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.