Struggling with cognitive decline? Make a cognitive comeback
| Ⓒ By Jonathan Roseland |
I'm not a doctor, medical professional, or trained therapist. I'm a researcher and pragmatic biohacking practitioner exercising free speech to share evidence as I find it. I make no claims. Please practice skepticism and rational critical thinking. You should consult a professional about any serious decisions that you might make about your health. Affiliate links in this article support Limitless Mindset - spend over $150 and you'll be eligible to join the Limitless Mindset Secret Society.
Cognitive decline is prolific, at least 25% of Americans over age 65 suffer from mild cognitive impairment, according to Scientific American.
Doctors like to tell their patients that there's no cure for Dementia or Alzheimer's, that you just need to suffer a slow decline of your mind for decades and will be spending a small fortune on increasingly ineffective pharmaceutical drugs. Being diagnosed with a degenerative condition is not a death sentence, it can be overcome with an intentional and persistent biohacking strategy.
Smart Drugs
Piracetam -- This is probably the first thing I'd recommend because it falls at the intersection of being very safe, affordable, effective, and scientifically proven to improve the mind.
- It's been used in a 20-year population study of cognitive decline in the elderly.
- Along with Ginkgo Biloba, it was identified as a promising pharmaceutical intervention in a 2018 German paper, Mitochondrial Function, Dynamics, and Permeability Transition: A Complex Love Triangle as A Possible Target for the Treatment of Brain Aging and Alzheimer's Disease.
- A 2018 Taiwanese meta-analysis paper analyzed 235 selected studies [involving] 44,854 patients with dementia (mainly vascular dementia, Alzheimer disease, and mild cognitive impairment). It identified Piracetam and Aniracetam as an effective intervention for dementia.
It imbues a cognitive edge both in the short and the long term; usually, it has an energizing effect that peps you up 40-60 minutes after dosing and improves verbal intelligence, it opens up your vocabulary. It's a quintessential smart drug that imbues pleasantly intense focus. After several weeks or months of dosing, it has a more profound effect on your long-term memory -- it's frequently reported that people remember obscure little things from their distant past. You'll find yourself remembering the foreign language that you learned in high school as opposed to forgetting where you left your keys this morning.
While non-prescription and very safe, Piracetam is a hardcore drug that has an invasive effect on neurobiology. If you're going to use it in the long term to upgrade your mind you'll want to combine it with a few cofactors in a specific protocol, the Piracetam Protocol to maximize the cognitive bang for your buck.
There are other smart drugs in the Racetam family that are certainly interesting and there are a lot of ways to use them BUT Piracetam is probably the safest, cheapest, and most consistently effective for most people so it's what you should start with.
Phenylpiracetam -- This is a supercharged version of Piracetam. There are three human clinical trials totaling nearly 500 human subjects that demonstrate a positive effect on cognitive decline.
Oxiracetam -- The anti-aging properties of this Racetam has been demonstrated in five human clinical trials.
Mitochondrial Dysfunction
Cognitive decline has everything to do with Mitochondria, the little power plants of the cells. Dr. Lee Know explains in his book, The Future of Medicine
...compromised mitochondrial function is now seen as one of the leading causes of a wide range of seemingly unconnected degenerative diseases , and even the aging process itself .(1095-1096)
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of adult - onset dementia ; an eighty - year - old has about a 30 percent chance of developing Alzheimer’s . (1399-1400)
Based on the research I’ve done for this book, I would agree that the long-held beliefs about Alzheimer’s are falling apart and the most current research shows we need a greater focus on mitochondria in the prevention and treatment of the disease. (1409-1411)
Mitochondrial Nootropics
I have here the Mitochondrial Nootropics that deliver the best ROI and credible sources to order them from. Listed in descending order of the most effective and most economical, if you have a limited budget get the ones near the top of the list
- Piracetam (Source)
- ALCAR (Source)
- CoQ10 (Source)
- Glutathione (Source)
- Magnesium (Source)
- Creatine (Source)
- Sulforaphane (Source)
- Methylene Blue (Source)
- Nicotine (Source)
- Grape Seed Extract (Source)
- Krill Oil (Source)
Ginkgo Biloba and Ginseng
This is probably the best nutraceutical combination for helping cognitive decline. A significant placebo-controlled study of several hundred human subjects over 12 weeks, strongly suggested a quintessential cofactor relationship with Ginkgo Biloba, together they had an exponential effect on alertness, relaxation, and appetite. From its abstract:
"It was concluded that despite the fact that healthy, employed subjects were evaluated, treatment with the combination of active substances had significant advantages over placebo therapy."
Ginkgo Biloba and Ginseng is such a popular combination that you can probably find them at any pharmacy BUT when it comes to herbs, sourcing really matters and there's a quality spectrum. You don't want to just get any herbs and certainly not the cheapest ones. You want to get herbs that are certified organic and ideally verified as 97% pure with a certificate of analysis. Here are some sources that meet my high standards...
Brain Training
There's good evidence that 10-15 minutes of brain training daily with brain training software, especially the Dual N-Back app, can sharpen your mind and memory.
From a 2017 human clinical trial.
We studied 97 healthy older adults above the age of 65. Healthy older adults completed either an 8-week web-based cognitive training program on working memory or logic and planning. An additional no-training control group completed two assessments 8-weeks apart. Participants were assessed on cognitive measures of near and far transfer, including working memory, planning, reasoning, processing speed, verbal fluency, cognitive flexibility, and creativity. Participants improved on the trained tasks from the first day to last day of training.
Exercise
Dr. Mark Ashton Smith analyzed a 2018 article, Multi-modal fitness, and cognitive training to enhance fluid intelligence, that appeared in the journal Intelligence:
The study was a comprehensive 4-month placebo controlled trial, with 424 healthy adults (age 18–43 years, 50% Caucasian), and the results are summarized in this figure:
Visual search training (simple perception exercises) saw a 4 point post-training IQ gain. Fitness training saw a 7 point IQ gain. Cognitive and fitness training (combined) saw a >9 point IQ gain.The training gains were in visuospatial fluid intelligence. No groups improved in verbal IQ. This is an important finding, helping to explain some of the null results in previous studies.
Fluid intelligence includes such abilities as pattern recognition, abstract reasoning, and problem-solving.
The cognitive training in this study - also implemented in HighIQPro - takes a multi-modal approach - combining both dual n-back (working memory) training with executive control (attention) training.
So 4 months of exercise increases your IQ by 7 points, even more, when combined with brain training.
According to Dr. Lee Know
It’s been known for decades that aerobic exercise can increase the number of mitochondria in your muscle cells by up to 50 percent in as little as six weeks . To get the benefit , however , you need to do aerobic exercises ( such as running , cycling , swimming , or walking briskly ) at an intensity that’s at least half of your maximum capacity . This intensity needs to be sustained for at least fifteen to twenty minutes per session , three to four times a week . (3014-3017)
So you want to do cardio to the point of sweating for 15 minutes a few times a week.
Keto Lifestyle
5 days a week, try to practice what the world's leading anti-aging researchers and biohackers recommend enthusiastically, a daily fast of about 16 hours. Do all your eating and snacking within an 8-hour window; for most people, this means eating a large, filling dinner around 9 PM, going to bed, skipping breakfast, and eating a substantial lunch with lots of healthy fats around 1 PM. This puts your body into a ketogenic state; burning fat instead of glutamate.
- At first, it may be excruciating to fast for 16 hours but quickly you get used to it and it doesn't bother you.
- Skipping breakfast and snacks ends up saving you quite a bit of time and money.
- Avoid eating carbs, sugar, or bread especially when you're fasting as your body will switch back over to glutamate.
- As long as you're feeding your brain lots of the healthy fats it needs, you'll have plenty of energy.
If you're a performance enhancement junkie you'll want to consume some high-quality MCTs while in a fasted state, many do this by starting their morning with a Bulletproof-style coffee mixed with butter and MCT oil.
But if you want to experience all the cognitive and longevity benefits of Ketosis that you hear everyone online ranting and raving about you don't want to consume just any old MCTs, you're going to have to be very discriminating!
- You're going to want to avoid the useless and harmful MCTs; lauric acid, C6, and C12.
- Be wary of impure MCT products, a certified organic stamp is not enough, ideally, you want to see the manufacturer's certificate of third-party analysis with a spectroscopy report evidencing above 97% purity, which is considered pharmaceutical grade.
- Of course, you'll want to avoid anything containing artificial sweeteners, coloring, or weird chemicals with names you can't pronounce!
Ultra Keto+MCT by Ultra Human meets my stringent standards, combining Patented Exogenous BHB Ketones and Pure C8 MCT along with selenium citrate, pink Himalayan salt, and malic acid that gives it a delicious, none artificially sweetened taste.
If you can't afford to or are unable to get your hands on high-quality MCTs, try intermittent fasting anyway; it's still a smart lifehack for health and productivity!
What I like about this morning ketosis cocktail is that these performance enhancers work on totally different neurobiological mechanisms than Racetams, Modafinil, or other common smart drugs which is great news for long-term Nootropics users who have built up a tolerance to cognitive enhancers that they have to take at increasing dosages for increasingly underwhelming results.
If you want to take this all to the next level, check out this beautiful infographic illustrating The Ultra Human Protocol and the edifying and educational interview I did with Jason Dhir.
Problematic Gene Alleles
Your genes have a lot to do with the cognitive decline that you may or may not face in the future. It's worth it to get your personal genotyping done to see what chronic diseases you might be most susceptible to.
This article lists numerous problematic genes (which may be lurking inside you!) predicting Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Diabetes, and other diseases. Sequencing.com's PROFESSIONAL TELOMERE TEST + WHOLE GENOME SEQUENCING is a pretty good value, it provides the full raw data from all of your +30,000 genes along with an informative snapshot of Telomere status a key longevity biomarker.
Books
Head Strong by Dave Asprey -- Your quality of life fundamentally relies on the health and proper functioning of your mitochondria; the base-level energy generation system of the body. This book is chock full of biohacks for living the bulletproof life.
The Plant Paradox by Dr. Steven Gundry - A game-changing diet and nutrition manifesto from a practicing doctor. The case studies are pretty mindblowing, especially in regard to arresting and reversing age-related decline. At least give a listen to my deep-dive review podcast, You're Being Royally F*cked by Lectins!
The Memory Book -- If you've noticed that your memory isn't as sharp as it used to be you'll want to consider using the memory systems in this short, fun, easy-to-read book.
The Alzheimer's Prevention Program by Dr. Gary Small -- Dr. Small has developed a holistic program for effective prevention.
Need accountability?
Perhaps all on your own you just don't have the discipline to overcome cognitive decline. There are all these motivational mechanisms and tools but sometimes what outperforms all of them is just someone else's expectations of you. A lot of people ask their friends, family, or significant other to be their accountability partner BUT there are a lot of downsides to this -- it introduces some tension and pressure to the relationship and robs harmony from the relationships that should be the most reinvigorating and comforting -- many have ruined their marriages and friendships this way. I suggest coaching -- hire a life coach or expert consultant -- but this can be expensive and time-consuming, which is why we offer a very lean biohacking consulting/life coaching program. Here's how this would work...
- The Biohacking Consultation is 1 hour and 45 minutes total - which is two consulting calls.
- First Call 1 hour - Discovery & Strategizing call, I need to ask you some questions, we'll discuss your history and outline a biohacking strategy and action plan to overcome your issues.
- Second Call 45 minutes - Follow up call in 30 or 60 days to see how you're doing with the plan we outlined; how you've improved, what you're struggling with, etc
There are a few important reasons we split the time up into two calls
- It's a significant motivation hack for you to follow through on the biohacking habits and plan we'll outline because you're accountable to me in 30 or 60 days.
- I'm incentivized to come up with an effective biohacking strategy for you because I have to talk to you after you've been following it for a month or two.
- It timeboxes us with a deadline of 30 or 60 days for you to make improvements and accomplish your goals.
Your Skin in the game here is that you're paying good money for this and you're accountable to me on another call in 30 or 60 days. You'll have to explain your lack of action if you fail to follow through.
PLEASE fill out this form
Apply for Biohacking Consultation/Coaching
Take a few minutes to answer a few questions, if your issues are far outside my areas of expertise I'll decline the consultation. My time is finite and very valuable so I only want to spend it consulting the people I can really help. Thanks in advance for your understanding!
Please respond...
Either here in the comments (or for privacy, send me an email or social media message)
What sort of cognitive decline are you struggling with? Is it serious? What is it costing you? What have you tried to address it? What's worked? What hasn't?
Finally...
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