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Summary
On episode 568 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Dr. Mary Newport, a physician board certified in pediatrics and neonatology who practiced newborn intensive care in Florida for 30 years and later worked in hospice care. She has spent years researching and writing about ketones as an alternative fuel for the brain in Alzheimer’s and other neurological conditions.
Dr. Newport shares the story of her husband Steve, diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at 54, and how she discovered that coconut oil and MCT oil could raise ketone levels enough to fuel a brain that was struggling to use glucose. Within days of adding coconut oil to his diet, Steve’s symptoms visibly improved.
The conversation covers the science behind that improvement: how insulin resistance affects the brain, why ketones can fill the resulting energy gap, and how a Mediterranean style ketogenic diet, exercise, and time restricted eating can help protect brain health as we age.
Links
- https://coconutketones.com
Key Takeaways
- Coconut oil turned Steve’s symptoms around within days. After adding a little over two tablespoons of coconut oil to his diet, Dr. Newport’s husband regained energy, started talking and whistling again, and drew a much more organized clock two weeks later on a standard Alzheimer’s screening test.
- Alzheimer’s behaves like a type of diabetes in the brain. Insulin resistance reduces glucose uptake into brain cells years before symptoms appear, starving cells of the fuel they need even though glucose is present in the blood.
- Ketones can fill the brain’s energy gap. Research from Dr. Stephen Cunnane found a measurable gap between how much energy the brain needs and how much it gets, ranging from about 7 to 9 percent in cognitively normal older adults up to 20 percent in early Alzheimer’s. Ketones are taken up well in the same brain regions affected by the disease.
- MCT oil and coconut oil work because the liver converts them to ketones. MCT oil, extracted from coconut oil, is metabolized differently than most fats, and the liver turns part of it directly into ketones that the brain can use for fuel.
- A whole food Mediterranean style diet supports brain aging. Emphasizing fish, olive oil, nuts, full fat dairy, and whole grains while limiting ultra-processed food and fructose gives the brain nutrients like choline that are deficient in Alzheimer’s disease.
- Mild nutritional ketosis, not deep ketosis, is the target for brain health. Dr. Newport recommends keeping blood ketones around 0.5 to 1.5 for cognitive support, reserving higher ketone levels for conditions like epilepsy or cancer treatment.
- Exercise and overnight fasting both raise ketone levels naturally. A brisk 30 to 40 minute walk can stimulate ketone production for eight or nine hours, and a 12 to 16 hour overnight fast depletes stored liver glucose and shifts the body toward burning fat for ketones.
- Trans fats and reused frying oil damage cell membranes. Repeatedly heated oils create toxic lipids, and trans fats stiffen the cell membrane and shorten cell lifespan, a problem Dr. Newport believes may have contributed to rising Alzheimer’s rates.
“The day he started cooking that oil, it was like a light switch came back on in his brain.”
Dr. Mary Newport
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