If you’re like many people, you don’t think much about the health of your brain. Though you may suffer episodes of brain fog, forgetfulness, or trouble concentrating, you may shrug it off, considering it a normal part of aging. But suppose I told you that these aren’t normal signs of aging, rather, they are symptoms of a hidden health epidemic? And suppose I told you that you can boost brain health with L-carnitine and CoQ10 and reverse those so-called “signs of aging?” Well...that’s exactly what we’re going to do :-)
New, ground-breaking research is showing that many of the symptoms we commonly attribute to the aging process may start in the brain. But you don’t need surgery or prescription medications to fix it. All you need are a few super nutrients, particularly L-carnitine and CoQ10.
Nearly 95 percent of the population has chronically low levels of and deficiencies in L-carnitine, CoQ10 and other brain-health and anti-aging super nutrients. Because of this, they suffer bothersome, distracting, sometimes disabling signs of aging that are 100 percent avoidable and directly attributable to a deficiency of these nutrients.
There are many signs or symptoms of what has always been at least partly attributed to the aging process. Here are just a few of them:
- Brain fog
- Confusion
- Memory lapses
- Fatigue
- Alzheimer’s
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Slower metabolism
- Weight gain
- Osteoarthritis
You can probably add many more traits to this list. The sad thing is that what we have believed about the symptoms of aging has been wrong. But the good news is that we've recently learned how to fix the problem. We learned…
But before we could get to this point, we first had to learn what happened in the brain to cause all those signs of aging. New, cutting-edge clinical research studies have revealed a disorder never even hinted at before, but it is one that may cause or contribute to many physical, mental and emotional disorders. It may even cause heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and many more medical conditions.
The condition is leaky brain syndrome.
Leaky brain syndrome is a condition in which the blood-brain barrier becomes damaged, allowing toxins, bacteria and other pathogens to enter the sensitive environment of your brain. Once inside your brain, these foreign invaders activate microglia cells, which are the first line of immune response in the brain and spinal cord. Neurological inflammation quickly follows.
Researchers were slow -- tortoise-like slow -- in discovering leaky brain syndrome because this condition is supposed to be impossible. After all, the blood-brain barrier is there to keep harmful substances out of our brain. But somewhere along the line, something happened -- something damaged this barrier -- leaving the brain vulnerable to a host of dangerous substances. Inflammation was inevitable, and it is more common than you might think.
Though people aren’t yet being widely tested for neurological inflammation, we can surmise how common this disorder might be by looking at statistics for some of the most common signs of aging.
Brain fog: Half of those over 50 have forgotten simple things, and been embarrassed about it. (Source: UCLA researchers conducted a national survey of more than 18,500 people between the ages of 18 and 99.)
Anxiety: Approximately 31.1 percent of U.S. adults experience any one (or more) of several anxiety disorders at some point in their lives. (Source: National Institute of Mental Health)
Depression: More than 16.1 million American adults suffer a major depressive disorder, and it is the leading cause of disability in the United States for those aged 15 to 44.3. (Source: Anxiety and Depression Association of America.)
Alzheimer’s: 5.7 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. (Source: Alzheimer’s Association)
Obesity: 40.2 percent of U.S. adults age 40-59 years are obese. (Source: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Now that we know about leaky brain syndrome and neurological inflammation, doctors are calling it one of the most overlooked public health crisis of our generation. And...they want to get the word out there to everyone.
Neurological inflammation is real. It does cause a variety of health problems. Though you might think only some of them are dangerous, all of them are unpleasant, especially when when you learn that they were totally avoidable.
Here are the four main causes of neurological inflammation.
1. Standard American Diet: Regularly eating a diet of carbs, sugar, processed fats, and highly processed foods loaded with preservative has been shown to contribute to brain inflammation.
2. Stress: Researchers have long known that stress plays a role in many medical conditions, such as heart disease. Now, they’re finding that it may actually cause long-term damage to your brain. Research has linked stress to memory loss, depression and other brain disorders.
3. Environmental Toxins: Just like with stress, researchers have long known environmental toxins can cause a variety of health problems. Now they’re finding that pesticides on plants, air pollution from automobile exhausts, BPA in plastics, and many other environmental toxins can cause neurological inflammation.
It is impossible to avoid these toxins -- or, really, totally avoid the standard American diet or stress -- in our modern, technological world. It always helps to minimize your exposure to these causes as much as possible, but this still will not totally prevent or heal brain inflammation.
The final cause of brain inflammation, however, is 100 percent within your control. And...it is the one thing that, if handled correctly, has the ability to reverse the harm caused by the other three causes.
4. Chronically Low Levels of Essential Brain-Boosting Nutrients: Research has pinpointed 4 brain-boosting nutrients that are critical in supporting cognitive function and preventing or healing brain inflammation. They are also ones that (perhaps not surprisingly) most people are deficient in or have incredibly low levels of. We will discuss two of them -- CoQ10 and L-Carnitine -- in this article.
CoQ10 and L-carnitine are a powerful combo for brain health; yet, most people have chronically low levels of them. Their health benefits are so amazing that we will discuss each one separately, and them together in the last section.
CoQ10 is a fat-soluble nutrient found within the mitochondria of all your body’s cells, and it sparks energy production in every cell in the body, especially those in the heart and the brain. It is called a universal antioxidant partly because it destroys free radicals before they can cause heart disease. Studies have also shown that it can significantly improve cholesterol levels. And, of course, new research is proving that CoQ10 has brain-boosting abilities.
Many foods contain CoQ10. Here are a few of them:
- Chicken liver
- Cage-free eggs
- Grass-fed beef
- Sardines
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Oranges
- Strawberries
Yet, CoQ10 is another anti-aging nutrient in which most people are deficient.
There are a several reasons for CoQ10 deficiency, but probably the biggest reason is age. Your body makes CoQ10, so you do not have to get any of it through your diet. However, the amount you produce depends upon your age. Researchers estimate that peak production for CoQ10 is in the teen years or early 20s. After that, production declines more and more with age, probably triggering so many of the “age-related” symptoms we’re all so familiar with.
Statin-type cholesterol lowering medications have also been shown to block CoQ10 production in the liver. In addition, certain diseases -- such as diabetes, fibromyalgia, and muscular dystrophy -- can cause low CoQ10 levels.
Since CoQ10 is in every cell of the body and is essential for life, the symptoms of a deficiency vary widely, and they can be dangerous.
Because researchers have discovered many people have low levels of CoQ10, the dietary supplement market has been heavily promoting CoQ10 supplements.
Unfortunately, the commercially available COQ10 brands vary in potency. You should choose a brand that is bioavailable, meaning it significantly raises CoQ10 levels in your blood. According to Board Certified cardiologist Dr. Stephen Sinatra, water- and fat- soluble brands should have a better bioavailable profile than that of dry powders.
Experts say you should also make sure the brand you purchase guarantees its absorption. Make sure, too, that you select a product that has 24-hour timed release, giving you nonstop protection.
Amino acids are the building blocks to proteins, meaning they’re crucial to every area of life. But carnitine has special properties that make it superior to most other amino acids. For instance, carnitine is the only molecule in our cells that can transport fatty acids into the mitochondria to be used for energy. (In other words, it bring fuel into your cells.) This makes supplementing with carnitine an effective way to burn fat.
Many researchers have tested the health benefits of carnitine, and the results have been amazing. Researchers from the Mayo Clinic, for instance, reviewed 13 trials and found the health benefits of L-carnitine supplementation include a reduction in angina symptoms, ventricular arrhythmias, and all causes of mortality following a heart attack.
But let’s go back to the symptoms of aging, for a minute. In 2007, researchers studied the effects of L-carnitine supplementation on test subjects who were over 100 years old. The results? L-carnitine supplementation reduced total fat mass, increased lean muscle, decreased fatigue, and improved cognition.
And they were over 100 years old! Imagine what the right dosage of L-carnitine supplementation could do for you.
Food Sources of L-Carnitine
Plenty of foods contain carnitine. Here are a few of the best sources:
- Chicken breast
- Ground beef
- Cod
- Asparagus
- Cheddar cheese
- Beef steak
If you think you eat plenty of these foods and don’t have a problem with carnitine intake, you might want to rethink that. Research shows that this nutrient is chronically low in most diets.
The symptoms of carnitine deficiency vary, and can include:
- Heart arrhythmia
- Muscle degradation
- Hypoglycemia (extremely low blood sugar)
- Fatigue
- Irritability
- Muscle weakness
As previously mentioned, carnitine showed some pretty impressive results when researchers gave it, in supplement form, to people over 100 years old. But it has a helper -- a different form of the same amino acid -- called Acetyl-L-Carnitine that goes even further.
Acetyl-L-Carnitine is a brain Cholinergic, meaning it mimics the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is crucial for improving memory and supporting brain health. It is also a powerful antioxidant that can pass the blood-brain barrier, supporting healthy blood flow to the brain. Acetyl-L-Carnitine goes straight to your brain, improving your mood, memory, cognition and learning.
And finally, here’s the really, really amazing part. CoQ10 and L-carnitine work together to boost brain health!
This is how it works: L-carnitine brings fuel into your brain and heart cells to be burned as energy, and then CoQ10 sparks energy within your cells, setting the fuel on fire. To see whether these two super nutrients really do work together synergistically, researchers combined the right kind of CoQ10 and the right kind of L-carnitine -- and witnessed astoundingly positive results.
And, even though you’re not a researcher or a chemist, you can boost brain health with CoQ10 and L-carnitine, too, with Vitaae.
Vitaae is a new anti-aging nutraceutical that contains the super nutrients you need to prevent or reverse brain inflammation. It contains the exact right amounts of CoQ10 and L-carnitine your brain for optimum function, as well as folate and citicoline, the other two anti-aging nutrients.
This anti-aging nutraceutical includes significantly more bioavailable and more powerful, patented forms of the above four brain-boosting nutrients. Plus, it contains Acety-L-Carnitine, Omega 3 fatty acids and much more, all designed to reverse the effects of aging. The youthful transition will simply amaze you!