HD Lighthouse Contributing Editor's Comment: For some time now, Blueberry supplementation has been suggested for those with Huntington's Disease. See the article by Dr. LaVonne Goodman on the Lighthouse at http://www.hdlighthouse.org/TreatmentNow/updates/0000treatments.php

The article below provides further support for the general benefits of blueberry supplementation and presents some of the detailed mechanisms by which this supplementation may work. This is important, since the better we understand the mechanism, the better chance scientists have of developing even more powerful compounds - ones that have an even greater benefit in HD. It has long been known that blueberries contain anti-oxidants. As oxidative stress is implicated in HD, this sounds quite promising, and it is.

However, labelling something as an anti-oxidant is kind of like labelling a tool as a knife. Scientists need to know more - the size, shape, material and other attributes of the tool. Furthermore, in nature, many compounds have a property known as pleiotropism, which means that they can have two or more unrelated characteristics. So, our tool could, for example, also function as a nail file. In other words, it could be like a Swiss army knife that does a number of things.

What the authors in this study have done is to provide some details about the active ingredient in blueberries (polyphenol) by studying their effects in rats. Why rats? There are a number of reasons, but the most important of these is, I think, that rats have a relatively short life time and scientists can harvest their brains, look at them under a microscope and perform various analyses (assays) to learn what happens in rat brain when given a diet rich in blueberries. In a nutshell, what the authors found is that a diet supplemented with blueberries reversed some of the declines found in normal brain aging. In particular, they found that the blueberry supplementation improved the chemical pathways involved in converting short-term to long-term memory. This is important in Alzheimer's Disease, which is the focus of the study, but we expect that similar beneficial effects in cells implicated in HD (medium spiny neurons) will be found as well. We would like to do these experiments in the near future.

In any case, the abtract is worthwhile reading. If you want to know more details, go to the library, get the paper, pour yourself a glass of blueberry juice and enjoy.

Brownwood acres, a supplier of blueberry concentrate, has been supportive of the HDDW trials. Their products are available online and in some Kroger stores http://www.brownwoodacres.com/

--Malcolm Casale, Ph.D.
Posted to the HDL: 04 Oct 2005

The beneficial effects of fruit polyphenols on brain aging.

Lau FC, Shukitt-Hale B, Joseph JA.

Brain aging is characterized by the continual concession to battle against insults accumulated over the years. One of the major insults is oxidative stress, which is the inability to balance and to defend against the cellular generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). These ROS cause oxidative damage to nucleic acid, carbohydrate, protein, and lipids. Oxidative damage is particularly detrimental to the brain, where the neuronal cells are largely post-mitotic. Therefore, damaged neurons cannot be replaced readily via mitosis. During normal aging, the brain undergoes morphological and functional modifications resulting in the observed behavioral declines such as decrements in motor and cognitive performance. These declines are augmented by neurodegenerative diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer's disease (AD), and Parkinson's disease (PD). Research from our laboratory has shown that nutritional antioxidants, such as the polyphenols found in blueberries, can reverse age-related declines in neuronal signal transduction as well as cognitive and motor deficits. Furthermore, we have shown that short-term blueberry (BB) supplementation increases hippocampal plasticity. These findings are briefly reviewed in this paper. # # #

Source: Neurobiol Aging. 2005 Sep 26

printer friendly version

 

	Read the HDAC/HDLighthouse Forum. Post your comments