Alzheimer’s Prevention: Unlock Brain Health with Keto & Fats - Dr. Mary Newport : 1192

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. The episode today is something that I'm really excited about because it is with, I'm going to say, a hero of lipid metabolism. Now, if no one has ever said hero of lipid metabolism before, and that's because it's hard to even explain how important fat is for the way life works. Your cell membranes and a lot of your hormones, they're made out of fats. And different fats do different things. And we have this really simplistic, you know, Readers Digest food pyramid way of thinking, well, fat is good, fat is bad. If you're going to build a house and said, well, bricks are good or bricks are bad, you'd be kind of dumb because you might want to use cement, you might want to use wood, you might want to use metal, you might want to use whatever. They're all building materials, and you use the right building material for the right job.

So.

Simple is good, unless it's so simple that it's dumb. And that is where the. The main discourse around fat is. So when you get someone who's spent a lifetime looking at what do different fats do? What are the role of these in the brain, in biology? I don't think you can get someone who is more studied than Dr. Mary Newport, who's our guest today, and she has a new book called Clearly Keto for Healthy Brain Aging and Alzheimer's Prevention. And I wanted to interview her because she's a legend in the field.

And.

And also I went through more than a thousand studies on Alzheimer's disease when I wrote Head Strong, my big cognitive enhancement book. And in my longevity work in Superhuman, one of the big four killers is Alzheimer's. If we can just fix it so we don't lose our minds as we age, we would have a population of people who have wisdom because their brains work. And if we fix their mitochondria, then they have energy, and all of a sudden we have people who are really well equipped to help the world be a better place. So, Dr. Marion, you for. Welcome to the show. It's an honor to have you.

Hi, Dave. Thank you. And everybody listening. Thank you for inviting me to come. I really appreciate it.

It is. It is my pleasure. I mentioned your most recent book, which is the Clearly Keto book, but you have three others as well, and they probably your first book was one of the ones that really helped me, crystallized some of my thinking back in the Bulletproof diet and things like that. So it's. It's just cool to be able to chat.

Now I have a third edition of it that came out in the fall. 11 years. No, 12 years after the first edition came out.

Oh my gosh. The other thing I love about. About your work, the reason I want to talk to you is my first book was called the Better Baby Book. And, and it was how do you have a child without autism or Asperger's? Because I had that. And yes, I'd say had, because I. You can heal it. And yes, there's some work to be. To be done. Like some of the functional movement things are a little bit. A little bit of work, but overall you can. You can fix things. So you spent 30 years working on newborns and then all of a sudden you switched over to Alzheimer's. Why?

Right. Well, it all had to do with my husband. My husband Steve. He was an accountant and he worked at home for my practice. I worked in hospital strictly. He took care of our children. I had a lot of emergencies and. But when Steve was only 51, he started having memory problems that were. Got serious fairly quickly. He stopped remembering. He'd been to the bank and the post office and, you know, he was very depressed. He knew something was wrong. He had known for a few years. I found out later. I didn't realize it, you know, for a while, but he just kept getting worse. He was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's in 2004. And this is like at the opposite end of the spectrum for. From where I had been focusing my career on at that point. And it was just, you know, a horrible thing. You know, we thought we'd retire, live to an old age and then, you know, retire together. And it just didn't look like it was going to happen. The average person lives about seven years after a diagnosis of Alzheimer's. And he was only 54 at that point.

Wow, 54.

Early onset, very early.

Given all the research you've done now, why do you think your husband got Alzheimer's at an early age?

I have a few ideas about that. 1. There are something like more than 6,000 studies now of various infections linked to Alzheimer's disease. And he had really a lifetime of having fever blisters on his mouth. I mean, like repeated outbreaks. It's a herpes simplex type 1 virus. And there have been hundreds of studies just on herpes simplex connecting it to Alzheimer's. And they've been able to show, like in mice, for example, that infecting them with herpes simplex will induce formation of plaques and tangles in the brain, which are the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease and many other studies. So I really felt like this was possibly a trigger. And when he was 29, he had an outbreak of it around his eye. And he was really sick. He was sick, he couldn't sit up, he, you know, couldn't eat for a week or so. And I was really worried about that. You know, I took care of babies that were born with herpes simplex virus infections and they were severely brain damaged. It was just a terrible thing. And I was taught that the eyes are a portal to the brain. So if you get an infection in or around your eye, it could get into the brain and, you know, some people will develop herpes encephalitis and it travels in the same locations of the brain that Alzheimer's does as it progresses. And so I really feel like that is the likely trigger. And what lit the match, I think could have been a medication called Vioxx.

Oh, interesting. What does Vioxx do?

Yeah, so Vioxx was a very potent anti inflammatory drug. It was used mostly for arthritis. And around 2000, 2001, Steve was taking this for about a year, a year and a half, and he was. He had his foot. Feet would swell if he. He would be out in the yard working landscaping, and then his foot would swell tremendously and being really, like, extremely inflamed. We found out later it was gout. It's just not the classic presentation. Usually you think of a toe, but this was this whole foot. And he responded really well to Vioxx. So he was taking this for about a year, a year and a half. And I later found I'd started looking for different connections, things he had done. And Biox had been taken off the market in 2004. So he was on it around 2000, 2001. And the reason they took it off the market was because of several Alzheimer's studies that were done. And two of the studies, the people who got Vioxx had a much higher rate of dying from heart attacks. These were people with Alzheimer's. And then there was another study that had been done of people with mild cognitive impairment, which can progress to Alzheimer's. And they were hoping to prevent it. There's a lot of inflammation in the brain in Alzheimer's. So they were, you know, the people that got the drug, it actually accelerated their progression to Alzheimer's. And. And they would start seeing people convert from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's with. Even at four months on this drug.

Wow.

Yeah. And Steve was on it for a year, year and a half. And this was right around the time I started noticing strange things he was doing. You know, memory issues and shuffling papers and missing tax deadlines. He was an accountant. He'd miss, you know, a 20 minute quarterly tax return would take them days to get done, which was just not what had been going on before that.

Right.

You know, it was really serious and, you know, so I think those two things factored heavily into it. And our diet too, I think may have contributed because we were on what I call the convenience food diet. Both of us, I weighed about 60 pounds more than I do now while we were eating this. And it was a low fat, you know, we were told to eat low fat and. Which means high carb. You know, if you're eating a typical American diet and eating a lot of box foods from Sam's. I really wasn't into vegetables, you know, I had a little less and corn, you know, and so our diet was just terrible. We were going to fast food places two or three times a week and eating out more often. And so, you know, two years before our intervention, ketogenic intervention happened, I came across an article about Alzheimer's. And people with Alzheimer's who had eaten the most Mediterranean like diet lived on average four years longer than the people with Alzheimer's who ate the least Mediterranean like diet. And that was the first time I ever conceived that Alzheimer's could have anything to do with nutrition. You know, that nutrition might be a factor. I mean, we were told it's not what you eat, you know, it's not what you eat, it's not this, it's not that. You know, they didn't know what it was, but they were, you know, pretty clear they didn't think it was what you ate. But this article suggests it otherwise. So we drastically, you know, changed our diet over to a whole food Mediterranean style diet, which, you know, greatly reduced our carbohydrate intake just by default from what we were doing. And then sort of kind of looking into this low fat idea and really not finding enough justification for it for why we should eat a low fat diet. I think that was really why I got so heavy. I was always eating skim milk and cereal for breakfast and cereal for snack, you know, for a snack in the evening. So, you know, Steve, he, he still progressed and it's hard to know if it slowed it down or not, you know, but it was definitely a healthier diet. So I'm still on it today. You know, we stayed on it and, you know, I've been eating actually a low carb, you know, keto version of a Mediterranean diet, you know, which is what I talk about in my Clearly Keto book.

Are you always low carb or do you cycle in and out sometimes?

I am mostly low carb. Every now and then, you know, if I go out to eat, I might, I don't ever buy bread, but some restaurants have really good bread. So I might have, you know, a slice or two of bread or something, you know, if I go to a restaurant. So I cycle a little bit. But I would say maybe every couple weeks I might take a day or two where I kind of loosen up my regimen a bit. It's helped me maintain my weight too, which is great. You know, it's really hard to keep that weight off. And I have been able to do that, you know, for, let's see, since 2006.

It seems to work better. I mean, I, I went on the Atkins diet, the original keto, in the late 90s, and you could lose, you know, know, you lose 40 pounds and then. Yeah, and then you plateau and you can't lose the other 60 no matter what you do.

Right, right.

And then I, I would go to these. I remember Jimmy Moore, I went on this low carb cruise where these were people who are kind of more in that, that extreme keto side of things. And the rule was if it's not a carb, you can eat it. So it's fine to add all the chemicals, it's fine to eat bad fats. You just can't eat any carbs. And there was all these morbidly obese people there. And if that triggered anyone listening, guys, I was a 300 pound guy. So, yes, morbid obese is a medical term. And if. Yeah, and if that describes you, thank you for listening. You can change it. So. And I'd ask him to say, it doesn't look like this is working. Like, in a polite way. I was there as a speaker, you know, there's no judgment. And universally they're like, oh, are you kidding? I used to weigh 600 pounds and I only weigh 400 pounds. This stuff works. The problem is I'm eating 15 grams of carbs, and if I could just get down to 8 grams of carbs, I know I'll lose the other hundreds of pounds. But cycling this, one of the reasons I wrote the bulletproof diet, the type of fat matters and then cycling matters so that you Occasionally get some carbs for insulin sensitivity. So it's, it's interesting to hear that you're cycling about every couple weeks.

Yeah.

For this.

Well, I tend to stay, try to stay under like 40 or 50 grams a day. That's my normal routine of carbs. If I really want to go super keto, I'll, I'll shove it down to under 20. But I usually kind of stay in the 30s, like maybe 29 to 40 or 45 grams a day, you know, so I'm kind of in the range of what you would call mild to moderate nutritional ketosis.

Yeah.

As far as how my ketone levels are.

And you use mcts, which gives you a boost. You can have carbs and eat mcts and it still works, right?

Yeah. Coconut oil and MCT oil. I combine those. I, I actually have a mixture that I make that I gave to Steve, you know.

Yeah, that's the original Alzheimer formula there and.

Right.

You still sell that, right?

Yeah, yeah, there's a company that sells it and you know, the good news.

Is that, you know, there's availability of it and anyone out there, I mean you can get MCT, by the way, C8MCT. I wrote about that in, in my book, but we didn't have the studies yet. But that is the one that works best for raising ketones. You can mix it with coconut oil or any other fat you want and see what happens and it might be good.

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I want to talk more about Alzheimer's and, and herpes before we get into other effects of just keto on cognitive function. Other stuff we're going to talk about. Yeah, there's definite evidence that at least some types of Alzheimer's are driven by infection. And I think you know Dr. Dale Bren as well, right?

Yeah, I do know. I, I do know him. I've met him at a couple conferences.

He's just a great guy, just very kind and giving and humble and he was on the show and he wrote his book the end of Alzheimer's. He, and for a, you know, quote, real doctor, you know, practicing in a, in a big institution to say something that audacious and bold was kind of a risk. But he was the first guy I met who said, look, infectious Alzheimer's is one type. They're toxic metal. There's toxic mold and then there's, I think a metabolic, there's a couple others. But to subcategorize them was I think a great breakthrough. And he's had evidence where he's reversed people. And you've also had great evidence for what you're talking about saying you can fix the metabolic things. When it comes to herpes, I just feel a moral obligation to, to share this for, for listeners. In my, in my 20s, I started running a longevity nonprofit research and education group. In Silicon Valley. And my mentors were the legends in the longevity field of that time. And my, my members in this organization were 70, 80 years old. And they asked me to be president of it when I'm in my 20s because I was the only person under 50 in the room. And my primary biochemical mentor was a guy who has been on the show named Steve folks. Steve wrote a book that's available, I think for free download called something like the end of Herpes or her or There it is. He cure herpes with bht. And BHT is a synthetic oil antioxidant that's used in food packaging to prevent oils from going rancid. And throughout the 80s, you might remember this, this is a little bit before I was into longevity, but I knew a lot of people who knew about it. People would take BHT to inhibit breakdown of fat in their cell membranes and it was considered a longevity drug and it's almost free now. It turns out at very low doses it can be a mild endocrine disruptor. And if you replace sort of something like half of your food for a year with it, I'm exaggerating a very, very high doses. It might be pro cancer, but at the 300 milligram kind of dose.

It.

Stops all, all lipid encapsulated viruses, including every kind of pox and herpes, all the different simplexes. So for about a dollar within three days, you can make a cold sore or a fever blister or a herpes outbreak dry up and stop.

Wow.

And it's not a thousand dollar drug. It's not highly profitable. And I know a lot of people with shingles, they're just in terpen. I'm like, just rub something like put it in some lotion and rub it on and take a couple capsules and a few days later, like I'm fine. So I feel like everyone who has herpes the first time you have an outbreak and I think half of people have herpes virus in, in their, in their systems if they, whether they knew it or not. You could just take a little bit of this stuff on occasion and net net. It seems like a good idea. And this is what Steve, Steve taught me and he's been publicizing this for years. So you can stop smallpox, not that we have that running around. Monkeypox, chicken pox, some sort of new invented pox that'll make some government guy the next billion dollars. Pox. All of the poxes, you can, you can stop them and you can stop herpes and it won't go away permanently. It just cannot replicate at all. And that means it stops replicating. And you do this for a brief period of time. I know people have done it and never had another outbreak. Other people do it when they have an outbreak, but the outbreaks become less. And if this knowledge was out there and your husband had access to it, it would have been worth it for him to know that. And it drives me crazy.

Yeah. I had not heard about that at the time. We were told that lysine was effective and, you know, so he was getting lysine all the time. He would still have some outbreaks.

Yeah, lysine helps and arginine makes it worse.

Yeah.

And. But by the way, I've never had. I've never had a problem with herpes. I used to think I did because I was getting like autoimmune little white nodules. Those are actually food allergies. But on blood tests, all. I don't. But I know a lot about this because I've mentored so many people and because one of my most impactful mentors taught me this stuff. So I just want to pass it, Pass it on.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I mean, so I work at coconut oil was the intervention. The first intervention was Steve. And half of the coconut oil is lauric acid, which is C12. And lauric acid is also highly antimicrobial. Right. So I think that factored. It factored into controlling, you know, and helping him improve. It kills all of the viruses in the herpes family. It kills bacteria, fungi, spirochetes, like the Lyme, which is. It causes symptoms very similar to Alzheimer's. It's a very, you know, common infection. I think about a quarter million people in the US have this infection every year. And it kills that. Spirochetes are in the same family as syphilis. I mean, spirochetes cause syphilis and syphilis is known to cause dementia if it's not treated. So after we started coconut oil with Steve, it was really rare for him to have an outbreak. Over the next eight years, he had four tiny outbreaks. And it was usually he would have a cold or some other infection and then he would break out with like a small fever blister. Used to have a big fat fever blister every two or three weeks before that. Wow. So it really did help control it. But I'm definitely going to take check out BHT too.

It goes so well with a high fat ketogenic diet too.

Yeah, yeah.

And so I know, I know Some, some families with kids who get chickenpox because their parents believe that you might only want to vaccinate for life threatening illnesses. And chickenpox is not life threatening.

Not usually. If you're in it as an adult, it, it can be really serious.

Yeah, that's true, which is probably why you might want to get it as a kid. But you know, that's, that's old way of thinking and I, I would never ascribe to old way of thinking. But anyway, I know some people who, who do that and they're like, well, what can we do? And well, the answer is you want the immune stimulation effects of it. So after the first wave of little itchy whatevers, you have to get some bhd, they don't have to go through seven waves of little things and they get, they get the lifelong reduction of, of their respiratory illnesses. It turns out that having an exposure there, a brief one that the body handles, probably has some benefits that aren't talked about. And I'm not saying as you should go out and you know, get chickenpox on purpose or not. I'm just saying that evolutionarily there might have been a reason it was there and if it did happen for whatever reason, you can reduce the severity of it very, very quickly. With BHT and Vani Hari, who's been on the show, the food babe, who's a friend, that's when I talked about business a lot. You know, she's like on a war path. Get BHD out of packaging. And she probably has a point because very low dose bhd, it has an endocrine disrupting effect. It's a very low effect. Yeah, I don't worry about BHD that much compared to BPA and all the other endocrine disruptors, atrazine and microplastics. But the risk of herpes long term and what it does is higher than you think. So if, if anyone listening has that going on, the book is free. Steve folks, F O W K E S. Listen to my interview with him. Google Dave Asprey Steve folks, you'll find it or the book is free and it's. What's it called? The PHT book is what it's called now. So there you go.

Yeah, well, relative to the herpes simplex virus, the shingles virus, which comes from chickenpox herpes zoster virus, there are studies now, really large epidemiological studies that were conducted in the uk, two different big cohorts that they had and they found that people that got the shingles vaccine to prevent shingles were, it was much less likely. It was maybe 27 or 30% less likely to develop dementia and people had not gotten the vaccine. And then there was another study that showing that there's a treatment for shingles called acyclovir and ballet. Cyclovir is a close relative to that that penetrates the brain better. So people that had shingles and got treated with this particular medication were also much less likely to develop dementia.

Interesting.

So avoiding these infections and that her whole herpes family is pretty serious. Epstein Barr virus has been associated and that's the one that causes mononucleosis has been associated with multiple sclerosis.

Ms. And also with his chronic fatigue syndrome which I had. Mine was caused by toxic mold. But yeah, it, it's a, it's a very complex bundle and even, even your husband's gout that's linked to oxalate and it's linked to mast cell activation. And these viruses activate mast cells all over the place. So we get these things. What's the chicken? What's the egg? Metabolism is the chicken and the egg.

Yeah.

And that's why in your work, in your books on ketones and brain health and all like, let's fix that. And then these other things, the body becomes more resilient.

Yeah.

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Talk to me about insulin resistance and brain inflammation and Alzheimer's and what do you know about that?

Okay, so, yeah, this is something I've been looking into and reading about for a long time. So Steve, for those who don't know, he had a big improvement when we introduced first coconut oil into his diet. And the reason I did that was because it contains medium chain triglycerides, which is our medium well MCT oil. Medium chain triglyceride oil is extracted from coconut oil. And I had come upon a press release about a medical food that was going to come out about a year later. And it was C8. It was the MCT C8. And I knew what MCTs were because I'm a neonatologist. We used to add them to the feedings of our tiniest preemies. These were babies under 2 pounds and, you know, to each feeding and they would get home faster and they would thrive. You know, when you would give this MCT oil and then they started adding it to premature formulas and then newborn formulas. And if you look on pretty much any commercial infant formula, you'll see coconut oil or palm kernel oil on the label. Even now, you know, because they're trying to provide these medium chain triglycerides that are in human breast milk. So that's why they include coconut oil in infant formulas to try to provide these fats that are in human milk, but they're not in other common oils or not like soybean oil, olive oil, peanut oil. They don't contain any of these medium chain triglycerides. You know, so I came upon a press release and they had done. The company that was coming out with the medical food had done two studies. One was a pilot study. They gave 20 people on one day a placebo. On another day, they got C8MCT. And nine out of 20 people had an improvement in their cognitive score compared to the day that they got a placebo. And then they did a long study. It was. They tested them at 45 days, 90 days, and some stayed for six months. And it was 152 people. And they found that nearly half of them also had improvement in their cognition and that it was sustained, you know, over this period of time that they were in the study. And this was so interesting to me because none of the drugs for Alzheimer's ever have claimed that they improve cognition. They only claim the slow decline. Yeah. So. And Steve was on a couple of them at that time. He was on Aircept and Namenda, you know, at that point. And he was declining. You know, he was declining nevertheless. Never saw any change or improvement in him from that. So, you know, he happened to be trying out for two clinical trials two days in a row. So it was a really interesting coincidence that it happened. About the press release, I was looking for the risks and benefits of the two drugs he was going to try out for. They were both drugs that would remove plaque from the brain. And I happened on a press release about this medical food that was going to come out in about a year about these studies, and I was able to find a patent application. And that's when I found out about insulin resistance as being a major contributor to Alzheimer's disease. And the thing about MCT oil and the coconut oil, because of it, is when you consume, you know, mcts, your liver will convert part of it to ketones no matter what you eat. And ketones are taken up and can bypass the problem of insulin resistance. So with insulin resistance, there's trouble getting glucose into the brain and into brain cells. And cells need fuel. Brain cells are really active. They need fuel continuously 24,7. But ketones don't require insulin to get into the brain or into cells. And they could bypass that problem. And so that was their theory, you know, of why they came up with this medical food, this mct, all medical food. And now they had studies showing that they did see improvement, and in almost half the people that took it. So, you know, I was really kind of blown away. And I was familiar with these ideas. You know, they talked about, you know, during starvation or fasting, prolonged fasting, you know, after 24, 36 hours, you use up the stores of glucose in your liver and then you start breaking down muscle if you didn't have fat, but instead we start breaking down fat. And most of our organs except the brain have access to fatty acids that can act as fuel. The heart loves fatty acids, kidneys love it, but they don't cross into the brain very well. But ketones do cross. And so when you're in the starvation or fasting phase, some of the fat that is presented to the liver will be converted to ketones and provide fuel to the brain. And if you're on a really long period of starvation, we're talking 10 to 20 days, ketone levels will get extremely high and be able to provide about two thirds of the fuel to the brain. And there's still some glucose, but the body's capable of making glucose from proteins and from the, the glycerol part of the fat, it can be converted to, to glucose, you know, so the brain will still have access to glucose if you're as long as you have fat to burn. So anyway, this thing about insulin resistance, what they talked about was that it was present in people they had studied, done autopsies of brains of people who had died with Alzheimer's, and these were people that did not have type 1 or type 2 diabetes, but they found that they did have insulin resistance and insulin deficiency in their brains. And that this, you know, was in the area where Alzheimer's starts and that it progressed through the brain, worsened, you know, steadily as the disease progressed. You know, so they were able to show that insulin resistance is a big part of this problem. And, you know, this has been like, known since the 1980s. They do FDG PET scans. These are glucose uptake PET scans. And they've shown that people with Alzheimer's and people that are going to get Alzheimer's can have this problem 10 to 20 years before they ever develop symptoms. You know, so you might already be on a track heading towards Alzheimer's because of this insulin resistance problem in the brain long before you have symptoms or aware of it.

You know, I was on that track.

Me too, me too.

I'm very firmly off this rack now. Yeah, the data. One of the things I came across both for Alzheimer's and also just for cognitive enhancement in general is nasal insulin. So it's nasal spray. And I mean, you take a little, a little thing like, like this, this is, if you're just listening, it's just a little meter dose spray bottle and you put it in your nose and you spray it and you can do it once or twice a day, and it directly affects glucose uptake in the brain. And it's something that helps with early onset Alzheimer's. Kind of like treating type 2 diabetes with insulin. You don't necessarily want to rely on it, but it's better than having Alzheimer's.

Yeah.

And from a cognitive enhancement perspective, if you have no metabolic disregulation, you want to just be dialed in, you're going to meditate and download your next whatever, or you're going to just work on a really focused project where just full presence and openness is required. Small amount of nasal insulin is a very potent nootropic. Seems like it's probably good for you. What do you think about that?

There have been a few studies of it, and at Wake Forest, Dr. Suzanne Kraft and her group have been studying this, and they. Their pilot studies look really good. One of their longer studies, it didn't show as much benefit, I think, as they hoped that it would. And I kind of have some ideas about that. Number one, if you're still eating a poor diet, you know, high sugar diet, you're going to perpetuate the problem of insulin resistance. And I think it would be ideal to try to reverse the insulin resistance, you know, by eating a healthier diet. The other thing, too, I wonder, you know, the way it gets in, there's these little perforations in the base of the skull, and it can get up to the brain that way, the insulin. But I wonder how well distributed it is throughout the brain. So that's one of my questions about it.

I don't know either.

Yeah, yeah.

One of the other longevity therapies that I do specifically for Alzheimer's and just for general health is I take a microdose Cialis. Now, Cialis is a erectile dysfunction drug at full dose. You know, you use it for. For sexy time. But we're talking 6 milligrams, which is a very, very low dose to increase blood flow in the brain.

Yeah.

In my case, I know I need that because of all the health problems I used to have. And when I did my first scan with Dr. Daniel Amen many years ago, I was several standard deviations lower on blood flow in my brain than average. And I had damage to my brain from Moltox. So since then, I've brought my blood flow in my brain back up to slightly below normal levels through great effort. And I'm actually doing things to keep my blood pressure high enough to make sure my brain is perfused. And it turns out Cialis Helps.

Yeah.

So it seems like if you were to take Cialis or something like N101, the nitric oxide lozenges and do nasal insulin at the same time, you'd probably get really good perfusion of it and then you'd have a brain that's like, wow, I remember my brain used to feel this way. I want that back.

Yeah, Yeah.

I haven't stacked them, but I think I, I would try that.

Yeah. Well, they're actually doing studies for Alzheimer's with that to try to improve blood flow to the brain. So. And I. They're also doing studies in newborns with sealers. Yeah. And it's. There's a condition called persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn. And it's a terrible, it's a horrible thing. You know, I dealt with it a lot, you know, as a neonatologist. And this would be usually a full term baby. And the arteries, like after a baby's born, the lungs have to expand and the arteries open up and blood flow just starts pouring out to the arteries. It's before the baby's born. It's about 10% of what it's going to be after the baby's born, the blood flow to the lungs. So this has to happen very quickly. But in some cases, the baby's arteries don't dilate normally.

Oh, of course it would work for that.

It's serious. It's very serious. And, you know, we, you know, they would be on a ventilator, you'd have to hyperventilate them, you know, for days and days. And, and he had a pretty high mortality rate. And then someone had a brilliant idea to actually use the gas nitric oxide directly that we would, you know, put in with the oxygen. And I, I had so many babies that like almost immediately responded to that. And then, you know, they were off a ventilator a day later, you know, got to go home. But they're also studying Viagra and maybe Cialis to see if it could have a similar effect. You know, medication that would help dilate the arteries. So just another point opposite end of.

The spectrum, you know, but it makes so much sense. My gut says for that you should just give them one breath of carbon dioxide and that's gonna fix everything because you get a physiological response from that that's gonna increase oxygen uptake. Everything will, will dilate.

Yeah, it didn't, it didn't work in the newborns.

We also tried that.

Well, the babies would actually have very high carbon dioxide levels too. Their lungs weren't really Expanding normally or getting blood flow. So for carbon, carbon dioxide will build up in the lungs and in the blood.

Yeah, you don't want to, you don't want to build it up.

So that's why we hyperventilate them to get their carbon dioxide levels down, you know, and that, you know, the babies, you know, before we had nitric oxide that came along, that's what we did, you know, to save those babies, to drop it.

It's, it, it's, it's a different thing.

It's very complex.

Yeah, James Nestor and I talked about something like this and yeah, complex. I mean, you're, you're an expert in the neonatal care. It's just one of those things where you take people who are having panic attacks and having constriction in just one breath. It's not going to raise levels physiologically over time, but the body goes, oh, I should do something about that. It's like a strong enough signal to then cause an opening. But you know, I mean, like I said, it's way more complex outside my pay grade. But I always, I'm always interested in what happens with carbon dioxide, oxygen and ketosis. So can you walk me through your understanding of ketones and, and being on this high fat diet or using mcts or, or ketone supplements, what does it do to carbon dioxide and acid alkaline basis? Kind of walk me through the metabolism.

Yeah, PH balance is very complicated. And that, that was one thing. I was constantly getting blood gases on newborns, mostly with who had respiratory problems. And there's really two types of acidosis. One's respiratory acidosis and that's where the carbon dioxide levels are too high. It'll develop respiratory acidosis. And then you can correct that by hyperventilating the patient to get the carbon dioxide levels down. But the body also has buffers, so, you know, your buffers will come out in full force, you know, to try to correct that problem. But you can have it the other way around in ketoacidosis. You're, you have a metabolic acidosis, not a respiratory acidosis. And it, you know, basically is driving your ph down. And when it happens, I mean, all the enzymes in our body require a very specific pH, a very narrow range of pHs to operate appropriately. And the reason why acidosis can be harmful is because it will, you know, basically get out of the range that these enzymes function normally. And I mean, there are so many enzymes, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of different enzymes that could be affected with acidosis. And it can only be maintained for so long, you know, so diabetic ketoacidosis is a perfect example of where ketosis gets out of control. But this happens in people who usually have type 1 diabetes. It can happen in type 2 diabetes when the pancreas just isn't functioning or putting out insulin anymore, but the glucose level gets extremely high. There basically effectively no insulin on board. And insulin is required to really control blood glucose. And then when, if this isn't corrected pretty quickly, if the person doesn't get insulin, the ketones will start pouring out of the fat. None of this. You know, the organs aren't getting glucose. You know, the brain is. I mean, you know, because there isn't insulin to get it into these cells and all, you know, basically all of the organs. And so fat starts breaking down to try to provide a few fatty acids and ketones, but it gets out of control, you know, because it's not been corrected. And ketones at extremely high levels do become acidotic and can really lower the ph and it can kill somebody if it's not corrected. I mean, this used to happen. Yeah. Before insulin was available. That was 1921 that it came out. You know, before that, you know, people would die, you know, with type 1 diabetes because of this diabetic ketoacidosis.

It's amazing. I mean, you're an early voice in the keto movement. So am I. And the number of doctors who would look me right in the face and say, you can't have ketosis ketoacidosis. You're going to die. And I'm like, laughing. I'm like, dude, I. I pee on a ketone stick to measure my ketones, and it's pink. That means I am in ketosis, and I'm talking to you.

Right.

There is abundant evidence this is not true. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people are losing weight on this weird butter coffee thing.

Yeah.

And so there's, like, an almost religious fear of it. But it. It seems like in ketosis, especially if you're eating a lot of protein, you do raise tissue. Not necessarily. Not necessarily blood, but you raise tissue acidity. And in my longevity book, there's this amazing thing that extends lifespan by about 15% in mammals. In some studies, it's called baking soda.

Yeah.

A quarter teaspoon or half a teaspoon of baking soda, and it gives you a carbonate buffer so your body can better manage this.

Yeah.

It seems like a cheap longevity hack for people in ketosis. What do you think of that?

Yeah, I agree with that. It's, in fact, you know, some of the ketone exogenous ketone products have free beta hydroxybutyrate and which is an acid. And so they'll, they'll use that as a buffer or some other similar, you know, buffer to help, you know, keep the ph in line, you know, basically, so to speak. And it's possible to get too much of a ketone ester, for example, you could take very high doses, stack them too close together, and that will put you in ketoacidosis. But it's not diabetic ketoacidosis. It's really a temporary situation. And there is a study, it was done with athletes, Kieran Clark, and they, they reported that the ph and the bicarbonate levels, that's another measure of, you know, acid base, that they were normal in the study. But in actuality, you know, the ph did drop when they got a really high dose. It was 25 grams of. Well, for somebody that was 150 pounds, it would equal about 25 grams of a ketone ester. And I'm a big fan of the ketone esters. You just gotta be careful. And. But the ph did drop. It did drop. And it was below what critical care specialists would be, Would consider normal. It was below that level and the bicarbonate level dropped very substantially. And it was, it was below the normal level, you know, what, what we know as the normal range. And two hours later, it still hadn't corrected, you know, yet.

It seems a little sketchy to me. And, and for listeners, if, if you're kind of new to this world, raising ketones is metabolically beneficial, and doing it sometimes, but not all the time seems to be the right way to do it. That, that was the whole basis of the, the bulletproof diet book. It's almost at a million copies, I think globally. And here's, here's the way to think of, of ketones. You can get them for free by not eating for several days. But it's hard and it feels like. It feels crappy. You can get them much more quickly by not eating and having, well, let's just say Danger Coffee, my new brand of coffee with butter and MCT oil in it. Yeah, Danger Coffee. Because who knows what you might do? So we have this idea, okay? Don't eat or eat fat and C8MCTS only. And you will be in ketosis, which has all kinds of metabolic benefits, brain benefits. You feel good, you're not hungry, you lose weight. Like it feels kind of magical. But then you could go beyond that and you could say, all right, I'm going to take ketone salts. And there are risks with salts. I'm not as big of a fan. One of the preeminent researchers for 40 years of. Of ketosis and mitochondria, Dr. Veech, in his last interview before he passed away, it was on the show. Yeah. A total hero for metabolic nerds. And he just said, straight up, ketone salts are harmful for mitochondria. And I think he's right. So I don't use them, and I've just never felt right on them. And then we have ketone esters, and I. I synthesized some back in, like, 2014. They're very expensive, they taste bad, but they uncontrollably raise ketones. And the newest thing on the market is called a ketone dial. Ketone IQ makes it.

Yeah.

And that'll raise ketones substantially, but it's rate limited by the body, so there's no risk of acidosis. So for me, when someone says, dave, how do I go in ketosis? I'm like, well, for free. Don't eat for cheap. Have some C8MCT and butter and your coffee. If you want to spend more and get more results because you're an athlete or you're. You have Alzheimer's or you're just really focused on this, I just say skip straight to the ketone dial. And ketone IQ is. Is the one that I've. I've taken. I actually take it when I travel. Just did an interview with those guys.

Yeah. It's one of the components of the ketone ester that Dr. Vita developed. Yeah. And it converts to beta hydroxybutyrate. That. That's the trick. That's why he used that. You know, he. He created his ester as a combination of the free beta hydroxybutyrate and butane dial that are linked together as an ester so that it's not acidic when it hits your stomach. That. That's kind of the beauty of it. You know, he was worried that too much free acid would burn a hole in your stomach. He used to tell me that all the time. So. Great. Ester to bypass that problem. And, and so, you know, you get right away the. As it breaks apart, you get the beta hydroxybutyrate, and then the butane dial will convert to more beta hydroxybutyrate. You know, each molecule will have two more molecules of beta hydroxybutyrate from butane dial. So it was really a beautiful way to do it. And, you know, my husband Steve, I don't know if you know this, but he was the first person with Alzheimer's to be in a pilot study with Dr. Veeche's. Esther.

I didn't realize that. Oh, that's so cool.

Yeah. So I was sworn to secrecy when I was writing my books. You know, when I wrote my first book and my second edition of my first book in 2013, you know, Steve was taking it in a pilot study, and he had. So he improved a whole lot, you know, with coconut and MCT oil. You know, he was really at stage five to six of Alzheimer's. Wow.

He was far along.

He was very far along. And he came back closer to, like, stage four, which was really pretty functional. You know, people can get along. He was able to work as a volunteer in the hospital that I worked at. Talking better, walking normally again. Tremors gone. Remembering, no. Knowing family members, being able to talk fluently, remember things that happened, you know, hours earlier, you know, just incredibly better that over time. You know, over about nine or 10 months, we saw improvements, and then he kind of stabilized, and then he was in a clinical trial, and it was semigastestat. It was a drug that removed plaque from the brain. And he was on the placebo for 18 months.

Oh, no. What was the drug?

The drug was called Semigastat, and.

Okay.

And it was. He was in a crossover trial, and that's why we did that study. We were so hopeful that this was a cure for Alzheimer's disease. And, you know, and he was already improving with the coconut and MCT oil before we started the study. And they let him be in anyway. They had participated in the studies of that medical food, so they knew exactly what. What it was that we were doing. But he was on placebo, we found out later, for 18 months. So he wasn't getting the drug. Well, then in 2010, early 2010, so two years after he improved with the coconut and MCT oil, he was switched. He switched over. We found out later. He switched over. We kind of thought he did because his hair started coming out a different color, like gold, which was a known side effect of the drug. But he had a big setback. Over six weeks, he developed all kinds of new symptoms, weird things, abrasions that wouldn't heal. He fainted, which he'd never done before. You know, just really strange things. And he broke out in a fever blister. That was one of the few times he had done that. He had a cold, he had diarrhea. I mean, he had all These problems. So I pulled him out of the study. And then we were told a few months later that this drug actually accelerated Alzheimer's.

Oh, no.

So Steve had a setback, and Dr. Beach, you know, they had just finished toxicity testing of the. The ketone ester. And he said, why don't we do a pilot study? Since I was an M.D. you know, I could monitor him closely, you know, for symptoms or problems. And so beach was really comfortable with doing that. So we did a pilot study of one person with his. His ketone ester. And it turned around like there were some things he had to be at the point that he started the ester, you know, he needed help, which he hadn't needed for, you know, a couple years at that point with. He had to be talked through taking a shower, step by step. Put the shampoo in your hair. Okay. Now rub it around. Okay. Now rinse it. Shaving, brushing his teeth, all of that, he had to be prompted for each step. And the very next day, he could just do it again. He could just do. Do things by himself. And all the new symptoms that we saw within about six weeks were completely reversed again. So it was quite a miracle. And Steve was getting a hefty dose. He was getting 25 grams three times a day. We had experimented with different doses. Dr. Beach didn't know exactly what dose a human would need. You know, up to that point, it had been mice. And I think he. He told me that he had been taking it himself for the previous year to make sure it didn't kill anybody before he gave it to somebody else. He told me he was. He was a character anyway, so, you know, Steve, you know, dramatically, it turned him around, and then he was stable for another 20 months. And so it was almost four years of improved, better quality life that Steve got from taking coconut and MCT oil and then this ketone ester. We did continue the coconut and MCT oil, too. And sadly, I mean, he did die from Alzheimer's disease, and he turned out to also have Lewy Body dementia along with it, which is common to have those two together, especially in younger people that get it. But he had a seizure one day. He was looked. He looked great. He told me he loved me, gave me a hug when I went out the door, stayed with him, and I worked. Five minutes later, she called me, and he had fallen straight back, hit his head, and he went into a seizure that lasted 20 minutes. Oh, he was blue, and he wasn't breathing off and on. And when I got home, he still was Blue and EMS hadn't arrived yet, and it was just horrible. He had. He just became completely dependent after that. And he lived another two and a half years. We kept that ketone ester and everything going. And he looked perfect from the neck down. His body, I mean, hips in great shape, you know, But Alzheimer's did get him in the end. And, you know, I can only imagine, you know, when the first study of the man of the medical food came out. It was 2004, which was the year he was diagnosed. And if only I had known about it, had seen the article, which was an obscure journal about this MCT product, you know, it could have made a big difference. And we got started in 2008, you know, with it, and. But it got us four extra better years. And, you know, a lot of other people have learned about it because I wasn't going to let it wait a year for a medical food to come out. It was on the shelf.

Yeah.

It was sold online. And he had a couple types of mct and you can find it in some health food stores. And coconut oil was everywhere in health food stores. Even my grocery store had a brand of coconut oil at the time, you know, so I thought, why should people have to wait for a medical food? They, you know, need to know about it. So I. I went. I was obsessed with getting the message out.

I hope that this story gives hope to listeners. Look, you may have Alzheimer's, your parents may have it, your partner may have it. Four more good years in the very early days of understanding what we understand now, if you read Mary's book, you read Dr. Bredesen's end of Alzheimer's, and you read Headstrong, my book. There is so much you can do, including with ketones and with other things, and even something we. We mentioned, nasal insulin. You can also use nicotine patches or nicotine spray. I've had Dr. Nicotine from Vanderbilt on since 1986. He's been publishing what pharmaceutical nicotine not smoking does. And if you were to stack these with all the other mitochondrial things, there is a very great likelihood that at worst case, whoever has Alzheimer's might have a really good day today. And there's also a strong argument that they might have a lot more of those good days than they otherwise would. And we have people who have fully reversed Alzheimer's disease, especially early onset, early stage. Yeah, it's doable. It's not a death sentence. And it's serious. It's serious, like diabetes of the brain, which is what some people call it. You can reverse diabetes, too. So I, I hope that the hope is there.

Yeah. And diet has so much to do with it. You know, you probably met Dr. Eric Westman, maybe Duke University. He has helped over 4,000 people with type 2 diabetes completely reverse, get off all their medications, insulin and get their hemoglobin A1C into the normal range and fasting glucose and fasting insulin. And they also lose weight in the process. And there are a few case reports of people with early, with Alzheimer's, you know, like the mini mental status exam. It's 30 points, you know, so these were people. Two of the case reports, a man. What was a man? What was a woman? Their mini mental status score was 21 for the woman, 23 for the man. And they went on a ketogenic diet and also a program with some exercise and brain training. After 10 weeks, all of their numbers for, you know, they, they also had diabetes, type 2 diabetes. All of their numbers reversed to normal for glucose control. Their blood pressure came down. Their lipid profile, you know, looked really good. They lost weight, and their mini mental status scores went up from 21 to 28. In the case of the woman and the man, 23 to 29 out of 30. So they were diagnosed with, with mild Alzheimer's, and now they had normal scores.

It's doable.

It's doable. It's doable. And, and they were, they were aiming for mild to moderate ketosis. They were, you know, they, they were hoping to get ketone levels of.05. You know, people that know ketone levels, that's, that's kind of at the bottom of mild ketosis. And the man averaged like 1 millimole levels. And, and he had that, a dramatic improvement, you know, from 23 to 29 out of 30 points. And all of the other benefits, you know, so diet can really help a lot. Staying away from sugar. Fructose especially, is especially bad.

Yeah, fructose omega sixes in excess. All, all of those.

It.

I'm thinking back to around 2004, when that first study came out. I was running the longevity nonprofit group in Palo Alto, and these guys, they were just ahead of their, of their time. So in, in the early 90s, you couldn't really buy coconut oil in the U.S. like, it was just off the market because it was a hard tropical fact.

Yeah, I could find like two brands, you know, when I started.

I don't have this for a fact, but this group started in 1993, and they told me that they were the first group to import coconut oil in the 90s and that they'd found a supplier and they bought a 55 gallon drum of it because they couldn't buy it, you know, in the Bay Area, where you can buy most things and that, you know, they were hoarding it because they'd heard about these metabolic increases.

Yeah.

And then around that time, let's see, around at 2004, around there, that medical study came out, and we were already starting to use MCT oil back then. So I'm blessed because it was turning my brain on. I had profound chronic fatigue. Like I was worried about getting Ms. Or. Or like my brain was cooked. And so these very early innovators mentored me, taught me about mcts. Like, same as you. Like, I gotta tell it. Put this out there. My first blog post about biohacking was, here's my recipe for bulletproof coffee. But people would buy MCTs and they would get disaster pants, that burning throat. And then you, like, poop on yourself.

Oh, yeah.

It's because of impurities in the process. So then I'm like, okay, CA works better. And it's pure. And you don't have the gastric distress. Yeah, it was this evolutionary thing. And now people say, oh, mct. Everyone knows about mct. No, it was a few weird weightlifters. And the GI disturbances were great, right?

Yeah. Malabsorption syndromes. Yeah, yeah. And for premature newborns and regular newborns that had intestinal distress, they added MCT to their formulas.

It's true.

You.

You knew about that in the, in the neonatal stuff.

I knew about it in the 70s, you know, that it was beneficial for that malabsorption. I didn't know about, you know, the, the cognitive effects, you know, that was new to me, you know, when I read about this in 2008, and I wish I'd seen that in 2004 like you had.

Of course, the timing would have been great. But it. It goes to. The reason that I think you do a lot of your work around just education and certainly why I have the show, why I started this biology movement, is if you just know that it's possible and you have a short list of the possible tools, if it's important to you now, you can do it. And for me, I was desperate. I. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to get my brain back and just not be in pain all the time because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to keep working in my 20s. And it. I'm just profoundly grateful for my elders who, who mentored me that way and showed me that they could do it. Like, well, if you're 80 and you can do it, I could probably pull this off. And so it's your job. It's my job. Everyone listening, it's your job too. If you know this stuff and you see someone with Alzheimer's, like, maybe she'll listen to that episode, maybe get a book.

Some of them will listen to you and they'll do it. And others will say, that's just too simple, that is not possible. A lot of doctors, you know, react that way. They won't even take the information from their patients, you know, which is really sad. But then there are other open minded physicians who are listening and they have patients that improve and then they start telling their other patients about it and they start attending metabolic conferences. The last one Metabolic Health Summit that I went to had, it was over 350 positions that attended that one, you know, which was really great. And a lot of other researchers, a lot of the public, you know, a lot of people interested in metabolic health. It really, you know, so the word it's getting out there, just not quickly enough. And you probably are aware of the metabolic psychiatry component of it. You know, you mentioned Asperger's, you know, autism, all of that. And they're finding that ketogenic diets, they haven't done too much in the way of studies yet with MCT or coconut or, or exogenous ketones, although I think those are kind of planned, you know, but with a ketogenic diet, they've been able to help people tremendously that have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety. You know, it's really incredible. And then children with autism too, you know, will respond. You know, many of them have seizures and they'll respond to a ketogenic diet and they'll see improvements in their, their behavior and their mood too. You know, when they go on a ketogenic diet and people with Alzheimer's, they have improvement in their behavior and mood.

They become less violent.

Yeah, right.

Which is important because when you have more advanced Alzheimer's, they don't really know what's going on. So they'll look at you or something in care homes. And if you can just reduce that, I, I, I'm firmly to the point in just my understanding of consciousness and meditation and all the neuroscience stuff that I do with 40 years of Zen, my, my brain upgrade company. When you have enough energy in the body, it creates peace. And if you have metabolic disregulation, it creates physiological stress that feels like emotional stress. Body's like something's, something's not right. And, and then you're going to treat other people without kindness. And if your brain is not working well because of Alzheimer's, metabolic disregulation and you know, someone's trying to help you, of course you're going to push them away or whatever because of the physiological effects of lack of electrons. We, we can fix all of this and it's not even that hard. With what we know today versus what we knew a while ago and what we're going to know over the next two years and five years and 10 years, I think Alzheimer's is going to become an optional illness for the vast majority of people who have it and it not going to be a blockbuster drug that does it.

Yeah. Oh, I agree. They have been trying. There are hundreds, hundreds of studies, 40 of them with these plaque, you know, plaque reducing drugs. They've all, all of those have failed or made people worse. A couple of them, they really expensive ad held, you know, that came out. It was out for a couple of years. They actually took it off the market. The company did. Extremely expensive, over $30,000 just for the, per year, just for the drug. It's an intravenous drug. And then you have to pay for all the doctor visits and the supplies and everything to give you the infusion of the IV on top of it. So extremely expensive. But it had, you know, really a very tiny slowdown. 20% would have side effects and that we're talking swelling, fluid leakage in the brain and blood leaking into the brain where common. I mean, 20%, you know, side effects. So one out of five chance you'll have a serious side effect versus possibly slowing the decline, which was equivalent to maybe slowing it by four months, you know, extreme expense, just really not worth it. And a couple others have come on the market, you know, recently that basically do kind of the same thing. But wouldn't it be better instead to focus on a healthier diet and avoiding the things that we know, you know, could possibly reduce that? You know, my, the book clearly Keto, you know, a big chunk of it is devoted to talking about diabetes and the problem of sugar and insulin resistance. And then it goes into a Mediterranean diet and each of the food groups. Why is this food group important? You know, really explains it and then has a plan for it. But the rest of the book, you know, I talk about other things, you know, other lifestyle choices that people make. And, you know, there are experts out there now that say that as much as 40% of cases of dementia could be avoided just by making lifestyle changes. And number two, diet is number one. And number two is exercise, getting more physical activity, controlling blood pressure. A lot of people don't even know they have high blood pressure, you know, much less are they controlling it. Getting enough sleep and not getting too much sleep, treating sleep apnea. There are a bunch of things like that. So the, really, the second half of my book is devoted to things beyond diet.

Yeah, you've got like a master list in the book of all the stuff that you should do.

It's everything I could find, you know, and certain medications, over the counter medications, anticholinergic drugs. So these are things that you use for decongestants and culb syrups, antihistamines, sleep aids. They're anticholinergic, so cholinergic. There's a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, so that's a cholinergic. So an anticholinergic keeps acetylcholine from being produced normally. It inhibits production of it, and it's already deficient in Alzheimer's disease.

So taking anti allergy drugs like Benadryl or something could make Alzheimer's worse and.

Make you more confused because you'll have even less acetylcholine, which is involved with learning and memory and a lot of other functions. So that's another example. I go into detail about that and other types of medications that can mimic or worsen or make somebody look like they have, you know, dementia or contribute to it, you know, possibly even trigger it, you know, so, you know, there's just a whole lot of information in the book, you know, beyond diet, that I think people would find really helpful.

It's a really good compilation from someone who has, you know, really personal experience with it, and that's your motivation. And 30 years of experience working in one of the most clinically difficult environments, you know, with neonatal kids. So I, I think that combination of deep knowledge and experience plus motivation on the personal front equals a book that's willing to break some boundaries. And that's why I wanted to have you on the show because I, I genuinely, yeah, I appreciate your work and, and I, I think the audience will as well. There's. There's so much power that we have and I, I imagine my life would be like had I not stumbled across this stuff in the early odds. In my late 20s and early 30s, I went from working my ass off in my career and struggling and kind of hiding that I couldn't remember stuff and that I Was exhausted all the time to, like, my body changed, my brain changed, and I have never had a better functioning brain now. And if I had not come across that, I'm pretty sure I would either be on disability or dead today. I was not headed in a good direction. My doctor told me high risk of stroke and heart attack. I'm not even 30, so no one should have to go through what I went through. No one should have to go through what your husband Steve went through either, because we know now. We didn't know in 2004, we didn't know in the 90s. And if you're listening to this in your 20s or 30s, it's really cheap, start now. You'll just make more than your friends and be metabolically more fit and have more energy and like, you'll win now. But it costs pennies to not age, and it costs hundreds of dollars to reverse your age if you did it wrong when you were young. And since you get payback now, if doing it in your 20s or 30s, you might as well do it now because it's cheap and because you feel so good. And when you're 40 or 50, which is hard to imagine if you're 20, well, you'll just look back. I still feel like I'm 20 and it's that easy. And I would like to have not had to spend $2 million reversing my age. And at least a million of that came from making bad decisions or even decisions I didn't know about when I was young. But we can do this now. And your book is a great primer for what to do for your brain at any age to make people. Make people just feel better. So thank you, Mary.

Oh, you're welcome. Yeah, and I totally agree with that too, you know, from my own point of view, you know, changing my diet around. I have Alzheimer's. My grandmother, maternal aunt, and two of my cousins who are just a few years older than me have already died from Alzheimer's disease. You know, so I was really worried. And, you know, I thought if this could help somebody with or who already has Alzheimer's, it could help prevent it. And so when Steve started taking coconut and MCT oil, I did too, like right away. And I felt found that I had greater mental endurance. I called it. You know, I had a demanding job, but even so, sometimes I'd be like, now what was the name of that medication? I got something. It should be on the tip of my tongue. That went away, you know, immediately. And I wasn't even really feeling Like, I had that much brain fog, but just slightly noticeable, but that went away. And I, you know, just felt like I had greater mental endurance, which I needed because I was constantly writing and reading and, you know, about all of this. And, you know, I. I feel great. You know, I'm 72. I've been doing a Mediterranean diet for 18 years, and then coconut and MCT for 16 years and a few other ketone supplements I take, you know, as well, but, you know, no prescription medications, completely normal blood pressure, you know, not a hint of diabetes, you know, really good fasting, blood sugar, it. And, you know, and you can do this with really a mild to moderate level of, of ketosis, you know, cutting way back on carbs. I mean, the average, I think, in the US is about 300 or 400 grams of carbs a day, you know, so if you can cut down to 10% of that, which is where I'm at, you can still have little portions. I'll have a little thing of oatmeal with some sunflower seeds with it or something like that, you know, and still enjoy a few of those things and have some carbs, mostly fiber, low glycemic, and, you know, have a very enjoyable diet. I love the diet that I'm eating. And I'm not thinking about sugar all the time. Like, and I used to constantly think about sugar.

You don't have to be carbohydrate free. In fact, I don't think it's good for your gut bacteria. I. I went through, like, several months of what we would now call carnivore when I was stress testing the bulletproof diet. And I got leaky gut and it ruined my sleep, and I got more allergies from it. But would, should you do that for a week or two weeks of time?

Sure.

It can be really good, especially for performance or weight loss. It's funny where I am now that I really fix my metabolism. I got my cell membranes composed the right way and my oils work. I eat 250 grams of carbs a day, and I'm 4.8% body fat.

Yeah, that's half of what most people are eating.

Yeah. It's still not crazy. You know, I eat a meaningful amount of white rice and some honey or fruit or something. Um, and I get enough protein and I get the right kinds of fat. And I would not have been able to do that when I was 40 because my metabolism wasn't yet repaired. And if I did that, I would just blow it up like crazy. I get fat really Fast. So over time your carbohydrate tolerance increases. But the question is, do you want to do that? And, and this is probably beyond the scope of our, our full interview here, but you might want to look at your blood sugar and if you're getting a big spike, don't do it. And if you're not getting a big spike or you're doing some squats after you eat or something, then you should be okay. Where can people find you online? What's your best URL?

Yeah, the best way to get to me is through my website. Coconut ketones. Oddly enough. Coconutketones.com c o c O N U T K E T O N E S Some people try to put a Y in ketones, but there isn't one. And if you google me, usually coconut ketones will pop up, you know, if you can't remember the name of it. But I have a contact email address in there and just a ton of information. I started the website at the end of 2008 after my husband approved, you know, to provide information. And there's a lot of good information. There's a page on the keto diet, start here and it's kind of a modification very similar to the diet that I'm on. And another page for Alzheimer's and dementia and Parkinson's disease. You know, really a lot of people with Parkinson's improved dramatically, you know, with ketogenic strategies. I, you know, there's some long termers, you know, they're in my book. Some people that have had really long term success, I have their stories in my, my books. So that's the best way to get a hold of me. And, and of course I wouldn't mind if you decide to buy my book. You know, people listening, there's a lot of information in it and very specific information about how to incorporate these lifestyle changes into your life.

And guys, what Mary just said there, it is really important you vote with your dollars. In fact, I would argue that voting with your dollars and buying a book to improve your metabolism might make a bigger difference in the world than voting the old fashioned way for the evil of two lessers. So it, it really matters. So it's not going to probably change Mary's life if you do or don't buy her book because authors of books make almost nothing on them.

You don't get much, but it, it.

Does matter, especially your review. So if you buy her books, buy my books. But any of the guests, I, I bring you the very best people I can find who are doing Good work in the world who have a new way of thinking and get the book and check it out. And if you do, if you still drink moldy coffee at a big green logo place, I hope that you tip the barista. And the way you tip an author is you just leave a review, right? Just go on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, wherever you like to buy books, leave a review. Same thing with the podcast. You like the podcast? Share with a friend, leave a review. So buy Mary's book. Go to coconoketomos.com and check it out. If you're interested in cognitive function and brain health. And if you are, let's see, what are the three pillars of biohacking? It's life extensions, living forever, longevity, it's cognitive enhancement, and it's increasing of consciousness. So if you get your ketones up, it will help you with all three. And that's why ketones are central to this and that's why I like your work. So thank you, Mary. Thanks for being a guest on the Human Upgrade.

Thank you, Dave. I really, really enjoy this conversation and I just know it's going to reach a lot of people out there.

That's the goal. And the goal is if you listen to this episode, it should return more than an hour's worth of value to you, right? And it's very easy to kind of just get caught up in scrolling on Instagram or whatever. But it, this, this podcast has to date consumed 792 entire human lifetimes. So I, I don't want to be a mass murderer, so it better be worth your time. And I would ask our listeners, do this for Mary and for me, if there's something that's lacking in her research. Leave it in the View. Say, hey, you didn't talk about this on the podcast. Leave it in review.

Leave it.

Leave a thing on my website. It's like, hey, Dave, you're not talking about this. Whatever. Like, I'm always interested in improving too. So let's make the show more worthwhile, let's make Mary's work more worthwhile, and as always, be kind. I don't care if you're really kind to me because I'm, I'm a big boy. But be kind to other people when you talk about this. I see people come online and get all angry and stuff. If you do that. I'm going to make fun of your mom in the comments on Instagram. You don't want me to do that. So let's not bully each other, because I promise you that I'm going to make fun of you. So let's just be kind and if you're unkind, it's because you're lacking ketones. So let's just fix it.

Yeah, kindness means everything. It's really better. It's a better way of life. I agree.

There you go. Thanks for listening and I will see you on the next episode. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.

The Human Upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio, was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider carefully read all labels, and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Proof Media.