Dean Sherzai - The 30-Day Alzheimers Solution

The Alzheimers Solution

This book contains advice and information relating to health care. It should be used to supplement rather than replace the advice of your doctor or another trained health professional. If you know or suspect you have a health problem, it is recommended that you seek your physicians advice before embarking on any medical program or treatment. All efforts have been made to assure the accuracy of the information contained in this book as of the date of publication. This publisher and the authors disclaim liability for any medical outcomes that may occur as a result of applying the methods suggested in this book.

THE 30-DAY ALZHEIMERS SOLUTION . Copyright 2021 by Dean Sherzai and Ayesha Sherzai. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Interior and cover photographs by Colin Price Photography

Front cover design: Faceout Studio; photographs: Colin Price Photography

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sherzai, Dean, author. | Sherzai, Ayesha, author.

Title: The 30-day Alzheimers solution : the definitive food and lifestyle guide to preventing cognitive decline / Dean Sherzai, Ayesha Sherzai.

Other titles: Thirty-day Alzheimers solution

Description: First edition. | San Francisco : HarperOne, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020044115 (print) | LCCN 2020044116 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062996954 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780062996961 (ebook other) | ISBN 9780063068223 (ebook other) | ISBN 9780063068216 (ebook other)

Subjects: LCSH: Alzheimers diseasePreventionPopular works. | Alzheimers diseaseDiet therapyPopular works. | CookingPopular works.

Classification: LCC RC523.2 .S5358 2021 (print) | LCC RC523.2 (ebook) | DDC 616.8/3110654dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044115

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044116

Digital Edition MARCH 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-313930-5

Version 02032021

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-299695-4

To Alex and Sophie

With this book we hope to leave them a more peaceful, compassionate, and healthier world, filled with taste, beauty, and passion.

Y our brain processes information and manages your emotions, cognitive function, depression, anxiety, attentioneverything. Your brain is who you areyour thoughts and your relationship with yourself.

The brain is the most energy-hungry organ in the human body by far. It consumes 25 percent of your energy and at times up to 50 percent of your oxygen, even while you sleep. Nowadays, with all the technological advances and human progress, it is completely exhausted. Our lives have not gotten any simpler; instead, our lives and especially our minds are overwhelmedby the hundreds of decisions we must make at work and at home every day; the relentless television programs and news cycle to keep up with; our phones that arent just used for calls but instead call on us to connect with work, friends, and others 24/7; and so much more. Then theres the fast food that complements the fast life, the kind of food that creates addiction and doesnt in the slightest way meet the high-energy needs of a brain in survival mode. This is food that in the long run is nothing more than poison, despite its short-term survival value.

Put all of this together and the brain is like a home under constant assault from inside and outside.

When we talk about modern brain health, we are addressing issues that didnt even exist for much of the time humans have been around. If we were to put the course of human evolution into a single day, only the last second of that twenty-four-hour period would represent a lifespan past the age of fifty. Mostly weve been focused on survivingno one worried about thriving. The whole point was not to die before we reproduced; after that, death was fair game. It was simply run away from tiger, have a baby, then die.

Diets like Paleo harken back to theories about the ways our bodies used to function and how we used to live, but the thing is, were not doing that anymore! We used to have to run from predators, and that meant we needed quick bursts of energy and a store of fat that we could burn off at short noticeand evolution didnt care about the long-term consequences of a quick, hard burn, because nobody was expected to live past age fifty. But now, instead of surviving, we hope to flourishand that requires long-term support.

When Dean was in high school, he was captain of the soccer team. He was offered some advice: eat a tablespoon of honey before a game so you get a boost of energy. So Dean bought a container of honey and passed it around to his teammates, everybody eating it by the plastic spoonful.

And during the first fifteen minutes, they killed. They ran like rabbits.

But after thatthey were dead. It was as if there wasnt even a team anymore, just a bunch of guys lying on the ground. They never lost a game so badly all year.

Short-term gain is often long-term loss. And when short-term gain comes from high protein and bad fats rather than high fiber, you might achieve both weight loss and energy, but the resulting damage to your neurons due to inflammation and oxidation isnt worth it. No matter how tempting it is to drop all your weight in an instant, through some diet du jour or any other quick fix, dont do it. Youll only harm yourself in the long run.

But its tempting, we know. For millennia, our neurological system has been primarily driven by the part of our brain called the amygdala, which is trained to watch out for tigers. It has done its job very well; but now, we need to get out of our amygdala, from that emergency state of mind, into the frontal lobe, the control panel of our personality that gives us the ability to communicate and function at a higher level. But the frontal lobe needs our support. We are powering our brains with the kind of foodbad fats, refined sugars, and excessive saltthats just not sustainable for a healthy brain.

Nearly six million people are living with Alzheimers disease in the United States alone, and that number is increasing. And thats not even the worst of it. In the general population, brain function is going downhill even without that debilitating disease. Concentration, memory, focus, creativity, and productivityall these are suffering as our brains struggle to keep up with the demands we place on them. There are also related issues, such as the rise in other dementias and stroke, as well as depression and anxietysomething a whopping 17.3 million people in the United States struggle with.