Is Rapamycin a Universal Anti-Aging Drug?
Self-experimentation with the anti-aging drug rapamycin continues to be strongly discouraged.
My mom’s mother died of Alzheimer’s, a common cause of dementia, manifesting as the loss of cognitive functioning, such as thinking, recalling, and reasoning, as well as changes in behavior. As a child, I loved spending time with her. She was the perfect—and perfectly doting—grandmother. Later in life, she started to lose her mind. By then, I was in medical school, but my newfound knowledge was useless. She had turned. My previously sweet and stately grandmother now threw things at people. She cursed. Her caretaker showed me the teeth marks on her arm where my once kind, loving grandma had bitten her.
Unlike a problem with your back or even another vital organ, dementia can attack your self. Unlike stroke, which can kill instantly and without any warning, dementia involves a slower, more subtle decline over months or years. With Alzheimer’s, instead of cholesterol-filled plaques in our arteries, plaques made of a substance called amyloid develop in the brain tissue itself, associated with the loss of memory and, eventually, loss of life.
Despite billions spent on research, there is still neither a cure nor an effective treatment, which invariably progresses to death. However, diet and lifestyle changes could potentially prevent millions of cases a year. How? There is an emerging consensus that “what is good for our hearts is also good for our heads,” because clogging of the arteries inside of the brain with atherosclerotic plaque is thought to play a pivotal role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Autopsies have shown repeatedly that Alzheimer’s patients tend to have significantly more atherosclerotic plaque buildup and narrowing of the arteries within the brain, and the clogging of the arteries inside, and leading to, the brain with cholesterol-filled plaque may drastically reduce the amount of blood—and therefore oxygen—the brain receives.
For substantiation of any statements of fact from the peer-reviewed medical literature, please see the associated videos below.
Image Credit: Alex Boyd / Unsplash. This image has been modified.
Self-experimentation with the anti-aging drug rapamycin continues to be strongly discouraged.
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Just because we don’t have evidence that there is a growing epidemic of sleep deprivation doesn’t necessarily mean we are getting enough sleep.
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Randomized controlled studies put nuts, berries, and grape juice to the test for cognitive function.
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The spice saffron is pitted head-to-head against the leading drug for severe Alzheimer’s disease.
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Lemon balm may beat out drugs for controlling the symptoms of severe dementia.
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Learn why I recommend 250mg a day of a pollutant-free source of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids.
Why has fish consumption been associated with cognitive impairment and loss of executive function?
Diet may explain the Nigerian Paradox, where they have among the highest rates of the Alzheimer’s susceptibility gene, ApoE4, but among the lowest rates of Alzheimer’s disease.
High-tech advances, such as PET scanning, offer new insight into the role cholesterol plays in both the amyloid cascade and vascular models of the development of Alzheimer’s dementia.