2012-10-11-omaglogo.jpg


By Leslie Goldman


Research reveals a surprising suspect in memory-robbing disorders.


The exact causes of Alzheimer's disease[1] are still unknown, but experts have identified a host of contributing factors: diabetes, smoking, saturated fats. Now a theory points the finger in a different direction: a variety of metals that can build up in the body over time. Look inside the brains of people with Alzheimer's who have died and you'll find protein clogging the brain's signaling system, along with tiny clusters called beta-amyloid plaques. "When researchers tease those plaques apart, they find metals, including iron, copper, and aluminum," says Neal Barnard[2] , MD, an adjunct associate professor of medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine. "These metals produce free radicals, which are like little sparks that damage brain cells." And dementia isn't the only risk; metals have been linked to everyday mental fuzziness: A study of roughly 1,450 adults in The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging found that women who performed highest on cognition tests had the lowest levels of copper and iron in their blood. But you needn't let metals meddle with your noggin: A few simple swaps can help shield your brain and protect your memory.


Iron

It's the fuel that allows red blood cells to transport oxygen throughout the body. But when it comes to brain health, a 2011 study in the journal Neurology showed that people with high hemoglobin (an indicator of iron levels) were more than three times as likely to develop Alzheimer's as those with levels in a healthy range.


Get smart: Go easy on meat -- it's loaded with easily absorbable heme iron, which your body can't regulate well. Dark leafy greens can help you meet the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for iron (18 mg for women ages 19 to 50; 8 mg for women 50+). They're also rich in antioxidants that "bind to iron so it can't cause as much damage," says UCLA psychiatry professor George Bartzokis[3] , MD.


Quick fix: Swap out your cast-iron pans for stainless steel. One study found that the iron content of spaghetti sauce increased more than nine times after being cooked in a cast-iron skillet.


Aluminum

The aluminum-Alzheimer's link remains hotly contested, but most experts agree that the metal can be a neurotoxin. Although our bodies don't need aluminum to function, it seeps in through antacids ("they can deliver a hundred times more aluminum than you'd get from a day's worth of food," Barnard says); soda cans, which can leach aluminum; and tap water (aluminum can be introduced during purification). In one British study, people with high levels of aluminum in their tap water had a 50 percent increased risk for Alzheimer's compared to those with the least exposure.



Get smart: Call your local water supplier and ask for the aluminum level. "If your city's range is anything higher than undetectable, install an under-sink filter," Barnard says.


Quick fix: Store your leftovers in glass; acidic foods like pizza or pasta sauce can absorb aluminum from foil.


Copper

Dietary copper (in foods like shellfish, nuts, and beans) is generally safe. But inorganic copper -- the type in multivitamins and tap water -- largely bypasses the liver's filtration system and heads directly to the blood and brain. It's especially dangerous when combined with saturated and trans fats: Research has found that individuals whose high-fat diets included 1.6 or more mg of copper a day experienced a loss of mental function equivalent to an extra 19 years of aging, compared with those who took in an average of 0.9 mg a day.


Get smart: Check your pipes. If you have copper plumbing, let the water run for a minute in the morning before drinking from the tap, to flush out any copper that may have built up overnight.


Quick fix: Choose a supplement with no more than 0.9 mg of copper -- the average women's multivitamin contains more than double that.



Earlier on HuffPost:


8 Ways To Boost Brain Power


Loading Slideshow...



  • Wake Up in Wonderland


    Any time you encounter "meaning threat" -- that unsettling feeling you get when something makes no sense -- <a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/20/9/1125.abstract" target="_blank">your brain starts to work harder</a>, says Travis Proulx, a researcher at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Test-takers were almost <i>twice as accurate</i> in analyzing data and learning patterns after Proulx and his colleague made them read bizarre, nonsensical stories by Kafka and David Lynch. <strong>Try this: </strong>Expose yourself to unusual experiences that may surprise or confuse you. There’s no surefire prescription for "meaning threat," but experiment with immersive avant-garde theater (like <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_No_More_%282011_play%29" target="_blank">Sleep No More</a></i>) or <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347840/" target="_blank">David Lynch-style surrealist shorts</a> (humanoid rabbits muttering non sequiturs -- chew on <i>that</i>)…or hightail it to a country where you don’t know the language or customs (Other research has found that <a href="http://50.insead.edu/press_releases/insead-research-shows-going-abroad-linked-creativity" target="_blank">people are 20 percent more likely to solve difficult problems</a> after thinking back to culture-shock experiences they had when living abroad.)




  • Find the Right Coffee Shop


    A University of Illinois study found that thinkers were better at coming up with creative solutions when working in a somewhat noisy space than in a quiet room. A certain level of background noise is distracting enough to nudge a stymied brain to think more abstractly -- which <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665048" target="_blank">enhances creativity</a>, the researchers discovered. <strong>Try this:</strong> Leave your quiet comfort zone when stumped. The place you settle in must be energetic, but not <i>too</i> loud. The cognitive sweet spot is about 70 decibels, the noise level of a busy café. (A plus: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/advice-on-how-to-best-use-caffeine-from-a-neuroscientist-2012-6" target="_blank">The caffeine you’ll drink will speed you up and help you recall information better</a>. Add sugar to enhance the effects.)




  • Pop a Bubble


    Chewing gum (even the sugar-free stuff) helps us stick to a task—and be faster and more accurate at it, too, finds a study at Cardiff University in Great Britain. In two studies involving auditory pattern and visual memory tests, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjop.12025/abstract" target="_blank">gum chewers outperformed their peers</a>. Exercising the jaw -- constantly, rhythmically -- increases blood flow to brain regions responsible for attention. This keeps us focused, even as we’re doing something tedious. <strong>Try this: </strong>The longer you chew, the greater the benefit. At 30 minutes, gum-chewers remained more focused on their task than the empty-mouthed.




  • Get Off Your Yoga Mat (50 Times, Quickly)


    No doubt, yoga is a wonder exercise—it tones muscles, tames monkey mind and even burns some calories. But there’s one area in which it can fall short: as a cardio workout. <i>Only</i> aerobic exercise -- and most yoga doesn’t qualify -- gave rise to <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17167157" target="_blank">increases in brain volume in regions related to memory and attention</a>, found a University of Illinois study that tracked older adults who followed various fitness training regimens. Aerobic activity is the best for raising levels of brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF), a protein that encourages neurons to grow. <strong>Try this:</strong> Three one-hour sessions of aerobic exercise (jogging, speed-walking, bicycling) a week for six months, as prescribed in the study. Even a short, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17185007" target="_blank">high-intensity aerobic exertion</a> -- like sprinting -- can dramatically raise BDNF, resulting in 20 percent faster learning in one study. For yogis who want an all-in-one workout, add pulse-raising Vinyasa Flow or Power Yoga to your practice and (this applies to everyone) a <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130409131811.htm" target="_blank">dose of meditation</a>—also proven to help us focus and retain information.




  • Go Deeper into Downton Abbey


    TV shows, novels, loopy messages scribbled on the sidewalk -- anything can launch new ideas and insights if you "zoom out" enough, say Sandra Bond Chapman and Shelly Kirkland in their new book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Brain-Smarter-ebook/dp/B007EDYN18" target="_blank">Make Your Brain Smarter</a></i>. <a href="http://makeyourbrainsmarter.com/" target="_blank">The key to a stronger frontal lobe</a> is "integrated reasoning" -- finding ways to connect new information to your own life experiences and knowledge. <strong>Try this:</strong> Instead of simply following the plotline of a book or TV show, come up with insights or take-home messages that you can apply to your life. Everything can be mined: <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323293704578330243703304194.html" target="_blank"><em>Downton Abbey</em> for money lessons</a>, <a href="http://www.stylist.co.uk/people/jane-austen-life-advice" target="_blank">Jane Austen for life advice</a>, <i>anything</i>. When study participants pushed their minds this way, they showed cognitive gains after just six hours of training and significant structural changes in the brain’s white matter connections in six to12 weeks. "Mental weight-lifting" is not like physical exercise, Kirkland says. You must do this throughout your day, as often as possible, continually.




  • Mutter the Right Way


    You might look and sound crazy (especially sans earbuds), but who cares? <a href="http://pps.sagepub.com/content/6/4/348.abstract" target="_blank">Talking to oneself (aloud or not) is now a scientifically proven brain-booster</a>, finds a review of 32 self-talk intervention studies from the University of Thessaly in Greece. It helps you to pay attention, steadies you emotionally and cues you to act. <strong>Try this:</strong> Self-talk is most effective when learning something new or enhancing performance. Little instructions (Do <i>this</i>. OK. Now, do <i>that</i>) are more helpful than "atta-girl" self-cheering, the researchers found. In one study, athletes ran faster when they spoke cue words to themselves (<i>push</i>, <i>heel</i>) through a race.




  • Embrace a Dying Art Form


    Writing longhand -- not texting and typing -- stimulates brain regions involved in thinking, language and memory. In an MRI study at the University of Indiana, children who wrote out letters ("learning by doing," not just "seeing") showed <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20136924" target="_blank">more complex neural activation patterns than those who didn’t</a>. <strong>Try this: </strong> Use longhand, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704631504575531932754922518.html" target="_blank">especially when learning foreign alphabets, mathematics and music</a> (or anything else involving letters or symbols). You may recall the information faster and for longer than if you typed it, just as adult students did in a study that involved <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110119095458.htm" target="_blank">recognizing Mandarin characters</a>. (If ballpoints are too archaic for you, use apps like <a href="http://notesplusapp.com/Notes" target="_blank">Plus</a> or <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.subhog.antipaper.notes&hl=en" target="_blank">Antipaper Notes</a> for hand-writing on your gadget.)




  • Translate Your Doozy of a Problem into Spanish


    Your translation may be fuzzy, but your reasoning is clearer when you work out a problem in a foreign language, finds a University of Chicago study that asked bilinguals to make decisions. <a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/04/18/0956797611432178" target="_blank">Speaking in a foreign tongue</a> distanced them emotionally from the matter at hand -- and they became more deliberate and unbiased in their thinking. <strong>Try this:</strong> If you speak a second language (even imperfectly), use it when you need to be especially logical, like when making tough financial decisions, the researchers suggest. Should you pay down your mortgage? Sell your penny stocks? Buy a castle? The best answer may come to you more easily than conjugating the subjunctive.