Inflammation and brain fog -
One of the biggest risks to triggering brain inflammation is a leaky blood-brain barrier. The blood-brain barrier is a thin lining that surrounds the brain and is designed to allow only nano-sized particles in or out as needed.
Although the blood-brain barrier degrades easily, it can also regenerate through dietary and lifestyle modifications similar to how you can repair leaky gut. For instance, high stress degrades the blood-brain barrier, but normalizing stress can allow it to repair.
Simply stabilizing your blood sugar and stress levels, removing inflammatory foods, addressing chronic health issues, and taking powerful antioxidants can help restore the blood-brain barrier. Brain inflammation can be caused by a food intolerance, lack of sleep, gut infections, hypothyroidism, extreme stress, autoimmunity, systemic inflammation, and other factors.
Although various botanical flavonoids can address brain inflammation, you still need to address the underlying cause of inflammation. Compounds that have been shown to help dampen brain inflammation in addition to addressing underlying cases are:.
Schedule a consultation to discuss if you have brain inflammation and how we can help. What Is a Functional Neurological Disorder? Hybrid disorders of the brain, mind, and body once confounded physicians. What is FND? Similarly, a drop in estrogen levels during menopause can cause forgetfulness, poor concentration, and cloudy thinking, according to research.
Vitamin B12 supports healthy brain functioning. A research review found that a vitamin B12 deficiency can affect cognitive function and bring about brain fog. If you have food allergies or sensitivities, brain fog may develop after eating certain foods.
These include:. If you notice brain fog while taking medication, talk with your doctor. Brain fog is a known side effect of certain medications, such as certain sleep and pain medications.
Lowering your dosage or switching to another drug may improve your symptoms. Brain fog can also occur after cancer treatments.
This is referred to as chemo brain. Medical conditions associated with inflammation, fatigue, or changes in blood glucose levels can also cause mental fatigue.
For example, brain fog is a symptom of chronic fatigue syndrome CFS , which involves persistent fatigue for a prolonged period of time, according to research. According to a research review , people who have fibromyalgia may experience similar fogginess on a daily basis.
A single test cannot be used to diagnose brain fog. Brain fog may signal an underlying issue, so healthcare professionals will conduct a physical examination and ask about your:. You should let a doctor know about other symptoms you might have. For example, someone with hypothyroidism may have brain fog along with hair loss, dry skin, weight gain, or brittle nails.
Blood work can help your doctor identify the cause of your brain fog. A blood test can detect the following:. Based on the results, your doctor will determine whether to run further tests. Other diagnostic tools may include imaging tests to look inside the body, like X-rays , magnetic resonance imaging MRI , or computerized tomography CT scans.
Your doctor may also conduct allergy testing to check for allergies or a sleep study to rule out a sleep disorder. If you need help finding a primary care doctor, then check out our FindCare tool. Brain fog treatment depends on the cause.
For example, if you have anemia, iron supplements may increase your production of red blood cells and reduce your brain fog. Sometimes, relieving brain fog is a matter of correcting a nutritional deficiency, switching medications, or improving the quality of your sleep.
Brain fog can be frustrating, but relief is possible. The formation of new neurons in the hippocampus of the mice was impaired, likely due to the cytokine changes and the increased reactivity of microglia.
After infection, the mice also showed changes among cells in the white matter that help coat the neurons in insulating myelin.
The cells that create myelin, called oligodendrocytes, were harmed by mild COVID, with the number of mature oligodendrocytes and cells destined to be oligodendrocytes declining in the brains of mice following SARS-CoV-2 infection. The researchers also found a loss of myelin, evident as a decrease in the density of myelinated axons in the white matter, which could be detected by one week and persisted seven weeks after infection.
The goal was to compare cognition-linked molecular changes after H1N1 to those seen after COVID One week after infection, the H1N1 flu and SARS-CoV-2 infections caused similar patterns of cytokine elevation in the central nervous system, microglial reactivity and loss of oligodendrocytes in white matter.
But seven weeks after infection, although the cytokine profiles had some overlap, including increased inflammatory chemokine CCL11, they differed. Effects on the hippocampus were similar in the two types of infections, but microglial reactivity and oligodendrocyte loss in white matter were not present after seven weeks following H1N1 infection.
The shorter-lasting and less-severe brain changes seen in mice after H1N1 infection are consistent with less prevalent reports of cognitive symptoms after this type of infection, highlighting that respiratory infections can change the brain even if the virus does not infect the brain, the researchers said.
To further confirm their findings, the researchers examined data from brain tissue collected from a small group of people who had died suddenly in New York City in the spring of The human brain tissue came from five people who died with incidental SARS-CoV-2 infection meaning they died for reasons that may have been unrelated to COVID, such as accidents ; four people who died with known COVID symptoms, including two who had been hospitalized in intensive care; and nine people in the control group who died without SARS-CoV-2 infection.
People with SARS-CoV-2 infection were examined for lung injury and were not found to have had the most severe form of pneumonia. These people had no evidence of brain infection. However, those with COVID had greater microglial reactivity than those in the control group, in a pattern that matched what was found in the mice.
In another group of 48 people who developed long COVID with cognitive symptoms, the inflammatory cytokine CCL11 blood levels were elevated compared with those of 15 long- COVID patients who did not have cognitive symptoms. Scientists from Yale University, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, the National Cancer Institute, the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, University of Iowa, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner New York City , and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Yale and at Stanford also contributed to the research.
A new study found Inflammation and brain fog neuroinflammation and blood-brain-barrier Inflamation are not likely drivers of the symptoms, giving researchers Inglammation clues Inflammqtion their quest to uncover what actually may Inflammation and brain fog the culprit. Scientists have brin many potential Inflammation and brain fog of the neuropsychiatric symptoms—including damage vog the blood vessels in the Inflammtion, ongoing Mental focus supplements inflammation, and Antioxidant-rich antioxidant-rich teas viral infection. This study is the first time researchers have tested a large cohort of people living with Long COVID for spinal fluid markers of brain inflammation and blood-brain-barrier dysfunction. The researchers published their findings in JAMA Network Open on November 10and the outcome is significant even with the negative finding. For many years, Farhadian and Serena Spudich, MDGilbert H. Glaser Professor of Neurology and senior author, have been studying neurological abnormalities caused by human immunodeficiency virus HIV infection. An important way to assess this is through cerebrospinal fluid CSFwhich offers a window into the brains of living people. June 13, - By Erin Digitale. Hydration for cycling workouts at Stanford Medicine have found biological similarities Inflammation and brain fog "chemo brain" — cognitive impairment Evaluating hydration status cancer brwin — and brain fog after COVID The discovery, described in a paper anf published rog June Inflammation and brain fog in Branirelied on studies of mice with mild SARS-CoV-2 infection and postmortem human brain tissue collected early in the pandemic. The findings may help guide treatments for cognitive effects of COVID, the scientists said. Monje shares senior authorship of the study with Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, professor of immunology and of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at Yale University. Myelin, the fatty coating insulating the long arms of the neurons, helps speed the transmission of nerve signals. In chemo brain, damage to myelin slows their transmission.
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