A study in the May 2013 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that a simple, 30-cent daily regimen of Vitamins B12, B6 and folic acid slows the loss of gray matter from 5.2 percent per year to 0.6 percent in those with mild cognitive impairment, a common prelude to Alzheimer's. Nothing produced by Big Pharma has slowed the progression at all.
“It’s the first and only disease-modifying treatment that’s worked,”
said A. David Smith, professor emeritus of pharmacology at Oxford
University in England and senior author of the study. “We have proved
the concept that you can modify the disease.”
The results were characterized as "staggering" by the Academy. Has your doctor mentioned this to you?by Martes Mariguano |
(That was a year ago. No one's shouting it yet. Consider this a shout.)
And then there are nicotine patches, which appear to slow the progression of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study Georgetown professors and other researchers published last year in the journal Neurology.
The research indicated that six months of nicotine patch treatment resulted in patients regaining up to 46 percent of normal performance for their age on certain long-term memory tests. The placebo group worsened by 26 percent during that time. A 2010 study had showed that nicotine improves short-term episodic memory-accuracy, and working memory.
Maybe we really can remain free of this brain-demolishing disease. art by Storm Thurgerson, RIP. |
The same could be said for coffee, which has shown breathtaking potential for using caffeine to stave off dementia in healthy adults and slow the progression of mild cognitive impairment, according to studies cited by the New York Times on June 6, 2013. The statistical results "show the kind of effectiveness you rarely see in any pharmacological agent of any kind."
Your daily med: coffee and cinnamon. |
A surge of swirling well-being. art by dawid michakczyk |
And hundreds of millions in tax dollars are being doled out, by 27 National Institutes of Health agencies and the National Institute on Aging, for drug research that will reap a multibillion-dollar windfall for pharmaceutical firms, whose Capitol Hill lobby is ostentatiously well-endowed. On September 18, 2013, yet another major federal grant was announced. These funds are for clinical trials of drugs developed by Big Pharma and from which Big Pharma will receive the profits (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/health/33-million-grant-for-effort-to-prevent-early-onset-alzheimers.html?hpw).
THIS IS AN excerpt from my earlier post on the use of natural substances, rather than expensive, ineffective, pharmaceutical agents that have proven time after time to be effective in preventing or mitigating dementia.
I posted this "outtake" because I believe it's relevant to everyone, and I hope y'all will try the suggestions. Maybe our shared nightmare of losing ourselves into the netherworld of Alzheimer's won't come true, and our loved ones will be spared the heartache many of us are experiencing now, with our own parent.