How To Turn Your Brain’s Immune Cells Into Alzheimer’s Defenders (& Why The Amyloid Drugs Fall Short), With Dr. David Perlmutter

Ben Greenfield (0:00)

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Boundless Life podcast.

David Perlmutter (0:05)

Remember, the Alzheimer's drugs that are approved have never stabilized anyone. They're just designed to slow the decline. What did the Harvard study show? That 70% of the people who were enrolled in this trial versus controls had either stabilization, which is a home run in my book, or improvement, improvement in an Alzheimer's patient by lifestyle.

Ben Greenfield (0:26)

Well, welcome to the Boundless Life with me, your host, Ben Greenfield. I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist and nutritionist, and I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity and beyond.

Dr. David Perlmutter wrote this book, Brain Defenders, gets into the powerful story of how we've kind of been lied to about the cause of Alzheimer's and what you really need to worry about when it comes to taking charge of your long-term brain health. David is a board-certified neurologist, so I guess I should call him Dr. Perlmutter. Six Times, I believe, New York Times bestselling author, and all of his work is on neurology, nutrition, brain health and the intersection therein.

bengreenfieldlife.com/braindefenders is where the show notes reside. Let's go talk with David. All right, David, I got the book, Brain Defenders. I was hoping it wasn't going to be another, here's the 12 herbs that boost your immune system books, which it wasn't. I mean, you took a deep dive into some science I hadn't seen before, which was refreshing. You know, I think one of the first things, I actually read this one in the bathtub. I remember that day. I was thumbing through it, and I came across something that I've seen before, this idea that maybe what we've been taught about Alzheimer's disease isn't 100% correct, and that there might be, as they say these days, some sort of alternative narrative when it comes to Alzheimer's. You have that early on in the book, so...

David Perlmutter (2:04)

I have what? I don't have Alzheimer's, no.

Ben Greenfield (2:06)

Yeah, you don't have Alzheimer's. But neurodegenerative disease is obviously a big part of the book, and we could talk about the link between that and the immune system. But what's going on with Alzheimer's right now?

David Perlmutter (2:15)

A revolution. I mean, there's this...

And I know you're referring to the narrative since the late 80s that Alzheimer's is caused by beta-amyloid, right? And that's the cause. If we can attack that cause, problem solved. Well, it turns out that's not the cause. And I call it out in the book, as is so often the case you've been through this, when you write something, you memorialize it, you hand in your manuscript, and then about a week later, amazing research comes out that either refutes or confirms what you contended. So is the case with the beta amyloid story that I portrayed in the book.

Ben Greenfield (2:51)

Oh, wait, there's more than what you referenced in the book?

David Perlmutter (2:54)

Oh my gosh.

Ben Greenfield (2:56)

Do tell, like news flash, let's go.

David Perlmutter (2:58)

Yeah, so here's the news flash. So again, we've sort of been told we need to buy into this narrative that beta amyloid, this sticky protein accumulates in the brain, that's the cause of Alzheimer's, get rid of the amyloid, home run. Well, what I say in the book is great, I'm all in if there's a pharmaceutical fix, but beyond that, if that were the case, then getting rid of the beta amyloid should fix the problem, and it does not.

The data indicated that it doesn't, and since the book came out, what's called a Cochrane analysis, which is, you would agree, is pretty much the gold standard that we use to answer questions in the health-related field. It asks two questions, do the drugs work and are they safe? And what they did was they analyzed 17 different studies, and that study came out just a couple months ago, comprising more than 20,000 people 18 months per study, and determined two things, the drugs were essentially ineffective, and number two, about a quarter of the people getting these drugs to take the amyloid out of their brains had either hemorrhaging in their brains, brain swelling, or died.

Ben Greenfield (4:05)

So it's not only that the drugs themselves may have had adverse effects, but that what the drugs were treating may have been based on a flawed hypothesis anyways.

David Perlmutter (4:13)

Right. They were treating a biological marker. They weren't treating the clinical issue, which is, face it, that's what we want. People are declining cognitively. They're losing their memory, and they're losing executive function. And we want to help that.