Newsletter

Memory and Alzheimer’s Disease2021-08-21

Protracted severe stress can affect health and decrease longevity, signaling to the organism that things are bad and it should be unhappy, there is no hope for objectives achievement in the future, and its life has no meaning and importance so might as well give up, turning off a “life switch” ¹. This results in active aging, all the way to suicide. Repeated cumulative stress is like a form of non-mechanical, molecular, traumatic brain injury (micro TBI), which can lead to memory problems, Alzheimer Disease (AD), and other dementias through passive (wear and tear) and active (apoptosis) aging mechanisms. The compensatory reaction can go awry and lead to brain scarring, which is what tau neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques are(Niculescu et al. 2019)2. AD is sort of a “cirrhosis” of the brain; hard to treat, better to prevent, by minimizing passive and active mechanisms.

The good news is that we have developed blood biomarker tests for memory abnormalities early in life, that can predict risk for later in life dementias and AD². Such tests pair people to nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals, for early treatment and preventive approaches, and potentially supra-normative improvement of function. You can also keep track of your your stress levels and memory function using our Life x Mind app, and change your lifestyle to improve them!

Live. Happier. Longer.

Bob

Footnotes

1. Rangaraju S, Levey DF, Nho K, Jain N, Andrews KD, Le-Niculescu H et al. Mood, stress and longevity: convergence on ANK3. Mol Psychiatry 2016; 21(8): 1037-1049. ↩

2. Niculescu AB, Le-Niculescu H, Roseberry K, Wang S, Hart J, Kaur A et al. Blood biomarkers for memory: toward early detection of risk for Alzheimer disease, pharmacogenomics, and repurposed drugs. Mol Psychiatry 2020; 25(8): 1651-1672. ↩