Change Your Brain Every Day - Infections: The Impact They Have on Your Brain Health with Dr. Mark Filidei

Episode Date: April 17, 2019

Believe it or not, various infections in the body can have a major effect on how your brain functions. In this episode, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen are again joined by Dr. Mark Filidei to discuss the brain burglars that steal your health. This episode focuses on the different types of infections that can sneak in undetected and cause damage to your brain.

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're having a discussion about the things that steal your brain or assault your brain. I'm here with Dr. Mark Philaday, Director of Integrative Medicine for Amon

Clinics. Mark does so many things things he helps work up toxic brains helps make them healthy balances hormones in the bright minds approach that i talked about in memory rescue and i talk about again in the end of mental illness um that's how you keep your brain healthy or rescue it if it's headed to the dark place. You have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. And we're really talking about two of them. We're talking about the T in bright minds, which is toxins, and the I, which is immunity and infections. So I guess candida would fit sort of in both places.

Yes, right. It's like an infection. Right. It is an infection, and it produces toxins. We were just talking, I have to get this in my head, that they use yeast to make beer and wine. And if you have too much yeast in your gut, I mean, all of us have a little bit. Right. and if you have too much yeast in your gut, I mean, all of us have a little bit,

but if it begins to overgrow because you're eating too much sugar, because sugar feeds yeast, that you're actually in your own body creating something similar to alcohol and that you get loopy, but without the benefits. Without the fun part. Without the fun part, that you just sort of feel a bit drunk, anxious, brain fog, insomnia.

Right. Yes. And also the yeast, almost like the toxoplasma, the other brain snatcher, yeast want you to eat sugar. So you can get cravings because you have yeast. It's almost like taking over your brain and saying, feed me. So when you knock the yeast down, the sugar cravings can go down. That's why you want to starve it out.

But another kind of scary thing that comes up with this is they've found fungal DNA in the brain of Alzheimer's patients and not in controls. It was 19 out of 19 had fungal DNA. Wow. So it could be even more of an issue with memory. I still think the fungi issue is a lot more of a problem than we think it is for many conditions. So to diagnose it, so you can actually get antibodies against Candida. Yep, easy blood test, right.

Are there other ways people can diagnose it besides blood tests? How about stool tests? Stool tests and urine tests. So there's an organic acid urine test that looks for fungal metabolites. A stool test will actually find the yeast and type it and tell you what to do to treat it. Very common, very common very common oh my goodness all right so let's switch gears just a little bit and talk about infections and I'm like I'm a psychiatrist why do I care because

you're gonna have problems that's why I should care. And one of my very favorite cases, and I've probably talked about Adriana a lot, she's 16, beautiful, smart, normal, goes to Yosemite and on vacation when she's 16 and her family's surrounded by six deer and they think it's a magical moment but 10 days later she's hallucinating she's aggressive she's psychotic they hospitalize her at kaiser and what what do psychiatrists do you have these symptoms that equals your diagnosis of schizophrenia and they started on anti-psychotic medications abilify classic work right respirol didn't work zyprexa didn't work and then you know six months later she's a shell of herself and her mom heard about our work brought her to our

clinic in northern california and doctor, her brain was on fire and found out she had Lyme disease from a deer tick and on an antibiotic. In California. In California, which is actually very common. On an antibiotic, she got her life back and graduated from Pepperdine, recently got a master's degree from a university in England she's you know employed at a high-level job and every day worth he would have been if they weren't caught right you hadn't found that every day about one o'clock her mother texts me how can I pray for you yeah yeah no it's just and I actually got to meet her about two

years ago when I did an event in Northern California. And both of us just cried like babies. Lyme has been, you've really thought a lot about that and treated a lot of people with this. Right. Talk about, how did you get interested in this? So in California, we don't really hear much about it, but certainly it's here. East Coast, it's a lot more common. So it was actually my first patient at the Amon Clinic was when I really started learning more about Lyme in California.

There was a kid who was here getting a drug recovery, a sober living house. And he was 21, and he had done every drug you could imagine in every way he was injecting meth into his carotid arteries at an early age so he in his whole high school and college days were gone it all started because he started feeling lousy he was 14 living in santa barbara got no line there uh feeling lousy couldn't think right not doing well in school complaining that he felt kind lousy, couldn't think right, not doing well in school, complaining that he felt kind of achy. Doctor couldn't find anything, not surprising, because they didn't look.

And he just started doing drugs to feel better. He was starting to do something just to get rid of the pain and get his brain working. So that led down the typical road, wrong people, drug culture. And he became an addict. And his mother is actually the one that looked up the symptoms. And she said, oh, my God, drug culture, and he became an addict. And his mother is actually the one that looked up the symptoms, and she said, oh my God, that's my son. He's got everything on the list for Lyme. And that's when the light bulb went off. To me, I probably had missed hundreds of cases in the past in my own practice. It just wasn't on my radar. So now it is, and ever since,

it's been all over the place. So it's in every state, some certainly more than others, but it's in California. And the most common one here is called Borrelia miyamotoi, which doesn't show up on a standard Lyme test. So you have to do a little more digging. And you don't have to have a tick bite, right? So this can come from any biting insect. Classically, it's a tick. You know, classic, you see a tick, you pull it off,

you get the target lesion, you feel lousy. But it's a lot more subtle than that in many cases. So you can't go by that. So what are the most common symptoms of Lyme? I mean, it's really been what we've been talking about. It's brain fog, it's anxiety, but also pain and trouble breathing. A classic Lyme, like Lyme, Connecticut, which is a town in Connecticut, Lyme is pain and fatigue initially. However, there's different species. The one in Europe, Abzeliye, more psychiatric issues, more neurologic, psychiatric. So there's 30 different species.

They all have a different little profile. So classically pain and fatigue, but it can really be anything. It's called the great imitator for a reason. It can imitate almost anything. In the DSM, almost anything in there could be from Lyme. And the diagnostic and statistical manual, you know, psychiatrists make diagnoses and there's not a mention of Lyme although it all way they always say rule out medical cause right which but who's gonna if it's not on your radar and and many infectious disease doctors they don't treat like this they don't they don't believe it exists it's outside of the classic presentation so if you did not have a tick bite, you don't have the rash, you don't have Lyme.

Except neuro Lyme is in all standard medical texts. So neuro Borreliosis is when it affects your brain. And it can be in your brain, literally. And that's just one of the many bugs that we look for so epstein-barr virus notorious for causing chronic fatigue syndrome but you know a lot of people have it like almost everyone almost everyone has had it that's right but i was reading in the journal of alzheimer's disease that if you've been infected, Epstein-Barr, herpes, CMV, that when you go under stress, they can reactivate.

Exactly. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah. So these viruses, Epstein-Barr, HH, herpes virus 6, CMV, these are all in the herpes virus family. Now, people always freak out and I have to say, okay's not that herpes it's the same family so it's a whole family of viruses like epstein-barr they're permanent 30 of people have that herpes right yeah that's pretty common too right so that can get a little sticky or cold sores is herpes one correct um and there's actually a connection between cold sores and Alzheimer's disease.

And you wonder, so a lot of us have had a lot of these infections. It's how do you keep them dormant? How do you keep them locked away? That's the key. So they're there. They're always going to be there. They can always come out of the woodwork. And like in my patients, I'll say it's locked away.

Your immune system's handling it. It's locked away in a cage. What can unlock that stress? A car accident, a divorce, another infection. Your immune system kind of just goes to sleep a little bit. The guards aren't there. The virus starts hacking again. So keeping your immune system healthy is so important.

When we come back, we're going to talk about toxoplasmosis because I just find that so stinking interesting. And we've had a number of cases recently. And let's spend some time and talk about how to keep your immune system healthy so you can lock these infections up for good. Stay with us. 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 interested in coming to Amen Clinics, use the code PODCAST10

to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.