Bacopa Monnieri: A Well-Evidenced Cognitive Enhancer

10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

Bacopa monnieri: a powerful nootropic

Bacopa monnieri is one of those “from traditional use” herbs that has made its way into science.

It’s been used for at least 1,400 years in Ayurvedic medicine, for cognitive enhancement, against anxiety, and some disease-specific treatments.

See: Pharmacological attributes of Bacopa monnieri extract: current updates and clinical manifestation

What are its claimed health benefits?

Bacopa monnieri is these days mostly sold and bought as a nootropic, and that’s what the science supports best.

Nootropic benefits claimed:

  • Improves attention, learning, and memory
  • Reduces depression, anxiety, and stress
  • Reduces restlessness and impulsivity

Other benefits claimed:

  • Antioxidant properties
  • Anti-inflammatory properties
  • Anticancer properties

What does the science say?

Those last three, the antioxidant / anti-inflammatory / anticancer properties, when something has one of those qualities it often has all three, because there are overlapping systems at hand when it comes to oxidative stress, inflammation, and cellular damage.

Bacopa monnieri is no exception to this “rule of thumb”, and/but studies to support these benefits have mostly been animal studies and/or in vitro studies (i.e., cell cultures in a petri dish in lab conditions).

For example:

In the category of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects in the brain, sometimes results differ depending on the test population, for example:

Anything more promising than that?

Yes! The nootropic effects have been much better-studied in humans, and with much better results.

For example, in this 12-week study in healthy adults, taking 300mg/day significantly improved visual information processing, learning, and memory (tested against placebo):

The chronic effects of an extract of Bacopa monnieri on cognitive function in healthy human subjects

Another 12-week study showed older adults enjoyed the same cognitive enhancement benefits as their younger peers:

Effects of 12-week Bacopa monnieri consumption on attention, cognitive processing, working memory, and functions of both cholinergic and monoaminergic systems in healthy elderly volunteers

Children taking 225mg/day, meanwhile, saw a significant reduction in ADHD symptoms, such as restlessness and impulsivity:

The effects of standardized Bacopa monnieri extract in the management of symptoms of ADHD in children

And as for the mood benefits, 300mg/day significantly reduced anxiety and depression in elderly adults:

Effects of a standardized Bacopa monnieri extract on cognitive performance, anxiety, and depression in the elderly: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

In summary

Bacopa monnieri, taken at 300mg/day (studies ranged from 225mg/day to 600mg/day, but 300mg is most common) has well-evidenced cognitive benefits, including:

  • Improved attention, learning, and memory
  • Reduced depression, anxiety, and stress
  • Reduced restlessness and impulsivity

It may also have other benefits, including against oxidative stress, inflammation, and cancer, but the research is thinner and/or not as conclusive for those.

Where to get it

As ever, we don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience, here is an example product on Amazon.

Enjoy!

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

Recommended

  • Pomegranate’s Health Gifts Are Mostly In Its Peel
  • ‘Active recovery’ after exercise is supposed to improve performance – but does it really work?
    Active recovery may reduce soreness and improve post-exercise performance, but its effects are debated—experts weigh in.

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Tasty Hot-Or-Cold Soup

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Full of fiber as well as vitamins and minerals, this versatile “serve it hot or cold” soup is great whatever the weather—give it a try!

    You will need

    • 1 quart low-sodium vegetable stock—ideally you made this yourself from vegetable offcuts you kept in the freezer until you had enough to boil in a big pan, but failing that, a large supermarket will generally be able to sell you low-sodium stock cubes.
    • 2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
    • 2 leeks, chopped
    • 2 stalks celery, chopped
    • 1 large onion, diced
    • 1 large carrot, diced, or equivalent small carrots, sliced
    • 1 zucchini, diced
    • 1 red bell pepper, diced
    • 1 tsp rosemary
    • 1 tsp thyme
    • ¼ bulb garlic, minced
    • 1 small piece (equivalent of a teaspoon) ginger, minced
    • 1 tsp red chili flakes
    • 1 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • ½ tsp turmeric
    • Extra virgin olive oil, for frying
    • Optional: ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt

    About the MSG/salt: there should be enough sodium already from the stock and potatoes, but in case there’s not (since not all stock and potatoes are made equal), you might want to keep this on standby.

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Heat some oil in a sauté pan, and add the diced onion, frying until it begins to soften.

    2) Add the ginger, potato, carrot, and leek, and stir for about 5 minutes. The hard vegetables won’t be fully cooked yet; that’s fine.

    3) Add the zucchini, red pepper, celery, and garlic, and stir for another 2–3 minutes.

    4) Add the remaining ingredients; seasonings first, then vegetable stock, and let it simmer for about 15 minutes.

    5) Check the potatoes are fully softened, and if they are, it’s ready to serve if you want it hot. Alternatively, let it cool, chill it in the fridge, and enjoy it cold:

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • How To Be 7.5x More Likely To Develop Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    First, what is it?

    Many more people have chronic fatigue, which is the symptom of being exhausted all the time, than have chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) which is the illness of myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).

    This is because fatigue can be a symptom of many, many other conditions, and can be heavily influenced by lifestyle factors too.

    A lot of the advice for dealing with chronic fatigue is often the same in both cases, but some will be different, because for example:

    • If your fatigue is from some other condition, that condition probably impacts what lifestyle factors you are (and are not) able to change, too
    • If your fatigue is from lifestyle factors, that hopefully means you can change those and enjoy less fatigue…
      • But if it’s not from lifestyle factors, as in ME/CFS, then advice to “exercise more” etc is not going to help so much.

    There are ways to know the difference though:

    Check out: Do You Have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

    The chronic disease pipeline

    While it had been strongly suspected that COVID infection could lead to CFS, with long COVID having chronic fatigue as one of its characteristic symptoms, a research team led by Dr. Suzanne Vernon has now established the nature of the relationship.

    It was a large (n=13,224) longitudinal observational cohort study of people with no pre-existing ME/CFS, grouped according to their COVID infection status:

    1. acute infected, enrolled within 30 days of infection or enrolled as uninfected who became infected (n=4,515)
    2. post-acute infected, enrolled greater than 30 days after infection (n=7,270)
    3. uninfected (n=1,439).

    (to be clear, that last means “never infected”, or else they would be in group 2)

    Note: people who had COVID and were hospitalized for it were excluded from the study, so this risk is the risk represented by even just more “moderate” infections.

    What they found:

    ❝The proportion of all RECOVER-Adult participants that met criteria for ME/CFS following SARS-CoV-2 infection was 4.5% (531 of 11,785) compared to 0.6% (9 of 1439) in uninfected participants.❞

    There are then different numbers if we look per 100 person-years, as the study also did—in which case, we get a re-modelled increase in risk of 5x instead of 7.5x, but a) that’s still not good b) the “here-and-now” figures of 4.5% vs 0.6% are also relevant.

    Read in full: Incidence and Prevalence of Post-COVID-19 Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: A Report from the Observational RECOVER-Adult Study

    The killer nobody wants to talk about anymore

    Of course, as we all know the pandemic is over, because politicians declared it so, which is very reassuring.

    Nevertheless, COVID is currently the still 4th leading cause of death in the US, placing it higher than stroke, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and others.

    See also: Emergency or Not, Covid Is Still Killing People. Here’s What Doctors Advise to Stay Safe

    So, while it’s very good to take care of our hearts, brains, blood sugars, and so forth, let’s at the very least continue to keep on top of our vaccinations, avoid enclosed crowded spaces where possible, etc.

    And for extra boosts to one’s chances: Why Some People Get Sick More (And How To Not Be One Of Them)

    What if I do get (or already have) long COVID and/or ME/CFS?

    Well, that is definitely going to suck, but there are still some things that can be done.

    Here’s a big one: How To Eat To Beat Chronic Fatigue ← this will not, of course, cure you, but it’s a way of getting maximum nutrition for minimum effort, given that for someone with chronic fatigue, effort is a very finite resource that must be used sparingly

    Finally, here are some further resources:

    Support For Long COVID & Chronic Fatigue

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • How does the drug abemaciclib treat breast cancer?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The anti-cancer drug abemaciclib (also known as Vernezio) has this month been added to the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) to treat certain types of breast cancer.

    This significantly reduces the cost of the drug. A patient can now expect to pay A$31.60 for a 28-day supply ($7.70 with a health care concession card). The price of abemaciclib without government subsidy is $4,250.

    So what is abemaciclib, and how did we get to this point?

    It stops cells dividing

    Researchers at the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly developed abemaciclib and published the first study on the drug (then known as LY2835219) in 2014.

    Abemaciclib is a type of drug known as a “cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor”. It’s taken as a pill twice a day.

    To maintain our health, many of the cells in our bodies need to grow and divide to produce new cells. Cancers develop when cells grow and divide out of control. Therefore, stopping cells from dividing into new cells is one way that cancer can be fought.

    When cells divide, they have to make a copy of their DNA to pass onto the new cell. “Cyclin-dependent kinases” (CDKs for short) are essential for this process. So, if you stop the CDKs, you stop the DNA copying, you stop cells dividing, and you fight the cancer.

    However, there are different types of CDKs, and not all cancers need them all to grow. Abemaciclib specifically targets CDK4 and CDK6. Thankfully, a lot of cancers do need these CDKs, including some breast cancers.

    Woman checks her breast
    The drug targets CDK4 and CDK6. Photoroyalty/Shutterstock

    But abemaciclib will only be effective against cancers that rely on CDK4 and CDK6 for continued growth. This specificity also means abemaciclib is fairly unique, so it can’t easily be replaced with a different drug.

    Two other CDK4/6 inhibitors were developed around the same time as abemaciclib, and are called ribociclib and palbociclib. Both of these drugs are also on the PBS for specific types of breast cancer. As the drugs differ in their chemical structures, they have slight differences in the way they are taken up and processed by the body. The preferred drug given to a breast cancer patient will depend on their unique circumstances.

    What are the side effects?

    Research is still ongoing into the differences between each of these CDK4/6 inhibitors, but it is known that the side effects are largely similar, but can differ in severity.

    The most common side effects of abemaciclib are fatigue, diarrhoea and neutropenia (reduced white blood cells). The gastrointestinal issues are generally more severe with abemaciclib.

    If these side effects are too severe, abemaciclib treatment can be stopped.

    What types of cancer has abemaciclib been approved for?

    In 2017, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved abemaciclib for the treatment of patients with metastatic HR+/HER2- (hormone receptor-positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative) breast cancer who did not respond to standard endocrine therapy.

    Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) similarly approved abemaciclib in 2022 as an “adjuvant” therapy (after the initial surgery to remove the tumour) for patients with HR+/HER2- invasive early breast cancer which had spread to lymph nodes and was at high risk of returning.

    Doctor looks at laptop
    The drug is approved for people with early breast cancer which is at high risk of returning. PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

    As of May 1 2024, the PBS covers this use of abemaciclib in combination with endocrine therapy such as fulvestrant, which is also listed on the PBS. Endocrine therapy, also known as hormonal therapy, blocks hormone receptor positive (HR+) cancers from receiving the hormones they need to survive.

    Could abemaciclib be used for other cancers in the future?

    Abemaciclib is of great interest to scientists and medical practitioners, and testing is ongoing to assess the effectiveness of abemaciclib in treating a range of other cancers, including gastrointestinal cancers and blood cancers.

    Abemaciclib may even be usable in brain cancers, as it has long been known to be capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, a common stumbling block for potential anti-cancer drugs.

    Time will tell whether the role of abemaciclib in health care will be expanded. But for now, its inclusion on the PBS is sure to bring some relief to breast cancer patients nationwide.

    Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and John (Eddie) La Marca, Senior Resarch Officer, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Pomegranate’s Health Gifts Are Mostly In Its Peel
  • Rise And (Really) Shine!

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Q&A with 10almonds Subscribers!

    Q: Would love to hear more ideas about effective first thing in the morning time management to get a great start on your day.

    A: There are a lot of schools of thought about what’s best in this regard! Maybe we’ll do a main feature sometime. But some things that are almost universally agreed upon are:

    • Prepare your to-do list the night before
    • Have some sort of buffer between waking up and getting to productivity.
    • For me (hi, your writer here) it’s my first coffee of the day. It’s not even about the caffeine, it’s about the ritual of it, it’s a marker that separates my night from the day and tells my brain what gear to get into.
      • Others may like to exercise first thing in the morning
      • For still yet others, it could be a shower, cold or otherwise
      • Some people like a tall glass of lemon water to rehydrate after sleeping!
      • If you take drinkable morning supplements such as this pretty awesome nootropic stack, it’s a great time for that and an excellent way to get the brain-juices flowing!
    • When you do get to productivity: eat the frog first! What this means is: if eating a frog is the hardest thing you’ll have to do all day, do that first. Basically, tackle the most intimidating task first. That way, you won’t spend your day stressed/anxious and/or subconsciously wasting time in order to procrastinate and avoid it.
    • Counterpart to the above: a great idea is to also plan something to look forward to when your working day is done. It doesn’t matter much what it is, provided it’s rewarding to you, that makes you keen to finish your tasks to get to it.

    Have a question you’d like to see answered here? Hit reply to this email, or use the feedback widget at the bottom! We always love to hear from you

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • The Growing Inequality in Life Expectancy Among Americans

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The life expectancy among Native Americans in the western United States has dropped below 64 years, close to life expectancies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Haiti. For many Asian Americans, it’s around 84 — on par with life expectancies in Japan and Switzerland.

    Americans’ health has long been unequal, but a new study shows that the disparity between the life expectancies of different populations has nearly doubled since 2000. “This is like comparing very different countries,” said Tom Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations and an author of the study.

    Called “Ten Americas,” the analysis published late last year in The Lancet found that “one’s life expectancy varies dramatically depending on where one lives, the economic conditions in that location, and one’s racial and ethnic identity.” The worsening health of specific populations is a key reason the country’s overall life expectancy — at 75 years for men and 80 for women — is the shortest among wealthy nations.

    To deliver on pledges from the new Trump administration to make America healthy again, policymakers will need to fix problems undermining life expectancy across all populations.

    “As long as we have these really severe disparities, we’re going to have this very low life expectancy,” said Kathleen Harris, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina. “It should not be that way for a country as rich as the U.S.”

    Since 2000, the average life expectancy of many American Indians and Alaska Natives has been steadily shrinking. The same has been true since 2014 for Black people in low-income counties in the southeastern U.S.

    “Some groups in the United States are facing a health crisis,” Bollyky said, “and we need to respond to that because it’s worsening.”

    Heart disease, car fatalities, diabetes, covid-19, and other common causes of death are directly to blame. But research shows that the conditions of people’s lives, their behaviors, and their environments heavily influence why some populations are at higher risk than others.

    Native Americans in the West — defined in the “Ten Americas” study as more than a dozen states excluding California, Washington, and Oregon — were among the poorest in the analysis, living in counties where a person’s annual income averages below about $20,000. Economists have shown that people with low incomes generally live shorter lives.

    Studies have also linked the stress of poverty, trauma, and discrimination to detrimental coping behaviors like smoking and substance use disorders. And reservations often lack grocery stores and clean, piped water, which makes it hard to buy and cook healthy food.

    About 1 in 5 Native Americans in the Southwest don’t have health insurance, according to a KFF report. Although the Indian Health Service provides coverage, the report says the program is weak due to chronic underfunding. This means people may delay or skip treatments for chronic illnesses. Postponed medical care contributed to the outsize toll of covid among Native Americans: About 1 of every 188 Navajo people died of the disease at the peak of the pandemic.

    “The combination of limited access to health care and higher health risks has been devastating,” Bollyky said.

    At the other end of the spectrum, the study’s category of Asian Americans maintained the longest life expectancies since 2000. As of 2021, it was 84 years.

    Education may partly underlie the reasons certain groups live longer. “People with more education are more likely to seek out and adhere to health advice,” said Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, and an author of the paper. Education also offers more opportunities for full-time jobs with health benefits. “Money allows you to take steps to take care of yourself,” Mokdad said.

    The group with the highest incomes in most years of the analysis was predominantly composed of white people, followed by the mainly Asian group. The latter, however, maintained the highest rates of college graduation, by far. About half finished college, compared with fewer than a third of other populations.

    The study suggests that education partly accounts for differences among white people living in low-income counties, where the individual income averaged less than $32,363. Since 2000, white people in low-income counties in southeastern states — defined as those in Appalachia and the Lower Mississippi Valley — had far lower life expectancies than those in upper midwestern states including Montana, Nebraska, and Iowa. (The authors provide details on how the groups were defined and delineated in their report.)

    Opioid use and HIV rates didn’t account for the disparity between these white, low-income groups, Bollyky said. But since 2010, more than 90% of white people in the northern group were high school graduates, compared with around 80% in the southeastern U.S.

    The education effect didn’t hold true for Latino groups compared with others. Latinos saw lower rates of high school graduation than white people but lived longer on average. This long-standing trend recently changed among Latinos in the Southwest because of covid. Hispanic or Latino and Black people were nearly twice as likely to die from the disease.

    On average, Black people in the U.S. have long experienced worse health than other races and ethnicities in the United States, except for Native Americans. But this analysis reveals a steady improvement in Black people’s life expectancy from 2000 to about 2012. During this period, the gap between Black and white life expectancies shrank.

    This is true for all three groups of Black people in the analysis: Those in low-income counties in southeastern states like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama; those in highly segregated and metropolitan counties, such as Queens, New York, and Wayne, Michigan, where many neighborhoods are almost entirely Black or entirely white; and Black people everywhere else.

    Better drugs to treat high blood pressure and HIV help account for the improvements for many Americans between 2000 to 2010. And Black people, in particular, saw steep rises in high school graduation and gains in college education in that period.

    However, progress stagnated for Black populations by 2016. Disparities in wealth grew. By 2021, Asian and many white Americans had the highest incomes in the study, living in counties with per capita incomes around $50,000. All three groups of Black people in the analysis remained below $30,000.

    A wealth gap between Black and white people has historical roots, stretching back to the days of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and policies that prevented Black people from owning property in neighborhoods that are better served by public schools and other services. For Native Americans, a historical wealth gap can be traced to a near annihilation of the population and mass displacement in the 19th and 20th centuries.

    Inequality has continued to rise for several reasons, such as a widening pay gap between predominantly white corporate leaders and low-wage workers, who are disproportionately people of color. And reporting from KFF Health News shows that decisions not to expand Medicaid have jeopardized the health of hundreds of thousands of people living in poverty.

    Researchers have studied the potential health benefits of reparation payments to address historical injustices that led to racial wealth gaps. One new study estimates that such payments could reduce premature death among Black Americans by 29%.

    Less controversial are interventions tailored to communities. Obesity often begins in childhood, for example, so policymakers could invest in after-school programs that give children a place to socialize, be active, and eat healthy food, Harris said. Such programs would need to be free for children whose parents can’t afford them and provide transportation.

    But without policy changes that boost low wages, decrease medical costs, put safe housing and strong public education within reach, and ensure access to reproductive health care including abortion, Harris said, the country’s overall life expectancy may grow worse.

    “If the federal government is really interested in America’s health,” she said, “they could grade states on their health metrics and give them incentives to improve.”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

    This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Psychedelics and Psychotherapy – Edited by Dr. Tim Read & Maria Papaspyrou

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    A quick note on authorship, first: this book is edited by the psychiatrist and psychotherapist credited above, but after the introductory section, the rest of the chapters are written by experts on the individual topics.As such, the style will vary somewhat, from chapter to chapter.

    What this book isn’t: “try drugs and feel better!”

    Rather, the book explores the various ways in which assorted drugs can help people to—even if just briefly—shed things they didn’t know they were carrying, or otherwise couldn’t put down, and access parts of themselves they otherwise couldn’t.

    We also get to read a lot about the different roles the facilitator can play in guiding the therapeutic process, and what can be expected out of each kind of experience. This varies a lot from one drug to another, so it makes for very worthwhile reading, if that’s something you might consider pursuing. Knowledge makes for much more informed choices!

    Bottom line: if you’re curious about the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, and want a reference that’s more personal than dry clinical studies, but still more “safe and removed” than diving in by yourself, this is the book for you.

    Click here to check out Psychedelics and Psychotherapy, and expand your understanding!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: