There are three major hidden reasons that wheat products, not just gluten (along with sugar in all its forms) is a major contributor to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, depression and so many other modern ills.
This is why there are now 30 % more obese than undernourished in the world, and why chronic lifestyle and dietary driven disease kills more than twice as many people as infectious disease globally.
Sadly, this tsunami of chronic illness is increasingly caused by eating our beloved diet staple, bread, the staff of life, and all the wheat products hidden in everything from soups to vodka to lipstick to envelope adhesive.
The ingredients are based on two things: one is low carb and nutrient-dense.
The Best Foods:
Shellfish (clams, oysters, mussels) for trace minerals (zinc, selenium, iodine, chromium) and DHA the key mega 3 fatty acid.
Salmon (wild caught) has one of the highest amounts of omega-3 fatty acids (DHA and EPA), great for the retina of the eye your brain and the heart and high-quality protein.
Leafy greens like salads for the minerals potassium, magnesium and vitamin C.
Sardines are high in DHA and EPA and they have really good protein.
Eggs (organic pasture-raised) have pretty much every single vitamin except they don’t have a lot of vitamin C. They will not increase your cholesterol if you’ve heard that eggs will worsen your cholesterol watch the links at the end of this post where Dr. Berg gives the true data.
Cruciferous vegetables, most cruciferous, especially brussel sprouts, Dr. recommends that you steam them because that will enhance the phytonutrients. The big benefit of cruciferous go beyond just their vitamins and minerals because they’re loaded with phytonutrients that can decrease the complications from diabetes from, Alzheimer’s. It can minimize the damage that some of these diseases are creating and also protect you against cancer.
Avocados are low carb and have healthy fats. But some people can get bloated if they do too many.
Olives and olive oil extra virgin and organic really good on a ketogenic diet.
Beef, Grass-fed, grass-finished, very important because they will sometimes finish the cattle off with grains, which could be GMO to fatten them up for a period of even ten months. You want 100% certified grass-fed grass-finished. Dr. Berg recommends having a fatty of burger or hotdog because that extra fat can even lower the effect on insulin and it’s easier to digest.
Worst Foods May Be Consumed On Dirty Keto Rather Than Healthy Keto.
Corn,the problem is that 95% is GMO and highly glycemic.
Yogurt. Look at the label, for example, you will be surprised how much sugar is in Greek yogurt. Make sure it is organic and grass-fed.
Commercial chicken is badly processed, factory farmed, fed grains, overall it is not the ideal protein you want to do on a healthy keto plan.
Processed meat, cold cuts, for example, although considered keto, avoid them because of the nitrates and added sugar and sometimes they add monosodium glutamate and definitely it is not grass-fed.
Processed cheese or not from grass-fed cows. Consume grass-fed or organic cheese only. Cheese is from milk, which can influence someone with a prostate issue also it can influence women who have problems with fibroids and cysts in the breasts or the ovaries. If there’s anything going on with estrogen dominance I don’t recommend it If you’re going to consume it. I don’t recommend consuming a lot of it just a little bit here.
Spinach is it’s loaded with oxalates. Oxalates can cause kidney stones you might be okay if you’re not having a problem with kidney stones and you consumed spinach occasionally. If you consume some high-quality cheese with the spinach the calcium in the cheese will bind with the oxalates in your digestive system. The oxalates won’t get absorbed into the blood and into the kidney so the calcium of the cheese can protect you against the stones.
Nuts, almonds have the highest amount of oxalates avoid them if you have a tendency to get kidney stones. Some people that are arthritic should stay away. Many people that have arthritis really just consume too many foods high in oxalates, which can irritate the joints. If consume seeds, nuts or nut butters, have a small amount, too many nuts can irritate the gall bladder and the liver and the digestive tract.
Vegetables oils sounds healthy. Vegetable oils are actually grain oils they’re usually GMO, highly inflammatory but they’re low carb and higher fat.
Sugar and grain are the worst is sugar and grains.
Are eggs bad for cholesterol? If you’re afraid of eggs increasing your cholesterol, keep in mind that there’s no evidence to support the idea that eggs raise your bad cholesterol. They can raise your good cholesterol, which isn’t bad for your heart. I recommend that you always go with pasture-raised organic eggs.
Dr. Berg, DC, is a chiropractor, who specializes in Healthy Ketosis & Intermittent Fasting. He is the author of the best-selling book The Healthy Keto Plan, and is the Director of Dr. Berg’s Nutritionals. He no longer practices, but focuses on health education through social media.
Disclaimer: The content of this email or Post is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader.
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
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High intakes of healthy fats – especially saturated fats – boost health and longevity. Those who got 35 percent of daily calories from healthy fats were 23 percent less likely to die than those who only got 10 percent of calories from fat.
People who got 77 percent of daily calories from carbohydrates were 28 percent more likely to die than those who got 46 percent of calories from carbs.
Other recent research shows a reduced-sugar diet can lower liver fat by more than 20 percent in just nine days.
Mitochondria – the tiny energy factories within your cells – generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy currency your body needs to run its systems. Your mitochondria are also responsible for apoptosis (programmed cell death), and serve as important signaling molecules that help regulate your genetic expression. Hence, the state of your mitochondria plays a key role in health and disease.
Once your mitochondria become damaged and dysfunctional, your energy reserves decrease, leading to a wide variety of symptoms, some of the most common being headache and fatigue, and leaving you increasingly vulnerable to degenerative diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and neurodegenerative decay.
Unfortunately, mitochondrial damage is more the norm than the exception these days, thanks to the prevalence of processed food diets, inactivity, lack of sun exposure and excessive exposure to toxins and non-native electromagnetic fields from cell phones, routers, cellular towers and more. All of these factors contribute to mitochondrial dysfunction. Fortunately, your body can regenerate and renew, regardless of your age – provided it has the proper fuel to do so.
A ketogenic diet – which is very low in net carbohydrates and high in healthy fats – is key for boosting mitochondrial function.
When your body is able to burn fat for fuel, your liver creates water-soluble fats called ketones that burn far more efficiently than carbs, thereby creating fewer reactive oxygen species (ROS) and secondary free radicals. Ketones also decrease inflammation, improve glucose metabolism and aid the building of muscle mass.
International Study Confirms Fat for Fuel Premise
The large-scale international study (known as the international Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology, or PURE, study) reports thathigh intakes of healthy fats – especially saturated fats – boost health and longevity.
Its research team recorded the eating habits of 135,000 adults in 18 countries – and followed the participants’ health for more than seven years on average. Those with the highest intake of dietary fat (35 percent of daily calories) were 23 percent less likely to have diedduring the study period than those with the lowest fat intake (10 percent of calories).
The rates of various cardiovascular diseases were essentially the same across fat intake, while strokes were less common among those with a high fat intake. The participants with the highest carbohydrate intake (77 percent of daily calories) were 28 percent more likely to have diedthan those with the lowest carbohydrate intake (46 percent of calories).”
Low-Fructose Diet Significantly Reduces Liver Fat in Mere Days
Another recent study found a reduced-sugar diet lowered liver fat by more than 20 percent in just nine days. Processed fructose found in soda, fruit juices and processed food is a major contributor to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
The study clearly showed that sugar is turned into fat, which may explain the epidemic of fatty liver in children consuming soda and food with added sugar. The study found that fatty liver is reversed by removing added fructose from our diet.
NAFLD raises your risk for Type 2 diabetes. A high-fat, low-carb diet has been shown to improve both blood sugar levels and blood lipids.
Dr. Robert Lustig (who investigated the role of fructose in disease for many years) commented on the results, saying, “Many people think that fructose provides empty calories. But no, they are toxic calories because they are metabolized onlyin the liver, and the liver turns the excess into fat.”
American Heart Association Has It All Wrong
In June 2017, the American Heart Association (AHA) shocked health conscious individuals around the world by declaring coconut oil dangerous.
However, the AHA had carefully cherry-picked outdated data from the 1960s and early 1970s. Moreover, none of these four studies actually involved coconut oil, which means the AHA is flat out making false claims when it’s identifying coconut oil as a dangerous fat.
Nutritional science has made significant strides since the ’70s, and many recent studies have repeatedly refuted the idea that high-fat diets promote heart disease.
Why Is the AHA Clinging to Outdated Science?
As noted by Nina Teicholz, an investigative journalist and author of “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet:”
“To me, the AHA advisory released in June (2017) was mystifying. How could its scientists examine the same studies as I had, yet double down on an anti-saturated fat position? With a cardiologist, I went through the nuts and bolts of the AHA paper, and came to this conclusion: It was likely driven less by sound science than by longstanding bias, commercial interests and the AHA’s need to reaffirm nearly 70 years of its ‘heart healthy’ advice …
Why the AHA is resistant to updating its view of saturated fats, despite so much legitimate science, could simply reflect the association’s unwavering devotion to a belief it has promoted for decades. Or it could be due to its significant, longstanding reliance on funding from interested industries, such as the vegetable-oil manufacturer Procter & Gamble, maker of Crisco …
In July of 2017, Bayer, the owner of LibertyLink soybeans, pledged up to $500,000 to the AHA, perhaps encouraged by the group’s continued support of soybean oil, by far the dominant ingredient in the ‘vegetable oil’ consumed in America today.”
Consider Experimenting With a Water Fast
A Multi-day fasts is where the only thing you consume is water and mineral supplements, and no other food or drink. It allows your body to seriously upregulate autophagy (destruction of damaged cells) and removes most of the damaged and premalignant cells in your body. It is a magnificent way to help cancer-proof your body. It is also outstanding for helping you achieve optimal body weight, and it can improve your health and extend your lifespan.
The more comfortable way to start a water-only fast is to fast 12 to 18-hour daily intermittent fasts for a few months. This will radically decrease any negative side effects. Your doctor should monitor fasts longer than 18 hours.
During his fast, Dr. Mercola experienced no hunger pains, no food cravings, lost 10 pounds. His ketones were 5.1, and his was blood sugar 45, which doubled the ketone/glucose index threshold Dr. Thomas Seyfried (a leading researcher) says is necessary to treat cancer.
Read more about the water-only fast in Dr. Mercola’s book, Fat For Fuel. Here is a link https://www.fatforfuel.org/
The Benefits of a Cyclical Ketogenic Diet
The cyclical or targeted ketogenic diet is high in healthy fats and fiber, low in net carbs with a moderate amount of protein.
Ideally, once you have established ketosis you cycle healthy carbs back in to about 100 to 150 grams on the few days a week you do strength training.
Health Benefits:
Weight loss – By rebalancing your body’s chemistry, weight loss and/or improved weight management becomes nearly effortless. Studies have shown a ketogenic diet can double the weight lost compared to a low-fat diet.
Reduced inflammation – When burned for fuel, dietary fat releases far fewer ROS and secondary free radicals than sugar. Ketones are also very effective histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors that effectively reduce inflammatory responses.
Reduced cancer risk – While all cells can use glucose for fuel, cancer cells lack the metabolic flexibility to use ketones. Regular cells thrive on them. Once your body enters a state of nutritional ketosis, cancer cells are more susceptible to being removed by your body through a process called autophagy. A cyclical ketogenic diet is a fundamental, essential tool that needs to be integrated in the management of nearly every cancer.
Increased muscle mass – Ketones spare branched-chain amino acids, thereby promoting muscle mass. However, make sure to implement cyclic ketosis. Chronic ketosis may eventually result in muscle loss as your body is impairing the mTOR pathway, which is important for anabolic growth.
Lowered insulin levels – Keeping your insulin level low helps prevent insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes and related diseases. Research has demonstrated that diabetics who eat a low-carb ketogenic diet are able to significantly reduce their dependency on diabetes medication and may even reverse the condition.
Lowering insulin resistance will also reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s. Recent research strengthens the link between insulin resistance and dementia even further, particularly among those with existing heart disease.
Mental clarity – One of the first things people really notice once they start burning fat for fuel is that any former “brain fog” lifts, and they can suddenly think very clearly. Ketones are a preferred fuel for your brain; hence, the improved mental clarity.
Increased longevity
One of the reasons you can survive a long time without food is due to the process of ketosis, which spares protein breakdown. A fairly consistent effect seen in people on a ketogenic diet is that blood levels of leucine and other important structural proteins go up, allowing these proteins to perform a number of important signaling functions.
Ketones also mimic the life span extending properties of calorie restriction (fasting), which includes improved glucose metabolism; reduced inflammation; clearing out malfunctioning immune cells; reduced IGF-1, one of the factors that regulate growth pathways and growth genes and is a major player in accelerated aging; cellular/intracellular regeneration and rejuvenation (autophagy and mitophagy).
Take Control of Your Health – And Help Others Do the Same
Excessive net carbohydrate intake is the No. 1 culprit behind skyrocketing obesity, diabetes and chronic disease rates, primarily by decimating your mitochondrial function.
Take control – eat a diet that allows your body to burn fat as its primary fuel rather than sugars. Weight loss is simply a natural side effect of rebalancing your body’s chemistry.
Please see the original for the Footnotes and Citations for the scientific studies.
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Dr. Mercola interviews Travis Christofferson, the author of Tripping over the Truth: How the Metabolic Theory of Cancer Is Overturning One of Medicine’s Most Entrenched Paradigms
Christofferson: Drugs targeting DNA have been very, very disappointing. We’ve been told that these targeted therapies were going to result in cures. It’s clear that’s not the case because of the data from the Cancer Genome Atlas project. There’s just too much random diversity within the genes. It’s hard enough to find a target from one patient to the next and if you do there’s another phenomenon called intra heterogeneity, which is the difference in mutations from cell to cell within the same tumor.
James Watson Nobel, who won the Nobel Prize in 1954 for discovering the structure of DNA, noticed this and said; I am no longer giving money to the Cancer Genome Atlas project. If we’re ever going to cure cancer we’re clearly going to have to go back to the days of Warburg and focus on the metabolism.
Mercola: Warburg was the first person who noted that there’s a difference in the metabolism. Cancer cells are anaerobically metabolizing glucose (without oxygen) inefficiently and they have this relative primitive form of energy generation and it’s inefficient.
So the question becomes what caused them to revert to this? Peter Peterson out of Hopkins took it to the next step, he actually determined that there is a radically reduced number of mitochondria. There are typically several thousand in each cell comprising about a third to 50% of the volume of the inside of your cell. These generate the energies of our cells.
If you’ve got a radical reduction of those and if the ones that are left are relatively dysfunctional, not even working if they work in at all, then you’ve got a problem. So these cancer cells don’t have a choice, they have to revert to anaerobic metabolism.
Healthy mitochondria send signals, (epigenetic communication) between its cell and the nucleus and this epigenetic signalling from the mitochondria is actually what’s responsible for initiating a significant percentage of the genetic damage that has been identified so well through the DNA sequencing project, which the majority of the scientists have been focused on currently.
If we’re ever going to cure cancer we have to focus on the metabolism.
Christofferson: The mitochondrial damage is irrefutable. We look at cancer cells and the number of mitochondria are vastly reduced. When you isolate and look at the mitochondria you look at them, they’re messed up. There are protein problems; there are lipid problems, and all kinds of structural abnormalities. The question is: “Why has the cancer reverted to anaerobic energy generation?” Nobody really tied that to the terrible structure of the mitochondria. They didn’t have the tools to see the mitochondria and now we do.
Tom Seyfried, the leading edge cancer scientist, has done such a great job of piecing together the events once mitochondrial are damaged. This relationship between mitochondria and the nucleus is so important. They constantly crosstalk and mitochondrial health is correlated to the health of the entire organism, you.
The dominant theory of aging explains that you age because your mitochondria age,they take the brunt of metabolism. When you generate energy you are whipping around free radicals and they’re constantly under stress so they get banged up and beat up and you look at the antioxidants within mitochondria they have declined by about 50% with advanced age.
Mercola: It is important to note, is when they burn fuel they generate these reactive oxygen systems (ROS). But the question is what you fuel are they’re burning?
They are burning glucose (carbohydrates). They are burning dirty fuel generating tons of reactive oxygen species as opposed to burning ketones or fats.
Christofferson: As a fuel ketones are incredible, they burned clean with much less ROS or free radical generation but the clincher with this theory is that once there’s enough mitochondrial damage there is a retrograde response or an epigenetic signal to the nucleus and once this happens then you start to see the accumulation of mutations.
So the whole crux of this theory is which is first? The argument is that the metabolic theory is this mitochondrial damage is how first and then you see the mutations.The mutations appeared as the causebut in fact they are a downstream signalfrom the from the true cause. Researchers were led sort of down this wild-goose chase trying to find what these mutations were and why they were important. So now that we know this we can go back to the mitochondria and ask how do restore our cell and how do we keep them healthy?
The dietary therapy, what Tom Seyfried calls a restricted Ketogenic diet, is the foundation of this therapeutic approach because it does incredible things to the body where it differentiates between cancer cells and normal cells. When you switch from glucose metabolism to ketone metabolism you put energetic pressure on the cancer cells because they have to burn ketones in mitochondria, which is something they don’t have much of.
So we’ve noticed that once you put people in this dietary state everything becomes more effective even traditional chemotherapy even radiation and at the same time you’re mitigating side-effects because healthy tissues are able to withstand the sort of toxic payload from traditional chemotherapy. The exciting thing is when you add on these other metabolic therapies that are synergistic and their mechanisms overlap. Exogenous ketones are exciting. How far can we take that metabolic state to this tipping point where cancer cells growth is stopped but they begin to die.
We can bring blood glucose levels down way farther than most people think safely. You add gluconeogenesis inhibitors that’s one of the main culprits you have to contend with as far as keeping blood glucose down, you add exogenously tones and people are put in this different metabolic state.
They’re shifting away from carbohydrate metabolism and then add on pulses of pressure: 3–bromopyruvate(3-BrPA) and dichloroacetate (DCA) are inhibitors and Metformin. They are very non-toxic that overlap and mechanism.
This foundational shift to a ketone-based metabolism followed by these pulses of pressure appears to be the best avenue to a cure.
Ketone bodies are not just a fuel they’re signalling molecules. Incredibly restorative things happen: you completely rearrange the architecture of your DNA; you start expressing new genes; you drop down the inflammatory genes and boost all these restorative genes. There is mitochondrial biogenesis. Look at all the diseases that spin out of this metabolic dysfunction from not entering the state of ketosis periodically – neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, obesity, diabetes, heart failure, heart disease, arthritis, cancer, and the list goes on.
A shift in macromolecular consumption from carbohydrates to fats can stop diseases. It goes back to Dr. Veech who was the lineage of Otto Warburg. He got his PhD in under Hans Krebs. He’s done a lot of this ketone body research along with Cahill and he said in late 70s or 80s that so many disease states spin out of a function of mitochondrial decay and the ketone bodies can potentially mitigate this process. Now we have exotic ketones that maybe help people that aren’t able to do the dietary restrictions.
The ketogenic diet really is just the maintenance of the fasting state nutritionally. Periodic fasting can be difficult because you transition through this induction phase. Your body is tooled up to burn carbohydrates, so when you fast it has to retool and during that process you burn muscle as a bridge to get you over to fat metabolism.
All evidence points to maybe not a huge increase in lifespan but it definitely a huge increase in health span. For example, if you were predisposed to getting type 2 diabetes in midlife, if you were in ketogenic state you may never get it. So if you want to live well for a long time that is were the benefit will be.
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Alzheimer’s is one type of dementia and is a disease that affects the mind. It affects the whole brain and causes short-term memory loss, difficulty in communicating and thinking clearly, emotional instability and poor judgment. It mostly affects people over the age of 65, but is occurring more and more frequently in younger people too.
Biological symptoms: Small protein bodies called amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles within the structure of the brain develop and cause the brain cells to die off. The amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles reduce the effectiveness of healthy neurons (nerve cells that carry messages to and from the brain) and destroy them.
People with Alzheimer’s also have a deficiency in neurotransmitters, the biogenic amines (compounds) that are involved in cellular communication. These compounds are adrenaline, dopamine, norepinephrine (noradrenaline), histamine and serotonin.
Possible Causes of Alzheimer’s: Head Trauma and Brain Tumours, Genetics, Atrophy, Alcohol, Heart disease, Aspartame
Other causes of Dementia include reactions to medications, thyroid problems and other metabolic problems and endocrine abnormalities, nutritional deficiencies including dehydration, infections (including meningitis and encephalitis, untreated syphilis, and the advanced stages of AIDS), subdural hematomas or bleeding between the brain’s surface and its outer covering (the dura), poisoning (lead and other heavy metals, and aluminium), anoxia and hypoxia (diminished supply of oxygen to an organ’s tissues), and lung problems.
There is strong evidence to show a link between heart health and brain health. This is where the GAPS protocol comes in.
GAPS: In the book Put Your Heart in Your Mouth by Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride (the founder of GAPS, a diet and lifestyle regime), Dr Natasha says that in Alzheimer’s disease, the sufferer has excess glucose in the bloodstream. She explains that free molecules of glucose attach to proteins in the blood and cause them to become sticky. These substances are called AGEs – Advanced Glycosylated End products. AGEs can get into capillaries in the brain and block them (causing Alzheimer’s) as well as other parts of the body such as the kidney. When they stick to the blood vessels and damage them, they start the process of atherosclerosis, which can lead to a heart attack. Hence the connection. To address this problem, one part of GAPS is to avoid sugar.
Another part of GAPS is to decrease exposure to chemicals and toxic substances. For example, in a higher acidic gut environment (such as that produced by sugar) absorption of aluminium has been shown to increase significantly. In individuals with impaired kidney function (such as those who maintain high glucose levels in their blood), dialysis dementia is likely to develop. John Yudkin found that sugar consumption caused the liver and kidneys to increase in size (inflammation). Other researchers have shown that high blood sugar can overwork the kidneys, causing them to stop working properly. If the kidneys aren’t working properly, they won’t be able to excrete aluminium efficiently.
‘Bugs’ in the gut might predict dementia in the brain DALLAS, Jan. 30, 2019 — The makeup of bacteria and other microbes in the gut may have a direct association with dementia risk, according to preliminary research to be presented in Honolulu at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2019, a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science and treatment of cerebrovascular disease.
Researchers studying the population of bacteria and microbes in the intestines, known as gut microbiota, have found these “bugs” impact risks for diseases of the heart and more. Japanese researchers studied 128 (dementia and non-dementia) patients’ fecal samples and found differences in the components of gut microbiota in patients with the memory disorder suggesting that what’s in the gut influences dementia risk much like other risk factors.
The analysis revealed that fecal concentrations of ammonia, indole, skatole and phenol were higher in dementia patients compared to those without dementia. But levels of Bacteroides – organisms that normally live in the intestines and can be beneficial – were lower in dementia patients.
“Although this is an observational study and we assessed a small number of the patients, the odds ratio is certainly high suggesting that gut bacteria may be a target for the prevention of dementia,” said Naoki Saji, M.D., Ph.D., study author and vice director of the Center for Comprehensive Care and Research on Memory Disorders, National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology in Japan.
The gut is able to communicate with the brain via the vagus nerve – a cranial nerve extending from the brainstem to the abdomen via the heart, esophagus and lung – known as the gut-brain axis. Ninety percent of the fibers in the vagus carry information from the gut to the brain.
The human body has around 4 pounds of gut bacteria. When these bacteria become imbalanced, it can lead to unwanted symptoms, such as: Gas, Bloating, Diarrhea, Joint pain, Weight gain or loss, Headaches, Rashes, Memory problem, Painful periods, Fatigue, Poor sleep.
An imbalance of beneficial versus harmful gut bacteria, known as “dysbiosis,” has been linked to a number of psychiatric and neurological disorders, such as autism, anxiety, depression and stress. It may even play a role in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’sand Parkinson’s disease. This suggests a person’s stomach or intestinal distress can be the cause or the product of anxiety, stress, or depression.
As a result amyloid and tau can accumulate in the brain for 10 – 20 years before Alzheimer’s symptoms begin.
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
I will bring you compelling articles on Ketogenic and GAPS diets, the Super Slow High-Intensity Exercise Program and supplements.
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Diets high in carbohydrates, and diets low in healthy fats, lead to Alzheimer’s disease
Diets high in carbohydrates are associated with an 89 % increased risk for dementia. High-fat diets are associated with a 44 % reduced risk
Alzheimer’s is directly related to chronically elevated blood sugar levels
Diabetes doubles your risk for Alzheimer’s disease
You can regenerate cells in your brain’s memory center through a process called neurogenesis.
Saturated Fats Are a Critical Part of a Heart- and Brain-Healthy Diet. Saturated fat is needed to have good cholesterol in your body.
Dr. Perlmutter cites a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, which found that women who are given cholesterol-lowering statin medication have a 44 % increased risk for becoming a type 2 diabetic.Diabetes, in turn, doubles your risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer’s Is Directly Related to Elevated Blood Sugar Levels. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in August 2013 demonstrates that even mild elevation of blood sugar – a level of around 105 or 110 mg/dl – was associated with an elevated risk for becoming demented.
Dr. Perlmutter believes the ideal fasting blood sugar level is around 70-85. People who are keto-adapted (eating low-carb, high-fat) are burning fat and they can get by with much lower blood sugar.
Your brain does not need sugar. The brain loves to burn fat, specifically ketones, which your body produces by metabolizing your fat.
Eat the Right Types of Fat: Healthy fats include Avocados, Butter made from raw, grass-fed organic milk, Raw dairy, Organic pastured egg yolks, Coconuts and coconut oil, Unheated organic nut oils, Raw nuts, such as pecans and macadamia, which are low in protein and high in healthy fats, and Grass-fed meats. Avoid all trans fats or hydrogenated fats i.e. margarine, vegetable oils, and butter-like spreads.
Our ancestral diet was very high in saturated fats and virtually void of non-vegetable carbohydrates. Our bodies were not designed to eat carbs are refined and highly processed and foods that are genetically engineered grains and sugar (GMO sugar beets and corn).
This underpins almost every health malady that we are trying to deal with today.
Exercise reduces free radical production and inflammation,both of which are drivers for chronic disease. Exercise has been shown to turn on a brain growth hormone called BDNF, (brain-derived neurotrophic factor). BDNF codes for your brain’s ability to both repair itself and grow new brain cells.
Dr. Perlmutter recommends high-intensity interval training (HIIT), which provides you with the equivalent of two hours of conventional aerobic exercise in just 20 minutes.
Learn more at 15 minutes of resistance weight training is all the exercise I need for the week to build muscle.
Dr. Perlmutter’s Grain Brain program includes other recommendations, not limited to:
Turmeric, for its anti-inflammatory potential and ability to activate BDNF for brain health.
An optimal vitamin D level of around 70-90 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) year-round.
Optimizing your gut health by reseeding your gut with beneficial bacteria (probiotics).
Avoid antibiotics and eating CAFO meats (concentrated animal feeding operations)which provide you with traces of antibiotics in each bite. These antibiotics kill beneficial bacteria.
Measuring your gluten sensitivity with a Cyrex [Array 3] test.Dr. Fasano discovered that gluten can also make your blood-brain barrier leaky.
A high-fat, low-carb ketogenic diet is not just for the treatment of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. It’s the right diet for ALL brain-related disorders.
Choose above-ground vegetables which, include kale, chard, collards, broccoli, and spinach. These also contain plenty of healthy fiber – you really do not need grains.
Choose grass-fed products – wild fish, pasture-raised chicken, and farm-raised or pasture-raised eggs.
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In terms of the brain’s fuel requirements there is an interchange normally between the ketones and glucose used by the brain, which becomes faulty as we get older. If we look at the infant brain, it cannot develop normally without ketones. Ketones supply 20 to 25 percent of the infant’s brain energy requirements.
The main source of supply the ketones for the infant during lactation, is the medium chain triglycerides that are in human milk. Infants are in mild ketosis during the lactation period.
In the aging brain we can use the ketone energy the new born brain thrives on.
Glucose,(simple sugar mainly from plants) gets into the brain usinga push strategy.See the little stick person is pulling a glucose molecule into the brain, which is on the right. That process is driven by a falling glucose in the brain cell.
Ketones use a push strategy. When the ketones go up in the blood on the left they are pushed into the brain and this is the way the brain works all the time if glucose goes down because you’ve been fasting for 24 hours and insulin is down and ketones are being produced and they will go into the brain.
As ketones become available in the blood, they will be used by the brain, which is an extraordinarily efficient way of providing a backup fuel for the brain in the fasted state.
Glucose is the main fuelof the brain under most circumstances except under extreme fasting but it’s not the preferred fuel.
Glucose uptake is goes down when there’s sufficient ketones around to go into the brain. This is a very useful glucose sparing effect that in fact occurs on the ketogenic diet.
See the brain scans the control, a healthy adult as compared to a person with Alzheimer’s Disease.
The effects of aging and Alzheimer’s disease is shown by the two little arrows in the scan. In one scan where the arrows are in the scan is basically missing the orange to red color in the parietal lobes over the ears, this is a classic image of what one sees in Alzheimer’s disease.
The glucose problem precedes the cognitive deficit in Alzheimer’s disease.There are five categories of people with pre-symptomatic brain glucose hypometabolism (decreased life-maintaining processes)that are at risk of Alzheimer’s disease: Older people, people with insulin resistance independent of age, people with a family history of Alzheimer’s disease, people with that are ApoE4 carriers and the Presenilin-1 mutation.
This developing glucose hypometabolism is helping with the deterioration of synapses and deterioration and brain function which is associated with cognitive decline and which is going to push down the glucose metabolism further and is going to create a vicious cycle of brain energy exhaustion and progression of the disease.
What about brain ketone uptake in people at risk or with Alzheimer’s disease?
In the brain scan the capacity of the brain to use glucose is higher in the areas where the red and orange colors are shown on the brain and as you go towards Alzheimer (AD) you can see there’s a virtual disappearance of the red, orange and the green is more predominant. The capacity of the brain to use glucose decreases in Alzheimer’s disease through CTL (normal healthy brain), to MCI (mild capacity impairment) to AD (Alzheimer’s Disease).
If we look at the ketone up taken in exactly the same individuals the capacity is lower than it is for glucose under the normal circumstances but it if anything actually increases as you get towards Alzheimer’s disease. There is no loss of the capacity to transport ketones into the brain.
It is encouraging to see that we could use the normal brain ketone uptake capacity to in fact bypass the glucose deficitand potentially have an impact on cognitive function.
Dr. Cunnane discussed treatment with MCT (medium chain triglyceride). Please see the original Youtube post for his findings.
Is there capacity to use ketones normal in mild cognitive impairment? The answer is yes. There is improved episodic memory, processing speed and language.
You can achieve a metabolic rescue of the brain and that the rescue is going to have a functional effect that is going to correlate with the level of ketones achieved both in the blood and in the brain.
People with mild cognitive impairment are going need 45 grams of MCT a day to improve to be between the healthy elderly and the healthy young. We might be able to get right up to this 100% value with a ketone ester or some other supplement.
Exercise helps get glucose into the brain.It also helps get ketones into the brain without a ketogenic supplement. Being in ketosis and exercising can improve glucose and ketone up take to better than a healthy adult.
People who are on a ketogenic diet are helping to preventtheir glucose deficit in the brain. Prevention is hard to achieve with a MCT supplement but much easier to achieve with a ketogenic diet.
The Ketogenic diet is potentially a cognitive benefit in those that that are not facing aging associated cognitive decline.
In Summary,in the brain scan, the losses of the red and orange color shown by the arrows, are definitely a consequence of the disease but they’re also contributing to the disease. The losses represented by the arrows are present before the disease starts and it’s a glucose specific problem. Brain energy rescue by ketones is definitely feasible in mild cognitive impairment and in Alzheimer’s disease. We want to let the brain have the luxury of thriving in a fuel environment (ketones) that you were born into.
Dr. Stephen Cunnane obtained his PhD in Physiology from McGill University and completed post-doctoral research on nutrition and brain development. He has researched fatty acids and their effect on brain development as well as the effect of ketones and ketogenic diets on brain development. Stephen Cunnane has published over 280 peer-reviewed research papers.
This Post has been condensed from this October 2018 video Dr. Stephen Cunnane – Brain Glucose and Ketone Metabolism in Alzheimer’s Disease https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU26epaihmw
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
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You add sugar to your morning cup of coffee or tea. You bake it into pastries, cakes and cookies. You even sprinkle it all over your breakfast cereal or your oatmeal for added flavor. It’s also hidden in some beloved “treats” that people consume on a daily basis, such as sodas, fruit juices, candies, ice cream and in almost all processed foods, including breads, meats, and even your favorite condiments like Worcestershire sauce and ketchup.
Sugar is toxic, addictive and deadly – This intense addiction to sugar is becoming rampant, not just among adults, but in children as well.
Why Is Excessive Sugar Bad for Your Health?
Today, an average American consumes about 32 teaspoons of sugar per day, which is 26 pounds per year.
People are consuming excessive sugar in the form of fructose or high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It is found in almost all types of processed foods and drinks today. HFCS is metabolized directly into fat.
Effects of Consuming Too Much Sugar – Dr. Robert Lustig, a professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology in the University of California and a pioneer in decoding sugar metabolism, says that your body can safely metabolize at least six teaspoons of added sugar from natural and manufactured sources per day.
Here are some of the effects that excessive sugar intake has on your health:
It causes weight gain, abdominal obesity, decreased HDL and increased LDL cholesterol levels, elevated blood sugar, elevated triglycerides, and high blood pressure.
One of the most severe effects of eating too much sugar is its potential to damage your liver, leading to a condition known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
Your liver metabolizes alcohol the same way as sugar — as both serve as substrates for converting dietary carbohydrate into fat. This promotes insulin resistance, fatty liver and dyslipidemia (abnormal fat levels in your blood).
Fructose causes superoxide free radicals to form, resulting in inflammation.
Fructose can directly and indirectly stimulate the brain’s “hedonic pathway” — creating habituation and dependence, the same way that alcohol does.
Sugar is a primary dietary factor that drives obesity and chronic disease development.
It “feeds” the cancer cells, promoting cell division and speeding their growth, allowing the cancer to spread faster.
There is a powerful connection between a high-fructose diet and your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, through the same pathway that causes Type 2 diabetes.
According to some experts, Alzheimer’s and other brain disorders may be caused by the constant burning of glucose for fuel by your brain. Other diseases that may potentially arise because of too much sugar consumption include: Hypertension, Lipid problems, Heart disease, Polycystic ovarian syndrome.
How to Manage or Limit Your Sugar Consumption – Avoid processed foods and beverages like soda. According to SugarScience.org, 74 % of processed foods contain added sugar stealthily hidden under different names.
Severely limit your consumption of refined carbohydrates (waffles, cereals, bagels, bread, etc.) and grains, as they actually break down to sugar in your body, resulting in insulin resistance.
As a general recommendation, keep your total fructose consumption below 25 grams per day, including that from whole fruit. Keep in mind that although fruits are rich in nutrients and antioxidants, they also naturally contain fructose.
Avoid artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose.
Here are some additional dietary tips to remember:
Increase your consumption of healthy fats, such as omega-3, saturated and monounsaturated fats such as organic butter from raw milk, (unheated) virgin olive oil, coconut oil, raw nuts like pecans and macadamia, free-range eggs, avocado and wild Alaskan salmon.
Drink pure, clean water – The best way to gauge your water needs is to observe the color of your urine (it should be light pale yellow) and the frequency of your bathroom visits (ideally, this is around seven to eight times per day).
Add fermented foods to your meals, they provide detoxification support, which helps lessen the fructose burden on your liver. Some of the best choices include kimchi, natto, organic yogurt and kefir made from grass fed milk, and fermented vegetables.
Please see his Post for the References to the supporting studies.
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
I will bring you compelling articles on Ketogenic and GAPS diets, the Super Slow High-Intensity Exercise Program and supplements.
To follow my Blog, please click the Follow button to receive an email when the next posting is available. Hint: You may have to click the Accept and Close button before follow is available.
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Disclaimer: The content of this email or Post is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader
Raymond Francis, D.Sc., M.Sc., RNC has been called a “brilliant advanced thinker” and has been cited as “one of the few scientists who has achieved a breakthrough understanding of health and disease.”
This Post is Transcript from Dr. Raymond Francis’s 4.47 minute video Processed Foods.
My mission is to help people like you get well and stay well.
Most nutrition experts agree, don’t eat processed foodsand here’s a problem. There is a lot of confusion about what is a processed food, so let me try and add some clarity.
Virtually ALL the packaged goods you buy in a supermarket are processed foods. They’re unhealthy. Processing is anything you do to a raw agricultural commodity after it’s been harvested.Now some processing is benign you know chopping up an apple cutting an apple or chopping some onions. This is this is minor stuff it’s processing but it’s minimally processed. Minimally processed foods have been used safely since antiquity. They fermented foods, they sun-dried foods.
It’s the modern highly processed foods that are killing us.For example, processing whole wheat into white flour looses the fiber, the essential fatty acids and about 80 percent of the vitamins and minerals.
The average American is eating well over a hundred pounds of this junk every year. Bad enough by itself white flour is then used to create baked goods. These baked goods contain toxins like azodicarbonamide, which is a dough conditioner, caramel coloring, monoglycerides and diglycerides, which are emulsifiers, salt, potassium bromate, which is a carcinogen but it helps the dough to rise higher and gives the bread a nice white color, sugar, processed fats and oils, artificial colors flavors, preservatives. It kind of be nuts to eat this stuff and we’re consuming it by the ton.
Remember, there are only two causes of diseases – deficiency and toxicity.
Modern processing loses nutrients and adds toxins and this is why processed foods cause disease. Beware of foods that come in cans and jars and packages. These include all your baked goods and your pasteurized milk and your breakfast cereals and canned goods and frozen foods and prepared meals. We’ve been taught that frozen food is as good as fresh food. That isn’t true. Frozen foods are not as good as fresh foods. Vegetables are blanched prior to freezing. This results in losing folate, B vitamins, about 25% of vitamin C.
However it’s about choices and in the absence of fresh foods, frozen vegetables may be your best choice. So read labels carefully. The key is to minimize and avoid the worst choices. Especially stay away from those with a LONG list of ingredients. Stay away from these prepackaged things: prepackaged meals and canned foods and baked goods and deli meats and breakfast cereals and supermarket oils and anything that contains flavor enhancers and salt and emulsifiers and stabilizers from sweeteners and thickeners and added fats and oils and processing aids. Wow!
Choose food items with the least amount of stuff in it, no artificial colors, no artificial preservatives, no added sugars, no sodium, no added fats and oils. That’s the best you can do.
But the healthiest choice of all is always freshly harvested, organically produced plant-based foods. So as much as possible eat vegetables raw. Eat lots of fresh salads dressed with high-quality olive oil or flaxseed oil. In addition high-quality supplements are essential. To learn more about how to get well and stay well read my book The Great American Health Hoax.
My personal journey to improved health was heavily influenced by Dr. Raymond Francis’s book, Never be Sick Again. The rest of his books, Never Be Fat Again, Never Feel Old Again, Never Fear Cancer Again, also have tips on how to improve your health. I highly recommend his books.
I invite you to Follow my Blog, Facebook or be added to my email distribution list. My focus is to maximize my physical performance and mental clarity, body composition, and most importantly overall health with a wholesome diet and exercise.
I will bring you compelling articles on Ketogenic and GAPS diets, the Super Slow High-Intensity Exercise Program and supplements.
To follow my Blog, please click the Follow button to receive an email when the next posting is available. Hint: You may have to click the Accept and Close button before follow is available.
I thrive on feedback. Please let me know you are interested in the content by clicking Like, Commenting or or sending me a message or email.
If you wish to contact me by Email, please email lpolstra@bell.net using this form.
Disclaimer: The content of this email or Post is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader.
It is encouraging to see that we could use the normal brain ketone uptake capacity to in fact bypass the glucose deficitand potentially have an impact on cognitive function.
2HealthyHabits 