The brain is one of the most vital organs of the body because it serves as the center of the nervous system. Being vital the brain needs certain nutrients, such as Choline to function well. Choline is a nutrient that is found in many foods. Your brain and nervous system need it to regulate memory, mood, muscle control, and other functions. This article shows you how Choline defends your brain.
What is Choline?
Choline is a molecule best metabolized twice. Both times occur within our cell powerhouses, also known as the mitochondria. First, choline is metabolized by choline oxidase and once more by betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase. The result? Trimethylglycine, which is a plant-based amino acid found in sugar beets, spinach, quinoa, and other nourishing nibbles.
More importantly, it’s a cofactor in the mandatory mammalian process known as methylation; methylation is when our cells donate methyl groups to other processes of the body. Donating is perhaps too soft of a term for this required action. The recipient processes include synthesizing essential neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin.
You can find choline in foods like eggs, liver, and other meats but you can also purchase choline supplements as well. The National Academy of Sciences designated choline as essential in 1988, suggesting dietary intake.
Cytidine
Cytidine is a nucleoside molecule formed through a bonding of cytosine to a ribose ring. If that doesn’t ring a bell, consider the word ribose. You know it. In fact, the answer is hiding in your DNA. Give up? Cytidine is a major component of ribonucleic acid (RNA).
Though not the same as DNA, RNA is still involved in genetics. RNA’s job is to convert the genetic code in your DNA to a more friendly format for protein production.
It stands to reason that cytidine is found in foods with a high RNA content. Think animal products, especially organ meats. If you need a drink pairing, consider a nice beer to go with it; brewer’s yeast is another great natural source.
Choline + Cytidine
When choline and cytidine are together as CDP choline, they can be found hiding in the foods you’re probably consuming frequently: brain and liver. For non-zombie or non-offal-loving groups, some CDP choline can be synthesized from choline-rich foods such as eggs, poultry, and beef. And by egg, we mean the full egg.
“While egg whites are a proper protein-rich breakfast food, they do not contain the choline. Only the delicious yolk does”
Like any good main character starved for attention, CDP choline decided it wasn’t present enough through food. This is true—to enjoy the full potential of CDP choline’s brain and body benefits, you’ll need to assist your body’s natural production by supplementing with its chemically identical stunt double, citicoline.
Body Armor: Mission in the Bloodstream
Once ingested, citicoline immediately faces an identity crisis. It gets broken down and appears in your bloodstream as two separate chemicals: choline and uridine. The compound won’t see the other side of itself until both parts are reunited in the brain as citicoline once more.
Until then, citicoline has a job do in your blood.
Free Radical Agent
Citicoline travels vigorously through the body to slay any foes daring to cross its path.
While most of your favorite fictional heroes meander from quest to quest, citicoline moves with purpose throughout the body, squelching the free radicals that attack the brain.
Citicoline becomes an agent of change for another character in the story: glutathione (GSH). Residing in the kingdoms of plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi, glutathione is a very powerful antioxidant. It can directly scavenge excess free radicals to protect cells and tissues from oxidative damage.
When a plethora of free radicals roam your body unattended, these unattached oxygen molecules take electrons from lipid cell membranes (also called lipid peroxidation) and trigger inflammation, which accelerates cell deterioration and aging. Worse yet, this damage contributes to the development of the terrifying trifecta of diseases: diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.
Brain cells and tissues are especially susceptible to oxidative damage because of the brain’s elevated use of oxygen. Citicoline boosts levels of glutathione to hold back the free radical attack on brain cells. This allows your cells to better protect themselves from future harm as well as assist with making a complete recovery from a brain injury.
To the Center of the Brain
Battling free radicals is all in preparation of citicoline’s arrival in the brain. Recall that it has been traveling in the bloodstream as two separate chemicals, choline and uridine, which are reunited in the brain as citicoline. Now that they’re back together, they can begin to work their magic on your body’s control center.
Strengthening Your Defenses
Citicoline doesn’t stop to celebrate when it reaches the brain; it gets straight to work as a precursor for the synthesis of two important components in brain cells: phosphatidylcholine (substance found in cell membranes) and acetylcholine (a neurotransmitter).
Acetylcholine and Phosphatidylcholine
Acetylcholine is the major neurotransmitter responsible for activating muscles in both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. It’s also involved in encoding our memories.
Acetylcholine can be found in all motor neurons, and it serves a number of critical functions. Blink, and you may miss them. Or, blink, and you may experience them; acetylcholine is responsible for the muscle contractions of your eyelids by transmitting the signals between your motor nerves and your muscles.
In the brain, acetylcholine is a neuromodulator, meaning that it acts on a variety of neurons rather than directly engaging in specific synaptic transmission between neurons. This neuromodulator plays a heavy role in areas of the brain responsible for motivation, attention, and even arousal.
When acetylcholine function is interrupted, your body can undergo some serious changes. Here’s a cheery example: when a black widow spider bites, her venom causes a dangerous rise in acetylcholine levels. Best case scenario? Severe muscle contractions followed by spasms. Worse case scenario? Spasms ending in sudden paralysis, followed by death.
Phosphatidylcholine on the other hand is an essential part of stabilizing brain cell membranes and participating in neuronal activity.
Your body uses choline to synthesize acetylcholine, but that can leave your choline stores shortchanged for other functions.
Guess what else you need choline for? Synthesizing the six-syllable tongue twister, phosphatidylcholine. Supplementing with citicoline gives your body enough choline to assist with both productions, so you can enjoy muscle activation and strong brain cells to help protect against Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, and cerebrovascular disease.
Rebuilding After Attacks
With phospatidylcholine abound, your brain cells can not only enjoy mild strengthening but also repair from long-term and short-term damage.
Recall that citicoline was originally used as a medication for ischemic stroke patients because it can repair neuronal membranes damaged from the lack of oxygen to the brain. An acute ischemic stroke quickly cuts off blood flow to the brain, meaning it doesn’t get enough oxygen to function properly. In a study of 272 stroke patients, 54% showed improvements in brain function in as little as two weeks when supplementing with citicoline.
A meta-analysis of over a thousand ischemic stroke patients and their magnetic resonance imaging scans found that 25% experienced a complete recovery from their brain injury after supplementing with citicoline for twelve weeks.
While clinical trials have demonstrated citicoline’s recovery mechanisms of action through increased blood flow, in vitro studies have examined citicoline’s attenuation of cell death. When the enzyme phospholipase A2 is activated, it tells your cells to die. Phospholipase A2 is activated for its damaging deeds after brain injuries or trauma, such as an acute ischemic stroke. But citicoline has been able to modulate the activation of phospholipase A2 to reduce its cell-slaying effects.
Neurological damage can manifest itself in other ways, including declines in neurotransmitter activity.
Dopamine, a neurotransmitter heavily involved in regulating mood, can suffer a reduction if dopaminergic neurons have been damaged. Citicoline can be quite the dopaminergic neuron booster. Citicoline potentiates the production of dopamine to attenuate recent declines in the mood boosting chemical.
Citicoline’s dopaminergic activity is likely related to its uridine component.
Recall that as citicoline travels through your bloodstream, it does so as uridine and choline. In fact, supplementing with citicoline can significantly increase plasma uridine concentrations. Similar to cytidine, uridine is a nucleotide base also commonly taken as a dietary supplement and cognitive booster. Uridine is generally used to increase the synthesis of cellular membranes and a greater density of synapses in the brain, especially in combination with choline and DHA. Uridine augments potassium-evoked dopamine release.
While citicoline may not directly influence dopamine concentrations, it appears to increase dopamine transporters by increasing the quantity of dopamine released from a stimulated neuron, potentially by increasing the overall health of neuronal membranes.
Focusing and Remembering
If increased dopamine doesn’t get your attention, citicoline can. Our noble neuroprotectant has been shown to improve attention by reducing focus-based errors, including errors of omission as well as incorrect information.
But even if you do omit information, citicoline may be able to help. In a study on spatial memory tasks using animal models, citicoline was shown to have a protective effect against the impairment of hippocampal-dependent long-term memory, particularly for those susceptible to memory loss or memory problems: elderly animals.
Even elderly humans enjoyed improvements in short-term memory recall and verbal memory after oral supplementation of citicoline for four weeks.
Memory boosts and defense against memory loss in clinical trials situate citicoline as a promising possible treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
In patients with Alzheimer’s disease, citicoline treatment increased blood flow to the brain and bioelectrical activity patterns. Increased blood flow in the brain may assist with recovery from brain injury and offer neuroprotective effects against cerebrovascular disease.
But supplementing with citicoline isn’t reserved for elderly people; the positive effect of citicoline can be enjoyed by anyone. That’s why HVMN carefully selected citicoline as an ingredient in our nootropic stack, Rise.
Rise is a daily memory and mood enhancer, stress reducer, and cognitive catch-all to support long-term cognitive resilience. When you’re ready to improve your reaction times, lower your cortisol levels, and protect and strengthen your neurons, Rise will be there to elevate you.
Read up more on this article on https://hvmn.com/blog/supplements/how-cdp-choline-citicoline-defends-your-brain
