AWAKENING FROM ALZHEIMER'S - THE AWAKENING BEGINS.

[Stavia]

Day 9
Dr Pamela Wartian Smith
and yet another book author

...only three days left....my first thought is that - is personal use of botox compulsory for physicians on the appearance medicine board?

She mentions epigenetics. She believes 90% of breast cancer is environmental.

Anecdote of patient with memory issues in his 70s. Whilst in the Caribbean he picked up some parasites and caused brain fog. She says cognitive decline is mutifactorial. Another patient had Parkinson's and Lyme. Curcumin,krill oil,MCT coconut oil. High dose coQ10 1200 to 1600 mg. Phosphotidylserine (increases acetylcholine). Low dose naltrexone. At very low dose it may help with autoimmune diseases. Parkinsons is an autoimmune disease in her view.

Supplements:
1. Phosphotidylserine: prevention. ADHD. Nootrope. Prevents memory loss. TBI. Post stroke up to 5 years later. No interactions with other meds.
2. Omega 3 - an antiinflammatory - her preferred antiinflammamtory because it helps heart and brain
3. Curcumin - also antiinflammatory
4. CoQ 10 - recommend 100mg age 50 or above. Cant get it from food. Many medications deplete coQ10 such as betablockers ending on "ol", hydrochlorthiazide, metformin, glipizide , as well as statins. Extreme exercise depletes coQ10. Herat and bfain us e the most coQ10
5. Statins need basic multivit and coQ10. They deplete six nutrients.
6. Alpha lipoic acid - make less when we age. 100mg a day. Doses of 300 to 400 mg a day, can help lower blood glucose. `Prevent and treat neuropathy.

Insulin and blood sugar and the brain
Prediabetics - should intervene at this stage.
Exercise, sleep hygiene, diet, hormones eg thyroid optimal, many nutrients such as berberine. (anti-inflammatoyr, lowers cholesterol and blood sugar), alpha lipoic acid, chromium

Chromium is a mineral. Decreases sugar cravings, helps build muscle. Regulates blood sugar, 1200 to 1600mcgm (micrograms).

Hormones
there is always hope.
She likes pregneolone as baseline for hormones. often don't need a lot of pregnenolone. Estrogen critical - 400 functions.. replace only e2 and e3, not e1 (breast cancer). Balance with progesterone is very important. nerve endings and myelination. Testosterone is important for sense of well being and memory. DHEA makes estrogen and testosterone. Cortisol is also important. Should see a specialist in this area such as an anti-aging, metabolic or functional doctor.

This should be done before thyroid. Never give iodine without measuring iodine in the urine. Sometimes Dr Smith gives a tiny amount of supplemental thyroid hormone in the form of t3 and t4 together,

Cortisol is looked at last, may take 1 to 2 years to normalise.

She uses 5 small meals.

Toxic metals
not always an issue

Gut health
70% of immune system is in the gut. It is the second brain. She likes changing probiotics every 6 months.

[Harrison]

Day 9
Dr Pamela Wartian Smith
Supplements:
1. Phosphotidylserine: prevention. ADHD. Nootrope. Prevents memory loss. TBI. Post stroke up to 5 years later. No interactions with other meds.
2. Omega 3 - an antiinflammatory - her preferred antiinflammamtory because it helps heart and brain
3. Curcumin - also antiinflammatory
4. CoQ 10 - recommend 100mg age 50 or above. Cant get it from food. Many medications deplete coQ10 such as betablockers ending on "ol", hydrochlorthiazide, metformin, glipizide , as well as statins. Extreme exercise depletes coQ10. Heart and brain us e the most coQ10
5. Statins need basic multivit and coQ10. They deplete six nutrients.
6. Alpha lipoic acid - make less when we age. 100mg a day. Doses of 300 to 400 mg a day, can help lower blood glucose. `Prevent and treat neuropathy.

I'm ready to be skeptical of these presentations, and here comes a person presenting almost my exact list of supplements. Major difference is that I take straight-up choline, but phosphatidylserine was something I was considering as an alternative, as PtdSer->PtdEthanolamine->PtdCho. In addition, I also take Ashwaganda, Vitamin D, methyl B12, and methylfolate, and don't take a statin. I guess I need to buy her book... or not

P.S., I know Stavia was joking about the hippocampus, but this is technically what it would be if it were a spirit animal

[Julie G]

I LOVE your spirit animal Harrison! The genus Hippocampus is not lost on me. Very snuggly for a seahorse and almost as cute as Stavia's pygmy "hippocampus."

[Stavia]

adorable. I love them too with their fat tummies. (probably not anatomically really a tummy but it works in an anthropomorphic way!)

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[circular]

I vote the seahorse becomes our mascot. I found a book review in National Geographic:

“Increasingly, seahorses are being used as catalysts for conservation initiatives; they are being held aloft as poster species to help muster support for protecting the oceans.

“They are touchstones to remind people of the vulnerable, beautiful creatures that live there, giving us a reason to care.” ...

“Poseidon’s Steed” takes a look at the oceans from the point of view of the seahorse, and in doing so gives us a profound appreciation of what’s a stake for everything that lives in or depends on the sea, ourselves included.

In addition to our hippocampuii (sp?) being likened to them, they also appear to be especially sensitive canaries in the environmental coalmine (not that there aren't many such canaries).

[Stavia]

Day 10
Dr Fred Pescatore
..and of course he is an author as well...and treats celebrities...and has a newsletter that one has to subscribe to by paying...and his picture on his website and his advertising blurbs looks about 20 years younger than he looks on this video today...

Contrast natural medicine and conventional medicine. Latter says there are a couple drugs and that's it. The former looks at nutritional status and lifestyle and hormonal status and environment.
For instance in cognitive issues he looks at: vit D, B12, lyme, exercise, thyroid, heavy metals, food, metallic containers, sugar-> inflammation

Nutritional issues: B12, B6, folic acid, VitD, RBC mineral levels (zinc copper potassium magnesium), toxic metals (aluminum mercury lead bismuth).
Are they eating too much sugar? It also depletes nutrients.

He feels amyloid plaques are a marker of something else going on.

BBB can get leaky.
bit of bouncing around from topic to topic

Toxins: newborns cord blood has traces of 500 to 700 toxic chemicals (evidence?)
Thermal papers contain phthalates. Crumpling it up causes phthalates to be released. BPA is a phthalate. bisphonal S is just as bad.

His new two favorite supplements:
Glutathione production decreases with aging. ME3 is a probiotic that creates glutathione in the body. Lactobacillus Fermentum ME-3. Only species that does it and only available from one producer.

Bluenesse - lemon balm - muscarinic M1 receptor website cites a trial of 25 people
here we go appeal to nature again he likes branded products because he feels it is pharmaceutical brand.
aha - he sells it on his website! its one of the products he sells. he says it makes receptors talk to each other again. he says it has no side effects. he says conventional medicine doesn't look at underlying causes and just say take this medicine and is there just to make money. this imo is unfair. of course conventional science looks at cause and of course natural medicine practitioners are making money and also making more money by selling supplements thru their websites......

Alpha GCP - choline that crosses BBB. Bluenesse and alpha GPC work together to heal the BBB. really? big sell on Bluenesse here. I wonder what the profit margin is

Pycnogenol
appeal to nature. 300 year old forest. sustainable. Stops wrinkles in face and blood vessels by supporting collagen and elastin so increases blood flow. This is not what examine.com says https://examine.com/supplements/pycnogenol/

Cocoa
cocoa-bioflavinoids.

Vit E
keeps platelets and blood flowing to the brain really ??

Gingko, Resveratrol

Lion's Mane. Chinese medicine 5 or 6000 years. Oriental medicine long history. Decrease inflammation.

I cant any more. The information isn't accurate. And saying that Bluenesse is the top tier and first supplement for cognitive decline over and over again in this interview (and buy it from his website) isn't based on evidence.

[hill dweller]

Stavia wrote:

I cant any more.

Thank you for taking one for the troops. I couldn't/didn't last as long as you did.

BTW, I thought his book was a mish mash of good, bad and ugly information. This interview suggests he hasn't updated his approach.

[Stavia]

Day 11
David Katz

I've been looking forward to this one, 3 years ago I thought he was very sensible and evidence based, but I haven't followed him since then. I want to assess his view through the lens of what I know now, three years later.

He believes lifestyle/diet significantly reduces the risk of cancer, and AD as well. The evidence comes from three domains - two theoretical, one empirical.

1. theory one: roots of AD are very similar to those in coronary disease - hpt, smoking, diabetes etc. adverse effects on the vasculature translates into dementia. substantial overlap of risk factors, many of which are preventible.
2. theory two: a second argument is that AD is type 3 diabetes. Massive prevalence insulin resistance. Genetic reasons may be the reason why this affects the brain in some people with IR. This is preventable.
3. empirical evidence: real world experience of people who live well - Blue Zones. Dan Buetner. Chronicles lifestyle practices of those who live the longest with least amount of chronic diseases. These 5 zones have low incidences of chronic disease in their centenarians. The answer is lifestyle. Diet, sleep, stress, lifestyle, social connections etc.

Loma Linda is interesting: culture -> 7th Day Adventist population, mostly vegetarian, religious practices preclude alcohol and tobacco, active, good citizens, family and community bonds strong.
Overlaps in these 5 zones: wholesome foods mostly plants. Physical activity. Low stress. Social bonds. Sleep. In other ways these communities are heterogeneous.

Feet (activity) Forks (diet) Fingers (not smoking) Sleep Stress Love.

He feels we should look at common factors. He says for instance the high fat versus low fat debate - for instance the diet in the Greece Blue Zone is very high fat, low fat Japan and Loma Linda, and in between in Costa Rica - he feels the fat thing is irrelevant. And the protein sources are different between these populations. The common factor is wholesome food mostly plants. This is the basic theme - not a narrow prescription - you can find a formula that is a variant on one of these themes that works for you. Its not one size fits all. These zones have a wide variety of diets and they all work. Its not a narrow prescription whatsoever.

The common ground he feels is a big wide road - not a narrow lane. oh my, this is exactly what I feel the evidence shows us. So far I can't criticize what he has said

Finland - North Korelia project. Took away tobacco, took away excess saturated fat, shifted the diet to a more wholesome diet etc etc - reduced chronic diseases by 80% over 40 years.

He feels looking at the big picture - its too difficult to do it one at a time, person by person - he feels society should make it easier for people to live healthier lives like building in physical activity breaks during the work and school day for instance. He sees the Blue Zones that make it easy because the whole culture is built around these healthy practices. Whereas in modern Western society each individual is trying to go against the stream of unhealthy practices being the norm. The choices each one of us makes is always subordinate to the choices cultures have. And our culture dishes up bad choices all the time and expects us to make good choices. This is unfair.

Look at work of MIchael Moss - Slat, sugar, fat - scientists design food to hit the addiction centre by using fMRI machines.

Dr Katz's day:
1. exercise in the morning. home gym. he has an elliptical machine and a rower. best use of his time. he cant run anymore cos of multiple knee surgeries from skiing injuries. he says he hasn't time NOT to exercise, he feels less stressed, more productive, more enthusiastic etc
2. will power isn't enough , need "skill-power " - food label literacy, home food prep skills, recipes
3. cereal, berries, low fat yoghurt. snacks on nuts and fruit. wife put her recipes out for free on internet. shifting more towards plant based and vegan die to environmental and ethical reasons. dinner mostly plants, they do eat seafood and fish and occasional local poultry. glass of wine.
4. stress: he is prone to stress - working out every day helps him a lot. relationships reduce stress.
5. loves his horse, its very zen for him. outside in the sun, on his horse, feels like meditation for him. Also time with his dogs is meditative for him.
6. avoid toxins. he doesn't smoke.
7. if its been a good day, its easier to sleep.

He talks about Dean Ornish - but says that the programme is the whole picture including stress, sleep, social interactions, activity etc as well as low fat. He says there is no evidence that this will reverse dementia.

He strongly believes that a common culture is what is needed for healthy interventions. A culture can be as small as a family unit. For instance in his family health is a culture. He believes that healthy individual behaviour will only flourish within a culture that supports it. This is what his work is targeted at. I agree wholeheartedly. Our community is also a culture within which we can implement our healthy strategies.

He believes the food industry will respond to changes in public buying. If people buy less junk, the food industries will produce less junk. So he is working on a food labellling system and food label literacy programme



my review: I still like his synthesis, I know its very simple, but seriously if people did just this without all the minutiae of what we do, society as a whole would be so much better. His approach is appropriate - his job is public healthy physician so these broad brush strokes are appropriate for his field. His writing was actually where I started looking when I found out I was 4/4, and it was a great springboard for me in the first couple of weeks when I was struggling with --omg what do I eat?-- and I realized that big picture , it didn't matter that much within certain parameters in the beginning of my intervention choice.

[Stavia]

Day 11
Dale Bredesen

Hi Dale!!

He has been looking at underlying mechanisms for 25+ years. Reversing symptoms (cant says reversing disease because no autopsies). But improvements measured by increase hippocampal volume, improved cognitive testing, improved functionality.
He feels we are at the dawn of treatable AD.

Stories of people in his programme who have had sustainable improvement, its now 4 years.

His approach is ? what is the problem? It is complicated. He believes amyloid is a protectant in response to an insult to the brain. Rudy Tanzi's work is showing this too
-Inflammation/infection - mould, sugar, lyme etc
-Withdrawal trophic suport - hormones, thyroid etc
-Toxins - divalent metals, biotoxins, mycotoxins

Amyloid is a police force or army. But there are guns and there is collateral damage. There are two parts - there is protection, but also adverse effects.

Chronic complex illnesses are complex. Instead of asking what is it? We need to ask why?
For this we need a larger data set, to get to the root cause.

We found that if one looks at the more extensive metabolic profiling in those with cognitive issues - we see three kinds of patterns related to the three reasons why amyloid is formed : inflammatory type, atrophic type, toxic type. Also see combinations - glyco-toxic type with chronic insulin resistance plus an atrophic response as they have lost insulin sensitivity and lost the insulin signalling with an atrophic response.

He talks about the 36 holes in the roof. He mentions the failed clinical trials. He talks about HIV which took three drugs to make an impact. He feels that multiple interventions are needed. But the metabolic derangements need to be fixed first as an underpinning. He talks about his programme, an algorithm looking at all the underlying parameters. He mentions that over a 100 parameters are needed to be assessed, each of them related to the basic research. He mentions the osteoblastic versus osteoblastic balance as a metaphor for changing the balance of synaptoblastic versus synaptoclastic activity to be on the right side of the balance - done with dozens of interventions, that are personalised. Programmatic in nature. Not everybody needs to do everything. Its getting to the tipping point.


He references Dean Ornish - same paradigm - as one exceeds the threshold where the good is more than the bad - then disease can regress. He says that Dean showed this beautifully, as one changes the balance, things improve.

He references his papers and his book (this must be an old interview, he says the book is coming out in the spring of 2017)

Snippets:
he says one needs to convert from a carbohydrate based system to a fat based system - coconut, avos, nuts - he likes mild ketosis. Berfooda Triangle - simple carbs plus sat fat plus low fibre! lol.
Meat should be a condiment. Pastured or wild caught. SMASH fish. High O3/O6 ratio. Stay away from the white stuff. He references Perlmutter - gluten/bread. He feels most people don't do well on bread. Fruits - low glycaemic. Don't want to spike insulin.
Minimum 12 hr fast overnight - autophagy. 3 hrs between last meal of day and bedtime. 8-12 hrs eating at most. Homocysteine. Exercise. Stress.

Most important thing is to find out biochemistry and apoe4 status. Cognoscopy age 45 years, then decide what to do to optimise things.


He presents very well, as he usually does. Very eloquent. I like the way he references others in the field and takes the positive things from their work. Very open minded man. A great scientist.

[Lucy5]

Just want to add my voice to the choir Stavia, really appreciate and look forward to reading your daily summaries! Your overview w/analysis is especially helpful (I keep thinking, why didn't I get that from the podcast?). And btw, love your asides; should you ever want one, there's a second career as a writer waiting in the wings for you...