Change Your Brain Every Day - Best Strategies to Enhance Your Immune System at Home, with Dr. Parris Kidd

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

In the fourth and final episode of a series with BrainMD chief science officer Dr. Parris Kidd, Kidd and the Amens discuss further strategies to build up your immune system to stay strong and healthy. Dr. Kidd gives the details on such effective supplements as elderberry, Echinacea, and mushrooms.

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. We are here with our friend, Dr. Paris Kidd, talking about immunity. And we've talked about the importance of vitamin A and vitamin C and vitamin D and vitamin E and zinc. And a lot of people think of herbals like echinacea

as really important. Mushrooms are getting a fair amount of attention. And in the diet, garlic, onions, and mushrooms have been found to help immunity. But Paris, talk to us about herbal medications that might help. Well, whether or not herbals will help depends on the particular herbal, the clinical trials that have been done with that herbal, that is, what do we know about it under controlled research circumstances, and what sort of immune problem you have. Now, if you feel a cold is just fine. So is high oral vitamin C and always the really, really good multiple. And we didn't bring up the omega-3s yet, but the omega-3s are very important for balancing the immune system as well. However, herbals like Echinacea and elderberry and certain others make the immune

system more aggressive. So they stimulate the immune system and they get it to be running around pretty excited, so to speak, looking for trouble, maybe going off a little bit half-cocked. So if a person is hospitalized and they have inflammation in their lungs or in other tissues or whatever, and you give them herbals, you may be actually worsening the inflammation. Oh, so is that why they tell you to go off of all your herbals before surgery? Well, potentially, yes. So I thought it was just the blood thinning properties of some of them, but maybe that's more, maybe that's part of it.

Right, right. Let me just do a little sidebar here, because one of the things that's killing people with COVID-19 is something called a cytokine storm, which is a dramatic increase in inflammation in the body. And the people who are most vulnerable to mortality have underlying inflammatory illnesses like obesity. When I see all the pictures of people that died, not all, but a lot of them, they're significantly overweight. And adipose tissue, fat tissue, actually produces something called inflammatory cytokines. And calming that down one by being healthy is really important but then so I can

see that's where omega-3 fatty acids can begin to calm down the inflammation. Right right and practically practically no American is getting a Sophia except for you and Shana and some of us in the Amen community. Practically nobody else is getting enough EPA and DHA omega-3s because. Yeah, he had to tell me to stop taking so much. I'm like, well, more must be better. 3000 milligrams, 3000 milligrams max of EPA and DHA. Max of EPA and DHA. Max? Max of EPA and DHA. 3000 milligrams. That is what is in 5.6 grams of fish oil. Oh, okay, because I'm taking 5.6 grams.

Brain and body power max. So if the average person goes into CVS and buys fish oil, they'll get 300 milligrams. That's one-tenth of what would be optimal. And they can take it forever, and they'll never get up to where they need it to be. So just to go back before I derailed us, echinacea and elderberry can be helpful, but you also don't want to overdo it because it's like putting all of the soldiers on speed. But you mentioned mushrooms at some point. Well, now I want us to talk about mushrooms. We're actually working on a mushroom product. What about mushrooms and the immunity?

Yeah, I'm very glad that we're doing a mushroom product and we also have a green not talking about magic yeah we also yeah don't even ask about magic mushrooms but we also have a greens product that we're coming out with that has mushrooms in it the mushrooms are very very interesting they don't stimulate the immune system what they do is they give the soldiers training. So the mushrooms have huge molecules. They have huge carbohydrate molecules with complicated, big molecules with complicated shapes.

And as these come into the intestinal tract, the immune cells on patrol pick them up, sample them, they digest them, they sample them, they show them to each other, and that gives them alertness. They become more alert to be tuned up for other particles that come in and are harmful. And probably because of our millions of years of consuming mushrooms, our immune cells don't see the mushrooms as non-self. They see the mushroom, these are glucan substances. They're not sugar or sugars. They are very big carbohydrate molecules, almost like fiber in some cases. So the immune cells see these as friendly molecules, but on the same experience, they tune up the immune cells. And so the immune cells are just on better level of alert. So I wrote a comprehensive review on mushrooms and cancer

some time back that shows very clearly that one mushroom in particular can be very effective against cancer. So it will improve the alertness of the immune system in finding cancer cells and eliminating them. That's so interesting. And which mushroom was that? Coriolis. immune system in finding cancer cells and eliminating them. That's so interesting. And which mushroom was that? Coriolis, or so-called turkey tail.

It's not an interesting, it's not a food mushroom, but it is edible. And the other mushrooms that we will have in our products are maitake, shiitake, and reishi, all of which also have glucans and all of which also help to tune up the immune system. And so we know that they improve immune function without overstimulating and without upregulating or downregulating the immune system. And that's what's so nice about them. They're very important for fine-tuning the immune system. Yeah, you hear stories about even for thousands of years, like the Chinese giving their horses mushrooms before going into battle

because it made them run faster. And it's just so interesting. So I took cordyceps when i was working out really hard and have a really um high heart rate because of all the thyroid stuff that i take and so um someone told me take cordyceps and i i think i felt a little better i actually think i felt a little stronger um i don't know that i noticed like it wasn't like taking a medication but i felt pretty good taking it so yeah cordyceps is actually a kind of down regulator of the immune system. Yeah, I felt like I was a little stronger, could breathe a little better.

And we also are going to have lion's mane in the product as glucans for the immune system, but it also has substances that increase growth factors in the brain. And it's been shown in clinical trials to improve memory and other higher brain functions. So and it's a we were able to get a reliable supply of it and to put it into the brain immunity product that we're coming out with. in my podcast and my video that I did with you from my community that was so helpful to people, but people still ask because they may not have seen that. Can people take all of this together? Do they need to take them at separate times of the day with different types of food? Yeah, they can take all of this together. And if they're relatively healthy people under stress, or even if they're not that healthy, they should be taking the really good multiple, the really concentrated omega-3, EPA and DHA.

The mushrooms, they should have their blood vitamin D3 monitored and get it onto the high level. D3 monitored and get it onto the high level, they should be sure to have their blood levels monitored for the minerals and so on. But all of those things are okay. It's just that if they're hospitalized and they have a fairly aggressive inflammatory situation going on, there are certain herbals they should not take. No, there are other herbals that actually regulate the inflammatory response, such as the curcumins. And for people who have ongoing inflammatory issues, I would highly recommend the brain curcumin product that we have, for example. And I take lots of that myself. So the curcumins are not really immune stimulants or immune regulators,

but they do tend to help the inflammatory response to come to a termination. So does vitamin D. So do the omega-3s. So limited inflammation is good, but long-term inflammation is not good. And the proper balance of nutrients and herbals can help to make sure that your inflammatory response is a healthy response and doesn't get out of control. Well, Paris, this was so helpful. We are so grateful to have you as our friend and the chief scientist, chief science officer at BrainMD. We wish you health and safety.

And together we're going to make more great products to serve our community. Well, thank you very much, Daniel. And I share your and Tana's goals in getting the information out to all the people out there who need it, particularly at this stressful and challenging time. Thank you. Thanks, my friend. Take care. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're considering coming to Amen Clinics or trying some of the brain-healthy supplements from BrainMD,

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