Download Read Article - The Alchemical Courtyard

JUNE ‘10
ISSUE #21
Health Corner:
Healthy diet could slow or reverse early effects of
Alzheimer’s disease
“At the end of the study, when we looked at
these mice, what we found — very surprisingly
— was that switching to a more healthy
diet reversed the cognitive impairment that
had built up over the first three months of
eating the methionine-rich diet,” said Praticò.
“This improvement was associated with
less amyloid plaques — another sign of the
disease — in their brains.
Pratico said that the cognitive impairment that
had been observed in the mice after three
months was completely reversed after two
months on the healthier diet, and they were
now able to function normally.
Today, Alzheimer’s disease is the most
common form of dementia, accounting for 50
percent to 70 percent of all dementia cases,
and is on the rise. In many ways, the rise of
Alzheimer’s in the aging population is very
similar to the rise of autism in children. The
latest 2009 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and
Figures report estimates that by 2030 nearly 8
million Americans will have Alzheimer’s.
Patients in the early to moderate stages
of Alzheimer’s Disease could have their
cognitive impairment slowed or even reversed
by switching to a healthier diet, according to
researchers at Temple University.
Researchers asked asked the question, “if you
had made bad choices in your diet, is there a
chance you can slow down or even reverse
the disease or is it too late — that there is
nothing you could do,”?
“We believe this finding shows that, even if
you suffer from the early effects of MCI or
Alzheimer’s, switching to a healthier diet could
be helpful in that memory capacity could be
improved,” he said.
Pratico stressed that this was not a drug
therapy for curing MCI or Alzheimer’s, but that
it did demonstrate that a lifestyle change such
as diet can improve some of the impairments
that have already occurred in the brain.
“What it tells us is that the brain has this
plasticity to reverse a lot of the bad things that
have occurred; the ability to recoup a lot of
things such as memory that were apparently
lost, but obviously not totally lost,” he said.
Pratico also emphasized that the researchers
believe that in addition to switching to a
healthy diet, patients diagnosed with MCI or
Alzheimer’s also need a regiment of physical
as well as mental exercises.
“This combination won’t cure you, but we
believe, as we saw in this study, that it will be
1
JUNE ‘10
ISSUE #21
Health Corner:
Healthy diet could slow or reverse early effects of Alzheimer’s disease
able to slow down or even possibly reverse the
effects on the cognitive impairment,” he said.
Maintaining A Healthy Mind - Nutrition Overview
1. Eat a nutritious diet with plenty of
organic raw fresh vegetables
2. Eat plenty of high-quality omega-3 fats.
Fifty percent of your brain is an omega-3 fat
called DHA.
3. Avoid toxins, especially mercury,
aluminum and fluoride. Dental amalgam
fillings are one of the major sources of
mercury, however you should be healthy
prior to having them removed )use a highquality biologically trained dentist who
is familiar with the removal of amalgam
fillings) Aluminum is found in items such as
antiperspirants and aluminum cookware,
which should also be avoided.
4. Keep your fasting insulin levels below
three. There is no question that insulin
resistance is one of the most pervasive
influences on brain damage, as it
contributes massively to inflammation,
which will prematurely degenerate the brain.
5. Eliminate all processed foods and
sugars, particularly fructose. This
includes refraining from eating too many
fruits, if you normally eat a lot of them. If
you consume more than 25 grams a day
of fructose you can damage your cells by
creating insulin and leptin resistance and
raising your uric acid levels.
Berries tend to be lower in fructose, and
wild blueberries, for example, are high
in anthocyanin and antioxidants, and are
well-known for being beneficial against
Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.
6. Challenge your mind daily. Mental
stimulation, such as traveling, learning
to play an instrument or doing crossword
puzzles, is associated with a decreased risk
of Alzheimer’s. Researchers suspect
How Does Exercise Protect Your Brain?
Although the mind-body research into the
benefits of exercise against dementia may still
be in its infancy, there is compelling evidence
that regular exercise promotes essential cell
and tissue repair mechanisms, including
growth of new brain cells.
Previous research has also shown that
a regular exercise program can slow the
development of Alzheimer’s disease by altering
the way damaging proteins reside in your
brain.
Decreasing your risk of heart and blood vessel
diseases that can impact brain function
In essence, exercise encourages your brain
to work at optimum capacity by causing your
nerve cells to multiply, strengthening their
interconnections and protecting them from damage
Focusing on your breath and mindfulness
along with increasing your flexibility is an
important element of total fitness.
Physical exercise may also protect against
mild cognitive impairment by:
• Promoting production of nerve-protecting compounds
• Increasing blood flow to your brain
• Improving development and survival of neurons
So when you’re planning your exercise routine,
2
JUNE ‘10
ISSUE #21
Health Corner:
Healthy diet could slow or reverse early effects of Alzheimer’s disease
make sure to incorporate the following types of
exercise:
Aerobic: Jogging, using an elliptical machine,
and walking fast are all examples of aerobic
exercise. As you get your heart pumping, the
amount of oxygen in your blood improves, and
endorphins, which act as natural painkillers,
increase. Aerobic exercise also activates your
immune system, helps your heart pump blood
more efficiently, and increases your stamina
over time.
Interval (Anaerobic) Training: This is also
known as sprint cardio. Research shows that
the BEST way to condition your heart and burn
fat is NOT to jog or walk steadily for an hour.
Instead, it’s to alternate short bursts of highintensity exercise with gentle recovery periods.
This type of exercise, also known as interval
training, or burst type training, can dramatically
improve your cardiovascular fitness and fatburning capabilities.
Another major benefit of this approach is that
it radically decreases the amount of time you
spend exercising, while giving you even more
benefits. For example, intermittent sprinting
produces high levels of chemical compounds
called catecholamines, which allow more fat
to be burned from under your skin within the
exercising muscles.
The resulting increase in fat oxidation
increases weight loss. So, short bursts of
activity done at a very high intensity can help
you reach your optimal weight and level of
fitness, in a shorter amount of time
1. Strength Training: Rounding out your
exercise program with a 1-set strength
training routine will ensure that you’re really
optimizing the possible health benefits of a
regular exercise program.
You need enough repetitions to exhaust
your muscles. The weight should be heavy
enough that this can be done in fewer
than 12 repetitions, yet light enough to do
a minimum of four repetitions. It is also
important NOT to exercise the same muscle
groups every day. They need at least two
days of rest to recover, repair and rebuild.
2. Core Exercises: Your body has 29
core muscles located mostly in your
back, abdomen and pelvis. This group
of muscles provides the foundation for
movement throughout your entire body, and
strengthening them can help protect and
3
JUNE ‘10
ISSUE #21
Health Corner:
Healthy diet could slow or reverse early effects of Alzheimer’s disease
support your back, make your spine and
body less prone to injury and help you gain
greater balance and stability.
Exercise programs like pilates and yoga are
great for strengthening your core muscles,
as are specific exercises you can learn
from a personal trainer.
3. Stretching: There are many types of gentle
stretches including yoga to warm up your
muscles and increase circulation and agility.
Start taking action to preserve your brain
function now by implementing the strategies
detailed in the guide below.
These strategies can also radically reduce
your risk of all sorts of chronic diseases, so
know that if you make the effort to enact these
changes you will reap multiple health- and
emotional benefits -- even as you get older.
Additional Research:
A Protective Diet and Alzheimer Disease Risk
Yian Gu, PhD; Jeri W. Nieves, PhD; Yaakov
Stern, PhD; Jose A. Luchsinger, MD, MPH;
Nikolaos Scarmeas, MD, MS
Arch Neurol. 2010;67(6):699-706. Published
online April 12, 2010 (doi:10.1001/
archneurol.2010.84).
Objective To assess the association between
food combination and Alzheimer disease
(AD) risk. Because foods are not consumed
in isolation, dietary pattern (DP) analysis of
food combination, taking into account the
interactions among food components, may
offer methodological advantages.
Patients or Other Participants Two
thousand one hundred forty-eight communitybased elderly subjects (aged 65 years)
without dementia in New York provided
dietary information and were prospectively
evaluated with the same standardized
neurological and neuropsychological
measures approximately every 1.5 years.
Using reduced rank regression, we calculated
DPs based on their ability to explain
variation in 7 potentially AD-related nutrients:
saturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty
acids, -3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, -6
polyunsaturated fatty acids, vitamin E, vitamin
B12, and folate. The associations of reduced
rank regression–derived DPs with AD risk
were then examined using a Cox proportional
hazards model.
Two hundred fifty-three subjects developed AD
during a follow-up of 3.9 years. We identified
a DP strongly associated with lower AD risk:
compared with subjects in the lowest tertile of
adherence to this pattern, the AD hazard ratio
(95% confidence interval) for subjects in the
highest DP tertile was 0.62 (0.43-0.89) after
multivariable adjustment (P for trend = .01).
This DP was characterized by higher intakes
of salad dressing, nuts, fish, tomatoes, poultry,
cruciferous vegetables, fruits, and dark and
green leafy vegetables and a lower intake of
high-fat dairy products, red meat, organ meat,
and butter.
Conclusion Simultaneous consideration of
previous knowledge regarding potentially ADrelated nutrients and multiple food groups can
aid in identifying food combinations that are
associated with AD risk.
4