[Bonus Episode] How to Save Your Brain In An Hour a Week with Dr. Tom O'Bryan

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He goes, wow, I eat gluten and I get mad.

Yes, exactly, exactly. And the primary system, the most common system of the body that's affected is your brain. And some people get brain fog and they don't know why. Oh, why do I have brain fog today? I don't know. I can't figure it out. You know, some people get depression, some people get anxiety, some people get anger, some people get schizophrenia. Just go to pubmed and type in schizophrenia and gluten and you see the studies that many schizophrenics, when they go on a wheat free diet, they get stable. And the scientists are startled that a year after starting on a gluten free diet, they're still off their medications being monitored by their psychiatrist. But they're off their medications because they're doing fine.

Hey, it's JJ and welcome to Ask the Health Expert. But this isn't just any old Ask the Health Expert session.

This is your bonus session.

Yes, it's the weekend and because it's the weekend, we are going to take some time time with an amazing expert. So be on the lookout for these.

Saturday Ask the Health Expert bonus sessions where we're going to go deep into.

An amazing subject with an incredible expert to give you actionable items that you.

Can put into your life.

Hey, it's JJ and welcome to the podcast. I have back a multiple time guest and longtime friend with me today to dive into a subject that is so near and dear to my heart. Today we'll be talking about your brain and specifically how to save your brain in an hour, a week. Now, you might be surprised to know that my guest today is Dr. Tom O' Brien because you know him as the gluten doc. He is founder of thedoctor.com and he has trained thousands of practitioners on how to help get people off of gluten through his certified gluten practitioner training. He also wrote the autoimmune Fix and the host made it his life's work.

Really.

A whole year out of his life all over the country. He went to tape and create the docu series Betrayal, which really shed, you know, shone the light on autoimmune and what we can do about it, which is the biggest umbrella disease taking us down today. So he's going to explain how he's now gotten into the brain and more importantly, he's going to share some things that you can do in a little bit of time that will make a big, big difference. So he's got a great handout for you today. And we have also got some other things that come up during the show. I'm putting them all@jjvirgin.com DrTomSpantry so you will definitely want to go there at D rtomspantry. And now, before we dive in with Tom, here's a word about one of my favorites, foreign.

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Simple as that. Explore scholarship options at University of Phoenix. All righty. Welcome back. Dr. Tom O'. Brien. Super excited to have you on.

Thank you. Thank you, jj. It's always a blast when we're together, whether it's in person on the dance Floor or over the Internet. I know.

I love having you over to cook, too.

So I am really excited about this new book. Now, everybody who knows you knows you're like the gluten doc and you're all about autoimmune. And now all of a sudden, you're writing this book. You can fix your brain an hour a week to the best. Now let me know if I have this right. To the best. Memory, sleep, and productivity, or something like that.

Memory, productivity, and sleep that. That you've ever had. Yes.

Ah, there you go. Well, we all want that, but what the heck? Like, where are you going with this? Like, what's really good question.

You know, we know that weed is a primary initiator of inflammatory mechanisms in the body. Almost everyone now knows that every degenerative disease is a disease of inflammation at the cellular level. You're always on fire. The question is, is it a brain cell or a kidney cell? Is it gasoline or kerosene? But it's always inflammation. And most of us have heard something about wheat and gluten, that it's a problem for many people. Turns out, and Harvard's publishes studies on this. I've got five studies on this. Everyone gets intestinal permeability, the leaky gut, every time they're exposed to wheat. Every time.

Okay, I want to just scream that one out because I know that you and I have taken a lot of hits for this. I actually had some. I got. I got tweeted at by an RD saying you are dangerous for telling people they shouldn't eat gluten. They're going to get nutrient deficiencies. I'm like, no, they're going to get nutrient deficiencies from eating gluten. So say that again. What does gluten do to everyone? Everyone.

No human has the digestive enzymes to break wheat down completely into amino acids. The best we can do is break it down into clumps of proteins, clumps of peptides. And these clumps of peptides are inflammatory to every human. Now, Mrs. Patient, we have an entire new body. Every seven years, every cell in your body regenerates. Some cells are really quick. Some cells like the inside lining of your guts every three to five days. So you eat wheat for breakfast, you tear the lining, it heals. You eat a sandwich for lunch, you tear the lining, it heals. So you don't have any symptoms from eating wheat until one day you cross an imaginary line, you don't heal anymore. It's called. The scientists call it loss of oral tolerance. When you lose Tolerance, the minor irritation of, of the leaky gut that you get from eating wheat becomes a major initiator of the autoimmune cascade. It turns out that when you don't heal from the intestinal permeability from eating wheat, which everyone does, everyone heals until they don't anymore. And it's because of overwhelm when you don't heal anymore. Now that's the gateway into the development of autoimmune diseases. That's why wheat is such a problem, and that's why it shows up in so many different symptoms outside the gut. You know, the ratio is 8 to 1. For every one person with a wheat sensitivity that has gut problems, there are eight that have problems somewhere else and don't have gut problems. It's 8 to 1. Wow.

People don't connect the dots because they go, well, my Achilles tendinitis couldn't possibly have to do with the pizza I ate. My son Bryce would eat a. He used to eat a lot of cheese pizza. And despite what I would tell him, and I'd say, you know, every time you eat a pizza, you get a migraine.

Oh, Mom.

I'm watching it. And my other son, Grant, who we took totally off of gluten early on, but I go, you know, he came back and he started out of the hospital, started eating gluten. I'm like, honey, no gluten. And he goes, wow, I eat gluten and I get mad.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. And the primary system, the most common system of the body that's affected is your brain. And some people get brain fog. And they don't know why. Oh, why do I have brain fog today? I don't know. I can't figure it out. You know, some people get depression, some people get anxiety, some people get anger, some people get schizophrenia. Just go to pubmed and type in schizophrenia and gluten. And you see the studies that make many schizophrenics, when they go on a wheat free diet, they get stable. And the scientists are startled that a year after starting on a gluten free diet, they're still off their medications, being monitored by their psychiatrist, but they're off their medications because they're doing fine. So for some people, not every schizophrenic, but for some people, and the percentages seems to be about 8% in some of the studies, for those people, wheat is the inflammatory trigger that sets it off. So back to why did I write this book? It's because this mechanism of inflammation triggering an autoimmune Response can manifest anywhere in your body. And we're dialing down on the brain. And the main reason, it's because I'm trying to get people just to be interested enough to listen or to read. To read the book or listen to the audio. I just finished the audio last week in Berkeley. It was really. Oh, man, that's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Literally, it took me four days, but eight hours to nine hours a day, every day, every word of every sentence. I have to be conscious. I can't be thinking about anything else.

Isn't that crazy? Did you stop to say legume? Because legume is not legume. It's legume.

They stopped me on a lot of words, and I said, well, I didn't know it was spelled or it was pronounced like that, but they were great. I was surprised that the. The people in the recording booth, I mean, they're so on top of it, they caught every word. Because I thought, oh, maybe I should have said that differently. And then, boom, they would say, let's pause. Let's do that one again. So that kept happening. So my goal is that I can stimulate the interest to just get the big picture. Practically every degenerative disease has similar mechanisms that are setting it off. And if you understand what the mechanisms are, then you'll understand why. For your father, it might manifest as diabetes. For your mother, it might manifest as cognitive decline, early Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. For your son, it might be attention deficit. For you, it might be a hypothyroid. But when you understand the mechanisms behind this, the big picture overview that as you apply some of these principles, most people get better from whatever they're suffering from.

So you write the book. And who's the book for?

The book is for people who want to be well and stop chasing their tail. You know that we have a symptom. We chase our tail. Well, I'll take this medication. Or if we're going the natural approach, well, I'll take this high dose of coenzyme Q10. And then as long as you take the CoQ10, you're better. When you stop, it comes back again. There's something that you've missed. And so if you want to stop chasing the tail and really have vibrant health, vibrant, dynamic health, and have your brain just the lights turned up bright, you know, the dimmer switch up really bright. That's who this book is for.

So what would be some signs that your brain's not where it should be?

If you say where Did I put those keys?

Come on. Every woman's walk. It's like you walk back to the other room. You go, why am I in this room?

Yeah, yeah, right. And then you trace your steps back. Yeah, yeah. That's brain fog. Brain fog can happen because of 13 different mechanisms. The most common one is a lack of blood flow in the brain called hypoperfusion. And if you don't have enough blood flow, those brain cells can't work properly. And so you get short term memory loss. You get brain fog. You can't quite focus. It takes a minute to say, okay, wait a minute now. Or you know, you're driving your car and everything's fine. You and the light turns yellow and you think, well, should I stop? Should I go? Should I stop? Should I go? And you're like hesitant or slow in response time when you know that, wow, gosh, I should have just accelerated sooner or I should have put the brake on a little sooner. And you realize that your response time is slow. You walk into a room and you forget why you walked in the room. You say, where are those keys? You see a friend that you haven't seen a while, you can't remember their name. I mean, those kind of things, you know, Everybody knows someone that had a heart attack and they survived. They changed their diet, started exercising and they're doing fabulous. Most of us know someone who diagnosed with cancer and they went through the therapies, whether it was a conventional therapy or the alternative therapies. And they're doing good. No one knows anyone diagnosed with a brain deterioration disease who's doing good.

Do you think it's just because we didn't think we could do anything about it? I mean, why is that that? I know in the hospital, that's what I was told with Grant. I was told that, oh, it's just time I go time. I'm pretty sure there's more to do than time. And I'm pretty sure the insure and the crystal light. You want me to have him drink. And like they literally like, well, what will he drink? I go, not crystal light. He could drink.

Exactly.

You know, and he not going to eat those pancakes. Nope, that's not happening either. So. So beyond the gluten. Because I'm pretty sure that gluten is probably one of the things you're telling people not to do in the book. I just am going to make a guess.

Correct.

But beyond that, give us and just for everybody listening. Super cool. You're always so generous. I know you have a great Handout for everybody that's going to give them kind of what's in your pantry, what should be there so that they can get started. Because everyone on my show, really, they all eat. I know, it's crazy.

So. Yes.

But we're also big foodies, so we're always looking for the new information. But beyond just the gluten piece, what else? What are some other things that you recommend?

Oh, my goodness. Well, you know, for the first time in the history of the human species, there's a fourth pillar that triggers health problems. We've always known about the structure. That's the home of chiropractic and massage and car seats and pillows and all of that. And we know sometimes that makes a world of difference for somebody. We all know about the biochemistry. That's what we eat, drink, and the air we breathe. The most common form of Alzheimer's. 60 to 65% of Alzheimer's cases are inhalation Alzheimer's. It's what we're breathing that triggers it. It gets in through the lungs, into the bloodstream, straight up to the brain, causing the inflammation that eventually manifests with all the scar tissue called beta amyloid plaque. And you get Alzheimer's. And we all know about the spiritual or the emotional side. I mean, those three sides we've known about for a long time that can cause any dise. For the first time in the history of the human species. There's a fourth component now that's just as powerful and there are hundreds and hundreds of studies on it. It's electromagnetics. It's the cell phone holding a battery next to your brain or your Bluetooth hanging on your ear.

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That bluetooth on the ear freaks me out. Like, just can't believe that anyone would stick that into their. Like, that's just insanity.

You know, I've got a. We have a really good friend whose name I won't announce to the world here. Big tall guy, and he's been at all of our events. And he's got a problem right now with his blood chemistry and he's taking all the nutrition and the best nutrition in the world, and it's not working. Well, he's got one of those things around his neck all the time, the Bluetooth things that wrap around the neck. And he's got it around his neck Whenever he's awake.

Are you kidding? Did we tell him?

I've not told him yet. I'm supposed to talk to him tomorrow. So I said, I'm in Switzerland, you know, and he just asked for my help. So I will give him my help. But, you know, I'm a Sherlock Holmes, and I love being a Sherlock Holmes. I love helping people figure out why they have what they have, and then they're empowered to do something about it. So this whole book is about the why of your brain deteriorating. And it can be mechanical, it can be biochemical, it can be electromagnetic, and it can be spiritual or emotional.

Well, let's go through that, though. Here's my big concern on when you bring up the cell phone stuff is this is just like a freight train speeding down a track. I mean, we're not going to give up our cell phones. So what the heck do. Because I know you're doing more than just the why in the book. You're giving people.

Now what?

Here's what you do. So a couple tips there that don't freak everybody out.

Oh, exactly. Yeah, you bet. Here's a couple of good ones. First, use a corded headset. It's a bit of an inconvenience, but use a corded headset. Second, you know, I drive in Acura, and as I walk up to my car, the key sends a message to the car. So the lights by the door handle go on, shining down on the ground, and the dome lights inside go on as I walk up to the car.

I got one after we talked the other day.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, and you can get a different one, but the same concept. Pongs work, because whenever I walk up to the car, if I've got my phone in my hand with my keys, the keys don't work to turn the lights on the car. And if I grab the door handle, it doesn't unlock. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, yeah. And I have to take the phone out of my hand so that the keys are in my other hand, and then I can open the car door because the pong blocks the message being sent from the keys to the car. So you. You. You get a pong case or an equivalent type, but you get a case. It's just this little baby step thing that. See, never has there been a study that shows in one day the use of a cell phone gives you brain tumors.

Never.

There is no such thing as that. But it's the constant little assaults that we're exposed to day in, day out, every day. And the more that you can reduce some of the little assaults. I'll give you another one from the biochemistry part of this, and that is plastic wrap. You put your, you know, you wrap plastic wrap around your leftover chicken and put it in the refrigerator. The next day you eat the chicken. It's really good. But you now have the phthalates, the toxic chemicals in the plastic wrap that have gotten into the food.

Well, what about the person that then takes that and sticks that in the microwave with the plastic wrap on it?

Morticians are using less formaldehyde than ever before in history because we stay preserved a lot longer. Our bodies stay preserved. We're so full of preservatives and chemicals. And I'm not exaggerating. That's kind of a horrid thing to say, but it's true.

You have the wackiest facts, Tom. Every time I talk to him, like, okay.

30% less. And, you know, that's kind of a weird statistic, but it just means all this toxic stuff is in us. And if you want to address the inflammation in your body, a very common source of inflammation is called the endotoxin. What's already inside of you being produced by, like, if you've got mercury. Fillings that easily can be a contributor to many autoimmune diseases, because every time you chew, a little bit of mercury leeches out of the fillings and it gets into your food, you swallow it, it gets in your bloodstream, and it goes to your brain or it goes to other tissues. So mercury may be the problem. Your fillings may be the problem. There are many, many things to look at, and it's so overwhelming. One of the things I say in the book, in the very beginning and to really encourage people to do this and that is be kind to yourself. You know, if it takes you six months to really get this down, if you allocate one hour a week to this one hour a week, I'm going to learn a little more about how to not have so many toxins in my world or how to get rid of a few more toxins. Just one hour a week. In six months, you've got this down. You've got it down, and you now are living a lifestyle that minimizes the inflammation on the gasoline that'll manifest somewhere down the road as the disease that you're prone to. So you're just reducing the gasoline. But at one hour a week, that's all it takes, because it's so overwhelming if you try to do it all at once, right?

Well, you just won't. And I think this is the key thing. Everyone wants the fast fix. And the nice thing is just doing something like pulling out gluten is a fast fix. It will take time to heal, but it's a fast fix. But if you look at these things, we don't make 10 changes at once. We make one change at a time and really lock it in. And so I love this whole philosophy that you put into place because you do this and all of a sudden, three months later, six months later, it's insane, the changes that have happened, but yet we try to do that all in a day and nothing happens.

Exactly. You know, you'll look back six months from now and you'll say, oh, God, I used to do that all the time. I don't do that anymore. No, no, I don't want to do that. Because you realize you feel so much better now. And if you fall back to one of the old habits, you know, you eat something like Krispy Kreme or something, you just feel like crap. And you never did before. You say, oh my gosh, I'm so much weaker now. No, you're so much cleaner and purer and you've just polluted yourself, you know, and that's true with the electromagnetics. If you get a headache again, if that's the weak link in your chain, when the chain gets pulled too hard. So when you're around too much wireless, you know, you might get a headache again, but as you reduce the toxicity, your resistance is stronger and stronger. You don't get the headaches when you're in somebody's condo and there's 15 different wirelesses on your phone that you could connect to. All of those are bombarding you, all of them. So we need to build up our resilience and build up our resistance. And the way you do that is by base hits one step at a time.

That's such a good. That is a great line, my friend. All right, so let's talk about this cool pantry list that you've got for everybody. What's in it?

Yeah, yeah. You know, we put this thing together so that you guys. Because, you know, you open your pantry and you have no idea what's supposed to be in there and what's not. And so we give you a list of the herbs and the spices and which ones are the anti inflammatory spices. Like many people don't know that oregano is an anti inflammatory spice, or parsley and tarragon, cloves and basil and of course turmeric and nuts and seeds, which ones to have. You know, this is a recipe that I give to everybody.

Mrs.

Patient. Order a pound of all of the different nuts or organic, of course, almonds, black walnuts, Brazil nuts, cashews, macadamia, pecans. And then get some seeds like pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, chia seeds. Mix them all together in a big Ziploc bag and keep them in the freezer. And just take a bowl and scoop out a bowl and put them on the counter and every day have one handful of this mix. There are so many studies showing how it enhances brain function, reduces inflammation, increases cardiovascular function. So we give you the recipe, you know, and in terms of proteins, what proteins do you want in your pantry? And most people know about eggs and beef and chicken, but there's anchovies and mackerel and canned mackerel and canned tuna. You know, there's only one canned tuna that's safe to eat. As far as I know. There's only one. And it comes from our friend Randy Hartnell at Vital Choice.

I know. Last time I tried to get it, you bought it all. Now I have a stash. I was like, thanks a lot for that. Yeah, that Ventresca, oh my gosh, it's amazing stuff. We'll put that in the show notes.

Yeah, and here's a key about that canned tuna. It's called Ventresca. Here's a key. One can of that tuna that is extremely low in mercury. They can't say no mercury because there'll be some micrograms in there or something, but extremely low. One can has 7,000 milligrams of fish oils. Epadha. 7,000 milligrams. That's enough brain food for your child for the entire week from one can of this tuna fish, you're giving your kid the most important brain food they need. And so those kind of points are in the handout. You know, what beverages are safe and what fermented foods to keep in your refrigerator, what dark colored fruits. All that kind of stuff is in there. It's a great little summary guide to make it easy, you know, to get started, how to stock your pantry.

Well, that's what we want. I mean, this is. This is. I mean, changing your food can make such a massive shift. And that's really the great starting point. So I want to let everybody know, you can get this. We'll put all this cool stuff in the show notes and you can get that all@jjvirgin.com Dr. Toms pantry. Let's do it. As D R T O Ms. pantry. Dr. Tom's pantry. That'll be easy for everyone to remember. And it's so great having you, having you on the show and hanging out with you. And I miss you when you're not here.

So, you know, it's just such a, it's such a blessing to do these short little things because people will, you know, they're, they're interested in short little things and you know, because I could go on for an hour or two.

But, well, we've proven that, that they stay engaged because you've got such great information. But yeah, but, you know, it's you, you always have the best information. You really want to be following everything Dr. Tom O' Brien does. You, you are one of my go to resources and that is a short list on one hand of people when I need, need anything out there. I know that you always have the answers. You're always on the cutting edge. And the more important thing is that you share it and you share it in easy ways that people can take action on. And that's how you make a difference out there. It's making it simple. So appreciate you, my friend.

Well, thanks, jj. That's the goal. That's always the goal.

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Foreign.

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