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Parkinson’s Disease, Prions, and Root-Cause Brain Regeneration with Dr. Greg Eckel
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Dr. Ben Weitz introduces the Rational Wellness Podcast and interviews Dr. Greg Eckel about Parkinson’s disease, brain regeneration, and misfolded proteins (prions) such as alpha-synuclein. Eckel shares that his focus on neurodegeneration began after his wife died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, motivating him to develop the Eckel Protocol and found Be Vital. He explains prions as misfolded proteins that propagate misfolding, discusses debates about whether alpha-synuclein may be protective, and argues Parkinson’s reflects upstream systemic issues beyond dopamine loss. The conversation covers diagnostics (SYN-1 skin biopsy vs DaTscan), environmental toxins (TCE, paraquat, heavy metals), chelation approaches (provoked urine with DMSA), microbiome testing, and dietary guidance favoring Mediterranean/Zone patterns over keto. Eckel describes regenerative “brain camp” therapies including VSEL intranasal procedures, laser activation, exosomes, and adjunct modalities, and reviews supplements and IV therapies while emphasizing individualized testing and root-cause care.
00:00 Show Intro and Mission
01:02 Meet Dr Greg Eckel
02:23 Personal Loss Origin Story
08:59 Misfolded Proteins Explained
12:41 Parkinsons Beyond Dopamine
19:21 AI Data Driven Protocol
21:01 Testing SYN1 and DaTscan
24:33 Sponsor Break Apollo Wearable
26:38 Toxins and Parkinsons Links
28:38 Heavy Metals Testing Approach
31:20 Chelation Treatment Options
33:09 Personalized Detox Support
33:32 Mold Mycotoxins Screening
35:27 Lyme Testing Mindset
37:28 Diet Strategy For Parkinsons
40:55 Gut Microbiome Testing
44:35 Regenerative Brain Camp
51:16 Supplements That Move Needle
55:43 IV Therapies And Ozone
58:32 Contacts And Closing
Dr. Greg Eckel has degrees in both naturopathic medicine and Chinese medicine. After a deeply personal journey that reshaped his understanding of chronic illness, Dr. Greg Eckel has developed a comprehensive approach aimed not just at managing symptoms, but at restoring function and supporting the brain’s capacity to heal. He has developed a brain regenerative program and a nasal spray that specifically targets neuroinflammation in the brain. He’s also published a book, “Shake It Off: An Integrative Approach to Parkinson’s Solutions.” Dr. Eckel can be reached through his websites at brainregen.com, Bvital.com and on Instagram at @drgreckel.
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.
Transcript:
Dr. Weitz: If you’re looking for clinically useful insights, not wellness hype, then this is the place for you. Welcome to the Rational Wellness Podcast, the podcast for functional and integrative practitioners who want to practice with greater clarity and precision. I’m Dr. Ben Weitz, and each week, I sit down with the leading clinicians, researchers, and lab innovators to explore the science, lab testing, and clinical reasoning behind modern root cause medicine. This is a show focused on practical, evidence-informed insights that you can actually use in patient care. Please subscribe to the Rational Wellness Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube. Please tell your friends and colleagues, and if you could give us a ratings and review on Apple or Spotify, we would certainly appreciate it. Finally, to access the show notes and the full transcript, please go to my website, drweitz.com.
Hello, Rational Wellness podcasters. Today, I’m excited to be having a conversation about Parkinson’s disease with Dr. Greg Eckel. He’s a pioneer in brain regeneration, frequency medicine, and neurodegenerative disease reversal. As the founder of Be Vital in Park City, Utah, and the creator of the Eckel Protocol, he combines cutting-edge regenerative therapies with AI-driven insights to deliver life-changing outcomes for patients with Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative conditions. Dr. Eckel also works extensively with high-performing entrepreneurs and longevity seekers, helping them optimize brain function, extend health span, and unlock peak states of clarity, creativity, and vitality. With over 20 years of clinical expertise and a mission to revolutionize brain health, he’s defining what’s [00:02:00] possible in modern medicine. Dr. Eckel, thank you so much for joining us today.
Dr. Eckel: Thanks for having me on.
Dr. Weitz: Absolutely. So I understand that you had a personal experience in your life that got you to be especially focused on neurodegenerative diseases. So perhaps you could tell us about that.
Dr. Eckel: Yeah. Our, my origin story- … in 25 years of medicine, about nine years ago now I really got into brain regeneration because of my own need. Eight years ago, my wife, Soraya, passed of a rare neurodegenerative condition called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. This is mad cow syndrome in people. It’s a bunch of holes in your brain. While it’s a life-changing event, just to say the least. I don’t wish that on anyone. A wild ride of 18 months from her first symptoms as a young 40-something certified nurse midwife, nurse practitioner with some memory loss.
And I think a lot of listeners, viewers may fit that bill in, you know, kind of mid-life or in their 40s and starting to develop what people say is, “Oh, you’re… Get used to it. You’re getting old.” And I, you know, I think that the message is that it’s never normal to have memory loss, looking for words, where did you put your keys. For us, it became a orange Fiestaware plate after a move. We bought a house. We blended our families, her three kids, my two kids and we even had a maid named Alice, just like the Brady Bunch. And it became, you know, fodder and talk around, you know, as you move, things get lost, misplaced. And with a blended family, we had colored Fiestaware plates. All the [00:04:00] kids had their own color. Thankfully, that was the guest plate. But Soraya just could not let it go. She would go looking for it in the cupboards, down the hallway, wind up in the attic. But it wasn’t just once it was multiple times every day. It became talk for us around the dinner table, like how many times was mom up in the attic. And it accelerated you know, at that time this is a super dynamic, vibrant woman, at the top of her game. I don’t know if you’re a woman and you’ve ever been to the gynecologist, you don’t really look forward to that visit. But women would come out of their, her exam room, you know, kind of whistling a tune and- There’d be laughter and just, you know, Soraya was this special being on the planet who had a, just a amazing heart.
She found a chamber of my heart that I didn’t know existed. We were married eight years, and I always knew she was one in a million, but unfortunately, the medical community agreed with me with a really ominous differential diagnosis of autoimmune encephalitis, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, basically a bunch of as of yet uncurable brain degenerative states. I even had a Kaiser doc tell me, “Oh, this was a psychotic break.” And at that point, 17 years into practice, I was like, “This is not a psychotic break. This is a woman that was on top of her clinical game just brilliant.” And, you know, traversing that, I already knew the medical system was broken, but to go through it with my wife’s life on the line it just heartbreaking. It ripped me open as a human. It reinstated my faith in unity consciousness. And while I went, I swung for the fence looking for solutions on how do you regenerate a brain, [00:06:00] what I turned up did not help Soraya one iota. She did pass, as I mentioned, 18 months after her first symptom. It was three months where she couldn’t feed herself, couldn’t speak. We had to have hospice care on board. And with raising a family, having a full-time practice, and watching my wife wither I set to work. And, you know, all of these therapies that I put together and codified in the Eckel Protocol while didn’t help her, are helping thousands of people every year now because we had to step out of the box.
I quickly became– I discovered there was a prion surveillance center in North America at Case Western in Ohio. I started talking to the experts in neurodegenerative states. You realize when people start talking about prions, which I hope we get into here–these are misfolded proteins. And in the [00:07:00] book of misfolded proteins of prion diseases, it’s still in its first edition Stanley Prusiner got a Nobel Prize in 1997, so relatively recent discovery of these misfolded proteins. But in there you’ve got alpha-synuclein for Parkinson’s, beta amyloid plaque in Alzheimer’s, tau proteins, Lewy bodies, a Lewy body dementia. There is a whole slew of misfolded proteins that a lot of people don’t understand, they’re afraid of, and they’re not being talked about. And when we look at neurology and these neurodegenerative states across the board, well, there’s a reason why there’s been no breakthroughs in 350 to 400 years for some of these conditions is because no one is addressing this, the trillion-dollar question is why do proteins misfold? So that you know, we created we didn’t start with the Echo Protocol. I kind of humbly named it that. I got remarried, [00:08:00] Kitty who’s a co-founder of Be Vital here. We feel like Soraya brought us together and to carry out this mission to, to help people reclaim their vitality and vibrance and get their lives back.
And we’re picking on Parkinson’s, but it could be Alzheimer’s, it could be dementia, it could be traumatic brain injury, it could be all the way to high performance for folks because we treat people, not conditions or symptoms. So all of those are wrapped up in, in my why. It definitely lit a fire under my tuchus and, you know, it gave me a deep appreciation for the miracle of life, for these bodies for Earth, for community, for conversations like this. We don’t know how long we’re on the planet, so we gotta make every moment the most, and I can’t think of a better way of doing it is being in service to people. So I really appreciate being able to share the story with you and your listeners.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. So let’s talk about the prion concept a little bit. And I recently interviewed Dale Bredesen. He often talks about prions and Stanley Prusiner. So I, at one point, it seemed to me that prions were like a another microorganism, like bacteria, viruses, and then we have prions. But, prions are also misfolded protein. Yeah. So what are prions? Yeah. Is this like, is this almost like DNA damage? Is it,…
Dr. Eckel: They’re like senescent cells. So we know about senescent cells kind of zombie cells. So th- you know, prions, when you read about them, they d- they’re always talked about as these infectious prions and- Right … as if they’re out there as another…
Dr. Weitz: – you eat this meat– and it has prions in it, and that gets into you.
Dr. Eckel: Right. No. So prions are basically they’re, it’s just misfolded [00:10:00] proteins. So, as a protein gets injured or threatened, it misfolds, and then it will start to signal other proteins to misfold, and that’s kind of how they start to group and clump. There are different theories on different neurodegenerative states as to where they lodge in the brain to create the symptom picture, but it- they aren’t so much infectious. I mean, when you… Y- you know, you can definitely get buggered out on them because you cannot destroy them with heat. You know, autoclaving them doesn’t destroy them in, you know, in… They just aren’t. They’re indestructible, right? And so then how do you how do you turn them off? Well…
Dr. Weitz: And when the body does something that turns out to have a negative effect, usually there’s some evolutionary benefit. So what is the evolutionary benefit of misfolding a protein?
Dr. Eckel: Yeah, that’s the trillion-dollar question, and in fact, that’s what’s getting debated because originally they were only thought of in a negative way, and then of course, as you mentioned, it’s like the body doesn’t typically do things that don’t have a reason or a rhyme or a reason. And so that is to be determined. It’s, I think, as a protective mechanism, but somehow it’s almost like a cancerous cell is just a cell that stops, you know, destroying itself stops apoptosis or apoptosis stops the cell death. Well, the same thing with these prions is that once they get turned on, they start to signal others. So it’s how do you turn off the signaling of h- okay we’re at rest, we’re not under attack everything is safe again. And so that’s where we’ve come up with a detect phase in the echo protocol where, And you know, it’s interesting, Bredesen was in [00:12:00] Prusiner’s lab at UCSF. Right. Yes. So they were studying prions. So, it, there, it is a big component to a lot of these conditions, not the only root for Parkinson’s or Parkinsonism symptoms, but it is a big piece of the puzzle. And so we look at it, and this can go for all, basically all chronic illness, three big buckets up top, environmental toxicity, traumas physical, mental, emotional, and ancestral, and then infections. So we’ve got viruses, bacteria, molds over in the third bucket of causative agents as to why proteins misfold.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, when we try to understand Parkinson’s, there’s a lot of discussion about alpha-synuclein and the part of the brain, the substantia nigra, that produces dopamine. But I went down the rabbit hole in preparing for this podcast about [00:13:00] trying to understand- alpha-synuclein, and it is really complicated, and it seems to be involved in neurons all around the brain and in various processes, and it’s certainly not clear.
Dr. Eckel: Yeah. So alpha-synuclein is a prion, so it is a misfolded protein. So that is you know, they have now skin scraping tests, and it does serve a role, as you found in, and as we get more and more research and data around, well, what does it do? Like, you know, I think the hubris in medicine and in the practice of medicine is, oh, once we turn this off, like now they have some vaccines coming online to, basically eliminate alpha-synuclein.
Well, we don’t know what the downwind effects are of that. And so looking at it as a protective mechanism, perhaps it’s, you know, stopping certain infections. [00:14:00] There’s, you know, molecular mimicry with viruses, Epstein-Barr, herpes simplex, cytomegalovirus, that can mimic Parkinsonism. My eyes have been opened up to now in kind of genetic polymorphism, so multiple SNPs or SNPs.
There could be signals or platforms for people that are more susceptible to developing the symptoms versus other people that don’t get the symptoms. Just recently reading that alpha-synuclein isn’t really found in the plasma. It’s in the red blood cells. Well, what is it doing in the red blood cells?
And, you know, a- and then in particular in the brain. One comment though around looking at Parkinson’s as only a substantia nigra or dopamine, dopaminergic receptor issue, that’s the end stage of a disease process. And really, my goal is to educate people, we’ve got to get out of the brain. Like Parkinson’s is not actually a brain [00:15:00] issue, which, you know, it infuriates people when they hear that because the neurologists say, “Well, look, here’s the damage of the substantia nigra, and when you do carbidopa/levodopa, which helps with dopamine synthesis, people’s symptoms get better.”
Well, that is the end stage of the disease process. And what we’re finding in functional medicine array and testing is going upstream through microbiome testing, environmental toxicity testing hormone platform testing, cortisol stress response testing. You can really throw some levers to get at the underlying root imbalances and actually help people get better.
And in fact, we published in January 2025 two cases of patients that their substantia nigra actually got better. So you can do a DaT scan w- with radioactive dye that measures uptake into the substantia nigra. Well, in Western medicine [00:16:00] and Western approach, the brain is not supposed to heal like that.
But we were able to actually show it improve. Better yet, the patients are off their drugs and have no evidence of the disease. So we are seeing a signal and that’s what we’re codifying in our process of detection, and then correct, and then thrive to actually help people with changing their lifestyle, their mindset, their nutrition, their movement.
Plug the holes in the bottom of the bucket because it’s different. We’re finding five subtypes of constellations similar to Bredesen. I think he’s got seven types in Alzheimer’s, or maybe it’s a little bit different now. But at my last look and pass on his work is because it’s not all the same thing.
Dr. Weitz: Now it’s interesting, not surprising, kind of disappointing that medicine is looking at trying to block alpha-synuclein, which is similar to the [00:17:00] pathway that medicine and pharmaceutical research has gone in trying to get a handle on Alzheimer’s. And we just recently had a Cochrane review that looked at the leading medications for amyloid, which for part- Mm-hmm
for Alzheimer’s, which are very effective at eliminating all the amyloid, which is believed to be a major factor in Alzheimer’s, and yet the patients don’t get better, so. Right. I can just imagine, my guess is that we get rid of all the alpha-synuclein and the patients don’t get better. So what comparisons are there between alpha-synuclein and amyloid beta?
We understand amyloid beta is actually there to protect the brain, has an antimicrobial function, and may help block inflammation and toxins. So are there- Yeah … comparisons between alpha-synuclein and beta amyloid?
Dr. Eckel: I think it I think that it’s [00:18:00] too soon to tell, but I- Right … I think that we will find very similar. You know, the body in its innate intelligence and wisdom is not just misfiring. There has to be a reason. Right. We don’t know that reason as a protective mechanism. You know, actually, in the MDS Society, it’s the movement disorder specialists, these are the neurologists that specialize in movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease there is debate on is this good, alpha-synuclein good versus bad.
So some really fascinating d- discussions happening now, but it’s too soon to tell. But I do think if we look at it as a systems approach, which I it just makes more sense to me as a naturopathic doctor and Chinese medicine practitioner, we’re gonna look whole systems and look at- Instead of the end stage of, “Okay, oh, this is the issue.
Let’s get rid of that, and then all will be good.” Right. We [00:19:00] know that is… That’s basically a failed… The reductionist way of view of how the body functions is a failed experiment. I mean, we have, what, 47th life expectancy and most expensive healthcare on the planet. For chronic disease I just don’t think we’re gonna get there in a reductionist method of evaluation.
That’s why I’m really excited about what is happening with AI and big data in helping understand what’s happening with the body, because it’s making connections where our brains cannot see the connections. But when you get it the information in a protected suite and understand, well, what is in this box rather than, you know, just the LLMs online, you can really look at, okay, well, between the genetic poly variant SNPs compared to the microbiome, compared to blood work, you know, we’re really getting some fascinating [00:20:00] connections that are showing like, hey, there is a pattern emerging here.
There’s a signal. And now can we get at, okay, well, i- in a numeric or percentage-wise, can we then help people understand, okay, this is the best lever for you at this moment in time. It’s gonna help with your gait imbalance, or this one is gonna help with your tremor, Right … issues. Again, we’re not there yet, but that’s where we’re building here at Be Vital.
You know, it’s kind of the Buckminster Fuller moment is we have over 2,000 people in that data set and growing in the multivariate functional medicine integrative testing scenario where we’re throwing we’re getting EEG data. We’ve done evoked action potentials, P300, so we’re looking at electrical activity, connectivity of the brain. We’re looking functional medicine-wise, and then of course, there’s the clinical [00:21:00] diagnosis on top
Dr. Weitz: You mentioned some of the testing and you mentioned the DaTscan and you also mentioned the skin biopsy test. Can you explain the skin biopsy test and how helpful is that?
Dr. Eckel: Ah, so SYN-1 S-Y-N-1 is kind of a new kid on the block was supposed to be out last year really for clinicians across the United States. It’s still really in the institutions for research. It’s about a $1,500 test. It’s testing for synucleinopathies, right? Just rolls right off the tongue. So for all of these, you know, misfolded proteins, so it will come up. You can do a skin biopsy and test for alpha-synuclein, so the misfolded protein or the prion of Parkinson’s, but it’s also…
It’s not specific, so it will also come up high with MSA, multiple systems [00:22:00] atrophy, or PSP, progressive supranuclear palsy which are very similar synucleinopathies, prionic activity diseases that just lodge in different regions of the brain, creating the s- specific symptom picture for those conditions.
So it, it can be valuable. It can be super frustrating because, you know, Parkinson’s currently is a clinical diagnosis, and oftentimes people get conflicting diagnosises and, you know, because y- it’s nuanced on where it is, and there’s subtypes and some of these things look similar. So the… I think it can be a valuable…
I like the skin scraping biopsy, the SYN-1 test better than the DaTscan. So the DaTscan is a radioactive dye i- imaging. They l- you- inject you with a radioactive dye. It’s [00:23:00] specific for dopamine and dopaminergic receptors, and then you take some pictures of the brain looking at what is the destruction of the substantia nigra.
Usually it’s about 83 to 84% destroyed when someone has an outward telltale sign of Parkinson’s. So that’s kind of the stooped over posture, possibly pill-rolling, stutter step you know, th- that stiffness, et cetera. That is really getting at the un- end stage of the disease process. Now, people have a scoring of one through four of what stage of Parkinson’s are you in, but I would say once you have the outward signs of Parkinson’s, you’re already in an end stage game
Dr. Weitz: Is there a specific questionnaire or test that help- that gives you that rating?
Dr. Eckel: Well, I don’t agree with the rating, so- Okay … yeah. So that’s what I’m saying there is I don’t- Okay … I [00:24:00] don’t like the DaTscan. It’s being kind of, you know, a picture is worth a thousand words, and so they’re wanting to have it as a definitive diagnosis, but we’re showing it reverse in our patients. So I don’t put a lot of value in it because it’s reversible. Although people want… It’s like, on the spine, right? You get back pain, and 50% of the people show a disc lesion, and 50% of the people show nothing, but they both have back pain. And so it’s not a definitive way to diagnose- Right … the imaging.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. Yeah.
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Dr. Weitz: We often use MRI with volume to look at the brain for patients with cognitive problems. Can MRI with volumetrics, which doesn’t involve radioactive dye, can that show the substantia nigra,
Dr. Eckel: Not… No, it’s not going to be, like, the, a volume of the brain doesn’t play out here for…
Dr. Weitz: – You can’t see, like, the volume of the substantia nigra or anything- No … like that? No? Not- Okay …
Dr. Eckel: not in an appreciable way.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. All right. So a- and you were mentioning some of the buckets of things, and you mentioned toxins. And we’ve seen a lot of papers recently about various toxins. People who live within a mile of a golf course- Right … are more likely to get Parkinson’s, and we’ve seen a connection with the fluid that’s used in dry cleaning and- Yes, [00:27:00] TCE.
Dr. Eckel: Yes Yeah Trichloroethylene. Right. That is in the groundwater. There’s clustering as well through the Great Lake region, I think because of the TCEs, the trichloroethylenes. Paraquat has been implicated. It’s interesting, paraquat has been banned around the world, but its use has gone up in the United States. And I… Non-causative-
Dr. Weitz: it’s used as a herbicide for marijuana- Herbicide, yes … right?
Dr. Eckel: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, and so we’re seeing an increase of these neurodegenerative conditions in the United States and while not causative, p- definitely correlative. And so detoxification is very important. So, heavy metals is another big one, and if they’re not tested for properly you’re just not going to know. Now, not everyone with this neurodegenerative state has heavy metals, but if they are there, that is a showstopper. Mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and lead [00:28:00] are the top four that we see in our practice, and they’re, they…
You know, toxins, all of them, get stored in fat. Our brains are 60% fat. It, they do get in the way of any of the regenerative stem cell therapeutics that we’re using any of the bioelectric acupuncture treatments that we’re using, hyperbarics, red light beds, et cetera. Just, you know, the fascia and the connective tissue for delivering signal and creating change you need to clean the terrain. And that’s for 100% of folks that come through our program.
Dr. Weitz: And who… Didn’t they find some connection with heavy metals with that that pottery, those plates you were talking about? With the
Dr. Eckel: Fiestaware plates … the Fiestaware, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Go figure. Yes, So- Small world …
Dr. Weitz: we used to test for heavy metals with DMSA provocation, and then [00:29:00] DMSA became a prescription, and so now we just use urine without challenge. I was looking through some of your info, and I understand that you use the provocation?
Dr. Eckel: We do. Yeah, so we do a pre and a post because if you’re not pulling it out, it’s really hard for it to come out. And I see a lot of patients that will come to me with blood tests or hair analysis. The blood tests really are for acute exposure- Right so that will be in the blood. But we do a pre and a post because sometimes you can find acute environmental toxicities for folks, aluminum tin mercury, all of these come up from you know, acute exposures, whether it be too much sushi old canned vegetables aluminum in their deodorant, antiperspirants.
We do actually catch quite a bit of those. And then we also look at their essential minerals at the beginning to make sure any therapeutics [00:30:00] we lay in afterwards, that it comes into a very receptive host. But then we do a six-hour provocation. It’s just I’ve been doing that for 25 years.
I used to split tests between hair analysis and urine And, you know, the beginning of my practice I would see a lot of folks on the spectrum with autism. And those kids are… It’s really hard to collect urine for six hours, so we would do a lot of hair analysis. But go figure, they’re not able to secrete those metals through the hair follicles, and that’s why they had a metal burden in the first place. So again, used a split test, found the hair analysis was not adequate enough for when we’re talking about regenerating the brain. So we do the six-hour te- catch test.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. And you d- using DMSA typically? We do. We do. Yeah. What do you think about using glutathione or [00:31:00] something like that, or even sauna?
You know,
Dr. Eckel: glutathione, sauna,
Dr. Weitz: As a provocation … well,
Dr. Eckel: yeah, I haven’t… I don’t have enough use of it. I definitely know- Right … they are chelating- Yeah … agents. Yeah. But just to compare apples to apples- Right … again, looking at a, you know- DMSA
Dr. Weitz: is standardized It’s the- Yeah … standardized
Dr. Eckel: test. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: So and then in terms of treatment for removing metals we have IV glutathione, we have liposomal glutathione, we have binders, we have liver support. Yeah. What… Do you have certain protocols you like to use? We do,
Dr. Eckel: yeah. You know, I’m old school, so we g- we have the slow boat or the fast boat. So we have- … folks bind. The slow boat is oral DMSA, three days on, 11 days off with a lot of support with binders and liver support, sauna, dry skin brushing, et cetera. And then if they have access to somebody locally who does IV chelation therapies, that’s the fast [00:32:00] boat. Little bit more accelerated. Some people can handle it, some people can’t. So we do recommend those routes to, to go. You know, it’s been interesting being in practice for a quarter century.
You see changes in the population, and tolerances, abilities to detox It used to be I felt like it took a lot longer to get these metals out of people, which is a little counterintuitive. As we’ve gotten kind of sicker, we’re able to do this within one to three months for most people. It used to take three to five years so I’m not sure what’s happening there.
But we’re able with some of the supportive therapeutics that we’ve got going on, perhaps that’s just s- supporting the among theories the roots of elimination of the body we’re able to safely do this. I know there’s a lot of chatter on the internet on, “Oh, DMSA is not safe. It damages the kidneys,” all of this. I don’t know. I’ve been at it 25 years, and we have a [00:33:00] protocol that is very safe and effective. Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. And you’re using DMSA. Do you use other oral chelators?
Dr. Eckel: No. You know, we’re supporting with glutathione magnesium in that detect phase because we’re looking at all of the facets of health.
We’re supporting the specific holes in the bottom of the bucket for the person. So it’s not like a set protocol for everyone because everyone’s got their own unique holes in the bottom of
Dr. Weitz: the bucket.
Dr. Eckel: Yeah. Right.
Dr. Weitz: Great. And then what about other toxins like mycotoxins, environmental toxins?
Dr. Eckel: Yeah, so mold’s coming up more and more and it is an issue. And in, in neurodegeneration, it’s something to be considered. We are looking at– so we look at neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratios. We’re looking at the differential of their white blood cell count in their blood. Of course, doing a thorough history and evaluation there. And then-
Dr. Weitz: Are you testing for mycotoxins?
Dr. Eckel: Not–right, it’s not a first-line test. When folks come out to the center, we do a lot with applied kinesiology and that typically will trigger a secondary test for mycotoxins for folks. It’s not everyone. However, it’s about 15% to 18% of our patients that we’re seeing with that. Other note that just comes to mind, you know, I was expecting to see a ton of Lyme infections for folks with Parkinson’s disease, and that just– we are not seeing that in our practice here.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. Let me suggest that if you’re already testing for heavy metals through urine- Yeah … you can just do a urine test that also includes mycotoxins and environmental toxins.
Like- Mm-hmm … Vibrant offers a total tox burden test that does all three of those. The
Dr. Eckel: issue with Vibrant is they’re not an open system, and because I’m developing this [00:35:00] platform, I need the APIs from the labs to, to create an assessment. And they’re a closed system, which I can appreciate, but I think this day and age of where everything is going with big compute, I think they really- Right
need to consider opening their data sources up. I would gladly use them if we could get the data off of their platform, but, Right … as of right now they’re not open to it, so. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. And and then in terms of Lyme, it’s very difficult to test for it, so I think that can be an issue.
Dr. Eckel: Yeah, it really is. I mean, we’ve been down the rabbit holes multiple times. I mean- … from IgeneX to, you know, kind of swirling around. We’ve settled on the IgeneX test. And, you know, I th- I think I guess one word on the bugs which I think is appropriate here is it’s less about… You know, I think a lot of us as practitioners and also as patients we wanna hang our hat somewhere, and then we [00:36:00] wanna go after that thing.
And our approach in a bioenergetic approach is are we able to raise the person’s vitality and energy, where then these bugs or infections, they become less relevant, where, you know, sometimes it is you have to eliminate the bug to give the body’s ability to recharge the battery to get to Wellville, is the way I talk about it.
But it is less about the infection, the virus the mold, and more about, okay Do we have your body functioning well? Have we plugged the holes in the bottom of the bucket where your vitality, your innate intelligence is able to heal? Have we worked on the mindset, right? I mean, I think the mindset in particular with molds and with Lyme in particular is insidious.
Like, because a lot of people have had the program implanted [00:37:00] of, “Well, now you’re gonna have this forever, the rest of your life.” And I don’t think that’s fair for providers, practitioners to do because it hasn’t been the case in my practice. Over a quarter of a century, I’ve seen people fully recover from these conditions with no evidence of the disease process, nor on repeat testing. So it’s… I know, you know, there’s clinical evidence that trumps the research. It has to work in the real world.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. Let’s get into some of the treatment approaches. When it comes to diet, what’s the most effective dietary approach for Parkinson’s? And I know a lot of people for neurodegenerative diseases have been working with variations of the ketogenic diet.
Dr. Eckel: Yeah. So I am not a fan of the ketogenic diet and I will tell you why. It’s very hard to pull off, and I have not found it to be sustainable. Now, I know D’Agostino has been on it for a decade and fixed his cardiovascular disease, [00:38:00] and you know. But he’s also a researcher, clinician, and really measuring everything.
‘Cause so I’ve seen people… We ran it for a decade in my clinic up in Portland for integrative oncology patients, and, you know, it w- the outcomes I did not see were much better than somebody eating more of a anti-inflammatory diet or a Mediterranean diet or a zone diet. I think we have a lot of evidence on Mediterranean diet.
It is actually well-researched in people with Parkinson’s disease of course sugar so we have people will wear a continuous glucose monitor as a phase two of a dietary approach. And in a longevity play for me personally I’m wearing a CGM one to two months every year just to realign, reacquaint re-motivate, right?
Things tend to slide back in. Right. We’re human. But it, we, it’s the [00:39:00] sugar spikes. So when you have a glucose spike, insulin follows, inflammation follows. And so looking at healing the gut first, getting your biochemistry well-suited, you’re not spiking sugars. Gluten in particular, and it just pains me to say this because I just got back from France and- Sure
eating sourdough bread is inflammatory in the bowel. And if you have a leaky gut, you’re going to have a leaky blood brain barrier. So there is a component of oils of brain food. If you were talking with Bredesen you may have came across Dean Goodenow’s work with plasmalogens. That isn’t a frontline test for us at this moment in time, but it is something that we consider for folks that are not responding to what we’re doing.
You know, I think the Mediterranean diet coupled with the Zone Diet, so 40, 30, 30, Barry [00:40:00] Sears in the end of the ’90s, pretty 40% was complex carbohydrate, your vegetables, 30% protein, 30% fat. That seems to be people can wrap. We wanna keep it as simple as possible. We are pro-fat providers, meaning we want organic butter and really good oils in there.
So it is, you know, you’re eating whole foods, you’re getting off of the ultra-processed. I mean, so many people are overwhelmed with diet nutrition, and that’s why we create, we have a coaching community with actual coaches every week reminding, encouraging even cheering. We cheer for folks, so.
So because it is you know, I learned, started learning about my diet in 90, 1996. I’m still working on it, and it just is slow, steady steps towards wellville is how you create the change.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. Yeah. A little more on the role of the gut and the importance of the gut-brain [00:41:00] connection and I, there’s a company that came up with a specific probiotic, L. plantarum PS128. Yes. What is your approach to dealing with the gut? And I think I saw somewheres where you’re you like to do a, like a GI map stool test.
Dr. Eckel: Yes. So we are we’re agnostic on the microbiome testing, but I’ve been using GI maps predominantly. We also use Brilliant Biome out of the UCSD area, Sierra Simpson down there. There is so much research coming out around the gut microbiome and Parkinson’s and brain health, right? The gut is the second brain.
Dr. Weitz: Are there certain patterns or, or-
Dr. Eckel: Yeah, so there there was research that came out of Norway that found Desulfovibrio was implicated in creating Parkinson’s pattern.
Dr. Weitz: One, one of the bacteria involved in hydrogen sulfide [00:42:00] SIBO.
Dr. Eckel: Yes. Now that pattern, we have not seen that pattern in our practice. Okay. So it’s … I just bring it up because they’re, you know, it was like definitive, “We’ve found it.” And I’m like, “Well, okay, I had 2 out of 2,000 patients with that pattern.
Like, what? That can’t be the-” Well, a
Dr. Weitz: part of it may be what is the level that we want to red flag? And if you notice like on the GI map, anything that’s above detectable levels potentially could be an issue, even if it’s not red flagged.
Dr. Eckel: Correct. Correct. Yeah, not even seeing it at those levels. Okay. So what I’ve got in our kind of my AI program we call Prometheus I put in my ideal ranges for what I’m looking at. So we’re not using the lab ranges anymore. We’re using, you know, what I- the patterns that I’ve seen clinically through time. You know, of course, we are using lab ranges overall, but then we’ve [00:43:00] got the ideal ranges, right? We’re not comparing the general population out there because they’re drugged, diseased, and sick.
So we want ideal numbers, as I’m sure you do in your practice as well. The, a- akkermansia was another one, right? When, you know, akkermansia became the darling of integrative functional medicine, and when I was originally looking at it, I was looking at it in the negative for folks with Parkinson’s disease.
So, Huh … at high levels it’s implicated in inflammation of the bowel because it’s creating more mucus and mucin, a protective layer. But it also is showing, so we have two sets, too high and too low. We don’t really have a lot of patients in the r- just Goldilocks zone in the middle. Interesting.
Yeah, but it not, it’s not the same pattern. So the, my approach in looking at the microbiome is less about the specific bug. Like, the PS 128, I haven’t seen that move the [00:44:00] needle in the majority of patients that come in on that. Again, because it’s one drop in the, kind of the Olympic pool. And so really it’s the dietary changes to create more butyrate, short-chain fatty acids.
So changing changing the nutrition with vegetables in particular, like forced- Try to get more fiber … the vegetables. The fiber is going to really change the microbiome and get better y- you know, the better ecosystem going for the majority of folks. Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: I want to go into a couple of advanced protocols and then finish with some nutritional supplements. So I saw where you use intranasal stem cells, and there’s also the song laser protocol that- Yes … activates PRP with r-
Dr. Eckel: Yeah. So it’s VSEL, so it’s not PRP, it’s PPP. It’s platelet poor plasma [00:45:00] in the p- platelet poor plasma.
Dr. Weitz: Platelet poor plasma. Yes. Yeah. So it’s like the opposite of PRP.
Dr. Eckel: Exactly, yeah. We’re not concentrating the platelets.
So what we’re doing is in the plasma, in everyone’s plasma, are VSELs, very small embryonic-like stem cells. Controversial, however very effective. They’re small, so they go through the lung tissue, through the blood brain barrier. We use an intranasal procedure to help for cell signaling mainly.
Again, we’re giving cells for the innate intelligence to heal itself. So th- these cells aren’t coming in to heal you. They’re kind of, you get a new innate conductor for your innate ability to heal, and it helps expedite that change. So with utilizing exosomes messenger RNA- anti-inflammatory cytokines, growth factors.
All of these things are [00:46:00] very potent. So we’re putting that back in from the patient. We collect about 120 milliliters process it. This is a patented process with a SONG laser. It stands for Strahan-Ovokaitis Node-Generating Laser, which is a 743 nanometer red light laser, but it’s got a filter on it that creates a SONG modulated node-generating light beam.
That’s what allows it to go through the skull into the body tissue. And we’re triangulating, so where we create overlapping light beams creates a node of light that attracts these cells to it. So we paint the brain in light, we get the thyroid, we get the thymus, we get the adrenal glands.
We have about six to eight other sites that we can do after we do the brain protocol. But we do a– that preliminary from detection, it’s not just a stem cell procedure, right? So people, I think it’s the Wild [00:47:00] West right now of, “Well, I’m just gonna go get stem cells. That’s gonna help he-heal my body.”
Well, what stem cells, right? What I wrote about in my first book it’s called Shake It Off was a fancy approach. That was the first iteration of the echo protocol. We were using placenta-derived tissue allographic cells from placentas that included… It was full tissue allograft, so it included the MSCs, mesenchymal stem cells all of those other cell signaling units that I just spoke about.
Now, we’ve evolved that to use the VSEL procedure because they’re smaller. We’re having a better more long-lasting effect for more people with using them. And then we couple with sometimes neural exosomes. These are mesenchymal stem cells that have been differentiated into neural stem cells, and then the secretion from the neural stem cells, the exosomes, [00:48:00] so we call them neural exosomes, are collected.
Those are then put back into the patient. So we’re, again, a little agnostic on the regenerative therapeutics because I think they all work. Quantity and quality matter and deliverability. So we- we’re doing a, what we call as a brain camp. We have people come out to Park City for a week. We’re doing cranial sacral therapy, opening up the cerebral spinal fluid, which is definitely an impacted in the majority of folks with neurodegenerative states.
We’re doing bioelectric acupuncture on low-level laser pads and pulsed electromagnetic frequency and Scenar technology, creating fields around the body to make it more receptive to, for blood flow. Then we deliver the cells activate the cells, put them back into the body as we’ve primed the pump, so to speak.
We have people then get into a light bed, full body light bed with frequencies. [00:49:00] We’re running frequencies in our space. So again, on that bioenergetic front, we’re really creating the field because the disease process starts in a frequency front before it gets compressed into matter here. So we’re working on all levels inside out and on the mindset too.
Dr. Weitz: So you’re throwing everything at it?
Dr. Eckel: That’s right. But in a properly stacked process, because it’s not more is better there’s a thought process in Chinese medicine, which is called the Zheng of the formula or the emperor, empress, generals, assistants, everybody move to, to point in a direction.
So it’s not the American shotgun approach, more is better. It’s a layered, nuanced approach that we’ve discovered through time. So we’re always making slight tweaks as we’re measuring at the one, the three, at the five and seven-month follow-up cases. We retest at the fifth month to make sure [00:50:00] that the hull of the boat, the, we’ve plugged the holes and and that we’re actually able to measure the change.
So, you know, we’ve employed the PDQ-39 out of Oxford University. It’s the most clinically relevant research questionnaire for studying folks with Parkinson’s. So, it’s- Very interesting. You know, you’ll get to three months after procedure. You talk to the patient, “Nothing is better, Doc. I still have Parkinson’s.”
And then we get in on the questionnaire, it’s like, “Well, you said this improved, and this improved. Is that true?” “Yes.” “Well, okay, we’re showing here a 36% improvement-” Yeah … “overall. I n- I get it, you still have your tremor or your gait imbalance, but we’re showing improvement versus you were not…You were just getting worse across the board previously.”
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, you know, that’s always hard for patients. Any time we’re- Yeah … dealing with one of these chronic conditions, neurodegenerative, even chronic back pain, people are looking for the [00:51:00] point when they have no pain. Yeah. And so, you know, you give them a questionnaire and their pain’s going from eight to six to four- Right
and sometimes they’re thinking, “Well, I’m still in pain.” But you gotta see those incremental approaches, and that’s where things like questionnaires can be really helpful. Yeah. So we love talking about nutritional supplements, and I wanna make it clear to everybody there’s no nutritional supplement that’s gonna r- eliminate your Parkinson’s, but we still like to talk about anything that can move the needle a little bit, so.
Totally. Let’s- Yeah … talk about some nutritional supplements. And one thing I wanna ask you about is mucuna pruriens, which is a herbal product that has some dopa in it. And some people feel that this might be helpful to n- maybe put off using the levodopa/carbidopa, or maybe it can be used with it in, in, in a judicious way. What do you think about mucuna?
Dr. Eckel: [00:52:00] Yeah, and it can serve a role and a purpose. You know, when you look at it it doesn’t cross the blood-brain barrier, so that’s why we have the carbidopa/levodopa. Now, early on in my practice I was anti-drug. Now I’m anti-suffering, and I feel like th- these supplements if they alleviate some of the symptoms, that’s great, but it doesn’t do anything to get to the root underlying imbalance and correct at that level where you don’t need to take a supplement then.
And so L- DOPA powder can be very helpful. It can help as you mentioned delay the use of Sinemet, carbidopa/levodopa. It doesn’t correct for any imbalances though
Dr. Weitz: Right. For sure Yeah. I’ve seen some people feel that thiamine injections-
Dr. Eckel: Yes. So B1 therapy, it comes out of Italy. There’s a big online community. Again, I haven’t seen [00:53:00] it in a big population move the needle. I think, you know, individually it’s worth a try. I actually have put that as up-and-coming therapies in my next book, which releasing in May of ’26. It’s called Defying Parkinson’s, and so that’s an up-and-coming, even though it’s been around for a while. But thiamine deficiencies are real and need to be addressed if that is the case for the individual. Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: Low-dose lithium?
Dr. Eckel: Low-dose lithium, amazing for brain health. Not in my brain essentials. I would say the three brain essentials would be omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium L-threonate- Right
and glutathione. Okay. Those are the three, like, must-haves a, for 100% of people that I see. Like all-
Dr. Weitz: Is there a dosage for omega-3s, the UI- I like- … EPA, [00:54:00] DHA?
Dr. Eckel: I like 3,000 milligrams of omega-3, total omega-3. A little bit higher on the DHA. But DHA, EPA ratio in most of the clean brands is, will get you to that level at 3,000 milligrams of omega-3.
Dr. Weitz: And tocotrienols or tocopherols?
Dr. Eckel: I don’t have vitamin E in- Okay … in the top 10. And you know, I’m not I’m not adverse to it. I just haven’t seen the research on vitamin E, in particular with Parkinson’s and brain health. But I could be, my mind could be opened up, Doc.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, I also think it helps with making sure that your fish oil’s not getting oxidized, so- Okay. Got it. Got it … that’s one of the reasons I like it. Yeah … you mentioned plasmalogens. CoQ10?
Dr. Eckel: Yeah, CoQ10, PQQ they tend to fit in… we kinda have this ranking in Prometheus of one through five in most importance. Okay. And so [00:55:00] all of these, I really go with the detect, right? Everybody wants to know what to take, and, Based on your testing but you gotta go off of your testing because you’re specifically you. And that’s why I say, “Well, okay, that is in brain nutritional guidelines, and that, those are really good-” Those are really good products if you need them in that hierarchy of need.
Dr. Weitz: And you’re testing, are you looking at serum levels? Are you looking at more, you know, longer term levels? Serum- You know, there’s different ways to look at micronutrients …
Dr. Eckel: yeah. Well, we’ve got that urine test out of the doctor’s data on their minerals, essential minerals. And then we’re looking in the blood, in the serum. Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: IV therapies.
Dr. Eckel: Oh, man, a lot. So, a one interesting one is a Pico CBD, cannabidiol, that we’ve come across. Ah … the endocannabinoid system Professor Mechoulam [00:56:00] out of Israel, there’s a great YouTube video called The Scientist, he’s a hero of mine, discovered the endocannabinoid system. You know, endocannabinoid system underlays all of our neurotransmitters, and there are more receptors for cannabidiols than all of the neurotransmitters put together.
So s- and so really looking at that at that system we do sometimes put in an IV CBD. We use IV ozone with ultraviolet lights to help oxygenate the blood, create the Nrf2 pathway. We also do sodium ascorbate IVs. And sodium ascorbate- Which is vitamin C … vitamin C, but it’s a, it’s not ascorbic acid.
Oh. It’s not synthetic in that way. So it’s a kind of better pH availability. And th- there is a great, I lectured at a [00:57:00] vitamin C conference, so I d- dove in on this. And looking at the vitamin C’s transport intracellularly in the brain it is very beneficial in reviving the brain. So we’ll look at occasionally doing some IV sodium ascorbate therapy as well.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. Do you still do poly-MVA?
Dr. Eckel: You know, it has fallen out of favor. Sometimes- Okay … these things, yeah, they’ve come in and out of favor. Definitely taking another look at it. Alpha-lipoic acid there, curcumin is back, Okay … in our availability, and- IV
Dr. Weitz: glutathione?
Dr. Eckel: IV glutathione for sure on- Okay … a multivitamin mineral drips. We’ll hydrate everybody. We will push about- So is IV- … eight grams
Dr. Weitz: IV curcumin, is that available again? ‘Cause it wasn’t- It is … for a bit, right?
Dr. Eckel: Yeah. It is back. It’s [00:58:00] slowly coming back online from some of the, you know, well-respected compounding pharmacies as is IV quercetin. And so looking at, you know, some of these and some specific protocols for folks on a longer stay or more local. Again, we have folks I’m trying to deliver as much in a brain camp one week, because people are coming in from out of the area. And then we’re delivering that home care with coaching and those protocols that way.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. Yeah. So let’s wrap it here. Give us your contacts. How can people get ahold of you? You got a book coming out very soon?
Dr. Eckel: Yes. So, brainregen.com is where we house all of the brain regeneration information. Our brick-and-mortar here in Park City is called Be Vital, so it’s just the letter B, vital.com. On Instagram, I’ve got @drgreckel, D-R G-R [00:59:00] E-C-K-E-L for some of my yapping head on there if you want some health tidbits on what to do on a day-to-day.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. Thank you so much, Doc. Okay. Thank you.
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 Podcasts 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.
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