My mother was diagnosed with LBD in Jan. 2010. She has been on the Exalon Patch & Seroquel since jan. and has made some improvement. She has always had a 'sweet tooth' and that has not changed much even though we have tried to curb her sugar habits. Our caregiver is convinced that the excess of sugar in her diet is responsible for 'episodes' she has - i.e., she has auditory and visual hallucinations. Everytime she has a few bad days in a row, her Dr. ups her seroquel (she's on 3 1/2 25 mg pills a day now) in hopes of it helping w/ the hallucinations.Our caregiver thinks she's over medicated and if the sugar was cut out there would be no need to up the seroquel. Has anyone else noticed a relationship between sugar and hallucinations and/or behavior in LBD patients?
Thanks,
John

Hallucinations are certainly part of LBD pathology in the brain. I don't think the sugar theory has any basis in science.

My dad's diet consists mainly of sugar these days. He refuses to eat almost all healthy foods, but then, we don't know if he has LBD, FTD, CBD or what. He rarely hallucinates but has a lot of delusional thinking. So, there's anecdotal info. about ONE person.
BTW, my sister and 2 caregivers took him to the dentist today for cleaning and a checkup and he has 7 new cavities since last summer. No big surprise here with his diet and I keep having to ask the ALF folks to brush his teeth for him since he can't. Now there's another really good reason to not have your LO eat a lot of sugary stuff!
Lynn

My LO eats a lot of cookies and dark chocolate and ice cream. Her ALF took her and some other residents to the NW Fair the other day and she had a Moo-wich, which is two huge homemade chocolate chip cookies with ice cream in-between. The caregiver wanted to cut it in half for my Mom but she wouldn't give it up...she ate the whole thing! Anyway, there doesn't seem to be any relationship for her between sugar and hallucinations/delusions. The hallucinations seem to respond to exelon for her. She is on a dose of 3.0 mg in the am and 1.5 mg in the pm. The delusions don't respond to anything.