Alzheimer's disease and what we can do to delay it succesfully

 

On my last blog post I was talking about the tests needed to detect it early. Once we know that we are prone to some subtype of Alzheimer's Disease (AD), what can we do to succesfully delay it (or even keep it at bay, if we are really lucky, genetically and otherwise). 

There are five causes that are usually related to early cognitive decline for every one of us, and we can deal with them optimizing our mental health adequatelly:

• Insulin resistance
• Inflammation and infections
• toxins (can be biological, chemical or physical)
• hormonal balance, nutrients for the brain and trophic factor enhancing
• restoration and protection of synapses (even for lost of dysfunctional ones).

Diet: A Keto-diet can greatly improve in relation with inflammation. This is a good video explaining the dangers of this diet and the benefits of this kind of diet. 

Exercise: You will need to make an effort in here, with 5-6 times a week, aerobic and strenght, for 30-50 minutes.

Stress reduction: Meditation, yoga postures and pranayama exercices can greatly help with this issue.

Brain training: 30 minutes 3 times a week or 15 minutes for 6 times a week.

Supplements that help preventing or delaying AD:

-MCT oil 1-3 g daily

-Curcumin or turmeric 1 g twice daily

-Ashwaganda 500 mg twice per day

-Bacopa monieri 250-500 mg twice per day

-Gotu kola 500 mg 1-2 times per day

-There are other Ayurvedic remedies indicated for this, without enough research done at the moment: Rhodiola, Hericium, Shankhpushpi, Triphala, Guduchi, Guggul and few more.

-Magnesium threonate 2 g per day (in the evening, can have sedative effect, not before driving or using heavy machinery)

-Ubiquinol 100 mg

-PQQ 10-20 mg

-Resveratrol 100 mg

-Nicotinamide riboside 100mg

-Omega3: DHA 1 g, EPA 0.5-1 g

-Liposomal glutathione 250 mg 2 times per day

-Enough vitamin D and K (D level targer of 50-80)

-Probiotics and prebiotics (read here and here) 

-Mixed tocopherols and tocotrienols (vitamin E desired level 12-20)

-Detoxification protocols if heavy metals or biotoxins are present

-Specific antibiotic treatment if infection is present

-Discontinue or minimize medication interfering with cognitive function if possible. 

Note: All the supplements are preferable to be from natural sources (fruits, veggies, dairy etc) as they are better absorbed than the farmaceutical products. You may need at least 6 months of dedicated effort to undue what you probably done wrong for your entire life. You don't need to do or use all of them, but test and adopt the habits that help you the most and implement them in your daily routine. 

Live long and and prosper!

G.

 

Alzheimer's disease early detection - complete list of tests

I realised that all the tests where mentioned across few posts, sa maybe it will be easier if there is a list of them, with the normal values:

Genetics - ApoE -Ideally negative for ApoE4

Blood tests:

Inflammation AD (Alzheimer's disease)

-homocysteine - under 7

-vitamin B (B6 60-100, B12 500-1500, Folate 10-25)

-vitamin C 1.3-2.5

-vitamin D 50-80

-vitamin E 12-20

-Omega3:Omega 6 ratio 0.5-3.0

-A/G ratio (albumin/globulin) -more than 1.8/ albumin more than 4.5 

-fasting insulin - less than 4.5 (fasting glucose 70-90)

-A1c - less than 5.6

-BMI (body mass index) - 18-25

-LDL-p 700-1000

-cholesterol - more than 150

-HDL more than 50

-triglycerides - under 150

-glutathione 5-5.5

-RBC thiamine - 100-150

-Leaky gut, leaky blood-brain barrier, gluten sensitivity - negative

Trophic support AD

-vitamin D -50-80

-estradiol (E2) - 50-250

-progesterone -1-20

-pregnenolone -50-100

-cortison 10-18

-DHEA sulphate 350-430 women, 400-500 men

-testosterone 500-1000, free testosterone 6.5-15 free

-free T3 3.2-4.2, free T4 1.3-1.8, reverse T3 less than 20, TSH less than 2

Toxin related AD

-mercury less than 5, lead less than 2, arsenic less than 7, cadmium less than 2.5

-copper/zinc ratio 0.8-1.2

-C4a less than 2830, MSH 35-81

-RBC magnesium 5.2-6.5

-copper 90-110, zinc 90-110

-selenium 110-150

-potassium 4.5-5.5

-calcium 8.5-10.5

Microbiome - gut/oral/nasal - no pathogens

I hope this helps. You just read my previous posts to see if you are at risk and which way you need to improve. 

G.

The Libyan adventure - strange facts about Gaddafi

Motto: ''Those who do not learn their history, are doomed to repeat it. ''

 

 

As i was exchanging ideas with someone knowing quite a bit about life under the dictator Gaddafi, here are some facts that i found out about:

During Gaddafi regime:

1. Every citizen, according to the Green Book, should have a home that needs to be owned by him and not by others. 

2. Education and healthcare was free. 

3. Electricity was free.

4. Petrol was $ 0.14 per litre.

5. Libya was the home of the 8th wonder of the world - an irrigation project covering almost the whole country, which is now almost completely destroyed, as it was intensely targeted in the war. Somebody wanted Libyans to be hungry and without food. 

6. A mother will receive a $5000 equivalent allocated for her and the child. 

7. If you wanted to make a farm, you will receive house, land, livestock and seeds needed to start. 

8. During Gaddafi, the number of illiterate Libyans wend down from 75% to 13%. Education was very important. 

9. Libya has their own national bank, which provided loans to population atr zero interest rate (as they use to be one of the few countries with no external debt.) The highest level ever reached was 6.47% GDP in 2011. This is a very low level, even now, after a was raged free in the whole country. Fun fact, another country with no external debt was Romania, with zero external debt in 1978, and highest level ever - 75% GDP external debt in 2011. U.S. external debt in 2019 is 84% of GDP. 

10. He tried to make the United States of Africa before European Union project, with a single African currency backed by gold called gold dinar. This will probably give unprecedented freedom and power to whole Africa, and some believe this was the real reason of being ousted out of his throne. 

Also, he was a good friend of Nelson Mandela, and declared Osama bin Laded terorist and wanted man three years before 9/11, condemning what was later known as ISIS.

Sometimes life is indeed stranger than fiction. And i know, he was also doing a lot of questionable things as president, and i lived under a Comunist Party to know better when your freedom finish and where it starts. But, why did they destroy all the good work of the Libyan people?

 

Alzheimer, gluten sensitivity and autoantibodies

We already talked about the gut-brain connection and how this will influence cognition. Statistically speaking, even if only 6% of the people will develop coeliac disease (severe gluten intolerance in layman terms), many of us will damage somehow our gastrointestinal tract at some moment in our life (see this book and this book for more information). Gluten sensitivity can lead to leaky gut, which in turn can trigger chronic inflammation leading to Alzheimer's disease (AD). There is a standard blood test to determine your gluten sensitivity, called tissue transglutaminase antibodies assesment in the serum, and obviously needs to be negative. There is also Cyrex Array 3 testing, to determine antibodies and also we can measure sensitivity to rye, barley, sesame, oats or rice, for example, using Cyrex Array 4. The result must be negative for both tests also. And if we need to explore further more, to find any autoantibodies from the group attacking the brain proteins, then we will use Cyrex Array 5. This one will asses a host of autoantibodies, and also needs to be negative. 

Next on our list are the mitochondria damaging agents. The mitochondria is that part of the cell generating and supplying energy, and there are many chemicals that can damage our mitochondria, within short and long term exposure. Antibiotics, statins, griseofulvin, L-DOPA, alcohol, Tylenol, aspirin, ibuprofen, cocaine, methamphetamine, AZT, thre is a really long list here. Even the ApoE4 alele might be associated with the mitochondrial damage. 

Even worst, there is no definite test to evidentiate this. All we can do is to avoid the known mitochondria-damaging substances and chemicals. 

The Alzheimer's disease and the bloodstream-brain barrier

When the brain of patients with Alzheimer's disease was analysed, there was an entire list of disease-causing bacteria, viruses and fungi, and while they were not enough to indicate encefalitis or meningitis, the low levels of pathogens will slowly wear down your defences, making your brain to function suboptimally. It was not really like an all-out war, but more like a sabotage. These findings are both surprising and concerning, as previous it was hypothetised that Alzheimer's disease (AD) is not infectious. 

Oral bacteria have been found repeatedly in the brain of people suffering with AD , as some of their excretions (protein based) were found also. The culprits are Porphyromonas gingivalis. Fusobacterium nucleatun and Prevotella intermedia. Herpex simplex virus (HSV) can live for decades in the nerve cells from your face and lips (trigeminal ganglion cells), causing cold sores when you are stressed or sunburned, but they can also migrate through the same nerve into the brain, producing mild, chronic inflammation, associated with AD. 

Syphilis causing bacterium - Treponema pallidum, can live in the body for years, eventually infecting the brain and causing dementia. AD seems to activate a similar pathway, but instead of one single organism causing this, in the case of AD, the mild chronic inflammtion seems to be caused by many different microorganisms associated together. 

Another notable presence, The Lyme disease spirochete - Borrelia burgdorferi, has been found in the brain of AD patients. This one is carried by a deer tick in most of the cases, and you can get it when the tick bite you and inject you with its saliva. Sometimes you will get some additional friends of Borrelia, such as Ehrlichia (infecting white blood cells), Bartonella (infecting blood vessels) or Babesia (relative of malaria parasite, attacking red blood cells). A very dangerous coktail. Want more distressing news? There are also some fungi that can be found in the brain of the AD patients. There is no single organism to cause AD, but the main problem may be the response to so many different infectious agents. 

Normally the brain is well protected by the blood-brain barrier, with few rare cases when this barrier can break down, similar with the leaky gut issue. Sometimes is the nose ( a known problem of cocaine users), sometimes is the gut (via the vagus nerve) and in very rare cases through the eye. All the dementogens will use one of these routes (dementogen - causal factor of dementia, like in cancerigen - cancer). In AD, the abnormalities related to the blood-brain barrier tend to appear very early, and there are substantial claims related to the link between the nasal and sinusal acces to the brain and the AD type 3. 

The test to verify this issue it is called Cyrex Array 20, and the result must be, obviously, negative. 

Next post will be about gluten related sensitivities.

Have a wonderful day!

G. 

Alzheimer's disease and the links to the gut intestinal flora

In the latest years the scientific research community turned towards the gut microbiota endless possibilities to improve our health. We are becoming more aware of this every month passing by (you can find more in-depth information related to the gut intestinal flora in my own book treating this subject). 

So, the leaky gut was just recognized lately as a medical problem, and it is noticed quite often in our patients, contributing to increased inflammation and other various conditions. Just think about this! Many of us will do everything possible to secure our house, to ensure that everything is locked, roof is in perfect condition, windows closed and pipes are well maintained. Yet, we do not take a similar approach to tighten the barriers in our body, starting with crucial systems like our gut. 

All the cells lining our gastrointestinal tract need to maintain tight junctions (this will happen as a protein complex with occludin acts like a sealant between our cells). The cell lining will keep the food inside our gut and only few selected molecules such as aminoacids resulted from proteins breaking down can pass through and reach the bloodstream, being carried everywhere throrough the body. Sometimes this cell junction starts to loosen up, under the influence of soft drinks or alcohol, chemicals from pesticids, sugar, processed foods, gluten sensitivity, preservatives, yeast, inflammation, chronic stress and medication (aspirin and acetaminophen are just two examples of it). As the cell lining is loosening up, bigger molecules trespass (glucose, fructose, vitamins, various bacteria and yeast). All these new molecules are identified by our body as being intruders, triggering inflammation. Even more, because some of our own cells contain or are similar with the new molecules, sometimes an autoimmune condition is triggered, with our own tissue getting collateral damage. You start with persistent low level inflammation and you can go all the way up to dangerous autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, lupus or arhtritis. When we spoke about Alzheimer's disease (AD) types, i mentioned that type 1 has inflammation as a key cause, and clearly having a leaky gut will increase the risks of AD type 1 as one of the most common way to generate a systemic inflammation is a leaky gut. 

There are many ways to test our gut permeability. One test will measure the urine sugar level and check what kind of sugars are present in it, after we ingested different sugars like lactulose and mannitol, the mannitol goes through the gut barrier, while the lactulose shouldn't. If we have manitol in our urine, that is proof that the gut can absorb the necesarry molecules, but if we have lactulose, this will translate in having a leaky gut. Antibodies to the gut barrier protein will also indicate a leaky gut. There is an antibody array called Cyrex Array 2, and the result should be negative. To test for food sensitivities, you can use Cyrex Arrays 3 and 4, or you can eliminate the foods you suspect they are triggering a reaction, and introduce them one by one, to find out when the symptoms reappear. 

In the next post i will write about the bloodstream-brain barrier. 

Have a wonderful day!

Surprise, surprise!

Once upon a time, I was one with the entire Universe. I used to be aware of everything and everyone. I used to have a deja-vu perception, when the events will happen simultaneously in my perception, only to allign itselves in time few moments after. My time perception was not linear, there was no past, present and future, and that was normal for me. My physical body was not my limit, as I would be aware of the entire space, not my town, not my planet or my universe, but a multitude of universes laying down one after another into infinity. 

And then, slowly slowly, one day after another, I started to forget. I become a 'normal' human being, limited in time and space. Sometimes, in my dreams, i would remember vaguely of my omnipotence, creating few worlds at the time, and enjoying being complete once more. Maybe this is Maya - the cosmic illusion, an invisible blanket covering our inner eye. 

How could i forget all these? I would never know. 

***

- Look at this! said the doctor checking the dead body, I've never seen a brain with so many circumvolutions. I need to study this a bit more. Who was this one?

I was looking incredulously at my body, laying on the cold slab, and i realised that i am dead now. 

-Come into the light! I heard His voice, as loud as thunder. It is time for you to come back Home.

Alzheimer's disease and two very important vitamins related to it

There are two important allies in the fight preventing Alzheimer's disease (AD). I am talking about the vitamin E and the vitamin B1. 

Vitamin B1, also known as thiamine, it is closely linked with the memory formation, which as you guessed, is one of the main problems in Alzheimer. When is defficient, due to alcohol abuse or malnutrition-associated memory loss, has the fancy name of Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. What you need to know is that there are foods containing thiamine-degrading enzimes (drinks like alcohol, tea and coffee, and some types of raw fish). Normal levels of thiamine are good for healthy cognition, so even if you are not suffering from ageing, cognitive decline and AD, it is ideal to keep healthy levels. The best way to measure it is by checking the thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) in the red blood cells. The optimal value for TPP is between 100 and 150 ng/ml or, if you are doing serum thiamine, then the optimal values are between 20 and 30 nmol/l.

The second star of our story is the vitamin E, also known as tocopherol. To be more accurate, what we call in layman terms vitamin E is in fact a group of multiple molecules of tocotrienols and tocopherols. This set of compounds are protecting the fatty cell membranes from the damage done by the free radicals (and yes, i mean ageing), due to the powerful antioxidant action of the vitamin E. Even when is used alone, without any other treatmenSt, the vitamin E was shown to slow AD cognitive decline by some degree. The result were not spectacular, but they were proven to work. Anyway, you cannot expect to slow AD cognitive decline completely using only this vitamin. The optimal values for vitamin E (measured as alpha-tocopherol) are between 12 and 20 mcg/ml. 

In the next post i will try to tackle the link between the AD and the gastrointestinal permeability (leaky gut). 

Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful day! Take care!

G.

Alzheimer's disease and the danger of lipids (i mean bad cholesterol, you know that)

Motto: “The idea is to die young as late as possible.” ― Ashley Montagu

This is a new ideology in the longevity research, and they are reffering at this as healthspan, as opposed to the idea of lifespan, that was used before. You need to aim to be healthier for as long as possible, not to live longer. As per the motto used for today post. Avoiding Alzheimer's disease and other forms of demetia should be one of our main priority. Let's continue our journey then. 

Testing for cholesterol is not a surefire diagnosis, as there can be people with high cholesterol and no vascular problems, aswell as people with normal cholesterol and significant vascular disease. The cardiovascular disease is a known contributor to the cognitive decline, which in turn can be a sign of Alzheimer's disease (AD) or vascular dementia. But do you know what is more dangerous than high cholesterol? Low cholesterol, as in brain decreasing in volume because of the lack of essential fatty acids. 

Quite a contradiction, isn't it? Measuring just the cholesterol can be quite ineffective in the AD risk assesment. But (there is always a but), there are some specific tests related to the cholesterol that can help you to undestand better the relation between lipids and AD. The tests and their normal values are:

1. LDL-p (LDL particle number) with normal values between 700-1000

2. OR sdLDL (small dense LDL) with normal values lower than 20 mg/dl (or 20% of the total LDL)

3. OR oxidised LDL with normal values lower than 60 U/L

4. total cholesterol with suggested values bigger than 150 (yes, bigger, not lower). 

I need to remind you that these are the recommended values for people at risk of AD, not for super-healthy young people. 

I am a bit tired now and i will go to sleep soon, but i will come back soon with another post about 2 essential vitamins (E - tocopherol and B1 - thiamine). 

Have a nice day!

G.

Alzheimer's disease and the secret weapon against it (the sleeeeeeeep)

Sleep apnoea is quite common, most of the cases are not identified (we are talking of 75% of the cases that are never diagnosed), and it is one of the factors contributing to the cognitive decline. The sleep apnoea is happening when your breathing will halt completelly for a short period of time, almost waking you up, and stopping you for reaching the deep sleep, the maximum regenerative time of our sleep. If you are snoring, you are old, overweight or have a short neck, then probably you have sleep apnoea. If you are chronically tired during your waking time, this may be also a cause. There are wearable devices that can detect sleep apnoea at home, or very expensive tests that require to stay overnight in a special sleep center. The conclusion is named AHI (apnoea-hypopnea index) and normal is less than 5, ideally zero, and a value of around 100 means that you have this condition. Basically AHI is measuring how many times per hour you stopped breathing. 

Let's explain a bit more what happen during the high quality sleep:

-the anatomy of the brain cells is altered, allowing cleansing, flushing out the amyloid-beta and other debris. During sleep, less amyloid-beta is generated.

- as we are fasting during sleep, the insulin sensitivity is reseted and improved. 

-during sleep the autophagy process is initiated, destroying damaged mitochondria and defective proteins.

-hormonally speaking, the growth hormone secretion is increased, repairing and producing new supportive brain cells.

-different reparative processes are initiated during deep sleep. 

Sleep deprivation can lead to impaired cognition, increased risk of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, all three of them increasing in turn the risk of Alzheimer's disease. 

Next post will be about the cholesterol influence on AD.

Alzheimer's disease, metals, heavy metals and other kinds of rock

Today i will talk about oligoelements, or as you know them minerals, or even metals present in our body and their link with mental health and AD (Alzheimer's disease). But what are these oligoelements? I will tell you, they are small amounts of chemical elements present in our body. If we do not have enough of them, defficiences will appear, as a result of specific pathologies, unbalanced diet, poor assimilation, excessive physical effort, soreness, fatigue and pregnancy, just to name few of the causes. Just to make a list, we are talking mainly about Silver, Gold, Bismuth, Calcium, Cobalt, Chrome, Copper, Fluorine, Iron, Iodine, Potassium, Lithium, Magnesium, Manganese, Molybdenum, Nickel, Phosphorus, Sulphur, Selenium, Silicon, Vanadium and Zinc. But for today we will only insist on those linked to AD risk factors. 

First, one of the tests associated with dementia and AD is the copper/zinc ratio. Most of us (and the risk is increased if you are libing in a developed country) have too much copper and not enough zinc. You may have too much copper because of the copper piping and extra copper from the multivitamins. You may have less zinc because of a zinc poor diet and poor zinc absorbtion (less acid production in our stomach as we age or medication - proton pump inhibitors for gastric reflux). Not only ageing is associated with the zinc levels decrease, but also AD. The type 3 of Alzheimer's disease (the toxic one - we talked about it in here) can have only 50% of the optimal zinc level that a healthy person will have. When the zinc is low you are more sensitive to toxins (heavy metals like mercury or mycotoxins from the mould), the levels of autoantibodies is increased (source of inflammation), the insulin signaling is reduced (zinc needs to be present for insulin synthesis, storage and release), you age faster and you may have more oxidative damage, the hormonal and neurotransmitter signaling is reduced. Most of these consequences lead to cognitive loss, and in many cases to AD. At the moment, more than 25% of the global population are zinc deficient. 

I was mentioning the copper/zinc ratio because the copper and the zinc are competitive in a number of cases, and each inhibits the intake of the other (for example intestinal absorbtion). Too much copper will lead to even less zinc. The zinc is stable, and does not produce free radicals, while the copper does. One more reason to treat this carefully. 

In terms of testing, the copper/zinc ratio should be 0.8/1.2, and the zinc optimal values are 90-110 mcg/dl (12-14mg/l for red blood cell zinc).

Next on the list is magnesium. This one is needed for optimal brain cell function, improving cognition and in case of AD, the hippocampus and the cortical areas close to it are affected, impairing the memory consolidation, due to low levels of magnesium. Measuring magnesium in the red blood cells is much more efficient than in serum (the test is called RBC magnesium where RBC means red blood cells) and the optimal values are 5.2-6.5 mg/dl. 

Selenium is another important oligoelement. This one has the task of cleaning the free radicals damaging our DNA, cellular membrane and cellular function with the help of the glutathione peptide. With this in mind, and the fact that glutathione's levels decrease with age, we need to realise that normal levels of selenium paired with low levels of glutathione can lead to inflammation, lack of synaptic support and toxicity (too many free radicals), and i just counted here each of the main cause of every subtype of Alzheimer's disease. The optimal values for serum selenium is 110-150 ng/ml, and for glutathione (GSH) is 800-1220 micromolar.

Heavy metals like mercury, arsenic, lead and cadmium are neurotoxic, affecting the brain function. If we eat fish often, we need to know that the larger and long living is the fish, the more mercury it has (tuna, showrdfish and shark are the main culprits - and the irony is that these ones are also used to create health supplements like Omega3 rich fish oil and shark cartilage products). The mercury can induce amyloid-beta plaques and neurofibrillary tangles - which are main symptoms of AD. On top of that, the mercury also destroys the glutathione, its role in preventing AD being mentioned in the previous paragraph. 

Arsenic can be present in the groundwater and in the chicken meat (it is lower in the organic grown chicken), and it can impair the executive function of the brain and decrease our verbal skills. Lead can lower IQ of the exposed children (impeding their neuro-psychological development), impairing the cognitive function and increasing the amyloid-beta plaques formation as we age. Can be found in food, water and dust coming from old paint. Cadmium is a carcinogen and a dementogen, and together with lead and arsenic can greatly increase the risk of AD. Cadmium is present in cigarette smoke, chemical factories grounds, yellow and red paintings. 

There is a very sensitive test called Mercury Tri-test, measuring mercury from hair, urine and blood, done by this company. If you evaluate using the blood levels, then the optimal values are listed bellow:

Mercury - less than 5 mcg/l

Arsenic - less than 7 mcg/l

Lead - less than 2 mcg/l

Cadmium - less than 2.5 mcg/l

My next post will be about the link between sleep apnoea and Alzheimer's disease.

If you want to know more about witamins and oligoelements, you can find everything about the normal values and much more in one of my older books - link here. I even made a huge promotion for you for the next 3 days (29-31.05.2020). 

Alzheimer's disease and the hormonal (im)balance

So, do you know what the hormones are? Probably you have some idea, but i will tell you anyway. The hormones are specific molecules produced by our endocrine system (glands) with the main mission to send messages and directions to different parts and organs of our body. The are present in the whole body, but can offect only specific target cells (hormone and hormone receptor - key and lock, so they are hormone receptors answering only to specific hormones. There are many hormones with the mission to optimize your cognitive function. They can support, maintain and create synapses. 

First on our list, the thyroid gland, as a decrease in thyroid activity is quite common in AD (Alzheimer's disease). The thyroid is mainly taking care of the metabolism speed, so when the activity decreases, the slower the cells will work. The reflexes will also slow significantly when the cellular metabolic speed is low. Your heart rate, your mental focus, your sleep quality and many other factors are affected by the thyroid function. As a side note, people suffering from dementia, mild cognitive impairment, subjective cognitive impariment and AD, all of them have low thyroid function level. 

There are four main tests for thyroid function:

1. TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) - This is usually the only test used by most doctors, and it is not very accurate, as you can have suboptimal levels of thyroid activity with normal levels of TSH. TSH is produced by the pituitary gland, in direct relation with the thiroid hormones. When the activity of the thyroid is low, more TSH is freed in the bloodstream, so high levels of TSH translates in low thyroid activity. The normal accepted value is 0.4-4.2 microIU/ml, but in reality anything higher than 2.0 is concerning. 

2. Free T3 (active T3) - This is an active thyroid hormone which lasts only for one day, and dissapears after that, and the optimal levels for it are 3.2-4.2 pg/ml. 

3. Free T4 (inactive or storage form of the thyroid hormone) - Lasting about 7 days in the bloodstream, with optimal levels between 1.3-1.8 ng/dl. 

4. Reverse T3 - It will inhibit the thyroid activity, and this is the main reason of measuring the ratio of freeT3/reverseT3. The ideal ratio is minimum 20, as the reverseT3 levels will increase when you are stressed, reducing the free T3 presence. 

The sexual hormones are also very important, as for the men with low concentration of testosterone the risk of AD is increased. The testosterone is present in both sexes, but is higher for males, and supports the neuronal survival. There are two tests to measure testosterone, the total testosterone, with optimal values between 500-1000 ng/dl, and the free testosterone, with optimal values between 6.5-15 ng/dl. 

The estrogen and progesteron hormones, more important from a feminine point of view, and not enough researched in connection with the cognitive decline, but the women that removed their ovaries due to genetic cancer risk are more than double at risk to have AD. Also, a high ration of estradiol to progesteron can lead to poor memory skills and 'brain fog'. 

The tests for these hormones are:

1.Estradiol  - optimal value of 50-250 pg/ml

2. Progesterone - optimal value of 1-20ng/ml

3. Estradiol/progesterone ration - optimal value of 10-100

The cortisol is a hormone released by our kidneys, and it is a stress related hormone. High levels of cortisol are linked to neuronal damage (focusing on the hypocampus area) resulting in cognitive and memory skills declining. When we are exposed to chronic stress, the hormones needed to deal with it are not produced optimally, and out ability to deal with stress is affected (you become very sensitive to stress, and experience cognitive decline). The cortisol test (taken in the morning) has optimal values between 10-18 mcg/dl.

The pregnolone is a master steroid hormone, precursor to estradiol, testosterone, cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). Y ou may realise now that this hormone can be heavily used to create stress hormones when we experience high stress for prolonged periods of time, and not enough is left to create the sex hormones. If you ever wondered why you are not in the mood when you are under heavy stress, now you know. Lower levels of pregnolone are linked with cognitive decline too. A normal value for pregnolone will be between 50-100 ng/dl. 

As i just mentioned DHEA, this hormone is a neurosteroid supporting the stress respones, and it is measured as DHEA sulphate, with normal values between 350-430 mcg/dl for women and 400-500 mcg/dl for men. 

With so many numbers and technicalities thrown at you in this post, i will stop here for now, coming back soon with minerals and heavy metals (you rock!). 

See you soon, take care and stay safe!

G.

Alzheimer's disease and the lack of vitamin D

What is the link between AD (Alzheimer's disease) and vitamin D? We have two ways to get the vitamin D, first, when the sun converts a cholesterol molecule from our body (7 dehydrocholesterol) into vitamin D (inactive form), which in turn is converted in the active form, or second, by taking vitamin D supplements (ideal if we work on nightshift or we stay a lot inside a building, or we wear a lot of clothes covering most of our skin, or too much sunscreen cream, or in the winter when the day is shorter - September to March). Once the active form of Vitamin D is present in our body, a vitamin D receptor (VDR) bind to it, alowing it to pass via the cellular membrane, into the cell nucleus, and by doing this will activate over 800 genes (some responsible for reducing inflammation and for creating and maintaining synapses in the brain, via enzymes from the brain and the cerebrospinal fluid). There are VDR (vitamin D receptors) in the CNS (central nervous system) and hypocampus. Vitamin D it is also regulating the insulin levels, with a role in preventing the IR (insulin resistance), which we already learned that is one of the risk factors in AD. 

Low levels of vitamin D are linked to cognitive impairment, decreasing the information processing speed (cognitive impairment can be one of the symptoms preceding Alzheimer's disease)

The vitamin D is measured in the blood stream as 25-hydroxycholecalciferol, and even if the accepted normal values are 20-80 ng/ml, you may want to reach a level of 50-80 ng/ml. Supplementing with a dose higher than 4000 UI per day (the upper limit) can be toxic for the body, leading to calcification of the bones and blood vessels and organs hardening. 

Fun fact, even if it is called vitamin, the vitamin D is in fact a prohormone (hormone precursor). 

Alzheimer's disease and the inflammation

There is a connection between AD )Alzheimer's disease) and inflammation. There is enough evidence to show that the risk of having AD is greatly increased by the inflammation, as a chronically activated immune system will attack not only the pathogens, but also the own body cells. A mild inflammatory state, if it is chronic, may increase the risk for cardiovasculad disease (CD), cancer, AD and it will accelerate the ageing process. Not very helpful, isn't it? 

The main damaging agents are infections produced by viruses, bacteria or fungi, AGE products (advanced glycaetion end products - we talked about them in this previous post), free radicals, damaged lipides or/and proteins (oxidized low-density lipoproteins - LDL), trauma (broken bones, strains, bruises, cuts) and few more others. 

How do we measure inflammation?

- C-reactive protein - produced in the liver in response to any kind of inflammation, can bring additional trouble if it is high sensitive (the test that you want is hs-CRP - high sensivity C-reactive proteine, as the standard CRP test is not able to distinguish between optimal and mild high). If the hs-CRP is higher than 0.9mg/l, you need to find the inflammation source. You may have your choice (trans fats, overdosing of sugar and other simple carbohydrates, gluten sensitivity, leaky gut, poor oral hygiene, mycotoxins such as mold and few more others). Once you deal with the problem, you check hs-CRP to see if it is under 0.9 mg/l. 

- the Omega-6/Omega-3 ratio in the blood stream should ideally be in between 0.5 and 3. More than 3 is bad, as Omega-6 is inflammatory, under 0.5 increases the risk of hemorrage. 

- A/G ratio (the albumin to globulin ratio) is another inflammation measurement, and ideally should be higher than 1.8.

- TNF-alpha (tumor necrosis factor) and IL-6 (interleukin) are two members of the cytokines family, which may reach higher levels in the type 1 AD (inflammatory type). Normal values are under 3 pg/ml for IL-6 and under 6 pg/ml for TNF-alpha. 

Alzheimer's disease and the insulin resistance

    For years it was hypotethised that there is a link between diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. But, as the latest researches point out, both illnesses got something in common: poor blood sugar management and insulin resistance. Despite the sugar being present in almost everything we eat or drink (yes, even bread, yogurts, cereals, you name it, it is there), our body tolerance for sugar is somewhere around 15-20 grams of single carbohydrates per day. Per day, i said, and keep in mind that just one energy drink with reduced sugar has 24 grams of it. There is also the not so well explained issue about high and low glycaemic index foods. Let's start with this first. 

    The higher the glycaemic index is (do not think only about sugar, the starch also has something to do with this - white bread, white rice, potatoes, baking goods) the larger amounts of insulin our pancreas will secrete into the bloodstream, to lower the blood sugar. If this happen too often, our cells will start to resist to the insulin signalling too much blood sugar, in the same way you got used in a very noisy environment (eventually). The noise is there (blood sugar in our case), but   you stop reacting too it. And a high level of blood sugar is damaging our body in so many ways. (Find more about this in this article).

    Well known effects of the insulin resistance are type 2 diabetes, fatty liver, metabolic syndrome, but also AD (Alzheimer's disease). There are many pathways that are affected by the insulin resistance. To start with the insulin binding to the insulin receptors, triggering the survival of the neurons, you can only imagine what will happen if this trigger is drastically decreased by the high insulin levels, present most of the time in our bloodstream. Another way to mess up with our nervous system is via the insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) used to get rid on the insulin, but, surprise, also used to get rid of the amyloid beta (one of the main issues in AD). Because, as we know already, higher levels of amyloid-beta equals full blown AD. 

    As the insulin resistance is just a result, the cause being chronically high blood sugar levels, let's see how this is wreaking havoc in our body. The glucose can attack easily to many proteins, interfering with their usual functions. The common blood test to check diabetes called HbA1c is measuring one of these overused proteins - hemoglobins changed to produce advanced glycation end products (AGE). As these proteins trigger our immune system, raising inflammation (one of the risk factors in AD), they are also binding to their own receptor (AGE receptors of RAGE), triggering inflammation even further. Shall we add to the list? Yes, there is more, AGE molecules form free radicals, which in turn can damage almost anything they touch, even DNA and any cell membranes. The additionally damage the blood vessels (less nutrients to go to the brain) and negatively alter the blood-brain barrier. 

    The main blood tests to monitor these risk factors are fasting insulin level (ideally 4.5 microIU/ml or less), the HbA1c test (ideally under 5.6%) and the fasting glucose ( ideally between 70-90 mg/dl, but not more than that). 

    How you manage this? Learning about diabetes management is a good idea, as everything that is recommended for a type 2 diabetes, it will also work for healthy individuals or pre-diabetes condition. 

Next issue to tackle will be inflammation, as i started to explain a bit of its mechanisms today. 

Alzheimer's disease and vitamin B group optimal levels

To continue our Alzheimer's disease knowledge journey, we need to remember that in the last post we mentioned the homocysteine role in the disease and how keeping it in the normal values will need adequate levels of vitamin B (B6, B9 and B12), in their active form for humans. Let's find out about those active forms. For B6 this is P5P ( pyridoxal-5-phosphate), for B9 is methyl-folate and for B12 is methylcobalamin. 

The optimal values for these B vitamins are:

B6 = 60-100 mcg/L

B9 (folate) = 10-25 ng/ml

B12 = 500-1500 pg/ml

Now, if you look online for example for normal values, they will be: 

B6 = 30-110 mcg/L

B9 (folate) = 2-20 ng/ml

B12 = 200-900 pg/ml

Now there is an issue here, as some physicians accept these values as normal, even if they are in the lower range. Some may tell you that lower values may be linked to diseases such as anaemia, dementia and Alzheimer's disease, which is already known. But you want to be in the upper half of the scale, so low walues may be within normal limits, but they are not optimal. For B6, the lower end is bad (30-50 mcg/L), but any value over 110 mcg/L is dangerous also, as it can be toxic and affect the nerves responsable for touch and pressure. The right supplementation for B6 deficiency is P5P ( pyridoxal-5-phosphate). For B6 you are within normal limits at 2-20 ng/ml, but again, you do not want to be in the lower range. Methylfolate is your choice of supplement if you need nore vitamin B6. You want to reach optimal values of 10-25 ng/ml. As for vitamin B12, values of 200-500 are within the normal range, but they are not optimal. 500-1500 pg/ml is where you want to be, and the supplement of choice is methylcobalamin. Related to B12, as the level of vitamin B12 decrease, the methylmalonic acid (MMA) increase. So the MMA blood test is more accurate than the B12 levels, and can be used as complementary test. 

Blood tests recommended to check these vitamins are: B6, B9 (FOLATE), B12 and MMA blood tests.

My next factor to talk about will be insulin resistance. I must admit that i need to learn a bit more about this, as i still have some questions about few of the connections that are not enough researched at the moment. 

The homocysteine blood test, hippocampus atrophy and cognitive decline

Ok, today we talk a bit more about Alzheimer's prevention. 

One of the blood tests that needs to be done is the Homocysteine level, as high levels of this specific aminoacid can be used as a marker of the inflammation and of the loss of trophic factors (two out of the three causes of synapse loss, the third being the accumulation of toxyns and heavy metals). The methionine is the precursor of homocysteine and we got that from food (nuts, beans, dairy, eggs, shellfish, fish, meat from turkey, lamb, beef and pork). The conversion from methionine to homocysteine needs vitamins like B6, B12, folate and betaine (this is another aminoacid). If these supplements are in their normal values, there is not problem in the homocysteine cycling, but if any of them are lacking, the homocysteine will start to build up, and this can lead to brain and blood vessels damage. This is one of the contributors to cognitive decline, and if your value is above 6 mmol, then you got a problem. Because higher levels of homocysteine can lead to hippocampus atrophy, and this is translated straight to cognitive decline. 

Conclusion: you may want your homocysteine level to be less than 7 mmol. Higher levels can be decreased using specific vitamins (B12, B6 and B9-folate). Some versions of these vitamins are better than others ( the most active forms are usually methyltetrahydrofolate for folate (B9), methylcobalamyn for B12, pyridoxal-5-phosphate for B6). 

 

Tests and pathways leading to the early detection of Alzheimer's disease

There are 7 stages in Alzheimer's disease (AD) development, and we cannot realise it until stage 3-4 that there is a posibility of something wrong. In stage two there are only few incidents and usually they are identified as ''senior moments'. In stage two there is a very mild cognitive decline, but it is still not observable by the subjects or family or friends. Stage 3 has a mild cognitive decline, and the person may start  to have difficulties remembering names or finding/using words (especially 'fancy' words, as the vocabulary tends to get much simpler). In this stage you realise that something is wrong, but you brush it off, and try to minimasing, blaming age. Stage 4 is a full blown Alzheimer's disease (AD), and according to doctors, you may have on average 12 years left to live once you reach this stage. Which may or may be not true. Up to stage 4, you may still have a chance to delay it significantly or even recover. Just for your curiosity, in stage 5 you start to be confused, have problem with dressing and remembering informations about yourself and short term memory will not work optimally. In stage 6 you may be unaware of your surroundings, do not know where you are, do not remember much about yourself, start to wander around and have toileting accidents. Stage 7 is the terminal one, when you forget how to eat, speak and most of the other basic functions.

But, there is a way to deal with this from stage 2, and this is by using the knowledge already accumulated and test yourself in many way, keeping an eye on your cognitive abilities. Genetical informations are very important, as i already mentioned the ApoE allele involvement in AD in my previous post. By cheching which version of Apolipoprotein you got (E2, E3 or E4), you may have an idea at what age the degenerative process is most probably to start. Checking a service like 23ANDME can provide this information, but i find the price being quite prohibitive (in the £100-150 range). So my advice is to make an account and wait for them to offer some Christmas or Easter promotion, and you may get it done for half the price. Unless is urgent. Inflammation is another very important symptom, and it is closely linked with AD (and many other problems). Some infections are definetely linked with the AD (yes, tick bites, that's what i am talking about - viruses like Herpes Simplex, Borrelia - responsable for Lyme disease, some oral bacteria like Porphyromonas gingivalis, and a number of fungi and moulds). There is one aminoacid called homocysteine, which is causally associated with AD and linked to brain atrophy. Fasting insulin level or blood sugar level is of utmost importance, and some hormonal imbalance has definitely linked to AD. Mycotoxins (moulds) and heavy metals exposure can also be a cause for Alzheimer's disease. There are some other factors observed and almost never mentioned, for example the AD patient may have a distinct gut microbiome, even if we do not knnow yet if it is the microbiome leading to AD or the AD leading to the specific changes in microbiome. The blood-brain barrier is often abnormal in AD patients. And everybody is blaming obesity for many ilnesses, yes, it is to blame for AD also, as a higher BMI will increase the changes to suffer from it. Prediabetes state is also mentioned in some researches (it is related to the insulin resistance and the high levels of blood glucose). 

All this should be checked in an ideal situation, but what really happen in reality? You reach stage 4, you or your relatives or your friends start to worry about the cognitive decline, you check with a doctor, asked to do a MRI to check the brain, have some blood tests like complete blood count, vitamin B12, Thyroid hormone levels ( TFT, TSH T3 maybe) and metabolic panel, and then you are prescribe some generic meds and your partner or children are asked to help with finances and medication. And this is it. A surefire approach to failure. 

What i will talk about in some following posts is how to detect it early, as early as in stage 1-2, and what you need to do to delay it as much as possible. Stay with me and read my future posts (i still need to read a ton of research to realise all the intricaties involved. But i hope it will help you to stay cognitively healthy for longer. 

 

 

Hobies and the passing of time

Another day, another sound, another music. I am playing Happy birthday on guitar, again and again. I hit around 80% of the notes, i hope to improve if i am playing it 100 times, or maybe even 1000. Today i did 7 tries. 93 times left. I am going to get on on my Spanish. And probably tomorrow i will do some of the diabetes course for a change. 

I have some ideas, just for the fun of the game. i will start to improve and completely change my wardrobe. I will make it classical and stilish. So, what would i need to start:

- good high socks - 5-10 pairs - wool and cotton and maybe 3 sport white ones for gym. 

- few plain white shirts - cotton i think

- 1 casual sport jacket

- nice pair of casual shoes

- a good pair of jeans

- a good sweater

- a nice overcoat

- another good leather belt (my usual one looks a bit rugged, bought 4 years ago in Italy, but worn every day) .

I would think what else i need, maybe a nice suit. Hmmm, intriguing. I need few more projects to take my mind out of this circus that is happening around us. 

Germany started the football, when should we expect the Premier league?

I go back to play some games, see you soon!

G.

Drive and focus, lost and found

For the first time ever, another blog where i used to republish some of my posts banned me. They are saying that i coppied texts for internet. Which is funny, and i sent them email to tell that i just coppy and republish my texts. But this is not the subject for today. 

Some time ago i would take pride in publishing an original post every day, day after day. And slowly slowly one day become two, then three, and so on. 

And without realizing i forget my desire to write and improve, and i lost focus. Did not happen suddenly, but insidiously, slowly, without realizing. And i was reading some of my old texts, they were quite good. Not like the latest one. 

What happen? How did i lost my drive? This is what i will try to understand. Because i do not know how the whole world just took over and i got lost in it. 

So, i decided to try to get back to where i was. I don't know how, or how long it will take, but i am willing to start today. 

I may learn something, you may learn something. And we will go by, and advance in some direction. It is good to persist and keep going, unless  you are going in the wrong direction, isn't it?

A good evening to everyone!

G.

How to (not) lose your mind - a (not so) original approach on Alzheimer's disease (1)

Did you know that Alzheimer's disease is in fact not one but a group of three diseases. Type one (inflammation type) is characterized by loss of ability to store new information, but the long term memory and the ability to speak, calculate, spell and write is retained. Type 2 is characterized by loss of trophic support, and by loss of ability to store new information, but the long term memory and the ability to speak, calculate, spell and write is retained. Inflammatory markers are not high in  this case, they can even be lower than normal. You can have both type 1 and type 2 in the same time later in life. This may run in the family. Type 3 is toxic (vile) and appears usually in people carrying the common ApoE3 allele rather than ApoE4. Does not run in the family. Usually strikes at age 40-50, following grat stress, with cognitive difficulties involving numbers , speech and organizing skills. Short term, long term and procedural memory (how to do simple or complex things) is affected. Exposure to toxic compounds (heavy metals, mycotoxins from mold) seems to be also one of the factors increasing the risk. 

Type 1 starts at age 40-50 if you have one copy of ApoE4 allele, or at age 50-60 if you have two copies of ApoE4. No copies of ApoE4 - starts around 60-70. Type 2 initiates a decade later than type one, given the same variation of ApoE4. 

(Extra information here - Apolipoprotein E (APOE) is a protein involved in the metabolism of fats in the body. It is implicated in Alzheimer's disease and cardiovascular disease. ApoE3 is considered the "neutral" APOE genotype. ApoE4 has been implicated in atherosclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, impaired cognitive function,reduced hippocampal volume, HIV, faster disease progression in multiple sclerosis, unfavorable outcome after traumatic brain injury, ischemic cerebrovascular disease, sleep apnea, accelerated telomere shortening and reduced neurite outgrowth.A notable advantage of the E4 allele (relative to E2 and E3) is a positive association with higher levels of vitamin D, which may help explain its prevalence despite its seeming complicity in various diseases or disorders. APOE transports lipids, fat-soluble vitamins, and cholesterol into the lymph system and then into the blood. It is synthesized principally in the liver, but has also been found in other tissues such as the brain, kidneys, and spleen. In the nervous system, non-neuronal cell types, most notably astroglia and microglia, are the primary producers of APOE, while neurons preferentially express the receptors for APOE. There are seven currently identified mammalian receptors for APOE which belong to the evolutionarily conserved LDLR family. Hence the relation with the amyloid-beta plaque issue in Alzheimer's disease). 

I will write a bit more about this soon. 

Take care and be safe!

G.

A bit of hope (or maybe not that less)

*You can relax reading this series of articles from Ray Dalio here, here and here. Nerdy and interesting if you like to dwelve into economics. And, if this will open your appetite for more economic principles, check the main source here. Special bonus here. This should keep you busy for at least a week, if not for life. Enjoy!

**Out of all the closed cases of COVID-19, the number of people who recovered went up from 78% to 83%. Meaning that the mortality is decreasing, which is defind as one of the good news. 

That's all for today. 

Cryptocurrency academy and classes

Motto:  '' I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.'' 

(Leonardo da Vinci)

I don't know about you, but i have plenty of time at the moment, and i use it to learn. As the cryptocurrency is the latest trend, i will put some interesting links for you. 

ZEN coin website - very interesting courses based on your level: begginer, average and expert. 

Binace exchange - quite an expensive range - interesting bits of knowledge related to main subjects in the crypto world.

EDX.org - this is my favourite website to learn, and you can find enough computer knowledge here to keep you busy for years to come. 

ODEM website - they got many courses, and quite few of them are free. 

The strategy that i use is to look around, find something that interests me and just put the video on, usually when i do my strength training, or put some interesting music and start reading the text. I had enough of TV now, and i am not proud to say that i've seen most of Netflix by now. So this is a nice change. 

I hope i will give you some ideas on how to keep busy. Have a good week!

G.

My experience with Upwork

As i mentioned in a previous post, i used all my free time to finish a project, and that is my book about gut microbiota. I was interested in a decent book cover, and i have it clearly in my mind, but surprise, when i tried to do it it was proven to be almost imposible for me. It was so easy that you couldn't undestand how complicated my mental projection become once on the workboard. As Leonardo da Vinci said: 'Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication'

Meaning, for some picture to look almost child play is very complicated to do it minimalistic and so on. I had an idea, what if i will let this become somebody else problem? So, i went to a platform called Upwork, and i rented somebody else time to do this. And after 2 days was done. I am still proud of it, and believe me, angles and fading letters and all that were a tricky bussiness.

After it was done, i looked a bit at the services offered on the platform, and i realised that i can do some of them too. I was thinking at proofreading and translating in at least 3 languages (yes, one of them being Romanian) and some life coach bussiness, and i am still trying to learn what a virtual assistant does and what is copyediting and copywriting.

I will explain this to you in few words. Let’s take a closer look at what a copyeditor does. A copyeditor:

-Checks for and corrects errors in grammar, spelling, syntax, and punctuation.
-Checks for technical consistency in spelling, capitalization, font usage, numerals, hyphenation. For example, is it e-mail on page 26 and email on page 143? Or do you use both British and American English spelling variations interchangeably, such as favourite vs. favorite?
-Checks for continuity errors and makes sure that all loose ends are tied.
-Checks for factually incorrect statements. This is a necessary part of the copyediting process for non-fiction manuscripts, such as historical pieces and memoirs. The copyeditor must check if the facts in your manuscript are accurate and if the names and dates are correct.
-Checks for potential legal liability. The copyeditor verifies that your manuscript does not libel others.
-Checks for inconsistency within the story. This includes character description, plot points, and setting. Does each character stay true to his own description throughout the story? Are there conflicting descriptions of the house? For example, have you described the setting as “a yellow brick home” on one page but “a weathered wooden home” on another page?

As you see, the copyeditor’s job is not just to check grammar and spelling. He or she must make sure that every element of your story is consistent, cohesive, and complete.

As for copywriting, this is completely another kind of job. Which got more to do with writing that with proofreading or copyediting and nothing to do with copyright (you know, protecting your inventions against being copied). Copywriting is the process of writing advertising promotional materials. Copywriters are responsible for the text on brochures, billboards, websites, emails, advertisements, catalogs, and more.

I hope this helped you a bit. Stay safe and enjoy the sunshine!
G.

The other brain - a new book that i just finished (with special thanks to the lock-down)

And it is done, after almost one year and a half. I try to make it short and not very complicated, and i hope you will enjoy reading it. My book about the gut microbiome, our microbial intestinal flora. At the moment, as i just launched the book, you can have it at a discounted price.
Here is the link for:

Ebook

Paperback

''I will start the first chapter, talking about our microbiome, or in layman terms, our gut intestinal flora, the microbes living inside of us and how they are actively helping us. It is an interesting subject, and the latest researches seem to just start to discover how important our relation with our non-pathogenic bacteria and microbes is. These days we keep hearing different opinions about this elusive thing called microbiome. What is that and how it can help us? You are in the right place to find out about it, in the next chapters of this book.''

What it is about?

Here are the contents of every chapter:
1 Introduction
2 History and discovery
3 The life cycle of the gut microbiota
4 Food for thought
5 Is every gut microbiota unique?
6 Malnutrition and microbiota
7 Prebiotics, probiotics and synbiotics
8 Inflammatory bowel diseases
9 Microbial diversity and their importance
10 Anatomical correlations with the gut microbiota

I really hope that you will find time to read it and learn a bit more about the latest researches related to health, microbiota and longevity.
Have a good day!
G.

The question of the day

As the focus moved from us to them, we are no longer ask who is gonna watch the watchers. What we ask now is who is gonna take care of the carers, if they will get sick?

This reminds me of Rumi

The Call
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer


I have heard it all my life,

A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.

Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper.
Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.
But always it says: Wake up, my love. You are walking asleep.
There’s no safety in that!

Remember what you are, and let a deeper knowing
color the shape of your humanness.
There is nowhere to go. What you are looking for is right here.
Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand.
There is no waiting for something to happen,
no point in the future to get to.

All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.
You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.
Come home and rest.
How much longer can you live like this?

Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying.
Give it up!
Let yourself be one of the God-mad,
faithful only to the Beauty you are.
Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close,
dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.

Remember, there is one word you are here to say with your whole being.
When it finds you, give your life to it. Don’t be tight-lipped and stingy.
Spend yourself completely on the saying,
Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together.

Training at home

I see many athletes and people who usually go to gym complaining about their losses (muscle, strength etc). Which seems to be unpleasant, but given my average training intensity, i could always train better and more intensive at home than in a gym.

At the moment i am training 4 days a week, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with weekend allocated for recovery.

This is for example my today training, step by step:

Dynamic warmup

30 skipping jumps
20 jumping jacks
10 squats
10 heels raises right and 10 left
10 hip raises
10 windmill forward and 10 backward

Skill progression

5 pikes
5 jumps

Full body training

6 series of
10 mountain climbers
10 jumping jacks
5 crunches
with 30 sec rest in between. 

Core and glutes training

4 series of
10 superman
10 leg wipers
7 single leg hip raises right and 7 left
with 60 sec rest in between

10 plank switches in the end

and cooldown stretching

30 sec standing side stretch left and then 30 sec right
60 sec deep squat hold
30 sec hip stretch left and then 30 sec right
30 sec lunge stretch left and then 30 sec right

On the Intensity scale this is 3 out of 10 (as i just try to build some strength and stamina at the moment. I hope this can inspire you to try something similar at home.

See you soon and wish you well

G.

Coronavirus self-isolation

I have always wondered how retirement early could feel, in terms of doing different things and having all the time in the world. Apparently, my wish was granted, under stranger than life circumstances. I was sent home for 12 weeks, and i am being paid, so this can be like a test for my future early retirement plans.

The conditions are not optimal, the market seems to sink faster than Titanic, but i have 3 months to fill up. We will see what is next.

The link for my journal is here.

And if you, like me, hate the fact that the gym is closed, this is my alternative for training at home (link). The website is quite good, and they also got phone apps for weight training, training at home, running and nutrition. I started 64 months ago to train with them, and they keep improving.

See you soon.
G.

Microbiota - medical therapy

There are application in the food industry. Prebiotic fibers and probiotic organisms are added to infant nutrition to modulate microbiota. Lately there is a transition from prebiotic approach to synbiotic approach ( combining prebiotic fibers with specific microorganisms that can be stimulated by those prebiotic fibers). This is a breakthrough and it is already applied to the infant formula. Bifidobacterium and lactic acid bacteria are the ones used at the moment, with other beneficial bacteria researched for future use. There are ideas for the use of synbiotics to tackle allergies or to further support development of an healthy immune system. Many people now are fully aware of the antibiotic side effects on microbiome and they want to know more about how to modulate the microbiome in a positive health direction.

There are also applications in the animal health and food chain. There is a ban on antimicrobial promoters in some countries for a better quality. In hatcheries, for eggs and poultry, when there is no hen touch, faecal transplantation is used (dried poultry poop), just to mention one example. In the future there will be more methods to modulate and manipulate the microbiota.

And talking about faecal transplantation, there are at least 15 stool banks in the world right now, with the Openbiome in U.S.A. being the biggest. The stools can be used in treating Clostridium difficile, assisting in research for IBS and some other diseases. Only 2.5% of the potential donors are suitable after they are tested. In Netherlands for example, the stool bank has only 8 active donors and they treated 70-80 patients until now.

With this little accolade, our journey of knowledge of microbiota is finished at the moment. I hope everyone enjoyed this and you can give me ideas about other major new researches that you want to learn about.

See you soon!
G.

Microbiota - Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD)

IBD is a group of conditions in which the colon and/or the small intestine becomes inflamed. Crohn's disease and ulcerative diseases are the two main types of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. In Crohn's disease both small and large intestine are affected, and in some rare cases even the mouth, oesophagus and the stomach. In ulcerative colitis only the large intestine and the rectum are affected. 

IBD is a chronic disease with two different states, a high active state of the disease called active inflammation and an inactive state called remission. In the active state the inflammation is accompanied by unpaired barrier function, so the defense mechanism is not properly working. 

Are there any ways for our body to keep the intestinal barrier function as good as possible? First, a layer of epithelial cells connected by tight junctions, covered with a mucus layer to protect the mucosal surface from harmful bacteria and molecules. Second, on top of this layer, we got the gut microbiota that is covering the mucus layer with the good, inoffensive microbes. 

IBD is emerging as a worldwide epidemic, especially in the high income countries, making researchers to think that all these diseases are mainly caused by the environment. The lifestyle in developed countries might impair the microbial colonization. There are multiple factors involver: birth at hospital, with or without caesarean delivery, decreased family sizes, decreased contact with soil organisms, increased antibiotic use, body washing with antibacterial soap and shower gel, increased use of processed foods. The gut microbiota plays a big role in priming and regulating the immune system. In IBD the microbiota changes in composition, being an essential factor driving the inflammation. Markers of IBD can be found in the microbiota, such as reduction of microbial diversity and increase in gammaproteobacteria (this group holds many potential pathogens). 

Gammaproteobacteria

Adherent-invasive microbes like E.Coli and Fusiobacterium can be found, combined with a decrease of beneficial ones (Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus and F. prausnitzii). All these signs can be used to diagnose the disease. These changes can affect the microbiota as a whole, decreasing the short chain fatty acids like Butyrate, increasing the oxidative stress, causing imbalance between reactive oxygen species and antioxidant defences, causing tissue damage.

Attempts to restore microbiota composition using microbiota based therapies showed positive and promising results, causing remission in IBD, but each patient response is different, and faecal microbiota transplant methods are not superior to the current therapies. But microbiota based therapies can be used in the future to treat and diagnose IBD.

Next post will be the last post of the microbiota series, and it iwll be about the medical therapy. 

Coronavirus - update 12.03.2020

I see a lot of misinformation online, so i will just underline and analyse some data.

First, we are in a race against time. A good vaccine, enough tested and highly effective will take at the fastest pace 8-12 months. There are other ideas such as using RNA or DNA based vaccines, but if history is teaching us something, they already tried to do similar ones for Zika and Ebola, without success. Some companies are trying to skip the 'test on animals' steps and start to test straight on humans. The most promising one needed 58 volunteers between age  18-55 for the program, paid up to 1100 $ for this. Got around 1000 volunteers. This will come with a price (unknown side effects).
A realistic date for a fully working vaccine is May 2021.

Second, the strategy a country use to prevent or delay the spreading may be different from one country to another. They can choose an economic solution (money and economy first), a popular solution (people first) or choose to ignore the threat (kind of like every country did at the beginning, the measures taken these days were supposed to be done after 24th of January to be effective). Active measures against pandemic diseases do not work when you already have more that sick 1000 people. Some professionals tends to be more alarmist, saying that measures taken after you have 2 people already sick will not work (2-3 sick people can infect more than 100 in the next 2 weeks. So, depending on the measures taken, you can have 7,3% deaths (Italy case - 17660 cases and 1266 deaths) versus 0.9 (South Korea - 8086 cases and 72 deaths). We have China with 3.93%, Iran with 4.54% (Iran doesn't have enough medical equipment to respond effectively due to the international sanctions), but we also have Singapore with 200 cases and no death. As per 12.03.2020, the worst affected in Europe are Italy (17660-1266 deaths), France (3661 - 79 deaths), Spain (5232 - 133 deaths), Germany (3675 - 8 deaths) and Switzerland (1121 - 11 deaths). Romania has 64 confirmed cases.

Another aspect that you should know is that the estimate proportion of cases confirmed versus total numbers it may be 1 to 5. So if you have 1000 cases confirmed, most probably you have 5000 people infected.

And, viral shedding for the new mutated strains can be up to 36 days with an average of 20 days, while the official channels suggested 14 days. Another problem to pile on the minus list. (Viral shedding refers to the expulsion and release of virus progeny following successful reproduction during a host-cell infection. Once replication has been completed and the host cell is exhausted of all resources in making viral progeny, the viruses may begin to leave the cell by several methods.)

I hope this helps. I will add some links for the live update on the countries where i got friends, i hope it will help track it better.

UK - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public#number-of-cases

ITALY - http://www.protezionecivile.gov.it/media-comunicazione/comunicati-stampa/-/content-view/view/1226619

FRANCE - https://www.bfmtv.com/sante/direct-coronavirus-covid-19-france-etats-unis-donald-trump-carte-cas-mort-symptomes-emmanuel-macron-italie-espagne/

SPAIN - https://www.rtve.es/noticias/20200314/mapa-del-coronavirus-espana/2004681.shtml

ROMANIA - http://www.ms.ro/2020/03/13/5-noi-cazuri-de-imbolnavire-cu-noul-coronavirus/

Ask me and i add other countries link if you need it.

Hope it helps!

G.

Microbiota - Next Gen Probiotics

This next generation probiotics can be helpful in new personalised therapies. They are made from microorganisms used to improve health, you can found them in foods and supplements. The ones sold today are mainly lactic acid producing bacteria like bifidobacteria and lactobacillus, isolated from yogurt and milk.

Lactobacillus reuteri

The next generation probiotics can come from the human gut microbiota and they will be used as a medical therapy instead of only improving health. They will be used in conjunction with bacterial cultivation, genome sequencing and tools to modify bacterial genomes. Their range is extended by our ever increasing knowledge of the composition and function of the human gut microbiome. The Next-Gen probiotics are coming from healthy humans. Take Clostridium Difficile infection (CDI) for example, which is prevented by the healthy microbiota acting as a barrier. However, using antibiotics (this being a major risk factor), can be weakened. We can use antibiotic also as an effective treatment for CDI, but because of the consequences mentioned before, relapse occurs on up to 30% of the patients. There were attempts of successfully eliminate CDI via faecal transplantation, and one of the more promising species was identified for future use. It is called Lactobacillus reuteri and it is a bacterium producing an antibacterial compound called reuterin, using glycerol. This bacteria has antibiotic resistance, preventing the recurrence of CDI.

Other promising candidates are Faecalibacterium prausnitii, Eubacterium halii, Bacteroides Fragilis and Akkermansia muciniphila. Take the last one, Akkermansia muciniphila, which is present in low levels in the intestinal tract of the individuals who have Diabetes type 2 or are obese. Tested on mice, reduced the body weight, enhanced glucose tolerance and decreased the presence of endotoxins in blood. The major difference from the actual probiotics is that the new ones will originate from the human microbiota and will be used for personalised therapies (if a patient is lacking certain beneficial microbes, they will be administered). But they are not on the market yet and further research is needed at the moment.

Akkermansia muciniphila

Microbiota - The faecal microbiota transplant

The faecal transplant os a very good tool to prove a causative role of our gut microbiome in curing different diseases. Because of this reason, the interest in faecal microbiota transplant is rising. We mentioned some research done on mice, but this is a well known practice, and we have a Chinese medical manual from the 4th century A.C. describing the procedure done on humans, as a remedy for food poisoning. But how do we do it today? A healthy donor donates a stool sample, which is tested for certain diseases, frozen and given to the patient later by a tube or as capsules, in order to reach the small intestine. Enema can be also used. This is working by restoring a gut microbiome that it is out of balance, bringing equilibrium and leaving hardly any room for pathogens. However, use of antibiotics and some other factors can disrupt the balance, allowing the pathogens like clostridium difficile to cause infections (symptoms are chronic gut inflammation and persistent diarrhoea). Using antibiotics to cure an infection with clostridium difficile is not effective, as the disease is recurring, and the bacteria is becoming resistant to antibiotics, because this clostridium difficile can colonize an altered microbiota composition. By restoring the microbiota composition, 90% of the patients were cured.

In this case, the faecal transplant is more efficient that antibiotics. Because the gut microbiota of a healthy donor is introduced, restoring the balance and breaking the cycle of the disease. When the healthy microbiota colonize the inside, no more room is left for Clostridium Difficile. Small results were also found in patients with diabetes type 2. Many scientists work to replace the fecal transplants with an odourless mix of bacterial strains derived from the human fecal material.

Do not try this at home, does not matter how many Youtube video you see about this.

The following post will be about the next generation probiotics.

See you soon!
G.

Microbiota - personalized nutrition

Everyone knows that we should eat more fibers and less saturated fats, but personalized nutrition is more than that. We are talking about choosing the healthy nutrition that it is different for different people. You need to take in account diseases you had or got, the genetic and physiological differences, character, habits and social environment.

Each of us is different, and our response to diet or even the same dietary component is different. Let's say caffeine for example: one can drink it after dinner and sleep well at night, while another cannot sleep if is drinking coffee after lunch. Your body and behaviour is complex, and it will determine how you respond to a new diet.

One research group from Israel tried to make a prediction based on one's glycemic response ( the glycemic response to food is the effect of that food on the blood glucose levels). They found out that different people react very different towards identical food components. The 800 participants that their blood sugar measured every 5 minutes with a special device, and they also used and app to report what and when they ate, when they sleep and how long and when they exercise. In the end their stool samples were collected and their composition and activity of the gut microbiota was measured. After all the data was collected, they made an algorithm that could successfully predict the blood glucose response for the participants. This was also used to successfully predict the response of 100 new participants, so this algorithm can be used to predict someone response to a dietary component and to advise a personalized diet. The conclusion was that some people respond very different to the same food product, so for these people some diets will not work, or even have the exact opposite effect. For one of the subjects, they got a bigger response eating lean fish that eating ice cream. This can happen because of our genetics, our lifestyle and our microbiota is different. The response to food is due to all these personal settings. The ability of a person to measure blood glucose levels is a key factor in the development of diabetes and obesity. A specific diet for a weight loss usually aim to control glucose levels and yet different people are told to use the same diets.

In the future is possible that the personalized diet will be a common occurrence, helping us to be healthier and live longer.

That's it for today, next post will be about faecal microbiota transplant.

See you soon!
G.

How to make money using your old blog posts (cryptocurrency)

I just found something interesting, if you know what cryptocurrencies are and you already have a blog with plenty of posts. Quite easy in fact, the only thing is that you need to know is that you can copy/paste your old articles from your blog, if they are original and made by you. they are checking that, but if you own them is no problem.

The website is called Publish0x, a blogging platform, and the easiest way to get crypto is to select BAT (Basic Attention Coin) to be paid and to create and Uphold wallet here, so your coins are deposited at the end of every month. From the Uphold wallet you can send them at the end of every month to a Coinbase account. You can publish up to 5 blog posts every 24 hours.

As a side hustle, using Brave Browser you can also gain free BAT, via little adds. I found this browser alright, working quite fine, and i often use it in conjunction with DuckDuckgo search engine to find some results that are different than Google (unbiased, i mean).

In a month you can make anything between 30 and 300 BAT (BAT value today 28/2/2020 is 0.21USD, so it is like £5-50). I have the maximum ads setting on Brave Browser and i got around 60 ads in the last month. You will not get instantly rich, but you will learn about cryptocurrency alternatives to Bitcoin and there are few interesting trends at the moment. Publish0x is at the moment the second rated blog platform at the profit value after Medium, and they will keep your posts in the game forever (at least this is what they claim), so if you have very interesting articles, they will potentially get you paid for years to come.  The thing is that once you uploaded 100-200 blog posts, the payments go up quite nicely. So it is like 30 days = 150 posts and then you can forget about it. Real passive investment. Just check monthly to transfer the coins from Uphold wallet to Coinbase.

If you don't understand any detail, ask me, I will gladly help.

Disclaimer, some links are referral (so we will both get a small bonus, like £5-6 each for Coinbase, for example).

Microbiota - Synbiotics

Synbiotics are a mixture of probiotics and prebiotics that beneficially affect the host. By combining these tow in a food product, this will lead to a better chance of survival and activity of microbes in the gut.

The interaction for two or more things in order to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects it is called synergy. Synbiotics are a mixture of probiotics and prebiotics that beneficially affect the host, with a better survival chance of the probiotics during the passage through the large intestine, avoiding to be made inactive by the high acidic environment present in our stomach, to increase the overall gut health. Once in the intestine, they can start fermenting right away, increasing the activity and growth or the microbiota. The prebiotic can also affect the stool consistency and the bowel movement. Probiotic strains of lactobacilli and bifidobacteria are combined with mixtures of fibers (FOS, GOS, inulin) to create a synbiotic. Synbiotics were tested to help different gut diseases like inflammatory bowel , irritable bowel syndrome, cancer, liver diseases and allergies.

My next post will be about personalized nutrition. See  you soon!

G.

Microbiota - Probiotics

Probiotics were originally introduced as the opposite of antibiotics, living microorganisms consumed to restore the microbiota that we lost after antibiotic treatments. A probiotic is a live microorganism which provide a health benefit to the host and promote gut health when administered in adequate amounts. A probiotic can strengthen the immune system, prevent infection with pathogens, compensate an unhealthy change in our microbiota or an infection by shortening the time of recovery for our microbiome, and even provide extra energy via more short chain fatty acids.

They provide hope in treating lactose intolerance, infections and post-antibiotic diarrhea, immunomodulation for allergies and chronic bowel inflammatory diseases. The biggest challenge is to make them to reach intestine alive, surviving the storage and the acidic medium of our stomach, and delivering the desired concentration in the end (which is strain dependent). We are aiming for 10 at the 7th colony forming units pre milliliter of product. Lactobacillus and bifidobacteria are the most used antibiotics.

Tomorrow i will talk a bit about synbiotics. Have a nice day!

G.

Microbiota - Prebiotics

What are the prebiotics, you would ask? They are fibres stimulating the microbial growth in the gut, when eaten, improving the gut health. These fibres can escape digestion in the small intestine, but once they reach the colon , they will be partially or completely fermented by the gut microbiota. The composition and the activity of the gut microbiota changes, because the microbes able to degrade those kind of fibres are favoured in their growth, and this is beneficial for the host (us).

Prebiotics fibres are made of oligosaccharides, chains of sugar molecules. The most known prebiotics are galactooligosaccharide (GOS), made of chains of galactose sugars and fructo-oligosaccharide (FOS) or inulin, made of fructose sugars. FOS and inulin can be found naturally in plants (onion, garlic, wheat, banana, chicory and various cereals). GOS are made by workers in dairy factories, converting lactose using beta-galactosidase enzymes. As they are digested by our microbiota, short chain fatty acids will be produced, and they will be used as an energy source, to reduce pain or influence the metabolism. 

Prebiotics like GOS, FOS and inulin are very good to stimulate the growth of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus microbe species/ Both of them are commonly found in breast fed babies, and sometimes are added to the formula and infant milk to mimic the effect of breastmilk and increase Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus in infant's microbiota. They are also added to breakfast cereals, bars of cereals, cheese and custard. Apart from the microbiota fermentation product altering the host response, prebiotics can stimulate bowel movements and help with constipation, as they increase the stool weight, due to the prebiotic and the water attracted by the prebiotic.

Lactobacillus reuteri

Conclusion: Prebiotics are fibres that arrive in the colon intact. Here they are degraded, leading to the growth stimulation of the beneficial microbes in the gut. The microbial activity combined with the higher water content of the faeces will result in improved gastric health. 

Next post will be about probiotics. 

See you soon,

G.