Little Empty Boxes: A Film of Love, Loss, and the Quest for Understanding Dementia | Max Lugavere

We live in an era of misinformation, covert activism, special interest groups lobbying, and people using really weak science to influence behavior change. This messaging, all it does is continue to foment sickness and confusion about what it means to be healthy today.

Hello everyone, I'm Dr. David Perlmutter. Welcome to The Empowering Neurologist. We're going to talk about dementia today, about Alzheimer's, and we are going to talk to Max Lugavere. Many of you know him, he's been on the program many times. He is the host of the very popular podcast The Genius Life, and he has a new documentary out called Little Empty Boxes, and this is It's a powerful documentary. I'd like you all to watch it. littleemptyboxes.com is the URL if you want to watch the trailer or find out where the film is going to be played near to you. And Little Empty Boxes chronicles Max's journey with his mother, who's diagnosed with a form of dementia, and really showcases the lack of ability that they experience of modern medicine to really help her. The unfortunate thing is we hear this story day in and day out as people go from doctor to doctor trying to find a cure for their cognitive decline, in this case, Lewy body dementia. We see the same thing with Alzheimer's disease as well. It's a very poignant story, but I think it's very important because it really does showcase the limitations of modern medicine, but does give us a sense that the future may in fact be brighter. Again, we're going to have that URL shown throughout this interview so you can pick up on it. It's really a fascinating documentary. I hope you will all watch it. But meanwhile, let's talk to Max Lugavere about what went into this documentary. Well, Max, it's sure good to see you again.

David, what a pleasure. What an honor. It's been too long.

You know, as we get together and as I watched the movie, I was struck by the fact that You know, the last time we talked, and when I think of the first time we talked many, many years ago, respectfully, not a lot has changed.

Not a lot has changed, unfortunately, in the world of dementia. People are still getting it in record numbers. And I've dedicated my life, as have you, to helping people see a path to prevention, which I believe is the new frontier. It's the area that we should be placing most, if not all, of our focus at this point. And my documentary, Little Empty Boxes, which I'm so honored to have you be a part of, is about to be released to the world. And I'm so excited to share this with people because you know very well, as I do, that dementia is an incredibly difficult condition.

We were having breakfast somewhere in California, right? Where was it? Right.

We were— yeah. And by the way, I guess I didn't realize that you had seen the whole film because my team has been sending out the screeners and I'm delighted. I'm so over the moon that you've seen it so we can actually have a real conversation about the movie. But yeah, we were— I actually think we were upstate New York where you were sharing the benefits of eating fermented foods.

That is correct. I remember the rest. It was not— it was actually a grocery store. I think we got the food and we sat down and ate it. But, you know, for people who are new to Max Lugavere, and, you know, we need to set the stage here. And there's a very compelling story that you tell, certainly in the movie, but you've been very public about this for many, many years about what went on with your mother and your experience and, you know, how you came face to face with the reality of what modern medicine had to offer you. So I guess the question is, so then why the movie? What went into this? Let's set the stage with you and your mom and her situation, and that'll allow people to understand what's going on as they see the movie.

Absolutely. So I'm not a medical doctor. I'm not an academic scientist. I'm a citizen scientist of sorts, I guess you could say. But my primary, I think, position is as a health and science journalist, as a truth teller. And as a filmmaker. And when I, you know, at this point I have books out and we've talked about my books and, you know, I have a podcast, but it all began with this documentary actually. And it's something that I decided to undertake when my mom at a very young age developed a rare form of dementia called Lewy body dementia. And I had not had any type of neurodegenerative condition in my family lineage. My My maternal grandmother, in fact, was— she lived to 96 and was cognitively healthy the entire time. But my mom, at the age of 58, began to exhibit very strange symptoms that led us on a wild goose chase around the country, culminating in a trip to the Cleveland Clinic in about 2011, where for the first time she was diagnosed with a Parkinson's-plus, a Parkinsonian condition that presented concurrently with cognitive features, if you will. And that was incredibly traumatic for me and my family. From, from one minute to the next, I was filling a prescription for my mom for drugs to treat both Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, conditions with no cure, fatal conditions, terminal, ultimately, conditions. And That lit my world on fire, David. I mean, I ceased to be able to focus on anything else at that point other than trying to understand to the best of my nonprofessional ability why a woman at the age of 58 would have developed this condition. And that set me off on a journey that will continue until the rest, until my, until my dying breath, really, because, you know, You know, she was the most important person in my life.

Well, the movie makes it very clear that she was. I mean, there are cutaways from young Max, handsome little devil. And, you know, I will share with our audience that, you know, my professional career has been focused pretty much on Alzheimer's and neurodegenerative conditions, motivated by stories like yours and motivated by the fact that I went through exactly the same thing with my father. And, you know, you come face to face. I had the opportunity to interface with anyone I would choose in the world, as it were. And really nobody has ever offered up a meaningful answer in terms of what the heck is going on and certainly a solution in your mom's case. Well, it's sort of like Parkinson's. It's sort of like Alzheimer's, though it isn't. And yet, so we'll give her the Parkinson's drugs. We'll give her the Alzheimer's drugs. We'll give her the drugs for her You know, psychiatric issues that she's clearly, you know, going to develop, or maybe a consequence of the medication. But that said, they couldn't really put her into a finite box that would define exactly what was going on with her. But I think the news moving forward that we'll get to later in our time together today is very, very— it's over the top, over the roof exciting, over the moon in terms of where we are now. And when I say now, I mean in months, over the past few months, things have changed dramatically. And I think it's gonna, you know, obviously not be helpful for you or me in terms of our parents, but certainly paints a brighter picture for moving forward. So you're going from doctor to doctor, you end up with a grocery bag of medications, one thing after another. And as you described, they seem to do more harm than good. How are you feeling in the process?

Yeah, I mean, I'm feeling completely disenchanted by what, dare I say, mainstream medicine has to offer my mom. And I'm a fan of medicine. I'm a fan of the practice, the study of medicine. In another life, I would have gone through the gauntlet of medical school and had become a doctor myself. I was disenchanted by what I have come to call diagnose and adios, which is a term that I know you resonate with.

Well, I got it from you and I use it in lecture after lecture because, you know, the main mission of the neurologist, as I learned in neurology training, was name it. And once you name it, that's about as good as it gets. We were pretty good at treating symptoms for the— over the years, especially as it relates to things like Parkinson's, treating the rigidity and the tremor. Nothing much for cognition as it relates to Alzheimer's, as you experienced. But so each doctor would, you know, give you the benefit of his or her insight, and then you'd end up walking out the door with yet another prescription.

Yeah, I mean, that's at the end of my mom's life, she was on 14 different pharmaceuticals. And Polypharmacy is a huge problem, particularly for somebody who's aged and frail. Doctors are very reluctant to deprescribe drugs, and oftentimes doctors will prescribe drugs that have seemingly inverse effects, negating the effect of a drug that was previously prescribed. I mean, my mom for a time was on a drug called oxybutynin, which is an anticholinergic drug, and concurrent with that, she was on cholinergic drugs. I mean, it's a massive problem, and I get it. 90% of what we know about Alzheimer's disease has been discovered only in the past 20 or so years, and there are precious few tools in the toolkit in order to actually treat in an effective way the condition. But nonetheless, you get 15 minutes at most with your average physician. They run a battery of esoteric tests. And, you know, after that period, they send you on your way with, you know, maybe they're titrating up the dose of a certain drug or they're adding a new one to the arsenal. But it's— it is a pretty hopeless scenario. And, and it's sad. And I saw that firsthand. And I saw that not just once, but I saw that in every instance. I saw that in cathedrals to Western medicine that I was so privileged to get to go and visit with my mom, you know, which, you know, that in and of itself is something that few people get the opportunity to do.

Yeah. And the film shows that, which I think is really very compelling. And for all of you watching this, if you look at the bottom of your screen right now, there's the website where the link for you guys to watch the trailer and also indicates where you can see this film. And I would absolutely urge you, not just because it's a compelling story, and it is, but I think it very much frames where we are in modern medicine as it relates to Alzheimer's specifically. Max, in the past couple of years, things have changed. You know, you've been, I think, challenged by seeing the publication of a lot of information about these new Alzheimer's wonder drugs that target the protein that is the cause of Alzheimer's. And let's be clear, I don't mean that. That there are various drugs being put out and being hailed as wonder drugs, that either limit the production of this beta amyloid or actually rid the brain of beta amyloid. You've watched that happen after your mother has passed. What are you feeling when you see these announcements?

It's incredibly upsetting. I mean, the most recent example was the 2006 retraction of the publication where they claimed in this publication to have found the holy grail, the missing link between amyloid beta, at least in rat models of the disease and cognitive dysfunction, a paper that we found out only over the past 2 years was completely fraudulent. And that paper has subsequently been cited thousands of times in the medical literature and continued to support the funding pipeline to the tune of billions of dollars going into this drug discovery path investigating the so-called amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease. And And amyloid beta, it's a symptom of the condition. The question that has always needed to be asked is what's causing the aggregation of this pesky protein in the brains of people who are susceptible to Alzheimer's disease? Is it an inflammatory insult? Is it exposure to some sort of environmental toxicant? I mean, there are lots of questions that we should be asking, and we don't have the answers to these questions, unfortunately. This idea that we can just treat a condition as complex as Alzheimer's disease, and a condition that, by the way, once you're diagnosed with it, I mean, you're essentially in late-stage Alzheimer's disease, right? What is the cause of that protein being there at the site of the crime to begin with? What's causing that? And nonetheless, we've just been completely hit over the head repeatedly with this amyloid and Also, tau, these tau tangles are the cause of Alzheimer's disease. And it's just led to disappointment after disappointment. I mean, Alzheimer's drug trials have a 99.6% fail rate. That's worse than any other chronic condition. And I think much of that is attributed to fraud in the field.

It's a very strong word, but I mean, it's been publicized. It's well known that the study that you cited in 2006, that those results were indeed fraudulent, that the The graphics that demonstrated the stratification of certain proteins were Photoshopped, clearly Photoshopped. They had forensic analysis of these graphs that were published in the study, and they found that these were fakes. And, you know, the exposé that came out that, as you indicate, 2 years ago that talked about this also touched upon how any research that didn't toe the line and focus on beta amyloid would not be funded. And, you know, quite recently, 2022, '23, now we're seeing the FDA approval of drugs designed to target this beta amyloid like lecanemab, Leqembi. And, you know, do they rid— are they associated with less amyloid production? Yes. Is one, gatanerumab, that was looked at and published in New England Journal of Medicine December of '23, did it clear the brain to some degree of beta amyloid? It did, but had no effect, meaningful effect on cognition. That's what we're looking for here. We're looking for helping people preserve their cognition, and they are outright failures. And yet in the journals that I read, it's still an advertisement, this time right on the second page in one of my most respected journals, for me to go ahead and use this drug. I was contacted yesterday by a family. that the diagnosis was made and they're going to go back to their doctor and receive some intravenous medication, and obviously it's one of these amyloid-targeted medications. If they worked, I would use them, I would recommend them, wouldn't you? Absolutely. But they don't work, and as you have made very clear, that there is a lot going on upstream of the beta amyloid accumulation, and And now we're going to talk about that in a little bit. We really know what that is, and we know why the beta amyloid accumulates because of the metabolic changes in the brain. And you touched upon something earlier I think is really important, that you don't go to the doctor until you're experiencing cognitive decline. And that's unusual. I mean, we go every year for a blood test for diabetes. We get a colonoscopy to make sure we don't have anything precancerous. Women get mammographies as early detection. And we know that the changes in the brain that are the harbingers for future amyloid happen 2 to 3 decades ahead of time and can now be fingerprinted by looking at the metabolism of the brain that changes and becomes dysfunctional long before the cognitive decline, long before the beta amyloid accumulation. That's where the money is, or should be, and isn't, I guess. But that's where the answer is. And I'm announcing to you and to all that the future looks bright. And I don't know that I've said that. I haven't said it to you. I haven't said it really on this podcast. I did a YouTube video recently. I mentioned it. But, you know, once we shift away from this bogus— is that strong language? Yes, it is— sense that, you know, idea that beta amyloid is the central cause of Alzheimer's, that's ridiculous, in my opinion. and shift over to the metabolism of the brain, which again, 2 to 3 decades ahead of time indicates who is or who isn't on their way, then we're going to really begin to see the institution of therapies targeting brain metabolism that can make this situation not happen. That's the goal. You know, Desmond Tutu said that, yeah, it's important to pull people out of the river, but why don't we find out why they're falling in in the first place? Well, hi everyone. Dr. David Perlmutter here. We hope you're enjoying this content. And if you would do so, go ahead and hit the like button. And if you're not already a subscriber to our channel, please consider doing so. We're really grateful to have you as part of our community. So let's get right back to the presentation. You took a devastating situation for you, and every time we talk, it's so clear, and your movie makes it really even more poignant how important your mother was to you and, you know, what motivated you to do this. Who helped you with this? Where did it, you know, who helped you fund? Where did it come from? And who said, Max, this is really important information, we need to get it out there?

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I decided to do the documentary, you know, again, I wasn't— I didn't have a medical background. I was a filmmaker and I was a journalist. So I had worked for Al Gore for 6 years post-college. I was a generalist journalist on television in the United States. So I've always been a quasi-public figure at least in the United States, since college. And when my mom got sick, I realized that exploiting my media credentials could get me into the room with people that would otherwise not give me the time of day. And when my mom was in the throes of cognitive decline and my family was in a state of hysteria and despair and hopelessness, I realized that my way to make an impact, at least in my own family's life, was by doing a documentary about it so that I would have a calling card, so that it would give me the potential, the ability to reach out to scientists. And in fact, David, that's how, you know, that was the genesis of our relationship, right? Yeah. So I decided to do this documentary, which felt like a natural progression from my career as a journalist and my studies as a filmmaker as an undergraduate. And what really catalyzed the project for me was I think 3 essential insights. One was that dementia often begins in the brain decades prior to the first symptom, that, as I mentioned, by the time you receive that diagnosis, whether we're talking about Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease, you're essentially in a late stage of those conditions. Parkinson's disease, for example, by the time you're diagnosed, 50%, at least, of the dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra region of the brain have already perished. And in Alzheimer's disease, Whether you're mild, you have mild Alzheimer's disease, moderate Alzheimer's, I mean, there's no going back from Alzheimer's disease, unfortunately. And so if this condition or these conditions are due to some sort of environmental exposure, and we know that it begins in the brain long before the presentation of symptoms, well, that gives us an opportunity to intervene. Now, I didn't know what those interventions looked like, But that essentially became the bullseye of my investigation, the holy grail of my investigation, if you will. I also realized that dementia was not a genetic condition. I already spoke about the fact that my maternal grandmother did not have cognitive decline. So clearly, this was not something that was determined by my mom's genotype. It was something that was likely influenced by her genes in the context of the standard American diet and lifestyle. Yeah. but it was certainly not something that was genetically predetermined. There was some epigenetic component. And then I guess finally that Alzheimer's and other forms of cognitive decline are often considered diseases of the old, inevitable aspects of aging. And, well, my mom was not old. My mom still had all the pigment in her hair. She was a youthful woman, very much in the prime of her life. And so these misconceptions to me, I felt very strongly the need to evangelize these widely held misconceptions about the condition. And I realized that these misconceptions were challenged by the research that I was doing, but I was only doing that research because I had a loved one with the condition. To me, this was a phenomenal opportunity to evangelize my learnings to My demographic, millennials. And so I decided to pick up a camera and start shooting. And I actually self-funded the initial interviews. I paid out of pocket for the trip up to Brown University where we interviewed Suzanne De La Monte, who actually coined the term type 3 diabetes. To my knowledge, she hasn't ever appeared in a dementia documentary prior to her appearance in mine. And so I was very honored to get to speak to her in her lab. I also, with that early out-of-pocket funding, got to speak to Dr. Alessio Fasano, who talks to us in the documentary all about epigenetics and the role of the microbiome in influencing brain health outcomes. And then we decided to do a Kickstarter campaign. So we did a crowdfunding campaign and we raised initial funding to do the documentary. And I had not had a platform at that time. I wasn't on TV. I was actually in between jobs. And I attribute the success of the crowdfunding campaign purely to the fact that, you know, this is a topic that just direly needed to get out there, particularly at the time in which I ran the campaign, which was about 2014.

Yeah, and we look at what has happened to the numbers since 2014. Now, you know, we're at 6.7 million Americans. I think that number is much, much higher. You know, we talk about either Alzheimer's or— there's no prediabetes or pre-Alzheimer's. We talk about MCI, But, you know, a lot of people are walking around with cognitive issues and aren't seeing a doctor about it and sort of thinking, well, as you mentioned, I'm just— it's Alzheimer's disease, not Alzheimer's disease. And, you know, and I think that the notion of type 3 diabetes, the idea that metabolism of the brain, getting back to what we spoke about earlier, is central to this, I think is really gaining some traction. Many years ago, I was interviewing you, and you said something to me that I frankly thought was a little, a little bit out there. And you said, you know, if you use mouthwash after you exercise, it totally negates the value of your exercise. I gotta—I have to say—I kind of filed that one away until quite recently, when we've now seen literature that mouthwash. Because of its effect on the oral microbiome, reducing our ability to form nitric oxide, and we'll talk about that in just a moment, is associated with about a 50% increased risk of type 2 diabetes and close to 100% increased risk of hypertension, both of which are really bad players as it relates to the brain and dramatically increase risk for Alzheimer's disease. So what I've just connected, and I think people are gonna say, oh, that Dr. Perlmutter is way out there now, Is the use of— frequent use of mouthwash sterilizing the mouth, killing 99% of germs like we're all told to do? I'm connecting that to possible risk of this situation, Alzheimer's, for which we have no meaningful pharmaceutical treatment. And I want to just say that Dale Bredesen, Dr. Dale Bredesen, when I say no meaningful pharmaceutical treatment, what Dr. Bredesen has done, which is really a shift in the paradigm, is he's using multiple modalities to help the Alzheimer's patients, focusing, yes, on their brain metabolism. In other words, the way— getting back to the type 3 diabetes, but also looking at toxins, looking at infectious agents, looking at previous trauma and trying to rehabilitate the brain. There's a lot of things that are involved in getting a good brain that's gone bad to go back to being functional. I think the good news is it can happen. I think as we focus on this type 3 diabetes or the metabolism of the brain, that relates to your issue with, you know, what you mentioned with the mouthwash and the idea that we need good function of our oral microbiome as one of the multitude of factors that's going to be ultimately influencing the brain. So the movie's out now, and what's going on with the movie?

Yeah, so people can go to littleemptyboxes.com to watch it. We're doing this release completely independently. So, you know, from, from day one, it's been a labor of love and it continues to be a labor in the sense that, you know, for one, is dementia a sexy enough topic to garner the attention of the major streaming platforms? You know, I don't know. Is prevention still— is it considered as out there as it once was? I mean, not— Yes. Yeah. I mean, I would say not in our circles, but in the medical orthodoxy, I think it's still considered something that is— we don't have enough evidence to really speak with certainty. Yeah.

Live your life, come what may, and we're going to have a pill for you. Eat the bad foods that we want you to eat, good for business. Then we'll sidetrack you into a pharmaceutical protocol. And use our drug. Guess what? There is no drug. You know, even prior to the beta amyloid issue, and this happened to me just last week, somebody indicated to me that grandma has— no, actually her mother is having cognitive decline, went to the doctor and was put on a drug called Aricept, generic name donepezil. Now, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a meta-analysis by a Dr. Kennedy at the University of Alabama demonstrating That these anticholinergic drugs actually speed the decline of the brain in terms of cognition. That's what they're giving this girl's mother. It takes your— you've been through it. You know, you're not as struck by that as I think perhaps people in the audience will be. But the fact that it's still happening with the justification being, well, we've got to do something. Well, doing the wrong thing doesn't— isn't the appropriate choice. Sometimes it's best to do nothing. I think there's lots to do, but, um, so what's the future looking like for you? The movie comes out, everyone's going to learn about it, and then they're going to turn their attention on you. What do you do now?

Yeah, I mean, my, my passion really is, you know, I, I, I suppose as a, an activist of sorts, helping people to really understand what it what it means to live healthily today, in a time where there are so many competing interests. And, you know, I happen to be a big nutrition nerd. And, you know, nutrition is a field that I love. I mean, I've dedicated my life to it, to reporting on it. But in many ways, it's a, it's a captured field. You know, most of the studies that, that I see are funded by the food industry or use exceedingly weak science to make sweeping claims about certain food categories. For example, you know, from one week to the next, we're told, you know, either eggs are killing us slowly or they're the best food, you know, ever for us. And, and I think, you know, eggs are a perfectly wonderful food. In fact, they're a brain food. And, and so, you know, helping people separate fact from fiction has become, I think, my, my calling card in this industry and helping people get a real sense of you know, what the evidence says, but, you know, on the same— in the same breath, not being evidence-bound because the evidence tends to be incredibly weak with regard to nutrition.

And we know that a lot of the so-called studies are, you know, are funded by— and it just, uh, it's very challenging. There's a Dr. Casey Means, you probably know her,

who

founded Levels Health for looking at continuous glucose monitoring. Actually, I'm speaking to her today, and she and I wrote an op-ed in MedPage Today About the United States Department of Agriculture telling us that 10% of our daily calories can come from sugar, pure added sugar to our our food, then that's going to be okay. No, no, nothing to see here, folks. Move on. United States Department of Agriculture as in growing corn as in high fructose corn syrup. That's not a real. Those aren't a lot of dots to connect, but yet that's the advice. And you know, we wrote an op-ed to the president at that time. That was back. and February 21st, 19— rather, 2021. Nothing changes though. But, um, you know, you're out there, the clarion call, and I really applaud you for it. It, uh, you know, I'm sure that you're open to a lot of criticism. You probably get it. And, um, as do all of us who, uh, you know, Robert Kennedy said, uh, something— some people see things as they are and, and ask why. Others see things as they could be and say, why not? So, you know, I'm looking to the things as they could be, and i.e., targeting brain metabolism. And why not? You know, why not? Because there's no reason why not. It's inexpensive. It's information. It's keeping people healthy. And so I've really enjoyed our time together over the years. And I remember the first time we spoke, and it's so amazing that you're out there doing what you're doing as a non-physician. I think That gives you a leg up in certain ways. You know, as an MD, I think you're much more open to criticism. But, you know, here, being the citizen scientist, I think less people are likely to attack you, and those who do are probably less qualified than you.

Yeah, exactly. And people— in fact, a term that I've gotten from you, David, over the years is people tend to be down on what they're not up on. And, um, and I, I feel very strongly that There are, you know, we live in an era of misinformation, covert activism, special interest groups lobbying, and, you know, people using really weak science to influence behavior change on the public health scale. And I think that that's, that's really unfortunate. I mean, you know, we saw recently our mutual friend Anna Hodd O'Connor has done a number of really impressive papers, investigations for The Washington Post showing us that, for example, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics You know, not only do they regularly receive gifts from the ultra-processed food industry, but they actually have stock in many of those companies. We see that associations like the American Beverage Association routinely will covertly hire credentialed dietitian influencers and medical doctors on social media to promote artificial sweeteners like aspartame. we've seen that the food industry routinely will parrot this message that, you know, there are no bad or good foods and that all foods can fit within the confines of a so-called balanced diet, paying off influencers on social media to promote this idea that, you know, there's no such thing as junk food. All foods— food is food, essentially. And You know, hearing that message might sound nice, particularly and can be particularly beneficial to a person struggling with their relationship with food. Yeah. But on the other hand, for, you know, most people, especially in a time when 1 in 2 people are obese, not just overweight, but obese, I mean, this messaging, all it does is continue to foment sickness and confusion about what it means to be Healthy today.

The one I love is the one I love is everything in moderation. Oh please! I always get my counter that is yeah sniffing glue a little bit of that no big deal. I don't know if people do that anymore. In my day, that was the worst thing a person could do. But I came face to many times I've come face to face with this. One of them was on CBS This Morning, and people there's a YouTube video of it if you put in CBS This Morning Perlmutter. Where I was given a heads up the night before my appearance. I had revised Grain Brain, and I was on that show to talk about it. And I was given a heads up that they're gonna— they're going after me. So right off the bat, Gayle King said, you know, Dr. Perlmutter, you've been talking about sugar being so bad, and we reached out to the sugar industry. That would be an objective assessment of sugars. Health benefits and/or threat. And they told us that sugar is good in moderation, and they had a stack of chocolate chip cookies as their graphic. And then they asked me, um, uh, what, what is your comment? And, uh, no, then they asked me about gluten. I said, before we get to the gluten, I've got to respond to the sugar, uh, comment. I said that, you know, this comment, you're quoting the sugar industry. It's like when the tobacco industry used to tell us to smoke cigarettes, it was good for our health. Let's call it like it is. And, you know, I could see that each of those individuals, I think Nora O'Donnell, you know, all these CBS This Morning individuals had been— they had been given a heads up to really discredit me, discredit the fact that I was saying, hey, you know, we ought to cut back on the refined foods and the sugar that we're eating because it looks like a lot of people, like you say, are getting fat, developing diabetes, hypertension, and BTW, Alzheimer's, which is a metabolic issue, sure as the day is long. And, you know, people don't want to recognize that. No sponsorship would like Dr. Perlmutter to be accosted, and they did their best, but, you know, unfortunately, I was given a heads up. I can't tell you from who, so we have a mole in the industry. But anyway, we're going to put the link to the To the documentary. It should have appeared several times below you or below us. This is really a fantastic film, and I'm so excited for you, and I honor you. I really honor you for what you're doing. You know, it was a very, very difficult situation that so many people go through to a large degree unnecessarily. That's the difficult part. And, you know, what you've done with it to It can't alleviate your suffering, can't bring your mother back, but there are others for whom this may be helpful. God bless you. It's really quite wonderful.

Thank you so much, David. You're a hero to me as well. Back at the very beginning of this journey with my mom, there were very few places that I could turn to for insight, especially early on when I was naive to the literature on brain health and you know, modifiable risk factors and the like, stumbling upon your work, the work of Suzanne De La Monte, of Terry Wahls. I mean, you guys are just like paragons in the field and have done so much good for so many. And it really is an honor to have you in the film, to get to call you a friend and a colleague. And, you know, at the end of the day, my passion, my mission in life, really my purpose, is helping to alleviate suffering. So that what my mom went through, what my family went through, wasn't in vain.

And when you watch the film, that's so clear. I mean, if that was the mission of creating this film, you did it. You hit it out of the park. And I think that people after watching it are going to be, you know, a bit shell-shocked about what is really going on and start to ask questions. And if we can get more questions asked, then I think people will be open to different types of answers than simply reverting back to the status quo. Ronald Reagan famously said that status quo is Latin for the— Latin term for the mess we're in. And certainly as it relates to Alzheimer's, we're in a big mess right now, and the status quo is just not good enough. So you're going to move people away from that and begin asking those really important questions. So thanks for that.

Thank you so much, David.

Okay, we'll talk soon. Let us know what we can do.

Yeah, littleemptyboxes.com. Watch the film, share it with friends and loved ones. And, uh, connect with me on social media, listen to the podcast.

Your podcast, The Genius Life.

Yeah, The Genius Life. But first and foremost, watch, watch the documentary Little Empty Boxes.

You got it. All right, my friend, we'll talk soon.

Thank you, David.

I love spending time with Max. Oh my gosh, um, what a dedicated, kind, loving, smart, uh, individual. And his podcast, The Genius Life, is certainly, uh, very valuable in terms of information. And this documentary, I think, is something that all should watch. It really sets the tone for where we are in terms of treating Alzheimer's disease and does in fact open the door to what the future may hold. So I encourage you all to take a look. I'm Dr. David Perlmutter here on The Empowering Neurologist. Thank you so much for joining me, and I'll be back soon. Bye for now.