Schizophrenic Brains May Be Rusty!

Your cells can get stressed too.

Oxidative stress, simply put, is the damage made to a cell through the oxidative process.

Free oxygen radicals are created during the metabolism of normal oxygen cells, or oxidation.

These free radicals are missing a simple electron and are in search of another molecule that they can combine with to become “complete.”

In their quest, they fire charges that damage other cells and structures around them. This, in turn, causes the oxidation – which is basically rust.

What? I’m rusting?? That can’t be right!

Well it is.

In effect, your body is “rusting” as it goes through its existence, the free oxygen radicals wildly running through your system, searching for a mate.

Suprisingly, this is a completely normal process, it happens all the time in your body – however when there is an excess of oxidative stress, serious damage can be done to your body.

 

Did You Know?

Your brain is highly vulnerable to oxidative stress.

This is because Glutathione in our brain, one of our principle antioxidants and defenders of our cells, is often low.

Due to the lack of glutathione-producing activity of neurons, the brain has a limited ability to detoxify reactive oxygen species (ROS)… we may know ROS better as those notorious ‘free radicals’.

Therefore, neurons are the first cells to be affected by an increase in ROS, or a shortage of antioxidants – and are most susceptible to the burden of oxidative stress.

A recent scientific paper has highlighted the need for extra antioxidant support in neurological conditions such as Schizophrenia.

In Schizophrenia there is a growing body evidence that supports certain antioxidant treatment to improve brain function and defences.

 

What are some of the drivers of excessive oxidative stress?

  • Dietary and environmental allergens and chemicals
  • Nutritional deficiencies
  • Impaired detoxification
  • Dysbiosis (an imbalance of bacteria in the gut)
  • Leaky gut
  • Genetic polymorphisms
  • Heavy metal toxicity

 

Our Antioxidants – Fight the Rust!

Antioxidants are heroic little substances that prowl through your body, giving up an electron to the greedy free radicals charging through your system.

They neutralise the free radicals and allow your body to do its job of excreting them safely and without harm.

But there is a hitch…

Our major three antioxidants are not usually bioavailable. Therefore they cannot be taken as a supplement. They are, however, readily replenished by other nutrients. (Glutathione is for instance replenished via N-acetyl cysteine).

One exception:

One supplement however, Cell Logic GliSOD, contains the only bioavailable form of SOD.

French researchers in the late 1990’s perfected a method for protecting the SOD as it travels through the digestive tract by binding it with a biopolymer of gliadin.

More importantly, their method enables the biopolymer to attach to the cells of the intestine in such a way that an immune-signalling process initiates an induction of the body’s upregulation of synthesis of its own SOD, Glutathione peroxidase and Catalase. 

A perfect trifecta! 

In other words, this unique and now patented substance has the ability to increase circulating levels of all 3 major antioxidant enzymes in the human system.

Speak to your Emed Practitioner today if you would like to know what antioxidant supplementation may be appropriate for you or someone you know.

 

Reference:

Wood, SJ et al. 2009, ‘Neurobiology of schizophrenia spectrum disorders: the role of oxidative stress’, Ann Acad Med Singapore, vol. 38, no. 5, p. 396-401