Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Summary
On episode 244 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Amy Berger, a certified nutrition specialist and nutritional therapy practitioner with a master’s degree in human nutrition and author of The Alzheimer’s Antidote.
Amy argues Alzheimer’s is not simply a genetic sentence. The ApoE4 gene raises risk but does not cause the disease, and the amyloid plaques everyone blames are more a late symptom than the root cause.
The real driver, she says, is a fuel crisis in the brain tied to chronically high insulin. She and Allan get into why cholesterol and statins matter more than most people realize, and how a low carb, higher fat approach can restore an alternative fuel source (ketones) to a starving brain.
Links
- https://tuitnutrition.com
- Episode 464 – How to end carb confusion with Dr. Eric Westman and Amy Berger
Key Takeaways
- The ApoE4 gene raises risk but does not cause Alzheimer’s. Not everyone with the gene develops the disease, and plenty of people with Alzheimer’s don’t carry it. It’s a mismatch with the modern high carbohydrate diet, not a life sentence.
- Alzheimer’s risk skews maternal. Mitochondria are inherited only from the mother, and mitochondrial problems contribute to the disease, so a mother’s or grandmother’s history matters more than the father’s.
- Amyloid plaques are likely a late-stage symptom, not the cause. Some people with severe Alzheimer’s have little plaque buildup at autopsy, and drugs that clear plaques don’t improve symptoms, which tells us plaques aren’t the real target.
- The real driver is a fuel crisis in the brain. Neurons in affected regions lose the ability to use glucose for energy and slowly atrophy, visible on brain scans as the brain shrinking.
- Cholesterol and statins deserve a second look. The brain holds 25% of the body’s cholesterol and depends on it for function, so deliberately suppressing cholesterol production with statins can contribute to memory problems, a documented side effect.
- Chronically high insulin (hyperinsulinemia) is the biggest independent risk factor. It raises Alzheimer’s risk even without the ApoE4 gene, yet fasting insulin is almost never tested in a routine checkup.
- High insulin blocks the brain’s own cleanup crew. The same enzyme that clears amyloid plaques also clears insulin from the blood, so when insulin stays chronically high, that enzyme stays busy on insulin and plaques keep accumulating.
- Ketones can fuel a brain that can no longer use glucose well. Both exogenous ketone supplements and a ketogenic diet improve cognition in the short term, but only the dietary change addresses the underlying metabolic problem long term.
- Get there nutritionally first. For a healthy, active person, exogenous ketones are largely unnecessary; building ketones through diet reprograms the metabolic state driving the disease rather than just masking symptoms.
“It’s as if the sanitation crew is on strike.”
Amy Berger
Another Episode You May Enjoy
Episode 261 – Starting your wellness project with Phoebe Lapine