Conventional medicine has failed you when it comes to dementia. They have completely missed the mark in research, prevention, and cure.
And their drugs have a near 100% failure rate.
Meanwhile, the number of dementia cases is set to triple in the next 25 years. By 2050, 153 million people are expected to be living with dementia worldwide, up from 57 million today.1
Dementia can be one of the scariest things older adults face. I’m sure you’re familiar with the classic signs like memory loss, difficulty performing familiar tasks, impaired speech, and constant “brain fog.”
The problem is that it’s usually too late once these symptoms start.
Brain cells are already damaged and unable to communicate with one another like they were in the past. To make matters worse, dementia conditions like Alzheimer’s can have no apparent symptoms for up to 20 years.
But with anti-aging research, we’re closer than ever to banishing this brutal disease forever.
This Simple Scan Can Save Your Brain
Thanks to innovative research, we now have an easy method to detect your risk of dementia long before it can take control of your life.
According to a new study published in The Lancet Regional Health, a simple bone density scan can help identify if you are at risk of developing dementia later in life.
Australian researchers examined medical scans from 958 women over the age of 70 taken in 1998, focusing on abdominal aortic calcification.
Scientists tracked the women’s health over the next 15 years and identified late-life dementia through hospital and mortality records.
According to the study, women with medium to high levels of abdominal aortic calcification were twice as likely to develop dementia compared to those with lower amounts.2
The researchers concluded that using DEXA scans to predict dementia opens the door for much earlier intervention.
And that can dramatically reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer’s dementia in the future.
The researchers collected their data using Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, or DEXA for short. This scan uses low-dose X-rays to see how dense your bones are.
I’m proud to provide DEXA scans at the Sears Institute for Anti-Aging Medicine. We currently use the scan to measure…
- Bone density and fracture risk
- Body fat percentage
- Body composition of bone, muscle, and fat
And we hope to integrate DEXA scans into our Alzheimer’s prevention protocol in the near future.
Supplement To Prevent Dementia
But even if you aren’t able to determine your risk, there are ways you can keep your brain healthy and strong.
While it’s always better to get into these habits early on, it’s never too late to shore up your defenses against the modern world’s threats. Here’s what I recommend to my patients:
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- Increase your DHA intake: Docosahexaenoic acid — or DHA – is the main structural fat in your brain tissue. It’s involved in the synapses in your brain. As soon as DHA detects oxidative stress damage, it produces a compound called neuroprotectin D1 (NPD1). It’s one of the first defenses your body activates when brain cells are threatened. Research shows NPD1 lowers inflammation in your brain’s memory keeper, the hippocampus. In other words, it helps stop the damage that impairs your memory.3 Additional breakthrough research found that DHA, combined with vitamin D, prevented dementia in 90% of patients.4 For the best brain protection, you’ll need between 600 mg and 1,000 mg of DHA daily. I recommend getting DHA from squid. Sometimes called calamari oil, it contains more DHA than fish and squid oil combined.
- Increase nitric oxide (NO) levels. Exciting new research shows that NO can prevent — and even reverse — the effects of dementia and Alzheimer’s.5 Healthy blood flow wards off the plaques and tangles that are present in Alzheimer’s. Researchers found that when blood flow to the brain gets to a critically low level, it starts a cascade that leads to Alzheimer’s disease. But a recent study found that when NO levels are increased, plaques decrease and memory improves. The researchers even determined that keeping NO levels up may be a good strategy for preventing Alzheimer’s. You can’t supplement with NO. But two amino acid supplements team up to create nitric oxide in the body. I recommend 1,000 mg of L-citrulline and 6,000 mg of L-arginine a day.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD, CNS
References:
1. IHME. “The Lancet Public Health: Global dementia cases set to triple by 2050…” https://www.healthdata.org/news-release/lancet-public-health-global-dementia-cases-set-triple-2050. January 2022. Accessed on July 29, 2022.
2. Porter T, et al. “Abdominal aortic calcification on lateral spine images captured during bone density testing and late-life dementia risk in older women: A prospective cohort study.” The Lancet. 2022
3. Orr SK, et al. “Unesterified docosahexaenoic acid is protective in neuroinflammation.” J Neurochem. 2013;127(3):378-393.
4. Cole GM and Frautschy SA. “DHA may prevent age-related dementia.” J Nutr. 2010;140(4):869–874.
5.de la Torre JC, Stefano GB. “Evidence that Alzheimer’s disease is a microvascular disorder: the role of constitutive nitric oxide.” Brain Res Brain Res Rev. 2000 Dec.