The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona
by James Bogash
Estrogen and Estrogen-Progestin and Rate of Cognitive Change
So, thinking about taking estrogen to maintain mental alertness and possibly avoid Alzheimer’s?? The evidence is weak for estrogen alone, and this study suggests that combining it w/ progestins (to protect against cancer) may decrease mental function!!
by James Bogash
When the idea of snacks are brought up, the scary choices like Doritos, chips and nachos come to mind. But what do you think these do to your brain?
Becomes vaguely reminiscent of the “This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs.” commercials. The unhealthy fats in most snacks (high in omega 6 from corn, soybean and cottonseed oils) have been linked to lower IQs and overall brain function. Personally, I would prefer eating snacks that support brain health rather than destroy it.
Enter the beloved cacao bean. Believed to have originally been grown in the shadow of the Andes mountains, the cacao bean is most commonly used to make chocolate and cocoa; two food items that are rarely thrown across the room by disgruntled toddlers. Here’s the best part—the research consistently and strongly shows that cacao based compounds are really protective to your blood vessels. Protect your blood vessels and you protect your brain and heart. If these benefits came from gnawing on bark and grass from an untainted field, I could understand some reluctance. But it’s chocolate.
This particular study yet again demonstrates to benefits of cacao compounds on the brain. Researchers looked at neurovascular coupling, a term referring to the changes in blood flow that occur with activation of certain areas of the brain.
60 participants at an average age of 72.9 years were given cocoa and followed for one month. They were evaluated for both neurovascular coupling and cognitive function measured via the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Trail Making Test A and B (A targets are all numbers and the test taker needs to connect them in sequential order, and B alternates between numbers and letters). The test were evaluated at the 24 hour mark and the one month mark. When possible, MRIs were also used to look at the white matter of the brain. Here’s what they found:
While some of the results may seem a little confusing, let me sum it up for you:
You need to take more cocoa, dark chocolate and straight up cacao. Pretty simple.
by James Bogash
Workers Exposed to Lead Have High Alzheimer’s Risk
Checking for heavy metal in the body is such an easy and inexpensive test, it really should be used more often; especially considering the impact of heavy metals on human health.
Workers exposed to lead have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in later years, according to research presented here during the American Academy of Neurology’s 52nd Annual Meeting. “People who have worked in jobs with high levels of lead exposure are up to 3.4 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease,” according to an Academy press release. According to the news release, “activities that can expose workers to lead are: smelting or casting lead; removing lead coatings (welding, brazing, cutting, sanding or blasting old paints); heating, machining or spraying lead products, and making lead products (lead-acid battery manufacturing, lead glazing pottery making, cable production, ammunition manufacture, production of lead pipe, cable shielding, electronic components, paint and ink manufacture).” “Public health efforts have been successful in removing lead from sources such as gasoline and lead-soldered food and drink cans,” Dr. Koss commented. “However, we need to remain vigilant about other sources of lead in the home and in the work place, including decaying old paint, contaminated soil or drinking water, hobbies and occupational exposure.”
by James Bogash
Alzheimer’s patients have reduced activities in midlife
There are more and more ways to reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s that are showing up in the literature. Overall, it appears that AD is an inflammatory process, and lowering your overall levels of inflammation is a good approach to lower your risk. Knowing that exercise can favorably affect inflammation, this fits well with this research study.
PNAS — Abstracts: Friedland et al. 98 (6): 3440
by James Bogash
ERT Does Not Reduce Alzheimer’s Risk
I frequently have patients asking me if they should go on or stop taking HRT. My first question is to find out why the patient has an interest in taking it in the first place. Hot flashes? Vaginal dryness? Worried about heart disease or osteoporosis? Alzheimer’s? The patient needs to answer this question for themselves and we can go from there. There are a myriad of ways to affect these symptoms (and that’s exactly what they are) that do not involve drugs. I can list 15 things to do to lower your risk of heart disease that DO NOT increase your risk of breast cancer…
Arch Neurol 2001;58:435-440 The use of estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) by postmenopausal women does not reduce their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Dr. David A. Drachman, of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, used the General Practice research Database in the UK, which includes prescription data, to identify 112,481 postmenopausal women who used ERT and an age-matched cohort of 108,925 women who had not used ERT. From these groups they conducted a nested case-control analysis of 59 women with newly diagnosed AD and 221 matched controls. “Among the 59 newly diagnosed cases of AD, 15 (25%) were current estrogen users, while among the controls, 53 (24%) were current users,” the investigators report. After adjustment for body mass index and smoking, the odds ratio for AD in women who had used estrogen for at least 1 year was 1.18 compared with nonusers. When the authors combined past ERT users with current users, the odds ratio compared with nonusers 1.19. For those who used estrogen for at least 5 years, the odds ratio was 1.05. “Odds ratios were similar for estrogen recipients who received estrogens alone and recipients who received combined estrogen-progestin treatment,” Dr. Drachman and colleagues note.
by James Bogash
Estrogen Replacement Therapy Does Not Reduce Alzheimer’s Risk
Strike off yet another excuse for HRT. Want to lower your risk of Alzheimers? Identify and avoid food allergens, lower your overall inflammatory burden, maintain high intakes of fruits, vegetables and whole grains high in zinc and avoid as many sources of aluminum as you can.
Arch Neurol 2001;58:435-440 The use of estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) by postmenopausal women does not reduce their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Dr. David A. Drachman, of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, used the General Practice research Database in the UK, which includes prescription data, to identify 112,481 postmenopausal women who used ERT and an age-matched cohort of 108,925 women who had not used ERT. From these groups they conducted a nested case-control analysis of 59 women with newly diagnosed AD and 221 matched controls. “Among the 59 newly diagnosed cases of AD, 15 (25%) were current estrogen users, while among the controls, 53 (24%) were current users,” the investigators report. After adjustment for body mass index and smoking, the odds ratio for AD in women who had used estrogen for at least 1 year was 1.18 compared with nonusers. When the authors combined past ERT users with current users, the odds ratio compared with nonusers 1.19. For those who used estrogen for at least 5 years, the odds ratio was 1.05. “Odds ratios were similar for estrogen recipients who received estrogens alone and recipients who received combined estrogen-progestin treatment,” Dr. Drachman and colleagues note.
by James Bogash
Alzheimer’s Disease Linked to Proteins Associated With Aging
We have mentioned numerous times the link between inflammation and AD. This study provides further evidence that inflammation plays a key role in development of this disease. Aluminum has been implicated via its displacement of zinc in anti-inflammatory enzymes that protect the delicate brain tissue. Wheat allergy has been implicated via the systemic upregulation of the immune system leading to damage in the brain. As more evidence arises, we will hopefully begin to view AD as a disease of lifestyle that can be modified just like any other.
Trends in Neurosciences Alzheimer’s disease may be caused by inflammatory processes associated with aging, not by plaque-like deposits in the brain, researchers say. Scientists from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said their findings, published this week in the journal Trends in Neurosciences, still lay the blame for Alzheimer’s disease on amyloid beta, but trace the basic cause of the disease to the formation of toxic proteins rather than the build-up of plaque and tangles. “We were able to identify in laboratory test tubes a new kind of toxic activity that is implicated as a root cause of Alzheimer’s,” Dr. Caleb Finch, director of the Neurogerontology Division at the USC Andrus Center’s Gerontology Research Institute. The researchers discovered a novel form of wadded-up amyloid called “amyloid b-derived diffusible ligands” — ADDLs or “addles” for short — that form in the presence of certain inflammatory proteins in the brain.
by James Bogash
Sounds like an ad for the latest and greatest “improve your memory” supplement found on Dr. Oz to boost your brain power.
Luckily, the answer has no purchase required and lies in the title. Yep…read this.
The brain, like our muscles, is a use-it-or-lose-it organ. You need to challenge it every single day and push the limits of your learning every day. That means reading my blog articles (ok, so maybe that’s self-serving, but it IS true…) every day.
Better yet, it means challenging what you know or challenging what someone else knows that you think is wrong based on your knowledge and experience (that’s a hint to leave a comment at the end of this blog article debating on whether lifelong learning protects the brain).
Cognitive thought increases blood flow to the brain. Blood flow to the brain brings nutrients. Nutrients allow your brain to function at full capacity. It is already well accepted that higher education levels lower the risk of developing Alzheimer’s dementia, so this fits.
All this brings us to this particular article. And I hope you’re strapped in cause this is about to get interesting. Researchers followed a group of older adults over the course of some 6 years with annual cognitive testing. At the end of the study, 294 participants had died and had his or her brain looked at under a microscope (surprisingly, no one volunteered earlier) for signs of age related damage to the brain. This included:
Here’s where it gets interesting. They then compared the participant’s self-reported late life (as in during the course of the study) and early life engagement in cognitive stimulating activities. Here’s what they found:
Interestingly, the damage found in the brain and the cognitive reserve were independent of one another. I’ve got some ideas on this…
It may be possible that childhood cognitive activity increases the overall capacity of the brain to learn and grow, and this protection is lifelong. Then, later in life, this same type of activity will help the remaining cells that aren’t damaged function optimally. So basically, build it while you’re young and protect it when you’re older and damn the college years.
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