Alzheimer’s Disease-Can you help Prevent it?

You can help your body prevent Alzheimer’s!

How about some preventative tips on keeping your cognitive function, (your ability to think/remember), as best as it can be while you age.   Conditions like Alzheimer’s can be minimized with a few lifestyle and dietary changes.  These changes can minimize your chances of getting it by up to 50%!  Here are some tips from legitimate studies.

1.  Studies show that all cognitive impairments, have decreased docosahexaenoic acid, (DHA), levels in common.  DHA is the good stuff found  mostly  in fish, calamari or krill oil.  Unfortunately today 95% of the fish we consume is farm raised and has little to no DHA.  So ocean fish or krill oil is a good choice as long as you assure it is molecularly distilled to eliminate the mercury, and buy cold water fish that is wild caught.  You can actually reduce your risks of Alzheimer’s by 47% with good levels of DHA.  You can also get your DHA levels checked with a blood test to see where you are, but most of us are deficient.   Before modern civilization, our ratio of omega 3 fats to omega 6 fats was about 1:1.  Now with all the processed oils and decreased consumption of grass fed meats and green vegetables, that ratio has changed to 1:20.  The ratio of these fats are very important because Omega 6’s are inflammatory and omega 3’s are anti-inflammatory.  If we have too many omega 6 fats, they crowd out the omega 3’s and inflammation is rampant.  Please see my blog site article on cholesterol and fats for more details on inflammation.  So to balance that ratio, we need to consume 3-4 grams of good omega 3 fats, stay away from most vegetable oils like safflower, soy, sunflower seed, canola, avoid any hydrogenated oils which also causes inflammation, and eat organic grass fed meat which is another good source of omega 3 fats.

 2.  Having diabetes or Hemoglobin A1C levels, (the marker for diabetes), at or above 5.6, (which is normal according to lab reports), can cause brain shrinkage and decrease cognitive ability over 3-5 years.  The best way to prevent pre-diabetes or high HgA1c, is to cut out all processed sugars and simple carbohydrates like white flour, white potatoes, white rice, (WHITE TRASH), and limit whole grain carbohydrates to 1-2 servings per day or less if you are borderline to high.  Remember when God made sugar, a poison by itself, he/she also made the antidote – FIBER.   A good rule is to check the carb to fiber ratio on all packaged foods.  There should be at least 1-2 grams of fiber per 10 grams of carbs.  You’ll find that most packaged foods have little to no fiber because processing takes out fiber. It also costs money to put fiber back in so to increase profits, the processors just add sugar, rancid fats and fillers.   Bad bad processers!

 3.  Oxidative stress is another contributor to brain decline.  Stress, toxins from our environment, and sugar cause inflammation which lead to oxidative stress.  If your diet is less than optimum; eating fast food or restaurant food more than 2 x a week, and less than 3 servings of fresh green vegetables and salads, you are not getting enough antioxidants like vitamins A, E, C, and D from your diet.   Synthetic antioxidants just don’t do the trick like antioxidants from whole food. (see my article on vitamins). 

So again fish oil, fresh organic green vegetables, 100% grass fed meats, and twice as many organic vegetables as fruit, will help increase natural antioxidants to help fight oxidative stress and slow brain decline. You can also take whole food concentrates to assure you are getting adequate amounts of antioxidants and nutrients in your daily diet. (Please ask me for good sources).

 4,  CoQ10 enzyme has also been shown to reduce the chances of getting Alzheimer’s.  If you take cholesterol medication, and or heart/blood pressure medication, your CoQ10 enzymes are being sucked up to process them.  CoQ10 enzymes are essential for the energy producers of your cells.  The heart and brain requires a huge amount of energy so their need for CoQ10 is especially high.   Without CoQ10, our body cannot sustain life.   You can get a good CoQ10 supplement but make sure it is in the form-UBIGUINOL, which is most usable for your body, especially as you age.  If your diet is not full of healthy foods listed above I recommend taking CoQ10 enzymes to assure you have plenty to spare.

5.  Alpha lipoic acid is another power punch against Alzheimer’s.  Foods like organic spinach, broccoli, yams, brewers yeast, tomatoes, brussels sprouts, carrots, beets, rice bran, organ meats and grass fed red meat are good sources. See, just more vegetables and whole foods!

6.  Finally exercise!  Studies show that 142 minutes a week of aerobic exercise decreases death rates from Alzheimer’s by 50% over typical medical treatments.  Studies show significant growth in dendrites, (nerve endings), in groups that exercise as opposed to sedentary groups.  Exercise increases oxygen intake and brings it to the cells and brain.  Oxygen increases brain activity and can actually increase the size of certain parts of the brain over time. That’s a good thing.  In fact hyperbaric chambers (closed, concentrated oxygen therapy) can prevent and or reduce Alzheimer’s and associated symptoms as well as markedly improve effects of stokes, even 3-4 years after a stroke, (brain attack). has occurred.  

 BTW, they have found a chemical that actually causes Alzheimer’s used in lab rats called Mancozeb.  Now you would think this would be a difficult chemical to get your hands on, but astonishingly enough, Mancozeb is a pretty common chemical in fertilizers, fungicides and pesticides.   Avoid this at all costs!  And as I always say, read labels and avoid man-made chemicals in foods and cleaning/personal products. For example use baking soda an vinegar to clean instead of toxic chemicals. When you read ingredient labels on packaged foods, and you wouldn’t eat a plate of something on that list, it is not food!

 So to review, eat lots of organic green vegetables and assure you get 3-4 grams of good quality fish oil a day, increase alpha lipoic acid sources, take a good CoQ10 enzyme, (Ubiquinol), and do at least 141 minutes of easy aerobic exercise,  over 3-5 times a week.

Everything we put in our mouth, and on our skin for that matter, is either contributing to our life or contributing to our death.  If you don’t spend your time, energy, and money, on your health now, you will surely be spending it on your illness later!!

In good health,

Jill Coleman RN/Holistic Nutrition

References:

  1. Chh-wei: etal. J Appl Physiol 106.1585-1594, 2008
  2. Enzinger C. etal. Neurology 64 1704-11 May 24, 2005
  3. NEJM 369.6 Aug 8 2013
  4. Arch Neurol. 2007 64(7): 954-956: July 2007
  5. Int Journal of Alzheimer’s disease, Vol 2009  Article ID 951548
  6. Neurology 2013: 8 2035-2041
  7. Plos One Jan 2013 Vol 8 Issue Ie53716
  8. N Engl J Med 346 No 6 Feb 7, 2002
  9. https://www.alcat.com/gut-brainwebinar/?id=9    (An hour and 30 minute presentation by Dr David Perlmutter, MD, FACN, Board-Certified Neurologist, Fellow of the Am. College of Nutrition, for more details/references!)

About Jill RN

I have been a registered nurse for over 20 years working in the Trauma stepdown of LAUSC county hospital to the Heart Transplant unit at UCLA, Post partum and travel nurse. I realized that there was very little room for holistic medicine in the traditional medical field and started researching natural cures to address the whole person: Body mind and spirit. I enjoy working with people who are motivated to change their lifestyle to a more healthy and balanced one. I offer stress reduction therapies as well as unprocessed stress can also reek havoc on our body and being, True health is not complex but it takes a commitment and willingness to change old habits and create a more positive environment so the body can heal and repair. It is not an over night process, but certainty well worth the effort to achieve a lifestyle of health and wellbeing.
This entry was posted in Conflicting information made simple. Bookmark the permalink.