You make a trip to the grocery store specifically to get bread and come home with 25 items that appealed to you . . . but no bread.
You put all your tax documents in a “safe place.” Then when April comes around, you tear the house apart trying to find them.
At a party you’re introducing your boss’s wife to your brother-in-law. “Frank, I’d like you to meet——.” (What the heck is her name, anyway?)
These little glitches happen to all of us. Unfortunately, they’re often called senior moments. Do not—repeat, do not—accept that this kind of memory slip is inevitable with age. It’s simply not true.
“It is not normal to lose memory with age,” says Laurie Mischley, ND, a naturopathic physician in private practice in Seattle who specializes in natural therapies for neurological diseases. “One should maintain mental sharpness into the elder years. The brain is very active. The more you use it, the more you preserve it.”
If you sense mild cognitive impairment—that’s what doctors call that increased tendency for memory lapses to occur—it’s important to not take it lying down. Once you start noticing that your brain is not functioning the way it used to, that’s time to take action, says Dr. Mischley.
Remember, an occasional memory glitch is simply a part of life. Pay better attention next time, and you’re less likely to slip. But if you find that doing those math problems that used to be a snap has now become a challenge, or that remembering names used to be a lot easier than it is now, you’re experiencing changes that indicate that a certain amount of deterioration has already taken place.
“You can lose 20 to 40 percent of your neurons, and you’re still operating with a full deck,” says Dr. Mischley. So if you’re starting to notice that your brain isn’t working like it used to, you’ve already experienced some loss.
What to do? It’s not too late to fight back. You can do that in two ways. One is to keep your brain active, says Dr. Mischley. Use it. Challenge it. Take classes. Learn something new.
The other way to fight back is with the right diet and specific nutrients.
The problem is that the American diet is predominantly brown, says James Joseph, PhD, director of the neuroscience lab at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Boston, and coauthor of The Color Code: A Revolutionary Eating Program for Optimum Health. That is, we eat things like french fries, hamburgers, bread, and pasta.
If you want to protect and preserve your brain, says Dr. Joseph, when you’re at the grocery store, “stay out of the munchie aisle. Unless we’re talking about things like whole grain cereals, stay away from anything in a box or a bag.”
Instead, he says, graze in the produce aisle and pick up colorful fruits and vegetables. Why colors? The pigments in fruits and vegetables are actually nutrients that are good for your brain and good for your health in general.
“Eat your colors every day, 5 to 10 every day,” says Dr. Joseph. For example, “blueberries can actually help you grow new neurons (brain cells).” Dr. Joseph, by the way, is the scientific researcher behind the current blueberry craze. His research has shown in animal studies that blueberries can actually help repair aged brains.
The blueberry research is ongoing and continues to yield positive results in laboratories around the world. In 2008, for example, researchers in the United Kingdom found that aged rats improved their performance in tasks involving memory after just 3 weeks on a diet supplemented with blueberries.
While Dr. Joseph agrees that nutrients like vitamins E, C, and D are important, he says we’d all be better off if we ate less food—“Our bodies like to store stuff,” he notes—and simply ate more fruits and vegetables.
Dr. Mischley is on board for that advice. “We eat way too much, and we put a lot of crap in our bodies that takes up space,” she says. “Get rid of empty calories. If it’s not packed with nutrition, don’t eat it.” She also suggests cutting way back on or completely eliminating things like processed foods, pasta, and pastries as a means of preserving brain function. And she takes issue with a few other items as well.
“Alcohol has a bunch of calories with zero nutritional value,” says Dr. Mischley. You should cross alcohol off the list of things that you put into your body, she says. Ditto for sodas, even so-called natural sodas. Instead, she reiterates, concentrate the bulk of your diet on eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Remember that suggestion that you should challenge your brain to learn new things? Concentrate on learning new ways to prepare and enjoy fresh produce, and you’ll be killing two birds with one stone. Eat a colorful salad and a couple of pieces of fruit every day. Eat more beans and legumes.
Following all of this dietary advice will also help you get a handle on your cholesterol numbers, and that, apparently, is also a key to helping your memory function well on into your later years. In 2008, researchers in France analyzed data from the Whitehall II study. They took a look at memory in 3,673 men and women whose cholesterol numbers were measured at ages 55 and again at 61. Their findings indicated that low HDL cholesterol (that’s the good kind) was associated with poor memory and with a decline in memory.
That’s pretty good incentive to pay special attention to cholesterol, if you’re concerned that your memory may be declining as you get older. For more information on dietary strategies and supplements to help with high cholesterol.
When it comes to maintaining brain function (and holding back the progression of Alzheimer’s disease), supplements are no substitute for a good diet, emphasizes Dr. Joseph. You can take a multivitamin and several other helpful supplements, but it’s far more important to eat colorful foods like berries and drink colorful fruit juices, he says.
Along with putting a rainbow on your plate, there are several nutrients that may prove helpful.
We’re all subject to a great many pollutants in the environment. “We’re talking about the environment that we’re bathing our brains in,” says Dr. Mischley. Environmental pollutants create free radicals in the body. These are highly reactive molecules that damage all of the body’s cells, including neurons. Antioxidants, which mop up free radicals, include vitamins C and E, and the mineral selenium.
Dr. Mischley suggests taking 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C, 400 IU of vitamin E, and 200 micrograms of selenium. It’s also a good idea, she says, to get a powdered drink mix that delivers a lot of antioxidants. You can find a variety of green and fruit-berry powders in health food stores and natural groceries.
Green tea is also a good source of antioxidants, as is curry powder. Get creative about finding ways to use at least a tablespoon a day of curry power, recommends Dr. Mischley. It has a mild flavor and, except for its bright yellow color, would disappear into many foods. Sprinkle it on rice and in soups.
In 2002, researchers in Australia zeroed in on the potential of B vitamins—particularly folate, vitamin B12, and vitamin B6—to help memory performance. They looked at the diets of 211 young, middle-aged, and elderly women with special attention to their consumption of foods containing these B vitamins. Then for 35 days, they gave the women supplements of 750 micrograms of folate, 15 micrograms of vitamin B12, 75 milligrams of vitamin B6, or a placebo.
Researchers tested the women’s memory both before and after the supplementation regimen and found that both dietary and supplemental B vitamins had a positive impact on memory. Test results indicated that supplementation enhanced performance for some measures of memory and dietary consumption of B vitamins was associated with mental speed of processing information, recall and recognition, and verbal ability. Interestingly enough, the B vitamins proved helpful for younger as well as older women.
Alzheimer’s disease runs in families. But just because you may have it in your genetic makeup does not mean that getting the disease is inevitable. “When you get low in certain B vitamins, the bad genes are better able to express themselves,” says Dr. Mischley. It’s possible that taking a B-complex supplement may offer a measure of protection.
Huperzine A is a phytonutrient that comes from Chinese club moss (Hyperisa serrata). Scientific studies have shown that it is helpful for supporting cognitive function, says Dr. Mischley. “If there is one thing I could take to nutritionally affect my cognitive function, this would be it,” she says.
Huperzine A works in a similar fashion to some of the prescription medications for Alzheimer’s. That is, it prevents the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from breaking down, explains Dr. Mischley. Having more acetylcholine in the brain helps memory function better, she says.
Dr. Mischley suggests taking 100 micrograms. You may have some trouble finding the extract, but it is available online.
The Color Code: A Revolutionary Eating Program for Optimum Health by James A. Joseph, PhD, Daniel A. Nadeau, MD, and Anne Underwood
It’s a good idea to take a multivitamin to make sure you have all your nutritional bases covered.
B vitamins |
Take a B-complex supplement. Follow the package directions. |
Huperzine A |
100 micrograms |
Selenium |
200 micrograms |
Vitamin C |
1,000 milligrams |
Vitamin E* |
400 IU |
*Vitamin E has a blood-thinning effect. If you’re taking any kind of blood-thinning drug, talk to your doctor before taking vitamin E.