Speaker 1: Okat a team. It's it's the project. Doctor.
Speaker 2: Bill has been away. He's been surfing. He's been No,
Speaker 2: he hasn't. I don't know where he's been, but he's
Speaker 2: been trying to avoid me, let's be honest, and somehow
Speaker 2: I secured him back on the show for.
Speaker 1: You, and he's doing it for you, not me. So
Speaker 1: welcome back, man. Where you been?
Speaker 3: Hey, it's great to be back. I'm glad that you
Speaker 3: didn't get to you know, bored without me. Well, you
Speaker 3: have just been trying to absorb some family time this
Speaker 3: summer and I had a few conferences doing some traveling,
Speaker 3: so it was a little tough to get our schedules
Speaker 3: to aligne. But it's fantastic to be welcomed back, and
Speaker 3: I hope to do a couple more shows before the
Speaker 3: end of the year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker 2: What's your favorite thing to do when you're not being productive,
Speaker 2: when you're being unproductive, when you don't care about crossing
Speaker 2: the t's, dotting the eyes or ticking the boxes, what's
Speaker 2: your favorite thing to do in terms of just chilling
Speaker 2: out for you?
Speaker 3: I guess I would have to say something like just
Speaker 3: going to the beach where there is a bar right
Speaker 3: next to the shore, just grab a cold one and
Speaker 3: stare out into the sea.
Speaker 2: And think about what is Are you on any level
Speaker 2: philosophical or like we all know you very logical, rational, scientific,
Speaker 2: But is there a part of you that's just like,
Speaker 2: what's it all about?
Speaker 3: Well, it depends how many beers I have.
Speaker 2: As a correlation, as one goes up, the other goes up.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. But yeah, for the sake of argument, yeah,
Speaker 3: you do start to think about some of those things.
Speaker 3: But basically what I try to do when I'm in
Speaker 3: that environment is keep my mind clear. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: like most people, my default brain just runs in all
Speaker 3: sorts of different directions all the time, and that gets
Speaker 3: a little exhausting. So it's nice just to be able
Speaker 3: to make yourself aware of the present moment, the beauty
Speaker 3: of your surroundings, you know, the piece, and and just
Speaker 3: kind of be in the present as they say, be
Speaker 3: here now kind of thing.
Speaker 2: I love that there's a difference between busy, chaos and
Speaker 2: busy okay, because sometimes busy is stressful, anxiety producing, unenjoyable,
Speaker 2: and sometimes busy is like creative and fun, right sure.
Speaker 3: Sure, And I think John Lennon had a great quote like,
Speaker 3: you know, life is what happens, you know, while you're
Speaker 3: making all these plans. Yeah, so it's really nice to
Speaker 3: step back from all of the I got to do this,
Speaker 3: I got to do that, I'm worrying about this, and
Speaker 3: just actually experience your existence.
Speaker 1: Yes, so true.
Speaker 2: It's like life happens despite me, Like life was here
Speaker 2: before me. Life's going to be here. It depends how
Speaker 2: we're defining life, I guess. But the human experience of life,
Speaker 2: it's like it ain't going anywhere.
Speaker 1: You know, we'll come and go.
Speaker 2: But do you get with your and I know we're
Speaker 2: going to have a particular chat this is not it,
Speaker 2: but we'll get there.
Speaker 1: Do you with your workload.
Speaker 2: And your responsibilities, do you get particularly stressed or are
Speaker 2: you not really that personality top.
Speaker 3: Well, I think, as most of your audience knows, I'm
Speaker 3: a scientist, so that can be a very stressful job
Speaker 3: because you always need to acquire funding to support your
Speaker 3: science and the team that is doing the work in
Speaker 3: the lab. But I can't imagine doing anything else, Craig.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like being an explorer. It's like being
Speaker 3: paid to solve mysteries. And puzzles, and it's a job
Speaker 3: where no two days are the same. And you know,
Speaker 3: monotony does not exist in my line of work because
Speaker 3: we are at the edge of human knowledge and we're
Speaker 3: trying to push that frontier forward. And there's no greater
Speaker 3: task I can think of to do on a daily basis,
Speaker 3: except maybe being a podcast aster like you that would
Speaker 3: have such rewards. You know, because even though I'm getting
Speaker 3: a kick out of, you know, exploring the unknown, I
Speaker 3: work in biomedicine, so the things that we discover could
Speaker 3: potentially down the road sometime lead to some very significant
Speaker 3: and clinically relevant therapeutic that's going to help people. And
Speaker 3: you know, if that doesn't get you out of bed
Speaker 3: every morning, yes, I don't know what will.
Speaker 2: Has there been anything significant over your research journey, your
Speaker 2: creative investigating, your curiosity, or your curious career that you've
Speaker 2: done a total one ID on something that you went, No,
Speaker 2: this is true, this is this is how it works,
Speaker 2: and then maybe a decade later, you went, doesn't really
Speaker 2: work like that.
Speaker 1: I just thought it did. Oh.
Speaker 3: I think that's kind of the that's science in a nutshell.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like all these great things we do
Speaker 3: discover you. With continued research, we find either nuances to it,
Speaker 3: or sometimes we totally turn the idea on its head.
Speaker 3: In my own field as a parasitologist working on this
Speaker 3: brain parasite toxoplasma GANDHII, the overriding themes when I was
Speaker 3: a young graduate student was that this was a fairly
Speaker 3: benign parasite. Yeah, it gets in the brain, but it
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to be doing anything as long as you're healthy.
Speaker 3: It becomes a significant problem only when you're immune compromised,
Speaker 3: and in that case it can potentially kill you. So
Speaker 3: that was the dogma when I was in graduate school.
Speaker 3: But as of maybe ten fifteen years ago, new studies
Speaker 3: are coming out suggesting that even in healthy people, this
Speaker 3: brain parasite is maybe not benign, and it could be
Speaker 3: causing predisposition to schizophrenia or other neuropsychoses. And that was
Speaker 3: something we really didn't appreciate when I was learning about
Speaker 3: this parasite in the beginning. So all sorts of I mean,
Speaker 3: that's not like turning something on its head, per se,
Speaker 3: but it's learning something brand new that no one really
Speaker 3: gave a second thought to, and that's really exciting for
Speaker 3: me and my laboratory got engaged in some of those
Speaker 3: studies to show that the neuroinflammatory component of the disease
Speaker 3: is probably the root cause of some of these behavioral
Speaker 3: changes that we see in infected animals and humans, and
Speaker 3: that was one of the most rewarding findings that has
Speaker 3: come out of my laboratory.
Speaker 2: What I mean, I'm sure it's far and wide, but
Speaker 2: in a nutshell, what is the most effective treatment for
Speaker 2: that inflammation in the Brian Is it just an antibiotic,
Speaker 2: is it a string of things?
Speaker 1: Or am I off the mark?
Speaker 3: No, You're not off the mark. Neuroinflammation is linked to
Speaker 3: a variety of different diseases. So there are some therapeutics
Speaker 3: that are trying to be developed where they can do
Speaker 3: like a targeted you know, quelling of that neuroinflammation, because
Speaker 3: it's always a catch twenty two. If that neuroinflammation is
Speaker 3: caused by an infectious agent and you get rid of it,
Speaker 3: there's a risk that the infection could roar back, maybe
Speaker 3: in a very dangerous way, or some unrelated infection. You know,
Speaker 3: you could be susceptible to that. It's to catch twenty two.
Speaker 3: It's some of these immunotherapies that try to dampen the
Speaker 3: immune system, and people who have allergies or autoimmune disease.
Speaker 3: You can do that and alleviate those symptoms, but you
Speaker 3: make those individuals more vulnerable to infection because their immune
Speaker 3: system is modestly depressed.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I didn't plan to tell you this, but
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you this because it's vaguely in
Speaker 2: the ballpark. But the last month or so, I've felt rubbish, right,
Speaker 2: And I try to not let people know that because
Speaker 2: I don't think not because I don't want people to know,
Speaker 2: but because I don't want to turn up and do
Speaker 2: my job and say, by the way, I feel trash.
Speaker 2: So you're going to get a three out of ten podcast, right,
Speaker 2: or whatever it is, whatever it is the thing that
Speaker 2: I'm doing. But I've had this, just this, you know,
Speaker 2: onslaught of weird and different symptoms. And I thought I
Speaker 2: had diabetes because I was thirsty all the time, and
Speaker 2: which I don't eat rubbish. I eate two meals a day.
Speaker 2: I don't drink beer, I don't drink soft drink. You know,
Speaker 2: like that, from a behavioral point of view, the chance
Speaker 2: of me and from a physiological point of view, fit
Speaker 2: I'm strong, I'm healthy, I'm lean.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: But my dad had diabetes and I went, well, mate,
Speaker 2: or has diabetes. So I'm like, well, maybe this is
Speaker 2: genetic and this is me now so, and then a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of other things like weeing a bunch and
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, maybe I've got prostate issues and all
Speaker 2: these old man things.
Speaker 1: I'm like, really, I don't know. Anyway, went had all
Speaker 1: of these tests done and all of that.
Speaker 2: Good, like, you're not a diabetic, you're not even nearly
Speaker 2: a diabetic, you don't have prostate issues, your PSA is low,
Speaker 2: don't have like your cholesterol's low, your blood pressure is low.
Speaker 2: And then they said but and then I had to
Speaker 2: have a CT scan on my head and they went, well,
Speaker 2: you've got.
Speaker 1: Basically the whole right side of your face.
Speaker 2: The sinuses are blocked and I was getting constant blocked
Speaker 2: years right and you've got an infection in your head
Speaker 2: that you probably had for months.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, could that explain all this?
Speaker 2: And they go yes, I go because I feel like
Speaker 2: dog shit, and they went, well, that could be it.
Speaker 1: And then so I have for the last six months.
Speaker 1: Doc had.
Speaker 2: Every day of every day, not one day without it
Speaker 2: where my ears would block, and sometimes it be one ear,
Speaker 2: sometimes it'd be two. And I did a speaking gigla
Speaker 2: not last week, the week before. Yeah, so about nine
Speaker 2: days ago, ten days ago, and both of my ears blocked.
Speaker 2: Before the presentation, I had to talk for two and
Speaker 2: a half hours with two totally blocked years.
Speaker 1: And you can't. I can't hear anyone. I can't. My
Speaker 1: voice is reverberating in my head. It is so loud
Speaker 1: that if I say, go to the toilet.
Speaker 2: Where I'm in a quiet room, I can hear my
Speaker 2: heartbeat in my head. I can just stand still and
Speaker 2: I could tell you what my current heart rate is
Speaker 2: just by looking at my watch and you know, doing
Speaker 2: fifteen seconds counting the beats, multiplying before I can go
Speaker 2: my heart rate sixty at the moment or whatever, right,
Speaker 2: And it just makes communication and interaction and focusing almost impossible.
Speaker 1: So I've had that forever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm sorry you went through that ordeal. But
Speaker 3: did you get legs amuntombiotics?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I've got doxy cycling. I think that's what
Speaker 2: it's called. Is that anyway? And so I started on
Speaker 2: that I'm currently I think today was my fourth or
Speaker 2: fifth and for the first time in six months, I've
Speaker 2: had touchwood. I don't want to get ahead of myself,
Speaker 2: but for about forty eight hours, I haven't had a
Speaker 2: blocked year, which.
Speaker 1: Is like a miracle.
Speaker 2: And it's just like and it's this sounds weird and
Speaker 2: it's but talking to you now is so awesome because
Speaker 2: I can hear you clearly, my ear is not blocked.
Speaker 1: And then it's me.
Speaker 3: But just because you can hear.
Speaker 2: No, you're definitely therapeutic, so with Jesus for doctor Bill.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing though, when all this shit happens, right, so,
Speaker 2: there's this physiological stuff that's gone on but also impacts
Speaker 2: your brain because you've got inflammation, you know, right up there,
Speaker 2: and then it then it affects your psychology. And then
Speaker 2: I would start to get nervous ten fifteen minutes before
Speaker 2: a gig, thinking please don't block, please don't block, please
Speaker 2: don't block, and invariably they would block, and it's like.
Speaker 1: I almost talk myself into it.
Speaker 2: So anyway, yeah, that's that's where I'm at, and it's
Speaker 2: it seems to be it seems to be on the end,
Speaker 2: which is so good. It's so funny when one little
Speaker 2: thing and it's well, seems little, but it can just
Speaker 2: make such a big difference to everything from psychology to emotion,
Speaker 2: to sociology, to physiology to energy to you know, function,
Speaker 2: Like it's like your body is so finely tuned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's almost it's hard to believe that. You know,
Speaker 3: before nineteen thirties, antibiotics didn't exist. You know, people literally
Speaker 3: died from a lot of these infections. And yeah, we
Speaker 3: really take that group of drugs for granted, and they
Speaker 3: really are small miracles, so imagine but continues working for
Speaker 3: you and you make a full recovery soon.
Speaker 1: Thanks sir.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I yeah, it's like literally I thought about that.
Speaker 2: I thought about somebody with this two hundred years ago,
Speaker 2: what happened to them because they hadn't taken anything that
Speaker 2: was going to kill the infection, or they didn't have
Speaker 2: access to that, or they didn't know what killed And
Speaker 2: you know, I'm like, maybe someone would have died probably,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: So now, well there's a reason why life expectancy was
Speaker 3: like forty years of age prior to the discovery of
Speaker 3: the germ theory of disease.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, amazing.
Speaker 2: Now speaking of research and speaking of breakthroughs and speaking
Speaker 2: of potential treatments for something which is very common unfortunately
Speaker 2: in our population, Alzheimer's is being or they're looking at
Speaker 2: treating Alzheimer's with lithium, or they are doing that or
Speaker 2: I didn't do a deep dive because I wanted you
Speaker 2: to tell me. I just know that there's something interesting
Speaker 2: happening in that space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's been a very exciting study that came out
Speaker 3: back in August, and I thought it would be really
Speaker 3: wonderful to talk about it because Alzheimer's has touched so
Speaker 3: many lives, either people developing it themselves or they have
Speaker 3: a friend or a loved one who's suffering from it.
Speaker 3: That and there's no cure, which makes the terror even
Speaker 3: more amplified. But like you said, Alzheimer's it's one of
Speaker 3: the most common forms of dementia and it's terrifying if
Speaker 3: you've ever witnessed someone's succumbing to these symptoms of you know,
Speaker 3: gradually losing their memory, gradually losing their cognitive abilities, their
Speaker 3: capacity for reason and good decision making, developing paranoia, and
Speaker 3: all sorts of horrible things as this disease progresses and
Speaker 3: slowly erodes the brain. But we're talking about fifty seven
Speaker 3: million people worldwide, which is a substantial number of people,
Speaker 3: and as more people we were just talking about, like
Speaker 3: the average life expectancy age, it's much higher these days,
Speaker 3: and old age is a significant factor Alzheimer's. So as
Speaker 3: our population continues to live into these advanced ages, Alzheimer's
Speaker 3: is probably going to become even more common. So a
Speaker 3: lot of researchers are doubling down on investing into trying
Speaker 3: to find a new treatment for this terrible and poorly
Speaker 3: understood disease. So in addition to the human toll that
Speaker 3: it takes, there's a significant economic toll associated with Alzheimer's
Speaker 3: disease too. So as I was researching this particular study
Speaker 3: that came out in August because I want to do
Speaker 3: a popular science article about it, I was struck to
Speaker 3: find that in twenty nineteen and an estimate was made
Speaker 3: on what the global cost of Alzheimer's is and it's
Speaker 3: one point three trillion dollars in US money. Wow, So
Speaker 3: it's just staggering. You can think about what that kind
Speaker 3: of money could be going towards if it wasn't dealing
Speaker 3: with the aftermath of Alzheimer's and what it does to people.
Speaker 3: So just really underscores the urgency to come up with
Speaker 3: new treatments. And that's why this study which came out
Speaker 3: of Harvard Medical School led by a geneticist and neuroscientist
Speaker 3: named Bruce Yank Nurse. So he and his team have
Speaker 3: come up with this connection that hasn't been seen before
Speaker 3: with lithium in the brain and the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's.
Speaker 3: And the study was important for well several major reasons.
Speaker 3: The first of which is no one really appreciated that
Speaker 3: the element lithium had a major role in the function
Speaker 3: of the brain. Yes, and this study kind of showed that,
Speaker 3: and we can walk through some of the details why.
Speaker 3: The second major feature is that it could lead to
Speaker 3: new treatments. This is a not discovery, first time it
Speaker 3: was ever seen, and if it does hold up, it
Speaker 3: could lead to a very rapid progression of new treatments
Speaker 3: for Alzheimer's there's very few at the moment. And it
Speaker 3: can also lead to a new diagnostic tool because now
Speaker 3: we know that you know, with lithium being connected to Alzheimer's.
Speaker 3: You can measure that element in the blood and maybe
Speaker 3: come up with a new screening tool to identify Alzheimer's
Speaker 3: in people before the more dramatic symptoms kick in, and
Speaker 3: that would give you the advantage of treating early and
Speaker 3: maybe slowing progression of disease, because once it gets going,
Speaker 3: there's really not much we can do about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So so to have almost like a preemptive stroke
Speaker 2: or a preventative measure before it kind of accelerates, so
Speaker 2: tykes called.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, there's drugs that kind of like put obstacles
Speaker 3: in the in the way of the disease progression. And
Speaker 3: it's not eliminated. It's not going to stop it, but
Speaker 3: it will slow it down and maybe give it'll certainly
Speaker 3: extend the quality of life and maybe even give these
Speaker 3: individuals some extra extra years.
Speaker 2: What's what's the mechanism? Like, do you know how it works?
Speaker 2: Like what they did they come up with? Obviously it's
Speaker 2: doing something good, or it's mitigating something or slowing something
Speaker 2: or what did they find?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 1: What is it that causes it?
Speaker 3: Right? So I'll tell you a little bit about Alzheimer's first,
Speaker 3: you can so you can understand the study a little better.
Speaker 3: So this was a disease that was first described in
Speaker 3: the early nineteen hundreds, but the trademark feature was that
Speaker 3: in these people who were suffering from dementia, memory loss,
Speaker 3: and basically, you know, even not being able to remember
Speaker 3: their name or their loved ones or where they lived,
Speaker 3: you know, very significant things. When these individuals, you know,
Speaker 3: pass on, investigations of their brain started to commence. So
Speaker 3: in the autopsies, you don't need to be a scientist
Speaker 3: or doctor to identify which brain had Alzheimer's and which
Speaker 3: brain did not. These brains look dramatically different. They're usually shrunken,
Speaker 3: and they they're lacking some gray matter. But under the microscope,
Speaker 3: what you will also see are these things called amyloid plaques,
Speaker 3: and these are made of a protein called amyloid that
Speaker 3: is not being processed correctly. They form these aggregates that
Speaker 3: get in between the brain cells and kind of mess
Speaker 3: up their communicating with one another. So it really disrupts
Speaker 3: brain thought patterns, and that explains a lot of the
Speaker 3: cognitive defects that we see in Alzheimer's patients. So knowing
Speaker 3: that these plaques form is a big step forward. But
Speaker 3: We've known that for almost I guess one hundred years now,
Speaker 3: and we still haven't come up with really, you know,
Speaker 3: decent treatments for them. We don't really have a way
Speaker 3: to get rid of them. One of the older treatments
Speaker 3: for Alzheimer's was cholinesterase inhibitors, and that modulates neurotransmitters in
Speaker 3: the brain to try to preserve memory a little bit,
Speaker 3: preserve learning ability and motor skills as well. But the
Speaker 3: newer therapies are monoclonal antibodies, and these are directed to
Speaker 3: the amyloid proteins themselves, so patients can be given these antibodies.
Speaker 3: They will bind up the plaques and then sometimes the
Speaker 3: immune system will help even you degrade the plaque to
Speaker 3: a degree. And whether these are really effective on a
Speaker 3: large scale is a little The data is a little mixed.
Speaker 3: They do seem to respond better in some people than others.
Speaker 3: But the bottom line, the upshot of at all is
Speaker 3: that we really don't have excellent treatments for Alzheimer's and
Speaker 3: these patients are really in need of a breakthrough discovery,
Speaker 3: and this study linking lithium to it could be that answer.
Speaker 2: How is it used like that I don't know. Do
Speaker 2: they get in as a tablets, do they get injected?
Speaker 2: How is lithium used as a treatment.
Speaker 3: Oh well, that's I'm glad you brought that up, because
Speaker 3: the study did not look at how lithium works in
Speaker 3: human patients just yet. So this study was it did
Speaker 3: involve looking at human brains and what was going on
Speaker 3: with lithium, and I'll explain that in a minute. But
Speaker 3: the actual proof of concept for the utility that lithium
Speaker 3: might have as an Alzheimer's treatment was limited to mice
Speaker 3: so far. You know, scientists have genetically engineered a mouse
Speaker 3: to lack a certain gene that predisposes it to Alzheimer's.
Speaker 3: So we got this wonderful mouse model of Alzheimer's. And
Speaker 3: as these mice age, because they have this genetic mutation,
Speaker 3: they start to develop the same amyloid plaques and the
Speaker 3: same deficiencies in memory learning and so on. Right, right,
Speaker 3: So let's let's get into this lithium part.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, sure, So it.
Speaker 3: Was known through other research that these amyloid plaques they're
Speaker 3: kind of sticky, and you know, I would hope that
Speaker 3: your audience knows that metals are part of our diet,
Speaker 3: you know, like calcium, iron, copper, you know, even like
Speaker 3: sodium potassium. These these are metals, and a lot of people,
Speaker 3: you know, they look at you funny if you say, like,
Speaker 3: you know, you're eating metal in your diet, and that's
Speaker 3: perfectly fine. You know, you have trace metals, trace elements
Speaker 3: in your food that actually play a role in your biology.
Speaker 3: A lot of enzymes in your cells require some of
Speaker 3: these metals in order to function. And it turns out
Speaker 3: that previous research was finding that these amyloid plaques could
Speaker 3: bind some of the metals that are supposed to be
Speaker 3: operating in your brain. So these scientists that Harvard wondered, well,
Speaker 3: why don't we look at all the metals that people
Speaker 3: would possibly ingest and see if there's a difference between
Speaker 3: an Alzheimer's brain and a normal brain. OK. So they
Speaker 3: tested like twenty seven different metals and there pretty much
Speaker 3: wasn't any difference between a diseased brain and a normal brain,
Speaker 3: with the exception of lithium. So it turns out that
Speaker 3: people with Alzheimer's their brain had very little and possibly
Speaker 3: no detectable lithium in it, whereas a normal brain did
Speaker 3: have lithium, and that was a little surprising because it's
Speaker 3: been underappreciated what exactly lithium does in our brain, despite
Speaker 3: the fact that we've known for some time, and in
Speaker 3: fact it's a clinically, it's a prescribed treatment. There's a
Speaker 3: certain form of lithium that's given for bipolar disorder. You know,
Speaker 3: you may be aware of this in your psychological studies
Speaker 3: and your own research, but bipolar disorder can be mitigated
Speaker 3: to a degree with high doses of lithium. And when
Speaker 3: they saw that Alzheimer's brains were lacking lithium, I guess
Speaker 3: the light bulb went off in their head and they're like, wait,
Speaker 3: we could really be onto something here, because we know,
Speaker 3: for example, these dietary metals play important roles in our biology,
Speaker 3: including the cells that make up the brain, and if
Speaker 3: they are suddenly without lithium, and it's important for something
Speaker 3: in the brain, that could explain a lot of the
Speaker 3: symptoms that these people are that these Alzheimer's patients are experiencing.
Speaker 2: Okay, So for those of us who aren't scientists and
Speaker 2: do research and understand the methodology and the protocol and
Speaker 2: the steps. So when you make a I know this
Speaker 2: is super fundamental for you. But when you make a
Speaker 2: discovery like that, you go, oh, there seems to be
Speaker 2: some kind of correlation between lithium, or more accurately, lack
Speaker 2: of lithium and this cognitive decline through this thing called
Speaker 2: Alzheimer's Right, So initially it must just be well, let's
Speaker 2: try this, because you don't Let's try x amount of
Speaker 2: whatever into this rat or mouse or whatever, and just
Speaker 2: then see what that response is, because it must be.
Speaker 1: High level guessing.
Speaker 2: Really, and then you do something, you create an outcome,
Speaker 2: and you go, all right, let's try this.
Speaker 1: Is that essentially the process?
Speaker 3: It can be, It can be. I mean there was
Speaker 3: some precedent before this study. Metals were found in amyloid plaques. Okay,
Speaker 3: so this group just said I guess they were sitting around,
Speaker 3: maybe in lab meeting one day or at happy hour
Speaker 3: at the pub, and just said, you know, maybe we
Speaker 3: should look at all the metals that should be in
Speaker 3: the brain and see if there's a difference. No one's
Speaker 3: done that before, and this is one of the joys
Speaker 3: of science that I was talking about earlier. Craig, You
Speaker 3: just get this interesting question. No one's apparently done it before,
Speaker 3: even though it seems kind of you know, simplistic in hindsight.
Speaker 3: So let's go check it out. And that's part of
Speaker 3: the fun of being in science. And lo and behold
Speaker 3: what I said. They tested like twenty seven metals or something.
Speaker 3: Twenty six of them were a bust. They didn't see
Speaker 3: any difference. So you can imagine like testing metal after
Speaker 3: metal and getting discouraged. But then bam, they find the
Speaker 3: magic one, the magic one, and that just changes everything
Speaker 3: and say, hey, we could really be onto something here.
Speaker 1: The fact that.
Speaker 3: Sorry, go ahead, you you got another question, Go ahead, no, no.
Speaker 2: No, I was just gonna sign in the fact that
Speaker 2: twenty six showed nothing is actually great news that only
Speaker 2: one did, because that makes it abundantly clear which is
Speaker 2: the thing that's having some kind of impact.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, or else they could have been you know,
Speaker 3: this study could have been delayed for years as they
Speaker 3: tried to dissect which metal was the most important or
Speaker 3: are they working together? You're right, it could have gotten
Speaker 3: a lot more complicated than what it currently seems to be.
Speaker 3: So when they when they found this observation, and this
Speaker 3: was in human brains, so this obviously has disease relevance
Speaker 3: to humans themselves. But they took advantage of that mouse
Speaker 3: model that I was describing earlier to see if it
Speaker 3: also happened in mice. So people can, you know, mostly
Speaker 3: get lithium from their diet. Okay, it's present in a
Speaker 3: lot of fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, So our
Speaker 3: brains do have a low level of lithium that is
Speaker 3: doing something. You know, scientists aren't exactly sure what it's doing.
Speaker 3: Is probably doing many things, but one thing's for sure.
Speaker 3: If it's depleted, it looks like you're susceptible to Alzheimer's.
Speaker 3: And that's exactly what happened in mice. So they took
Speaker 3: these mouse model for Alzheimer's disease and they controlled their
Speaker 3: diet so that they were ingesting little to know lithium
Speaker 3: at all. And in those mice that were deprived of
Speaker 3: lithium in their diet, they started having defects and learning
Speaker 3: and long term memory, and lo and behold, when you
Speaker 3: dissect their brain, they got these amyloid plaques. So just
Speaker 3: by depriving those mice of lithium, they basically gave them
Speaker 3: the symptoms of Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2: Now, this is digressing, but I'm just interested. So when
Speaker 2: we use mice, rats, whatever, we obviously there I guess,
Speaker 2: much more easy to access than other types of brains.
Speaker 2: Does it usually correlate quite strongly? Like what will happen
Speaker 2: in the you know, the brain of a mouse or
Speaker 2: a rat. Is it typically somewhat you know, closely associated
Speaker 2: with similar responses in human brains?
Speaker 1: Like is that why we use them? Because it's quite indicative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's an excellent question. And you really do got
Speaker 3: to answer that kind of question on a case by
Speaker 3: case basis, because there are some models where they're really good,
Speaker 3: the parallels are really strong, and then there's other ones
Speaker 3: that are not. And there are there's no shortage of
Speaker 3: drugs that have looked great in mouse models, but then
Speaker 3: for some reason do not work in humans. And that's
Speaker 3: probably due to different metabolism or different bioavailability or things
Speaker 3: like that. And you do have to be particularly careful
Speaker 3: when you're dealing with a disease like Alzheimer's because that's
Speaker 3: affecting the brain. Yeah, lo and behold structurally, on a
Speaker 3: more fundamental level, the rodent brain does have a lot
Speaker 3: of similarities to the human brain. All mammalian brains do
Speaker 3: have these similarities, but obviously we are far more cognitively
Speaker 3: advanced than a rodent, so you do have to be
Speaker 3: very careful when you're like drawing some comparisons between rodent
Speaker 3: models and humans. But we can't ignore the power that
Speaker 3: these model systems have, because we can't do a study
Speaker 3: like lithium deprivation in humans without being deeply unethical. So
Speaker 3: that's the advantage of these, you know, these mouse models,
Speaker 3: and they're also very useful for the next question, which
Speaker 3: which is, well, what if we give lithium back to
Speaker 3: these mighty that are developing Alzheimer's and don't we don't
Speaker 3: see a lot of lithium in their brain. What if
Speaker 3: we give it back? What happens then? So I imagine
Speaker 3: that was a really exciting question for that laboratory. And again,
Speaker 3: you can't do that kind of stuff. You can't just
Speaker 3: jump right into a human study and do that. You've
Speaker 3: got to look and see what happens in the mouse model.
Speaker 2: Old diseases are you know, or I think old disease,
Speaker 2: you can correct me. But there's a can be a
Speaker 2: genetic component, that can be a lifestyle component, you know,
Speaker 2: like with heart disease, and with diabetes and with you know,
Speaker 2: a myriad of diseases. What do we know about Alzheimer's
Speaker 2: Is that purely genetic? Is it ninety percent genetic? Tempcent
Speaker 2: lifestyle and behavior and nutrition?
Speaker 1: Is it? What is it? Do you know?
Speaker 3: It's it's It's unclear, and it's probably different for different people.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The motive, the current school of thought is that it's
Speaker 3: a mixture between genetic and environmental influences. So there is
Speaker 3: one particular gene that runs in families that seems to
Speaker 3: when it's mutated in a certain way. It's called the
Speaker 3: apoe four gene, and it's a strong risk factor because
Speaker 3: when that gene has a certain variant, you are highly
Speaker 3: predisposed to developing Alzheimer's, and in fact, you'll probably get
Speaker 3: it at an earlier age than most people do, maybe
Speaker 3: as early as in your forties, whereas most people develop
Speaker 3: Alzheimer's in their sixties or later. So are there certainly
Speaker 3: can be genetic susceptibilities, and then there's also environment. It's
Speaker 3: well known that if you are a female, you're more
Speaker 3: likely to get Alzheimer's. Age increases your risk in pre
Speaker 3: existing conditions, including like diabetes and obesity can also increase risk.
Speaker 3: So there's clearly some environmental aspects to it. And what
Speaker 3: this new study just did, Craig, was suggest that there
Speaker 3: might be a dietary aspect to it. People who don't
Speaker 3: get enough lithium in their natural diet could perhaps be
Speaker 3: predisposed to Alzheimer's, assuming the study turns out to be true.
Speaker 2: And of course the exercise scientist wants to know people
Speaker 2: who played or do play sports, you know, whether or
Speaker 2: not it's soccer, or it's boxing, or it's MMA or
Speaker 2: it's full contact whatever Australian rules gridiron who get a
Speaker 2: lot of brain trauma and even traumatic brain injuries. I
Speaker 2: would imagine, but perhaps incorrectly, that that predisposes them to
Speaker 2: be more likely to get Alzheimer's.
Speaker 3: Head trauma is another environmental risk factor. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, So.
Speaker 2: Just to explain to us who don't really understand this, well,
Speaker 2: I'm sure some of my listeners understand it better than me.
Speaker 2: But let's say, all right, we figured this out with
Speaker 2: We've got this clarity around the research that's come out
Speaker 2: with mice, and this seems to be a clear indicator
Speaker 2: of such and such. What would the timeline be if
Speaker 2: everything went pretty well before this would be you know,
Speaker 2: is it two years? Is it twenty years where this
Speaker 2: would be potentially being used as a treatment in humans?
Speaker 2: Like how long does this take? And I know it's
Speaker 2: how long it's a bit of string, I get it.
Speaker 2: But COVID only took ten minutes, So I mean, how
Speaker 2: long does something like this come to you know, fruition
Speaker 2: and be a recognized treatment.
Speaker 3: Well, it could be something that advanswers quite quickly because
Speaker 3: and the answer to that question actually might become a
Speaker 3: little more clear as I talk about this second part
Speaker 3: of this study, which was how do we possibly fix
Speaker 3: this in the mice. What they were discovering was that
Speaker 3: Alzheimer's brains didn't seem to have any lithium. But when
Speaker 3: they looked more closely, what they found is that the
Speaker 3: lithium was there, but it was trapped in these amyloid plaques,
Speaker 3: these protein aggregations that were disrupting neuronal communication. They seemed
Speaker 3: to sequester or gobble up the lithium that was in
Speaker 3: the brain and kind of trap it into this entity
Speaker 3: where it could no longer do its thing. So that's
Speaker 3: where the lithium was going, so that creates a little
Speaker 3: bit of a problem. If you were to give a
Speaker 3: patient lithium, it would probably just get sucked into these
Speaker 3: plaques and it would be useless. So these investigators had
Speaker 3: to get really clever and they identified a different form
Speaker 3: of lithium. It's actually a salt form which is a
Speaker 3: slight chemical modification to the lithium. For the chemically inclined
Speaker 3: people in your audience, it's called lithium or orotate, and
Speaker 3: it's actually been suggested that it could be a better
Speaker 3: alternative for the bipolar disorder condition that we talked about earlier,
Speaker 3: because lithium, a form of lithium, is used to treat
Speaker 3: that as well. The magical property about this salt form
Speaker 3: of lithium, this lithium rotate, is that it appears to
Speaker 3: do the things that lithium needs to do in the brain,
Speaker 3: but it is immune from being sucked into those amyloid plaques.
Speaker 3: It doesn't seem to get absorbed by the plaques. At
Speaker 3: least that's what is seen in mice. And this is
Speaker 3: great because it allows you to use it at a
Speaker 3: very low dose. You don't have to overwhelm the body
Speaker 3: with forms of lithium because that can get toxic, and
Speaker 3: that's one of the major problems with treating bipolar disorder
Speaker 3: with lithium is that the side effects can be really nasty.
Speaker 3: But with this lithium rotate version, you can use a
Speaker 3: very low dose. And the real proof in the putting
Speaker 3: was that in these Alzheimer's mice that are genetically engineered
Speaker 3: to develop Alzheimer's as they age, if they give this
Speaker 3: lithium ooritate to the mice before they exhibit Alzheimer's symptoms,
Speaker 3: they don't develop the disease, which is pretty striking as
Speaker 3: it is, but they want one step further and said, Okay,
Speaker 3: that's really cool, you know, really promising. But what I
Speaker 3: think a lot of people would like to see is
Speaker 3: what if you give lithium ooritate to mice that already
Speaker 3: started developing symptoms of Alzheimer's. So this is why the
Speaker 3: paper got so much publicity. This lithium ooritate in mice
Speaker 3: that we're exhibiting Alzheimer's symptoms not only got rid of
Speaker 3: the plaques, but it reversed the memory loss. And wow,
Speaker 3: that is something that anyone who has had the misfortune
Speaker 3: of witnessing a loved one suffer from Alzheimer's. That's their
Speaker 3: dream come true. You could potentially restore the memory and
Speaker 3: cognitive abilities in these patients with Alzheimer's, assuming this lithium
Speaker 3: oriitate works the same way in people as it does
Speaker 3: in this very promising mouse models. To me, that was
Speaker 3: just like a home run story. Oh yeah, and that's
Speaker 3: why I thought it would be worthwhile talking about today.
Speaker 3: But by the same token, we certainly don't want anyone
Speaker 3: in your audience running out and buying like a lithium supplement,
Speaker 3: which are commercially available, but they're not regulated very well.
Speaker 3: You can't be sure what you're getting. This is not
Speaker 3: a treatment that is approved by the US FDA for
Speaker 3: any medical condition. And like I said before, lithium can
Speaker 3: be toxic. I mean it has caused death in some people.
Speaker 3: So you've got to be extremely careful with any supplement
Speaker 3: you ingest. So this study, as promising as it is,
Speaker 3: you have to keep in mind it is limited to
Speaker 3: mouse models so far, and like you said, there must
Speaker 3: be a robust clinical trial conducted in people before we
Speaker 3: get too excited, and safety profiles as well, because even
Speaker 3: though it looks safe in the mice, this lithium oritate
Speaker 3: could have some adverse effect in humans, We simply don't know. So,
Speaker 3: circling back to your question, Craig, how long might we
Speaker 3: see something? Well, it depends on how many hurdles we jump.
Speaker 3: Is this lithium oritate safe in people?
Speaker 1: Great?
Speaker 3: And passes the first phase of clinical trials? Can it
Speaker 3: actually help with Alzheimer's would be the next best question.
Speaker 3: Maybe it does. How much do we use? You know,
Speaker 3: are there adverse effects? These are all important questions that
Speaker 3: have to be addressed. You know, is it more effective
Speaker 3: than the monoclonal antibodies that are currently used to treat
Speaker 3: Alzheimer's Because you don't want to deprive someone of taking
Speaker 3: that medication which might help them, and risking taking a
Speaker 3: medication which might do nothing or even make it worse.
Speaker 3: You know, that's a possibility too. We've seen some really
Speaker 3: weird things happen in mice that don't hold up in humans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And also I guess over the long term, like
Speaker 2: it might be great for a month or three months,
Speaker 2: but maybe over two or three years we find out
Speaker 2: something that's has a long term negative impact that we
Speaker 2: didn't realize upfront.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 3: That's always a possibility too, and even if clinical trials
Speaker 3: look good, as you start to introduce it into larger
Speaker 3: patient populations, additional side effects may show themselves. But I think,
Speaker 3: you know, anyone who has experienced with Alzheimer's is going
Speaker 3: to tell you this is a devastating disease and we
Speaker 3: really need some new treatments fast. So I think, given
Speaker 3: the you know, the promise of this study, this type
Speaker 3: of work is going to be fast tracked and we
Speaker 3: should be hopefully getting answers sooner rather than later. But
Speaker 3: I would I would fathom to guess that we're still
Speaker 3: years away from this proof of concept to a bona
Speaker 3: fide treatment. What may happen sooner, like we alluded to earlier,
Speaker 3: is a new diagnostic tool to catch Alzheimer's sooner, maybe
Speaker 3: even before symptoms develop, just by taking a blood sample
Speaker 3: and seeing you're lithium levels lowering. If so, that could
Speaker 3: be a sign that Alzheimer's is developing. We can put
Speaker 3: you on one of these monoclonal antibodies and slow the
Speaker 3: progression of that disease, buy you some valuable time until
Speaker 3: maybe a new treatment like this comes along.
Speaker 2: So good, so good, so exciting. The stuff that you do.
Speaker 2: And I know this ain't your research, but your research
Speaker 2: is exciting as well. But to be able to share
Speaker 2: this kind of information with the world, that you can
Speaker 2: make it accessible and understandable for us, and also especially
Speaker 2: when it's something that is like, everybody knows somebody who's
Speaker 2: affected by Alzheimer's, and of course it's even if it's
Speaker 2: one member of a family, it's still affecting twenty people,
Speaker 2: not one, because everybody's affected and everybody loves and cares
Speaker 2: about and worries about and needs to care for that person.
Speaker 2: And you know, so it's like many diseases, it's something
Speaker 2: that even if it's only an individual within the group,
Speaker 2: the group is affected, then everyone needs to you know,
Speaker 2: be involved to it an extent. So I guess it'll
Speaker 2: be fascinating to see how it unfolds and how it develops.
Speaker 2: And you know, yeah, it will take a little while,
Speaker 2: but you think, well, we've never had anything, so we're closer,
Speaker 2: like we've had nothing that really really effective deals with it,
Speaker 2: perhaps reverses it, perhaps make somebody from really cognitively, you know,
Speaker 2: down the rabbit hole back to somewhere in the ballpark
Speaker 2: of normal, Like what what an absolute scientific miracle that
Speaker 2: would be for millions of.
Speaker 1: People who are die thosed every year. And yeah, it's exciting.
Speaker 3: You're literally giving someone their life back, and then you
Speaker 3: know there's nothing you can't put a price on that. So,
Speaker 3: while I wouldn't encourage anyone to go pursue lithium supplements
Speaker 3: of any kind, eating a proper diet will ensure that
Speaker 3: your brain is getting the lithium it needs. So good
Speaker 3: sources of lithium include nuts, seeds, and beans, but honestly,
Speaker 3: most grains, fruits, and vegetables are going to have trace
Speaker 3: amounts of lithium and your body doesn't need much of it.
Speaker 3: So if you're eating a healthy, you know, sensible diet,
Speaker 3: you have no reason to believe that you need a supplement.
Speaker 1: You're the guy. It's always good to chat with you.
Speaker 2: We love you, and you deliver every time. So yeah,
Speaker 2: thanks so much, as always, thanks so much, You're great.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. It's great to be back.
Speaker 2: Tell people where they can find you, follow you, connect
Speaker 2: with you. And for those people who need an amazing
Speaker 2: corporate speaker, just contact me because I'm now his agent, and.
Speaker 3: Will we negotiate ten percent here zero percent.
Speaker 1: I'm going to manage you for free. Yeah.
Speaker 2: If you want doctor Bill to come and do some
Speaker 2: work with your team, email me and I will make
Speaker 2: it happen. Other than that, how do they find you,
Speaker 2: follow you and connect with you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? People can. Like I said, I'm in the process
Speaker 3: of writing up this story for Psychology Today. Hopefully you'll
Speaker 3: come out in next week or two and you'll be
Speaker 3: able to find that link at author Bill sullivan doc com,
Speaker 3: along with all the other writing that I've done all
Speaker 3: of my previous podcasts, including with Craig here and I
Speaker 3: do book talks. I wrote, Please to meet me jeans,
Speaker 3: germs and the curious forces that make us who we are.
Speaker 3: If you're interested in human behavior, be more than happy
Speaker 3: to come talk to your corporation or group about it.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent so bypassed me. You don't know, make
Speaker 2: I strike to his website.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, go talk.
Speaker 1: No, definitely don't.
Speaker 2: Definitely don't go to you, Michael Sagobie affair.
Speaker 1: But it's always great to catch up with you. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, until next time,