ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE, SENILE DEMENTIA & HOW TO AVOID SAME


                        CARELESS LIFE
                              STYLE CAN ERASE YOUR BRAIN. PREVENT
                              ALZHEIMERS THIS WAY:

Abram Hof­fer, MD, PhD: “Research sug­gests to me that if every­one started on a good nutri­tional pro­gram sup­ple­mented with opti­mum doses of vit­a­mins and min­er­als before age fifty, and remained on it, the inci­dence of Alzheimer’s dis­ease would drop precipitously.”

Andrew Saul PhD: “FACT: More than half of nurs­ing home beds are occu­pied by AD patients.FACT: Alzheimer’s dis­ease is the num­ber 4 killer of Amer­i­cans, caus­ing over 100,000 deaths each year in the USA alone. 80% of all senility is Alzheimers. A few lifestyle changes and you will not get it.

        ARTICLE Written, published by
Phillip Day and Posted by Anita Sands Hernandez at HOLISTIC ARCHIVE

Men­tal impair­ment prob­lems are dev­as­tat­ing our cul­tures today and yet this has not always been so. Clearly, nutri­tional, hydra­tion and tox­i­c­ity issues are at the fore. As many as a third of all hos­pi­tal beds in the UK are taken up with geri­atric patients suf­fer­ing a host of dis­or­ders, a large pro­por­tion of them
insti­tu­tion­alised because of senil­ity. The cost to health­care runs to bil­lions. It is pro­jected that within 20 years, the ris­ing costs of car­ing for mil­lions of demen­tia patients will become a crit­i­cal fac­tor in most indus­tri­alised economies, if not already, yet the impor­tant, even obvi­ous ques­tions are not being asked:

  • Is the patient eat­ing organic, whole, non-pesticide-laden foods?
  • Is the patient con­sum­ing mod­ern, semi-dwarf wheat (high gluten) on a reg­u­lar basis?
  • What per­cent­age of the patient’s diet com­prises ani­mal products?
  • Is the major­ity of the patient’s diet cooked? No Vit C?
  • Is the patient nutri­tion­ally deficient?
  • Is the patient drink­ing up to 2 litres of clean, fresh water a day?
  • Is the patient vitamin-D-deficient? What is their 25 (OH) D serum level?
  • Does the per­son drink alco­hol on a reg­u­lar basis?
  • Does the patient already have dia­betes, or evi­dence of chronic inflam­ma­tion, chaotic blood sugar lev­els, sugar crav­ings and insulin resistance?
  • Has the patient any mer­cury amal­gam fillings?
  • Has the patient an ele­vated plasma homo­cys­teine level?
  • Is the patient on any psy­chi­atric med­ica­tion, which might be giv­ing the appear­ance of senil­ity or slow cog­ni­tive ability?
  • Has the patient a his­tory of using ben­zo­di­azepines or other sleep­ing pills? They DEHYDRATE.
  • Does the patient suf­fer from food allergies/lactose intolerance?
  • Has the patient any evi­dence of yeast or fun­gal infections?
  • Does the patient live in a toxic environment?
  • Does the patient eat junk food and drink sodas? Like TRUMP? dozens a day?
  • Has the patient been men­tally unchal­lenged for an extended period of time?
  • Does the patient use aluminum deodorant? Cooking skillets?
brain damage

Mem­ory prob­lems – poten­tial causes

Sev­eral fac­tors influ­ence memory:

  • Use it or lose it!
  • Abnor­mal blood sugar lev­els (glu­cose intolerance)
  • Dehy­dra­tion and lack of salt.
  • Impaired blood sup­ply to the brain due to LDL plaque
  • Gluten poi­son­ing through the roll-on effects of eat­ing toxic, mod­ern, semi-dwarf wheat
  • Mer­cury poi­son­ing via den­tal amalgams
  • Abnor­mally high lev­els of the amino acid homocysteine
  • Fatty, cholesterol-laden blood due to heavy con­sump­tion of ani­mal prod­ucts (chicken, beef, pork, eggs, milk, but­ter, fish, etc.)
  • Vit­a­min D deficiency
  • Poor nutri­tional intake (cooked and processed foods), espe­cially min­er­als such as zinc, man­ganese and mag­ne­sium, and vit­a­mins, espe­cially the ‘B’ group, and essen­tial fatty acids
  • Tox­i­c­ity, specif­i­cally alu­minium1 via alu­minium cook­ware, alu­minium foil, antacids, douches, buffered aspirin and anti-perspirant deodor­ants 2
  • Food aller­gies
  • Tox­ins

Use it or lose it!

In my view, retire­ment is the sin­gle most dam­ag­ing thing for a per­son, when they are per­suaded to end their pro­duc­tiv­ity and bow out of the work ethic until they die. It is in the nature of humans to pro­duce and be men­tally active. Depres­sion, list­less­ness and despair often set in when brains are put in moth­balls and the per­son veg­e­tates in front of the TV. By this time, most have stopped exer­cis­ing regularly.

In Health Wars, I take a look at cul­tures who rou­tinely live past 100 and remain active. If you are 70–80, start look­ing for another career! Think of the skills and knowl­edge you have amassed that could be of ben­e­fit to oth­ers. If your brain is busy, well fed and well exer­cised, it is a happy brain, and so you will be too.

Give us this day our daily bread…?

Mod­ern, semi-dwarf wheat has been found pro­foundly to influ­ence neu­ro­log­i­cal processes. It has been impli­cated in depres­sion, schiz­o­phre­nia and Alzheimer’s demen­tia by means of the roll-on effects of the rapid sug­ars released upon con­sump­tion of wheat prod­ucts. Advanced gly­ca­tion end prod­ucts are formed when glu­cose reacts (gly­cates) with pro­teins to form irre­versible, meta­bol­i­cally inac­tive tis­sue. Dr William Davis, author of the best­selling Wheat Belly, writes:

In Alzheimer’s demen­tia suf­fer­ers, brain AGE [advanced gly­ca­tion end prod­ucts] con­tent is three­fold greater than in nor­mal brains, accu­mu­lat­ing in the amy­loid plaques and neu­rofib­ril­lary tan­gles that are char­ac­ter­is­tic of the con­di­tion. In line with the marked AGE for­ma­tion in dia­bet­ics, demen­tia is 500% more com­mon in peo­ple with diabetes.…” (who are carbaholics)

In one par­tic­u­larly dis­turb­ing Mayo Clinic study of thir­teen patients with the recent diag­no­sis of celiac dis­ease, demen­tia was also diag­nosed. Of those thir­teen, front lobe biopsy (yes, brain biopsy) or post-mortem exam­i­na­tion of the brain failed to iden­tify any other pathol­ogy beyond that asso­ci­ated with wheat gluten expo­sure. Prior to death or biopsy, the most com­mon symp­toms were mem­ory loss, the inabil­ity to per­form sim­ple arith­metic, con­fu­sion, and change in per­son­al­ity. Of the thir­teen, nine died due to pro­gres­sive impair­ment of brain func­tion. Yes: fatal demen­tia from wheat.” 3

Mod­ern high-yield, semi-dwarf, hybridised wheat is a far cry from the bread of the ancients, which was a cross between einkorn and wild goat­grass known as emmer wheat. Today’s wheat has 50% more gluten and is impreg­nated with gliadin, an opi­ate which aggra­vates appetite. The car­bo­hy­drate amylopectin-A, so preva­lent in mod­ern wheat, metabolises more effi­ciently into pro­duc­ing ele­va­tion in blood sugar than even sucrose. The glucose-insulin fat pro­duc­tion cycle is thus enhanced, caus­ing the lay­er­ing of vis­ceral fat around the body and effort­less obe­sity. And still the cry goes out, “Eat more healthy whole-grains”! Drop­ping wheat from the diet can pro­duce spec­tac­u­lar weight-loss and trans­for­ma­tions in health, espe­cially in the elderly.

Cooked ani­mal prod­uct diets

Heav­ily cooked animal-product diets pro­duce thick, cholesterol-laden blood, increase hor­mone and insulin lev­els and cre­ate seri­ous prob­lems for the elderly.4 Ani­mal prod­ucts con­sume pan­cre­atic enzyme resources in diges­tion, espe­cially trypsin and chy­motrypsin, which de-mask can­cer cells. Cook­ing kills enzymes and wrecks the nutri­tion in the food. That diet itself may be a major con­trib­u­tor to Alzheimer’s is gain­ing trac­tion in sci­ence cir­cles. Dr Joseph Mer­cola reports:

In a recent ani­mal study, researchers from Brown Uni­ver­sity in Prov­i­dence, Rhode Island were able to induce many of the char­ac­ter­is­tic brain changes seen with Alzheimer’s dis­ease (dis­ori­en­ta­tion, con­fu­sion, inabil­ity to learn and remem­ber) by inter­fer­ing with insulin sig­nal­ing in their brains.

Faulty insulin (and lep­tin, another hor­mone) sig­nal­ing is an under­ly­ing cause of insulin resis­tance, which, of course, typ­i­cally leads to type 2 dia­betes. How­ever, while insulin is usu­ally asso­ci­ated with its role in keep­ing your blood sugar lev­els in a healthy range, it also plays a role in brain sig­nal­ing. When researchers dis­rupted the proper sig­nal­ing of insulin in the brain, it resulted in demen­tia.” 5

This con­nec­tion between cog­ni­tive impair­ment and insulin resis­tance caused some sci­en­tists in 2005 to label Alzheimer’s Dis­ease ‘Type-3 dia­betes’ when they dis­cov­ered that the pan­creas is not the sole pro­ducer of insulin in the body. The brain also pro­duces the sugar-metabolising hor­mone for the proper ser­vice and pro­tec­tion of brain cells. That exces­sive intake of food sug­ars is the chief cause for insulin and lep­tin resis­tance in type-2 dia­bet­ics is well known. It is there­fore not a stretch to sur­mise that the same behav­iour could now be hav­ing an iden­ti­cal effect in ‘type-3 dia­bet­ics’ (i.e. ‘brain insulin resis­tance’) in caus­ing cog­ni­tive impair­ment. The risks of devel­op­ing Alzheimer’s Dis­ease are already known dra­mat­i­cally to increase if a patient already has diabetes.

It’s also worth not­ing that the dis­ease itself was first described in 1906 and named after the Ger­man psy­chi­a­trist and neu­ropathol­o­gist Dr Alois Alzheimer. Which implies that the con­di­tion had not been gen­er­ally recog­nised prior to the onset of indus­trial food pro­cess­ing and can­ning. Per­haps it’s not called Caligula’s Dis­ease, King Alfred’s Dis­ease or Shakespeare’s Dis­ease because the con­di­tion only devel­ops in indi­vid­u­als par­tak­ing in exces­sive sugar intake from an indus­tri­al­ized, processed, cor­rupted food sup­ply served up in alu­minium cans – a trend not pre­vi­ously pos­si­ble in his­tory. If true, then Alzheimer’s may be expected to increase in inci­dence each year as the pro­cess­ing and cor­rup­tion of food pro­ceeds apace, and that’s before we con­sider the impact of genet­i­cally mod­i­fied food on global health:

HOW HEALTHY LIFESTYLE CAN PREVENT HALF OF
ALL ALZHEIMER’S CASES AS A MILLION EXPECTED
TO SUFFER FROM DISEASE WITHIN A DECADE

Half of all Alzheimer’s dis­ease cases could be pre­vented by lifestyle changes such as exer­cise, eat­ing health­ily and not smok­ing, claim researchers. They say hun­dreds of thou­sands of patients could poten­tially avoid the dev­as­tat­ing ill­ness by sim­ply chang­ing bad habits.

Around 820,000 peo­ple in Briton suf­fer from demen­tia, of whom half have Alzheimer’s, and this is expected to rise to a mil­lion within the next ten years. For the first time, sci­en­tists have cal­cu­lated the extent to which cer­tain lifestyle traits – includ­ing lack of exer­cise, smok­ing and obe­sity – all con­tribute to the dis­ease.6

This Daily Mail arti­cle goes on to report that The Alzheimer’s Soci­ety pre­dicts that by 2021 there will be more than a mil­lion Britons liv­ing with demen­tia and this will rise to 1.7million by 2050. Researchers cite grow­ing evi­dence that the dis­ease may be partly caused by unhealthy diets, smok­ing, high blood pres­sure and cho­les­terol since these cause dam­age to blood ves­sels in the brain, lead­ing to death of brain cells.7

Adopt­ing THE FOOD FOR THOUGHT LIFESTYLE REGIMEN is very effec­tive in get­ting the body-chemistry changes you need, fast. 100% plant-based diets are renowned for clear­ing the body out (2–3 bowel move­ments a day if con­sumed raw), and nor­mal­is­ing insulin lev­els and insulin resis­tance in a hurry (see Dia­betes).

Blood sup­ply to the brain

Another cause of Alzheimer’s is thought to be a restricted blood sup­ply to the brain. In Health Wars I devote two chap­ters to the heart and car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem, show­ing that heart dis­ease in almost all its forms may be traced back to dehy­dra­tion, lack of exer­cise and nutri­tional defi­cien­cies, includ­ing an early form of scurvy.

Scurvy occurs when col­la­gen breaks down in the body. Col­la­gen is a tough, elas­tic, fibrous mate­r­ial the body uses to clad arter­ies, veins and cap­il­lar­ies, as well as organs and the skin, to give them struc­ture. Col­la­gen is a lot like the steel gird­ers you see when builders are erect­ing a new sky­scraper. Each col­la­gen fibre has been cal­cu­lated to be far tougher and stronger than an iron wire of com­pa­ra­ble width. Cooked diets destroy vit­a­min C. In the absence of ade­quate nutri­tion – specif­i­cally vit­a­mins C, E and the amino acids lysine and pro­line – col­la­gen begins to dis­solve. When sailors went off to sea and eschewed their usual diet of fruits and veg­eta­bles for more non-perishable food­stuffs dur­ing long voy­ages, scurvy set in within weeks as the col­la­gen dis­solved and the sailors lit­er­ally fell apart. The cure was to recom­mence con­sump­tion of liv­ing, whole fruits and veg­eta­bles rich in the nutri­tion required to repair col­la­gen and nour­ish the whole body.8

Ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis

With heart dis­ease, the process is much slower, some­times tak­ing years to develop, since very few in the west­ern world today suf­fer from vit­a­min C deple­tion. Like scurvy, a chronic vit­a­min C defi­ciency causes a weak­en­ing of the arte­r­ial walls, neces­si­tat­ing a heal­ing process in the form of lipoprotein(a) fats, which the body attempts to use to bond the thou­sands of tiny breaches in the arte­r­ial walls.

These lipopro­teins are Nature’s per­fect Band-Aid. They are extremely sticky and form the major­ity of the ath­er­o­scle­rotic deposits asso­ci­ated with advanced forms of heart dis­ease today. Car­dio­vas­cu­lar med­i­cine, unaware or will­ingly igno­rant of the under­ly­ing nutri­tional defi­ciency causes of ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis, focuses atten­tion on vil­i­fy­ing the lipoprotein’s LDL (low-density lipopro­tein) cho­les­terol con­tent as one of the pri­mary causes of heart dis­eases, when it is in fact the heal­ing (sur­vival response) pre­cur­sor, brought on by a chronic vit­a­min C defi­ciency and dehy­dra­tion. Today the drug indus­try has mobilised a multi-billion-dollar busi­ness of anti-cholesterol drugs, which have wrought dev­as­tat­ing results in car­diac patients, neces­si­tat­ing a fur­ther $20 bil­lion drugs pro­gram to com­bat all the side-effects.9

Most peo­ple have accu­mu­lated Lp(a) in their arter­ies after age 50, bring­ing on the usual prob­lems with sticky blood (dehy­dra­tion), throm­bo­sis, ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis and high blood pres­sure (dehy­dra­tion). Strokes too are caused when Lp(a) clogs the brain artery, impair­ing vital blood flow to the brain. And it is here that our inter­est in mem­ory loss can also be focused. Impaired blood flow to the brain will cause death or par­tial paral­y­sis. Patrick Hol­ford writes:

When cells are starved of oxy­gen, they switch to a more prim­i­tive mode of oper­a­tion called anaer­o­bic res­pi­ra­tion. The cells begin to divide and spread – unless they are nerve cells…. Nerve cells can’t regen­er­ate. So what hap­pens to them? They just stop work­ing. The result is senil­ity.”10

The homo­cys­teine angle

Raised plasma lev­els of the amino acid homo­cys­teine are linked to brain shrink­age and Alzheimer’s/cognitive impair­ment. For­merly an obscure ele­ment of meta­bolic chem­istry, the amino acid homo­cys­teine has been attract­ing atten­tion over the past few years as a major impli­ca­tor in heart dis­ease, prob­lem preg­nan­cies and cog­ni­tive prob­lems. Med­ical jour­nal­ist Jerome Burne comments:

Researchers at Oxford Uni­ver­sity found that the mild mem­ory prob­lems suf­fered by healthy peo­ple stopped get­ting worse when they took a B vit­a­min supplement.

About one-and-a-half mil­lion peo­ple in the UK suf­fer from age-related mem­ory loss, or ‘mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment’. It starts grad­u­ally — for­get­ting keys, won­der­ing what you came into the shop to buy — but half of those affected will progress to Alzheimer’s and demen­tia within five years. Until now there has been no way to slow down mem­ory loss.

The peo­ple in the Oxford Uni­ver­sity trial were tak­ing a sin­gle pill con­tain­ing three types of vit­a­min B (folic acid and vit­a­min B6 and B12) all in doses far in excess of the rec­om­mended daily amount (RDA). The pill con­tained 0.8 mg of folic acid (twice the RDA), 0.5 mg of B12 (250 times the RDA) and 20 mg of B6 (12 times the RDA).”11

It remains unclear exactly how homo­cys­teine affects the brain in this way but researchers have found that those patients with homo­cys­teine lev­els in excess of 13 ?mol/L who took the com­bi­na­tion vit­a­min B sup­ple­ment reduced brain shrink­age by up to 50%, while those with nor­mal lev­els of the amino acid (below 9 ?mol/L) were unaf­fected. These B vit­a­mins have long been known to reduce or ‘remethy­late’ homo­cys­teine into methio­n­ine. Pro­fes­sor Helga Ref­sum, co-author of the study and a lead­ing homo­cys­teine researcher at the Uni­ver­sity of Oslo, remarks:

‘Every­one agrees that a healthy, bal­anced diet is the best way to pre­vent many chronic dis­eases like dia­betes, heart attacks and Alzheimer’s…. If you don’t take [in] B vit­a­mins you are going to have a faster rate of brain atro­phy.’12

Dr Andrew Mccad­don is a GP in Wales who uses higher lev­els of the B vit­a­mins than even the Oxford study:

It takes about three years from the time mem­ory prob­lems start for peo­ple to go to the doc­tor, so some of my patients have already pro­gressed to Alzheimer’s when they come to see me. I find the vit­a­mins help them.”13

Vit­a­min D deficiency

The Vit­a­min D Coun­cil writes:

In a cross-sectional study, vitamin-D-sufficient Alzheimer’s patients had sig­nif­i­cantly higher Mini-Mental State Exam­i­na­tion scores as com­pared to vitamin-D-insufficient ones, indi­cat­ing a rela­tion­ship between vit­a­min D sta­tus and cog­ni­tion in patients…. Vit­a­min D has a sig­nif­i­cant bio­chem­istry in the brain. Nuclear recep­tors for vit­a­min D exist in the brain and vit­a­min D is involved in the biosyn­the­sis of neu­rotrophic fac­tors, syn­the­sis of nitric oxide syn­thase, and increased glu­tathione levels—all sug­gest­ing an impor­tant role for vit­a­min D in brain func­tion.”14

Of course, we know that lack of sun­light in the win­ter can bring on sea­sonal affec­tive dis­or­der. Less well known is that if the elderly do not get suf­fi­cient sun­light around the noon-time hours (11am – 2pm), this can have seri­ous ram­i­fi­ca­tions for their men­tal and emo­tional health over the long-term.15 In report­ing that vit­a­min D-3 has also been found inte­gral to the process of remov­ing amy­loid plaque deposits from the brain – a key impli­ca­tor in AD – Pro­fes­sor Tet­suya Terasaki remarked in a media statement:

Vit­a­min D appears to increase trans­port of amy­loid beta across the blood brain bar­rier (BBB) by reg­u­lat­ing pro­tein expres­sion, via the vit­a­min D receptor…These results lead the way towards new ther­a­peu­tic tar­gets in the search for pre­ven­tion of Alzheimer’s dis­ease.” 16

How about this study:

LOWER VITAMIN D COULD INCREASE RISK
OF DYING, ESPECIALLY FOR FRAIL, OLDER ADULTS

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study con­cludes that among older adults – espe­cially those who are frail – low lev­els of vit­a­min D can mean a much greater risk of death.

The ran­dom­ized, nation­ally rep­re­sen­ta­tive study found that older adults with low vit­a­min D lev­els had a 30 per­cent greater risk of death than peo­ple who had higher levels.

Over­all, peo­ple who were frail had more than dou­ble the risk of death than those who were not frail. Frail adults with low lev­els of vit­a­min D tripled their risk of death over peo­ple who were not frail and who had higher lev­els of vit­a­min D.

What this really means is that it is impor­tant to assess vit­a­min D lev­els in older adults, and espe­cially among peo­ple who are frail,” said lead author Ellen Smit of Ore­gon State Uni­ver­sity.17

So if vit­a­min D is such a fab­u­lous all-rounder, how come the ortho­doxy has failed to embark on a fully-fledged vit­a­min D pro­mo­tion cam­paign? The answer is a ques­tion of drug income and ‘infor­ma­tion sov­er­eignty’. The doc­tor will tell you what’s good for you, don’t think you can a) do any­thing for your­self or b) find life-saving infor­ma­tion any­where else.18

Pub­lished RDA lev­els of D-3 intake are woe­fully inad­e­quate (200–400 IU/day). In fact, adults use around 3,000 – 5,000 IU of D-3 a day, yet are ever told the non­sense that ‘the sun is dan­ger­ous’. Those par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­a­ble to vit­a­min D defi­ciency are dark-skinned races liv­ing in north­ern lat­i­tudes; the aged; preg­nant women; Mus­lim women who wrap them­selves up accord­ing to their cus­tom, and those who make a point of avoid­ing the sun or stay­ing indoors. Physi­cians should sus­pect vit­a­min D defi­ciency in the above cases as a mat­ter of first resort as well as in those who live above the 520 N. par­al­lel. All Alzheimer’s patients should be tested to deter­mine their vit­a­min D serum level via a 25-hydroxy D test and opti­mised accord­ingly (See A Guide To Nutri­tional Sup­ple­ments – Vit­a­min D-3).

Vit­a­min E deficiency

Stud­ies on vit­a­min E have also proved inter­est­ing. Dr Joseph Mer­cola reports:

At present, an esti­mated 5.4 mil­lion Amer­i­cans have Alzheimer’s dis­ease. In the next 20 years, it is pro­jected that Alzheimer’s will affect one in four Amer­i­cans. A recent study found that 2,000 IU of vit­a­min E per day helped delay the loss of func­tion, such as plan­ning and orga­niz­ing, in Alzheimer’s patients.

It’s impor­tant to real­ize that mod­ern med­i­cine has very lit­tle to offer in terms of treat­ment, so pre­ven­tion is para­mount. Research sug­gests the best hope is in pre­ven­tion focus­ing on diet, exer­cise, and stay­ing men­tally active. Avoid­ing fruc­tose and gluten appears to be of crit­i­cal impor­tance, as is mak­ing sure you’re get­ting plenty of health­ful fats. Fast­ing can also be ben­e­fi­cial for the pre­ven­tion of Alzheimer’s.” 1

1 www.mercola.com, 14th Jan­u­ary 2014

Dehy­dra­tion and lack of salt

Esti­mates put the brain’s con­tent at up to 80–83% water. Min­eral salts, fats and other nutri­ents are indis­pens­able to the brain’s proper func­tion­ing yet amaz­ingly most care homes and retired adult facil­i­ties do not place any empha­sis on proper water and salt intake.

In The Essen­tial Guide to Water and Salt, Dr F Bat­manghe­lidj points out that we lose our thirst sen­sa­tion over age 65. This is com­pounded by the fact that most of us have been con­fus­ing the thirst sen­sa­tion for hunger for decades and prob­a­bly suf­fer over­weight and blood sugar prob­lems as a result. A per­son can eas­ily enter their sev­en­ties chron­i­cally mal­nour­ished, dehy­drated and severely vitamin-D-deficient, exhibit­ing symp­toms which are inter­preted by the doc­tor as ‘a dis­ease of the elderly’ – i.e. con­sti­pa­tion, slow cog­ni­tive per­for­mance, arthri­tis, osteo­poro­sis, uri­nary tract infec­tions, high blood pres­sure, asthma, and ele­vated triglyc­eride and cho­les­terol lev­els. All are also symp­toms of dehy­dra­tion and the con­se­quences of the body’s drought man­age­ment pro­ce­dures. Here’s what hap­pened at one care home in Suf­folk, Eng­land, when man­age­ment sug­gested some changes to res­i­dents’ water intake:

Staff at The Mar­tins care home in Bury St Edmunds started a ‘water club’ for their res­i­dents last sum­mer. Res­i­dents were encour­aged to drink eight to 10 glasses of water a day, water cool­ers were installed, and they were each given a jug for their room. They report sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments in health as a result — many fewer falls, fewer GP call-outs, a cut in the use of lax­a­tives and in uri­nary infec­tions, bet­ter qual­ity of sleep, and lower rates of agi­ta­tion among res­i­dents with dementia.

It’s been fan­tas­tic. The whole home buzzes now; there isn’t that period after lunch when every­one goes off to sleep.”

For Baroness Green­gross, a cross-bench peer, it rein­forces a con­vic­tion she has had for some time now — that many old peo­ple sim­ply are not drink­ing enough, and it is harm­ing their health.”19

Dr Bat­manghe­lidj states:

The pri­mary cause of Alzheimer’s is chronic dehy­dra­tion of the body. In my opin­ion, brain cell dehy­dra­tion is the pri­mary cause of Alzheimer’s dis­ease. Alu­minium tox­i­c­ity is a sec­ondary com­pli­ca­tion of dehy­dra­tion in areas of the world with com­par­a­tively aluminium-free water (although in the tech­ni­cally advanced West­ern soci­eties, alu­minium sul­phate is used in the process of water purifi­ca­tion for deliv­ery into the city water sup­plies!). One of my med­ical friends took this infor­ma­tion to heart and started treat­ing his brother who has Alzheimer’s dis­ease by forc­ing him to take more water every day. His brother has begun to recover his mem­ory, so much so that he can now fol­low con­ver­sa­tion and not fre­quently repeat him­self. The improve­ment became notice­able in a mat­ter of weeks.”20

How about this study:

MINERAL WATERHALTS SCOURGE OF ALZHEIMER’S’

Drink­ing a litre of min­eral water every day can pre­vent and even reverse the dev­as­tat­ing mem­ory loss of Alzheimer’s dis­ease, it is claimed. (A LIter is a quart)

British sci­en­tists believe that silicon-rich water can dra­mat­i­cally alter the course of cog­ni­tive decline in suf­fer­ers by remov­ing toxic alu­minium from their bod­ies. It has long been known that alu­minium has some link to the devel­op­ment of the killer brain dis­ease. (Tooth paste, acid foods in alum foil, deodorants that enter body thru armpit re just a few examples of how we are being continually exposed to aluminum: Food: Aluminized baking powder is used in a wide range of consumer baked goods, and aluminum is added to highly-processed cheese products to "improve" melting qualities. A single serving of frozen cheese pizza has 14 mg, according to a 2005 study published in the journal Food Additives and Contaminants)

 High con­cen­tra­tions of the neu­ro­toxin have been found in “plaques” in Alzheimer’s patients’ brains…. Now, researchers at Keele Uni­ver­sity have found that drink­ing water packed with sil­i­con “sig­nif­i­cantly reduced” lev­els of the neu­ro­toxin in the body of vic­tims.21

The two high-silicon brands rec­om­mended in the arti­cle are Volvic and FIJI Water, though the study was car­ried out using Spritzer, a min­eral water sold in Malaysia.

Alu­minium and toxic metals

Another com­mon find­ing in pre­ma­ture senile demen­tia is an entan­gle­ment of nerve fibres. When these nerve clus­ters are found in the frontal and tem­po­ral regions of the brain, they are fre­quently sat­u­rated with alu­minium.22 Many the­o­ries abound on how this alu­minium has accu­mu­lated. Alu­minium can be taken into the body through the water sup­ply, sodas (the can), cook­ing pots and uten­sils, tooth­pastes (the tube), alu­minium foil pack­ag­ing, food cans and antacids. Inter­est­ingly, a per­son who has unknow­ingly suf­fered dehy­dra­tion for most of their life will prob­a­bly have suf­fered oesophageal reflux (heart­burn) too, for which they have taken antacids for decades – another route for alu­minium into the body.

Detox­i­fi­ca­tion reg­i­mens, such as those cov­ered in this book (also in Food For Thought and Health Wars), will assist the body in rid­ding itself of unwanted accu­mu­la­tions of heavy met­als. Chela­tors, nat­ural sub­stances which attach them­selves to toxic ele­ments and escort them out of the body, are used to remove alu­minium. Excess amounts of the fol­low­ing met­als are known mem­ory dis­rup­tors and inhibitors:

Lead: leads to hyper­ac­tiv­ity and aggres­sion. Taken in from traf­fic fumes and indus­trial pol­lu­tion. Chelated (i.e. removed) using vit­a­mins C, B1 and zinc.

Alu­minium: leads to mem­ory loss and senil­ity. Derived from pots, pans, cook­ing uten­sils, antacids, etc. Chelated using zinc, sil­i­con and magnesium.

Cad­mium: leads to aggres­sion and con­fu­sion. Derived from cig­a­rettes. Chelated (i.e. removed) with vit­a­min C and zinc.

Cop­per: leads to anx­i­ety and pho­bias. Derived from water pip­ing. Chelated with zinc.

Mer­cury: leads to headaches and mem­ory loss. Derived from pes­ti­cides, some vac­ci­na­tions and mer­cury amal­gam den­tal fill­ings. Chelated with selenium.

Food sen­si­tiv­i­ties

Those with mem­ory impair­ment prob­lems may also be suf­fer­ing from the effects of food sen­si­tiv­i­ties, as dis­cussed ear­lier (see Aller­gies). These can also be a symp­tom of vit­a­min D defi­ciency, poor immu­nity and chronic, unin­ten­tional dehy­dra­tion. An allergy test may deter­mine an under­ly­ing, treat­able food allergy prob­lem, which may be con­tribut­ing to the patient’s condition.

Vir­gin coconut oil

The health ben­e­fits of vir­gin coconut oil have been well cov­ered in the nutri­tion press over the past five years while the main­stream media has been demon­is­ing ‘sat­u­rated fat’ as the lead­ing killer of mankind. Yet a num­ber of stud­ies on Pacific Islanders, who derive 30–60% of their calorific intake from coconut oil (a fully sat­u­rated fat), reveal nearly non-existent lev­els of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease,23 while sup­pos­edly health-promoting ‘low-fat’ hydro­genated but­ters mar­keted nightly on TV have become the prob­lem. The salient issue is that nat­u­rally occur­ring plant-based medium-chain sat­u­rated fats have a num­ber of health-promoting effects going for them while long-chain, arti­fi­cially sat­u­rated fats, man­u­fac­tured through the hydro­gena­tion process,24 have severe, artery-clogging poten­tial and should be avoided at all costs.

Vir­gin coconut oil has an impor­tant part to play in human health, espe­cially with the sick and elderly. Coconut oil is com­prised 50% lau­ric acid, a nat­u­rally occur­ring sat­u­rated fat which the body con­verts to mono­lau­rin, a potent antibi­otic, anti­fun­gal and anti-protozoal. The only other pro­lific source of lau­ric acid on Earth is breast milk. Two-thirds of coconut oil is com­prised medium chain triglyc­erides, a highly avail­able source of imme­di­ate energy to the body with­out induc­ing excess pro­duc­tion of insulin. Dr Joseph Mer­cola reports that coconut oil stim­u­lates meta­bolic rates, accel­er­ates heal­ing and assists in weight loss and phys­i­cal per­for­mance – some­thing the ath­letic world has recog­nised for years. Coconut oil stim­u­lates the thy­roid gland, also assist­ing in weight loss. Dr Mer­cola has a word to say on coconut oil safety too:

The medium-chain fats in coconut oil are con­sid­ered so nutri­tious that they are used in baby for­mu­las, in hos­pi­tals to feed the crit­i­cally ill, those on tube feed­ing, and those with diges­tive prob­lems. Coconut oil has even been used suc­cess­fully by doc­tors in treat­ing alu­minum poi­son­ing.25

Coconut oil is excep­tion­ally help­ful for preg­nant women, nurs­ing moms, the elderly, those con­cerned about diges­tive health, ath­letes (even week­end war­riors), and those of you who just want to enhance your over­all health.”26

www.naturalnews.com reports:

A doctor’s hus­band made a remark­able rever­sal of his seri­ous Alzheimer’s prob­lem by ingest­ing coconut oil daily. Dr. Mary New­port had her hus­band Steve get off the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Alzheimer’s drugs as his con­di­tion just kept wors­en­ing with them, along with added neg­a­tive side effects…. Steve’s con­di­tion has improved greatly since coconut oil was included in his diet.”27

Metabolis­ing medium-chain triglyc­erides (MCTs) via the liver pro­duces ketones, now known to help pro­tect against AD and even reverse symp­toms.28 Dr Mary Newport’s hus­band applied to be included in an Alzheimer’s drug trial but was too late to par­tic­i­pate. Instead his doc­tor wife, Mary, researched the drug and dis­cov­ered it con­tained a syn­thetic ver­sion of medium-chain triglyc­erides (MCTs).29 The only prob­lem is, the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal ver­sion was only active for three hours in the body com­pared to coconut oil’s eight. Two to three table­spoons of coconut oil taken dur­ing the day pro­vides the required intake of MCTs. Dr Mary New­port has a com­pre­hen­sive web­site con­tain­ing all the infor­ma­tion at www.coconutketones.com/. Nat­u­rally, none of this will be found on the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion web­site for eco­nomic reasons.

Pel­la­gra

As dis­cussed in the sec­tion on Schiz­o­phre­nia, an old nutri­tional prob­lem called pel­la­gra is haunt­ing us still. Pel­la­gra is a niacin (B-3) defi­ciency which will result in the five ‘D’s – dizzi­ness, diar­rhoea, demen­tia, der­mati­tis and death. Vit­a­min –B3 is essen­tial for oxy­gen util­i­sa­tion in the body. It is incor­po­rated into the coen­zyme NAD (nicoti­namide adeno­sine din­u­cleotide). Low amounts of B-3 will invari­ably bring on symp­toms that can be inter­preted as demen­tia, Alzheimer’s, etc.

Boost­ing the memory

So those suf­fer­ing mem­ory impair­ment have a ver­i­ta­ble arse­nal of nutri­tional weapons at their dis­posal.30 The neu­ro­trans­mit­ter acetyl­choline is the brain hor­mone respon­si­ble for mem­ory reten­tion. Exper­i­ments done at Palo Alto Hos­pi­tal in Cal­i­for­nia showed that drugs which boost pro­duc­tion of acetyl­choline pro­duced ‘super-memories’. Nat­ural nutri­ents, how­ever, can effec­tively boost acetyl­choline pro­duc­tion. These are choline, glu­t­a­mine, DMAE (a nutri­ent found in fish), and its salt, Deanol. Pyrog­lu­ta­mate is also excel­lent, and many ‘mem­ory’ sup­ple­ments on the mar­ket today con­tain a mix of these nutri­ents, which work bet­ter when used syn­er­gis­ti­cally with a great improve­ment in diet.

Take action !

  1. DIET: COMMENCE THE FOOD FOR THOUGHT DIETARY REGIMEN, ensur­ing that 80%-plus of food con­sumed is organic high-fibre plant dietary, 80%-plus eaten raw. The more plant foods and the more raw, the bet­ter. Remove grains where pos­si­ble from the diet and include at least a cup­ful of tra­di­tion­ally fer­mented cul­tured veg­eta­bles each day
  2. DIET: Remove all wheat, bar­ley, rye and oats from the diet. Be dili­gent in this. Wheat is in everything
  3. DIET: Embark on a com­pre­hen­sive veg­gie juic­ing pro­gram with three glasses of var­ied juices a day
  4. DIET: Small meals, con­sumed often
  5. DIET: Reduce meat and elim­i­nate dairy intake. Avoid pork
  6. DIET: Cut out inges­tion of sucrose and refined, high-glycaemic car­bo­hy­drate foods. Add 3 — 6 table­spoons of vir­gin coconut oil per day to the diet
  7. HYDRATION: Com­mence hydrat­ing the body to the extent of half the patient’s body­weight in ounces of water per day (viz: a 160 lb male can drink 80 oz of water a day, which is approx­i­mately 10 glasses). Volvic, FIJI Water or other high-silicon-content bot­tled water is known to help chelate alu­minium 1
  8. HYDRATION: Half a tea­spoon (tsp) of Himalayan salt is rec­om­mended per 10 glasses of water. Main­tain over the long-term
  9. DETOXIFICATION: Remove all tox­ins and dam­age trig­gers from envi­ron­ment and lifestyle (harm­ful per­sonal and house­hold prod­ucts, chem­i­cals, smok­ing, drugs, SUGAR)
  10. DETOXIFICATION: Detox­ify the body and kill over­growths of fungi, yeasts and parasites
  11. RESTORE NUTRIENT BALANCE: COMMENCE THE BASIC SUPPLEMENT PROGRAM, ensur­ing:
  12. Test homo­cys­teine plasma lev­els via your GP. If above 13 ?mol/L, take a high potency vit­a­min B sup­ple­ment com­pris­ing at least 0.8mg of folic acid, 0.5 mg of B-12 and 20 mg of B-6.2 This sup­ple­ment is good insur­ance as you age in any case; Cre­dence does a high potency B com­plex prod­uct to match these specifications.
  13. Opti­mise vit­a­min D lev­els to 150 nmol/L (60 ng/ml). A 25-hydroxy D test via your GP or www.vitamindtest.org.uk (mail order test kit ser­vice) can be obtained at the same time as the above test for homo­cys­teine (see A Guide to Nutri­tional Sup­ple­ments: Vit­a­min D-3 before tak­ing)
  14. Opti­mise iodine in the body. An iodine-loading test is advised. Sup­ple­men­ta­tion is via Lugol’s Iodine Solu­tion (15%) or Iodine Plus tablets (12.5 mg). Com­mence with 12.5 mg per day for adults for one week, then increase to 50 mg per day there­after for two months, then review. Impor­tant: read Lynne Farrow’s excel­lent book on the sub­ject, The Iodine Cri­sis (www.credence.org). Also read A Guide to Nutri­tional Sup­ple­ments: Iodine before taking.
  15. Vit­a­min C com­plex, 25 — 30 g, spread through­out the day (see A Guide to Nutri­tional Sup­ple­ments: Vit­a­min C before using)
  16. Vit­a­min E (nat­ural d-alpha toco­pheryl), 1,000 – 2,000 IU per day can be taken if cur­rently suf­fer­ing demen­tia. 3 For pre­ven­tion, 800 – 1,000 IU per day
  17. Krill oil, 3 g per day 4
  18. Mag­ne­sium cit­rate, 400 — 800 mg per day 5
  19. Resver­a­trol, 500 mg per day 6
  20. Astax­an­thin, 3 — 4 x 4 mg per day
  21. Avoid where pos­si­ble drugs, radi­a­tion scans and intru­sive ‘diag­nos­tic’ testing
  22. Reg­u­lar exer­cise is very impor­tant. Not just walk­ing! Get the heart rate up with cycling, stair-climbing, hill-climbing, etc. for at least 30–40 min­utes a day (see Exer­cise) 7
  23. Spend at least 40 min­utes a day out­doors between 11am and 2pm. Get the required sun to pinken the skin. Do not burn
  24. Play mem­ory games and stay intel­lec­tu­ally active
  25. Avoid iso­la­tion and loneliness
  26. Be happy and stress-free
  27. REGULAR REST: Max­imise mela­tonin pro­duc­tion by review­ing sleep­ing and light­ing arrange­ments – very impor­tant (see A Guide to Nutri­tional Sup­ple­ments: Mela­tonin)
  28. EARTHING: Spend five min­utes a day bare­foot on grass or a beach to allow a flow of antioxidant-acting free elec­trons into the body (see A Guide to Nutri­tional Sup­ple­ments: Earth­ing) LIE DOWN on the ground and inhale the power of earth.

Excerpted from book THE ABC's OF DISEASE by Phillip Day --- EACH URL BELOW IS CLICKABLE

1 Mar­tyn, C N, Barker, D J, Osmond, C, Har­ris, E C, Edward­son, J A and Lacey, R F “Geo­graph­i­cal rela­tion between Alzheimer’s dis­ease and alu­minum in drink­ing water”, Lancet, I (8629): 59–62, 14th Jan 1989; McLach­lan, D R, Kruck, T P and Lukiw, W J “Would decreased alu­minum inges­tion reduce the inci­dence of Alzheimer’s dis­ease?” Can Med Assn J, 1st Oct 1991

2 Jack­son, J A, Rior­dan, H D, and Pol­ing, C M “Alu­minum from a cof­fee pot”, Lancet, I (8641) 781–782, 8th April 1989

3 Davis, William Wheat Belly, Rodale, 2011, pp.136,173

4 Research at www.ravediet.com

5 “Alzheimer’s may be caused by poor diet”, www.mercola.com, 24th Sep­tem­ber 2012

6 Daily Mail, 19th July 2011

7 See also http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/09/24/poor-diet-causes-alzheimers-disease.aspx?e_cid=20120924_DNL_art_2

8 Here we see another exam­ple of a seem­ingly intractable med­ical con­di­tion which killed mil­lions hav­ing its com­plete res­o­lu­tion in dietary changes.

9 Sell­man, Sher­ill, Hor­mone Heresy, GetWell Int’l, Inc. 1998; also Sea­man, Bar­bara, The Doc­tors’ Case against the Pill, Hunter House, USA, 1995, p.7

10 Pfeif­fer, Carl & Patrick Hol­ford, Men­tal Ill­ness – The Nutri­tion Con­nec­tion, op. cit., p.176

11 Daily Mail, 14th Sep­tem­ber 2010

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 www.vitamindcouncil.org; Evatt ML, Delong MR, Khazai N, Rosen A, Triche S, Tang­pricha V “Preva­lence of vit­a­min d insuf­fi­ciency in patients with Parkin­son dis­ease and Alzheimer dis­ease”, Arch Neu­rol. 2008 Oct;65(10):1348–52

15 www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Low-vitamin-D-status-associated-with-cognitive-decline-Study

16 Shingo Ito, Sumio Oht­suki, Yasuko Nezu, Yusuke Koitabashi, Sho Murata, Tet­suya Terasaki “1?,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3 enhances cere­bral clear­ance of human amyloid-? peptide(1–40) from mouse brain across the blood-brain bar­rier”, Flu­ids and Bar­ri­ers of the CNS, 2011, 8:20, 8th July 2011

17 http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2012/jul/lower-vitamin-d-could-increase-risk-dying-especially-frail-older-adults

18 An exam­ple is UK can­cer spe­cial­ist Karol Sikora mak­ing the fol­low­ing con­temptible state­ment. Daily Mail, “Sorry, but there’s no such thing as a diet that cures can­cer”, 1st Jan­u­ary 2013

19 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7466457.stm: “How Care Home Keeps Elderly Healthy” , 23rd June 2008

20 Bat­manghe­lidj F and P Day The Essen­tial Guide to Water and Salt, Cre­dence, 2008

21 Daily Express, 12th Octo­ber 2012

22 Mar­tyn, C, et al, “Geo­graph­i­cal rela­tion between Alzheimer’s dis­ease and alu­minium in drink­ing water”, Lancet, 14th Jan­u­ary 1989

23 Prior IA, David­son F, Salmond CE, Czochan­ska Z “Cho­les­terol, coconuts, and diet on Poly­ne­sian atolls: a nat­ural exper­i­ment: the Puka­puka and Toke­lau Island stud­ies”, Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Clin­i­cal Nutri­tion, 1981;34:1552–1561

24 Hydro­gena­tion is an indus­trial process whereby nat­ural fats are heated and hydro­gen atoms added to pro­duce a plas­ti­cised, thick­ened, ran­cid oil. Con­sum­ing this mess dam­ages human health while ben­e­fit­ing indus­try in terms of vis­cos­ity and the super­mar­ket in terms of shelf-life.

25 KG Nevin and T Rajamo­han “Ben­e­fi­cial effects of vir­gin coconut oil on lipid para­me­ters and in vitro LDL oxi­da­tion”, Clin­i­cal Bio­chem­istry, Sep­tem­ber 2004; 37(9): 830–835

26 http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/10/22/coconut-oil-and-saturated-fats-can-make-you-healthy.aspx#_edn2

27 www.naturalnews.com/030373_coconut_oil_Alzheimers_disease.html

28 GF Cahill, Jr and RL Veech “Ketoacids? Good Med­i­cine?”, Trans­ac­tions of the Amer­i­can Clin­i­cal and Cli­ma­to­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion , vol. 114, 2003; RL Veech “The ther­a­peu­tic impli­ca­tions of ketone bod­ies: the effects of ketone bod­ies in patho­log­i­cal con­di­tions: keto­sis, keto­genic diet, redox states, insulin resis­tance, and mito­chon­dr­ial metab­o­lism”, Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essen­tial Fatty Acids , 70 (2004) 309–319; Y Kashi­waya, T Takeshima, N Mori, K Nakashima, K Clarke, and RL Veech “D-b-Hydroxybutyrate pro­tects neu­rons in mod­els of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s dis­ease”, PNAS May 9, 2000, vol. 97, no. 10, 5440–5444

29 www.anh-usa.org/coconut-oil-and-alzheimer%E2%80%99s-disease/

30 See A Guide to Nutri­tional Supplements

31 Daily Express, “Min­eral water ‘halts scourge of Alzheimer’s”, 12th Octo­ber 2012

32 Cre­dence has a high-potency B com­plex sup­ple­ment specif­i­cally for­mu­lated to these ther­a­peu­tic lev­els – see www.credence.org

33 “Omega-3 sup­ple­ments may slow a bio­log­i­cal effect of aging”, Research and Inno­va­tion Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Ohio State Uni­ver­sity, 1st Octo­ber 2012

34Gar­ri­son, Jr Robert H and Somer, Eliz­a­beth Nutri­tion Desk Ref­er­ence. New Canaan, CT: Keats, p 78–79; 106; 210–211, 1990; Weiner, Michael A “Alu­minum and dietary fac­tors in Alzheimer’s dis­ease”, J Ortho­mol­e­c­u­lar Med, 5(2):74–78, 1990

35 “Could A Com­pound Found In Red Wine And Red Grapes Change The Course Of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease?”, Med­ical News Today, 14th May 2012

36 Daily Mail, “Even gen­tle exer­cise can help pro­tect the brain and mem­ory in old age”, 21st Feb­ru­ary 2012