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Alzheimer's study shows ketone bodies help clear misfolded proteins
- im_so_dumb 2y agoCan someone with knowledge in the field explain it?
- itsthecourier 2y agofasting prevents Alzheimer's
- Turskarama 2y agoNotably in both model animals (nematode worms and mice) they specifically fed them ketone esters, meaning that if the mechanism also works in humans (which seems likely) then this could be used as a drug if people don't want to commit to fasting or keto diets.
- jftuga 2y ago[flagged]
- drooby 2y agoWould we potentially expect lower rates of Alzheimer's among Muslims then?
- ashconnor 2y agoThis was my initial thought. Is the month of Ramadan enough have an effect on Alzheimer's or is more frequent fasting required?
- Cyph0n 2y agoThere is a (relatively small) subset of Muslims that fast every Monday and Thursday, in addition to fasting the month of Ramadan. Perhaps that’s a better population sample to study?
- jader201 2y agoAnd how much fasting? Is intermittent enough? 12 hours? 18 hours? Or do we need frequent (e.g. weekly or 2-3 times weekly) 24-hour fasting?
- tdpvb 2y ago14 hours every day is considered great (don't eat late, skip breakfast), a solid 48 hour fast every month or so is also great. Small human studies, for example, have measured 5x to 10x increases in HGH after 48 to 120 hr fasts respectively. Free steroids, basically; the body repairing itself while not being drowned in food all day every day. Telomeres too!
- Mountain_Skies 2y agoFasting during Ramadan is only during the daylight hours, so hardly even enough to be considered intermittent fasting.
- noleary 2y agoAm just a hobbyist with some personal investment in AD, but the genetic basis for Alzheimer's seems like too strong a confounding factor to be looking for behavioral differences between ethnic/religious groups IMO. There does seem to be some kind of link between GLP-1s and Alzheimers: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11242057/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11242057/ Some people also seem to like nicotine-related hypotheses: https://discoveries.vanderbilthealth.com/2019/09/nicotine-to-treat-alzheimers-disease/ https://discoveries.vanderbilthealth.com/2019/09/nicotine-to... and hypotheses with other kinds of drugs that have appetite suppressant characteristics: https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/93/10/1080 https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/93/10/1080 The whole field is kind of a gigantic mess these days, though. Seems like everyone and their cousin has a pet theory.
- bluSCALE4 2y agoI don't think daily fasting heals the body. I believe it has to be multi-day. The Fasting Cure by Upton Sinclair was a nice introduction to the topic for me.
- declan_roberts 2y agoYou have to fast for a long time before your body starts fueling you from ketones.
- hollerith 2y agoI don't think that is true. Some expert (Dale Bredesen maybe) said somewhere that a healthy person lacking the bad habit of eating late in the evening will tend to start producing and burning ketones during sleep every night. Also, many experts are saying that if your body cannot burn fats and ketones, which is unhealthy, you can get it start being able to again by restricting carbs for a while.
- tdpvb 2y agoYes there's a lot of hormonal / circadian rhythm effects at play in the evening and early morning. Additionally, you fast while you sleep, so extending that period before and after (not eating late, plus skipping breakfast) helps; 14 hours is a solid fasting amount if you keep it up every day.
- dqh 2y agoYou don’t need to fast, you just need to stop eating carbs.
- declan_roberts 2y agoOwn a strict ketogenic diet right. Feeling absolutely great. Gotta cut down before the Christmas fattening.
- troyvit 2y agoIf you've eaten at even a moderately good memory care center you'd expect lower rates from Alzheimer's patients too. Blech.
- aussieguy1234 2y agoNot an expert, but two differences that most Muslims have which non Muslims don't: - They don't drink alcohol - They fast every year No idea if these help or not.
- mahkeiro 2y agoThey are only doing intermittent fasting (from sunrise to sunset), and a lot of them binge eat as soon as the sun is set. Not sure if this can be used as a baseline for a study.
- kleton 2y agoThe usual Ramadan regimen for Muslims involves carbo-loading with dates and sugars in the morning, so it is unlikely to get to ketosis by iftar.
- mschuster91 2y agoDepends, I'd say. The research fraud around amyloids aside, there is still a strong chance that Alzheimer has a genetic link, and in that case you might have to differentiate between Arabic, African, Asian and Western Muslims first. Only if you find similarities in lower Alzheimer rates among all of them, you can draw a conclusion pointing to something in Muslim culture helping to reduce Alzheimer rates (say, the yearly fasting acting like keto diet, or not eating pork, or not drinking alcohol/consuming other drugs), but if it is only found in specific heritages I'd assume a genetic component... or environmental factors similar to higher natural lithium content in the water leading to lower suicide mortality [1]. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32716281/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32716281/
- jader201 2y agoAs someone with Alzheimer's being quite prevalent on my dad's side [1], I pay attention to pretty much any HN thread on Alzheimer's. But most of them end up not being super conclusive/actionable. But also ack that Alzheimer's research has been going on for decades, and progress is slow. Still, I look for glimmers of hope anytime I see one reach the front page. If fasting has even a chance at reducing the risks, would love to know more about the duration/frequency that is needed to be beneficial. [1] All four of my dad's aunts + grandmother ended up with it, but none of the males to my knowledge, and my dad died at 76 having never been diagnosed with it. The males, however, died relatively young, so it's unknown whether they would've ended up with it.
- 14 2y agoAs a health care worker at least let me assure you the ones who suffer from Alzheimer's in my honest opinion really have no self awareness of what they are going through. They are just in their own little world and slowly moving through life without much insight as to what they are doing. It is heartbreaking for the family and those who care, but for the individual it is not a painful existence.
- pmarreck 2y agosounds an awful lot just like people on the spectrum (note: that includes me)
- taskforcegemini 2y agoimho everyone is on the spectrum, it's just a question of where (and possibly when)
- nothrabannosir 2y agoThank you for your expert insight though I must confess--if this was meant to be reassuring it has the exact opposite effect... A disease that makes only your family suffer, wow. I thought cancer was bad.
- moh_maya 2y agoFrom the article: “Early human studies of ketogenic compounds have improved cognitive scores in patients with mild to moderate AD.” While it requires behaviour changes (for the diet), this is something that's relatively easy to test & validate, and with a good sample size. Edit: To elaborate -- getting on a keto diet results in production of ketone bodies; the keto diet is (IMO) hard to adhere to, but not impossible. And if it is ketone bodies in the brain that are important, iirc, you can supplement the body with exogenous ketones (which the article alludes to, and the authors appear to be planning to test) which could potentially help. If there's a measurable, significant effect with just consumption of exogenous ketones without even having to enter ketosis via diet- wow!
- delichon 2y agoI'm all keto / very low carb for 4 plus years. I have been on dozens of different diets, not an exaggeration. Other than the eat whatever I want diet this has been by far the easiest for me to maintain long term. For me eating just a little bread is an insurmountable goal, but eating none I can do. I wouldn't have always traded carbs for a few extra years of cognitive function, but post addiction it feels like a good deal, if I can still get it.
- deadbabe 2y agoIMO hardcore fasting just to avoid certain diseases feels somewhat analogous to chemotherapy to battle cancer. Sometimes it works, but at what cost?
- binary132 2y agoFWIW, you don’t really have to fast to be in ketosis. You just need to get very few of your daily calories from carb intake.
- jjmarr 2y agoCould this have an impact on other prion diseases like variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob (mad cow) disease?
- declan_roberts 2y agoAs someone currently on a strict ketogenic diet (gotta cut and get ready for the Christmas fattening) I can say ketones are something else in the brain. I sat at my desk today for 6 hours straight without even getting so much as a drink of water. I didn't even think about eating. Just in the zone and hyper focused. A very weird and pleasant experience, that alas can't be sustained forever given how delicious carbs are.
- epsilonic 2y agoThis is something I've been experiencing as well, and I just started exogenous Ketone supplementation three days ago.
- IAmGraydon 2y agoExogenous ketone supplementation? Are you drinking acetone or something?
- epsilonic 2y agoNot quite. I've been taking Beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) salts in powder form, mixed with water. Here is some interesting literature discussing its benefits as a metabolic regulator of proteostasis in aged and Alzheimer-diseased brains: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37461525/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37461525/ (same research article referenced in the post link) I personally take it to manage brain fog due to long-Covid.
- debacle 2y agoThis is why I come to HN.
- declan_roberts 2y agoHave you tried a ketogenic diet? Ketones from your own fat cells for free.
- mogashe 2y ago
- slifin 2y agoThis doesn't surprise me, I'm long term carnivore and you only need to pay attention to your skin improvements when switching from carbs to fats Mental health is harder to self diagnose, that diagnosis is better coming from someone close to you, but you should notice changes over time My friends also think Keto is unsustainable, the way I think it about it is sugar/carbs are more addictive than alcohol, pay attention to the language use "sugar rush" "sugar crash" this is how we talk about addictive drugs not food You wouldn't tell an addict to have drinks in moderation, once you're out of the woods and stable into ketosis then "normal" foods test like chemicals and hyper sweet to the point of being unpalatable
- tpoacher 2y agoCan't remember if this was on HN previously or I saw it somewhere else ... but a few weeks back there was a research PR article about some researchers feeding mice a high sugar/far diet and letting them solve a swimming task, and found that the high sugar/fat diet mice performed worse, and attributed this to memory / cognitive degradation, a la Alzheimers. They therefore concluded that Alzheimers is effectively "diabetes of the brain" (i.e. with or without concomitant diabetes 'of the body'.) So this news is interesting, since it both supports the "diabetes of the brain" interpretation, as well as debunking it at the same time (i.e. it's not the high-sugar, but the lack of ketones which you only get when you avoid sugar?). I wonder if this subtle distinction has any practical importance. E.g., perhaps you don't need to avoid sweets more generally as a diabetic would have to, as long as you have enough days where you produce ketone bodies (e.g. through intermittent fasting?). Equally, one has to wonder if the whole lack of ketones bad might be a mechanism for diabetes itself ... (maybe this is an actual hypothesis being researched? I haven't done the research to have an educated answer to this).
- wedgel 2y agoIt's a horrible way to go. As an early teen my grandma went through it. We would find her hiding from her abusive ex husband who had been dead for forty years. She would call the house at 3am, I was told to not answer the phone and of I did answer to hang up on her nectar she would talk at great length about how she could feel the worms eating her skin in her grave. It was really awful to watch as a kid and I'm sure it was much worse for her. She didn't do well in a home after that and would attack the nursing staff negate she didn't know who they were. That shit of horrifying. I think if nothing else, Alzheimers is one hell of a great reason for assisted suicide.