New information on preventing mental decline….

Today's Post:  Thursday, 12-11-2014

1.  This post has a brief recap of many things we’ve already posted on that help prevent mental decline and Alzheimer’s and keep your memory working well.

2. And, this post has some new information on some key supplements that prevent mental decline. 

Two of the three we’ve posted on already as valuable to help prevent mental decline.  The third we’ve posted on as a heart protective and an antiaging and energy boosting supplement.

But this post has some information that I read in an email about a month ago that shows those 3 supplements are even more valuable than I thought for brain protection!

1.  Brief recap of some of the key things that we’ve already posted on that help prevent mental decline and Alzheimer’s and keep your memory working well.

a)  Stop smoking if you smoke; avoid using other tobacco products; and avoid second hand smoke as close to 100 % of the time as you can.  And, make a strong special effort to eat only organic produce.

Smokers are far more likely to get Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of mental decline as nonsmokers. 

One reason for that is that smoking quite literally builds the plaque in your blood vessels that can prevent your brain from getting nutrients or getting rid of wastes.  And, this happens to ALL smokers with every single puff!  This causes Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.

But, in addition to that, tobacco smoke and tobacco products put cadmium into your blood.  And, that also causes a much higher rate of Alzheimer’s and mental decline than the much lower amount in non-smokers.  

(Similarly, eating only organic produce avoids the other main source of cadmium most people are exposed to in addition to other toxins.)

b)  Do vigorous exercise if only for a few minutes every day.  This helps with three things that cause or prevent mental decline.  It helps maintain good circulation to the brain.  It slows aging considerably.  And, it has the huge benefit of releasing BDNF, the growth hormone that grows new nerve cells and brain cells!  This has been shown to keep the white matter that connects the parts of your brain from disappearing and, of critical importance, keeps the connections to the hippocampus that enables you to access your memories intact!

In addition to that, if anything causes damage to your brain cells, BDNF can help you replace any that you lose entirely.

c)  Keep up your social connections and converse with people every day. 

AND learn new things almost every day.  If you can and haven’t already, learn a second language or a new language.

Conversing with people feels easy or relatively easy.  BUT that’s because you have been doing it since you were a young toddler.  Brain scans show it exercises almost all your brain at once when you do it!  For your brain, it’s like a super energetic session at the gym!

The more you converse and the more you learn and the more different languages or systems you learn, the more damage your brain can handle without losing any function.

In this way, your brain is like the internet, if enough key parts are created and enough connections are created, the functions may slow down if parts are damaged; but the functionality remains!

One friend also used the analogy of stones in a stream. 

If you put lots of them in and use several different paths when you cross the stream, if some you were using disappear, you will have enough left and be used enough to taking different paths that you can still cross the stream just fine.

d)  Since some of the causes of Alzheimer’s disease are from excessive inflammation, following the inflammation minimizing lifestyle we post on often will help prevent it. 

Stop eating the fats from grain fed animals; stop eating refined grains and with even whole grains, minimize them; and stop using the oils high in omega 6 such as soy, corn, and canola.  Eat zero hydrogenated oils.  Completely avoid MSG.  Completely avoid tobacco smoke. AND eat wild caught fish and take omega 3 and DHA supplements. (This also helps prevent heart disease and many cancers.)  Use only extra virgin olive oil or organic coconut oil and fats from animals fed only their natural foods.

e)  Since even low levels of high blood sugar begin to cause Alzheimer’s disease directly and harm the brain’s blood supply by harming its capillaries, be sure to exercise almost every day; stop eating refined grains and with even whole grains, minimize them; minimize real sugar; and eat zero high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners.

2. New information on 3 key supplements that each help prevent mental decline. 

This information was in an ad for a combination supplement that was in an email I got from Newsmax Health about a month ago.

a)  This email quoted research showing the antiaging supplements that keep your energy creating mitochondria in your cells plentiful and healthy had a massive, positive effect on avoiding mental decline.

I’d already known this was very valuable for antiaging and heart protection.  But this was the first time I’d seen direct research results showing it helped prevent mental decline too:

“According to a UCSD study, proper levels of CoQ10 can slow brain deterioration by 44%.[4] Furthermore, studies show that people with high levels of CoQ10 have sharper mental acuity, better motor abilities and more mental energy. CoQ10 also benefits your heart and overall energy levels.[5]”

[I added the bolding. 

Also taking CoQ10, ubiquinone, is not as effective in achieving this as taking the supplement ubiquinol which is what your body turns CoQ10 into before actually using. 

Tests show this boosts blood levels of ubiquinol in the blood to levels four times what taking CoQ10 does; AND it stays in the blood longer if you take it as ubiquinol.  Tests on mice showed that ubiquinol slowed aging far better than CoQ10 as well.

And, though taking ubiquinol keeps the mitochondria you have healthy and giving your cells energy, as you age you can lose some.  It was recently found that PQQ that is in kiwifruit causes your body to add new mitochondria.

That shows that taking both ubiquinol AND PQQ is most effective and most brain protective!]

(Their supplement only had CoQ10.  So taking ubiquinol or ubiquinol plus PQQ is a better choice.)

b)  This email had this about DHA:  “The results of scientific studies on the brain protecting effects of DHA are incredibly compelling.

For example one study showed a 60% decrease in cognitive decline in those who had a regular intake of DHA.[7,8]

Additionally, research has shown that those suffering from cognitive decline have dramatically lower levels of DHA in their brains.[9]

Overall, if you really dig into the research, it's basically irrefutable that DHA can speed up brain wave activity, help to create more synapses in the brain, and preserve healthy memory function.”

[In fact, DHA both cuts chronic inflammation and the heart and circulation damaging triglycerides.  AND, just like exercise, DHA helps your body release BDNF to help you keep and replace your brain nerves. 

Better yet, studies have found that combining exercise; AND DHA; AND foods like egg yolks high in choline or supplements of it, releases so much BDNF that it can and has reversed brain damage from PTSD and some cases of depression caused by damage to the brain.]

c)  We’ve already posted on how eating and or taking turmeric with black pepper and an oil like extra virgin olive oil slashes the causes of Alzheimer’s disease AND helps repair the damage.  Doing this removes the inflammatory causes of Alzheimer’s disease and causes your immune system to remove tau and plaque tangles before they cause too much damage.

Incredibly, it may do even more than that.

This email had this about curcumin, the main active ingredient in turmeric:  “One study shows that curcumin turns on a key gene signal involved with nerve protection, which boosts antioxidant enzymes in the brain and helps to prevent neurodegeneration.[12]

 Other research has shown that curcumin not only has positive benefits on memory, but also acts as a potent anti-inflammatory.“

We already have posted on how the anti-inflammatory effect of turmeric prevents some of the causes of Alzheimer’s and mental decline.  But turning down excess oxidation to prevent brain cell damage directly and activating or expressing a gene that is brain protective too.  THOSE I had not yet heard of!

d) Lastly, it’s been found that taking beta sitosterol with stigmasterol (which is how it normally comes) has been shown to prevent the formation of beta amyloid tangles; and it may clear them too since people who have lost their sense of smell, an indicator of Alzheimer’s damage, who begin to take stigmasterol often get their sense of smell back.

The researchers who found this thought it might work better if stigmasterol was taken with an antioxidant.  So eating organic produce and taking turmeric each day AND taking stigmasterol would likely work best of all.

Best of all, taking turmeric or curcumin AND beta sitosterol lowers LDL cholesterol so that combination also prevents the circulation to your brain from getting worse and protects your heart too!