Reduce Memory Loss with a Healthy Lifestyle

Healthy Brain and Body
With aging comes some memory loss. It happens to everyone at some point in their lives. Research published in the January 3, 2012 issue of journal Neurology suggests that some memory loss may be caused by brain infarcts (dead areas) caused by silent strokes.
Researchers studied 658 older adults without dementia from a prospective, community-based study on aging and dementia who received high resolution structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)and found that the presence of brain infarcts was associated with a smaller hippocampus, an area of the brain that plays an important role in memory.
"These findings are consistent with previous studies demonstrating a link between small strokes in the brain and the size of the hippocampal memory center," says Gary Small, MD director of the UCLA Longevity Center and co-author of The Alzheimer’s Prevention Program. "We know the compromise in blood flow to the brain from small strokes will impair memory, and the size of the hippocampus also correlates with brain degeneration associated with advancing Alzheimer’s disease."
According to Dr. Small, using MRI and positron emmission tomography (PET) scanning, researchers have found similaar correlations between memory loss, hippocampal size, and the accumulation of plaques and tangles ( the major pathological features of Alzheimer’s disease). Some risk factors for stroke include advanced age (over 55 years old), being female, and having a family history of stroke. These are considered "uncontrollable." Fortunately there are some things that you cand do to reduce your stroke risk, which include lowering your blood pressure and cholesterol, quitting smoking, limiting your alcohol consumption and losing weight. In addition such as atrial fibrillation (Afib), diabetes, and atherosclerosis with appropriate medications can help protect your brain.
Prevention is the Key
My new book describes all we can do to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease through lifestyle behaviors including the foods we eat, the exercise we include in our daily activities and the therapies such as hydrotherapy, massage therapy and reflexology.

New evidence suggests food addictions same as drugs.

The latest ads on “High Fructose Corn Syrup” suggest that sugar is sugar and the source is not important. This is an outright LIE! Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse says, “We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain.”
We have, successfully, caused various food manufacturers to eliminate “High Fructose Corn Syrup” from their products. Even pickled herring contains HFCS and diet drinks are switching from “Aspartame” (a poisonous-sweetener) to HFCS.
Cupcakes may be addictive, just like cocaine. A growing body of medical research at leading universities and government laboratories suggests that processed foods and sugary drinks aren’t simply unhealthy. They can hijack the brain in ways that resemble addictions to cocaine, nicotine and other drugs.
Recent ads are skewed to convince Americans that HFCS is harmless - no matter what the source. “The data is so overwhelming the field has to accept it,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain.”
The idea that food may be addictive was barely on scientists’ radar a decade ago. Now the field is heating up. Lab studies have found sugary drinks and fatty foods can produce addictive behavior in animals. Brain scans of obese people and compulsive eaters, meanwhile, reveal disturbances in brain reward circuits similar to those experienced by drug abusers.
As the evidence expands, the science of addiction could become a game-changer for the $1 trillion food and beverage industries. If fatty foods and snacks and drinks sweetened with sugar and high fructose cor syrup are proven to be addictive, food companies may face the most drawn out consumer safety battle since the anti-smoking movement took on the tobacco industry.
“This could change the legal landscape,” said Kelly Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center toward for Food Policy & Obesity and a proponent of anti-obesity regulation. “People knew for a long time cigarettes were killing people, but it was only later they learned about nicotine and the intentional manipulation of it.”
Food company executives and lobbyists are quick to counter that nothing has been proven, that nothing is wrong with what Pepsi-CO Chief Executive Officer Indra Nooyi calls “fun-for-you” foods, if eaten in moderation. In fact, the companies say they’re making big strides toward offering consumers a wide range of healthier snacks.
No one disputes that obesity is a fast-growing global problem. In the United States, a third of adults and 17 percent of teens and children are obese. A 2009 study of 900,000 people, published in the Lancet, found that moderate obesity reduces life expectancy by two to four years, while severe obesity shortens life expectancy by as much as 10 years.
Sugars and fats have always been present in the human diet and our bodies are programmed to crave them. What has changed is modern processing that creates food with concentrated levels of sugars, unhealthy fats and refined flour, without redeeming levels of fiber or nutrients. Consumption of large quantities of those processed foods may be changing the way the brain is wired.
Those changes look a lot like addiction to some experts. Addiction “is a loaded term, but there are aspects of the modern diet that can elicit behavior that resembles addiction,” said David Ludwig, a Harvard researcher and director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Children’s Hospital Boston. Highly processed foods may cause rapid spikes and declines in blood sugar, increasing craving, his research has found.
Constant stimulation with tasty, calorie-laden foods may desensitize the brain’s circuitry, leading people to consume more junk food to maintain a constant state of pleasure.
In one 2010 study, scientists at Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida, fed rats an array of fatty and sugary products including bacon, pound cake frosting. The study measured activity in regions of the brain involved in registering reward and pleasure through electrodes implanted in the rats.
The rats that had access to these foods for one hour a day started binge eating, even when more nutritious food was available all day long. Other groups of rats that had access to the sweets and fatty foods for 18 - 23 hours per day became obese, Paul Kenny, the Scripps scientist heading the study, wrote in the journal Nature Neuroscience. The results produced the same brain pattern that occurs with escalating intake of cocaine, he wrote.
Damage to the brain’s reward centers may occur when people eat excessive quantities of food. In on 2010 study conducted by researchers at the University of Texas in Austin and the Oregon Research Institute, 26 overweight women were given magnetic resonance imaging scans as they got sips of milkshake made with ice cream and chocolate syrup. The women got repeat MRI scans six months later. Those who had gained weight showed reduced activity in the striatum, a region of the brain that registers reward, when they sipped milkshakes, according to the study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Healthy Choices - Think Not

Healthy Choices?
Yes, that’s the name of the product we purchased at Berkley & Jensens (BJs) and here’s the story.
I know you’re all trying hard to avoid foods that destroy your immune system, trigger major diseases, and add plaque to your already plugged-up, arteries. However, the question is: "To be or not to be?" Can you really avoid the consequences when the truth is so ably clouded with lies, half truths and misleading adjectives that lead you astray? My wife and I take pride in identifying the ingredients most harmful and even contact food manufacturers to try to get to the heart of the story.
Recently, we contacted the makers of "Healthy Choice"®. The company has an 800 number and a website. ConAgra Foods, Inc P.O. Box 3768, Dept. H; Omaha,NE 68103-0768 at 1-800-212-9980. www.healthychoice.com The product was a dessert my wife and I shared each night as opposed to high sugar, sodium and fat-laden desserts. They clearly state: "NO ADDED SUGAR." 100 CALORIES PER FUDGE BAR AND A GOOD SOURCE OF CALCIUM; 5 grams of fiber and Low Fat." Sounds good and even appears to be a "healthy choice." But, wait a minute. Would you agree that, "What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You?"
Knowledge is power and a key to living a longer, healthier and happier life. So I called their office and asked them if they knew that the Healthy Choice food product they were selling contained a poison? No, they didn’t know and what could it be? Well, try searching http://aspartame.mercola.com/ That research contains the names of the products the poison within and the brand names. Do you think that the FDA could do that much for us? Well maybe Chief Justice John Roberts expects you to practice caveat emptor or "Let the buyer beware." We are not doing the job of protecting ourselves against the corporate greed that emphasizes semantics to convince you of the words you want to hear.
ASPARTAME, an ingredient in Healthy Choice fudge bars and most soda pop, including yogurt and such brand names as NutraSweet (blue package), Equal, Spoonful and Equal Measure, are much more dangerous to you than saccharin or Sweet N Low(pink package).
What You don’t Know Can Hurt You. Aspartame is, by far, the most dangerous substance on the market that is added to foods.
Aspartame was discovered by accident in 1965 when James Schlatter, a chemist of G.D. Searle Company, was testing an anti-ulcer-drug.
Aspartame was approved by dry goods in 1981 and for carbonated beverages in 1983. It was originally approved for dry goods on July 16th, 1974, but objections filed by neuroscience researcher Dr. John W. Olney and Consumer attorney James Turner in August 1974 as well as investigations of G.D. Searle’s research practices caused the U.S.Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to put approval of aspartame on hold (December 5, 1974). In 1985, Monsanto purchased G.D. Searle and made Searle Pharmaceuticals and the NutraSweet Company separate subsidiaries.
Aspartame accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA Many of these reactions are very serious, including seizures and death. (1) A few of the 90 different documented symptoms listed in the report as being caused by aspartame include: Headaches/migraines, dizziness, seizures, nausea, numbness, muscle spasms, weight gain, rashes, depression, fatigue, irritability, tachycardia, insomnia, vision problems, hearing loss, heart palpitations, breathing difficulties, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, loss of taste, tinnitus, vertigo, memory loss and joint pain.
According to researchers and physicians studying the adverse effects of aspartame, the following chronic illnesses can be triggered or worsened by ingesting of aspartame: (2) Brain tumors, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, mental retardation, lymphoma, birth defects, fibromyalgia, and diabetes.
What is Aspartame Made Of?
Dr. Russell L. Blaylock, a professor of neurosurgery at the Medical University of Mississippi, recently published a book thoroughly detailing the damage that is caused by the ingestion of excessive aspartic acid from aspartame. Blaylock makes use of almost 500 scientific references to show how excess free excitatory amino acids such as aspartic acid and glutamic acid (about 99 percent if monosodium glutamate (MSG) is glutamic acid in our food supply are causing serious chronic neurological disorders and a myriad of other acute symptoms.
How Aspartate (and Glutamate) Cause Damage
Aspartate and glutamate act as neurotransmitters in the brain by facilitating the transmission of information from neuron to neuron. Too much aspartate or glutamate in the brain kills certain neurons by allowing the influx of too much calcium into the cells. The neural cell damage that can be caused by excessive aspartate and glutamate is why they are referred to as "excitotoxins." They "excite" or stimulate the neural cells to death.
Aspartic acid is an amino acid. Taken in its free form (unbound to proteins) it significantly raises the blood plasma level of aspartate and glutamate. The excess in the blood plasma shortly after ingesting aspartame or products with free glutamic acid (glutamate precursor) leads to a high level of those neurotransmitters in certain areas of the brain.
We stopped in Julie’s favorite "THE DOLLAR TREE" and there we came across a soda called Stars & Stripes Forever - a lemon-lime soda pop with lemon-lime and other "natural flavors." We read the ingredients carefully and found Aspartame and high fructose corn syrup and many others we did not like. The green bottle, the patriotic name, the use of the words "natural flavors" and everything imaginable to lure the buyer into placing this product in their cart is unconscionable. NO! we will not subject our fuel tank to the POISON we find in foods approved by the FDA!