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Last week, the Science Translational Medicine journal published a Harvard study that may have completely changed the way we look at Alzheimer’s...

A classic symptom of Alzheimer’s is the small balls of plaque that litter the brain’s surface. As many know, the blood-brain barrier becomes weaker as people age. Much like the gut, it becomes leaky and allows for non-native materials to pass through. The primary defense for the brain is a system of beta amyloid proteins that cling to the bacteria, virus or fungus. After being trapped, the intruder dies. This leaves behind the beta amyloid cluster to sit on the brain. This leaves behind the plaque.
 

After examining these plaques, the Harvard group performed multiple trials to confirm this hypothesis. Beginning with neurons growing in petri dishes, they also looked to yeast, roundworms, fruit flies, and mice. Although these samples are not indicative to the sequence that happens in humans, they have provided enough solid evidence to set human-based studies in motion.

Amyloid proteins have always puzzled doctors. Since the discovery of such proteins, their function has been sort of a mystery.  With no other suggestions, scientists and doctor’s defaulted them as trash that collected on the brain as one aged. Dr. Robert D. Moir, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, however, made the association between them and the proteins of the immune system.

In the immune system, these proteins trap those gross microbes we spoke of earlier. They are the true first line of defense when infections attack. After this frontal assault by the Amyloid Proteins, white blood cells finish the job and rid the area of remnants.

Dr. Moir collaborated with Rudolph E. Tanzi, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Both the Cure Alzheimer’s fund and the National Institutes of Health funded this study. They found that amyloid trapped microbes in living animals, as predicted, but infections spread wildly in mice without the amyloid proteins.

In a study that used Salmonella, the bacteria was injected directly into the brains of healthy, young mice. Overnight plaques littered the hippocampus. In just 24 hours, these mice which were 100% free of plaques had been ravaged by the bacteria’s affects. Mice that didn’t make beta amyloid not only succumbed to the bacterial infection quicker, but did not make plaques.

This study has stunned scientists and researchers, who had always regarded the plaques that formed on the brain as residual garbage that came with age. While many have taken a step back to analyze this new data, more have rallied together to bring their own findings. Dr. Berislav Zlokovic, Director of the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute at the University of Southern California is one such physician.

Dr. Zlokovic’s studies of the blood-brain barrier lend information that gives additional evidence to this new hypothesis. As we all know, the Blood-Brain barrier breaks down with aging, however, Dr. Zlokovic noticed that the leakiest part was around the hippocampus. And what is the cognitive function of the hippocampus? Learning and memory.



Although it is still just a hypothesis and researchers are still studying and gathering information, it fits perfectly with everything we have discovered about the brain and Alzheimer’s thus far. After we can confirm without a reasonable doubt that microbes are finding their way into the brain and causing amyloid deposition, we can focus on stopping them.
 
Science Translational Medicine  25 May 2016: Vol. 8, Issue 340, pp. 340ra72
DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aaf1059
Physicians are focused on discovering the other ways in which Alzheimer's "infects" our brains, but are we forgetting something...?
This new way of thinking about Alzheimer's is fascinating and will undoubtedly open many doors for physicians hoping to eradicate the disease in our lifetime, but here's the big BUT - the old ways of acquiring Alzheimer's are still in effect.

While I maintain peak health, physically, it was only a matter of time before I started to forget little tidbits of information here and there. From appointments to conferences, things would seem to just fall out of my head!

This all changed the day I came across an ancient story of Chinese Monks using Green and Yellow Moss growing off tiny little Evergreen Shrubs in China. This particular species of Topezia Serrata has been used by these monks for many centuries for the treatment of Brain Injury, Neuropathy, and Inflammation, along with many other symptoms. The moss, containing a special extract called Huperzine A, had been revived in modern Chinese Universities through multiple studies. Researchers produced prolific results in the treatment and care of Memory Loss and Diabetic Neuropathy. Several Double-Blind, Randomized Cross-Over trials have shown in both China and the United States that Huperzine has an amazing capacity to facilitate neurons in the brain.  Those specialized nerve cells will grow and in turn become more active before going on to initiate transmissions and improve memory and focus that was lost to old age. After a year of formulation and testing, Memory Specialist came to be.
 
But what is Huperzine A's secret??

In both animals and humans, Huperzine A inhibits Acetylcholinesterase, the enzyme that breaks down Acetylcholine. And what is Acetylcholine, you may ask? None other than the chemical neurotransmitter used by our nerves and brain cells to function! Without proper levels of Acetylcholine, nerves in the brain will not be able to communicate! By taking Huperzine A, I have personally experienced a BOOST in my mental fortitude.

Although I can’t stop being old (or “Demented” if you ask my family), I am still able to work, produce, perform research, speak and write. I am totally aware that further research is needed, but at least for now this combination of Memory Specialist has made an enormous difference to not only myself, but to many people who have seen its results.