Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2370: Demystifying Alzheimer's With Max Lugavere

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

Max Lugavere Max’s new film and the story behind it. (2:38) The troubling rise of dementia/Alzheimer’s. (5:39) What he learned about our medical system regarding this disease. (9:25) How these genes act with their environment. (15:49) Eastern vs. Western medicine. (17:55) Looking back, would he have done anything differently? (22:09) What prompted him to document everything? (25:16) The skills learned from being a journalist. (28:22) Giving a raw portrait of what it’s like to have dementia. (33:43) Did the storytelling change throughout the course of filming? (36:51) His stem cell experience with Dr. Khan. (41:04) The connection between certain pollutants and the risk of dementia. (41:57) Exercise, medicine for the brain. (48:08) Approaching your exercise with methodology. (56:39) His first experience seeing the film with an audience. (1:00:00) Releasing expectations and doing what you want to do. (1:02:55) A caregiver's disease. (1:09:18) The importance of creatine for the brain. (1:10:50) Related Links/Products Mentioned Little Empty Boxes Visit Xero Shoes for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! ** Enter to win one of FIVE FREE pairs of Xero Shoes! ** June Promotion: MAPS 15 Minutes | Bikini Bundle | Shredded Summer Bundle 50% off! ** Code JUNE50 at checkout ** Type 3 diabetes is sporadic Alzheimer׳s disease: mini-review New Genetic Form of Alzheimer's Identified in People With Common Risk Factor Ambient air pollution and the dynamic transitions of stroke and dementia: a population-based cohort study Ending Parkinson's Disease: THE BOOK Mind Pump #1547: The Hidden Benefits Of Lifting Weights Leg exercise is critical to brain and nervous system health Muscle-strengthening activities and cancer incidence and mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies Prof. Darren Candow, PhD | Creatine For Health Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources Featured Guest/People Mentioned Max Lugavere (@maxlugavere) Instagram Website Podcast Joe Rogan (@joerogan) Instagram Jordan Peterson (@jordan.b.peterson) Instagram Dr. Oz (@dr_oz) Instagram Adeel Khan, MD (@dr.akhan) Instagram   Ray Dorsey, MD (@raydorsey01) Instagram Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks) Instagram Darren Candow (@dr.darrencandow) Instagram  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pumped. Today we brought back our friend, Max Lugavere. He's the host of the Genius Life podcast. He's an author, but he also wrote and directed a documentary called little empty boxes. This is about his mom, the journey that she went through with dementia and Alzheimer's.

In fact, this is what inspired him to become who he is today. We talked about how food affects our health. This is a very, very good documentary. Sometimes tough to watch, very touching. He obviously loves his mother and his family a lot. In fact, you can go to littleemptyboxes.com and watch it. Just got to click on watch and then you can take a gander. And again, his podcast is the Genius Life. Now this episode was brought to you by one of our sponsors, Zero Shoes.

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zero spelled with an X, so X-E-R-O, shoes.com forward slash mind pump, you can enter to win one pair of shoes out of five so you'll literally win a pair of shoes by going on their website potentially again zero shoes calm forward slash mind pump also this is the last day for the June special maps 15 half off the bikini bundle of workout programs half off and the shredded summer bundle of programs also half off if you're interested go to to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code June 50 for that discount. All right here comes the show. Max welcome back to the show. What up?

Our favorite person ever. What are we on right now? How many times? Five? Four, five, six. Who's counting? Not enough. This enough. Yeah, but this is kind of special though. I mean, this has been the build up. This is a big deal. Yeah, this is a big deal. So your documentary is out. It's out there. Yeah, it's out.

This is a 10-year-long labor of love. I think when I first met you guys. You talked about it. Well, I was already, I think, like two years into production on the film. I began it in, I came up with the idea in 2014, and then we launched a crowdfunding campaign for it in January of 2015. And, uh, and now it's 2014, mid 2014, and it's finally coming out. Wow.

Let's okay. So for people who don't know, let's talk a little bit, the name of it and talk about what it's about and why you made it in the first place. Yeah. So it's called Little Empty Boxes and the title of the documentary actually comes from something that my mom says about midway through the documentary. For anybody who doesn't know, my mom suffered with dementia, a rare form of dementia for

the last eight years of her life. It was a form called Lewy body dementia, which is akin to essentially having both Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease at the same time. And there's a really heartbreaking scene about halfway through the film where my mom is trying to describe her inner world, you know, and she says that the boxes remain empty. If you just picture piling up

all the memories and things that you love in life and your ability to appreciate, whether it's film, reading, all the many things that you derive joy from over the course of the day that we often take for granted. And then suddenly the box is just like, you know. Feel empty. Emptying, yeah. And it's not something that as I was filming my mom, I grasped, but as we were editing the film, it stood out to my co-director, Chris Newhard, and he was like, well, what if we can actually let Kathy name the film? Kathy's my mom. And so that's where the name of the film came from. The film is essentially, it documents my mom's journey with dementia.

I filmed it during the last eight years of her life where she was really struggling with this condition. This was well before my books, my podcast, before anybody knew who I was. I was just a terrified son. I had the opportunity to follow her to different doctor's appointments and spend a lot of quality time with her. For me, it felt like it was a way to pay homage to what she was experiencing and to memorialize the trauma and the suffering and the pain that me and the rest of my family was experiencing and try to, in a way, making, taking something painful and making meaning out of it and documenting

it. But then on the other hand, it's a film that I think for the first time on film, documents the science of dementia prevention. So what we can actually do, the steps that we can take day to day to actually reduce our risk for developing the kind of condition that my mom had. And it's not a film that provides any easy answers, no magic bullet solution.

There's no magical diet that my film presents. It's not one of these like nutrition documentaries where you find like the exact roadmap to preventing this condition, but it does with broad strokes paint a picture of how we might live, the kinds of foods we might choose to eat or choose to avoid to reduce our risk. When we first had you on the show, you had just, I believe published, it was Genius Foods. Yeah. And what you're talking about is literally the driving factor behind who you are now. It's your podcast, it's the books you wrote.

Like your experience with this is what propelled you, motivated you and drove you to learn about dementia, Alzheimer's and its causes. Is it exploding? Is this, is dimension Alzheimer's growing and is it due to an older population or does that not account for the rising amount of cases? Or is it not rising?

Yeah, no, it is, it is increasing. I mean, today about 55 million people worldwide struggle with dementia. And some of the science that we reveal in the documentary, I actually went to the lab of Suzanne De La Monte, who this is, as far as I know, the first time she's ever appeared in any kind of, you know, public facing documentary or anything like that. And she is the neuropathologist at Brown University who coined the term type 3 diabetes. So this is a term that's been used to describe

Alzheimer's disease, but she's also, she also has a master's in public health and she explains on, on camera that the rates are skyrocketing ever since about the 1980s across all age groups. So even if you account for our improved diagnoses, this is not a function of the fact that we're living longer because it's occurring at increased rates across pretty much every age group, except the obviously,

the very young, but 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. So this is not just because we're living longer, it's because we're, you know, our food environment, the standard American lifestyle has become essentially toxic. Is the rate of growth of these diagnoses growing as well? So there's more and more, but is it accelerating? It seems to be accelerating.

Oh, wow. It seems to be accelerating, yeah. But it makes sense because when you consider some of the modifiable risk factors for Alzheimer's disease, for example, hypertension or type 2 diabetes or obesity. Rates of those conditions are accelerating. I mean, today, 50% of adults have hypertension, which is high blood pressure. Right. One in two adults by the year 2030 are going to be not just overweight, but obese. About half,

if not more of us have either type 2 diabetes or are pre-diabetic, right? And so for example, if you have type 2 diabetes, you're increasing your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease between two and fourfold. Hypertension, I mean, high blood pressure, chronically sustained high blood pressure literally destroys the blood vessels that feed your brain.

And so, you know, there's that, there's air pollution, chronic exposure to air pollution, hearing loss. I mean, they're, you know, thankfully now, when I first started on this film, one of the, one of the reasons why I felt compelled to make a film is because nobody was talking about dementia prevention. In fact, you probably, you couldn't even say those two words in the same sentence and not be called a

quack if you were a medical doctor. Is that because they considered it to be, oh, this is genetic fact? Something just happens and then once you get it, now we got to treat it. Yeah. I mean, it was considered fringe. It was, you know, there also likely wasn't enough evidence, but that evidence has been building over the past decade. And I've seen it built because I've been doing this for the past 10 years at this point. And, um, and now we see, you know, uh, broader acceptance within the medical establishment for, you know, the, the medical establishment for the broader acceptance within the medical establishment for, you know, the, this concept that we can take steps day

to day that can reduce our risk. And so the question is, you know, if you, if you, once you're able to wrap your head around the fact that the science tends to suggest that we can take steps that reduce our risk, what are you going to do about it? You know, Max, when you started going down the rabbit hole of this and, and, and reading and, and watching what was coming out, what was coming out science wise, what we are doing with Western medicine to treat this,

what did you learn about like our medical system in regards to this disease? Like was, was there things that were super shocking to you? Like the way we approached it or just even the way like drugs are made to support it or help it? Like what did you find out? Yeah, I was really let down. I don't think a lot of people know this, but when I started school, I wanted to be a doctor. I ended up realizing a love of storytelling and creativity and that's what led to me ultimately, you know, it was a very circuitous path, but that ultimately led to me going to create

this doc and everything else that I do. But I love medicine. And when my mom became sick, I went with her from doctor's appointment to doctor's appointment. And what I was met with in every instance I've come to call diagnose and adios. Basically a physician would, you physician would either add a new prescription to my mom's regimen or titrate up the dose of a drug that she was on. But anybody who's ever had any kind of chronic disease knows you get 15 minutes with your doctor and you're confused, you're scared, you're experiencing sympathetic activation, so you're in a state of fight or

flight. You're not asking all the appropriate questions that ought to be asked when you're sick and you're talking face to face with a medical expert. So thankfully, I was able to go with my mom to these various doctor's appointments, but still nonetheless, the tools that we have to treat dementia are extremely limited, extremely limited. And Alzheimer's drug trials have a 99.6% fail rate. They're very controversial. The drugs that, you know, most recently there were a few drugs that actually passed through the FDA approval process and they were recently

pulled because we realized that they were doing more harm than good for Alzheimer's sufferers. Because they slowed down the progression of the beta amyloid plaques, which we thought would help, but we realized like, okay, you get less plaques, but Alzheimer's not going away. Exactly. It doesn't actually improve cognition and the risks are significant. The drugs like Aducanumab, Licanumab, they were all associated with brain swelling,

brain bleeding, and these drugs were approved, I think, because they helped to further the narrative that amyloid beta is the cause of Alzheimer's disease. These drugs were successful at reducing, because they're monoclonal antibodies. They basically turn your immune system against this amyloid plaque buildup. The drugs were successful in terms of reducing the plaque burden. They're like, oh great, let's approve it. Cause they, you know, they, they seem to attack the fundamental cause of the condition somehow overlooking the fact that as you suggested, yeah, cognition didn't improve, which is like the clinical. That's the point.

That's the whole point. Is this a good analogy to what you're saying, Max, for someone listening like, um, oh my God, look at all the smoke. Let's find a way to get rid of the smoke. Yeah. But the fire is what's happening. And so like, oh, the smoke's gone, I think we're okay, but the fire is still raging and that's not solving the problem. Would that be a good analogy? Yeah, great analogy. Yeah. I mean, if you didn't know

how science worked, you might look at smoke and think that smoke causes fire, right? Because they're both there concurrently, right? Or that firemen being at the scene of the crime cause the fire. That's right. Yeah, great, great point. that fireman, you know, being at the scene of the crime, cause of fire. That's right. Yeah, great, great point. Did you have a moment where, because I imagine this kind of started out of, like you said, like from passion and curiosity,

and like, did you go from that type of a feeling to anger? I mean, do you remember that? Do you remember, like, was there like a trajectory like that where it was like, you know, obviously you're sad, you're going through this with your mom, but a lot of it you're trying to figure out and research. And then there comes a point where you start to get frustrated and angry. Did you go through that?

Yeah, I think, you know, because it's just, you put all this faith in Western, in Western medicine and, you know, I still, I continue to, to, I think, you think, Western medicine is amazing. My dad just had a total knee replacement. He's now walking around. It's incredible for those kinds of acute emergent care or when you need a tumor cut out or a joint replaced. That's all great. But I think more emphasis needs to be placed on prevention

with regard to these kinds of complex, chronic, multifactorial diseases that now people are suffering from. Because once you get a condition like Alzheimer's, once you're diagnosed, for example, with Alzheimer's disease, you're essentially in late stage Alzheimer's disease. By the time that you get all the symptoms where you go to the doctor, you've already been having it. You are in late stage, yeah. I mean, the symptoms are memory loss,

but that disease has been simmering under the surface for decades. Do we have tests that can identify early, early stages now? I always see on my like, you know, pop up on my newsfeed, different like blood biomarkers that are associated, but nothing has reached like the gold standard of clinical care at this point. There's a number of different types of imaging that might be able to show some degree of pathology in the brain, but none of these scans are approved by insurance. They're not covered by insurance. So again, thousands of

dollars are not used clinically. I think the best that we have really are these biomarkers that are easily measured with just basic blood labs that are associated with the condition. I think a lot about what you said earlier about Western medicine, what it does well and what it doesn't do well. People have said this before and I didn't really fully understand it until relatively recently where they say, the whole system needs to change in order to be able to treat chronic health issues. And that's true. And the reason why that's true is when you look

at something complicated like Alzheimer's or diabetes or obesity and the related issues associated with obesity. Really the solutions are behavior change, lifestyle change. Like you have to change a lot of things over periods of time. And our system doesn't work that way. A doctor isn't going to coach you. They're going to tell you maybe at best, here you got to do this, that, and the other, but they're not going to talk with you every day. They're not going to coach you through the process because it's very difficult.

So it just won't work unless we completely change the way we do these things. Did you find in your, in your research, did you find any countries that were doing it better than others? Like, did you find out like somewhere else like, oh, they tend to, they tend to look at more of the preventative stuff than this place. Or is everybody kind of just. Yeah, well, it's the, it's the countries that are like, they're not necessarily cognizant of, of, of doing things differently.

You know, it's like, but it's the countries that are less industrialized tend to have better health countries where, um, and health across the board, including brain health countries where, you know, the diet is less processed. I mean, for example, um, you know, here in the US, 60% of the calories, as you guys know, come from, of your average adult, come from ultra-processed foods. In the UK, it's a little bit less than that. It's about 50%.

That tends to predict better health outcomes. One study that I have cited fairly regularly, there's evidence that the most well-defined Alzheimer's risk gene, which is the APOE4 allele, there are other countries where that gene is just as prevalent. So in Ibadan, Nigeria, for example, the Alzheimer's risk gene, the APOE4 allele is just as prevalent, but there it doesn't seem to be associated with Alzheimer's disease or at least not to the same degree that it is here. Here if you carry a copy of that gene, your risk increases, depending on whether or not

you carry one or two copies, between two and 14-fold. And in Ibadan, Nigeria, which is obviously, it's less industrialized than here in the United States, it seems to have little bearing on increasing a person's risk. So it's not that these are deterministic genes, it's that these genes interact with our environment and that's essentially epigenetics. Yeah. So that gene in this environment, not a good situation, essentially. Yeah.

So realizing that Western medicine, there's flaws and there's holes in the way that they're treating this, did you look into any Eastern medicine practices, any kind of other treatments that had any kind of validity, moved the needle at all? Yeah. Is there anything out there? Or again, is it too late at that point? Yeah.

You know, my mom, we got her on a pretty vigorous like exercise program, exercise medicine for the brain. So I would say that exercise, you know, if nothing else, like exercise is really the – it's now reached a level of evidence where it's like a prescriptive level of evidence. It has essentially a disease modifying effect. It's not going to cure the disease, but it might potentially slow it down. We got my mom training with a personal trainer. For the first time in her life, she was working out and lifting weights and stuff. I do think that it helped slow the progression of the disease.

But from a dietary standpoint, I mean, it's not like, you know, she didn't really change her diet much. Really lifestyle factors for the most part. Yeah. You know, it's tough when you're in that position too, by the way, it's scary. Like I was in a situation like that with a family member, not with dementia Alzheimer's, but they had cancer. And when you're faced with something so scary, and you're like, well, should I go Eastern medicine? But I don't know, I don't know what to do,

and if I do the wrong thing, this is gonna turn terrible. Even though I know that what they're prescribing, the data shows it's probably not gonna help. It's a really scary position. Do you find yourself like, you're like, uh, I guess we trust these people? Well, it's like, you know, I don't wanna sow too much skepticism

about Western medicine because, for example, like, if you're growing a tumor in your body, the disease-modifying treatment is like cutting out that tumor, and I wouldn't wanna sway people away from like, life-saving interventions like that, but with a condition like dementia, none of the treatments are disease modifying. They're all just essentially biochemical band-aids that barely work and work more or less depending on the variant of dementia that you have. With my mom's particular, the type of dementia that my mom was diagnosed with, the drugs work minimally if at all.

And then you throw into the mix polypharmacy. A lot of these doctors are very quick to prescribe drugs. Granted, many patients expect being prescribed a drug, and doctors often will prescribe because that's what they assume that the patient wants. Nonetheless, by the end of my mom's life, she was on 14 different pharmaceuticals. I've been in many doctor's offices where a new drug was added on. Never have I seen deep prescription, you know, and at the end of life, having all those drugs in the system, I mean, there's nobody on earth, not even God knows, you know, how 14 different pharmaceuticals are interacting like in a frail aged person

system. Yeah. What does that even look like? In fact, it makes me wonder, it's probably a greater risk to the doctor to take a medicine away than it is to add from a liability standpoint. Yeah. You know, she was on drugs at a certain point that literally like cancel each other out. And I was like, I was so perplexed. Like, this must've been the angry part. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. So she was on a drug called oxybutynin, which was at, you know, at the, at the latter end of her disease she developed in continence, which was like really hard to take. And, um, that type of drug it's in a category of drugs called anti cholinergic drugs. So it basically works on these different, um, neurotransmitter receptors throughout the, in the periphery, throughout the body, you know, on the bladder, they're, I guess, they're, they're prevalent on the surface of the bladder or something.

Let me guess she was on a pro. Yeah. So a pro. Yeah, exactly. Because acetylcholine is the neurotransmitter involved in learning and memory. And so some of the drugs that you take for dementia, like, boost that. I don't remember if it was Nemenda. I think it likely was. There's another one. But essentially what they try to do is, you know do is boost acetylcholine in the brain, which is not having any kind of disease modifying effect. Neurons are dying, there's widespread hypometabolism in the brain. The brain is struggling to generate energy, but they're like, let's see if we can boost at least this neurotransmitter and see if it'll help.

So anyway, she's on one of these drugs, which is trying to boost acetylcholine. She's on another drug that's like an anticholinergic and, um, and it was just like a mess, you know? You, you, I don't know. Um, you probably hate this question, but going back is looking back, would you have done anything different? Would you have said, we're not going on these medications?

Man. Yeah, I don't. God, probably not bro. He's, you probably, that's probably your only hope at that point. You're like, you. God, probably not, bro. He's you probably, how do you know? That's probably your only hope at that point. You're like, you better try it than not. Right? Yeah. You have to try. I feel like, I feel like it'd be so, that's what's so hard about that.

Cause the diagnosis is basically there's no hope. Well, I mean, I'm not an act like I'm not a medical expert, you know? So I go into these doctors offices and like the, like they, you're coming to them with like, you know, they become in that dynamic like almost like a God figure, you know? And many doctors are aware of that dynamic and there's a lot of, I think, ego in medicine. Um, but, uh, but yeah, what choice do you have really? You know, when, when the, when the person that you love most in the world is desperate for any kind of reprieve from these awful symptoms, you know, it's like, you'll try anything.

Yeah. When you, when you met, when you mentioned how she said the empty little empty boxes, it sounds like there's a point there where she's aware and cognizant that this is going bad. Like I, yeah. And then I'm sure at some point then that goes away as well, but that must've been one of the harder parts because she's realizing and noticing like, oh no, this is not, I can't

think the way I used to. Yeah. She was, my mom was really cognizant the whole time of how much her, you know, how much she was struggling with her cognition. And you know, they say once you've seen one case of dementia, you've seen one case of dementia. So they're all different.

They're all different, yeah. Okay. And there are some, obviously like, you know, a lot of people have seen the film so far and they've found incredible solace in the film because there is a lot that is – I mean it is relatable across the board when a loved one is struggling with their memory function but it kind of presents differently case to case. In my mom's case, she never forgot who I was.

Her long-term memories were secure. she knew what it was that she loved. She, you know, her love for music sustained, you know, her love for her family and, you know, and being able to recognize like all of the, you know, all of her sons, I mean, thank God that was, that, that never faltered. But moment to moment, it was like her cognition had just downshifted in a really severe way. An analogy that I've used, it's like her cognition had just downshifted in a really severe way. An analogy that I've used, it's like when you have too many tabs open in your browser

window and suddenly all the web pages start stuttering and it's like you can really tell that the processor is being taxed. That's how it seemed with my mom just from day-to-day tasks. She would forget her train of thought soon after initiating a thought, ultimately she like forgot how to go in and out of rooms, like operating a door handle became really difficult for her using the bath. It was just, it was really awful. It was like, it was barbaric. What prompted you to document all this? The film in your film,

I mean, you have film going back before this even as a kid. You were, there's film of you, you know. Which I think is amazing. Holding the camera. Amazing by the way, whatever. It's insane, yeah. Yeah, like that, I remember when we first met or you showed us all that stuff, I'm like,

no way he has this footage. I mean just you had hundreds of hours of footage of just your family, your mom as a kid. When did you start doing that? I think I've always been into self-documentation, like even before smartphones and selfies and things like that, I've just always gravitated to, I've always been a big tech junkie,

and when I was in college actually, and digital cameras started to be of high enough quality that you could essentially make a movie with a point and shoot camera. That's when I realized that I had the revelation that that was a medium that I really liked. I liked the immediacy of being able to tell a story with a point and shoot camera. And now we obviously have amazing cameras in our pockets at all times. But yeah, I've just always been interested in

self-documentation to immortalize an otherwise fleeting moment felt important to me. And when my mom became sick, I was in between jobs. I had been a journalist, so I had worked for a TV network called Current TV. I think we talked about this on the last time. Yeah, for many years prior. And so I had this professional role as an investigator of sorts. But I was between jobs

and I thought that having studied film in college that by doing a film, on the one hand, it would allow me to kind of, I guess guess again, to turn the pain that I was experiencing into some sort of purpose, you know, but on the other hand, it was a very selfish endeavor. It was a way for me to get to reach out to scientists and experts like, you know, first authors on papers that I was reading at the time.

Because you could say, hey, I'm making a documentary. Yeah, because I could say, hey, I'm making a documentary. And they would, you know, first authors on papers that I was reading at the time. Because you could say, hey, I'm making a documentary. Yeah, because I could say, hey, I'm making a documentary. And they would, you know, I had media credentials from my time as a journalist, but by doing a film, because I didn't have a media platform at the time. I wasn't on TV, I hadn't yet had a podcast, I hadn't written a book. I was like, essentially a nobody. Although I was verified on Twitter, you know,

because of my prior role as a journalist. So I thought that by doing a documentary, I could actually reach out to these experts who then would like respond to my email or get on the phone with me, or even better yet, allow me into their labs, who otherwise wouldn't give me the time of day. And so, you know, obviously it was amazing

that this idea would allow me to ultimately, you know, reach people and help inform people. At the beginning, it was kind of selfish. I was only getting 15 minutes in doctor's appointments with my mom and I wasn't learning anything of any real utility in terms of helping my mom. So, it was partially selfish. What are some of the skills that you learned from being a journalist? Like, what did, like, what, what, what did you take from that that applied to building like a documentary or even skills that you use today? Like, what are some of those skills?

I mean, I think it's, it was, it's mainly, you know, from a journalist standpoint, I mean, it's, it's fairly cut and dry. It's like, there's specific questions you ask yourself. It's like you just learn, you just learn how to ask questions. And I'd been, and I'd been a, you know, I'd been on TV in the U S I wasn't famous, but that's too vague for me. You got to get, there's gotta be like, I feel like, and I feel like you see this with good journalists. They have this ability in an interview. Yeah.

And this is why I'm selfishly curious about this. Yeah. Like, like this is always a good starter question or these are like things that you want to ask because there's probably lots like what are, what are some of those things that like you pick up on or you, or you learn or the do's or the don'ts like don't ever ask someone this right out the gates. Cause then you're going to get this type of answer. Yeah. Well, it's a weird thing. Cause I think it's like, part of it has to do with the fact that, you know,

I think you have to have a lot of emotional intelligence to be a good journalist. Um, and one of my mentors actually, when I was working at current TV, uh, David Newman, who was the president of programming, you know, he said that you always want to be, you always, you're, you have to remember that you're, you are always to be in the service of the audience. Like you are providing a service to the audience. You're not there to be cool. You're not there to, you know, flex how cool your job is.

Like you have to be adding value, you know, to the audience. And in this instance, I was really intent on, yes, adding value to whichever audience I would ultimately show this documentary to, but also like the value that I intended on adding to my mom's life by going into these like these experts labs and clinics. And yeah, you just, you know, you learn how to ask questions, how to, you know, ask very direct questions, for example, not yes or no questions,

but questions that allow, you know, your guests like you guys, you guys are journalists too. You know, I think it's a term that today, you questions but questions that allow your guests, like you guys. You guys are journalists too. I think it's a term that today, when I got started on TV as a journalist, we didn't really have podcasts and things like that the way that we do now, but I think what it takes to be a journalist, I think that has broadened out know, that has sort of like broadened out to encompass podcasters and just basically anybody who's curious with an open mind, who knows how to ask good questions and is interested in ultimately inspiring an audience to a greater vision of life. So because you guys do as well.

Because you have that background and you've also been, you know, you've been on TV shows, you've been on Rogan, you've done so many like big interviews. Do you like, are you able able to see that in the interview? Like can you, in real time where we're having a conversation, you're like, oh, that's really good what you did there. Did you get those feelings with Joe? Did you get those feelings with Dr. Oz? Do you get those feelings with certain journalists

that separate them from the average? Because you've done, I don't know, probably a thousand or hundreds for sure of interviews. Yeah. Like what are some of those things that like you notice or you recognize or are there certain people that you're like, they're really good and you don't realize, I think people underestimate how talented Joe is at what he does. Oh, he's like the best conversationalist on the planet pretty much. Right.

Right. And I think people, because he smokes weed and his cigar and drinks, people just think he's just like a bro or what that's like. Dude, don't underestimate the brilliance of what that man is doing for his audience. He's like covertly super intellectual. Yes. And that's like, I think Jordan Peterson,

I heard Jordan Peterson say that about him to him when he was on the show. And I was like, yeah, that is a really astute observation, you know, that like, you know, he doesn't present like the type of intellectual, um, you know, gargantuan that he is, but he is, you know, very disarming, right? Yeah, very disarming. Yeah. And I feel like you just, because we've had the opportunity to talk to Peterson, right? He's the opposite to me. He's so intellectual and he feels like he's looking in

your soul. Very intimidating. There's a part of you is like, I feel like everything I say, he's like hanging on every word that I'm saying. And so that's like not a great thing for interviews. I feel like, cause it's, cause it puts a wall up where Joe, I think it disarms it. Who else is like that? Whoever you had that are like those, those skills that you recognize when you, when you go through it. Could you rank them? You've been on so many, give me like top three or five.

Well, I think, you know, I think Dr. Oz is brilliant. I've, um, I was really impressed by him. Like, I mean, obviously in our world, in our health and wellness world, he gets a lot of flack, you know, for some of the claims that I guess he made on his TV show. But I was on his show a number of times, a ton of times actually. And I was always really impressed by his intellectual prowess. And, um, and he was always really kind to me and, you know, all the seconds that I ever did for him, I was like, you know, we're super buttoned up, super evidence-based, but, um, he's a really impressive guy. Um, I mean, Rogan's amazing.

You guys are amazing. So many good people in the space now. And we make top three, bro. really? Yeah. What, really? Yeah. Wow, that's a- We're all, that's because we're here. All right. It's just that on every fucking- So we keep inviting him back.

Who else? Like, I mean, Peterson's amazing. I've seen him do some interviews when we're at the arc, you know, kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's great. Especially with other intellects, that's what he's like really good at, right?

Yeah, yeah. Well, I, you know, I wanted to ask you, when you were doing this, this documentary, you said something about it giving you some meaning, you know, what was going on. Um, I could see how, if, if, if I went through something like that with someone I really cared for, how getting behind the camera could remove me

enough to allow me to process or deal with the, like it's that's, that's, that's, that's a intense, long, painful, traumatic, difficult period. Did it help you in that way? Was it helpful to be able to get the camera on and document so you could kind of be like, okay, I'm making this versus like I'm in this?

I mean, it was definitely difficult. Cause you know, when you watch Little Empty Boxes, you know, I'm, it's a really unique dementia film. I think it's, because I watched a lot of dementia films, documentaries, before and during the production of this, just to get a sense of what else was out there. And I think the fact that I'm the co-director of the project, but I also am the son

of the person suffering from the condition. And I was able to, it gave me the opportunity to film really intimate moments with my mom that I think give a really raw portrait of what it's like to have dementia that I don't think has been, you know, captured the way, you know, that way. I think probably only people who have gone through it would probably understand. Exactly. But I mean, it was incredibly hard. I mean, there are scenes where I get asked, like, how the hell did you continue to hold the camera,

like when your mom was confessing all that to you? And I think it really just comes down to just how much I loved my mom and how much I, you know, like I felt what it was that she was going through and I, and, and wanted to, in a way, you know, immortalize that, you know, I'm not, and I, and I don't necessarily know that I was conscious of it, but I knew that things were getting worse and worse and worse over time. It's a degenerative condition after all. Knowing how bad she could potentially get, I think it was probably on a subconscious level important for me to document and put like a timestamp on, you know, my mom as she was in that moment. When you finished it, did you watch it or did you wait a long time and are you able to watch it?

How does it feel to watch it? Because now it's out, it's coming out, you know, you guys, you're doing releases, great reviews, by the way. Like, how does it feel to watch it? Did you watch it right, great reviews, by the way. How does it feel to watch it? Did you watch it right away? Yeah, I watch it. It's hard for me to, we've done a number of screenings and premieres at this point.

We're in New York, in LA, San Francisco. As hard as it is to watch, it captures my mom so perfectly that for me, I feel like I'm getting to spend an hour and 40 minutes with my mom. That's got to be cool. Oh, wow. Again, you know. That's got to be cool.

Now, I wanted to ask you about, like, as you're kind of putting this all together, because obviously you want to portray her in the best light possible and like how your vision for this in terms of of the actual story. And as you're going through the editing process, did that story change for you in terms of seeing those moments and then putting it together, the initial thought of what the story was going to be, did it change at all? Pete Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, initially, I wanted to make more of a nutrition documentary, which I think is like what most people would probably expect

if they were to just stumble across the work today. But we achieved a rough cut of the film sometime in 2017 and it followed more my journey, which made sense for me at the time because I had just come off this gig as a journalist on TV. So the original cut of the documentary was, which we achieved around 2017, was more like, let's follow Max as he investigates why people are getting demented.

But it didn't have my mom as the beating heart of the documentary, the way Little Empty Boxes places her at the beating heart of the story. I think that that's the reason why the film is so powerful, because it really is, it's my mom's story. It's a story that's relatable to anybody who's ever had a loved one with any kind of chronic disease, certainly anybody who's ever experienced dementia up close and personal the way that I have. And so we took a lot of the more prescriptive stuff out of the film and now it pretty much,

it pains with broad strokes, sort of like how the food supply has changed over the past 30, 40 years. The predominance of ultra know, of ultra processed foods, for example, and what that could potentially be doing to, you know, to our brain health, the, you know, the ever increasing role of stress in chronic disease.

Um, we talk about the fact that chronic surgeries actually put people, this is something that like, you know, my co-director surfaced from one of my interviews that I wasn't even intending on putting in the original cut of the film, that chronic surgeries actually present a threat to the brain. You know, every time you go under the knife. Do you think it's the anesthesia or the actual trauma of the surgery? I think it's both. So I think it's like, it's likely, you know, the anesthesia,

but it's also a shift in the microbiome that occurs, you know, like in the hospital setting. And just try, it's a traumatic experience for the body. I mean, you can operate it on. Yeah. And in the, in the hospital setting, I mean, muscle loss happens. Yeah.

Yeah. There's a lot of factors. I think something like, I forget the exact statistic, but we, we, Suzanne De La Monte, who's like, I think one of the – she's one of the goats in the space and who's done a lot of – published a lot of really incredible research in the field of dementia prevention and just dementia generally. She talks about that. My co-director actually, Chris Newhard, as he began working on the film, his mother-in-law was cognitively healthy, underwent a surgery for, I don't know what, came out requiring full-time care with diagnosis.

Immediately out of the surgery? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's got to be the anesthesia in a case like that. Cause we don't even really know how, you read about that? We still even know how it really works. Isn't that crazy?

Yeah. It's the, we don't, it's the weirdest, it's the weirdest thing. And there's definitely neuronal changes, uh, that happen through that process. Yeah. And we don't know a hundred percent how the hell this works and why you wake up and not

remember anything. Yeah. I went under for, I mean, I had like this stem cell stuff recently. You went under for that? I mean, I don't know, I don't think it's general anesthesia. So I don't know, I don't think it's general anesthesia. So I don't know.

I don't, I'm not like super clear on the different types of- General is you go to sleep and you wake up later. Yeah. But it was like sedation. I think they call it Twilight or something. Okay. I wasn't conscious.

I mean, I was like lying on the table one minute. The next minute I was like waking up in the recovery room. Oh wow. But- What did you do? I don't remember what you did. Yeah. What'd you do? Dr. Con. No, I know you did. Do you saw him? What's, what's, what's the one that was like the IV drip? Cause that doesn't require that.

Would you know? Well I got that and then he injected a PRP and exosomes like into, into my discs. Oh, cause your back pain. How do you feel since then by the way? Yeah, I've seen, uh, I've seen an improvement. Yeah. I'm not going to say that it's healed or cured or cured or anything. Interesting. Um, that's similar to how I felt about it too. It was like, and it's your, that hasn't been six months, right? He says the effects keep, that's what I've heard. It's been about, it's been about two months for me.

Okay. Yeah. So it's good. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. But I went out, you know, I was like, I don't know if that was general anesthesia or I feel like there's like a nuance in the terminology. So I don't, I don't exactly know, but, but yeah, I know, I mean, it's all it's, I've now become more cognizant of that, you know, like. Yeah.

I have a question around the pollution and, and Alzheimer's dementia. Cause I've seen some, some studies and articles where they're like making some pretty strong connections between certain pollutants and risk of dementia. Yeah. What have you uncovered around that? Yeah. As of the 2020, there was a paper published in Lancet, the 2020 Lancet Commission on Dementia finally identified chronic exposure to air pollution as a modifiable risk factor for Alzheimer's disease.

And it's true, I mean, you inhale stuff, I mean, you absorb it, whether it's fine particulate matter or it's volatile organic compounds. Air pollution definitely plays a role in brain disease. And in fact, they've done studies where they've looked at children, like cadavers, you know, people who've died across the age span. Children all the way up to senior citizens. They found that people who are at higher exposure to find particulate matter, they have Alzheimer's-like pathology in their brains, like across the age spectrum. Wow.

Yeah. But what's really interesting is, so there's a neurologist who I connected with recently named Dr. Ray Dorsey, who wrote a fantastic book on, it's called Ending Parkinson's Disease. He's one of the only neurologists that I've encountered who has, he hasn't just written a book, he's published medical literature on Parkinson's disease, but from the standpoint of prevention. He's identified some really common pollutants that he believes dramatically increase risk for Parkinson's disease, if not are altogether causal. We think pollutants, we think automatically car exhaust, but it's other stuff too.

Yeah. I mean, it's like industrial compounds, uh, volatile organic compounds. It's like, you know, it could be these forever chemicals, herbicides, pesticides. Um, there's a compound called trichloroethylene TCE, which has been used for almost a century at this point in food and medicine, although it was banned from food and medicine in the seventies, but it's used predominantly in now in dry cleaning applications and it's used as a degreaser in certain industrial applications.

And it's still being used frequently like in the United States. And he's published a really clear causal link and it's still being used frequently like in the United States. He's published a really clear causal link between exposure to TCE and one of its replacement chemicals, I think it's called PCE and Parkinson's disease, which it's essentially like a mitochondrial poison to the brain. Wow. And they've done small epidemiologic studies where they found that exposure to this compound is associated with a 500% increased risk for the development of Parkinson's disease and associated conditions like Lewy body dementia and the like. And if you work

in the automotive industry, if you work in garment manufacturing, if you dry clean your clothes regularly. I mean, there's a good chance that you're being exposed to this like TCE compound, which is, yeah, I mean, do we have to, does Alzheimer's and dementia, do we see that in animals? Does that happen naturally animals? I know we induce it. How would you test that? I mean, there's some people believe that like they're, you know, they're, they're dogs and obviously like house pets today are essentially exposed to the standard American diet as well. And they eat 100% processed food.

Yeah, they eat 100% processed food, you know? But no, to my knowledge, yeah, animals don't, I mean, primates don't develop Alzheimer's disease. Okay. This is such a hard conversation too, because of the fact that the way science approaches this, like to like prove what you're talking about wrong or right is we isolate this thing. And then we go, oh, there's no way that that's causing that or that's connected. And what you don't take into account is the entourage effect of all of these things. What do we have out there to... Because that's got to be one of the most frustrating things for you to be explaining

a lot of the science and these things like that. And I know you get people on the other side of the aisle here that are just like, Oh, that's so you could have a 5,000 times that amount and it not cause cancer or cause any issues. But it's like, yeah, but you compound that with this and this and this and this. Nobody's testing everything. Nobody's testing that all together. We don't have anything for that. And so sure, maybe in an, if that's all that person ever was exposed to, but that. And so sure, maybe if that's all that person ever was exposed to, but that's not.

In reality, they're getting exposed to all of these things. Like, what do we have to support people like you or your arguments in that direction of you guys need to be more aware of this stuff? And it's scarier than, and it's like, and not being alarmist at the same time, but it's something that we should be more. Well, it's a great question. I fear, I feel for people because, you know,

we do live in a time where now there's like a lot of like this fear mongering, fear based content on social media. And I think most of it is garbage, you know, there's a lot of really bad stuff out there and it leads people to, you know, to fear, you know, otherwise helpful foods and to, and to, you know, it creates increased anxiety and stress and things like that. We don't need any more anxiety and stress than we already have. I do think that practicing the precautionary principle makes sense.

The less time a food or a product has been in the human food supply, I think the greater the skepticism we should have about that product regularly placing in our lives or in our diets. It seems very logical. Yeah, it seems very logical, but you get – there's a lot of pushback today. At the end of the day, these large food companies, the food, agricultural pharmaceutical complex, we like to think that they have our backs implicitly, but they don't. I mean, everybody's just like, it's the bottom line.

Well, yeah, they're there to sell a product and that's what they're supposed to do, but we have to scrutinize things a little bit more carefully in my opinion. When it comes to exercise, you mentioned exercise and you know, the brain is part of the body, so things that make your body healthy tend to make the brain healthy. Or do you see any difference in different forms

of exercise in terms of its effect on preventing Alzheimer's? You mentioned type three diabetes. I talked about this. I've talked about this before and how strength training is so good for improving insulin sensitivity. Is there any data on different forms of exercise for dementia and Alzheimer's?

And do we see some are better than the others? Well, this is where like, you know, your guys' expertise and, and, you know, dementia prevention, there needs to be a marriage between the two because we see that the level of insulin resistance in the periphery is correlated strongly actually to the degree of hypometabolism in the brain.

So the more insulin resistant you are in the periphery, IE in your body and your liver and your muscles, the more your brain, the more the brain seems to struggle with generating ATP from glucose, which is one of the sort of primary hallmark features of Alzheimer's disease. And Alzheimer's disease, the brain's ability to generate ATP from glucose is diminished by about

50%, but that relationship, there seems to be, you know, a direct relationship between the same factors that we might, you know, do in our lives to foster insulin sensitivity and an improvement in brain health. So, if it's resistance training, which I believe it is that resistance training is one of the best things that you can do to foster whole body insulin sensitivity, then that's what we should be doing for our brains. So, that's the mechanism, right?

Now we're starting to see data coming out showing us that like, for example, leg strength is correlated to better brain health across the age spectrum. Um, so yeah, so I think, I think resistance training is, is crucial. And we're now seeing meta-analyses come out showing us that resistance training is really important from the standpoint of mental health. I think mental health is a fantastic surrogate proxy indicator of brain health. Depression is actually a modifiable risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. So you have to kind of like, and this is another benefit of being a journalist,

is like, you know, PhDs, they're trained to focus on these tiny microcosms of science. Medical doctors are technicians. They're trained to identify symptoms and prescribe the best drug, you know, to mitigate the symptomology of whatever the disease state is. But I think to really see the full picture, you have to be able to zoom out and think creatively. Yeah, because the brain is unique in the sense that you have the physical brain, and then you have the mind, which is your concept of self and how you think and your psychology. And you can't separate the two.

Like if the physical brain is unhealthy, it's going to affect the mind. And if the mind isn't healthy, I think it'll affect the brain as well, just through behaviors. And so you can't really separate the two, but they are, but they do obviously very strongly influence each other. And so from a exercise and diet perspective,

do the things that make your body as healthy as possible. Yeah. And then from a mind perspective, this has more to do with finding purpose, meaning, you know, some of the old, you know, maybe, you know, practices around wisdom would probably be valuable, but I don't think it's one or the other. I think it's, you have to do it all because you

could definitely read and work on wisdom and allow your body to decay and you'll probably lose your mind as well or vice versa. Yeah. Yeah. And mental, we're seeing now the connection between systemic inflammation, for example, and depression. It's called the, it's being referred to as the cytokine, the inflammatory cytokine model of depression. Yeah. That, you know, for example, inflammatory mediators produced in the gut, you know, and signaling molecules can end up, you know.

You know what worries me about that? It's not that I don't think that we should look there. I think that's, because I've looked at this as well, and I think there's a lot, there seems to be a lot there. But what worries me about it is then what we tend to do is be like, this is the fix. Yeah. Fix the inflammation, depression will be all but gone.

Or you can have physiological depression. You can also have psychological depression and they both communicate with each other and influence each other, but you could have no inflammation and be healthy, but also have some real issues with depression and meaning and stuff like that. So I think there's a big picture that we tend to miss when we look at those things. Yeah, inflammation is not the sole cause. We're living amidst, I think, like really stressful times

and many of us are in spiritual crisis, you know. I'm thinking of Arthur Brooks, he's like one of your heroes. He's a great guy, but... Have you had him on your show? You did, right? Yeah, he's great. Yeah, he's awesome. He's another one of your heroes. He's a great guy. Have you had him on your show? You did, right? Yeah, he's great. Yeah. Yeah, he's awesome. He's another one of those intellectual powerhouses.

Yeah, I mean, it's a multifaceted problem. I think there's certainly a subset of depressed people for whom diet, inflammation is playing a role. It's certainly not all patients with depression. But- You know what's interesting about this too, is because when you look at, um, the reason why I find this so such a great, uh, discussion is when you look at the, how exercise affects the body and the brain physiologically,

um, some profound effects, but you can't separate out the mental effects or psychological effects of the pursuit, right? Like getting up, going to the gym, oh, it hurts, but I, you know, I'm changing my relationship to pain. Oh, you know, self-acceptance, I'm not going to look like Arnold, but I'm going to keep doing this anyway. I'm going to pursue this. And the growth process has got to also positively contribute to things like depression and anxiety. So I don't think you could take a pill. I mean, the reason why I'm saying this is I don't think we can give you a pill that creates all the physiological effects of exercise.

I don't think you get the benefits of exercise. Is, is. We get some of them. Is the research that, that supports the exercise being so beneficial towards like dimension, things like that. Is it, is it, and I'm sure it's all of these things, but I'm curious to like, what carries

the most weight, increased muscle, increased strength, or just the act of exercising itself? Because there's such a wide, very muscle, increased strength, or just the act of exercising itself, because there's such a wide variance in how, how effective it could be. Like it's one thing just to go in the gym and just lift a bunch of weights. And of course it has benefits, blood flow,

oxygen, moving nutrients around, digestive, like I can think of a whole host of things. And maybe you even build a tiny bit of muscle along the way, even if it's by accident. But then there's a whole different like approach of like, man, I actually am going on this muscle building journey and I'm going to build lots of strength and lots of muscle.

And I would imagine that the person who just goes and exercises and maybe adds one pound of muscle, but is moving, exercising has positive benefits. And then the person who actually goes out and builds 10, 15 pounds of muscle because they did it more appropriately. I would think that. Well, 15 pounds of muscle because they did it more appropriately, I would think that. Well, the best studies correct me if I'm wrong, Max,

just show the correlation between strength and health. And strength is a proxy for muscle. I mean, that's how they test it. Yeah, like grip strength usually. Yeah. Although, you know, who's not, who doesn't see an increase in happiness when they see themselves getting more jacked in the mirror.

Right. I mean, that's what I'm saying. Like the person who like approaches strength training period, I think, I think we'd all agree like, Hey, go from not doing anything to doing something as a huge bunch of positive benefits. Then there's like another level to that of like doing it very effectively. And like, how much more does that compound? If you are seeing a physical change, you look much better, you feel much better, you're getting significantly stronger. You added 10 pounds of muscle. And when you guys talk about insulin sensitivity, things like that,

that's even, that's going to get even better. Yeah. So like, is there, it'd be interesting to see what the, I'm not as familiar as the two of you with the like exactly what the literature says. Yeah. Because we have exercise on strength training that show which forms produce the best performance improvements, but I don't think they're, they've gone as far as to say, you know, these groups of strength training, we know it's going to benefit, you know, brain function.

This group falls this program, this group falls this pro which program. Yeah. I feel like there would be a, don't you think there would be a, well, I think, I think there's also merit to muscle size as well. I mean, there, there have been studies looking at what's the storage vessel for exactly for glucose. Yeah. Like the more pear shaped body versus the apple shaped body and the apple shaped body being indicative of visceral fat. Whereas, you know, if you've got a bigger butt, you know, it's like,

you're able to store more glucose. You know, if you've got a bigger butt, you know, it's like you're able to store more glucose. You know, you would have to assume that the, the greater your muscle size, the more these like various mitochondria are produced, like BDNF, for example, which is like thought to be a miracle grow protein for the brain. Yeah. Um, this is why too, and the reason why I'm

going this direction is, and it feels like we're you, you earlier said like, you know, why I'm going this direction is, and it feels like you earlier said like, you know, exercise is becoming more prescriptive now. Like doctors are finally waking up, we're getting enough research that's supporting the benefits of it. The next layer to that to me is how. It's how. It's like, great, we got people understanding that go lift weights because there's plenty

of stuff to support, but then I feel like, boy, there's a huge difference between the person who goes and does orange theory to go exercise and not to knock them or pick on them because that still is better than that person not doing anything and huge benefits. But then the person who actually goes out, eats adequate protein, builds lots of gills and gets stronger and adds 10, 15 pounds of muscle, both physically that they look and then also internally what they just built. You know what might be good data to look at? I brought this up for one of our episodes earlier. I looked at pro bodybuilders and the reason why I picked pro bodybuilders is because they definitely are not an example of good health. This is extreme. Pro bodybuilders are building

muscles good for you, but the way that pro bodybuilders pursue it is not healthy. I mean, these guys are using all kinds of substances, drugs and performance force feeding themselves like it is so extreme. Okay. And I looked up the data on pro bodybuilders and heart disease, kidney disease and cancer, heart disease and kidney disease were higher than the average, uh, which you would expect with their lifestyles. Their cancer rates were lower.

Interesting. So cause muscle has such a protective effect on cancer. I wonder what dementia and Alzheimer's would be among the bodybuilding population. That's, that's really. Because they're unhealthy across the board, but they just have so much muscle. I wonder if it would cancel out the fact that they use

steroids, growth hormones, and all these other crazy things at super high doses, if it would cancel it out because the muscle, the correlation between muscle and dementia. You bring up an interesting point Adam, because that makes me think of like we have so much like, I mean in terms of looking at different medications, like we're very like critical about like, you know,

the outcome of those different medications that we prescribe and we're really not that intense about looking at the type of exercise, the type of programming, the, you know, that's massively different. Huge. I guarantee the doctor just says go do the foet. Yeah. And that there's how you do that is a huge difference. And everything from the psychological stuff we're talking about to insulin sensitivity, to the strength, to like, I mean, it's wild to me that so I still think we have such a long ways to go. It's like, thank God doctors are finally waking up and saying it can be prescribed as like one of the best ways

to prevent things that, but the next layer to that is like, hey, by the way, that's just, that's just scratching the surface. This could be exponentially better if you do it right. If you actually approach it like with, with some sort of methodology, not just like go move, you know, which great you're moving. And that was better than eating Doritos.

Still throwing spaghetti on the wall. It really is. Like we still. Yeah. That's why I think personal trainers are so amazing. Like, cause they're the front lines for most people's health journeys. 100, 100, 100 percent. I 100 percent believe that the, like the need for our profession is only grown in the, in the last decade. For good trainers. Yeah. Yeah. And when they're getting more educated, like the

amount of information, I mean, God, could you imagine if you were a trainer and you found these three knuckleheads talking like we do? Like, boy, I would have been good by year three, you know, maybe even year two if I would have- Yeah, it took me 15 years. Yeah, it's that it was terrible for at least a decade. Max, when was the first premiere of the

documentary? When did you first release it to the public and had actual people come to a theater and watch it? We, in New York, in- Your hometown. Yeah, my hometown, yeah, which is where the film takes place. And we did two, we had two sold out showings

at a theater on 57th Street. And then we did the LA premieres in San Francisco, Chicago, and it was just so great to go out. How was it the first time it was in a theater, you sat in the theater, it's on the big screen. Were you nervous? Like was it weird?

Oh yeah. You know, I'm so proud of it and I credit my producing partner, my co-director for the project and Chris Newhard who co-directed the film with me. And I'm, yeah, Ictor for the project and, you know, Chris Newhard, who co-directed the film with me. And I'm, yeah, I mean, I guess I was nervous to see how people, because it is, it's such a personal film too.

Right. So I was nervous to see. It would hurt to be criticized a little bit. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, because I'd be so scared, like we're watching, like, looking at the audience, like, do they think it sucks?

Like, do they like it? No, no, no, it's, I know that I'm biased, but I didn't edit the film, so I feel like I could talk more objectively about the editing of it. I think my editor, co-director did a fantastic job. It's like... I think it's... I mean, I definitely think it's the most... It's the most raw and intimate portrait of dementia that's ever been captured on film

and it's also the only film to cover the science of dementia prevention. It's both a film that I think many people are going to relate to. Whether or not they've had dementia in their family tree, but certainly people that have experienced dementia are going to find it incredibly relatable. They're going to be able to find solace in it and feel the sense truly and deeply that they're not alone in this fight. But then also it's going to provide, I think, and again, I didn't make it to be like one of these nutrition documentaries, but I do think that it does kind of paint the portrait, the landscape of the current food environment better than any other

nutrition documentary has done thus far. We're going to go watch it tomorrow. Probably because you didn't do it with that intent, where I feel like all any other nutrition documentary is done thus far. We're going to go watch it probably because you, probably because you didn't do it with that intent where I feel like all the other nutrition documentaries were done with like an agenda. Yeah. Again, there's no, like you watch it, there's no magical diet that's prescribed. Right. It's not like you're watching one of these propaganda pieces on, you know, like there are no easy answers because at the end of the day, I wasn't able to save my mom, you know?

So it's not like I came out of it as like a zealot for one. We're going to go watch it tomorrow. Am I going to cry, Max? Cause I don't like crying in public. Is it one of the, is it, it's a tearjerker, isn't it? I think you might. Yeah, that's exactly why they want to watch it before. You wanted us to watch it before and then I'm like, I can't handle like two. Cause like, I watched it. The Christ, you watch it one time. That's it. You know, you should handle that twice.

When I came back, I went to do an interview and I was on, he got me I was on his show and then I, right before I left to get on the plane, he's, Oh, you gotta watch this. The teaser. Yeah, I did. I watched it. I got all choked up. Thanks buddy. Now I'm going to go get on a plane. So I'm really tough. I'm completely ignorant to this space. So if it's a stupid question, I apologize. But I'm so curious to like, uh, how, like, how this process works as far as like from here, like what

is considered a huge success awards? Can this turn into a big thing and actually produce? What are you looking for? Yeah. In terms of like where it goes from here. Thank you for that. I mean, I don't know. I'm just, you know, we've done it fully independently. We've been, we submitted it early on to a number of different like film festivals, you know, thinking that that might be the appropriate. Yeah, does something like this go to Sundance or something like that? Or does that- We got ignored basically, because these festivals are all incredibly political.

It's all about who you know. Of course. You know? You did get an award though, I saw. Yeah, we got a laurel, so we got best story from Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival. Great. Yeah, which is cool. But we only submitted it to like a handful.

We, you know, honestly, and this is me being vulnerable, I really did want to get into Tribeca because the film takes place in New York. Mm-hmm. And I'd worked with Tribeca before and the film, it's a great film, you know, but like, you never know what these festivals want these days. It's like, again, it's very political.

It's like, did you get your money from the right organization or film fund or whatever? And I did this, like we did this whole thing myself. Like, I mean, not myself, I worked with an incredible team, but we did it all completely independently. And I've been working on this film for 10 years, you know? And the team that helped me bring it to life, they came on board about three years ago and made it the masterpiece that I think it is. But I mean, this has been something that it's just been a labor of love. Nobody, like it's out of my own sheer will, it's something that I've just continued to push forward.

And we did a crowdfunding campaign, which was amazing, but Hollywood is very nepotistic. Like it's not a secret. It's like all about who you know, it's, you know. So is it even, I mean, is it even possible to break through because of that or is it like, well I think it's, I think it's possible. Um, Hollywood is also very risk averse. So if you can show data, once you show independently that you're doing well, maybe they'll say, okay,

it's kind of like the book game then a little bit. Yeah. A little bit like you get invited to. Yeah, a little bit like that. Do you get invited to a Diddy party or anything like that? But I'm, I'm hoping, I'm hoping that we get, you know, the appreciation, the Hollywood appreciation of the film deserves. Like that would be amazing. Like I love Hollywood. Like I, you know, I live in it pretty much, but, um, but no, you know, you have to kind of just do the things that you want to do. I think once you release the expectation that anybody else is going to support you,

it makes you a lot more sovereign of a creator, of an entity in this world. That's how I've approached my career thus far. Do you want to make more film? Ask me after this one's been done. Yeah, ask me after. I don't know. I mean, it was a real journey. It was a slog.

And I think I would if it was able to be in partnership with one of these like streamers and it would, and they, you know, if, if it were somehow more turnkey. Um, is that possible? Like a, like a Netflix decides to pick this up? It's totally possible. Okay. It's totally possible. That's what I'm looking for is like how, like what come, what comes from here? And I know you didn't say anything about like the monetization part and money

and so that, cause you're just like, Sal, you don't really care about any of that stuff. Yeah, I know you didn't say anything about like the monetization part and money and so that because you're just like Sal you don't really care about any of that stuff. I don't yeah. Yeah I know you don't you're you've always been that way since today I've known you and so but is it possible to actually make your money back and actually make some money on this? Well it is. I know that wasn't the intent. It's possible you know and I would so we're gonna do we're gonna do we're doing an independent release we're putting the film on littleemptyboxes.com. People can rent it or buy it. And that's the way to really support independent filmmaking. It's just the way to support my project.

But, you know, it does give me hope. Well, on the one hand, Netflix is obviously, and these, you know, streamers, Netflix being, I guess, the most, the one that comes to mind because they tend to get behind these like diet focused documentaries so often. It's disheartening that they continually seem to get behind these nutrition documentaries that seem to have this like vegan bias. I don't really understand.

You know why? Because I think that just because they're more polarizing. They're more polarizing, they get more, yeah, more vitality. I think they have a political goal, that's what I think. It's possible. I don't know. But then they also go to the other side.

I've seen Netflix, Netflix does that. They go both sides. Yeah, they'll have like grilling. Yes. Or like they'll, you know, I think they care about it being, I think they care more about it being polarizing and it going viral and people arguing about it.

And if you don't, if you didn't take a hard stance, you know, like you need to eat this way or you're gonna die, you know, like if you didn't do a hard stance, you know, like you need to eat this way or you're going to die. You know, like if you didn't do that and scare people, you're not going to get the people that get behind it that are already drink the Kool-Aid and you're not going to get the people that are like, are offended by it, that want to fight it. And so that's, I would guess that's what it has more to do with and then the political side.

Of course. Yeah. It's so frustrating though, you know, cause it's like the twin, the Netflix twins twin study, the blue zones show, what the hell, like all of these, like, you know, cause it's like the twin, the Netflix twins twin study, the blue zones show, what the hell, like all of these like, you know, and they're terrible. They're terrible. Yeah. And they're like misleading and all that stuff. And so, yeah, I mean, I, I tried to do the best that I could, you know, with, uh, with this and not make any, there's, you know, again, it's not, it's not a carnivore documentary. It's not like, you know, again, it's not, it's not a carnivore documentary. It's not like, you know, I think, um, people lately, you know, or for the past couple of years, I've definitely like leaned in on promoting, I think

the foods that are the most stigmatized, those primarily being red meat, eggs, things like that today, the film doesn't really, you know, go into that at all. It's about just the, this notion that just this notion that now for the first time, this idea that we can potentially reduce our risk for dementia, even possibly prevent it in a significant number of cases, is now creating wider acceptance even within the nutritional or the medical orthodoxy. Then we do have some dietary take-h homes and things like that. Again, it's super illuminating, but it's not sort of like a, you know, there is no sort of like one size fits all diet.

Cause that's not reality. There is no such thing as a one size fits all diet or exercise regimen. And if you suggest as such, I mean, you're wrong. Yeah, you're wrong. How's your family feel about this? Your brother, your dad, I mean, everybody's gotta be excited. Yeah, they gave me a lot of shit when I was filming.

But now they're very proud of it and they're super happy. And my middle brother actually came to the LA premiere the other day, the other night, and he, I don't know him to be the most emotional guy, but he cried during the film. Yeah, and he said that he felt like he was like back in the room, like with mom. And that to me was, you know, I mean, that was the best thing to hear. And that's how I feel about it, you know,

and, and anyone who's ever lost a parent or loved one, like it's really, it's really hard. Speaking of that, what, what are the numbers on that of people that have somebody in their family that suffer from the disease or what, how close is it to most people? Like it's pretty close. I mean, Alzheimer's disease in the U S I believe about 6 million people have it. Um,

that number is set to at least triple, um, in the coming years. Wow. Yeah. And it's a caregiver's disease. So I mean, it's like, it's obviously really hard for the person going through it. Um, but it's a caregiver's disease. So, I mean, it's like, it's obviously really hard for the person going through it. Um, but it's, it's such an incredibly taxing disease for the family. They say that, you know, once you, you know,

somebody, you lose somebody with Alzheimer's disease twice, you lose them essentially when their cognitive faculties go and then you lose them obviously when they pass away. Cause the condition is terminal. And so it's, it's really hard, you know. You know, Max, you brought up ATP is creatine. Have they found creatine to be beneficial as either

preventative or because of how it increases ATP? It's a super interesting question. Creatine is really important for the brain and people who are genetically at risk, uh, for Alzheimer's disease seem to have lower levels of brain creatine. Um, and we do see that, you know, supplemental creatine does seem to improve cognitive performance. Um, and I think that's one of the reasons why so many people seem to be talking

about creatine now, because it's not just You know about the longevity performance. Yeah, people are now talking about it as like this really important longevity supplement. There's a Fantastic Canadian researcher named Darren Crandall. I don't know if you guys have had him on the show, but he's um Published a lot on creatine and it's like really write that down. No. Yeah, Darren Crandall or Cando I forget the exact last name, but he's been on my show. He's a super legit researcher, but yeah, that's a hard sell. Like, I mean, you know, I don't know if you'd be able to get like your average middle-aged woman to supplement with creatine, you know, cause it's so closely associated with bodybuilding and stuff like that.

We've been trying to change that for like the last, I mean, eight, nine years. Yeah, we've been talking about it. Pretty early on, Sal was coming out and talking about, I mean, he predicted that like nine years ago, that it will get marketed as a health supplement. It is. And I predict it to be like put right there with multivitamins, stuff like that,

because of all the positive research around it. So they'll give it to kids. We're gonna start giving it to kids and pregnant women is my prediction. Yep, absolutely. Max, I'm excited to my prediction. Yep, yep, absolutely. Max, I'm excited to watch this. Yeah, tomorrow. I'm very excited to watch this.

I'm so proud of you, dude. Yeah, we're very proud of you. You're such a good guy. Anytime somebody asks me about you, I mean, you're one of the best people I know, very genuine, very good man. My goal is that it's profitable from at least the support of our community going out there,

and if you can't go to renting it and doing that, because I know you don't really care about that, but I think you deserve that, so you should at least. You're one of the best people in the space. Thank you for your support, so I appreciate it. And I'm probably going to cry, and so I'm not going to want to talk to anybody afterwards. I don't like doing that.

Oh man. But I'll watch you with sunglasses. Yeah, that's tough. And it's great to hear how you talk about your family. You love them so much, so I'm sure they're so proud. I'm sure your mom is really proud of you right now, too. Thank you, brother. Yeah, yeah. Appreciate it.

Thank you, man. It means a lot. Love you guys. Thanks. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance,

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