Dr. John Oertle, Solidarity HealthShare’s Chief Medical Officer, joined The BS show to discuss brain health awareness month. Read the transcript below or listen to the interview.
Bob Sansevere (00:00):
We are joined by Dr. John Oertle, the Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer for Solidarity HealthShare at solidarityhealthshare.org. Dr. John, as you well know because written about it, it marks Alzheimer’s and Brain Health Awareness Month, and you were just saying off the air that there are ways to reduce the incidence or the possibility of Alzheimer’s up to 45% by doing certain things, and I’m sure you’re going to touch on them. What could help people and at what age do you have to start? I mean, can you get to like 70 and say, you know what, I think I’ll start doing these things. I heard Dr. Oertle say, I mean, at what age do you start doing the things to make life better for you or really anytime you do it, it’s only going to be better for you?
Dr. John Oertle (00:50):
Yeah, so it’s a great question. So yeah, to start, there are 14 identifiable risk factors that happened that can be completely preventable, and this was just a recent report that was published a couple months ago in The Lancet being able to actually look at these different risk factors, but it does, if we do these, it can actually reduce the incidence of dementia in Alzheimer’s by 45%, which is just incredible to be able to have a statistic like this. And so to your question about if you can actually start implementing some of these things earlier in life, the better the outcome. I mean, some of these things like even just to be able to have better education that starts early in life where you’re going through school and having education, but being able to be educated and having just continue that education and staying interested in things helps your likelihood of actually having, I always like to say it helps with having more brain cells so that when they start to degrade as we get older, that you have more of ’em older on in life.
(01:55):
Some of these others though, even when you’re later on in life, some of the most impactful things, even if you’re 75 and you’re dealing with cataracts or you’re having vision issues, get into the optometrist to be able to actually make sure that you are treating that eyesight because your eyes play a big role in the vision play, a big role in continuing to be able to use your brain protecting against dementia, Alzheimer’s or neurodegenerative decline. You also have things like hearing loss. So if you’re 70 and you can’t hear getting into an audiologist or having hearing aids so that you can actually hear. This also is affecting the ability of that brain to be able to fire. So if it’s the old adage, if you don’t use it, you lose it kind of a thing. So your vision and your hearing allow you to be able to stay using it and staying active and keeping those neurons firing.
Bob Sansevere (02:48):
Well, I look at this list and I’m pretty encouraged because there’s only two. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke and air pollution. I got to be honest, this last week with the fires in, we had really bad air quality because of Canada in our area. Generally it’s really nice in Minnesota, but that’s isolated when that happens.
Dr. John Oertle (03:11):
It sure has, it has created some impact in certain areas,
Bob Sansevere (03:17):
But my LDL is fine. I’ve had cataract surgery in both eyes over the years. I have it in my numbers in the low under right around a hundred to 110. Sometimes it’s one 15. Depression is one of them. I’ve said this to people and I almost have to stop myself because a lot of people deal with depression in my lifetime. I actually feel like I was depressed one day in my life and my thought then, this was in my early thirties or 30, and my thought was, this must be horrible for people to deal with it every day. And I don’t know what it was that caused it. I was fine the next day. It could have been maybe, I don’t know, maybe I hadn’t, I was low sugar or something, but I just did not feel motivated to do anything. And it was giving me a glimpse of what life could be like being depressed all the time and was I have empathy just on that one day for people that deal with it
Dr. John Oertle (04:16):
And that just, yeah, it’s very real and it’s very challenging when you are going through depression or you’re a caregiver for somebody who is going through major depressive disorder. And so I have a lot of empathy as well. And so there is a natural tendency like what you’re experiencing to have waves. We’re not just always elevated as far as mood. There’s ups and downs and that’s normal and very normal and natural in our humanity and how we go through life. But if you’re in this continual major depressive disorder state can be really challenging. One of the best things that I always like to recommend though too, outside of counseling and maybe going to see a doctor to be able to get support for it is sometimes our diets, as you’re talking about sometimes what you were saying as far as your glucose or what we’re eating can impact the actual our mood.
(05:05):
And so you talk about it as far as there’s some really good resources out there as far as the gut and what we eat affects how we think in our mood. And so that’s a critical thing. But the other thing that’s really important as well for depression, and this is one of those social determinants as well for dementia prevention, is social isolation. When you’re socially isolated, there’s a connection and also you lose that connection, you lose that connection to human persons. And so being able to be engaged in activities and being able to be engaged in conversation with family and with friends, this can be a real support one to be able to use your brain, but at the same time being able to actually not be depressed as
Bob Sansevere (05:48):
Well. Well, it’s interesting because when I was looking at the list, I said, well, social isolation definitely plays a part in depression, and there are times I wish I could be socially isolated and maybe that’s why I haven’t dealt with depression because of the jobs that I’ve had and the life that I have to interact with people and not just sitting on a phone talking to them, but I covered sports for 40 years, so every day I was out somewhere interviewing people and I don’t know if that had anything to do with it. And I’m looking at the list too, obesity, hypertension, I’ve got my weight under control, but I mean, nobody ever wants to feel like they were obese. But I mean, it doesn’t take, I saw something on, I dunno what station it was, but like 74% of Americans are obese.
Dr. John Oertle (06:37):
But it’s a real concern because it leads to so many other issues, the obesity, and I’m always saying too, I do a lot of cancer work and we do a full precision model of cancer, but obesity leads to a lot of cancers as well. And so I always like to say, let’s change that diet. Let’s seek that help to be able to reduce down that weight before you come to a condition where your body’s going to be doing it for you, and then you have to make those changes. Let’s shift that change before the actual condition
Bob Sansevere (07:06):
Begins. Alright, I’m going to shift because what we’re talking about about June being the month for Alzheimer’s and brain health, but is there a friend has a relative who just got diagnosed in stage four. My question is, is there a diet that can starve some cancers that if you do it, it’s going to with the other, I’m not saying eliminate other treatments, but is there a diet people that are dealing with cancer, if they have relatives that are, they should go to this diet because it will starve some cancer or is that not even
Dr. John Oertle (07:42):
An option? Yeah, what you’re asking is, is there the best diet for cancer, and I will say this, is that there is no single one diet for cancer.
(07:53):
It depends. It does depend on diets do affect your cancer prognosis and treatment, no question about that. But again, depending upon what diet you go on, all depends upon really what’s going on with the cancer, the metabolic rates of this cancer. So you have some diets like the ketogenic diet, which is a high fat diet, very, very low carb, and that your body’s producing ketones that can be really effective for some cancer types and metabolic activity of some cancers. And then you also have some cancer types where maybe juicing is more effective. And so you have different diets that can be selected specifically with the cancer type that you have and the metabolic activity within the cancer.
Bob Sansevere (08:37):
Yeah, I mean I wanted to ask you just because after talking to this friend, I mean I was thinking about that and wondering, well, there’s there anything that you can do beyond getting the treatments that are available to you?
Dr. John Oertle (08:47):
Well, and some of the other suggestions too, I mean, being able to reduce sugar in the diet always helps. So being able to try to have more nutrients in your diet always helps. So again, this is where those couple of things are kind of generalities that you can go on because that glucose, certainly cancer likes to feed in a high glucose environment, and so if you can, that’s why diabetics also have a higher risk of cancer as a result of just that increased level of glucose in the actual body. And so all of this is helpful to be able to make sure that if you’re fighting, it’s never good to do that alone because it’s also we’re seeing this higher incidence of people electing to be able to choose just completely alternative, and I’m not a fan of that. We need really the best of conventional and the best of actual data in order to be able to actually move forward with increasing outcomes and reducing the actual risks of, again, progression of disease.
Bob Sansevere (09:46):
Well, honestly, I’ve told people that, I mean, I consider myself while I’m in the pre-diabetic range, I consider myself a diabetic because I am taking Metformin. We’ve talked about this, but I think it’s one of the best things that I learned because I did cut out sugar and I think that was good. I mean, it allowed me to, I did things I wouldn’t normally have done and I stopped going to get a milkshake every day at like a Culver’s, which is a custard place around here, and it’s good. I lost a good deal of weight too when I did it.
Dr. John Oertle (10:20):
That’s excellent. I mean, these are things though, is that this should just be a part of our culture to be able to, the other thing that I would say is that it’s not just about preventing risk from disease in the future. The other thing that is the real capacity with this is that when we make these changes, your energy levels increase, your brain function increases, you’re generally happier moods, right? So there’s so many real things. It’s not just one day I’m going to sacrifice now to be able to one day prevent disease and have better quality of life in my older age. It really is this aspect of I actually can start to make these impacts now. You start to sleep better, you start to have more energy in the next day, right? Again. So all of this can be really helpful. You’re more productive at work, leading to more of a raise. There’s so many other things that are very beneficial with making these impact or these lifestyle changes.
Bob Sansevere (11:11):
Doctor, thank you so much Dr. John Oertle. Thank you. You are the Chief Medical Officer, co-founder of Solidarity HealthShare, solidarityhealthshare.org. You got to visit there if you’re looking to a great alternative to traditional healthcare. Thank you, sir. We’ll take a quick break. The BS Show will be right back.
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