The major nutritional and pharmacological functions of Marine PS product:

(1) promoting learning and memory, as well as cognitive function;
(2) preventing the decline of the brain and delay the brain aging;
(3) alleviating and treating Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other brain disorders associated with     the aging;
(4) alleviating and treating Obsessive compulsive disorder and Autism;


Information of bovine brain DHA PS and fish liver DHA PS

Use of bovine brain phosphatidylserine (PS), which contain 10% of DHA species, as the first cholinergic drug in Europe to alleviate and treat Alzheimer’s disease has been well documented, and over 1000 clinical trials in both the US and Europe have demonstrated the functions of the drug. Due to the risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease), it made use of the bovine brain PS unsafe. Since year 2006, transphosphatidylated soybean PS and egg yolk PS have been used as alternatives of brain cortex PS, but both contain no DHA species at all.

The DHA-containing alternatives of the bovine cortex PS are (i) Marine DHA PS (40%) (transphosphatidylated fish liver PS) and (ii) Natural DHA PS (20%), which are or will be available in the US market in the later 2012. The chemical characteristic of marine based DHA PS products is the presence of “a chemically bonding chain of DHA linked at the sn-2 position of glycerol backbone in a PS species” (a chemical compound), rather than so called “conjugated T-Soybean-PS + Fish Oil (a mixture of Soybean-PS and DHA triglycerides). A recent study suggested that the learning ability of DHA deficient mice can be improved only by the exogenous transphosphatidylated squid skin DHA PS species or/and fish liver DHA PS species, rather than the transphosphatidylated soybean and egg yolk PS products.

Although Soybean-PS, which contains no DHA species, is in the US market, its pharmacological effect is not clear at all. It assumes that when T-Soy PS is ingested, the PS-derived PE species can be made in absorption step because circulating PS is present a little in lipoproteins. The higher level of PS-derived PE species in plasma and the liver could be hydrolyzed by phospholipase A2, followed by reacylation to form DHA PE with the body own free DHA or with the exogenous free DHA provided by DHA TGs and their further metabolism. It could be only reasonable explanation that how non-DHA containing PS works. However, it has been shown from a clinical trial (120 elderly) that a daily supplement of Soybean-PS does not affect cognitive functions in older individuals with memory complaints. A recent clinical trial report showed that after 15 weeks of administration of T-Soybean-PS + DHA TGs (fish oil) with 157 participants, this PS-fish oil combination may improve cognitive performance in non-demented elderly with memory complains.