Diabetes, dementia and even migraines. Ketogenic diet is more effective than drugs.

Charlie, the son of American film producer Jim Abrahams, suffered from a severe form of resistant epilepsy. The number of daily seizures was measured in dozens and even hundreds, and the drugs almost did not help. Worse, if without drugs, Charlie could have been a normal child between fits, then with them he turned into a “zombie living in a car seat”.

Charlie was saved by a diet invented in the 1920s, but gone into oblivion after the widespread use of the anticonvulsant phenytoin in the late 30s. Within two days, the seizures that prevented him from living and developing for a whole year completely stopped. Almost instantly, Charlie turned into an ordinary child. Attacks no longer returned - even after the cessation of the diet after 5 years.

This was in the early 1990s. Since then, his father founded the foundation , shot the film , and even Malysheva told about it on the first channel. But epilepsy, like other diseases, almost always begins to be treated with medication.

Donald Shields, Charlie’s physician, was well aware of the ketogenic diet. But he continued to try different doses and combinations of drugs. After all, diet - it seems to be too complicated. “There are still drugs that we have not used,” he said. But Jim Abrahams is perplexed: “Where in medical school they were taught a course on what is considered too difficult for the parents of a seriously ill child?”


Earlier, when I understood very little in medicine, I perceived the talk about diet and, especially, fasting, as something ridiculous. Hippocrates' maxim "Let food be your medicine" belonged not only to his pen, but also to his time . Such an “alternative” approach to treatment has always seemed to me a relic of the past and in general shamanism unworthy of modern man. We still live in times of double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled studies.

But then I realized that medicine is not pharmacology, and diet may be the only effective treatment to this day.

Type 2 diabetes can be cured

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (D2T) is a chronic disease characterized by an increased level of glucose in the blood due to the relative lack of insulin production, which leads to a large number of complications ( WHO definition, Wikipedia ). Complications can be delayed or partially prevented, but on average, diabetics still live less. Mainly due to the greater risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Although almost no one says so directly, diabetes is considered an incurable disease, because once the disease manifested itself, it seems like a lifetime , with a slow progression and a gradual increase in doses of the drugs taken.

My dad is also diabetic. When he was diagnosed with the disease at the age of 49, the doctor said: “In 10 years, in any case, you will sit on insulin.” There was a comforting impression that there is nothing special about this, and everyone who has received a diagnosis is slowly but surely moving in this direction. Among his roommates were experienced patients who used an insulin injection as a “dessert” to a piece of cake brought by relatives. Yes, modern medicine has saved them, and now they need only monitor glucose and regularly "bring down" it down.

14 years of illness passed, and after another HbA1c analysis, my dad, as predicted, was prescribed insulin injections, as large doses of glimepiride and metformin were not enough to keep glucose within the normal range.

But he had to refuse in writing to an endocrinologist. At that time, he and I had already decided to use “alternative” therapy. That was 5 months ago. As a result, now, in April 2018, he has already stopped taking glimepiride and only drinks Metformin. The level of glucose is usually normal, except for the morning 8 mmol / l (the cause of the dawn phenomenon ). But morning indicators are gradually normalizing.

How did we achieve such that a diabetic with 14 years of experience refused to take insulin shots, stop taking medications and control glucose better? Just turned to common sense and, most importantly, to science. For example:

Study 1 , duration 4 months. The ketogenic diet improved glucose control in patients with D2T, so that the use of glucose-lowering drugs was stopped or reduced for most participants. At the same time, the average level of triglycerides in the blood has decreased - an important risk factor for heart disease.

Study 2 , duration 1 year, controlled. A very recent study of the ketogenic diet in obese diabetics. After 1 year, all patients in the test group stopped taking sulfonylurea derivatives (stimulate insulin production), 94% who took insulin reduced or stopped taking it. At the same time, improvement of all markers is observed (lipid profile, glycated hemoglobin, weight). In the control group with standard disease management for all markers, the expected deterioration against the background of increasing doses of drugs.


Comparison of treatment results. Virta treatment involves a ketogenic diet. Source - Virta Health data

I haven’t yet seen modern studies of fasting on people with D2T, but surely they will soon appear, because considering the results of the ketogenic diet, fasting should not give the worst effect. And there is an interesting publication from 1916 just about the good results of this approach.

It turns out that the recommended initial therapy ( high carbohydrate diet, fat avoidance and oral medications) generally gives no or a negative result. Doses of drugs grow, then insulin injections begin. It is not surprising that almost any specialist will tell you about the "progressive" nature of diabetes.

But if you use the ketogenic diet, then D2T for the majority of patients goes to full remission. It is a pity that we did not know this 14 years ago. And a huge number of doctors, both here and in the West, still do not know .

Attention: consult a specialist! Do not go on a low carbohydrate diet and do not go hungry if you are taking hypoglycemic drugs other than metformin .

High blood pressure (hypertension)

Hypertension in the world, like diabetes , overweight and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease , is becoming more common . This may be due (and probably even related) to the fact that in many cases these diseases have a single cause - insulin resistance .

Typically, treatment of hypertension includes diuretics (contribute to changes in water-salt metabolism), blockers (reduce tissue sensitivity to adrenaline), ACE inhibitors (inhibit enzymes that contribute to vasoconstriction) and a large number of other drugs with different mechanisms of action. The variety of medicines itself speaks of the complex nature of the disease and the not always clear reasons for its development ( 95% of hypertensive patients suffer from essential or idiopathic hypertension, that is, hypertension without well-established reasons).

Therefore, without changes in diet and lifestyle, these medicines do not cure the disease (after all, it is unknown), and often after stopping their use, they will soon need to be resumed . Why not do the opposite? Start with a diet, and apply medication if it does not help? This is a chronic disease, not an acute event, of course.

Study 1 , randomized, duration 1 year, overweight women before menopause. The low-carb Atkins diet (less than 50 grams of carbohydrates per day) was compared to other diets in many ways, including blood pressure. As a result, the Atkins diet gave the greatest effect: systolic pressure decreased by an average of 7.6 mm Hg, diastolic by 4.4 mm Hg.

Study 2 , randomized, duration 48 weeks, overweight people. Two groups of subjects were prescribed a calorie-restricted diet and exercise. One group was on a high-carb diet and took Orlistat , the other on a low-carb ketogenic diet (40-60 grams of carbohydrates per day) and without Orlistat. As a result, the mean systolic pressure in the low-carb group decreased by 5.9, and the diastolic pressure decreased by 4.5 mm Hg. In the high-carb group, on the contrary, there was a slight increase in the average pressure (+1.5 and +0.4 mm Hg, respectively).

Perhaps, in these studies, patients were helped only by the fact that they lost weight on a low-carb diet. But there is also a study with short-term fasting, which helped to quickly lower blood pressure. Since the effects of the ketogenic diet and starvation are similar, it can be assumed that the ketogenic diet can also give quick results in lowering blood pressure, and that it’s not just overweight. For example, the low levels of insulin observed with a medium to long-term low-carb diet contribute to a more active excretion of sodium from the body.

Headaches, migraines

Recurrent headaches: migraines, tension-type headaches and cluster headaches have no clear causes (the so-called " primary headaches "). The main methods of disease management include taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (aspirin, paracetamol, ibuprofen), as well as opioids and other drugs.

But there are very interesting research results related to food.

Study 1 . 18 patients with migraines were prescribed a month of calorie-limited ketogenic diet and supplements with vitamins and minerals. As a result, the frequency and duration of pain decreased significantly.

Study 2 . 5 people suffering from migraines, for 4 weeks received food additives - ketone salts. Thanks to this, ketones appeared in their blood in moderate concentrations without the use of a ketogenic diet or starvation. In this preliminary study, the average frequency of migraines decreased by half.

Study 3 . 18 patients with chronic resistant cluster headaches were put on a ketogenic diet (Modified Atkins diet) for 3 months. As a result, pain disappeared in 11 people, and in 4 other pain frequencies were reduced by more than 50%.

I want to emphasize that cluster headaches are among the strongest - they are even called "suicidal" (" Suicide Headaches "). And in the indicated study they were cured by a diet .

Multiple sclerosis

This is another disease from our list that is considered incurable. In multiple sclerosis (MS), the immune system “attacks” the central nervous system, destroying the myelin sheath of neurons. Different parts of the central nervous system can be affected to varying degrees, and symptoms may vary. Basically, motor impairment (up to the inability to walk independently), loss of vision, impaired cognitive functions develop slowly.

The management of the disease involves medication: corticosteroids, as well as agents used in chemotherapy to suppress immunity. But at the moment it is not clear what initially causes his (immunity) strange work.

There are good theoretical reasons for using the ketogenic diet as a treatment and prevention of MS. The ketogenic diet improves the functioning of mitochondria (cellular power stations), and the problem in their work may even be the main cause of the development of MS. The ketogenic diet as a whole contributes to the healthy functioning of the nervous system.

In addition to the energy problems mentioned above (or because of these problems), MS is characterized by systemic inflammation. But ketones also reduce inflammation. For example, in the skin of MS, the effect of NLRP3 inflammasome is pronounced , and the ketone body beta-hydroxybutyrate is its inhibitor . Therefore, ketogenic diet, starvation, or even ketone supplements can help people suffering from, including scleroderma .

And although there is no full-fledged scientific research on the use of the ketogenic diet for people with MS, there is at least one very remarkable story. Professor of medicine Terry Wahls ( Terry Wahls ) in 2007, after several years of development of the disease moved in a wheelchair. And in 2008, her illness retreated so much that she was even able to ride a bike.


Left photo - October 1, 2007 (Robin Hibbs). Photo on the right - October 1, 2008 (Jonathan David Sabin Infinity Photographic Productions)

She wrote a book and developed a treatment protocol. I haven’t read the book myself yet, but the essence of the method can be understood from its title ("... using paleo principles"), from the article , and I heard more interesting clarifications in her interview for the podcast Dave Esprit . According to her, she used and continues to use a low carbohydrate diet that is very rich in vegetables, and also actively adds coconut oil to the diet in order to stay in ketosis.

Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease or Alzheimer's type dementia is the most common neurodegenerative disease, that is, a disease characterized by progressive neuronal death. Amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles form in the patient's brain. These formations grow, disrupt the work of nerve cells, causing the latter to stop functioning.

The causes of dementia are not fully understood, but one of the most important symptoms is chronic inflammation of neurons (the number of inflammatory markers in the brain is increased ).

Drug management of the disease practically does not change its course. At the beginning of 2018, Pfizer announced that it was scaling back the search for new drugs.

But there is a remarkable feature of the brain of patients with dementia. He has poor digestion of glucose, so Alzheimer's disease is even called "Type 3 Diabetes." High levels of glucose in the brain and inhibited cleavage of the brain indicate an energy deficit that the central nervous system may experience. And here lies the way, if not to reverse dementia, then at least reduce the onset of symptoms and stop the progression, providing the brain with energy from ketones.

Description of the case of Stephen Newport. Mary Newport, after examining the properties of ketones, decided to add coconut oil (stimulates ketogenesis independently of the reduction of carbohydrates in the diet) to the diet of her husband Stephen, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. On the very first day of taking Steven Newport, he broke his cognitive ability record on the MMSE scale , gaining 18 points out of 30. Also Dr. Newport documented a change in her husband's ability to paint a dial a month after the start of therapy:


How has the ability of a patient with dementia Stephen Newport to paint the dial due to coconut oil? Source — Article by Mary Newport

And yet, a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study was conducted involving 152 patients. It showed that supplements in the form of caprylic acid, causing a marked increase in the level of ketones in the blood, lead to a significant improvement in cognitive abilities. However, the effect for patients with the APO ε4 mutation was almost zero, which may be due to their reduced ability to "burn" ketones.

While we are not talking about the cure of the disease, but about a significant improvement in the quality of life and mental abilities, which may be especially important at an early stage of neurodegeneration. But there is potential in reversing dementia - a study on mice showed that the ketogenic diet helps to reduce the number of amyloid plaques in the brain.

Convenience vs. health

The pharma industry, trying to create “health in a pill,” is fighting primarily for our convenience . And medical practitioners really need it. After all, making a 50-year-old diabetic with obesity and hypertension suddenly begin to “eat right” and dilute his routine with morning runs - that is still a task.

And this benefit, which satisfied both the doctor and the patient, has its price. The excess of the drugs taken is already a problem of the modern world. Often, one medicine is prescribed to compensate for the side effects of another. Add to this the epidemic of excess weight, which is a risk factor for all chronic diseases, and we get our world a winning convenience. But is health not left in the vanquished?

I am very pleased that the time of medicine men and psychics is a thing of the past, however, many people just switched all their hopes to pharmacologists. In my opinion, this is premature. Someday the doctor will cure diseases even before it occurs, but so far our health is in our own hands. And, as can be seen from these studies, in our plates.

This article is not a recommendation for action and is written solely for educational purposes. For treatment, contact a specialist.