Episode 583: Dr. David Perlmutter: Brain Health Expert: The Daily Habits That Protect Your Brain as You Age

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“Welcome to Habits and Hustle, where I sit down at the world's biggest thinkers, entrepreneurs,”

top experts to uncover the habit, strategies, and mindsetships that actually move the need on your health, happiness, and success. And today, I'm sitting down with Dr. David Pro-Mutter, a board certified neurologist, best selling author, and leading voice in the brain health, and neurodegenerative disease. We discussed why protecting your brain starts decades before symptoms appear, how inflammation

and metabolic health impact brain function, and what you can do now to reduce your risk of cognitive decline. We also cover loneliness, sleep, strength training, oral health, fasting, and insulin. Oh my god, the list goes on. This conversation is packed with practical ways to take more ownership of your brain health instead of waiting until something goes wrong.

David breaks down that everyday habits, health markers, and lifestyle choices that actually influence how your brain ages, plus some of the emerging science that can completely change the way we think about Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. So now, let's dive in. Before we get into today's episode, I have a quick question.

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You guys, we have a special podcast today. Now I'm on this really big bandwagon of doing everything for our brain health, cognitive, health, all the things, and we have a doctor named Dr. David Pro-Mutter, who I can still

can't believe I've never met before.

This is absurd, considering I've been doing this for many years. You've been doing this for even more years, and we just never our path has never crossed. Well, the circle is complete now, isn't it? Yes, it totally is. The loop is now finally closed.

Dr., what do you want me to call you? David, Dr. Pro-Mutter. David or Dr. Pro-Mutter? You know, you see Dr. Pro-Mutter, keep looking for my dad.

“So I'll call you David, but yes, but I know, right?”

You still price still look for your dad. I know, I don't like when my kids, friends, call me miss blah, blah, blah. I feel like a very old person. I don't like it. I like them to call me Jennifer.

So David or Dr. Pro-Mutter has written his sixth book. And this one is called Brain Defenders. You may have read his book, "Grain Brain." There's so many books, but we're going to talk all about the new book. And, like I said, it's called "Brain Defenders."

But I can never seem to see the harness the power of your immune cells to protect your brain for life.

So thank you for being here. Well, thank you for having me, and the subtitle really tells it all. It tells the story of the power of the brain's unique immune cells called microglial cells. To really determine your brain's destiny, whether you're going to be along for the ride with your brain or the brain's not going to be there to participate in the rest of your life.

So we fear things like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and all of these issues that we run the risk of, but it turns out that we absolutely have a big say in determining whether that's in our future or not. And it all has to do with what's going on with the brain's immune cells over which you have control.

Yes, I mean, this is what, you know, I was really eager to have you on the podcast for personal reasons.

“My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.”

I just came back from Montreal to see her. And she's now passed the point of mild, I would imagine in the mid area of Alzheimer's. And, you know, we talk a lot about preventative things. What I would love to hear from you is, but the words, where is the science or is there any evidence that you can reverse signs of Alzheimer's dementia

if you're already past a certain point?

The answer is yes. How about that?

Now, we've never been told that, have we? Here in America, there have been FDA-approved drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease. That, according to your recent Cochrane analysis, have objectively failed. They do not have any meaningful effect on the time course of the decline in the Alzheimer's patient, and are associated with a significant risk of side effects in at least a quarter of patients,

either hemorrhage in the brain, swelling, or even death. And these are drugs that are FDA-approved, it's the best that pharmacy can offer us. And yet, when we look at research, for example, there's a study that came out last year by Dr. Rudolph Tanzi at Harvard, along with Dr. Dean Ornish. They took a group of patients who were diagnosed with Alzheimer's already not at risk,

because they had diabetes or obesity or something. These patients were already diagnosed. Fifty-one patients, twenty-week study, what did they do? They changed their diets. They changed their level of activity, and they reduced their stress. And these individuals, it didn't slow down their progression in 70% of them.

It stopped their progression, or led to improvement in their cognitive function. There's never been any drug that could do that.

And the side effects were, in these individuals, that their blood sugars improved,

their body weight improved, and they overall felt better. And think about that. And you're looking at me right now with look on your face like, I haven't heard of that.

“And you should have heard of that, and you haven't--”

What has it called? It's lifestyle intervention. But this is the same. I'm looking at you like that. I published in a Repair Review Journal, and I wish you had heard of it. And I'm not blaming you for not hearing about it.

But I'm blaming the emphasis in our modern Western world to really off-load the agency of our brain's destiny to hope that a drug is developed. It's-- I need to say it's wrong. I sound so aggressive when I do that.

No, it'd be aggressive. But my dad died of Alzheimer's, and had there been a drug. Would I have been-- the prescription for him? You better would have. I mean, his nursing home was-- I could see his window

from my examining rooms in my office. That's how close my situation was with his progressive down here of the client every single day. And so having said that, would I use the drug? I absolutely would have.

What was drug called, though, again?

“Well, there was no drug. There was no drug.”

There was no drug. The drug should have-- The drug should have-- That's the drug right now. It's lifestyle. Yeah, the drug is lifestyle.

Yeah, the drug is lifestyle. Yeah, the drug is lifestyle, right now. But I mean, you cannot patent that. You can't have a billion dollar blocker. You cannot patent that.

This is what I know, but with your dad, though, you said that there was no-- there was no drug or a drug. Right, one where is there now? Right. There are these random drugs, but they have bad side effects.

My mother was on one for a little bit. They took her off of it. It wasn't doing anything. Well, here's the news. If they would do something,

I would have a different conversation with you, Jen. Right, this minute.

But here's what a recent Cochrane analysis revealed.

This is the most highly regarded gold standard way of answering a medical question. Here is the two-part question. Part one, does it work? Part two, is it threatening?

Is there a side effect? Right, are there. And here's what the Cochrane analysis of 20,342 individuals in 17 studies, 18 months each study revealed, just published.

Number one, the threat of using these drugs is about 25% of people will have brain hemorrhages, brain swelling, or possibly even die. What about the benefit? The word they used was trivial.

So the drugs don't work, and they're really risky, and that's very likely what they put your relative on, and why they stopped it because likely she was beginning to have side effects.

And so, you know, it's not that your guest is really, as we talked about earlier, I kind of classic you had a different word for it. What?

And I am, I guess. And I'm irreverent because I see, you know, my mission is above all doing a harm. And that's doing harm, and I will speak out about it about it in the book.

Yeah. And that was before this Cochrane analysis. That just came out to be supportive of what I'm contending in this book. And I'm certainly not anti-drug.

We talk about the potential of GLP-1

I'm asking about that. And I'm hoping for that.

You bet inflammation and metabolism.

“That story hasn't been fully written yet.”

And we're waiting for it. We can double click on that at some point. Really go do that. Well, I want to ask you about that now, because they're saying even for people.

There's a couple of things. So you do talk about the fact in the book in this book, and you've said it many times, that Alzheimer's is not genetic, right?

There's like, "By and large, it is not genetic. Are there some genetic predispositions that an individual can have to increase her or his risk?" Yes, there are.

We know that caring, for example, a variation in a gene called APOE4 is associated with increased risk. Either, if you have one of those alleles, five times risk,

or two of the alleles, in other words, APOE4, that your risk may be 10 to 12 times increased compared to others who don't care it. There are other genes, there are about 60 different genes

that play a role, but by and large, important message here, here's the sound bite. Alzheimer's should not be considered

a genetic disease.

“It's a disease related to lifestyle choices”

that is very empowering, because we could make better choices and reduce our risk. Genes load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

So just to keep on this for one second, we won't need to drone on and on about my mom. But this is why I thought this was a very pertinent thing to talk about,

because you never knew my mother,

you don't know her, but she's also the medical field. Interestingly enough, she did everything right. Her blood sugar was completely intact.

She worked out every day. She physically, even to this day, she's done on any medication except vitamin D. Physically,

top notch, but her brain still declined. Now, she did this happen because it might when COVID started.

She was extremely isolated and extremely lonely, because she was very had a lot of anxiety around going to see people. To me, what that tells me is loneliness,

isolation is probably predominantly, more imperative, or more of a trigger,

“than let's say even exercise or nutrition.”

Would you say it that? I think it's incredibly underrated. And when we talk about the dramatic increased risk of Alzheimer's, as a consequence of COVID, you know,

a lot of the discussion, at least in the medical science field, is what does the virus do? Does the virus increase inflammation? Yes,

we know that the virus affect mitochondrial function in brain cells, and the brain immune cells, the microglia, the subject of the book, absolutely it does.

But you bring up an incredibly fundamental point, that for a period of time, it may have been more than a year, your mother had a higher level of stress, as many of us did.

And isolation, and isolation is a huge event, especially as it continues, as it relates to brain health. Why?

The downside of isolation is increased stress, therefore increased cortisol, threatening to the brain's memory center, the hippocampus threatened to the microbiome, the gut bacteria,

and therefore increases inflammation that can shift the brain's immune cells away from being supportive, to being destructive. The other thing though, is when we are isolated,

we're not experiencing love as much. We're not in contact with individuals that we share love with, and why could that be relevant in it? But we're having it,

I consider a scientific conversation, and I wondered about that for a long time. When we looked at, for example, the blue zone,

people have a lot of social connectivity, a lot of involvement in their communities, and have a dramatic risk reduction for Alzheimer's heart disease, various forms of cancers,

and other degenerative issues. But why? Why Alzheimer's? What's the connection between connection and reduce risk?

Yeah. And many things are at play. Cortisol, lower, we know that. But here's something I found really fascinating.

The book focuses on the shift of the brain's immune cells from being normally wonderfully supportive to help the brain remain resistant to decline, shifting to a situation

where our brain immune cells basically turn their backs on us. They become what I call in the book The Evil Twin.

A powerful way of keeping them supportive

and loving and nurturing is to stimulate these cells, called the M2's supportive immune cells, and one of the powerful stimulants to keep them in their supportive mode

is a chemical called oxytocin, a hormone called oxytocin, the love hormone, that increases when we have relationships with people. Your mom's isolation for whatever length of time

that was reduced to her oxytocin, and at the same time increased her cortisol, and the brain has a significant experience

to be less able to resist decline.

“Now, you told me your mother's blood sugar was intact,”

that she exercised quite frequently, did all of the things. What brain defenders does is through the lens of the brain's immune cells looks at those things

and so many others that influence whether those brain cells are going to be supportive or they will turn their backs on us and pave the way for the brain to decline.

Because you keep one, you mentioned a lot in the book that you caught, what was it called in the immune cell, microglia.

Microglia,

I've never heard that before.

And you are going to hear about it after right and center moving forward. See, that's because you also, in another book, you talked about,

you're like acid was the other one. You're a acid. You're a acid. I mean, these are things that are not very usual.

You hear about extreme training, you hear about loneliness, you hear about, even now, I know you wrote the book,

brain brain, but no process, ultra-processed food. But those are the two things that really stood out to me.

Can you talk a little bit about what immune cells are? You are Canadian. Can I talk a boat? You got me on the boat.

There you go. Yes, sure. I can do that. Yes, this is why it's Canadian. And I have my career.

Okay. And you're Canadian. Right. So it's a new paradigm in neuroscience, and it's exciting because...

How did you even get to it? After all these years of writing about it? I didn't write about it for all these years. No, no. I'm saying you've been writing about all of this

neurology stuff for years and years. And now all of a sudden we were about it. And what is too exciting, Jennifer, is that everything I've written about, whether it's the relationship of the gut to the brain

and the microbiome, brain brain talking about gluten and talking about high refined carbohydrate diets, Yurik acid and drop acid, how that threatens our metabolism.

Everything converges on the brain's immune cells.

Finally, everything I've studied and written about

and lectured about for 40 years has converged on the brain's immune cells. That's the upstream event in everything I've been interested in. But what took 40 years?

“I think we didn't recognize that the immune cells”

in the brain, the microbiome, through such a wide net, and we're upstream of all of these mechanisms. And it's just come to light really, mostly in the past five years.

I've been talking about the microbiome for decades, but we didn't really understand how they could change from being supportive to being distracted. Right. So let's talk about that.

So explain what the microglia is and how it can go from being supportive to being distracted. And that's the take-home message of our time together today because we can control it.

Yes. Understand first that this is the upstream mechanism that underpins Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and the MS and issues related to law and COVID, PTSD, even major depression.

All of these issues are fundamentally related to the change in the microglia cells from nurturing our synapses, nurturing our neurons and blood-brain barrier to suddenly shifting and becoming the evil twin, destroying the synapses,

actually gobbling up the connection of one brain cell to the next, setting up an environment in the brain that leads to the neurons falling apart and leading the blood-brain barrier, which we depend upon to keep the brain,

you know, excluded from certain things, leads to that breakdown, just like the gut barrier. We have a very important barrier in the brain that needs to be maintained. So many things can threaten to cause these cells

to turn their backs on us, elevated blood sugar. Changes in our proteins because they bind to blood sugar like hemoglobin A1C. Increased inflammation anywhere in the body makes its way to the brain.

It sends a signal to these cells to shift and become distracted.

“Think about that, where can that inflammation come from?”

A leaky gut. So you're diet, whether it's supportive of your microbiome or not, through this mechanism of a leaky gut, can increase inflammation, tells these microglia cells we're going to destroy your brain, just because the gut changed,

because you took antacids or overused antibiotics or other types of drugs, non-steward anti-inflammatory drugs, like I'd be profan. So let's start with the idea of this. Is there a test or a way that people could even know

where they how healthy their microglia,

I can never pronounce it, microglia cells are.

Is there some type of blood tests for us to know where we are in terms of health? Absolutely. One thing you can do is look at your calendar, ask yourself how old you are. Twenty-nine.

There you go. It's microglia shift more aggressively, the older we get.

So that's a very powerful metric.

The next thing you can do is... What age do we start shifting? It happens earlier than you think. It happens around 50. Okay.

Aggressively. But it happens in our 40s as well. Okay. It brings me to a very interesting point. And that is the paradigm under which we live right now

related to brain to generation. There's one that would say wait until you become cognitively impaired. Think about your mother's experience and your experience with your mother. Nobody paid in the attention to her brain till suddenly she started complaining about things and went to the doctor say hey.

No, no. Just because she got very confused. But yes. It feels something else recognized it.

That's very, very typical.

Yeah. But why do we wait until then? Well, may ask how old your mother is? Well, now she's 83. But when did those issues begin?

“It started in honestly like only a year and a half ago.”

Okay. Here's a go 81 or 80. Yeah. Is that normal? Is that a normal age for this?

My point is those issues began under 40s and 50s. That's when the seeds are shown. So your audience needs to hear this. That the metabolic issues that will threaten your brain and presage the cognitive issues begin decades ahead of time.

See, I did hear you talk about that. That they, that's been out there. But then what are the signs? Like, because you know when people let we all kind of joke around like, oh, you know, like, I mean, menopause.

I'm in Perry, menopause. Oh, I have got like, you know, like, I've got people think that when they're forgetful or or just kind of just mindless, it's like their situation or circumstance. It's not necessarily that. So how do you, how do you distinguish between if it's like decline of your cognitive

functions or just circumstance? Yeah, let's get back to, I think the original question. Where do we get the sense that we're already setting the state of brain decline? Your blood sugar starts to elevate. Your fasting insulin level goes up.

Okay. You're working too much that you can't get exercise. You have fragmented sleep. You're looking at your apple watch or your or ring and you're seeing that you're not getting up deep sleep.

You are isolated. You're not spending time in nature. Your waist to hip ratio is increasing by a very sophisticated piece of machinery called a measuring tape.

I mean, these are powerful indicators that your microglossels are shifting.

You know, I'm noticing. You're not wearing an apple watch and or ring a hoop. None of it. You're right. And is that, is that by design?

No, because I do. You know, I do wear a continuous glucose monitor. But I don't see it. So I can't see that part. Oh, I'm not wearing it right now.

Okay. But I do these things not all the time.

“You know, there's been some commentary that, well, can we get a little neurotic about it?”

And I find it's a little bit stressful for me. But I do want to know. So where am I? I use an or a ring. I do it.

You know, for several weeks at a time every month or two. Same thing with CGMs. I have, you know, boxes of them at home. I work with levels health. So I get this.

I always want. But here's the point. I mean, this continuous glucose monitor is powerfully informative for you, Jennifer, as an individual. What is your blood sugar doing in relation to the foods that you choose to eat?

And your relationship to your level of exercise quality of sleep, relationships, time and nature, etc. You wouldn't know that if you don't measure. So you've got to measure. And you can buy a CGM at Costco without a prescription.

How wonderful is that? You know, it wasn't that long ago that there was an editorial in Germany, American Medical Association saying, oh, there's a trend that people who are non-diabetic are wanting to get CGMs to learn about their blood sugar. And the comment was the editorial, we shouldn't allow that because people

are going to become neurotic about their blood sugar. With that logic, we shouldn't allow people to buy bathroom scales because they'll be the wonder what their body weight is. No, we should have the option of knowing these metrics.

“Right, I think in the ownership of our own hands, right?”

And having informed information. That's my mission in life. Yes, giving people stewardship over their brains destiny. Right now in America, we offload that stewardship to pharmaceutical companies with the hope that we can live our lives, however, we want.

And there'll be a magic drug to fix the problem. That situation is non-existent right now. Now, I mentioned before, what I'd be supportive of you, better would be. Yeah. That's my job.

And I will put that drug in my toolbox, but we don't have it yet. So, okay, so let's just stay on this for the, because you're, like, but that's a very, very good point. Like, your, if someone is concerned about a lot of these, you know, diseases that can happen in the 70s, 80s.

It starts 40, 30 years before that. And when you're confused between if it's just like circumstances, like, but whatever, Perry, Metapods, children, stress, work, whatever it is that you're,

What was that?

The ones to check your hip, your hip, your hip, your hip.

Way to hip ratio, way to fast. Inceling level, you're A1C. And I think beginning at age 50, a little bit more sophisticated testing. One called, Petal 2017, very predictive of Alzheimer's. And I didn't know that when I submitted the manuscript for this book just several months ago,

because that study came out three weeks ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association, saying that this Petal 2017 that we used previously as a diagnostic for somebody who's having cognitive decline to determine, is it Alzheimer's? Is now demonstrated to be predictive in terms of who's going to get it? So that would be a great test to have.

I just had mine done. Where did you, where did people get that? And lab could do it, and you don't need a prescription. Walk into a quest and say, I want to pee down to 17. They'll sit down in the chair and they'll draw it.

Really? You bet.

“I think this is also, you know Dr. Dale Breziden, is that?”

Breziden. Very, very well.

Okay, he was on here while ago.

I think he mentioned that test actually, or a form, is there another version, or a form? No. He's got to 17. There are others that he talks about GFAP, neurofilament light. Those are ones that he's very fond of, but he's correct.

And the other thing that Dr. Breziden talks about is he believes that once we reach a certain age, like six years, 65, that we should have annual evaluations of our cognitive function. He calls it a cognoscopy, like a colonoscopy. Yeah, I love that. How would we do that?

You can do them online now. In fact, he has web-based tools. That allows you. We talk about him in the book. In fact, I feature him in the book as some of his catered ports.

And, you know, I so honor his work.

And he takes a lot of criticism.

“And wrongly, I believe, because he is a trailblazer.”

One of his recent books I wrote the four to. And I talked about him in terms of a Nobel Prize. Because not only the work that he's doing, but the idea that he challenged the idea of modern science, looking at one variable to test something, like a drug or a single intervention. As you know, his approach to dealing with Alzheimer's brings in multiple inroads, diet, nutrition, exercise,

identification of toxins, example, and even heavy metals. All the things he talks about. And that is absolutely breaking the mold. And I'm grateful that he's done that. Because now we see news studies coming out where people are doing multiple things at one time

and seeing great results and reversing Alzheimer's disease. Yes, it is happening right now without drugs. I mean, how old are you? 71. 71.

And you're like, Sharper's attack. Yeah, you don't know. You are 16 books later. What is your day to day? Whatever the habits and rituals that you do daily to be so like that you're that you're

doing for 10 years from like you're probably, you're probably doing things that you'll be healthy for 80s or 90s. What can people do for people? People ask me this question a lot. Of course they would this the other day.

“And one thing I haven't said that I will say today that I think is so important is”

our two words have fun. Now why do I say that? Because I think it's a question people should ask themselves. Why do that? I really enjoy that makes me smile.

And I know the things that I do that make me smile. That bring joy to my heart. And that I think it's a good question because that's really important for you to offload stress and to have a good time. The other thing is, you know, I think the real actionable levers that I pull.

I exercise every single day. Are there days that I will probably miss tomorrow because I have a six a.m. flight. And I won't get home till probably 8 p.m. at night. But otherwise I exercise every day. Exercise is so important.

Yeah, for your metabolism for your waistline for your body weight. All the things you'll look good. You feel good. Brain loves it. Because your muscles when they are activated are secreting chemicals.

That do wonderful things for your metabolism. Some of those chemicals go into your brain and keep shop. You know, they do good thing. Talk about the BD and app. You know, of course you know what this is.

It's like fertilizer for your brain in a way. I feel like the exercise to me. I mean, I'm not the doctor. But I think exercise is the number one thing that could keep. It kind of keep these diseases at bay because what it does to your brain.

For me, I work out. I mean, I don't work out for my my physical well being. Yeah, do I want to look good? Yes. But what it does to my brain more focus more alert. You have your brain turns on with exercise.

So there are a lot of reasons for that.

So BD F brain derived neurotrophic factor. And it is brain derived. That's the BD.

“And I think this is important point that while muscles do create a very minimal amount of BD and F,”

they actually create a chemical when you're using your muscles. I.E. exercising called erasin. And this erasin then able to cross the blood brain barrier. And then within the brain stimulates the production of brain derived neurotrophic factor. That does a lot of different things.

It nurtures. The neurons keeps them healthy and functional. But it also increases the growth of new brain cells. Who wouldn't want that? Why that's fantastic WTF right?

Yeah. What's fantastic right?

Yeah, I've never heard that one before.

But it's similar to growth of new brain cells. Not throughout the brain. But it's some very important areas like the hippocampus, the brain's members entered the intake gyros of hippocampus. Can I ask you a question on that just before you move on?

Because I know strain training is extremely important at your age for your bones and for falling and all the things. For your actual brain, though, in terms of its workability, it's for it to be sharp and on the ball and all that they alert. It's cardiovascular, more important than strain training.

Because I feel what I do the cardiovascular part. That's when my brain is triggered and turned on. That's the lever that I pull if I need to be on point.

“Do you, is that act as our science behind that or and what you're saying?”

I think is something many people experience. I think with your audience, here's you say that they're going to see. I feel the same way.

Then what's all the push about strength training?

Now let's just wind back a little bit to our conversation from about two minutes ago that the muscles are creating these chemicals that are doing good things for the brain and the long term. Not the, in the acute sense, you're right about the aerobics. So, if you want more of those chemicals, then you need bigger muscles.

So now you're going to have a bigger resource to create the aerosin and the interlucin six and the cathepsin D and all of the things that are good for ramping up the brain function over the long term. You want a bigger resource so you can't forget leg day. Your leg muscles are the biggest ones and really you're not doing leg muscles to look good.

And then what you're really looking, your legs are maybe they are. Everyone's doing triceps and biceps and pecks. That's good. Ben, okay. We might are doing our butt legs.

But it's good because those glutes are pretty big muscles. The biggest muscle, the biggest muscle. Well, hamstrings and quads as well. So you want to really emphasize your extensions and your squat. You want to really strengthen those upper leg muscles and calf muscles as well.

There can be big and some people of course, but you don't want to forget leg day. Why? For all the other reasons, yes, and metabolism, of course, metabolism targets your microglutes. But just to have more of those great salubrious chemicals produced that make their way to the brain, they move.

They're called Myo muscle. Kind. They move. Myo kinds. Move from the muscle to the brain.

So the muscles are endocrine glands. No, I thought the endocrine glands are the two-itary. They're renal of the thyroid. Because the definition of an endocrine gland is an area in the body of gland or an organ that produces chemicals that go elsewhere and target other organs and do things.

Like the thyroid targets to your brain and your muscles and everything else. And the muscle do that. They secrete chemicals that target the heart. That target the blood vessels that target the pancreas liver and even yes, the brain.

So let's take full advantage of that. And yeah, your muscles are making chemicals. I want more of those therefore, I do strength training. So where does the rubber meet the road on answering your question? An interesting meta-analysis means it looked at multiple studies.

More than 30 studies was published by Chinese researchers. And tried to answer that question. What's better? The conclusion that they came up with was both. So that's the recommendation.

Not that I feel that's the right thing to do. That's what the science tells us. So, aerobics very important. You feel better. Go for it.

More of a cardiovascular blood supply. Kind of approach. More metabolic types of benefits are going to come from the strength training. And the added benefit of these chemicals that we talk about. This interlukan six that some would call an inflammatory cytokine.

And it is. But at the same time, multi-purpose of this interlukan six increases. Something called AMP kinase. And what does AMP kinase do? That increases our ability to burn fat.

Increases the functionality of insulin. It's how the drug metformin works.

“So that's why we want to build muscle and do both.”

Now, I'm going to add to that.

The discussions always aerobics versus strengthening.

What should I do? And I think there's a third like even a fourth like to this tool.

And you overdue it at the gym one day, you're going to hurt yourself. Then the exercise program comes to a crash. And if you're not working on balance training, then you run the risk of falling. And the older you get, you know, the higher that risk of falling. Break a hip, then you're, you know, in women.

Hip fractures are associated with ultimately about a 40% risk of dying from that.

Yeah, over the long run. So you want to work on your balance so that you're not at high risk for falling. So balance flexibility and strength training and cardio. So the way up. Okay, so cardio is but like you said, it is more like in the moment because it turned on your brain.

But you also talk about the metabolic piece of it, which is of course, training will help with your metabolism. That makes sense. And of course, so all four. So you really can't get away with just like picking one basically. It has to be all for all in all it. Okay, so then finish what you're okay. So I kind of cut you off.

So you say you work out every day. How long do you work out? What time do you work out? I want to know every detail for me. It's the morning.

And I'm not saying that's what everyone should do.

What time do you wake up in the morning? I wake up about 630.

“It doesn't matter. Sometimes 6. Well, I think when you when did you go to sleep?”

Right. So my question. So I want to get about eight hours of sleep of good sleep. I want to measure my sleep. And make sure I'm getting restorative sleep on interruptive sleep. And that's I think very important because people say, well, I slept eight hours. I said, oh, great. How many times to wake up?

Well, I don't think I woke up at all. That's how would you know. Because you can almost wake up and not fully wake up to the extent you don't remember it. But you really dropped out of sleeping. And your aura ring is going to tell you that or your Apple watch will tell you that.

So I think it's it's valuable to know that and you can fix that.

It might be that if you have a partner that that person is snoring or moving around at night or got up three times to pee and woke you up in the process. So it's that valuable that you might need to make some adjustments in the sleeping arrangements. I've just interviewed about this idea called Sleeping Divorce, getting a sleeping divorce. What it's kind of aggressive moniker. But if you can't sleep with an individual and have a wonderful marriage or whatever the situation is,

by all means, if you have the opportunity to go to a different room or put a bolster between you or figure it out, place them white noise in the background if that person's storing and keeping up.

“You spend a third of your life or you should sleeping eight hours of a 24 hour period.”

You don't exercise or you probably shouldn't for eight hours a day or eat for eight hours a day, right? Or do brain training exercises. But sleep, you know, we used to think, oh, that's when we're taking time off. No, it's a valuable recovery period for consolidation of your memories. For activating your climatic system to take out the garbage,

allowing your brain to have the optimal internal milieu or environment so that you don't stimulate your brain to immune cells to shift to being the evil twin. You know, I feel like again, like things have its ebb and flow and trends. Sleep has become like the new kale. You know, everybody, you know, I still love my kale.

You still love your kale. Good. Me too. I like kale. But I still call it flower. I feel like right now it's like everyone's on the sleep badminton. No one talked about it ten years ago. Now everyone's talking about sleep being the number one thing.

It's like the patissia for everything, you know, to be more fit, sleep more. To be more to be smarter, sleep more. To like, to whatever it is, it's about sleep.

“Now, why now? Like why has nobody again talked about the importance of sleep?”

Well, I think it should be because it's taking us away from the idea that popping a particular supplement or deciding to push the limits and take a certain drug is going to be that answer. You know, it turns out back to lifestyle. I think that Morton Walker is book. Matt Walker. Matt Walker book. Why we sleep?

Really, it was a big hit. Really raise our awareness. I think that, you know, looking at this whole science of chronobiology and the great research, Sachin Panda is doing and getting out to the public. Really answers a lot of questions for us about why we're failing.

And you know, the stench of sleep being downtime. It's anything but downtime. When you characterize sleep as being downtime, it sort of makes you feel like it threatens your product. Because I could have been doing something. I could have stayed up till midnight and really gotten a little bit more done.

The answer to that is, no, you are more productive when you get a good night's sleep, especially important for young people to understand this. You know, kids in high school and in college, you know, cramming for the test staying up real estate. No, get to bed and consolidate those memories.

You'll remember, you studied once.

That's the ticket. And, you know, for my perspective, when we look at the relationships between not getting enough restorative sleep and risk for Alzheimer's, risk for diabetes, risk for obesity, which contributes to Alzheimer's, risk.

Boy, it is an incredible tonic.

And I don't think this is going to be a flash in the pan. You know, various types of supplements that we talked about, you know, are common go. A million. I mean, it is a million of them. Yeah, but this has become such a big business now, so it's only only be food.

Like, people are jumping on the bad wagon because they can make a lot of money from it.

“But also, because it's something we all do anyway, right?”

Like, it's pretty brilliant, right? We all sleep at least six, seven, five, whatever hours a day. Can't get away from it. We all eat, right? So it's one of the most basic function that we do.

So the thing is, and everyone, I mean, I just find it interesting that everyone now was like, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. Exercise and what we eat. Yeah.

Because as you just said, it's things that we are already doing.

Well, we may not be taking rap of my son. We may not be taking rap form in, and these things that have their moment of, in the sunshine. Yeah. And then the other things come out.

They did it. Well, you know, there's no real data here that indicates what is what we should be doing. Right. So it remains interesting. You know, we look at the GLP once, for example.

Man, that's having its moment in the sun. Oh, but we don't know what's going to happen in the long term.

“And, you know, I talk about it in brain defenders because you, I think,”

insinuated earlier that this is an intervention that has huge and positive metabolic effects. Huge and positive metabolic effects that relate to things like mitochondrial function and blood sugar function. I want to talk about that actually.

In fact, we still don't even have all your habits. Okay. So if I'm interrupting you so far, you sleep eight hours. You work out every day, 630, you wake up, tell me what else. And then we're going to move on.

I don't have lunch or even breakfast oftentimes, well, which is breakfast because you're a few days. You don't even breakfast. You're in your break fast. So I do have breakfast, but it may be at one or two in the afternoon.

More like lunch. Yeah, well, but I'm breaking your fast. So are you, so you intermittent fast? That is by definition. You know, that's time restricted, which is a form of fasting.

And these terms are tough to define. What is intermittent fasting? How often do you do that?

“And what is the time period that characterizes that definition?”

I don't know. But that is something I do with regularity. So okay. So because you also talk about fast mimicking diet. I believe in there too.

Yes. In your Walter Lungo. Walter Lungo.

Another putting out some really powerful research.

You know, a lot of his work, though he's recently published on Alzheimer's. A lot of his work has looked at the idea of increasing ketones and the body as an adjunctive way of treating cancer along with standard approaches to treating cancer. And by all means, he's certainly not the first person to to recognize the cancer cells thrive in a sugar rich environment. Reducing blood sugar getting an under control and powering the body with ketones has been looked upon by not just Walter Lungo, but many others as an adjunctive therapy to go along.

And with treatment of cancer. So is it just overall eat less? It doesn't matter what the date. It doesn't matter if it's intermittent fasting, fast mimicking diet. If it's this or that the other the thing is it's both eating less.

Yes. And what you may consider to be trendy, but I think it's here to say is eat more fat. I mean, these lips uttered those three words. And you know, there was a time that I wouldn't say that my medical license would have been the eighth. But you know, I wouldn't say that to my colleagues because, oh, but all the data says the high fat diet can cause your children to be more naked or some horrible thing is going to happen.

Back in the day, there were low everything was low fat Oreos you name it. Yeah, remember snack wells and other things. Low fat because of course fat is the enemy. Let's do once that a bit that I'm not saying eat all fat that all fat is good. We want to characterize those fats as being the right kinds of helpful fats.

Not highly modified fats that are devoid of, you know, healing potential. So these are not the fats that have a shelf life of months to years. Or the fats have been modified that they can go into the soldier process foods that have an extended shelf life. We want to avoid those of course. But wonderful fatty foods like avocado, nuts, fish, shellfish.

These are providing to us fats that the body not just the brain. Right, desperately needs fats. Of course your brain is 70% fat dry weight. I'm not accusing you of having a fat head. Your brain is made like that.

The membranes covering every cell in your body not just the neurons are made of fat. It doesn't come from the air.

The comes from the food that we eat.

Okay, I'm not going to interrupt again. So six. I interrupt this.

“Okay, we both have. Okay, so six thirty or so you wake up.”

What time do you go to bed at night? Nine, nine, nine, thirty. Sometimes even earlier depending on, you know, if I'm tired, I go to sleep. And I don't have any trouble going to sleep, but my wife, if there's Peter time or television time, we'll have a lot of trouble.

So it's either the blue light glasses or we just don't do it at night. So, you know, read before you go to sleep. That works for us or talk. Talk. Exactly.

Talking at so, that's so archaic. I know. Okay, so you wake up. It's the best though. I so look forward to it.

Yeah. Just the goofy things happened that happened during the day. And we're both trying to, you know, figure out life. Yeah. What does it mean?

What should we be doing with parents without it? How do we raise our children to them? How old are your kids, by the way? 38 and 36. Wow.

Okay. You're not raising them anymore. I guess they were never.

“But if you're a son of doctor as well, right?”

Yes. To your dad was a doctor. Your son's a doctor. I just see if it's this year of a child. In two weeks.

Oh, really? Oh, wow. So what type of doctor is your son? He is internal medicine. Okay.

But he is running a startup company and running the science research part of startup company called Big Bold Health. That is involved in something called Himalayan Tartary Buckwheat. You may have heard that. Yeah.

I have powerful polyphenol.

He works along with a fellow by the name of Jeffrey Blan. Yes. Oh, my gosh. I know that. You've done works with him?

Yeah. Oh, that's it. Did he, did they get introduced through you? Well, the blans and the pro mutters have been friends for 35 years. Oh, yeah.

So Jeffrey knew Austin when he was five years old. Maybe. We will spend time each summer together in British Columbia. So really nice. Yeah.

Yeah. I want to take a quick break from this episode to thank our sponsor Therososh. There, try and light panel has become my favorite bio hacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go.

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Therososh, TH-E-R-A-S-A-G-E.com and use code be bold for 15% off any of their products. Okay, so that's a digress again. Get back to your healthy habits. It's isolation is totally cool. Okay, I've digressing a lot here.

It's cool. Okay, good. I feel like I'm going to get in the comments. Stop interrupting him.

“We're interrupting each other, you guys. That's what conversation is.”

It's called the conference. It's very respectful too. Thank you. Okay, so, but I add very curious because I wouldn't jot down what you're doing. So do you wake up at 6 o'clock?

You don't eat breakfast. So what do you go right into the jet? Like what do you do? Generally, good exercise on the morning. And so what do I do?

No, not that early. No, I don't. Well, I mean, my exercise begins off and around, depending on what my schedule is like, but it could be eight o'clock. Okay. Do you drink coffee in the morning?

I do drink coffee in the morning. Then some may say that that is a violation of the time or shift at eating, but I am here to say, It's a ritual. I love it. I feel great.

I recognize here's the self-selling. That it is rich in polyphenols. The caffeine is good for me. And so I more than an affectionado. I am a devotee.

And then look at coffee, do you drink? I drink purity coffee. That's a matter of fact. Okay. Would you put in the coffee?

Generally, nothing or I might use some whole milk, which is another violation of the time or shift eating. And I would tell anyone. For the past, my life is an open book. Yeah.

I'm teasing. And I often use alilose. Oh, okay. So I'm very, very big opponent of alilose. Then what is your strategy?

I'm going to try. Yeah. Can try during the show. You know, I forgot to do them.

But they're, they're basically, this one actually is no caffeine.

This is the, this is magic. My and by the way. You guys are all serving them around. I'm sure Gandhi, right? Ashraganda, lion's main.

Lions main. Yeah. All the things are very good. I'm surprised you don't know about this. Well, we just met today.

I know. We've got a lot of ground to cover. A lot of ground to cover. My gosh. These are delicious.

They're really, this is the way I do before I work out actually. It's like keep me focused. So my program, then I have gym equipment at home and I have a new piece of equipment, which is a station back called an avalan, which gamifies, which is great. Because of my mind goes elsewhere.

But I frequently go to the gym.

“Wait, is it the bike that's like, is it like an AI bike?”

Oh, yeah. Just gamified. And I'm online with other people. And, but then I also go to a gym. That's nearby.

That is run by the hospital. And I'm believe it out. One of the younger people there. Really? I just think that.

But it's, yeah, a lot of people in my generation there. Did you cardio or training? Well, I think all of it. So my cardio is, and I run outside too. But in the gym, my run.

You run. I do run. Yeah. What do you say? Because, you know, there's like a whole, it's a blast for me now.

Because I like to run too. But you're like, so terrible for your knees and your joints. Actually, that's not what the data shows. The data shows pretty good preservation of knee and cartilage with running. And now you can overdo it.

Well, I think it's endurance runners. Yeah, I remember when I did my share of that. And so I've taken, not to take it.

“But for the past, probably decade, I've done a elliptical machine.”

And I'm home. I have a pre-core. And I use that machine at the gym as well. So that is a zero impact way of cardio. How much cardio?

I'll do that for 30 to 45 minutes with interval training. And which is great. Because you get, you see the graph. And also, when you do your interval, you see the, you know, the curve come up. And I post that for people can see this is what interval training looks like.

Graphically. Right. So kind of hard to post while you're on it. But we figure it out. Yeah, yeah.

And so I really like that. And then I used a lot of weight machines, some free weights. And then when we travel, as I mentioned before, we went on. We live on a boat for four months. On the boat, I have bands, tension bands, a stepping machine.

And then I used TRX, which I'm sure many of your audience is familiar with. I love TRX. Yeah. So you mean stair master? A separate machine.

It's not a stair master, it's a little separate machine. Oh, just like this. Yeah. That enough? Oh, yeah.

It's not a stairwell. No, no. It's a stepping machine. But I can, I can actually run the boat while I'm on that machine. So I can get up on what's called the fly bridge.

And I can run the boat with a remote control. Our boat is really slow. So I'm not going to hit anything. And I could be on that machine while we're, we're doing that. And then we get off the boat and hike virtually every single day.

Okay. And we, we're in a, nature. We forward for mushrooms. So we do that as often as we can. That's great.

Okay.

So basically, you exercise every day.

“Is there any foods that you are, like, you are just, just addicted to that you have to have every single day?”

No. Okay. But, you know, I have my, we love salmon because we catch fish all summer. And we are generally able to freeze enough salmon to keep us throughout the year. Oh, wow.

Okay. Yeah. So I think salmon's a great food. I love it. I love to catch the fish.

I love the DHA content. I love the, the assured cleanliness of knowing that it's wild salmon because it, I caught it. Wow. Yeah. So I know that.

For whatever reason I could probably find a way of arguing my way into this. I love onions. I love the cruciferous vegetables. I sprout broccoli seeds at home. And I'm doing it on the boat as well.

That's a big one too. That's huge. Broccoli. It's like the sprouted broccoli sprout.

It's supposed to be amazing for your brain.

Well, it's amazing throughout the body. I think the, really, the go-to person is a fellow by the name of Dr. Jed Fahey. Here's the probably the world's authority on so forfane. And so forfane is that chemical that is created when we chew the broccoli sprouts. The broccoli sprouts are rich in glutes.

They're called glucoraffinin. And when you chew broccoli sprouts, the glucoraffinin, in the presence of an enzyme, called mirosinase that's liberated by chewing, converts the glucoraffinin into cell forfane. This cell forfane then activates a pathway in your body called the NRF2 pathway that is hugely antioxidant. That is hugely involved in detoxification and powerfully anti-inflammatory. So that is the home around that you're looking for. Dr. Fahey, Fahey, just published a new report on the effects of cell forfane on the brain.

And the research is profound. And I've only had him on my podcast and I will meet him in February.

I can't wait to meet him face-to-face.

“Is this your, is this your, is this your thing?”

I am the, I am the chairman of that symposium, but this will be my first year's chairman.

Oh, okay. But I've been speaking there for 25 years. Wow, how big is this symposium? It'll have probably 800 people in attendees, yeah. What kind of doctors is everybody goes?

That's, it's integrative. That's all integrated. We want. So plenty of M.D.s, D.O.s, Chiropractors, other healthcare practitioners like dietitians, Acupuncturist, body workers, you name it. Really, okay. Maybe, I'll go, let me ask you.

Yeah, what is it? It's in February and I'll make sure you get invited. I would love to. I'd love to go and see what it's in New York City. Yeah, I don't know.

Every year at the same mid-town, uh, Hilton. Really? Yeah. And 25 years. Who's speaking this year?

Let's see. One of our guest speakers, who has spoken before, is Dr. Lee Wayside. And if she's watching this, she'll understand why I invited her. Because Dr. Lee Wayside is at MIT.

And she has discovered that flashing a light into your eyes at 40 times per second.

So we called 40 Hertz light. Actually, targets your brain's microglial cells. And helps revert them back to being supportive. It's, so she's in the book. And, you know, I said, being chairman, I get this sort of influence

who gets this week there. Yes, you do. Yeah, that's true. So, you know, and there are a lot of wonderful other things. That's really interesting now.

Oh, it's, it's breathtaking. And, uh, the, you know, her work extends to humans to Alzheimer's patients. The findings that she is getting. Uh, you know, our main topic today of discussion is how do we preserve the function of the brain's immune cells to be supportive

by making lifestyle choices. But what we talk about is that this is where leading edge neuroscience is exploring right now. So, here is MIT looking at reverting the microglial cells to being supportive using a light flashing in your eyes at 40 times per second.

How does that work, even? Well, how does it work?

“Okay, you have to ask, but I'll tell you.”

Yeah, telling you. So, what Dr. Simon made very clear is that the healthy brain has a beautiful background rhythm called gamma oscillation. A beautiful sinusoidal curve. That is the orchestra playing a symphony.

As the brain begins to degenerate, that gamma rhythm deteriorates and it's cacophony or every instrument playing a different thing. No more music. And what she found was that when we have good gamma oscillation in the background of the brain's activity,

that the microglia are being preserved in their function and being kept in their supportive role. She discovered that when you expose the visual center and the back of the brain, where vision is represented, the occipital low to this particular frequency

that gamma is restored. Can you imagine? So, they do at her laboratory, the P-Cower Institute at MIT. They put EEG leads on a person's head, and they discovered that flashing lights at different frequencies

does different things. They tuned it in, and right at 40 hertz, gamma is restored.

“So, people can then, how do people do that at home?”

Is there a way you can? I have a box next to my computer screen,

and it's always on while I'm working,

and I'm constantly getting 40 hertz light flashing in them. You can buy a light bulb. So, you know what's interesting? This is like the, you're like, this is kind of like the peak, not peak elephant in the room,

but something like that. Like you're leaving the, you're bearing the lead. This is like something that anyone can, anybody can do to prevent or reverse any type of... It's yet an immune cell deficiency

that would lead to all these terrible diseases. It's a definite lever that you can pull. So, we've talked about, yeah, training our muscles, strength training, aerobics, diet, etc. Set a ball, like, that's, we talk about how to do metabolic.

Look at this, dare I call it a hack? I don't want to call it hack. A tool, a tool, a lever to pull. A lever to pull, okay? And there's a lot of other cool things that are being developed right now.

I mean, I want to talk about other things that people can do. We talked about, of course, the, well, we haven't only talked about the mitochondrial health. Like, what does that mean to people? Like, how do people really have a strong,

explain to people or just to me and then people can hear about the mitochondria, how we can, what we can do to have a stronger or more functioning mitochondria, because that also is something you talk about in the book. So the question is then why?

Why do we even care about our mitochondria? Why does it matter? Yes, tell us. Because it is the fundamental that determines the shift of these microglial cells.

Their metabolism, mitochondria, that dictates friend or foe.

Is mitochondria metabolism one of the same? Yeah, metabolism is, by definition, it's the creation of new materials from raw material, but it also, from a cellular perspective, but most importantly for our discussion,

it's the formation of energy molecules from substrate.

“How do the mitochondria create ATP molecules from glucose?”

The reason I'm asking is because I've heard a lot. People are very confused, right? They hear a lot of these buzzwords. They hear metabolic health. They hear mitochondria.

They hear the gut, all about the gut, the gut, the new brain. There's all these very buzzy social media. Things that people are cellular health. But nobody really knows and understands what this means. They pretend because they hear so often that you think that you understand.

Since you're such a knob, you know so much about all of this is what you do. I wanted to kind of break it down. But it means to have, you know, to work, to have, like, to, for your metabolic health. What it for you to have is that your cellular health isn't the same.

Is it not, like, what can people do? Is there, like, a very, is there, like, a, like, kind of, like, a cheat sheet of how we can strengthen and improve all of these things to improve our ability or to, to, to make, improve our health, but also to, like, help us not get these diseases later on.

And I guess the answer is 100%.

That's why I'm here today.

“That's why we're having this discussion.”

Because again, there's no fix when you get into this problem from a pharmaceutical perspective. And it doesn't have to be. It isn't a genetic issue by and large. It's related to our metabolism.

I'm going to break that down. That's what you want. And we can control that. That's, that's what we're doing here today. Right. But simple. Why is simple as possible?

So people can take a, like, an action sheet sheet sheet. Let me pay the way. And then we'll talk about the actionable points. Okay.

So again, we just kind of opened the door on mitochondria.

The energy producers of the neuron, rather, the neurons are very busy. They're sending electricity, connecting the networks, allowing us to think and do, right? That's what the neurons do.

But the neurons are only 50% of the cells in your brain. We tend to think, oh, the brain is just a box of neurons. That's not correct. We talk about brain cells. Oh, you mean neurons? Well, no, we're having a different discussion today. We're talking about some other brain cells.

In this case, 10% of the brain cells, the brain immune cells called microglia. Their other brain cells called oligodendroglia sites and astrocytes were focused on the brain's immune cells and their metabolism.

Their metabolism, how their mitochondria are working, creating these energy molecules are not determined to whether they're going to be destructive and destroy your brain as we see in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and all the neuroditorial conditions.

Or they're going to support your brain such that when you're 80, and I'm really old, we're going to come back and have another podcast and it'll be listed. Okay. Okay. How about it?

So like, people, like, you know, the rage is an AD, right? People think that's when they think of mitochondrial health, cellular health, metabolic health, everyone is injecting an AD. Or you know, taking an ADHD precursor,

does that actually improve your ability for, and they take it because of aging. They want to age better. That's the whole idea. They want to pro-wage.

Whatever you want to call it, does it actually make a difference? Well, I think as it relates to oral precursors, like NMN and nic-- NMN that, no, NR is the way I-- I could tend to my diabetes or nicotine

and I'm on an nucleotide. I'd like to see the data to answer your question and I have not seen it yet. Then we move to the intravenous forms, which people rave about because there is an indication that we can raise, certainly, blood levels,

and certainly tissue levels with IV, NAD. Yeah. But the question is, is there a payoff in terms of cognitive function, preservation of cognitive function, and even improvement?

“I haven't seen that data, but do I think that it makes sense?”

It does make sense. When we recognize what NAD does both in terms of mitochondrial function, makes sense to try to keep NAD levels higher, decline as we age. We know that. And the role of NAD in terms of influencing the certain two in genes,

I think on both counts, it makes sense. That we should do whatever we can to increase NAD. That's why we exercise. So I think that we still need to see the research that relates the oral precursors to their ability to carry out these goals.

epigenetic clocks age-related clocks in terms of using a precursor, for example. And did not find any significant ability of the precursor to influence our biological age. Interestingly, one of the best things that they discovered to reduce biological rate of aging, what's called the daniedin clock,

“I think, was the mark when the metric, was physical exercise.”

It's there for all. It's free of charge. Right. You got to buy a new pair of running shoes or whatever it may be, maybe from time to time.

But I think we're going to watch this evolve. NAD is such a fundamental molecule in the functioning adequately of our mitochondria. To me, everything is about the mitochondria. Why?

Because the mitochondria are determining the function of our microglial cells. That's upstream for how the good brain continues to function, or the bad brain manifests. It's the function of the microglia, which are determined by how their mitochondria are functioning.

So if present, you say in the book many times brain defenders that how your mitochondria is functioning is a correlation of your brain health. Absolutely. Absolutely.

So if NAD helps the mitochondria, it would make that there is a direct correlation. You're right. It would make sense. Do I think it does?

I do. Do I see compelling science to indicate that? At this time, I do not. So my emotional response is supportive. Okay.

But there hasn't been any type of science to back it up. Although, I wouldn't say any type. Because I mean, I know that I even know, like, you know,

there's a true nitrogen has done a million case studies for NR.

Doesn't that count? It counts. But I want, you know, what you're asking, though, is there science that shows that taking a particular NAD precursor is going to benefit brain function?

There's some indication that it might. But it's not the solid home run that I'm looking for. To be able to respond to your question that way.

“Now, do I think emotionally that this makes sense to take it?”

Okay. Yes, I do. Okay. Or even any type of even the IV or whatever. I, I, my sense is yes.

My sense is yes. But I have to do better. I have to delineate between, you know, my visceral response and what I do for myself, based upon that and recommend versus what does the science support.

So stick. And that's what you want. Right, you're, you're, you're, you're just trying to be, you're, you're just, I understand. You don't want to be in a situation where you're saying something

out of term without having the evidence about it. Yeah, out of term is, is well characterized. Yeah. And the term here is, I, my sense is yes. Can't.

But I want to be able to quote the study that shows that this is a powerful

in-road to Alzheimer's prevention or even dare I say treatment. And not quite there yet. I understand. What about oral health? I heard you said not.

I heard it's in your book that what brushing your teeth can, can starve away any type of brain decline, is that? Well, I would say any type of brain decline. Well, no, but I'm saying you're giving all these things. You're talking about genetic testing.

You talk about metabolic health. You talk about, there's a whole chapter on oral health that I saw. There's also two tests that doctors don't tell you about, right? You talk about that. The homo-system test and what was the other one?

And the fasting, was it the fasting insulin test? Yeah. These are things that I think are, like, these are all part of the cheat sheet, in my opinion. Yeah.

I only, I'll answer both of those questions more. But I want to say this is a great interview. BTW. Really? Really is because we're just going to what really matters.

Yes. I think the mission here is to give your audience the cheat sheet, whatever are the tools, and you keep teeing it up. So I want you know, I appreciate that. Thank you so much.

I appreciate that. I do. I try. I like to get to the meat of the matter. I like to, like, no BS.

I like just to know the facts and at giving people actionable things that they can do. You know?

“And then, so that's why, like, I know we kind of like digress.”

And we go on these tangents. But I, because I'm a very curious person. And I, when I have someone like you who is like a, who is very knowledgeable. I want to like, I want to kind of get as much. I want to extract as much possible information.

And we only have two and a half hours more to go. So we better, we better step up the base. Exactly. Exactly.

So let me, let me get to the first question first,

which was the oral health. Yeah. And it's a bit of a surprise. I mean, years ago, I wrote a book called Brain Maker that said, you know, there's a connection between the gut and the brain.

Who knew, right? Well, the pocketies knew, but more recently,

Well, you're just right. What, you're just right. That came out, I guess 12 years ago. You're just going to say this. And now it's become like coughing.

It's like everyone's just talking about it.

“Like it's been, so you were, that's what I'm saying.”

You were like writing about this stuff before it became like, cool and trendy. Well, I didn't want to come. Yeah, a trendy, I went with cool was,

no, I like iconoclastic because I always want to be, you know,

or a wrap on the edge and irreverent. I love that word. I'm going to take that for you. You can't just give me the credit. I will credit your credit.

You won the hashtag. I can't thank you. But the idea that oral health is important. We know that gut health is important. And the digestive system is important for brain health.

And who knew the mouth is part of the digestive system. This is where the tube begins. And we know where the tube ends. Yeah. And the data that's coming out really relates very powerfully.

Risk for Alzheimer's if you have parodinal disease goes up dramatically. I mean, to levels, you'd be, you know, you'd be surprised. We know that there are particular bacterial organisms

“that characterize parodinal disease that have been found in the brain.”

Or at least parts of them if not all the organism. Like a root canal if you have a root canal that can lead to, well, more of the parodinal disease, the area around your teeth being inflamed. It's not like a root canal.

Well, the root canal is more the tooth itself and the root of the... I know you're not a dentist, but I'm just trying to, like, you know... Yeah. But, you know, not that there's not some concern about root canal. So we could talk about the idea that this gut-to-perature that's used

to the root canal can harbor bacteria. But let's go back to the parodinal disease that the gum disease,

basically, that this correlation with heart disease,

and bascines, and brain disease, all of which are inflammatory. But we're able to find this one organism, for example. That's getting a lot of attention that Dr. Bretison brought to light. I'll call "Poor From Honest in Chivalice" that will not be on the quiz. But the idea that we find these organisms that are mouth-related organisms in the brain.

So we begin to talk about something called the oral microbiome. Now with the same sort of skepticism, and hopefully soon the same sort of appreciation that we previously applied to the gut microbiome. The oral microbiome is important.

I talked about it in Drop Acid, the book about Yurik acid. That's where our dietary nitrates from certain foods, like beets, for example. Get converted to nitrite that our body uses to make nitric oxide. Helps blood supply to the brain and organs, and helps insulin do its job. We don't want to sterilize the mouth.

We don't want to be using mouthwashes that say kills 99.9% of germs. We love our germs. There are some germs that are bad in the mouth that just mentioned one. But the idea of sterilizing the mouth once or twice a day with mouthwash. When I first heard this from somebody on my podcast, he said, "You know, if you go to the gym and work out,

and then when you're getting your clothes on, you take a shot of mouthwash and spit it out, you've just offset the entire benefit of your work out." I saw that. And I heard him say that, and I thought, "Well, you know, I guess you got to let people talk." And I thought, "Oh, how silly that is."

Then I saw the research that came all the enough from Puerto Rico. That demonstrated that people who frequently use a particular types of mouthwash that sterilize the mouth, that we're all familiar with the brands that we'll not mention. That frequent use of mouthwash is associated with a significant increase risk of hypertension, as well as a significant increase risk for becoming a type to diabetic.

Both of which are powerful inroads to becoming an Alzheimer's patient.

Consider that. Is that really true? It's really what the science is. You actually saw the science on that. I did see the science.

When I first heard this, my surprise was what yours was. Because I know what you're talking about, because I heard the same thing, and I was like, "If from the same guy who talks about this nitric oxide." It is all about nitric oxide. I didn't hear it from him.

Oh, you did. I heard it from him. And I was like, "What? I heard it on a podcast." And I was like, "That sounds crazy."

I'm grateful this individual made this clear to me. And very close for endosins. Max, Luke, a very probably animal. I know Max. Yeah, of course.

When you told me this, I thought, it would told me this. Yeah, and I could have been. I love that guy. I really do.

I have so much respect for him. Yeah, he's very loved. I made him breakfast one day.

“I think we did a some kind of life thing.”

And he's a great, I mean. Yeah, he's great. You know, he had a, you know, his situation with his partner. His partner has done his best to help others not go through that. Yeah.

God bless Max, Luke, a bearer. No, I love a handbag. He's the youngest life, hey Max. Yes. And thank you for the t-shirt.

Yes. I'm going to clip this for Max. Okay. We love you, Max. We love you, Max.

I, that, that whole mouthwash thing was very, very curious to me.

“So, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't take care of our teeth.”

It means we should absolutely should. How about a tongue scraper? Is that why it's so cool? Tung scraper. Great idea.

I travel with a water flacer. A rechargeable USB rechargeable water flacer. It broke two days ago. I immediately was at the, Yeah.

I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer.

I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer.

I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer.

I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer.

I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer.

I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer.

I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer.

I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer.

I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I was at a water flacer. I can't tell you because I don't know. If it has an anti-bacterial in it, I would think twice.

The bacteria that live on the top of your tongue are important because they're first

step for your body to make nitric oxide. Nitric oxide, you need. It helps insulin work and helps your blood vessels expand to improve the blood supply to your brain. That's the part that I don't understand.

“That's nitric, how does that fend-off brain disease?”

I don't get the connection. I'm going to explain the connection for you and you'll get it. You'll never forget. Nitric oxide is important for metabolism, i.e. insulin functionality, blood pressure, blood supply, and metabolism when it's not appropriate is what threatens your microglial cells.

That's the connection. Is that why people are putting it in toothpaste or putting it on serious drugs? I don't think you're going to, you're not going to real quit nitric oxide. They have, I was just saying. But it's not nitric oxide, it's a precursor.

It's usually like arginine, are put into toothpaste. More importantly, it's happening with toothpaste.

The bad things are coming out of toothpaste, which is really good.

There's all kinds of issues that have been in toothpaste for an awful long time. It's sodium little sulfate, which is somewhat threatening certain of the sweeteners. So I'm glad to see that there's been a real effort, conscious effort, to create various brands of, I use one called thick, FYGG for your good guys. What does that mean?

For your good guys, means my mouth back to area. I want to keep them healthy. They're on my side. They're along for the ride, and this is their home. People, it's also these things that sometimes common sense isn't so common.

It makes sense why that would make a difference. Because that's where all these living organisms are in your mouth. If you have an infection or it'll go into your brain, it makes perfect sense. Do you know that even said UTIs? Anything like these, why would a UTI?

Because a UTI is characterized by total body inflammation. When there's infection, anywhere nearby, a urinary tract infection, lung infection, any infection. Any infection and inflammation. Those inflammatory chemicals, called cytokines, are increased in your body. And they make their way to the brain, and they polarize our microglial cells away from being brain defenders to being brain destroyers.

“That's why it's important to, you know, we think about the quality of the water that we drink, right?”

You're drinking the water, you want to avoid water that might have chlorine in it, certainly microplastics and all of that. Right. But what about the air you breathe? No one talks about that. Right.

That's in the book too, you talk about that. You breathe 20,000 times a day. And we want to breathe clean pure air without these PM2.5 particles. That, you know, in the time of our discussion today, this is the time where wildfires are rampant in North America. I just came down from British Columbia.

The air quality index is terrible. The sky is yellow, and you can smell the smoke. That's why I stay indoors with an air purifier. And when I'm outdoors at times, I'll wear a mask because it's threatening to the brain. It's associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer's because it increases inflammation that is bad.

Now, to people look at me in a funny way when I'm walking in the street with a mask. They might, but other people are doing it.

Makes sense. And I don't care. Yeah. But I use, at home, even with an Florida, I have an air purifier. It's in our bedroom.

We're breathing pure air. It's called like an air. LICH and the likeons are these things in the forest that keep the air pure. So that's what we breathe. It measures the air quality.

You can get an app to look at the air quality index. The AQI, wherever you are, we are recently in Cairo. And the air quality index was mind numbing. Literally. It was, you know, greater than 300.

And I didn't want to go to these on these tours to the sites. The sphinx there. But I did. And I wore masks. Yeah.

Guarantee you. I wore mask. And I wasn't alone. Yeah. Well, again, it makes sense.

So anything that brings the body inflammation. So at the end of the day, it sounds like inflammation is the core cause of any. Really any disease at the end of the day. It's, you know, it's not the cause of trauma. But it is a fundamental player.

It is a fundamental issue here.

“And upstream that we have to pay attention to is what is inflammation doing?”

What are toxins doing? What is elevated blood sugar and insulin resistance doing? To our brains and me and cells. And what did all these things are doing? And many more infections are shifting our brain cells away.

From being supportive. And we want them to be on our side. So what if you take a GLP1 just for not for your not for weight loss? Just for bringing the body's inflammation down. Does that work?

Then just for that? Is it strong enough? Is it true? Is there any real factor to be fair to you?

Let me talk about the science first of all.

And then I can shift to being speculative. And I want to clearly delineate between the two. Yeah. So if you accept that what makes a good brain go bad are changes in metabolism. Might a con real function and how that plays out of the brain gym means cells.

“What if we were to target metabolism using a GLP1 drug?”

It's a powerful way of targeting metabolism. So in 2024 in the New England Journal of Medicine, April of 2024, was a study that involved 151 patients who had diagnosed Parkinson's disease. It wasn't a question. They had Parkinson's or medications.

Not doing well. And it was a one year study that either treated them with placebo or an injection of a GLP1 drug every day for the entire period. Now the placebo patients basically didn't get treatment. What happened to them in the one year period of time?

They declined in their functionality as we see with Parkinson's. Group getting the GLP1 drug stabilized and actually demonstrated a tiny improvement. To me, that is. Racity tiny, how tiny? Well, the idea that they even stabilized to me is the home run.

But even beyond that, they actually have a slight improvement, which we've never ever seen.

Except for one study that we actually aren't, we carried out years ago using intravenous glutathione. But functionality improved by giving them a drug targeting their mitochondria. So that's interesting. Because I heard that someone was telling me it was like a biohacker was telling me, "Oh yeah, I'm taking not the semi-glutide one.

They're taking either read a true tide that works on the three receptors or the tries up a tide to whatever it is. That they're taking their micro dosing it for to fend off Alzheimer's or dementia or any type of cognitive decline. Is there any accuracy at all to that then?

Or is it just-- Mechanistically-- First of all, I don't know what a micro dose is in the context of this person. But yeah, I mean, that's exactly, I know you can understand it. I mean, what does micro dosing it mean?

What does micro dosing it mean? What does micro dosing it mean? I don't know, define the terms.

“Is there any science to support what I'm about to say?”

Was there any science to support the idea that that's a-- Of course there is. No, there isn't. And we'll review what the science is in terms of Alzheimer's just a moment. Because recently there was a completed trial called the Evoke and the Evoke

plus studies that were just completed that involved more than 3,000 individuals in over, I think, 500 institutions globally. Well, let me talk about that real quick. What did they find? This study did not reach therapeutic end point, meaning that the oral semiglutide

did not demonstrate benefit in existing Alzheimer's patients. But interestingly, one of the findings that is not talked about is the fact that the C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation went down dramatically in the group receiving the drug.

So a 30 percent-- that's important.

We don't know how that will play out. Could the study be refined IV or rather sub-dutaneous injection into GLP-1? And a different GLP-1 that might make its way to the brain a little bit better?

We'll see where the science takes us.

“The idea of a GLP-1 being good for the brain, I think, has merit.”

And I actually mentioned it in the book. I'm keeping an open mind to the idea that some formulation of a GLP-1 may be good for the treatment of Alzheimer's in the future. Jennifer Alzheimer's is an almost uniformly fatal condition. It is the third leading cause of death of adults in America.

And so the idea of using a drug that may have a side effect profile, that may be helpful is something we have to keep our eyes open too. And I remain open to including it in the toolbox. Once we know which GLP-1 which formulation can we use, how safe it will be, and how efficacious it is.

So I think it's very powerful.

I think just the hit and miss trials of GLP-1 because I think it's a good idea. I'm going to micro dose. I'm not going to tell you what the dose is because I'm not really sure. I vary from day to day. That's maybe interesting for an individual but it's not science.

So you wouldn't take it. No. Are you on any GLP-1? No. Because what do you think of the overall use of them?

Do you think people are just like just at this point? They're just being abused by everybody. Do you think it's going to go away? Do you think it's a trend? No.

I think it's not a trend.

“Barring some demonstration of a significant side effect.”

That's widespread.

I think they're here to say.

And you know, because on the one hand, there's this huge effort to get people to eat crappy foods, these ultra processed foods. That's not going away despite what we see the effort to being to make people aware of the GLP-1.

I mean, of the ultra-processed foods. I'm one of those people trying to raise awareness that consuming these foods is associated with Alzheimer's risk. Specifically, and diabetes, and obesity, and all the things. That's not going away.

And therefore, the GLP-1s will not go away. Are they completely safe there or not? We don't know how many people are going to suddenly lose vision by one report as many as 30,000 people have lost vision acutely as a consequence of using these drugs.

That's a worrisome. It's not a big number in comparison to the number of people who are using the drugs. So the incidence of that side effect seems to be low. But that's 30,000 people no matter how you slice it.

They can't care about the others. So the idea, though, of targeting metabolism, I think is very important. And there may be supplements and drugs that are able to do that that I will keep an open mind for.

In the meanwhile, most of what we talk about are the lifestyle. I don't want to call them hacks, but the tools, those your term, that we've talked about today, that do a hell of a job in targeting our metabolism, like getting enough sleep, restorative sleep, and exercising in both forms that we talked about with the addition

of balance and flexibility. Yes. And the type of foods we eat and connecting with other people.

“Do you think it matters if you're a carnivore, a vegetarian?”

Do you think how much what about protein? Do you think protein is being over again, over now it's so trendy? Protein is dessert, no question about it. And it's trendy. Did I have supplemental protein today?

I hope I get enough. Yes, sir. I sure did. We'll get back to the question in a second. These are the electrolytes after this interview.

So nice. But I, you know, at my age, it's harder to maintain muscle mass. And that's a huge risk for all types of degenerative conditions for injury and for Alzheimer's as well.

I mean, one of the most powerful risk markers for Alzheimer's

is sarcopenial loss of muscle mass. Yeah. And loss of grip strength because your muscles are weaker. So I'm doing everything I can to maintain muscle mass. And that means for me, making sure I get adequate amounts of protein,

exercising a lot like I've told you. And I happen to use a testosterone gel just to make sure that I'm as anabolic as I should be, not as I can be. You know, there are other things out there that I am not doing. I mean, there are gene therapies now that help you build muscle.

I have not gone that. Am I thinking about it? I'm considering it. But I'm not really willing to accept that risk just yet. Wait for more data or peptides in general or peptides in general.

I'm not using any peptides. Yeah. Would I in the future? Yes, but I want more data. You know, to me, it's really above all do no harm and talking about me now.

And so yeah. Yeah. And well, it's interesting because when you talk to real. When I say real doctors, I mean real doctors. They don't want to be on a GLP one.

They don't put their their wives or there has been on GLP ones. But for patients, it's okay, right? Oh, that's very common. Do as I say not as I say. Exactly.

Because there are risk. People don't it's not trendy to talk about it. It's not something that is popular because people like people are visual and it's like

It is a quick.

A lot of it could be a quick fix.

You're gaining things from China. You don't know what's in your body. No one wanted to take a COVID shot. Remember the conspiracy theories around taking, you know, the vaccine. But people are like shooting themselves up with 27 peptides.

They don't know what those are. They have pops. Yeah. I would say to a patient who is asking me to go on a GLP one drug. Let's just say for weight loss.

Yeah.

“I would say, are you willing to commit to being on this drug for the rest of your life?”

Why did you ask me that, doctor?

The reason I'm asking you that question is because when you stop, if you decide not.

Yeah. And you're not going to have to rest your life. And now it's time to quit. Chances are significant and most likely that you're going to gain back all your weight and then some. And that's where you're going to be when you decide you're not going to take this drug anymore.

Now that's a different conversation from the one I would have with the family and loved ones of an Alzheimer's patient. If it were proven that this were an effective intervention because we lack that right now. I would say that, you know, we're going to commit mom or dad to being on this drug because it does show significant efficacy. Knowing that if we don't do it, that this is a fatal condition. Yeah.

So we have, you know, what do we have to lose? Right. At that point, that's a whole different, that's a whole different ball game. Okay.

“Talk about the two tests that people, your doctors don't tell you about that can be very beneficial.”

Right. So knowing where you are. Neither of which requires a prescription. So you can go to your lab, ask them to do a homocysteine. HOMO CYSTE.

There's probably a graphic right now on the screen that says, "HOMO CYSTE." There it is. Magic. And so HOMO CYSTE is an amino acid that when it accumulates and reaches a higher level than normal talk of that in a moment. It increases the risk of Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease is threatening to the lining of blood vessels.

It's a bad player in your body. And it's simple as can be to fix. How do you lower HOMO CYSTE? It's elevated. You take a methylated B complex.

Not just a B complex at the health of the store, but one that says methylated B complex at the health of the store online by it. So you can get the blood test without a doctor and you can do the response without your doctor. And I put the parameters of where you want your HOMO CYSTE to be in the book. Now, there are genetic predispositions who have elevated HOMO CYSTE. I have that. It's called MTHFR. If you have it and you've got your genome sequence, you've heard of MTHFR.

There's been mood disorders characterized by L of it by having MTHFR. The main thing for me is it causes me not to use regular B vitamins appropriately. So my HOMO CYSTE went up to 11. I took methylated B vitamins. I take them religiously. My HOMO CYSTE ranges between 6 and 8, so I'm okay.

The other test and we mentioned earlier is a fasting insulin test. That is predictive in terms of where your blood sugar is going to go. Where your A1C is going to go in the future.

Because the first thing that goes up is your insulin level.

Then the blood sugar elevates. Then your A1C elevates. So that's the great test to know where you are in terms of risk of that critically important metabolic marker. Your blood sugar right now. So how about you said something in the book? I don't remember exactly mood disorders, like anxiety, depression.

Does that cause inflammation in the brain?

“Which then can also be a precursor for someone getting dementia or Alzheimer's?”

So there's a profound relationship between mood disorders. Primarily depression but anxiety as well. And the presence of inflammation in the body. It is not to say that the mood disorder caused the inflammation. It is the opposite. That the inflammation leads to the feelings of depression, et cetera.

When you are sick of inflammation in the body, you have the flu, you have COVID. How do you feel about interacting with other people? You don't. You don't want to be with other people. You feel crappy, you're weak. And it's because inflammation is actually changing your neurochemistry

and leading to these changes in your mood. And that's probably good for the herd, right? That's probably good for all the rest of us that you decide you're going to isolate right now. You just don't feel like being around with other people you feel crappy. And so that might be why that happens.

But to be sure, this is the inflammation that polarizes our brain's microglial cells away from being brain defenders to being brain destroyers. Again, we can image the human brain in living people to determine the state of function of our microglial cells. We can image the Alzheimer's brain and see that it's lit up on this special type of pet scan

It lights up with those microglial cells being shifted to their M1 configuration.

But guess what? This TSBO imaging is positive in Alzheimer's. And that Parkinson's MS, multi-systematory progressive, super-nuclear policy, PTSD, a major depression disorder, long COVID, autism spectrum disorder, all of which are characterized by this activation of these microglial cells.

Well, that's interesting from a research perspective,

“but it tells you and me something very important that this is a huge net that is thrown.”

That if we can figure out how to reign in these microglial cells and bring the back to be supportive, that is a home run across so many areas. Okay, I have a couple other questions, random. Don't stop, you're doing great. Thank you.

Thank you. What's that erectile dysfunction medication? It's not biographed. But not biographed. There's another one.

See I heard that Cialis is actually people are taking Cialis to lower their risk for Alzheimer's. Is that, is that actually work?

In an evaluation of more than several million medical records,

study was performed to determine is there any indication that people taking any particular drug that might, therefore, with crunching this data would be associated low risk of Alzheimer's and it turned out to be these types of drugs. Why would that be? It gets back to an earlier conversation.

We had that relates to the mouth organisms, nitric oxide. How do these erectile dysfunction drugs work? What is an erection? An erection is opening of blood vessels to allow the erection to happen. Blood fills the penis and it becomes,

it's called Turgar Pressure. Turgar Pressure is what makes it hard. That's what an erection is.

It's caused by blood supply increasing suddenly to the corporate

cavernosa of the penis allows that to happen. It is a dependency upon nitric oxide, allowing that dilatation to happen. That's why these drugs work. Now nitric oxide improves blood supply.

It improves blood supply as I mentioned earlier throughout the brain. Nitric oxide improves insulin functionality for better utilization of glucose, keeping the blood glucose under control.

“So, is there evidence that these people are doing the right thing?”

Hard to say there hasn't been an intervention on trial that I'm aware of as yet. Do I think it has merit? I absolutely do. So, shall we all go on to the Alice or via? I can't have the answer.

You know, you want me to quote the science. That study hasn't been done yet. Is it mechanistically plausible that that is the right thing to do? The answer is yes. So, which one has more nitric oxide, Cialis or via gra?

I don't have the answer for that. Okay. I think that Cialis is designed to have a longer half life. So, it might be a more appropriate choice than via gra in terms of keeping that nitric oxide elevated for a longer period of time. But there's no data that I can quote to you right now that that's an appropriate choice.

Okay, so that's interesting. Okay. mechanistically, it makes sense. Okay. The other one I have to ask you about is Benadrill.

I heard not to take Benadrill because it does cause Alzheimer's. Well, I'm not going to say that Benadrill causes Alzheimer's. Taking it too often, though, can. Oh, yeah. I mean, but is there a relationship between taking dive and hydro mean, which is what Benadrill chemical name is?

Frequently and risk. There is that relationship of risk. There's a bit of a nuance more than a nuance.

“I think it's important to delineate between saying that taking Benadrill is going to give you Alzheimer's to the idea that frequent use of dive in hydro mean or Benadrill”

or valium or antico-anergic drugs help you because you get up frequently and night to pee and risk for Alzheimer's. We know that's true that risk is increased in men to take those types of drugs. Well, antico-anergic block acetyl-coline acetyl-coline is a critically important neurotransmitter. That might be the reason. So that may be the reason there may be a reason.

How much is it in terms of too much? Like, can I take Benadrill once in a while? If you take it once a while, I cannot imagine that's a huge issue. We know that, for example, people who take antastas, these proton pump inhibiting antastas that are advertised on television where you see somebody tries to eat a sausage and they get heartburned and you want to take this PPI.

So anything, anything, when you overdo anything. Yeah, but I mean, people don't think they're overdoing it because the messaging is taking every day and you won't have acid reflux or heartburn.

That's published research. And also, for Xanx, all these drugs, it's like, all these ant... Benadrill needs to know that's true, as well. But for me, so I see this data that relates taking these proton pump inhibitors, I talk about it in the brain. Why might that be?

Well, these are drugs that block acid. They change the pH of your gastrointestinal system. What will that do? PPI is tightly regulated and the organisms that live there, that's the environment they like. It's a new change, the acidity, and they don't like to live there anymore.

They're going to move, you know, it's too cold to live in Indianapolis. I'm going to move to Fort Lauderdale. They don't want to live here anymore, and they're not there doing their job anymore. Right. Right. Right. So the microbiome has been one powerful explanation as to the association of non-serural anti-inflammatory drugs with Alzheimer's risk.

And with these anti-acid drugs as well. Certainly, and I talk about the anti-biotic over usage is associated with dramatic change in the microbiome and Alzheimer's risk. Please be clear.

I'm not saying we should never take an antibiotic.

They're lifesaving. They are wonderful. But, you know, you can overdo anything. Well, the research indicates that about 50% of the antibiotics used in America are used inappropriately. And 80% of the antibiotics manufactured in America are used in animals that we eat to make them fatter. Right. Of course.

80% more than are used in humans.

“That's why organic, I think, is obviously that's why people don't want to eat regular, I guess, non-organic.”

It's just breathtaking that we have a special effort to find foods that aren't covered in chemicals. And I talk about that in the book as I cover a lot of things. Look at those chickens at Costco. Have you seen the size of those chickens? I have. That's not normal. And what stimulates their growth?

Anti-biotic. Well, that's what's saying. They're like, oh, yeah, it's $5 a chicken. Yeah, but you're literally just eating a bunch of, like, antibiotics. Get a bargain now on the chicken and you will be spending more money if you're dealing with your illness.

100%. You pay now or you pay later. That's right.

You know, I've won random other questions for you.

Where you ever, like, could you have been writing books for 100 years? Did you ever practice? Do you have an act you actually see patients? No, I don't. Now I-- Well, not now, but when you start. Yeah.

I've practiced for 30 years. So you were actually a, like, you were-- I had an argument. You know, I was just-- You know, I was just--

You know, I was just-- You know, I was just-- You know, I was just-- You know, I was just-- You know, I was just--

You know, I was just-- You know, I was just-- Yeah. Until I retired, which was about 12 years, 13 years ago. So you were writing these books all and also practiced--

And raising kids and all the things. Oh, you were doing these books. Oh, you were doing these books? She can baseball writing a book to me. Yeah, it was--

Oh, I love that. Oh, it was great. Because the reason why I'm asking is so many times I say this along the show. Like, you know, people are on the show as doctors, but they're not really doctors.

They just play one on TV, literally. Like, they're media doctors or social media doctors. Yeah. But they have-- they don't see a patient. They're not really out there.

Because now they just want to, you know, be there. That's the reason I do what I do. Yeah. Yeah. Because I-- I was in--

You know, you were doing it all. I know. The one-- You're the years at night talking to the family, saying, you know, what the outcome's going to be.

“And wondering, why did that patient have to end up here?”

Couldn't we have prevented this? That's what I'm saying to myself. That's not the discussion you have in the ER at night. Yeah, right, right, right. But, you know, why did this stroke happen?

You know, why are there 800,000 strokes occurring in America right now? Yeah. And, you know, and then in my office practice, dealing with people who-- Mom, Dad, spouse is now cognitive to be impaired.

Yeah. And I wasn't taught that in neurology training about what are the causes of the problem, only what prescription to write and to story out they go done. That's not good enough. So I--

Yeah, I was not wanting to focus on this smoke. I wanted to focus on the fire. And I will say that having a father who died of Alzheimer's really solidified my dedication to this. Because patients would say to me, "In a doc, you just don't know how rough this is for our family."

And I would say, "As a matter of fact, I do. I've been through it." You know?

“And I remember that the moment I realized my father had Alzheimer's,”

I couldn't imagine how I missed it for so long. Because I--you know, a very good diagnostician. I could diagnose Parkinson's across the parking lot for growing out a lot. But--and still do at the airport. Wow.

But I missed it with my own father. Until one day he asked me a question to the bottom of the cereal, he yelled at the cereal and asked me this question.

And I finally went, "Oh, my goodness."

Yeah. And then I realized.

“And then everything else that he'd been doing”

made sense. But I didn't miss it. The diagnosis in him. But--

How old was he, by the way?

He was in his-- He was about 84. So he was also around my mom's age. He was older. That's right.

And how long did it take? Like, when you noticed it, was he already--he was in a mild form, I guess? Or-- It was very mild.

And it took years to progress. And then at the end, it took about six, seven years to really progress. But then, at the end, it progressed very quickly. As we generally see, you know?

“And that's why doing the things now with your mother”

are so important.

Did I mention to you the study done by Rudolf Tanzi

and Dean Ornish at Harvard? Again, let's revisit that. That was an interventional trial in patients who are diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease that in 70% they either arrested their decline

or even improved. What did they do exactly? He's telling me-- I'm going to send you the entire protocol. Because right now, my mom is in that middle to advance.

She's not like at the end yet. Like, she's now in a 24-hour care facility. She's very confused. Is it too late? Nope.

Not at all. You'll send me that stuff. I will send you that stuff. In fact, we have it right outside. You do?

Yeah. Okay. And if--I mean, that'd be great. I would love to see you. Yeah.

What else can we go over it? Well, you know what? It's been a year or so. Let's let--well, we just talked about a set first.

A hundred percent. Because this is why we do what we do. You can come back. Well, that's all right. You'll have another part.

You can call it like it is. You're suffering. I know you are. And I've been there, too. And it's so challenging.

Because you're told there's nothing that can be done

“except for--and your mom tried the medicine, right?”

She was on something that made her like very like agitated. Yeah. So again, thank you for having this time together today.

Because this isn't--you know, I believe such a critical message.

And I'm so glad that you've given me this opportunity to get it out there a little bit more. Absolutely. I really enjoyed your book. I think your book is very--there's so much in it.

And even if people just like read a little bit, put it away, come back to it. Like you really cover the gamut in it. And so I'm so glad that I finally got to meet you. Me too.

Thank you for coming on this show, really. The book, really. I'm really--I'm honored to have you here, so. I'm honored and grateful to be here. Thanks for this opportunity.

Thank you. And guys, pick up the book. It's called Brain Defenders. It's out now by David Promutter. And that's it.

Have a good one. Bye.