Learn Integrative Medicine Approaches To Parkinson’s

Introduction and Functional Medicine Background 0:00

Welcome to The Parkinson's Solutions Summit 2.0. I'm your host, Dr. Kenneth Sharlin, and I'm hailing from Ozark, Missouri, and saying hello to the Denver, Colorado area. This is Dr. Amelia Scott Barrett, a fellow neurologist, Stanford University graduate, who is doing something kind of along the lines that I'm doing here. But there are very, very, very few of us who are neurologists, but who are also functional medicine doctors. And I was telling Dr. Barrett, before we hit the record button for this interview that I so frequently asked, can you recommend someone near me?

Now, I know Dr. Barrett isn't seeing patients in an office right now, but the journey is so important here because we have to convince our our fellow neurologists that there is more to helping patients than writing a prescription. So I'm curious. Well, first of all, welcome, Dr. Barrett. Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. And I'm really, really excited about this interview and our discussion. I will tell the the folks watching this about your journey. Maybe there is a shift for you. A discovery, an moment.

We need to we need to make this viral, you know. Absolutely. So I think for me, the, the shift came probably ten years ago when I was in my office and I was taking care of one of my favorite patients. She, was a working mom like me. She worked really hard on her migraines, also like me. And she came into the office. She was not doing well. She was spending a day a week or so in bed, and, she was feeling bad because her husband had to take up the slack. And she was worried about her job. She was having to take a lot of time off.

So, you know, we do the usual doctor thing. We look over the list of medications we've tried before. We decide which medication we're going to try next. And I go over the pros and cons and how to take it. And I'm handing her the prescription, and she looks me straight in the eyes and says, do you think this is going to work? And I just I said, yeah, I do think it's going to work. But I didn't think that any medication was going to fix what the problem was with her. And it was like in that moment I realized, oh my gosh, pills can't solve this problem.

I think pills are great when you have 1 or 2 migraines a month. Take the pill, it goes away and live your life. But for so many people, when this problem starts to get bigger, we need a larger toolbox. And so I, for myself at that time had been using functional medicine techniques, had had functional medicine testing done, identified a lot of problems under the surface. My headaches got better and I just realized, oh my gosh, I have to do this. I have to bring this tool to more people. Migraine is the number one cause of disability for women under 50.

I mean, it's taking women out of the workplace in the prime of their lives is taking moms away from their kids. And there are effective tools out there. People just don't know about them. So that's when I started to transition to a more integrative model of including functional medicine tools, including smart devices, including genetic testing. Like everything we have that is evidence based. That's the toolbox I want to bring to people. So that was how it happened for me. Yes. And to your point, evidence based meaning the best of us practicing functional medicine are bringing in the science.

I have a colleague, from my days at Vanderbilt who is junior faculty there. Mayo clinic trained neuro immunologist. I won't say who it is. Lovely gentleman. Still practices, but the point is that he has to be very active on Facebook and, interested in the science posting. Good stuff. And I remember someone said to him, now, mind you, this is about 2015, 2016 or so. Okay, so Dr. Jones, I just make up the name. What's your opinion about leaky gut? Is it real? No, it's a bunch of, you know,

Migraine, Brain Health, and Inflammation 4:46

fast forward because we knew at the time that increased gut permeability. Yeah. Absolutely valid. And in fact, it's used as a model to study diseases like Parkinson's and MS. and Alzheimer's. But in fact, it's not just a tool. So we can look at what happens to the brain when there's gut permeability. But we can apply it, you know, the apply those principles in the clinic. Fast forward to today. Everybody's talking about gut permeable, right. So we're especially in my world. Yeah. So you know here we are.

It is science. It is absolutely science. And I think our some of our colleagues are just a little, you know, a little behind the eight ball, but but they are definitely realizing that we need to do things a bit differently. I'm just curious about your migraine patient. If there were some specific things that you discovered and implemented or helped that patient implement in her life so that she could overcome migraine. You know, I do think that there are a couple of principles that are important not only for migraine, but also for neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson's disease, like Alzheimer's disease.

I think that these foundations for brain health apply to everybody who has something affecting the brain. We want our brain to be healthy. And so what does that mean? Well, I think that the first thing that's important is nutrition. The brain does have slightly different nutritional needs than other organs. We know that the brain likes a lot more omega threes. The brain likes more magnesium. These aren't things we necessarily think about if we're trying to prevent heart attack and things like that.

So I think that there is a certain, focus on nutrition, both in terms of food and supplements. That's really important. And I think that, like you mentioned, leaky gut is a big source of inflammation. We know that inflammation is a huge trigger not only for migraines but for other neurodegenerative disorders as well. And, you know, if the source of that is in the gut with leaky gut, we need to fix that. We need to stop at least one of the sources of inflammation that are coming into the body. Toxins are a huge issue, much more so, for things like Parkinson's, than for migraine.

But I'm telling you, I see a lot of high levels of toxins in my chronic headache people. and they get better when we get those, those toxin levels down. So I think that is a huge issue that we are starting to understand more. The brain is very particular. It's very metabolically needy, you know, and when cells are so active, they don't like toxins that interfere with their ability to get the energy they need. and I think that also, you know, the brain is very, susceptible to the effects of stress.

We all know that the, you know, chronic stress in particular has physical impacts on our body. And I find that this is something we just don't pay enough attention to. I think everybody feels like, oh, my life is stressful. There's nothing I can do about that. I just have to get through. Well, that that's actually not true. There are a number of things you can do to reduce the, impact of stress on your body and a number of exciting new smart devices that help us do that. I think it's an exciting time, actually, an empowering time.

And, you know, that probably affects migraine, maybe more so than things like Parkinson's. So, but but I think the core message is that there is a certain set of science and actionable principles that you can put into place to increase brain health, maintain brain health, and that reduces all of the symptoms that can emerge as a result of the brain not being able to work the way it wants to. Oh, yes. And we do spend a lot of time talking about stress in our clinic. you know, having versed myself in the work of Celia, but even, very popular researcher now, Dr. Naviaux, you talking about the cell danger response, and I think in many respects are really talking about the same thing in slightly different ways.

In the end. To your point, there are emotional, physical, circumstantial stressors that the brain experiences and some of these are entirely normal and unavoidable. Some of these are avoidable that we can change our exposure to it, to toxins, maybe by eating or clean, by using natural substances like vinegar and water to clean the floors in our home, rather than karmic walls. I heard a statistic that and I think this is true of men and women, but I think, you know, women do tend to generally use more personal care products, cosmetics, things like that, that by the time a woman is, you know, gotten up in the morning, she's gotten herself together and she's leaving the house, maybe for work or whatever that she's put on, you know, doused her body in hundreds of different chemicals.

Right. And the skin absorbs toxins. Right. What do we do when somebody comes into the E.R. with chest pain? We put nitro paste on their chest. We use a drug that's absorbed through the skin. That's how effective the skin is at absorbing what you put on it. So you've got to be very careful about what you put on your skin. And all of this is then received by the body. affects cellular function, the genetic level. It can modify what genes are turned on or turned off, affecting your microbiome, your immune system, altering the behavior of the immune system and ultimately turning, you know, turning on pathways in the brain that are sort of like, you know, and that's again, that's okay if it's just for a short period of time.

Of course, I'm not saying that exposing yourself to a bunch of toxic chemicals is okay, but having, you know, maybe, an upsetting experience is going to be part of the life journey. But how we internalize that, like Robert Sapolsky wrote in his book, you know Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers? But we do write and that and has a tremendous effect on health. So I'm curious. You said, you're discovering a lot of toxins. Tell me about more about toxins. You know, what are you testing? What are you seeing?

What approach would you take if you were advising someone on toxins? Well, I think there are really two issues that go into play here. And and I'll, I'll start this by saying that, that the toxin piece was a very personal journey for me because my aunt developed Parkinson's disease at a very young age. she was in her 60s, and I remember being at a family gathering. She was kind of my favorite. And, you know, she was very dynamic, kind of matriarch of the family kind of thing. And I saw a tremor.

and I mean that, as you know, you're like, oh, that's only one thing, pretty much. Right. That's usually Parkinson's disease. If somebody's hand is at rest and it still has some motion in it, kind of a slow, rhythmic kind of motion in the hand, not so much

Toxins, Genetics, and Parkinson's Risk 12:14

when you're picking something up or eating, but, you know, just at rest. And I, I knew what that meant. And, you know, she had a very interesting career. She worked for the EPA. So she herself was very, very immersed in the world of, you know, trying to rid the world of toxins. But of course, there, you know, she's visiting toxic places as part of that. And, she was always super, super healthy, but did not believe in eating organic foods. So she ate tons and tons of salads and all these things that were supposed to be helpful for you.

But she did not really believe in the whole pesticide thing. Interesting, right? So all of this happens, I told her that she should go see a neurologist. She did go see an urologist who told her she did not have Parkinson's disease. So you can imagine what my family thought of my neurological skills at that point, right? Oh my gosh. Anyway, her course did go on. And of course, it became clear eventually what was happening. So I around the same time had my genetics tested. and my detox systems don't work great.

They really don't. I'm mainly talking about the guest genes good at Ionis transferase, which is it's your body's own natural detox system. It's how your body combines glutathione or main detox chemical with toxins and gets rid of it from your body. We all have this. my system just doesn't work, you know, quite according to factory specs. And so I started doing toxin testing and found high levels of mercury and arsenic, and then also had some mold exposure. So I had a lot of toxins to deal with. Got rid of all that through functional medicine.

Thank goodness. I felt like I had my brain. Back. Was that was amazing. But coming back to my aunt, I started thinking, I bet she's got my genetics. so it's really this match, I think, between what's going on in your environment and how your body handles it. So if you have a lot of toxins in your world, but you have great detox systems, maybe it's not a big deal if you have a lot of toxins in your world and you don't have great detox systems, maybe you're the one who gets Parkinson's. There's a super interesting study done recently.

They were looking at, the pattern of where people start to develop alpha synuclein deposits first. That's the stuff that accumulates inside the neurons for people who have Parkinson's and related disorders. And so what's super interesting is that they develop in the olfactory nerve inside your nose. You know, where you breathe in the air and what's in the air pollution, chemicals. Right. And they also developed in the neurons of the gut. That's the other place toxins get into us right through what we eat, whether that's pesticides on our food or, or things like that.

So they developed their first really interesting about, you know, what are the origins, what are the first places in your body where your body is reacting to toxins? And it makes perfect sense because we're seeing you know, that the, the, the incidence of Parkinson's disease is rising faster than any other neurological disorder. Yes. It's you know, it's a huge, huge problem. It's going to affect us for generations to come. Such a problem. You know, I think you're making a really important point.

And we talked about this indirectly in some of the other interviews about having a genetic variant. and the one that you're referring to may be a slightly less familiar to the viewers at this, summit. but because many viewers participate in summits, they're very popular. Now, I do want to touch on one that has some relationship to it and make a specific point. And I'm sure you've seen this. People say, Doctor Barrett, I have MT far, right. Yeah. Like really like, oh, yeah. You know, like, guess what.

We all have MT far, right? We all do it because this is what we're really talking about is everyone's sort of unique biochemical makeup. We all have these enzymes in the case of MT for no, it's not a bad word. It's relates to what we refer to as methylation. And in this case the activation of fully the B vitamin, as it then in turn transfers its methyl group to homocysteine. And why this pathway is so critical for our brains, for our heart, for helping to prevent things like cancers. And so everyone has the genes.

It's just that some people have a variant of the gene, the the spelling. I tell people it's like, you know, guitarist theater. But maybe if you're in Stratford upon Avon in England, it might be a tree and we can all read that word, we might have a brief pause as our brains go up. That's Old English, or maybe that's French, because they spell it that way, and French pronounce it slightly differently, but it means the same thing. The difference, of course, is how does the protein, the enzyme for which the genes code behave?

And if you don't know that, then you can't take the steps to ultimately address what's really a bottleneck. It's not a block. It's not that the gene doesn't work at all, because we might not have survived beyond the uterus if that were the case. But this is precision medicine, folks. What what Doctor Barrett is talking about. These are the things that our doctors need to be testing us for and the testing that it's out there, it's commercially available. And by learning your unique biochemical and genetic makeup, you can then take steps to optimize.

bottleneck. I love the way you phrase that. That is such the perfect way to describe an end for mutation. I love it. You know, this relates to so many aspects of health, of course, and I don't not to pick on our our colleagues are talented. They worked hard to get into medical school and you know, and be physicians. I sat in on a and continuing medical education updates in neurology type meeting a couple of years ago. And, one of the epileptic allergists at a major university was, giving a presentation on, the the management of epilepsy through pregnancy, such an important topic. And, she was talking about prenatal vitamins and then avoiding, certain drugs like, sodium valproate.

but then I said I sort of went like this, and yes, I said no. Yes, you should. You can give your patients prenatal vitamins and you should, but you can actually figure out how much folate they, they need rather than that sort of generic take a prenatal vitamin. Right. You can measure their homocysteine. I mean, because that's what prenatal vitamins are really doing. True. Yeah. And she looked at me like a deer in the headlights. You know what I mean? You and I, by the way, folks, biochemistry is my Achilles heel.

I mean, I struggled with that in first year in medical school. I was an English major in college. But, you know, Doctor Barrett and I both know that sometimes we do things because there's sort of a recipe. There's a there's a formula, there's a protocol, but then there's science behind that. And what makes practicing medicine today so in the bowl is that now we have the tools to dig into the science and figure out how each person is unique. And that applies to Parkinson's disease. Yes, it does. So you're doing some toxin testing.

You're looking at some genetics, you're making some changes. And then things start to change. Migraine Parkinson's trajectory at least maybe not. Curing Parkinson's is because by the time someone is just diagnosed with Parkinson's, they've already lost 50 to 80% of their dopamine producing neurons. Right. But we have a domino effect, right? That we need to slow down. Right. Exactly. And if you can slow it down, that is still a good thing. You know, and I think sometimes that that is why people give up on lifestyle changes.

You know, they may be working so hard changing their lifestyle and they don't see results, you know, next week, next month. And so they think, well, this isn't working. But I think that's that's why you test. That's why you learn where your body's at and what your body needs, because that gives you certainty that all the effort you're going to do is worth it. You know, you need to in order to stay as healthy as possible. So if you know your detox pathways aren't optimal, do you know that you know every bite of broccoli you eat, which is a detox vegetable, that it's all doing you good, and you should keep eating broccoli even if your Parkinson's doesn't feel better next week, right?

No doubt about it. Yeah, you could. Say I don't eat broccoli. Well, we'll find another way. We'll find another way. We've been growing microgreens in our house lately, and one simple thing to do, and I have been told, is just what I learned. So I didn't actually measure it, that the concentration of sulfur often in the sprout broccoli is actually even higher than the full grown plant. So if you and that's the active compound that turns on a pathway called the Nrf2 pathway and then helps you upregulate your production of Bluetooth. And, maybe you just want to be willing to eat some sprouts.

I got to try that. Seriously. I'm going to Google that or watch a YouTube video about how to grow broccoli sprouts in my house. That sounds like fun. And it's great if if you I don't know if you have children or they're all grown up now or so, but you know, that's a great way to get kids involved with food, right? Yeah. What are some, broccoli seeds off Amazon? And, you know, put them in a jar with a little bit of like that. You can just. And by the way, we learned the hard way. my, we have a greenhouse.

And the first time we did it, my wife, planted them in soil. Where's the growing soil? But then, you know, you're eating you. It's kind of hard to clean soil off or. You're eating soil to. Which some people really believe in. You know, there's a period of time we get those soil based, probiotics. But I'm right. That's not for me. But, now you can you do the sprouts with just some, damp paper towels? Really? You know. Wow. The bell jar. That's so easy. Yeah. 3 or 4 days. Put it by your window. You must really don't have to do anything.

And within a few days, you got a jar full of wonderful super food. Doctor. Sharla, this sounds like such a good series of Instagram posts. I think you should do it. Show the seeds, grow it. That's right. There you go. I'm going to credit to Scott Barrett. So toxins, should we move around the, the functional medicine matrix a little bit or there are other areas where need to kind of be thinking about as we move through our day. Toxins are big, and we need to minimize our exposure and maximize our ability to metabolize them or excrete them from the body.

Yeah. And so I think I just want to give one hands on tip

Practical Detox Tips and Gut Health 24:18

before we navigate away from the toxins conversation, which is, you know, we're talking about you know, getting a lot of very expensive testing done here. And that may not be available to a lot of people out there. So I just want to leave you with a couple of tips. Number one, I'm not talking about the broccoli. Eat cruciferous vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale. you know, any of those, Brussels sprouts? You know, any of those kinds of things? Make sure you're eating plenty of those.

They'll help your body get rid of toxins. And number two, sauna really works. Heat's really work. A lot of gyms have a sauna. You know, just add on 20, 30 minutes a couple of times a week. You really do get rid of toxins in your sweat. So you know, a couple real simple, straightforward tips that you can start implementing right now, to lower your toxic burden in your body and, reduce the chances of those toxins causing problems. No doubt about it. we, I had the chance to interview Brian Richards, an old friend of mine who owns sauna space, and that's.

That's not the only thing out there, of course. but it is a great product. And so I'm not sure what order these interviews will be aired in, but definitely folks need to jump over and also check out Brian. because he has a lot to say about this too. So sauna. And then, you know, again, what I think Doctor Barrett saying, I'm sure you agree is, you know, you don't have to spend a million bucks to, you know, to take care of yourself and improve your trajectory. So, you know, you're minimizing your exposure, you're maximizing your excretion.

We just talked about the skin essentially through sauna. and then there are other ways that our bodies get rid of stuff. We exhale, we go to the bathroom through bowel movements, through urine. We were talking about the gut earlier and, you know, eating plenty of fiber and having, having having bowel movements every single day. And as you know, Parkinson's is a disease that sort of has a pre motor period. It has, many, potentially many years with people having mood changes, potentially REM sleep behavioral disorder.

And then the other one is constant Pation, well known from the scientific literature that this can herald the onset of Parkinson's and certainly affects so many of our Parkinson's patients. it sure does. Yeah, it can be a real problem. Do you have any suggestions for those? if I can do as a patient, for helping to address that particular problem that's so common with our Parkinson's folks. Yeah. You know, I really like fiber supplements. It's it is hard to get fiber from your food, although it's doable.

And I'll talk about that in a minute. But I think that just adding extra fiber straight up can make a huge difference. So I like the soluble ones because I'm a big tea drinker. I'm drinking herbal tea almost all day long. I just love it. And, you can put a soluble fiber in there and it dissolves completely. You can't even tell there's anything in your tea. I just, I think this is like one of the modern miracles of, you know, the modern world. so that's just a really, really easy way to get more fiber in.

And then in terms of actual foods, of course, it's, you know, fruits, vegetables, and beans, lentils, those things can help a lot. and it's so easy to just make simple substitutions, like instead of having wheat pasta, switch that up for a chickpea pasta there at my local grocery store, you don't even have to go to a special grocery store to get that stuff, and it's got so much more protein and fiber in it than, you know, they'll even the whole wheat ones and that, you know, super simple substitutions to make.

Or if you're making, you know, anytime you're making any kind of taco or Mexican food, make sure you put a couple beans in. If you're making a soup, add half a can of beans, whatever kind you like. You know, once you start thinking, okay, I'm going to try to get a little bit of being or lentil in today, you'll start finding ways to put it into your favorite foods. You don't have to go get a bunch of special recipes, although if you want to, feel free. But if you just keep, you know, a container of cooked beans and cooked lentils in your refrigerator and say, all right, I'll sprinkle a few spoonfuls on my salad, you know it'll come to you, and pretty soon you'll have some solid new habits in terms of your food that really help you, stay healthy.

Curries, of course, are super easy to do. You can buy so many pre-made curries that they don't even have a bunch of crazy ingredients. They're just like, you know, you read the label, you're like, oh, I heard of that. I heard of that. Okay, that's good stuff. You know? It's just like, that's my favorite kind of processed food where you I mean, it is processed technically it's in a jar, but there's nothing crazy in it. It just simplifies life for a working mom like me. You know, it's like. You know, we say you know, shop the edges of the supermarket, read labels.

You know, if you don't recognize the ingredients and they have long chemical names, don't put that stuff in your body. Yeah. You know, that's sort of the difference between something that is maybe pre-made for you or prepared for your convenience, but it has turmeric as cocaine and milk. It has, you know, some, maybe some chili paste in it, depending on the type of curry. And then you can add your own beans, you know, you can add lots of vegetables which are excellent source of fiber as well. Yeah.

And I do often like a brunch curry. Just take some pre-cooked chicken. Put a little bit of that in there. Some onions. Garlic. you can get you know frozen organic cauliflower. Put a little bit of that in there, a jar of curry sauce with, you know, no strange chemicals on the name. Five minutes flat. You're done. You've got a super healthy meal, you've got antioxidants, fiber, lots of phytonutrients, a little bit of protein, nice healthy fat, awesome meal and super quick. And so, you know, and everything is connected in functional medicine.

So here we are talking about detoxification and improving gut health. But in turn you're consuming this fiber. You're nourishing the bacteria that live in your gut. So there's a whole separate discussion about the microbiome. They are producing what are called short chain fatty acids, particularly butyrate. We like these butyrate producers that in turn are going to energize the brain. So you just win win all the way around. Yeah exactly. And these changes are so easy to make. I think people don't realize how helpful these small daily habits are over time.

It's like, imagine if the Titanic had just changed course by one degree. That's all you have to do. Just one degree. And, keep your, you know, keep your trajectory on a different path and you will it will pay off. It absolutely will. You know, one of the things I tell people, you know, of course, here we are talking about food and recipes and all these things and saying, well, I went to my doctor. I thought they were going to give me a prescription and they ended up giving me a recipe. That's okay.

No, but, you know, food can be food we love. We're human. Right? Most human beings love food. They love food. And so, you know, I don't know about you, but I say, look, this isn't about giving things up. This is about re-envisioning your relationship with food and making it an adventure. Like, do you like to travel? Right? You could make it like, we're going to we're going to get a book of of recipes or a cookbook and,

Movement, Sleep, and Daily Habits for Parkinson's 32:28

and we're going to travel to a different country every night of the week. If you wanted to write every night of the week and you could try their food and you could find a documentary about their culture and explore some new spices and aromas, flavors, right? Things you've never done before. And and again, I said it earlier, you're involving your kids if you have them, because we're setting up those habits early. Our kids will be adults. And unfortunately, some of our adult children will develop Parkinson's.

Yeah, yeah. I love your idea, though, about Consider Your food adventures to be traveling and pair it with a documentary. That's great. Yeah, anything that makes it fun and exciting. Yes, all these movies about, you know, eat, sleep, pray, love and all that that, you know, we can do that on on our own. We can we can. It doesn't have to be just something in a book or on the silver screen. We can, you know, and you know, the other things that attract us. You know, if you're if you're a couple, if you're, you know, not necessarily trying to inspire your kids, do it as cook as a couple guys, by the way, food often leads to sex, right?

Especially if you do the dishes afterwards. Just say. Right, right. So you know, do the, you know, can I use your communication skills? And they're not they're words. We have more than a few words, but you know, they're gestures and carrying and and nurturing and support and all that other stuff. And that's by the way, hugely, hugely healing as well. So all good stuff. So you're going to, you're going to, you're going to find some, food that detoxifies you're going to nurture your microbiome, you're going to support your mitochondria and ultimately start making things work better for Parkinson's.

I'm just curious, so your Parkinson's patients, some of the other things, are you sharing with them outside of food? well, I mean, of course, in conventional neurology, the medications help a lot. I think sleep is also foundational, of course, for any kind of a brain problem. And that's particularly difficult, for people with Parkinson's, and, movement. So, you know, even even just a simple walk after dinner, you know, possibly even going on up to, you know, a little bit of resistance training, that movement plays is key.

So many excellent opportunities for movement. Think of, Dr. Norman Doidge, where he talks about the conscious movement and one of the, characters, if you will, and in his book about the brain that changed itself. so there's conscious movement. And, folks, Dr. Barrett is really speaking the gospel because there are programs that you can talk to your neurologist about, like big step formal programs for working on gait, as well as the Lee Silverman big voice, approach. And then there's, you know, rock steady boxing and dancing.

How fun is that? Dancing is exercise and dancing is so many other things as well. and especially if you're doing it with a partner that you care about, or just a good friend, and it has tremendous benefit for Parkinson's, bicycling. You live in an area of the country where cycling is huge, huge. Yeah. I can literally walk out my front door and bike 100 miles. Not that I've ever done that, but I could encourage it. I did do the Boulder triathlon several years ago. The Ironman. Oh, cool. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

We gotta we've got to be incorporating all of these things, into, into lifestyle and do it in ways that are manageable. Right. To nurture folks, to support them, find ways, find little openings, little cracks. Right little. The door isn't necessarily wide open but there's that. Yeah. Kind of heard about that and it'd be kind of fun right. but her first steps were. Yeah absolutely. Yeah. And then just act follow through, you know, you know, change one, one small habit a week and gradually sculpt a different daily routine because you really have to think of it as a single day, not as, you know what you're doing, for a year, you're just think about, how do I sculpt one day to support my health?

What change do I need to make you know, identify any of the things that we've talked about so far? That may be something where the little voice inside you is saying, yeah, I don't go to bed on time or I never go move. You know, whatever that thing is. just make a commitment to yourself that you're going to change that this week, literally this week. Put it in on your phone every day, 6:00 going for a walk or whatever that is for you every day, 9:00 going to bed, you know, literally put it in as something you have to do to support your health.

And then, you know, as the days go by, slowly, you are creating a day and a life that support your home, that allow you to thrive. And you will be amazed at how much better you can feel. Absolutely. We had a wonderful interview in last year's Parkinson's Solution. Some of the gentleman named Alex Kerten, he's based out of Israel and he wrote a book called Goodbye Parkinson's, Hello life! This kind of reminds me of exactly what you're saying. Dr. Amelia Barrett, it has really been an honor to visit with you.

If folks want to find out more about what you're doing and how to connect with you, can you share with us some guidance on that? Absolutely. I am at Amelia Scott Barrett on all platforms, so that's my website, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Super simple. Some and understanding. Maybe sharing some of folk. something to, help them with Parkinson's. look forward to seeing what your what your offer is. You can tell us a little bit about, that please. yes. I've got a, top three tips for Parkinson's, which incorporates some of the, principles that I have shared here today.

Awesome. Well, Dr. Amelia Scott Barrett, it has been such an honor and a pleasure to connect with a fellow neurologist. And, hope we get to meet each other in person soon. And, you know, keep doing what you're doing because you're helping so many folks, and it's really an honor. So thank you so, so much. You are welcome. And thank you so much for the work that you do. Trying to bring this information directly to the people who need to hear it. Good work.