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  Many of our seniors having surgery suffer cognitive loss and the question that often comes up is does the anesthesia or surgery itself cause the problem. An article published in the September issue of Annals of Surgery compared the effect of anesthesia alone vs anesthesia plus surgery and showed that in fact the surgery itself is the most potent in...

Drugs developed to treat Alzheimer's disease produce only fleeting memory improvements and do not slow the overall course of the disease. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors such as Aricept, Razadyne, and Exelon and NMDA receptor inhibitors such as Namenda have very limited value. There is a new experimental drug called J147 that at least in mice enhances...

  Biochemical signs of Alzheimer's Disease are reflected by the brain's limited capacity to metabolize glucose occur 20 years prior to the memory and cognitive defects we associate with the clinical disease. A shortage of ATP (energy) in the brain eventually leads to an electrical brown out manifested by recent memory loss and cognitive defects...

  MIT studies have shown that a combination of choline, uridine, and DHA can improve memory in patients with early Alzheimer's disease by stimulating the growth of new synapses. About 40% of patients who consumed this cocktail improved on a test of verbal memory. It does not work on moderate or severe cases. There are several other approaches...

Parkinson's disease is not cured by any treatments we have today. Treatment is centered on blocking the symptoms of this chronic disease. There is a failure of energy production in vital areas of the brain that make dopamine. The energy producing part of the cell, the mitochondria, don't make enough energy to make dopamine and Parkinson's disease...

  A study in the August edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation suggests that a form of vitamin B3, niacinamide, increased by 1000 times the ability of immune cells to kill MRSA. Niacin, or nicotinic acid, does not have this effect. Niacinamide in doses greater than 3 grams per day has the potential for serious liver disease, but does not have...