article on B vitamins

[Guest guest]

Hi All -

 

A friend of mine is a clinical social worker at a hospital in WI, he sends me

articles once in awhile on health and wellness that are written by, I think,

someone within his hospital.  He sent me this one today - interesting article

on B vitamins and, at the end, adding a little bit about fish oils, particularly

DHA.  Thought I'd pass it along considering all our kiddoes on fish oil and NV

(with good, strong B vitamin content):

 

B Vitamins May Delay Alzheimer’s

Reference:  Online Public Library of Science Sept 9, 2010

Competency: Brain Health

 

B Vitamins are an interesting bunch.  They are water-soluble and tend to get

washed out easily.  If we are on water pills for high blood pressure we tend to

lose a lot B vitamins.  If our " one alcohol a day " is a bit bigger than the

preferred size, we may not get enough nutrition from regular food and be short

of B vitamins, thiamine in particular.  But more insidious than that, we have

reported before that the gradually loss of our ability to absorb B12 sneaks up

on us after 50 because we slowly lose the ability to make intrinsic factor, a

protein our stomach makes that snags B12 and helps us absorb it. 

 

Hence, here we find ourselves, living into our 70s and 80s with a gradual

decline in B vitamins.  B vitamins are critical to assisting your mitochondria

in making energy.  If you don’t have energy in your brain, you can’t think

as well.   But worse than that, without sufficient energy, your blood brain

barrier starts breaking down and you are more vulnerable to the effects of MSG

soaking into your brain.  Did you know that drinking one can of spicy tomato

juice with MSG in it will raise your blood level of glutamate some 20 fold? 

And in an elderly person, that MSG can leak into their brain cells because the

glial cells (protectors of our neurons) aren’t able to make enough energy to

keep the MSG out.  MSG makes neurons overexcited, and then they die. And if

enough neurons die, your brain shrinks.  It follows that a shrinking brain has

less computing capacity than a bigger brain.   And that all comes back to

those nifty B vitamins.  

Normal brain shrinkage is only about .5% per year.  Alzheimer’s sufferers

lose as much as 2-3% per year.

So, it would follow that if you tried giving a whole lot of extra B vitamins to

folks who are getting along in years, and then measure them for brain shrinkage

you find that the participants who got the extra B vitamins did MUCH better at

shrinkage.  Take 168 volunteers with " Mild Cognitive Impairment " and follow

them for two years.  On average, the folks getting the B vitamins had a 30%

decrease in shrinkage compared to the placebo folks.  That’s not just a

little.  That’s a lot.  In some folks, it was even up to 50% less

shrinkage.  Mild cognitive impairment is not the same as Alzheimer’s, but

once diagnosed with it you have about a 50% chance of developing Alzheimer’s

in the next 5 years.  This is more than the 40 year old stressed out Mom who

can’t remember where her car keys were.   MCI is enough impairment that your

daily life is becoming limited.

 

What we also know is that about 8% of our brains are omega fatty acids, and

folks who supplement themselves with DHA also have bigger brains.  Not proven

is what happens with a combination of B vitamins and omega fats.  If I take

extra B vitamins and fish oil, will my brain stay at its current size?  We

don’t know, but it’s a conjecture worth gambling on. 

 

WWW.  What will work for me?  Dark green leafy vegetables, nuts, whole grains

are all magnificent sources of B vitamins.  The DASH diet, with it’s 9

servings a day of vegetables and fruits will do it for you.  With 9 servings of

veges and fruits, you will easily get enough B.  But a Vitamin pill or a B

complex isn’t a bad idea.  Over age 50, you might just ask your doctor about

a B12 blood level once in a while.