How Young is Your Brain?

Many medical practitioners will tell you that ageing is a normal process where the rate of deterioration of your cells is predetermined by your genes. They maintain that heredity plays the major part in deciding the speed you age, how quickly (if at all) your brain deteriorates, when your skin ages and your muscles weaken.

Over the last few years, research has shown that ageing actually is more a question of your environment and lifestyle. These factors are now thought to play a much larger part in our ageing processes – exercise and relaxation, diet, smoking and alcohol, air quality, electro magnetic interference (radio waves, cell phone, x-ray and so on).

The Research

Much of this research has been investigating diseases associated with the brain – Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Dementia. Not long ago these diseases were dismissed as one of the unfortunate consequences of growing old since the older age groups appeared to suffer with them the most.

Two exciting studies have been investigating the role of a little known compound that occurs naturally in our body and in most animals. Carnosine is created by two amino acids joining together. The result is much more powerful than can be achieved by the two amino acids working on their own. There are links to the studies (and other work) at the end of this article but they are extremely technical. Here is a simple summary of each: -

Study 1 – University of Glasgow, Scotland. They noticed that dementia and Alzheimer patients had lower levels of Carnosine in their brains and spinal fluid than those of other adults of the same age (or older). They also showed that those parts of the brain that are first affected in early Alzheimer's disease are the same areas where Carnosine is normally found in its highest concentrations. As the Carnosine level falls with age, those brain areas become the most vulnerable to Alzheimer's related damage. Carnosine binds with zinc in the brain and protects the delicate tissue. It also increases blood levels and reduces protein "cross-linking" which grow into the fibrous tangles that are found in the brains of Alzheimer sufferers.