Change Your Brain Every Day - Can Alzheimer’s Disease Be Inherited?

Episode Date: October 13, 2017

In part 5 of a 12-part series centered on Memory Rescue, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen shed some light on the role genetics play in your brain health and memory. While some people  may be more predisposed to memory problems than others, there are things any of us can do to keep memory issues at bay.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the 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 nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. We are continuing our series on memory rescue, the bright minds approach I talk about in the new book, which I am so proud of. And we talked about B is for blood flow, R is retirement and aging, I is for inflammation. Today we're going to talk about genetics. There is, you know, there are genetic vulnerabilities to having serious memory problems like Alzheimer's disease.

Yeah, it's really easy to get sort of frustrated and angry when you think about that. Because you're like, it's easy to at some points, like I know in my life, certain health problems that have happened with me, and I would stop and go, gosh, it's not fair. Like it's not fair. And then I think about it and I'm like, you know, I tell my daughter this one thing about being fair. No one told you life is going to be fair. Fair is a place with bad food and farm animals. Life is just not fair, right? It's not. You're talking about the County fair, right? The County fair. It's, it isn't fair. It's not

going to be fair. So you have to be proactive. You've got to be a warrior and you've got to know what to do. And that's what I like about what you're doing here is you're giving people, just because the gun is loaded doesn't mean you pull the trigger. Well, what I say in the book is that genetic risk is not a death sentence. It should be a wake-up call to get serious about your health. So, I mean, your family is loaded with mental health problems. Mental health problems as well as all these other things. And I know, like even now. Mental health problems and diabetes. And heart disease and cancer. And my family is loaded with heart disease and obesity. But I don't have heart disease and I'm not obese. Why? I don't engage in the behaviors making it likely to be so. And so if you know your vulnerability,

I have this in my family. Yes, you could use it as an excuse to go out and get drunk tonight. You absolutely can do that if you hate yourself. And check out, sure. Or I think the smarter thing to do is go, I have this risk factor. What can I do to prevent it? Well, and like I said— And that's the whole point behind memory rescue. Right.

So, for example, I have a high heart rate because of the thyroid condition, so I wear a watch with a heart rate monitor on it. I just pay attention. And then when we travel, it irritates me to no end. I'm happy that you are so healthy and you don't get sick, but I have to tell you every once in a while, it annoys me that I get sick so easily. And you like his idea of getting sick as he comes home one day and he's like, I'm kind of tired today. I think I'm sick. And I'm like, what? And then the next day he wakes up and he's totally back to normal. That's him getting sick. When we travel, I already know, like, I just know, like I have to do 15 steps to make sure that I don't get

really sick. And then when we get home, I have 15 more steps to make sure that I don't catch whatever everybody around me had. But guess what? That's just my reality. There's no point whining about it. Just deal with it. Know the information. Know what to do. Be prepared, aware, and avoid the fight. So let's talk about the risk factors. So if you have a family member with dementia, that increases your risk.

You have a family member with Alzheimer's or another form of dementia. And that happens to a lot of people because if you live until you're 85 or older, 50% of the population, 5-0% of the population will be diagnosed with Alzheimer's or another form of dementia. If you have the apolipoprotein E4 gene, you have an increased risk. It's a blood test. And I recommend that my patients do it because we want to know what is your risk. If you have a buildup of something called beta amyloid plaques in your brain and there are new tests to be able to test for it. Now, amyloid is a whole interesting story by itself. Many of us actually don't think it's the cause of Alzheimer's disease. We think it's a protective reaction against something else like an infection or a toxin.

So it's sort of like something scratching and you build a scar almost like, so your body's trying to go... It's trying to protect you against something else. Oh, that's so interesting. It's a scab. And that's why in all of the studies, there have been 2,000 studies showing, okay, we got rid of the beta amyloid. People got worse, not better. Oh, because that means they had something else, maybe inflammation or maybe whatever else.

Mold exposure, an infection like Lyme or something along that. So the whole amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease is dying. Well, that's kind of like high cholesterol. They think cholesterol is a sign that something's going on in your body as opposed to just getting rid of it and putting a Band-Aid over it, figure out what's happening. Right. And so the lab test for this risk factor is there are certain genes, but the most common one is called the APOE4 gene. And you can test to see if you have it. And if you have one of them, you know, because we had two sets of genes,

one from our dad and one from our mom. If you have one of them, you have a 250% increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. But let me just explain that. So, you know, say, for example, the general population before 85 has a 5% risk of Alzheimer's disease. That means you'll now have a 12.5% risk. But if you have both genes, you now have a tenfold or a thousand percent increased risk. So that's almost 50%. And that's a lot. So what are the interventions? If you have dementia in your family, You need to be serious about brain health as soon as possible for as long as possible. And we believe you should be screened, including the spec scans that we do here at Amen Clinics,

by the age of 40 if you have it in your family, 50 if you don't. So if you have the E4 gene, I think it is just absolutely critical to avoid contact sports like football or hitting soccer balls with your head. And then you want to do things to decrease the beta amyloid. And what we actually found, there are actually some super simple things to decrease that toxic buildup in your brain. So in the book, we talk about supplements to support if you have the genetic risk, especially curcumins from the spiced turmeric. So what you make salmon curry chowder so i really love obviously the food part of this because the food part really um it's a fun part of this and it's it works and it's delicious and we know that that these spices really help so really increasing the spice content of your food will also help you

decrease some of the things you've been used to that you probably should be cutting out if you really want to avoid this. So before I get to the food, let me talk a little bit more about supplements. So we actually make something at BrainMD called Brain Curcumins. Because it takes a lot of curry. It takes a lot of that. Right. Because I don't really like the taste of curry. And so I have two of our actually bring curcumins every day

because it also helps with joint pain. It decreases inflammation. So another huge positive thing about curcumins. Resveratrol from the skin of red grapes. And some people think that's why alcohol consumption can decrease the risk. I'm not a fan, as people know. It takes more resveratrol than that and less alcohol. And in Neurovite Plus, our multiple vitamin, we actually have the equivalent amount of resveratrol as two glasses of wine. Without the alcohol. Without the alcohol.

Green tea extract has been found to decrease beta-amyloid plaque. That's why I always have my afternoon green tea. Blueberry extract, Panix ginseng, and ashwagandha. We have both of those in Focus and Energy and coenzyme Q10. So they're clearly supplements you can take if you have the genetic vulnerability to support your health. And then where you were going was foods. I'll talk about what to avoid. You talk about what to eat. So you want to avoid high glycemic foods, foods that quickly turn to sugar. Saturated fats, not all of them, such as in pizza, processed cheese, and microwave popcorn. But also industrial raised animals. The palmitic acid, the fat that comes in industrial

raised animals increases, like that's the bad saturated fat and it's 30% higher in industrial raised animals. So talk about some of the foods to eat. Okay. So what I love, spices, spices, and more spices. So what you were just talking about, a lot of people don't like some of those spices. So that's where some of the supplements can really help. Oh, the fights we have had at home. I know. Yes. Over some of the spices. So yes, I love spices. I love adding them to everything. And for me, because of what I've been through, it's more about does it work? Does it not work? Is it medicine? Is it not? It's not so much about the taste yeah but for me it's all about taste right it's all about there is no suffering in getting well i don't even think

of it like i don't really like the taste of curry but i'll take the curcumin and i will dump a bottle of curry in something because i just don't care as long as i know it's good for me so we we found our balance um six cookbooks if you're cooking for someone like me, don't torture them because they won't eat it. And then they're just bitter. Six cookbooks and 400 recipes later, we have figured this out. Yes, it's been a lot of testing recipes, I will tell you. I don't like this. But yeah, no, those spices. So things like the curcumin, the curry, the, gosh, my favorites, ginger or saffron.

I love putting saffron in my tea. And you can't believe the number of studies with saffron. I just put it in my tea. I just put a couple threads. It helps your mood. It helps PMS. Right. And it directly helps to support memory.

Right. There are actually studies with saffron and Alzheimer's disease. Well, I'm not a person who cooks with a lot of saffron, so I just grab a couple strands and throw it in my tea. I just love it. You know, all of these things are great for memory. Oregano, basil. Rosemary. Rosemary, thyme, sage.

We use all of those and we use them regularly. According to naturalstandard.com, had A-level scientific evidence. Well, we use a lot of it. So lots and lots. So not only can you put them in sauces, they'll help you decrease some of those heavy fats that you've been used to using, those heavy sauces, the spices really help.

But they're going to improve your mood. They decrease inflammation. They improve your memory. They help with all this stuff and they just make your food taste so amazing so we have lots of recipes brainwares way cookbook is one of my favorites and i have an entire section in there on spices and herbs and how you didn't talk about chocolate because you also have nutty butter cups i've got 10 recipes in that cookbook with chocolate how to use chocolate and cacao yeah Yeah, it's amazing.

So let me tell you a story. Shailene Johnson, one of our friends, is a New York Times bestselling author, has over a million fans on Facebook. She teaches people how to get healthy. She and I did a podcast together. And at the end of the podcast, she goes, I have ADD. And she came to the clinic and she had ADD. But she also had a family history of Alzheimer's disease. And on her scan, which was not healthy, I could see her brain was going to head to the dark place. And she's only 46 years old. But, you know, Shailene reminded

me of my NFL players. A lot of our high-performing patients, they like being coached. They take the coaching. It's like, put me in, coach. You know, I'll do what you ask me to do so that I can perform better. It's like, I'm always taking classes. Right? Well, you're excellent at being coached. And if you go on Shailene Johnson's Facebook page, she and I did an hour live chat on her before scan and her after scan and how it changed her life.

But it didn't just change her life. It changed her genetic destiny. Because when I was in medical school, we saw genes as something you had or you didn't have. And then in the 1990s, there was a new term that popped up called epigenetics. And what that meant was your habits turn on or off certain genes that make illness more or less likely in you, but also in your babies and grandbabies so when our three daughters were born they were born with all of the eggs they'll ever have and throughout their life their behavior and their environment is turning on or off certain genes in those eggs, making illness more or less likely in their babies and their grandbabies.

It was really funny. Chloe actually, because we've been telling her that forever, and so she was hilarious. She came to us. Actually, I was helping her get ready. She was going on a trip, and she was packing her food, as she always does. And she looked at me, and she goes, you know, it's a lot of responsibility she always does. And she looked at me and she goes, you know,

it's a lot of responsibility knowing all the stuff you guys have taught me. It was just hilarious because she's only 14. She just turned 14 and she's been doing this for a couple of years. And she's like, it's just a lot of responsibility knowing all of this. It's serious, which is why we call this podcast, Brain Warrior's Way. Stay with us. When we come back, we're going to talk about hip trauma. Thank you for listening to The Brain Warrior's Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of The Brain Warrior's Way and The Brain Warrior's Way cookbook we give away every month.