Author Archives: rawgirl

Keeping in line with last weeks theme about eating to boost brain functioning, this week I want to talk about Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s disease, also known as “diabetes of the brain,” is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by memory loss, and overall loss of ability to think clearly and sometimes completely simple daily tasks. The major indicators of Alzheimer’s disease happen when amyloid plaques, (a sticky build up that occurs outside of nerve cells) and neurofibrillary tangles (twisted fibers that are literally “tangled”) are present in the brain. “Oxidative stress plays a main role in AD, and it is involved in initiation and progression of Alzheimer’s,” (Gugliandolo et al, 2017).

In a human brain that is functioning normally, glucose is the primary source of energy in the brain. However when Alzheimer’s takes full hold the brain loses ability to use glucose as a source of energy. Because of this, some researchers and practitioners have investigated how a low-to-no carb and high fat diet may help in the healing of Alzheimer’s. A ketogenic diet has been suggested as an alternative. What is a ketogenic diet? It’s essentially a diet that consists of high-fat, adequate-protein, and low-carbohydrate intake. The named “ketogenic” refers to ketosis which is a normal, metabolic process that the body uses to keep functioning when it doesn’t have enough carbohydrates for fuel, so it burns fat instead. During this process the body makes ketones.

In some of the research available, the ketogenic diet was shown to “provide symptomatic and disease-modifying activity in a broad range of neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, and may also be protective in traumatic brain injury and stroke,” (Gasior et al, 2006). The observation in some of these studies is that the ketones or  water soluble molecules that are produced by the liver when the body goes into fasting or “ketosis” mode, help to protect cells in the brain from damage, (Gasior et al, 2006). In one study conducted on twenty human subjects the results point to the ability of a high fat diet to improve symptoms and even encourage healing, primarily showing that “the administration of medium-chain triglycerides improves memory performance in Alzheimer’s disease patients,” (Reger MA et al, 2004).  Those that were given the medium-chain triglycerides and had higher ketone values had more improvement in the ability to recall a paragraph of text than the group that received the placebo, (Reger MA et al, 2004).

There are also studies that have drawn a connection between high saturated fat diets with the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s but none of those studies examined if the effects of high fat diets while restricting carbs, had the same effect, (Kalmijn S. et a, 1997). In an animal study conducted on mice that were genetically predisposed (through mutation) to develop the amyloid plaque associated with Alzheimer’s, when the mice were exposed to a ketogenic diet for 43 days, they had a 25% reduction in amyloid levels, (Van der Auwera et al, 2005). Although their ability to complete repetitive tasks didn’t increase, it was still a significant observation.

Much more research must be conducted to come to a more solid conclusion that a ketogenic diet could effectively heal Alzheimer’s, but for now there remains no viable treatment to reverse the disease, even in the medical world. Given this stark reality, practitioners such as Amy Berger, a Certified Nutrition Specialist and Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, who wrote a book about adopting the  ketogenic diet to heal Alzheimer’s disease agree that the average person really has nothing to lose by testing it out for a period of time to see if there is marked improvement. In fact, there is more to gain, and the research that has been conducted indicates it may be worth a shot. If you know anyone struggling with Alzheimer’s, or you yourself are concerned about it, take care to work with a medical doctor and/or certified holistic health practitioner on any protocol you decide to try.

References:

Dysken, M. W., Sano, M., Asthana, S., Vertrees, J. E., Pallaki, M., Llorente, M., . . . Guarino, P. D. (2014). Effect of Vitamin E and Memantine on Functional Decline in Alzheimer Disease. Journal of the American Medical Association,311(1), 33. doi:10.1001/jama.2013.282834

Gasior, M., Rogawski, M. A., & Hartman, A. L. (2006). Neuroprotective and disease-modifying effects of the ketogenic diet. Behavioural Pharmacology, 17(5-6), 431–439.

(2017, March 21). How Ketosis Can Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease w/ Amy Berger. Retrieved March 21, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT5rjwJr354

Gugliandolo, A., Bramanti, P., & Mazzon, E. (2017). Role of Vitamin E in the Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease: Evidence from Animal Models. International Journal Of Molecular Sciences, 18(12), 1-21. doi:10.3390/ijms18122504

Kalmijn S, Launer LJ, Ott A, Witteman JC, Hofman A, Breteler MM. (1997).  Dietary fat intake and the risk of incident dementia in the Rotterdam Study. Ann Neurol. 42:776–782.

Reger MA, Henderson ST, Hale C, Cholerton B, Baker LD, Watson GS, et al. (2004). Effects of β-hydroxybutyrate on cognition in memory-impaired adults. Neurobiol Aging. 25:311–314.

Roy, M., Nugent, S., Tremblay-Mercier, J., Tremblay, S., Courchesne-Loyer, A., Beaudoin, J., & … Cunnane, S. C. (2012). The ketogenic diet increases brain glucose and ketone uptake in aged rats: A dual tracer PET and volumetric MRI study. Brain Research, 148814-23. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2012.10.008
Van der Auwera, I., Wera, S., Van Leuven, F., & Henderson, S. T. (2005). A ketogenic diet reduces amyloid beta 40 and 42 in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. Nutrition & Metabolism, 2, 28. http://doi.org/10.1186/1743-7075-2-28