Brain Expert: These Common Habits SHRINK Your Brain – Alzheimer’s, Fatigue & Lost Joy | Daniel Amen

1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

   Dr. Amen, at this point in your career, you have scanned over two hundred and fifty thousand brains. From what you've seen, what would you say are some of the common daily habits that people engage with that are damaging their brain and potentially affecting things like their energy, joy, and motivation?

2. DADr. Daniel Amen0:23

   They've boughten into the lie that alcohol is a health food, or that marijuana is innocuous, or the food they eat doesn't really impact how they think, how they feel, how they act. That they scroll mindlessly and stay up later than is good for them. Uh, and I- it's so clear on my heart rate variability. If I don't get good sleep, my heart rate variability's less the next day, and that's a bad thing for people. Uh, I've been studying negativity, and whenever someone comes to Amen Clinics, we image them. That's what we're sort of famous for. But we also do a test on them that looks at 17 areas of cognitive and emotional functioning, and my favorite is conscious negativity bias. And so we looked at two thousand patients, and people who are high in negativity that, you know, whatever situation, they focus on what's wrong about that situation, they actually had less function in their frontal lobes. It's really a significant, powerful finding. So if you are biased toward negativity, it's a bad brain habit.

3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:53

   Okay, there are six things there that I wanna go through in detail because I think they're six very common things. But you mentioned your scan there, and of course, you and your clinic is very famous for this scan. I'm really interested in what that scan actually measures because we often order scans when something is wrong, right? Someone comes in, and we think, "Oh, there might be a lesion on their liver." We order a scan to look at it. But it sounds like you are approaching scanning and have approached scanning in quite a different way with these brain scans. So could you elaborate as to what the scan is and what the findings actually tell us?

4. DADr. Daniel Amen2:35

   So we do a study at Amen Clinics called brain SPECT imaging, S-P-E-C-T. It stands for single photon emission computed tomography. It's a nuclear medicine study that looks at blood flow, mitochondrial activity, forty-nine percent of the tracer is taken up in the mitochondria, and activity. And it basically tells us three things. For each area of the brain, good activity, too little, or too much, and then our job is to balance it. And like you, when something's wrong, when someone's anxious, when someone's depressed, when someone's angry, when someone is failing, when s- someone, their behavior is so bad they end up in jail, we wanna look at their brain and ask, "Well, why?" Um, you know, psychiatry is the only medical specialty that virtually never looks at the organ it treats, and that's as arrogant as it gets, that you think you know what's going on in someone's brain, they haven't told you, and now you're gonna start monkeying around changing their brain. And when I started looking at the brain, it literally changed everything. Most psychiatric illnesses are not mental health problems. They are brain health problems. If I get your brain healthy, you are less likely to be depressed. You're more likely to be a kind, thoughtful person, and your marriage is more likely to last. You're less likely to get Alzheimer's disease. And so just for me personally, it, it changed absolutely everything in my life. I was overweight when I first started scanning people, and then I realized as your weight goes up, the size and function of your brain goes down, and that was the one thing that motivated me to get to a healthy weight. So literally, from what I eat to how I think to how much I sleep, it's all because I looked at the brain, and I'm like, "Oh, this is an organ just like your heart is an organ. If my brain's not right, I'm not right."

5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:05

   Yeah, it's so fascinating. So m- so many things coming up for me, uh, Dr. Amen. It's interesting that in the medical field, we typically only image the brain if, I don't know, someone's had a fall and we think there might be a clot, right? Or someone might have fractured their skull, or we think there's a, a neurodegenerative condition that requires us to look at the brain, right? But we're not doing it, I don't think, anywhere near the, the rate in which you're doing it to look at, I guess, what, what people are calling mental health problems, right? So you mentioned depression, anxiety, these kind of things. Most doctors are not referring their patients for a scan at that point. As I sort of immerse myself in your work, you're making a strong case that that's important to do so, and I'd love you to explain why it's so important for all of these cases. But also then help me understand the, the exact utilization for a scan such as the one that your clinic offers.

6. DADr. Daniel Amen6:11

   So I did the big NFL study, the National Football League, on, you know, professional American footballers. And it was at a time when the NFL was sort of lying. They had a problem with traumatic brain injury in football. And I'd scanned 400 NFL players, high levels of damage. So stop lying about it. Playing football's a brain-damaging sport. And soccer's not much different. Uh, 80% of my players get better, meaning they're clinically better, but their brains are better. And I published that study. And what we did was a multiple vitamin with high doses of B6, B12, and folate. Um, high dose of omega-3 fatty acids and a brain boost that works in six different ways. And I'm like a little kid, so excited 'cause I've known for 34 years, that's how long we've been doing the imaging, that I can change your brain. And when I do, I change your life. But to be able to prove it in brain-damaged people, how exciting-

7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:29

   Mm-hmm

8. DADr. Daniel Amen7:29

   ... is that? And you've heard of CTE-

9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:33

   Yeah

10. DADr. Daniel Amen7:33

    ... chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the dementia football and soccer players and boxers get. Um, I don't think we think about it right. I mean, 'cause CTE's an autopsy diagnosis. You know, that's, you gotta be dead in order to get that diagnosis. I can completely tell, and have published research on it, that brain SPECT imaging, what we do, is one of the best studies in the world to look at concussions and the functional effects of traumatic brain injury. But then to be able to demonstrate you're not stuck with the damage you have, you can make it better, it's, it's so exciting-

11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee8:23

    Yeah

12. DADr. Daniel Amen8:24

    ... uh, to me. And l- literally every day, you are making your brain better by what you do, or you're making it worse. And, you know, one question for a STEM hack, uh, I worked with BJ Fogg, who's a professor at Stanford, on how people change, and I worked with him for six months developing tiny habits. You know, what's the smallest thing I can do today that will make the biggest difference? And it's this one question. Whenever I go to do something today, and now with the negativity bias paper, whenever I go to think something today, just ask yourself, "Is this good for my brain or bad for it?" And if it's bad for it and you love yourself, stop doing it. Um, choose good. And then, of course, it always comes up, um, we have a high school course called Brain Thrive by 25, where we teach kids to love and care for their brain, and the week we talk about things to avoid, you know, and we've talked about some of them, alcohol, bad food, marijuana, not sleeping, scrolling. You know, invariably, a 14-year-old boy raises his hand and goes, "How can you have any fun?" And we play a game with the kids called Who Has More Fun, the kid with the good brain or the kid with the bad brain? I turned 70 this year, and it's like, "Hey, Daniel, what do you really want? Energy, memory, focus, passion, purpose." That's what I really want. So when I look at these other things, how can you have any fun, it's like, I'm gonna have a heck of a lot more fun if my brain is healthy than if I become a burden to my family.

13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee10:18

    Yeah. Very, very powerful. Um, you mentioned American football. You also mentioned, well, what we call football here in the UK, but you guys refer to as soccer. And I'm really interested, as the research mounts up that, you know, having a trauma to your head, having, you know, your head bump into things, has long-term consequences, we understand with American football it's a, it's a vigorous, aggressive game. In football or soccer, um, it is still common for people to head the ball, okay? So my question is, what is the implication of that, and do you think in, I don't know, in 10 years' time, f- football or, or soccer will have changed its rules whereby heading is no longer a feature of the game?

14. DADr. Daniel Amen11:16

    You know, American football has already changed so much.

15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee11:19

    In what way has it changed?

16. DADr. Daniel Amen11:22

    They're really working hard to take the head out of the game. So where 20 years ago, if someone tackled s- another person by using their head to hit them in the head and take them down, n- now they'll be thrown out of the game. Now they'll be penalized severely. American football used to have the kickoff where people would be 50 yards apart and then run and... You know, and now they don't do that anymore. They basically completely changed the kickoff. And when it comes to soccer, um, the American Youth Soccer Organization banned heading for kids 10 and under. Now, when I saw that, I'm like, "Well, don't you like 11-year-old children? Or don't you like 12-year-old children?" Because, you know, until you're 25-The brain undergoes wild development, and, um, it's never a good thing.

17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:25

    Mm.

18. DADr. Daniel Amen12:25

    Your brain is soft. So think with me. Your brain is soft, about the consistency of soft butter. Your skull is really hard and has sharp, bony ridges. It's never a good idea to hit the soccer ball with your head. But that's not the only traumatic brain injury in soccer.

19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:48

    Yeah.

20. DADr. Daniel Amen12:48

    It's hitting it with your head, heads hitting heads, heads hitting knees, heads hitting elbows, heads hitting the ground. There is a lot of physical contact in soccer at the higher levels of play. And, um, there are a number of studies, uh, on soccer players showing lower IQs, more impulsivity, and an increased incidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:19

    Yeah. I mean, it's, it's clearly a good thing that there is now, you know, a regulation that under 10s don't head the ball. Okay, that's better than what it was, but of course, as you're saying, it needs to be expanded out. And I've also looked at this research, and it kind of... I haven't seen the scans like you have, but from what I can tell, it seems inconceivable to me [laughs] that at some point in the future, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, we might look back and go, "Oh, wow, do you remember in soccer where they used, when they used to head the ball?" Right? Because we don't do it anymore. I mean, I do believe that that may well come at some point. I, again, I don't know what these organizations are thinking. Have you seen the brains of many rugby players in your clinics?

22. DADr. Daniel Amen14:07

    I have. Uh, I actually have Danny Cipriani's brain, who is a famous-

23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:13

    Yeah

24. DADr. Daniel Amen14:13

    ... rugby player. He did my show. I do a show on Instagram. It's part of our podcast, Change Your Brain Every Day. And, uh, he's so much better after we scanned him, saw the trouble, gave him a program. And, uh, yeah, I think he loves me. [laughs] Because, you know, when you have a better brain, everything in your life is better. And rugby, of course, is not good for your brain. But if you even think of how American football has evolved, you know, they used to not really have any helmets.

25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:49

    Mm.

26. DADr. Daniel Amen14:49

    And then they had leather helmets, and now they have these, you know, huge-

27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:56

    Yeah

28. DADr. Daniel Amen14:57

    ... heavy helmets, uh, that are protecting. And I love the idea of neuroscience leading to public policy. So for example, um, social media is bad for kids. The research-- There's no good research on social media improves mental health development.

29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:20

    Mm.

30. DADr. Daniel Amen15:20

    And so Australia banned social media for children under the age of 16. Um, we know if children don't sleep, they have a higher incidence of anxiety, depression, and suicide. California banned public schools from starting before eight o'clock in the morning. Um, I was just involved in, uh, a bill in Arizona where they're banning ultra-processed foods to be sold on school campuses. And, and I, I love being part of the transformation.

Episode duration: 1:25:01