Improving Memory and Cognitive Function with Functional Medicine | Podcast #265

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Today’s podcast with Evan Brand is all about improving memory and cognitive function with function medicine. Our brain health also has a direct impact on our health, which will also be discussed in this podcast. Know more about the health problems such as blood issues, hormones, toxins and a lot more, as well as the supplements and key nutrients.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani

Dr. Justin Marchegiani

In this episode, we cover: 

02:08 Types of Alzheimer’s Disease

09:05 Insulin, Blood Sugar Issues

20:09 Mold Exposure

28:00 Trauma

32:03 Supplements and Nutrients

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Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we are live. It's Dr. J here in the house with Evan Brand, Evan. I hope your holidays, your Christmas and your new year was great. How are you doing, man? 

Evan Brand: I'm doing well. I'm sipping on some amino acids here get my brain working so excited to dive in. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That's good. Yeah, nice. Well get some coffee and some ketone precursors and a lot of extra B vitamins and some adaptogen. So, I am feeling great, my friend. Alright, so we chatted about in our post or a pre interview about chatting about memory and cognitive function and using nutrition and functional medicine principles to improve these factors. We know brain improvement brain function as a direct connection with our health. We know inflammation, nutrient density, blood flow, blood sugar issues, hormones, toxins, head trauma, all these things play a major role in our cognitive ability and our ability to perform and think and process. So we're going to dive into some of these factors today. Anything else you want to say before we lead in?

Evan Brand: Let's talk about what we've seen clinically with people. I mean, I would say memory issues, cognitive issues are definitely one of the top five complaints. So when it comes to us doing the workup on somebody, we're looking into gut, we're talking about hormones. But of course, many people are reporting that they're going into a room, they forgot why they went in there, they're losing their car keys, they can't remember where they put their cell phones down. They're forgetting someone's name, even though they know them. Well. And these are people that are not elderly. You know, we've seen this in teenagers and 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s. You know, these are people that are experiencing symptoms that you would expect that if someone who's may be at, you know, and you'll have people actually report to us, hey, you know, I feel like I'm at my brain works like an 80 year old person. And so, yes, this this is what we're talking about today is not a rare occurrence. You know, this is quite common. And the good news is you and I found quite a few on underlying causes to the cognitive function. And I've experienced cognitive changes personally so I can kind of speak on what I've experienced as well.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And then there's an author researcher by the name of Dale Bredesen, who's an Alzheimer's researcher. I'm going to give him my podcast soon. But he has these five different types of Alzheimer's disease kind of people. And I like the five types. I think they really connect in with people who have memory issues. And of course, Alzheimer's and dementia is one extreme of that, right? But then we have this kind of in between area where he may never have Alzheimer's disease or dementia, or you may have in 30 or 40 50 years. So the question is, what do we do now to help improve that memory now, so I'm going to go over these five types, and we're going to connect it to get our own clinical application of what we see with our patients. That sounds good?

Evan Brand: Sounds great. Let's hit it.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. So first type is type one and this has to do with an antimicrobial response to pathogens and there are certain pathogens We know that can affect the brain we see it with certain types of worms. We know certain [inaudible] like lime or even things like syphilis untreated can affect the brain. We know H. pylori or other microbes can have effect either on the brain directly where it gets into the brain, or indirectly through its exposure of various mycotoxins or endotoxins are just bio toxins from the infectious debris that can make its way to the brain cross that blood brain barrier and can activate what's called the micro glial cells. The micro glial cells are the white blood cells of the brain. And when they're activated because of some kind of stressor on the infection side or stress or from a biotoxin from the infection, think of biotoxin as infectious debris that can create glial activation, and that glial activation as a result, can create brain fog as well. And of course, you know, weaker blood brain barriers, right, astrocytes in the brain makeup that blood brain barrier, and if our astrocytes are weaker from stress and inflammation and cortisol, asking to allow things from our gut and our blood to get into the brain easier and can allow more stressors to get into the brain. So the antimicrobial components big and of course, the first area we look, there is going to be the gut because so many of the stressors are either going to occur from infections in the guts and biotoxins make their way to the brain, or because 80 to 90% of the immune system is in the guts. The more gut stress we have, the more compromised immune system we have, the more our immune system is compromised, the more we're open to other kinds of infections like Lyme or other co infections like that.

Evan Brand: Yep. So Candida is got to be mentioned too, you mentioned H. pylori, you mentioned some bacterial overgrowth. We know that Candida produces a sido aldehyde. And so a lot of people report that they feel drunk. So some of these memory issues. It's both, meaning, it's Hey, I walked into this room. I don't know why. I'm in here, but also I feel like I'm tipsy. I feel like I'm a little spacey. I feel disconnected from reality, Gretel. You've got to make sure that when you're doing a workup on somebody, we're looking into these gut bacteria but we're also looking at yeast fungus and mycotoxins. Because mold was huge for me. I mean, I literally, I would have, let's say, I had some type of food item like a, I don't know a jar of almond butter that I needed to go put back in the pantry. I would open up the bathroom door and here I am in the bathroom with a jar of almond butter, what the heck am I doing in here? I'm supposed to go to the pantry. So I had major major just like kind of a disconnect between what I wanted to do and what I actually did and that got much much better as I started to detox and use binders to reduce that toxic load.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And we'll talk more about the mold stuff in type four. So of course we have endogenous mold or fungus like Candida, things like that from our diet, right from sugar, antibiotic exposure and then we have mold from Environmental components like leak in the house, humid environment, right? Those kinds of things are going to be the endogenous or I should say the exogenous more, right? More from the environment versus fungus and yeast from our guts. That makes sense. 

Evan Brand: Yep. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Cool. Next thing is going to be type two, we'll call it number two. That's associated with hormonal issues. So we know especially in females, estriol, estrogens have an important impact on reducing inflammation, cognitive function, activating certain areas of the brain, so does progesterone because progesterone helps with GABA and GABA helps get that parasympathetic nervous system activated, that's the rest and digest and that amygdala and that brainstem is going to be overactive in that kind of fight or flight response. So things like progesterone and gaba help ease that brainstem response and then allow those higher neocortical areas right, the frontal cortex today work better because those areas work better when we have parasympathetic response. So hormones like progesterone and estrogen play a big role. So especially in women who have menstrual issues PMS, right, that tells me there's hormonal issues, women that are more menopausal or perimenopausal where the ovaries are starting stopping the production of hormones like they were when you were at that cycling age. And then of course, blood sugar issues like insulin, high levels of insulin, low levels of insulin, typically it's gonna be high, and it with insulin resistance and then things like vitamin D, low testosterone, significant hormonal stressors can affect the brain and can cause certain areas to shrink.

Evan Brand: Yeah, it's crazy. So when you look at some of the papers on progesterone, you'll see discussions of progesterone and traumatic brain injury, you'll see discussion of people wanting to integrate progesterone into concussion care when it comes to like NFL players and such. So it's amazing, amazing, amazing. I've got a bottle of progesterone on hand and it's one of those things where something happens, I hit my head, my daughter hits my head, my wife, you know if anybody gets hurt, you know, progesterone is one of those kind of quick fix things to help protect the brain.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Is there any recommended dosage on that for brain trauma as a couple hundred milligrams?

Evan Brand: Yeah, it's much higher than your standard 25 to 50 milligrams hormonal support. I've seen one paper that was around 400 milligrams.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, so 400 milligrams. So like, with women, I'll typically go as high as 100. Some go 200. So you're looking at maybe two to three times, maybe even four times what you would typically get for a woman?

Evan Brand: Yeah, of course, of course. And this is in the early stages, right? Because this type of research that you're going to be funded, people don't care. Or at least when I say people, the pharmaceutical companies can't really get behind progesterone because it's a bio identical cream you could buy over the counter for 30 bucks. So to see a study on, like brain health and brain protection with progesterone, I'm grateful that there's even papers existing because like, there's just no there's no money involved. You can't make much profit from So research is limited. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly 100%. Anything else want to say about that? 

Evan Brand: Insulin is huge. And so we often use blood sugar regulating herbs and nutrients with our clients. So if someone is insulin resistant, we will use things to help regulate blood sugar and just in a six week follow up, we may have people report that their brains working better and that's simply because we've reduced the insulin, you know, they're calling the, like the type three diabetes term out there that's highly linked to like sugar and insulin.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and so type three on this is heat. So type one is the inflammatory that's due to the infection is type two is the A trophic. Tech [inaudible] A trophic. That's the shrinking parts of the brain due to those hormonal imbalances. type one and a half or I just call it three because it's the third one on the list is glyco toxic and this is more type one and type two diabetes extreme. So type one, there's a total lack of insulin right? And then type to where you could actually be giving too much right? type one you have Don't have any insulin, but then the problem is they they get you on insulin injections. And a lot of times people overuse insulin because they're not really educated on it, and they just can get their blood sugar back to normal. So with eating crap, so they just over secrete insulin via the injection to bring the blood sugar back down, and that can cause problems as well. So type one diabetics, if they're on insulin, they can actually overshoot it. So the key is, if you have type one diabetes, you still want to keep the insulin down, and you have to keep the sugar down as well. So you don't need as much insulin to get that sugar into the cell number one, and number two is going to be insulin resistance. You're making a lot of insulin, your cells are just numb to it. So there's, there's no supply issue with the insulin. There's just too much of it and the cells are becoming numb to it. And we know that high glucose levels can create all kinds of problems with the brain. We know that there's certain beta amyloid plaques that can form in the brain and we see that associated with Alzheimer's and dementia. We Know that just high levels of insulin can create problems with people just with memory issues to begin with, and we know beta amyloid plaques, they actually get cleaned up in the brain with an enzyme called insulin degrading enzyme. The problem is insulin degrading enzymes first priority is to break down insulin. So if you have too much insulin there, its resources are going to be spent on cleaning up insulin and there won't be enough resources to clean up the beta amyloid plaques. So set another way. Imagine you have a mop right? And your kid spills some water or some juice, that's insulin, your kid spills a little bit of juice, you can mop it up and there's still enough absorptive qualities in the mop to go mop up the plaque. But if your kid spills a whole bunch of juice, well, now you go in you mop up all that juice, but now the marks so saturated, there's not enough absorptive quality to it to now go soak up and clean up the plaque. And that's why getting your blood sugar under control is so important, but if you go look at some of these studies, it's really interesting. The conclusion of a lot of these studies is, hey, we need to come up with a drug that helps improve insulin degrading enzyme. So we can use that enzyme to clean up more of the plaques, that people just missed the boat because they're just they're kind of focuses like on what kind of patentable drug can they come up with? where their conclusion in my opinion should be? Hey, how can we change the diet, so we have less insulin to have to clean up? Therefore, the insulin degrading enzyme can work better?

Evan Brand: Absolutely. You we were talking pre show about skin. I was telling you some papers on skin I was looking at where there were tribal people in New Guinea that were studied and they never found a single case of acne. So here's all these people working on acne drugs. When you look at a tribal person, they don't have acne. Same thing with Alzheimer's. You don't see these neurodegenerative diseases and more tribal people that are on a native diet and exercise and Adequate sunshine and vitamin D and all that. So it's just funny that the money is really spent in the wrong place. I mean, we really could reduce a lot of the drugs just by adopting some of these principles.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and it's really interesting because I like to look at the fact pattern, right? The fact pattern, I think is really important. Walk me through your thinking how you got here, right? So when you look at a researcher who's kind of university based or drug based, they're looking at Hmm, what mechanism what pathway? What kind of, you know, their their bent is obviously is what kind of drug or procedure can we come up with? That's patentable, that can help with this mechanism. Now, that may be all well and good but if you have if the only lens that you're looking at is through what procedure or surgery or surgery or drug can you come up with? Well, you're you're not going to be able to utilize the diet and lifestyle and nutrient avenues because those are I think, are the most easy to their most accessible because you don't have to invest billions of dollars to be like, hey, let's keep the carbohydrate and the inflammation and the food down. There's not a billion dollar industry there. So we're out to help the largest amount of people with the least amount of resources to do it. So when you have our fact pattern, like our pattern is, hmm, where's the low hanging fruit in regards to diet, lifestyle, and or specific nutrients that are cost effective to have a major effect on those mechanisms. And you can see, of course, the diet strategies are already the most accessible. And that's why we're trying to bring this information to y'all if you guys enjoy kind of our perspective, and our way of communicating it, you know, give us that like, put your comments down below. Make sure you share with a friend or family member that could benefit from this information. 

Evan Brand: You make an interesting point and spurred this idea in my head that when someone takes a drug, let's say for hypertension, for example, they're just looking at the cost of that pill. There. The cost of the development and research and all of that finding out the mechanism to do this and block Ace and inhibit this. It's all been subsidized or hidden from you. So when you think about, oh, this blood pressure drug cost me $30 a month, this blood pressure supplement cost me $35 a month, people only see the $5 difference, but they don't see the billions and billions of billions of difference of making a drug that is usually going to have unknown side effects because they haven't even studied long enough. So it's like, okay, yeah, let's, let's change this enzyme. But what does that do? Because as we find a functional medicine, everything's a spider web. So soon as we think we're just touching one thing, we ended up touching something over here as well. So it's, it's, it's just not the way to go?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I mean, the case in point A great example is just some of the blood pressure medications that are out there, whether it's a water pill like listen a pill or hydrochloric acid or some kind of a beta blocker, the nutrient deficiencies that come about from the water pillar from the beta block. In regards to magnesium and potassium and certain B vitamins, those same nutrients typically are already out of balance and people that have blood pressure issues to begin with. So the more you then make those nutrients more deficient or more scarce, now you perpetuate the need to be on those medications longer because the nutrients that are causing the blood pressure to stay high, they're missing. They're there, the magnesium, potassium, therefore, you create this longer lasting need on the medication, and you're ensuring that the root cause never gets addressed. And I'm not saying this is a conspiracy, I'm just saying that drugs have side effects. And the side effects a lot of times can perpetuate the need for the medication. And it's important for people if you're on a medication, understand the mechanism, understand what it's doing. And then also look at what are the natural mechanisms with nutrients and diet and other compounds that can help it as well. And a lot of times when you overlap them, you'll see that they're in competition. with one another. Well said, so good, excellent. Anything else you want to comment there?

Evan Brand: No, we could rant on that all day. Let's move on to the next one.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, cool. Alright, so next thing I wanted to highlight after that was going to be talking about the blood sugar stuff. And that kind of overlaps with the type two. This is type four, toxic or cortical, and this is, this is associated with exposure to toxins. You already hit one up that I think was really important, which is the mold toxin exposure, but we also know other insecticides and chemicals and herbicides, they're going to have a lot of negative impacts on the brain. And again, what we're talking about acutely these stressors can cause memory loss, and cognitive issues chronically over decades. They can create Alzheimer's and dementia and I just kind of want to highlight alzheimer's and dementia doesn't magically manifest at 60 70 or 80. It starts in your 20s and 30s. Okay, and then may take 30 or 40 years to manifest. So people that haven't have a little bit of cognitive issues now, I want you to make sure you're wrapping your head around that that could eventually lead into these things. And the same things that we would do now to treat minor cognitive issues are going to be the same things that we're going to be doing to treat major cognitive issues.

Evan Brand: Yeah, just takes longer because you've got to reverse more damage. It's not like okay, if you're just having this amount of brain fog, we're only going to give you this amount of herbs to kill the Candida know if you have tons of Candida and you're, you know, very deep in the rabbit hole cognitive issues, we still have to knock the Candida down.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And then when we look at this, we kind of are checking all or we're looking at all of these six types. We're looking at all of them so we can ensure that they're all being addressed. Do you want to talk about your exposure your previous experience with mold or pesticide exposure and your cognitive abilities?

Evan Brand: Yes, I mentioned the whole walking into the pantry, hoping to put the almond butter back in there, but somehow I ended up in the bathroom. I was very forgetful. I'd go out into the garage, I need to go get a tool for something I'm working on, or I got to change a light bulb, okay, I'm going to the garage and get a light bulb, I get out to the garage, what am I doing out here, just crazy stuff that definitely was not normal. And so I did do some cognitive support in the meantime, which we'll get into talking about some of those nutrients. So I did do some quote, brain support band aids and nootropics. But it had to be root cause I could have taken the brain nootropics forever and not got to the root cause so that's the important thing that I don't want people to miss when we get into talking about nutrients is you can't just do the magnesium three and eight forever. I mean, you can but but why? Why is your system revved up? Why are you needing extra blood flow support what's blocking the blood flow in the first place and and mold toxin reduces nitric oxide production. So I developed cold hands and cold feet. So my brain wasn't working good likely due to lack of blood flow, which is the next thing we're going to get into. I guess we could transition to that now. But the lack of blood flow affected other things. It wasn't just the brain. It was the hands. It was the feet It was the circulation, it was the core body temperature. So a lot of things got down regulated. And those have slowly returned back to normal with the appropriate treatment.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% love it. And you had an interesting exposure to mold as well, which you already highlighted. And there's a whole another podcast that we've done individually on these topics have more mediation, because that gets a little bit more technical, right. There's a lot of times there's some environmental stuff that needs to be addressed in the actual home. So more for those podcasts. You know, I've interviewed JW Bobby, and Jeff Bookout, I know you have as well. So I'd recommend taking a look at those podcasts for more information on the mold side.

Evan Brand: Yeah, point out one, one last thing, which is, it could often be the moldy office building or your children's moldy school. So if you notice that your cognitive function is pretty good at home, but then you get to school and you're super brain fog or you get to work and you're super brain fog. It could be a problem there. So some of the stuff that just And I discussed with our clients and patients is that we're using petri dishes to test their homes, but also their offices and the schools because often we find that the sources outside of the home. And really, it's tough because you only got a couple limited options of can you fix the school? Can you fix the office and can you do an air purifier on your desk? You know, so there's a couple things but more of that discussion is in these multi specific podcast.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. Excellent. Alright, so next would be vascular issues. So I'll call this 12345. This is five is five types, but I'm going to just call six I don't like the, the in between ones. So this is Step five, this is vascular. Now couple things that are going to reduce vascular number one is gluten. If you have gluten sensitivity, that's going to be a no brainer. Even people that have not been gluten sensitive. They seen gut permeability due to gluten and that can obviously go up The ability can make your gut more permeable and allow undigested foods or various bio toxins to get from the gut into the bloodstream easier, number one. Number two, there's a really interesting study on patients with migraines. And this there was a small study there was 10 people in the study, but they had a control group that took a medication, one group did nothing and the other group did a gluten free diet. And remember, a lot of times in the research gluten free does not even mean grain free. So my experience with thousands of patients I can tell you grain free tends to be a lot better because your cut a lot of people could be sensitive to other types of grains like rice or corn or oat. So a lot of people they replace the gluten free the the wheat, barley, rye, so to speak with other grains that have that are gluten free, but still could have inflammation components to it. So I think you could do even better by replacing it with squash or sweet potato right? That's, that's number one. So in the study, they found that nine out of the 10 Their migraines went away. And the major mechanism of why this worked was is they saw, they did like functional MRI, they saw a decrease blood flow in these migraine groups. And they the mechanism was that the gluten was decreasing blood flow up the carotid artery, right. This is like the garden hoses on the side of your neck to go up to the brain. That was decreased perfusion to the frontal cortex, right? That's the powerhouse of the brain. That's where all the higher level thinking happens. And when they decreased gluten, when they cut it out gluten free, so you know that's not full, good, good quality paleo, right, they had a significant increase in blood flow, those areas of the frontal cortex lit up better and they saw a significant reduction in their migraines nine out of 10 gone.

Evan Brand: That's amazing. So you're literally dumber when you're eating gluten so when you make fun of your family members for like eating a muffin and they're like, please stop eating the muffin. You know, you can tell him that. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Everyone's a little bit different. Everyone's a little bit different. But here's the thing, right? If I say, Hey, I'm food sensitive to gluten, what's your first gut instinct on how that would manifest?

Evan Brand: You're going to think of it as a gut symptom, not a brain symptom,

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, bingo! Bloating, gas, diarrhea. So most people in their head, they kind of look for those issues to manifest. And they're like, Oh, I'm sensitive. But in this example, a lot of times the cognitive issues may be the first to manifest. And they may never associate that. And if their diets already kind of crappy, and they're kind of stressed, that type of cognitive issue may be something normal, so they're just kind of accustomed to it and they write it off.

Evan Brand: Yeah, well said. And that's why we gather so many puzzle pieces when we're doing a workup with somebody because we're not specifically going to say, Hey, we're going to do this to reduce brain fog. We're just putting our foundational pieces in place and running you through the system. And as a byproduct of running you through this functional medicine system. That's when Things magically get better. Like I had a lady who said that her voice got better. And then she could sing a couple higher levels and she could previously sing. I'm like, I wasn't trying to improve your singing, I have no idea, was it reduction of inflammation on the vocal cords? Like, I've got no clue what happened was that adrenals was that a hormone thing? Because you know, as women age, you hear the voice change a bit. So it's really cool to see stuff get better by accident.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And this is really important where if someone here is looking for a clinician, you need to find a clinician that has a clinical model and a clinical framework because I can tell you as a doctor that goes to and learns a lot and go hey, you know, gone to lots of conferences. The problem is, you get thrown lots of information at you. And the question is, how do you apply it? It's like, imagine you're like a contractor or handyman, right? And someone just like throws like 100 new tools at you. You're like crap, Okay, I'm gonna like stuff in my tool bag, but I have no idea. How to use them. I don't even know where to pull that one out. Like, yeah, I'm in a situation where I'm hanging drywall, but this new screw gun, I don't even know where that goes, right. So that's where the framework happens because it's like, Oh, I got 10 new tools. And then here is where it lines up in the progression of this patient. Here's how we use it. Here's how we integrate it. Also, here's how we use it when things go sideways. Here's the in between tools, we can't get this patient to step two, here's the in between step to get so when you're when you're like looking at clinicians to interview to help you with these next steps. The question I always ask patients is walk me through your clinical framework, like how are you applying things walk me through that whole framework, because the framework is the overall path of how we get there. And then these tools can be integrated along the way, but you need that progression, or it's just not going to work.

Evan Brand: Yep. I love the analogy. All right, let's move on. I think we covered that one.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So the vascular stuff glutens a big one also other influence amatory foods. Inflammation decreases blood flow. All right, inflammation copco causes agglutination agglutination is cell stick to gather more, the more cells stick together, platelets aggregate you're going to have decreased blood flow, decrease perfusion, cold hands, cold feet, lack of energy. blood flow is very important and inflammation, whether it's refined junky, processed omega six fatty acids, whether it's gluten, whether it's processed, high fructose corn syrup, junk food, all those things are going to have a major impact on the vascular side.

Evan Brand: Yeah, it's all of it. Like everything we've already covered is really vascular, for example, the inflammatory on number one, the antimicrobial stuff that the bugs that can decrease vascular stuff. We know a lot of people with Lyme and co infections have blood flow problems, brain problems, cold hands, cold feet, so it's really just a vascular is cool, but it's really all the same stuff we've already covered.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Last one is type six, this is going to be the trauma, right? This is the football injury. This is the car accident. This is a punch to the head, right? traumatic things obviously impact the brain directly, not rocket science. So there's going to be inflammation from where that trauma is. And of course, it can be repetitive trauma like TCE, which is traumatic chronic encephalitis. This is what doctor I think, Polamalu, if you watch the movie ‘Concussion' with Will Smith, you can see that kind of documentary there. But he basically found these in these plaquing of the brain and you can only test it post mortem. So you have to be dead first, and then you do a brain autopsy. And then you see all this plaquing form that's consistent with TCE football players primarily have this anything that with repetitive head trauma, you can see it with car accidents, you can see it with even in soccer to taking a lot of headers, anything that's chronic is going to be an issue and then if You have the acute stuff acute stuff could be a car accident, it could be a big fall slipping, falling banging your head. Anything you want to add to that?

Evan Brand: Yeah, so a lady named Melissa her last name used to be Hartwick, but she got a divorce now her last names Urban, I think or maybe that's her. Oh, yeah, yeah. original name. Anyway, she's the lady who she sees the whole 30 girls. Yeah, the whole the whole 30 girls so she actually had posted something about how she was at like a laser tag event and she doesn't know what happened. But I think she blacked out. And now she's been documenting all of her journeys and posting videos of her in therapy like bouncing balls and stuff. So, you know, she was just probably out with her kid having a fun day. And then I don't know what happened if somebody hit her in the back of the head with a laser gun or what happened but just one bang, like that could be enough to just really throw everything off. And, you know, when my daughter was two, and her she kicked herself back in her high chair toppled back and she hit her head on the floor and had a concussion. Her gut was messed up for months. Yeah a lot a lot of indigestion and burping and different things. So we know because of the gut brain axis that a lot of people that have gut issues, just like you mentioned previously, you may not trace the gluten to the, to the migraine, you're thinking gluten diarrhea or something. Same thing with head injuries, you may have diarrhea or you may have indigestion, and it could be from a head issue. So it's it's all connected is basically all I'm trying to say. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It's bi directional is a two lane highway. So gut issues can create brain issues, but brain issues at that acute traumatic level can create gut issues. So it's really important if you have a head issue, make sure you let your doctor know. Now what do we do about it? So you can do natural anti inflammatory things like curcumin, or if it's fair trawl or citric choline or alpha glycerol phosphate choline, high dose fish oil is real helpful progesterone fasting for a day or two can help. Those are all supplemental things we can do laser therapy Be over the area to reduce inflammation. We can also do PMF pulsed electromagnetic frequency, we can do hyperbaric oxygen therapy as well. hyperbarics are great, the increase oxygen can reduce a lot of the inflammation. Also, I'm a big fan of cranial psychotherapy from a chiropractor or trained up legere massage therapist is great, Craig because what happens is this cerebral spinal fluid that flows underneath the skull, right, these cranial bones, and this isn't just one bone, these are all interlocking IV of the parietal. We know we have the parietal, we have temporal, we have occipital right, all these different cranial bones and when they get stuck and don't move the cerebral spinal fluid, the CSF underneath, it does not flow as well. And that cerebral spinal fluid really helps reduce the inflammation and helps calm down the area of stress. So anytime you have trauma, like that, you need to see a really good trained chiropractor or up legere cranial sacral therapists that can make sure those bones are moving appropriately.

Evan Brand: Yep. Great advice. I want to throw some more nutrients in there. You mentioned high dose fish oil, which is awesome, progesterone being awesome. So I've done really well with the magnesium three and eight. And I've used it hundreds of times because it creates a barrier. So like your magnesium citrate and glycinate Malli. You know, we'll use those more for gut and muscle type things but the three and H great for there's even some papers on PTSD, anxiety, cognitive issues, memory loss, and you can go much higher. If it is more memory related, you can go higher with dosing of three and eight, and then the nootropics you know, they can't be ignored. So I wrote a whole book on that, which is in bookstores. So if you ever see Evan brand on a in a bookstore, hey, that's my book. And I wrote all about things like decaffeinated green tea extract can be helpful. Even just regular green tea extracts, like macho can be helpful for the brain. Then post a team is great. It actually comes from the Perry winco, which is a flower and [inaudible] has some cool Vaseline dilating effects on the brain. So when we talk about mechanisms, you want things to increase blood flow. So nitric oxide boosters like deep powder, I know my brain always works better when I drink a little bit of beet powder. So that's a cool a cool hack or just eating beet, you don't have to do powder I just powders easy so I do the powder. And then you've got like your, your Ras attempts you know you've got your [inaudible] those can be helpful, but I find a lot of people in the whole like biohackers Smart drug community, they don't focus on root cause they focus on okay what's this next smart drug that I can take and that's that's that's that's not smart because you're missing the mold toxin damaging the brain in the first place so you won't need harassing them. If you're have detox your body like I used to depend on using brain supplements to try to Hmm, to try to Band Aid myself but I was missing the boat. So now that I learned so much more about toxicity in the brain. I made help someone by giving them like a brain nootropic formula, but that's not where it stops. And for most people, that's where it stops. It's a Hey, can you give me a supplement to help my brain? It's like, um, what do you mean supplement to help your brain? Oh, well, my memories bad. I need a memory supplement. It's like, Ah, that's the wrong way of thinking. I don't like that reductionist thinking.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And it just depends on kind of where you're at. Right? If you've done all the if you're if your guts doing great, and you worked all the diet and lifestyle stuff out, and you're in your foods good, and your toxic exposures. Great, and that may be the next step for you. But if you haven't worked through that progression with someone yet, then we may want to just start with the foundational stuff first.

Evan Brand: Yeah. And I'm not trying to say there's never a time for that because I give tons of people's brain supplements, I sell brain supplements all-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Depends where you are.

Evan Brand: But I'm just calling out the people who it's like a family member at the Thanksgiving dinner, who knows what to do for a living and they're like, Evan, I need a brain supplements like, oh god, how many hours do you have to discuss with me, you know, go ahead and Book a new client call because it can take me a few hours to get to that point.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, it just it's like, well, I can see you're eating gluten in a not so good diet and you're wanting to spend $50 a month on a brain supplement. Like let's just start with the low hanging fruit first, because I guarantee you just by making that minor diet tweak, you're going to see much more improvement, much more bang for your buck than any supplement to give you. 

Evan Brand: Absolutely Yeah, I remember a lady when I was actually working out of a chiropractor's office. Speaking of migraine, she had migraines for 20 years. The first step to get rid of gluten she came back in the next week no more migraines. She came in the next month no more migraines six months later, no more migraines is like oh my god, and here she was paying. I don't remember how much it was for. Oh God, what's it called? Topamax? I think it is the-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Migraine medication. Yeah. Oh my.

Evan Brand: It was a hundred dollars a month I believe.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, it's crazy. Also Upper Cervical chiropractic or just having any subluxations in the neck where you can see a good chiropractor that can make sure that Atlas and access are moving good or there's no fixation in the spine just so you can have good movement and that's fine. That makes it a Huge difference because there's a lot of nerves going up and have a lot of proprioceptive input, right? A lot of input from here goes to the brain. And if there's, if things aren't moving, right, or some of these bones are misaligned, and creating blood flow issues or or nervous system a fair issues, right, that's going to have some big impact to and a lot of times you'll see that associated with trauma. But remember being born is trauma, right? So you have to look at it all there. But if it's acute, definitely need to see a good chiropractor that can assess the craniums as well as the upper cervical spine. 

Evan Brand: Yeah, I remember when I was working at this chiropractor's office, there was a guy who got hit on a motorcycle right in front of the office, and he was laying out in the road, you know, motorcycles tore to pieces, he's just laying down in the road. And luckily, he was able to run out there. And I don't remember exactly what he did. I was still stuck in the office with a patient but I was watching him and he was just kind of gently, you know, helping the guy get off the ground because he's like, if your average person gets a hold of him, they're going to rip him up off the ground. And if something's messed up, You could be in really bad trouble. So it was cool to see kind of boots on the ground chiropractic care in an acute situation like that guy ended up going okay, but man it was it was crazy.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, ideally you just kind of get a mixture of spines relatively straight. Keep them there until you get a stretcher.

Evan Brand: Yeah, I think that's what they did I remember the ambulance came and all that. But yeah, I've had experiences where I've gotten an adjustment. And it's almost like instant mental clarity. It's like, Whoa, what happened? I got to just yeah, now my brains more clear is very interesting.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Definitely can make a difference for sure. Especially if you need it. Excellent. Anything else you want to address today? So I think we hit all the supplementation, or at least some of the key nutrients with is also bacopa and you know, pectin, very various blueberry or green tea extracts huperzine. Things that help boost acetylcholine, acetylcholine all comes from, you know, good amino acids, good protein. So obviously anything with the gods digestion, higher quality paleo templates. We A nutrient dense anti inflammatory, you know, keeping the carbohydrates in check for what your body needs, obviously moving helps because moving helps with brain derived neurotrophic factor. So lifting weights moving, sprinting, getting some movement and it really helps with the brain as well and can help with memory too. So all these things are really important. Everything has to be connected together. got issues, like we already mentioned, that's where everything happens from a digestive standpoint. We're not absorbing, digesting, utilizing and assimilating our nutrients that's going to have cognitive effects.

Evan Brand: Yeah, the rebounder has been very helpful for me, I love rebounding, I feel so much better moving that lymphatics around to taking limp support can be helpful. calming the immune system, immune support can be helpful because if you've got a mast cell activation problem or some type of a histamine problem that can affect your cognition as well. So if you're somebody who eats a meal and all the sudden you feel worse, you get brain fog or something after you eat, you know, that kind of clues us into where to look as well. 100% money Anything else you want to address today and we'll just give people the links if they want to reach out clinically, Dr. J and I work with people worldwide we love our jobs. We're grateful we have so much fun and we have a lot of good results with people in the process. So changing lives one at a time helps change society because you're a better driver you're a better wife better husband better mom better father, you know better parent, better teacher and teacher. You know, we work with a lot of attorneys and CEOs we make them better entrepreneurs and, and better attorneys, you know, so and I love just hearing that you're giving someone quality life back. So I just want to say thanks to people giving us the opportunity to help them if you want to reach out clinically you can schedule a 15 minute free call with both of our staff. Go to JustinHealth.com and you can book that intro call. And same at my website, EvanBrand.com.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Absolutely. And again, make sure you guys subscribe to this YouTube channel Evan's podcast, my podcast will put links below where you can subscribe so you can get access access to more this great info, and it was any family member or friend you could think of that could benefit. Feel free to forward this information over to them. We appreciate it. You know, sharing is caring. So I would really appreciate it.

Evan Brand: All right. Well, you take good care.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey, Evan will be back man next week. You take care brother. 

Evan Brand: See you later. Bye bye. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: All right. Bye.


References:

https://justinhealth.com/

Audio Podcast:  

http://justinhealth.libsyn.com/improving-memory-and-cognitive-function-with-functional-medicine-podcast-265

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