Anti-Alzheimer’s meal delivery service touts seafood for brain health

A U.S. meal delivery service is touting seafood’s benefits to brain health in advertising its keto diet plans.

Burlingame, California, U.S.A.-based Nutrition for Longevity and Apollo Health recently launched the Bredesen Protocol Diet Ketoflex 12/3 meal delivery service across the U.S.

The nutrition plan was developed by neuroscientist and Alzheimer's researcher Dale Bredesen. The Ketoflex 12/3 diet helps optimize cognition through a mildly ketogenic, plant-rich, nutrient-dense diet combined with nightly fasting of a minimum of 12 hours, beginning at least three hours before sleep, the companies said in a press release.

“The Ketoflex plan prioritizes low-mercury, wild-caught seafood as the optimal protein to help supply the brain with omega-3 fatty acids it needs to thrive,” Apollo Health Chief Health Liaison Julie Gregory told SeafoodSource.

The meal plans features salmon, pollock, cod, and shrimp, and Apollo Health expects to serve thousands of meal kits weekly, Gregory said.

All of its seafood is sustainably sourced from wild sources, with a “careful selection of species known for being low in heavy metals,” Gregory said. “Toxic levels of mercury have been associated with dementia, so we monitor this carefully,” she said.

The diet was used in Bredesen’s recent clinical trial, which demonstrated stabilization or reversal of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease in 88 percent of participants. 

The whole food diet, which features foods known to support cognitive health, emphasizes sustainable, local, and seasonal non-starchy vegetables, combined with clean protein and healthy fat.

The human brain is more than 60 percent fat and DHA comprises 90 percent of omega-3 fatty acids in the brain, requiring intake of larger amounts of DHA than most Americans currently consume, Gregory said.

"The brain is unable to manufacture it’s own DHA and optimally maintains high DHA levels primarily through the uptake from lipids in circulating blood that cross the blood-brain barrier,” Gregory said. “Maintenance of DHA concentration is important throughout the life cycle, but is especially critical for aging brains.”

Subscribers to the meal delivery service can choose from either a chef-curated pescatarian or flexitarian menu, or they can select their own option that includes multiple protein selections, including seafood, poultry, beef, and vegan options. The weekly meal kits start at USD 159.50 (EUR 147).

Nutrition for Longevity and Apollo Health are “always open” to including new species of seafood in their meal kits, Gregory said.

Photo courtesy of Apollo Health