Preventing Dementia: Expert Tips From A Doctor!

Hello Health Champions today we're going to talk  about frontotemporal dementia what it is what  

you can do to prevent it and also if there's  anything that you can do if you already have  

it frontal temporal Dementia or FTD became a Hot  Topic very recently when the family of the famous  

actor Bruce Willis came forward and announced that  he did have FTD earlier they had believed that he  

had simply had Aphasia which means lack of speech  but then the disease had progressed and now he'd  

gotten the diagnosis of FTD so the family came  forward in the hopes of bringing some attention  

to this devastating condition and maybe the hopes  of bringing some light to it and some progress my  

heart goes out to the family and I applaud them in  this effort and not only is Bruce Willis one of my  

favorite actors of all time but I even happen to  look like him some people say so unfortunately  

though whenever something like this happens when  a celebrity gets a diagnosis or there's a tension  

around a celebrity we get a few days or a few  weeks of attention on the topic but by the time  

this happens very often it's too late to really do  something about it we're going to talk about the  

different things and there's still some things  that may be able to help but we really want to  

understand that we wanna understand the principles  and then do something about our lifestyle to  

reduce the chances we want to work much much  harder at preventing these things because they're  

not all that different most degeneration has  things in common so frontotemporal dementia refers  

to the area in the brain that is being affected so  if we have the brain here then the frontal lobe is  

the front half of it we put a little F here for  frontal lobe then we have the parietal lobe which  

is up here we have the occipital lobe which is in  the back and we have the temporal lobe down here  

so with Alzheimer's with the most common types of  degeneration it affects mostly that temporal lobe  

and the occipital lobe so it's further back in the  brain it does have some influence on the parietal  

and frontal but not so much it's mostly in the  lower and back portion of the brain but with  

fronto temporal now it affects the frontal and the  temporal so with Alzheimer's the frontal lobe is  

spared longer but with frontotemporal it's one  of the earliest areas that are being affected so  

Alzheimer's affects mostly the temporal lobe the  lower and the posterior aspects and those areas  

are mostly concerned with memory so when you have  Alzheimer's then it's the memory that's slipping  

but with the frontal temporal now it affects both  and the frontal lobe has a little bit more to  

do the frontal lobe is our Executive Center it's  our thinking it's our abstract thought problem  

solving it is also the area that controls impulses  it is also the area that controls motivation and  

it is also known as the motor Center the front of  the brain is more about the motor output the area  

that makes things happen so when you speak for  example that's the frontal lobe when you listen  

and understand speech that's more of the temporal  and typically the frontal temporal hits people a  

little bit earlier in life for people under the  age of 60 it is the most common form of dementia  

and part of that might be that because the frontal  lobe is affected we notice it sooner because it's  

not just a little bit of memory loss it's not just  a little forgetfulness we have major deterioration  

in motor function and speech and so forth so  what we're really talking about is improving  

the odds and we want to understand that there is  a genetic component a strong genetic component  

to most diseases and there's also a lifestyle  component to most diseases so in the case of  

something congenital that means you're born with  it let's say that you're born blind you're born  

with too many fingers you have a cleft palate  you're missing a kidney that's congenital  

you're born with it it could be a genetic  Defector it could be a developmental defect  

but either way it is 100 percent there right  there's nothing you can do with a lifestyle to  

prevent it however there are things that you can  do within a wide range to improve the quality of  

life and then there are other conditions like  type 2 diabetes that while this has this very  

strong genetic component to it like some  people could be 10 20 times more likely  

to develop type 2 diabetes than someone else  they have a predisposition the genetic link is  

very very weak because the lifestyle can convert  can reverse up to 90 percent of these conditions  

there's virtually no one that is doomed to get  type 2 diabetes and then there's these other  

conditions like dementia and cancer for example  where the percentages fall somewhere in between  

maybe it's 50 50 maybe it's something else I'm not  trying to pick a number I'm just trying to show  

you a concept that you might have a very strong  genetic predisposition but it doesn't necessarily  

mean that everyone with that genetic makeup gets  it because there are still a lot of Lifestyle  

decisions lifestyle choices that you can make so  what we're hoping for here is to create a delay  

and that delay might be 10 maybe 20 maybe 30 years  of a delay and hopefully then you might get to the  

end of the life and you've delayed it long enough  that you actually never get it but we don't know  

these all we're trying to do is to improve the  odds and if we understand the variables if we  

understand a little bit more about how the brain  works and what it needs then we can figure out  

what speeds up the degeneration what slows it  down and now we have a way of influencing and  

improving the odds the main characteristic of  dementia is that it is a degenerative disease  

what does that mean it simply means that some  things that used to work don't work anymore or  

don't work to the same degree anymore so in the  body we have about 40 trillion cells and out of  

those we have a hundred billion brain cells  but brain cells are unique in that they make  

connections to other cells so each brain cell has  about five to ten thousand different connections  

called synapses so those are like little wires  that connect and that is how the brain cells  

talk to each other that's how we create patterns  that's how we learn things that's how we develop  

skills is by creating these neural networks so  let's make it really basic if something used to  

work and it's not working let's try to answer  the question of what is it that normally makes  

them work for as long as they do and the second  question would be what is it that makes them  

stop working what is it that interferes with their  function and makes them degenerate brain cells are  

designed to live forever but in order to do that  they need three things they need fuel they need  

something to make energy out of they need oxygen  to burn that fuel and they need stimulation and  

we're going to talk about all these separately  and then just for completeness we're not going  

to talk much about that today they also need  some nutrients some building materials and some  

catalysts so one would be DHA that's the longest  most complex type of fish oil that is a structural  

component of the brain we also need some minerals  as a catalyst and we need cholesterol as a  

building material and insulation but for this  discussion we're going to focus on the top here  

just so that we understand the mechanisms and  why the brain degenerates so the first two here  

that's the energy source and the second is the  stimulation which is the reason for that brain  

cell to stick around so first of all the brain  needs fuel and contrary to popular belief glucose  

is one of the fuels but not the only fuel the  other fuel the brain can use is ketones and when  

glucose is plentiful when we have lots of food and  the glucose stays high for a long time then up to  

100 percent of the fuel is provided by glucose  the energy is provided by glucose however when  

there's the scarcity of glucose when we don't have  food every day or every three hours when we go a  

little bit longer without food called fasting now  the brain makes do with ketones we can break down  

fats we can have ketones as a byproduct of that  and up to 75 percent of the fuel for the brain  

can come from ketones now this is really really  important because for most of human history we've  

had a mix of these two fuels sometimes we have  plenty of food and sometimes we had not so much  

but in the last hundred years we've had so much  food that glucose has never been scarce however  

historically ketones are more stable it's a more  stable fuel source it is also anti-inflammatory  

it has anti-inflammatory signaling properties  and glucose of course is the opposite it's  

pro-inflammatory when glucose goes high but most  importantly which we'll get to a little bit later  

is that ketones do not require insulin to get  into the cells so ketones flow freely they're not  

affected by insulin resistance which we'll come  back to the oxygen part is really simple we need  

to oxidize the fuel just like you're burning fire  you're burning gas in your car you're burning wood  

on the fire you need oxygen if you choke off the  oxygen then the fire goes out same thing in the  

body without enough oxygen we can't make energy  we've got plenty of oxygen we can make energy  

but the stimulation is the least understood good  of all of this we tend to think in nutrition and  

biochemistry and so forth but stimulation is the  key stimulation is the purpose and the reason for  

that cell to exist use it or lose it so muscles  need tension if you use muscles on a regular  

basis if you work out if you put the muscles to  use the body will make new muscles some fibers  

break down but then the body makes new ones but  only if you use the muscles otherwise they will  

atrophy and go away same thing with bones bones  have the purpose of resisting gravity without  

gravity if we don't do weight-bearing exercise if  we don't live in a field of gravity then there's  

no need for bones that's the biggest problem for  astronauts you can maintain most of the cells and  

the organs in the body but without gravity the  bone bones disappear and by the same token brain  

needs signals that's the purpose of the brain is  to process signals it has an incoming amount of  

billions of bits of information every second  and every one of those bits of information is  

processed and responded to so if we don't get as  many signals anymore then there's less reason for  

the brain to stick around so we need to understand  where do most of those signals come from what  

what's involved with most of those signals and the  thing that makes the brain stop working the thing  

that gets in the way is called interference  and we'll talk about these but real quick  

if these are the thing if fuel and oxygen and  stimulation is what makes the brain work if those  

are the needs then anything that causes a decrease  in fuel delivery oxygen availability or in the  

amount of stimulation is going to make the brain  degenerate and deteriorate and there's also some  

huge metabolic factors that we want to include and  that's inflammation oxidative stress and toxicity  

now what will decrease the availability of fuel  and this is a shocker and surprise to most people  

because we're told that glucose is so important  for the brain that it's the primary fuel source  

and yet high levels of glucose is the number  one reason that the brain cannot get enough fuel  

so let's explain that part when glucose is low  when there's a starvation famine fasting now the  

glucose is low and the body burns more fat and  ketones are available as a byproduct of the fat  

so when glucose is low the body has a backup  fuel source so it's not a problem and this is  

how humans survived with the biggest brains  in proportion to body size of any animal in  

history however when glucose is high when it's  chronically High when we have a lot of things to  

eat all the time now we develop insulin resistance  and it used to be thought even just a few years  

ago a couple of decades ago we used to think that  glucose could get into the brain without insulin  

and then they found out that even the brain  needed insulin to get the fuel into the cell  

and the Brain can also become insulin resistant  so even though glucose is a fuel source for the  

brain the brain is more likely to be starving when  glucose is high than when it's low because when  

it's low we get this backup fuel source another  reason for low fuel could be poor circulation  

because the fuel is in the bloodstream and if  we're not circulating enough if we have plaquing  

in the carotid arteries or if the heart is unable  to pump enough blood on a consistent basis up to  

the brain now that could also be a problem and  the reason I talk about stress related to every  

topic is that stress relates to every topic and  whenever we are stressed we shift the blood flow  

the body re-prioritizes so our frontal lobe is our  cognitive center it's our creative Center but when  

you're stressed you're not very creative if you're  being chased by a tiger that's not the time to be  

creative it's the time to use your instincts and  just get out of there so whenever we have stress  

when we're in fight flight mode the brain shifts  the blood from the front and further down into the  

brain stem so we're starving the frontal lobe for  blood to some degree when we are stressed if we're  

low on oxygen that could again be poor circulation  because just like the fuel it needs to follow the  

bloodstream and again of course that could be  stress for the same reasons but here we have a  

few more reasons it could also be a lung disease  if we're not oxygenating the blood properly then  

there's no Oxygen to carry and also if the heart  itself has a problem like congestive heart failure  

now for whatever reason the heart cannot pump  enough blood it doesn't pump effectively enough  

to circulate the blood and get consistent supply  to the brain we can also have something called  

anemia which means lack of blood if we just don't  have enough of the red blood cells or red blood  

cells containing enough hemoglobin now we don't  have the oxygen carrying capacity so now again  

we're not getting enough oxygen to the end organ  and number three is stimulation so let's first  

understand what stimulation is and what it does  to the brain so we have receptors and a receptor  

is anything that takes one type of stimulus and  converts it into a signal so we have our five  

senses for starters we have Vision hearing smell  taste and touch so when you look at something you  

have photoreceptors that take photons and they've  been stimulated and then they turn that into an  

electrical signal the hearing we have a membrane  that that picks up vibrations in the air they turn  

that into an electric signal same thing with taste  and smell whenever you touch something the reason  

you can feel it is that there's a receptor that  takes that deformation of the skin of the tissue  

creates an electric signal so receptors are  different but they convert a stimulus into a  

signal so even though we usually just talk about  touch as one of the five senses it's a kind of  

deformation if you want to call it and that  would include then pressure and vibration and  

temperature the ability to sense hot and cold and  just different receptors and depending on where  

they end up we perceive all these different senses  but also part of this deformation of the change in  

shape is stretch receptors and mechanoreceptors so  when you move a limb when you move a body part you  

you have muscles that get stretched and that  shortened you have muscle spindle cells that send  

electrical signals to the brain you have tendons  that stretch a little bit that get certain tension  

on it and you have joints with mechanoreceptors  that sense a change in position and here's why  

I'm making a big deal out of that because  this movement these receptors these sensors  

that translate movement account for 90 percent  of all the stimulation that the brain receives  

and remember muscles need tension bones need  gravity and the Brain needs signals so without  

these signals the brain degenerates it's the juice  that keeps the brain alive and ninety percent of  

them come from movement and then there's also  thought and thought very often translates to  

emotion and we have different no neurotransmitters  and these neurotransmitters in turn fit into  

receptors and create different signals so  we create signals with our senses with our  

movements with our thoughts and our emotions so  here are the things that can account for a lower  

degree of stimulation so obviously a sedentary  lifestyle would reduce the amount of signals  

but also skills whenever you learn a new skill  then you have to create additional wiring in your  

brain and this additional wiring the complexity  of that wiring creates more stability and these  

brain cells are going to have an increased  probability of stimulating each other if they  

are more interconnected if you are monolingual  meaning you speak one language rather than two  

or three or four then you're gonna have a lesser  complexity of your neural network so picking up  

an extra language or two can dramatically improve  the complexity in your wiring and the stability  

and health of your brain but it could also  be a lack of Joy if we don't feel good if  

we don't have a purpose if we don't get a lot of  stimulation emotional stimulation like if we have  

a lack of a social network if we don't interact  with people if we don't have very many hobbies  

if we just work and come home sit in the sofa  there is less Variety in life if we don't feel  

like we have a purpose that reflects on our level  of Joy so here's where we need to understand the  

difference between a brain cell's strength and  its interconnectedness because so often we hear  

that you should stay active you should go out with  friends you should do crossword puzzles and all of  

those things are good but here's how you want to  think about it that if you have a brain cell then  

it has all these different spikes where it can  make connections and then it has a cell a nucleus  

so a brain cell just like a muscle it can be big  and strong it can have a high metabolic threshold  

it can have a large work capacity just like a  muscle if it's healthy if it's gotten the fuel  

and the oxygen and the stimulation consistently  we have a nice big fat strong brain cell but if  

we if the brain has been suffering in those  regards and it has not been stimulated now we  

have a little wimpy brain cell just like we have  a big muscle versus a small muscle so this weaker  

brain cell would have a lower threshold a lower  work capacity so if we want to improve on that we  

want to juice up the brain cell we want to pump  some life into it and what's the way to do that  

is exercise okay we want to get the hormones going  we want to get some intense exercise large volumes  

of exercise and movement because that's going  to pump it up but the other aspect is called  

interconnectedness so now we're talking about  how many connections how many synapses is this  

brain cell making so on average they have five  to ten thousand so brain cell with ten thousand  

synapses and connections it is more well connected  it has a greater interconnectedness it's going to  

be stimulated more by other brain cells because  it has more connections whereas something with  

only a few connections is not going to be as  strong and stable a brain cell so you use the  

exercise the large volume of signals to Pump It  Up but then you use all the other things like  

crossword puzzles and Bridge and hobbies and  skills to increase the number of connections  

and the complexity so please don't miss that piece  usually when they tell you to stay active they're  

usually just talking about cognitive activities  which will increase the number of synapses but  

that doesn't help much if you have a skinny and  weak and depleted brain cell and then we have the  

metabolic factors which are inflammation oxidative  stress and toxicity and as I always bring it up  

stress is involved with everything and stress does  cause inflammation as well and beyond that the two  

most important factors are sugar and insulin  resistance because they're strongly involved  

with all three of these factors something most  people don't pay enough at attention to are the  

processed plant oils these are the so-called  healthy vegetable oils that we're told to eat  

because we have this phobia of saturated fat  saturated fat is very safe because it's stable  

it doesn't oxidize very much whereas these plant  oils are polyunsaturated and in the processing  

of these oils they are subjected to incredible  oxidative stress they're some of the worst foods  

on the planet so just because they tell us that  they're plant-based and healthy doesn't make it  

so and then we have in the aspect of toxicity we  have pesticides and metals and chemical exposure  

so there's dozens and dozens of common metals and  there's thousands of different chemicals that can  

be involved and here's how you want to think  about that but think of it as your breaker box  

at home your electric panel but instead of just  a few dozen circuit breakers you have a hundred  

billion circuit breakers and they're connected to  ten thousand other each one is connected to ten  

thousand other circuit breakers and every time  that you get a short circuit then the body has  

to reroute the body has to create a workaround and  the brain is much better at that because your your  

electric box won't do that by itself but your  brain will make the attempt however everywhere  

that you have these foreign chemicals especially  when it comes to brain especially Metals then they  

can create one of these short circuits and I've  never seen a neurological problem that didn't  

have a mental involvement and it doesn't have  to mean that on a blood test or a hair sample  

or a urine test that your levels are higher than  anybody else's it just means that for you those  

short circuits are affecting something critical  so what are some things that you can do about  

this well first of all I really really urge you  that when it comes to to the brain you want to  

change before you have the symptoms or very very  early when you have the symptoms because in a lot  

of conditions you can go quite far and still  reverse it that's not true about the brain the  

brain cells even though we have some capacity to  rewire and regenerate it's not nearly as capable  

of regeneration as other organs so diabetes for  example type 2 diabetes you can be quite far gone  

in your 70s and still reverse it that is not true  for dementia so you want to make these changes  

before there is a problem and that's why we talk  about these principles in these videos and what  

you'll find if you watch a hundred videos is that  the solutions are remarkably similar because there  

are certain things the body needs and there's  certain things that interfere so the first thing I  

would cut out is sugar eliminate it completely all  added sugar should be gone and if you're insulin  

resistant then don't just cut out the added sugar  cut out all natural sugars and you also want to  

minimize your carbohydrates if this was me or  someone that I know then I would tell them first  

thing you want to do is keto a ketogenic diet  and intermittent fasting and why is that because  

a ketogenic diet will provide ketones which is an  alternative fuel for the brain so if your brain is  

starving because your glucose is high all you're  feeding it is carbohydrate but it can't get into  

the brain if you can develop some ketones they can  go straight in and start fueling that brain and  

even in some cases of mild to moderate dementia  that can make a huge difference the other part  

is intermittent fasting which is as powerful or  even more powerful because intermittent fasting  

will generate ketones but intermittent fasting  also will generate growth hormone and something  

called bdnf brain derived neurotrophic factor  and these are the two hormones that promote  

neuroplasticity so your ability to rewire the  brain depends on these hormones your ability to  

make new synapses and circumvent a problem depends  on those two hormones and one of the most powerful  

ways to generate that is intermittent fasting now  here's the problem when we start talking about  

keto is that everyone out there knows someone  who knows someone who heard someone say or  

read a scientific paper that high fat is bad and  that high fat creates causes insulin resistance  

now here's the truth of the matter so insulin  resistance is caused by what's called a fuel  

overload [Music] and there are two types of  fuel it there is fat and there is carbohydrate  

so the average person in America they have  learned to eat less fats they're down to about  

35 percent fat most of it is horrible quality  fat processed plant oils oxidized fried oils  

Etc and they're eating about 45 percent of their  calories from carbohydrate almost half of that is  

added sugar about 22 percent in the average diet  so they realize that's not a great diet so they  

tell people to eat even less fat and even more  carbs but a higher quality but then when they do  

research on what they call a high fat diet here's  what they do they raise the fat to 45 percent  

and they lower the carbs to 35 percent and we're  assuming here the protein is about 20 percent so  

it could be 15 could be 20 but just to keep the  the number simple so what they've done now is  

they've raised the fat and they call this a high  fat diet but what they don't realize is this still  

is a high carb diet and the absolute worst thing  that you can do to create a fuel overload is to  

have high fat and high carb at the same time  there is a small percentage of people who have  

success with high carb and really really low  fat because they can reduce the fuel overload  

but it's because they don't do both of them high  at the same time but it's much much easier to  

reduce the fuel overload if you increase the fat  dramatically and lower the carbs dramatically so  

this is high fat high carb if you want to do a  true high fat diet you want to go to at least  

70 percent fat and 10 percent carbohydrate  none of which should be added sugar  

so at this level now what's happening is you're  reducing the carbs low enough that you're going  

to reverse insulin resistance you're going  to dramatically reduce the amount of insulin  

released and secreted to handle the carb load  so probably eighty percent of people will get a  

dramatic Improvement on that level and if you  don't then you take it a little bit further  

and you go ketogenic which is about 75 fat 5  carbohydrate so realize what they call a high  

fat diet is not a high fat diet it is a high fat  high carb diet it is one of the absolute worst  

things that you can do if you get the carbs low  enough it's going to work beautifully and if you  

don't believe me get some blood work and try it  measure your triglycerides and your glucose and  

your insulin and you'll find that this is what's  going to reverse the condition you also want to  

eliminate all processed plant oils and you want to  replace them with natural fats and those are fats  

that are naturally occurring in meat nuts fish  cheese Etc and if you add fat you want to make  

them as natural as possible which means things  like butter and olive oil and coconut oil those  

are saturated or mono unsaturated and they're  very stable and undamaged and then you want to  

include some exercise you want to do as much as  you can without exhausting your body so things  

like walking are great because you can do them  for hours every day you can do things like high  

intensity interval training because that is the  thing next to fasting intermittent fasting that  

produces the highest amount of these hormones  that help neuroplasticity that helps you make  

new brain tissue and new brain connections you  could do things like yoga or Pilates you can lift  

weights all of those are fantastic you can take on  or you can add various Hobbies you can read books  

and books are vastly different than watching a  video when you're reading a book you're involving  

different areas of the brain much more precisely  much more actively than when you're watching a  

movie you can learn a different language  that would increase the complexity as well  

or you can join a club you can volunteer in  an organization just start doing more things  

another thing to help organize your brain and  promote brain plasticity is called meditation  

and because meditation is a little challenging if  you don't have the patience or skill for it there  

is a tool that we use in the office called brain  tap I'll put some information down below if you  

want to check that out as well it's like a guided  assisted meditation that requires no skill and  

even if you fall asleep during a session it still  works now here's the problem depending on how far  

progressed the disease is there are some things  on here that you could do and others that would  

be a challenge so in the case of Bruce Willis for  example they said that he had Aphasia to the point  

where he stopped his acting career little under  a year ago and now the disease has progressed  

so I don't know anything about him other than  those statements that they made but obviously  

it wouldn't be possible for him to change before  the symptoms because they're already there it  

would be rather difficult to make high intensity  interval training or things like yoga because  

they require a lot of motivation and focus things  that go missing when the frontal lobe degenerates  

same thing with Pilates and weights to the  degree that you can't do that it would be  

great but there may be a limit in how much you  can perform also with Hobbies books and languages  

there may be some hobbies that are easier than  others some that you can still perform whereas  

books and picking up a language might be more  difficult but again everyone is different so  

we have to look at these things and maybe add  to the list and and figure out things that we  

can do and I would think that meditation would  be very difficult because meditation requires  

very very strict Focus it's about sitting down  and controlling your thoughts so that's very  

very much involvement of the frontal lobe but the  things that you could do that would be still very  

powerful there's no way of telling if it could  create an improvement but there's a very good  

chance that it might light or at the very least  that it could slow down the progression and these  

would be things like decreasing the sugar like  starting keto and intermittent fasting to cut  

out all processed plant oils and to promote  more brain plasticity and kind of give the  

brain a little bit of fitness workout I believe  that the brain tap will be a fantastic tool and  

if you have something that you really like to get  done in the face of overwhelming odds maybe that's  

just the time that you want to go and if you want  to dig a little deeper and really understand some  

of the markers that I talked about in this video  I've created a blood work course it has over 15  

hours of recorded materials it's divided into nine  modules with various different topics and while  

not everything can be explained in blood work it  will give you a lot of information to understand  

what's really going on especially metabolically  and help you really take charge and make some  

changes in your lifestyle if you enjoyed this  video you're going to love that one and if you  

truly want to master Health by understanding how  your body really works make sure you subscribe hit  

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