Q. My daughter is a nurse who likes to keep her Mum healthy. She recently brought me soy-based lecithin.
I mix the granules into food and I’ve noticed that my nails have become very strong. All my life before this they were weak and broke and splintered easily.
My knee pain has disappeared and my other joints are greatly improved. I know the brain contains a lot of lecithin. Is there any research into lecithin for memory?
A. Lecithin is a natural complex of fatty substances that is found in foods like soybeans or egg yolks. It is a building block for choline and other phospholipids.
Preliminary research suggests that lecithin-like compounds may have anti-inflammatory activity (Current Opinion in Lipidology, Dec., 2010). This might explain your decreased knee pain.
As for the brain, rat research shows that lecithin may reverse memory impairment in old rats (Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, online July 22, 2014). We were unable to find clinical trials supporting lecithin for boosting human brain power, although there is some suggestion that phosphatidylserine derived from soy lecithin may be able to slow memory loss (Journal of Clinical Biochemistry and Nutrition, Nov., 2010; Clinical Interventions in Aging, online May 21, 2013).
