How To Improve Memory, Focus, And Cognition

Coming up on this episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

Your brain can grow. You can rebuild brain tissue that's been damaged by the insults. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. To all the healthcare practitioners out there, let me ask you a question. Would you like to make your life a little easier? I'm sure the answer is yes. As a functional medicine doctor, I know you can relate about how complicated and time consuming ordering lab tests can be. Thankfully, with Rupa Health, You can easily order lab tests from more than 30 different lab companies such as Dutch, Great Plains, Genova, Access, Medical Laboratories and many more, all from one convenient location. This is really a much needed option in functional medicine. Rupa Health has saved me a ton of time in ordering labs and helped me provide better service for my patients. Lab ordering is quick and painless with Rupa Health and best of all, it's free for practitioners. So sign up for free today. You can find out more information by going to rupahealth.com, that's R-U-P-A-Health.com. .com Now I keep hearing my friends and patients say they're dreading the darker, colder winter months. It can be a tough time of year for me too, but there's one tool I use every day to feel my best despite the shorter days. It's the Joov Red Light Therapy devices. Joov doesn't fully replace natural sunlight, but it does deliver similar wavelengths of light called red and near infrared. Thousands of peer review research articles have demonstrated the health benefits of red and near infrared light for things like skin health, reduced pain and inflammation, and faster muscle recovery. I use my Joov after intense workouts and I always notice less joint pain and muscle soreness the next day, and I feel so restored and rested. Joov offers several different light therapy options, from small handheld devices to large setups that can treat your entire body. Their medical grade devices have passed rigorous third party testing, which is not something any of the other at home red light therapy products on the market can say about their product. Joov's latest generation of products have a cool future called recovery plus mode. It utilizes advanced pulsing technology designed to give yourselves an extra boost of recovery. Using recovery plus mode after workouts or to heal injuries is a game changer when it comes to red light therapy. For a limited time, Joovv is offering all my listeners an exclusive discount of $50 off their first order. Just go to joovv.com/pharmacy and apply my code, FARMACY, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, to your qualifying order. Again, that's J-O-O-V-V-B.com/pharmacy. / slash pharmacy and some inclusions may apply in this limited time offer. Be sure to check it out today. And now let's get back to this.

Week'S episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

Hi, this is Lauren Fein, one of the producers of the Doctor's Pharmacy podcast. As we grow older, many of us fear cognitive decline and the loss of our ability to perform everyday tasks. This is particularly worrisome with the unprecedented rates of Alzheimer's disease that we're currently seeing. But just as it's possible to retain movement and mobility as we age, it's also possible to keep a sharp and healthy brain. In today's episode, we feature three conversations from the Doctor's Pharmacy about proactive ways to identify potential problem areas in the brain and how to optimize brain function. Dr. Hyman speaks with Dr. Dale Bredesen about a multi-pronged way to evaluate brain health, which he terms a cognoscopy, with Jim Quick about practical ways to stimulate the brain and improve memory, and with Dr. Daniel Amen about his comprehensive Bright Minds Brain Health Plan. Let's dive in.

Everybody knows they should get a colonoscopy to check their colon, but you come up with this term called a cognoscopy, which I love, which is essentially, how do you do a deep dive into your brain and all the things that affect your brain that cause risk of cognitive issues? And by the way, All the things that you measure with a cognoscopy are all the things we measure for any chronic illness to look at. And some are more prevalent in different illnesses. But with Alzheimer's, you've really come up with a model of a cognoscopy. So can you talk about what is a cognoscopy? What should we be looking for? How do we get it?

Can we get it with our regular doctor? Or is this something that you really need specialized care for?

Yeah, it's a great point.

And people have told me, don't use that term cognoscopy. It sounds so cool. I know, but it's simple. It's easy to remember. And we all know we should get a colonoscopy when we turn 50. So we recommend everybody 45 or older get a cognoscopy. and as you said, it is things related to chronic illness, but the key is to prioritize. I mean, that's the key. The people who are getting the best results, as you know, are the ones who are prioritizing the things that are the most important drivers. It's different for each person. For some person, you know, it's going to be getting at that barreley, every other person, it's going to be getting at that mycotoxin. And another person, it's going to be the glyco toxicity. So today it's very simple to get.

Mold, one might be lime, one might be Sugar, right? Sugar, what may be sugar?

It might be mercury, might be mercury, right? And might be vascular. A common one is people just don't have the vascular support for their brain and this is why they are downsizing. And so if we return that support, we return the oxygenation and the blood flow, they do better. So the way you can get a cognoscopy, it is three things. It is number one, a set of blood and urine tests, easy to do. Number two, it is a simple online cognitive assessment. and if you're completely asymptomatic and doing great and you're just in for prevention, you can stop there, just those two things. If you have any symptoms or you're not scoring well on the cognitive tests, you wanna include number three, which is an MRI with volumetrics. You wanna know the volume of your hippocampus. You wanna know the volumes of your.

Frontal lobes and your parietal lobes and things like that. and hippocampus is that little memory center in the brain, tends to shrink. Right. and I've heard you present some cases that when you've done these cognoscopies, you start these interventions that are in the end of Alzheimer's program, your new book, which everybody should get, and you map out the changes over time when you implement the Bredesen Protocol. And remember the story you told of the neurologist, the neuroradiologist, who looked at the scans and was like, this was before and this is after. This is, doesn't make any sense. I've never seen this in my entire life to go from like, 20% of what it should be to 70 or 80 or 90% of what it should be. Can you explain how that happens?

Absolutely. And we see this again and again and again. We're actually just publishing another paper showing not only increase in hippocampal volume, but also improvement in PET scans where you go from a PET scan that shows Alzheimer's to a PET scan that doesn't show Alzheimer's. We also see improvements in electrophysiology. So improvements in EEG, improvements in evoked responses, and of course improvements repeatedly in cognitive scoring and testing. So this is happening because you are putting the things in that actually support the brain, you're getting hormones and trophic factors that are critical. So the brain is now making the synapses once again. Now we don't know yet, is it making more neurons? Is it making just more synapses? Is it changing in terms of its astroglialosis? We don't yet know what's happening at the cellular level, but we do know that that atrophy is improving in many of these people.

So you said two things there that sort of struck me. One is that your brain can grow. You can rebuild brain tissue that's been damaged by the insults and literally grow your memory center, which correlates with improved cognitive function on the brain cognitive testing. And second, you said you can do a brain scan that you can see Alzheimer's on. You can repeat the brain scan and the Alzheimer's markers on the brain scan are gone.

Gone.

That's like what stopped presses, headline news, why isn't this on the COVID of New England Journal, JAMA, cover of New York Times, Wall Street Journal, what's going on here?

Yeah, well, partly because of course the standard is do 1000 people and then do the whole study. So at the beginning, you have to start somewhere. We're just getting the airplane off the ground, you got to start somewhere. So we're looking, as you said, at these various cases, we are in the midst, I should say, of the first trial in history in which we look at all the different contributors for each person and do all address all these different things. We'll be finished with that in December, so very enthusiastic about that trial. But yes, we do see in these anecdotes that we're now looking at, we see improvements in PET scanning and electrophysiology and hippocampal volume and all these things. When you are getting these people to improve and to do the right things, you're literally just restoring a synaptoblastic neurochemistry.

And what that means is you're creating a brain that likes to build new brain cells.

That is capable. It's over almost 30 years ago it was discovered. It was, of course, I was taught years and years ago that the brain doesn't make new neurons. You get the ones you have and that's it. And then about 30 years ago it became clear that, hey, there are neural stem cells and you actually do make new neurons throughout life. And so it's a question of which ones do you keep and do you have them interact with other neurons? Do they become part of the functional network. So it turns out you do make more of them. And if you do the right things, you can keep them and you can keep their interactions.

Now, one of the big topics that you cover is the microbiome, leaky gut, inflammation, Alzheimer's. And so most neurologists aren't saying, well, let me look at your digestive system. Let me look at your gut and seeing if there's inflammation there. And how does that connect to the brain? And we talked to a colleague of ours, Rudy Tansy, who's been pioneering some of the work around finding microbes in the brain. We thought the brain was sterile. We thought the brain had a blood-brain barrier that prevented anything bad from getting in. Well, it turns out that barrier is only semi-permeable and that things can get in and they can be even microbes. So can you talk about this amazing research on the gut and the brain and the microbiome and how that impacts what we have to do with patients with Alzheimer's? And by the way, that patient that I had who had really had brain dysfunction, her main issue was her gut. And we fixed it up after decades of being constipated, needing Enemas to go to the bathroom and laxatives and tons of bad bugs growing in there. It was just amazing what happened. We fixed all of that.

Absolutely. I think that when your neurologist makes a diagnosis of Alzheimer's or pre-Alzheimer's, the best thing the neurologist can do is refer the patient to a functional medicine doctor to deal with all the things that are driving this problem. But of course, the neurologists have felt like, oh, this is our province. We have to give the drug and watch you go downhill, which is really unfortunate. I think that's gonna change. Absolutely. the gut is a driver. And I think one of the most interesting studies that was done in the last couple of years was a group, they were actually studying rodents, but what they were doing was injecting Candida. And they wanted to see how long does the blood-brain barrier keep the Candida. They injected it into the blood vessels and asked, okay, what happens when it goes by the brain? How long can the brain keep it out? And the answer was it went in immediately. So there is, yeah, Candida, this is in a normal animal. So the fact of the matter is there is much more communication just as you pointed out and as Rudy has been pointing out, there is much more communication between the brain and the periphery than anyone thought possible. And what have the pathologists shown us? When they look in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's, what do they see? Herpes simplex in the brain. They see Candida in the brain. They see Borrelia in the brain. They see P. gingivalis from your dentition in the brain. All these different gum disease. So the bottom line is our brains are communicating with the periphery much much more than anyone thought before. And as you said, we actually probably have a normal brain, as much as that kind of blows my mind, we actually probably do have a normal brain microbiome and we're going to have to have probiotics for our brain at some point.

Cognobiotics, right?

Cognobiotics, yeah, there we go.

Wow, that's incredible. But, you know, the approach also that is needed is something we don't do in traditional medicine, which is how do you restore a healthy microbiome?

Right.

And this is what the focus of functional medicine is, how do you take the symptoms that people have, or even they may not have any symptoms in the gut, but look at the environment in there and optimize it by taking up the bad stuff, putting in the good stuff, and using the functional medicine approach to really heal the gut. So I think what you're saying is that each patient is different and some may have gut issues, some may have other issues. One of the other issues that really affects people is heavy metals. And there's been a lot of talk in the past about aluminum and Alzheimer's, but it was sort of, you know, sort of ignored. And I remember a patient I had, one of the first patients that I was like, I don't know what I'm doing with Alzheimer's. This patient has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's dementia. I have no clue if anything I'm going to do is going to work, but I'm going to try my basic framework of functional medicine to see if we can just take out the bad stuff and put in the good stuff. So I did a cognoscopy of sorts. Yeah. Got rid of the dementogens. And what was really striking about this guy Dale was he was Seven years old, he was a CEO of his major family business, couldn't function at all. So it was in the corner basically depressed and not functioning. Nobody wanted to be around him. And he had pretty significant dementia. But when I looked at his story, he grew up in Pittsburgh and he lived in Pittsburgh and there's a steel plants there. And almost every patient of mine from Pittsburgh is mercury toxic because they put coal ash on the streets, they put it on the fields, gets in the food, it's in the air. and he had a mouthful of fillings. And normally, you know, normally when you do a challenge test for mercury with a patient in functional medicine, you know, you see a level of 20 or 50. That's like you worry about that. That's high. Yeah. 100, you know, I've had, you know, maybe 20 in my whole life of doing, pay me 10, 20,000 tests. His was 350. I'd never seen anything like that. Yeah. One other patient, I think I had 400, but almost nobody like that. And, and I got rid of his fillings. We detoxed it from the mercury. He also had, all these genes like APOE double four, he had methylation gene problems, it has to be vitamins, he had genes that affect insulin resistance, he had years of gut issues, he had irritable bowel for decades and was on stellazine for his gut. And so he had all these issues that we treated. So we fixed his insulin and blood sugar, we fixed his gut, we fixed his B vitamins, we got rid of the mercury. And the guy literally came back like Rip Van Winkle from the dead. And it was the most striking thing I'd ever seen in my life. I was like, Holy cow, like I just cured Alzheimer's. And I'm like, and this was like 15 years ago. And I'm like, what? And, and, and it was, that was really began the process of me going, wait a minute, the brain is so fixable if we understand the insults, which you have mapped out so well in the end of Alzheimer's, and if we understand how to actually repair and heal the system. So talk about mercury and the metals and how these affect the brain, because this is a, this is not to say that everybody with Alzheimer's has heavy metals, so they don't. but I've had a number of patients that makes a huge difference when you deal with it.

Yeah, but as you said, you know, a certain number of them, that is the key piece. And here's the thing, you know, I mentioned earlier, your brain makes amyloid when it is under attack by microbes because it's trying to kill the microbes. But interestingly, the gene itself that amyloid comes from, which is called amyloid precursor protein, is a gene that is responsive to metals. So there's literally a metal binding region on the RNA, this piece that's going to be making the protein. So it is, it responds to mercury, it responds to copper, zinc, iron. So this thing is part of what's binding up those metals. So it actually binds up. So what happens is you can actually give mercury. And as you indicated, mercury is literally a cause of Alzheimer's, not in everybody, but in a small group of people. probably something like 3 to 5% of all Alzheimer's patients, which still, it's a lot of them, there are going to be 45 million people with it who are the currently living Americans. 45 million of us will develop Alzheimer's during our lifetime.

Five percent is a couple of million of people have mental issues.

Exactly. This is a big problem. So this is why, as you said, you want to check this on everybody because if that's one of the contributors, you need to deal with it. And when you do, they do better. And it does It increases the production of the amyloid and it both, interestingly, it induces the amyloid and it induces the tau as well. So it is a great way if you want to give yourself Alzheimer's, take some mercury. Eat some sushi.

Exactly. But the funny thing is, you know, that not everybody accumulates the mercury and it's a lot has to do with genetic creation. I personally had mercury toxicity and I had cognitive dysfunction. I felt like I had dementia. Really, I did. my level wasn't 350, it was 187, which is bad enough still. Yeah. And still bad enough. And so I, I understand from a personal point of view what this does. And it's one of the most potent toxins on the planet, probably second only to plutonium. It is the most potent neurotoxin. And, and it's just, it's inconsequential to me that we don't, as a profession, really think about the role of toxins. We check the blood levels, but that doesn't really reflect the total body burden of these metals. And so there are ways through functional medicine and the approach you're talking about to really do this. Let's talk about the next topic, which is, you know, hormones. and I think, you know, I've seen some really interesting responses to hormones around thyroid, sex hormones. This is what we call a trophic factor. So it's not something that's hurting you, it's something that you're lacking, that your brain needs to function. So talk about some of the big.

Hormonal findings and what you're seeing with these patients. Yeah, and there's some elegant work published out of the Mayo Clinic a number of years ago where they simply looked at women who had oophorectomies for whatever reason. Take their ovaries out. I'd say take their ovaries. Moved it up the ovaries, right, at the age of 40 or younger who did not get BHRT versus one who not get hormone replacement versus those who did get hormone replacement. And even though the hormone replacement has been imperfect for many of these, there was a striking difference. The ones who did not get the hormone replacement had a more than doubling of the risk for developing Alzheimer's, even though the Alzheimer's wasn't diagnosed till years later. Wow. It goes perfectly with the science that we talked about earlier. This APP is looking for support, and when it does not get that support, it's flipping over to the synaptoclastic. It's saying, We can't support this brain. And it goes beyond just estradiol to progesterone and pregnenolone and testosterone and vitamin D and all these things. Thyroid hormone as well. These are all critical. And so repeatedly people have come upon the fact that you're getting this at the time often when you're losing those hormones or down the road from this. And we see a lot of people now, something I never saw when I was training, people who are in their 50s, women who are going through menopause or perimenopause who have their first symptoms at that time. So for a number of reasons, it's huge. Not only the support side, but also, as Dr. Chris Shade has pointed out, progesterone is one of the most critical parts for your detoxification apparatus. So when you now get this relative lowering of so-called relative estradiol excess or estrogen excess, this is because you've lost both, but you've lost the progesterone to a greater extent. You are at increased risk for toxin-related Alzheimer's disease, and you're now getting this synaptoclastic burst. You are re-releasing these toxins, including mercury, that you have sequestered for so many years. So by multiple mechanisms, having too low a support from your hormones is a critical risk factor for cognitive decline.

Yeah, and there is controversy about hormone replacement, particularly around cancer. Do you worry about that?

Do, absolutely. And so I think it's critical to have people see experts in this area. You know, Dr. Ann Hathaway, Dr. Prudence Hall and many people who are BHRT experts who look at when's the best time to do this, what are the best doses, where can you improve, can you get the better outcome than this worry? Yeah, there is a worry about cancer, although some of the studies have actually shown reduced with appropriate use of estrogen and progesterone, reduced likelihood of cancer. So you really want to stack those against each other.

And there's very personalized approaches to this, depending on your genetics or family history, you know, what, what actually is going on with you, what your biology is, and actually helping women to personalize the treatment using the biological hormone replacement, not absolutely the kind that comes from horse year, which is what a lot of the studies were done. So we don't even have big studies on the good stuff. Hey, everyone, it's Dr. Mark here. We all know that exercise is an extremely important part of maintaining our overall wellness. But our post-workout routine can be just as important to our health. Did you know that when you sweat, you lose sodium and other electrolytes? And when it's not replaced, it's common to experience muscle cramps and fatigue. Now, many of us turn to brand name electrolyte drink replacements, but unfortunately, most of these companies pedal drinks that are full of sugar, food coloring, and other junk and worse. But this is what makes Element different. That's LMNT. ElemeNt. Their tasty electrolyte drink has everything you need and nothing you don't. It contains a science-backed ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to keep your electrolytes balanced, and there's no sugar, coloring, artificial ingredients, gluten, or fillers. ElemeNt is used by everyone from NBA players and Navy SEALs to busy moms, exercise enthusiasts, including me, and it's also perfectly suited to anyone following a keto, low-carb, or paleo diet. Right now, ElemeNt is offering my listeners a free sample pack with any purchase. That's eight single serving packets free with any element order. It's a great way to try all eight flavors or share element with a friend. Get yours at drinklmnt.com/hymen and get it today. Did you know that cooking from scratch is the healthiest way to eat? Plus, if you're like me, it's a ton of fun too. Now, you might think using any cooking oil is fine as long as you're the one doing the cooking, but unfortunately most oils have been linked to all kinds of health or environmental issues. Zero Acre Farms has a solution. Zero Acre oil is an all-purpose cooking oil with more healthy monounsaturated fat and significantly less inflammatory omega-6 fat than even avocado and olive oil. And while all the oils have had their issues with adulteration and rancidity, every bottle of Zero Acre comes with a QR code that you can scan to validate purity. It also works with any recipe because it's clean and neutral tastes makes it undetectable and it's got a high smoke point. I love that it brings out the taste of my other ingredients. Even something simple like an omelet has more flavor. So head over to zeroacre.com for an exclusive offer. Go to zeroacre.com/mark and use the code MARK at checkout to claim this deal. That's Z-E-R-O-A-C-R-E.com/mark.

And now let's get back to this.

Week'S episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy. Let's talk about nutrition. We're going to talk about diet in a little bit, but I want to talk about the widespread nutritional deficiencies that you're seeing. and how those play a role in the brain and cognitive decline and what are the most important nutrients we need to be focusing on.

Yeah, you know, it's amazing to me because we've got so many things working against us. And obviously, you've written probably more on this than anyone, looking at the critical nature of nutrients for your health, you know, looking at all, you know, changing the world one bite at a time and all these fantastic things that you've done. And this fits again, it just fits perfectly with the science that we've studied over the years. And so, you know, Paul Clayton Oxford has pointed out that we don't even have the nutrients in the soils that people had 100 years ago, 200 years ago, when we were thinking, you know, these people, wow, they didn't know what they were doing. They were doing much better than we are because they actually, he's pointing out that, you know, Henry VIII had better nutrition than we do. Of course, he ended up being obese and had problems with arthritis and things, but the key is that they actually had better soil. So we've got essentially a triple whammy. Number one, we have we have poor soils and therefore we have poor overall nutrition. Number two, we're eating food that's way too high in sugar, obviously, and way too high in processed foods, all these issues. So we're eating stuff that's toxic. And then number three, we're not getting enough, nearly enough fiber, nearly enough phytonutrients. So we have this system. It's as if you took your car out and you're trying to drive this car that needs appropriate fuel and you're putting stuff in that is very low octane. It's just sputtering. sputtering. It's having trouble getting out of the block. It's just, you know, you might go a little way, you might, and that's what we're all dealing with every day. So if you see crappy fuel, you optimize those things. You get people into some ketosis. You get them appropriate fiber for detox and for their microbiome. You get them appropriate low-carb diet. You do, you get the appropriate night of phytonutrients. And by the way, one of the most common deficiencies Choline, as you know, choline is needed to make acetylcholine, which is a critical neurotransmitter for memory and is reduced in people with Alzheimer's. And I've checked myself on a chronometer and I realize I'm not getting enough choline in my diet. You know, we should be getting around 550 milligrams or so of choline each day.

Which you get from eggs and sardines.

You get it from sardines and from liver, obviously, organ meats, things like that, from oysters, things like that, a number of vegetables as well. Or you can, if you're not getting it from there, take some citicoline. This is why Professor Wurtman from MIT found that citicoline is so helpful for synapse formation. So, lots of ways to get choline, but please make sure that you get enough. So all of these things are critical.

So what besides choline is so important for the brain? Nutrient. What nutrients?

I'll take flavanols, flavanols and flavonoids, those alone. A study that just came out showing that over thousands of people, those who were in the highest quartile of flavonols had a much lower dementia risk than those who were in the lowest quartile of flavonols. So, things like strawberries and things like grapes and things like that are all helpful to give you the flavonols and then the flavonoids, things like blueberries and things like that, all critical.

So, those are like 25,000 different phytochemicals and plants.

Exactly.

And, flavonols and flavonoids are part of those. and so eating a rainbow colored diet where half your plate is vegetables is a simple take home to protect your brain and pretty much everything else that could go wrong with you. So we've got choline, we've got flavonoids and phytonutrients. What other major nutrients are an issue?

Well, you know, the minerals. So the key ones that almost all of us are deficient, as you know, in zinc. And zinc has become a huge issue because of COVID-19. So many of the people who are deficient in zinc are reduced and have an increased poor outcome, increased risk for having a poor outcome from COVID-19. So zinc, magnesium, iodine, potassium, those are the big four that most of us are deficient in. And then of course, vitamin D, as you know, the study that just came out about 10 days ago showing if you take the people who are low in vitamin D, they have a much worse outcome in COVID-19 than the people who have sufficient vitamin D. And of course, Alzheimer's is no different. The same thing you see People who are low in vitamin D, more likely to get Alzheimer's, people who are sufficient vitamin D, and of course, same thing in multiple sclerosis, high vitamin D associated with better outcomes. So as you said, it's multiple diseases that all depend on these critical factors.

Some of the most important things that I found are B vitamins. I once had a patient who was about 80 something years old, she was on multiple boards, very successful woman, but was noticing depression and really severe cognitive decline and been diagnosed with MCI her pre-dementia told to get her affairs in order. She came to see me and I'm like checked her levels and found she had a really high level of something called methylmalonic acid and homocysteine, which are things that most doctors don't check but reflect your status of B12, which is methylmalonic acid and homocysteine, which is the folate and even B6. So, I basically gave her B12 shots, high doses of methylfolate, which is a particular kind. Saw she had some genes that made her need a special kind of suddenly. And she called me back and was doing amazing. And all of her symptoms had gone away. And then a few years later, maybe four or five years later, she called me up and I thought, oh, I saw my schedule. I'm like, maybe she's not doing well. She's declining. I kind of worry about her a little bit. And, and she's like, Dr. Hyman, you know, I'm going trekking in Bhutan, and I want to know what I should do to prepare and what I should be taking with. So I was like, okay. And I think, you know, sometimes it's that simple, but it's not always that simple, but I think understanding the role of nutrients and nutritional deficiencies is huge. It's far more common than we think. You can't get everything you need from food. I think a lot of the reason the studies on vitamins have failed in Mars trials, whether it's for cancer or heart disease, is because they're not dealing with the whole system. If you're eating donuts all day, you can take all the fish oil or vitamin D you want, it's not going to do anything to fix your risk of heart disease, right? So you have to look at everything together. so let's talk about this concept you talked about called keto flex. We've touched on it a number of times. But what is the diet that's best for your brain? And what is the diet that's best for your brain if you actually have Alzheimer's?

Yeah, great point. So let me preface this by saying I know far less about nutrition than you do. So, you know, I'm really talking to someone who's an expert here. I'm looking at the neurochemistry. So I'm interested in synapses, how they're made, how do you keep them? And ketoflex 12-3 is nothing more than what's the thing we can use to drive your biochemistry toward an optimal biochemistry for making and keeping synapses. And so what do you need? You need to have ketosis. You need to have all the nutrients we were just talking about for support. You need to have high fiber because you need to help yourself detox. You need to improve your microbiome, all those sorts of things. You need to have appropriate probiotics to to support your microbiome. And you need to have fasting periods for autophagy, fasting periods for helping you to get into ketosis, fasting periods for all the great things that fasting does, even in things like lowering your blood pressure. Hypertension is another big risk factor for Alzheimer's. So if you put all that biochemistry together and you mix it up in a blender and you say, what's the diet? We named it Ketoflex 12-3. It's ketotic, it's mildly ketotic, it's plant rich. This is not a bacon related ketotic diet, ketogenic diet. This is a plant rich, high good fats, intermediate proteins, low carb, and no simple carbs. It is flexitarian. And I realize flexitarian means you have to eat some meat and fish. It's really more about flexibility. You want to be a vegetarian, no problem. Make sure to check your homocysteine and your vitamin D and things like that, but fine. If you want to have some meat, you know, have some fish.

It's hard to be, I think, a keto if you're not eating animal protein. I mean, you can do it as a vegan or vegetarian, but it's harder because you harder to eat, reduce the carbohydrate load because you need the protein from beans and grains and things like that.

So how do you do that with those patients? Yeah, that's a great point. And so, you know, again, because getting into ketosis is so critical for supporting brain energetics, we tell them, just start by taking some exogenous ketones. Do it for a couple of months, no problem, because we need to get.

That energy up past the threshold.

So taking it as a supplement.

Supplement.

Exactly. Then you can get yourself into endogenous ketosis. And we do that by increasing the fat consumption and all the appropriate oils and the nuts and the seeds and all the things that you've written about that are excellent sources of good dietary fats. And then again, and then if they can't get into enough ketosis, okay, we can supplement that a little bit to get them where they need to be. So it's then, so that's the flex part. And then 12-3 is 12 hours as a minimum. And if you're APOE4 positive, you should really make it 14 to 16 hours of a fast between when you finish your dinner, when you start your breakfast, brunch or lunch, and then the three is for three hours before you go to bed. You don't want to be eating right before bed because it'll spike your insulin, reduce your growth hormone and your melatonin and so forth and so on. So, this is why Ketoflex 12:3 is essentially our attempt to take the neurochemistry of synaptogenesis and to put it into a diet.

A lot of people do not remember names, not because they're not capable of remembering because the truth is 95, if I was to ask your audience right now who has challenges remembering names, 99% of them will say if they're honest, I do. I'm bad at remembering names. And then I will say, okay, well let's say Mark has a suitcase of a million dollars cash for you. If you just remember the name of the next stranger you meet, who's gonna remember that person's name for a million dollars cash tax free for your favorite charity? Everybody. So all of a sudden, your whole audience is full of memory experts now. So it's actually a lie. A lie. And these are the lies we tell ourselves. I'm not good at remembering names.

We have to be present to it.

Exactly. And you need a reason because here's the thing. Not everybody remembers everyone's name, but we certainly don't forget everyone's name either. And if you reverse engineer it, you'll find that there's a method behind what looks like magic. You didn't just happen to remember the person's name, there was a motivation, there was a motive for taking action, there was a purpose.

And you've got special tricks.

How do you remember 100 people in an audience? Well, even here, and we'll go through the methods, even here, a simple trick would be asking yourself, why do I want to remember the person's name? Because a lot of people's names you remember are people you're attracted to, people who could be good for your brand or your business, right? There's an inherent motivation. And so when you're meeting somebody and you want to remember their name, ask yourself, to yourself, why do I want to remember the person's name? Because write this down, as, as I know a lot of people are taking notes. Reasons reap results. If you do not have a reason to do something, you will not do it. Reasons reap rewards. And so the first part is like a lot of people, they can't get themselves to read. They want to read a book a week. You know, we know if the average person reads two or three books a year, but a book a week, 52 books a year, that will transform your life, but a lot of people can't get themselves to read 10, 15, 20 minutes a day because they're not associating themselves to the reason. But let's say they do have a clear reason. The second part of the formula besides having a purpose is energy. What keeps people from, and this is never really talked about in books, because you'll get books on mindset, you'll have books on motivation, but a key element to motivation, your motive for taking action, like the proof that your is your acting, right? And so what I'm thinking about is energy. Some people could have a clear reason to read, to work out, but they have no energy. Like they didn't sleep the night before, right? Or they're super stressed, so they lack the vitality to do that action. And that's keeping them from doing those sales calls or taking that road trip or to do the things that they need to to be able to do. And so you need to look at energy. So in here, I talk about 10 ways of jump starting your mental vitality, right? Which includes maximizing your sleep, stress management, and I quote you in there also a lot about the brain foods. Because as we talked about on your show, what you eat matters, especially for your gray matter. And then once you have, you're motivated, see my question is always critical thinking. I'm thinking, okay, is the person, if I'm programming this robot, for example, if it has a reason, is it going to do it? Not necessarily. It needs energy. Okay, so let's say it has a reason and energy. Is it motivated yet? The one thing I could think of that it won't take action on is because the thing that they're thinking about is too big. Meaning that you think about, oh, I want to start a business. Like how do you like that's not, that's not a task or a step, right? So the third part are small, simple steps. Because this is motivation for me is about, you know, time management. This is energy management. Having a clear purpose gives you energy and clarity because something that's not clear takes away energy. You know, having energy and energized brain gives you energy. And then finally, small, simple steps require very little energy. They require very little effort. So my thing with getting people to really make functional change, like to put down this food and pick up this junk, pick up in this food, is to break it down in a small simple step. Meaning that instead of thinking your goal is to have the perfect relationship or the perfect body, how do you break it down into the smallest step where you cannot fail? It's like this, you know, it's like.

The BJ Fogg framework, right?

Exactly. So in here we talk about reverse engineering your habits. And I take Dr. BJ Fogg, who heads the Behavior Lab at Stanford University, and he talks about tiny habits. He's saying, Hey, flossing your teeth, we all know it's good for your long-term health. Floss one tooth. Floss one tooth. Same thing with reading. If you want to read a book a week, don't focus on that 45 minutes a day that it takes to read a book. Or if you learn speed reading, do it 15 minutes a day. Hey, read one one sentence, because nobody's gonna stop after one sentence. It's not like, oh, I gotta do this one hour Soul cycle. It's like, I gotta put, I gotta.

Get myself out the door. Well, I did it because I, I hated, like, weightlifting and push-ups and all that stuff. I love to run and bike and tennis and all that. And I, I decided, okay, I want to start doing more strength stuff, so I'm gonna start with push-ups right? I can do that. I'm like, well, I really can barely do 10 push-ups but I'm gonna start.

And I realized, well, what do I need?

Well, I'm motivated. I have reason I'm aging. I want to age well and motivated. You have energy.

And I have the energy.

So I realized I shower pretty much every day. Okay.

And I turn the shower on.

It takes like a few minutes to warm up. So I do push-ups before I walk. So the trigger is the turning the shower on. And then I do my push-ups and I want from 10 to 50 push-ups that's amazing. Just by just these little steps.

And it works. And here's the thing. It's, it's really, if you're consistent, you could achieve it. But if you're consistent, you could keep it. You could keep it. You know, I believe consistency compounds that little by little, a little becomes a lot. And that's how you create a transformation in an individual or in a culture, like the movement that you have with food fix. It's these little things that add up, that add up to big things, you know, over time. So that's motivation.

And the third part.

And then the third circle on here, once you have and the motivation, are you getting the result? Not necessarily. What's the one thing that's missing? The third M, which is the method, right? The methodology. You need to know how to do it. So the mindset is the what, the motivation is the why, your reason, and then the methods are the how. Now here's the thing. This is where the magic comes in. I want everyone to think about something they want to be more limitlessly meaning progress, make progress, make some advancements that are measurable. The minds where mindset in this Venn diagram crosses over with motivation, that's where you have something called, I call inspiration. And because I alliterate everything, 3Ms, here are your three Is. So mindset crosses over with motivation, you have inspiration. And there are books on mindset and there are books on motivation, right? And there are books on inspiration. or social media posts or speakers or something. That's inspiration. Now, that doesn't mean that you're going to have the result because what are you missing? You're missing the methods. Now, if you have the motivation and the methods, then you have the second I where that crosses over, you have implementation. But the problem is you're doing it, right? You're motivated and you know what to do, but the ceiling in your results is your mindset. what you feel like you deserve, what you feel like you're capable of. Because all behavior is going to be belief driven. If your mindset is, I have a horrible memory, you can be motivated and know what to do and you still won't remember because the behavior will be limited by the belief.

So show me the money. What are the methods?

And then so we're getting, so in the book we show people how to unravel these negative beliefs that hold them back. Now finally where mindset crosses over with methods, that's where you have ideation. So you have inspiration, you have implementation, and then you have ideation. You have the right mindset. You have this winner growth mindset. Anything is possible. I deserve it all. And you have the methods, right? But you're not motivated. So it just stays as an idea. This is ideation where people just analysis paralysis, think about all these different things. Where all three of these intersect, where mindset, motivation and methods intersect, where inspiration, implementation and ideation intersect is a fourth I which is integration. Because ultimately real transformation is a full integration and that sweet spot where all three connect is that limitless state. And that's really, I believe this limitless model is as an explanatory schema for anyone, for themselves, their team, their family, if there's a gap between where they are and where they want to be. This book is about redrawing the borders and boundaries of what we have.

So give us some practical tips. How do you, for example, read 25 to 50% faster? Remember names or numbers or bullet points? And how do you, what are those methods?

Let's do it. So going to the...

I mean, I want to get a free console here.

No, no, no. Let's do it actually. We'll do actual coaching here. So the book is broken down into three sections. So it's actually three books in one, where we go through and dissect mindset, and we talk about the limiting beliefs that hold us back and the truth, right? Because we talk about these seven lies. And lie for me is a limited idea, entertained. It's not the truth. It's an idea that we give energy to, that we entertain, that we picked up. Because here's the thing when it comes to this, because I'm going to talk about speed reading, some people, I could teach them the method, but they could believe they're stupid, or they could believe they're a small, they're a slow reader, or they could believe they are a procrastinator and they won't do the method. So we debunk these lies because they're really BS, right? They're belief systems, right? So assuming people have the right mindset and they're motivated, to read because some people, you can teach them what to do, they still won't do it because they're not, they know they could do it but they don't feel it, like the benefits of what it'd be like. Like for me, an example I share in the book is the reason I'm here today is because when I was 18 years old and I learned these skills, my life transformed and I couldn't help but help other people and I started to teach this. And one of my very first students, she was a freshman, she read 30 books in 30 days. Honest to God, 30 books, not skimmer scan. She read.

Wow.

And I wanted to find out not how, I didn't want to know the method, I taught her the method. I want to know what her motivation was because most people who learned that same method did not do the same thing. And I found out, I wanted to ask her, how do you find out someone's motivation? You ask them why? You know, why were you doing this? You know, and I found out, I always get choked up thinking about this, her mother was dying of terminal cancer. Doctors gave her just two more months to live. And the books she was reading were books like that you write, books to save her mom's life, books on health, wellness, alternative medicine, energy, everything. And I was like, I wish you luck, you know, prayers, you know, and I don't talk to her for months. Six months later, I had a call from this young lady, and she's crying, and she's crying, crying. And when she stops, I find out there tears of joy that her mother not only survived but is really getting better. Doctors don't know how, they don't know why. The doctors called it a miracle, but her mother attributed 100% to the great advice she got from her daughter who learned it from all these books. And then I get goosebumps. Yeah, I get the chills when you talk about it. I call them truth bumps, but I feel like that- Truth bumps, yeah, that's good. That's when I realized that if knowledge is power, then learning is our superpower. and it's a power we all have. We just weren't taught in this world. And, but I illustrate this saying that I'll teach right now, I'll share with you some, some great tips on how to read faster. But you have to believe it's possible and you need a reason to do so. Be just like going to the gym. You don't have to enjoy it, but, and I feel like you'll enjoy it once you get good at it. For, for example, a lot of people do not read because they're not good at it. And if somebody didn't, wasn't good at tennis, it wouldn't be a very enjoyable process. Like, if you're not, I'm not very great at golf. So I really don't find a lot of joy in playing golf because it is a struggle, right? But if I was great at it, like Tiger Woods or whoever, then I would be wanting to play all the time. It's fun because your competence confidence is looped together. So that being the case, find your why to read. Now to read a book a week. Yeah, tell us how. Yeah, so this is the key. Having just written the book, the average book on Amazon has about 64,000 words, the average one. Now I know yours are larger, but 64,000 words. Now the average person reads about 200 words per minute. Now if you divide those two numbers together, it takes about 320 minutes to get through one book. That sounds like a lot, but break it down into seven days in a week, that's about 45 minutes a day. That means 45 minutes of reading a day. You could split it up 20 minutes in the morning, 25 in the afternoon. You could get through one book a week. 52 books a year. That would transform you. I mean, what books would you read over the course of a year? That's like having a PhD in any category. You think about what you would study in terms of entrepreneurship or wellness or anything else like that. Now that's 45 minutes a day. Now, if you read, we graduate people, we have students 195 countries. They triple their reading speed on average. That means 15 minutes a day will get you through a book a week. Amazing.

So how do you do that?

With the same level of comprehension and-- With the same, it better. So it's so insane because-- Traditional.

I got a lot of books on my shelf over there.

I'm dying to get through them. So here's the thing. And that doesn't even take time because that's a mindset issue. Here's the thing, because I filter everything through these 3Ms. And so when you're coaching your patients or somebody who's listening this, their spouse or their teammates, whenever they're talking, you could see where the constraint is. Is it in a belief or is it in a motivation?

How was the technique to go from, you know?

So this is how you do it.

45 to 15 minutes.

This is how you do it. The faster readers tend to have better comprehension in actuality. That's the truth. So if we're gonna unravel these myths, faster readers tend to have better comprehension. And I know this because we have students at 195 countries. So we have a lot of data, right? And I've worked with kids with learning difficulties to seniors, and so genius leaves clues. One of the keys are what keeps us from reading faster? I'll tell you. Number one, lack of education, right? We're not born with the ability to read. We learned it, but the last time we took a class called reading, what, how old were you? Yeah, exactly. You were seven years old, and so everything has changed since then, but we're still reading the same the same way. Right? So that's a challenge. So this is the education part. The second reason why is lack of focus. Some people will not read faster because they lack the focus. They'll read a page in a book, get to the end, and then just forget what they just read. And then go back and reread it. Now, but if when reading is done well, it doesn't take time. It actually makes you time. Because if I could double everyone's reading speed, I'll show you how right now, if I could double your reading speed, That means what takes an hour only takes 30 minutes. The average person has about four hours of reading a day. Think about it. Think about the text messages, the emails, the magazines, the journals, everything you need to process information. By the way, the reason why we do so much corporate training at Google and GE and WordPress and SpaceX, all these things, is because if the average workday is being spent four hours a day processing information, That means half of their salary is being paid just to read. That means if someone's being paid $50,000, they're being paid $25,000 just to do something so ubiquitous like reading. And they're reading like they read when they were seven years old.

Yeah.

Right, so here's the thing. If you could just double your reading speed instead of four hours-- How do you do it? Do it in two hours. How do you do it? I'm going into the motivation so people will do it, because the strategy is really easy. Two hours a day, if you save.

It two hours a day over the.

Course of a year-- you-'re not gonna tell us you're gonna make us read five books in a week? No, no, no, no, no. I'm gonna share with you. with you. But the reason why I do this is because it's not, I'll tell you what it is and most people won't do it, until they realize they could save two hours a day over the course of, even if they say one hour a day over the course of a year, is 365 hours. That is nine 40-hour work weeks. You get back two months of productivity. So I want that to be your why. What would you do with two extra months a year?

Every company should send all their employees to go to do the training.

Right, but everyone listening should make this a priority when I'm about to teach you the method because the motivation is there. What would you do with an extra hour a day or an extra two months a year? Most people kill themselves to get an extra two weeks of vacation time a year, right? And so that's the why. Now, the technique is very simple. The faster you read, the faster readers have the better focus. The reason why, when you read slow, you're feeding the super brain one one.

Word at a time.

Metaphorically, we starving our brain. And if you don't give your brain the stimulus and needs, it'll seek entertainment elsewhere in the form of distraction.

Right?

And that's why you distract yourself. It's like driving. If you're going 20 miles an hour in your neighborhood, you're not really focused on it. What are you doing? You're doing five to. You're. You're drinking your. Your coffee or texting, which you should know you shouldn't. You know, you're. You're having conversations, thinking about the. dry cleaning because you're going slow. That's like reading.

Most people are reading.

You're going 100 miles an hour. You're darn right. Exactly. If you're racing cars, taking hairpin turns, you're only focused on two things. The act of driving and what's in front of you. And you're not thinking about the dry cleaning. You're not trying to text. You're not trying to check your makeup. You're doing just those things. That's why just like with reading, when people are reading faster, they're just focused on the act of reading and what's in front of them. And I'm dispelling these mindset because if I don't dispel them, people will think like, oh, I'm not gonna read faster, I'm not gonna understand what I'm gonna read. And if I don't tap motivation, they're not gonna do the method. But here is the method. One more obstacle that we're gonna fix with the method, subvocalization. Subvocalization is this act of saying the words as you read. You notice that when you read to yourself, you hear that inner voice inside your head, hopefully it's your own voice, it's not like somebody else's voice. The reason why it's a challenge is if you have to say all the words, words in order to understand them. You can only read as fast as you could speak. That means your reading speed is limited to your talking speed, not your thinking speed. I bet you a lot of people are listening to this show right now at 1.5 or 2x, right? Because they can understand it at that much, but they can't talk that fast. And here's the question, the question of mindset belief. Do you have to say the words in order to understand them? The truth is you don't. Any more than you say, QM, question mark, you don't do those things. You don't have to say a lot of words, the, there, and because they're filler words. 95% of the words you see are words you've seen before. You don't have to pronounce them. So the fastest readers don't pronounce all the words. And then finally, the last obstacle that we'll fix right now is regression. A lot of people are slow readers because they unconsciously read words. Have you ever read a line and found yourself rereading the line again or going back? It actually 25-50% of our time, sometimes unconsciously upwards of, can be spent rereading words and it's very taxing for the eyes. Because in speed reading, there are these things called fixations. A fixation is a fancy word for an eye stop. When you're reading a word, your eyes fixate on the word and then the next word and the next word. And there are about 10 words per line in the average book, so it's making 10 stops. Now, the equivalent would be for kids when they're reading, they're very slow readers first learning how to read, they don't see words, they see letters. And they're looking at each individual letter, sounding them out. So they're making like 40 stops going through the line. That's why it takes them so long to read. Now, the equivalent of how kids read that make 40 stops to adults reading, you know, 10 stops, speed readers actually make three, maybe two, three or four stops. stops, right? Because they see groups of words like adults, normal readers see groups of letters. So they're only seeing three chunks at a time, so their eyes only have to stop two or three times. And that's the equivalent of driving in traffic, you know, having to make 10 stops instead of just two or three that other persons get there a lot faster. So the goal here to read faster, one of the ways of teaching yourself to read in groups and the subvocalized less. Now this is the method part is by using a visual pacer. Now this is so simple. When people read using a visual pacer, it could be like a pen, a pen, a highlighter, a mouse on a computer, your finger, a pencil. When you underline the words, not skip anything, because I bet in your traditional speed reading class, you skip words or you go down the page or you make fancy S's or Z forms, but you miss big gaps. That's why you get the gist of what you read. So traditional speed reading, people, it's not for comprehension, it's skimming. Yeah, yeah, that's what I learned. Yeah, exactly. But you don't want your doctor to get the gist of what he's reading, right? That wouldn't make any sense. And so for me, what we've tested is if you just underline the words.

Don'T skip anything, and test yourself.

Not with an actual pen, but just like, yeah, you don't under, you're not actually inking it up or anything. If you're reading on a screen, you're not touching the screen or touching the paper, you're just underlining the words and then test yourself. Read for 60 seconds without using a visual pacer, count the number of lines you just read, then set your timer to read 60 seconds using your finger while you read and count the number of lines you just read. That second number will be a 25-50% lift across the board. And now if you practice it more, it'll get even better. But here's the reason why, and I tell the why to increase your motivation some people like, oh, that's nice, but you don't understand why, so adults won't do it. Number one, kids do it. All children, all children, if you didn't teach them to do otherwise, they'll use their finger to help them to read because it helps their focus.

It's true.

Second of all, you do it. And you're thinking, I don't use my finger when I read, but if I asked you to count the number of lines you just read, 100% of the people watching, listening will use their finger and use it as a pacer, 1-2-3-4 or a pen, 1-2-3. Because the third reason why is because your eyes are attracted to motion. Like if something ran, somebody ran past the cameras here, nobody would look at us because your eyes are hardwired as a hunter gather, your survival. You have to look at what moves the most in your environment because it could be a threat. You're a hunter gather in a bush, you're hunting lunch, you know, a rabbit or carrot, whatever your viewers eat. If the bush next to you moves, you have to look because number one, it could be lunch or number two, you could be lunch. So you have to look at what moves or your eyes are hardwired to look at what moves. When you're underlining the words, your eyes are being pulled through the information as opposed to your attention being distracted and pulled out.

Yeah.

And then the final reason you use your fingers while you read is because it's how your neurology is set up, your nervous system, your senses. Have you ever tasted a great piece of fruit from the farmer's market? Not something that's been waxed and sprayed. Yeah, wild strawberry. Yeah, something right off the vine. Have you ever tasted a great tasting peach? In actuality, you're not tasting the peach. Your tongue is not capable of tasting what a peach tastes like. It's actually smelling the peach. But your sense of smell and your sense of taste are so closely linked that your mind can't perceive the the difference. It could perceive the difference when you're sick.

Yeah.

Because when you, when you can't breathe out of your nose, you can't taste stuff. Food tastes what? Bland. Right. But that's because your sense of smell and taste are so closely linked. Just as your sense of smell and taste are linked, so is your sense of sight and your sense of touch. That literally, when people underline the words as they read, people will tell me all the time, I feel, I don't know what it is. I feel more in touch with my reading. In fact, if you go to a child, a toddler, and say, look at my keys, look at my look at my keys. The child will what? Reach out and grab and touch because in order for him or her to feel like they're seeing it, they have to touch it. It's equivalent of if somebody is blind, another example, if they can't see, how do they read? With their sense of touch.

So, we're reframing mental illness to brain health. And you have in your book, the end of mental illness, a simple way of thinking about this you call Bright Minds, the 11 risk factors that steal your mind and how you avoid them. Can you take us through that?

So a number of years ago, I realized if you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it, if it's headed to the dark place, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. And Bright Minds is the mnemonic we came up and the B is for blood flow. Low blood flow is the number one brain imaging predictor of Alzheimer's disease. It's also associated with addictions, it's associated with depression, it's associated with ADHD and schizophrenia. So you want to do everything you can to protect your blood flow. And 40% of 40-year-old men have erectile dysfunction. Do you know what that means? 40% of 40-year-old men have brain dysfunction. If you have blood flow problems anywhere, it likely means they're everywhere. So you know you have blood flow problems if you get a scan, because SPECT is a blood flow study. If you have hypertension, if you have any form of heart disease, if you don't exercise. So it just gives you some very simple things to do. The R is retirement and aging. When you stop learning, your brain starts dying. And I turned 65 this year and I've seen thousands of 60, 70, 80 year old brains. And the news is not good. It's sort of like, you know, as we age, our skin begins to fall off our face. The same process happens in the brain, unless you're serious about it, right? I mean, I have your scan 10 years apart, and as you got older, your brain got better.

Yeah.

Well, how exciting is that, that you're not- Make me happy.

I'm very competitive.

-With the brain you have. have. The eye is inflammation that, I mean, both you and I know it's a disaster. Inflammation is a disaster for every organ in your body, including your brain. And so people can measure their omega-3 index.

Before we go on to what you can do, it's important to underscore this. We know from the research today that depression is inflammation in the the brain, that autism is inflammation in the brain, that ADD and dementia are inflammation in the brain. And if that's true, then the question is, what's causing the inflammation? How do you stop it? And how do you fix it? So tell us about that.

So if you have a low omega-3 index, taking omega-3s can be really helpful. You have to get your gut right, because having this thing, and I'm a psychiatrist, I didn't know one thing about leaky gut until I read the ultramind solution. And then I'm like, you have to get your gut right, 'cause if your gut's not right, your brain's not right, you're likely to have things get inside your body that have no business in your body, which causes an autoimmune or an inflammatory response. So food really matters. Sugar is pro-inflammatory and foods that quickly turn to sugar, bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, you want to, you often say, eat them like a condiment. Right. That less is better. Recreational drug. Recreational drug.

It's not even a condiment. Sugar is a recreational drug. It's fine, but you didn't say the four white powders. Deadly white powder. Deadly white powder, white sugar, cocaine, and too much salt.

So diet really does matter, and our processed foods are loaded with pro-inflammatory omega-6s. so corn and soy, we're overloaded with them. I mean, not that they're evil, but they're not the right choice as primary staples in our diet.

But also things like infections and mold and other things.

We're gonna get there. So the eye is inflammation, and so get your gut right, omega-3 fatty acids, the G is genetics, and the big lie with genetics is I have obesity in my family and that's why I'm fat. Well, the fact is I have obesity in my family. I have a brother and sister who are 150 pounds overweight, but I'm not.

Why?

You're wearing a skinny suit.

Because I know the behaviors that make it likely to be so. So genes are not a death sentence. What they should be is a wake-up call and tell you what you're vulnerable to so that you get serious about prevention.

I mean, you're in better shape now than when I met you 15 years ago. You lost more weight, you get more muscle, and you're 15 years older.

And I work on it. Right, but because I love what I do. And quite frankly, I have four children. I never want to live with them. I love them. I want to be independent for as long as possible. I don't want them being worried about taking away my driver's license. That means I have to take care of my body. because my body will then take care of my brain. But that causes you to think ahead, which is of course a brain function. The H is a national epidemic that nobody knows. It's head trauma. Head trauma is a major cause of psychiatric illness and nobody knows about it because psychiatrists, psychologists, marriage and family counselors, counselors, they never look at the brain. And so that fall out of a second story window that caused you to be angry and depressed. Nobody's thinking about rehabilitating the damage that occurred. That's why you really shouldn't let your children hit soccer balls with their head, play tackle football. And if you've been in a car accident and then you got depressed, somebody should look at your brain and then you should go about rehabilitating it. That's what I did with the big NFL study. And we published a study 80% of our players get better in as little as two months.

It's amazing.

By putting them on our Bright Minds program. So I'm pretty excited about that. The T is toxins. And when I first started scanning people, I mean, it was really clear that marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin are bad for your brain. But then I would see these toxic scans of people who never use drugs. And I'm like, oh no. I had not one lecture on mold exposure when I was as a psychiatric resident or heavy mercury or mercury poisoning or lead exposure, none of that. And so we often find ourselves working up a toxic brain. And did you know 60% of the lipstick sold in the United States has lead in it? So I think that is the kiss of death. And so I know you know this app, Think Dirty. And when I downloaded it, you can scan all of your personal products. I threw out half of my bathroom because it was basically toxic. Things like parabens and phthalates, they're called hormone disruptors, which we're going to get to in a second, but you don't want whatever goes on your body goes in your body and affects your body. So you have to get rid of the toxins. And basically it's decrease exposure and support the four organs of detoxification: kidneys, drink more water, God, eat more fiber, liver, stop drinking. I'm just not a fan. I mean, we can talk about it, but it disrupts liver function and sweat with exercise or take saunas. People who take the most saunas have the lowest incidence of Alzheimer's disease. So M is something I call mind storms. It's abnormal electrical activity in your brain. So if you hot spot in your temporal lobes or cold spot, what we see it's akin to seizure activity. So sometimes anticonvulsants can really help. A ketogenic diet has anticonvulsant properties. There's this great book, it's written in 1980 by Jack Dreyfus, who's the founder of the famous Dreyfus Mutual Fund. And he said, A remarkable medicine has been overlooked. And it was dilantin, which is an old anti-convulsant. He'd been going to see psychiatrists forever. He said, Three days on Dilantin, he didn't need a psychiatrist anymore because it had balanced his brain. And so the second I is immunity and infections. If you look at a map of the United States and you look at the highest incidence of schizophrenia, overlay the highest incidence of Lyme disease, their identities Incredible. Incredible. Anybody in the West or the Northeast or the Northern Midwest should be screened for Lyme if they have a psychotic disorder. You just need to screen them for it because if they have it, treating it may actually treat their, quote, mental illness that is not mental. It's brain.

What body do you treat the brain?

Yeah, and is neurohormone deficiency D is diobesity. You know, as your blood sugar goes up and your weight goes up, your brain gets smaller as we talked about. So getting your weight right, your blood sugar right, and S is sleep. This is how you keep your brain healthy.

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