Alzheimer's occurrence and Omega-3 deficiencies

[mike8675309]

Found My Fitness's Dr. Rhonda Patrick recently interviewed Dr axel Montagne about his work on understanding the critical role of pericytes (cells that wrap around endothelial cells and are important for blood vessel formation, blood-brain barrier maintenance, regulation of immune cell entry into the central nervous system and control of brain blood flow.

Dr Montague's working animal models has demonstrated that pericyte deficiencies lead to capillary breakdown.

But what causes pericyte deficiencies? In this discussion, one possible mechanism is proposed by Dr. Patrick, and that is Omega-3 deficiencies.

How do you protect yourself from Blood Brain Barrier dysfunction?

Proposed is:

• Limit things that cause inflammation
• Regular exercise
• maintain omega-3 levels

Why worry about omega-3 if you are eating a highly nutritious diet?
Because what they are talking bout are EPA and DHA which our body makes from the omega-3 and omega-6's. But the mechanism in our body is limited in both how fast, and how efficiently it can convert Omega3 and 6 into EPA and DHA.
So should you be supplementing preformed EPA and DHA?
Nutritionfacts.org answers that:

Flashback Friday: Should We Take EPA and DHA Omega-3 For Our Heart? | NutritionFacts.org

What’s the best way to fulfill the omega-3 essential fat requirements?

nutritionfacts.org

And touches on the impact on the brain here:

Should Vegans Take DHA to Preserve Brain Function? | NutritionFacts.org

Learn why I recommend 250mg a day of a pollutant-free source of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids.

nutritionfacts.org

Now those were what we knew in 2016
Much of the research around Alzheimer's exploded after 2016. Dr. Patrick posted a blog entry for her talk with Dr Montagne and it contains many references that support her hypothesis.

Axel Montagne, Ph.D. on Blood-Brain Barrier Dysfunction in Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia

Dr. Axel Montagne discusses blood-brain barrier dysfunction in dementia and early-stage age-related cognitive decline.

www.foundmyfitness.com

 

[Heartbreaker]

Fish oil supplements are something like a 30 Billion dollar business so they will always be getting out studies about how EPA/DHA are cure alls for everything, but over and over again, they end up coming up as a bust when put to the test:

Study: Fish Oil Pills Don’t Stall Alzheimer’s | TIME.com

There was good reason to believe that fish oil, which has been linked to health benefits for the heart, might also work its medical magic on the brain, particularly with Alzheimer’s disease.

healthland.time.com

 

[Torn Mind]

Only goes to show veganism is trash and always will be trash. I get there is a fish scarcity issue but shellfish and omega 3s are the natural sources of the materials, and probably why the Japanese have the general collective tendency to be a bit healthier than the west.

NutritionFacts should be renamed NutritionVeganAdvocacyAndWalkBacks.

But, it used to be anti-veganism was merely impersonal and inellectual for now. Now? It's damn personal and the things that matter most in why it sucks is the degradation of quality of life by virture of iron deficiency and calcium+other variable imbalances.

Omega-3s are a sort of barricade, mostly asymptomatic nutrient that can sometimes manifest in restoring brain sharpness but most certainly is not a cure all. Prior to attempting iron and then greek yogurt, I was giving my mother salmon oil capsules daily in an attempt to get her chemo-damaged body back to an "engerized and freely moving" state to little or no avail.
DHA is what the brain needs, but it isn't going to undo constant releases of insulin or the growth of unhealthy bacteria in the mouth.

Other the other hand, I certainly did feel better eating sardines while dealing with long COVID in fall 2021, and the effects were pronounced to make me a consistent yet very begrudging fish eater.

 

[mike8675309]

...
Omega-3s are a sort of barricade, mostly asymptomatic nutrient that can sometimes manifest in restoring brain sharpness but most certainly is not a cure all. Prior to attempting iron and then greek yogurt, I was giving my mother salmon oil capsules daily in an attempt to get her chemo-damaged body back to an "engerized and freely moving" state to little or no avail.
DHA is what the brain needs, but it isn't going to undo constant releases of insulin or the growth of unhealthy bacteria in the mouth.
...

I shared the literature so you could read it and come up with a cogent discussion. Instead, you just state generalizations that show you didn't bother to understand what was being presented.

how is that useful? The research presented shows Omega-3 deficiency leads to low brain glucose levels by decreasing glucose transporters GLUT1 at the blood-brain barrier. Omega-3 inhibits plasma protein (VCAM1) which is associated with Alzheimer's Disease.

 

[mike8675309]

Fish oil supplements are something like a 30 Billion dollar business so they will always be getting out studies about how EPA/DHA are cure alls for everything, but over and over again, they end up coming up as a bust when put to the test:

Study: Fish Oil Pills Don’t Stall Alzheimer’s | TIME.com

There was good reason to believe that fish oil, which has been linked to health benefits for the heart, might also work its medical magic on the brain, particularly with Alzheimer’s disease.

healthland.time.com

That reference is from 2010 and was a test on immediate impact. Both of the questions being posed by the author of that story show how unaware they were in 2010 of the actual process of Alzheimer's by saying, "Is DHA effective in preventing cells from generating amyloid in the first place, or is it more powerful in clearing deposits of the protein once it begins to pile up? "Neither of those is the correct question. The understanding in 2010 was simply that those with Alzheimer's and dementia were found to have low levels of Omega 3, and those of the same age but with higher levels of Omega 3 had less incidence of dementia or Alzheimer's.

What I shared here is that they now know that the plaques that show up in those with Alzheimer's and dementia are due to things getting by the blood-brain barrier. They have identified vascular dysfunction as the mechanism for getting past the blood-brain barrier. And they have evidence that low omega 3, inflammation, and regular exercise all play a role in this vascular dysfunction.

This is very early in the research, with longitudinal studies underway, but for now, they are doing animal studies. It may be 20 years before the longitudinal studies bear any evidence, one way or the other.