#1 Absolute Best Way To Reverse & Slow Dementia

Hello Health Champions. Imagine that you wake up  in a place that is totally unfamiliar. It's full  

of furniture and things that you don't recognize  it seems like you've never been there before and  

yet you have that disturbing feeling that you  should know where you are. And while you're  

sitting there all these strange people come  in and start talking and interacting with you  

as if they've known you all your life  sometimes these strangers watch you go  

to the bathroom or take a shower of course it's  only natural now that you feel violated when they  

invade your personal space and it's not so strange  that you feel irritable and hostile towards these  

people but they all comfort you and reassure  you and say that everything will be just fine  

and then when all these people finally leave you  alone now you left yourself to try to figure out  

where you are who these people were and  what it all means the sad reality of course  

is that these people are your family and loved  ones in this little story I was just paraphrasing  

an actual dementia patient and dementia is one  of the most dreaded conditions of our time in  

the uk they found it was the most feared health  condition and people fear it so much they put off  

getting a diagnosis they put off finding out  more about it because they feel that if they  

get a diagnosis then their life is pretty  much over but we can't wait we need to do  

something right away before it's too late and what  you need is not a diagnosis that's just someone's  

label and it doesn't change anything about how you  work or your cells work what we do need to know  

is we need to understand some brain basics we need  to understand the mechanisms behind the condition  

like what's the cause of the damage what is it  that breaks down the brain as well as what does  

it take to build a healthy brain because those  are the two factors that we need to understand  

and what about genetics most people think that  genetics is the dominant factor but it turns out  

that there are a few rare forms especially the  early onset dementia that have a strong inherited  

component but the vast majority of dementia cases  the vast majority are multifactorial and that  

means that even if they have a genetic component  that predisposes that factor itself is not  

enough so even if your relatives had it if it's  multifactorial which most of them are there are  

many more factors that you can control and it does  not predict whether you're going to get it or not  

and if you can change these risk factors and  understand not just what they are but the  

mechanism behind them which we'll talk about now  you have a chance to slow stop or even reverse  

dementia if it hasn't gone too far the very  first thing we have to know is what is the cause  

and it's pretty straightforward dementia is caused  by damage to or loss of nerve cells and their  

connections in the brain and that was mayo clinic  but this is pretty straightforward this little  

argument that either your brain cells die or they  get weak or they lose their connections that they  

speak with but when we look further it gets really  confusing this is the Stanford healthcare website  

and they agree what causes dementia it is damage  to the brain but then when we want to read further  

and understand well what causes this damage  now they say that common causes of dementia  

are Alzheimer's vascular dementia  Parkinson's disease and Lewy bodies  

and now we're getting kind of backwards here  because dementia is a label it's a condition it's  

describing a condition but so does alzheimer's  and vascular and lewy bodies and parkinson's so  

we have a label that we're trying to explain by  a label and labels don't cause other labels they  

have nothing to do with the underlying disease  process but when we get it presented like this  

we don't see the way out we think that this is  just something that happens to people when we're  

unlucky and the best we can do is hope it doesn't  happen to me now this article in the Lancet  

talked about 12 factors that are risk factors and  now we're taking a huge step forward in figuring  

out the cause they found less education hearing  loss traumatic brain injury or TBI hypertension  

or high blood pressure more than 21 drinks  of alcohol in a week that's quite a bit  

obesity BMI over 30 smoking depression social  isolation sedentary lifestyle diabetes and it's  

not just diabetes it's the insulin resistance part  of diabetes so a well-managed type one for example  

does not have that issue and also air pollution  so what they found is that when these are present  

one or more then that increases the prevalence the  risk of dementia so if we can undo these then we  

reduce dementia but more importantly we want to  understand what is it about these what mechanism  

are they driving or not driving that is causing  dementia and that's what we're going to talk  

about first of all depression and obesity are not  risk factors they are not causal factors that's an  

association so if we have depression it's because  there's something not working quite right there's  

something that's weak in the brain to balance  things out and that same weakness over time can  

lead to dementia so it's one physiological  problem leading to two conditions it's not  

that the conditions are causing each other and the  same thing with insulin resistance which obesity  

is typically the result of insulin resistance and  then in insulin resistance has a couple of things  

that causes dementia it's not the obesity they  are unrelated but now let's group them together  

so traumatic brain injury too much drinking  insulin resistance air pollution smoking and  

stress what do they have in common and there are  actually only two mechanisms really and the first  

mechanism is what all of these have in common  and that is neuroinflammation inflammation is  

an immune system response the body does it  on purpose whenever we have tissue damage or  

infection or there's something else the body needs  to clean up in most of the body that's done with  

white blood cells called macrophages that  just means big eater and we have those in  

the central nervous system as well except they  have a different name called microglia because  

everything is different it's like this whole  different world it's a separate system inside  

the brain and central nervous system there's a  blood brain barrier that keeps things separate  

one of the most common things that people don't  think much about is a tbi traumatic brain injury  

and this could be a severe fall you hit your head  you lose consciousness but it could be a lot less  

also it could be one of the most common ones  are in football when people have helmets but  

they hit their head a lot they think they're safe  because they don't crack their skull but the brain  

is sloshing around inside the skull and we're  getting small concussions repeatedly another thing  

is alcohol can create neural inflammation stress  can create neural inflammation and pretty much any  

gut issue can create neural inflammation because  we have one barrier in the gut and we have one  

barrier in the brain and for the most part when  one is compromised like a leaky gut we also get a  

leaky brain so whatever is creating inflammation  in the digestive tract is also going to create  

inflammation in the brain but now is where it gets  even worse unfortunately is these microglia can be  

subject to something called priming and priming  is another word for persistent activation so it's  

like any other immune response that your body  remembers so if you have one concussion and you  

increase inflammation and microglial activity then  over time that activity and that inflammation will  

come back to a baseline but if you have another  concussion if you have another trauma before it  

is resettled now it's going to redouble its effort  it's going to increase its activity it's going to  

go to a higher level before and it's going to be  very trigger happy and if you do that a third time  

or a fourth time now we get pretty much persistent  activation but it doesn't even stop there because  

all these factors can activate these microglia so  let's say that you had two or three concussions  

and then you go have a drink or you end up  with a leaky gut or you have a food allergy  

now you could actually have bread with gluten and  you could essentially re-concuss your brain it's  

like you had another concussion even though you  didn't hit your head you just triggered another  

way to activate microglia and  inflammation now a problem is that while  

most of the body is really good at balancing  out inflammation and healing trauma the brain  

is not good at all that's because the brain  is protected it's not supposed to get hurt  

so when it does the brain basically just have  this weak little reserve cleanup crew and one  

way though that we can help this process along is  something called autophagy that means self-eating  

and it's been talked about a lot in relation  to fasting because when you fast you don't  

put in so much fuel and resources in the body and  then resources become precious and the body up  

regulates this autophagy this self-eating so it's  like a recycling process if you don't eat protein  

then the body goes out into the tissues to look  for it and this is one of the most powerful ways  

to clean up your brain to speed up this cleanup  process and resolve that inflammation so what  

that means then is that if you hit your head one  of the best things that you can do is to do some  

fasting or at least to avoid sugar if you're in  a football game and you hit your head the worst  

thing you can do is to go have a soda afterwards  because sugar and carbohydrates trigger insulin  

which is one of the most powerful ways to turn off  autophagy completely now let's look at the second  

factor so the first one was neuroinflammation  what's the second one and that relates  

to less education hearing loss hypertension social  isolation sedentary lifestyle insulin resistance  

decreased nutrients deficiencies smoking and  stress what do these have in common and what  

is the mechanism whereby they promote dementia  well all of them deprive the brain of something  

it needs to have so if we have less education or  we have any of these then we basically get a weak  

brain we don't develop the brain the strength of  the brain the endurance of the brain to the point  

where it's supposed to be we get a poorly wired  brain and then it's also underdeveloped and with  

all of this that brain has a lower threshold for  trauma for endurance for activity and it's much  

more prone to degeneration and if all these things  deprive the brain of something then next we have  

to understand what is it the brain needs number  one is fuel the brain is two percent of your body  

weight it uses 20 to 25 of all the calories of all  the energy all the fuel in your body and even more  

important than high or low fuel is stable fuel  because the brain uses so much energy it can't  

be on sometimes and off sometimes it has to have  a steady energy supply and that supply is glucose  

and ketones traditionally we're being told  that glucose is the only fuel for the brain  

but that's not true because when we're fasting  then as much as 75 of the fuel can come from  

ketones and in our modern lifestyle with way too  much sugar and carbs then we're probably relying  

almost a hundred percent on glucose for brain fuel  but historically it's probably been more like 50  

50 between ketones and glucose and if you've ever  tried to make a fire you know that there is no  

fire there's no heat or energy without oxygen the  second thing your brain needs is activation and  

this is the most misunderstood people get it they  need fuel they need all these different things but  

activation is the key because you have all these  cells in your body but they all serve a purpose  

and if you don't use them for anything then  your body doesn't need the fuel it doesn't need  

that cell at all so the only reason we need  fuel is to perform work and that's where the  

activation come in use it or lose it to build  a strong brain we also need some catalysts to  

wire the brain properly that's brain derived  neurotrophic factor and human growth hormone  

so don't worry about the name just think of  them as miracle grow for the roots and the  

pathways and the networks in your brain and then  of course over time we're going to need to replace  

some of the parts of the brain that wears out all  the tissues where out all the molecules were out  

so we need to replace the building blocks and  those are primarily the things that we're missing  

most often are DHA docosahexaenoic acid which is  just the long complex fish oil and amino acids  

which come from protein and cholesterol which  the body makes but we're taking all these drugs  

to keep it down and we're trying to limit it in  the diet which may not be a great idea and if  

all these factors are present now we can start  to build a better brain and how do we do that  

you have about a hundred billion brain cells  each brain cell makes on average five to ten  

thousand connections to other cells and these  connections called synapses that's how the cells  

talk to each other then there's the concept of  neuroplasticity which means the brain is never the  

same it's not like a statue it's not solid it's  more like a river it's constantly changing and  

modifying itself to fit your environment as you  have new experiences the brain rewires itself it's  

going to disconnect some of these synapses and  make new ones and Hebb's law says that cells that  

fire together wire together so as you have these  different impulses as you think something as you  

have an emotional reaction as you're practicing  a physical skill all of these experiences trigger  

brain cells at the same time and if they trigger  at the same time then they wire together you get  

these experiences hardwired into your nervous  system into your brain and that is the only way  

that we can learn things and over time we develop  a lot of complex automated skills we have physical  

skills like balance and coordination we have  cognitive skills like speaking different languages  

or having an analytical capacity but how does all  of that relate to dementia well the better we can  

build these networks the more complex networks we  have the more complex skill the more we use them  

then the more interconnected they become the more  different brain cells get hooked up with more  

of the other brain cells and then we increase  the neuronal stability we increase the endurance  

and the health of each brain cell because a  brain cell that sits by itself in a corner  

somewhere and doesn't talk doesn't connect  it to anybody else it's not going to fire off  

very often it's going to be a rare occasion  and that brain cell is going to degenerate  

but if a brain cell is well connected if it's  got thousands or tens of thousands of connections  

there's always going to be some message coming  or going there's always going to be some activity  

so that's going to increase the baseline activity  of the whole network they reinforce each other  

and when that happens we decrease the chances  of degeneration and dementia we're maintaining  

the health and the metabolic thresholds  and capacity and endurance of that brain  

here are the main limitations of working with  dementia a brain cell is like any other cell  

it can grow it can shrink it can get stronger  or weaker however once it's dead it's dead  

and that's the problem with the later stages  with the more progressed stages of dementia that  

once it gets really bad there's a lot of cells  that are dead and gone and they're not coming back  

so we need to catch it early we need to do  something while the cells are not dead but  

simply weak and when they're weak but still there  now we can work with them through these principles  

we talked about and we can resuscitate them  basically not only that but we can also rewire  

and compensate for some of the cells that are dead  if there's too much of a percentage we're sort of  

past the threshold but people with strokes for  example they can have large portions of the brain  

die completely and they can rewire and teach  other parts of the brain to do the same thing  

so we can do that also with dementia to a  point but we have to reverse the process  

so if you are extremely motivated then there's  tremendous potential you could do a lot to  

reverse all these different processes but therein  lies the problem this is the biggest limitation  

of working with dementia people is that  they have no motivation the processes  

that cause dementia are the same processes  that break down the brain areas that control  

motivation these people they're very difficult  to motivate them to do anything or to understand  

help them understand why they need to do something  that's why we want to change early this is why  

we don't wait for symptoms we work from day  one to be as healthy as we can to build the  

best brain we can from the beginning so start  before there is a problem before there's a symptom  

why not start today so let's pull all  of this together and make sense of it  

when we want to reverse and or prevent dementia  it all comes down to just a few principles all the  

different risk factors they talked about comes  down to use it or lose it comes down to neural  

inflammation and a little bit to nutrition  let's say that you were unfortunate and you  

had less education what did that do why is that  use it or lose it well you never developed that  

complex network to the degree that you could have  it's basically a slightly less developed brain it  

doesn't have that endurance so what do we do about  it well it's never too late to learn and with the  

internet with YouTube with free courses with  free language apps there's no excuse anymore to  

blame it that you don't have the education  because you can learn every day so increase  

your mental activity play cards do memorization  games play bridge do crossword puzzles and learn  

new things every day what about hearing loss well  when you have hearing loss that means that the  

signal is not going from the hearing mechanism  into that area of the brain that's supposed to  

receive it either the signals missing or the area  in the brain is is weak or damaged but either way  

use it or lose it that area of the brain is  degenerating because it's not being activated  

it's not being stimulated so what do you have to  do you do something physical you do some exercise  

to compensate for it it doesn't mean that  your hearing necessarily is going to come back  

but you can send so many signals from other places  that they make up for what's missing if you have a  

sedentary lifestyle if you sit still physical  inactivity then realize that 90 of all the  

signals that stimulate that activate the brain  that becomes the juice for the brain come from  

movement and when you're sitting still you're  just not stimulating that brain so up and move  

what about social isolation again less  stimulation we need all kinds of different  

stimulation we need emotional we need physical  we need chemical we need mental activity of  

all different kinds so social isolation is  not a great thing what can you do about it  

join a club volunteer go for a walk talk to people  do something hypertension is actually a cause  

in itself it's not just this thing that can cause  strokes and related to cardiovascular disease  

when we have hypertension that high blood pressure  is something that the body tries to protect itself  

from so the body can change the perfusion that the  blood vessels are supposed to let through oxygen  

but if the blood pressure is too high then less  oxygen ends up going through so we could actually  

starve the brain for oxygen even though there  is higher pressure of the blood the number one  

solution for use it or lose it is called exercise  that's why i talk about it all the time it does  

two things first of all it provides 90 of the  signals to activate the brain but more than that  

the more intense that exercise is the more of  these hormones the brain derived neurotrophic  

factor the human growth hormone remember the  miracle growth for the brain it's only going  

to sprout synapses with these two hormones  present and once you exercise you activate  

the brain but you also provide these hormones  to make new connections in one study they took  

kids from being c average students to a average  students doing nothing more than having them  

run one mile in the morning before school stress  is another one of those things that can cause  

anything because it affects so much it can cause  neural inflammation but also stress puts us in  

a survival place and when we're in survival we're  not very creative normally there's a good balance  

between the blood and the brain between the brain  stem and the cortex but when you have stress now  

the blood goes from the cortex to the brain stem  because when you're stressed when you're trying  

to survive you don't need to be creative you're  just trying to get out of there but it robs the  

cortex it robs the thinking part of the brain  of oxygen and therefore we rob it of blood flow  

and energy the solution i talk about all the time  is to meditate because you activate your brain  

you lower your stress responses and you help your  body get back to balance if you're drinking more  

than 21 drinks per week i would suggest cut back  and if you're smoking then stop it all together so  

those are pretty simple solutions if you have  trouble with it there's support organizations  

there's books there are 12 step programs just  do what you need to to to deal with that and if  

you've had some concussions or traumatic brain  injury if you are obese or if you have insulin  

resistance then the solution is pretty simple  you can start with an elimination diet to reduce  

inflammation but the biggest thing for those three  is going to be low carb and high fat and fasting  

to reduce insulin to increase autophagy and then  to make sure that you get some good nutrition  

the best thing you can do is to make sure that  you eat real food and for the brain you might  

want to supplement with a little bit of fish  oil as well and one more thing that people get  

totally backwards is the mental activity versus  the physical activity because most people put  

the mental activity first they think i don't  want to get dementia i want to read things i  

want to do cross board puzzles i want to be  active and those are all good things that  

helps increase the complexity of those networks  of that wiring but you have to do the exercise  

first you have to start with exercise because  exercise drives 90 percent of the signals  

that makes the brain grow and they produce  all of the hormones all of the miracle grow  

that help you learn you can't make new  connections just by doing the mental activity  

it's going to go so much slower than if you  exercise first this is like the 90 that pushes  

the fluid through the pipelines that  fills the system that makes the soil  

fertile and then you add the learning and  the mental activity and that's going to  

work so much better if you enjoyed this video  you're going to love that one and if you truly  

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