How Can What You Eat Affect Your Brain? | Interview with Dr. Neil Nedley (Part 2)

hey everybody and welcome to chef aj live i'm your host chef aj and this is where i introduce you to amazing people like you who are doing great things in the world that i think you should know about my guest today was on the show recently but he had such a tremendous response you guys said please bring him back so i am the first time he was on he did a talk about nutrition in the brain part one so guess what's up today nutrition in the brain part two if you're french please welcome back to the show dr neal nedley it's so nice to see you again well thank you very much chef aj it's great being with you as well yeah you that you people you blew people away by all you knew about nutri i mean people don't think about the brain and nutrition so much you know i'm hosting a gi health summit this week and people are thinking about the gut nutrition but they don't really think about the brain that much well there's quite a connection between the gut and the brain uh actually some of the same neurotransmitters are made in the gut and the brain and it's one of the reasons why i'm in the brain because uh i used to be a gut doctor a gi doctor still do scopes and still do gi i i did not know that you should have told me i could have interviewed you for the gi health summit i had no idea but that's good to know yeah well next time absolutely absolutely well what have you got for us today dr nedley well today i will share our screen here and talk about some of the exciting new research regarding nutrition in the brain and some of this new research has to do with something we can measure in the bloodstream called bdnf that stands for brain derived neurotrophic factor and that's something that is measured and we're seeing a lot of interest as we see how much it's related to brain health we could think of it as a brain fertilizer but it's actually a protein and it's been shown to help the brain to develop new connections repair failing brain cells and protect healthy brain cells having enough bdnf around can even protect our brains from neurodegenerative diseases like alzheimer's and parkinson's disease and so in fact even medications that are being used for depression are still starting to measure bdnf before and after because if it raises bdnf it will make it a much more expensive and acceptable anti-depressant when bdnf levels are high acquiring new knowledge is easy memories are retained and people actually feel happier and as mentioned it's a natural anti-depressant but when bdnf levels fall the opposite occurs people have difficulties learning new things and dementia can much more easily occur and depression is certainly much more common 144 pilots were studied and of course pilot training involves a lot of intellectual function but also 3d movements with your hands and being able to coordinate things and of course when we're hiring a pilot it's not just to get us from point a to point b that's the relatively easy part although it's still much more difficult than driving an automobile or a bus but what we're really hiring them for is if something goes wrong with that plane are they going to be able to land it safely and are they going to be able to figure out precisely what is going wrong for instance on the instruments and ignore that part and just pay attention to the instruments that are accurate and still land it safely at point b and so those with low bdnf levels out of these 144 pilots had a harder time maintaining their skills over three years scores dropped twice as fast when their bdnf levels were low and their hippocampus which is an area of the brain and the temporal lobe that has to do with memory and even being able to retrieve long-term memory the hippocampus itself became smaller when the bdnf level was low because that brain fertilizer wasn't really there anymore so of course the big question is how can we increase bdnf levels physical exercise is one of the ways that we can do this as we become more fit through exercise intellectual activity just by actually you know being here live or seeing a recording of this and engaging in the intellectual activity will actually improve your bdnf levels and being social nurturing relationships we have found that social media doesn't do the same as far as bdnf levels uh like real face-to-face social interactions one of the the disadvantages of the covet era where uh there's less face-to-face interaction going on uh being in sunlight also helps uh bdnf levels particularly when the sun is being shined through the eyes or we're out in blue sky that can also improve bdnf levels and as we learn to manage our stress that can also improve bdnf levels so just the exercise of cognitive behavioral therapy and learning how to manage the day-to-day frustrations can actually help us improve our venous bdnf levels and also getting enough sleep at least seven hours of sleep a night has been associated with bdnf levels but there have been some interesting differences between all of these ways to raise bdnf levels for instance bdnf levels do not go down when you're sleep deprived say you're only getting five hours of sleep or maybe six hours of sleep if and that only if component if you are on a regular aerobic exercise program this is one of the things i have to tell my patients some people say they don't have time to exercise and of course they prioritize sleep over exercise but in general it would be better for you to maybe get on one hour less sleep per day and get an hour of aerobic exercise in its place because bdnf levels will actually stay high even though we're sleep deprived if we're on a regular exercise program and this study was done in postmenopausal females which is a particularly important group to see and of course many postmenopausal females have problems with sleep because their estrogen levels have fallen but they won't suffer the consequences of that so much if they're on a regular exercise program but of course we're speaking of nutrition in the brain so we know that vdnf is going to have a role to play in nutrition and indeed it does excess calories can reduce synaptic plasticity and increase the vulnerability of cells to damage by causing free radical formation that surpasses the buffering capacity of the cell and so this is the whole idea of caloric restriction if we're eating and we're gaining weight and we have excess calories there's actually a cognitive penalty that our nervous system pays in regards to that moderate caloric restriction uh thus protects the brain by reducing oxidative damage to cellular proteins lipids and nucleic acids our brain is particularly vulnerable to degeneration over time this is why we have this important blood brain barrier that's present to help protect the brain from toxins and neurodegeneration but it turns out one of the best things we can do is to have restricted calories and not eating to excess many of the beneficial effects of caloric restriction and fasting appear to be mediated by the nervous system and intermittent fasting results in increased production of bdnf levels which increases the resistance of neurons in the brain to dysfunction and degeneration and so this can even occur on a daily basis if we are fasting what's called intermittent fasting on a daily basis for instance resting our guts periodically through daily fasting triggers a cascade of hormonal events in our bodies which actually boosts our body's repair mechanisms bdnf has been shown to go up as little as a 12-hour fast and can go up even more with a 17-hour daily fast now we're running a residential program right now chef aj for depression and anxiety recovery in fact at this very time that i'm speaking my wife is doing a cooking school for the depression and anxiety recovery guests that are here some of them with severe cases that have had a lot of complications and a lot of trouble and now have found out about getting to the root underlying costs but when for some of these individuals it depends again on their genetics and the underlying cause but for more than some probably half of the ones that are here at this program we're actually recommending that they eat a good breakfast we're going to talk about the healthy breakfast and what that can do and then they eat a healthy lunch and then they're actually done for the rest of the day so they are fasting for 17 hours lunchtime here is a little later in the day for those doing that so it's between one and two so from two o'clock in the morning or i should say two o'clock in the afternoon till seven o'clock in the morning that's 17 hours and their bdnf levels will come up very nice the positive switches are turned on and they are actually able to have their brains change quicker and healthier with the other things that we're doing to enhance their brain performance and actually eradicate depression and anxiety if you fast for over 12 hours what happens is metabolism of fat stores release fatty acids called ketones to be produced and those ketones actually have been shown to improve memory improve learning and reduce neurodegeneration in fact some people have taken this a little bit to extremes and they'll actually recommend that people get on a high protein diet a high fat diet and no carbs so that they can go into ketosis and yes ketosis has healthy elements but they're missing out on the healthy elements of carbs because carbs are actually very important to be able to get tryptophan and tyrosine into the brain and for us to be able to make adequate neurotransmitters well turns out we can have a win-win if we're on a more healthy carb uh and adequate protein diet with also adequate fat in breakfast and lunch and have this daily ketosis event of the 17 hours then we have a win-win and we're only seeing significant benefits occur in these individuals as a result of this prolonged daily fasting goes beyond just the brain however overnight fasting in such a way that we just described 12 to 17 hours actually has been shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence and those who've had breast cancer so it actually stimulates the immune system and there is now a lot of studies if you want to look up the phrase time restricted feeding this is what a lot of studies are being done on time restricted feeding particularly in its relationship to improving a lot of disease processes and our gut resting periodically actually is one of the things that really helps the brain instead of always having food in the stomach speaking of breakfast there have been many mental health advantages to eating a balanced breakfast so this is the meal we don't want to skip studies have shown better cognitive performance better scholastic scores improved learning memory and intelligence improved creativity and there's been a link between skipping breakfast and depression and 5 000 students that were studied and breakfast eaters have a more positive mood overall perform better on spatial orientation tests which have to do again with iq and feel calmer at the end of testing so they don't have as much of the test anxiety and so uh some other aspects that would be important to discuss is a nutrient that tends to be undersupplied in the america typical american diet that is an essential fat now it turns out as far as dietary fats are concerned there's only two essential ones that we have to get in our diet there's omega-6 fatty acids which tend to be rather plentiful in the plant kingdom and then there's omega-3 fatty acids which are anti-inflammatory and have some very positive brain effects low omega-3 fatty acid intake has been shown as a nutritional cause of lack of mental power and omega-3 has been shown to benefit healthy persons by improving their frontal lobe function improving their sense of well-being improving their vigor and energy improving reaction time their attention spans actually get better and their test scores also go up and overall an improvement in mood and better control of thoughts and behavior and less impulsivity and of course that's a win-win because the anti-depressants some of them can actually improve mood but they do it at the expense of worsening impulsivity that's why many of them have black box warnings because the risk of suicide actually goes up before depression gets better and if someone's very depressed and thinking of ending their life actually being placed on an anti-depressant could push them over the edge because it's going to worsen their impulsivity and suicide is often an impulsive event where if they're put on omega-3 it can improve their mood and actually improve their impulsivity meaning that they're actually going to have less of a risk of going off and doing something impulsive such as that omega-3 has also been shown to be beneficial in mental disease it decreases the risk of at-risk young people becoming psychotic there's actually an interesting study that was done recently on those who are very good at reading facial expressions and you can actually go through third grade pictures in an elementary school and if you're very good at doing so you can identify the kids that are at risk of developing psychosis and some of this can be due to genetics and other factors but if we put them on omega-3 at an earlier age they'll be at far less risk of developing this schizophrenia or psychosis by the time they're 20. it helps prevent major depression and anxiety in women with psychological distress it's been shown to decrease anger in men with aggressive behaviors and problems with the law and there's a clinical response rate of over 50 percent in those with major depression and or anxiety that's as good as what you'll get in your best medicines and if omega-3 could actually be patented and sold as an anti-depressant it would be one of the most popular anti-depressants out there because the side effect profile is going to be great and you're going to have a clinical response rate as good as you would with the you know a typical good anti-depressant and the other wind is unlike a lot of the anti-depressants bipolar disorder has improved so it not only improves depression but it actually improves the mania spells and it actually prevents the hypomania and the mania this was shown by case western reserve in cleveland ohio additional benefits of omega-3 it actually improves memory in those with middle age related cognitive decline a lot of people start to fall off on their memory as they age and studies show that if we can keep that brain teeming with omega-3 it actually does protect neurodegeneration it improves aggression and depression in those with borderline personality disorder it's been shown as mentioned to lower the risk of dementia and it can improve some aspects at least of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and if you are pregnant it's very important for you to be getting enough of this because if you get enough omega-3 your baby is going to be smarter it will actually be able to learn retain and apply knowledge far better and this is one of the advantages of breastfeeding as well after you have the baby and being on good omega-3 foods because that breastfed baby intellectual and cognitive development will be better as a result of being on that omega-3 now formulas don't have omega-3 in general there's one formula now that has just one form of omega-3 there's a reason why they don't allow omega-3s to be put in formulas and that's because most omega-3 as we're going to discuss comes from fish and fish is one of the most toxic supplies that you can get today because of mercury uh and other toxins and so they only allow a plant source of omega-3 um to be for to be available for that one um supplement but if you're breastfeeding you can get plenty of omega-3 in your child's milk it's also been shown to be helpful for traumatic brain injury in fact we see a lot of patients that have had concussions and the inflammation that occurs after traumatic brain injury dramatically increases depression anxiety and cognitive decline uh and one of the best things we can do after traumatic brain injury is put a patient on high omega-3 foods or even omega-3 supplements and the nice thing about omega-3 as you might have guessed it's been found to increase bdnf levels and because it decreases inflammation in the brain it decreases the amount of neuronal death that will occur post traumatic brain injury so how do most people get their omega-3 uh of course fish is the typical american diet source and um listed here are the top 10 fish in omega-3 and you know this used to be a great way of getting your omega-3 a few years ago well you know let's say 100 years ago it was a great way to get your omega-3 but not so much today because of what we call bio-magnification and means that if there are toxins in the water they tend to be a concentrated up to a million fold in the fat of fish let me give you an example one of those toxins is ddd which is not good for the brain and could even be carcinogenic it has gotten into a rural lake up in northern california called clear lake california the lake water has 0.02 parts per million now the epa would tell you well that's safe it's a very low level you know we shouldn't be too worried about the water there in clear lake but the phytoplankton living in the ddd contaminated water have a little more may be concerning but the herbivores fish that eat the phytoplankton 40 to 300 parts per million of ddd well now this is starting to get our attention and then the carnivorous fish is which is the fish that people actually eat that are eating the herbivorous fish 2 500 parts per million of ddd well that's a very unsafe level and that can increase your risk of cancer increase your risk of anxiety and other mood disorders and of course the same thing is occurring in regards to mercury in fact this is the number one supply of mercury in an american the connection between fish and body mercury levels is so strong that researchers seeking determined mercury exposures among groups of people often look at only one dietary factor and that is fish consumption and so mercury is not like certain trace minerals where we need a small amount but not too much mercury we don't want any in the system because mercury is toxic to the brain at any level what does it do it increases the risk of insomnia nervousness even hallucinations memory loss headache is common dizziness anxiety irritability daytime drowsiness emotional instability and of course it's linked to depression as well as poor cognitive function and so all of the things that we're trying to do when people come to our depression and anxiety recovery program is to really treat these symptoms but in reality if you're getting your fish from typical sources you're actually getting more risk from the mercury than you are benefits from the omega-3 and that's what's been shown recently you know in the 1980s everyone was saying we need to get more fish because we need more of these omega-3s and by the way fish don't make omega-3 they get it from the plants of the water so they don't have any more ability to make it than we do but it turns out sea plants and also water plants tend to be much higher in omega-3 than omega-6 and so the fish get it from there and so we're getting it you know second and third hand from those fish but we're also getting the concentrated toxins and so now there's been a number of studies one in which we published on 8 000 of our patients where we're measuring these things and we found out that fish eaters actually have a significantly higher risk of depression and anxiety and years ago before all those toxins came in it would actually lower the risk but not anymore it actually raises the risk and of course there's other toxins that can impair mental performance as well that can be present in fish such as pcbs and dioxins and pesticides even lead and poor polychlorinated naphthalenes so the idea is to still get omega-3 we want it because it is essential but without mercury without toxins and without cholesterol and that means getting it from plants and fortunately land plant sources some of them are pretty good sources of omega-3 almonds is one of those just a quarter cup 136 milligrams spinach is an excellent source 353 milligrams uh green soybeans 637 now mature soybeans are going to be high in your omega-6 but the green soybeans are edamame is high in omega-3 soybean oil from the green soybeans is going to be high in it wheat germ oil if you're getting white bread you're not getting your omega-3 this is why you want the whole wheat bread for multiple reasons but whole wheat bread is actually good for the brain if you're not sensitive to the gluten and it turns out 96 of the public is not sensitive to gluten and wheat can be very healthy for them for several reasons but one of them is omega-3 black walnuts are a good source english walnuts even a better source and then chia seeds is up there near the top just one tablespoon 7289 milligrams that's more than you'll get in any fish and flaxseed is even higher yet one tablespoon 7526 and sorry about the variation in the spaces of where those are at i think that's something related to zoom because the previous presentation that i did using that they were all lined up but you can still get the information and the ideas from this i should mention as well that when we're on a plant-based diet we also can make more of the additional omega-3 molecules that come from these foods these foods have an omega-3 molecule that's 18 carbons in length called alpha linolenic acid but the brain also uses icosapenoic acid which is a 20 carbon omega-3 and doca hexanoic acid which is a 22-carbon omega-3 those have been very shown to be very important in cognitive performance and brain performance and we can make that from the omega-3 in these foods particularly if we are plant-based because arachidonic acid which is present in meat and also eggs arachidonic acid will actually prevent us that's an omega-6 fatty acid it'll prevent us from making as much of the epa and dha and so that's one of the additional advantages of that and of course the other way we could get the epa and the dha directly which is not really present appreciably in land plants is the plants of the waters you know seaweed for instance can be very high in this and so plants of the waters in particular can be higher sources so for some of my patients for instance that are not going to go plant-based for whatever reason and they need omega-3 their blood tests are showing that they're very short in it um we will actually put them on supplements that come from the plants of the waters this is much better than fish oil because there's no way we can get all the mercury out of fish oil in fact one company that makes a an omega-3 from fish called lopeza that is prescription they weren't they weren't able to patent the omega-3 but they were able to patent the mercury removal process of from the fish a three-step mercury removal process is the best process we know to remove mercury from fish it only removes about 95 percent of the mercury and it's far better to get it from the plants which you don't have to do a mercury removal process it's going to have far less mercury than what the low vasa is lovisa normally costs about 250 a month for that where you can get you know um supplements like opti3 or new iq that come from the land plants that are going to be you know 15 percent of that price you know just maybe 30 or something like that and it's better all the way around so for some people we might recommend supplements particularly if they aren't going to go plant-based junk food has been related to lower iq and brain function in children this is studying over 4 000 kids and it was controlled for all of the known factors that can affect iq and we found those that had the most health the most health-conscious diet more fruits vegetables salad pasta and rice had a five point higher iq than those that had the highest processed diet higher in fat and sugar in particular now if you would take a look at the top one percentile which would be more of your plant-based it could even have a 15-point iq advantage and then of course it can go the other way as well which was kind of an interesting study out of great britain children that have higher iqs genetically or environmentally iq is not just genetic there's a lot of environmental influences in raising your children that can raise your iq when they had high iqs as children they were more likely to become vegetarians when they grew up and this was a study of 8 000 men and women they were looked at at age 30 but their iqs had all been measured when they were 10. and it showed that the higher the iq of the 10 year old the greater the odds of becoming a vegetarian by the time they were 30. for each 15 point rise in iq scores in the study the likelihood of being a vegetarian rose by 38 and this was even after adjusting to factors such as social class and education the link was still consistent now i know for a lot of your viewers chef aj maybe they're being asked sometimes when they go out to eat or with with friends that don't know their dietary practices as far as maybe why they've decided to go plant-based or why they are vegetarian if they don't have much time to answer they can now as a result of this study just say high iq but it may not show the most emotional intelligence to say that but essentially that's what the study is showing now at the time you can see this was published in the british medical journal they of course defined iq as the ability to learn retain and apply knowledge so that this shouldn't be surprising if you have high iq you're more likely to learn the benefits of a better diet you're more likely to retain that information and then you're more likely to apply that information later and essentially that's what the study was showing so i want to also if possible go into some of the genetic issues that are associated with some mental health challenges one of the most common that we see in our program and we get people from all over the world but also in this country is a condition called under methylation and this tends to come with personality issues it's it's a genetic issue where you have a decrease in activity of serotonin and dopamine receptors and this is often due to the inability to make enough serotonin and dopamine in the brain 38 of those with a genetic mutation that's associated with depression is going to have this condition and we can actually measure your methylation ability in the bloodstream this is a more sophisticated test it has to be frozen on contact and it has to be from whole blood but if that whole blood histamine is greater than 70 uh the patient is going to be an undermethylator and if it's up over 140 that's severe under methylation and this will come with personalities it's amazing people will come to us and all look at their blood and not even interview them in regards to their personality or all of these things and i'll get their blood back and i will tell them what their personality is like and they'll just be absolutely amazed and i'm able to do this but people with under methylation tend to have a strong will they tend to be more controlling and they also tend to have more obsessions in particular repetitive thoughts that are not necessarily the most rational they do tend to be higher achievers however these are people that you know they've they want to get a 4.0 and they'll be well motivated to do that in school or if they're in sports and they want to be the pitcher that stares down that batter and does what they can do to strike out that better so a lot of people that are that excel in academics or excel in sports are also under methylators being socially accepted is not a high priority for them they are social beings they can be great family members and things but the social acceptance rate is not you know the highest priority for them so they can kind of beat to their own drum at times they do have a tendency to ruminate however so when things happen that aren't exactly the best they will they will ruminate over this and have it go over and over in their mind but probably the characteristic that is most um pervasive among undermethylators is they're good at having a calm exterior but inside they tend to be very tense a tense interior and they also can have other associations under methylators are more likely to have that addictive personality where they can get addicted to things they can have a high libido and run into problems as a result of that and so we can see other side um effects of what we could say in regards to undermethylation well the good news is epigenetics epigenetics we're now finding out that if you have a mutation that's associated with something like this we can through diet and lifestyle actually shut that mutation down and reverse the effects of the undermethylation this is one of the reasons why we're measuring people's genetics and also epigenetics to see what is going on and whether that gene is active or not because then we can do an intervention sometimes a nutritional intervention and then we can re-measure it and show that that gene is no longer active in other words they're getting adequate serotonin and dopamine production and they're getting adequate serotonin and dopamine activity this is a slide that actually shows a little bit of what i'm talking about here if you see in white you see this at the very right side of this screen you see methyl donation that methyl this is what we call methylation so it is actually methylating these molecules and it's methylated through a molecule called s-adenosyl methionine and that produces the final step to produce three different neurotransmitters dopamine 5-hydroxytryptophan and norepinephrine 5-hydroxytryptophan uh then gets turned into serotonin and so these are the most important um or some of the most important neurotransmitters in the brain this is what every pharmaceutical company is trying to manipulate in some way shape or form but they're not able to help you to make more of these molecules nor are they able to help you build up more receptors to these molecules what they're doing is blocking the re-uptake of the releasing neuron uh so that there's more of these neurotransmitters in the synapse and that can produce more activity but that comes at a cost if we block the vacuum cleaners from vacuuming it back up into the neuron we're far less efficient and we're going to short the neuron of the very substance we were trying to treat this is why these drugs should only be used short term after they're used for about a year they're actually going to cause the very problem they were designed to treat because they're going to cause even a greater shortage of serotonin and norepinephrine this is why it's far better to get at the root of the problem and if we can get at the root of the problem and shut down the gene for instance that is producing this issue what a difference it can make and so as you get an idea here if you're not getting enough folate which is over on the left hand side that could produce a methylation problem if you're not getting enough b12 that can produce a methylation problem in fact methylcobalamin you get an idea that's about methylation and of course that will help us make sami which is a naturally made molecule in your body you can also get it as a supplement and that can improve um your ability to have far better healthier neurotransmitter activity so the treatment for under methylation it can be sami itself we can actually measure the before and after difference i'd like to go back however if we utilize sami and you have too high of a homocysteine that can produce maybe more harm than good because we don't want that homocysteine to go up over 10. so all you normally use something besides sami to get this person to methylate better if their homocysteine is greater than 10. methionine is an amino acid that is important it's present in grains for instance it's present in wheat also present in quinoa and methionine it's also present actually in green soybeans as well edamame is a good source of methionine and methionine will actually help us to methylate calcium and magnesium can also help us to methylate better and sometimes for the tenseness we'll use a natural herbal preparation called inositol but also under methylators tend to like the typical antidepressants the ssris because it is helping them to improve particularly their serotonin activity but once again it's going to come at a cost so it'd be far better to try to correct the underlying cause than just cover it with ssris and then there's another nutrient called serine that can actually help now taking a look at calcium i recommend just like the u.s government that you get 800 milligrams to a thousand milligrams of calcium per day in your diet and as good as oatmeal is oatmeal can help us with other things it's high in melatonin it's not a very good source of calcium lentils also not the greatest source but there are better sources quinoa one cup 102 milligrams rutabaga is a cup 115 dandelion greens 1 cup 147 milligrams mustard greens are an excellent source 152 baked beans 154 sesame seeds 176 blackstrap molasses also an excellent source kale very tasty tender green one cup 179 milligrams and then there's even higher sources turnip greens hazelnuts is the nut that's highest in calcium green soybeans once again one cup 206 milligrams 10 figs 269 milligrams uh one cup of whole milk 290 milligrams amaranth grain one cup 298 milligrams non-fat skim milk will have a little more and collard greens will even even have a lot more now i should mention that although cal you know milk looks like a great source of calcium there and it is not a bad source you will actually absorb more calcium from turnip greens than you will from milk because turnip greens are high in calcium and low in phosphorous where cow's milk is high in both calcium and phosphorus so we don't absorb as much from cow's milk but we'll absorb a huge amount from collard greens carob is actually a great source of calcium as well it's a legume and lamb's quarters is the highest source one cup 464 milligrams and that's not the hind leg of a small sheep that's actually a a weed it's a very tender nice green weed you can get it sometimes in whole foods or you could get it in your garden if you know what to look for very tasty green very high in calcium and can help with the methylation along with high magnesium foods now i also want to mention overmethylation because some people actually don't have a problem with serotonin activity in fact if you put them on an ssri they're going to get a lot worse even though they can have depression this is why i always take a look at the genetics and the epigenetics before i even choose medicines for people because otherwise it's the trial and error approach try this try that it can make you even worse uh and then you get pretty discouraged trying this or that where if we understand the epigenetics and what's going on brain chemistry wise we can be a lot more precise about 20 of people that have a genetic problem with their depression are over methylators and they tend to have particularly hot labial anxiety they also tend to have sleep disorders and if you put them on an ssri they're going to feel worse within days they can be more hyperactive they can have a problem losing their temper but these people unlike the under methylators that are competitive over methylators are not competitive per se but they're very skilled they tend to be more creative they can be very musical can be very artistic um and they're more naturally empathetic individuals you'd like to have an overmethylator as your neighbor because they're going to check on you and they're going to be concerned about you and they're going to want to develop a relationship with you they tend to be uh where under methylators social um you know things were not necessarily super high priority for an overmethylator it is it's important their their social life and so over methylators would have a lot more problems with the covid situation uh that is circling our nation because it's keeping them away from real life social interaction but they tend to be great social people everybody tends to like over methylators although they can have some some issues and some of the issues they have are sensitivities a lot of people think they're allergic to this food or sensitive to that food or that chemical and we find out if we correct their overmethylation it's not food sensitivities at all it's actually a genetic mutation setting them up for this condition so treatment of overmethylation involves actually more folate folate in larger amounts is a serotonin reuptake promoter and so that can help a form of b12 called hydroxycobalamin which is a detoxifying d12 b12 is very helpful for over methylators and then foods that are high in choline can also be helpful as well as niacinamide and chromium speaking of folate this is under supplied in the typical american diet and you can see you know a double serving of steak only 16 micrograms the us government says we need 400 micrograms but for optimal brain health particularly for an overmethylator they would need to get over a thousand micrograms a day and you can see parsnips pineapple juice orange juice peanuts these are great sources but your greens start showing up as well think of foliage and folate and then navy beans higher yet okra higher yet and the two highest sources are lentils and black eyed peas in fact a couple of black eyed peas a day can be very helpful for an over methylator in helping their condition choline we mentioned this betaine lowers homocysteine levels which can be healthy for the brain and choline improves memory and focus and it's important for developing and protecting the brain in utero as well and it's critical to manufacture an important neurotransmitter called acetylcholine that is used in intellectual function and you can see the high choline and betaine foods would be quinoa spinach lambs quarters again these greens start coming out on top soy flour is also a pretty good source 192 milligrams of choline uh amaranth grain is pretty good and then there are some more moderate sources such as beets and whole grain and barley and flaxseed is also not a bad source of choline and so these would be indiv we would emphasize this more for those with over methylation another genetic issue is a metal metabolism disorder and this is where the individual has trouble handling particularly heavy metals such as copper and copper if it once again it's genetics that loads the gun it's a mutation where you're not able to make enough ceruloplasmin and since you can't bind onto the copper the free copper actually goes high and when that happens we're able to not uh have enough dopamine around because it's being shoved into norepinephrine by the excess copper and so we have an imbalance in the brain too much norepinephrine which can fuel anxiety and not enough dopamine which takes away from our joy and healthy motivation of life and this can be associated with anxiety temper problems anger problems and particularly hormonal depression problems people with postpartum depression are very likely to have this hormonal events premenstrual dysphoric disorder for those whose mood gets low after their ovulation this can actually just simply be a metal metabolism disorder impulsivity goes high panic disorder tends to be associated with this and once again high norepinephrine low dopamine even headaches such as migraines can be caused by this and then sensitivity to chemicals particularly even jewelry where cheap jewelry can't be worn by these people because they're too sensitive to it and other metals again from their metal metabolism issue the treatment is to get rid of the excess copper by giving zinc zinc actually helps us to get rid of copper and zinc is not toxic as long as it doesn't lower the copper too low sometimes you'll look up zinc and say well you know zinc might be toxic but it actually isn't unlike a lot of the other heavy metals unless it lowers copper too low so all of the symptoms of zinc toxicity are actually from copper deficiency and so it's important for us to recognize that and if someone has this disorder and their free copper is high we'll gradually build up their zinc consumption we don't want to lower the copper too quickly because their anxiety level will go up because it's being lowered too quickly so we bring them down for a safe landing and then there's other b vitamins that can help them bind onto copper such as b6 or p5p and other trace minerals that could have an advantage such as molybdenum uh and glutathione so what foods are highest in zinc a lot of studies being done in regards to zinc zinc for instance can even help us with covet infections because of zinc gets into the cell it stops the replication of covit it also helps out with mental health uh it helps us in a number of different ways and you can see beans in particular tend to be high in it tofu is a good source of zinc as well as calcium and then you can see the other legumes that are pretty high in it as well such as lentils and chickpeas white large white beans and lupine beans as well as black eyed peas but the ones at the top would even be more preferable there are seeds and nuts that are excellent sources brazil nuts are going to have three milligrams per three ounce serving chia seeds three milligrams per three ounce serving pecans uh three milligrams as well but sunflower seeds are going to have even more cashews double the amount that you'll see in pecans pine nuts are an excellent source and fortunately pumpkin seeds are not very expensive but they're a great source of zinc there's only one seed that beats pumpkin seeds pine nuts cashews and sunflower seeds and that is a seed that we utilize and i think erica might be utilizing right now in her cooking school hemp seeds an excellent source of zinc just one three ounce serving and then pyrol uh disorder this is another disorder we'll measure people for this is associated with poor stress control they tend to have other issues associated with it fair complexion for ethnicity irrational fears tend to be prominent in pyrol disorder it might not be fear of flying it might be some other irrational fear we had someone with pyrol disorder out of fear of buttons and so they couldn't wear any shirt with buttons because of that irrational fear negative negativity tends to be more prominent in those with pyrol disorder and these people don't want breakfast left to themselves they'll be a nighttime person and if they gain weight they're going to gain it centrally even though they'll have a thin neck wrist and ankles and they'll tend to be sensitive to sight sounds and textures they'll get startled easily uh they these are people that have to cut the tags off of their clothes because of their sensitivity to textures uh and mood swings can also occur in addition if they're not under methylators they tend not to enjoy reading because they don't have a great short-term memory so they're not able to retain a whole lot of what they read and they can be more adhd and have a conduct disorder and the people along the spectrum um are also more likely to have pyrrole disorder fortunately this is the one that's treated most readily this is how we'll diagnose it through a specialized research laboratory test but zinc is also helpful here some people might need up to 200 milligrams of zinc to control it as long as their copper doesn't come down less than five percent free copper and then there are other nutrients such as selenium that can be helpful in bringing this down and other antioxidants and even supplement called nac we'll see a response in these people within one week and a significant response in four weeks and so once again this is the exciting world of epigenetics where we're able to actually shut down genes through nutrition and lifestyle measures and make a significant difference in brain chemistry and even neurotransmission so i know we're getting close to the end i'm going to skip through a couple of these slides vitamin c it turns out is important for us to be able to make enough dopamine but i also wanted to speak about something called eudemonia which i thought you'd be very interested in chef aj and we'll go through some of this but eudemonia is the realization of one's true potential and it's something we're starting to measure in studies this is where you're engaged in life life has real meaning for you it has purpose and you are much more likely to flourish with eudemonia you have more curiosity and love of learning and you're actually more creative as well interestingly a study done in new zealand in college students in a large amount of college students we found out that eudemonia could be followed in them and can fluctuate on a day-to-day basis related to how many fruits and vegetables the young people eat what's the least amount they could eat and gain benefit and where does it level out well i'd like to talk about where it levels out the eudemonia continued to improve up to 7.2 servings of fruits per day and 8.2 servings of vegetables per day if you add that up that's over 15 servings a day of fruits and vegetables that was directly related to their eudemonia on a day to day basis and this goes along with this study of british people eighty thousand dose response relationship between fruit and vegetable intake and self-reported happiness and life satisfaction that also has to do with unemonia most happy people in this study ate over seven to eight servings of fruits and vegetables per day and so in summary this is a prestigious psychiatric journal from europe called lancet psychiatry after reviewing a number of studies some of which i've reviewed here they mentioned this now is the time for the recognition of the importance of nutrition and nutrient supplementation in psychiatry nutritional medicine should now be considered as a mainstream element of psychiatric practice so if your psychiatrist isn't talking about nutrition he's not mainstream he's not caught up yet and this can often have a much more profound influence potentially than even what medicines you're on so i'll close with dittero's proverbs so you can ask some questions chef aj and so we can engage somewhat but the french philosopher back in the 18th century said this doctors are always working to preserve our health and cooks to destroy it but the latter are often the more successful it doesn't have to be that way if we retrain the cooks to make healthy food that's also tasty and i know that's what you're all about chef aj and i want to encourage you that you are improving eudemonia across your listener and viewer audience as they engage and learn to eat more fruits and vegetables i'd give you a standing ovation but i'm connected to some equipment here that was unbelievable unbelievable i feel like i should pay you like that like like as if i had gone to a conference well i i hope it's helpful and helpful to you and your viewers unbelievable you know when you described all those different conditions i could almost see myself a little bit in all of them and i'm thinking what am i this i mean that's just learning so many new things so fascinating this is one i'm going to have to listen to at least one more time you know when you talk about the bvnf and the pilots i started thinking maybe when we make our airline reservations we should ask what the pilot's bvnf is yeah exactly because if it's low they're not going to be able to retain their skills as well that's amazing that you know you talked about intermittent fasting and hosting this gi health summit you know or intermittent fasting seems to be good for so many things weight loss gi health but does it absolutely have to be breakfast and lunch because socially for a lot of us it just works better when we have lunch and dinner is that a bad thing to have to have lunch around 12 and dinner around five if we're still having a 16 hour fasting window yeah that well that's a good question and that has been looked at in in general if you're going to be having dinner on a regular basis now you know once in a while when you're out for social occasions and things like that you know it wouldn't necessarily have to be this 17 hour fast every day but the studies are showing if we eat a better breakfast and a lighter supper will also benefit to a large degree so yeah i mean it depends on when your sleep white wake cycle is and all of that um you know if you were to eat a later breakfast and have it more of a brunch and then have an earlier dinner you could get close to having the same effect that we talked about today uh and then there's some people we actually don't recommend they do this some individuals are um they're metabolically not necessarily set up for a two meal a day program in other words they would have a hard time getting enough nutrition their stomachs are not enough that they can eat you know as healthy at breakfast as we would like them to with all those fruits and vegetables and so these are individuals that need to be on a three meal a day program and we would need to forego some of that ketosis for the other benefits that we're going to get otherwise do you think there's natural variations in people's hungers because i'm telling you that god honest truth i'm 60 and a half years old i've never been hungry in the morning and just and people say well don't eat the night before so one time i fasted for 40 hours and i still wasn't hungry the next morning i i stopped eating dinner sunday night at six o'clock and i woke up tuesday morning at eight o'clock and i still wasn't hungry till lunch time well yeah well that could be and we just talked about pyrol disorder oh that's me maybe we might we might want to measure your urine crypto pyrroles that's how we would diagnose that and that's something as mentioned we can fix so that's something that could as we fix these um these issues that could be associated with that uh then you can get hungry again in the morning wow i mean i mean i feel very healthy otherwise it's just that i mean always talk about and also you know i eat savory in them i don't like sweet breakfast yes and of course that can vary from one individual to another as well but yeah that's that's fine savory is great so so we you know we have linda middle's work watching and she's 75 years old maybe 76 she was voted world's sexiest vegan over over 50 and she still teaches aerobics it's the gym when it's open and so i'm guessing she has a lot of this bdnf built up but if we're somebody that didn't exercise our whole life can we still later in life catch up and start building it we can yeah that's the nice thing you know our bodies and brains are susceptible to positive changes even when we are old and this is why we haven't denied people admittance to our program if we have room for them even in their 80s we've had an individual with significant major depression and anxiety i think the oldest we've had is is 88 or 89 but they experience significant benefit a lot of positive neuroplasticity coming through so our brains are capable of change even as an older person how many people are in your program how often is it and is it only in person or do you do any of these programs online yeah so we do uh some programs online in fact i would let me just share my screen again here so you can whoops let me back up yeah so uh there's a website nedley health online we have an optimize your brain program that's now an online program we didn't used to have depression and anxiety recovery program online but because of covid we have put it there and a lot of people are benefiting from that but we also have face-to-face programs um we have an emotional intelligence summit every year our next one is february 18 where we're it's just thursday through sunday but it's all continuing education we have people from all over the world if you log on to that website you'll see all of our speakers we've got 11 great speakers from all over coming and then for our residential programs our face-to-face programs you would have to be screened by a nurse case manager but we take 20 in each of our programs we had one last month we have one this month in general it's every month or every other month we're not having one in december so this is our last program of the year but we will have one coming up in january and so these are normally a day programs but you can stay longer if you need to we've had some people stay for as long as a as a month with significant depression anxiety and this is a program that's designed we measure all of these things we talked about the epigenetics a lot of other factors and we utilize a comprehensive approach to our goal is to eradicate depression and anxiety and that is done uh in well over 95 percent of our cases it's actually a very exciting um program to be a part of to see the brains change for the better but that would be for those who who need that you know they they need that um that therapeutic um doctor-patient relationship as well as good trained cognitive behavioral therapists and other professionals that work on the purpose and the eudemonia part of life and what a difference it can make and you're not far from sacramento right yeah we're just 45 minutes outside of sacramento the sacramento airport and we'll come pick you up uh right at the airport and bring you to weimar that sounds great and i bet the food there is amazing your wife in fact is going to be on the show monday at 11 a.m pacific time doing the cooking demo yeah i think you'll very much enjoy her she's a very fun cook and she has she has a great time in it so debbie who's watching live says what exercise do you recommend for a person who has no cartilage in knees waiting for a knee replacement surgery next year i pointed out that she still has a whole upper body she does have a whole upper body but i would also potentially recommend bicycling because bicycling actually can improve the muscle length between that knee joint and so as we build up knee fitness from bicycling it will actually have less pain walking because the cartilage is not coming into contact with each other but as far as nutritional things uh there's two little um secrets that i might be able to tell you about boswellia boswellia is an herbal preparation that's also known as indian frankincense we've had a lot of success with knee osteoarthritis with that with just four or five hundred milligrams twice a day and then the nutrient i talked about earlier sami if you look it up it's also been shown to be very helpful in osteoarthritis and can even help build cartilage in certain cases and so often i'll use boswellia first and then sometimes add in addition to sami with the bicycling and that ought to tide you over enough until you're able to get the replacement if you need one thank you so here's a question from charmaine if mercury is present in carnivorous fish would it also not be present in the plants eaten by herb herbivorous fish therefore would it not be present in sea plants that are eaten by people like seaweed yes it is actually present in very low amounts you know the screen that i showed you i showed you 0.02 parts per million and then in the phytoplankton it was five parts per million and then in the herbivorous fish hundreds of parts per million and so but the point i was making is that when we get it from the plants we're getting it in in less than point one percent of what we can get it in fish and so um that's far better than getting fish oil and trying to remove the mercury uh then getting it from the phytoplankton but yes ideally we'd like to get the phytoplankton from mercury uh free waters uh and that would even be better yet but yeah great question great pj wants to know if you've written any books i have written uh several books one of them is called depression the way out another one is called the lost art of thinking that's the latest book we wrote we also have a book called optimize your brain and then we have a book that's much more on internal medicine related conditions heart disease cancer osteoporosis the inflammatory arthritis is called proof positive and that's like a textbook we actually that book is utilized as a textbook in several colleges including wemar college and we teach lifestyle treatments of disease out of that textbook denny says what do we eat or what do we do to increase serotonin okay so serotonin comes from tryptophan and so tryptophan has to be taken up by the brain and cross the blood-brain barrier for us to start making serotonin in the brain the serotonin in our bloodstream has nothing to do with the serotonin in our brain because the serotonin can't cross over the blood-brain barrier so we have to get the raw ingredients and tryptophan has to come with carbs this is why we don't want turkey turkey is high in tryptophan but it's a carbohydrate deficient food so we don't get that tryptophan across the blood-brain barrier so when it comes with carbs like pumpkin seeds or things of that nature tryptophan is also present in soy it's also present in tofu uh but uh it is um present in a number of things we have a chapter called nutrition and the brain in the lost art of thinking it's the biggest chapter in there and it will show you what a difference it can make in regards to the foods that have tryptophan once we get that into the brain then we can start making serotonin in response to light so it's light through the eyes that helps us to produce more serotonin from the tryptophan that's there and that can make a significant difference in regards to brain health and people are wondering if you do consults we do consults yes we can do them face-to-face many people come here to weimar we have a consultative clinic here uh but we can also do phone consultations as well wow this has been amazing you're just so knowledgeable it's such an interesting subject well there's nothing nothing i enjoy more than seeing a brain become completely transformed one that has apathy fatigue concentration issues mood problems and then seeing that brain totally transformed within a matter of weeks is uh is you know how can it get any better than that that's amazing do you ever do you have any like people that give testimonials about your program anywhere oh yes yeah we have plenty of people that have gone through our program and they'd be very glad to tell you their experience i just where have you been all my life i could have used you in my 20s and 30s and 40s i'm finally doing well now and i still want to come because it sounds like an amazing place well you'd be invited anytime uh chef aj and we'd have you lead out in our cooking school here that would be that would be so great well i look forward to meeting your wife on monday and having her on the show and thank you all for watching another episode of chef aj live please come back tomorrow when our special guest at 2pm is dr doug grossman who founded the rome foundation have you heard of some dr nedley i have not you've heard of the rome foundation though right because it's a gi thing it's something yeah well yeah and there's right and there's also um rome criteria for certain gi disorders right he's the founder of that whole thing okay great yeah he's a great guy so thank you guys and thanks again dr nedley you can welcome here anytime thank you very much chef aj

Channel: CHEF AJ

Views: 10,010

Rating: 4.9533801 out of 5

Keywords: chef aj, chef aj recipe, chef aj live, weight loss, plant based, plant based diet, diet, vegan, food addiction, podcast, author, healthy, nutrition, recipe, brain, brain food, health, nutritions, food

Id: t_pErQR-Uh0

Length: 68min 26sec (4106 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2020