Important Brain Nutrient Info from M.D.

Today I received an email with reminding about a several important  nutrients for the brain. The email was from Dr. Al Sears M.D.. Dr Sears marches to his own beat and is often cutting edge in his advice especially in the matter of nutrition for optimum health. Brain nutrition is of course the area of his advise that most interest peolple who read this blog. I believe that it is never too late to start treating the brain optimally in a nutritional sense. Here is Dr Sears email to me and others:

Do you find yourself forgetting where you left your car keys… or just feel like your brain is in a fog sometimes?

Contrary to popular belief, forgetfulness is not just a normal part of growing older. As you age, your brain loses critical nutrients that it needs to fire on all cylinders.

If your mental spark plugs aren’t firing like they used to, don’t worry. I’ll show you how to get your brain’s engine back to running as smooth as a Rolls Royce. You just need to know what’s missing and how to get it.

Your brain uses chemicals called neurotransmitters to transmit messages in the brain. There are millions of these messages happening every second. Neurotransmitters are conductors of these messages, allowing them to fire from one part of your brain to another.

One important neurotransmitter is acetylcholine (ACh). Your body uses ACh to help regulate your heart, breathing, and sleep. Your body even uses it to control your muscles and keep you fired up for the bedroom.

Here’s the thing… your brain needs you to supply certain nutrients to make neurotransmitters.

But there’s a key nutrient it uses to make ACh that is probably missing from your diet. It’s called choline, and if you don’t get enough, you’re headed for trouble.

Choline is a necessary nutrient for overall brain health and functioning and it is important to avoid nutritional deficiencies to keep your brain sharp and healthy.

When you don’t give the body enough choline, the brain is forced to get it from other parts of your brain. It starts eating itself alive to get what it needs for vital functions like heart and lung regulation.

I’ll show you ways to get the choline your brain needs in a second, but first let me introduce you to choline’s partner – DMAE.

DMAE (Dimethylaminoethanol) works with choline to create ACh. In fact, it does such a good job, the FDA almost approved it as a drug. The only reason it didn’t happen is that the manufacturer didn’t want to pay the expenses to get it classified as one.

But it is the main ingredient in a commonly prescribed drug in Europe. Called Centrophenoxine, it has been shown to boost cognitive functions.2

Proper doses of DMAE are a safe and side-effect-free solution to support brain health and reduce age-related mental decline and mood/behavioral problems.3

To get the nutrition your brain needs to stay sharp and clear, you may need to combine food and supplementation. Here’s how to get your ACh cranking:

Choline – You need at least 425 mg a day as a woman, 550 mg if you’re a man. The richest food sources of choline are (in mg per 100 g of food):

Whole cooked eggs – 272. Make sure you get free-range eggs without antibiotics or hormones. They’ll help fuel your muscles as well as give you much-needed choline.

Raw egg yolks – 682. Go ahead and crack open a couple eggs into your protein shake. It’s only an urban legend that there’s danger in eating them raw.

Chicken liver – 290. Though some people get turned off by organ meats, they’re a potent source of high-powered nutrition. And it’s an old wives tale that they store toxins – they don’t.

Turkey liver – 220. Another great source of nutrition. Just like any liver, it also provides vitamin A, CoQ10 and iron.

Pork – 130. Just like beef, you want to eat organic, grass-fed animals only for the proper balance of fats and zero hormones and antibiotics.

If you’re older, you may need more – as much as 1500 mg a day. That may require supplementation. If you take a supplement, be sure it’s in the form of choline citrate. To try my brain-boosting formula that combines choline and DMAE, go here now.

DMAE – You need at least 35 mg of DMAE a day. Fish is a good food source, especially sardines and anchovies.

So stop starving your brain of these critical nutrients. They’re easy to replace and will help to promote a healthy mind into your golden years.

To you best health,

Dr Al Sears

This is good stuff from this thoughtful medical doctor and we thank him for his continuing work in the field of nutrition and our health especially nutrition for the brain.

Increased Deaths with the Use of Alzheimer’s Drugs

I share with you today an email sent to me by William O. Douglass M.D. his concern is the alrming statistics related to the common use of big pharma alzheimer’s drugs. I offer this without comment as I believe Dr Douglass says it all with the help of study statistics:

Dear Friend,

Let me bring you up to speed on the use of anti-psychotic drugs used to treat dementia patients.

First of all, a 2006 study showed that Alzheimer’s patients who took these drugs had no significant improvement over placebos. We also know that these drugs can cause some serious side effects in Alzheimer’s patients, such as an increased risk of stroke and respiratory issues. And another study linked the use of "atypical" antipsychotic drugs to an increased risk of sudden cardiac death – even in younger patients.

Now a study shows that the anti-psychotic drugs that are commonly prescribed to treat Alzheimer’s could actually double a patient’s risk of dying within a few years. The lead author of this study, Clive Ballard of the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases at King’s College London, says that risk of death likely outweighs the benefit of these drugs.

Well, no kidding! I have yet to see anything good come from loading these helpless elderly people up on anti-psychotic drugs that were never even intended to be used in this way.

Ballard’s study tracked 165 Alzheimer’s patients aged 67 to 100. Half continued on their course of anti-psychotics, while the other half were took placebos.

At the end of two years, 71 percent of the placebo group were still alive – but only 46 percent of the group on anti-psychotics survived.

After three years, just 30 percent of those taking the anti-psychotics were alive, while 59 percent of the placebo group were still going strong.

Yet in spite of the increasing evidence of the dangers of these anti-psychotic drugs such as Risperdal, Thorazine, and Stelazine (as well as other derivatives like risperidone, quetiapine, and olanzapine), they racked up a staggering $14.5 billion in international sales in 2007. These are three of the top 10 best-selling drugs on the planet.

These drugs were never meant to be used long-term, yet as many as 60 percent of nursing home residents with dementia are placed on anti-psychotic regimens that last as long as two years.

William Thies of the Alzheimer’s Association said that "at some points, some people will be better off with no medication." I doubt that’s something that the Big Pharma companies that paid for this study will want to hear.

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
 

Cognitive Decline In Your Future

Are symptoms of Alzheimers in your future asks today’s guest article writer:

Do you sometimes wonder if symptoms of dementia are in your future? You need to make some deposits in your brain reserve account.

In my former life as a banker one of my favorite quips was, ‘Money isn’t everything, but it’s way ahead of whatever is in second place.’

It’s nice to have money but you can’t buy health with money, as so many have discovered during their golden years. Good health has to be earned by making smart lifestyle choices. This of course is a lot easier said than done. For most of us this requires discipline and the moving of exercise nearer to the top of our To Do list.

The dividends accrued from these efforts are far greater and more lasting than the gains from financial investments, especially in the world we live in today.

They include dramatically better health and increased energy to live a vital, high quality independent life for a long, long time.

When it comes to heart health I have greater experience than most. It isn’t everyone who has enjoyed having their chest sawed open by a heart surgeon to stitch in bypasses to six of their favorite heart arteries.

I’ve known for a long time that physical and mental exercise are good for both my heart and brain, but it wasn’t until recently that I learned that my lifestyle changes have been making regular deposits into a brain reserve account.

It used to be thought that after age 20, brain cells (neurons) began to die and were never replaced. Declining function was inevitable.

Thankfully, this fallacy has since been proven wrong. Today’s researchers have proven that our brains can grow and evolve as long as we live.

Brain cells are ready and waiting to adapt to new challenges. You have the ability to keep symptoms of dementia at bay. Mental and physical exercise stimulates growth of new neurons and neuronal pathways and increases connectivity between neurons and between brain regions.

This growth and adaptation is known as cognitive reserve or brain reserve. It works somewhat like a money market account, storing up short and long-term brain functionality by increasing the efficiency of connections between neurons. And the dividends include a more powerful and quicker brain.

David Snowden eloquently described this in the 2003 landmark Nun Study. In this study, autopsies of the brains of nuns who lived well into their nineties or older were examined.

Snowden discovered that many of the nuns showed significant changes in brain structures and brain pathology usually associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

But in spite of the damage to their brain, they did not show any of the usual symptoms of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Snowden concluded that continued mental exercising encouraged the development of new pathways that bypassed the diseased portions of the brain and preserved mental functioning into old age.

This is great news. My brain needs all the help it can get.

By: Gene Millen

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Do you sometimes wonder if Alzheimer’s is in your future? Are there times when your "forgetter" outwits your memory? This site explores the latest research about brain fitness and shows you how to revitalize your memory, create new brain cells and keep Alzheimers at bay. www.BrainBeQuick.com