Why I Measure Oxidative Damage For My Alzheimer's Prevention Clients
Alzheimer’s is considered a disease of old age, but it actually begins much earlier without symptoms. Typically, during mid-life as oxidative stress accelerates, toxins accumulate, metabolic health declines, and genetic factors start working against the body’s ability to maintain healthy brain function.
By the time symptoms appear, the underlying biology has been moving in the wrong direction for a very long time.
One of my clients with a maternal history of Alzheimer’s came to me after receiving a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment. She was prescribed a medication, told it might or might not help, and she would have to wait and see if things got worse.
The diagnosis was simply a diagnosis. There was no investigation into why her cognition was declining.
We got to work looking for the underlying contributors to her cognitive decline and were able to identify several.
Over the next several months, we focused on improving specific diet and lifestyle factors, along with reducing toxic exposures and inflammatory burden. Within about five months, her brain fog and memory problems improved dramatically. And the arthritis in her hand went away.
Last year, we measured her oxidative damage levels and they were high. The test estimated that her oxidative stress burden looked more like someone in their late 90s, than her current age of 72.
Even though her cognition had markedly improved, the oxidative stress damage was still significant and was specifically affecting the health of her cell membranes, her nitric oxide pathways, and her vascular health.
While oxidative stress damage is one of the foundational processes contributing to Alzheimer’s disease, the actual damage created by oxidative stress is what eventually drives dysfunction in the brain and body.
One simple urine test provided a significant amount of valuable information for her ongoing prevention plan .
She has now been working with me for five years, and after we incorporated the oxidative damage testing into her prevention plan a year and half ago, repeat test results show meaningful improvements in several of the markers.
Seeing improvement in her oxidative damage markers validated that the interventions were improving the cellular health connected to her brain-body wellness. It was proof that even in her 70s, she could make meaningful progress.
This is one reason I believe oxidative damage deserves far more attention in conversations about Alzheimer’s prevention and cognitive decline.
Most people have heard the term oxidative stress, but very few people really understand what it means. And because of that, there is very little urgency around it.
Oxidative stress is essentially a form of biological wear and tear. It develops when the body is producing more cellular damage than it can properly repair.
Over time, the body starts losing its ability to keep up with the damage because the insults causing the damage are ongoing. They continue day after day, year after year, eventually overwhelming the body’s ability to maintain and repair itself efficiently.
Most people do not connect oxidative damage to its symptoms because the symptoms are dismissed as “normal aging.”
And it is true that oxidative damage is part of the aging process. But what is “normal,” and what is excessive?
At what point does normal biological aging become accelerated aging that leads to disease?
The common symptoms are:
lower energy
brain fog
poor recovery from stress
worse sleep
more aches and pains
blood sugar problems
declining exercise tolerance
subtle memory lapses
The common assumption is those changes are simply unavoidable with age and therefore “normal.” But in many cases, they are signs that oxidative damage is accumulating faster than the body can efficiently repair it. If you take action early enough, you can improve it.
Doctors don’t always explain this kind of cellular damage to people. They may hear they need to “eat better and exercise,” or take a medication for symptoms, but never really understand the cellular implications.
What I’ve observed over many years working with people concerned about cognitive decline is that when people can actually see test results showing the biological damage affecting their body and brain, and when the information is explained in an understandable way, they become much more motivated to take consistent action.
The brain is especially vulnerable to oxidative stress.
As oxidative stress continues, inflammation inside the brain increases. Damaged proteins and cellular debris begin accumulating faster than the brain can clear them. Repair systems become less efficient.
This is where the process begins moving toward what may eventually be diagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease.
It is not unusual that oxidative damage levels can improve.
What is unusual is actually measuring it, connecting it to Alzheimer’s risk, and then using the data over time to see whether interventions are meaningfully changing biological health.
This information provides a useful high-level view of oxidative damage and inflammatory stress affecting biological health. We can, and do, gather more specific data to better understand what is driving those processes and contributing to Alzheimer’s risk when personalizing the PreCODE protocol for an individual.
In the upgraded section of this email, I’m sharing:
the oxidative damage panel I use and how to self-order it
what the biomarkers on the panel show us
and what you can begin doing to lower it and support healthier brain-body aging
An interview with the client referenced above, discussing her progress