Dr. Mary Newport’s use of organic coconut oil.

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[Abbreviated version of article]

A Case Study by Dr. Mary Newport, July 22, 2008

“There is a growing epidemic of obesity, type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and predictions that 15,000,000 people in the United States alone will have Alzheim­er’s Disease by the year 2050. In 2001, Dr. Richard L. Veech of the NIH, and others, published an article entitled, “Ke­tone bodies, potential therapeutic uses.” In 2003, George F. Cahill, Jr. and Richard Veech authored, “Ketoacids? Good Medicine?” and in 2004, Richard Veech published a review of the therapeutic implications of ketone bod­ies. These articles are not found in journals that the average physician would read, much less the lay public.

My husband Steve, age 58, has had pro­gressive dementia for at least five years. He had an MRI in May 2008 showing a diffuse involutional change of the frontal and pari­etal lobes and moderate left-sided and severe right-sided amygdala and hippocampal atro­phy with no ischemic change, which would support a clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease. For non-medical people, this means that he has shrunken areas of the brain. Many days, often for several days in a row, he was in a fog; couldn’t find a spoon or re­member how to get water out of the refrig­erator.  Steve has a BSBA in accounting, and did billing, bookkeeping and accounting for my neonatology practice from home, so that he could stay with our girls. He loved computers and was a fast typist.

He knew that something was wrong and depression set in. We took him to a neurologist about 4 years ago, who did a Mini Mental Status Exam (MMSE,) and Steve scored a 23 out of 30, putting him into the mild range of dementia.

About three years ago, Steve started taking Aricept and two years ago Namenda. We were hopeful that, if we could slow his decline enough, a treatment would come along that would turn things around for him. He was changed over from Aricept to Exelon in August 2007 after losing ten pounds over several weeks.  In the past 12 months, there was a noticeable change. He can no longer cook for himself, remember to eat a good meal, use a calculator or even perform the simplest addition, however he still keeps busy all day working in the yard or in his garage and he is still in good physical condition.

Until very recently, I didn’t see anything re­garding the potential use of medium chain trig­lycerides (MCT oil), or ketone bodies (also called ketoacids,) the end product of their metabolism, which may not only treat, but also prevent Alzheim­er’s disease. Further, this is a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclero­sis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease), drug resistant epilepsy, brittle type I diabetes, and diabetes type II, where there is insulin resistance.

In Alzheimer’s disease, the neurons in certain areas of the brain are un­able to take in glucose due to insulin resistance and slowly die off, a process that appears to happen one or more decades before the symptoms become apparent.  If these cells had access to ketone bod­ies, they could potentially stay alive and continue to function. It appears that persons with Parkin­son’s disease, Huntington’s disease, multiple, and ALS have a similar defect in utilizing glucose but in different areas of the brain or spinal cord.

MCT oil is digested differently by the body than other fats. Instead of storing all MCTs as fat, the liver converts them directly to ketone bodies, which are then available for use as energy. Oral and intravenous administration of MCT oil produc­es hyperketonemia, 10 or more circulating ketone bodies, which are then available to the brain for energy, in the absence of glucose and even in the presence of glucose.

I didn’t know at that point that I could easily purchase MCT oil online, so I researched coconut oil and found out that coconut oil is about 60% me­dium chain fatty acids (MCFA), contains no cho­lesterol and also contains omega-6 fatty acids and some other short and long chain fatty acids of up to 18 carbon chains…”

[Mary describes giving her husband coconut oil before some testing, and what happened-interesting to see how his clock drawing improved and how other daily functions improved with coconut oil]

“At the time of this writing it has been 60 days since he started taking coconut oil (May 21, 2008.) He walks into the kitchen every morning alert and happy, talkative, making jokes. His gait is still a little weird. His tremor is no longer very noticeable. He is able to concentrate on things that he wants to do around the house and in the yard and stay on task, whereas before coconut oil he was easily distractible and rarely accomplished anything unless I supervised him directly, a source of some contention between us!

We visited Cincinnati at the end of June and all of my family and Steve’s family noticed a very sig­nificant difference in how he interacted with them socially compared to a year ago. Instead of looking lost, he was involved and interested in what they had to say. He recognized relatives (brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews) by name immediately that were unfamiliar to him a year ago. His facial expression was more animated. He participated actively in conversations, understood jokes im­mediately and even came up with his own humor­ous comments. He still had difficulty finding some words, but he was talking in sentences and even stringing sentences together.

He is a very different person than he was a year ago and perhaps even two or three years ago. He has serious atrophy of his brain and will never be “normal,” but for now we are very pleased with where he is at and, should coconut oil stop or slow down the progress of his disease, it will be worth every drop that he takes.  My sister Lois told a lady she works with about the coconut oil and Steve’s response to it. Her fa­ther began to give this to her mother, who has Al­zheimer’s and she has had a similar response, with more alertness, conversation and sense of humor.

Until Dr. Veech’s beta-hydroxybutyrate is test­ed and available for use, a simple dietary change to coconut oil could make a difference for people who believe they are at risk and for those who already have one of these diseases. To duplicate the dose of MCT taken in the Ketasyn study, about 7 level teaspoons should be taken at one time, once a day, which should circu­late ketone bodies for about 24 hours. I do not know if it is necessary to take this much at one time or if the dosage could be spread out over the course of the day. Studies obviously need to be done to determine this. We actually give this amount to Steve at least twice a day to make sure that there are no periods without ketone bodies circulating. Many days he receives at least 50% more than this.

Some people may experience a sense of “fullness” or even have diarrhea after taking this much to start, but this problem can be reduced by starting with one or two teaspoons and increasing over a week or so to the full amount. We put it in oatmeal, combine it with salad dressings, use it to cook with, and put it on anything that one would normally put butter on, such as potatoes, sweet po­tatoes, rice, pasta or noodles.

If you are using any type of hydrogenated veg­etable oil or any oil with transfat, do not use any more and get rid of it! Extra virgin olive oil, but­ter and other natural, non-hydrogenated oils are okay to use along with the coconut oil. It is possible to use coconut oil in place of all other oils, how­ever, since it contains no omega-3 fatty acids, it is very important to eat salmon twice a week or get enough omega-3 fatty acid from other rich sources such as fish oil capsules, flax meal, flax oil (not for cooking) or walnuts.

If you have a loved one or a patient with Alzheimer’s or one of these other degenerative neurologic diseases, consider trying coconut oil. Dr. Veech suggests that, if possible, a videotape of the person before starting and at various points af­ter starting the coconut oil would be very useful to document change.”

-   Dr. Mary Newport, Spring Hills, FL