Rosemary, a small perennial shrub in the mint family, is one such example, a plant woven deeply into ancient history and mythology, providing clues and hints to its particular value in cognition, memory and enhanced sensorial awareness, and ultimately its sacredness, which literally means "holy," a word that also shares etymological roots with "whole," "healthy" and "heal." Several examples include: - "Greek scholars wore rosemary in their hair to help remember their studies, and the association with remembrance has carried through to modern times. In literature and folklore it is an emblem of remembrance." - "On ANZAC Day, a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, the wearing of small sprigs of rosemary in the coat lapel, pinned to the breast or held in place by medals is thus synonymous with remembrance and commemoration." - "Rosemary (R. officinalis L., Family Lamiaceae) is native to the Mediterranean region, where the ancient Greeks revered it for stimulating the brain and assisting memory; Dioscorides wrote of rosemary: "the eating of its flower in a preserve comforts the brain, the heart and the stomach; sharpens understanding, restores lost memory, awakens the mind, and in sum is a healthy remedy for various cold ailments of the head and the stomach." Today, through the optic of science and human clinical studies, we can further test the wisdom of the ancients through placebo-controlled and randomized trials. This is the 'holy grail' of so-called "evidence -based medicine", and confers a type of gravitas in today's medical practice that is considered essential in informing treatment decisions and establishing their legality vis-à-vis the regulatory bureaucracies (e.g. FDA, AMA) that increasingly attempt to control what you can and cannot do with your body. All the more reason why a recent study published in The Journal of Medicinal Food, titled "Short-term study on the effects of rosemary on cognitive function in an elderly population," is so important and confirmatory of traditional plant-based medical practice.

For more than a century, people have considered Alzheimer's disease (AD) an irreversible illness. Consequently, research has focused on preventing or slowing it, rather than recovery. Despite billions of dollars spent on decades of research, there has never been a clinical trial of any drug to reverse and recover from AD. A research team from Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals (UH) and the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center has now challenged this long-held dogma in the field, testing whether brains already badly afflicted with advanced AD could recover. The team showed that the brain’s failure to maintain normal levels of a central cellular energy molecule, NAD+, is a major driver of AD, and that maintaining proper NAD+ balance can prevent and even reverse the disease. NAD+ levels decline naturally across the body, including the brain, as people age. Without proper NAD+ balance, cells eventually become unable to execute many of the critical processes required for proper functioning and survival. In this study, the team showed that the decline in NAD+ is even more severe in the brains of people with AD, and that this same phenomenon also occurs in mouse models of the disease. After finding that NAD+ levels in the brain declined precipitously in both human and mouse AD, the research team tested whether preventing loss of brain NAD+ balance before disease onset or restoring brain NAD+ balance after significant disease progression could prevent or reverse AD, respectively.

Be y'all blessed in this holiday season and that God gives you healing of your body, soul and mind and that God gives you the desires of your heart! Happy thanksgiving! 😇😎🎉