Supplements Support Brain Recovery after Stroke

If you're a regular reader of Natural Health News you'll already be aware that we've written extensively about vitamins and other natural support for brain health, not only here but in our other print and on-line publications.

We don't endorse the low doses referenced in this article but we call your attention to the fact that our recommendations seem to be more prevalent in the news these days.

We suggest 2800 mcg B12 and proper thyroid support  and other select nutrients.  Other providers often use an extensive IV nutrient blend and refer to hyperbaric oxygen therapy.  Certainly I wish this had been offered to my mother, and most likely would have been available to her has she been under the care of a neurologist.

A combination of low dose B-vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids may help improve brain function in people who have suffered a stroke, according to a new study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The new study looked at 1,748 people aged 45 to 80 with a history of heart attack, angina, or stroke. They were assigned to one of these groups:

• 56 mcg of folic acid (as 5-methyltetrahydrofolate), 3 mg of vitamin B6, and 2 mcg vitamin B12 per day,

• 600 mg of the omega 3 fatty acids, EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), in a ratio of 2:1 per day,

• B vitamins and omega-3s, or

• placebo.

For four years, the participants continued their supplements, and their thinking (cognitive) function was assessed at the end of the study. No significant effects on brain function were found in the different supplement groups, but looking just at people who had had a stroke yielded different results. Post-stroke, people who took a combination of B-vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids were significantly less likely to score low on a test of the ability to accurately name the month, date, year, day of the week, and time of day (temporal orientation task) than those who took placebo.

While this study only found relatively slight evidence, it makes a good starting place for further research. “These results could be useful in interventions aimed at preventing cognitive decline in high-risk individuals,” said lead study author, Valentina Andreeva, of the University of Paris XIII.

An aging problem

As the world’s population continues to get older, problems related to aging also grow, including the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Alzheimer’s currently affects 1 in 8 people aged 65 and older.

Advancing age is the foremost risk factor for developing dementia. Addressing other risk factors—those that you can actually do something about—might be the most effective way to prevent the disease from developing. Modifiable risk factors for dementia include

• high blood pressure (hypertension),

• obesity,

• high levels of homocysteine in the blood, and

• inflammation.

If these risk factors look familiar, it’s because they’re some of the same ones for heart disease. In fact, about 30% of people who experience a stroke will go on to have dementia.

What you can do to help prevent dementia

While there is no cure for dementia, studies point to the power of prevention. See your doctor if you are concerned about your memory, and try these tips to keep your brain healthy for the long haul.

• Maintain a healthy weight. This will help lower blood pressure, too.

• Eat a diet rich in brightly colored fruits and vegetables. These foods contain powerful antioxidants thought to combat the effects of aging. The spice, turmeric, might also help prevent dementia, so be sure to enjoy your curries.

• Get your B vitamins and omega 3s. Eat plenty of leafy green vegetables, bell peppers, shrimp, scallops, and cold water fish to boost the levels of these nutrients in your diet.

• Have an active social life. People who are more involved in their community are less likely to develop dementia.

• Get your daily exercise. Physical activity comes with many benefits, including weight loss, protection from dementia, lower blood pressure, and better mood. No amount is too little. Work your way up over time to at least 30 minutes on most days of the week.

• Keep your brain busy. Learn a new instrument, do crossword puzzles, play a game of hearts; whatever you can do to exercise your mind will help keep those neurons firing.

(Am J Clin Nutr 2011;doi:10.3945/ajcn.110.006320)

SOURCE: Health Notes newswire

Fish oil from Soy?

This one has me totally gob-smacked!  Or as my friend in OZ might say, CRICKEY! (which is a euphemism for another 4 letter word).

It seems as if the Big M just can't leave your food alone.

First its GMO soy oil in your aspirin, your vitamins, and where else one wonders, just so you can have better heart health and lower cholesterol.  I guess their ad reps spend a goodly amount of time dreaming up something to persuade you that its all OK.  The Secretary of Agriculture surely wouldn't lie, after all, he is working for the government.

Wondering how they think all the hexane and benzene used to make soil oil is going to be removed from this "wonder oil"?  Just ask your member of Congress.  After all they get some pretty heavy pockets from all that  PAC $ flowing around the Beltway.

And, this to the FDA: Where are the studies?

This was bad enough to give me another head shaking day especially after seeing Mike Adams push for using plant sterols to lower cholesterol.  Guess he isn't up on the science, or the hype.

A downside to using "plant sterols"

NON-GMO CAMPAIGN

"Two enzymes Monsanto has just added to soy effectively turn the legume’s oil into a proto fish oil.
The commercial ag giant Monsanto inserted genes for two enzymes – one derived from a flower (Primula juliae), the other from a red bread mold (Neurospora crassa) – into a line of soybeans."

Fishy fat from soy is headed for U.S. dinner tables

For most Americans, it could help redress a critical shortfall in a beneficial nutrient

By Janet Raloff

Web edition : Saturday, April 9th, 2011

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. Most people have heard about omega-3 fatty acids, the primary constituents of fish oil. Stearidonic acid, one of those omega-3s, is hardly a household term. But it should become one, researchers argued this week at the 2011 Experimental Biology meeting.
In any case, stearidonic acid should at least become a welcome constituent of kitchen larders. The scientists’ reasoning: This fatty acid can provide fish oil’s heart and other health benefits – without the fishy taste or high cost of finned fare. Beginning next year, it also can be supplied without harming a single fish.
Numerous health organizations advocate that Americans down at least two fish meals a week, notes Eileen Kennedy, dean of Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy in Boston. This emphasis on seafood is not because nutritionists prize fish, per se, she says, so much their wanting to see consumers get more of two long-chain omega-3’s in the animals’ oil: eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).
“The American diet, as typically consumed, is low in omega-3 fatty acids,” Kennedy says. And the recently released federal nutrition guidelines not only recommend consuming a variety of fish and shellfish species, but also set a weekly target of eating some 8 ounces of seafood. Pregnant women, she notes, are being advised to eat up to 12 ounces per week.
But consumers are also being cautioned to choose that seafood wisely, because fish can unwittingly bring toxic methyl mercury to the dinner table. “So this [fish recommendation] gets to be a challenge to communicate,” observes Kennedy, who co-chaired an April 8 symposium on dietary omega-3 sources and benefits at the conference. 

To date, toxic intakes of fish have not emerged as a big problem, but that’s largely because few Americans come close to meeting the recommended fish intake. Most people fall about 75 percent short of the national goal.
Against this backdrop, SDA-enriched soybean oil is very attractive, Kennedy says. It can be incorporated in a range of foods without affecting taste (I can vouch for that, having eaten an SDA-soy-oil laced muffin at the meeting). Moreover, if and when SDA-enriched oil becomes available, it should cost less than fish-oil capsules (some of which have been found contaminated with pesticides, dioxins and other toxic pollutants), and run just a small fraction of the price of getting an equivalent amount of omega-3s from eating fish.
However, even if consumers wanted to get their omega-3 intake from downing fish, there are growing concerns about how that might be achieved. Indeed, argued William Banz of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, “there’s not enough fish in the sea.”
And what about people who don’t like the taste of oily marine fish – the species rich in EPA and DHA – or who live too far from the coast to make seafood readily available, asks William Harris, director of cardiovascular research at the University of South Dakota’s Sanford School of Medicine. For them, substituting the SDA product for some of the oils in prepared foods could be viewed as a healthful fortification program. “Like adding iodine to salt,” he said.
Commercial soy-derived SDA on its way
Right now, the only sources of EPA and DHA are marine micro-algae and the fish that move these algal fats up the food chain. “As the availability of fish decreases, we’ve got to think of other sources for omega-3 fatty acids,” says Richard Deckelbaum, director of Columbia University’s Institute of Human Nutrition in New York City.
That’s yet another reason why Kennedy says of SDA: “I hope it’s on the market soon.”
And it will be, probably by 2012, says nutritionist Ratna Mukherjea with Solae in St. Louis. Her company plans to market foods fortified with SDA.
The commercial ag giant Monsanto inserted genes for two enzymes – one derived from a flower (Primula juliae), the other from a red bread mold (Neurospora crassa) – into a line of soybeans. Although some people object to the biotech manipulation of genes in food crops, this is far from the first genetic manipulation of soy, Deckelbaum observes. Already, he points out, some 70 percent of ordinary U.S. soybeans are genetically modified for some trait or another.
The two enzymes Monsanto has just added to soy effectively turn the legume’s oil into a proto fish oil.
Many plants make alpha linolenic acid (or ALA), a botanical omega-3. The human body possesses enzymes to elongate ALA into the useful EPA, but the process isn’t efficient, Harris explains. Only about a tenth to one percent of any ingested ALA molecules will chemically morph over time into an EPA.
Monsanto’s genetically engineered soybeans can turn their ALA into SDA. Human enzymes can lengthen SDA into EPA fairly readily. There are efficiency losses in making that conversion, he acknowledges. His team has showed that it takes about four to five times more SDA to get the same EPA values in the blood as would develop if people took in EPA directly from fish or fish-oil capsules.
Two years ago, Monsanto petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to have their SDA-enriched soy oil granted generally recognized as safe – or GRAS – status. That petition noted the company’s intent “to market SDA soybean oil as a food ingredient in the United States in a variety of food products including baked goods and baking mixes, breakfast cereals and grains, cheeses, dairy product analogs, fats and oils, fish products, frozen dairy desserts and mixes, grain products and pastas, gravies and sauces, meat products, milk products, nuts and nut products, poultry products, processed fruit juices, processed vegetable products, puddings and fillings, snack foods, soft candy, and soups and soup mixes.”
Oily fish already supply SDA to the diet, and conventional fish-oil supplements contain roughly 1 to 3 percent of this fatty acid, Monsanto noted. Certain boutique oils from edible plant seeds, notably black current and “noxious weed” Echium, also contain substantial amounts of SDA. Monsanto said it planned to fortify foods with enough of its soy product to provide 375 milligrams of SDA per serving.
Last year, FDA granted GRAS status to SDA-enriched soy, so Solae now can legally incorporate the oil into foods. But there remains a wrinkle. FDA has not yet granted Monsanto permission to grow this genetically modified line of soybeans in open fields. That’s expected next year.
If the company succeeds in gaining that anticipated approval, Harris says, each acre planted with the new line of legumes could yield omega-3 quantities equal to that provided by some 10,000 3-ounce servings of salmon.
By the way, I asked some of the speakers about potential conflicts of interest. Harris has consulted to developers of SDA-enriched soy oil but no stock in the enterprises. Kennedy is on a Solae scientific advisory panel, but has no financial ties. And Deckelbaum said he had no ties.

Where are the Niacin Studies for Schizophrenia?

from November 2009, timely today in regard to the discussion about psychiatry currently in the news.

Natural Mental Health

UPDATE 12/21 - Food Sources of Niacin (B3)

UPDATE: 12/18 - If you have been a proponent of natural mental health you would already have known that omega 3 EFAs have been an effective help to many who live with several mental health issues.

BETHESDA, Md., Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Deficiencies in omega-3 fatty acids may be a factor in mental illnesses, U.S. researchers suggest.

The study, published in Behavioral Neuroscience, named two omega-3 fatty acids -- docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid -- as key to maintaining a nervous system capable of avoiding sensory overload.

The researchers suggest low omega-3 may be linked to the information-processing problems found in people with afflictions of the nervous system including schizophrenia and bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders.

The researchers looked at nervous system function in the offspring of four groups of pregnant mice that had been fed different diets with no or varying types and amounts of omega-3s. Only the mice raised on the two omega-3 fatty acids showed normal, adaptive sensorimotor nervous responses that did not result in the animals being perpetually startled and easily overwhelmed by sensory stimuli.

"It is an uphill battle now to reverse the message that 'fats are bad,' and to increase omega-3 fats in our diet," study leader Norman Salem Jr. of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda said in a statement.

-----------------------------------------------------
Travelling back some 50 or more years ago there were some members of the medical profession who took a totally different look at mental health issues.  Instead of fluoride based anti-psychotics, these courageous fellows relied on nutritional supplementation and effectively treated thousands of people diagnosed as schizophrenic.

And to make it all the more respectable, numerous scientific reports were issued on this care that came to be known as orthomolecular medicine.

And you might wonder why PubMed fails to include the orthomolecular journal so you might be more able to find related data.

Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorders
Double blind controlled therapeutic trials in Saskatchewan in 1952 showed that adding vitamin B-3 to the treatment then available, which was electro convulsive therapy, doubled the recovery rate. From this start, and corroborated by a large number of clinical studies and by one double blind corroborative study that was sponsored by National Institute of Mental Health, Washington, this early treatment has been refined and expanded. There are no negative studies. It now includes examination of the diet for possible food allergies; includes using optimum doses of vitamin B-3, which range from 3 to 12 or more grams daily; includes the use of vitamin C as an important antioxidant and other vitamins if needed, plus the best medication. As patients respond, the doses of medication and the nutrients are adjusted until the optimum doses of all nutrients and drugs is achieved. This treatment should be under medical control.

Nutrients Most Commonly Used For Schizophrenia and Schizo-Affective Disorders (under medical supervision):



* Vitamin B-3

* Vitamin C

* Vitamin B-6

* Zinc

* Vitamin B complex

* Selenium

Mood Disorders: Anxiety, Bipolar or Depression -
The following nutrients are helpful in controlling mood disorders (under medical supervision):


* Niacinamide

* B complex

* Vitamin C

* Folic acid

* Vitamin D

* Vitamin B-6
* Zinc citrate

* Essential fatty acids


In contrast to anti depressant medication I have not yet seen the type of warning issued by Professor Lana Watkins PhD, Duke University, who told the Annual meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society held in Denver, March 4, 2006, that current anti depressants increased the risk of dying from heart disease by 55 percent.

"Orthomolecular treatment does not lend itself to rapid drug-like control of symptoms, but patients get well to a degree not seen by tranquilizer therapists who believe orthomolecular therapists are prone to exaggeration. Those who've seen the results are astonished." 
---Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D., 1917-2009

Read: http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2009/08/arthritis-drugs-pose-cancer-risk.html

FDA Okays New Antipsychotic for Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder
By Cole Petrochko, Staff Writer, MedPage Today, August 14, 2009

WASHINGTON -- The FDA approved the atypical antipsychotic asenapine (Saphris) for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in adults, making it the first psychotropic drug to gain initial approval for both conditions.

The drug is indicated for first-line use in acute treatment of schizophrenia and of manic or mixed episodes in bipolar I disorder, with or without psychotic features.

FDA approval was based on data from more than 3,000 patients showing statistically significant efficacy versus placebo in acute schizophrenia trials and statistically significant reduction of bipolar mania symptoms versus placebo.

The drug showed signs of treating negative schizophrenia symptoms better than risperidone (Risperdal) in early clinical trials, but the advantage was not subsequently confirmed against olanzapine (Zyprexa, Zydis). (See APA: New Drug No Better for Negative Schizophrenia Symptoms)

Like other atypical antipsychotics, asenapine's side effects include sedation, weight gain, tardive dyskinesia, and diabetes risks. However, a clinical trial showed that asenapine's rate of weight gain was significantly lower than that experienced with olanzapine, a similar antipsychotic.

Atypical antipsychotics also show an increased likelihood of death in elderly patients treated for dementia-related psychosis.

The tablets are available in five and 10 mg doses and should be taken twice daily.

Manufacturer Schering-Plough said it plans to make the drug available in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Articles and issues of interest

11 October 2010 - Omega3 Comment
The concern regarding conversion of plant based omega3 (EPA-DHA) has long been an issue we have addressed in our work, and a reason why we have not endorsed the soy and canola based "plant sterol" products.  This quote from Dr. Newport is very much the same as we have written many times.  It is a reason too why I am a firm supporter of spirulina.

"While flax oil, walnuts and other vegetable sources of omega-3 are beneficial, they may not be converted efficiently in the body, especially in older people, to DHA and EPA, the two forms of omega-3 that are extremely important to brain function. It is therefore important to take a marine source of omega-3; for most of us this is fish oil. This would be a problem for vegans. I have recently learned that there is a high DHA oil available that is from algae rather than fish or other animal marine life. The supplements suggested for pregnant women are often made from this. Specifically, schizochytrium oil, is available over the counter at health food stores and pharmacies."

Original post date April 2006

Well the media spin of course will now tell you that Omega3s are unhealthy. This comment might make you more interested in having skepticism about mass media reports, at least I hope so,
herbalYODA

24th March: Fish oil may not be so healthy after all says the British Medical Journal

According to a study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), researchers analysed 89 studies to assess the effects of Omega-3 fats on death rates, heart disease, cancer and strokes. Their findings (which we vigorously contest): no strong evidence that Omega-3 fats had any benefits! It's important to realise that this is not a new study, but rather a study of studies (a meta-analysis). The conclusions drawn by the authors are, in our view, deeply misleading. They ignore the very large body of evidence that shows great benefits of Omega-3 (especially marine-derived, long chain Omega-3 fatty acids [EPA and DHA] that are known to be free of mercury and PCB contamination) with respect to reduced risk of heart disease and stroke, as well as for proper immune system function. Lee Hooper (lead author) and colleagues omitted numerous important studies, they selected studies mainly involving diseased subjects (whose conditions were likely to have been triggered well before they started supplementing in the trials), they included great ranges in dosages (meaning that direct comparisons between studies are of little value) and they masked the benefits of marine oils by diluting the high quality studies in with weaker studies assessing affects of non-marine sources of short-chain Omega-3 fatty acids (e.g., as found in some margarines).

Of interest is the recent release by Norwegian scientists (30th March), who are developing a chewable Omega-3 candy, stating that Omega-3-containing products have experienced massive growth in recent years backed up by scientific research that has linked the fish oils to a range of health benefits.