Restoring What’s Missing
Lessons from Dr. Dayan Goodenowe’s Paradigm for Brain Health
For more than two decades, my quest to understand neurodegenerative disease has been guided by two stubborn convictions. First, decline doesn’t have to be inevitable, and second, the old scripts of diagnosis and symptom-chasing leave too much possibility on the table. When I first heard of Dr. Dayan Goodenowe’s work, it was like meeting a fellow traveler from a parallel discipline. Someone who understands that health is a process of restoration, not just firefighting.
I have always believed that the human body is an ecosystem, a dynamic, interconnected balance of inputs, flows, and capacities. When John was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, this mindset pushed me to ask what wasn’t being measured and what’s missing at the foundation. For years, my focus was on the microbiome, food, and environmental exposures. Dr. Goodenowe’s research adds a critical piece to that puzzle. The lipids and metabolites that orchestrate cellular structure and resilience, especially in the brain.
A New Way of Seeing: From Disease Labels to Health Restoration
Dr. Goodenowe is a biochemist with deep roots in diagnostic technology and a fearless curiosity about what actually moves the needle for people struggling with neurodegeneration. His central message is simple:
The goal isn’t to “fight Alzheimer's” or to repress each new negative, but to restore what makes the brain and body resilient in the first place.
In a recent interview, Dr. Goodenowe spoke about watching patients go from nearly nonverbal or bedridden to a level of function that would have been considered impossible by conventional models. These were not flukes or miracles. They were the result of systematically supporting the body’s design, feeding the right raw materials and cofactors, and letting biological systems repair, regrow, and reconnect.
Key Insights from Dr. Goodenowe’s Approach
1. Plasmalogens: The Overlooked Builders of Brain Resilience
One of the most important molecules Dr. Goodenowe’s research centers on is the plasmalogen. A special class of phospholipids that make up about a third of the brain’s total membrane mass and half of the heart’s. Plasmalogens act as first responders to oxidative stress, protect neurotransmitter release, support myelin and membrane function, and even help modulate inflammation. In neurodegenerative diseases, plasmalogen levels are consistently and predictably depleted.
A central lesson from his work is that no magic bullet will offset a system with critical parts missing. If your brain is low in plasmalogens, simply removing toxins or suppressing symptoms is not enough. The deficit must be acknowledged and restored.
2. Health is Not “Nothing Bad Happening”
Dr. Goodenowe describes seeing health as an active, positive process. In his analogy, health isn’t just taking the flat tire off the car and patching the hole. If you put a bald tire back on, you haven’t solved the problem, just reset the risk. Restoration means re-treading the tire, rebuilding the system to better-than-before standards.
This perspective flips the script on how we approach disease. It is not reductionist, it is integrative. It aligns with my own experience in systems thinking. True gains come when you support rebuilding, not just suppression of what’s gone wrong.
3. Anticipation Over Reaction: Testing, Markers, and Predictive Biochemistry
One of the aspects that struck me most in Dr. Goodenowe’s approach is his focus on measuring biochemistry before symptoms become visible. He developed technology able to profile hundreds of blood markers, identifying the “bald tires” long before they go flat. This is similar to my advocacy of early testing and ecosystem-level data gathering. The more granular our map of risk and function, the more proactive we can be in support and intervention.
4. Nutrition as the (Still) Missing Link
He reminds us that many vital molecules like choline, phospholipids, and plasmalogen precursors cannot reliably be obtained in sufficient amounts from the modern diet, especially given years of gut dysfunction, stress, or environmental depletion. Dr. Goodenowe highlights that these molecules are so important the body tries to make them itself, but that ability can be overwhelmed or degraded with age and stress. His work underscores how the answers are often about putting back what’s been lost rather than just putting out fires.
5. Restoration is Possible—The Brain Can Recover
Perhaps most important, Dr. Goodenowe provides not just theory but real-world examples. Individuals with moderate to advanced cognitive decline regaining memory, mobility, and independence after targeted biochemical restoration, often within months. The brain, it turns out, is astonishingly plastic if given the right tools and time. “If you can restore it for one,” as he says, “you prove the door isn’t locked forever.”
Systems, Terrain, and the Ongoing Quest
For those of you who have followed my own journey through John’s Parkinson’s, this systems-first, root-cause–restoration mindset feels like scientific kinship. I have long argued that labeling diseases often hides the unity behind our vulnerabilities—neurodegeneration, metabolic syndrome, even some forms of heart disease, reveal breakdowns in our foundational terrain. As Dr. Goodenowe says, “Every disease is diagnosable by deviation from health.” The invitation is to see your body as a set of interlocking flows. Minerals, nutrients, microbial metabolites, and structural lipids all combining in a living symphony.
This is why I am hopeful. Every time I meet a researcher re-framing the conversation, whether it’s the oral microbiome and neuroinflammation, or plasmalogens and membrane health, I am reminded how dynamic and interconnected our biology is, and how much room there is for agency and discovery even after a dire diagnosis.
Science is never static.
The more voices approach these mysteries not as isolated “wars on disease,” but as invitations to rebuild coherence as our path gets stronger.
With gratitude,
Martha