Alzheimer’s Disease, Senile Dementia

by Phillip Day

 

Profile

Mental impairment problems are devastating our cultures today, and yet this has not always been the case. Clearly, nutritional, hydration and toxicity issues are at the fore. As many as a third of all hospital beds in the UK are taken up with geriatric patients suffering a host of disorders, a large proportion of them institutionalised because of senility . The cost to healthcare runs to billions. With mental impairment problems, the following questions should be asked and the conditions addressed FIRST:

 

·         Is the patient eating organic, whole, non-pesticide-laden foods?

·         Is the majority of the patient’s diet cooked?

·         Is the patient nutritionally deficient?

·         Is the patient drinking up to 2 litres of clean, fresh water a day?

·         Does the patient have chaotic blood sugar  levels?

·         Is the patient on any psychiatric medication, which might be giving the appearance of senility  or slow cognitive ability?

·         Does the patient suffer from food allergies?

·         Has the patient any evidence of yeast  or fungal  infections?

·         Does the patient live in a toxic environment?

·         Does the patient eat junk food and drink sodas?

·         Has the patient been mentally unchallenged for an extended period of time?

 

Memory problems – potential causes

Several factors influence memory:

 

·         Use it or lose it!

·         Dehydration and lack of salt

·         Impaired blood supply to the brain

·         Nutritional intake, especially minerals such as zinc  and manganese, vitamins, especially the ‘B’ group, and essential fatty acids

·         Food allergies

·         Toxins

·         Abnormal blood sugar  levels (glucose intolerance)

 

Use it or lose it!

In my view, retirement is the single most damaging thing for a person, when they are persuaded to end their productivity and bow out of the work ethic until they expire. It is in the nature of humans to produce and be mentally active. Depression , listlessness and despair often set in when brains are put in mothballs and the person vegetates in a chair in front of the TV for most of the time.

 

In Health Wars , I take a look at cultures who routinely live past 100 and remain active. If you are 70-80, start looking around for another career! Think of the skills and knowledge you have amassed that could benefit others. If your brain  is busy and well fed, it is a happy brain . And so you will be too. 

 

Dehydration and lack of salt

Some estimates put the brain’s content at up to 80-83% water. Mineral salts, fats and other nutrients are indispensable to the brain’s proper functioning yet amazingly most care homes and retired adult facilities do not place any emphasis on proper water and salt intake.

 

In The Essential Guide to Water and Salt, Dr F Batmanghelidj points out that as we age, we lose our thirst sensation. This is compounded by the fact that most of us have been confusing the thirst sensation for hunger for decades and probably suffer overweight and blood sugar problems as a result. A person can easily enter their seventies chronically dehydrated, exhibiting symptoms which are interpreted by the doctor as ‘a disease of the elderly’ – constipation, slow cognitive performance, arthritis, osteoporosis, urinary tract infections, high blood pressure, asthma, and elevated triglyceride and cholesterol levels. All are symptoms of dehydration and the consequences of the body’s drought management procedures. Here’s what happened at one care home in Suffolk, England, when management suggested some changes to residents’ water intake:

 

‘Staff at The Martins care home in Bury St Edmunds started a "water club" for their residents last summer. Residents were encouraged to drink eight to 10 glasses of water a day, water coolers were installed, and they were each given a jug for their room.

They report significant improvements in health as a result - many fewer falls, fewer GP call-outs, a cut in the use of laxatives and in urinary infections, better quality of sleep, and lower rates of agitation among residents with dementia.

"It's been fantastic," she said. "The whole home buzzes now; there isn't that period after lunch when everyone goes off to sleep."

For Baroness Greengross, a cross-bench peer, it reinforces a conviction she has had for some time now - that many old people simply are not drinking enough, and it is harming their health.’ [1]

 

Dr Batman states: ‘The primary cause of Alzheimer’s  is chronic dehydration of the body. In my opinion, brain  cell dehydration is the primary cause of Alzheimer’s  disease. Aluminium toxicity is a secondary complication of dehydration in areas of the world with comparatively aluminium -free water (although in the technically advanced Western societies, aluminium  sulphate is used in the process of water purification for delivery into the city water supplies!). One of my medical friends took this information to heart and started treating his brother who has Alzheimer’s  disease by forcing him to take more water every day. His brother has begun to recover his memory, so much so that he can now follow conversation and not frequently repeat himself. The improvement became noticeable in a matter of weeks.’ [2]

 

Blood supply to the brain

One of the most common medical conditions the over-50s suffer is atherosclerosis , or lipoprotein plaque in the arteries. In Health Wars , I devote two chapters to the affairs of the heart and cardiovascular system, showing that heart disease , in almost all its forms, may be traced back to dehydration, lack of exercise and nutritional deficiencies, including an early form of scurvy .

 

Scurvy

Scurvy occurs when collagen  breaks down in the body. Collagen is a tough, fibrous material the body uses to clad arteries, veins and capillaries, as well as organs and the skin, to give them structure. Collagen is a lot like the steel girders you see when builders are erecting a new skyscraper.  Each collagen  fibre  has been calculated to be far tougher and stronger than an iron  wire of comparable width. In the absence of adequate nutrition, specifically vitamins C, E and the amino acids lysine and proline , collagen  begins to dissolve. When sailors went off to sea and eschewed their usual diet of fruits and vegetables in favour of the non-perishable foodstuffs used during long voyages, scurvy  set in within weeks as the collagen dissolved and the sailors literally fell apart. The cure was to recommence consumption of living, whole fruits and vegetables rich in the nutrition required to repair collagen  and nourish the whole body.

 

Atherosclerosis

With heart disease , the process is much slower, sometimes taking years to develop, since very few in the western world today suffer from vitamin C depletion. Like scurvy , a  chronic vitamin C  deficiency causes the beginning of a collapse in the arterial walls, necessitating a healing  process to commence, in the form of lipoprotein(a)  fats which the body attempts to use to bond the thousands of tiny breaches in the arterial walls.

 

These lipoproteins are Nature’s perfect Band-Aid. They are extremely sticky and form the majority of the atherosclerotic deposits associated with advanced forms of heart disease  today. Cardiovascular medicine, unaware or willingly ignorant of the underlying nutritional deficiency causes of atherosclerosis , focuses attention on vilifying the lipoprotein’s LDL  (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol  content as one of the primary causes of heart diseases, when it is in fact the healing (survival response) precursor, brought on by a chronic vitamin C  deficiency and dehydration. Today the drug industry has mobilised a multi-billion-dollar business of anti-cholesterol  drugs, which have wrought devastating results in cardiac patients, necessitating a further $20 billion drugs program to combat all the side- effects. [3]

 

Most people have accumulated Lp(a) in their arteries after age 50, bringing on the usual problems with sticky blood (dehydration), thrombosis , atherosclerosis  and high blood pressure (dehydration). Strokes too are caused when Lp(a) clogs the brain  artery, impairing vital blood flow to the brain . And it is here that our interest in memory loss focuses. Impaired blood flow to the brain  will cause death or partial paralysis. Patrick Holford  writes:

 

“When cells are starved of oxygen, they switch to a more primitive mode of operation called anaerobic respiration. The cells begin to divide and spread – unless they are nerve cells…. Nerve cells can’t regenerate. So what happens to them? They just stop working. The result is senility .” [4]

 

Aluminium and toxic metals

Another common finding in premature senile dementia , known as Alzheimer’s  disease, is an entanglement of nerve fibres. When these nerve clusters are found in the frontal and temporal regions of the brain , they are frequently saturated with aluminium . [5] Many theories abound on how this aluminium  has accumulated. Aluminium can be taken into the body through the water supply, cooking pots and utensils, toothpastes (the tube), aluminium  foil packaging, soft drinks and antacids . Interestingly, a person who has unknowingly suffered dehydration for most of their life will probably have suffered oesophageal reflux (heartburn) too, for which they have taken antacids for decades – a primary transmission route for aluminium into the body.

 

Detoxification regimens, such as those expounded on in this book (also in Food For Thought and Health Wars) , will assist the body in ridding itself of unwanted accumulations of heavy metals. Chelators , natural substances which attach themselves to toxic elements and escort them out of the body, are used to remove aluminium .

 

Excess amounts of the following metals are known memory disruptors and inhibitors:

 

Lead : leads to hyperactivity  and aggression . Taken in from traffic fumes and industrial pollution. Chelated using vitamins C, B1  and zinc .

Aluminium: leads to memory loss and senility . Derived from pots, pans, cooking utensils, antacids, etc. Chelated using zinc  and magnesium .

Cadmium: leads to aggression  and confusion . Derived from cigarettes. Chelated with vitamin C  and zinc .

Copper: leads to anxiety  and phobias. Derived from water piping. Chelated with zinc .

Mercury: leads to headaches  and memory loss. Derived from pesticides, some vaccinations  and mercury amalgam dental  fillings. Chelated with selenium .

 

Food sensitivities

Those with memory impairment problems may also be suffering from the effects of food sensitivities, as discussed earlier (see Allergies). These can also be a symptom of chronic, unintentional dehydration. An allergy test may determine an underlying, treatable food allergy problem, which may be contributing to the patient’s condition.

 

Pellagra

As discussed in the ABC’s of Disease section on Schizophrenia, an old nutritional problem called pellagra  is haunting us still. Pellagra is a niacin (B3 ) deficiency which will result in the four ‘D’s – dizziness , diarrhoea , dementia  and death. Vitamin B3  is essential for oxygen utilisation in the body. It is incorporated into the coenzyme NAD (nicotinamide adenosine dinucleotide ). Low amounts of B3  will invariably bring on symptoms that can be interpreted as dementia , Alzheimer’s , etc.

 

Boosting the memory

Those suffering memory impairment have a veritable arsenal of nutritional weapons at their disposal, as we shall see. [6] The neurotransmitter  acetylcholine  is the brain  hormone responsible for memory retention. Experiments done at Palo Alto Hospital in California  showed that drugs which boost production of acetylcholine  produced ‘super-memories’. Natural nutrients however can effectively boost acetylcholine  production. These are choline , glutamine , DMAE ( a nutrient found in fish) , and its salt, Deanol . Pyroglutamate  is also excellent, and many ‘memory’ supplements on the market today contain a mix of these nutrients, which work better when used synergistically.

 

Take action ©

1.       DIET: COMMENCE THE FOOD FOR THOUGHT DIETARY REGIMEN, ensuring the majority of food is whole, organic, high fibre and eaten raw. Remove grains where possible from the diet

2.       DIET: Small meals, consumed often

3.       DIET: Reduce meat and eliminate dairy intake

4.       DIET: Cut out ingestion of sucrose and refined, high-glycaemic  carbohydrate foods

5.       HYDRATION: Commence hydrating the body to the extent of half the patient’s bodyweight in ounces of water per day (viz: a  160 lb male can drink 80 oz of water a day, which is approximately 10 glasses). Half a teaspoon (tsp) of Himalayan salt is recommended per 10 glasses of water. Maintain over the long term

6.       DETOXIFICATION: Remove all toxins and damage triggers from your environment and lifestyle (harmful personal and household products, chemicals, smoking, drugs, SUGAR)

7.       DETOXIFICATION: Detoxify your body and kill fungi, yeasts and parasites  

8.       RESTORING NUTRIENT BALANCE: Nutritional supplementation, including minerals, vitamins, including C complex, B-groups and essential fats (the correct omega 3:6 ratio)

9.       Avoid where possible drugs, radiation scans and intrusive ‘diagnostic’ testing

10.   Regular exercise is very important. Not just walking! Get the heart rate up with cycling, stair-climbing, hill-climbing, etc.

11.   Be happy and stress-free

12.   Rest