Alzheimer - Also Related to Sugar Consumption

Here is an interesting article about Alzheimer's disease (dementia). This disease should be called Type 3 diabetes. This article also mentions that saturated fat, like coconut oil could be a cure for this degenerative disease. I think all saturated fats (from meat, fish, eggs, butter etc.) are beneficial, not just coconut oil.

Alzheimer is also a disease of civilisation and could be the most catastrophic impact of junk food:

• It appears in populations where obesity, diabetes and heart disease are prevalent.
• Individuals with diabetes and heart disease are at a higher risk of developing Alzheimer.

"Studies in large populations [...] have suggested that Type 2 diabetics have roughly twice as much risk of contracting Alzheimer's disease as non-diabetics. Diabetics on insulin therapy, according to the Rotterdam study, had a fourfold increase in risk."
                                                                          - Gary Taubes

Insulin certainly plays a role in the development of Alzheimer's disease.

"So whatever dietary factors or lifestyle factors lead to Type 2 diabetes will always increase the likelihoodof manifesting dementia."
                                                                                    - Gary Taubes

Let's see what really happens in the brain after having consumed sugar and refined carbohydrates for decades.

I would like to emphasize that sugar is not harmful only if it's rare. It was rare for our ancestors. The past few decades were not enough for our body to adapt to daily consumption of these food items. So when I talk about sugar and carbohydrate consumption, I mean that they constitute a big part or the base of the diet, and I do not mean occasional (maybe once a year) ingestion of these carbohydrates.

In Alzheimer's patients an amyloid-plaque (protein) builds up in their brain, impairing normal brain function. If we live long enough, vascular damage and amyloid-plaque build-up in our brain is inevitable, it does not mean that we also develop the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. A healthy brain is able to clear away amyloid efficiently. This clean-up process does not happen in an Alzheimer brain, high insulin levels prevent the degradation of these proteins.

With the presence of sugar, these proteins become sticky and results in the proteins to stick together. With time, the proteins form a plaque, and accumulate between neurons, causing dementia.