You can read more about this webinar on DAI’s latest blog here…
Healing Story of the Month: August 2017
Thanks to a new friend Peter S, for sending me this blog from a website called The Radical Remission Project. It is yet another example of how lifestyle changes can and do reverse or at least slow down dementia.
Despite carrying the Alzheimber’s gene, “DKF” experienced a radical remission from early-onset cognitive decline by making a set of lifestyle changes recommended by UCLA researcher Dr. Dale Bredesen. These changes included radically changing her diet, taking a personalized array of supplements, and changing her exercise and sleep routines. She is one of hundreds of people who have successfully reversed their Alzheimer’s or dementia by following Dr. Bredesen’s protocol. Here is her story in her own words…
She goes on to say:
Learning I was ApoE4 terrified me. I wasn’t sure where to turn, but I wanted help. That was when a family member sent me Dr. Bredesen’s paper “Reversing Alzheimer’s”, and from there everything changed. I started to follow Dr. Bredesen’s protocol, which includes:
- Exercise: 5-6 days per week for 30-60 minutes each day (if 30 minutes, then must be vigorous)
- Sleep 7-8 Hours (ideally 8), using melatonin and L-Tryptophan if night awakening.
- Fast (autophagy): 13-15 hours per day (between dinner and breakfast), including at least 2-3 hours before bed.
- Diet: I am following the MIND diet (which is similar to Dr. Bredesen’s version of the diet):
- No processed foods
- Nothing “white”: white flour, white sugars etc. (simple carbohydrates)…just whole grains
- Leafy grains daily
- Other vegetables daily
- Berries (esp. blueberries)
- Coffee daily (but stay consistent with the amount)
- Nuts and seeds daily
- Coconut oil/MCT oil daily (I put it in my coffee)
- Olive oil daily
- Avocados regularly
- 1 glass of wine per day, red or white
- Dark chocolate is ok
- Limited red meat
- Fish/poultry is ok – fish at least once per week
- Limit/eliminate fast foods, pastries, sweets, cheese, butter and cream
5. Personalized supplements (based on his general recommendations and my own blood work)
6. Stress reduction: meditation, socializing, minimizing stress as much as possible
7. Intellectual engagement/learning etc. (e.g., I am re-learning a language, writing etc.)
I had absolutely no expectation of experiencing improvements, because I had not yet connected the dots about my cognitive changes. As a result, when the changes came (which they did with a vengeance), I was completely taken by surprise.
Dr Dave speaks at a DAI webinar very soon re stabilising and reversing dementia…
This is what Dr Dave Jenkins was doing, before he decided preventing, reversing or stabilising dementia was his priority as a medical doctor… If you haven’t already registered for the DAI Webinar, there is plenty of time to do so.
DAI Webinar: “Preventing, stabilizing and reversing early Alzheimer’s”
Please consider registering for DAI’s “A Meeting of The Minds” Webinar with guest speaker Dr David Jenkins, on “Preventing, stabilizing and reversing early Alzheimer’s*”
- July 26, 2017 – 5:00 PM (EDT) New York USA
- July 27, 2017 – 7.00 AM Sydney (AEST) Australia
Please note: This event is set in a number of time zones, and has been set up using Sydney, AU – but it is one event for everyone being held on Wednesday, July 26, 2017 (USA/UK/EU) and Thursday, July 27, 2017 (AU/NZ/JP).
About Dave:
Dr Dave Jenkins qualified from Otago University Medical School in New Zealand in 1982. His career includes general practice, senior lectureships at Auckland medical school, executive director for education for an Asian corporate health project, and founding Humanitarian NGO SurfAid and currently is a functional medicine practitioner specializing in stabilisation and reversal of cognitive decline.
Dave has won many awards including the prestigious social entrepreneur award the Rainer Arnold Fellowship and in 2007 and SurfAid was chosen from over 49,000 NGOs was voted “one of the best Non Government Organizations in the world” in 2007 by the World Association of NGOs winning their humanitarian award for that year.
His main work and mission is to dramatically improve the screening, prevention and treatment for all people with cognitive decline in Australasia and beyond. He has trained with Professor Dale Bredesen who has documented reversal in cognitive decline and early Alzheimer’s in over 230 cases using a multifaceted metabolic enhancement program. Dave is now documenting the first reversals of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s in Australasia. Dave is planning to collaborate with Australian scientists and contribute to a multisite trial of “The Bredesen Protocol” in 2017.
About the Webinar:
Learning objectives
- 1. Successful case studies will demonstrate the programmatic components of reversing cognitive decline using the Bredesen Protocols
- 2. Learn the current challenges of applying the Bredesen Protocols in Australasia and details of the future controlled trials
Take Home Message
Using a comprehensive and highly personalised Functional Medicine approach Professor Dale Bredesen has reversed over 230 cases of cognitive decline including MCI and early and moderate Alzheimer’s at a 88% success rate including improvements in symptoms, cognitive scores and hippocampal volumes. Seventy five percent of those that had to leave work went back to work. Very early signs in Australasia are also confirming that cognitive decline can be prevented, stabilised and reversed using the Bredesen Protocols.
Register here…
Please note: * I think the word Alzheimer’s rather than dementia has been used in the title of Dave’s presentation, as the research being done by Dale Bredesen and the protocol being discussed is based on patients with MCI or dementia of the Alzheimer’s type. It does not mean people with other types of dementia should not attend, or that the protocol won’t work for us.
A dose of reality from David Kramer
Written on Facebook by an online friend, David Kramer, a retired medical doctor and online friend, I felt his comment, and the article he refers us to is of importance on my blog here. David says”
Help yourself to a free dose of reality! In spite of the misleading headline, the story is spot on. The best evidence is that there is NO cure, NO effective treatment, and NO significantly effective prevention. In spite of the conclusions, there is hope for the future and the study provides research recommendations.
Here is the link for the summary from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. https://www.nap.edu/…/Highlights062217CognitiveImpairment.p…I’m not a pessimist; I’m a realist. The bullshit about a cure by 2025 is exactly that, bullshit.
I’m not giving up. I have hope for more good years with my Alzheimer’s disease. I’m all for more quality research. I’m not impressed with misleading headlines about promising studies with mice. Call me back when those treatments are in phase 3 trials!
For me, it’s all about QUALITY of life, not quantity of life. I live, laugh, and love!
I do not have hypertension. I exercise regularly. I do the recommended cognitive exercises (even though the evidence for them is weak).So stop fretting over the latest snake oil lies (yes, I’m including the total garbage about coconut oil), get moving, learn new things, and…Stay tuned!
You can read the article David referee to in full by clicking on the title, What Can Prevent Alzheimer’s? Here’s What the Evidence Shows, and I’m almost sure David would agree, it is worth working towards being healthy and happy in every way that is possible within your own personal preferences or circumstances.
Personally, I do have hope for Dale Bredesen’s research, but in the meantime, thank you David for your constant encouragement to live beyond dementia.
A few updates on the Bredesen protocol
I’ve been absent from blogging here or on most of my other personal sites this year, due to stress and health issues, but feel like I might be on the comeback! Anyway, until I remember to follow up with whoever it was who offered to help me turn my three blogs into one, I’m posting a few links to a few positive articles on Professor Dale Bredesen’s protocol here.
Some of you will think it is misleading to publish what you may see as ‘false hope’, others will see this as fresh new hope. I’m in the latter of those baskets, and honestly believe it is the ONLY hope on the horizon for most people with either MCI or in the very early progressions of most of the diagnosed dementias. Some hope is better than no hope, which is how I’ve been feeling about research for a cure or as disease modifying drug or drugs for far too long, and also why I’ve fought so hard globally to get a balance in research into risk reduction and care, and not only a cure.
On another note of good news, on July 25(UK>USA)/26 (AU), DAI is hosting its monthly “A Meeting Of The Minds” Webinar with guest speaker, Dr Dave Jenkins, who is a medical doctor accredited in the Bredesen Protocol in Australia and New Zealand. Keep your eyes open for the announcement, as registrations for this event will be live soon .
Bredesen Protocol
Dr. Dale Bredesen, of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and UCLA’s Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research, is a scientist who has been studying Alzheimer’s disease for 30 years and has come up with a way to reverse it in its early stages. His initial protocol involved 25 different interventions which individually don’t make a big difference, but together can provide powerful synergistic benefits.
Each intervention is tweaked over time by using blood tests, body measurements, imaging and similar guides to measure its effect. In his initial paper, nine out of ten patients reversed their memory problems and returned to their former healthy level of functioning. The one who didn’t show improvement was past the early stages of Alzheimer’s.
Dr. Bredesen has since expanded the protocol and number of patients seen. He is in the process of making it available to the wider public with the help of doctors certified in the protocol through MPI Cognition.
Do follow the link to read the full article, in particular the links to the things you can do at home, that may slow the progression of dementia, or even prevent it
Hope on the horizon
Dr Dale Bredesen says we need to measure our brain-health biomarkers in the same way we do cholesterol and blood pressure. His lifestyle programme to reverse memory decline could help revolutionise treatment for dementia, a disease he describes as an “emergency”.
Read the full article and the testimonial here…
The Bredesen Protocol™ Announces Progress in Reversal of Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer’s Disease
The inventor and developer of the original MEND protocol (metabolic enhancement for neurodegeneration), Dr. Dale Bredesen, has developed a more advanced and effective protocol, dubbed ReCODE™ for Reversal of Cognitive Decline. The MEND protocol was the first to result in the reversal of cognitive decline in patients with pre-Alzheimer’s conditions and early Alzheimer’s disease, as published in the journal Aging in 2014 by Dr. Bredesen.
“These new features greatly enhance our ability to determine the underlying causes of cognitive decline, and improve the accuracy of information, which helps our trained physicians reverse cognitive decline”
Read the full article on Business Wire here, and a summary here…
And finally, one more article worth reviewing;
“…
Reversing cognitive decline: one testimonial
One day, I will join up the dots, and turn my three blogs into one. However, today is still not that day! Anyway, for those who follow me here, but may not follow me on Creating Life with Words: Inspiration, love and truth, I’ve realised I posted an important blog for that site, as follows.
Professor Dale Bredesen has been doing research into reversal of cognitive decline, which I have bene following now for more than three years. Frankly, as a person diagnosed with dementia, and who has self prescribed a pathway very similar to this protocol, I am incredibly excited about it, and intend to become even more committed to it soon, by having all the testing suggested and following the protocol more precisely.
I’m struggling though, to understand why the world is not jumping up and down with excitement, as if we were reversing cancer, perhaps even curing it, the media frenzy would be incredible. The public would be very interested too I would think? Yet, this research has not been getting a lot of press, and it has even been given some negative publicity. My occasional cynical self, wonders of course, is ‘Big Pharma’ behind that? Reversing dementia or MCI, without drugs, is almost unthinkable!
Dr Dave Jenkins is working with patients in Australia and New Zealand, and today, I want to highlight his first testimonial (with permission) on my website. Reversing some types of dementia, it seems, is possible. People once also thought the earth was flat! Do watch this testimonial, it really is the beginning of change, and importantly, for those of us already diagnosed, REAL HOPE.
More on reversing cognitive decline
I’ve not added many blogs here or on my other websites for some time, but as I am in Kyoto currently, soon to listen to discussions about research and other matters related to all types of dementia, I am reminded of what I still believe to be the most exciting research in the world, and am wondering why Professor Dale Bredesen is not an invited key note speaker.
His first paper Reversal of cognitive decline: A novel therapeutic program can be accessed here. I’ve also written about Dale’s work before.
Maria Shriver interviews Professor Dale Bredesen last year; watch it here…
On another website called The Grow Young Project, you can listen to a podcast about it. The site introduces the podcast as follows:
PROF DALE BREDESEN MD: ON REVERSING COGNITIVE DECLINE
Today I am truly delighted to be bringing you my current research hero. Dale Bredesen MD is an internationally recognized expert in the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. He is founding president and current CEO of the world renowned Buck Institute for Agingas well as Augustus Rose Professor of Neurology he is Director of Neurodegenerative Disease Research at the David Geffen School of Medicine UCLA … phew!
I was recently shown an incredible study Dale had published in 2014 in the Journal Impact Aging in which he demonstrated a hugely significant reversal of the symptoms of cognitive decline and early stage Alzheimers in his research subjects, which in itself is eyebrow raising enough but what really caught the worlds attention is that most of this was created by targeted lifestyle changes. Exactly the processes we talk about here at The Grow Young Project. It was a small cohort but a stunningly important study nonetheless and one that he is currently planning to roll out to a larger more comprehensive one in the very near future.
In this podcast you can hear Dale discuss exactly what this might mean for all of our futures, bearing in mind (while it’s still all here that is!) that it’s been well documented our greatest fear with this whole aging business is not the big C or many of the other unpleasantnesses but plain old losing those precious marbles.
Go to Rod’s website to listen to the podcast and read the full article.
The Science Behind the Bredesen Protocol
It has been a long time since I published any blogs on this site, and although I had decided to merge it with my other website, I have not had the time, and in reality, nor the capacity to work out how to do it. But that is definitely not a life or death matter, which it is worth remembering, most things aren’t!
So today, I wanted to add a link to a video of the science behind the Bredesen Protocol, as I really believe it is worth watching on The MPI Cognition website which says:
“Want to know more about the Bredesen Protocol? The Bredesen Protocol expands upon the existing MEND protocol and incorporate Dr. Bredesen’s latest research to combat Alzheimer’s disease.
The Protocol provides a comprehensive personalized program designed to improve cognition and reverse the cognitive decline of SCI, MCI, and early Alzheimer’s disease. Continued research and testing by Dr. Bredesen began by evolving MEND, which has identified new and previously unrecognized causes of Alzheimer’s disease.”
The video is on the page that will open, if you open this link…
Dr Dave Jenkins is a doctor in Australia who has been taught the Bredesen Protocol, and whose work I strongly support and promote. You can read about Dave’s work here. He wrote in an email to me recently, which is something I have been saying for years in various ways as well:
“As you well know there is a kind of madness around this issue. I wonder what would happen if a slow growing brain tumour was the second biggest killer and no one had successfully removed it in 50 years of trying and along came a respected surgeon who reports over 100 cases of successful removal?
I think it would be mainstream news for a long time and every neurosurgeon would be flying to see him operate and learn how to do it. There would not even be a trail as it would be deemed unethical to do nothing for the control group.
I am getting up to speed with that you have so bravely been battling for years.“
Thanks Dave, for your support, but most of all, for working so hard to promote another way to view and treat dementia, as there are not many health professionals bothering to look beyond the magic bullet (a cure), and support the pathway I (and many others with dementia) have taken since diagnosis, and it is truly a relief to find doctors and researchers looking at dementia differently.
Frankly, after almost 120 FAILED drugs trials to treat or cure dementia, this is the most sensible pathway for us all, if we have been diagnosed in the early stages of the disease process… until such time as researchers do find a cure.
Don’t give up
Like my food blog, I’ve not been here for some time… The only suggestion I can think of this week, for living beyond dementia, is to not give up! A very close friend’s son died unexpectedly, a colleagues house burned to the ground, including their pets, and the week before that, a close girlfriends husband had a major stroke.
Dementia is definitely not the worst thing that can happen to you or someone you love, which I feel is worth remembering…
When you fall over, get up. When you fall off your bike, get backup, fix the bike, patch up your wounds, and get back on your bike.
When you feel sad, cry a while, then get back to living. When you lose someone you love, or someone you love loses someone they love, cry a while or a lot, then get back to living.
If you get dementia or someone you love gets dementia, cry a while, cry a lot, even get angry; be sad, acknowledge the current losses, the expected losses and fear and let your grief live. Then, find ways to keep living, as well as possible even when the symptoms mean others have to support you.
But do find your own ways to love and laugh, and to live with dementia, not only die from it.
Don’t get lost in the sadness of dementia, otherwise you may as well go home and get ready to die straight away. Which, by the way, is still what the sector tells you to do, so if you want to live beyond dementia, ignore the well-meaning advice of Prescribed Disengagement®, and reinvest in living.
Living Beyond Dementia™ 