By Obhi Chatterjee
When my father was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (which affects a different part of the brain from Alzheimer’s) a couple of years ago, his consultant advised my wife and me that there was no conventional medicine which could treat his condition. When we asked what we could do instead, her suggestion that we could explore “alternative” treatments led us to start researching them and giving the most promising to my father. Today, instead of spending almost the whole day in bed, he is more alert than he was a year ago and enjoys watching detective TV series.
My wife and I already knew the devastating impact of Alzheimer’s from seeing the decline of my father-in-law, who passed away last year. In his case, we had followed the conventional approach of just waiting–something we now regret, given what we know now.
The current practice in the UK is to treat people suffering from dementia in the home with the help of carers for as long as possible. Previously, they were sent invariably to a care home, where they would typically be sedated with anti-psychotic drugs.
The first potential treatment we heard about was virgin coconut oil. Like many others, we found that it had a positive effect on my father’s alertness. However, we also discovered that the very organisations we relied on for support–Alzheimer’s charities and, more recently, care agencies – were the most obstructive.
Just wait for your loved one to fade away
For example, in addition to the UK Alzheimer’s Society refusing to research the effect of coconut oil on dementia for “lack of evidence”, their online forum banned me for “advocating” non-prescription treatments. One of its rules forbids the posting of “unsubstantiated claims”about complementary therapies. It reflects an attitude that seems to say: there is nothing to do other than to wait for your loved one to fade away.
In fact, we had nothing to lose by doing something. This post describes how we were able to help my father in spite of these hurdles.I hope that it may encourage others to make use of what we have found out in the process and do the same. It also suggests how massive open online research could be a more fruitful way to cure and prevent dementia than controlled, limited and very expensive drug-type trials.
It was one of our neighbours who first sent us a link to a video about how Florida paediatrician Dr Mary Newport had seen benefits in using coconut oil to treat her husband’s Alzheimer’s. I had been shocked to see that her paper “What if there was a cure for Alzheimer’s and no-one knew?” – published in 2008! Sceptics claimed that it could cause heart disease, which I learned was false – even though that view is echoed in the NHS advice to avoid fat and cholesterol.
Since starting my father on coconut oil, we have gradually added other food supplements that seem to have plausible evidence. An excellent source is the book Stop Alzheimer’s Now! by Dr Bruce Fife. His ‘Alzheimer’s Battle Plan’, explains how coconut oil is converted to ketones by the liver and provides the brain with an alternative source of energy. Other components of the Plan are a low carbohydrate diet including fish, taking care of oral health and a series of dietary supplements (including Alpha-lipoic acid, CoQ10, Magnesium, Vitamin C, L-Carnitine, Curcumin and Vitamin D).
Read the full and very interesting article here.
All the best Jan
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