Transcript #490 Top Ways You Can Combat Alzheimer’s with Dr. Heather Sandison
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- Find out what’s in store on this Myers Detox Podcast with Dr. Heather Sandison, who joins the show to talk about the top things you can do to combat Alzheimer’s, helping to dramatically reduce its symptoms, and prevent it if you haven’t been diagnosed yet. We talk about the heavy metals that can promote Alzheimer’s and dementia, the correct supplementation for combating the disease, and the many risk factors, like genetics and lifestyle, that contribute to the disease. Dr. Sandison also goes over the 15 things that you can do to dramatically reduce your chances of developing Alzheimer’s, and her incredible Reversing Alzheimer’s summit that I was grateful to participate in.
- Learn about Heather’s background and why she decided to focus on Alzheimer’s and dementia.
- Find out why there is always something you can do to combat Alzheimer’s.
- Learn about the prevalence of Alzheimer’s, and the likelihood of developing it.
- Find out Dr. Sandison’s top piece of advice for an Alzheimer’s patient caretaker.
- Learn about the many underlying root causes of Alzheimer’s including heavy metals, toxins, nutrient balances, and genetics.
- Find out the top heavy metal and toxins that can contribute to Alzheimer’s, and how to detox them.
- Find out how social media can also play a role in the development of Alzheimer’s.
- Learn about Dr. Sandison’s incredible Reversing Alzheimer’s summit, and what to expect if you join it.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Hello, I’m Dr. Wendy Meyers. Welcome to the Meyers Detox Podcast. Today, we have a show on reversing Alzheimer’s and how to do that. And yes, you can reverse Alzheimer’s or dramatically improve it. And I have a naturopathic doctor, Dr. Heather Sandison, on the show today, and she’s hosting a summit called Reversing Alzheimer’s. And I’m talking about how heavy metals promote Alzheimer’s and how to detox those heavy metals on the summit.
And on the summit, she has amazing speakers. She has Dr. Mark Hyman, she has Dr. Daniel Amen, and so many other experts on brain health and all the cutting-edge research on what you can do to reverse Alzheimer’s. We touch on many of those things on the show today, including the heavy metals that cause Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. We talk about supplementation and minerals, we talk about blood sugar control, and healthy fats. We talk about just sleep and so many other different risk factors, genetics and lifestyle, and other things. And the 15 things that you can do to dramatically reduce your chances of developing Alzheimer’s.
And so, again, we talk about the APOE gene and what your genetics can tell you about your risk factor, whether you have a 13%, 30%, or 50% chance of developing Alzheimer’s based on your genetics. And so lots of really good important information on the show today.
So I know you guys are listening; you are concerned about your toxic burden. You’re concerned about how heavy metals and toxins are affecting your cognition, your brain health, your memory, and even your emotions, so I created a quiz at heavymetalsquiz.com. Take two seconds, and go take the quiz. And after you get your results, you get a free video series on how to detox, what tests you need to do, what supplements work for detoxification, and how long it needs to take. And I answer all of your burning questions in a free video series after you take the quiz at heavymetalsquiz.com.
Our guest today, Dr. Heather Sandison, she’s a naturopathic doctor who is dedicated to her career to supporting those suffering from dementia. She’s created unique, successful solutions for patients and caregivers using clinical, residential research, and educational platforms. She also hosts the annual Reversing Alzheimer’s Summit, which has reached over 80,000 people around the world. And she’s currently working on a book that’ll be published by Harper Collins in 2024 and a tech AI product to scale her impact and work towards her goal of making dementia rare and optional.
She’s excited to shatter common misconceptions about Alzheimer’s and share what she’s learned about keeping your brain sharp at any age. You can learn more about Dr. Heather Sandison and her work at drheathersandison.com.
Dr. Sandison, thank you so much for joining the show.
Dr. Heather Sandison: Thanks so much for having me.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to focus on dementia and Alzheimer’s in particular.
Dr. Heather Sandison: Yeah, absolutely. So I am a naturopathic doctor. So did four years of medical training after undergrad, and really the dementia and Alzheimer’s work, it found me. I was curious but very skeptical that there was anything you could do about Alzheimer’s. I had been told by most people out there that there wasn’t anything that you could do. To suggest as a doctor that you could reverse or treat Alzheimer’s would be to do harm. It would be to give people false hope and that there was no cure, there was no answer. There were some medications, but they didn’t work very well. And essentially, what you would expect was demise and a long, awful torturous goodbye.
And so then, in practice, a few years into my medical practice, I was curious about the brain. Of course, as an intellectual and as a doctor, I come from a family of doctors and attorneys and people who really value their cognitive function. And I think we all do, of course. It’s that classic. Would you rather lose your brain or your body? It’s always my body. I would need to keep my brain.
And so I was personally curious, but also, more and more patients were coming to me asking about optimizing cognitive function, either for performance or helping their children with ADD, ADHD, anxiety, mental health disorders, anxiety, depression, bipolar. And so I was more and more curious about the brain. And I was at a conference on the brain, and I saw Dr. Bredesen speak, and he was describing how using his approach, you could reverse Alzheimer’s. And I was a little dumbfounded. I was like, “Wait, what?” He’s saying the opposite. He’s this Duke-trained neurologist who started the Buck Center for Aging and has worked at UCLA and UCSF.
And so this very, very highly credible person is saying that you could reverse Alzheimer’s. And the way he was describing it made a ton of common sense to me, especially with our naturopathic training. It was very robust. It wasn’t about picking one thing or adding one pill or one IV therapy. It was really about getting this comprehensive understanding of how that person’s brain had gotten off track.
And so this includes, as you are an expert at the toxins and the detox processes, and he was including toxins. He was including workup for infections. He was including a workup for hormonal dysregulation. He included targeting sleep and stress and exercise, and all of these basic foundational pieces. We call them the foundations of health and naturopathic medicine.
And so this made sense to me in a conceptual way, but I was still totally skeptical. Because there was this one guy saying that you could do this impossible thing. So I was intrigued enough that I went and did his training. And when I got back from his training, I was on his list of people who had been trained by him. And so I had patients start showing up. And sure enough, I started witnessing miracles happen in my clinic. I discovered that not only is it factually inaccurate to tell people there’s nothing you can do about Alzheimer’s. It’s just cruel. And I think I have a moral obligation to tell people how much you can do to reverse Alzheimer’s and to optimize cognitive function at any age.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Man, there’s always something you can do. No matter what condition you have, there’s always something you can do. You may just be limited by the doctor you’re talking to and his tool set. That’s the only limitation, really.
Dr. Heather Sandison: Really. I mean, it’s so frustrating. And as we know, the human body it’s designed to heal, and this includes the human brain. I have seen people with severe Alzheimer’s get better. Now, I want the refrain of this conversation to be like, act now. Don’t wait until you have severe Alzheimer’s. You don’t want that end stage, where there’s structural damage that’s far progressed. It’s just so much harder to get better. But we have had patients who are non-verbal start speaking again, read name tags, and read simple things again. People who couldn’t even speak. And this has moved me to tears over and over and over again.
And yet that’s not what I want anyone to do. I want everyone to know before they have cognitive decline, or at those very early stages, where you’re like finding that word, you would’ve found it 10 years ago, but now you struggle. Or you notice you’re losing your train of thought or more easily overwhelmed, or you forget where you parked your car. Those kinds of things start happening, and you realize your brain has changed from five or 10 years ago; that’s the moment to get started.
Or if you know there’s Alzheimer’s in your family, you have maybe a genetic predisposition; the time to start is in your 20s, 30s, or 40s. And there are so, so, so many things that you can do. I mean, it’s wild to me. I was reading something today about companionship versus loneliness, having a community, and having those social connections. Having five social connections, meaningful social connections in your life reduces your risk of Alzheimer’s by 50%. And when you start stacking that with exercise and diet and good sleep, all of a sudden, you’ve reduced your risk of Alzheimer’s by really, really considerable amounts.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And this is such an important podcast for people to listen to and utilize the advice in this show because it talks to us about the prevalence of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. I mean, it’s very, very common. I mean, there are many lifestyle factors involved. But tell us what the prevalence of Alzheimer’s and people’s likelihood of dealing with this at some point in their life or a loved one is?
Dr. Heather Sandison: So the prevalence of Alzheimer’s is only growing, and part of this is because of the baby boomers. We have so many people who are approaching that age where they’re at the highest risk. So there are modifiable risk factors, and then there are non-modifiable risk factors. And we can’t address our chronological age. We’ve been on the planet so long; there’s nothing we can do about that. And older age is one of the highest risk factors, of course. Being female is a high-risk factor. But this is from a very well established journal; it’s out of the Lancet in the UK, a very credible journal. There are 15 modifiable risk factors that we can do something about.
And these include things like social isolation and the amount of education, exposure to toxins, which we’ll talk about in more depth activity, not smoking, and maintaining proper blood pressure; there are so, so, so many things that we can do to reduce the risk. And that being said, there are so many people approaching this age where they’re at high risk. And lots of people are not aware of these modifiable risk factors because they’ve been told, “There’s nothing you can do,” over and over again.
So today, in the US, there are about six million people who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. And Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia. But there are others like Lewy body, frontotemporal dementia, and vascular dementia. There are other types of dementia. And it’s funny, if you ask a doctor who’s in their 70s or 80s, they say, “Wasn’t it called senile dementia? Why all of a sudden is it called Alzheimer’s?” And part of this has been marketing. In dementia, you think of someone demented. It has this very negative connotation. Where when you think of someone with Alzheimer’s, you imagine them kind of in a wheelchair, with no short-term memory and really dependent on others.
And there’s this sort of compassion like, oh, how awful feeling that we have. It’s terrifying for us to think about getting it. But this Alzheimer’s word, it’s been a marketing ploy. And this has happened several times throughout the course of history. Really the proper word is probably dementia. And to have it under that umbrella of dementia.
Regardless, there are about 50 million people on the planet who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. And these numbers are astounding in and of themselves. But then, when you look at the cost, the financial cost of what it takes to take care of someone with Alzheimer’s and the societal burden. It’s not just that one person who has Alzheimer’s, those six million individuals in the US, it’s the spouse and the daughter and the other people who all have to rally and reduce their work hours, or not be as present parenting or make other sacrifices to show up for that person who’s struggling with dementia. That’s when you start to see the real cost.
Because we have so many people aging, this is only becoming a bigger and bigger proportion of our society. And it’s really heartbreaking to me because here are our elders at the height of their wisdom and experience with so much to offer and so much to give. And often, they end up in memory care facilities, sort of locked away and not able to give those gifts back to the next generation. And so, really, my career has been dedicated to creating solutions and changing the narrative so that people can act now, act early, and not go down that arduous path.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah, I mean, it is; it’s terrible to watch our loved one go through that. And it’s a tremendous burden. I watched it with my family. My mother’s mother developed dementia, and she has three other siblings. And there was so much fighting about who was going to take care of her. And the one that did take care of her was resentful of the others. And there’s just a lot of conflict. And caregivers get ill as well because we’re working so hard.
Dr. Heather Sandison: Caregivers actually have anywhere from two and a half to six times the risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s later in life. And this is really scary. I mean, this is terrifying.
Dr. Wendy Myers: It’s stressful.
Dr. Heather Sandison: It’s very stressful. Often for a caregiver, you’re not getting sleep because your sleep is interrupted now. The person with Alzheimer’s isn’t sleeping well. You don’t take care of yourself in terms of exercise, a good diet, or your own social connections and time for yourself. If you’re a caregiver for someone with dementia right now, there’s one piece of advice if you take nothing else away, please create an eight-hour block, one day for yourself, where you don’t have anything to do, where it is just entirely yours.
That will help you maintain your sanity and reduce the burden of caring for someone with this disease. And also it forces you to get some partnership in caring for this person. It cannot be done alone. It’s not okay to ask that of yourself. And I know everyone struggles with a little bit of guilt, typically. But waiting until you are desperate and backed into a corner, you won’t have the best potential partner in caregiving for your loved one.
You’re going to end up desperate. And so getting ahead of that and having that relationship, whether it’s someone else in your family or someone that you pay, whatever it means for you, finding that another care partner is so critically important to reducing your own risk.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah, absolutely. Because I think people feel so much guilt about putting their loved one in a care facility or it’s incredibly expensive and out of reach. So let’s talk about some of the underlying root causes. So toxins, heavy metals, a big underlying risk factor, and direct and indirect causes of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. What are we looking at here? What’s causing this?
Dr. Heather Sandison: So typically, I think of a kind of bucket. And Dr. Bredesen, my mentor, describes them as the different types of subtypes of Alzheimer’s. And they’re not mutually exclusive. So you can have multiple types. And the buckets I put it into are toxic. So imbalances, these are imbalances too much, too little, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some sort of imbalance in these signals or in toxins or nutrients.
So toxins are one bucket, and I think of them in three flavors. You mentioned heavy metals. We also have mold or mycotoxins that come from water-damaged buildings, sometimes from food sources. And then we have chemical toxins, things like plastics, pesticides, herbicides, parabens, PCBs, things that are found in water, or things we put on our bodies that get absorbed. Those are the three different flavors of toxins that we look for.
And I love that people have access to someone like you who’s really an expert in this because these are the root causes of so many diseases. And typically, what happens is, in Alzheimer’s, that toxic exposure is then coupled with maybe a genetic predisposition. So now you turn on those genes that put you at risk for Alzheimer’s because of that toxic burden.
And what I love about toxins is like once you identify the exposure and you help support your body in getting rid of them, all of the natural processes of getting rid of them, we can check that box and move on. It’s done. Just don’t expose yourself again. And educating yourself, understanding the risks where they’re coming from, you can kind of create a lifestyle where you’re not exposed to those, and we can kind of set it aside and put it behind us.
And then, so toxic exposure, nutrient balance is another piece. You can have too much sugar, and that causes glycotoxicity or toxicity associated with glucose, which leads to diabetes. And sometimes, we talk about Alzheimer’s as type 3 diabetes. It’s a manifestation of diabetes, so you have too much sugar arriving in the brain. And it either causes these glycation end products, or it’s where you’re essentially caramelizing your cells. And it also can create insulin resistance and an inability to make ATP, or the energy run on in the brain, out of sugar.
And the amazing thing here is that we can switch to burning fat for fuel. So you can go into ketosis, you can switch up the energy source from sugar to fat, and that is a great way to enhance cognition, particularly if you have that sort of insulin resistance or that inability to turn sugar into fuel in the brain.
And then you also have deficiencies. So you can have too much of a nutrient, or you can have too little of something like B12 or the amino acids that help us to make our neurotransmitters or vitamin C. And these can be functional deficiencies. So functional deficiency would be like maybe you’re meeting your RDA, but you’re not optimizing function by really having enough. And so we take a deep dive into that.
We look at stressors. And stress, again, you can have too much or too little. When you’re in retirement, some people think of this as, “Okay, I’ve worked my life, and now it’s time to kick my feet up and watch TV,” and they’re not getting cognitive engagement. And this is definitely a situation where if you don’t use it, you’re going to lose it. And so we want to make sure that people have that sense of purpose and challenge and that they’re living their life on purpose. And that requires a little bit of friction. You got to bump up against your skill level, or you got to create some challenges.
And then, on the other side, there are people who just turn into worrywarts as they age. And that can be really stressful on the body, too much on the brain. Too much cortisol is toxic to the hippocampus, the memory center in our brain. It also affects the amygdala if we’re experiencing trauma. And many of us can relate to being in a stressful situation, and our brain doesn’t work. We can’t find our words. We can’t put concepts together. Or stage fright is a very classic example of this.
Also, sleep is really, really important. Getting enough sleep is critical to cognitive function for many reasons, including the detox process. The brain detoxifies through the glymphatic system at night when we’re sleeping. And if we’re depriving ourselves of that sleep, even people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s will have a buildup of amyloid plaques associated with dementia after just one night of sleep deprivation. So over time, this leads to an increased risk of dementia.
So we have imbalances and toxins, nutrients, stressors, and then structure. The structure I think of as both macro structures, the way your orthopedist or your chiropractor might think of it, is your hip bone connected to your leg bone sort of a thing? Can you get blood flow into your brain and out of it efficiently? If not, then we need some structural components. Are you breathing? Is your airway staying patient or staying open at night so that you can, you’re not having apnea events and starving your brain of oxygen?
We can also think of structure as that molecular structure, that genetic component. So some people, very, very few, have the more extreme genetic risk factors of the APP, the amyloid precursor protein, or the PSEN 1 and 2. This is very, very rare, but it puts people at risk for early-onset dementia.
So that doesn’t mean those early stages of dementia, but it means earlier onset in your life so in the 40s and 50s. This is extremely rare, but I have several patients who have this, and we’re working hard to prevent it. And sure enough, they’re getting to ages where they’re older than their siblings before they start noticing symptoms. So there’s certainly something we can do there.
The vast majority of people, when we think about genetics, we’re thinking about the APOE status. So APOE has to do with your apolipoproteins, and sometimes people equate this with cholesterol. And sure enough, this has to do with fat metabolism, and it also has to do with your propensity to develop Alzheimer’s later in life. So we were talking a little bit about prevalence, and with this genetic risk factor, there is a difference compared to the wild type or the normal population.
So most people walking around don’t know their APOE status. The likelihood that they will develop Alzheimer’s in their life is 13%. If you have one copy, you get two copies, one from Mom and one from Dad. If you have one copy of APOE4, so you either have a 2/4 or 3/4, you have a 30% chance or about a one in three chance of developing Alzheimer’s, which is significantly higher than that 13% chance. Now if you have two copies of APOE 4/4, you have a 50% chance of developing Alzheimer’s in your lifetime, so a one-in-two chance. And this is considerably high.
And so this means if we know about this, we can act earlier. We can do things ahead of time to reduce that risk. One of the more hopeful books I’ve read this year is by Becca Levy, a researcher out of Yale, called Breaking the Age Code. You can completely negate that risk. A 100% get rid of that risk of an APOE4 status, whether it’s one, four, or two, by having a positive association with aging; being surrounded by people who revere your wisdom and experience and appreciate and value it; by imagining that life is just getting better and better. And what I like to think of is channeling Betty White, just really focusing on the fun and how much you have to offer, and keeping yourself creative and engaged in the community and in your work and your passions, and just loving life, that reduces your risk.
In the last one, we talked about toxins, nutrients, stressors, structure, and then infections. So there’s a handful of infections that put us at risk of cognitive decline. Many people who have experienced COVID can speak to this. After COVID, it feels like your brain is going through a fog, or there are spiderwebs in there, cobwebs in there. It can be really hard to get rid of that brain fog, and your cognition isn’t back online.
This is because of that cytokine storm. Those inflammatory cytokines are basically preventing your brain from working optimally. So we know it is associated, so is herpes one and two, as is Lyme, Lyme infections, and then also P. gingivalis, which can affect the gums. And if you look up pretty much any H.pylori, I was researching the other day, H.pylori and the connection to cognition, and sure enough, you can find that many of these infections will affect cognition at some level.
Now, we can reduce that infectious burden by reducing stress, optimizing sleep, optimizing nutrients, and getting rid of those toxins that can suppress immune function. So we do all of these things together from a medical perspective to help optimize our cognitive function. And we have measurable results that show that people, even with measurable cognitive decline, improve that cognition meaningfully.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Well, I’m going to go check my genetics again. After that rundown, I’m like, “Ooh, what’s my percentage?” I got to go check my 23andme. Yeah, but it’s good to have that knowledge and maybe that fire under your ass, to go and make changes.
Dr. Heather Sandison: We get a colonoscopy around 50 to see if we have colon cancer; we’re at risk for colon cancer; of course, we should be doing something like that for our brain. And I love it because it just kind of makes you laugh, like, oh yeah, I should get this really thorough workup to understand if my brain is at risk, and then do what I can about it so that it doesn’t become this downhill slide.
Dr. Wendy Myers: And chances are that there are a lot of risk factors that you have based on past diet, lifestyle, toxin exposure, and things of that nature. And that so many of us fall prey to bad fats and sugar intake and high blood pressure, high blood sugar; there are so many things working against our brains. And so back to the infections, luckily, infections are really easy to address with Rife technology, and you can target really any infection and get rid of those fairly easily.
And that’s something I love. I love easy, simple, effective tools like Rife. And I use this Spooky2 Rife, and I’m just totally addicted to it for so many reasons. But you guys can go to spooky2.com to check that out. So I want to talk a little bit more about heavy metals and toxins. What specific heavy metals are you finding in the research that is promoting Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia? And how?
Dr. Heather Sandison: So Mercury is the one that is most closely linked to cognitive decline. And it’s just so directly neurotoxic. And I have seen patients where I think that this is the thing causing their dementia. And sure enough, when we get rid of it, when we move it out gently but effectively, we see an improvement in cognition.
And so, I moved away from using the chelation, the IV chelation, and IV provocations because my population is older, and they tend to be women. Women are disproportionately affected by Alzheimer’s, both as caregivers and then as patients as well. About two-thirds of Alzheimer’s patients are women. Osteoporosis comes hand in hand with dementia because of this population. And so the chelation, I feel like, has some risk associated.
If I were working with a younger population, that’s how I was trained, lots of chelation. I think it can be very, very safe and very effective. However, because of the patient population I’m working with, I feel like the risk-benefit analysis is a little bit different. And so, I tend to use a silica product developed by Chris Shade at Quicksilver, which I find to be very effective. And it’s a binder.
So it’s called IMD, or Intestinal Metal Detox, and it binds specifically to both arsenic and Mercury. And so that pulls it out, and I find that it works as quickly as the IVs, but with much less risk and much less cost, and from the comfort of your own home, instead of needing to go into a doctor’s office for an IV. So that has been something; as I’ve learned more, I’ve switched things up, and that was a big change in my practice, but we find that very effective.
And then making sure there’s enough of the good minerals, the manganese and the magnesium and the zinc and everything that’s needed, plus all boron and silicon, vanadium, and I mean, the laundry list is long, of course, calcium and sodium and, I mean, I could just go on and on. But having that good mix of minerals is so important to detoxification, and then also to brain health, to cognition, to neurotransmitter balance, to bone health, to all of these things as we age.
And I think there was sort of a disservice done around vilifying fats and salt. I think fat and salt are really, really important in the right type. So getting the healthy ones, especially those minerals in the form of sea salt, where it comes in that really healthy balance. And then good healthy fats. And phosphorylcholine, which helps with emulsification and also with the viscosity of our bile, is really important for getting rid of heavy metals and all toxins that are going to come through the liver and be detox detoxified that way.
So I like a gentle detox and really looking at all of those organs of elimination. We’re going to detoxify heavy metals primarily through our bowels, so through having a bowel movement. If I have a patient who’s not having a daily bowel movement, that is step number one is just getting those bowel movements regular. Sometimes we need to think about enemas or colonics, even on a really invasive kind of side, sometimes just as easy as adding more water, more movement, more fiber, things that are going to get our bowels moving and really optimize that.
So bowels and then liver support, getting good kidney support, drinking good healthy mineral water that’s not contaminated, getting us sweating, moving toxins that way. And then using the breath as a detox organ. And as we optimize all of those organs of elimination, it makes it easier to get rid of any toxin in the system.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah, I think so many people today, their bowels are not moving, they’re constipated, or they think they’re going to the bathroom, but not as much as they probably should be. And those toxins just reabsorb back in the bloodstream and wreak havoc, and the liver has to deal with them over and over and over.
And also people listening, I think so many people just shortchange their sleep, or they think I’ll sleep when I’m dead, or when I’m taking a dirty nap. Or especially guys listening that you’re in your teens, and you’re amazing if you’re listening to the show and you’re a teenager and in your 20s because your body regenerates so easily, you just think that, “Oh, I can skip sleep.” But over the years, when you shortchange yourself on sleep for one, two, or three decades, you are paying the price for that down the road in your brain health, whether you realize that or not because of detoxification, regeneration, this very active process that happens when you are sleeping.
Dr. Heather Sandison: Yeah, it’s scary just the way screens have taken over our lives. And even the head position of having your neck down this, it goes back to that structural component of can you get enough blood flow in and out of your brain? Not if your head is tilted down, looking at a screen constantly. Our bodies are meant to be upright and walk a lot of the day, not staring at a screen.
And so I think that there are many, many, many mechanisms, the mental health component of constantly comparing yourself to everybody else’s best, that leads to anxiety and depression. The social isolation that comes from not knowing how to interface with people in person. Social isolation is one of these modifiable risk factors. We know that being isolated puts you at risk of dementia. And I worry that kids are not able to communicate with people in person. And some of these ramifications of COVID, of going online.
And then the blue light. I mean, the list of potential mechanisms of how all of this screen time and social media and how much of our lives are spent on the screen, it’s just radical to think of all of the ways that it’s really damaging and really hindering our ability to live as humans the way we’re designed to. And asking one generation to adapt to that, it’s unreasonable.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah, I know. It drives me nuts because of that algorithm on Instagram because they just show you exactly what you want to see, and you just keep watching it. It’s just entertaining. And it’s just showing you the travel stuff you want to see and the cooking or whatever you want to look at. It just keeps you on that screen. And then, two hours go by, you’re like, “What? How did this happen?” And then you lose that sleep time. So I’m having to put some rules and some boundaries around Instagram.
And then also the blue light, which will suppress melatonin production, which you need to detox your brain at night. So there’s just a lot of this domino effect happening that can accumulate over years that impact your brain. So you have a summit coming up that you do every June called the Reversing Alzheimer’s Summit. Can you tell us about that? Because you guys need to sign up for this and implement the tools that all the experts are talking about at this summit. It’s very, very important.
Dr. Heather Sandison: Thank you so much. It’s such a privilege to be able to put this summit on. I get to interview people like you. I get to connect with colleagues and learn the latest in what people are discovering. You and I talked about aluminum, which I don’t even test for, and I really just appreciate the things . I am now doing the hair metal testing again; I had kind of let that go. But after talking to you, this is just one example of one of those things that I learned from doing the summit that I’m then able to implement in my practice, or at Marama, at the residential care facility.
And putting this summit on every year, it’s a ton of work, but I get so much out of it. And I just absolutely love it and feel so privileged to be in this position of being able to talk to all these people. And it’s so much fun to hear from our listeners and the people that attend about how much they get out of it, how much they start implementing, and how inspiring it is. And so I just can’t wait for people to come and make that one change or get that one insight that really changes how they’re living their life so that they get better outcomes over the long term. They live healthier and longer, and more connected into more fulfilling lives.
So that starts June 13th, 2023. June 13th through 19th is when that summit is free and available. And you can sign up. If you just Google Dr. Heather Sandison’s Reverse Alzheimer’s Summit, that will pop up. It’s the third one that I have done. And they just keep getting better and better. So you’ll see Mark Hyman, and of course, my co-host and my mentor, Dr. Dale Bredesen is there, and he’s interviewing people. And then Dr. David Perlmutter and many, many other really phenomenal doctors who are really pushing the cutting edge and the research in how to help people reduce the suffering associated with Alzheimer’s.
Dr. Wendy Myers: What is the website name again?
Dr. Heather Sandison: It’s kind of a long one, but it’s drtalks.com/reverse-alzheimers-summit/.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Okay, great.
Dr. Heather Sandison: So I don’t know if we can put that in the show notes. But if you Google Reverse Alzheimer’s Summit, Heather Sandison, it will pop up. And just look for the 3.0 version; that’s the 2023 Reverse Alzheimer’s Summit.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Okay, great. And I was honored to be among all these esteemed speakers and talk about how heavy metals affect the brain. And it’s something that I love talking about, so if you guys want to check out my talk, go sign up for the summit. It’s totally free during that time frame, June 13th and 19th. So check that out.
And also another thing that I think is really important to talk about is this bioenergetic component of healing the brain. And there’s an amazing device called the Equiscope. So it’s a device I actually have. I actually have it right here if you guys can check this out. It’s in my room. It’s this gigantic metal suitcase-looking thing. But it can reestablish electrical connections in the brain. And people can have very, very quick, astounding results in dramatically improving their dementia very, very quickly because it reestablishes the electrical connections in the brain. And there are a lot of other things that I can’t really put into words. But I think that’s incredible technology. I use it for facials.
Dr. Heather Sandison: If it did that to my brain, I’d be like, “I’ll love it.”
Dr. Wendy Myers: And it addresses pain, addresses a lot of different things, but that’s the application I’m using it for. But tremendous promising results for Alzheimer’s. So I wanted to mention that. I don’t know the website, but just look up Equiscope, and you’ll get more information on that. But Heather, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast today. Do you have any parting words or anything else that you wanted to communicate to the audience?
Dr. Heather Sandison: Just the take home is that Alzheimer’s is optional for the vast majority of people. And there’s always hope, no matter what the neurologist is telling you. Unfortunately, they’re misinformed at the moment. And to find that doctor that is following the Bredesen protocol that can get you the answers that you need to make progress is absolutely possible. Now, it’s not always easy, but there is so much that you can do to reverse Alzheimer’s and optimize cognitive function at any age.
Dr. Wendy Myers: Yeah, fantastic. Yes, I agree. Yes, there’s so much you can do, and don’t wait, start today. You can implement all these things we talked about today. So Dr. Sandison, thanks for tuning in. I’d love to interview your co-host as well. I’m sure he has lots of pearls of wisdom as well to share.
But everyone, thanks for tuning in. Go check out the Reversing Alzheimer-‘s Summit. And just thank you for your presence today and tuning in, and I will talk to you guys next week.
