Change Your Brain Every Day - Are Your Store-Bought Foods Missing Something? With Darin Olien

Episode Date: September 22, 2020

In his new book SuperLife, author Darin Olien describes how the alchemy of foods and spices have the ability to turn on or off certain genes. But what if the stuff you buy at the store doesn’t actually contain what it advertises? Surprisingly, this is often the case. In the second episode of a series with Darin, he and the Amens discuss some of the surprising discoveries Darin made during his extensive research for his book, and why it’s so important to be aware of how your food is sourced.  For more info on Darin's new book "SuperLife: 5 Simple Fixes That Will Make Your Healthy, Fit, and Eternally Awesome", visit https://www.amazon.com/SuperLife-Simple-Healthy-Eternally-Awesome/dp/0062297198 For more on Darin's new Netflix series "Down to Earth with Zac Efron", visit https://www.netflix.com/title/80230601

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. What should I eat? We are here with Darren Oling and excited to talk with him and talking about his book, Super Life, and the new Netflix show he's on with Zac Efron,

which is really fun. And Darren, we're just so grateful for your time. So how did you get involved in superfoods? And you've actually brought a couple of superfoods to the attention of the world. So I'm really excited to learn about your journey with food. Yeah, well, I think it came out of the way of necessity breeds kind of the investigation. And I think the genesis was, I mean, early in my days, I started working with a pharmacist in Colorado after I graduated school and I started looking at the supplement world. And then when I started digging into supplementation and foods and functional foods, I realized that no one really knows where these foods are coming from. If it's, where's your turmeric coming from? Where's the active compound?

Is there even an active compound in it anymore when it shows up in this powder and you're supposed to take the marketing on as truth? We all know that that's a dangerous proposition, right? So, so as I was seeing the marketing stories of this incredible indigenous and longstanding food and supplements and spices from Ayurveda for 40,000 years of use to traditional Chinese medicine, 10,000 plus years of use in some of the great medicinal plants in the world. I just didn't buy the story that all these marketing people, I started testing them and then these active compounds that were really the gatekeeper of turning on and turning off different genes and expressing different things in the body for health, longevity, recovery, stress, all of this stuff.

And it just wasn't, it wasn't lining up with the story and what was actually in these bottles and packages and food. So it was just this light bulb moment where I said, listen, I'm actually from South Dakota, Minnesota, and my grandfather sold tractors, my cousins and everything are ranchers. And my dad was an agricultural professor at the University of minnesota for so for me farmers are first how are who are the farmers who are the collectors who are the foragers how are they caring for these incredible plants and where the hell are they and where where can i go to understand that so the innocence of literally going around to 40 plus countries around the world in the middle of the Amazon and the peaks of the

Andes and everything in between, I really came by way of it as an innocence because I said, listen, I can sit here and do a Google search and look at research, but that's not going to tell me how that plant is being cared for that comes all the way into a product that sits on a shelf. And is that actually going to benefit somebody? So that's how it all happened. And then I just got so curious with the myriad of things. I'd go after one food or ingredient or botanical, and I'd come back on seeing 30 different things I never even knew existed. So that's wild. Yeah, it's phenomenal. So everything from maca to sashi-inshi to yacon to schizandra to chaga to ashwagandha to astragalus to all of these kind of different botanicals,

each having their own story, their own compounds, and their own way to preserve as their – how are they grown? How are they cared for? How are they actually processed in a way that will translate into someone taking them biologically? So that's how it all happened. And then once you're in that world, then you realize that this incredible alchemy between this plant world and what these plants and these compounds that are also going through stress that are developing these compounds that we can actually benefit from is just extraordinary, just on their own. So you look at, and you also look at alchemy. One of my favorites, because we're talking about brain health, is this alchemy between

a common coffee bean, or technically it's a seed, with the fruit that's on the outside. A good friend of mine spent a decade understanding that when you dry those together in a very careful way and you ingest them, the alchemy of that is incredibly powerful. One of the most powerful brain-derived neurotropic factors. realized that man what we are putting in our mouth is so pleomorphically affecting so many systems that it's just a miracle and I love the research into reduction side of things where you can see a compound has incredible benefit and you can you can take that and all that stuff but also I'm marveled at the the kaleidoscopic effect and healing potential of actually taking in some of these whole plants and things like that as well. I love that.

You know, one of the things we learned is the brain doesn't get sick in one way, and therefore it will never get better in one way, which is why single ingredient products generally do not do well in large scale randomized controlled trials. What I did with my NFL group is I put them on a great multiple vitamin because high doses of B6, B12, folate decrease the conversion of mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease. High dose, high quality omega-3 fatty acids. We did a study that showed 98% of our population, so a mental health population, were suboptimal levels of EPA and DHA and then a brain boost that actually worked in six different ways.

There are many roads to trouble, which means there are also many roads out of trouble. So when you talk about it's the synergy or the alchemy of ingredients, that's what we have certainly found as well. What's a superfood that people can access that you found this really helps people? Oh man. That's like saying, who's your favorite kid? I've used that analogy. It's like, how do I decide which of my kids are my favorite at any given time? I mean, you have, I mean, I'll just say some common ones so that people don't get overwhelmed with the exotic ones.

I mean, the research around turmeric and curcumin, and curcumin is an active compound in turmeric, and also tumorones are an active compound in turmeric. I actually take, you know, there's times where it's great because, you know, you mentioned this population that was been at a deficit for a very long time. So we have to put these things in context. So it is appropriate to give them higher doses of things to get them back up to a normalcy or at least ability for body to repair itself. And so there's times like in the turmeric world where you definitely as a panacea, taking whole organic turmeric on a consistent basis is extremely powerful for the brain, for the immune system, for digestion, for stress levels, it's incredible. And then of course, you can look at curcumin. If you are in a high

state of inflammatory response, curcumin and higher doses can kind of can show up as a fired retardant to the inflammation. So I would just say like things like turmeric and then the alchemy also of turmeric, ginger, and pepper is extremely powerful for, what's that? I put it in tea. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Extremely powerful. And so then when you're taking all of those whole food forms and adding that pepper, that pepper ignites and allows for the absorbability to increase by up to 2000% of some of these compounds. So again, you kind of bow down to the miraculousness of these synergies that show up, which is kind of the foundation of even the book I wrote. I, you know, everyone was like, write a book on superfoods when I'm like, yeah, but you need a foundation of health first.

And like you were saying with the NFL guys, you got to get them the basics of the mineral kingdom. You got to make sure that your vitamins and all of these things, or else it's like showing up to a forest fire with the squirt gun. You haven't, you haven't dealt with foundational principles yet. And these guys are running around dehydrated too, and with severely low levels of this, uh, EPA and DHA. So, so it's like, I also like to take a step back and go, listen, let's not reduce ourselves to taking this miracle pill or thing. Let's make sure that the foundation is strong and you're taking care of, you know, your sleep, your hydration, your diversity of plants, uh, your, your, your getting outside, your healthy exposure to sun, like all of that stuff. And then we can start to look at very

specific things to boost, uh, any other things. And I also believe like I look at superfoods from a, like when you bring up B12s, if you're not coming from that population, I go into, okay, well, raw form, food grade spirulina actually has all of the B vitamins, including B12, which not a lot of people know about. So, so there is ways to get the micro dosing from all of these things that we need on a consistent basis from our, from our foods in this way. I love that. I love, um, we just have, again, a lot of parallels, but one thing you said about getting the foundation right before you just start throwing some of the more exotic, fancy things that people that they don't really understand yet.

We have a concept we use about the four circles. So we work on four circles when we're working with someone's health. Biology. So how are they functioning? Their hormones, their blood levels, their brain. All of that matters. Then there's the psychology. How are you thinking?

Your thoughts matter and they lie and they lie a lot, right? Then there's the social circle because who you hang out with matters. So people are contagious. And then there's the spiritual circle. Why is the planet a better place? Because you breathe. What are you doing to add purpose and be purposeful? And we think of those like four wheels on a car.

So if one of the tires on a on a wheel goes flat or on a car goes flat you know the car might drive but it's not going to drive very well but if more than one goes flat so if in more than one of those areas you're not doing well that car's going to crash eventually and so getting their foundation right i mean i love that and so it's just a really important point to make. So helpful. So when we come back, we're going to talk about five simple fixes to make you healthy and fit. I love this. Darren, this is just so helpful.

Darren's new show, Down to Earth, airing on Netflix. It's a great show informational it's fun it's funny um zach looks disturbed when he has to go in like this ice water i would be disturbed oh it's supposed to be so good for you. His book is super life and get it. Now we're going to put a link to it in the show notes. Stay with us. Now, was there one thing you want? Write it down, post it on any of your social media sites, hashtag brain warriors way podcast.

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