Welcome to the first in a 7-part series that looks at Cognitive aging – what it is, how it affects us, when it begins, and what we can do about it. Most of the answers will go against much of what you have assumed to be true and what medical experts have been telling us.
Before we begin to look at this topic it is important to distinguish between 20th century medicine and 21st. Until fairly recently – within the last 20 years – medicine has experienced a massive shift from focusing on “what” symptom, condition or disease, is occurring to “why”. This shift has required a significantly more sophisticated, more comprehensive approach to both analysis and treatment.
Before, we thought about dementia, Alzheimer’s, and “old age” as, respectively, a grouping of conditions that cause cognitive loss, an incurable disease, and a natural, and progressive, part of aging. Since 2014, a white paper has reassessed and formulated a broad-spectrum way to study, assess, diagnose and successfully treat neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer’s disease.
Cognitive decline is a phrase that is used to describe conditions like “brain fog” – often experienced during and after menopause – or “Senior moments” – where certain words temporarily disappear from our inventory, only to return later. When it becomes debilitating, that is when we begin to seek medical assistance and assign scarier names to the behaviors.
Current studies have begun to show that what is actually happening is a combination of three separate conditions that require very different responses and treatment. All of them are absolutely preventable and correctable. Individuals that are showing signs of dementia or have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s may show signs of one, two or all three conditions and treatment must be designed to address each condition separately.
Type 1 Alzheimer’s is caused by inflammation – from foods we eat – trans fats, too much sugar, or certain pathogens – arthritis, herpes simplex 2 or gingivitis – find their way into your brain and the brain forms amyloids – normally starts with memory loss
Type2 – Atrophic or nutrition related, trophic or life-supporting nutrients are simply missing; caused by SAD – Standard American Diet – processed and GMO-related foods; impacted as well by the loss or diminishment of hormones as with menopause or thyroid disease or a lack of Vitamin D; and also begins with an inability to store new memories or a strategic downsizing or the neural network to protect the most important brain functions.
Type3 – Corticoid toxicity caused by exposure to neurotoxins – like mold, copper-zinc, mercury, biotoxins. Starts with word finding, organizational difficulty, cortical challenges rather than hippocampal disorders and also may show signs of depression and often is seen as early as individuals in their 40’s
Amyloid plaque, that terrible thing that tells the doctor her patient has Alzheimer’s by measuring how much is found in the brain. Up to now there has been the thought that the plaque has to be removed. Actually, the plaque is our brain’s response to the condition. Amyloid plaque is actually the brain’s way of defending against the inflammation, the lack of nutrients, the toxins, that are actually causing the cognitive dissonance.
The suggestion is that all of us from age 40 on, should have a Cognoscopy to determine where we fall in our cognitive function. Individuals can begin to show signs of Type 3 Alzheimer’s as early as 40 and all of us, from that age on, will have Amyloid plaque appearing in our brains.
So here it is; “As the metabolism goes, so goes cognition.” Being as we are living with more mold challenges than other parts of the country due to Harvey, the value of a Cognoscopy would seem to be more important to those of us with a known exposure , than to others.
This is a very brief overview of part one of this series on cognition. For more information and to be proactive rather than reactive to our cognitive health, please visit www.mpicognition.com or www.Drbredesen.com to learn more.
