Is Alzheimer’s Really Hereditary? Dr. Sanjay Gupta Begs to Differ

please welcome the one and only dr sanjay gupta joins us via skype sanjay thank you so much for joining us hey cameron uh what an honor to be with you and uh happy new year thanks for having me thank you and what a way to kick off the new year with such a relevant conversation i'm looking at the book in the front it says this is the book all of us need young and old that was a quote from the one and only walter isaacson of all people i love the fact that you are addressing this not based on a segment of our society that's over 60. this is for all of us yeah that that was a a real revelation for me as well i think we we tend to medicalize most things uh in society and we treat things uh after they're broken as you mentioned in the opening there but the idea that you can grow new brain cells throughout your life that where you're where you're sort of functioning now in terms of your overall productivity your creativity just how much brain power horsepower you have it can be optimized in ways that are not that not that challenging we have learned this in the world of neuroscience over the last decade i was hearing this my colleagues in that world were so excited about it i thought it was time to sort of bring some of that knowledge to to everyone else because it's something that i incorporate into my own life so why not share it you know it is so interesting sanjay i'm 50 all my friends are around that age and i feel like every other friend is talking about alzheimer's um every other friend is talking about a parent now impacted by this in in dramatic ways or even small ways and this is personal for you as well it is personal and i think a lot of people do have those personal stories my my grandfather uh developed alzheimer's when i was young and you know we were very close and i did not at that time i was pretty young i didn't understand what was happening with his brain you know it would be you know he would make these jokes that were kind of nonsensical and first i thought i wasn't understanding the jokes and then there was these really kind of interesting but bizarre things that were happening in his brain as well tamron like he would he had this ability where he could still write but he could not read and he could not read what he had just written and it was the first time i thought to myself the brain is obviously this this amazing but also mysterious organ all these things can change and happen in the brain and it sort of put me on this lifelong journey to to learn as much as i can about the brain but i will tell you people think often times it's preordained i thought because my grandfather had you know i'm genetically going to get it as well and what you find is that there are cultures around the world places around the world where alzheimer's dementia really doesn't exist or it's very very rare and we're all humans so what are they doing that we're not doing why do we accept that it's so preordained in this country and that's you know another reason i really want to write this book the answer is it's not preordained and there's so many things that you can do that are simple to stave off the symptoms of dementia later on in life what we've learned and this is this is the most inspiring thing i think scientifically is that you can continue to build new brain cells you can do it at any age and we have now evidence of that we can peer into the brain examine the brain in ways that we couldn't before and we can see that process of what's called neurogenesis that's happening so we know it can happen and then the question i think over the last decade so for neuroscientists if we know it can happen how do we make it happen this is an incredible conversation when we come back sanjay takes us through the five pillars to keep your brain young and sharp at any age and we're going to meet a very special member of the tam fam who feared that she would inherit alzheimer's until she read sanjay's book which gave her hope alzheimer's runs deep in my family both my paternal grandparents had it my father had early onset alzheimer's and now my mother has it almost every memory that my mother and i shared is now gone am i your sister am i your daughter i don't know she does not really know who i am i often thought that i would inherit this despicable disease and the thought of it terrified me but dr sanjay gupta's brilliant book keeps sharp gave me hope and it made me realize that just because i have a family history of alzheimer's does not mean that i will necessarily inherit it and that is empowering welcome back that was a member of the tan fam trudy croc who joins us via skype from her home in toronto canada trudy um i said in 2022 i wasn't gonna cry through every show um you've already got me breaking uh that pledge um but these are just tears of of of an interesting joy that i have when i hear you speak of your mother and the love and the connection that you have during this very difficult time it's so touching and you've said that you really wanted to honor your mother and that's why you are talking about your family and the pain with us today yes well my mother has always been my best friend my whole life she has been the sweetest kindest most giving mother that i could have ever asked for um so really she's been my true norse my rock my constant um uh when she was diagnosed i promised her that i would never leave her and i have not in three years i have not missed one day and uh it's been painful but incredibly rewarding too you know what every parent would wish to have a daughter or child as loyal um as you have been to your mother sanjay you've helped this country through some very difficult days in the last two years but to hear that this book further cements what you've brought to fans of yours um as well as readers i'm sure that has to have an emotional impact on you as well well that's that's really uh powerful and and i feel the same way trudy i i just yeah what an incredible tribute to your to your mother and you're an incredible daughter you know i i hope this book can help people i i think there's there's a lot of hope you know i on one hand you know i i don't want truly you to think that your mother did anything wrong this disease this is a disease as you called it a despicable disease but we learn science grows and develops and now we know more than we did a decade ago in terms of what we can do again we're not talking about some breakthrough procedure or new pharmaceutical we're talking about things that are within our own control you you specifically talk about though these five pillars and you personally incorporate each of these into things that you do in your own life take us through that so you know out of all the things that we can do to create a healthier brain there's the most evidence around movement and i use the word movement specifically instead of exercise because that's really what you when you look at the data that's really what it's about when you are doing moderate or brisk walking or moderate sort of movement that tends to be the best in terms of overall brain health and here's why when you are briskly moving you're releasing this factor known as brain derived neurotrophic factor you don't need to remember that but as neuroscientists have explained it to me it's kind of like miracle growth for the brain you can't take it as a pill or an injection or anything your body can make it but the way that you encourage your body to make it is through moderate movement brisk sort of walking for example now interestingly if you intensely move or intensely exercise that can be really good for your heart that can be important but that also creates a lot of stress hormones in your body that can actually negate some of the impact of brain-derived neurotrophic factors so if it's for your brain briskly walk if it's for your heart more intense activity it's it's a little counter-intuitive but really important another you know when it comes to movement the next big one is how you nourish yourself again there's a lot that's good for the heart that's also good for the brain but i think one of these sort of super foods if you will are berries and again something most people have access to but you find with berries in particular they're particularly adept at crossing the blood-brain barrier the body and the brain are in two different sort of compartments of the body and so if you want to get things that are healthy for the brain have them cross over the blood-brain barrier berries are going to be pretty high on the list you know an apple a day to keep the doctor away but berries are what's good for the brain rest you talk about this i talk about this you know again i use the word rest instead of sleep but how you get those moments of sort of reprieve in your own life you meditate in the morning i like to meditate in the morning as well but also really prioritizing sleep because you realize when you sleep that's actually when you're taking the experiences of your day and turning them in to longer term memories that's when you're washing away a lot of the waste products out of your brain at night when you sleep so those are really important things and again again it's sort of not just the what but the why a lot of people around our age i'm a little older than you tamron you look a lot younger than i do i look older than i should but a lot of people they say hey i forgot something i forgot where i put my keys i forgot is this the beginning of alzheimer's what you find is that it's not that they're forgetting it's that they're never really remembering in the first place because we do so many things mindlessly and if that's that's another important concept i think to keep in mind well the book is phenomenal and you know trudy's words about the book i think are what millions of people believe about this information so sanjay congratulations on continuing to elevate science and elevate us um by what you and other researchers have learned trudy thank you so much and please give my love to your entire family and happy new year trudy thank you thank you so much you

Channel: Tamron Hall Show

Views: 6,460

Keywords: Tamron Hall, Tamron Hall Show, Tamron, daytime television, interviews, celebrity, celeb, celebrity interviews, tv, abc, Disney, dr sanjay gupta

Id: 5Bc-NYBhATg

Length: 10min 49sec (649 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 12 2022