Alzheimer’s, Eating Well & The Dead Zone … the near impossibility of eating well.

The Dead Zone

The “Dead Zone” is a term used to describe an area of water or land that no longer can support life.

The most famous one to most Americans is the Dead Zone off the coast of Louisiana where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of New Mexico.  It covers over 7000 square miles and the oxygen levels have dropped to a point of no longer being able to support life.

This has been documented for over 20 years yet I doubt if most of you have ever heard about it.  The Dead Zone is created by toxic chemicals from industrial pollutants, pesticide and fertilizer runoff from farmland, and the incredible amount of runoff from the animal waste from factory farms.

You know, the same stuff that’s in most of the food you eat.

Out of Site, Out of Mind

It’s easy to ignore things we see on the evening news because it’s usually happening to someone else, somewhere else.

The Dead Zone in the Gulf seems pretty tragic but we’re not fisherman so we can forget about it pretty easily.  Out of sight, out of mind, the saying goes.  That pretty much sums up the whole problem of toxic chemicals “out of sight, out of mind”.

My Inspiration

I need to let you know where I got the inspiration for this article.

One of my subscribers blocked my blog because of I referred to Alzheimer’s/dementia as being rooted in nutritional deficiencies.  This person had lost their mother to Alzheimer’s and claimed that she ate well all of her life.  She never smoked, abstained from alcohol and drugs, and I’m sure lived a pretty moderate lifestyle.  Yet she succumbed to a terrible disease that causes immense suffering for the entire family.  I could feel her pain through the email she sent me.

I don’t mind the rejection. My blog isn’t for everyone.  I don’t enjoy causing anyone pain, even if it was unintentional.  But you see, I’m in the business of pain.

I know you thought I was a herbalist/nutritionist and that’s true.  Those are the tools I use to eliminate pain: that and education.

The More You Know, The Easier It Is

Raising people’s awareness about health issues is a great way to eliminate pain.  The more you know, the easier it is to make conscious decisions that affect your health.  Decisions that help you avoid pain in the future.

I wanted you to be aware of the Dead Zone because it exists right where you live.  It’s hidden under safe sounding names like grocery store or convenient mart.  It’s often packaged in boxes and cans and referred to as “food”.  Unconscious shopping in the Dead Zone or eating the Dead Zone causes something else to happen.  Right there inside your body, you start to develop your own Dead Zone.

Where is Your Dead Zone?

Your Dead Zone may be developing in your liver, which has to process all the toxins in your food.

• Maybe it’s your kidneys that are being overwhelmed by the combination of sugar and chemicals in your food.

• Maybe your arteries are a Dead Zone of inflammation and toxic fats.

• Maybe all the GMO’s in your food have altered the DNA of the bacteria in your colon to create your Dead Zone.

• Could it be the hidden MSG and aspartame, shrinking the hippocampus of your brain and creating a Dead Zone?

• Or is it the fluoride and aluminum in your drinking water calcifying your pineal gland?

More than likely, it’s all of the above.

I’m constantly meeting people on my travels that share their pain about illness, the loss of a family member and lack of resources to find help.  The talk will eventually get around to food.  Why?  Because everyone thinks they eat well.  Some do, according to what was known about health twenty years ago.  Hardly anyone does eat well considering the level of chemicals that you’re exposed to through your diet.

It’s Not Your Fault!

That’s a favorite sales line for anything from diet pills to pharmaceutical drugs.

When it comes to food it’s probably right.  Who would have known that the average person comes in contact with approx. 5000 chemicals a days?  Who actually knows the 40 hidden names of MSG or even that it’s bad for you?  A restaurant in my hometown has a 1 lb shaker of MSG in the kitchen that’s used on everything from soup to salad to pizza.

I’m sure this isn’t an isolated incident.

Chemical exposure plays a role in all disease especially cancer.  It’s hard to win a court case based on exposure to a toxic chemical because the manufacturer knows you have at least 300 of them in your body so how can you be blaming your cancer on theirs?

Modern Medicine Has Nothing For Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s is similar to cancer in the fact that it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint the actual cause.  We hear all about Beta Amyloid plaque and Tau protein choking off the brain cells ability to repair itself and maintain normal function.  The hippocampus region of the brain shrinks, cutting off the storage of new memories.  The list of areas being damaged seems endless and it’s all lumped under the title of Alzheimer’s.

Few people know that it’s impossible to diagnose Alzheimer’s without an autopsy.  I read of one study done at a leading medical university in America that showed 5% of the people autopsied actually had Mad Cow’s Disease.

Modern medicine has nothing for Alzheimer’s.  People usually get put on a drug that works as an acetylcholine stearase inhibitor.  This block an enzyme that interferes with accessing acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter responsible for memory and recall.  It’s disrupted in Alzheimer’s patients.

This is an area that easily shows the great disconnect between the medical world and nutrition.  Maybe I should say the pharmaceutical world.

I honestly think most doctors would give you anything that was shown to work, nutritional or otherwise.  The problem is they get all of their information from drug companies who are threatened by the whole nutrition world.  At least their wallets feel threatened.

How can you give someone a drug that may increase access to acetylcholine in the brain without consulting them on how to increase the choline in the diet or supplement to build it up? I understand the hippocampus is damaged and this effects acetylcholine production and the regeneration of neurons but something may be there that comes alive.  Wouldn’t it be worth the effort to find out?

What’s The Alternative?

Herbs and nutrients have been shown to build acetylcholine and regenerate neurons in the brain. I know, I’ve read the research and I formulate with them.

As you all probably know I make a herbal/nutritional supplement called TianChi. The herbs reduce stress among other things and the nutrients feed the brain.  I put TianChi together because I know stress plays a huge role in brain inflammation and damage, and most people are chronically starving their brains.  It’s not intentional; it’s a lack of awareness about what constitutes eating well.

During the last few years I spent working as an herbalist in West Hollywood, I began to notice a disturbing trend toward problems associated with memory.  The first ten years it was hardly an issue. Soon I would be seeing a few people a week trying to get a handle on loss of memory and all the ways it was creeping into their lives.

Smart drugs (nutraceuticals for brain) were the rage, but only seemed to work for mild impairment.  I began to realize you couldn’t start a broken engine by simply giving it more gas.  Likewise, recharging the brain was more complex than a few simple nutrients.

As you age it becomes harder to absorb certain nutrients into the brain.  Diet alone won’t do it and high quality herbs and nutrients like those found in TianChi are needed to promote healthy brain function and prevent premature aging of the brain.  Nutrients provide the fuel needed to enhance neurotransmitter function.  Herbs influence the glands in the head, adding a stabilizing influence to the surrounding areas of the brain.  Herbs can also increase the Chi of your internal organs involved in absorption.

The whole field of aging and memory has become a passion of mine and I formulated TianChi for stress and energy and all the many layers of how it affects the body and brain.

To learn more about TianChi click here

Things to Avoid

So how do you avoid the Dead Zone and keep it from making a home inside your body?

Start with your food.

• Buy organic whenever possible. It’s now becoming close to the same price as regular food, especially on sale. This way you’ll minimize the hidden chemicals you ingest. You’ll also avoid GMO food, which has never been shown to be safe by anyone who tests it, except for the people making it. It may be more frightening than pesticides.

• Never ever buy dairy products that are not organic. Dairy usually has 100 times the amount of chemical residue as vegetables. Dairy fat is a sponge for pesticides. Your brain is mostly fat too.

• Avoid plastic and never microwave food in plastic. Please throw your microwave away. Food cooked in it will not sustain life. I’ve had friends who water new plants with microwaved water and they don’t grow. Plastics leach BPA, an endocrine disruptor that mimics estrogen. It’s also deadly to the prostate gland.

• Throw out your non-stick pans. Food is dangerous enough without adding more toxins while preparing it. If you don’t want to throw out a perfectly good pan then fill it with cement and use it for a boat anchor.

• EAT WELL. This means chemical free, nutrient dense food that isn’t adulterated with flavor enhancers or additives. Eat real food.

• Supplement. You are exposed to so many toxins you have to supplement to give your brain and body a chance. It’s just the reality of modern life.

• Take something for stress and feed your brain. My current formula TianChi is formulated with several nutrients made specifically to reduce stress and feed your brain. Stress makes the hippocampus area of your brain act like a sponge, soaking up toxic chemicals that damage it at a much higher rate. Your brain is exposed to many more chemicals today than even twenty years ago. This happens for a variety of reasons, one being cell phone use. Cell phone radiation weakens the blood brain barrier, allowing a higher level of chemicals to make it in. Imagine talking on your cell phone for an hour while having a few drinks and a cigarette. To you it’s fun; to your brain it’s toxic soup.

A Few Additional Tips

Your brain loves Omega 3 fatty acids.  The only reason you aren’t scraping your knuckles on the ground today is that your ancestors discovered fish and used their superior brains to conquer the rest of mankind.  The brain needs Omega 3 to grow, function and protect itself.  You can get them from organic eggs, walnuts, flax, chia seeds, fish oil, krill and vegetarian DHA supplements.  Good fats.  Recent research at Harvard suggests that Omega 3 deficiency is the sixth leading cause of death in America.  (it contributes to the other 5)

Don’t feel guilty about getting sick.  It’s really hard to know all the intricacies about health and nutrition.  When I developed chronic fatigue I ate a diet that was highly nutritious and my blood-work was amazing.  Doctors thought I was surely just complaining to get attention.  It took a near death experience in a hospital during a test for liver cancer for me to realize I needed to learn more about my own health and abandon the idea modern medicine could cure me.

People always comment that I seem to know so much about health.  I do, mainly because I’ve suffered so much I had too.  It’s made me empathetic about the pain of others and opened my eyes to the depth of knowledge needed to truly “know” about health and help others.

Information is constantly changing.  Comparing what’s known today with just 5 years ago is like comparing a Mercedes to a Model T Ford.  If I knew twenty-five years ago what I know today about good fats I might have avoided chronic fatigue.  Of course, if I never got chronic fatigue, I’d never know what I know today.

Learn to eat well for modern times, teach your kids the same and don’t support companies that flood the marketplace with low quality food.  There are better things to spend your money on than helping to create Dead Zones in the environment and in your own body.

There are no guarantees that eating certain foods or taking certain products will prevent Alzheimer’s, cancer or anything else.  However, there are studies showing that simple things like eating 5 servings of fruits and veggies, a few servings of fish oil or a few fresh veggie juice drinks, all lower your chances of getting Alzheimer’s or cancer by at least 40%.

I’ll take my chances with the herbs, nutrition and good food.  Feel free to check back regularly over the next 30 years and see how I’m doing.