Peptides, Detox & Brain Repair: How Dr. Heather Sandison Is Changing Dementia Care

And then stress, there's very clear literature that when we're under stress, we don't remember as much. It's harder to make those neural connections. And then infections, there is a very— I actually don't even know if someone has connected this as a cause, but certainly correlated. We see in autopsy reports the brains of people with these degenerative diseases, whether they're Lewy body or Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, there are viruses and bacteria in these, these tangles, in the neurofibrillary tangles or in these plaques.

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Hi, this is Dr. Ken Holtorf with another episode. Today we are fortunate to have Dr. Heather Sanderson, uh, with us, and she's going to be talking about integrating peptides for optimal brain optimization. Or for Comprehensive Brain Optimization. That got a double optimization there. But very excited to speak with her. She's well known here at many conferences, and she trains doctors and speaks about all our unique topics. And we'll get in, I'm sure we're going to learn a lot about how to fix some of the toughest patients, especially the neurodegenerative and cognitive problems that are so prevalent and so poorly treated today. She's a founder and the medical director of North County Natural Medicine and founder of Marama, which is a residential facility, which I imagine takes up a lot of time and is tough to run. She specializes in, again, neurocognitive medicine and neurohacking, which I love that term. She has trained to specifically address imbalances that affect the brain, including autism, ADD, ADHD, depression, anxiety, and Alzheimer's. She has trained with some of the top, top names in the country and around the world— Dale Brenderson, Dr. Neil Nathan, Dr. Bill Walsh, and Richie Shoemaker. was a little tough to work with. In addition to regularly attending and speaking on integrative medicine conferences across the country and throughout the year, her healing philosophy centers around taking deep dives into treating the cause of the imbalance in the body, including toxic burden, nutrient balance, stress management, structural integration, infection resolution. So really looks at the whole body. Which I think is key with so many illnesses now. She believes power of the body heal itself. Dr. Sandison's passion to guide and support patients as they co-create strong foundations for optimal health through sustainable lifestyle changes and the best medical interventions to support balance of the body. Yeah, I think the patient has to be an active participant or it just doesn't work. She's dedicated to learning all there is to know about the brain health and considers her amazing patients at NCNM and residents at the Marana Residential Center some of her very best teachers. Very interesting. Sounds very humble, and you can learn a lot if you listen to your patients. She's been awarded a research grant, which are very tough to get, to study the effects of individual interventions in patients struggling with cognitive decline at our center. She's earned her naturopathic doctorate at Bastyr in Seattle, and she currently serves on the medical advisory board of Neurohacker Collective and is a regular host of the Collective Insights podcast. So, Dr. Heather, thank you so much for, for being on. I'm looking forward to hearing all the things you're doing for some of these toughest patients with, uh, you know, neurocognitive degeneration and all the other cognitive dysfunction, which seems like so many people are diagnosed with nowadays, um, and so many people have a problem Let me ask you, what do you think is the cause of the rise of all these problems that I don't think we had 20, 30 years ago?

Yeah, thanks so much for having me, first of all. I, you know, it's such a fascinating conversation, right? Is a lot of people suggest that in the case of autism or Alzheimer's, that maybe it's that we have improved diagnoses, right? That we see more doctors, we have more doctors, that there's more people in the world. So of course there's going to be more patients. However, I would disagree with that. I don't think that fully explains the rise in incidence, so the number of patients per, say, 100 in the population that are being diagnosed with diseases, these long-term chronic neurodegenerative diseases, and I believe that toxicity plays a huge role. Now, I actually— you listed, as you read my bio, who has time for all that, but you listed the 5 things that basically I believe contribute that can be causal really not just contribute but can be actually causal when it comes to complex chronic disease, and that's toxicity, which has definitely exponentially risen over the course of the last generation or so, the last 80 years, so certainly hitting our baby boomers very hard. The other thing is nutrient balance, right? Remember the '80s when we were told that fats were bad? Well, our brains need fats. They use fats actually most efficiently for fuel, so things like ketones. We found that one of the best diets for for a neurodegenerative brain is a ketogenic diet because the brain so efficiently uses ketones for fuel. And you get rid of the detriment of high levels of both insulin and blood sugar in the brain. So toxins, nutrient balance, structural integrity, right? You've got to have the way a chiropractor would think about it. You've got to have blood flowing to your brain. You've got to have the toxins able to get out through the venous system, through the lymphatic system. We've learned more and more over the last few years about how that, that lymphatic system in the brain is so integral and how a lot of that happens at night. If we're not flushing the system, then those toxins can build up and certainly cause that degeneration at the cellular level. So that structural integrity of the head and neck particularly. Also, you know, if you've been hit over the head with a baseball bat, clearly traumatic brain injuries can cause neurodegeneration. We see that. And then stress, We all— that there's very clear literature that when we're under stress, we don't remember as much. It's harder to make those neural connections. And then infections. There is a very, um, I actually don't even know if someone has connected this as a cause, but certainly correlated. We see in autopsy reports the brains of people with these degenerative diseases, whether they're Lewy body or Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, there are viruses and bacteria in these these tangles, in the neurofibrillary tangles or in these plaques, in what you can see histologically under a microscope, you can find some of these bugs in there. And so it suggests that there's a contributing factor when it comes to infections, and dental infections in particular can be a trigger there. So I believe that the reason there's a higher incidence is because all of these things are more off balance. We're more stressed, we don't eat as well, we don't exercise, so our structure is off, we spend all day sitting at computers or sitting sitting in the car commuting, and then there's more toxins in the environment. So that is what I would say is driving the rise in incidence.

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I think I completely agree. And what do you think of McDonald's work where he found basically all of— he was head of Harvard Brain Bank and biopsied all the Alzheimer's patients and found Lyme.

You know, in all of them. And, you know, I'm just thinking that everything's infectious.

But I also think, let's say, you know, we call Lyme disease, which, you know, which I think is a lot of things, but I think if someone just says Lyme, they're gonna be fine. It's all these other things, you know. And I had it myself, and emotional stress— went through a stressful divorce— just killed me. And when I lecture, I show how stress— everyone thinks it lowers immunity. No, it modulates it, lowers the good part but causes all this inflammation. And I had it since I was born. And I have the worst memory of anyone. I can remember medical stuff, but that's about it. And just all growing up, like, one pupil was bigger and all this stuff. But then just 2 weeks ago, I broke my nose, concussion for a long time.

And all the toxins.

I'm scared to take an Alzheimer's test because I don't know if I'd pass, you know.

So, so generally, do you—

where do you start? Let's say ADD. So you also do like ADD patients. Let's just start with there, like ADD, ADHD, someone has a kid that—

developmental kind of the things that come up as children are growing. So what I, what I do is really a comprehensive approach. I, I like to play in this area of cause. I know that a lot of people will say, "Well, why don't you just add more magnesium?" or "Why not put him on this or try that?" and instead of doing this sort of—

Adderall deficiency, right?

Adderall deficiency, right. And instead of doing this sort of let's pick from the tree and choose these things that are most interesting this week, I really like to get the data and patients need to be on board. I'm a data person. It's part of who I am as a provider, and so I really encourage patients, like, let's fill in the model. Let's figure out how many toxins you have. Are they there? And kids, unfortunately, can be exposed to toxins. It's in umbilical cord blood, right? So they can get it from mom, particularly firstborn, right? Mom is downloading a lot of her toxins through breast milk or through that cord blood, and so it's not like kids come out totally a blank slate when it comes to toxic burden, so we do look in kids. We, of course, we're careful about how we pull that out so that we don't cause more cellular damage than we're trying to prevent or restore. But I do— I just go straight to the model, right? All of these things are potentially causal. Let's measure them. Let's figure out which are the ones contributing to the imbalance in your system, and then let's fix it. Let's create balance there so that every cell, every mitochondria, every piece that in your body can function more efficiently and better and create more balance, and this should resolve itself. I believe with all of my being, my religion, my truth with a capital T, is that the body is divinely designed to heal itself, and what we need to do is get the gunk out of the way that's screwing that up, and we need to add good nutrients, and we need to add meditation and, you know, these stress management strategies because we can't eliminate that completely, and also some stress is good for us. It's about balance. Yeah, that really— I start, we have— I use an hour and a half to 2 hours for initial consults because I treat complex medicine. Usually there's quite a bit of history to take, and then we are going to plug people into this model, and I don't want to leave any of it out because it can all be contributing.

So you're probably researching like me. It's just like, I— everyone's like, you got a problem, you just I keep reading more. I'm going to find that, basically, the golden trick here. Magic pill. Yeah. And so let me ask you, what is the test you like for measuring toxins, heavy metals, and what are the treatments?

So I follow Neil Nathan pretty closely when it comes to mycotoxin illness, mold and mycotoxin water damage buildings. And we see great results. Results with that. And it is a new science, so we're constantly learning more. I really appreciate the support of my peers, my colleagues, where we're always, you know, we're all collecting data, we're all getting information, we're all collecting experience, and we share that regularly.

That's nice. Yeah.

With Dr. Nathan really spearheading that, so that makes me feel much more confident in the process, especially because it can be challenging, it can take a long time, but I see people get better. So the testing that I'm doing there now is through real-time we do recommend some sort of provocation, so either a hot shower and sweating the night before and then collecting a first morning void of urine. It's a urinary mycotoxin test, so either heat or glutathione to provoke that. We do feel like we get results that more match what the patient's experience and potential exposure is when we do that. I know there is argument in the field about whether or not you should do that, but I do support that. And then for heavy metals, right now I've shifted to using Chris Shade's work almost almost exclusively the Quicksilver work. So I do his hands down, the mercury testing through Quicksilver is the best, I believe, out there. And then sometimes I'll use some doctor's data provoked urine testing, particularly if there's lead showing up. I think using some EDTA as a provocation agent can be helpful. And then for the chemical toxins, I use Great Plains. They have a good toxin panel. It includes glyphosate. And typically with that, you know, some people have 1 or 2 of those elevated, but I'm looking for patterns, like is everything elevated or is there one thing that maybe is pointing in the direction of— I had a patient, for instance, there's always good stories around this, but I had a patient who, you know, she, amazing woman, she grew a lot of her own food, definitely bought everything organic, was very conscious of like clean cleaning products, not having toxins in her home.

Doing everything right.

I did everything right. Right. Yeah, and then we ran this testing and all of her organophosphates, the glyphosate was one of the higher ones I'd ever seen and it turns out she did, her hobby was Japanese flower arranging, ikebana, and so she was doing this, like this incredible human, she was doing this to donate the flower arrangements to like low-income families who had family members in the hospital. She just is an incredible human being but we didn't, I would never have thought to ask her, like, is ikebana your hobby? She was up to her elbows, like 2 days a week in the worst pesticides and herbicides, like the stuff that they won't even spray on food that people would consume, right? They leave the worst ones to flowers. So she was getting a ton of absorption.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, we never would have known if we hadn't run this test. So that Great Plains Test has tipped me off.

I have it sitting in my bathroom for 8 months.

Yeah, it doesn't always, you know, we don't always get a slam dunk like that, like, okay, you've got to wear gloves or change hobbies, but we often do run into things where we can mitigate that exposure or change the exposure and bring that down. Generally—

Is that the main thing?

Is there any chelating type thing or try to just increase detox?

You know, some people talk in terms of glyphosate, some people do talk about there being specific things like glycine that can help to pull that out a little quicker, certainly glutathione. My approach is a very naturopathic one when it comes to toxicity. I really like to open up the emunctories, or that's a fancy word we use for the organs of elimination, so get people breathing. We forget that the lungs are an organ of detox. Get people sweating. A lot of us have spent a lot of our lives in 73-degree air-conditioned rooms and cars, and we haven't been sweating regularly, and so we've sort of lost that reflex. Plus they're putting on deodorants and things like that. So getting people breathing, getting them sweating, drinking more water, making sure there's regular daily bowel movements. I can't tell you how many times I've had a patient say, "Oh yeah, I have a regular bowel movement." I'm like, "Okay, well how often? Daily?" "Oh no, just like once a week." But that's— and they consider that normal. That's not normal. It's not. You're going to build up toxicity and unfortunately we live in a world where there are high— there's a relatively high toxic burden on the planet right now and so we need to make sure that we have these organs open. So what it we say, I think, kidneys, liver, lymph, bowels, and lungs. We need to open all of that, and I think of it as like the river mouth, so we want to have that river mouth open before we start adding things like glutathione or other— phosphatidylcholine is another one that we might use to get the cells mobilizing toxins that are stored there, but before we jump to that, we've got to make sure those organs of elimination are open.

Yeah, and if the cells don't have enough energy, they can't get rid of these heavy metals, you know.

Nicely, yeah, yeah.

And this is a vicious cycle, right?

It really is. So, and sometimes they're starting in multiple places, but, um, you know, this is a really great place for, for peptides. I actually really stress that people should be identifying, at least identifying infections and exposures before considering peptides. A lot of my reasoning behind that is that The body, the neurological system, is sending a message to ourselves, right? And oftentimes I see a lot of mold illness and what's happening is that as people are exposed longer and longer, they're more and more reactive and sometimes that can mean an autoimmune reaction. Sometimes it can mean histamine responses, so things like food intolerances or hives or just feeling awful every day, feeling terrible after even just drinking water. People become more and more and more sensitive and part of that is that the neurological our bodies a symptom and it wants us to pay attention to get out of that toxic environment. And so if we then add a peptide, say like BPC, you and I both have BPC-157, but if we add something like BPC to try to get a patient to be more tolerant of things, then we're sort of overriding that signal, right? BPC essentially is a cell signaling peptide that sends this message that the gut cells should behave like they're healthy, right? To break it down.

It does block the effects of toxins, but yeah, but you still have the toxins.

But if the toxins are still there, then do we really want to override that message? I think that what, as providers, it's important to have an order of operations. What are we going to do first so that we don't make the patient sicker? And I think there, a lot of times there is a message, if we downregulate, if our brain is downregulating the signals that tell us to have more growth hormone, sometimes there's a reason for that. Sometimes our energy, like you mentioned, cell energy, we need enough of it. Our energy shouldn't be going towards finding a mate or getting laid, right? If we're sick, it should be going towards healing. And so maybe there's not that much testosterone in the body driving libido, and if we just add more testosterone, do we really solve the problem or do we just put a band-aid on it even though it's a functional medicine.

And I find too, and it's like, you know, like how people in the same household and one person's just—

they're all, you know, full of mold and, you know, and other people aren't. It's really interesting. And they usually have Lyme, whatever makes them unable to detox it, or whatever it may be. Uh, they're much more sensitive to it. Even with my own situation, so my girlfriend has just developed terrible, um, dermatographia, you know, where you basically rub something, it makes a big welt. So very mast cell. She's got this cough, and, uh, she has mold, and I, I'm negative. And, uh, we had a mold guy come out, not a lot, you know, so I don't know if she's getting it here or food, you know, she's vegetarian, or or what, but it's interesting, the different tolerances too, and which part genetic combined with everything else too.

Yeah, so we've talked about structure briefly. I talked about it more on the macro level, but at the molecular level, certainly we see this with neurocognitive function, the APOE4 genetics and the APP genetics. There's a handful that really influence whether or not someone is susceptible to Alzheimer's. So you can have a lot of toxicity. That doesn't necessarily mean you're going to end up with Alzheimer's. But if the right constellation of things, the right— this perfect form comes together, then it could lead there if you have that susceptibility. For other people, it may end up being an autoimmune condition.

For other people, you know, I think that's with everything. Oh, you might have a diabetic gene, but if you eat crappy— but if you eat great, you won't get it. And epigenetically, and I think even, you know, in the womb, that even is transferred not on your kids but your kids' kids, you know. And which I think is the reason why, you know, obesity is— their kids are exposed to all this stress hormones in the, in the womb and toxins. And like, they're showing autism, maybe number one thing even over above vaccines, is Tylenol. So I wanted to get that out. Tons of studies. I'm like, why don't I ever hear about this? You know, uh, it's, it's crazy, the toxins that we have.

So with that, so you're getting good results just detoxifying these kids?

Well, it certainly—

I don't want to say just because it's not an easy thing.

It's part of the approach, right? So I wouldn't say that there's any one thing that's the magic answer. There's so often that I wish I could talk to a patient and they've shared their, you know, this horrible story and how much they're suffering and I want to give them the magic pill. I wish I had that and unfortunately it's just not It's not life, yeah. Yeah, and so it's about supporting the system and certainly I think toxins are a great place to start.

Great, great. Let's— I know we're short on time. What other peptides do you use?

Yeah, so we had had a quick conversation about how I really love the ones that I can get a hold of.

That's a big problem right now.

That's an issue being able to get a hold of them. Peptides are, I would say since I finished school, 10 years ago, whatever it was now, 8 years ago, not that long, not that old, but since then, I've added a couple of things that have really profoundly changed my practice. So Bill Walsh's work was one early on and then training with Dr. Bredesen was another, training with Dr. Neil Nathan is another, and then peptides I would say are like one of the profound things that I have added to my practice since, you know, starting naturopathic, this career.

And they saved my life in a 3-year practice.

They're incredible. And the sort of the philosophy around them that what we're doing is we're looking for what's missing in a dysregulated state and what's actually there in a healthy state. So instead of focusing all our energy on figuring out what's wrong with this diseased person, we're saying, okay, well, what can we add that brings more health? And as a naturopath, of course I love that, but then to watch the results, to watch people's lives completely transform with adding just peptides, with that being the only thing, to watch ANAs, the anti-nuclear antibodies, the markers for autoimmune disease, to watch them go to normal after years of treatment is just— I mean, it brings—

The patient probably loves that too, seeing it on paper.

Oh yeah, seeing it on paper, getting good sleep, sleep finally after years of insomnia, having more energy. There are so many things. I had a patient whose Crohn's disease completely resolved. I mean, just—

Oh, we've had so many patients. 9-year-old going to get a colectomy and a little BPC and T4-Frag, and then we ended up later adding KPD and totally fine. And she would have had her whole life with a colectomy, you know.

People scheduled for surgery, um, with the, um, getting the GHK-CU, that has been amazing.

Um, and that just does so many things as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a copper peptide used a lot for cosmetics.

Yep, I use it every day on my forehead for my wrinkles.

You—

hey, you got great skin, so you're a walking billboard for it. And, um, you haven't used really the Dihexa, um, which there's a lot of studies, uh, clinical trials on that, the 5-MeO-1MQ mitochondrial boosters. They're just so hard to get, but we are again probably coming out with a 5-MeO-1MQ which boosts mitochondrial function, uh, which is another theory of even aging. You know, we just— mitochondria stop working in a vicious cycle. You can't, you know, the cells don't work, and then, you know, it just affects every system, the body, the detox, and everything gets worse. Um, yeah, PPC also helps mitochondria as well. But, uh, what else have you found that—

yeah, I think in terms of integrating the peptides, I, I tend to use them after we've gotten rid of the toxicity and then when we've fortified with nutrients, right? Because the mitochondria, if you're going to increase mitochondrial numbers per cell or something, if you want more mitochondrial function, you have to still have the building blocks, right? We can send all the signals we want, but if the nutrients aren't there to support that, then the peptides aren't going to be able to— that signaling isn't going to have any effect.

Yeah, well, what's the use?

Yeah.

Yeah, what's the use?

Do you like NAD?

I would love NAD, right? So NAD is so important and it's one of those cofactors that makes all of this possible, so we have to have all of the pieces, right? Again, there's no magic pill. Peptides are the closest thing to that, well, magic injection.

You make sense, you make sense.

But we've got to have these other pieces.

That's rare in medicine. Do it because that's what I learned, you know.

The other thing is really getting a hold of that stress management, right? So we talked about some of this neurological signaling, that becoming a pattern. So what I've noticed in my practice is sometimes we can get rid of all the mold, you can move out of the moldy environment, you can even divorce the toxic partner and then that signaling is still there. It's sort of like this learned programming. So limbic retraining is a big part of what I suggest people do and whether it's with Joe Dispenza or Annie Hopper, there's a lot of great people. There's a Gupta out there as well.

How long does that take and how often do they do it?

So people do it daily and I have patients who feel better in 3 days. You know, it is very— Wow.

And that's the limbic system where all the fear and— yeah, yeah, it makes sense. And I think of it kind of like a feral cat, where if you immediately bring in a feral cat, it's gonna be like a regular cat. But if you— if it's got its wiring environment for a month, you try to bring that cat in, no matter what you do, you know, it's so difficult. So, uh, man, you must have made some people's lives so much better.

I certainly hope so. I, you know, there's— the world needs problem solvers and that's why—

and their family members, my gosh.

Yeah, we need, we need these people to show up to be part of our communities, to be engaged in their families and, and, you know, help the world make it a better place, right? Like, it sounds so cheesy, but that's really why I do what I do. When I watch, you know, these families who have loved ones who are sick and/or ailing and they're not able to engage with them, they become more of a liability than an asset. Asset to the community.

Oh, just think of the dynamics change and just—

it's so—

oh, you've just made so many lives better. I can just tell. And how long— I hate to ask questions because it may not be in it— like, how long does it usually take, let's say, for an ADD patient or an Alzheimer's patient? Depends on how bad, I guess, you know. And what's, what's the success rate?

Yeah, in some cases. Well, thank you for asking. So that's what we're doing at the clinic right now. We are currently recruiting for the study. Where we are trying to answer exactly that question. What's the success rate? If I spend the time, take— spend the money, spend the time and do commit to this program, change my diet, get the toxins out, do all the testing, how likely is it that myself or my loved one will get better? We don't have the answer to that question right now. So Dr. Bredesen has published case studies. I've certainly seen it in my clinic that this is absolutely reversible in some cases.

And it's scary how —no one funds these things if they want one pill, one— basically one outcome. That's not how the world works.

Yeah, hopefully we're contributing to that paradigm shift. There was a study that they're just rehashing these same old drugs. It's like $47 million taxpayer dollars went back into studying one of these one of these drugs that's sort of already been proven not to be effective. And yet people keep talking about the Redison protocol like there's no scientific evidence saying that it works. It's like, we have all the science.

No evidence, it's quackery. Yeah. It's so crazy. And you look at the studies on these drugs and the lines are like, they do little things to manipulate the data and it's barely better than placebo and billions of dollars they make. With all the side effects.

We've— I had— so my first Bredesen patient, I was not feeling overly confident because I, you know, I was still under that assumption that there was nothing that we could really do. I'd heard Bredesen talk but I'd never done it myself and I had a patient, my first patient come in and she had a MOCA of 2. We sent her home, they were really excited about it, her husband was very, very supportive, really wanted to be doing this program, got all of it started right away, She was better 3 weeks later. It was unbelievable. It literally— I was moved to tears. I was sobbing. I could not believe it. Wow. You know, not everyone of course gets that kind of result. The easiest patient to treat is to prevent, right? Like this adage, it's way easier, it's way less expensive, it's way less heartbreaking to prevent this kind of disease rather than try to go in and reverse it. It does take a while. The analogy Dr. Bredesen uses is like this great big tanker ship going through the ocean at full speed. We've got to first slow it down, and then we have to slowly turn it around, and then we've got to get it going in the other direction. So what I, I ask patients to give me a minimum of 6 months commitment. That's nothing. No, it's nothing.

And compared to, oh my gosh, a progressive illness like that, and it can go on for years and years and drain the family of income and, and just be so difficult. They're not the same person, you know.

It's a challenging program to implement. And if patients can do it, then I am—

they have to be full on board.

They have to be fully on board. And that's challenging when there's cognitive decline. And so that is why I opened Marama, the residential care facility. It's an immersive experience in this protocol because it's challenging. I saw so many families suffering and they were literally, they were asking me, where do I send my loved one? I want them to be able to do this, but I can't. I can't be the one to cook. I can't be the one. I've got to go to work. So I can't keep them from like walking down the street.

That might be like the future model. How many beds are there?

There's 12 beds currently. Certainly we hope— my goal is really that we shift the entire industry. So I suspect we will be—

If you show the outcomes and saves money, you know, it may be huge. You selling stock?

Well, we hope to expand. You know, I literally opened a nursing home March 1st of 2020, and then COVID hit. So that has been an interesting— it's been a wild ride this year. But I worry about all the regulations and, you know.

Oh yeah, we wade through all of it.

But our first resident moved in the first week of March, and so she's been there now 6 months. We're recording this in September, and her MoCA score went from a 19 to a 24. So our first resident is already better, measurably better. Our second residents, they moved in about 12 weeks weeks later, and they are already doing better. We're not quite measuring it yet, but talking in paragraphs rather than one-word answers, engaging at a totally different level. And so, and also mood, just the mood changes, sleep changes.

Oh, that alone, because like they can be with their loved one and the loved one's not cussing at them, you know. Exactly, exactly. Gah, I hope there is a trend to funding these things and changing that because what do they get when they go to a neurologist? 6 minutes. And take this and this, bye. And meds that don't work. They don't.

Oh, hey, you're doing wonderful work. Obviously, you're very caring and I don't know when you sleep, but I'm very impressed with with all that, and I just wish you the best of luck for the country and the world. I think you're just doing some amazing cutting-edge things, and I hope it catches on. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for your support. Thank you for helping me share what we're up to and that this is possible. You know, Dr. Bredesen says that Alzheimer's should be a rare disease. This is preventable. It's also treatable if you start early We have more confidence. So, go out there and get the testing. He calls it a cognoscopy, right? Like, just like people get a colonoscopy, we should regularly be checking all of these parameters that influence our cognitive function so we can maintain it.

Yeah, just real quick, I know we have to go, but do you do genetics? Do you do—

what testing do you do? So, like I described sort of with all of the elements that I feel influence our cognitive health, right? So we do all of the labs that we talked about for toxicity, so mycotoxins, heavy metals, and chemical toxicity. We do a full panel, so we're looking for hormones. I often run a Dutch panel because I like getting that 4-point cortisol and then the breakdown of metabolites of estrogens, and then we run— usually I run like a Cyrex or A12, which has an infectious panel. I always do a GI panel whether or not people are complaining about GI issues because sometimes we find things there.

The gut-brain axis is huge. Absolutely.

What else is on that list? Oh, Walsh, the Walsh work, of course. So I'm looking at zinc and copper ratios, urine kryptopyrroles, whole blood histamine levels and how that affects methylation. So certainly detox capacity, mood, there's Alzheimer's, the things that come up with the Walsh ratios and metrics there. So at least that list, and then depending on the patient, we may add other things that might be relevant and an ApoE4 status, of course.

Yeah, I think that's something that's, that's good to know. Yeah. So how do people find you if they want to find you?

Yeah. So northcountynaturalmedicine.com is the clinic. Marama Experience, M-A-R-A-M-A, Marama Experience is the residential care facility for the elderly. And I also host the podcast at Neurohacker Collective Insights.

So how do we, how do we find that?

Neurohacker Collective Insights is the name of the podcast and it's available where all podcasts are.

Nice. You do that once a week?

You know, I, I host it. I don't really own it. It's, it's through Neurohacker who, they're the makers of Qualia and I love and support the crew there. And so show up as the host and dig in deep to the people I get to talk to.

Hey, it's tough. I mean, you have to be prepared and, you know, you have to know your stuff. That's great. I'm going to check that out too. Yeah. I'm going to send you some products too. I'd love for you to evaluate and give me your opinion on that.

Yeah. Once there's conferences happening again, I know that I'm going to be running into you in person more and more. Yeah. Yeah.

If we can get through this Virtual conference thing. Yeah. So, hey, thank you so much for being on. This has been a great conversation and just learned so much. So thank you. And again, the best of luck to you. And you're just doing great things. Thank you.

Thank you for getting the peptides out there.

People need them. Great. Thanks so much.

Have a good one. You too.

Bye-bye.

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