The Health Detectives

Busy Lifestyle Syndrome
We all have hectic lives and are bombarded with information from lots of sources as well as having to remember all sorts of small things like PIN codes and shopping lists. We seem to multitask most of the time, keeping our minds occupied in several directions at the same time. This sometimes means we might forget why we just walked into the kitchen, or we can’t remember the name of a film we just watched. Our attention spans and concentration levels are going down. This is starting to affect people at younger ages. Particularly, because we often have technical devices to help us, such as mobile phones, emails etc to trigger our memory or tell us what we have to do or where to go.

The fact is, forgetting such things is normal. We’re just noticing it more. The next thing now is that drug companies are planning to launch a drug to boost our memories. Normal forgetfulness could soon become medicalised to suit drug companies’ need for profit. Let’s not fall into the trap of taking more medication and thus not being able to be human – and even forget things. How else would we de-clutter? There may be serious side-effects and even over time a reinforcement of any memory problems from actually taking such drugs.

A news headline the other day read

“…large doses of B vitamins can halve the rate of brain shrinkage in elderly people with memory problems and may slow their progression toward dementia, data from a British trial showed on Wednesday, Scientists from Oxford University said their two-year clinical trial was the largest to date into the effect of B vitamins on so-called “mild cognitive impairment” — a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.”

In our clinics and hair testing as The Health Detectives, and no doubt for many natural medicine practitioners, there was a moment of “I told you so” hovering in the air. Mental function, even mild feelings such as ‘brain fog’ experienced by many people way before serious loss of function, often respond well to B vitamins.

When we test for memory and brain health, or the cause of someone’s depression or anxiety, we check that the neurotransmitters (brain messengers) are in balance, and if they are not we have to find out why, and how to correct this.

Many factors spring to mind and we test for these – such as mineral or vitamin deficiency (for example Vitamin B6 or B12) , toxicity from metals such as aluminium – known to correlate to cases of Alzheimers – which need to be removed from the body if found, and high quality oils – important in the building of proper myelin sheaths around nerve fibres for proper neurological functioning.

We would not ASSUME that someone with mental problems would automatically require a B vitamin, though it has long been recognised by naturopaths and nutritionalists as an important remedy to consider. We always TEST to see what an INDIVIDUAL needs to correct their biochemistry so that they can function properly. For one person with memory problems it may be caused by a deficiency in the right nutrients for their body to function optimally, for others it may be that a toxic metal is stopping their biochemistry from functioning by poisoning the enzymes that oversee the different reactions needed to function well. So giving someone with aluminium toxicity, lots of vitamin B may not be as important as chelating the toxic metal and getting them out of the body (largely through the kidneys, which in turn may need to be supported by some kidney supporting nutrients).

At the end of the day, a guess is a guess, but why not come for testing or send in a hair sample if you want to check your brain chemistry (neurotransmitters) and important risk factors, such as toxic metals, and lack in B vits. It’s not just fillings (dental amalgam) that can leach toxic metals into our blood system. We have found patients who are using make-ups which test up to toxic metal, and drinking water (additives) as well as mercury being used as a ‘preservative’ in many vaccinations which are pushed hard onto the population such as the swine flu vaccine.  Always ask what the ingredients of a vaccine are before you have the cocktail injected into your little children.

Other factors during our younger lives can predispose us to future toxic levels of metals, increasing our risk of alzheimers and dementia. For example, depending on our body types (Auyurvedic) we may have a natural susceptibility to aluminium, mercury and lead, or nickel.

The news articles I read also mentioned a connection between high levels of homocysteine and Alzheimers. We also test for homocysteine, and it is part of a very important chain of reactions called the Methylation cycle. This is very important for good cardiovascular health and is an early indicator of heart problems. This we have always treated with nutrition – such as specific B vitamins – so the big news of the week is really not new at all. Ask any complementary therapist, but then, many doctors do not rate our sector sadly.  We would also check homocysteine and methylation in our health MOTs as well as toxic metals – so rather than guessing, and spending a fortune on B vitamins that may not do the job in your case, come and be tested (or send a hair sample – click on Hair testing in the menu) and find out what your risk factors really are… and how to correct them.

So please… B vitamins are not new news – though its heart warming to see a headline that recommends a great natural nutrient that does so many essential jobs in the body – rather than another block buster pharmaceutical such as statins, with known side effects and questionable benefits, where natural healthy living practices could do the same job in many cases.  In a month where new E U regulations are taking yet more wonderful minerals and natural remedies off the shelves purely on licensing grounds, hurray for one being made too popular to axe!

If you are worried about your health – contact us and we will ‘get on your case’!

Best wishes, The Health Detectives

You’re probably really happy that your child is revising intensively for the upcoming exams. Will the student take in the knowledge though? And will the student be able to recall it when needed on the exam day?

We  recently attended a newly developed seminar on the chemistry of learning and memory and what can go wrong. As a result we  can now take you through a functional assessment of the whole process of memory from left/right brain dominance,  sensory input (learning) to the hard wiring within the brain (storage of information)  and finally its recall or memory - whether its someone’s name in a social situation, or remembering school work for an exam. In this way, we will be able to test at which stage  you have problems and how the specific nutrition and natural medicine can maximise the memory potential as well as improving any memory defects. It is also possible to pick up early indications of risk factors for example that could lead to Alzheimer’s disease later in life.

Did you know that loss of memory if the third most common complaint that people consult a doctor about. We now work with nutritional and natural medicine intervention in pathological memory conditions such as Senile dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, sleep disorders and other metabolic disturbances such as medications.