Anyone tried Coconut Oil to treat dementia?

as with anything you have to research. there are NO guarantees for anything that will cure dementia, maybe help to slow it or improve a little. but it also depends how far along the dementia is and ones own personal body chemistry makeup. Just because you take something and you don't see any improvements doesn't mean nothing is happening. as with anything we all don't get fat instantly, we don't lose our memory instantly and so does the fix, it doesn't happen instantly, it takes quite awhile for some things to improve or change. We are in a society where we think things should happen in the "blink or twitch of our bewitched nose". I think the regular pharmaceutical companies are out to make the bigger buck for harmful chemicals more so than "natural" products. but to each his own. We all have to research and do what we think is best for us or our loved ones.

Check this YouTube video for a doctor who cured her husband with coconut oil.
youtube/watch?v=P_LGR617_Yk

I never heard of coconut oil being seriously helpful for dementia. If this should be the case (???) why are there then so many people who are in nursing homes who have to be helped as a baby of a couple of months. They can not eat themselves, taking a shower, washing their hair, brushing their teeth, speaking, etc... When my husband had Alzheimer's at an early stage, everybody talked about Gingko Biloba. Although the doctors and specialists told me that this was just a commercial tric, of course we tried it. My husband has taken it for over a year. The results were 0.000. Then I was told that it did not work for people with dementia, but was much helpful for "normal" people to increase their memory and concentration. I have tried it out myself. With the max. dose each day. I stopped after 6 months. Did it help ?? NO !! NO !! NO !!
Of course it is harmless, so you can always give it a try, but to be honest, I think that again it is just a food supplement, as there are a few 1000 over the world. As long as no scientific reports are issued in specialized magazines, those things cost of lot of money and that's all. I wish you all the best and a very big hug.

I buy unrefined coconut oil, but I have bought LouAna and used it to fry and to cook with. No need to throw it away. Use it instead of shortening. Should be great for biscuits and cake making, especially confectioneries frosting.

Jessie - LouAna is a cheap, refined coconut oil. It's ok for using to fry or to put on your skin, but if you want unrefined, unbleached, unaltered coconut oil, you will need to buy "unrefined, virgin coconut oil" - Spectrum, Nutiva or any other brand that is labeled "unrefined" - that's the kind that tastes/smells mildly like coconut, and has not been bleached or altered to remove the taste/smell of coconut.

sherry, we must have different coconut oil. Mine tastes more like shortening -- not at all like coconut. Maybe I should have bought a different brand. This is the LouAna. It says it is 100% pure, so I thought it would be good stuff.

Wow, JessieBell, I use coconut oil for lots of things, but not for the items you mentioned. I use it in my cornbread & to replace oil in some other recipes, It gives a nice subtle coconut flavor to anything you cook with it. Seems as though it would work instead of butter for cake-making. It is good for making raw chocolate candy also. Check online for recipes. I put it in pudding and give it to my mother daily as suggested for Alzheimer's.

You can fry with it if you don't use high heat; because it does melt into a thin liquid a little goes a long way. Great for eggs! My daughter uses it as part of the shortening in cookies; and if there is something that you'd like to hold its shape in the frig, mix in a little when it's liquid and it'll firm up when chilled. Also, add a little bit to hand or face lotion or cream; it'll make a smaller amount of lotion go farther.

Jessie - if you are massaging coconut oil into your skin, the rule of thumb is like the old Brylcreem commercial - "a little dab will do ya!" - use very, very sparingly. It melts very quickly on your skin due to your body heat. A small, pea-sized amount is all I need to rub on my shins where the skin is thin due to a genetic disorder, and it tends to crack and bleed in the winter. I use it every morning on my shins, elbows, toes and heels.

No, definitely don't put coconut oil down your drains. If you use it for oil pulling (swishing it around in your mouth for oral health), spit it into the trash - don't spit it into your sink or other drains. When coconut oil gets cold, it hardens - FAST - and even though it melts easily with heat applied, you wouldn't want to put this into your city's water system or your septic tank - that would be real trouble.

I keep my coconut oil on my kitchen counter or in a cabinet at room temperature. It doesn't spoil. I can judge the temperature in the room by the state my coconut oil is in - LOL. It's ok for your coconut oil to turn to liquid and back to solid again - it won't hurt it. You don't need to keep it in the fridge unless you want to struggle to get it out of the jar it's in - it turns rock hard in the fridge. I made that mistake only ONCE.

even though this is called oil, the kind I bought at health food store is in a jar and more solid. they told me that depending on the temperature, it will either be more solid (when cooler) or more liquidy (when warmer). I would NOT suggest putting it down your drain for clogs unless you want to call a plumber. my dad did like it on toast.

We don't intake coconut oil. We use it for massaging. My dad's bedridden and won't do his limbs exercises. So his legs kept cramping. My older sis from the states (she's an expert in massaging, she can feel the 'knots' in your muscles) would warm up the oil. Then she would pour some on her hands and slowly with firmness massage dad's legs. Because she's just visiting, she tried to show me how to massage him and find the knots. Unfortunately, I have no aptitude in massaging or finding the knots due to impatience. She would keep massaging his legs until the knots are gone.

So, Jessie, you can use the oil for massaging any tense or aching muscles.

I have this jar of coconut oil. I've been trying to decide how to use it. I put it on my skin and it melted and started running like water. Yuck. I threw the jar at a disgusting roach and missed it, so it's not good for killing bugs. I ran out of shaving cream last night, so decided to see if it would work. Forget about it! Tonight I decided to try some on my heels to see if it would make them softer. I'll let you know the results when they come in. I also dabbed a bit on this spot of keratosis I've been forming on my hairline. Who knows? Maybe I'll find something that it is good for.

I had such great hopes for this product, but it isn't like anything I expected. I have a feeling that half of the jar will be filed in the garbage ultimately.

Hmm, I wonder if maybe I can treat drain clogs with it? :)

I take coconut oil. i just started, but I am eating 3 tsp a day. Yes, it is like lard. I also use it as a lotion.

Thanks for the Ashwaganda tip. I take it every day myself to keep my energy levels up. I'll try it for my mom.

thats a good idea SusanA43, never thought of it like that.

You know, as caregivers, WE should be the ones taking coconut oil in an effort to ward off the effects of aging as much as possible, since we can already see how our loved ones suffer with those effects. (I use it every day already.)

Give my wife who has LBD tablelspoon of coconut oil daily. Seems to help. Biggrest improvement has been from Ashwaganda drops each day. Joe

I bought some for my dad and he liked it on toast. I was told that you do NOT have to keep in refrigerator (will get too hard), but at room temp it should be spreadable. I can't say it helped him but I think my dad was too far into the dementia. but it has to be better than regular vegetable oil.

Not a doctor or scientist here, but arteries clog from eating too much sugar and refined carbs....actually makes cells sticky....read Gary Taubes' book Good Calories, Bad Calories (or whatever it's called). Ingested fats are not the problem--it's carbs, and too many calories overall.

Any time that you are able to increase fats that feed the brain, I believe you help dementia. No medical opinion here, just a personal opinion. Cholesterol is a necessary ingredient in a healthy body. When there is an injury to blood vessels, cholesterol rallys to coat that injury. The brain needs cholesterol to survive and thrive. It's the dairy that contains casein which literally scratches the inside of the arteries causing cholesterol to build up there that is the culprit, not the cholesterol.

I have a friend who works at a nursing home,, claims they gave it to alot of patients and they improved.. But in my opinion if there were a mircle cure we would have all heard of it.. like a magic weight loss cure. My dad has good days and bad days.. no rhyme or reason. I;d love to find one (or both...LOL)

After a lot of reading, it seemed the dosage might be critical - there might be a minimum dosage of about 40 ml a day (someone else on this forum uses even more). We put 1 tablespoon (20 ml) in porridge in the morning and 1 in a pre-dinner soup in the evening before we saw any effect. It seemed to arrest the decline (things that happened now seem like a long time ago rather than no memory of them at all) and slightly improve the capacity to anticipate events, but the main effect was on mood (worth it alone).

Some reading suggested, indirectly, it might be effective for only 20% of people with some sort of Alzheimer disease (my interpretation of the information).

Some clinical trials of dosage matched with brain scans, stage and type of the disease, and overall mental health would be really helpful.

There is a lot of conflicting research on the whole subject of cholesterol, and there is evidence that the original research on the subject was flawed if not biased. I personally had very bad experiences on cholesterol meds and one of the problems was memory loss, which reversed quickly when I got off the meds. So it is possible that someone who has memory issues due to low cholesterol were to normalize it with coconut oil it could appear to be have a beneficial effect. The whole issue has been getting more research, so might be worth some Google time.

Glad, no plants have cholesterol -- only animal products can contain cholesterol. Egg yolks have a lot, coconuts have none. All the years my husband followed a heart-healthy diet he was discouraged from having coconut oil because the types of fat it contains were thought to provide the building blocks of our bodies producing our own cholesterol. Science has learned a great deal about fat types in the last decade or so. At least some people now consider coconut oil healthy. I really don't know. I do know I could not afford 700 calories of fat per day just on the basis of weight control.

I am not sure that coconut oil is really the villain we once thought it was. I also don't think there is enough research evidence to claim it cures dementia.

What about cholesterol in coconut oil? I have done some reading online, that coconut oil is packed with it. I am definitely not an expert in much of anything that is part of a healty diet, including cholesterol, have not had to be concerned at least at this point in my life. On a side note, in spite of years and years of heavy (almost to the point of gross over use) my Mom has never had a cholesterol problem. The reason is she had a portion of the intestine removed probably 50 years ago. Evidently that portion had something to do with the way her body processes cholesterol, and also the reason for the chronic intestinal problems all her life.

LaurieAC, could you describe more specifically in what ways your father improved on coconut oil? I'm sincerely interested. What do you mean that he "wasn't good" without it? And it sounds like he eats about 700 calories from the oil each day. What was his weight like?

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Dr Mary Newport's husband was not cured. He improved dramatically in the first year and was stable for two years after that, and then declined. Improvement is awesome and worthwhile, but it is not a cure.

My husband was reading bank statements upside down, was paranoid, very confused, hallucinating, and then improved dramatically over a year and remained stable for about 8 years. Then he gradually declined physically (though never to the same cognitive and behavioral level of the first year.) He died in year 10.

In other words, my husband's improvement was as dramatic as Dr. Newport's husband's, and he sustained it much longer. What caused this remarkable "cure"? Well, I'm not sure, but I know for a positive fact that it wasn't coconut oil, because he never used it. Thinking about it, he did eat a lot of ramen noodle soup that first year. Maybe I should be promoting Ramen Noodles as the amazing hidden cure for dementia. Maybe I should write a book advocating high-sodium diets for persons with dementia. That is pretty absurd, of course. But I hope you see my point that anecdotal stories are not the same as evidence. One person's history can be suggestive and suggest other avenues of study, but in itself it proves nothing.

As far as I know, coconut oil is a perfectly fine food. I don't see big red flags in using it. But I wouldn't pin my hopes on its curative powers against dementia.

Sherry - Google "bulletproof coffee" for a description of it. There's a website that claims to have invented the idea of bulletproof coffee, but the concept is centuries old. It's just that we have just now caught onto it here in the states.

What I'm about to say is going to sound like an infomercial for bulletproof coffee, but since you asked about it, I'm going to give you a quick and dirty lesson on it. I've been drinking it for about 6 months now, and I won't go a day without it.

Keep in mind that bulletproof coffee, to be effective, needs to be part of a healthy diet - one in which sugar and starches are at a minimum, and you are eating healthy fats, meats and vegetables.

The website that claims to have invented bulletproof coffee says you should use only THEIR products in order to get optimal results (of course). However, you can get excellent results using the best ingredients you can afford - you don't have to pay $20 a pound for their coffee for it to work. I use unrefined extra virgin coconut oil, grassfed butter (unsalted) and a small amount of sweetner or sugar-free flavored syrup for mine. Sometimes I add a little heavy cream. I use a good quality coffee, but I've heard of many people just using Folgers or their usual coffee, because it's what they can afford, and that's fine - there's no hard and fast rule that says you have to use an expensive coffee.

QUICK NOTE ABOUT COCONUT OIL: I use unrefined - it smells and tastes a little like coconut. Not everyone likes that. If you don't, then you can use the refined type - it is odorless and tasteless and contains the same MCTs (medium chain triglycerides) as the unrefined type, which is what you're looking for when using coconut oil. It's the "good fat".

The key to a good cup of BPC (bulletproof coffee) is in the blending. No one wants to look in their coffee cup and see an oil slick on the top of the coffee. That's what you'll have if you don't blend. I use a cheap little battery-operated frother - it blends and emulsifies everything nicely (frother was $6.95 on Amazon). You can use an immersion blender - just make sure you use a large enough container to blend it in, so you don't have a wave of coffee fly out of the cup and all over you. DO NOT use a shaker bottle or anything with a sealed lid to blend this - the heat will blow the top off and spray coffee all over. I've also heard that blending it in a Ninja or Bullet-type blender works, but that the heat from the coffee damages the gaskets - so that's not recommended either. A frother makes it quick and easy, with no cleanup required - other than rinsing off the frother.

When blended properly, a BPC has a nice thick head of foam, like a cappuccino, and tastes rich and creamy. Some people don't like it, but most love it. If you find that you feel a little queasy after drinking it, cut back on the amount of coconut oil you're using for a while, then increase it gradually until you're using the recommended amount. You can add a touch of spice and a tablespoon of pumpkin puree for a pumpkin latte style drink - without the $6 price tag!

Don't like coffee but want to try BPC? Use green tea or any other type of tea you like and add the other ingredients to it. If you're on Pinterest, you can find recipes for bulletproof hot cocoa as well.

Benefits of BPC: clearer thinking (your brain NEEDS fat - and water - to function properly); softer skin and hair; long-lasting energy boost. Some also claim this aids weight loss, but you have to be eating a healthy diet for it to work that way - you can't drink BPC and eat sugar, starch and junk and expect it to work properly. It won't.

Before anyone jumps on the "fat is bad" bandwagon, please read up first. Coconut oil is a GOOD fat and has a huge list of benefits.

Where do you get bullet proof cofee?

I drink bulletproof coffee every morning with coconut oil in it. Excellent stuff.