Advice please re Lecithin

[AliBee1]

Dear All. I am asking this on behalf of a friend who has a husband with early onset alzheimers. He wants to try Lecithin which someone told him would help with his memory. Has anyone had any experience of the benefits/non benefits of this please?Thanks AliBee

[Hidden]

Hi AliBee1,

I can't be of much help, having no practical experience with Lecithin, though I have heard that it's recommended as an adjunct to medical treatments for Alzheimer's. From what I've read, it isn't harmful, but my guess would be that it's over-promoted and under-delivers, because surely, if it was of great benefit, the medical profession would be promoting it in the way that they do with statins.

So I'd say it probably wouldn't do serious harm, but that relying on it helping very much might be a dangerous premise when there isn't a lot of scientific evidence that it's useful.

A quick internet trawl for side-effects shows the most usual ones to be:

diarrhoea, nausea and abdominal pain and bloating.

I hope that helps a bit! Very best wishes.

[AliBee1 in reply to Hidden]

Thank you xx

[MAS_Nurse]

Hi AliBee1,

Lecithin is an essential fat and contains choline that the body converts to acetylcholine, which is important for brain function and is low in people with Alzheimer's. Dietary sources of lecithin can be found in, for example, eggs and soybeans. Anecdotally it has been suggested that increasing the intake of lecithin may improve memory. However, to date research does not support the use of lecithin as a treatment for dementia, and that although there maybe a moderate effect, the small number of trial results are not significant enough to support its use at the moment and requires large-scale studies to be done. Here is a link to a summary of a review and meta-analyses combining the results of various trials data:

Lecithin for dementia and cognitive impairment.

(Higgins JP1, Flicker, L, 2000)

cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/do...

If you decide to add dietary supplements, it would be useful to ask your friend to check with the GP or specialist if this ok to do.

Hope this helps.

Best wishes,

MAS Nurse

[AliBee1 in reply to MAS_Nurse]

Thanks. Will pass on to my friend xx

[Ayooshi]

Hi AliBee1, I am currently taking lecithin via Altrient C, it’s a sachet of 1,000mg vitamin c and 1,000mg of lecithin phospholipids, I have APS and one of the symptoms is brain fog and memory issues. I also take cold pressed black grape seed oil and sniff rosemary oils. All of these I have researched help with memory issues, I can honestly say I have had a decrease in brain fog and I am not struggling as much as I used to finding the words I needed to use in my sentences. I bought the grape seed oil from an online store called mercy oil.com and I use Altrient C high dose vitamin C with lecithin and rosemary oil. All the best and I hope that has helped somewhat