New Member from Hamburg, Germany

[buck3Maureen]

Hello Pinkgothic,
Just read this thread and I want to welcome you. I am your mom's age and started having symptoms about 7 or 8 years ago that gradually got worse. Before the Bredesen book came out I was lucky enough to get a copy of his scientific study that briefly outlined many of the "36 Holes" that he describes in his book. Then I was fortunate to attend a week long seminar by Dr. Bredesen. This included meeting with a nutritionist. I feared that she would telI me that i would have to ditch my Vegan diet, I was told, no, it was not necessary. Everyone is different so for others this may not work. I have improved immensely over that past few years and I am hopeful that I will not succumb to AD, or that it will be pushed into the far distant future.

I don't know if you were born and raised in Germany, but I am totally amazed by your English skills. As part of the program that challenges your brain I decided to try and learn German. As someone who never knew a foreign language ( I took Latin in HS) I have a deep appreciation for this skill. I think I will try and get a copy of his book written in German!

Good Luck to you,
Maureen

[NF52]

Just an update (not expecting comments on this, just felt appropriate to update):
....My B12 values are up from 142 ng/l to 311 ng/l. This is on a heavy meat diet and supplements, so I'm going to apply More Dakka on the supplement side, but dial back on the meat, and see what happens. Going to have another lab test in September, focus is on vitamin D, but I'll also let them test B12 again (and hopefully a host of other cognoscopy attributes).

Hi pinkgothic,
Although your B12 levels would now be considered within the "normal" range, I wanted to share my experience as a participant in a study of healthy people ages 60-75 who have one or two copies of ApoE 4 (I have two and am 67 years old.) My B-12 level on testing in March 2018 was 426. It had never been tested by my primary care providers so this is my "baseline". The Senior Investigator/Study Doctor recommended that I start taking a daily lozenge of 500 mcg of methylcobalamin to get the level about 500. (500 is also what Dr. Bredesen recommends as a minimum.)

I order mine online, and would hope that it's possible for you to order it in Hamburg. Here's a link I found for Jarrow Deutschland's 500 mcg lozenge. Jarrow happens to be the company I order from; they just happened to also come up when I Googled "methylcobalamin Germany": https://www.jarrow.de/en/vitamins/19-jarrow-methyl-b-12-500-g.html

Six months after I added B-12, my B-12 level was 644 and in March 2019 it was 672. I would strongly recommend that you consider supplementing with methylcobalamin to get your B-12 above 500. Here's our physician/Primer author Stavia in the Primer:Supplements on the importance of B12:

In addition, low B12 levels have been associated with greater incidence of dementia. This is not controversial. It may be that "normal" reference ranges may be set too low for optimal cognitive health. Many of our members run their B12 levels at the upper limit of "normal" , not the lower.

And to help you navigate this site, here's a link to our "How-To" Get the most out of the ApoE4.info website.

[pinkgothic]

Hi, NF52!

Although your B12 levels would now be considered within the "normal" range, I wanted to share my experience as a participant in a study of healthy people ages 60-75 who have one or two copies of ApoE 4 (I have two and am 67 years old.) My B-12 level on testing in March 2018 was 426. It had never been tested by my primary care providers so this is my "baseline". The Senior Investigator/Study Doctor recommended that I start taking a daily lozenge of 500 mcg of methylcobalamin to get the level about 500. (500 is also what Dr. Bredesen recommends as a minimum.)

Yeah, I am aiming for at least 500. Sorry, I should have said that! This is just the first lab report I have since I'm on supplements, and it's a very lacklustre result. I'm planning on taking at least two of my current 10mg B12 pills every day (previously took 1/day), and definitely want to find a better-dosaged source. With that said:

I order mine online, and would hope that it's possible for you to order it in Hamburg. Here's a link I found for Jarrow Deutschland's 500 mcg lozenge. Jarrow happens to be the company I order from; they just happened to also come up when I Googled "methylcobalamin Germany": https://www.jarrow.de/en/vitamins/19-jarrow-methyl-b-12-500-g.html

Thank you! I'll give that a try at next opportunity! <3

Six months after I added B-12, my B-12 level was 644 and in March 2019 it was 672. I would strongly recommend that you consider supplementing with methylcobalamin to get your B-12 above 500. Here's our physician/Primer author Stavia in the Primer:Supplements on the importance of B12:

In addition, low B12 levels have been associated with greater incidence of dementia. This is not controversial. It may be that "normal" reference ranges may be set too low for optimal cognitive health. Many of our members run their B12 levels at the upper limit of "normal" , not the lower.

And to help you navigate this site, here's a link to our "How-To" Get the most out of the ApoE4.info website.

Thanks very much for the links!

[pinkgothic]

Oops, wrong chronological order.

Hello Pinkgothic,
Just read this thread and I want to welcome you.

Thank you! I appreciate it!

I am your mom's age and started having symptoms about 7 or 8 years ago that gradually got worse. Before the Bredesen book came out I was lucky enough to get a copy of his scientific study that briefly outlined many of the "36 Holes" that he describes in his book. Then I was fortunate to attend a week long seminar by Dr. Bredesen. This included meeting with a nutritionist. I feared that she would telI me that i would have to ditch my Vegan diet, I was told, no, it was not necessary. Everyone is different so for others this may not work. I have improved immensely over that past few years and I am hopeful that I will not succumb to AD, or that it will be pushed into the far distant future.

I'm so glad you managed to get a hold of the pointers of the book early, and that you managed to stay vegan through it! That's just great. I hope you continue to be healthy! Did you notice any particular step giving you greater gains than the others?

I don't know if you were born and raised in Germany, but I am totally amazed by your English skills. As part of the program that challenges your brain I decided to try and learn German. As someone who never knew a foreign language ( I took Latin in HS) I have a deep appreciation for this skill. I think I will try and get a copy of his book written in German!

While I was born and predominantly raised in Germany, I did spend nine formative years in South Africa (between the ages 5 and 14), so you can consider me bilingual. Some of my friends are currently trying to convince me my issues finding words might be because I'm bilingual, which is a bit annoying - I don't think that's the case. (It does make finding words more difficult, but it was never as bad as it is now, and it's too noticeable as that I would ascribe it to a kind of natural deterioration of my linguistic skills.)

For what it's worth, I'm actually very fortunate to have grown up bilingually, since I have no language learning skills - as a kid, I wanted to learn French and Latin, but I was really terrible at actually learning them. I need to be immersed in a culture constantly using a language to learn it, it seems.

Ich wünsche Dir viel Erfolg beim Lernen! Kennst Du schon den (grammatikalisch nicht richtigen) Spruch "Der Dativ ist dem Genetiv sein Tod"? Falls nicht kann ich mir vorstellen, dass Du ihn irgendwann lustig findest, wenn Du in Deinem Deutsch-Kurs weiter fortgeschritten bist.

(Don't worry if you don't know what that says! Consider it a little puzzle to come back to if you want. But you don't have to, I'm not trying to force your hand here. Please enjoy yourself! I hope my mother tongue doesn't give you too many headaches in the process. )

[buck3Maureen]

Danke Pinkgothic,


Ich verstehe nicht. Ich kenne noch nicht genug. vielleicht in einem Jahr.

When I began implementing the program I tried to do everything, because I was very frightened. Progress was not immediate. The first thing that happened was that I stopped getting worse. After about six months, I began to have happy breakthroughs that would surprise me. Such as better driving confidence, improved vocabulary, remembering names, etc.

Now I notice that if I start to eat sweet things and/or stop doing aerobic exercise I feel like I am slipping and it gets me back on the program. On the other hand I dropped a lot of the supplements that I was taking and it did not seem cause a problem.

Maureen

[pinkgothic]

On the other hand I dropped a lot of the supplements that I was taking and it did not seem cause a problem.

This is really interesting, and a good pointer to always stay on the ball and watch what's necessary and what isn't! Thanks for sharing your experience!