight gain and adversely impact cardiovascular health and metabolism. BDNF regulates food intake, weight management, satiety and cravings. It is a driving force in uplifting mood, maintaining neurotransmitter levels, and supporting cognitive resiliency at all ages.
Factors That Impair BDNF
Several factors impair BDNF production and activation. 21st Century life is filled with obstacles that can lower BDNF levels. Chronic stress and high cortisol levels deplete BDNF, impairing mood, stress tolerance, cognitive function, and metabolism. You might recognize that when you are stressed, your healthy eating plan and emotions go crazy. Your appetite may become insatiable, your mood plummets, and your metabolism shuts down, in part due to BDNF limitations and loss of reserves.
Other factors that negatively impact BDNF include excessive TV/screen time, internet addiction, alcohol consumption, a sedentary lifestyle, and the Western Diet with ultra-processed foods.
Factors That Support BDNF Production and Function
The good news is that you can positively impact your BDNF levels with many healthy choices, essentially the opposite of what causes BDNF levels to decline. Physical activity, meal timing, and key nutrients from whole foods energize your body, brain, and BDNF levels.
Exercise is one of the most effective ways to boost BDNF production. Numerous studies have clearly shown that exercise significantly raises BDNF levels and activates its network of signals in your brain and body, helping metabolism, cognitive health, and mood. Even one session of exercise changes BDNF levels. The best activity is one that you like and do regularly.
Meal Timing and BDNF
Meal timing also supports BDNF production. Recent research shows that allowing time between meals or restricting eating times naturally increased BDNF levels. Frequent snacking, grazing, or irregular meal timing, especially combined with poor quality foods, disrupts BDNF levels.
The Leptin Diet, with its Five Rules, is an easy way to implement a lifestyle plan that allows time between meals, optimizes metabolic activity with leptin, insulin, and the gut-brain connection, thus helping BDNF.
The Five Rules are:
1. Never eat after dinner. Finish eating dinner at least three hours before bed.
2. Eat three meals a day. Allow 5-6 hours between meals. Do not snack!
3. Do not eat large meals. Finish a meal when you are slightly less than full.
4. Eat a high protein breakfast. Aim for 20-30 grams of protein at breakfast.
5. Reduce the amount of carbohydrates eaten. Limit, but don't cut out carbs.
Nutrients that Support BDNF
BDNF is also supported by several nutrients found in a whole-food diet but are woefully lacking in processed foods. Omega-3 DHA is fundamental for the enhancement of BDNF function and gene expression. Supplementation with DHA also helps manage oxidative stress, improve mood, enhance learning, and support brain health recovery. Omega-3 DHA is insufficient in many restrictive diets.
Magnesium and vitamin D can also support BDNF level, as demonstrated in a recent clinical trial. Pantethine, the coenzyme form of vitamin B5, is also helpful for BDNF production.
Several phytonutrients help support BDNF. Fisetin helps upregulate BDNF gene expression and provides antioxidant support to the brain. Turmeric/curcumin, EGCG from green tea extract, luteolin, silymarin/silybin from milk thistle extract, astaxanthin, quercetin, resveratrol, and others support BDNF or other related BDNF compounds.
BDNF is intimately involved in appetite regulation, behavior and mood, metabolism, brain health and regeneration, and so much more. The American Diet of ultra-processed foods is disastrous for health and perpetuates the problem. This diet, combined with a sedentary lifestyle, fails to restore and manage BDNF levels and other factors essential for survival, restoration, and thriving in life.
Whether you eat to live or live to eat, food and health are intertwined. Your choices regarding foods, meal timing, physical activity, screen time, and other lifestyle factors directly affect BDNF levels, and ultimately your mood, cognitive function, metabolism, and weight. Choose wisely and mindfully. It pays off in the long run!
