The following are comments from an recent conversation, I thought may interest you too.


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I write this as many of you may be facing this problem with family and friends.




As my father has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. He has been institutionalized to locked facility for his and others safety. In our families desire to provide him with the best of care. One of my siblings came upon this article by a Dr. Mary Newport a doctor of Neonatology. As her husband has also been diagnosed with Alzheimer's this is what she has found it her research. http://www.coconutketones.com/whatifcure.pdf 

Searching the web there is no claims against it. May be some of you could help in this area.

Would also like to hear from those of you in areas which consumes large amounts of coconut or cooks with coconut oil. What is the occurrence of this disease in your populous?


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additional info.

hi,

Sorry to hear about your father.

Yes, there is some scientific support for the treatment of alzheimers with ketone bodies, or ketogenic diet.

Here is a recent clinical trial, using a proprietary product for that purpose, and obtaining good results.

Although the testing of ketogenic diet for alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative disorders is recent, it has been used clinically for treatment of epilepsy for more than 80 years, so there is plenty known about using a dietary approach to generate the "ketone bodies". The ratio of fat to protein/carbohydrate is important, so simply adding coconut oil to the usual fare is not the optimal approach. There is scientific support to be found for MCT as a variant ketogenic diet, possibly more tolerable than the classical form in treatment of childhood epilepsy. But the effects on an aging brain are not known, and the research in animals suggests there may be both positive and negative effects, also related to the proportion of MCT's in the diet.

Recently a modified Atkins diet has been used for ketogenesis with results comparable to the classic ketogenic diet in epilepsy. Atkins or modified atkins diet is less restrictive of protein and nutrients than the classic form, so is more pleasant and tolerable for the patient. Since there are other health factors for every patient, a doctor who understands 'ketogenic diet' should be consulted to help to design the optimal diet for your dad to try, and to help with considerations of risk vs benefit.



Suffice it to say, I have a vested interest in reading and learning about this subject.

There are some interesting developments in the research happening now, hopefully leading to effective treatments in the near future. An important aspect of the disease that has not been targeted in the past is the misfolding of the protein 'tau' causing the 'tangles' effect.

Two promising therapies are discussed in recent work: the immunization approach (which was less successful with the amyloid beta plaques) is showing a lot of promise in animal models, as in this research at NYU promising clinical trials in the near future.

Secondly, there is research on therapies using the "chaperone" proteins involved in regulating protein folding. A group of molecular chaperones called "heat shock proteins" are involved in regulating tau. When the HSP's are induced or overexpressed they can counteract the progression of the disease.

There are some safe and nontoxic means of inducing HSP-70, notably resveratrol, which is unlikely to cause any harm afaik and is widely available and GRAS. The Japanese have been researching a naturally-derived drug geranylgeranylacetone, which is also reported nontoxic and a reliable inducer of HSP-70 and has shown benefits in a number of conditions (lots of publications). It's marketed as a treatment for stomach ulcers in Japan, under the name Teprenone.

There is also some research going on at USF, suggesting that a two stage therapy involving induction of HSP-70 followed by modification of its ATPase activity, would produce best results. There may be clinical trials coming out of these researches as well, you may find something helpful on their webpages.




"Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task. "