Restoring Memory and Brain Power with Dr. Rammohan Rao PhD & Ayu

Hello and namaskaram. I am Salila Sukumaran, the founder of AyurGamaya, an Ayurveda wellness concierge based in Mountain View, California. You are listening to the AyurGamaya podcast. Through these conversations with great karma yogis of Ayurveda, yoga, and other Vedic sciences, I wish to bring to you the treasures of India. If you are a beginner, my mission is to help you develop appreciation. If you are a practitioner, my goal is for you to become confident torchbearers of our immense legacy. May the gods and the gurus bless you. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Ayur Gamaya podcast. We have the pleasure of talking with Dr. Ram Mohan Rao, who is Principal Research Scientist with Apollo Health, a leading global institution working in the field of Alzheimer's research, prevention, and treatment. Dr. Rao is also a board-certified Ayurveda practitioner, melding both Eastern and Western approaches for better outcomes for patients facing cognitive decline. Thank you so much for joining us on the Ayurgameya podcast, Dr. Ram Mohan Rao. It is such an honor and a pleasure to have you here. You are a researcher, you are a neuroscientist in Alzheimer's disease management, right?

And that's correct.

Yeah, it's been 100 years since Dr. Alzheimer's discovered this condition, and, um, you know, and this is one of the leading causes of cognitive decline and death among the elderly. Especially in America, after heart disease and cancer. This is the third leading cause of death. What do we know about this condition now as compared to then that gives us hope for early detection, management, and perhaps a cure?

Right. So as you mentioned correctly, Salila Sukumaran, this is— Alzheimer's is an age-associated neurodegenerative disorder. Which is primarily characterized by loss of memory and executive functions. And this actually represents the bulk of dementia cases worldwide. So, when you talk about dementia, dementia is an umbrella term, and under dementia, Alzheimer's is one of them. But because Alzheimer's is represented by a large population, so the word Alzheimer's and dementia is loosely spoken as one another. Now, in the USA alone, there are about 5 million people living with AD, with Alzheimer's. And the projections are that by 2050, it's going to go to like 15 million people, and it's going to cost the nation anywhere between $1.5 to $2 trillion. In India as well, I mean, since both of us are from India, we need to know from the figures there. I managed to catch some figures from the World Health Organization, and it's the same number. It's almost like 5 million. But you know what's more surprising, what's interesting is, Salila Sukumaran, this number that we're talking about, 5 million, is an underrepresented number. Because what's happening is people, number one, people don't realize it's Alzheimer's, so they don't go to their practitioners. And so a lot of the cases are just, they just go unrecognized. That's number one. Number two, by the time people actually go to the doctors, it's too late. And so what we have is a small number. And if you actually go by the actual numbers, I mean, considering that if everybody goes to the doctors at the time when they detect something, then probably the numbers would be just duplicated. So that's where we are with the numbers. Now, as you rightly pointed out, 1901 is when Alois Alzheimer actually noticed this in a patient, and then the disease got the name from him. And it's now 2021, and in the last 100 or so years, more than 300 to 400 drugs have gone to clinical trials, but we don't have a single drug that can cure or reverse the condition. There are one or two drugs that have been approved by the FDA, but those are good only when people come at a very early age. Because if you see the stages of Alzheimer's, we have roughly about three stages. We have the early onset, We have the middle stage and then we have the severe stage. Usually when people come to the practitioner or to the clinician, it would be the severe stage. Okay, at that stage, those two pills that are currently now being used in the world for eczema, those two pills absolutely no work, it doesn't work at all. So they have to come at the early stage or even the what we call the presymptomatic stage in order for those drugs to be helpful. So then the question is, as you rightly pointed out, what do we have for the millions of people out there who have this condition? And, you know, when I was working at the Buck Institute on Alzheimer's disease, that was my work for the last 20 years, and as part of the community efforts, we used to go out and talk to these people, and, you know, the public had only one question. They said, "Dr. Rao, it doesn't matter what you guys are doing with animal models and all that. That's all fine." That's for your understanding. But as far as we are concerned, do you have a drug for us? And I had to say no. So, you know, so, you know, and that was sort of a very, you know, sort of a submissive or a defeatist attitude. And that's when we realized that we had to do something for these people. That was a time when the person with whom I was working with, the director of the institute, he's a neurologist, Dr. Dale Bredesen. He and I then, you know, we decided that it's time that we took a comprehensive we take a comprehensive approach to the whole, to the whole condition. And, you know, over the period of time that we were working, we realized that even though it's a brain condition, there are a lot of other influences that come from the systemic areas of the body, whether it is a gut, whether it is the 5 sensory organs, whether it is a heart, whether it is lungs, all these play a very important role. And addressing all these factors can actually delay the symptoms. In fact, in some of the cases, it has even reversed some conditions so well that these people have gone back to work. See, for us, one of the ways to understand whether a person has recovered or not is especially those people who have lost their work because of their memory losses, okay? And a lot of these people have actually gone back to work. So we know that this, this program works. So yes, there is hope. The hope is in this comprehensive program that we have that offers benefit to a lot of people. We are seeing this time and again in a lot of these patients. We have seen so far more than 500 to 1,000 patients, and everyone is doing very well, especially those people who are, who are on the program, who continue to be on the program. They do very well. So yes, when it comes to a comprehensive approach, there is a hope, and it does a lot of good things if it's a, if it's a If it's a question of drug, I'm sorry, but we still do not have a drug.

Okay, so we will come back to the program, the protocol that you're talking about. That is, you know, heartwarming to know that, you know, there is light at the end of the tunnel, that we have some understanding that we can manage this through perhaps diet and lifestyle that affects all the rest of the body. Correct. Please help our listeners understand the Ayurvedic perspective on Alzheimer's. I noticed in your literature you mentioned that, you know, there are no references, there are no direct references to this in the Samhita classics. Does this mean that they did not have that during that time? Is this something that has developed in the current scenario of our crazy modern lifestyle?

No, it's not that. So what happens is, whenever we talk about disorders or diseases in other branches of medicine or alternative forms of medicine, the Western audience expects that you'll have the same names or the same kind of treatment protocol in the alternative forms. So that's where I meant that, you know, in Ayurvedic system of medicine, we don't have something close to Alzheimer's. But you see, what happens is in India, as I said, we have 5 million people, so it was not something new. In the texts, Yes, there is a description of neurodegenerative conditions. They call it vata vyadi. And under vata vyadi, they did talk about memory loss. They talked about loss of cognitive functions.

Okay.

And they said this all comes primarily from a vata derangement. And they also talked about a pitta-vata derangement as well that involved both inflammation and memory loss.. And the thing is, the condition was not known as Alzheimer's because naturally, you know, we didn't have that system of where you attribute a disorder to a person. So we didn't say, we didn't call it a Charaka like memory loss or something. We didn't say that. We just said vata vyadi. But there is a condition, a condition called prana vritti samana vata vyadi. Now, is that Alzheimer's? I do not know. But if you see the description of the disorder, there are a lot of the descriptions of the pathology, the pathophysiology that seems to correlate with Alzheimer's. And so in my references that I put up on Alzheimer's which have been peer-reviewed, I do mention that this could be coming very close to Alzheimer's-like condition because they do talk about especially some of the pathological observations are very similar to what we see in the Western correlate. So yes, there is there is a system of understanding with regard to memory loss. And of course, it's— so when you talk about prana, vritti, samana, vyata, vyadi, they talk about things like buddhi, buddhi nasha. They talk about manovikara, they talk about atma vikara, they talk about smriti nasa. So these terms, these terms actually come very close to what we understand in terms of You know, for example, now when we— and then they talk about loss of— they talk about, you know, reduction in medha. Medha means intellect. They talked about reduction in dhi. Dhi is the power of, let's say, absorption or discrimination. Okay, and then they talk about lowering of the driti. Driti, the closest thing that we can think about in terms of Western understanding, is the process of memory retention. Okay, and then smriti nasa. Smriti nasa is nothing but memory recall. So you see, so the terms were there and the understanding was there, and they had, they had, they had, I'm sure, protocols in place as well. So yes, they did have— they talked about memory loss, they talked about, uh, loss of intellect, they talked about memory, uh, failure of memory recall. So in all these things, I think, you know, they did recognize that there was— the only thing is they didn't talk about genetics and they didn't talk about early disease. They said vata vyadi, that comes with age, so it's age-associated. So, you know, it could be an age-associated dementia, it could be Alzheimer's, but that, uh, but yeah, but yes, they do have something similar to, to what we describe as Alzheimer's.

Amazing, amazing. That was quite a mouthful, that Sanskrit description.

Yes, it is. Yeah, absolutely.

So you mentioned 3 subtypes types within Alzheimer's when we look at it through an Ayurvedic lens. Could you please explain it briefly for our listeners?

Yeah, so, you know, as I was mentioning earlier, so Dr. Bredesen and I, we were working on Alzheimer's for the last 20+ years. And then Dr. Bredesen is actually a neurologist. And then, and, you know, that was a time when I completed my Ayurveda and yoga training. And in all our scientific meetings, I should tell him, I said, you know, Dr. Bredesen, we cannot take a reductionist approach. Alzheimer's is not about one small little molecule that has gone haywire. It's a complex network of molecules that have gone abnormal or subnormal, and we need to address it from huge datasets. We need to address it from a systemic, from a systems point of view. We need to address it as a multi-therapeutic condition and not as a as not as a single molecule disorder. It took quite a bit of convincing, but he finally, he realized that sure enough, there is some truth in all this because that was the time when he got interested in alternative forms of medicine. And whether you talk about Chinese medicine, whether you talk about Ayurveda, whether you talk about homeopathy or naturopathy, you know, in all these cases, they don't talk about addressing a disease with one pill. They always talk about, you know, addressing a whole system. And, you know, what led to our protocol was the fact that in our understanding of Alzheimer's, we broke the rules. What do you mean by that? So until then, it was thought that Alzheimer's is a condition where there is two main molecules involved, what we call the amyloid condition and then the tau condition. And so you had to be with one of these two schools, otherwise your work will not be funded, you will not get any grants, you will not get any publications.. And so if your theory fitted in one of these two bills, then yes, it served the purpose. Now, the work that we did actually didn't fit that bill because what we said is it's neither— it's maybe amyloid, it may be tau, but it's much more than these two things. So all the drugs that were in the market or trying to be in the clinical trials, they were either addressing A-beta, the amyloid, or they were addressing tau.. And we came forth and said, you know what, you need to address a whole list. And we produced a master list of some 60 or 70 different molecules based on our work that could have gone— that goes aberrant. And we said, we need to come up with smart drugs that can address all these pathways simultaneously. In some cases, they have to increase the parameters, and in some cases, they have to decrease the parameters. Now imagine having a single drug that can do all this, it's just impossible. That's when we said, you know, we need to take another kind of an approach. And so we took this systematic systems-based multi-therapeutic approach and we called— because he was a neurologist, Dale was a neurologist, he managed to get a lot of patients and then he put these people in this program. And then over time, as more and more people got better, He continued with this program, and this program was evolving. We added more things to this program. And then what happened is, as a scientist, I was collecting all the data, and then we noticed— by now we had these huge sets of data. And that's where we segregated the data based on some of the criteria that we have. And sure enough, what we found out was the disease itself, Alzheimer's disease itself, could be classified into 3 main types. The first type, what we call, is the inflammatory type of Alzheimer's, where we have a predominant— the predominant sign is inflammation, and inflammation based on the microglial activation, the astroglial activation, and so on and so forth. This inflammation could come from the brain, and it could also come from the associated organs that lead to a global inflammation, which results in memory loss. And then the second type of Alzheimer's that we noticed in these patients was what we call an atrophic or a cold type of Alzheimer's disease, which resulted in actual withdrawal of the hormonal and neurotransmitter support. Okay, and because of that, because of the withdrawal of the neurohormone support, what happened is people started having memory issues. This could be either, you know, low amount of vitamin D or hyperlevels of homocysteine or withdrawal of estrogen or progesterone. All these can cause memory losses. So we call this type 2 or the atrophic one. And then the third thing was, well, the third type was a little different in the sense it was what we call an atypical, in the sense it didn't have a genetic correlate and it came in a younger group. And what we noticed is came predominantly in those people who came with an infection— infection from a virus, infection from a bacteria, infection from a fungi, from a mold— or it could come from toxins, either metal toxins or pollutants, chemical pollutants. Any of these toxins could exacerbate the memory loss, and we call this the type 3 infectious type. Now, if you go back to the Ayurvedic literature and put these 3 together, Naturally, type 1 inflammation would be the Pitta type condition of Alzheimer's disease. The atrophic or the withdrawal of support would be the Vata type of Alzheimer's disease. And then the infectious type, we call it the Krimi type. Now we do have— I'm hoping that we can come up with a second iteration of our classification where we have some more patients, not enough, but some more patients where we could, you know, probably classify them as a kapha type, a pitta, vata type, and so on and so forth. But yeah, so these are the 3 major ones. And, you know, why are we excited? Because now we know, now that we have these subtypes of Alzheimer's, it becomes very easy for us to be very specific in our therapeutic interventions. So, you know, once again, this goes very well with our Ayurvedic methodology where we say one thing doesn't fit everybody, or it's not a tailor-made approach. We have to make sure that it fits with a given patient and their symptom condition and their symptoms and so on and so forth. So, you know, this classification actually helps us in addressing that specifically.

Wow, that was fascinating. So we have inflammatory condition, which is a Pitta condition. We have a Vata condition, which is where there is withdrawal. The, the, uh, the hormonal production, the vitamin production is affected and it's not able to nourish the brain. So that's right, the condition. And then the third one we talked about was infection, infectious, right, kind of a condition. Correct. What role does diet and lifestyle play in either exacerbating this situation or creating the right conditions for this situation to develop, right?

So, you know, uh, Salila Sukumaran, I mean, you, you, you know this very well. I mean, in Ayurveda, what do we say for any kind of disease? The first thing, what do we say? We say address the gut, right? I mean, that, that's the main thing, that's the main source. And if you say that you address the gut, and if you can restore the gut 70-75% of the entire disease is reversed. And, you know, that's now being recognized in the Western system of medicine. In fact, there's a system of medicine called functional medicine in the Western— in the modern medicine called functional medicine. Functional medicine now does the same thing. They say address the gut for any kind of disease condition, whether it's physical, mental, psychological. In the Alzheimer's condition as well, We realized that the gut metabolism actually plays a dominant role in memory loss. And this was a profound discovery that we made. And when Dale started addressing their guts, when he started putting them on a proper diet and all that, lo and behold, I mean, we didn't, I mean, first of all, there's no drug at all in our approach. All we are doing is lifestyle changes and diet. So with the diet itself, Salila, you won't believe, these people did remarkably well. So well that they could, you know, within 3 months, I would say about 60 to 65% of the memory losses were being reversed. And then of course we address them through lifestyle practices, we address them through herbs, we address them through supplements, and it really worked so well. So the thing is, what we noticed is along with the gut, so the gut was the primary organ that we needed to address, so through diet, and then along with the gut, we also needed to address other systemic organs as well. Because what happens is in Alzheimer's condition, there is a dysfunctional— dysfunction of the 5 sensory organs: ears, nose, mouth. Now whether these are the causes for the memory loss or whether the memory loss is causing these changes, we do not know, but definitely there is a correlation. In addition to that, there's a close relationship between brain and the colon. The brain and the lungs, the brain and the heart. So what we did is our diet and lifestyle approaches addressed more than the brain, it addressed all these associated organs. And then of course, you know, we did a lot of other tests to outcome measures to see whether there's any improvement in these patients. And sure enough, you know, with diet, with lifestyle, with proper sleep, with physical exercise and mental exercise, another very important thing, mental exercise as well, and then supplements that includes herbs. By putting these people in this program, sure enough, we were able to reverse. Now, I'm not saying it's a cure, but we were able to reverse all their symptoms. Not only that, if these people kept on this program, these changes were all sustained. The minute they, you know, because a lot of patients, you know, a lot of people, when they see the changes occurring, when they see the beneficial changes, they are so excited that in their excitement they think, oh, we have done, we are fine now, we are done with this now, we don't need to do all these things. You know, because nobody— imagine having a single pill that you take 3 times a day, and then on the other hand you have a program that tells you eat only vegetables and fruits, eat only whole grains, and then do your physical exercise, do your mental exercise, do yoga, do make sure that you have 8 hours of a lot of sleep, make sure that you meditate. I mean, which one is more attractive? Naturally, a pill is more attractive because it requires less effort, and all it requires is just popping it in. The program requires you to be aware of all these things. So, you know, the minute they see a recovery, they try to go off the program, and then the symptoms come back. So that's why we have to tell them that, you know, this is— you have to be with it now. This has to be with you, uh, you know, till the time that a pill is pill comes up. But this has to be— in order to sustain those changes, you have to be with this program.

Wow, we are hearing you loud and clear. So we have to live a life where we are predominantly eating a vegetarian diet, we are focused on yoga, meditation, physical exercise, good deep sleep, everything that Ayurveda tells us, uh, right? The classics have been like harping for 5,000 years.

We Absolutely.

On that, um, Dr. Rao, I was reading that even a decade before those amyloid protein plaques and the— those nerve tangles, those tau tangles show up, uh, it's already there in the body. It's developing. Uh, is there any way for listeners who may be hearing this podcast right now, maybe within their family there's somebody, is there any way for us to know that this is developing, we've got to pay attention? And if yes, then what are some Ayurvedic yogic rituals that they can do that you recommend which will help them?

Yeah, you know, it's very, very important because as I said, uh, even our program— even, even though I keep talking about our program, uh, and I'm talking about the benefits of this program, uh, let me also caution saying that this program Although we would have loved to see this work on patients that come at the last stage, unfortunately it doesn't work even for those people. It doesn't work when they come at the last stages, the severe form of the Alzheimer's condition, unfortunately. And, you know, it makes a good argument there. The reason being that, you know, in some of these cases, actually most of these cases, at that stage of the disease, they are not compliant. I mean, they don't absolutely have no idea where they are. They have no understanding of who they are or what they are or that they have to eat or they have to practice. And even the caregivers are so stressed out by then that it becomes very difficult to implement the program on these people who come with a severe stage. And so, you know, we don't see this benefits of this program at the severe stage. On the other hand, the people who come at a very early on stage, when I would say early, it's early to moderate, they do very well. Not just that, people who come at the pre-symptomatic stage, they do extremely well. And then, you know, they— by doing— by coming in that early and doing a program, what happens is they bypass going into the early to moderate stage, you know. They don't need to go into that stage at all. So, uh, I, I— we always like to tell our people saying that, you know, number one, if you have a family history, then yes, you then you may or may not get it. Now, it doesn't mean that you're going to get it, but it's always good to be aware of where you are in your life, okay? Especially when it comes to memory issues, number one. Number two, you may not have a history of Alzheimer's, but then if you have a specific gene, so we know that it's called the APOE4 gene, okay? And nearly 70% of the people with Alzheimer's have this gene. It's a required gene, it's necessary to have, all of us have it, but what we have is, so it comes in 3 flavors. It comes as E2, E3, and E4. The people who have E2 and E3, they very rarely develop Alzheimer's, whereas the people who have E4, they have this condition. And so it becomes very important for us to you know, if you can understand whether you need to get it, especially if you know that you had people in the family who had these issues, nice to get yourself tested and, you know, to see your ApoE4 association. And if you have it, then yes, then you— now it doesn't mean that all ApoE4s will have memory losses. We know of several ApoE4s that don't have the disease condition, but the risk is always there. So that's number one. I mean, that's number two. Number three, the minute we start seeing some issues with memory, and all of us, uh, I would say 40 plus, once we are 40 plus, start noticing our lifestyle. In our lifestyle, if we start noticing that we are having some memory issues, and if it— if now you may, for example, now I, I teach in the California College of Ayurveda. Every year I see Several students, okay, that go through my program, I teach them for 1 year and then I don't see them for the next 5, 6 years, and then I see them again maybe at a conference or a seminar, maybe 6, 7 years down the line. By then I would have seen so many other students. That student may come to me and they say, Dr. Ram, do you recognize me? And I'll go, ha, you know what, I do, you're familiar, but I can't get your name. That's not Alzheimer's because because I, I do remember that this person used to eat in the class. I would— I really do remember this person was very tardy when it came to homework and assignment. So I remember the entire scenario around the person, but I may not remember the name. That's not Alzheimer's, or that's not memory loss. That's just at that moment you may not recall the name of the person. So if you have certain issues with memory and you know it is coming again and again, then yes, you need to see the doctor. Don't wait for it to, you know, for it to develop into a full-blown disease. Like, for example, now the other common thing that happens is a person may forget something on the stove. Now, if it happens once, it's okay. I mean, right now I may have done that to the morning, that's okay. But if it happens repeatedly, then you know that something is wrong. Or if you leave the car on and then you go and lock the garage and then go home,, and then next day morning you find the car is running through the night. And if it happens frequently, then you know that there's something wrong. Or if you happen to lose your keys, if you happen to displace your keys somewhere and forget about it. So, you know, my suggestion is please keep a track of all these things, uh, and the minute you see some telltale signs, I would suggest just go, uh, before you go to the Ayurvedic or, uh, or an alternative practitioner, my suggestion is go to the neurologist and get yourself tested because now we have some wonderful diagnostic tests that they can do. And then, you know, once they confirm that yes, there is some abnormality in the brain, it's very evident. You can immediately see that there are some beautiful imaging scans of the brain that allows a person to know whether you have a telltale sign of Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. And, you know, and if they say it is very early on, then the best thing would be either to ask the practitioner if they have something, or if they don't have something, that's when you should approach an Ayurvedic person or a homeopath or a Chinese medicine or acupuncture, whoever, whoever you have a tendency towards, just go to those, to those people and get, get an early treatment plan.

Okay. Okay. You mentioned that, you know, family members get frustrated and as the cognitive decline continues, people are themselves feeling depressed and, you know, they're unhappy with the situation. Situation, they are usually not positive and optimistic about their future. And I have a travel agency and I specialize in Panchakarma trips to India. So I get approached by many spouses who are like, please, please help us get my husband or wife to India to go do a thorough Panchakarma so that they can get better. However, when I approach them, I email them, I see that there is total lack of trust they are reclusive, they don't want to talk, they are suspicious. How do you manage such a situation? I'm sure you also face these kind of dynamics.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. You know, especially if it's a person in the last stage of the condition, then there's nothing we can do. Even panchakarma will not help. Because that's the stage where there's a rapid degeneration and quite a significant loss of brain structure and function. And no amount of panchakarma will help these patients. I'm sorry to say that, but, you know, it may at the most provide some happiness or some relief to the caregivers, but I doubt very much that it can reverse the condition because it's the last stage. That's number one. So then what do we do? Well, I mean, you cannot, you cannot just, uh, you know, put the patient on the road and say, okay, there's nothing we can do about it. You know, you do your best. For, for such people, uh, the suggestion would be then make sure that, you know, you give whatever quality of life you can give to that person. Now remember one thing, and this is something that we, we need to distinguish ourselves between a caregiver and a person with Alzheimer's. A person who is in the moderate to severe stage of the condition, uh, Salila Sukumaran, they have absolutely no idea who they are. Okay, they have lost complete, complete contact with the world. Believe me, they won't know their husbands. They will— I mean, not husband, they won't know their spouses. They won't know their kids. They won't know who they are. They won't know the people around them. They won't know, remember the names. They— and then, you know, uh, they may remember one or two words and they keep on harping on those words. They have no idea that the food kept in front of them has to be eaten. They have no idea how to express pain. They have no idea how to express that they're going to— that they want to sleep. They have no idea that they have to that if there's a pain that they had, that they don't know how to show or where to show that they have a pain. They don't know whether I need to go to the bathroom. They can't say that I need to go to the bathroom. So, you know, they are totally, completely disconnected from the mainstream. So what you, as a caregiver, you can only provide them comprehensive care, that's all, and make sure that, you know, they get the best care possible. That's all you can do. On the other hand, there's a lot you can do for people who are in the early stage, the presymptomatic, early to moderate stage. Okay, you have to tell them the importance of having a good memory. You have to tell them the importance of being independent. You have to tell them the importance of doing their own chores. And you have to tell them the importance of how difficult it is to manage when they completely lose their memory. So based on that, and then you can show them, you know, the data that we have, like In our case, a lot of patients come to us, you know, naturally, you know, they have gone tapping on the doors of so many clinics. And so when they come to us too, they have, they are suspicious, they have misgivings. So we have to show them the data, we have to show them the results of our studies and tell them, you know, this is what we have and, you know, you can really do better. So based on that, so there is a lot of there's a lot of exchange of information between the patient and you, and you have to really convince them. As people who are in the early to moderate stage, they can be convinced. There's no doubt about it, they can be convinced. I have had several— I mean, not I personally, but in our health sector, we have had several people who required convincing. And, you know, when they knew that there were guides, there were coaches, there were people who would follow them in their journey, then they were really convinced and they came into our program. So, you know, this is a stage, Salila, where a practitioner, whoever it is, has to, you know, think less about money and more about being with the patient. So you have to talk one-on-one with them. You have to act like a guide. You have to act like a coach more than a doctor. That's when they'll be convinced and they'll they'll, they'll be ready to hop onto the program.

Got that. Dr. Rao, could you please give us a brief overview of the program that you conduct and how can people reach you?

So in our program is actually a part of what we call Apollo Health. So they can go to the website and see Apollo Health. This is, and then of course, the person who formed this and who mainly runs this is Dr. Dale Bredesen. He is the main guy who runs the program. And there's so much of this, even though we follow all the protocols, it's not necessarily an Ayurvedic protocol, but it's a protocol that encompasses Ayurveda and yoga. So we have a diet-based program. It's mainly, I wouldn't say a vegetarian diet because there is, we do provide seafood there. But it's a tailor-made vegetarian— not vegetarian, but semi-vegetarian diet. We call it the keto diet because in our program, the keto diet has worked very well for this patient. So it's called a keto diet. And so people are— there's a health coach and there's a nutritionist that will tell them what kind of food to eat. And then, you know, there's certain timings that they have to eat, and then they have to They have to do physical exercise for a certain time. They have to do mental exercise regimen for a certain time, certain time period. This is given on a given daily basis. And then they have to do yoga for a certain period of time, meditation for a certain period of time. And then we tell them the importance of sleep. We tell them to have good quality sleep. And of course, then, you know, based on their blood values, and their blood parameters. So we have a whole range of parameters that we like to see, blood parameters. And then based on that, then we put them on specific supplements to restore back those values. We put them on specific herbs, Ayurvedic herbs, so that, you know, it helps them in their journey. So it's less of Ayurveda and yoga, but there's a component of yoga in the sense that they do asanas. And they do meditation. And there's a component of Ayurveda in the sense that we do give them some herbs, but it's basically a very complex multi-therapeutic approach that we put these people on. And, you know, anybody who— by now what's happened is now we have trained hundreds of doctors on this program, and so they don't need to come to us per se. Wherever they are in this country, they can, they can go to Apollo Health and they can see who are the nearest doctors that have been trained in this protocol. They can go to them and those doctors will put them on this, on the program that they have learned from us. So they follow, they adhere to the same principles that we have put them on. So they get the same kind of treatment that we propose. And then, you know, they are given a health coach, they're given a nutritionist, and then they are given a physical therapist. So they follow all the guidelines. And, you know, every 3 months we collect data from these people and just to make sure that they are improving. And if they're not improving, we try to adjust things that are out of balance. So it's a continuous evolving-based system of medicine. And, you know, it's called Apollo Health. And, you know, it's— anybody can sign into that program.

So if you're Googling, you're Googling for Apollo Health. Alzheimer's.

That's correct. Yeah, Apollo Health. Apollo Health in this country. I mean, we are not talking about Apollo Health, uh, you know, there's Apollo Clinic in back in India. It's nothing to do with that. This is Apollo Health, uh, and the minute you click on Apollo Health, it will show you only, uh, Alzheimer's because that's what we are doing right now. We are not, we are not approaching other conditions, although we do have patients, uh, you know, requesting us to start this program on other conditions as well. We are not sure whether it will work on other conditions, so we are still experimenting with other conditions, but for now it's just only people with Alzheimer's.

It's very interesting to note that you are suggesting a keto diet. Is it because of the predominance of fats and oils in the keto diet, which kind of, you know, complements the dryness and the vata vyadi that you were talking about?

Right. So I mean, if you notice, our condition is also inflammation. So what— so the keto diet, the, the oils and the fats, they can help in both bringing down the inflammation, the Pitta type, as well as making the— reversing the Vata kind of a condition. Not only that, what we have noticed is that— and this goes very well with the Ayurvedic definition of memory loss because the minute you talk about the brain, they talk about it as a— they talk about Medhya Rasayana therapies. Medhya Rasayana is nothing but rasayanas to bring in more fat. And we now know, I mean, you know, the brain is filled with fat, it needs the fats. And so in the keto diet, that's what we emphasize, number one. Number two, we emphasize on the fact that the more ketones you have, what happens is it builds up the neuroplastic response in the brain, it builds up more neurosynaptic connections. And this is what is required for the brain. And so that's the reason. And then of course, you know, there are other things in— so Within the keto diet, what happens is you have the ketone body production, and these ketone bodies are known to, you know, jump-start the memory issues. So they build up more connections, they build up more synapses, they bring down the levels of amyloid beta, they bring down the levels of the tau protein. And so a lot of advantages with the keto diet. So that's the reason why in our program they use the keto-based diet.

I'm sure the listeners who perhaps have a family member, they can take this right away and implement this right away and, you know, start helping a family member or a friend. Now, on a different note, I was fascinated to read that you trace your lineage to Rishi Kaundinya. Could you please share your family history with us?

Oh, you know what, I don't know where you got that, but So there were two reasons why actually I put it out there. Number one, it was just to tell people that, you know, because in this country they like to know whether you are from a family of practitioners or whether you just came into the program. And so, you know, when I look back, yes, my grandfather and his father, they were all Ayurvedic and yoga practitioners. Those are the days when, you know, they had a comprehensive knowledge of medicine, which included Ayurveda, yoga, Vastu, horoshastra, that is astrology. And so it was a very comprehensive multi-therapeutic approach that they used. It just later on, it just, you know, it got diluted because they said, you know, this can all be a standalone therapy. But, you know, my grandfather and his father and all those people, they practiced this multi-therapeutic approach. And then that's one thing. The second thing is, in our system, we have what we call the Gotra and the Pravara system. And the Gotra and Pravara system actually tells you where your patriarchal lineage comes about. And it's interesting because the patriarchal lineage, in a way, I wouldn't consider that to be sort of a discriminatory thing. I mean, you know, in this, in the present day, we always think of it as gender-based. It was more of a— it's not a gender-based thing. I think it was more to do with the kind of diseases that you want to reduce as you come down the generations. And in the patriarchal system of the Gotra and the Pravara system, what happens is I think they wanted to reduce the number of diseases associated with the Y chromosome. And so, you know, by having this Gotra-Pravara system, they probably, you know, they tried to minimize the damages So that, you know, because, you know, as everyone knows, when you have people in the same gotra family, you know, you're not supposed to marry. I mean, so because, you know, I think the reasoning was that you tend to have more of the Y chromosomal conditions or genetic conditions. So they didn't want that to happen in the lineage. So that's the reason I think probably why they had the gotra system. And so, you know, when I put out my gotra lineage as Koundinya, And I was just in a way trying to tell people out there, because now there's a lot of research going on back in India as well, where they are looking at chromosomal abnormalities, disease conditions associated with the gotras and associated with doshas and all that. So my hope is that, you know, if sometime in the near future, if somebody out there is doing some kind of a gotra system and genomics or iogenomics, or looking at diseases, then, you know, when I put out there saying that I'm in the Koundinya lineage, hopefully they'll contact me and say, you know, would you want to be a research study, or would you want to participate in the study, or do you want to be a subject? And I would gladly accept it. So that's the reason why I put out there. I didn't do a 23andMe. I didn't have the blood profile of Rishi Koundinya or any of his descendants. But, uh, and so for me to say for sure that, you know, we have— we share some genetic SNPs or genetic chromosomes or, you know, familiarities in those haplotypes and all that, I'm not I'm not saying all that because I don't even know. We didn't even do a 23andMe and all those people. So, but you know, by doing, by just putting it out there, I'm just hoping that one of these days somebody approaches me for a study, or if they are doing a study, I could be a subject. That's all.

So you are a researcher through and through. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Rao. It has been such a pleasure. Thank you for sharing your vast knowledge and wisdom with us. We wish you great luck with everything you're doing going forward. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Salila, and it's been a pleasure. And I hope you have a good day and hope that everybody, you know, because in India, in India, back, back in the Vedic system, we always say lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu, or we say sarve jana sukhino bhavantu. So, you know, that's, that's the ultimate motive that we have, that everyone, nobody needs to suffer, everyone should be happy. So So hopefully whatever we discussed today will provide an impetus to all those people out there, especially people with memory issues, that they can go forward and take corrective steps. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Krishnamurti, Dagat Guru, Devaki Paramananda, Devaki. Krishnam balade jagadguru. Krishnam balade jagadguru. Krishnam, Krishnam. Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Nivedya. Begane, begane, baroba, Krishna, begane, baroba.