The Doctor's Farmacy with Mark Hyman, M.D.

Brain Fitness: Reversing Cognitive Decline And Improving Brain Function with Dr. Majid Fotuhi

Wed Nov 29 2023

brain healthmemory losscognitive declineAlzheimer's treatmentholistic approachesbelly size and brain healthunderlying causes of brain dysfunctionoptimizing brain healthbrain training

Description

This episode explores the importance of brain health and provides insights into optimizing brain function and reversing memory loss. Topics covered include the impact of lifestyle factors on brain health, the relationship between belly size and brain health, identifying underlying causes of brain dysfunction, alternative approaches to Alzheimer's treatment, and the importance of brain training. The episode emphasizes the potential for improvement through personalized interventions and highlights the need for a holistic approach to brain health.

Insights

The Brain Can Be Healed and Improved

The brain is an organ that can be healed and improved through lifestyle modifications and targeted interventions.

Addressing Underlying Causes

Traditional medical approaches often focus on treating symptoms rather than identifying the underlying causes of cognitive decline. A personalized program that addresses diet, exercise, sleep, stress reduction, and more can improve brain health within a few weeks.

Reversing Memory Loss

Aggressive lifestyle interventions can potentially reverse cognitive decline and improve memory. Programs that focus on brain fitness, lifestyle modifications, and cognitive stimulation have shown promising results.

The Importance of Holistic Approaches

A holistic approach to brain health, which encompasses various factors like memory, sleep, anxiety, and diet, is gaining traction in medicine. This approach aims to optimize overall brain function rather than just treating specific diseases.

The Relationship Between Belly Size and Brain Health

There is a clear correlation between the size of the belly and the size of the brain, particularly the hippocampus. Maintaining a healthy weight through diet and exercise is crucial for brain health.

Identifying Underlying Causes of Brain Dysfunction

Brain dysfunction can be caused by various factors such as heavy metal toxicity, inflammation, and vitamin deficiencies. Identifying and addressing these underlying causes can lead to significant improvements in brain health.

Alternative Approaches to Alzheimer's Treatment

Current medications for Alzheimer's treatment have limited efficacy and come with high costs and side effects. Emphasizing lifestyle changes like a healthy diet, regular exercise, sufficient sleep, and stress reduction can be beneficial for brain health.

Optimizing Brain Health through Lifestyle Changes

Creating a supportive home environment, building healthy habits, and practicing brain training can optimize brain health. Modifiable risk factors like stress, poor diet, poor sleep, and cognitive challenges should be addressed for optimal brain function.

The Importance of Brain Training

Brain training is crucial for exercising our brains and improving cognitive function. Engaging in activities that challenge different parts of the brain, embracing failure, and practicing memorization techniques can lead to growth in specific areas of the brain.

Taking Care of Our Most Precious Possession

Our brains are our most precious possession and cannot be replaced. It is essential to prioritize brain health through lifestyle modifications and personalized interventions.

Chapters

The Brain and Brain Health
Addressing Cognitive Decline
Reversing Memory Loss and Cognitive Decline
Holistic Approaches to Brain Health
Improving Brain Function through Lifestyle Changes
The Relationship Between Belly Size and Brain Health
Identifying Underlying Causes of Brain Dysfunction
Understanding the Complexity of Brain Health
Alternative Approaches to Alzheimer's Treatment
Optimizing Brain Health through Lifestyle Changes
The Importance of Brain Training

Summary

Transcript

The Brain and Brain Health

00:00 - 06:40

The brain is an organ that can be healed and improved.
RUPA Health is a platform that helps streamline lab test ordering and management for functional medicine practitioners.
Sleep is important for wellness, and Ascension mattresses offer sleep technology to improve sleep quality.
Dr. Mark Hyman discusses brain health with Dr. Majid Fotuhi, an expert in memory, concussion, and successful aging.
Dr. Fotuhi has developed a brain fitness program that addresses lifestyle factors and cognitive stimulation to improve memory and attention.
Many people experience brain fog, trouble concentrating, and memory loss due to various factors like stress, toxins, and diet.
Traditional medical approaches often focus on treating diseases rather than optimizing overall brain function.
Dementia rates are increasing rapidly globally, with Alzheimer's projected to affect 14 million people in the future.
The cost of dementia care is significant, making it the most costly disease without effective therapies.

Addressing Cognitive Decline

06:30 - 13:26

The cost of taking care of patients with cognitive decline is high, but there are no effective therapies recommended by conventional doctors.
Many patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease actually have vascular cognitive impairment due to conditions like diabetes and hypertension.
The book "The Memory Cure" challenges the overdiagnosis of Alzheimer's and highlights the importance of addressing vascular factors.
An otherwise healthy person can grow their brain through exercise and meditation, particularly in the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory.
The hippocampus typically shrinks by about 25% per year after age 50, but it can be grown by up to 3% within three months through a specific program.
Traditional medicine focuses on diagnosing symptoms rather than identifying the underlying causes of cognitive decline.

Reversing Memory Loss and Cognitive Decline

13:03 - 20:13

Alzheimer's is not the cause of memory loss, but rather a name for the symptoms.
Dr. Alzheimer himself acknowledged that dementia is caused by multiple factors.
Lifestyle modifications and brain training can improve memory in patients with cognitive impairment.
Most drug trials for dementia focus on slowing decline, not improving cognition.
The Fingertrial showed that aggressive lifestyle interventions can reverse cognitive decline.
A program similar to the Fingertrial was conducted in a real-life clinical setting with positive results.
MRI scans showed growth in the volume of the hippocampus, which is associated with memory improvement.
This intervention is revolutionary as it can potentially reverse memory loss.

Holistic Approaches to Brain Health

19:49 - 26:39

Dr. He discusses the incredible science that can potentially reverse brain tissue damage and improve cognitive performance.
Current drugs for Alzheimer's disease shrink the brain, while Dr. He's program actually grows the brain.
The program is successful because it takes a multi-disciplinary approach, addressing various issues like memory, sleep, anxiety, and diet.
Objective testing and questionnaires validate the effectiveness of the program in improving brain function and mood.
ADHD diagnoses are not absolute and often overlook underlying issues like untreated sleep apnea.
Medicine needs to focus on personalized treatments that address root causes rather than just symptom descriptions.
Dr. He's multimodal interventions encompass diet, exercise, sleep, stress reduction, and more to optimize brain function.
There is a paradigm shift happening in medicine towards this holistic approach to combat memory loss and other diseases.
Current drugs for Alzheimer's have limited efficacy and come with high costs and side effects.

Improving Brain Function through Lifestyle Changes

26:20 - 33:17

Quality sleep is important for good health.
Cozy Earth offers temperature regulating bed sheets that help with falling asleep and staying asleep.
Air Doctor air filters can remove toxic air particles from homes, improving air quality and reducing the risk of diseases.
A 12-week program focused on improving brain biology showed significant cognitive improvements in patients with different labels such as ADHD or Alzheimer's disease.
The program emphasizes the importance of addressing underlying issues like headaches or sleep deprivation rather than labeling patients with specific conditions.
Diet, exercise, sleep, and stress reduction are recommended for overall health improvement.
Omega-3 fatty acids are recommended to reduce the risk of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.
Following a Mediterranean diet is beneficial for brain health.
The size of the belly has a correlation with the size of the hippocampus, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a healthy weight for brain health.

The Relationship Between Belly Size and Brain Health

32:48 - 40:08

There is a clear relationship between the size of the belly and the size of the brain, particularly the hippocampus.
A study of 10,000 people found a correlation between exact measurement of visceral fat and the size of the brain.
The process of weight gain involves sugary food spiking insulin levels, leading to tiredness and hunger, which results in eating more unhealthy food.
Overeating can disrupt the balance between cognitive and emotional decision-making about how much to eat.
Eating too much can shut down the frontal lobe, making it difficult to stop eating even when full.
Poor sleep, sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, stress, anxiety, vitamin deficiencies are common culprits for suboptimal cognitive function.
Many people with brain dysfunction take multiple medications instead of addressing underlying causes.
A personalized program focusing on diet, exercise, sleep, stress reduction can improve brain health within 12 weeks.
The neurologist's practice has seen an 80% success rate in improving patients' overall well-being within weeks or months.

Identifying Underlying Causes of Brain Dysfunction

39:52 - 46:43

Brain dysfunction can be caused by various factors such as heavy metal toxicity, Lyme disease, leaky gut inflammation, and gluten sensitivity.
The podcast host's program focuses on basic interventions that yield remarkable results for brain health.
There are additional treatments emerging that can potentially accelerate results, such as hyperbaric oxygen therapy and NAD.
Mold exposure and new symptoms in patients may indicate the need for further investigation and testing.
Level two interventions involve checking for mold, digging deeper for possible infection, and examining inflammatory markers.
EEGs can provide valuable insights into brain activity and help identify abnormalities in patients with brain issues.
The podcast host claims an 80% success rate in improving patients' conditions, with glowing reviews from satisfied individuals.
Changing mindset plays a significant role in healing the brain, which is a malleable organ that responds to lifestyle changes.
Lifestyle interventions that benefit the brain also tend to be beneficial for other organs like the heart and prostate.
Basic foundational practices like diet, exercise, sleep management, stress reduction, and supplements can have a profound impact on overall health.
Multimodal intervention approaches tailored to each patient's specific findings are gaining traction in neurology.
The amyloid hypothesis and chemical imbalance hypothesis are still prevalent but may not fully explain conditions like depression. Identifying underlying causes is crucial for effective treatment.
The podcast host wrote a book called "The Ultra Mind Solution" that explores common causes of various neurological problems.

Understanding the Complexity of Brain Health

46:24 - 53:12

The speaker discusses a book called the Ultra Mind Solution that maps out common causes of various brain problems such as Parkinson's, dementia, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and autism.
The speaker mentions that their work focuses on optimizing biological systems and removing factors that damage the brain while adding things that promote brain health.
The guest has published research and designed programs related to brain health and has faced skepticism from standard neurologists who question the lack of a placebo arm in their studies.
The guest argues that certain interventions for brain health are so well-established and obvious that it is unnecessary to have a control group. For example, exercise increases blood flow to the brain.
The guest emphasizes the importance of understanding that the body is a system and all aspects need to be addressed for optimal health. They use an analogy of growing a plant with soil, water, and light to illustrate this point.
The guest criticizes the labeling of memory problems as Alzheimer's disease or attention problems as attention difference disorder without considering multiple underlying issues. They argue that most people's symptoms are caused by multiple factors.
While early onset Alzheimer's disease is considered a unified disease with genetic factors, in older individuals (70s and 80s), there are usually multiple issues contributing to memory or attention problems. Inflammation is often present along with amyloid accumulation and other environmental factors.
Clinical trials focusing solely on reducing amyloid have shown limited success because different individuals have different underlying issues contributing to their cognitive decline. Clearing amyloid alone does not necessarily lead to improved cognition.
Some individuals with brains full of amyloid can still maintain perfect cognition if they lack inflammation due to specific genes preventing its occurrence.

Alternative Approaches to Alzheimer's Treatment

52:53 - 59:39

Autopsy findings show that some individuals with a specific gene mutation do not experience inflammation and therefore do not develop Alzheimer's disease, despite having amyloid in their brains.
Medications recently approved by the FDA for Alzheimer's treatment are expensive, have small effect sizes, high side effects, and questionable efficacy.
Eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, getting enough sleep, and reducing stress are universally agreed upon as beneficial for brain health.
Brain coaches can help individuals incorporate these four lifestyle changes into their daily routines gradually and see improvements in cognitive function.
Having a partner or support system can increase accountability and motivation when making behavior changes.
Breaking old habits and establishing new routines may be challenging initially but becomes easier over time.
Creating a home environment that supports healthy choices can contribute to long-term success in maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Optimizing Brain Health through Lifestyle Changes

59:13 - 1:06:27

Setting up a safe and supportive home environment is important for success in maintaining healthy habits.
Building automatic and easy-to-follow habits and structures in life can make it effortless to do what is good for oneself.
The brain can be fixed and many cognitive issues are treatable through modifiable causes.
Modifiable risk factors for brain health are similar to those for heart health, including stress, poor diet, poor sleep, and cognitive challenges.
Brain training doesn't have to involve apps or games; exploring the world around you and learning new things can be beneficial.
Trying new things and embracing failure can help overcome barriers to learning and improve brain function.
Practicing different tasks that challenge specific parts of the brain can lead to growth in those areas, similar to how muscles grow with exercise.
Growing the brain requires good blood flow, nutrition, low stress levels, and brain training can make a difference.
"Brainer size" refers to exercising the brain. While we know how to exercise our bodies, exercising our brains is often overlooked.

The Importance of Brain Training

1:05:58 - 1:12:33

Brain training is an important aspect of exercising our brains, just like we exercise our bodies.
Isolated interventions may not show immediate results, but when combined with a personalized, multi-modal intervention, brain training can be effective.
Lifestyle modifications such as coaching for diet, exercise, sleep, and stress reduction are crucial in addition to brain training.
Studies have shown that brain training can lead to the growth of specific areas of the brain and reduce the risk of dementia.
Different areas of the brain have different functions, so focusing on one area may not improve other cognitive abilities.
Engaging in activities that involve both the body and mind, such as playing tennis or trying pottery, is recommended for overall brain health.
It's never too late to learn something new and enjoy failing in order to improve.
Memorization techniques can be helpful for improving memory skills.
Taking care of our brains is essential as they are our most precious possession and cannot be replaced.