Brain fitness in new AND old ways....

Today's post: Monday, 3-17-2008

This has many aspects. Three of the most important are:

to help children who have ADD & are having trouble learning in school.

to optimize work performance.

& to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease or other mental decline in older people.

A. The new ways include companies that have developed ways to exercise specific brain abilities.

I found this article recently in the online Yahoo News’ health section.:

“Brain fitness seen as hot industry of the future

BOSTON (Reuters) Weds, 3-12-2008 (On Yahoo Health online news)

Brain fitness seen as hot industry of the future by Toni Clarke

- When her son Alex was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder at the age of 10, Karen George was reluctant to put him on medication.

Instead, she enrolled him in a clinical trial designed to test the efficacy of a brain stimulation program made by Cogmed, a private company that uses computer programs to exercise parts of the brain responsible for short-term memory.

The five-week program required Alex to spend up to an hour a day on a computer, pitting his wits against a robot. Among other exercises, the robot blinked out sequences of flashing lights that Alex was required to replicate.

The program made a dramatic difference in Alex's ability to concentrate, remember and act on daily chores, his mother says.

"I noticed it immediately," said George, 47, who lives with her physician husband in Santa Rosa Valley, California. "The program was like a game and my son was loving it."

Cogmed is part of an emerging brain fitness software industry that could expand rapidly as aging baby boomers seek ways to stave off dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

The size of the U.S. market for brain stimulation products -- which can range from games such as Nintendo Co Ltd's Brain Age to programs backed by research showing they can improve memory or other cognitive functions -- more than doubled between 2005 and 2007 to $225 million, according to a new report by the consulting group SharpBrains.

Just as baby boomers' desire to delay cardiovascular and other diseases fueled the health club boom, their desire to delay dementia is expected to keep the market for brain stimulation products growing.

Even health insurers are getting in on the act. Humana, for example, has teamed up with Posit Science, which makes programs to enhance learning and memory, to offer brain fitness programs to certain Medicare members at a discounted price.

The industry is so young, however, that it is unclear which business model will be most successful over time: companies like Nintendo that develop games that are fun but have no proven clinical benefit, or those such as privately held NovaVision Inc, whose product has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to improve vision in patients recovering from stroke or traumatic brain injury.

Jonas Jendi, chief executive of Cogmed, says games without clinical data will never be successful in the long run.

"I think it will be very difficult to make money in the field of games, even though I think a lot of people will try," he said. "Our approach is to prove our product works through proper research."

Cogmed's product has not been cleared by the FDA as a treatment for ADHD or any other memory or attention-related disorder, yet the company can point to a certain amount of published research to support claims that its program helps improve short-term memory. It distributes the product through networks of clinicians.

Stephen Bozylinski, a child neuropsychologist in Ventura County, California, who tests children with learning and attention difficulties and is a paid adviser to Cogmed, says the short-term results are encouraging but it is unclear how long they will hold up.

Karen George said she noticed Alex begin to relapse after about a year, and two weeks ago she put him on medication for his ADHD.

"For the program to work, a parent needs to supervise and coach their child, and right now we don't have that amount of time to invest," said George. "We might try it again later."

Alvaro Fernandez, co-founder of SharpBrains, said that while circumstantial evidence exists that brain stimulation software programs work, especially over a short period, it is too early to tell if they lead to a lower incidence of Alzheimer's disease long term.

Dan Michel, chief executive of privately held Dakim Inc, says the only way discover that is if products are used for long periods of time, much like studying the impact of long-term training on the physical body. And for that to happen, programs must be fun, at least to a certain degree.

"We start from the position that there is tons of research out there showing that significant cognitive stimulation delays the onset of dementia," said Michel, who markets his products to retirement communities. "What we are offering is not short-term memory stuff where you need to work on specific tasks; we are talking about preserving overall brain health."

Marian Harris is a case in point. The 81-year-old resident of Belmont Village Senior Living in Sabre Springs, a suburb of San Diego, exercises her mind three times a week using Dakim's device, which combines hardware and software with a touch screen that is easy to use and fun.

"I feel like my mind is pretty good right now but I want to keep it that way," said Harris. "I want to stay interested in life and not go into my little world as I get older."

And using the system, which might require her to identify a song or gradually increase her memory for numbers, "is just a fun thing," she says.

Bill Reando, activities coordinator at the retirement center, said he notices a difference in the residents who use the Dakim machine.

"Their confidence is higher, they are more active, they are quicker in remembering what they had for lunch."

So far, not much money has been made in the sector. One of the leaders, Scientific Learning Corp, has struggled with its marketing strategy, said Fernandez, and most other companies in the field are venture-funded.

But the industry is young and only just finding its feet.

"My subjective feeling is that many of these companies will be acquired," Fernandez said. "I think the health companies, the educational companies, will be interested in adding these products to their portfolios." “

X * X* X* X*

So, there are beginning to be computer based exercises for specific brain functions & skills.

That’s certainly a promising development.

Another recent news item is of considerable interest. It has been separately shown that both regular social contact & older kinds of brain exercise such as knowing or learning more than one language, doing crossword puzzles, or learning new facts or skills help prevent or dramatically slow Alzheimer’s.

The new research on brain function while conversing socially shows that doing so takes more brain processing power & provides more mental exercise than the average person would dream it does. In fact, it was as good or better as the other kinds of mental exercise mentioned in this post.

This means in addition to any emotional support, companionship, loneliness prevention, or mutual support one gets from social contact, it’s also a great brain exercise. And, that’s true even if it seems easy & fun to do at the time.

B. Another way to improve brain fitness is to use your brain in more effective ways. This is very similar to getting better software for your laptop. But it goes beyond that to actually growing new brain cells & adding new neural networks.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon once studied chess masters who could find forced checkmate in two to five moves to see how they did it. It turns out they did NOT have superhuman intelligence. They simply knew to use simple search methods & strategic opportunities to look for & use -- with limiting the moves of your opponent’s king, getting a new piece of yours involved, & using discovered or double checking moves being specific examples.

Similarly, music teachers & dolphin trainers have found that what I term a reverse stacking memory technique to learn new material or performance routines makes both the initial learning & remembering later -- work enormously better.

To use this technique learning a new phone number for example, instead of trying to remember the area code first & then the prefix & lastly the last four numbers that is most intuitive, you do it in reverse. You memorize & practice the last 2 numbers; then the last 4 numbers; then the prefix followed by the last four numbers; & only then memorize the area code and the prefix & the last four numbers.

Then of course you rehearse the whole number a few times. Then you test yourself in a few seconds to see if it got fixed & remembered. And, if necessary, you repeat the whole process quickly or just redo the whole thing but with particular emphasis on the part you didn’t remember in your test that you did.

Using such superior strategies makes you more mentally able, just like better software. But with the human brain, you get a bonus. You lay in increased neurons & neuron interconnections to support your new skill if you keep using it.

It was once thought that only children below 24 months of age did this. We now know the process still works in people into their seventies, eighties, & nineties.

C. In addition, we now know that regular physical exercise not only improves circulation to the brain & releases growth hormone in the case of vigorous exercise & strength training –
Exercise also directly causes your brain to grow new neurons.

Lastly, everything you do effectively to protect your heart and keep your blood vessels healthy also improves & protects your brain.

The spice turmeric & the turmeric & Curcumin supplements based on it, physically protects your brain & seems to prevent the cellular damage that creates Alzheimers disease. And, it has antioxidant properties that also protect your heart health & blood vessels.

Similarly, taking the supplements & eating the foods that do things like increase your HDL cholesterol & lower your LDL and Triglycerides also protect both your brain & heart.

And, it’s particularly important to measure your homocysteine levels and lower any readings of 9.0 or higher. Such readings have been found predictive of both heart disease & senility. (This is similar to LDL cholesterol & triglycerides. As the level goes up past the top of the optimum range, the risks also go up.) So, a homocysteine level of 9.1 is too high, & in my opinion needs to be lowered to 8.9 or lower. But a reading of something like 13.1 is much more serious.)

PS: Smoking, & second hand smoke, INCREASES your homocysteine levels.

So, as you can see, brain fitness is beginning to be as big a field as physical fitness.

Soft drinks & smoking even worse than thought...

Today's post: Thursday, 2-7-2008

Today’s post is a bit shorter than most we do; but it contains some new information.

1. Gout is a VERY uncomfortable condition that creates sharp, stabbing pain in your joints. That’s because it creates uric acid crystals that are quite literally stabbing the inside surface of your joints. Ouch !!

One way to avoid it is to avoid eating excessive amounts of fatty meats -- with hamburger from grain fed cattle being the kind people in the United States now tend to overeat.

Since this kind of meat also is high in omega 6 oils & animal based saturated fat & has excessive calories from that fat that tend to wind up on YOU, it’s a very sound idea to mostly or totally avoid it.

It turns out a second way to avoid gout is to never drink soft drinks. A health news article a week ago on the AFP health news on Yahoo said it’s been found that drinking soft drinks also increases the amount of gout people get.

Since soft drinks also have been implicated in keeping people fat & helping cause type II diabetes, do yourself a favor & drink tea, green tea, or purified water instead.

Why pay money to get fat, sick, & have shooting pains in your joints?

As long as you won’t be driving too soon afterwards, even rum would be better for you.

So would beer for that matter.

So, if you eat at the big chain fast food places, consider water or orange juice & salad to keep you going.

Or go to a Mexican one like Uno Mas. They have decent beer, guacamole, and beans in addition to the standard junk. www.unamas.com will get you to a site local to you if there is one. They also have mild & hot salsa you can put on the beans.

Also, Subway has great sandwich ingredients including many with great flavor. Simply let them keep the cheap refined grain bread & get a sandwich sized serving of a protein food
(they have some lean ones.) – Atkins style. And get water to drink.

2. Regular readers of these posts already know that everyone who smokes is giving themselves heart disease & that lung cancer is the LITTLE risk since, as horrible as it is for those who get it even smokers don’t always get it.

One of the ways that smoking, IN ALL SMOKERS, NOT just some -- creates cardiovascular disease is that it triggers elevated levels of homocysteine.

Homocysteine at those elevated levels helps deposit plaque in your arteries & accelerates your rate of aging.

So the recent news is not surprising but was new to me. It’s now been shown that smokers are far more likely to get senility & dementia, & possibly Alzheimer’s disease.

The reason that this is not surprising is that homocysteine readings of 9.0 & over, particularly of 12.0 & over are predictive of an increased risk of senility & dementia, & possibly Alzheimer’s disease.

So, since smoking produces exactly that effect in virtually all smokers, this new finding is one that data would predict you would find.

Still, in complex biological processes, you don’t always find the effects you predicted & have reason to expect to find.

So, it’s still important news that a study confirms that smoking does tend to trigger senility & dementia, & possibly Alzheimer’s disease.

So, in addition to heart attacks, strokes, peripheral artery disease, kidney disease, & erectile dysfunction, we now can add that smoking helps cause senility & dementia, & possibly Alzheimer’s disease.

If you still smoke, ask yourself this.

Would you prefer a few weeks of undergoing the effort to quit smoking or –

-- would you prefer to not make that effort & look forward to getting heart attacks, strokes, peripheral artery disease, kidney disease, & erectile dysfunction, AND senility & dementia, & possibly Alzheimer’s disease?


Keep in mind that if you need, your doctor can get you Zyban; nicotine replacements are available over the counter, & your HMO or the American Cancer Society can give you a good support group to use -- & that each of these things have been effective in helping people quit smoking.

Supplements that help prevent dementia…..

Today's post: Friday, 1-4-2008

I read a recent article about this last week. And, I thought it worth passing along the info to you. I subscribe to an email on health topics from the people at www.hsibaltimore.com

A. Here’s my report on their 5 points. I add two of my own under B. at the end of the article.

1. They quote a study that found that older people who supplemented with a small amount of daily beta carotene for over 10 years had better verbal memory than those who had not.

There are two ways to get that much beta carotene yourself. Most multivitamins today use beta carotene as their source of vitamin A, so by simply taking one such multivitamin & mineral each day, you can get a good bit of beta carotene.

But be sure to do the second method also. The carotenoids (or carotenes, if you prefer) seem to have the most health benefits & deliver them most safely if you get mixed carotenoids from the foods you eat. Carrots, sweet potatoes, orange & yellow colored squash, tomatoes & tomato sauces,& pumpkin, which you can easily buy as unsweetened pumpkin pie filling, are all high in carotenoids. So are broccoli and spinach and kale & other green leafy vegetables it may surprise you to know. The dark green pigment in them hides the orange & yellow carotenoids; but they ARE still there. In addition, eating these vegetables has many other health benefits including help keep excess fat off of your body.

2. They also quote a study that showed that people with Alzheimer's disease & other kinds of mental decline all had low levels of the Omega 3 called DHA for short. Even better, the people with high levels of DHA had half the risk of getting any kind of mental decline.

Here again there are several ways to get DHA. I personally do all three since DHA & other omega 3’s seem to help prevent depression & improve thinking skills in healthy people – plus, they seem to lower the unhealthy inflammation that helps cause many diseases.

You can take DHA directly as a supplement. Both Whole Foods Market & Source Naturals sell it. You can take Omega 3 supplements that have both DHA & EPA that are based on thoroughly purified fish oil. I take the one by Nordic Naturals. And, most potent of all, you can eat at least two servings a week of a health OK fish that is high in Omega 3.

(Since omega 3’s & omega 6’s seem to compete in your body, it may also help you get the balance that favors high blood levels of DHA to take in far less omega 6’s than most people. Grain, oils like corn oil, & the meat of animals & poultry fed grain instead of their natural diet are all high in omega 6’s. Beef fed only grass, poultry only naturally fed, & extra virgin olive oil are great substitutes. Grass fed beef is available & even has omega 3’s. Naturally fed poultry will become available I think. And, extra virgin olive oil is very low in both omega 6’s & saturated fat. It’s high in the monosaturated omega 9’s.)

3. Many kinds of mental decline are caused by circulatory problems. Since niacin both lowers the circulation damaging LDL cholesterol AND boosts the protective HDL cholesterol in your blood, it has been shown to prevent heart attack, stroke, & other circulation problems.

Not surprisingly, the people who took in the most niacin in their food had 80 percent less risk of mental decline. I take 600 mg a day of extra niacin, 300 mg after breakfast & 300 mg after lunch. And, I eat wild caught salmon two or three times a week which is one of the best sources of niacin also. (Taking the niacin after my meals help prevent the flushing response most of the time, while I get the flush every time if I take it on an empty stomach.)

Whole Foods Market sells real niacin in 300 mg tablets for a very reasonable price. (Their no flush niacin looks almost the same, so be careful to get the real niacin. I take two of the no flush niacin tablets a day also. But there is far less evidence that it works. And, it costs more besides. If you only take one, be sure to get the real niacin.)

4. Homocysteine levels in the blood of over 9.0 cause faster aging & circulatory problems including the related mental decline & heart disease. B complex vitamins support health nerves including those in the brain. And, lots of folic acid from supplements & leafy green vegetables over 2 grams a day plus 50 to 75 mg a day of B6 (more B6 is harmful by the way) & 500 micrograms or more of the methyl form of B12 all lower homocysteine.

So, it should be no surprise that people who have low homocysteine levels & high levels of B vitamins tend to get a LOT less mental decline. The data show people with high homocysteine & low B Complex vitamins were predictably likely to get mental decline. (Note: all smoking & second hand smoke exposure BOOSTS your homocysteine levels.)

5. The last point in the HSI article is that those who take both vitamin C & E each day are also less likely to suffer mental decline. Note that the natural forms of vitamin C & E are the safe and effective ones. So in addition to taking vitamin C, be sure to take the vitamin E supplements made from natural sources & eat plenty of fruits & vegetables that are high in natural vitamin C. (Solgar makes a 200 iu mixed natural vitamin E that I highly recommend & take myself.)

B. My two points that were not in their article.:

1. Taking Curcumin each day may be nearly as important as all of the above in preventing Alzheimer’s disease. Curcumin is available from many companies as a supplement. Some of these may be called turmeric supplements since Curcumin is the active ingredient in turmeric.

The evidence suggests that Curcumin empowers your immune system to clean out the amyloid plaque from your brain enough to prevent the Alzheimer’s you would have gotten if that amyloid plaque accumulated too much over time.

Turmeric is a key component in curries. And, people from India who eat a lot of curry in their food seem to hardly ever get Alzheimers disease.

Now, with Curcumin supplements, you can enjoy curried food occasionally if you want; but you no longer need to eat it every day to get protection from Curcumin.

2. Eating blueberries has been shown to almost literally rejuvenate older brains & improves mental performance. In addition to eating blueberries every week, you can take bilberry extract supplements which have other health benefits & may be a close enough cousin of blueberries to have this effect. And, you can eat many other kinds of berries as they are all high in natural vitamin C & have enormous other health benefits. They are also a good for you food that tastes good !!

C. There are even more supplements that lower homocysteine & protect your brain. But if you use these 7 methods, you’ll get very good protection indeed.

Dr Dharma Khalsa has a book Brain Longevity you can read. And, he sells many of these other supplements if you want even more protection.

D. It also helps to avoid mercury build up as mercury tends to destroy nerves. Avoid eating fish high in mercury like king mackerel & swordfish. And, don’t eat tuna too often as it has some mercury. Also, if you or a relative gets mental decline, be sure to get a blood test for mercury as a good bit of excess mercury can be removed & it has reversed mental decline in some cases when that has been done.

Alzheimer’s disease is mostly preventable….

Today's post: Friday, 9-21-2007

Some of the things are relatively easy & some are more challenging at least at first.

But if you do all or most of them your chances of Alzheimer’s disease are small & the risks of age related mental decline is close to zero.

We list nine different ways below. Check them all out & do as many as you can.

1. Keep learning new things of value.

(Most blog readers & almost all the readers of this blog tend to do this.) Interestingly, learning new languages or already knowing two or more is extremely valuable.

Research at the University of California at Berkeley found that learning interesting new things triggers the growth of new neurons & interconnections even in elderly people.

And, your brain is like a hologram. The more variety of information, brain cells, & interconnections you already have, the more damage it can sustain & still operate well.

2. Exercise regularly almost every week to every week.

You may lose some brain cells from time to time. Recently, research found that physical exercise also triggers the growth of new neurons. So people who exercise have brains that are continuously being rebuilt. People who do none tend not to.

Obesity & bad blood lipids increase your insulin resistance & impair your circulation. Both of these things damage your brain & keep it from its best operation. Exercise directly decreases & improves insulin resistance. It burns calories directly & grows & maintains muscles so you burn more calories even at rest. So exercise is essential to avoiding or ending obesity.

And, exercise directly increases circulation while you do it; it raises your level of HDL that keeps your arteries clean by removing excess LDL cholesterol; & improves the flexibility & responsiveness of your blood vessels which maximizes your circulation & helps avoid high blood pressure which damages your blood vessels & heart. And, exercise strengthens your heart & usually grows new & extra blood vessels to your heart.

3. Optimize your blood lipids & other measures to avoid damaging your circulation, brain, & heart.

a) Do everything safe you can to keep your HDL as high as possible. (over 40 is essential & over 60 is important & even higher is better. Exercise is essential. And, there are many other foods, drinks & supplements that help keep your HDL high.)

b) Keep your LDL cholesterol lower than 125. (At or lower than 100 may well be better as long as HDL remains high.) Eat right so you avoid excess saturated fat & all transfats. Eat foods like oatmeal & beans with soluble fiber—including lots of vegetables & many fruits each week. And, if you aren’t allergic to them eat unsalted, dry, raw nuts because they have fiber & sterols that lower LDL. Then take sterol supplements &/or niacin if your LDL is still over 125. Most people who do these things can avoid needing statin drugs Because their LDL cholesterol will fall to safe levels. But, after doing ALL of this, if your LDL is still a good bit higher than 125, particularly over 160, or you already have serious circulation problems too, your doctor may well put you on statin drugs to lower your LDL cholesterol. It’s the least desirable option due to cost & side effects; but it may then be advisable. (If you do take statins be sure to also take 100 mg to 200 mg a day of CoQ10. This protects your heart from one of the known problems of statins since they LOWER CoQ10; & doing so tends to prevent the side effects that result from that like feeling de-energized.)

c) Keep your homocysteine level well under 9.0. It directly causes heart & circulation damage & increases your rate of aging at higher levels. Worse, people who have levels of 9.0 & higher are at sharply increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. (See our recent post on how to lower it if it’s 9.0 or higher. And, GET your homocysteine level tested. Many doctors don’t yet know to test for it. Worse, even among the more health oriented of our readers, it’s likely to be well over 9.0 in the majority of you over 40 if you aren’t already doing the things that lower it !!)

d) Keep your fasting glucose under 100 & your HBA1C at 5.9 or less. High glucose & insulin levels directly damage capillaries & the rest of your circulation system.

This is ESSENTIAL since there is ALSO evidence the Alzheimer’s plaques that cause the disease may be caused by too high glucose &/or insulin levels.

Avoid sugars, starches, & refined grains at least 95 to 98 % of the time in what you eat & drink. And, NEVER voluntarily eat or drink foods with High fructose corn syrup.

Eat lots of vegetables & health OK protein foods like nuts & beans & nonfat or very lowfat dairy foods & health OK fish like wild caught salmon. Eat some health OK fats & oils like wild caught salmon, nuts, extra virgin olive oil, & avocados. And, eat some but a wide variety of the more nutritious fruits.

And, here also exercise is essential since it burns glucose & lowers or prevents or even reverses insulin resistance.

e) Keep your blood pressure well under 160 over 90 with every nondrug method you can find that works until it tends to run about 115 over 75 or a bit less. And, if it gets to 160 over 90 or higher use every nondrug method you can find that works & keep using them. And, be sure to get drugs to lower it below that level from your doctor & TAKE them until you get your blood pressure down well below that. Then keep taking them if your nondrug measures don’t keep it low. (If you do enough of the nondrug measures well & long enough, taking drugs may well be temporary. But at 160 over 90 & higher you damage your heart & blood vessels & sharply increase your risk of Alzheimers & other mental decline.

4. Eat organic blueberries at least twice a week; eat fish & seafood that’s safe to eat & high in Omega 3 oils at least twice a week like wild caught salmon &/or take purified DHA & Omega 3 supplements; take 100 to 200 mg a day of alpha lipoic acid, & take a good multivitamin plus mineral supplement daily.

Blueberries & foods & supplements with safe Omega 3’s are particularly important as is the alpha lipoic acid. Eating blueberries actually improves the mental function of older people who eat them. And some research showed similar effects for alpha lipoic acid.

And, high omega 3 levels seem to prevent Alzheimers & help to lower blood pressure when it’s high.

5. Take Curcumin or Turmeric supplements every day.

(Curcumin is the active ingredient in Turmeric.) Peoples who eat lots of Curcumin in curry spices tend to hardly ever get Alzheimers. Either the antioxidant properties of it prevent the plaques from being formed or they help your immune system clear them. My own guess is that Curcumin does both.

6. Be social & talk to people you like & even some that are just Ok every day & every week.

Social connections keep you interested in life & keep your brain young. And, they also help you relieve stress & avoid high blood pressure.

7. Avoid excessive stress when you can & get regular stress relief.

High levels of unrelieved stress damage your brain’s hippocampus which serves as the cpu or controlling director of your memory acquisition & retrieval. Using the other methods here reduce the damage & help you recover. But avoiding the damage in the first place is well worth doing if you can.

8. Avoid ingesting mercury.

It destroys neurons. Don’t eat fish & seafood known to be high in it. And, if you develop symptoms of mental decline, get your blood level tested. If you test high, there are ways of lowering it.

9. Avoid ingesting aluminum.

This one is controversial as the high levels of aluminum in Alzheimers plaques may be more of a lack of proper cleaning out due to other factors than taking in too much aluminum. But there is no evidence that confirms this for sure that I’ve yet seen.

So avoid eating foods that contain alum or aluminum containing baking powder. (Since the commercial baked goods most likely to have this also contain refined grains, sugar, & all too often transfats, the best thing to do at this time is never to eat them.) The good news is that home bakers can use double acting baking powder that has no aluminum. Rumsford is the brand I’ve seen in stores.

Don’t take over the counter medicines that contain aluminum or take them as short a time as possible & very rarely.

If you possibly can, use under arm deodorants that contain no aluminum. (The long acting ones usually do. Check out the label before you buy.

And, don’t use pure aluminum cookware. (Good quality stainless steel covered aluminum is fine. You just want to be sure there is no direct contact between the aluminum & your food.)


To the best of your ability, do all these things & you are unlikely to get Alzheimers disease & very unlikely to get age related mental decline.

Protect Your Brain with curry, turmeric, or Curcumin….

Today's post: Friday, 7-20-2007

It’s been known for quite a while that people who live in India & eat foods spiced with curry rarely to never get Alzheimer’s disease.

Further, many health writers have suggested that it’s the yellow turmeric spice in curry powder that creates this effect. Others have said that it’s the Curcumin in turmeric that does this.

Two studies seem to not only confirm this but show that one of the key ways turmeric does this is by helping make sure your body cleans out the amyloid in your brain before it forms into the destructive plaques that kill your brain neurons.

The more recently released study suggests that a drug using the most effective Curcumin component may even eventually be effective in partially or completely reversing Alzheimers, particularly if it’s used at an early stage.

The good news is that many people like eating curried foods. And, turmeric & Curcumin supplements are available now in health food & supplement stores.

We’ll end this post with some other ways to keep your brain young. They also work.

But here are the two study reports first.:

I found this in the online health news on Yahoo on Monday this week, 7-16-2007.

(From their main page, click on news & then scroll down to the health section to see health news on Yahoo.)This study shows why taking turmeric or curcumin really might help prevent Alzheimer's disease & why it works, at least in part.

(Since these supplements also are antioxidants; act to ensure good blood flow; & have anti-inflammatory effects, they probably also help prevent the damage in the first place. So there may be more to it than just the effect found in this study.)

(Posted Monday, 7-16-2007)

"NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - If laboratory findings hold true in people, treatment with one of the active chemicals in turmeric, the main spice found (in) curry, may boost the immune system of patients with Alzheimer's disease and, thereby, increase the clearance of amyloid plaques in the brain, the primary abnormality seen in patients with the disease, researchers in the United States report.

In their study, Dr. Milan Fiala, from the Greater Los Angeles Veteran's Affairs Medical Center, and colleagues first show that immune cells called macrophages taken from patients with Alzheimer's disease cannot efficiently eliminate amyloid and that this may be related to the abnormal regulation of certain genes.

Treating these cells with an active substance found in turmeric, called bisdemethoxycurcumin, increases the production of some of the genes and enhances macrophage function, according to the team's report, published in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The authors note that other Alzheimer's disease treatment strategies have attempted to increase the clearance of amyloid by stimulating the activity of certain cells located in the brain.

By contrast, the current approach boosts amyloid clearance by enhancing the activity of macrophage cells derived from bone marrow.Further studies are needed to determine if increasing blood levels of macrophages using an oral curcumin agent clear the amyloid plaques, and produce therapeutic effects, in patients with Alzheimer's disease, they add.

SOURCE: Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, July 16, 2007."

The study I saw reported earlier was very similar:

“From the Health Science Institute newsletter on 10-18-2006

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could set loose inside your body a microscopic cleaning crew that would hunt down and remove harmful microorganisms and waste products?

Actually, that crew already exists, working hard every hour to keep you healthy. It's a force made up of cells called macrophages that have the capacity to attach to connective tissue or travel throughout the blood stream where they overwhelm microorganisms that can do you harm. And while macrophages are very effective at what they do, sometimes they need a little help.

Researchers at UCLA have produced evidence that a common spice might be just the help that microphages need to protect the brain from Alzheimer's disease.

…. there's growing evidence that curcumin may … be an effective amyloid plaque inhibitor.

Curcumin is a yellow pigment in the root of turmeric. Curry gets its distinctive color and flavor from curcumin. But in addition to its culinary appeal, curcumin is a natural antioxidant and inflammatory that has been used by Indian Ayurvedic healers for thousands of years to treat indigestion, arthritis, and urinary tract disorders.

In …. a UCLA study in which aging mice with advanced amyloid accumulation in the brain were injected with curcumin. Results showed that curcumin was able to cross the blood-brain barrier and bind to beta amyloid, which helped block amyloid plaque aggregation.

In the September 2006 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, another UCLA team reported on a study that tested the effects of curcumin on AD.

STUDY ABSTRACT
Researchers took macrophage samples from six AD patients and three healthy control subjects

When macrophage samples were tested for their ability to bind with amyloid, uptake efficiency was found to be significantly lower in the AD samples, compared to the control samples

Macrophage samples were then exposed to curcumin for 24 hours

Amyloid uptake efficiency was significantly increased in half of the AD macrophage samples treated with curcumin

Curcumin was more effective in macrophage samples taken from patients with early-stage AD

Curcumin had no effect on macrophage samples from healthy subjects

…., the UCLA Alzheimer's Disease Research Center has begun a clinical trial with human subjects to study the effect of curcumin supplements in AD patients.

Alzheimer's rates in India (where curcumin is widely consumed in curry dishes) are among the lowest in the world. But for most of us here in the west it's not really practical to sharply increase our dietary intake of curry.

Curcumin supplements can be found in health food stores and through many Internet sources.

But curcumin users should be aware of these precautions:

Indigestion is one of the conditions curcumin is used to address, but large doses may cause ulcers in some patients.

Curcumin has been shown to lower cholesterol by prompting the liver to discharge bile, but this can be a problem for anyone with an obstruction of the biliary tract

Curcumin thins the blood, so it should not be taken with anti-coagulants or anti-inflammatory drugs. “

Of course if you have too much oxidized LDL or cholesterol plaques in your blood vessels, the circulation to the neurons in your brain may be harmed. So for most people these last two effects are not only desirable; but also show how turmeric or Curcumin helps prevent Alzheimer’s & age related mental decline in the first place.

In fact, all the practices that protect your heart &/or keep your blood vessels healthy & responsive & keep your blood pressure in the normal range also prevent strokes that can gravely harm your brain & ensure your brain gets enough oxygen and energy & has enough blood flow to clear CO2 & other waste products.

Exercise helps do all these things. Even better, recent studies show exercise causes your body to grow new brain neurons – even in elderly people.

Mental exercise from regular socializing, learning new things, & doing mental activities like cross word puzzles or solving chess problems or playing strategic games like bridge, or simply following subjects you are interested in also grow new neurons & maintain old ones & their interconnections.

At the University of California at Berkeley it was discovered that “enriched environments” in younger mammals & people caused the growth or new neurons & helped form new interconnections. More recently, they found that this process continues to work in even elderly people.

Recently, in our area a 100 year old woman died. And, she was apparently mentally sharp & lived independently virtually the whole 100 years.

Other than taking Curcumin supplements, she did all of the above. She regularly kept up a ONE ACRE garden by herself for exercise; she was an avid fan of the local football teams, the San Francisco 49ers; & the Stanford football team; she played competitive bridge regularly; she was active in her extended family; & an officer in a local social group. She even found time to enjoy & play music.

Her personal focus was to stay optimistic & happy -- & to keep busy. So by keeping very busy with the things she really liked to do, she did.

Your list of activities you like & the kind of exercises you do, will likely be far different.

But, you’ll be happier & live far longer & stay mentally sharp if you follow her example.

Exercise GROWS key memory cells….

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

Focus on Your Health:

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.

We do posts on staying healthy; preventing disease; aging more slowly; weight loss; exercise; nutrition; & news in medicine.

Today's post: Thursday, 3-15-2007

Exercise GROWS key memory cells….

Did you know that research has been done that found that people who exercise do better on memory tests?

It’s true; & we now know a key reason why. When you exercise, you literally grow new nerve cells in a key memory center in your brain.

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center wondered if there might also be positive changes in the brain from exercising that could explain this at least in part.

Since they had access to an MRI imaging technique developed at Columbia, they did a study to check.

The study released online earlier this month reports that they found neuron growth in the “dentate gyrus” part of the hippocampus.

This is very important for two reasons.

First, as I learned in the book, Brain Longevity, by Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa, the hippocampus acts as a kind of CPU for encoding & retrieving memories, particularly short term ones. And, if it’s damaged by stress, problems with short term memories occur. It also looks like worse damage begins to prevent long term memory from being accessed.

So growing new neurons in the hippocampus INCREASES your ability to store & access memories.

Second, “dentate gyrus” part of the hippocampus is the part that is found damaged when people get age related mental decline.

So, their research also reveals that exercise directly prevents age related mental decline caused by damage to that area of the brain by literally building back any neurons you damage or that die off for other reasons.

Researchers have long suspected exercise was good for the brain. But this is the first study that details which part of the brain. And, it’s one of the most critical parts.

I don’t know what kind of exercise the people in the study did. And, the researchers themselves plan to see if they can determine which kind works best through further research.

But, it is known that as little as an hour & a half total of walking total each week or 3 short strength training sessions a week provide a full 40 % of the overall health benefits of an ideal program each week that takes at least five times as long to do.

My bet is that this is true for this effect also.

So, if you don’t yet exercise & you’d like to keep your memory or make it better,
start doing even a little exercise & KEEP doing it.