Danie van der Merwe > Danie's Quotes

“Our understanding of how cholesterol is critical for brain health has brought me and many others in my field to believe that statins—the blockbuster drugs prescribed to millions of Americans to lower cholesterol—may cause or exacerbate brain disorders and disease. Memory dysfunction is a known side effect of statins.”
― David Perlmutter, Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
― Steve Jobs

“Dr. George Mann, a researcher with the Framingham Heart Study, to go on record stating: The diet heart hypothesis that suggests that a high intake of fat or cholesterol causes heart disease has been repeatedly shown to be wrong, and yet, for complicated reasons of pride, profit, and prejudice, the hypothesis continues to be exploited by scientists, fund-raising enterprise, food companies, and even governmental agencies. The public is being deceived by the greatest health scam of the century.”
― David Perlmutter, Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers

“I’ve already begun to outline, cholesterol—no matter which “kind”—is not as terrible as you’ve been taught to believe. Some of the most remarkable studies of late on the biological value of cholesterol—and for brain health in particular—clue us in on how the pieces to this puzzle fit together and tell a coherent story. As we’ve seen, science is only recently discovering that both fat and cholesterol are severely deficient in diseased brains and that high total cholesterol levels in late life are associated with increased longevity.24 The brain holds only 2 percent of the body’s mass but contains 25 percent of the total cholesterol, which supports brain function and development. One-fifth of the brain by weight is cholesterol!”
― David Perlmutter, Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers

“Professor of Biophysics at Iowa State University Dr. Yeon-Kyun Shin is a noted authority on how cholesterol functions within neural networks to transmit messages. He put it bluntly in an interview for a ScienceDaily reporter:28 If you deprive cholesterol from the brain, then you directly affect the machinery that triggers the release of neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters affect the data-processing and memory functions. In other words—how smart you are and how well you remember things. If you try to lower the cholesterol by taking medication that is attacking the machinery of cholesterol synthesis in the liver, that medicine goes to the brain too. And then it reduces the synthesis of cholesterol, which is necessary in the brain. Our study shows there is a direct link between cholesterol and the neurotransmitter release, and we know exactly the molecular mechanics of what happens in the cells. Cholesterol changes the shape of the proteins to stimulate thinking and memory.”
― David Perlmutter, Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers

“When asked to comment on the results, UCLA researcher Beatrice Golomb said, “Regarding statins as preventive medicines, there are a number of individual cases in case reports and case series where cognition is clearly and reproducibly adversely affected by statins.”30 Golomb further added that various studies have demonstrated that statins either negatively affected cognition or were neutral, and that no trial has ever shown a positive outcome.”
― David Perlmutter, Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers

“By far the most important fat for brain energy utilization is beta-hydroxybutyrate (beta-HBA), and we’ll explore this unique fat in more detail in the next chapter. This is why the so-called ketogenic diet has been a treatment for epilepsy since the early 1920s and is now being reevaluated as a very powerful therapeutic option in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease,”
― David Perlmutter, Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers

“For years researchers have noted decreased levels of free radical damage in individuals who consume fish oil (the source of EPA and DHA), but with this new research, the relationship between fish oil and antioxidant protection is now clear. As Dr. Gao reported, “Our data support the hypothesis that the formation of… compounds generated from oxidation of EPA and DHA in vivo can reach concentrations high enough to induce Nrf2-based antioxidant and… detoxification defense systems.”
― David Perlmutter, Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers

“Several natural compounds that turn on antioxidant and detoxification pathways through activation of the Nrf2 system have been identified. Among these are curcumin from turmeric, green tea extract, silymarin (milk thistle), bacopa extract, DHA, sulforaphane (contained in broccoli), and ashwagandha. Each of these substances is effective in turning on the body’s innate production of key antioxidants, including glutathione. And if none of these compounds sounds like something you’re used to having daily in your diet, then you’ll be happy to know that coffee is one of the most powerful Nrf2 activators in nature.”
― David Perlmutter, Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers

“Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”
― Allen Saunders

“Denham Harman had not, in 1945, read an article about aging in his wife’s Ladies’ Home Journal and developed a theory that free radicals and antioxidants are at the heart of human aging. Harman’s idea was never anything more than a hunch, and subsequent research proved it to be wrong, but nonetheless the idea has taken hold and will not go away. The sale of antioxidant supplements alone is now worth well over $2 billion a year.”
― Bill Bryson, The Body: A Guide for Occupants