Are there herbal and vitamin supplements that will protect my memory?

Here is ques­tion 17 of 25 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Ques­tions.

Ques­tion:
Are there herbal and vit­a­min sup­ple­ments that will pro­tect my memory?

Key Points:

• Omega‑3 and omega‑6 fat­ty acids found in cold-water fish may be help­ful to long term brain health.
• Folic acid may also be help­ful to both cog­ni­tive func­tion and hearing.
• Gink­go bilo­ba and DHEA do not appear to help your brain.
• There is still more research to be done and nev­er dis­miss the place­bo effect!

Answer:

Per­haps. The New Eng­land Jour­nal of Med­i­cine pub­lished an arti­cle debunk­ing DHEA, a steroid pre­cur­sor to testos­terone and estro­gen used to fight aging. The con­clu­sion of a two-year study at the Mayo Clin­ic in Min­neso­ta and Uni­ver­si­ty of Pad­ua in Italy showed it did not improve strength, phys­i­cal per­for­mance, or oth­er mea­sures of health. The study’s lead author, Dr. Nair said, “No ben­e­fi­cial effects on qual­i­ty of life were observed. There’s no evi­dence based on this study that DHEA has an anti­ag­ing effect.”

Gink­go bilo­ba is anoth­er over-the-counter mem­o­ry-enhanc­ing sup­ple­ment fre­quent­ly men­tioned. Yet, Paul Solomon from Williams Col­lege found “when tak­en fol­low­ing the manufacturer’s instruc­tions, gink­go pro­vides no mea­sur­able ben­e­fit in mem­o­ry or relat­ed cog­ni­tive func­tion to adults with healthy cog­ni­tive function.” Nicholas Burns from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ade­laide, Aus­tralia found longer-term mem­o­ry improved in healthy 55–79 year olds, but no oth­er cog­ni­tive mea­sure improved for either younger or old­er par­tic­i­pants. Sarah Elsabagh from King’s Col­lege Lon­don found gink­go ini­tial­ly improved atten­tion and mem­o­ry. How­ev­er, there were no ben­e­fits after 6 weeks, sug­gest­ing that a tol­er­ance devel­ops quick­ly. Not an over­whelm­ing endorsement.

Omega‑3 fat­ty acids found in cold-water fish such as mack­er­el, her­ring, salmon, and tuna look more promis­ing. Giu­liano Fontani’s work at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Siena in Italy asso­ci­at­ed omega‑3 sup­ple­men­ta­tion with improved atten­tion­al and phys­i­o­log­i­cal func­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those involv­ing com­plex cor­ti­cal processing.

Folic acid sup­ple­men­ta­tion also shows promise of pro­tect­ing and improv­ing cog­ni­tive func­tion in old­er adults, accord­ing to a 2007 study pub­lished in Lancet by Jane Dur­ga and col­leagues. It may also reduce age-relat­ed decline in hearing.

What can you do right now?

1. Eat a bal­anced diet with plen­ty of green leafy veg­eta­bles such as spinach, kale and collards.
2. Get plen­ty of phys­i­cal exercise.
3. Stay cog­ni­tive­ly active.
4. Reduce your stress.
5. And as always, talk with your doc­tor about any health concerns.

Fur­ther Reading

• Dur­ga J, Ver­hoef P, Ante­u­nis LJ, Schouten EG, Kok FJ. Effects of folic acid sup­ple­men­ta­tion on hear­ing in old­er adults: a ran­dom­ized, con­trolled tri­al. Ann Intern Med. 2007;146:1–9.
• Dur­ga J, van Box­tel MP, Schouten EG, Kok FJ, Jolles J, Katan MB, Ver­hoef P. Effect of 3‑year folic acid sup­ple­men­ta­tion on cog­ni­tive func­tion in old­er adults in the FACIT tri­al: a ran­domised, dou­ble blind, con­trolled tri­al. Lancet. 2007;369:208–16.
• Fontani G, Cor­rade­schi F, Feli­ci A, Alfat­ti F, Miglior­i­ni S, Lodi L. Cog­ni­tive and phys­i­o­log­i­cal effects of Omega‑3 polyun­sat­u­rat­ed fat­ty acid sup­ple­men­ta­tion in healthy sub­jects. Eur J Clin Invest. 2005;35:691–9.
• Mor­ris MC, Evans DA, Tangney CC, Bienias JL, Wil­son RS. Asso­ci­a­tions of veg­etable and fruit con­sump­tion with age-relat­ed cog­ni­tive change. Neu­rol­o­gy. 2006;67:1370–1376.
• Nair KS, Riz­za RA, O’Brien P, et al. DHEA in elder­ly women and DHEA or testos­terone in elder­ly men. N Engl J Med. 2006;355:1647–59.
• Solomon PR, Adams F, Sil­ver A, Zim­mer J, DeVeaux R. Gink­go for mem­o­ry enhance­ment: a ran­dom­ized con­trolled tri­al. JAMA. 2002;288:835–40.