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More Reasons To Love Lutein And Zeaxanthan
Written by Wellness Club on February 6, 2017 – 10:44 am -By Nurse Mark
Regular HealthBeat News readers know that here at The Wellness Club we are very fond of the supplements Lutein and Zeaxthanthan. In fact, Dr. Myatt and I have both included Lutein Plus in our daily supplement routine. I wrote about my experience in vision improvement two years ago in this HealthBeat Article and everything I said then still stands today.
Now however, it looks like there is even more reason to love Lutein Plus with it’s high-purity doses of lutein and zeaxanthan: recent research is now demonstrating that there is a brain connection too.
“Of All The Things I’ve Lost, I Miss My Mind The Most!”
You have hear it before, and if you are getting a little older like most of us, you may have even said it. In fact, in polling our readers and Dr. Myatt’s patients, we have found that the thing most feared by many is not a heart attack, not cancer, not any of the supposedly “dreaded” diseases – the thing that frightens people the most is losing their mind and their memories and their ability to interact with their loved ones.
It now appears that in addition to protecting the eye and improving quality of vision, Lutein and zeaxanthan have been found to play an important role in brain health.
Researchers used MRI scans to study the brain activity of older people while they tried to remember word pairings they had been taught earlier. The found that that those people with higher levels of lutein and zeaxanthan didn’t require as much brain activity to complete their tasks, while those with lower levels needed higher levels of brain activity.
What does this mean?
Here’s the short course: As we age, our brains naturally deteriorate (no surprise, huh?) but the brain steps up it’s level of activity in order to compensate – kind of like an automobile that is getting older that has to work harder and rev up a little more to get up hills. With higher levels of lutein and zeaxanthan however, older brains appears to work more efficiently and are able to get work done with less activity than brains that are starved for these two carotenoids.
Numerous earlier studies have found similar brain or cognition benefits for seniors. Here is one paper that provides a good review of lutein and zeaxanthan for eye health and examines some other studies of them when used for brain health: http://www.crn-i.ch/2012symposium/2012presentations/CRN-I-12-Johnson.pdf
Bottom Line?
Given the positive news rolling in almost daily about the benefits of lutein and zeaxanthan there is no way either Dr. Myatt or I will be missing any doses of our Lutein Plus!
References and Resources:
HealthBeat News Article on Lutein: http://healthbeatnews.com/lutein-i-can-see-clearly-now-the-haze-is-gone/
PubMed Article: Relationship of Lutein and Zeaxanthin Levels to Neurocognitive Functioning: An fMRI Study of Older Adults. “The observed results suggest that L [lutein] and Z [zeaxanthin] promote cognitive functioning in old age by enhancing neural efficiency.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27776568
Presentation: Beyond Eye Health: Other Effects Of Lutein And Zeaxanthin http://www.crn-i.ch/2012symposium/2012presentations/CRN-I-12-Johnson.pdf
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