The month of February should prove interesting as I put a new twist on Solitarius with this blog post being the foundation for those blog post. My Goal: is to take this website…. in a whole new direction while putting the visitants in the perfect place…. to learn cancer prevention though awareness. What I would like to accomplish…. is build upon the building blocks within this blog and show how the process of aging can promote the chronic illnesses we contract in our “Golden Years.”
Whether reading…. Dr. Mercola’s spew on Artifical Perservatives like Brominated Vegetable Oil thats used as key ingredient in artifical citrus flavored drinks being responsible for it’s slightly “cloudy” look these beverages have. The main problem is that it’s fat soluble and builds – up in tissues, whereas, a 16 ounce soft drink with brominate vegetable oil contains appromiately 2mg of bromine. Which studies with animals shows decrease levels of “good” cholesterol to myocardial degeneration.
Or watching YourHealthTV with Dr. Richard Becker and having his note worthy guest daily. For insistence Dr. Russell Blaylock being on a soap box over vaccines, mercury, cadium, aluminum and fluoride. It makes me wonder about the validity of it all, whom is testing what for our safety and health. When you hear high levels of mercury in vaccines causing toddlers (1:150) badies being Autistic it makes ones mind do back flips for research.
When Dr. Blaylock also gets in his spew over farmers having the highest levels of Alzheimers due in part…. to the use of neo-nicotinoid pesticides, which is causing the thinning of the bee population. It makes you wonder if we are living is living right. Then you also think are “Penial Institutions” being filled above capacity because of the excitotoxins in street illegal drugs and alcohol…. it makes the mind wonder.
Some of the most important pieces of the puzzle of aging are that some of the functional components of the receptor systems, decay with aging and disease. Some of the key components are glutamate transporters and it’s relation to Lou Gehrigs Disease, Alzheimers and Dementia. One must also consider the membranes effects of lipid peroxidation products, membrane fluidity, effects of chronic inflammation on the glutamate|free radical cycle, stress hormones and excitotoxicity. Inflammation Fighting Foods..??
Also the role of insulin excess… on the eicosanoid system; or the detailed physiology of the glutamatergic system, knowledge of the pathophysiology and biochemistry of the neurodegeneratve diseases increases when we age and this connection of excitotoxicity has become stronger. Which can be said, is especially so with the inter relationship between excitotoxicity – free radical generation.
Not only, as the brain ages…. it’s iron content increases making it more susceptible to free radical generation, but also, aging changes the blood brain barrier, microvascular changes leading to impaired blood flow, free radical mitochondrial injury to energy gernerating enzymes, DNA adduct formation, alterations in glucose and glutamate transporters. With this said, these free – radical and lipid peroxidation induced alterations in the neuronal membrane all act at making the aging brain increasingly susceptible to injury.
Several factors of aging…. have been shown…. to magnify this process. Over a lifetime of free radical activity and injury due to chronic stress, inflammation & infections, traumas, impaired blood flow, hypoglycemia, hypoxia and poor antioxidant defenses secondary to poor nutritional intake. The nervous system is insignificantly weakened and made more susceptible to further excitotoxic injury.
There are a growing number of clinicans and basic scientist who are convinced that a group of compounds called excitotoxins play a critical role in the development of several neurological disorders including migraines, seizures, infections, abnormal neural development, also certain endocrine disorders, neuropsychiatric disorders, learning disorders in children (ADD), dementia, AIDs, episodic violence, lyme borreliosis, hepatic eucephalopathy, and especially neurodegenerative diseases, such as ALS, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimers & Huntington disease and olivopontocerebellar degeneration.
WE know “how” that a loss of neuronal energy generation is one of the early changes seen with the neurodegenerative diseases. This occurs long before clinical disease developes, However, even earlier in a loss of neuronal glutathione functional levels. So “why” is this important: glutathione levels are strong indicators of a strong or weaken immune system leaving you susceptible to disease.
So What Are Excitotoxin? These substances usually acidic amino acids that react with specialized receptors in the brain, in such a way as to lead to destruction of certain types of neurons. Glutamate one of the more common known excitotoxins, however, there are over seventy known; while another popular MSG is the sodium salt in glutamate and aspartame is also known to cause the brain harm.
So how could a normal substance…. that is used by the brain…. harm it? This is because glutamate…. as a neurotransmitter exists in the extracellular fluid only in very, very tiny concentrations – – no more than 8 to 12uM. When the concentration of this transmitter rises above this level, the neurons begin to fire abnormally at higher concentrations; and the cells undergo specialized processes of delayed cell death, excitotoxicity (they are excited to death.)
While food additives are probably not direct causes of neurodegenerative diseases, they may well precipitate these disorders and certainly worsen their pathology as will may well shall see. So it may well be that many people with a propensity for developing these diseases, would have never developed a full blown disorder; had it not been for…. exposure to high levels of food borne excitotoxin additives.
I’m Not Vegan, However, Mimi Kirk Is Doing Something Right!!!