As we get older, memory declines. It happens to all of us, but in some it is worse depending on heredity and other factors. There’s lots of research being done on this subject because we’re all interested!

Television is filled with advertisements for dietary supplements to boost your brainpower and improve your memory. I’ve discussed these with experts in neurology and none of them believes these products live up to their hype. So, what else can we do to improve our memory?

Jingduan Yang, M.D., writing in The Epoch Times, tells us of four essential nutrients that can help protect our brains from deterioration in cognitive function. The hippocampus, which plays a central role in learning and memory, naturally deteriorates with age. But these essential nutrients can help prevent this deterioration and effectively improve cognitive function.

Before we discuss these nutrients, it is helpful to understand the functions of the hippocampus. We have two of them, left and right, and they have several key functions:

• Processing and storing new information: The hippocampus helps the brain encode and store new information as memories, making it essential for learning.
• Consolidating and forming memories: The hippocampus consolidates fragmented memories into the brain’s memory system. It is crucial in converting short-term memories into long-term ones, thereby solidifying memory content.
• Processing spatial memory: The hippocampus is essential for remembering our surroundings and creating cognitive maps.
• Processing episodic memory: The hippocampus processes and stores episodic memories, which include our daily personal experiences with specific details about time, place, and events.

Damage to the hippocampus leads to short-term memory impairment, affecting the brain’s ability to learn and retain new information. Many people first notice a decline in memory when they begin experiencing difficulties with recent memories. Additionally, hippocampal damage can result in memory loss, either partial or complete, such as forgetting personal experiences from the past. It can also weaken spatial navigation skills and the ability to remember familiar environments.

These are the helpful nutrients:

• Omega-3 fatty acids – Studies have shown that consuming omega-3 fatty acids through diet and supplements can help maintain cognitive function and prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
• Antioxidants – Antioxidants, found in various food and certain supplements, can help protect the hippocampus from oxidative damage.
• Vitamin B12 – Research has established a link between vitamin B12 deficiency and cognitive impairment, as well as hippocampal atrophy. Clinical tests have suggested that supplementing with vitamin B12 can improve cognitive function in patients with B12 deficiency, at least in the short term.
• Curcumin – Curcumin has anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective properties that benefit the hippocampus. A comparative study found that curcumin supplementation can significantly delay the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and improve both locomotion (like walking and running) and cognitive functions associated with dementia.

These nutrients are not intended to reverse changes in the hippocampus in those who have already shown deterioration, but they may protect against damage before it happens. For those who have more advanced cases of memory loss, there are new drugs that offer hope in this devastating disease. For more on these drugs, see my earlier post Alzheimer’s Drug Progress.

Unintended consequences. That’s what often happens when politicians try to fix one problem but create another.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board says that’s exactly what will happen from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuit targeting pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). They say, “Lina Khan claims she’s trying to lower prices, but the Federal Trade commission Chair’s attacks on business often do the opposite. Consider her new charge against pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which could result in higher healthcare premiums for all Americans.”

Democratic commissioners on Friday voted 3-0 to bring a complaint against PBMs for extracting rebates from drug makers in return for preferential placement on insurer formularies. The agency filed the charges in its administrative tribunal where it nearly always wins. (The two Republican commissioners were recused.) Congress has been debating how to regulate PBMs, but Ms. Khan isn’t waiting. She’s seeking to effectively ban PBM rebates by deeming them an “unfair method of competition” under the Federal Trade Commission Act.

The FTC’s essential charge is that PBMs play insulin manufacturers Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly and Sanofi against each other to obtain higher rebates, which their clients use to reduce premiums for all patients. The complaint says PBMs’ “insatiable demand for larger rebates” has led to “artificially inflated list prices that are disconnected from the actual cost of the drugs to insurers,” and “many patients’ out-of-pocket expenses are directly or indirectly tied to these inflated prices.”

Yet even the FTC admits that net insulin prices after rebates have declined over time. This suggests competition fueled by the PBMs is working. But patients who pay co-insurance on medicines—which is set as a percentage of a drug’s list price—or who have high deductibles can get slammed by high list prices.

WSJ editors say, “As the FTC complaint notes, health plans can mitigate high list prices “by applying drug rebates directly at the pharmacy counter when the patient purchases the drug”—known as a point-of-sale rebate. It says employers aren’t doing this, but why is that the PBMs’ fault?”

The FTC says PBMs use rebates to inflate their profits, but this is contradicted by the complaint’s admission that they pass on 90% to 98% of rebate dollars to their clients—i.e., employer, union and Medicare Part D plans. A recent study by the healthcare research firm Nephron Research found that rebates accounted for only 13% of PBM profits in 2022.

In any case, plans have increasingly moved to point-of-sale rebates. This is one reason average insulin out-of-pocket costs fell to $21.19 from $31.52 between 2018 and 2022. Nearly 80% of insulin prescriptions cost less than $35 a month out of pocket in 2022.

The FTC complaint also points out that the three insulin makers last year slashed list prices on their most popular products by 65% to 78%. They also capped out-of-pocket costs at $25 to $35 a month for patients regardless of insurance. Yet the complaint says that even though insulin has become more affordable, PBMs still extract large rebates for other drugs that result in higher list prices. True, but those drugs aren’t the focus of the complaint. Generic competition has resulted in prescription drug prices rising at a third of the rate of overall consumer prices over the last five years.

The WSJ editors then raise an important question: “If rebates are a problem, why does Congress require them for government plans? Drug makers must pay Medicaid rebates that start at 23.1% of a medicine’s average price and can exceed 100%. The Trump Administration tried to ban rebates in Medicare, but the Congressional Budget Office estimated it would substantially raise senior premiums and increase government spending by $170 billion over 10 years. Congress blocked the rule. Yet now Ms. Khan wants to ban rebates in private insurance.”

This is typical federal dual standards – “One standard for thee, but not for me.” Just as the federal employees have a far better healthcare insurance system than the rest of us, they also want a different standard for rebates in government insurance plans than for the private sector.

WSJ editors summarize the situation: “The political irony is that PBMs have grown in size and power owing to government policies. Their vertical integration is a byproduct of ObamaCare’s insurance regulation, including its cap on profits. No less than ObamaCare architect Peter Orszag recently lamented that “the stance of the antitrust authorities is directly and problematically opposed to the thrust of other policies. Government has made a mess of healthcare financing, and Ms. Khan would make it worse.”

Politicians are finally waking up to the reality that cell phones are destroying our youth. Most of us have realized this for quite some time, but legislation to address the problem has been slow in coming.

The U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, may have been the motivating force that changed all that.  In June, Dr. Murthy called for warning labels on social-media platforms, saying urgent action is needed to address a mental health emergency involving young people. Murthy says warning labels, similar to those on alcohol and tobacco products, should accompany platforms to “regularly remind parents that social media has not been proved safe.”

The negative impact cell phones have on education has been equally obvious for quite some time. Finally, state education officials are stepping up to solve this problem that threatens the education of our future generations.

Mark Bauerlein, writing in The Epoch Times, tells us on September 3, South Carolina Board of Education approved a new policy to “create a phone-free environment” in public schools throughout the state.  He says it is altogether clear on the negative impact of phones in kids’ hands. They are “electronic distractions,” says the policy, a threat to “focus and engagement.” We have no talk here of how handy the devices are, how they bring the universe of knowledge to a teenager’s eyes with a few taps. Those rosy descriptions of equipped youth that were so common a dozen years ago are missing. The policy is blunt and firm. A kid who sneaks a phone into a classroom “will be subject to progressive consequences in the student code of conduct and disciplinary enforcement procedures.”

This represents a major shift in attitudes across the country. Similar bans have already been passed in Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, and Louisiana. In July, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin sent out an executive order stating “the necessity of implementing cell phone-free education in Virginia’s K–12 public schools.” Last month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom sent a letter to all schools decrying “the pervasive use of smartphones in schools.” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Public Schools Chancellor David Banks are pushing bans, too, and 350 schools in the state have already established prescriptions of their own.

This shows this movement is not just one of one political party, but across the ideological spectrum, from liberal California to conservative Florida. Both parties have come to realize the cell phone in the classroom represents a threat to the education of our future generations. Baurlein says, “As phone use moved down the age ladder, test scores fell and emotional problems rose. The impairments were there for all to see 10 years ago. Only the titanic force of Silicon Valley marketing coupled with ordinary human frailty maintained the cachet of the phone long past its expiration date. Now that the awareness has reached the very top politicians, not just researchers and intellectuals of a skeptical bent, the truth is out and the right steps are being taken.”

Now the burden falls on parents, where it should have always been. Parents need to put limits on cell phone use at home, especially at the dinner table. My wife and I recently had dinner at a restaurant and the table next to us was four teenagers with their parents and all six were engrossed in their cell phones! Not a word of conversation between them. The dinner table has always been a time of connecting with friends and family – not with your cell phone!

These new state policies on cell phone use in the classroom give teachers a chance to take back control of their classroom and make learning the primary focus of school. What a novel idea!