Prevention and Reversal of Neurological Conditions with Dr. Kristine Burke: Rational Wellness Podcast 410

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

Dr. Kristine Burke discusses the Prevention and Reversal of Neurological Conditions with Dr. Ben Weitz.

[If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]

 

Podcast Highlights

---

Dr. Kristine Burke is a triple board-certified Precision Medicine Physician, Author, Educator, and Researcher.  She is an expert on the prevention and reversal of chronic diseases such as dementia, diabetes, and heart disease. She is the Chief Medical Director and the CEO of Precision Medicine in Northern California. Her website is Truehealthcpm.com.

Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

---

Podcast Transcript

Dr. Weitz:  Hey, this is Dr. Ben Weitz, host of the Rational Wellness Podcast. I talk to the leading health and nutrition experts and researchers in the field to bring you the latest in cutting edge health information. Subscribe to the Rational Wellness Podcast for weekly updates and to learn more, check out my website, drweitz.com.  Thanks for joining me, and let’s jump into the podcast.

Hello, rational Wellness podcasters. Today we will be speaking with Dr. Christine Burke about the prevention and reversal of neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Burke is a triple board certified, Precision Medicine physician.  She’s an entrepreneur, an author, an educator, and a researcher. She’s an expert in the reversal and prevention of chronic diseases such as dementia, diabetes, heart attacks, and she has a special focus on mold related illness. She’s the founder, chief Executive Medical Director of True Health Center for Precision Medicine in Northern California.  This is a multidisciplinary practice that delivers personalized primary care. With a proprietary data-driven wellness plan that has successfully prevented any heart attacks from occurring among our patients for over a decade. Dr. Burke also teaches precision and functional medicine for A4M and IFM.  Dr. Burke, thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Burke: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to chat with you.

Dr. Weitz: Sounds good. So I, I’d like to ask you about your practice. I was listening to you on another podcast, I think it was the Designs for Health One, and it sounds like you’ve been able to blend Integrative and conventional medicine into your practice by accepting insurance for some services, but also having a membership plan. And I, I’ve talked to a lot of doctors and this is always a tricky thing to do, to sort of have one foot in a conventional insurance-based system and have your other foot in functional medicine and make it all work out financially.

Dr. Burke: It is definitely a challenging thing to do and the, the insurance part makes it so there’s very specific criteria that you have to meet. The membership services have to specifically cover non-covered services and there’s uh, you know, a pretty high metric that we have to meet. To cover that we have a fair market value metric that we use, um, and that helps us to keep everything on the up and up.  Yeah. But what I like, what I like about that though, is that it allows people to use their health insurance to get what we believe is a higher level of global care of their overall health.

Dr. Weitz: Right. Um, around here, a lot of the physicians, conventional physicians especially are employing a concierge model.  So they accept insurance and then charge an annual fee on top of it.

Dr. Burke: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s where we started as well.

Dr. Weitz: And you decided to go to the membership model?  Why’d you switch to the membership model?

Dr. Burke: Well, there’s a lot of similarities between them really.  I think it, it would be actually pretty hard to kind of parse out the difference.  I think our, our membership now has more things that, more non-covered services that are included so that we can provide care the way we want to provide care, not the way that the insurance dictates we just focus on managing disease.

Dr. Weitz: Right. And most people don’t realize this who are lay persons, but it’s the insurance companies who really control the healthcare system, not doctors.

Dr. Burke: Yeah, yeah. That’s for sure.

Dr. Weitz: So let’s talk about how you approach neurodegenerative conditions.

Dr. Burke: So I think, you know, well first I can kind of tell you how I fell, how I fell into it, because it’s definitely a very challenging area of work. And I was doing, as you said in my bio, I was really focused on cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular prevention because of the half of our practice, that’s primary care.  And that half of people die from cardiovascular disease. So focusing on that is kind of the low hanging fruit of improving longevity and improving health span. And so I was doing all of this cardiovascular work and then. Started realizing that the vascular health was important to literally the health of every other system in the body, and so much more than just nutrient transport, oxygen transport.  And so I started digging into some of the root causes of cardiovascular disease that were also root causes for other chronic health conditions. And then I attended Dr. Bredesen’s, lecture that he gave at the IFM annual conference in 2016, and I was hooked. I have three family members that have,

Dr. Weitz:  Yeah, that that was the one in Los Angeles.  I attended that one too. That was great.

Dr. Burke: It was great. It was great. And so, you know, just after hearing that and then hearing the similarities to the work that I was already doing, and like I said, having three family members that had. Um, well at that point too, now, three that had succumbed to the disease, I just felt very motivated to learn more about it and to start bringing that into my practice.  And because of the mold work, I had already seen  improvements in cognitive health in younger people, you know, thirties, forties, fifties, that were being affected by the inflammation that’s generated from the mold exposure. So that was already a part of my paradigm. So it wasn’t a big leap for me. To really expand into the, into the rest of the protocol.

Dr. Weitz: I, I remember at that meeting I went up and talked to Dr. Bredesen afterwards and I organize this functional medicine, monthly meeting and we bring in speakers and I wanted to address Neurogenerative and I wasn’t able to get Dr. Bredesen to speak, so I called up the UCLA Alzheimer’s Center that he was associated with to see if maybe one of the other neurologists could come speak at our meeting.  And the woman who was running the program said, oh, Dr. Bredesen, well, I have to let you know that we don’t agree with anything that Dr. Bredesen says. And it’s amazing with the incredible work that he’s been doing and publishing, and yet the majority of the neurological world does not accept hardly any of it.

Dr. Burke: Yes, exactly. Well, disruptive thinkers are often met with hostility, so I, I kind of look at that as a badge of honor. If the in entirety of the existing system is hostile to what you’re proposing, you’re probably on the right track.

Dr. Weitz: That’s, that’s, that’s a good thought. Um, so. When it comes to testing, what are some of the tests you like to run?  And also in particular, are you running the new brain scan test that Dr. Bredesen is recommending, which is Ptau 217, GFAP, and Neurofilament Light.

Dr. Burke: Yes. So we are doing all of those and we’re doing those actually also in our primary care patients because the changes of Alzheimer’s in in particular, but neuro, these neurodegenerative diseases start 15 or 20 years before we have symptoms, and so we’re doing those tests.  The Ptau 217 particularly is screening in our primary care patients so that we can start to get a sense of whether or not the work we’re doing with them, the things that we’re doing or the things that they’re choosing not to do are leading them down a path that’s potentially injurious to their brain health.  So we’re using that here. 

Dr. Weitz: So what is that, what is that test in particular helping you to? 

Dr. Burke: So, I mean, I could talk about each of them. They each tell us a little bit of different information. Okay, sounds good. So the Ptau 217 is, P tau is phosphorylated Tau. So tau is a structural protein inside the axon.  So the connection between the neuron, the cell body, and then the dendrites which are wet, send the message to the next neuron. Right. So it’s the cabling, if you will, the electrical cabling. And so when, when we start to have this inflammatory process within the brain with the production of the amyloid beta, we also see what we call a hyper phosphorylation.  So extra phosphate groups being added to the tau that causes the tau to unravel. And then we see tangles of tau occur within the neurons. So the amyloid. Beta, which is what we’re used to hearing about in Alzheimer’s disease. Those plaques or aggregations of amyloid beta occur outside the cells and that tau tangles occur inside the cells.  So those are the two pathological findings of Alzheimer’s disease. So that’s what we find at autopsy shows as damage to the brain. There’s some significant caveats to that though, because we see people with Alzheimer’s who. On brain pathology do not have a lot of amyloid plaque. And we also see people who accumulate a lot of plaque and [00:10:00] don’t develop Alzheimer’s.  So this is where the multimodal theory of Alzheimer’s comes in. And I’m just speaking to this so that I can explain those tests a little bit better.

Dr. Weitz: Course. Sure. It also explains why, uh, one of the reasons why the drugs that block amyloid or remove amyloid have not been very successful.

Dr. Burke: Exactly. So the amyloid at its core, if you will, is really a protective sav that the brain is making to co cover injured areas of the brain.  And it becomes problematic when there’s too much. And the analogy I often use with patients is, you know, if you get a hole in your drywall, you can spackle it and sand it and paint it, and it can, and it can look pretty good. But if you get a whole bunch of holes and you’re spackling all over, then it’s going to start to look unruly with all these patch marks everywhere. And that’s kind of what’s happening with amyloid in the brain. So what we, what we are focusing on is what [00:11:00] are the things that are driving the need for the amyloid production? And it’s all the things that we typically think about in functional medicine, inflammation, environmental toxins, um, biological toxins, metabolic health, all of these things, the microbiome health. So now when we’re looking at these markers, so the PT tells us that we’ve had damage to the tau protein that’s driven by all of those things I just mentioned. We can also look at something called the amyloid beta 42:40 ratio. So as plaque, amyloid plaque is accumulating in the brain, more of the Amyloid beta42 gets applied to the plaque, so there’s less in the blood. So that ratio falls. I don’t know why, just between you and me, why they didn’t flip the ratio so that a high number was bad like it is in almost everything else. But in this case, it’s the lower number that’s bad. So the ratio falls as more amyloid is accumulating in the brain. So that can give us a sense of the amyloid progression, as does the p tau, because there’s more p tal as there’s more amyloid. So those tell us that this process is happening. And then you have the neurofilament light, which is also a structural protein inside the neuron in the in the axons. So that tells us that there’s been damage to the structural components, but we can see elevation of neurofilament light and things like concussion or head injury.

So it’s a very non-specific marker of injury in the brain. And we actually do use it to follow people post-concussion too, so that we see that healing is happening. And then the GAP that stands for glial fibrillary acidic protein, which is a mouthful. So thank goodness for the acronym. Um, so GAP is telling us about activation of the microglia.  And the microglia are the immune cells within the [00:13:00] brain that become activated from all of those inflammatory insults and inputs. And then when they’re activated, they generate inflammatory cytokines, and then that sets up the situation for the inflammation, the damage, the need for amyloid, et cetera, et cetera.

Dr. Weitz: Cool. So what other tests do you like to run? Dr. Bredesen has his panel. Do you run a similar panel to what he recommends? 

Dr. Burke: We do run a similar panel. We are looking at inputs of, um, metabolic inflammation, so that’s going to be blood sugar and fasting insulin levels and inflammatory markers like HsCRP. And um, we’re looking at the, the components that we need to counter inflammation, like Omega-3 levels and fatty C15 levels pento NOIC acid, which is a cell, also a cell membrane component and essential fatty acid that makes the cells fragile if we’re deficient in it with, which almost everyone that I test is deficient in that.

Dr. Weitz: Well, that’s interesting. So you do a C15 test. I’m not familiar with that.  I just learned something.

Dr. Burke: It’s part, it’s part of a panel. And I don’t know if you know, if, if we can talk about proprietary names, but it’s part Sure,

Dr. Weitz: yeah.

Dr. Burke: Yeah, we can. So it’s, it’s actually included in the NutraEval by Genova.

Dr. Weitz:  Okay. So

Dr. Burke: part of the fatty acid, um, analysis there. And then I think there might be also another.  Um, cell membrane, fatty acid analysis panel that, um, I don’t know the name of it. It’s not one that I use, but I know it exists.

Dr. Weitz: Yeah, that we typically will use vibrant and, and they have a fatty acid analysis, but I don’t believe it includes the C 15.

Dr. Burke: Yeah, I’m not sure if it does or not either, but that’s been a really interesting addition.  ’cause you know, I mean, that’s the first. Newly discovered essential fatty acid in like 80 or 90 years. So that’s been really

Dr. Weitz: interesting. Well, we, we, we, we [00:15:00] had the, uh, omega seven, but that sort of fizzled.

Dr. Burke: Exactly. Um, then we’re gonna be looking at markers of, um, the nutrient sufficiency and mitochondrial health.  Things like Coq10 for example. Uh, with alpha lipoic acid, looking at all of the, all of the normal n you know, the normal nutrients that we would be thinking about in terms of like a multivitamin, multi mineral. And then I. Looking at the microbiome and the composition of not only the gut microbiome, but also the oral microbiome, because those are both very important in the health of the brain.

Dr. Weitz: Interesting. So do you actually measure the oral microbiome?

Dr. Burke: Yes, we do actually. Mm-hmm. We use. Which,

Dr. Weitz: which is your preferred test for that?

Dr. Burke: Um, we’re using a test, uh, from oral DNA, called MyPerioPath.

Dr. Weitz: Okay.

Dr. Burke: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Weitz: Cool. Yep.

Dr. Burke: We used the [00:16:00] HR five test for a while and then, um, that company unfortunately went out of business and so we’re using the MyPerioPath test, which is excellent.  That’s a very good test. So we know in the oral microbiome that the presence of porphyromonas gingivalis a specific species, that that has a very high correlation with Alzheimer’s and dementia. So if that bacterium is present, then we know that we have a higher risk factor, and then we need to take steps to help eradicate that from the oral microbiome.

Dr. Weitz: In fact work specifically done by our friend, Dr. Ari Vojdani. Mm-hmm. I know he’s published on that.

Dr. Burke: Mm-hmm. Exactly, exactly. And then we’ve got, of course, our cardiovascular markers. So the cholesterol and the lipid particle profiles, the advanced lipid profile. Looking at markers of vascular inflammation like the LPP eight two and Myelo peroxidase, which tell us specifically about [00:17:00] inflammation in the blood vessel wall and the risk of plaque rupture, for example.  We also want to look at. I use a test called the A DMA and from Cleveland Heart Labs, and that’s a marker of endothelial function and the production of nitric oxide, which we know is important for arterial elasticity and that kind of flexibility of the arteries. And, uh, you’re testing my memory here. What am I missing?  Um, oh, the biotoxins, biome and biotoxins. So we talked about the biome piece, but then we have the biologic toxins and chronic infections, like chronic viral infections, for example, or chronic intracellular bacterial infections. Just. You know, I, I, I tell patients it’s hitchhikers that have, um, gained access to our body and then just hang out and stay with us.  And sometimes they, they just are nicely hidden and other times they’re active in kind of vandals and creating inflammation in the system. And so we need to do something to help the immune system be able to get those under control.

Dr. Weitz: Um, are you measuring all these things in your initial, really?

Wow. Mm-hmm. That’s quite a bit.

Dr. Burke: Yeah, it’s a lot. It’s hundreds of markers because in neurodegenerative disease, as you well know, time is your enemy. So time is brain loss. Time is ongoing. Tissue injury. And so unlike other conditions where we may have a little bit more luxury of time to unravel the root causes in cognitive decline, specifically, time is really of the essence and the more data that we have to understand what’s driving that neurodegeneration.  The more ways that we can intervene to try to help that person either have the, you know, have the things that they need, like the nutrients and the mitochondrial support, hormonal and trophic support, for example. I didn’t talk about that yet, but you know, obviously we’re measuring all of the hormones and then the chemical toxins, like the heavy [00:19:00] metals and um, you know, VOCs and BPA, things like that. 

Dr. Weitz: What’s your favorite toxin screen?

Dr. Burke: I like, I use the US Biotech and, um, they’ve teamed up with realtime labs now to offer that environmental profile that can be done at the same time. You’re doing mycotoxin testing. But Mosaic also has a really good chemical toxin, uh, analysis as well.

Dr. Weitz: Yeah, yeah. We use a total tox burden from Vibrant. Mm-hmm. They offer a combination, heavy metals, environmental, toxins, and mycotoxins.

Dr. Burke: Mm-hmm. Yep. Exactly. ’cause then you’re getting the whole picture.

Dr. Weitz: Right. Cool. Um, any, any other testing? I cut you off there.

Dr. Burke: No, no, that’s okay.

Dr. Weitz: Yeah.

Dr. Burke: Um, so heavy metals, super important.  Mercury lead, um, arsenic, cadmium are the, and,

Dr. Weitz: and are you doing, are you doing urine for those, right?

Dr. Burke: We are doing blood and or urine for those.

Dr. Weitz: Oh,

Dr. Burke: okay. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. Whole blood analysis is done both in the Nutra valve and also by Quicksilver Scientific. And then, um, urine testing can be used if you need to get, you know, if you need additional testing on that.  But we’ve actually had pretty good results using the whole blood analysis. You know, I mean, you, we could have a whole conversation on the pros and cons of different ways of looking at, at heavy metals and they all have their pros and cons, but we’ve had good success with, um, using the blood analysis.

Dr. Weitz:  Good. Good, good, good. It’s nice to run like one panel, like the NRA valve that includes, uh, all that, that helps.

Dr. Burke: Mm-hmm. It sure

Dr. Weitz: does. Uh, what neurocognitive tests do you like to run?

Dr. Burke: Uh, that’s an, a really interesting question right now. So we’re using the moca, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, right. [00:21:00] And CNS vital signs, uh, in the research study.  And we’ve been using those in our clinical practice as well for, uh, quite a long time. And then we just recently started using View Mind, which is a VR headset that measures, um, eye movement and eye tracking, and is able to identify specific pathways within the brain that are. You know, better or poorer functioning, which has been really interesting.

We’re just interesting getting going with that. But it has the ability, I think, to, well, first of all it’s, it’s easier to administer, so it’s easier on the patients, and it also doesn’t have a ceiling. So when we’re working with high functioning patients, or for example, our patients in our primary care program that have, um, abnormal or concerning, uh, blood-brain biomarker testing, we can utilize this [00:22:00] test where other tests may be normal, and then we can really see where we have any, you know, any missteps and then we can follow that over time.

Dr. Weitz: Cool. Yeah, I gotta look into that. That’s a new one for me.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I’ve really been enjoying this discussion, but I just want to take a few minutes to tell you about a product that I’m very excited about. Imagine a device that can help you manage stress. I. Improve your sleep and boost your focus all without any effort on your part.  The Apollo wearable is designed to just to do just that, created by neuroscientists and physicians. This innovative device used as gentle vibrations to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, helping you feel calmer, more focused, and better rested. Among the compelling reasons to use the Apollo wearable are that users experience a 40% reduction in stress and anxiety.  Patients feel that they can sleep. Their sleep improves up to additional 30 minutes of sleep per night. It helps you to boost your focus and concentration and it’s scientifically backed. And the best part is you can get all these benefits with a special $40 discount by using the promo code weitz, W-E-I-T-Z, my last name at checkout to enjoy these savings. So go to Apollo Neuro and use the promo code Weitz today. And now back to our discussion.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Weitz:  Do you run any routine brain scans or MRIs?

Dr. Burke: We do. We use the NeuroQuant MRI.

Dr. Weitz: Okay.

Dr. Burke: So that we can see the volumetrics of the different [00:24:00] brain areas, and then that way you can see like how, what’s the relative volume of the hippocampus?  For example, the thalamus is often, um, relatively swollen, especially in mold exposure. And so that’s an interesting thing too. Fall. Interesting.

Dr. Weitz: So the mm-hmm. Thalamus is swollen in cases of mold toxicity.

Dr. Burke: That’s something that, uh, Dr. Richie Shoemaker had, uh, published about in looking at the specific findings that you commonly see in water damaged building exposure in the NeuroQuant, it’s challenging.  To follow that over time. I mean, it’s still a relatively new technology. We’re still learning how, how the brain changes. You’ve got the confounders of, you know, if something looks normal and then on subsequent testing, now it looks atrophied. Is it really atrophied? Or did we reduce swelling because we reduced inflammation?  So hopefully over time, and this is an area where we need additional research and utilizing the, uh, the brain biomarkers could help us to understand like, are we seeing changes in the inflammatory markers at the same time that we’re seeing changes in volume? And so it’s very, it’s very, very interesting, the whole correlation between what you see happening in the brain structurally, and then what you see happening in the patient functionally.

Dr. Weitz: I know Dr. Bredesen has talked about seeing, uh, a reversal of brain shrinkage in some of the patients that he’s been able to reverse their Alzheimer’s.

Dr. Burke: Mm-hmm. Yep. Absolutely.

Dr. Weitz: Cool. Um, so let’s get into treatment. Let’s start with diet. Uh, are you recommending a ketogenic diet or some version of that?

Dr. Burke: Yeah, so we’re using the ketogenic diet therapeutically.  You know, these are people that are presenting with cognitive decline, so they [00:26:00] already have some brain injury. We know that the ketogenic diet helps to stimulate the brain healing process, and we know that ketones are an efficient fuel source for the brain when there may be some relative insulin resistance within the brain.  Um, and also the ketogenic diet dramatically lowers blood sugars. And we know that glucose is one of the things that the brain is not able to regulate. So glucose just freely passes into the brain. So the concentration in the blood is reflected in the concentration in the brain. And so hyperglycemia is, that’s part of the reason that hyperglycemia is so damaging to the brain tissue.  So we use the, we use the ketogenic diet. We’re just trying to achieve nutritional ketosis. So. You know, a level above one, um, on blood ketone testing. And we can sometimes see some really, i, uh, immediate improvements in people. When you shift the fuel [00:27:00] source that the brain has available,

Dr. Weitz: have you, are you using the keto flex diet that Dr. Bredesen has pioneered?

Dr. Burke: Mm-hmm. Yes, we do. We do follow the Keto Flex plan.

Dr. Weitz: Are you having them use the prepared meals?

Dr. Burke: You know, some of the patients use the prepared meals. Um, most of them, I, you know, I have a really great team of health coaches and dieticians, and most of the time the team is just helping to instruct them how to cook on their own so that they can take care of it that way.

But yeah, the meals can be a really useful thing, especially in, you know, maybe a, a family where. You know, one person is the one affected with Alzheimer’s or significant cognitive decline, but the, but the spouse has also been living in the same living environment and may struggle a little, even though any cognitive challenges they may have may be less apparent.

So Right. When you’re, when you have two people [00:28:00] that are struggling to make all of these changes, that can be really useful to have something that can simplify it, like having the meal delivery.

Dr. Weitz: What are some of the other lifestyle factors that you find are important, such as exercise, sleep, et cetera?

Dr. Burke: All of them.  So sleep is particularly important in cognitive decline. Reversal, of course, because it’s during sleep that the brain actually rinses itself of the metabolic waste, some of the toxins that have been accumulated and does that process, and particularly during deep sleep. So augmenting deep sleep, improving the total number of hours of sleep.

Sleep. Those are, um, very important. Of course, assessing for, um, sleep disorder, breathing, making sure the brain’s getting oxygen during the night. That’s really important and you’d be surprised at how many people have hidden sleep apnea. It’s quite a few. So we use tracking, you know, we use [00:29:00] wearable tracking so that we can monitor these things.

And then with exercise. Exercise, I mean it’s important for all the myriad of reasons that we know, but particularly in brain health exercise specifically. Um, hit and weight training are really powerful stimulants of the production of BDNF Brain Drive neurotrophic factor, which is what tells the brain to grow and maintain.

The connections. And so BDNF production is a super important thing that we’re after with the exercise program. And then, you know, oxygen delivery, increasing mitochondrial number and density so that we can be more energy production efficient, like just a lot of reasons and muscle mass itself. As a reservoir for health.

So we work really hard as we’re using the ketogenic diet to also help people maintain and hopefully improve their muscle mass, which is always [00:30:00] gratifying to see. And then, what am I missing? Oh, connection. Okay. So connection, community, um, having those important outside relationships and then reflection.

Meditative, um, meditative time, having a mindfulness practice. These are things that we also know from the research have been shown to literally change brain structure.

Dr. Weitz: Um. Let’s go a little more into toxins. Um, we, you mentioned heavy metals, environmental, toxins, mycotoxins. Recently we’ve heard in the news about microplastics that accumulate in the brain.  Uh, yes, we have. What are some of the strategies we have and, and in particular, what can we do about microplastics?

Dr. Burke: Yeah, that’s a really good question. So, always in environmental medicine, our first and most [00:31:00] powerful intervention is to reduce exposure. So that’s the first place to begin. So, you know, limiting the number of plastics that we’re using, storing things in glass containers, never ever, ever microwaving or heating anything in plastic.  Those are things we can do to help reduce that exposure. Not, you know, not drinking water from plastic bottles or plastic containers. Just all of these things that we have to be mindful of so that we can reduce exposure through those ways. And then paying attention to all of the things we surround ourselves.  In our homes, our personal care products, you know, what is the, the environmental working group, um, I think it was 86 chemicals that the average woman puts on her body every day. And at first you think, no, that’s not possible. And then you think about your shampoo and your soap and your conditioner and other hair products and your toothpaste, and, and

Dr. Weitz: [00:32:00] each one of those products can easily have a list of 20 different ingredients.

Dr. Burke: Exactly, exactly. So being aware of that and using the tools that are out there, um, like, you know, through the environmental working group, for example, to help identify products that are cleaner for us to use. And the same is true for our household cleaning products. And, you know, candles are one of the worst offenders of spewing phthalates into our, into our home environments.  Oftentimes, our indoor air quality is worse than our outdoor air

Dr. Weitz: quality. Are there safe candles to use?

Dr. Burke: There are some that use essential oils. Um, soy-based candles that don’t have paraffin are a little bit better. Okay.

Dr. Weitz: So there

Dr. Burke: definitely are options out there if you’re a candle lover. Um, and then.  Think, oh, our food is another [00:33:00] source of toxins. Of course. Yeah. So eating organic whenever possible, following the environmental working groups list, the Dirty Dozen, the Clean 15, as a way of trying to maximize the avoidance of the foods that are the most contaminated, and then not maybe spending extra money on organic where it has a low amount of contamination and then processed foods.

Full of, um, different chemicals and emulsifiers and those, those filler ingredients often have a really dramatic effect on our gut microbiome and reducing the mucin layer, which is part of the protective barrier of the gut lining. And when that protective barrier is breached or it’s worn down, then that’s when more things get access into the body, including the microplastics.  So having that thick, dense barrier from a healthy gut microbiome is part of [00:34:00] keeping those microplastics out of our circulation,

Dr. Weitz: not having a leaky gut. ’cause leaky gut is often associated with leaky brain.

Dr. Burke: Absolutely. Absolutely. Very, very high correlation of leaky gut and leaky brain, and the transport of toxins from the gut through the enteric nervous system to the brain.

Dr. Weitz: Right. Um, and then how do we get rid of these toxins once we have them in us?

Dr. Burke: So the process of getting rid of them is actually something that the body already comes equipped to do. That’s the detoxification process. And you know, in, in physiology it’s literally bio transformation. So most of these things, most of these chemicals and toxins that we’ve been talking about are not water soluble.  Me, you know, it’s kinda like the oil and water piece, right? And so we have to transform them. The liver has to transform them from something that is only soluble in an [00:35:00] oily or lipid environment, into something that’s water soluble. And that process requires an enormous amount of nutrients. And then also a large number of amino acids.

And one of those important ones is glutathione. So glutathione is one of our very powerful antioxidants and detox promoters. It’s certainly not the only one and not the only important one, but it’s very highly involved in the elimination of metals and some of these other, uh, chemical environmental toxins that we’ve been talking about.

So. Eating things like the cruciferous vegetables that are very high in a compound called Sulforaphane that promotes our natural production of glutathione and helps us to get rid of those toxins. We also use a lot of binders. I. So if we’ve identified a high amount of, um, mycotoxins, which are the toxins produced by molds, if we’ve identified a high amount of mycotoxins, then we’ll use, you know, charcoal and clay binders and maybe, [00:36:00] you know, chlorella to help bind to those toxins in the gut so that they don’t get reabsorbed back into the circulation and we can eliminate them with the poop.

Dr. Weitz: Cool. What are some of your favorite supplements for supporting cognitive function?

Dr. Burke: You know, that’s always a tricky question because the, you know, neuro neurotropics are a kind of a big deal. They’re a really hot market. But to my mind it’s, it’s a bit like green pharmacy because you’re trying Oh, sure.

Dr. Weitz: Yeah. We don’t want to just jump there right away. The answer is just take these supplements and forget about everything else. Wow. Yeah. If you’re not doing everything else, if you’re not making sure you’re. Nervous system, your cardiovascular system, your endocrine system. If everything else is in balanced and you’re not getting rid of toxins and you don’t have neurotrophic factors, you don’t have the basic nutrients.  And just [00:37:00] taking a brain supplement is definitely not the answer. This would just be like the icing on the cake.

Dr. Burke: Exactly. Yeah. They’re kind of the icing on, on the cake. And when you’re doing, you know, when you’re doing all of those things that you just beautifully listed off, there’s less of a need for tho for for for them as well.  So I don’t actually tend to use a lot of neurotropic support. I use a lot of ingredients that support that. So things like lion’s mane and, um, you know, nicotinamide riboside to promote mitochondrial a TP production and, um, uh, CDP choline, for example, to augment the choline in the brain, which is so important.  So we definitely use a lot of those ingredients, but I don’t necessarily have a favorite combination product yet. Nothing, nothing has risen to the.

Dr. Weitz:  Kat Toups told me she really likes the Brain Vital from Designs for Health. So I’ve been using that one a lot.

Dr. Burke: Yeah, that one is a really good one. That’s a nice formula. Yeah, she does like that a lot.

Dr. Weitz: Um, what about some of the devices that can potentially stimulate the brain that may use light or electricity or magnets or.

Dr. Burke: Oh my gosh. Right. We, we spend so much time in medicine, and particularly I think even more so sometimes in precision and functional medicine, focusing on the biochemistry because it’s so, it’s so complex and it’s so important. But then there’s this whole other realm of the energetics of medicine, the physics of medicine, if you will, that’s really just starting to come into its own.  I mean, and we have a lot of really promising therapies. But again, I think that so much of that is like what you just said. You can’t just [00:39:00] do the energetics. If you aren’t also doing all the things that you need to do to create an environment in which the brain can heal and be healthy. But some of the things that, um, are amazing, uh, hyperbarics definitely helpful.  Unfortunately expensive and sometimes hard to to access, so that makes it a little bit more challenging, but definitely very beneficial for cognitive health.

Dr. Weitz: Yeah, it’s time consuming. You typically have to go 20 or 40 times.

Dr. Burke: Exactly right. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a big time commitment and a big financial commitment, but an effective one when it can be done.  And then the red light therapies and the, um, infrared therapies are really looking promising. That’s a very much a growing area with a very robust amount of research that’s coming out around that.

Dr. Weitz: Is there a particular product or products that you have found helpful? [00:40:00]

Dr. Burke: So I’ve used several of those products and they all seem to have benefit in their own ways.  And so it’s hard. It’s hard to pick an absolute winner. So for example, we’ve used the origin. Device, which is a combination of red light and a panel that comes across the face, and then there’s auditory stimulation to entrain the brain into gamma waves, which is the healing state. And we’ve had some really interesting results with that.  We’ve even, um, you know, cat that you brought up, Katz even had a couple of her patients have improvement in their vision and problems that they were having with the retinas, which has been really fascinating. We’ve also used, um, the neuron, uh, neuro radiant helmet. And that is very interesting. That can be, um, personalized even to QEEG findings, which we haven’t used in our practice, [00:41:00] but that’s one of the things that it can be used for.  So there’s a lot to be learned there. And then the newest device that we’ve incorporated is. Sarah Thrive, and that’s a really interesting concept because it’s a combination of a headband that has the infrared light in four different wavelengths and also the red light therapy, and then a, an abdominal panel with red light therapy that helps to address inflammation in the gut.

And improve the gut microbiome so that we have that anti-inflammatory effect and the immune modulation that we want because we know how important that gut brain axis is. So I’m really excited to be utilizing that one, and they’re all coming out with such, such great research. And then the, the last thing, which isn’t really a device, but more of a system, is that we also sometimes will use neural retraining.

Um, one that we really like a lot that, uh, we utilize is the Gupta program Just [00:42:00] reteaching the, the brain, how to not be hyper responsive. To the, the toxins or to the insults that have stimulated this inflammatory response because that becomes part of that whole cell danger cycle where the body responds in a certain danger pattern and it shuts down important pathways and it spews out certain cytokines and then we end up in a cycle that we can’t get out of to heal.

Dr. Weitz: Great. Um, tell us about some cases where you’ve had some success.

Dr. Burke: Yeah. Oh my gosh. There’s a lot of those. Not all of them are successful because this is a lot of work for the patient and their family. Sure. Feel free

Dr. Weitz: to tell us about whatever cases you want.

Dr. Burke: Yeah, yeah. No, no, there’s no, I just want, I just wanted that to be like a disclaimer, like it’s not all sunshine and roses sometimes, right?  No, absolutely.

Dr. Weitz: It is a very difficult, challenging, exactly.

Dr. Burke: Exactly. But yeah, when, I mean, when it’s, um, you know, when it, sometimes it feels like a [00:43:00] miracle. Like we have, um, a patient who had mild cognitive impairment. A woman in her sixties, she was a, a yoga instructor. She’d lost the ability to remember where she was in the yoga sequence or she remember.  If she’d already had them do both the right side and the left side, she was having trouble remembering her right from her left, like really impactful things to something, right? Teaching yoga is the love of her life. And so, um, anyway, we, we worked with her and um, she was able to get all the way back to normal AMCA of 28.  And she feels like she has her old self back. So that was a really exciting one.

Dr. Weitz: That’s great. So the moca score went from what to what?

Dr. Burke: 2022 to 20?

Dr. Weitz: Okay.

Dr. Burke: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Weitz: That’s great. And 30 is like perfect. Normal. Normal,

Dr. Burke: yeah. Yeah. 27 to 30 is normal. So, yeah, that’s the normal range. That was really exciting. [00:44:00] And then, um, she actually just got herself a new car and got the, the license plate says MCI two, normal NMLI love it.

Dr. Weitz: That’s great.

Dr. Burke: So that was a really exciting one. And then another one that we’ve just had recently, uh, was a really young, uh, affected patient in his early fifties, 53-year-old. And he had been living in an extraordinarily moldy environment and not realizing that it was impacting him because the only thing that was affected was his cognitive health and his brain.  His, his brain just wasn’t working anymore. Um, so he had almost complete idio motor apraxia where he could not hear a verbal instruction and then create that motor action. So asking him to raise an index finger, he couldn’t do it. He would just look at his hands. This is a 53-year-old Wow. Um, he couldn’t touch his nose and then touch my finger because he couldn’t make his body do that.

He could [00:45:00] hear it, he could understand it when he heard it, but he couldn’t translate it into action. And in just three months. He went from a moca of seven, which is severe Alzheimer’s Wow. To a moca of 12, and was able to actually do those things. There was still discoordination and, and it wasn’t perfect, but he could do it.

That was amazing. That felt like a miracle. And then my, you know, I think some of my favorite ones are when people come in. And they’re pretty severely, or pretty significantly affected. And you know, that look the blank that people get when they’re affected with Alzheimer’s, where it’s like just, you can’t really connect with the spark or the energy that is that person.

And there’s just a blankness that’s there. You can’t, you can’t get there. We’ve had. A couple of people have that wake up where you, you, after six months or eight months, it’s not quick, but after a period [00:46:00] of time of working with them that you come in for a visit and you walk in the room and you lock eyes and you feel the electricity of that connection.  And you know that now that that person is back. And that to me, like giving that gift to a family, like there’s just nothing better than that.

Dr. Weitz: That’s so great and contrast that unfortunately with all the latest medications for which, you know, all this research and billions and billions of dollars spent, and there’s not one case where a medication has been able to reverse cognitive decline and yet PR practitioners like yourself are seeing these great results and, um, I just can’t wait for the time when the, uh, neurological community finally embraces the fact that Dr. Bredeson’s program and a functional medicine approach can, in some cases actually reverse this, uh, [00:47:00] horrific condition.

Dr. Burke: Yeah, absolutely.  And you know, he just published in August the, um, follow up, the long-term follow up and the sustained improvements, because that’s the other piece that’s important, right? Like while it’s amazing and definitely nearly a miracle that we can reverse it and help people to get improvement, it’s even more important and amazing that that can be sustained, which I think just goes to the.  The body of proof that this is changing the process of the disease.

Dr. Weitz: And, and despite his study, this follow-up study, um, another study that was published, um, if you go to the Alzheimer’s Society website or any of these websites, they’ll say that Bredesen’s program’s completely unproven.

Dr. Burke: I know and I don’t know how they can continue saying that with all of the research that’s been published, and hopefully when we publish the current [00:48:00] randomized controlled trial, we’ll be able to put an end to that.

Dr. Weitz: But I think they’ll start to recognize that there’s this model of a drug. Uh, of a, of what is constitutes a scientific study that’s valid, which is this randomized placebo controlled, um, trial that it was designed to test drugs and is very difficult when you’re trying to test a diet and lifestyle type of program.  It’s not really that applicable to control things in quite that way and have a placebo group. But, uh, unless you have that model trial, that randomized control trial, everything else is considered invalid.

Dr. Burke: Right. And that’s why we’ve undertaken the randomized controlled trial Exactly. To exactly to your point.  And it is, it has been enormously challenging.

Dr. Weitz: Right? Yeah.

Dr. Burke: Enormously challenging. But I mean [00:49:00] our, you know, we’re halfway through now. And our data so far is for the

Dr. Weitz: listeners, you’re participating in this research study that Dr. Del Breen is undertaken and he has six different centers around the country that are participating in this, right?

Dr. Burke: Right, yep. There are six, uh, sites across the country and, and True Health Center for Precision Medicine is one of them,

Dr. Weitz: and patients are randomized.

Dr. Burke: Uh huh. Yep. So they’re randomized to either receive the precision medicine intervention or standard of care, which for early cognitive impairment is observation.

Dr. Weitz: Right? So.

Dr. Burke: You know, li modest lifestyle improvement address any factors like B12 deficiency or frank hypothyroidism or sleep apnea that may be contributing. But, but beyond those things, it’s, it’s observation until it progresses to the point that warrants. A drug intervention,

Dr. Weitz: I’d be willing to [00:50:00] bet that most neurologists are not even addressing those things.

Dr. Burke: I’ll just leave that supposition out there.

Dr. Weitz: Okay. So, Dr. Burke, can you tell listeners about how they can find out about your center or, and connect with you or find out about the programs you offer?

Dr. Burke: Yeah, so there’s a couple of different ways.  We are True Health Center for precision medicine, as I said, and our website is true health.  cpm.com and you can see on our website the various things that we do. You could, um, book a discovery call if you’re interested in working with us. We do only work with people in California because that’s where our licensure is. And then if you’re a practitioner and you’re looking to bring brain health to your own [00:51:00] patients and you want to expand that.  I actually have a company that we’re, that we’ve just launched called TruNeura.com, T-R-U-N-E-U-R-A.com, and that is a brain health software program that’s designed to help both the patient and the practitioner to be more successful at doing this work. So it integrates wearable data. Laboratory data, it organizes it into the functional medicine framework and the subsets of root cause that we’ve talked about in our conversation so that we can see it highlight, so that we can target the things that are the most out of balance for that individual patient.

Dr. Weitz: That’s great. That sounds very exciting.

Dr. Burke: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m really excited about it.

Dr. Weitz: Thank you so much.

Dr. Burke: Absolutely my pleasure.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Weitz: Thank you for making it all the way through this episode of the Rational Wellness Podcast. For those of you who enjoy listening to the Rational Wellness Podcast, I would very much appreciate it if you could go to Apple Podcast or Spotify and give us a five star ratings and review.  As you may know, I continue to accept a limited number of new patients per month for functional medicine. If you would like help overcoming a gut or other chronic health condition and want to prevent chronic problems and wanna promote longevity, please call my Santa Monica Weitz Sports Chiropractic and Nutrition office at 310-395-3111 and we can set you up for a consultation for functional medicine and I will talk to everybody next week.