I recently ran into the headline: “Stress hormone is good for brain health.” The hormone is called CRH2, corticotropin releasing hormone receptor, and is released during stress to mitigate the potentially harmful effects of other biochemicals. The headline could mislead people.
Without reading the article, one might conclude that stress benefits brain health because of the hormone released. Stress can increase brain performance, but never increases brain health. CRH2 only exists because of the harmful health effects stress otherwise has. Indeed, chronic stress overwhelms the ability of CRH2 to mitigate the harm.
One might conclude that finding a way to increase CRH2 in the body will increase brain health, with or without a response to stress. Perhaps, but it will not work better than removing the chronic stress from your life. Always choose lifestyle prevention over a medical cure when the option exists.
Another potential problem exists with introducing a supplement that our bodies already make. Our bodies produce melatonin when exposed to sunlight, which helps with sleep and calming the mind. Many people take melatonin supplements because of this, but reliance on melatonin supplements slows or stops the body from producing the biochemical naturally.
Having said that, I give Cindy three times the recommended dosage for melatonin daily. I am unconcerned about her body no longer producing it; in her situation she will never get enough sun again naturally. I upped the dosage based on research by Dale Bredesen listing several factors that can slow or reverse cognitive decline. I also was using it as an anti-seizure supplement.
I actually applied for Cindy to be a part of Bredesen’s study when we passed through the San Francisco area in 2014, during our PCT hike. Unlike 2011, when hiking the ADT helped reverse Cindy’s cognitive decline, she was now too advanced for his research.
Keep this in mind when you see promising headlines about any potential supplements or medicines. Many times they were based on studies of mice that never really transferred to humans. Other times they were based on subjects being selected for the study that were not too advanced. In other words, they were still mentally fit enough to be helped merely by lifestyle factors.
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