Tag Archive for: Alzheimer’s disease

Maintaining Your Melon

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Changing one’s lifestyle is difficult to do, and I think it’s especially challenging if the benefits could be years in the future — specifically doing those things that need to be done now to reduce the decline in cognition that happens as we get older. Two recently published studies have demonstrated how that’s possible. The characteristics of both were a structured program of changes in diet, exercise, learning and remembering, and social interaction with intermittent personal guidance from nutrition and exercise specialists. That regimen was compared with a control group who was provided with the same information but without the personalized assistance.

U.S. Study to Protect Brain Health Through Lifestyle Intervention to Reduce Risk (U.S. POINTER) was adapted for the U.S. based on a Finnish study. The primary outcome was a combination of surveys typically used to measure global cognitive status as well as other health metrics tested before and at six-month intervals for two years. Over 2,000 subjects between 60 to 79 were recruited from five sites throughout the U.S.; subjects were randomly assigned to the structured program or the self-guided program.

After two years, both groups experienced an improvement in the global cognitive status; those in the structured program experienced a greater improvement than the self-guided group. In fact, every sub-group experienced a mean improvement in cognition. That can result in reducing or delaying dementia and Alzheimer’s disease if sustained over the remainder of their lifespan. While these results were great, could there be an even better way to protect your melon? I’ll let you know on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Bottom Line on Alzheimer's Disease

P.S. Is Alzheimer’s disease a concern for you or your family? Learn more about it with The Bottom Line on Alzheimer’s Disease at drchet.com; get the MP3 or PDF for only $2.99 (free for Insiders).

Reference: AMA. 2025;334(8):681-691. doi:10.1001/jama.2025.12923

Lithium: A Hopeful Discovery

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You may recognize lithium as a treatment for some mental health issues such as bipolar disorder. That would require a pharmacological dose of 600–1,800 mg of lithium per day; levels that high can create severe side effects. But prior research showed that people who were treated with lithium had lower rates or delayed onset of cognitive impairment. The next step in the study was what form of lithium and what amount could help reverse the cognitive impairment and potentially be used to prevent mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.

Forms of Lithium

Researchers examined a variety of organic and inorganic salts to find the form which prevented or reduced the sequestration of lithium in amyloid plaque. Lithium carbonate, the inorganic salt form most used in pharmacological doses, did not prevent the pathology in low-dose supplemental form. An organic form called lithium orotate was successful in amounts consistent with dietary intake. Over a period of weeks, the mice drinking lithium orotate in their water reversed the cognitive impairment and other negative effects.

What’s Next?

The first thing you may be thinking is, “I gotta get me some of that!” Slow down. Remember, these were tested in mice—there are no human trials yet. While there are tests for assessing lithium levels, they’re generally reserved for patients with mental disorders. With such a small range found within the blood, testing requires medical interpretation, and we don’t really know what that level may be in someone with mild cognitive impairment.

Before this becomes a supplement you want to take, a couple of good human trials should be done to determine the proper dosage and any potential side effects. Tremors and nausea are routine side effects when lithium is used to treat mental conditions, but at normal food and water intake levels—1 to 3 mg per day—there should be none. There are many lithium orotate products in the marketplace that range from 1 to 5 mg, but let’s not get ahead of the science.

The Bottom Line

I think there are still questions to be answered before we all start supplementing with lithium orotate. While there is no RDA for lithium, there is a provisional target of 1 mg per day from diet. However, because the amount of lithium in water and food can be so variable, taking 1 to 5 mg per day of lithium orotate seems like a reasonable thing to do if you are over 50 years and are starting to experience memory issues beyond the normal where-are-my-keys problems.

It will take a while before we have the results of human trials. It would also help if you eat better, drink water, and get some exercise; those also help reduce the development of amyloid plaque. When I know more, so will you.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09335-x

Lithium and Brain Health

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The health field has been buzzing about a study that was recently published related to Alzheimer’s disease markers and the mineral lithium, a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Got lithium? You can use it in batteries, nuclear reactions, and many other industries; it’s also used in medications to stabilize mood.

Researchers decided to find out the relationship between markers for Alzheimer’s such as types of amyloid structures in the brain. There have been associations with reduced lithium intake and mild cognitive impairment in prior studies, so researchers decided to examine how mice on a reduced-lithium diet would respond. They measured several other minerals as well, but the only one associated with an increase in amyloid structures was lithium. It seems that when there’s not enough lithium in the diet, the brain cannot function as normal and sequesters the lithium in the amyloid bodies; brain function decreases further as lithium levels drop, including cognitive impairment.

The normal amount of lithium found in the diet suggests we get 0.6 to 3 mg per day, mostly from water and food. That amount is able to sustain the 7 mg typically found in an adult human. The next question would be how much it would take to reverse cognitive impairment. I’ll cover that on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09335-x

Shield Your Brain!

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For everyone who has purchased Protecting Your Brain, the first update will be on the way soon. As I stated in the webinar, when there is something important related to your brain I’ll send up an update, and a recent study is worth a follow up: researchers demonstrated that the microbiome in your mouth is beneficial to reducing the risk of mild cognitive impairment.

For the rest of you, don’t miss an opportunity to literally protect your brain and to help retain your memories and skills as well as the ability to learn new skills regardless of age. Isn’t that what’s it all about? Protecting Your Brain is my webinar that provides you with state-of-the-research ways to be able to do that. This webinar will teach you how brains get damaged, what’s normal and what’s not, and which activities, foods, and supplements will help protect it.

This webinar is available for download in my store right now for only $14.95 (Member and Insider discounts apply; be sure to log in first). You’ll learn how to protect your brain whether you’re 25 or 75.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

How Can You Safeguard Your Brainpower?

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If there’s one thing we all would like, it would be to retain as many of our memories as we can as well as all of the things we’ve learned over our lifetime. We’d also like the ability to learn new things, like how to make a doll house for our granddaughter or how to bake our favorite dessert. In order to do that, we have to do whatever we can to keep our brain functioning properly.

Protecting Your Brain is my webinar that provides you with state-of-the-research ways to be able to do that. This webinar will teach you:

  • The factors that can impact and damage your brain
  • What is normal brain function and what is not
  • What can you do to protect your brain in spite of prior damage?
    • Continual Learning
    • Fitness – functional and body health
    • The best diet to protect your brain
    • Supplementation that supports the brain

This webinar is available for download in my store right now, and includes the questions about brain health I asked for weeks ago with answers based on the most current research.

The cost of the webinar is just $14.95 (Member and Insider discounts apply), but it contains priceless things you can do to protect your brain whether you’re 25 or 75. This webinar is for you. Don’t wait to get your copy. Do it now—you might forget it later!

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

How Can Vaccinations Reduce Alzheimer’s Disease?

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In reading possible explanations for the potential benefits of flu vaccinations for reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), it always comes back to reducing inflammation. Further, it isn’t just the flu vaccine that seems to have that effect. Pneumonia, DTAP booster, shingles, and others have also been studied with similar results: vaccinations seem to reduce the risk of AD. The question is still why? I’ll give you two possibilities.

Vaccines Stimulate the Immune System

Whenever you get a vaccination, the immune system is stimulated. It may be that the activated system addresses weaknesses in the immune system that should be protecting the nervous system. Some researchers speculate it may reduce the formation of amyloid bodies (sticky proteins that harm the brain) and prevent the progression of dementia.

One thing to remember is the population being studied. It might be that, in spite of lifestyle habits, inflammation increases as we age, specifically in the brain. Some people may have genetics that can help. However, it may not just be the nervous system in the brain that’s at risk from increased inflammation. There is an increase in cardiac arrythmias of all types, decreases in muscle function, and many other effects that we attribute to simple aging. It may not be as simple as working hard on a healthy lifestyle, and it may exceed our attempts at living healthier.

Viral Infections Cause Inflammation

“I never get sick!” I’ve heard that a time or two. My question is “How do you know?” Maybe you’re sick, but your immune system has fought off all the symptoms you expect. The assumption is that every virus you get exposed to will leave you with some form of physical manifestation: a cough or runny nose during a cold, vomiting or diarrhea with a food-borne pathogen, or a fever from the flu.

But how do you know that you’re not in a state of inflammation, wreaking havoc on your nervous system, your heart, or another organ? You think your immune system isn’t working even though you don’t “feel” it? It can be. If we’re not flat on our backs, we don’t think we are undergoing immune system challenges. That’s simply not reality, and the problem is that the challenges get worse as we get older.

The Bottom Line

I think this research causes a dilemma for some people: vaccinate or not? As we get older, our immune system doesn’t work as well. Let’s be honest: lots of things don’t work as well, but we’re still kicking, darn it! What we could ignore in our youth now demands our attention. Yes, we need a healthy lifestyle that includes a better diet, a little exercise, and some immune-boosting supplements such as vitamin D and C.

The challenge is the anti-science climate we now live in, and nothing is more controversial than talking about vaccinations. Opinions may be based on flawed science—or in some cases, no science, just opinion—and access to social media where people can say anything they want to say. For me, the science is pointing to benefits from vaccinations if you’re older than 65. Just spread them out over a few weeks or months to give your immune system a chance to adapt.

Whatever you decide to do, it’s your body. It’s your choice.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

References:
1. J Alz Dis. 88 (2022). 1061–1074. DOI 10.3233/JAD-220361
2. Vaccine. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.08.046

Flu Shots and Alzheimer’s Disease

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One of the benefits of large cross-sectional studies, especially in the age of electronic medical records, is that medical tests and treatments can be examined while examining diagnoses at the same time. The Veterans Health Administration is one of many medical databases that can identify relationships between health factors and the onset of disease.

In a recent study, researchers used a large medical records database called Optum Clinformatics Data Mart. The methodology section was long, but essentially they divided potential subjects into those who did not get a flu vaccination at all and those who got at least one flu vaccination every year or more. They identified their potential subject list and then tracked them for four years to see if they received a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In case you were wondering, people under 65 were excluded because AD does not manifest itself appreciably until after that age.

The results were more than a little interesting. Those who got at least one flu shot had a 40% reduced risk of getting diagnosed with AD. Before you even think, as I would have, “How many subjects were there?”–there were close to a million subjects in each group. The better question is how would a vaccination reduce the risk of getting AD? We’ll examine that question on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: J Alz Dis. 88 (2022). 1061–1074. DOI 10.3233/JAD-220361

Science at Work

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The challenge this week was to watch two video podcasts, think about what you heard, and then provide comments and questions. For those of you who did it, thank you. For those that didn’t, I recommend that you take some time this weekend and listen to them. I’m going to share my thoughts but there’s so much information, I’ll hit only the highlights. Suffice it to say, based on the questions, there are many subjects that will need to be explained. That will take months to research and present in Memos and Insider conference calls in a way that’s understandable.

The point of the interviews with Dr. Jay Lombard was to find out the relationship between the microbiome and pathogenic bacteria and neurodegenerative disorders (NDD). That includes everything from Alzheimer’s disease to depression to Parkinson’s disease. Here are the three things that stood out to me out of the many concepts presented.


Three Things I Learned

Leaky Brain Theory
The prevailing thought is that the blood-brain barrier prevents almost everything from entering the brain via a series of tightly packed blood vessels and cells. Nutrients are let through along with some medications, but bacteria are thought to be barred.

But evidently the toxins of some pathogenic bacteria are able to cross this barrier and affect the production of the proteome, an organism’s complete set of proteins. Remember the tau mice from last week’s Memos? The bacterial toxins impact the way the tau and other proteins are folded, which renders them unusable, thus resulting in misshapen structures that can contribute to NDD depending on which proteins are affected.

Antibiotic-induced Reduction in Fevers
In the treatment of patients with NDD, one characteristic that most seemed to share is the inability to get significant fevers with infections. The cause appears to be chronic use of antibiotics over a lifetime which somehow reduces the ability of the immune system to create high fevers. The rise in temperature is a natural part of the immune system when dealing with infections; without it, the immune system will not be as effective at combating viruses or bacteria.

Heat-Shock Proteins
Think of heat-shock proteins as the “cleaners” of the body. One of their functions is to collect the misshapen proteins and take them to the organelles inside a cell; that’s where they’re taken apart and the amino acids reused. If you can’t generate a fever that’s high enough, they can’t do that job as well.

There were several other items on my list, but those were the most profound. The first question in your mind is most likely “What can I do about these?”


How Science Works

The reason I chose to focus on Dr. Lombard with the purpose of showing how science works was two-fold. First, he asked good questions. Many physicians would think “How can I fix this?” and stop there. What Lombard and Hyman asked was “What caused this?” or “How did this happen?” You find that out only by asking the right questions of patients.

The second is that Lombard went to the current research to find out if there were any answers, and he discovered where he might have been incorrect because someone had tested it. Remember that in the first interview he was sure that the bacteria C diff was related to ALS; two years later he found that there was more than a single pathogen that could be related to ALS and other NDDs. He learned and adapted his hypothesis: that’s how science is supposed to work. Instead of spending time heading in the wrong direction, science guides the research he’s currently doing so that eventually he may discover effective treatments for these neurological conditions.


The Bottom Line

If you haven’t watched the video podcasts, I urge you to do that; you’ll learn much more than by reading my review. More than that, you’ll have more questions. One of the things both Drs. Lombard and Hyman agreed on is that “we know close to nothing.” I agree wholeheartedly. When you begin by asking the right questions, you have a chance of finding out the answers. Another point they agree on is that there’s no single cause of any NDD. There are multiple factors that contribute; finding out what they are may help develop effective treatments by focusing on a potential cause.

For those of you who want answers, whether about what I’ve written or about the many other things covered in the podcasts, I’ll write more as time goes on to satisfy that “What should I do now?” question. Obviously, you’ll want to keep your microbiome as healthy as possible (a search for the term microbiome on drchet.com will point you in the right direction); beyond that I have questions I need answers to before I can provide more answers for you. I’m on it and when I know, so will you.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

How Science Works, Part 2

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How did you enjoy the first video? If you’re like me, there were some surprises and a whole lot more questions.

The second video is another interview with Dr. Jay Lombard recorded this year. Just like the other video, it isn’t an ad for a product but it does contain ads as do all YouTube videos. While the interviewer is different, the video demonstrates several things, none of which I’m going to tell you. The assignment is for you to learn how science really works. Listen closely to Dr. Lombard. If you want, send your thoughts and questions to drchet@drchet.com.

Here is the link to the second video: https://youtu.be/aCTTpFnSsD0

We’ll finish this look at how science works on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

How Science Works, Part 1

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If there’s one topic we’re all interested in, it’s making sure that we keep our minds clear and able to learn and recall things every day we’re alive. That’s confirmed by checking the number of people who read last week’s Memos on EAAs and brain health.

A long-time reader sent me a link to a video called “Doctor Thinks He Knows What Causes Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS!” I decided to listen to it while I worked out on the bike. It was interesting, so I listened to another podcast with the same doctor two years later. It was at that point I decided to make this a project for you.

Assignment 1 is to listen to a video podcast from Dr. Mark Hyman, a well-known physician who treats the entire patient, not just the symptoms. He interviews Dr. Jay Lombard, a neurologist, on current ideas as to the possible causes of a variety of conditions including depression and Alzheimer’s disease.

When you’re done, write down a couple of things that you learned or had questions about. Enjoy the first video—pay close attention to the last five minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETKZS5e33VA

Tomorrow, I’ll send you a second link to another video. If you listen and watch these videos, I think you’ll begin to learn how science works.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet