Change Your Brain Every Day - Is Inflammation Killing Your Brain?

Episode Date: October 12, 2017

In Part 4 of a 12-part Memory Rescue series, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss the damaging effects of inflammation on your brain and body. Find out how this constant low-level fire may be devastating to your health.

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. We are on bright minds, and today we're talking about inflammation. We're on I. So B is for blood flow. R is for retirement and aging. In fact, I just saw someone who had very high ferritin levels. Ferritin is a measure of iron stores.

And I had him go donate blood every month for three months to lower his ferritin. But you're right, today we're going to talk about inflammation. So inflammation, if you think about what it means, where the word comes from, it's basically flame or to inflame. And that's like a low level fire burning in your body constantly, just going through and destroying organs, making you sick. It's responsible for different diseases, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, all sorts of problems, joint issues. Now, some inflammation is good, right? I mean, some inflammation is important. It's how we heal. Especially in an acute situation. Right. So you're a neurosurgical ICU nurse.

Right. So you get cut or you get hurt in an acute setting, in an acute situation, you need that inflammation because what it's doing is it's bringing all of those, that inflammation brings all of the healing cells that you need. But when it goes on long term, now you get joint disease and you get all these different problems and pain, pain especially. So when it goes on too long, we need to figure out what's causing it and we need to fix it. And you need to measure it because it's a major risk factor for depression, Alzheimer's disease, dementia. And we just had an experience at home. It's the second time with our dog. So, um, Aslan, our white shepherd, he's amazing, but he's crazy sensitive. Just like some people we treat, including myself,

he is super sensitive to food and to chemicals. Um, I can't let the vet give him flea, those, you know, those flea chemicals, he gets violently ill. So I can't let them do things that they normally want to do to animals because he just reacts to everything. But when we bought him, the breeder had been giving him raw food and then she weaned him onto a dry food, a really high quality dry food that was supposedly grainless and top of the line. And then she weaned him onto a dry food, a really high quality dry food that was supposedly grainless and top of the line. And, but dry foods compared to raw dog food, raw dog food is basically what a dog, you know, pretty close to what they eat in nature. And so it's, it's like raw meat. And so with a few other things mixed in and so, but like five ingredients, well, he went onto this

dry food and dry foods typically have even the high quality ones have like five ingredients. Well, he went onto this dry food and dry foods typically have even the high quality ones have like 30 ingredients and a high ash content and all these problems with them that dogs don't get normally, like in the wild, like naturally their natural diet. So when we got him home as a puppy, he started to not be well, like very quickly. He started to, he started to have a lot of diarrhea and ear infections and he was vomiting all the time and he never felt well. And we had, I mean, just like- And he was super anxious.

All the time. And so just thousands of dollars in vet bills later, we're like, what is going on with this dog? And then one day we came home, he was maybe eight months old. We came home and he looked like a raccoon or some sort of an animal, a possum or something had just destroyed, just raked his back, just attacked him and just like taken all the skin off of his back. And I thought that something

had attacked him. So we took him to the emergency vet. It was like the middle of the night, took him to an emergency vet. And this vet was pretty savvy. He's what I would think of as more like a functional vet. What we, you know, we talk about functional doctors all the time because this guy said, your dog has severe food allergies. He said, we see this now and then we're seeing it more and more, but your dog is more sensitive than most. And you've got to get him completely off the food he was eating till you figure out what he's sensitive to. Turns out my dog is like me. He's sensitive to almost everything. And so I was like, the light bulb- Except me. You're not sensitive to me. Definitely not. Well, I'm sensitive to you, but not in that way. But the light bulb went off. And

for both of us, we both sort of looked at each other and went, hello, we do this for people all the time. So- So we put him on an elimination diet. Right. We put him on raw food, five ingredients. So we put him on an elimination diet. Right. We put him on raw food, five ingredients. So we got rid of everything else he was doing. So it's blueberries, kale, sweet potatoes, cranberries, and meat.

And it's got either lamb or duck or rabbit. I hate to say that. I try not to buy the rabbit. But anyways, it just bothers me. I mean, although I guess in the wild they eat. Cute little bunnies. I know, but dogs and wolves eat rabbits, right? So anyways, within two weeks, within two weeks, his skin healed up.

No more vet bills. We had no more visits to the vet at all for any medical reasons for the next year and a half, almost two years. And so they say that after about a year of doing that type of a diet, like an elimination diet, you can begin to wean them back onto a really clean food and they'll probably be able to tolerate it. It's like resetting their system. As long as you don't give them things like grains or corn or anything like that. So we found a food that we thought was going to be, had minimal ingredients in it, but it was dry. He did fine initially. Same thing.

Within about eight months, we slow, it happened slowly. It was insidious, right? So slowly these symptoms began to creep back in. So we didn't notice it at first, but then all of a sudden he became more lethargic. Then he started to throw up. Then he said, but then the big thing that happened was his knees. So all of a sudden he couldn't stand up. He had to push himself up with his front legs. We thought he injured himself and he likely did. He likely got an injury, but then it didn't heal. Took him to the vet and the vet said, absolutely, he's got joint disease and you have to have a double knee replacement. Both of us were like, what are you talking about? A double knee replacement. That's terrible for a dog. And they actually shaved the bone.

So it's, you know, his. And he's a big dog. Femurs, fibula. And they actually shaved the bone. And I'm like, and I'm thinking this is a brutal procedure. And it's probably going to shorten his life. They're not going to do this to my dog unless I really understand it. And believe it.

And so I'm like, we need three more opinions. So we were looking to get another opinion. The second opinion came back the same. But we insisted on a blood test. And I'm so glad we did. So we insisted on a blood test. They'm so glad we did. So we insisted on a blood test. They kept saying, it's not systemic. It's not systemic. And I'm like, how do you know? So they took a blood test. How do you know unless you look? So we insisted on a blood test. When

the blood test came back, you kind of have to know what you're looking for. And it's different with dogs and with people. But I did see a couple of the markers that were elevated, the white blood cells and a couple of little markers that were elevated. And I'm like, this looks like inflammation to me. It looks like he's reacting to something. And the vet's like, well, but it's probably not related. And I'm like, look, I don't want to, we think everything, right. We don't want to withhold treatment from the dog. If he really needs the surgery. However, even if he ends up getting the surgery, the last thing you want to do is surgery on a person or a dog or anything

while they have inflammation. Why? Because they will not heal. So all of a sudden, thank God that same week, it happened, just happened to coincidentally, if you believe in coincidence, the dog started throwing up, had diarrhea and started ripping his fur out. That same week, it all kind of came to a head. And I'm like, bingo, light went on. I'm like, it's his food again. So we once again went back to the raw food diet. Within two weeks, the dog's running around like a puppy, throwing his ball. He wouldn't even get up before that.

His skin healed, all of his symptoms healed up and we are back to square one. And we're just going to keep him on the raw food diet. It's more expensive than the dry food. So what does this have to do with memory rescue? Inflammation. It's bad for your memory. So that if you have inflammation in your body, it can damage your joints, it can damage your skin, and it can damage your brain. So the risk factors for inflammation are leaky gut.

So the diarrhea, the anxiety. And people don't put together. So we have talked a lot about leaky gut in the podcast. The people don't put together their gut. And we started putting probiotics and actually our fish oil into the dog's food because he reacted to all the dog's fish oil. Omega-3 power because it's just so pure, so clean. It's clean. Highly concentrated.

So we use that in his food. But people don't put together leaky gut and anxiety. They don't put together probiotics and anxiety. People who had a lot of antibiotics as a child, like you, have significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression. Right. So when I got depressed, someone should have thought of that. And at nine, you had basically an anxiety disorder. Extreme anxiety.

You had separation anxiety disorder from your mom. And nobody's thinking that could have something to do with your gut. But you had a lot of antibiotics as a child. Massive amounts, constant. And so low omega-3 intake. We did a study here at Amen Clinics, and we looked at 50 consecutive patients, and we found 49 of them had suboptimal levels of omega-3 fatty acids unless they were taking fish oil. So just so you know, you can do the test. We do the test here. And it's not just low omega-3s,

it's the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6. So if you're eating a really lousy standard American diet loaded with cheap oils and simple carbohydrates, and you're not getting those omega-3 fatty acids like fish oil and some of the healthier foods, you're going to be out of balance. And we actually do that test. We can show you. You know, the diet is basically children's menu diets. Right. Right?

But my kid won't eat anything else. We were just with our nieces and our grandchildren up in Oregon. And when you get the kid's menu, it's poison. Right. It's like, don't they like children? Why don't they like children? Right. So last time I checked, it takes 30 days for children to starve to death. So you have to explain that. That means you just don't give in to them whining and crying. Uh, okay. So leaky gut, having gut health problems, low omega-3 intakes. You don't like fish or you're not eating fish or you're not taking fish oil, gum disease.

There is a huge connection between systemic whole body inflammation and your mouth not being right. As far as blood tests, high C-reactive protein. Right. It's called CRP. On the blood test, it says CRP or C-reactive protein. High homocysteine levels. Does not mean crap. It means CRP.

So C-reactive protein. And we can actually measure the level of omega-3 fatty acids in your blood. And so the interventions are you treat the leaky gut. Like what we did with Aslan. You get rid of the bad stuff, the bad foods, like what we just talked about. Get rid of the bad food. You add the good foods. Good food.

And we put probiotics in his diet. You need prebiotics, which we talk about. Prebiotics food. You have to eat extensively in the book. In the Brain Warrior's Way. I talk about it in Memory Rescue. And in my cookbook, the Brain Warriors cookbook, it's all about that.

And then we add the omega-3 fatty acids and the probiotics. And yeah, heals the gut. Take care of your teeth. So see your dentist on a regular basis. Get your teeth cleaned. If you have periodontal disease, take it seriously. Get it treated. So this is really gross. I have to say this. This is really gross. So you know those water picks? I'm always so excited. I'm like a little kid. I come over to you. So he's like cracks up at me, but I brush my teeth really well. And I

think I brushed them really well. But then my dentist told me to start using one of those water picks. And I'm always astounded at how much stuff comes out of my teeth after using the water pick i know it's too much information but seriously you gotta floss or use the water pick so it's amazing i'm just saying it's better than talking about fecal transplants yeah we talk about really interesting things here, don't we? All right. Take care of your teeth. Omega-3 index, that's important to get, we believe. We do it here at Amen Clinics. Check your homocysteine level. If it's high, we give people B6, B12, and folate to lower it. And that's actually a good indicator, see if I can say that right, for certain heart issues as well.

Heart issues and brain issues and inflammation. And then you want to make sure you or to really help support healthy inflammation, uh, would be omega-3 fatty acids, probiotic, B6, B12. But, but I want to spend time talking about the foods because it's a big deal. It's a big deal. I mean, we just talked about it with Aslan. I thought that was really a great lead-in. So, foods to lose.

Hydrogenated fats are pro-inflammatory. So, when it says partially hydrogenated or hydrogenated on the label. So, any trans fats. But they don't always label trans fats, do they? Because they say now the food industry lies. Anyone doing processed foods, it's a lie. Because it's not, even if it says trans fat free or no zero trans fats, it's not true because they don't have to claim all trans fats on the labeling as long as it is under

or within one half gram per serving. So, but you know the trick on this. It'll say one serving size, but it really takes five servings to make an actual, what you would normally eat, right? So, if it says, if it can be one half gram per serving, but there's four servings to a package and you normally would eat the whole package, that's two grams of trans fats. That is terrible. And trans fats never go away. They never really go away. They're really hard to get out of your system.

And it's horrifying, you know, being 63, going through. Think about that whole generation that we, all we did was eat like processed foods. That's all I ate growing up. It's terrible. It's terrible. It's frightening. Well, the fat on your body looks good to me. Okay, on to the next thing. Having a diet that's high in omega-6 fatty acids.

Now, you need some omega-6s. But what we find when we do the ratio, it should be three to one. Omega-6 is three times more than omega-3 fatty acids. When we actually study that in our patients, it's 40 to one. 30 to one. The ratio is completely out of control. And we live in an area where people tend to be healthier.

They say the American average is 20 to one. And that's clearly what we see in our patients. Other foods that are pro-inflammatory, feedlot meats. Right. Industrial raised animals. Industrial raised, and they are raised with corn. Soy. And what's the difference? Because some people may know this, so they go to Whole Foods or a place like that, and they they'll say this is grass finished.

So grass finished means or sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes it's grass fed, you know, free range and then it's corn finished. So what that means is they need to fatten them up at the end. So a lot of times they're free range for most of their lives, but then the last six months or whatever, they will finish them off in a pen eating corn because they need that marbling. So you really want truly, if you want grass fed meat, you need to know that it's grass fed, truly grass fed, free range. But the other thing is, is you need to know something. You have to prepare it slightly differently because it won't have that marbling. It's going to look like purple muscle. I mean, it's like muscle. And so you have to cook it slightly differently. It'll cook faster and be a little tougher if you're not careful, but it's much healthier for you because it's

significantly lower. So one looks like this light pink and white color. So what would you recommend for people to buy? Well, you need to go free range. We actually, a lot of times, buy ours online. If you buy in bulk, it's less expensive. They ship it in dry ice. So there's a lot of places you can go to online. And there are farms where they raise them completely naturally. So they're not corn finished? No, they're not corn finished. You don't want them corn finished. This is so important. The patient I said had the high ferritin level, go donate blood. The other intervention is donate red meat. And the reason, I'm not opposed to red meat, except if your ferritin level is high, because red meat has high blood levels,

which has high iron. But there are other people like me or like a lot of women who are still having cycles. Their ferritin level is low. And I have to tell you, if you take some ferritin, if your ferritin level is low, you will feel like death warmed over because you have no energy. So taking a little ferritin to boost your ferritin level. So you got to measure it. You got to measure it. So low is a problem. High is a problem.

And I hear people a lot of times say they crave red meat. And usually what it is, is that you need to get your iron levels checked. Right. So you have to look. Corn and soy are both pro-inflammatory because they're high in omega-6s. Especially the way we raise them. Yes. Sugar.

I'm sorry. I feel bad but it's sugar the reason to avoid sugar it is clearly pro-inflammatory it's addictive and it increases erratic brain cell firing i was at the american association of christian counselors on Saturday speaking. And after I got off stage, this woman runs up to me and she said, I watched you on TV with your beautiful wife and I got your book and I've lost 45 pounds. Oh my gosh, I love that. And I was so happy for her because she just, she looked so much. But she said, I'm still having problems with sugar.

And that's when I went into, did you date the bad boys in high school? And she goes, no. I said, well, clearly you're in a bad relationship. I mean, you love sugar, but it doesn't love you back. I mean, it beats you up. It makes you more likely to be depressed and have dementia. It's sort of like someone who's in an abusive relationship. And she got that. Both of us in the past have been in hard relationships and we wouldn't do it again. And we're grateful we have each other and the love we share. I'm not going to be in a bad relationship with food that I have to pay for

that, you know, that I have complete control over. And if you've ever been that sick, you realize that the abundance is,

you know, what's abundant is a vibrant life of being able to be in service. Right. And processed meats. So avoid those.

Terrible. And so, the things to eat to really help decrease inflammation, spinach, dark leafy greens, omega-3 rich foods like salmon and walnuts and avocados, seeds, and then prebiotic foods. So prebiotic means it is food that feeds the gut bugs right we have a hundred trillion bugs in our gut which when you first told chloe that she was freaked out i don't have bugs in my gut i'm like yes they're like your pets you have to feed them right and so prebiotic foods which are high in fiber like as asparagus, chia seeds, cabbage,

psyllium, artichokes, root vegetables. Also certain starches like resistant starch. So when we say starches, it's not the starch that turns. It's like green bananas is a resistant starch. That's a good starch. Or like you said, sweet potatoes. And then probiotics. So using them as a supplement,

we make one here, ProBrain Biotics. And the reason we chose that one was there are a couple of studies showed it decreased anxiety and sad moods. And then there are probiotic-rich foods like kombucha tea, pickles. Just make sure it's not commercial loaded with sugar. Most commercial kombucha. That's such an important point. Kefir, sauerkraut. Sauerkraut's the only

one I'm, I like pickles. I don't like sauerkraut. I like kimchi. No. So I have to tell them this. This is really fun. We made our own Coke because a lot of people are dairy-free. We, we prefer the dairy-free version of this. So we made our own, because a lot of people are dairy-free. We prefer the dairy-free version of this. So we made our own because a lot of the commercially made coconut milk yogurts are just loaded with sugar. So we figured out how to make. Read the label. No, listen. Read the label. Listen, we figured out.

I'm sorry. You sound like you're one of those zombie Walking Dead people right now. Read the label. Listen, we figured out how to make our own coconut milk yogurt. It's the coolest thing ever. You literally take a can of full fat coconut milk and you break open. I just broke open two of our probiotic pills into it. You cover it and you put it in the refrigerator for a couple of days.

Then you sift out the liquid. Oh, my gosh. It tastes so good. It actually is amazing. And then what you can do is you can put a little bit of stevia in it. You can put some fresh blueberries or frozen. I like frozen blueberries. The natural coconut milk yogurt actually tasted pretty good.

All right. We've given you lots to do to decrease inflammation in your body. You want to rescue your memory. You have to take a bright minds approach and support your blood flow, retirement and aging, decrease the inflammation in your body. Stay tuned. We're going to talk about genetics next. 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.