#223: How Insulin Resistance Destroys Your Brain and Promotes Alzheimer’s and Cognitive Decline with Dr. Ben Bikman

How Insulin Resistance Destroys Your Brain and Promotes Alzheimer’s and Cognitive Decline | This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker.

Nearly six million individuals live with Alzheimer’s disease in the U.S., and the numbers continue to rise. After 30 years of encountering dead ends while addressing Alzheimer’s disease as a problem of brain plaques, researchers are looking at other contributing factors. 

There is a growing body of evidence that indicates a strong correlation between Alzheimer’s disease and a disrupted metabolic state, where the brain can’t get enough energy.

On today’s episode of The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with Dr. Benjamin Bikman, a renowned metabolic research scientist, and a popular speaker on human metabolism and nutrition. Backed by years of research, Dr. Bikman’s mission is to help the world appreciate the prevalence and relevance of insulin resistance. He is the author of, Why We Get Sick, which offers a thought-provoking yet real solution to insulin resistance and how to reverse pre-diabetes, improve brain function, shed fat, and prevent diabetes. Dr. Bikman has a Doctor of Philosophy in Bioenergetics from East Carolina University, a Master of Science in Exercise Physiology, and a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science from Brigham Young University.

In this episode, we dive into: 

-Why Alzheimer’s disease is increasingly being referred to as insulin resistance of the brain or type 3 diabetes (11:13) 

-How the brain runs on different fuel sources (14:07) 

-Why insulin prevents the production of ketones (19:42) 

-Early signs of potential cognitive decline (30:45) 

-Common foods that drive insulin resistance (41:32) 

-The role insulin resistance plays in migraine headaches and epilepsy (56:05) 

-Where to get your carbohydrates from (1:06:09) 

-Foods that fuel your body and brain (1:09:24) 

-How seed oils wreak havoc on our health (1:17:28) 

-What you can do today to reduce your risk for Alzheimer’s disease (1:28:03) 

For more on Dr. Bikman you can follow him on Instagram @BenBikmanPhD, on Facebook @BenjaminBikmanPhD, on Twitter @BenBikmanPhD, and through his websites http://bikmanlab.byu.edu/ and https://www.insuliniq.com/. Get his book, Why We Get Sick: The Hidden Epidemic at the Root of Most Chronic Disease―and How to Fight It, at https://benbellabooks.com/shop/why-we-get-sick/.

Also mentioned in this episode:

-HLTH Code Meal Replacement Shake - https://gethlth.com/

-Levels Continuous Glucose Monitor - https://www.levelshealth.com/

-Episode #154: The Mind-Blowing Science of Fat-Burning and Insulin Resistance with Dr. Benjamin Bikman - https://drhyman.com/blog/2020/09/24/bb-ep15

-OmegaQuant Test - https://omegaquant.com/

-Post-mortem study of the brains of former Alzheimer’s disease patients - https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.12310

-How Industrial Seed Oils Are Making Us Sick - https://chriskresser.com/how-industrial-seed-oils-are-making-us-sick/

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