Deans' stroke musings: Chew Yourself a Better Brain

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Chew Yourself a Better Brain

What a simple research test this would be. And cheap enough for anyone to implement. Remember, no self diagnosis or medication.
Just think of all the dangers involved. Walking and chewing gum needs to be doctor supervised properly.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/03/08/chew-yourself-a-better-brain/
Selected paragraphs here:

Gum has been studied for its beneficial effects on memory, alertness, anxiety reduction, appetite suppression, mood and learning. Attributes of gum that have gone under the microscope include its flavor, texture and density, to name a few.

The hunch that spawned gum studies was that chewing gum might increase blood flow to the brain, and that may in turn spark other important effects. Studies like this one out of Cardiff University in the UK take a comprehensive view of gum’s potential across multiple areas: learning, mood, memory and intelligence. The findings in this case were that both alertness and intellectual performance were increased in gum-chewing subjects, while memory showed no significant improvements.

Other studies, like the one highlighted in this New Scientist article, have found that some aspects of memory seem to be improved by chewing gum, particularly immediate and delayed word recall, while others are not.

An especially significant 2011 study, reported on by Live Science, found that chewing gum before taking a test improved performance, but chewing gum throughout the test did not. The possible reason for this result is that chewing gum may warm-up the brain, something gum researchers refer to as ”mastication-induced arousal.” In fact, chewing gum for about 20 minutes is on par with mild exercise in terms of sending more blood to the brain. Continuing to chew after the warm-up period seems to have required too much jaw-work, and burning more energy negated the benefits.

Studies have also found gum to be an effective anxiety buster, though the reasons why are anything but clear. This 2009 study, for instance, found that under laboratory conditions chewing gum resulted in reduced cortisol levels (cortisol is frequently called the ”stress hormone”) and a reduction in overall anxiety.