New info helps us prevent heart disease & Alzheimer's disease....

Today's Post: Thursday, 4-15-2010

Yesterday, Weds, 4-13, several of the online news services had the information that about 9 % of people have a mutation that prevents them from using folate, an important B vitamin in green vegetables and other plant foods as well as everyone else.

HealthDay had this headline and lead:

“New Alzheimer's Gene Identified

By Jenifer Goodwin HealthDay Reporter WEDS, April 14, 2010 (HealthDay News) --

Researchers have pinpointed a gene variant that nearly doubles the risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer's disease, a new study says.”

As some of you know, getting too little folate tends to prevent your body from keeping your homocysteine levels below the level where they seem to cause cardiovascular disease and as the story’s yesterday found Alzheimer’s disease if they continue long enough.

People with this mutation therefore tend to test as having high homocysteine levels at decades younger ages than people without it for this reason. (As you get older your homocysteine levels tend to go up. Teens and very young adults tend to test in the 6.0 to 8.0 range. And, it’s already known that levels of 9.0 or above, let alone the 12.0 and above many older adults often test at, increases your risk of cardiovascular disease and mental decline from all reasons.)

Your body makes homocysteine from the amino acid methionine.

So, if you have this mutation, OR if your homocysteine tests above 9.0 or higher, you clearly need to do a number of things, to protect your brain and heart.

1. The first thing is to get your homocysteine level tested. This can be a hassle or cost extra in many medical plans for a number of reasons. But, particularly if you aren’t already over 65 or already have some kind of mental decline or heart or cardiovascular disease, this new research suggests it is critical to know. Find a way to get tested even if you have to find and pay an independent doctor to order your test and pay full price for the test. It will be a lot cheaper than getting the genetic test for this mutation! If you simply can’t do it, assume your homocysteine level is high to be on the safe side.

(Hopefully, because of this new research, testing for homocysteine will one day be included along with the lipid panel of HDL, LDL, triglycerides, and total cholesterol; blood pressure; waist measurement; and the blood sugar related tests of fasting glucose, HBA1C, and insulin -- that everyone gets so they and their doctors can prevent bad trends from getting worse and causing avoidable diseases.)

2. Since homocysteine is made from the amino acid methionine, it may make sense to get low or moderate levels of methionine in your food instead of high or very high levels.

The Wikipedia article on methionine includes some helpful information that relates to this.:

Wikipedia said these things about methionine.:

"Improper conversion of methionine can lead to atherosclerosis"

"Methionine is converted.... to homocysteine." in a series of steps listed in the Wikipedia article.

"There is a growing body of evidence that shows restricting methionine consumption can increase lifespans...."

"Most fruits and vegetables contain very little of it. Most legumes are also low in methionine."

"High levels of methionine can be found in sesame seeds, Brazil nuts, fish, meats and some other plant seeds; methionine is also found in cereal grains."

This is quite consistent with the information in the diet that tended to protect against Alzheimer’s disease that we posted on earlier this week.

That diet was very high in vegetables and low in meat. It did have wild caught fish and nuts and some grain foods and some poultry; but it did NOT have a lot of meat.

Clearly this diet has less methionine than one that is very low in vegetables and high in meat.

(Since refined grains we now know are horribly bad for you and foods other than whole grains, notably nonstarchy vegetables are better at avoiding the gain of excess fat, eat NO refined grains and only a moderate amount of whole grains may also be wise since this helps limit methionine. That also allows you to have some wild caught fish and their omega 3 oils; nonfat and lowfat dairy with their lysine, B2, and calcium; and eggs with their B vitamins and choline without getting excessive amounts of methionine.)

3. Since increased folate intake lowers homocysteine levels and people with this mutation may need five or more times as much folate to be effective than the rest of the people do, they may need to add more green and nonstarchy vegetables and the legumes beans and lentils to their diet almost daily to be protected.

Those foods do the double of having virtually NO homocysteine and LOTS of folate.

People with this mutation may also do less well at converting the folic acid in supplements to folate than other do. This clearly indicates eating more of the foods that are high in folate as it’s already in that form in the food. Green and other nonstarchy vegetables and beans and lentils are high in folate.

(Note that these foods also are in the DASH and DASH II diets that lower high blood pressure and in the food eaten by people who are NOT too fat or obese.)

And, the jury is still out on if this is a for sure good idea--but it may also be prudent to take something like 2,000 mcg of folic acid. There is some evidence that this may cause problems in people who don’t also supplement with 1,000 mcg of B12. Some doctors and researcher say you should do so and some disagree. What IS clear is that eating a lot of the foods high in folate is wise for sure. (I take 2100 mcg of folic acid and 1,075 mcg of B12; eat beans and lentils daily and am adding more and other nonstarchy vegetables.)

4. Tobacco smoke increases homocysteine levels. It protects your heart in many other ways and cuts your cancer risk by at least 30% to avoid tobacco smoke by NOT smoking and coming as close as you can to no exposure to second hand smoke.

But, for someone with this mutation or who has high homocysteine levels avoiding tobacco smoke may be truly a critical, life and death deal not just extremely important!

5. Clearly you should also take the other steps to avoid Alzheimer’s disease.

Our post from last Friday, 4-9-2010, “Good news on preventing Alzheimer's and mental decline, “ wound up having almost all the ways to prevent mental decline effectively in it.

6. Clearly you should also take the other step to avoid heart disease and cardiovascular disease.

Our post from last Thursday, 4-8-2010, "The best ways to prevent heart disease, " wound up listing most of the effective heart protecting steps you can take.

To be sure, that entire set of these lists sounds like a lot to do. But there are 3 pieces of good news.

You likely are already doing many of the things on these lists.

Even better, about 80 % of the things you should do wind up on almost every list.

And, third, you can add things you aren’t doing one at a time and in order of their priority.

For example:

If you have high blood pressure and a family history of heart disease and are a bit too fat, but have little family history of mental decline and you already exercise, put priority on those other things that lose fat, lower high blood pressure, and protect your heart.

But if you are trim and do have parents or grandparents who had mental decline and don’t exercise and are less educated, begin to learn new things, add exercise, and do all the things that prevent mental decline or Alzheimer’s disease or both.