Speaker 1: Hi everyone. I'm Katie Kuric, and this is next question.
Speaker 1: You know, I've known and admire Dr Sanjay Gupta for years.
Speaker 1: He's such a great guy. He's also a neuroscientist and
Speaker 1: the chief medical correspondent for CNN, which, as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: when COVID hit put him at the center of the
Speaker 1: pandemic storm. This may be a new pathogen that circulates
Speaker 1: around the world. You're running into a situation where you
Speaker 1: just don't have beds. If those numbers don't budge, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be very hard to get to hurt immunity. I
Speaker 1: think this has added a lot more urgency to an
Speaker 1: already very urgent situation. There has been so much to cover.
Speaker 1: In fact, Sanjay also launched a daily podcast on the subject.
Speaker 1: I'm Dr Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, and this
Speaker 1: is coronavirus fact versus fiction. Throughout this very long year,
Speaker 1: Sanja has really acted as our guide, helping us understand
Speaker 1: the thorny virus and what it means for our health,
Speaker 1: our communities, and our country. And he admits it's been
Speaker 1: as all consuming as you might think. All I think about,
Speaker 1: Katie has been COVID. You know, I viral transmission, how
Speaker 1: people evaluate risk social behavior. But there is some joy
Speaker 1: in getting so head down in something. I feel like
Speaker 1: we live such distracted lives. You get a little bit
Speaker 1: about a lot of things, like I really know so
Speaker 1: much about this virus. I also wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: Sanjay because he's got a new book out. Yeah, believe
Speaker 1: it or not, he found time to write a book
Speaker 1: during this crazy year. It's called Keep Sharp, Building a
Speaker 1: Better Brain at any Age, and it's fascinating. It's also
Speaker 1: a practical guide for better brain health, something I'm extremely
Speaker 1: interested in. And don't worry, we do get into that,
Speaker 1: but since I have the COVID expert of experts, I
Speaker 1: couldn't help but start our conversation there. You must feel
Speaker 1: like you you have a PhD in virology at this point, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean totally and and and the the irony is, Katie,
Speaker 1: is that this is a novel virus, right, So I
Speaker 1: mean novel actually means something, which which that didn't really
Speaker 1: strike me until a few months into this either, Like
Speaker 1: I think because you said the PhD in virology. The
Speaker 1: the irony is that that I think people who had
Speaker 1: a lot of knowledge about this. In some ways it
Speaker 1: got in their way because it's very hard to think
Speaker 1: about something as novel. You immediately want to put it
Speaker 1: into a box. It's the box of stars, it's the
Speaker 1: box of H one, N one, whatever you come up with.
Speaker 1: But this was novel, which means that if you try
Speaker 1: to put it in a box, you probably got it wrong.
Speaker 1: So they had to cast aside their preconceived notions completely,
Speaker 1: and that's hard to do, right for a scientist, it's
Speaker 1: really hard to do, and and it goes against sort
Speaker 1: of how you think about things. Let's get the best experts.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I think there's really really value,
Speaker 1: great value and expertise. Don't get me wrong, But what
Speaker 1: you would do is grab the coronavirus experts, grabbed the
Speaker 1: pandemic experts, and that was all important. But this virus
Speaker 1: was just behaving in a totally novel way. I mean.
Speaker 1: One of the best examples, as you well know, was
Speaker 1: everybody believed that respiratory virus is really only spread when
Speaker 1: you were sick. When you were when you had symptoms,
Speaker 1: that's when you spread. And you know, the guidance was,
Speaker 1: will screen people at airports, will tell people to stay
Speaker 1: home if they're sick, which people should do anyway, regardless
Speaker 1: of whether in a pandemic, and we should be able
Speaker 1: to quell this thing. No one really believed initially that
Speaker 1: this thing would spread most efficiently when people didn't have symptoms.
Speaker 1: That that was that's never really happened before, is it.
Speaker 1: As Dr Fauci has said, never in the history of
Speaker 1: respiratory viruses has that happened before. That's novel. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, remember the story of typhoid Mary. She was
Speaker 1: a silent carrier of typhoid. It was so dramatic because
Speaker 1: she infected all these people in this single residents in
Speaker 1: this community and all that, and people couldn't figure it out.
Speaker 1: This is like millions of typhoid Mary's in a way
Speaker 1: of a of a brand new disease, COVID, So it
Speaker 1: is it was quite extraordinary to sort of see that, uh,
Speaker 1: see see how that all played out. Well, before we
Speaker 1: talk about your your new book, keep sharp, because I'm
Speaker 1: really interested, as someone who's sixty four, in maintaining my
Speaker 1: mental acuity as i age. I just want to ask
Speaker 1: you one last question about COVID, and that is, are
Speaker 1: we seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 1: Every time I feel optimistic, sang, I then read something
Speaker 1: about variance or increased cases, and it's quite nerve racking,
Speaker 1: I think for the average person who doesn't have a
Speaker 1: medical degree or hasn't been deeply, deeply entrenched in the
Speaker 1: science of this, I mean, are we screwed? Are we
Speaker 1: at the tail end of this pandemic? I do feel
Speaker 1: the light on my face, in your face. I mean,
Speaker 1: I do think that the the tunnel is is the
Speaker 1: end of the tunnels in sight? I mean, the then
Speaker 1: can I just can I just remind people, and I
Speaker 1: think this is such an important reminder that they were
Speaker 1: having rave parties in Wuhan at the end of last summer.
Speaker 1: And I bring that up only to say that we
Speaker 1: talked about the vaccines. We talked about the fact that
Speaker 1: science is now rescuing us, which is great, fantastic, but
Speaker 1: so much of this didn't need to happen. And I
Speaker 1: and I and I know that's not your question, Katie,
Speaker 1: but I just feel like I can never answer a
Speaker 1: question about um, about the sort of future or being
Speaker 1: optimistic about this pandemic because I'm so it's just so,
Speaker 1: it's so, I'm so angry in so many ways. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, six people died and some of them are
Speaker 1: my friends. And I've seen families, I talk to families still,
Speaker 1: I just it just this may not have even been
Speaker 1: the Black Swan event, right, we think of this black
Speaker 1: Swan event, this really contagious virus, which this was, but
Speaker 1: something that has a two to three percent mortality that
Speaker 1: would be awful, that would be the Black Swan event.
Speaker 1: This wasn't even that. There were countries around the world
Speaker 1: that immediately quelled this and measure their debts in the
Speaker 1: hundreds instead of the hundreds of thousands. Having said that,
Speaker 1: we are a society. Because we are we focus on
Speaker 1: touchdowns and home runs and knockouts. We don't care much
Speaker 1: for singles and doubles. Because we're that society. We waited
Speaker 1: for science to rescue us. And and the vaccines will.
Speaker 1: I think they're really extraordinary and really effective. They seem
Speaker 1: to be pretty effective against the variant B one one seven,
Speaker 1: the UK variant, because there's a lot of concern about
Speaker 1: that variant. But if you have been vaccinated, or if
Speaker 1: you had the infection in the past, the other you know,
Speaker 1: the the circulating coronavirus that should also protect you. So
Speaker 1: it's really I think it's really good. And I think
Speaker 1: with the warmer, warmer weather in the summer, viral transmission
Speaker 1: rates will go down. That would be great. I do think,
Speaker 1: you know, um, we'll probably get to hurt immunity over
Speaker 1: the summer, but but it's worth reminding that her immunity
Speaker 1: isn't a sort of destination. Necessarily. You can pop in
Speaker 1: and out of her immunity. So if not enough people
Speaker 1: get vaccinated over you know, the next few months, then
Speaker 1: going into the colder weather again in the fall, we
Speaker 1: could see resurgences. It's quite disturbing when you hear about
Speaker 1: the people who are refusing to get vaccinated. Many of
Speaker 1: them are white men, Uh, in this country. I think
Speaker 1: you see the impact of politics on that number, not
Speaker 1: only in terms of the response to the pandemic, but
Speaker 1: now to the response to the vaccines. Uh. That must
Speaker 1: be quite disturbing for you too, it is for me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean there's been no not a single part of
Speaker 1: this entire pandemic that hasn't been politicized in some way.
Speaker 1: I mean that I guess now you say that's in
Speaker 1: in April of two one, and it's obvious, right, everyone
Speaker 1: knows that, but started starting off covering the story, um
Speaker 1: and now all the way now to the vaccines, even
Speaker 1: every single component has been politicized in some way. So
Speaker 1: it is it is disturbing the anti vax movement. And
Speaker 1: you may not even remember this, Katie, but I actually
Speaker 1: did a segment on your your show years ago about
Speaker 1: anti vaccination movement at that time around h one and one.
Speaker 1: But it's been around for a long time, the anti
Speaker 1: vaccination movement, and it's sort of you know, it simmers it.
Speaker 1: We saw measles outbreaks in Brooklyn and and Disneyland and Minnesota.
Speaker 1: This seems bigger though you know that was a particular group, uh,
Speaker 1: and it really dealt primarily with childhood vaccinations and now
Speaker 1: this has expanded to um, you know, these adults who
Speaker 1: I don't know for one reason or another. I think
Speaker 1: you can understand people of color and the terrible history
Speaker 1: of Tuskegee and some of the ways that people of
Speaker 1: color have been abused in scientific research in the past,
Speaker 1: and this kind of deeply ingrained mistrust of the medical community.
Speaker 1: So I think you can appreciate that. But this is,
Speaker 1: you know, this is a whole other ball of wax,
Speaker 1: isn't it? Yes, it really is. And and you know
Speaker 1: we're we're seeing some of this for or really seeing
Speaker 1: it come to light, I should say, you know, in
Speaker 1: a in a pretty dramatic way. Now. I think I
Speaker 1: think I was reading the statistics this morning, Katie Kaiser
Speaker 1: Family Foundation, forty of those in rural areas who say
Speaker 1: they absolutely will not take the vaccine. It's not any
Speaker 1: question of hey, I want more information, I want to
Speaker 1: see how this plays out. They're just saying, out of
Speaker 1: the gate they absolutely not take it. And what said,
Speaker 1: what is the explanation? That's the curious thing, Like you said,
Speaker 1: with some people who are vaccine hesitants, it is concerns
Speaker 1: about safety or mistrust or you know, uh my my
Speaker 1: grandfather was experimented on as part of Tuskegee, you know,
Speaker 1: things like that. With this, I think it's almost an
Speaker 1: extension of this pandemic. Isn't even real. It's not a hoax.
Speaker 1: Why would I take a vaccine for something that's a hoax.
Speaker 1: I'm not scared for safety of it. I just don't.
Speaker 1: I think the whole thing is sort of you know,
Speaker 1: the scam demic sort of thing. So I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's the case. For it's a huge percentage of
Speaker 1: people were talking about here, so maybe there's a some heterogeneity,
Speaker 1: you know, some variety of opinions there. But bottom line,
Speaker 1: if if, if the numbers stay that high, we're not
Speaker 1: going to get to hurt immunity based on vaccinating adults alone,
Speaker 1: which is it's it's it's so. I mean, gosh, we
Speaker 1: wait for science to rescue us. We don't do the
Speaker 1: basic public health practices, and then when when this truly
Speaker 1: extraordinary scientific achievement occurs in the form of this vaccine,
Speaker 1: people don't take it. You know, if you are a
Speaker 1: Martian coming to planet Earth and saying, so, let me
Speaker 1: get this straight. So you didn't do anything about the virus.
Speaker 1: You waited, created this amazing medicine, and then you don't
Speaker 1: take the medicine to it. Just it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: It's a head scratcher for sure. When do you think
Speaker 1: Sanjay will be able to go about our daily lives
Speaker 1: without mass I think it'll be this summer, Katie, I
Speaker 1: I really do. I mean, I know that there's people
Speaker 1: who are painting a more dire prediction around that, but
Speaker 1: you know, we for no other reason alone with the
Speaker 1: warmer weather, and then you're gonna really see the blunting
Speaker 1: despite the vaccine hesitancy that we're talking about. You are
Speaker 1: going to see a significant blunting of people who are
Speaker 1: getting very sick, people who are dying. And we know
Speaker 1: that the the vaccine does seem to have good evidence
Speaker 1: that it stops or decreases transmission. So I think we're
Speaker 1: really going to get to a pretty good point. I
Speaker 1: think you'll still see masks around, you know, in in
Speaker 1: Hong Kong after Hong Kong really wasn't a mask wearing
Speaker 1: country until after Stars and then there was this huge
Speaker 1: psychological impact. That's why they went to mass so early
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong, but they became a mask wearing culture.
Speaker 1: I think you will see people who are just frightened
Speaker 1: still want to wear masks in public places. I think
Speaker 1: in flu season, you know, the colder months, I think
Speaker 1: you'll see more masks. I think that may become a
Speaker 1: a larger part of our culture. Not a dominant, but
Speaker 1: I think a larger part of our culture. That's interesting
Speaker 1: because I remember being in Tokyo maybe gosh, gosh, maybe
Speaker 1: ten ten or twelve years ago and going on the
Speaker 1: train to Kyoto and seeing everyone wearing masks and thinking
Speaker 1: this is so weird. Why are they wearing masks? And now,
Speaker 1: of course I understand, and you're right. I think when
Speaker 1: people are on places like public transportation, if they're in
Speaker 1: a closed spaces with lots of strangers, Um, it actually
Speaker 1: makes sense, doesn't it. I mean, you know, one thing
Speaker 1: we saw, as you may remember, is that the flu
Speaker 1: numbers were way down this past season, and that you
Speaker 1: know that that wasn't because of any increase in in
Speaker 1: vaccination or anything. That was because of just public health behavior.
Speaker 1: It's always worked, you know. I don't know there's a
Speaker 1: metaphor for this, Katie, right, I mean we I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess it's true in our lives, like we'd rather
Speaker 1: just take a pill for weight loss rather than go exercise,
Speaker 1: and we always want the convenience. And and this is
Speaker 1: this is another example of that. We I I was struck.
Speaker 1: And again, we can talk about COVID all day long,
Speaker 1: but the but the I'll never forget these these mask
Speaker 1: researchers from Harvard, a guy named Abera Kuran. He basically
Speaker 1: was doing all this modeling all along. We were talking
Speaker 1: to him. He told me that if for four weeks,
Speaker 1: and this is back, you know, October November of last year,
Speaker 1: if for four weeks everybody just wore a high filtration
Speaker 1: mask when they went out in public, that's it. For
Speaker 1: four weeks, if everybody did that, it would have ended
Speaker 1: the pandemic. Are you kidding? That's incredible. The virus would
Speaker 1: have nowhere to go. It couldn't find a willing host.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know that that that sort of that
Speaker 1: sort of concept is something that's more than a hundred
Speaker 1: years old. I just I just don't quite you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe I'm just being naive, But but
Speaker 1: you hear that and you think it's amazing, right, I
Speaker 1: think it's amazing. And yet we also know both of
Speaker 1: us that in the United States that couldn't happen. It
Speaker 1: just wouldn't happen. I mean, human being survived and thrived
Speaker 1: as a species because we're reciprocally altruistic. There's a reason
Speaker 1: that it feels good to do good. Why should it
Speaker 1: feel good when I do something nice for you? I mean,
Speaker 1: what purposes that serve my evolutionary tree? I don't know,
Speaker 1: But the reality is that it does feel good to
Speaker 1: do good. We encoded that in some way in our
Speaker 1: DNA and then people can't be bothered to wear a
Speaker 1: mask to save tens of thousands of lives. I just
Speaker 1: I'll that may be one of the greatest mysteries of
Speaker 1: all out of this whole thing. Well, I just want
Speaker 1: to say, on on behalf of the American public, thank
Speaker 1: you for your coverage of this UM. I think you're
Speaker 1: so measured and uh so eloquent and and honestly calming
Speaker 1: in a way, and I just really appreciate all the
Speaker 1: fantastic reporting you've done throughout this pandemic. So on behalf
Speaker 1: of a grateful America, I would like to say thank you,
Speaker 1: Sancho Gupta, Well, Katie, thank you, thank you, And that
Speaker 1: obviously means a great deal in particular coming from you,
Speaker 1: So I appreciate that you know, you get it. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're you are the standard obviously by whom
Speaker 1: we all measure ourselves. But also you know you were
Speaker 1: all in these black holes, right I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know where you are right now. As I said, I'm
Speaker 1: in this tiny little closet. I don't you don't get
Speaker 1: any feedback. Sometimes it's been really dispiriting because you think, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm a medical reporter in the middle of a pandemic,
Speaker 1: that that is my you know, that's a job. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, the country in which I'm reporting
Speaker 1: arguably did the worst in the world. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know I keep taking this in that direction, but it's
Speaker 1: just so dispiriting. Did I did anyone listen to me?
Speaker 1: I mean, if if, if you're the medical reporter and
Speaker 1: presumably people are are counting on you to provide knowledge
Speaker 1: hopefully that will inform how they behave and then we
Speaker 1: do the worst in the world. That's that's you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to need to reflect on that. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, in the years to come, like what is
Speaker 1: the real impact here? One could argue that maybe it
Speaker 1: would have been worse, who knows, you know, but it's
Speaker 1: pretty bad. Well, don't get too dispirited, because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people listen, relied on you, and actually acted.
Speaker 1: So even though the track record was bad, your information
Speaker 1: was good and important. So thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: When we come back Sanja and I find some optimism
Speaker 1: and believe it or not, brain health, that's right after this,
Speaker 1: let's talk about keep sharp because moving forward, I think
Speaker 1: many people like me really are interested in how to
Speaker 1: keep our cognitive and mental health at the top. And
Speaker 1: I think you know, certainly, one big change in medicine
Speaker 1: is that we as patients are not passive. It turns out, Sang,
Speaker 1: that there is a lot of things that we can
Speaker 1: do to keep our brains in shape, just like we
Speaker 1: can do to keep our bodies and our organs and
Speaker 1: other things in shape. And that's why you broke keep Sharp.
Speaker 1: But you have a very very personal connection to this,
Speaker 1: I guess, well, obviously because of your specialty, but particularly
Speaker 1: about Alzheimer's dementia and are failing brain power that happens
Speaker 1: as we age. Tell me about that. Well, when I
Speaker 1: was when I was twelve thirteen years old, my grandfather,
Speaker 1: my my mother's dad, who I was very close to,
Speaker 1: um developed, you know, signs of dementia. He had had
Speaker 1: a a stroke earlier in his life that had recovered
Speaker 1: and was now developing. You know, just these these um
Speaker 1: periods of time where he he really wasn't aware of
Speaker 1: what was going on. He would sometimes, uh make a
Speaker 1: joke that no one else was in on, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was all these things that that I remember
Speaker 1: really being struck by as a kid, because you look
Speaker 1: at adults and you're not used to seeing brain power
Speaker 1: start to diminish. And it was the first time I
Speaker 1: saw really specific things like he could he could still
Speaker 1: um right, but he couldn't really read. It was it
Speaker 1: was all these things that became really fascinating in a
Speaker 1: way for me in terms of just how does the
Speaker 1: brain work like that? But also to see it in
Speaker 1: a loved one to wonder, is that how genetic is that? Is? That?
Speaker 1: Is my mom going to develop those symptoms? While I
Speaker 1: one day all of that and then you know, fast forward,
Speaker 1: you know, thirty forty years later, and and we're still
Speaker 1: worrying about the exact same things, and and I haven't
Speaker 1: really made a lot of progress in terms of being
Speaker 1: able to deal with that. So that was that was
Speaker 1: a large part of what I think inspired me to
Speaker 1: to to write the book What has Happened over the
Speaker 1: last forty years? Both from a, you know, a pharmaceutical standpoint,
Speaker 1: but also more importantly, I think from a from a
Speaker 1: lifestyle behavioral standpoint in terms of what we know and
Speaker 1: how did that influence you to go into neurology? No,
Speaker 1: you know it's funny, Um, it didn't. I actually when
Speaker 1: I started medical medical school, I thought I was going
Speaker 1: to go into pediatrics, and then I did a neurosurgery rotation,
Speaker 1: uh during my third year of med school, and I
Speaker 1: just sort of fell in love. So I came to
Speaker 1: it quite late. But I was always interested in the
Speaker 1: brain because of my grandfather, and so it felt like
Speaker 1: a very natural fit. Let's talk about the numbers. Because
Speaker 1: seven million Americans have some evidence of pre clinical Alzheimer's disease,
Speaker 1: and by two sixty one new case of dementia will
Speaker 1: be diagnosed every four seconds. SANJ, what the heck is
Speaker 1: going on here? Well, this is this will become the
Speaker 1: most dominant neurodegenerative disease of our time. I think that
Speaker 1: that part, I think is is pretty well established at
Speaker 1: this point. But there was two things about the statement
Speaker 1: that you just made that I thought were really important
Speaker 1: in terms of what we can potentially do about it.
Speaker 1: As you point out, there's probably about forty seven million
Speaker 1: people who if you were to look at their brains,
Speaker 1: they would have objective evidence of plaques and tangles and
Speaker 1: things like that, but also have no symptoms. That's the
Speaker 1: pre clinical time, right, so out a little well, it's
Speaker 1: you know, but I think this is ultimately good news,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you why. If you look at patients
Speaker 1: with Alzheimer's disease and and and able to retrospectively look
Speaker 1: at their lives and their scans and their brains, you
Speaker 1: find we now know that that Alzheimer's starts in the
Speaker 1: brain decades before people develop symptoms. Decades so you're starting
Speaker 1: to see the kindling and then even plaques and tangles.
Speaker 1: But the fundamental point that neuroscientists really started to focus
Speaker 1: on was almost the the the analog of that, meaning, Okay,
Speaker 1: so now you've established that you can have a brain
Speaker 1: that has plaques and tangles but still functions normally. So
Speaker 1: why don't we focus on that side of things instead
Speaker 1: of saying, hey, look, let's get rid of the plaques
Speaker 1: and tangles, and we have spent billions of dollars testing
Speaker 1: drugs to do that that haven't really worked. What if
Speaker 1: we say, instead, we have established that a brain with
Speaker 1: plaques and tangles can function normally. Let's figure out why
Speaker 1: and see if we can basically make that an aspiration.
Speaker 1: Do you still have objective evidence of Alzheimer's in your brain. Yes?
Speaker 1: Is it consequential? No, because you know you you are
Speaker 1: able to still have normal cognitive function, memory, judgment, all
Speaker 1: the things that you associate with a healthy functioning brain.
Speaker 1: The metaphor, in some ways, Katie would kind of be
Speaker 1: like a heart bypass surgery. You've got a block blood vessel.
Speaker 1: Now you you go in there and you bypass that
Speaker 1: area of the blockage with a new blood vessel. Do
Speaker 1: you still have heart disease? Yes? Is it? Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it causing you some dysfunction? No, because you're getting
Speaker 1: enough blood flow now to the heart. If you can
Speaker 1: think about that same metaphor for the brain, Yes, you
Speaker 1: have plaques, but there's so many ways to build all
Speaker 1: these new pathways in the brain to your destination, that
Speaker 1: little blockages due to the plaques becoming consequential. So is
Speaker 1: there a tipping point? You know you talk about these
Speaker 1: tangles and plaques in your brain. Um, is it just
Speaker 1: a slow growth of plaque or slow accumulation of plaque
Speaker 1: and increase kind of tangles that then lead you from
Speaker 1: being perfectly functioning? You know, maybe some memory issues right
Speaker 1: that once in a while, you you know you're not
Speaker 1: quite as sharp as you were as you when you
Speaker 1: were younger. But where you kind of fall off or
Speaker 1: it's just gradual build up of this gunk in your brain,
Speaker 1: it's it's it does seem to be a pretty gradual
Speaker 1: build up, and you can tolerate a significant amount of
Speaker 1: build up before you I guess as you as you say,
Speaker 1: fall off. You know, so what exactly then pushes people over?
Speaker 1: It's not all of a sudden you have an exponentially
Speaker 1: more plaque, and that leads to the problem. Maybe for
Speaker 1: different people it's a different inflection point. But the brain
Speaker 1: is actually quite resilient. I mean, that's the thing that
Speaker 1: came out of this. Even with a lot of plaque
Speaker 1: and tangle, you could actually be doing fairly well. I
Speaker 1: mean the occasional memory lapse, like you say, which is
Speaker 1: probably do more to inattention than even anything organic in
Speaker 1: the brain, but other than that doing pretty well. And
Speaker 1: you see societies around the world where arguably brain function
Speaker 1: not only is it good, it may be improving as
Speaker 1: you get older, which is so incredible, and that I
Speaker 1: think is one of the hopeful things about this book,
Speaker 1: that that our brains can get sharper and better as
Speaker 1: we age and dementia is not necessarily an inevitable, you know,
Speaker 1: consequence of old age. So um, you know, I remember
Speaker 1: reading Sanjay how your brain like by the time you're
Speaker 1: twenty three or twenty four and then your prefrontal frontal
Speaker 1: lobe and all this thing that has to stuff that
Speaker 1: has to do with judgment, Like after that, your brain
Speaker 1: really stops absorbing and growing and changing. I mean that
Speaker 1: was sort of what I always thought, and then it
Speaker 1: was downhill from there. But but this book is really
Speaker 1: cause for celebration in some ways, right, right, absolutely, you
Speaker 1: know I was told the same thing. Right, You've got
Speaker 1: a certain number of neurons in your brain, and then
Speaker 1: you're going to drain the cash as you go through life.
Speaker 1: Certain things is like drinking alcohol and things like that
Speaker 1: are gonna kill more brain cells. You're never going to
Speaker 1: get them back. I think that's what our parents told
Speaker 1: us to keep us front drink. It works well to
Speaker 1: some extent, but the the you know it, but that
Speaker 1: that part of it is not true, and that that
Speaker 1: may be one of the most fundamental new things that
Speaker 1: we learned. And by the way, you'll appreciate this, Katie,
Speaker 1: I'm in some ways this book, I'm acting as translator.
Speaker 1: I go to these neuroscience meetings because that you know,
Speaker 1: I live this bifurcated life between medicine and media. But
Speaker 1: I'm still going to these neuroscience meetings and they're talking
Speaker 1: about these fascinating developments, and yet that hasn't really gotten
Speaker 1: to the to the lay public yet. So it's about
Speaker 1: a ten year gap in some ways. Keep Sharp is
Speaker 1: to just accelerate that that knowledge tree. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that they've been talking about is exactly what
Speaker 1: you mentioned, which is neurogenesis. Everyone's heard of neuroplasticity, which
Speaker 1: basically means you can recruit neurons, brain cells from other
Speaker 1: areas of the brain to do new functions. This is
Speaker 1: actually growing new brain cells, and we were told throughout
Speaker 1: our lives that it basically happened twice. You know, when
Speaker 1: you were a baby in your brain was still forming,
Speaker 1: and maybe after an injury like a stroke or traumatic
Speaker 1: brain injury, there may be a process of neurogenesis that occurs.
Speaker 1: But what these these neuroscientists have have really I've been
Speaker 1: writing about and focused on for some time is that
Speaker 1: at any age, a healthy brain can continue to grow
Speaker 1: new brain cells. You really can't say that about any
Speaker 1: other organ in the body. So it's quite incredible. The
Speaker 1: stem cell surges, the various growth factors, all these things
Speaker 1: that converge to allow you to grow new brain cells
Speaker 1: at any age. That to me was deeply inspiring. It's
Speaker 1: super exciting. But let me dis backtrack for one moment,
Speaker 1: just so I understand the difference between neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. Um,
Speaker 1: explain it like I'm a fifth grade Okay, So you know,
Speaker 1: when you think of neuroplasticity, it's more like your brain
Speaker 1: is is like plastic it's it's can be molded. So
Speaker 1: let's say there's been an area of your brain where
Speaker 1: someone had an injury or a stroke or something. You
Speaker 1: could sort of mold another part of the brain to
Speaker 1: to fill the game, compensate, compensate, Yeah, exactly. You know.
Speaker 1: Take so if it was motor strength, for example, on
Speaker 1: the right side of your body that was affected, cells,
Speaker 1: brain cells that normally don't do motor function, they're not
Speaker 1: responsible for motor function, could be recruited to do that
Speaker 1: sort of work. Or a sense. You know, even if
Speaker 1: you lose a sense, other senses can start to become
Speaker 1: heightened or even create, right. You hear that with blind people,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of a heightened uh sense of
Speaker 1: I guess all kinds of senses, right, that compensate for
Speaker 1: the fact that you can't see exactly and that and
Speaker 1: that is a that is a It's an amazing concept.
Speaker 1: It's what sort of gives real birth to physical therapy,
Speaker 1: to cognitive therapy. We're using these therapies to basically recruit
Speaker 1: neurons from other parts of your brain to do something.
Speaker 1: The human is so amazing, isn't it. It continues to
Speaker 1: wonder and delight me every day. And I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about this for forty years, you know, I love it.
Speaker 1: Um Neurogenesis is the growth of new brain cells. So
Speaker 1: this this, this, this flies in the face of what
Speaker 1: we were all told when we were young, that you
Speaker 1: only have a certain number of brain cells and that's it.
Speaker 1: This is basically saying you can create new brain cells
Speaker 1: at any age. The metaphor I think that may make
Speaker 1: it more more accessible, is right now, our COVID life
Speaker 1: is kind of like how our brain operates. And what
Speaker 1: I mean is that you probably are at home. You
Speaker 1: may drive to the grocery store. Maybe you drive to
Speaker 1: a couple of different places and you but you're not
Speaker 1: You're you're mostly in in just a small, small square
Speaker 1: sort of area of place. You know how to get
Speaker 1: to all those places really well. You could drive there
Speaker 1: with your eyes closed, no problem. But but you you're
Speaker 1: not traveling around the rest of the world. You're not
Speaker 1: even traveling around the rest of the state right now.
Speaker 1: That's kind of how our brains are. We use our
Speaker 1: whole brain, but the time we're using our brains. That's
Speaker 1: the thing. If you start to actually do things to
Speaker 1: inspire neurogenesis in your brain, it's kind of like building
Speaker 1: new cities and visiting those new cities in your brain.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a it's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: simplistic metaphor, but it makes me really happy to think
Speaker 1: about because visiting other places in your brain is an
Speaker 1: incredibly joyous thing. You start to see patterns that you
Speaker 1: would have otherwise missed. You connect dots, you're thinking is clearer,
Speaker 1: and and and that's the whole concept of of of
Speaker 1: what neurogenesis can do for you. When we come back
Speaker 1: Sanche's advice on how to keep our brains strong, especially
Speaker 1: as we age. We'll take me on a trip, do
Speaker 1: and how can I visit these new places in my brain?
Speaker 1: Because this is really exciting And um, I know your
Speaker 1: book has a lot of recommendations for ways that we
Speaker 1: can encourage neurochantesis. So what do I do? Son J? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know. The way I'll tell you the way
Speaker 1: that I wrote the book was I took all these
Speaker 1: these neuroscience concepts and try to make them accessible and
Speaker 1: also help you set up a substrate for your brain
Speaker 1: in terms of, you know, how you nourish yourself, how
Speaker 1: you rest your brain, things like that. So the basics
Speaker 1: are there, but your question is more about taking the
Speaker 1: trip and building the new brain cells. So after you
Speaker 1: sort of you know, make sure and it's not challenging
Speaker 1: to get to the right sort of place in terms
Speaker 1: of your diet, you know, uh, and and the amount
Speaker 1: of rest that you need. That's important. But the biggest
Speaker 1: I think difference with growing new brain cells versus how
Speaker 1: we typically think about strengthening our brain is that you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily want to just keep doing the same things
Speaker 1: over and over again. The whole practice makes perfect sort
Speaker 1: of teaching the killing drill sort of teaching that a
Speaker 1: lot of schools focus on. It's important to to understand
Speaker 1: and and be able to learn concepts. But that's kind
Speaker 1: of like those roads I was talking about that you
Speaker 1: travel so well, that's like getting even better at traveling
Speaker 1: those same roads. Now you can really do with your
Speaker 1: eyes closed. Now you know it's it's it's totally second
Speaker 1: nature to you. But if you were to do different things,
Speaker 1: totally different things, things that get you out of your
Speaker 1: comfort zone a little bit, a totally different sort of hobby,
Speaker 1: that's when you're starting to actually build some of these
Speaker 1: new brain cells, create some of these new cities, create
Speaker 1: some of the new roads, whatever, whatever metaphor you want
Speaker 1: to apply to it. That's that's a much better way
Speaker 1: to sort of do that versus the practice makes perfect.
Speaker 1: So if practice makes perfect, change is what's going to
Speaker 1: build the neurogenesis. It's going to build the resili and
Speaker 1: redundancy in your brain. So I played the piano. Should
Speaker 1: I not focus as much on the piano because I
Speaker 1: thought about taking lessons even though I took for ten
Speaker 1: years and I played by ear, But I enjoyed the piano,
Speaker 1: And we actually have a beautiful piano that Jay and
Speaker 1: I bought each other for our birthdays back in the day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and but but should I learn how to play the
Speaker 1: guitar or the viol The violence sounds just horrible if
Speaker 1: you're not good at it. But what do you mean,
Speaker 1: should I try a new instrument? Yeah? You know, so
Speaker 1: I asked a lot of neuroscientists about this, because one
Speaker 1: thing about writing a book like this is that it
Speaker 1: affects everybody, right, So even the guys and gals who
Speaker 1: are who are doing all this research, they're thinking about
Speaker 1: what to incorporate into their own lives. And there are
Speaker 1: a couple of things that sort of jumped out at me.
Speaker 1: One is that something new is I think really important.
Speaker 1: That's that's that that is a key, But something that
Speaker 1: you can also use your hands with that you're actually
Speaker 1: activating your motor motor cortex as you're doing, seems to
Speaker 1: be even more beneficial. So so an instrument is great,
Speaker 1: um painting, Try a new one because a new one? Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean I mean the piano again. I want to
Speaker 1: be careful here. I did this Bill Clinton. I was
Speaker 1: talking to him about brain health the other day and
Speaker 1: he got on my case because he said he loves
Speaker 1: crossword puzzles, and he's like, so you tell me crossword
Speaker 1: puzzles are not good for No, No, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: don't do those things. But understand what you're accomplishing. You
Speaker 1: are you are. You're paving those roads really really well
Speaker 1: on your brain, and that is great, there's great value
Speaker 1: in that. But if it is true that you can
Speaker 1: build all these new roads, and the question you're asking
Speaker 1: me is how to do that, then it would be
Speaker 1: it would mean doing something different. So I'm not saying
Speaker 1: stop playing the piano, keep driving those roads, but if
Speaker 1: you want to start going on these trips around your brain,
Speaker 1: doing something different, and preferably doing it in a way
Speaker 1: that maybe even a little uncomfortable. So if you're painting,
Speaker 1: and I just bring up painting, because this is the
Speaker 1: one that came up set all times among these neuroscientists.
Speaker 1: Learn how to paint. I'm a terrible artist. Learn how
Speaker 1: to paint, do whatever you can, and do it with
Speaker 1: your non dominant hand. Yes, this was another. In fact,
Speaker 1: they went so far as to say that tonight at dinner,
Speaker 1: when you're eating your dinner, try eating your meal with
Speaker 1: your non dominant hand. And just see what happens. And
Speaker 1: it's really interesting, Katie, because we think of building the
Speaker 1: brain means reading books and gaining new knowledge, and that's true,
Speaker 1: but in terms of actually creating neurogenesis, it's more like
Speaker 1: you think about a physical workout. I'm gonna do something
Speaker 1: different and I'm going to actually now focus the less
Speaker 1: side of my brain, which normally isn't doing motor function.
Speaker 1: That's delicate or fine. On actually doing that sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: it has real relevance because again, you're you're actually building
Speaker 1: these roads in these cities in your brain, and that's fun.
Speaker 1: Try it. It's fun. But on a more practical level.
Speaker 1: To your original question, Let's say one day the road
Speaker 1: that you drive so well becomes locked by one of
Speaker 1: these amyloid plaques that we're talking about, some of these tangles.
Speaker 1: Right now, you know that road really well, but you
Speaker 1: know what, you don't really have other roads to get
Speaker 1: from point A to point B. If you've been building
Speaker 1: all these roads by painting with your left hand and
Speaker 1: spilling your food, but by eating with your non dominant hand,
Speaker 1: whatever it might be, you're actually building roads. This gets
Speaker 1: back to the bypass analogy. Do you still have flacks
Speaker 1: and tangles in your brain. Yes, So are these the
Speaker 1: cognitive reserves that you're talking about, Yes, the cognitive reserves,
Speaker 1: the cognitive resiliency, which is often they often use these
Speaker 1: terms interchangeably, but that's exactly it. We have the capacity
Speaker 1: to to have significant cognitive reserve. We're barely tapping into that.
Speaker 1: If you look at societies around the world where people
Speaker 1: are living into their nineties and hundreds and have hardly
Speaker 1: any dementia. The presumption now is that if you were
Speaker 1: to image their brains, they might have plaques and tangles.
Speaker 1: If you're doing autopsy, they may be diagnosed with all Heimers,
Speaker 1: because that's how Alzheimer's was diagnosed, was that autopsy. But
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter is that during their lives
Speaker 1: they had perfectly normal cognitive function. Before we talk about
Speaker 1: your twelve week program, I'm just curious in terms of
Speaker 1: diagnostic advances and and therapeutic advances. I mean, will we
Speaker 1: get to a point where someone can have a brain
Speaker 1: scan and say, Okay, here's the status of your tangles
Speaker 1: and plaques, and here's what you need to do. Because
Speaker 1: brain imagery, you know, I've ways found it so interesting
Speaker 1: even when you talk about like antidepressants and you know,
Speaker 1: serotonin reuptake inhibitors or whatever they're called ss is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that you know, there was never a way until
Speaker 1: recently to kind of measure how the brain was reacting.
Speaker 1: They would just kind of it would be very anecdotal,
Speaker 1: you kind of throw it against the wall to see
Speaker 1: what sticks. And now we have so much better brain imagery.
Speaker 1: So will that translate into dimension all time person and
Speaker 1: preventative strategies that we could follow. I think, I think so.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're we're making a lot of progress on
Speaker 1: brain imaging, and you're absolutely right. I mean, the brain
Speaker 1: has long been sort of considered this black box only
Speaker 1: measured by its inputs and its outputs. You really couldn't
Speaker 1: get a good idea of its internal machinery. But now
Speaker 1: we can. I mean, I don't know that we're at
Speaker 1: the point yet where we can determine degree of severity
Speaker 1: of of dementia based on a scan, and as I
Speaker 1: think we will. We think we'll get to that point.
Speaker 1: I think we'll get to the point where we can
Speaker 1: very quantifiably measure the burden of plaques and tangles and
Speaker 1: other things in the brain. But well, but Again, what
Speaker 1: I think is so extraordinary, Katie, is that you could
Speaker 1: have two people with the exact same scan essentially and
Speaker 1: very different clinical pictures. One person may be completely debilitated,
Speaker 1: obviously having dementia, and the other person may be functionally
Speaker 1: cognitively normal. And again, I look, do I don't want
Speaker 1: to I don't want to have flax and tangles in
Speaker 1: my brain. But mostly what I don't want to have
Speaker 1: is the cognitive dysfunction that comes with that. It's a
Speaker 1: different way of thinking. It really is, like I think, again,
Speaker 1: we focus so much on making someone's images look better
Speaker 1: or whatever, and what the person really wants is them
Speaker 1: to be better, and there are ways to do that,
Speaker 1: you know, with lifestyle changes. I mean, I'm a neurosurgeon
Speaker 1: saying this, by the way, just remember that because I'm
Speaker 1: a specialist. That's that's what I was trying to do.
Speaker 1: And yet I'm now becoming increasingly convinced that these types
Speaker 1: of changes that we talked about in this book really
Speaker 1: can can prevent you from developing the symptoms I was
Speaker 1: going to say. So you're saying that brain scans are
Speaker 1: just part of the story. It's sort of like it's
Speaker 1: half of the story because even with them, you could
Speaker 1: have these cognitive reserves developed and be very asymptomatic. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about this twelve week program. Sharp take us
Speaker 1: through this deeps because I'm all ears. It's it's twelve
Speaker 1: weeks where I basically based on how I think your
Speaker 1: brain is going to change and and react to things
Speaker 1: that you're now doing that are different or new. Um,
Speaker 1: it all sort of builds on itself. I start off
Speaker 1: by really making sure you get the basics right, and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you it's it's not that complicated. There are
Speaker 1: a few big messages in terms of the overall getting
Speaker 1: it the substrate right, and as you might guess, diet
Speaker 1: nourishment is one of them. But but the big the
Speaker 1: big takeaway here is I think generally people know what
Speaker 1: a healthy diet is, and for those who don't, there's
Speaker 1: some information in there about what's specifically healthy for the brain.
Speaker 1: There are some distinctions between the brain and the body
Speaker 1: in this regard. One is one is sugar. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we we we talk a lot about sugar, and people
Speaker 1: know that they shouldn't need too much sugar. We used
Speaker 1: to get sugar, you know, twice a year when fruit
Speaker 1: fell from the trees. Even honey was protected by the bees.
Speaker 1: And now we're eating a hundred and thirty pounds a
Speaker 1: year on average of sugar. But what was what was
Speaker 1: a learning point for me was that the brain is
Speaker 1: exquisitely sensitive to sugar. So typically you eat a lot
Speaker 1: of sugar and you think, well, that's being absorbed into cells.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of energy, whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: These these are these are a lot of calories that
Speaker 1: are now providing the energy the brain. As soon as
Speaker 1: sugar levels get beyond a certain point, and it's a
Speaker 1: pretty narrow range, the receptors basically shut down. So you
Speaker 1: could run into a situation where you're taking in a
Speaker 1: lot of calories, a lot of energy, and starving your
Speaker 1: brain at the same time. And that that is a
Speaker 1: situation that leads to a whole a whole cascade of
Speaker 1: events that you can pretty easily avoid. So that's you know,
Speaker 1: as much as I talk about in the first few
Speaker 1: weeks of what to do, there are several things that
Speaker 1: you're told not to do just to avoid and that's
Speaker 1: that's more than half the battle, and they're not that
Speaker 1: hard to do. I also try to make the case
Speaker 1: for things like sleep, which you've read a lot about
Speaker 1: I've read a lot about, but reminding people just how
Speaker 1: metabolically active the brain is during sleep, and this wonderful
Speaker 1: conversation that I'm having with you right now will be
Speaker 1: encoded into my hippocampus if I get good sleep tonight,
Speaker 1: so that twenty years from now I can recall this
Speaker 1: and remember it. A lot of times people say that
Speaker 1: they can't remember something. It's not that they can't remember that,
Speaker 1: it's not that they forgot it, it's that they never
Speaker 1: actually stored it in their memory centers in the first place.
Speaker 1: So these are strategies to help that. But then, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of the midpoint of the book is really about
Speaker 1: and the the evidence based things that we know improve
Speaker 1: brain health. Starts off by asking you to define what
Speaker 1: you think a healthy brain is. What is a healthy brain?
Speaker 1: We know what a healthy heart is, it pumps a
Speaker 1: certain amount of blood out with each beat. What is
Speaker 1: a healthy brain? You know? And and I spend a
Speaker 1: little bit of time talking through talking the reader through
Speaker 1: how they define that, because it is different for different people.
Speaker 1: Robert Zapolski, who is this evolutionary biologist, I was interviewing him,
Speaker 1: and he and her forget. He said to me that
Speaker 1: a healthy brain is a is a is a brain
Speaker 1: that has a bigger circle of you, is what he said,
Speaker 1: which basically means you let more people into your circle.
Speaker 1: Now why is that relevant. Well, it's relevant in you know,
Speaker 1: ancient times because you were more likely to be protected
Speaker 1: by the group. But now it's this idea of what
Speaker 1: true connection does for for protection of the brain. And
Speaker 1: and and now to your earlier point, measurable. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of what we talked about is based on
Speaker 1: objective data that we couldn't collect some time ago. But
Speaker 1: I will tell you something fascinating because I find this
Speaker 1: this topic really interesting. But there's this loneliness researcher named
Speaker 1: Stephanie Cacciope. She's an oregan. I know. I at the
Speaker 1: in Chicago. Her husband was one of the pre eminent
Speaker 1: scientists about memory, and then he died, died, I know.
Speaker 1: And now she's an oregan. And I talked to her
Speaker 1: from time to time. It's been tough, as you might imagine.
Speaker 1: And she's by herself an Oregon, which you know, has
Speaker 1: a loneliness. Researchers through this pandemic has been such a
Speaker 1: significant thing for her. But she said this thing to
Speaker 1: me that I'll never forget, and and and I talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about it in the book, which is
Speaker 1: we talk about connection, like right now, you and I
Speaker 1: get to zoom and have this call about you know this,
Speaker 1: this conversation that's very interesting to me. Most connections that
Speaker 1: we have with friends, maybe even family to some extent,
Speaker 1: are pretty cursory. How you doing, I'm doing fine. How
Speaker 1: you doing, I'm doing fine. You know. It's it's how
Speaker 1: do you get to a level of more profound connection,
Speaker 1: because it wasn't. As you've well heard, it's not about
Speaker 1: the number of connections you have. It's about the quality.
Speaker 1: But what does that mean quality? And one thing Stephanie
Speaker 1: said to me was a sort of shortcut to building
Speaker 1: the quality and the high intensity connection is to be vulnerable,
Speaker 1: to ask for help, to share your problems, which is
Speaker 1: totally counterintuitive to how I think about things. I would
Speaker 1: rather not burden somebody with things. But I took it
Speaker 1: to heart. And I was talking my parents, who are
Speaker 1: in their late seventies in Florida through this pandemic, and
Speaker 1: we were having those conversations how you do and how
Speaker 1: the girls. That was the conversation for months, and I
Speaker 1: said to them, I asked them a question about a
Speaker 1: problem I was having one of my cars that my
Speaker 1: wife's car had some smoke coming from the hood. They're
Speaker 1: both engineers, and for days, Katie, we started to have
Speaker 1: these really interesting conversations about cars, about their history of
Speaker 1: being interested in engineering, in all this stuff, figure out
Speaker 1: the way to build the meaningful connection um that that is.
Speaker 1: That is probably one of the most critical points, and
Speaker 1: and they're there pretty easy ways to do it. I
Speaker 1: think the point is connection, deep connection is good for
Speaker 1: your brain, yes, and good for you, and I think
Speaker 1: you know it's good for you in general. So the
Speaker 1: last part of the twelve week program, I'll just tell
Speaker 1: you quickly, is more about what we started talking about initially,
Speaker 1: which is, then, how do you create Now that I've
Speaker 1: primed your brain for neurogenesis, giving you all the right
Speaker 1: amounts of the right hormones, not too much epinephrin, but
Speaker 1: enough oxytocin, and all that sort of is happening by
Speaker 1: going through the first few weeks of the program, Now
Speaker 1: how do you build the new brain cells? And that
Speaker 1: gets to a lot of what we're talking about in
Speaker 1: terms of that cognitive reserve. You know, actually, um uh,
Speaker 1: doing these different types of activities, doing similar activities in
Speaker 1: a totally different way, doing things with different people, doing
Speaker 1: them in at different times, eliminating certain things completely from
Speaker 1: your regiment for a while, adding in something totally unrelated.
Speaker 1: It's it was fascinating to me. I tried it. I
Speaker 1: based this entire thing on my conversations with these neuroscientists
Speaker 1: who all tried it and written about it and published
Speaker 1: it in journals. It's fun, It's a fun ride. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, so, give me some ideas real quickly
Speaker 1: before we go about things I could do. Should I
Speaker 1: take a pottery class, Should I learn Italian? Should I
Speaker 1: pick up the guitar? What should I do? I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, I think the two big ingredients are it's
Speaker 1: would be something you really haven't done before. This isn't
Speaker 1: about trying to again build a two lane highway where
Speaker 1: you're used to driving one. This is about getting to
Speaker 1: you know, to Italy instead of staying in New York
Speaker 1: or or going somewhere even different in Argentina, you know,
Speaker 1: totally different. If you can do something that involves your
Speaker 1: your your hands, like pottery or painting. Even better, that
Speaker 1: was something that came up over and over again. And
Speaker 1: then the second ingredient, I guess, and this is a
Speaker 1: little bit more vague, is that it's it's good if
Speaker 1: it makes you a little uncomfortable. I And I know
Speaker 1: that sounds almost euphemistic or too easy or too simple,
Speaker 1: but the whole point is that when you start to
Speaker 1: release certain hormones in the body, like some stress hormone,
Speaker 1: stress can be good. It really helps that process of neurogenesis.
Speaker 1: So a little bit of discomfort with something totally new,
Speaker 1: preferably using your hands, that's a pretty good prescription. Before
Speaker 1: we go, can you tell me about foods that are
Speaker 1: healthy brain foods? I know that you hear about fish,
Speaker 1: you hear about nuts, you hear about extra virgin olive oil.
Speaker 1: Are all those things sort of good brain food? And
Speaker 1: what else should I be eating other than staying away
Speaker 1: from the cupcakes? Yeah? Nor Yes, definitely the sugar thing
Speaker 1: I mentioned already, So I mean that's just that's just
Speaker 1: a I think you could accomplish sev of all the
Speaker 1: other things by basically just eliminating added sugar from your diet.
Speaker 1: But I think the adage what is good for the
Speaker 1: heart is good for the brain remains true. But I
Speaker 1: think with the brain there are a few a few distinctions.
Speaker 1: One is, if an apple a day keeps a doctor away,
Speaker 1: then berries are what's good for the brain. Berries really
Speaker 1: good data around berries. Really start to add berries into
Speaker 1: your diet. I think that's one of the big ones.
Speaker 1: And while most of the neuroscientists did not advocate a
Speaker 1: caloric restriction diet, necessarily a calorie reduced diet overall to
Speaker 1: the extent that you can do it. We create a
Speaker 1: lot of metabolic byproducts from from overeating, and a lot
Speaker 1: of those metabolic byproducts get accumulated in the brain. So
Speaker 1: if you can cut down on the amount of energy
Speaker 1: that has to be metabolized in that way, you can
Speaker 1: make a lot of progress. Even though berries may be
Speaker 1: good for your brain. You don't believe in this whole
Speaker 1: idea of supplements or superfoods, do you, now? I you know.
Speaker 1: I think super food first of all, is a really
Speaker 1: vaguely defined term. As part of this book, I asked
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and I even talked to your
Speaker 1: friend Mark Hyman about this as well. It's it doesn't
Speaker 1: it doesn't have a really objective meaning. There are some
Speaker 1: foods that are maybe better than others. But I think
Speaker 1: the thing about supplements that struck me was was the
Speaker 1: idea that for certain people who have deficiencies, then supplementing
Speaker 1: that part of their diets important. But you know, Katie,
Speaker 1: in this country, and I'm not advocating this, but in
Speaker 1: this country, even the standard American diet, like if you
Speaker 1: go to a McDonald's, even the food is largely fortified,
Speaker 1: you know, with all these different vitamins and micronutrients and
Speaker 1: things like that. That that is a decision that our
Speaker 1: US d A made decades ago to fortify food so
Speaker 1: that people wouldn't develop basic nutritional deficiencies. So oftentimes we're
Speaker 1: supplementing something that doesn't need to be supplemented. A lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of the approaches more in terms of
Speaker 1: what you're not eating versus what you are eating, and
Speaker 1: that that you know that holds up to be true.
Speaker 1: So berries I single out because they are one of
Speaker 1: these foods whose active ingredients are particularly good at crossing
Speaker 1: the blood brain barrier, particularly good at creating these scaffoldings,
Speaker 1: you know, for the neurogenesis that we talked about earlier,
Speaker 1: So I put that high on the list. But what
Speaker 1: about you know, I see this stuff in the drug
Speaker 1: store and I'm like, Oh, should I be taking like
Speaker 1: privig in or should I be taking what is it like?
Speaker 1: Almost isn't it like jellyfish to run derivatives and stuff?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, should I be doing that? Well? You know,
Speaker 1: I the privileged one is interesting because you know, Eric
Speaker 1: Kendell is very involved with this, and he's a very
Speaker 1: prominent neuroscientists did a lot of the original jellyfish research
Speaker 1: basically trying to figure out where the memory stores were
Speaker 1: in jellyfish, how jellyfish remembered, and isolating those stores and
Speaker 1: basically creating a supplement. It's a fascinating idea. I don't
Speaker 1: know that it really works. I mean, it's very hard
Speaker 1: to study this sort of thing. You know, it takes
Speaker 1: decades long studies to prove that something like that's improving memory.
Speaker 1: What we do have is is decades long data on
Speaker 1: societies around the world where dementia is essentially so rare
Speaker 1: that it's reportable. You know, if somebody developed dementia, you'd
Speaker 1: report that in the medical journal. But my my point
Speaker 1: is though that with these we don't need to have
Speaker 1: the supplements. We know it's possible to be done because
Speaker 1: we see it having already transpired real time and large
Speaker 1: societies across the world, and in those societies, you know,
Speaker 1: I took the neuroscientific data that we had and tried
Speaker 1: to see, are are they in some ways applying that unwittingly?
Speaker 1: I mean they didn't read these papers obviously, but were
Speaker 1: they sort of just by default essentially following that that
Speaker 1: right diet, following that right amount of movement, following the
Speaker 1: right amount of rest. So movement, for example, I'll just
Speaker 1: tell you this was an interesting one. If you look
Speaker 1: at movement, it's probably the only thing that has has
Speaker 1: the longest amount of evidence behind it in terms of
Speaker 1: actually creating neurogenesis. All of this is new research, but
Speaker 1: that that's sort of the oldest new research. But what
Speaker 1: was fascinating to me was that what does movement mean
Speaker 1: to people? Right? I use the word movement instead of exercise,
Speaker 1: because what they found was that moderate movement, brisk walking
Speaker 1: that tended to be a lot better for neurogenesis than
Speaker 1: intense exercise. Now, why would that be Well, it turns
Speaker 1: out that when you briskly exercise, you're releasing a lot
Speaker 1: of what is known as brain derived neurotrophic factor. That's
Speaker 1: kind of like the miracle grow for for your brain.
Speaker 1: As was described, if you are intensely exercising, you also
Speaker 1: tend to release a lot of epinephrin and epinefrin is
Speaker 1: actually a blocker. It's a it's a cascade blocker of
Speaker 1: what b d NF, this neurotrophic factor does. I know,
Speaker 1: I'm throwing a lot of language at you, but I'm FOLLI.
Speaker 1: Intense exercise may be great for your heart and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe even weight loss, whatever your goals. Maybe, but for
Speaker 1: your brain, intense exercise actually is not good and you
Speaker 1: find that can actually be a little bit destructive by
Speaker 1: releasing these stress hormones that block the beneficial effects that
Speaker 1: exercise should have on your brain. I never knew that,
Speaker 1: and it so like I think. I go for a
Speaker 1: walk as often as I can with Rebecca. Now, that
Speaker 1: wasn't something I did. I was out there thinking, I
Speaker 1: got forty minutes, I'm gonna go hard. That was my
Speaker 1: sort of approach, and sometimes I still feel the need
Speaker 1: to do that. But walking is great. Brisk here here,
Speaker 1: here's the best way to do it. If you want
Speaker 1: to just make it for your brain. Take a brisk
Speaker 1: walk would a close friend or family member and talk
Speaker 1: about your problems, and that sort of brings all these
Speaker 1: things together in some ways that we've been talking about.
Speaker 1: Take your take your you're very smoothie with you, and
Speaker 1: you've pretty much nailed it. I'm curious about social media
Speaker 1: and the way we live our lives. You know, we're
Speaker 1: constantly distracted, we have constant incoming information, our attention spans
Speaker 1: have shortened. I read a fascinating study a while ago
Speaker 1: that said the part of your brain I think it's
Speaker 1: a hypocampus you can correct me if i'm wrong, responsible
Speaker 1: for for creativity. It only fires up when you're bored.
Speaker 1: And that's why you have so many great ideas when
Speaker 1: you're in this shower, when you're not distracted, or when
Speaker 1: you're taking a long walk and you don't have your
Speaker 1: phone with you. And I'm curious the impact of all
Speaker 1: this mental stimulus or stimuli has on nerroa genesis and
Speaker 1: keeping our brains healthy. You know, yeah, okay, that that
Speaker 1: that's a It's a great topic and I approach it
Speaker 1: as a person who wrote this book frankly, also as
Speaker 1: a dad three teenage girls, because and this is conversation
Speaker 1: topic number one in our household all the time. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell and I'll tell you two things that actually
Speaker 1: came out of a dinner time conversation I recently had.
Speaker 1: Um And I try not to be too preachy with
Speaker 1: with my girls, although sometimes I can say I don't
Speaker 1: use this line often, but I can say I did
Speaker 1: write a book about that. The girls hate it when
Speaker 1: I do that, but it's true, and I can use
Speaker 1: that as a wild card to actually get them to
Speaker 1: listen to what I'm saying about the fact that when
Speaker 1: you are distracted like that and you think maybe even
Speaker 1: you are multitasking, the brain is actually not that good
Speaker 1: at multitasking. It actually requires a lot of energy to
Speaker 1: shift back and forth between things, between scrolling through your
Speaker 1: social media feed, trying to have a conversation, trying to
Speaker 1: look your dad in the eye when he's talking to you,
Speaker 1: whatever might be. It's a it's hard to transition back
Speaker 1: and forth between all these things. We think we're being efficient,
Speaker 1: and we're not, because the amount of energy it takes
Speaker 1: to actually make the switch is a lot higher than
Speaker 1: we realized. That's kind of novel thinking because you know,
Speaker 1: it's always been about multitasking. How many things can I
Speaker 1: do at the same time. But the second thing, which
Speaker 1: I think is, you know I worry about the most,
Speaker 1: and I think is what you're saying as well. Is
Speaker 1: that leaving aside just the content on social media for
Speaker 1: a second, and just the fact that it's so incessant,
Speaker 1: Like you're saying, we talk about stress and on the
Speaker 1: brain and on the body. Stress in and of itself
Speaker 1: is not the enemy. I mean, in fact, we need stress.
Speaker 1: I was a little nervous to do this podcast with
Speaker 1: you today because I have so much respect for you.
Speaker 1: But it makes me a little stressed because I have
Speaker 1: that nervousness. But it's good. I need that because I
Speaker 1: prepared for this. But the problem is that we can't
Speaker 1: get a break from the stress. Social media screens, the
Speaker 1: incessant nature of it make it very difficult for us
Speaker 1: to ever turn the stress off. We don't want to
Speaker 1: turn it off completely or never have it. That would
Speaker 1: not be a worthy or or possible goal. But we
Speaker 1: don't get breaks from it. And that's what I worry
Speaker 1: about the most. With with my girls, myself to some extent,
Speaker 1: although I'm much more aware of it. But that's what
Speaker 1: I worry about, Katie. So you're saying that it's really
Speaker 1: important to put the phones down, put them away, even
Speaker 1: studies that show if it's on a table, it's distracting
Speaker 1: by its very presence, because you can't have a deep,
Speaker 1: focused conversation with that thing in your line of sight,
Speaker 1: right that that that the distraction, just the presence of it,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be, it takes you away from from
Speaker 1: being in the moment. And again, I know some of
Speaker 1: this sounds so euphemistic, but and maybe you've heard it
Speaker 1: all before, but now the data is there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, the smartphone has only really been around since
Speaker 1: two thousand five, Katie. I mean you think about that
Speaker 1: fifteen years, and it's not that long, and we've had
Speaker 1: some of the biggest behavioral shifts ever recorded in human
Speaker 1: history during that time. You talk about kind of constant stress,
Speaker 1: and you need stress in them recovery. I guess that's
Speaker 1: because your your brain is producing too much cortisolve, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, the stress hormone or is it doing a
Speaker 1: lot of other stuff of physiologically. I think I think
Speaker 1: the thing that that is becoming clear is that the
Speaker 1: absolute amount may not be as important as how long
Speaker 1: your selves are are sort of exposed to the to
Speaker 1: the stress hormone, you can have these amazingly high spikes.
Speaker 1: And they saw this, uh in people fighter pilots, people
Speaker 1: who are in these incredible situations for periods of time,
Speaker 1: really high spikes, so high in fact, that the blood
Speaker 1: vessels in the back of their eyes would change. They
Speaker 1: would have to account for blurinus of vision because they're
Speaker 1: they're they're a benefference spikes so high. But when they
Speaker 1: weren't in that situation, they had incredibly low levels of stress,
Speaker 1: really high heart rate variability. Heart rate variability is a
Speaker 1: really interesting measure of this because if you have high
Speaker 1: heart rate variability, that's good. That means that means your
Speaker 1: your your blood vesseles aren't clamped down by all the
Speaker 1: stress hormones. They're they're kind of loose and can the
Speaker 1: variability is good. And so it wasn't the spikes in
Speaker 1: in cortisol, epineffer and other stress hormones as much as
Speaker 1: it was them staying plateaung at an at an unreasonably
Speaker 1: high level. Interesting when it comes to stress. In closing,
Speaker 1: because I've kept you far too long Sunday, but I
Speaker 1: could talk to you all day. Is what is the
Speaker 1: impact of this year plus of really for many people,
Speaker 1: this constant stress, And how is that going to, in
Speaker 1: your view, affect us in terms of collective trauma? You know,
Speaker 1: we we have we have pretty pretty good data on
Speaker 1: what these stress hormones in prolonged periods of time due
Speaker 1: to the brain um we've you know, we're, we're. That's
Speaker 1: been documented now in all sorts of different studies. Nothing
Speaker 1: quite like this, obviously, because this is so unique, and
Speaker 1: that's why I still preface by saying I don't know
Speaker 1: for sure. With great humility, I try and answer some
Speaker 1: of these questions, but I think there will be an impact.
Speaker 1: But I think that we've also learned that we can
Speaker 1: grow new brain cells, though we can recover from that.
Speaker 1: We can create situations where it doesn't become such a
Speaker 1: incessant memory that that it basically leads to post traumatic stress,
Speaker 1: which is a real concern as well. There will be
Speaker 1: people that have significant amounts of post traumatic stress, but
Speaker 1: our ability to treat that, to recognize it is better
Speaker 1: than before, and our ability to to build new brain
Speaker 1: cells to help compensate. Is better than before, so impact significant,
Speaker 1: but solutions you know emerging as well. So it is
Speaker 1: possible to heal. I hear you say it is possible
Speaker 1: to heal, and and we we we've seen it before,
Speaker 1: you know, with other even other pandemics. A huge thank
Speaker 1: you to my friend Dr Sanjay Gupta, who you can
Speaker 1: watch on CNN or listen to on his daily podcast
Speaker 1: Coronavirus Fact or Fiction. His new book, by the way,
Speaker 1: is called Keep Sharpe, How to Build a Better Brain
Speaker 1: at any age. And I want you all to know
Speaker 1: I just ate breakfast using my left hand. Next Question
Speaker 1: with Katie Kurik is a production of My Heart Media
Speaker 1: and Katie Kurk Media. The executive producers Army, Katie Curic,
Speaker 1: and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate
Speaker 1: producers Derek Clements, Adriana Fassio, and m Lee Pinto. The
Speaker 1: show is edited and mixed by Derrick Clements. For more
Speaker 1: information about today's episode, or to sign up for my
Speaker 1: morning newsletter wake Up Call, go to Katie Currect dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find me at Katie Currect on Instagram.
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.