January 03, 2023

Health Centre dietitian to speak on brain health

BY JOHN BUTLER — The line “feed your head” from the 1967 Jefferson Airplane song White Rabbit has a whole new meaning today, in light of our current knowledge of the connections between nutrition and cognitive functions. That’s why an upcoming free presentation at Kimberley Community Hall should interest anyone who wants to know more about the links between what we eat and how we think and feel.

Entitled Feed Your Brain, the presentation by South East Grey Community Health Centre dietician Elena Usdenski will focus on the Mediterranean Diet (the foods eaten traditionally by people living around the Mediterranean Sea) and on the D.A.S.H. Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay – another nutrition-related way to increase brain health (D.A.S.H. stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension).

This event, open free to anyone, will be held on Wednesday January 11 at 1:45 pm at the Kimberley Community Hall, 235309 Grey Road 13 in Kimberley. Registration is not required. This is the first event of a partnership series hosted by the Grey Highlands Probus Club, the Kimberley Community Association, the Grey Highlands Public Library, the South East Grey Community Health Centre, the Grey Highlands Climate Action Group, the Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy and the Beaver Valley Bruce Trail Club.

“Given the increased number of people who live into old age,” says Usdenski, “We can expect an increase in the number of people with dementia — but we can reduce the burden of dementia through what and how we eat.” We tend to think of dementia as something rooted in genetics and therefore unavoidable for some of us, says Usdenski, but she points out that lifestyle factors, including nutrition, can reduce our risk of dementia.

Brain health as well as prenatal nutrition and digestive health are among the key interests of Usdenski and her fellow SEGHC dietitian Donna Martin. Usdenski points out that dietitians are members of a regulated health profession in Ontario. Their practice is governed by the College of Dietitians of Ontario, and dietitians must meet high standards to be registered and allowed to practice as dietitians by the College. Nutritionists, on the other hand, are not held accountable by a regulatory college, so anyone can use the nutritionist title.

Usdenski’s own interest in dietetics goes back to her high school days. An avid magazine reader, she was attracted most by articles about how food makes our bodies work. As a high school volunteer at her local hospital, her interest was piqued further when she was assigned to help the hospital’s dietitian to organize resources for nutrition counselling. After completing an honors degree in medical sciences from the University of Western Ontario focused on microbiology and immunology, she was much impressed by books about nutrition lent to her by a friend studying to be a dietitian at Brescia University College in London. “The books contained material that I normally read for fun,” says Usdenski. She proceeded to compete another undergraduate degree, as well as her Master of Science in Foods and Nutrition, from Brescia. She went on to teach nutrition at Brescia as well as working as a dietitian for the Thames Valley Family Health Team before joining the South East Grey Community Health Centre five years ago.

As the daughter in an immigrant family from Belarus who arrived in Canada when she was seven, Usdenski is sensitive to the cultural associations of nutrition. “In immigrant families, food is love” she says, while confessing that she was a picky eater as a child.

Much of her current work, as well as the work of fellow nutritionist Donna Martin, involves one-on-one and group counselling of Health Centre clients as well as building and carrying out partnerships within the Health Centre and with community agencies to broaden public knowledge of nutritional issues. She points out that the Health Centre operates a Heart Health group program and will offer a Diabetes group program (THRIVE With Diabetes) to be launched in March. She stresses that many Health Centre programs are available free to the broader community (you don’t need to be a Health Centre patient to participate in them, and they are free).

When asked to identify other nutrition trends and issues over the next decade, Usdenski said the rising cost of food will be a major issue. She says there is a major misconception that good food is always expensive, but she pointed out that many good foods are relatively cheap (lentils for instance) and people need to know what these good cheap foods are and how to prepare them. She also expects that nutrition counselling will become much more tailored to the individual circumstances of clients, as we become more aware of the roles pf each individual’s genetics, and other life circumstances, on their nutritional status and overall health status. As well, our understanding of “gut health” the helpful organisms that inhabit our digestive tracts) will allow us to maximize those organisms in our systems to improve our digestive health.

You might be smarter, longer, as a result of participating in Elena Usdenski’s January 11 presentation on brain health.

Your head will thank you for it.

 

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