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My Favorite Supplements: Brain Food Part I

(And the OMG Smoothie Recipe)

I have lots of favorite supplements, but since my brain is now my favorite organ, I will begin with brain food. In my mid-fifties, I thought I was getting Alzheimer's. No kidding. I was truly worried because I couldn't think of stuff like a particularly pithy word I wanted to use while I was writing; I seemed to be unduly distracted and in La-La Land a good bit of the time. I walked into rooms with no purpose and I was also- which was the worst - forgetting familiar names, important names, like who was Bruce Willis' wife in Die Hard I (Bonnie Bedalia). Was I worried or what? Then in my research I stumbled upon many of the supplements that I have taken ever since and now, unless I have a chemical exposure, I think like a quantum computer.

(An aside on inhalant chemical exposures: I am particularly vulnerable to toxic inhalants and smells and am a real pain in the behind about this. The inhaled toxin (Easter lilies, Bounce, Downey, almost all perfumes, exhaust, stainless steel cleanser, Tide, most shampoos, most room fresheners, etc) will enter the body through the olfactory nerve then go right to the hippocampus which is the part of the brain that stores memory. Now, listen up. The hippocampus is what goes belly-up in dementia, so you don't want to be smelling bad stuff! Even if you think it's not affecting you, it is. The inhaled toxin leaves the hippocampus and scurries over to the limbic system which can make you lose your temper, become irritable or even cry for no reason. Plus, there is almost no viable mentation during an exposure. My IQ drops to double digits.)

Researchers at top universities (Harvard, Duke, UCLA etc) have discovered that memory issues revolve around three main triggers: 1) As you age, your brain wiring is fraying and becoming less able to transmit 2) Your brain is getting slower in transmission power and 3) Your brain is under attack from free radicals and the longer you have lived, the more toxins you have stored in the brain. Toxins like chemicals and heavy metals and the aforementioned inhalants are lipid-loving so make a beeline to your brain tissue which is about 70% fat. They nestle comfortably in the little fatty sulci of the brain and wreak havoc when you try to remember important facts like who played the little girl in the original True Grit? (Kim Darby)

If I were to take only one supplement to the desert island, it would be this one: Acetyl-l-Carnitine or the brand I particularly like (because it works) from Thorne, brand name Carnityl. This is the first brain supplement I took years ago and it made a huge difference in my ability to think. Quite simply, it put the lights on in my brain. And, still does. ALC is an amino acid which is an energy molecule specific to brain tissue since it can cross the blood-brain barrier. What happens with age is that the myelin sheaths that surround the nerves in the brain- like the protective rubber coating around telephone wires- start to disintegrate. They fray and get holes and become thin so that messages get corrupted, scrambled or diverted. I take 1,000 mgs in the morning, or two Carnityl. (My car keys are presently living in the right pocket of my olive green down vest.)

If ALC is the spark plug for the brain, then Phosphadityl Serine is the lube job for the brain. Phos Serine is a fat and crosses the blood-brain barrier to lubricate all the fatty tissue in your brain. And this is one nutrient that I can't say eat more kale and you will have more PS: It isn't found in food. But it's important because it increases pliability and your brain will become noticeably more muscular and athletic. There are many trials about PS (google it) and they all show hands down great results as far as improvement of memory, attention, verbal fluency and overall mental function and one study showed that it took 12 years off of your brain age. I take two in the morning for 240 mgs and the brand is Designs for Health. (This allows me to remember that Lady GaGa's last name is Germanotta.)

Memory comes from the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine and all forms of dementia are a result of too little acetylcholine. As we age, we lose a good bit of this important transmitter. Yes, ALC helps produce this neurotransmitter to some degree, but far better is another brain food called Phosphadityl Choline. The acetylcholine transmitter is what allows us to remember where we parked our car in the Whole foods parking lot, then to facilely remember just where in our purse we put the car keys and then after we start the car, remember how to get to Best Buy from Whole Foods. There are two forms of Phos Chol that I use. We have found that the pill or gel cap form doesn't work as well as powdered or liquid so I routinely use a relatively inexpensive powdered Phos Chol from Designs for Health- put 1 T in your smoothie for 4,000 mgs. However, I have recently stumbled upon arguably the best Phos Chol on the planet, a viscous liquid Phos Chol from Nutrasal. It is very expensive, but you only need 1t. per day for 3,000 mgs. I am on my first bottle, so can't jump up and down about it yet, but it sure feels good. (And I can now explain Schrodinger's famous Cat experiment.)

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