Featured Article Nutrients & HealthDynamic Duo Targets Nervous System Killers
The drugs doctors use for diseases of your nervous system don’t work very well. And they probably won’t tell you that combining two simple nutrients could halt or at least slow the effects of two of the most common ones, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases.
A new animal study published in the Journal of Neurochemistry shows that taking CoQ10 and creatine blocks the loss of dopamine in the brain (a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease), protects cell membranes (they leak with age), and reduces oxidative damage.1
In mice with Huntington’s, a disease in which nerve cells in the brain waste away, CoQ10 improved motor skills and even extended their life.
If the study results apply to humans, this nutrient combination has the potential to become a “dynamic duo” for brain health.
Even if you don’t have these diseases, you can safely take CoQ10 and creatine to protect yourself and boost your brain power.
CoQ10 protects every organ in your body, especially your brain. Brain levels of CoQ10 start to decline in your 20s and are lowest in stroke victims and those with brain and nerve cell diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s. So it makes sense that getting more CoQ10 could help combat these diseases.
The best food source is red meat — but make sure that it is grass-fed. Grass-fed beef contains more CoQ10 than any other meat on the planet. But it is still hard to get enough CoQ10 from your diet alone.
I recommend taking 50 mg of ubiquinol CoQ10 daily. The ubiquinol form is eight times more powerful and stays in your bloodstream longer than conventional CoQ10.
Creatine improves short-term mental performance. You may think of it only as the stuff that bulks up pro athletes and bodybuilders. But creatine is an important ingredient for memory and the brain’s other functions. A 2003 study found that it improved mental performance, especially in the short-term.
Your body — primarily the liver — makes creatine naturally. You can also get it from foods like grass-fed beef, fish and apples. For every 2 lbs. of beef you eat, you will gain 5 grams of creatine.
The amount you should take is related to body weight and gender. See the table below for dosage guidelines.
Creatine Loading and Maintenance
|
Lean Body Mass in lbs. |
Loading Dose in Grams for Men | Maintenance Dose in Grams for Men | Loading Dose in Grams for Women | Maintenance Dose in Grams for Women |
| 80 | 9 | 3 | 6 | 2 |
| 100 | 11 | 3.5 | 8 | 2.5 |
| 120 | 14 | 4.5 | 10 | 3 |
| 140 | 16 | 5 | 11.5 | 3.5 |
| 160 | 18 | 6 | 13 | 4 |
| 180 | 20 | 6.5 | 14.5 | 4.5 |
| 200 | 22.5 | 7 | 16 | 5 |
| 220 | 25 | 8 | 17.5 | 6 |
Source: The Colgan Institute, San Diego.
Take the loading dose daily for 10 days. Then continue with the maintenance dose. Be sure to avoid taking your creatine with your morning caffeine as they do not interact well.
Using this duo each day may be a real brain booster. By following these simple guidelines, you can combine CoQ10 and creatine to improve your mental sharpness. It may be one of the simplest and smartest things you do for your brain.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
[Ed. Note: Dr. Sears is Chairman of the Board of Total Health Breakthroughs. He has written over 500 articles and 7 books in the fields of alternative medicine, anti-aging, and nutritional supplementation.]
Reference:
- Yang L et al. Combination therapy with coenzyme Q10 and creatine produces additive neuroprotective effects in models of Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases. J Neurochem. 2009 Jun;109(5):1427-39.
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just what i needed
i take Accel already but now have to make sure that it is not too soon after morning coffee
now to up the creatine and add melatonin to counteract the cell-tower radiation overwhelming all living things on my acre
(sounds too much like binging and purging, except that the binging part here is involuntary and imperceptible, as will the purging be; and how can i save poocho until we can run from here?)
the question is how long can this go on for even a human?
yesterday one lively squirrel came to re-visit (my guess) my acre; he went up one small tree outside my kitchen window, looked around and when i went outside to find him, he was gone
this year only, my long driveway gets littered with large beautiful chestnuts, the only food that matured to edible stage from mature fruit/nut trees
normally people who own chestnut trees around here cannot get as much as one chestnut some years because the squirrels beat them to it (the secret is to get up earlier than squirrels do in the morning–this lone squirrel was here about 8 a.m., an hour earlier than they become active; I believe that he must have been desperately hungry; even the large acorns on the ground do not get touched
ironic: hunger in the midst of plenty?
can we imagine the bewilderment of a squirrel amongst acorns and chestnuts by the bushel lying around all over but not to eat!?
i keep raking the driveway and collecting the biggest harvest of fine nuts in twenty years because no creature will touch them–if the creatures, too, were still here; however, the fact that such a harvest is possible this year portends of things to come; what kind of harvest is this anyway?: apparently deadly.
i have a guest coming in for five days on sunday and we were both so pleased that the chestnuts may have been spared and were so plentiful; but of course, this is totally unrealistic
i did not get outside early enough to watch this lively animal go through its brief paces around the masses of chestnuts available to it; the squirrels could have spent many days squirreling the nuts for winter and eating them, as those who harvest are also wont to do; he could have gone back, if any of my squirrels are still around across the road and gotten his kin to help with this largesse
but in the few minutes it took me to get ready to go outside, this likely very hungry animal was gone; nothing looked disturbed at all–and squirrels can be messy in the midst of their harvest
it was then that i knew that our chestnut harvest was not going to be fit for humans either, nor as a feast for the coming days, and the winter, and some sharing
the squirrel was our instrument for measuring food safety and the service was free–and maybe even more accurate than pseudo-pro–like “within tolerable limits”
my next step may have to be more drastic than temporarily counteracting the effects of radiation because even if all the towers in the area were to shut down, it would not deal with their profound effects here already
and for sure, these towers are not about to go anywhere in the immediate future
so as a mind much greater than mine would ask; where is there to run to?
in the meantime, now is the time to continue making some of the most amazing observations that nature can provide –while i have to work on and figure my options for the future
besides the radiation, another concern exists: a fairly large tree came down quietly in the dog yard outside my bedroom window last week, as if slipping down by degrees; there was no crash, nor even the sort of crackling of falling timber before it fell; only about three clacks separated by seconds followed before it was down on the ground
to later find that a tree of about a foot in diameter was silently downed as i was about to get up from a nap was startling; this is an area of mostly trees and we walk among them all the time
since natural sounds of animals are all but gone, any noise in the dog-yard is suspect, but the clacks turned out to be that of the falling tree against three younger ones that tempered the sounds of and slowed what could have otherwise been at least a small slow and quieter crash
since it is much less safe to walk close to a tree now, poocho, my mutt, and i have quit walking the path between our communities where all the initial observations of accelerated dying in our wild places took place
poocho does detour onto the path gingerly and goes part way occasionally just to check it out again but shortly returns running back to me; I prefer not to enter those woods again to look for more changes
thank you so much for being there, Team THB
Entered: September 18th, 2009 at 10:35 am. PermalinkThe above research is another good study which demonstrates the importance of synergy amongst natural nutrients. The paradigm in nutrition must shift from the pharmaceutical-style trials that test individual ingredients in isolation towards showing the benefits of these vitamins/minerals/phytonutrients/etc in real-world situations. There are more than 10,000 phytonutrients known thus far and it seems most of them have a synergistic effect.
Regards, Marek
Entered: November 1st, 2009 at 4:54 pm. Permalink