Cherries Are A Superfood!

I'm home, and although I tried getting back to bed this morning (at Dan's request) I can't help it but hit the ground running. My parents will be here in a few hours to spend the night, as they're flying out to get more venom tomorrow morning (man three months goes by so quickly!). My dad brought us his truck (thanks Aaron for the canopy!) so that on Friday after work, Dan and I will drive over to Wenatchee and spend the night at my parent's house. Because - for the first time - I get to pick up cherries from Stemilt and deliver a batch to Kings and Market Place in Friday Harbor. I am so excited to put faces to names, and say thank you, and give some hugs. Usually my dad, or my dad and his buddy Ron deliver cherries. The whole delivery is really quick, picking up at 7:00 am, driving to the ferry in Anacortes, taking the first ferry we can and then unloading at both grocery stores and then we're back on the next ferry off the island so that we can make it home and rest. Isn't it crazy how everything always bottlenecks? NYC, venom, cherries.

Cherry season is my favorite. They're so delicious! And really fun to eat. I mean, maybe not if you're really proper, but I'm more of a goofy tomboy who enjoys spitting the seeds. My mom has always called me G.I. Joe Barbie because I want to do what the boys do, but I like to do it with a dress, or a skirt, and now that I'm a little older, makeup. I like to be in the competition, in the mix. Now cherry season has gained even more significance. I get so excited for this fundraiser (which sneaked up on me). This year, instead of one big drop, we've divided it into three deliveries to Kings and Market Place in Friday Harbor. So to all of our Friday Harbor friends, when you're walking through the produce isle next week, and you have a hankering for cherries please know that I appreciate your support so very much!

Just yesterday I had to write the check for my shot and with the Euro so strong against the dollar it was over $5700. The treatments are stupid expensive, but surviving seems pretty smart, so whatever it takes I'm willing to do it. Also while at the doctor in NYC I discussed the sodium phenylbutyrate again. He said that it not only helps reduce glutamine/glutamate absorbtion which would slow tumor feeding, but also, the drug is a gene modifier. The problem? The market price is currently over $6000 a month. That's the actual cost of the product used in clinical trials. There is also a chemist's reproduction (you have to find a chemist pharmacy) which is not exactly the same as the drug, but very similar, essentially it's a knockoff. And it comes in at around $1200 a month. The third option is the supplement Butyrex which I own and have taken from time to time. But it's degradingly weak in comparison to the drug. So much so that it's probably a joke for what we're drying to do. There is one health insurance in the United States that will cover sodium phenylbutyrate for malignant gliomas, Aetna (technically it's an off label drug for urea cycle disorders). I do not have Aetna, but since I lost my insurance due to the Obama health care act (long story) and they bounced me down to Medicare, there could be a way when I renew in December to opt into Aetna for prescriptions. It will take until December to find out, but at least there might be a chance. As an aside, a while ago I spoke to the mother of a young woman who has taken sodium phenylbutyrate for around a year (or maybe it's two years by now) and she didn't have any real symptoms. Now, you might think I'm crazy that I'm talking about adding more treatments, but these tumors are invasive, and they morph and outsmart even the best cocktails. I mean, when you get a promotion, you don't just sit on your ass, it sparks you to keep the momentum going! This tumor is my career; I get paid in time. I don't want Hermie to come back. I refuse to be complacent. And if the additional treatment has a low risk profile, I don't see why not. Especially when we already know that IDH1 tumors, like mine, love them some glutamine/glutamate.

This brings me to a another fun rabbit hole I fell into while traveling. Are you guys familiar with methionine? I wasn't until I read THIS STUDY on the airplane last night. For those who don't want to read through the article, it's about dietary changes that you can make to prevent, and mitigate gliomas. One of the points was to focus on methionine restriction, which is an amino acid that is found in the heaviest doses in animal products.



Of course, then this morning, I had to know more. I started searching "methionine glioma", "methionine seizures", "low methionine foods", "methionine longevity". Each search result gave me more information, and more avenues to explore. Again I see that a vegan diet is best, but if you can't go strictly vegan, it would behoove all of us - especially cancer fighters - to cut back on animal products. Even the research with the ketogenic diet shows that it's not healthy unless it's restricted. A purely ketogenic diet is horrible for you. It irks me when I see articles and news reports touting the benefits of the ketogenic diet because they're missing the key point which is the restriction. The diet is actually mostly fat. Like 80% fat. So, of course you're eliminating a lot of glutamate/glutamine, glucose, methionine, etc. Heck, the restricted ketogenic diet is actually more like an elimination diet. You remove a lot of allergens. Anyway, not my point. The reading from last night and this morning reaffirms my choice to go heavy veggies, with an emphasis on superfoods (it really should be a one word term).

See - I can't help it, I start doing tumor research even when I'm supposed to be focusing on my seizure issues. The seizure issues are incredibly complex, almost too complicated to figure out. And the research about seizures is either very inconclusive or correlative but not necessarily causal. There's just so little we know about what causes seizures, or how to prevent them. Another horribly complicated riddle. I actually enjoyed researching methionine since there was clear information I could absorb and use. But for now, I'd better give my brain a break before it short circuits again. Also, thanks for all of the recent comments lately, I'll go through them soon!

Blinded By The Fashionable Ketones

I've been swimming in the interweb waves all day. I'm gathering, learning, relearning, trying to absorb, planning.

Things I know:

• You can not completely eliminate glutamate/glutamine from your diet...it's in every once living thing (except lard & most oils)
• Your body can create glutamine/glutamate when it wants it (thanks muscles and other less obvious trickery)
• You can eliminate glucose from your diet, but your body will just create it anyway (muscles save the day yet again)
• Limiting glucose and glutamine/glutamate is ideal for slowing tumor growth, but when hungry, a vegetable which may increase circulating glucose is better than eating a bit of meat (only because I'm IDH1 positive - the glutamine eater)

See, I knew, I had heard, I had read, I had discussed the fact that protein is a growth factor for all cancer. But I got bogged down with the whole ketogenic trend specific to brain tumors. I thought, perhaps we were bred differently. That we were special. That ketones were the key. I'm not saying the ketogenic diet doesn't help slow brain tumors, but from the research I've read it has to be calorically restricted. In its natural state the diet does not slow tumor growth (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1819381/figure/F2). But in my mind, I figured, if I could do the restricted ketogenic diet (allegedly the ketones themselves fight tumor cells if you get a high enough blood serum level) at least most of the time, it would be better to reduce the glucose, and protein (not realizing it was specifically glutamine/glutamate I needed to focus on) with the RKD than be a vegetarian or even do Paleo. The problem continuously surfaced, though, that I would putter out of energy. And when that happened, instead of reaching for a vegetable (carbs kick you out of ketosis) I would reach for protein like peanut butter or a hard boiled egg. Exactly the wrong snacks for low grade IDH mutant brain tumors. I was essentially handing Herman a big ole glob of glutamine.

It's crazy, I remember a phone call with my nutritionist where she emphasized that my green smoothies (which are all vegetable save an avocado & lemon) turn directly into sugar in my body; that without protein with each meal and snack, I was killing myself. Not her words, but still. She was emphatic about the huge sugar spike that would surge through my veins, therefore feeding the tumor. IE: Killing myself. Same same. It put the fear of Hermie in me, driving home the whole protein must be included to survive mantra. Remember all the times I've written about feeling guilty about my apples? That was because of my nutritionist. As was my deviation from my green smoothies. It leaves you feeling crazy. Who's right? What do I do? Am I just supposed to pick the lesser of two evils? Glucose spike over protein consumption? Girl still gotta eat.

Things I know:

• Known unbiased tumor fighter = caloric restriction (click for a great study on the benefits). It doesn't seem to matter if you eat the calories from protein, fat, or carb, just be sure to take your BMR and cut it by 30% (some say 20% others 40%). That's the surefire way to hypnotize the giant. It won't stop him, but it'll sedate him, and maybe during that time we'll find just the right cocktail to kill him. It's also the thing I always forget. Or maybe I just don't want to deprive myself so I black it out from time to time. :)
• Healthy fats like omega-3's (fish oil) continue to be a great way to supplement my diet. One of the least burdensome of the food groups, in regard to the glucose/glutamine issue. However, not that palatable as a snack. Just sayin'.

Reviewing over my notes, it's clear about the caloric restriction, but I'm also wondering if perhaps soduim phenylbutyrate & metformin could really work together, like hit it out of the park, for IDH mutant tumors (along with all my other goodies, of course - my newest motto is never take away, only add). I know I repeat myself a lot, but it takes a lot of hammering things into my brain, and even then details and concepts, the most obvious of stuff, often slips away. I wish I could just blame it on the tumor, but I think the more you use your brain the more you have to make space. Happens to all of us.

Am I more scared about this MRI than usual? Maybe. It's the turning point that we hit and had tumor growth after the first brain surgery, so technically, this is when Herman should show back up. Not to mention the fact that the proliferation rate of this tumor was faster than the first. If they see tumor I won't be surprised, only disappointed. If they don't see tumor I will consider it a miracle. It's not that I'm pessimistic necessarily, I just don't take this no-visible-tumor stuff for granted. I don't assume that all of these treatments "have" to work. There have been so many that have gone before me that have given everything they had, and still, it wasn't enough, they were taken. I know that life is a gift, and although I'm scared, more than scared actually, with every exhale of breath I remind myself that I just enjoyed a luxury.

Time for lunch...

Flubbed The Obvious

I had an obnoxiously long blog post full of crazy information and charts, and things about glutamine - I had been working on it all day - then my mind was blown with a shattering epiphany, things started piecing together. If low grade tumors feed mostly off of glutamine/glutamate, then what's the story with glucose? So I talked it out with Dan and as we both started searching online (boy do we have some sexy phone dates) we finally started asking the right questions. What is in my special F-DOPA PET scan that I fly down to UCLA for? I felt like a moron, how had I never wondered that? If they weren't measuring glucose, which they clearly stated, what were they measuring? We typed it in and bam, if I'm understanding this correctly, the F-DOPA PET is essentially measuring an amino acid on the glutamine-glutamate pathway (click for a study).

How did I not ask that? How did I not figure it out? I remember being completely distracted by the fact that they were using radioactive particles. I guess that's where my mind went. It never occurred to me to wonder what was being mixed with those particles. I remember talking to my doctors after the surgery, in the neruosurgery ICU, about the idea of me going on the restricted keto to slow tumor growth. They thought it was great. How did it not come up that glutamine is the food source for my type of tumor, not glucose? Had they not pieced that together either? It seems as if they would have, yet, clearly they didn't or I think they would have said something. It's the whole point of this latest fancy scan, this exclusive machine that's only available at a few centers across the country, to measure the glutamine-ish stuff going on in my low grade tumor. How are the fragments of knowledge scattered so far apart throughout the tumor world that it's this hard for tumor patients to piece it together? What's going on? Oh, I feel sick. We really do have to figure stuff out on our own. Thank God I give a fart. At least now I can adjust. If I would have stayed on the Paleo diet it would have sped up tumor growth. The way that I have been eating has been full speed down the pro-amino acid freeway. No stoplights. And according to what I'm reading, the more glutamine in your system, the faster your tumor shifts into using glucose as fuel. It's a catalyst. Hello faster growing tumor. Hello death. I am literally glaring at an imagined Grim Reaper right now. I just told him I'm not ready, and if he comes near me he's going to regret it. Scythe or no scythe, this girl is scrappy.

Here's a scary, but necessary read about glutamine (for the record, I have shifted from Coldplay to straight up Enya's greatist hits - in dire need of some uplifting):

 

Glutamine promotes hallmarks of malignancy (click for full article)

Deregulated energetics. One hallmark of cancer cells is aberrant bioenergetics (26). Glutamine’s involvement in the pathways outlined above contributes to a phenotype conducive to energy formation, survival, and growth. In addition to its role in mitochondrial metabolism, glutamine also suppresses expression of thioredoxin-interacting protein, a negative regulator of glucose uptake (27). Thus, glutamine contributes to both of the energy-forming pathways in cancer cells: oxidative phosphorylation and glycolysis. Glutamine also modulates hallmarks not traditionally thought to be metabolic, as outlined below. These interactions highlight the complex interplay between glutamine metabolism and many aspects of cell biology.

Sustaining proliferative signaling. Pathological cancer cell growth relies on maintenance of proliferative signaling pathways with increased autonomy relative to non-malignant cells. Several lines of evidence argue that glutamine reinforces activity of these pathways. In some cancer cells, excess glutamine is exported in exchange for leucine and other essential amino acids. This exchange facilitates activation of the serine/threonine kinase mTOR, a major positive regulator of cell growth (28). In addition, glutamine-derived nitrogen is a component of amino sugars, known as hexosamines, that are used to glycosylate growth factor receptors and promote their localization to the cell surface. Disruption of hexosamine synthesis reduces the ability to initiate signaling pathways downstream of growth factors (29).

Enabling replicative immortality. Some aspects of glutamine metabolism oppose senescence and promote replicative immortality in cultured cells. In IMR90 lung fibroblasts, silencing either of two NADPH-generating isoforms of malic enzyme (ME1, ME2) rapidly induced senescence, while malic enzyme overexpression suppressed senescence (30). Both malic enzyme isoforms are repressed at the transcriptional level by p53 and contribute to enhanced levels of glutamine consumption and NADPH production in p53-deficient cells. The ability of p53-replete cells to resist senescence required the expression of ME1 and ME2, and silencing either enzyme reduced the growth of TP53^+/+ and, to a lesser degree, TP53^–/– tumors (30). These observations position malic enzymes as potential therapeutic targets.

Resisting cell death. Although many cancer cells require glutamine for survival, cells with enhanced expression of Myc oncoproteins are particularly sensitive to glutamine deprivation (8, 12, 16). In these cells, glutamine deprivation induces depletion of TCA cycle intermediates, depression of ATP levels, delayed growth, diminished glutathione pools, and apoptosis. Myc drives glutamine uptake and catabolism by activating the expression of genes involved in glutamine metabolism, including GLS and SLC1A5, which encodes the Na⁺-dependent amino acid transporter ASCT2 (12, 16). Silencing GLS mimicked some of the effects of glutamine deprivation, including growth suppression in Myc-expressing cells and tumors (10, 12). MYCN amplification occurs in 20%–25% of neuroblastomas and is correlated with poor outcome (31). In cells with high N-Myc levels, glutamine deprivation triggered an ATF4-dependent induction of apoptosis that could be prevented by restoring downstream metabolites oxaloacetate and α-ketoglutarate (15). In this model, pharmacological activation of ATF4, inhibition of glutamine metabolic enzymes, or combinations of these treatments mimicked the effects of glutamine deprivation in cells and suppressed growth of MYCN-amplified subcutaneous and transgenic tumors in mice.

The PKC isoform PKC-ζ also regulates glutamine metabolism. Loss of PKC-ζ enhances glutamine utilization and enables cells to survive glucose deprivation (32). This effect requires flux of carbon and nitrogen from glutamine into serine. PKC-ζ reduces the expression of phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase, an enzyme required for glutamine-dependent serine biosynthesis, and also phosphorylates and inactivates this enzyme. Thus, PKC-ζ loss, which promotes intestinal
tumorigenesis in mice, enables cells to alter glutamine metabolism in response to nutrient stress.

Invasion and metastasis. Loss of the epithelial cell-cell adhesion molecule E-cadherin is a component of the epithelial-mesenchymal transition, and is sufficient to induce migration, invasion, and tumor progression (33, 34). Addiction to glutamine may oppose this process because glutamine favors stabilization of tight junctions in some cells (35). Furthermore, the selection of breast cancer cells with the ability to grow without glutamine yielded highly adaptable subpopulations with enhanced mesenchymal marker expression and improved capacity for anchorage-independent growth, therapeutic resistance, and metastasis in vivo (36). It is unknown whether this result reflects a primary role for glutamine in suppressing these markers of aggressiveness in breast cancer, or whether prolonged glutamine deprivation selects for cells with enhanced fitness across a number of phenotypes.

I am mortified and kicking myself that this fell through my fingers. There is en masse of information out there about what to do, what to eat, how to survive cancer, and the hard part is that much of it contradicts. You never know which boat to jump on, but one thing is for certain you'll never survive long if you are stuck treading water. But how did I not follow the tracks? The obviousness of the F-DOPA; the uptake of an unknown substance that was allowing my tumor to glow on this special scan. How did I not think to ask what caused the illumination? I feel like a fool. It saddens me that I've spent a year and a half headed in the wrong direction, eating almost exactly what I shouldn't have. The nauseating irony. All this falls right before my MRI. I have spent the last four months eating glutamine rich foods, just nurturing old Hermie, pampering him. I've already called my doctor to get the ball rolling on adding sodium phenylbytrate (a plasma glutamine lowering drug) at my June 25th appointment - gotta sign some legal documents since it's off label. The crazy thing is that my team of nutritionists who specialize specifically in brain cancer patients were emphatic about me having protein with every meal, and snack, to keep blood glucose stable. The peanut butter was pushed to join in with the apple. But now I know, from checking the levels, peanut butter has a crazy high volume of glutamine. It looks like I would have been better off with just my original apple. How crazy is that!? It's so confusing.

I gotta go decompress. Time restart Enya's greatest hits or something. And maybe munch on one of those juicily tart apples.

Cool thing of the day: Earlier I got an email from Julene, a very sweet blog reader. We had never met, but she offered to drop off a care package to help me survive until Dan arrives (saving me from resorting to my mom's granola bars - definitely not on the new diet).

It was just what I needed. I met a new friend, I stole a few much needed hugs from her, and little did I know that vegetables were going to be paramount in my new diet. And apples have one of the lowest concentrations of glutamine in foods. Why wasn't I listening to my gut!?!? You guys know I love apples. Ugh. FOOL.

From The Darkest Place Comes Empowerment

Still trying to wrap my mind around glutamine vs glutamate. Boy, I didn't realize how easy I had it back in the days of the macronutrients of the restricted ketogenic diet. Thankfully, Stephen sent me a quick summation a few moments ago saving me from my dark rabbit hole of searching, "Glutamine is an amino acid that circulates in the blood at high levels, and glutamate is derived from glutamine by one enzymatic step. See the attached diagram. The cell can take in either glutamine or glutamate. Glutamine can be converted to glutamate, glutamate is converted to alpha-ketoglutarate, and the IDH1/IDH2 mutant enzyme converts alpha-ketoglutarate into 2-HG, which accumulates to high levels and causes tumorigenesis. IDH-non mutated lower grade tumours might have different metabolic needs."

Do I understand it now? Kind of. I think I'll need to keep reading it and rereading it in order to cement things. So glutamate is not in foods, but glutamine is. In the body glutamine can convert into glutamate which converts into that alpha thingy and my IDH1 mutated tumor will change that alpha thingy into 2-HG which causes the tumor to generate more tumor cells. Bad. Okay. Next step, I need to memorize that alpha hyphenated word (shouldn't be too hard since it starts with keto and glutarate is pretty similar to glutamate just switch the m to an r...I think I'm onto something) and intimately understand what 2-HG is/does so that I can recognize them in research. (What about 2-HighGlutarate? Okay, just Googled, and instead of high, I'll use the legit term of hydroxy and slam glutarate (which was a good guess) on the end, which makes sense. Bam. Not too bad.) Is your brain spinning, too? That was very successful. I feel a little accomplished, as if I just traversed my own mental wormhole.

Now this is where pathology becomes paramount. If you're wanting to dabble in preventing your tumor from growing, you need to know what you're working with. Every single tumor's pathology is unique, which makes it difficult. However most all tumors are on the spectrum for various categories regarding mutations (yes/no), proliferation rates (%), GFAP (also a % I believe), etc. In rare cases, they may not even be that similar to other brain tumors, instead they may be more similar to a breast tumor or pancreatic tumor (just throwing those out there). You never know. We need to look outside the box for our treatments learning from like-pathology correlations. We really don't have much to lose since standard of care is essentially failing most of us. I remember when I looked into my pathology for the first time, it was terrifying. It was depressing. It was the darkest place I had ever looked. But I pushed on because I wanted answers. I don't want to waste my time, my energy, my resources, on things that will not aid in my survival. Reading the pathology from the second brain tumor was equally scary, but I'd grown tougher skin. As they do, things had changed. The proliferation rate was higher, among other things, which of course is sobering, but it doesn't mean that you give up - panic a little but never give up. I'm learning more than ever, and constantly feel like I can almost touch a cure, or at least stability. Guess we'll know more on that front in a few weeks. I can't believe the MRI is in ten days.

Here's a link to the AO page that discusses the glutamine quandary, I forgot to include it in the last post. Don't forget, it seems specific to IDH mutations, not wild-type.

Lifting By The Roots

Alright, I've been thinking since yesterday's post, that life IS better with hair. (Maybe not easier, but definitely better.) Long hair. Hair I would want. Not hair I settle for, not odd lengths, and weird styles trying to disguise my infinite scar. Real hair with a style that makes me feel like the person facing me in the mirror looks me in the eyes, and smiles. She's been smiling at me for years, my whole life in fact, but since 2010 her smiles were more of sadness, of tender concern. They were never complimentary smiles, not confidence building. I would lower my gaze and walk away, loving her, but knowing I needed a break from the friendship. Her gaze was too hurtful, too knowing. So I pulled away from her, turned my back. These days, though, I peek out at her as I walk by windows, and I know she sees me. I know she knows I'm sorry. Thankfully, she is forgiving, and we rebuild our relationship glance by glance, nod by nod, smile by smile.

Our baby cucumbers are beginning to hatch. This is the first successful attempt at starting seeds in eggshells. I'm embarrassed to tell you that the first batch from a few weeks ago was a disaster - I failed to rinse the eggshells before adding the soil. Within three-ish days there was quite the funk wafting around the house. I had no idea what was causing it, so I wandered around sniffing, and the closer I got to my baby seedlings the stronger the stench. I had to throw the whole thing into our compost. Oopsie. Rinsing the eggshells is a crucial step, good to know. Guaranteed I will never again forget to rinse the eggshells. Never.

In the spirit of green things, and vegetables, I need to share with you a major advance in tumor diet differentiation. What I mean is that there are very different needs between brain tumor groups. For example, tumors that take up contrast on MRI scans (usually stage III & IV) are using mainly glucose as food. For people like me, low grade tumors, according to newer research, our tumors mainly feed on glutamate. This is a big deal. Most research about diet is with high grades, so a lot of lower grade tumor fighters copy that research hoping it will also apply to them. (For example, the restricted ketogenic diet.) But that seems to be very misguided. Glutamate is an amino acid found in all protein containing foods (including grains). As you can see, the restricted ketogenic diet which focuses on heavy amounts of fat (often derived from dairy and/or coconut oil), moderate protein (limiting glutamate), and low/no carbohydrate (restricting glucose), could be the wrong choice for those with low grade tumors. Or is it? I don't know. I'm in the process of trying to figure out how to modify my diet and lifestyle to be healthy and happy, and not provide excess food to Herman, but it's confusing. I now have to read up on the difference between glutamate, glutamine, and the foods that can convert into them; how they convert; what foods are safe. It's a whole new avenue. A good side note is that I shouldn't feel guilty about my love affair with vegetables - they seem to look safe. Or are they? I don't know. It is going to be a serious switch. I already feel very divided, torn, confused. It's hard to oscillate so quickly, and deviate so far from what you considered a lifestyle. Carbs were bad. Carbs were feeding Herman. Now it's the protein. Eeek. It's as if I'm jumping religions; Bhuddism, Christianity, etc. These diets become my belief system on food, on nourishment, on survival. Changing it spins your world, lifting you by the roots. I feel like a little plant in a terrible wind. Will it ever subside? Will I ever find a safe nook to just grow?

Obviously, research is constantly advancing. At the same time we find old research that tells part of the story, then we piece things together, and it never ends. Each time we think we have a stable, solid plan, we find more information, giving us new directions to explore. You can't take much time off of tumor fighting, you'd miss too much. You have to be out there, reading, putting two and two together, connecting the dots. I know I'm constantly referring to my friend Stephen (Astrocytoma Options), but I'm telling you he is an invaluable resource. He always takes the time to answer my questions, he directs me to new research, he is a northern star keeping on course. Recently, he added a spot on the AO website where you can submit your email for notifications and new links every time he adds updates to the website. It's fantastic! It's perfect for brain tumor fighters, we're notorious for being forgetful, or accidentally never following up. We have the best intentions, but we have literal variations of brain damage (depending on the individual). That's how doctors classify us. Brain damaged. It sounds crazy when I say that out loud, but it's true. If you're fighting a brain tumor, or perhaps you're researching for a loved one, you will love the updates. It's like having a specialist in your pocket. Research doesn't get much better than that. Just so you know, since I'm a walking, talking advertisement for AO, I want to stress that it's all my voice, my words, my thoughts. Stephen never knows when I post about him until after the fact. If anything, he's incredibly modest and maybe even embarrassed about how I go on and on about him, but I get so excited to share with you guys. He's such a valuable resource, and I want to spread the word so that you can benefit from his hard work.

Stabilizing Blood Glucose

I was worried, while I was out of town that my little garden might have died from the heat but alas, instead, my flowers were blooming!

I'm starting to feel more rested. I had a fabulous 11 hour sleep last night. It was glor-eee-ous. Since I'm back and I have less than 10 days before my MRI I wanted to hit my restricted ketogenic diet hard, but my blood glucose numbers were wild. I don't know if being on the restricted ketogenic diet causes your body to become more sensitive to insulin or perhaps desensitizes you, but it has been insane. Before I headed out to Friday Harbor last week I had an episode where my blood glucose fell so low that I felt like I was having a seizure. We believe it was not a seizure though, just a severe hypoglycemic attack. It was very scary. Because of that episode, we decided that while on vacation I was not going to be fasting or restricting calories, or being nuts about food choices. As you know from the previous post, my body was all messed up from traveling and excessive excitement, so it's probably a good thing that I wasn't being crazy about my food too.

Yesterday, back on my regular plan, I was freezing and very dizzy. I wasn't even doing anything, I was sitting down. I quickly decided to check my blood glucose and it was 45. That is dangerously low. I was having problems thinking, it was confusing me to even work my blood glucose monitor - I couldn't figure out which end of pricker thing to draw blood. I immediately ate 2 ounces of nuts (that's quite a bit), and it caused a temporary rise of 13 points, then within moments I was back down to 51. I couldn't stabilize my numbers for the life of me. Worried I was going to endure a hypoglycemic seizure, I ate half of a banana (definitely not ketogenic). I don't know what's going on in my body, but this tumor killing blood glucose range of 55-65 for Seyfried is very, very tricky. And if you're not careful, it can be dangerous.

I know I can figure this out, and I know it will continue to get easier so I'm not worried, but I figured I'd share my experience in case anyone else out there trying to do Seyfried's plan had encountered similar problems. It's very tricky playing with low blood glucose when you already have a seizure problem. Almost like playing with fire. But if we didn't play with fire we wouldn't have much of our food. Know what I mean? And I know that it's important to keep my blood glucose very low in order to keep circulating glucose low so that I minimally feed the tumor. I say minimally because it's impossible to completely limit glucose. Our body creates glucose from excess glutamine (protein), and also I've read that our bodies can convert one of the triglycerides from fat (not much, but still important to know - that's why you can't eat unrestricted fat) into glucose. Anyway, I'm getting too detailed, which can get boring. It's all stuff that you'll read about if you choose to get into this lifestyle. In fact, here is the most comprehensive website that I've ever found about the KD. It is inspiring, encouraging, informative, and I enjoy rereading it often just to boost my excitement about the program. This diet is fabulous for anyone, it benefits cancer patients, those with Alzheimer's disease, diabetics, those with seizures, and so much more. The information is fascinating, whether or not you want to follow it. Enjoy! http://www.ketogenic-diet-resource.com/

It's too bad this restricted ketogenic diet is so clearly proven and undeniable. Carbs are delicious :) I can't help but notice the similarities between carbs and cancers, and the brain, with seizures, Alzheimer's, mental health, migraines, and of course diabetes, and so much more. We are killing ourselves with carbs and sugar. The carbs and sugar aren't just making us fat, it's literally causing diseases, and cancer, and brain metabolism issues. Looking at it now, it has become obvious to me. There's actually a new prescription "food" named Axona which helps people with Alzheimer's disease. It boosts the body's ability to create ketones so that the brain has more food. The Axona website says that the side effects from Alzheimer's are due to the brain's inability to metabolize glucose. So, if you're on a standard diet which is all about glucose and no ketones, the effects of Alzheimer's are going to worsen. However, if you switch to a ketogenic diet it will lessen (theoretically - I am not a doctor) the side effects, strengthen the brain, and possibly even heal the brain a little. There is a lot of research out there, and most doctors don't know anything about diet. (Blah, blah, blah, "heart healthy diet" - no bueno, that's actually the opposite of what you should be eating.) I'm not trying to be rude, it's just a slow process to integrate new research into hospitals. Practicing doctors are very busy and usually aren't researching up-and-coming stuff. Anyhoo, just wanted to throw that out there in case you hadn't heard that the ketogenic diet can help a lot of conditions (not just brain cancer). I hope this info helps at least one person. :) I can't say enough how I wish diet didn't matter, that we could eat whatever we wanted and there would be no repercussions, but it just isn't so. The good news is that we can help heal ourselves (to a certain extent), and that is empowering.

As a side note, people with Alzheimer's don't have to get the prescription Axona powder, they can just get on the ketogenic diet. There's no trick, it's just the pharmaceutical company found a way to make money off the 4.1 ratio of fat:carb+protein. Just wanted to throw that out there. It certainly does provide another tool in the belt though!