The only thing that fuels the brain and muscles are Carbohydrates.
Actually Adam.....thats not true....the brain can use ketones for fuel:
Barry A Groves,
Independent researcher
OX7 6LP,
www.second-opinions.co.ukSend response to journal: BMJ 2005; 331: 925-c
Re: We don't need to spend more on research into Alzheimer's disease
The declines in mental faculties with old age, which are becoming increasingly common, are accepted as sad and heartrending, but ‘normal’: an inevitable consequence of old age. But this attitude is quite wrong as this decline need never happen and should never happen. Senility and its associated conditions are yet more examples of modern diseases which are very rare in primitive society and which are entirely preventable in ours.
Alzheimer’s disease, which only really appeared in the last century, is an increasingly prevalent, age-related degenerative brain disorder in Western societies. In Alzheimer’s disease, neurons in the brain regions that control learning and memory functions (hippocampus and basal forebrain) are selectively vulnerable.
Studies of postmortem brain tissue from Alzheimer’s have provided evidence that the condition has similar causes to other diseases classed together under the 'Metabolic Syndrome'. Recent data suggest that this disease can manifest systemic alterations in energy metabolism (increased insulin resistance and deregulation of glucose metabolism, for example). Evidence is emerging that dietary manipulation can prevent this devastating brain disorder.
It is argued by some that the recent growth in numbers of people succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease may be because it is a disease of the elderly and people are living longer. But there may also be other reasons: dietary reasons.
For example: NIDDM is associated with a range of serious conditions, such as heart disease, stroke and blindness. But diabetes is also associated with a deterioration of memory, cognition, speech memory, working memory and visual-spatial skills. Recent research suggests that it could also lead to Alzheimer’s disease and to a general decline in cognitive functions. NIDDM is caused entirely by a carbohydrate-based, 'healthy' diet.
For nine years a research team followed 824 Catholic priests and nuns, 127 of whom had diabetes. One hundred and fifty-one of them went on to develop Alzheimer’s.[1]The study team found that those who had diabetes were 65 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer’s.
Researcher Zoë Arvanitakis found that insulin in the blood stimulates a protein called ‘tau’ which tangles brain cells into Alzheimer knots. But the actual causal factor is likely to be our ‘healthy’ diet as that is what stimulates the production of insulin and is also, of course, the cause of diabetes.
The low cholesterol we are all supposed to strive for is another likely cause. Corrigan and colleagues writing in 1991 about the relief of Alzheimer’s Disease, ask that ‘strategies for increasing the delivery of cholesterol to the brain should be identified’. They recommend increasing fat intake.[2]
The Framingham Study gave confirmation to Corrigan’s work when it examined the relationship between total cholesterol and cognitive performance.[3] Four to 6 years after a 16- to 18-year surveillance period, cognitive tests were administered consisting of measures of learning, memory, attention, concentration, abstract reasoning, concept formation, and organizational abilities. The researchers found a significant linear association between the level of blood cholesterol and measures of verbal fluency, attention, concentration, abstract reasoning, and a composite score measuring multiple cognitive domains. Participants with ‘desirable’ cholesterol levels of less than 5.2 mmol/L (200 mg/dL) performed significantly less well than participants with cholesterol levels higher than 6.25 mmol/L (240 mg/dL). Dr. Penelope K. Elias from Boston University said that ‘It is not entirely surprising that lower cholesterol levels were associated with moderately lower levels of cognitive function, given [that] cholesterol is important in brain function.’
A third avenue also involves increasing fat intake. Two prospective studies reported that Alzheimer’s disease is less prevalent among those who consume fish; and other reports have linked low levels of omega-3 fatty acids in the blood with Alzheimer’s disease. In an epidemiological study, Morris and colleagues in Chicago, Illinois, USA, reported that the number of cases of Alzheimer’s disease was 60 percent lower in people who consumed fish once a week compared with those who rarely or never ate fish.[4] Although fatty fish is recommended as part of a ‘healthy’ diet, it is difficult to comply if one is already full up with starchy foods.
Dietary treatment
The brain uses a disproportionately large amount of energy for its weight, and it normally needs to extract it directly from glucose as it is unable to use fatty acids or amino acids. However, the brain can use ketones which are derived from dietary fats. This is how it survives during periods of prolonged fasting and starvation.
During the 1990s, diet-induced high blood levels of ketones were found to be effective for treatment of several rare genetic disorders involving impaired use of glucose or its metabolic products by brain cells.[5] Another team also found that ketones protect neurons from a heroin analogue which induces Parkinson’s disease, and a protein fragment which accumulates in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients.[6] More than that, addition of ketones alone actually increased the number of surviving neurons from the hippocampus which suggests that ketones may even act as growth factors for neurons.
The low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet relies on ketone bodies to supply the bulk of the body’s energy needs. We know that ketogenic diets are very effective treatments for many other chronic degenerative medical conditions. The evidence is that Alzheimer’s disease may also be successfully treated and, more importantly, prevented with a low- carbohydrate, high-fat, ketogenic diet.However, all current official dietary advice is that low- carbohydrate, high-fat diets are 'unhealthy'. That is demonstrably untrue, but until current dietary advice is seen for the disaster it really is, we can expect the incidence of diseases such as Alzheimer's to increase.
We don't need to spend more on research into Alzheimer's disease, just to consider the work already done -- and revise current dietary advice.
References
1. Arvanitakis Z, Wilson RS, Bienias JL, et al. Diabetes mellitus and risk of Alzheimer disease and decline in cognitive function. Arch Neurol 2004; 61: 661-6.
2. Corrigan FM, et al. Dietary supplementation with zinc sulphate, sodium selenite and fatty acids in early dementia of Alzheimer’s Type II: Effects on lipids. J Nutr Med 1991; 2: 265‑71.
3. Elias PK, Elias MF, D’Agostino RB, et al. Serum Cholesterol and Cognitive Performance in the Framingham Heart Study. Psychosomatic Medicine 2005; 67:24–30.
4. Morris MC, Evans DA, Bienias JL, et al. Consumption of fish and n- 3 fatty acids and risk of incident Alzheimer disease. Arch Neurol 2003;60:940-946.
5. VanItallie TB, Nufert TH. Ketones: metabolism’s ugly duckling. Nutr Rev 2003; 61: 327-41.
6. Kashiwaya Y, Takeshima T, Mori N, et al. D-b-Hydroxybutyrate protects neurons in models of Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease. PNAS 2000: 97: 5440-4.
