How This Doctor Reversed Her Own Dementia Using Functional Medicine
The thought of oneself or a loved one being afflicted with dementia is scary. We have been led to believe that this is irreversible – a life sentence of sorts. But what if I told you that it is possible to not only stop the degeneration of the brain but even to reverse it? Dr. Kat Toups, functional medicine specialist did exactly this! She did this by understanding the nature of inflammation, understanding why her brain was behaving the way it was. As my friend and fellow seeker Chad Lefevre and I discuss, the changes she made to her own life are very doable – and they have the power to make a significant difference to health and wellness.
Functional medicine and quality of life.
I recently had a fascinating conversation with Dr. Kat Toups. In medical school, there is usually one course on nutrition, and much of the course material may already be obsolete. Unfortunately, the emphasis is on prescriptions, not on improving quality of life. This is something that Dr. Toups saw as a lacuna in mainstream medical practice.
This is one of the reasons she veered towards functional medicine. When she was experiencing mental decline, it was functional medicine that helped her identify the reasons for this. Incredibly, changing what and how she ate helped her reduce inflammation and consequently reversed her dementia symptoms.
Busting the anti-fat myths.
Gut health is the key to a healthy, disease-free body. More and more medical research is now pointing to the connection between the functioning of the brain and gut health. Medical research has also now debunked the myth of fats being the villain. The importance of fats in healthy brain function is now firmly established. We now know that cholesterol is actually necessary, and that healthy fats are vital for proper functioning of the brain and body. Sugar is the real culprit as we now know, and it is gluten that has inflammatory impacts on gut health.
Dr. Toups speaks of how drastically cutting out fats from her diet had a deleterious impact on her. According to her, healthy oils such as coconut, avocado and olive actually help the body function optimally. When we speak about‘organic’ or‘free range’ we need to look beyond the labeling to the fine print to find the genuineness of what we put into our bodies(more about that here.
Importance of detoxing.
As Chad and I discuss, detoxing is a vital part of good health. While the body naturally eliminates waste and detoxifies quite efficiently via sweat, there are things that help the process. Dr. Toups recommends a broccoli supplement that helps the liver detox, and also recommends saunas for this.
Ultimately, good health is about improving and optimizing the natural functions of the human body. As Chad says, the human body is“a cacophony of virus, bacteria and water.” What we need to do is to try and maintain harmony between the body’s tissues on the one hand, and the friendly and unfriendly parasites we live with on the other. Listen to this conversation with Chad where we discuss all this, as well as autophagy, omega 3 and 6, intermittent fasting and a whole lot more.
