Big Pharma’s Most Dangerous Lie and the Dark Truth About Weed

Thank you, doctor.

You study the brain. Um, not just emotions, but but the the physical brain, the actual biology of the brain.

Um, I've got a lot of questions for you about that, but let's just start with cannabis.

What are the effects of cannabis on the brain, marijuana on the brain?

So I published a study on a thousand marijuana users, compared it to our healthy group.

Every area of their brain was lower in blood flow and activity.

And then just this year, >> measurably >> measurably on the imaging study we do, which is called Specton emission computed tomography.

It looks at blood flow activity but also looks at mitochondrial function.

I have to ask you so pardon my ignorance.

mitochondrial function.

>> So the mitochondria are the little energy powerhouses in your cell.

They um activate and keep the cell energized and alive.

And 49% of the tracer that we do this study with is actually taken up by the mitochondria in the brain.

So when we see low activity, that's really low activity along with decreased blood flow.

And then there's a new study by a completely separate group than ours on a thousand young marijuana users and the areas of the brain involved in learning and memory were low in blood flow and activity.

So, it's not just me because I have a problem with marijuana.

It's other scientists as well saying marijuana is not great for the brain.

>> What are the effects of less mitochondrial activity and lower blood flow?

>> So, it can go with tiredness. It can go with low motivation. It can go with depression over time. It can go with more anxiety because your brain can't settle it down. And in vulnerable people, it can go with an increased risk of psychosis.

Huh. How does that work?

We're all of a sudden seeing because marijuana is not a drug.

It's a medicine. We've been told it's the most healing medicine ever discovered.

It's quote natural. God made it. Um and it's the answer to most of our physical and psychological problems. And now all of a sudden there seem to be all these studies showing a direct connection between heavy marijuana use and psychosis.

Is that connection real? And if so, how exactly does that happen? Do we know?

>> Well, it's absolutely real.

And people who have a certain genetic makeup are more vulnerable to becoming psychotic.

one gene in particular, if you have a combination of an abnormality in that gene, you have a 7fold, so that's a 700% increased risk of becoming psychotic if you are a heavy user of marijuana.

So, not for everybody, right?

But for everybody, the risk is somewhere between 2 to four times. Um, especially if you start young.

And now it's the young that are suffering from the idea that marijuana is innocuous because it's not innocuous.

But because they think it's inocuous, I think psilocybin is going to go the same way. When the perception of the dangerousness of a drug goes down, its use goes up. And that's what we've seen.

And teenagers who use have a higher incidence of anxiety, depression, suicide, and psychosis in their 20s.

And so you're taking a developing brain and altering how that brain develops.

And what what we're seeing is the highest incidence of brain and mental health problems in young people we have ever seen.

Study from the CDC, 57% of teenage girls report being persistently sad.

>> 57% >> 57% 32% thought of killing themselves.

Think of that. of all girl this is a whole population >> girls teenage um girls 32% have thought of killing themselves >> 32% of all teenage girls in the United States >> yes 24% have planned to kill themselves and 13% have tried we're in this mental mess and we have to go why and and it's more complicated than just marijuana but marijuana is clearly part of it and part of it are the societal lies that I've seen from the 80s.

So I started my psychiatric residency in 1982 and I trained at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC and 1987 video games started to come out and they're like oh these are so exciting with no neuroscience study on what do video games do to development and it's not good.

There's not been great studies that say, "Oh, yeah, these are really great for brain development." And then in the early '9s, alcohol is a health food, right?

My first clinic is in Northern California.

I have 11 clinics, and it was right outside the Napa Valley.

And the Napa Valley produces a lot of wine in the United States.

Was so excited. You should have a glass or two every night, and that's good for your heart.

No, it's bad for your brain.

And now the >> a glass or two of wine is bad for your brain.

>> The American Cancer Society came out four years ago against any alcohol because any alcohol is associated with an increased risk of eight different cancers.

And then, you know, we did a prize fight between marijuana and alcohol and it went 12 rounds.

Alcohol causes a lot of devastation, perhaps more than marijuana.

But the idea in society is alcohol is a health food.

It's a lie.

And then pain is the fifth vital sign.

It's you need opiates if you're in pain.

Well, that sort of didn't turn out well.

No, it didn't >> for us. Or benzo or mommy's little helper.

Um, and that didn't turn out well.

>> So, these are all trends just in the 43 years since you've been practicing psychiatry.

These are all trends that you've lived through.

>> Little lies that I see, not little, huge societal lies.

And then, and I'm also a child psychiatrist.

And so I would often see 16 year olds, 17 year olds, and parents would bring him in because I think he has ADD. And I'm like, okay.

And as I would scan them, cuz that's what I do at Aean Clinics. We look at your brain.

The brain looks toxic.

And and it shouldn't look toxic in a 16 year old.

And initially you ask the child, you know, are you using any drugs?

Of course not. And then I'm like, "But you have a toxic brain." And then they start crying because I I teach them how important their brain is. Your brain is involved in everything you do, how you think, how you feel, how you act, how you get along with other people.

And when this works right, you work right.

And when it doesn't, you don't.

>> And it looks toxic. So, you can tell, again, pardon the dumb questions, but you can tell >> from a brain scan of a 16-year-old whether that child's using drugs.

>> I can tell whether or not it's toxic.

And then I have to find out, well, why is it toxic?

>> And it could be toxic from drug use.

It could be toxic because they live in a mold-filled home.

It could be toxic because they have Lyme disease and the infection is causing their brain to look older than they are. But but that's all evident in the scan.

>> That's all evident in the scan.

It's toxic. Now it's my job then to figure out why.

And so when I see the toxic scan in this ADD 16-year-old who did not have ADD or ADHD when he was seven, right?

It's not something you just pick up.

If you really have ADHD, you had it your whole life. If it just shows up, you either had a head injury, you're doing drugs, or you're living in a mold-filled home. There's a reason why.

And stimulants are not the answer to drug use, but they often get >> poor drug use is not the answer.

>> It's not the answer. And so I'll show the kid their scan and then go through this exercise with them and they'll start to cry and they go, "You won't tell my mom." And I'm like, "No, I'm pretty sure we should because otherwise, how are you going to get the help you need?" And they're like, "Well, stop. I promise.

" And the scans are so helpful for me.

A little bit like a lie detector because it's really hard to say, "Oh, no.

I'm not using." when your brain looks toxic and there's not another good reason that it looks toxic. And that's and that's why marijuana is innocuous. I'm like, well, you've not been in my chair for the last 43 years.

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So, have have you noticed since you do treat children as well, an increase in damaged brains that you can attribute to marijuana use?

>> Absolutely.

An increase from when we started.

So, that seems like a public health concern.

It's totally a public health concern.

We should be completely freaked out.

And uh people are like, "Marijuana is innocuous.

Marijuana is innocuous.

" And it's like, "Why are you saying that when increase for a minute probably.

>> Well, the marijuana industry, which hates me, um, spends $3 billion a year on marketing.

So, how is how are they different from the Sacklers at Purdue Pharma then?

Like lying to people about the health effects of the drug they're profiting from.

I mean, it seems like the same.

It's a weapon of mass destruction.

>> Marijuana.

>> Marijuana.

And the the the weed industry hates you.

>> Of course.

>> Have they attacked you >> all the time? Really? What do they say?

>> If I post something on one of my social media sites, they'll call me a charlatan and hysterical and that I should get high.

They should take my medical license and all sorts of things.

>> Take your medical license.

>> Yeah. For because they'll do anything to try to shut me up. But it's like, how do you not talk about the truth?

And it's like, well, how do you know?

It's like, well, I look at the brain, and if your brain is not right, well, you're not right.

Yeah. I just didn't know until we had breakfast a minute ago that that kind of damage was so or any kind of damage to the brain was was more subtle damage, not, you know, head injury damage, but damage from drugs, for example, was detectable on a brain scan.

Yeah. So interesting. Um so spec the study we do gives you this really beautiful 3D look at activity and a healthy scan shows full even symmetrical activity with most of the activity being in the cerebellum. So the cerebellum is the back bottom part of the brain.

Um, cerebellum is Latin for little brain.

It's 10% of the brain's volume, but has 50% of the brain's neurons.

And alcohol is directly toxic to the cerebellum.

Well, so is marijuana. And that's why you shouldn't drive when you're high.

>> And so, what is this? What happens in the cerebellum?

>> So, so many interesting things.

It's sort of the Rodney Dangerfield part of the brain.

and it gets no respect.

Uh >> this would be the lower brain we referred to, not the higher brain.

>> Well, it's it's so important because it's connected to the the rest of the brain.

And it used to be thought that the cerebellum was involved in coordination, physical coordination.

Well, now we know it's also involved in thought coordination.

How quickly you can integrate new information.

And marijuana slows the function of the cerebellum.

So your thoughts become slower.

And you're less coordinated, which is why you shouldn't drive if you're high.

Interesting. Um, I mean that was all kind of known when I started smoking marijuana uh right around 1982 uh or 81 and it was like the classic profile of the stoner. Hey man, you know slow you know, molasses pace uh cadence to the language, droopy eyes, eating lots of snack food, kind of not doing anything.

Like people sort of knew even then when weed was way less potent than it is now that it slowed you way down.

But that's because it slows your brain down.

Because it slows your brain down.

It certainly alters your brain.

It works on um CB1 receptors. So there are cannabis receptors in your brain uh endockinabonoid receptors.

And it activates dopamine which means you feel high >> it feel rewarded want to do it again >> for sure >> and in vulnerable people it actually disrupts dopamine.

So it doesn't work consistently effectively and if it disrupts it if it goes too high then for vulnerable people you can become psychotic.

you can begin to lose touch with what's real and what's not real.

So if you think of psychosis, that's the definition of psychosis is you begin to have trouble differentiating what's real and what's not.

You might have delusions, hallucinations, um, and it triggers uh psychosis that in some people will turn into schizophrenia.

uh which is arguably the worst psychiatric illness.

Um >> arguably the worst illness there is, period.

I can't think of anything worse than that.

>> No, it's awful. Um and so why would you use something if you didn't know your genetic risk that could flip you into not knowing what's real or not because you had no idea it was risky.

And you don't love your brain.

See, I'm I heard President Trump talk at the Department of Justice. He had a conversation with the Mexican president about why Mexico exports drugs, but they're not a big drugusing country, which I thought was really interesting.

And she said, "Well, family is really important to us." And he's like, "Well, family is important to us.

" and she said, "And we have a wicked drug education campaign.

" And he's like, "Oh, we should do that." And so I wrote my friend at the White House.

I'm like, "You have to teach people to love their brain first before you tell them something's bad for them." Because as soon as you tell them something's bad for them, they want to do it. Right?

In the book of Genesis, God says, "Don't eat from the tree." The next scene, they're eating from the tree. So, if I was God, and I never try to play God, but if I was God and I was counseling God, I'd like, tell them if they eat from the tree, she's going to have to wear clothes and that they're going to get kicked out.

It's like, tell them, ask them what they want.

And then well what's the consequences?

And so the first thing is teach them to love their brains. And if you love it because it controls everything you do.

>> Well, why would you hurt it unless you were not that smart?

But it's got you got to have that foundational step.

Um I call it brain envy.

I always say Freud was wrong.

Penis envy is not the cause of anybody's problem.

Got to love your brain. It's the only organ in your body where size really does matter.

It's your brain because it controls everything.

>> Size does matter.

>> Size matters. You don't want a smaller brain.

Huh.

and alcohol, marijuana, being overweight, they all decrease the size of your brain.

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Being overweight decreases the size of your brain.

>> Yeah. Horrible study. Um, out of the University of Pittsburgh.

My friend Cyrus Rajie published it. He looked at MRI scans of people who are healthy weight.

So a BMI between 18.5 and 25 overweight 25 to 30 BMI or over 30 obese.

The people who were overweight had 4% less volume in their brain.

So less brain tissue and their brains looked 8 years older than they were.

People who were obese had 8% less volume.

Think about that. And their brains look 16 years older.

I looked at my healthy group that um we have at clinics and cuz when we were looking at healthy, we weren't looking at weight.

And after that study came out, um, we saw exactly the same thing.

And then I did a big NFL study and I looked at my healthyweight NFL players and my overweight NFL players.

And the overweight NFL players had significantly lower activity in their frontal loes.

So the frontal loes is the most human thoughtful part of your brain.

Uh, it's um 30% of the human brain, 11% of the chimpanzee brain, 7% of your dog's brain, 3% of your cat's brain, which is why cats need nine lives.

Anyways, significantly lower blood flow and activity in their frontal loes.

What weight does, excess weight increases something called inflammatory cytoines.

So, the fat on your belly is not your friend.

It decreases blood flow.

It increases inflammation. It prematurely ages your brain.

Um, it takes healthy testosterone and flips it into unhealthy cancerpromoting forms of estrogen, which is why being overweight increases your risk of 30 different cancers.

>> Really? And it lowers your testosterone.

>> Lowers your testosterone.

>> And is it Wow, that's that's unbelievable.

Is that widely known?

>> Yes.

>> Usually the last widely known in scientific circles that obesity is associated with at least 30 different medical conditions, but including cancer.

>> What does marijuana do to testosterone levels?

lowers it.

>> Conclusively, you can say that.

>> Yes.

And there's and you know, we have this younger generation who have low testosterone levels.

They've been getting lower and lower. And we have to ask them, so why is that? And part of it is, this is going to sound really crazy, but I believe it. The dermatologist won.

They made us afraid of the sun.

And now we have these record levels of low vitamin D levels, but we also have record levels of toxins being put on our bodies.

So mom thinks she's really being a great mom if she lathers her son or her daughter with sunscreen.

And now you've seen in the last couple of years, sunscreens have come under um a lot of scrutiny because of the toxins they have in them that if you put it on someone's skin, it goes into their body.

>> What kind of toxins?

>> Like parabens and phalates.

was a brand new study where they looked at cord blood and um autism and pe moms who had higher levels of phalates had five times increased risk of having an autistic child.

So when Secretary Kennedy says we're going to look at toxic exposure and autism, I'm like we absolutely should look at that.

Um I wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times recently. Um it was actually in response to Alan Francis who was in charge he's a psychiatrist very famous was in charge of the DSM4 committee.

So the DSM the diagnostic and statistical manual its fourth version changed the diagnostic criteria.

hugely significant book, >> huge.

Um, and he said, "Well, that's the reason for the rise in autism." And I wrote, "That's sort of like the fox guarding the hen house. It's, you know, autism clearly has exploded and it's not just due to different diagnostic >> or older fathers or >> it's it's due to a gene environmental bomb.

Something has happened in our society where in California now it's insane.

One in 12 boys uh will meet the diagnostic criteria for autism.

That should just scare us to our core.

And so what is different? Is it Tylenol?

Is it phalates? Is it parabens?

Is it aspartame? Um it's this crazy study on aspartame which is in diet sodas and many diet products. aspartame is in 5,000 uh diet products. So, they did this study on rats and they gave rats aspartame and it made them insanely anxious and then they gave them volume and it calmed them down.

It's like, okay, that was pretty crazy. But the the part about the study that bothered me the most was their babies who had never been exposed to aspartame were anxious and their grandbabies were anxious.

It had generational consequences.

>> Does that mean it had a it altered the genetics of the rats?

>> The epigenetics.

>> Epigenetics.

>> So epigenetics is >> on top of your genes.

They're switches and you can turn them on or off based on what you're exposed to.

And so imagine this when you have a baby girl.

So in our family, we have five girls.

Um yes, I have five sisters.

God hates me.

And >> you have five sisters.

>> I have five sisters and five daughters.

and I love them all dearly. But when a baby girl is born, she's born with all of the eggs in her ovaries she will ever have.

>> Yes.

>> And what happens to her is turning on or off those switches, making illness more or less likely in her babies and in her grandbabies. because if she has a baby girl, that baby girl is born with all of the eggs she'll ever have.

And I think we should teach every teenage girl and boy that your decisions have generational consequences.

I'm a huge advocate for teaching brain health early because and it it all goes down to one question that I love so much. I used to play a game with my daughter Chloe when she was two and I'm like, "Hey Chloe, good for your brain or bad for it?

" And if I went avocados, she'd go, "Two thumbs up.

God's butter." If I said blueberries, she'd put her little hands on her hips and go, "Are they organic?

" Because non-organic berries hold more pesticides than almost any other fruit.

If I said hitting a soccer ball with your head, oh, so stupid. um or talking back to your red-headed mother.

Very bad for your brain.

>> Dangerous in fact, >> but it's that question, what I'm doing right now, is this good for my brain or is it bad for it? And if I can answer that with information and love, I just tend to do the right thing because most of us have self-interest in mind and I'm like, activate it, right? What do you want in your relationships? What do you want in your work? What do you want in your money?

What do you want in your physical health, your emotional health, your spiritual health? And so, when you really get to what you want, you don't really want the substances because they don't get you what you want, right?

Like, but I want to feel better.

Okay. Well, there's probably 30 other ways to feel better. We just don't teach any of them. in school.

Like, how crazy is that? Like, one of the things I teach my patients, how to kill the ants.

And stands for automatic negative thoughts.

Thoughts that come into your mind automatically and ruin your day.

And I was 28 years old in my psychiatric residency when a professor said, "You have to teach your patients not to believe every stupid thing they think.

" And I'm like, "But I believe every stupid thing.

" >> Right.

Most of us do. It's like, you mean I don't have to believe the noise or the nonsense that my brain creates?

They should have taught me that when I was a second grader, how to manage my mind.

Um, I'm friends with Paul Simon and I Paul's song Kodchrome is one of my favorites.

Starts with when I think back on all the crap I learned in high school.

It's a wonder I can think at all.

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Your dogs, your cats, and your wallet will thank you. Well, I mean, you you said that the president of Mexico said that Mexico doesn't have uh, you know, pervasive drug pro use drug use problems because even though their economy is based on selling drugs, Mexicans don't use drugs at the rate Americans do because they have a very aggressive drug education program.

We also have a drug education program run by the drug peddlers that is super effective.

I mean I I think if you ask people about marijuana, the first the first instinct is why are you judging me?

Settle down. You're too uptight.

And the second is it's way better than alcohol and like you got to get lit on something and so you might as well choose weed over booze. And the third is unlike alcohol, cannabis is actually a like a real medicine, effective medicine.

It can save people's lives.

That I mean that is the story that we hear every day. Assess the last part.

Is marijuana a medicine?

Well, I think when used properly, it can be helpful.

So, for example, my mother-in-law, who I love dearly, um had stage four lung cancer and wasn't eating.

>> Mhm. And I'm like, absolutely.

Let's see if uh marijuana will help her. Um for certain people with glaucoma, it can be helpful.

>> Did Did it help her?

>> Yes.

um but not for much else. And if you're using it for anxiety, it's going to make you more anxious.

>> So yes, um so glaucoma, which is swelling of the eye, maybe.

>> Yes.

>> Okay.

>> Increased intraocular pressure.

>> Okay.

>> And um and to help with appetite. Okay.

It can help with pain, but if you start using it for pain, you're not going to stop.

And um >> why do you say that? What does it mean?

>> Well, if you're using it for pain, it's going to suppress the pain. And when you stop using it, it's going to come back.

So, if you don't go to the origin of the pain, >> Yes.

and pain.

I have a new book coming out in December, Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain.

And I talk about this in the book.

If you have chronic pain, um, say you have pain for 3 weeks or four weeks, well, pretty soon it's no longer in your back or just in your back.

It's actually in your brain. That your brain with pain becomes remodeled.

>> Yes.

And pain is now felt in your back, but it's in your brain.

And if you're really going to go after that chronic pain, you have to get your brain healthy.

And so if you're using marijuana for the chronic pain, it's suppressing those pain centers, but it's not getting your brain healthy.

And so when you stop the marijuana, the pain is just going to come back. And it's very important in the book I talk about the doom loop where you have pain for any reason which then triggers the suffering circuits in the brain that actually are the same ones for anxiety and depression.

anxiety, depression, pain, the same circuits in the brain, which then triggers this flood of ants, automatic negative thoughts.

I need surgery. I'll never be well, I'll always be in pain. Um, which then triggers muscle tension, which increases the pain and leads to bad habits.

Uh, so not just marijuana. uh it could be overeating because of the marijuana and you end up into this cycle of the doom loop.

>> Familiar to anyone who's had back problems. >> I'm sorry.

>> That's familiar to anyone who's had back problems. You described it I think very well.

>> But so marijuana is in your opinion as a physician helpful for a few just specific illnesses.

glaucoma and low appetite. Why wouldn't the answer be to isolate whatever the compound is in marijuana that helps with appetite and glaucoma and and literally medicalize it, put it in a pill or some pharmaceutical form and then, you know, sell it like you would any other pharmaceutical.

>> Well, they've done that for a long time.

>> Oh, okay.

>> I'm not the first one to think of that.

Okay, so we have that. So, we have that and so why does it need to be legalized for everything and are we better off than we were before we did that?

And the answer is absolutely we're not better off.

We're in the worst mess that we've ever been and we need to be honest with ourselves.

And I just I remember this crazy debate.

So, it was a Democratic debate uh in 2020 um where um they asked Joe Biden whether or not the federal government should legalize marijuana and he said no. He said, "I don't think there's been enough study.

" And on national television, Cy Booker shamed him and he said, "Man, are you high like the science is settled and you're just crazy because you don't believe that.

" So a US senator is basically saying, "The science is settled.

We should all get high.

" And I'm like, that was just such a terrible moment for me.

I think I was screaming at the television.

>> But I mean, does Cy Booker know like some science that you don't know?

>> I No, you don't think so?

You don't think?

>> Yeah. Cory Booker.

>> And I'm just a fan of the truth, of course.

>> And my interest is to help you have a better brain because if you have a better brain, your marriage is better.

You're a better dad. You make more money.

Well, since you are a psychiatrist, I mean, what is the effect of like chronic marijuana use on marriages?

>> Well, I just released a podcast with Julius Randall, um, NBA superstar.

I love him. It's public knowledge now that I've been his doctor. It was ruining his marriage because his wife said he wasn't present, >> right?

That he >> They already say that about men.

So like you don't need encouragement to be more vacant or distant.

>> Yeah, it's true that it had just changed his soul in the sense that he just didn't care about the things that were actually really important to him after he stopped and he asked himself those questions.

What do I really want?

It's no, I want to be married. I love my wife.

I want to be a good dad. I want to be a present dad. And yes, I want to be great at my craft. Um, but there's so much more to me than just basketball.

And when I met him, I learned that it was legal for NBA players that they just don't test them.

So, they can be >> The league allows NBA players to use marijuana.

>> Yes. So, there's no restriction on it.

And you know, I guess it the only restriction is well, how do you play?

And Julius thought he played better when he used, but in fact, he played better when he didn't use. He just had to be able to learn how to manage his mind.

So, I'm not going to make fun of him for thinking that because people addicted to all kinds of substances become totally convinced that they operate at a higher level when they use those substances.

You've seen that, I'm sure, a lot. Yes.

And um once they s they generally don't believe it anymore.

>> Fair.

>> But you have to always ask when someone's using any substance.

It's why, >> right?

>> And there are biological reasons why they use it because it may decrease pain.

Um there psychological reasons.

It does decrease the chatter >> in your head. There social reasons because you fit in with the group you're using.

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That it decreases the chatter in your head.

I've had a couple uh very smart just high IQ friends who use marijuana for that reason and say they become more fluent, clearer thinking, more able to focus.

You're suggesting that could be real.

They're not making that up.

>> No, it could be real, especially in the short run.

>> Probably not in the long run.

And I I always want people to do things that help them feel good now and later versus now but not later.

>> Yes.

And so, are there other ways to optimize your brain? And that's what I get so excited with players like Julius and some of the other people I've worked with is how can I help you be the very best you can be?

So, it's not about taking broken people and putting them back together.

It's about taking awesome people and helping them be more awesome.

And looking at the brain for me, it literally changed everything in my life from the time I go to bed at night to what I eat to um what I do to make myself happy.

It's I always want it to optimize my brain rather than steal from me. You know, I have six kids and I love them all dearly, but I never want to have to live with them.

And so, you know, I covet my independence.

And as I get older, I'm like, I need to be more serious because did you know 50% of people 85 and older, 50% of people 85 and older will be diagnosed with dementia of one form or another.

And it means if you're blessed to live to 85, you have a one in two chance of having lost your mind. And marijuana increases the risk of dementia.

>> Really?

>> Yeah. There's studies now and its use is skyrocketing in older people.

So in Canada there was a study where 15 years ago um 5% of people over 50 used marijuana.

Now it's 21%.

The government of Canada, the government of the United States is encouraging that.

Why would they be doing that?

>> I don't know. It's just wrong thinking.

>> Yeah.

>> Because at best, >> we we don't want dementia increasing in the population.

Alzheimer's is expected to triple by 2050.

No. It's like, no. And I wrote a book many years ago called Preventing Alzheimer's and got no end of grief from it.

Published it the year Reagan died.

And they're like, "You can't do that.

That's a false promise." And last year in the Lancet, there a review article came out and said 50% of Alzheimer's disease is preventable.

And I'm like, I'm so excited.

It's like yes, but in order to do that, you have to love your brain and take care of it.

>> What are what are the without getting too technical, you know, steps that a layman can understand to reducing your risk of Alzheimer's would be what?

>> So, I have an acronym I like called bright minds.

You want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it, you have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors.

And just quickly, B is for blood flow.

Low blood flow is the number one brain imaging predictor of Alzheimer's disease.

So what lowers blood flow?

Hypertension being sedentary, alcohol, marijuana, nicotine, much caffeine, right? A little bit is fine, much not a good idea. Um R is retirement and aging. The older you get, the more serious you need to be.

And you need to know what promotes aging.

Marijuana promotes aging. And now new studies out that if you're under 50 and you use marijuana, you have a 600% increased risk of having a heart attack.

So we know it has a >> 600% >> 600%.

>> That seems significant.

>> It seems significant. And um so we know marijuana has a negative impact on blood vessels, retirement and aging.

Why is inflammation a major cause of depression and dementia?

And so pro-inflammatory foods, so the ultrarocessed foods, low omega-3 fatty acids, and not flossing.

Like of all things, a brain health strategy is floss every night.

>> Floss your teeth.

>> Floss your teeth. Do not get gum disease.

>> You don't want low-grade infections in your mouth.

And you don't want inflammation in your mouth. So it alters the microbiome or all the bugs in your mouth which then have a negative impact on your whole body. G is genetics.

No, what's in your family? Like I have obesity and heart disease in my family, but I'm not overweight and I don't have heart disease.

Why? I'm on an obesity, heart disease prevention program every day of my life because I don't want those things.

We adopted our nieces because their parents were addicts and I tell them I said, "You have addiction in your family.

You have need to be on an addiction prevention program.

" >> Amen.

>> Every day of your life. And when I found the older one vaping, I grounded her for six months.

I mean, we're like very serious about if you want to go that way.

That's up to you, but I'm not going to do anything in my power to help you.

Um, the second one, and this is so important, or the next one is H, head trauma.

A major cause of psychiatric problems, but it's also a major cause of substance abuse.

Because if you damage your frontal loes, which happens in 90% of people who who have head trauma, 90% of them, their frontal loes are involved.

It decreases impulse control. Yeah.

>> So you might know this isn't good for me, but if you want it, you do it rather than if you want it, you distract yourself.

You make a better decision for yourself.

Tea is toxins.

Uh drugs, um alcohol, mold in your home can damage your brain and make you decrease your decision making.

Um general anesthesia is toxic to your brain.

And then the products we put on >> general anesthesia is toxic to your brain.

>> General anesthesia. And like I'm a psychiatrist.

Why do I know that?

because one of my patients um who is an alcoholic who had a terrible looking brain.

She got clean. Her brain looked great.

She then had knee surgery calls me up crying. She goes, "I think I have Alzheimer's disease.

" And I'm like, "Did she relapse?

" And so I scanned her.

Her brain looked terrible again, but she didn't relapse.

It was the effect of general anesthesia.

And then I went to the literature and I'm like, "What does the literature say?

The general anesthesia is hard on the brain and can increase the risk of dementia.

And it doesn't mean you don't get surgery.

It means probably should do some rehabilitation work if you have to get general anesthesia.

>> So avoid it if you can. Don't take it lightly.

>> Well, like people like in the pain book, this the one statistic that blew me away that really sort of nudged me to write the book.

If you have back pain, >> yes, >> um, and you get an abnormal MRI, well, that scares the socks off of you, triggers the doom loop, and you're more likely to get surgery. Been there.

>> But head to head against um, conservative care, surgery is no more effective, and it has a 21fold increased risk of side effects.

And then this is the statistic people my age um 70 70% of us have abnormal backs who have no pain at all. H people who are 50 who have abnormal MRIs 50% of them have abnormal back MRIs and no pain at all.

That means just because you have an abnormal MRI on your back or your neck or your shoulder doesn't mean surgery should be the first thing you do. But because there's an industry around surgery, that's often the first thing that's recommended.

And I argue, well, let's do the conservative things with a brain boost first and then if you need it, you need it.

Right? I'm not opposed to it.

I'm just opposed to that's the first and only thing you do.

Why aren't public health authorities um federal and state sounding the alarm about cannabis?

Or are they?

>> They're not. um state of California >> or at least in my state they're not because it's a revenue source because there's a political lobby.

Um and it's shameful.

I I I don't know how else to say it when when you really understand the research and now even more emerging research on anxiety, depression, suicide and psychosis. I think we should be much more concerned from a public health standpoint.

>> When was the last time you heard a public health authority in the state of California say, you know, legalizing marijuana has been a disaster and here are the numbers on it?

>> I don't think they say it because of the pressure um that's put on them not to say it.

>> California is the largest marijuana growing state in the country.

maybe the world. Certainly the highest potency, the best weed is grown in California, Menescino, Humble counties, all that famously.

It's a huge part of the state's economy.

And you think that's why they won't say it's bad.

>> Yes. It's money and influence.

>> So like we used to make fun of the, you know, congressman from Kentucky because he wouldn't say smoking caused cancer.

How is that?

>> It's the same thing.

>> Yeah. You just look at power and power has to do with money and it's killing us and it breaks my heart to have all these young people think it's innocuous.

And now along with the marijuana parties, they're having mushroom parties because I think mushrooms is going to go the same way as video games and we didn't talk about social media and cell phones.

All of this stuff just unleashed on the population.

Uh >> psilocybin mushrooms, >> but now psilocybin. Uh we have a daughter that's 22 and she's like, "Dad, um they're not drinking as much, but they're using mushrooms because they think they're innocuous, but the visits to emergency rooms for psilocybin psychosis has gone up significantly.

It's a little harder to tell yourself.

I mean, I smoked marijuana all through my childhood.

I also hate a lot of mushrooms and but it's a little harder to tell yourself that mushrooms are like no big deal because you can flip right out on mushrooms. Like they eat enough and they're hallucinogenic.

They inspire actual hallucinations.

>> So how do you and maybe you're totally for that or maybe you're not but you can't say it's like drinking a cup of coffee.

That's a profound thing.

You see things that aren't there.

That's by definition a big deal.

No, >> it's absolutely a big deal.

and uh they're studying it for PTSD and they're studying it for depression and and I'm for that.

What I'm not for is it's good medicine.

We should all do it >> that I think it >> No, it's kind of like weed in glaucoma.

Okay, if it reduces your glaucoma symptoms, I mean, who how could you be against that?

But there's a a huge distance between that conclusion and hey, it's totally safe.

Everyone should use it, >> right?

>> Like you'd take chemo if you had cancer, right?

But you're not absolutely >> You wouldn't recommend your 8-year-old had chemo.

>> Would hurt my brain.

>> Right.

>> Right. But then but I have to have chemo or I'll die. I get it.

>> And so I need to rehabilitate my brain.

And it's probably from the almost 300,000 scans I've done, the biggest lesson is I'm not stuck with the brain I have that I can make it better and I can prove it.

Now I can also make it worse and I can prove that too, right?

Every day I am making my brain better or I'm making it worse based on the choices that I make. And that's so exciting.

And everybody gets really excited about neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity is you can remodel your brain.

But neuroplasticity goes both ways.

Whatever you repeat, you model in your brain.

Whatever you repeat becomes tracks that force you into that road, if you will.

And so when I go to a restaurant and the first thing they ask you is, "Do you want a glass of alcohol?" when you go no over and over and over again.

Well, no becomes strong in your brain.

And so the temptation is low. If you say yes over and over and over again, that then becomes an automatic response.

And so we're wiring our brains for health or illness um by the choices we make.

>> Back to psilocybin really quick.

Are what do we know about the risks of using it?

>> That it can unbalance you.

>> That is true. I can verify that deeply I mean completely unbalance you.

>> Yes. Um that you want to use it again.

Although alcohol, if you use alcohol, there's a 15% chance you'll get hooked on it.

>> Really?

>> 15%. If you use marijuana and you're young, there's a 17% chance.

If you're older, it's only nine according to the latest research.

So, alcohol and marijuana in the young have an addiction potential for sure.

If you're older, alcohol is worse than marijuana.

Um, psilocybin, that's one of the risks, although less so, it seems, than either alcohol or marijuana.

>> Well, you can't function when you're tripping.

So, it's not like you could, you know, eat four grams of mushrooms or whatever and like go to work. You can't.

>> Well, and the doses in the studies, this is very important. It's 25 milligrams in the studies on depression and many people I know who micro dose are doing like 300 milligrams or 400 milligrams. And so it is the wild west.

I am a fan of lion's mane mushrooms. They have cognitive benefits and do not make you see things.

What's so another one of what I call a weapon of mass destruction.

Um it is an opiate agonist which means it increases the availability of opiates in the brain.

It's clearly addictive and it's legal and it's often shown in it's often sold in gas stations and places uh like that.

>> Yeah. The Indians run the gas station 50 yards from here. It's it's only cratom for sale behind the counter. What I mean is it I've never tried it.

Is how serious is it?

Well, I've had a number of patients.

Uh, in fact, I just did this great segment on KTLA in Los Angeles. So, um, I scanned, uh, Casey Mononttoya, who's the weather person.

She, um, loves me and >> wanted to experience my work. And so, I scanned her and scanned her producer.

>> And then we did them a year later.

And they both did what I asked them to do.

Casey's brain was better, like really better, but the producers's brain was worse.

And it sort of broke my heart because, you know, I get attached to how brains do.

And I'm like, why is it worse?

He goes, I don't know.

I've done this and I've done that.

And then he texted me. He said, the only thing I did differently between the first scan and the second is I picked upratom.

And I'm like, why did you pick upratom?

>> Pick up mean started using.

>> Started using and uh he was anxious something and he said friend told him it would be helpful.

I'm like you need to stop because it's clearly damaging your brain and there's no it doesn't seem to be regulated in most places.

>> It's not. No, it's in this sort of gray period where clearly it's legal.

They've tried to ban it a couple of times, but theratom lobby uh gets to the regulators and uh I I'm hoping that at some point this administration looks at it.

H um so compare the attitudes toward drugs in the United States just broadly vibe check in other words in 1982 compared to the attitudes you see now.

I think in 1982 we were much more concerned about the long-term negative impact of drug use uh marijuana psilocybin uh than we are now. I I think just this sort of general lie that uh and we unleash these things without long-term neuroscience study because marijuana was banned. It got banned in 1937.

uh they couldn't study it sort of like psilocybin and uh it it is just uh I see this as a psychiatrist and it just blows my mind how we unleash these things without actually taking the time to study them.

>> Do other psychiatrists feel that way?

>> Uh many of us do. I have 60 psychiatrists that work with me at Amon Clinics and we all believe this and um there >> has the American Psychiatric Association taken a position on >> it.

It's not a huge fan of marijuana as medicine.

Um and most addiction societies are very concerned about it.

Could you roll it back in the state of California right now?

>> No, >> you couldn't. Oh, it's just it's that powerful.

Not with the current administration, >> right?

So are you suggest if there's going to be a different administration um it it will be hard but but I think the more we start caring about our brains.

So the most important thing I'm doing right now is I'm working on creating a national brain health revolution.

My goal is for everyone to ask themselves this one question. whatever I'm doing now, is it good for my brain or bad for it?

And if I can accomplish this, then I think people will really start to ask themselves that question.

Um, is it good for my brain or bad for it?

And the thing most pressing is marijuana psilocybin cell phones, social media, AI that there's a brand new study out from MIT that evaluated uh smart kids who use AI to write their papers rather than just doing it themselves or just using Google had significantly less brain function.

while they were doing that task.

What that means is if I go to the gym and I'm used to lifting 25 lbs, so I could have strong arms. Um, it's now I go to the gym and I only lift 2 lbs. So, I'm not going to have strong >> Well, you don't go to the gym at all and you just sit in your chair and eat Doritos and >> farm it out, right? You're faring out the exercise.

And we should be concerned >> about AI.

>> About AI. Yeah. I mean, it's here and if you use it responsibly, it can be a helpful tool, but it's going to cause a lot of pain, I believe, and a lot less activity in the brain.

And what's the thing that protects us against dementia?

It's work. Brain work. The more I'm learning new things, the more I'm pushing my brain, well, the healthier it's going to be.

It's in many ways like a muscle.

And so I'm really good at reading brain scans.

If I just kept doing that, I'm not learning new things. But if I figure out new and exciting ways to read the scans, well, that's good for me. Or I learn a sport or I learn um a language just to put it into a larger governance context.

So like let's say you had a population that had been promised it was control it you know had control of its own government owned its own country and then for I don't know like 50 years you did nothing to serve their actual interests and you started to worry that they would rebel against you in some sort of violent revolution and you didn't want that wouldn't you do everything you could to make them dumber and more passive lower their testosterone levels lower their brain activity have someratom have some SSRIs here's a benzo go get fat.

You're like, why wouldn't you want that if you wanted people to be docel?

So, I wrote another book called The End of Mental Illness. And in it, I imagined if I was an evil ruler and I wanted to create mental illness, what would I do?

>> What would you do?

>> All of those things you just mentioned.

Um, I would have little girls selling Girl Scout cookies. In fact, in the most brilliant evil ruler strategy, there was a Girl Scout who set up her cookie stand outside a pot dispensary in San Diego and within a span of like 3 hours completely sold out and had to get more product.

And I'm like, that is brilliant evil ruler strategy stuff. It's got get little girls that are really cute to sell you sugar with trans fats in them to people who are smoking pot.

I'm like, and and the marijuana with the highest level or one of the highest levels of THC is called Girl Scout cookies.

So, it's so funny how, you know, Pavlov's principle just it holds true always.

The second you say Girl Sky cookies, I was just carried away with thoughts of thin mints.

I was the texture, the taste, >> but they don't love you back.

>> No, they don't.

>> So, I was at a >> I was at a lunchon recently with Lisa Trout and >> I love Lisa Trout.

>> Lisa and her husband, Kenny.

um own raceh horses and they own Justify.

>> Couple from Dallas, very nice people, >> love them. And I'm sitting next to her and I just had to do it because Justify run won the Triple Crown. And I'm like, "Would you ever feed Justify junk food?

" And she rolled her eyes at me.

Um she goes, "No." I said, "Would you ever get him stoned?

" And she goes, "Of course not.

" I said, "Would you ever get him drunk?

" And she just looked at me and I'm like, "Why?

" He would never live up to his potential.

So whatever you eat or whatever you drink or whatever you put on your body, I just another one of those questions.

Do you love it? And does it love you back?

Because if it doesn't love you back, don't do it.

Right? And this is all about self-interest because I've learned you can't just tell people no because then like in the Garden of Eden, they're of course at the tree. It's like, but what's the goal? And people go, "Come on, Daniel.

How can you have any fun?

" And I'm like, "Well, who has more fun?

" Right? cuz it what do you really want in your life?

And I think most people are like me.

They want energy.

They want memory. They want clarity.

They want creativity. They want passion.

Well, that takes a great brain.

And so it's like, "Oh, but you should just have a glass of wine." I'm like, "Well, I might love it, but it doesn't love me.

So why would I engage in behaviors that don't love me back?

I think there are spiritual effects of all of this. Dulling people physically, emotionally, you know, mentally, reducing their cognitive power, everything that you've just described makes it makes a person less likely to ask transcendent questions.

I think >> less likely to ask any questions because they are their habit centers are in control rather than their purpose centers.

>> What's a habit center?

>> So it's the dopamine loop in the brain. So there's an area called the nucleus encumbent which is what responds to dopamine and gives you pleasure or pain. and um it's connected to the basil ganglia. It's part of the basil ganglia.

If that takes over your life, you're just going to give in to whatever those habits created that.

And it >> is that are you describing craving there?

>> Well, there's a difference between wanting something and liking something. An addiction often goes to you want it but you don't necessarily like it anymore.

>> Yes.

>> And there's really this dance I often say between the elephant and the writer.

So the elephant is your emotional brain and the writer is your prefrontal cortex.

It has to control or break your emotional brain.

So the four-year-old in you is not always in control.

And when you hurt your frontal loes, so think of hitting soccer balls with your forehead repeatedly.

That'll hurt your frontal loes or playing tackle football.

Um now all of a sudden free will goes from perhaps 80%.

To 40%.

And then when you get stoned, well, now it's at 10%. Or you get drunk.

It's this beautiful dance between your frontal loes and your emotional brain that often become disconnected in addiction.

How hard is it to get off marijuana?

Um, easier than some things.

Julius got off after he saw a scan. I see that a fair amount when people go, "Oh, this is not really helping me.

It's damaging me." Um, so he gets off or anyone gets off who's a daily user.

They're millions of daily users. But what happens next?

>> Well, it takes a while. It takes a couple of months, I think, for that to fully get out of their system.

And it depends on do they get off and substitute brainhealthy behaviors that help rehabilitate their brain and that combination makes it easier to get off.

If they get off and then replace it with vaping or replace it with sugar, um they're much more likely to relapse.

And when you go to AA meetings, I always found this very interesting.

They'd have the donuts and everybody's smoking and they're eating donuts and coffee with a lot of sugar. And I'm like, maybe we could replace those things with healthier things, healthier choices.

>> People who get off uh particularly alcohol tend to go bonkers with sugar.

What is that?

Well, they're just trying to replace feeling good because sugar works on the dopamine centers of your brain as well.

And I always thought, why isn't brain health part of addiction treatment centers?

I wrote a book with David Smith.

So David is the founder of the Hate Ashberry Free Clinic in San Francisco.

He's the considered the father of addiction medicine. And um we wrote a book together called Unchain Your Brain: Breaking the Addictions That Steal Your Life. And in it, we put a brain healthy program for addiction treatment centers.

And many of them around the country use that, which I'm so excited about. But um I rewrote the 12 steps in one of my books. I have a book called Your Brain Is Always Listening.

>> That's audacious.

>> I'm sorry. That's audacious to rewrite the 12.

>> I thought it was a big deal, but I'm like, they haven't been rewritten since the 1930s.

>> I said, what if a neuroscience >> at the Old Testament next rewrote the 12 steps? Well, I wouldn't start with step one. Step one is my life is out of control. Yeah.

>> I would go step one is what do you want?

Relationships work money physical emotional, spiritual health. What do you want?

And step two is, is your behavior getting you what you want?

Obviously, it's not.

Step three, let's go get your brain healthy.

Brain health is three things.

Brain envy, got to care about it.

Avoid things that hurt it. Know the list.

Do things that help it. Know the list.

That's got to be the next step. Because with a healthy brain, you're less likely to relapse.

Or if you relapse, you don't see it as a failure. Because every day, and this is what Julius and I did, every day you win or you learn is you take a curiosity mindset into the problem rather than a shame mindset into the problem.

I failed. It's like, well, let's look at it. Um, and if you can understand, do you know when people relapse?

When they have low blood sugar, when they've gone too long without eating, they're more likely to relapse.

>> That's 100% true.

>> So, like carry nuts with you um or just something with you all the time so you don't get hungry.

And >> why why does hunger cause relapse, low blood sugar?

is it lowers blood sugar.

When you get lower blood sugar, you have lower frontal lobe function.

Really, it's so interesting. And there's this fascinating study where they took 107 couples at married couples and they measured their blood sugar right before bedtime and then they gave them voodoo dolls and they asked them to rate their feelings about their partner with pins in the dolls. And so they measured their blood sugar. And the people who had the lowest blood sugar had more than twice the number of pins in the voodoo dolls.

I thought that was fascinating.

>> That is fascinating.

>> Yeah.

>> So, you listed the things that make your brain smaller and less functional.

What are the things that make it bigger and better?

>> So, if we go back to bright minds, blood flow, it's clearly exercise. Um, and I think coordination exercises and strength training are both really important for blood flow, retirement, and aging is learn new things.

And everybody should get blood work every year, I think. And one of the tests you should always get is feritin.

So ferotin is a measure of iron storage.

And if your iron is high, it promotes aging.

Um, and you should donate blood twice a year.

So, donating blood twice a year for people who have high veritin levels, good for their brain, good for the >> So, there was something behind the whole leech idea.

>> Well, it's so funny. Tana and I were in uh Istanbul.

Uh, we went to the spice market and they had leeches for sale in the spice market. And I'm look at my wife and I'm like, why did they have leeches for sale here? and she's a neurosurgical ICU nurse and she said cuz they suck blood and it can help wounds heal and it also takes off excess iron.

Now, if your iron levels are low, it's a very bad thing. Don't do that.

Um, >> so you wouldn't recommend leeches for everyone?

>> No.

Uh, as far as inflammation, omega-3 fatty acids, I think everybody should probably take fish oil or an omega-3 supplement um healthy uh fish.

People who eat grilled or baked fish once a week have more gray matter in their brain.

I think you should floss regularly, take care of your teeth.

Uh, curcumin is a wonderful anti-inflammatory supplement.

also saffron for so many reasons.

Um >> what's curcumin?

>> Curcumin is a spice from turmeric.

So turmeric >> also called cumin.

>> Not called cumin. It's different.

Curcumin. Uh very popular in India and curries.

Uh curcumin is one of the components of it that has specific anti-inflammatory effects.

And there's studies showing it decreases depression because depression and inflammation, inflammation is one of the causes of depression.

Um, from genetics, like know what your risks are and be on a prevention program every day.

Don't text and drive so you have a head injury and avoid toxins. Right?

So, I'm not a fan of drugs or alcohol, but there's an app I like called Think Dirty.

It allows you to scan your personal products and it'll tell you on a scale of 1 to 10 how quickly they're killing you.

And so just start reading the ingredients.

What are personal products?

Like >> shaving cream. Like for years I shaved with Barbol.

And when I scanned it, um zero is live a long time. 10 is die early.

Barbasol's a nine. And I'm like, "Oh, I don't want to do that." And so I now shave with something called Kiss My Face.

Used it this morning and it's a two, right?

It doesn't have toxic toxins in the personal product.

So think deodorant, shampoo, body wash, lotions, things along that line. Read the labels.

Right? Most people are smart enough now that they're reading food labels.

They need to read product labels. Um the M, we didn't talk about the M, but that's mental health.

If you're depressed as a woman, it doubles your risk of Alzheimer's disease.

If you're depressed as a man, it quadruples your risk of Alzheimer's disease.

And now we know new studies, SSRIs increase the risk of dementia.

Like holy smokes. And so, but significantly >> significantly head-to-head against SSRIs or head-to-head against anti-depressants.

Walking like you're late for 40 minutes, 45 minutes, four times a week, equally effective.

Taking fish oil equally effective to anti-depressants in a study from New Zealand was actually more effective.

Um, learning not to believe every stupid thing you think.

Cognitive behavior therapy works for depression.

Pushing away those thoughts, not pushing them away, engaging them.

I teach you how to do it. It's really fun.

And then Saffron is a brand new study out.

They looked at um 192 studies on 17,000 people looking at what supplements actually had scientific evidence that they worked for depression.

And saffron in many studies was equally effective to anti-depressants.

And if you added zinc, >> saffron, >> saffron, if you added zinc and curcumans, even more effective.

And the supplement Sammy, they those were the ones that had good scientific evidence that they were effective. And I love saffron and I've taken it every day for six years.

Why? Studies for mood.

I'm I'm not depressed, but I'm happy to be happier.

Studies for memory, and it's pro-sexual rather than SSRIs, which sort of numb your sex drive and make it harder to have an orgasm. So, I'm like, so what would I do? Prozac or saffron, zinc, and curcumins?

I'd do saffron.

Um, immunity infections, we haven't talked about this.

I would know your vitamin D level and I would optimize it. 60 70% of the population in America has suboptimal levels >> and that's because they don't go outside or they're >> sunscreen.

>> Yeah.

>> And because they're not going outside, >> but we've been told that skin cancer is the real threat.

>> Yeah. But since we've been told that skin cancer has gone up, not down.

Now I think >> Well, how does that work? Not not well, >> right?

No way. It's like the dermatologist won.

They made us afraid of the sun, >> but we need the sun. We were made in the sun or we evolved in the sun and we need our vitamin D level to be at a healthy range.

Now, don't go crazy with it cuz then you'll end up with kidney stones.

But you want to know it, right?

You can't change what you don't measure.

You want to know it and then work to optimize it either by getting more sun or supplementing it. It's so important.

And eating garlic, mushrooms, and onions help support immunity. So the second eye in bright minds is immunity and infections.

And I believe infectious disease psychiatry, it's going to be a major branch of psychiatry in 50 years.

And like CO for example, flamed the brain. It was so interesting cuz when CO first started, I mean, I have all these patients and they would get COVID and they get anxious or they get depressed or they get psychotic.

You could see it on their scans where their emotional brains became dramatically overactive and if you have long co it's damaging your brain. You can actually see it on skin. CO I mean I think that's true.

I mean it's true anecdotally in my life get people at the you know the low point of COVID were depress people who had COVID and those few days were you know it can get difficult.

It affected their emotional condition a lot. Why?

>> So if you get CO in the next six months, you have a 25% increased risk of having a new onset psychiatric illness.

And what our scans taught us, it caused inflammation that targeted your emotional brain.

And so the way to help that is omega-3 fatty acids decrease inflammation.

Curcumans decrease inflammation.

Queretin, another supplement decreases inflammation.

And then make sure you're on an anti-inflammatory diet where you're not eating processed foods, much sugar, or much simple carbohydrates.

This is a fascinating study from the Mayo Clinic where they looked at people who had a fat-based diet.

So, think avocados, nuts and seeds, green leafy vegetables, salmon, healthy oils, um 40% less risk of getting Alzheimer's disease.

People at a simple carbohydrate-based diet, bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, fruit juice, sugar, a 400% increased risk of Alzheimer's disease.

The D in bright minds is diabetes.

You do not want that.

It's a combination of being overweight and having high blood sugar. It's a disaster for the brain. So, when I get my overweight, pre-diabetic patients, I'm like, if you want to love your life for the rest of your life, we got to get this under control. Um, the N is neuro hormones.

Talked about testosterone a little bit.

And the S is sleep.

So, all of those things are the bad things and the good things to do for your brain, but it all boils down to is this good for my brain or bad for it?

You can tell if someone is pre-diabetic, overweight.

It's evident on the brain scan.

>> Yes. Their brain scans look older than they are.

>> And that's reversible.

Absolutely.

Now, the earlier you get it, the better, right?

If you have somebody with stage 4 Alzheimer's, I'm probably not going to make the biggest difference in their life.

But if they have stage one or two or they have mild cognitive impairment, it's like let's go. Let's go after.

>> Really?

>> My favorite story, one of them is Nancy.

So I did a big NFL study at a time when the NFL was sort of lying about traumatic brain injury in football was 2007, 2008, 2009. And Ray White was one of our players. He played linebacker at um for the San Diego Chargers and he joined my study so I would see his wife who had frontal temporal lobe dementia which is wicked dementia and at a young age >> she was in her mid-50s and um the doctor at UC San Diego told her told Rey you should find a home for her.

>> Oh gosh. because within a year she is not going to know your name. And he was mad and he was sad and he said, "Could you just tell me your opinion?" And we scan Nancy and she had frontal temporal lobe dementia.

You could see it on the scan.

The whole front part of her brain was severely low in activity.

And I said, I agree with the diagnosis, but if she was my wife and I like my wife, I would do all these things, basically all the Bright Minds interventions, plus put her in a hyperbaric chamber, make sure she stops drinking, alcohol, optimize her hormones.

10 weeks later, they came back and I scanned her.

Her brain was better.

Wasn't normal, but it was dramatically better.

And Ry had lost 30 lbs.

in those 10 weeks. And I'm always getting trying to get my NFL players to lose weight.

And I'm like, "How did you do that?

How did you lose 30 lbs?" He said, "I knew if I modeled a brainhealthy life, she would do it, too.

" And it just hit me that sometimes motivation is about love. He loved his wife.

>> Yes. And as he got healthy, she did better.

Now, frontal temporal lobe dementia is awful. And it was a war.

But 5 years later, she was still home. Wow.

And I thought that was a huge win.

So you you're confident that this intervention slowed the progression?

>> Absolutely.

>> What causes frontal temporal lobe dementia?

>> We don't know. Um, sometimes it's repetitive trauma, sometimes it's an infection.

Um, but by and large that's one of the ones we don't know what causes it.

Why is Alzheimer's sometimes referred to as diabetes type three?

>> Because if you have diabetes and you're overweight, you're much more likely to have Alzheimer's disease. Do you think that the rise in Alzheimer's which is also I think real we can say it's not just a matter of you know extended lifespan or improved diagnosis but there's actually more Alzheimer's right >> yes >> is that directly related to food I think it's directly related to all 11 of those risk factors so for example if you have sleep apnoa where you snore loudly you stop breathing at night you're tired during the day that triples your risk of Alzheimer's I I I think it's all of these things going together and we bought this huge lie that Alzheimer's is caused by an increase in beta amaloid plaque formation in the brain. Um but when they develop medicines and vaccines against beta amalloid that didn't work and we have a couple that are now FDA approved but they don't work very well and they're very expensive. It's you have to go after all the risk factors as early as you can. I think all of us should be on an Alzheimer's prevention program which is the same program to prevent depression.

H and it's basically it's healthy living.

It's basically answering that one question.

Whatever you're doing today, good for your brain or bad for it.

So that goes to food. It goes to the time you go to bed. It goes to your interactions.

And it also goes to not believing every stupid thing you think.

So, we talked earlier about pushing away the bad thoughts. I don't want you to push away.

I want you to write them down.

>> Write them down.

>> Write them down >> where no one can see them.

>> Well, that's up to you.

Um, but it's like, and that just go, is it true?

I don't know if you know my friend Byron Katy.

She's got this elegant way of killing the ants, the automatic negative thoughts.

So, my wife never listens to me. I've had that thought.

And if you don't question a thought, you believe it.

And then you act as if it's true, even if it's a lie. And so, my wife never sort of listens to me.

Write it down. Is that true? No.

I've written 19 public television specials.

She's listened to every script now.

Maybe only once, but that's all I need to.

>> Um, the second question is, is it absolutely true with the 100% certainty?

You know that thought's true?

>> No. How does that thought make you feel?

Terrible.

Isolated alone.

How does it make you act distant, irritable with her? What's the outcome of that thought? She'll not listen to you.

Um, the fourth question is, how would I feel if I didn't have the thought?

Fine. How would I act? Normal.

What's the outcome? Happier.

The fifth question is my favorite one.

take the original thought, Tana never listens to me, and turn it to the opposite, Hannah does listen to me, and then I could list all the times she does.

And that way, rather than allow the thought to fester, see, if you just push it away, it's still there, but now I've gone into the heart of it and I've killed it and it doesn't bother me.

It's so effective and I have my patience.

If you just do that 30 times, take the worst 30 thoughts that come in your head.

Like one of my patients, I'm a pedophile.

Like, whoa, is that true?

Well, I have those thoughts.

Well, is it absolutely true?

Says, I've never touched anybody.

How does that make you feel like a criminal?

Well, how would you feel if you didn't have the thought? Normal.

What's the opposite of that thought?

I'm not a pedophile.

You have any evidence of that?

So, I've never touched anyone inappropriately.

Right. Just because you have a thought, it's like all of us have crazy thoughts.

Yes. All of us. Like this is going to sound really crazy, but we have two dogs and I love them both.

But the German Shepherd loves my wife like way more than me.

>> Yeah.

>> I come home and he's like, "Hey, dude.

What's up?

" >> She comes home. It's like, "Oh my god, I love you so much. This is where have you been?

I've been longing for you.

" I mean, she's just nuts.

and he was in my office cuz when she's not around, he loves me and he comes hanging out with me. And then I just had the thought, you know, if I killed my wife, he would love me more.

>> Yeah, that's that's a that's a one answer for sure. And then I'm like, yeah, but no, no, we're not killing her. And it's just your brain.

Jerry Seinfeld said this.

Your brain is a sneaky organ.

We all have weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts that nobody should ever hear.

And just because you have a thought has nothing to do with whether or not it's helpful, whether or not it's true.

Um, and it may not even be related to what you want at all. Not at all.

And there's a verse in the New Testament I like.

Romans 12:2, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And most Christians know that, but they don't know the second part of it.

Then you can test to see if it fits God's good, perfect, and pleasing will.

And murdering Tana does not fit God's good, perfect, or pleasing will.

And in fact, will not make me happy cuz I love her so much more than I love the dog.

>> Of course, >> right?

But just having a thought, it's just like the weather. It's like, oh, it's a storm and I can take that thought captive and I don't have to believe it.

There's nowhere in school where we teach kids to manage their minds. And so if they get these crazy thoughts, they think they're bad and they don't know how to deal with it.

So they smoke, but to manage it and then that becomes the habit loop of their life.

It's a familiar familiar process I think for most people listening.

One question that arises where do those thoughts come from?

>> It's a great question and because the thoughts may actually not be yours.

>> Well, that's my distinct impression that we're under we're under, you know, attack or at least outside influence.

>> Well, it came from a different generation.

There's a book I love called It Didn't Start with You. And on our podcast, Change Your Brain Every Day, we interviewed Mark Woolen and he talks about how trauma gets passed down through generations.

That trauma causes epigenetic changes, these little switches on your genes, and it makes you more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and the thoughts that are associated with those things. And it may have nothing to do with you um >> or any experience that you have had >> or any experience you >> So are you saying that that it like you arrive in this world with it encoded in your genes?

>> Yes. That we're not blank slates that what happened in the people before us.

So like aspartame can affect generations.

So can trauma. And there was a lot of study done on this of children and grandchildren of people in the Holocaust and how it changed the chemistry in their bodies making them more vulnerable to having depression, anxiety, and PTSD.

It's also been found to be true for the children of the soldiers who enter Iraq and Afghanistan that they have a higher incidence of mental health issues.

But what you're saying is not just that they picked it up at the dinner table.

You know, mom and dad are traumatized, therefore I am too. It's something that is physical in origin. It was genetic.

>> Yes. That it's biological and psychological.

So all those circles, they all work together all the time.

>> Why do you fix that?

>> Well, what you recognize those thoughts aren't you?

>> Yeah. is you just write them down and you evaluate.

>> Do you ever have those nonsense thoughts?

Evaluate them and find them true like there is a monster under the bed.

>> Well, sometimes. Well, sometimes, right?

>> All your fears come true >> cuz the goal is never positive thinking.

That's not the goal. The goal is accurate thinking with a positive spin.

I just published a huge study on 7,500 people on negativity and negativity is bad for your brain.

Negativity actually causes your prefrontal cortex frontal loes to be lower in activity. And so um so I'm not a fan of negativity, but I am a fan of being honest. And that just resonates the the most with me.

Um, so the pedophile, he he wasn't a pedophile.

It was the worry. It was the thought.

>> Of course, it's like jumping off a tall building, you know? It's like, I don't want to get near the edge. I could jump, >> right?

It's just a rogue thought has gone wrong.

And one of the exercises I give my patients is give your mind a name so you can gain psychological distance from the noise in your head.

I learned that from my friend Steven Hayes and he was on our podcast and I'm like give your mind a name. I'm like well what would I name my mind?

Be interesting to hear what you'd name your mind but I named mine after my pet raccoon.

I had a pet raccoon when I was 16 and I loved her. Um, but she was a troublemaker.

She teepeeed my mom's bathroom.

Oh, yeah. She um ate all the fish out of my sister's aquarium.

She'd leave raccoon poo in my shoes.

And that's my mind. So, I named my mind Hermy.

That was her name because I didn't know it was a girl when I got her.

And I just watched the movie The Summer of 42. And Hermy was the main character and I loved him.

And whenever my mind starts to act up metaphorically, I'll put her on her back and just start tickling her.

I'm like, "Come on, we can do better than this." So, I'm not punitive to myself. I'm a cheerleader.

And I realize I am not my thoughts.

>> Don't Don't take yourself too seriously.

>> Absolutely not. And and does it fit?

Right. It's another one of those questions.

Does this thought fit my goals or does it fit God's good, perfect, or pleasing will for me?

I'm like, killing my wife doesn't fit.

There's like nothing about that that fits.

And I'm not a bad person cuz I had the thought cuz it's just a thought, right?

I didn't control it. I'm a bad person if I do something bad.

This one of the reasons that nursing mothers go crazy is they have thoughts of harming their own children whom they love more than anything.

>> Yes.

>> I'm sure you've dealt with that.

>> Absolutely.

>> That's common.

>> It's very common.

>> And they hate themselves for having those thoughts.

>> They hate themselves and they would never do anything >> of course not >> to harm the child unless their brain is damaged or their brain is disrupted.

So, I've scanned over a thousand convicted felons, over a hundred murderers.

Um, we got this scan of Kip Kinkle who murdered his mom and dad and then went to his high school and shot 25 people. His brain was so damaged.

>> It's um well, he murdered his mom and dad so he never really knew.

Likely had anoxia or lack of oxygen at birth.

and my hero story. So, when I first started doing scans, I loved it. I was so excited about it.

And then I had um I'm a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

But then so many people there started to hate me.

They said, "You shouldn't be scanning people.

It's not part of our tradition.

That's not what we do." And I'm like, when I was growing up, I had a father whose two favorite words, um, first one was [ __ ] The second one was no.

And I heard that over and over again.

And so when they told me I shouldn't be doing what I loved, I'm like, [ __ ] No, I'm going to do it. But I became very anxious because I I didn't like powerful people telling me I shouldn't do something.

And it was really painful emotionally.

And then in 1995, I got a call late one night from my sister-in-law who told me my 9-year-old nephew Andrew, um, who's my godson, who I loved, attacked a little girl on the baseball field that day for no reason. And I'm on the other end of the phone.

I'm like, that's awful. What else is going on?

She said, Danny, he's different. He's mean.

He doesn't smile anymore. I went into his room today and I found two pictures he had drawn. One of them he's hanging from a tree in a suicide attempt, 9 years old.

The other one he's shooting other children and that's the scariest.

>> And I'm like, >> I want to see him tomorrow because I'd been scanning people for 4 years and I'd already correlated violence, at least in some people, to the left temporal lobe.

your left temporal lobe is damaged, you're more likely to have dark, evil, awful thoughts.

And so they brought him up to see me the next day. They lived 8 hours away.

And I'm like, "Buddy, what's going on?

" He said, "Uncle Danny, I don't know.

I'm mad all the time.

" I'm like, "Is anybody teasing you?" He said, "No.

" Says, "Is anybody hurting you?

" No. Is anybody touching you in places they shouldn't be touching you?

He said, "No.

" 999 child psychiatrists out of a thousand would have put him on medicine and put him in therapy. And I'm like, I have to look at his brain cuz how do I know unless I look, right? That's like one of the taglines of my life. How do I know unless I look? Why are psychiatrists the only medical doctors who virtually never look at the organ they treat?

And I went, great question.

I went to the scan center and I held Andrew's hand while he held his teddy bear and got scanned. And afterwards, my mentor Jack Pauly, we're look, the image comes up on the computer screen, he's missing his left temporal lobe.

And I looked at Jack, his first time I've seen it.

I've seen it almost 200 times since.

Um, he writes down, so mom won't hear, cyst stroke tumor.

and later that day got an MRI. He had a cyst the size of a golf ball occupying the space of his left temporal lobe.

I called his pediatrician. I said, "You find somebody to take this out or drain this thing.

" He called three neurologists.

All of them said they wouldn't touch the cyst.

They didn't think it had anything to do with his behavior.

And they wouldn't they wouldn't recommend surgery until he had real symptoms. At which point I lost my mind and start screaming at the pediatrician.

I'm like, I have a homicidal suicidal child. What do you think are real symptoms? So there's this incredible divorce between psychiatry and neurology.

And I thought to myself, neurologists, neurosurgeons, neurosurgeon, what I really want.

So I called the chief of pediatric nuros surgery at UCLA, Jorge Lazerov.

Um, and he was already famous because he'd separated the Guatemalan twins or connected at the head.

And he said, "Dr. Ammon, when these cysts are symptomatic, we drain them.

He's obviously symptomatic.

" And after surgery, I got two phone calls. First one was from my sister-in-law who said the surgery went really well.

And then she burst out into tears and she said when Andrew woke up from surgery, he smiled at me. She said, "Danny, he hadn't smiled in a year." Oh. And then I got a call from Dr. Lazer, who said, "Oh my god, Dr. Aman, that cyst was much more aggressive than we thought.

It actually thinned the bone over his temporal lobe.

" So it thin the bone of his skull.

And he said, "If he would have been hit in the head with a basketball, would have killed him instantly.

Either way, he would have been dead in 6 months.

" And it was that moment I lost all of my desire for the American Psychiatric Association to like me, for my colleagues to love me. I'm like, if you don't look, you don't know.

How many people are like Andrew? have brains that aren't right that do bad things that we just label as bad rather than as sick.

And um I mean there was that moment that caused me to lose my anxiety and go to war.

>> Did he improve?

>> He got so much better. And today he's >> got his own business and his dad and he's married and he has kids and >> Yeah.

And we've seen almost 200 cis since then.

>> Well, there are a couple famous cases.

Charles Whitman most famously at University of Texas, >> right?

Uh but of murderers who were clearly driven to it or their brain tumor or cis played a role in it obviously, >> right?

It's not that uncommon.

>> And how would we know unless we looked? And so Dosski said, "You can tell about the soul of a society, not by how it treats its outstanding citizens, but by how it treats its criminals.

" >> Yes.

And it it just I I want to rehabilitate people who do bad things or at least try, right? We should look at their brains and see, can we get them better? Can we get them to love their brains so they don't go out and use drugs? And I was involved in a program in Washington state where they actually screen for ADHD and learning disabilities, made them go through a 14-week course to learn about what they had, and it cut recidivism from 69% to 29%.

Now, I think this is a conservative idea.

that is >> that if you invest in true rehabilitation, they're going to get out and they're less likely to come back, which means they're going to get out, they're going to work, they're going to take care of their families, they're going to pay taxes, they're going to be a more important part of society rather than we just house them and punish them further.

your new book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain.

Dr. Amon, thank you.

That was amazing.

>> Thank you so much.

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