Avoid These Daily Risk Factors To Prevent Brain Inflammation! | Datis Kharazian (Replay)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Avoid These Daily Risk Factors To Prevent Brain Inflammation! | Datis Kharazian (Replay)

Podcast: Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory
Episode Date: May 16, 2024
Guest: Dr. Datis Kharrazian

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Overview

In this replay episode, host Tom Bilyeu welcomes Dr. Datis Kharrazian, author and researcher in neurology, immunology, and nutrition. The discussion offers an in-depth look at the risk factors behind brain inflammation, the concept of “leaky brain,” and the rising epidemic of autoimmune diseases. Dr. Kharrazian breaks down the connections between diet, environmental toxins, stress, and the gut-brain axis, providing actionable advice and medical insights for anyone striving to safeguard long-term brain health.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is "Leaky Brain" and Why Does It Matter?

• The blood-brain barrier acts as a security filter for the brain, similar to the gut barrier.
• Breakdown of this barrier ("leaky brain") allows toxins, pathogens, and immune cells to enter the brain, causing inflammation and neurological problems such as brain fog.
• Leaky brain and leaky gut are highly correlated—damage often impacts both.
• Zonulin is a key protein that regulates tight junctions in both the gut and brain. Increased zonulin (e.g., from gluten sensitivity) can open these barriers (01:27–04:44).

“We have blood brain barrier, just like we have a gut barrier. And the blood brain barrier can become permeable...some of the people that probably developed viral infections like Long Covid probably had some viral particles go through for blood brain barrier permeability.”
— Dr. Datis Kharrazian (01:46)

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2. The Role of Gluten, Dairy, and Molecular Mimicry in Autoimmunity

• Gluten is not problematic for everyone, but in genetically susceptible individuals, it can provoke autoimmune responses. Notably:
  • Some people have celiac disease (a severe response), while others have milder sensitivities.
• Antibodies against gluten can cross-react with brain proteins—notably those in the cerebellum—through a process called molecular mimicry.
• Dairy proteins (esp. casein) can similarly mimic myelin—the insulation for nerve cells—potentially leading to demyelinating diseases like MS.
• Modern wheat's hybridization and chemical treatment have made gluten more antigenic and reactive (05:38–18:49, 26:02–28:23).

“The reason gluten can be so devastating for some people is because they have...Especially if the blood brain barrier is permeable, the gluten antibodies can then cross into the brain and then bind to tissues of the brain.”
— Dr. Datis Kharrazian (07:08)

“Casein has a cross reactive pattern with myelin basic protein. It's a little bit different than, than the cerebellum, but they're very similar.”
— Dr. Datis Kharrazian (16:02)

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3. Autoimmune Disease Epidemic & Gender Differences

• Autoimmune diseases now outnumber cancer and cardiovascular disease combined.
• About 1 in 12 women, 1 in 25 men have autoimmune conditions.
• Women’s increased risk may be due to hormonal (estrogen) impacts on immunity, but mechanisms remain unclear (01:00, 20:15–20:46).

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4. Chronic Inflammation Cycles: Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, and Loss of Immune Tolerance

• Once a person triggers autoimmune reactivity, a feedback loop ensues:
  • Inflammation damages the barriers further.
  • The immune system begins overreacting to foods, chemicals, and even itself — a state called loss of immune tolerance (23:21–25:04).
• This broadens sensitivities, leaving patients with multiple food intolerances and chronic symptoms.

“Once you lose one, you lose them all...once someone loses self tolerance, develops autoimmune disease, their immune system disregulates.”
— Dr. Datis Kharrazian (23:53)

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5. The Dangers of Modern Food Proteins and Environmental Chemicals

• Modern hybridized wheat, GMOs (corn, soy), and overprocessed foods create novel proteins and antigenic structures.
• Pesticides can haptenate (bind and deform) food proteins, making them even more inflammatory.
• The resulting proteins can be unrecognizable to the body and trigger immune attacks (26:13–27:18).

“A lot of the pesticides that are being used bind to gluten and they change the structure of the molecule...it becomes more antigenic. This is called haptination.”
— Dr. Datis Kharrazian (26:15)

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6. The Autoimmune Paleo Diet: The Baseline Elimination Protocol

• Foods most commonly implicated: gluten, dairy, eggs, nightshades, and most grains.
• An autoimmune paleo (AIP) diet—removing these foods—is often a necessary baseline for those with unexplained chronic symptoms or autoimmune conditions (28:21–29:09).
• However, narrowing your diet too much decreases gut microbiome diversity, which in turn erodes immune tolerance (29:29–30:58).

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7. The Importance of Microbiome Diversity (and Why Not to Over-Restrict Diet)

• Eating a wide variety of plant fibers maintains a robust microbiome, leading to greater immune regulation.
• Over-restriction (e.g., just eating chicken and broccoli every day) is counterproductive for long-term health (29:53–30:48).

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8. The Brain-Gut Axis and the Vagus Nerve

• The brain and gut communicate bidirectionally via the vagus nerve and surrounding systems.
• A damaged vagus (e.g., from brain injury) results in poor gag reflex, constipation, gut dysmotility, and food sensitivities.
• Techniques to “train” vagal tone: gag reflex exercises, gargling, and even coffee enemas (for specific cases, with caution) (31:09–38:29).

“Gargling will activate the glossopharyngeal muscles, the back of the throat that supports mitochondrial biogenesis of the vagus.”
— Dr. Datis Kharrazian (38:02)

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9. Modern Stress, Overtraining, and Brain Health

• Chronic, unchecked stress (where adaptation fails) produces harmful cortisol, which shrinks the brain—especially areas critical for memory (hippocampus).
• Overexercise can also inflame and break down the brain-gut barriers (41:34–48:08).
• Finding individual thresholds for stress and exercise—building adaptive capacity, not just intensity, is key.

“But stress, when it's uncontrolled and it's past a person's abilities, can be devastating for the brain. … Cortisol causes atrophy of the brain, so it actually shrinks the brain.”
— Dr. Datis Kharrazian (01:00, 45:48)

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10. Neuroplasticity: Rebuilding Brain Function

• Weaknesses in specific brain areas can be rehabilitated by training—use the functions you struggle with.
• For instance, overcoming car sickness by gradually increasing vestibular challenges (driving on slightly curvy roads), or improving math skills with practice.
• The concept is to foster mitochondrial growth and nerve branching through targeted activity (51:54–55:16).

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11. Supplements and Clinical Strategies

• There is no magic supplement for brain health; everything is individualized, often requiring blood work and investigation.
• Some targeted nutrients can help (e.g., B12 for deficiency, anti-inflammatories, essential fatty acids for those with low dietary fat), but core interventions remain:
  • Address inflammation
  • Maintain blood sugar
  • Eat enough healthy fats
  • Tailor interventions to clinical context (55:47–57:56)

“What the brain needs more than anything...it needs activation specific to the area that you want function in. It needs to have reduced inflammation...and it needs physical exercise.”
— Dr. Datis Kharrazian (55:54)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On gluten and brain autoimmunity:
  “The gluten molecule creates an antibody, but the gluten happens to look just like a cerebellum protein…That’s called molecular mimicry and it’s scary.”
  — Host & Dr. Kharrazian (07:53–08:29)
• On disease triggers:
  “You could be doing everything right and be super healthy and all of a sudden your immune system dysregulates…”
  — Dr. Datis Kharrazian (22:52)
• On individualization:
  “Protocols are inefficient...A head to toe workup. Blood panel, imaging, physical exam, the whole routine.”
  — Dr. Datis Kharrazian (40:44–40:51)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:00 — Opening, Dr. Kharrazian introduces autoimmune risks and stress.
• 01:27–04:44 — What is “leaky brain” and how barriers break down.
• 05:38–12:12 — Gluten’s immune reactions, molecular mimicry, and brain impact.
• 13:46–15:47 — Biomarkers for leaky gut/brain, risk for autoimmunity.
• 16:02–18:49 — Dairy, myelin, and cross-reactivity; connection to MS and long Covid.
• 20:15–23:21 — Autoimmune epidemic, gender difference, long Covid triggers.
• 23:21–25:04 — The loss of immune tolerance and chronic inflammation.
• 26:02–28:23 — Modern food proteins, GMO/pesticide-induced antigenicity.
• 28:21–29:09 — Autoimmune paleo diet: what to cut and why.
• 29:29–30:58 — Microbiome diversity, dangers of dietary monotony.
• 31:09–38:29 — Vagus nerve, gut-brain axis, self-testing and rehabilitation.
• 41:34–48:08 — Dangers of over-restriction, antibiotics, stress, overtraining.
• 48:23–50:16 — Brain health and efficiency, warning signs, functional declines.
• 51:54–55:16 — Neuroplasticity, targeted rehab for declining brain functions.
• 55:47–57:56 — Supplement strategy: individualized, no magic bullet.
• 57:56–end — Resources, promoting the book, closing thoughts.

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Actionable Takeaways

• Reduce exposure to modern, highly antigenic food proteins—especially gluten, dairy, GMO corn, and soy—particularly if you have autoimmune symptoms.
• Diversify your diet (especially plant fibers) to support the gut microbiome and immune balance. Avoid unnecessary dietary restrictions unless clinically indicated.
• Monitor for signs of declining brain function (e.g., brain fog, poor memory, new-onset sensitivities); investigate rather than attribute changes to “just aging.”
• Stress management and recovery are equally as important as stress exposure—find your limits.
• Train what you’re weak in (cognitive, sensory, or physical domains) to stimulate neuroplasticity.
• Work with professionals for diagnostics; interventions should be personalized based on comprehensive workups, not just generic protocols.

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Additional Resources

• Learn more from Dr. Kharrazian: Dr. K News
• Book: Why Isn’t My Brain Working?
• YouTube: Search “Dr. Kharrazian” for lectures/testimonials

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This summary is designed for those seeking actionable insights on brain health and autoimmunity, capturing the technical depth and real-world advice from Dr. Kharrazian’s interview with Tom Bilyeu.

Transcript

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[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

So we're all at risk for developing autoimmune disease, and the rates of autoimmune disease now exceed cancer and cardiovascular disease combined. But stress, when it's uncontrolled and it's past a person's abilities, can be devastating for the brain.

[Podcast Host]

Why?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, cortisol causes atrophy of the brain, so it actually shrinks the brain.

[Podcast Host]

Doctor Datis Kharazian, welcome to the show.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

[Podcast Host]

Dude, I'm so excited to have you. I'm obsessed with the brain and what we can do to make sure that it stays in high functioning for a long time. So let's talk about leaky brain. Okay, what. What is the most horrendous thing that people do that causes leaky brain? And what is leaky brain?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

So we have blood brain barrier, just like we have a gut barrier. And the blood brain barrier can become permeable, and then particles can go through, pathogens can go through. Um, some of the people that probably developed viral infections like Long Covid probably had some viral particles go through for blood brain barrier permeability.

[Podcast Host]

That is really interesting. Okay, so tight junctions can break down. Well, so the epithelial lining of the gut is a single cell thick, and so that breaking down because you're eating bad foods or whatever that I get? Is it equally sort of de minimis in the brain? Like, is it a really thin layer that stops particles from getting in there?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

The blood brain barrier is basically just some endothelial blood vess vessels and some astroglial cells. And we've actually published research showing there's A high correlation between gut permeability and blood vein permeability.

[Podcast Host]

Meaning it's the same thing that causes.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

When you get one, you get the other.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

And zonulin will open up the tight junctions of the gut, but also opens. Up.

[Podcast Host]

What on earth is zonulin?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

I'm sorry? Zonulin is a protein that it's released when people, for example, have gluten sensitivity.

[Podcast Host]

Or is that a protective mechanism from the body, or is that actually in the wheat?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

But no, it's protective mechanism of the body is when you get an infection, your body releases zonulin to get rid of the pathogens, opens up the tight junction, so you get rid of it. And they actually discovered that with cholera, cholera infections. And they found something called zonulin and gluten toxins. And then they found that that opened up the gut barrier. But basically, the mechanisms, like one of the most common mechanisms for people that are gluten sensitive is an example. They have zonulin release, and that opens up their tight junctions of their gut. They get leaky gut. But also zonulin opens up the tight junction of the brain. And the same inflammatory oxidative stress mechanisms that break down the gut barri can also break down the blood brain barrier. So if your antioxidant levels are low and you're around a lot of environmental pollutants, if you have an inflammatory condition, those all make you susceptible to having these barriers break down. And barriers break down pretty quickly, and they regrow, they regenerate quickly, too, but they can definitely break down. And when the blood brain barrier is permeable, then what happens is these immune cells in the brain, called glial cells, they get. They get exposed to environmental pathogens and different proteins, and they can create an inflammatory cascade. And when people get an inflammatory cascade in the brain, the most common symptom they'll get is something like brain fog, because inflammation slows down nerve conductance. So all of a sudden, they have brain fog. And some people will notice that they eat certain foods, they get brain fog, they get around certain environments, they get brain fog. And some people had a traumatic brain injury and had brain fog for that period of time. People get an infection, have ongoing brain fog for a period of time. But even traumatic brain injuries break down the blood brain barrier as a way to get T cells and B cells in there to clean up some of the debris. So, you know, breaking down our gut, opening up our gut barrier and blood brain barrier is a normal physiological function. Sometimes we had infections that do that, Sometimes we Get traumatic brain injury that does that. But also it's very thin membrane. So when you have lots of free radicals and lots of free oxidative stress inflammation, they break down.

[Podcast Host]

So the goal would be, from an evolutionary standpoint, you want to be able to open and close it.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

But modern lifestyle is causing it to be open all the time. And so while it's opened from an evolutionary standpoint to get things out, we're now just letting a ton of things in.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. So in the book, why doesn't my brain work? You list a lot of things, but if I were to point to, there's one thing that really stood out to me above everything else. But there's two things that come up in the book a lot. So environmental toxins. I'm going to set that to the side for a second and talk about gluten. Which, intentional or not, to me reading the book really came across as a villain in the book. Does that feel right? Like if you were going to tell people, hey, if you're only going to make a single change, would it be to cut out gluten? Or are there so many problems in food that we really have to address food more holistically?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

I mean, glute's only a problem for people that are sensitive to gluten. Not everyone's sensitive to gluten.

[Podcast Host]

So some people can eat the shit out of gluten and it's going to be fine.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Interesting.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

And then some people have full blown celiac disease, which means they have a. A T cell exaggerated response to gluten. So they have severe inflammatory reaction too. They have a HLA DQ genotype, a gene type that makes them extremely sensitive to the protein.

[Podcast Host]

What, is their body mistaking it as a foreign invader?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

No, it's just basically, I guess you could think of it that way as a foreign invader, as an antibody system produced against gluten. The problem with gluten in the brain is the antibodies produced against gluten have cross reactivity, so they can actually bind to the brain. So, you know, normally when you get an infection, like a pathogen comes in, you produce an antibody, the antibody can then attach to the pathogen, and then once the antibody attaches to the pathogen, then the soldiers of the immune system, like T cells and natural killer cells, they come in and destroy the pathogen. Right. So if someone's sensitive to gluten, they're making antibodies as if it was a pathogen. And then those gluten antibodies bind to wheat, so they can destroy the protein and break down Quickly. Right. But those gluten antibodies can also bind to different tissues of the brain, specifically area of the brain called the cerebellum. And this is a condition called gluten ataxia in the medical literature as a disease. But gluten actually does cross react with the brain.

[Podcast Host]

So, wait, is it the antibody that's attacking the cerebellum, or is it the gluten that's attacking the cerebellum?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

So when you look at antibodies, antibodies bind to proteins, but they actually bind to amino acid sequences. So each protein has an amino acid sequence.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

And. And if there are eight or more amino acid sequence site in identical. Identical chain together, then the antibody produce one protein can bind to another protein. The reason gluten can be so devastating for some people is because they have. Especially if the blood brain barrier is permeable. The gluten antibodies can then cross into the brain and then bind to tissues of the brain, and then the immune system will then assume those are foreign. Foreign invaders and start to destroy them. So, like, the gluten is directly binding to the cerebellum, and as if it was going to directly bind to gluten, because the amino acid similarity is so alike between cerebellar amino acid sequences and gluten cerebral and gluten amino acid sequences. So once that antibody attaches, then T cells go in there and destroy whatever's being attached to it.

[Podcast Host]

So wait a second. So basically the. Because the. God, I hope I'm getting this right, because the audience is like, come on, you dumbass. The. The gluten molecule creates an antibody, but the gluten happens to look just like a cerebellum protein. Perfect. Thank you. And so once you make an antibody for the gluten, you have accidentally made an antibody that can't tell the difference between the wheat gluten protein and the. In this case, cerebellum protein.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Exactly. That's called molecular mimicry, and it's scary.

[Podcast Host]

Whoa. So this is interesting. So here's. Here's why I drag people into the weeds. And I honestly have no idea if my audience loves this or hates this. But when I can picture it, it's way easier for me to conform to behaviors that I don't want to give up. So, for instance, I want to eat bread. But when I understand what's actually going on, then it gets a lot less appealing. But when it's this vague notion of, like, oh, gluten's only a problem for some people, like, then, I don't know,

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

there is some Truth to that, I mean, if you don't have gluten antibodies, then you don't have the chance of frost reactivity. And if you have gluten antibodies but your blood brain is not impermeable, it's intact, then you don't have to worry about that mechanism.

[Podcast Host]

The worst brain though, right? Wouldn't I still like. Well, I guess if my gut never becomes permeable, I don't have to worry about it.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Right. So if your gut and blood brain barrier are permeable and then you have gluten sensitivity and you eat gluten and you make antibodies and that blood brain barrier is permeable.

[Podcast Host]

Are there some people though, that have a permeable gut? Gluten is crossing it and no antibodies formed or does the antibody form 100% of the time if you have leaky gut and gluten crosses?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

It's not 100% of the time, but over time, if you have intestinal permeability and proteins that are undigested cross, then the immune system starts to react against them. And this is why a lot of people develop gluten sensitivity over time. So there's a phenomenon in immunology called immune tolerance, oral tolerance, which is why we develop food sensitivities. So there's a. There's many mechanisms, like abnormal dendritic cells, overactive cooper cells, intestinal permeability.

[Podcast Host]

And this is because. So the gut becomes permeable.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Random ass proteins are crossing over. The body's like, this is really annoying, but I'm not gonna get up in arms yet. But you keep doing it. And then the body finally is like, all right, I've had enough of this shit. I'm making antibodies and we're going ham.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Is that more or less how this.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yep. And actually in the neurological scientific literature, they consider gluten sensitivity neurological disease. It just happened to be gastroenterologist founder first. And two thirds of people that have gluten sensitivity never have gastrointestinal symptoms. They just have cognitive decline. And then in the brain, there are no pain fibers.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, well, let me ask. Is there a way for gluten to get to the brain without first breaking down the junctions in the gut?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, as long as the person makes antibodies, then this whole cross reactive mechanism is possible. And if the protein is unde. Well, let me put. If the protein's undigested, then that's when this immune response really triggers if the protein is broken down. So when you have a protein, protein is a bunch of amino acids stuck together. Right. And then as your body digests those enzymes, they become individual amino acids. Individual amino acids are so small that antibodies can't bind to them, so there's no immune reaction. So the situation where someone digests gluten doesn't have the gluten sensitivity, breaks down gluten to small particle amino acids, they cross through. There's no problem. If someone has an intestinal barrier that's opened and then gluten is undigested and that crosses. Now there's all these immune reactions that take place. Then they start to develop. Gluten antibodies get gluten sensitivity. And if their blood brain barrier is breached now, these gluten antibodies can get into the brain and then start to cross react with brain tissue, and then they get subtle brain inflammation. And inflammation in the brain doesn't cause pain because there's no pain fibers in the brain. There's no nociceptors in the brain. So as their inflammation in the brain continues, that shuts down nerve conductance. And then now they just feel like they can't get to their thought, they can't focus, they can't concentrate. And these responses can happen two or three days later. So they get exposed to gluten. It might even be that same day. The next day their brain's not working. And then over a period of time, they get degeneration in these pathways, and then they just see their function go downhill.

[Podcast Host]

This is so interesting. Okay, so the vast majority of our immune system is in our gut.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

But is it behind the epithelial lining, or is. Is it going in and out actually into the. The gut where the food particles are being digested?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

I mean, there's immune function on the barrier of the gut with cells called dendritic cells. But the majority of the immune response is once it gets through the gut.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

That's where we have these really reactive T cells that. That play a role.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. And if somebody had leaky gut and I tested their blood, would I find gluten protein in the bloodstream? I would have to, right?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah. And you can actually measure leaky gut by looking at something called zonulin. That's the marker. It's also zonulin, including marker protein. And you can actually measure zonulin only

[Podcast Host]

produced when it's gluten.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Once, once the tight junctions break down, those little particles break down also. And then you can make antibodies against them. So you can have zonulin levels show up even if it's unrelated gluten. And then for the blood brain barrier, there's a protein specifically called S100B, and you can do a blood test and measure if someone has blood brain barrier permeability. So, like, the worst scenario would be someone has gluten antibodies, zonulin occluding, leaky gut antibodies, and then S100B blood brain barrier antibodies. Now they have chronic condition and symptoms no one can figure out. And they maybe go off gluten, maybe not 100%, and they think they don't have a gluten reaction. Then they finally go off 100% gluten free, and then within like two or three weeks, their brain function improves and they can see that connection. So you can actually, in a clinical setting, see it all in a laboratory test. Just no one tests it.

[Podcast Host]

Well, zonulin, though, you said, can be a response to other things.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah. So once a tight junction. So zonulin occluding are both proteins that control the tight junctions. Once the tight junction starts to get inflamed and have things destroyed and break it down, those tight junction proteins break into the bloodstream and then immune system cells in the gut. Immune cells in the gut react against them and there's some antibody production. So we can measure those with a blood test.

[Podcast Host]

Got you. So zonulin just says, I have leaky gut. I don't necessarily know that it's gluten, but I can check for other things that are only gluten.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yep. And I gotta tell you, we just. I'm just finishing up a manuscript in a publication with 200 patients where we looked at zonian antibodies and their predictive risk for getting autoimmune disease, and it's sometimes 200% increased risk.

[Podcast Host]

Whoa.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

It's depending on which. I checked 24 different autoimmune diseases, but there's a significant risk for half of them. If I had a larger sample size, I'm sure I could have found more, but I only had 200. But it's high risk. Once your gut barrier starts to break down, you can develop autoimmunity. The problem is gluten is a very inflammatory protein and the gluten we are eating now is like a new protein. It's not the same protein. And there's about 10% new proteins in gluten. So when people start to get intestinal barrier breakdown just from modern lifestyle, modern diet, imbalanced microbiomes, people start to make antibodies against gluten. But the problem with gluten is it cross reacts with the brain. It also cross reacts with other tissues, not just cerebellum. Tissue of the brain. But there's some studies that show that it cross reacts with the proteins in joint joint tissue. So it can lead to inflammatory autoimmune diseases. And then milk is very similar to the gluten structure. So when people develop gluten sensitivity, they get milk intolerances.

[Podcast Host]

What?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah. So this is why like with autistic communities, they have to go gluten dairy free to get some change because they can't just do a gluten, gluten alone.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. Okay. So obviously I've heard people say to avoid dairy, but I've never really understood why, if I'm completely honest.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

So it's the same biomimicry that's going on.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And it matches gluten specific.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

And are there more?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yes, there are.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, so we have gluten, we have dairy.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

That have this biomimicry gets in the brain immune system is going to go ham.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

Because it's actually binding to the protein.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

By the way, casein has a cross reactive pattern with myelin basic protein. It's a little bit different than, than the cerebellum, but they're very similar. Most neurological tissue proteins are very similar.

[Podcast Host]

So for people that don't know, the myelin sheath is like a fatty covering that allows the neurons to fire more efficiently, basically.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Exactly.

[Podcast Host]

So is this attacking the myelin sheath?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah. So just like you make antibodies, if you make antibodies specifically against the casein protein of milk, Milk has multiple proteins, but if it makes antibodies against casein, casein cross reacts and has molecular mimicry with myelin. And we actually published a paper years ago, we took 400 healthy blood donors and we checked how many of them had gluten antibodies, how many had myelin antibodies, and we looked for correlations between neurological autoimmune markers. So the ones that had milk antibodies had a very high degree of correlation with having myelin basic protein autoimmunity and cerebrum. There's a lot of people walking around that actually have neurological antibodies to the brain that they don't have Ms. Yet, but they can't yet or they may never develop.

[Podcast Host]

Because if you destroy the myelin sheet, that is ms, Right?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah. But the problem is with Ms. You have to have the diagnosis criteria of having multiple lesions on MRI that, that show you have, that you have Ms. Right. So you have to, you have to, in order to get MRI signal for what they call hyperintensity signal, white matter signal, you have to, you have to lose 60% of your myelin sheath or more. So if you have someone who's lost 40%, 50% of the myelin sheath and they have neurological antibodies, their MRI still looks normal, but they may have physical examination findings. They may have weird neurological symptoms. No one understands. And testing for neurological antibodies aren't part of a routine, you know, health insurance model. It's done in research settings, but it has been accepted as a routine part of that model. But clinically, if you have neurological antibodies, you have the immune system attacking the brain. There's a lot of people that have chronic, undiagnosed neurological symptoms that have these antibodies against the brain. Some of them are triggered by gluten, some, some are triggered by dairy. Those are the two most common ones, pathogens. We published a paper and showed that different proteins of SARS CoV2COVID can cross react with the brain. They have molecular mimicry with the brain. Some people have long Covid are probably getting neurological autoimmunity developed. They get that pathogen to get the infection. They make antibodies against. There's spike proteins, nuclear proteins, membrane proteins, envelope proteins of SARS CoV2. There's actually 24 different proteins. We mapped those all out and in publication, published in Frontiers Immunology and we found there's direct cross molecular mimicry, cross reactivity with that pathogen and brain. So I think a lot of people that are getting these diverse neurological symptoms from long Covid are actually having the onset of neurological autoimmune disease development.

[Podcast Host]

Because just to go back to that core idea, there's in those 24 different proteins, some number of them match a normal protein that should be in our body. And so as the immune system creates the antibodies to slap around Covid, it ends up slapping itself around.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

And now we have a problem.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah. And we map this out. We map those all out in a paper.

[Podcast Host]

How do you stop that then?

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[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, this all comes back to how do you not lose your immune tolerance as a human being? So we're all at risk for developing autoimmune disease. And the rates of autoimmune disease now? Exceedingly. Cancer and cardiovascular disease combined. So some. Yes. So some of the current statistics show that one in 12 women have autoimmune disease. One in 25 men have autoimmune disease.

[Podcast Host]

Why so much more for women?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

There's some theories between how estrogen may make T cells more responsive. No one really knows. There's just a bunch of theories. There isn't a concrete answer, but it is more common in women.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, this is really terrifying. So we have somebody in our company that has long. Covid and I hadn't really stopped to try to formulate a hypothesis on how it would shake down. But this is like.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

I can walk you through it.

[Podcast Host]

Well, I think I understand how it starts, but now what's distressing is if you stop eating gluten to get rid of.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, this may not be gluten. So here's the thing. For them, the pathogen was the trigger, right? So then they got SARS COV 2 and 2.

[Podcast Host]

But why isn't it going away then?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Because once autoimmunity turns on, it doesn't turn off.

[Podcast Host]

That's what's freaking me out.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

It's an incurable disease. There are incurable diseases. So now it's all about can you put in remission and relapse. So let me give you a scenario. Say someone developed long Covid, right? The next question is, what kind of symptoms do you have? They say I get vertigo and dizziness. Then, you know, the cerebellum at cross reactivity. They say that, you know, now they. They can't control their blood pressure, and they. They're dropping. There's a marker called 21 hydroxylase that we find cross reactivity. There's an adrenal antibody. You can autoimmune anywhere. So the patient's clinical symptoms after they get the infection can give you a clue where those. And where those autoimmune reactions are. And then measure specific antibodies for those specific symptoms. And then if you see the antibody high, then you know that now they have autoimmune reactivity. Now, in the world of immunology they use the word autoimmune reactivity, which is different than autoimmune disease. Autoimmune reactivity means you have the antibodies there, but you don't have full destruction of the tissue to be diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. Like someone who has myelin antibodies against their brain, has neurological autoimmune reactivity. But until they have enough lesions to show up on an mri, they won't fit the criteria of Ms. So now they walk into the healthcare system for decades and even their whole life never really diagnosed what's happening because the healthcare system is so focused on autoimmune disease and autoimmune reactivity for sure. There's a lot of patients that develop long Covid that now have autoimmunity. It may not always be the brain. In our paper we found multiple tissue tissues that can cross react with it. But that's the concept of molecular mimicry. And that's what's scary because you could be doing everything right and be super healthy and all of a sudden your immune system dysregulates. Maybe you get the perfect storm, maybe you get the infection while you were under stress and had free radical exposure and your gene type at that time period with the host viral gene, turn that mechanism on. And now you have autoimmunity, and now you have an uncurable disease. And now you become the mystery weird patient that no one can figure out. And now as your immune system starts to dist regulate, you start to react to foods, you start to chemicals. Those didn't trigger the vicious cycle.

[Podcast Host]

And there's because they at a protein level look the same.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, some of the, some of that is molecular mimicry. But once you start to develop an autoimmune disease, your whole immune system starts to become rugged up and the inflammatory response from autoimmunity itself will break down the intestinal tight junctions.

[Podcast Host]

There we go.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

And then starts to break down the blood brain barrier. And then you get a person who's got leaky gut, leaky brain, multiple food sensitivities, they start to react to chemicals, they lose something called immune tolerance. Now there's this vicious cycle and they're confused.

[Podcast Host]

Immune tolerance?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

What's that?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

So immune tolerance is this concept, immunology, where you should tolerate your environment. And there's dietary protein tolerance, which is like food sensitivities. There's chemical tolerance, whether you react to chemicals or not. And there's self tissue tolerance, which is autoimmune disease. So once you lose one, you lose them all. Okay. So once someone loses self tolerance, develops autoimmune disease, their immune system disregulates. So now they have dietary protein intolerance. So now they start to react against a bunch of foods that they may not even know that they have reactions to. It's not.

[Podcast Host]

And you think the thing that unites all of these is just you've. You've revved. Revved up the immune system and now they're looking for any excuse to fight.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah. And it's more of like an immune system dysregulated response. They just dysregulate it. Can't figure out what to do anymore. The cells are confused. And the more of you have antibodies produced is where the immune system is going to react against. And then the whole molecular mimicry pattern comes in. So you make antibodies that, you know, we think of antibodies like to a pathogen just binding to the pathogen. They don't. They bind to any. Every other protein that's similar to it in the body. And that can happen with food protein like gluten and celiac disease. It can happen with someone who gets long Covid. It's. It's very scary.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

And it's very common and it's clearly easy to identify and diagnose because you just do a simple blood test and you identify this. It's just not part of a routine healthcare system yet. It's in the research. It's in the research, it's in the journals, it's in the publications. But there's, you know, application to those takes a long time.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Okay. So, man, now that we've got that bit of bad news, but you can't

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

do things for autoimmunity.

[Podcast Host]

That's where we're heading. So now I want to know, I really want to put a fine point on things that we can avoid doing. And then we're going to layer that with things that we can add on top of that. So the avoid doesn't seem wise to play with gluten if you may have a tolerance. You may not, but you might. And given that that mimics the cerebellum, which does not strike me as a good thing that you want your immune system attacking.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

I wouldn't play around with that. But you seem like you want to say, no, it's fine. Tell me more.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

It's not just gluten.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, it's not just gluten. But is it gluten?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

It can't. It can be gluten. Gluten is the very common one because it's such a new protein. Gluten proteome is new. It's. It's not the same protein we used like when you were kids and we had wheat. It was not the same protein.

[Podcast Host]

Right. It wasn't genetically modified though. It was hybridized.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

It's hybridized. Right. So gluten has been hybridized and basically cross bred it. And also a lot of the pesticides that are being used bind to gluten and they change the structure of the molecule. And when they change the structure, the molecule becomes more antigenic. This is called haptination. Antigenic, More immune reactive. So there's a concept, there's a concept of haptination. When a chemical binds to a protein, it makes it change the structure. And then when it becomes more antigenic, meaning more immune reactive.

[Podcast Host]

Yep. Then because the body's like, this is weird. I don't know. This is new protein.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

We've never seen this protein before. So now you have chemicals and different pesticides that are being used that are now showing to change gluten. They change the molecular structure of the protein. So now it becomes like a new protein that remains is not seen before. Then it triggers the immune response.

[Podcast Host]

So we cross bred it, changed it new protein, and then slathered on pesticides which mutate. I don't know if mutate is the right word, but they bend it. Y misshape it.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

To where the body's like, oh, this is really new.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Exactly.

[Podcast Host]

And so now the immune system goes ham.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

Bad news is that it's still similar enough to the cerebellum that we're tearing that apart as well.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah. And so the most common proteins that do that will be like GMOs, also like corn, soy, egg protein.

[Podcast Host]

Because in the gmoing of it.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

We create new proteins.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yes. And then also what's very reactive with people is egg protein, albumin, and milk and wheat. So what other. And by the way, this is, you know, what people call the autoimmune paleo diet. And you know, long before they use the term automate paleo diet, when I work, I work with autoimmune disease patients all the time, they would come and go and they would bring in their own food and Tupperware because they couldn't eat out. They couldn't eat anything. They always get sick and they had to basically get off, you know, all these inflammatory foods. It depends on the extent of the immune response. So it's not like just a cluster of foods. But when people have autoimmunity and they Just don't know where to start. Like, if you're, like, don't know where to start, you don't have access to lab testing and so on to work with autoimmune paleo diet, which gets rid of gluten, dairy, you know, eggs, nightshades, lectins. These foods is the. Is the place to go.

[Podcast Host]

Because they're all antigenic.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Exactly.

[Podcast Host]

Huh?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Exactly.

[Podcast Host]

He learns fast.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

They're very antigenic.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

And when people have a dysregulated immune system, anything that's highly antigenic tends to be a trigger. And then if some of these proteins that they make antibodies to can cross react with their own tissue, that's where you have molecular mimicry. That's why there's such different uniquenesses that people have autoimmune diseases with certain reactions. Everyone's different. You're never gonna have two rheumatoid arthritis patients or lupus patients that are exactly the same because they have different proteins they're reacting to, but they have. The thing in common is they've lost their immune tolerance.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, so anything else that we don't eat in the autoimmune paleo diet?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, it's basically gluten, dairy, nightshades, grains also. Grains are very similar sometimes.

[Podcast Host]

That's a whole class.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

The whole class.

[Podcast Host]

No more quinoa for you.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Exactly.

[Podcast Host]

Rice is grains, right?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah. But again, there's the individual uniqueness. Some people have autoimmune disease, they can't handle those, some cannot.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

So that's.

[Podcast Host]

You could be the nuanced one. I'm going to be over here oversimplifying things.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Okay, well, autoimmune, paleo.

[Podcast Host]

Yep. Okay, so. Well, in asking that question again, we just lost grains. If I ask it a third time, am I gonna.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, this is another crowd. So this is where you get a problem. The problem is there's this concept called immune tolerance we talked about. Right?

[Podcast Host]

Yep.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

And when your diet isn't diversified, like with lots of different food proteins different, then you lose your gut diversity.

[Podcast Host]

Because all of a sudden, you can be 27 and encounter rice for the first time. And now your body's freaking out, when in reality. Well, if it encountered it earlier.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, like if you have the same breakfast, lunch, and dinner every single day. Yep.

[Podcast Host]

You had me at hello. I try to do that.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

Even though I know that sounds like it's. The punchline is. Don't.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Don't. You. You're not. The fibers you eat are gonna cause different bacteria in your microbiome to Populate.

[Podcast Host]

Yep.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

The more diverse your plant fiber diet, the more diverse your diet is, the more microbiome bacterial species you produce. So it's a direct relationship between the diversity of your diet, especially different plant fibers, and the diversity of your microbiome. So what happens with some autoimmune disease people is they go, well, I can't eat grains, I can't nitrate, I can't eat anything. I'm just going to have chicken breast every morning and broccoli because I can just tolerate that. I don't care about food anymore. And then they narrow their diet so much now they've lost their microbiome diversity. And now their immune tolerance is much worse than before because the more diverse your gut bacteria microbiome is, the more immune regulation you have, the greater tolerance you have. And things like exercise improves microbiome diversity. Eating a diverse diet improves microbiome diversity. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

How would exercise?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

You get blood flow to your gut, you activate vagal pathways, you turn on gene expressions in the gut microbiome. It actually makes the microbiome wide diversity really fast.

[Podcast Host]

So you have a whole section in the book about vagal nerve and what you have to do. And I'd never heard anybody talk about how I could exercise my vagal nerve by gagging myself. P.S. and gargling.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

But one, tell people what the, the vagus nerve is, and then why does vagal conditioning matter?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Okay, well, so, so for that, that specific relationship between the vagus. Well, you really worry about head injury patients who have traumatic brain injuries and how they lose their brain gut axis. So there's a brain gut axis and there's a gut to brain axis. The brain gut access, meaning downward, is the brain fires down to the brainstem. And the lower edge of the brainstem, you have a group of nuclei called the vagal nuclei. And the vagal nuclei help get blood flow to the gut. They activate autonomics to get blood flow to the gut. They release enzymes, they impact immune function in the gut. So if your brain's healthy, you get that nice brain to gut response. So sometimes people get traumatic brain injuries or develop neurological autoimmunity of the brain. Their brain becomes less efficient, there's less activation to their vagal centers. And then clinically we see that they, they don't have a gag reflex, they, they have abnormal gag reflex, their palate doesn't move, they don't have intestinal motility issues, that constipation all the time.

[Podcast Host]

I said the constipation is like an early sign of several neurological Diseases, Right.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

So that's that brain vagal pathway. And this vagus nerve from the brainstem goes all the way to the gut. And then like in Parkinson's disease, the Parkinson's disease is really what's called the alpha synucleinopathy, where these alpha.

[Podcast Host]

Just going to say that these alpha

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

synuclein proteins build up and they get in the way of normal. Normal synaptic activity. And it starts in the gut. So most people that Parkinson's disease will have constipation 20 years before they have tremor.

[Podcast Host]

Whoa.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

And they'll have loss of smell because also impacts olfactory bulbs. So they lose smell and gut function.

[Podcast Host]

And you said there are three particular scents. Let's see if I can remember.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Oh, wow, you are sharp.

[Podcast Host]

Peppermint.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Anise.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, God. The third one. Coffee.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Coffee.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, come on.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

That's pretty good. So those are. Researchers have found those three. Those are the three earliest findings of loss of smell with early Parkinson's disease.

[Podcast Host]

I was literally going to order like those three things, so I can just make sure every day that I'm doing okay.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, that's just specific for Parkinson's. Parkinson's, buildup of alcohol.

[Podcast Host]

Anything I can test at home, I'll take.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah. So that's. That's the. So that's the relation between this gut is you have this gut that has this pathway from the brain to the gut. And then the gut bacteria produces polysaccharides and different peptides and has inputs from the vagus and also through cytokines and growth factors in the bloodstream that impact the brain and the brain. Gut's always working together. But once you start to, for example, lose brain. Brain injury, you lose that vagal input, then your gut starts to disrupt. Now you have like a chronic gut issue that becomes hard to diagnose. Or you can have a chronic gut issue that causes inflammation, breaks down the blood brain barrier, and then now the blood brain barrier is permeable. And then you start this cascade of brain inflammation. Brain starts to degenerate. Now you get less vagal activity and get these brain, gut, gut brain disorders. And this is why a lot of people have bad brains and bad guts. And they go to one part of healthcare and they go, oh, everything's about the gut. And they got another part. And, well, brain usually gets ignored. But these, these infant relationships are there. And these brain, gut, gut, brain relationships are really a reason for lots of chronic health problems today, for sure.

[Podcast Host]

Having been through this, myself and my wife had just unbelievable problems. Oh, okay. So really fast just to capstone the vagal nerve. So there are things that you can do to condition it. So you said gag reflex. Take a tongue depressor, press down in your tongue, don't jab the back of your throat.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Right. So with everything, like, there's gotta be like the right person candidate for it.

[Podcast Host]

Right?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

So you. We really didn't want to do vagal activities unless you have a vagal disorder. Your biggest clue that you have a vagal disorder is, number one, you can't swallow very well. You've noticed, hey, I can't take as many supplements. So as a clinician, I'll hear a patient say, you know, don't give me a lot of supplements, I can't swallow them. Can you give me powders? That's a major red flag that the vagus isn't working, is the vagus nerve activates what are called glossopharyngeal muscles in the back of the throat that allow you to swallow. So that swallowing response is all vagal, which then impacts your gut motility and gut function, everything. So if someone has difficulty swallowing, somebody has constant gags for food, someone who has chronic constipation all the time, they have to use magnesium as a stool softeners to have regular bowel movements. There's some kind of laxative on a daily basis. Those are all signs that the vagus nerve could be in trouble. And sometimes people get a brain injury and then five or ten years later they start to get these vagal impacts. And then the brain gut axis starts to become dysfunctional. Now their vagal system isn't working. And if you don't get blood flow to your gut and have motility happening, you start to get dysbiosis, you start to get leaky gut. Now you react to food proteins. Let's say the most common food protein is gluten, because it's a new protein, modern wheat. And modern wheat then makes antibodies, then those antibodies cross react to the tissue in the brain. And now you have a cascade of brain gut axis autoimmune disease that's really common, which is like. And it's also part of childhood developmental disorders. It's part of chronic depression, it's prone of chronic anxiety disorders. Gluten also binds to enzyme called glutamic acid decarboxylate 65, Gad65, which is the enzyme that makes GABA. So you get chronic anxiety disorders with people when they have these reactions. And you can measure these, you can just measure gasified antibodies and see if that's that's there or not.

[Podcast Host]

Part that I wanted to get to is in the book you, for people that are struggling with the vagal nerve, that coffee enemas, right, Are like the go to strategy. I was like, what?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

You know, it's funny is people always fixate on coffee.

[Podcast Host]

I just can't, like, imagine, like, is it just the caffeine or is it. Is it some other property of coffee? And by the way, I feel like it warrants saying, cool the coffee down.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Body temperature.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I was going to say we don't want.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Okay. So when people have brain gut axis storage and the vagus isn't working, the goal is to. How do you activate the vagus, right? So if neurons get injured, neurons aren't firing, then the goal is to develop neuroplasticity. So neuroplasticity is where you get a neuron to branch over it. So someone has traumatic brain injury and they can activate activity to the vagus. That vagus starts to degenerate. Then you go, how do you. How do you get that vagal activity going? You activate it. And as you activate pathways, right, specifically activate vagal pathways, you develop mitochondrial biogenesis, you get synaptogenic activity, Neurons start to grow, neurons start to branch. So when someone has a vagus problem, you want to get that vagus apparatus working. So coffee enemas, the way they work is when someone isn't. People use coffee enemas for, like, detox reasons. That's not the purpose here. The way you use coffee enema for a brain GY axis disorder is you use coffee and then you would hold the bowel, hold the coffee as long as you can, and caffeine activates what are called acetylcholine nicotinic receptors. And acetylcholine nicotinic receptors fire smooth muscle pathways that directly fire into the vagus. So now if someone is doing coffee enema and they're holding their bowel with coffee as long as they can, they're actually activating that acetylcholine pathway and developing vagal responses over the whole as long as they can. And you have to eliminate and do a normal response. But that holding of the coffee in their bowel is something that activates the vagus. Same as gargling. Gargling will activate the glossopharyngeal muscles, the back of the throat that supports mitochondrial biogenesis of the vagus. So is like doing a gag reflex on your tongue. It's just neurological pathways to it.

[Podcast Host]

All right, so we've got a good List of things not to do. Now, let's start layering on. We'll start with something I've heard you say, which to me just seems like the default answer in everyone's life, which is eat whole food only. That's interesting. I've heard you say that before. But you disagree with that.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, I mean, again, it's. It's not so much the food, it's the protein, Right? So. So whole food. But if you're immune reactive to it, then you got a problem, right? So let's say you have lectin sensitivity and you eat whole foods.

[Podcast Host]

Eating whole lectin's still gonna be a problem.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

It could be a problem for you. And then you can have significant immune reactions. So lectin binds specifically to something called wheat germ, Wheat germagglutinin. And wheat germagglutinin binds to NE factors on nerves. So if you have that specific reaction, it's a problem. So that's the thing. I mean, for the most people, it's great. But then when you're talking about the subset of people that have chronic disease and have autoimmunity and the immune system is different, like simple things, just like whole food. Yes, would be great. But as long as they don't have individual immune reactivity, would you still try

[Podcast Host]

to bucket them into whole food? But whole food that they respond well to, or for some people, is processed food still a bit of.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, of course, processed food's terrible. Got lots of inflammatory prostaglandins in there, partially hydrogenated fats, lots of sugar, lots of salt, those. Lots of processed proteins. I mean, you definitely want, yeah, real food. When someone's sick, when they actually try to figure out how they get through the day, they'll end up on real food and they'll end up on limited amounts of what they can tolerate. You know, for me, when I was a younger, I had to my 20s, I'd see people with autoimmune disease come in, like I was saying, with their tupleware food, just a few things they could eat. And they could eat anything else, like what's happening. And then now we understand that there's all these immune reactions and protein reactions that are happening. And that's why there's that uniqueness. That's why general principles are sometimes hard when you become chronic. And this is why chronic disease patients are frustrated, because they go from reading one person right, oh, lectins are dangerous. I gotta avoid all lectins now. They've totally lost their microbiome diversity because now they're not eating any lectins. And maybe they didn't have any reactions to it. And then someone else is totally avoiding milk, but they don't have a reaction to it. And milk can help their siga levels in their gut and stop their immune system.

[Podcast Host]

So it's very protocol that you walk people through. Or it's all blood test.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

I do not have blood pressure. I don't. I think protocols are inefficient. I think.

[Podcast Host]

Interesting. Okay, so protocols are inefficient. What is efficient?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

A head to toe workup. A head to toe work. Blood panel, blood panel, imaging, physical exam, the whole routine. That's why it's. It's hard, you know, like, this is. It's challenging when people get chronically sick. He went through the experience with your wife Lisa. She went through a whole series. That wasn't one test. Right. It was this journey through it. And this is what's so frustrating is that so many people, especially people that do all the right thing and eat well and exercise and do everything, all of a sudden they get sick. Like, what happened? Something impacted the body. Something. In many cases, it's an immune related issue. And

[Podcast Host]

the good news is she was doing everything wrong. Oh, that's good. So, yeah, I mean, so she had taken so many antibiotics, it was crazy.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

Her diet was ultra limited, so she was in amazing shape. Amazing. But her diet was just that exact kind of narrow diet you were saying to avoid. So you put antibiotics together with a hyper limited diet. And oh, by the way, she loves to work out. Loves it. But definitely, I would say, has a tendency to overdo it. So in fact, that's something that we should talk about as another don't. Which is stress. In fact, in the book you say. This is a paraphrase. Was pretty close. The worst thing that you can do for your brain is stress. And I was like, oh man, it's my only vice. My only vice is stress.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, there's good stress and bad stress. Right.

[Podcast Host]

I probably spill into the bad.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah. I'm sure you're a highly accomplished person. I'm sure you're intently in that way. But it's. But, but if you, if people like you that are highly successful, they learn how to adapt with stress. So I'm sure you have a very good schedule that allows you to adapt to stress and be highly efficient.

[Podcast Host]

Yes, right. Yes. But I would say that especially now I'm in a period in my life where I recognize I'm shortening my life.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

I'm now doing, I'm like, so 93 hours for me is like nothing. It's perfect. I could do that forever. I don't feel stressed. It's amazing. I don't have kids so that's a huge part. But Now I'm doing 120 hours a week. And that I can tell is problematic.

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[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

So everyone has their own level of stress tolerance usually. And by the way, I mean stress is good. If you don't have stress, you actually, you get massive depression. So you have to have some degree of stress. Your brain has to have activity, your frontal lobe has to fire, you have to have to have activity. There has to be some limbic responses.

[Podcast Host]

Is that necessarily stress though?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

It's it. Well, it depends how you define stress. But in general, like if we put you in an island and just gave you whatever you wanted and you would, you would find stress into how your drink isn't the right level or you don't have the right umbrella, when do you leave? Or why is the sun in my face? You're going to fixate on something stress. And that's a normal physiological survival response we'd have set to have Stress like stress gets nailed as a bad guy. It's just a matter of does it overwhelm your capacity to respond to it. But the problem with stress is it releases cortisol, especially when it's non adapted stress. So there's adapted stress and non adapted stress. But non adapted stress will break the blood brain barrier, will break down, the gut barrier will cause.

[Podcast Host]

Can you define a difference?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

One of the key findings to be your cortisol levels are high if your cortisol levels are outside of physiology.

[Podcast Host]

So in adaptive stress my cortisol levels won't be that high. Yeah.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Let's say we take someone into your schedule, right? And they can't handle it. They can't get to 93 hours, they get to 40 hours and the cortisols are off the chart.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

And then you're fine with it. So you can handle that degree of stress and you've built your own adaptation process and your own physiology to deal with that stress, right? Just like someone who can run long distance, you take someone who's never long run distance, they, they can't do it. They'll get into a metabolic over training syndrome every time. So our body has adaptation, stress ability. So stress is necessarily the bad guy because you have to have it to turn on actually antioxidant systems and to turn on brain activity and physiological systems. It's just one that exceeds your abilities to dance, to, to modulate it, right. So you don't have that adaptive skills for it. So but it's easy to, you know, overdo it and then, but you have to kind of overdo it every now and then to then build your skills, right? So just like someone who runs like 25 miles a day or something, they had to get into a stress response and then recover and then get through it. So some people are extremely highly efficient with what is, would be devastating for someone else. And their, their stress hormones are not high. So it's all specific to that pattern. But, but stress, when it's uncontrolled and it's past a person's abilities can be devastating for the brain.

[Podcast Host]

And why?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, cortisol causes atrophy of the brain, so it actually shrinks the brain. Cortisol breaks down the barriers and the area of the brain called the medial temporal of the hippocampus is where you control your cortisol rhythm. That's also the area of your brain which controls your declarative long term memories for Alzheimer's disease hits first and when you have too much cortisol for extended periods of brain. Actually what they find in imaging studies is that the hippocampus starts to atrophy and degenerate. So then long term memory becomes impaired and that sets up the stage for neurodegenerative changes for Alzheimer's disease in that specific location. So again it's about balance. So you have 93 hour work week. Let's say you measure course levels, you might be just perfect and you're like great, great, you're killing it and someone else can't do that. So, so stress is, you know, one of those things like dietary proteins, they're not all, they're not all bad. It all depends what your immune response is. And stress is going to depend upon your adaptive abilities to what those levels are.

[Podcast Host]

What about exercise?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

So exercise the same thing and for the brain it's phenomenal, right? Exercise is going to release brain derived neurotropic factor it's going to support mitochondrial biogenesis, so you have more endurance cells built in. It's going to release opioids, it's going to have adipocytes, release things like adipone. All these things have anti inflammatory effects throughout the body. They help set up stage for neuroplasticity. They slow down the mechanisms for neurodegeneration. They get blood flow to the brain, they activate neurotransmitter activates. You prove free radicals during exercise, but afterwards you have hours and hours of making antioxidants. But with exercise you could overtrain. So if at least say you're saying it was over training, then you get into this phenomena called metabolic overtraining syndrome, where now you have these inflammatory cytokine responses and you get breakdown of tissue and everything goes the wrong way. And the biggest clue someone's getting to metabolic over training syndrome is that they don't recover from their workouts and they start to get depression. The performance goes down over time. So, you know, like everything, you want to look and listen to these things because everyone needs a little bit of stress, Everyone needs physical activity. The higher they can go with that over training, the better. The highest level of stress you can get without overdoing it, the better. So it's this constant being aware of what those things are. And what I've noticed highly efficient people is that's what they figure out.

[Podcast Host]

It's interesting that you've zoned in on efficiency. That to me feels like the secret that people don't really understand is that to be successful, one, you have to be really good at problem solving. But two, you have to have an obsession with efficiency. Yep.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

And then it goes back to brain function. Listen, everything that requires success requires healthy brain function. As a matter of fact, some people have desired motivation to take it to the next level can't because their brain's not healthy enough. They don't have brain endurance. So that's the other key thing. When the brain starts to become unhealthy, the first thing you start to see is low endurance. You don't just see like Ms. To mental endurance. Well, it depends on what part of your brain you're using. Right? Right. So we talked about the cerebellum a lot. If the cerebellum is starting to degenerate, it's not going to maybe impact cognition as much. But now their muscle tone is off because the cerebellum controls muscle tone. So now they don't have good posture. Now they can't stand without getting neck and back pain. All the time. Now they get vertigo and dizziness. Now they get car sickness, seasickness all the time. Those are specific for that area of the brain. If the parietal lobe starts to degenerate, then they start to bump into things and start to sprain the same ankle over and over again. Because the brain can't perceive where their part of the limb is to the brain. Because that's what that function of the brain is. The frontal lobe starts to generate. That's when you would start to lose executive function. Focus, attention, concentration, planning, following through with tasks. So what, people will start to have unhealthy brains. Like, let's say they get brain inflammation, neuroinflammation. Maybe they get a brain gut axis disorder. Gut brain axis disorder. Maybe they get gluten sensitivity. Who knows? Maybe they get this inflammatory response. This inflammatory response to the brain is gonna then shut down nerve conductance. And if it impacts the frontal lobe, then their executive function is going to go down. So now they want to build their business. They want to improve their life. They want to do whatever they want to do. And now they can only do for two hours a day, and then they're done. Then some days it's more than other days. That has a lot to do with their inflammatory state, their mitochondrial function, and those factors as well, which, you know is important because I know you're a lot about efficiency and having people reach the next level, but the brain is a part of that.

[Podcast Host]

How do we, like, push our limits with this stuff? So, one. Okay, I get my diet right. I know sleep is a big part of what you prescribe to people, but if somebody is noticing, like, I'm declining here, whether it's like, I never used to get car sick, and now in rare, admittedly, but in certain circumstances I will. My wife's car sickness is definitely getting worse. She's always gotten car sick. Her whole family has. But, like, if we start noticing signs that in the book you say, stop chalking things up to aging, like a lot of this stuff that people are just like, oh, well, you really can do something.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah, like, if you're getting carsick and seasick, then what's happening is the rate of visual and vestibular input is exceeding your rate of dampening it in your cerebellar procur inhibition system pathways. It's like the neurology is there. Not to get into neurology, but the neurology is there. Like, that's a mechanism, it's not a personality trait. It's not because Other people in the family had it. It's like other people in the family having the same area of the brain. Degenerate. It's a degenerate process. We tend to like, call it, oh, I've always been bad with numbers, or I've always had car sickness. No, you've been bad with numbers because your inferior parietal lobe isn't developed or it's degenerating.

[Podcast Host]

So how do we build that stuff? Because I'm terrible with numbers.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Whatever you can't do, you do. That's a simple concept of neurological rehab. So you have to have neuroplasticity exceed neurodegeneration to get function, right? So if your neurodegeneration is more than your neuroplasticity, then you, then you can't gain function and then it starts over time. Degenerate, right? So let's say you are bad with numbers or someone's bad with numbers. And maybe they were bad with numbers as a kid and they hated that.

[Podcast Host]

Literally. I feel like my entire life it's made no sense.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Okay, so what happens your entire life? The area of your brain, let's just call it the math area, which is the inferior parietal lobe. Inferior parietal lobe hasn't developed as much as your other areas because you haven't used it it, right. You kind of avoided math, let's say your whole life. Or let's say someone has a different scenario. They were uncoordinated, no one picked them in sports. They never played sports because they were always clumsy. So they never developed their motor skills. So those motor pathways over their lifespan has less connectivity to each other, right? And maybe in your, in your case, or someone isn't good at math, maybe the inferior parietal lobule with math is, doesn't have enough connectivity, right? So now you get things that start to generate the brain, right? Over time, just aging itself is going to turn on some of these processes more than before. More free radicals, less antioxidant production, all those things. The areas where you don't have as much connectivity, plasticity developed is where you're going to have symptoms first, right? So if your brain starts to go the wrong way, you're not going to have areas develop show up signs where you had lots of connectivity and plasticity. You can have areas show up where you had least amount of connectivity and plasticity. So people will say, well, I was always bad at math, but then I got over it and now it's really coming back. It's like, yeah, you Never really developed it didn't you compensate now, as your brain degenerating, those are coming back more. So. Same with car sickness. I have car sickness when I was a kid. I don't have it. I didn't have it to my whole adulthood. Now as I'm getting older, it's coming back. Yeah, because you're degenerating and the areas

[Podcast Host]

where you have the least amount, you said do the things that you can't do. So exposing myself to things that make me car sick will actually help me avoid that degeneration?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Technically, yes. But if you. Yeah. You can't exceed the rate of what your neurons can handle. Right. So visual tracking could be helpful. This is the world of, like, neurological rehabilitation and things like that. But for example, if this math is an issue, that's easy. You can get an app. You can get like a child's chest easy mat math app and start doing those same people that play video games and they do lots of motion and movement that helps them rebuild. But if they play too long, then they get dizzy and they get symptoms that develop. So every neuron, every neurological pathway has endurance based on how much mitochondria are there. So when you don't use certain neurons, then you have less mitochondria there. Just like if you use muscles, you have less muscle mitochondria, so then they have less endurance. Then as people get unhealth, as people start to degeneration, they have less neuron activity, less mitochondria, so they show up, and that's where their endurance in those areas are going to show up first. So if you activate those pathways without passing how much mitochondria activity you have, then you don't get symptoms and you can start to develop. Just like if you are out of shape and you try to run, you can only run so far, and then you have to back off and then run to your capacity. And then over time, you can build, run more and more. That's actually muscle mitochondria developing. That's allowing you to do that. Neurons work the same way. So whatever you can't do is you do what you want to do. So if driving for three hours makes you have car sickness, or driving a really windy road makes you have car sickness, then you want to drive in a less theoretically and less windy load over and over again, and then kind of build up, or if. Or go on a really windy road, but for not as long, and then do that repetitively. Do that repetitively. You're then building mitochondria in those pathways and you're building nerve growth factor release. I mean you cause nerve growth factors, neuro branching and then you start to get plasticity there and then you have recovery.

[Podcast Host]

It's very useful. Now if somebody wanted to supplement their way to success, are there things that we can do to protect our brains or.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Of course, yeah, you know these, I'm sure you're a pro at these.

[Podcast Host]

I actually avoid supplements.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. So I'm super leery of anything that I'm taking from the outside, but I'm open that's more a general rule than a hard and fast rule. Obviously. I've read the book so I know some of these punchlines. But I'd be very curious to hear what your take is on supplementation.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, it all depends what your goals are.

[Podcast Host]

Are living forever at Einsteinian levels of.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Well, specifically. So there's no magic supplement. What the brain needs more than anything is it needs activation specific to the area that you want function in. It needs to have reduced inflammation for whatever can reduce inflammation. And it needs physical exercise to get your heart rate up to release things like nitric oxide, nerve growth factor, brain drag, neurotropic factor. That's what the brain needs to have. The brain needs stimulation, the brain needs glucose, the brain needs oxygen. That's what it has to have to thrive. Right. So if you get someone who has lots of inflammation, that's going to be a problem. So maybe anti inflammatory supplements could be a strategy. You have someone who is chronically hypoglycemic, their blood sugar, they play roller coaster at the blood sugar all day. The brain is not going to function well there maybe for them stabilizing the blood sugar, taking nutraceuticals that help their blood sugar stability may be important for them. Right. You have another person who is fat phobic, doesn't eat any fats because they think fats are bad and they're worried about calories. So now they don't have healthy amounts of essential fatty acids.

[Podcast Host]

I did that for years.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

So it really made such a difference, man, to add fat into my diet. It's crazy.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Right? So there isn't a magic supplement. But it depends like as a, in a clinical world, like what is the clinical strategy? What am I trying to accomplish? Like if you have someone who's got Alzheimer's disease and they have B12 anemia contributing to it, then for sure supplementing B12 is going to have a huge impact on them. Right. Or if someone has high homocysteine and that's A, that's a inflammatory metabolite that really requires B vitamins. And some people have what are called single nucleotide polymorphisms, or genetically, they can't process B12 as much as other people can. They may not get enough from their diet, and their homocysteine is high, and they have Alzheimer's in their whole family, and they don't know why. And then someone measures the homocysteine and go, hey, you have to take a type of folate that goes over your genetic uniqueness, so you don't have this high elevation of this inflammatory degenerating marker. So maybe for them, supplementation can be very useful. So there's all those different variables and I'm not trying to not answer you. I'm just trying to.

[Podcast Host]

No, no, no, I get it, man. It's as complex as it is.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Dude, this is so interesting. The book is absolutely fantastic. Where can people follow along with you? You put out a lot of dope content.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Thank you, Dr. Knews-r k n e w dash dot com. That's where all my stuff's at.

[Podcast Host]

You didn't make them spell out your whole last name. I can't imagine why.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Yeah, right.

[Podcast Host]

That's awesome. And where can they get the book?

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Amazon. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Nice and easy. All right, guys, as somebody who's read the book, I'm telling you, check it out. Your brain is the thing that you literally are a brain in a vat. It just so happens that your skull is the vat. So taking care of your brain is critical. And the book lays out a lot more detail than what we were able to get to today. It's amazing. He's also got a lot of killer YouTube content, so be sure to check it out. And speaking of things that you should check out, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care.

[Dr. Datis Kharrazian]

Peace.