Okay, let me find someone
who will lend me their brain for a few minutes.
You, over there, great!
I'll give it back to you.
Now imagine that I have your brain in my hands.
What will I find inside it?
Water - I guess you all suspected that -
then some fat, wow! a lot of fat.
No worries, all brains are fatty ... Don't judge, it's just normal.
A brain is very greasy.
If I had one in my hands,
you would certainly hear "skwiitch! skwiitch!"
It's very fragile and mushy.
In fact, if you look at it like that, it resembles the inside of our intestines.
Well, I've never held intestines in my life,
but I have held a brain.
By the way, if I were to leave it on a table
to go off to take a sample of it for experiment,
when I'd return,
it would be a bit spread out and deformed.
So don't shake it up too much, it's fragile.
This brain has fat,
but not the type of fat you find in a bag of French fries.
Its fat is like the fat you find in small oily fish.
It is a kind of fat that is very flexible,
that provides us with unique neuroplasticity
and enables neurons to communicate with each other so fast.
Maybe you are asking yourselves,
"Let's say I eat more sardines, will I get smarter?"
My mum often said to me, "Émilie, eat your fish, it will make you clever."
Well, she wasn't exactly right.
It is more complicated than that, but today I can reply,
"Mum, did you know that the consumption of small oily fish
inversely correlates with the rate of psychiatric disorders,
especially depression and schizophrenia?"
Well, for the most part, you are probably too old to develop schizophrenia
because the window is during adolescence.
But you're in the category of those who can be hit by severe depression,
especially with our way of life today.
So eating a few small oily fish could be good for your brain.
Now, if I continue looking at what is inside this brain,
I will find proteins and amino acids.
So I will find water, fat, and now proteins and amino acids.
To put it simply, a protein is like a large pearl necklace,
and the amino acids are all the little pearls that make up this necklace.
When I eat protein, chicken for example,
or a mix of lentils and quinoa - that is probably not bad for you either -
then these necklaces break into a multitude of small pieces,
and these small pearls are going to do something inside my body:
they either form a nice structure or carry out a function.
Right away you think: "Yeah, muscles."
Personally, I think "lovely neurotransmitters and hormones."
A neurotransmitter is a molecule that enables two neurons to communicate.
To give you an example, serotonin is the neurotransmitter for happiness
because it is said to make people see life through rose-tinted glasses.
For example, we have noticed that in the case of depression,
serotonin levels are low.
So some companies have manufactured beautiful medicines
that increase serotonin levels in the brain
and alleviate the symptoms.
Some young people will say, "Some drugs do the same."
And yes, these drugs manipulate the level of serotonin in the brain.
The crazy thing is that this serotonin
that I will probably feel in my brain this evening,
enabling me to sleep with sweet dreams,
this serotonin is synthesized
through a precursor I can only find in my food.
This precursor, this small pearl, an amino acid, is called "tryptophan".
It is an essential amino acid.
It means that my body is unable to produce it on its own
if I don't provide the small bricks to build it.
Now let's resume our observation of this brain.
I also find sugar or glucose in it.
Glucose is the fuel of the brain.
The brain is very small, it makes up only 2% of this body's mass,
but it consumes 25% of the energy that I eat.
So it needs a lot of fuel, it is energy-hungry,
particularly when people are smart - I am joking.
(Laughter)
I didn't want to say that, but it just came out.
(Laughter)
So my brain does not require that I feed it
loads of sweets or a big glass of orange juice.
It prefers to have steady and reasonable levels of sugar.
There are different types of sugars.
There are sugars called "simple" or "fast",
and sugars that are rather "complex" and "slow".
Simple sugars found for example in small fruits -
which is not shown here - let's say an orange,
when I eat an orange, a lot of simple sugars enter my body at once.
These are small simple-structured molecules that are digested very quickly.
So I have a burst of energy entering my bloodstream,
and then, there is a crash.
That's why we feel drained sometimes.
Complex carbohydrates are bigger molecules that are digested more slowly.
They provide energy throughout a whole morning or afternoon for example.
We try to favor these types of complex carbohydrates
when we want to be focused and clever.
So for breakfast, it may be preferable to eat a slice of wholegrain bread
rather than multicolored cereals just because we love them so much.
I could talk for hours about your brain,
as though it was the meal I was going to eat a while ago,
but I'll stop there.
Personally, what fascinates me is the impact of my lifestyle on my brain.
It all started with nutrition.
When I was young, my dad used to say,
"Émilie is the child who runs after butterflies."
He wasn't completely mistaken.
My brain has a lot of difficulty in concentrating on a single task.
It twirls around all the time.
It is impossible to make it focus for 30 seconds.
This brain was soon given a lovely label:
"Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder", in short, ADHD.
"Well don't worry, teachers,
Émilie is going to stop being unbearable.
Medicines exist even for this type of situation."
So I was told at a very young age:
"It will do her good to take medicine to alleviate symptoms."
And these drugs work very well.
It's like legal cocaine: it stimulates your brain.
Still a little girl, I went from 40% to 80%.
Is that why I was able to go to university?
We don't know.
My writing became neat and rounded.
And at school, things were much better because before, what was Émilie doing?
She is a child sitting on a chair
who fidgets so much nobody wants to sit next to her,
who gets on the teacher's nerves,
who falls sometimes from her chair from laughing so much
or watches a construction site from afar for hours and suddenly goes,
"Wow! Look! The crane finally moved. I've never seen anyone inside before!"
And the teacher says, "Émilie, you forgot to take your medicine"
or "Émilie, you messed up again.
Shouldn't you ask your parents to take your medicine again,
or maybe, double the dose? Do you always take your medicine?"
And the teacher would say this in front of the whole class.
So little by little, I started to feel the first psychological side effects.
Obviously, today that makes you laugh, me too.
But back then, I didn't find that funny. I no longer had self-confidence.
I thought I would never achieve anything.
I even thought I wouldn't be here today.
Thankfully, my family took great care of me.
They took me to a team of professionals who explained what ADHD meant,
who made me do plenty of tests
and really tried to prove to me that I had great potential
because I didn't believe that at all.
Then my life continues, I feel a bit better in my skin.
I understand.
But then, I started to feel the other side effects.
If you take the kind of medicine prescribed to kids like me
and read the package leaflet on the side effects, you will see:
migranes, insomnia, digestive disorders,
loss of appetite, anorexia, depression ...
I had a few of those.
Incidentally when I'd stop and ask someone to give me the medicine
because I had forgotten to get a prescription for a few weeks,
I'd be hit with a massive migraine.
I'd suffer from Insomnia.
I'd no longer want to talk to anyone.
Instead of studying, I'd sort my coloring pens by color
because all of a sudden, I'd feel very focused on something else.
Bottom line, you may be already thinking this does not sound good,
but this is nothing.
This is nothing compared to the lovely withdrawal symptoms
that hit you after a school year of being on this cute medicine.
So I had withdrawal symptoms
because I was like a drug addict who had been taking drugs for a long time.
So indeed when you stop, you have anxiety, dark thoughts,
you vomit out of distress.
And here again, there is a solution: if you go to your doctor -
since they take you to the hospital saying,
"Look at my child, she is so anxious" -
the doctor doesn't ask,
"Have you been taking this medicine? What happened?"
No, they give you a small shot of a blue substance
that makes you totally zen, and then life goes on.
At that point, I said to myself,
"That's enough. Your brain doesn't function properly.
Also, you are halfway to panic attacks and on the verge of some unknown limit."
So I wanted to stop it all.
And before, during or after, I don't know what happened
but I started to have intuitions about different types of food.
My family gave me a nickname: "Insatiable sable".
A sable is a kind of small carnivorous ferret.
I could no longer eat white bread with jam for breakfast.
I dreamed of the thick slice of salmon my mum had prepared the night before,
and of the tasty vegetables she had cooked.
Not long ago, when I returned home to Brussels,
my Dad left me a Tupperware in the fridge with a note:
"Leftovers for Insatiable Sable."
I did not see the link between this kind of nutrition and my friends' diet.
My life went on and I started my studies in neuroscience,
and that is when I understood it all.
I was only 27 years old, I knew next to nothing,
I had a lot to learn, but I understood what was happening to me.
And that is what I'm going to tell you now.
ADHD meant that my little brain
had a hard time synthesizing enough dopamine and noradrenaline,
two neurotransmitters that together benefit our learning functions,
our ability to pay attention and concentrate -
which I clearly lacked.
These two neurotransmitters can be boosted with drugs
but also with the type of diet I started to follow.
So by eating more protein at breakfast - I didn't used to eat any at all -
I was ingesting the small pearls
necessary to create those neurotransmitters in my brain.
And by avoiding quick or simple sugars at all costs,
I was preventing those pearls from being deflected elsewhere
or from having difficulty to enter my brain.
When I learnt all of this and realized
that I could have avoided all those small pills and big anxieties
by just having a healthier lifestyle,
I thought I needed to share this information around me.
So I started with social media.
I spoke about it to my family, my friends.
Then I ended up speaking in companies.
And today, I am inside this big red circle telling you about it.
Now I would like to give you three small bits of advice
that are really very simple.
You may say that they are bogus,
but I'm sure that you are not implementing them right now.
These three advices are:
first, try to maintain a stable and moderate blood sugar level;
second, pay attention to your second brain;
and third, try to have a healthy lifestyle.
Sorry, I also have lots of allergies, my genetics aren't that great.
(Laughter)
As for the first one, maintaining a stable and moderate blood sugar level, why?
Well, because Nature is very well made,
but our lifestyle today isn't so good, at least mine, I don't know about yours.
For a better understanding, let's say that I'm a prehistoric man or woman.
and on my way, I eat some berries, some grain, maybe some legumes.
From time to time, if I'm strong enough, I manage to kill an animal and eat it.
Fortunately, when I eat sugars, for example,
a cool hormone get synthesized in my body that helps store excess sugar as body fat,
which enables me, if I don't find food for two or three days,
to have something to survive on.
That's pretty cool.
Another great mechanism is when I no longer have enough sugar in my blood,
I release good stress hormones that allow me to hunt that lion -
I don't know if we once hunted lions, it's the example that came to my mind -
to be aggressive, run very fast, and kill it.
Today, I don't know about you but personally,
I lay down sometimes in my sofa like a doormat
and press the keys of my phone to order a pizza.
So, my insulin no longer serves its survival purpose,
nor its fat storage purpose in case of starvation since it doesn't happen often.
So, this type of lifestyle is not the best for our metabolic health,
neither is it for our family.
I don't know if you have children who are unbearable when they're hungry,
or partners who make your life a misery when they're famished.
Let me share with you a funny study:
a group of researchers took one hundred couples or so.
They gave them little voodoo dolls and said,
"Once a day, you can insert between 1 and 51 needles
to show how much you are upset by your partner."
Then, they were able to successfully correlate those people's blood sugar
with the number of needles inserted.
So if you have unbearable people in your family,
do not give them donuts so that they will experience no high
and no crash during which they could become insufferable.
Rather, feed them like a man living in prehistoric times,
with this type of thing, for example.
The second advice is about paying attention to our second brain.
The second brain is your gut
and the whole load of guests living inside.
You may not know it but you've an enormous amount of bacteria in your gut.
This realm was there before your first brain,
so perhaps it should actually be called the "first brain".
These bacteria are not there just to do nothing,
eat what you eat and take advantage of their host.
In fact, they play an important role in your health,
your immunity and your mood.
I was talking previously about serotonin.
Well, a big majority of our serotonin is synthesized
thanks to the bacteria that live in our gut.
Another study - because I love this type of study
that allows people to fully understand what I'm taking about -
was carried out, and I find it fascinating.
They took twins, one obese, the other diabetic.
The microbiota of these twins was transplanted into mice.
The mice who inherited the microbiota of the obese subjects
developed the same phenotype.
The others remained slim.
When the slim mice were permitted to eat the feces of the obese one,
they undoubtedly grew in size.
Yes, mice are coprophagous and eat the feces of other animals.
Don't try to eat the feces of a thin person, you could die
(Laughter) ... by the way.
Now these bacteria, what do they like to eat?
Fruit, vegetables, plenty of vegetables,
wholemeal products, grains, legumes.
They do not like heavily processed foods.
Now for my last piece of advice,
I want to ask you first to raise your hand
if you are able to sleep around eight hours each night,
not six but eight hours every night
systematically and at strict regular times.
Raise your hand if that's the case for you.
Yeah, no luck ...
Sleep is the foundation of health and more important than sport or nutrition.
All of your functions are improved by a good night's sleep
or reduced by a bad night's sleep.
My mum often say to my sister,
"In a bad mood? You partied too much last week-end."
She's right.
In studies, when half a group is deprived of sleep,
and the other half is allowed to sleep,
the first group better remembers the bad things that happened the day before,
whereas the other is able to process their emotions.
If I make you sit for an exam tomorrow,
and you, I keep waking you up all night
and you, I let you sleep,
and I ask you to use the knowledge that you learnt the day before,
you, you will generally perform 40% worse than you.
So they will succeed, and you, you will completely flunk.
If you want your children to succeed at school, pay attention to their sleep.
Now I will finish with this:
ADHD,
lack of sleep can mimic ADHD symptoms.
I would like us to be more careful concerning our lifestyle,
so that we feel better in our body and in our head.
I hope that these few words will inspire you to take care of yourself.
That's it, thank you!