Natural Remedies for Alzheimer's Disease
SOY MILK
Ted from Bangkok, Thailand writes: There are two studies that seemed to link this to the fact that drinking soy milk can help Alzheimers that I think is remotely interesting.
One study showed that the brain of an alzheimer's patient is extremely low in hydrogen sulfide, while on the other hand, it was found that baby infants who drink soy milk had high levels of hydrogen sulfide.
Now I am not saying that hydrogen sulfide is good or bad, it is one of the three gaseous molecules the body uses to control, many biological functions. The other two is nitric oxide and carbon monoxide produced in very low amounts to control the body's physiology.
It is quite possible that by taking soy, Alzheimers might be helped, remotely anyway, through the increase in hydrogen sulfide through driking soy milk. The reason being is Alzheimer's brains are low in hydrogen sulfide while soy milk causes increase in hydrogen sulfide. Ted"
Here are the two research studies. By the way, neither soy nor cow's milk is recommended for infants."
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1: J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr. 2001 May;32(5):534-41.
Gas production by feces of infants.
Jiang T, Suarez FL, Levitt MD, Nelson SE, Ziegler EE.
Fomon Infant Nutrition Unit, Department of Pediatrics, University of Iowa, 200 Hawkins Drive, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
BACKGROUND: Intestinal gas is thought to be the cause abdominal discomfort in infants. Little is known about the type and amount of gas produced by the infant's colonic microflora and whether diet influences gas formation. METHODS: Fresh stool specimens were collected from 10 breast-fed infants, 5 infants fed a soy-based formula, and 3 infants fed a milk-based formula at approximately 1, 2, and 3 months of age. Feces were incubated anaerobically for 4 hours at 37 degrees C followed by quantitation of hydrogen (H2), methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), methanethiol (CH3SH), and dimethyl sulfide (CH3SCH3) in the head-space. RESULTS: H2 was produced in greater amounts by breast-fed infants than by infants in either formula group, presumably the consequence of incomplete absorption of breast milk oligosaccharides. CH4 was produced in greater amounts by infants fed soy formula than by infants on other diets. CO2 was produced in similar amounts by infants in all feeding groups. Production of CH3SH was conspicuously low by feces of breast-fed infants and production of H2S was high by soy-formula-fed infants. CH3SCH3 was not detected. Only modest changes with age were observed and there was no relation between gas production and stool consistency, although stools were more likely to be malodorous when concentrations of H2S and/or CH3SH were high. CONCLUSIONS: Gas release by infant feces is strongly influenced by an infant's diet. Of particular interest are differences in production of the highly toxic sulfur gases, H2S and CH3SH, because of the role that these gases may play in certain intestinal disorders of infants.
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Alzheimer is low in hydrogen sulfide: Brain hydrogen sulfide is severely decreased in Alzheimer's disease
Authors: Eto K.1; Asada T.2; Arima K.2; Makifuchi T.3; Kimura H.1
Source: Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, Volume 293, Number 5, May 2002, pp. 1485-1488(4)
Abstract:
Although hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is generally thought of in terms of a poisonous gas, it is endogenously produced in the brain from cysteine by cystathionine-synthase (CBS). H2S functions as a neuromodulator as well as a smooth muscle relaxant. Here we show that the levels of H2S are severely decreased in the brains of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients compared with the brains of the age matched normal individuals. In addition to H2S production CBS also catalyzes another metabolic pathway in which cystathionine is produced from the substrate homocysteine. Previous findings, which showed thatS-adenosyl-l-methionine (SAM), a CBS activator, is much reduced in AD brain and that homocysteine accumulates in the serum of AD patients, were confirmed. These observations suggest that CBS activity is reduced in AD brains and the decrease in H2S may be involved in some aspects of the cognitive decline in AD.
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1 YEA
[YEA] 10/30/2007: Diane (corcoran@gulftel.com) from Foley, Alabama writes: "October 30, 2007: does exposure to aluminum cause Alzheimer's disease? A friend’s father (65) just passed away with Alzheimer's. His mother (63) died over a year ago with Alzheimer's. They were both diagnosed within 6 months of each other. My friend said that the nutritionist noted that both parents consumed beer on weekends and drank from cans. (Cheaper) Both parents consumed 6 to 8 soda's a day with cans. His mother cooked meat loafs and meats in aluminum pans for easy throw-a-way. If this is true, is there a remedy to remove aluminum from the body? My husband has quit drinking soda's all together."
10/31/2007: Raphael from Kent, Ohio replies: "Re Alzheimer's and Aluminum -- I have read that Juice fasting can remove heavy metals. read up on fasting. get some books, check out curezone ETC."
11/01/2007: Ted from Bangkok, Thailand replies: "Dear Diane: Actually, the problem has a lot to do with free heavy metals (from pots, pans, cans, aluminum foil, canned foods, metal packaging of foods, etc.) or excesses of free heavy metals of a certain kind.
This does not conclude only of aluminum, but also excess free heavy metals of zinc, copper and sometimes iron.
Most scientist view beta amyloid protein, which is found in the victims of Alzheimer patient to be high of zinc in amyloid beta deposits, when in fact these are more involved in the heavy metal removal from the brain.
The simple reason is that all free heavy metals are very oxidative a high concentration of something as copper and zinc, much like electrodes you find in batteries to help generate electricity from the electrolytes is very much analogous to the blood electrolytes and the copper, zinc and aluminum in generating electrical currents, removing the electrolytic properties from the blood electrolytes and actually shorting out the brain with electricity, causing a cell death in large amount, but may be protective against other viral and bacteria invaders just the same. This is how I prepare antiseptic solutions of copper and zinc, which kills virus and bacteria because of the uniqueness of copper and zinc to have electrical flows acting as an electrode, thus shorting out the virus and the bacteria in solutions. However this is bad news if free zinc and copper are found in high amounts in the brain, where beta amyloid tries to remove, but in excesses are completely overwhelmed and in such excesses, the oxidative properties of copper, zinc, aluminum and iron causes neural cell death.
As to the question of why certain metals, especially copper, zinc, and aluminum for example are implicated I need some basic understanding of galvanic potential, galvanic corrosion, and electrical potentials of these metals to understand, where one metals act as an anode and another acts as a cathode. Once this is understood, then you know how these metals corrode the brain, or actually rusts the brain cells as excess heavy metals such as zinc, copper, and aluminum is very oxidative.
A simple dramatic example, is when you prepare your cooking, of something as innocuous as baking or even using ketchup on an aluminum foil, can cause them to increase the bioavailability of certain metals that are dangerous to the body.
One simple example concerns "lasagna battery" or cell, where a salty food such as lasagna is kept in a steel baking pan covered in aluminum foils. Kept overnight, the aluminum forms small holes where the salty lasagna is in contact and the food becomes covered with corroded aluminum. This is an example of galvanic corrosion, because the metal occurs whenever two metals of different kinds are in contact with the lasagna electrolyte, the two metals act as an electrode and a electrolytic battery it becomes.
The electrodes of two terminals of the battery becomes connected with the lasagna electrolytes as aluminum touches the steel, the electricity is shorted out and an electrical current occurs causing a chemical reaction on the surface of the metal that it contacts.
Now just imagine what happens if those free heavy metals were inside your brain. The brain gets shorted out as aluminum/copper or aluminum/zinc, or copper/zinc electrode connections occur. Since aluminum is quite high in electrochemical series, an aluminum becomes dissolved metal ion from the galvanic corrosion. It is the same if you cover your meatloaf with aluminum and ketchup creating a puddle of gray aluminum that you can accidentally ingest. But what happens if these very free metals are found inside your cell right now shorting out your cells with aluminum and copper or aluminum and zinc or even copper and zinc. When it shorts out, or the "shorting out process", this would lead to cell death or apoptosis that scientist note to occur in presence of free hydroxyl radical from the iron, zinc, or even copper. One French scientist years ago, was surprised to find why the sudden short lifespan amongst certain villages where drinking water were high in copper from the copper pipes they used, despite a healthy lifestyle.
Looking further on this phenomenon, it is best to close the issue with a person who watches T.V. Monday night Football (are they still doing it?) eating salty peanuts, potato chips and drinking beer. As his salty lips contacts the beer can with aluminum, the lasagna effect becomes apparent. The aluminum, while it is LOW in the beer can sudden increases tremendously as the lid on the beer on the opening is an exposed aluminum, suddenly shorts out with the saliva high in salty electrolytes.
The same phenomenon can occur just the same as you eat potato chips and the "salty electrolytes" of the mouth shorts out or as the metal braces of teeth, forms a weak electrolytic current with the cheap metal amalgam fillings consisting of mercury and the silver. As the silver forms electrical current with the metal of the teeth braces, the silver gets loose, releasing a toxic mercury. Electrical current ALSO forms whenever the amalgam of the teeth forms an electrical current as the stainless spoons from an electrical current with the silver amalgam freeing the mercury inside your mouth. The salty saliva acts as an electrolyte! A good science project just putting in salty solution with extracted amalgam with a stainless steel spoons and try perhaps with an aluminum spoon - perhaps it can dissolve a lot of amalgam this way - which enters your body in a much larger amount than expected.
Just imagine another scenario, a housewife cooks a healthy soup (with sea salt) boiling over an aluminum pots using a stainless steel spatula while she stirs over a hot cooker. The electrical current is formed as the stainless steel metals forms and electrical current, freeing the aluminum in your soup. I have always wondered as a child that if left overnight, an aluminum spoon, in a stainless steel pots of soup why this gray color (aluminum!) forms small cloud. Imagine what happens if this healthy lifestyle would lead to Alzheimer?
Current researchers are looking at implications of zinc as a role to Alzheimer, although I tend to look at free heavy metals in general. And if that is not enough, I have as yet to find the source of contamination of many other heavy metals that has found their way into the body that I am constantly seeing, such as uranium, radium, cadmium, arsenic etc. While it is not possible to find them all, what I can tell you is that, excess free heavy metals, especially iron, arsenic, uranium, radium, for example can lead to precocious puberty in children as well as accelerated aging. So the problems of heavy metals is not just confined to Alzheimer.
As a remedy to all this problem is malic acid removes aluminum. But I imagine the pH of the electrolyte solutions (your soup) can very much create free heavy metals more efficiently if the soup pH is below 7, or that it is high in table salt. SALT, should be added last, since the electrolytic salt reacts with every metal cookware, from cooking pans to frying pans to spoons, fork and knives on your dinner table, in presence of another appropriate metal container such as the aluminum and stainless steel. Hence, a salt should be added last when you are about to eat it and not during cooking.
Hence, drinking apple juice (removes aluminum as malic acid chelates out this), but of more importance is the chelating of free metal copper and free metal zinc that is presently being implicated as the cause of alzheimer especially the free metal zinc. The best supplements I can come out with to do this, is L-Carnosine 500 mg for alzheimer, as well as certain supplements such as oral chelators adding a small amount of EDTA, either sodium EDTA (the ones I like) or other forms of EDTA.
I have found that people generally are low in magnesium with the condition as magnesium is somehow protective and reduces the metal toxicity in cells and studies of people with heavy metal toxicity are more apparent whenever magnesium is low, from the Brazil studies in people with metal toxicity.
It should not be ignored that cooked food should relatively free of salt during the cooking processes, and be added only on the cooking table, but that I should minimized the use of metals during cooking, as well as avoid drinking DIRECTLY from metal cans. The availability of aluminum occurs when the aluminum is exposed during the drinking and the salty mouth contacts the opening, creating a larger amounts of aluminum going inside the body than the aluminum contents found in the beer itself, causing a lasagna effect or even the meat loaf effect, just the same.
Ted
Published in Journal Watch Neurology September 20, 2001 Citation(s):
Cherny RA et al. Treatment with a copper-zinc chelator markedly and rapidly inhibits ß-amyloid accumulation in Alzheimer's disease transgenic mice. Neuron 2001 Jun 30 665-676. Medline abstract (Free) Search
Dr. Bush Was Widely Derided When He Said Zinc, Copper Played Role in Disease
By BERNARD WYSOCKI JR. Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BOSTON -- Ashley Bush, a 44-year-old researcher at Harvard Medical School, was pilloried after he put forth a radical theory of Alzheimer's disease in 1994.
"Worthless," wrote one scientific critic. Others have described his style as brash, his content as flimsy, and his ideas unworthy of being published. At worst, Dr. Bush recalled, it felt like "hate mail."
Over the years, he submitted 30 scientific papers that were rejected by scientific journals. Eight times, his grant applications were spurned by the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Bush's theory is that the real culprit in Alzheimer's is a copper and zinc buildup in the brain -- an idea few scientists have looked at. He believes the accumulated metals mix abnormally with a protein called beta amyloid in the brain, oxidizing -- literally rusting -- and destroying nerve cells. Published in the prestigious journal Science, his hypothesis swiftly drew criticism because it ran counter to the leading theory that Alzheimer's disease is caused mainly by the protein clumps themselves. And by highlighting metals as the culprit, it drew scowls from some who thought it resembled a largely discredited theory that aluminum caused the disease. (He never saw aluminum as a culprit.)
Now scientists are giving Dr. Bush more credence. He has a five-year grant from the NIH and this year won an American Academy of Neurology prize for Alzheimer's disease research.
One big reason: He is on the trail of a drug that absorbs his culprits -- the excess copper and zinc -- and dissolves the protein clumps in the brains of experimental animals. Dr. Bush has found a potential Alzheimer's treatment in a 70-year-old dysentery drug with a history of toxic side effects. What's more, he and his colleagues this month published their first human clinical trial showing the drug's promise. "It's like Drano," he says. "It blows them away."
The small trial's results are "significant" and "innovative," says Roger Rosenberg, a neurologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and editor of the Archives of Neurology, which published the research.
Dr. Bush's odyssey shows how rejects in the world of science can sometimes re-emerge as important figures. The history of science in the last 50 years could be written with papers rejected by prestigious journals, observed Paul Lauterbur of the University of Illinois after he won the 2003 Nobel Prize for medicine...
In Dr. Bush's view, amyloid protein plays a helpful role in the brain: absorbing metals like a sponge. But in Alzheimer's victims, he contends, the metals overwhelm the protein. He believes that copper mixes abnormally with amyloid, releasing hydrogen peroxide and other toxic chemicals that damage the nearby cells. Some of that protein breaks free, becomes "rogue" amyloid, and mixes with zinc to form clumps that leak more hydrogen peroxide. Thus he indicts metals as the real culprits. This theory is still controversial.
Some critics see his metals theory as mere speculation. "Based on science, there is no substantiation for what Ashley says," says Bruce Yankner, professor of neurology at Harvard. "Ashley's ideas are interesting. But that's what they are -- interesting."
One problem in verifying Dr. Bush's hypothesis is the difficulty of measuring copper or zinc in the human brain. Many scientists believe trace amounts of metals exist in the brain, but Dr. Bush contends that excessive amounts build up in some aged people. Among unanswered questions is where the metal buildup comes from. Dr. Bush doesn't claim to know...
Meanwhile at closed-door NIH meetings, grant reviewers weren't so jocular. They issued a pointed challenge to his work, Dr. Bush recalls. He says these outside experts asked: "If you are so sure this is the cause of Alzheimer's disease, where is your drug?"
"Why am I having such a difficult time?" Dr. Bush recalls asking NIH after his rejections.
But it turned out that Dr. Bush had an ally at NIH. He was Stephen Snyder, a Ph.D. in pathology at the National Institute on Aging. Dr. Snyder oversees grant applications dealing with the origins of Alzheimer's. He heard reviewers complain because Dr. Bush's applications were long on brain chemistry and short on biology. Dr. Snyder passed all this along to Dr. Bush, and vowed to help Dr. Bush improve his applications.
It also turned out that Dr. Bush was indeed pursuing a treatment. Working with mice given a gene for Alzheimer's, Dr. Bush tested oral doses of a 70-year-old drug called clioquinol, versus placebos. When Dr. Snyder learned of this, he quickly asked to see the data. After nine weeks, the treated mice had a 49% reduction of beta amyloid deposits.
"Holy Finoki!" Dr. Bush e-mailed Dr. Tanzi.
In late 1999, Dr. Bush sent a photographic slide of the results to the aging institute. Dr. Snyder remembers thinking, "Wow. This doesn't come along every day. The placebo mice had huge plaques. The treated mice had brains as clear as the day they were born." He recalls deciding, "I'm going to go to the wall for this."
Dr. Bush crafted his ninth NIH grant proposal. The review committee gave it a score in the top third -- not great, but enough to get a $750,000, five-year grant.
"The mice came along at the right time," Dr. Snyder says. The journal Neuron published the mouse study. In Melbourne, Prana, the biotech company Dr. Bush co-founded, prepared to launch human clinical trials.
But there was a problem: Clioquinol had a disastrous history. It was introduced in the 1930s by Swiss drug giant Ciba-Geigy AG, as a treatment for amoebic dysentery, a potentially deadly intestinal ailment. The drug was later promoted in Japan for all types of stomach trouble. By 1970, however, nearly 10,000 people who had been treated with the drug, mostly in Japan, developed paralysis or blindness.
These days, some scientists believe the adverse effects might have been influenced by a vitamin B-12 deficiency in the postwar Japanese diet. So Prana added vitamin B-12 supplements to the clioquinol in the Alzheimer's study. That did the trick, the company says.
Prana's randomized double-blind clinical trial was launched in 2000 and completed by 32 volunteers in 2002. Half of them got clioquinol; half got a placebo. In spring of 2002, Colin Masters, chairman of Prana's scientific board, gave the first peek at the results, declaring Alzheimer's disease was slowed by the drug.
This month the Archives of Neurology published the full report. The results: Volunteers on placebo showed a "substantial worsening" of the disease based upon cognitive tests, while people on clioquinol experienced "minimal deterioration." In addition, blood levels of beta amyloid protein in the blood declined among those taking the drug but increased in those on placebo. As for side effects, the drug was "well-tolerated," wrote Dr. Bush and his co-authors from the U.S., Europe and Australia. One participant, who had a history of hypertension and glaucoma, suffered impaired vision during the trial. But the symptoms disappeared when the trial ended...
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_121a.html
Why does ketchup dissolve aluminum foil?
25-Jun-1982
Dear Cecil:
I have recently experienced a phenomenon that a friend of mine declares has also happened to her. It's rather ghastly. I covered a meatloaf with a ketchup glaze and stored the thing in the refrigerator covered with aluminum foil. Where the foil touched the meat I found that it was eaten away, dissolved somehow, leaving a gray aluminum puddle deposit on the glaze. Thinking it was a fluke I re-covered the meat loaf with another piece of foil and the same thing happened. What happened? --Ms. T., Dallas
Madam:
Aluminum has what we scientists call a "highly negative standard reduction potential," which means, if I may be permitted to bowdlerize a few pertinent scientific concepts, that it readily loses electrons and oxidizes. Ketchup, on the other hand, is highly acidic, having a pH of 3.85 (7.0 is neutral), and like all acids likes to oxidize obliging metals. The result, therefore, of a conjunction of foil and ketchup is, as you can attest, a grayish-black mush of aluminum oxide.
Ketchup is by no means the most potent product in your pantry in this respect. I note on my list of food acid levels that Coca-Cola, the all-American beverage, has a pH of 2.7. I guess if you spill a Coke aboard one of those aluminum naval vessels so popular these days, you'd better hope you can swim.
But this is no time for idle speculation. Standard reduction potentials also explain why it's painful for people with silver tooth fillings to chew aluminum spitballs. Silver, it turns out, has a highly positive standard reduction potential, which means it has a craving for electrons. In the presence of an appropriate catalyst, such as your mildly acidic saliva, we have what amounts to a crude electric battery, in which electrons flow from the aluminum to the silver. This current is transmitted to the nerves of your teeth, producing the unpleasant sensation familiar to all."
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1 YEA
[YEA] 07/19/2008: John from Glasgow, UK writes: "Drinking coffee has been tipped as a possible way of delaying and even preventing Alzheimer's disease in previous research. However these studies have only ever involved a small number of people and were reliant on participants remembering how much tea and coffee they drank earlier in their lives.
This latest study showed that cognitive decline was significantly less among people who drank three cups of coffee every day. These findings add weight to the body of existing evidence suggesting long-term caffeine intake may have a protective effect against the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
It is too soon to say our morning coffee or afternoon cup of tea is anything more than a pleasant pick-me-up. It is important to now research further how caffeine consumption impacts on dementia risk."
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1 YEA
[YEA] 12/31/2007: Charles from Saint Cloud , Florida writes: "I started taking turmeric powder about 2 and a half years ago, after seeing on a famous news show that it was one of the main ingredients in a pill that was able to reduce your antioxidant level to zero. I did a little research and saw there was little Alhiemers in India, where it is a big part of the diet. I was having a bit of a memory problem at the time. Anyways, after about 3 months of taking a tablespoon a day, I noticed my shoulder pain went away. My doctor had said he could do nothing for it, as it was arthitis and that he had it also. Now I notice that I don't seem too concern about memory and I have regained some interest in reading articles. I have had several, 3, cases of skin cancer in the last year, hopefully its due to the years of living in a tropical climate. I tried to stop taking it a couple of times to see what would happen and my shoulder pain seem to start to come back. So apparently it did not cure it but stopped the pain and I am now able to shoot basketball or any other activity. I put it in water and stir it up and swallow the half a cup very quickly as I do not like the taste. I order it 5 pounds at a time and keep a 10 pound supply on hand. Be careful it stains things yellow."
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