What about the 40hz studies from MIT?
Absolutely fascinating. Never heard of this before.
It looks like there is a variety of research in this area of varying evidence.
Here is one write-up on it.
Then naturally, one has to go and see are devices for both sound and light at 40 hz available and if so, at what cost?
So some glasses with sound built in $149
A stand-alone device that does both sound and light $99
It’s probably a nice addition to my list and I’m planning on adding it. Thanks much @bmwcyclist for this information I was unaware of.
I am prescribed medical cannabis and typically ingest 2.5-5mg of THC 5 nights a week. I am hooked up to O2 monitor and CPAP machine each night and note I get substantially better sleep on THC. AHI is down 50% and total sleep time goes from 5hrs to 7hrs.
So it’s a difficult balancing act for me. Is the substantial sleep improvements outweighed by the potential harm from THC? Very difficult to know for sure but I think in the dosage range I am in I will go for improved sleep.
This is a fascinating and common question I get from my patients. Looking at the risk of a substance being used vs. the risk of inadequate sleep and also in your case, if the Apnea Hypoxia Index is better, that is an additional benefit.
The downside is knocking off REM sleep as a pretty typical effect of THC, but it is dose dependent.
It should be noted the glymphatics work primarily in non-REM deep sleep phase N3 (the deepest), but REM sleep has a number of important functions - so hopefully the 2.5-5 mg are not having a big impact on REM as this is fairly low dose. I’d still wear an Oura or other monitoring device to check into this.
Knowing is better that not knowing for most things as long as we are willing to engage in the fight, like you are
I love this, and thank you!
Until I met all of you, I wasn’t aware there were things we could do about it, so I was never willing to take the test because I didn’t want to add the stress if there was no reason. But once I knew there were options, I was happy to proceed. And thanks for the encouragement!
I have been following and trying it myself. Some new research shows the hz may vary with age, and 20-40hz should be considered.
Deep (slow wave) sleep seems to be a major factor in dementia and Parkinson’s, as this is when the brain clears out the waste (glymphatic system). Our slow-wave sleep declines with age, so finding ways to increase this back to normal seems critical. This is the only thing I know of that might help.
There are some cheap APPs for IOS that will do the audio 40hz BTW.
On the topic of choline and APOE4…
PLANT sources of choline appear to not have the side effects of meat or choline supplements from TAMO…
“Using genetic screens in yeast, the authors discovered that choline supplementation, by promoting phospholipid synthesis, restores a healthy cellular lipid state in APOE4 cells. The authors then demonstrate that choline supplementation can also restore lipid homeostasis in human APOE4 astrocytes. These findings suggest that rewiring of the metabolic state of glia may reduce APOE4 ¬-associated disease risk.”
How Not to Age - Greger M.D.
Compared with GHK, its copper (II)-chelated form shows a more prominent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect in both in vitro and in vivo studies. Pretreatment of RAW 264.7 macrophage cells with GHK-Cu has been shown to significantly decrease ROS levels induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS), increase levels of SOD activities and total GSH, and decrease levels of TNF-α and IL-6 production through the suppression of NF-κB p65 and p38 MAPK signaling [22]. Both signaling pathways are key regulators of inflammation and pro-inflammatory responses, which are considered targets for developing anti-inflammatory therapeutic agents
Apneas are more frequent during REM sleep so THC could be improving my AHI by modifying the amount of REM sleep I get. I’ll check this theory out with an Oura ring or similar.
Another interesting one to watch is Saffron:
Crocus Sativus L. (Saffron) in Alzheimer’s Disease Treatment: Bioactive Effects on Cognitive Impairment - PMC.
Saffron is a Yang Qi herb which generally means an AMPK activator.
Its interesting, I wonder if THC is also involved at all in the negative outcomes associated with cannabis. I just saw this research last week:
The study, the largest of its kind ever to be completed, examined the effects of cannabis use on over 1,000 young adults aged 22 to 36 using brain imaging technology. The researchers found that 63% of heavy lifetime cannabis users exhibited reduced brain activity during a working memory task, while 68% of recent users also demonstrated a similar impact.
This decline in brain activity was associated with worse performance on working memory – the ability to retain and use information to perform tasks. For example, working memory allows a person to follow instructions they’ve just been given or to mentally visualize and manipulate information, like solving a math problem.
Largest Study Ever Done on Cannabis and Brain Function Finds Impact on Working Memory
The study looked at the effect of cannabis use on young adults who are recent or heavy users
Cannabis use causes memory problems, and they may be permanent
Reference Paper (Open access)
January 28, 2025
Brain Function Outcomes of Recent and Lifetime Cannabis Use
Key Points
Question Are recent cannabis use and lifetime cannabis use associated with differences in brain function during cognitive tasks?
Findings In this cross-sectional study of 1003 young adults, heavy lifetime cannabis use was associated with lower brain activation during a working memory task; this association remained after removing individuals with recent cannabis use. These results were not explained by differences in demographic variables, age at first cannabis use, alcohol use, or nicotine use.
Meaning These findings suggest that cannabis use is associated with short- and long-term brain function outcomes, especially during working memory tasks.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2829657
My take on the evidence is smoked cannabis is not good for longevity, lungs, brain, heart, probably liver also. The jury is still out I think in regard to ingested THC, without the smoke and without all the other pollutants that come with.
There are valuable things that happen with REM sleep, and diminishing or eliminating it might have some effects that are also unintended. But then there is the increase in deep slow-wave sleep, which I think is when the glymphatics are active.
Interestingly the parasomnias and sleep walking occur in deeper sleep that is non-REM, so we would expect those to get worse with THC.
My understanding is that most nightmares occur in REM sleep. One of my colleagues used this knowledge in a case of a patient with intractable nightmares for 20 years … psychiatry couldn’t do anything but drug her a bit, which really didn’t net help. My colleague got her up on 10-15 mg of THC-9 and cured after 20 years. True story.
I find all of these perspectives valuable but those I referred to in my post above reference people who have had their hands, probes, and surgical instruments in the brains of a few thousand patients over a course of many years. For most of those patients, extensive psychological examinations have been performed and, for many, fNMRs. This kind of work conveys perspectives that are not available elsewhere. I recall him telling me almost 20 years ago, when amyloid dominated the space in AD discussions, that I would be hearing about tau in a few years. For what it is worth, this group of specialists seems to think challenging novel tasks engage the brain in ways that repeating difficult but well-learned tasks do not.
For most people, REM sleep is very positive. Of course there are exceptions, where people require medication for sleep issues. The problem is that most people I know who use drugs for sleep, are doing more harm than they realize.
I’d love to see some published research supporting this. So many of the surveys look at elders who are engaged in games, social activities, etc vs. those not. Those that aren’t have more dementia - however the prodrome into dementia often involves the individual being more socially isolated.
I don’t doubt what you are saying, an I suspect I missed the evidence (as in published) in this regard. It makes some sense, but if the tasks being done that are challenging are multifaceted, such as being an ER doc - I have mental health issues - need to pull out that set of skills, have to reduce a fracture and sedate someone, have to open a chest up in a penetrating trauma, deal with a child with fever with the parent worried, deliver a baby, sew up lacerations … and much more - so the mental tasks, albeit are repetitive, the discussion with each patient, and nuances requires pulling in skills from different areas of the brain on almost every visit. Given that my dementia prevention strategy is to keep working forever – but it is all healthcare, not games … I’d like to see if there is strong evidence it is time for me to start booking some game or pleasure reading time. I’m not sure at this point.
There are some specific occupations with very compelling data. I’m sure you are aware of the taxi-driver/Ambulance driver connection to low incidence of AD.
But this is likely due to long-term navigation memorizing. And this long-term navigation memorization needs to be re-enforced, over and over again, and then built upon.
We can’t all do this kind of work… and honestly… ‘drivers’ in general are about to become obsolete. But maybe there are games/tasks that can mimic this type of long-term navigational memory.
I lack expertise in this specific area but, across my life, I have been fortunate to be associated with large and dedicated research teams and comparable kinds of teams on the service side of the same areas of work. In my observation, silos develop between the practice and research communities and both tend to be less appreciative and less skilled when it comes to the other silo. In this specific instance, we are talking about medical research where the standards for research and publication are different. During my brief time teaching research design and analysis in medical school as an experiment crafted by the then dean, I saw that it was not unusual to see 10 names on a publication, listed in order of their status at the institution. That, itself, is wrong by my standards, even more so when six of those named had no detailed idea about the research published under their name. The culture I saw tended to put a premium on status and grant getting. As I’m sure you know well, I had no difficulty identifying then current research to use in class as examples of extensive and costly research the conclusions of which could be negated by identifying obvious design, methodological, or interpretative flaws. I’m hoping you can assure me that it is better now but most of my MD friends think not. As for this university brain clinic, I know they all publish but I’m not sure what they think about their work other than noting that it focuses on their funding channels.
That is an interesting write-up on the beneficial effects on myelin sheathing around nerve fibers using sound and light at 40 hz, but I did not find details about how significant the improvements were. Before purchasing more products I would want to know.