Join our personalized-medicine program to reduce and/or reverse Alzheimer’s and Dementia. This program was launched in January 2020. We’re still accepting new patients who are willing to commit to lifestyle changes in order to reduce their risks of cognitive decline.

Innovation in Health Care in the Boothbay Region

This innovative, participatory program has been active in Boothbay Harbor since January 2020. Being able to stop, slow or even reverse Alzheimer’s, Dementia and other forms of cognitive decline right here in Boothbay Harbor is pretty revolutionary!

Participatory Medicine in Action

Participatory Medicine takes place when patients collaborate with their medical providers to research and innovate in diagnosis and treatment. In the Fall of 2019, one of Dr. Allan (“Chip”) Teel’s patients, who was concerned about her hereditary risk of Alzheimer’s, handed him a book–Dr. Dale Bredesen’s “The End of Alzheimer’s“–and asked for his opinion.

Dr. Teel found that the book described a compelling lifestyle change program with evidence of reducing, and reversing Alzheimer’s disease in over 100 patients. Dr. Teel researched Dr. Bredesen and his team’s work at UCLA, read his many peer-reviewed papers in scores of medical journals and became convinced that Bredesen was on to something. Dr. Teel compared Bredesen’s cases to his own 35 years of experience diagnosing and treating patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s and was intrigued.

According to Dr. Bredesen, “what we call Alzheimer’s disease is actually a protective response to a wide variety of insults to the brain: inflammation, insulin resistance, toxins, infections, and inadequate levels of nutrients, hormones, and growth factors.” Once you figure out which 10 or 12 insults each person has (and each person is unique), you can take corrective measures, which will be different for each patient.

Together, Dr. Teel and his patient decided to recruit other patients concerned about cognitive decline to implement a lower-cost version of the RECODE program described in the book. (Patients who sign up with Bredesen’s group pay up to $10,000/year.) Dr. Teel knew that price range would not be affordable to most locals, so he tailored the program so that most of the costs would be covered by Medicare.

Research Program Started in 2020

The Reduce Cognitive Decline program kicked off in January 2020 with 24 patients. Many were couples, in which one partner had more pronounced cognitive decline. Others were people who had a family history of Alzheimer’s or dementia. Dr. Teel met with patients individually and gave a seminar to the entire group monthly (at our Community Center) on the lifestyle changes required–fasting, high-fat, low carb, natural foods diet, exercise, sleep, and brain games using BrainHQ–and to discuss what he was learning from his research and from the brain scans and lab work that he was ordering for each patient.

Despite the disruption of the COVID-19 Pandemic, we were able to continue this program (which we now call Brain Health Research Program to avoid the stigma of Alzheimer’s) throughout 2020 and have continued through 2024.

LIFESTYLE CHANGES:

All of the participants have made major lifestyle changes, specifically:

Sleep for 8 hours each night, without medication
Strenuous physical exercise for at least 30 minutes/day
Fast for 12 to 16 hours between dinner and breakfast each day (the length of time depends on whether you carry the APOE4 gene, which makes it harder to maintain insulin resistance and is a genetic marker for a predisposition to Alzheimer’s)
Eat a KetoFlex diet, high in healthy fats, very low in carbohydrates, no dairy, no grains, very little meat, organic, natural foods, with as little processed food as possible
Brain exercises at least 3 times/week. Most of us use the BrainHQ program developed by Dr. Michael Merzenich, who is known as the “father of neuroplasticity” — these are online brain games designed by neurologists, which help build new pathways to restore or improve brain function. (Quarterback Tom Brady uses this program every day, to stay sharp!)

Everyone involved in health care and wellness knows that the hardest thing of all to do is to convince patients to make needed lifestyle changes. But not only are the study group members cheering one another on, we are committed and curious to see whether these changes will help us stay mentally resilient.

BODY CHEMISTRY

Dr. Bredesen’s research has discovered that there is no one disease that is Alzheimer’s. Instead, there are a constellation of over 32 causative factors for all kinds of Dementia and Alzheimer’s. People suffering from symptoms of Subjective Cognitive Impairment, Mild Cognitive Impairment, or more severe symptoms of memory loss or brain function loss typically have between 10 to 20 of these causative factors. But each individual’s cognitive impairment or risk thereof has a unique constellation of these factors. Dr. Bredesen groups them into the following categories:

Do you have insulin resistance?
Do you have inflammation or infections?
Do you have optimal levels of nutrients, hormones, and growth factors?
Do you have specific pathogens (e.g. viruses, bacteria, parasites)?
Are you immunosuppressed?
Have you had exposure to toxins?
Have you been exposed to trauma (physical and/or psychological), including brain injuries or strokes?

All of the participants in our program receive a wide series of biological and physiological tests to measure all of these factors. Most of these tests are reimbursed by Medicare; but not all. The expense of additional lab tests are borne by the patients themselves, who agree in advance.

VOLUMETRIC BRAIN SCANS

Each participant also has the opportunity to undergo a Volumetric Brain MRI, which is a very little-used test that measures the volume of each functional area of our brains, so we can tell which specific areas have already atrophied, and, thanks to the detailed research that Dr. Teel has undertaken, we can now understand the relationship of the symptoms we have with the areas in our brain that have been damaged.

INDIVIDUAL TREATMENT PROTOCOLS

The treatments are highly personalized to each patient’s constellation of factors. All participants try their best to follow the lifestyle guidelines of the program. And, in addition, each one is given a prescription for a different group of vitamins, enzymes, and supplements designed to restore the chemical and hormonal balance in our brains and to give our brain neurons the needed nutrition to regrow.

PEER SUPPORT

In 2021, we added weekly support groups to this program. These are done online via Zoom, which works for most of the participants. This gives the group members a chance to ask questions, get recipe ideas, swap exercise tips, get coaching on brain games, and support one another in our journey. We also have subject matter experts who have volunteered to join these weekly support group meetings.

Learning Together

Once a month, Dr. Teel provides a two-hour interactive seminar about some aspect of the program. Each month he does more research online, and talks with experts around the country and then presents to our group the latest information and research, which he makes understandable and easy to digest. We have been doing these seminars on Zoom since March 2020, and we have recorded them on a private, unlisted YouTube channel. One volunteer also transcribes the notes from these meetings to capture the notes and the dialogue (anonymous) with the participants.

RESULTS

According to Dr. Bredesen’s peer-reviewed, published research, it takes from six to twelve months for cognitive decline to stabilize under this program, and another twelve months for small improvements to occur. Dr. Bredesen has recently published a paper on a research study that is remarkably similar to the one we are doing right here in Maine.

Our group breaks into two distinct groups: one group includes participants who already are suffering from rather severe cognitive decline. The other group is comprised of people who have noted early symptoms and/or who are at hereditary risk.

Those with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Not surprisingly, those of us who have mild symptoms have already noticed improvements and stabilization. Our short-term memory is better, we aren’t losing things as often, we are usually able to find the words we’re looking for (within a few minutes), and we are feeling more energetic and have more vitality, as well as hope that we can beat this disease.

Those with Severe Cognitive Impairment

Again, not surprisingly, those with advance cognitive impairment are showing less progress. But they (and their spouses) report small victories: a person who can now dress himself, the ability to carry on a conversation with someone who hadn’t been able to find words, improvement in moods–feeling hopeful and much less depressed. The ability to interact normally with family members.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

This research program is still open to new participants. For more information about how to join and what kind of commitment is required, please download and read these documents:

Download Brain Health Q&A

Download How to Enroll

and then contact Patty Seybold, the Patient Liaison for the program at (207) 633-4368 or pseybold@customers.com.