A few years ago, my mom died of Alzheimer’s. Her brother had passed from the same cause a couple of years prior to that, and my mom was already to the point that she didn’t really understand that her brother had died. My grandfather also suffered from the same disease.
Since then, I’ve participated in a few tracking programs to help research. So far, I’m maintaining my baseline, but I’m admittedly paranoid. It’s an ugly way to die, and I don’t want my family to watch me go that way.
I was talking about Alzheimer’s with a colleague at work and he mentioned Grain Brain. I believed that gluten was really only an issue for those with celiac disease and even there, it was a digestive issue.
Wrong.
It turns out that 30%-40% of people have some level of gluten sensitivity. If it doesn’t manifest in your gut, you may still be paying a neurological and inflammation price.
Perlmutter provides plenty of citations for academic, peer-reviewed, papers documenting his conclusions. Along the way he says that gluten may be strongly correlated to headaches, migraines, cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s, ALS, and even heart disease. There are more, but this list was enough for me.
A physician friend of mine reminded me that “everybody’s trying to sell something.” Sure enough, Perlmutter has a line of supplements. I can live with that.
I was convinced enough to give a gluten-free, low carb diet a shot.
So far, so good. I’m three weeks in and am down 10 pounds. It’s not as easy as he claims, but it is easier than I thought. My local grocery stocks lots of gluten-free items and also lots of low-carb items. It’s important to note that gluten-free doesn’t necessarily mean low-carb, and vice versa. Keto-friendly is a good starting point but read the labels. My plan is to give it six months. I’ll report back then.
Also, read the book. It’s very engaging. On the Feral Scale, I give it a 9 for the science (some of the studies haven’t been replicated or are of low sample size). Overall solid. No real story to rate, but very readable.