Have you had a 'senior moment'? Experienced memory loss? Or so-called 'age-related cognitive decline'? For starters, you can take phosphatidylserine, (pronounced fos-fatid-il-see-reen) called PS for short. Phosphatidylserine is the nutrient that can revitalize memory, learning, concentration, even vocabulary skills as these cognitive functions decline with age. In Linus Pauling's words, it is an "orthomolecule," a substance intrinsic to the human body and found in all living things.

PS is extremely well documented?it's been researched in more than 60 human clinical studies over a period of more than 20 years, in both North America and Europe. Seventeen double-blind, controlled clinical trials prove beyond doubt its considerable worth as a dietary supplement. These consistently positive clinical findings, backed up by more than 2,800 scientific research papers, prove that PS along with other phospholipids safely and effectively support memory, learning, concentration, word recall and a wide range of other cognitive brain functions.

Alzheimer's and Stress

Phosphatidylserine can also benefit Alzheimer's patients. In several double-blind trials, it improved adaptability, mood sociability, memory and other cognitive functions. But the earlier a subject with brain deterioration can be started on supplements for cognitive function, the better. PS is also naturally suited for use in combination with vitamin E and other nutrients.

Besides benefiting cognition, PS benefits other brain activities, like coping with stress, fighting depression and maintaining daily hormone rhythms. In young, healthy men it lowered the production of stress hormones linked to strenuous exercise and eased stress-related mood symptoms in the elderly.

All our brain cells are enriched in phosphatidylserine, which helps them produce and release the natural chemical transmitters that make the brain work. But while drugs can be used to raise or lower the levels of single chemical transmitters, PS influences many major transmitter systems to produce an overall harmonizing influence on the brain.

Most of the chemical transmitter activity occurs on membrane systems, the action centers built into and around the brain cells. PS may be the most important nutrient for building these nerve cell membranes and as a consequence, boosting integrated brain performance.

The cell membranes are thin, three-dimensional molecular sheets, made up of enzymes and other proteins built into a continuous bed of large molecules called phospholipids. As a phospholipid, PS is uniquely suited, through its physical and chemical characteristics, to supporting the enzymes and other proteins in the membranes of the nerve.

PS and Energy

Phosphatidylserine also helps the brain process energy. The brain requires a lot of energy to carry out its functions though it weighs only about 1.35 kg. This organ uses at least 20 per cent of all the body's energy at rest and up to 60 per cent when we're doing hard mental work! Researchers can take advantage of sophisticated imaging instruments to examine how phosphatidylserine affects energy in the human brain.

The vast majority of the cell energy functions are carried out by the membranes of the mitochondria, which are the energy powerhouses of the nerve cells. PS gets into these membranes, alongside coenzyme Q1O and vitamin E and the protein cytochromes, improving energy efficiency. Since phosphatidylserine is present in all living cells, it is likely to help all our tissues generate and utilize energy.

PS works so well it may even help reverse human age related memory loss. In a 1991 double-blind trial done by Dr Thomas Crook and his associates at the Memory Assessment Clinics in Bethesda, Maryland. PS was found to improve name-face matching by about 12 years' worth. That is, when participants first took this test they performed at around age 64, then after three months on PS they had improved to an average 52 years. These subjects who were well into their 60s were performing on memory tests as if they were in their early 50s.

New Technology

When PS was first researched as a dietary supplement, it had to be prepared from cow brain material. New technology has made it possible to enrich soy lecithin and so produce a safe dietary supplement that is highly bioavailable and crosses the blood-brain barrier. It is likely that once they get into the brain, the molecules migrate into the membranes of the nerve cells. There PS also serves as a storehouse for the related phospholipids PE (phosphatidylethanolamine) and PC (phosphatidylcholine), which are also cell membrane constituents.

A good dosing schedule for phosphatidylserine is 300 mg per day for the first month, then 100 mg per day as a maintenance intake. Most people will notice a difference after three to six weeks. Those who are really having problems or prefer faster results can take up to 500 mg daily for that first month, then 200 to 300 per day thereafter. PS is free of major side effects. As an orthomolecule it seems compatible with all the nutrients and with many drugs in common use.

The numerous human clinical studies completed with phosphatidylserine confirm that it consistently enhances memory and many other mental functions. Phosphatidylserine revitalizes the brain by giving it new energy and metabolic efficiency through the cell membranes. In some cases these lipids may rejuvenate the brain circuitry. Whether impaired mental performance is linked to aging, toxic or traumatic damage, cerebral insufficiency or nonspecific causes, PS is a nutrient unsurpassed for its clinical benefits to the brain.

Memory Loss

Memory decline and other cognitive loss has been linked not just to aging but to agents that damage the brain circuits such as alcohol, cigarette smoke, heavy metals(lead, mercury, cadmium), environmental toxins(pesticides, herbicides, etc.), food additives. stroke or other brain trauma, chronic emotional stress, bouts of hypoglycemia. The 1arge, tree-shaped nerve cells are either killed outright by these insults or die back towards their roots. The interconnected cell networks in the brain are found to be less dense in people who have lost measurable amounts of their cognitive functions.

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