In this video recorded Oct. 3rd, 2015, Dr. Rhonda Patrick delivers the keynote lecture at the Orthomolecular Medicine Congress in Bussum, Netherlands (MBOG Congress 2015).
Discussion includes how micronutrient inadequacies are very prevalent, and how her mentor, Dr. Bruce Ames, found that the body does a strategic rationing so that those proteins and enzymes in the body which are essential for short-term survival get their share of vitamins and minerals at the expense of other proteins and enzymes that are essential for long-term survival. This results in insidious types of damage and may lead to diseases of aging such as cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.
She also discusses her ongoing clinical research on the role of DNA damage in cancer and aging and how her data shows that obese individuals have much more DNA damage than lean individuals, her recent research on how vitamin D is needed to produce serotonin in the brain and how this may be relevant for the prevention of autism because serotonin shapes the structure and wiring of the developing fetal brain. Finally, she talks about her research on how omega-3 fatty acids regulate serotonin release from neurons and receptor function and how vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids are important to prevent brain dysfunction particularly in individuals that have gene polymorphisms in the serotonin pathway that predispose them to low serotonin.
