Re: Oops
Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2018 3:32 pm
I botched my reply by somehow submitting it twice. I don't know how I did it or how to pull it back, so apologies to everyone!
Lindy
Lindy
Thanks, Susan! It's funny how all the reading I did before did not prepare me for this unique situation, but I'm always willing to learn.SusanJ wrote:Hi, Lindy, and first off welcome. Sorry you have faced so many challenges. And good for you that you have been interested in your own health and done a lot of reading!
I started many years ago, before anyone had a protocol, before functional medicine, by working with an integrative doctor who actually didn't test much or push supplements. He went by how one felt. Gluten makes your joints ache? Throw it out of your diet. Stressed? Take up meditation and yoga. And eat some meat now and then. (At the time, I ate a lot like you do now, vegan with some fish and for me, eggs.) And his advice helped, a lot. Since then, I did genetic testing and found out about E4, and MTHFR and a handful of other bad gene actors, so have spent more time understanding what my specific genes suggest I should be doing for optimum health.Lindy wrote:How did you personally choose which protocol you thought would work for you?
I'm not sure how much leeway I have to experiment with this. My baseline condition already includes high cholesterol and BP, despite my diet and lifestyle, so just thinking about consuming MCT oil gives me the heebie-jeebies. I've kept a strict limit on the amount of avocado and other saturated fats to conform to other health guidelines for keeping my conditions in check. I wish I had more medical training. It feels hard to reconcile the apparent contradiction between what's supposedly healthy for my cardiovascular system and what's healthy for my brain. My mentor in nonprofit work years ago died at age 50 of a heart attack, and my father had extensive cardiovascular disease, so I've been religiously following American Heart Association guidelines (no more than 7% of calories from saturated fat).SusanJ wrote:And just a couple of off-the-top observations.
Not sure where you got the idea that you should eat more saturated fats. Bredesen, for example, says use MCT oil to make the shift to creating ketones, but encourages healthy mono-saturates like avocado, EVOO and nuts for the long run. Many of us see shifts in lipid panels with the addition of saturated fats, some good, some bad, so it differs between folks.
Thanks for pointing out the choline issue, Susan. For the past year or so, after noticing I was chronically short on choline (Cronometer is such a useful tool for this), I've been supplementing choline with Jarrow's Alpha GPC, because it is apparently more bioavailable than most. That was on the recommendation of my natural foods store pharmacist.SusanJ wrote:Eating a mostly vegan diet, do you know if you are getting enough choline, or are you supplementing choline is some manner? I ask because you need choline to make acetylcholine and other useful biochemicals needed for good brain function. (And a deficit can lead to depression.) Being under stress can make you burn through both methyl groups (B vitamins) and choline.
This is funny because I do stress about stress! Thanks for the reminder to chill and reflect on all this.SusanJ wrote:And stress, yep, it will throw every metabolic and neurotransmitter process out of whack. (I know, just saying you have to manage stress feels, well, stressful!) When I have an off day, I always ask, did I get enough sleep? Am I stressed about something? And have eaten reasonably well? Instead of thinking your memory is bad, maybe shift your focus to fixing what isn't working for that one day? String those actions together and you might find strategies that help you improve over time.
CoachDD wrote:I've been actively researching and learning so much about coconut oil (CO) and MCT. Over the past week, I've been watching the Regain Your Brain docuseries - see link (don't be fooled by the name - it is the correct link): http://links.cancerdefeated.com/a/746/c ... ab8c613db4
I love coconut but I am worried about ingesting a lot of coconut oil. Maybe I'm reading it wrong but this study seems to say that APOE4s are worse off with a high-fat/high saturated fat diet. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5011130/ And there are others that echo these concerns for double-E4s like me.The latest episode featured Dr. Mary Newport who has written two books (Alzheimer's Disease - What If There Was a Cure? and The Coconut Oil & Low Carb Solution for AD, Parkinson's and Other Diseases). In this series, she highlighted the benefits of cooking and ingesting these oils. Her husband was struck with early onset (in his early 50s) - he was declining so rapidly that they were ready to put him in assisted living. She was scrambling for answers and help and stumbled upon a medical food clinical trial which included CO and MCT. She decided to try it and was simply amazed at how quickly his symptoms turnaround (same day improvement, then vastly better within two weeks - he continued to improve for months until leveling off). Several years later, he is still doing well.
Thanks, Coach! We sure are in a maze together.I appreciate your dedication to take the bull by the horns. . . and that we are here to support each other in that quest! Best of luck and "see" you around on other forums.