Choline Benefits: Why is this Supplement so Important for your Brain?

Choline benefits are many and varied, mainly centering on improved mental capacity and synaptic plasticity. Choline is an essential water-soluble nutrient that is related to the Vitamin B complex.

Choline is an essential nutrient for synaptic plasticity, which is the ability of synapses to strengthen or weaken over time depending on the levels of their activity. It plays a direct role in how you learn and your ability to remember new information.

A more plastic brain leads to better member retention as well as improved cognitive function. What are some of the additional choline benefits that you may experience when using this supplement?

Choline

Cholinergic Supplement

Memory

Brain Health

Cognition

How It Works:

• Supports memory and synaptic plasticity
• Raises acetylcholine levels
• Promotes brain health and focus

Dosage:

Between 250 - 1,000 mg per day

Safety:

Rated Likely Safe

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Why is Choline Important?

Although our bodies naturally produce some Choline, it is also very important to get a dose of dietary choline as well. As of now it is estimated that over 90% of the population does not get enough Choline in their diet every day.

For this reason, using choline supplements (particularly high quality ones such as Alpha GPC or CDP Choline) can be an important part of keeping your brain healthy.

With Choline deficiency comes many problems. If you are not getting enough Choline in your diet you are running a risk of greatly impairing your memory, reasoning, and deep logical thinking, all while making it harder to focus.

Besides these issues, you also run the potential risk of this deficiency affecting your mood, and later on in life lower levels of Choline may precipitate cognitive decline. Now, all that being said, you can easily get rid of these risks and increase your chances against cognitive conditions by simply getting enough Choline in your system through either foods or supplements.

Foods high in Choline include egg yolks, liver, and lecithin. There are also Choline Bitartrate, Choline Chloride, and Choline Citrate nutritional supplements available to purchase.

However, these supplements all share a common problem because these forms of Choline are broken down by bacteria in the digestive system by up to 60%. For these reasons, researchers often recommend using more bioavailable choline sources such as Alpha GPC, Centrophenoxine, or Citicoline (CDP Choline).

What are some Choline benefits?

Choline serves a number of important functions in our bodies. Its tasks range from protecting our livers from accumulating fat to being a very important part of the structure of cellular membranes. Overall Choline is vital for human cognitive development.

Interest in Choline research was sparked when it was found that rats whose mothers didn’t get enough choline had noticeably less developed brains and poorer memories after birth.

Rats given choline supplements while pregnant ended up producing higher IQ offspring as well. This has brought great interest to researchers around the world, and over the last couple of years neuroscientists became interested in finding out more about Choline benefits.

Over the course of much research it has been widely accepted that Choline is not only essential for brain development in infants, but it also may prevent memory loss that comes with aging. However when using Choline with attempts to reverse cognitive decline that had already occurred, the results were rather disappointing. This suggests it may work better as a preventative measure taken before signs of senile dementia appear.

Research is still ongoing, but it’s clear that Choline supplementation may improve brain health. Current research claims that getting enough of this nutrient will ensure that you have an easier time trying to recall things, and keep your mental state sharp later in life.

Below is the most up to date list of benefits associated with having enough of this nutrient. This list of Choline benefits comes from studies done and anecdotal evidence from a number of blogs and forums.

Reported Positive Effects and Benefits of Choline

• Enhanced memory recall and retention
• Increased synaptic plasticity
• Much better memory retention, and faster recall on both short and long-term
• Increased and enhanced communication in the brain
• Improved logical reasoning and verbal processing
• Increases mental energy and reduces mental fatigue
• Better problem solving
• Greater creative thought
• Higher levels of concentration and deeper focus
• Faster reaction, and quicker thought processing
• Prevents insomnia and improves REM sleep
• Boosts mood
• Reduces ADHD and ADD symptoms
• Removes excess cholesterol from and fats from the liver, leading to better liver health
• Pregnancy health (ensures normal nervous system development in the fetus and helps prevent congenital heart defects in the young)
• Inflammation reduction
• Decreases certain symptoms of Asthma

That impressive list is just the information we have up to this date. It is likely that with more research done on Choline effects in the body, the more positive Choline benefits we will become aware off.

The research on Choline has been very promising so far. The Natural Medicines database as rated Choline as Likely Effective for hepatic steatosis, and Possibly Effective for preventing neural tube defects. Studies on choline use for treating age-related cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s have shown that choline supplementation may not be useful in this capacity, however more research on preventative use still needs to be done.

Research on cognitive choline benefits are limited, and more large-scale human trials are still needed. At this time, choline is available in the US as a health supplement, and the FDA has not approved choline as a drug to prevent or treat any conditions.

Choline Food Sources and Dosages

The research looks very promising, and you should try to stay up to date with it. However, even with the current research it is quite obvious that Choline sources are very important for our development and health. It is important to make sure that you always get enough of it in your system through supplementation or though your diet.

You can buy Choline supplements from most major retailers or purchase specially formulated brain supplements online like Alpha GPC Choline or CDP Choline. A healthy amount of daily Choline is around 550mg in men and 425mg in women, however personal dosages will vary depending on each individual’s personal factors (age, weight, health status, etc).

For men, this is equivalent to about half a pound of chicken, 7 large eggs, or about 3/4th of a cup of peanut or almonds for men. For women, this translates roughly to 5.5 large eggs, 1/3rd pound of chicken, or half a cup of peanuts and almonds.

Due to the recent surge of diets that call for the avoidance of egg yolks and certain types of meat, you may find that a supplement is the best way to reap potential Choline benefits.

Although it is very good to have an adequate amount of Choline in your system, it is also possible to have too much of it. You should try to cap your daily intake at a maximum of 3.5 grams to see the best Choline benefits without a higher risk of side effects.

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