Change Your Brain Every Day - Strengthen Your Brain Through Diet, with Shawn Stevenson

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

We’ve all heard the phrase, “You are what you eat”. But does this phrase apply to the brain, too? Does the food we eat actually become our brain? In the first episode of a series with The Model Health Show host Shawn Stevenson, Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen discuss how the foods we put into our body become our body (and brain), and why certain societal institutions have made building a healthy brain more difficult.  For more info on Shawn's new book "Eat Smarter", visit https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Smarter-Metabolism-Upgrade-Transform-ebook/dp/B07W3M55SP  

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, everyone. We are very excited this week to be with our friend, Sean Stevenson. He's been on the podcast before. He's a best-selling author, creator of the Model Health Show, featured as the number one health podcast on iTunes with millions of listener downloads each year. He's a graduate of the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Sean studied business biology and kinesiology and went on to be the founder of Advanced Integrative Health Alliance, a company that provides wellness services for individuals and organizations worldwide. He's been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Men's Health Magazine, which I used to write for, ESPN, Fox News, and many other media outlets.

He has a brand new book, Eat Smarter. And I actually have the quote on the front cover. I'm so honored. Well-researched, easy to read, and will help you be smarter, healthier, and happier. So the title is Eat Smarter, Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life. Welcome, my friend. Welcome, Sean. To the Brain Warriors Way podcast.

Thank you. It's always an honor to talk to you too. I appreciate it. So why now? Why did you feel like this is the book the world needs? You know, COVID-19, they often call it COVID-19. The COVID-19. People gain 19 pounds that they allowed themselves to eat bad food, telling themselves it's the only thing on the shelf. Actually not true. Or it's for comfort because they're more permissive. Comfort because people need comfort now. So talk to us about why now, Sean, for this book. You know what's so funny about writing a book? Sometimes it preempts some things that are coming. I had no idea any of this stuff would happen when I started writing this book, but it's such a timely message because one of the most overlooked things, and we've talked about this, is actually what we can do to get our citizens healthier and just get us to be

more robust, healthier immune systems. A lot of the conversation hasn't been on that piece and we're going to continue to be susceptible. And so coming from the environments that I come from, which is very diverse, very different environments, very safe, happy, suburban environment, and also very volatile environment with a lot of violence and potential dangers. And I've seen in all the entire spectrum that everybody wants the same thing. Everybody wants to be healthy. Everybody wants to take care of their families, but also everybody's been inundated with unhealthy food. And especially in those other communities that's kind of riddled with violence, it's not just accessible, it's encouraged to eat terrible food. So knowing these pieces and knowing that there are solutions, and also

here's the big thing and why I wrote the book, and you know this as well, a lot of the data that's out there is just so immersed in complexity, unnecessary complexity. When the accessibility for these things, what we have to do is really make it fun. So many things about diet is about deprivation, restriction, and there's a natural human tendency to want to rebel. Even if we're like a rule follower, we don't like to be told that we can't do something. So I would see this in my clinical practice working as a nutritionist for you know as long as i have that in order to get people people want change but we generally don't want to change that much yeah so what are some simple things we can do some things that are

clinically proven but we don't have to turn our lives upside down and also i think that the the conversation about food needed to be expanded and this is the last thing i'm going to say and just kind of the heart of why i wrote this book. Oftentimes in our culture, when we think about diet and nutrition, it's generally related to weight. And it's just kind of, they go together, but food is so much more than that. It literally makes up everything about us. As I'm looking at you guys, I'm seeing the food that you've eaten. And that same thing as you're seeing me, it's so weird and seemingly magical, you know, and talking about the brain and you're such an inspiration for me.

You know, the dendrites, the axon terminals, the gray matter, the white matter, everything about our brain is made from food. It's made of food. How important and powerful is this? We get to choose what we're making our brains out of. And so that piece, and I wanted to share, of weeks, potentially? And lastly, how does nutrition and food affect our ability to perspective take and have empathy and to connect with other people? That's such an important conversation that's not being talked about. And the data on this and how food affects even our proclivity towards violence and aggression, it's so powerful because right now there's a lot of infighting. There's a lot, you know, people are just going on the internet, just mad, like looking for a problem, you know, let alone out here in the real world. So, you know, it's,

it's a very important message right now. It's very comprehensive, but also very actionable. That's so interesting. So that's what I do at our clinics is nutrition and lifestyle component. That's what I've typically written about. So everything you're saying, I'm over here. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I love what you said. I can see what you've eaten. So that is just such an important thing. Your skin is an outside reflection of the food you eat, of the health of your gut. You know, your brain is a reflection of sort of your overall health, like they're connected. And so I love that you're approaching it from this way. Cause I wrote my first big food book 10 years ago, and there are so many people trying to, to broach that back then trying to broach it. And it seems like it's gotten worse, not better. So, so help me out with this. And we

know that this is affecting society. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a fundamental flaw in the system, you know, a system or, um, it kind of, uh, mapping out any kind of model. It's only as good as the fundamental premise of the system itself. And our system of healthcare doesn't really respect or acknowledge the role that food plays, you know, and knowing now at this point in working, I've been in this field for 19 years, but I know the top cardiologists. I know the top gastroenterologists. I know the top neuroscientists. And one of my friends, top incredible gastroenterologists, he was in school for 16 years, 16 years of education.

He deals with the organs that are associated and work in the assimilation, digestion, and elimination of food. And yet he only learned about food for two weeks and 16 years. And it wasn't in depth, like real evidence-based stuff. It was more like, if your patient has a very rare B6 deficiency, give this vitamin. Disease oriented, not health oriented. Yes, exactly. And also again, not understanding that these organs are made from food. There's nothing really more important than this. The other aspects are valuable, you know, but so that is the number one premise and kind of why we're in this situation until there's a shift in the

acknowledgement. And I mentioned this stuff as there's a shift in the acknowledgement. And I mentioned this stuff as well. You know, the Journal of the American Medical Association, one of our most prestigious journals. This was in 2018, came out and affirmed poor diet is the number one cause of our chronic diseases. You know, so this isn't like news anymore. We know that this is the case. When is the shift going to happen to focus on food? But I believe that it is happening. There have been ripples, but we need some big waves and a big movement. And I'm grateful that this book again is coming out right at this time, which I had no idea that this would happen. And I haven't shared this with you guys. It became the number one new release in the United States the week that it came out.

Oh, congratulations. It was unbelievable. It was on the top 10 with Matthew McConaughey and Barack Obama. But this isn't a book about celebrity or fanfare. It's about food and about health. And to see the response, there's something just internally, our spirits really know that this is important. So yeah.

Congratulations. something just internally, like our spirits really know that this is important. So yeah. So what are some of the big ahas for you when you wrote the book? I mean, you know, when we wrote The Brain Warrior's Way, I love this phrase that we came up with is that it's critical to begin to avoid the weapons of mass destruction, highly processed, pesticide sprayed, high glycemic, low fiber, food like substances stored in plastic containers. And so we have sort of a sense, lots of plants, healthy fat, but when you wrote the book, what were some of the big ahas? And we'll finish this first podcast with that we only have a couple of minutes left.

And then we'll we'll go into some of the programmatic aspects to be smarter. Absolutely. So definitely the next segment, we got to talk about specific foods and metabolism and this new term called epichloric control. So we'll talk about that next, but one of the biggest aha moments, and this is why having you in my life and even having you on the cover is such, again, such an honor. But for me, one of the biggest aha moments, and you know this, like you might be in your office researching and you're just like, oh my goodness, how do people

not know this? This is going to be a game changer. And so I was really, and I always ask this fundamental question, for example, with the brain, what is it made of? What is it made of? And one thing really rises to the top and it's just not talked about enough, but there was a nuance there. So the brain is primarily made of water, right? It's 80% water, upwards of 80% water, the most water dominant organ in the body next to the lungs. But here's the catch. And by the way, so everything is very evidence-based. One of the studies that I broke down in the book was published in medicine and science and sports and exercise. And he found that just a 2% drop in our body's baseline hydration level led to significant cognitive impairment, including a reduction in ability to have basic motor performance, right? Just moving your body in space, a reduction in executive function and things with coordination, like, and also like map recognition,

mental math, basically we get dumber. Just a 2% drop in our baseline hydration rate. And again, we're looking for these super nootropics and all these things to make our brain work better. We got to get this addressed. And here's the nuance. It's not just the water because the brain itself, and I give this analogy of being like tollbooths. There's a very specific diet that can actually enter the brain. We call this this neuro nutrition, and it's very specific, but water has expressed pathways. They got that fast pass to get right into the brain. But here's the nuance is the role that electrolytes play. And if you just listen to the word electro light, right? Our brains are running on this electrical currency and it helps with signal transduction. But specifically, I've

just dropped these real quick for you guys. This was a double blind placebo controlled study published in the journal of Alzheimer's disease. They found that improving magnesium levels, one of our most powerful electrolytes in adult test subjects who had noted cognitive decline, they were between the age of 50 and 70, was found to reverse their brain aging by upwards of nine years. Wow. Just by getting their magnesium levels dialed in. All right. This is absolutely unbelievable. And so we talked about the various electrolytes and some of the science behind it. And also, of course, there's sodium involved, potassium, the list goes on and on, but magnesium really jumped out at me. So it's not just the water.

It's also the structure of the water, the minerals in the water, the minerals in our food when we eat water-rich food. So some of these things can be absolutely game-changing. And then we go into what foods do we find these things in? How do we get our magnesium levels up efficiently? Because food first is a big premise of Eat Smarter. Great. That's awesome. Eat Smarter.

Use the power of food to reboot your metabolism, upgrade your brain, and transform your life. Out now. And I highly recommend it. Stay with us. What'd you learn? Write it down like magnesium is critical and reverse your brain's aging. Take a picture of it. Post it on any of your social media sites. Hashtag Brain Warriors Way podcast, also Eat Smarter by Sean Stephenson. We'll be back. 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

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