Gentle Reader,
Clear thinking. We all want it. Brain function is one of several declines we seems unable to prevent as we age. However, it looks as though a new supplement can help. The news coming in from people who notice improvements in the quality of their thinking is so impressive I have decided to share one story with you.
Normally I keep to the physical ailments associated with arthritis, joints and muscles and prevention. These stories are about the brain and our ability to think clearly, forget less, stay on target.
The company whose products I represent, Shaklee, has been studying the human brain for about 5 years. I noticed that I wrote a newsletter about telomeres—strands of DNA—in 2011 after attending a lecture on these studies: Here is that short article published in August of 2011 about a special session at the Shaklee conference for health care professionals.
I attended the special session for health care providers, an audience of more than 200 people. Dr. Jamie McManus, Medical Director, announced a new partnership with Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D., 2009 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Dr. Blackburn, AC, FRS is an Australian-born American biological researcher at UC San Francisco, who studies the telomere, a structure at the end of chromosomes that protects the chromosome. Blackburn co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the telomere. For this work, she was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, sharing it with Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak.
She and her team have blood samples from 107 Shaklee supplement users and will compare their telomere length with a control group from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). We expect Shaklee supplement users to have healthier telomeres.
The Shaklee Telomere Research Landmark Study II on DNA and longevity will include 107 Shaklee participants who have been taking Shaklee (Vitalizer, Vivix and Cinch) for approximately five years, as well as a group of non-supplement users.
Preliminary results of the study are very impressive. Telomere research is not only about the brain and clear thinking. Every chromosome in the body has telomeres, so Dr. Blackburn’s research tells us about healthy aging in all areas.
Dr. Blackburn is newly appointed to Shaklee’s scientific advisory board. I have posted her videos on my You Tube channel. If you get excited by the science of aging the way I do, you’ll enjoy watching her lectures.
Another highly educated university professor, Susan Bartz Herrick, fell heir to her parents’ Shaklee business. I’ll let her tell you her story as she experiences her clear thinking after a few weeks with MindWorks.
You know I don’t write a great deal but I just had to share this one with you, as it is personal. And you know that I tend to shy away from testimonials. Not that I don’t find them meaningful – I do. It’s just that they are not scientific. Being in academia for over 30 years, it is a common practice that we are forced (sometimes against our will) to think that only reports complete with empirical data published in peer reviewed journals have any validity. Also – I knew someone quite well who was utterly incapable of separating the two, and insisted if something was written in Readers Digest – well… it just had to be true.
However, when something works well, I am more than happy to pass it along to my friends; like recipes, high heel shoes that don’t hurt my feet and any anti-ageing potions of reasonable measure. Ok, I found one – in the last category – of sorts. It’s called MindWorks.
First, allow me to confess that I am the Queen of ADD and have been all my life. Where are my books? Shoes? Glasses? Sit still. Don’t doodle! Squirrel!!! You get the picture. After a while, one learns to live with it and exchanges the label “ADD” with “multitasking” to save face. The fact that my students call me “Professor” still is a mystery to some – including me at times.
Getting back to the story: When Shaklee announced the new MindWorks I was thinking; ”Ok perhaps it will help my failing memory, make me young again, and allow me to wear my 3 inch heels”. Putting humor aside for a moment, I can tell you memory loss was really starting to bother me. I was pushing 60 and expecting some loss of cognition and recall, but I also knew I was dealing with issues far beyond that – and it frightened me. You see, from age 46 to 56 I had lived in an extremely stressful state. I had the usual stress that came from getting a divorce, losing home, income, dealing with a hormonal teen intent on pushing me to the limits of insanity, caring for aging sick parents, dying friends, etc. You get the picture – the typical sandwich generational stuff. All came a screeching halt however when my only child, my son, was almost killed in a car accident four years ago. He was on life support for a week, 27 broken bones and having the nurse tell us they didn’t know what his ‘new normal’ would look like. My world stopped and I could not breathe.
After three weeks of hospital vigilance, we saw he would live and I found myself back in the classroom standing in front of my students who were waiting for the lecture de jour. Only one problem – I didn’t know where I was or what I was supposed to be doing. Truly, I found myself frozen as a deer caught in the headlights first day back. I knew I was in class, but that was about it. At least I had enough awareness to check the date and time on the computer to see where I was and what I was supposed to teach that day. Lucky for me, my lectures were posted on-line so I pulled it up and hoped I was on point. It was scary. My therapist told me afterwards it was classic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and that it would take time for my memory to come back. Great.
As the years went on, I saw my memory slowly resurfacing – to a point. But still I would say I was at half the recall of what I was before the accident. Then the samples of MindWorks came along from Shaklee. However, by this time I had resigned myself to the fact that I’d have to use detailed notes to teach from this point on and I would never remember your name – even if you were a family member.
Long story short: The first day of taking MindWorks, I felt a gentle mental awakening with more clarity but I wasn’t really paying too much attention to results. Then one day, the same week, in class I found myself on the other side of the room – totally engaged in the subject realizing I had just taught 30 minutes without looking at my notes! Next day – same thing! Hoot hoot!!! Later the next week I found myself working well into the afternoon and actually making sense which had become a rarity past 4PM. Teaching in the morning was not just a preference – it was a necessity! But here I was again: Energy – clarity – focus! The results were enough to make me a believer!!
But what I noticed next was not promoted in the product literature and came as treasured surprise. You see, along with all the stress of those hard years came a certain level of depression – clinical depression. My doctors all told me that one cannot sustain the levels of stress that I had for all those years without having the pool of ‘feel good’ brain chemicals bottom out. To remedy it I was given the usual round of Rx’s to help but they didn’t help: Prozak turned me into a zombie and Welbutrin made me a raging lunatic – according to my son. Nope – I settled on St. Johns Wart much to the chagrin of my MD as she said it would never get my brain chemistry back to the high levels needed to feel joyful again. It helped – a little – but I had resigned myself to the fact that I may never have those light peace filled feelings again. Why do I bring this up? Because this past week I have noticed a joy filled bliss creeping back into my mornings. One morning after a calm read the joy fairy just kind of settled in and a tear of gratitude rolled down my face. Yes, there was a way out of the brain dead pit – and it seems to be called Mindworks. At least it was for me.
So there you go my friends: my testimonial. I am sleeping better too BTW way. And my retention of facts and focus keeps getting better. They tell me that Mindworks also helps reduce brain shrinkage by 30% over 2 years according to the clinical study. That’s impressive but right now, I am just tickled pink to get my brain back!!
Susan
Who do you know who could use this kind of helpful improvement? Happy thinking!
Be well, Do well and Keep Moving
Betsy
206 933 1889