now if you have to eat rice then there are ways that you can reduce the arsenic in your rice first what if I told you that this little guy could hold the key to your brain health even if you have a gene that increases your risk of dementia would you eat this every day do you even want to know if you have a gene for Dementia or would you rather know how to prevent dementia and that's the dilemma with the apoe4 test that Chris Hemsworth got he discovered that he had two copies of the APO
E4 Gene which increases is risk of Alzheimer's now 25% of Us carry one of these genes and less than 3% have both copies I'm all for knowing your data if that information will be helpful and the thing is just because you inherit the apoe4 gene that doesn't mean you're going to get Dementia in fact 40% of patients with Alzheimer's don't even have the apoe for Gene what does the apoe4 gene do anyway well it turns out that the gene makes the brain cells trap triglyceride a type of fat that normally provides energy to cells so
is it really worth knowing your April E4 status personally I don't think so because there's nothing you can do about it you can't get rid of that Gene however you can modify lots of other risk factors that have nothing to do with your genes and possibly even reverse dementia if you can find a treatable root cause would you believe that people usually get diagnosed with frontal temporal dementia between the ages of 45 to 65 I have a friend who's literally my age who has dementia I don't think I'm that old and we usually think of
it as an old person's disease but not everybody gets dementia as they grow old I've met plenty of people in their 90s and over 100 who were as sharp as attack and those are my role models I want to be like them and not necessarily for me but really for my kids do you know how hard it is to take care of someone with dementia I have a unique perspective because not only am I physician but my mom had dementia she started showing signs several years before other people recognized it and for many years nobody
believed me first she lost her keys one day she literally called me up yelled at me over the phone as if I took her keys she then blamed it on my brother accusing him of hiding her keys from her I drove over her house that day to help her look for her keys which was literally on the floor next to the chair now I don't exactly know why my mom got dementia but I have my theories but I do know I eat cruciferous vegetables like number one kale because it's been shown to improve memory and
my favorite kale of all time is the Latino kale but like all other cruciferous vegetables including broccoli cauliflower booy they all can help detoxify heavy metals which accumulate in the brain lowering IQ scores and increases your rate of getting dementia at a younger age here's a list of heavy metals that can accumulate in your brain now these metals they surround all of us because people have polluted the Earth hence it's important to help your own body naturally detox with cruciferous vegetables because when you eat cruciferous vegetables they arm the most important defense system you have
the glutathione Redux system so when you eat heavy metals they cause your body oxidative stress and it wouldn't be a problem if your body can handle the oxidative stress hence you got to power your glutathion Redux system because it is the most powerful oxidative stress Handler and every time you eat cruciferous vegetables they have a molecule in them called sophanes that help you do just that but that doesn't mean we shouldn't avoid concentrated levels of toxins do you know where lead is commonly found in your environment now when I grew up they still sold leaded
gasoline so lead was basically in the air pollution in Los Angeles and it would blow in your house on a windy day and subtle as dust and and that's why it's important to keep your windows closed on Windy days wash all your produce before you eat it and keep your home dust free now the other problem with homes especially older homes is lead based paint and lead based paint was used before 1978 now when the paint gets old it chips right well that chip can fall and can get on the fingers of your little friends
or can get on the soil and contaminate the soil that surrounds your home the thing is you don't need a lot of lead to elevate blood lead levels and cause brain damage and this is one reason why Asians we don't wear shoes in the home because dirty shoes bring in dirty dirt with blood and little feet should not be walking barefoot in the soil or play in the dirt because of the possibility of lead and nor should you plant an Edible Garden close to your home now if you're concerned with your dirt you can always
test it for lead do you remember ever hearing that you shouldn't cook or drink from the hot water tap but you should always use a cold water tap and that's because old homes were made out of lead pipes and hot water dissolved more lead so if you need hot water you collect the cold water and you heat that up now even though I have a newer home and it's no longer made out of lead pipes I still follow these rules because hot water just dissolves more things in cold water so I never drink or rinse
my mouth with hot water and if I need hot water well I'll just going to heat up the cold water I also got myself a water filter and another rule is to let the water Run 3 to 5 minutes before using it if you have an older home now if you don't have lead pipes then it's recommended to let it run 30 to 60 seconds now as a kid I remember my mom using Roundup we had a huge garden and she would periodically get tired of all the insects and go use that Roundup which is
made out of glyphosate now of course when you're the one spraying it you're prob probably getting some on yourself and inhaling it especially if you're not wearing a mask now I don't think that's the only risk factor for dementia she had but for sure glyphosate has been linked to neural degenerative diseases and this is why I don't like to spray pesticides in my home because eventually that residue will get in the air and in the dirt now the reason why my mom couldn't find her keys was because she had so much clutter and as her
dementia got worse she was unable to keep her house clutter-free but before she actually lost her keys she got lost a few times driving to my house several months prior and she came to my house quite frequently to help me babysit now when my dad was around he would help my mom navigate and my dad he remained sharp as aack in his old age and he loved garlic and that's another reason why I eat garlic daily which is number two garlic is high in Sulfur compounds called Allison which supports a liver detoxification system glutathione now
garlic also has selenium which acts as a co-actor for the glutathione Redux system as well and my dad he swore by his garlic because he never got any colds and he was super healthy and strong as an ox when I grew up now I can verify that he did indeed not get colds even though I kept bringing home colds from school and he did indeed love his garlic he would bring raw garlic bulbs for lunch at work and he carried these bulbs to all the restaurants that we would go to because they just never gave
them enough garlic and when we go to Chinese restaurants we would always ask for stir-fried vegetables with garlic and that still wasn't enough now did you know that during World War II garlic was known as a Russian penicillin because when the Soviets ran out of antibiotics this is what they used garlic antibiotics weren't actually available until after the 1940s and what did people do before the 19 40s well they use plants and at the rate that we're accumulating drug resistance it's going to be in our lifetime to watch these antibiotics disappear in their effectiveness and
we're going to have to go back to plants but my personal goal is not to rely on antibiotics for my own health and that's why I eat as much garlic as possible garlic has been a worldwide ancient remedy for infections for colds for coughs for joint pains and skin problems however there is a trick to eating Garlic raw garlic actually Burns so this is not something you want to put on your skin the end result is not going to be pretty and my Dad tried to train me to eat this garlic raw but just barely
touching my lips it set my lips on fire so I am not a fan of raw garlic and as an adult I realize garlic has to be eaten with food I try not to eat this on an empty stomach and I try very hard to get this in my system every day because it can dampen the overactive immune system while increasing my protective immunity and apparently that nagging common cold symptoms that make you stay home well people who ate garlic reported to suffer 60% less cold symptoms and 70% fewer days down to have a faster
recovery and in fact when you eat garlic the anti-infective elements actually can permeate in your respiratory tract making it unpleasant for germs to live but not all garlic are equal if you want your Allison then you can't deep fry your garlic or bake it on high heat stir frying and boiling will also reduce the Allison and the best way to preserve the most Alison is to roast your garlic in its own peel and then you can smash it over a piece of a whole grain toast and it'll be super tasty now cooking takes a lot
of effort and I think that's why a lot of people don't cook and I noticed as my mom's dementia Advance her cooking skills also diminished a lot of it was from just getting out of practice because she basically thought it was cheaper to buy pre-made food so then why spend the effort and I believe her eating out actually sped up her dementia because restaurant food is usually poor in quality higher in salt higher in sugar all contributing to a worse blood pressure which means you have less blood flow which means your brain cells don't get
the nutrition that they need and when she did cook well she had a difficult time remembering how she should do that and she wasn't an excellent cook she cooked for us for decades for Holiday she would easily whip up 30 dishes and it would be just to feed the five of us and for the longest time my dad he refused to eat at restaurants because my mom was such a good cook I always just thought he was cheap and he was but that actually protected his metabolism and his brain cells and as my mom's dementia
Advanced she would actually burn her food and she always laughed it off saying she just wasn't paying attention now to be clear her symptoms slowly happened over years and this is why it's important to start eating for your brain health today if you look around the world there are certain cultures that have lower dementia rates like India who are also one of the highest consumers of turmeric now turmeric is the most researched Spice in the world if you have arthritis abnormal blood sugars if you're getting radiation for chemotherapy then you may want to look into
tumor as there are lots of published data and how tumor can help those conditions it helps with inflammation helps with losing weight and your DNA tumor contains curcumin and curcuminoids that exert powerful anti-inflammatory effects shown to help DNA repair from people who were poisoned with arsenic now you should know about arsenic in your food and water arsenic is a natural mineral in nature and contaminates Soil and Water and potentially the air that you breathe especially if you're breathing air with car exhaust now it's even worse during volcanic eruptions or mining if you live in the
city or Countryside besides fossil fuels insecticides herbicides glass Electronics paint metal adhesives wood preservatives paper textiles pigments ammunition all these industries use arsenic now arsenic is also used as a feed additive and in the pharmaceutical industry now if you smoke or if you live with a smoker well you're inhaling arsenic so arsenic it surrounds all of us now I have a friend who's actually construction worker and he loved just remodeling everything he used to remodel his home to Perfection he would print professional signs he never took any precautions with the paints and chemicals that he
was touching and inhaling he also has dementia now I don't know if it's from arsenic but I know man-made chemicals are all toxic whether they color our walls color our toys or they color our Foods now some will say aric is all natural and we are all exposed to tiny amounts and that's a thing it should be even tinier no one needs a collect it it's not money so my goal is to be exposed to the least amount possible so I go out of my way to avoid certain foods and water sources that will concentrate
arsenic hi friends I am so thrilled that you want to take charge of your health and take charge of your food now I know nutrition can be complex but it doesn't have to be and I'm here to support you in this lifelong journey so if you point your camera app to this QR code it'll take you to a link for a free handout that I created just for you and if you like it if you want to see other handouts please go to the link in my show notes and then you can leave me your
feedback on what I could do to help you in your journey okay back to the video now but unfortunately many of us blindly eat and drink and we're exposing ourselves to chemicals like Arsenic and the only real way to know is to get your levels tested unless you have symptoms in the 1990s UNICEF built shallow tube wells in Bangladesh to bring the people clean water and the water looked great definitely wasn't muddy but arsenic is invisible and millions of people suffered from arsenic poisoning drinking that clean well water well it turns out groundwater is naturally
contaminated with arsenic they forgot to test the water have you tested your drinking water there are different forms of arsenic inorganic and organic forms inorganic forms is definitely carcinogenic there's no acceptable amount of inorganic arsenic they contaminate the water and if you use well water that needs to be tested for arsenic now there's just no way to avoid water because water supports life and the average person needs roughly at least 2 lit or a gallon a day of water but if it's hot or having fevers if you're losing more water from breathing harder sweating more
having diarrhea or frequent urination or you're healing from Burns and wounds you're going to need more water we should all be making sure that our water is clean and the only way to do that is to get yourself the right filters and unfortunately you can't always trust your government to take care of that because they make mistakes water is the largest source of Arsenic and anything that needs water to grow can also concentrate Arsenic and this is why there are high amounts of organic arsenic and seafood and rice I ate a ton of seafood and
rice growing up but the seafood that was around when I grew up that isn't the same Seafood that is sold on the market today because there's so many more toxins literally our sea life are swimming in a giant toilet bowl and on top of that they have to worry about plastic and it's not just the sea turtles mistakenly eating plastic bags for jellyfish you're actually drinking plastic every time you drink from that bottled water or when you drink or eat anything from the ocean we basically need to globally reduce our plastic use so I don't
eat seafood and rice because I don't want to be collecting arsenic but I understand rice is a staple grain around the world and it is delicious stuff and my mom also spent her whole life eating rice now I don't know how much of that contributed to her dementia because we never got any arsenic levels however compared to all the other grains white rice is probably also the least nutritious grain to eat and I remember she would just eat white rice with soy sauce and that's where I got my love for Rice until I realized it's
pretty much eating just sugar and I know there are lots of Publications on how you can reverse diabetes and obesity and high blood pressure and high cholesterol just by eating rice but it's such a nutritiously deficient food that you have to take a lot of supplements to do it and on top of that Rice absorbs 10 times more arsenic than any other grain and the fact that we have so many other grains to choose from well I'd rather spend my valuable real estate in my stomach filling it up with something else but rice as my
mom's dementia progressed she even lost her appetite and became more isolated and that was really hard to watch because my mom she loved traveling and going out and trying new foods and to be amongst friends in fact when we were discussing about how it was UN sayfe for her to live on her own some of her friends offered to stay with her but the problem is all her friends were also elderly and maybe we should have taken their offer and maybe she would have listened to them and be a happier person with them but I'm
not sure because you know she kept changing her mind and she would have dramatic mood swings and I was afraid that her friends could barely take care of themselves let alone take care of my mom you know I insisted that her doctors try to find a reversible cause and it was discovered that she was anemic and peeing out microscopic amounts of blood and ultimately she saw a urologist and gynecologist and we found out that she had a fibroid that could be the root cause of her anemia which then could lead to these memory problems so
I convinced my mom to get the fibroid removed and unfortunately that was the beginning of her rapid decline in her memory because she got a multi-drug resistant UR tract infection after the procedure unfortunately things got out of hand because my mom didn't speak up and that was a problem with dementia she apparently had several days of pain but she didn't want to tell anybody and she figured that since at her a she'll just stop drinking and then she won't have the pain anymore now this makes perfectly good sense except when you don't drink you don't
pee and you don't improve your urinary tract infection or your immunity in fact it gets worse so her urinary tract infection blossom into fullblown sepsis she nearly died and I thank God that he sent me to check on my mom that day and that was the day she was septic when I picked her up she looked really tired and something was off her heart was racing and she had a fever so I drove her to the emergency room just in time before her blood pressure tanked and ultimately she staying in the hospital for about 5
days her dementia accelerated downhill over the course of that time and she was never the same person again and honestly I thought about that time in her life over and over and I strongly believed that if my mom had stayed with me or if she would have allowed an assistant to stay with her we could have intervened earlier to have prevented that outcome and this is why I strongly encourage people to find a helper or a friend or a family member to live with early in the course of Aging if you want to maintain your
quality of life now if you have to eat rice then there are ways that you can reduce the arsenic in your rice first you got to rinse it until it's clear and then you boil it you throw away most of that water and then you add in new water but in the meantime eat turmeric daily turmeric won't be able to take away the arsic but it can significantly help your body repair from the damaging effects of arenic on your DNA now there's a particular molecule in turmeric cumin that is known to have strong antioxidant properties
and it can help neutralize free radicals generated by arsenic exposure and this reduces some of the oxidative stress and cellular damage caused by arsenic now arsenic exposure can trigger inflammation in the body which can lead to a higher risk of skin bladder and kidney cancer and when you eat turmeric you get cumin which has been studied for his anti-inflammatory effects which can mitigate the inflammation associated with arsenic poisoning now arsenic is primarily metabolized in the liver and curcumin supports the liver to help the liver in its attempt to detoxify the oxidative stress caused by arsenic
curcumin also interacts with your gut microbiome it has Prebiotic effects and can promote the growth and activity of your gut microbiome keeping those harmful bacteria down turmeric has also been shown to have antimicrobial properties against certain pathogenic bacteria and fungi now after you eat turmeric or take a curcumine supplement it doesn't last long in your body maybe a couple hours because the liver rapidly breaks it down hence people have paired spices with turmeric like black pepper Ginger cumin cinnamon basically this is curry when you eat turmeric or curcumin most of it is fed to your
gut microbiome because it is difficult to absorb now you can enhance it absorption by heating turmeric to break down its cellular matrix and mixing it with some oil now when my siblings they finally understood this Verity of my mom's dementia we started giving her more foods that would reduce inflammation like green tea number three my dad he drank tea his entire life and he drank a lot of it all day long now his tea mug was rich with bioactive compounds primarily kakin which is a type of flavonoid it had some caffeine and lanine now kakin
are strong antioxidants to serve as brain protectants epig galacto cakin gallate e p gcg is a powerful antioxidant found in green tea that can actually cross the blood brain barrier to protect your brain cells from the oxidative stress of free radicals and this reduces your risk of neurogenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's now the caffeine in the tea is a double-edged story if you drink it too late it can keep you up it can also make you anxious if you drink too much of it but in proper amounts it actually improves brain function by increasing
the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine and nor epinephrine and this enhances your mood your alertness and concentration now green tea isn't a modern invention it's an ancient food Japanese Samurai they used to drink green tea to mentally prepare for battle it gave them a calming effect because of the Eline an amino acid that promotes relaxation without drowsiness and it does this by increasing levels of calming neural transmitters like Gaba while enhancing Alpha Brain Wave activity which is associated with a state of relaxed focus and when you combine it with caffeine aling improves mental Clarity and
it sustains attention and some studies suggest that egcg and other polyphenols in green tea May promote neurogenesis the growth of new neurons and strengthen synaptic connections this in turn improves memory and learning abilities did you know that no matter what age some of our neurons can still grow if it's in the right environment we definitely encourage my mom to drink green tea every day her sleep cycle was off her dementia was interfering in her sleep where she would stay up late at night past midnight browsing on the internet clicking and downloading things she shouldn't because
she always got a virus on her computer in fact once she was visiting my home and we just had bought a brand new Dell computer and she insisted that she wasn't going to do anything to mess it up well when she left I couldn't get the computer to work because she basically downloaded a virus now I try to keep my mom from drinking green tea past the morning because I didn't want to interfere with her sleep even more but I think my mom had a high caffeine tolerance because she drank blank coffee pretty much most
of her adult life and green tea only has a third of the caffeine and a cup of coffee but because of her mood strings I was looking for things that could keep her calm she would go through bouts of extreme Cycles one minute she was enraged and blaming you for her rotten life and then the next minute it was as if she never said anything and her mood swings were very unpredictable now once my mom she got upset with one of my siblings as she literally walked away on foot and they actually lost her no
one could find her for hours but thank God a kind stranger noticed that she was just wandering around the neighborhood so she picked her up asked my mom where she wanted to go and she chose the supermarket and she never told anybody that she had any children even though we tried to call her cell phone finally the last time the cell phone rang she handed that phone to the stranger who answered it and we are so thankful to God that he sent an angel to help my mom and that's the thing with dementia it changes
your personality and your mood becomes unpredictable and I don't wish for my children to have to go through that Journey with me and that's really why I try very hard to keep myself physically and mentally healthy signs of dementia actually start happening at least 18 years before that official diagnosis seems like it just creeps in but it actually slowly changes your personality it's so slow that family members they're usually unaware of the symptoms or they're just in denial do you have problems with your memory are you forgetting names or maybe your tasks or appointments maybe
don't sleep well mommy brain or maybe you aren't exercising I've suffered from sleep deprivation been a mommy several times around and my work requires lots of sleepless nights but I actively work every day to keep my memory sharp in fact I believe I am a better learner now than I was in college and what's the difference my effort every day I eat a ton of aoins like number four blueberries and did you know that blueberries are also pretty safe for dogs too blueberries have been shown to improve memory and I'm not surprised any food that
reduces your blood pressure improves your cholesterol lowers your blood sugar reduces DNA damage Well it can't help but to be good for you and for your brain but not all blueberries are made equally sometimes when I'm at the store I've seen blueberries like fresh ones that are four times a normal size of a frozen blueberry it was kind of like a small grape and I usually avoid those Foods since most of the anlin are on the skin or they're in the seeds and this is why I stick to buying wild blueberries now I used to
think that blueberries had the highest anolin concentration in Fruit but nope I was wrong black currant number five actually has more analin than blueberries but Americans confuse black currants with raisins that are called currants and raisins are just dried grapes and they even named raisins Sante currants which are still dried grapes but real currants like the black currant they come from fresh berries from the ribus genius family and they have a tart tanging sweet and unique flavor that is distinctive from raisins initially they were native to Northern and Central Europe Asia and New Zealand and
did you know that black currents were once banned in the United States due to its role in spreading White Pine blister rest for many states now restrictions have been lifted and we're growing our old black currents now in the Pacific Northwest as well as a Northeast and believe it or not there's actually another Berry that has more antholine in than black currents and that's number six black raspberries now I still haven't found any fresh black raspberries but I did find a farm that's so black currents but the fake kind not the real kind but in
that journey I discovered black raspberries now I think analin are so important that I honestly make it my mission every day to get in thousands of milligrams of aalin for my food I'm basically trying to make up for all those years I lived in the dorm and ate junk food through medical school and residency and fellowship and that whole Adventure was over a decade of my life black raspberries they are unique they are native to the Pacific Northwest then the next time I go I'm going to find a farm with black raspberries and in the
meantime I'm just going to eat the freeze-dried stuff I found on the internet and that's still pretty good because that's how a lot of the studies with black raspberry powders were done to find clinical benefit even though it's messy it's quite tasty I add it to my smoothies and I put it on top of fruits or I weave it to any dessert but somehow I still can't get my kids to eat it cuz it's a powdered mess but they will take supplements so I spend my time time packing that back raspberry powder into tiny capsules
now I know it takes a lot of effort but I believe even a little bit of those anthos sinins are better than no anthos sinins and usually I would prefer all my berries fresh unless we're talking about number seven the Elder Berry and apparently unripened fresh elderberries actually have cyanide so it's not something you want to eat and some people in California learned the hard way drinking fresh Elderberry juice elderberries are another ancient fruit they have almost four times the amount of anthocyanins compared to a wild blueberry and so this is why I eat elderberries
every day in my supplement and of course if you want to know what I take I have a link in the show notes below and many cultures around the world from ancient Egypt to ancient Rome they used to use a sacred Elderberry plant medically it was a remedy for illnesses and it also helped them to ward off evil spirits in the European folklore the elder tree was believed to have protective and magical properties against evil spirits but then on the other hand they also believe to caus people bad things did you ever watch Harry Potter
did you know that dumad door's Elder Wand is made from an elder tree have you heard of hypocrates he's an ancient Greek physician who actually documented using Elderberry to treat various ailments and elderberries were used as a diuretic a laxative a fever reducer to treat respiratory infections and skin problem problems isn't it amazing how a tiny little plant could do all that and it's probably because it's packed with immune boosting anthocyanins vitamins and minerals and there's even clinical research to show that it can help reduce cold symptoms did you know that your brain is 60%
fat but it's not just any fat you actually need critical omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids that are required to form the myin sheath it's a stuff that insulates your neurons so that they can effectively communicate with one another if you don't have milein sheets it's like having naked electrical wires in your home number one you would probably electrocute yourself and number two it's probably not going to be an efficient way to conduct electricity and your brain it works the same way it's a giant tangle of electrical wires called neurons and if you want that to
work you're going to have to provide it insulation and that's where omega-3 fatty acids come in but I bet you have plenty of omega-6 fatty acids most Americans overeat an abundance of Omega 6 fatty acids that's basically seed oils and excess Omega 6 fatty acids they can actually be pro-inflammatory and it interferes with the amount of Omega-3s that you're going to have now the ideal ratio is around 4 to one Omega 6s to Omega-3s but Americans are currently eating seven times more omega-6 oils and they're seriously deficient in Omega-3s and do you know which animals
have the most omega-3s ocean animals so if you eat seafood that'll help you get Omega-3s or you can eat flax seeds and walnuts and have you noticed that those animals are always on the move and did you know that some whales live to over 100 years old and I bet you some it is is because of the exercise that they do and it works the same way in people if you exercise at least 30 minutes five times a week you can significantly lower your risk of dementia unfortunately most Americans aren't even doing just that if
you have a step counter track your steps you know the goal is to hit 10,000 steps every day it should be above that but we're not even close we're not even at 5,000 I think we're barely touching 3,000 and I'm just as part of the problem too before I was not doing my steps I wasn't tracking them and when I started tracking them I realized I was doing such a terrible job that I've been striving to be better and better and improve in my steps so this year I'm walking 1 or 2,000 more steps than
on an average day compared to last year but you know as you do more exercise you're going to get more dehydrated and did you know that the brain is actually 73% water if you're dehydrated that'll significantly affect your memory besides exercise if it's a hot day if you are outdoors and Under the Sun sweating or if you're having a fever or breathing hard all these can contribute to dehydration and when you're sick you have urinary frequency or you're having diarrhea that's even worse so if you're dehydrated you're not going to be able to keep your
lights on up here and this is why you have to make sure you're drinking the right kind of fluids because sometimes drinking just plain water isn't the best option and if you want to learn more about that check out the next video