Doctor treats husband's Alzheimer's with coconut oil

Sunday, August 2, 2009

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Dr. Newport noticed her husband's memory improved after she put coconut oil in his breakfast.

PASCO COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- Steve Newport is lucky he can talk about his early onset Alzheimer's disease.

"I wasn't making any sense," Newport said.

Thanks to his wife, Dr. Mary Newport, he's not only making sense now, he's happier.

But it hasn't been an easy road. Steve, 59, failed to get into clinical trials, so Mary researched and found out some of the clinical drugs to treat Alzheimer's are made from coconut oil.

She started mixing some into her husband's breakfast and says that improved his memory tests.

"The day before the coconut oil he scored a 14 out of 30, not enough to get in the clinical trial. And the day he started the coconut oil, later that day he scored an 18 out of 30, which was enough to get into that trial," Mary said. "And it was a pretty significant increase from the day before."

But why would coconut oil help?

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St. Petersburg Times reporter Steve Nohlgren has been researching the topic for a while now.

"We don't really know what causes Alzheimer's, but one of the real early signs is that brain cells lose their ability to process sugar, which is their primary fuel, and they die," Nohlgren said. "The theory behind coconut oil is it can induce the body to create an alternate fuel to keep those cells alive."

But before trying coconut oil at home -- Alzheimer's patients should check with their doctor because there can be some serious risks.