An "Alzheimer's Diet?" Dietitian Amylee Amos Discusses The Bredesen Protocol

hey everyone Whitney here and welcome to another episode of the stitch today I'm so excited to introduce you to my friend and fellow registered dietitian nutritionist Amy Lee a MOS hi everybody thank you for joining us today yeah thanks for having me I'm excited to be here we are excited to hear what you have to say though Amy Lee is the owner and founder of the aimost Institute which specializes in treating neurodegenerative diseases and she is actually implementing a protocol that was developed by leading brain science researchers and involves dietary interventions to treat some of these devastating diseases yeah yeah and so we want to hear more about exactly what you're doing Amanda - okay so at the amos institute we have a singular focus as you've mentioned Alzheimer's disease and other types of cognitive decline and neuro degeneration and what we do is we help people develop nutrition programs and lifestyle protocols that prevent cognitive decline or reverse Alzheimer's and we do this using what's called the Bredesen protocol reverse you guys heard that right so I mean as far as I'm concerned many people think that there isn't anything you can really do to turn back the clock on the devastating effects of Alzheimer's but according to this new research there are there are treatments so tell us about that so a lot of people get hung up on the word cure and when we talk about a cure being a magic bullet pharmaceutical solution to a like you said a devastating disease then you're right there is no cure but magic pill there is no magic pill unfortunately but what we know is that Alzheimer's disease can be prevented it can be stopped and it can be reversed and when I say reversed I need to be really clear about what that means that means we see all symptoms go away we also see change in brain physiology so in an Alzheimer's patient where their brain has shrunk as a result of the disease we can see now through volumetric MRIs that their brain volume comes back that is incredible yeah seriously groundbreaking stuff you guys do a breaking it's awesome so what can you tell us about the protocol specifically is there a specific diet that patients follow yeah so I wish it was so as simple as one specific diet life would be much easier but it's highly individualized patient patient and we individualize it based on a number of tests that we run so some of these tests are really basic things like a fasting blood glucose fasting insulin we do lots of tests that measure inflammatory status but then we do more specific tests like genetic testing we look at different tests that tell us someone's the integrity of their gut the integrity of their blood brain barrier so once we have all of that information the metabolics and the genetics we put the pieces together to create a program that fits within this Bredesen protocol that being said there are generalized things but most everyone on the program does okay so yeah what are some foods that you encourage people to eat yeah so I would say the basis the general basis of the diet is that it's Whole Foods meaning food yeah so it is foods in their least processed state whenever possible and it is a predominantly plant-based diet so we'd love to hear that exactly so and my plant-based I mean these patients are eating 10 to 15 servings of non starchy vegetables per day which yeah you can easily imagine how that is I mean you're you're eating a lot of food and it's it's all vegetables and the plate is very colorful and again non starchy because these patients need all of the nutrition chemicals that come from that volume of vegetables okay so does this help fight some that inflammation that's associated with yes definitely inflammation also some a lot of mitochondrial damage and a whole host of other reasons why we need all of those nutrients other major components that we that we include are healthy fats so we can get into this at some point if you want but most of these patients are in a state of what's called mild ketosis meaning they need to eat a lot of fats in their diet and buy healthy fats I mean everybody has a different different definition of a healthy fat so yeah it's mostly monounsaturated fats okay we also do a lot of good healthy polyunsaturated fats and healthy saturated fats definitely so coconut oil is certainly utilized by a lot of these patients okay so a lot of nuts seeds avocado no yeah good healthy oils good healthy cooking oils all of that is is a major component then of course we include lean proteins those can be plant-based proteins we do a lot of cold water low mercury fish and then meat is really treated as a condiment so rather than our normal standards where meats half the plate right it's something to kind of flavor the food okay yeah that's just an accessory to the meal it's an accessory exactly and then finally I would say the last major category is low glycemic fruits with the major emphasis on the berries okay so we're talking all about the good things what falls on the avoid list for this diet okay well I would say probably you already guessed this but processed foods right right it's not I doing cold foods instead but the tricky part here is that it's not just the processed foods that look like they're super unhealthy nowadays there's a lot of processed foods junk foods that are really marketed as health foods absolutely yeah so we're really careful to avoid those things as well are there certain ones that stand out in your mind that you've seen all girls all the bars your bars from me that just they that you would think they're gonna save your life I hate the label on some of these organic non-gmo protein natural all these things and they're you know candy bars glorified candy bars most of the time okay sure there are exceptions mm-hmm so yeah we cut out the process moves we also cut out simple carbohydrates and then stick with the complex carbohydrates we cut out simple sugars that aren't packaged with fruits and we cut out non-nutritive sweeteners for the most part okay what is there a scientific basis behind that yeah so I would say it's probably twofold and not all of these things apply to all non-nutritive sweeteners and so you've got to be kind of careful with it but some of them have been shown in studies to greatly decimate the microbiome so specifically Splenda is a study that I'm thinking of that came out of Duke University where they saw they looked at before and after a dose of Splenda and it really just reduced the overall population of the microbiome well yeah they think about these these fake sugars and they think oh well it doesn't produce a glycemic response so there's there's nothing wrong with it right there are these far-reaching effects now that we're learning there are and we still don't know everything that there is to know which is why I would also say best to avoid for the most part yeah and finally they're processed uh-huh so yeah these are processed things whereas you know maybe a little bit of raw honey you might be a better choice for some people even though that does have a small glycemic response okay so getting back getting back to nature we are kind of when we advocate in all healthy eating pattern exactly yeah back to what we were saying so other things we eliminate or greatly reduce gluten which is a really controversial one hmm so we can go into why that sure yeah please do share I know gluten is a hot-button topic it is so I would say there are a couple reasons why and the main overall overarching theme here is that our gut epithelial layer the protective barrier of our gut is directly linked to the protective layer of our brain where the blood blood-brain barrier so we know now from a lot of research from Fasano and others that there are peptides in gluten that are indigestible by everyone now that doesn't necessarily mean they would be a problem for everyone to eat but it is true so we also know that gliadin a component in gluten can cause transient openings in the epithelial layer so the issue here is that when our immune system has these micro openings even if transiently the immune system kind of is able to peek through and when it notices these these undigested peptides it can initiate an immune response and another way of putting that is that it can initiate low-grade inflammation hmm now again I'm not necessarily saying that everyone in the world should avoid gluten all the time because that's not the case in my opinion but specifically these patients yes who have a risk of cognitive decline because the the issues within the epithelium within their gut layer problems in the gut barrier can manifest as problems in the brain barrier now I know that's great we got all the information we can get here so we also hear a lot about fasting and the fact the benefits of fasting for the brain is that something that you guys implement definitely and I know your viewers know a lot about fasting I hope they do I think they do and so they also know that there are different types of fasting mm-hmm and I would say most likely all if not very many types of fasting would be beneficial in this population but the one that we use most often is called time restricted eating and basically what that means is that we limit the amount of hours in the day where someone eats okay so a good rule of thumb that we use for the average person is a 12 hour fast overnight it's doable definitely doable now depending on someone's genetic risk and what we can see from their genes we do sometimes increase this fast anywhere from 12 to 16 hours okay but that's an individualized aspect of the protocol okay talking about the other fast that we do is a three hour fast and that's between the last thing you eat at night and going to bed mm-hmm and that's so that kind of loops into the overall 12 hour fast it does yeah so it counts as part of the 12 so you bring up genetics we are learning a lot about different genetic risk factors with Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases and specifically about Apple II for so what do we know about the genetic variant Apple II for and it's connection to Alzheimer's okay well do you want do you want to go into what that means the a bowi in general or do this abbreviated okay so um everyone has two copies of a bowi okay there are three different variants right those two three and four okay so a belief for is the one that is associated the most with Alzheimer's disease one copy of apoe4 is generally associated with a 30% chance of Alzheimer's and two copies is anywhere from 50 to a 90% chance Wow no it's may be definite for some people but it's not no not a hundred so again and I have to make it really clear you can have no copies of a bowi and get Alzheimer's you can have two copies and not get Alzheimer's exactly all of these lifestyle things that we're talking about those play a huge part in whether or not we actually get a disease and testing as as you know and as your viewers know is not diagnostic so just tells us our risks or risk right I'm like you said the general public I think I read this yesterday actually by the time you're 80 your risk of Alzheimer's is between six to even nine percent for anyone regardless of a police tat exactly so we were talking about women yeah so now do women have a higher risk than men I've also heard of that yeah so what they've seen in the research is that women who have a copy of a bowi four have a they have a greater impact from that gene that men do and they've seen this in things like brain atrophy so women with a belief or have greater brain atrophy than a drink you know the British shrink out of the brain and they also have decreased metabolism in the brain compared to men penny for which is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's rate being an ability to efficiently use energy correct in the brain yeah that's fascinating so given what we know about the connection would you suggest that people who know that they have a belief or and are at a greater risk start implementing some of these strategies earlier in life before they have signs and symptoms oh my gosh a thousand percent yes I do and that's why I really encourage people to test because we can do something about it so what you were saying about the hallmark the decreased fuel utilization that's associated with Alzheimer's disease in a bowi for carriers as young as age 30 we see that same decreased utilization Wow yeah so no signs and symptoms at all because they're 30 and right but we still see that that issue so the brain is starving where parts of the brain are not getting the fuel that they need and we can work around that with something called mild ketosis that's much more mild even than what we use for Alzheimer's patients okay so how would one achieve the mild ketosis where does that line a drawn well so I recommend testing because that's the only way to know ok first of all and I also recommend that people are wary of ketogenic diets because if you've googled that right now yeah cuz that's immediately where people's minds go and they are this exactly just like pork rinds and cream cheese and all kinds of other spice that's rated fatty meat right and so from what what you were just talking about you know this is a plant-based diet that can put someone into a state of ketosis without a doubt so how you do it matters just as much as whether or not you're in ketosis okay so I recommend testing you can get ketone meters that are very similar to or the same as a blood glucose meter that diabetics use and it's the most reliable at this point there are also other ways to test ketones that aren't as reliable yet so it's super simple you can buy it yourself do it yourself not a big thing they're arranged you recommend yes so for someone who let's say has no signs and symptoms in the book multimers looks like that 30 year old RIE pathetical a Bowie for positive patient we would look for a beta hydroxy butyrate which is a ketone reviewed by bhp okay and that's what this little meter actually tests your level of bhp from 0.3 to 0.5 millimolar okay for someone with cognitive decline it's a different range okay and how about I'm sure people are wondering how they can even find out if they have if they are a carrier yeah before is there a specific test or group that you use that you recommend yeah so you know most doctors would be able to do this for you but again I like to be able to do things for myself and 23andme which is a genetic testing kit that you just order and it comes to your house you've spit in a little tube and send it back and it will tell you it won't tell you exactly what you're a Bowie statuses but it will tell you whether you have zero one or two copies of a Bowie for yes so I actually was just looking online yesterday and I saw that they added that in yeah before they didn't give you that information yeah exactly there's some very valuable yeah but there are a lot of barriers before they give it to you because this is such life-altering information possibly yeah definitely and it shouldn't be done lightly so while I encourage everyone to do it make sure you're in the right headspace for it to make sure that you've talked to someone knowledgeable about what it means what can be done before doing it so that you feel good about whatever the result is so we're talking about a lot of people with risk factors we're actually having these these cognitive disorders but everybody should be worried and you can and detecting their brain health so what types of things do you recommend for just overall good brain house cosh well I would I would argue it's the same for just overall health okay you know our brain health and our overall health the body is one big system yeah you know so everything that you do with your predominantly plant-based those meal plans I would I would say that those are definitely going to promote great cognitive health thank you but so other specific things if someone was really looking for little things we do need a lot of fats for our brain our brain is made up of primarily fat and so supplying the brain with lots of fats both for energy and for components of cells is really important so again I mentioned some cold water fish I'm definitely a big fan but again the mercury heavy metals in general are a big issue with a lot of chronic diseases so I would stick with the low mercury fish we remember that with an abbreviation smash oh okay so salmon okay mackerel and show these sardines and herring I love that yeah so you might have to be adventurous have some of those summers right now not everybody loves anchovy they do not potentially get on board yeah or you could try out I'm sure you'll have some recipes coming for us soon right yeah blabbering but so anyway so the fish are great and then other high-fat foods like walnuts are definitely really brain healthy and again the berries have been shown just to have such strong high levels and their phenolic compounds which are just really good for overall cellular health specific berries all berries blueberries have definitely gotten the most attention okay and rightly so there are a lot of really great components brain healthy components and blueberries but I would say you know have fun with it get some variety and variety is just really important in general we all tend to eat the rainbow exactly and we normally eat the same fruits and veg so you know being adventurous maybe the next time you're at the grocery store you pick up something you haven't normally tried you know now what does the research say about fish oil supplements as opposed to eating whole fish your brain yeah so I would say fish oil supplementation can certainly be a huge benefit but I am very weary of doing Blanket supplementation merges populations of people specifically with Alzheimer's disease there are certain categories of people who taking a fish oil something that would be very dangerous so you do need to check with someone whose knowledge above knowledgeable about this like your functional medicine practitioner or registered dietician who specializes in this exact because again as you said it is an individualized protocol while we're talking about all of these foods and things that benefit everyone with your patients there is a million different little things that you tweak based on their specific exactly so not all of them would get a fish oil supplement no they would not and in the right patient it can be very beneficial though but I would also say the caveat to that is being very careful about where you source your supplements from especially with fish oil so we're normally so careful to avoid farmed fish get wild caught but so if your fish oil has something in it that you don't want that can be extremely problematic as well okay so sourcing is really important now what about part vegans and vegetarians it does is the algal oil supplements that you can get as beneficial as eating the fish or eating so from the little bit of research that I've seen and I'm certainly no expert it's about as bioavailable so I would say if you're a vegan vegetarian you want to avoid the fish oil stick with the algal it's also arguably more sustainable mm-hmm so there could be real benefits to predominantly plant-based reasons right yeah now what about other lifestyle habits because I know you don't just focus on diet no yeah definitely so physical activity is huge we normally recommend an hour five times a week okay at a minimum and then more and then an active lifestyle on top of that and when we do that hour of physical activity we're normally looking for a combination of cardiovascular muscle strengthening mobility and balance balance is really important in this population we also do brain training oh yeah is that involved oh my gosh so it's a computer program the one that we recommend is called brain HQ it was developed by neuro scientists and it's it's it's like a computer game that's not that fun because they're designed to be challenging okay it's but it's like doesn't let you anything let you win but it's like taking your brain to the gym so just like our bodies need physical activity your brain needs exercise as well so this is a way of allowing that to have it a little workout a little workout I actually tried one of those games after you told me about it and it was kind of fun it was like it was like duck hunt right yeah like the hawk I won yeah I get real average birds yeah if anyone had a Nintendo back in the day yeah honestly yeah yeah back to the supplements for a second you have very specialized regimens for your patience with supplementation are there any supplements and we said you didn't like blanket supplements but are there any that you think are generally good for the overall population for brain health hmm I hate to even say this because you know they're gonna go people are gonna go buy it I'm gonna Haven you never know and like it is important just to check so okay for example there's a lot of people who tell you oh vitamin D like we all need it and that's true but you don't want too much either so we do need to be careful and do some tests before doing that I would say the one thing to be really wary is any supplement that sounds too good to be true most well sometimes like these huge claims I'm always you know they're there is no cure like there is no cure all for this or any chronic disease right so this program if there's one takeaway it's so hard there are so many things but so worth it so the real are high yeah but the reward is high you know you're getting your life back you have Alzheimer's so are there any supplements that you here right away red flag you don't need that you shouldn't be taking that like we here at Co Q 10 everyone should be taking coq10 for brain health yeah they're adults right actually there's a lot of benefit to coke you okay yeah that oh that is not a bogus one it's not a bogus mine no and off the top of my head I can't think of anything too bogus I just think anything that's just too good to be true probably is okay so again dosage personal me yes that was all come into play you can't just take a supplement and think it's gonna have a blanket effect not in my opinion yeah so okay yeah is there anything else that we missed that you want to share with our audience about what you guys do well I think the main thing I would want to say is that what for so long has been a really devastating diagnosis doesn't have to be anymore this is incredibly powerful information and what's even more incredible is that we are the ones who have the power we don't need you know some almighty practitioner to tell us to do what we need to do on this we we can do it ourselves I know so you might need some guidance to know what to do but in the end of the day it's on you so that or is it your had and I think that's great that is incredibly exciting yeah especially what you which you've talked about yeah it may be a big transition for people in the beginning and a little bit challenging but generally we're just talking about healthy lifestyle habits that are beneficial anyway yeah that our overall health well this is so exciting I'm so thrilled for you and to see where your practice is going where the research is going if people want to learn more about it they can head over to your website amos institute calm yep I follow you on social what's your social handles amos institute on instagram and the amos institute on facebook and if you guys like this video please like it below if you have any questions go ahead and ask them Camas I'm sure a melee would be happy to more than half its shimon and answer them and thank you guys so much for watching please subscribe so that you don't miss any of the rest of our nutrition information videos that come up and thank you again thank you so much

Channel: Whitney E. RD

Views: 108,436

Keywords: alzheimers disease, dementia, cognitive decline, brain health, amylee amos, amos institute, dale bredesen, the bredesen protocol, foods that fight alzheimers, alzheimers diet, foods for brain health, whitney english, registered dietitian, diet for Alzheimers, APOE 4 diet, APOE 4

Id: 8qwcmXNUeco

Length: 25min 20sec (1520 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 13 2018