William Curtis talks about his efforts to understand how ketones have helped with his Parkinson’s symptoms.  He developed Parkinson’s symptoms at the age of 45 in the year 2000 and has been instrumental in collaborating with NIH researcher Richard Veech in Washington DC..
What follows are the questions I ask Bill during the interview today on Parkinsons Recovery Radio.
How did Parkinson’s affect your life?
What led you to experiment with ketosis?
After the ketogenic exercise, what did you do to find out more about how ketosis could help your Parkinson’s symptoms?
What is the purpose of fasting?
What is the purpose of the morning fat and coffee mixture?
What happens when you eat too much carbohydrate?
What happens when you eat too much protein?
Can exercise take you out of ketosis?
Can stress take you out of ketosis?
What supplements do you take to support ketosis?
What do you think is causing the improvement in symptoms?
Have you been able to cut back on the Parkinson’s medications?
What do you think is going on as far as the disease progression you personally are experiencing?
Where do you think the use of ketosis in Parkinson’s is going?
Can Parkinson’s disease be prevented or even reversed? Current medical treatments have been able to ease the symptoms, but none can even come close to being called a cure. While a complete cure may not be available at this time, there is a treatment that can slow down, stop, and even reverse many of the symptoms of the disease. This new treatment doesn’t rely on drugs, surgery, or any medical treatment. It is based on diet. The key element of this diet is coconut—more specifically, coconut oil. A coconut oil based diet has proven to be highly effective in stopping and reversing a number of neurodegenerative conditions including epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, ALS, and Parkinson’s.
My guest Dr. Mary Newport, MD, author of Alzheimers, What if There was a Cure?, discusses the potential support that coconut oil and MCT oil can provide for persons who currently experience symptoms of Parkinsons, especially those involving dementia.
Plaques and tangles are known to be hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, but another important aspect of Alzheimer’s is decreased glucose uptake into cells due to decreased production of insulin and resistance to insulin.
In 1967 it was first reported that the brain can use ketone bodies or ketones as an alternative fuel to glucose; this normally occurs during starvation for more than 48 hours or when adhering to a strict ketogenic diet, one that is high in fat and low in carbohydrate and protein.
Levels of ketones produced from consuming MCT oil have been shown to produce cognitive improvement in nearly half of people with Alzheimer’s and mild cognitive impairment after one dose and also after three months of treatment. Coconut oil contains about 60% of medium chain fatty acids and is the richest natural source, and MCT oil is extracted from coconut oil or palm kernel oil and is 100% medium chain fatty acids.
Glucose PET scans in persons with Parkinson’s disease and certain other neurodegenerative diseases also show decreased glucose uptake in certain parts of the brain. In addition, many people with Parkinson’s will go on to develop Alzheimer’s type dementia, therefore this dietary intervention could be beneficial both to treat Parkinson’s and also to prevent and treat the related dementia.