About two months ago, I came across an article talking about a small study done on the effectiveness of MCT (Medium Chain Triglyceride). It reported that in a study, one group which was given two table spoon of MCT for two months showed significant improvement in cognitive capacity than the other which was given a placebo.
So about a month and half ago, I started taking two table spoonful of MCT, one in a smoothy around noon and another one in a salad in the evening. It is a clear oil with no taste, so it blends into foods easily.
One of the things I do to keep my brain working is counting by 10’s. I do 100 squats every morning. When I started doing it a few years ago, I was not able to count reliably. So, I measured how many squats I do in a minute. Then measured the exercise time to determine if I have done 100.
It did work, but I decided that it would be a good place to use my brain more. So, I started counting 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, –1- ; 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, –2- ; etc. until I reached 10. It is a simple task for normal people but for somebody with MCI, it is not straight forward. I start wondering “Is it 6 I have just done or is the next one 6?” I gradually got better but usually that type of doubt is there at least once or more through a set of squats. What I am finding is that the frequency of the doubt is significantly less in the last few weeks. In fact some mornings, I know I have done a perfect counting of 100. So, it may indicate that MCT is working for me.
However, here is the downer. In an effort to give credibility to MCT, I tried to dig up the article which talked about the study. I spent countless hours looking for the article as well as going through other articles on MCT. Unfortunately not only I could not find the original article.but also I found a lot of articles reporting that there have been no scientifically proven evidence to show that MCT has beneficial effect on MCI. I did find some which talked about beneficial effect but only for a short period of time. Yet, there are some small number of doctors recommending it, so there may still be some merit.
So, do I just throw away the left over MCT and give it up or should I continue and monitor my condition. Even if it is only a placebo effect, I do feel it may be helping me with my mild cognitive impairment (MCI). So, I have decided to continue and see what happens.
Living With MCI 