Today, CNN aired a story on Alzheimer’s and had Sanjay Gupta (a hero of mine) confirming what I have been eluted to for the last twenty years: hyper-processed foods (HPF) are the trigger that starts dementia and the onslaught of Alzheimer’s (AH). Add to the processed foods the consumption of artificial sweeteners, ALL of the variations including Stevia and Coconut sugar – and we have a chemical time bomb that can seriously impact the brain’s electricity… Side note: artificial sweeteners are not sugar replacements; they are chemical ways of triggering your taste buds to tell the brain something is sweet – although it’s a chemical trigger and not the actual “sweet” receptors.
For some of you, the absurd idea of making a bitter-tasting candy with heroin is probably not the best culinary choice either… Both consumptions, however, have a side effect; Heroin gives you an enhanced feeling of sensory heights, and artificial sugars trigger your brain to stimulate the false sense of an item to be sweet…
Although we have extended life expectancy over the last fifty years, concerns about diseases more prevalent among the elderly, such as cancer and dementia, seem to proliferate. In 2016, dementia affected over 40 million people worldwide. Estimates assume that this will triple by 2050.
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia. It is a progressive physio-pathological brain restructuring caused by extracellular deposition and accumulation of β-amyloid protein in the cerebral parenchyma.
Let me explain this with a simplified analysis: Think of electricity cables; a single one is like a copper wire in a tiny plastic tube called the Myelin Sheath in science. In our example, the wire in the tube is loose, in a filling of collagen protein with neurons and glial cells floating around (neuroglia); like glitter in a clear Jello soup. We call this functional tissue brain parenchyma. These (wire tubes) are your nerves in the brain, sending tons of info back and forth. The myelin tube primarily comprises a cholesterol-rich membrane, protein, and fatty substances – called tau fibrils. Tau is a protein that helps stabilize the internal skeleton of nerve cells (neurons) in the brain.
Alcohol and anti-pressant medicines can cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) into the brain and attack the tau, which isa healthy brain cell. Think of the BBB as a guarded entrance that will not let anything in that is harmful to your “thinker”.
Amyloid-β is a peptide, a sticky matter that binds with the fat around the electricity tube (the myelin sheath), protecting your nerves (the electricity wire). It’s the same substance around your spinal cords. Imagine dirt collects on these fatty tubes, junk of it. The cause of this buildup is directly linked with the choices of foods and meds we consume; I’ll come back to this, too. At one point, this dirt-buildup material clumps together: Basically, the healthy tau tangles up, and dirt gets collected in this stringy stuff. It’s called amyloid plaques, which harden and press onto the interior of your nerves in the Jello tube and choke off the flow of information.
In early dementia patients, some electricity still squeezes through. Your amazing body reacts by building up tiny brick stones (protein), which collect from the dirt attached to the fat tissue on the exterior tubes. It’s our body trying its best to protect brain parenchyma (the space between the copper rod and the plastic tube) by creating counterpressure from inside the structure. However, that “brick stone-fix” hardens and finally disrupts the flow of electricity (information) from within your nerve tube.
Research can now establish data that indicates this “interior” hardening is probably a diverging of human brain evolution because of the bad stuff we consume and inhale. The cause of Alzheimer’s or any degenerative decline is the foremost food choices we make (some over-the-counter meds we take are bad, too). Pollution, radiation, and rapidly evolving viral infections add further to the problem. The precise chemical link or the specific items consumed, like additives in ultra-processed foods (UPF), have been pinpointed as the cause.
Polluting factors in the surrounding environment have been established as triggering the buildup of dirt (β-amyloid plaque). Most unhealthy food additives, however, go under the radar of research because they are in such small amounts that they don’t even have to be listed as an ingredient. Hence, they are categorized as non-harmful or non-toxic to human beings. Now, some of you reading this agree; that’s probably not true: I could not be persuaded to believe otherwise.
This dirt collection on the myelin (the tube) in the brain is the identifying marker when today testing for Alzheimer’s disease and is believed to be the culprit in initiating the pathological cascade of the disease.
Side Note: Many of my blog supporters and regular readers here have encouraged me to be bolder in expressing my success in helping people slow down or even reversing progressive illness. Alzheimer’s is correctable to a certain success!
Treatments to slow disease progression are limited, and the development of new drugs has been stunningly slow. Modern medicine is already embracing the idea that Alzheimer’s can be prevented and even aided by eating wisely. Why not fix what is going wrong with the tools available and adjust your food intake? It baffles me how difficult this appears to so many people affected by this modern disease!
Back to storytelling:
Evidence in the literature suggests that nutrition-related interventions are crucial for preventing cognitive decline, as diet influences direct and indirect mechanisms that can modify AD risk. It’s important to note that due to nutritional transition, dietary patterns have dramatically changed over recent decades. Studies indicate a higher availability and consumption of high-energy-density foods and low concentrations of vitamins and minerals. Lacking “healthy food items” is a costly problem.
Flavor enhancers, colorations, and unnatural additives often compared to aggressive chemicals used in cleaning supplies (i.e., bromide and tartrazine acid) are now exposed for the sickening side effects they cause. Factually, this is not “new” messaging; these warnings were originally shared before Government agencies allowed products to be lazed into drinks and products used for human consumption. The excuse then, as it is now, is a convoluted idea that, in small doses, it can’t affect humans. That would be true in a singular observation, but once you have tartrazine (a yellow color additive) added to Skittles, Mountain Dew (Kool-Aid, Gatorade, and energy drinks), mustard (Doritos, yellow soups, and risotto) and in your lip gloss (sun lotion, conditioner) applied it’s already a quadruple application in one meal/one hour. Yes, ladies, a 50-year-old woman will have consumed about 15lbs of lip gloss and lipstick. Tartrazine, aka yellow dye #5, has been linked to asthma and behavior problems in kids and is forbidden in some European countries.
A significant factor in this scenario is the substantial increase in the consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPF) worldwide. UPFs are eatables (cosmetics) composed of various ingredients, many of which are exclusively industrial, resulting from arrangements of processes applied to food productions, and preservatives, coloring and taste enhancing additives used to modify these unatural spin-offs. These foods typically have higher levels of total fat, saturated fat, added sugar, energy density, sodium, and lower fiber and vitamin density. UPFs account for more than half of the total dietary energy consumed in developed countries like the USA, UK, and Canada and about a fifth in middle-income countries such as Brazil, Mexico, and Chile.
The relationship between the consumption of UPFs and adverse effects on brain health has been an area of growing interest in scientific research. Recent studies suggest that diets high in UPFs may be associated with lower cognitive performance, affecting memory, attention, and reasoning abilities. Furthermore, potentially inflammatory ingredients in UPF can trigger inflammatory processes in the body (read my prior blog (Myth About Inflammation). These chemicals cause havoc in the brain, contributing to oxidative stress and cellular damage. Besides plaque buildup, as outlined above, other organs respond violently to these unnatural influences. There is also an observed potential link between the consumption of these foods and mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety.
It’s easy to say don’t eat cheap junk food when you’re on a budget, but you still have choices, and everyone should add exercise and lifestyle changes that could curb the amount of these toxins we consume uncontrollably. (Stop vaping, another past blog I shared.)!
Recently published, a prospective cohort study revealed that UPF consumption is directly associated with a higher risk of AD. Various biological mechanisms may explain this association. UPF is generally associated with low-quality diets, as they are rich in sugar, fat, sodium, and chemical additives. This combination of characteristics can promote systemic inflammation in the body and favor neurogenerative and pathophysiological processes in the brain, consequently increasing the risk of AD.
When Doctor Alois Alzheimer pinpointed the results of an autopsy of a female patient who had died from her cognitive disorder, he had no access to the modern instruments available. In 1907, he isolated and recorded the “clumping,” which he correctly identified as abnormal neurofibrillary tangles, and opened the research on intracellular aggregates as a cause of mental decline. His predictions were confirmed until 1987 when the amyloid precursor protein (APP) had been cloned.
In 1910, a psychiatrist, Emil Kraempelin, first termed Alzheimer’s as a diagnosis of a cognitive, rare progression of mind-changing decline. Before that, you were called mad, or when “suffering from brain congestion,” or termed “senility” when expressing a decrease in memory and concentration. Doctor Alzheimer used his laboratory for the research that started the understanding of mental disorders. He correctly differentiated that schizophrenia and depression (non are two distinct entities in understanding psychiatric illness). He tested the impact of items we consume, Tobacco, alcohol, and other substances on how we react. His observational methods did not align with those of peers in the field who devoted their study to psychoanalysis and embraced the idea that non-material influences affected the brain. Today, we integrate natural scientific results and psychodynamic understandings in psychiatry, which results in a comprehensive understanding of the origin of illness and the consequences that require adjustments beyond food intake, I.e., sound stimulation, meditation, exercise, and touch therapy.
When clients approach me about helping Alzheimer’s patients, I usually have to trust my instincts that guidance cannot be achieved when my participation is limited to that of a chef. Yes, food intake has to change dramatically, but lifestyle choices are equally crucial to success.
In the progress of AD decline, my “help” is limited.
Feel free to reach out and share your thoughts. All feedback is welcome!
TCMchef Raphael