← Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Ep 1193 | Why Psychiatrists Ignore the Brain & How to REALLY Diagnose ADHD | Guest: Dr. Daniel Amen
01:00:32
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- [00:01]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Wellness Wednesday is back today with Dr. Daniel Amen. He is probably one of the best known psychiatrists in the country and he has a novel approach to looking at brain health when it comes to add, adhd, autism, depression, anxiety. And today we are going to talk about the mainstream view of these diagnoses versus how we can actually care for our brains in a way that helps us. He is not anti pharmaceutical but he is holistic health looking at the whole picture of the body. And so today he is going to break that down for us. He is also going to tell us what to look for if you or someone you love maybe add. It was an absolutely fascinating conversation. We'll also get to the damaging effects of weed on people's brains and our society. It is not as innocuous as you are being told. Just an incredible conversation you will learn so much from. I know I did.
- [01:02]
Unknown
We've got all of this and more.
- [01:04]
Allie Beth Stuckey
On today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends at Good ranchers. Go to good ranchers.com code Alli that's.
- [01:09]
Unknown
Good ranchers.com code Allie.
- [01:20]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Dr. Amen, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. I know a lot of people listening and watching. They follow you have for a while. But for those who may not know, can you say who you are, what you do?
- [01:33]
Dr. Daniel Amen
So Daniel Amen. I am a husband and a father and a grandfather to five and I am a psychiatrist but I do things very differently than my colleagues. I actually think you should look at the brain before you go about treating it. I have 11 clinics and we have the world's largest database of brain scans related to behavior. About 260,000 scans on people from 155 countries.
- [02:07]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Wow. And can you tell me a little bit more about the scans because you mentioned that most people in your field do not scan the brain before they diagnose an adult or a child with add. So what are your scans and what do they set out to accomplish?
- [02:26]
Dr. Daniel Amen
So at Amen clinics we do a study called Brain Spect Imaging Spacked Single Photon Emission Computed tomography is a nuclear medicine study that looks at blood flow and activity, looks at how your brain works and it tells us basically three things. Good activity areas with too little or areas with too much. And then our job becomes about balancing the brain and why we do that when most others don't is before I went to medical school I was an x ray technician and our professors used to say how do you know unless you look? And when I Decided to be a psychiatrist. My first wife tried to kill herself when I was in medical school. I took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist. And I realized this is a profession that can change generations of people. But I joined the only medical specialty that never looks at the organ it treats. And I thought then it was insane. And I just had no idea that I would be part of changing it. And think about this with me. Why are psychiatrists the only medical doctors who never look at the organ they treat? And because of that, Ritalin is controversial. For the wrong brain, it's a nightmare. And for the right brain, it's miraculous. And how would you know ahead of time if you didn't actually look at the physical function of the organ you're treating?
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Allie Beth Stuckey
Right.
- [04:29]
Dr. Daniel Amen
And, you know, spec's not the only way to look at the brain. Other people do PET scans, other people do quantitative eeg, other people do functional mri. I just love spect. And, you know, because we built this database of experience, well, that's hard to replicate. And what. What we learned about ADD, or adhd, it's just a different term for the same thing that when people who have this disorder try to concentrate, the front part of their brain shuts down, where in a healthy population, it turns on. So what does that mean? It means the harder they try, the worse it gets. And how would I know that if I didn't look? How would I know a child's ADD was due to their brain working too hard or not hard enough? And I can't tell. Like, I'm not a magician, where I can, you know, divinate? You have your brain does this by your behavior, because you can have the same symptom clusters and have wildly different brain function.
- [05:57]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Right. Okay, so it could be. Are you saying that people with add, it could be that a part of their brain isn't working hard enough or that it is is working too hard, or is everyone who is displaying these kind of ADD symptoms, the inability to concentrate, do they all share that commonality of the front part of their brain just shutting down when it should be turning on?
- [06:23]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Not all of them. But in. In my book, Healing add, I talk about the seven different types. And six of the seven have that sort of deactivation. But one of the types, the type we call the Ring of Fire, activates too much. And when you give them a stimulant, 80% of the time, you disrupt them, you make them worse. And they tend to be the ones we see. We typically don't see the sort of classic ADD or the Inattentive ADD because their pediatrician has seen them. And generally, you know, the medicine helps them. We tend to see the treatment failures. And so we see way more ring of fire than a typical child psychiatrist.
- [07:25]
Allie Beth Stuckey
And what is ring of fire?
- [07:28]
Dr. Daniel Amen
So ring of fire is where their whole brain is really much more active than compared to healthy. It's like the freeway is jammed and the world comes at them too fast. They get easily distracted, they tend to be rigid, and if things don't go their way, they tend to be upset. And if you stimulate an already over active brain, you generally make them worse. And so we do treatments, we use the scan sort of like a map. And you've heard it said, a picture is worth a thousand words, but a map is worth a thousand pictures. A map tells you, okay, here's where you are and gives us direction on how to get to where you want to go. And so it's like the traffic in LA where it's just way too busy.
- [08:40]
Allie Beth Stuckey
And there are different kinds of ADD medications, like you mentioned, the stimulant, would that be something like Ritalin, where you're trying to stimulate a part of the brain that is shut down?
- [08:51]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Yes.
- [08:52]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Okay. And then there's another kind. If you're overstimulated brain, you would take a different kind of medication that helps it calm down.
- [08:59]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Yes. I actually like a supplement that I developed, goodness, 25 years ago that has GABA. GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, 5 HTP, which is the precursor for serotonin, and L tyrosine, which is the precursor for dopamine. And that tends to have a nice calming effect or a balancing effect on the brain. And you know, when I started scanning people in 1991, I came to realize some of the meds we prescribed were actually harmful to the brain. And then I remember in medical school, all medical students learn first, do no harm, use the least toxic, most effective treatments. And because of that, I got very interested in natural supplements, lifestyle, dietary interventions for the brain. So if you come to amen clinics, the first thing we're going to do is take a really good history, do cognitive testing, do imaging, and then it's, it's, we don't think about, well, what medicine would we use. It's, well, what lifestyle or natural supplement might we try first to see if we can't get better balance to your brain.
- [10:33]
Allie Beth Stuckey
But you do see a need in some cases for pharmaceuticals because some would say no. Ritalin and ADD medications, they always suppress the personality. They take the uniqueness out of the kid, and we shouldn't prescribe that at all. But it sounds like you're saying, and from what I've read, these can be of benefit to people with certain kinds of add.
- [10:57]
Dr. Daniel Amen
They can be miraculous, right? And I think withholding proper treatment from an adult or from a child is like withholding glasses from someone who can't see. Now, I. I've been a psychiatrist for 40 years, and when I prescribe a stimulant and it's the right thing for the person, it doesn't make them depressed. It doesn't dull their personality. It helps them be who they really are when their brain is healthy. Now, if you come at this with a preconceived idea that all medicine is of the devil, well, then you can find all sorts of cases where these medications have made people worse because they all have black box warnings, because if you give them to the wrong person, they're going to make people worse. But there's a whole bunch of other cases where. Where someone went from C's and D's to all A's and B's and got into law school or medical school or. I remember one of my early cases, I saw the son of a businessperson, and he's like, doctor, Amen, if you think I'm bad, you should see my dad. And then I saw his daughter, and she said, doctor, amen, if you think I'm bad, you should see my dad. And then I saw the wife who didn't have add, but she was chronically stressed because she was married to the guy that had add. And she's like, you have to help me with this stress. And so finally, he's the fourth person in the family that came to see me. And the scan totally convinced him he needed to take care of his add. And the next year, he made three times the amount of money he'd ever made in his life because he could focus. And so I think withholding medicine is not the right thing. But don't give everybody who has ADD the same treatment. That's like giving everybody who has heart disease the same treatment, which is stupid, right? I mean, there's 100 different causes of chest pain. You don't give everybody the same treatment. You try to go, well, what's the cause of the chest pain?
- [13:41]
Unknown
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- [15:09]
Allie Beth Stuckey
A lot of people have a concern specifically in young boys being diagnosed with add. Boys tend to be more rambunctious than girls at an early age. Can't sit still for as long. They want to be more aggressive outside running around. And some people believe that because young boys don't always fit into the perfect, you know, kindergarten paradigm when they're five, six years old, that they're over medicalized. Do you think that's true? That boys are kind of being punished for being boys told they have ADD at a young age when maybe they're just young boys?
- [15:45]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Yes, sometimes it's a maturational delay, which is why if you have an active boy or girl, it's probably best for them to be older in their class. Like my birthday's in July, so I was barely five when I started kindergarten. Probably with what we know now, it would have been better to hold me back for a year because then I would have. Just think about it. Almost 20% more brain development.
- [16:20]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Right.
- [16:21]
Dr. Daniel Amen
I think my wife was actually four and a half when she started kindergarten. What we now know, the brain needs time to mature, so that's often one factor. Another factor we should talk about is diet. Things like artificial dyes and sweeteners are rampant. They're like in 10,000 products in the United States, if you have a processed food diet, you're much more likely to present like you have add. There's this great study out of Holland that they actually replicated And I think the original study was on 300 kids who have ADD or ADHD. They eliminated gluten, dairy, corn, soy, artificial dyes and sweeteners. And after six months, 70% of them didn't have ADD anymore.
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Allie Beth Stuckey
Wow.
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Dr. Daniel Amen
And so shouldn't the first intervention be, let's just clean up your diet and let's take away the dopamine stealers, your gadgets, and get you more sun and more exercise and some simple nutrients like omega 3 fatty acids. And see, like to me, that's imminently rational to before you give someone a stimulant that's going to change their brain, let's just clean up your diet and your habits. And if after you clean up their diets and habits, there's still a half an hour of homework, takes them four hours to do, that their level of impulsivity is unacceptable, that they can't focus and they're not performing anywhere near their ability in school, well, then let's scan them and let's consider supplements or medication.
- [18:37]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Something that I learned from your book is that it is a misconception that people with ADD can't not focus on anything. That they're always just kind of like bouncing around like a jelly bean. Some people with ADD can get very focused. I've seen this before. They can get hyper focused on something. They may be able to sit down and read, you know, an entire book in one sitting. If they're really interested in it. It's really that they can't concentrate on things that they don't want to concentrate on, whereas someone without ADD would be able to. Is that correct?
- [19:13]
Dr. Daniel Amen
That's correct. In fact, maybe we should talk about how do you know if you have add?
- [19:18]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Yeah.
- [19:19]
Dr. Daniel Amen
And the five hallmark symptoms. And the first one is short attention span, but not for everything. It's short attention span for regular routine, everyday things, school work, homework, paperwork, chores, the things that make life work. But and this is what surprises people. For things that are new, novel, highly stimulating or frightening, people with ADD can pay attention just fine. Things that have their own intrinsic dopamine. So you know, adults that have this because they fall in love with and for like four to six months, they're totally focused. But as the dopamine and new love wears off, they can't pay attention at all. And their partner's like, hey, where'd you go? Or if they're have a new hobby and they love it, they'll focus on it. Or they have a teacher they love, that one class will be great. But the six other teachers are complaining they can't focus. So it's new novel, highly stimulating or frightening. And that's often why they like extreme sports or why they can be risk takers, because they're looking for the thrill. It's also why they tend to be negative. And in healing ADD I talk about the games ADD people play. And the first game they play is, let's have a problem is they pick on other people. They poke at them just so that they can sort of get that reaction out of them. And I always tell parents, when the child hands you the rope to play tug of war, don't pick up the rope. And there's a great parenting section in that book. The second symptom is they're easily distracted. They see too much, they hear too much, they sense too much. It's like the world comes at them too fast. And they hate tags in clothes because they feel them. My first wife had add I write about that. And right after we got married, I went into our little apartment and we were staying in medical school, you know, in school housing. And all of my shirts had the tags cut out. And I've never felt a tag in my life. And I took one of the shirts into the. Our little family room, and I'm like, do you know what happened to my shirts? She goes, you had all those tags. I hate tags. Don't you hate tags? Aren't you happy I did that? And I'm like, never felt a tag ever. Please don't cut up my clothes.
- [22:39]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Yeah, I laughed when I heard that story when I was listening to your book. And there's so much. And I won't interject too much, but there was so much as I was listening, I was like, wow, this reminds me of this person. This reminds me of this person. This reminds me of me. My grandmother lived with us growing up, and she would always, I would always have her cut the tags out of all my, my clothes. And to this day, I cannot stand tags in my clothes. I feel it all day. It's like the Princess and the Pea. And I have plenty of other things in this book that remind me of myself, but I, I laughed when I, when I read that because I can relate to her. The tags have always bothered me.
- [23:16]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Well, if you have, you know, the way we often diagnose ADD in women is they bring their children to us because women often do not get diagnosed. So maybe more over diagnosed. Over diagnosed in boys, but not in girls. It's probably under diagnosed in girls because we still have serious gender bias in this country. And if a little boy is having trouble, the parents get upset and they're like, he's going to have to take care of a family someday. And if a little girl is having trouble, they're like, oh, maybe she's not that smart. We hope she marries somebody nice. And that's completely irrational because if anything, I just did a post. My wife and I do a podcast together called change your brain every day and we were talking about energy. And we have three generations now of tired women because they're doing way more than taking care of the house and the kids. And if they have add, they often look depressed. When they're really not depressed, they just have untreated add. So easily distracted. Organization can be a challenge both for time and space. If you look at their rooms, their desk, their book bags, they tend to be late. Not because they want to, but they actually don't start getting ready until oh my God, I'm late. Procrastination tend to put things off until someone's mad at them or they're under a lot of pressure and impulse control issues where they might say something they shouldn't say or do something that is not helpful. And if you have three of those, probably word picking up the book or getting an evaluation, I have a free ADD type test online. If you go to add Typetest.com, you can see, you know, based on how you answer the questions, do you likely have add and which of the seven or combination of seven types you have because people can have more than one type.
- [25:46]
Unknown
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- [26:01]
Allie Beth Stuckey
I get it.
- [26:01]
Unknown
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- [26:51]
Allie Beth Stuckey
What do you think is. I guess there's probably not one cause of add, but do you think I know that you've talked about the genetics. I know that you've talked about the things that we eat. Is there anything else that you see as the impetus for why there seems to be so much ADD today? Or maybe you think it's just being diagnosed better than it used to be, but some people see it as a rising and alarming trend?
- [27:18]
Dr. Daniel Amen
No, I think it's going up. I think the number one cause is genetic. It runs in your family. Like you could see some of the symptoms going generationally in your own family. I think ADD ADHD is real and when left untreated, it can devastate people's lives. Having said that, concussions increase the risk of add. Toxic food increases the risk of add. Toxic products you put on children's bodies increase the risk of add. I like we're having this discussion now about environmental toxins and brain health and issues like ADD and autism. I think all the screen time that, you know, you shouldn't give gadgets to kids. You shouldn't give devices to kids. They were unleashed on our society. Video games, smartphones, iPads. They were unleashed on our society for profit with no neuroscience study ahead of time.
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Allie Beth Stuckey
Right.
- [28:40]
Dr. Daniel Amen
And I really like it when neuroscience turns into public policy. For example, we know social media is damaging to children's mental health and Australia just banned it for kids under 16. You know, science to policy. California just said, nope, can't start school before 8 o' clock in the morning because kids who sleep just an hour less than their peers have a higher incidence of anxiety, depression and suicide. And so now we're going to protect their sleep. So no more showing up at school at 5 o' clock in the morning or zero periods. I like that. And I was just involved in a bill in Arizona banning ultra processed foods in schools. Science going to public policy. And I think we have to be more thoughtful because this mental health epidemic in children, it's going to impact the future of our country. I don't know if you know, but 77% of young people do not qualify for military service because of their physical or mental health. That's a national security crisis.
- [30:10]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Wow. Yes, absolutely. RFK today, as we're recording this, is announcing a ban on artificial dyes. I believe California already banned one of the dyes, maybe red 40 or I don't remember which one it was. But certainly some of the dyes, as you said, can cause symptoms of add. I know RFK has been talking about that as well. When you see some of the new public policy coming out of this administration over the past few months in relation to these possible environmental causes, what are your thoughts?
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Dr. Daniel Amen
I'm a huge fan. In fact, I gave a lecture in Washington in October to the Integrative Medicine for Mental Health conference, like a thousand doctors. And I said, and I try to be apolitical because I want to help everybody. But if the current administration stayed the one before, absolutely nothing was going to change in our health. But if RFK was in the new administration, we're going to have big discussions, have discussions on fluoride. You know, places where there fluoride in the water. Children have lower IQs. Well, that's not okay. And artificial dyes and sweeteners, I actually have, and it's got the most views of anything I've published over the last decade of a scan of a child off and on red dye number 40. And the parents brought them to me because it's like, you know, whenever he gets anything red, he goes into a rage and he's completely not himself. And I'm like, well, let's scan him off and then on Red Vines. And it flamed his brain in a very bad way. I mean, it clearly changed his brain. So if we don't have to use these things, and clearly we don't have to use them, right, they're banned in places like Canada and Europe. Why would we allow them? Unless we're just bowing down to the food industry that wants to use them because they're cheap. And it's like, oh, well, food will cost more. Well, how much does it cost to have a brain that's not working right? I mean, what is that actually doing to the soul of the individual people and the fabric of America, where last year there were 340 million prescriptions written for antidepressants.
- [32:59]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Wow.
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Dr. Daniel Amen
It's like, what's the first, the smartest, the easiest thing to do? And what I learned is most psychiatric illnesses, add, autism, depression, bipolar disorder are not mental health issues. Their brain health issues. And this one idea changes everything. Get your brain healthy and your mind will follow. And if these chemicals are not good for gut health, if they're not good for brain health, well, why do we allow them in food? And the food companies will go, they're not proven to Be bad. But that's the wrong question. The question should be, are they proven to be safe and they're not?
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Allie Beth Stuckey
Right.
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Dr. Daniel Amen
And there's actually this fascinating new study on aspartame, because I'd be happy if they banned that, too.
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Allie Beth Stuckey
And that's in, like, Diet Coke.
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Dr. Daniel Amen
They gave mice aspartame and NutraSweet or what's in Diet Coke. And it made the rats anxious. But you know what else it did? It made their babies and their grandbabies anxious.
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Allie Beth Stuckey
Wow.
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Dr. Daniel Amen
And so could something so simple be causing or be part of what's causing the anxiety epidemic? Because aspartame is in 6,000 products. And I used to think of Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi is free. And I have a new book coming out in December called change your brain, change your pain. And I remember, and I think it's right around 1991. I'm seeing patients in my office, and this one lady comes to me and she said, I stopped aspartame and my arthritis went away.
- [35:04]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Yeah.
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Dr. Daniel Amen
And at the time, I was 35, and I had arthritis in my hands and my knees, and it was terrible. And I had trouble getting off the floor, playing with my kids. And I'm like, oh, that's so interesting, because I think most of what I've learned, I've actually learned from my patients. And so I stopped aspartame at the moment I was drinking Diet Pepsi like she was my best friend. Like, I'd have a liter a day because I thought it was free. And then I stopped and my pain went away. And I'm not that smart. And so I'm like, two months later, I'm like, let's try this again. Because I really liked the taste of Diet Pepsi, and I had the worst flare, and I just broke up with aspartame. It's like, I love it. It doesn't love me. Allie, I don't know if you've ever been in a bad relationship. I have. I'm not doing it anymore. I married to my best friend. Damn sure not doing it with food.
- [36:03]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Yeah.
- [36:03]
Dr. Daniel Amen
If there's something that hurts me, I have no interest in it.
- [36:12]
Unknown
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- [37:37]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Okay, you mentioned something interesting about, you said if the last administration stayed put, we wouldn't be having all these conversations. And this is not really a political question, but I am interested in why. And not only why would the last administration or people in bureaucracy not be interested in investigating all of these causes, as you mentioned, huge cost of having so many people on antidepressants and things like that. But also you mentioned that so many people in your field in psychology don't want to look at the brain. They don't want to look at root causes. They just treat everyone the same. So what is behind that lack of curiosity?
- [38:16]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Well, I think it's, well, we don't. This is not what we do, so we don't do it. And when I started imaging, I went to all day lectures at the American Psychiatric association on brain specked imaging in child psychiatry, in adult psychiatry. And was a very exciting time. But very quickly they realized imaging didn't go with the status quo. Imaging disrupts everything. And they're like, oh no, you shouldn't scan. And growing up, my dad called me a maverick because when you told me I shouldn't do something, I always went, why? Well, why shouldn't I do that? Right? This is how my brain works. And so when they told me I shouldn't do it, I'm like, well, why? How do you know unless you look? And I had already so much experience, them telling me not to do it, I didn't really care. They weren't my boss. I work for myself and my patients. But it got diminished because it disrupts the status quo. There's a great book about scientific revolutions. It's actually written in 1962 by Thomas Kuhn, and he said revolutions happen in six stages. One is just normal science, just going along with the status quo. Two is somebody notices a problem. I would diagnose someone with add, how I was taught based on symptom clusters. I'd put them on a stimulant. Some people would miraculously get better. And some people wanted to kill themselves. I hated that. I hated feeling I don't have all the information. I don't like making people worse. It upsets me. And so somebody notices a problem. I noticed a problem, and I'm not the only one. Stage three is the status quo. Notice is a problem. But they don't want to change the financial model, so they make small incremental changes, hoping that will satisfy the population. And so we've now had six versions of the DSM. And so DSM 3 that I trained under, that was the term add with or without hyperactivity. DSM 3R revised. Change the name for really no good reason to adhd, highlighting the hyperactive component of it, basically throwing away all the ADD without hyperactive people. Stage four of the revolution is someone creates a new mouse trap. Detailed histories, cognitive testing, imaging, brain health. Stop calling it mental illness, Start calling it what it really is. These are brain health issues, and that's our innovation. Stage 5 is the most predictable of all stages, is the rejection. I've gone through it in more ways than we want to talk about, but I've been called a charlatan and a snake oil salesman on the COVID of the Washington Post magazine. And I think it was 2011. Dr. Amen is the most popular psychiatrist in the country. And most psychiatrists think that's a bad thing. So. And 2020 interviewed me in 2005, and they start the interview with Brad Peterson. The child psychiatrist from Columbia thinks you should be arrested for your work. That's the first question on the interview. And the journalist said, how would you respond? And I was on the speech team in college, and my speech coach said, when you don't know what to say, take a breath, smile. It'll come to you. So I took a breath, I smiled, and I said, that's so interesting. Last week someone told me I should win a Nobel Prize. This week you're telling me I should be arrested. Sort of keeps me balanced.
- [42:52]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Yeah, there you go.
- [42:53]
Dr. Daniel Amen
And I actually got to meet Dr. Peterson a couple of years later. And this year we published a huge study together on depression and imaging so, wow, you know, that's sort of keeps me going. And stage six is just the acceptance. And, you know, I've been to the White House with the new administration, we're working on a brain health revolution. That's sort of the big idea. I never had anyone, except my friend at the White House asked me, how big can you think? And I'm like, I think President Trump should declare the next 10 years the decade of brain health. And when you think of it as mental health, Ellie, people make diagnoses based on symptom clusters with no biological data. And it gets us into the mental mess we're in. When you think of it as brain health, whether it's ADD or depression, it's like it's brain health. Oh, we have to eat healthy, we need to exercise together. We need to train our brain to help us rather than hurt us. And even if I use medicine with someone, I use less of it because I'm supporting the health of their brain. And that's the revolution. I want you to be a brain warrior to know. And so brain warriors are armed, prepared and aware. Our society currently is not for us, it's against us. And we have to be serious about our brains and the brains of those we love.
- [44:52]
Allie Beth Stuckey
What comes to your mind when you hear the phrase chemical imbalance? That has long been used to describe what people with depression or anxiety have, that they have a chemical imbalance? I guess usually they're described as having not enough serotonin and they say they're taking their antidepressants or anti anxiety medication in order to remedy this. Like, do you follow that? Do you think that it's a chemical imbalance issue?
- [45:21]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Well, I think supporting neurotransmitters can be very helpful, but I think it's way more complicated than that. One of the big lessons I learned is if you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it, we have to prevent or treat the 11 major risk factors that steal your minds. And the mnemonic I have that I developed since I wrote Healing ADD is called Bright Minds. B is for blood flow. Low blood flow is the number one brain imaging predictor of Alzheimer's disease, depression, and adhd. What can I do to support the blood flow of my patients for each of these? These are the things to avoid, like too much caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, being sedentary, they all decrease blood flow. What increases blood flow? Exercise, especially coordination. Exercise for your son, unlike table tennis, teach him to be great at ping pong. His focus will go way up if you do that because it's boosting cerebellar activity. Cerebellums, a part of the brain back. Bottom part of the brain involved in coordination, but it also turns off in add. So constantly turning that on with coordination exercises. Great. R is retirement and aging. Like, when you stop learning, your brain starts dying. I is inflammation, which we think is the root of depression. And why during COVID did depression and anxiety disorders spike? Because Covid causes brain inflammation. I saw it repeatedly on our scans. G is genetics. Yes. Things run in families. I adopted my two nieces because both their parents are drug addicts and they need to be on an addiction prevention program their whole life. And if you have ADD in your family, it's like, okay, so let's do the things that decrease the expression of ADD. Exercise, a healthy diet, omega 3 fatty acids, especially EPA, magnesium, zinc. Those things that can be helpful. There's a study, five studies on ADHD with saffron. I'm a huge fan of the spice saffron. So if I have it in my family, I'm always on a prevention program. Like, I have obesity and heart disease in my family, but I'm not overweight and I don't have heart disease. But I think about it every day. I am on an obesity heart disease prevention program every day. H is head trauma major cause of psychiatric problems, including adhd? If you didn't have have symptoms and then you had a car accident, now you have symptoms. You know, if I did eight types of ADD, type 8 would be head trauma induced ADD. T is toxins, which we talked a little bit about. Mental health stuff. It's there. I include adverse childhood experiences. On a scale of 0 to 10, how many bad things happen to you as a child because trauma and stress increase the expression of add? And how negative are you? Because negativity bias tends to go with low activity in the areas of the brain that are low with add. And then just to finish it off, I is immunity and infections. N is neurohormone disorders. Anybody who's being diagnosed with ADD, somebody should check their thyroid. D is diabesity. 20% of our kids are obese. I mean, it's just ridiculous. And S is sleep. And these gadgets we have are stealing our sleep. So that's really sort of my holistic plan.
- [49:51]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Yeah.
- [49:51]
Dr. Daniel Amen
As opposed to your scan shows this. Take this drug. It's like, let me learn about your life. Let me test your brain. Let me look at your brain. And now let's work hard to get it healthy.
- [50:05]
Allie Beth Stuckey
And I don't know how much you talk about this, but when you talked about blood flow, I learned for the first time is my husband, he had a scan, not one of your scans, but he looked at a deviated septum. And the doctor said, you know, deviated septum that obviously can make it harder to breathe. It can cause sleep problems, which can later contribute to heart problems and things like Alzheimer's and dementia. And it just got me thinking. There's a lot now about, I think it's called myofascial therapy for kids. When kids are mouth breathers and they snore at night, that that apparently can be an indication that they're not getting enough oxygen to their brain, which I guess may contribute to causing ADD symptoms. So I don't know if that's something that you talk about a lot, but I thought it was interesting that you brought that up because I'm, I've been hearing a lot of chatter about that.
- [50:53]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Subject and I think it's a very exciting area of medicine that because we're not chewing hard things like we did in the past, that our face and the bones in our muscle bones in our face are actually collapsing a little bit, making it harder to breathe, which will decrease oxygen and give more problems like learning problems or behavior problems. And having that assessed by dentists that do that is worth exploring.
- [51:43]
Unknown
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- [53:04]
Allie Beth Stuckey
I want to spend the Last few minutes talking about marijuana. This is something that you've talked about a lot, especially marijuana use in adolescents. It's affecting their brains, is that correct?
- [53:17]
Dr. Daniel Amen
I hate what's going on in our society. I mean, it's visceral for me. When I started looking at the brain, a common patient I would see is someone who is 16, who didn't have a history of ADD. But then all of a sudden they look like they have add in 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade. Their parents bring them to me and they like, I think they have add, but they didn't have it in fourth grade. And I'll look at their brain and their brain looks toxic, it looks older than they are and I'll get the kid by himself. I'm like, what's going on? And they go, promise you won't tell my parents. It's like, I can't do that. But I want to know what's going on because your brain looks toxic. And then they tell me either about alcohol or marijuana. And I see it as a major cause of learning problems, focus problems. And teenagers who use marijuana have an increased risk of anxiety, depression, suicide and psychosis in their 20s. And the idea that it's innocuous is a lie. I published a study on 1,000 marijuana users. It's the largest study ever done until just a couple of months ago. And every area of the brain was lower in blood flow. And then just a couple of months ago in jama there's a study on another thousand marijuana users. So I had nothing to do with it. And the learning and memory parts of their brain were significantly less active. Now should it be legal? It's like, please don't put people who use marijuana in jail. That's a bad use of resources. And my mother in law who had cancer, having her use marijuana so she'd eat, I think that's absolutely appropriate use of it. But the idea that it's innocuous is just a lie. And we're going to see this exact same thing with psilocybin. So you've probably heard, oh, you should go on a mushroom trip. Oh, it treats depression. Oh, it treats ptsd. Oh, we should all open our minds. The problem is it might have some specific benefits, but whenever something like that comes out, all the teenagers rush to it. And the visits to emergency rooms for psilocybin psychosis has gone up 300%. And I'm like, let's be careful. Let's do the simple things to get your brain healthy and be careful with the things that hurt you?
- [56:28]
Allie Beth Stuckey
What about vaping? I went to a concert the other day with my husband. We were around a lot of college students, and there were all kinds of substances. But one thing I noticed was the subtle vaping. And I didn't even really know what these devices look like, but it seems like it's pervasive, at least among one portion of the population. Does that have the same deleterious effects on the brain?
- [56:49]
Dr. Daniel Amen
It's not good. It constricts blood flow to the brain. Plus, with vaping, you get all those other chemicals. Right. People think vaping is a healthier form of smoking. It's not. And it's actually more addictive. And quitting cigarettes is harder than quitting cocaine.
- [57:09]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Wow. I didn't know that. And cigarettes, do they have the same effect, I'm guessing, is what you're talking about constricting blood flow and all of that?
- [57:20]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Yes. But an interesting study on comparing marijuana and cigarettes. Marijuana actually caused more lung damage than cigarettes did.
- [57:29]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Really? Okay. I also didn't know that. Yeah, you hear a lot about how weed is no big deal. It's less of a big deal than alcohol. That's kind of the argument to popularize it, to mainstream it, to commercialize it. And I don't know if that's true, if it's more or less dangerous than alcohol. I don't really see a good argument, though, for popularizing yet another toxin that we know is harming the brains of young people.
- [57:53]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Right?
- [57:54]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Yeah. Okay. So a parent is listening out there, and they're thinking, okay, a lot of the things that you're saying, they either apply to me or my spouse or I see this in my child, and they don't know what to do. What would you say their first step should be in just getting on the right track and taking control of their brain health?
- [58:14]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Well, the first thing. The first simple thing to do is just ask yourself this one question every day. Is what I'm doing good for my brain or bad for it? And if I don't know, I look it up. They could start with my book, Change your brain every day. I've written 42 books.
- [58:33]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Wow.
- [58:34]
Dr. Daniel Amen
People go, where do I start? And I'm like, start with change your brain every day. Because it's one of my newest books. It's also 366 short essays on the most important things I've ever said. So I try to, like, summarize my latest thinking. And it's simple. And if you've been struggling with your brain or mental health, call one of our clinics. We have 11 of them. You can go to Amen clinics. Amen, like the last word in a prayer. Clinics.com and learn where they are. Also, follow me on Instagram or TikTok.
- [59:14]
Allie Beth Stuckey
That's a good place to start. Well, Dr. Amen, thank you so much. I'm so grateful for all the work you've contributed to this conversation and just how you're leading the way in so many ways. I really appreciate it.
- [59:25]
Dr. Daniel Amen
Thanks, Allie. What a joy to spend time with you.
- [59:27]
Allie Beth Stuckey
Thank you.
- [59:29]
Dr. Daniel Amen
It.