Why Isn't My Brain Working? A Revolutionary Understanding of Brain Decline

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The research from Dr. Datis Kharrazian was mentioned shortly in several parts of the forum. I recently started to hear the audio version of his book "Why Isn't My Brain Working?: A Revolutionary Understanding of Brain Decline and Effective Strategies to Recover Your Brain's Health" and realized that what he uncovers there is very profound, highly interesting and resourceful, especially in connection with what we have learned about diet so far. So I ordered it as a hard copy. It is indeed revolutionary, I think.

His research is on the cutting edge on how the brain works biochemically in conjunction with the gut and intestines and visa versa. He brings up many interesting case studies and results of his methods, both from his own work with patients and clinical practitioners, that work with his method.

Here is a short summary of the book:

Losing your memory? Can't focus or concentrate? Do you have brain fog or tire easily? Have you lost your zest for life or motivation? Do people tell you this is all a normal part of aging? If so, your brain may be growing old too fast, or degenerating. Modern diets, a stressful lifestyle, and environmental toxins all take their toll on the brain. This doesn't just happen to seniors-brain disorders and degeneration are on the rise for young and old alike.

The good news is the brain is extremely adaptable and wants to get well. You simply have to know how to feed and care for your brain. How do you know if your brain isn't working? See if some of these signs and symptoms of brain degeneration apply to you:

-Memory loss
-brain fog
-depression
-anxiety
-difficulty learning
-lack of motivation, drive, or passion
-tire easily
-poor focus and concentration
-fatigue in response to certain chemicals or foods

Brain degeneration affects millions of Americans of all ages. The destruction sets in years or even decades before Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, or other serious neurological diseases can be diagnosed. Learn how to spot brain degeneration and stop it before it's too late. Why Isn't My Brain Working? will teach you strategies to save and improve brain function. You will learn how simple diet and lifestyle changes and nutritional therapy can profoundly impact your brain health and thus the quality of your life. Don't waste another day wondering why your brain is not working. Learn what you can and should do about it. Why Isn't My Brain Working? harnesses cutting-edge scientific research for safe, simple, and truly effective solutions to declining brain function.

What he describes there deserves our close attention I think, since he makes it very clear that a good diet alone is by far not enough to ensure a healthy brain and its functions. Could it be that most of the symptoms many people today experience, are directly related to the physical degeneration and inflammation of the brain?

Dr. Datis Kharrazian makes it pretty clear that exactly that is the case, with many if not all brains today, do to the stressfull live we are exposed to (and all parts that cause this stress in our society). He brings up case after case and study after study, that clearly show that our brains are under major attack nowadays.

The very interesting part is the fact, that due to the sheer knowledge he is gathering every day, about how the human brains works in conjunction with the rest of the body, he is able to recover many many conditions with fairly simple methods of training, diet and the right nutrients and even very severe cases of brain degeneration, that would be normally labeled as "normal", "uncurable" or "age related".

His knowledge in that area is so deep, that he has developed very effective methods that improve even very severe cases, simply by knowing what fuel, training and nutrients each part of the brain and gut needs. The results he thus achieves, are just amazing.

What also becomes clear again, is that everybody is different (which he emphasizes es well) and that it has to be carefully tested what works for each one and what not. There are several parts in his research and book, that put another spin on how we here think about diet, brain health and certain steps like chelation.

I think the informations he presents oblige us strongly to maybe rethink how we approach certain things like diet and detoxification and brain health etc. For example, he makes it very clear that chelation, especially of heavy metals, can be very dangerous for the brain and body when the blood brain barrier is not tight, which often seems to be the case even with people who have a good diet.

And from what I can see, just because we have a good diet, it is by far not enough nowadays to save your brain functions. After reading his book and delving in some of his research, I would suggest that even a lot of people here on the forum, who hold a strict diet, are still effected by degeneration of the brain. That's a quite scary thought, I know! But I'm fairly certain that all of our brains are still under severe attack even with a straight diet after listening to Kharrazian. It almost seems like certain forces work very hard on destroying directly our brain health.

In fact, Kharrazian illustrates that pretty clearly I think, if you connect the dots.

Interesting is also that in terms of diet advise, he comes very close to our approach (in fact closer then anybody else I've read so far). On his website in the section "resources", he recommends a pretty strict Paleo lifestyle that is very similar to our approach:

https://drknews.com/resources/

In his book, as well as in the following video, he explains how many conditions like cronic anxiety, depression, brainfog etc. are in fact directly connected to physical degeneration and changes of certain parts of the brain:


He has dissected and looked at many brains, by the way...

He has worked with very strict paleo diets with his patients for years now. He and his team are also constantly keeping up with the latest research in that department and the biochemistry of the brain and body in general. They also are constantly testing and publishing studies related to it.

So he is probably one of the best researchers in that department out there. Interestingly, new studies they are currently working on about the paleo diet, suggest that even parts of that diet can be quite problematic, especially for people with autoimmune disorders. So even the Paleo diet can apparently be quite problematic.

In this podcast he talks about it at some point and also about the " Dangers of Chelation and Mercury Amalgam Removal" at 36:57:
http://www.phoenixhelix.com/2015/06/19/episode-21-autoimmune-qa-with-dr-datis-kharrazian/

I couldn't find him mentioning the keto diet anywhere though. So I think we should keep that in mind.

Another very interesting aspect he talks about, is the vagus nerve and how it must be trained in order to probably interact with the rest of the body. He makes it clear that this is quite essential as well, for certain parts of the brain that get dengenerated otherwise.

Here is an interview with him where he brings up a lot of that stuff (highly recommended!):


He also makes clear that a lot of problems in the rest of the body, including the gut (leaky gut for example) often originate directly from malfunctions of the brain. So if the brain is not working, do to degenerations of certain parts, things like leaky gut get triggered. That means that even if you follow a good diet things like leaky good and leaky blood brain barrier can and do develop from an unhealthy brain! And most if not all of the brains nowadays are in severely degeneration mode and most do not even realize it. Our brains are suspected to generating negative plasticity nowadays, more then ever before it seems.

He also talks about how positive plasticity works in the brain and specific steps to activate it.

Here is a short portion of the video above:


He has also developed a specific rescue plan for our brains:


So I think a lot of the problems people here on the forum exhibit, even though a good diet is followed, can be directly traced to what Dr. Datis Kharrazian talks about. So there is hope!

He is teaching practitioners around the world. I think it would be highly educational and important for those of us here, that are working in those fields to maybe learn it. That would be of great benefit to the network here as well I think, if we would have somebody that is doing that course.

Here it is:

https://functionalneurologyseminars.com/pre-course-materials-2016/

Dr. Datis Kharrazians Websites:

https://drknews.com/
http://brainhealthbook.com/

Dr. Datis Kharrazians on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/datiskharrazianpage/?fref=ts
 
The approach sounds very interesting! I'll review the book, maybe we can interview him (if available). At least we can cover the book in SOTT radio :)
 
Pashalis said:
Another very interesting aspect he talks about, is the vagus nerve and how it must be trained in order to probably interact with the rest of the body. He makes it clear that this is quite essential as well, for certain parts of the brain that get dengenerated otherwise.

Very interesting. Thank you for sharing, Pashalis!

Doing EE regularly definitely can assist with keeping vagus nerve trained enough. Though gargling is also fun!

I also think that what he says reinforces the importance of Working on the self, and thus keeping the brain and body constantly challenged. And at the same time to make sure that the body is in a good condition by eating properly.

Also reminded me of what the C's said, that it is important every day to assign time to the following three points:

-Body and immediate environment
-Wider world affairs
-Cosmos and spirit

And speaking of memory, today I stumbled upon the following new study:

A new study suggests an intriguing strategy to boost memory for what you've just learned: hit the gym four hours later. The findings reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on June 16 show that physical exercise after learning improves memory and memory traces, but only if the exercise is done in a specific time window and not immediately after learning.

"It shows that we can improve memory consolidation by doing sports after learning," says Guillén Fernández of the Donders Institute at the Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

In the new study, Fernández, along with Eelco van Dongen and their colleagues, tested the effects of a single session of physical exercise after learning on memory consolidation and long-term memory. Seventy-two study participants learned 90 picture-location associations over a period of approximately 40 minutes before being randomly assigned to one of three groups: one group performed exercise immediately, the second performed exercise four hours later, and the third did not perform any exercise. The exercise consisted of 35 minutes of interval training on an exercise bike at an intensity of up to 80 percent of participants' maximum heart rates. Forty-eight hours later, participants returned for a test to show how much they remembered while their brains were imaged via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

The researchers found that those who exercised four hours after their learning session retained the information better two days later than those who exercised either immediately or not at all. The brain images also showed that exercise after a time delay was associated with more precise representations in the hippocampus, an area important to learning and memory, when an individual answered a question correctly.

"Our results suggest that appropriately timed physical exercise can improve long-term memory and highlight the potential of exercise as an intervention in educational and clinical settings," the researchers conclude.

It's not yet clear exactly how or why delayed exercise has this effect on memory. However, earlier studies of laboratory animals suggest that naturally occurring chemical compounds in the body known as catecholamines, including dopamine and norepinephrine, can improve memory consolidation, the researchers say. One way to boost catecholamines is through physical exercise.

Fernández says they will now use a similar experimental setup to study the timing and molecular underpinnings of exercise and its influence on learning and memory in more detail.
 
Keit said:
[...]
And speaking of memory, today I stumbled upon the following new study:

A new study suggests an intriguing strategy to boost memory for what you've just learned: hit the gym four hours later. The findings reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on June 16 show that physical exercise after learning improves memory and memory traces, but only if the exercise is done in a specific time window and not immediately after learning.

"It shows that we can improve memory consolidation by doing sports after learning," says Guillén Fernández of the Donders Institute at the Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

In the new study, Fernández, along with Eelco van Dongen and their colleagues, tested the effects of a single session of physical exercise after learning on memory consolidation and long-term memory. Seventy-two study participants learned 90 picture-location associations over a period of approximately 40 minutes before being randomly assigned to one of three groups: one group performed exercise immediately, the second performed exercise four hours later, and the third did not perform any exercise. The exercise consisted of 35 minutes of interval training on an exercise bike at an intensity of up to 80 percent of participants' maximum heart rates. Forty-eight hours later, participants returned for a test to show how much they remembered while their brains were imaged via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

The researchers found that those who exercised four hours after their learning session retained the information better two days later than those who exercised either immediately or not at all. The brain images also showed that exercise after a time delay was associated with more precise representations in the hippocampus, an area important to learning and memory, when an individual answered a question correctly.

"Our results suggest that appropriately timed physical exercise can improve long-term memory and highlight the potential of exercise as an intervention in educational and clinical settings," the researchers conclude.

It's not yet clear exactly how or why delayed exercise has this effect on memory. However, earlier studies of laboratory animals suggest that naturally occurring chemical compounds in the body known as catecholamines, including dopamine and norepinephrine, can improve memory consolidation, the researchers say. One way to boost catecholamines is through physical exercise.

Fernández says they will now use a similar experimental setup to study the timing and molecular underpinnings of exercise and its influence on learning and memory in more detail.

That study also fits with Kharrazians research, I think. He mentions that short, but pretty demanding physical exersises that bring up your heart rate, combined with times of rest in between, is quite important too. I think he discusses it in terms of blood circulation and how important it is that the brain gets enough oxygen.
 
Keit said:
Pashalis said:
Another very interesting aspect he talks about, is the vagus nerve and how it must be trained in order to probably interact with the rest of the body. He makes it clear that this is quite essential as well, for certain parts of the brain that get dengenerated otherwise.

Very interesting. Thank you for sharing, Pashalis!

Doing EE regularly definitely can assist with keeping vagus nerve trained enough. Though gargling is also fun!

I also think that what he says reinforces the importance of Working on the self, and thus keeping the brain and body constantly challenged. And at the same time to make sure that the body is in a good condition by eating properly.

Also reminded me of what the C's said, that it is important every day to assign time to the following three points:

-Body and immediate environment
-Wider world affairs
-Cosmos and spirit

I've tested out the gargling suggestion since yesterday and it seems to be a very effective method to activate the Vagus. Much more effective then pipe breathing it seems. It is quite astounding what happens if you gargle, as he suggest, not just shortly, but for a longer period of time until your eyes get wet. I'll do 3 times 5 Minutes sessions a day right now and my gut really starts to work (you can even hear it!) after the vagus nerve has been activated with gargling for 5 minutes continuously!

You have to try it, to believe it!

It is quite astounding how training of the vagus nerve directly impacts how your gut and brain works, that you can even feel and hear it!

I'm wondering though, why my eyes do not get wet, even after 5 minutes of continuous gargling? From what I've heard from Kharrazian, they should get wet after a longer period, so my guess is, that something isn't working that good in my system there. Or maybe I have to do it even longer then 5 minutes?

I'll add his suggestion of activating the gag reflex several times a day soon as well. I just discovered that that reflex is almost not present anymore! I remember that it was much better years ago.
 
Pashalis said:
Keit said:
Pashalis said:
Another very interesting aspect he talks about, is the vagus nerve and how it must be trained in order to probably interact with the rest of the body. He makes it clear that this is quite essential as well, for certain parts of the brain that get dengenerated otherwise.

Very interesting. Thank you for sharing, Pashalis!

Doing EE regularly definitely can assist with keeping vagus nerve trained enough. Though gargling is also fun!

I also think that what he says reinforces the importance of Working on the self, and thus keeping the brain and body constantly challenged. And at the same time to make sure that the body is in a good condition by eating properly.

Also reminded me of what the C's said, that it is important every day to assign time to the following three points:

-Body and immediate environment
-Wider world affairs
-Cosmos and spirit

I've tested out the gargling suggestion since yesterday and it seems to be a very effective method to activate the Vagus. Much more effective then pipe breathing it seems. It is quite astounding what happens if you gargle, as he suggest, not just shortly, but for a longer period of time until your eyes get wet. I'll do 3 times 5 Minutes sessions a day right now and my gut really starts to work (you can even hear it!) after the vagus nerve has been activated with gargling for 5 minutes continuously!

You have to try it, to believe it!

It is quite astounding how training of the vagus nerve directly impacts how your gut and brain works, that you can even feel and hear it!

I'm wondering though, why my eyes do not get wet, even after 5 minutes of continuous gargling? From what I've heard from Kharrazian, they should get wet after a longer period, so my guess is, that something isn't working that good in my system there. Or maybe I have to do it even longer then 5 minutes?

I'll add his suggestion of activating the gag reflex several times a day soon as well. I just discovered that that reflex is almost not present anymore! I remember that it was much better years ago.

Thanks for sharing, Pashalis. I'm watching the interview with Dr. Kharrazian right now, and wow! He's definitely got some fascinating ideas and it's good he mentioned not getting stuck in the paradigm about diet being the only way of solving digestive issues, that if there is no proper connections between brain and gut, it doesn't matter how many digestive enzymes or glutamine you take, it won't have a long lasting effect. That the way I understand it, is you have to get the vagus nerve firing on all cylinders because that's the pathway that allows the brain to create the enzymes and induce the muscle contractions necessary for the stomach muscles to expand/contract, break down food, and most importantly, have regular bowel movements (which I seem to vacillate between constipation and diarrhea at times :-[) because if that isn't happening, then all sorts of bacteria and toxins can develop in the body.

I'm definitely going to increase the amount of pipe breathing I do on a daily basis and try out gargling and see how that works. I keep thinking about all the times my grandma would tell me how important it is to gargle my mouth everyday and I would shrug it off as unimportant. She was right... :shock:
 
Turgon said:
Pashalis said:
Keit said:
Pashalis said:
Another very interesting aspect he talks about, is the vagus nerve and how it must be trained in order to probably interact with the rest of the body. He makes it clear that this is quite essential as well, for certain parts of the brain that get dengenerated otherwise.

Very interesting. Thank you for sharing, Pashalis!

Doing EE regularly definitely can assist with keeping vagus nerve trained enough. Though gargling is also fun!

I also think that what he says reinforces the importance of Working on the self, and thus keeping the brain and body constantly challenged. And at the same time to make sure that the body is in a good condition by eating properly.

Also reminded me of what the C's said, that it is important every day to assign time to the following three points:

-Body and immediate environment
-Wider world affairs
-Cosmos and spirit

I've tested out the gargling suggestion since yesterday and it seems to be a very effective method to activate the Vagus. Much more effective then pipe breathing it seems. It is quite astounding what happens if you gargle, as he suggest, not just shortly, but for a longer period of time until your eyes get wet. I'll do 3 times 5 Minutes sessions a day right now and my gut really starts to work (you can even hear it!) after the vagus nerve has been activated with gargling for 5 minutes continuously!

You have to try it, to believe it!

It is quite astounding how training of the vagus nerve directly impacts how your gut and brain works, that you can even feel and hear it!

I'm wondering though, why my eyes do not get wet, even after 5 minutes of continuous gargling? From what I've heard from Kharrazian, they should get wet after a longer period, so my guess is, that something isn't working that good in my system there. Or maybe I have to do it even longer then 5 minutes?

I'll add his suggestion of activating the gag reflex several times a day soon as well. I just discovered that that reflex is almost not present anymore! I remember that it was much better years ago.

Thanks for sharing, Pashalis. I'm watching the interview with Dr. Kharrazian right now, and wow! He's definitely got some fascinating ideas and it's good he mentioned not getting stuck in the paradigm about diet being the only way of solving digestive issues, that if there is no proper connections between brain and gut, it doesn't matter how many digestive enzymes or glutamine you take, it won't have a long lasting effect. That the way I understand it, is you have to get the vagus nerve firing on all cylinders because that's the pathway that allows the brain to create the enzymes and induce the muscle contractions necessary for the stomach muscles to expand/contract, break down food, and most importantly, have regular bowel movements (which I seem to vacillate between constipation and diarrhea at times :-[) because if that isn't happening, then all sorts of bacteria and toxins can develop in the body.

I'm definitely going to increase the amount of pipe breathing I do on a daily basis and try out gargling and see how that works. I keep thinking about all the times my grandma would tell me how important it is to gargle my mouth everyday and I would shrug it off as unimportant. She was right... :shock:

Yes my grandma also gurgles every day. Somehow older generations seem to be better able to instinctively do right things for the health. Our society has lost that completely.

There is actually much more to the brain gut system and how it interacts and how it can work normally in his book and research. The Vagus nerve is just a part of the equation. It is a delicate and complex system that works together and many aspects are part of it.

The world we live in today, reinforces a complete breakdown of the gut and/or the brain, on almost all levels. No wonder we see so many health problems nowadays, especially in anxiety related symptoms.

I think a lot of the things Kharrazian brings up, wouldn't even have been very common lets say 70 years ago. Many if not all of the modern forms of anxieties, depressions, allergies, diabetes, cancers etc., maybe are a direct result of the time we live in (poisons everywhere, very high stress everywhere etc.).

I don't think there was ever a time in human history (from which we know of), where we were as exposed to stressors of all kinds, as today. So today we must take many things, that would have been a natural part that people had in the past, in our own hands and deliberatly exercise and nurture them.

So it almost seems like people in the past had it much easier to have a healthy body and brain, simply because they were not as exposed as we are today and how they lived their lives was much more in sync with what the brain and body naturally needs to function.
 
All that also reminds me how Gurdjieff or Mouravieff said (don't remember who said it) that in order to do even engage in the work, one has to be physically quite healthy.

That also might explain why today, only very few are even able to come close to be abler to do "the work". I think for example that in the times where Gurdjieff lived, there was a overall better ground for engaging and coming close to approaching the work in terms of health.

Also I think it could explain partly why Gurdjieff was as successful as he was back then, even though he had no special diet to follow (like excluding certain stuff). The environment and even the food people were exposed to, back then, was much more healthy then anything we eat or are exposed to today.

Take wheat for example, as is explained in the book "Wheat Belly": The wheat people ate even as much as 40 years ago, is so completely and utterly different from the wheat we eat today, that you can not even compare it. In short: Today it is much, much, much more poisonous. And that is just one example of a myriad of examples nowadays.

I think it could be argued that Gurdjieff, if he would have lived in this day and age, might would have needed to address the diet and general body health aspect more seriously, in order for his schooling ideas to work efficiently. Back then, those environmental circumstances were completely different, compared to today.
 
Turgon said:
I'm definitely going to increase the amount of pipe breathing I do on a daily basis and try out gargling and see how that works.

Same here, thanks for sharing this interesting info, Pashalis.

I wonder if perhaps throat singing has also something in common with these techniques? It is very popular among many indigenous peoples of Siberia, Mongolia, Tibet and is usually practiced by shamans or monks.
 
Siberia said:
Turgon said:
I'm definitely going to increase the amount of pipe breathing I do on a daily basis and try out gargling and see how that works.

Same here, thanks for sharing this interesting info, Pashalis.

I wonder if perhaps throat singing has also something in common with these techniques? It is very popular among many indigenous peoples of Siberia, Mongolia, Tibet and is usually practiced by shamans or monks.

Kharrazian mentioned singing as another technice of stimulating the vagus nerve. Gurgling seems to be more effective though. The throat singing above sounds like it comes closer to the gurgling exercise, then ordinary singing.
 
Gaby said:
[...]I'll review the book, maybe we can interview him (if available). [...]

A Interview with Kharrazian would be quite interesting I think. One of the questions that would be nice to ask him, is whether he has done research into keto, and if so, how it relates to what he has uncovered in the book.
 
Pashalis said:
A Interview with Kharrazian would be quite interesting I think. One of the questions that would be nice to ask him, is whether he has done research into keto, and if so, how it relates to what he has uncovered in the book.

Yes, it will be very interesting if he can share his experience or the experience of his students/practitioners from clinical practice.

His cases are fascinating! I never actually read this book, but now I'm reading it along with "Anatomy of an Epidemic". Contrasting between both books, a pretty sad picture of what could have been is emerging. Hopefully this information will reach out more people.

Anatomy of an Epidemic is very shocking and it is the norm when it comes to psychiatric mainstream care. It is certainly pretty saddening and I get to see it in one way or another every day.
 
Pashalis, thanks so much for bringing this to our attention. Nourishing the brain, has for some time, been lingering in the background of my mind as something I would like to do but other health related issues have been my focus. Plus, I haven't come across any good sources that are extensive as this seems to be, only the odd bit of info here and there. It ALL ties together however. The pieces of the puzzle come together one after another and here is another piece and likely more.

Looks fascinating and I look forward to checking it more closely. The gargling sounds impressive!
 
A little presentation from Kharrazian about “Functional Neurology” with interesting case examples:


Notice the emphasis on actively building plasticity in the brain and that simply and only taking supplements can't do much, if you do not address building plasticity. Or in other words; Creating new and more effective pathways in the brain, through repeated action over a period of time, until long term potentiation is established.

He also mentions that they do their courses also via the internet...
 
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