A patient called the office the other day asking if I had anything for memory. I told Sherry to say yes, but the answer to that question is like saying yes I have something to improve health. Memory support is a huge subject because so many different things affect memory. There is no magic pill that makes everyone’s memory better. There are pills that might work like magic for one person or another, but it all depends on what is causing your memory problems. Let’s review some of the issues that cause memory problems and some of the support for those issues.
Probably the simplest and most common problem that affects memory is aging. As we get older, the factories inside each cell in our body that produce the energy we need to do everything break down. These factories are called mitochondria and they produce the energy molecule known as ATP. Everything we do, including form memories, requires ATP. If our brain does not have enough of this energy molecule, it can’t form new memories. Usually, it can still access old memories as they are already “made”. But new memories take too much energy to form. What breaks down these energy factories is similar to industrial toxic waste. It is called free radicals. These form when we break down sugar to form ATP in the energy factories. Sugar is like coal – a very dirty kind of fuel. This toxic waste gradually destroys the mitochondria. A much more efficient and much cleaner fuel source for forming ATP is ketones from fat. This is more like a power plant that burns clean natural gas for energy. So a major boost in brain function can be had by switching over to a ketone-based energy system in your body by living on a keto diet. An alternative specifically for memory patients is to supplement the diet with C8 caprylic acid – the short-chain fatty acid that your liver almost immediately turns into ketones. Your brain can use this alternative energy source to improve memory. This is what is in my Brain Boost product in the office.
The second consideration for memory formation is brain inflammation. If you have inflammation in the gut or lungs, you also have inflammation in the brain. Inflammation messes everything up, including memory formation. A lot goes into controlling inflammation in our bodies. Again, there is no simple pill you can take to rid the body of inflammation. There are many kinds of inflammation. Medicines have been created for suppressing one inflammatory pathway or another, but they all have negative side effects because inflammation is necessary for the health of the body in certain circumstances. The trick is to reduce the inflammation down to healthy levels. The biggest inflammatory challenge to the body is digestion and the second is breathing. Areas of the body that are responsible for letting outside stuff like air and food into the body are vulnerable to also letting poisons, toxins, and pathogens into the body. Consequently, a lot of our immune cells crowd around these areas. Inflammatory foods like vegetable oils, grains, dairy, pesticides, preservatives, polluted air, and so on all trigger immune responses that generate inflammation. So step one for reducing inflammation in the body is to breathe clean air and eat non-inflammatory foods.
Once you have the diet cleaned up then you can consider specific nutrients and medicinal herbs that reduce brain inflammation. No amount of supplements or medicines can counteract a bad diet or lifestyle, so that comes first. But once that is in order then we can consider specific helpful nutrients. The two most powerful for the brain and memory are curcumin from turmeric and resveratrol from Japanese knotweed. There have now been thousands of scientific studies demonstrating the benefit of these herbs on calming inflammation in the brain. There are a number of co-factors in the form of vitamins and minerals needed to help these do their job. A good formulation will have these co-factors present in the right amounts. In the office, I use Neuroflam for this purpose.
For those of you that would like to stick a toe deeper into the deep well of inflammation, here is a touch more information. Inflammation is a bit vague – what is it anyway? Inflammation is about our immune system reacting to an insult of some sort. The immune system is our police force. They are there to shoot the bad guys and carry them away. All that shooting involves the release of various nasty chemicals called cytokines which produce swelling, redness, and pain, the hallmarks of inflammation. What is really happening is that the cytokines open up the blood vessels in the insulted area to allow more immune cells access to the area. This increased blood flow produces redness and swelling. The pain is to tell us to keep our hands out of the area, like the sirens and flashing red and blue lights the police use. This is all well and good unless the “police” immune cells can’t identify a clear enemy, such as when the problem is due to a concussion, or brain bleed, or toxic chemicals, or dozens of other insults that confuse the immune system. Without a clear enemy, the immune system often goes overboard and produces excess inflammation that now damages the healthy tissue. Certain nutrients can help calm down this overreaction.
The third big area of concern that causes problems with memory is poor blood flow to the brain. You need good blood flow for both oxygen and nutrients. Without oxygen, your brain cells can only last a few minutes – 20 at most. So anything that reduces good blood flow compromises all brain functions, including memory. The first obvious issue would be problems with the hardening of the arteries. Hardened arteries restrict blood flow and reduce the movement of oxygen and nutrients into the brain. What causes hardened arteries? Again the culprit is inflammation. The mechanism is complex, involving turbulence roughening up the artery walls combined with poor production of something called nitric oxide which opens up the blood vessels. This produces small lesions in the walls of the arteries which the immune system tries to patch up but often ends up producing plaque with damaged cholesterol. This cholesterol patch keeps the vessel from blowing out but ends up blocking/reducing blood flow. We can open up blood flow with nutrients that increase nitric oxide production (Nitric Balance), and directly increase oxygen levels in the brain (Neuro O2).
I can’t tell you how many times I have corrected spine issues in the upper neck only to have the patient report immediate improvement in their ability to think more clearly, see better, and have better balance. This involves releasing muscle spasms between the top vertebra and the skull. Blood vessels that feed the back of the brain pass through this area, and spasms of the muscles in that area restrict blood flow to the base of the brain causing these types of problems. So proper neck mobility, head posture, and spinal alignment are also essential for good blood flow to the brain.
A fourth area to consider is looking at whether the patient is getting the necessary nutrition for forming the brain neurotransmitters. The simplest of these is choline. Choline is turned into acetylcholine, the primary brain neurotransmitter used to form memories. We need about 500 mg of dietary choline each day and only 11% of Americans get that daily. Choline is mostly found in eggs, meats, liver, fish, and chicken. While some choline is found in plant foods, the levels are low. Broccoli is often cited as a good source of choline, but it only has 63 mg per cup. This leaves vegans particularly susceptible to choline insufficiency as most do not eat eight cups of broccoli each day. Other nutrients are needed to form the whole host of neurotransmitters that run everything in your brain. I use a lengthy questionnaire to help identify specific symptoms that would suggest particular chemical pathways that might benefit from support.
The last area I want to touch on briefly is hormones. Any imbalance in your hormones will often mess with your memory. I see this most frequently with thyroid hormone issues. Stress generates excess cortisol production which blocks complete thyroid hormone production. So stress can mess up your memory. As I said, memory is a complex subject. I have touched on some of the highlights, but there is a lot more. For a complete review, I recommend Dale Bredesen’s book “The End of Alzheimer’s”.
Take care,
David