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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, non-force doctor of chiropractic and practitioner of functional

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medicine.

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I identify conditions other doctors miss by doing tests that most doctors don't do, usually

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because your insurance doesn't want to pay.

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Health insurance is actually, there's no such thing as health insurance.

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What is called health insurance is actually medical insurance.

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It pays for when you need medical care.

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It doesn't pay.

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There's no insurance that pays to keep you healthy.

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There's no insurance that will pay for your gym membership or drinking healthier water

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or eating better food.

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It's medical insurance.

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It pays for when you need medical care, kind of like your car insurance doesn't pay for

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you to change your oil or do anything to increase the longevity and maintenance of your car.

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It pays for when you crash your car.

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Car insurance is for when you crash your car.

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Medical insurance is for when you more or less crash your body.

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That's unfortunate, but it's the nature of the health system that we have in America.

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You do have to pay a little bit out of pocket for my services, but it's far less expensive

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than you might imagine.

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It's really important, especially as our subject again this week, continuing on last week's

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subject is Alzheimer's and all forms of dementia.

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It's really important to start early if you want to avoid the devastating effects of Alzheimer's

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and any other form of dementia.

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The reason for that, of course, is you can't go by symptoms.

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That's what we do.

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As human beings, if something hurts, then we know something's wrong.

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If we feel fine, then we assume that we are fine.

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That just doesn't work for brain degeneration, for any kind of neurological degeneration.

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You don't feel the effects of loss of brain cells until you've lost a whole bunch of them.

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You don't feel the effects.

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You don't feel the first signs of memory loss or all the most common signs of dementia until

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you've lost about 30% of that very important part of your brain where memories are encoded.

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We naturally experience that when we see something here, something there, when something happens,

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it just automatically gets recorded and stored.

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It's a two-step process, and that first step where a memory goes through the hippocampus

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and your brain decides where to file that memory, that's the part that stops working.

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It's devastating more for the people who are caring for someone with dementia, more so

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often for the family members, than it is for the person experiencing themselves, experiencing

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the disease themselves, because we're just used to automatically storing memories.

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It's not automatic.

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Well, it is automatic, but it's a two-step process, and that first step is what goes

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when you develop Alzheimer's.

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There's several other forms of dementia.

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The pharmaceutical industry is doing their best to try and find some drug that will reverse

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the damaging effects, but they've come up cold so many times.

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Billions of dollars have been spent trying to find a drug that will reverse the effects

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of dementia.

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It is important to distinguish if you're in a place where you need medication, then they're

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going to try to decide you have vascular dementia, or Alzheimer's, the most common, or Lewy body

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dementia, frontal lobe dementia.

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There's several different forms of dementia that have different physiological mechanisms

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that maybe someday will respond to drugs.

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So far, the record is pretty bleak.

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But for healing your brain, for doing the best you can in whatever circumstance you

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find yourself in, healing the nerves in your brain, as with healing nerves anywhere in

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your body, also involves correcting and reducing your risk of and healing your blood vessels,

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and your heart, the pump that supplies the nutrients and oxygen to your brain.

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That's so critically important.

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So if you do nothing else, anyone that's starting to notice the first signs of dementia, or

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if you have family members who had dementia, then start early.

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Start in your 30s, start in your 40s if you're not already.

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Two simple things anyone can do to reduce their risk of cognitive decline, the early

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form of dementia, is exercise.

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When you exercise, you get your heart pumping, and you get oxygen and all the other nutrients

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that you choose to consume flooding your brain constantly, and keeping the cell turnover

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in your brain at a minimum.

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You're maintaining the brain cells you have.

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And I'm going to talk a lot more on the rest of this show about how to do that, and how

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to regain brain cells, even regenerate a certain amount of brain cells, especially by focusing

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on supplying nutrients and oxygen to your brain cells.

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But before I get into that, it's also really important.

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A lot of people have heard, oh, it's great if I do crossword puzzles, or Sudoku, or things

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that challenge my brain.

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Well, anything that challenges your brain is a good way to maintain the connections

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between the brain cells that you have.

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And there's different ways to do that.

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But the most effective way of maintaining and even generating new connections between

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the cells you have, and this is really important.

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Your brain's going to shrink as you get older, no matter what you do.

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Even no matter how good you take care of yourself, there is a certain amount of loss of brain

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tissue that is pretty much inevitable.

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It is actually possible to reverse that, but it's very complicated, and most people are

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not going to do what it takes to do that.

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But to maintain the connections between the brain cells you have, this is a little bit

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controversial, but one of the most powerful things you can do to maintain the connections

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between the brain cells you have is to do things that are uncomfortable, to do things

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that get you outside of your comfort zone, like public speaking, join a Toastmasters

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club.

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Just Google Toastmasters in your local area to find out where Toastmasters clubs are.

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I've been a member of Toastmasters for many, many years.

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It's a comfortable, safe space to learn certain techniques that make you more effective as

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a speaker.

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But most importantly, some people say that the greatest fear in life is public speaking,

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more fearful than things that cause certain death.

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I hope that's not true, because it's really not that hard to speak if you just practice

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it a little bit.

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But also, the point is, anything that gets you outside of your comfort zone that makes

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you think on your feet extemporaneously causes your brain to generate more connections, to

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establish more connections between your existing brain cells.

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So talk about things.

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Basically get into arguments with people.

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Talk about things.

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Try to persuade somebody to your point of view.

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There's so much division in our country right now.

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I hesitate to even say this.

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But meet with people, basically.

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Just have conversations with people and talk about things that maybe are a little bit uncomfortable

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to talk about, that maybe challenge you.

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Take a foreign language.

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There we go.

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That's a lot safer.

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Take a foreign language course that forces you to learn how to say things differently

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than you've ever said them before.

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Anything that causes you to think on your feet, have to respond in real time to a question,

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or forces you to learn a different way to form your point of view, that is going to

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challenge your brain the most.

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That is going to heal your brain, establish more connections between your brain cells,

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and make it strong and resilient.

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Far more than doing Suduko.

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Suduko, however you pronounce that.

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I've never done it.

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Or a crossword puzzle.

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I'm Dr. Todd Binkley.

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You're listening to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions to Almost Any Health Challenge.

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This week we're talking about reducing the risk factors for, and sometimes even reducing

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the effects of, dementia, especially Alzheimer's.

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On most episodes of this show I like to share a case study, a patient of mine that I've

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treated that's had dramatic results from a certain condition to illustrate what's possible

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for you, perhaps.

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And as I said last week, I don't have a lot of those for dementia.

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No dramatic sudden recovery of memory.

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And the reason is because people start too late.

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If you wait until you have severe signs of dementia, it's very difficult to reverse

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that.

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But everyone and every situation is different.

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So there are no guarantees.

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I'm never going to sugarcoat anything or offer any false promises, which is why I always

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start any discussion of preventing and reversing dementia with three things.

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Exercise, just go for a walk, get a pedometer, see if you're taking 5,000 steps a day, 10,000

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steps a day.

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Know what you have some kind of metrics so that you know if you're getting enough exercise

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and you don't have to do anything fancy.

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Weight training, any kind of resistance training is the healthiest for anybody of any age.

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But just going for a walk is going to keep your heart pumping and keep it flooding nutrients

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and oxygen to your brain.

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Drink number two, drink three to four quarts of water a day, even if you're not thirsty.

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This is huge.

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This sundowner effect that you often hear about.

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You have if you've had anyone who's ever had a loved one who's in a facility with dementia,

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they often find that they're lucid in the morning.

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They can they seem relatively normal.

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They seem much better in the morning and then get worse as the day goes on.

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And by the time sundown, it's there.

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They've lost it again.

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And a big part of that is just dehydration.

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When you sleep, the water that you are drinking is evenly distributed, especially because

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you're lying down and your body always is going to prioritize your brain.

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It's the most sensitive organ to any nutrient deficiency and it requires 20% of the oxygen

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that your heart pumps throughout your body.

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And it will be basically rehydrated because you're lying down.

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And then when you set up all day, if you're not drinking enough water, it becomes dehydrated

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and the effect can happen in a matter of hours.

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So always, always drink plenty of water.

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And most people don't drink enough.

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And it's important to understand that when you're not drinking enough water, you won't

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feel thirsty.

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You have to just force yourself basically to drink more water.

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Most people should drink three to four quarts of water a day or three to four liters.

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Bottled water comes in liters.

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I recommend getting a high quality water filter so that you're getting water that's free of

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nutrients and also free of the plastic that's in most bottled water.

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But that's a whole other conversation.

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But three to four quarts of water a day or just take your body weight and convert that

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into ounces.

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If you weigh 150 pounds, then 75 ounces of water, half of your body weight in ounces

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is another good metric.

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Number three, get the gene test.

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I talked about this on last week's episode.

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Know your risk factors.

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You need to start early.

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And so you need to have some kind of motivation to start early.

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So get the A-P-O-E gene test.

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It costs seven or $800 to send you to the LabCorp request to get this test, which is

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what makes it such a great deal, for $149 to just get the 23andMe Health Panel, which

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has over a dozen gene tests, thousands of dollars worth of gene tests for only $150.

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So there are other things that can be done.

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And so what I do for my patients who have early signs of dementia or worse, there are

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a number of things.

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No dramatic cures, but a number of things that can get improvements.

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And even a slight improvement is often hope and can be life-changing.

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One of my favorite products is relatively new from Designs for Health, a company that

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makes some of the best products available.

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It's called Senolytic Synergy.

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And you know, lytic means cut or reduce, and seno refers to senility.

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And senergy refers to the fact that many nutrients have synergistic effects.

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They work together.

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And it's interesting because senolytic senergy has curcumin, quercetin, red grape powder.

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We've heard of most of these things, ginseng, but also fisetin.

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And fisetin is a flavonoid, a plant-based, a plant nutrient from the Eurasian smoke tree,

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also known as the Venetian sumac.

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So curcumin, quercetin, red grape powder, fisetin, ginseng, and dog rose fruit.

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So age, the passage of time, always involves cell turnover in every part of your body.

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But certain stressors can increase the destruction of cells that need replacing.

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And nutrients like this have been shown in multiple studies to reduce the damaging effects

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of this normal process, especially in the brain.

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So senolytic senergy by Designs for Health is one of my first go-to products for people

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who have dementia or risk of dementia.

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An even easier one to understand that everyone, well, hopefully, has at least heard of is

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vitamin B12.

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So metabolic vitamin B12 deficiency.

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This is a research paper published by J. David Spence in the journal Nutrition Research,

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Vitamin B12 Deficiency, a missed opportunity to prevent dementia and stroke.

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So this man has published 515 papers with over 36,000 citations.

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And the link, email me, I'll send you the link to it if you're interested in it.

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But it's, it was fascinating for me to see this published and linked directly to dementia.

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So measuring B12 levels is insufficient, he says.

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Elevated homocysteine levels are a much better way to identify deficiency of B12.

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Most physicians know about this.

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A lot of doctors do order homocysteine levels because deficiency in B12 can increase your

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heart disease risk.

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And it is that increase in heart disease risk, the same mechanism that increases the risk

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of dementia.

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So deficiency increases with age and it's strongly associated with cognitive decline,

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the early form of dementia.

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So in this author's opinion and in my opinion, a simple CBC is a much better way to identify

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a functional level, a functional deficiency of B12.

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A CBC is a complete blood count.

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This is a standard blood test that measures your white blood cell count, the differential

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of all the different types of white blood cells like neutrophils and lymphocytes and

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monocytes, et cetera, and your red blood cell count and your hemoglobin and your hermetic

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RIT and the MCV, mean corpuscular.

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I know this is a little bit technical, but when you're, when you have functional levels

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of B12 and folate and other B vitamin deficiency, sometimes even B6 deficiency, it causes a

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form of anemia.

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It used to be called pernicious anemia.

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For hundreds of years, people used to get diagnosed with pernicious anemia and just

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told to enjoy their last few months because they were going to die.

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So the middle of the 20th century, they discovered that giving people liver cured, you know,

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forgiving people, having them eat cows liver, fixed the pernicious anemia.

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And then, you know, a couple, a couple of years, a few years later, they discovered

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that it was vitamin B12 in the liver that was largely responsible with fixing this pernicious

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anemia.

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So pernicious anemia is diagnosed on a CBC when the average, the test that measures the

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average size of your red blood cells increases.

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So when your red blood cells live about three and a half months, and if you're not, if your

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bone marrow is not getting enough vitamin B12 to generate enough new red blood cells,

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then the existing ones as they age get bigger to try to take up the slack.

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So the mean corpuscular volume MCV on your CBC, standard blood test, when that gets bigger,

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that means you're deficient in B12.

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What's the best way to measure if you're deficient in B12?

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Don't, it's a waste of time for most situations to major, to directly measure serum B12 levels.

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For one thing, if you're taking any kind of vitamins, then it's most likely it's going

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to be elevated and that tells you nothing.

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Really the only reason to do a serum B12 test is to see if you have some kind of liver or

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kidney disease.

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And it just makes more sense.

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It makes much more sense to look at the CBC.

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And most people after a certain age are deficient in B12.

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And when they get to the point where their red blood cells are starting to get bigger,

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approximately half of patients with enlarged red blood cells will have cognitive impairment.

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So going back to this paper published by J. David Spence in the journal Nutrition Research,

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he says an important aspect of preventing dementia is the prevention of stroke.

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Because anything obviously that's going to cause a sudden loss of blood flow to any part

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of your brain is sometimes catastrophic, but even minor strokes, mild TIA transient ischemic

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attacks.

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Have you ever had something that felt like a stroke and then recovered?

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That's a transient ischemic attack.

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That just means that your blood flow got blocked temporarily in a way that your body was able

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to clear.

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But B12 deficiency is a contributor to this stroke risk and it's easily treated.

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So B12 deficiency raises the risk of carotid plaque, deep vein thrombosis, retinal vein

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thrombosis, and cerebral vein thrombosis, which basically means it increases your risk of

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plaque formation anywhere in your body, as well as stroke risks in patients with atrial

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fibrillation.

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People with atrial fibrillation where the upper chambers of your heart flutter, this

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is a common reason people get put on blood thinners like Warfarin or Eliquis, your risk

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is increased fourfold if you have deficiency of B12.

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And functional B12 deficiency also causes neuropathy and myelopathy.

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So that means it causes damage to your nerves and your muscles.

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It's likely, this is quoting again David Spence from Nutrition Research, it's likely, he says,

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that loss of position sense from this muscle damage contributes to the risk of falls in

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the elderly.

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So he hasn't proven this, but the research does clearly show that B12 deficiency damages

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muscles, and if anything that's going to damage your muscles and your nerves, it's a pretty

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reasonable assumption that it's going to increase risk of falls.

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And there is some data to support that in other studies.

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It's also associated with something called orthostatic hypotension.

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So orthostatic hypotension is what happens when you stand up too quickly.

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If you've been lying down or sitting and you stand up quickly and suddenly get dizzy,

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that is the result of your body's inability to suddenly get, supply the oxygen that your

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brain needs.

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And normally, you know, it happens normally most of the time, but it does require certain

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things to work.

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It requires your blood vessels to constrict in your legs and lower parts of your body

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and to open wide in your brain so that the moment, the instant that you stand up, your

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brain is flooded with the oxygen that it constantly requires to work properly.

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So if you have this thing that's not uncommon, where you stand up too fast and you feel dizzy,

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B12 deficiency is one thing that can contribute to that.

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Before I forget, the form of vitamin B12 you take is critically important.

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So don't buy cheap B12 supplements from Costco or Rite Aid or most stores.

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Read your labels.

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Here's why.

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Here's how you know if you've got the right B12 supplement.

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99% of B12 supplements are cyanocobalamin.

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Cyanol like cyanide and cobalamin.

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That is the cheapest form of B12.

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Your body has to convert that into methylcobalamin, M-E-T-H-Y-L, methylcobalamin.

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So you want to take, if you're going to take a B12 supplement, you want to take the methyl

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form.

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So it's already in the active form that your body needs.

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And in most cases should be combined with the methyl form of folate.

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So methyl B12 and methyl folate.

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There's another great study that just came out a couple of years ago in the Journal of

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Alzheimer's Disease.

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B vitamin supplementation slows cognitive decline in mild cognitive impairment, which

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is the earliest sign of damage to the brain that causes Alzheimer's.

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And this was specifically a study identified damage to the frontal lobe of the brain.

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Atrophy, loss of cells in the frontal lobe of the brain, Alzheimer's can occur in other

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parts of the brain.

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But this one was specific to that.

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But it was a 24-month trial with 279 patients.

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And they took 500 micrograms of methylcobalamin and 400 micrograms of folic acid.

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And again, as with most medical studies, they don't give sufficient doses to get the effects

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that functional practitioners learn, see all the time in our practice.

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500 micrograms of methylcobalamin is not enough for any condition.

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The standard dose is double that, 1,000 micrograms.

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So if you're going to get a folate and B12 supplement, two things.

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You want to get the methyl form, methylcobalamin, the active form of B12, and methylfolate,

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the active form of folate, folic acid.

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And it also should be a sublingual tablet.

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And so it's going to look like a little tiny, the size of a baby aspirin, little pink tablet.

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And you hold it under your tongue.

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You may have heard of people going in to get B12 shots, B12 injections, because it can

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boost your energy.

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And it can, I don't know, crazy people do all kinds of things to heal from a hangover

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or whatever.

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Most people do not need to get B12 shots because it does biped.

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So the reason that it is useful for some people is because it's very difficult for a lot of

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people to absorb B12 in your gut by simply swallowing a supplement.

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But when you hold a sublingual, beneath the tongue tablet, it goes directly into your

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bloodstream.

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Where does the time go?

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It looks like we're going to have to continue this subject next week.

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I'm Dr. Todd Binkley.

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You've been listening to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions.

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I'd love the opportunity to help you or someone you love feel better and resolve issues without

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the use of pharmaceuticals.

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Tune in next Friday at 4 p.m.

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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 4 p.m. for Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions right here on 98.3 The Word,

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KDAR.