Dr. Mark Hyman explains why Alzheimer's is sometimes called type 3 diabetes, linking it to insulin resistance. He covers what causes cognitive decline and how diet, detoxification, and lifestyle changes can prevent or treat it.
Hey everybody, this is Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome to my weekly house call, your chance to ask me your questions and this week's question is, Dr. Hyman, my parents are getting older and I want to do everything I can to help them prevent Alzheimer's disease. Both my grandmothers had Alzheimer's. Is there anything we can do to prevent dementia that I can do to prevent dementia in me? Well, I understand your concern because dementia is a big problem. and it's getting bigger every day. 10% of 65 year olds, 25% of 75 year olds, and 50% of 85 year olds will get dementia or Alzheimer's disease. And this 85 year old group is the fastest growing segment of the population. It's predicted that Alzheimer's is going to affect 106 million people by 2050. It's now the seventh leading cause of death. Now, what you may not realize is that Alzheimer's is now also being called type 3 diabetes by a growing portion of the medical community. Why? Well, new research has proven that insulin resistance what I call diabesity, which is from eating too much carbs and not enough fat, is a major factor in starting the cascade of brain damage that robs the memory of over half the people in their 80s, leading to a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. But you don't even have to wait until your 80s to start feeling the effects that insulin has on your memory. Many people now have what's being called pre-dementia, a condition that comes with prediabetes. You can think of this as early Alzheimer's. Recent studies have shown that diabetics have a four-fold risk of developing Alzheimer's. And patients with pre-diabetes or metabolic syndrome have a dramatically increased risk of having pre-dementia or what we call MCI, mild cognitive impairment. You don't have to have diabetes to have brain damage and memory loss from high insulin levels and from insulin resistance. Having pre-diabetes can give you pre-dementia. Now, most doctors today still don't realize how deeply connected the brain and the body actually are. In fact, they're not two separate systems. They're one elegant, continuous ecosystem. What you do to the body affects the brain, and what you do to the brain affects the body. I believe this tide of memory loss is preventable, that we can slow this trend, and that we can even reverse it. All we have to do is give the brain a tune-up. and we can see miracles. I believe it because I see this happen all the time in my medical practice. When I put people on the blood sugar solution or the 10-day detox diet or the program in my new book, Eat Fat, Get Thin, their memory, their mood and their well-being often dramatically improve. I'm going to tell you a story about one of these patients later in this video. But first, I want to spend a little time analyzing the underlying causes of Alzheimer's disease. which starts with too much sugar on the brain. Now this is how the cycle goes. Over consuming sugar and not eating enough fat leads to diobesity. Diobesity leads to inflammation. Inflammation leads to further insulin resistance and more weight gain, which leads to more inflammation. And this systemic inflammation eventually affects the brain. Now when we look at an autopsy of Alzheimer's brains, what we see is a brain on fire. The inflammation story is repeated over and over again in all chronic disease and dramatically so in the aging brain and in aging in general. The good news is that reversing this process is possible and it's not particularly difficult. You just have to control your insulin and balance your blood sugar. Doing this is critical not only for overcoming diobesity but also for balancing your mood, helping your focus, helping boost your energy and preventing all the age-related brain diseases such as Alzheimer's. Now let me tell you about a patient named George. Now George and his wife came to see me because he could no longer manage his business affairs. He had become increasingly unable to function at home, and he had to withdraw from family and social relationships. He was desperate as he was feeling himself slipping away. We found that George had high levels of mercury, and we helped him detoxify the mercury with foods like kale and watercress, cilantro and herbs like milk thistle, nutrients like selenium and zinc and medications that helped him overcome his genetic difficulties by getting rid of toxins like mercury. We optimized his cholesterol with diet and with herbs, and we lowered his homocysteine, which comes from folic acid deficiency with high doses of folate and B6 and B12. In fact, when people have high homocysteine, they have a dramatically higher risk of having Alzheimer's. And what happened was really impressive. After a year of aggressive therapy that was matched to his genes and his unique metabolism and his biochemistry, not his diagnosis, he had a remarkable and dramatic recovery. Before I saw him, he couldn't manage his business, nor did his grandchildren want to be around him. But after matching his treatment to his genes and optimizing his biology, he was able to function again. And his grandchildren loved being with him. Now, just like we once thought that heart disease and artery clogging plaques could not be reversed, and now we have proof that this does happen, I believe that dementia can be reversed if caught early enough. And by attending to all the factors that affect brain function, diet, exercise, stress, nutritional deficiencies, toxins, hormonal imbalances, inflammation, and lots more. You see, it's really quite simple. You get rid of the bad stuff, you put in the good stuff, and the body knows what to do. It heals. It's based on the principles of functional medicine, which is treating the root cause of disease and helping optimize your function. So once you identify the underlying cause of the imbalance, here are a few things that can help your mind get a tune up. First, balance your blood sugar with a whole foods low glycemic diet. And eat foods that make your brain happy like healthy fats, omega-3 fats, wild fatty fish, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, nuts and seeds, and then exercise daily. Even a 30-minute walk can help. And also relax daily with yoga, meditation, biofeedback, or just deep breathing. And take a multivitamin and mineral supplement, take an omega-3 fat supplement, take extra B6, B12, and folate. Also take vitamin D3, and if you have thyroid or sex hormone problems, treat those. Also, get rid of mercury if you have high levels of mercury with a medically supervised detox program. And this is just a start, but it can go a long way to giving your brain the chance to heal and recover if you have memory problems. Even if you aren't suffering from cognitive decline, you should take these steps because they can help you prevent the aging of your brain and help you achieve lifelong health. So be sure to look out for my new book, Eat Fat, Get Thin, where I describe how to prevent and even reverse memory loss using food as medicine, and how more of the right fats boost your brain function and can even help treat dementia. So now I want to hear from you. Do you have any personal stories about Alzheimer's? Comment below and on my Facebook page. And if you like this video, share it with your friends and family on Facebook and Twitter, and be sure to submit your questions to DrHyman.com so that maybe next week I can make a house call to you.
