I’ve recently had to do a lot of research for a close friend to help pinpoint what foods promote overall brain health. Specifically, I’ve been searching for foods which prevent, slow or even reverse the progress of dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Of the “brain-healthy” foods that experts have agreed upon, there is a common characteristic: each food is typically either high in omega-3 fatty acids, choline, flavanoids or other powerful antioxidants which help reduce inflammation. Each of these characteristics support brain health as well as having many other health benefits.

Systemic inflammation is very bad for your health and is believed to be one of the leading causes of Alzheimer’s. We should generally make food choices which, on balance, promote an anti-inflammatory response.

After scouring the Internet and my favorite food book, below is my compiled list of foods that are believed to have the greatest brain benefit. If there is a page numbers in parenthesis next to the food, it is a reference to the page in “The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth”, a book which I frequently reference when assessing the quality of a particular food.

At the end of this post is a fold-up, credit-card sized image which I made and which can be printed and carried as a reference.

My new belly button…yeah, not so much, but it’s closer to this than before the umbilical hernia repair

I recently passed the 40th day since my open umbilical hernia repair with mesh surgery.

Thank you all for the comments and email about my first post: what to ask your doctor prior to an umbilical hernia repair.

For the benefit of the community, I’ve included a few of your messages below with your names redacted (please pop me an email if you’d rather I remove your messages altogether).

My impression of umbilical hernia repair

(You can read the update on my recovery here: My Pleasantly Uneventful Umbilical Hernia Recovery)

Fair warning: this post is well off-topic from my typical Python/Django/tech focus. It does, nonetheless, share some useful information that I had a hard time compiling from Google searches alone, which is well in line with this blog’s purpose.

Next week I will be having my small and typical umbilical hernia repaired. Since this is my first surgery, I have been freaking out a bit. I have done a lot of Google searches looking for recovery stories and similar cases to mine. I have been particularly interested in the benefits of open vs. laparoscopic surgery as well as the mesh vs. suture repair method.

Over the past few months, I have been doing a lot of intense home boot camp fitness routines and am eager to learn what the recovery time for my umbilical hernia repair will be for various activities.