Prevagen, a drug that has been recommended to improve memory and brain function, contains a calcium-binding protein also found in jellyfish. Jellyfish is a traditional Asian (especially Chinese) crunchy food sold in groceries. It is sliced and packed with salt. Directions say to soak it for 1/2 hr to remove the salt and season with sliced carrots, celery, cucumber, and rice wine. A low calorie, high protein food — containing mostly water and protein–with no claims for improving memory. Articles recommend no more than 2 meals per week of jellyfish. Overuse might provoke cancer. It’s a nice light snack. Prevagen on the other hand is a pill with test results (on rat brains) done for and reported by the manufacturer. Here is a long critique found online by a user who is a research scientist:

With regard to the effectiveness of Prevagen, size matters a lot. You have as much hope of catching a gorilla in a havahart trap as apoaequorin has as of crossing the blood-brain barrier. To cross the blood-brain barrier, one of the requirements a molecule must meet is to be smaller than the doorway, which is 400 Daltons, a unit of measurement for molecules. Apoaequorin is 22,885 Daltons, much too big to fit through a 400 Dalton size entranceway.

It is a terrible shame that apoaequorin can’t cross the blood-brain barrier because there is evidence that it is neuroprotective. When apoaequorin actually gets into the brain, it provides protection for neurons from neurotoxic levels of calcium released by overstimulated NMDA receptors. These finicky NMDA receptors are especially overstimulated by stress as well as when oxygen is restored after a period of lack of oxygen, as may occur in stroke, near downing or heart attack. In case you were wondering, this does Not mean that you should reduce your calcium intake. Calcium deficiency will not protect your memory, but calcium deficiency it will hurt your bones. What you should reduce is high stress, chronic stress, stroke and heart attack risk, which will likely help protect your brain and your memory through multiple mechanisms. While on the subject, high blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, excess alcohol and, as you might expect, head injuries also tend to rust even the best steel trap mind.

So how do we know that apoaequorin is neuroprotective when it can’t get into the brain? The short answer is that it is injected into the brain with a needle. In the June 11, 2010 U.S. patent “Method of treating ischemic injury with apoaequorin” obtained by Mark Underwood of Quincy Bioscience, apoaequorin was directly injected into the rats’ brains. To be more precise, the rodent scalps were excised and retracted – in laymen’s terms the rats were scalped. Then a stereotaxic device was used to screw a tiny steel tube into the skull and apoaequorin was injected directly into the hippocampus of the rat brain. As an aside, the hippocampus is a major component in your memory network and it has the distinction of responding to mental exercise by beefing up.

Studies on the Prevagen website describe the effectiveness of taking Prevagen as a pill. However, none of these studies were published in a peer reviewed scientific journal and there is no indication of any being in submission for publication. There was one presentation at a conference, but again, no evidence that it was submitted for publication. This seems fishy. Even if they had been published, science and common sense require that individuals without a financial interest replicate this work.

So, if Prevagen is a scam, then why did my memory improve? As a neuropsychologist who has administered thousands of memory tests, I can say that an important factor in whether someone remembers is how long they struggle with retrieval before giving up. While on this placebo, I worked longer and harder at pulling up the memory because I expected to find what I was looking for. Because I almost never gave up I eventually succeeded in remembering.

My advice is not – just try longer, but this is part of my advice. Although you can’t protect your neurons pharmacologically with apoaequorin after they come under attack, you can do something much better. You can take steps to prevent them from coming under attack in the first place.

Many studies have shown that humans and animals with elevated stress exhibit poorer memory and a higher rate of age related memory decline as well as a faster rate of brain atrophy. An important mechanism in causing this to occur is that psychological stress overstimulates the NMDA receptors. We also know that if you get optimal sleep, and few Americans do, then your memory will work better and you will be under less stress. Physical exercise, in addition to stimulating the brain, also reduces stress. Actively altering thoughts that induce fight or flight reactions can seriously reduce stress. We are talking lifestyle, which is now sometimes called Lifestyle Medicine. This is not a miracle cure by any means, but it is more important and in some ways more basic than what Prevagen claims to do. Nonetheless, whatever you do, there is a good chance that, if you live long enough, your brain will shrink and your memory will decline with age, but lifestyle can slow the process.

This is not to say that there aren’t supplements that might actually protect your brain and improve your memory at a basic level by reducing neurotoxic NMDA receptor overstimulation. Based on published studies, magnesium threonate does cross the blood-brain barrier and it has improved memory in animal studies. Although it is for sale now, the human research is yet to be published. Still, it is a better bet than Prevagen.

From the Product page of this website: Magnesium Threonate improves memory and circulation: http://www.absorbyourhealth.com/product/magnesium-threonate-500mg-100-capsules-nootropic-absorbable-mag3/?ref=4041