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.