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Lutein and Zeaxanthin: You Need These For Your Memory – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 537
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Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode.
Lutein and Zeaxanthin: You Need These For Your Memory – InViteⓇ Health Podcast, Episode 537
Hosted by Amanda Williams, MPH
*Intro music*
InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed healthcare professionals are excited to offer you the most important health and wellness information you need to make informed choices about your health. You can learn more about the products discussed in each of these episodes and all that InViteⓇ Health has to offer at www.invitehealth.com/podcast. First time customers can use promo code PODCAST at checkout for an additional 15% off your first purchase. Let’s get started!
*Intro music*
Jerry Hickey, Ph.:
[00:00:40] Lutein and zeaxanthin. These are two words that become increasingly important to us as we grow older. They’re nutrients found in food. The problem is you absorb less from your food as you grow older, and that’s an issue for your memory, your brain, and your vision. Now, I’ve done a number of podcast episodes on lutein and zeaxanthin, but there’s more evidence now, very strong evidence, how important it is for your memory, especially as you grow older. So these are pigments in plants, and when you eat certain foods, I’ll go over these foods near the end of the podcast episode, you build them up in the eyeball and they form a screen, a shield called your macular tissue. And this in turn blocks blue lights from getting into the back of the eyes and the back of the eyes has these very vulnerable little organs you need for fine vision and blue light can cause inflammation in these organs. I’ll explain why in a minute because it’s so high energy and this can destroy your vision. It’s not uncommon in aging people. It’s called age-related macular degeneration, the number one cause of blindness in aging people. So the lutein and zeaxanthin help create this buffer that blocks the blue light from getting too deep into the eyeball.† [00:01:59]
[00:02:00] So blue light, why is it so dangerous? It’s super high energy. It’s made out of these very short waves of light, these very short rays, so many more of them are hitting your eyeball than from other colors across the spectrum. So they bombard the eyes and they create a glare. And this uses up lutein and zeaxanthin and they start to penetrate into the eyes. Now in young people, this just makes their brain and their eyes tired. That’s why I always recommend to people who have a kid in college working on their Ph.D. or somebody who’s doing a lot of reading and editing work, etc, work on the computer a great deal, take a lutein supplement, take a lutein and zeaxanthin supplement. It’s not going to hurt. It’s going to be helpful. But in older people, when you use up the lutein and zeaxanthin, it can actually affect their brain permanently. So normally the lutein and zeaxanthin help filter out blue light. They help with night vision. They help with glare recovery. You know, when you’re driving in a rain or the snow or at night, etc., and there’s a glare from oncoming headlights that blind you. You recover quicker with lutein and zeaxanthin. It’s needed for visual acuity. You know, how good can you see at a distance, etc. It’s needed for contrast sensitivity, picking something out from the background. So it’s a very important for the eyeballs, but it’s… Across your lifespan, like I’ve said before, it’s very important for your memory and your brain.† [00:03:27]
[00:03:28] So think about it. Anything that reaches the eyes has to travel through the brain to get there. So the things that are generally good for the eyes are generally good for the brain. So welcome to my episode, Lutein and Zeaxanthin: You Need These Nutrients for Your Memory. My name is Jerry Hickey. I’m a licensed pharmacist specializing in nutrition. You can find all of our InViteⓇ episodes for free wherever you listen to podcast episodes or go to invitehealth.com/podcast. You can also find us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at InViteⓇ Health. And please, when you listen, if you could leave a review and if you could subscribe, it would be helpful. So let me get on with this.† [00:04:13]
[00:04:14] Lutein and zeaxanthin are carotenoids. There’s hundreds of carotenoids we know about. The body uses many scores of them. The one you’re probably most familiar with is beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is needed for the immune system. It’s needed for your skin. It’s needed for vision. It’s needed for other things, too. Beta-carotene converts into Vitamin A, which is interesting. It’s controlled by the liver. So it’s it’s converted into Vitamin A at sort of a set, a steady state. So there’s really no toxicity for beta-carotene. Vitamin A itself, if you have too much, can be toxic. But taking beta-carotene, not an issue. There is a drawback. People with thyroid disease and people with diabetes have a tough time converting beta-carotene into Vitamin A, so they should actually have a small amount of Vitamin A on a regular basis. So the lutein and zeaxanthin are pigments in in foods. They’re in the carotenoid family. And they do not convert to Vitamin A. They’re very safe. They’re extremely safe. If you take them as a supplement, take them with food because they’re fatty soluble, you’ll absorb them better.† [00:05:28]
HOW VITAMIN A BENEFITS IMMUNITY AND VISION – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 197. Listen Now>>
[00:05:31] So the lutein and zeaxanthin are important to your vision and memory across your entire lifespan. They’re the most common pigments in your brain. Levels decline with age because it’s harder to absorb them from your meals. So there’s a very good new study, well-powered, using lutein and zeaxanthin and it’s going to help most older adults with memory. Adults with mild memory loss… See, most older adults do not develop Alzheimer’s disease, even though Alzheimer’s disease, it’s incredibly scary, most older people do not develop it. But those people will typically develop some level of memory loss, which is called subjective memory loss. Subjective memory loss might be just noticed by that one person. For instance, a gentleman might say to his wife, “Honey, I’m forgetting things.” And she’ll turn around, say, “Oh, no, you’re not, Harry. You’re fine.” That’s subjective memory loss. It’s not anything serious. It’s a common cause of absentmindedness and forgetfulness in older people. I do think part of that stems from people not having the demands of work on them. When you have to do work, you have to get it done in a certain time, in a certain way, and you have to use your brain for that specifically. And that puts a kind of demand on the brain that keeps you sharper. So I do think that a part of the age-related mild memory loss is very reversible just by doing things that really cause you to, you have to have this need to get things done. But more than likely, people who do not develop Alzheimer’s, the great percentage of older adults, they’re going to develop the subjective memory loss, this mild form of memory loss in people over the age of 60.† [00:07:33]
[00:07:35] So this brand new study, it’s a six-month study, it’s in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, which is a very interesting journal. It’s a good journal. Now, bear in mind, when you consume foods and lutein and zeaxanthin are reaching your eyeballs, they have to travel through your brain. And the body is very clever in how it uses things. It uses them in multiple ways. So anything that’s passing through the brain that’s important for the eyes is likely going to be really important for the brain. And that’s, that’s really what the research shows. So you’re absorbing less with age, so you really should think about a really good supplement of lutein and zeaxanthin. I mean, the ability of them to improve your vision and your memory as you age and also safeguard them from a decline… The research, the level of evidence gets a resounding yes, that it absolutely works. It’s putative, I believe it as a healthcare professional. So the study, like I said, is in Frontiers in Nutrition. It’s the Clinical Research Australia Group and Murdoch University, which is in Perth, Australia. They worked together for this study. And when you look at the data on lutein and zeaxanthin, they’re the number one and two pigments in the brain in like babies. They have a huge amount of this. And across our our life, the level declines in the, in the brain. But it’s very important for a bunch of parts of the brain involved with cognitive functions and knowing where you are, like your brain’s GPS and your hippocampus. Your hippocampus is where you’re learning through and you’re, you’re, you’re starting to store memories. So it’s an important thing. The hippocampus, when you learn something now, you store it in the hippocampus, but the hippocampus is vulnerable to damage. So when you go to sleep at night, when you go into deep sleep at night… When you go into deep sleep at night, you move the memories from your hippocampus to the long term memory parts of the brain. So the hippocampus, an important organ, obviously, for learning and memory, is, should be loaded with lutein. But like I said, the level drops with age.† [00:09:53]
[00:09:55] So in this study, it was a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind human clinical trial, which is a gold standard state of the art human clinical trial. 90 people between the age of 40 to 75. They gave them a placebo, which is an inactive pill needed for comparison’s sake, or they gave them 10mg of lutein with 2mg of zeaxanthin in a capsule and they gave them a a number of different tests like computer based cognitive tests. Now compared to placebo over the six month period, the lutein and zeaxanthin really help them with memory and learning and improved visual episodic memory. It improved visual learning. And these are people with subjective memory complaints. So these are people who are complaining that they’ve lost a little bit of memory. Now, there’s a lot of research proving this. There’s a lot of research backing this up, like previous studies showed that older people, given lutein, had better word recall or better delayed word recall also. So delayed word recall would be like, I’d give you five words and then we’d have a little mini lecture and then all of a sudden I’d say, “What are those five words?” Or ten words. Better overall brain function, all around better cognitive function.† [00:11:15]
[00:11:18] But also vision. And it doesn’t take a long time for the lutein and zeaxanthin to benefit your vision and your memory. The Moran… So this one was over six months of improved memory. The Moran Eye Center at University of Utah did a one-year study in elderly people, and lutein and zeaxanthin versus placebo really improved their visual performance. So it doesn’t take an awful long time to make a difference.† [00:11:41]
[00:11:43] So what do you do? Well, you can get lutein and zeaxanthin in certain foods like lutein would be found in dark green, leafy vegetables. Even though it’s kind of like an orange amber color, it’s hidden by the greenness, by the chlorophyll in the vegetables. So you’d find it in kale and spinach and broccoli and broccoli rabe and bok choy and vegetables like that. But you also find it in egg yolks and you also find it in corn. Now, the zeaxanthin is yellow. It’s bright level, bright yellow. So it’s named after corn. The Latin binomial name for corn is zeamaize. So the zeaxanthin is called zeaxanthin because it’s so yellow. You’d find that in orange and yellow foods, so you’d find it once again in egg yolks and corn, so that’s good because you’re getting both pigments in egg yolks and corn. You’d also find it in orange bell peppers, you’d find it in oranges and tangerines and fruits of that kind. I recommend taking a pill. I do every morning. Let me tell you my experience. I’m on my computer a lot. I’m on screens a lot. I used to be more because I was working full time. Now I’m only doing this part time. I’m an older guy. I want to enjoy my life. I want to have time left over for exercise and gardening and seeing the grandkids, etc. So when I go on the screens, my eyes get tired. If I take a lutein supplement when my eyes are tired with a little snack, so I absorb it better, within like 5 or 10 minutes, the eye fatigue is gone. It’s rather remarkable how quickly it gets to my eyes, but I take it on a daily basis. My wife does too. I insist on it for her.† [00:13:37]
[00:13:37] Now there are other supplements that are good for the memory. Acetyl-L-carnitine and alpha-lipoic acid, activated B-vitamins. There are certain nutrients and foods that the brain just grabs, like B-vitamins. B-vitamins create energy out of calories. The brain grabs the B-vitamins in your food. So in older people taking B-vitamins, especially activated B-vitamins, I’ve done some podcast episodes on those, is very important for the brain. Plus, it helps protect the brain. If you lack certain activated B-vitamins, like you can’t activate B12 or you can’t activate folic acid, a chemical builds up in a brain called homocysteine that really damages your memory. Really damages your memory. In fact, it’s a risk factor for Alzheimer’s. So activated B-vitamins for us older folks are really important. An example would be Methylcobalamin for B12 and Methyltetrahydrafolate for folic acid. Vitamin E and Vitamin C. They protect the brain. Fish oils, of course. I prefer krill because there’s other nutrients in krill that are great for the brain, like phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylethanolamine. Probiotics are important for the brain. Turmeric, a well-absorbed turmeric, is great for the brain. It does many things for the brain. We’ve done some podcast episode on it. Resveratrol or real cocoa for circulation to the brain.† [00:14:58]
TURMERIC AND BOSWELLIA FOR BRAIN HEALTH – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 24. Listen Now>>
[00:15:00] In any event, I want to thank you for listening to today’s episode. You can find all of our InViteⓇ episodes wherever you listen to podcasts and they’re free. Or you could go to invitehealth.com/podcast. You can also find us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook at InViteⓇ Health. When you listen to our episodes, could you please subscribe and also leave us a review? I want to thank you for listening. Hope to see you next time on the next episode of the InViteⓇ Health Podcast. Jerry Hickey signing off.† [00:15:00]
*Exit music*
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New Evidence That Cocoa Can Protect Us From Heart Attacks – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 535
cocoa
Subscribe Today!
Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode.
New Evidence That Cocoa Can Protect Us From Heart Attacks – InViteⓇ Health Podcast, Episode 535
Hosted by Jerry Hickey, Ph.
*Intro music*
InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed healthcare professionals are excited to offer you the most important health and wellness information you need to make informed choices about your health. You can learn more about the products discussed in each of these episodes and all that InViteⓇ Health has to offer at www.invitehealth.com/podcast. First time customers can use promo code PODCAST at checkout for an additional 15% off your first purchase. Let’s get started!
*Intro music*
Jerry Hickey, Ph.:
[00:00:40] There’s very new and very exciting and very good evidence that cocoa helps protect us from suffering with a heart attack. I mean, there’s not many things that are as scary as a heart attack. And God forbid, you had a heart attack, cocoa helps keep you alive. So it’s really worth having your cocoa and you really don’t have to have it every day. Cocoa contains a hierarchy of really good ingredients. By the way, cocoa, the funny chemistry to cocoa, there’s over 800 ingredients in cocoa that have been isolated so far. Things like polyphenols, carotenoids, amino acids. None of them taste like cocoa. It’s the combination of these ingredients that gives you that wonderful cocoa flavor.† [00:01:24]
[00:01:25] What about dark chocolate? There is evidence that dark chocolate could be healthy. The problem is too much dark chocolate, you’re getting a lot of milk fat, you’re giving a lot of sugar, and then it prevents the good effects of the cocoa. Plus… so you really want cocoa. You really want cocoa. Plus, when they Dutch the cocoa and they add the milk fat and the sugars, it destroys many of the ingredients that are very healthy. So it’s kind of like hit or miss. If you get a dark chocolate that’s even 70% cocoa, you don’t know if these ingredients have survived the processing thing, so you really want cocoa.† [00:02:00]
[00:02:03] So there’s a lot of evidence now that cocoa is extremely healthy. One, there’s a number of good, high-quality studies, well-powered. Well-powered means there’s plenty of people, plenty of times, plenty of time involved and it’s a well-designed study. Well-powered studies showing cocoa reduces the risk of developing diabetes, like the Maine-Syracuse study. And then there’s studies showing that cocoa is great for the brain. Many studies that cocoa is beneficial to your memory and your mood. There’s a number of studies that cocoa is great for reducing generalized inflammation. You never want generalized long term, low level inflammation. It’s very bad. It’s dangerous over time.† [00:02:49]
[00:02:50] But there’s a lot of good information that cocoa is great for the heart. It helps your circulation in general. It reduces heart inflammation. It helps support circulation to the heart. It lowers the risk of a heart attack. And God forbid you had a heart attack, like I said before, it keeps you alive. So, hi, my name is Jerry Hickey. I’m a licensed pharmacist specializing in nutrition, which I’ve studied for many, many decades. Welcome to my episode: New and Exciting Evidence That Cocoa Protects Us from Suffering a Heart Attack. You can find all of the InViteⓇ podcast episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts, or please go to invitehealth.com/podcast. And please subscribe and leave us a review. You can also find us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @invitehealth. So let’s go in with this.† [00:03:37]
GRAPE SEED FOR HEALTHY CIRCULATION – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 22. Listen Now>>
[00:03:38] Cocoa has many fine ingredients. Collectively, they, they, they’re very healthy. So there’s, for the brain, there’s flavan-3-ols that supports circulation to the brain. There’s phenylethylamine that calms the brain down and salsolinol. There’s many, many things in cocoa that are good for your brain.† [00:03:58]
[00:04:00] What about the heart? Let’s get into some… Oh, let’s get into the new data. Let’s get into the new data. This is… So now I’m going to go into evidence from research that cocoa helps protect us from a heart attack. So this is the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which is a great journal. Very serious people are involved with this journal. And it’s the Cosmo study and its Brigham and Women’s Hospital up in Boston, which is an affiliate of Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. Now, these are all older adults. Over 21,000 older adults followed for 3.6 years. So this is a great study. It’s a well-designed study. It’s a well-reported study. It’s a non-biased study. There’s plenty of people, there’s plenty of time. So it’s 21,442 older adults. They’re split into four groups. One group received cocoa and a multivitamin. The second group received cocoa and a placebo. Placebo, we used to call it a sugar pill. It’s a fake pill. It’s an innocuous pill. Doesn’t help you, doesn’t hurt you. The third… So cocoa and placebo, a multivitamin and a placebo or two placebos only for 3.6 years. Now, interestingly, even smokers had a reduction in the number of heart attacks, strokes or the need for revascularization procedures, you know, if their arteries were clogged that they need their arteries reopened. So even smokers. That doesn’t give you a license to smoke, I have to say that, but that’s how powerful cocoa was. In cancer patients, there was a 39% reduction in deaths from cardiovascular disease in cancer patients. But in all the patients, they were seeing a reduction in total cardiovascular events, such as a stroke or heart attack, dying from a heart attack, needing heart surgery, some sort of heart surgery. So the cocoa in this brand new study, this is great evidence. This is powerful evidence. Cocoa. And you didn’t have to have it every day. I mean, even having cocoa twice a week is protective for the heart. So having a real cocoa, reduced heart-related deaths, cardiovascular-disease related deaths. It reduced strokes and reduced heart attacks. It reduced the need for cardiovascular revascular, coronary, excuse me, coronary revascularization. It kept the card, carotid arteries clean. The carotid arteries are the arteries that supply your, your head, your face, your brain blood. It was preventing the need for a peripheral artery surgery, you know, like the arteries in the legs. It was preventing unstable angina, which is a killer. Angina, you know, you get the chest pain. So it really meant something.† [00:07:22]
[00:07:23] Now there’s other studies. I’m not just going to mention one study here. There’s other studies pointing at the evidence, in fact, illustrating the evidence that cocoa protects us from heart attacks and heart disease. In a different study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, it was veterans in the Boston Veterans Administration system. So it was researchers up in Boston, but also researchers in Atlanta and a VA in Atlanta. And they were looking at cocoa and its flavonoids, its flavanols, they’re flavan-3-ols. And regularly consumed, they reduced the risk of cardio, cardiovascular disease and coronary artery disease by up to 12% in this group of veterans. Now, I did some work in the VA system in Manhattan on the east side in the 20s, I think it’s 23rd Street. It was decades and decades ago. It’s about 23rd and 1st Avenue over there in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. And I have to tell you that a lot of veterans who wind up in the VA hospital system, they’re very unhealthy. They have diabetes, they have high blood pressure. They don’t do well. Now, this was 188,000 veterans, slightly over 188,000 veterans, typically 64 years of age. 90% of them were men. The cocoa decreased the incidence of fatal coronary artery disease events by up to 20%. So that would be a heart attack or some strange arrhythmia.† [00:09:13]
[00:09:15] Then there’s the Zutphen Elderly Study in the Netherlands. It was 25 years long, large study. Having cocoa reduced the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and it reduced the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by 38%, by 38%. Now, these people typically had a half a teaspoon of cocoa a day. So there’s clear evidence that cocoa lowers the risk of a heart attack, lowers the risk of heart disease and keeps us alive.† [00:09:53]
[00:09:54] This was like the coolest study of all. This was the Stockholm heart study, you know, in Stockholm, Sweden. It’s the Karolinska Institute. That’s in Stockholm. The Karolinska Institute is kind of like our Tufts University and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center up in Boston and Uppsala University in Sweden. Uppsala University does a lot of topnotch research. It’s 1169 patients who were hospitalized for their very first heart attack. 1169 patients who survived their first heart attack. Cocoa prevented them from dying from a future heart attack. It’s a well-powered study, plenty of heart attack survivors. It’s over an eight-year period. And there is a, that’s powerful evidence because it’s, it’s quantitative. The more frequently they had cocoa, the lower their risk of dying from a future heart attack. So let me say this. Who’s the person most at risk of having a heart attack? Someone who already had a heart attack. It’s like having an asthma attack. Who’s going to have an asthma attack? Someone who already had an asthma attack. Or a migraine headache. Migraine headaches are vicious. Who’s the person most likely to have a migraine headache? Somebody who has a history of migraine headaches. So it’s the same thing with a heart attack or a stroke or other serious illnesses. So there’s a quantitative relationship. The more frequently they had cocoa, the greater they were protected from dying from a second heart attack. So cocoa just once per month prevented them from dying from a future heart attack by 27%. But listen to this. Cocoa just once a week, real cocoa, prevented them from dying from a future heart attack by 44% and having cocoa twice a week or more, this is powerful, prevented them from dying from a future heart attack by 66%. That’s basically better than many drugs. I’m not saying not to take the drugs. I mean, if you have high blood pressure, you have to treat high blood pressure. It’s a serious, dangerous thing. I’m not saying not to treat your cholesterol, etc., but I’m saying you should add cocoa.† [00:12:12]
[00:12:15] They’ve shown that cocoa improves the Framingham risk score. You could go into the Internet and type in Framingham risk score. The Framingham studies are very famous ongoing studies, and you type in certain risk factors, like is your blood pressure under control? How’s your cholesterol? Do you smoke? And they predict based on this and it’s a pretty good prediction, your risk of having a massive heart attack or stroke or dying from heart disease over the next ten years. And they’ve shown in human clinical trials that when you give people cocoa, you improve the Framingham risk score. I mean, come on. So there’s different types of polyphenols. Polyphenols are powerful antioxidants in cocoa. So there’s catechins. And, you know, there’s catechins in grapeseed, there’s catechins in green tea, there’s catechins in cocoa, but they’re not the same balance of catechins. So in other words, in cocoa, certain catechins are much richer in content. In green tea, there’s others like EGCG, which is amazing because that one has been shown to reduce the risk of infections and heart disease, but also cancers.† [00:13:30]
[00:13:33] So in cocoa… The University of Dusseldorf at the University of Surrey, that’s in England. University of Dusseldorf, of course, is Germany. They published their findings in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. When they gave healthy young men cocoa, they found that certain constituents improved blood flow to the heart, where other ingredients reduced blood fat levels like triglycerides and cholesterol. So there’s a lot to cocoa. A lot to cocoa. Do I recommend cocoa? I’m a user. I’m a cocoa lover. I like to put in yogurt. I like to put it in water. I don’t mix it in milk. There’s some evidence that regular cow’s milk binds up the ingredients in cocoa and weakens their effects. There’s not enough evidence to prove that it’s real, but you don’t need the milk in the cocoa. You can just do it in water, so why mess around?† [00:14:26]
[00:14:28] So in any event, I want to thank you for listening to today’s episode. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or go to invitehealth.com/podcast. And please subscribe and leave us a review. You can also find us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @invitehealth. Once again, thank you for listening to today’s podcast episode. Jerry Hickey signing off.† [00:14:28]
*Exit music*