FOHAC News Brain Fog Diet #210a

Published: Thu, 08/15/13

Fair Oaks Health News

Welcome

August 11, 2013

Brain Fog Diet

Hi ,

I just spent the weekend before last at a seminar on assessing Brain Fog or Cog Fog as the instructor called it. The term came from the description of the inability to remember and think clearly experienced by people on chemotherapy drugs for cancer treatment. These drugs are extremely powerful and highly toxic poisons. As such they impair brain function. Simply put, chemotherapy is giving the patient poison and hoping the cancer will die faster than the patient.

These poisons produce massive brain inflammation and brain inflammation makes the brain not work well. The same problem happens after a brain injury like a head trauma. The same inflammation is what destroys function in dementia, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's. In dementia the brain fog affects the thinking part of the brain, in Alzheimer's it is the memory centers, and in Parkinson's it is the movement centers. It is all just inflammation, just in different parts of the brain.

In chemotherapy and in head trauma it is pretty easy to see what has caused the brain inflammation. But in the others the causes are a little more obscure. Genetics makes some people more susceptible to inflammation in various parts of the brain, but just how and why are still unknown. Genetics is only a small part however. The single biggest factor is lifestyle. Lifestyle is one of those nice words that really mean, "What you put into your body". What you eat, drink, and inhale and the amount of stress you cope with and exercise you get are the key components of lifestyle that affect your brain health.

Brain Fog is one of the earliest measurable signs that your brain is inflamed and going down. Decreased functional memory is one of the key measures we were looking at in the seminar. There are many different kinds of memory. The instructor is one of the foremost learning disability experts in the state and she had developed four simple tests for assessing functional memory. My plan is to teach this test to Hyla so she can check patients in the office to see if they have Brain Fog coming on so we can get them on corrective diets now before they lose too much brain function.

What does a corrective diet for brain inflammation look like? To understand this you need to grasp that the cells of the body have two basic mechanisms for creating the energy they need to live. They burn sugars and they burn fats. They always burn the sugars first because sugars are toxic. Sugars damage blood vessels and nerve endings and your body hates having too much sugar floating around in the blood stream so the body cells gobble it up and burn it if any is around. Even then it is dangerous because the burning of sugars produces a lot of free radicals that also damage the cells internally, and have to be neutralized by antioxidants like glutathione.

Healthy fats on the other hand are very gentle to the body. They don't bother anybody as they float around in the blood (contrary to what your doctor says.) They burn cleanly in the cells and do not produce a bunch of free radicals that damage the cells. They are the preferred food source for most of the cells in the body. But because of the need to get rid of any sugar first, fats are burnt up last. In the modern American diet we eat so many sugars and simple carbs that turn into sugar, that the average person's body forgets how to burn fats because it always has sugars around to burn up. This fact alone produces massive amounts of inflammation everywhere in the average person's body.

Many foods are also very inflammatory and need to be eliminated from a brain inflammation diet, at least initially. Some (like sugar and simple carbs) have to be eliminated permanently.

This is the most basic key to fighting brain fog and fighting all the common brain diseases. Get off the sugar 100% - not 99% but 100%. You have to get your body to switch over into fat burning mode and then keep it there. That means completely eliminating all but the most complex carbs from your diet. Carbs are completely unnecessary in your diet. We will die if we don't get the protein we need, the fats we need, the water we need, even the fiber we need, but nothing at all happens when we cut out the carbs. All we do is feel better as we reduce the inflammation throughout the body.

Lots of people I know have sort of done a low carb diet and felt terrible and decided low carb was a bad idea. Well "sort of doing" a low carb diet is a bad idea. Eating a few carbs keeps your body in sugar burning mode, but now you are not giving it enough sugar to make the energy you need to do anything. You end up hypoglycemic all the time. You feel terrible when you are hypoglycemic. To feel great on a very low carb diet you have to go all the way or don't go at all. That means consuming less than 20 grams of carb per day for at least three to six weeks before even thinking of raising the carb level to 30 or 40 grams per day.

I have successfully used this protocol with several patients who were doing chemotherapy for cancer. Using this protocol they did not get sick form the chemotherapy and they did not lose their hair.

What do you eat?

Non-starchy vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, kale, summer squash, cucumbers, all the lettuces, celery, turnips, radishes, leafy greens, avocado, cabbage, green onions, and olives. Eat 6 to 9 servings a day. Do not use potatoes, beans, root vegetables, or winter squash.

Proteins like fish, chicken, pork, lamb, beef, turkey, cod liver, hemp protein, green protein drinks, tempeh, bone broth, and eggs and shellfish if there is no allergy to them. Eat three 3 to 4 ounce servings a day. Do not use dairy, legumes, soy or grain products (so no wheat, corn, rice, oats, etc.).

Fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, natural pickles, and kombucha tea.

Healthy oils like avocado, coconut, ghee, olive, coconut milk, and the animal fats that come in the protein foods. These type fats should be 60 to 75 % of your daily calories. Remember fats are going to be the energy your body and brain will be running on. Do not use any vegetable or seed oils.

Condiments like vinegars of all flavors except balsamic, mustards, herbs, spices, stevia, lo han guo, cacao, fish sauce, tamari, curries, and herbal teas. And fibers like psyllium, inulin, polydextrose, glucomannan, and guar gum.

After four weeks you can add ½ cup of berries, or plums, or apricots, or peaches/nectarines, or cantaloupe.
You can also add in raw nuts, coconut flour, flax meal flour, and possibly blanched almond flour (test each for allergic reactions.) Some people can tolerate goat milk/cheese, sheep milk/cheese, and certain milk and cheese products from Europe, but not any from America. Try it and look for changes in memory or reading ability half an hour later. About 18% of people can not do any sort of dairy ever without increasing brain inflammation.

That's it, nothing else. That means your breakfast, lunch, and dinner all look very similar. Think of lots of salads with meat on them, stir fries, and soups. All the elements of a classic meal are there - soup, salad, meat, and vegetables. After three months you can experiment with eggs and nuts to see if you have any allergy reactions to them, and if not then add them back into your diet.

This is the ultimate brain health diet. It does not matter whether you have Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, senile dementia, brain trauma, stroke, or are dealing with chemotherapy. These foods will make your brain strong and resistant to damage. Eat three square meals a day, preferably during an eight-hour time period like 9 am, 1pm,and 5pm. This will give your liver time to detox each day.

I am sorry, but your healthy bowl of oatmeal, your whole grain cereal, your loads of fresh fruit, your daily serving of legumes - all are killing your brain. These foods work and may be healthy for a person that is already healthy, but if your brain is showing brain fog problems, that is not you. A healthy person shifts easily back and forth from sugar burning to fat burning every day. Most Americans can't do that anymore. We are burned out from eating too many sugars and starches for too long. Our cells are damaged from too many free radicals resulting in damaged DNA in our cells. Without the ability to shift back and forth the amount of carbohydrates in these "healthy carbs" are in fact simply keeping you in an inflammation causing sugar burning metabolism.

What else can we do about the system wide inflammation we are suffering from? Medicine is still about 20 years away from coming up with any usable answers. Fortunately Mother Nature already has provided us with solutions. Natural substances like curcumin from turmeric (Tumero Active), resveratrol from the Japanese Knotweed (Resvero Active), and the ingredients in Nitric Balance empower us to directly attack the inflammation and bring it down. I use these three every day. They are my baseline defense against brain fog and body inflammation. Yes I know they are expensive, but I have too many things I still want to do in my life to give in to inflammation.

Take care,

David

Ultrasound Physical Therapy

Now available in the office

Tuesdays and Fridays

How to find us -

Our address is 9725 Fair Oaks Blvd.

Finding the new location is very easy. Coming from highway 50 up Sunrise Blvd, you turn left and go up a block. We are on the right hand side - the building just past the Subway Sandwich shop. If you are coming down Sunrise from the Mall area then just turn right on Fair Oaks Blvd and up a block on the right.

If you are coming from the Roseville area you could come down Sunrise Blvd, but that is a long trek. It is probably shorter time wise to come down Auburn Blvd - San Juan Ave like you have been for the Sunset office, but instead of turning left at Sunset, keep going straight 3 more lights to Fair Oaks Blvd and turn left. Go down 2 lights to New York Ave, go through the intersection, and immediately turn into the turn lane once the center divider ends. We are on the left.

On the Wire

Mannitol for Parkinson's

Mannitol is a sugar alcohol like sorbitol and xylitol and is commonly found in nature in many plants. Currently it is primarily used in the manufacture if diabetic friendly gums and candies. It has many medical uses, but this study found that it is able to prevent the formation of the protein clumps and tangles associated with many neuro-degenerative diseases. Because of its laxative effects you only want to use small amounts (less than 20 grams per day). This study does not give us any clues about how much mannitol is needed per day to produce an effect on Parkinson's.

Mannitol

Wiki Mannitol

_____________________________________________

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

__________________________________

Curcumin for brain protection

Curcumin extracted from Turmeric is amazing stuff. It modulates over 700 genes, is a very powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant, helps block the formation of amyloid plaques, and many other astounding positive effects. It is considered neuro-protective for many brain conditions like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and dementia. This article discusses many of the uses for curcumin as treatment for many health conditions.

Curcumin

"The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one's clothes.."
~ Mark Twain

_______________________________

Make your own lacto-fermented soda

Not all soda pop has to be totally evil and health destroying. Traditional home brew methods produce a very low sugar yet delicious soda you make at home. The first step is to make a Ginger Bug - a ginger based starter culture that you add to whatever fruit juice or other concoction you want to turn into carbonated soda pop. Here is a good and simple way to get started at home.

Ginger Bug

"Ignorance is a voluntary misfortune."

~ Nicholas Ling

________________________________________________

You are free to reprint this article in your newsletter as long as you include the following statement in the same size type and color:

"This article appears courtesy of Fair Oaks Health News, offering natural and healthy solutions for body, mind and soul. For a complimentary subscription,
visit http://www.fairoakshealth.com"

_______________

Click Here

to check on old newsletters

_______________

About Dr. DeLapp

Dr. DeLapp has been a philosopher, non-force Chiropractor, medical intuitive, and health innovator for over 30 years. He began experimenting with medical intuition in 1972 while studying physics at UC Davis. In addition to physics he designed and completed an individual major in the philosophy and psychology of education. Shortly after he choose to pursue a career in the only truly health oriented profession available at that time, Chiropractic. He graduated with honors in 1981 with his doctorate and opened a private practice.
Since that time he has continued his research into the effects of consciousness and learning on health.
He developed the Biomagnetic Retraining system for correcting movement abnormalities.
Since 1991 he has focused on developing a powerful system for uncovering and assisting the mind-body connection in health and personal growth. The in-depth coaching, guided by the subconscious direction from the body, is called Heartflow and the simpler mind-body retraining for health and unfoldment he has named Gracework. Both are available at Fair Oaks Health.

Fair Oaks Healing
& Arts Center
Staff