Issues With Memory

[Logical Celery]

This post is out of the blue, and rather random, but I wanted to share something and get possible feedback from you guys.

So, recently I've been experiencing issues in regards to my memory. Many of the concepts that I've learned recently have links formed between them, and a reinforced perspective on the issues subsequently. Now, over the last month (I would say) these links have weakened tremendously (and of course the perspective follows), and whenever I try to think on issues I seemingly struggle to recall jack shit. I just can't recall things as well as I could before, somewhere in early October, for example.

The understanding of these issues remains intact, I've created several summary notes that I use in order to quickly check for security measures. I gloss over these notes, and nothing strikes me as "oh shit, that's what it was! I forgot", everything is still there, I understand the concepts well. However, I seemingly cannot draw thoughts through these memory links as well as I could previously, as I've said earlier. This is one of those things where you really know something is affecting you, and I'm pretty sure that I'm not going fucking crazy.

This has been happening for a while, but usually I could fix it in a week or two by reading on certain texts, or engaging with others, but this time it's been going on for almost a whole month. I've reverted back to those old measures that I've said earlier, but still, nothing is clicking even now. Before it would come back to me, but now it's taking a long time. I'm not entirely sure why this is so, but one possible "theory" is the fact that my health has been somewhat bad in comparison to what it was 2 months ago, and I haven't been exercising properly either. I don't know, but that's just a shot in the dark.

Any thoughts on this? What can I do in order to get things back into motion? I'm cleaning up my diet a bit more, and I'm going to exercise some more too, that's one thing to start up again. Also, what can I do to further minimise these random episodes from occurring frequently? When I fix myself up, as I did in the past, it does not tend to last long before I slip back into this state once again.

[cornivore]

What can I do in order to get things back into motion?

As far as something eating away at memory goes (there are links between this and nutrition), what I've read is that not chewing enough is one thing, because mastication is related to memory retention (or prevention of dementia). Perhaps if you are on a smoothy diet, then you could try eating more foods that you'd have to chew a lot. Or try not eating as often if you'd rather not chew much:

• Masticatory Deficiency as a Risk Factor for Cognitive Dysfunction
• Impact of diet on adult hippocampal neurogenesis

Higher levels of blood glucose are said to be associated with impaired memory performance also, which could be diet related. Hypoglycemia can impair memory performance too, so it seems that an imbalance of blood glucose either way is related. In other words there may be too few or too many sugars in your diet. For instance, fructose is possibly the sugar which interferes with memory the most (and high fructose corn syrup is a common sweetener): Fructose alters hundreds of brain genes, which can lead to a wide range of diseases

Memory impairment might also be induced in humans (as it is known to be in rats) by monosodium glutamate, a common flavor enhancer, which could become neurotoxic when there's too much glutamate in the brain (there are around 5000 articles on PubMed about glutamate and memory, so there might be something to it). Here are some that mention MSG:

• Resistance exercise reduces memory impairment induced by monosodium glutamate in male and female rats
• The Neuroprotective Effect of Dark Chocolate in Monosodium Glutamate-Induced Nontransgenic Alzheimer Disease Model Rats
• A review for the pharmacological effect of lycopene in central nervous system disorders... 'lycopene can prevent neuro-toxicities induced by monosodium glutamate (MSG)'.

In addition to the one about dark chocolate (which may contain extra fat and HFC-Syrup), a couple of the articles noted that memory deficits may be counteracted by the diet (without added sweeteners, etc.):

• "Lycopene [from plants like tomatoes, papayas, and watermelons] also improves cognition and memory ability of rodents in different pathological conditions."
• A "diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids can reverse the damage [of excess fructose]... DHA [or ALA in walnuts, flaxseed, fruits and vegetables] strengthens synapses in the brain and enhances learning and memory."
• "It is important to note that independent of calorie intake, diets with high-fat content are detrimental and impair AHN [neurogenesis] in male rats"... (Based on this, guzzling omega-3 oils could be too much of the 'good fat', I suppose.)

So, to get things in motion, do plenty of chewing when you eat (and do other kinds of exercise too), but don't chew on too many of the foods with high-fructose-corn-syrup, monosodium-glutamate, or high fat added (and don't drink them too much either).

Beyond that, there are other foods which may enhance or degrade memory, but since the article about neurogenisis noted that calorie restriction also resolves its impairment (like exercise can), I think it's mostly about avoiding overnutrition, especially with concentrated ingredients (besides preventing undernutrition as needed, while staying active as well).

If none of this rings a bell, at least it refreshed my memory on the topic (where I'd especially missed the part about MSG before), and I had fun editing this msg. (as if to eat my words a hundred times over).

[Logical Celery]

Hey, thank you very much! I think you're right about the point on sugars. As of recent I've been taking in a lot of sugars, if I'm being honest. The vast majority of this has to do with large fizzy bottles. They've been lying around in my place, and no one else is going to finish them off, so I've been drinking like a mad man.

Any-hoo, thank you for the sources. I'll be reading over these when I get home and over the weekend.

[cornivore]

Ah, here's something I read which mentions that kind of thing, relative to this topic in general:

Metabolic Syndrome and Neuroprotection

"We have reported that chronic consumption of cola beverages impairs metabolic homeostasis increasing glycemia, cholesterolemia, triglyceridemia, and systolic blood pressure. Systolic blood pressure and most of the biochemical parameters normalize after switching cola beverages to tap water over a sustained washout period. However, hypertriglyceridemia is resistant and persists long after discontinuing cola consumption."

It sounds like reducing the consumption of soft drinks would help wash out the excess and maybe clear your mind. The way I think about sugar consumption is that it should correspond to exercise (similarly to how it does for hummingbirds, which are sugarific), so the more sugar you have, the more active you need to be in order for it to balance out metabolically (including what's in the brain, which is pretty substantial in effect, as they say the 'regulation of sugar metabolism is critical for brain physiology').

[cornivore]

Although, I'm not trying to justify the notion of a sodarific diet with that comparison, since hummingbirds utilize sugar much more efficiently than humans (as it has been determined in sports science), we can't balance out a diet of drinking nectar constantly as well as they do, under any circumstances, it's just much better with exercise, as far as metabolizing relatively less in the diet efficiently enough (since the birds may consume several times their bodyweight of nectar in order to store the energy for migration, and then fly at around 50 miles per hour)! So it's like we're trying to store enough energy to circumnavigate the globe on foot, by eating that way, but maybe sitting around most of the time instead (and then it goes to our heads).

Yet my perspective would still be to eat like a bird (considering that metabolic syndrome typically results from overnutrition), it's just that this concept is somewhere between the extremes of one that has the smallest and largest wingspan, as it corresponds to their flight patterns and nutritional requirements as a result (some have to move their wings constantly, and some have to glide most of the time, while they eat more or lest often, respectively).

In other words, which bird I'd want eat more like would depend on how high I was at the time.

[cornivore]

Other than that, I found that iron overnutrition may affect memory, and since many foods are fortified with it, you might want to consider this in your diet, especially if you are also taking supplements with iron...

Ironically, still, this is said to be causing more Alzheimer's disease in Japan than MSG, from the one study I looked at (but I was also reading that Alzheimer's patients should not be fed anything with MSG, because it "overstimulates the nervous system" and the amyloid protein which accumulates in the brains of Alzheimer's patients involves iron regulating activity, along with increasing the toxicity of MSG). So I'd imagine that these things could add up in the diet as co-factors (and there are other foods listed there which are thought to compound dementia, if not cause it to begin with).

[brimstoneSalad]

MSG headaches probably have to do with over-stimulation (of taste buds, kind of like how flashing lights can trigger headaches too by overstimulating optic nerves), but how would that be linked to cognitive dysfunction? I'm not familiar with any evidence of toxicity since it's so readily broken down.

That said, what's this about amyloids and iron transport proteins? Are you suggesting these amyloids may originate from misfolding of those proteins, thus lower iron may mean a lower risk of them developing due to a lower stock of proteins to misfold?

[cornivore]

Amyloids were mentioned in the article about feeding dementia patients ("beta amyloid protein deposits appear to increase MSG’s toxicity, accelerating deterioration"), so I looked them up and found that they were related to iron too, coincidentally. They're talking about neurotoxicity of too much glutamate, and too much iron is also suspected (while their neurologic effects may have that protein in common). My guess is that iron and MSG could be synergistic in causing memory issues (if they are both excessive in the diet).

[cornivore]

I looked up amyloid and iron and glutamate and memory together, and there are some articles which indicate that those may be involved in memory impairment of some sort:

New Insights into the Crosstalk between NMDARs and Iron: Implications for Understanding Pathology of Neurological Diseases

"Both iron dyshomeostasis and N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs)-mediated neurotoxicity have been shown to have an important role in neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD)"...

"Investigation demonstrated that glutamatergic neurotransmission pathways were regulated by dietary iron. They showed that NMDARs were significantly elevated in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus of iron-loaded rats. These findings indicate the important role of iron in learning and memory via regulation NMDARs-mediated neurotransmission"...

"Another investigation demonstrated a novel signaling cascade for glutamate in regulating iron uptake in the brain. It is increasingly appreciated that glutamate via NMDARs triggers calcium influx, then activates neuronal NOS (nNOS [neronal nitric oxide synthases]) to produce NO [nitric oxide], which causes excitability toxicity".

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5352910/


The Relationship between Iron Dyshomeostasis and Amyloidogenesis in Alzheimer’s Disease: Two Sides of the Same Coin

"Inflammation and excessive neuronal activation by glutamate can induce NOS, which increases the production of NO. In addition, NO disrupts the iron-sulfur core within aconitase, altering the production of iron regulatory proteins"...

"The discovery that increased iron levels elevate APP [amyloid precursor protein] expression along the amyloidogenic secretase pathway to efflux cellular iron reveals that iron management is central to the amyloid hypothesis. An understanding of the iron regulatory systems within neural cells and its link to amyloid production will help in the generation of therapy strategies aimed to curb iron dyshomeostasis and amyloid formation as synergistic contributors to the Alzheimer’s disease process".

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4672943/

Iron and Mechanisms of Neurotoxicity

"Impaired iron metabolism is a hallmark in several neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s (PD) and Alzheimer’s (AD) diseases, multiple sclerosis (MS), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and neuroferritinopathies. In the case of PD and AD, iron has been shown to play a key role in neuronal fate: depending on the extent and intensity of the oxidative stress caused by the increase in the labile iron pool, it affects transcriptional activity and signaling cascades that could participate in neuronal survival or death. Although a role for iron has also been observed in MS, ALS, and neuroferritinopathies, the molecular events that lead to neuronal death are not fully understood."

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijad/2011/720658/

Effect of Glutamate on Brain Iron Metabolism and the Regulation Mechanism

"Glutamate is an excitatory transmitter and can induce neurotoxicity, it can also increase the iron concentrations in the brain, but little is known about the detailed molecular regulation mechanism of iron metabolism by Glu... These findings demonstrate that glutamate increases iron contents in the brain through increased NTBI [non-transferrin-bound iron]... The induced iron accumulation in the brain would aggravate the oxidative damage through Fenton reaction, so as to result in glutamate excitotoxicity. This not only contributes to the understanding the mechanism of glutamate neurotoxicity from the view of iron metabolism, but also provides new molecular regulation evidence for the effect of glutamate on iron metabolism, which might give a new strategy in attenuating Glu neurotoxicity"...

https://www.longdom.org/open-access/eff ... 000190.pdf

So it sounds to me like a diet that is either high in iron or glutamate (and especially both) can disrupt interactions between those in the brain, among other things involved in that process, which may cause neurologic disease, or at least complicate it.

Mostly I found it curious that the rate of Alzheimer’s disease increased in Japan, relative to the amount of iron increasing in a diet that was already relatively high in glutamate (either MSG or free glutamate in soy sauce, etc.), which could indicate that those are involved together (as the other studies describe, although they are more specific to disease processes after the fact, than the diet beforehand). Whether or not I'm jumping to conclusions, I can at least take a hint here (as far as this being extremely coincidental).

[cornivore]

Curiously also (anecdotally), there's a book online about someone who had mysterious memory issues with what turned out to be an excess of free-glutamate in their diet (which was involved in the ingredients listed here):

It Wasn't Alzheimer's It Was MSG

"Jack had long ago eliminated monosodium glutamate from his diet. Now he eliminated all hydrolyzed vegetable protein, natural flavoring, flavorings, vegetable protein, vegetable broth, chicken broth, and beef broth—and the "Alzheimer’s" disappeared. Gone! Disappeared!"

https://www.bmartin.cc/dissent/documents/Samuels13.pdf

The solution to this mystery was supposedly based on a book by a doctor who had the same problem, so by these accounts it would seem that a glutamate sensitivity could cause acute dietary-related memory problems in humans (who weren't otherwise demented already). Beyond that my guess would be that excess iron in the diet may perpetuate something similar for those who aren't necessarily sensitive to glutamate alone (since each of these are invloved in both independent and interdependent studies of Alzheimer's and the like).