Take Vitamin E to Prevent Memory Loss
Vitamin E is present in high-fat (but luckily, low-saturated fat) foods like vegetable oils, germs, nuts, and seeds.
It is impossible for you to get more than 200 IUs daily through diet alone.
Since vitamin E-rich foods can only go so far, you should take 400 to 800 IUs of vitamin E daily as a promemory (and antiaging, more broadly) dose, with 1,200 units for those among you who are more adventurous. Higher doses of vitamin E can cause headache, raise blood pressure, and increase the risk of bleeding in people taking anticoagulant medications like warfarin (Coumadin). There were few side effects in the study involving more than three hundred Alzheimer’s patients who each
took 2,000 IUs of vitamin E daily, but note that patients at high risk like those on Coumadin were excluded from study participation. Research-wise, large-scale, systematic studies with vitamin E have moved beyond Alzheimer’s disease to people with mild memory loss, but these will take a few more years to complete.
The Antioxidant Selegiline or Deprenyl
Jozsef Knoll, a Hungarian university professor, developed selegiline as an antidepressant medication in the 1950s. Its antidepressant action is related to its ability to inhibit the enzyme monoamine oxidase-B (MAO-B), thereby raising the brain level of monoamines, which function as neurotransmitters. These monoamines include dopamine, which is needed for normal muscle control, sex drive, cognition, and novelty seeking or adventurous behavior. Based on its actions on the brain’s
dopamine system, selegiline is also widely used as a medication to treat Parkinson’s disease.
Selegiline’s Promemory Actions
Inhibition of the enzyme monoamine oxidase-B, which in turn leads to a reduction in the formation of toxic free radicals.
Stimulation of superoxide dismutase, a powerful naturally occurring enzyme in the body that also destroys free radicals.
This dual antioxidant action likely underlies selegiline’s action in delaying functional decline in Alzheimer’s disease.
Giving selegiline to mice leads to a higher density of nerve fibers in the frontal cortex and hippocampus.
Mice given selegiline at about twenty-four months of age can increase, even double, their life expectancy beyond that point. In those studies, the mice demonstrated improved intelligence, measured by the ability to negotiate complex mazes and to develop a strategy to escape from water tanks. Experiments in dogs showed similar, but less robust, effects.
Obviously, taking selegiline will not double your life span as it can in mice, but its broad antiaging effects are a plus. Overall, the weight of the evidence suggests that it may be useful in preventing age-related memory loss.
Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power
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