Staying Mentally Alive

By Herbert Vego

WHENEVER I see old classmates, I tend to hark back to our good old days.

But there was a time when Cris Dannug (a retired regional director of the Department of Labor and Employment) discouraged me.

“Stop it,” he said. “It’s harmful.”

If I got what he meant, he would rather have me look forward to the future because there is still such a time zone for us senior citizens.

I agreed but insisted that reminiscing about the distant past could be fun and healthy—not senility.

The brain is like the human muscle that needs constant stretching and flexing to stay in shape.

An idle mind could be a breeding ground for either amnesia or Alzheimer’s disease.

He nodded as I opened up about those days when we would write columns for The Quezonian, the school organ of Manuel L. Quezon University, in 1969.

We had fun exchanging memories.

I still write today for the purpose of keeping my brain always busy to the point of recovering forgotten words.

But I often have to resort to an online dictionary or thesaurus.

There was a time when I feared catching Alzheimer’s disease (AD) because I could not locate my car in a parking lot.

I asked my physician about drugs that could prevent AD.

Would she prescribe one for me?

She laughed off my request, saying that I was not yet an AD patient.

“An apple a day,” she said, “prevents memory loss.”

I took that “prescription” seriously.

She handed me a printed study on the memory-enhancing effects of apples done by a team of medical professors at the University of Massachusetts.

The study was originally published in the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias.

The team, led by Dr. Thomas Shea, wrapped up their study with the conclusion that apples may really have huge health benefits, especially for folks fighting the effects of AD.

Dr. Shea is director of the university’s Center for Cellular Neurobiology and Neurodegeneration.

A leading pioneer on the subject, he has studied the brain-boosting effects of apples on brain health for over a decade.

Dr. Shea’s research team studied 21 patients between the ages of 72 and 93 who had moderate-to-severe AD.

He gave them two four-ounce glasses of apple juice each day for a month.

After just 30 days, his team noted major changes in mood and behavior.

Changes included improvement in anxiety, depression, and delusion.

“In addition to changes in memory, there’s a change in mood that often accompanies AD,” wrote Dr. Shea.

“We found that people receiving apple juice displayed fewer of the symptoms.

It kept their minds functioning at their best.”

Dr. Shea’s study also included testing mice in a series of maze trials.

He gave them the equivalent of two glasses of apple juice each day for 30 days.

He then put them through a series of traditional tests involving repetitive entries and exits through a maze together with “un-appled” mice.

The mice that drank apple juice took less time to memorize the right exit points.

The same mice produced less “beta amyloid”—the protein fragment which produces “senile plaques”—which are often found in the brains of people with AD.

His team also found that natural apple juice—not canned or bottled—increases the production of a brain transmitter called acetylcholine.

Acetylcholine helps slow the mental decline of people with AD.

Natural apple juice is a blend of the entire fruit parts, including its skin and core, which have the highest concentration of natural antioxidants.

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HOT WEATHER MEANS HIGHER ENERGY USE

Due to the extreme heat index in Iloilo City the other day, consumption of electricity here rose by an unusually high 13%.

It was too much for the distribution utility to handle, so MORE Power resorted to pre-announced “load balancing” or rotational brownouts of short duration to prevent overloading of feeders, which could lead to longer outages.

As to why hot weather boosts electricity consumption, it’s primarily because people use more cooling devices like air conditioners and fans to stay comfortable.

Additionally, hot weather can affect the efficiency of electrical systems and transmission lines, causing them to work harder and draw more power.

As the temperature rises, the resistance of wires and other components increases, which means more energy is required to deliver the same amount of electricity.