Dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s and stroke are common in our elderly population, more common than in earlier decades, and now in younger people than the very old. An increased percentage of persons of advanced age is partly to blame. The major causes are more likely poor health habits—overweight, lack of exercise, poor food choices of animal fats, sugar, refined carbohydrates, and Rx drug use.
Your brain needs oxygen and nutrients to work properly, repair itself, and maintain good metabolism. Deficiency of oxygen or nutrients creates negative effects of poor function and early onset of degenerative conditions mentioned above.
Recently, 3 articles came across my reading screen that offered prevention and REVERSAL of degenerative brains disorders. One was in the March 1, 2011 issue of the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs and 2 were in Life Extension magazine of January 2014 and the special edition of Winter 2013-2014 retail. The Journal of Psychoactive Drug article is titled. “Reversing brain damage in former NFL players: implications for traumatic brain injury and substance abuse rehabilitation.” There has been a great deal of media coverage of the multiple concussions suffered by American football players at all levels of the sport. These result years later in mild cognitive impairment or dysfunction, and in many cases to dementia and Alzheimer’s. The percent of older NFL players with these diseases is much higher than the general population.
I have had multiple concussions, some from high school and college football, some from a very active childhood—I collected a baseball bat, a golf club and an iron bar hitting my head by age of 10. I also piloted a jet airplane to a minimally controlled crash landing that left me unconscious for several hours. My research is motivated by personal need to prevent further loss of cognition and memory, some of which I know I have lost (talking to classmates from high school and college and flying buddies from the Navy, I do not remember much of what they tell me we did or I did.)
30 NFL players were tested on a battery of cognitive and memory tests, 8 measures of mental function.. They were also questioned about current drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, measured in weight for obesity, and for their exercise habits. They were given intervention and programs to eliminate the bad chemical habits, lose weight, and exercise. Unfortunately, I saw no resulting information on the success of these specific factors, but the researchers’ concern for them informs you of risk factors for continuing degeneration of the brain.
They were also given a mix of nutritional supplements, including a “high potency” multiple vitamin and mineral formula. Please understand, this does not mean One-a-Day or Centrum Silver, this means higher levels of many nutrients. They were given Omega 3 fatty acids, DHA and EPA, from fish oil. The doses, 1,720 mg of EPA and 1,160 of DHA, equal 5 of those big Omega 3 capsules. A large portion of your brain, approximately 30%, is made up of these fatty acids. The other nutritional supplements were 15 mg vinpocetine, 120 mg ginkgo, 300 mg alpha lipoic acid, 1,000 mg acetyl L-carnitine, 150 mcg huperzine A, and 600 mg N-acetyl-cysteine.
These supplements are familiar to me, and I have taken each of them in the past or present and have access to them on a wholesale basis.
The players were treated for 3-12 months with the average being 6 months, then retested. I can only say that the results are amazing. The average scores on every test improved significantly, and almost every player improved in all regards. I say amazing in part because 6 months average is a short amount of time for such improvements; I expect further treatments will continue the gains.
You can read this research via the internet site High Beam Research, free for a few days and then when you go to quit it, they will give you a whole month free—at least they did me. You may be able to access Journal of Psychoactive Drugs directly.
The other information is derived from Life Extension, mostly from an editorial in January 2014 (yes, next year) by William Faloon, the founder of Life Extension Foundation. It is an overview of the causes of cognitive decline and dysfunction, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s and then the actions to prevent and in some cases, reverse them. It has 155 references to scientific medical periodicals. You can read them by use of High Beam Research, as they cover 6,500 scientific reference journals.
The crux of the article is that the initial factor in brain decline and degeneration is poor blood flow, resulting in low oxygen and nutrient levels. Thus, any factor that increases blood flow helps to prevent cognitive decline and further degeneration. Any improved nutrition of the brain improves functions, including repair of nervous system cells (yes, your body and your brain is a self repairing phenomenon).
Mr. Faloon mentions the factors in the NFL player study and has a sidebar that speaks directly of it. He also includes other supplements such as green tea and EGCG extract from tea, and a completely new supplement called gastrodia from an orchid plant of similar name. Gastrodia protects the brain from low blood flow and is so effective that it has shown excellent results in prevention of post heart surgery cognitive dysfunction. Any surgery that requires a heart-lung machine to keep the patient alive reduces blood flow to the brain (I think that any surgery with general anesthesia can have negative brain effects). In some surgeries, some cognitive decline can be predicted in 40% or more of patients after surgery. Gastrodia given to patients undergoing such surgeries reduced this percentage to 9%, more than a 3/4’s reduction.
Life Extension’s 2013-2014 Winter retail issue article has 87 references concerning blood perfusion of the brain, cognitive decline, advanced dementias, stroke and the effectiveness of the mentioned protective factors. These include exercise, nutritional supplements and he new supplement, gastrodia.
If you want to follow up, I suggest —lef.org — as well as —mercola.com—where a search will turn up the various prescription drugs that contribute to cognitive decline, dementia and Alzheimer’s, etc. They are free at all times,