Has Covid turned your brain to mush?

I don’t know about you but many people around me are really struggling with their memory, word recall and concentration; and this has been more pronounced over the last couple of years.

For example, some good friends I saw over the weekend struggled to keep their train of thought and our conversations were peppered with “whatchamacallit” and “errr I forgot what I was going to say”. It was all in good humour and we all shrugged it off, but I could see my friends looking quite worried inside. I know we have all got a couple of years older recently, but could it be Covid turning our brains to mush? There is some evidence that could be the case.

You may have heard that Coronavirus causes an initial cytokine storm upregulating our inflammatory pathways in the acute phase. In most cases this is fixed by the immune system quite easily, and most people can resume their normal health and vitality.

However, some people seem to have been experiencing more chronic and ongoing low-grade inflammation and damage to cells, known as oxidative stress. There have been quite a few research papers published over the last year identifying how Covid affects the brain, triggering an array of neurological and mental health issues, and these generally point to residual brain cell inflammation.

Symptoms that have been linked to Coronavirus-triggered brain inflammation include loss of smell (anosmia), distorted smell (parosmia), loss of taste (ageusia) and cognitive and attention deficits (often described as brain fog).

Involuntary movement disorders such as tremor, tics and chorea have also been linked with brain inflammation or encephalopathy related to the virus. Newly-onset mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, psychosis, seizures, and even suicidal behaviour can also be part of the picture when the brain is inflamed and some cases have been thought to be triggered by a Covid infection.

It is important to realise that these symptoms or behaviours are known to present before, during, and after other Covid-related breathing and respiratory symptoms and seem to be unrelated to respiratory insufficiency or difficulty breathing. All this suggests brain cell damage associated with Covid.

Testing Inflammatory Pathways

How can you tell if a brain has been affected? In extreme cases, medical tests can identify changes in the brain as well as significant inflammation and encephalopathy. This is when a person is obviously extremely unwell, and these tests would be carried out within a hospital environment.

However, in milder and less pronounced cases, and from a functional medicine and nutrition perspective there are four key indicators that can easily be tested via urinary organic acid and amino acid testing which can highlight if any neural pathways are being compromised.

These four markers are: Kynurenic Acid and Quinolinic Acid (which are vitamin B6 dependent), Aspartic Acid (which can be elevated by aspartame in the diet via sugar-free drinks and chewing gum) and Glutamic Acid (which is now prominent in our food chain, especially in ultra-processed foods). A generalised anti-inflammatory approach is usually taken in addition to specific dietary and food supplement support depending on the outcome of the tests. Rarely are all four pathways elevated and it is usually one or two that need support.

My Brain Fog Story

I had terrible brain fog after the first round of Covid back in 2020 and really struggled with word recall and short-term memory, and it really knocked my self-confidence especially when speaking. Like my mother I have often been a “Mrs Malaprop” spouting out the wrong words sometimes, but this went to another level of embarrassment! My uncle had also been recently diagnosed with dementia (and since passed away from it), so I suspect the fear hit me harder than it would have done most people.

I therefore worked super hard on getting my brain back on track, reducing inflammation and oxidative stress, and I now I feel it is as good as it will ever be. Things that made the biggest difference have been:

• “Wim Hof” style cold showers – a 30-60 second cold shower at the end of a warm shower is thought to help with circulation and immunity. I promise you these become addictive!
• Dark chocolate galore – the flavonoids in dark chocolate are thought to improve cognitive functions, specifically memory.
• Eating lots of berries, green vegetables, eggs, oily fish and liver, which are super nutrient-dense foods, important for the brain and can help dial down inflammation and oxidative stress.

And food supplement-wise:

• Specialised Pro-resolving Mediators (SPM’s) – a special fractioned fish oil that hits the spot for inflammation. I took this for a month and then switched to a more standard omega-3 food supplement.
• Magnesium Phospholipid – protects the cells in your brain and carries messages between them .
• Lions Mane (Hericium erinaceus) – a neuroprotective mushroom that is usually combined with immune modulating mushrooms like Shitake and Reishi.
• Bacopa Monnieri – a herb everyone with memory issues needs to know about!
• Ginkgo Biloba – improved blood flow as well as circulation to the brain.
• Turmeric – naturally anti-inflammatory may help attention, short-term working memory, visual spatial constructional ability, as well as language and executive function.

Even though you should see a positive difference relatively early from these interventions, you will probably need to work on reducing inflammation over at least a three-month period to make sustained positive changes. And many people feel they need to create more entrenched healthy lifestyle and dietary habits and also take some supplements on an ongoing basis to help keep their cognitive function up to speed as they grow older.

If you are really struggling with a mushy brain or covid-related cognitive decline and need more focused support, then do consider booking a one to one appointment in with one of the NatureDoc Long Covid specialists.

References

• Long COVID Neuropsychiatric Deficits Greater Than Expected
• How COVID-19 Affects the Brain
• New-Onset Movement Disorders Associated with COVID-19
• Cold Water Swimming—Benefits and Risks: A Narrative Review
• Effects of Dark Chocolate Intake on Brain Electrical Oscillations in Healthy People
• Sub-Chronic Consumption of Dark Chocolate Enhances Cognitive Function and Releases Nerve Growth Factors: A Parallel-Group Randomized Trial
• Plant-Based Dietary Patterns, Plant Foods, and Age-Related Cognitive Decline
• Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Other Lifestyle Factors in the Prevention of Cognitive Decline and Dementia
• The end of inflammation? New approach could treat dozens of diseases
• The Anti-Inflammatory Role of Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Metabolites in Pre-Clinical Models of Psychiatric, Neurodegenerative, and Neurological Disorders
• Specialized Pro-Resolving Mediators from Omega-3 Fatty Acids Improve Amyloid-β Phagocytosis and Regulate Inflammation in Patients with Minor Cognitive Impairment
• Resolution of inflammation, n − 3 fatty acid supplementation and Alzheimer disease: A narrative review
• Covid-19 management with inflammation resolving mediators? Perspectives and potential
• Parenteral fish oil: An adjuvant pharmacotherapy for coronavirus disease 2019?
• The role of magnesium therapy in learning and memory
• Relations of magnesium intake to cognitive impairment and dementia among participants in the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study: a prospective cohort study
• Neurohealth Properties of Hericium erinaceus Mycelia Enriched with Erinacines
• A Mixture of Ginkgo biloba L. Leaf and Hericium erinaceus (Bull.) Pers. Fruit Extract Attenuates Scopolamine-Induced Memory Impairments in Mice
• The Ayurvedic plant Bacopa Monnieri inhibits inflammatory pathways in the brain
• Bacopa monnieri, a Neuroprotective Lead in Alzheimer Disease: A Review on Its Properties, Mechanisms of Action, and Preclinical and Clinical Studies
• In Vitro Propagation, Phytochemical and Neuropharmacological Profiles of Bacopa monnieri (L.) Wettst.: A Review
• Curcuma longa L. extract improves the cortical neural connectivity during the aging process
• Curcuma Longa, the “Golden Spice” to Counteract Neuroinflammaging and Cognitive Decline—What Have We Learned and What Needs to Be Done
• Can Curcumin Counteract Cognitive Decline? Clinical Trial Evidence and Rationale for Combining ω-3 Fatty Acids with Curcumin