Charles Barber
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 Mice that run in cages experience a growth of brain cells, and mice that run in cages together with other mice experience even greater growth of brain cells.34 It is reasonable to assume that the more intensive and enriched educational experience enhanced the intricacy and increased the number of synaptic connections in the brains of the children. If mental illnesses are diseases partially of synaptic plasticity, the enhanced learning may have been a protective factor as well.
Diet, exercise, and learning acted as prophylactics against the development of mental illness. |
Dr. Steve Blake
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 Lead can take the place of calcium in brain cells, but the brain cells are no longer capable of processing messages from nerve cells.
Children who are exposed to lead are more likely to have lower intelligence quotients and to develop learning disabilities and behavioral problems than normal children. If women are exposed to lead during pregnancy, especially if they are calcium-deficient, their children may have abnormal neurological development. Lead exposure in adults can increase the risk of kidney damage and high blood pressure.
Lead can also be incorporated into bones. |
Benjamin H. Natelson, M.D.
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 Drugs in either class may be effective in treating depression because the brain cells that release norepinephrine alter the function of the brain cells that release serotonin and vice versa. To say the brain is complicated is certainly an understatement.
MAOIs are thought to be especially useful in treating atypical depression, a group of symptoms associated with depression that are just the opposite of those seen in typical depression. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Depression causes atrophy—that is, brain cells die—and a loss of connections between brain cells. The longer the depression persists—or goes untreated—the greater the damage.
One study conducted by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that the hippocampus—a brain region linked to memory—was smaller in women who had a history of depression. The longer they had the disease without treatment, the greater the shrinkage. Their loss of memory was proportional to the time they had spent depressed. |
Charles Barber
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| Mice that run in cages experience a growth of brain cells, and mice that run in cages together with other mice experience even greater growth of brain cells.34 It is reasonable to assume that the more intensive and enriched educational experience enhanced the intricacy and increased the number of synaptic connections in the brains of the children. If mental illnesses are diseases partially of synaptic plasticity, the enhanced learning may have been a protective factor as well.
Diet, exercise, and learning acted as prophylactics against the development of mental illness. |
Dr. Sharon Moalem
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 Your toenails have the code to build brain cells—and your brain cells have the code for toenails. And fingernails. And blood cells. And just about everything else in your body.
But what's even more interesting is that less than 3 percent of your DNA contains instructions for building cells. The vast majority of your DNA—97 percent of it—isn't active in building anything. Think about that. If you took the DNA from any cell in your body and laid it end to end, it would reach the top of Shaquille O'Neal's head—but the DNA that actively codes for building your body wouldn't even reach his ankle. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Depression causes atrophy—that is, brain cells die—and a loss of connections between brain cells. The longer the depression persists—or goes untreated—the greater the damage.
One study conducted by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that the hippocampus—a brain region linked to memory—was smaller in women who had a history of depression. The longer they had the disease without treatment, the greater the shrinkage. Their loss of memory was proportional to the time they had spent depressed. |
Elaine Magee
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 Other laboratory studies have also confirmed that some polyphenols from juices appear to offer brain cells stronger protection than antioxidant vitamins do.
How could polyphenols protect against Alzheimer's disease? The development of the disease isn't fully understood, but some researchers believe it's related to a buildup of plaque from deposits of a protein called beta-amyloid. The antioxidant properties of polyphenols may help protect brain cells from the damage and death from oxidative stress associated with these deposits. |
Eric R. Braverman
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 As we age, we lose many of the brain's nerve connections, but we do not lose brain cells. Some studies even suggest that we can grow new brain cells and reconnect disconnected brain cells.
PERCEPTION AND MEMORY
There are two universal truths regarding our ability to remember: memory is not always accurate, and memories do not last forever.
201
Memory is affected by perception, feeling, and experience. As we age, we remember events differently. |
Peter J. Whitehouse and Daniel George
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 Perhaps the only condition that is worse than the uncontrolled death of brain cells is the uncontrolled growth of brain cells, as occurs in brain cancer. Introducing NGF into our brains could have the unintended consequence of causing tumors to form out of neural or other cells present in the brain, which possess NGF receptors. Researchers had attempted to add a tetracycline-responsive gene to the NGF virus that would serve as a switching-off mechanism and shut down production of NGF if it became excessive, but this technique has never worked well. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 Since our cell membranes and brain cells are largely composed of fats, preventing free radical damage to fats is a significant benefit. Cholesterol is also a kind of fat, and in fact, is only a real danger to us when it gets oxidized (or damaged by free radicals) in the body. So anything helping to prevent this oxidation would be a very good thing. In actuality, prunes have the highest oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) of any food tested, which means that the compounds in prunes, working as a group, deliver more of a protective antioxidant punch than any other food tested. |
Marshall Editions
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 Also take 300 mg of phosphatidylserine a day; it is found in high concentrations in brain cells and helps them function properly.
Herbs: Drink chamomile tea, made by pouring boiling water over 2-3 heaped tsp of flowers and steeping them for 10 minutes, to calm the nervous and digestive systems. Chamomile tinctures and pills should be taken according to the directions on the pack. Alcoholic tincture may be the most potent form for internal use. Kava kava has been used traditionally as a nervine, a substance that balances the nervous system. |
Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
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 Do they mature into heart cells, liver cells, or brain cells? Because of their plasticity, these cells have the greatest potential to cure diseases, especially those associated with aging, such as Parkinson's.
Progenitor cells (also called adult stem cells): Now, some of those blastocystic cells, like kids living at home when they're thirty, stay right where they are and don't mature into other tissues and organs. Instead, they hang back and set up shop in the bone marrow. These adult stem cells retain the ability to grow into other kinds of cells. |
Bryan Hanson, PhD
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 In comparison, the membrane surrounding brain cells is very tight, and very little direct communication occurs between the blood supply of the brain and brain cells. This situation is unique in the body and serves as a protective device for the carefully balanced brain chemistry. The blood-brain barrier is the term given to this tight membrane that makes drug delivery to the brain very difficult, and consequently gives pharmacologists and medicinal chemists much trouble. The differences between tight and open membrane systems are illustrated in Figure 6.5. |
Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
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| We lose around forty thousand nerves per day, so by age sixty-five roughly one-tenth of our brain cells are gone. And the rate of loss is higher in the frontal brain region, which controls problem solving, the ability to think abstractly, and the ability to carry out multiple tasks simultaneously.
Your Memory: Pow't Fuggedaboudit
Part of our job as doctors is to tell you things straight up, because when we don't tell the truth, people get hurt. No sugarcoating. No BS (that really stands for no bad science). No "Win One for the Gipper" speeches. |
Bryan Hanson, PhD
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| In comparison, the membrane surrounding brain cells is very tight, and very little direct communication occurs between the blood supply of the brain and brain cells. This situation is unique in the body and serves as a protective device for the carefully balanced brain chemistry. The blood-brain barrier is the term given to this tight membrane that makes drug delivery to the brain very difficult, and consequently gives pharmacologists and medicinal chemists much trouble. The differences between tight and open membrane systems are illustrated in Figure 6.5. |
Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
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| Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may help maintain memory by preserving tree architecture, while also reducing inflammation that ages the brain cells directly (more on arterial health in the next chapter).
Your Neurochemicals: Nerve cells communicate with one another via neurotransmitters, chemicals that ferry information from neuron to neuron across the synapses between them. The most common neurotransmitter is called acetylcholine. When levels of this chemical fall, especially in the hippocampus (the part of the brain that controls our memory), we develop cognitive impairment. |
| The ability of brain cells to speak to one another is strengthened or weakened as you use them. We'll spare you all the biological miracles that take place between your ears, but essentially, the more you use those synapses, the stronger they get and the more they proliferate. That's why you may have strong neural pathways for your family history or weak ones for eighties music trivia. That also gives you a little insight into how you remember things. If something's exciting to you, then you learn it faster—and train those synapses to make strong connections. |
| In the time it takes you to read this sentence, your brain cells have been doing more processing than the IRS's computer server.
Your neurons—the cells that transmit information—look like mops with shaggy strings that reach out to one another, while the handles of the mops act like cables that carry the information. These neurons talk with one another with the frequency of eighth-grade girls at a slumber party; a lot of information is exchanged very quickly.
The hippocampus, which is shaped a little like a seahorse and is buried deep inside your brain (see Figure 1.1 |
Bottom Line Health
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| Without oxygen and nutrients, brain cells die within minutes, potentially damaging areas that control movement, speech and even involuntary activities, such as breathing. There are two types of stroke...
•Ischemic. Approximately 80% of strokes are ischemic—a blood clot stops the blood supply to an area of the brain.
•Hemorrhagic. An estimated 20% of strokes are hemorrhagic—a broken or leaking bloodvessel causes bleeding into or around the brain.
Most Stroke Patients Miss Out on Clot-Busting Drug
Mathew J. Reeves, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology, Michigan State University, Lansing. |
Eric R. Braverman
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| Some studies even suggest that we can grow new brain cells and reconnect disconnected brain cells.
PERCEPTION AND MEMORY
There are two universal truths regarding our ability to remember: memory is not always accurate, and memories do not last forever.
201
Memory is affected by perception, feeling, and experience. As we age, we remember events differently. Memories of traumatic childhood events are frequently distorted because of their emotional content, and false memories can easily occur—the reality of a memory is extremely difficult to establish without independent confirmation. |
| Antioxidants are the ultimate brain food because they protect the membranes of brain cells by providing building blocks for those membranes. Antioxidants are common in many vegetables such as tomatoes, and many fruits, including blueberries, and can also be found in supplemental antioxidant formulas. Antioxidants are also thought to preserve membranes of brain cells by preventing oxidation of those membranes that would otherwise occur as we get older. (Free radicals are also associated with oxidation that damages cell membranes. |
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| WHAT HAPPENS
A stroke occurs when blood flow to part of the brain slows or stops. brain cells, called neurons, begin to die within minutes as levels of oxygen and nutrients decline.
Approximately 80% of strokes are ischemic— blood clots or other debris block circulation through cerebral arteries.
Other strokes are hemorrhagic—a blood vessel in the brain leaks or ruptures and impairs normal circulation. The leakage of blood also damages surrounding brain tissue.
A full-fledged stroke is often preceded by a transient ischemic attack (TIA). |
| Regular exercise may also raise levels of brain chemicals that promote the growth of new brain cells.
Exercise intensity matters less than regularity. Aim to walk briskly, run, cycle or swim for at least 30 minutes a day, three times a week.
Wayne Dyer's Simple Plan For a Stress-Free Life
Wayne W. Dyer, PhD, renowned thinker and speaker in the field of self-development. He is author of The Power of Intention: Learning to Co-Create Your World Your Way and Getting in the Gap: Making Conscious Contact with God Through Meditation, both from Hay House, www. drwaynedyer.com. |
Mehmet C. Oz., M.D. and Michael F. Roizen, M.D.
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| Even if you've had burgers for breakfast or fried your brain cells with stress, you're not necessarily destined to wear husky pants and forget birthdays. No matter what kind of life you've already led, aging is reversible: You can have a do-over if you want it. If you perform a good habit for three years, the effect on your body is as if you've done it your entire life. Even better, within three months of changing a behavior, you can start to measure a difference in your life expectancy.
As we said, aging is inevitable, but the rate of aging is not. |
Ray D. Strand
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 When a patient is first diagnosed as having Parkinson's disease, more than 80 percent of the brain cells in a particular part of the brain called the substantia nigra have already been destroyed. The same is true for someone who develops Alzheimer's dementia. These neurodegenerative diseases have actually been developing over a period of ten to twenty years."
Let's look at some of these diseases individually.
Alzheimer's Dementia
Alzheimer's dementia affects more than 2 million Americans and is the major cause for admission to nursing homes. |
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