Phosphatidylserine (PS) is an exciting new development in the study of brain function. A soy-derived supplement, PS renews aging brain cells and improves overall mental performance. It also plays important roles in brain energy, memory, and alertness. In effect, PS switches on a lightbulb in your brain.

Doctors experienced in nutrition and/or anti-aging medicine prescribe PS as a treatment for ARCD. The nutrient can also be used as a preventive, to enhance mental processes in otherwise healthy individuals. PS supplementation helps regenerate stressed-out or damaged nerve cells, actually reversing defects in nerve cell message transmission. This is the quintessence of Renewal.

PS benefits many brain functions that tend to decline with age: memory, learning, vocabulary skills, concentration, mood, alertness, and sociability. Students, professionals, seniors—practically anyone interested in maintaining and maximizing their mental abilities can benefit from taking PS. Clinical research indicates that PS is a premier candidate for inclusion in any program aimed at supporting cognitive function.

How Does It Work?

PS is a naturally occurring “good fat”—technically, a phospholipid (a fat with a phosphate group attached). A youthful brain makes sufficient amounts of PS on its own, but production declines with advancing age. The brain is particularly sensitive to low levels of PS. An older person with impaired mental function and depression almost certainly has a PS deficiency.

PS can be found in the membranes of all cells, but it is especially concentrated in the nerve cells of the brain. A cell’s outer and inner membranes are comprised of a double layer of phospholipid molecules derived from essential fatty acids and other nutrients. PS is one of these vital phospholipids.

In nerve cells, PS plays several important roles. As an essential building block of cell membranes, PS enhances membrane integrity and stimulates membrane repair. It also supports the functions of several important membrane proteins. These large protein molecules station themselves like sentries along the phospholipid wall, where they perform a variety of important functions necessary for nerve cell message transmission. For example, they process enzymatic and hormonal signals from outside the cell. They catalyze the nerve cell’s mitochondrial energy production. They facilitate the release of neurotransmitters. And they support the functions of the proteins in the neurotransmitter receptors of dendrites.

PS itself assists in neurotransmitter synthesis, release, and activity. It also serves as a reservoir of raw material for the manufacture of eicosanoid (prostaglandin) molecules, which carry hormonal messages to nearby cells.

PS has a phenomenal ability to boost learning rate, concentration, and memory. Though PS produces even stronger benefits when combined with other neuronutrients (such as acetyl-L-carnitine, pregnenolone, and ginkgo), some researchers feel that it’s the single best bet for the treatment and prevention of ARCD.

What Science Says

Research focusing on PS has yielded results that are nothing short of astonishing. This miraculous nutrient rejuvenates just about every function controlled by the central nervous system. Several clinical trials involving thousands of subjects have demonstrated that PS fine-tunes the brain’s biochemical environment. It effectively halts and even reverses the cognitive degeneration that results in ARCD and senility. It restores memory (informational, visual, and numeric), boosts concentration, improves mood, and quickens reflexes.

In one U.S. study, volunteers between the ages of 50 and 75 with ARCD took 100 milligrams of PS three times a day for three months. The nutrient reversed the decline in name-face recognition skills by a statistical 12 years. In other words, the average scores attained by 64-year-olds rose to match the average scores attained by 52-year-olds. The people taking PS showed significant reductions in memory impairment, with those who had the worst memory lapses improving the most.

Depression in older people and depressive mood changes during the fall and winter months (seasonal affective disorder) are particularly responsive to PS therapy. The nutrient also improves cerebral functioning in people with Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease (although it won’t cure either condition).

Several studies have noted that the benefits of PS supplementation, even at levels as low as 200 milligrams per day, could persist for up to three months after people discontinue it. Your brain is not stupid, you know: It knows a good thing when it sees it. So when PS comes down the pike, your brain latches onto it, stores it, and even recycles it. That’s why its effects linger.

Guidelines for Supplementation

Research has shown PS to be a remarkably safe nutritional supplement, noting no serious side effects. Why would there be? After all, PS is a friendly molecule. Your body makes its own, and the supplemental form comes from a natural source: soybean phospholipids.

To start, take 200 to 300 milligrams of PS per day in divided doses—that is, 100 milligrams two or three times per day. Then after one month, switch to a maintenance dose of 100 to 200 milligrams per day.

Because it’s a food product, PS is compatible with all other foods and supplements. It does work best when used as part of a comprehensive anti-aging program that also includes proper diet, regular exercise, and supplementation of other brain nutrients.

Your body has the genetic program to synthesize PS from these nutrients. But because synthesis involves several steps and consumes quite a bit of energy, it generates only modest amounts of PS. Supplementation is a more efficient means of achieving optimum levels of the nutrient.

You can enhance the effects of PS by taking the nutrient’s precursors: vitamin B12 (at least 1,000 micrograms daily), vitamin C (675 to 3,000 milligrams daily), folic acid (800 to 2,000 micrograms daily), and omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids (from flaxseed and borage oils—2,000 to 10,000 milligrams and 250 to 500 milligrams, respectively). You’ll get these doses just by following the Anti-Aging Supplement Program.

Can you get PS directly from soy foods? Unfortunately, no. The amount of PS in soy is so small that you’d never be able to consume enough foods to reach therapeutic levels.

When you start taking PS supplements, give them a chance to work. After all, rebuilding brain cells takes time. You won’t turn into Einstein overnight. PS requires about a month to improve memory and several months to achieve peak results. (Let’s hope that during the wait you won’t forget why you’re taking it.)

If you stop taking PS, any memory enhancement that you’ve experienced will gradually fade after several months.