Total Health Breakthroughs: Free Natural Health Newsletter and Alternative Health Articles

Several weeks ago I told you about an “aha moment” I had when reading a November 2008 THB article by Jim LaValle on the best way to prevent breast cancer. I had another one of those moments recently as I was editing the May issue of Jim’s subscription newsletter, The Healing Prescription.

I learned several interesting facts in this issue devoted to saving your brain from a cognitive crisis. One of the most significant is that people with Alzheimer’s disease have a certain degree of insulin resistance in their brain cells which prevents them from taking in adequate amounts of glucose, the brain’s primary source of fuel.

Without glucose, a couple of things start happening. First, the brain cells (neurons) cannot produce acetylcholine, the chemical that is needed for memory and cellular communication. Secondly, the neurons begin to die off from a lack of proper nutrition.

You might think when this happens there is little more a person with Alzheimer’s can do than eat a low carb diet to reduce insulin resistance and take a drug like Aricept to help slow the progression of symptoms. While both of these are viable options, medical doctor Mary Newport has discovered that a common tropical food, coconut oil, can provide energy-starved brain cells with an alternative fuel called ketones, which are a product of fat breakdown.

Non-hydrogenated coconut oil is comprised of 60% medium chain triglycerides (MCTs). Upon digestion, the liver breaks down the MCTs into ketones which can then be used by the brain.¹

As Jim explains in his article:

Keeping your blood sugar under control is beneficial for far more than just waistlines and diabetes prevention, it is also important to help preserve your memory as you age. Yep, that’s right — spiked blood sugar levels actually cause your brain to age prematurely, resulting in more “senior moments” than you’d care to have.

There have been other studies indicating this in the past, but a new study led by Scott A. Small, M.D., associate professor of neurology from the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain was remarkable because it showed that the activity of an important part of the memory center of the brain (called the dentate gyrus) decreases with elevated blood glucose levels.

Dr. Small’s research looked at people with type 2 diabetes and found that they had this damage to their dentate gyrus. He then looked at factors such as a high body mass index, insulin resistance, high cholesterol, and elevated blood sugar that are seen in type 2 diabetes, and replicated them in animals to determine which ones were correlated with the brain damage. He found that rapid blood sugar increases ONLY, damaged the memory center.¹