Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Michael Lewis On The Keys to Traumatic Brain Injury Treatment EP 56

Episode Date: August 24, 2021

John interviews Dr. Michael Lewis about recovering from traumatic brain injury and how his 30-plus years of military experience, with a special emphasis on TBI, is working towards improving the care and outcomes of people who have experienced psychological or physical trauma the brain. Like this? Please subscribe, and join me on my new platform for peak performance, life coaching, and personal growth: https://passionstruck.com/. Why is Traumatic Brain Injury Treatment so Misunderstood? It is essential to understand that brain injury are like snowflakes. Every person in every brain injury is different. And that is often one of the most misunderstood aspects of traumatic brain injuries. Each year, an estimated 2.5 million people in the US alone experience a traumatic brain injury. But the actual incident level is unknown because so many of them are just not reported. And according to the CDC, there are currently 5.3 million people in the United States alone who suffer from the long-term impacts of traumatic brain injury. Thank you for Watching the Passion Struck podcast. In this powerful Episode, John R Miles and Dr. Michael Lewis discuss the use of omega-3 fatty acids to prevent, rehabilitate, and recover from traumatic brain injury. During the show, they detail three non-profits, including the Warrior Angels Foundation, started by Andrew Marr, the Boulder Crest Warrior PATHH Posttraumatic growth-based training program, and the Brain Health Education and Research Institute. New Interviews with the World's GREATEST high achievers will be posted every Tuesday with a Momentum Friday inspirational message! SHOW NOTES 0:00 Show Intro and Dr. Lewis Background 5:22 How they met through the Warrior Angels Foundation 7:41 Dr. Lewis' military background and becoming a doctor 15:04 Why the medical community has trouble treating TBI 17:06 CT, MRI, EEG all fail to show TBI in most victims 19:42 50% pf TBI victims experience worsening symptoms over time 21:56 Andrew Marr - Tales From the Blast Factory Book and Movie 24:08 How he discovered Omega-3s could treat traumatic brain injury 28:15 Why the quality of Omega-3s is so important 39:27 The four-pronged approach to TBI recovery 43:40 Why using hormone treatment helps TBI victims 46:50 Why he started his non-profit and what it does 49:37 Why there is no TBI specialty and importance of integrated medicine 51:36 PTSD and Boulder Crest Warrior PATHH Program ENGAGE DR. MICHAEL LEWIS Michael D. Lewis, MD, MPH, MBA, FACPM, FACN Colonel (Retired), U.S. Army Dr. Lewis is an expert on brain health and the prevention, management, and rehabilitation of concussions and traumatic brain injury (TBI). He founded the nonprofit Brain Health Education and Research Institute in 2011 when he retired as a Colonel after a distinguished 31-year career in the U.S. Army. His pioneering work has helped thousands of people worldwide, and he is regularly featured in the media, including CNN’s Sanjay Gupta MD show and numerous radio shows and podcasts. He is the author of the Amazon Best Selling book When Brains Collide: What every athlete and parent should know about the prevention and treatment of concussions and brain injuries. Dr. Lewis donates his services to the Warrior Angels Foundation and also the Warrior Path Program. Dr. Lewis is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Tulane University School of Medicine and completed his post-graduate training at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Johns Hopkins University, and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He is board-certified and a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American College of Nutrition. Patient Contact: http://braincare.center/ Brain care Education Non-Profit: http://www.brainhealtheducation.org/ Warrior Angels Foundation Website: https://warriorangelsfoundation.org/ Warrior PATHH website: https://bouldercrest.org/warriorpathh   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 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/

The science shows is this quicker you get somebody back to exercise after a head injury, the faster they recover. Particularly in young people. Stanford University, for example, the friend of mine who's the neurosurgeon head of the program there, he told me he goes, we put our athletes on a treadmill or a stationary bike the day after a concussion and make them go for 20, 30 minutes. I mean, what if they have a headache and he goes, I give him a moatrin and tell him to keep running. I mean, he goes, they get better so much quicker. So those are the first two, diet exercise. They help stimulate what we call the endogenous or endocannabinoid system, which is that fine tune system that keeps us happy and healthy, and our keeps our immune system in tune.

It's sort of that equalizer for our immune system and our brain. So, diet exercise very much stimulate, in a good way, our endogenous cannabinoid system, the most abundant receptors in our brain and throughout our body. Welcome visionaries, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, and growth seekers of all types to the Passion Struck podcast.

Hi, I'm John Miles, a peak performance coach, multi industry CEO, maybe 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 who unlock their secrets and lessons to become an passion 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 passion stuff. Welcome to episode 55 of the Passion Struck Podcast. In my interview with retired Army Colonel Dr. Michael Lewis, former linebacker for the San Diego Chargers Jr. Sao said, When I first started playing football, a headache was called a headache. And now it is called a concussion. Over the last few decades,

and unfortunately with Junior Sails passing, more and more is being learned about the impact of traumatic brain injury, and how it affects millions of people across the world. You see, brain and brain injuries are like snowflakes. Every person in every brain injury is different. And that is often one of the most misunderstood aspects of traumatic brain injuries.

Each year, an estimated 2.5 million people in the US alone experience a traumatic brain injury. But the actual incident level is unknown because so many of them are just not reported. And according to the CDC, there are currently 5.3 million people in the United States alone who suffer from the long-term impacts of traumatic brain injury. Now, let me introduce our guest. Dr. Michael Lewis is an expert on brain health and in the prevention, management, and rehabilitation of both concussions and traumatic brain injury.

He founded the nonprofit Brain Health Education and Research Institute in 2011, when he retired as a colonel after 31 years of distinguished service to our country. His pioneering work has helped literally thousands of people, and he is regularly featured in the media, including CNN's Sanjay Gupta MD Show and numerous radio shows and podcasts. He is the author of the Amazon best-selling book called When Brains Collide, What Every Athlete and Parent Should Know About, the Prevention and Treatment of Concussions and Brain Injuries. Now, through brain care, he brings his experience and expertise in both diagnosing and treating brain injuries and also fostering overall better brain health.

He is a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point into Lane University School of Medicine. And today, we are gonna talk about his journey first going to West Point, and after graduating from the Medestine Service Academy, how he first started out in a completely different direction than he ended up going in long-term in his career, why he made the choice to become a doctor, what that experience led to, and how he became the head for the military of trying to understand

how to combat the growing issue of traumatic brain injuries across the service. We will discuss the discoveries that he made around how Omega-3s can significantly help those who suffer from traumatic brain injuries and we discuss so much more including the work he's doing around prevention and treatment as well as the work he is also doing for the Warrior Angel's Foundation. Such an important topic today around traumatic brain injuries, and one you can learn so much value from this amazing doctor. Now, let's become PassionStruck. I am so excited today to welcome Dr. Michael Lewis, the passion start podcast.

Dr. Lewis, thank you so much for joining us today. I was great to be with you, John. Well, you and I have had a relationship now for the past few months, but I met you through another relationship that I have with an organization called the Warrior Angels Foundation, which was founded by a green beret named Andrew Mar. I think it's great what you're doing to try to help support that foundation and the important work that they're doing around traumatic brain injury, both treating patients,

but also trying to bring more awareness to the cause. Absolutely. Warrior Angel Foundation is a terrific veteran oriented organization. That Andrew and his brother Adam have put together and they've continued, brought in some people to continue to expand to try to reach more veterans out there based all out on Andrew's experience. Where basically the wheels came off the truck, however many deployments it was. I believe it was a an explosive sky, so lots of exposure to those types of things. Plus he had played college football. So all those things compounded to the point where he was gunning his mouth struggling with, you know, do I live or die and managed to find the right health and turn it around and said, we got to do this for our fellow veterans.

And so it's an honor for me to be part of that from the medical side to help the Warrior Angel Foundation. Well, I want to get into that in a lot more detail because your path to being part of this Rowan community that's trying to help people with traumatic brain injuries actually started nowhere near where it's gotten. So earlier in your career, you, similar to I, went to a service academy. I was a Naval Academy and you're having to go to West Point.

Well, I like to say I went to a military academy. I'm not. We should play this game all day long. Well, I think it's always good for the listener to understand because that is definitely a choice. Do that instead of pursuing a civilian career. What made you take that leap to go to West Point and that calling to serve?

Well, it was all around me at four older brothers and their best friends all went to either an academy or my oldest brother and my father before him, ROTC. My oldest brother was with 10 Special Forces Group after the Q course. So it was kind of always around it. And so the idea of going to a military academy

and believe it or not, actually, I really want to go to the Naval Academy, but on colorblind. So decided that, you know, there are me as a little better for me than the Marine Corps, if you will. And I love the ocean and actually do work with the Naval Academy, have off and on over the years. But it was just sort of my calling. My father was a doctor, a small town surgeon, my mother and nurse, and underlying that, when I was at West Point, I took all the prerequisites for medical school to keep that option open.

And then I went out and I played army for a few years. And I did airborne school, Ranger school, spent a year on the DMZ in Korea, went to Fort Ord when the when the seventh infantry division was turning this light concept. So it was a fantastic experience of my five years. And you reach that point, as you know, you got that five-year commitment. And it's sort of like you wake up one day and you're being recruited by Procter and Gamble or whatever for industry. I was like I already did everything you know I woke up one day and said what am I messing around with this for you know I've always wanted to go to medical school so applied through the system

and the army paid for my schooling at Tulane University down in New Orleans and ended up going into a surgical internship at Walter Reed every intention of being a surgeon like my father had Near that down to urology, but you had to spend a couple years out doing general practice and so the heavy urology got me assigned to the Pentagon So I could come once a week and run the urology clinic at Walter Reed But the Pentagon was a fantastic experience. Any of the veterans out there that did their patients at the Pentagon probably hated it. You're the captain of a ship.

And now all of a sudden you're getting coffee for some admiral at the Pentagon. Well, I was at the Pentagon. I was doing my job. I was positioned not just I ran the primary care clinic, flight medicine clinic along the way. As a doctor, I went to the flight medicine course that I worked with record.

I ran the executive medicine services. So taking care of all the flag officers and above, as well as I ran the emergency medical service for the whole Pentagon community, a 26, 28,000 person of community. So we did all, it was a fantastic experience. And the short of it is I discovered nights and weekends and travel as well.

As I started doing travel with Congress and things like that. And so I ended up instead of urology and surgery, ended up going into preventive medicine and public health. So I kind of looked at and said, how do we keep people healthy and out of hospitals? And, you know, we've got to be a better way. I mean, just in the sick care system, taking care of the people who are already sick, enough to be in a hospital,

one something different. I wanted to be on the reach bigger populations, if you will. So my board certification is in preventive medicine and public health. But I did my training interestingly enough through Johns Hopkins University and then the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and very infectious disease oriented.

In fact, a lot of the classroom work that I did getting a master's degree at Johns Hopkins was based on international infectious diseases. And when I was at Walter Reed, our main student research, I created this system, a it's what we're seeing with the whole coronavirus saying a lot of the data you see from Johns Hopkins was based on the system that I built 20 some years ago. It's the foundation of the CDC's biosense program and surveillance program. There are many, okay, great job. Where do you want to go next? And I said, how do I get as far away from Washington as I can?

And that landed me at our joint US Army Thai Army Research Lab in Bangkok, Thailand, for the next couple of years. I was a disease hunter. I was looking for new and interesting diseases, setting up systems, trying to figure out what's going on out there on top of this high tech lab that we had there. We didn't have this disease surveillance capability. So I was sent there to create that throughout basically Southeast Asia. By the time I left, I had 60 or 80 employees between Thailand and Nepal, I think 24 different programs and eight different countries are around Asia. And the military, of course, that said, Daryl, you've great job. We know you want to stay there and keep doing this, but we're going to bring you back and teach at the medical school and Bethesda, the military medical school.

And that was an interesting thing. Because first of all, I didn't want to leave Thailand. I was having a blast. I loved what I was doing being out in the field doing large disease outbreaks. I was at ground zero basically for SARS and bird flu and the whole coronavirus thing. That's old news for me. But now I find myself at Bethesda and now we got to Iraq. That was in Bangkok when 9-11 happened. I mean, I had to drive under the I love Osama, you know, banner stretched across the street right outside of our compound for a while. So it was really interesting times as you can imagine being overseas.

In fact, one of the major kind of people was captured by miles from where we lived. I don't know if you remember that. Anyway, so now I'm back and you know, you got Iraq and Afghanistan going on and you're on that the Bethanth The Naval Hospital the new Walter Reed Military Medical Center. There's no one to worry is everywhere. And got that they get you know, what is it that I could be doing to have a more direct impact. In fact, I had a really one of my old roommates from four door that we were in the cab squadging together was now at that time a two-star generality. Fourth of July picnic at his house, he pokes me in the chest and says, what are you doing about traumatic brain injury? I don't know anything about it. But you know all that kind of came together, I kind of put two

and two together, I had the idea and I went to the head of research and said, is anybody looking at the use of high dose omega-3s, like you would get from fitch oil, to help our soldiers recover from traumatic brain injury? And to his credit, he said, nobody's looking at that. Why don't you? And again, I like didn't know anything about it, but I was a quick learning curve. And he gave me some seed money to basically start a program for Department of Defense, looking at that concept is can we use nutritional supplement therapy to help the with the recovery from traumatic brain injury? And that was a major, major career change,

if you will. And I've been doing really focused on that for now about the last 15 years. if you will, and I've been doing really focused on that for now about the last 15 years. Well, that is a great journey, and I'm glad you shared it because I think from my direct experience, the majority of the medical field that I have interacted with does not understand traumatic brain injury. And everyone wants to treat it kind of as a symptom instead of as an overall process of what is impacting the person who has one. So I thought I would just share with you and the listeners a little bit of my own journey and then I was going to ask you some questions along the way. So as we've talked about previously, I had at least five traumatic brain injuries over a six-year period.

That doesn't include the other things from for great boxing, Jito, other injuries playing hockey, rugby, etc. And after each one, I would have the typical symptoms that you would have and then they would go away until the third one I had, which was the most major one, I was probably out of it for 12 plus hours. And after that one, I noticed a series of changes that didn't last weeks, they last months, and then they do went away, but it was about three years after the fifth TVBI that I had, that I started noticing changes and I couldn't put my finger on it. I was having irritability and anger issues.

I was having concentration issues that I never experienced before. I was having short-term memory issues. And so I remember... And it's easy to kind of blow it off a little bit as like, well, I'm getting older, but to your credit, you realize this was not a normal trajectory. These, what you described is problems that are generation,

particularly our generation of veterans is facing. So I'm sorry to, I just, I don't want people to think, well, just, well, it's, I'm getting older. And therefore I'm forgetting where I put the car keys or whatever. Sometimes it's deeper than that. Yeah. And at this point, I was getting older, therefore I'm forgetting where I put the car keys or whatever. Sometimes it's deeper than that. Yeah, and at that point I was 29 or 30. So, you know, maybe 31, but the biggest thing that started impacting me was just cognitive functioning, and it was the start of, for me, what's been decades of having chronic fatigue.

And so it was directly impacting my line of work. At that point, I was a senior executive and a Fortune 50 company. And I remember going to my primary care physician. And at that point in time, I think they did an EEG, which did nothing. A CT would show nothing, which is very common from what I found out that they don't show up

on those tests. And so he sent me to go see psychiatrist who then hearing symptoms put me on the psychological cocktail, which I think so many people follow the same path. And I think that's where oftentimes you get into even more trouble because they're trying to treat the symptoms instead of the underlying cause of what's going on. So is that something that's common that you've seen not only with other veterans but romantic brain injury patients? Well, absolutely. And we all know the stories where we know our fellow veterans who healthy 25-year-old fellow veterans who, you know, a healthy 25 year old, I'll just make up somebody, you know, a healthy 25 year old, not on anything, whatever, and, you know,

it has a such a, you know, a traumatic brain injury. And they leave the, every time they go to it, as a physician, you feel, if you don't feel for your patients, then why are you a physician? But you wanna help your fellow man, and particularly in the military, you wanna help your fellow soldier. And particularly in the military, you want to help your fellow soldiers. And so you want to do whatever you can. So if you're having headaches, here's the motrin.

Okay, that's not working. Let's try something. So every doctor, you know, they see wants to do what they can. And so they end up leaving a hospital on a dozen different medications because they're now having side effects from this medication, but that doctor doesn't know not also well-courtney. So now you're treating the side effects of the symptoms of what's really going on. And so, you know, for a 25 or 30 year old to be able to do a dozen medications, have a psychiatric is not normal. And one of the things I always do with patients, one of my main goals with every single patient is, if they're on a bunch of medicines, how do we start to get them off of those medicines by treating the underlying conditions?

What's really happening in the traumatic rate? Well, it was interesting for me because I saw this report that the CDC put out that says despite initial hospitalizations and treatments, about 50% of people with TBI's will experience a further decline in their daily lives within five years of the injury, and it decreased in life expectancy of nine years

against the general population. And that, to me, was just eye-opening first time I read it months ago because what eye-opening for me is if 50% of the people are going to experience further symptoms, even in the VA, it's interesting that the head of the Bay Pines TVI program, first time I went to see her, said, I have no clue why you're here to see me. If you ever had a TVI, it would have been at that point of time.

And you wouldn't be experiencing anything from it this long afterwards. And so for me, I didn't give up. I think I told you the story at this point. I think maybe it's our military academy background or something else. It just made me angry. And so I ended up going on this retherj and that's how I ended up finding Andrew Marr and it's also how I ended up finding Dr. Brody who I told you about. I was running out of options. And so I went all the way to Walter Reed to the person who was doing all the research on it and said, I need help.

This is what's going on. Within 10 minutes of hearing me, he goes, yes, it sounds exactly like you have an issue. He sent me to the Haley VA system who within one conversation of talking to their person who had Paulie trauma center said you're suffering from every single symptom that especially forces guys we treat every single day has. But what was so

concerning for me is 90% plus probably would have given up at that first person's just got been and they probably would have gone this down this path of continuing to fuel the symptoms and not doing something about it. So, what do you think systemically is causing this mistreatment to happen? Well, I mean, Andrew Marr put a plug for his book Tales from the Blast Factory and it really describes his journey of what you were just talking about He went from program to program the program the program within the DOD military system including the

Sorry, I'm just totally blank on it Anyway, he went from system system system program to program program and nobody All they were doing is either throwing drugs at it or nobody was really hitting the underlying cause, but he didn't give up. And like you, he kept seeking and he was on active duty at the time. And so he kept seeking and seeking and seeking. And it wasn't until he met a doctor down, I don't remember exactly how he connected with Mark Gordon down in L.A.

who basically is looking at functional endocrinology. And Mark Gordon looked at him and said, oh, this is all from your exposure to terratic brain injuries and look at his blood work and so on. And basically gave him a, this short of the story, is gave him a shot of testosterone. And Andrew R felt like all of a sudden somebody turned on the lights in the room a couple of hours later when his brain started to function again and so We just one of the things I Led up against all the time. I'm an outsider. I mean I gave him my background I trained in infectious disease and public health and prevention

I did not train in neurology or neurosurgery, which were sports medicine, which makes me very much an outside. So it's hard for me to sort of get into those clicks, if you will. But because I'm an outsider, I looked at this problem not with the lens of my training. So cardiologist is looking at the heart and I know where the where the buds look into the bones and you know, and so on and so on. I kind of looked at it in more much more holistic approach because I wasn't hindered by my background and by my training. It was all new to me. I mean, I had to relearn the biochemistry, I had to relearn what I knew about the brain,

and I literally had to seek out people to teach me on these things. And so not everybody has that luxury. Certainly not in the surveillance, I were, you know, if you're not seeing patients, you're not making money. And the military at least had that option. I still had a salary, and I was a professor

at the uniform service university. So I had that flexibility outside of teaching my courses. I had that flexibility to develop the research and develop that intellectual knowledge, but it wasn't easy. And I immediately sought out the world's leading experts on who knows anything about Omega 3's in the brain. And that led me to about four or five people. I mean, that was all I could identify was like who knew anything at that time. There was hardly anybody. I mean, but I got the gnome and they became,

they become good friends. I remember walking into one meeting and they're like, they just like brought me into their fold. And like, then I get called up to a meeting at the research command up at Fort Dietrich. And it was a neurosurgeon from West Virginia showing some data from some animal studies that he had done in traumatic brain injury. And the whole room stopped and looked at me. And they're like, well, you're

the DOD expert on this. What are you there? And I think we're in trouble. Is what, you know, in the back of my head, because I would only two weeks into this or so. And so literally nobody was thinking along the lines of, I mean, I kind of look at the brains made of fat, as a simplistic as I could at that time. The brains made of fat, why are we using fat to help recover from the brains? Sort of that brick wall analogy a lot of times I say, is like if you brick wall gets damaged,

don't you want to get more bricks to add, to repair the wall? You're not gonna repair a brick wall with a bunch of mortar. You're gonna need the bricks. What do we back up the truck and dump a load of bricks onto the constructions? I'd make it easier. So the brain doesn't have to run around all over the place and finding these bricks. He had dump them right there. You saturate the brain or as Julian Bales, that neurosurgeon

at West Virginia, said, you know, why don't we use what the brain's made of to help repair the brain? Let's saturate the brain so that we can help ride those raw materials so that the brain has the best opportunity to heal. It doesn't mean it will heal, but if you don't have that foundation, so the bricks of the brain are DHA or these omega-3 molecules that most abundantly found in fish oil. So I had the idea of like we could do this slow, but we could do this fast.

I want to back up a big dump truck of DHA and dump it on the brain and let the brain have the best opportunity of heel. And I was just lucky, I guess, in many ways, because it worked. And I had a couple of really big initial successes, including one that ended up on CNN and Front Page of USA today and other attention grabbing publications and stuff like that, that it actually worked. It doesn't work with everybody, but I had some dramatic cases.

One just really quick was an 18 year old really bad car accident. And I convinced his neurosurgeon got the trauma center. My phone convinced they're like pull the plug. This kid has no chance of surviving. And like, why don't you try to or talk to the father and then the neurosurgeon called me. I'm like, you got nothing to lose. Why don't you try to start pouring fish oil down his feeding tube. and like, you got nothing to lose. Why don't you try it? Start pouring fish oil down his feeding tube. And the kid left the hospital, then it was home two or three months later,

and when he had no chance of even surviving. So that was a big success, and I know I was able to just start building on that. But for the listeners who's out there who might have had a head injury, or even someone who wants to use Omega-3s for better sleep, because I understand it helps with that as well.

Is there a big difference between one Omega-3 product and a different Omega-3 product? And how, if you're a consumer, do you pick the one that's gonna give you the maximum benefits? I generally like to go with leading brands. So we're talking, I mean, I know there are pharmaceuticals now, but I stay away from the pharmaceuticals for a really good reason I'll explain in a second. But from the retail side of

things, you know, it doesn't hurt no matter what the supplement is, is who are the leading, who are the five leading brands in that space, whether you're talking fish that space whether you're talking fish oil whether you're talking CBD oil or whatever who are the you know the top best selling brands and there's a reason why they are and so like a couple of them in the fish oil world have been the top leading brands for 15, 20 years for a reason because they're that good. And you get what you pay for. So if you want to go to Costco and get a five gallon jug of fish oil for $6, you're going to have to take a lot of them or you're anyway, it's you get what you pay for. You're going to pay more for a good quality. And what's a good quality, if it's, in my opinion,

digestibility is a big thing. And this is where I go from the pharmaceutical side. The quantity is important, but it's the quantity of the actual omega-3s, not the amount of fish oil. So a cheap brand, a thousand milligram capsule of a visual probably only has around 300 milligrams of the omega-3s. It's cheap. I mean, basically you squeeze a fish and you put it in a capsule. They do some cleaning with it and stuff like that. Well, and that's what the pharmaceutical brands do.

They do that cleaning. They break the, you know, when you squeeze a fish, you get triglycerides for the most part. You get some phospholipids, but you get mostly triglyceride form. And so they break that triglyceride bond and the omega-3s are now loading free fatty acids and you have to combine with something like sodium, needs chloride to make salt, right? You got to have a positive and negative thing. So what they do is they bind it with alcohol and that's how they go

through the cleaning process. It's no longer in oil, it's now an ethyl ester. And then they can concentrate it. And then what the pharmaceutical brands do is they just put it in a capsule and charge $20 a capsule. Cheap brands will do that and make it really concentrated,

a triple strength or whatever. But it's not even an oil anymore. It's an ethylester. The best companies will then re-engineer that and put it back into a triglyceride form. So it's digestible just like if you were eating a fish. So that ethyl acid, we don't have the enzymes. We don't have the digestive enzymes to be able to deal with that.

And so you have to take much higher doses just to get a decent amount of omega-3s into the blood. Or you consume it in the phospholipid or triglyceride form that nature gets us or re-engineered to be like nature so that we can actually absorb it. So, you know, good thing about that is we know how to digest those things. We don't know how to digest those ethylester. So that's typically those products that give you that regurgitation or those fish birds, those people often call it, is usually a bad product.

Okay, and is there a difference between the liquid form and even up that higher end capsule if they convert it back? That's a great question. That ethyl ester, if you were to take a capsule of ethyl ester, and I'm talking about even the pharmaceuticals, and bite it or chew it, you would never do it again. I mean, it's horrible and tastes. So, liquid forms pretty much have to get it back

into the triglyceride form because it's just not palatable in the ethyl ester form. So it does take some extra work to do that. Just to make it palatable, some of the better companies, you could choose the capsules because they use the exact same liquid in the capsule. So a lot of times with the products, some of the products I use, I pull out like a little sample pack and hand one to the patient and throw one in my mouth

and I just chomp down on it and they're like, I'm like, try it. And it's really, it's the same oil that you would get from the liquid. Okay, and for those who have used this treatment and it's had success, how long does it take? Is it kind of like vitamin C where it takes a little bit to build up and Inside of you and until you feel the results from it or is it fairly immediate? It's all in the dosage. So vitamin C is water soluble. You take a handful of vitamin C Your body is gonna absorb and your cells are gonna use as whatever they need and

Your basically your kidneys are going to filter out the rest. And so, vitamin C is hydrophilic, so you pee it out. Finsure oil is an oil, so it's more accumulate. And studies have shown on sort of a daily recommended dose, it takes about 12 weeks to kind of plateau. I'm dealing with traumatic brain injury. I don't want to wait 12 weeks. So Julian Bales, the neurosurgeon of West Virginia, he was the neurosurgeon that took care of the SAGO Mine survivor back in 2006.

And Barry's here is the zone diet guy. They connected and they started pouring fish oil down, hit that guy that survivors feeding to. Really high doses like 30 grams a day kind of thing and it still took three to four weeks to reach that saturation. So from the very beginning it's like how do we get the levels up higher quicker? So one of the things I one of the first things I did was start to like, well, how can you do it? Can you give it IV? Well, unfortunately, it's an oil. So you can't give oil and IV. I started working with a German company and invented a way to do that patent at the Army,

owns the patent. It's been licensed out by a company up in New York trying to further develop it. And my idea was how many Omega-3 molecules can we put in a say a 20 milliliter syringe that a battlefield medic would have with them in the middle of nowhere Afghanistan. And somebody gets injured, you got IV access, you give a push of Omega-3s to help, and the reason why. So, I got a backtrack for after-set. Why Omega-3s? Why are we talking about this?

Brains made a fat. Think of it in most basic terms. Collest role is a fat, so you need cholesterol. Omega-6 type of fat and Omega-3 type of fat. Omega-6 and Omega-3, that's a really, where the balance, that interesting thing comes in. Omega-6s,-3, that's a really where the balance that interesting thing comes in. Omega-6's both are absolutely necessary. Omega-6's their downstream effect is promote inflammation and help blood clot. Omega-3 is to balance that. They share the same enzymes and everything else. And so

the Omega-3's, the imp in the the inflammation or help resolve the inflammation, the downstream effects, help resolve the inflammation and help keep the blood from clotting, meant to balance those omega-6s. The problem is our diets are so skewed to omega-6s, 25, 30 to 1, when nature meant for it to be a balance. And so one of the first studies that I did was with a psychiatrist at the NIH. And we looked at the omega-3 levels

of 800 documented active duty suicides. And match it with 800 very closely controlled people who not committed suicide, obviously. And what we found is that people who committed suicide had crazy low levels of omega-3s. Something you can literally prevent, he's a day, change. I know it kind of got off a beaten path there, but that's like the really basics.

You know, this is, once got told by the leading neurologist in the army, we were having coffee one day and he is, you're never going to be successful. The university just got a $70 million grant to start a new center. And this is like 10, 15 years ago, right? And it started a new center to figure out what the problem is. I'm like, why is that, why is that an issue for me? And they're like, he's like, you out what the problem is. I'm like, why is that an issue for me?

And I'm like, he's like, you skipped over the problem and you already have a $0.5 solution. And if you're correct, which I think you are, you're going to make him look like idiots. And $0.5 is never going to beat out $70 million for the first year and subsequent, at 10 years, $1 billion, basically, even since then and I already had a FI-Sense solution. It's official. It's nutrition, but it's all in the dosage. How many can you how much

Visual? How many Omega-3s can you get to the brain as quickly as possible? I looked at IV. It's still working on it. That's why I came up with the idea of sort of that bigger loading dose to start off and then get back down to sort of more normal levels after a couple weeks. Did you know that Forbes Magazine recently cited that 70% of individuals who do personal development masterminds and one-on-one coaching benefited from better work performance, increased communication skills, and overall better relationships. And we, at PassionStruck, are obsessed with self-development, coaching, and mentorship.

That is why we've created a free resource to help you unlock your potential. Because people doing great things in business and life are just like you, only they've had a coach along the way. And we've got that covered too. Let us show you the systems and frameworks that we teach both minded individuals to help them step into their sharp edges, execute on their passion journeys and get predictable results time and time again. Go to passionstruck.com slash coaching right now and let's get igniting. You mentioned at the beginning of the podcast about

functional medicine and using overall some hormone treatment for paramedic grand injury as well. Why are we finding that that tends to work in conjunction with what you're talking about with Omega-3s? Well, every patient I take a four-pillar, four-pronged approach, diet and exercise, the things that we should all be doing anyway. Eating healthy, cutting out the sugars, decrease or cut out alcohol,

all the, everything that you know, but we never do, that should be a standardly good eating habits. Call it diet, but it's really about eating habits. So diet and exercise. One of the things we're often told, particularly right after a concussion, you know, if you've got kids and whatever, you know, go sit in a dark room

until the symptoms go away. Well, what about people like you and me that the symptoms didn't go away, right? And like we still be sitting in a dark room not doing anything, no. What the science shows is this quicker you get somebody back to exercise after a head injury, the faster they recover, particularly in young people.

Stanford University, for example, the friend of mine who's the neurosurgeon head of the program there, he told me he goes, we put our athletes on a treadmill or a stationary bike the day after a concussion and make them go for 20, 30 minutes. I mean, what if they have a headache and he goes, I give him a moatron and tell him to keep running. I mean, he goes, they get better so much quick. So those are the first two diet exercise. They help stimulate what we call the endogenous or endocannabinoid system, which is that fine-tuned system that keeps us happy and healthy and our keeps our immune system in tune.

It's sort of that equalizer for our immune system and our brain. So, diet exercise very much stimulate in a good way, our embodgenous cannabinoid system, the most abundant receptors in our brain and throughout our body. But then I go into targeted nutritional therapy, as I call it, the higher dose of visual and come down, some things to help support mitochondrial support to keep your energies up because one of the biggest things is fatigue, right? And you got to get that nutritional foundation into place for any of these other things, whether you're talking about neurofimulation or neuropeabac or hyperbaric oxygen or any

of these other modalities, you still got to have that nutritional foundation in place. Diet exercise and good supplementation, the right supplementation, not shotgun, but the right. But when the brain takes a hit and gets rattled, one of the things is, it's not, you, why you don't see it on a CT scan for example. It's unless there's massive damage. The damage is microscopic. It's that stretching and pooling of those connections between the different parts of the brain. And that's what gets damaged. It's like using ways or Google maps

to get, you know, you want to go from Tampa to Orlando, you know, you put on a mapping software, you know, ways, but there's construction and an accident on the highway in between. And so what does it do? It re-rout you to be the fastest way around. So you got to get around that accident. You got to get around that construction. Well, that's what the brain tries to figure out what to do. So it tries to figure out how to reroute the information and processing and things like that.

But as you know, it's going to take you longer to get the Orlando than if the highway are wide open. And so it's the same thing with the brain. So we're thinking it's muddy and stuff like that. But that's stretching that pulling, One of the most vulnerable little things that we don't appreciate and it kind of crosses over different parts of medicine is the pituitary gland that hangs down right at the center, the base of the brain, the third eye, as cultures have called it, the pituitary gland and it controls a lot of our hormones, particularly our testosterone and growth

hormone and thyroid, for example. So when the pituitary, that connection to the pituitary gets stretched and that microscopic damage basically makes that signal not so good from the brain to the pituitary. And the pituitary is not sending out enough signal down to the testicles to make more test austro. For example, and so then the feedback loop gets up to the brain and saying, hey, we're not seeing a test austro in here, make more. But that signal doesn't get back down to the pituitary to get that complete that loop. So you've got to look at the pituitary dysfunction or functionality and correct it and the only way you can do that is blood work. You got to look at it very objectively. It's not so easy to just throw a bunch of testosterone. It's somebody that can cause all kinds of problems. You've got to have somebody who knows what they're doing to address the amount, the correct way of testosterone, applicable growth hormone or thyroid issues, but testosterone

is the one I see particularly in special operators. That's the one that seems to be just absolutely. You start to deal with it a couple of ways, adding a little extra testosterone, get the levels up, but also using another medication to trick the brain into not thinking they're seeing enough testosterone, so your brain simulates, gets everything moving, kind of take a double approach, but doctors don't think that way.

Neurologists aren't thinking that way. Neurologists are looking at pituitary. That's the endocrinologist world. Well, the endocrinologist is only looking at diabetes. And they're like, well, that's the brain. That's the neurologist. So nobody's taking ownership. There's no concussion doctor.

There's no TBI specialty, because across is over these different specialties. And so it kind of gets lost in that so fight, that silo of our specialization in medicine. Nobody's really looking at the bigger picture. That functional medicine or integrative medicine approach. I wouldn't say nobody, but we're getting better at it, but it's just been a hard road.

Yeah, and I've talked to many of the doctors at the VA and they say that they're aware of the studies and I've provided them some of the studies that I found whether it's been Dr. Mark Ordon's or others that I found about the functional medicine approach and they acknowledge that there have been success to it, but they're not authorized to use it at the VA yet, which to me sounded kind of crazy, because you would think that's one of the most susceptible populations that could benefit from final and error of using it. So. Right. It's that same story for hyperbaric oxygen therapy,

or H-Bot, exact same story. Yeah, we know it will probably work, but we're not authorized to use it. Well, I'm gonna switch gears here a little bit. So you ended up founding an organization called BrainCare and then you have a sister nonprofit if I understand this correctly called the Brain Health Education and Research Institute.

And I wanted you to explain to the audience what is the goal of both and why do both the nonprofit and a for profit in conjunction? Well, the nonprofit for profits is really simple. I mean brain care is my clinic. You know, I see patients and deal direct patient care, whereas the Brain Health Education Research Institute, which I actually started first, is a way to educate, you know, not educate both, I say, the three Ps, physicians, patients and parents, and educate means two different things here.

And so I try to do the two approaches. I use that as an education tool, both the website that I put information out there and I put out there for now almost nine or ten years for free, not very for-profit like. I let it put out the protocols out there for free and ringhealtheducation.org if people want to look that up, but I also try to, it's sometimes I better about it, and I've got to get some interns or something to help, but updating, you know, what's going on in the news, because I want every day I'm getting a Google alert feed to see what's new in traumatic brain injury, and I make threes and so on, and at times

I've been better about uploading some of the latest news, what's going on in those worlds. So it's really about education. But educationally I said two things though. It's, you know, there's the doctors don't believe it unless they read it in a medical journal. As much as that is wrong and wrong with that statement. A former chief editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, for example, after she retired said 50% of everything we've ever published is wrong. 50%. This is one of the leading drills in the world. It's crazy, but if they don't read it in a medical journal, they won't believe it.

So we've got to do the science. We've got to do the research and the publication, in fact, just literally just, yes, creating notified of a publication with some colleagues in Australia that reached out to me and said, can you help us with redesigning the research and write the papers, stuff like that? So we've got to do that top-down approach to address the physicians. If they're not going to think for themselves at least, let's get it into some journal so they don't have to and they'll believe it. But also that grassroots, that bottom-up approach, that mothers against drunk driving approach.

I wrote a book called When Brains Collide and it's available on Amazon and it's target audience is essentially soccer moms if you will. It's very specifically designed to educate somebody who's looking for answers that grassroots approach. I say, mothers and wives can change the world. Us guys were too stupid. We're just too stubborn. Mothers and wives, you know, they can change the world. And so we need that grassroots approach. So I wanna educate those people.

You know, you've got a 16 year old high school ice hockey player who's now can't get out of bed because of a cushion or whatever. That mother's gonna be looking and trying to find whatever she can to do what she can for her child. I mean, that's why I say, mothers and wives can change the world. So you need that grassroots approach, you need that top-down approach,

and hopefully someday somewhere they're gonna meet in the middle. Okay, and if you're someone who's listening to this and you were like, mean you've had long-term symptoms that you're someone who's listening to this and you you were like me and you've had long-term Symptoms that you're you're dealing with and you're frustrated What are the first one or two steps that you would take if you were in their situation To get the help that they need the first thing is you know He could put it this way, but Dr. Google has a lot of answers not always good

You can find the right one, but and that's how a lot of answers, not always good. You can find the right one, but and that's how people find me is they're searching for answers on the internet. And I've been told many times by many of people that I'm the world's worst marketing person because I don't get to figure out a better way to sort of get that message out. But a part of it is a, you know, just running into resistance from other physicians. The most common email that I'll get, for example, will be my mother, my brother, my uncle, my cousin, is in a coma in the hospital after a car accident. And I saw the work that you do. How do I convince the doctors to give my loved one fish oil?

And the doctors are resistant to it. So that's the most common thing. But it's really about research. Organizations like the Warrior Angel Foundation are a great place to start. If you're, you know, especially for the traumatic brain injury, concussion side of things. If you're really struggling with PTSD, for example,

and I know you wanted to go into PTSD a little bit, getting that nutritional, that hormonal foundation in place, you're gonna make all the difference in the world. It may eliminate the PTSD side of things by treating the traumatic brain injury. Why is underlying all this is inflammation? You gotta treat that inflammation in the brain. But one of the best other organizations

that veteran organizations have associated with and a medical advisor too, that really has switched their focus to PTSD is the Boulder Crest Foundation. And they have the Boulder Crest retreat in northern Virginia, is the original one, and they have now one in southern Arizona as well, but they're also getting some good traction to work with the VA and implement their post-traumatic growth or system. Their path program, don't ask what a path stands for, but the P.A.T. H. H. But it's based on the concept of taking that traumatic incident and turning it around and learning how do we grow from that. And they're having great success in the world of PTSD. So much so, like I said,

the VA is basically starting to create programs to go around the country to teach this warrior path program for post-traumatic groups. Okay, well that's great. And if someone would like to get a hold of you, you gave your nonprofit website earlier, how can they get a hold of you personally? I'll let you do some personal marketing here. I, three websites that you can try. Sort of a catch all one. If you can't remember anything else,

is drMichaelLewisMD.com. And so that's just sort of my bio and kind of send you in different directions, drMichaelLewisMD.com. So drMichaelLewisMD.comcom as a generic place to start. You can learn my background and why I do what I do and what I've done, what I've done. As a patient, if you're looking seeking for help, two directions I would send you. What is it you want to come directly to me to go to braincare.center, not.com, braincare.center?

And that's my practice website. Look at the information there, but the new patient tab, you want to come to me as a patient, go in that direction. If you're a veteran and you're struggling financially or what of other reason or you just want that support from veterans organizations,

absolutely go to the or your angel foundation. We're really trying to ramp that up. It looks like we're just on the cost. I believe we have a commitment for a significant financial commitment to grow the World of Angel Foundation. I'm not sure it's even hit the bank on yet, but that's gonna allow Andrew and Andy,

another, got Andrew and Andy, who are basically running this Warner Angel Foundation, both former Green Berets, well actually Andy's in the reserve still, but it's gonna allow them to focus on this full time instead of their evening job, if you will. So, Warner Angel Foundation, absolutely critical. If you're a veteran that's struggling

and you want that veteran support from fellow veterans, get to the Warrior Angel Foundation. And then again, general educational information, brainhealtheducation.org, brainhealtheducation.org, or G, you know, on Facebook and all that other stuff. Some day I'll fire the like chief marketing officer, but you know, I still got to still got to do my job. Well great. Well, Dr. Lewis, thank you so much for joining us today.

Such insightful conversation and I really appreciate it. My pleasure. I wanted to take this opportunity at the end of the show to thank all of you, the listeners, for listening and watching the Passion Start Podcast. I know you've got absolutely millions of choices out there, and it means so much of us that you tune in and support our cause of making Passion Go viral. Just this week, we surpassed a huge milestone. Not only did we cross 75,000 downloads

of the podcast in just six months, we also achieved an even larger milestone and that is over 1,000 five star ratings of the podcast, which means so much to me because that comes directly from the audience. And in the upcoming weeks, we have amazing episodes to showcase for you. These include a number of episodes that I'm doing on the topic of mental health, as well as upcoming interviews with astronaut Kayla Baron, who is preparing to blast off to the ISS in October. Former astronaut Wendy Lawrence, who will discuss her career in the Shullow program, but also her ideas on both peak performance and what is occurring in the space program today. I also have Navy SEAL turned Dr. Bob Adams,

who will discuss his journey from the SEAL teams to becoming an Army Colonel and then a family physician. I also have on NASCAR driver Jesse Uigi and finally Navy SEAL Commander Mark Devine, the author of Unbeadled Mind. So much great content. I'm so excited you're here and that I can share it with you. 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.

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