I’m reportedly a 3/4, and sadly lost my Dad to AD just two-and-one-half years ago at 70 years young. He was a terrific father and wonderful man, and outwardly seemed of perfect heath, at least until near the very end. His last decade was a tragic and miserable decline for all, especially my mother who was his caretaker for so many stressful and heart-breaking years. He is sadly, and somewhat hauntingly, missed, but interestingly my finding of this site had nothing to do with his illness, though I greatly wish this resource (and the work of Dr Bredesen) had existed ten years ago for obvious reasons.
Just over two years ago, a T1 diabetic friend at work suddenly stopped eating carbs on our usual lunches. Curiosity piqued as to why he’d make such a change, he suggested I read Robb Wolf’s Paleo Solution, which I did one exciting Friday night. I like science and Robb’s message seemed reasonable enough: “Try a low carb diet for 30 days and see if it works for you.” What did I have to lose? It was a test, N=1.
I didn’t really try Paleo to lose weight. As a then 44 year old male, 6’2” and 185lbs, I wasn’t exactly fat — indeed, most still thought I was pretty skinny. And that had been the case for most of my life — I was always the tall skinny guy. I’d graduated college at ~175lbs and had managed to put on less than a half-pound of weight per year thereafter. My weight didn’t fluctuate much with diet or exercise — it was an ever-so-slightly upward sloping line. So imagine my surprise when I lost 10lbs my first week on Paleo. Something was going on.
The first week of not eating grains and starches was somewhat weird — my sugar cravings were incredible. Never much of a fruit eater, my body was craving oranges and berries. But after a week or so, I got past the cravings and reached “The Enlightenment” — I felt awesome and my brain was turbocharged. Names, words, and thoughts came easily and suddenly things just seemed obvious. Please keep up folks — this is pretty easy stuff.
But my wife and friends were concerned, especially my vegan friends, who sent me videos from Dr. Greger and his cabal at NutritionFacts.org. I didn’t want to feel better only to die of an early heart attack, so I decided to start looking for information on what “the research” actual said about my new diet. What I found seemed incredible — many, including Nina Teicholz, cast serious doubt on the science behind our national (American) diet recommendations and the guidelines proffered by organizations including the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association. How had I missed all the books and controversy? Why weren’t more people talking about this? I went down the rabbit hole of looking for more info. I learned that like so many other topics, it’s complicated, and you can’t trust the headline — if you want to know, you must always read and analyze the research yourself.
Now for some embarrassing details. Unlike my mother who could get diarrhea from looking at a picture of whole wheat bread (more on her below), I had the opposite problem. For a decade, I battled frequent constipation and hemorrhoids. “Eat more fiber,” they said. “You’re too stressed,” they said. Well let me tell you, a couple weeks without grains and starches and guess what? I was materially better, and it wasn’t just a coincidence — I’ve cheated on my low carb diet a few times over the past couple years. A random meal or two presents no immediate issues, but a return to the SAD (or event a long weekend of drinking wheaty craft beers with the guys) and I’ve got hell to pay in the disposal department. If it’s not obvious, this provides a very strong incentive for me to not cheat — especially with wheat.
I also started looking into vitamins and supplementation after a month or so on the Paleo diet. I was trying to get back into running for exercise, but honestly, I felt like an old man. My joints were achy and I had nagging tendinitis in my Achilles. I’d found videos by Eric Berg, David Fung, and Ivor Cummins, and remembered some blood work I’d had a few years prior that said I was Vit D deficient. I purchased a bottle of 5000ius off Amazon with thousands of glowing reviews — let’s test this out. Magic. In only a week’s time, my morning joint aches had vanished. This despite the assurances of so many expert articles that “vitamins were just a way to make expensive urine.”
My tendinitis was more stubborn (it had lasted several months), but I was suddenly interested in what other supplements might be useful. I read a lot on natural remedy and supplementation sites and Turmeric/Curcumin seemed to be a no-brainer (and likely also good for the brain). One change at a time, I added Curcumin to my daily stack, and within a week my tendinitis was gone. I felt like a new man: No aches, no pains, now 15lbs lighter, and no stopped-up pipes. And I was getting much faster at running.
And so went my journey: haphazardly looking into different things and trying those that seemed to have lots of support (both research and anecdotal) with very minimal risks/downsides. Over a year I settled on the following: a fish oil supplement (which I’d already been taking for years at the advice of my ophthalmologist — it cured my recurrent styes and dry eyes), Vit D, Curcumin, Magnesium, B12, and Vit C. I also try to keep to an 16/8 intermittent fasting regimen, and get at least 8 hours of sleep a night (a luxury I didn’t get for many years early in my career). My diet remains low carb — essentially meats, nuts, and non-starchy veggies. I’ve varied between higher protein (Paleo) and higher fat (Keto) — I think they both have their merits, but, as others on this site have shared, I personally feel sharper on higher protein. I also gave up my beloved Diet Coke habit for iced tea and mineral water, and now avoid artificial sweeteners in general.
As mentioned above, I’ve been a runner since high school. Unfortunately, my running performance has always been hampered by a heart arrhythmia: SVT. Workout to hard or fast and my heart would go start throwing in a rapid series of weak, mis-timed extra beats. Buh-dump... buh-dump... buh-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum...buh-dump, and so on. I could feel it in my pulse, and would get a little light-headed if I kept pushing. I’d slow down and things would get better in a few minutes. I was told I could get a nerve ablation or maybe take some meds, but I elected to just listen to my body and take it easy at the onset of symptoms. Well guess what? As a functional matter, my SVT now appears gone. I’ve not done a stress ECG to confirm, but I no longer feel any issues with my heart, no matter how hard I push myself. That’s a big deal.
A couple more major health victories, in the past year I’ve also ceased taking daily doses of both Zoloft and Zyrtec. I’ve suffered from mild anxiety and mild depression for a decade and a half, and it was generally managed by a very small dose of Zoloft. I’d gone on and off for periods over the years, but I would always feel more anxious without it and would gravitate back. But the sense of well-being I got from my new diet and from taking magnesium (a strong recommendation of Dr Berg) gave me the confidence to quit Zoloft cold-turkey. No more Sunday night panics about a stressful week ahead. No worries about things I can’t control. Just a smooth, confident, happy well-being. Much better.
Oh yeah, allergies. I’ve been Allergy Boy forever: Dogs, cats, dust, pollen, and so on — I have a scratch test summary from 20 years ago that effectively says “You are allergic to everything, you should live in a bubble.” I didn’t live in a bubble, but I did avoid pets and took a daily antihistamine. Today? Yeah, I’m not materially allergic to that stuff any more (except maybe cats, but I was REALLY allergic to cats and I honestly haven’t tested it as I learned a long time ago to keep far away from cats — I should test it again now, for science). But we got a dog 6 months ago, and she lives in the house — doesn’t bother me in the least. Yes, I’ll probably take some Zyrtec during the spring pollen season, but that’s nothing — that’s normal people stuff. No more allergies.
It’s all, honestly, been a pretty miraculous cumulative transfomation. I can’t say definitively what changes specifically enabled the separate results of all this, but I have the following hypothesis: eliminating wheat gluten, other grains, and sugars reduced systemic inflammation, healed a gut that was likely damaged from gluten sensitivity and thus enabled better nutrient absorption, which, in combination with supplemented levels of Vit D and Mg and better quality food, put my body in a much better metabolic place.
Along the way I discovered the work of Drs Bredesen and Gundry. I was most struck by the similarities of Bredesen’s protocols and what had worked for my other health issues. I dug through my old blood labs (mostly to see if my cholesterol had been increasing on a low-carb diet — it hadn’t, but my triglycerides went down
) and I re-discovered some special blood work that my doctor had run several years prior. There on the sheet was an ApoE test highlighted in red — I was a 3/4.Honestly, I wasn’t too upset to find out I was 3/4. At that point I’d learned that many ApoE4s don’t get AD and that there were clearly population and lifestyle differences that mattered significantly. And frankly, I felt I was already on a Bredesen-style track, so the requisite lifestyle changes seemed minimal/manageable. Perhaps the biggest unanswered question I have about all this is the role of saturated fats on E4s. I know there’s studies and respected doctors that suggest such is bad for us E4s, but count me as a skeptic in search of better data. If E4 is indeed the oldest allele, it seems to me our genetics would be more wired to be hunter gatherer (i.e., highly saturated fat tolerant, if not loving). And, frankly, I feel awesome on animal protein and fats. So that’s my current bias, but I’m willing to keep learning.
A Google search for for ApoE4 led me here and to the fantastic primer provided by Dr. Stavia. The posts in the forum were thoughtful and science-based and the community is respectful of differences of opinion. The world needs more discourse like this. There are still SO MANY unknowns on genetics and what it’s the “ideal” diet. And it’s my experience that few folks in “normal life” want to do any deep thinking about their diet, and fewer still have any interest in reading and critiquing the medical research (and that includes many doctor friends — they seem to think I’ve lost my mind, precisely one of the conditions I’m trying to avoid). Politics, religion and diet are best avoided conversations, I’ve learned. Thank you to the moderators and contributors for creating this unique discussion space.
As a related aside, my mother was always trendy and health conscious. As a kid growing up in late 70s and 80s she fed my siblings and I cereals with no added sugar, we often ate oatmeal and cream of wheat for breakfast, and all our bread was whole wheat. We were eating all the “healthy” things, except she became very ill. After many years of gastrointestinal issues and anemia, she received a diagnosis of Celiac disease in 1987. In that day, ordering dinner at a restaurant was always special: “Does that entree have wheat in it? I’m allergic to wheat.” The waitstaff assumed we were from Mars. No one was allergic to wheat. The gluten free movement hadn’t been conceived.
So my mother, who’d long suffered with Celiac and had “made-do” with lesser grains like rice and corn for decades took note of my enthusiasm for the low carb diet and similarly decided to give it a go. She lost roughly 50lbs over the next 3 months (!) and got back down to the weight she’d been when she married my father almost 5 decades ago. She’s thrilled with the cosmetic change, but more importantly, the troublesome gastro issues that have plagued her for so many years (even on a wheat free diet) are now gone. Thus, her health too was vastly improved on a no-grain, low carb diet. Maybe N=2.
Back to my father: I spent many years wondering what his risk factors were. He otherwise seemed so healthy and relatively young. His AD was diagnosed as MCI almost 10 years prior to his death (~60yrs). Despite visits with multiple neurologists — the expert view was that dementia was just something you dealt with. With the benefit of my recent learnings, I’ve now identified several risk factors for my dad’s AD: 1) While the man appeared to have good bio markers (except for LDL in the low 200s) he was a carb-o-holic (as are most Americans): Bowl of cereal for breakfast, big sandwich and chips or fries for lunch, pretzels for an afternoon snack, always a starchy vegetable with dinner, and a big late-night bowl of ice cream for dessert. Although he never screened as pre-diabetic, I suspect he was hyperinsulinemic but managed to avoid the weight gain that many would otherwise present with; 2) He started taking a statin for the aforementioned “high” cholesterol in the year or two before his memory issues commenced and continued taking those [unnecessary] drugs until [too] late into his disease — it’s my opinion that these drugs disrupt crucial metabolic pathways and will one day be regarded as a giant failure of medicine; 3) He had a mouth full of mercury fillings — more than a dozen — and as his mental health declined, so did his dental health, requiring rework of fillings and arguably increasing his toxic load. It’s all speculation, but I wish I’d known more 10 years ago — it would have been far more fun chronicling his health victories than recounting his [then unrecognized] risks...
Anyway, if you’ve made it this far, that’s my story. I look forward to joining the discussion. There’s much to learn, but I believe in the direction this group is headed. Best wishes to all in your journeys.
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