What is Alzheimer’s Disease?
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, affecting memory, thinking and behavior. It accounts for 60-80% of all dementia cases, and is a progressive disease, slowly worsening over time. Symptoms eventually grow severe enough to interfere with daily tasks and memories.
While it is not uncommon for many aging individuals to experience varying degrees of memory loss, Alzheimer’s disease is not a part of the natural aging process. Alzheimer’s disease is more than just memory loss due to age. It can also affect the ability to carry on a conversation, respond to the environment, and it can eventually lead to death.
Causes and Risk Factors of Alzheimer’s Disease
While the exact causes of Alzheimer’s disease are not fully understood, we do know that it has to do with brain proteins failing to function properly, disrupting brain cell function, and triggering a series of toxic events. This causes damage to neurons, making them lose connections to one another and eventually dying.
Alzheimer’s disease is believed to be connected to a combination of genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors. Two proteins are thought to play a pivotal role in the development of Alzheimer’s.
Plaques:
When these fragments cluster together, they have a toxic effect on neurons and disrupt cell-to-cell communication. These clusters also cause larger deposits to form, called plaques.
Tangles:
Tau proteins are essential in supporting the neurons and transporting nutrients. In patients with Alzheimer’s disease, tau proteins change shape and organize themselves into tangles, which disrupt normal transport and are toxic to cells.
Traditional Treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease
There is no present cure for Alzheimer’s, but some medical interventions may help with memory symptoms or other cognitive changes. Certain drugs can help boost cell-to-cell communication, temporarily lessening the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Unfortunately, none of these drugs or current therapies work long-term.
How Ketosis Treats Alzheimer’s Disease
Ketosis is a natural metabolic state that allows your body to burn fat for fuel. During ketosis, your body produces ketones from your fat stores, which can be used for energy when there are no more carbohydrates left to burn. Although you always produce a small amount of ketones, you can dramatically increase your ketones (and the fat you burn) by reducing the calories you eat, fasting, reducing carbohydrates in your diet, or increasing your activity with exercise.
When practiced regularly, entering ketosis has countless benefits, including weight loss, decreased inflammation, and improved mental clarity. Regularly maintaining a state of ketosis activates autophagy and self-healing, which is thought to decrease plaques and prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Ketosis and Autophagy:
Intermittent fasting and ketogenic diets are two of the most effective ways to activate autophagy through ketosis. Your body enters ketosis when it switches fuel sources from glucose to fat. The Biosense Breath Ketone Monitor can track your body’s metabolic state and let you know where you are in ketosis.
If you are just beginning a ketosis health plan, it is essential to consider the following general guidelines for interpreting your results using Biosense. It is not uncommon to remain in the 0-3 range for the first few days while your glycogen stores are depleted.
Latest Research
Research on Alzheimer’s treatment is ongoing. Stay up-to-date on the latest studies that test how ketosis and autophagy may affect Alzheimer’s disease.
