Prevent COGNITIVE DECLINE By Avoiding These Top Foods w/ Dr. Andrew Weil EP 1414

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I wanted to ask you first about cognitive decline. And I feel like a lot of people, especially over the last few years, have a fear of cognitive decline from foods they've eaten, from potential injections they've taken, or other things that are medicines that maybe are hurting or helping. So I wanted to talk about cognitive decline first and your thoughts about this.

I think there's a lot of fear out there about it also because people know people with cognitive decline. You know, people have relatives who've developed dementia, we see people whose memories are failing. I know a lot of people if they have memory lapses immediately begin to think am I getting Alzheimer's? You know, there's just a lot of fear around that. Yeah.

So, what is the root cause of Alzheimer's?

We don't know. We don't know. I mean, there is a minority of cases that are genetic or familial, but most of them aren't and we really don't know. I have to say my gut feeling with a lot of neurodegenerative disease, certainly with Parkinson's disease and ALS, I think these are environmentally caused mostly. Really?

Now is that environment like what's in the air environment? Is it- It's probably everything, but a.

Big one is things like exposure to agrochemicals, and there's a higher incidence of Parkinson's and agricultural workers. I think all the stuff we're reading about plastics, I think it's good to be just cognizant of potential toxins in the environment. Right. But I will tell you that in terms of preventing cognitive decline, probably the two most important pieces of advice I can give you is don't get hit in the head, which means really being careful if you're playing football or basketball. And I must say, I don't know what the future of football is going to be, but I think we're going to see more and more concern about traumatic brain injury, and that has long range consequences. And the other one I would say is don't smoke. that tobacco smoking is the single greatest cause of preventable serious disease. And it strongly affects brain function as well because nicotine constricts blood vessels, so it reduces blood flow. So those are just two basic pieces of advice that I would give you. Don't get it in the head, don't smoke.

I think people don't understand the sadness and the pain that happens when you watch someone that you care about mentally, the cognitive, right? Like my dad got in a traumatic car accident where the car came through the windshield and hit him in the head. He was in a coma for three months and he never recovered. He was all physically here, but mentally, that's really sad. It was really sad. For 17 years, we lived with that experience with our father. It was extremely sad because you feel hopeless. you feel like there's nothing we can do. We tried everything and there's only so much farther he can go back to. So number one is definitely don't get hit in the head, 'cause that's what happened. But a lot of people don't get hit in the head and they still have a cognitive decline. Not a lot of people, but that happens for some people. And is it, I'm hearing environment, I'm hearing smoking, but it's also like foods or...

There's a lot of other things. So let's talk about food nutrition first. We know that antioxidant protection is very good for the brain. So you want to make sure you're having an adequate intake of protective antioxidants, which you mostly get from consuming a variety of fruits and vegetables of good quality. And in general, it's a good idea to try to eat across the color spectrum, because each color of fruits and vegetables has pigments that have particular beneficial effects. So that's just one good general rule. Another is to make sure that you've got an adequate intake of omega-3 fatty acids. which are very important for brain health, especially one of them, DHA. And, you know, the best sources of these are oily fish. So it's salmon, sardines, herring, mackerel. But if you're not a fish eater or you're a vegetarian or vegan, they're now algae-based omega-3 supplements that you can take. But very important to think where your omega-3s are coming from. They're plant sources of omega-3s, things like flax seeds and Hemp seeds, but the plant sources don't give you exactly what the body needs. It has to convert them. So it's good to eat those, but it's good to get some of the preformed long chain omega-3s from fish or algae.

Right. So is algae just as powerful as the fish?

Yeah, it's the same. It gives you the same compounds. And that's only become available relatively recently. Interesting. Because I used to really argue with vegetarians and vegans saying you you gotta eat some fish or take a fish oil supplement, but now I can tell them to take an algae supplement, which is great. And there's another one class of compounds that seem particularly important are called polyphenols. It's a large group of compounds found mostly in fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, tea is a good source of them, berries, chocolate, and these have very protective effects on the brain. Now, as you know, I'm a big fan of of green tea, a lot of research on that and being useful for cardiovascular health, cancer prevention, brain health. And so I think, and recently there was a, have you heard of the green Mediterranean diet?

I heard about it researching your current stuff, but I don't know any about it.

No, I just gotten some publicity. We have a lot of scientific evidence for the benefits of the Mediterranean diet that in terms of its overall longevity and reduced risk of disease.

What's the green Mediterranean diet?

So the green Mediterranean diet is reducing animal foods even more, increasing plant foods, and particularly loading the diet with sources of polyphenols. And they recommended berries and green tea particularly.

And.

Of the forms of green tea, the one that I'm particularly fond of is matcha, which is the powdered green tea, because of the way that it's grown, it has a higher content of antioxidant polyphenols. And it's also you consume the whole leaf. It's the whole powdered leaf.

So that's the one I would recommend. Yeah, not the Starbucks matcha which has.

Got tons of sugar in it. Exactly.

Right.

And it's low quality to begin with. Yeah. So that's, you know, and those are the main nutritional recommendations that I would give you. Gotcha. Then the other things are all the lifestyle recommendations that you make and I make, you know, getting adequate rest and sleep, regular physical activity. Those are the obvious ones. Practicing, learning and practicing some methods of neutralizing the harmful effects of stress. The main hormone that mediates stress is cortisol. Cortisol is directly toxic to cells in the brain. Really?

So the more stressed you are, the.

More- More cortisol circulating and cortisol can kill brain cells.

Wow.

Particularly in the hippocampus, which is the region that mediates emotion and memory. So just that's all you need to know that you want to do something to keep your cortisol levels, you know, moderate or low.

So would you say from that scenario, if someone has kind of a high level of ongoing stress for decades, are they more susceptible to cognitive decline?

Well, I would say probably. I mean, I can't give you hard evidence for that, but knowing what we know about cortisol, that if you have higher levels than you should, for your life, probably it's going to damage your brain. And there are many options for learning to control stress. My favorite are breathing techniques. And whenever you want, I can talk.

About what's the top breathing technique.

The 4-7-8 breath, it's so simple and free and takes no equipment. It's an ancient yoga technique and I've popularized it and it's got incredible traction. The YouTube videos of me teaching it are all you have to do is put in 478 press on the name. I mean, there are millions of views. And it's every, every, yeah, I will. And a few, every few days I get newspaper articles about it from India, from Indonesia. You know, another story about the 478 press, a ballet company in Toronto produced a ballet based on the 478 press. I have no idea what that was. It was like the, the late prime minister of Japan who was killed Abe gave new interviews saying that I taught him the 478 breath and it was very helpful to him. I never met him, so I don't know what he was thinking. Maybe he read it somewhere. But this is just, it's a great thing. And I learned it from one of my mentors was an elderly osteopathic physician, Robert Fulford. I met him when he was in his 80s, best healer I've ever met. Just used gentle hands-on and he said, Breathing was the most important function of the body.

Really?

Yeah.

And a lot of his work was designed to free up restrictions in breathing and he produced incredible cures. Anyway, he taught me this. So the basic method is you breathe in through your nose quietly to a count of four, hold your breath for a count of seven, blow air out forcibly through your mouth to a count of eight, repeat that for four breath cycles and that's it. It takes all of 30 seconds, but it's a practice. So, the benefits of it come from doing this regularly. So, you have to do this religiously at least twice a day.

Really?

Yeah, I do it in the morning when I first get up, before I do some sitting meditation. I do it when I get in bed to fall asleep. And I do it any time in the day that I feel stressed or I want to relax. So, I'll just show you what it looks like when you do it together. So, you can do it in any position, but if you're seated, it's good to keep your back straight and your feet on the floor. So you and in yoga, this is a yoga breath and in yoga you're asked to keep your tongue in the yogic position which is touching the tip of your tongue to the ridge of tissue behind your upper front teeth like that. So you blow air out around it. So it looks like this. that's it, four breath cycles. It's a little hard for me to.

Come back and talk to you after.

I just did it. Because you're so relaxed. Yeah, no, it produces a very nice altered state of consciousness that I'd rather stay in. Right, for longer. Yeah. Anyway, so only four breaths at one time, you can do it more frequently, but you got to do it at least twice a day. Got it. And after a month, if you're comfortable, you can do it eight breath cycles, and then that's the absolute maximum. And it's good to learn how to slow it down as you practice. What limits you is how long you can comfortably hold your breath, but with time you can extend that. And after four to six weeks, there are really amazing changes. It lowers heart rate, lowers blood pressure, improves digestion. It is the most powerful anti-anxiety method I have ever found. That makes the drugs we use for anxiety look pathetic. It gets better than where you repeat it. One of the most useful things I've ever discovered and of all the, you know, I've explored the world for natural remedies and of all the things that I've found and told patients to do, this is the one that I've gotten the most spectacular feedback on.

It's free.

It's free. It takes no equipment.

There's no money involved.

No, and by the way, this is I think a perfect example of what integrative medicine can do. It can find things that aren't even on the radar of conventional medicine and bring them into the mainstream and lower healthcare costs and improve improve outcomes. So anyway, that is my personal favorite method of stress reduction to keep cortisol levels low and one of the aims of that is preventing cognitive decline and promoting brain health. Now, other things you can do, you know, you're big into physical exercise, physical activity. I think mental exercise is very important too. And there are many, many choices there. I love to do word puzzles. My favorite are acrostics, which I find more interesting and challenging than crossword puzzles. And, you know, I just love, you know, they're great. It's like, it's a brain exercise for me, and it's fun. You know, have you played Wordle, which is going on? I'm not a couple of times.

I need to get into it.

Unbelievable how that has gained popularity all over. So I usually do, you know, Wordle every morning when I get up. Really? Yeah. Anyway, that keeps my brain active. Okay. Another wonderful method is to learn a language, another language. you don't have to master the language. It's the attempt to learn it. It's challenging.

I'm going to attempt right now. It's difficult, but it makes you work your brain.

Absolutely. I speak Spanish. Really? And interesting, what I discovered is in high school I studied German. It was a horrible experience. My teacher was from Berlin. He was a real sadistic German teacher. Anyways, four years of drilling, blah, blah, blah. Afterwards, I went to Germany and I could speak speak passively. But for Spanish, I just went and lived in Mexico, in a village in Mexico, and I was in a place where I was forced to speak Spanish. And in a month, you know, I was speaking passively, and then I drove to South America. And when I got to Columbia, where I lived for a few years, I gave a lecture in Spanish.

Come on.

Seriously.

That's incredible.

Now, so, you know, in what I've Learned, and this is not big news. Babies do not have minds that learn grammar, right? And they learn language. And the only skills you need to learn a language are to be able to listen and imitate. And you have to have strong motivation. So babies have really strong motivation.

To survive.

To survive, right? So if you put yourself in a situation where you have to learn, and you listen and you imitate, you learn. You don't need to learn grammar and study rules and all that, which makes it much harder. We all have that capacity to do. Anyway, that's a very good thing for your brain. Another is trying to learn a musical instrument. I'm terrible at that. I failed. I was forced to try to play the clarinet when I was a kid as a dismal failure. So that didn't work for me. For some people, that's an example.

Sure.

Here's another one I'll give you. You know the frustration of trying to deal with a new computer operating system? You know, there's like several...

Switching from PC to Mac.

Yeah, I don't want to go back. You know, there's a period where it is just, that's exactly where you don't want to put your brain. You want to put your brain in that place where it goes, you know, where you have to like change gears, rewire. That's good exercise for the brain.

Is there too much of that where it hurts the brain or is it...

Well, I don't think, no, I think you just get you give up. And then one other tip I would give, I think it is very good to associate with people who are healthy, happy, who have positive outlooks. And you know, when the, some years ago, the MacArthur Foundation did a study of successful aging, they identified a large group of people as successful agers. and they looked to see what they had in common. The two factors that stood out, and this overrode everything else, whether they took vitamins, whether they ate this, whether they exercised, the two that stood out were, it was maintenance of regular physical activity throughout life, and the second was maintenance of good social and intellectual connectivity. And I think that last one That is a challenge. First of all, in our society, as people get older, they tend to get isolated with other people, other old people.

Why is that in our society?

I think we don't want old people around. We don't want to look at them. They remind us that we're going to get old. Really? Yeah, we want them out of the way.

But in other societies they don't do that.

Well, in some, like Japan, is notably different. I would say in most Latin societies, you know, older people, it's like they live with you.

Yeah.

You know, they're not isolated in old age homes. But I think the, so I think the opportunities for social and intellectual connection diminish in this society as you get older. And I think that's been particularly bad during the pandemic. You know, there's been much greater social isolation, people staying at home, people interacting virtually. And I think that's, this looks really key to good brain health is like having, you know, I'd say vibrant social and intellectual relationships.

Yeah, it's interesting because my girlfriend Martha, she's from Mexico and her family is very socially connected. You know, activities all the time, you know, involving the grandparents with the grandchildren, like and connecting the dots constantly, playing games, having fun and singing music and playing instruments and like adventures.

So I've got a story for you. She was very powerful. I knew a woman who was in a pediatric intensive care nurse. And she told me over a period of about six, seven years, she had seen a number of cases of kids, teenagers who'd been in devastating, mostly motorcycle accidents, devastating head injuries, who were in vegetative states in the hospital. And she said she saw, I think it was like eight or ten cases of kids who recovered completely to the astonishment of doctors. But after she'd seen about a certain number of them, she noticed that they were all Hispanic. And she'd never seen an Anglo kid in that state recover. Really? And she so thought about, the difference. And then she realized that with the Hispanic kids, there was always at all hours an extended family around the bed. People talking to the kid, touching the kid, and the white kids were always there by themselves. Really?

Yeah.

And she said that clearly was what made the difference.

That was the only difference, essentially, is seeing that environment.

They were all in basically the same vegetative state. But it was that kind of constant stimulation, touch, that kept their brain, that made their brains recover.

Even when they were in comas and vegetative states. And she said that they had, some of these had like full recoveries or big recoveries.

Full recoveries, yeah.

Walking around talking, thinking clearly, whereas the other kids.

She'd never seen it happen in an Anglo kid who had nobody in the room with them.

Or maybe they would come for like an hour and then leave or something.

Wow, so that's very powerful. And, you know, I think that that's something we should really guard against, you know, is like not getting socially isolated and spending time with people that stimulate us.

Well, it's interesting, because we were just talking about this beforehand. You told me you're 80 years young.

Yeah.

80 years young, I'm gonna be 40.

You're a kid.

But here's the funny thing you said. You said, you know, when I was young, 80 seemed like, you know, Ancient. Ancient. and 40 used to think like, oh, they're really old too.

Yeah, right.

When you're like eight, you see a 40 year old, you're like, you're old, man, right? So, I still feel like I've, I'm a child in a lot of ways. Childlike energy.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Not child-ish, but childlike energy. And I feel like you have that too.

Yeah.

You've got this, you know, joyful, youthful energy about you. If you could go back to 40, I mean, you've lived an amazing life. You've been changing the world for the last 40 years, but if you go back, Is there anything you would do add to support you for longevity now you know everything beyond what we talked about or anything you take away from habits you did to support you in setting yourself up for these last 40 years and beyond?

You know, I grew up in a row house in Philadelphia in a city, so I was pretty disconnected from nature. And then I was in school for a long time. I think If I could go back, I would spend much more time out in nature and in wilderness at an early age.

Why is that?

Because I think it is very good for your spirit as well as your physical being. And I would like to have had more time for that when I was young. I didn't eat very wisely in my early life. I didn't know and I would probably adopt better eating habits early on. I'd probably practice my 4-7-8 breath earlier in life, things like that.

Sure. And speaking of the bad eating habits, what do you think are the foods that everyone should avoid? Oh, that's the biggest killer.

That's very simple. That's so simple. It's refined, processed, and manufactured food. That's it. That's simple. You want to try to eliminate that. It's all the stuff, mostly all the stuff in the middle of the supermarket. You know, all the stuff that you should eat. Yeah, right. It's all that. And that's the first, you know, I advocate an anti-inflammatory diet because, you know, chronic low-level inflammation seems to be the root cause of most serious disease that kills and disables people prematurely. And the mainstream diet promotes inflammation. Yeah. And it's, and that all that Processed refined manufactured food gives us the wrong fats, the fats that promote inflammation, the wrong kinds of carbs, and not enough of the protective elements like those polyphenols.

And antioxidants that are mostly in fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices. What causes more inflammation in the brain?

Is it stresses of life or foods that can cause it? I don't think you can separate that.

It's all of it. It's all of it. If you had to eliminate one, which one is less damaging, do you think? If you eat healthy perfectly, but you're constantly in a low level of stress or high level of stress versus I am around beautiful people in a great.

Environment, but I'm eating well for optimum health.

I don't know.

I wrote a book on eating well for optimum health and I quoted in it, I think she was 106, 106-year-old Russian woman who was asked what was the secret of her longevity and she said, I never eat vegetables.

It was like, I went against everything.

Right, right.

So.

And, you know, when you see people who've smoked all their lives and drink like fish and. And they're. So they have very good genes. They have good genes. Right.

But maybe they could have lasted longer.

Exactly. Yeah.

I've never ate vegetables.

I never eat vegetables.

That's hilarious.

The secret of her long life.

Oh, my goodness. Did she have a different type of diet? Was she like.

I think she ate meat and potatoes. Wow.

That's amazing.

Probably vodka.

Now, how we talked about this a little bit the last time, which I think is fascinating that you were willing to talk about relationship stuff, because I think it sounds like good social connections is the key to successful aging.

Right.

And probably a great intimate partner or relationships intimately are, can be supportive or helpful.

Yeah, exactly. It can go either way. Right.

Yeah.

How does one learn with your amount of wisdom to step into a healthy, loving relationship and sustain it?

Well, I think a big key we talked about this, you have to start by loving yourself. Man, it's so good.

That's why I love this guy.

It's so good. And that's a hard one for a lot of people, you know, that we seek love in an other person. you know, we project something of our self onto them. And, you know, but it has to start with loving yourself. And from that place you can, I think, enter into good relationships with other people.

When was the age where you feel like you fully loved and accepted yourself?

I think it was not until my, it might not have been until my 40s.

Really?

Yeah. So you got, you're right at the cusp there.

Lots of pain and suffering before Really in your 40s.

Yeah. I don't know that I want to go back and be young again. I mean, in some ways I'd like to have a more elastic body and things like that, but I think things are easier now for me.

Why is that? Because you love yourself?

Yeah, and I think I'm more accepting of myself and more accepting of things. You know, I wrote a book on healthy aging and one of the things that one of the things I look, looked at was what gets better with age and what can we see? What are examples out there where we see that things improve with age? One of them I wrote about was cheese. We were talking about cheese.

Stinky cheese.

Okay, stinky cheese. So some cheeses get very better with age. Violins, old violins, old trees, you know, and you look at wine, you know, what are the qualities in these older things that we like? They're more complex, they're deeper, they have more character. Right, so you can see that in people as well. And you know that if we lived in a society where we valued old people instead of shutting them away, you know, they can be great repositories of wisdom. And I interviewed a lot of older people about what they saw get better. Interesting answers. A lot of people felt that they that they were more accepting of things as they got older, that they had more equilibrium, that things didn't throw them off balance as much as when they were young.

Right.

You know, that's interesting.

They weren't as triggered or they could manage life easier.

Yeah.

I've heard some scientists say that their memories have gotten better with age, and they think it's because they have more filed away, so when something new comes along, they have more to compare it to, to know where it fits. And that's interesting, when we think about cognitive decline, some things may get better.

What have been the main benefits for you?

I think greater self-acceptance, definitely, as well. And in some ways, I'm less patient with things and people that take up my time for no good reason. I really want to spend time with with people that make me feel good about myself, about the world.

So, you say no to a lot of things that you maybe would have said yes to earlier in your life. Yeah, exactly.

I think I'm more discriminating about that.

Was there a process or like a moment that allowed you to say, oh, actually, I can accept and love myself and this is how I'm learning how to do it? Was there like a period of time?

No, I think it was gradual, but it was in midlife. Definitely.

Did you have a crisis before then? Did you go through midlife crisis?

I had a period of depression of several years. That just lifted at some point. I think some of it was becoming more physically active, some of it was changing my diet, some of it was practicing meditation and my breathing technique, and some of it was, I think, a natural process that happened with getting older.

I've never had a midlife crisis. I don't want to have a midlife crisis. Not like a long time. You never know.

Yeah, yeah, right.

But what do you think causes that for people, like to go through a quarter-life crisis, midlife crisis, where they like say, I'm just gonna change everything. I'm gonna go through a divorce. I'm gonna get married to this. I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna, you know, buy a sports car, whatever it is that happens for people.

What causes a crisis? I guess, you know, people sometimes feel stuck. and, and it often just seems to happen around 40 in that period. Right.

Do you think it's because people aren't in alignment with, like, where they think they should be going or they're, they're not living their purpose?

I, I think that's a big one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you were, you were living your purpose, though, during that time. You were doing the medicine stuff.

I was, I was off on my own and, but, you know, I was, you know, people thought I was crazy because I dropped out of medicine. I practicing. I was, you know, living like a hippie.

Exploring other things.

Exploring, right. And I did not get a lot of reinforcement from the world for what I was doing.

Especially not back then.

Back then. But I knew what I was doing was right and what I had to do.

Right.

So you lived in Germany for a while?

No, I visited there.

You lived in Mexico for a while.

I lived in South America for a while. Colombia.

Colombia especially.

Yeah.

For how long? About three and a half years.

What was it about the South American culture about longevity that inspired you?

Well, I was interested in, when I was growing up, I remember having a kid's book that was about, I think it was about a South American village, but it was about the Andes Mountains. I thought they were my mountains, you know, Andes Mountains. I developed this.

Yeah, so my mountains were Andes Mountains.

So I had this, I know some deep thing I wanted to visit there. And then when I was a student at Harvard, my mentor there was Richard Shultes, who was the father of modern ethnobotany. And he had lived in the Amazon for 14 years and discovered all sorts of hallucinogenic plants. And he was a fascinating teacher. And he sent me down there to study medicinal plants. And so I think what really drew me down there was the, culture that was very connected to nature and to plants. And so I learned a lot of things there. You know, I visited shamans and did all sorts of crazy stuff. Tried stuff, experimented.

Yeah, interesting. How, you know, you joked about the woman who, you know, said my secret was not eating vegetables.

Yeah.

But how important are plants? in improving cognitive brain health in general?

Well, as I said, a lot of the main sources of these protective polyphenols and antioxidants are plants. And there's so many plants out there with so many different properties.

And.

The foods that have become popular up here are such a small slice of what's possible. So I've also spent a lot of time in Asia and in other cultures, and I always am interested in the foods that people to eat, and I've tried to bring them back here and turn people onto them. Yeah.

What are the main foods that you try to have consistently like that are unique or different than kind of the standard American diet?

Well, I, you know, I use a lot of herbs and spices in my own cooking. You know, one of the one that I'm very big on these days is turmeric, you know, the yellow spice, which Indians eat every, every meal from infancy to old age. And in North America until recently, the only way we got it was in yellow mustard, which is more a turmeric preparation than mustard preparation. And in curry, it's what makes curry yellow. But now, when I was doing that research on aging, I made a number of trips to Okinawa, which at the time that I was doing it had the highest number of centenarians in the world. And I made a number of trips there, and the diet there is astonishing. They have an incredible variety of sea vegetables, land vegetables, fish. It's not like the mainland Japanese diet. Okinawans are not Japanese, they're another, there's something else.

What's different than the mainland?

They drink jasmine tea, not green tea. They eat more pork, and the pork is long cooked. to reduce fat, they eat more tofu. The tofu has a higher fat content. They eat this great variety of unusual vegetables, but the beverage that I was, it was very hot and humid when I was there at the time of year. And a very popular beverage was cold, unsweetened turmeric tea made from a fermented form of turmeric. Delicious, really delicious. And I just recently been able to to bring it into this country and sell it through our matcha company, matcha.com, you can drink it hot or cold. But anyway, turmeric is the most powerful natural anti-inflammatory agent that we know of.

Turmeric.

Yep.

The most powerful you think?

It is. It's the most powerful natural anti-inflammatory agent. A lot of research on it. And interestingly, India has the lowest rate of Alzheimer's disease. in the world. And people think that has to do with the amount of turmeric they consume.

Well, that's right. I think they're also, like, tightly social. Yeah.

Family ties. It's like they're not. I mean, their cardiovascular health is not great. Their food habits have changed, but they have some protection against Alzheimer's. And turmeric might be. Yeah, that might be the factor that's accounts for that.

Wow.

Yeah.

So anyway, that's.

That's an example of something. We have the lowest amount of Alzheimer's.

Yeah.

In the world.

Yes.

India.

Is that regions of India or rural India? I think rural India especially. Yeah. Wow. So interesting. But that's, you know, turmeric is a good thing to include in your diet.

And even just like a turmeric supplement.

Every day is a good thing.

Yeah, that's fine. And to cook with it, everything.

Right.

All that. You know, we can't like, we don't know how to cook with it.

You know, like Americans.

Throw it on a steak. Yeah. Yeah. And if you put too much, it's astringent, not pleasant. I had a student, a family physician from South India, and she was a very good cook. And she said she tells her patients to try putting a level teaspoon of powdered turmeric in beans, bean dishes, stews, soups. That level of it is good. Level teaspoon. Yeah. That's it. But that fermented turmeric is a great drink. It's delicious. Interesting.

Yeah.

I've never been able to get into fermented.

It doesn't taste good.

Doesn't taste fermented.

No.

Okay, that's good. Fermented things are good to get into.

I know, that's what I hear.

It's so good for you.

But if you like stinky cheese, why.

Don'T you like fermented cheese?

Man, the stinky cheese is amazing. Well, that's a fermented product. That's got to live in your house. It's got a different smell and taste than like a liquidy or like a fermented, I don't know, vegetables.

I don't know, it just doesn't, it's just like a weird aftertaste. The stinky cheese. Maybe you've never had good fermented stuff. Maybe that's what it is. Because to me, good Fresh, good fermented stuff. It's got a fresh, really fresh Chris. I make my own sauerkraut. I make kimchi. I make pickles. It's really delicious. You need to, I gotta get you some good stuff.

I have the palate of a seven year old.

No, if you like stinky cheese.

Well, that's the only thing I can come up with. But most stuff, like I'm very picky. That's the challenge.

What are the main benefits of fermented foods? Well, mostly you're eating, first of all, the foods are partially digested. so they're more assimilable. The microorganisms have done work for you that your body doesn't have to do. But the living cultures are what's really important. This feeds your gut microbiome. And this is one of the most exciting revolutionary changes in medical thinking in my lifetime. When I was in medical school, I learned that we have these organisms in our gut and that assist in digestion and that was it. And that people who took, ate yogurt or took acidophilus supplements were health nuts. And now, you know, we're the gut microbiome, it looks like it's involved in everything. I mean, it conditions your mental health, it influences your interactions with the environment. I mean, it just, it's the key to, health and how you move through the world. So the gut microbiome in our society has changed for the worse in recent years as a result of several things. One is incredible overuse of antibiotics, which do wreak havoc on the gut microbiome. Decline in breastfeeding, because breastfeeding provides organisms early in life. increased consumption of these refined, processed and manufactured foods which feed the wrong kinds of organisms. And then, and finally, the unbelievable rise in cesarean deliveries. Because when babies are born, normally the organisms they pick up come from the birth canal and colonize the gut. When they're born by cesarean, they come from the skin and it's a different population of of microorganisms and they get established for life. So, the combination of those things I think has, I think then this has to do with why there's a rise of allergies, autoimmune diseases, maybe things like ADHD. So, you want to keep your gut microbiome healthy. So, one way to do that is to eat fermented foods. Oh, man.

Sorry. If I don't like the smell of the taste of fermented foods, is there anything else besides kombucha?

Well, you can, no, you don't have to, I don't, I don't drink kombucha. I like sauerkraut. I like kimchi, good pickles, miso. Miso? Yeah.

Okay.

That's a good one. All right.

I think it's a miso soup.

Okay. Yeah, that's fermented. Yeah.

Miso is a fermented.

It doesn't have the smell of the fermented. No, I hear you.

You know what I mean? Yeah.

Another one. Did you ever eat tempeh?

Yeah, I could eat tempeh.

So tempeh is a fermented soy food. Okay. I don't like soy as much, but I mean, if that's got benefits all. Well, ferment, the tempeh doesn't taste like soy. Yeah, yeah. It tastes like it's meaty.

Right, okay. So, tempeh.

Okay, you can take yogurt, you know, that has living cultures in it. Okay, right. You can take probiotic supplements, but they may not be as good as the foods. And, the other thing you can do is make sure you're consuming enough prebiotics, which are foods that feed the beneficial microorganisms and that's mostly fiber containing foods. Fibers. Beans. Beans, vegetables, whole grains.

So you want prebiotics and probiotics both. You want to consume a lot of them daily or.

Prebiotics you should have on a regular basis. You know, that should just be part of your diet. And probiotics, you know, whatever foods you can take or you can take, as.

I said, a probiotic supplement. Sure, sure. Okay. All right, so if I'm gonna have.

The palate of a seven-year-old, take the probiotic supplements. But especially important if for any reason you have to take antibiotics, you know, it's really- It goes afterwards.

It will be from the moment you start taking the antibiotic.

What happens if you're taking antibiotics and you're not taking probiotics at the same time? It drastically changes your gut microbiome.

You know, it wipes out a lot of the good organisms.

How long does it take to get back to like a healthy space? We don't know. We don't know. I mean, maybe the body comes back pretty quick from that. I don't know. Wow.

But it's important to take it before and during and after, it sounds like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

To get it back to baseline. Man, 'cause I just took some antibiotics a couple weeks ago from a dental surgery I had to take, and so it didn't get infected.

Right.

But it's, I should be overloading now on probiotics.

Yeah, I was like, okay.

See, I should have talked to you before.

Should have talked to me before. Too late now.

Oh, no. What is it? You mentioned that India is the lowest rate of dementia or Alzheimer's?

Alzheimer's.

What countries or regions are the highest rate of Alzheimer's? Do we know?

I don't know the answer to that. I mean, Alzheimer's is pretty consistent around the world. So as I say, we don't- It.

Seems lower in India.

It seems lower in India, rural Indian population.

Yeah, but it's consistent around the world. There's not one country that has higher.

Not that I know of. Not that I know of.

That'd be interesting to see.

Yes, maybe we do know that. I don't know. Because I don't know that.

It seems like there's an issue in America. I mean, maybe I'm just hearing about it, but is it, and when does it usually?

Well, you know, we used to call, when I was growing up, my mother's father was senile. So that's what we said, you know, people got senile. That was dementia. Now there's different forms of dementia. Alzheimer's is one kind of dementia that's associated with particular brain changes. So maybe there's an increase in our population, maybe that's because we have more older people around. I don't know that it's actually increased. It may call it by a different name.

But there are a lot of people over 100 who don't have decline as well.

Exactly. Right.

But it sounds like they're doing a lot of these things correctly. They have strong social ties. they're doing the exercises in brain games or music or language.

Exactly, right.

They're doing something challenging for the brain that's like making them think or puzzles or whatever it might be. They're also eating generally well, it sounds like, with these types of foods and phyto-phenols and antioxidants and all these different things and anti-inflammatory turmeric and stuff like that. So, it sounds like they're doing more of these things. Obviously, there's exceptions. You hear someone smoking their whole life and living to 100. But in general, it sounds like you do a lot of these things, you could live a longer, healthier life.

Now, the other one is trying to do whatever you can to avoid environmental toxins. And that's not so easy. You can get a water filter for your home, which is a good idea. Maybe an air filter, depending. But I think things like getting plastics out of your life, avoiding secondhand smoke. You know, just paying attention to all this. Like, you know, I'm a big proponent of organic agriculture, not mostly, not because I think the food's necessarily more nutritious, but to avoid contamination with things you don't want. And, you know, it's gotten easier to get organic produce, but for many people it's difficult. Either it's not accessible or it's expensive. So a good thing to do is to learn which crops are most likely to be contaminated. And a good source of information on that, there's a group in Washington called the Environmental Working Group, ewg.org, and they periodically publish a list of what they call the Dirty Dozen, which are the 12 most contaminated crops. Strawberries are always at the top of the list. Other things like green beans, and then they have also a Clean 15 list, which is the least contaminated things like avocados and bananas. So if you're buying something from the Dirty Dozen list, it's probably worth making an effort to get it organic or not eat it. Got it. From the Clean 15 list doesn't matter. So that's a way of... Yeah, it's a way of...

So trying to get organic on that list if possible. Isn't sometimes organic still has chemicals or pesticides, even if it says organic?

No, we have good organic standards now. I mean, the industry is constantly trying to whittle them away. But we've beaten it back so far. I mean, when they first got that USDA organic certification, I remember there was an attempt to allow the industry wanted to allow sewage sludge to be put on crops and still call it organic. We beat that back. Wow.

Yeah.

But if it's got that seal on it, it's good. Now, however, also realize that it costs money for farmers to get that certification. So small farmers often can't afford that. So if you're at local farmers markets and small growers, often growers will say that they're pesticide free. You know, they can't afford the USDA organic certification, but they'll say that their crops, they don't use pesticides. So that's good. Yeah, yeah. I also, you know, don't keep poisons around the house, herbicides, you know, pesticides, all of those things, you don't want to be exposed to them.

When you mentioned plastics, avoiding plastics, what does that include? That includes plastic bottles, living with plastic in your life?

Yeah, as much as possible, because what you see happening is that plastics that we've always considered safe turn out not to be.

Like what?

I don't remember what the latest one, the latest one that I've seen.

So like drinking out of a plastic.

Bottle or like... Yeah, drinking out of a plastic bottle. Using plastic storage dishes for food. You know, use glass instead. Use glass bottles. Or tin or something else.

Yeah.

With plastic wrap for food, there's, you know, some of the Mercans have chemicals.

Called phthalates in the plastic wrap.

Like a raptor. Yeah, but there's some brands that don't have that.

So, don't get plastic when you're wrapping this stuff.

Or look again, use that EWG site that I gave you, they rate all these products.

EWG.org, is that right?

Yeah, the Environmental Working Group, ewg.org. They also have, you know, you can look up things like cosmetic products, shampoos and lotions, creams and deodorants, and they'll tell you which ones, you know, they have a color code, green being safe and red being no. Yeah, that's very useful.

EWG has a lot of this stuff on all these products out in the marketplace.

All online, right. And they're rated by particular brands. Really? Yeah.

Based on how environmentally friendly or if they have plastics or what chemicals they're using.

Yeah, all that, right. They test them and it's a very good organization.

Okay, I'm gonna look at that for sure. Who is more likely to go through cognitive decline in general, men or women? And why do you think?

I don't know the answer to that. You know, women live longer than men, and we don't know why that is either. When you look around the world at areas where there are, you know, people over 100, when you get up in those age ranges, it's mostly women. There's one exception that I know is the island of Sardinia off Italy, that a high population of centenarians and men and women are equal and nobody knows why.

Really? But there it's more equal versus other places.

Yeah, other places women greatly outnumber men when you get up in the upper 90s and 100s. There's one theory that the Y chromosome is toxic, that it produces toxic gene products that do men in. I don't know the answer to that. Interesting. I mean, it's also possible that men engage in more just by risky behaviors. And it's also like the, the size.

You know, it's like, is it harder to pump blood?

Right.

And recover when you're bigger, you know, physically than a woman.

Yeah.

I don't know if that has something to do with it. And maybe in Sardinia, there might be, like, tinier men.

I don't know.

We don't know. I haven't been there, so I can't say. Yeah. What do you think is, you've been in this kind of health and wellness industry for a long time. You've seen Trends come, Trends go. You've seen new discoveries happen over the.

Last, you know, 40, 60 years.

What do you feel like we're missing in this health world that we need to be focusing on more that we haven't actually leaned into or discovered yet? And what do you also think will be happening over the next 5 to 10 years with new discoveries?

-Can I say a word about psychedelics?

-Can say what?

-A word about psychedelics. -Yeah, yeah. I never thought I'd write another book. I've written 15 books. My publisher has persuaded me to write a book on psychedelics. So I'm just starting work on that and it's titled Psychedelics Can Save the World, which I truly believe. And I've been involved with them since way, way back and I am very excited to watch this, what's happening with them. They are really entering the mainstream. I think they have tremendous potential for healing I'm a little disappointed that all the attention has been on the possibilities of using them in psychiatric medicine for depression and PTSD and so forth, which is great. But I think they have incredible potential for physical healing as well because I've seen that again and again. And frankly, I think it's the only thing I see out there that has a potential to save us from disaster. Really? Yeah, because we are clearly headed for disaster. and it's only going to be through a transformation of consciousness that I think we can save ourselves and they have the potential to do that. And as you know, this is, it is amazing. Before the pandemic, when I was traveling around a lot and speaking, no matter where I was and what I was talking about, whether it was on an anti-inflammatory diet or integrative medicine or healthy aging, the questions I get would be about psychedelics. Where can I get them? How can I take them? How can I do this. A few months ago Vogue magazine had a cover story on psilocybin. Town and Country magazine of all places recently had an article titled why is everybody smoking toad venom? I mean this is like clearly becoming a mainstream phenomenon and then sooner or later, sooner I hope, they will be forced out of the restrictive drug schedule they're now in and they'll become available. And I think the potential out there is tremendous and I've seen remarkable physical healings in people, instantaneous, you know, of lifelong patterns that can change just by changing something in your head. Now, I want to ask you a.

Question about this because I've never taken psychedelics. I've never been high. I've never been drunk in my life.

Well, that's admirable.

I don't know if that's admirable or just a choice I've decided to make. Now, it doesn't mean I didn't have pain and suffering in other ways. And maybe getting high and smoking weed would have helped me relieve certain pains. I don't know because I've never done it. But I want to ask you a question about this, because I think this is interesting. I've been conflicted with psychedelics. I know a lot of people that do them and swear by them and say they've had these miraculous healings. I'm like, that's awesome if it's supporting you. And then I see other people that keep taking them and nothing changes. But they swear by it. Well, I had this healing, but then they're still in darkness. And it's like, okay, Is it something we use consistently or is it a tool that unlocks us to start integrating holistic?

I don't think it's something you use consistently. And also weed is not a psychedelic.

Right, right. But I mean, just like weed, but then I mean psychedelics in general.

Yeah, no, I think for many people a single experience with them or occasional experience does it.

Is enough.

Yeah, and I wrote my first book was called the Natural Mind and it was about Altered States of Consciousness and Drugs written in, it's 50 years ago, came out, still in print and still used. And Alan Watts gave a blurb for the book. And it was a quote that I really like referring to using drugs frequently. He said, you know, when you get the message, you hang up the telephone.

You don't need to keep using it.

Exactly.

Now here's another question for you. You studied meditation and spirituality and a lot of these different things and study with a lot of people as well have done that. I have found that in my meditative practices, when I truly allow myself to be in calm consistently, now this might take days to go, till I can get to that point where I'm like fully disconnected from stresses and environmental things that are causing me to feel triggered or reactive. But when I am able to go into those places, which it's a privilege to be able to do that and take a few days and do that, I get it. But when I'm able to do that, I feel like I'm having the most transcendental journeys in my mind and feeling the physical benefits of that as well, of healing through my own internal pharmacy, let's say, without an external causing the pharmacy internally to transform. It's also with the integrative of constant healing and applying the lessons I learned from that and having support in that ways, which allows me to keep integrating it. So what are your thoughts on first practicing like other holistic ways before the psychedelics? Because I'm all for it. If you've tried everything, you've spent time in nature, you've done different therapies and you're still suffering and there's no way out. What I get worried about is when people say, I feel like I'm stressed. Let me take a psychedelic. Or I feel like I'm overwhelmed and I'm just like, I don't know how to manage this.

Let me take a psychedelic. That's my only concern. Well, that's not how I think they should be used. I think there should be preparation for the experience and so forth. First of all, it's very likely that we have an endogenous psychedelic in our inside of us. Yeah, it's probably DMT, which is found in many plants in that psychedelic toad. It's probably produced in the pineal gland and maybe when you have profound experiences through other methods, there's a release of that in the brain. So, that's the first thing.

The third eye, getting into the pineal gland and moving the energy up into the pineal gland and having that DMT the experience, we can create that without the drug.

But I think the transformative experience that I've seen have mostly resulted when people have been prepared, have done preparation for the use, not taking it casually and not to sort of fix themselves.

Right, right. Okay.

Yeah.

I'm just a big, I'm all for learning and exploring, but I'm also like, man, I've never done that stuff. So, I know you have, but I know there's other healing modalities that are available without that.

True. However, the other healing modalities tend to be slow.

True.

And, the psychedelics can provide that almost instantaneously. True.

Just going to talk therapy, you may not get those results. It might take years of going once a month before you get very little results.

Yeah, also I heard a wonderful, I don't know who said this about talk therapy is that when you've got a poisoned arrow in you, you want to know how to get it out. You don't want to know how it got there.

There.

Right, right. I hear you. That's funny.

Yes.

And that's why I think when, you know, I've had to try to take the approach of, like, extreme, you know, measures when it comes to, like, healing, like, really diving into, like, intensive workshops, really diving into, like, intent. I've done eight hour therapy sessions where I'm like, no, let's get to the roots. Like, give it to me.

Yeah.

So I think you've got to be willing to go there. Yeah, I agree. If you don't take the psychedelics, you're gonna say, I'm gonna face this pain head on, bring it on, let's go. I'm willing to open up and do the work. Because if you don't, it's gonna just continue suffering. So anyway, that's my caveat for my consciousness to make sure I speak about that as well. But I know I have friends who swear by ayahuasca and different psychedelics that have supported them in awakening things that are holding them back. But you still gotta take the action consistently once you're aware of it.

So, well, we'll see what happens, but I'm very hopeful about seeing this, you know.

That you think that's gonna be the next wave though, yeah.

Yeah.

I hope people do it consciously and effectively, and not just as like, you know, a casual thing, a challenge.

Yeah.

Anything else you feel like we're missing that is gonna be coming after psychedelics in terms of healing and wholeness because.

You know, I'm a big proponent of mind-body medicine, and actually it's something that I've learned from psychedelics is that by changing things in your head, you can change things in your body and in the external world.

And.

That has been so ignored in medicine. Conventional medicine and science really don't believe in the mind and that the mind can affect the body. Really? Yeah.

Our thoughts can affect the body. Our thoughts do affect the body.

Yeah, obviously. But that's not taken advantage of. It's not acknowledged. It's because our science and medicine are totally dominated by a materialistic paradigm, which does not see the reality of the non-physical. I think that's going to change, and I think that'll bring a lot of good, it'll free a lot of things up.

There's so many frequencies that are not physical, not material. You know, the frequency of thinking, the frequency of feeling love, those are frequencies that you can't Yeah. Measure physically, right?

But they're real.

And then, and you talked about last time how like, you know, you allowed yourself to heal more when you, when you created love, you felt loved by another human and got into relationships, your body healed.

Yeah.

So how do we study that? And how do we get into that next of like studying the mind and the emotions with, well, there, there, we're.

Creeping up on it, you know, these new techniques of brain imaging, you know, we can we can image living brains and we've been able to show that placebo responses really are associated with actual activity in certain brain regions or that experienced meditators have changes in the size of certain areas of the brain. So, this begins to make it real for people.

Yeah, I went to a seven-day meditation retreat with Dr. Joe Dispenza a few months ago and he had a lot of different scientists there, I guess, you know, studying, I don't know, 15 different test points, I guess, from, like, brain Imaging to blood to feces to saliva to all these things, every day mapping and exploring, like, the, the benefits. And it's amazing to see the natural Pharmacy.

Right.

That we have in terms of healing ourselves.

Yeah.

With thinking, with breathing, like you talked.

About the four, seven, eight breath.

This is healing experience and incorporating the mind-body, I think, is a very powerful thing. How can we start to learn to teach this earlier so kids have this philosophy?

You just do it. I mean, you can like teach kids the 4-7-8 breath, for example.

Yeah.

This is beautiful stuff. I'm very excited about this and I'm excited about everything you're creating and the message you bring to the world. I want to mention, before I ask the final questions, I want to mention about your website at matcha.com. this thing is pretty cool. I'm going to try this integrative hydration matcha plus electrolytes.

Yeah.

Which I think is really cool. I'm a big fan of electrolytes, but we'll try this.

Well, try to add matcha. Because it's for the polyphenols and the antioxidants and all that good stuff. And, you know, while there is caffeine in matcha, It's moderated by this other amino acid, L-theanine, that has a calming effect. So, the stimulation of tea and matcha in particular is very different from that of coffee and other caffeine plants. It's like calm alertness people describe. Really?

Yeah.

So, it's not a jittery- Not jittery.

Like coffee. No. Gotcha. So, when you add matcha with electrolytes, what does that do?

It adds- well, it's very tasty, first of all. You know, it's a very pleasant drink. a nice alert feeling from it. It's good. I'm a big fan of matcha and I started this company, matcha.com, it brings high quality matcha and turmeric, fermented turmeric also.

So now you got fermented turmeric there as well.

Yeah.

It's amazing. I love matcha.com, it's a great domain.

I'm inspired by it. And we'll give your listeners a discount. Oh, what do we got?

Just the code is SOG. SOG. and they get a discount.

Yeah.

Also, what do they get?

How much off do we know? I don't remember what it is.

We'll give you a percentage. I'll give you a percentage. Go to matcha.com, use S-O-G when you check out and you'll get it. We'll get you a discount there.

I love that. And what is the main website for you where people can go? It's drweil.com, D-R-W-E-I-L.com and also I recommend that people check out the Integrative Medicine Center at the University of Arizona. integrativemedicine.arizona.edu. There are a lot of wonderful educational offerings including a number for general public.

Okay, cool. I asked you these two questions last time, my final questions. I'm curious where you're at at this season of life from almost two years later. Before I ask them, I want to acknowledge you, Dr. Weil, for how you keep showing up and keep being curious and keep trying to bring new ideas to the world and exploring and adapting them. so that we can consume them. So I really acknowledge you for your generous wisdom that you continue to bring to all of us to optimize our health. I asked you this last time, so I'll have to go back and look and see what your response was. But it was the three truths question, three truths. So imagine you get to live as long as you want to live and accomplish everything you want to accomplish for the rest of your life. But for whatever reason, you got to take all of your work and your message with you. So we don't have this conversation, your books, Everything's gone for whatever reason, hypothetical. But you get to share three lessons of wisdom you would share with the world from everything you've known about your life. I call it three truths you would share. What would be those three truths for you?

Well, I think one of them is everything is as it should be.

It's hard for people to accept.

I know. I think another one is that you have the ability to heal yourself. and that it's really important to love yourself.

Why do you think most people are never taught how to love themselves?

That's a good question.

Yeah.

It's almost like that should be one of the first things.

Absolutely.

How to love and accept who you are. Even if you're not where you want to be, you can still love and accept who you are and the mistakes you've made and move forward. But And that's gonna be my next book, How to Love Yourself, right? Figure that out.

Good.

I love those three truths. This is the final question. What is your definition of greatness?

I think really using your full potential.

There you go.

Yeah.

Dr. Watson, thank you so much.

Appreciate your time.

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