Understanding Dementia - 014

SPEAKER A The following program presents principles designed to promote good health and is not intended to take the place of personalized, professional care. The opinions and ideas expressed are those of the speakers. Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions about the information presented. SPEAKER B Welcome to healthy living. I'm your host, Margot Marshall. There are 36 documented causes of dementia, like a roof with 36 holes in it. What are those causes, and is there anything we can do to prevent this disease? Stay tuned. SPEAKER C Healthy Living is a 13 part production of three Airbn Australia television focusing on the health of the whole person, body, mind, and spirit. You'll learn natural lifestyle principles with practical health solutions for overall good health. SPEAKER B My guest today is Dr. Eddie Ramirez. Eddie is currently involved in a cutting edge clinical trial to stop dementia. Tell us, Eddie, what exactly is dementia? SPEAKER D Well, that's actually a very good question, because that is a huge problem in today's world. SPEAKER B How big a problem is it? SPEAKER D Well, one of the standardized definitions of dementia is the decline of information processing abilities accompanied by changes in personality and behavior. In other words, as the brain starts to affect the normal processing, the personality and the behavior change. And this is actually an umbrella definition, which means there are different types of dementia, there's not only one being the most common of them, the Alzheimer's dementia. And yes, I'm involved in doing research in this. We are working together with a hospital in India, and we're starting to establish a protocol. There's so much research coming up with this hot topic of today, and big universities like in California, UCLA, UC Berkeley, they're coming up with fascinating research that shows that dementia can be stopped if you are able to implement lifestyle changes within the ten first years of its origin. SPEAKER B That is really, really good to hear one, to think that it can be stopped, because I don't know whether perhaps people tuning in actually understand that. Maybe they think once it starts, well, it's just downhill, but it can be stopped. That is really, really good. And the other thing I think is encouraging, you talked about a ten year window of time to actually stop it or even maybe turn it around. Is that possible? SPEAKER D That's right. So that was the old thinking, dementia cannot be stopped. But the current research is showing there is hope when you start those changes at the beginning. SPEAKER B At the beginning, okay. So that's important to act fairly quickly, but within that window of time and during that window of time of ten years, that's really good news. And I'm really glad I've got to say this. I need to say it. We're very privileged to have you right there on the cutting edge of this new research to be able to tell us those things and also later, some of the solutions, what we can do to stop it. So very pleased to have you on our program. SPEAKER D Thank you. And unfortunately, we don't have the time to deal with the 36 well documented lifestyle changes that we need to do, but we will highlight some of the most important ones. But what we know is that dementia is becoming very common. In fact, we can see on screen how common this problem is in Australia to the point that it has become the second leading cause of death in Australia. That is huge. SPEAKER B Absolutely huge. SPEAKER D Which tells me that if you live in Australia and you live like the average Australian, you have a huge risk of developing dementia. I'm glad you're tuning in today. I want you to grab some paper and some pen because you're going to have to take some notes on changes that I'll be proposing to you, and you decide if you want to implement them. We do know that those changes have been documented in the scientific literature to help you maintain that healthy brain, because once the brain is gone, everything is gone. So make sure that you take care of that brain. SPEAKER B That's right. I think the worst part about this particular disease or group of diseases is that you just lose your independence. And that's really sad. I think that's probably one of the most difficult things to come to terms with, I think, in any illness, not to be independent. SPEAKER D That's right. And that's why we're seeing an increase of this problem. Latest statistics show that one in ten people over the age of 65 will develop that dementia. And in fact, three out of ten people over 80, we will have to diagnose those people with dementia. So that is quite important. And not only that, dementia is a labor intensive problem. It requires, here in Australia, 1.2 million people to care for those 350,000 people that have dementia here in Australia. And after the age of 65, the probability of having dementia increases. And again, it has to do with the way you live. So imagine this is not like diabetes. See, my patient with diabetes, I see him once a month to check his medications, his control and so forth, and then he goes home, he takes care of himself. But somebody with dementia, you cannot do that. You need somebody monitoring them, watching them, helping them step by step. And that's why it's such a labor intensive and you cannot say, well, I don't care about that, I don't have dementia. Yes, you may not have dementia, but your taxes need to help with this. And everybody is affected when dementia increases. SPEAKER B So it's something we all need to take notice of and all be because we're all affected by it. Yes. That's an interesting perspective that you put on that. SPEAKER D And a common question that I get in my medical practice is, Doctor, am I getting dementia or is this normal? SPEAKER B I'd be very interested to hear about that, because as people do get older, memories start to just fade a little bit or it's not so easy to recall things. And do you assume if that's beginning to happen that you're on your way to dementia? Is that the case? SPEAKER D That's right. So we need to is that right? We need to differentiate between normal aging and dementia. SPEAKER B So there's a difference. SPEAKER D There is a difference. Not everybody that ages necessarily need to have dementia. See, normal aging, the brain slows down a little bit and you can see that in the fact that communication slows and the ability to process slows, but intelligence stays the same. Your ability to plan and use the frontal lobe of your brain continues to be normal and your thinking and reaction times slows down. In fact, there's actually a relationship between the lifestyle that you have and this impact. If you had the wrong type of lifestyle, your brain is going to slow down more and it's going to do it faster. Your brain vessels that go to your brain, they're very delicate and anything that interrupts that blood flow will have a big effect. SPEAKER B All right, so we've established that normal aging is not dementia. But you've also said that the rate that we slow down in normal aging is affected by our lifestyle. SPEAKER D That's right. There's actually a published research that show that the faster you walk as you age, it actually will predict your longevity. People that walk slower as they age, the probability of having medical problems and even dying increases. That's why, as we will be talking about it in a few minutes, things like exercise are so important. And I want you to see this as an investment. You make good investment choices later on, you will get good dividends and the investment will grow. You make poor choices today, and believe me, the bill will arrive sooner or later. I'm surprised. People that have my age, that are my friends, some of them are very sick and need to take all kinds of medications and so forth. And that is a reflection of the lifestyle that they are living. How important your brain is regarding things like oxygen and blood flow. Statistically speaking, only 2% of your whole weight is what your brain weights. Yet 25% of all the oxygen of the body is consumed by your brain. SPEAKER B That's incredible. SPEAKER D So anything that decreases a tiny little bit, the blood flow or the oxygen will have a huge effect in your mental health. SPEAKER B That's right. So any decrease would be about twelve times as much the impact on oxygen delivery. Is that right? SPEAKER D That's exactly the point. SPEAKER B It's big. Yeah. SPEAKER D So why don't we start talking about some of those strategies that we need to do. Number one, in order to prevent dementia. Number two, if dementia is on its early stages, what we can do, see, we can divide dementia problems between mild, moderate and severe. In the mild type of dementia, many times the person is not even aware they have the problem. They start forgetting things, especially new information. They have problems capturing that new information. I need to tell you a telephone, you're supposed to hold it for a few seconds, then you can dial it. That simple operation. They have problems with that, their intelligence start to decrease and then they comes to a point in which they start to realize something is not right, creates anxiety and so forth. Then you go to the second stage, the one that is moderate, in which it's very well marked that something is not right there. The person starts even forgetting their loved ones, their friends and normal things that you and I would be difficult to forget, they forget. And then you enter into the severe type in which the person is completely dependent on others for care. So we're talking about the mild problems as it just starting. That's what research is showing that we can stop this problem. So we can see in the screen. The number one point we need to deal with is to understand that there are early symptoms for Alzheimer's and problems with memory that are episodic difficult with that short term memory and remembering that problems naming objects, problems finding common words. This tells us something is not right. If you have these type of problems, I would suggest you you go to your physician or your medical professional. There are standardized tests to see if something is right or if this is not normal. SPEAKER B You mentioned episodes there, Eddie. What would be talking about there? So this is when some of these things manifest themselves more markedly. Once in a while perhaps, and then things go along smoothly and then there's another is that what we work? SPEAKER D That's right. So it's not like when you are conversing with somebody and you have a friend a long time ago, you see him, you may forget his name, that's something normal. The brain tries to keep the new information that you're using very easily accessible. So you may forget what was his name? It was Mark. It was Mark. But when you are having this type of Alzheimer's type of issue, the problem is more severe things that it will be hard for you to forget. These people start to forget these type of issues. So let's deal with the solutions that we need to do in order to help the problem of dementia. Number one, the first thing you need to do very important is to follow a plant based diet. We know that things like simple carbohydrates, the sugars and the white flowers, those things, what they do in the body, they create an insulin spike and you know, things that affect you and give you a risk for diabetes will also give you a risk for mental type of problems. SPEAKER B That's an interesting connection. SPEAKER D So that's why some researchers call dementia the brother of diabetes. SPEAKER B That's an incredible thing to have that link. SPEAKER D So we know that people that have dementia, many of them actually have what is called insulin resistance. That's the reason why if things help with diabetes, we'll also help to prevent dementia, keeping the blood sugar that's right, keeping that blood sugar low and so forth. So make sure that you are following a plan to avoid that diabetes. Somebody with diabetes has high risk of dementia, so beware of that. Then we have the second point that we can see on the screen. Make sure you are dealing well with your stress. Stress that is chronic is actually quite harmful to the brain. Once in a while that you get an emergency and so forth, stressful situation, it's fine. But to live under that high level, constant type of stress, that is very harmful to the brain. That's why I encourage patients to use spiritual resources. Read the Bible, read something inspirational, pray, don't keep that anger and hate and unforgiveness in your heart. These types of feelings are very harmful to your mental health and you don't win absolutely anything by harboring these types of feelings. So use spiritual resources to help you deal with that stress. Then we have the next point, and that is sleep. Sleep is such an important thing to prevent dementia. See, current research is telling us that when you are sleeping, you're actually cleansing and cleaning all those neurons as a car that is functioning and it needs to be generating all that smoke. That's why you have a pipe called the muffler to get that smoke out of the motor. Because if that smoke stayed in the motor, the motor would stop. It couldn't work properly. In the same way, your cells in the brain that we said use 25% of your oxygen, have high metabolism, generate many waste products, and those waste products need to be dealt with. And when you are sleeping, the brain changes. This is fascinating things that are happening when you're sleeping and the brain goes ahead and starts removing all those toxins. But if you are not sleeping your seven 8 hours, those toxins stay there and they have a very negative effect on your health. SPEAKER B That makes a whole lot of sense and I've never understood that before. It's really good that you I like to understand why things happen and that was a really good explanation. SPEAKER D So make sure you are sleeping enough. I even going to record a program on melatonin here in Triabn. I suggest you find that program if you have issues with your sleep. Also, apart from sleep, we also have another point that is extremely essential for mental health and that is exercise. We live in such a sedentary society today. Everything is so easy. I have visited Africa many times and you get a little glimpse of how our ancestors used to live there. There in Africa, in the area that I spent some months, there is no grocery stores. Where do people buy their food that's unimaginable? They have to plant the food. You're lazy you don't want to plant, you go hungry. There's no other option. So people are constantly working. You want water, there is no faucet, you just open and the beautiful clean water comes out. No, you get a bucket, you walk for kilometers, get to the river, get to where the pump is, get your water and walk back. You want to cook something. There's no such thing as a stove that you turn on and nice and warm. No, you need to go with an axe. Walk your kilometers, cut a piece of wood, bring it back. Our ancestors used to live like this. Everything they were doing was constant activity throughout the day. And today I ask my patients, I want you to do 30 minutes of exercise, minimum. What do they say? 30 minutes? That is too much for one of those people. In Africa and rural Africa, that would be vacation day, the day they only need to do 30 minutes of exercise. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER D So current research shows that it's not only that you need to log in your 45 minutes walk in the morning. You need to find ways of being constantly active throughout the day. It's a good idea if you want a goal to measure the number of steps you're taking. And a good goal would be 6000, but a better goal would be 10,000 steps per day. I sometimes need to do a little bit of computer work. My undergraduate is computer science, so I use lots of computers and I have chosen to have a standing desk. SPEAKER B Good. SPEAKER D In that way I am actually doing activity. There is actually treadmills that you can do a desk treadmill and get that benefit. The next point I want to talk about is challenge your brain. This is such an important issue and I see this in the clinical practice. Patient comes very happy, telling me, doctor, guess what? I just finished my job and I finally retire. Instead of saying Congratulations, that's great, I say, no, wait a minute, you need to get yourself in trouble. And I see this people that retire and they become sedentary and they decrease the challenge to their brain. Those people are going to go down really quickly. So find yourself ways to get yourself in trouble. SPEAKER B Some of the populations that are longest live don't even have a word for retire. They don't understand even the concept of retiring. And when you talk to them about it, they're like, they don't get it. It's like, what are you talking about? This is not what we do. SPEAKER D Yeah, so that's why it's so important to find challenges for your brain. SPEAKER B Like what? SPEAKER D What sort of for example, find yourself a way of doing volunteering work now you have plenty of time. Don't just think on yourself, think of others. As you are serving others, you actually receive a blessing yourself. I know there's many different programs, like the Chip program here in Australia. You can volunteer there you can learn new things, learn new languages, travel, find things you're not used to doing, like using a new musical instrument. In that way you'll challenge your brain. We have the next point on the screen about how to deal with that dementia. And that has to do with your diet. See, animal products have too much saturated fat and that saturated fat actually will increase your risk of dementia. So that's why what we need to do, we need to cut down animal products in that wave, we avoid most of the saturated fat and we need to focus ourselves in using good healthy oils such as the ones that are found on nuts. That is the type of fat that your brain likes to use. And not only that, we also see on our screen the next very important point. And that point has to do with avoiding those hydrogenated types of oils and using vitamins if they are needed. Both points are very important. Partially hydrogenated oils function in your body by damaging the delicate blood vessels that you have. Where do you find this? Read your ingredients. Many the baked products that are in packages, you find those type of partially hydrogenated oils and vitamins. Things like vitamin B, twelve vitamin D and many other vitamins may be needed. After we take a blood test, then we know what is needed, then you can take them. We know that taking minerals just because you're taking minerals may have actually a harmful effect. So use what you need. There's people that try to sell you this or that. Be careful, use things that you need, not things that you don't need. The next point that we have in the screen is probiotics. And probiotics are things that help keep a good intestinal flora health. So I encourage my patients to find, for example, soy yogurt, that will be a very good source of probiotic or also prebiotic. Prebiotic are things that encourage the growth of good bacteria. One of the best ones you can use are legumes. So make sure you put legumes. And one last thing I want to mention, switch yourself if you're very interested in preventing dementia to a two meals a day. Some people say doctor, I cannot do that, I'm going to be hungry. Believe me, if you're eating good quality food, you are not going to be hungry. I work in lifestyle centers in which we put every patient on two meals a day and there is no problem. So you may be thinking, doctor, how effective this program actually is. Well, it is actually published in the scientific literature cases in which we are reversing this problem. SPEAKER B That's the word I really like to hear. It's really good that you can stop this disease in that first ten years. But reversing is a really beautiful word for any disease. And I think, I'm sure that people listening to this program are going to be thinking I need to know how to do this. SPEAKER D Let's watch on screen the clinical case that is published and the reference is there if you're interested in finding it. This lady was 68 years old. She was diagnosed with dementia. We start the lifestyle changes, UCLA University, and two and one and a half years later, now at age 70, she remains asymptomatic and continue to work full time. The lady had the dementia diagnosed. That's right. No symptoms. Currently, the lady had the dementia diagnosed. The lady starts the lifestyle interventions. Dementia is stopped. She gets sick and she says, you know, forget it, I'm not going to follow this program. Dementia comes back, she follows against the program and dementia stops. And that is exactly how the article closes. She continues to work full time. If you have dementia, you're going to have problems working full time. She is healthy and so forth. So make sure that you try to implement all these things. Currently, I'm involved in developing this program at the level of community. I'm going to be developing a program in which I can teach communities how to implement these principles. SPEAKER B And you're going to be doing one locally, I hope. SPEAKER D Absolutely. We plan to do this also in Australia, as we plan to do this all over the world. So, as you can see, you can choose your health of the future by the choices you take today. They will have positive or negative consequences. The latest research that we have regarding dementia is that our choices have big consequences. And what I would encourage you to do is to contact 3ABN, Australia and they can give you my information if you want to find out more about those holes and how to plug them in so you can avoid this horrible problem of dementia. SPEAKER B Thank you so much. That's been very informative and I'm sure it's been very encouraging to a lot of our people. We hope today's program will help you to get more out of life. And if you'd like to watch our programs on demand, just go to our website at threeABN australia.org au and click on the Watch button. We hope you'll join us next time and get more information about other topics that is very, very useful to know and God bless. You. SPEAKER C Have been listening to a production of 3ABN Australia television.