Health Nuts
The brain-energy theory, spelled out by Harvard professor of psychiatry Christopher Palmer in his book Brain Energy, says that for a good many of us, refined carbohydrates are a poor fuel for our brains. Specific dietary fats, although denser in energy than carbohydrates or protein, are what our brains prefer. (The process is a result of complex biological chemistry that is incompletely understood.) What our brains do better with are ketones, which our bodies produce as a result of certain dietary inputs. And it is hard to come up with a better example of a positive dietary response to a ketogenic diet than witnessing a patient improve his symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease just by amending his diet—which is to say, without using pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Mary Newport is a neonatologist. Her late husband Steve was an accountant, and he started showing signs of dementia around 2000 in his early 50s. He was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s in 2004. The disease symptoms worsened steadily, as is the typical progression for most. Mary tried to find remedies, read about trials using medium-chain triglycerides (MCT oil), which she knew to be a very important food ingredient for premies. She couldn’t find the oil itself, but figured out that most of it was derived from coconuts and palm seeds, and so she started giving Steve coconut oil to eat. He showed measurable improvements within a day, and the improvements remained for as long as he consumed the ingredient.
Cardiologist Bret Scher interviewed Newport for the Metabolic Mind podcast a few days ago. It is quite a remarkable story of how a dietary change can produce dramatic results. Scher opens the video with a sensible disclaimer that not everyone responds to such a simple intervention, which acknowledges the limits of scientific knowledge about exactly how all this works. Yet it would seem worthwhile to investigate such simple treatments in order better to understand the mechanisms and potential benefits.
The first comment below the interview was an interesting anecdote, too:
@ekondigg6751
I learned about Dr Mary Newport's experience on a YouTube video shortly after starting LCHF/keto about 6 years ago. My wife's mum with Alzheimer's was living with us, and she had deteriorated to the point of "whooping" instead of speaking. So I thought we could try giving her some coconut oil maybe for a month to see if there might be a difference. To my surprise, there was an almost immediate improvement. So I increased the dose to the point of causing diarhea and then reducing a little, and gave it to her every 4 hours (in the waking hours) because 4 hours is the max life of chylomicrons. My reasoning was that she should therefore have the fats available pretty much all the time. The next step was to get "serious", so we put her on a strict keto diet of less than 20g carbs/day and I replaced the coconut oil with MCT oil. She didn't seem to do as well with just MCT oil, so I added back coconut oil as well. Maybe it was just subjective, but it does seem to agree with Dr Newport's experience, as related in this interview. She very quickly stopped whooping, and was able to have simple conversations, she was able to watch TV, and after a couple of months was even able to read again. She died at age 95 a couple of years ago now, and kept that level of improvement with no deterioration right up to the end. Thank you very much Dr Mary Newport, I just wish I had known about this before my mother-in-law had deteriorated so much. It should be publicised so that others can try it out. Even if it only works for some, that would still be great for them.
I saw Oppenheimer with my Dad last night. It was very good, although it definitely earned its R rating.
Placido Domingo, everyone. We had an unexpected party last night, featuring Son B (and his laundry), Daughter B and her girlfriend (very nice), Daughter C, Addie the Pharmacist, and Addie's mom. Somehow, we still have leftover Chinese food, but someone probably ate the meat out and left only the green pepper chunks. And we drank all the wine.
Son E will pick up his brother D from camp some time in the early afternoon, while the rest of us are at church.