Identifying Microbial Triggered Brain Disorders In Loved Ones

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Hey everyone Dr. Tom Moorcroft here and thanks for joining us for this episode of the microbes and mental health summit and I’m really excited for this interview because I get to bring to you one of my near dear friends, Dr. Heather Sandison, she’s the founder of Solcere Health Clinic and Marama, which is the first residential care facility for the elderly of its kind. And the thing that really blew me away when I first got to meet Dr. Heather is want her passion for what she’s doing and taking the science that we know about reversing dementia and you know, cognitive loss and actually making it real right. You know, she’s taking the scientific evidence and saying, look there’s a path here to improving our cognition and we don’t have to wait until we’re so bad that we need sort of this impatient, you know, rehab that she’s able to do for some folks, but it’s really about taking that science and being an innovator, disrupting the field and bringing us to this new place where you and I can actually benefit from this way before we end up with dementia or something crazy like that. And we also are going to cover some information that we can share maybe with some of the older folks in our lives of the people have early onset dementia and things like that. That could help. So Dr. Heather Sanderson, thank you so much for joining us and I’m really excited to dive into this topic today. 

Heather Sandison, ND

It’s always a pleasure to catch up with you. Thanks for having me.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Yeah. And one of the things I will say and you guys will all see this in the show notes. Dr. Sandison has a wicked long bio that she’s done these clinical trials. But the bottom line here is we all talk about we need evidence for what we’re doing. And so when I thought about how do we think about microbes and dementia and the evidence base for the potential to reverse a lot of our cognitive changes? I could think of no one any better to talk about this and talk about brain inflammation and how this leads to dementia. So we’re gonna have a really cool conversation. But one of the things like I love to find out though heather and I know we’ve kind of talked about this in the past offline but like what the hell got you into this? Like why why are you like you know this you know young doctor with all these different places that you could go and now you’ve become this big name of bringing because what’s what other people may not know too because maybe I didn’t introduce enough is you know, you’re bringing people like Dr. Perlmutter and Dr. Bredesen into the living rooms of people in a really usable way. So what, what even got you on this mission?

Heather Sandison, ND

Yeah. So Dr. Bredesen trained me. I ran into his work at a mental health conference. Actually I am a just an integrated mental health conference and I saw his presentation suggesting that you could reverse dementia. And I was like, wait, what I’ve been told by all of my instructors, by everyone who I think of as smart in the neurology space and in, you know, anybody who would think about doing this, about treating dementia from a naturopathic perspective or a conventional perspective. And the refrain over and over again is get your affairs in order. There’s nothing that can be done and we’ll see you in six months to see what the degradation looks like, like to see how much further you’ve gone and oh by the way, I’ve got to take your driver’s license away now and so you have less independence and it’s all downhill from here. The most depressing conversation ever essentially is what’s being had all across the country. When people go to either the primary care provider or a neurologist saying that they have memory loss or that their partner who they’re bringing with them has memory loss. And then when I saw Dr. Bredesen speak, I was very skeptical, I thought you know, I’ve been told by all these people that there’s nothing you can do. 

Why is this guy saying that there is something you can do and essentially what he’s presenting is naturopathic or functional medicine as the solution. And so I was kind of scratching my head a little skeptical, but I was intrigued enough because they come from this naturopathic perspective of treat the cause, identify the cause, you know, go back to the root of of what’s causing inflammation or whatever it is that’s causing the pathology identify that. And a lot of it was lifestyle. So it’s about doctors teacher. Many of these tenants of naturopathic medicine came up but also of complex systems science of saying what are all of the things that might be impacting the brain And how do we kind of systematically not kind of, but how do we actually go in systematically assess them all, test them, understand if they’re out of balance and then push them back towards balance so that we get better neuronal function or the cells in the brain so that every cell in the brain is basically working better. And so I went to Dr. Bredesen’s training because I was intrigued and I had this background and it made common sense to me right? Like I have heard people say it wasn’t possible, but what he was describing, I was like, no, no, the puzzle pieces fit together, That makes sense. 

So then Fast forward to me coming back to my office, I was on the list of providers who had been trained by him and at that point in time in 2017, that list was not very long. And so I, you know, had the privilege really of seeing these patients who are much more enthusiastic and confident in the process than I was. One of my very first patients, her name is Linda and she came in with a moca score of two. So a moca is a Montreal cognitive assessment. It’s a one page worksheet that we do with patients and a perfect scores 30 anything normal is 26 or higher. Measurable cognitive loss happens in the mid twenties. And she had a moca of two. She was almost non verbal. She could answer questions with yes or no answers, but she couldn’t string together a sentence. She was you know obviously her relationship with her husband was severely affected. She was completely dependent on him but she had this bright smile and like her soul was shining through, I could see it. She had this bright pink blouse on the studded leather bag and you could just tell that she had been this incredible human. So six weeks later she comes back and I like did not expect any of this right? She has now a moca of seven, she’s stringing sentences together. 

She’s bickering with her husband about something that happened the night before the day before and her handwriting, his change, she was a teacher and her professionally she had taught and she had had this beautiful handwriting and her husband had pointed out how much it had been affected in the first visit. Well now it was straight, it was the right size, her beautiful handwriting was back and she wasn’t going back to teaching, she wasn’t 100% better by any stretch, she still had very severe dementia. But her life was totally changed. And so was that of her husband’s and this all happened in six weeks. And so of course I’m like, did we do something wrong? Like do we measure that wrong? Like I still am like, I don’t know that like this isn’t supposed to happen. And then I started sobbing because I think if this can happen for Linda, who else is suffering unnecessarily and what can happen for someone who’s just at the very beginning? What can happen for people with mochas in the twenties? We probably don’t have to work as hard. We probably don’t have to do as much. So for Linda, what did, I’m sure many of you are thinking? Well, what did she do in those six weeks? Right. Yeah. Right. So she did it all and not what I, I tell my patients and their families I have the most confidence when we’re earlier on in the disease process. 

So when you’re just starting to notice that you are not remembering where you put the keys or names you would have remembered in the past or that your partner is asking questions multiple times a day that you’ve already answered. Sometimes people with dementia are not aware of it. And so the earlier on in that disease state we can intervene, the better off we’re going to be the more confidence I have and then the more fully people dive in, right? So if you’re just dipping your toe into the protocol, I have less confidence if you are fully in and committed, my confidence goes way up. And then of course the younger you are, the easier this is to reverse. So what do we do with linda? She got on her bio identical hormone replacement, she got all of her dental work done, which is gonna come up again because microbes, microbes, microbes in the mouth. And then she got her moved out of a multi bedroom, so she, they didn’t even moved out of their house, they just moved out of the bedroom and moved into the living room of their house and she got on all of the supplements. They started ballroom dancing three times a week. On the other days, they were walking and getting vigorous exercise. I mean they really dove in, oh they got on the ketogenic diet and that was another big piece. So they did it all and really proved to me what is possible for those suffering with dementia.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Wow, I mean, first of all just to jump from 2-7 is not possible. So it’s nice to know that we’re talking to a miracle worker. But it’s amazing when you start to do this, do this at such a core level of healing where you’re really supporting the body’s natural ability to heal itself, which, you know, so many people in the lime world were talking and in the world that I spend a lot of time, lime and autoimmune encephalitis triggered by lime by co infections by mold. And so many of these people like have this trigger and they, we give away our ability to heal ourselves. And I think what you highlighted two things, one is there are things that you can do on your own, like your vigorous exercise, like your diet, like maybe even just changing the concentration of the mold by getting to a different bedroom. But the other part that I just wanna highlight for everybody Heather that you were saying is she was all in her and her husband sound like they were all in for Linda’s health and that is one of the most important and key players for healing from any of these things and my experience and clearly in yours is that you’re gonna have a better result. Because do you get the question where people are like, do you really expect me to do all that?

Heather Sandison, ND

Oh all the time. Yeah. And people burn out, right? When you’re caring for someone with dementia, it’s a very, just emotionally, physically just like almost bankrupting, right? It is so challenging, It’s so stressful, it can be so heartbreaking and caregivers actually have a 2.5 to 6 fold increase in risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s later in life because they don’t get the exercise, they don’t, they are eating on the run. They’re under so much stress their sleep is affected. And so when I, whenever I have a family come into me and it’s often the daughter of some with dementia or the spouse of someone with dementia, I always turn to the caregiver and I’m like, look, you guys are in this together, you both need to be doing this and we’ll just bite off a chunk at a time, will go at the pace that works for you. But of course the more you can do, the more fully, the better the outcomes in my experience and also what I saw in the research that we did. So yeah, it’s a lot. It’s a lot to ask. And yet I you know, I I this is kind of morbid, but a friend of mine unexpectedly passed away in a car accident not that long ago and his his brother got up on stage and gave this beautiful eulogy and at the end of it, he was describing how his brother something really unique text messages that were really funny and he’s like, what I would give for one more text message from my brother. 

And this is that what would I give for one more birthday for one more summer for one more anniversary, for those memories of having that person still with me, right able to communicate, able to engage, able to just be together. And Alzheimer’s is sometimes referred to as the long goodbye because it is this decades long torturous process and tom that’s one of the more depressing things about it is that there’s no pharmaceutical remedy for this, right? What the pharmaceutical offer at this point is they can potentially prolong that charge for this process so that you’re just in it longer. And what we are suggesting is, yeah, it’s hard. It’s not easy. And that’s exactly why I created Marama is because so many people I think could benefit but just aren’t able to implement. And so I was like, all right, we have to do this. We need to create a spot where you just show up and it’s all done for you so that we can, we can kind of, yeah, just getting all the benefits.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Yeah. I’m just reflecting like, you know, my father at the end of his exceptionally long tortuous and, exactly what you said, You know, it’s the dementia. And what was really interesting was, it was like 2, 2.5 months before my father died. He, we had were all together at my parents place for the holidays and we had a family meeting with all the boys because they had three boys and you know, our spouses and whatever and we were like, we’re most worried about mom because mom was going super down like my dad had a smoked and drank and he finally stopped those things, but he had had so many cardiac things after that that the the repeated die exposure killed his kidneys, which just accelerated all the other super vascular disease and cardiovascular disease. And I mean dude would like brush his teeth for hours until his gums were bleeding. He’d shave his face until it was bleeding. I mean it was created, you know, you know, and the medicines didn’t do anything. I mean they really didn’t. I mean they may have prolonged but from a caregiver perspective and I see this a lot in, in patients who are suffering like a lot of our Children who have pediatric acute onset neuropsychiatric syndrome, which is as, as we’re learning in the summit, but you know, it’s an infection triggered autoimmune brain inflammation that leads to behavioral changes the parents. 

The primary caregiver often is mom. Not always, but sometimes, but get so burnt because they’re not able to put that focus on themselves. And then like the spout like mom and dad sometimes have that big, you know, riff because of that. So I just really wanted to take a moment and highlight the importance of what you said two big things. You gotta be all in for yourself. Yes, it’s hard, but it’s so worth it and you are so worth it. And then the other part is parents if you want your kids to do it, you gotta do it too. And caregivers of people that are closer in your age do it with them because the stuff that we’re talking about in the summit and specifically today with Dr. Heather is stuff that’s going to help you. So I just public service. I mean I love encapsulating what you just said because it’s so key. It’s like the crux of all the I mean if I look at the people who don’t do as well as other people, you summarize the reason it doesn’t happen. So when we look Heather at causes of nor inflammation and brain inflammation that kind of started us down this path. What are some of the most common things that you’re seeing?

Heather Sandison, ND

Yeah, so there’s sort of the mold camp and I’m gonna put that aside for a minute, but definitely want to go back there. So let’s start with the microbes that trigger inflammation in the brain that we know are sort of the worst offenders. So one is pages of Alice and there’s actually a couple of others that have a lot of data that show that gum disease and gingivitis, it immediately causes not only inflammation in the brain, but because that goes through the cardiovascular system, it causes cardiovascular risk as well. So this causes inflammation in the blood vessels and that inflammation in the blood vessels can lead to basically like preventing blood from getting to your brain and also can lead to that inflammation, inflammatory process of the micro glia in the brain that then leads to beta amyloid plaque production maybe tau protein production. So amyloid plaques which we think of kind of as the culprit many of us think like Alzheimer’s amyloid plaques, many of most of the pharmaceutical interventions are around reducing amyloid plaques. 

A lot of people don’t realize that amyloid, that protein, it’s protein that’s misfolded, it is antimicrobial, so that amyloid is being produced to defend you from something and if we can figure out what you’re defending yourself against what your brain is defending itself from then we can address that. And especially if it hasn’t gotten to the brain yet. We’re even in better shape and then we don’t have to have that big defense that’s built in the brain and then we don’t end up with plaque production. So gingivitis is something that we take very, very seriously. And one of the things that comes up here is root canals. So if you had told me 10, 15 years ago that root canals were the cause of disease, I would have kind of rolled my eyes and thought that’s crazy. Everybody has root canals. I know a bunch of people who have had root canals who have no no issues. Well not every root canal is a problem, but many of them are. And I’ve seen this too many times with my own eyes to not share it is these root canals. They basically, when you take the nerve out, you leave this little gap and it’s the right place. It’s basically like the perfect little Petri dish for microbes to grow in. And those microbes then are because the teeth are not well vascular. Rised.

The immune system is in the vascular right? It’s in the blood. And so it’s not it’s not recognizing that there is this latent little infection that’s irritating the immune system but never being fully resolved and that can trigger inflammation. So can capitation where where wisdom teeth were pulled but particularly gum disease. And so I recommend that people see a biological dentist get a cone beam X ray and I’m not a dentist. But just generally if I see an L. P. P. L. A. Too elevated on an advanced cardio metabolic panel. I usually wait for it to be elevated twice. Sometimes people have come just after the dentist or there’s some other factor that’s involved there. So before I say go spend a ton of money with the biological dentist I say okay let’s let’s just double check it. Let’s make sure that that’s consistently high. And sure enough if it is I’m sending them to buy a biological dentist for coming max ray, a full assessment of the mouth and then water pick. I love the dental side and product by Poseidon. There’s a coconut oil oil pulling can be a great thing to do. But of course brushing and flossing flossing every single day. I think this is one of those things where I’m like, it’s so simple. It’s totally free. Just do it every day. It’s these habits that we make these choices that we make every day that really have an impact on the trajectory of our health long term.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

It’s so interesting. Wait. I just have to do the good hygiene stuff that my parents told me about.

Heather Sandison, ND

Exactly. Okay, so that’s the mouth. So bugs in the mouth. You want to keep those out because that and part of it is just the geography, right? Like the mouth is so close to our brains. But also it’s because when those gums, you know, if your gums are bleeding, that’s a sign, you need to floss more. You need to brush more. Okay, so the other microbes that pop up herpes, herpes simplex wanted to this is like sexually transmitted. Herpes can be oral, can be genital. Either one this also triggers inflammation in the brain very quickly. And so I am, I’m a naturopath, right? I don’t push a lot of medications, but this is one where if somebody is getting repeat herpes outbreaks, then I will, I will prescribe acyclovir valacyclovir typically feel kind of telling me, oh yeah, that one worked for me or that one didn’t and I just have them. There’s kind of a spectrum. But some of the medicine docs will do like one week a month as prophylaxis. Some will say at that first sign of pro drone just go big on the dough scene and take for at least a week or until that whole program is gone. Don’t get, you know, you don’t hopefully won’t get an outbreak and other people will just have their patients on it all the time. I don’t tend to do that because I worry about liver and kidney function. 

But we can do from a natural perspective things like licensing even lithium melissa official list, which is lemon balm. There’s a lot of great antiviral herbs that we can use and use them ongoing as prophylaxis and just treat aggressively. So there’s epidemiological data that shows that people who are treated aggressively with the medications with the pharmaceuticals had less risk of developing Alzheimer’s later on compared to those who did not treat with pharmaceuticals. So it’s one of those places where I do recommend a pharmaceutical intervention if you’re having those repeated outbreaks. Now, some people have had herpes once or they’re like oh it’s positive on testing. Everybody’s positive on testing. Like that doesn’t that’s not super meaningful if you’re getting those repeated outbreaks that I I recommend the treatment. 

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

I think it’s so key because a lot of times people like and everybody’s looking at like, you know H H. V. Six and H. H. V. Seven everybody’s wanting there. But it’s like real clinical repeat herpes outbreaks were not just checking numbers to say that you were exposed at some point but it’s actually something that we’re seeing all the time. 

Heather Sandison, ND

Right. Exactly. Yeah. You don’t need to jump on a ciclovia if you had herpes when you were 21 and never again since I’m not suggesting that more. If there are some people, I’m sure you have patients like every time I have a stressful event pop up I get herpes in the same spot, that’s who we’re talking about.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Okay sounds good. And I love it to the combining of hey this is a place where modern medicine and the prescription may be appropriate. But then we can do our baseline herbal support are sort of more natural thing too. And I find lots of herbals actually really do work. But when you need it, I mean I think most of my patients with oral or genital herpes are pretty much I’m okay with the cyclops, whichever one you want to give me just give it quick.

Heather Sandison, ND

So the other microbe that we always have to talk about when it comes to dementia. And my growth is lime. And just that lime and the spiral key, you know very similar to syphilis. There’s a neuro lyme type of component. For some people not everyone but chronic lyme has and you know here I’m talking like an expert in lime so maybe you can fill it in here. If I see a patient who has any line markers that are showing up, I’m gonna treat now, I typically start with the herbs I start with if it’s borelli we’re talking about, I’m starting with crypto lepas. You know if there’s Bartonella because the co infections are very common with borrelia. So if there’s Barton and the busy, I’m using other treatments like a lot of garlic and a lot of oregano and these herbs or Byron white or beyond balance. I’m using these different herbal remedies aggressively if I see any sort of risk factor there. So if I ask and they’ve been bitten by ticks 1000 times, I’m going to throw these herbs at them. If I run a cyrix or a 12 panel which is sort of like casting a wide net for microbes and I look for patterns there and that one has to balance on it and it also has borrelia and then it has the co infections kind of all the lump together. It is not by any stretch the bell lyme test that’s out there. However, it is a good way for me to get a sense of like what’s the infectious burden of this dementia patient and how hard do I need to push on these, these different potential triggers of inflammation and so if I see those lit up on that if they’re all in the red. If they’re all pretty significantly elevated, then I’m jumping straight into those herbs pretty quickly and then probably following up with identix or infected labs or t labs or if we’re really lucky all of them.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

I mean I think a lot of it’s like risk stratify ng there’s so many options which which like I love the toxic burden perspective of where do I need to really focus because we’re doing a lot of intensive work and you know we’re definitely and I know I’m going to use the word right now that we’re gonna talk about in a minute but between lime and co infections and mold, we’re doing specific chats in this summit because it’s so critical. But one thing to know about like crypto lepidus at least in a test tube, Petri dish setting in a lab, it’s our best lime Barton, L. And B. B. C. Dung Connie herb ever studied. I mean so you know and we’re not trying to tell you guys what to go take and what not to take, you should be working with your practitioner for that. But these herbs, like if you want to look at something that can eradicate Lyme disease crypto lepidus is the only single agent that can do it when it’s compared against any other medications as well as other herbs, if you take any two combinations of meds don’t come close And there’s only one combination of three medicines, all of which you have to be done ivy and one of which is not available commercially in our country. 

And even if it was, I’ve come really close to making those protocols heather and it’s just side effects central. So chronic lyme and the other part is like, I don’t want to create more neural inflammation either when I do you know too quickly. And 11 little thing that you made me think of two is when you use one of my favorite words in the whole world, which is microglia. Wait, it’s so funny cause like I remember clearly because when we talk about mold in a minute it comes to mind, but Bartonella like if we look at the white cells in our body, we don’t have them in the brain. At least we shouldn’t have them in our brain. But we have cells that are analogous to which are these micro glia. And one of the places that Bartonella loves to hide is inside micro glia. So the cells that are supposed to essentially kill it are the cells that lives in. So when heather is saying, you really need to focus on these things, I could not support that statement more. You really got to take a look and determine if it needs to be treated and in what order so nor lie nor Barton pelosis, I mean big deals too right? 

Heather Sandison, ND

Big deal. And what I want to share with people is that this can be its entire can of worms. And I also want a second what you said about Crypto leftist. So not only from research, but like my clinical experience has been that crypto lettuce has been better than anything I’ve ever tried, where I actually see things resolving and it’s still early, right? I’ve only been using it for a couple of years and this you know, this is long term where people have flares and things come back up, but I’m getting the best results I’ve ever gotten in my career with lime with Crypto Lepidus. This whole lime world is I mean you’re deep in it and I would just share with people that foundations are so important, right? So sleep that your brain is not going to help you out if you’re not getting enough sleep. So prioritize sleep stress levels. I am a huge fan of Ashot Gupta’s work. And the Gupta program, D. N. R. S. Is another one. And I again like in terms of what makes me have confidence that people are going to get better, go back to living their normal healthy lives if they can be doing some sort of olympic retraining. 

And again I refer to as a group to program because I see I have a lot of confidence in it. In fact I tease my patients and I’m about to get serious about it that if they’re not willing to do that, I’m not willing to work with them because it just is one of these tools in my tool belt that I have so much confidence in and I also get a little offended people don’t push back and don’t don’t resist a bit because it’s one of those things like your ego is right there going no, no, if I don’t freak out who’s going to and yet that freak out like that, that stress mode that many caregivers are in, but also many sick people are, are stuck in of that fear of getting a flare of being sick again. No one can help me or I’m always searching for that next person that’s going to fix me and my missing something. Am I missing a supplement? Am I missing the medication, those feelings of not, not not feeling safe, not having everything you need that is going to prevent you from getting well and then diet, diet and movement. 

Not everybody many people who are suffering with illness, you know have post exertion malaise or they are just for some reason physically unable for whatever has come up, they’re physically unable to maybe exercise the way that we think of it, but potentially getting in a sauna or doing some sort of gentle exercise is so, so critically important. So yes, lime, I love the testing, it gets super expensive, so does treatment and I just have to remind people like if you’re feeling overwhelmed by that, make sure you go back to your foundations have those in place and then add those, those more expensive tests and supplements and treatments.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

I think it’s just so well said heather that there’s so many things that we’ve you know as soon as you say lyme or you say dental disease where you say mold man, it’s just like open up the wallet and it’s like the vacuum cleaner, right? But when you focus on the things that you can do, like the movement like the brushing your teeth and flossing twice a day every day, you know? And yes, it kind of in the end of the day sometimes you don’t want to but now it’s cognitive function and the other part that’s really I think so keith you bring up the word sleep, you know depending upon whom you read. What is it, 70 to 90% of your brain detoxification happens in deep sleep or sleep. But we think deep sleep. So deep sleep you need to get to sleep and you have to do something that helps relax you so that you can get into that safe. Parasympathetic healing mode. So what you’re doing with say like Gupta ads on all this stuff is actually synergistic. Not just additive but synergistic. So I just 100%. Right? Right.

Heather Sandison, ND

Yeah. I mean it’s helpful. Of course I imagine like you know a lot of people when they come into me there on this downhill spiral, they’re like everything’s getting worse. They’re more sensitive. Their brain is deteriorating, right? Like they’re more stressed, there’s so much going on and what we want to do is start stacking things in their favor. So they get on that virtuous cycle where now the sleep is beginning exercise and then giving them the energy that they need to shop and cook a little bit differently and eat better. And then, okay, now I can maybe even go back to work and so now I can make a little bit more money that I can put into the supplements and the testing and everything else that I need. And so if we can prioritize sometimes in that way, but just gently start stacking the things as we’re able that is really ideal. You mentioned as you introduce me, right? Like I created Marama, it’s sort of like, because the senior living industry needs help, it can be so much, we it’s really not Moroccan science, right? Like I’m just putting the best of the science in memory care, in memory care, studying in a place where there’s elderly folks that need the support, right? 

And what you often find is people move in there and they go downhill because there’s soft serve on demand and it’s, you know, cereal for breakfast and or oatmeal, like high carb and sandwiches for lunch and pasta for dinner and this is like they’re sitting in front of TVs. So this is the exact opposite of what’s good for your brain. And my professional goal is to put that kind of place out of business. Because really, what would be best is that if people have the information, they could do all of these things before they needed something like memory care, they could stay in the fabric of their communities, they could stay working if they wanted, they could be, we could get that inner general energy generational wisdom transfer from grandparents to grandchild and that would serve society at a much bigger level. And so my hope is that we give you and I, that’s why we’re here is to share these stories, to share these resources to share this information with people so they can get started much much earlier.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Well, and also when I hear you talk and it’s like, I hear hope, it’s like so much of this is like, oh, you’re gonna be sick forever, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. No, and but so much of it is starting early before you’re sick and if you’re sick now and you’re younger double down, you know, and and if you’re sick and older, look, I had Lyme chronic Lyme and babesiosis and heavy metal toxicity for eight years before I got to die. Well the heavy metals were forever. But then I had Lyman babies, a chronically for eight years before I got a diagnosis. Then it took me six years ish to get better. But I haven’t had a symptom that I can attribute to any one of those three in over 12 years, right? So you can do it and we know from, you know, your patient stories and so many others that it’s doable, but it’s like really putting yourself first and making that commitment.

Heather Sandison, ND

Yeah, agreed. Okay, should we talk about mold?

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

I think we should, I gotta ask you the same thing because we’ve got mauled dangling out there. So let’s go for it. 

Heather Sandison, ND

Okay, So I trained with Dr. Bredesen and also Dr. Neil Nathan who is somebody who I just have so much respect for. He really took Richie shoemaker’s work. I also trained with Ritchie shoemaker and Dr. Nathan really transformed it into something that felt much more accessible for patients in my mind and then also much more effective. So I really it’s such a privilege to see patients who come in that not to see them in a state of desperation but just watch them transform and get their lives back, go back to work. You know, be able to do all of those things that they dreamed of when they were so sick, be able to tolerate foods and eat at restaurants and not feel like they’re totally handicapped by this disease process.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

You know, Dr. Nathan is actually going to be joining us for this summit. He’s been gracious to come and share his wisdom in that field, so we’ll be taking a really deep dive with that. But what’s your experience kind of been in this sort of cognitive dysfunction? You know dementia? I mean the story you told at the top of our interview is just like holy moly because most people think you can get out of the house, not just the bedroom but yeah, what’s your experience been? And how in depth do you have to get with mold and how suspicious should we be if we have cognitive changes?

Heather Sandison, ND

Yeah. So you know I have learned to just test everyone. I test urinary mycotoxins, you know trained by Dr. Neil Nathan. And so I do follow his sort of protocol and that’s urinary mycotoxins with some provocation, usually good Athenian whatever the patient can tolerate. And I made the mistake at the beginning of using the buddy system protocol of asking questions and then asking like have you been exposed to mold? Dude, have you lived in or worked in the water damaged building? And I still ask those questions and I certainly prioritize things based on the answers to those questions but I don’t care what the answer is. I want to run a urinary mycotoxin test because so many people don’t realize they have been exposed, they have no idea. And if I see elevated urinary micro toxins then I’m asking more questions about the current living situation and if there or work situation and if there might be exposure. But unfortunately the tests don’t tell us if you were exposed in 1991 or yesterday. Right? 

And we don’t know when or where or how long you were exposed for based on the results of the test. We just know how much is being, how much you’re peeing out after provocation essentially is what we know. And so it gives us some indication of what the burden is. And I can sort of tell because of my clinical experience about how long it’ll take to get rid of it. But there’s not a lot of information about where you got it. So if someone is like well there might be something behind the refrigerator or under that sink in the bathroom, then that’s when I’m like all right, we need to get some testing done. And Dr. Nathan talks about in analytics. You know, he can probably go into the details of that. Jump on over to his talk. So there are ways to have access testing no matter where you are. And I feel really fortunate in SAN Diego. We have a great testing company. We also have great people we refer to for remediation so that people can really can sleep well at night knowing that they’re not being exposed and I love it when we look and they’re like nope free and clear. 

I spent my $600 on the testing and there’s nothing to my house I go great wonderful let’s just get to work on the detox and then we can check that box and move on. It’s not going to be affecting your brain. I have had patients, you know, it’s never just one thing, there’s one patient who comes to mind, he had the highest levels of mycotoxins I had ever seen. You know, all of them just like broke the graph like in the twenties and just really radically high and we got those down, they weren’t below normal. By the time he was in our clinical trial and so when he got to the end, you know I haven’t. I haven’t seen him, he hasn’t followed up since but I suggested he continue on these detox supplements because of how high his levels were but his cognition was much better. He had also had a stroke and we did you know we treated that as a traumatic brain injury. So we were giving him phosphate, alkaline and hospital Syrian and maybe by ivy and methyl B. 12 and high dose fish oils and hormone replacement. We’re doing a lot of things to treat the T. B. I. And you know treat him holistically. But those mycotoxins were crazy chi and they were part of what changed, you know as his cognition got better. He was a sweet story. His daughter lived in the Middle West, he was living here in San Diego and his daughter was planning to, she’s basically Uprooting her entire family to move back because she was like I’m gonna have to take care of dad like he is going downhill and relatively fast and by the time she was able to move he was now taking care of her kids because he didn’t really need help anymore. Yeah he was in a great spot. They moved onto his property and then yeah he was able to drive the kids around and to and from school and sports and stuff and she didn’t have to really worry about them.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

So good. Well I think when you take that whole comprehensive approach and today we’ve really focused on the microbes that we find in the brain is so many other things like you said T. B. I. And all these other pieces and I just want to highlight some form of limbic retraining. I mean we provide free resources to our patients. I have a program that specifically addresses that Gupta’s excellent. D. N. R. S can be a little harder but you when you find the right program for you just safe and do the work and I just like everything you talked about to me is like creating those little healing rituals that are synergistic and add on to it. And I really loved how you summarize how if I do, if I get a little bit of sleep, I get a little of this, if I do a little of this, I have a little more of that and and it just it all compounds and it’s so important for everyone to focus on that, you know, and focus on themselves as in this because in the end you guys are so worth it. You deserve to healing. You deserve to live the life you love and Dr. Heather. I mean the way you’re highlighting everything and these are simple things that people can work on and then we know the core microbes to look at. As we kind of wrap things together for folks, is there anything from sort of microbes that triggered the, I mean obviously there’s a lot more on the dementia plate, but in terms of microbes and dementia, is there anything else that we’ve kind of skipped over or didn’t give enough love to just yet?

Heather Sandison, ND

No, you know, I think we didn’t, I will say that you want to keep inflammation down. Right? So mold, we talked about toxicity of mold and not just to break that up. Right? You can have an immune response to mold. Like if you are colonized with mold and your sinuses or in candida in your gut that can make you crave sugar, which isn’t good for your we can go down the whole rabbit hole in that direction. But what we talked about specifically was the toxicity, the neuro toxicity of the toxins that molds create. So this is more like a heavy metal. Not exactly a microbe. Right, This is a nerd, they’re not alive and breeding in your system. They just need to be mopped up and cleaned out and then the molds themselves that that thing that does procreate that is alive and growing on probably a wall somewhere that can cause an immune response as well. So we can have allergies to that and then we can it can colonize and wreak havoc as well and we want to be kind of conscious of both of those pieces. And that again is on that sire X array that I look at their sometimes I see this cluster of all of the molds lighting up as an issue and I can see okay this person has maybe has that toxic component but definitely has that immune burden. Another place to look is in the gut of course. Right. The parasitic fungal bacterial, what are those microbes doing? What is that malu of microbes in your gut microbiome doing? And that that directly I’m sure you have people speaking to this length, how those microbes are so important in terms of mental health. 

And then of course cognition as well we know that there’s so many neurotransmitters in our gut no transmitters like acetylcholine. Right. I see the colonists inhibitors are one of the ways that we treat dementia Aricept or Donepezil and then Namenda works that glutamate receptors. And so these these are drugs that are commonly used for people with alzheimer’s but those neural transmitters have a ton to do with the microbes in your gut, on what you eat and all of the you know there’s this gut brain connection of course that’s happening this information that’s going back and forth between the brain and the gut. So focusing on the gut, you know for some people that’s where I start health starts in the gut now the gut starts in your mouth. So don’t you know from full circle back to where we started with the dental infections. But keeping in mind you know what you eat and then how that’s feeding your microbiome is also very important.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Sochi. Yeah, I mean I think it’s like the keeping the inflammation down find those things that are like you know that are triggering that inflammation and address that. So just this has been such a great conversation that I want to do like for another three hours or maybe three days because I think there’s so much more you can share with folks. I’m sure we’ve helped really kind of hone in on microbes themselves can affect cognitive function and dementia. But for those who want to dive deeper into your work, learn more about the other aspects that can trigger dementia and hopefully more importantly learn how to heal their brains. Where can they learn more about your work.

Heather Sandison, ND

Yeah. So there are a few options to Solcere. Solcere.com is my clinic here in San Diego And then Marama is M A R A M A. And Marama at home. M A R A M A A T H O M E dot com is where you can learn more About creating the Marama experience which is that residential care experience, you can create that in your own home. So I talk you through step by step how to do that with a 12 module course and we also have coaching that can help you to implement that Bredesen protocol at home.

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

So awesome, I’m just so thankful to be able to have this conversation and share this. I mean the whole time I’m just thinking hope hope hope heather’s just dealing hope today and I mean guys this is all about taking control of your own health and some of these aspects you need the help of someone like Dr. Heather Sandison and other times it’s so much of what you can start to do at home and you gain that momentum that Dr. Heather has talked about so really take this information. Go check out our information. We’ll make sure we have all the links to that in the summit notes. But man heather thank you so much for an amazing conversation and a deep dive on why I need to brush and floss my teeth every day and all these other little things that frankly get overlooked and and to be honestly when when people talk about medicine sometimes for viruses, so many people shy away and and I just love the practical approach to all the things we’ve talked about, including that where you can combine your preference for naturopathic stuff. But sometimes we need the meds to really get the optimal outcome for our brains and our overall health and our relationship with our families. So just thank you so much for sharing all these wonderful stories and this practical approach to all of this.

Heather Sandison, ND

Thanks. It’s so wonderful and delightful to be here with you. I just want to leave you with one thing. Hope. Yes, but we measured it. So I just want everyone to know that not only yes, there is hope, but that hope isn’t baseless. It is really based on what I have seen clinically and what we measured in the clinical Trial. So it is not I’m not just coming up with this out of nowhere. We know that it works the majority of the time. And Dr. Bredesen has also published and her study, 84% of people with cognitive decline got better when they did this approach. So yes. Hope that for good reason. 

Thomas Moorcroft, DO

Totally agree. I’m glad you point that out because everything I try to do is evidence based and it’s not just we’re wishing on a star. This is the practical application of medical science that allows you to experience that emotion and the reality that’s called hope, but that’s a totally important to point it out that way. So, but again, Dr. Heather Sandison guys go check out all of her stuff. And you know, if you or a loved one or in need and just thank you again from the bottom of heart, Heather, and everyone thank you for joining us for this episode of the Microbes and Mental health Summit, and we’ll see you in the next episode.

Heather Sandison, ND

Thanks Tom.