study – Justin Owings

http://www.coconutketones.com/

Originally emailed to family, I want to share this here, as well.

[H]ere’s a pdf file that talks about Dr. Mary Newport’s experimentation with coconut oil and her dementia/alzheimer’s suffering husband and the improvements she’s seen as an apparent result of this experimentation (File size ~700KB).

The gist is that coconut oil has a shorter length saturated fat that gets converted by the liver into ketone bodies. Ketones are used by our bodies for energy and our brains and heart both apparently like ketones a lot. The tie-in to dementia is that it may be the case that dementia is being caused by our brains losing the ability to burn glucose (the metabolic unit created from carbohydrates) for energy; therefore, over time our brain cells start starving and dying. In these cases, ketones subvert the busted glucose metabolic pathway and get the nerve cells the energy they require.

Obviously, it’s hard to say for sure based on her anecdotal research alone if this is a true ‘cure’ or preventative measure for Alzheimer’s, but really, given there is no particularly effective cure or treatment for the disease, giving a couple tablespoons of coconut oil a day to someone suffering from dementia is easy to do and worth a shot. Spread the word.

Newport’s new site, CoconutKetones.com — looks to still be somewhat under development, but there is some good info here if you want to learn more.
Original blogging on Newport, Coconut oil and Alzheimer’s — blogged on an article about Newport’s findings, including the clock drawing experiments.
WHAT IF THERE WAS A CURE FOR ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE AND NO ONE KNEW? — Link to PDF file hosted at Newport’s site
On using coconut oil with your cast iron skillet
All about oils, Coconut milk and Whiskey and More on Coconut Oil

H/T Seth.

http://psychcentral.com/b…ke-you-happier/

I can’t say any of this comes as a surprise — some recent (2009) research has found that blogging can result in greater feelings of connectedness and social bonding which can improve one’s sense of well-being.

Yeah, that sounds about right to me (See my post on the power of blogging).

The researchers found support for deeper self-disclosure from bloggers resulting in a range of better social connections. These included things such as a sense of greater social integration, which is how connected we feel to society and our own community of friends and others; an increase in social bonding (our tightly knit, intimate relationships); and social bridging — increasing our connectedness with people who might be from outside of our typical social network.

They also hypothesized and found support from their data that when these kinds of social connections increase or grow deeper through blogging, a person will also feel a greater subjective sense of well-being or happiness.

H/T to Seth Roberts.