Better Testing Needed for Critical Vitamin

Many people go to their doctor these days and ask about B12 shots. Most providers react with shock and grudgingly order a Serum B12 test because you must never give this important vitamin to any one who does not need it.  Usually this is faulty logic because the only true way to measure active B12 in the body is with an intracellular B12 level.


Now comes a great article looking at the way we currently look at B12 in mainstream medicine.  I guess a water soluble vitamin is really dangerous to their thinking.  But don't back off because B12 can really protect your health and that of your brain as you age.  Remember too that in the 40s and 50s it was common to give B12 and natural thyroid to people as they aged.  Then we had little dementia, comparatively speaking.


By Amanda Gardner, HealthDay News

MONDAY, Sept. 26 (HealthDay News) — Too little vitamin B-12 may be associated with smaller brain size and more problems with thinking skills as people age, new research suggests.

And the number of people who suffer from B-12 deficienciesmay be greater than thought because current methods for measuring levels of the vitamin may not be accurate, said Christine C. Tangney, lead author of the study published in the Sept. 27 issue of Neurology. The study was funded by the U.S. National Institute on Aging.

The researchers assessed the study participants' vitamin levels not only from B-12 levels themselves, but from blood metabolites that are considered markers of B-12 activity (or lack of it) in the tissues.

But the findings aren't nearly enough to start recommending people take B-12 supplements to jumpstart their brains, cautioned Dr. Marc L. Gordon, chief of neurology of Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y. Gordon was not involved with the study.

"It's not clear exactly if you have a measurement like this whether it's causal or that lowering the marker will drive a change in the risk," he said.

And unless you're a strict vegan, most people do get enough B-12, which is critical for brain health, from their diet — mainly from animal-derived products, added Gordon, who is also anAlzheimer's researcher at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, N.Y.

B-12 is critical for brain health but can become an issue as people get older because the body becomes less able to absorb it. Also, certain drugs can affect absorption. These include proton pump inhibitors, widely used to reduce stomach acid, and the hugely popular diabetes drug metformin (Glucophage).

The authors of the new study looked not only at B-12 levels but at five different blood markers for the vitamin that indicate "where B-12 is active in the tissues," said Tangney, who is associate professor in the department of clinical nutrition at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

These markers may actually be better indicators of how much B-12 is absorbed in the body than B-12 itself, she added.

In this study of 121 black and white seniors participating in the Chicago Health and Aging Project, volunteers had their blood drawn and tested for B-12 and related metabolites; they also took 17 tests to measure their memory and mental acuity (cognitive skills).

About 4.5 years later, the researchers measured the participants' brain volumes using MRI scans, and checked for other signs of brain damage. High levels of four of the five markers were linked with smaller brain volume and/or lower scores on cognitive tests, compared with people who had lower levels of the markers.

"This suggests that measuring B-12 levels in itself is not enough to tell if a person is deficient or not," Tangney said. "We need to be careful and think about other indicators."

If a person's B-12 levels are borderline normal, it might be reasonable to check other measures, said Gordon.

Tangney said the study results suggest that B-12 deficiencies contribute to brain atrophy (shrinkage), which in turn can contribute to cognitive problems. However, she also warned against making dietary changes or drawing too-firm conclusions from these findings, noting that they were based on data from only a small number of people.

Last Updated: 09/27/2011

Selections from Natural Health News

Natural Health News: Cheers for Vitamin B 12

Jun 24, 2008

I am a proponent of B vitamins, and especially B12 for various health reasons. And I am a hold out for B12 shots even though in today's cookie cutter approach to health care it is almost taboo to even ask for B12 shots from your health ...

Natural Health News: Another boost for the importance of B12

Sep 15, 2008

Dementia and Vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 deficiency is well recognized as a cause of cognitive decline and dementia.4 Dementia due to vitamin B12 deficiency responds to vitamin B12 therapy, unless it has progressed to the ...

Natural Health News: Anti-Anemia Drugs: B12 is Better, Safer

Oct 19, 2010

With his open-minded MD he was able to switch to B12 shots and natural thyroid support, reduce his costs, and greatly improve his anemia, and his health. Working as I do from time to time with people who experience serious ...

Natural Health News: I Must Be In B Vitamin Heaven

Dec 11, 2008

Even B12 shots were a regular occurrence and no one needed a blood test to decide if you could get them. Of course now the blood test used - really to get a billable charge and avoid acting outside standards of care - is ...

Healthy and Wise

Over at the Everett Herald one of the longtime writers once penned an article about camping.  The thing that caught my eye was her menu because it included things like hot dogs, bacon, ham, and a variety of chips and white bread buns to add to the folly.

I contacted here to suggest her menu could be a bit healthier and she replied, “You have to die of something”.  To this I said, “Yes, only a life well lived”.

I guess paying a price for a longer life falls in to the “you have to die of something” category, but I continue to support the concepts that help you live long and live healthy.

Exercise can be one of those ‘helpers’ as can learning to use non-pharmaceutical methods to keep you healthy and well through the ages and stages of your life.

Fit at Any Age: Workout

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/thumbnails/0,,20365122,00.html

EAST ANGLIA, England, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A British physiotherapist says making just one lifestyle change -- exercise -- can help improve health.
Leslie Alford of the University of East Anglia, England, who has reviewed 40 international studies on the value of exercise, takes issue with those who say: "What's the point? I've never been able to lose weight or give up smoking, why should I exercise?"
Of course, says Alford, it would be ideal to exercise, abstain from smoking, eat a healthy diet and have a body mass index -- a measure of body weight based on height -- lower than 25.
"The more of these healthy traits an individual has the less likely they are to develop a range of chronic disorders," Alford says in a statement. "It is obviously desirable for an individual to give up smoking and maintain a healthy weight range, but if they cannot, they will still gain health benefits from increasing their physical activity."
Alford says it is important patients understand the health benefits of losing weight or giving up smoking. However, if a patient cannot lose weight or give up smoking, he or she should still be encouraged to be more physically active.
Alford's review is published in the International Journal of Clinical Practice.

December 27, 2010

Aging: Paying the Physical Price for Longer Life

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Americans are living longer, but those added years are more likely to be a time of disease and disability.

An analysis of government data has found that while life expectancy has steadily increased over the past decade, the prevalence of heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes has also increased, and disability has grown as well.

For example, in 1998 about 16 percent of men in their 70s had a mobility problem — that is, they failed one of four commonly used physical tests. By 2006, almost 25 percent failed at least one.

Writing in the January issue of The Journal of Gerontology B, the authors conclude that people live longer not because they are less likely to get sick, but because they survive longer with disease.

As a result, a 20-year-old man today can expect to live about a year longer than a 20-year-old in 1998, but will spend 1.2 years more with a disease, and 2 more years unable to function normally.

The lead author, Eileen M. Crimmins, a professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California, said that while we have been very successful in increasing the length of life, it comes at a cost.

“Longer life is what we want,” she said. “But we’re going to have to pay for it with more treatment of diseases and accommodations for disability.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/health/research/28longevity.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=health

Maybe this article is a plug for "death panels"?

Walking Boosts Brain Benefit

The essential fatty acids are important nutrients for everything from brain function to cell function. Of course healthy fat is critical and omega 3 boosts brain health as it promotes cellular integrity.

ScienceDaily (Dec. 1, 2010) — The discovery by UCLA biochemists of a new method for preventing oxidation in the essential fatty acids of cell membranes could lead to a new class of more effective nutritional supplements and potentially help combat neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease and perhaps Alzheimer's.

Exercise is proven to benefit health because it is an activity that improves oxygen levels and improves circulation.  Now it is sure that walking makes brain fitness a sure thing.

And as another medical and health writer explains: "Activity, for a start, generally boosts blood circulation. Brain function may be enhanced by enhanced blood supply to this organ through improved delivery of oxygen and key nutrients".

The health benefits of walking are so well known that a fifth-grader could probably recite them. A daily dose of 30 minutes of brisk walking is good for your heart, lungs, muscles, blood pressure and bones.

Now we find out it's also good for your brain.

A study released last month by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh shows that walking a few miles per week can stave off the progress of Alzheimer's disease. According to the BBC, the study proves that "people who walk at least [5 miles] a week have bigger brains, better memories and improved mental ability compared to those who are more sedentary."

This follows an earlier study released in August. Led by Dr. Arthur F. Kramer, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have shown that walking not only builds up your muscles, but also builds up the connectivity between brain circuits. This is important because as we age, the connectivity between those circuits diminishes and affects how well we do every day tasks, such as driving. But aerobic exercise, such as brisk walking, helps revive those flagging brain circuits.

"Almost nothing in the brain gets done by one area -- it's more of a circuit," Kramer explained to ScienceDaily. "These networks can become more or less connected. In general, as we get older, they become less connected, so we were interested in the effects of fitness on connectivity of brain networks that show the most dysfunction with age."

Neuroscientists have identified several distinct brain circuits, and one of the most intriguing is the default mode network (or DMN), which dominates brain activity when a person is least engaged with the outside world -- either passively observing something or simply daydreaming. Previous studies found that a loss of coordination in the DMN is a common symptom of aging and in extreme cases can be a marker of disease.

The study: For one year, Kramer's team followed 70 adults who ranged in age from 60 to over 80 years old. All of them were sedentary before the study began. The participants were divided into two groups. One did aerobic walking, while the others served as a control group that did toning, stretching and strengthening exercises.

Brain function was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain networks and determine whether aerobic activity increased connectivity in the DMN or other brain networks. The researchers measured participants' brain connectivity and performance on cognitive tasks at the beginning of the study, at six months and after a year of either walking or toning and stretching. A group of young adults, ages 20 to 30, was also tested for brain function for comparison.

The results: Those who walked briskly reaped the biggest benefits -- and not just physically, Kramer writes in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. As the older people became more fit, the aerobic exercise actually improved their memory, attention and several other cognitive processes. In fact, the coherence among different regions in the brain networks increased so much, it actually mimicked that of the 20-somethings.

Specifically, at the end of the year, DMN connectivity was significantly improved in the brains of the older walkers, but not in the stretching and toning group. The walkers also had increased connectivity in parts of another brain circuit called the fronto-executive network, which aids in the performance of complex tasks, and they did significantly better on cognitive tests than did their toning and stretching peers.

Kramer says even moderate aerobic exercise will enhance the function of specific brain structures and improve the coordination of important brain networks. But it must be aerobic to work. Toning and stretching aren't enough to reap the benefits.

"The higher the connectivity, the better the performance on some of these cognitive tasks, especially the ones we call executive control tasks -- things like planning, scheduling, dealing with ambiguity, working memory and multitasking," Kramer said. These are the very skills that tend to decline with aging, he said.

The gotcha: It doesn't happen overnight. It took a full year of walking for the results to be seen. Even the six-month test results showed no significant brain changes. The group that did the stretching exercises saw no cognitive benefit.

This isn't the first study to reach this conclusion. Recent research from the Harvard School of Public Health tracked more than 18,000 women ages 70 to 81 and concluded that the more active we are, the better our cognition. Specifically, walking one-and-a-half hours a week at a pace of one mile in 16-20 minutes gives the full cognitive benefits.

Walking may just be the wonder drug of old age.

And for the benefit of your heart Lifting weights strengthens your heart

Interventions in Aging

Back in about 1955 I was lucky enough to be the daughter of a physician and surgeon who had an interest in natural health.  At the time he was one of the early subscribers to Organic Gardening and Prevention magazines from Robert Rodale's organization.  It happened too that Rodale was just upstate in my home state of Pennsylvania.

I've written several times about how I devoured each month's issue and how it was part and parcel of turning me into a doctor of a different color.  I've even been involved in more recent years in a number of Rodale's publications, including Woman's Book of Healing Herbs.

As far as anti-aging therapy goes there are many ways to look at this, and implement programs.  I went for herbs and orthomolecular and nutritional approaches to health.

I was taunted, especially by my mother who live to 99.  But undaunted, to this day, I stick with my beliefs and what I learn in almost daily continuing education.

My organiztion, CHI, can help you too.  Currently, with your donation you can receive a copy of our Rejuvenation Cleanse.

A panel of 10 luminaries in the field of gerontology, including Aubrey de Grey, Caleb Finch and Jan Vijg, convened to urge the translation of recent findings in the field of aging into therapeutic agents that can benefit the world's growing population of older individuals. Their report was published in the July 14, 2010 issue of the American Association for the Advancement of Science journal Science Translational Medicine.

In the introduction to their article, the authors note that age is the greatest risk factor for the majority of chronic diseases in the western world, and is of increasing significance in the developing world as well. Functionality decreases with age while disease incidence increases, and mortality rates double approximately every 7 to 8 years following puberty. These phenomena are attributable to the accumulation of damaging changes in the body that occur at the molecular, cellular and tissue levels due to the effects of normal metabolism as well as environmental causes and unhealthy lifestyles.

In order to prevent a global aging crisis caused by a greater proportion of older individuals and the resulting increases in medical costs and social challenges, the panel advocates the collaboration of a number of countries in an international initiative to translate laboratory findings on aging into pharmaceutical agents that will improve the lives of older men and women.

"We propose a global biological aging research agenda focused on the detailed understanding of the following overlapping core age changes and developing therapies for decelerating, arresting, and reversing them: (i) the loss of proliferative homeostasis, (ii) neurodegeneration, (iii) somatic mutations in both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA, (iv) nonadaptive alterations in gene expression, (v) immunosenescence, (vi) nonadaptive inflammation, and (vii) alterations of the extracellular milieu," the authors write. "To ameliorate age-related changes, we identify three broad modes of intervention that should be exploited in addition to ongoing conventional, disease-centered medical innovation: (i) reduction in exposure to environmental toxins and amelioration of other risk factors through improved public health; (ii) modulation of metabolic pathways contributing to age-related changes; and (iii) a more broadly conceived regenerative medicine, to embrace the repair, removal, or replacement of existing aging damage or its decoupling from its pathological sequelae."

"There is this misunderstanding that aging is something that just happens to you, like the weather, and cannot be influenced," remarked Dr Vijg, who is chair of genetics and the Lola and Saul Kramer Chair in Molecular Genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University. "The big surprise of the last decade is that, in many different animals, we can increase healthy life span in various ways. A program of developing and testing similar interventions in humans would make both medical and economic sense."

"In the case of late-life intervention in human age-related degeneration, what we can be certain of today is that a policy of aging as usual will lead to enormous humanitarian, social and financial costs," the authors conclude. "To realize any chance of success, the drive to tackle biological aging head-on must begin now." Source:Life Extension

Methuselah Foundation

Nuts and Berries, good eats for health

Blackberries, Walnuts, Strawberries, Artichokes, Cranberries, Coffee (nothing added), Raspberries, Pecans, Blueberries, Clove (ground/powder).

All of the above foods are high in antioxidants and can act to protect you from environmental pollutants.

These foods are considered to be the Top 10 as listed in a report published in the Clinical Nutrition journal.

These and other antioxidant foods may be helpful to prevent heart disease, premature aging, and cancers.

Check out a traditional Native American food made with cranberries