While those selling anti-amyloid or p’tau drugs will exaggerate the importance of blood testing for amyloid or p’tau, which are damaged proteins found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s, so far lowering these markers hasn’t worked. In other words, they are a marker, but not a cause.
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And therefore what biomarkers, if corrected, reduce risk?
To date, there are four:
Homocysteine, a toxic amino acid, which goes up when your intake of B vitamins (B6, B12, folate, as well as zinc) is low. If you then lower homocysteine with B vitamins, it stops the brain shrinkage associated with Alzheimer’s and improves cognitive function. Brain shrinkage stops below 10 mcmol/l, and that’s what you’re aiming for. So that’s both ‘biomarker’ and ‘causal’ ticked.
At Food for the Brain, we are offering the first accurate at home, pinprick test for homocysteine that is both painless and accurate.
Omega-3 index is another. This is the % of your red blood cell membranes that are omega-3 EPA and DHA. The higher your % (ideally above 8) the better your cognition. Low levels also predict risk. So that’s also two boxes ticked.
Vitamin D is another. Low levels predict risk and supplementing it reduces risk. Again, two boxes ticked but we don’t really know how it does this.
Combining these three to make a ‘nutritional index’ shows that the better you score, the lower a person’s future risk of dementia is.
HBA1c is another. This is a measure of your blood sugar resilience. It measures the spikes in your blood sugar that then damage red blood cells. Below 5.4% (or 37 mmol/mol) is the idea.
We divide your scores across four levels – worst is RED, then ORANGE, then YELLOW, then GREEN, which is what you’re shooting for.
That’s what our DRIfT test measures – all four as a Dementia Risk Index functional Test.
This chart shows you why these four measures are so essential.
But you might have noticed there’s no ‘antioxidant’ measure.
Well, actually there is. It’s the body’s most important antioxidant called glutathione. Think of it like the body’s fire department with glutathione being the water. Every time there’s an oxidant fire, glutathione rushes in to put the fire out. The water, then, turns into steam. Glutathione is called GSH. It’s not bad as a measure of ‘antioxidant potential’. That’s why most functional medicine doctors measure red blood cell glutathione. But what if it all gets used up? It becomes oxidised or spent, much like the water putting out a fire turns into steam. This is called oxidised glutathione or GSSG. Think of the fully loaded glutathione (GSH) as cold water. It’s going to protect you much better from inflammation than spent (oxidised) glutathione (GSSH), a highl level of which means you’ve been trying to put out a lot of inflammatory fires in your brain and body. Neuro-inflammation is a key driver of brain degeneration and dementia, as well as ageing in general, which is why this is important to know.
We’ve been researching the ratio that is your GSH/GSSG. If you’ve got lots of fully loaded glutathione, and very little oxidised/spent glutathione, your GSH/GSSG ratio or index is high. That’s good news. If you’ve got very little fully loaded glutathione and lots of oxidised glutathione then you’re ‘oxidising’ – which is an aspect of ageing that we want to prevent.
We want to be able to research this and test your Glutathione Index. This is exactly what we are working on right now with the hope of releasing another ‘world first’ home test kit for your Glutathione Index soon. This kind of research is funded by you, as a Friend of Food for the Brain.
An example would be a person who smokes a lot, lives in a polluted environment, eats no fresh veg, berries, herbs and spices. Their Glutathione Index will be low and their body and brain will likely be ageing faster. If you did smoke but also ate well and took vitamin C daily, (they say you need 50mg of vitamin C for each cigarette) would that mitigate the effect?
If you’ve also done the Cognitive Function Test and Dementia Risk Index questionnaire (which we strongly recommend) that’s even better because we can see how you score in the ANTIOXIDANT domain and in future, how that will correlate with your Glutathione Index (which is coming soon).
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Thank you for reading!
Food for the Brain is a non-for-profit educational and research charity that offers a free Cognitive Function Test and assesses your Dementia Risk Index to be able to advise you on how to dementia-proof your diet and lifestyle.
By completing the Cognitive Function Test you are joining our grassroots research initiative to find out what really works for preventing cognitive decline. We share our ongoing research results with you to help you make brain-friendly choices.
Please support our research by becoming a Friend of Food for the Brain.
