Reversing Alzheimer's Holiday Crash Course

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Dr. Heather Sandison

Reversing Alzheimer's Holiday Crash Course

Let’s make this holiday season the start of a healthier path for you and your loved one.

Join before 12/3, and start reversing cognitive decline together with us!

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Reversing Alzheimer's Holiday Crash Course

Join before December 3rd at a reduced price of $595!

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best supplements to prevent & reverse cognitive decline

Best Supplements to Prevent & Reverse Cognitive Decline

Note: This video transcript has not been edited. Please excuse any transcription errors.

Hi, I’m Dr. Heather Sandison, and today I’m gonna share with you some of my favorite supplements for preventing and reversing cognitive decline.

1. Improving Cognitive Function with Nootropics

First is a Nootropic formula. So many supplement companies have options here, but one of my favorites is Qualia Mind. This contains a combination of things like Citicoline, Huperzine, Bacopa. The formula is designed to stack many of the things that we know help cognitive function in a very sophisticated way, helping our brains have more balance when it comes to neurotransmitters like dopamine and acetylcholine. This helps us with focus, with recall, with the ability to create words and sentences and, and have a functional thought process throughout the day. It also contains a little bit of caffeine, so caffeine can be very helpful. Many of us have experienced this, that once we’ve had a little caffeine, it feels like our brains turn on.

We can cope with more, we can get more done, and this product contains a little bit of caffeine as well as whole coffee bean extract for exactly that purpose. So this is a nice way to put together a lot of the things basically stack together a lot of the nootropics that help our brains. We’re only having to take out one bottle to have a handful of pills, and it keeps it simple so that if you’re not having to keep track of multiple bottles, Neuroactive, Brain Sustain and MemorAll are also ones that I’ll use with patients depending on what their sensitivities are and if they can tolerate certain things. So this gives you a few options. Typically, we’re taking quite a few of these throughout the day, of course, with Qualia, because it does contain caffeine. We’re taking it earlier in the day.

And then I also recommend that people pulse this. So if you have active cognitive decline, if you have dementia, if you’ve been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, you probably wanna take it every day for three to six months. But after that, we wanna pulse it. So go to five days a week and you take it some days and then take a break, take it some days, take a break. And this allows our bodies to prevent habituation or becoming too dependent on the substances. So highly recommend these products.

2. Detox Support

The next thing that I recommend to many of my patients is a Detox Factors product. So many of the supplement companies, again, make a product like this that help with phase two liver support. Our body’s wisdom is so incredible to me. If we don’t have enough of the nutrients that are responsible for keeping detox going in the liver, we will actually stop.

Our livers will stop doing phase one detox. And this is because that intermediate metabolite that’s made during phase one detox before phase two detox in the liver is oftentimes more toxic than the original substance itself. So we need to make sure that we have enough of those phase two nutrients to help to keep that flow going through the liver so that we can eliminate the toxins that can affect cognitive function.

3. Plant Nutrients

A Greens Powder like this one, indigo greens, is a great easy way to get in those plant nutrients that are so critical for cognitive function and, and brain health. So if you find that you struggle to get enough of your greens in every day, just supplement supplements are supplemental. When we don’t get enough of the nutrients that we need, just add a scoop of this into your smoothie into water. Even very simply, just keep enough greens in your day.

There’s some days when I do this in the morning, if I’m not sure where my next meal is coming from, if I’m traveling, if I’m gonna be outta town, I’m running through airports or eating on the go, having a greens powder available so that you know, you can be assured that you’re getting enough greens every day. This is an easy way to get a little shortcut to getting the optimal, optimal amount of greens you need every day. Phosphatidylserine Phosphatidyl Choline are two nutrients I use regularly, particularly in my patients who’ve experienced traumatic brain injuries or have excess brain inflammation. These can help to repair cells in the brain, and they also help to modulate cortisol. And phosphocholine in particular helps with detox as well as cell structure. Every cell in our brain and in our body has a membrane around it, and these two supplements help with the integrity of that cell membrane.

And they also are actors that help in many other ways as well. So these are an efficient way to get optimal function in those cells at a membrane level, but also with cell signaling and, and other components of detox.

4. Zinc

Zinc is one of my favorite brain supplements because it does so much for us. It, it, again does heavy lifting in multiple areas of our body. It’s good for immune function, it’s great for hormone production, it’s good for our hairs, skin and nails, and it’s good for cognitive function and neurotransmitter balance. Zinc is one of the essential nutrients to converting neurotransmitters like glutamate to GABA. GABA is that feeling of five o’clock Friday where you can kick your feet up and nothing’s as big of a deal. It’s how we get rid of stress and, and internalize that less. It’s how we get to sleep.

And if we don’t have enough zinc, which is very common, then we won’t convert glutamate to GABA. Glutamate is very helpful, of course, and for memory motivation, for mental clarity, but too much of it leads to excess glutamate, leads to anxiety and can prevent us from making memories or getting the sleep that we need for co cognitive function and brain function. So I highly recommend think to most of my patients. However, I recommend testing as well, knowing if you need enough, how much you need, getting the right dosing and doing that precision medicine piece of testing and then retesting to know if you’ve got enough or we overshot.

5. Vitamin D3

Vitamin D3 is called a vitamin, but it’s actually a hormone. It’s a fat soluble hormone that is responsible for signaling that affects our bones and our brains. Often you’ll see this combined with K2, another vitamin essential for bone health, especially as we age.

Now, if you’re on a blood thinner, you wanna usually avoid vitamin K or at least talk to your provider so that you’re not getting too much of that and interfering with your the, the medication and how effective that will be. But for the most part, the combination of vitamin D with K, having enough of that for bone support, immune function and for brain support is very helpful and typically a no brainer.

6. Omega 3’s

Omega 3’s are crucial to brain health. They also help with skin and mood and so many other things. Every one of our cells has a membrane around it. And then inside of our cells, the organelles, things like mitochondria and the nucleus, that that protects our genetic information, they all have membranes that are made up of fats. As these fats are broken down through metabolism, through regular cell cell death so that they can be recycled.

If those fats are not of high quality and high integrity, then they can lead to inflammation in the system. So the goal when we take omegas is that we feed our bodies with these good high integrity fats so that later on, six, 12 months down the road when that cell, that these fats are incorporated into doesn’t contribute to inflammation, they also have more immediate anti-inflammatory effects. And so some people will notice that when they take omegas in abundance they have a reduction in pain in their system if they’re maybe struggling with joint pain or inflammation somewhere. So these can be helpful in many, many ways. Other people will notice mood benefits, gut changes, lots of benefits from taking enough omegas. Omega supplements are supplemental. So you want to make sure that you’re getting those good foods that include omegas, things like cold water, fish including sardines, wild salmon and anchovies.

Also avoiding grain fed beef or other animal protein that’s fed things that they’re not accustomed to eating. You wanna have only a hundred percent grass fed and organic red meat, and that will contribute to actually better fat ratios. So you wanna avoid too many omega sixes, which are gonna come from grain fed animals and then increase those omega threes, which were, are more likely to come from grass fed animals, as well as from of course, the salmon and anchovies and sardines, the cold water fish and then supplementally. You can add more additional omegas through pills and making sure that these are high, well sourced, high integrity supplements. If you ever open a bottle of omegas and you smell rancid oil that not only isn’t good for you, it’s bad for you, so go ahead and throw it out and get one that is of better quality and hasn’t gotten hot.

Typically what happens is they become oxidized or, or they get too hot and then they turn the oils turn rancid. They’re not very stable. And so keeping them cold is important and making sure that that whole process from when the fish was caught to when that supplement ended up in your cabinet, that they’ve been kept cold and been well well taken care of between, from start to finish until they get into your bodies.

7. Magnesium

Magnesium Threonate is another really helpful supplement for your brain. Magnesium three eight is specific to the brain and crosses the blood, blood brain barrier more easily than other forms of magnesium. Some forms of magnesium like magnesium oxide or magnesium citrate can be helpful for bowels if you suffer with constipation. They can also cause diarrhea, of course, if you get too much of them. Magnesium Threonate does not have that effect on the bowels typically for most people.

So you can take it safely regardless of what’s going on in your gut and know that this is more specifically working in your brain. So the different types of magnesium are important to know about and talk to your provider if you have questions about what’s gonna work best for you. Sometimes we use mag glycinate, magnesium glycinate for more calming effects. So there are different times you use different types of magnesiums. And Mag Threonate is the one that I would recommend that’s best for your brain.

8. NAD+ 

NAD+ or Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide is another supplement that’s well known for reversing aging and also can help people feel more energy, better cognitive function, more focus, mental clarity, and also recovery after stress. People will often notice more resilience after getting NAD. So typically we wanna do this by IV, it’s not particularly well absorbed through the gut. However, if you’ve gotten some NAD supplementally through IV and then you wanna maintain that with oral supplementation, that can be very helpful and very effective and certainly is something that we consider for all of our dementia patients here in my clinic.