Years ago, in 2009 at the world-renowned Canadian Center for Behavioral Neuroscience in Alberta, a powerful study was done on the effect of micronutrients on the brain. It would potentially revolutionize how the brain could recover from traumatic brain injuries and other brain issues.
Sadly, this study and its ground breaking results are not widely known.
Let me enlighten and summarize the study, for those that wish to go deeper, at the bottom of the page I have a link to the study. For those that want the visual version to watch here, is a video:
The researchers wanted to see how a specific broad-spectrum micronutrient, (that was formulated for the brain) could help.
Studies with nutrients and their effects on the brain have usually been localized to one or a small group of vitamins and or minerals. What the formulator understood was that the complex brain needs a blend of micronutrients that work synergistically together at optimum levels needed for brain injury or dysfunction.
The researchers were not affiliated with the formulator, nor paid by him to do the test. They conducted a series of controlled studies with rats.
The researchers fed one group of mother rats Purina Rat Chow (considered to be an ideally fortified lab rat diet with 22 added vitamins and minerals) and another group of mother rats the same base diet fortified with Hardy’s more complete, specially processed formulation†.
When the offspring were 4 days old, researchers performed surgery on some of them, Removing either the entire frontal lobe of the brain (critical for proper cognitive function) or part of the parietal lobe (important for sensory information processing). No surgery was performed on the remainder of the young rats.
After 100 days, neuroscientists carefully examined the brains of all the rats to find out why the rats fed the micro-nutrient formula† showed much calmer behavior in open field tests and dramatically improved cognitive function in Morris water maze testing.
These findings are consistent with the impressive results measured by researchers around the world in many people with mood, anxiety, and behavioral disorders who have experienced life-changing mental health benefits while taking micronutrients.
When comparing the brains of rats that had no surgery—one from each diet group—the most obvious difference is the healthier-looking cerebellum in the micronutrient-fed† rats.
Following frontal lobe surgery, the brains of rats fed the Purina Rat Chow diet showed limited recovery, while the brains of micronutrient-fed† rats showed never-before-seen re-growth of cortical tissue allowing them to recover full cognitive function. And again, the cerebellum was healthier.
Scientists had never measured re-growth in the parietal lobe, so it was no surprise that rats fed the Purina Rat Chow diet showed no recovery whatsoever.
However, rats fed the micronutrients† showed—for the first time ever—growth which restored full cognitive function. And once again, the cerebellum was much healthier.
When the neuroscientists carefully analyzed the rat brains under a microscope, they learned why the micronutrient-fed† rats outperformed the Purina-fed rats.
The brains of animals fed micronutrients† had greater cortical thickness than the animals fed Purina Rat Chow—they actually had more brain matter to work with!
The brain cells of micronutrient-rats† were more complexly-branched and better connected with neighboring cells than the brain cells of rats fed Purina Rat Chow.
I have seen for myself how this formula helped my daughter recover from her TBI, myself with my ADHD and sensory processing issues and the rest of my kids cope much better with their autistic symptoms. There are hundreds of stories similar to our family covering a wide range of central nervous system problems. I think its is amazing that the brain, given the right raw materials and imput, can repair and reshape itself.
†Refers to pre-2013 versions of Truehope EMPowerplus which were co-formulated by David Hardy. Truehope EMPowerplus is a registered trademark of The Synergy Group of Canada Inc.
Factors influencing frontal cortex development and recovery from early frontal injury. Halliwell C, Comeau W, Gibb R, Frost DO, Kolb B. Developmental Neurorehabilitation. 2009;12(5):269-78.