Nutrients for Memory
The Hawaii Dementia Prevention Trial
Steve Blake, ScD
July, 2017
"It was good meeting you today and
I very much appreciated your informative
discussion of nutritional approaches to
prevention and treatment of
Alzheimer's disease and related dementias."
BRENT P. FORESTER, MD Instructor in
Psychiatry, Harvard.
Director Mood Disorders Division,
Geriatric Psychiatry Research Program and
Site Director, McLean Hospital,
Harvard Medical School.
$9.95 to download the entire 183 page book
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Watch the videos below to learn more about the book
Nutrients for Memory and what we used in the trial:
Please click above for a KITV news feature
about the author and clinical trial,
OR, click below for a 24-minute TV
show explaining Alzheimer's disease:
see below for the table of contents
and the scientific references.
Nutrients for Memory Table of Contents
Introduction 2
Table of Contents 4
Table of figures 11
Chapter 1: Diet can be powerful 13
Age and delaying dementia 13
The Nurses’ Health Study 13
The MIND diet 14
Rush Memory and Aging Project 15
Supplements to improve cognition 17
The Hawaii Dementia Prevention Trial 18
Chapter 2: Overview of Alzheimer’s disease 22
Changes to the brain in Alzheimer’s disease 23
What are amyloid plaques 25
Meet tau tangles 27
An epidemic of Alzheimer’s disease 29
Junk food, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease 30
Diabetes and dementia risk 31
Drugs and Alzheimer’s disease 31
Prevalence of dementia 33
Chapter 3: Food and nutrient changes that worked 36
Vitamin E 36
Advanced glycation endproducts 37
Berries for memory 39
Vascular dementia and saturated fat 40
Supplements used in the trial 42
Two B-vitamins 42
SAMe 42
Antioxidants 43
Vitamin E supplement used 44
Vitamin C supplement used 45
Coenzyme Q10 45
Four antioxidant minerals 46
Two medical plants used 48
Ginkgo biloba 48
Centella asiatica (gotu kola) 48
Chapter 4: Folate, vitamin B12, homocysteine, and SAMe 50
How amyloid plaques are made 50
How two B-vitamins reduce the formation of amyloid plaques 52
Folate and vitamin B12 transform homocysteine into SAMe. 54
Homocysteine and Alzheimer’s disease 55
Are we getting enough Folate and Vitamin B12? 57
Getting enough vitamin B12 59
SAMe and Alzheimer’s disease 62
Chapter 5: Advanced Glycation Endproducts 65
Absorption of AGEs 66
Formation of AGEs 67
AGEs as a cause of brain damage in Alzheimer’s disease 70
Cooking methods to reduce AGEs in food 72
Chapter 6: Antioxidants and Alzheimer’s disease 74
Vitamins E and C protect brain cell membranes from free radical attack 75
Causes of excess free radicals 76
Radiation and medical testing as sources of free radicals 77
Plant Antioxidants Defend Us from Free Radicals 78
Vitamin E and Alzheimer’s disease 79
Why synthetic vitamin E is ineffective 80
Food sources of vitamin E 84
Vitamin C and Alzheimer’s disease 86
Dietary sources of antioxidants 88
Plant antioxidants 90
Antioxidants made in your body 94
Protecting our little energy factories, the mitochondria 96
Coconut oil, ketones, and mitochondrial function 97
Coenzyme Q10, the only fat-soluble antioxidant made in the body 99
Are statins related to memory loss? 101
Antioxidant content in diets 104
Chapter 7: Saturated fat and dementia 106
Saturated fat in diets 109
Blood cholesterol and risk of Alzheimer’s disease 111
Oxidized dietary cholesterol and vascular dementia 112
Crystallized cholesterol 117
Lowering cholesterol using phytosterols 119
Fiber and blood cholesterol 121
Chapter 8: Medical plants to treat Alzheimer’s disease 123
Ginkgo biloba 123
How does ginkgo work? 123
How ginkgo protects brain cells 125
Ginkgo and bleeding 126
Ginkgo and memory 126
Gotu kola 127
Gotu kola as an antioxidant 128
Gotu kola improves memory scores 128
Gotu kola for memory in healthy elders 129
Chapter 9: Exercise and Alzheimer’s disease 130
Exercise and vascular dementia 131
Muscle strength and Alzheimer’s disease 131
Exercise decreases brain shrinkage 132
Exercise can reduce risk of dementia 132
Exercise can cut risk of dementia in half 133
More exercise cuts risk further 133
Chapter 11: Environmental toxins and Alzheimer’s disease 135
Seafood, mercury, and DHA 135
Organophosphate pesticides and dementia 137
Organochlorines and dioxins 138
Aluminum, does it cause Alzheimer’s disease? 139
Chapter 12: Nutritional approaches to Alzheimer’s disease 141
Acknowledgements 144
Index 145
Reference citations 150
Table of figures
Figure 1 Three supplements helped cognition 18
Figure 2 Improvement in our trial 19
Figure 3 No degeneration was noted with food changes 20
Figure 4 Normal decline of memory score 20
Figure 5 Normal brains on the left and advanced Alzheimer’s disease on the right 23
Figure 6 Amyloid plaques look like fuzz balls between neurons. 25
Figure 7 Amyloid plaques and tau tangles 26
Figure 8 Tangled neuron looks like a fried egg 27
Figure 9 The great increase in Alzheimer's death rate 29
Figure 10 Dementia forecast for less developed countries 33
Figure 11 Forecast increase in Alzheimer's disease 34
Figure 12 Types of dementia graph 40
Figure 13 Folate and vitamin B12 and amyloid plaque 51
Figure 14 How amyloid plaque is formed 52
Figure 15 Homocysteine and B-vitamins 54
Figure 16 Folate can be low on an American diet 57
Figure 17 Folate in food from the Diet Doctor 59
Figure 18 Folate and vitamin B12 in diets 61
Figure 19 List of foods highest in AGEs 69
Figure 20 Synthetic vitamin E structure 82
Figure 21 Nut and seed sources of vitamin E 85
Figure 22 Vitamin E in some common foods 86
Figure 23 Vitamin C in food graph 88
Figure 24 Antioxidants in common diets 89
Figure 25 A tiny amount of manganese on an Atkin's diet 96
Figure 26 Cognitive performance among the elderly in relation to the intake of plant foods. The Hordaland Health Study. 105
Figure 27 Saturated fat in various food servings 108
Figure 28 A mostly clogged artery 110
Figure 29 LDL diagram showing signaling proteins 115
Figure 30 Cholesterol crystals in plaque 118
Figure 31 Sources of plant sterols to block cholesterol 120
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