Full Transcript Introduction to Alzheimeru2019s Hope 0:00 My training, I was told there was nothing that you could do for Alzheimer's, 0:03 to suggest that there was something 0:04 that we could do as natural paths would be to give people false hope. 0:08 What we've seen is that actually to suggest 0:09 there's nothing you can do for Alzheimer's that's factually inaccurate. 0:13 And it's false hopelessness, really. 0:16 We've gotten to a point where it's like almost overwhelming how much we can do 0:19 to prevent delay and in some cases, even reverse the cognitive decline process. 0:24 This is doctor talks. 0:32 Welcome back or continue 0:33 a conversation on Reversing Crohn's and Colitis. 0:36 I'm your host, Sinclair Kennally, and today 0:38 I am joined by the wonderful doctor, Heather Sandison. 0:41 She is a dear friend and a guiding light in the neuro health field right now. 0:46 And this is huge. 0:47 She has tackled one of the scariest topics of our time, 0:51 which is neurodegenerative issues, and she has such a message for hope 0:54 for us, and also is here to help us make those underlying connections 0:58 between gut health and brain health in this crucial way. 1:01 So I'm just going to 1:02 tell you a little bit about her and why I wanted her to share with you today. 1:05 She is a natural path 1:07 doctor specializing in Alzheimer's disease and related dementia. 1:10 She's the founder of Soul Series Medical Clinic, 1:13 San Diego's premier brain optimization clinic, and Marama, 1:18 the first residential cognitive care facility focused on recovery. 1:22 Imagine that right through a combination of diet and lifestyle 1:26 therapies, cognitive interventions, and comprehensive support, 1:30 Marama offers an effective approach to Alzheimer's care. 1:33 The programs emphasize personalized treatment plans, brain healthy meals, 1:37 physical exercise, sensory 1:39 stimulation, engaging activities, and cognitive therapies. 1:43 The dedicated team of health care professionals go beyond traditional care, 1:46 emphasizing a person centered approach that promotes dignity, 1:49 independence, purpose, and, most importantly, improvement. 1:54 Doctor Sanderson is 1:55 also create an 11 week Reversing Alzheimer's course 1:58 for individuals and caregivers to learn how to implement the same protocols used. 2:02 Marama. 2:03 She's committed to advancing research and innovative approaches to Alzheimer's 2:08 and cognitive decline management, providing hope for patients and families. 2:13 Her clinical trial observed improvement in cognition during 2:16 a personalized lifestyle intervention in people with cognitive decline 2:20 was published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease in August 2023. 2:24 Her highly anticipated book, 2:25 Reversing Alzheimer's, has literally just published recently. 2:29 Welcome, doctor. Heather, it's so wonderful to have you here. 2:32 So happy to be here. Thanks for having me. 2:34 Okay, so let's just dive right in, because this is such 2:37 an area of passion for you and this is such an exploding problem, right? 2:41 It just as we've seen gut conditions explode in the last couple of decades, 2:45 we've also seen cognitive decline, you know, with a similar trajectory. 2:49 It's really scary. 2:50 How would you describe what you have seen in this field? 2:53 How is this taking shape over the last couple decades? 2:56 Yeah, you know, my training, I was told there was nothing that you could do 2:59 for Alzheimer's, that to suggest that there was something that we could do
Gut-Brain Connection and New Research 3:02 as naturopaths would be to give people false hope and that it's been completely 3:06 turned on its head. 3:07 My clinical experience through my work with Doctor Bateson, learning from him, 3:11 working from other people, with learning from other people in the field. 3:14 What we've seen is that actually to suggest there's nothing you can do for 3:17 Alzheimer's that's factually inaccurate and it's false hopelessness, really. 3:23 This we've gotten to a point 3:25 where it's like almost overwhelming how much we can do to prevent delay 3:29 and in some cases, even reverse the cognitive decline process. 3:33 And I know that most people are here because we were interested 3:37 in gut health, Crohn's and colitis and gut inflammation. 3:40 And these are intricately related, right? 3:41 I want to really dive in with you today. 3:44 And why the gut and the brain work together, 3:47 how they work together, what we can do to optimize that. 3:51 Out of the gate here, I really want to touch on some of the most recent research. 3:55 This isn't even in my book that was released last week, 3:57 because this paper was released just a couple of weeks ago, 4:01 in early June of 2024, and it was Dean Ornish, his work. 4:04 He did the first randomized controlled trial 4:07 for people with mild cognitive impairment or early dementia. 4:11 And the conclusions that they came to after just 20 weeks or five months 4:15 was that in this randomized controlled trial, right, there's a control group 4:18 and an intervention group in the intervention group, 4:20 they saw that comprehensive 4:22 lifestyle changes significantly improved cognition and function. 4:26 After just five months in patients with mild cognitive impairment 4:29 or early dementia due to Alzheimer's. 4:31 This is a really, really exciting time in this field 4:35 because we're seeing over and over again through the literature what I published, 4:38 what the group around Doctor Peterson published in 2023. 4:43 My patient paper was published, 4:44 and then their paper was published before that in 2022. 4:47 The reason you bring up the Ornish paper is because 4:50 one of the things that they measured was the microbiome 4:53 and the microbiome improved only in the intervention group. 4:58 So we see these lifestyle factors that improve cognition 5:03 probably are at 5:04 work because they improve the microbiome and the gut. 5:07 Right. Health starts in the gut. 5:10 And so these again like these things are intricately intertwined. 5:13 I want to go into them. 5:15 But I wanted to just start by saying there is real research out there 5:19 showing that there's a relationship between lifestyle 5:22 and our cognitive outcomes as we age. 5:25 This is so huge. 5:26 And I'm so excited about your book and the way that you have demystified 5:30 this for folks. 5:31 You did an amazing job of talking about different lifestyle factors. 5:34 And of course, you're going to deep dive into nutrition today 5:37 and those lifestyle pieces that relate to gut health. 5:40 Can you explain for the audience, you know, the link between chronic 5:44 inflammation in the gut and Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline? 5:48 Like let's just connect those dots first off. 5:51 Sure. 5:51 So when we have chronic inflammation, 5:53 there's essentially lots of mechanisms at play. 5:56 But when it comes to diet and and and digestion right 6:00 I think of this in four phases. 6:02 First we have to choose the right things to eat. 6:05 That's step number one. 6:06 And we can be eating all the right things. 6:08 But if we have a porous gut, if we're not digesting, 6:12 if we don't have the right amount of digestive juices 6:14 because we're stuck in a fight fight freeze state, 6:16 instead of getting into a rest digest and heal state. 6:19 If we don't have enough digestive enzymes, if we don't have enough 6:23 hydrochloric acid, then we're going to have 6:24 these big chunky molecules basically hitting that part of the gut 6:28 that villi that, that, that surface area that's responsible for absorption. 6:33 And so then if we have an inflamed gut 6:35 and we have, I think of it like a promiscuous barrier, right? 6:39 We have we're just letting everything in. 6:41 We're not being selective about what's allowed to get across. 6:44 We're essentially glorified donuts. Right. 6:45 So like we have this hole in the middle. 6:47 And if we're letting everything into the actual organism, into our body, 6:51 through that membrane in the gut, then we're going to get things 6:54 and that are going to create systemic inflammation. 6:57 So step one choosing the right thing. 6:59 Step two can we digest it. 7:00 Step three can we select to absorb the right stuff and not the wrong stuff. 7:07 Right. 7:08 So can we absorb and assimilate the nutrients so that they serve us. 7:12 And then step four arguably most important can we eliminate what doesn't serve us. 7:18 So digestion happens in four stages. 7:21 And what we're talking about when we talk about inflammation are these middle two. 7:25 Are we able to digest and then absorbing assimilate 7:28 and when we have a lot of inflammation in the gut we create a leaky gut. 7:31 So when we have those cells are kind of puffy. 7:34 Now we don't have those high integrity membranes keeping the cells together. 7:39 We're less selective about what passes through. 7:41 Now we have systemic inflammation. 7:44 Gut inflammation can most commonly caused by alcohol consumption. 7:48 Gluten directly can increase inflammation in the gut,
Inflammation, Digestion, and Leaky Gut 7:52 and the stress can increase inflammation in the gut. 7:55 And then we've already touched on the microbiome. 7:57 So too many antibiotics or even just taking antibiotics 8:01 even when they're necessary. Not repopulating. 8:03 Having an imbalance microbiome can create inflammation in the gut. 8:07 Many, many other things can as well. 8:09 This is not an exhaustive list, but this is a very common list. 8:14 These are the things that I think most commonly impact inflammation in the gut. 8:19 Yeah I think that's a great summary. 8:20 So in your mind obviously we take everything 8:23 starting in the gut and you and I you're obsessed with that. 8:26 How should somebody be thinking about protecting their cognition 8:31 if they are stressed about the state of their gut health? 8:34 You know, you've established this link so beautifully. 8:37 You know what the emerging research, 8:39 you know, if inflammation in the gut issues 8:41 in the gut are absolutely linked to cognitive decline, 8:44 what do people need to know about this relationship? 8:48 And then we'll talk about what they can do about it. 8:50 Yeah. 8:50 So we made when we think about brain health 8:53 and any complex chronic disease, what's going on is imbalance, right. 8:56 There's too much too little in the wrong place at the wrong time. 8:59 So I think of this framework, okay, balance of any complex system, 9:03 whether we're talking about education systems 9:04 or financial systems or government systems or the brain or the gut, 9:07 these are complex systems. 9:09 And what we need is homey or dynamic balance. 9:11 It's not going to be the same 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. 9:15 But what we want is this ability to fluctuate for things, 9:18 for hormones to go up 9:20 and, and neurotransmitters to go up and then down and to metabolize them, 9:23 and for things to come in at breakfast and then move through our gut. 9:27 We have these rhythms and what we want is homo dynamic balance within that. 9:32 Now, what throws it out of balance? 9:35 Too much, too little in the wrong place 9:37 at the wrong time creates dysregulation and disease. 9:41 Now I would describe basically there's six components of brain health, but 9:45 really whole body health at a causal level 9:48 toxins, nutrients stressors, 9:51 structural issues signaling and infections. 9:54 These are the six things that I would put in that causal level category. 9:59 When they become out of balance, they create disease. 10:02 And so as we think through the gut, nutrients are 10:05 what comes up very paramount, right? 10:09 If we don't have balanced nutrients, if we're not able to choose 10:13 the right things and absorb them, assimilate them, digest them, 10:17 and then eliminate the pieces that don't serve us, 10:19 we're not going to have the right nutrient balance, 10:21 a protein, our brain, but also our bones and our heart and everywhere else. 10:25 Right? We can apply this to the entire body. 10:27 And so when it comes to healing the gut, you know, I like to start at the top, 10:31 but like, are we eating the right things or do we get enough of the right things 10:35 into our system so that we have the substrate 10:37 to create fuel, to heal, to repair, to detoxify? 10:41 And I'm a fan of the organic, an organic ketogenic diet. 10:46 Getting into ketosis seems to have phenomenal benefits for the brain. 10:49 It also happens to be a Candida diet, so it helps with the microbiome. 10:54 When we eliminate carbohydrates, we stop feeding the yeast in our gut. 10:57 That can be, I think, changing our diet when it comes to the microbiome, 11:02 a significant change in what we consume in terms of food 11:05 can lead to a significant change very quickly in the microbiome. 11:09 And so yeah, we can do probiotics and we can do all kinds of things. 11:13 But I think diet is the biggest game changer. 11:15 And of course fermented foods if you can tolerate them. 11:18 I know a lot of your listeners suffer with sensitivities and mast cell issues. 11:22 So as I throw out these ideas, of course, do what you can tolerate. 11:26 But aloe aloe juice is one of my favorite things. 11:29 It tends to be very well tolerated and food is medicine. 11:33 You can get I can talk about brands. 11:35 Yeah. Go ahead. The Lily of the desert. 11:38 This is available in both health food stores in an amber bottle 11:41 and you can get the one. 11:42 The glass one doesn't have preservative in it. 11:45 And that just an ounce of that as a shot on an empty stomach in the morning 11:49 is so soothing. 11:50 If you think of putting aloe on a sunburn and how quickly it helps 11:53 your skin to heal, we're essentially doing that to the gut lining, 11:57 which can help then with assimilation, with absorption, 12:00 and with the integrity of that track that the GI tract chews good things. 12:05 Organic ketogenic diet support the gut. 12:07 Maybe consider taking some enzymes that can help to lower systemic inflammation. 12:11 Also help us to absorb, to digest, and then absorb good nutrients. 12:16 And then make sure you're having a daily bowel movement 12:19 that is just so crucially important. 12:21 The liver is part of the gut. 12:23 We can talk about detox. 12:25 We talked about the gallbladder and getting bile flow moving. 12:28 We can go in so many different directions, but oh, I'll let you lead. 12:32 Oh that's excellent. 12:33 And you know, I'm so enamored with the liver and the gallbladder. 12:36 And these are like the unsung heroes, I think, of the digestive tract. 12:39 So I've loved to unpack that a little further with you, please. 12:43 What do you think is most important for people to understand about those organs? 12:46 Yeah. So intrahepatic recirculation right. 12:49 They said that this is a big fancy word that basically says 12:53 if you don't have a bowel movement, if you don't eliminate every day, 12:56 part of the gut's job is to absorb nutrients. 12:59 And so we're going to absorb things that are sitting in the colon. 13:03 And if it's meant to be passed, if you're meant to get rid of it, 13:06 but it's still sitting there 13:07 because you're suffering with constipation and not having regular bowel movements, 13:11 you can reabsorb these things and it'll go back to the liver. 13:15 And now the liver's got to take out yesterday's trash. 13:18 In addition to today's trash, we're asking it to do extra work. 13:22 The liver this is very expensive. 13:24 It requires a lot of resource and nutrients. 13:27 And so having enough of the phase two nutrients in particular is really 13:31 crucial to positive to getting the liver to continue to detoxify body. 13:36 Thank you. 13:36 I know you said enamored. 13:38 I just have so much reverence for the body and the liver in particular,
Liver, Gallbladder, and Detox Support 13:42 because it'll stop phase one detox 13:45 if we don't have enough nutrients for phase two detox. 13:49 And this is this divine design 13:51 because it's so intelligent, I just can't like it blows my mind. 13:55 Right. But the the body is so intelligent. 13:57 Those intermediate steps that that secondary metabolite after phase 14:01 one detox is often more toxic than the initial thing that we ingested. 14:06 And so the wisdom of the body is to just 14:08 go ahead and halt, to detox altogether. 14:11 But what we can do is we can add nutrients like neck milk. 14:15 Thistle can be helpful with the liver in general, but they're B 14:19 vitamins, minerals. 14:20 All of these can help us to continue phase two detox, continue phase 14:25 one detox, and then create that bile, that toxic sludge. 14:29 I love fats, that whole choline to help move the bile along. 14:33 There's bile salts can be helpful sometimes. 14:36 There's lots of things that we can do here, but there are herbs 14:40 that I know that you probably get into throughout this conversation 14:43 with other people, but there's just a lot that we can do to support this process. 14:47 And liver casserole packs over the liver is another really fun one that can feel 14:52 very just healing and soothing and like taking time for your self-care. 14:56 There's so many things that we can do to just support good, healthy digestion 15:01 all the way from what we choose to put in to, you know, along 15:04 the way the absorption and assimilation, the digestion, absorption, assimilation, 15:08 and then that elimination of the toxins that no longer serve as 15:13 this is so good. 15:14 And since we've opened the door to the liver and gallbladder, 15:17 I just would love for you to quickly answer for the audience. 15:19 What does supporting the liver have to do with protecting our cells 15:23 from cognitive decline? 15:24 So why does it matter so much? 15:26 I'm trying to get them to do their homework. 15:28 Yeah, I wasn't really to imbalance too much. 15:32 Too little in the wrong place at the wrong time. 15:33 The first thing that I list in terms of cognitive health 15:38 as from a causal perspective is toxicity. 15:41 One of the reasons that I list 15:43 that is because there's so much we can do about it. 15:45 Right? 15:46 And the liver is one of our detox organs, so I don't want to get it. 15:49 I want to create frameworks and ways for people to organize this in their brain. 15:53 So get out a notebook. Maybe. 15:55 But remember we have our six causal level factors or six components of brain 15:59 health toxins, nutrients, stressors, structure, infections, and signaling. 16:04 And so we talked a bit about nutrients. Right. 16:06 And how we make sure that the gut 16:08 is working with us to make sure we have those balanced nutrients. 16:11 Now toxicity. 16:12 When we think about toxins, it's related to nutrients because whenever 16:16 we have excess toxicity, it requires more nutrients because it's work. 16:20 If think of your brain, my mentor, doctor Dale Bredesen, 16:23 he likes to talk about the brain as a country. 16:25 So think of your brain like my brain is Austin. 16:28 And if your brain country is at war, if it's defending against invaders 16:33 like infections, or if you're defending against toxicity, you need more resources. 16:39 This is why the president of Ukraine is showing up 16:41 and needs more money and more weapons and all of the stuff, right? 16:44 Our brain is not all that different conceptually, right? 16:48 What we need is more resources. 16:50 We need more B12, we need more glutathione. 16:52 We need more of all of the stuff that's going to help us to detoxify. 16:56 And we're going to use that B12 to detoxify the heavy metals, 16:59 or the more toxins 17:00 or the petrochemicals or whatever other chemicals we get in touch with, 17:04 we're not going to use it to build new neurons 17:07 or build new connections between the neurons. 17:09 We're going to use it to fight and defend, because just like a country at war, 17:14 we shouldn't be building 17:15 infrastructure, roads and schools and neurons and synapses. 17:18 We should be resolving whatever we're defending and attacking against. 17:23 And so this excess requirement associated with toxins 17:27 is something that I think some people miss, that it's like 17:32 often people say, well, why do I need to take supplements? 17:34 Can I just eat use food to get my medicine? 17:37 Yes, I would love that. 17:39 Supplements should be supplemental. 17:41 And when we have this extra requirement because we're fighting defending, 17:45 we often will need to supplement, at least temporarily. 17:49 So the toxin, the toxicity step 17:52 one with detox rate is stop the exposure. 17:56 That's 75% of environmental illness. 17:58 Figure out where the mold toxins 18:00 are coming from, where the mercury is coming from, 18:02 where the environmental chemicals are coming from, and just stop the exposure. 18:06 Our body, again, it's divinely designed to get rid of these 18:10 through our skin and limp through our liver, 18:13 through our bowels, through our lungs and through our kidneys. 18:16 And when we can upregulate, kind of just turn up the volume, amplify 18:21 the ability of each of these organs to get rid of these things. 18:24 For the most part, we can get rid of them naturally, 18:26 but if they're constantly coming in, if we're constantly filling up 18:29 and we've got more exposure than we have elimination now, we're in trouble. 18:34 And directly, toxins can cause inflammation in the brain directly. 18:39 They also can cause inflammation in the endothelium along the vasculature. 18:44 And that can then lead to more risk of vascular dementia. 18:48 Right. 18:49 If we're not 18:49 getting blood flow to the brain or if we have more atherosclerotic plaques, 18:53 then this can create a type of inflammatory dementia. 18:56 And so this can manifest in multiple ways. 18:59 There's multiple mechanisms by which toxins create issues for the brain. 19:03 Right. 19:03 Deplete nutrients, 19:05 create inflammation, directly create, vascular inflammation 19:09 that can have downstream effects in the brain. 19:10 So there's many, many mechanism mechanisms at play here. 19:13 Glyphosate is one of the types of toxins we can be exposed to. 19:17 This is the active ingredient in roundup. It's a weed killer. 19:20 And glyphosate sounds like glycine because they're similar biochemically. 19:25 And glycine is very active in the neurological system. 19:29 And glyphosate will take the place of that amino acid and change the form 19:33 of proteins and the ability of proteins to do their job in the nervous system. 19:38 And this can have very detrimental effects over time as well.
Toxins, Nutrients, and Cognitive Decline 19:41 And neurodegenerative effects. 19:44 I'm so glad you're bringing this up, because people think about glyphosate 19:46 and they're like, 19:47 oh yeah, that'll cause cancer eventually, or that's about leaky gut, right? 19:51 And like, well, not necessarily like that. 19:53 As an analog for glycine, you could actually be destroying 19:56 the health of your joints as well and your connective tissue right now. 19:59 And it's highly neurotoxic like right now, not down the road. 20:03 Right, right today. So organic really matters. 20:05 Your sourcing for your food matters like this is a big part of that. 20:08 You know what you were just advocating for avoidance in the first place. 20:12 Like let's vote with our dollars. 20:14 We're either going to pay for health now or pay for it later, right? 20:18 Yeah, I could not agree more. 20:19 That's part of why we recommend an organic ketogenic diet. 20:22 Now in the Ornish trial they did a vegan diet 20:25 so they didn't get into ketosis. 20:27 They use a vegan diet, and you'll see some of the other 20:29 brain doctors out there who are doing like sound medicine, 20:31 are advocating for vegetarian or vegan diets. 20:34 And I think that you can do either. 20:35 And I think the best diet is probably going back and forth between the two. 20:39 I think there are benefits to a ketogenic diet, but overall, 20:43 the overarching advice organic non processed makes total sense. 20:48 Yeah, I do see people recovering very quickly though. 20:52 If it's like really clean animal fat. 20:54 I'm not a comment on that. 20:55 Yeah. 20:55 So I think that's 20:56 a really really essential to the brain whether you're plant based or vegan. 21:00 I think really for me, you know, the research points in both directions. 21:04 I think that you can you can do either. 21:07 And it's this is about accessibility, right. 21:09 If somebody comes to me and they're like, 21:11 there's absolutely no way I'm giving up meat. 21:13 Fantastic. Let's get you on a ketogenic diet. 21:15 That's okay. 21:16 Let's get really good high quality animal protein. 21:18 And you make sure it's fully grass fed, all organic A2 21:22 milk, sheep and goat cheese, only eggs, pastured eggs. 21:25 Let's get you really, really high quality stuff and make sure 21:28 we're feeding your brain and body with only the best. 21:31 And if somebody comes to me and they're like, 21:33 no, you know, I just I'm worried about the environment. 21:35 I can't eat animals. Fully supportive. 21:38 Let's go vegan. 21:39 Let's get the coconut oil and the avocado and the oh, the olive oil. 21:44 Let's get all of those really good, plant based fats up. 21:48 And then let's make sure that we're supplementing with B12. 21:50 And, you know, if you're willing to do, I'd love to get some eggs. 21:53 Maybe if you're willing to do eggs or maybe some fish, 21:56 we can get some cold water fish. Nontoxic fish. 21:59 That would be, I think, ideal. 22:00 Yeah. 22:00 You don't have to supplement quite as much, 22:02 but I think that there are ways to make this more accessible 22:06 by saying, hey, there's more than one diet to get you a brain health. 22:11 There's more than one brain healthy diet variety. 22:13 You know what I think about ancestral diet? 22:15 So paleo, even your caveman diet or, you know, even, the carnivore diet. 22:21 Like when I think about these diets, what I, 22:25 the consistent thing about ancestral diets was inconsistency. 22:28 You couldn't get blueberries 365 days a year. 22:31 And so I'm a huge fan of metabolic flexibility going in and out of ketosis 22:36 and also eating different during the seasons. 22:39 Right. In the summer you eat different, you eat more. 22:42 So maybe you're having more seasonal fruit because it's available. 22:45 It's seasonal. 22:46 In the winter, you're having less of that and maybe going more towards 22:49 a ketogenic diet. 22:50 Is a pitta diet right? 22:51 It's a more warming diet anyways. 22:53 And so and then there's the seasons, which is kind of obvious I think 22:57 like what's available, what's seasonal, what's organic, what's local even. 23:01 But then there's also the seasons of our lives. 23:04 And when we're post-menopausal versus premenopausal, when we're when we're 23:08 frail and older, we just have different appetites, different things serve us. 23:13 And I think coming back to these diets, kind of reconsidering them, 23:16 even if they haven't 23:17 been like, perfect for you in the past, but like just changing up our diet to see 23:21 what kind of difference we can make, I think is well worth the time and effort. 23:25 And using something like a continuous glucose monitor to see what's going on 23:28 with your metabolism, this can just be so it's an end of one experiment, 23:32 but you can learn so much about your individual metabolism 23:36 at the phase of life, at the season of life that you're in such a good point. 23:41 And whatever you do, just step away from the canola oil, right? 23:44 Oh my gosh, know, I was just having this conversation with Scott. 23:48 The better health guy recently. 23:49 I'm such a fan of his. He's done such great work. 23:52 He was like, well, just boils like canola oil, rapeseed oil, 23:56 a lot of these oils that are used in highly processed foods 23:58 and also in restaurants, you want to stay away from them. 24:01 But he was like, but don't throw out the flaxseed oil. 24:04 And like, there are these pumpkin seed oil and some there are these good seed oils. 24:08 I think he was making the point like not all seed oils are evil, 24:12 but the you know, it depends on how they're processed though. 24:15 Like, yes, if there was pressed cold 24:17 pressed like under a seed oils like they do such a beautiful job. 24:21 Like that's a great place to get your flax seed oil. 24:23 But please don't get it from like Kroger or something. 24:26 Right. 24:26 And it's been that they go rancid so easily. 24:29 There's so fat. 24:30 Yeah. Yes. 24:31 Like you want. 24:32 It's stored in you know the glass bottle. 24:35 It's a glass bottle. Amber bottle. 24:37 It's sensitive to light, sensitive to heat. 24:39 If you ever smell something that's rancid, if you ever smell rancid oil, 24:42 whether it's in food or in a bottle of oil, throw it away. 24:45 Not only is it not good for you, it is now bad for you. 24:48 Throw that out. 24:50 Terrible for your liver. 24:51 Yeah. No kidding. 24:53 So much for feeding our brains. 24:54 Okay, so we're. 24:56 While we're still in nutrition, I would love for you to talk about 24:59 just cover anything that you feel. 25:01 We haven't touched on yet about folks who have been really struggling 25:05 with gut dysregulation for quite some time, 25:08 and you're helping to guide them to cognitive repair. 25:12 Any other clinical gems you want to make sure people know about? 25:16 Yeah, I mean, I mentioned having a bowel movement every day. 25:18 I think that that's so crucially important. 25:21 So work with your provider if that's not happening. 25:23 And then I'm a fan of the GI mat stool test. 25:25 I know not every provider is, but it's one that I've been using for years. 25:29 I find that it's helpful clinically, and I probably trend towards 25:34 treating parasites more liberally than other people, other clinicians. 25:38 But I think doing parasite cleanses, you know, we do this for our mammals,
Diet Strategies for Brain and Gut Health 25:42 our, family, furry friends, for my family members. 25:45 But we don't tend to do it for humans. 25:47 And I don't know if it's the X factor or just in, 25:50 I don't know what the problem is, but I think that doing 25:53 some kind of regular, maybe annual anti-parasitic approach 25:57 with herbs, mimosa, put a cut or a potentially diatomaceous earth, 26:01 some of the other herbs, Jacqueline's black walnut and wormwood, Artemisia. 26:05 And these can be hard on your liver. 26:07 So working with the provider to make sure you're doing that safely is important. 26:11 But just considering it, particularly if you're someone who travels extensively 26:14 or has traveled extensively in the Third World. 26:16 If you have animals in the house, if you eat sushi or other food that 26:20 you know isn't always cooked, if you eat a lot of salads or salad bars, 26:24 you know there's a lot of places 26:25 that we can be exposed to, parasites that many of us don't realize, and it's 26:29 not in our consciousness that this is something we should be aware of. 26:33 But I think in terms of the microbiome, 26:35 when we have these larger organisms in our in our gut, they can harbor 26:40 the single celled organisms, the fungus, the viruses, the bacteria. 26:43 And so then we're constantly being re-exposed 26:45 because we haven't gotten rid of the bigger guys, right? 26:48 So in natural medicine, we're always had to treat big to small 26:52 and start with the parasites. 26:53 And I think this is why some people have maybe seen that, as, you know, 26:57 going through Covid, 26:58 some of the popular treatments were actually were anti-parasitic. 27:02 And I kind of wonder if people were like, oh, I felt so much better 27:05 after taking the the treatment and these popular medications 27:08 like and I wonder if maybe there was a parasitic burden. 27:12 So having that as part of our what 27:14 we're considering and for Crohn's and colitis as well. 27:17 Not in a in a flare but potentially working 27:21 with a provider to understand and uncover if some of that is there. 27:24 Contributing to the 27:25 dysregulated microbiome or nutrient deficiencies is, I think, important. 27:29 And I've seen patients with Giardia coming back on stilts has seen 27:33 they have constipation. 27:34 So understanding that not everyone with parasites is going to be thin with watery, 27:39 putrid diarrhea, it can look very different 27:42 than kind of the textbook, presentation. 27:45 Yeah, absolutely. 27:46 I think that still, you know, the in your MD's office, 27:51 you are much more likely to be asked about parasites if you've been traveling, 27:55 if you had a severe sudden weight loss, sudden onset of chronic gut symptoms, 28:00 but so often 28:00 they actually just creep in due to our toxin load 28:03 and they just get out of control very slowly. Right. 28:05 So you could actually be overweight. 28:07 You could look like your traditional 28:09 metabolic disease presentation where you got the spare tire tummy. 28:12 You could have that fatty liver insulin dysregulation in part 28:15 because you have tapeworms feeding on your pancreas. 28:19 Like this is a really fascinating interweaving of like how our 28:23 how our body's trying to stay alive in a toxic environment. 28:26 Well, in part they're letting parasites take over a bit 28:29 to be those toxins sponges. Right. 28:32 And also we you know, with reflex, many people are guided in the direction 28:36 of lowering their stomach acid 28:38 through proton pump inhibitors or even just Tums or whatever it is. 28:42 And that acid in our stomach is one of our first lines of defense, 28:46 where most of the bugs were exposed to our through 28:49 our mucous membranes in our mouth, or potentially a sinuses. 28:52 But when it hits the GI tract, 28:55 part of our defense mechanism is that acid that kills things. 29:00 And if we don't have enough acid because we're under too much stress 29:03 or we're taking something actively to reduce the stomach acid, 29:06 we basically open ourselves up to colonization 29:09 from some of these bugs that shouldn't be getting through our our stomach. 29:13 Yeah, that's so important to point out. 29:15 I mean, especially when, like, we're supposed to be at, what, a pH of two 29:18 when we're at digesting food and it's pylori, it can help modulate 29:22 or are all the way up to sex, which just like, 29:26 you know, each each number up gives us a factor of ten. 29:29 So that's way in the wrong direction. 29:31 So as soon as we start, you know, messing with that with these, 29:34 you know, like Tums and things, anything over the counter 29:36 or pharmaceuticals like please, please, please 29:40 don't leave your body defenseless like this. 29:43 It, I'm so thrilled to have you here today. 29:46 And and I'll give us back into cognitive and gut territory in just one second. 29:50 But I just wanted to speak to how crucial it is to understand that 29:54 there are so many other tools out there from a natural health perspective, 29:58 because often our first go to is like this immune suppressor drugs. 30:03 And of course, that opens the door to parasites as well. 30:06 Like what do we think was going to happen 30:08 if your immune system can't defend itself, you know, defend your body, of course 30:11 you're going to get this overgrowth of parasites. 30:13 And yes, they're here to do a job, but they come at such a high cost for you, 30:17 whether it's additional gut symptoms or, you know, skin issues 30:22 or honestly, brain fog, anxiety, depression, sleep disruption. 30:25 So how do you see all this fitting together? 30:28 You have such a great comprehensive lifestyle program, 30:32 but what do you think are the salient points to cover for folks about this? 30:36 Yeah, well, we talked about toxins a bit. 30:38 We talked about nutrients a bit stress structure signaling and infections. 30:43 We we haven't covered those. 30:44 I mean, we could go in any of those directions 30:46 I think let's do infections okay. 30:48 Let's talk about infections. 30:50 So we talked about gut health like health starts in the gut. 30:54 Well the gut starts in the mouth right. 30:56 So oral microbiome we know that 30:59 agent of the bacteria that is responsible for gingivitis 31:04 has been found in amyloid plaques and the autopsies of people with dementia. 31:08 So amyloid plaque is there. 31:10 And it's to protect us. 31:11 It's to prevent things from getting out of control. 31:14 It really, I think of it like creating this wall around the infection. 31:19 Right? 31:20 We think of the blood brain barrier is keeping the brain totally microbe free. 31:24 But that's just not the reality. 31:25 We can have a leaky blood brain barrier, just like we have a leaky gut barrier. 31:30 But also it's more nuanced than that. 31:32 And these infections can get in there and stimulate the microglia, 31:35 stimulate the production of amyloid plaque in defense. 31:39 And so teaching develops and other microbes that cause gingivitis 31:42 can trigger amyloid plaque production directly in the brain. 31:46 They can also trigger inflammation in the vasculature.
Parasites, Stomach Acid, and Microbiome Balance 31:50 So they can put us at risk for cardiovascular events as well as dementia, 31:54 but also as they affect the cardiovascular, 31:57 as they affect the vascular system 31:59 and especially the vocabulary beds, the micro vasculature. 32:02 This can cause vascular dementia, right? 32:05 So it's a just a different mechanism by which it affects the brain negatively. 32:09 So oral microbiome an oral health is crucial 32:13 to brain health and cardiovascular health of course as well. 32:16 But things that we can do for this of course brushing and flossing, brushing 32:20 twice a day, flossing once a day. 32:21 I prefer the hydroxyapatite type the toothpaste 32:25 and you never want to use any of the, like, Listerine, the alcohol base. 32:29 Yeah, because these are going to reduce the good microbes in your mouth, 32:33 and they're going to prevent you from being able to create nitric oxide. 32:36 That helps, again, to deliver oxygen and nutrients through the blood. 32:39 So bloodstream through the arteries. 32:41 So avoid the toxic alcohol based mouthwashes 32:46 floss every day brush at least twice a day. 32:49 I'm a huge fan of oil pulling because coconut oil, 32:52 which you use for oil pulling, this is just swishing a tablespoon 32:55 or so of coconut oil in the mouth for 5 to 20 minutes. 32:58 Spit it out. You don't want to swallow that. 33:01 Spit that out. 33:02 And it's got a lot of siding in it. 33:04 So coconut oil has MCT, 33:06 which is great if you want to get into ketosis 33:07 and you're swallowing it, eating it, consuming it, but in your mouth 33:11 it's the anti-microbial benefits of lauric acid 33:14 that helps with the the microbiome of the mouth. 33:17 And so this can help with with gum help. 33:20 It can actually help with gum 33:21 recession, even help with teeth whitening and detox in the mouth. 33:25 There's a bunch of different mechanisms at play there, but also water. 33:28 Pick a using a water pick to help to get with gum health and tooth health. 33:32 I'm a fan of biological dentists and making sure that you've had a cone 33:36 beam because latent infections can cause can trigger other issues. 33:42 Actually, one of the first people who I saw early in my career, 33:46 I saw a patient with five years of bloody Mukasey diarrhea, diagnosed with Crohn's 33:51 and had a root canal that was extracted and it was gone overnight. 33:55 I could not make this up. 33:57 I would not have believed this if you had told me this when I was in training. 34:01 But I saw that with the glomerular nephritis patient. 34:04 So an autoimmune glomerular kidney disease, she was in line for 34:08 dialysis, had a root canal extracted and turned around overnight. 34:13 Now, every Crohn's patient 34:14 who has had a root canal done will not recover overnight from this. 34:19 Right. 34:19 But occasionally what we see is there's this very clear connection 34:24 between, and latent infection under a root canal or in a cavitation, 34:28 some sort of low grade irritation on the immune system 34:32 that is causing then an autoimmune condition somewhere else in the body. 34:36 I just knew many times to deny that there's a connection there. 34:43 So I think seeing a biological dentist, being aggressive about finding those 34:47 and then just taking really good care of your teeth 34:50 throughout your life is important for whole body health. 34:53 But brain health in particular. 34:55 I just love that you're bringing this up because the truth is, people 34:58 are still treating dental health as if it is like a germ war in there, 35:04 instead of how to support the body to have a healthy oral microbiome, 35:07 which is setting you up for an appropriate gut microbiome. 35:11 Right. 35:11 So really appreciate that you're calling out the obsession 35:15 with the alcohol stuff like step away from the Listerine. 35:19 We're supposed to have some bugs in our mouth. 35:21 They're helpful. 35:22 It's just night when they actually can help strengthen your dental animals. 35:26 Like, we don't want to just, you know, take it down to ground zero. 35:29 That would be really hard on you. 35:31 But it's I've also become obsessed with sinus health recently 35:35 because I know that it's not officially part of the digestive 35:38 health tract, but it really does kick off your gut microbiome just gravity wise. 35:42 So if you have these hidden sinus infections, 35:46 not only is it irritating the immune system, right, but you're just swallowing 35:51 this pathogenic material all day long, recalling, 35:56 I think, well, I've also seen people who had those kind of latent 35:59 or low grade dental infections and that top, you know, in the, in the 36:03 top teeth. 36:04 And that's creating this recurrent sinus infection. 36:06 I am a huge fan of mouth tapping. 36:08 I don't know if you do. So sleep and high quality sleep. 36:11 You know these are guidelines. 36:12 Don't get obsessed and have this interfere with your sleep. 36:14 When I say these numbers. 36:16 But for guidelines is a place to start. 36:18 At least seven hours of sleep 36:19 at night and 90 minutes of REM sleep, a 60 minutes of deep sleep. 36:23 I use an oral ring to track, 36:25 and then I look at little things like travel and alcohol 36:27 and temperature and light and stuff, and how that affects my sleep. 36:30 You don't have to nerd out on it too much. 36:32 I just want people to get good, high quality sleep 36:34 and know what the difference is. 36:35 Number one most important thing about your sleep? 36:38 Do you wake up feeling rested and refreshed? 36:40 If the answer is no, it's time to look into that, right? 36:44 Is it sleep apnea? Is it is it alcohol? 36:47 Is it light? 36:48 Is it temperature? Is it sound? 36:50 Is it your partner? 36:51 So it you know, is it stress like what's going on? 36:54 Is there a supplement that can help us to optimize sleep? 36:57 Getting good sleep is crucial for digestion 37:00 and we don't want to be digesting at night. 37:02 We want to have at least three hours before that last bite of food. 37:06 And when we go to sleep so that our body can focus on resting and recovering 37:11 and not digesting, not trying to digest at the same time gravity as well, right? 37:16 We don't want to be lying down digesting. We want to be upright. 37:18 So now tip, 37:19 I want to just come back to this because mouth tape 37:21 I think is one of these unsung heroes. 37:23 It can treat mild sleep apnea. 37:26 And I've had patients who recover significant amounts of cognition 37:30 go from severe dementia to pretty functional, 37:34 like not going back to work, but much more functional, really impressive 37:37 improvements in their cognitive function when they use a CPAp,
Oral Health, Sleep, and Airway Support 37:41 when they get their sleep apnea treated, and now they have severe sleep apnea. 37:45 But there's a continuum here. 37:47 And mild sleep apnea is essentially like having mild brain damage every night. 37:50 So if you can treat that with a you know, $5 and mouth tip, 37:55 by all means start tonight. 37:57 Right. And sinuses are usable. 37:59 Lose them basically. 38:00 So you have to breathe in through the nose in order to maintain healthy airways. 38:06 Or they will collapse in a ridiculously short period of time. 38:10 We're talking weeks 38:11 if not, and Dave Cooper connecting the dots 38:14 there, that's exactly why we started this conversation, is 38:16 because if you're breathing through your mouth at night, 38:18 you're not breathing through your sinuses, 38:19 and that will change the structure of your airways. 38:22 So when you start using mouth tape, we see people's anxiety go down. 38:26 We see their allergies sometimes resolve. 38:29 There are so many benefits to using mouth tape, 38:31 not just the resolution of sleep apnea. 38:34 People just feel generally better when they're breathing 38:37 through their sinuses at night 38:38 because we're meant to breathe through our nose, not through our mouth. 38:42 In this, I'm sure many of your listeners will have heard of, 38:45 or read or listen to James Nestor's book on Breath Diet. 38:49 Right? 38:49 So diet has a lot to do with the formation of our jaw structure 38:54 and our bones, and we really want to be chewing on hard things. 38:57 And if we're not, 38:59 then maybe considering orthodontic or oral, devices to keep the airway open. 39:03 But the structure of our faces has changed a lot since our ancestors. 39:08 Right? 39:08 These ancestral diets, we had to chew on a lot to get enough calories each day. 39:13 And we don't do that anymore. We have soft foods. 39:16 And so that has basically made our airways much smaller. 39:19 And we have to work harder to keep them open. 39:22 So term. 39:24 So this is really interesting. 39:26 We've basically laid out some important areas 39:29 to support digestive health and cognitive health. 39:32 I want to give you an hour remaining time, 39:34 because this is such an area of passion for you, and you're one of the few experts 39:39 that have a platform that are actually keeping up on the data. 39:42 What myths still persist 39:44 in the, area of cognitive decline 39:47 that you really want to bust today? 39:51 The idea that nothing can be done. 39:53 I still have patients who come into my office who say, we saw the neurologist, 39:56 they took his driver's license away. 39:58 They said, come back in 6 to 8 months. Here's some medications. 40:01 They don't work very well. 40:02 We'll just measure the decline. Sorry. 40:05 And that is just it's not the reality, right. 40:08 There is so much that we can do. 40:10 The Lancet is a very reputable journal out of the UK. 40:14 They suggest that 40% of worldwide dementia could be prevented, 40:17 and I think that that number is actually much higher. 40:20 But they have a list of modifiable risk factors, things 40:23 like treating hypertension, ideal weight management. 40:27 Right. 40:28 Obesity is a risk factor for dementia, type two diabetes, exposure 40:32 to air pollution, depression, anxiety, social isolation. 40:36 Being a lifelong learner, education has an impact on cognitive health. 40:39 Treating hearing loss. 40:41 There are so many things that we can do, and we sort of expand 40:45 this concept that there's a lot that impacts neurological function 40:49 at a cellular level, but we want to do is we want to be that country 40:53 that's investing in infrastructure and roads and schools. 40:58 These are this is the neurons and the roads are those connections 41:02 between those neurons. We want to be investing in that. 41:04 And so that takes signaling. It takes nutrients. 41:07 It takes resolving the things that we would attack or defend against. 41:10 And this we can get systematic about how we apply these things. 41:14 And as I say this, 41:15 I don't want anyone to feel overwhelmed, like you don't have to do all of this. 41:19 In the clinical trial, we did 17 of the 23 participants 41:22 who we enrolled in that trial, who did the six months with us 41:25 got better and not one of them did everything. 41:29 So it's about choosing the pieces that are going to have 41:31 the biggest impact, doing the things that are doable. 41:34 Right? If you know 41:35 you're not going to change your diet, then go all in on the rest of it. 41:39 If you are ready to change your diet, get into ketosis or go vegan 41:43 and do the pieces that you can and just get started. 41:47 I think that's what the biggest takeaway is that you have so much control, 41:51 no matter what anybody's told you, 41:53 the science is changing. 41:54 You have a ton of control over the trajectory of your brain health 41:58 as you age. 41:59 I love that I totally agree with you. 42:01 I'm so glad you slid that piece in about the hearing impairment as well.
Myths About Dementia and Practical Hope 42:05 Michael's dad was rapidly declining in cognition 42:09 and we resolved his tinnitus within two treatments, which is not typical. 42:14 Guys usually take several weeks, 42:16 but it happened and it went away so fast he barely noticed. 42:20 And we saw Michael. 42:21 Where that has you to notice day. 42:22 Oh, it's gone on day two. Okay. 42:26 And we saw his cognition just like overnight shift 42:30 because he could actually participate again. 42:32 So let's focus on what we can control I love your message of hope. 42:36 I love that you're talking about just getting started 42:38 and building on our momentum. 42:39 Is there anything else you want to share in terms of advice with our audience 42:44 so much? 42:45 I think it's just management routine. 42:47 Like whatever your flavor, whether it's a prayer practice 42:50 and gratitude journal meditation, I personally, 42:53 I drink my matcha tea in the morning and then I meditate. 42:56 And if I don't do it, my day doesn't feel like it ever, like got started. 42:59 I feel like I'm missing something. 43:01 I'm more creative. I'm more patient. 43:04 I just enjoy life more when I do it so I can speak from personal experience. 43:07 But we also see this in the literature around kirtan kriya, the sati nama, and 43:12 this helps with blood sugar regulation, inflammation with telomere length. 43:17 I mean with you 12 minutes a day, totally free. 43:20 And of course, most importantly from my perspective it helps of cognition. 43:24 So when we can engage in some sort of daily routine mindfulness 43:28 routine, whatever your flavor, I, you know, choose what works for you. 43:33 But when I when we can do that, we see positive outcomes. 43:35 So that combination of movement, diet, exercise 43:40 and stress management and sleep, those are foundational. 43:44 When you can make those changes wherever you can optimize those things, 43:48 you get better outcomes. 43:50 We see it over and over and over again. 43:53 Okay, so tell me the name of your book. 43:57 Who should buy it? 43:59 And then also where can people find you on like, yeah. 44:01 So Reversing Alzheimer's, 44:03 the new Toolkit to Improve Cognition and Protect Brain Health, is out now. 44:07 And you can buy it wherever books are sold. 44:09 You can get a copy of that. 44:11 And we also have a bunch of free resources and bonus materials. 44:15 So we've got a workbook that goes with it and, videos 44:18 of my best summit, interviews, including ones with Mark Hyman 44:22 and David Perlmutter and David and excuse me and Dale Bredesen. 44:26 We also have summary videos of each chapter. 44:28 You can find all that at Reversing Alzheimer's, ABC.com, and, 44:32 more about me at drheathersandison.com I love it. 44:36 Go buy a bunch of them guys. 44:38 Give them to people who have lost hope because it's not too late. 44:41 Thank you so much, doctor Heather. 44:42 It's such a joy to have you. 44:44 We have so much fun to see you. Thanks for having me. 44:47 Thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. 44:49 We hope today's episode has enlightened 44:51 and inspired you on your path to optimal health. 44:54 Each day is a new opportunity to make choices but empower your wellbeing. 44:58 For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast 45:02 and visit our website.www.drtalks.com. 45:07 Stay connected, stay healthy and join us next time on Doctor Talks. 45:12 Real talks from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most.
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