Dr. Suzanne de la Monte and Dr. Oz Show: Nitrites and nitrates in food may cause Alzheimer's

On April 7, 2011, a former surgeon general and Dr. Suzanne de la Monte appeared on the Dr. Oz Show entitled, "A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Alzheimer's Disease," (can be watched on his website) where she presented her important research. She is the doctor who coined the term "type 3 diabetes" in reference to Alzheimer's disease.She found by accident that giving a nitrosamine compound called streptozotocin, used to deliberately produce diabetes, caused Alzheimer's in her lab mice. She learned that the brain produces its own insulin. She further found that this compound causes production of toxic lipids in the liver that cross the blood brain barrier and damage certain cells such that the brain develops insulin deficiency and insulin resistance. Nitrites and nitrates, found in very many processed foods, are nitrosamine compounds and could very well explain the epidemics of Alzheimer's, autism, diabetes, MS, Parkinson's and ALS, along with other neurodegenerative diseases that have insulin resistance, decreased glucose uptake as part of the process. These diseases have all been on the increase as processed foods have taken over our diets. I will add Dr. de la Monte's references to the website http://www.coconutketones.com/, in the very near future. These nitrites and nitrates are in most bacon, ham and other meats, deli meats, whether pre-packaged or cut at the counter, processed cheeses, cereals, breads, pretzels, crackers, white flour and anything that contains white flour, certain beers, scotch and some other whiskeys. Now something that has caught my attention for newborns and children: I found one of these offending compounds, thiamine mononitrate, in the Carnation infant formulas, some of the jarred baby foods, especially the junior combinations, cereals and other infant prepared foods such as macaroni and cheese. The government requires that certain vitamins such as thiamine are added to enrich foods that have been stripped of these nutrients by processing, most notably white flour and other grains. Thiamine mononitrate is a synthetic source of vitamin B1, rather than a naturally occurring vitamin, and is added to very many foods. Just look at the ingredients labels. Most people eat something with thiamine mononitrate in it for nearly every meal. Naturally occurring Vitamin B1 (thiamine) is usually water soluble, meaning that if you eat an excess of it, you will pass it out in the urine; however, thiamine mononitrate is fat soluble and the excess accumulates in the liver and fat cells. The FDA regulations (21 CFR 184.1878) say that thiamine mononitrate may be used in food "with no limitation other than good manufacturing practice" and that it "may be used in infant formula". These compounds could slowly kill off insulin producing cells in the brain and other organs, and when enough cells have been effected symptoms will begin to emerge. This could explain the classic development of autism in children at 1 1/2 to 2 years of age who were previously thought to be normal. And in Alzheimers' it is believed that the disease process begins at least 10-20 years before symptoms appear. Animal studies need to be done to determine if thiamine mononitrate produces Alzheimer's disease, autism, type 2 diabetes and the other diseases mentioned above. In the meantime, it would behoove us to read the labels and eliminate anything from the diet that includes nitrosamines, nitrites, nitrates; look for these words alone or in combination with other words, such as thiamine mononitrate. What is left for us to eat? Stay away from packaged and other processed foods and eat whole foods: organic whenever possible, vegetables, fruits, eggs, dairy, goat milk and cheeses, nuts, legumes, whole grains (without added nitrates) grass fed beef, free range chicken, "natural" deli meats that have nothing added (they can be frozen to prolong use). I thought we were adhering very closely to a whole food diet until learning that many of the foods we were eating, such as deli meats and some "whole grain" breads and cereals, contain nitrites or nitrates. this could explain some of the deterioration we have seen in spite of everything else we are doing. Most important to our newest generation, mothers can avoid this problem by breastfeeding their babies for as long as possible. Nitrites and nitrates are just one group of compounds we need to worry about for our newborns and toddlers. Also, consuming foods with medium chain fatty acids, such as coconut oil and MCT oil, can at least partly bypass the problem of insulin resistance by providing an alternative fuel to glucose for brain cells. And how could this possibly be related to the herpes simplex issue that I have written about? I found a 1977 article from the lab of Dr. George Cahill, Jr. ("Studies of Streptozotocin-induced insulitis and diabetes", Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 74(6): 2485-2489, June 1977), in which he used streptozotocin to produce diabetes in mice by destroying the beta cells of the pancreas-- an unexpected finding was an increased production of a type C virus in the beta cells that survived. Could it be that the virus is involved as part of the process that destroys the cell after exposure to nitrosamines, or is an opportunistic infection that takes over the damaged cells, which further complicates the Alzheimer’s disease process? The bottom line is to avoid any foods that contain nitrites or nitrates or any ingredient in which one of the words appears.

More on herpes simplex virus and Alzheimer's

On a previous post, I discussed the research conducted by Dr. Ruth Itzhaki in England providing very strong evidence that recurrent infection with herpes simplex in the brain may be the cause of Alzheimer's in certain people, those who are ApoeE4+. Please look back for the details.

Nearly all of us acquire herpes simplex virus at some point and then carry it. When we are young most of us can apparently control these infections more so than when we age. Some people, though, have recurrent outbreaks, usually as fever blisters, or for some, genital lesions. Some people with active virus show no outward symptoms at all. Reactivation of the virus produces inflammation in the brain. Most of the episodes are mild, but over time the effects could be cumulative. An infection such as this could explain why Alzheimer's begins in certain parts of the brain and eventually spreads to other areas. It could also explain the fluctuations that we often see in symptoms - when the virus is latent the person may do a little better, when there is a reactivation and greater inflammation, the person may get worse, a sort of two steps forward (worsening) and one step back (improvement) kind of process.

Steve has a long time history of lengthy outbreaks of fever blisters on his mouth, and had an outbreak around his eye and was quite sick at age 29. I strongly believe that, at least in his case, herpes simplex may be the cause of his Alzheimer's disease and this particularly bad episode could explain why he became symptomatic so early.

Now another group led by Dr. Nancy Sawtell at Cincinnati Children's Medical Center is providing more proof that herpes simplex may be the culprit for some people. She was inspired to do this work after Dr. Ruth Itzhaki visited her lab a few years ago. They have been working with mice in which the Apoe4 allele has been "knocked in" and infected them with the virus. They found that a lot more virus got into the brains of the Apoe4 mice than the non-Apoe4 mice. They are now trying to learn what makes some people more susceptible to the virus. She has found that the viral protein VP 16 is essential in triggering the virus's reactivation. So now they are trying to find substances that may inhibit VP 16 and therefore keep the virus from reactivating.

Dr. Itzhaki, in the meantime, is having difficulty getting funding for continuing her vital research. One skeptic on a review board can keep the board from approving a grant. I believe she and Dr. Sawtell are on the right path - their work needs to continue.

Bad news for Eli Lilly Drug Trial/ More thought about beta-amyloid and infection

The Eli Lilly drug that has been in phase III trials has been stopped due to increased risk of skin cancer and, even worse, an acceleration of deterioration of AD compared to the placebo, the opposite of what was hoped for. This is yet another sad turn of events. Steve was in this study but we stopped in the winter due to several side effects; I believe he was on the actual drug for only about a month at that point. His hair started to grow out a very light gold color (one of the known effects that didn't bother us)and when we stopped it, the darker hair grew in again. He had a half inch white stripe work its way out to the tips of his hair! I no longer have any regrets that we pulled him out of the study.

I believe the worsening of AD in people who were on this drug supports infection as at least one important cause of Alzheimer's disease. One group has found that beta-amyloid kills microbes; they tested a number of bacteria, all of which were killed by beta-amyloid, and this group is now looking at viruses, such as herpes simplex, and other microbes (Soscia "The Alzheimer’s Disease-Associated Amyloid b-Protein Isan Antimicrobial Peptide" PLOS March 2010,Volume 5, Issue 3, e9505: www.plosone.org). If a drug is used to suppress the production of beta-amyloid and it normally is part of the brain's defense against infection, then infection could spread more readily and potentially cause more extensive damage to brain tissue. Beta-amyloid may be more prevalent in people with AD because they have chronic, recurrent infections that are provoking this response. So the increase in amyloid may be the aftermath, no the cause of, the process that does cause AD.

Drs. Ruth Itzhaki and Mark Wozniak in the UK have done extensive work looking at the herpes simplex virus as a cause of AD (they have numerous papers on this from 2005 through 2009.) This virus causes fever blisters, can cause shingles (along with the chickenpox virus, a close relative), and also genital herpes. Herpes simplex lives within nerves and the nerves to the face around the mouth orignate deep in the brain. Most people carry this and other viruses by the time they reach old age, but they have found that people who are ApoE4+ are particularly likely to suffer recurrent episodes of fever blisters. these researchers have found this virus within about 90% of the beta-amyloid plaques in the autopsied brains they have looked at, which strongly suggests that beta-amyloid is there to defend the brain against it. They have also found in animals that the herpes virus increases production of beta-amyloid and also induces AD-like tau phosphorylation (production of tangles). They want to study whether suppression of herpes virus with anti-viral medication would be beneficial to people with AD, but have had trouble getting funding for this.

Acyclovir, for example, is taken daily orally by many people to suppress the genital variety of herpes simplex, including woman who are pregnant, to try to prevent spread of the nfection to the newborn. Perhaps such a treatment could decrease the number and severity of outbreaks in the brain as well. Lysine (available OTC) is used to suppress herpes infections and the lauric acid (C:12) and capric acid (C:10)found in coconut oil kill herpes family of viruses by dissolving the lipid capsule around the virus.

It could also be that, even though beta-amyloid is there to fight infection, it causes some of the damage as well; if you think about it, whenever there is inflammation, part of the body's defensive reaction to infection, there can be damage/scarring to the nearby tissue from the inflammation. The infectious agent is the cause of the whole process, but the body's defenses can also cause some collateral damage, in order to preserve the whole person.

I hope work by Itzhaki and others studying infection will be taken more seriously so that they can get the funding they need.