WHAT IS DENTAMEDICA?
In the StellaLife Innovator Series, host Liz Lundry talks with Dr. Dale Bredesen about groundbreaking approaches to preventing and reversing Alzheimer's disease. Discover how Dr. Bredesen’s research is transforming brain health and offering hope for the future.
Video transcription:
Liz Lundry, RDH - Hello. Welcome to the StellaLife Innovator series, everybody. Today, we're going to be learning from Dr. Dale Bredesen, MD, who's an internationally recognized neurologist with specialty expertise in the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases. He's the Senior Director of Precision Brain Health at Pacific Neuroscience Institute and the Chief Scientific Officer at Apollo Health. Guided by his philosophy and belief that Alzheimer's disease is not just preventable but reversible, Dr. Bredesen's innovative research has helped explain the physical mechanism behind the erosion of memory seen in Alzheimer's disease. His decades of clinical study and neurological research have opened the door to new approaches to treatment, leading to the recode protocol, also known as the Bredesen Protocol. This methodology has emerged as a viable attempt to prevent arrest and reverse symptoms of cognitive decline associated with conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and mild cognitive impairment. He's contributed significantly to medical knowledge and literature with over 30 patents in his name. Notably, he put much of his findings and research into the 2017 New York Times bestseller, The End of Alzheimer's. Welcome, Dr. Bredesen.
Dr. Dale Bredesen - Thanks so much for having me, Liz. So happy you're here. I'd like to learn more everything that you're doing. For those who may not be familiar with what you're doing, could you briefly explain what the recode protocol is and what success you've had with delivering it and how it difference with the traditional approaches to Alzheimer's and other dementias?
Yeah, great point. We spent 30 years in the laboratory looking at basic mechanisms that drive the neurodegeneration process in Alzheimer's, in Lewy body, in frontotemporal dementia, ALS, so forth and so on. What we discovered is that these simple models, oh, it's just a misfolded protein, or it's just type 3 diabetes, or it's just herpes, these do not explain the problem. These are ultimately network insufficiencies. You've got to look at the various contributors. A typical person who develops Alzheimer's or is developing Alzheimer's will have about 10 different contributors, things like chronic infections, various things that cause inflammation, leaky gut, things like that. Periodontitis, closely associated with Alzheimer's, actually. Various things that will create toxicity, mercury, biotoxins, things like that. Then anything that reduces energetics, so reduced blood flow, reduced oxygenation, sleep apnea being a common contributor. So what we found is that when you are treating someone. Number one, you want to get them in relatively early, of course, but number two, you want to identify all these different things, and then you want to address them. When we do that, first of all, we had the first reversals of cognitive decline, which were published back in 2014.
We've now had two clinical trials that both show unprecedented improvements in people with cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer's disease. So this is a new era for all of us who are treating these neurodegenerative diseases. Now that we understand that these aren't about a simple one thing happening. They are about the sum of a number of critical determinants that you can evaluate and you can address successfully.
Liz Lundry, RDH - Great. Based on what you just said, can you share how oral health, sleep, and systemic inflammation fit into the picture of cognitive decline?
Dr. Dale Bredesen - So as we went through all the laboratory and looked at all the things that are driving this, it's really turned out that Alzheimer's disease is largely an oral disease. If you look at the microbiome in the brain, and of course, just a few years ago, the thought was there is no brain microbiome. It should be a sterile organ. Well, that turns out to be wrong. There is a brain microbiome, and most of the organisms in the brain microbiome are oral organisms. In fact, things like P. Gingivalis and T. Denticola and Prevotella intermedia and things like that, are associated with cognitive decline. So the same pathogens that are a problem in the mouth are also a problem in the brain. And so, in fact, there is a tremendous amount that can be done by dentists, by oral health care experts. And in fact, in both of our clinical trials, we did cone beam. We sent people to dentists, every patient, for evaluation because of the numerous contributors. So I mentioned Mercury. That's one of the critical ones. You mentioned airway, and airway, very important. And people who have upper airway resistance or who have obstructive sleep apnea are definitely at higher risk for Alzheimer's.
We have people all the time. In fact, I talked to a patient and his wife yesterday, and this person has well-documented Alzheimer's disease, and she said, just realizing that he had sleep apnea and getting him on the CPAP, that alone made a clear difference. So airway, huge. Microbiome, as I mentioned earlier, huge. Gingevitis, periodontitis, P. Gingivalis, looking at the oral DNA status, the microbiome status in the mouth. Huge. And so all of these things are critical players. Even herpes simplex is another one that is found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients repeatedly. And in fact, there was a nice study out of Taiwan showing that just treating that was helpful and reduced dramatically the risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. So much of what is leading to Alzheimer's is actually coming from the oral cavity and from the areas where the doctors and the doctor teams cannot do this themselves. They're not out there fixing periodontitis and gingivitis, and they're not out there doing cone beams on their own and understanding what's driving this process. They're looking at things like leaky gut and changes in the immune system and chronic infections and things like this. So it is crucial for best outcomes for the dentists and for the doctors and their teams, their respective teams to work together.
Liz Lundry, RDH - Absolutely. Yeah. And with your work, it's reached a wide audience through your books, The End of Alzheimer's, The End of Alzheimer's program, The First Survivors of Alzheimer's, all of these books. Now, with your newest release, The Ageless Brain, that's coming out, can you share the journey behind these books and what readers can expect from your latest book?