Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1193 | A Balanced Approach to ADD Medication | Guest: Dr. Daniel Amen

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Starting point is 00:00:46 That's fellowship homelones.com slash alley, term supply, see site for details, fellowship home loans, mortgage lending by the book, nationwide mortgage bankers, DBA Fellowship Home Loans, equal housing lender, NMLS, number 819-382. Wellness Wednesday is back today with Dr. Daniel Amen. He is probably one of the best known psychiatrist in the country and he has a novel approach to looking at brain health when it comes to ADD, ADHD, autism, depression, anxiety. And today we are going to talk about the mainstream view of these diagnoses versus how we can actually care for our brains in a way that helps us. He is not anti-pharmaceutical, but he is holistic health, looking at the whole

Starting point is 00:01:36 picture of the body. And so today, he is going to break that down for us. He is also going to tell us what to look for. If you or someone you love, maybe ADD, it was an absolutely fascinating conversation. We'll also get to the damaging effects of weed on people's brains and our society. It is not as innocuous as you are being told. Just an incredible conversation. You will learn so much from. I know I did. We've got all of this and more on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com, code Alley. That's good ranchers.com code Alley. Dr. Ayman, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. I know a lot of people listening and watching they follow you, have for a while. But for those who may not know,

Starting point is 00:02:28 can you say who you are and what you do? So Daniel Ayman, I am a husband and a father and a grandfather father to five, and I am a psychiatrist, but I do things very differently than my colleagues. I actually think you should look at the brain before you go about treating it. I have 11 clinics, and we have the world's largest database of brain scans related to behavior, about 260,000 scans on people from 155 countries. Wow. Can you tell me a little bit more about the scans? Because you mentioned that most people in your field do not scan the brain before they diagnose an adult or a child with ADD.

Starting point is 00:03:20 So what are your scans and what do they set out to accomplish? So at Aeman Clinics, we do a study called brain specced imaging, specced single photon emission computed tomography, is a nuclear medicine study that looks at blood. blood flow and activity looks at how your brain works. And it tells us basically three things. Good activity. Areas with too little or areas with too much. And then our job becomes about balancing the brain.

Starting point is 00:04:01 And why we do that when most others don't is, before I went to medical school, I was an x-ray technician. And our professors used to say, how do you know unless you look? And when I decided to be a psychiatrist, my first wife tried to kill herself when I was in medical school. I took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist, and I realized this is a profession that can change generations of people. but I joined the only medical specialty that never looks at the organ it treats. And I thought then it was insane. And I just had no idea that I would be part of changing it.

Starting point is 00:04:52 And think about this with me. Why are psychiatrists the only medical doctors who never look at the organ they treat. And because of that, Ritalin is controversial. For the wrong brain, it's a nightmare. And for the right brain,

Starting point is 00:05:15 it's miraculous. And how would you know ahead of time if you didn't actually look at the physical function of the organ you're treating? Right. And, you know, spec's not the only way to look at the brain.

Starting point is 00:05:32 Other people do PET scans. Other people do quantitative EEG. Other people do functional MRI. I just love SPACT. And, you know, because we built this database of experience, well, that's hard to replicate. And what we learned about ADD or ADHD, it's just a different term for the same thing.

Starting point is 00:05:59 that when people who have this disorder try to concentrate, the front part of their brain shuts down, where in a healthy population it turns on. So what does that mean? It means the harder they tried, the worse it gets. And how would I know that if I didn't look? How would I know a child's ADD was due to their brain working too hard or not hard enough? And I can't tell like I'm not a magician where I can, you know, divinate you have your brain does this by your behavior because you can have the same symptom clusters and have wild.

Starting point is 00:06:55 different brain function. Right. Okay. So it could be, are you saying that people with ADD, it could be that a part of their brain isn't working hard enough or that it is working too hard, or is everyone who is displaying these kind of ADD symptoms, the inability to concentrate, do they all share that commonality of the front part of their brain just shutting down when it should be turning on? Not all of them. But in, in, In my book, Healing ADD, I talk about the seven different types. And six of the seven have that sort of deactivation. But one of the types, the type we call the Ring of Fire,

Starting point is 00:07:42 activates too much. And when you give them a stimulant, 80% of the time you disrupt them. You make them worse. And they tend to be the ones we see. We typically don't see the sort of classic ADD or the inattentive ADD because their pediatrician has seen them in general. Like, you know, the medicine helps them. We tend to see the treatment failures.

Starting point is 00:08:16 And so we see way more ring of fire than the tip of. child psychiatrist. And what is ring of fire? So ring of fire is where their whole brain is really much more active than compared to healthy. It's like the freeway is jammed and the world comes at them too fast, they get easily distracted. They tend to be rigid, and if things don't go their way, they tend to be upset. And if you stimulate an already overactive brain, you generally make them worse. And so we do treatments. We use the scan sort of like a map. And you've heard a set of a picture is worth a thousand words, but a map is worth a thousand pictures. A map tells you, okay, here is where you are and gives us direction on how to get to where

Starting point is 00:09:30 you want to go. And so it's like the traffic in L.A. where it's just way too busy. And there are different kinds of ADD medications. Like you mentioned the stimulant. Would that be something like Ritalin where you're trying to stimulate a part of the brain that is shut down? Yes.

Starting point is 00:09:51 Okay. And then there's another kind. If you're oversimulated brain, you would take a different kind of medication that helps it calm down? Yes. I actually like a supplement that I developed, goodness, 25 years ago, that has GABA. GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter 5HTP, which is the precursor for serotonin, and and altiricine, which is the precursor for dopamine.

Starting point is 00:10:20 And that tends to have a nice calming effect or a balancing effect on the brain. And, you know, when I started scanning people in 1991, I came to realize some of the meds we prescribe were actually harmful to the brain. And then I remember in medical school, all medical students learn, first do no harm, use the least toxic, most effective treatments. And because of that, I got very interested in natural supplements, lifestyle, dietary interventions for the brain. So if you come to AIMin clinics,

Starting point is 00:11:06 the first thing we're going to do is take a really good history, do cognitive testing, do imaging, And then we don't think about, well, what medicine would we use? It's, well, what lifestyle or natural supplement might we try first to see if we can't get better balance to your brain? But you do see a need in some cases for pharmaceuticals because some would say no Ritalin and ADD medications. They always suppress the personality. they take the uniqueness out of the kid, and we shouldn't prescribe that at all.

Starting point is 00:11:47 But it sounds like you're saying, and from what I've read, these can be of benefit to people with certain kinds of ADD. They can be miraculous, right? And I think withholding proper treatment from an adult or from a child is like withholding glasses

Starting point is 00:12:10 from someone who can't see. Now, I've been a psychiatrist for 40 years. And when I prescribe a stimulant and it's the right thing for the person, it doesn't make them depressed. It doesn't dull their personality. It helps them be who they really are when their brain is healthy. Now, if you come at this with a preconceived idea that, all medicine is of the devil. Well, then you can find all sorts of cases where these medications have made people worse

Starting point is 00:12:51 because they all have black box warnings. Because if you give them to the wrong person, they're going to make people worse. But there's a whole bunch of other cases where someone went from C's and D's to all A's and B's and got into law school or medical school. Or I remember one of my early cases, I saw the son of a business person, and he's like, Dr. Ayman, if you think I'm bad, you should see my dad.

Starting point is 00:13:26 And then I saw his daughter, and she said, Dr. Ayman, if you think I'm bad, you should see my dad. And then I saw the wife who didn't have ADD, but she was chronically stressed because she was married to the guy that had ADD, And she's like, you have to help me with this stress. And so finally, he's the fourth person in the family that came to see me.

Starting point is 00:13:48 And the scan totally convinced him he needed to take care of his ADD. And the next year, he made three times the amount of money he'd ever made in his life because he could focus. Right. And so I think withholding medicine, is not the right thing. But don't give everybody who has ADD the same treatment. That's like giving everybody who has heart disease the same treatment, which is stupid, right?

Starting point is 00:14:26 I mean, there's 100 different causes of chest pain. You don't give everybody the same treatment. You try to go, well, what's the cause of the chest pain? Quick pause to tell you about our first sponsor for the day, and that is Interior Delight. So if you are like me and you need help designing your home, picking out the right decor, then you need to check out interior delights. It is timeless, classic, beautiful, bright style that I absolutely love. Y'all, I get paralyzed when it comes to picking out different decorations and knowing how it's going to look in my home. I just need to be able to go to one source of decor that I know. is going to be beautiful and is going to actually motivate me to complete the design of my home so I can walk into a room and say, yes, this is done, this is beautiful. That is exactly why interior delights exist. They make it really easy. Their stuff is right up my alley design-wise. It's just beautiful. Plus, I love Sarah, who owns this company. She's a Related Bell, actually.

Starting point is 00:15:37 and we had a wonderful conversation when we were talking about her being a part of this show. So if you want to, again, vote with your dollar and support a company that supports the values that you and I have and get beautiful products and decor for your home, then you need to check out Interior Delights. Go to Interior Delights.net slash Alley. Use code Alley for 10% off your first purchase. That's interior delights.net slash alley. A lot of people have a concern specifically in young boys being diagnosed with ADD. Boys tend to be more rambunctious than girls at an early age, can't sit still for as long. They want to be more aggressive outside running around.

Starting point is 00:16:23 And some people believe that because young boys don't always fit into the perfect, you know, kindergarten paradigm when they're five, six years old, that they're over-medicalized. Do you think that's true that boys are kind of being punished for people? boys told they have ADD at a young age when maybe they're just young boys? Yes. Sometimes it's a maturational delay, which is why if you have an active boy or girl, it's probably best for them to be older in their class, like my birthday's in July. So that's barely five when I started kindergarten. probably with what we know now, it would have been better to hold me back for a year because then I would have, just think about it, almost 20% more brain development.

Starting point is 00:17:20 Right. I think my wife was actually four and a half when she started kindergarten. What we now know, the brain needs time to mature. So that's often one factor. Another factor we should talk about is diet. Things like artificial dyes and sweeteners are rampant. They're like in 10,000 products in the United States. If you have a processed food diet, you're much more likely to present like you have ADV. There's this great study out of Holland that they actually replicate. And I think the original study was on 300 kids who had ADD or ADHD. They eliminated gluten, dairy, corn, soy, artificial dyes and sweeteners.

Starting point is 00:18:18 And after six months, 70% of them didn't have ADD anymore. Wow. And so shouldn't the first intervention be, let's just clean up your diet. it. And let's take away the dopamine stealers, your gadgets, and get you more sun and more exercise and some simple nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids. And see, like to me, that's imminently rational to before you give someone a stimulant that's going to change their brain, let's just clean up your diet and your habits. And if after you clean up their diets and habits, there's still a half an hour of homework,

Starting point is 00:19:14 takes them four hours to do, that their level of impulsivity is unacceptable, that they can't focus and they're not performing anywhere near their ability in school. Well, then let's scam. And let's consider. or supplements or medication. Something that I learned from your book is that it is a misconception that people with ADD cannot focus on anything, that they're always just kind of like bouncing around like a jelly bean.

Starting point is 00:19:49 Some people with ADD can get very focused. I've seen this before. They can get hyper-focused on something. They may be able to sit down and read, you know, an entire book in one sitting if they're really interested in it. It's really that they can't concentrate on things that they don't want to concentrate on, whereas someone without ADD would be able to. Is that correct?

Starting point is 00:20:13 That's correct. In fact, maybe we should talk about how do you know if you have ADD? Yeah. And the five hallmark symptoms. And the first one is short attention span, but not for everything. It's short attention span for regular routine every day. things, school work, homework, paperwork, chores, the things that make life work. But, and this is what surprises people, for things that are new, novel, highly stimulating, or frightening, people

Starting point is 00:20:53 with ADD can pay attention just fine. Things that have their own intrinsic dopamine. So you know adults that have this because they fall in love. And for like four to six months, they're totally focused. But as the dopamine and new love wears awe, they can't pay attention at all. And their partners like, hey, where'd you go? Or if they have a new hobby and they love it. they'll focus on it. Or they have a teacher they love.

Starting point is 00:21:37 That one class will be great, but the six other teachers are complaining they can't focus. So it's new novel, highly stimulating or frightening. And that's often why they like extreme sports. Right. Or why they can be risk takers, because they're looking for, the thrill. It's also why they tend to be negative. And in Healing ADD, I talk about the games

Starting point is 00:22:12 ADD people play. And the first game they play is, let's have a problem, is they pick on other people. They like poke at them just so that they can sort of get that reaction out of them. And I always tell parents, when the child hands you the rope to play tug-a-war, don't pick up the rope. And there's a great parenting section in that book. The second symptom is they're easily distracted. They see too much. They hear too much. They sense too much.

Starting point is 00:22:46 It's like the world comes at them too fast. And they hate tags in clothes because they feel them. My first wife had ADD, I write about that. And right after we got married, I went into our little apartment and we were staying in medical school, you know, in school housing. And all of my shirts had the tags cut out. And I've never felt a tag in my life. And I took one of the shirts into our little family room and I'm like, do you know what happened to my shirts? She goes, you had all those tags.

Starting point is 00:23:29 I hate tags. Don't you hate tags? aren't you happy I did that? And I'm like, never felt a tag ever. Please don't cut up my clothes. I laughed when I heard that story when I was listening to your book. And there's so much, and I won't interject too much. But I, there was so much as I was listening.

Starting point is 00:23:48 I was like, wow, this reminds me of this person. This reminds me of me of me. My grandmother lived with us growing up. And she would always, I would always have her cut the tags out of all my clothes. And to this day, I cannot stand. tags in my clothes. I feel it all day. It's like the princess and the pee. And I have plenty of other things in this book that remind me of myself. But I laughed when I read that because I can relate to her. The tags have always bothered me. Well, if you have, you know, the way we often

Starting point is 00:24:19 diagnose ADD and women is they bring their children to us. Because women often do not get diagnosed. So maybe more over diagnosed, overdiagnosed in boys, but not in girls. It's probably underdiagnosed in girls because we still have serious gender bias in this country. And if a little boy is having trouble, the parents get upset and they're like, he's going to have to take care of a family someday. And if a little girl is having trouble, they're like, oh, maybe she's not that smart. We hope she marries somebody nice. And that's completely irrational. Because if anything, I just did a post, my wife and I do a podcast together called Change Your Brain Every Day.

Starting point is 00:25:08 And we are talking about energy. And we have three generations now of tired women because they're doing way more than taking care of the house and the kids. And if they have ADD, they often look depressed when they're really not. depressed, they just have untreated ADD. So easily distracted, organization can be a challenge, both for time and space. If you look at their rooms, their dust, their book bags, they tend to be late, not because they want to, but they actually don't start getting ready until, oh my God, I'm late. Procrastination tend to put things off until someone's mad at them. Or they're under a lot of pressure and impulse control issues where they might say something.

Starting point is 00:26:03 They shouldn't say or do something that is not helpful. And if you have three of those, probably were picking up the book or getting an evaluation. I have a free ADD-type test online. If you go to ADD-type test.com, you can see you know, based on how you answer the questions, do you likely have ADD, and which of the seven or combination of seven types you have because people can have more than one type. Share of the Aeros this year is brought to you by our friends at Carly Jean Los Angeles. It is going to be amazing.

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Starting point is 00:27:25 if you're interested in dinner with the speakers and different things. like that. We've got Ginger Duggervolo, Elisa Childers, Hilary Morgan Ferre of Mama Bear Apologetics, M is for Mama, Abby Halberstadt, Katie Fowles, Taylor, Dukes, Shana Holman, and of course, Francesca Battistelli, be there. It's going to be amazing. Go to share the aeros.com. What do you think is, I guess there's probably not one cause of ADD, but do you think, I know that you've talked about the genetics. I know that you've talked about the things that we eat, is there anything else that you see as the impetus for why there seems to be so much ADD today? Or maybe you think it's just being diagnosed better than it used to be,

Starting point is 00:28:14 but some people see it as a rising and alarming trend. No, I think it's going up. I think the number one cause is genetic. It runs in your family. Like you could see some of the symptoms going generationally in your own family. I think ADD, ADHD is real, and when left untreated, it can devastate people's lives. Having said that, concussions increase the risk of ADD. Toxic food increases the risk of ADD. Toxic products you put on children's bodies increase the risk of ADD. I like we're having this discussion now about environmental toxins and brain help and issues like ADD and autism. I think all the screen time that you know, you shouldn't give gadgets to kids. You shouldn't give devices to kids. They were unleashed on our society, video games, smartphones,

Starting point is 00:29:29 iPads, they were unleashed on our society for profit with no neuroscience study ahead of time. Right. And I really like it when neuroscience turns into public policy, for example. We know social media is damaging to children's mental health. And Australia just banned it for kids under 16. you know, science to policy. California just said, nope, can't start school before 8 o'clock in the morning. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:30:10 Because kids who sleep just an hour less than their peers have a higher incidence of anxiety, depression, and suicide. And so now we're going to protect their sleep. So no more shown up at school at 5 o'clock in the morning or zero periods. I like that. And I was just involved in a bill in Arizona banning ultra-processed foods in schools, science going to public policy. And I think we have to be more thoughtful because this mental health epidemic in children,

Starting point is 00:30:52 it's going to impact the future of our country. I don't know if you know, but 77% of young people do not qualify for military service because of their physical or mental health. That's a national security crisis. Wow. Yes, absolutely. RFK today, as we're recording this, is announcing a ban on artificial dyes. I believe California already banned one of the dice, maybe Red 40 or I don't remember which one it was. But certainly some of the dyes, as you said, can cause symptoms of ADD. I know RFK has been talking about that as well.

Starting point is 00:31:34 When you see some of the new public policy coming out of this administration over the past few months in relation to these possible environmental causes, what are your thoughts? I'm a huge fan. In fact, I gave a lecture in Washington in October to the Integrative Medicine for Mental Health Conference, like a thousand. And I said, and I try to be apolitical because I want to help everybody. But if the current administration stayed, the one before, absolutely nothing was going to change in our health. But if RFK was in the new administration, we're going to have big discussions, have discussions on fluoride, you know, places where they're fluoride in the water, children have lower

Starting point is 00:32:25 IQs. Well, that's not okay. And artificial dyes and sweeteners, I actually have, and it's got the most views of anything I've published over the last decade of a scan of a child off and on red dye number 40. And the parents brought him to me because it's like, you know, whenever he gets anything red, he goes into a rage. And he's completely not himself. And I'm like, well, let's scan him off and then on red vines. And it flamed his brain in a very bad way. I mean, it clearly changed his brain.

Starting point is 00:33:15 So if we don't have to use these things, and clearly we don't have to use them, right? They're banned in places like Canada and Europe. Why would we allow them unless we're just bowing down to the food industry that wants to use them because they're cheap? And it's like, oh, well, food will cost more. Well, how much does it cost to have a brain that's not working right? I mean, what is that actually doing to the soul of the individual people and the fabric of America, where last year there were 340 million prescriptions written for antidepressants.

Starting point is 00:33:58 Wow. It's like what's the first, the smartest, the easiest thing to do? And what I learned is most psychiatric illnesses, ADD, autism, depression, bipolar disorder, are not mental health issues. They're brain health issues. and this one idea changes everything. Get your brain healthy and your mind will follow. And if these chemicals are not good for gut health,

Starting point is 00:34:36 if they're not good for brain health, well, why do we allow them in food? And the food companies will go, they're not proven to be bad. But that's the wrong question. The question should be, are they proven to be safe and they're not. And there's actually this fascinating new study on aspartame,

Starting point is 00:34:58 because I'd be happy if they banned that too. That's in like dioco. They gave mice aspartame and Nutrisweet or what's in diacoke. And it made the rats anxious. But you know what else it did? It made their babies and their grandbabies anxious. Wow. And so put something so simple, be causing or be part of what's causing the anxiety epidemic,

Starting point is 00:35:31 because aspartame is in 6,000 products. And I used to think of Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi is free. And I have a new book coming out in December called Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain. And I remember, and I think it's right around 1991, I'm seeing patients in my office. And this one lady comes to me and she said, I stopped aspartame and my arthritis went away. And at the time, I was 35, and I had arthritis in my hands and my knees. And it was terrible. And I had trouble getting off the floor playing with my kids.

Starting point is 00:36:14 And I'm like, oh, that's so interesting. because I think most of what I've learned, I've actually learned from my patients. And so I stopped aspirate. At the moment, I was drinking Diet Pepsi like she was my best friend. Like I'd have a liter a day because I thought her was free. And then I stopped and my pain went away. And I'm not that smart. And so I'm like, two months later, I'm like, let's try this again.

Starting point is 00:36:38 Because I really liked the taste of Dieterpepsi. And I had the worst flare. and I just broke up with aspartame. It's like, you know, I love it. It doesn't love me. Allie, I don't know if you've ever been in a bad relationship. I have. I'm not doing it anymore.

Starting point is 00:36:58 I'm married to my best friend. I'm damn sure not doing it with food. Yeah. If there's something that hurts me, I have no interest in it. Next sponsor is Fellowship Home Loans. This is Mortgage Lending by the book. And by the book, I mean the Bible because the people who own fellowship home loans, they are trying to glorify God in everything they do. That's why I love them so much, not only because they are great at what they do, but because they care so much about integrity and honesty and walking alongside people like you and purchasing their home or refinancing.

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Starting point is 00:38:17 $500 credit toward your closing. Term supply, see fellowshiphome loans.com slash alley, nationwide mortgage bankers, DBA Fellowship Home Loans, Equal Housing Lender, NMLS number 819382. Okay, you mentioned something interesting about you said if the last administration stayed put, we wouldn't be having all these conversations. And this is not really a political question, but I am interested in why. And not only why would the last administration or people in bureaucracy not be interested in investigating all of these causes? As you mentioned, huge cost of having so many people on antidepressants and things like that.

Starting point is 00:39:01 But also, you mentioned that so many people in your field in psychology don't want to look at the brain. They don't want to look at root causes. They just treat everyone the same. So what is behind that lack of curiosity? Well, I think it's, well, we don't, this is not what we do. so we don't do it. And when I started imaging, I went to all-day lectures

Starting point is 00:39:27 at the American Psychiatric Association on brain-specked imaging in child psychiatry, in adult psychiatry, and it was a very exciting time. But very quickly, they realized imaging didn't go with the status quo.

Starting point is 00:39:44 Imaging disrupts everything. And they're like, oh, no, you shouldn't scan. And growing up, my dad called me a maverick. Because when you told me I shouldn't do something, I always went, why? Well, why shouldn't I do that? Right? This is how my brain works.

Starting point is 00:40:03 And so when they told me I shouldn't do it, I'm like, well, why? How do you know unless you look? And I had already so much experience, them telling me not to do it. I didn't really care. They weren't my boss. I worked for myself and my patients. but it got diminished because it disrupts the status quo. There's a great book about scientific revolutions.

Starting point is 00:40:33 It's actually written in 1962 by Thomas Kuhn. And he said revolutions happen in six stages. One is just normal science, just going along with the status quo. Two is somebody notices a problem. I would diagnose someone with ADD, how I was taught based on symptom clusters. I'd put them on a stimulant. Some people would miraculously get better and some people wanted to kill themselves. I hated that.

Starting point is 00:41:06 I hated feeling I don't have all the information. I don't like making people worse. It upsets me. And so somebody notices a problem. I noticed a problem. And I'm not the only one. Stage three is the status quo notices a problem, but they don't want to change the financial model.

Starting point is 00:41:32 So they make small incremental changes hoping that will satisfy the population. And so we've now had six versions of the DSM. And so DSM3 that I trained under, that was the term ADD with or without hyperactivity. DSM3R revised, changed the name for really no good reason to ADHD, highlighting the hyperactive component of it, basically thrown away all the ADD without hyperactive people. Stage four of the revolution is someone creates a new mouse trap. Detailed histories, cognitive testing, imaging, brain health. Stop calling it mental illness.

Starting point is 00:42:24 Start calling it what it really is. These are brain health issues. And that's our innovation. Stage five is the most predictable of all stages. It's the rejection. I've gone through it in more ways than we want to talk about. But I've been called a charlatan and a snake oil salesman. On the cover of the Washington Post magazine in, I think it was 2011,

Starting point is 00:42:54 Dr. Raymond's the most popular psychiatrist in the country, and most psychiatrists think that's a bad thing. And 2020, interviewed me in 2005, and they start the interview with Brad Peterson, the child psychiatrist from Columbia, thinks you should be arrested for your work. That's the first question on the interview. And the journalist said, how would you respond? And I was on the speech team in college, and my speech coach said, when you don't know what to say, take a breath, smile, it'll come to you. So I took a breath, I smiled, and I said, that's so interesting. Last week, someone told me I should win a Nobel Prize.

Starting point is 00:43:47 This week, you're telling me I should be arrested. Yeah. Sort of keeps me balanced. Yeah, there you go. And I actually got to meet Dr. Peterson a couple of years later. And this year, we published a huge study together on depression and imaging. So, wow. You know, that sort of keeps me going. And stage six is just the acceptance. And, you know, I've been to the White House with the new administration. We're working on a brain health revolution. That's sort of the big idea.

Starting point is 00:44:20 I've never had anyone except my friend at the White House asked me, how big can you think? And I'm like, I think President Trump should declare the next 10 years. the decade of brain health. And when you think of it as mental health, Ellie, people make diagnoses based on symptom clusters with no biological data. And it gets us into the mental mess we're in.

Starting point is 00:44:52 When you think of it as brain health, whether it's ADD or depression, it's like it's brain health. Oh, we have to eat healthy. We need to exercise together. We need to train our brain to help us rather than hurt us. And even if I use medicine with someone, I use less of it because I'm supporting the health of their brain. And that's the revolution.

Starting point is 00:45:25 I want you to be a brain warrior to know. So brain warriors are armed, prepared, and aware. Our society currently is not for us. It's against us. And we have to be serious about our brains and the brains of those we love. What comes to your mind when you hear the phrase chemical imbalance? That has long been used to describe what people with the people with the brain. or anxiety have, that they have a chemical imbalance, I guess, usually they're described as having

Starting point is 00:46:06 not enough serotonin, and they say they're taking their intrepressants or anti-anxiety medication in order to remedy this. Do you follow that? Do you think that it's a chemical imbalance issue? Well, I think supporting neurotransmitters can be very helpful, but I think it's way more complicated than that. One of the big lessons I learned is if you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it, we have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your minds. And the mnemonic I have that I developed since I wrote healing ADD is called Bright Minds. So B is for blood flow. Low blood flow is the number one brain imaging predictor of Alzheimer's, disease, depression, and ADHD. And so, So what can I do to support the blood flow of my patients?

Starting point is 00:47:06 And for each of these, these are the things to avoid like too much caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, being sedentary. They'll decrease blood flow. What increases blood flow, exercise, especially coordination exercise for your son, unlike table tennis, teach him to be great at. ping pong. His focus will go way up if you do that because it's boosting cerebellar activity. Cerebellum is a part of the brain, back bottom part of the brain involved in coordination, but it also turns off in ADD. So constantly turning that on with coordination exercises. Great. Our is retirement and aging. Like when you stop learning, your brain starts dying. eye as inflammation, which we think is the root of depression.

Starting point is 00:48:02 And why during COVID did depression and anxiety disorders spike? Because COVID causes brain inflammation. I saw it repeatedly on our scans. G is genetics. Yes, things run in families. I adopted my two nieces because both, their parents are drug addicts, and they need to be on an addiction prevention program their whole life.

Starting point is 00:48:34 And if you have ADD in your family, it's like, okay, so let's do the things that decrease the expression of ADD, exercise, a healthy diet, omega-3 fatty acids, especially EPA, magnesium, zinc, those things that can be helpful. There's a study, five studies on ADHD with saffron. I'm a huge fan of the spice saffron. So if I have it in my family, I'm always on a prevention program. Like I have obesity and heart disease in my family, but I'm not overweight and I don't have heart disease, but I think about it every day. I'm on an obesity. heart disease prevention program every day. H is head trauma, major cause of psychiatric problems, including ADHD, if you didn't have

Starting point is 00:49:36 symptoms, and then you had a car accident, now you have symptoms. You know, if I did eight types of ADD, type 8 would be head trauma-induced ADD. T is toxins, which we talked a little bit about. and mental health stuff. There I include adverse childhood experiences on a scale of zero to 10, how many bad things happened to you as a child because trauma and stress increase the expression of ADD. And how negative are you? Because negativity bias tends to go with low activity in the areas of the brain that are low with ADD.

Starting point is 00:50:21 and then just to finish it off, I is immunity and infections, N is neurohormone disorders, anybody who's being diagnosed with ADD, somebody should check their thyroid. D is diabetes, 20% of our kids are obese, and it's just ridiculous. And that's just sleep.

Starting point is 00:50:42 And these gadgets we have are stealing our sleep. So that's really sort of my holistic plan. Yeah. as opposed to your scan shows this, take this drug. It's like, let me learn about your life. Let me test your brain. Let me look at your brain. And now let's work hard to get it healthy.

Starting point is 00:51:05 And I don't know how much you talk about this, but when you talked about blood flow, I learned for the first time is my husband, he had a scan, not one of your scans, but he looked at a deviated septum. And the doctor said, you know, deviated septum that obviously can make it to breathe, it can cause sleep problems, which can later contribute to heart problems and things

Starting point is 00:51:26 like Alzheimer's and dementia. And it just got me thinking. There's a lot now about, I think it's called myofacial therapy for kids when kids are mouth breathers and they snore at night. That apparently can be an indication that they're not getting enough oxygen to their brain, which I guess may contribute to causing ADD symptoms. So I don't know if that's something that you talk about a lot, but I thought it was interesting that you brought that up because I've been hearing a lot of chatter about that subject. And I think it's a very exciting area of medicine that because we're not chewing hard things like we did in the past that our face and the bones in our muscle, the bones in our face are actually collapsing a little bit, making it harder to breathe, which will decrease oxygen and give

Starting point is 00:52:24 more problems like learning problems or behavior problems. And having that assessed by dentists that do that is worth exploring. Last sponsor for the day is pre-born. Pre-born is helping save the lives of babies inside the womb by serving their moms. It's a dedicated nonprofit pro-life organization that supports pregnancy clinics across the country in their mission to reach women considering abortion, especially in places that have high abortion rates. Preborn supplies these pregnancy clinics with what they need to serve the women who are considering abortion or who have a crisis pregnancy. So things like ultrasounds, if you donate $28 to pre-bore, you are covering the cost of one ultrasound at these pro-life centers.

Starting point is 00:53:23 If you can donate $28,000, you're going to save a whole lot of lives. If you can donate $2.80, that still contributes to serving and loving these moms and dads in need and saving their babies. We know that when a mom hears the heartbeat, when she sees the baby inside the womb, she is so much more likely to choose life. If you want to be a part of that story, if you want to be a part of generational, and eternal change, then I encourage you to donate to preborn. Go to preborn.com slash alley. Make your donation today. That's preborn.com slash alley.

Starting point is 00:54:03 I want to spend the last few minutes talking about marijuana. This is something that you've talked about a lot, especially marijuana use in adolescence. It's affecting their brains. Is that correct? I hate what's going on in our society. I mean, it's visceral for me. when I started looking at the brain, a common patient I would see is someone who is 16

Starting point is 00:54:29 who didn't have a history of ADD, but then all of a sudden, they look like they have ADD in ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade. Their parents bring them to me and they're like, I think they have ADD, but they didn't have it in fourth grade. And I'll look at their brain, and their brain looks toxic.

Starting point is 00:54:52 It looks older than they are. And I'll get the kid by himself. I'm like, what's going on? And they go, promise you won't tell my parents. It's like, I can't do that. But I want to know what's going on because your brain looks toxic. And then they tell me either about alcohol or marijuana. And I see it as a major cause of learning problems.

Starting point is 00:55:23 problems, focus problems. And teenagers who use marijuana have an increased risk of anxiety, depression, suicide, and psychosis in their 20s. And the idea that it's innocuous is a lie. I published a study on a thousand marijuana users. It's the largest study ever done until just a couple of months ago. and every area of the brain was lower in blood flow. And then just a couple of months ago, in JAMA,

Starting point is 00:55:59 there's a study on another thousand marijuana users, so I had nothing to do with it, and the learning and memory parts of their brain were significantly less active. Now, should it be legal? It's like, please don't put people who use marijuana in jail. That's a bad use of resources. and my mother-in-law who had cancer, having her use marijuana so she'd eat, I think that's

Starting point is 00:56:30 absolutely appropriate use of it. But the idea that it's innocuous is just a lie. And we're going to see this exact same thing with psilocybin. So you've probably heard, oh, you should go on a mushroom trip. Oh, it treats depression. Oh, it treats PTSD. Oh, we should. it all like open our minds. The problem is, is it might have some specific benefits. But whenever something like that comes out, all the teenagers rush to it. And the visits to emergency rooms for psilocybin psychosis has gone up 300%. And I'm like, let's be careful. Let's do the simple things to get your brain healthy and be careful with the things that hurt you. What about vaping? I went to a concert the other day with my husband. We were around a lot of

Starting point is 00:57:32 college students and there were all kinds of substances, but one thing I noticed was the subtle vaping. And I didn't even really know what these devices look like, but it seems like it's pervasive at least among one portion of the population. Does that have the same deleterious effects on the brain? It's not good. It constricts blood flow to the brain. It's not good. It constricts blood flow to the brain. Plus, with vaping, you get all those other chemicals, right? People think vaping is a healthier form of smoking. It's not. And it's actually more addictive.

Starting point is 00:58:05 And quitting cigarettes is harder than quitting cocaine. Wow. I didn't know that. And cigarettes, do they have the same effect, I'm guessing, is what you're talking about, constricting blood flow and all of that? Yes. But an interesting study on comparing marijuana and cigarettes, marijuana actually caused more lung damage than cigarettes did.

Starting point is 00:58:29 Really? Okay. I also didn't know that. Yeah, you hear a lot about how weed is no big deal. It's less of a big deal than alcohol. That's kind of the argument to popularize it, to mainstream it, to commercialize it. And I don't know if that's true. If it's more or less dangerous than alcohol, I don't really see a good argument, though,

Starting point is 00:58:47 for popularizing yet another toxin that we know is harming the brains of young. people. Right. Yeah. Okay. So a parent is listening out there and they're thinking, okay, a lot of the things that you're saying, they either apply to me or my spouse or I see this in my child and they don't know what to do. What would you say their first step should be in just getting on the right track and taking control of their brain health? Well, the first thing, the first simple thing to do is just ask yourself this one question every day is what I'm doing good for. for my brain or bad for it. And if I don't know, I look it up.

Starting point is 00:59:27 They could start with my book, Change Your Brain every day. I've written 42 books. People go, where do I start? And I'm like, start with Change Your Brain every day. Because it's one of my newest books. It's also 366 short essays on the most important things I've ever set. So I try to summarize my latest thinking. and it's simple.

Starting point is 00:59:56 And if you've been struggling with your brain or mental health, call one of our clinics. We have 11 of them. You can go to Aeman Clinics, Aman, like the last word in a prayer, clinics.com and learn where they are. Also, follow me on Instagram or TikTok. That's a good place to start. Well, Dr. Aman, thank you so much. I'm so grateful for all the work you've contributed to this conversation and just how you're leading the way in so many ways. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Sally. What a joy to spend time with you.

Starting point is 01:00:27 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1193 | A Balanced Approach to ADD Medication | Guest: Dr. Daniel Amen

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