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Alzheimer’s: Why is the Brain Deteriorating?

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

There are many factors, and today’s blog will touch on a few and 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. Furthermore, research has shown that these drugs cause deterioration of the I.Q. Within five years’ use.

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

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 that 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, and they poison brain repair enzymes, leading to Alzheimer’s.

For example, everyone has aluminum, from eating out, aluminum cookware, aluminum flocculation agents in municipal drinking waters, aluminum in baking powders used in bread, 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 get tangled up (neurofibrillary tangles) and make a glue-like substance (called amyloid) to gum up the everyday workings of the delicate brain electricity.

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

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

Well, here is something even more accessible: green tea. Natural organic green tea has over three catechins or polyphenols. They are potent preventers of amyloid deposition in the brain. Sencha Premium Organic Green Tea is by far the best I have found.

This blog is simply a glimpse of the research you won’t see promoted on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. Of course, this is sad. However, there is another side of the clinical management of many diseases that the public will rarely, if ever, be shown.  

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

Reference

Haque A, et al, Green tea catechins prevent cognitive deficits caused by AB1-40 in rats, J Nutr Biochem, 19:619-26, 2008

Behl C, et al, Vitamin E protects nerve cells from amyloid B protein toxicity, Biochem Biophys Res Commun, 186:944-52, 1992

Hashimoto M, et al, Docosahexaenoic acid provides protection from impairment of learning ability in Alzheimer’s disease model rats, J Neurochem, 81:1084-91, 2002

Rezai-Zadeh K, et al, Green tea epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) modulates amyloid precursor protein cleavage and reduces cerebral amyloidosis in Alzheimer transgenic mice, J Neurosci, 25:8807-14, 2005

Crook T1, Petrie W, Wells C, Massari DC.Effects of phosphatidylserine in Alzheimer’s disease.Psychopharmacol Bull. 1992;28(1):61-6.

http://www3.scienceblog.com/community/older/1997/B/199702039.html (Calcium Channel Blocker reference)

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