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Preventing and Reversing Alzheimer’s: Dr. Heather Sandison on the Bredesen Approach, Ketosis, and Root-Cause Care
Dr. Heather Sandison is the founder of Solcere Health Clinic in San Diego, California and Marama, a pioneering residential care facility focused on personalized, root-cause approaches to dementia. She is also the primary investigator and author of a peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease demonstrating improvements in cognition using a personalized lifestyle intervention, and the author of the New York Times best selling book Reversing Alzheimer’s. Her website is DrHeatherSandison.com.
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, [00:01:00] Rational Wellness podcasters.
Today I’m excited to be talking about how do we prevent and reverse Alzheimer’s disease with Dr. Heather Sandison. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, and the most common neurodegenerative disease, and the numbers are increasing. It’s crucial that we make some progress on preventing and treating this horrific condition. But conventional research has not been all that fruitful, and has centered on the role of beta amyloid protein plaques that are found in the brains of most patients with Alzheimer’s disease. And now we know that the leading drugs for Alzheimer’s not only don’t make patients better, but actually shrink their brains, making them worse.
So what can we do? Well, functional medicine may have an answer. Dr. Heather Sandison is the founder of Solsare Health Clinic, where she and her team of doctors and health coaches [00:02:00] focus primarily on supporting patients looking to optimize cognitive function, prevent mental decline, and reverse dementia by addressing root causes of imbalance in the brain and body. She was awarded a grant to study an individualized integrative approach to reversing dementia, and is a primary investigator on the Evanthea clinical trial. It’s great. We need more research on functional medicine approaches. Dr. Sandison also founded Marama, which is the first residential care facility for the elderly that utilizes a functional medicine Bredesen approach to improving cognitive function by helping residents to change their diet and lifestyle and make the other changes necessary to promote better brain health.
And I know for sure that from watching my [00:03:00] mom having been in a memory care facility, that the conventional memory care facilities do nothing to help clients other than take care of them and charge you more. Dr. Sandison is also the host of the Reverse Alzheimer’s Summit. And this is in its third year. And she also hosts the Collective Insights podcast, where she works to share what’s possible for those suffering with dementia. Dr. Sandison, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Sandison: Thanks so much for having me.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. So I know I’d like to focus most of our discussion today on natural things that we can do to help patients. But perhaps w- you can, we can start by, you might wanna make a comment on some of the latest data on these beta amyloid removal drugs that have been coming onto the market for Alzheimer’s patients, the r- most recent of which is aducanumab and maybe [00:04:00] comment on this whole amyloid hypothesis and focus on the development of these drugs.
And for those who are not aware part of the controversy about these drugs came to light last year. And I did a podcast with Dr. Bredesen in episode 271, where we discussed that the landmark study that showed that amyloid plaque was, that was accumulating in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients that was in Nature in 2006, that was so influential in this whole drug research on the amyloid hypothesis that the images in the paper were actually falsified to make the point
Dr. Sandison: Yeah, it’s really frustrating. There’s a really phenomenal book by a gentleman named Carl Herrup called How Not to Study a Disease: The Story of Alzheimer’s. And so essentially my comment on the medications is I wish that for my patients and for all of the families out there suffering with a loved one [00:05:00] who has dementia, that there were a pill or an IV or something simple that would just make the nightmare go away.
And that’s just not, unfortunately, the reality. And despite the billions and billions of dollars that have been spent on this problem, and despite the n- like uncountable hours of smart, really intelligent people’s time that have been thrown at this disaster, we’ve been essentially barking up the wrong tree.
And you’re absolutely right. There was this paper that was published in 2006 in Nature that I wouldn’t say it was like this seminal paper, but it was one of those ones where in 2005, everybody was scratching their heads kind of questioning this hypothesis that beta amyloid plaques were the problem, that they were, you know, the evildoers that were causing dementia.
And in 2006, this kind of connection became essentially what we thought was more real, that there was more of a connection between cognition and [00:06:00] amyloid plaques. Well, the issue that really came out of that is that it, it amplified the funding. When everybody was kind of questioning themselves, going, “Maybe we should look in other directions and look at modifiable risk factors or at something else causing dementia,” they doubled down on this hypothesis that was going nowhere.
And what we see with you mentioned aducanumab, there’s actually one that has come out even since then called lecanemab, that’s slightly less risky in terms of brain swelling and brain bleeding. But these are the types of you know, unfortunately it doesn’t work that well for, to start. Let’s start there.
And then secondly, there are a bunch of issues with the side effects, including brain swelling and brain bleeding. And so these super expensive drugs that essentially prolong a torturous process, right? Like, I think there’s an ethical consideration right there. It’s like, do you really want your mom in memory care longer?
Because all these drugs do is they, [00:07:00] essentially they draw out the decline process. And so a lot of people might say, “Yes, absolutely. I just want my mom around longer.” But for a lot of people, they might go, “She’s barely here, and she’s not enjoying life. I don’t wanna do that, especially for $56,000 a year, plus all the doctor’s visits to make sure that she’s not having brain swelling and brain bleeding, plus, you know, whatever else comes with it.”
So we have an alternative, which is the great news. There is hope. I’m actually working on a book called Reversing Alzheimer’s with Harper, and we’ll, that’ll be published in June of 2024. But before that, in August that, the clinical trial that you referred to is going to be published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, so we’re really excited about that coming out this summer in 2023.
Thank you. It has been-
Dr. Weitz: No, we need more research in journals for functional medicine on all these topics
Dr. Sandison: Essentially, this paper is very similar to the one that Dr. Bredesen, who you interviewed as well who he supported. It was Toups, Cat Toups, [00:08:00] my friend Cat Toups, she was the primary author on that, and it was published also in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease in July of 2022, and our trials are very similar.
They took 25 participants and did a nine-month intervention of this Bredesen approach, and they took participants with a cognitive decline that was down to a MoCA score of 19. So a MoCA score is a way that we can put a number on how severe someone’s dementia or cognitive decline is. Mo-
Dr. Weitz: MoCA score stands for Montreal Cognitive Assessment, right?
Dr. Sandison: Exactly. That’s right. So it’s a Montreal Cognitive Assessment. It’s a single worksheet that you can do with… Typically, there’s a tech in someone’s office. There’s also the Mini-Mental status and the SLUMS test. And
Dr. Weitz: by the way, the MoCA test is the one that Donald Trump bragged about the fact that he got a good score on.
Dr. Sandison: Right. This is where you draw a clock. You know, you copy a box. You name some zoo animals, and you tell everyone what day and time it i- maybe where you are.
Dr. Weitz: And then that qualifies you to become president. Yep. So-
Dr. Sandison: So, [00:09:00] well, and it gives us, as clinicians, it gives us a 30-point scale so that we can put a number on how severe someone’s decline is. And so a perfect score is 30. Anything over 26 is normal, and then once you go down into the low 20s, this is measure- measurable cognitive impairment. And then when you go into the teens, this is this is also measurable impairment, of course, but your s- other people are starting to notice it. This is when things start to w- and everybody’s a little bit different, but either spatial awareness, short-term memory, ability to do math, recall names, that is starting to be affected.
And once we’re down into the low teens, below 10, this is severe cognitive function. A MoCA score of around 2 is almost non-verbal, so really severe. So we can basically put this on a scale, and that, that’s the utility of having a worksheet like the MoCA score. So in Dr. Toups and Dr. Bredesen, in their paper that they [00:10:00] published last year, they took people with a MoCA score above 19 and then watched what happened and measured what happened.
So in our trial that’s about to be published, we took 23 participants, about the same number of par- participants, and we took them through a six-month intervention, so it was a little shorter than their nine-month intervention, and we took participants with MoCA scores of 12 to 23, so more severe cognitive decline.
And we got very similar results. So with Dr. Toups, her paper, they had 84% of participants improve their cognitive function, and we had 73.9% of our participants improve their cognitive function.
Dr. Weitz: Awesome.
Dr. Sandison: So yeah, as you might imagine, we had more severe patients, and we didn’t have quite as much time. So we got slightly, you know, about 10% fewer improve their cognitive decline.
But when you look at that compared to these super expensive brand-new drugs on the market, and especially when you compare them to the old drugs, [00:11:00] what you’re not, you’re n- with those guys, they’re not getting improvement. They’re getting-
Dr. Weitz: And, and- … a
Dr. Sandison: slowing of decline …
Dr. Weitz: and in March a new review of the, all these drugs was published showing that actually you get increased shrinkage of the brain. So actually patients are getting worse.
Dr. Sandison: Yeah, and then we didn’t do any imaging in my trial, unfortunately. We will in a follow-up. But but Dr. Toups, they showed that you actually get an increase in gray matter volume, and then you also get a reduction in the slowing of the hippocampal volume that’s normal with aging. Right. So your brain is shrinking less fast. Your i- your cognition is getting better, which I think should be the standard, right? What we want is an improvement in quality of life and in, in cognition, and that’s what we see when we basically take all of functional medicine and throw it at the brain.
Dr. Weitz: So are you starting to see a change in attitudes yet among either conventional doctors or the [00:12:00] public in general? Is the word starting to get out or not yet? I think- That functional medicine can have a significant impact on helping patients with dementia
Dr. Sandison: and Alzheimer’s? Yeah. I think we’re about to see. You know, I feel really fortunate and honored just so privileged, because the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease is highlighting my paper in their annual in their annual peri- periodical. And so they are attempting to kind of set the course of research around Alzheimer’s disease and really reset the course of research. And my hope is that things will change. Now, here’s the issue. It has to, because this is a desperate situation not only for families, but for Medicare. There are a massive number of people who are approaching the age at which this, the risk is higher. The baby boomer generation is about to be in that unmodifiable risk category of advanced age, and there are so [00:13:00] many of them that there essentially won’t be enough people to take care of those who need it with Alzheimer’s.
And the cost of this is absolutely unbelievable. The cost in paid care, so, or Medicare, is over $300 billion in 2020 alone. Now, the cost of unpaid care, so all of the adult children and spouses who are paying for, to care, or who are not being paid to care for someone with dementia, is over $200 billion in 2020. So these numbers are just absolutely astounding. A- and the number of people in the US right now, it’s about 6 million people who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But I’ll tell you this, there’s a whole lot that haven’t been diagnosed because they don’t want to go to a neurologist because they think, “They’re not gonna help me, and the only thing they’re gonna do is take away my driver’s license.”
So a bunch of people go undiagnosed, and that number is just getting bigger. And around the world, it’s between 50 and 60 million people who are suffering with Alzheimer’s. [00:14:00] So even if conventional medicine or, you know, the conventional press doesn’t want to start changing the narrative, we have to. We absolutely have to.
Dr. Weitz: It’s gonna be so difficult because of the way insurance companies control the healthcare system that to start paying for functional medicine in a way that allows functional medicine doctors to to survive is, i- it- we’re so far away from that. I mean, with the insurance companies have been increasingly paying doctors less and less, and not being willing to reimburse doctors for time at all. So it’s gonna take a major paradigm shift as long as insurance companies are deciding what happens to healthcare dollars.
Dr. Sandison: Well, you also, you mentioned senior living, right? We need a change in that industry. We certainly need a change in the [00:15:00] medical industry, and insurance, and that racket. We need a change in the food system.
Dr. Weitz: Oh,
Dr. Sandison: 100%. And we need a change, you know, in society in terms of isolation and the time spent on screens. There are huge systemic and societal changes that we really need, and yet here’s the math. Dr. Ben, the… It costs about $12,000 to have somebody in memory care. For our trial, we budgeted $25,000 for each of our participants, and we never used that much. So if you can set aside, let’s even say, I think the m- person who spent the most, all the IVs, all of the doctor’s visits, all the labs, all the supplements, all the medications, the most spent of all of our and he was really sick of all of our participants was $19,000. You can go through that in two months of memory care. So even if you can delay going into memory care, it makes sense to invest [00:16:00] in seeing a Bredesen-trained doctor.
Dr. Weitz: 100%. Well, we’ll, and we’ll just do our part to make sure things change in the right direction. So let’s get into how do we help patients. So when you have a patient you suspect of having some cognitive problems where do you start? Which cognitive tests or tests do you like to run?
Dr. Sandison: Yeah. So pretty much now the only patients I see are patients with cognitive decline.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Sandison: And where we start is a thorough intake, right? Because many of these people are at, you know, the last quarter of their lives, let’s say, and hopefully the last third. They’ve got, they’ve still got lots to look forward to. And there’s a lot to discuss, right? They have a lifetime of health history to collect. And so in my first visit with them, my goal is to get to, to know them, to understand them, and also to understand the dynamics in their family. What can they afford, quite frankly?
You know, what are they able to do? Can they do all the testing? Are they gonna h- even [00:17:00] if they can’t, are they gonna have the support at home to potentially get on a ketogenic diet, which we see as being really helpful. It’s not the only diet that’s great for the brain, but it certainly is very helpful, and we see a ketogenic diet really helping cognition.
Are they gonna have support with that at home, right? If you have a spouse who’s got cookies lying around, this is just a non-starter. Are they gonna be supported in getting exercise, in getting social interaction, in getting outside and maybe help with stress management? What does that look like?
Are adult children or spouses involved, or are they on their own? And I’ll tell you this, if w- we have ha- worked with several health coaches. Health coaching, I’ll just say right now, my stance on health coaching is it is the best investment you can b- make. It is the best bang for your buck. Because the foundations of health, diet, exercise, y- sleep, stress management, these things are your 80/20.
They are the 20% that you’re gonna change, the 20% of the money you’re gonna spend, and they are going to get you [00:18:00] 80% of the benefit. So if you’re just trying to out-supplement this, I can’t help you. And working with a health coach is really like, that’s the foundation. The icing on the cake is going to the doctor and getting all the labs done.
That can be really helpful, especially if we identify something like toxic burden or something like that. But when I’m first working with a patient, I’m trying to identify, like, what’s gonna f- work for them best. I want all that data. I love to do $3,000 in labs, and we try. We basically try, aim to do that.
And again, we go back to, like, this investment makes sense. If cognitive decline is in your family, if you are concerned about Alzheimer’s because your brain doesn’t work the way it did 5 or 10 years ago, what Dr. Bredesen calls it is a cognoscopy. You might have heard him say this. Of course, yep. And I love it.
It’s so catchy, right? ‘Cause there’s all that emotion associated with a colonoscopy, but for your brain. And so it does just what a colonoscopy does for colon cancer, we’re doing for cognitive function. We’re saying how likely are there things there, like the [00:19:00] polyps in your colon. Are there polyps in your brain, m- so to speak, right?
Are there toxins? Are there nutrient imbalances? Are there inflam- if- inflammatory markers or infections? What is going on that might affect the n- every neuron in your brain and how well it communicates with the others so that you can remember that person’s name, or where you parked your car, or where you left your keys, all of these little things, so that you can continue having conversations with your loved ones into your 90s and beyond, right?
And so that set of labs is really important, and that is where I start. Well, start with understanding what’s gonna work for this family. Do they need health coaching? You know, are they able to do the foundational pieces? If not, how do we get them the support that they need? And then I typically do some nootropics, omegas, some probiotics, some vitamin D and then we order all the labs.
I also recommend Kirtan Kriya is a… I mean, there, there’s a long laundry list. Is it okay if I just go into these things?
Dr. Weitz: Sure, yeah. [00:20:00]
Dr. Sandison: Okay, great. So we recommend Kirtan Kriya. It’s a meditation practice. It’s the Sa Ta Na Ma. And there’s a lot of great research associated specifically with Kirtan Kriya meditation and Alzheimer’s and other related dementias.
Great for caregivers, because caregivers for someone with dementia are at anywhere from two and a half to six times the risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s later on in their life. Caregiving increases the stress. You don’t eat as well. You don’t sleep as well. You don’t exercise as much, because you’re caring for someone else.
And so my recommendation whenever I’m working with caregivers is you gotta get on this too. You need to be on this plan with the person you’re caring for So do the kirtan kriya with them. Do red light therapy if you can with them. Change up your exercise so that you’re getting strength training, aerobic, and potentially contrast oxygen therapy, and maybe dual task, where you’re engaging both your cognitive function, you’re on the edge of what you can do cognitively, and physically at the same time, because you get way more cognitive benefits when you do both of those [00:21:00] things together.
So ex-
Dr. Weitz: Well, what was that last thing you were talking about, cognitive and exercising while you’re playing chess? Or what is it?
Dr. Sandison: Yeah. Great question. So dual task exercises, if you look this up on YouTube per se it’s a little newer, but we’ve seen it in Parkinson’s clinics, TBI clinics you’ll stroke patients.
This is a really helpful way for neurogenesis, to promote neurogenesis. And what you’re doing is you’re finding that edge where you’re engaged cognitively and you’re engaged physically. So for some people, you know, if they’re struggling with cognitive decline, this means a class, a Zumba class a, maybe a Pilates class, a yoga class, where you’re being cued by an instructor to, like, bring your arm, right arm down to your left hip, something like that.
It takes some effort for you to keep up cognitively. Now, if I go to my Pilates class that I’ve been to three days a week for the last five years, I’m spacing out, right? This is not engaging me cognitively.
Dr. Weitz: There’s gotta be something new and novel.
Dr. Sandison: Exactly. And so ballroom dancing [00:22:00] comes up. Right. This is something we, that’s been associated for a long time with cognitive function and improving that and protecting it.
So there’s a bunch of pieces here to the activities that you might think about doing if you are concerned about your brain health. And I think of them like checkboxes. All right, does it involve exercise? Yes. So ballroom dancing, yep, checks that box. I’m gonna be physical. I’m gonna get my heart rate up.
Does it involve cognition? Yes. I’ve gotta remember the music and the steps. I’ve gotta remember these pieces and put them together. So check yes, cognitive function. Is it social? Social isolation is one of the known risk factors when it comes to dementia, and certainly through COVID, we saw the ramifications of that on people’s cognition.
So check yep, ballroom dancing checks the social box. So when you start putting these things together, I like to add, you know, being outside, communing with nature. There are a few other boxes that we can add here. But ballroom dancing certainly checks a lot of them. So if you’re thinking about taking on a [00:23:00] new sport or a new hobby, how can you do all of…
That’s a way to make this feel A little more approachable ’cause it can feel like a full-time job to do all of these things.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Sandison: But if you can start you know, the Venn diagram where you’re doing multiple at once is really helpful. And so for some, for… I have some patients I had a g- this really sweet patient.
She would go for walks with her granddaughter, and her granddaughter would quiz her. She was a nursing student focusing on, like, holistic nursing, and n- she was really interested in nutrition. So they would, she would quiz her on the ketogenic diet, and then she would also quiz her on her grandchildren’s birthdays.
You know, something really emotionally important to her grandma. And they would basically just go on these walks together and talk about nutrition and talk about the grandkids, and she would get these little quizzes. What I do is I will have a podcast in when I’m running or rowing, and I will stop Peter Attia, and I will go back [00:24:00] and I will think through, like, “What did he just say?
What did I just learn?” I will stop Andrew Huberman and be like, “Okay, what is the mechanism of blah, blah, blah?” You know, whatever he was talking about. That’s how I do it. And I find that those things stick a little bit better. And having fun when you’re doing these things, too, also is… There’s a great article in Cognition Today that explains the importance and the mechanisms of why it’s so important if we wanna learn and create these new connections, these new neurons and synapses in our brain, then we have to make it fun.
We’re gonna do so much more if we’re in a rest, digest and heal state. In that parasympathetic state, we’re gonna learn so much more than if we’re in a stressed out state. This is just as true for toddlers and grade school students and college students as it is for seniors who are battling cognitive decline.
Dr. Weitz: You mentioned Peter Attia. I’m gonna bring up cardiovascular.
Dr. Sandison: Yeah …
Dr. Weitz: I heard Peter Attia say recently that you should get your ApoB level [00:25:00] below 40, that you need to drive that down as low as you can, and that will, i- is the only way to reverse, eliminate cardiovascular disease. And it has no effect on brain function because the cholesterol the that by using statins and PCSK9 inhibitors and other drugs, we’re only affecting the cholesterol that’s produced by the liver that goes into the bloodstream.
And the cholesterol in the organs, like the brain, is produced in the brain
Dr. Sandison: Yeah, so I’m not an expert on all of that, and I’m certainly not a cardiovascular expert
Dr. Weitz: Just trying to create a bit of controversy here.
Dr. Sandison: Yeah. I have respect and trust that Peter Attia has a good resource for that, a good reference. What I have seen clinically is that patients who have cholesterol levels- Yeah, all
Dr. Weitz: the studies that have been funded by Big Pharma say that statins are perfectly safe and have no negative effect on brain health.
Dr. Sandison: What I’ve [00:26:00] seen clinically is that patients who have cholesterol levels below 150, it’s really hard- Total cholesterol we’re talking about total cholesterol, yeah. Yeah. It’s really hard for them to heal. To- for, like, wound healing, it’s more challenging. Depression and anxiety are more prominent. And so the, you know, I remind patients that cholesterol is the backbone of your stress hormones and sex hormones, and required for healing. And so driving that number down doesn’t, is not without risk. I, you know, I trust and respect Peter Attia. I’m not exactly su- I haven’t read everything that he has, so I will leave that there.
Dr. Weitz: So, how important is insulin resistance for Alzheimer’s prevention?
Dr. Sandison: Yeah. So we recommend a ketogenic diet. I recommend a ketogenic diet, not forever, but for somebody struggling with cognitive decline, I recommend- Now,
Dr. Weitz: now how do you characterize a ketogenic diet?
Dr. Sandison: So we have a handout. It’s it’s a keto diet guide, and our goal [00:27:00] is to have patients measure a blood level over one millimole per deciliter of ketones. Okay. And so that’s our target range. Mild ketosis is .5 to .9, and really what I would love to see my patients do, and the patients who kind of do best…
First of all, the patients who do best, they dive in fully. They’re not dipping their toe in the water here. They are really committing to changing their lifestyle. Yes, they’re taking the supplements. Yes, they’re getting rid of the toxins. Yes, they’re, you know, getting on the hormones, and they’re getting on the diet.
They’re g- changing their exercise routine. They’re prioritizing their sleep. They’re meditating and balancing their stressors, and they’re getting into activities that are fun and enjoyable and cognitively engaging, right? They’re doing all of it. Now, I take that back. They’re not necessarily doing all of it, but they’re doing the majority of it, right?
They’re really doing mean- making meaningful change. Because you’re not gonna get out of this doing… We’re asking for a miracle. We’re asking to reverse Alzheimer’s and reverse the cognitive [00:28:00] decline on the way to Alzheimer’s. That is a miracle. It’s not expected. It’s not what we typically see. And to get that reward, you have to put in effort.
I, again, I wish there were a single pill or an IV that we could take. So ketogenic diet, what I recommend is three to six months in ketosis, one millimole of per, one millimole per deciliter. What I do, ’cause I’m in prevention mode, right? I don’t have a family history, but I love this stuff. I live this stuff.
So I’m in ketosis right now. I’ve been in ketosis for about three weeks. I had come back from vacation, and it was time. And so every three to six months, probably quarterly, I get into ketosis for four to six weeks. For my patients with cognitive decline, I recommend three to six solid months in ketosis.
Now, it’s not gonna happen, right? Nobody’s gonna stay there for three to six months. You’re gonna have some accident where you taste something. I mean, I had this happen the other day. I was at a friend’s house, and I made tea, and I thought their almond milk was unsweetened, and it was sweetened, right? And I tasted it [00:29:00] immediately, but I then felt later that I was kicked out of ketosis.
I could feel the difference. So it’s gonna happen. You just get right back on the horse and get back into ketosis. And then when you’re not in ketosis, what I recommend is not going back to processed foods, ’cause we know that is a modifiable risk factor for Alzheimer’s and dementia, is the consumption of m- of pro- highly processed foods.
And so not going back to the pastas and the breads, but when you come out of ketosis, to add your whole foods, your seasonal fruits your squashes, and your more starchy veggies, like your beets and carrots and the other things that are gonna raise your blood sugar but that aren’t highly processed.
Maybe some rice, maybe some quinoa. Certainly lentils, beans, legumes. Those are also great things to add when you come out of ketosis. And then again, if you are cognitively declined, you’re going in and out of ketosis, so you’re increasing your metabolic flexibility. And to get [00:30:00] to the succinct answer to your question about insulin resistance, this is critically important, because as we age, even if you don’t have diabetes, we all have some degree of insulin resistance as we get older, and that means that more sugar hangs out in our bloodstream.
We can’t use that insulin as effectively to get sugar into the cells of the brain or wherever. And so that sugar can become very toxic. Glycotoxicity is one of Dr. Bredesen’s types of Alzheimer’s, right? And that, And also insulin itself can become toxic. So what we wanna do, I mean, the human body just amazes me that we can just switch fuel sources.
We can go from using carbohydrates, sugar, glucose, you can use those interchangeably, to using fat or ketones for fuel. And what we see is the brain actually prefers that. There are very rare times that both ketones and glucose are available to the brain to use as fuel, and when we’ve seen that, they’ve measured, the brain [00:31:00] will pick up the ketones before the sugar.
And so, a- and also, it burns cleaner. There’s, I interviewed Dr. Steven Gundry for my summit recently. He has some really interesting mechanisms that he’s proposing for why this burns so much cleaner and what’s going on with the change in our metabolism when we move into ketosis. But what I see, w- you know, where the rubber meets the road, what I see clinically is that people perk up.
We had a patient, he had a bunch of kids, and one of his daughters brought him in and got him into ketosis. It was fantastic. He did great. He started remembering all of his grandkids’ names, and he re- started remembering the names of, you know, horses and cows and cats and dogs and, like, the farm animals around where they lived in this rural area.
Before, he couldn’t remember the word horse or the word cow. So he gets into ketosis, starts remembering the names of his grandkids and the names of the animals. His son comes into town, and those [00:32:00] grandkids, they wanna have pizza, and they wanna eat ice cream, and they wanna hang out and watch TV with Grandpa.
By the time they left, he couldn’t remember their names, couldn’t remember the farm animals’ names.
Dr. Weitz: Oh.
Dr. Sandison: So we can see what happens, and people can feel it. Like y- I certainly feel it. I wake up at 5:00 AM ready to get out of bed when I’m in ketosis. I drag myself out of bed between 6:00 and 6:30 when I’m not.
We can see and feel the differences
Dr. Weitz: when- And so do you recommend the clients measure their blood ketone levels? What about doing the breath ketones?
Dr. Sandison: Oh, gosh, this is another one of those I wish they worked. You know? That we haven’t been able to get the breath ketone meters to work consistently. Okay. Same urine.
Urine can be helpful, but it doesn’t seem to be as consistent after about a month in ketosis. So the blood ketone levels really are the most consistent and the most accurate in my experience. I would love if somebody could prove me wrong and show me one that really did work that didn’t require a finger prick.
What I’ve [00:33:00] used and m- many of my patients, coaching clients have used is a a continu-
Dr. Weitz: Continuous
Dr. Sandison: glucose monitor … glucose monitor. Thank you. Yeah. You can see me pointing at my tricep. That’s like the-
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. Yeah … universal sign language for CGM I know what you’re talking about, don’t
Dr. Sandison: you? Yes. So that, you know, they’re inversely related.
If your blood sugar is up, your ketones are down. When your blood sugar’s down, your ketones are up typically. And so s- what was most helpful for me was the way I felt. So I could tell, “Okay, I’m in ketosis,” and then I could kind of, I could double check myself and say, “Okay, what’s my blood sugar at? Oh, well, if it’s 97, I’m probably actually not in ketosis.
If it’s down to 72, yep, I’m probably in ketosis.” And I also, like I love to drink matcha. I have Andrew Weil has these great matcha products, and so I drink his matcha, and there’s one that’s an adaptogenic blend. On the back of the label it says zero carbs, zero sugars, but when I drink that one my blood sugar spikes.
I’m not saying they put anything in it. Everybody just has a different metabolism. I [00:34:00] can’t tell you how many times I’ve had patients, a husband and wife, getting into ketosis, and she can stay in ketosis eating zucchini all day long, and he gets kicked out. I had a patient come in and tell me they could eat white rice and stay in ketosis, which makes no sense at all.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, they might, you know, if there’s adaptogenic mushrooms- Mm-hmm … like lion’s mane mushrooms- Right … they actually have a fair amount of carbohydrates in them.
Dr. Sandison: Yep. And so the, yeah, don’t c- h- my recommendation, don’t just rely on the labels. Mostly eat things that don’t have labels. And it ha- you know, everybody’s an individual.
Your metabolism is different. So if you’re going at this- measure
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So go to Apollo Neuro and use the promo code WEITZ today. And now back to our discussion. So I wanted to mention I like to try to hit on a few of the controversial things. Yeah. When it comes back to cardiovascular health. Mm-hmm. So there’s a marker for cardiovascular health that’s been talked about a lot recently, and it’s called TMAO, and this marker is something that can be measured that shows that you have an increased risk of clotting and heart disease.
And TMAO comes from eating red meat, eggs, and supplements that contain choline or L-carnitine.
Dr. Sandison: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Weitz: And many of us in the functional medicine community and have been using choline as a very important brain supporting nutrient. So how do we [00:37:00] square these two?
Dr. Sandison: Yeah. So, as I mentioned, I don’t recommend that anybody’s on a ketogenic diet forever, right?
So my recommendation kind of from this ancestral health diet, right? Or this concept that, you know, we maybe we should approximate more of our hunter-gatherer ancestors’ diet. The consistent thing about what our ancestors ate 100,000 years ago was inconsistency. So, you know, I’m not recommending that somebody be in ketosis for the rest of their lives.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Sandison: I’m recommending that they switch it up and eat seasonally, and that y- you know, watch these levels, watch these lipid levels. We have most of our patients who get into k- ketosis and who… This is a very plant-forward ketogenic diet. This is not eating bacon and eggs and cheese all day, every day. This is b- cruciferous veggies and leafy greens and avocados and you know, I have an egg allergy, so I ha- can’t even have them.
But and lots of people have, you know, they have a dairy allergy, so they have to work around that, [00:38:00] but it still works. And you’re not doing it forever. And watch the freaking labs, right? Like, if it’s not working for you, we gotta figure something else out. Maybe more fiber, maybe something, you know, there maybe some amla or, you know, the berberines, something to make this work for you so that you’re not increasing your risk.
And there’s a lot of options there, and everybody’s different. Most people that we have get into ketosis, by the time they hit month six, their lipids are coming down because they’re using them for fuel. You’re using fat for fuel. So those lipid levels are normalizing. In the first, you know, six weeks, they’re definitely raised.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, TMAO is a little bit different than measuring lipids, but what about supplements that contain choline? Citicholine, other forms of choline. You know, I’m not a believer in this TMAO marker. I… There’s too many problems with it as far as I’m concerned, but I’m just wondering.
Dr. Sandison: I, so I associate TMAO with gut [00:39:00] bacteria, so I don’t know.
Yes. It sounds like you’re associating it with something different than I am?
Dr. Weitz: Well- So I want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing … stanley Hazen from the Cleveland Clinic has pioneered it as an important marker for cardiovascular health. Mm-hmm. And recommends measuring it, and then typically this is a, you know, a, an, a kind of a sledgehammer that can be picked up by vegans to tell everybody who’s eating meat why they shouldn’t be eating meat.
Oh, gotcha. But that’s my take on it. But it, you know, it, I think it is the case that only certain people are gonna turn choline or L-carnitine into TMAO depending upon your gut bacteria, and it may be that this is actually a marker for an unhealthy gut. But it is being used in the cardi- parts of the cardiovascular world as a way to measure cardiovascular risk sort of, a little bit different than LDL and some of the other markers.
Dr. Sandison: Gotcha. Yeah, we, you know, for [00:40:00] cardiovascular risk, we’re looking at Lp-PLA2, which typically indicates some inflammation in the gums and can come from oral health. And so if I see that elevated, I’ll refer people to a biological dentist. We look at ApoB and Lpand sdLDL. Right. Homocysteine, of course. And the TMAO we run, I don’t typically see it really abnormal, so I haven’t focused on it a ton.
Right. My response to the vegans is you’re absolutely right on the environmental front. Like, all day long, this is not, I’m not recommending the best health for the environment or for the planet, right? What I am be- recommending is what I have seen clinically be the best healt- healthy diet for your brain.
Now, I’m a strong believer that if you’re eating, if you’re consuming animal products, they should be organic, they should be grass-fed. If it’s salmon, it should be wild, even though the salmon fisheries are, like, shut down completely right now. It’s really frustrating. But the … and that you shouldn’t be in this, on this diet forever, that you should switch back and forth.
What’s that, the
Dr. Weitz: salmon fisheries are shut down right now? [00:41:00]
Dr. Sandison: I’m so bummed. The wild Alaskan salmon that I usually eat from May to October is unavailable this year because the salmon fisheries are closed.
Dr. Weitz: Really? Why are they closed?
Dr. Sandison: You know, I don’t even know that much detail. I just- Wow … got sad and walked away from the butcher.
So the, but
Dr. Weitz: the point here- Well, you can still get it frozen.
Dr. Sandison: You can get it frozen, yeah. The point here, though, is you’re not gonna be on this forever. Measure your labs. If you’re vegan I, it’s really hard to do a healthy vegan ketogenic diet. It’s really hard. You’re going to be nutrient-deplete, so I don’t recommend doing that for long if you’re gonna do it.
And then if ketosis is something you’re willing to experiment with, then go back and forth between a plant-based diet and a ketogenic diet. And while you’re in the keto- on the ketogenic diet, have a little more of the animal protein and have it be well-sourced.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. What are some of the most important brain-supportive nutrients?
Dr. Sandison: Yeah, [00:42:00] so I mean, well, we talked about a few. Vitamin D f- certainly is a signaling hormone that supports neurogenesis a- and s- synaptogenesis. There are… I mean, you talked about city choline. I use a nootropic from, called Qualia Mind from Neurohacker, and that has a lot of the ingredients for, like, a nootropic i- that is essentially it’s a stack of good quality nootropic su- supplements.
Yeah. Right? So you’re gonna need your B vitamins. You’re gonna need the basics, right? Your Bs and your… and then what we can do, I’m kind of, in my mind I’m like, do we want to talk about the signaling stuff, which is hormones. Right? ‘Cause that’s not really a supplement, it’s not really a nutrient. Well, w- But those
Dr. Weitz: hormones-
Dr. Sandison: Why
Dr. Weitz: don’t we hit, why don’t we hit the s- the nutrients first, and then we’ll go to hormones next.
Dr. Sandison: Okay. Great. So w- you know, th- there are a bunch of different nootropic blends out there. I chose Qualia Mind because it was formulated by friends of mine, [00:43:00] to be frank, and they’re geniuses. Yeah. And I also have watched it really help people. And I’ve felt the benefits of it. So that’s why I’ve used it.
And it- Yeah,
Dr. Weitz: I’ve been using Brain Vital that Cat Toops recommended, actually.
Dr. Sandison: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s a bunch of them. Yeah. And I think the ones… Cat’s probably recommending some of the ones formulated by Dr. Bredesen. But they’re, they look pretty similar. And you mentioned choline. Choline is a, o- often in here. Bacopa, rhodiola taurine, theanine. So your amino acids are g- are gonna support neurotransmitters. There’s, I’m looking, ’cause I, you know, I don’t have the- Omega,
Dr. Weitz: omega-3s. Yeah.
Dr. Sandison: Usually I do omegas separately, because you’re not gonna get enough omegas from a, some sort of- combination of nootropics. And y- your omegas, it’s really important that they don’t become rancid, so keeping them maybe in the fridge or something.
Sure. I do omegas on their own, and I recommend people get three to five grams of EPA, DHA a day. [00:44:00] Right. But then coffee berry y- you mentioned lion’s mane, ginkgo- Yeah … huperzine, these are all things that can be seen in these classic nootropic formulas- Sure … that we use. And then the pr- I mean, we’ve already talked about the gut-brain connection, the potential with the marker that you’re running.
I, you know, I can’t connect it to that, but I put everybody on probiotics because I have watched that significantly change generalized inflammation and mood. Mood is really the biggest thing, but also sleep. All things that are indirectly related to cognition
Dr. Weitz: and to just- is there a certain type of probiotic if for this particular issue that you find beneficial, or do you rotate probiotics or?
Dr. Sandison: Yeah, so my recommendation to my patients is 100 billion per dose. Take them with food. And I know the kind of the wisdom from the elders was to take them before bed or on an empty stomach. I have a friend who she got her PhD [00:45:00] in functional gastral, gastr- Gastroenterology- Yes … I guess.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah.
Dr. Sandison: And she said that her PhD project was how to get probiotics to colonize the gut, and it was a whole lot of them, as much variety as possible, and with food. And this makes sense because they’re gonna kinda hitch a ride on the food when the stomach acid is at its lowest through the gut, and then potentially colonize the intestines. So I just recommend people rotate them. Some brands I like, I mean, I love the Xymogen Probiomax. I like Designs for Health has a good one. And then Klaire Labs has great ones. The spore-based ones are really popular. Those help some people. But oh, Garden of Life is one that’s really easily accessible, and I see patients get great benefit from that.
Dr. Weitz: Cool. So let’s get into hormones. Hormones like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and and then of course is it safe to place, say, a woman in her 70s [00:46:00] on hormone replacement?
Dr. Sandison: Yeah, great question. So I would add pregnenolone and DHEA to that list. So I think of, like, kind of five primary ones.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. Estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, pregnenolone, and DHEA.
Dr. Sandison: Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Sandison: And let’s chat about the women first. So i- is it safe? There’s a Finnish trial or epidemiological study of nearly half a million Caucasian women in Finland, and it showed that there was a reduction in your risk of dying of cancer if you initiated hormone replacement therapy, whether it was estrogen alone or estrogen plus progesterone, in your 50s, 60s, or 70s.
So-
Dr. Weitz: Interesting …
Dr. Sandison: they’re huge data set that showed that adding hormones actually reduced your risk. Now, there’s another study out of the UK that shows that hormones reduce all-cause mortality hormone replacement. There are French trials as well. The Women’s Health Initiative study, I think, was very overblown by the media [00:47:00] and I mean, there was a New York Times article recently about this that kind of explained what happened, and we’re seeing more and more of this,
Dr. Weitz: Well, you know, one of the theories about that was the timing hypothesis, which was the idea that the reason why these women had an increased risk is ’cause they didn’t start the hormones immediately after, well, a- after going into menopause. They waited 10 years, and that’s, so that’s a risky thing to do.
Dr. Sandison: Well, and also perhaps those women had other comorbidities, right? And so it, there’s a lot of- Right … variables in there.
Dr. Weitz: Right. And the W- and they weren’t doing bioidentical hormones and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of problems with that study.
Dr. Sandison: Yeah. I see hormones being, it’s like I can see, like, a wilted flower come into my office, and they get on hormones, and they, like, perk up. It’s like a like a dehydrated plant that’s been watered. Like, it’s just wild to watch. And so I, and you know, let’s consider the cancer risk. If you have, if you’re BRCA positive and you [00:48:00] haven’t had a mastectomy and a full hysterectomy, which most of the patients I’ve seen that are BRCA positive, I’m seeing an older population, they’ve already had that done.
And then if you’re, if you have a history of cancer, then there’s a different risk/benefit analysis. If you have a significant family history of cancer, there’s a different risk/benefit analysis, but if you have a strong family history of cognitive decline and you have cognitive decline right now, you have osteoporosis, you have heart disease, like, I, I don’t see, like, two sides to that really anymore.
Dr. Weitz: Right. Yeah.
Dr. Sandison: It’s just way too protective of your bones and your brain.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Sandison: No matter when you initiate
Dr. Weitz: So, which you’ve talked a little bit about exercise. What would be the full exercise protocol? You mentioned things like activities like dancing, but what about a weight training, cardiovascular [00:49:00] exercise, balance training, things like that?
Dr. Sandison: So kind of like diet, my recommendation is mix it up. Okay. So you want to get enough, and, you know, I kind of refer back to the Framingham trial that showed so much bene- cardiovascular benefit. Exercise is gonna increase blood flow to the brain, just at the simplest level in terms of mechanism. Cardio, your aerobic exercise is gonna do that best.
Strength training is gonna kind of increase muscle mass, which is gonna increase those, you know, those exerkines or the endocrine signaling that’s gonna come from the muscles to the brain to promo- to promote, again, synaptogenesis and neurogenesis. So we want to optimize for both of those things, and I mentioned the dual task.
So in, in an ideal world, you’re getting about 200 minutes a week of moderate to vigorous exercise, and this is two 20, 220, the number 220 minus your age, and then you can multiply that by .5- And then 0.75 and/or 0.7. You know, there’s… I’ve seen a little bit different things. But basically, you [00:50:00] wanna get about 50 to 80% of your max heart rate is where you’re in that moderate to vigorous.
Another thing I’ve heard people say that’s just much simpler than doing the math is you wanna be breathless several times a week. You wanna be out of breath from exertion. Y- 10,000 steps a day. When I’m talking to patients, it totally depends on where they’re at. I’ve had patients who won’t get up the couch, off the couch to go to the mailbox, right?
Like, just walk around the neighborhood for five minutes, and that is an improvement. I’ve had other patients who are exercising too much, that it’s a stressor. They’re doing triathlons every six months. It’s too much, and it’s probably too, basically creating an adrenal burden. And so we have to back off.
But in an ideal world, what you’re doing is you’re getting a mix of things. Dual task exercise that includes strength training and cardiovascular ex- exercise, about 200 minutes a week. And then if you can, that engages both physically and cognitively. And [00:51:00] then if you can, add contrast oxygen therapy, and this is where you’re going from concentrated oxygen to 8% oxygen.
Normal, what we breathe in normal air is about 20% oxygen, so you go up to 80% and then down to eight or lower percent of oxygen, and that creates a hormetic effect where the body’s essentially stressed. And in that, you have vasodilation, you have detox pathways kick in, you have senolytic events where you get rid of those old senescent cells.
You have an increase in mitochondrial density per cell over several months of doing this. And so those are things that, that i- you know, if you have access to a contrast oxygen therapy device,
Dr. Weitz: What i- what is a contrast oxygen therapy device?
Dr. Sandison: Yeah, pretty simple. You use, we use a Schwinn Airdyne, so it’s like a bike with the arms.
Some people will use a treadmill. Other people will use even just like a rebounder. So you wanna be able to get that cardiovascular effort and be stationary. [00:52:00] So a rower kind of gets… I use a rower, and so I’m always dreaming that this’ll happen, but there’s tubing and stuff. So what you, what i- what’s happening is there’s an oxygen concentrator, just like any other oxygen concentrator.
These are pretty easy to come by. But that’s hooked up to a reservoir, a big bag of concentrate, where the concentrated oxygen will collect so that you can use it while you’re exercising. And then you have a mask on, and that mask is asso- is connected to a tube, then connected to your reservoir, and you can flip the that tube open and closed And so when it’s open, you’re on positive oxygen.
When it’s closed, you’re on negative. And when you’re on negative, you are getting vasodilatory effects. You’re basically being starved of oxygen while you’re sprinting typically. And then you recover on the positive oxygen. So you take those dilated vessels and you f- flush them with highly oxygenated blood and you recover there.
And you go back and forth for as many [00:53:00] times as you can for 20 minutes.
Dr. Weitz: And is this something that you control manually?
Dr. Sandison: Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So, so that’s a way to get oxygen. Is that sort of an alternative to hyperbaric oxygen or ozone?
Dr. Sandison: Yeah, definitely different from ozone.
But I would say an alternative to hyperbarics, different, but yes. So if you talk to the guys that created these oxygen, d- these contrast oxygen therapy devices, they would say one 15, 20-minute session on a contrast bike, like doing, riding a bike with contrast, is gonna be worth 30 one-hour dives.
And that’s probably an overstatement from the guys that created this and really believe in it, but it’s also from what I’ve seen probably not far off. So your dives, you’re very passive, right? You’re in a chamber, and most people what they have access to is a soft chamber. So there’s these rarely studies about, you know, [00:54:00] hyperbarics for Alzheimer’s.
They’re using hard chambers that cost millions of dollars to build that nobody here has access to. And so we’re not talking apples to apples when we talk about a soft chan- chamber that goes to 1.4, right? We’re talking about something really different. And the soft chambers you’re totally passive.
You’re lying there. Like, great if you can read a book or do something, but your ears have to be able to tolerate it. You need to be able to communicate. So for somebody with severe Alzheimer’s, this is not a, not an option. Some people are claustrophobic, not an option. I mean, the mask is a whole situation on the contrast side that not everybody can tolerate.
But contrast you’re getting the pressure and you’re getting concentrated oxygen, but you’re not working, so you’re not getting as much delivery of that oxygen.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. There’s a number of devices that have been designed to stimulate the brain. I think you mentioned red light. There’s a purple light.
People are using [00:55:00] various other types of devices, electrical devices, to try to stimulate the brain to promote brain health. Which of these do you find or any of them do you find beneficial?
Dr. Sandison: Yeah. So the red light therapies we definitely see people have benefit from. Now, has I men- And
Dr. Weitz: is this the one where they put the helmet on?
Is it that one?
Dr. Sandison: We use Vielight in, at Marama, and- Okay … that’s what I recommend to patients. This is in that mid-600, mid-800 wavelength. And this seems to have a… It works on the cyclooxygenase enzyme around the mito- mitochondria, so it improves mitochondrial, the mitochondria’s ability to create ATP.
It basically makes that process more effic- efficient, and so you have an increase in energy production in the cells, which, you know, Dr. Bredesen has proposed that it’s an energy deficiency that essentially causes Alzheimer’s, right? Our beta amyloid plaques and our tau proteins, although they might be associated, certainly there’s some relationship, they are the [00:56:00] results of that, right?
And then you have all these other causes for why there’s a depletion of energy. And so if we can do something, like use a red light, to increase our ability to create energy, or switch to ketogenic diet, increase our ability to create energy, then we have a better fighting chance, right? And so that’s what we understand is going on with this pretty specific spectrum of red light.
There’s two. And then 1,070 nanometers, there’s s- some research around it as well. 20 minutes once a day. We have patients who are when they do the alpha they are much less anxious, so we can use it for that. And then gamma is more specifically for memory.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. Have you found peptides to be beneficial?
Dr. Sandison: Yeah. So Selank, Semax, Cerebrolysin, those are the typical ones used for cognitive decline specifically. What I find with Selank and Semax is that often it’ll be a little bit of a win. Like, people will feel a little boost, and then it sort of plateaus and goes away. So [00:57:00] I typically don’t have patients on it super long term, but they’re great ’cause you can do them intranasally. So they’re easy, you don’t have to inject anything. Where Cerebrolysin you really need to inject, and it’s much harder to come by. And we do that by IV probably in higher doses than most people do, but that’s what I’ve seen work best. And then you know, I’m a huge fan of BPC, and TA-1, and MontC, and, you know, there’s lots of them, the secretagogues and love peptides. Sometimes they’re hard to get. Sometimes they’re really complicated to get. So we do what we can there and help people in ways that are appropriate with those.
Dr. Weitz: Cool. So, you have this Marama Center for Assisted Living. Maybe you can tell us- Mm-hmm … a little bit about that.
Dr. Sandison: Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So what happened was I had patients coming into my office getting better with cognitive decline, with Alzheimer’s, and so then people started asking me, “Where do I send my loved one?” You know, “I have an uncle and I can’t take him in. I’m in the sandwich generation, caring for my kids, and [00:58:00] managing my household, and trying to keep my full-time job and my marriage together. I can’t do all of this for my loved one. Where can I send them?” And I realized that there wasn’t a place that existed. So I asked around and thought, “How hard could this be?” And ended up kind of creating this new concept senior living facility that’s very much based on what we’ve been talking about.
So it’s an organic ketogenic diet in a non-toxic environment. We use organic sheets and mattresses and all that. It’s a social environment, so everyone’s engaged, and then the activities from sunrise to sunset and beyond are all about enhancing cognitive function. We have the LivO2, the contrast oxygen therapy.
We’ve got the V light. We’ve got a Biomat. We’ve got everybody engaged in Pilates or, excuse me, probably not Pilates these days. There has been some in the past, but now it’s yoga and meditation and dancing. We’ve had hula dancing classes and, you know, pets that come and go. And then sleep is really prioritized, so in [00:59:00] terms of light and noise in the house, it’s really important to us that our residents can get really high quality sleep.
And then the residents, they are expected to get better by the caregivers. So part of it is about how the caregivers interact with them. They are expecting them to improve. They also are helping them, you know, with all of their crazy supplements and hormones and all the, everything they’re on, and they understand why and how important those are. And then they are engaging them in ways that are really inspired by a woman named Teepa Snow, Positive Approaches to Caregiving, and then also through How to Speak Alzheimer’s, which is very much about diffusing and creating a very loving, fun, playful, relaxed environment so that they can really optimize cognitive function that way.
Dr. Weitz: That’s so great. I’m glad that you set that place up. We really need more places like that, I think.
Dr. Sandison: Thank you. Thank you.
Dr. Weitz: So, maybe you can tell listeners about some of the programs [01:00:00] if by the time this runs your your summit will be over, but they could order the summit. I think you have some training programs available as well, maybe for practitioners or-
Dr. Sandison: Yeah.
Actually for caregivers. For caregivers, okay So people who are caring for someone who has Alzheimer’s. The Bredesen approach, I can’t tell you how many people have walked into my office with holding a, Bredesen’s book, you know, dog-eared and Post-It notes and notes in the margin telling me how much benefit they got just from that.
And even more patients walk in and they say, “I read the book,” or, “I listened to the podcast and I get it, but I… Just tell me what to do. How do I implement this?” And so that’s what we’re trying to do across the, my entire spectrum of offerings basically, is get you and caregivers, people who are looking to prevent, people who are caregiving, and even people who have severe Alzheimer’s, we’ve seen them get better.
Now, they don’t necessarily go back to work, but they get better. They improve their quality of life. And so the, our [01:01:00] goal is just to make Dr. Bredesen’s protocol more accessible. So we have coaching, we have evergreen courses, we have one-on-one coaching, we have group coaching. There’s everything from from, you know, the evergreen course to Marama, which is a full immersive residential experience. So we hope there’s, you know, something for everyone who’s on that spectrum and suffering with this, and it can all be found at drheathersandison.com, just D-R Heather Sandison, S-A-N-D-I-S-O-N.com.
Dr. Weitz: Awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Sandison.
Dr. Sandison: Ben, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Weitz: 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 want to 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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