Change Your Brain Every Day - Steps to Prevent Alzheimers Disease

Episode Date: December 29, 2016

50% of people who are 85 years and older will actually be diagnosed with dementia, Alzheimer's, other forms of dementia. That's normal. What we want to do today is actually help you prevent it. We want you to be 60 or 70 or 80 and to be as cognitively sharp as you were when you were 20.  Listen to the full episode for tips and insights on how you can prevent Alzheimer's and maintain a sharp brain. 

Hi, I'm Donnie Osmond, and welcome to The Brain Warrior's Way, hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amon. Now, in this podcast, you're going to learn that the war for your health is one between your ears. That's right. If you're ready to be sharper and have better memory, mood, energy, and focus, well then stay with us. Here are Daniel and Tana Amen.

Thanks for joining us today. We're going to talk about how to have the memory of a 20-year-old. Now, I don't want to be 20. I don't want to have to go to college. I don't want to have to go to medical school. I love being 60. But what I don't like is what a lot of people say, you know, I'm 40, my memory's no good, that's normal. Or I'm 50, my memory's no good. Well, and pay attention to what you just said. I think that's a really important point. People have, whether it's out of convenience or because they just don't want to face it, they have started this idea that it's normal and it's not normal. Well, it may be normal in that a lot of people who are 40, 50, 60 have memory problems, but it's not healthy. So just because it's the norm doesn't mean that it's optimal or healthy. Let's be clear. Right. 50%

of people who are 85 years and older will actually be diagnosed with dementia, Alzheimer's, other forms of dementia. So that's normal. What we want to do today is actually help you prevent it. We want you to be 60 or 70 or 80 and to be as cognitively sharp as you were when you were 20. And there's a very specific way to make that happen. And three things, you know, I always talk about three things when it comes to brain health, brain envy, got to care, avoid anything that hurts your brain and do things that help it. It's about 10 years ago, I wrote Preventing Alzheimer's with my friend, neurologist Rod Schenkel. And it's just, it was a brilliant idea. And I've subsequently incorporated it into some of our other books and certainly what we do here at Amen Clinics, that if you want to prevent Alzheimer's disease, you have to

prevent all of the illnesses that are associated with it. And that's what we really go after. So when people say, you can't prevent Alzheimer's disease, that's a really big claim, but we can, because we're going after everything that causes Alzheimer's disease. So we're going after obesity, diabetes, heart disease, dementia. That's what we're focusing on, depression.

So that's what we're really focusing on that really helps to target Alzheimer's disease. So let's give you some very specific things to do. So the first one is brain envy. You have to care about your brain and nobody cares about it because you can't see it. You can see the wrinkles on your skin or the fat around your belly and do something when you're unhappy with it. And so one of the first things to do is test your brain. Now, here at Amen Clinics, we do imaging. We do a study called BrainSpec Imaging, and SPEC looks at blood flow and activity, looks at how your brain works. And when I first scanned myself, I was 37, my brain didn't look healthy. And the thing that

just really irritated me was my 60-year-old mother had a brain that looked healthier than I did. And so really the first step is to know about your brain. So you could come to one of our clinics and get scanned. That would give you a really good sense. That's not possible for a lot of people. And if you join Brain Fit for Life, our community, we actually have ways on the community to test your brain. So you need to know a baseline. Isn't it interesting? Every other organ in your body, it seems. So your heart, you can have a cardiac stress test. You can get a mammogram or a pap smear, but nobody does baseline testing for your brain. Well, and you can't. And that's what's so interesting is you can do that.

Well, and when you saw your brain. So I'm very competitive, not with other people, but with pushing myself. So I fully expected to see this, you know, really healthy brain. And I went, wait a minute. I mean, it was pretty healthy, but there were places it could improve. And it made me really want to make it better. Well, and one of the things, so baseline assessments, that's really critical. So it's care because when you care, you start acting better. And then avoid things.

So what are some of the things that they should avoid to keep their memory strong? Number one thing that I can think of, well, there's so many, but sugar. Because sugar actually is one of the primary causes of all of those things we just talked about. So diabetes, obesity, hypertension, heart disease, cancer, you got to cut the sugar out of your diet, but stress. And so a lot of people don't realize how horrible stress is for your body. When you boost cortisol, the stress hormone in your body, it just wreaks havoc on everything in your body. And it really plays a trick on your memory because it's also affecting sleep. So they're all sort of tied together. So stress and sleep

are critical. So cortisol, the stress hormone, as it goes up, the function and actually the size of your hippocampus, so that's a seahorse-shaped structure in your temporal lobe begins to wither and atrophy. So it means it becomes smaller. Now, all of us are stressed. It's about managing it. So it's about managing it and dealing with it. So if you have excessive stress, being on a stress management program can be really helpful. The other thing you said, which is also really important is sleep. People who get less than six hours of sleep at night have lower overall blood flow to their brain and their memories are not good. So making sleep a priority is absolutely critical. And I want to talk about one that's a myth. So you really don't want to focus on fat-free diets. So that's been something we have been really don't want to focus on fat-free diets. So that's been

something we have been, which was good news for most people. You need healthy fat in your diet. They're called essential fatty acids for a reason. They're essential. So you got to have these essential fatty acids. And when the American, you know, when American society went on this fat-free craze, it was one of the worst things we ever did for our society. It's when the obesity epidemic just blew up. And it's terrible for your brain. 60% of the solid weight of your brain is fat. So you need fat in your diet. So avoid those things that hurt your brain. So care, and then avoid things that hurt your brain. So lousy diet, too much stress, not sleeping. And, you know And some people maybe are like me, I'm still like a four-year-old in so many ways. It's, I don't want to go to bed. I'm like so

into my life and learning something new, but I need to go to bed. And so I really focus on getting into bed in a reasonable time. And because I used to like, no, I'm staying up. I'm staying up. I just love my life. I would wait until I was so tired and then go to bed and then really not take good time to, you know, I'd brush my teeth, but I wouldn't floss and really take care of them.

But then I learned that if your gums are not right, your brain's not right. That gum disease or gingivitis actually goes with heart disease and brain disease. So you want to avoid that, which means going to the dentist, get your teeth cleaned. Flossing every day is absolutely critical for brain health. And there's two more things. So water, you have to hydrate your brain. Your brain is 80% water. So if you're dehydrated, it's really going to have an effect on performance, all sorts of performance, mental performance, physical performance, everything you do. And the other one is,

okay, if we had a medication this strong, it would be a miracle. It's exercise. There's no medication that's as good as exercise in every way because it boosts dopamine. It boosts serotonin. It helps you sleep better. It helps stresss serotonin. It helps you sleep better. It helps stress. It does everything. It helps manage your weight. I mean, I can't even tell you all the benefits of exercise. So that is really going to help with your memory, your mood, your sleep, your performance in every single way you can think of. But you don't want too much exercise. You want to exercise appropriately. You don't want to go, you know, exercise for two hours. You want to exercise smarter, not harder. Right. So for about 35 minutes. So brain envy, got to really care, avoid things that hurt your

brain. That's the secret to preventing Alzheimer's disease. You prevent all the illnesses and bad habits that are associated with it. Lack of exercise being one, being in a job that does not require lifelong learning or learning new things. So brain envy, avoid that, then do good. So the diet that Tana always talks about is just incredible because it's loaded with nutrients and many spices. It's not a deprivation diet. It's not one of these low calorie diets. People are not hungry. It's about eating the right foods. So you just, you have a brownie recipe that's actually incredible. You just got to put the right things in it.

So the right diet, exercise, new learning, simple supplements, that's actually what we discovered. And they have to be multiple mechanism supplements. So supplements that go after blood flow to the brain, anti-inflammation, antioxidant support, blood sugar stabilization. And so we make something called Brain Power Basics, which has a great multiple vitamin, high dose fish oil, and a multiple mechanism supplement. Put all these things together. You can have the memory of a 20 year old. And my favorite story to close with is Marianne from Franklin Covey.

So Marianne was 59, almost quit the job she loved because she had brain fog, was overweight, was in pain and tired. And she just did our program. And I love her for many reasons, but she just did everything we said. You know, I hate it when people go, what's the one thing I should do? And I always say, the one thing you should do is stop being stupid, do them all. This is your brain. And she did everything.

And within two months, the brain fog had lifted. And a year later, she had lost 60 pounds. And when she introduced me at a Franklin Covey event, she said, by working Dr. Amen's program, I gave myself a fast acting brain with the wisdom of aid. I love that. That's what we want for you. We want you to be a warrior for the health of your brain, to protect it. And when you do the right things,

the benefits are awesome. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for listening to today's show, The Brain Warrior's Way. Why don't you head over to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. That's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com where Daniel and Tana have a gift for you just for subscribing to the show. And when you post your review on

iTunes, you'll be entered into a drawing where you can win a VIP visit to one of the Amen clinics. I'm Donnie Osmond, and I invite you to step up your brain game by joining us in the next episode.