Showing posts with label Brain cells. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brain cells. Show all posts

Monday, January 3, 2022

Alzheimer's: Why is the Brain Deteriorating?

 

Alzheimer's: Why is the Brain Deteriorating?

Ronald Grisanti D.C., D.A.B.C.O., D.A.C.B.N., M.S.,CFMP
Printer-Friendly Format

After considerable research it is interesting to bring you up to speed on documented evidence of things which answer the question. "Why is the human brain deteriorating faster than the rest of the body?”

There are a multitude of factors and today's article will touch on a few and also provide some solutions.

For starters I find it disturbing and somewhat criminal that a common blood pressure medication called calcium channel blockers has been proven radiologically on MRI to cause brain shrinking. Research has shown that these drugs cause deterioration of the I.Q. within 5 years' use.

Another medication used to lower cholesterol called Lipitor causes a decline in brain function. It is important to know that statin cholesterol-lowering drugs like Lipitor poison the liver's synthesis of cholesterol. This in turn will starve the brain of cholesterol needed to repair the brain, renew worn out membranes, and stave off Alzheimer's.

In fact, an excellent book, “Lipitor Thief of Memory” written by the respected medical doctor, former astronaut, aerospace medical research scientist, flight surgeon, and family doctor, Dr. Duane Graveline, shares his rapid mental decline after taking the drug Lipitor. Worth reading.

Even with all this hard evidence can you believe the pharmaceutical industry has created a potent drug which combines both the calcium channel blocker and a statin called Atorvastatin/Amlodipine (Caduet). Talk about a double punch to optimal brain function!

Moving on to another documented contributor of Alzheimer's, we can't forget the unavoidable heavy metals. We all have them in us and they poison brain repair enzymes, leading to Alzheimer's.

For example, there is no one who doesn't have aluminum in them, from eating out, aluminum cookware, aluminum flocculation agents in municipal drinking waters, aluminum in baking powders used in breads, processed and restaurant foods cooked in aluminum vats, industrial and vehicular exhausts, deodorants, antacids, and many other sources.

Aluminum causes the nerves in the brain to actually get tangled up (neurofibrillary tangles) as well as make a glue-like substance (called amyloid) to gum up the normal workings of the delicate brain electricity..

Now to provide some nutritional answers to reduce amyloid production we need to look no further than Phosphatidylserine (PS). This nutritional powerhouse has shown to perk up memory, and stave off Alzheimer's.  One interested case showed PS in 3 months return the memory back to where it was 12 years earlier.

Most recently there has been evidence how DHA is an amyloid eater.

Well here is something even easier: green tea. Real organic green tea has over 3 catechins or polyphenols. They have been found to be potent preventers of amyloid deposition in the brain. Sencha Premium Organic Green Tea is by far the best I have found.

This short article is simply a glimpse of the research you won't see promoted on CNN or Fox News. Of course this is sad. There is another side of the clinical management of many diseases that the public will rarely if ever be shown unless you are a reader of my weekly health reports or other alternative or functionally oriented heath professional reports or journals.

The take away from today's article is to “NOT” be your own doctor but seek out the assistance and help from someone trained and skilled in functional medicine who can properly evaluate you and outline a personalized program to help you get well.  

(The information on this website/(in this blog) is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Grisanti and his functional medicine community. Dr. Grisanti encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. Visit www.FunctionalMedicineUniversity.com for more information on our training in functional medicine.)

Friday, April 2, 2021

Brain Aging and Magnesium L-Threonate

 

 

Magnesium L-Threonate and Brain Aging

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers discovered and patented magnesium L-threonate based on its unique ability to boost brain levels of magnesium. Rapid absorption and the ability to enter the brain enables this magnesium to structurally reverse certain aspects of brain aging.(1-4) 

A 2016 human study published in the J Alzheimers Dis. 2016;49(4):971-90, demonstrated the benefits of magnesium L-threonate in adults with cognitive dysfunction, sleep disorders, and anxiety.(1)

The most startling finding is a reversal of more than nine years in clinical measures of brain aging in people who supplemented with magnesium L-threonate. 

Magnesium L-threonate is special because of the way it boosts brain magnesium levels when taken orally. This effect is due to its unique ability to cross the blood-brain barrier.(2)

Research has shown that once magnesium L-threonate gets into the brain, it increases the density of synapses, which are the communication connections between brain cells.(1) This is critical because loss of synaptic density is associated with brain shrinkage and cognitive decline.(5,6)

Published Human Data:

Scientists at three independent institutions carried out a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of magnesium L-threonate in older adults with cognitive impairment.(1)

To participate in the study, candidates had to be between the ages of 50 and 70, and have self-reported complaints of memory problems, sleep disorders, and anxiety.(1) This study was based on the premise that sleep and anxiety disorders correlate with perceived memory loss.(7) Those who report mild cognitive impairment and who also have sleep and anxiety disorders are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s.(1,8-11)

In this multi-center study, participants were randomly assigned to receive placebo or magnesium L-threonate in the dose of 1,500-2,000 mg. each day (depending on body weight) for 12 weeks. Baseline cognitive testing commenced before people started taking magnesium L-threonate or placebo. These cognitive tests were then repeated at six-week and 12-week points.(1)

The following four separate tests were used to evaluate cognitive function:

  • Executive function

  • Working memory

  • Attention

  • Episodic memory (ability to recall fleeting events)


Findings from this study revealed:

  1. Magnesium L-threonate improved body magnesium status. After 12 weeks researchers found significant increases in red blood-cell concentration and in urinary excretion of magnesium in the treated group.(1) Increased urinary excretion indicates that large amounts of magnesium have been absorbed, while increased levels in red blood cells show high circulating levels of magnesium in the body.

  2. Magnesium L-threonate improved cognitive abilities. Using a test of visual attention and task switching, researchers saw significant increases in performance speed for executive function and cognitive processing. These benefits appeared as early as week six on some of the tests.(1) Most tellingly, the overall composite scores for all tests of the magnesium L-threonate-supplemented group increased significantly compared with baseline scores and with those of placebo recipients at weeks six and 12.

  3. Magnesium L-threonate reduced fluctuation in cognitive ability. When cognitive functions are worse on some days than others, it is a warning sign of developing mild cognitive impairment.(12,13) In the present study, while placebo recipients showed considerable fluctuation in their cognitive scores, those in the magnesium L-threonate group had primarily positive changes.(1)

  4. Magnesium L-threonate reversed clinical measures of brain aging. This is a significant finding, which which is explained in more detail in the next section.


Understanding Your Brain Age

Brains do not functionally age at the same rate as whole-body chronological age. For example, a 60-year-old person can have a brain age of 70, meaning they are functioning at an “older” level.(1)

This variance of brain aging is based on measurable performance and physiological parameters.(14-17) In the magnesium L-threonate study, the average chronological age of all subjects in the study was 57.8 years. Their average baseline “functional” brain age, however, was estimated to be 68.3 years. In other words, the study subjects were about 10 years older in terms of their cognitive function.(1)

What the researchers found next was remarkable.

The average functional brain age of subjects receiving magnesium L-threonate supplements decreased from an older 69.6 years at the start of the study, to 60.6 after just six weeks of treatment. That’s a nine-year reduction in brain age in a matter of weeks.(1) This improvement continued until week 12 with total reduction in brain age of 9.4 years. By the end of the study, cognitive abilities were brought almost back to normal for their younger chronological age in subjects who took magnesium L-threonate.

In other words, magnesium L-threonate treatment was found to reverse these measured aspects of brain aging until it was nearly identical to their cognitively healthy peers.(1)

Overall, the results of this clinical trial are potentially game-changing for the aging population. The study found that magnesium L-threonate significantly improved cognitive performance on several standardized tests, while reducing the fluctuations in performance that are a warning of developing cognitive impairment in the future. It also showed a reversal of the brain age of magnesium L-threonate-supplemented subjects by nearly a decade.

How Magnesium L-Threonate Regenerates Aging Brains

The study detailed above shows that magnesium L-threonate improved cognitive function in aging adults, and helped “rejuvenate” their brains towards normal function for their age. The key takeaway of this study is that achieving higher brain levels of magnesium results in a younger brain.