Researchers say the ketones found in coconut oil have slowed the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in some people and may actually prevent it.
This picture is the “clock test” used to monitor Alzheimer progression in someone with the disease, as it relates to cognitive function. The video below is an Alzheimer case improving from one drawing to the next due to coconut oil.
Mary Newport, M.D. who wrote the book on ketones from coconut oil, describes Alzheimer’s Disease as diabetes of the brain: A lack of insulin preventing necessary glucose, the brain’s fuel, from entering its cells and subsequently they die. A large part of coconut oil is metabolised by the liver to form ketones, which then serve a similar function to insulin by transporting energy into cells.
It’s believed the ketone phenomenon could be applied to other cells throughout the body, and people with neurodegenerative diseases that involve decreased glucose uptake in neurons.
They could benefit by taking higher amounts of coconut and/or medium chain triglyceride oil to produce ketones, which may be used by brain cells as energy. These diseases include Alzheimer’s and other dementias, Parkinson’s, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s), multiple sclerosis, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, autism, Down’s syndrome, and Huntington’s chorea. Ketones can also serve as an alternative fuel for other cells in the body that are insulin resistant or cannot transport glucose, and could potentially lessen the effects of diabetes I or II on the brain and other organs.