The many drugs that help cause Alzheimer's disease….

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 1-10-2017

1.  There are a number of drugs that deplete B12.  Since older people often have reduced stomach acid and B12 deficiency can mimic Alzheimer’s and speed up any that is present, it’s very important to minimize this by not taking some drugs.  But the best way to solve this is to take 1,000 mcg of methyl B12 in the form of chewable or lozenge tablets where the B12 goes directly into your blood stream and the methyl form your body actually uses best is the one used.

a) Metformin is a very good drug for many things.  It helps lower insulin resistance which can help prevent Alzheimer’s from problems with your brain using glucose without beta amyloid build up. Metformin can help improve or reverse type 2 diabetes.  It may help some people lose fat.  And some studies even show Metformin has some anti-cancer effects!

BUT, it’s only safe to take it if you also supplement with methyl B12 because Metformin depletes it otherwise.  The best way to solve this is to take 1,000 mcg of methyl B12 in the form of chewable or lozenge tablets where the B12 goes directly into your blood stream and the methyl form your body actually uses best is the one used.

The medical research shows this effect. And there is a known way to overcome it or sharply minimize it, this information should be given pharmacists and people who fill this prescription and will take it and to doctors who prescribe it.

So far this is NOT happening.  So posts like this one are important.

b) Acid reducers also deplete B12 by reducing the amount you can get from foods or vitamins that you swallow and digest.  Proton pump inhibitors recently have been found to have harmful effects on your blood vessels and increase heart attacks and strokes and kidney damage.  So the fix for those is to stop taking them at all.

Zantac in the trade name form, a stronger H2 blocker, the researchers found stops the stomach acid enough to stop heartburn etc but does not have  THOSE effects.  

But it does reduce stomach acid enough that it is only safe to take it if you also take 1,000 mcg of methyl B12 in the form of chewable or lozenge tablets where the B12 goes directly into your blood stream and the methyl form your body actually uses best is the one used.

2.  It’s been in the medical research and health advice press for several months that anti-cholinergic drugs cause Alzheimer’s and mental decline another way by depriving your brain’s cells and their mitochondria of a key component they need for energy.  When this kills enough brain cells or disconnects enough neural nets, the victim gets mental decline. 

Unfortunately, the recent research on this is scary.  If you take anticholinergic drugs too long, the damage may be irreversible.

At first, I thought this was a quite solvable problem for people who are most knowledgable about health and the other drug side effects of many kinds of anti-cholinergic drugs.

Many anticholinergic drugs are ineffective, addicting, and have other harmful side effects. AND, there are solutions to the problems for which these drugs are prescribed or taken.

So the solution is to know which ones these are.  Never take them and use the other solutions only.

Here are two examples.  But there are about six more kinds of anticholinergic drugs that fit in this category.

*Sleeping pills are addictive, ineffective, have a direct death rate from things like sleep walking into blizzards with no clothes or driving the wrong way on the freeway with eyes closed.  And, people who take them then have an extremely increased risk of cancers and other diseases beginning within the first few months after starting them medical research has shown.  And some people find them as addictive and hard to stop as heroin or cocaine.

When simple things like a sleeping mask, exercising each day, sleeping at the same time each night, and drinking only before dinner, consuming caffeine stopping about 6 hours before bedtime, and taking chewable melatonin and about 20 other things for more challenging cases DO work, this class of drugs is better to not take EVEN ONCE.

**The several kinds of serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SSRI’s, are very similar.  They don’t work at all well.  When they do help it’s so little and so slow developing it may be a placebo effect.

They do boost blood levels of serotonin which causes problems but NOT in the brain where it might help.  (There is a way to boost brain levels.  Taking 7,000 to 10,000 iu a day has of vitamin D3 has many proven health benefits.  One of them is a boost of serotonin in the brain!)

These drugs like sleeping pills are also horribly addicting for some people and hard to stop taking as heroin or cocaine.  So this class of drugs is best not ever taken EVEN ONCE.

Oddly, we now know how to stop depression quite well from the talk therapy that focuses on increasing your grit and practical solutions to your problems and increasing the two parts of optimism found by Martin Seligman, PhD. (Just like a computer, your brain gets much better results with best in class software!)

We also know how to reduce depression that is caused by brain damage by taking the supplements and doing the exercises that cause the release of BDNF that grows new brain cells and connecting nerves.  Vigorous exercise such as effective strength training, short burst cardio with rests, &/or brisk walks as short as 7 minutes each most days of every week does this.  Also eating wild caught fish high in omega 3 two or more times a week; taking DHA, the most effective omega 3, taking an omega 3 supplement and completely stopping eating any wheat foods – AND cutting way back on any sugar or substitutes had been shown to do this.

Adding the supplement bacopa also helps.

This has been tested to work for PTSD also!  They have even shown that when this is done visible repairs show up in the brains of people with PTSD.  When that happens the PTSD stops or becomes dramatically better.  They even tested people who did this and improved and then found the repairs increased in their brains.

So, not only are SSRI’s dreadful drugs -- the other known methods are dramatically more effective! 

*** OTC  “pain killers” also have anticholinergic effects I read recently.  Since they have other harmful effects and an anti-inflammatory lifestyle and turmeric and ginger stop excess inflammation with other health BENEFITS, use those instead!

3.  Recently I found out that most drugs that people take today have some anti-cholinergic effects.

Some of these drugs are effective and otherwise safe such as the low dose diuretic I take for high blood pressure and mild ankle swelling.

So it can be quite hard to take zero drugs that have anticholinergic effects.

As I see it, there are three solutions to this:

a) If you must take this kind of drug take the smallest effective dose.

b) Do the lifestyle upgrades and non-drug alternative methods that minimize how much you need to take or which remove the need to take each particular drug at all.  (I’m finding non drug ways to stop ankle swelling and stop or minimize stress driven high blood pressure so I can eventually stop taking this drug, for example.)

c)  Use as many direct antidotes for this effect as you can!

Here are some:

Anticholinergic drugs harm by reducing choline to the mitochondria that use it to provide each of our cells with energy.

*So, one direct antidote is to ensure getting enough choline.  I take lecithin from NON-GMO soy which contains choline.  I take Solgar B Complex Stress Formula with C each day which has choline but not in huge doses. And my Adult Multi from Whole Foods has some choline.  I also eat wild caught fish and whole eggs from pastured hens and whole milk, yogurt, and cheese from grass fed cattle.

**Of more importance may be to do the other things that keep your mitochondria plentiful & healthy. 

Do regular vigorous exercise most days of every week.

Do NOT take statins which directly harm mitochondria.  Use the more effective ways to protect your heart instead which include stopping of all ingestion of heart attack starters and avoiding tobacco and its smoke 100% of the time.

Take ubiquinol which keeps your mitochondria healthy.  Eat cruciferous vegetables virtually every day.  This both protects your heart and keeps your mitochondria healthy research has found.  And, take PQQ which helps your body keep your mitochondria health AND grow new ones.

***Use some coconut oil and/or Bulletproof Brain Octane MCT oil each day.  Research has found that if anticholinergic drugs keep your brain power from glucose from working these MCT oils power your mitochondria another way to keep them and your brain operating!