Awakening From Alzheimer's Series

This is a very helpful and informative FREE web series currently in progress with a new episode each 24 hours. The entire series will be repeated on October 6 through 9. I am one of the speakers. Other featured speakers are Dr. Dale Bredesen, who has a studied protocol for Alzheimer's that has put some people in the earlier stages back to work, Dr. David Perlmutter, a neurologist whose neurosurgeon father suffered from Alzheimer's, and has written excellent books on the microbiome and effect of gluten on Alzheimer's and other disorders.  Dr. Dominic D'Agostino and Dr. Angela Poff, who study many aspect of ketones including cancer, and many more...

Watch as the world’s leading experts in Alzheimer’s and dementia share their most effective breakthroughs and discoveries after decades of grueling research in this groundbreaking series.

Join hundreds of thousands of people and watch the series trailer here ► https://wr374.isrefer.com/go/trailerfba/marynewport

Ketogenic Diet for Cancer - Clinical Trial

The University of Pittsburgh will be conducting a clinical trial of the ketogenic diet to treat cancer.  Here is a link with more information about the trial.

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01716468?term=NCT01716468&rank=1
The concept here is that cancer cells use glucose or the amino acid glutamine as their source of energy but cannot use ketones.  On a ketogenic diet with caloric restriction, there is very little glucose for the cancer cells to feed off of and they die, causing the tumor to shrink.  This could allow for more easily removing the tumor by surgery, or weaken it so that it is more susceptible to chemotherapy, for example.  Small metastases could outright die.

Normal cells can use glucose or ketones as fuel and so, while cancer cells are deprived of their energy source with the ketogenic diet, normal cells can readily switch over to using ketones and are not affected.

This concept is discussed in detail in the book Cancer as a Metabolic Disease by Dr. Thomas Seyfried of Boston College, who has done extensive work studying this in glioblastoma.  Animal studies conducted at University of South Florida by Dr. Dominic D'Agostino and others have shown tremendous promise.  They have been looking at various combinations of ketogenic diet with other treatments, such as ketone esters and 1,3 - butanediol to raise ketone levels, other agents to lower blood sugar, and also use of hyperbaric oxygen.  The results with shrinking cancerous tumors in mice have been quite dramatic for several of these combinations.  A number of cancer patients are now trying this treatment with success as well.

This treatment was featured on The 700 Club recently. The video can be seen here:

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2012/december/starving-cancer-ketogenic-diet-a-key-to-recovery/

Glioblastoma and Ketogenic Diet

"Sunny Lee" recently posted a comment under my previous post. His wife has glioblastoma and I hope he will see this.

There are at least two articles by Dr. Thomas Seyfried and associates on use of the ketogenic diet and caloric restriction to treat glioblastoma. This information was presented at the "Ketogenic Diet for Epilepsy and other Neurologic Disorders" conference we attended in Scotland October 2010. They have found that this type of diet shrinks glioblastoma tumors by as much as 80% in lab animals and they have published a case study of a woman whose tumor virtually disappeared after six weeks on this diet. When she reverted back to a higher carbohydrate diet the tumor returned.

The concept here is that many cancerous tumors can only use glucose as a fuel and cannot use ketones. On a strict ketogenic diet, carbohydrate as well as protein (which can be converted to glucose) are minimized and the diet is high in fat, usually 80% or more of calories as fat. Using coconut oil and/or MCT oil in this type of diet helps maintain constant ketone levels. The brain and other organs can continue to thrive using ketones as fuel, whereas the tumor will shrink due to low availability of glucose. Dr. Seyfried believes radiation may not even be necessary thereby sparing the horrendous side effects of this treatment. In many cases, after the tumor is reduced in size, it could be more readily removed surgically. This could significantly lengthen the person's life.

Dr. Seyfried believes that man other types of cancers would respond to ketogenic diet an dmroe so if there is also caloric restriction.

For anyone who needs help with the ketogenic diet there are two websites to look at: In the USA www.charliefoundation.org and in the UK www.matthewsfriends.org. Both websites were created by parents of children with severe drug resistant epilepsy that responded remarkably to the ketogenic diet and have dieticians available to help. They also have a tool called the ketocalculator to help create ketogenic meals. Also, there is help available with ketogenic diet and ketone research ongoing at the John Hopkins Hospital in the USA.