Worried About Memory Loss?

Can Heart Meds e.g. Lipitor Hurt Your Brain & Make You Stupid? Can Diet & Exercise Stop Memory Loss or Dementia?

Want to do what’s best for your hear as well as for your brain?

If so, you will have to think hard about ever taking heart drugs that may hurt your brain and memory. Why?

• Cognitive effects are the second most common problem after muscle aches reported by patients to the Statin Effects Study at the U. of California, Sandiego. Statins are cholesterol lowering drugs such as Lipitor and Zocor.

• Doctors Deny Side Effects of Cholesterol Lowering Drugs

LOW Cholesterol Leads to Memory Decline

• Statins e.g. Lipitor: Surprise Findings for Healthy Men, Women & People over 70

• The brain is largely cholesterol, and much of this is in the myelin sheaths that insulate nerve cells and the synapses that transmit nerve impulses!

Some doctors theorize that lowering cholesterol would slow the connections that facilitate thought and memory.

This effect has already been reported by research:

Dementia Risk Increased with Low Cholesterol

• Other heart disease risks did NOT have an association with mental/memory decline in this study, so that:

1) total levels of cholesterol and

2) levels of triglycerides – the amount of fat circulating in the blood --

did NOT have an impact on the memory-capacity of those tested.

Only people with LOW HDL or “good” cholesterol had more mental/memory loss.

• Such declines in ability often precede the development of dementia as in Alzheimers in the elderly.

• Researchers speculate that HDL cholesterol may ward off formation of the beta-amyloid plaques in the brain that are a hallmark of Alzheimers disease.

Scientists are identifying risk factors because of concern about a “dementia time bomb” because the fastest growing age group is that of 65 plus.

(A. Singh-Manoux, French National Institute for Health and Medical Research and the University College, London.)

Heart Meds, Your Memory & Your Brain

Headache

Digestive upset

Liver dysfunction

Muscle pain

Cognitive side effects such as memory-loss and fuzzy thinking associated with dementia is not yet on the patient information sheet for Lipitor, the popular cholesterol lowering medication.

• New Brain Science: What’s Good for Your Heart's Good for Your Brain and Memory

Doctors Report Extreme Memory Loss due to Lipitor

Dr. Etington said that while tests revealed nothing wrong, the symptoms vanished when this woman stopped taking Lipitor. When the patient resumed taking Lipitor, symptoms returned.

Specialists such as Professor G. Devi report having had at least six patients whose mental problems were traceable to statins. Dr. Gayatri Devi, an associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at the New York University School of medicine.

Usually changes start to occur within six weeks of starting the statin, and their cognitive abilities return quickly when people go off them.

• Unfortunately, people are not typically advised to stop or change their heart meds when they experience cognative problems. Instead, when they can become forgetful, those around them often assume that they have Alzheimers.

For instance, a San Diego woman, aged 69, became so forgetful that her daughter began to find Alzheimers care for her. However, after stopping taking the statin Lipitor, her mother was back to normal in eight days.

• Usually, neither a family doctor nor family members suspect the medications people are taking, to be robbing them of their mental capacity – instead they simply blame their age.

“My Father is Playing Bridge Again After Stopping His Heart Meds”

"Our family has recently witnessed the remarkable improvement in our 88-year-old father when an astute specialist in internal medicine pulled him off three of the medications he'd been prescribed by his family doctor (high blood pressure medication, cholesterol medication, and a prescription nasal spray).

In four days his blood sugar dropped from 25 to 7, his dizziness was gone, he stopped falling down at night, and his appetite was back.

After two weeks, his mental ability/memory improved and he was back playing bridge again!

I am now reading Dr. Dennis McCullough's book, "My Mother, Your Mother".

It is interesting that Dr. McCullough's experience is that elders later in life do better on almost no medication!

• My Mother, Your Mother: Embracing "Slow Medicine," the Compassionate Approach to Caring for Your Aging Loved Ones

Keeping Your Cholesterol In Range, Naturally

You may want to explore these Health Discoveries links for strategies proven by research for keeping your cholesterol levels healthy:

• Lowering Your Cholesterol Without Meds

• Eat More Eggs to Lower Your High Cholesterol?

• Healthy Living Forum: How I conquered Metabolic Syndrome & High Cholesterol Naturally

What’s Worse Than Cholesterol?

So what’s worse?

There are two other, stronger predictors of heart disease and of an eventual heart attack:

1) HIGH blood levels of C-reactive proteins (CRP)

C-Reactive Proteins damage artery walls setting the stage for cholesterol deposits and heart disease in the first place.

C-Reactive Proteins – are the inflammatory markers that precede coronary artery disease.

Over the past 10 years, researchers have found runaway inflammation in most major health problems. They have determined that white blood cells can release large amounts of inflammation-causing substances called C-Reactive Proteins (CRP).

• These have in fact been found to play an early role in damaging artery walls and setting the stage for cholesterol deposits and heart disease.

In a major study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, people with elevated CRP levels were four and a half times more likely to have a heart attack.

• The study concluded that elevated CRP is a more accurate predictor of heart attack risk than cholesterol

2) LOW levels of glutathione GSH, the master antioxidant that keeps fats in the blood from getting “oxidized” or rancid. Only when they are oxidized or rancid do they do harm. S

Only with low levels of antioxidants, especially the MASTER antioxidant, glutathione (GSH). That is why fruits and veggies are so important, as is having HIGH levels of glutathione. HIGH levels of glutathione. are found in people who are healthy, whereas LOW levels have consistently been found in people with chronic illnesses including heart disease.

• A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that a glutathione deficiency, or that having LOW levels of the antioxidant glutathione, was a stronger predictor of a heart attack than is having high cholesterol.

• What's Worse Than Cholesterol and More Predictive of a Heart Attack?

Recommendation for Supplements to Stop Memory Loss & Dementia

LINKS: Nutrition for Your Brain & Memory against Dementia

How Nutrition Helps Heart Health Compared to Meds

• What Nutrition Helps Heart Health Best?

• Simple and Best Heart Disease Prevention Diet

High Cholesterol Heart Meds e.g. Lipitor Might Make You Stupid -- Why Use Diet & Exercise for Memory Loss and Dementia?

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