Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. FEELING GOOD IN THE SUN WITH FOLATE, INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 651 Hosted by Amanda Williams, MD, MPH. *Intro Music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our …
Written By: Allie Might, FMC, INHC, and ATT For further questions or concerns email me at [email protected] We all know what an important topic anxiety and depression is, as so many suffer with these issues. In part one of this article, we discussed what …
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Hosted by Jerry Hickey, Ph.
*Intro Music*
InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed health care 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. † [00:00:34]
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Jerry Hickey, Ph: [00:00:41] Over the years, many people have approached me interested in instituting a nutritional protocol. They want to set up a regimen, but they don’t quite really have it nailed down what they should include, how they should go about it. So, I’d like to cover that today, a good approach to planning a sensible supplement regimen, a general one. So, we’re not discussing specific health conditions today like insomnia. We’re not discussing diseases today such as diabetes. We have specific podcast episodes that address those situations. So, there are certain life necessities that nutrition will not replace. Nutrition can help them, but it doesn’t replace them, yet nutrition could be, we’re talking about supplements as nutrition here. Of course, food is nutrition. There are certain situations where supplements are amazingly helpful, but in general, they’re very protective and beneficial and they can help your day-to-day energy and your, you know, how effective your brain works at your occupation, etc… In any event, so welcome to our episode, my name is Jerry Hickey, I’m a nutritional pharmacist. I’m also the senior scientific officer over here at Invite Health. You can find all of the Invite podcast for free wherever you listen to a podcast or just go to invitehealth.com/podcast. You can also find Invite on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health, and all of the information on today’s episode will be under the description, it’ll be listed there. So, let’s get going. So these life necessities that nutrition cannot replace, of course, sleep. Sleep is a necessity. You can enhance sleep with nutrition, with a nutritional supplement like L-theanine. L-theanine is an alpha amino acid that to express out of tea leaves. And if you get enough L-theanine like 100 milligrams, 200 milligrams, it’s very soothing without being dangerous. And I’ve had instances where I’ve used it, where I’ve had deadlines the next day for the radio, etc. and I’d wake up at two or three in the morning and immediately my brain would shunt into overdrive and I knew I couldn’t get back to sleep, it would be impossible. Yet I needed to rest because I had so much to accomplish the next day. So, I’d go into my bathroom, and I’d take two l-theanine 100 milligrams, sometimes three, depending on how I felt, and within about 15 minutes I’d have a nice easy sleep and it was no problem waking up in the morning. There’s no after effect from it, you don’t feel dull in the morning. So, L-theanine can enhance sleep if you need it. And of course, if you lack sleep for a couple of nights, you can help make up for it by taking the alpha amino acid called L-Tyrosine. The amino acid L-Tyrosine, that’ll help make up for it for a couple of days. It’ll help you with paying attention and focus and mental energy, alertness, etc. But over time you cannot make up for it with nutrition. So, sleep is a necessity, a life necessity that you cannot replace with nutrition. You can help it with nutrition but not replace it. And by the way, some people can’t sleep because they just don’t get enough exercise, which brings us to our second topic. I mean, if you exercise, you’re going to sleep at night. It’s almost pretty much that simple, for most people, not all. † [00:04:10]
[00:04:10] Exercise is a must; nutrition does not replace exercise. There’s no supplement that replaces exercise. There are supplements that can enhance exercise. For instance, if you take a form of Coenzyme Q10 such as Ubiquinol, it can help with your endurance and your stamina and your energy. If you take creatine monohydrate, that can help with your power, and there are things that enhance the benefits, they improve the benefits of the exercise. So, believe it or not, green tea is one of those things, or beta hydroxy beta methylbutyrate, beta hydroxy beta methylbutyrate will help you gain muscle and other things that will improve your performance once again Ubiquinol, but also beet juice. They can improve your performance, your physical performance, but they don’t replace exercise. You have to exercise the best thing to assuage the effects to fight the effects of aging, is exercise, that’s the number one thing. † [00:05:17]
[00:05:18] Now, the next life necessity that you cannot replace with nutrition is a great diet. You can help a poor diet, but you’re not creating a great diet. You have to have a good diet. So, there was recent research. Several studies I’ve always questioned. Do you have to have simply a great diet? I mean, can you cheat? Elon Musk recently famously said, I have a donut every morning and I’m still alive. Well, yes, but we don’t know how he eats the rest of the day. If you have 80 to 90% of your total caloric intake and food intake from high quality foods, you’re probably okay. So, if you’re going to have a piece of blueberry pie, but otherwise you’re eating great food, you should be fine, you really should be. I’m a little more careful than that, and listen, of course, a good food should entail fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, good fresh nuts, seeds, legumes like lentils and peas and beans, whole grains. And I would add a lot of herbs and spices to culinary herbs and culinary spices, you know, like rosemary. I would add green tea. I would add a great culinary spice, like turmeric, I would make sure that’s in my food frequently. Lots of dark berries and apples. I mean, these are good fruits, these are good fruits, but you can enhance your diet with supplements. And this is where we’re going to go with today’s conversation. It’s very hard to ensure you’re getting every nutrient and adequate amount from your food. And if you lack any nutrient, well, that’s an issue. That’s a real issue because the things in a vitamin and mineral complex, their rate limiting factors, rate limiting factors means if you lacked them, things slow down a great deal or they don’t even go forward at all. And that’s true when vitamins and minerals, they’re vital. So, lacking any particular vitamin or any particular mineral over time can have a terrible impact on your health, a terrible impact. I’ll give you some for instances, you eat food for energy. A great deal of the reason you’re eating food is for energy. Your food is converted through a series of chemical reactions into energy for your body so your body can create more of itself and so your body can kind of function as that wonderful engine that we all so you can power up the engine of your body. This is fats, proteins and carbohydrates are converted into energy, in something called the Krebs Cycle, which is also known as the citric acid cycle. If you take biochemistry, you’ll spend many months studying the Krebs, citric acid cycle. You require B vitamins to create this energy, if you lack certain B vitamins, you are not creating energy out of your food. And if you lack other B vitamins, you can’t use the energy efficiently anyway, and you require the mineral calcium to help regulate this process. Calcium is used in a number of ways to regulate the citric acid cycle when you’re making energy out of your food. I mean, I don’t think most people realize that, you know, you know, calcium for your muscles and bones and your teeth. But calcium is also essential for energy. † [00:09:03]
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[00:09:05] Magnesium is another one. All the energy you’re creating and in that citric acid cycle would burn itself out immediately if you didn’t have magnesium, the mineral magnesium to help regulate it. And here’s another example of why you need vitamins and minerals. The minerals, selenium, iodine and zinc and also the mineral iron is required by your thyroid gland and the ability to create thyroid hormones and release them, but also to convert them into their active form. And your thyroid gland controls your metabolism. It has an effect on your, on everything, on every cell in your body, your cholesterol, your energy, your brain function, your heart rate, your digestion, your muscle function. So, lacking any single vitamin or mineral is, on a day-to-day basis detrimental to maximal function. But over time, it’s dangerous to your health, it’s very dangerous to your health. For instance, if you lack vitamin B3, not only can you not create energy out of your food, you’re going to age at accelerated rate, you’re not going to detoxify chemicals and you really can’t prevent cancer without vitamin B3. So, insurance against lacking these nutrients is taking a very high-quality multivitamin. Now, let me give you a caveat with that, if you’re older, make sure to form a folate in there as methyltetrahydrafolate, I think it’s very essential. Folate is named after foliage. You know it in many, you see it in fortified foods like breads or cereals as folic acid. The problem is not everybody can convert folic acid into its active form, methyltetrahydrafolate is the active form. You need methyltetrahydrafolate to lower the risk of cancer. It helps prevent the first two steps of the process of the cancer formation, which are called initiation and promotion to simplify it, you need to help prevent heart disease, you need it to create energy out of your food, you need as an antioxidant, but you also need it as you grow older to protect yourself from Alzheimer’s. There is a chemical process that takes place when you eat protein and a byproduct of that is called homocysteine and low levels of homocysteine are fine. We don’t know of homocysteine does anything in a positive way, just because they haven’t found out a positive function for it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a positive function. But so far it just seems to be negative, if it’s too high, it becomes a solvent. And in certain studies, it’s been shown to chip away at your bone and joint health, at your heart health at your eyeball health. But many studies are showing it’s dangerous in the brain, if homocysteine is elevated in the brain. It really is an inflammatory component in the brain, and it’s been shown to be part and parcel of developing Alzheimer’s disease. So, you need the active version of folic acid, methyltetrahydrafolate to lower homocysteine levels. So, if you’re older, you want to make sure that your multivitamin has that form of folate called Methyltetrahydrafolate. Sometimes it’s abbreviated, MHTHF, so that’s the first thing. I think pretty much everybody in America get some benefit from taking a multivitamin. There’s a number of studies in older men and older women where their brain functions better. There are studies in children where they tend to do better academically if they’re on a multivitamin. There are studies in middle aged and younger adults that they do better with brain function when they have adequate levels of all these B vitamins, like there was a study out of England, I don’t have it in front of me. I read it years ago, but I tend to remember studies, and these were like healthy people who led a good lifestyle and well-educated people. And they found that when they gave them the B vitamins versus a placebo, they performed better, their brain performed better. They would do better at work, they were more alert, their brain had a little more energy. So even these super healthy people that are eating a diet and exercising and are well-informed, well-educated, etc., if you gave them B vitamins, there was a slight improvement in their mind function, their brain function. So that tells you something. So that becomes of course, more of an issue in people who don’t have a good diet, who don’t exercise, who don’t lead a good life, who are not well-educated. And because education matters and you can always educate yourself, you know, you just go on YouTube and you can watch videos on science and and on geography and history, etc., read a book, whatever. The thing is that it matters, and I think it becomes more of an issue when people who don’t eat well and people who are aging and people with disease states. † [00:13:54]
[00:13:56] Now, so I think everybody should have a multivitamin. If you’re lacking any particular vitamin or mineral, it’s not a good thing. So, it’s just insurance that you’re filling in the holes in your food, you know, because although certain foods have been measured, have measures that they should have a certain amount of nutrients in them, it’s not always the case that’s going to vary from vegetable. Now extra vitamin D, vitamin D is a hormone, but don’t let that word scare you. It’s not a hormone like estrogen or testosterone or a corticosteroid hormone. A hormone simply is something that’s released from one part of the body, and it works somewhere else. That’s the definition of a hormone. So, hormones typically are released from glands like the thyroid gland releases thyroid hormones. So, the hormones are typically released from glands, and they go all around the body, and they knock on the door of, in small amounts by the way, they’re released in tiny amounts because they’re so effective and they go around the whole body and they’re broadcasters, they broadcast around the whole body. They knock on every cell like knock on its front door. And if the cell requires them, it lets them in. So, there’s vitamin D receptors all over the body. We know that vitamin D has a strong impact on the immune system. It’s involved with brain function, it’s just active all over the body. So especially in the winter, it’s hard to get enough vitamin D and they’ve seen even in some sunny locations. Like Hawaii and Arizona, people with darker skin, don’t have enough vitamin D because the best sunscreen is having darker skin. So, vitamin D becomes really important as a supplement and it’s safe. I mean, I think most people, 2000 to 3000 units a day, it really varies from person to person, how much they need. Some people, especially in the summer, don’t need any. They don’t need any supplementation. Other people still need a great deal of supplementation. It seems that if you use sunscreen, yeah, of course, if you use sunscreen, if you wear a lot of clothing, if you avoid the sun, and if you have older skin or darker skin, all of these things reduce your ability to create vitamin D out of sun. So, 2000 to 3000 units a day. You take it with food, vitamin D3, which is called cholecalciferol all seems to work better than vitamin D2, which is ergocalciferol. By the way, you need magnesium, the mineral to activate your vitamin D, so when vitamin D is released from the kidneys, when vitamin D is activated by the kidneys, I should say it requires magnesium for that function. Magnesium is a really important mineral. † [00:16:42]
[00:16:44] Now, certain people need to take a probiotic. You have trillions of bacteria in your intestines, all over your skin, apparently in the urinary tract, apparently everywhere. Vaginal tissue and breast and breast milk lobes. So, in the ducts, I should say, in the ducts of the breast, there’s bacteria. See what the good bacteria, cause the bad bacteria are bad because they can inflame you and some of them take advantage of certain situations and can actually infect you. So, you need enough good bacteria. So normally you can get enough good bacteria by eating a wholesome diet, a well-rounded, healthy diet, but there are some issues that affect that ability. For instance, if you’re obese, obese people have been found to have a predominance or there’s so many inflammatory causing bacteria, pro-inflammatory bacteria, that they need more healthy bacteria, they need more of the good bacteria. So, people who are obese, people who have diabetes and prediabetes tend to have a poor mix of bacteria, they tend to have more of the pro-inflammatory bacteria, people who smoke, people who drink alcohol. Apparently, people who use a lot of aerosols, it kills, it gets into you, and it kills your good bacteria, people on a poor diet because the bacteria require fiber to live. So, if you’re not eating a good diet, you’re not getting the fiber, the bacteria, the good bacteria don’t survive. And if you’re in a city with a lot of pollution, the pollution seems to kill off your good bacteria. And, of course, certain drugs, a lot of drugs, apparently, but especially antibiotics kill off your good bacteria. So, these people really should have a probiotic. The healthy bacteria in your gut are really essential for your immune system, they’re essential for good brain function. They’re essential for helping to prevent diabetes and obesity because they help control your appetite. They’re essential for helping to prevent colon cancer. They’re essential for regularity, so you don’t have diarrhea and constipation, etc… They even seem to help defend you from developing allergies and perhaps can even help you get rid of your existing allergies or mitigate them at least. So, a lot of people oh, by the way, the aging process, I’ve seen studies that included millions of people whereas you grow older, you tend to lose off your good bacteria. It’s some kind of biochemical thing, they don’t exactly know why. So, if you’re older, you need a probiotic. Now, generally a mixture of Lactobacilli and Bifidobacterium is a good way to go, that’s the way I go. Initially, I took the probiotic daily for about six months and then I started taking it every two or three days just to really have these bacteria grow in number in my intestines, that’s called colonizing, it’s called colonizing. So, I gave them six months to really get a head start and really, really, really, really get set, and then every two or three days, I take a probiotic just as a booster just to make sure I’m okay. There’s also prebiotics, which are food for the bacteria. † [00:20:07]
[00:20:07] I used to have a friend named Dr. Allan Pressman, who I miss immensely. Many of you know of him, he was very popular, very well known, big author, big time on radio, big in education. And any event he often he used to say, hey, you wouldn’t buy goldfish or goldfish food. Why would you buy probiotic bacteria without probiotic bacteria food? So, a prebiotic, usually it’s from chicory root. That’s a relative of Belgian Endive, it has a fiber called fructose oligosaccharides that is a good source of food, this fiber is good source of food for these bacteria. And it’s not offensive, in fact, it’s rather healthy, FOS. So, so far, I said a probiotic for many people, extra vitamin D for most people, and a good multivitamin & mineral. And if you’re older, make sure you get an methyltetrahydrafolate as the form of folic acid in that multi. Now, is there anything else required in the day-to-day basis? Well, you know, diseases change this, so make sure you speak to our nutritionists. If you’re if you have some kind of disease state like diabetes, because if you’re diabetic, you want to get extra Zinc and extra magnesium along with the vitamin D to help control your blood sugar. All three are required. So, if you have some kind of condition that really needs attention, speak to one of our nutritionists to get some advice on your protocol. But let’s get back to the things we really need, fish. Fish Oil is really important. There’s something called the omega three index, the omega three index, pardon me. The omega three index quantifies the amount of fish oils on the, it’s on the membrane of our cell, the outside of our cell, the housing of our cell. So, on a cellular membrane is all these fats, you know, maybe there’s some butter, maybe there’s some margarine, olive oil. So, they look at the types of fats, the saturated fat, the monounsaturated fat, the polyunsaturated fat, and then they look at the fish oils and they compared them. And there has to be a certain percentage of fish oils for you to really stay healthy. I mean, your brain is made out of fats and has a large component of fish oils and that, so you need a good amount of fish oils for the brain to function. And that’s, that’s clearly a requirement for the human body. The brain requires fish oils, the omega three fatty acids, generally EPA and DHA. But there’s also DPA. And these get into the membrane of your brain cell, and they help it to function properly, and they help prevent depression, and they literally help prevent different forms of mental senility like Alzheimer’s disease. So, fish oils are very important. And there’s enough data to show that fish oils lower the risk of sudden cardiac death, Sudden cardiac death. About 350,000 Americans each year suffer from cardiac arrest, in general, 350,000 Americans a year suffer from cardiac arrest, sometimes it’s 300,000, sometimes 400,000, in general, 350,000. Now, if the heart doesn’t start beating again, then it’s called sudden cardiac death. And it happens very rapidly, I mean, there’s really not much chance that you’re going to make it into an ambulance or get to a hospital. So about 10%, maybe 8% of these people survive out of 350,000. So that’s like 35,000 out of 350,000. So, there’s plenty of evidence from many, many studies for many, many meta-analyses. A meta-analysis is what a group study is like, like type studies. It gives you more people, it gives you more academic research institutions. And when you have this greater population, it’s a more accurate measure of something works or not. And many meta-analyses showed that fish oils really have a strong ability to lower the risk of sudden cardiac death. So, because fish oils are so essential for the brain and because fish oils are so essential for lowering the risk of sudden cardiac death, I would recommend that everybody’s on fish oils. It becomes more important if you’re on a statin because statins lowered a level fish oils in your body, according to Japanese research. And it becomes more important as you grow older because for some reason, I’m older. As you grow older, it seems to be harder to utilize the fish oils, so you need a little bit extra. So, an older person on a statin drug like Rosuvastatin, they really need fish oils, it’s really important. † [00:24:42]
[00:24:44] Fish oils also have an impact on the eyes, on your bones, on your skin, on your muscles, not just the heart and the brain, but also on women’s breasts. So, they’re really important, on the colon they have an impact, on the immune system they have an impact. So, fish oils are important. So far, a probiotic, & fish oils, a multivitamin and additional Vitamin D for most people. And that right there covers a lot of the needs when it comes to taking a nutritional supplement. Now, for older people, they must have some form of coenzyme Q10, so I would add that, I think that’s essential for older people. Our ability to convert Coenzyme Q10 into its active form, the active form is called Ubiquinol, really declines with age, really declines in your fifties and sixties and seventies. So not only do I think older people need CoQ10. They need a specific form of CoQ10 called Ubiquinol. Now, Ubiquinol and younger adults has been shown to improve physical performance in sports, but us older people, it’s been shown to help really keep our heart functioning at a proper rate and help prevent fatigue and assuage fatigue. So that’s really important. Ubiquinol, the Ubiquinol to get is by Kaneka, they make it down in Texas. That’s the one, that’s the only one that’s made in the United States, that’s the one to go with. Now, additionally for older people, you want Lutein. Lutein is a pigment in vegetables and fruits. There’s a little bit in the yolk of eggs and lutein is essential for memory and vision and it gets harder to absorb lutein from food with age. So, Lutein is a must for older people as part of their day-to-day regimen. A little bit of extra Zinc. Zinc becomes harder to absorb with age, and Zinc is responsible for protecting the brain, protecting the eyes and helps the thyroid function. And, you know, your thyroid controls metabolism. It helps to control your blood sugar. You need it for digesting your food, you need it for healing, you need to keep the arteries in your heart clean. You need it for your immune system. There’s many and to protect you from your immune system. So, Zinc, a little extra zinc is important for older people and collagen. We make collagen when we’re growing, we make it in abundance. You eat any protein, it could be an egg, it could be soybeans, it could be anything grains, and you convert the protein in these things into collagen. So, because collagen makes you, it’s the second most common ingredient in human body after water. Your skin is about 70% collagen. The cartilage in your knee joint is about 67% collagen, your bone is about 36% collagen, so collagen’s really, really important, it makes up your spinal tissue. It makes the menisci in your joint under your knees that supports these tissues. So, collagen, is really important, older people do not make enough. They should get a real high quality collagen supplement. There’s a company, an Italian French company that makes one called Peptan. Like I use Peptan B 5000 every day or most days, because you need to remake yourself, you need to keep yourself functioning. In fact, even collagen content in your brain and in your blood vessel walls and, in the valves, in your heart, valves in your kidneys, etc. So, it helps prevent wear and tear in the body. The ones you rise is water and collagen and it’s 1% collagen. So, collagen is really essential to the human body, so that’s another thing. Older people can also think of adding a powerful brain antioxidant like either resveratrol, you have to get a resveratrol that’s protected from light and oxygen, otherwise, it’s not working. It’s been deactivated or a well absorbed turmeric like bio-curcumin or the curcumin that comes with the black pepper constituent, because these are really good. I’m not giving you all the supplements that are good, I’m giving you what I think is a really smart protocol. So, if you have any questions on that, you can contact our nutritionist, just go to invitehealth.com, they’ll give you all the info, what stores or what phone numbers or whatever, live chat, etc. if you have any questions on anything I said. So, all of the information on today’s program is listed where we discuss the program episode and you can listen to this episode, any of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or just go to invitehealth.com/podcast. You can also find Invite on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at Invite Health. And I want to thank you for listening in. This is Jerry Hickey, signing off, hope to see you next time on the next episode of Invite Health. † [00:24:44]
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Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. DEPRESSION & AGING, WHAT CAN BE DONE, INVITEⓇ HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 634 Hosted by Amanda Williams, MD, MPH *Intro Music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast where our degreed …
Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. TAKE THESE SUPPLEMENTS FOR YOUR MEMORY- PART 1. INVITEⓇ HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 630 Hosted by Jerry Hickey, Ph. *Intro Music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the Invite Health podcast, where our …
Blue blockers
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Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode.
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] Okay, welcome back to my podcast episode. Blue Blockers Protect You From Vision Problems and Alzheimer’s Disease. The blue blockers are found in green leafy vegetables. They’re called lutein and zeaxanthin. They help protect you from blue light and we’ll get into that over this episode. They’re very important. In fact, they’re so important that I generally recommend that people take additional as a supplement. So they found out researchers like at Harvard and Johns Hopkins, etc., Tufts, that green leafy vegetables are great for the brain and the eyes and they slow down the aging process and make aging a much better experience. And then they took the ingredients separately in studies and they found that, hey, these things are remarkably important and these are key nutrients in these foods that help block the aging process of the eyes and the brain and help reduce the risk of brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and help reduce the risk of eye diseases such as age related macular degeneration and even cataracts and glaucoma, all these things that can rob you of vision and even cause blindness. So now we’re going to go into this a little bit deeper.†[00:01:55]
[00:01:57] So welcome back to the podcast. My name is Jerry Hickey. I’m a nutritional pharmacist. I’m also I am pretty good with this nutrition stuff. I have to say, you can find all of our episode for free wherever you listen to podcasts or go to invitehealth.com/podcast and please subscribe and leave a review. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at InViteⓇ Health.† [00:02:21]
[00:02:24] So a quick review. Women tend to have more body fat than men, about 20%. There’s a much higher incidence of Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases in women that can occur at a younger age than men. And also eye diseases such as age related macular degeneration are much more common in women. Many of the pigments found in green leafy vegetables like arugula and broccoli and Brussel sprouts and lettuce and kale and spinach can get trapped in fat. And women tend to have 20% more body fat than men, like I just said. One of the things to protect you from it’s not just blue light, but it’s also oxygen. So I said that 60% of the oxygen with every inhalation goes to your brain. And if you don’t have enough of these antioxidants, molecules can be created that damaged brain cells, we said that part one of the of this podcast. So lutein and zeaxanthin are the primary carotenoids in our brain. You can get a little bit in pistachio nuts, you get it in egg yolks, you can get the zeaxanthin in corn, zea maize it’s named after corn zea maize, zeaxanthin. But you generally find them in green, leafy vegetables. I’ll go into a selection of green leafy vegetables at the end of this podcast episode.† [00:03:51]
[00:03:52] Now they are super concentrated in parts of our brain where we process information like where we know where we are and if we’re standing or sitting or what day it is, or what’s that person’s name or, you know, things like that and memory and learning. So they’re super concentrated in our hippocampus, which is core to learning and memory in our occipital and frontal lobes of our brain, where all of these things take place, all of these executive functions and cognitive skills take place. So evidence is rapidly building that the lutein and zeaxanthin found in these green leafy vegetables help prevent Alzheimer’s disease and a low level of lutein and zeaxanthin in your blood serum is tied into an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. This is in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. And this is information from the rush memory and aging process. And also Inserm in France, a major research hub, and Oregon Health and Science University. † [00:04:57]
[00:04:59] Now additionally, lutein and zeaxanthin help stop the buildup of beta amyloid plaques in our brain, preventing them from gunking together and becoming toxic. This is according to Harvard researchers with a bunch of researchers from China who published their findings in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. But it gets bad in that. So lutein and zeaxanthin help prevent aging related diseases of the brain. But it gets better. Because lutein and zeaxanthin make the brain work better. They make the cells in your brain like the learning cells, the memory cells more efficient. They actually improve cognitive function, showing you how key they are. So it’s not just protecting the brain with lutein and zeaxanthin, you’re actually involved with making the brain function better. † [00:05:48]
[00:05:51] So several studies led me up to doing this episode, this podcast episode in the first place. Several years ago, there was a super important study that was kind of like glossed over because everybody was focused on COVID 19. It was overlooked because of the pandemic, and it was a meta analysis. Now, this is important. A meta analysis, if done properly, tells you if something works or it doesn’t work. It could be a food, it could be a vitamin, it could be a surgical procedure or anything. A diet, that’s a meta analysis. † [00:06:29]
[00:06:30] So they scan, they do a systematic review of the information on a website such as Ovid and Web of Science and PubMed. And they look for key terms like in this case it would be lutein and zeaxanthin or green leafy vegetables, brain, neurological, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, things like that. And then they gather all the evidence and they get rid of the studies that do not look right, that there’s something wrong. Like maybe there’s a bias, there’s a big risk of bias, or maybe the the results are just too good. There’s something wrong here. Or, you know, they’re not reported well, they’re not designed well. So they throw those out and they keep what’s left, which could be five studies, could be 100 studies. So then they analyze it. So all of a sudden they have this data from all these different research institutions, all these different clinics and hospitals and universities, etc., and medical schools. So all these different researchers, that takes out a further risk of bias and it gives you a lot more data and makes it very powerful because all of a sudden you’ve got a study of 100 people, you’ve got thousands and thousands and thousands, maybe even millions of people. So if you do it right, it tells you to something work or doesn’t work. So during the pandemic, they did this meta analysis which reviewed 24 different meta analysis, 24 different previous systematic reviews. † [00:08:03]
[00:08:05] So this means something. I mean, this this is very powerful. This is well powered. Many, many people, many, many years high intake of green leafy vegetables strongly led to a lower all cause mortality. Now, that’s profound. Researchers don’t commonly use words like strongly, so when they say a word like strongly, that really means something. They strongly lower, they strongly lead to a lower all cause mortality. So what’s all cause mortality, it’s the journal food chemistry. All cause mortality could be dying from anything, getting run over but that can happen because your brain’s foggy, you’re not paying attention, you get depressed, suicide. But usually it could be infections, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, a heart attack, a stroke, cancer. You know, the common causes of mortality, a broken hip, you know, broken hips lead to blood clots and infections. It could it could be really dangerous.† [00:09:04]
[00:09:05] So this big analysis shows a precise amount that you would need to consume daily to lower your risk of dying from all these different causes, including cancer. 100 grams of green, leafy vegetables a day. Now, if you have a salad with a arugula and different kinds of lettuce and you have a serving of spinach or broccoli, you can easily get to 100 grams. 100 grams is about three and a third ounces, three and a third ounces. Reduce the risk of all cause mortality by 25%, including cancer. I mean, that’s big. And Lutein and zeaxanthin are major players in green leafy vegetables. They help prevent memory loss because they’ve been studied separately. They’ve been taken as supplements and studied separately in many, many studies. And there’s a very large volume of research, huge amounts of green leafy vegetables and a very large volume of research now on lutein and zeaxanthin supplements. So the effect is real. The government needs to do the right thing and allow companies to put really strong claims on the labels for well-made lutein and zeaxanthin supplements about protecting the eyes and protecting the brain. It’s really time. They help prevent memory loss, they help prevent neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease.† [00:10:37]
[00:10:39] But lutein and zeaxanthin protect your eyes also. And the eyes are connected to the brain. About 90% of the information your brain gets is from your vision. And if you look at, you know, when the eye doctor looks at the back of the eyes with that little sculptor actually looking at an extension of the brain, the optic nerve is the only part of the brain you can look at without doing surgery; they look in the eye with that little sculptor looking at the optic nerve, it’s a direct extension outside the brain. So and the eyes are connected to the brain, eye health is connected to brain health, so lutein and zeaxanthin protect the eyes also, especially all of those little sensitive, vulnerable little organelles and organs in the retina needed for fine vision, and they protect them from blue light. † [00:11:24]
[00:11:24] So let’s talk about blue light. The blue light spectrum is super high energy. It’s more energetic than red and orange and yellow and green and purple because it’s a very short wave. So when you’re looking at blue light, millions of these waves are hitting your eyes much more than other light waves. And this causes a glare and the glare, uses up your lutein and zeaxanthin. And what happens if too much lutein and zeaxanthin is used up? The macular tissue that’s a shield for the inside of your eyes starts to thin because it’s mostly made out of lutein and zeaxanthin. And this allows the blue light to penetrate and it can damage the retina. † [00:12:07]
[00:12:08] Now in young children and I’ve done podcast episodes on this in young children on screens all day, you’re getting a lot of blue light. You get blue light outside, of course, you’re in the daylight, blue sky. But on your computer screen, there’s a lot of blue light on a high definition television, on video games like X-Box and even on your cell phone, you’re getting blue light, you’re getting a lot more blue light than our ancestors, you’re getting a lot more exposure. This uses up the lutein and zeaxanthin in your macula. In young people, it leads to eye fatigue and brain fatigue, which there’s a clue there for your kid in college. Give them a lutein and zeaxanthin supplement, and they’ll probably do better academically, because their brain and their eyes won’t get as tired. Because I could tell you this, when I go on a computer screen, if I do lutein and zeaxanthin, I could go for hours without my eyes getting tired. If my eyes did get tired, if I didn’t take the lutein and zeaxanthin then my eyes got tired like after an hour or an hour and a half, if I take the lutein and zeaxanthin within about 10 minutes, my eyes aren’t tired anymore, it’s pretty amazing. And here’s something else that’s interesting, the lutein and Zeaxanthin have to negotiate their way, inside your brain to get to your eyes. † [00:13:21]
[00:13:22] So because they’re so important for the brain, the brain grabs a lot of lutein and zeaxanthin and holds onto it. Maybe not enough is getting to your eyeballs. I think it’s really important, especially as we get older, to take a lutein and zeaxanthin supplement because it does protect your eyes, it does protect your brain and does a lot more than that and even helps your brain work better and it and improves your day to day vision and your visual acuity, how sharply you see and contrast sensitivity like picking things out from a background, like you’re driving at night and it’s raining and it’s gloomy and everything. And you know, there’s a tree branch across the road. You’ll see it quicker if you have enough lutein and zeaxanthin in your eyeballs and help you recover from glare quicker. They did a study at the Moran, eye center. That’s the University of Utah, and when they gave elderly, it was something like 100 very elderly people. When they gave them lutein and zeaxanthin or placebo, over the course of a year, the people on lutein and zeaxanthin their vision actually improved a little bit, which is just the opposite of what normally occurs with aging. They did an interesting study in China on people who dried professionally hours and hours and hours of driving every day. These people do an amazing amount of driving like truck drivers, etc., that driving across China and the Gobi Desert, etc. And when they gave them lutein, it really helped their vision. It really helped her eye fatigue and their brain fatigue and their ability to pay attention while they were driving, etc. † [00:14:39]
[00:14:39] So these are incredibly important for our eyes and the optic nerve that goes into your eyes as a direct extension out of our brain. So on a protective side, once again, they reduce glare, uh, the glare from the blue light. Oh, and let me just say something else. Let me backtrack a little bit. In young people, use up the lutein and zeaxanthin by going on a computer screen all day, their eyes and their brain get tired. But in older people, it’s worse than that. You can actually get some eye damage and brain damage. So you always want enough lutein and zeaxanthin. And unfortunately, with age, this happens with a number of nutrients like zinc, you absorb less zinc with age, you absorb less fish oils for your meals with age, you absorb less lutein and zeaxanthin from your food with age. So it really becomes important to take a good supplement. So on the protective side with lutein and zeaxanthin they reduce glare in the eyes and this affects your visual processing speed and it can improve their contrast sensitivity, their visual stamina, the visual acuity. This affects our ability to solve problems. This affects our memory. This affects our executive functions and also protects our hippocampal region, which is so important for our memory. I’ve done some podcast episodes on the hippocampus, our frontal cortex of our brain and regions of our eyes. I mean, so key. The lutein and zeaxanthin help prevent age related vision loss and age related blindness, I’m going to go into some studies now. † [00:16:19]
[00:16:22] They help prevent the development of the diseases, including brain diseases like memory loss well, I mean, that’s not a disease, anybody can have memory loss, subjective memory loss. But they help prevent memory loss and they help prevent the development and disease of diseases like Alzheimer’s disease. And their progression, which means worsening progress is not always a good thing, progress of the disease means it’s worsening. So there was a very recent study in nutritional neuroscience, and this was the direct trigger for me to do this podcast episode. It was published on June 11th of this year. Consuming lutein and zeaxanthin rich foods reduced the risk of dementia and reduced the risk of eye diseases. † [00:17:10]
[00:17:14] Now, this is a benign approach to getting antioxidant defenses to help prevent inflamaging, to help prevent memory loss, to help prevent brain diseases, to help prevent eye disease. A lot of green leafy vegetables. So let’s get back to women. You have to take into account women’s immune systems. There’s this really brilliant researcher, Dr. Billy Hammond, he’s the kind of person I follow when it comes to the science of nutrition. He’s the principal scientist in Division Sciences Laboratory at the University of Georgia, that’s in Athens, Georgia. They do a lot of brain research and fusion research at the University of Georgia in Athens. He’s also a professor of the Brain and Behavioral Sciences Program at the University of Georgia. And he’s done a great deal of research on diseases of aging in women that affect both vision and memory. And he’s also done a great deal of research on lutein and zeaxanthin because they’re so key.† [00:18:16]
[00:18:19] So I’m going to quote Dr. Hammond now. “Females have a much more robust immune response, but then suffer from the long term consequences such as enhanced responses, injury” end of quote. So women’s immune systems, because they have to go through pregnancy, etc. are very powerful, they’re more powerful than men. Now, when the immune system is really functioning well, you’re releasing chemical messengers like chemokines and cytokines, like interleukin six. These are the things that have damaged the lungs of people with COVID 19 that led to so many deaths. Antioxidants are some of the things that quench those things and protect regions of the brain in the eyes and the lungs and every other part of body. So it’s very key for women to have enough of these nutrients, especially since some of these nutrients get trapped in the fat in your body, have a higher fat content in general than men. So they actually need more of these nutrients. That’s really key to a long, healthy life for women. So let’s look at the nurses health study. It’s almost 50,000 nurses that were followed for a 22 year period, that’s amazing. Women in the highest quintile of intake of lutein and zeaxanthin quintile would be the top 20%. Women in the top 20% of intake of lutein and zeaxanthin had a 24% lowered likelihood of reporting reduced cognitive function over the 22 year period. But don’t forget, these women were getting questioned by the researchers all the time. There was always follow up questioning. So when they would ask these women, you know, how’s your memory? How’s your brain? They’d say, Well, my, my brain is fine. I’m not I’m not forgetting words and I’m not forgetting that I’ve been somewhere or read a book, etc., and I can remember things and I can learn. They had a lot of these green leafy vegetables, they were getting in a lot of lutein and zeaxanthin. † [00:20:14]
[00:20:17] So here’s the problem in a nutshell, women just need more lutein and zeaxanthin and carotenoid pigments in general like lycopene. So here’s the Journal of Vision Research. That’s the Shepherd’s Eye Research Institute in Boston. Although women tend to consume more lutein and zeaxanthin than men, women average 38% less lutein and zeaxanthin in their retinas. So potentially this is going to affect their eye health and their brain. It’s all connected. So even though women tend to eat more green, leafy vegetables and high quality foods, etc., than men, they tend to have 38% lutein and zeaxanthin in their eyeball and their retina where it counts. And lutein and zeaxanthin are the only carotenoids, and you’re right, they’re the only ones. They’re the most important carotenoids in your brain also. So they protect the retina from the blue light and other insults. And if you don’t have enough whatever there is depleted quickly, it’s used up very quickly and then you’re really in trouble. † [00:21:24]
[00:21:26] So using a pollutant and zeaxanthin in your eyeballs will then quickly use up the remaining lutein and zeaxanthin in your brain, and your brain won’t work as efficiently, but it’s more likely to get damaged by the free radicals are always occurring in your brain at high levels. So it’s a problem. Potentially, this also leads to cataracts. There’s studies showing that when you have enough lutein and zeaxanthin, but also zinc and other nutrients, it lowers the risk of having cataracts. There’s a big study from Finland showing that. † [00:22:02]
[00:22:04] And you know what? There’s also a recent study using data from Rush Russia’s Memory Project. The Rush Institute is over in Chicago, and they study aging. And they’re the people that came up with the MIND diet. They took the the best of the Mediterranean diet and combined it with what they considered the best of the dash diet. The Dash diet is a diet developed to help prevent heart disease and high blood pressure, etc. Help prevent strokes and heart attacks. So they mixed the Mediterranean diet with the dash diet. Now these are patterns of eating. They’re not like calorie restricted, restricting diets aimed at dieting and losing weight. However, when you eat properly like these kind of foods, you lose weight anyway. They’re not fattening foods and they’re super healthy foods. So they use- and they’ve proven with this MIND diet that it cuts to risk of Alzheimer’s so they were using so I’m doing one more brain study because I kind of left it out before using a Rush memory project data higher in take of total carotenoids substantially. And once again, that’s a huge word for researchers, lowers the hazard of developing Alzheimer’s disease by an incredibly powerful 48%. So a good diet, there’s other things that lower the risk of Alzheimer’s reading, studying, learning, talking to people, being social, getting enough sleep, getting exercise. All these things help lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. But they found that intake of total carotenoids and there’s a lot of data on this this is just one thing I’m quoting especially lutein and zeaxanthin lower the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by an incredibly substantial and incredibly powerful 48%. These are Harvard researchers. And they found that this help prevent a buildup of beta amyloid plaques in the brain and also lowered fibril formation. That’s the sticky plaques that become so damaging and toxic in your brain. † [00:24:06]
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[00:24:08] So age related macular degeneration is a major cause of vision loss and blindness in people over the age of 55. And it’s more common in women by far. So these are Harvard researchers, people who consume the most lutein and zeaxanthin have a 40% lowered risk of advanced age related macular degeneration, which leads to blindness. This was approximately 100,000 men and women. It was published in JAMA Ophthalmology. So the data is real, the data is real. Additionally, other carotenoids in the study, like beta carotene and alpha carotene especially reduce the risk of age related macular degeneration by 25 to 35%. But there’s more Harvard research looking at glaucoma. Glaucoma is very common. It’s usually from pressure in the eyeballs. The plumbing of the eyeball isn’t working properly, and you get a buildup of fluids and they’re crushing down on the retina and they cause damage to the retina and they can lead to vision loss and blindness. It’s a very common cause of vision loss and blindness, especially in older people. So this is more Harvard research. And once again, it’s it’s almost 100,000 men and women, it’s from two very long term studies mixed together. Both of them lasted longer than 25 years. So this is really good data consuming a lot of green leafy vegetables reduce the risk of developing glaucoma by 20 to 30%. † [00:25:33]
[00:25:35] So studies of lutein and zeaxanthin, they don’t just protect the eyeball, they actually improve your vision health. Like I mentioned at Marin Eye Health, that eye center study at the University of Utah. So not only do they make the brain work more efficiently, they make the eyes work more efficiently. I remember the study, I can’t find it now because I read it many years ago. All they did was give women DHEA and lutein, and their memory improved, their cognitive functions improved. That’s all they did was give them lutein and DHEA. DHEA is one of the two most important oils in fish oil capsules and eating fish. It’s very important for the brain and memory. Studies show that if you get 100, 200 milligrams of DHA every day, you cut your risk of Alzheimer’s disease by about 36%. So it’s really, but they also are really super important for your memory. † [00:26:22]
[00:26:25] Now, just a couple of other things. High blood levels of lycopene and lutein and zeaxanthin in research reduced the risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancers. They lead to stronger bones because they reduce inflammation in the bones. And this improves osteoblast activity, which builds bone and reduces osteoblast activity that breaks down bones. So when you reduce the inflammation in the bones, you’re actually building bone. So they’re important for that, too. And they help prevent sarcopenia, which is that age associated loss of muscle and strength, which is a hazard, because then that affects your balance and your mobility and your independence. They lead to a healthier heart, better circulation, healthier skin, they even reduce wrinkling and help protect your skin from the sun and a reduced risk of autoimmune diseases so these are really important foods. † [00:27:14]
[00:27:14] So the take away, have a lot of green leafy vegetables every day. Now, a couple of caveats there, don’t have raw cabbage, vegetables cause there’s goitrogens in there. Things that slow down your thyroid gland, your thyroid gland you need it for your memory and heart health and reducing inflammation for energy and strength, etc. So you don’t want to slow down your thyroid, so cook your cabbage vegetables and there’s a lot of cabbage vegetables. I mean, there’s broccoli rabe, there’s bok choy, there’s collard greens, there’s kale. I grew up on kale when I was a little kid in Ireland, we grew up on kale, we ate so much kale, we never ate cabbage, we ate kale. Cabbage, brussels sprouts, all these things are in the cabbage family. I wouldn’t have them more than four times a week and I would cook them, four times a week is fine. So on the other days you’ll look at other greens like lettuce, dandelion greens. I was very good friends with a family from Barry, Italy and they would make salads on Sunday afternoon with dandelion greens, and I got to tell you, it was so bitter, but they’re super healthy. Lettuce, arugula, all those are greens. But don’t risk it, take a well-made, natural source of lutein and zeaxanthin. The synthetic doesn’t work well, it’s sort of a different chemical structure. They don’t have that nailed properly.† [00:28:38]
[00:28:38] So you want a natural lutein and zeaxanthin. Generally, they get these from flowers. They reduce your risk of depression, they reduce your risk of eye inflammation, they reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease. You’ll want to add to that some fish oils, you want your B vitamins, you want your minerals, especially your zinc and your magnesium and adequate calcium, you want your vitamin C. If you want a couple of other things that are great for the brain, well absorbed turmeric. Turmeric is very poorly absorbed, it’s that pigment and curry that gives it that smell and taste and color. Well absorbed turmeric is great for the brain, resveratrol is good for the brain, acetyl-l-carnitine is good for the brain. Alpha lipoic acid is good for the brain. These are all things we’ve done podcasts on.† [00:29:20]
[00:29:20] So I want to thank you for listening to today’s episode. You can listen to all of our episodes wherever you listen to the podcast for free or go to invitehealth.com/podcast. And if you could subscribe and leave a review, it would be very helpful. You can also find us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at InViteⓇ Health. I want to thank you for listening today and please join me again in future podcast episodes. Jerry Hickey, signing off, have a great day. † [00:29:20]
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