Do You Have Pre-Dementia? New Study Reveals Some Warning Signs

Do You Have Pre-Dementia? New Study Reveals Some Warning Signs

Claremont Colonic Newsletter
When it comes to aging, one of the primary fears that many of us share is the fear of developing dementia. This deteriorative cognitive ailment can severely affect an individual’s quality of life, not to mention the quality of life of their loved ones.
According to the CDC, about 1 in 9 people aged 65 and over in the US suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, the most prevalent form of dementia, characterized by depleted nerve cells in the cerebral cortex of the brain. This ailment affects memory, language and reasoning, all of which are governed by this vital brain region.

When it comes to dementia, early detection may help to zero in on any underlying causes, and possibly aid in the prevention of more severe symptoms. A new study, performed by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, along with Montefiore Medical Center, found that individuals who tested positive for pre-dementia were nearly twice as likely to develop dementia within the span of 12 years.

The method described by the researchers is a test to measure motoric cognitive risk syndrome (MCR), a sign of pre-dementia, which is characterized by the speed at which an individual walks, along with their complaints surrounding their cognitive functioning. The study involved just under 27,000 adults ages 60 or older, across 17 countries, who did not suffer from dementia or any disability. Of these individuals, 9.7 percent of them tested positive for MCR.

The researchers then focused on 4,812 people, and evaluated their health information from a 12-year time period. They found that the individuals who had tested positive for MCR were almost twice as likely to develop dementia within the 12 years.

Senior author Dr. Joe Verghese writes, “our assessment method could enable many more people to learn if they’re at risk for dementia, since it avoids the need for complex testing and doesn’t require that the test be administered by a neurologist.

The potential payoff could be tremendous — not only for individuals and their families, but also in terms of healthcare savings for society. All that’s needed to assess MCR is a stopwatch and a few questions, so primary care physicians could easily incorporate it into examinations of their older patients.” The researchers were clear to note that walking slowly is not in itself a symptom of pre-dementia if it does not go hand-in-hand with cognitive complaints.

As far as dementia prevention, Dr. Verghese states, “even in the absence of a specific cause, we know that most healthy lifestyle factors, such as exercising and eating healthier, have been shown to reduce the rate of cognitive decline. In addition, our group has shown that cognitively stimulating activities – playing board games, card games, reading, writing and also dancing – can delay dementia’s onset.”

In a recent article, we explored research which found that exercising both the body and the mind, through a program which incorporated physical exercise, cognitive exercise and meditation showed promise in improving existing dementia symptoms. It follows that for prevention, keeping both the body and mind as active as possible may go far in staving off this illness.

Heart health may also be vitally important in the prevention of this disease. As we previously reported, research has found a correlation between heart disease and an increased risk of demential in older women. Eating a diet of whole, nutritious food, exercising daily and reducing your stress levels are all integral parts of keeping your cardiovascular system running smoothly.

If you wish to take an MCR test, talk to your physician about when and where it may be administered. While more research is likely coming, according to this study, it may give you some insight about your dementia risk.


Contributor: The Alternative Daily

Your Kitchen May be Hurting How You Eat

Your Kitchen May be Hurting How You Eat

Claremont Colonic Newsletter
Throughout my day, much of what I eat isn’t based on what my taste buds and body want.
I can’t remember whether the milk is still good, so I’ll get my morning latte on the road. I have to get to the office, so cutting up fruit for a smoothie sounds like too much work. But that’s OK, because the bright packaging of an energy bar that I don’t really want catches my eye so I grab it before I run out the door.

Even if you want to eat intuitively — basing your food choices around what your body needs rather than outside influences and diet culture — it’s hard to do that if your life isn’t set up intuitively.

“We eat with our eyes in a lot of ways, whether that’s marketers … putting eye-catching labels on things or whether we sort of market our own kitchen in a way to always have (certain foods) right top of mind,” said CNN Food contributor and meal-planning coach Casey Barber.

How you set up your kitchen makes a big difference in how you utilize it, said Katrina Green, an ADHD organizing specialist based in Sacramento, California.

If you want it be easy to eat what you want and need rather than just what is easiest to grab, and so you don’t have to buy expensive containers or label makers — you need to invest a little time and organization, said Natalie Mokari, a dietitian based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

How it looks impacts how you eat

It isn’t necessary to buy all the beautiful matching jars for your pantry and refrigerator, but it may be helpful to think about what you see when you go to grab food.

Bags of food, for example, can easily create a jumble of clutter for items such as baby carrots, green beans or rice that makes them hard to find, Barber said.

“I have a vendetta against plastic bags that have the resealable tops,” she said. “Even if you’re going to (keep food in a bag), maybe corral them in something like a shoebox type that’s an open container where you could at least stack them like files if you really love your bags — because you don’t want them falling off on you every single time you open up a drawer or a cabinet.”

What about pasta and crackers and other foods that come in boxes? Is it better to put those in clear containers? That depends on your needs, Green said. You might want to see clearly what food you have.

“I specifically like working with neurodivergent people,” she said, and “a lot of the times the comment that I hear (from them) is out of sight out of mind.”

For some people, it may be more helpful to look at a shelf of clear jars and see exactly what is available without all the noise of packaging, she added. “Some people need the sort of peace and quiet of a streamlined neutral system,” Barber said. But for others, seeing the label may make the connection of what meal that food can make in their brain, she added.

“Jars can be helpful if that makes you more likely to reach for it, but don’t do it if opening something or putting it into something else makes you less likely to use it,” Green said.

First thing you see may be the first you eat

What you see first often impacts what you are likely to reach for first, Green said.

“I really try to put those things that I know I’m going to be turning to again and again on the shelves that are most accessible for me,” Barber said.

Green likes to think about what goes at eye level in the pantry and fridge and what can be put in harder-to-reach spaces.

The food items she may be drawn to but don’t satisfy her go on the top shelf, while the things that make up meals she loves and wants to eat go where she can see them immediately, she said.

And just because the drawers in the fridge are marked for fruits and vegetables doesn’t mean that’s where they need to go, Mokari said.

Often the drawers are where good produce goes to die after being forgotten, so she likes to keep her produce on a shelf and use the drawers for things that she won’t forget about or don’t go bad quickly, like drinks and snacks, she said.

What you make available also makes a difference.

Mokari has a three-tier fruit bowl, and although it does house fruit, it also has things like single-serving packages of nuts or granola bars that she and her family can grab when hungry without having to look too far to get a snack.

“When you’re setting it up, think about, ‘what are your goals with cooking? what are your go-to’s?’ Make sure that those look their best and most prominently as you can make them for your kitchen space,” Barber said.

Prepare ahead of time

A little prep time also goes a long way, Mokari said. It may be worth it to take a little extra time to wash and cut your produce or portion out which ingredients are going to go with which meal over the week so that you aren’t starting from scratch every time you go to eat, she said.

It can also help to designate space in your pantry and refrigerator for a bin of what should be used throughout the week — whether that is for the meal plan or because its expiration is approaching, Green said.

Consider organization tools

Although it isn’t necessary to spend your whole paycheck on organization tools, it may be worth it to invest in the attractive container for fruits and vegetables if it makes you more likely to take it right from the fridge to the kitchen table, Barber said.

There are specific cases where I feel like having the splurge for your berry container … if that’s going to be the thing that really gets you to have those berries, if you’re going to eat more fruit because you have that then by all means, use your food dollars in that way,” she said.

Finally, as you are prepping your meals, it’s important to think about more than just what you want to include for your health goals, Mokari said.

“I think the most important thing is like that balance of nutrients staying power throughout the day and also something that you like,” she said. “Even if you have it out and it’s something that you don’t like, then you’re not going to eat it.”

For me, it has made all the difference to have my blender out and fruit portioned into individual containers for the day so I can have a smoothie that both nourishes and excites me.

And yes, I do seem to eat more fruits and vegetables when they are stored in pretty bowls waiting to be set out on my counter as a ready snack.


Contributor: Madeline Holcombe, CNN Health

Elle Sez Series: Health and Wellness: What is the Energy Enhancement System?

Claremont Colonic Center


Elle Sez Series: Health and Wellness:
What is the Energy Enhancement System?

Claremont Colonic Newsletter
Let’s have a little chat about Quantum Physics. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Oops! Did I lose some of you?

Last July, I was introduced to a protocol known as the EE System (Energy Enhancing System) developed by a brilliant scientist, Dr. Sandra Rose Michael over the last several decades.

As a brief introduction, let me state that this is not a medical or health protocol, but rather it creates an environment in which the body can heal itself. In the last year, 300+ locations have sprung up across the country, and internationally as well, after Dr. Micheal was interviewed by Jason Shurka on a podcast and the response to the information garnered 70,000+ inquiries for more information. Below is more information to help fill in the gaps.


From the EES Website:
What is Energy Enhancement System?

Claremont Colonic Newsletter
The Energy Enhancement SystemTM (EESystemTM) generates multiple bio-active life enhancing energy fields, including “scalar waves” which can allow cell regeneration, improve immune function, provide relief from pain, detoxify the body, elevate moods, and assist in balancing right and left hemispheres of the brain to increase energy levels.

This stunning technology, developed over 20 years by Dr. Sandra Rose Michael, Ph.D, DNM, DCSJl, uses custom-installed computers to generate morphogenic energy fields that can promote healing. The EESystem has been recognized at dozens of medical, scientific and professional conferences around the world.

The EESystem has been installed throughout the United States and internationally to promote wellness, healing, relaxation, purification and rejuvenation. This ecologically & environmentally safe system is used by individuals, doctors, and therapists as well as Meditation and Wellness Centers to improve human development and psychological well-being.

The Energy Enhancement System combines Body, Mind, Spirit, and Science to help you achieve peak performance and reach higher states of health, consciousness and self-actualization. The future is here.
First, after the first 2 hour session, I could feel healing (mild vibration) in my wrists and ankles. Subsequently, over the next several treatments, I felt throbbing in my fingers one night, ease of bending my knees another and success in making a real fist after suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis since 2016. The major plus has been getting off of the very strong medication that I was told I would have to be on for the rest of my life, slowly destroying my kidneys.

I was spending 2 nights a week sleeping at the clinic with other people with severe issues such as Cancer, Parkinson’s, Asthma, etc. I kept continuing the treatments after I knew I no longer needed them for the RA and saw additional amazing things happen such as my eyesight improving, general uplifting of spirits/mood, a pre-cancerous lesion on my lower lip that had been there for 20-30 years disappear and a chronic nasal infection since 2005 which caused a continual post nasal drip down the back of my throat has been reduced by 90%.

I have 5 more nights scheduled and hope to eliminate that last 10%.

In closing, let me say from my own personal experience, having spent 22-10 hour nights sleeping in the system I am thrilled with the results.

-Elle-

Researchers Link Popular Weight Loss Drugs to Serious Digestive Problems for ‘Hundreds of Thousands’ Worldwide

Researchers Link Popular Weight Loss Drugs to Serious Digestive Problems for ‘Hundreds of Thousands’ Worldwide

Claremont Colonic Newsletter
A new study suggests people taking popular injected medications for weight loss, including Wegovy, Ozempic, Saxenda and Victoza, may be at higher risk for serious digestive problems such as stomach paralysis, pancreatitis, and bowel obstructions, compared with those taking other types of weight loss medications.
The study found risks of these events happening to individual patients appears to be rare — about 1% of people taking Ozempic were diagnosed with stomach paralysis, for example. But demand for the drugs has exploded, with tens of millions now taking them worldwide. Researchers say even rare risks like these may amount to hundreds of thousands of new cases.

“When you have millions of people using these drugs, you know, a 1% risk still translates to many people who may experience these events,” said lead study author Dr. Mahyar Etminan, an epidemiologist at the University of British Columbia.

The study authors also note that these problems are not mild. Bowel obstructions, for example, can be medical emergencies.

Previous CNN reporting highlighted cases of stomach paralysis in people who had taken these drugs and the lack of warning about that specific side effect to patients.

The prescribing information for Wegovy and Saxenda does caution about a host of serious side effects including inflammation of the pancreas, gallbladder problems, blocked intestines, kidney problems, serious allergic reactions, increased heart rate, suicidal thoughts, and changes in vision or people who also have diabetes. A warning about ileus, or blocked intestines, was also just added to Ozempic’s warning label.

The labels also note the most common side effects are nasuea, vomiting and constipation. They also strongly warn people with a history of certain types of hereditary thyroid cancers against taking the medications.

For the study, which published as a research letter in JAMA, researchers at the University of British Columbia sifted through a random sample of more than 16 million insurance claims from a prescription drug database that covers about 93% of all outpatient prescriptions in the US. The claims were filed between 2006 and 2020.

They looked for patients who were prescribed two injected drugs — semaglutide and liraglutide. Both drugs belong to a class called GLP-1 agonists and slow the passage of food through the stomach. They can help people with diabetes control their blood sugar and lead to substantial weight loss for people with or without diabetes.

In 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration approved semaglutide for people who are obese without diabetes who only need to lose weight. It’s sold under the brand name Ozempic when prescribed for diabetes and Wegovy when prescribed for weight loss. Liraglutide was FDA approved as a weight loss medicine since 2014. When it’s prescribed for diabetes, it’s called Victoza; when prescribed for weight management, it’s called Saxenda. But even before the drugs officially hit the market for weight loss, doctors had noticed the benefits and began prescribing off-label for patients who needed to shed pounds.

To ferret out who those patients might have been, researchers looked for people who were diagnosed with obesity at least 90 days before they started the medication and excluded any who were also diagnosed with diabetes or who were taking any other drug to control their blood sugar.

Then they compared the frequency of serious digestive problems in those patients to the same set of problems in people taking a different type of medication for weight loss, bupropion-naltrexone, which is sold as pill called Contrave.

Over the years reviewed, the researchers found that people taking Ozempic and Saxenda were much more likely to develop serious stomach and intestinal problems compared with those who were taking Contrave.

In absolute terms, there was a roughly 1% rate of new cases of stomach paralysis in the group taking Ozempic, about 0.7% incidence of stomach paralysis in the group taking Saxenda, and a roughly 0.3% incidence of stomach paralysis in the group taking Contrave.

In relative terms, that means people taking the injected drugs were more than three times more likely to develop stomach paralysis compared with those taking Contrave. There were no bowel obstructions noted in the group taking Ozempic, but the study found a 0.8% incidence in people who were taking Saxenda, and a 0.17% incidence in people taking Contrave. That means bowel obstructions were more than four times more likely in people taking the injected medications compared with those on Contrave.

For pancreatitis, there was a 0.5% incidence of pancreatitis in people taking Ozempic, a 0.8% risk in people taking Saxenda, and a 0.01% incidence in people taking Contrave, representing a more than ninefold increase.

Researchers also looked at the risk that patients might be diagnosed with biliary disease, which is a cluster of problems affecting the gallbladder and bile ducts, but there were no significant differences between the groups.

In the group of roughly 600 patients who were taking Ozempic, there were four cases of gastroparesis or stomach paralysis, two cases of pancreatitis, no bowel obstructions, and five who developed biliary disease.

In the group of about 4,400 people taking Saxenda, there were 66 cases of stomach paralysis, 73 bowel obstructions, 71 cases of pancreatitis, and 162 cases of biliary disease.

In the group of about 650 people taking Contrave, by contrast, there were three cases of stomach paralysis, two bowel obstructions, one case of pancreatitis, and 16 cases of biliary disease. The study has limits. It is observational, so it can only show associations. It can’t prove the drugs caused the conditions people were diagnosed with.

But researchers say they tried to control for some of the things that may have biased their results.

“People with diabetes, for example, they already have an increased risk of gastroparesis, they have an increased risk of pancreatitis and biliary disease,” says study author Mohit Sodhi, a medical student who is studying the adverse events of commonly prescribed medications. By excluding them from the study, Sodhi said, they were able to tease out more carefully what might be linked to the drug versus the disease.

And though researchers took steps to try to find people who might have been using the drugs for weight loss, because it’s not noted in their medical records, there’s no way to know for sure that’s why they were taking it.

Still, this is the first time researchers have been able to put numbers to these risks, which have previously only been described by doctors and patients who have noticed them.

Experts who were not involved in the study said it was well conducted, but has some limits and won’t be the final word.

“While GLP-1 agonists are generally well tolerated, there is a low incidence of serious side effects,” said Dr. Ian Musgrave a molecular pharmacologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, in a statement on the study given to the non-profit Science Media Centre in the UK.

For example, Musgrave said, inflammation of the pancreas, or pancreatitis, is a known side effect of these agents in patients with type-2 diabetes. What’s been less clear is whether patients taking these drugs for weight loss may have the same serious side effects.

One thing that may affect the study findings, Musgrave said, is that there were many more patients taking the injected drugs than were taking Contrave. Another may be that while the study authors controlled their data for things like age, sex, alcohol use, smoking and high cholesterol, they didn’t compare the effect of body mass index, or BMI.

Still, he said, the study findings are a valuable contribution to doctors who are prescribing the drugs and patients who are considering taking them.

Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of both Ozempic and Saxenda, said it stands behind the safety and efficacy of all its GLP-1 medications when used consistent with the product labeling and approved indications.

“With respect to the study, as the authors acknowledge, the study has limitations, including potential confounding by indication and by other factors,” the company said in a statement to CNN.

“We recommend patients take these medications for their approved indications and under the supervision of a healthcare professional. Treatment decisions should be made together with a healthcare provider who can evaluate the appropriateness of using a GLP-1 based on assessment of a patient’s individual medical profile,” the statement said.

The researchers note that these problems probably didn’t show up in the clinical trials that led to the dugs approval because those studies weren’t large enough to capture some of these rarer adverse events, or the studies recorded these events as symptoms, rather than delving their underlying causes.

“The main symptoms of gastroparesis are nausea and vomiting, so they may report nausea and vomiting but, you know, looking at the true etiology of what’s happening is something to consider,” Sodhi said.

Sodhi said he was motivated to do the study after treating a man in the emergency department who was vomiting 15 to 20 times a day. Doctors couldn’t figure out what was causing it until they noticed he was taking Ozempic. Sodhi said they started the man on a medication that treats stomach paralysis, “and he got a lot better,” Sodhi said.

“It’s entirely possible that he had this type of adverse event,” he said.

In the meantime, the researchers hope that regulatory agencies and drug makers will consider updating the warning labels for their products, which currently don’t include the risk of gastroparesis.

“This is critical information for patients to know so they can seek timely medical attention and avoid serious consequences,” said Sodhi.

And they hope their study will give people make more informed decisions about the drugs.

“Someone who has diabetes and is taking this medication for that might be more willing to accept the risk of these adverse events, which are rare, to help get their diabetes under control,” Sodhi said.

“But people who are otherwise healthy but may want to lose a bit of weight, you know, if they had a better idea essentially of what they might be getting into … that could potentially change whether or not they take these medications.”

On the other side of the coin, obesity comes with its own substantial risks that also have to be considered said Dr. Simon Cork, a senior lecturer in physiology at Anglia Ruskin University in the UK. Cork was not involved in the study and reported no conflicts of interest related to the drugs.

“Obesity significantly increases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, gallbladder disease and stroke. These risks fall dramatically with clinically meaningful and sustained weight loss,” said Cork in a statement given to the nonprofit Science Media Centre. “For the overwhelming majority of patients for whom these drugs are targeted (those with the most severe forms of obesity), the benefits of weight loss far outweigh the risks.”


Contributor: Brenda Goodman, CNN