We’ve talked about nutrition and how researchers are finding correlations between ingesting optimal amounts of vitamins and minerals and decreased brain damage after an injury. For this post we are going to explore one of the oft times touted supplements, fish oil.

According to a handful of studies, to be listed in the end, fish oil’s mega-3s (DHA) from sources such as tuna or salmon have the ability to reduce the risk of stroke, dementia and cognitive as well as brain abnormalities. In addition to this, it may also help with brain recovery after a traumatic injury.

Omega-3 fatty acids are essential nutrients that are obtained from food. There are three omega-3s, ALA, DHA and EPA. Of those, DHA is the form most usable by the body. Fatty acids are needed for normal growth and they benefit kidney function and support skin integrity as well as regulate inflammation and control hormones and cell growth.

The recommended dose varies depending on age and whether or not you are taking other supplements or medications. If you are in good health, taking 1,000 mg once a day should provide an adequate amount.

There have been some concerns regarding mercury in fish, as an increase in mercury levels can lead to brain damage, the very thing we are trying to counteract. To avoid this you can either stick to the fish oil capsules which have had the impurities taken out, or eat fish with lower amounts such as Alaskan cod or sockeye salmon (tuna contains the highest level of mercury).

Of course, as in all studies, there are possible variables such as the age of those who tend to use fish oil, so keep in mind that while it may have been shown to improve cognitive functioning, it may not work for you. Research into supplements such as omega-3s are still in the early stages, but the potential benefits make them worth watching.

Studies: One, two, three, and some good information on Wikipedia. For more on the dangers of mercury, click here.

An unusual path to brain damage:

In the news these last few days have been versions of a story about a woman who suffered brain damage from a detox diet she was on. The British woman, Dawn Page, was taking a nutritionist’s advice and ingesting large amounts of water while cutting back on salt intake.

The resulting sodium deficiency caused an epileptic fit that lead to permanent brain damage. Page was given a settlement by the nutritionist’s insurance company, but that didn’t exactly make up for the memory damage, speech difficulties and loss of concentration that Page now lives with.

This story is a good example of how important it is to make sure you are taking advice from a registered and thoroughly trained professional. Not only that, but following up someone’s advice with research of your own to make sure that there is some validity to the information is equally important.

It’s easy for people to assume that because someone lables themselves a nutritionist or doctor or herbalist, etc., that they are automatically trustworthy. In our culture we tend to take “professionals” on faith, figuring that they wouldn’t lie to us as they are in the health profession.

One thing to remember is that sometimes they aren’t lying, such as seemed to be the case with Page’s nutritionist, Barbara Nash. From all accounts, Nash believed what she was selling and most likely it was ignorance on her part that caused her to prescribe a detox program that was so dangerous. This is why doing your own research to back up what you have been told is so important.

We’ve mentioned brain plasticity in a couple of our post regarding brain injury and brain repair, so this post is going to delve into exactly what this term means and why it’s so important.

Brain plasticity, also called neuroplasticity, cortical plasticity and cortical re-mapping, is a term used to describe the way the brain organizes itself in response to experience. More specifically, “neuro” stands for neuron, the nerve cells in our brains and nervous centers, and “plasticity” for changeable or malleable. Since scientists began to study the brain, the idea was fairly set in stone that it was hardwired to respond in certain ways, and much like a computer, when one drive failed, that drive and all of it’s information was gone for good. The knowledge (read synaptic connections) contained in that portion of the brain would be wiped out if damaged, to never be regained.

Looking back now, it seems surprising that people who could easily grasp that the brain grows both in physical size and knowledge from childhood to adulthood, would assume that such an amazing organ was as unchanging as a machine. When scientists in the late 60s and early 70s began to discover that the brain was able to change what parts it used for different activities, switching over to other areas as the previously used portions stopped working or were utilized for different functions, the idea of brain plasticity was born.

Now decades of research have given credence to the idea that the brain changes in reaction to new situations or in counterbalance to brain injury. Thinking, learning and even acting change not only the brain’s organization but its actual physical structure. Called “maps”, the way the sensory system in the brain is organized changes with stimulus, often moving from one part of the brain to the other. Picture a map overlaying the brain, then move it from one area to another and you have an idea of how it works.

No longer are we limited by the idea of a never changing mind… we can now work on various aspects that are poorly formed or badly damaged with the hope of creating the necessary connections in some other part of the brain - a part capable of the needed responses. For a great book on this process and how to help your own brain function better, visit Norman Doidge’s Website or order his book, The Brain that Changes Itself.

Q: What are the three processes that injure the brain?

A: Bruising, tearing and swelling.

When the brain is bruised, the brain tissue is smashed against the skull and blood vessels may tear. When blood vessels tear, they release blood into areas of the brain in a random, chaotic manner. “There is no room for this extra blood, and the skull, being hard and brittle, does not expand. So the blood begins to press on softer things–like brain tissue. Brain tissue is very delicate and will stop working properly or may even die off. With large amounts of bleeding in the brain, the pressure will make critical areas of the brain stop working.”

When the brain tissue is torn, it is due to an amount of energy acting on it during a traumatic impact that cuts the tissue. “Tearing in the brain “cuts” the wires that make the brain work. One of the problems with tearing is that it happens on a microscopic level (the brain has about 100 billion of these “wires”). This tearing may not show up on typical medical tests. Devices that take pictures of the brain will not see these small tears.”

Swelling, due to blood leaking after an impact to the brain, causes pressure to build up with no outlet until areas of the brain are damaged.

Reference: http://www.tbiguide.com

On Courant.com, Lisa Chedekel writes that the military is starting a program where they will test and evaluate troops that are war bound before they leave. This screening is to help create a reference point for those who end up sustaining brain damage.

There has been a lot of buzz lately about the growing number of soldiers returning from war with various degrees of brain damage. With a variety of organizations advocating for better treatment of our wounded troops, this “pre-deployment screening” is an excellent sign that U.S. military leaders are beginning to take these injuries as the serious matter that they are.

For the full article, click here.

The BBC announced this week that researchers may be able to predict whether or not a brain-damaged coma patient will be able to regain consciousness. They have based their premise on an area within the brain’s cortex that is more active when the conscious mind isn’t working towards a goal or activity. Because of this, researchers have associated that area with the daydreaming action of the brain.

When specialists are working to assess the degree of consciousness in coma patients, they have difficulty predicting exactly how “awake” the patient is when there is any level of activity in the brain. A more accurate level is gained from scanning brain activity in the daydreaming area of the brain. While not yet past the initial stages of testing, this study is significant as it may help with consciousness diagnostics.

Image credit here.

A thoughtful article about the connection between memory loss and smoking caught our attention. Breitbart.com cites a study by Severine Sabia and colleagues of France’s Institut National del la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale that found a link between smoking and memory loss.

The detrimental effect of smoking doesn’t stop there, it includes a decline in reasoning abilities along with decreased vocabulary and verbal fluency. The importance of this study is that it suggests a possible link between smoking and the decline into cognitive impairments that lead to dementia.

If worrying about lung cancer, throat cancer and aged skin aren’t enough, perhaps considering the potential for brain damage will encourage more people to give up the habit!

Here are some related links:

docorndtv

technology.iafrica

medpagetoday

Image credit here.

In a recent article for the City News, the discussion centers around a new coalition created for Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) sufferers, the Ontario Alliance for Action on Brain Injury (OAABI) and its importance.

The author describes the lack of follow through regarding ABI and the many who are, after an initial “patch up”, left to deal with the long-term damage down the road. Our attention is drawn to the psychiatric and long-term care homes where some of these patients end up, to the astounding 53% estimated homeless with a history of brain injury.

This article is worth considering.

For the full story, click here.

Image credit here.

We have heard a great deal of speculation about cell phone use over the past ten years. It’s gotten to the point where it is unusual to find someone giving out their home phone number, and even somewhat odd if they have a home phone. You find bumper stickers ranting in bold print against driving while talking, hundreds if not thousands of accessories to make your cell phone that much flashier, that much more personal. They are the sidekicks we can’t imagine doing without, the tools we upgrade, update and hang onto with vice-like grips.

Cell phones have become such a prevalent part of our culture that they are automatically accepted with little thought to the danger they may pose to our health. Of course, the question still remains - are they a danger or is it merely hype that is propagated by the annoyed and irritated or paranoid and old-fashioned?

In a 2003 study done by Salford, Brun, Eberhardt, Malmgren and Persson from the Rausing Laboratory and Lund University Hospital in Sweden, the effects on rat brains of microwave radiation in amounts comparable to those broadcast by common cell phone usage were documented. The resulting damage included cell damage, leakage of proteins through the blood-brain barrier and a depressing suggestion of a generation of users feeling the effects as early as middle age.

The idea behind this study was that instead of concentrating on cancer caused by the radiation, the focus was placed on more specific brain damage. They found that there was indeed brain cell damage, in amounts significant enough to warrant further investigation.

On a recent episode of Larry King, prominent neurosurgeon Dr. Keith Black from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles said he keeps the phone away from his ear, instead opting to use an earpiece. Add to this the fact that Dr. Vini Khurana, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Australian National University will only use his cell’s speaker capability and CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon at Emory University Hospital, will only use an earpiece, it makes one start to wonder about the seriousness of this.

At this time, the American Cancer Society has found no hard link between cell phone usage and cancer, but brain damage? This area of research is still new and will take more study.

Either way, we use earpieces. We highly advocate weighing the potential in your own mind and deciding if the inconvenience of remembering to plug in your Bluetooth outweighs the potential for a future study definitively linking cell phone use to brain damage.

We overheard this conversation when a couple of our members were walking across the university campus yesterday:

“You had to be there! I was so blasted I can’t remember a thing!”

“Ha! You got nothing on me man, last weekend I was at ….party and I finished off a bottle of JD with ….! I can remember puking on the sidewalk but I have no clue how we got home. ”

The boys, barely legal if indeed they were, slapped each other on the back and grinned as their buddies nodded their heads in camaraderie.

While college campuses worldwide would hardly consider this a rare moment, this conversation brought up some very important considerations. When parents are warning their daughters of destroyed reputations and their sons of wrecked cars and wrecked futures, we know few who would think to mention a fate just as possible, just as potentially devastating as the worst of those scenarios.

Binge drinking induced brain damage is often overlooked in studies that are focused on long-term effects and not immediate repercussions, but over the past ten years a number of experiments have started to change this focus. Back in 2002, Fulton T. Crews, director of the University of North Carolina’s Center for Alcohol Studies, headed a study that determined a significant amount of brain damage within two days of heavy drinking that increased with each day of use. He speculated that the damage done to the frontal cortex which is involved in decision making, could explain the transition from drinking for fun to becoming an alcoholic.

A more recent study from the UK Stroke Association found that binge drinkers (six drinks or more in close succession) had their chances of suffering a stroke doubled. This potential isn’t limited to a certain age group and the risks apply to both men and women. With long term damage ranging from lack of motor control to complete loss of speech or movement, this risk makes a hangover look like a minor inconvenience.

For more information on how to education yourself and those you care about on the hazards of binge drinking, here are some useful links:

U.S. Department of Health and Human Service
College Drinking Prevention
Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Image: Jon Sullivan