A Deeper Dive On Aging Brains

Healthy Aging

What Can We Do To Slow Brain Aging?

Last week, we shared our latest science drop: the discovery of two new C15:0-driven activities that protect cognitive health (aka, inhibiting MAO-B and FAAH to support higher dopamine and endocannabinoid levels). This week, let’s take a deeper dive into how our brains age and how C15:0 has multiple ways to reverse aging at the cellular level, including protecting our precious neurons.

How do brains age?

As we get older, our body and brain are exposed to increasing stressors. This includes:

• Lipid peroxidation. Our brains are filled with healthy fats and require oxygen, which are good. Unfortunately, as we age, oxygen increasingly attacks fragile fatty acids in our cells, resulting in lipid peroxidation. As described by Angelova et al., this combination of fragile fats and oxygen makes our brains particularly susceptible to age-driving oxidative stress.
• Imbalanced immune and inflammatory responses. Called “inflammaging”, we can develop chronic, underlying and overreactive immune responses throughout our body. Over time, Jurcau et al. review how this can result in a leaky blood-brain barrier that allows proinflammatory cytokines to cross over to our brains. Which then stimulate immune cells in our brains (called microglia) that further feed inflammatory responses.
• Increased iron accumulation. When our iron metabolism is out of whack, tissues start accumulating free iron – including our brain. As described by Gao et al., this process of iron deposition and ferroptosis impairs cognitive function.
• Increased MAO-B enzymes. Rahman et al. show that as we get older, MAO-B levels increase, which degrade an important neurotransmitter, called dopamine. Maintaining dopamine is important because it is responsible for supporting our memory, happy mood, and overall cognitive health. When dopamine levels go down, so do our memory and mood.
• Lower endocannabinoids. Our body makes cannabinoids (aka endocannabinoids) that help to calm immune responses in our brain, improve sleep, and increase joint comfort. Nidadavolu et al. describe how endocannabinoids decrease with age, helping to explain why our brain, sleep, and joint health are increasingly impacted over time.

No wonder we can experience more brain fog, overall fatigue, and less happiness with age. Understanding how aging impacts our brain, however, means that we can target specific ways to protect our noggins.

So, what is being explored to protect our aging brains from, well, aging?

A lot of exciting avenues are being studied to support our long-term cognitive health. In addition to stimulating your brain with puzzles and science-based newsletters, researchers are showing how molecules with the following activities can help keep our brain healthy:

• Antioxidants, which protect against damaging lipid peroxidation.
• Immune balancers, which calm overactive immune responses.
• Iron metabolism regulators, which keep iron from depositing in tissues.
• MAO-B inhibitors, which help us maintain healthy dopamine levels.
• FAAH inhibitors, which help us maintain healthy endocannabinoid levels.

The hunt is on for an arsenal of molecules, such as nootropics, that can help in these five areas (and many more).