Hamilton based clinical and research neurologist Dr Matthew Phillips is frustrated by how little he and his colleagues can help patients with degenerative brain disorders, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, as well as cancer. “My research uses metabolic strategies, in an attempt to promote health.
Drug treatments can lessen symptoms but there’s no effective preventive or curative regime for conditions currently affecting over 80,000 New Zealanders. The diseases are expected to become more common as our population ages.
Doctors are trained to order tests, and to make a diagnosis on the basis of evidence. Some tests that are easy to do, especially those based on a blood sample, seem to trap us into a pattern of thinking about illness, that isn’t the best approach. “Perhaps there is a missing truth.” … “The biomarker we can easily measure may not be the right tool if health is our objective.”
Dr Phillips is trialing a radical but simple new treatment approach: using metabolic therapies such as fasting and very low carbohydrate Ketogenic diets. The aim is to restore mitochondrial function, which he sees as the foundation for health. Healthy mitochondria are the key to the proper functioning of all the cells in our body.
Poor metabolic health is very common in our society, perhaps 80% of adults suffer in this way. One of the causes is that people are constantly in a fed state, and that doesn’t give the immune system in the body opportunity to develop. “It’s absolutely clear that obesity, and type II diabetes are reversable conditions. … It’s never too late to begin to repair your metabolic system.”
We’ve had some success with Parkinson’s Disease, and there is also case studies of success with Alzheimer’s Disease, but it’s early and we don’t have control groups, so we can’t be sure. It’s a start.
My colleagues are sometimes, doubtful about these activities, although some of those most skeptical 6 years ago and now enthusiastic to see the work continue. Patients are taught to fast, and to eat a Ketogenic Diet. This puts the body into ketosis, where fat from food, or body fat is converted into ketones which are both fuel and signaling molecules.
Patients do a five day fast, which depletes their glucose levels and increases ketones significantly. That should weaken the cancer tumor (Press). Then the standard of care treatment is used (Pulse). Ketones protect normal body cells from radiation damage significantly. This seems hard, there are only five patients so far, but they can do it, and patients report that they are doing OK.
New Zealand still has Covid-19 patients in hospital. There has been controversy about the use of vaccines and lockdowns. There was a significant group that opposed vaccination. I wonder if we used the best strategy.
All the people I’ve seen in hospital with Covid-19 had significant metabolic problems, long before they got Covid. I wonder if for the general population, greater focus on creating good metabolic health for everyone isn’t a better long-term strategy.
On November 26th Matthew Phillips stoke to journalist Kim Hill on RNZ National. That interview is here. “Dr Matthew Phillips: could fasting and keto heal brains?”
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