Bredesen Protocol Effectiveness
Bredesen Protocol Effectiveness
I belong to a FaceBook Group that is for the Bredesen Protocol. It seems there are a lot of people who do not improve on the protocol. Is this true or is it due to how they implement it? Right now it seems like the best advice out there.
E3/E4
Still working full time at 67
Still working full time at 67
-
buck3Maureen
- Senior Contributor
- Posts: 203
- Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 6:14 pm
Re: Bredesen Protocol Effectiveness
Hi Swanlzs,
I can only speak of my own experience and what I was told. First Dr. B told me that the first thing that happens is that you stop getting worse. I gradually got better over about 6 months. That was three and a half years ago. I went from someone who had started to decline what felt like monthly. I was dx'd as Mild Cognitive Impairment I am now testing as normal. I no longer have episodes of getting lost driving in my area for example. I am playing duplicate bridge at least twice a week and have started to teach myself German. Good Luck to all
I can only speak of my own experience and what I was told. First Dr. B told me that the first thing that happens is that you stop getting worse. I gradually got better over about 6 months. That was three and a half years ago. I went from someone who had started to decline what felt like monthly. I was dx'd as Mild Cognitive Impairment I am now testing as normal. I no longer have episodes of getting lost driving in my area for example. I am playing duplicate bridge at least twice a week and have started to teach myself German. Good Luck to all
Re: Bredesen Protocol Effectiveness
We are not a Bredesen Protocol group, some of us follow him, some don’t. But I do have some personal thoughts why some say the protocol doesn’t work.
First and foremost, the further down the path of damage, the harder it is to turn around, some are just too far gone. This is understandable given the little hope/treatment provided by conventional medicine, so unfortunately many folks wait too long before seeking the Bredesen Protocol as a last resort.
Does the person have true Late Onset Alzheimer’s? There are other conditions which can be misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s: Early Onset Alzheimer’s, Frontotemporal Dementia, Lewy Body Dementia, Parkinson’s Dementia, and other things that aren’t even dementia that cause brain fog. While the protocol might help, I don’t think we know for sure.
Dr Bredesen uses the analogy of 36 holes in the roof. Plugging one hole will not stop a leaky roof, plenty of rain will still come through. There are many dozens of signals that alter the synaptic balance. It takes a number of those issues to stack up before symptoms manifest. In his STEM talk interview from 2016, https://www.ihmc.us/stemtalk/episode-12/ Dr Bredesen said that people with Alzheimer’s express 10-25 abnormalities. That’s a lot to identify and then work on every single day. Are folks truly working all the right issues that are affecting them individually? Or are they doing a few things the others on the facebook page are doing and then saying the protocol doesn’t work?
Are they giving up too soon? It can take a number of months before a big effect is noticed. So much of the damage that ultimately manifests as Alzheimer’s builds up over years, even decades. Each piece of the protocol takes time to fix. A leaky gut does not heal over night. Resolving insulin resistance requires time. Etc.
If not working with a professional, but doing a “home brew” version of the protocol, it’s hard to get all the tests, to understand the results, and to know the best course of action. Not that doing the protocol on one’s own can’t produce positive results, but it’s more of a crap shoot.
If working with a professional (functional doctor, health coach, Bredesen Trained practioner), how good is that professional? No doubt some are better than others. Even if branded as “Bredesen Trained” I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that person to know everything. I know Dr Bredesen has been researching neurodegeneration for decades, it would be impossible to form the same amount of knowledge in, say, a one week training session (I don’t know how long the training takes.)
How good is the patient? First, because no professional knows everything, it’s incumbent on the patient /caregiver to learn as much as possible to understand the treatment, ask good hard questions, and form a partnership with the professional. Secondly, I know many folks who just don’t want to give up their sugar/carbs, or think they can address their sleeping issues with sleeping pills, or think they can solve cognitive issues with MCT oil, etc. The protocol takes genuine dedication and lifestyle changes. In today’s modern society, many of these changes are hard to do, no matter who you are, if cognitively impaired, the challenge is even greater.
What’s the caregiver’s situation? Sometimes the caretaker may want it more than the patient and can become impatient with the protocol. Or maybe the caretaker just takes the patient to the Bredesen Trained doctor appointments but little else and then complains that the protocol doesn’t work. Or maybe the caretaker does everything perfectly: make sure they take their supplements at various times of the day; take them to exercise/yoga classes; make sure they practice good sleep hygiene; feed them an organic, non-GMO, whole food low glycemic, low inflammatory diet; throw away all the possible toxic exposures: personal care products, household cleaners, teflon/aluminum cookware, BPA plastics, plastic wrap/bags; and on and on. And even if the caretaker does all that, if the patient cheats and/or doesn’t care, it may be for naught. Our emotions and thought patterns are huge epigenetic modifiers. So if the patient thinks, “this is doing no good” they may be setting a self-fulfilling prophecy. Dr Candace Pert, a molecular biologist and author of Molecules of Emotion discovered that certain proteins and immune system cytokines facilitate and integrate communication between the brain and body. In other words our bodies reflect our thoughts.
First and foremost, the further down the path of damage, the harder it is to turn around, some are just too far gone. This is understandable given the little hope/treatment provided by conventional medicine, so unfortunately many folks wait too long before seeking the Bredesen Protocol as a last resort.
Does the person have true Late Onset Alzheimer’s? There are other conditions which can be misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s: Early Onset Alzheimer’s, Frontotemporal Dementia, Lewy Body Dementia, Parkinson’s Dementia, and other things that aren’t even dementia that cause brain fog. While the protocol might help, I don’t think we know for sure.
Dr Bredesen uses the analogy of 36 holes in the roof. Plugging one hole will not stop a leaky roof, plenty of rain will still come through. There are many dozens of signals that alter the synaptic balance. It takes a number of those issues to stack up before symptoms manifest. In his STEM talk interview from 2016, https://www.ihmc.us/stemtalk/episode-12/ Dr Bredesen said that people with Alzheimer’s express 10-25 abnormalities. That’s a lot to identify and then work on every single day. Are folks truly working all the right issues that are affecting them individually? Or are they doing a few things the others on the facebook page are doing and then saying the protocol doesn’t work?
Are they giving up too soon? It can take a number of months before a big effect is noticed. So much of the damage that ultimately manifests as Alzheimer’s builds up over years, even decades. Each piece of the protocol takes time to fix. A leaky gut does not heal over night. Resolving insulin resistance requires time. Etc.
If not working with a professional, but doing a “home brew” version of the protocol, it’s hard to get all the tests, to understand the results, and to know the best course of action. Not that doing the protocol on one’s own can’t produce positive results, but it’s more of a crap shoot.
If working with a professional (functional doctor, health coach, Bredesen Trained practioner), how good is that professional? No doubt some are better than others. Even if branded as “Bredesen Trained” I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that person to know everything. I know Dr Bredesen has been researching neurodegeneration for decades, it would be impossible to form the same amount of knowledge in, say, a one week training session (I don’t know how long the training takes.)
How good is the patient? First, because no professional knows everything, it’s incumbent on the patient /caregiver to learn as much as possible to understand the treatment, ask good hard questions, and form a partnership with the professional. Secondly, I know many folks who just don’t want to give up their sugar/carbs, or think they can address their sleeping issues with sleeping pills, or think they can solve cognitive issues with MCT oil, etc. The protocol takes genuine dedication and lifestyle changes. In today’s modern society, many of these changes are hard to do, no matter who you are, if cognitively impaired, the challenge is even greater.
What’s the caregiver’s situation? Sometimes the caretaker may want it more than the patient and can become impatient with the protocol. Or maybe the caretaker just takes the patient to the Bredesen Trained doctor appointments but little else and then complains that the protocol doesn’t work. Or maybe the caretaker does everything perfectly: make sure they take their supplements at various times of the day; take them to exercise/yoga classes; make sure they practice good sleep hygiene; feed them an organic, non-GMO, whole food low glycemic, low inflammatory diet; throw away all the possible toxic exposures: personal care products, household cleaners, teflon/aluminum cookware, BPA plastics, plastic wrap/bags; and on and on. And even if the caretaker does all that, if the patient cheats and/or doesn’t care, it may be for naught. Our emotions and thought patterns are huge epigenetic modifiers. So if the patient thinks, “this is doing no good” they may be setting a self-fulfilling prophecy. Dr Candace Pert, a molecular biologist and author of Molecules of Emotion discovered that certain proteins and immune system cytokines facilitate and integrate communication between the brain and body. In other words our bodies reflect our thoughts.
-Theresa
ApoE 4/4
ApoE 4/4
Re: Bredesen Protocol Effectiveness
I think there are some people, maybe a lot of people, who will not be helped by the protocol. First of all, nothing is 100% effective, no matter how hard someone tries. There are so many unknown variables. So many other genetic factors that are unknown. The research fails us as we are not the majority and it is hard to demonstrate efficacy of an intervention when our risk of disease is so high that it is hard to find and maintain a sample population large enough to demonstrate a benefit (or detriment). It is all kind of a leap of faith because as of yet the science fails us to direct our course. We do the best we can to extrapolate what may help us in our circumstance. We know this is uncharted territory with certainty and we do the best we can, but it is not surprising there are a lot of failures. Perhaps one day we will be one of them.
We are limited in our understanding because the science is not there for us, all we can do is keep trying and hope for the best.
We are limited in our understanding because the science is not there for us, all we can do is keep trying and hope for the best.
