New Way to Stimulate Brain to Release Antioxidants

Neopallium writes "A joint research effort between researchers at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, CA, and a team from Japan (Iwate University, Osaka City University, Gifu University, Iwate Medical University) has discovered a novel way to treat stroke and neurodegenerative disorders. This approach works by inducing nerve cells in the brain and the spine to release natural antioxidants that protect nerve cells from stress and free radicals that lead to neurodegenerative diseases."

Comments

Re:Not a Cure

[janek78]

Not necessarily. If you have an ischemic stroke, some of the tissue will be lost beyond saving and undergo necrosis. There will however be a much larger region, called "the penumbra" (shadow) that will be subjected to a certain degree of ischemic damage. Much of this region will be damaged not by the ischemia itself, but by oxidative stress at reperfusion when blood with oxygen and nutriets starts flowing back into the tissue.

Much as been tried to limit this reperfusion damage, including calcium channel blockers (e.g. nimodipine) and different antioxidants, but to no great success. You could argue that enhancing your antioxidative capacity before the reperfusion damage appears could limit the extend of damage to your brain. I remain carefully optimistic.

Brain antioxidants

[possible]

One really has to wait for the study to be published before making any judgements.
However, there have been quite a few promising studies (in both rats and people) showing that antioxidants dramatically reduce the extent of damage to the brain in both diseases of the brain and traumatic brain injury.

Some of the studies I have read indicate that it should be possible to dramatically boost levels of brain antioxidants simply by ingesting antioxidants that are capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier. Compounds such as alpha-lipoic acid (which is both fat- and water-soluble) and curcumin (a component of the popular curry spice turmeric) are cheap, safe, and very powerful antioxidants that have been studied.

From the press release, it sounds like the methods used in the study are pretty invasive expensive. I would like to see more long-term research using widely available antioxidant supplements. Unfortunately, since most medical research is funded by drug companies these days, we aren't likely to see lots of grants going to scientists who want to study non-patentable things like turmeric or vitamin C.

Re:I wonder if...

[GWSuperfan]

More likely is that years of smoking pot would make this less necessary. The most current research indicates that cannabanoids (delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol being chief among them) stimulate processes in the brain that protect against both damage from chronic causes (i.e. Alzheimer's) and acute trauma. A Google search for "Alzheimer's" and "Marijuana" should yield some good starting points. And, pot has the added bonus of probably being much cheaper than any new drug or treatment that the pharmecutical companies are likely to come out with anytime soon. Just remember to fight terrorism and buy domestic.