Keeping Your Brain

As the nation clamors for "free health care," consider these sobering facts. Setting aside the staggering costs for the number one killer in modern society, allopathic medicine itself, costs for heart disease (by and large preventable) are over $200 billion annually, and costs for cancer (by and large preventable) are about $80 billion.
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Perhaps most alarming, and speeding us even more quickly toward bankruptcy (greater, that is, since we are already bankrupt), are brain diseases such as Alzheimer's (100% incurable and fatal) and dementia which now approach $300 billion yearly. 

Nearly 15% of people aged 71 or older, about four million people, have dementia. By 2040, that number will explode to at least nine million, tripling the cost for these diseases to more than one trillion dollars. 

Dr. Richard J. Hodes is director of the National Institute on Aging and states, "I don't know of any other disease predicting such a huge increase... as we have the baby boomer group maturing, there are going to be more older people with fewer children to be informal caregivers for them, which is going to intensify the problem even more." 

The American model of disease care (not health care) is clearly doomed. More "free" access will not solve the problem, it will exacerbate it since the cure is usually worse than the disease. 

Aside from the costs, none of us want to have our brains deteriorate or end life essentially vegetative waiting to die and dependent upon family or institutional care. Aging can be such a nice change from being young (not to mention not having to do algebra), but you must store away health treasures now. 

The cause of brain deterioration is linked to human intervention, as are practically all preventable ills. Consider the water coursing through the copper plumbing in homes. There must be a downside to constantly consuming and bathing in water that has oxidizing copper ions leached into it. This is not to mention the toxicity of fluoridated water, nor its role in enhancing the leaching of copper from pipes. 

Copper, coupled with amyloid-beta plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain, is positively associated with Alzheimer's and other cognitive degenerative conditions. Copper also damages a molecule called LRP (low density lipoprotein receptor related protein) responsible for removing toxic levels of copper from the brain. Moreover, copper in the amyloid plaques binds zinc and depletes it from neurons, a known risk factor for cognitive decline. 

In addition, copper can oxidize cholesterol, which is abundant in neural tissue. (Cholesterol oxides, not natural cholesterol, are also the culprit in cardiovascular disease and strokes.) Copper can also cause DNA damage and disrupt DNA repair mechanisms. 

Melatonin is produced in the pineal gland and is a potent antioxidant and regulator of circadian rhythms and sleep. However, copper reduces the ability of the enzyme N-acetyltransferase to synthesize melatonin. 

Long-term potentiation (LTP) and neuroplasticity are terms describing the brains ability to adapt, change with experience, and form the synaptic connections for learning and memory. Copper inhibits this ability. (For those interested in more detail and mechanisms of copper induced neural degeneration, do Internet searches on copper and these biochemical harbingers of Alzheimer's which are present 15-20 years before onset of symptoms: N-methyl D-aspartate [NMDA], alpha synnuclein protein, Huntingtin protein, and the other big words above.) 

Brain aging conditions are not because "we live longer today." In the early 1900s a large portion of the population lived beyond 60. At the present incidence of Alzheimer's, there would have been at least 36,000 cases in 1900. The disease was first described by Alois Alzheimer in 1907 but it was extraordinarily rare—until the advent of copper piping in homes in the 1950s. 

Other sources from the industrial era compound the problem. Copper is leached into the water supply (over 530,000 lbs. into San Francisco Bay each year). It dusts off of brake pads each time the brakes are applied. Copper is found in pressure treated lumber (and its sawdust), dental fillings, clothing, crops (including organics), supplements and pillowcases. 

Mice consuming as little as 0.12 ppm copper in their water developed the characteristic amyloid brain pathology. The EPA permits 1.3 ppm copper, ten times that found to be toxic in mice! 

With each increment increase in copper (millimoles/liter) there is a 24% increase in the probability of cognitive decline. Further confirming the correlation is the low incidence of brain decline in Japan where copper piping is not used, and its rise in those immigrants to developed countries where it is used. Undeveloped countries not using copper piping do not have anywhere near the incidence of brain degenerative diseases common in copper piped societies. 

Although most urban legends about toxins in food and in our environment are without basis due to the very low dose of exposure, copper is no such legend. 

Copper intake should be at or near zero. Test your home water and make sure it tests below 0.05mg/liter. Inexpensive test strips are available from SenSafe.com or, as a convenience for you, from WysongHealth.net. If your water is above that threshold, get a filter that removes the copper or obtain a reverse osmosis or distillation machine. Do not count on bottled water. 

If you are like me and have been consuming copper-piped water for decades, the above may be very worrisome. But don't worry. Do something about it now and begin the reversal.