This is how you can quickly improve your memory performance

Did you know that exercise can improve your memory?

Maybe you have heard that before, but how long do you think it takes? Not very long depending on how you exercise.

You may not think of exercise as stress, but exercise is putting stress on your body, that's why it works. The body responds to the stress, and you will for example get stronger or improve your endurance depending on how you exercise.

Because exercise is stressful, you will also release stress hormones.

The reviewed research measured participants noradrenaline one of the hormones released when under stress, and showed the participants pictures they should try to remember (Weinberg L et al, 2014).

One group did resistance exercise with one leg after they were shown the pictures, while the control group sat and had the machine move their leg for them.

2 days later they were tested for recall of the pictures. The group that exercised remembered more of the pictures. Also interesting was that the ones that had the strongest response to the exercise, nor-epinephrine increased the most, also performed better on the memory test.

The researchers also found that emotional pictures were remembered better than neutral ones. This has also been documented in other studies.

This is even another example of the importance of the intensity you exercise with. The more intense it is, the less time you have to spend exercising. You will also stimulate more muscle growth, and more release of beneficial hormones, and it will even improve your memory.

Weinberg L, Hasni A, Shinohara M, Duarte A. A single bout of resistance exercise can enhance episodic memory performance. Acta Psychol (Amst). 2014 Sep 25;153C:13-19. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2014.06.011. [Epub ahead of print]

Published with permission by Didrik Sopler, Ph.D., L.Ac : www.TissueRecovery.com Dr. Marsh has worked with and referrers patients to Dr. Sopler for co-management for years . . . He is quite simply San Diego's top functional medicine consultant.

How dangerous is sitting?

It is important that the endothelium is healthy, which is the inner lining of the blood vessel wall, and it is also important to have good circulation through those blood vessels.

If these factors are compromised the risk for atherosclerosis (clogging of the arteries) will also increase, and you don't want that.

The reviewed research is interesting because it investigated a common reason for decline in circulation and what you can do to prevent it(Thosar SS et al. 2014).

The researchers measured flow mediated dilation (FMD) for the superficial femoral artery. When blood flows through a blood vessel, the vessel will dilate and FMD measures this.

FMD was measured after the participants had been sitting for 1 hour, 2 hours and 3 hours without getting up. The participants then walked on a treadmill for 5 minutes after they had been sitting for 30 minutes, 1.5 hour and 2.5 hours and the same FMD measurements were performed.

The FMD significantly declined after sitting for 1, 2 and 3 hours, but walking for 5 minutes every hour prevented the decline in FMD.

Just a simple thing like this can make a difference, and depending on the activity, you may not even have to be active for 5 minutes.

Thosar SS, Bielko SL, Mather KJ, Johnston JD, Wallace JP. Effect of Prolonged Sitting and Breaks in Sitting Time on Endothelial Function. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2014 Aug 18. [Epub ahead of print]

Published with permission by Didrik Sopler, Ph.D., L.Ac : www.TissueRecovery.com Dr. Marsh has worked with and referrers patients to Dr. Sopler for co-management for years . . . He is quite simply San Diego's top functional medicine consultant.

Magnesium lowered triglycerides by 47.4 percent

The reviewed research is interesting because it shows results from taking magnesium that most people would find surprising(Rodriguez-Moran M, Guerrero-Romero F, 2014).

Participants in this study had metabolic syndrome and low levels of magnesium. They were given magnesium or a placebo once a day for 4 months.

 At the end of the study period, the blood pressure, insulin resistance index, fasting glucose and triglyceride levels all improved in the participants taking the magnesium.

How can only taking magnesium change all these things?

The reason is that magnesium is a very important mineral, and it is involved in many important metabolic functions. In this case it improved insulin resistance with 46.5 percent.

When insulin sensitivity improves not only will blood glucose levels improve, but blood pressure and triglyceride levels as well. Usually cholesterol will also improve, but that was not measured in this case.

When taking magnesium, you should take it with other minerals, since minerals affect each other, and magnesium helps regulate intra and extra cellular calcium levels. This may also help to prevent calcium from getting deposited in places you don't want it.

Magnesium comes in different forms. The most common form is magnesium oxide because it is the cheapest form, but it is very poorly absorbed, and it can also give you diarrhea.

A better form of magnesium is a special form of amino acid chelate. This form is much better absorbed and will not giving you diarrhea.

Rodríguez-Moran M¹, Guerrero-Romero F². Oral magnesium supplementation improves the metabolic profile of metabolically obese, normal-weight individuals: a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial.Arch Med Res. 2014 Jul;45(5):388-93. doi: 10.1016/j.arcmed.2014.05.003. Epub 2014 May 13.

Published with permission by Didrik Sopler, Ph.D., L.Ac : www.TissueRecovery.com Dr. Marsh has worked with and referrers patients to Dr. Sopler for co-management for years . . . He is quite simply San Diego's top functional medicine consultant.

What's better, whole eggs or egg substitutes?

You have probably been warned at one time against eating eggs, because eating eggs could raise your cholesterol and in turn increase your risk for cardiovascular disease.

The reviewed research should shed some light on this issue(Blesso CN, et al. 2013).

In this study the participants were either consuming 3 whole eggs per day or the equivalent amount in yolk-free egg substitute, as part of a moderately carbohydrate-restricted diet for 12 weeks.

Plasma lipids as well as several cardiovascular risk markers, even particle size of both HDL (good cholesterol) and LDL (bad cholesterol), were measured.

All of these risk factors improved in the participants eating the eggs, but not for the participants eating the egg substitute.

Even plasma insulin and insulin resistance were reduced and the diameter of the HDL and LDL increased only in the group that ate eggs. These are all risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Apparently eating eggs will reduce your risk for cardiovascular disease, not increase it as we used to believe.

Blesso CN, Andersen CJ, Barona J, Volek JS, Fernandez ML. Whole egg consumption improves lipoprotein profiles and insulin sensitivity to a greater extent than yolk-free egg substitute in individuals with metabolic syndrome. Metabolism. 2013 Mar;62(3):400-10. doi: 10.1016/j.metabol.2012.08.014. Epub 2012 Sep 27.

Published with permission by Didrik Sopler, Ph.D., L.Ac : www.TissueRecovery.com Dr. Marsh has worked with and referrers patients to Dr. Sopler for co-management for years . . . He is quite simply San Diego's top functional medicine consultant.

Surprising way artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance

Artificial sweeteners are used as an additive in both beverages, as well as food, to improve taste since most people prefer a sweet taste.

Since these sweeteners contain very few calories, they are also popular in diet beverages and diet foods. They are even used in products marketed to people with diabetes and promoted as a good alternative to sugar.

This seems to be a big mistake according to the reviewed research(Suez J, et al. 2014).

The results demonstrated that consumption of these sweeteners are causing glucose intolerance because they alter the composition of the intestinal bacterial flora in a negative way.

These results have been reproduced in both humans and mice.

The last thing you want to do is to consume a substance that will make you more glucose intolerant. This is very important for diabetics, but also for non diabetics because you don't want to develop diabetes.

Suez J, Korem T, Zeevi D, Zilberman-Schapira G, Thaiss CA, Maza O, Israeli D, Zmora N, Gilad S, Weinberger A, Kuperman Y, Harmelin A, Kolodkin-Gal I, Shapiro H, Halpern Z, Segal E, Elinav E. Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiota. Nature. 2014 Sep 17. doi: 10.1038/nature13793. [Epub ahead of print]

Published with permission by Didrik Sopler, Ph.D., L.Ac : www.TissueRecovery.com Dr. Marsh has worked with and referrers patients to Dr. Sopler for co-management for years . . . He is quite simply San Diego's top functional medicine consultant.

Taking this vitamin regularly could reduce your risk for dementia

The reviewed research included 1658 elderly participants who were free from dementia at the start of the study(Littlejohns TJ et al. 2014).

The vitamin they were tested for was vitamin D.

During the average follow-up of 5.6 years, 171 participants developed dementia including 102 cases of Alzheimer's disease.

The researchers concluded that the results confirmed that vitamin D deficiency is associated with a substantially increased risk for dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

In my experience, just by taking 2000 IU of vitamin D 3 per day would keep you above the level of what this research indicates as increased risk for dementia.

Littlejohns TJ, Henley WE, Lang IA, Annweiler C, Beauchet O, Chaves PH, Fried L, Kestenbaum BR, Kuller LH, Langa KM, Lopez OL, Kos K, Soni M, Llewellyn DJ. Vitamin D and the risk of dementia and Alzheimer disease. Neurology. 2014 Sep 2;83(10):920-8. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000000755. Epub 2014 Aug 6.

Published with permission by Didrik Sopler, Ph.D., L.Ac : www.TissueRecovery.com Dr. Marsh has worked with and referrers patients to Dr. Sopler for co-management for years . . . He is quite simply San Diego's top functional medicine consultant.