There are now several replicated studies from prestigious labs around the world showing that brain tissue in children under 10 years of age, in cities with high levels of pollution, are exhibiting early Alzheimer’s and Parkinsonian-like changes. These altered brain tissues show signs of unhealthy inflammation, misshapen proteins, and are looking more like the old brains of cognitively declined seniors than of kids.
Our brain is at the top of our physiological pyramid. Yet, we often don’t think about it unless we have issues with it.
Our brains can have one of two problems:
“Out loud” issues. This means our problems are so life-debilitating that we can’t help but notice them. Examples of these problems are headaches, migraines, severe brain fog where you can’t focus or finish tasks, memory decline, cognitive issues in kids like ADHD, impulsivity control, or even more serious issues like stroke or seizures.
“Silent” issues. This means that we are experiencing problems with our brain tissues but we aren’t aware of it yet. For example, our brain tissues can become inflamed, its proteins can get misfolded, or our brain shape can shrink and alter. A healthy brain, just like your waistline, has a healthy shape. Brain functions best with optimal shape. As shape changes, your brain function, personality and experience inside your own body suit changes.
You can also have silent issues with the protective membrane that surrounds your precious brain. A healthy brain, ideally, is protected and surrounded by a healthy semipermeable membrane barrier, called the blood brain barrier (BBB). The BBB lets “good” stuff in and keeps “bad” stuff out. Examples of good compounds that get “into” your brain are healthy levels of glucose, protein building-blocks called amino acids, and a variety of supportive vitamins, minerals and other nutrients.
The BBB is also supposed to keep out nasty stuff that can be toxic to the brain such as dangerous pollutants, unhealthy bacteria that comes from an unhealthy gut and gets into the blood stream, and other neurotoxic substances like heavy metals (lead or cadmium, for example).
Unfortunately, just like you can have a leaky gut, you can also have a leaky BBB. When this occurs, brain tissues get overwhelmed with toxic material. This can happen without you realizing it. It can even happen in children.
There are now several replicated studies from prestigious labs around the world showing that brain tissue in children under 10 years of age, in cities with high levels of pollution, are exhibiting early Alzheimer’s and Parkinsonian-like changes. These altered brain tissues show signs of unhealthy inflammation, misshapen proteins, and are looking more like the old brains of cognitively declined seniors than of kids.
11 Early Warning Signs that suggest your brain is at risk of being inflamed, misshapen or leaky:
- You feel overwhelmed and anxious a lot.
- You have difficulty controlling your emotions, especially anger.
- You have a difficult time learning, even with repetition.
- You repeat words, sentences and concepts as if you had not said them before.
- Blood sugar levels are in the high normal range and you consume a lot of sugary foods and carbohydrates (excess blood sugar reduces circulation to the brain).
- You are at least 20 pounds overweight and have extra fat on your belly (the bigger your waistline, the smaller your brain and hippocampal volume).
- You have a pronounced loss of sense of smell in one nostril versus the other nostril.
- You consume hydrogenated fats several times per week.
- You have elevated homocysteine levels. Above 10 µmol/l, you will start to experience brain stress. B vitamins like vitamin B6, folate and B12 help normalize homocysteine levels. A smart nutritionist has even more ways to keep those levels healthier.
- You feel isolated often, do not have a supportive community who “sees” you and “shares” with you.
- You do not make satisfying love at least 3 to 4 times a week.
How to Reverse Brain Aging
Take Care of Your Hormones
Sex steroid hormones rule your brain health. There are proteins in the brain that are in the shape of satellite dishes that receive hormone signals. These receptors are robust throughout the brain and especially throughout the hippocampus.
When hormones are balanced and robust, the brain has healthy neuroplasticity and functions optimally. When hormones are out of balance or if receptors are blocked by toxic pollutants, these signals go silent or rogue. As a result, brain neuroplasticity gets rigid and functions less well. You feel overwhelmed, fatigued beyond belief, isolated, and older than your years.
What can you do? Make love a lot or at least hang out with besties, as these activities release hormones and chemicals that are extremely brain protective. In addition, consume B vitamins and healthy fats such as omega-3 fatty acids. And healthy minerals.
Consider Supplementing with Zinc
Zinc is concentrated in the brain more than in any other body tissue and helps hormones deliver their signals to your brain.
There are robust levels of zinc in the hippocampus to help deliver signals to keep this precious piece of biological real estate healthy. Why? The hippocampus is the physical analogy of our soul. It’s where we live. The hippocampus is the epicenter of the 3 M’s: motivation, memory and sense of “me-ness”.
Inside the hippocampus, zinc lives inside synaptic vesicles, boutons, and mossy fibers to allow nerve signals to keep your brain humming along. Zinc is also found in large concentrations in the choroid layer of the retina, an extension of the brain. This means that zinc helps you see.
Lack of zinc has been shown to cause brain unwellness. A deficiency in the diet of pregnant moms, or lactating moms, has been linked to many congenital abnormalities of the nervous system in children born to these moms.
In children, insufficient levels of zinc have been associated with lowered learning ability, apathy, lethargy, difficulty in thinking, and even mental retardation. Hyperactive children may be deficient in zinc and vitamin B-6 and have an excess of metals like lead and copper that block healthy zinc action.
Take extra zinc but not just from a multi-mineral product. Zinc and copper need to be taken in proper ratio to each other or they can cancel each other out. There is a bit of debate about the ideal ratio but the prevailing nutritional thought is about 10 to 15 times as much zinc to copper. I like to order intracellular levels of these minerals and unravel individual needs for exact amounts of each mineral.
Ditch the Alcohol
Drinking excess alcohol rinses zinc, B vitamins and healthy fats out of the brain. There was a recent study that showed that 4 to 6 robust drinks a week, over time, shrinks hippocampal brain tissue in both genders.
It doesn’t take a lot of alcohol to go over a moderate amount and end up becoming a toxic amount. Aim to drink under 5 drinks per week. Of course, none is best.
Because of TV commercials making imbibing alcohol seem part of a regular successful social life, alcohol has become like drinking water, especially for our young adults who are greatly influenced by these ads. Add this to more sugar, fatter waistlines and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and it’s easy to see how American brain owners must act to protect themselves.
Be Mindful of Chemicals
Chemical exposure also ages your brain as well as your second brain, your gut. Roundup may get rid of your weeds, but it’s not good for your brain or your kids’ brain. And if you spray it on your lawn and sidewalk it gets tracked into your home by the paws of pets and the shoes of people, it can get into your kids’ bodies and brain when they play on the floor.
The same with many bug killers, even those advertised as natural. For example, many bug companies claim that pyrethroids are a natural form of chrysanthemums and safe for your home. But these are still chemicals. They accumulate in dust in our home and in the nervous system of your kids. They have been linked with many nasty behavioral and attentional issues, like anger control issues, in kids.
This literature has been published since 2007 in prestigious government environmental journals, and replicated, but still these are sold.
Go chemical-free as much as possible. Organic is worth it, especially for your brain and the brain tissue of those you cherish.
Take Magnesium
Magnesium is necessary at the C-binding domain for hormones to deliver their signals to critical brain tissue. Magnesium threonate is one of the magnesium forms that very easily gains entry across the BBB.
Magnesium is so anti-inflammatory, if it’s taken by a pregnant mom who has, herself, inflammatory issues or consumes an inflammatory diet, it still protects the developing baby in her womb from inheriting the same issues.
Magnesium is also an anti-anxiety agent. Magnesium protects a developing brain in the womb, or the developing brain of an infant against anxiety issues as they mature.
However, keep in mind that is not easy to ‘hold’ magnesium inside cells, especially brain cells. This sounds silly but it isn’t. God had a glitch in designing the human body; magnesium is easy to lose in sweat, urine and stools and not easy to hold deep inside red blood cells where it does its magic. True magnesium levels inside red blood cells are not picked up by basic magnesium blood tests run with most yearly physicals.
Therefore, it’s always smart to take some regular amount of magnesium threonate, along with other nutrients, to keep your brain bright.
Exercise
Exercise with high-interval bursts to increase circulation to the brain (push yourself in a sane, safe manner to get out of breath, red in the face, and fluffed up in your brain). Any exercise is better than none. But ideally, in my opinion, it’s good to get yourself breathing deeply daily, with a bit of pushing to maintain fitness and a bit of stretching to keep you from getting rigid.
Get Homocysteine Levels Between 6 and 9
Homocysteine is an amino acid that breaks down products of protein metabolism. However, elevated levels of homocysteine can occur in the bloodstream. Such elevated levels have been linked with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Aim to keep your levels between a 6 and a 9. Homocysteine levels can be measured on any simple blood tests and you can now order labs online without a doctor’s order.
B vitamins like vitamin B6, folate and B12 help normalize homocysteine levels. A smart nutritionist has even more ways to keep those levels healthier.
Avoid Processed Foods as Much as Possible
Eat healthy, nutrient-dense foods with at least 5 to 6 diverse colorful veggies daily. Processed foods contain chemicals and toxins that have harmful effects on the brain.
Lower Blood Sugar Levels
Make it a point to lower blood sugar levels down into the 80’s mg/dL. This is more difficult as we age, and many doctors say that levels in the 90’s are fine. But studies are showing that high normal blood sugar levels are not good for our brain circulation.
Get a home glucometer and measure your blood sugar on your own. Your annual physical and fasting glucose will not keep you protected from diabetes and nasty brain changes even if your provider thinks so.
Consider DHA
Take robust dosages of DHA fish oil along with EPA. Be sure to read the labels as some products have “other” non-therapeutic oils in them and lower levels of DHA than the label suggests.
Very few companies strive to have very healthy fats free of dangerous oxidative compounds. Only buy very reputable lines. Lines from doctors or very reputable companies must have quality control measures in place and are the best way to go when purchasing fish oils.
If you’re concerned about your aging brain, or the brains of your loved ones, I’d love for you to schedule a consultation with me to see how I can improve your wellness plan. You can do so here.
If you’re a practitioner or health coach interested in working 1-on-1 with me, I do offer a 4-week mentoring program that includes phone, Skype or in-person sessions as well as email access.
You can ask me any questions concerning the health of your patients, review patient charts, and learn clinical pearls that only 40 years of practice, best-selling authorship and teaching relicensing courses can teach you.
When you sign up, you get 4 1-hour sessions via phone, at your convenience, and up to 5 emails with 10 questions on any health topic. Learn more here.
If you’re a practitioner or wellness professional, consider checking out my online hormone course, Sexy Brain™. This is a course that can be completed at your leisure that will teach you all about hormones and their effects on your brain, your gut health and your intimacy levels. Learn more here.
You can email me with any questions or comments to [email protected]. I love to hear from you!
References
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Proc Nutr Soc. 2017 Jul 19:1-3. The interaction between nutrition and exercise for promoting health and performance.
BioMed Research International Volume 2013 Early Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease Pathology in Urban Children: Friend versus Foe Responses—It Is Time to Face the Evidence
Sci Rep. 2017 May 12;7(1):1817. Oral administration of trace element magnesium significantly improving the cognition and locomotion in hepatic encephalopathy rats.
Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2017 Jul 17. Reduced brain volume and impaired memory in betaine homocysteine S-methyltransferase knockout mice.
Adv Nutr. 2017 Jul 14;8(4):546-557. Perspective: Neuroregenerative Nutrition.
Ann Neurol. 2017 Jul 11. Brain microvascular injury and white matter disease provoked by diabetes-associated hyperamylinemia.
Behav Brain Res. 2017 Jul 8;333:179-183. Supplementation with zinc in rats enhances memory and reverses an age-dependent increase in plasma copper.
Biol Psychiatry. 1982 Apr;17(4):513-32. Zinc, the brain and behavior.
J Nutr Health Aging. 2006 Sep-Oct;10(5):377-85. Effects of nutrients (in food) on the structure and function of the nervous system: update on dietary requirements for brain. Part 1: micronutrients.
Neuroscience. 2017 Jun 14;353:98-105. Magnesium sulfate (MG) prevents maternal inflammation induced offspring cerebral injury evident on MRI but not via IL-1β.
Behav Brain Res. 2017 Jun 15;328:39-47. Maternal hypomagnesemia alters hippocampal NMDAR subunit expression and programs anxiety-like behaviour in adult offspring.
SEXY BRAIN – how sizzling intimacy and balanced hormones protect against Alzheimer’s, cancer, depression and divorce. Berkson 2017 Awakened Medicine Press.