Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
Written by Dr.Claire Arcidiacono, ND For further questions or concerns email me at [email protected] Last week we started talking about lupus and its repercussions as an autoimmune disease. This week we will continue this fascinating topic. To begin our topic we will start with some risk …
Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. YOU’RE OLDER, THINK ABOUT TAKING THESE SUPPLEMENTS – INVITEⓇ HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 620 Hosted by Jerry Hickey, Ph. *Intro Music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our …
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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: [00:00:40] What age you could become frail? And that’s not inevitable. That’s something you can really put off or avoid possibly altogether, because frailty is dangerous. For one thing, frailty really increases the risk of falling and falling could be quite dangerous in older people. So welcome to my episode. Don’t Get Frail, fight Back. Hi, my name is Jerry Hickey. I’m a nutritional pharmacist, the senior scientific officer over here at Invite Health. You can find all of the Invite Health podcasts for free wherever you listen to podcasts or just go to invitehealth.com/podcast. You can also find an invite on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health. Now, all of the information about this episode is listed in the description on the website or wherever you’re listening. So let’s get into this frailty issue, and frailty has different definitions from different regions, but generally frail people, they lose a lot of muscle. Of course, they lose a great deal of strength. This is not uncommon in people over 70 or 75. They tend to shrink. Their bones, of course, can weaken. I mean, that could be part and parcel of the whole thing. They become less communicative, maybe incommunicative, and they’re not socializing. They’re kind of just sitting in a chair. And the problem is that’s opening the door to all those diseases of aging, cancer, diabetes, broken bones, you know, brittle bones, you name it. So let’s get into this whole falling issue. And of course, you know, you can learn leg exercise that will really decrease your risk of falling by strengthening your legs. Supplements can help, too, and of course, the correct foods. You can also learn balance exercises like when I took Tai chi, there’s a whole bunch of balance exercises that become part and parcel of working out with Tai chi. So sadly, this is the American family physician. So this is older data. It’s a bigger scale now of what I’m going to tell you, because this goes back to American family physician, the year 2000.† [00:02:49]
[00:02:52] Falling is the number one cause of accidental deaths and people over the age of 65. Now, that’s according to a great deal of data. 90% of hip fractures occur as a result of falling. They’re related to falling. Well, most of these hip fractures occurring in people greater than the age of 70. Now, community dwelling means you’re living at home, you’re not institutionalized, you’re not in a nursing home or anything. You don’t need help to get around, for the most part, a third of community dwelling elderly people, a third and 60% of those in a nursing home fall each year. And of course, the major cause of falling is frailty. Now, you don’t want to get frail, now other than frailty. Poor, poor eyesight contributes to falling in the elderly, poor eyesight, especially if you don’t have great lighting like, on somebody’s stairs going down the basement. The lighting can always can frequently, not always can frequently be inadequate. Maybe getting up at night there’s not enough light and you trip over something, a trip over to your terrier dog, you trip over a piece of furniture. And by the way, there was a study very interesting about ten years ago, a huge review of millions of people that if people simply took lutein, a supplement, lutein, which is great for your brain and great for your eyes, it would cut down the incidence of falling dramatically. But there’s other things that contribute to falling in the elderly besides frailty and vision issues. A lot of prescription drugs, they cause ooziness, they cause drowsiness. That’s drugs for anxiety, drugs for depression. I mean, it’s just some of the high blood pressure drugs or it is just a lot of drugs that make you sleepy. And of course, antihistamines for allergies and colds, all those things can make you sleepy. So, you know, you should discuss that with your pharmacist. Am I taking a drug that’s going to make me oozy, it’s important to know.† [00:04:54]
[00:04:55] Cognitive impairment, of course, is a big contributor. So once again, this is an older statistic. There’s a lot more elderly people now. So the incidence is higher than what I’m about to tell you, so about 10,000 elderly people die each year as a direct result of falling. So once again, that’s an older figure. But these people who fall, even if they survive, they experience significant morbidity. In other words, it’s causing other problems, like maybe a broken shoulder or a broken ankle, you know, something horrible and their stay in the hospital. Older people who fall, their stay in the hospital is twice the length, of hospital stays of elderly people who went to the hospital for other reasons. So comparatively speaking, people go into a hospital with an infection or for surgery, etc. They stay in the hospital half the time as people who are in the hospital as a result of a fall. So it really is a big issue. And of course, once you have these co-morbidities, these other issues that come out of a fall, there’s a decline in function. So you’re, you know, your activities of daily living are harder, like vacuuming the house, walking the dog, taking up recyclables, going shopping. There’s a decrease in physical activity. So, you know, taking your walks, playing pickleball, going to the gym. And of course, there’s a decrease in socialization, social activities, dropping out, going out to play poker, you’re not going out to brunch, you’re not going out to dinner as frequently because you’re in pain or it’s just hard. Your mobility has been damaged. Now, I said before that quite a few people who live at home, some of the stats are up to 50%, by the way, of people over the age of 70,75. Some of the stats are up to 50%. Other stats are between 15 to 50%. Now, once again, 60% of people in nursing homes fall each year. But some of these people are called Fallers. They’re like they’re serial fallers. I mean, they fall multiple times each year and they suffer with major injuries. Like they can have head trauma, they hit their head or they can have fractures or dislocations. Now, fractures take a lot longer to heal in older people. I once went to an orthopedic doctor who was a friend of mine, and he told me, Jerry, for every decade you add a week onto the healing process. Maybe not with your stitches, maybe not externally, but internally it takes a week longer for each decade, so people fall in their 70s. It takes a long, a long time to heal. Now, as far as hip fractures, this is really dangerous, 25% of people who suffer with a hip fracture die within months. You know, there’s complications like maybe blood clots or infections in the bone or a stroke. And approximately 50% over 50% are discharged to nursing homes where they have to convalesce. Now 15 to 20% of those people who are discharged from a hospital with a hip fracture and they’re discharged to a nursing home, a year later, they’re still in there. So it’s not so easy to get out of. This actually happened to my mother. My mother’s 92, she insists on living alone. She won’t let me get her aides, etc. She will not let me get her someone to live with. She will not come with and live with any of her three sons. We’re all willing to take her in, she won’t do it. She’s very independent, but she’s 92. She still exercises, she paints, she still does volunteer work. So she’s into volunteerism. She’s pretty cool, actually, she’s 92. She cracks jokes. In fact, when I go to see her, she’s over in Pennsylvania, I’m in New York and when I go to see her, she wants to go out to a microbrewery and have a beer. I mean, that’s just crazy. But what can I tell you? She lives, but she fell and she broke her thigh bone, which is kind of like a hip fracture. And she had to go to a place to really have a great deal of physical therapy. And she worked very hard to get out of there. She was out of there in several months. But that’s I don’t know if that’s how common that story is, man. So once again, a frailty is different from different countries and different regions, and it opens the door for those diseases that occur with aging because you’re not eating right, you’re not motivated, you’re not using your brain, you’re not communicating, you’re not social, you’re not exercising. So it’s just easier for these things to get into your your life.† [00:09:45]
[00:09:47] So what can you do to prevent frailty? Well, first of all, exercise. You want to prevent frailty. I mean, once you’re frail, I mean, that’s I don’t know if is getting back from being frail. So you want to exercise. So I told people take certain supplements before and after you exercise. So before you exercise, take like a green tea capsule. Green tea in a number of studies has been shown to improve the effects of exercise on burning fat, on building muscle, on building strength and on building bone tissue, on thickening and strengthening your bone. So before exercise, I tell people, you know, maybe a half an hour before with a snack, take a green tea capsule. Now, after exercise, the following a scoop of creatine monohydrate and always, of course, check with your doctor and nutritionist, your pharmacist before you do these things, your nurse practitioner, whoever is advising you. A scoop of creatine monohydrate, which is fine for most people. Creatine monohydrate recycles energy in your muscles so your muscles recuperate faster, but it also improves strength. A scoop of high quality whey protein powder get the American Whey. Sadly, sometimes the Chinese whey is subpar. It doesn’t have enough of the way peptides, and it’s perhaps not as clean as many of the American Wheys to get American Whey, have a scoop of that, now 15 to 20 grams of protein.† [00:11:30]
AN ANTI-AGING SUPPLEMENT, QUERCETIN – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 567>>LISTEN NOW!
[00:11:32] Have beta hydroxy beta methyl butyrate, beta hydroxy beta methyl butyrate. I’ll say it again beta hydroxy beta methyl butyrate. One of the reasons people take certain amino acids like l-arginine is because or the brand chain amino acids is because they will eventually help create beta hydroxy beta methyl butyrate. The branched chain amino acids are leucine, isoleucine, valine, and these have real benefits for your muscles. For instance, they help with muscle growth and muscle strength. They help decrease muscle soreness after exercise post-exercise, and like the next day, the day after that, they help prevent exercise, fatigue, muscle fatigue. They definitely help prevent you from becoming weakened. They they help prevent fragility syndrome. They really are important. So they get into the muscle and they help nourish the muscle and a thing they are getting mostly converted to like the leucine is the most important of the three brand chain amino acids, but they work better together, is they they create this stuff, they create the beta hydroxy beta methyl butyrate. And this stuff really, really. I mean, studies from the military, from the armed forces, they do great research on fitness. It shows the stuff really works for muscle and you need about 3000 milligrams and mix that in water. So you want a scoop of whey protein, a scoop of, three grams of beta hydroxy beta, methyl, butyrate and a scoop of creatine monohydrate after you exercise and as soon after exercise as possible, take this and water with a little carbohydrate because your muscles are open, the muscle fibers are opened up after exercise. It’s easier to get these things into the muscle and you can you’ll exercise more effectively and efficiently with less pain if you do these things. Another thing to take after exercise is calcium with vitamin D, one of the reasons your muscles become fatigued and spasm after exercise, is the calcium and vitamin D are pumped out of them and you want to get this back into them. Another thing to take on a daily basis is something called Ubiquinol, which is the active version of coenzyme Q10. Ubiquinol is needed for physical activity, it’s needed for strength and endurance, and it’s the active form of CoQ10. And I say that because the regular CoQ10 when you get older, it’s hard to convert that into the active form. Your body has to convert it to make it useful for your muscles and endurance and to counter fatigue. So if you get the already active form, A, it’s absorbed better and B it’s already working. It’s the way to go for older people, get the Ubiquinol version of Coenzyme Q10.† [00:14:43]
[00:14:44] The last thing is fish oil. Fish oils are very important for muscle. Vitamin D is important for muscle, fish oils are very important for muscle. So there’s a new study, so before I go into the study, let me explain two terms. There’s an additive effect. Not everything added to something equals a better outcome. You know, sometimes you can take different things that are actually together and they’re no good at using either one alone. So there’s an additive effect where one and one comes up to two. But then there’s a synergistic effect where adding things together is more like it’s three times better, four times better, even ten times better. That’s called a synergism. So this new study looks at a synergism between fish oils and vitamin D for exercise. It’s called the Do Health Healthy Aging Study. Now it’s European adults they’re from Switzerland and Germany, France, Portugal and Austria. They’re over 70. They’re 70 or older. It’s a three year double blind placebo controlled randomized clinical trial. So it’s a gold standard state of the art human clinical trial. So it’s 1137 people, 70 years of age or older in these countries in Europe, it’s from the University of Zurich. They ran the study, they were at a major academic research center involved with the study. They gave them 1000 milligrams of EPA, DHA every day. This is the active ingredients in fish oil. So that would be two of my fish oil capsules. And they gave them 2000 units of Vitamin D3 every day. That’s a better form of vitamin D than D2. And they did a simple home exercise program. So some of them got the supplements plus the exercise, some of them got the placebo plus the exercise for three years and taking the vitamin D and taking the fish oil with simple home exercise, did not even go to the gym, really help prevent frailty. It helped prevent what we call pre frailty. Now, surprisingly, neither vitamin D3 nor fish oils nor exercise were that powerful in preventing pre frailty. Were you losing a lot of muscle and strength. But the three together really work pretty powerfully, reducing the risk of pre frailty, pre frailty by almost half. That’s a robust finding. This is, if you prevent pre frailty obviously you’re preventing frailty and frailty is horrible. So this is a true effect on reducing your risk of suffering with like early stages of frailty. So I would do it. I listen, I get vitamin D every day, I get fish oils every day, I take a slew of supplements. Maybe my next podcast episode, I’ll do supplements, I really, truly believe older people should be taking and I’ll use my self as an example. And I’m not going to go into the supplements for conditions like diabetes or kidney disease because that would be a more unique situation. I’m talking about across the board for general health for the general population. So I’ll do that in my next podcast episode.† [00:18:07]
[00:18:09] So combining mild exercise of Vitamin D and fish oils, you can achieve the following. According to the study, this is a good study. It’s a gold standard study and there’s plenty of people. This is a well powered study. Plenty of people, plenty of time. Plenty of researchers were involved. Combining the mild exercise with vitamin D and fish oils improved muscle function, improved muscle strength, reduced chronic low grade inflammation. Chronic low grade inflammation eats away at your bones, your muscle, your mind. It was good for the heart, it was good for circulation in general. It was improving the effects of the immune system in aging people. By the way, it’s the Journal of Frailty and Aging, that’s the journal it’s in. You know, just just to throw this out that there, there are other things that kind of help with aging in different ways. And of course, you know, eat your vegetables, eating your fruit, getting enough good quality protein like an egg or a chicken and beans and stuff, red meat. If you eat red meat, treat it like dessert. Don’t have it every day. Have it, you know, once a week, twice a week. So great food, whole grains, fish, vegetables, fruits, especially apples and berries and citrus fruits. Look at the mind diet, by the way. The mind diet shows you things that are good for the brain. It’s from Russia, the Russia Institute, I believe they’re with the University of Chicago in Illinois. You have to get enough sleep. You have to get your exercise. Let me tell you a couple of interesting supplements that affect the aging process in like more unique ways. Quercetin. Quercetin is a flavonoid, it’s found in really healthy foods like like red grapes and blueberries and broccoli and spinach and apples and garlic and onions, green tea. But you only get a little even a good diet, you get like 25, 50 milligrams a day if you could get more. It’s a senolytic. What does that mean? With age, you kind of develop zombie cells. Well, all your life you’re, you’re creating zombie cells. But when you’re younger, you’re plucking them out. You’re getting rid of them because these cells are toxic to the other cells. Quercetin restores that ability to pluck out like a tweezers these zombie like cells before they turn into rather healthy cells. So that’s one way you can slow down the aging process with with the supplement taking Quercetin and Sulforaphane. This is really interesting. Sulforaphane is found in like broccoli sprouts and broccoli. That’s like the major source of it. There is a protein in the body called progerin and progerin builds up in our body with age and it it accelerates aging dramatically. I’ll give you an I’ll give you an example. There’s something called Hutchinson Gilford Syndrome. You’ve seen kids with Steady, kids with the Make-A-Wish Foundation that are taken to, you know, they want to go to Disney World. They they’re like ten, 11, 12 years old and they look like they’re 85, they really are. It’s called progeria. That’s the common name for it. You get a buildup of this protein called progeria that they can’t get rid of. And the life expectancy for these kids is very sad. It’s like 13 years and at a very young age, they’re already losing. At the age of one, they’re already starting to lose their hair. But like, you know, ten years old, they already have diabetes. They already have heart failure, They already have arthritis. So that obviously is a much more severe scenario. And I don’t know if Sulforaphane would help at all with that, but for you and me, progeria is one of the things that builds up in us with age and it’s toxic to our other cells. So the sulforaphane helps block out the progerin. There’s also a drug called rapamycin. You ever hear of Rapanui Easter Island, where they have those monolithic heads, those big heads? They found a kind of like mold over there, rapamycin. And this stuff can inhibit the aging process. But, you know, it’s really something that they use just experimentally. They use it for research, but Sulforaphane will do the same thing. So Quercetin, sulforaphane and resveratrol. I take these things every day. Resveratrol restores the health of the blood brain barrier, keep toxic things out of your brain. But it’s also really vasoactive, it helps restore circulation to your brain and your heart, your legs and everything. It helps restore sirtuin one. Sirtuin one is a protein that’s related to a gene that regulates cellular and cellular, cellular, senescence and multiple aging processes. So those things quercetin, sulforaphane, resveratrol, they help stopping the aging process.† [00:23:15]
[00:23:15] Hey, listen, thanks for listening. Exercise, sleep, good food, and also your vitamin D, your fish oils, and that’ll help keep you strong. Thanks for listening. You can find all of the podcast episodes from Invite Health anywhere where you listen to podcasts, all those different podcast platforms, or you can just go to invitehealth.com for latest podcast and of course they’re free. You can also find it on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook at Invite Health. And I want to thank you for listening today and I hope you join me next time on our next episode of the InViteⓇ Health Podcast. Jerry Hickey signing off. Have a great day.† [00:23:15]
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Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. NEW YEAR DETOX TIPS, INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 611 Hosted by Amanda Williams, MD, MPH. *Intro Music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed health care …
lungs Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. Resveratrol for the Lungs – InViteⓇ Health Podcast, Episode 573 Hosted by Jerry Hickey, Ph. *Intro music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed healthcare professionals …
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!†
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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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