Antioxidants and Your Aging Brain – A Few Thoughts

From your first breath to your last and for each microsecond that happens in the middle , there is a war being fought in every part in your body .  There are easily millions of these battles going on simultaneously and they involve oxyradicals on one hand and antioxidants on the other . These batttles affect how long you live , your susceptibility to a variety of diseases and without question the quality of your life and health as a senior citizen .

A human brain is highly vulnerable to damage from free radicals because although it only represents 2% of the body mass , about 20% of the oxygen you take in is required by your brain.  Oxy or free radicals – unstable oxygen molecules are created by by many different processes , but a major  source is a natural and inevitable by-product of metabolizing oxygen . Since 20% of your oxygen supply is used by your brain, it stands to reason that your brain will be subjected to many free radicals.

In your mind is a major presence of naturally occurring molecules called Lipids. Lipids include waxes, fats, sterols and some fat soluble vitamins like E, A, D and K. Lipids store energy, they are  signaling molecules and are structural components of your cell membranes.  Lipid peroxidation is   free radical Lipid damage and a reason for the importance of antioxidant supplements .

Your defense against Lipid peroxidation in your brain is with antioxidants and in particular a small subset called Network Antioxidants or the Antioxidant Network ,  made up of Vitamins E, C CoEnzymeQ10, Glutathione and Lipolic acid .  Network Antioxidants help each other to clean up free radicals in the brain and they are uniquely capable of repairing each other .  Of the Network Antioxidants, the most important is Glutathione laso known as The Master Antioxidant. Glutathione is naturally manufactured by your body and resident in each and every cell.

Unfortunately , your brain maintains lower levels of   Glutathione than other parts of your body and as you age , the natural supply is even less since the ability to make Glutathione declines by about 10% for each decade after our twenties .  But a brain absolutely requires Glutathione to be healthy.  For example, consider the part that Antioxidants play in connection with Alzheimer’s Disease – or senile dementia.

There is a strong link between aluminum and Alzheimer’s disease . In a study conducted in 2009 on rats , two same sized groups were purposely fed aluminum toxins, but group was also supplemented with free radical scavengers.  One group had a significant growth in lipid peroxidation and developed oxidative stress – that’s the result of rampant free radical damage.  Reduced glutathione and other network antioxidants were also measured . For the rats that were given the toxins along with the free radical scavengers, none of these changes were found .

With the brain’s vulnerability to the creation of lipid peroxides an abundant store of antioxidants ( in particular Network Antioxidants and most specifically , the master antioxidant Glutathione) is key to sustaining a healthy and functioning brain. While oral glutathione supplements are not considered to be effective, you can take a glutathione precursor like Max One .