Beta-Hydroxybutyrate for Parkinson's Disease - William Curtis' N=1

The story of William Curtis has been circulating on the Internet mostly in closed circles, those interested in the ketogenic diet for therapeutic purposes and also those interested in alleviating the symptoms of Parkinson's disease.

As seen in the video below and according to the anecdotal reports of Curtis, his PD symptoms greatly improve with a mixture that he puts in his morning coffee.

In the first part of the video he shows his status 2 hours after having his last medication for PD for the day and he displays visible tremors. He specifies he didn't take BHB (I suspect he refers to that coming from his coffee).

In the second part of the video he shows his status (from another day) 3 hours after having his last medication for PD, but this time he also took 'something' to drive his BHB levels up. His symptoms seem to be very much improved as he does not display signs of tremors.

He does not specify exactly (in the video) what he took, but he says it in the description of the video. So, in his coffee he was using a blend of coconut oil, butter, whipped cream, and stevia.

Out of all the ingredients, the one to mention is coconut oil, which contains medium chain triglycerides (MCTs). MCTs travel to the liver and through a series of processes are much more rapidly converted into ketone bodies than other triglycerides of different chain length. KBs can the be used by cells (most) and by the brain for energy demands.

It still remains uncertain (to me) the mechanisms by which KB may help in Parkinson's. Some study suggests that ketones may bypass the defective complex I activity involved in PD (it refers to complex I of the mitochondrial membrane, involved in ATP generation - energy production).

One thing though is that coconut oil contains only a small proportion of its fat content as MCT. And in the past few years, the market has seen an explosion in products with higher content of MCT, one of them being MCT.

MCT oil contains a blend of C8 (caprylic acid) and C10 (capric acid), out of which C8 seems to be much more readily broken down and tranformed to Acetoacetate and BHB. And because of that, we've seen a surgence in C8 oils which are about 100% caprylic acid.

Anyway, not to diverge, there are other venues by which to raise BHB levels. One of the most current that's under research scrutiny is a monoester, a BHB monoester. I supect (I didnt check this the whole way) that Curtis might have collaborate with Dr. Richard Veech, one of the most known researchers and an expert in ketone bodies.

It'll be interesting to see the effect of KBs in Parkinson's, as more research and more anecdotes make their way into the public eye.

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Cristi Vlad Self-Experimenter and Author