Keep Your Brain Healthy (Before and After a Stroke)

According to Google Health, when a friend or a loved one in your sphere of existence suffers a stroke, they are basically experiencing, “an interruption of the blood supply to any part of the brain. A stroke is sometimes called a “brain attack.”

As you may already know, this is one of the most serious health conditions that can befall a person. And, there are a myriad of follow-up concerns. For example, nerve cell death in the brain is a major cause of post-stroke degeneration. The results of a previous study involving the brains cells of a mouse and published in the Journal of Neurochemistry have shed some light on how brain health can be saved and maintained after the unfortunate incident of a stroke.

After concluding their National Institutes of Health-funded study, researchers from Ohio State University discovered that alpha-tocotrienol (a strong antioxidant from of vitamin E found in palm oil, rice bran and cereal grains) was found to inhibit the enzyme responsible for releasing certain fatty acids that can eventually kill the neurons or nerve cells in the brain. The tocotrienol functions in this beneficial way even at low levels.

According to www.nutraingredients.com’s “Vitamin E May Boost Brain Health After Stroke” by Stephen Daniells, “The study’s results were welcomed by Carotech, the producer of the tocotrienol ingredient used in the study. Dr. Sharon Ling, vice president, scientific affairs, sales & marketing (Europe) for Carotech Ltd (London) told NutraIngredients that the company is ‘very excited that tocotrienol – a natural dietary nutrient from palm oil – can be just as effective [as drugs or other therapeutic agents], if not more so, in neural protection.’

‘This should open up new possibilities into prevention and even treatment of stroke and other neurodegenerative diseases,’ she added.

Dr. Ling added that the potential neuroprotective effects of nanomolar levels of tocotrienol were first reported a decade ago. ‘This latest study from The Ohio State University elucidates how very low levels of tocotrienol, which are readily achievable by daily supplementation, protects the brain in artificially induced stroke,’ she added.”

The information supplied in this article is not to be considered as medical advice and is for educational purposes only.