Archive for month: January, 2017

Our modern world is awash in toxins, including heavy metals (lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic), herbicides, pesticides, teflon pans, BPA from plastic, pthalates and sodium laurel sulfate in personal care products, flame retardant chemicals found in furniture, chlorine, flouride, and ammonia added to our drinking water, chemicals from paints and other building materials, etc..

Many of these toxins become stored in our fatty tissues. In order to remove stored toxins, your body needs to convert these fat soluble chemicals into water soluble ones that can be excreted through the stool, urine, or sweat. This process occurs primarily in the liver, so you need to conduct a proper liver detoxification program. This can be done by providing specific nutritional support for both Phase I and Phase II enzymes of the liver detoxification process. Phase I is conducted by the cytochrome P450 family of enzymes that take the fat soluble toxins and add a reactive group as part of the detoxification process. These reactions include oxidation, reduction, and hydrolysis.  If you can drink several cups of coffee in the afternoon or evening and sleep fine, then your phase I enzymes are likely overactive. The Phase I enzymes actually temporarily creates more reactive molecules that, if not converted fully into water soluble metabolites by Phase II, could lead to detoxification reactions, such as headache, brain fog, stomach aches, constipation or diarrhea, skin breakouts, fatigue and low energy, sleep problems, irritability, and congestion. This is why a juice fast is not as effective as using specific nutrients that support Phase II of liver detoxification.

Phase II of liver detoxification is crucial for proper removal of toxins from the body and a juice fast is liable to lead to depressed phase II enzymes, since amino acids are important nutrients for this phase and juices contain no amino acids. Phase II of liver detoxification is also known as the conjugation phase, since these toxins are congugated or combined with another substance, such as cysteine, glycine, or a sulfur molecule to make it water soluble, so it can be excreted from the body.  A proper detoxification program should include phase II supportive nutrients, such as amino acids like glutamine, glycine, and sulfur containing amino acids like taurine and cysteine.  It should also include cruciferous vegetables, like broccoli and watercress.  Likewise, it is important that you have a daily bowel movement so that toxins in the stool get eliminated, so support for the digestive tract such as probiotics or magnesium supplements as a stool softener may be indicated.  In addition, drinking a lot of water to support the kidneys and urine flow and sweating is important, since these are other routes for toxin removal.  Speak to Dr. Weitz for help with nutritional support for detoxification and consider attending the free detoxification that Dr. Weitz is giving in the office on February 2 Thursday at 6pm.  Call the front desk for more information or to add your name to the list.

Main reference: Hodges R, Fitzgerald KN The Detoxification Module of The Clinical Nutrition Series from The Board for Certification of Nutrition Specialists from the MHICN http://healthcareinstituteforclinicalnutrition.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Detoxifcation-Module_F2_mh.pdf

Alzheimer’s Disease is a neurodegenerative disease where the patient experiences progressive loss of normal brain function and it is the cause of 60 to 70% of cases of dementia. After the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease, the average patient only lives 3 to 9 years, so treatments to slow down the progression or reverse the condition are sorely needed. Alzheimer’s Disease is marked by plaques that build up in the brain that contain abnormally folded Amyloid beta (A beta) protein. If the body is not able to clear these proteins out of the brain, they build up and lead to deterioration of brain function.

UCLA neurologists, including Dale Bredesen, found that supplementing preclinical patients with Alzheimer’s Disease with an Omega 3 drink that also contained vitamin D and resveratrol was beneficial. These patients, with mild cognitive impairment, experienced an increase in the breakdown (phagocytosis) of the neurotoxic molecule, amyloid Beta. Therapies that promote clearance of this molecule have been the focus of much research on Alzheimer’s.

In patients with mild clinical impairment and pre-mild clinical impairment who took the omega 3, vitamin D and reveratrol, phagocytosis of amyloid-beta by monocytes increased from 530 to 1306 mean fluorescence intensity units. Unfortunately, once the patients already had Alzheimer’s Disease, it did not help that much. The lipidic mediator resolvin D1, which stimulates amyloid-beta phagocytosis in vitro, increased in macrophages in 80% of patients with mild clinical impairment and pre-mild clinical impairment.

Omega 3 fatty acids both reduce inflammation and through the formation of Specialized Pro-Resolving Mediators (SPM), which have been shown to resolve inflammation, protect organs, and stimulate tissue regeneration.(2) According to these UCLA neurologists, “SPMs from omega-3s are known to terminate acute inflammation, increase phagocytosis, and have distinct roles in attenuating chronic inflammation and, thus, appear suitable for repairing defective Ab phagocytosis and regulating inflammation in patients with Alzheimer’s Disease. Interestingly, the Alzheimer’s Disease brain was found to have defective SPMs in the hippocampus.”

Readers should keep in mind that this was a small study and such results are interesting, but by no means are definitive without larger studies. It is also interesting to consider that SPMs are now available as separate supplements from Metagenics and sold at our office. I recommend supplementing with both omega 3 fats from fish oil capsules as well as SPMs to further protect brain tissue from possible deterioration with autoimmune diseases (like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s) or degenerative diseases (like senile dementia). Speak to Dr. Weitz about this. Also, we can help you get tested for the ApoE gene that tells you whether you are at higher risk for this condition.

References:
1. Fiala M, Halder RC, Sagong B, Ross O, Sayre J, Porter V, Bredesen DE. “[Omega]-3 Supplementation increases amyloid-[beta] phagocytosis and resolvin D1 in patients with minor cognitive impairment.” FASEB J. 2015 Jul;29(7):2681-9.
http://www.fasebj.org/content/29/7/2681.full.pdf+html
2. Spite, M., Claria, J., and Serhan, C. N. (2014) Resolvins, ` specialized proresolving lipid mediators, and their potential roles in metabolic diseases. Cell Metab. 19, 21-36.