Change Your Brain Every Day - Why Nutraceuticals May Be Your Best Health Insurance- PT. 1 with Dr. Kidd

Episode Date: July 9, 2018

You may have heard that nutritional supplements aren’t a necessity for those with a well-balanced diet. But with 93% of the population not eating the daily minimum of nutrients, chances are supplements could dramatically improve your health. In the first part of a series on nutritional supplements with BrainMD Chief Science Officer Paris Kidd, Dr. Daniel Amen, Tana Amen, and Dr. Kidd explain how to properly add supplements to your routine as a nutritional health insurance policy.

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. And stay tuned for a special code for a discount to Amen Clinics for a full evaluation, as well as any of our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. We have a very special guest today. I'm actually really happy and excited to introduce Dr. Paris Kidd. Actually, I'm going to let you introduce Dr. Paris Kidd because you have worked so closely with him in developing our supplement line and you are so knowledgeable

and I've had so many people ask us questions. We're just so honored to have you here to be able to answer these questions. Why don't you tell them? Well, I stalked him. I know. So that he would come and work with us. When we decided to develop BrainMD, I wanted the best scientists in the world to help me develop our products. And at the time, Dr. Kidd was the chief scientist for Doctors Best. And because of his own contract, he couldn't do that that Paris is a PhD in cell biology from UC Berkeley he's been in the supplement industry 35 years and he's just one of the sweetest brightest most well respected people in the nutritional supplement industry.

He is the chief science officer for BrainMD. We are grateful to call him our friend. Welcome to the BrainWire's Way podcast. Thank you very much. And it's really a pleasure to work with both of you. Thank you. And we're so excited because I get so many questions. And I know generally some general information about supplements,

but I want to be able to really supply this information in more detail to our people because they're really curious. They're hungry for a lot of information. So can we start off with like, why should people take supplements? That's the big question. Or should they, or you know what a lot of family doctors will say, it. It's no more than expensive urine. And you don't need them if you have, and this is the kicker, if you have a balanced diet. Right, right. Which no one does. And let me preface this by saying that there's a lot of fake information available to people now. And there's a lot of warfare between different parties about dietary supplements.

So I follow the science. I've been following the science all this time. Science is what I do. So I go to the primary sources to get all this information. And one thing that's very, very clear is that survey after survey indicates that all over the world people are not getting sufficient vitamins and minerals from their foods very very clear there are markers for the availability of vitamins and minerals and there just is not enough being provided by the foods to a large extent because the foods are way poorer quality than they used to be. They're a lot more calorie dense and a lot less nutrient dense.

And so it's very important that people understand that vitamins and certain minerals called essential minerals are important for life. If we don't get them, we die. So these are substances that actually run our enzyme systems that make energy from our foods and allow us to use that energy to maintain our tissues and to grow and to do all the things that make us human. So these are not arbitrary luxury items. These are items that are absolutely required for health. And we differ also in our genetic makeup. Everyone has a unique genetic makeup.

And everyone has genes that don't work as well as they should. Therefore, each person will have certain increased requirements for particular vitamins and minerals. And therefore, it makes for a very, very good preparation. I call it nutritional health insurance for people to take supplements in order to be sure that all of the vitamins and minerals they're getting. Then beyond that, we have other types of dietary supplements, such as many herbals, that have been shown to improve function when they're taken under controlled circumstances. And so as I follow the clinical trials, what I'm seeing is that there are literally thousands of clinical trials conducted at the best academic and research centers around the world that

are showing that vitamins and minerals and herbals and other types of dietary supplements actually improve health. Right. So we can go from the concept of sort of surviving all the way through to optimal health. And for those of us who deal with the brain, we want to have our brains working as best they can. Therefore, for BrainMD, I'm assisting you to make the very, very best supplements that we can to optimize the stress of living in today's world, including all the chemical pollutants to which we're exposed, emotional stress, stress from infections and stress from whatever source, lack of sleep, etc., depletes nutrients. It draws nutrients from the body. So does alcohol.

So does smoking, even passive inhalation of cigarette smoke, and also a lot of medications. Yes. Some of which people take for granted. Birth control pills. It will deplete nutrients. Birth control pills, acetaminophen. Yeah. I won't give the brand name for that, but people can easily figure out what that is. Acetaminophen is terrible on the liver because it draws many of the liver nutrients out. So for all of those reasons and for other reasons, it's a very, very good idea to be on a dietary supplement regimen. So it's like an insurance policy almost. Yeah. Yeah. I call it nutritional health insurance.

Right. So I love that. So you actually read my mind and you answered most of my questions in that one, which is great, which is why I love.... So you actually read my mind and you answered like most of my questions in that one, which is great, which is why I love, like you're just amazing. You're this wealth of information. You flatter me. Because it's not just diet, but it's true. What you say is so true. People will say, but I eat healthy.

Okay, that's great. But are you sleeping? Are you getting super high quality food? You're not polluting your diet with other stuff. Are you sleeping enough? Are you meditating and praying and not exposed to stress and environmental toxins? Let's just take the, are you eating? Because when people tell me I have a really great diet.

Right. Don't you remember for the Daniel plan? Oh, yeah, no, no. What they think is great is not great. We went into this kitchen of a woman. Weren't you there with me? Yeah, I was. We did it together.

She said she was a pescatarian. She ate just vegetables and fish. And then we pull out Captain Crunch. And then all the chocolate she had hidden around. And according to the CDC, 93% of the U.S. population does not have five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. The minimum required to get the nutrition you need. And a study we did here at Amen Clinics, we looked at 50 consecutive patients.

49 of them had suboptimal levels of omega-3 fatty acids. Right. So you can test for this. We know, I mean, you can be tested to know whether you are where you're at with your nutrients. Right. And more than 90% of Americans aren't getting enough vitamin D and more than 50% aren't getting enough magnesium. Well, that's what we do here is we test people. We want to know, we're not just going to give you randomly willy nilly. Um, but one thing I love that you said was genetics. Okay. So I'm one of those people. I don't like it, but the fact is I was

born with lousy genetics. Okay. It just is what it is. And I know people will often say, but that's not fair. I shouldn't have to worry about that. Get over it. Life's not fair. That's what I tell my daughter all the time. It's like fair is a place with bad food and farm animals. It has nothing to do with life. Right. Get over it and just fix it. And I've had genetic issues since I was born too. Right. But just think about the vitamin folate. Right. Some 50% of Caucasians have a mutation in the enzymes that manage folate. And there are some 40 some mutations known just around that vitamin alone. And then there are mutations known in the enzymes that manage all of the other vitamins and essential minerals. So with 25,000 genes minimum, we're bound to have mutations.

And so each of us has to be sure that we're getting the full allowance that's recommended by the authorities and more. Because after all, this is the human condition, right? So we know that we're going to go across the lifespan and then our health is going to be challenged more and more as we get older. And so having a good diet is one part of it. Having a good supplement program is another part. And then comes physical exercise, mental exercise, clean lifestyle, getting enough sleep and all of that. And then we keep our fingers crossed and hope we can have a

really full and happy and productive life. So why do you think so many people fight taking supplements? They think they shouldn't have to, but why do you think that when they know it's that easy to just sort of fill that gap? Well, you know, I've been doing this for 30 some years and there has been an ideology. There has been an idea system that poo-poo supplements. And that has evolved. And I think the American public, through their own instincts, are finding that when they take supplements, they feel better. Right. And so even the dietician community who initially, 30 years ago, were talking about not taking supplements, the vast majority of them now have a supplement program. And those are the most conservative nutritionists of all, as you probably know. Well, the editors at the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA have published editorials saying a multiple vitamin a day was essential to help prevent chronic illness. So in your mind, what are the minimum things people should take?

Thank you so much for asking. You're welcome. A really, really good, powerful, well-rounded, well-absorbed multiple vitamin mineral, such as BrainMD's NeuroVite Plus, which I've worked with Daniel to get to the point that it's a highly optimized multiple. And then they should also take omega-3, omega-3 EPA and DHA, which are practically vitamins, because we can't make those in the body. We can make small amounts, but they're practically insignificant. And so we have a product called omega three power, which is very highly concentrated in EPA and DHA. It doesn't give that burp feeling when you take it. And we screen it for more than 250 potential pollutants. And so it's a very clean, very beautiful product.

And I take both of those myself, actually. One of the big box stores. And I give them to a lot of my friends. So two capsules is 2.8 grams of fish oil, 1,440 milligrams of EPA and DHA. So I was in one of the big box stores last week and so I just went and looked at their fish oil and you had to take 10 of their capsules in order to equal two. Right. So you're not saving money in essence. Well, not at all.

But you're also irritated taking 10. Oh, I can't. Yeah, that'd be terrible. What about vitamin D and probiotics? Well, vitamin D is very, very important for all of the tissues and including for the brain, especially for the brain. Well, it used to be that vitamin D was thought of as the bone vitamin. But actually, we have systems in all our tissues that respond to the presence of vitamin D. And vitamin D is absolutely essential for brain development and for the processing of information in the brain. It's important for the cardiovascular system, the heart and circulation. It's important for immunity. It's important for the joints.

Every organ system features some role for vitamin D and that's partly because it's actually converted to a hormone and the surveys indicate that because we're covering up so much because of fear of skin cancer and all of that, there's an epidemic of deficiency of vitamin D all around the world. Yes. And also people who have darker skin tend to screen out ultraviolet and therefore don't make as much vitamin D as they could.

So vitamin D is really a crucial vitamin. It's a master hormone. It becomes converted to a master hormone in the body and it's absolutely crucial for health and did i hear you say 90 of people are low in vitamin right right and so we have almost everybody that i test we have a 5000 iu vitamin d which i love yeah it's great yeah yeah and i i take one of those a day and in neurovite plus there's 2000 yeah so if you take them both it's 7 000 people go oh go, oh my gosh, that's so much. No, that's the only way that my vitamin D has finally been stable is taking that 7,000 a day. Not everybody has to eat 7,000 a day.

So what I want you to do, if you're listening to this podcast, is before you just go out and take 10,000 units of vitamin D, go get your level checked. Right. And I live in Southern California. The sun is out 330 days a year. My level was 17. So normal is between 30 to 100. Optimal is more like 50 to 100. And under 20, according to a recent study, is associated with twice the risk of cancer than those who have vitamin D levels over 40. So how stinking simple is this?

Measure your level, optimize it. So initially, because my level was so low, I took 10,000. And you know, one of the big benefits for me, my appetite went away. And I'm like, why did that happen? And then I read a research study that said when vitamin D levels are low, leptin, the hormone that tells you to stop eating, doesn't work anymore. So you actually become leptin resistant. So giving you more leptin is not going to help. Vitamin D turned off my appetite.

And then I was able to lose the weight so I didn't become a dinosaur, you know, big body, little brain. You're going to become extinct. Well, and I think we can't underestimate probiotics also in that mix, right? Yeah. No, probiotics are all the rage these days. And, you know, people hear that they have, you know, a thousand species of bacteria in their intestinal contents and that those bacteria weigh as much as three pounds. And it's very, very true that those bacteria are built into our health. It's called symbiosis, which is where we give them shelter and perhaps we give them certain foods that they need. And then they process, help us

to process foods. They help us to absorb foods better. They help with our immunity. They help us to process foods. They help us to absorb foods better. They help with our immunity. They help with our brain function. They help with our mood and all of that. However, when a person goes to look for a probiotic supplement, they really need to find out if that particular supplement or the particular bacterial types that are in the supplement have actually been tested for human benefit. Oh, okay. That's interesting. I know that's true for dogs too. They don't, it has to

be good for that species. Right, right. So in these bacteria, you have the genus, the species, but then you also have the strain and even the strain level is important. So what we did actually was identified a combination of two special strains that have been shown in clinical trials to improve brain function, even as they improve digestive function. And we carried the very clear, specific combination that had been used in those trials. And we called it pro-brain biotics. I like that. And so that's one of the very few probiotics that are available for brain function. All right.

When we come back, we're going to talk about more specific issues around dietary supplements to support different functions in the body. And then we're also going to talk about kids. Stay with us. Use the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. 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.