Transcript of Episode #154 Featuring Dr. David Perlmutter! UNLOCKING THE SECRETS TO BRAIN HEALTH! New HUGE book release! Brain Defenders: Harness the Power of your Immune Cells to Protect Your Brain for Life!

If your gut isn't dialed in, then nothing else works the way that it should. Your immune system, your energy, your performance, your mental health— all of it starts in the gut. Did you know that 99.9% of probiotics are dead before they ever reach your gut? That's why I want to tell you about Just Thrive probiotic. The simple truth: most probiotics on the market are dead before they ever reach your gut, and you're wasting your money. But Just Thrive is completely different. It contains 4 clinically studied spore-based strains that actually survive the journey and make it to your gut intact. Enhance nutrient absorption, reduce bloating, and a seriously fortified immune system. And remember, 80% of your immunity is rooted in your gut. I have a special offer for all of my listeners from Just Thrive today. When you start a 90-day probiotic subscription, you'll get a free 90-day supply of their new digestive bitters. Digestive bitters support natural GLP-1 production, helping you manage your appetite and cravings. So visit justthrivehealth.com/dylan and get your free digestive bitters with your first 90-day probiotic subscription today. All right everybody, welcome back to the Dylan Gemelli Podcast. So my guest is probably tired of me telling him about how excited I am to have him on and see him.

I, I have, uh, said it multiple times, told my wife when I got introduced to him, I said it. He has a focus that I have taken a dear love to the past 6 months, especially that we're going to talk about when it comes to the mind and the brain and my understanding of how much I have been missing all of these years with my focus of health. And that's why I can't wait to highlight your expertise because it's just It's astounding, and I don't know the half of it because I haven't had enough time with you. So I'm so excited for this. But my guest, he's a board-certified neurologist. He's a 6-time New York Times bestselling author, and he focuses on the intersection of neurology, nutrition, and brain health. And he's got an amazing book that I am so excited to talk about that we're gonna get into and focus on for part of the interview, but I'm gonna I'm going to exhaust him today on draining the amount of knowledge that I can, but his new book we'll talk about is called Brain Defenders. That's releasing. But without further ado, my friends, Dr. David Perlmutter.

Let me say feelings mutual. So I don't know how, how your blog people know or your podcast people know what you do, but Dylan has, does a preliminary phone call and that was great. I've never done that before and What a great idea that you can meet somebody and understand what they're all about both ways. Yeah. That was a very cool thing to do.

Well, what I find is that people take this for granted, what we do. And sometimes when I've taken a deep thought about it and I, I used to do this, ah, I don't feel like doing the interview today. And then I sat there and I said, what if I couldn't do the interview today? What if I didn't have that opportunity? What if I didn't have these people that were interested in speaking to me? That travel. And I thought, man, you better take this as serious as you can because this is the biggest blessing ever. Because when I get to talk to people like you, I get to share you with the world and I get to enhance my own knowledge base at the same time.

The word doctor means teacher. Yes, it doesn't mean healer. And, you know, the mission really at this stage of my life is getting information out to other people basically so they can be empowered to make better decisions. You know, we My focus is what makes a good brain go bad. And the reality is that, uh, if you look at the reactive model of modern medicine, it's live your life however you choose. When your brain starts to crap out, well, we'll try to fix it. We'll come up with something. And we don't have anything, for example, for Alzheimer's. There's no pharmaceutical intervention right now that's worth a damn. And that is, it's, you know, it's really very striking because we see the advertisements, we see them on television, we see them in the medical journals that I read trying to convince me as a neurologist neurologists use drugs that don't work. And I've been saying that for quite some time. I wrote about it in the book. And after the manuscript was submitted, there was something called a Cochrane analysis, which is the gold standard available way of looking at all the research in the area of any particular medical question.

And here was the question that it asked. It was just published. Do these drugs that target beta amyloid help Alzheimer's patients? And the answer was No, the re— the results of the study showed that at best it was a trivial effect in the face of significant downside risk of really harming people. And that violates the, the central tenet of practicing medicine, which is Latin, primum non nocere, above all, do no wrong, so, or do no harm. And we've gotta do better and we know we can do better right now, but the things that are helpful for the brain in both keeping the brain healthy and functional and resistant to decline are not things that are patentable. Yeah. There's no billion-dollar gold ring here. It's all about lifestyle. I know I'm going on now, but there's a point I wanna make, and this is the point that some, some friends of mine, Rudolph Tanzi and Dean Ornish, put a study together at Harvard and did a lifestyle intervention in patients who were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Now, the drugs If you take the Alzheimer's drugs that target beta-amyloid, you will decline. You're going to decline slightly lower rate.

But what these researchers did was they did a lifestyle intervention, looked at your diet, your physical activity, your social engagement, and they found that the Alzheimer's patients either stabilized or in 70% actually improved without a drug by simply changing their diets, and what they do all day long. Can you imagine? It's breathtaking. And yet, have you heard of that study?

It was sent to me prior to our interview. Yeah.

Right.

So I actually got a chance to read it.

But the world should know about studies like that. Yeah. That's what's so— it can be a little disappointing on the one hand. On the other hand, we're here today and there's, you know, gospel. It's words that have to get out and grateful for the opportunity.

There's a lot of silencing on everything when it comes out. And what bothers me is that you're silencing things that need to be discussed because there's always gonna be a market. So let's say you come up with some sort of medication and we find what we found in these studies. Well, wouldn't you want to know that the efficacy's not there, something's off, so then you can reformulate?

And I didn't make this up, right? The, the results have never shown that the drugs worked.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, for as long as they've been put here, they, they rid the brain to a significant degree of this toxic protein called beta amyloid, because as everybody knows, that's the cause of Alzheimer's. Guess what? It isn't. It's not the cause of Alzheimer's disease, yet it became the target. Mm-hmm. And so the FDA, the original drug that was developed, the FDA, their special committee, they had, uh, 12 people on the committee. 10 said no, we can't approve this. One said yes and one abstained. Yeah. And it got approved anyway.

I did an interview, one in my first like 15 or 20, and I wasn't versed enough like I am now to understand, with an investigative reporter who had studied the whole thing with Alzheimer's and gave me all of this information about the— what you're talking about and proving that they lied in studies at the time. And I was just blown away. But see, I wasn't versed enough now to understand and go back and forth like I am now. And I hear you, it's, it's, it's really, it's to me, it's cuz I talk about the heart a lot. So there's all of that.

I'm thinking the heart, right? When you said—

yes, cuz statin, statins are skewed in the testing to show you one thing that's not— they, they, they get funny with the words. And this is what it's taken me to the same thing.

You're right. And they, they mess with the data. So it, they, they were promoting the drugs by saying this reduces the rate of decline by 27%. Well, it's an 18-point scale. People on a drug were half a point better than the ones not getting the drug. And that would be— so they're leveraging the 27%, please. And, you know, finally we got validation from the Cochrane analysis. So, you know, my, my work is to recognize that it kind of contextualizes why you and I are together today. But on the other hand, so that's the problem. What's the solution? So we'll, we'll, we'll talk about the solution, and we've already hinted at the solution, but I think You know, Alzheimer's is a chronic degenerative condition, which the World Health Organization says that class of diseases are the number one reason we die on planet Earth. Chronic degenerative conditions.

Really?

Yeah. And related to our metabolism. And what we write about in, in Brain Defenders is that our metabolism, how our body's cells are powered, our mitochondria, you've talked about it extensively in your podcast, regulate the immune system, and the immune system is where it's at in the brain. That's what you and I are gonna dig as deep as you want to go today. We're gonna unpack a topic that you talked to Jeff Bland about. I know that called immunometabolism. Yes. It's the relationship of the immune system to our metabolic health and specifically cells in the brain called microglial cells. Those are the brain's immune cells, and they're either friend or foe. They're either gonna keep your brain as sharp as a tack till you're very, very late in your life and you die of something else, or early on in life, if you're metabolically compromised, which 94% of Americans are, adults, they're gonna turn their back on you, become what I call the evil twin, and not be your brain defenders. That's the whole ball of wax for you and me. Most importantly, that the metabolism of these brain immune cells, whether they're gonna have good metabolism and be supportive or threatened metabolism and be destructive, their metabolism mirrors your body's metabolism.

That opens up the whole world to you. Why? Because you control your body's metabolism based on what you cho— you choose to do every single day. What do I eat? How much exercise do I get? How, what's the quality and quantity of my sleep? Do I socially interact with other people? These are all things that affect your metabolism and play out for you to be the determinant of your brain's destiny. That's it. Are we done yet? No, we're not. We got a lot to talk about, but, uh, I get a little, and this isn't coffee speaking, I might add, I get a little fired up about it because it's, it's what I've circled around for my entire career. Mm-hmm. You know, Grain Brain was about highly processed carbs. We didn't have a term then called ultra-processed foods. Right. Uh, and Brain Maker looked at the microbiome and everything is converging on how it affects these brain immune cells. And does that play out favorably for us or does it set the, sow, sow the seeds for our destruction?

Do me a favor, define so that people understand, cuz when you say metabolism, I know people have a like this one-track mind on what that actually is. And it's how much fat are we burning? How much weight are we losing? Can you define what exactly metabolism is and why that's such a key role in like what you're talking about with cognitive decline and just our overall health?

You bet. And I, I'll weave them together because please, the metabolism, how our cells and how your body takes in fuel and We're not gonna talk about this, but how it manufactures various things, proteins, that's part of metabolism. But for our purposes, it's the production of energy. Okay? It's all about the production of energy. Is that efficient? Are we making a lot of these ATP molecules or is it deficient? What characterizes the good versus bad brain immune cell, supportive brain defender or destructive, the evil twin, is their metabolism. If they shift away from using their mitochondria to another type of metabolism called glycolysis, that's trouble. Now they can do it in the short run, and you want them to do that in the short run. As with anything, it's about really, you know, taking a step back. We do need our M1 destructive microglia if we're injured acutely, there's an infection acutely, but it's the prolonged activation of that evil twin that digests away our synapses. So our brain cells are no longer connected. Our neural networks degrade. The M1 microglia destroy neurons. They don't allow the growth of new brain cells. We call that neurogenesis.

And they threaten the integrity of the blood-brain barrier. So everything that we can do to keep our microglia on our side, to keep them being your brain defenders, is fundamentally important if we are going to set the stage to have a brain that's along for the ride and What is so important is that the changes in metabolism that set the stage for brain degeneration take place 20 and 30 years ahead of time. So let's, let's look at this slide. Yeah. So if you're looking at this slide, what you see on the bottom curve is things are going along pretty well until we turned to age 70. Then all of a sudden you see a steep increase in brain degeneration. But if you look at the upper curve, that's our metabolic health. And you'll notice that that starts to degrade in our thirties and forties. This, this graph shows at age 40, right? That's the trigger for the cognitive issue that happens at age 70. And that's— you're a young and healthy guy, and I'm trying to speak to your audience here that you're gonna be my age sooner or later. Yeah. It's going to happen if you stay healthy and you— I'm 71 and you really wanna do everything you can because that day's coming sooner than you think.

Oh yeah. Guarantee that. And everything you're doing today in your 20s, 30s, and 40s is absolutely being the determinant of where you're going to be cognitively when you're my age.

See, and that's the thing that I've been fighting for years, is teaching people about long-term thinking and not accepting, well, it's inevitable, this is going to happen, because it's not inevitable. It doesn't have to be inevitable. I don't like those kind of terms and putting things in a vacuum like that. I like to show factually that you can mitigate these things. You can be preventative early, but we have to teach people what they need to be doing and the consequences of not doing that later.

Yeah. That's, you know, there's a whole group of diseases called age-related diseases. Yeah. That's bullshit. What a term. It's just, and, and so is that a thing? Well, it's not a thing. If you read the Blue Zones. Yeah. Uh, you realize that there are people around the world who, as a matter of fact, don't get these age-related diseases, including age-related cognitive decline. It's not okay to have senior moments. It is unacceptable. Yeah. What does that mean is going on in your brain? It's not a pretty picture. And the mission here is really to keep that from happening. It's being preventive. You know, I've said this in the book. I say it, I say it in other interviews that John Kennedy in his inaugural address said that the time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining. 'Cause when it's raining and it's leaking into your house, there's very, you know, it's, it's much more challenging, right? Still can happen, right? But, uh, gosh, prevention is, is the ultimate principle here. That's what we're looking for. And you know, all of the things that we talk about as it result, as relates to preventing these terrible things down the line, whether it's MS or Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, uh, they're all related to the microglial cells, but Those same processes are things that people in your age category should be thinking about if they want to have a brain right now that's functioning efficiently, if they want to remain on purpose when they've identified life purpose so that they can have meaning in their life today.

We'll talk about Alzheimer's later, but what about how your brain is working right now? It's not going to work effectively when there's inflammation, when you're not fueling your brain appropriately, when excess free radicals are happening, and therefore the mitochondria are not functioning appropriately, we then shift these microglia cells to being destructive, and that's affecting your ability to engage life even at your age. Yeah.

I love what you said about the, the John Kennedy statement about the roof. It's so, I find, and this is in prayer life, everybody, when something bad happens, they want to run and pray. I'm always at my best when I'm doing my best. For some reason, I'm polar opposite of people where I'm giving the most thanks. When the best things are happening to me. And I feel so much joy in doing that. And that's the same if you're going to take care of yourself. You don't want to wait until you're in a bad state where you can't really take care of yourself and you panic. And I started— this is one of the things I found with my heart early, and it's helping me teach others. I found some things like I have the Lp gene, for example. Didn't have any clue, never tested it till like I was in my 40s. And I tell people, just because people say you don't need to test this in your 30s or your 20s, you most certainly do. Because if had I known that ahead of time, I could have taken measures that would have stopped some of the plaque buildup I was getting.

You know, luckily, thankfully I found it early enough. But the point is, stay ahead of the curve. Do know that these things, they start to build at a young age if you have certain conditions. And then if you're not taking care of yourself, of course, oh, I'm young, I don't need to worry about it. Well, if you eat like crap forever, for example, You're going to notice that, you know, the people that you'd say, oh, they never gain any weight, I hate them. What's happening inside?

Yeah.

What, what's going on internally that you can't see?

Tofu. Thin on the outside, fat on the inside. That's right.

That's it.

So I think you bring up a really good point, and that is we have the ability right now to learn a heck of a lot about a person by doing laboratory studies. And I have a whole section in the book about that, that You can avail yourself of knowing what your metabolism is doing. What is your metabolic state? How well, most importantly, are you controlling your blood glucose? If you ask me what's the number one, I would say that's it. It's keeping your blood sugar in check. It's why I brought you a continuous glucose monitor today, right? Yes. So you can know.

Yes.

Because you, if you're going to make changes, you gotta know your baseline and then retest and see if you fix the problem. What's your vitamin D level? What's your homocysteine level? All of these things are, are fundamentally important. And we have, you know, you can have these laboratory studies on now even without a doctor, get them done. We describe what they are. Many of your guests have talked about what people need to be doing. Get a vitamin D level. I mean, it's simple enough and optimize it. And let me just say one other thing about that, and that is, you know, people live in a world where, uh, the response is, well, my whatever, my blood sugar is in the normal Range. I, I'm just really done with in the normal range. I want in the optimal range. 'Cause if, if you're a patient of mine, for example, normal is average and we don't want average 'cause the average person dies in their seventies. The average person has a significant risk for Alzheimer's. You know, if you live to be age, uh, 65, uh, your risk is 11%. 1 in 9 people in America age 65 have Alzheimer's disease.

Something is very wrong with this picture. Yeah. If you live to be age 85, your risk is around 40 to 50%. And it's perfectly in lockstep with our increasing metabolic issues, our rates of obesity and diabetes and hypertension. As rates of diabetes go up, blood sugar goes up, insulin functionality goes down, and bingo, those microglial cells see this high blood sugar and they say, I can't do this anymore. Yes. And the evil twin says, I got this, I'm coming in. And starts destroying your brain. It's that simple.

One of the most frustrating things that I dealt with for years is this— well, you fall into the average, but what's determining the average that they're, they're selecting? Our averages and why?

Middle of the bell curve.

That's it. And it's fluctuating all the time.

Yeah. You are not in the middle of the bell curve.

You wouldn't—

we wouldn't be sitting here right now if you were in the middle of the bell curve. Thank goodness. And I want people to be to the right side, to the, you know, and that's the goal. 'Cause again, the middle of the bell curve, you're gonna die when at the, an average age, you'll experience all these so-called age-related diseases. And doesn't have to be that way. You know, another Kennedy quote, not from John, but from Robert Kennedy, uh, paraphrasing is people, some people see things as they are and ask why. Other people see things as they could be and say, why not? Yeah. And that's where we are. Why not? Why not? Let me tell you, I'm really enjoying this podcast. This is great. I mean, you know, you come to visit you and, and connect and think about what it's going to be like, and we're getting into the weeds. I'm like, yeah, really wonderful. But how I envision a world where people have their brains working for them as they age. And, you know, there's, there's so much written about, oh, how many people we have, close to 7 million Alzheimer's patients in America.

And it's costing us $360 billion. I get all that, but I'm the one who sits across the table from people, families over the years, and they're telling me what it's like to have mother, father, spouse now physically alive but not mentally present. Yeah, that's rough. And, you know, I, I'll never forget the number of times that I've been asked or said Patients would say to me or their families, you know, doc, you just don't know how hard this is. And I would stop at that moment and I would look out the window of my examining room in my neurology office and I'd say, you see that building right there? And they'd say, yeah, yeah. What does this have to do with the conversation? I'd say, and I would tell them that in that room and that building in that window, in that room is my father and he's dying of Alzheimer's as we sit here and have this conversation. So I get it.

Yeah.

And it's something no one should ever go through. I mean, it's, it's, you, it's incalculable what that costs. 'Cause you know, there's a lot of research done on what Alzheimer's does to the caregivers.

Yeah.

And it shortens their lives too, 'cause it's a huge impact.

There's, there's a few words that I don't use in my vocabulary. Average, complacency, and one I despise, idiopathic, because you're just telling me you just don't know.

You just don't know. Exactly. I love that term. Yeah. The idiopathic. Pathic because I'm an idio— idiot, cuz I don't understand the pathology exactly. Yeah. So right there with me with age-related disease.

Yeah. I, yeah, that's a new one now that I'm adding to my list of things that suck that aren't true.

Okay.

So there's stuff to unpack there. Here's what I want to focus on first. So we're talking about metabolism and metabolic health, and I'd like to talk a little bit about metabolic flexibility, and I've talked a lot about struggles that I had cognitively because I had an eating disorder and I was scared of fat and I wasn't eating properly. And so I want to talk a little bit about that first as we correlate that into some neurogenesis talk and how we're keeping our brain healthy. And I believe training the brain as, as the importance, and I'll compare that to some athletics, but I want to talk to you about the metabolism in terms of diet first, and then maybe exercise too. But as we're aging, one of the things that I get bothered by is the term diet, cuz people confuse it. I think diet's more like a lifestyle, not just, oh, I'm running a keto diet, I'm running it. Those are tools, they're mechanisms to use. I don't feel like we should ever just rely on those, and you correct me if, if you feel differently. But when it comes to metabolism, how important of a role is diet to have a healthy metabolism?

And then touch on metabolic flexibility.

Well, the answer to the question how important it is, it's one of the pillars. It is fundamental. And, you know, as we've watched the degradation of what was called the American diet, then became the Western diet, and now is the global diet in terms of these ultra-processed foods, we've seen metabolism go down the tubes and Alzheimer's increase, as I mentioned earlier, in lockstep. One recent study demonstrate— was an evaluation, followed individuals, 1,325 individuals for 12.7 years. Average age was 67 and followed them. And had them keep a food diary, and they retrospectively looked at their food diaries and compared them with their risk of developing Alzheimer's. And what they found was sobering, was that for every one serving per day of ultra-processed foods, as an average rate, risk of Alzheimer's increased by 13%. Having 10 or more servings per day was associated with an increased risk of 2.7%. Fold, i.e., 270, almost a 300% increased risk for Alzheimer's. So diet is huge. And you know what I did in the book, and you're right, there are a lot of names, paleo, primal, keto, Atkins, uh, Mediterranean, Mediterranean Plus, Green Mediterranean, et cetera. And I wanted to make it very simple, and that is I wanted to look at, uh, what we eat Not in terms of adhering to a particular dogma or eponymous type diet.

Yeah. But rather, what is our goal? Yeah. Here are the goals. Number one, won't surprise you based on our time together already. I want people to be on whatever diet they choose that keeps their blood sugar under control.

Yep.

Full stop. Now that means you're gonna have to metricize. You're going to have to have your blood sugar tested. You can wear CGM. Have your fasting insulin checked, your A1C. But that is not, not negotiable. 'Cause if you're eating a diet and it's spiking your blood sugar, you are threatening your microglial cells, your brain defenders. They're gonna turn your back and you're paving the way for disaster. This relates metabolism to immunity, hence the term immunometabolism, which I, I just love. It's become the central theme of my life is immunometabolism. Who knew? I mean, I didn't know about this 10 years ago, but as again, it brings everything together. That's job one. Number two, I need a lot of color on the plate. That means plants, a lot of plant-based foods. If you are eating meat or other animal products, totally fine, but have plants of various colors on the food. That does two things. It ensures you're getting a lot of polyphenols and a lot of fiber. Now people look at their diets and look at the macronutrients of carbohydrates, protein, and fat. I think that fiber should be considered a macronutrient, but it cannot be because it's already carbohydrate, but it should be.

We should be looking at labels at sugar content, fat, carbohydrate, protein, and dietary fiber. It's there for a good reason. You know, and the third thing I would say is get adequate amounts of protein. We could talk about what that means. The fourth thing is make sure that your fats have not been modified.

Yes.

Now you have at it.

Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Go have your diet and you don't have to be so compulsive about the, your food. And it's not a diet, it's a way of eating.

Yes.

And you know, the downsides though are you're gonna lose weight. You're gonna have more energy, you're gonna sleep better, your ex— your exercise routine's gonna get better. Those are the side effects of engaging this type of eating plan. It's true. I mean, I, I, I was in, in the 8th grade, I had to go to Weight Watchers, or I didn't have to go, I went to Weight Watchers cuz I was the fat kid at school. Yeah, I really was. And for obvious reasons, I mean, I know, I remember what I was eating. And that all changed in the 9th grade when I started to get interested in girls and I realized they didn't wanna, they weren't going out with a fat kid. So, so, you know, I've been engaged in what works and what doesn't work for a long time.

We share a similar story.

Oh really? Yeah.

I start—

a lot of people in this space do. Yeah.

I started to study food and food labels. Unfortunately, it taught me wrong. 'Cause when I was growing up, it was the whole low-fat craze.

Yeah.

And even, and I even became a nutritionist and still couldn't wrap my head around for my own personal eating a lot of fats. I still had this terror, but I was overweight and I was a, a 4-sport athlete, but still overweight and then shot up in growth. And lost all the weight, but then just developed this terror of gaining it back. Wow. And then I became a fashion model, which again was not great for somebody that had an eating disorder. And then again, worked with bodybuilders and in that profession. So it's been a— I really just kind of corrected my eating a year and a half, 2 years ago, where I'm actually eating and enjoying it and feeling good and actually feeling great. 15 grams of fat a day to now 120, you know, 1,500 calories to now 3,000. You got to understand the amount of workout I do too. It would, you'd only imagine you'd, yeah, you'd be like, you know, like everybody else, you're overtraining, which I know. But the point is, is cognitively and metabolically, because I've looked my best the more I've eaten, but I do what you said. I prioritize the protein that there's always mixed colors, yellow zucchinis, green zucchinis, mushrooms, onions.

Multicolored peppers. I always have those in a plate with what I eat, but then I go eat the protein first, eat the fat, eat the carbs, and then you'll see that the glucose spike stays pretty damn level.

Well, we're going to find out, aren't we?

Yeah, we are. We are for sure. You know, I, I'm a nutritionist and I, I have a lot of good friends in this space that have a lot of opinions. And there's people that have these fears of carbs and tell you, you can't eat them. And then there's other people that are super pro carbs. What's your feeling on implementation of carbohydrates in general? Do you have a fear of them or is it more the quality of carbohydrates that we're eating?

Well, I think it's certainly the latter. I mean, again, all your vegetables are very, are high in complex carbohydrate. Yeah. And that's a good thing. You've always, humans have always eaten complex carbohydrates as hunter-gatherers. That's what we would gather and eat fat because fat was amazingly concentrated, still is. Source of energy. It's why we survived. Yeah. Uh, you know, 9 calories per gram. So this has been part of the human diet for a, an awful long time. And suddenly, uh, you know, Ancel Keys tells us that dietary fat is what's giving us coronary heart disease and everybody became fat phobic and started eating the Oreos that had so many grams of sugar, but we're now low fat. So go for it. It, it makes zero sense. I know these low fat foods, to be fair, the, the type of food in manu, the type of fat in manufactured foods I would definitely stay away from it. Yeah. But I drink a liter of olive oil a week. That's pure fat. Yeah. And, uh, you know, avocados, nuts and seeds, fat. It's very important. I eat a lot of fish and I spend 3 months fishing every year, so I eat a lot of fish.

And, uh, again, we shouldn't be fat phobic.

No.

Dietary fat doesn't translate to body fat. It's actually sugar that makes that happen. Yeah. Wrote a book a couple of years ago called Drop Acid, and we unpacked The idea that consuming fructose is metabolized to uric acid, that sends a signal to your body and your metabolism that winter is coming. So you hold onto your diet, your, your fat, you keep your body fat. Yeah. To make it through, to use it as a caloric resource during times of caloric scarcity. Humans do not have the enzyme called uricase to break down uric acid. So when we eat fructose, high fructose corn syrup, it's triggering our, our bodies to think winter's coming and we're not gonna have food, make fat quickly, ratchet down your mitochondrial function so that you preserve energy. It's a biological signal. Nowadays we're targeting that pathway day in and day out by eating foods that have been so sweetened. You know, 70% of ultra-processed foods contain added sweetener, mostly fructose or high fructose corn syrup. Because we love it. You can't tell me you don't like sweet. We all do. It's hardwired in our brains cuz that's a survival mechanism.

Well, yeah, there's things in there that make you want more of it.

Absolutely. Because sweet tells you two things. It tells you it's, uh, safe by and large, and it tells you that, uh, winter's coming.

Mm-hmm.

Preparing your body by keeping fat.

Miraculously though, most of these foods, if you eat 'em, you feel like crap after you eat 'em.

Yeah, but a lot of people get used to it and just can't.

I know, I— trust me, I went through the whole party phase for 10 years in my 20s and felt like crap every single day afterwards and still kept doing it. You just, you know, I get it, I understand. That's more of a, a mental thing, and it's a mental barrier you have to overcome and tell yourself knowingly, I can't do this.

Yeah, it's, it's about making decisions from what you want to do, what or what you think is right.

I'm going to take you somewhere else.

Okay.

We need to go somewhere else here. And I don't know, I have a feeling that you're equipped for this, but I want to ask you because I did a, I did my own synopsis on this.

Okay.

That went against the grain for a lot of people I respect. And this is GLP-1 related in cognitive and aging you. And I put out a piece that these are actually aging people much quicker. And I have a big issue with playing God, I guess, so to speak. So when you start to take away from things, like you start taking things exogenously and misusing them and tricking your brain. So you're tricking your brain to shut it off from being, feeling hungry. And my, my argument is you, you do this and it's just like when I take synthetic testosterone, my body's forgetting how to produce it. Right. And, and you, we call it suppression or shutdown. And when you shut down your brain from being hungry, Well, you can't do that forever. And what's going to happen when you return it on and then your body's going haywire?

You know what happens when you, when you stop GLP-1 agonist? We don't have to make this up. Yeah. I mean, that's well documented about the re— the return of the weight, the weight gain, because you're, you're banging this receptor with the dosage, a level of GLP-1 a thousandfold higher than the body normally makes. So that receptor is going to say, I, I'm shutting down here. I can't, I can't deal with it. Yeah. And then when you stop it, that receptor is already shut down. No, it's It's, it's something to be concerned about. That said, that said, and I think to be fair, I have a section in the book on GLP-1 drugs, and I think that your point is very well taken. I think that the routine usage for weight loss is something that we should be concerned about because of the long-term risk. But in an Alzheimer's patient, for example, or a Parkinson's patient, for example, where we are pretty sure that their decline is going to be inexorable, is there a place for GLP-1 agonist drugs? So in 2024, in April, in the New England Journal of Medicine was a study of 157 Parkinson's patients randomized, received either placebo or a GLP-1 agonist drug.

Why would they, first of all, why would they give a GLP-1 agonist drug to Parkinson's? Because Parkinson's is a, has a metabolic component. It's a mitochondrial issue. It's activating these microglial cells to shift to becoming the evil twin. That was first described in 1988 by a Dr. Langston. Amazing story. When he had all these drug addicts came in, they, the, a drug that was contaminated with something that was a mitochondrial toxin called MPTP. I'm going off story, but here's, let's get back to the study. It's fascinating. So this was published a couple years back in New England Journal of Medicine. Le— and by the way, parenthetically, I love that term. Your risk of becoming a Parkinson's patient if you happen to be a type 2 diabetic is increased by as much as 75%. Really? Never knew that. What is it telling us? Metabolism, microglial cells. So these Harvard researchers said, we're going to give lixisenatide, a GLP-1 agonist drug. To Parkinson's. Half the group gets placebo, half gets GLP-1. They reevaluate them a year later. The patients getting the placebo had a persistent decline, as one sees in Parkinson's— more rigidity, more tremor, more medication.

The group taking the GLP-1 agonist drug, their Parkinson's stopped dead in its tracks. I, to me, I say, BTF, why, that's fantastic. It's unbeliev— it's first time there's been research, actually the second time, that targeted the fire, not the smoke, that targeted the underlying problem, not just the symptoms. So I think that helped me reframe my view. And it, it's, it's a very complex way we've gotta look at these drugs because in that situation, This could be a home run. And in Alzheimer's perhaps as well. We know that these are drugs used for diabetes. Now, a type 2 diabetic can take a GLP-1 agonist or other type of drug. There are various other types of drugs, metformin, Actos, et cetera. And in one recent study, they, they looked at, well, what is the risk of developing Alzheimer's if you're taking the GLP-1 drugs, semaglutide, or the other drugs? And the risk of Alzheimer's was 40% in the group taking a GLP-1 agonist drug. Now, am I saying that I'm open to further research on GLP-1 agonist drugs as it relates to neurodegenerative disease? You bet I am. And that's what you want. Again, we'll follow the principles of above all, do no harm.

Look at potential downsides. You bet. But I'm not taking anything out of the running as it relates to having tools that can help people who are otherwise going to decline. Do I think they're being massively overused and prescribed in our population? I 100% agree with you on that.

This is why I wanted to ask you this, because you, you led into where I wanted to go. So my issue is overuse and misuse, which is more is always better mentality prevalent everywhere. Glorify this, this is going to do this, et cetera.

Rampant.

It's everywhere. So my question was, is that I, some of the most well-respected doctors that discuss peptides that I have sat with, and because I discovered peptides in 2012 and started talking about them back then on a research chemical underground site. So I've been studying them for, I don't know what, 14 years. So I ha— I'm privy to talk to people that are like the experts and their whole thing with it is cognitively long-term, these can be used in a microdose setting. Which I have found to be in agreement with. My synopsis was these people that are using these for— they try to put them on them for such long term at these elevated doses or don't understand what they're doing, they're aging themselves. So I guess my point was you rob Peter to pay Paul a lot because of your misuse, and Paul's charging a lot of interest. Damn right.

You know, the bullet points would be: do I believe that these drugs are massively overused? 100%. Do I believe there is the reason for it. There's reason for us to explore them as it relates to fatal conditions of the brain like Alzheimer's. Yep, I absolutely do. I mean, you know, if, if this is a way to target microglia and mitochondrial metabolism, which they do, then I'm all in for the research. You bet. You know, there was just a study this last year that was published that looked at using an oral semaglutide to actually treat Alzheimer's patients and it did not reach its endpoints. It did interestingly lower something called C-reactive protein inflammatory marker by 30%. So it might be it wasn't done for a long enough time. It might mean that the molecule is too large to get through the blood-brain barrier and have an effect in the brain. But I believe it's reasonable to continue looking at it. Meanwhile, if GLP-1 is good for mitochondria, and it is, yeah, then what can we do right now without sticking needles into our arms and legs to enhance our body's ability to make GLP-1? Exercise, get enough sleep, have enough dietary fiber.

These are all players. Reduce stress, exercise. I said that, you know, it's fundamental. These things improve, especially when you target the microbiome for a chemical that is made in, you know, in the digestive system. And so if we can target the microbiome in an appropriate way by eating the right foods, back to the fundamentals here, then our bodies will naturally increase GLP-1. But why are people low in GLP-1 and, and therefore hungry all the time? Because they're not exercising, they're not getting enough sleep, they're eating foods that don't have dietary fiber, they're not adding fermented foods to their diets, and therefore their GLP-1 levels are really low. And it adds fuel to the fire that they're going to eat the wrong foods. You'll stay up later at night, They'll have less likelihood to exercise and GLP-1 levels get lower. Now the fix for that is not to fix the GLP-1 by taking an injection. In my opinion, it's again to deal with the fundamentals.

This is the thing. I don't want to be a lecturer here, but this is a reality. And it's, it's really a long, hard look in the mirror and being accountable. 'Cause you know how many people I've had over the years that say, oh, I have a great diet and I work out this, and then they lay it out for me and I'm like, Brother, dude.

Yeah.

Like, no, we're, we're way off here on your definition of good diet. And I think that's part of it too, is a little bit of accountability or maybe just getting with somebody that can educate you on what's a good lifestyle.

And for me it is, okay, this is what you're eating. Tell you what, let's look at your fasting blood sugar, your fasting insulin level, your inflammatory markers. Let's see what this diet is doing for you.

Yes.

Absolutely. And maybe it's working for you. You know, maybe it, there are people who can get away with things and seem to have pretty good control of their blood sugar. I, I had no idea that cashews were my enemy. I, I was eating them all the time. I said, nut, and yet eat cashews. My glucose went, went up and I, I didn't expect that. So how would I have ever known?

One size fits none. That's just it. Yeah. You know what I mean?

You need the data. Yeah.

And I'm the biggest data guy on the planet, which is why I valued you giving me that so much because I, I want to see it. Yeah, I don't want to feel it, I want to see it. Because sometimes your feelings don't give an accurate—

it was out there. And you know what, in a couple weeks you're going to call me and you're gonna say, you know, I, I was a bit surprised. Or maybe not. Yeah, you know, I'm hoping to hear, you know, my blood sugar's averaging in the low 90s. Yeah, and I'm, I'm good. Or, you know, you may have some news for me.

Well, so I was on Jardiance for a while too, so it kind of screwed me up all over the place because I, I was taking it for ejection fraction, not diabetes. And I already had like a really low blood pressure and really low everything, so it kind of threw me off, but I haven't been on it. I stopped taking it. I was gonna ask you too then, SGLT2 inhibitors, any effect on the brain?

Interesting you mentioned that. So there's quite a bit of research looking at that, and one would expect that there would be. There've been already a couple of interventional trials that did not have very promising results, but I like where you're going with that because now you're, you're dialed in. Yeah. You're looking, okay, I get the understanding of immunometabolism. If I can target metabolism using a PGC-1α activation or SGLT2, Whatever it may be, even, you know, looking at other aspects of metformin or perhaps even rapamycin or all of these inroads, might they serve us as it relates to the brain? And the answer is we've gotta look at this stuff. Yeah. Because if it's all about immunometabolism, then by all means, again, nothing's off the table as far as I'm concerned. But you know, the, the big strokes, the broad strokes are, The sleep, the exercise, the diet, socialization, you know, and it's interesting cuz the socialization part, connecting to your fellow man doesn't get enough attention. And it's right in there. It's in there in the blue zones. And you know, we can talk about why that's important for me to socialize with other people.

That's kind of self-serving. Okay. But it's also good for all of us that we communicate and we connect with each other from a biochemical perspective. Perspective. When we do that, if you have to break it down mechanistically, when I'm interacting with you and we're having this time together, my oxytocin level is going up. My love hormone is going up. And all the great things that that does, that targets your microglial cells, your immune cells of your brain to keep them in their nurturing, loving, supportive role. As being brain defenders, keeps them from shifting to being the evil twin. Yes.

And even, and, and I went through a serious nervous system reset recently, which changed my life and gave me a deeper understanding of things that I was holding onto that I didn't, didn't even have a clue about. And then how it made me more compassionate, which is what we're wired to be. That's how we were created to be. And having that ability, even if you're in a situation, cuz you brought this up about communication, even in a situation now where I'm having a negative, potential negative communication, I leave it feeling good because you know why? Somehow, some way, the way I handle it now leaves me feeling good because I mean, small instances of where I would normally be so pissed off and I, and I handled it so well. Not only did I handle it well enough to. Treat people, someone still with respect that wasn't giving it to me, the ultimate result was me getting something back in return that I would have never got had I handled it in the alternate way. So here's what I, here's what I talk about a lot, is that the one vitamin that everybody lacks that you can't buy that is the most important to brain health, heart, is, is vitamin G, right?

With gratitude. And we're lacking it. And when I'm curious scientifically what you see on people that hold higher levels of gratitude, cuz I believe they have better blood panels, better health, better lifespan, everything.

Well, I actually wrote a book about that with Austin Perlmutter, Dr. Austin, our, my son, our son. And we talked about the physiologic effects of gratitude, keeping a gratitude journal. What does the science say? And it says exactly what you just elucidated, and that is that it's self-serving because it's good for you. I think it was the Dalai Lama who said, if, if you want other people to be happy, do good things for them. If you want to be happy, do good things for other people. So it goes both ways. Yeah. And I think my chosen profession is good for me for exactly that reason. Yeah. And, and I have to say that getting back to diet, I don't like the term either, but getting back to food.

Yeah.

That's the other part that is so important about your meal is to be grateful. Try fasting. I'm sure you have. And that's the first thing that happens when it's time to break your fast. You, you say, I can break my fast. I have food. Not everybody has food. And I'm gonna break my fast. How grateful am I that I have food on the table?

That's it, man. Even like when I leave the gym, I thank God that I have the ability not only to work out, but in a nice facility, that I know what to do when I'm in there, that I'm still able to do it. And Pete, we take so many things for granted that are sitting there that you do every day, and then when you don't, you kind of panic and you freak out. If you're thankful for it and appreciative for it, it matters and means so much more, which then in turns makes you more productive in what you're doing. But yeah, there's little things that everybody will brush off or doesn't take for, for what it is, it makes every single difference mentally too. And that's what I've noticed. And that's where I want to go with this. Is that something that is creating neurogenesis, practicing these, these attributes, characteristics, practices in our life?

The answer to that is 100% yes. And do I, can we break that down biochemically or biologically? You bet we can, because overall that's reducing stress. Yeah. And that's reducing cortisol. And that's hugely important because higher levels of cortisol polarize our immune cells in the brain and shift them to being the evil twin. Higher levels of cortisol threaten the hippocampus, the brain's memory center. That was work done 30 years ago by Dr. Robert Sapolsky. Cortisol level increase challenges our microbiome and leads to permeability, leakiness of the gut wall. That increases inflammation in the body. Those chemicals, those mediators called cytokines of inflammation that come from the gut being leaky, make their way to the brain. And what do they do? There are receptors on these M2 supportive microglial cells. When you stimulate those with inflammatory chemicals, they say, I'm going to be the evil twin now. Sorry. And the evil twin increases the production. Of those inflammatory chemicals cuz we get a feed-forward cycle. So it, you're right. You're ab— absolutely right. That there is a lot to be said about the benefits for me for being compassionate. And that, that gets back to, you know, what the Dalai Lama said.

Yes, it's good for you that I love you and treat you with respect. It's good for me that I treated you that way too. Yes.

Everybody wants to look for the latest hack and the latest this and that. And some of the stuff is just sitting right there and it's just obvious daily things that we can do.

It's, it's true. And, um, I think though that there, I, I don't know if you wanna use the term biohack, but yeah, and there are, there are interesting things that are developed right now. And one of the things fascinating that, that I put in the book of the work of Dr. Li-Huei Tsai at Massachusetts, uh, Institute of Technology, MIT. She has done work showing that when humans are exposed to light flashing at 40 hertz, a light flashing at 40 hertz. It reduces the shift of our microglia away from being destructive. Really? Can you imagine? So she developed this technology of putting 40-hertz sound in your ears and a light, uh, flashing in your eyes at 40 hertz. And the preservation in Alzheimer's patients of brain structure is breathtaking.

Really?

And their functionality, when you look at what's called the ADL score, Activities of daily living, bathing, dressing, hygiene, all those things. Vast difference in people who looked at a flashing light for several minutes a day over a period of 1 year.

That's wild.

So is it— you bet. I mean, it defines a biohack. I mean, Dave Asprey knows all about this.

So I—

father of biohacking.

Well, and I was just there and you know, I, I obviously I'm a mainstay at those events and I love learning technology and I love getting in the trenches. And I'm blessed because everybody and their mom wants to send me something to try and use. So I get to see it and learn it all. And I learned tech and science. And I think that it is so important to always ask questions, develop, keep moving forward. But I think like what we're talking about, address the basic stuff first, get that. Once you have that, then we start looking at the next.

Oh yeah. I mean, and we could talk about supplements too. Yeah, supplements are by definition supplemental. They're not the mainstays.

Thank you.

And they are important, especially when you've tested and you see that you're D deficient or your homocysteine level is elevated, or there's a sense you have a mitochondrial dysfunction. Who doesn't? And you need CoQ10, whatever the supplement may, may be. But again, these are not the mainstays.

Mm-hmm.

And 40-hertz light is important. I mean, I think as an intervention for an Alzheimer's patient, Great idea. Do I use 40-hertz light? You bet I do. I have it sitting on my desk and I know they're the whole time when I'm working.

I love it.

Why not? So, you know, is that a form of a biohack? Yes, it is. But what, which would I give up first? My exercise routine or my 40-hertz light? And there's no question.

Yeah.

You know, it would be, I would stay with exercise for as long as I can.

I love it. I love it. Okay. So We are talking about gut-brain connection. Talk to me about what kind of a role, because I know it's massive, but break it down. The role of gut health to the brain.

There is no difference between the gut and the brain. They are all part of your physiology. This idea of reducing the gut and it's related to the brain. You know what? I wrote a book, uh, called Brain Maker. Talk about the microbiome. And a lot of people found it interesting. My colleagues said, the gut? Are you, are you on drugs? I don't know if I was, but, uh, uh, and the gastroenterologist said, you know, there's no reason for us to talk. I mean, I have my discipline, you have yours. Uh, but it's fundamental. Our gut is the first line of experience that we have in terms of our environment. We eat food. It's telling us the season, telling us what is ripe, what is readily available to nurture. Or not, our gut bacteria that create neurochemicals, that create various vitamins, that create short-chain fatty acids that make their way to the brain, that regulate inflammation, that regulate our body's metabolism. Immunometabolism, microglial cells, and your brain's future. So this is beyond, you know, an idea. This is an absolute fundamental. I dedicate a whole chapter to that. I mean, The thing that people really need to get their arms around is that the destiny of your brain is really predicated on the health of your gut.

So what are some of the more prominent deficiencies or problems that you see that are gut-related?

At the risk of being overly scientific, when we threaten the gut microbiome, as mentioned earlier, we're threatening our metabolism. So there has been research actually demonstrating reversal of type 2 diabetes by performing a fecal microbial transplant, i.e., taking fecal material from a non-diabetic human, putting it into the colon of a diabetic human, and reversing diabetes. That's pretty astounding. We recognize that our whole metabolism is really predicated on having a healthy microbiome, a microbiome that's able to signal our body's metabolism in positive ways. We also, I think, before I unpack some of the science, need to understand that some of the products made by our wonderfully diverse and functional microbes in our gut change the expression of our genes throughout our bodies and in our brains, and even affect how our mitochondria are working in the neuron and also in the microglial cells. Our gut bacteria are controlling brain metabolism. That's pretty— and it— when you get your arms around that, then you think about what you're eating, because we call these bacteria commensal, co with mensa, eat. They're eating what you're eating. You know, it's, it's been said when a woman becomes pregnant, well, you gotta be careful now cuz you're eating for two.

Yeah. Well, you're eating for billions right now. They are your friends. They're waiting for their next meal and that's what you decide to give to them. So when you look at it in that, from that perspective, you recognize that when you threaten the gut bacteria with, for example, medications, there's hell to pay. For example, what are some of the most common medications people use? Over-the-counter, I might add. Proton pump inhibiting drugs, acid blocking drugs. Everybody thinks, oh, I have indigestion. I ate the sausage sandwich and I can't, I'm going to have to take a pill, a proton pump inhibitor over the counter. Well, the research demonstrates a significant increased risk of Alzheimer's in patients, individuals chronically taking these drugs, and also stroke for that matter. The other big group are the nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drugs, similar relationships to Alzheimer's risk and stroke. And the big, uh, player of course are antibiotics. So research has demonstrated that, uh, people who are taking higher levels of antibiotics over many years have a dramatically increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease in both men and women. Now, let's be clear. I am not saying that people should never use an antibiotic.

They can absolutely save your life. Have I ever taken antibiotics? You bet I have. Have they been helpful for me? You bet they have. But at the same time, if you have to take an antibiotic, antibiotic today, my recommendation is that you use the antibiotic that is specific for the type of infection that you have, that you use it for the prescribed length of time, and that you recognize that antibiotics are— according to Dr. Martin Blaser, wrote a book about it called The Missing Microbes— that about 50% of the antibiotics prescribed in the United States for patients are not necessary. And think about this, that 80% of the antibiotics that are used in America are used in animals to make them bigger, to get a high, higher profit return. Wow. 80% of the antibiotics manufactured in America go for, uh, the, the use in cattle and in chickens and perhaps pigs. I don't know. And then when we consume those animals, antibiotic-treated animals, that's why you see You know, when you buy meat or milk and these are from antibiotic-free animals, that's what you're looking for because there are traces of antibiotics in these products that you may otherwise consume.

So these are weapons of mass microbial destruction as it relates to your microbiome. And they set the stage for issues down the line. Again, you've got to recognize there, there's utility there, but if you have a cold and I actually say this exact line in the book, If you have a cold and you take an antibiotic, the cold is gonna last you only 7 days. But if you don't take the antibiotic, it's gonna last a full week. So I actually have that line in, in the book because, you know, if you have a bad cold and you just, you know, I got a wedding coming up, I gotta go do some whatever I gotta do, a podcast. Yeah. You go to a walk-in clinic and you walk out with a Z-Pak. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And if you don't, you say, why don't even go?

Yeah.

Well, Well, Z-Pak is an antibiotic for a viral, it's totally useless.

Yeah.

And yes, if you have an over— a pneumonia, bacterial pneumonia that came as a consequence of a bad viral infection, I get it. But that's not probably what's going on with a guy that's healthy like you.

Yeah.

But I have people do it all the time cuz something's, I gotta, I gotta get back in, uh, and do whatever I gotta do.

Mm-hmm. It's, and that's, that, I think that really kind of touches on the importance of what we're eating and looking and understanding. Some people are like, oh, it doesn't matter.

But it does matter.

It does matter what they're being fed. And I know that it makes no sense for it to cost more to eat healthier. However, you need to prioritize what you're spending your money on.

Doesn't cost more though. That's the issue.

That's just it too. And that's where I'm going.

I mean, I understand organic food is more expensive, et cetera, et cetera, but you're not spending money on your healthcare when you're older.

Thank you.

Right. You're, you're, you're banking this, but what are you spending your money on?

That's probably not healthy too.

Yeah, that's true.

You know, so that, that's just another way of looking at it, but let's just, let's just say it, let's just take away what you and I just said, which is obvious. Let's just look at it just on paper. Yes.

It on paper initially it might cost a little more, but, and I get, I get that. Yeah. But I still wonder, I still wonder because when you go to health food store and you look at buying, you know, some organic broccoli, whatever it may be, it's And I, I, I, I don't think it's that expensive.

No.

I mean, but I, I understand people are on a budget. Yeah. But at the, and I don't think, you know, if you can't have organic, fine, but favor whole unprocessed food. Shop the periphery of the grocery store.

And read the labels please, because there's so many things on those labels that are just terrible that are listed on there.

Yeah, that's for sure. I mean, I, I generally say if there's more than 3 ingredients, that's it. It becomes a manufactured food. And I think the idea of a manufactured food manufactured food. That's an oxymoron. Yeah. I mean, food doesn't, isn't manufactured. It doesn't come from a plant. No, a factory. I shouldn't say plant. Of course it comes from a plant, but I mean, these are all inroads and diet and food that we consume fundamental. And there's so much that we can change. And, you know, one thing I think people need to remember is that the, we pay attention to the water we drink in terms of its quality and purity. Similarly, we've gotta pay attention to the quality and and the purity of the air we breathe. Who talks about that? When you're exposed to these PM2.5 particles that come from living near a busy road or breathing wildfire smoke, you are absolutely threatening your brain and increasing your risk for Alzheimer's disease. Wow. Okay.

See, that's not something most people broach.

Well, I wanted to bring it up because, uh, because we want to broach it. We all open that up. Absolutely. You can choose Lifestyle choices. You can have a, an air purifier in your home. I have one on, uh, in the bedroom and it, it's always giving a blue signal, meaning everything's good. And it measures the quality of the air and then adjusts itself such that it can work at a higher rate if there were, if there's a fire nearby or something like that. Mind sharing which one you use? I use something called Lichen Air, L-I-C-H-E-N Air, and reason it's a great name, Lichen. The lichens in the forest help purify the air. It's why the forest smells so good when you go into the forest. Okay. All right.

I want to ask you this since this, I think that this is something that doesn't also get talked about. I'm a former athlete, so training to me—

you're still an athlete.

I am still an athlete. So training and repetition. I always say Michael Jordan didn't quit shooting jump shots just because he was the best. He worked harder. He trained harder. How do we train our brain? What are, what are the methods that you would recommend people to train our brain to stay strong, functional, creating neurogenesis? What are things that we can do?

We'll get to the brain training in a moment, but do you eat anything specific before you go to work out?

Yeah, I normally have like yogurt and something that's going to keep me—

everything you do is really setting yourself up to maximize your workout. Yeah. Yeah. Same thing with the brain. We've gotta create an internal environment in the brain to foster the neurogenesis, to foster the neuroplasticity, and to reduce damage to neurons and synapses. Okay. That means reduce inflammation in your body and target metabolism. How do we do that? We eat the right foods, we get enough sleep, and we exercise. Now then we layer on the challenges for the brain, like, you know, doing squats. When you challenge muscle, muscle, it, it gets damaged. It, it's set back a little bit and then it recovers and then some. That's why muscles get bigger when we exercise. Same thing goes on with the brain. When you challenge it, as opposed to being sedentary and complacent, challenge the brain and have it work, it's going to grow new synapses. It's going to make new connections. That's why, you know, you've got to keep doing things, learning things, learn a new language, learn a new instrument, practice the musical instrument that you already play. Uh, I just actually wrote a, I did a blog on a new study that just came out that said that even being sedentary, if you're sitting in a chair, there's a good way and a bad way.

The bad way is to binge, binge watch Homeland, that we all have done that, or whatever the show may be. But the good way is to be engaged mentally, even if you're sitting down, engaged mentally by being called to question. Well, you know, I remember years ago, a husband said about his wife who had early Alzheimer's, she reads the New York Times every day. And I said to him, well, have you ever asked her what she just read? No. So you have to be challenged to produce, i.e., interactive. Play a card game, play backgammon, play a game in which you have to be engaged and you're being challenged to make sure that you're doing well. Yeah. It's one thing to say, you know, I read 3 books a week. It's another thing for someone to say, okay, well, what were those about? Oh gee, I'm not sure I remember. Right. 'Cause there's no, you're not being called to question. Yeah. So even if you're sedentary, engage your brain every single day. Do something novel. Do something a bit uncomfortable where you are failing mentally to accomplish your task the first time around. That's what makes, that's what makes it grow new synapses, grow new brain cells, and you continue to grow these brain cells and synapses your entire life.

It's easy to get comfortable and not want to challenge yourself. And I always want to challenge. And that's, I think that's one of the blessings that I've had to where I've been able to learn so much because I just want to know everything. I think you can see that when we have these conversations, because my mind goes 100 miles an hour.

I mean, one of the biggest threats to cognitive function is something called retirement.

Yeah.

I mean, people say, oh, I worked so hard now that I've turned whatever the age is. Now I'm just going to sit on the beach with a drink, with a little umbrella in that drink. Drink and, you know, put my toes in the sand. There's nothing wrong with that. None of that for an hour a day if you want. Yeah, whatever. Depends on what's in the drink. But you've got to stay physically and mentally active or you're gonna lose it. Yeah, you don't use it, you lose. That's, that's quite clear.

No, I'm churning butter all day up here, man. That's what you have to though, because if you're not trying to challenge yourself, there's— it's really hard to make any sort of progression. And you also have to be willing to make some failures to make any sort of progress, to learn from And yeah, you need to keep going forward.

I am, I'm learning and I'm trying to learn completely, start to finish, one new song on the guitar every week. I love that. Yeah. And I'm really enjoying it because so many songs that I thought were so challenging back in the day, well, they played it. So, I mean, you know, I, you don't have to be Serena Williams and be the very best at tennis. And she apparently is coming back. I just saw, can you imagine? 40— how old is he, 44? Yeah. See, what a great example.

Oh yeah. And I— and then that's one of the things for me that I've studied really deeply is understanding how athletes now are able to do it. And you know what I found personally? Some of it, and I'm just gonna say it, it's fear of not being able to perform as you once did, or that you forgot how to do it. And I've been battling that with certain things that I used to be able to do that I'm not able to do anymore, but I think I can now if I just try and go do it.

You know, whenever I have that feeling, I think of a James Taylor song and it's called The Secret of Life. And the first line is, the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time. So we're on this continuum and we know that, you know, I would say despite best effort until we reach escape velocity as it relates to aging. You familiar with that term where we've kept ourselves in good enough shape such that when the technology is developed, We'll be able to extend, um, you know, the Peter Diamandis type of idea. But having said that, uh, you know, things are going to happen. Uh, you're going to need glasses eventually, maybe hearing aids and have a joint replaced. And, you know, wonderful that there is all this technology available to you, but, uh, you could put those things, kick them down to kick the can down the road a bit. And you're experiencing it. And I will tell you, I'm experiencing it. And I just, I just really want that message to get out as it relates to the brain. It's not old-timers disease. It really isn't, and it just doesn't, doesn't have to be.

And what is so fascinating about what we've talked about today, this whole notion of immunometabolism and what this book is all about, is it's every neurodegenerative condition upstream of it, of what makes the good brain go bad, is this issue related to the immune cells, the microglia of the brain, whether it's Parkinson's, MS, progressive supranuclear palsy, Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal dementia, it's all related to the shift of these microglial cells. So, and you know, these are challenging issues. I interviewed a couple weeks ago Bruce Willis's wife. Yeah. And, uh, you know, she made it very clear what the emotional part of this story is all about. And, you know, every time I hear that story, First, I, I takes me back to my own experience and secondly is work harder.

Yeah.

Work harder to do what you've allowed people to do on your program. And that is to empower people by giving them the tools and hope that they just engage with this knowledge. It's, it's, and it's, it's not a hack and it's not a wonder drug. We can't put our faith in the development of a wonder drug.

No, no.

James Cameron said, he, the movie director said that hope is not a strategy. So, you know, the time, again, John Kennedy, the time to fix the roof is now when the sun is shining.

One of the things that I spent so much time on was like physical strength, everything physical, your diet, your training, everything. And then when you look at it and you, and you ask yourself a question, You got a lot of athletes that are equivalent on ability, but what separates a star from a superstar to an elite? It's mindset.

Mindset. Exactly.

It's Kobe was Mamba mentality. Every time I've been in a situation where, man, I'm struggling here, how am I going to do this? I can't physically do it. Well, I can, because I told myself I could, and then miraculously I can. And what I'm, what I'm getting at is of all the strengths that we can think about that we have. I think the most important one is the mental strength.

Totally. And then the mental strength as it relates to an athlete to do the work, to do the training in the gym. And I will say, say to you that one of the most underappreciated connections we talked about, the gut-brain connection, is the muscle-brain connection. A real, you know, a real plus is that when we exercise our muscles, they are acting as endocrine glands. They're secreting chemicals. That work somewhere else in the body. That's the definition of an endocrine gland. They're secreting chemicals that make their way to the brain and make, they build a better brain such that then when you mentally engage activities, you'll do better. You'll have more neuroplasticity, more synaptic plasticity. But the muscles, the more, the bigger muscles you have, the more of these chemicals they, your body's pharmacy is going to produce. Things like interleukin-6 and irisin, uh, that makes its way to the brain and amplifies the production of BDNF, brain-derived growth factor, brain-derived neurotrophic factor that tells your brain grow new neurons. Wow. By exercising. Yes. Yeah. Dr. Erickson, uh, uh, Kirk Erickson back in 1988 talked about that, that demonstrated in a 1-year study. Incredible. 2 groups.

One group did stretching and one group did physical exercise. The group that did the physical aerobic exercise, their hippocampus, their, their memory center increased in size. Whereas the— I'm not saying you shouldn't stretch, but their hippocampus declined and their memory declined too. Whereas the other group did not. I love it. Yeah.

I'll leave you with this. This just came to me right now. When you think of somebody that's successful and you think of attributes that they have, and success can be defined in a lot of ways, but just somebody that you see as happy, does well, happy with what they do and they really make an impact, however that may be, cuz success can be defined multitudes of ways. I would say that characteristics that are common, discipline, consistency, these are attributes. Are those physical or are they mental? Because to me, that's a mental thing that then allows you to do the physical capacity of the work. But if you don't have the mentality of, oh my gosh, I have to do this.

I think it's spiritual.

Thank you.

And I'll tell you why, because I think that I, I've defined enlightenment is is identifying your gift and then using it to its highest degree.

Okay. You just resonated with me the whole conversation into one, cuz I've spent years trying to discern what my purpose was and pray on it and whatever. And it's like, it's hit me now like a ton of bricks.

Troy, you're sitting in this chair right now. Yeah. That's enlightenment. That, that's why the answer was spiritual because you've identified your gift. And you're using it every single time you sit in that chair.

And the only problem I have with this is that our time is up, because I could talk to you all day and all night and keep this going 20 different times over, man. This has been— I had— you already know the expectation level I had was like way up here, and I can't point high enough to what you, what you did with me today.

This was very special for me as well.

I appreciate it, man. Tell everybody about the book, when it's coming out, where they can buy it.

Defenders will be out real soon. It's Brain Defenders and it can be bought. It's actually gonna be in 16 countries already, so that's great. But any, well, you can go to braindefenders.com. How about that? Braindefenders.com. Then when you buy the book, wherever you buy it, you get all kinds of things. Whatever those are, I don't even know what they are, but they're good things.

And then I'll link your socials and your accounts where people can come and listen to you speak and you have a podcast and you have content and Everybody, do me one favor from all of this is help this man become another, another bestseller because he more than deserves it. And this book is not just well-written, it's so impactful in such a variety of ways, and it's going to save multitudes of lives. So thank you for your work, your efforts, your care, everything that you do. I can't even begin to tell you how much I personally appreciate it and how I'm going to make sure everybody else does as well.

Well, I appreciate that.

Thanks for coming, man. I really appreciate—

yeah, we're locked in.

That being said, everybody, stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Gemelli signing off.