Can Fast Food Put You on the Fast Track to Alzheimer's?
Before you take another bite of that triple-burger combo meal, you might want to read about Susanne Akterin's research at the Karolinska Institute.Akterin was a doctoral student at the Swedish medical university when she conducted her thesis on the effect of fast food nutrition on the brains of mice. After nine months of being fed a diet full of fat, sugar, and cholesterol -- the basic make-up of most fast food -- the mice showed brain pathology similar to the beginnings of Alzheimer's disease.
But these mice weren't your everyday rodents. Instead, they were genetically modified to mimic the effects of the ApoE-4 gene in humans. The ApoE-4 gene affects how cholesterol is processed, and those who have this gene are at an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease.
What does this mean? Atkerin herself noted, "All in all, the results give some indication of how Alzheimer’s can be prevented, but more research in this field needs to be done before proper advice can be passed on to the general public." They key to her note of caution is that all of the mice were primed to function as if they had the ApoE-4 gene, so the most we can infer from the results is that people with ApoE-4 might be raising their risk of developing Alzheimer's if they eat fast food. We can't generalize it to those who don't have the ApoE-4 gene.
But I still think the results are important. I recently read a fascinating book called The ApoE Gene Diet by Pamela McDonald, who makes a compelling case for the interaction between genes and diet. In fact, I think she'd agree wholeheartedly that those with the ApoE-4 gene should avoid fast food.
Plus, we already know that most fast food is associated with other health problems such as obesity, heart disease, and high cholesterol. When I consider these dangers, along with the fact that most of us do not know whether we carry the ApoE-4 gene and might not ever know, avoiding fast food seems like a (ahem) no brainer to me.
Read my review of The ApoE Gene Diet
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Comments
Dr. Alan MacDonald, a researcher associated with the University of New Haven has established a link between Alzheimer’s and Lyme disease. A low carb diet seems to work well for many Lyme sufferers. You make some good points here; fast food is worthless in any healing regime. Others who are beating Lyme say to avoid sugar and alcohol and be certain to eat enough protein to help keep your immune system in check.