Searching for biomarker list and ideals

[Vegan e4e4]

Hello, I am 4/4. My mother and father recently died within 2 years of each other. Both had severe Dementia or Alzheimer's. Not clear which but neither of them knew who I was when it was time to say our last goodbye. I was born in 1972.

Mom was a lifetime Adkins follower(she was obsessed with her weight). Dad was a sugar addict(bought Costco bakery sweets every day, literally every day, on his way home from work). In common, they both had type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and high cholesterol among so many other things - too numerous to list.

Currently free and cleared by my Doc of any issues with hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol or cardiovascular disease. I ordered Brain HQ and getting started on that. I am tracking sleep, blood oxygen and ketones. Also keeping up my Duolingo habit. I do have lots of autoimmune issues and symptoms of inflammation, despite eating loads of blueberries and putting turmeric in EVERYTHING, ha! so made an appointment with a rheumatologist.

I am a huge fan of Dr. Greger's books and have been a vegetarian since 1991, a vegan since 2015. I have read the Sherzia's Alzheimer's Solution book. I also purchased and read Dr. Bredesen's books digitally but frustratingly, the tables do not show up in my digital copy. I have searched but can only find pieces of it in book samples. I realize I can go ahead and order a paper copy but wondering - is it published here somewhere? Looking specifically for the "target values of biochemical and physiological tests associated with cognition." I would like to commence my own assessment to rule out any potential contributors moving forward on this journey ahead.

Thank you Julie and All who organized and maintained this forum!

[TheresaB]

read Dr. Bredesen's books digitally but frustratingly, the tables do not show up in my digital copy. I have searched but can only find pieces of it in book samples. I realize I can go ahead and order a paper copy but wondering - is it published here somewhere?

Why yes! We have a wiki for that, it's a summation of Dr Bredesen's Protocol and, if you scroll down in the article, you'll find a table summarizing key tests for ReCode Protocol with recommended optimal values.

There are a number of subjects covered in the ApoE4.info wiki. You can go to to the main page of the wiki via the link that says "Wiki" at the top of this page.

For the Bredesen Protocol wiki article specifically, click on this: Bredesen Protocol

[Vegan e4e4]

Many Thanks, Theresa!

[GingerGrace]

Hello, I am 4/4. My mother and father recently died within 2 years of each other. Both had severe Dementia or Alzheimer's. Not clear which but neither of them knew who I was when it was time to say our last goodbye. I was born in 1972.

Welcome Vegan e4e4! Thank you for joining our site and posting in our forum. It sounds like you are "well read" and educated on this topic and think you will find our members and this site to be valuable resources for you. I'm certain other members will respond about your question related to target values of biochemical and physiological tests associated with cognition.

As a Welcome Intern, I'd like to officially welcome you to this caring, giving and knowledgeable group. If you would like to explore the site in more detail, I can share several tools/resources to help you get the most out of your experience. It's great to hear that you are familiar with the books you mentioned. You may find the Primer to be a nice complimentary resource as it is written by a practicing M.D. with ApoE4/4. It includes information about the biochemistry of the ApoE4 gene and offers a variety of research-based prevention strategies.

Some helpful tips to navigate the site include the How to Guide that offers tips on how to navigate forums, including how to quote members when you respond to posts so they get an email notification of your post (tip: use the quotation icon in the upper right of any post). The How to Guide also demonstrates how to use the Search function for topics and how to subscribe to topics of interest in the forums.

The Wiki is another resource full of information that you might helpful.

Finally, if you would like to learn more about other community members' experiences or even continue to share more about your own, feel free to link to Our Stories.

Again, I am so glad you joined our forum. I look forward to hearing from you in the future. Please feel free to reach out anytime.

Warmly,

GingerGrace

[Annadfrances]

Currently free and cleared by my Doc of any issues with hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol or cardiovascular disease. I ordered Brain HQ and getting started on that. I am tracking sleep, blood oxygen and ketones. Also keeping up my Duolingo habit. I do have lots of autoimmune issues and symptoms of inflammation, despite eating loads of blueberries and putting turmeric in EVERYTHING, ha! so made an appointment with a rheumatologist.

I am a huge fan of Dr. Greger's books and have been a vegetarian since 1991, a vegan since 2015. I have read the Sherzia's Alzheimer's Solution book. I also purchased and read Dr. Bredesen's books digitally but frustratingly, the tables do not show up in my digital copy. I have searched but can only find pieces of it in book samples. I realize I can go ahead and order a paper copy but wondering - is it published here somewhere? Looking specifically for the "target values of biochemical and physiological tests associated with cognition." I would like to commence my own assessment to rule out any potential contributors moving forward on this journey ahead.

Hello, Vegan e4e4! Fellow 1972 baby, here. My father died of Alzheimer's disease Jan. 2021 - I discovered my status August, that same year. I have been struggling with cholesterol for several years- hovering around 220-235 most of the time, but just shot up to 300. I am pleased to see a vegan diet has kept your health steady, and would love to know more. Are you limiting complex carbs/total carbs at all? I struggle with the contradictions between Bredesen and Greger, etc etc: high fat, minimal total carbs (my calculated target was 64 total carbs, daily, and 110 g fat) vs low fat, complex carbs. The two doctors cite venerable, myriad sources that categorically indicate contrary, mutually-exclusive conclusions. Which I'd view as more scientific than emotionally fraught, were it not for the absolutely horrific consequences of being wrong. I'd love to hear more about your diet, since I have a good empire of data regarding how my body responds to a low carb, high fat diet (explosive cholesterol!). Thanks for posting your story- so helpful to not be alone out here.

[Vegan e4e4]

Currently free and cleared by my Doc of any issues with hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol or cardiovascular disease. I ordered Brain HQ and getting started on that. I am tracking sleep, blood oxygen and ketones. Also keeping up my Duolingo habit. I do have lots of autoimmune issues and symptoms of inflammation, despite eating loads of blueberries and putting turmeric in EVERYTHING, ha! so made an appointment with a rheumatologist.

I am a huge fan of Dr. Greger's books and have been a vegetarian since 1991, a vegan since 2015. I have read the Sherzia's Alzheimer's Solution book. I also purchased and read Dr. Bredesen's books digitally but frustratingly, the tables do not show up in my digital copy. I have searched but can only find pieces of it in book samples. I realize I can go ahead and order a paper copy but wondering - is it published here somewhere? Looking specifically for the "target values of biochemical and physiological tests associated with cognition." I would like to commence my own assessment to rule out any potential contributors moving forward on this journey ahead.

Hello, Vegan e4e4! Fellow 1972 baby, here. My father died of Alzheimer's disease Jan. 2021 - I discovered my status August, that same year. I have been struggling with cholesterol for several years- hovering around 220-235 most of the time, but just shot up to 300. I am pleased to see a vegan diet has kept your health steady, and would love to know more. Are you limiting complex carbs/total carbs at all? I struggle with the contradictions between Bredesen and Greger, etc etc: high fat, minimal total carbs (my calculated target was 64 total carbs, daily, and 110 g fat) vs low fat, complex carbs. The two doctors cite venerable, myriad sources that categorically indicate contrary, mutually-exclusive conclusions. Which I'd view as more scientific than emotionally fraught, were it not for the absolutely horrific consequences of being wrong. I'd love to hear more about your diet, since I have a good empire of data regarding how my body responds to a low carb, high fat diet (explosive cholesterol!). Thanks for posting your story- so helpful to not be alone out here.

Hello, Annadfrances!

So sorry about your father. Sounds like we are dealing with similar situations - the death of your parents, the grief of it and then the realization that you might be next and you just watched exactly how it will go down when it happens. However, you sound a lot further along on your knowledge.

I too am confused by those same Bredesen/Greger contradictions! Over the years, I have mostly ignored that part of Greger's recommendations and continue to use very good quality olive oil in large quantities (pretty much only olive oil, no fried foods or trans fats). I was initally very pleased to learn that Bredesen condoned the olive oil then immediately bummed out to learn about the carbs(and that carbs + fat is apparently very dangerous in our situation!). I have never eschewed carbs and I am currently not limiting them at all. I have always felt that I will be fine as long as the great majority of my diet is comprised of produce, legumes, nuts and seeds. But I am just starting here and may change my tune as I still have a lot to learn. I am looking forward to getting my baseline lab work so I can start to keep track of things.

Without changing anything in my diet yet, I have checked my keto values with the pee sticks and they are within the desired range of .5 - 4 but since I read those are not supposed to be very accurate, I have also ordered a blood keto meter. We all have our own responses to food and how we metabolize them is just not the same for everyone. I feel like we all have to explore to find what works for us. The vegan diet really suits me. Since I switched from vegetarian to vegan (mostly guided by Dr. Greger's data except lots of EVO in both diets) My LDL went from 150 to 86. My triglycerides went from 94 to 52. And my HDL went from 86 to 93. It will be difficult for me to make changes to the way I eat since I already have and things seem to be going so well this way.

SO TRUE: "The two doctors cite venerable, myriad sources that categorically indicate contrary, mutually-exclusive conclusions. Which I'd view as more scientific than emotionally fraught, were it not for the absolutely horrific consequences of being wrong."

[TheresaB]

I too am confused by those same Bredesen/Greger contradictions!

I’ve been aware of these two doctors and know they have very different education/training, backgrounds and motivations. The particulars, however, I was cloudy on. I also knew both have been criticized as offering misguided advice. Your comment inspired me to do some investigation to try better understand each doctor and their knowledge of ApoE4.

Dr. Michael Greger
Dr. Greger was licensed as a general practitioner specializing in clinical nutrition. He worked formally as a general practitioner in Boston, but is now primarily is an author/speaker advocating veganism. In 2001, he joined the Organic Consumers Association, a non-profit advocacy group for the organic agriculture industry, to work on mad cow issues. [Perhaps the one intersection of these two doctors is with mad cow disease. Mad cow is a prion disease (fatal brain disease in mammals) and Dr Bredesen served as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Stanley Prusiner, who earned a Nobel Prize for discovering prions.]

In 2004, Dr Greger launched a website and published a book critical of low carb diets. Also in 2004, he was one of the founding members of the American College Of Lifestyle Medicine formed in Loma Linda, California. In 2005, he joined the farm animal welfare division of the Humane Society as director of public health and animal agriculture. In 2011, he founded the website NutritionFacts.org with funding from the Jesse & Julie Rasch Foundation, a venture capital firm.

Papers authored/coauthored by Dr M Greger citing ApoE4 as found through Google Scholar:
• Plant-Based Diets for the Prevention and Treatment of Disabling Diseases 2015 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10 ... 7615579180


Dr Dale Bredesen
Dr. Bredesen is also a medical doctor but spent his career researching neurodegenerative diseases, not in clinical practice. He was a faculty member at UCLA from 1989 to 1994, then recruited by the Burnham Institute to direct the Program on Aging. In 1998, he became the founding president and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and adjunct professor at UCSF. In 2013, he returned to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as director of the Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research. The Bredesen Laboratory studies basic mechanisms underlying the neurodegenerative process to translate this knowledge into effective therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions.

Dr Bredesen’s ReCode protocol is not just a diet, although that is a major part of it. Dr Bredesen was not formally trained in nutrition but his dietary advice as well as other lifestyle recommendations is strongly influenced by his wife, Aida, an integrative medical doctor. Integrative medicine seeks to understand the individual as a whole and applies many forms of therapy including diet to improve wellness; similar but subtly different than functional medicine.

Papers/posters citing ApoE4 authored/coauthored by Dr D Bredesen as found through Google Scholar:
• Could Alzheimer's Disease Be a Maladaptation of an Evolutionary Survival Pathway Mediated by Intracerebral Fructose and Uric acid Metabolism? 2023 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 6523000047
• Rationale for a Multi-Factorial Approach for the Reversal of Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer's Disease and MCI: A Review 2023 https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/24/2/1659
• Precision medicine approach to Alzheimer's disease: Successful pilot project 2022 https://content.iospress.com/download/j ... &fs=e&s=cl
• ReCODE: A Personalized, Targeted, Multi-Factorial Therapeutic Program for Reversal of Cognitive Decline 2021 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9059/9/10/1348
• Alzheimer’s disease as a systems network disorder: chronic stress/dyshomeostasis, innate immunity, and genetics 2020 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7585078/
• Alzheimer's Disease, the Microbiome, and 21st Century Medicine 2019 https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/ ... e-bredesen
• P2-176: IDENTIFICATION OF AN EXPERIMENTAL DRUG THAT ENHANCES BRAIN SIRTUIN 1 LEVELS AND IMPROVES COGNITION AS A POTENTIAL NEW THERAPEUTIC FOR AD 2019 https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wile ... 19.06.2583
• Reversal of cognitive decline: 100 patients 2018 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ke ... tients.pdf
• A small molecule ApoE4-targeted therapeutic candidate that normalizes sirtuin 1 levels and improves cognition in an Alzheimer's disease mouse model 2018 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35687-8
• O5-06-06: NORMALIZATION OF HIPPOCAMPAL SIRTUIN 1 LEVELS IN A MURINE APOLIPOPROTEIN E4-5XFAD MODEL OF AD RESTORES COGNITIVE FUNCTION 2018 https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wile ... 18.06.3030
• Downregulation of protein phosphatase 2A by apolipoprotein E: Implications for Alzheimer's disease 2017 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 3117301446
• Transcriptional effects of ApoE4: relevance to Alzheimer's disease 2017 https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 017-0757-2
• Increased intermediate M1-M2 macrophage polarization and improved cognition in mild cognitive impairment patients on ω-3 supplementation 2017 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5161513/
• Screening for small molecule inhibitors of statin-induced APP C-terminal toxic fragment production 2017 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 00046/full
• Direct transcriptional effects of apolipoprotein E 2016 https://www.jneurosci.org/content/36/3/685.short
• Reversal of cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease 2016 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4931830/
• P3‐187: Neuronally‐Derived Exosomal Proteins Can Predict Brain Amyloidosis 2016 https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wile ... 16.06.1847
• Development of ApoE4-‐Targeted Drug Candidates for Alzheimer's Disease 2016 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5526196/
• Metabolic profiling distinguishes three subtypes of Alzheimer's disease 2015 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4586104/
• Dynamic self-guiding analysis of Alzheimer's disease 2015 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4546454/
• Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases 2015 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1218/4 ... a2a8a7.pdf
• Inhalational Alzheimer's disease: an unrecognized—and treatable—epidemic 2015 https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/d ... .14-264218
• Reversal of cognitive decline: A novel therapeutic program 2014 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4221920/
• Next generation therapeutics for Alzheimer's disease 2013 https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1 ... .201202307
• O2‐02‐02: Novel Transcriptional Role of APOE4 2016 https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wile ... 016.06.400
• Neuroprotective Sirtuin ratio reversed by ApoE4 2013 https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1314145110
• Next generation therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease 2013 https://museslabs.com/wp-content/upload ... 7_REV2.pdf
• P3-164: Cellular effects of APOE4: Implications for Alzheimer's disease 2011 https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wile ... 11.05.1604

[Vegan e4e4]

I too am confused by those same Bredesen/Greger contradictions!

I’ve been aware of these two doctors and know they have very different education/training, backgrounds and motivations. The particulars, however, I was cloudy on. I also knew both have been criticized as offering misguided advice. Your comment inspired me to do some investigation to try better understand each doctor and their knowledge of ApoE4.

Wow, such good information. Looking forward to digging in. Thank you, TheresaB. I have also heard the criticisms of both. I think motivation is extremely important to consider. Also important is following the money - Dr. Gundry comes to mind on that. When there is clear monetary gain involved I tend to drift away from those ideas.

However, I am so hopeful that something can be done to affect our outcomes so keeping an open mind! My husband has 1 ApoE4(lucky) so we are both in this together.

[Annadfrances]

Hello, Annadfrances!

So sorry about your father. Sounds like we are dealing with similar situations - the death of your parents, the grief of it and then the realization that you might be next and you just watched exactly how it will go down when it happens. However, you sound a lot further along on your knowledge.

I too am confused by those same Bredesen/Greger contradictions! Over the years, I have mostly ignored that part of Greger's recommendations and continue to use very good quality olive oil in large quantities (pretty much only olive oil, no fried foods or trans fats). I was initally very pleased to learn that Bredesen condoned the olive oil then immediately bummed out to learn about the carbs(and that carbs + fat is apparently very dangerous in our situation!). I have never eschewed carbs and I am currently not limiting them at all. I have always felt that I will be fine as long as the great majority of my diet is comprised of produce, legumes, nuts and seeds. But I am just starting here and may change my tune as I still have a lot to learn. I am looking forward to getting my baseline lab work so I can start to keep track of things.

Without changing anything in my diet yet, I have checked my keto values with the pee sticks and they are within the desired range of .5 - 4 but since I read those are not supposed to be very accurate, I have also ordered a blood keto meter. We all have our own responses to food and how we metabolize them is just not the same for everyone. I feel like we all have to explore to find what works for us. The vegan diet really suits me. Since I switched from vegetarian to vegan (mostly guided by Dr. Greger's data except lots of EVO in both diets) My LDL went from 150 to 86. My triglycerides went from 94 to 52. And my HDL went from 86 to 93. It will be difficult for me to make changes to the way I eat since I already have and things seem to be going so well this way.

SO TRUE: "The two doctors cite venerable, myriad sources that categorically indicate contrary, mutually-exclusive conclusions. Which I'd view as more scientific than emotionally fraught, were it not for the absolutely horrific consequences of being wrong."

Yes. Exactly that. Thank you for saying so- and I am so sorry for you that you are grieving this way for two parents. You have the absolute depth of my sympathy. When I have attempted to speak to friends or physicians about this, they proffer up platitudes based upon the Alzheimer's disease they've seen on television - a kind of gentle and charming confusion - and offer up a very true but very simplified comfort: genes are not the whole story. And I really don't even know how to translate the chaotic dreckstorm that is the part of my brain filled with the loss of my father sandwiched between the two APOE4 alleles I now know I have. They're right, of course: the genes are not determinative. They are also not benign. Hence the forum lurking. Thank you so much for the detail on your own dietary journey. Your lipid numbers are the lipids of MAH DREAMS, I tell you.