Fear of ‘senior moments’

By Herbert Vego

THE proverbial advice to “eat an apple a day to keep the doctor away” is believed to have appeared in print first in 1866. The vague reason stated then was that apple eaters paid fewer visits to doctors than the non-apple eaters.

But what got me interested about apple was whether it could reverse my diminishing ability to recall words, including names of familiar friends and colleagues.

There was a time when I could not remember where I had parked my car. Was I treading the path to dementia, euphemistically called “senior moments”?

Therefore, I consulted my doctor on what drug to take to prevent the disease. I had heard about such anti-AD drugs as Alzhemed and Flurizan.

It was reassuring to hear from her that I did not have to take drugs because I was not yet an AD patient. She said that by keeping myself busy writing this column, I was on the right track of slowing down memory loss.

“Would an apple a day be good for me?”

“Yes,” she paraphrased the popular quotation, “an apple a day prevents memory loss.”

I thought she was joking until a few days later when 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, incidentally, 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/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 results backed up his theory. The mice produced less “beta amyloid” – the protein fragment which forms “senile plaques” – which are often found in the brains of people with AD.

His team also proved beyond doubt that natural apple juice – not the synthetic canned ones — increases the production of a brain transmitter called acetylcholine. Acetylcholine helps slow the mental decline of people with AD.

A truly healthy apple juice or smoothie is a blend of the entire fruit parts, including its skin, core and crushed seeds that have the highest concentration of natural antioxidants.

Many other studies say that an effective brain-boosting plan should include antioxidant-rich fruits and veggies and fish rich in Omega-3 fatty acids.

I have been observing that health regimen and they appear to work.

-oOo-

BROWNOUTS NEED NOT BE LONG

THE power outages in Iloilo City traced to the departed typhoon Paeng, thank God, were not as bad as we had feared. The management of MORE Power reminded us it’s because they have devised a way to protect the supply of electricity and quickly restore power in just a few seconds.

It’s all because of MORE Power’s latest upgrade – the Automatic Circuit Recloser (ACR) —  which prevents full electricity downtime in all feeder lines and isolates electrical concerns to a small specific location, unlike before where large areas could still be affected when this technology was not yet introduced.

In fact, 90% of line irregularities that prompt electrical downtimes in Iloilo City are temporary and are usually caused by falling tree branches and powerful winds.

With the latest ACR upgrade, long power outages may just be a thing of the past. To illustrate: If there’s a line disturbance in a particular street in Jaro, the power outages will only be isolated there and it won’t affect the whole district or barangay.

Another key feature of the ACR is that it can restore power automatically in affected areas even without the intervention of MORE Power’s technical team. Before the ACRs, restoration time during temporary line disturbances took an average of 70 minutes before they could be resolved. This is because the dispatch and travel of the technicians can take some time, on top of the actual energization time.