Fasting and Diet Change as AD Prevention Strategy.

Fasting and Diet Change as AD Prevention Strategy

First, on a personal note, I have to say that I have incredible personal experiences demonstrating the importance of diet. It has changed my life and cured a severe allergy I thought I would have to deal with for the rest of my life, and then, real fasting (the reason I say “real” I will explain later) has changed my life again, allowing me to painlessly lose 25 kg (55 lbs) in just a few months and stay that way.

When it comes to diseases and medical conditions, people believe that medication is THE treatment for them, while diet change (and exercise) is something you can dabble in on the side, something that’s advisable but not crucial. (And I also held that view until I was fortunate enough to try the different way anyway, and see how wrong I was)

Now to the subject of the role of fasting in Alzheimer’s disease: The doctor and author who studied and popularized the idea of intermittent fasting is the Toronto physician Dr Jason Fung. What he says is that the biggest fear and myth that comes to people’s mind when they hear the word fasting is “starvation mode”, which essentially means that the body starts breaking down protein. Somehow people believe that all protein is necessary and good. However, there is nothing further from the truth. In fact, it is the protein buildup (Beta amyloid plaques) that is associated with Alzheimer’s disease. When we fast, yes, we lose some protein, but the question is what kind of protein we lose. In fact, when we fast the body breaks down the protein that builds up in places where it shouldn’t be in such amounts, such as plaques of protein in the brain, which has the potential to eventually cause AD. In other words, when we fast, the body has a chance to metabolize and recycle these excesses as we stop loading it with more and more food to metabolize every few hours. (And when it comes to the break down of muscle tissue that everyone is concerned about, it doesn’t happen, because during fasting the levels of growth hormone go up and growth hormone protects the muscle tissue, which makes perfect sense, as all our ancestors from ape like pre-humans to first humans always went through periods of fasting, as food supply has only become completely reliable incredibly recently in evolutionary terms, and all of them needed their muscle tissue much more than a modern human does). It is extremely unnatural, therefore, to eat every few hours all one’s life without ever going any intervals without food. 

Indeed, there is mounting evidence that Alzheimer’s disease is in fact the problem of autophagy failure — failure of the body to recycle and remove damaged and dysfunctional cells and protein components, which are the mutated tau proteins and beta amyloids in the case with Alzheimer’s disease. And fasting is the one thing that significantly stimulates autophagy.

I feel, when one talks about fasting it is important to mention the following: Doctor Jason Fung said that the idea of fasting will probably never get popularized because no one will make money if people just don’t eat for some time. But he was wrong, and various businesses latched onto it rather quickly, offering expensive food-"replacements", with ridiculous claims essentially saying that if it is their hundred-dollar products that you eat during fasting, your body will still be fasting. (Much like with exercise, where exercise itself is incredibly beneficial, but companies looking to make a profit from people's reluctance to exert themselves, began to claim that if only you slap on their product you could stay on the couch watching television while your body will be exercising on its own with the help of their electrical device). I believe this is very important to mention these claims and products, as they inevitably come up whenever the subject of fasting is concerned; this is why I emphasized that  in order to receive true health benefits of fasting it has to be real fasting, where only water, black coffee and tea with no sugar or milk or cream (and no so-called “bullet-proof coffee” loaded with BUTTER) is allowed.

Speaking about butter and other “ketogenic” ideas. While the idea of fasting is extremely beneficial for prevention of AD as well as for the prevention of other diseases and for other health benefits, what goes along with it, namely the ketogenic ideas (“one can eat as much fats as one wants and it is only the simple carbs and sugars that should be avoided for perfect health and weight”) is exceptionally harmful (and especially when it comes to the risk of AD). 

With regards to the risk of the development of Alzheimer’s disease specifically: In the Chicago Health and Aging project, researchers did very careful dietary records to see who stayed mentally clear in the old age and who developed dementia. People who ate saturated and trans- fat had a three-fold increase in the risk of AD. Even when it came to people who have the risky APOE-4 allele that increases your risk of Alzheimer’s, those of them who avoided fats had their risk of Alzheimer’s disease decreased by about 80%, so these people with the risky allele were less likely to get Alzheimer’s than people without it but who consumed generous amounts of fats. I highly recommend this TED-talk “Power Foods for the Brain”. (I personally thought this talk was very lucid and eye-opening even before the the topic of Alzheimer ever arose). The presenter, Dr Neil Bernard had personal encounter with Alzheimer’s disease as his father passed away from it.

So, even though I had to go on a couple personal asides (including the postscript that follows), because diet has made such important differences in my life and I couldn’t help but use those to emphasize how important it is, I hope that I provided some important information about AD and its prevention. It makes me sad however, that very few people will see it. In the documentaries we had to watch about AD people suffering from it (in the early stages) are so desperate for any hope for cure, like when the woman was offered to participate in an experimental drug trial: “I don’t need any time to “think about it” I am participating, just sign me up!” so the measures such as real fasting and changing one’s diet to make it low-fat would be welcomed and followed by this great number of desperate sufferers (and those non-affected who realize no one is safe from AD/dementia) if only they knew about it and believed it could constitute a part of real treatment. But the pharmacological and medical industry promote the mindset that the way to be is just hope one doesn’t get the disease and if one does, then one should take medication while everything else is secondary. 

I believe fasting and diet change can really change and save lives and more people should know about it!  

P.S.  On a personal note that’s not directly related to AD, I got absolutely rid of debilitating spring allergy that had me locked in for at least a month every year and other allergies as well by reducing fats in my diet, making it about 70% raw vegetarian (meaning it consists mostly of salads). So my individual “case study” can absolutely attest to how powerful a diet-change can be. The problem with “regular” modern diet with lots of fats is that it absolutely collapses our natural balance of omega 6 to omega 3 fats, shifting the natural balance of about  1:1 or 2:1 to an incredible 17:1 (“in favour” of Omega 6). Omega 6 is the pro-inflammatory fat, while omega 3 is anti-inflammatory, so, with such a collapsed balance, the body of most modern people is in a state of chronic inflammation, which results in many diseases, one may not even immediately associated with inflammation, and allergies, and even depression are among them. Dr Stephen Ilardi talks about it in the ted-talk “Depression is a disease of civilization”. However, I see a big problem with his "solution" to this omega-3 to -6 imbalance, as he recommends “Omega-3” supplements as the only solution, while completely ignoring the fact that one should look at lowering that “17” figure, and not just try to raise the omega-3 amount to that same number, the thing that is impossible anyway, because the fish oil and other omega-3 rich products themselves have a balance of Omega 3-s and 6-s in them, and there is no such thing as pure omega-3 only product.  

References:

Dr Jason Fung on the benefits of Fasting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj-oMN-Fk

Dr Neil Bernard on Alzheimer prevention  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_ONFix_e4k