Transcription
So there's one part of the body that we haven't talked about, which is, and my little mannequin here, inside its head, the brain. Yeah. And I'm wondering how some of the themes we talked about link to one of the most common brain diseases which people talk about, which is Alzheimer's and dementia. We talked about >> I can't say that long word, but um >> angiogenesis. Is there a link between angiogenesis, what we in the brain health, dementia, Alzheimer's?
>> Yeah, absolutely. So, I mentioned to you that the human body's got 60,000 miles worth of blood vessels that are coursing through the entire body, bringing the uh oxygen and nutrients through the highways and byways of health. All right? 400 miles of those blood vessels are in your brain. 400 miles of blood vessels are actually coursing through our brain. And our brain is super metabolically active. You know, we're we're the engine of the brain is functioning all the time, regardless of your IQ, regardless of what type of task you do, our brain is very, very metabolically active, highly dependent upon a healthy circulation.
Now, what we do know as people get older is that problems can occur with uh brain function. And the reason I'm framing it this way is that it's quick to jump to a term that people use like dementia or Alzheimer's disease, thinking it's one thing. But in fact, dementia is just a descriptive term for your cognition not working properly, most commonly as you actually age. Alzheimer's, even though it is one type of diagnosis, is probably several different kinds of disease as well. And we do know that there are different types of dementia. Alzheimer's is a subset of dement of dementia. Alzheimer's dementia. There's there's a more common type of dementia called vascular dementia. And that's where those 400 miles of blood vessels in your body actually narrow, get hard, get clogged up, and don't have good blood flow. So you can imagine if you were to actually interrupt the sprinkler system, the tubing, the blood vessels, the tributaries bringing oxygen to your brain within those blood vessels. Okay? Over time, your brain is not going to function very well. So vascular dementia is is by far the more common type of dementia.
So what can we do to maintain healthy andogenic blood vessels throughout the course of our lives for anybody who wants aspires towards longevity. All right, you should be thinking about how to avert that path where your blood circula your blood vessels your circulation to your brain gets impaired. the more uh vascular blood vessel healthy androgenesis supporting diet and lifestyle and medications that you take, the better it's actually going to be.
Now, well, here's what what's interesting. What are some of those things? Turns out that dark chocolate, plant-based foods, the cacao actually um produces helps your body produce something called nitric oxide. Nitric oxide actually widens your blood vessels so you get better blood flow. So dark chocolate is one of those foods that actually can see seems to be able to promote better vascular health, including in the brain. Now there are other foods that can produce nitric oxide as well. Beets, beetroot actually can produce nitric oxide. Spinach can do produce nitric oxide as well. Those are vascular healthy.
Now here's the other thing. When you produce nitric oxide like with these foods, you know what nitric oxide does? It recruits stem cells, healthy stem cells, not cancer stem cells, but healthy stem cells from your bone marrow.
>> Stem cells are >> Stem cells are primitive cells that can turn into anything you need them to be. Turn into a brain, heart, lung, liver, skin, hair. Um, our stem cells actually regenerate us from the inside out. Now, you know that one of the things that happens as we get older is our brain atrophies and can start to degenerate. It shrinks. Literally a scan of an older person. The brain the brain matter the mass of the brain shrinks inside the skull.
>> It's like a like a cotton shirt that shrank and you see this actually in a scan.
>> And so in order to be able to try to keep the shrinking from happening, you want to make sure there's good blood flow going, which actually helps to keep the brain growing in a healthy and maintained in a healthy sort of way. So um stem cells that are recruited by nitric oxide actually can help to also regenerate the blood vessels and keep the blood vessels helping healthy feeding the brain. That's the connection between Alzheimer's and I mean dimension androgenesis.
Now for Alzheimer's um I worked with a colleague Dr. for Anthony Vagnucci some years ago and we published uh what was then an editorial in the Lancet uh you know very prestigious uh British medical publication and we were connecting the dots between androgenesis and Alzheimer's disease and here's how it works. Most people assume that if you've got Alzheimer's disease or someone has Alzheimer's disease, they don't have very good blood flow. They're not going to have a lot of androenesis. They got problems right of their of their circulation, of course.
>> And in fact, if you look at um the blood flow studies, scans, brain scans looking for blood flow in Alzheimer's brains, indeed you see poorer blood flow in people who have actually Alzheimer's disease. But it turns out the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease have more blood vessels, more blood vessels that aren't working well. So they're andro abnormal androgenic blood vessels are not working well. So you don't get good blood flow. So the scans don't show them. They're just not creating blood flow. Guess what those blood vessels are doing? Those abnormal blood vessels, they have been discovered to secrete a neurotoxin that kills your brain cells. So abnormal androgenesis in Alzheimer's disease grows blood vessels that don't create blood flow, but they secrete a toxin that kills brain cells. And they also secrete the precursor to build up the plaque. So, uh, we we published this as a as a hypothesis and an editorial in the Lancet and now there's a whole field looking at androgenesis and and Alzheimer's disease.
>> It's crazy how this all stems back to this idea that food is medicine.
>> Yeah. I mean, listen, before we had medicine as medicine, before we had pharmaceuticals in the 1930s, it's all we had. That's all humans had, our diet and lifestyle for medicines. And so I think that that's really I think what's happened is that in during the industrial revolution that occurred with pharmaceuticals, >> we put aside a tool in the toolbox that we've always had. In fact, that's the only thing we had before. And we focused myopically just on what pharmaceuticals can do. Now I'm telling you as somebody who has developed biioharmaceuticals and who is still very much involved in that new medicines can be life-saving. Old medicines can be life- saving. And so you never want to throw out the baby with the bath water. What we have forgotten about is that tool in the toolbox. It's been with humanity forever, which is what we do with our food. And and what I'm saying is that what we can do now with the work that I'm doing in food is medicine. We can take the modern science, that deep probe, that ex extraordinary level of sophistication that we use for drug development and we can use it, apply it to understand why our foods help us, which foods help us, and what types of outcomes we're actually looking for. And so food is medicine. Bringing it back into the fold is just replacing a tool in the toolbox. But now we are actually fortifying it with the knowledge provided by science of what we should choose and when and why.
>> Supplementation. Are you a fan of supplementation? Because I take a couple of supplements every morning, things like creatine and omega-3 and vitamin D. Do you take supplements?
>> Yep. Yes, I do. And I I'll I'll first say um my my first off approach is that uh we should get most of the micronutrients that we need to be healthy from our food. Use your food uh to our advantage because uh single foods will have hundreds of different uh polyphenols and fiber and all kinds of other beneficial things. So and and vitamins and minerals. So, our food is a much more efficient way to get all of our micronutrients. However, supplements can be helpful in the literal translation of the world, supplement, which means topping off. So, if you can't get everything that you need from your food, then feel free to top it off. And that's what I actually do as well. But vitamin D, vitamin D, I do it as well. Omega-3 fatty acids, another good uh top off uh to actually use for a supplement. And by the way, there are some probiotics that um I feel that it's prudent to actually get have in my body. So I'm not giving a general recommendation. I'm just telling you what I do, right? That's what we're talking about. Everything's personal. It's personal to them. But I, you know, we talked earlier about the acromancia, right? So I do eat the foods that support acromancia, the pomegranate, etc., and the chili peppers. But I'm going to take the supplement because I've seen the data that shows how important it can be. Oh, and acromancia improves your metabolism, lowers the risk of metabolic syndrome. There might even be some clues that acromancia um might also lower the risk of dementia development later on as well. So, hey, this is a pretty safe natural bacteria. I'll take that probiotic. And another probiotic I take is called Lactobacillus rutery. Lutery. What does this do? Lowers inflammation, builds immunity. It actually text This is the bacteria that text messages the brain. We talked about the brain and it causes our brain to release social hormones like oxytocin.
>> That's a social hormone that makes us feel good. So, you know, why wouldn't I actually take that? And oh, one last thing. Lactobacus Ruter has been I the kind I take is chewable. Why wouldn't you just take a capsule? Well, it turns out that the same bacteria, lactobacillus ruterides, good for the gut, but if you chew it up, this is the bacteria that kills the bacteria that causes cavities and gum disease.
>> I haven't had a cavity in well over a decade, you know. And so, again, this is one of these types of practical things that um just knowing the science and knowing what I do and where where I don't eat enough. It's hard to get enough vitamin D. um uh uh hard enough to get omega-3s, I will actually top off on those.
>> I'm wondering, you know, you've got these two great books in front of me, Eat to Beat Disease, which is a New York Times bestseller, and Eat to Beat Your Diet, which is really about burning fat, healing your metabolism, and living longer. I know that you must have some f people use the term superfoods all the time, but there must be some foods where you look at them and just think they are little miracles in their own right. So, I wanted to a little challenge for you is if you had to pick five of your favorite foods based on the research that you've done, the science you've seen, what would those top fives be?
>> I would bring coffee.
>> Okay.
>> Um because of all the polyphenols in coffee, I'd bring tea.
>> Um I tend to drink coffee in the morning and I have tea at night. Um and I can I'm not caffeine sensitive, so I can have the tea at night. If if if you allow me, I'll actually lump those into my beverages.
>> Okay.
>> Under one category. Um I'll bring tree nuts.
>> Tree nuts.
>> Tree nuts. Walnuts, almonds, macadamia, pistachios. Um I love nuts. Uh tree nuts. And you know, not the pack prepackaged kind, but I like to, you know, kind of like toast them up myself and seize flavor them myself. Um, I would bring that because of the dietary fiber, the healthy pro, it's a good source of protein, some healthy fats in it as well and can kill some cancer stem cells while we're at it. Okay, so tree nuts are actually good. I would bring tomatoes because I love tomatoes. Okay.
>> It's a great source for hydration, good source of lycopine, which we talked about, good for metabolism. I would take berries.
>> Berries, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries are are among my favorites. Raspberries. You might be surprised at this, but raspberries are poundfor-pound or weight for weight one of the most fiber richch foods out there. They're light, they're hollow, packed with fiber. Um, and they've got polyphenols and that are useful for lowering inflammation as well. Berries um are actually really good. And then, you know, I because I follow what I call the Mediterranean uh style of eating, I love to have those vegetables that are actually used in both the Mediterranean and Asia, Mediterranean style cooking, the bok choy, the kale, chory, escoral, you know, all of those types of um of of leafy greens. So, those would be the five I would actually take with me.
And what is the most important thing that we didn't talk about that we should have talked about?
>> You know, I think that uh the most one of the most important things that that I want people to walk away with is that there's more than 200 foods that I've studied and I've written about in my books to be disease and eat to be your diet that you know I've done all the heavy lifting to help you figure out what foods are healthy that you could consider adding to your diet. But if you notice, I didn't actually give you a formula or a set menu on what to do for health. Because the most important thing I I I want people to walk away with is that my humanistic approach to this is um you should love your food to love your health. And if you could actually do both at the same time, you have to find out what are the foods that resonate with you. What do you prefer? What do you enjoy? So, if you could look at 200 healthy foods, which is what what I have in my books, and just take a highlighter or a pencil and circle them. Circle the ones you already love, start and stick with those, you're already way ahead of the game. And that builds confidence that you're actually doing the right things.
If you love the Driver CEO brand and you watch this channel, please do me a huge favor. Become part of the 15% of the viewers on this channel that have hit the subscribe button. It helps us tremendously and the bigger the channel gets, the bigger the guests.