SUPPLEMENTS for MEMORY & DEMENTIA

There is HOPE & it comes from the Amazon Rainforest.

Consumers are often confused by dietary supplements.

• Do they act as touted?

• How do they work?

• How can we discuss with them with our healthcare professionals when a clear definition of their mechanism of action (application) may be missing?

• Do they have they do have solid research to support them?

  Important questions but note that regulations limit many of those discussions thereby avoiding structure-function claims that are the hallmarks of pharmaceuticals. A dilemma. However from my position as an old Professor, Researcher & Consultant, I can express, with giddy delight, good science when it comes along, piecing elements of the puzzle together for you.

In essence that is the purpose of this entire newsletter (please subscribe - it is free).

The topic of this article is quite important - MEMORY, COGNITION & its loss with DEMENTIA. A huge problem for the general population with our lifestyle, sound bites, screen time, and of course - an aging population. So let’s tease apart some of the issues.

For acute memory and mental performance there are the usual suspects that you find in a plethora of products. Alertness and energy are leveraged by the amino acid by-product taurine, as well as B vitamins. Usually in combination with caffeine, although there is decent clinical evidence that caffeine augments mental processing. The problem with caffeine is that there is a crash that occurs some hours afterwards.

Often consumers try to solve this crash by going back to the well and … drinking more caffeine to restore cognition and mental performance. But this is a fool’s errand. The system is already exerting checks and balances.

More recently, an extract of a South East Asian plant, Alpinia galanga, called EnXtra, has been defined as a solution for that dilemma. EnXtra not only elevates cognitive performance by itself, but importantly it negates the caffeine crash ( ). Here a wonderful innovation of combining a plant that is normally associated with soups and curries seems to have set a course correction for short term cognition issues.

There are other approaches to superior mental processing and error reduction (hate those errors as they make me look bad) and they focus on limiting oxidative stress & supporting mitochondrial health. Here the best clinical evidence is with a carotenoid, called astaxanthin, derived from a microalgae - Haematococcus pluvialis ( ). This is the natural pigment that gives salmon and crustaceans their red/orange color.

While there are benefits in short term cognition, this powerful free radical scavenger and suppressor of oxidative stress offered by astaxanthin does lead us into a discussion of the most fearful form of memory dysfunction - Alzheimer’s Disease, Senile Dementia or in its milder forms Age-Related Cognitive Decline .

When we cannot find our car keys or misplaced something vital we go through checklists posing the question - Is this it? Am I sliding? Is my future of days in Assisted Living not knowing my loved ones and losing cherished memories? For those with direct experience, these can be terrifying thoughts.

So what can be done about it, apart from dying young in the pursuit of a place in Valhalla?

Despite the enormity of the need, the pharmaceutical industry has not offered a meaningful solution. In any case, prevention is not normally the focus of their research & development activities. Sustained interventions, but not solutions, are their forte. That begs the question “Can the Natural World meet our brain health needs”?

Recent research suggests that there is significant hope and it arises from an unusual location, the Amazon Rainforest, and specifically a vine that is called Cat’s claw (Una de gato). Aptly named because woody vine has claws emerging from it that are very reminiscent of the claws of cat (I have included a picture I took in the Amazon some decades ago). Well that name certainly applies for the species called Uncaria tomentosa, for another related subspecies, Uncaria guianensis, the “claws” are all curly and far less intimidating.

What makes Cat’s claw so different for Brain Health?

Recent research by Snow & colleagues (Cat's claw & Brain Plaques & Tangles : Supplements for Brain Plaques & Tangles) in laboratory studies that cat’s claw can untangle the fibrils that constitute Tau tangles, as well as dissolving beta-amyloid plaques. These two anatomical features, as they describe them as the spaghetti & meatballs anatomical landmarks of dementia, are characteristic of Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of senile dementia. The combination of cat’s claw with oolong tea in particular appeared to be a very effective combination and far superior to the litany of other products promoted for brain health. Further, in previous research, they demonstrated restoration of memory and cognitive performance in animal models of these diseases. The active constituents appear to be, in part, proanthocyanidin B2 and epicatechin dimers.

Their research extract was labelled as PTI-00703, with PTI reflecting actions on PLAQUES, TANGLES & INFLAMMATION. The latter aspect reflects my lengthy discoveries back some 2 decades when I was deciphering the mechanisms of action of cat’s claw behind the myriad of traditional medicine applications. Without discoursing my entire bibliography on the subject we very quickly found that cat’s claw was the most potent inhibitor of the MASTER SWITCH that regulates the activation of genes that drive inflammation (NF-kB), whilst switching off REPAIR genes (Cat's claw Inhibits NF-kB : Cat's claw & Gene Expression )

At the time there were commercial sources, linked to an Austrian journalist, that pushing a class of chemicals called oxindole alkaloids as the “actives”. However, we dismissed this concept as we discovered that the curly form of cat’s claw (Uncaria guianensis) was a more potent free radical scavenger/antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent and it is naturally devoid of oxindole alkaloids (Alkaloids & Cat's Claw Antiinflammatory Actions). Our research noted that the potency is truly impressive, with inhibition of TNFalpha production by immune cells with an IC50 of 10ng/ml. For perspective, drug candidates are considered viable when effective at 1000x to 10,000x greater concentrations.

Chasing the anti-inflammatory role of cat’s claw we demonstrated its remarkable effectiveness in gut inflammation (Cat's claw, Inflammation & Free Radicals) and clinical arthritis (Cat's claw & Osteoarthritis : Treatment of Osteoarthritis by Cat's claw Supplement), affirming the traditional medicine experience of the native populations in the Amazon Rainforest. Nevertheless, in my many trips into the rainforest the term Alzheimer’s Disease was not mentioned or discussed. More than likely this is a translation issue. Science is built upon the platforms established by predecessors and this comes to the recent articles by Snow and colleagues.

Once you unlock the key mechanisms of action of a natural product, then nature reveals its potential applications. That is where, science, traditional use intersect with our interwoven connections with nature.

The groundbreaking work of Snow et al (Cat's claw Interventions in Dementia) should receive accolades as it is showing that these anatomical problems of plaques and tangles are reversible, establish that the damage does not have to be permanent. It is a light that shines a path, just like the research that my team did 20+ years ago on the role of cat’s claw on gene switches and inflammation.

With this knowledge we will be able to define a better path to long term cognitive health, by incorporating the actions directed at untangling tau tangles, disaggregating lumpy plaques as well as terminating the fuel that drives it - oxidative stress and inflammation. Not all natural products will work (as noted in the 2021 Snow et al article) and your particular favorite may have no benefits. To that I say:

• research helps define the way

• mechanism of actions are important

• do not blandly assume that all supply chains offer equal purity and potency

• peel back the hype to find the supportive science

• seek trust and from that proceed with confidence.

And the final word is a vote of thanks to Mother Nature, may we continue to seek your counsel, guidance and cherish your resources.