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How To Rebuild Your Neurons' Myelin Sheaths
Plus: the no-cardio exercise approach that burns fat efficiently
The 10almonds Team
July 24, 2023
Today’s almonds have been activated by:
Loading Screen Tip: today is the first day of the rest of your life
⏰ IN A RUSH?
Today’s 30-Second Summary
If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:
Phosphatidylserine (PS) is a fatty compound found in the brain
It’s important for the production and maintenance of myelin sheaths, which protect neurons in the same way that telomere caps protect DNA
Just like telomeres can get a bit frayed with age, so too with myelin sheaths
Phosphatidylserine supplementation is effective, can be easily absorbed, and does cross the blood-brain barrier
There’s a lot of science to show that such supplementation helps reduce age-related cognitive decline
There’s also science to show that it has cognitive enhancement benefits in the short-term in young healthy individuals too.
Today’s sponsor, Verb Energy, are offering a 30% discount on their high protein, low sugar snack bars that were already at a very good price!
Read on to learn about these things and more…
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
You might want barefoot shoes after watching this
Laura talks about her feet have changed over the course of 5 years with barefoot shoes:
💊 MAIN FEATURE
PS: We Love You
Phosphatidylserine, or “PS” for short, is a phospholipid found in the brain. In other words, a kind of fatty compound that is such stuff as our brains are made of.
In particular, it’s required for healthy nerve cell membranes and myelin (the protective sheath that neurons live in—basically, myelin sheaths do for neurons what telomere caps do for DNA).
For an overview that’s more comprehensive than we have room for here, check out:
Many people take it as a supplement.
Does taking it as a supplement work?
This is a valid question, as a lot of supplements can’t be absorbed well, and/or can’t pass the blood-brain barrier. But, as the above-linked study notes:
❝Exogenous PS (300-800 mg/d) is absorbed efficiently in humans, crosses the blood-brain barrier, and safely slows, halts, or reverses biochemical alterations and structural deterioration in nerve cells. It supports human cognitive functions, including the formation of short-term memory, the consolidation of long-term memory, the ability to create new memories, the ability to retrieve memories, the ability to learn and recall information, the ability to focus attention and concentrate, the ability to reason and solve problems, language skills, and the ability to communicate. It also supports locomotor functions, especially rapid reactions and reflexes.❞
(“Exogenous” means “coming from outside of the body”, as opposed to “endogenous”, meaning “made inside the body”. Effectively, in this context “exogenous” means “taken as a supplement”.)
Why do people take it?
The health claims for phosphatidylserine fall into two main categories:
Neuroprotection (helping your brain to avoid age-related decline in the long term)
Cognitive enhancement (helping your brain work better in the short term)
What does the science say?
There’s a lot of science that’s been done on the neuroprotective properties of PS, and there are thousands of studies we could draw from here. The upshot is that regular phosphatidylserine supplementation (most often 300mg/day, but studies are also found for 100–500mg/day) is strongly associated with a reduction in cognitive decline over the course of 12 weeks (a common study duration). Here are a some spotlight studies showing this:
Note: PS can be derived from various sources, with the two most common forms being bovine (i.e., from cow brains) or soy-derived.
There is no established difference in the efficacy of these.
There have been some concerns raised about the risk of CJD (the human form of BSE, as in "mad cow disease") from consuming brain matter from cows, but studies have not found any evidence of this actually happening.
There is also some evidence that phosphatidyserine significantly boosts cognitive performance, even in young people with no extant cognitive decline, for example:
(as the title suggests, they did also test for its effect on mood and endocrine response, but found it made no difference to those, just the cognitive function—which enjoyed a boost before exercise, as well as after it, meaning that the boost wasn’t dependent on the exercise)
PS for cognitive enhancement in the young and healthy is not nearly so well-explored as its use as a later-life guard against age-related cognitive decline. However, just because the studies in younger people are dwarfed in number by the studies in older people, doesn’t detract from the validity of the studies in younger people.
Basically: its use in older people has been studied the most, but all available evidence points to it being beneficial to brain health at all ages.
Where can we get it?
We don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience, here’s an example product on Amazon.
Enjoy!
❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE
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As for price, they do various deals, but to give you an idea, they’re typically just a little over a dollar per bar—so, cheaper than the much more sugary energy bars in your local supermarket!
(Psst, use code “STACK” to enjoy 30% off)
Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free
🌎 AROUND THE WEB
What’s happening in the health world…
More to come tomorrow!
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
Body by Science: A Research-Based Program for Strength Training, Body Building, and Complete Fitness in 12 Minutes a Week - by Dr. Doug McGuff & John Little
The idea that you'll get a re-sculpted body at 12 minutes per week is a bold claim, isn't it? Medical Doctor Doug McGuff and bodybuilder John Little team up to lay out their case. So, how does it stand up to scrutiny?
First, is it "backed by rigorous research" as claimed? Yes... with caveats.
The book uses a large body of scientific literature as its foundation, and that weight of evidence does support this general approach:
Endurance cardio isn't very good at burning fat
Muscle, even just having it without using it much, burns fat to maintain it
To that end, muscle can be viewed as a fat-burning asset
Muscle can be grown quickly with short bursts of intense exercise once per week
Why once per week? The most relevant muscle fibers take about that long to recover, so doing it more often will undercut gains.
So, what are the caveats?
The authors argue for slow reps of maximally heavy resistance work sufficient to cause failure in about 90 seconds. However, most of the studies cited for the benefits of "brief intense exercise" are for High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). HIIT involves "sprints" of exercise. It doesn't have to be literally running, but for example maxing out on an exercise bike for 30 seconds, slowing for 60, maxing out for 30, etc. Or in the case of resistance work, explosive (fast!) concentric movements and slow eccentric movements, to work fast- and slow-twitch muscle fibers, respectively.
What does this mean for the usefulness of the book?
Will it sculpt your body as described in the blurb? Yes, this will indeed grow your muscles with a minimal expenditure of time
Will it improve your body's fat-burning metabolism? Yes, this will indeed turn your body into a fat-burning machine
Will it improve your "complete fitness"? No, if you want to be an all-rounder athlete, you will still need HIIT, as otherwise anything taxing your under-worked fast-twitch muscle fibers will exhaust you quickly.
Bottom line: read this book if you want to build muscle efficiently, and make your body more efficient at burning fat. Best supplemented with at least some cardio, though!
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Wishing you the very best start to the week,
The 10almonds Team