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Happy Halloween – the month of tricks and treats! It would have been my dear grandmother’s 127th birthday this month, so I am reposting this blog below, from 6 years ago, in her honor. I have had dramatic and traumatic changes in the last six years of my life. I no longer have any fear of dying, but Alzheimer’s still scares me. Recently I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, which can have a dementia component to it, so there is good information for me and many.
Before we get the blog I want to share a treat. Here is a link to a YouTube of Tony Bennett’s 95th birthday party performance. He has Alzheimer’s and it will make your heart sing to watch this short clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNrvXw9juNs
“Boo! With Halloween right around the corner I have been thinking about what scares me the most. It’s not ghosts or goblins; it’s Alzheimer’s and dementia. Every 3 seconds someone new is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Yikes! Dementia starts in the brain 30-50 years before the symptoms appear. Double yikes! It is the 6th leading cause of death in the US – outranking breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. One in 9 people over 65 has Alzheimer’s and by 2050 that number is expected to triple. That is scary! You undoubtedly know families struggling with the disease – and it may even be your own. BUT – there is hope and that’s a treat!
You might be asking yourself, if this is a trick? What makes Di an authority on Alzheimer’s disease??? I am not claiming to be an authority, but I have been both fascinated and frightened by the brain and this disease since my early childhood. Researching Alzheimer’s has been my obsession because of my family and my personal experiences. Last week I attended the Awakening from Alzheimer’s twelve hour online conference with noted medical doctors and researchers that are experts in the field. This past August, I completed the 32-hour Alzheimer’s and Dementia Summit featuring Dr. David Perlmutter. He is a well-known and respected board-certified neurologist and author in the field. I read both of his best-sellers, Grain Brain and Brain Maker twice. My Master’s Degree is in Energy Medicine. I am a member of the American Holistic Nurses Association and have been a vice president for a health and wellness company for the past 10 years. AND my grandmother had Alzheimer’s and my grandfather had a lobotomy (yes, like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) . My mission is to share my findings with my community in hopes that it may open doors or allow for some preventative measures. Everybody knows a cancer survivor, but I bet nobody knows an Alzheimer’s survivor.
My maternal grandparents.
But that could be changing! Of the 48 Alzheimer’s experts I recently saw interviewed, the common thread was that Alzheimer’s is being referred to as Type 3 Diabetes – resistance to insulin in the brain. And diabetes can be controlled and even prevented! Reports were made by caregivers of significant changes in the behavior of their loved ones with Alzheimer’s just by removing processed sugar and carbs from the diet. Carbs break down into glucose and excessive glucose damages neurons and feeds memory destroyers like beta-amyloid proteins. High sugar causes inflammation. Too technical? Just remember I said dementia starts 30-50 years before the symptoms appear. What a motivator to remove those dangerous sugars from your diet now. I couldn’t believe it when I learned in the 1800’s the average person consumed 6 pounds of sugar a year. Now the average person eats over 130 pounds in a year. It’s in almost everything and disguised under different names. Sugar is 8 times more addictive than cocaine. (And it causes wrinkles!)
At the summit, Dr. Faber, Dr. Bredesen, and more than a dozen other doctors, were all in agreement about trying to replace carbs (sugar) with coconut oil. Coconut oil contains medium chain triglycerides (MCT’s) that support the brain and have been shown to improve memory. Coconut oil also allows the body to make ketones in the liver. When the body can’t use glucose for energy, it uses fat instead. When fats are broken down for energy, chemicals called ketones appear in the blood. These ketones are able to get into the brain. I could get way more technical, but 50% of the Alzheimer’s patients that were given the coconut oil showed marked improvement.
Dr. Mary Newport told a touching story about her husband Steve who had severe memory loss at 51 years old. He had always been a wiz on the computer, but couldn’t remember how to turn it on. Dr. Newport is a neonatologist and knew about medium chain triglycerides (MCT’s) in infant formula, so when an article came across her desk for coconut oil and MCTs for Alzheimer’s, she stopped at the store on the way home and bought some. What did she have to lose? Her husband’s Alzheimer’s was so severe that he didn’t qualify for any studies or programs. Amazingly enough, the coconut oil changed all that. There were many heart-warming stories like hers about how removing the processed sugars and adding coconut oil made significant changes. For a few dollars it might be worth a try! (I’m not in the coconut oil business.)
Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, a board certified Internist, reported that in 30-50% of autopsies done on patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, that there were no signs of the disease. The patients all had the symptoms of Alzheimer’s including the memory loss, but it is believed that the compilation of all the prescription drugs the patients were taking was actually causing the memory loss. There were many poignant stories about significant improvements reached by reducing the prescription strength and/or the number of prescriptions. Of course, these were all done with medical supervision, but the consensus was that many patients were taking the prescriptions out of habit and no longer required the dosage that had been prescribed. (Drugs taken for incontinence were high on the list.) There was one story which brought tears to my eyes about a dedicated son sitting with his dying mother in hospice care. She was unable to talk and didn’t know who he was. He was a former bar owner turned health guru and worked with her doctor to get her off many of her medications. He started spoon feeding her nutritious shakes and after several months she improved dramatically! This could be a “one in a million” story, but if it were your mother, wouldn’t you want it to be your story!?
These “treats” for Alzheimer’s cost little or no money. Getting more and better quality sleep is another no-cost tip. Inadequate slumber is another cause of dementia. Turning off all electrical devices including the TV at least an hour before sleep is a great idea. Our gadgets emit blue light which suppresses melatonin, the sleep chemical, and interferes with our ability to fall asleep.
Today would be my grandmother’s birthday. She would be 121. By the time she was 70 she didn’t know who she was, where she was, or that you were supposed to wear clothes. She lived for 10 years like that. I wish I could go back and tell her not to eat all those donut holes and Swedish pancakes. I would give her coconut oil and check her prescriptions. I would walk with her and make sure she got enough exercise and enough sleep. After my parents, she was my favorite person on the planet and I loved her fiercely. I’m not saying that it would have made a difference, but it may have…
(My grandmother had beautiful Lilies of the Valley growing all around her home. It was her favorite flower and mine.)
We would visit my grandma Lillie in the nursing home when she could no longer take care of herself and neither could we. I was an impressionable 8-year old when those numerous trips to the nursing home began. When we would arrive at the front door she would be gazing out the window tied to the utilitarian chair so she didn’t run away. She always had her favorite doll on her lap. She would look at us with that blank stare and smile her beautiful smile. She loved children – all children – and even though she didn’t have a clue who we were; she would still smile. She would always say, “Hey little girl, what’s your name?” And each time my little heart would break into pieces. I had depended on her to always have the answers and now she couldn’t remember the question.
The lingering question in my adolecent head was, will this happen to me? Will I go crazy and live in a mental institution? Will I forget who I am and be tied to a chair in the nursing home and break my own granddaughter’s heart? Out of fear and necessity I became obsessed with finding some answers.
I believe there is hope and that is definitely a treat. I am committed to learning about and uncovering healthy solutions for these hideous brain diseases. In so doing, I hope I can help someone you love. You may ask yourself, what if this doesn’t work? But more importantly, what if it does
By sharing we can make a difference. Please do so!”