Meet Brenda Davis: The Godmother of Vegan Nutrition
Your [music] brain health matters. Welcome to the Let’s Talk Brain Health podcast. Join the conversation on brain health and wellness with your expert hosts, Dr. Crystal Culler and Dr. Jonathan Arts and [music] respected guests. Discover ways to take charge of your total [music] brain health, mind, body, spirit. Tune in to the latest brain care news, [music] science-based tips, and practical strategies to build a better brain and live a brainhealthy lifestyle. By prioritizing your [music] brain health, you are taking an important step towards living a happier, healthier life. Let’s continue our brain care journey together with our next guest. Today’s podcast features a renowned expert in plant-based nutrition and its role in enhancing brain health. Brenda Davis, registered dietician, is a widely regarded as a rock star of plant-based nutrition and was referred to as the godmother of vegan dieticians by V veg news. Brenda is a registered dietitian with a rich background in nutritional science, has dedicated her career to exploring the intersection of diet and cognitive well-being. Her work is pivotable in uncovering how plant-based diets can bolster brain function and prevent cognitive decline. An acclaimed author, Brenda’s publications, including Becoming Vegan and The Kick Diabetes Cookbook, have been instrumental in educating the public about the benefits of plant-based eating. Her approach is deeply rooted in scientific research, yet accessible and practical for everyday life. We welcome Brenda Davis to the Let’s Talk Brain Health podcast. We trust that her insights into how a plant-based diet can optimize brain health will be both enlightening and inspiring. Brenda, anything I missed about your background or experiences you like to add? The one thing I may add is that I actually have had some time doing
Brenda’s Personal Journey to Plant-Based Nutrition
clinical trials in the Marshall Islands on using lifestyle medicine to treat type 2 diabetes in a population that experiences some of the highest rates of type 2 diabetes in the world. I did that with Dr. John Kelly who was the founding president of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. And following that, we had the opportunity to do a lifestyle medicine demonstration project together in Lithuania for the medical school and for the government. Those were especially interesting experiences for me. Thank you for sharing that, Brenda. We’re excited to dive into this topic deeper with you. Clearly, you’re an expert in the forefront of plant-based nutrition, but just to help our audience understand how you’ve transitioned to your field of expertise, would you be willing to share how you gained your interest in being a registered dietician and then to focus specifically on plant-based diets? I love sharing this story and it happened quite a long time ago. So, I’m turning 65 this month and it all began in high school. I somehow got interested in nutrition and I was especially interested in vegetarian diets. There was something I don’t know I was enchanted with the idea of being able to live without killing animals for our food and I decided to go into nutrition and while I was at university and this is 1978 to 1982 and at university I was taught that vegetarian diets were risky and vegan diets were downright dangerous period. And after graduation, even though it shocked me a bit and I got a little bit reticent about doing plant-based, I continued being very interested and I read every publication that I could get my hands on about plant-based diets and how children did, how adults did in terms of disease risk and so forth. And I just kept shifting more and more in a plant-based direction because I just believed it was the right thing to do for the environment. And I just was slowly becoming convinced that this was probably the right thing to do for human health as well. And at that time, we didn’t have as much evidence as we do now. It was about 35 years ago that I actually made the complete switch to a a completely plant-based diet. I was really moving in that direction, but I had a friend stop by my house on his way deer hunting. And I decided to try to make him feel really guilty for killing another deer. And it was actually what he replied to me when I was trying to put the guilt trip on him that really pushed me over the edge. He said to me, “Just because you don’t have the guts to pull the trigger does not mean you are not responsible for the trigger being pulled every time you buy a piece of meat that’s camouflaged in cellophane in the grocery store.” Then he said, “At least the animals I eat have had a life.” And it absolutely silenced me. I decided I needed to take responsibility for the food I was eating. And I really started to research animal agriculture. And what I learned within the first two weeks of starting to research this topic, I just couldn’t justify being part of that system anymore. And so I went to my husband and we had two kids at the time. They were four and one years of age, so very young children. And I said to him, would you be willing to become completely vegetarian? and he looked at me, he smiled, and he said, “I thought you’d never ask. I would love to be a vegetarian.” He said, “One of the things that’s most important to me in my life is to leave a softer footprint on this planet.” And he said, “I can’t really think of a better way of doing that than eating plant-based.” So, I was so grateful. And so, we went on this journey together. We were living in Northern Ontario. I was a community nutritionist. And within a year of that decision, we actually moved to the Vancouver area and actually met real live vegetarians for the first time in our life and vegans. We had never met people that were eating this way before. And I met Vasanto Molina, my writing partner, and we began our first book in 1992. And it was published in 94. It became a national bestseller within six months. It was the first book that dieticians had written on how to design a nutritionally adequate plant-based diet. And it was really a vegan book in disguised. We called it becoming vegetarian. But it a book a chapter called without dairy, how to meet your calcium and vitamin D requirements without consuming dairy. And it triggered the dairy industry. They spent thousands of dollars trying to discredit us. It was really quite an interesting journey, but Vasanto and I are now just beginning our 14th book. So, we’ve done a lot of books together and it’s really been a wonderful exciting journey. And
The Science Behind Plant-Based Diets and Brain Health
when I think back 35 years ago to today and how far we’ve come, I don’t think I would have ever believed 35 years ago we would be where we are today in this journey. So, it’s exciting. Thank you so much for sharing your personal journey. We will be sure to include a link to your website in our show notes so people can see the diversity and range of the books that you have available as well as learn more about you and your offering. So Brenda, can you explain how a plant-based diet impacts brain health and the connection between these two areas? They are so connected. There’s even a gut brain axis. It’s like a highway system connecting the gut and the brain. Our brains are literally built and maintained from the food we eat. Every single cell of the brain. It depends on building blocks that are provided by our food. So our brains use about a quarter of the energy we consume. If you live on junk foods or processed foods and fast foods, it’s essentially what we’re building and maintaining our brains on. And that’s scary to me. We can really only expect optimal brain function if we supply our brains with optimal food. Even to the extent of an unhealthy diet causes the release of stress hormones that increase inflammation in certain parts of the brain. And of course this negatively impacts cognition. It negatively impacts mood. And one of the pieces of good news is the brain is a very resilient organ. and brain cells are continually being produced and replenished throughout our entire lives. So when we switch over to a healthy diet, we can essentially rebuild our brains to some extent, reducing our risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodeenerative diseases. And of course, when you eat healthfully, you improve every body system. You improve
Unpacking the Research: How Plant-Based Diets Benefit the Brain
your immune function, you increase your mental processing speeds, you improve memory, sharpness, productivity, all of those things. And of course, all body systems are connected. The bottom line really is a healthy diet is really the foundation of a healthy brain. And that’s the bottom line. Comes to mind about some major studies in the area of research that support benefits of plant-based diets for brain health. In the last couple of years, we’ve had some pretty impressive studies. Some of the most recent, there was a 2023 study from the US, which was a review looking at dietary patterns and the risk of Alzheimer’s and related dementia. What they ended up concluding is that by and large prudent plant-based dietary patterns are consistently and positively correlated to preventing and reducing the odds of getting Alzheimer’s or related dementia. And the reasons they offered were that it reduces neuroinflammation, vascular aging, oxidative stress, amaloid aggregation. It increases cerebral blood flow, neurogenesis, which is the formation of new neurons and it improves neuroplasticity, which is of course the brain’s ability to change and form new connections. We end up with better metabolic health, better cardiovascular health, better immune function, better insulin sensitivity, gut health, microbiome diversity. all of those things that are so key to supporting a healthy brain. And so that review supported the benefits of a plant-based dietary pattern in general. And then a couple of studies that I thought were really interesting out of China, two studies, one from 2022 and one from 2023 where they looked at something called the PDI and incidence of cognitive decline. And the PDI is something we know as the plantbased diet index. And so this is really an index of how plant-based your diet actually is. And then because all plant-based diets are not created equal, there’s also something called the HPDI, which is the healthy plant-based diet index, where whole plant foods predominate in the diet. And then there’s something called the UPDI, which is the unhealthy plant-based diet index where processed foods predominate. And in the 2022 study, and this is over 6,000 participants that were at least 65 years of age, in the highest quartortiles of the plant-based diet index, there was a 55% decrease in risk of the odds of cognitive impairment compared to people eating the lowest cortiles of the plant-based diet. But the UPDI actually doubled the risk of cognitive impairment. So people that were eating a diet that was very high in processed foods and we think of refined carbohydrate foods, white flour products and such. But the other thing they stated was that every 10point increase in HPDI or healthy plant-based diet index was associated with a 30% risk reduction and every 10point increase in UPDI was associated with a 36% higher risk of cognitive impairment. And then they went on to release a study in 2023. Again, this had about 6,600 participants, all again older adults. And they looked at participants whose PDI did not change over 3 years or compared participants whose diets changed with those that didn’t change over three years. And those that had the largest increase in the plant-based diet index had a 23% lower risk of cognitive impairment. And those with the largest increase in HPDI had a 28% lower risk. But those with the highest UPDI, so they started eating more processed foods, they actually had a one and a half times higher risk. And then another study that is really interesting and I want to point out is a 2022 study from the Czech Republic and they looked at the effect of a vegan diet on Alzheimer’s disease. And unfortunately, there aren’t many studies that have looked at the impact of vegan diets on Alzheimer’s, but they look generally at plant-based diets such as Mediterranean DASH, Mind Diet, and they basically showed that all of these plant predominant diets have been shown to reduce cognitive decline. And these diets are all, as I mentioned, plant-based. There’s minimal meat, but there’s not no meat. And so they wondered if the effects of vegan or entirely plant-based diets would be positive, but they really didn’t find much solid evidence either way. But they did make a list of all of the potential advantages of vegan diets. Like these are really high quality diets, which means lots of fruits and vegetables and just lots of fiber and so on. They’re rich in polyunsaturated fats. They’re low in total fat, low in saturated fat, low in trans fats. Highfat diets can increase brain inflammation and delay recovery from injury. So, this was seen to be quite an advantage. Lots of anti-inflammatory compounds, lots of antioxidants from fruits and vegetables and whole grains and legumes and so forth. And of course a very high in fiber which you know has a very favorable effect on the gut microbiome higher production of short- chain fatty acids. We see with avoidance of red meat in these diets reduced TMAO reduced new 5GC which are pro-inflammatory molecules. We see improved glucose homeostatis. We see lower caloric intakes less overweight less obesity reduced inflammation reduced oxidative stress. And so these are all thought to be very positive aspects of vegan diets, but they also pointed out that there are some potential negative impacts of vegan diets. And they mentioned specifically there’s an increased risk for vitamin B12 deficiency. And B12 is a nutrient that is really critical for the development and the maintenance of the central nervous system including the myelination uh that protects the nervous system and low levels of B12 are associated with cognitive decline. And then the other things they mentioned were an increased risk of vitamin D deficiency. And there’s definitely lower levels of vitamin D among vegans because there are fewer food sources and very few people get enough vitamin D from sunshine. And what we know is vitamin D deficiency is associated with probably about a third higher odds of dementia. So it’s vitamin D regulates calcium homeostatis. It affects beta amalloid deposition. It has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. So it’s important to brain health. And then the other thing they mentioned is that people who are vegan don’t consume generally direct sources of EPA and DHA unless they’re consuming supplements of DHA and EPA. And DHA is especially important for brain health. A big portion of the brain is made of is DHA. And DHA protects neurons. It reduces inflammation. And it’s associated with better cognitive function. it seems to slow the rate of cognitive decline. And so a lot of people say if you’re not getting direct sources of EPA and DHA, then you’re risking your brain health. What a lot of people don’t realize, we think of fish as being the key source of EPA and DHA. But of course, fish is also a key source of many environmental contaminants that move up the food chain like mercury and dioxins and the PCBs and so forth. And there’s concern about those compounds because they’re neurotoxins. So there’s a balance there. And so one of the things that we can do is bypass consuming fish and consume EPA and DHA from the same place that fish do from microalgae. And so what we can do is grow this microalgae in an uncontaminated environment. Because of course fish are only as clean as the water they’re swimming in. And if we get our EPA and DHA from a cult by culturing this EPA DHA rich microalgae, we don’t have to worry about those contaminants and we can take that directly. It is a supplement. There are some foods that were adding EPA and DHA that it makes sense for people who are eating plant exclusive diets to take some EPA and DHA on at least a few times a week if not daily. And I would suggest some 3 to 500 milligrams a day. Especially as we get older, we may need more during pregnancy and lactation. We I would tend towards the 500 milligram level. And then the other studies that I want to mention are just studies that are specific to vegetarians and in some cases near vegans. And so the Adventist Health Study 2 published two reports. There’s another one that may be soon coming out where the vegans are not doing quite as well as the pescatarians or lacto vegetarians. But in in the one study 21, they found that people eating healthy plant-based diets over decades had better memory, had better language abilities, so definitely had better cognitive function than those not consuming plant-based diets. And then in 2022 they released a report that showed a reduced decline in global cognition, memory functioning, brain speed, all of that in African-Americans specifically. So they found African-Americans benefiting from plant-based diets particularly. And then there was also a study from Taiwan 2022. And this study is interesting because Taiwanese people don’t really consume a lot of dairy. They consume very small amount of eggs, even the vegetarians, and so they’re actually very near vegan. And the vegetarians actually had a 33% reduced risk of developing dementia compared to non-vegetarians. And so these are the key studies that we know of to date and we just have to keep our eyes peeled for more information. As I mentioned, one more will be coming from the Adventist Health Study 2 very shortly. Thank you, Brenda, for highlighting the positive aspect of a vegan diet and changes that people may expect to observe in their cognitive functioning or overall health and wellness. Your reply really showed us the interconnectedness of the brain and the body and all the different systems that our nutrition and our diet has an influence on from inflammation to chronic disease management to of course our cognitive health which many of our listeners have a keen interest in. I’m wondering if next we can ask you for
Practical Tips for Embracing a Plant-Based Diet
anyone out there who might be new to plant-based eating or want to shift to adding more plants to their diet, what are some of your top tips for using more plant-based foods? What you want to really begin with is to be eating more whole plant foods. And we want the emphasis to be on fruits and vegetables. So leafy greens, colorful vegetables and fruits. You want to always include some cruciferous vegetables in the fruit family. Berries are especially important because of the antho cyanins and the powerful anti-inflammatory antioxidant activities there. Legumes are absolutely critical. We need for brain function. We need protein, we need iron, we need zinc. Those are nutrients that are concentrated in the legume family. And that’s a family that tends to be overlooked a little bit when people transition to a plant-based diet. So, we really need and it’s simple because a lot of us didn’t grow up eating lentils and tofu. There’s a learning curve there. And one of the things that I often suggest is that we take a page from the cultures in the world that use these foods as dietary staples because they’ve figured out how to make them taste really good. And so if we look at populations in Asia and South America and Africa and India, incredible plant-based foods using legumes as a staple. So that’s important. And then I would say we want to select in terms of whole grains, mostly intact whole grains. And what I mean by that is often when people switch from refined to whole grains, they still use highly processed whole grains. So they use whole grains in crackers and cookies and boxed breakfast cereals as opposed to using whole grains just as groans. I’m thinking of things like quinoa and chem berries or spelt berries or barley. these intact grains that haven’t been ground up before they’re consumed. Now, I created this what we call the hierarchy of whole grains to help people understand that the top of the hierarchy, you’ve got these intact whole grains. And as you process and go down the hierarchy, you increase the surface area of the grains, you increase their rate of absorption, you reduce their nutritional value because you’re destroying nutrients. So the hierarchy is intact whole grains, then cut whole grains like steel cut oats, then rolled whole grains like rolled oats, and then shredded whole grains like shredded wheat, then ground whole grains like whole wheat flour. Then flaked whole grains, which are fairly processed, and finally puffed whole grains, which are exposed to 5,000 pounds of pressure and all sorts of processing. And so as you go down the list, you’re reducing the value of the food. So whole grains are all not created equal. We want to stick to less processed. And then the other thing that is super important is including some healthy sources of fats and that would be nuts and seeds and avocados and those kinds of foods. And nuts and seeds are really key sources of the essential fatty acids. And there are two categories there. Omega6 linoleic acid being the essential and the omega-3 fatty acids with alpha linolenic acid being the essential fatty acid that can be however inefficiently converted into EPA and DHA. Now conversion is as I mentioned inefficient and it declines as we age and for people that aren’t eating enough of the co-actors of conversion they have reduced conversion. There are lots of reasons why people may not convert efficiently and that’s why it may be helpful to have a direct source of EPA and DHA. And then the other thing is we want to really select our beverages carefully. So we don’t want to be drinking sugarladened beverages. We want to drink water or antioxidant rich teas like green tea or spiced teas. These kinds of teas. And speaking of spices, we want to use herbs and spices pretty liberally, especially those that are associated with reduced inflammation and reduced oxidative stress like turmeric and sumac and sage and rosemary and thyme and cloves and black cumin and all of these wonderful seasonings. The other thing is to eat most of your meals at home. And then you want to start thinking rather than in restaurants which tend to make foods more hyper palatable. You want to absolutely minimize processed foods, refined carbohydrates, and fast foods and foods that are high in saturated fat. So that’s mainly animal products. I would say there’s a lot of hype about coconut oil being good for the brain, but I would say be really careful about concentrated hard fats of any type because saturated fats increase inflammation and can increase atherosclerosis and plaque formation which is not good for the brain. And then of course other things you want to limit sodium but 75% of our salt or close to that comes from processed foods. So if you eliminate or reduce or minimize processed foods, you’re also helping to limit sodium intake. And then the other thing is once you’ve done all of that and you’ve gotten rid of the animal products and the processed foods and you’ve loaded up on all these healthy foods, you still need to think about nutrients that may fall short in a plant-based diet. And so I mentioned vitamin B12, vitamin D, DHA, EPA. The other ones that may fall short for some people are iodine, which can fall short if you eliminate iodized salt and don’t consume any seaweed. Then you can fall short in iodine and that’s absolutely critical for brain health. Iodine deficiency is the number one cause of cognitive impairment in the world, especially in children’s during pregnancy and lactation. It’s super important. And then another nutrient that we don’t talk about much is choline. And choline is necessary for the formation of phospholipids. And it’s absolutely vital to cell membranes. And we use it to produce acetylcholine, which is an important neurotransmitter. And so choline we make, our bodies produce choline, but probably not enough for optimal brain function. And so we need to get some from our food. And we can get enough from plant-based diets, but the most concentrated source is eggs. And of course, we eliminate eggs. So, it’s just something we maybe want to be a little bit aware of. And there are some plant foods like broccoli for that’s actually a pretty good source. So, there are number of it’s just distributed in the plant kingdom in fairly small amounts generally. So, just another nutrient to be aware of. And if you’re taking a multivitamin mineral supplement, choline and iodine are reasonable things to look for in that supplement. I appreciate your answer that shared so many different examples or highlighted the benefits from focusing on one category of food or a particular nutrient that you would like to add into your diet as some very practical ways to start that shift to plant-based eating. I know holistically we just tend to see as we nourish ourselves with more whole foods how quickly cravings for those processed foods and other things slightly eliminate on their own. So we do get this additive benefit of being intentional with the way we are fueling our minds and our bodies. Regarding plant-based diets, one of the most popular questions we tend to see is what about protein? Do you have any key recommendations that we can at least focus in on some good plant-based protein sources? It’s interesting because protein is one of those nutrients that whenever anybody hears that you’re eating plant-based,
Demystifying Plant-Based Protein Sources
it’s the first question they’ll ask you, where do you get your protein? Because it’s ingrained into our psyche that meat or animal products are the best sources of protein. sometimes the only sources of protein that they are high quality protein that they have all the essential amino acids and so forth. And so there’s this default thinking that plants just can’t provide adequate protein. And to be honest, it’s really quite a myth. Every single plant food contains every single essential amino acid. Bar none. The only food that’s lacking an essential amino acid is an animal food that is what do you call it? Used to make jell-o and gelatin. So that’s the only food that is actually really missing an amino acid. It’s true that some plant foods fall a little bit short in one of the essential amino acids relative to human needs. But the reality, what we know is that if we eat enough calories and we eat a variety of plant foods, we get all the essential amino acids that we need. We often say legumes are a little bit low in methionine and grains are a little bit low in lysine. But in terms of legumes, for example, if all you ate was legumes and you just barely met your protein needs, say you needed 50 grams of protein and you just got 50 grams of protein, you might need two extra tablespoons of beans to get to where you need to be for methane. It’s just it’s not the issue that a lot of people think it is. Just eat a variety of plants and include legumes. So when you think about the most concentrated sources of protein in the plant kingdom, legumes are the king or queen of the protein foods in the plant kingdom. And so by legumes, we’re talking about lentils and chickpeas and beans and split peas, tofu, and other soy products like edamami and tempeh and so forth. And these are really good, reliable protein sources that provide a pretty high quality protein. And when I get upset when we talk about protein quality and for years protein quality was based on two things, the essential amino acid content of the food relative to human needs and the digestibility of the protein. And of course, animal products have a good supply of all the essential amino acids. And they’re highly digestible because they don’t have any fiber that reduces digestibility. Plant foods have fiber and so they can reduce digestibility by 10 sometimes 15%. But what we need to recognize is that protein quality to me anyway is not just a function of those two things. It’s a function of how protein impacts morbidity and mortality as well. We need to take that into consideration. And if we look at the studies on how protein sources impact morbidity and mortality, the evidence is absolutely overwhelming that plant protein sources reduce morbidity and mortality. Animal protein sources increase morbidity and mortality. And one of the most recent studies we have, a 2020 study, looked at what would happen if you replace 3% of your calories from animal protein. This is less than an egg. Like a large egg has 78 calories. So this is less than one large egg or what’s about an ounce or an ounce and a half of meat depending on how lean the meat is. Replace that little bit of animal protein with plant protein and what will happen? And that small amount reduces overall mortality by 10%. Replacing that tiny little bit. This was a study from Dr. Huang Hu G 2020 funded by NIH over 400,000 participants and they even looked specifically at the impact of individual animal foods like eggs and red meat and so forth. So very interesting but we see this consistently when we replace animal protein sources with plant protein we reduce risk of mortality and a variety of chronic diseases. plant foods are really quite high quality protein foods because they help to preserve health. And then the other thing that is worth mentioning is that when you eat some of the plant-based foods that have been minimally processed, so thinking about things like soy milk and tofu and Satan and these nut and seed butters and creams and so when we reduce the fiber or we blend the fiber, we make the protein as digestible as it is from animal products. s and there was a study that recently looked at the true ilial digestibility of these kinds of commonly consumed plant foods and they ranged from 92 to 98%. Animal products range from about 91 to 98% as well and there really was no difference in digestibility. So if you include those kinds of foods in your dietary pattern, you really don’t have to worry about that lowered diet. Oh, and I should add it’s not just legumes. There are other wonderful sources of protein in the plant kingdom. So seeds are hemp seeds are incredible sources of protein. Pumpkin seeds, nuts, whole grains, all provide a reasonable amount of protein. Now vegetables are high in terms of the percent of calories from protein. So 20 to 40% of calories from protein in the non- starchy vegetables, but they’re very low in calories. So there’s not huge amounts of protein supplied by those foods. Fruits tend to be very low in protein. Star starchy vegetables are a little on the low side as well. But otherwise, if you’re eating a variety of plant foods, you’re getting probably about 13 14% of calories from protein, which is pretty perfect. That’s exactly what they get in the blue zones, which are places where people live the longest healthiest lives. So, that says something. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise in the topic area of protein. A lot of what we’re seeing in brain health and a mission of our podcast is to help people get some of this information that maybe was not relayed to us as accurately. It’s so wonderful to hear how you’ve walked us through protein. Some different ways to approach it as well as simple ways to start. If you’re swapping out something for only 3% of your protein resource, that’s a pretty easy swap from an animal protein to a plant-based protein. It is one step at a time. every step you take in the right direction is going to make a difference. So, just I love that just even one small swap to begin with. And that is the perfect comment to wind down our podcast episode with you today and recognizing we can all take small steps to achieve our brain health goals. We are confident that our conversation today with you, Brenda, a plant-based nutrition expert, has provided invaluable guidance and practical advice that anyone can embark or progress their journey towards a diet abundant in plant-based foods and foods that fuel us with good nutrition. Brenda Davis, thank you so much for letting us pick your brilliant brain on the Let’s Talk Brain Health podcast.
Closing Thoughts: Small Steps Towards Better Brain Health
Thank [music] you for investing in your personal brain care by listening to this episode. We hope Let’s Talk Brain Health has provided new insights, inspiration, and action steps to support [music] your personal brain health journey. We encourage you to continue learning about brain health science and hope you will share our podcast with others. We look forward to exploring [music] more topics related to brain health in future episodes. Email podcastbrainhealthcenter.com with questions or topics of interest. We are here for you. Until next time, may you give your brain the care it deserves. Make your brain health a priority.