Finishing up Summer 2018 country studies

August is coming to an end, and with it ends our family's month of focusing on Scotland. In connection with Scotland, we've eaten trifle ("tipsy laird" without the tipsy-making part), mock haggis, rutabagas, and fish and chips topped with malt vinegar (which is tastier than ketchup on fried potatoes). We've learned about Shetland Ponies, Black Agnes, and clan tartans. The children enjoyed the excuse to watch Disney's Brave again; two of them even made a tapestry for me that was inspired by Scotland and featured the wisps from Brave:

A kilt-wearing wisp playing the harp with two wisps dancing to its sides.

This was a fun summer--penguins, jerky, and chocolate bars for Antarctica; pita bread and Amr Diab for Egypt; bagpipe music, fish, and oats for Scotland; Balkan harp music, bell peppers, and swimming for Montenegro; and bison and water conservation for Colorado.

Sage, caspase-3, and possible cognitive protection in aging

My mother turns 78 years old soon. She is quite worried about developing Alzheimer's disease, so I've looked to see if there is any overlooked thing she can add to her diet to try to help protect her from age-related cognitive decline. She doesn't want to eat horseradish (see my hypothesis paper about horseradish and its possible connection to protection from dementia at https://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877(17)30123-8/fulltext), so I looked for another diet element with potential to help her.

In Greece, there is an island called Ikaria where the people tend to live healthily to an old age, mostly retaining their cognitive abilities for a much longer time than do people who live in America. (See https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-people-forget-to-die.html.)

Reporters looking at their dietary habits have noted that sage tea is a daily drink for many on Ikaria. (See https://www.dianekochilas.com/herbs-as-medicine-on-ikaria/.) Sage is high in the oil eucalyptol (also known as 1,8-cineole), which has been observed to reduce caspase-3 activity in neuron-like cells. (See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27352445.) This is relevant to Alzheimer's disease because caspase-3 cleaves tau and is implicated in early Alzheimer's disease (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21151119, http://file.scirp.org/Html/1-2440097_59262.htm, http://www.pnas.org/content/100/17/10032).

So my mother is now putting lots of sage in her soup and bread. Will it make a difference in her cognitive ability? I don't know. She and I both think it worth the try, though.

Possible B12 connection to uncontrollable chewing behavior in a child

Over the past three years, I've read a fair amount about different forms of vitamin B12 (cobalamin). I discovered early on that one of my toddlers seemed to chew her hair and other things more after taking methylcobalamin. So I didn't give it to her. After all, this was a child who would sometimes chew on the wooden TV stand for no apparent reason.

Last night we had homemade mock haggis for dinner because we're learning about Scotland. Haggis is basically minced liver and onions combined with meatloaf. We don't make a habit of eating liver because I don't like the taste. But the toddler with the strange reaction to methylcobalamin actually liked the haggis and ate a lot for her size. Later in the evening, I noticed one of our pillows had a large wet spot on its corner. Then I found a wet, chewed hairband--we don't own a dog. This little girl turned out to be the culprit. She was so caught up in chewing that she had also started gnawing on her wallet, which she loves. Liver does contains methylcobalamin, although it seems to be much higher in other forms of vitamin B12. (See https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/D0391C340D6A638D1A5C86F60EB83129/S0007114576000147a.pdf/forms_of_vitamin_b12_in_foods.pdf.) I'm curious whether there's a causative link between high B12 intake and her occasional outbreaks of gnawing. Not curious enough to give her a hydroxocobalamin capsule, though. I don't appreciate her slobbering on the furniture.