FEATURE Bredesen, an expert in the area of neu-rodegenerative disease, is the founder and CEO of the Buck Institute for Re-search on Aging, and developed the ReCODE (Reversing Cognitive De-cline) protocol. ReCODE addresses cognitive decline from an integrative functional medicine approach and has successfully shown the reversal of cog-nitive decline in both Alzheimer’s re-lated dementia and MCI (Bredesen, Amos, Canick, et.al. 2016). Dr. Brede-sen looks at the disease as physiological imbalances, a synaptoblastic:synap-totrophic imbalance due to metabolic disturbance. Not only has his protocol demonstrated to reverse cognitive de-cline in areas such as memory, but has actually shown to restore lost hippocam-pal volume, a key area showing volume loss in diseased brains. (Bredesen, Amos, Canick, et al. 2016) It is also important to understand it is difficult to successfully treat something without understanding the true cause. There has been a shift in the under-standing of the role of amyloid-beta plaques and tau tangles in Alzheimer’s disease. Although these are common traits seen in the brains of these patients, their presence is not necessarily the cause of the disease, but rather the brain’s reaction to neurotoxic effects. In fact, amyloid plaques and tau tangles may be antimicrobial, act as binders of divalent metals, and be a response to a reduction in trophic support. The pres-ence of amyloid beta and tau tangles are therefore more of an effect and not necessarily causal. This would explain why efforts focused only on their reduc-tion has lead to poor outcomes. Addressing MCI or dementia involves a personalized and programmatic ap-proach (Gustafson, 2015). Identifying and understanding the subtypes of the disease aides in directing where to start in the multiple points of repair address-ing 36 metabolic imbalances – referred to as “36 holes in the roof.” Dr. Bredesen identified three major subtypes of Alzheimer’s disease: 1. Inflammatory (“hot”). Includes causes leading to systematic inflam-mation including infections, result-ing in elevated high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, low albu-min:globuin ratio, high cytokine (including interleukin 1 and inter-May 2019 Canadian Chiropractor 23 INTEGRATIVE HEALTH Brain recode Encouraging solutions to clear the fog M BY VICTORIA COLEMAN ild cognitive impair-ment (MCI) is con-sidered a pre-Alzheimer’s dis-ease, characterized by memory prob-lems, impaired thinking, language difficulties, disorien-tation in time and space, poor judge-ment and impaired depth perception. Approximately 10-15 per cent of those with MCI will continue on to develop dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Society. The tragic social and economic im-pact need not be highlighted as these diseases have likely touched just about everyone in some manner. Currently there are no successful pharmaceutical solutions approved for MCI. Clinical trials on two classes of anti-dementia drugs (cholinesterase inhibitors and glutamate receptor an-tagonist) have been disappointing (Steiner, Bensoussan, Liu, et al, 2018). Dementia has multi-factorial contrib-uting factors and as a result, a one cause, one cure approach is ineffective. Alzheimer’s has been considered one of the “irreversible” dementia’s but looking at the work of Dr. Dale Brede-sen, this is now being re-defined. Dr. DR. VICTORIA COLEMAN is a graduate of the CMCC and a 25-year veteran in health care delivery both clinically and in business development. Dr. Coleman introduced and was President of Douglas Laboratories/Pure Encapsulations Canada for 14 years and served as VP of Clinical Education for Atrium Innovations. Victoria is also a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner through the Institute of Functional Medicine. She is holds a Master’s degree in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine. www.canadianchiropractor.ca
Chiropractic + Naturopathic Doctor May 2019: Page 23
