Archived News of the Week

Keeping Our Marbles

It's awful - I'm absolutely without detail memory now. I keep referring to one metaphor: an old man who's still steering a course is analogous to the captain of an old freighter that may or may not make it to port. You keep throwing ballast overboard. So the hearing goes. The eyesight. The knees. This goes. That goes". Norman Mailer, age 84, talking about himself in The New Yorker, May 21, 2007 .

Whew. Dodged that bullet. But, oh no, yet another test involving those pesky seven digits! On a screen in back of Dr. Oz and Oprah, there were five lines of numbers containing the same seven digit numbers, but scrambled and out of the sequence in which we were originally asked to remember it. We were supposed to recognize, in one of the five line scrambles, which of the five lines contained the original sequence that we had memorized. I managed to do that, too. Not hard, either. Dr.Oz then said that it's not necessarily a bad sign to not remember a seven number sequence for five minutes, but if you can't pick that same sequence of numbers out of a line-up, it could herald the onset of early Alzheimer's.

What can we do to keep on picking the correct sequence of numbers? If you are like I am, dementia is probably the last in the depressing laundry list of old age diseases that you want to deal with. I have senile dementias on my father's side of the family, so I am super aware of my genetic predisposition. I want to stress the word predisposition; just because I have a duh gene or two, the possibility of future dementia is not necessarily a fait accompli. I believe that I can change/create my future by 1) how I think and 2) by nutritional supplementation and 3) by lifestyle.

"All phenomena are projections of the mind." The Third Gwalwang Karmapa. (Buddhist guy) Number one, or how I think is a no brainer, so to speak. I believe that I can create my future one moment at a time by thinking targeted positive thoughts. (Affirmations.) Through training myself, I can change my thinking if I notice that I am thinking thoughts that don't benefit me. Always think the better thought. So, I affirm and believe that I will be a fully functioning, intelligent old lady with all her marbles intact - ambulatory, interested and interesting until I take my last breath.

Alzheimer's Disease is thought to involve four markers: 1) a significant decline in acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is important in memory formation and retention. 2) accumulation of amyloid-beta deposits or senile plaques which gunk up our hippocampus, the primary memory center 3) oxidative damage from free radical damage 4) hypoxia or a reduction in oxygen received by the brain

Targeted nutritional supplementation - number two on my above list - actually contains a small fraction of number one. If I think that brain food will help me then it will. And I do. Not only am I on top of the research but I also notice the efficacy of certain supplements in myself and my patients. So, I take a bunch of targeted brain nutrition every day including vitamins A, C and E, acetyl-l-carnitine, phosphatidyl serine, l-carnitine, glycerophosphocholine, gingko biloba, DHA, glutathione and tons of antioxidants including resveratrol. My personal opinion is that anyone over 50 cannot possibly overdo their amounts of antioxidants. Except for vitamins A and E, which you should not overdo, ( and in large doses, C and fish oil may give you diarrhea) all the rest are water soluble so anything your body finds superfluous will be eliminated safely.

Targeted nutritional supplementation and positive thinking will pretty much take care of most of the causes of dementia except for one: Hypoxia or a lack of oxygen to the brain. Regular exercise where you breathe hard will take care of airing out the brain for you. Exercise will also help to prevent heart disease which is another cause of decreased circulation to the brain. So, get moving.

Some interesting research facts for you: 1) Subjects who had the highest DHA levels in their bloodstream had a marked 47% lower risk of developing all-cause dementia.

Our good friends, the mice, who sacrifice themselves over and over again for us, ate feed with lots of DHA in it. Researchers discovered that the amyloid-beta levels in these mice decreased by 70%. 2) Individuals who supplemented with both vitamin E and vitamin C displayed a decreased incidence of Alzheimer's disease, 3) Resveretrol was effective in restoring levels of glutathione a scavenger of free radicals in human cells subjected to amyloid-beta proteins. 4) Gingko extract promotes the uptake of acetylcholine in an area of the brain associated with memory function and protects the brain from cell death.

Lifestyle? You already know the drill. Eat lots of colorful fruits and vegetables, drink lots of water, keep your weight down and your stress levels low. Don't smoke, drink alcohol in moderation if at all and eat sugar only on your birthday.

No statement or content in this web site shall be construed as offering diagnosis, cure, mitigation or prevention of any disease. Anyone having questions regarding the content of this site should contact their own health care provider for verification.