Change Your Brain Every Day - Hormones: Miracle-Gro For Your Brain

Episode Date: October 26, 2017

In Part 10 of a series on Memory Rescue, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss the N in BRIGHT MINDS, which is Neurohormone Deficiencies. Without healthy hormone levels, you will feel tired and foggy, and your hippocampus can become smaller.

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 to the memory rescue series that we're doing. We're talking about the risk factors. So if you want to keep your brain healthy or get it back if it's headed to the dark place, you have to attack all of the risk factors that steal your mind. And we put it in a mnemonic, bright minds.

And today we're on the end. So we're almost done. This is such an interesting one. Neurohormone deficiencies. And given that you've had thyroid cancer three times, hormones have sort of been a big deal in your life. And it's really interesting because when we have these hormone issues, whether they're sex hormones, like female hormones, male hormones, whether they're thyroid, whether they are things like insulin, whatever it is, we often attribute them to the illness that we're treating and not to the brain. But I got to tell you, like the thyroid disorder I had,

man, it, it just like, I ended up with this horrible depression. You can end up with anxiety. If it's sex hormones, boy, does that do a number on you. Like if your sex hormones are out of order. I just had someone write in to me asking questions. She saw one of the videos I did on Facebook on PMDD. So tell people what that is. So it's premenstrual dysphoric disorder. It's basically PMS on steroids.

Okay. So it's, and we do scans of, we've done scans of women at the worst times in their cycle and at the best times in their cycle. And there's no comparison. You wouldn't know they were the same brain, right? So the frontal lobes drop, the emotional centers flare up, and the part of the brain that's responsible for shifting gears is just inflamed. They can't, you know, it's like bright red and you can't, which means that it's got too much.

They get stuck. They get stuck. They can't shift. They hold on to hurts. Right. So she wrote in and she's like, thank you so much for this video because I had my husband watch it and it explained everything. It's really helping us not to have as many problems because now we know to go seek help. And that's the big issue is go get help.

So hormones are so important. In the book, we talk about how they're like miracle grow for the brain. Or they're trouble. Or they're trouble. Right. Right. And so they're critical to get tested on a regular basis. The ones we think are especially important are estrogen and progesterone for females.

For sure. Testosterone for males and females. DHEA for everybody cortisol for everybody the stress hormone right um and thyroid and low thyroid you can't think you get depressed high thyroid because you, given that you have thyroid cancer, the chemotherapy for thyroid cancer is high thyroid, which can make you anxious. Jittery, anxious, high heart rate, like lots of craziness. And all of these hormone abnormalities have been associated with memory loss. Right. And cognitive issues. So the important thing is to get them tested. And I think on a yearly basis, along with zinc. So if you get your

zinc level tested, because low levels of zinc go with low testosterone levels because it's critical in the production of testosterone. And so the intervention, so test it, know what your level is, optimize it, work with an integrative medicine doctor or functional medicine doctor who is not looking for you to be within the normal range, but in the optimal range. I can't tell you the number of people I see who have normal thyroid, but it's completely suboptimal. And how many of you ever wanted to be in the bottom of any of the classes you were in?

Right. Right. So, I mean, you know, you may be passing with a C minus, but does that really make you okay? Did you feel good about that? And especially not you. No. Right. For sure. A little competitive. But, you know, let me just touch on this a little bit because it's so important. And I think there's a risk for women's hormones to go a little more haywire because our bodies are so complicated. Things like... Not just your bodies, your minds.

Many things. Well, because of the hormonal issues with women and how sensitive they are, it makes it easier for other things to go a little haywire. So things like polycystic ovarian syndrome, where your testosterone goes high, you're insulin resistant, your cholesterol is out of whack, you're not ovulating correctly, you've got all these issues. But when that happens, there are a number of studies now showing that women who have PCOS have also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Sometimes they do go hand in hand, and sometimes they're misdiagnosed. Well, PCOS, although, you know, in other courses and things we've done together, you've talked about how you had that.

I had that. But it often goes with more hair on your face. See, I didn't have that, so I didn't get diagnosed. But yours is actually very fine because you have red hair. Right. But I don't have that. The way they normally pick it up, obesity, loss of hair on your head, I didn't have that. Acne, I had that.

I started to all of a sudden break out, and I'm like, what's going on? And then you lose your cycles. Your cycles become highly irregular. And I'm like, what's happening? So I thought I was going into early menopause. There's also insulin resistance. Right. I didn't know I had that because I was so lean. So I didn't know I had that. So I was really lean, never thought about it. And in fact, I was the leanest I had ever been. That's not one of the symptoms. Although

now there's this whole subset of women with PCOS who are like me. And now they know that there's about 10 to 15% of women with PCOS who are like that. They didn they know that there's about 10 to 15% of women with PCOS who are like that. They didn't really look for that before. And they have trouble committing. Yeah. Because of the testosterone. So you're more driven, you're more aggressive. You're more like, you're more like a guy to be for lack of a better expression. Yeah. Which is, I sort of liked that initially when we were together. Yeah. He used to say, the only time you ever scare me is when you act like a girl. So, um, but having five sisters, I've been scared a lot. Right. So, but then all of a sudden I thought I was going into early menopause and

that's why I went to go get checked. I'm like, why is my face breaking out? Like all these weird things. And she looked at me and it took 10 minutes for an expert. It didn't take very long. And she looked at me and she's like, you have PCOS. I'm surprised no one's ever diagnosed this. Right. She did an ultrasound, figured it out. I had literally almost every symptom. I just didn't have the exterior symptoms, but all of the medical symptoms I had, including the insulin resistance. And I'm like, but I'm so lean. And she's like, yeah, you're, you're almost too lean. Cause when you work out that hard, you actually are at high risk. So I learned a lot during that phase. So get it checked. This is a risk factor for cognitive impairment, for memory loss.

And for mental illness. Check your hormones on a yearly basis. And one of the most important things you can do is avoid hormone disruptors. Which is why they think so many women have problems now. Because of the makeup they wear. Plastic bottles. Because of the food they eat with pesticides.

So BPAs, PCBs, pesticides, parabens, phthalates, fragrances. And it's why so many of our young girls have it. It's why so many of the young girls, why they're having their periods earlier, which is actually a risk factor for cancer. Lift weights because that helps to boost testosterone. Kill the sugar. I think we've said that before. Kill the sugar before it kills you. But sugar takes healthy testosterone and it drops it. For men. For women, too. healthy testosterone and it drops it so you for women too for you if you share the cheesecake with your sweetheart which is me at the cheesecake factory nobody's getting dessert when they get

home right because testosterone is involved with libido and so if you get a sugar burst, it can drop it, and then you don't have the benefits of that hormone. But if you have PCOS, it'll increase your testosterone. Oh, interesting. Very weird. Okay. But for most people, it drops it. And now, all of these hormones are about balance, that if testosterone's too low, it increases your risk for dementia and depression. When it's too high, so a lot of guys go, oh, a little testosterone, a lot is better.

Well, like with PCOS, high testosterone levels are associated with an increased libido, which can cause some people to go outside their marriage. Yeah, no. It would be a disaster. They don't settle on it. It also decreases empathy. Right. And so if your libido's up and your empathy's down,

that could be a big problem, and you may lose half your net worth and be visiting your children on the weekends. Good point. That's not... on the weekends. Good point. That's not... That's a really good point. So all of it is about balance, being in the optimal ranges, which we talk about in Memory Rescue. And then there's some certain supplements and foods that might actually help your hormones.

So zinc can help with testosterone. L-tyrosine can help with your thyroid. DHEA is actually a supplement that you can take, probiotics. And ashwagandha, something we have in Focus and Energy, has been found to decrease cortisol or the stress hormone. And measuring your cortisol is important because high levels of cortisol puts fat on your body, decreases immunity. And so I already know one of the things that's going to come in because it comes in all the time for me. Women who are going into hot flashes through menopause want to know what they can do naturally. There are some, there's some evidence or some people believe that it at least helps if you're not going to go through the hormone treatments. Um, things like

Dong Quai, um, uh, red clover and maca root actually has some evidence of helping with sexual, uh, you know, libido for men and women. So, and also with some of the symptoms. And black cohosh has been found to be helpful. They are foods, especially fiber, to help eliminate unhealthy forms of estrogen. They're testosterone-boosting foods like pomegranate, olive oil, oysters for the zinc, coconut. Oysters used to be thought of as an aphrodisiac. Brassicas, cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, and garlic. And of course, cinnamon. Cinnamon has been shown to be a natural aphrodisiac. So if you're cooking with cinnamon and beets to increase blood flow. I'm thinking tonight is going to be a good night. Estrogen boosting foods, fiber, soybeans.

Maybe you should talk a little bit about soy and estrogen. So a little bit of soy, if it's organic, like organic tofu, especially fermented soy, not so bad. If you are eating a lot of soy that's processed soy, soybean oil, and all of the soy additives added to all of our processed foods, you don't want to do that because that's actually increasing your estrogen in a negative way. So not the good estrogen. So that's what we want to avoid. So there's some evidence that that small amount of say organic soybeans and organic fermented tofu could be really good for you. So just ordering edamame at the Chinese restaurant is not always a good idea. Especially if you're eating large amounts of it. Because it may not be likely is not organic. Right.

So small amounts of organic soy okay, but avoid all of those processed byproducts. So other things to increase estrogen, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, garlic, yams, foods rich in vitamin C and Bs, beets, parsley, red clover, like you mentioned, licorice, not the red licorice with red dye. The real licorice. Hops and sage.

So as you say hops, you know what people are going to say. Go have a beer. Yeah, but not beer. And then thyroid boosting foods that are rich in selenium, which helps with the production of thyroid. Seaweed and sea vegetables. I know you like seaweed wraps. I love seaweed salad. Now, people are going to say there are people who have goiters and things like that.

Dark leafy greens and things like seaweed salad do have goitrogens, and there are some people who believe especially a lot of— So a goiter is a big thyroid, so your neck looks like it's swollen. Right. So you may want to not overdo dark leafy greens. You still don't want to not get them because having some of them is really important. But talk to your doctor, especially an integrative doctor, about what is a good balance for you. But those can be goitrogens.

Foods that disrupt your hormones, sugar, and then animal products raised with hormones or antibiotics can disrupt your own hormones. Again, one of the reasons why we think girls are developing much sooner than they were. And milk, because think about this. They want those cows to produce, I mean, first of all, cows in general have tremendous amount of growth hormone naturally. And then they're giving them excessive amounts of hormones to make them produce that milk as fast as they produce it. And that those hormones in that milk. So we drink so much milk in this country. We think that the girls are getting a lot of hormones and milk. So if you want to rescue your memory, the N in bright minds is neurohormones. You want to

optimize them. And for all of these strategies, it's super simple. Care about it. Avoid anything that hurts it. And we talked about it, you know, such as pesticides and meats raised with hormones. And then do things that help it. Get it tested, optimized it, exercise, and eat the right foods. Stay with us.

When we come back, we're going to talk about one of my favorite topics, diabetes. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors 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 Warriors Way and the Brain Warriors Way cookbook we give away every month.