Newsletter #35

January 10, 2003

BRAIN CHEMISTRY

By Carl Lowe

When you look to boost the physical performance of your brain, perhaps one of the most important group of nutrients you should embrace are the B vitamins. Among this group, folate (also known as folic acid) has been found to be crucial for keeping your thinking at its peak.

According to Janet Bryan, MD, an Australian researcher who has investigated how nutrition affects brain function, " research into food, thinking and memory is at a relatively early stage but it has been known for some time that the B vitamins are associated with cognitive performance among older adults. Dietary intake of B vitamins (is) also associated with memory, speed of information processing, verbal reasoning and verbal ability."

In an investigation of more than 200 Australian women, Dr. Bryant and her team of researchers found that folate and vitamin B6 boosted memory.

"We found that folate supplementation improved memory and planning ability and that B6 supplementation improved memory and planning ability" (14^th Annual CSIRO Food Industry Conference, Adelaide, Australia).

Much of the research into how B vitamins protect human health has looked at their relationship to homocysteine, a protein carried in the blood that has been associated with heart disease. Research indicates that by helping the body eliminate homocysteine, folate and the other B vitamins can help protect the cardiovascular system.

What's more, scientists now believe that decreasing homocysteine may also enhance the brain's health and lower the risk of Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

"This is exciting information, because homocysteine levels can be reduced by taking the vitamins B6, B12 and folic acid," notes James F. Toole, MD, professor of neurology at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in Neurology Review. Com

In an Australian study that supports this supposition, researchers examined the homocysteine blood levels of 36 healthy people and then measured their brains (Neurology, 2002; 58:1471-5). They found that older folks whose blood carried high amounts of homocysteine had smaller, atrophied, brains. The scientists concluded that these signs of brain shrinkage meant that having more homocysteine in your body may make you more susceptible to developing Alzheimer's.

as your calories. In a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition (1998

Jan; 79(1):23-30), scientists varied the amount of fat in people's diets and found

that a little more fat made folks feel better.

In this study, twenty people ages 20 to 37 spent a month eating meals that

contained 41% of their calories as fat, and then went another month consum-

ing food where fat supplied 21% of their daily calories. When the researchers

gave these men and women psychological tests for mood, they found that the

higher-fat food fended off anger and hostility.

Thiamine, vitamin B1, is necessary for the proper functioning of the nerve cells in the brain. Unfortunately, when you indulge in excessive drinking of alcohol, you may hinder your body's absorption of thiamine and cause a deficiency of this vitally important nutrient.

Even more problematic, is that when you consistently overindulge in alcohol and continually fail to consume enough thiamine (found in fortified bread, pasta, cereal, whole wheat, lean meat, fish, beans, peas, soybeans and brewer's yeast), you can produce a disastrous effect on your mental capacity.

"We were looking for an interaction between (alcoholic beverages) and thiamine deficiency," says Philip J. Langlais, PhD, professor of neuro-sciences at the University of California-San Diego.

In studies on animals, they found that brain activities like learning the rules of games and remembering items were most harmed when you take in too much alcohol and too little thiamine. "(The study) showed that there are unique interactions between alcohol and thiamine deficiency," notes David V. Gauvin, PhD, a drug science specialist at the Drug enforcement Administration. "We don't see that one plus one equals two, rather, one plus one equals three."

Dr. Gauvin believes that more thiamine should be added to foods.

"The Australian practice of food supplementation is okay," he notes. "When (in anothre study) we gave our animals regular food that contained thiamine, they did not develop sensitization to alcohol. The body can naturally absorb and process low-graded doses of thiamine… It's the whopping injections that are problematic."

Another way to lower your chances of losing your thinking abilities is to eat a diet rich in foods containing vitamins e and C.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (6/26/02) found that antioxidants like these nutrients may protect the brain from suffering debilitating harm.

"This and a number of important population studies have pointed to vitamin E as possibly protective against oxidative damage or other mechanisms associated with cognitive decline and dementia," observes Neil Buckholtz, PhD, head of the Dementias of Aging Branch at the National Institute of Aging.

Good food sources of natural vitamin E include wheat germ, whole grains like brown rice, sunflower seed, peanuts, peanut butter, soybeans and vegetable oil.

Adding vitamin C to the mix, along with vitamin E, may provide the brain with further protection. "We believe antioxidants like vitamin E and C may protect against vascular dementia by limiting the amount of brain damage that persists after a stroke," says Kamal masaki, MD, of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. "The supplements may also play a rle in providing protection against brain cell and membrane injury involved in many aging-related disease, thus resulting in significantly higher scores on mental performance tests in later life."

Dr. Masaki's study of more than 3,000 men in Hawaii found that older men who took both vitamin E and C supplements at least once a week were 88% less likely to have vascular dementia four years after the research started and 69% less likely to have forms of dementia other than vascular or Alzheimer's-related dementia or mixed forms of dementia (Neurology 3/28/00).

As research continues into how nutrients affect the aging brain, we can expect more impressive findings on how to eat for better thinking. And even though philosophers and scientists may never fully agree to a final reconciliation of how the physical brain and the spiritual self interact, they will concur that a well-fed mind can better contemplate this enigmatic organ.

disease, the debilitating condition that destroys brain function in many of the

elderly, is expected to reach epidemic proportion. Experts estimate that

About 750,000 people in North America develop Alzheimer's every year.

Researchers in Scotland have found further evidence that taking B vitamins, or

Consuming foods rich in these nutrients, can lower the risk of Alzheimer's and

Keep your brain thinking clearly. When these scientists looked at how much

Folate and vitamin B12 was in the blood of Scottish citizens between the ages of

60 and 78, they found that seniors with higher levels scored higher on intelli-

gence tests (Am Jrnl Clin Nut 2002; 75:785-6)

more energetic and possessed better memory (Proceedings of the National

Academy of Sciences 3/02)

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