Posted on 03/29/2024 8:12:50 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
A new study shows that a ketogenic diet significantly delays the early stages of Alzheimer's-related memory loss in mice. This early memory loss is comparable to mild cognitive impairment in humans that precedes full-blown Alzheimer's disease.
The ketogenic diet is a low-carbohydrate, high-fat, and moderate-protein diet, which shifts the body's metabolism from using glucose as the main fuel source to burning fat and producing ketones for energy. Researchers previously found that mice lived 13% longer on ketogenic diets.
The new study, which follows up on that research, found that the molecule beta-hydroxybutyrate, or BHB, plays a pivotal role in preventing early memory decline. It increases almost sevenfold on the ketogenic diet.
"The data support the idea that the ketogenic diet in general, and BHB specifically, delays mild cognitive impairment and it may delay full-blown Alzheimer's disease," said Gino Cortopassi. "The data clearly don't support the idea that this is eliminating Alzheimer's disease entirely."
Scientists gave mice enough BHB to simulate the benefits of being on the keto diet for seven months.
"We observed amazing abilities of BHB to improve the function of synapses, small structures that connect all nerve cells in the brain. When nerve cells are better connected, the memory problems in mild cognitive impairment are improved," said Izumi Maezawa.
Cortopassi noted that BHB is also available as a supplement for humans. He said a BHB supplement could likely support memory in mice, but that hasn't yet been shown.
Researchers found that the ketogenic diet mice exhibited significant increases in the biochemical pathways related to memory formation. The keto diet also seemed to benefit females more than males and resulted in higher levels of BHB in females.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
A keto diet increases it seven-fold.
Thanks the articles are useful
I lived on primal/keto diet for years and got back on a while back and my body and brain feel like I’ve become 15 years younger again
Check to make sure your a1c is good.
Curious if there’s a dementia correlation to neglected diabetes.
It is, I was getting close to upper limit while back but now right back into healthy range
There's a million "keto diet" books and websites out there. Been so busy lately... I wouldn't even know where to begin. Thanks.
I don’t see the problem.
We can’t have enough demented mice.
Feed it to Biden. Maybe it also has sone restorative power?
I was on what I call a keto diet for six months because the glucose number in blood tests was higher than I wanted. I didn’t read books, get pills, etc.
Ate only meats, cheeses, eggs, nuts, vegetables, some berries, peanut butter. There are keto breads and buns. There are keto tortillas, some with 0 carbs and some do have carbs. (Fajitas at Chili’s were excellent.) Stopped all soft drinks, bananas, sugar, pasta, potatoes, and rice. That was hard because pasta and potatoes are my weakness.
It lowered my glucose number very little — from 108 to 104. But I felt really good and lost 25 pounds.
Interesting that when I went back to eating my regular food, my glucose number went down instead of up. What’s up with that? Gained some weight back, but not all. Still try to avoid the bad stuff generally, but not religiously like before.
I started again yesterday. My clothes are tight enough to be uncomfortable, and I really did like how I felt on that “diet”.
Oh ... and lots of butter.
There is an app called Carb Manager that makes it easy to determine if you’re on track eating a keto diet.
I’ll have to check it out. It did seem easy for me — it seems that there’s a definite line separating what’s good and what’s bad. I’ll check the app, though; can’t hurt. Thank you.
All this used to be available on Mark Sisson’s website but he sold it and now it’s basically a store
The book “the primal blueprint” is still the same to my knowledge
Fwiw I started doing this on a whim nearly 15 years ago, stuck with it for almost ten years and then kinda started slacking off when life got too much in the way but last winter got back into it and want to kick myself for slacking off
I’m in my mid 50’s now stronger and faster than most men half my age and my bloodwork/labs would be good for a much younger man as well
It’s not easy to start but once you get a month or two in you will not regret it
Also, the body weight exercise program in the book works-it’s scaled for starting at different levels - by simply following it within 2 years I was able to bench press over 2x my body weight - not big and bulky but lean and useful strength I’m getting back fast
Highly recommend
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6515468-the-primal-blueprint
The best online source, free, that I can recommend is that of Dr. Ken Berry. He calls it “the proper human diet”, and explains it so very well.
Watching his videos daily will educate you and motivate you if you decide to change the way you eat.
Also, you can search all his videos by health topic, too. He covers everything you can think of, and then some.
Every Monday night at about 6 PM Eastern time, he has a free Q&A video, where people ask questions and get answers from him and his nurse practitioner wife. And, if you cant make that time, you can watch whenever it is convenient for you.
I learned a lot from each post. Many thanks. :-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.