Page 180 - The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss and Enhance Memory Power

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pound do not show the expected age-related decline in the ability to learn new information, such
as figuring out how to traverse a maze.

Phosphatidylserine is a lipid, or fatty, substance and hence it crosses smoothly into the brain,
unlike most water-soluble medications. This fat solubility makes it easy to navigate the blood-brain
barrier, which is a natural boundary in capillaries or small blood vessels that prevents many
substances in the bloodstream from entering the brain. After radioactively labeled phosphatidylserine
is taken by mouth, it can be detected in the brain with high concentrations in the hippocampus and
frontal cortex, areas responsible for memory.

Clinical Studies

Italian researchers evaluated phosphatidylserine in small-scale uncontrolled clinical trials, each in
approximately thirty volunteer subjects who had minimal memory deficits. Phosphatidylserine
showed memory-enhancing properties in these subjects. Later, several placebo-controlled trials were
conducted, some by European researchers and a few by Dr. Thomas Crook, an American
psychologist who has worked closely with the pharmaceutical companies in trying to find a treatment
for ‘‘age-associated memory impairment.” This narrow diagnostic category is defined by poor
performance on a few neuropsychological tests, and represents only part of the population with age-
related memory loss. In several studies of people with age-associated memory impairment,
phosphatidylserine was superior to placebo on specific neuropsychological measures. If you tend to
forget names, take heart: phosphatidylserine has been shown to be helpful for that very symptom. In
these studies, the consistency, more than the size, of the cognitive improvement was impressive.
Hence I place phosphatidylserine near die top of my list of medications that you can take for age-
related memory loss, and to prevent the onset of age-related memory loss.

A Few Words of Caution

A few words of caution before you jump headfirst onto the phosphatidylserine bandwagon: nearly all
studies so far have involved fewer than fifty people, meaning that fewer than twenty-five people
received phosphatidylserine and fewer than twenty-five people received placebo. Also, the duration
of these clinical trials was usually