New Discoveries on how to grow new brain cells....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 7-10-2012

There are many reasons that growing new brain cells and adding interconnections between them is extremely desirable.

For one thing, over dozens of years your brain and your mental ability will shrink if you don’t.

For another, if your brain is damaged, doing these two things is critical to maintaining your mental abilities right away and for recovering from the damage.

Lastly, if you also prevent the initial damage, growing new brain cells and adding interconnections between them can help prevent or even partially reverse early stage Alzheimer’s disease.

A.  We actually already know quite a bit.  (We’ll cover the new discoveries later in part B.)

1.  People who are well educated and or who speak more than one language can sustain some Alzheimer’s type damage with no or little drop off in memory or thinking skills.

It’s simple. Learning grows new brain cells and adds interconnections between them.  Research done at the University of California at Berkeley shows this goes on from infancy to people over 80 years old.

When that happens, your brain is like the internet.  If you build up enough nodes and interconnections, you can lose many of them and though it may slow a bit, your brain functions  still work.

So, if you have a job where you keep learning or learn things on your own – both knowledge and skills, that grows new brain cells and adds interconnections between them

2.  Research found that people who are social and converse often with many different people get fewer cases of Alzheimer’s or show much less drop off in mental capacity.

Then researchers found out why.  Conversing seems easy because in our native language we learned to do it so early and do it so easily.  It seems natural, easy, and almost effortless once you decide what to say.

BUT, when they looked at the brains of people conversing, they were lit up with activity like a Christmas tree with all the lights on.

So, simple conversation, grows new brain cells and adds interconnections between them or at least keeps them in use and ready to go the next time they are needed.

3.  The brains of people who are totally sedentary and hardly ever eat any of the omega 3 oil, DHA, shrink quite a bit as such people get older.  Meanwhile the brains of people who get as little as 6 miles a week of walking or that many calories burned of other exercise and who ingest ample DHA do NOT have this shrinkage.

One reason for this is that exercise causes your body to release the hormone for nerves and brain cells, BDNF, research found.  Regular exercise also both directly and indirectly improves blood circulation to your brain.

B.  What if there was also a brain fertilizer you could eat that would cause your brain to grow new brain cells and add interconnections too?

YOU CAN do exactly that!

Two studies out in the last couple of weeks have just that information.

1.  The diabetes drug Metformin was found recently to cause the growth of new brain cells. 

Taking it also helps prevent surges of too high blood sugar and insulin.  Such surges harm the capillaries in your brain and cause a feast and famine energy supply.  So when Metformin helps prevent these surges it prevents brain damage and is thought to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease too.

It’s unclear yet if taking Metformin directly causes new growth or if it helps allow normal growth to continue by its known protective actions.

But the result is the same. When people took Metformin, they grew new brain cells.

(A side effect to counter in people taking Metformin is that taking it causes some depletion of vitamin B12.  B12 deficiency can mimic other kinds of mental decline. So, it may make sense to take 1,000 mcg a day of vitamin B12 in a sublingual tablet if you take Metformin.)

Also, there are three things you can do that prevent surges of too high blood sugar and insulin. 

One, regular and vigorous exercise most days of every week, is separately known to grow new brain cells. 

The second one, NOT drinking soft drinks or eating refined grain foods or high fructose corn syrup or much real sugar -- plus eating lots of nonstarchy vegetables -- also helps prevent obesity, high blood pressure, and circulation drop off due to heart disease.

The third one is new.  Taking the supplement Berberine has very similar effects to taking Metformin.  Research found it cut high blood sugar as well as Metformin and also slightly aided fat loss which Metformin also does.  Metformin itself is a concentrate of what once was a supplement known to help people with diabetes.  Of course, Berberine may not grow new brain cells.  But it does help prevent high blood sugar.  And its effect profile is similar enough to Metformin that it too might grow new brain cells.

2.  A two part study found that a 3 component supplement named Souvenaid & created by Richard Wurtman, professor emeritus of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, caused nerve growth likely to add new nerve interconnections in animal studies AND preserved memory and normal brain function in early stage Alzheimer’s in people.

In the animal studies the supplement boosted the number of dendritic spines, which are needed for synapses, connections, to form between neurons. 

Studies in Europe, compared people who took the 3 part supplement or a similar seeming placebo for 3 months.  Part two lasted for a second 3 months.

Both groups in that first 3 months had memory improvement.  The people taking the supplement improved 40% while the people taking the placebo improved 24%.

But the differences during the second 3 months were dramatically more striking!

In the second 3 months, the memory of the people taking the placebo became much worse.  The people taking the supplement continued to improve and their brain wave patterns shifted from typical patterns found in people with dementia to much more normal patterns.

The researcher did note that at a later stage of Alzheimer’s when there was more extensive damage, the supplement was ineffective.

“The results of the clinical trial will be published online July 10 in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.”

 The supplement, Souvenaid, will possibly be available in Europe later and then in the United States one would think.  The corporation that produces Dannon Yogurt has a health related division that will market it.

Souvenaid is a combination of the omega 3 oil, DHA; the nutrient choline;

 and a natural compound called uridine.   

We already know that DHA, the omega 3 oil, has brain enhancement and protective effects.  (Getting enough DHA and EPA, the main omega 3 oils, and simply cutting out almost all foods high in omega 6 oils reduces inflammation which is a brain protective effect also.)

DHA is readily available in many kinds of fatty fish from sardines to salmon and in omega 3 supplements and direct DHA supplements made from purified fish oil or from algae.  You do NOT need to wait on this new supplement to be available to get DHA.

We also know that Choline is very valuable to the brain in at least two ways.  When you get enough, your protective HDL increases and your blood circulation is more likely to stay good.  In addition, the nerve impulse transmitter acetylcholine is MADE OUT OF choline.  Choline too is readily available.  It’s high in egg yolks and wheat germ.  And, it’s also available in lecithin supplements, better B Complex supplements, and in choline supplements.  You do NOT need to wait on this new supplement to be available to get choline.

Uridine is a natural compound that is a component of RNA, the builder of new DNA in your cells.  Uridine is the likely nerve growth factor while the other two parts of the new supplement are more like brain fertilizer.

The Wikipedia article I looked up about uridine said that Brewers yeast and liver were two good sources.  (With liver it may be safest to eat chicken livers from pasture raised chickens or to eat calves liver from grass fed calves.)  Brewers yeast is available in almost all health food stores.  And beer, broccoli, and tomatoes were listed as having some uridine. 

You do NOT need to wait on this new supplement to be available to get uridine!

The Wikipedia article ALSO had that a Harvard study separately found that taking extra uridine plus omega 3 supplements had significant anti-depressant effects!

C.  You can also prevent damage to your brain to begin with or stop it.

Following a heart and circulation protecting lifestyle prevents much brain damage. 

(Always wearing a helmet when on a bike or motorcycle and always buckling your seat belt is a critical brain protection.)

In addition, you can eat curried foods containing the yellow spice turmeric and or take its ingredient curcumin as a supplement – WITH some black pepper each time.

Research has found this tends to prevent the damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease AND to help clean up any damage already in place.

Taking 4,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 may not prevent damage as well as turmeric but has also been tested to help clean up beta amyloid possibly due to its positive effect on your immune system.

I believe strongly in doing each of these. 

It seems doing both parts also helps prevent cancer.  (One study found 60 % of people with any kind of cancer were vitamin D3 deficient for example.)

And the turmeric or curcumin lowers LDL cholesterol too. 

In addition, taking that much vitamin D3 helps prevent osteoporosis and is heart protective and boosts your immune system. Taking that much also may prevent many autoimmune diseases.