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Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells, research suggests

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Re: Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells, research suggests

#161
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a small observational study from 1993, with p>.05 outside of the subgroup analysis. Whatever search strategy led you to it is severely flawed.

is this better? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10517714

> While we did not find statistically significant evidence to support an association of consuming relatively more plant- and fewer animal-based foods with the risk of dementia, our HR of 0.93 (95% CI: 0.86–1.01) for the hPDI cannot rule out a subtle beneficial effect of healthy plant-based eating on the brain.

"cannot rule out a subtle effect". Otherwise not statistically significant. Great.

Re: Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells, research suggests

#162
post #43
post #8

My aunt started showing symptoms of Alzheimer's. My grandfather passed from it. Is there any thing to do in order to prevent or delay the disease?

This is a shot in the dark. My dad passed from dementia. That’s the best diagnosis we got. He wouldn’t go in under an MRI machine. He had horrible , infected teeth. They were badly infected. There’s linkage of poor oral hygiene and Alzheimer’s. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/good-oral-healt... If I had know this sooner, I would have pushed harder for him to have those bad teeth extracted and had him sta…

I'm not sure blaming yourself for this situation is healthy. You might want to talk through this with a professional.

Re: Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells, research suggests

#163
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is this better? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10517714

> While we did not find statistically significant evidence to support an association of consuming relatively more plant- and fewer animal-based foods with the risk of dementia, our HR of 0.93 (95% CI: 0.86–1.01) for the hPDI cannot rule out a subtle beneficial effect of healthy plant-based eating on the brain. "cannot rule out a subtle effect". Otherwise not statistically significant. Great.

it doesn't seem like plant food causes Alzheimer though

Re: Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells, research suggests

#164
post #40

As a former Alzheimer's researcher, this is a big fucking deal. It puts together a lot of clues (APOE risk, microglia) and finds a theory that makes a lot of sense. All around the world, there are labs pulling late nights trying to figure out how to drug this.

What kind of fat is it? Like is it possible to avoid by avoiding too much fat?

Per the Nature paper, this fat is believed to be part of an immune system response and not related to your intake or total body fat. It is also far from clear that eliminating the production or use of this fat during a microbe invasion would lead to more or less dementia down the road (a good reminder that clinical trials are useful and also risky). This work shows a very refreshing and solid hypothesis and lots of people work on it, but it’s not reason to start changing diets.

Re: Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells, research suggests

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: how? I've never seen anyone who's obese and having a diet that made me go "huh that's odd how can they be obese?" While the inverse occasionally has been true, generally people who I consider in good shape appear to eat less, and less greasy food. So while there might be exceptions it seems to be a damn good rule of thumb to me.

People get fat through consuming more calories than they burn for energy during the day. There are extra but around the edges but no matter the ratio of fat to carbs to protein, if someone consumes (food or liquid) 3,000 calories a day but only burns 2,500 calories a day then a decent portion of that 500 cal difference will get stored as body fat. You could eat 0 calories of fat but if that total of carbs and protein…

But it does depend on the type of foods. For example, let's take a serving of almonds listed at 160 calories. Your body may only absorb 120 (depends on the person) of those calories to be burned due to the fiber in the almonds. While foods with sugar and little fiber, you get close to 100% of the listed calories.

Re: Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells, research suggests

#166
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they wouldn’t stay lean. If you fed someone more calories than their body uses to maintain its current weight, they would get fat eventually. Regardless of whether they eat carbs, fat or protein.

Let's say you're being fed just the amount of calories your body needs to maintain. What influence on body fat has the distribution of carbs, protein and fat from food then?

My point was that regardless of what you eat, if you eat more than your body expends, some of the excess will be used to produce fat and you will gain weight. If you lead a sedentary lifestyle and eat 3000 calories of nothing but lean meat per day, you will gain weight.

You are right that different foods (macronutrients, more specifically) have different thermic effects and therefore require different amounts of energy to metabolise. Protein takes more energy to process than fat. This does not change my overall point.

Re: Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells, research suggests

#167

As a former Alzheimer's researcher, this is a big fucking deal. It puts together a lot of clues (APOE risk, microglia) and finds a theory that makes a lot of sense. All around the world, there are labs pulling late nights trying to figure out how to drug this.

Ironically those late nights might contribute to Alzheimer's risk ;)

Or. Apparently, not.

Re: Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells, research suggests

#168

Doesn't this boost the hypothesis that Alzheimer's is closely related to insulin resistance in the brain? What some people call type III diabetes. I ask because one of the hallmarks of insulin resistance is the presence of lipid droplets in close proximity to mitochondria [0]. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10455923/

I am swallowing berberine now.

Many studies show that berberine can significantly lower blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes ( 8 ). It seems to work via multiple mechanisms and may help ( 9 , 10 ): decrease insulin resistance, making the blood sugar-lowering hormone insulin more effective.

Re: Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells, research suggests

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get fat through consuming more calories than they burn for energy during the day. There are extra but around the edges but no matter the ratio of fat to carbs to protein, if someone consumes (food or liquid) 3,000 calories a day but only burns 2,500 calories a day then a decent portion of that 500 cal difference will get stored as body fat. You could eat 0 calories of fat but if that total of carbs and protein…

The calorie hypothesis isn't the most likely from all the research I've done. The calorie as a unit of measure doesn't even make much sense IMO. A calorie is measured by burning food a specific distance away from a specific amount of water and measuring how much the water temperature rises. It's based on an assumption that the body uses all energy in the food the same, and that fire is analogous to the complex proces…

Which the body basically is.

Anyone who tracks their calories daily for a long period of time will see that when they eat more they gain weight, when they eat less they loose weight.

Like I said above, there are other aspects that can factor but “calories in calories out” accounts for 80% of weight loss and weight gain (applying the broad brush of the 80:20 rule)

Re: Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells, research suggests

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get fat through consuming more calories than they burn for energy during the day. There are extra but around the edges but no matter the ratio of fat to carbs to protein, if someone consumes (food or liquid) 3,000 calories a day but only burns 2,500 calories a day then a decent portion of that 500 cal difference will get stored as body fat. You could eat 0 calories of fat but if that total of carbs and protein…

But it does depend on the type of foods. For example, let's take a serving of almonds listed at 160 calories. Your body may only absorb 120 (depends on the person) of those calories to be burned due to the fiber in the almonds. While foods with sugar and little fiber, you get close to 100% of the listed calories.

Sure, and that kind of thing falls into the 20% of the 80:20 rule of most things. The vast majority of people loose or gain weight based on their calorie in take / expenditure
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