It is now considered normal to lose cognitive function as you age -- to experience diminished memory, reasoning and speed in processing information. This "normal" age-related cognitive decline is contrasted to dementias, like Alzheimer's, which are much more debilitating and include severe nerve cell damage and death of nerve cells. In fact, age-related cognitive decline and dementia are the same thing. What you call it is a matter of degree, and it is primarily a product of our unhealthy diets and lifestyles.Maintaining a youthful brain does, however, require superior nutrition from both diet and high-quality supplements. A brain support program would include the B vitamins and the antioxidant vitamins A, C, D and E. Fish or flax oil is a must, and the need for it increases with age.By middle age, it's best to be supplementing with CoQ10, acetyl-L-carnitine, and multiple B vitamins. (Deficiencies in vitamin B12 are common and often misdiagnosed as dementias or…

. . . or taking good care of your nerve cells?  Alzheimer's disease has become an epidemic. Many people today fear losing their mental capacity more than they fear having a heart attack or getting a cancer diagnosis. One in eight individuals aged 65 and under now has Alzheimer's. For those aged 85 and older, it's one in two! Bad as this is, if the epidemic continues to grow at its current rate, the number of people in the U.S. with Alzheimer's could triple by the year 2050! Though these odds are alarming, Alzheimer's is easy to prevent. In fact in healthy cultures in the past, it didn't exist. The risk factors for getting Alzheimer's are familiar to anyone who's read my books: poor diet, nutritional deficiency, toxins, stress, free radical damage, chronic inflammation, blood sugar disregulation and insulin resistance (from eating sugar and other refined carbohydrates), excess body weight, stress, not enough exercise, particular prescription drugs, excessive use of salt and dehydr…