Why You Need a COVID-19 Brain Wash – Dr. David Perlmutter : 680

Dave, that is, it's such an important question because fear destroys immune function and so does lack of sleep, so does eating poorly. And all of these threaten our first line of defense. So all of these things that we're talking about, yes, they're involved in enhancing immune function, we know that, but they're also involved in calming down the amygdala, the fear center of the brain.

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You're listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Today's cool fact of the day is that teenage brains come online to help build adulting skills. Turns out adulting is an actual thing, but, but there's a little bit of mental illness involved if you didn't know about that. There's new research from the University of Cambridge and University College London. And they figured out that changes in the brain at the time of adolescence puts teenagers at much higher risk of mental illness. And the researchers studied results of three different FMRI scans for about 300 young people aged 14 through 25 over a period of six to 12 months. In other words, how's the brain changing over a brief period of time? We never had this data before. And when they compared those scans to previous brain research, they found that connections in regions of the brain responsible for advanced social skills, you know, like empathy, they change really dramatically during the teenage years, which is why teenagers are basically such assholes. Okay, just kidding. They did not find that. And they're not always that, but sometimes that happens and that's all right. It's their brains wiring and it's normal. And if we can just explain to our teenagers and hey, it's all right, we expect this and we all did it ourselves, it's good, we can remove a lot of guilt and shame that we walk out of our teenage years with. And what the researchers said was that we know depression, anxiety and other mental health disorders oftentimes happen for the first time in adolescence, but they never figured out why. Now they know that active remodeling of brain networks is probably what's going on and could help us understand why things go awry in young people. It's because their brains aren't baked yet. Today's guest is a good friend and a multi time guest on Bulletproof Radio whose name is Dr. David Perlmutter, board certified neurologist and fellow of the American College of Nutrition, five times New York Times best selling author. And he focuses extensively on brain health, lifestyle and nutrition. And you probably have heard his name, he's an incredibly well respected, kind, wise, human being who's worked for decades to improve people's brains. He's got a new book on brain health called Brainwash on How to Detox youx Mind for Clearer Thinking, Deeper Relationships and Lasting Happiness. So we're talking about his book because getting your brain where you want it to be is one of the most important bulletproof principles you'll find. But given that this is in the middle of a pandemic, I'm going to pick his brain. As a physician here about what's going on. He's run a 15 day straight series on Facebook Live where he's sharing a real physician's perspective on this. If you're following me on Instagram, you've seen the videos I'm putting together. I get to talk behind the scenes with guys like Dr. Perlmutter to hear what they're thinking, what they're doing, and the stuff that frankly doesn't make it to Google anymore because Google's filtering out a lot of things that you and I might want to talk about. So it's a good time to be able to pick his brain. And Dr. Perlmutter, welcome to the show.

Hi, Dave. I'm delighted to be here. I'm looking forward to having my brain picked.

I guess as long as we also wash it at the same time, it should be okay, right?

You bet.

All right, we're going to talk about COVID first and get into some of the deeper things about relationships and all that stuff. How long do you think we are going to be fighting this tough question?

I think most of the information that we've seen has indicated that we would expect a peak around the middle of June. And for your listeners, it's March 25, 2020, that we're having this conversation. First conversation you and I have ever had that wasn't evergreen. So I think it's important that we put a timestamp on it. So middle of June is when we should reach the peak. And from there we expect it to decline and hopefully decline at about the same rate it is ascending right now. Interestingly, we see that several countries around the world have actually reached a peak, or at least have flattened out the curve in terms of reducing the number of new patients. And they've got this remarkable new thing that they've discovered that has allowed their countries to do well in this situation. And it's called keeping people inside and out of contact with each other. That works. Drugs haven't been proven. There is no intervention yet that is effective. We're hoping that happens. That's for sure. But we see that behavioral changes that are instituted in other countries are working dramatically. And as of this time when you and I are having this conversation, those things have yet to be fully implemented here in the United States.

Now when you say that there's no drugs that are shown to work, I mean, there are combinations of zithromycin or they call a Z pack with chloroquinone that seem to have some pretty impressive data coming out. No, they don't have double blind clinical trials and all the stuff you'd expect if we had six months to play with it. But clinically, the physicians I've spoken to who've used it are saying, you know, these are taking people who are not well. I've seen stem cell, like people who are in comas, going to die given stem cells who are, who are doing okay now, it seems like on vitamin C therapy, I mean, good God, you know about that. You have for years. It seems like there's some stuff we can do, even if it doesn't, quote, cure the disease. It increases our resilience so much that you're not likely to die and maybe you don't need a ventilator. You think we can at least do that?

Oh, I think that we've seen some very promising information. Remdesivir is a drug made by Gilead that in one clinical trial that was performed in China, it's an intravenous medication, had very dramatic effects, noting that people seem to do really well. Another one, Favi Piravir, was able to also have a significant effect in terms of reducing the time that people were testing positive as well as reducing the risk of having positive chest X rays. So these are exciting. We're a long way from being able to mass produce, first of all, test for safety, but mass produce drugs. But I will say that there is some evidence that convalescent plasma, in other words, harvesting the plasma from somebody who is convalescing from coronavirus, in other words, now testing negative shows some very great promise. That's technology that was used to some degree in a form in 1918 for the Spanish influenza. So blood products from people who have recovered offers up not only an intervention for people who are sick, but even perhaps a prophylactic approach for people who are not sick. We know that the plasma from one individual can treat one sick person, but can treat as many as 60 people who are not sick in terms of being a preventive approach. So that's pretty exciting and not necessarily going to need any approval because those you know this approach is already in place. We also know that amplifying what is called monoclonal antibodies, creating antibodies against the virus, amplifying them is something that we know may well be something that is available a heck of a lot sooner. We know that the United States military has indicated that they are working on monoclonal antibody amplification techniques and has indicated that that could be ready by summer. You know, summer is still a couple months out. People are trying and working very diligently. So there's a lot of good science being performed that I have hope for. I would say that, you know, the idea of jumping on an antimalarial drug because it's been mentioned by people, is not necessarily appropriate. The studies in the past have demonstrated effectiveness or when combined with an anti HIV therapy, which was another two drugs added in. And certainly the hydroxychloroquine story was interesting. But I think it's important people understand that was an in vitro study, that was a petri dish study, that was not a human trial. And you know, as bad as things are, we still have to practice under the notion of above all, do no harm. In other words, we can't unleash something that all of a sudden is going to have a big effect on people negatively. We did that. Well, we. It was done during swine flu where they created a vaccine and not an insignificant number of people develop what's called Guillain Barre syndrome. So we've got to take a deep breath, recognize that this is not going to be an overnight fix. You know, in a couple of weeks we're not done with it and able to go back to work. It's going to be here for a long time. And getting back to your first question, this may be something we experience seasonally for a long time to come. But, you know, that's concerning, of course, but at least when we talk about a long time to come, that opens the opportunity for then the time lag that allows a vaccine to be created so we can theoretically get ahead of it.

Now, you said something in there, above all, do no harm. Does that really apply when a patient is 24 to 48 hours away from dying and they don't have a ventilator?

No. I mean, that is a situation where we talk about what's called compassionate need. And compassionate need has been the situation in which some of these antiviral medications have been used with in fact, incredible success. The populations in which they are used, the numbers have been very small. One antiviral was tried in 248 patients and looked like it worked really well. So you are correct, Dave, that the rules can and I believe should be bent right now. We don't have the luxury of, you know, really large ends or numbers of people to participate, of doing double blind trials. Some people get it, some people don't. You know, these are times when we look at the compassionate need where people are very sick. And I will admit that some of these antivirals are showing benefit in these people in terms of turning them around. Now, we don't know if they would have turned around on their own. Yeah, that's the, you know, you compare them to people who are similar who continue to do poorly and maybe even die. So you are correct. It is time to bend the rules a little bit. You're right.

And that said, if you're listening to this going, I have a, I have a source. I'm going to get myself some of this. I'm just going to take it just in case. Look, that's like taking antibiotics just in case you might get a bacterial infection. There are side effects. It is not a good idea. And people have actually died from treating themselves with these medications when they're not sick because they're so afraid. And that's the sort of stuff we're going to talk about with Brainwash, your book about the mindset and all that. But there's one other thing that I wanted to get your take on. Sepsis, when infection moves to the blood is, is a major cause of death for these people. And I found research, actually, back when Paul Allen died of septic shock. Looking at, okay, what do we know from a functional medicine perspective? And it turns out there's dozens of things that reverse sepsis and almost all of them are mitochondrial stimulators. So like the laundry list of IV therapies I've been using for a long time, glutathione, vitamin C, almost any of the polyphenols that you can inject, acetyl L, carnitine D, ribose, just the list goes on and on and on. And all of these things in clinical trials can fix this, yet they aren't a part of what we're doing in almost any hospital. Is there any validity to that line of thinking? And if so, what would we do in order to just get the hospitals to maybe stop looking for a drug and look for a cheap and affordable way just to get the people to live?

Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of ideas out there. Everything from traditional Chinese medicine to some of these ideas that you're talking about. Having said that, I think that, you know, most physicians on the front lines who are fighting for their own lives are not going to be really amenable to trying out some new ideas. A and B probably don't have the resources to track down intravenous, for example, vitamin C. I think that's, that's the problem.

It's not available.

Sure. But having said that, let me just finish the thought because one trial is underway right now in China, giving 12 grams of vitamin C IV for 12 days, knowing what vitamin C does, for example, during sepsis and sepsis. So actually the truth of the matter is that trial is currently underway and that's actually pretty exciting. The ultimate event in many people is something called dic, disseminated intravascular coagulopathy where basically the blood just clots in the arteries and veins and therefore there is no oxygen delivered to the tissues. And it's also something we see for example in people who've been bitten by the cobra snake. It's how the cobra snake bite ultimately kills people. Dic. So that's the, you know, the ultimate event in many people. And there's very little that can be done to treat people at that stage. So you know, it's a super aggressive event in some people, in people who have preexisted. And we've talked about that, you know, at length. What are those illnesses? And incredibly many of these illnesses that predispose to a bad outcome are illnesses of the modern western lifestyle. Obesity is a powerful risk factor for having a bad outcome. Coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's. I mean many of the diseases of our modern world, when in our overfed, undernourished population seem to be playing out as risk factors. I did a video on YouTube recently about the role of the gut bacteria, the microbiome, as being the arbiter of what I'm just talking about that through the lens of our gut bacteria which regulates immunity and regulates inflammation. This is the one uniting factor that explains why for example, all those diseases I just mentioned are, are risk Factors. Why taking NSAIDs or non steroid anti inflammatory drugs may be a risk factor. Although that's been challenged recently. And the sudden observation here in America that as many as 20% of the hospitalized people are younger as in 20 to age 58, which was something that was not seen in other countries. And people would say can't understand that. I mean after all that's when you know these kids are healthy. Well, the truth is Americans youth are not healthy. Look at the health of Americans youth. So it really does. And I created this video because, you know, when you look at sub Saharan Africa and places like Haiti, the rates of this disease are extremely low. And, you know, some would say, well, it's because they haven't had a lot of flights in and out from other countries. Okay, I'm willing to accept that. On the other hand, when we think back to what is called the hygiene hypothesis by Dr. Strachan in 1989, where he described a more robust immune system in people who were not as fanatical about hygiene, where kids played in the dirt, which challenged their immune systems from being children on, I think that there may be some evidence that this is why there are lower rates and lower complications in some of these countries now. You know, moving forward, I wouldn't doubt that we will see certainly greater numbers. But when you look at the countries right now, by and large, that are involved, these are countries that are really involved in hygiene.

What's going to happen when we just smear this topical antiseptic on everything all the time?

Well, I mean, right now it's something that I think, oddly enough, is something we should be doing.

Oh, yeah, Yeah.

I think that when we understand, you know, the data out of Yale has indicated that the Coronavirus can live 48 hours on cardboard. Well, if your package is packed at Amazon and then takes three days to arrive at your house, you're thinking, well, that's already three days out. Great. But what about the person who just handled that and put it on your front porch and recognize that that package isn't just cardboard, it's plastic tape that can keep the virus alive for 36 hours? So we have to recognize that that is a potential vector for transmission. We know that, you know, more recent data is really very concerning. They've just discovered that some of the surfaces aboard the Diamond Princess, that's one of the cruise ships that had a lot of infections, some of the surfaces have maintained viability of the virus for as long as 17 days. Now, I don't make that stuff up. I wish that I did so somebody could say, oh, that's just BS for Dr. Perlmutter. And then I would say, great, it's not true, but I didn't make it up. And that's what we are hearing. So all of the recommendations about sterilizing your packages and washing your hands after you open them, I think are simple things to do. You know, when the package comes, leave it on the front porch for a couple days, let the heat dry it out. We that's one thing about the virus is when it's desiccated, when the surface upon which it is is desiccated or dried, it threatens its viability. So let things dry out, put them in the garage. If you're worried about porch pirates and that don't open unless it's something perishable.

You can also just mist them with a mixture of bleach and water. Exactly. That'll work just fine. You didn't need that cardboard anymore, right?

On our front porch I have a spray bottle with Lysol. I spray it, leave it overnight and then I go the next day. I'm real excited to open something I've ordered because it's something I think I need, but you leave it there. And then when you've finished opening things and putting things out to let them dry, you've got to go and wash your hands. Fundamental.

We'Re going to get into the mindset because you just wrote a book which couldn't have better timing in brainwash, which is how modern living is making our brains work. Way less rational, way more fear based. But man, I feel like you're such a, you have a lifetime of knowledge here. If you were working in a hospital setting now, caring for people, what would you do at the end of your shift or at night or at home to make yourself stay well and stay strong and be able to continue serving personally, what would you do?

Dave, that is, it's such an important question because fear destroys immune function and so does lack of sleep. So does eating poorly. And all of these threaten our first line of defense. So, you know, in putting me in the situation of going to work, let's say in a hospital right now, that might be the most fearful environment I could be in. I don't know that I would do a lot different. I would still practice a daily meditation program. I would do my very best to get a good night's sleep turning off the computer and the TV in the afternoon and evening.

But these guys aren't getting that you're working in a hospital. You've got 18 hour shifts. I mean the people I've been getting text messages from are not doing that.

Double down on eating. Right. I would strengthen my microbiome if you're not, in other words, eat more prebiotic foods. I would say, you know, double up on the meditation. I mean, if you're working 18 hour shift, dedicate 20 minutes twice a day to meditation and you know, all of these things that we're talking about. Yes, they're involved in Enhancing immune function. We know that, but they're also involved in calming down the amygdala, the fear center of the brain. And as I'm having this conversation with you, I'm going to do my very best to reign in what is going on deep in my mind in terms of some of the decisions that are being made. But we can make decisions either from an impulsive part of the brain, the amygdala, that are short term and really interested only in myself, or we can tap into the prefrontal cortex and make decisions that have much more long view look at the long term outcome for myself and for others. In other words, empathy. I ran into somebody at the health food store yesterday and he said, you know, I don't know what this is all so exciting about. I mean, if I get this, I'm going to be fine. Look at me, I'm in great shape. And I was about to say, it really is all about you, isn't it? Because I'm 65 and if I get coronavirus, I have about, you know, whatever, an 8 or 9% chance of dying from it based upon my age.

But you don't. That's not really true though, just based on your age, because you're pretty darn healthy. Right, Right.

But I'm just saying, based upon my age, let's say it's half that, let's say five. Yeah, you don't want to take that. You bet. But the point is that other people acting inappropriately and still going out and partying, hanging out with their friends and doing all these things is a threat to all the rest of us. A threat to younger people who might be on medication or have an underlying health issue or be immunocompromised. And as I mentioned earlier, it is younger people now who are making up as many as 40% of the hospitalizations, 20 to 40% depending on the data that you look at. So it's not that people are young and not going to get it. We watched a report of a young, of a, I think a 22 year old from the same university college that my daughter attended. A lacrosse player now in a coma on a ventilator. Young, healthy kid. So, you know, it's. Things are happening and it's not the flu, thank you very much. It's not. We need to look at what, you know, researchers are telling us about how this profoundly is different from the flu, even if the same number of people are affected. And that is a big question as well. The outcome may be, you know, 10 times worse. With respect to coronavirus, the flu is typically transmitted one person to the next, about 1.5 people. If you have the flu, you'll transmit it to about 1.5 people. Coronavirus, it's about 2.5 to 3.5. So far more infectious and certainly far more dangerous in terms of potential outcome.

What do you say to the people who are out there saying there's no such thing as a virus?

I don't say anything to them. I really don't. And I learned my lesson early on. I was way early on this. I was at a health food store and the woman was checking out my groceries. And I said, before you handle groceries, would you mind just using a little hand sanitizer? I took out my little bottle of hand sanitizer, and she did. And she said, you know, I have my own hand sanitizer. I'm just going to use that. I said, great. I said, well, what is it? It was some herbal thing, and which I think is great, but there's no evidence that it's going to be effective. I said, here's where I made my mistake. I said, oh, is there any evidence that that's effective against coronavirus? And she went ballistic. How dare you challenge me and attack me? And I said to her, you are 100% right. I am absolutely out of line, and I deeply apologize. And. And at that point, I learned that there are a lot of people out there who see this in a different way, who have different views. And I think it's. It's reasonable to listen to their views. But I think challenging people right now is not going to be helpful. And similarly, with people who have ideas about conspiracy, about where the virus came from, I don't care. And when I say I don't care, I'll tell you why. There's a great scene in the Fugitive and actually the movie, not the TV show, where Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford are standing on the cliff, the waterfall. And Harrison Ford said, I didn't kill my wife. And Tommy Lee Jones said, he's the FBI agent, said, I don't care. So as it relates to where this thing came from, it doesn't matter, because it's here now to point fingers. Oh, this country did something, or it was created in America or this, that and the other, these theories that people are coming up with, it doesn't matter. It's not going to help us moving forward. Regardless of where it came, we've got a challenge on our hands unlike anything our generation has ever even thought about. I mean, this is on par with World War II. It's on par with the Spanish flu of 1918. And the sooner we realize that the party's not going to resume sooner, you know, in the near term and that life is forever going to be changed in our world, the better. We can take a deep breath and become pragmatic and make decisions from the prefrontal cortex. In other words, look towards making good decisions that are more in line with our future, rather than being impulsive and making decisions about what, this week and ourselves, exclusively.

How does this tie into the thinking behind Brainwash, the book that you wrote with your son Austin? You talk about how our higher level prefrontal cortex decision making is disabled. It was disabled before the coronavirus came out. So what disabled it before and. And what did we do as a result? As a result of that.

We have two areas in the brain that are deeply involved in decision making. We have the primitive amygdala, the reptilian amygdala, that says, I'm going to make a decision now. I want the jelly donut, damn it. That's it, End of story. And I only really care about myself. And then we have a more sophisticated part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, that says, gee, maybe that jelly donut might not be good for my blood sugar. And I think I'm going to keep the adult in the room and not make those dietary choices because I want to live a long and healthy life. And I think that making decisions that are good for me is one thing, but I also think that making decisions that are going to benefit my neighbor, my community, and even the planet on which we live. In other words, empathy is a good thing to do. And that's why being able to log in to the prefrontal cortex is important for us all. It has implications for ourselves, our communities, and even the planet itself. It allows us to engage what is called cognitive empathy. And that is the ability for me to see things through Dave Asprey's eyes. We may not fully agree with everything, but at least I can try on your ideas and see how they feel, as opposed to saying, he's a Democrat, he's a Republican, he's left wing, he's right wing, he's wrong. No, that goes in contrast to what humans have always done. We've always met in the agora, the marketplace, and we've shared ideas, and that has allowed us to come up with better solutions and ideas moving forward. When we lock into the amygdala, we lose that ability. It's my way or the highway. We lock ourselves into social media sites that only perpetuate our ideas of how the world is, and we no longer can share and make progress. So what threatens our ability to regain connection to the prefrontal cortex? What is fostering what we call in the book disconnection syndrome? Many things, but in a word, inflammation. Inflammation actually severs the connection that we have between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. It's the same inflammation that's involved in coronary artery disease and diabetes, in cancer and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. That same inflammation that underlies our chronic degenerative conditions that is really amplified by our lifestyle choices, severs our connection to the adult in the room, to being able to make good decisions. So think about that vicious circle that I've just described. When you are involved in lifestyle choices, eating the wrong foods, not getting enough restorative, sleep, et cetera, that fan the flames of inflammation. You lock in to the amygdala, and what does that do? More impulsive decisions as they relate to your lifestyle choices, as they relate to your sleep. And it gets worse and worse, and you can't get off the treadmill. Your. Your weight will go up. You'll increase your body fat. That fans the flames of inflammation. So that's what brainwash is all about. It's about addressing this disconnection and giving people the tools to reconnect to the prefrontal cortex and bringing the adult back into the room. And I will tell you the genesis of where this came about. And oddly enough, it's the exact room where I'm doing this broadcast with you right now. My son and I were in this room, and I said, you know, Austin, what's the biggest challenge about practicing medicine for you? And he said, well, you know, dad, I did everything I could to learn as much information as I could. I do everything I can in the clinic to give people that information. But incredibly, you know, so often they don't follow through. They, you know, they come back month after month. They're gaining weight, blood sugar's going up, worse inflammatory issues, joint pain, you name it. We realized that, you know, we blame the patient. We say, you know, what's wrong with you? Why can't you get more willpower and rein it in and become a better decision maker? It's not their fault. Our modern world robs people of the ability to make good decisions by severing them from the better decision maker. The prefrontal cortex, through inflammation, through the foods that are perpetrated upon us through the amount of time that people spend online. You know, 42% of the time people are awake here in America, 42% of their waking hours is spent in front of a screen of one sort or another. That locks them into this mentality of buying this and that and their brains being hacked and it locks them into impulsivity. And you know, certainly our colleague Mark Hyman has written a wonderful book called Food Fix about how our diets have been so great, grossly manipulated. I'll interview him tomorrow about that. And now think about it. The manipulation of the global diet by perpetrating these pro inflammatory foods upon the planet has hacked their brains, making us all more impulsive, making wrong decisions. And now the world is responding from an impulsivity perspective as it relates to this challenge. The coronavirus. Wowzers. It's a lot to get your arms around, but you know, okay, it's happened. We can light the single candle or we can curse the darkness, maybe a little of both. But let's make sure we end on lighting that single candle and moving forward in a positive way.

It seems like the idea of turning on empathy, that's actually behind my reason for deciding that I was going to do the social isolation thing just because, look, I'm probably not going to get sick. My family probably won't get sick or actually probably will get sick according to my math. But we're not going to have meaningful symptoms from it. But I like the idea of not killing my elders. So because of that empathy or people who are also just have a lack of health and maybe don't even know it like the kids you're talking about, I also though, like your son Austin, I feel like, look, we're disrupting the economy for a while and certainly disrupting many people's lives, which is buying time. So if people are doing what you just said, they're eating those inflammatory foods, you could stop eating them right now and you could actually become a way more resilient person in the next 90 days. So if and when you do get it, and if you play the odds, you probably are going to get exposed to this at some point in the future. You'll, even if you get sick, you'll be able to walk away from it. How long does it take?

No guarantees, but you know, we can. It's all about inflammation. You know what, what is being described as the penultimate event here is called the cytokine storm, whereby these inflammatory mediators that, you know, many of us have been talking about for years and years in the chronic state that are associated with these chronic degenerative conditions, well, they just explode on the scene in the presence of the coronavirus. And it is a storm of cytokines that just damages tissues from top to bottom. So you are correct. And it does not take long to reestablish connection to the better decision maker and then make those good decisions to improve your sleep, to meditate, to spend some time outside, ultimately improve your gut bacteria. And you are right. Stabilize your immune system and some other ideas I'll talk to you about in just a moment. But as it relates to Brainwash, our book, it was picked up already in 16 countries around the world and now being published in 16 languages. And I think it's because people are getting the message that, hey, I need to make better decisions and in this case I need to make better decisions about my future. And it, the best defense is a good offense. We don't have an offense here. We don't have a way of combating this, this illness, but we do have a way of defending ourselves and that's called the immune system. We make choices that will improve our immune system if we're accessing the part of the brain for better choices and not making impulsive decisions. That's what brainwash is all about. So we can do certain things that will augment immune function. And you know, let's talk about a couple of those things. One of the things, yeah, one of the things that, you know, you've certainly talked about for such a long time has been something like time restricted eating or intermittent fasting. What a simple tool that, that your listeners can implement today. They can just boot up one of your previous podcasts and learn. Whoever Dave Asprey interviewed on the topic, this is a proven way, at least in laboratory animals and to some degree in humans, to bump up your immune system to help with clearing out senescent or aged immune cells. And why not? You know, my followers and I, I did this along with them, did a 24 hour fast a couple of days ago. We had a lot, a lot of people that participated. How simple is that? And what, you know, what a simple thing. We know that there are some senolytic s e n o l y t I c nutritional supplements. One is called fisetin F I s e t I n and fisetin is a senolytic. It is a flavonoid that has been demonstrated to have the ability to help our bodies rid themselves of aged or less functional immune cells. And we desperately need young and healthy immune cells right now. So maybe some fisetin would be a good idea along the. I'm sorry, go ahead.

Oh, that stuff. I have been taking it for years as a cognitive enhancer because it's also nootropic and the higher doses, we've covered it in a couple different episodes. I think David Sinclair may have mentioned it and let's see a couple others. So it's one of those things that comes in strawberries and seaweed, but it's available as a supplement and it's probably not sold out right now.

Yeah, I was able to buy even more online, so I've been making that recommendation. But you know, we know that calorie restriction, getting back to David Sinclair's work for a long time has been shown to robustly enhance immune function and extend length of life, for example, in at least in the animals. Or at least in. Yeah, in some animals. So why would you not want to fast for 24 hours? Of course, check with your healthcare practitioner ahead of time. The disclaimer. But we know that the aging immune response can be enhanced and can be made more youthful with caloric restriction or, you know, even the idea of intermittent fasting. So I would say what a simple tool to bring online. Now, you've been talking about it for years. There are many of you, our peers, who are out there talking about this. You know, Peter Attia certainly talked about it. Rhonda Patrick, you know, many of the popular podcasts have been talking about time restricted eating or intermittent fasting, one form or another, how effective it is, who knows. But why not? I cannot imagine a downside. So phisetin, certainly something people can buy online. You know, I would bet there's plenty of it out there because people aren't talking about it. Everyone's talking about an aggressive drug approach. I'm all in. Hey, that's great. Yep. But, but having said that, let's strength, let's work on defense as well as offense.

So you like, you like the idea of fasting and you like. I call it fissetin. Fisetin is how you pronounce it.

F I, S, E, T, I, N. I don't know how people.

I don't think either of us is wrong. I was hoping you actually had some Latin root for it because I've called it that. But who the heck knows? Some of these supplement names drive me nuts. Okay, so you recommend those two things. Any other you're saying fasting or the intermittent fasting thing? We don't really know, but it's probably okay. What are the real Kryptonite, things just like, hey, seriously, stop doing this right now.

Well, let me get to those in just a moment because my mind now is set. There's more fleshing out the list a little bit more. Yeah, I would say vitamin D is going to be a key player here. We know that vitamin D augments in humans what are called antimicrobial peptides. There are three that are important, but probably the most important is called cathelicidin. We know that that has powerful antiviral activity. And so I'm all in. I would say again, for any of my recommendations, check with your healthcare provider. I am currently taking 10,000iu of D3 each day along with 50 to 100mg of zinc. Most of the work with zinc has been done with rhinovirus, but we know that there is some antiviral activity in general with respect to zinc. And we're talking about two extremely inexpensive and widely available nutritional supplements. They are certainly not anything as exotic as, you know, you and I are aware of. So I think for a general recommendation, these are good ideas I'd like to. And then things to avoid. I think staying up late at night is probably about. About the worst thing anyone could do. Not getting enough restorative sleep is absolutely a kryptonite for your immune system. So what does that mean? It means ask yourself, why aren't you sleeping well right now? And probably it's the TV and, or the computer in the evening. I'm not saying bury your head in the sand. There's a very, very worrisome event going on. Get the information, but turn it off at dinner time. Have a dinner without that TV on and get ready for sleep. I don't know about you, but my sleep has not been as good as it has been traditionally been. Waking up in the middle of night thinking about things, thinking about family and their decisions and. But we've got to do everything we can to get a good night's sleep. Exercise has to be continued right now. And, you know, I can't again overemphasize how important that is. And also nature exposure, this Shirin Yoku that forest bathing that the Japanese talk about. So important to get outside, look at the trees. It might seem like, you know, I'm talking Birkenstocks here. No, this is hard science. And even if you can't, then buy a plant and put it in your living room or your kitchen and pay attention, nurture it each day. Very powerful. Not, you know, people don't talk about that. And of course, Your daily meditation. I would say that very important to consider that, you know, while this social distancing thing is important, I also think it's really fundamental to ask who's going to come into your home in terms of anybody who you might say, you know, you might want to have in your home to weather the storm and understand that it may be. As many as 40 to 60% of people may actually be asymptomatic carriers of this one study recently showed that, or at least pre symptomatic transmission. That 48% in a study in Singapore showed that the 40% of people were capable of what is called pre symptomatic transmission, meaning they could be carriers, they don't have symptoms and they could then impart this disease to you or whomever.

So really you should spray them down with bleach and put them in the garage for 48 hours before they come in.

No, 14 days. Okay. And you know, you're right. Here's exactly why it is. Uh, when we were screening people coming in from, from China and then late after that from Europe at the airport, we were screening them by shooting a temperature gun at their foreheads. If you don't have a fever, off you go. And if 48% and as many or one. The Chinese study said 62% of people. That was a study that came out on March 8. 62% of people were asymptomatic carriers. That means that we missed half, potentially half the people who brought that virus into the United States because we simply looked at their temperature. Water under the bridge. But having said that, I think it's important to think about that in terms of people who are coming to stay with you. They should be kept away from you in your home, if that's possible, for 14 days.

If they're gonna stay with you, yes, absolutely.

That will be about a 96%. It's not even 100%. There's some outliers as long as 24 days. That'll be about 96% effective in tracking people who may be asymptomatic carriers of the virus. And even more concerning than that is the new research that is showing. Two studies have come out of China indicating that people who have the disease may be hospitalized. One study published in the Chinese Medical Journal looked at two physicians who tested positive. They were hospitalized, one went home, one was treated in the hospital, and then they became afebrile, no fever, and ultimately were tested on two occasions over a two day period with throat swabs, which proved negative. Right. They send Them home, they self quarantined for 14 days and guess what? Later on during their quarantine, they again tested positive. What does that mean? Were they re exposed? Doubtful. Were they found to, you know, did the virus then begin to replicate in their bodies again? That's certainly a possibility. So the notion that people are testing negative and then become positive I think is something to be concerned about. And another interesting study that was published yesterday demonstrated that people can be, you know, around 10% in this study, while they are shown to have negative testing in terms of the nasopharyngeal swab, actually are still testing positive with respect to their stool. Now why is that an issue? It's an issue because that contaminates the bathroom, the sink and the toilet in which. And they may be in your home, though they have tested negative, they went to the community testing nasopharyngeal swabs negative. And yet a powerful vector still is happening through stool contamination on their hands, then to the sink. So, you know, we're learning a lot moving forward and I think this can translate into how we need to act moving forward.

The reinfection thing, I heard from one epidemiology expert on that who's just said, look at the rare number of cases. He's looking at testing errors because we're using PCR testing, which is just looking for basically evidence of the virus, but not looking at antibodies or the virus itself. So I think that I would write that one off, given what I've seen now as most likely a testing error, because the cutoff for whether you're infected or not is based on how many times you run it through amplification.

True. That was one of the discussions actually in the study was this, what are the reasons that we could have had negative reverting back to positive? Could they have become reinfected, number one? Number two, could there have been a false negative on the test or could the test have been done inappropriately and didn't really catch it and they were still positive the whole time? So you are correct. I think that the PCR and then the DNA amplification test is pretty good, but it isn't 100%. So I think viral testing moving forward is going to be more valuable and I think antibody testing is going to be a home run, especially as it relates to the idea of harvesting plasma, as we talked about earlier and with people who have now antibodies, and then using that plasma, again, not new technology for the treatment of those who are very ill and ultimately moving to a place of treating People prophylactically.

I very much share that perspective with you. Tie that back though.

2.

We're both doing the social isolation thing. But in your book you talk about disconnection syndrome.

Right.

But it seems like we're kind of giving ourselves disconnection syndrome through social isolation, which raises inflammation. Are we ultimately screwing ourselves here?

Well, you know as well as I do, correct me if I'm wrong, but we are connecting to more people now than we ever have. Right. You know that to be true. You're reaching out to friends and relative. Correct.

We're certainly not connecting at a microbiome perspective.

No, we are not.

Pheromones. There's no eye contact.

I am seeing such. There's so many people walking my neighborhood and biking and children out and everybody's maintaining their distance. But it's clear that people seem to be really needing more connection and making it happen, I think than ever before. And it's, I think it's, it's actually a really good thing. People seem to be coming together now. You know, the coronavirus parties that have, that have happened are where some people actually have gotten coronavirus from attending a coronavirus party. And last week the big boat raft ups in Miami. We've got to, we got to reign this stuff in because that's not the kind of social connection that's going to work for us. So that. Right.

That's an important question. And I know we're getting onto the end of the show. We didn't talk about all of the cool stuff in your book, but we've talked about it in the context of what's happening right now. Look, knowing my ability to isolate myself on 32 acres and having an extensive amount of medical knowledge. My wife's an ER doctor. I mean, you know, Dr. Lana. And you know, I've got ozone. I've got all the stuff I need so that I have an exceptionally high chance of not getting major symptoms and clogging a hospital. Is it a moral or an ethical consideration to say actually if we could get coronavirus that. Let's take it now. So we can be immune and we can then go buy groceries for old people and we can donate blood as plasma. I mean, it seems very logical and rational and a risk that I'd be willing to take. But people get really mad when you talk about it. So just from a non amygdala perspective.

What do you think? I think this is contextual. I mean, if there's some altruism here and empathy and compassion, I am all in. I Mean, I think many people have thought about the idea of going out like, you know, like we did with our kids. Go ahead and get the chickenpox, you know, and then you're done. And then maybe you can be helpful to others. If I had a pretty good sense that it's going to be, you know, a monophasic event and it won't be severe, I would absolutely do that. I would do it for myself knowing that then I could be out in the world and I could be, you know, I'm a physician, I could be helping more people and I would be delighted to donate my blood. You count me in. I would don't take it all, but.

It makes you live longer anyway to donate blood. Like you can't lose.

The issue with that is none of that infrastructure exists right now for using my plasma and helping other people. I don't have antibodies yet, but if I did, how great would that be for me to be able to go to my local hospital, take my plasma, spin it down, take my blood, rather spin it down, harvest the plasma and use it to treat somebody in the ICU? Or take it and take five CCs and give it to 60 people who, as a prophylactic approach to this issue, I'm all in. But the infrastructure does not exist for that. So I don't think that you should feel morally challenged by that. I think that I'm proud to hear Dave Asprey talking this way.

Thank you, David. In terms of infrastructure not existing, I know some infrastructure that exists for this. Every one of the functional medicine practitioners I know who does platelet rich plasma or does stem cell injections has a centrifuge and equipment for pulling blood. We have this in the country. It's just that that group of physicians is routinely maligned by ER physicians even though.

Oh, I know. But I think what we will see moving forward, correct me if I'm wrong, in the future, but I think that these physicians will be coerced into entering the workforce in the mainstream and going to work using the techniques that the mainstream is using, which truthfully are not very effective. In fact, it's nothing but tincture of time. It's just basically keeping people stable and let the disease run its course. There should be a treatment soon and we're all hopeful. Vaccine? Yeah, a year to 18 months. But we are seeing some compassionate use of medications. There's one study that came out by a John Cohen, published in the journal Science, where they actually did use an antiviral medication and it was quite effective in treating A patient who was going down the tubes very, very quickly. The drug Remdesivir. Remdesivir given intravenously, that's how it's administered and really turned a patient around very quickly. I have on drpromutter.com all the PDFs of all of the latest research listed collected in an area called, oddly enough, coronavirus or maybe called COVID 19. But I think people should read these. These are from peer reviewed journals, which brings up an interesting point. We're seeing a lot of access granted to us right now to studies that have not yet been published by peer reviewed journals. They are pre review. And I think it's a good thing because the peer review process often takes as long as several months till all the doctors get together and the scientists say, well, this is a good one, but it has to be fixed or we got it, whatever. I think putting articles out there that are talking about case studies, especially interventional trials, is a good thing. Look, we learned this. This drug failed. We tried this. This seemed to be effective. Can't say 100%, but just get it out there. Yeah, into the gestalt of medicine and let people think about it because they may have access to that. We know that Bill Gates is working with this compilation basically of knowledge looking at 10,000 small molecules and seeing what might be effective. So I'm thinking that there might be a way of creating a neural network approach, at least from a diagnostic perspective, looking at something as simple as a chest X ray, collecting information and being able to make a diagnosis on the spot, just by some utilizing artificial intelligence, looking at a chest X ray and saying yay or nay, as opposed to waiting three to five days for a test result. Because if we know who does and who doesn't have this virus, it allows us to triage patients in terms of letting some people go home who do not have it, but maybe have a bad cold or influenza. And that is desperately needed right now.

Well, Dr. Perlmutter, I appreciate you being on Bulletproof radio again. Now is the time when people have no commute, so they have extra time to read and learn. And your new book, Brainwash, is actually exactly the right book to read during a time when fear is rampant, more so than it needs to be. So the idea of detoxing your mind with a brainwash absolutely makes sense. And at the end of the show, we're going to do something, something special. We're going to not hang up and this is officially the end of the show, but we're going to go onto Instagram together. And so we'll leave all of our stuff recording for the show. I don't know if we're going to use this in the itunes version, but let's whip out our phones.

Do you remember the last time we did this? We were the first people, I think, on planet Earth. Do you remember that? Yeah, we did something along these lines.

They didn't allow you to have shared stories at the time, so we just aimed at each other's camera.

I know. It was so wild.

It was crazy. So the technology has moved along just like it will for the virus.

Push them.

All right, I'm going to go live and then just ask to join. Give me one second here.

Okay. I'm on Instagram. I got to find you, though.

Yeah. So I'm going to go live right now. Turn myself around. Foreign.

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