Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Jay Lombard On: Brain Science for Better Lives EP 75

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

Dr. Jay Lombard is an internationally acclaimed neurologist, author, and keynote speaker who creates solutions for brain health and intractable neurological disorders. He sits down with John R Miles to talk about brain science for better lives and his research that are allowing both the prevention and treatment of neurological disorders such as ALS, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s. New to the passion-struck podcast? Check out our starter packs which are our favorite episodes grouped by topic, to allow you to get a sense of all the podcast has to offer. Go to https://passionstruck.com/starter-packs/. Like this? Please subscribe, and join me on my new platform for peak performance, life coaching, and personal growth: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles/. Mentioned In this Episode: Everything ALS, https://www.everythingals.org/. Also, check out Dr. Jay Lombard’s book: The Mind of God: https://amzn.to/3pBoUts. Thank you for listening to the Passion Struck podcast. John explores the research that Dr. Lombard is doing to detect the root cause of Alzheimer’s, CTE, ALS, and Parkinson’s disease and new clinical approaches to treat them and reverse their impact. Dr. Lombard goes into new MRI technology called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies and how they are helping doctors understand brain flow. We also discuss his book The Mind of God in detail and the fundamental questions it answers.  Dr. Lombard integrates biological, psychological, and existential components in his holistic treatment approach. He is the co-founder and creator of Genomind, a medicine company utilizing genetic testing to improve neuropsychiatric conditions, including Alzheimer’s, Autism, and Depression. He is also the founder of the Brain Performance program at LifeSpan medicine with Dr. Chris Renna. SHOW NOTES 0:00 Introduction 3:49 What led Jay to want to study the brain 7:37 Healing progressive neurological diseases 11:32 How to shift your beliefs in a positive direction 13:02 Using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to see the seat of the soul 17:31 Breaking Down Misfolded Proteins 22:20 Impact of the glymphatic system 24:54 New treatments for reversing neurodegenerative diseases 30:37 Use of Omega-3 in TBI Treatment 32:25 The use of hormone therapy for TBI 35:03 Integrated treatment approach 39:19 Why do so many people feel hopeless 41:58 Interface of our physicality with our mind 48:51 Faith and consciousness Follow Dr. Jay Lombard Website: https://www.drjaylombard.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MindfulNeuro Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjaylombard/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dr-Jay-Lombard-385420125187552/   ENGAGE WITH JOHN R. MILES * Subscribe to my channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles * Leave a comment, 5-star rating (please!) * Support me: https://johnrmiles.com * Twitter: https://twitter.com/Milesjohnr * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Johnrmiles.c0m. * Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles​ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles ABOUT JOHN R. MILES * https://johnrmiles.com/my-story/ * Guides: https://johnrmiles.com/blog/ * Coaching: https://passionstruck.com/coaching/ * Speaking: https://johnrmiles.com/speaking-business-transformation/ * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_struck PASSION STRUCK *Subscribe to Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passion-struck-podcast/id1553279283 *Website: https://passionstruck.com/ *About: https://passionstruck.com/about-passionstruck-johnrmiles/ *Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast *LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/passionstruck *Blog: https://passionstruck.com/blog/  

I think that we are living in a world and no thanks to media, which kind of, you know, thrives on saying how bad things are, which they are. You know, there's no question that they are. But I think people are feeling a deep sense collectively, not even individually, of hopelessness. And through hopelessness comes sort of a retraction of socialization. consciousness comes sort of a retraction of socialization. So we're kind of living in a perfect storm, if you will, given that COVID-19 has kind of exacerbated whatever xenophobia we've had pre-COVID-19. It's now xenophobia on steroids. Who's vaccinated?

Who's not vaccinated? You know, why are you not vaccinated? And it's kind of like we're living in a medically induced xenophobia consciousness, couple to the previous social phobias that are really normal. I mean, people are, we're xenophobic because that's just part of our feet, our survival mechanisms that we've had to, to survive, but it's a perfect storm right now. Welcome Visionaries, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, and growth seekers of all types to the Passion Struck podcast. Hi, I'm John Miles, a

Pete Performance Coach, Malti Industries CEO, Navy Veteran, and Entrepreneur on a mission to make Passion go viral for millions worldwide. In each week I do so by sharing with you an inspirational message and interviewing high achievers from all walks of life to unlock their secrets and lessons to become a passionate struck. The purpose of our show is to serve you the listener by giving you tips, tasks, and activities. You can use to achieve peak performance and for two, a passion-driven life you have always wanted to have.

Now, let's become PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to the PassionStruck podcast, an episode 75 with Dr. J. Lombard. Thank you to all of you who come back each and every week to listen, learn, and grow with me on this show. We crossed a milestone this week of hitting over 1600 five star reviews on our goal of achieving 2000 by the end of this year. Now, let me introduce my guest and friend, Dr. Jay Lombard, who is an internationally renowned neurologist,

an author of several critically acclaimed books, including the Brain Wellness Plan, Freedom from Disease, and The Mind of God. In today's episode, we discuss his journey and why he became neurologist. His collaborative approach to medicine, why he believes we need a team approach in healthcare. We go deep into his book, The Mind of God, where he tackles important questions like, does my life have purpose? What is the meaning of our existence and how do you find belief? We also do an extremely deep dive into his research in finding

alternative treatments for traumatic brain injury and how he and others are reversing terrible diseases such as ALS, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and we go through his underlying discovery That is helping him do just that such an amazing episode for you today now and Alzheimer's, and we go through his underlying discovery that is helping him do just that. Such an amazing episode for you today. Now, let's become PassionStruck. I am absolutely stoked to have Dr. J. Lombard on the PassionStruck podcast.

Welcome Dr. Lombard, how are you today? So I'm having my pleasure to be here. Thank you. Well, I thought a great starting point would be to get your origin story for becoming a neurologist because as we were talking about before the show, I have a daughter who's a senior in high school and she is attending a medical magnet program which is really instilled in her a desire to serve through medicine and as we were talking she went to a UCLA summer camp where she got exposed to everything from dentistry to different elements of medicine etc and she came out of that program with the desire to be a neurologist herself. So I'm always intrigued why doctors

pick the given field that they go into. Yeah. When I was 19 years of age, I was basically wanting to be a writer. I love writing and my fantasy was to be an author, which thank God I got to do in my life as well. For the time, my dad had a massive stroke stroke and he went from being one of the most beautiful human beings alive.

He was a kind-hearted, very loquacious, very expressive person with a great sense of humor to a shell of his former self after the stroke. Where he was unrecognizable, his personality had changed. His ability to even remember things about me, he'd call me by my brother's name, was heart-wrenching as a 19-year-old. And I tried to understand all I could about how this man that was such a presence in my life went to being someone different than I didn't recognize before,

which really led me into wanting to study the brain where deeply. And that led me to go to medical school first and then to study neurology thereafter. Yeah, and there was a stint when you actually thought about becoming a psychiatrist. And so for you, it was just that inner sense that you could do more for people to treat them by being a neurologist. Was that good for you to make that change? Well, the change, I originally actually wanted to become, it's called the neurobehavioral neurologist. In fact, the first 10 years of my practice, I focused on what it called neurobehavioral diseases,

which is the intersection of psychiatry and neurology. And because of different circumstance, saying that up, leaving that as my focus to do other research and other areas of medicine, but those two years of psychiatry training never left me as far as sort of the understanding of the brain as being both a functional unit as well as a hard drive unit.

So the functional aspects of the brain are basically neurochemically mediated, but the hardware, if you will, is mediated by the structural aspects of the brain. So bringing those two things together has really been my philosophy of my practice. It wasn't like I made a decision not to pursue psychiatry, it was more of a decision to pursue neurology

more deeply than psychiatry. Interesting. My cousin, I almost referred to him like an older brother, Art Burman, was a top psychiatrist in the DC area, and he's been teaching it Georgetown for a very long time, and he teaches residents their bedside manners and how to properly approach patients. So interesting how far you can take psychiatry in different ways. One thing, I used to train psychiatry residents when I was at a neurology attending. And I would say that you need to have the same understanding about the neurochemistry of a psychiatric disease as a neurosurgeon has about the neuroanatomy of a brain disease.

So I think that's kind of where I see the intersection of neurology and psychiatry is having that very deep understanding of pathogenesis, both on an molecular level, but also a structural level. And getting back to you being an author, not only have you written a book, you've written many books. not only have you written a book, you've written many books, and I was hoping we could talk about a couple of them here. One is called the Brain Wellness Plan. Another one is called Freedom from Disease. And the one book that I just purchased myself is called The Mind of God.

And I want to get to the Mind of God last. So can you, for the listener out there, just give them a little teaser on the brain wellness plan and freedom from disease? Sure. So the brain wellness plan was the first book I wrote when I was out of my neurology residency and became an attending. And I was faced as I am now with patients

with progressive neurological diseases, Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and others. And I said, there has to be, if nature has caused these problems, then there has to be things within nature that can address them. So the book actually was very pressing, meaning that we spoke a lot about mitochondrial dysfunction and a variety of conditions. Some of my early research was actually identifying autism as a mitochondrial disease. So once you say, okay, well, mitochondria dysfunctional,

how do you repair them? You can't repair them. Well, now they're trying to repair them with, you know, CRISPR and other technologies, but at the time, we would use high doses of mitochondrial agents like conatine and others, which have since been shown to be very effective in a variety of clinical conditions. So the book was very, very early. On that, I forget, I once had one of my professors read the book and he goes, you know what, Jay, he goes either you're too early or you're too late. So that book was way ahead of its time. In fact, I was offered to rewrite that book to update it because many of the things that we talked about in that book

were based about using non-phomacological interventions to help reduce the progression of neurological conditions. The second book, Freedom of Disease, Freedom from Disease, was actually reviewed by Memoraz, and also was kind of too early, as opposed to being too late, meaning that there has been established that part of brain degeneration is due to insulin resistance in which that the receptors in the brain,

particularly to metabolize glucose, become sort of insensitive, producing an inability to metabolize glucose properly. And that actually leads to some of the cognitive deficits that have been associated with conditions like Alzheimer's disease. So those two books were really, really trade books. A mind of God was approached by the editor

at random house at the time. He said, can you write a book on the afterlife as from a neuroscience perspective? And I'm like, no, I can't do that, but you know, do you have any other ideas in mind about what book I can write for you? So that was kind of the origins of that book. And quite frankly, it's the book I'm most proud of. I feel that book really is autobiographical, but also is synthesized. A lot of my ideas about faith, not being in congruent with science.

We think that science somehow negates faith. You know, and that's, to me, it's just the opposite. Our brains are actually hardwired for faith. So faith has a built-in mechanism that we all require. And just clinically, I could tell you that the patients I've experienced with neurodegenerative diseases like ALS, who never lose their sense of purpose in faith, have a much longer survival than those that have given up

either on their faith or their purpose of their lives. So faith and purpose are biologically mediated. And that's what the book is about. Yeah. So one of the core things about the book is the need to focus your beliefs in a positive direction. And what are some of the things that studying patients and creating this book you found

about that component right there? How do you shift your beliefs in a positive direction? It's a very hard question to answer because each person has sort of their own set of challenges in their life that require to reflect on those challenges as being meaningful, as opposed to being random. It's kind of the nature of disease to be random, right? I mean, why does some people get ALS? Some people don't get ALS, they get another condition.

And when you struck one of these diseases, you really struck by sort of the cruelty of the disease itself. You know, ALS is a horrible disease to actually witness at any level, whether you're a physician taking care of those patients or a family member. And as a disease progresses, one of the things that very often happens is that people just, they give up hope. And it's sort of the, I think the one nugget of advice that I would have, because my research is on biology of ALS.

But clinically, I could tell you that the people that have the best chance of surviving ALS are those that have not let go of their purpose and see ALS as a challenge as opposed to a death sentence. Okay, and I wanted to explore this point a little bit more. So for you, the metaphysical questions that you address in the book are kind of a jumping off point for what I thought was exploring the brain and your words would be in the seat of the soul.

And I was hoping you could unpack that a little bit. I love great question. So it's a fantastic question. So let me tell you about one of the cases that I wrote about in the book to answer that question. So back when I was doing behavioral neurology 15 years ago, I saw a child, not a child, adolescent, who had a dramatic change in his behavior,

pre and post a neurosurgical procedure in which they put a shunt in for something called hydricephalus. Before the procedure, he was just a regular kid, had problems with his gait, his amulation. Post surgery, he became, way was classified as a sociopath. He did some very, very aberrant behavior that led him to be arrested for something

that he had done at school that's not even worth talking about. And he had routine evaluations by psychiatrists and they said, yeah, he's incursible, should go to whatever. And the mom ended up consulting me and we did what's called a DTI image. Now, DTI is a new type of MRI scan that actually looks at the flow of water in the brain. So now the brain, we think of the brain as

being sort of like this, you know, in a desert, but the brain is surrounded by water, both externally, surrounded by water, both externally, you know, the cerebral spinal fluid, but also internally, there are all these pathways that are like aqueducts that take, you know, fluid from one area of the brain to other areas of the brain, that you normally can't see on, you know, typical CAT scan or radiographical studies. At the time, this was back, I think, in early 2000, a type of MRI called DTI diffusion tensor imaging was able to actually identify these particular tracks in the brain. And when we did the study, we sure that there was a significant interruption of these tracks of water in areas of the brain that mediated of these tracks of water in areas of the brain that mediated executive function, frontal lobe function. So it was very clear that this was an anatomical issue that led to a

behavioral issue as opposed to being a behavioral issue that was the primary cause of his misbehaviors. Now to answer your question, what's interesting about diffusion tensor imaging studies is that when you do them and you're looking at consciousness, right? So people have studied consciousness through imaging studies. And they've demonstrated that in consciousness itself, there's an area of the brain called the default mode network, which is kind of like the ego. It's kind of what defines J. Lombard as J. Lombard. It's kind of what defines you as you. They've done studies in depression, in schizophrenia, and all sorts of TBI patients to look at diffusion tensor imaging

in normal controls versus patients who are affected by psychiatric diseases. And one can see actually these defects or interruptions in the flow of the circulation of water in the brain. One of the discoveries of this technology is a professor named Dr. Demetian who actually discovered MRI scans back in the 70s. I just met him recently a couple of months ago. It's an amazing story that I won't go into right now, but he's a very religious person. And we were talking about DTI studies.

And I said to him, I said, you know, DTI is the closest we're going to get to identifying, you know, what we call the soul or the ethers as Isaac Newton, one's called the soul is these kind of ethers that were unmeasurable. But the fact that we now have state of the art imaging, we can see that not just the structure of the brain, but the flow of these networks,

it's the closest I think we come to the analogy of the idea of that the tree of life, if you will, that the brain is not just the leaves and the flowers, but the water that flow from the roots to in live in the brain. Once those stop, there's no more life. Very interesting. What a fascinating topic and what a great reason to read your book. And I will make sure it's in the show notes where people can find it.

Now I originally discovered you, because I heard your interview with Tom Billiou, and I originally reached out to you seeking guidance on how we could help a veteran. And the interesting thing, all veterans. Well, and that's kind of where I'm going with this, is as we talked, I had combat related trauma and sports injury trauma that resulted in a number of traumatic brain injuries. And there have been a number of things since those have occurred that have altered how I feel inside. When you get you lose focus, you have short-term memory issues, you have irritability, and the list goes on. And where I wanted to go with this is I thought I was alone, and I was going through this alone. And what I was facing is when I went to both the civilian doctors and also the VA, they tend to

operate in a set of protocols. So when I went to a civilian neurologist, first they wanted to do a sleep study, then he didn't EEG, then he didn't MRI, then he did a CT, which all were inconclusive. So then he went down the route of during and doing a neuropsyche valve. And at the VA, it was a little bit different, but what both showed me is that no one is

really looking at the person listically. What is at the root cause here? Now what I have found since then is that there are hundreds of veterans who are just like me. Many of them coming out of the Special Forces community who all have almost 90% overlap in our symptoms. And I know you're working on a theory now about if you've had a traumatic brain injury, how you can possibly treat that, which leads to also potentially the treatment of Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's, and other things. And I was hoping

you could cover this from two perspectives. Why is medicine treating this in such a compartmented way when DTI and more advanced MRI technologies have been the only proven thing that I've seen that can really diagnose long-lasting brain injuries. And then I forget what you called it, but you said when ends up happening is there becomes a blockage between kind of your spinal system and your brain that needs to be flushed because things are stuck. So I was hoping you could cover both aspects of this. Sure. So it was a very good overview. I don't need to speak anymore. So I was a very good overview. I don't need to speak anymore,

so I should cut the sum that's so nicely yourself. What happens during traumatic brain injury is that proteins that are normally three-dimensional, right? So every protein in our body are three-dimensional structures. They're not two-dimensional. When we read about them, we envision them as sort of chemicals that lack a three-dimensional. When we read about them, we kind of envision them as sort of chemicals that lack a three-dimensional structure, but the problem is that all proteins are actually three-dimensional,

which means that severe impact injuries affect these proteins and they become what's called misfolded proteins. So think of like an origami that your dog actually, you know, choose up or steps on. So after after traumatic brain injury, these misfolded proteins occur in proximity to where that injury actually occurred. They're called shearing injuries or counter-couinguries. And you can't see them, obviously, on any type of scanning. The only way that you know that they're there is unfortunately through autopsied studies. So, I started looking at all the autopsied studies of patients with traumatic brain injuries.

And sure enough, they all have the same pathological proteins that associated with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and ALS, Amaloid, Alpha-Sanuclein, and TDP-43, meaning that there's a direct connection between the development of pathological proteins and and traumatic brain injury as opposed to the leading theory, which is how it's just genetic. Meaning if you have these genes, that's or produces these misfolder proteins. Well, I just want to stop there because that's a huge finding.

It's a huge finding. Because everything I have been told through medicine is that it's more genetic, but my fear has been that there is a link between brain injury and long-term potentially experiencing some of these other conditions that can come as a result of it. So that there is a genetic link, meaning

that people with certain genes may have a higher propensity to develop these types of conditions. But most of the monogenetic causes of ALS are differentiated from what's called sporadic causes. We really don't know what the driving etiology is for sporadic forms of ALS, but the major one risk factor is traumatic brain injury. That's published data. I mean, you could read that anywhere, that that's the high association of risk factors. People talk about other risk factors, whether they're environmental exposures, cigarette smoking, going down the list, but TBI, as well as cervical injuries, have a higher rate of developing motor neurone disease, which is a better terminology than ALS because ALS kind of puts you into this kind of, you know, death spiral of a diagnosis. And I think motor neurone

disease is a better description than ALS for these conditions. But going back to your question, so once those proteins become misfolded, right? It's the brain's responsibility to house keep. There's a whole sanitation department of the brain that has to first recognize where these pathological proteins are, and then to kind of say, okay, that's a bad protein. Let's take it to the recycling plant. And then from the recycling plant, let's take it back into the river going downstream

so it can get out of the brain. We don't want to go up into the brain. We want to actually take it downstream. That neurological system is called the glumphatic system, which was discovered by researchers here in New York. I think Dr. Netagard first discovered these lymphatic units. I think she's from Rochester, I'm not mistaken, but the lymphatic unit is named that way because it's a combination of glial cells, which are the white blood cells of the brain,

with lymphatics. So at one time people believed, oh, there was no such thing as a lymphatic system in the brain, but now that we've identified that there is, we've now been able to correlate that system that is responsible for the housekeeping to remove these misfolder proteins is defective. It's like the, all the sanitation department wants arrays and they're, you know, they're going on strike and all this garbage accumulates such as these pathological proteins like TDP 43 and others. So then how do you go about flushing it? Well, now that's, that's an interesting question, right? So it's funny.

When I gave my, I gave one Ted Med talk, which, you know, kind of put me on the stage of being an infamous or thought leader in neurology as being sort of a contrarian, right? Which is okay, I don't mind sort of being considered that, but during my talk at Ted Med, and this was back in 2012, it's a funny anecdote I'll tell you later about that as well. Because my daughter, who was six at the time, attended it, and she's like, dad,

how come no one either clapped or even understood what you were talking about? Like, I'm so fiat, you know, really appreciate encouragement. But what I said in that talk was that when we're able to identify the specific biomarkers associated with neurodegenerative diseases, then we actually are able to identify what types of treatments So, if you're looking at the effects of the virus, the effects of the virus, the effects of the virus, the effects of the virus, the effects of the virus, the effects of the virus,

the effects of the virus, the effects of the virus, the effects of the virus, the effects of the virus, the effects of the virus, the effects of the virus, the effects of the virus, that are overt for dementia or ALSO, you know what? Maybe you weren't depressed. You know, maybe this was the early symptoms of degeneration, but we didn't have the availability

to identify those technologies then as we do now. So people are now identifying the ability to visualize the glymphatics and have been associated with a accumulation of these pathological proteins like amyloid and TDP 43, in vivo. I mean, not just waiting for autopsies and saying, oh, you know what? Yep, you were right, Dr. Lombard.

My glenfatic system was totally screwed up. So my point is that the ability to identify those in real time opens up the possibility to do what you just labeled as, you know, flushing the system. So the question is, how do you flush the system? Right. First of all, you have to do like, you know, if your sewer line is backed up, you call the plumber and they put those devices in. You know, we once had one of those where they go in there, they, you know, look at, oh, you know, you're doing it and flush the toilet paper properly, like, let's scoop it out kind of thing. So it's kind of the same thing where we are right now in medicine, uh, mean that there are three or four technologies that are currently being assessed. Now, this is very early clinical. So I don't want to tell you that this is the answer, but I believe one day it will be the answer, but there's research that if you

give what's called low intensity ultrasound to various areas of the brain that you're able to actually open up the blood brain barrier and literally, you know, flush those protein aggregates down the proverbial toilet bowl into the CSF. The research that's doing that, one of them is Michael Kaplett, who's at New York hospital. He's what's called a functional neurosurgeon. So it's interesting that a lot of these technologies, I would love to say that they're being created by neurologists, because I'm a neurologist, but actually this field has really been opened up by neurosurgeons that have identified this through radiographical methods and developing strategies like ultrasound to be able to get rid of these pathological proteins. There's an early study they did with Alzheimer's patients. It was a small sample size, but it was an open label study. They were able to demonstrate not only the ability to flush out amyloid from the brain, amyloid being the pathological protein associated with Alzheimer's disease, but they correlated with an improvement in patients' cognition. So that's a huge, huge finding.

And I think this is going to be the way of the future. I really do. That is extremely fascinating because not only could it help with Alzheimer's patients or early onset of dementia, but potentially it could help people who CTE. So if a person who's listened to this was feeling the early onset of something like dementia or Alzheimer's, what would be your advice to them? Where can they go today since this is all in clinic? I would recommend that they go to a center of excellence, depending on what state they would live in. For instance, in New York,

both Columbia and New York Presbyterian Hospital, have experts that focus on neurodegenerative diseases, including early Alzheimer's disease, and usually they have a team approach, have experts that focus on neurodegenerative diseases, including early Alzheimer's disease, and usually they have a team approach, meaning that they have neurologists and neurosurgeons that hopefully evaluate those patients. Usually they first start with neurology,

and in many of these centers of excellence, they do do DTI studies, where potentially at other centers that don't have centers of excellence may not perform those kinds of studies. So I think getting the proper imaging is an important thought that people should have when being concerned about these conditions. Interesting.

Well, I think I mentioned to you when we talked before that a couple months ago, I interviewed Dr. Michael Lewis who was asked to prepare it of five to seven years, try to get to the bottom of TBI's and how can we never discuss the methods that you're talking about, but how can patients recover from these? And he told me that one of the common findings that they found was that all those who experience TBI's and also the majority of people who are suicidal have extremely low levels of omega-3s. And I was wondering if this is something that you've ever heard about or if you could see where that linkage could take form.

That's first of all, it's a great point that he brought up. I'm hoping actually that to potentially speak to him at some later date because he's very active working with a lot of veterans that have had TBI's. So a lot of the early data, in fact, I mentioned this in my first book to bring wellness point ironically 1995, was that Omega 3 fatty acids are compounds that have been demonstrated to be lower in depressed states, not just from TBI, but just depression, bipolar disease, even schizophrenia. And the mechanism is that when you have disruption of cell membranes, right? So that's what happens in TBI cases is that the reason the protein becomes misfolded is because

the cell membrane that normally is the protector between the extracellular environment and the intracellular environment breaks down. And it breaks down because of certain enzymes called lipases. One is called phospholipase, which actually leads to a breakdown of these membranes. So the idea that you can rebuild these membranes not only through omega-3 fatty acids, but other phospholipid supporting agents. So this data on phosphatidal serine, which is one of the phospholipids that's important in the brain, also a phosphatidal colon, which is another very important cell membrane, the concept is that you want to rebuild those cell membranes so that they become

more flexible to allow for a proper signaling of neurotransmitters that otherwise become defective as a result of a deficiency of those omega-3 fatty acids. Very interesting. So is that why there are other people who are looking into also using hormone therapy to potentially treat TBI's or is that a completely... So that data is interesting. So they've looked at giving... So there's two issues with hormone therapies as there are with anything else in TBI. There's acute TBI and then there's chronic TBI. And their mechanisms of action are different, meaning that in acute TBI, you're in a pro-inflammatory state.

The idea of progesterone, which has been looked at clinically as being a potential amelioration of traumatic injury patients. I don't know where that data is at this point, because I've not looked at it recently, but I could tell you that for chronic TBI patients, what I'm looking at, and not just for chronic TBI patients, but patients with ALS and dementia, and even Parkinson's disease, is understanding the following,

which is that the first process in getting rid of those pathological proteins, the misfolded proteins that occur after traumatic brain injury that are also associated with Alzheimer's, ALS, and Parkinson's disease occurs in the cell, right? And it occurs within the cell in this acid vet called the lysosome. And think of the lysosome as a boiling water that you wanna cook chicken into, right? If that water's not boiling hot enough, you put this chicken into it, and then you tend to eat it,

you're gonna get a very severe infection. So what recent research has shown that in chronic TBI patients, there's a defect in the lysosome. I mean, the lysosome is not hot enough. So people are looking at ways of making the lysosome hotter, if you will, to potentiate its ability to break down these pathological proteins. So it's, it's kind of like sort of the reverse idea that you need to reduce inflammation in the brain. And I'm not saying that you don't need to reduce inflammation in the brain, but you have to do both. You have to reverse inflammation in the brain while increasing the brain's

capacity to break down these pathological proteins so that you don't get lymphatic backflow. Very interesting and a lot to take in. Is that I'm sorry? Because I, you know, is that too technical? Because I could try to break down. No, no, no, it's not too technical for me. It's just interesting how many of these different treatments overlap or need to work together. Yes. Right. Yes.

Yeah. I've always talked about the need to take a holistic or integrative approach to all these conditions because, you know, fundamentally, what I think people are beginning to realize is that our current thinking about putting ALS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and CTE in separate silos doesn't work because these diseases share in common, very fundamental mechanisms that involve both the formation and the reduced degradation

of these bad proteins across all these diagnostic boundaries. So I think what we need to kind of understand is that these are dimensional diseases, they're not categorical. You know, it's okay, you have Alzheimer's disease, take our receptor in the Menda. Oh, you have Parkinson's disease, take, you know, cinamet and the latest, you know,

dopamine agonist. You have ALS take real attack and radacheva. I think we need a deep understanding that these diseases are united by very fundamental pathogenic mechanisms that are in common because until we get to that point, we're never going to adequately treat these conditions based upon their root cause of being related to traumatic brain injuries and the reduction in the ability of the brain to properly handle those pathological proteins going forward. Yes, very intriguing. And for the listener who might not understand how prevalent

chronic traumatic brain injury is, the last CDC reports said that there are 5.5 million people just in America alone living with it. And that's only the ones who've been diagnosed, not those who've had one and who have not been treated for it. So it is a real thing and affects a lot of people. Now, I was going to take this conversation in a completely different direction. Earlier, we were talking about consciousness and there have been a growing number of studies, some from gallops, some from Harvard Business School,

some from Forrester, you know, you name it, that more and more of society is becoming disengaged. In fact, a Gallup poll of a billion full-time workers found that only 15% of them are engaged, and at the same time in almost all Western countries, there's been a significant drop over the past two decades of business fatality, meaning the creation and turnaround of new businesses and entrepreneurship. And people want to put it on student debt, et cetera. But my own conclusion is, I think that there are three contagions that are impacting society right now,

and I say that they're apathy, comfort, and ego, said otherwise the contagions of the human mind, spirit, and self-importance. And I think that there are a wholeicelessness because they're in denial about where they're living. And I have kind of grouped this into two different parallels. I think there are a whole bunch of people who are subsisting in life, meaning they're in survival mode. And I believe on the other side of that spectrum are more people like you, Tom Billew is examples who are creators. And to me, one of the biggest differentiation points that I'm seeing is those who are subsisters who are in the survival mode are kind of casually engaged,

meaning they're engaged by going through just the normal motions of life. And those who are on this other side of the spectrum who are creators are more consciously engaged, meaning they're present in the moment, they're intentful, they're purposeful, and what they're doing. And that chasm, from my perspective, is only growing, especially when we're in this world now, where there's such an emphasis on what appears urgent versus what's truly important. And I led into that in a big way, because I just wanted to get your perspective on it, especially from some of the previous books you've written.

You know, it's funny that you asked that question. I was literally thinking about this yesterday, literally. And I think that I would replace apathy with the word nihilism. I think that we are living in a world and no thanks to media, which kind of, you know, thrives on saying how bad things are, which they are. You know, there's no question if they are. But I think people are feeling a deep sense collectively, not even individually, of hopelessness. And through hopelessness comes sort of a retraction of socialization. So we're kind of living in a perfect storm, if you will, given that COVID-19 has kind of exacerbated

whatever xenophobia we've had pre COVID-19. It's now xenophobia on steroids. Who's vaccinated? Who's not vaccinated? You know, why are you not vaccinated? And you know, it's kind of like we're living in a medically induced xenophobia consciousness, couple to the previous social phobias that are really normal.

I mean, people are, we're xenophobic because that's just part of our survival mechanisms that we've had to survive. But it's a perfect storm right now. And you add to it the overindulgence on digital media and its inability to communicate in a way that nature designed for us to communicate, which is face to face or, you know, in this case, you know, thanks to Zoom, at least we're

having the ability to face to face. I mean, I find my own self, including my own family, that our communication, like my daughter will be upstairs and show like, text me, you know, dad, what's for dinner? I'm like, you're upstairs. Can't you walk downstairs and just say, you know, what do you want for dinner, dad? But that's the world we're living in right now. And that, if you magnify that type of communication on a global scale, what we're seeing is a deterioration

both in our ability to judge because we're judging things by words, not by direct presence. And we're also judging with our limbic system, which is always about, is there fear or threat, as opposed to the frontal lobes, which exist basically to say, okay, this is not a threat.

So we are really, you're right, it's a growing chasm. And my concern is that chasm is going to, unless we figure out a way forward, can only deepen, which is very worrisome to me as a thought leader, because I'm concerned about the future of this world. You know, I'll be very honest, I am. What's interesting that you brought up that communication,

because that's exactly what my 17-year-old wants to do, is just text me from upstairs in her bedroom. And the way we were designed to communicate was face-to-face, or I call it the transactional modal communication, because there's a given take between two people who are present together. And so much of communication today is being replaced by electronic means. And the

biggest issue you run into is oftentimes the intent behind what anyone is saying. So I think- You know, it's interesting. Back when I was wanting to think about my next book after Mind of God, I was thinking about writing a book called Brain Drain. And to show not just theoretically, but to show through studies, how digital media, the internet, everything else has really affected the structure, not just the function, but the structure of the brain. And one example I gave to the editor, the book never got written, obviously, because otherwise I'd be promoting that book right now,

but our reliance on GPS comes to the point where, like my wife, we're driving home from like a neighbor's house. And she'll put the GPS, I go, don't you know where we live? Like, you don't need the GPS. She goes, oh, I just like having it. But what are reliance? I'm not saying GPS is bad or good.

It's really technology is really about how we use it. Technology is not inherently good or bad. It's how we actually mobilize technology that is, but our over reliance on GPS literally produces atrophy in our parietal lobes, which are the way that we get spatial orientation. Spatial memory, we're kind of dissolving that over history because we're saying, okay, well, I don't have to remember where I live. I got this GPS device that's gonna tell me

how to get home. Or phone numbers or anything else. Wow. Wow, that's great. Wow, it's crazy. It's kind of, you know, we unfortunately become slaves of our technology. We really have, you know, it's,

if I had to make one recommendation for the world, it would be that everybody take a digital day off, you know, one day, whether it's Saturday or Sunday, just to go digitless. And I think that would create a pretty significant change in consciousness because people will be forced to communicate, you know, by going to, you know, temple or to church or picnics with their family as opposed to just being on their phone all day long. Yeah, it's interesting. There's a movie. My daughter got me to watch with her at College Ready Player 1, I think is the name of it. And it's this futuristic world where people are so hopeless in the real world that they all exist in a game.

And the end story is someone that eventually wins the game and gets to take control. And what they decide to put in place are that you can only play the game. I think it's three days during the week and the rest of it, you have to live your life because people are getting too consumed with it. And I think there's a huge point to be learned there.

By the way, that's not a science fiction movie. That is what's happening in the real world. I mean, you have people doing virtual sex right now, all sorts of really bad things that are replacing consciousness since we work with consciousness requires a vessel, right? It requires the body, right? To be conscious means to feel with your body, with your eyes, with your mouth, with your ears,

with your skin. When we take away the physical substrate of consciousness and immerse ourselves completely in a virtual world, we may think we're conscious, but we're actually, we're really not conscious. We could say, oh, yeah, of course, I'm conscious, you know, but that's a different level of consciousness than what we know about the true meaning of consciousness, which is the interface of our physicality with our mind, not our mind in a vacuum. So I have to watch that movie, maybe very alarmed by it. It was a very entertaining movie,

you know, made for kind of a younger audience, but I think the points were still point on. Well, I was intrigued in the conversation we got into and your words, nihilism or hopelessness because I formed passion struck, because I felt I was being called to do it. In fact, whether you believe in God or a spiritual being, I was told you need to start helping the underdogs.

And I kind of question, what is the underdogs? And I got the answer that there are people who are underdogs in their own life. They're beaten, broken, bored, battered. And all of that is really hopelessness. And so that's kind of how I came up with, how do you go from being passion stuck to passion struck? Because that's really what the change is. How do you go from being hopeless to so passionate about what you're doing that you're willing to risk it all to go after it, which are two completely different dimensions. So thank you for that. It kind of is confirming my own thoughts on this full movement I'm trying to do with passion struck.

First of all, I love it and God bless you for doing it. And God bless you for getting the message out there that I once posted something that got a lot of likes and dislikes that I said that false hope is an oxymoron. Oxymoron's mean that when you put two words together, they have opposite meaning. There's no such thing as false hope. Very point and point. Well, what Dr. Lombard, if a listener would like to get a hold of you, what are some ways

that they can do that? Or more about your research? Sure. So, I have two emails. I'm happy to give out. One is a personal email. And one is my email for my medical practice, or should I just give out my website? What would be better?

I have to buy probably to website or if you're socially anywhere, maybe those. Sure. So it's my website, it's under construction, but it's www.drjallumbard.com. drjaylumbard.com. And that has my office phone number, it has my direct phone unique case that you've ever run into if you're able to see that? I mean, I was going to. So the book I wrote, Mind of God, was really like an Oliver Sacks kind of book. So if I don't know if your audience is familiar with Oliver Sacks, he was a neurologist that wrote.

His first book was The Man Who Was Took His Wife for a Hat. Talked about all these altered perceptions of patients that had neurological injuries and what kind of behavior it led to. So my book was kind of like an Alvarez-Saxe book, except what I kind of tried to explore was the what happens to issues of faith and consciousness as a result of traumatic brain injuries

or psychiatric problems or whatever else like that. So probably the most intriguing case of my career, by the way, made me switch from psychiatry to neurology. It was a woman. I was a resident at the time in a psychiatric emergency room in an inner city hospital in New York on Christmas and never a good time to be on call in a psychiatric emergency room because you get people that are drunk or suicidal.

It's just not the right day to pick. But of course, I liked emergencies. So I picked that date and they brought in a woman like four NYPDs and EMS. A woman that was like five foot three and she was like literally buckling this treacherous she was on and she was her she was flailing, her her head was going back and forth like in in rapid kinds of ways and so her husband was with her and you know I tried to get a history like you know

So her husband was with her and you know, I tried to get a history like you know, when did your wife become like that and he told me that She was involved in an exorcism that had gone wrong that they didn't so she was still like in this, you know state where she believed that she was you know like like a totally evil woman and I was so scared because this woman was like, five, three, but she was, the NYPD and the EMS were standing so far back from her. And normally these guys have no fear. They're like the Navy SEALs of civil service. They were so scared that they were hiding behind me.

Like, I'm like, wait a second, I gotta examine her. I need you guys here, oh no, no, doc. We'll stay in the corner. But we gave her medication, and the medication worked. And two hours later, she was the most dust-sile woman you could ever imagine, and had no recollection of her experience in this regard. So she was diagnosed with a dissociative disorder

based upon her history and my attending at the time decided to hypnotize her to see if he can go back into the state that she was in during this botched exorcism to see if he can actually exercise her through psychotherapy as opposed to spiritual exorcism. And I'm like, you sure is a good idea? Like, I don't know if this is a really good idea or not. I've read about this in the book where he's going, listen, you know, relax. You know, it's going to hurt you here.

I want to speak to your other self. She had given it a name. I forgot the name was. And all of a sudden within like 30 seconds, she had given it a name, I forgot the name was. And all of a sudden within like 30 seconds, she transformed into the same personality that I had seen in the ER, like, you know, a week earlier on Christmas Eve. And it was such a violent transition, violent that the whole room just kind of like moves all the way to, you know, to another corner of the room until the psychiatrist was able to kind of abort the hypnotic session

and bring her back to who she was. When I still had experience, I was like, okay, so I get this is a psychiatric problem. But what what ability does the brain and mind have to switch from this very loving personality to this absolute monster like what what are the what were the precurs substrate that could literally change your Mac computer to go to Dell or you know, you would pack it? Like that was that traumatic. Like the entire hardware and software completely changed. That was the point where I decided that I need to study the brain more than just the functionality of the brain, but the biochemistry of the brain.

So that's probably my most memorable case of my career, was that case, which I wrote about in the book. I kind of wish I would ask that first, what a fascinating story. We could talk about it more offline if you want. Well, Dr. Lombard, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today on the Passion Start podcast.

Really appreciate it. It's really my pleasure, thank you. What a great interview with Dr. Lombard, and I wanted to highlight some other interviews that we have done in the past and coming up also on traumatic brain injury. One of these was with Dr. Michael Lewis, and we talked about his amazing research he did for over five years when he was in the military at Walter Reed on the impact of having omega-3s on both traumatic brain injury and in reducing suicide rates. I also recently had on just last week former

NFL Pro Bowl cornerback Sean Springs where he does a deep dive into WinPact, this company that is providing technology and data on how to reduce traumatic brain injury in sports, in leisure activities, and everything in between. And I have an upcoming interview with former Green Bray, Andrew Marr, who tells his story of the personal impact that traumatic brain injury had on him and why he founded the Warrior Angels Foundation. one that you're not going to want to miss. And his episode on the Joe Rogan Show has had four to five million downloads so you're not going to want to miss it.

Thank you, as always, for listening and watching the Passion Struck Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and are able to apply the lessons to help you become passion struck. Thank you so much for joining us. The purpose of our show is to make passion go viral. And we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential. If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the passion strike podcast on Spotify,

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