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Prepare to have your health questions answered here on Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions

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with Dr. Todd Binkley, owner of Binkley Healing Center in downtown Ventura.

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Now, here's Dr. Todd.

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Good afternoon.

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I'm Dr. Todd Binkley, board certified doctor of non-force chiropractic and practitioner

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of functional medicine.

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The focus of today's talk is going to be about dementia, about mild cognitive impairment.

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The earliest form, I've been getting a lot of questions about this.

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What is the difference between Alzheimer's and vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia,

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frontal lobe dementia?

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Okay, not everybody's been asking me all of those specific details, but mainly just about

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what can I do?

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Alzheimer's is horrible.

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You lose your memory.

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It's really stressful on the families, more so on the families of the people who get the

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dementia than it is on the person themselves oftentimes.

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So we're going to talk a lot about that.

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I wish I had, I wish I could forecast that I could say at the end of the talk, we're

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going to, I'm going to give you some glowing examples, testimonials of patients that have

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had made dramatic recoveries.

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And I'm sorry, I don't have those because unfortunately, most people wait till it's

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too late to make a dramatic recovery from dementia.

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We're going to talk a lot about why that is, but there is some exciting news.

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I do have scores of patients, maybe, maybe over a hundred or two, not, not thousands

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certainly, but many patients who have made some improvement, you know, people, people

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are frustrated that when they start to notice the first signs of memory loss and other symptoms

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associated with any form of dementia, Alzheimer's is just the most common.

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Oftentimes, at that point, 30%, this is a little known fact, when you first start to

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notice that persistent memory loss, if you forget where you put your keys once in a while,

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it's not a big deal.

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There are tests for this.

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Maybe we'll have time to talk about those standard tests they do to diagnose mild cognitive

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impairment, the precursor and, and full blown dementia of any type.

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But you know, if you have, if you have memory loss, everyone loses their keys once in a

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while.

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What matters is when you have that persistent progressive memory loss where you and especially

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those around you notice that you're repeating yourself or forgetting things and it's becoming

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more consistent and getting worse.

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And unfortunately, this is the worst part.

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By the time you get to that point, you've usually lost 30% of that part of the brain,

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the part of the brain just inside your temples called the hippocampus, where memories must

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be encoded before they're stored.

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This is really important to understand, especially for if you have a loved one with dementia,

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this is really important to understand.

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We experience normal human beings throughout our lives, we experience that, that we see

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something happen, we say something, we do something, and we automatically remember it,

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if it was something we just did 30 seconds ago or five minutes ago, it's just automatic.

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Of course you would remember that you just said it, you just did it.

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Well, when that happens, it's a two step process that has to work or it won't.

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And the two steps are anything that you experienced goes through this hippocampus, this part of

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your brain just inside your temple to get processed and sorted and sort of like a filing

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clerk part of your brain that decides where this memory should be stored.

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And then it's sent to the library, to the storage facility up in the higher parts of

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your brain for long term storage, that's where long term memories are stored.

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Well, all memories are stored in parts of the brain that are higher up.

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So the part of your brain must, that decides where to store that, the hippocampus, it's

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called just inside the temple, that part has to work for you to remember anything, even

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if it just happened 30 seconds ago or five minutes ago.

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And that is one of the most common areas that becomes degraded, you start, you lose cells

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in that part of your brain, it stops working, it stops recording and filing, it stops filing

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the memories, the experiences that you have ongoingly.

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So anybody who has a loved one with dementia, I hope it helps to understand this.

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I'm sure you don't understand it just from me talking about it for a couple of minutes,

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but you can look it up, there's some great resources out there, email me with questions,

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it's really helpful to understand this, both for people who are first starting to notice

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cognitive impairment, but especially for the loved ones who are noticing that someone that

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they love can't remember something they said 30 seconds ago or who's repeating themselves.

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If the hippocampus stops working, it doesn't matter that someone just said something or

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just did something or just asked you something because memories are no longer being filed

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properly.

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They go in and they get stuck and then they just vanish because they haven't been stored.

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So the good news is anything you've ever heard of to increase your cardiovascular health

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and we hear about these things all the time, the entire month of February, I talked about

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things you can do to prevent and reverse cardiovascular disease in three simple steps.

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Keep the pipes clear, keep the pressure low and keep the pump strong.

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So you keep the pipes clear by reducing plaque formation and reversing it.

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It is actually possible to reverse plaque formation.

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You keep the pressure low by doing all kinds of things that go review the previous episodes

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on ways that you might not have heard to reduce your blood pressure apart from taking medication.

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But if you need medication, this is one of the medications that you definitely want to

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take.

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You definitely want to check your blood pressure.

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Make sure that you're keeping it below 140 over 90, preferably below 130 over 90 if you

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want to maintain your heart health, but also your brain health.

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So keep the pipes clear, keep the pressure low and keep the pump strong.

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Exercises of course the way you keep the pump strong, the best kind of exercise to do is

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the one that you will do with the least amount of effort or you know, the district puts the

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fewest hurdles in front of you.

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Something you enjoy, something as simple as walking.

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If you're young and you love, you know, doing really intensive exercise, running marathons,

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doing intensive workouts, you know, that's the best form for you.

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If you're older, maybe just walking, you know, for most older people just going for a walk.

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The nice thing about walking is it doesn't require a gym membership, it doesn't require

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any special equipment.

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You just put on some shoes and go outside.

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And if you are looking for an excuse to walk or a reminder to walk, it's always nice.

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They've even done studies on this.

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Get a dog.

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There was one of the best ones I heard was about some stockbrokers in New York City.

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If they, these are really, really high stress people that have high risk of dropping dead

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from a heart attack in, you know, their 40s or 50s even.

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And stockbrokers who got a dog, I don't know, I don't have the study in front of me, but

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had a dramatically reduced risk because of the comradship of the dog I suppose was partly

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something to do with.

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I suspect it's largely just because it forces them to go out and walk the dog.

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Swimming is also an excellent form of exercise if you have access to a pool because it works

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your entire body.

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And if you're older or if you have physical limitations, just the buoyancy and the warmth

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of the water can help a lot of people with arthritic conditions or other joint involved

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conditions like multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis.

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So swimming is wonderful if you have access to a pool and of course in most places there

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are public pools that you can gain access to for free.

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Oftentimes it's not easy to get to a pool.

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So another form that's really important to stress a form of exercise that basically everyone

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really should consider doing as much as they can is resistance training, strength training,

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lifting weights.

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So resistance training is any muscular exercise, you know the classic form is lifting weights,

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but you don't have to be a bodybuilder, you don't even have to join a gym to lift weights.

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You can lift your own body weight by doing pushups and sit-ups and pull-ups.

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You can get your own modest set of dumbbells to lift weights at home.

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It's a good idea to get some instruction on how to do that properly if you have any arthritis

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or other issues that might cause you to do such things improperly or stress your shoulders

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or your back or your neck or other parts of your body.

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But any kind of resistance training, incorporating some kind of resistance training into your

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routine is really really important.

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You may have heard there was a study that was on the radio on the news today, just published

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in the Journal of American Cardiology based on an analysis of 400,000 adults, US adults

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aged 27 to 61 over two decades.

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So over two decades, especially about the benefits to women.

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That benefits men and women both obviously, but especially women.

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Aged 27 to 61, 400,000 adults, the women were 24% less likely than those who did not exercise

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to experience death from any cause.

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Men were 15% less likely.

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Women also had a 36% reduced risk of a fatal heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular

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event.

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Women had a 14% reduced risk of a fatal heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular event

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from exercising regularly.

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And these are just statistics on people who did regular exercise, basically any form of

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exercise.

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But it gets even better.

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The strength training, so the people who did any kind of strength training, resistance

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training, lifting weights, using resistance bands, using your own body weight, the people

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who participated in strength training exercises had a 19% reduced risk of death.

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Women and 11% reduced death for men from any cause compared to those who didn't do strength

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training.

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So all cause of death was reduced by doing strength training exercises, 19% for women,

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11% for men.

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But here's the best part.

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Women who did strength training saw an even greater reduced risk of cardiovascular deaths.

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30%.

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So women who do any kind of strength, regular strength training, there is a certain amount

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that you have to do, but it's not big.

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The details are in that study somewhere.

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Email me if you want the exact details.

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But it's just the typical recommendations that most people would do two or three days

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a week.

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I'll come back to that if we have time for it.

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But basically 30% reduced risk of cardiovascular rate related deaths for women who did strength

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training, any kind of resistance training, and an 11% reduction for men.

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I'm Dr. Todd Benkley, and you're listening to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions to

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Almost Any Health Challenge.

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The subject of today's talk is cognitive impairment, mild cognitive impairment, and dementia.

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Don't wait till it's too late.

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That's the main message.

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Most of the people who come to me with complaints of cognitive impairment, with memory loss,

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with early signs of dementia, or especially advanced dementia, most people wait till it's

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too late.

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But the good news is, most people are familiar, and we have been talking about this today,

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the benefits of exercise.

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Anything you've ever heard that increases your heart health also increases your brain

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health.

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Your brain commands 20% of the output of your heart, 20% of the oxygen produced, delivered

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to your body by the pump, goes to your brain.

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Most dementia is vascular dementia.

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There's a whole bunch of distinctions, different types of diagnoses for dementia, Lewy body

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dementia, frontal lobe dementia, Alzheimer's being the most common.

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There is one that's specifically called vascular dementia because of the effects of loss of

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blood flow to the brain.

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But from a functional medicine perspective, if you want to learn how to, so those distinctions

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are important.

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If you're going to use drugs, then those distinctions are important.

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If you're going to use other forms of medical care as medical therapy advances, maybe those

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distinctions will become even greater at some point.

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But the bottom line is from a functional medicine perspective, it doesn't matter what kind of

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dementia you have.

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The problem is it's all vascular dementia.

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All dementia is the loss of brain cells and very important specific parts of your brain,

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the part of your brain where memories are filed and then stored, loss of total brain

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mass in several parts, if not all parts of your brain.

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And a lot of that is directly reduced to lack of circulation to the brain.

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When you lose circulation to any part of your brain, you're going to lose brain cells and

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that part of your brain is going to shrink and therefore that part of your brain is going

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to stop working the way it used to.

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And it's very difficult to fix that once it's gone beyond a certain stage.

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This is why most medications for Alzheimer's don't work.

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Aricept is the most famous one.

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There are others in development all the time.

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There's all kinds of research.

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It's been progressing sort of for decades now that identify what actually causes the

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damage to the brain, tau proteins, beta amyloid plaques, et cetera.

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And there are drugs that have successfully removed the neurofibral tangles, the tau proteins,

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the beta amyloid plaque and all the other, not all, several other things that have been

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identified.

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They've literally developed drugs that can remove these things that have been identified

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in the brains of people who have Alzheimer's.

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Unfortunately, they don't prove that until they only prove they're only able to document

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that on autopsy after the person has died.

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But the bad news is these drugs don't work.

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They're not a cure.

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They don't even reverse the disease.

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They slow its progression slightly and they have side effects.

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And the most recent one had such minor effects and was so ridiculously overpriced that even

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the medical community, the neurological community cried foul.

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And who knows what's going to go on with that?

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I forget the name of that drug, but just look up most recent dementia drug and you can find

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it.

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But hopefully the point is don't wait till it's too late.

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So when you are at the very beginning of showing any signs, it's important to do what you can,

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get tested.

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So here's a couple of things you can do.

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First importantly, prevent it by just doing the basic things to keep yourself healthy.

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Anything you know, as I said before, to keep your heart healthy will also keep your brain

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healthier than it would otherwise be.

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So keep the pipes clear, keep the pump strong, keep the pressure low.

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There are some supplements that I recommend for everyone for general health, which includes

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the brain.

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The brain is the most sensitive organ to any organ in your body to nutrient deficiencies.

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So the three things I recommend, anyone's supplement, even if we don't do any testing,

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I can just tell you 99% chance you're not getting enough of this from your diet.

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They are number one, vitamin D, 5,000 units of vitamin D is the standard dose for adults

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to maintain a blood level of vitamin D that keeps all of your body systems working as

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well as they should and as well as they could.

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Most importantly, your immune system, the standard recommendations for vitamin D, barely

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prevent rickets, they'll prevent your bones from collapsing.

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They don't even effectively reduce your risk of osteoporosis.

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They prevent rickets when you're a child and early adult.

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But so yeah, 5,000 units of vitamin D is the standard dose.

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Number two, fish oil.

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So the omega-3 fatty acids that are only in the ocean, not the ones that are in plants,

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there's no plant-based source, abundant plant-based source of EPA and DHA.

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These are the omega-3s that only come from the oceans.

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And you can only get them from fish or algae.

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So if you want to supplement them, you can only get them from fish oil supplements or

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algae oil supplements.

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And those are super important.

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25, your brain is made of fat, is mostly fat and water and some collagen, connective tissue,

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mostly fat and water and 25% of the fat that makes up your brain is made from docosa hexanoic

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acid, this omega-3 fatty acid that you can only get from the ocean.

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And no one, unless you're going to eat a piece of salmon every day or some tuna, which you

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shouldn't because of the mercury in the tuna, I recommend only eating tuna once a month

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because there's a lot of mercury in tuna because it's a huge fish.

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Or sardines are great.

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Sardines and anchovies are small fish, so you can eat sardines every day if you really

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like them.

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I eat them two or three times a week because they're delicious, especially if you get the

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ones that are packed in olive oil and put some capers on them or a little something

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else for flavor.

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But most people are not going to do that.

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Most people are not going to eat oily fish every day.

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And most other fish don't even, even if you eat a lot of fish, there's not that many fish

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that have a lot of omega-3 fatty acids.

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Obviously the only ones that have a lot are salmon, the only common ones are salmon, tuna,

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anchovies and sardines.

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There's a few others, but there's just not a lot of essential fatty acids, EPA and DHA,

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the omega-3s you need for brain health, cardiovascular health, its anti-inflammatory effects and immune

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system boosting effects.

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Look up, if you do the, if you look on PubMed for all the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids,

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all of those benefits are only for those two omega-3s you can really only get from the

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ocean.

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Number three, a good multivitamin.

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So all of these reactions that have to take place to produce neurotransmitters and keep

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every part of your body, including your brain functioning, require cofactors to drive those

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chemical reactions.

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And most of those cofactors are B vitamins and minerals.

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So you can get B vitamins from food.

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There's lots of good food sources for B vitamins like liver and whole grains and vegetables

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in general and minerals.

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So the main missing thing for most people is minerals.

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Most people, I recommend a good multivitamin and mineral supplement.

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How do you tell if one is good?

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It should be at least two or three and preferably four capsules a day.

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I've seen, I know of, I'm aware of a couple of good top quality, they're usually more

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expensive multivitamins that are two huge tablets, two huge horse pills a day.

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Most people have trouble taking things that are that big.

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So four regular size capsules is what a good multivitamin usually looks like because the

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plant-based forms of minerals that most of us don't get enough of in our diet are bulky.

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They take up space.

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They will not fit into a one-a-day multivitamin.

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So do not take, please do not buy a one-a-day multivitamin anywhere.

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It's mostly useless because it just doesn't have the types of nutrients that your body

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absorbs well and not enough of them.

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So if you want to prevent, do the best you can to reduce your risk of dementia and maintain

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health, reduce your risk of all kinds of other diseases, but we're focusing on brain health

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today, then take 5,000 units of vitamin D, about a gram and a half or maybe even twice

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that depending on your age.

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If you're already noticing some symptoms, if you already have cardiovascular disease,

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if you're overweight, if you're over 60, maybe even over 50, I might recommend, or

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if you have any familial history of cardiovascular disease, heart attack, strokes of dementia,

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then I'd probably recommend you at least double that and take 3 grams, 3,000 milligrams combined

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EPA and DHA.

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So when you look at your labels, don't take just three grams of fish oil, but three grams

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of EPA and DHA combined.

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There are several other supplements that can help improve brain health to help reduce your

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risk, reverse some of the damage.

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We won't have time to go into all of those today, so I'll save those for next week, but

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I did want in the time that we have left today to talk about another thing you can do that

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might motivate you to take better care of yourself, and that is to get the APOE gene

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test.

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APOE, that's the gene test that measures your risk of Alzheimer's.

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So ask your doctor to order the APOE gene test.

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Most people have, it comes in three forms.

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APOE gene comes in three forms, two, three, and four.

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So the APOE-3 is the most common one, only about 5 to 10 percent, 5 to 10 percent of

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people have the APOE-2 form, and it's believed to have some protection against the disease,

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but it's rare.

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And most commonly, people have the APOE-3 form, that's the most common form, and some

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authors believe it has a neutral effect, some that it also confers some risk.

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The worst one, of course, is APOE-4.

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So having one of the APOE-4 genes increases your risk by something like fourfold, and

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having two, we all have two of these APOE genes.

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So if you have two APOE-4s, I know that's a bit of a mouthful, but also, basically,

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if you have the number four version, two of those, then it increases your risk something

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like tenfold.

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So the research is constantly being updated on this, and I'll try and find the latest

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statistics and review this on next week's episode as well.

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I wanted to be sure and get it in today.

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Get that gene test.

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So ask your doctor if they'll order it.

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If you have a family history of Alzheimer's, then that should be a good enough reason to

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get them to order it, but of course, it's not routinely ordered.

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Most doctors don't order it because gene tests are very expensive.

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If I just send you to Quest or LabCorp to order that gene test, it's something like

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seven or eight hundred dollars.

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But there is good news.

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If you've ever heard about 23andMe, most people have heard about the Ancestry.com and 23andMe

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to find out your family history.

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Ancestry does not, but 23andMe does do also health-related genes.

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So for $150, you can get a panel of it.

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I think it's over a dozen now, something maybe 14 really important gene tests done for $150.

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I recommend everyone do this because it's such a great deal.

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For $150, you can get thousands, literally thousands of dollars worth of gene tests,

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including the Alzheimer's gene and genes that identify iron overload and clotting factors

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that increase your increase your risk of heart attack and stroke and a whole bunch of other

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really important gene tests.

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And each one of these tests individually costs hundreds of dollars and you can get a good

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slate of them, including the Alzheimer's gene, is worth it just to get the Alzheimer's test

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for $150 from the health portion of 23andMe.

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And when you get that test, it's important as with any gene test, it's important to know

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that you can have two of the worst versions, the number four, and still not get Alzheimer's.

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So genes are just important things to know about to motivate you, know your risk factors

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and take better care of yourself.

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They don't cause disease in and of themselves.

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I'm Dr. Todd Binkley, you've been listening to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions.

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Do something this weekend to be healthier than you were last weekend and please tune

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in next Friday at 4pm.

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Have a fantastic weekend.

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You've been listening to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions with Dr. Todd Binkley.

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If you have a health question you want discussed on the show, email your health questions to

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drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter.com.

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Take advantage of this opportunity to ask questions for yourself and for your loved

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ones because our health matters.

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Join him next Friday at 4pm for Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions right here on 98.3 The

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Word KDAR.