Why Isn't Governor Dalrymple Running for President?

There could be lots of reasons North Dakota's governor Jack Dalrymple shouldn't be president, but here are two why he should: (1) his words in this video and (2) the fact that his home page gives no indication of his political party affiliation (nor does the Wikipedia article about him). He appears to be just a plain governor whose state has the lowest unemployment in the nation (and it's not all due to the current North Dakota oil boom). What's not to like?

Ketones and Coconuts

Because Parkinson's Disease (PD) robbed more and more of the last 25 years of my mother's life, and has been doing the same to my older brother for more than a decade, my radar is always on for things related to this disease. For that reason, I have just read Alzheimer's Disease: What If There Was a Cure? The Story of Ketones by Dr. Mary Newport, M.D. (2011). (Go here for Dr. Newport's website. Her original 2008 article which summarized her husband's illness, her research, and initial success with ketone therapy, and created a popular interest in the subject, is here.)

The reason an Alzheimer's book is important for the PD community is because they are both neurodegenerative diseases—breakdowns in the brain. Dr. Newport's pioneering work is causing quite a stir among folks who are related to Alz's, PD, and other brain-related diseases. You can find video interviews with Dr. Newport on YouTube by searching for her name. You'll also see other related videos by those who are implementing some of her findings for themselves or their loved ones.

I won't make this a long post—just enough info for background and to encourage you to read her book if this subject applies to you.

Her story: Dr. Newport's husband began showing signs of early Alzheimer's Disease a few years ago. Though her specialty is neonatology, she put on her research geek hat and began searching for answers and help. She discovered that medium-chain-triglyceride (MCT) fats, such as found in coconut oil and palm kernel oil (both saturated fats), provide a new-found level of energy to damaged brain cells. When her husband began consuming coconut oil and MCT oil with every meal, he came out of the darkness he was in back into the light. (When he took a memory test he had previously failed, a few hours after his first dose of coconut oil, he passed the test.)

He wasn't cured—that won't happen. But he became functional at a level that shocked them both. His memory, alertness, ability to recognize, converse, and do normal things came back in a significant way and remains. Again, not cured—just brought out of the mental darkness he was in back into a functional level of mental activity. Since then, she has been on a relentless quest to connect with whoever has done research in this area, make the results known, and increase awareness of a simple protocol that may help many people struggling with neurodegenerative diseases.

The science (overly simplified for this post): As more is discovered, Alz's Disease is being referred to as Type-3 Diabetes because the problem is the same as in Types 1 and 2 diabetes: insulin. Insulin, produced by the pancreas, is an escort chemical that delivers glucose to the body's cells, including brain cells. Without insulin, cells get no glucose and die.

•In Type-1 Diabetes, the pancreas doesn't produce insulin, a permanent condition requiring insulin injections for life.

•In Type-2 Diabetes, usually due to poor diet, the body doesn't produce enough insulin to handle the overdoses of glucose (sugar) in the blood (usually from too many simple and processed carbs/sugars). Type-2 can usually be halted and/or reversed with changes in diet and lifestyle.

•In Type-3 Diabetes, brain cells become resistant to insulin (for a variety of reasons) and cannot absorb glucose from the blood. The glucose (energy)-starved brain cells begin to die. The result is neurodegenerative conditions like Alz's, PD, and others. (This is vastly over-simplified, but a source of energy to the brain, to keep brain cells from dying and allowing them to continue their work of neuro-transmission, is the big idea.)

What Dr. Newport (and others) have discovered is that MCT's provide a source of energy that can cross the blood-brain barrier (be absorbed by the brain) in two ways:

1. MCT's themselves can be absorbed by brain cells and provide energy.

2. MCT's are partially converted by the liver into ketones which are readily absorbed by brain cells without the aid of insulin. (Brain cells will absorb ketones even if they are still able to absorb glucose.)

When Dr. Newport began feeding her husband coconut oil and MCT oil, it was like putting gas in an empty gas tank and turning the ignition. His brain came to life. While his brain cells had become resistant to glucose, they readily absorbed the ketones (produced by the liver) from the coconut oil. In a matter of hours both she and her husband could tell a marked difference in his mental activity. He now consumes coconut and MCT oil with each meal and at bedtime in amounts they have balanced out through their trial and error studies.

Yes, coconut oil is a saturated fat with all the (supposed) attendant liabilities. Dr. Newport goes into all the pros and cons, cites all the relevant research, and navigates through an area that is developing as she writes. Her book is her fist attempt to get this information to a public increasingly afflicted with Alz's and neurodegenerative diseases. (One of the most depressing parts of her story, though not surprising, is the resistance she got from national Alzheimer's organizations when she was knocking on doors trying to get someone to listen to her story. She has since become recognized as a medical authority on the subject. But why is the AMA crowd so often the last on board with new or alternative protocols?)

If these diseases have touched someone you know, I encourage you to get the book and read her story. And if you are untouched by these diseases, consider this: Research now shows that brain degeneracy (insulin resistance) begins some 10-15 years before symptoms appear of Alz's, PD, and other diseases. Meaning? Consuming ketones via MCT's (found in coconut oil) could—repeat, could—stave off the onset of brain-cell failure by providing a new source of energy for cells that are growing resistant to glucose absorption.

(Note: I'm not a doctor and haven't played one on TV (old joke). The goal of this post is to simply draw attention to Dr. Newport's research and success with this protocol as an encouragement for others in the same situation.)

Raise Your Hand if You Laugh

Jimi Hendrix is sitting in a corporate office across from an interviewer who says, "Your résumé looks good, Mr. Hendrix, but are you experienced?" (Thanks, Joey)

Did you hear about the Zen master who ordered a hot dog? He said, "I'll have one with everything." (Thanks, Nicolas Cage)

Where Omega-3s Fit

Fooducate.com posted this great schematic of where Omega-3 oils fit in the grand scheme of food. Read their short article explaining the chart here. (See this also for more good info on Omega 3's.)

"404" Animals Saved

A very quantitatively-oriented researcher has gone to a lot of trouble to estimate (conservatively) how many animals an American vegetarian or vegan saves (on average) from death in a year. The number is 404: 34 land animals, 219 fish, and 151 shellfish. The numbers can't be proved as accurate, of course, but the research suggests a measure of credibility. (Read the research here.)

So, in my 10+ years of plant-based eating, I've saved more than "4,000" animals from an unnatural and unnecessary death. (No brag, just a possible fact.)

I've learned that most people eliminate animals from their diets with one of two priorities in mind: nutrition or animal welfare. That is, it's possible to be a junk-food, animal rights vegan, concerned about animals but not about health. It's also possible to be a nutrition junkie and regard the by-product of fewer animals killed as nice, but not critical. Regardless of initial motivation, most vegans usually end up recognizing and honoring both priorities equally.

From either direction, the net effect is the same: fewer animals get eaten.

I came to a plant-based lifestyle from a third direction—the Bible. When I discovered that the diet outlined in Eden (Genesis 1:29) for human beings is a plant-based diet, my commitment to letting Scripture guide my thinking led me to a vegan lifestyle. With further understanding, I discovered that the other two priorities were accomplished by pursuing a biblical approach: eating plants is nutritious as well as honoring to animals under the creation stewardship mandate in Genesis—not honoring their "animalness" so they develop into better quality food but honoring them as sentient beings who make their own contributions to the mosaic of life on earth.

So starting with Scripture allows me yet another opportunity to honor the Bible as a guide for faith and practice while accomplishing the other two priorities—nutrition and animal welfare—at the same time. A rare three-fer.

Welcome to Amerika 3

Excellent piece by Pat Buchanan on the Obama administration's recent decision to force the Catholic church to provide contraceptive and "morning after" service to its employees. And the gradual usurpation of legislative law-making rights by the Supreme Court. Link.

Juicing Big-time

The current issue of Vanity Fair magazine has a nice article about a booming California company (two stores) selling fresh-pressed veggie juices: Pressed Juicery. Locations currently in West L.A. and Malibu, making them hot and hip and trendy. But this is the real stuff: raw, un-pastuerized juice with a three-day shelf life that is pressed—the very gentlest and best way to extract juices. Until I broke my Welles Press juicer, it provided the best juice I've ever made (pulp created on a Champion, then pressed in the Welles). Pressed Juicery got started with the famed Norwalk Juicer, still the Cadillac (with a price tag to match). Read about Pressed Juicery here. (Picture from their website without permission.)

What I Say or What I Do?

When it comes to eating, should we do what the government says or what the government does? The pyramid on the left shows that nearly 74 percent of government food production subsidies go to the meat and dairy industry. But compare that with the portion of one's diet the government suggests should come from protein, predominantly meat and dairy in America (triangle on the right). In other words, compare the size of the two orange sections.

Also, compare how much of one's daily food the government says should be fruits and vegetables (green part of the right triangle) with how much money the government spends subsidizing the production of fruits and vegetables (.4 of one percent at the tip of the left triangle).

Shouldn't these two triangles look about the same? If the government is going to subsidize food production (topic for another day), shouldn't they do so proportionally to what they recommend we eat? Just sayin'. . . .

(Thanks, Robert)

He Shoulda' Tipped His Hat to the Crowd

Federer-Nadal, Australian Open:

U.S. Constitution Not a Good Model

In an interview by an Egyptian journalist, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she would not recommend the Egyptians look to the U.S. Constitution for guidance in structuring their own. Instead, she mentioned the constitutions of South Africa, Canada, and the European Convention on Human Rights as worthy models to examine.

Terrific. One of the people charged with upholding the U.S. Constitution has serious doubts about its worthiness. Link.

An Offer to Paula Deen

I have, using all the powers at my disposal, resisted the urge to weigh in on the Paula Deen scandal of recent weeks. I have expressed my dislike for her activities in this space before, but have resisted the urge this time.

However, Dr. John McDougall has done a good job addressing her situation—and made her an amazing offer. The man is nothing if not confident in the power of a starch/plant-based diet to fix diabetes. Read it here.

Turn Yourself Around

Seen on a T-shirt:

The Hokey-Pokey Clinic

A place to turn yourself around.

Should the Department of Education Be Abolished?

In the three-plus decades since the Department of Education was established in 1980, the decline in American education compared to other nations is well-known. One wonders what good the Department serves.

Charles Murray (B.A., Harvard; Ph.D, M.I.T.), a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, makes a strong case for the abolition of the Department of Education, using three tests: Constitutionality, whether there are problems with the American education system that can only be fixed at the federal level, and track record. He says the Department fails on all three counts.

This article appears in the January 2012 issue of Imprimis, the free monthly print publication of Hillsdale College. If you aren't one of the 2.1 million monthly readers of Imprimis, you can subscribe here. Charles Murray's article is online here.

"Your truffles or your wife!"

Those of a certain age will remember the famous Jack Benny skit where the notoriously tightwad comedian was approached by a mugger who demanded, "Your money or your life!" Benny replied, "I'm thinking! I'm thinking!"

In his book Provence A-Z, Peter Mayle tells a story that reminded me of the Benny skit, with a twist: "Your truffles or your wife!"

A Provence landowner's property had been frequented by a truffle poacher in the dead of night, relieving the landowner of thousands of dollars worth of the incredibly valuable fungi. One dark night, the landowner ventured into his forest with shotgun and flashlight and caught the poacher—along with his wife and trained truffle-sniffing dog—red-handed. Encouraged by the shotgun muzzle in his ribs, the poacher confessed to having stolen many kilos of truffles from the man's property. But he had money at home which he would gladly return with if they could agree on an amount. They agreed on 100,000 francs, and the poacher left, leaving his wife as a hostage until he returned.

Of course, the poacher never returned and was never seen in the region again. And the landowner realized his mistake. He should have demanded that the poacher leave his dog as hostage instead of his wife since, in Provence, a truffle-finding dog is worth its weight in gold.