Neurologist Reveals the Supplements That ACTUALLY Work for Brain Health

0:00 Creatines come up a couple times.

0:02 For somebody looking for adjuncts, obviously,

0:06 you need to do the work and find out where your holes are.

0:09 Yes.

0:10 I assume creatine would be one you'd recommend people look into.

0:14 Yeah.

0:14 Number one, would it be?

0:16 And then any other supplements that you find when

0:19 it comes to energetics and brain health people should consider?

0:23 Oh, yeah.

0:23 I mean, there is as I said, the armamentarium is large.

0:26 So, yeah.

0:27 So, the studies have shown anywhere from 10 to 20 g of creatine.

0:31 So, I typically recommend you start with 5 g once or twice a day

0:35 and then move up to you can go up to ultimately 10 g twice a day.

0:39 That's the the range that has been helpful for brain health and for cognition.

0:45 And of course, similar ranges for building muscle and things like that.

0:49 So, yes, creatine is a good one.

0:52 Uh and um you know, I should mention one of the common

0:55 failures I hear is that people are saying to me,

0:58 "Hey, I just heard that putting on your forehead makes you think smarter.

1:02 You know, is that Should I do that?" And it's like, "Well,

1:04 look, the vast majority of people, it's the basics that they're missing.

1:08 Optimize those basic seven things that we talked about.

1:11 Get that as a foundation.

1:12 Now you have a firm foundation on which to stand.

1:16 Now, things like stem cells or things like photobiomodulation,

1:21 that now you can build on something.

1:24 These studies again that are doing stem cells only,

1:27 this is like trying to rebuild a house as it's burning down.

1:32 You got to put out the fire first.

1:34 You know, you've got to address what's causing the problem first.

1:37 Now you can begin to rebuild.

1:39 Now the idea of stem cells, it makes much more sense.

1:44 So, you mentioned creatine.

1:45 And yeah, you know, there's dozens and dozens of these things.

1:48 Some of the ones I of the many,

1:50 and again, you're you're going after those things.

1:51 For people who are low in vitamin D, I would include vitamin D.

1:56 For people who are inflamed, I really like SPMs.

2:00 Uh you know, that these specialized pro-resolving mediators.

2:03 These are really nice.

2:05 Um for energetics, creatine.

2:07 Um for mitochondria, PQQ.

2:10 Um also urolithin A is another good one.

2:13 Nicotinamide riboside or NMN or niacinamide,

2:17 any of those also very good for NAD levels.

2:21 Um there's a there's been some interest, as you know, in methylene blue.

2:24 Theoretically, it actually makes more sense for Parkinson's,

2:28 I think, than Alzheimer's.

2:29 But, and the trial on that is a again, as a monotherapy failed.

2:34 I I don't think these trials that are on monotherapies tell

2:37 you too much because it just because it failed as a monotherapy,

2:41 it doesn't mean that it may not be part of an optimal protocol.

2:44 So, I I do think that there is

2:46 some definitely some promise for uh for methylene blue.

2:51 There's also a tremendous potential for various intranasal peptides.

2:57 Uh and and I think that in peptides in general,

3:00 I think that there's a huge you know,

3:02 there's there's not not enough data on these yet,

3:05 but there's a tremendous potential.

3:07 Whether it's, you know, thymosin alpha 1, beta 4,

3:10 whether it's I I I even think dihexa,

3:13 which was an intranasal peptide, which again, failed as a monotherapy,

3:17 but I think has tremendous potential in the long run.

3:20 C- link, C-max, dihexa, epitalon,

3:24 there are so many of these that have real potential.

3:27 Again, if you've done the basics and if you're getting rid of the in fact,

3:31 as long as you've got massive toxicity

3:33 or massive chronic infections and metabolic syndrome,

3:37 these things don't make as much difference for you.

3:41 You've really got to get at those basics first.

3:43 Yeah, or if you're not sleeping, your stress levels are through the roof.

3:47 Yeah.

3:47 We're both saying the same thing here.

3:49 You got to get to the foundation.

3:51 These things are interesting.

3:52 You can put them in, but they're not going to be a magic bullet

3:56 Yeah.

3:56 if you're not getting the basics right.

3:58 Exactly.

3:59 And of course, most people are low in magnesium in in this country especially.

4:03 And optimizing your magnesium levels are really helpful.

4:07 That's another one.

4:08 Um of course, omega-3s.

4:10 And most people in the country have poor omega-6 to omega-3 ratios averaging

4:16 about 15 to 1 when they should be more like 4 to 1.

4:20 Uh so, improving your omega-3 status is another one.

4:24 Uh and so, there there are so many of these things.

4:27 And then for people who have any sort of vascular compromise,

4:31 and that's a common contributor, one of the contributors will often be

4:35 some microvascular disease or occasionally macrovascular disease.

4:40 Um there's a triad, nattokinase, nitric oxide,

4:44 which you can get from uh you know,

4:46 SuperBeets or Neo40 or or Cialis or you know,

4:49 this is why the Viagra studies, all of those things.

4:52 So, any form of nitric oxide, you know, beetroot juice, things like that.

4:57 And then Artericil HP.

4:59 Those three are a very nice triad for anyone who's got

5:03 a vascular component um as part of the overall drivers of decline.

5:09 Um so, those are just some of the the many things.

5:12 Uh pro pro butyrate, I happen to like because of the short-chain

5:16 fatty acids coming coming from the gut.

5:19 Um so, that's that's another one I like.

5:22 Um uh in in pro improving your gut microbiome,

5:25 some probiotics, prebiotics, uh very very helpful.

5:29 And of course, the postbiotic urolithin A that I mentioned earlier.

5:32 So, those are just some of the many.

5:34 And again, the armamentarium is large.

5:37 And knowing which ones are going to be

5:39 critical for which person, very very helpful.

5:43 With this explosion of the GLP-1 agonists, Yes.

5:47 are you seeing any direct connection to the brain, either good or bad?

5:51 This is I'm glad you brought that up because GLP-1,

5:54 you know, we've looked at the possibility.

5:57 Again, we talked before about maybe you do for, you know,

6:00 9 or 12 months and then you start slowly removing amyloid.

6:03 You could start with GLP-1s.

6:06 Um in general, we're getting to some extent

6:09 that sort of impact by having the uh prebiotic fiber.

6:13 Uh but, there was a study recently.

6:16 As you know, probably a year ago was that people said, "Oh, well, you know,

6:20 GLP-1s are going to be the cure for Alzheimer's." Well,

6:22 that didn't turn out to be the case.

6:24 Again, tried as a monotherapy, um did not make any difference.

6:28 Did not help people at all to to be on GLP-1s,

6:31 even though theoretically, it should have had at least some impact.

6:35 Because what you're doing is you're driving more insulin.

6:39 You know, you can get away for a short time.

6:41 People who are insulin resistant,

6:44 you can get away for a short time with just pushing up the insulin.

6:47 You want to be physiologically relevant.

6:49 So, what I've been telling people is there's this you know,

6:52 interest everywhere for AI.

6:54 Everything's AI AI AI, artificial intelligence.

6:58 What is more important for the medical revolution is EI,

7:04 which is evolutionary intelligence.

7:07 It tells us, "How did we evolve?

7:10 What it How did we get to where we are?"

7:13 We did not evolve to eat a ton of sugar.

7:16 So, you you can't do that and expect to do well.

7:20 So, having that evolutionary intelligence, the EI, is telling us,

7:25 "Okay, we want to bring that insulin level down.

7:28 Don't just artificially push it up." So, you know,

7:30 messing with mother nature does not get you very far.

7:33 It may give you a little impact for a few weeks or a few months.

7:37 But, as I said in the in the book,

7:39 The Ageless Brain, um you want the combination of performance and protection.

7:44 It's easy to get short-term performance without protection.

7:47 You know, takes take some speed.

7:50 Uh you know, cocaine will give you short-term performance without protection.

7:54 It's easy to get protection without performance.

7:57 Uh you know, you can people who do go into deep freeze,

8:00 take have their head cut off and put it in liquid nitrogen.

8:03 You're never going to have Alzheimer's,

8:04 but you're not going to have very good performance.

8:06 We want performance and protection together.

8:10 And that's the by following your evolutionary optimization.

8:15 Uh so, so that's you know,

8:16 that's the key for for getting best outcomes in the long run.

8:20 Since you made it to the end of this clip,

8:22 I know you're going to love the full episode.

8:24 Click here to watch.

8:25 I'll see you over there.

8:28 [music] About 15% of our population dies of Alzheimer's.

8:31 So, about 45 million of the currently living Americans will die of Alzheimer's.

8:37 We can reduce that number dramatically.