May 27, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode, Dr. Nicole Saphier and her husband, Dr. Paul Saphier discuss the alarming connection between microplastics and various health issues, particularly cardiovascular disease and brain health. They explore how microplastics are linked to strokes and dementia, emphasizing the importance of understanding these risks. The doctors shares insights on treating strokes and the evolving landscape of brain health, while also providing practical tips for maintaining a healthy lifestyle to mitigate these risks. Wellness Unmasked is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Friday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Wellness on Mass with doctor Nicole Saffire. I'm
your host, sport certified physician, mom and forever truth seeker. Today,
I want to dive right into a very important topic
that everyone is constantly asking me about, and by the way,
I'm always asking myself and my friends and my colleagues
about it as well. It's brain health. At this point,
everyone knows someone who is living with dementia because it
(00:24):
really is that prevalent people all around us. Now, there
are many different types of dementias. We're not going to
get into that, Alzheimer's being the most common. When we
talk about dementia, it's not one size fits all. Not
two presentations are exactly the same. And in fact, sometimes
people don't even realize that they have maybe some mild dementia.
They're just living life thinking maybe I have a little
(00:46):
bit of brain fog. But let's dive right in. Dementia
is incredibly prevalent. About fifty five million people worldwide are
living with it. In the next twenty years, that number
is probably going to double. Now, the question is is
that number double because we have an increased prevalence and
incidence of dementia, meaning more people are being diagnosed with
it and this should be raising red flags or is
(01:09):
it the fact that we have an aging population. Well,
it's a really good question, and if you really look
at the numbers, it looks like actually, our dementia incidence
over the last five to ten years is slightly decreasing,
meaning a smaller percentage of the population is being diagnosed
with dementia. However, we have more cases of dementia, more
(01:31):
prevalence of dementia because we have an aging population. So
take it as what you will. For me, I would
think that with our innovation, our technology, and everything that
we have today, that we should be seeing fewer cases
of dementia statistically significant fewer, not just you know, one
to four percentage points. Why isn't it ten percent decrease,
(01:52):
twenty percent decrease. Well, I suspect that's because of our
lifestyle factors. And you know what, the data backs me
up on that too. So nearly two thirds of Americans
with dementia are actually females. That's right, ladies, you are
more likely to get dementia than your husband. And why
is that. Well, there's a lot of theories, but I
(02:14):
definitely point to a lot of our hormones. The hormones
in our bodies certainly negatively impact us, especially when it
comes to autoimmune diseases and cancer and other things. So
why not why wouldn't it also influence our dementia risk.
We also are at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease,
and we know that cardiovascular disease directly is linked to
(02:34):
dementia risk, so that's another reason for us. There are
also some racial disparities as well. Black men Hispanic men
are twice as likely to have dementia than say, a
white man is, and that's pointed to maybe some socioeconomic factors.
Also higher incidences of cardiovascular diseases in those populations compared
(02:55):
to white men. Maybe it's because of decreased access to care,
maybe it's lifestyle. Hard to say, but those are the statistics,
and I want to make sure you have that. By
the age of eighty five, nearly half of people living
have some sort of cognitive decline and also dementia. It's
just the fact of life. Our body is aging and
so is our brain, and therefore you will start to
(03:15):
have some cognitive decline. Now, don't worry. There are some
things that we've gotten from research that show there are
ways to decrease our dementia risk, and we're going to
get to that, but at first I want to talk
about why are we seeing maybe some more dementia. What
is it in our lifestyle that's potentially leading to dementia. Well,
I've already mentioned a really big one that is cardiovascular disease.
(03:40):
So if you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, you're overweight,
all of these things increases your risk of dementia because
you have tiny blood vessels, and you have larger blood
vessels too in your brain. So if they are sick unhealthy,
just like your vessels in your body, just like leading
to your heart, you have to imagine that the ones
going to your brain are dealing with the same sickness.
(04:01):
They're having the same blood flow issues. When you have
decrease oxygen to the brain, you can have micro infarcs,
meaning tiny little areas that are dying. So yeah, of
course that's going to lead to dementia risk. I mean
the big one is a stroke. It's essentially it's essentially
when you talk about the brain, the brain is like
your heart. Your heart supplies blood to the body, but
your brain is what keeps you alive. So if you're
(04:23):
decreasing oxygen in the blood, so decreasing blood flow to
the heart, you have a heart attack, and areas of
your heart can die. If you decrease the blood flow
to your brain, you're decreasing the oxygen in the blood.
Therefore you have these infarcs or these areas that start dying.
A huge one is a stroke. Sometimes it can be lethal,
just like a heart attack can be lethal. Sometimes it
(04:44):
can leave you with severe physical and mental incapacities. And
sometimes you don't even realize they're happening because they're so tiny.
But over time, those tiny little infarcs kind of convless
together and really make it that your brain starts having
cognitive decline akay demension, schemic dementia, microvascular dementia, all that
what we're talking about right now is incredibly common. Also,
(05:07):
social isolation if you are not being social, if you're
not being social with your family, your friends, your colleagues,
that also leads to an increased risk of dementia. We
are humans, we are social beings. We are meant to
interact with other people. If you don't do that, your
brain suffers. Another thing that's starting to emerge. And you've
(05:28):
heard me talk about this, if you've seen me on TV. Microplastics.
I don't like talking about it because it scares people.
But the reality is microplastics are everywhere. Now, water microplastics.
There's these tiny little particles of plastic, and they're really everywhere.
They're in the air because they've become aerosolized. They're in
our water, they are drinking water. They're in our foods,
(05:50):
especially those ultra processed foods. And in fact, there's been
studies they looked at postmortem studies on humans. Essentially after
someone died, they looked at their and people with dementia
had ten times the amount of microplastics deposited in their brain,
specifically the frontal lobe that's where your decision making and
your personality, that's where that's all controlled from. So patients
(06:13):
with dementia had significantly higher levels of microplastics deposited in
their brain. Does this mean that the microplastics contributed to
that inflammation in the brain and maybe have led them
to have Alzheimer's and dementia. It's possible. We have animal
studies suggesting that the microplastics in the brain are causing inflammation. Again,
these are some correlations, not actual causation in human trials.
(06:37):
But let's be honest, guys. If you have plastic being
deposited in your brain, I might be going out on
a limb here, but I don't think that's very healthy
for your brain. Absolutely not. You're also finding microplastics in
the vessels in your body too, leading to narrowing of
the vessels, leading to decreased blood flow. Safe to assume
it's probably happening in the brain as well. So I
(06:59):
want to talk about microplastics. I want to talk about
brain health. I could ask a million people to come
on and talk about this, but I figured I would
bring on an actual expert, someone who's an endovascular neurosurgeon.
And that's just a fancy way of saying that he
specializes in the blood vessels in the brain when it
comes to stroke, aneurysm, brain tumors and all of that.
(07:20):
I just so happened to be married to him, doctor
Paul Sapphire, and in our household, brain health is incredibly
important because he sees every single day what can happen
if you are not prioritizing your brain health. So I
want to bring in my husband, doctor Paul Sapphire, word
certified endovascular nerve surgeon, and we're going to talk a
little bit more about microplastics and brain health. Okay, Well,
(07:44):
I like to talk about studies, and I like to
dissect a lot of research, but I am not an
expert in everything. But the good news is I'm actually
married to an expert in everything that we're talking about
right now. So you hear me say a lot of
times cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death,
especially here in the United States, especially amongst women. But
(08:06):
when people hear me say cardiovascular disease, they immediately think
that that just means heart health, you know, heart attacks.
But part of that whole cardiovascular disease spectrum are strokes.
And one of the things that I was blown away
by in the last month, which I've mentioned, is microplastics
are actually being linked to an increased risk of stroke.
(08:29):
Stroke and cardiovascular disease was already the number one cause
of death amongst American females, but now all of a sudden,
microplastics are being linked to it too, So is that
also increasing our risk of death? Good news, I'm married
to This is doctor Paul Sapphire. He is an endovascular neurosurgeon,
(08:49):
which means that his specialty is Yes, he's a neurosurgeon,
so he operates on the brain and the spine, but
his actual niche is when it comes to stroke aneurysms
and bring to so excellent topic to bring in my husband,
doctor Paul Sapphire. Welcome to Wellness sun Mass.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Thank you for having me. By the way, Can I
just say that you're doing next sun job. Thank you
not only just this but everything. I get a lot
of compliments, not from just a lot of my patients
who are a huge fan base, but also for many hospitals.
They're big fans, So bravos to you and everything that
you're doing here.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Well hopefully they have subscribed and they're listening to this
podcast because I can tell you that this is going
to be an important one. So I'm going to call
you Paul, because to call you doctor Sapphire, I don't
want to get confused because I write doctor, I'm the
doctor Sapphire of Wellness sun Mass. It's very confused you doctor,
if you wouldn't mind, so thank you. Oh awesome. So
(09:44):
quick question, so Honestly, I talked to you about this
the moment I read about this study. You know, you
know I have been a little bit wary of the microplastics.
Even in our own kitchen. I've started saying, we have
to do what we can to reduce our exposure to microplastics. Look,
we're not going to go live in the glass bubble,
because that's probably the only way to truly rid ourselves
(10:05):
exposure to microplastics. Not a plastic bubble, not a plastic bubble,
but a glass bubble. But here's the question I have
for you, what really is the link to microplastics and
brain health is it? Is it all hype or is
there something behind.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
This great question? Well, unfortunately, microplastics are pervasive, right They're
everywhere right now that we're finding microplastics in the deep
sea to the cells within our body and everything in between,
and that's very unfortunate. What this one study recently discovered
was that for patients who unfortunately suffered a stroke, there
(10:42):
was a higher percentage of patients than had microplastics within
the atheroma or the plaques within the blood vessels that
were so athroosclerotic disease. When you're talking about serblascar disease,
build up of plaque junk, you know, all the bad
stuff within the blood vessels and creates the bloodvests become
more narrow. There's a higher deposit of those plastics, which
(11:06):
by the way.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
For most people, that's essentially when you eat like yucky,
fatty foods and all of that. That kind of when
we talk about clogging your arteries, that's what atheromas are
and stuff. But what they're finding is in these athromas
are not just jumped from the food.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
But what specifically, these little deposits of plastic, these microplastics
are within it, which is quite awful. There's a component
of the plasts, these HydroD departments, which we talked about earlier.
You know, they are these sort of chemical byproducts that
are that are related to the manufacturing of these plastics.
They are essential to how these plastics are made and
(11:44):
it's you know, you need you need them to build
these plastics. But unfortunately they don't biodegray and they're you know,
we're ingesting them, either you know, passively or actively, and
they filter through our body and they don't go anywhere.
They stay within our body is they break they break
down to these small, microscopic little particles and they get
(12:05):
you know, incorporated into these plaques, and these build up
the junk and it creates a lot of problems, not
just for troup of aster disease well and so so on.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
So we make this plaque. The plaque is from the
junk we eat. Now we're finding out that there are
microplastics in it. But what's the big problem. What happens
when you have these plaques?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Well, what happens when we have these plaques. So there's
a lot of similarities between the heart disease and the
brain disease. In fact, I tell a lot of my
patients when you have a stroke, that's like a heart attack,
but for the brain, brain attack is another sort of
synonymous synonym that we use. Right, So, what happens when
you get these plaques is building with junk within the bloodvessel.
It narrows the blood vessel. Blood flow can't get through.
(12:43):
And then sometimes what happens is not only is a
blood flow not able to get through, but these plaques
they break apart, and these little flecks of debris get
pushed upstream, so to speak, and they travel on the
bloodstream and then they get lodged in the small blood
vessels that in this case lead to brain, and it plods.
A blood vessel is in the brain and that part
of the brain is stopartical oxygen and then it dies irreversibly.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
So that's an eschemicx stroke, meaning you're not getting enough
blood flow to the brain. That piece of brain unless
someone intervenes immediately, is going to die. And that's the
same thing that can happen with a heart attack.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's correct, it's very similar heart attack. Again, we say
a heart attack and a brain attack are almost the
same exact thing.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
So you're an end of ascolinusurgeon. Most people don't really
know what that means when it comes to treating strokes, which,
as you say, is synonymous and kind of parallels to
how you can treat heart attacks these days, What is
your niche like what can be done when someone is
having the stroke?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So sometimes if you're having a large stroke and you
fall within a certain time period where we can actually
intervene or treat that strike, what's that time perod So
it varies, you know, and a lot of people that's
coming to question. That's a whole other topic which I
don't take a messure.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
You know those academics, they love to argue that what
that magical.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Hours You talk about four and a half hours, we
can talk about six, we can talk about eight, we
can talk about it. Time doesn't there. Nonetheless, let's just
say that you fall within a time frame that we
can treat that stroke. Sometimes a doctor like myself can
go in and perform a procedure, again very similar to
what the cardiologists can do for the heart. But what
I can do is oftentimes go through the arguing the
(14:23):
wrist with a very thin but long tuber catheter using
X rays, guide that all the way up to the
bloodvelts that lead through the heart up to the brain.
Get in there and try to grab that clot, try
to grab that blockage and pull it out.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
You know that whole thing when you see the commercials
for a plumber and they love to show like those long,
windy pathways are there.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Paul just called formerly doctor Paul, now just Paul a plumber.
But that's okay, that's right, that's okay.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I mean, can I finish my thought?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I went to a lot of school, not I mean,
we're discussing it.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
It's not rocket science, okay, we're just stucking brain swist.
It's not rocket science. Let's just talk about so. You
know when you see those plumbing commercials and they show
you those super windy pipes and they're like, oh, there's
a clog there, but all of a sudden they have
this massive clog buster that all you have to do
is pour it down the drain and it goes right
(15:21):
to where that clog is and magically that clog disappears.
That is what doctor Paul Sapphire is describing, except it's
not as simple as just injecting a medication into a
patient and all of a sudden this clot goes away.
Although they do try to do that.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
There's a lot of the medication is called trainer. I'm joking.
That's not true at all.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
We're not injecting people just like we don't ever expect
anyone to swallow bleach. I'm not saying that. But what
we're saying is, so what Paul is saying is he
actually either through a vessel in the wrist or even
sometimes in the groin, he goes in there with a
(16:05):
tiny little catheter and strings it all the way to
the brain. Do you know how many twists and turns
it takes to get there. It's not like it just
goes magically by itself, but they do use X rays
to get all the way to the brain. He identifies
the clot and he's able to actually use a basket
device and pull that clot down, and sometimes they give
medication to dissolve that clot. It's really quite remarkable because
(16:28):
when you think of brain surgery, do you think of
that massive surgery where you have to take off half
of the skull and it's incredibly invasive. And don't get
me wrong, he does that all the time. But there's
this very small niche where you can have brain surgery
and all you have is little nick in your wrist
and it really does save your life. I mean, that's
a whole nother episode we can talk about.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
It is crazy how much you know medicine in general,
specifically my field has evolved, if you think about it.
I graduated med school at.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
We don't like to aid ourselves on twelve vytor I've
started to think I did, and in that twenty five
years since I graduate medical school, there's been a tremendous effort.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Thank you very much. My children like that. In personal
honest old dam But in those twenty five some odd
years that I've graduated, there's been a tremendous evolution, not
just in my field, in every field, but especially in
my small little microcosts and my small little niche in
this in this place, a tremendous evolution, and specifically with
stroke care. So what we're doing today we weren't doing yesterday.
(17:35):
And by the way, tomorrow, who knows what we're going
to be doing?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
So well, I mean to be continued. We will see
what happens tomorrow. But I can tell you what's happening
right now in terms of stroke care, also aneurism treatments,
and even brain tumors. It's quite remarkable. But I really
want to get back to microplastics. So this study showed
that microplastics are in the plaques which are leading to
(17:59):
it being broken off, being shot off into the brain,
potentially causing strokes, heart attacks and other things. But microplastics
aren't just being linked to strokes, especially when it comes
to brain health. There was that one study that showed,
of course, it was a post mortem study, and they
looked at the cadavers and in the cadavers the brains
(18:20):
actually had the brains of dementia patients, those who had
been diagnosed with Alzheimer's had a higher risk of deposits
of microplastics in their brain. What's your thought of these
microplastics causing an increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer's and
all the other sorts, Because let's be honest, it seems
like it's getting a lot more common than it was before.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Well, I mean, I'm not surprised by that for sure.
You know, we just talked about how strokes are related
to these microplastics. There are many different types of dementia.
Certainly poor blood flow microvascular schemic dementia, that's the most common,
probably the most common essentially globally or the entire brain
is the product of blood flow.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Even in this starting in repeat, is that because of
our diet and our lifestyle, like there's a brain not
getting enough flood.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
I mean, there's that. You also have to keep in
mind that in the twentieth century, from the beginning to
the end of the twentieth century, we doubled our life expects.
Right from nineteen hundred to year two thousand, we went
from an average life expend in forties to seventies.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
But actually, interestingly, in the last two decades it hasn't
increased anymore.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
It has really.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
It's almost started to dig.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Well. My point though, is that we're living longer, and
so we're seeing more long term effects of paging, especially
in the brain apropos that we're having more long term
effects of deposits. Right, So junk in our body, these junks,
these deposits don't go anywhere. So if you were only
to live to say, forty five years old, right back
(19:56):
in nineteen certainly microplastics were around them, but let's just
say that they were even I have forty five years
worth of deposits those plus who don't go anywhere, and
just getting your brain, they don't go anywhere. Now, if
we're living to our seventies, maybe eighties in some instances, right,
we're having that much more, almost double the length of
time that these deposits build up. So therefore the consequences
(20:19):
of it are ramping up, right, It's exponentially increased, So
that I think is what we're seeing. We're seeing a
lot of those effects because we are living longer. Medicine
in general, we're having that medicine for heart disease, blood pressure, diabetes,
and so on and so forth. That people are surviving
all these other you know, uh, medical issues that would
(20:40):
have you know, crippled them earlier and taken their life,
and now we're seeing the long term effects in our brain.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Well. And also remember that last you know, decades and
decades ago, they would have probably said like, oh, we
have that old crazy uncle or that old crazy very sister,
very distant. Maybe they were just crazy, maybe their brain
was suffering.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Of course people just had senile dementia. What is senile dementia?
Just you're getting old and you have dementia. Well, that's
maybe not right. The more we know, literally we can
segregate all these different types of dementias, and there are
some that maybe we can treat with surgical interventions or
medical therapy, so unfortunately can but I think that ultimately
(21:23):
what we're seeing is the effects of lifestyle and all
these deposits' long term deposits, because we're living longer and
we're living a better life. What we want to be
when we're sixty years old today in twenty twenty five
is not what when I was in nineteen eighty five,
when I was a kid, a six year old person
is not the same person.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That's true. Well, since you brought up senile dementia, I
feel like this is a great opportunity.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
And by the way, you don't have to answer this.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Wellness and masks is all about whatever you want to
talk about. Joe Biden, former President Joe Biden. There was
he was president for four years, we saw him as
vice president under President Barack Obama, we saw him for
decades as a senator and also in the public eye.
Did you have an opinion on how he was doing?
(22:13):
I mean, I was publicly outspoken about I felt that
he was declining cognitively, and I felt that it was
very important that he submit.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
To a cognitive valuation.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Did you have any opinions that you want to share.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Well, certainly, I think that you know too. You shouldn't
hide from them.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
You may have cut him off guard.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
You've got me a little bit off guard, and that's
that's okay, that's okay. So look, let's just let's just
be honest. You know, cognitivecline and function that that happens,
that happens a lot. It is permissive, and maybe maybe
we don't talk about it enough. And I think that
if a lot of people embraced in the sense that
we say that we recognize that our loved ones are
(22:56):
suffering from these issues, that again, maybe we can meet
it earlier rather than being dismissive and institute treatment, even
if the treatment isn't medicinal. We can't undo the effects
of whatever the culprit of that dementia is, but we
can modify the living environments for that person. Now, it's
hard to do for the President United State, it's in
(23:18):
arguably the most one of the most powerful people, if
not the most powerful person in every world. You can't
really modify their living environment so much. And has a
lot to do with that. However, for the rest of
us that are normal, you know, normal folk, if we
see a loved one that's suffering from the dementia, you know,
(23:38):
maybe we don't put them in an environment that exacerbates
the constantly changing and evolving. Look, I mean, the President
United says, one day in Turkey, the next day, you're
you're you're all the way in the Middle East, the
next day you're back in Rome, and then back into
New York City wherever on the meatia Delaware. My point
is you're traveling all the place, you're in constantly evolving situation.
(24:01):
You're seeing hundreds of people a day. I'm sure you're
dealing with a lot of you know, revolving faces environments.
That's hard if you were facing cognitive decline. That's only
going to exacerbate that. You're only going to make that
those symptoms worse. So you know, if it were my
loved one, I would try to keep them in a
(24:21):
relatively stable environment. Again, the president that says you can't
be in a stable environment, and it says that you
have to constantly move around. You're just seeing some way
to fix Again, we off the rails a little bit,
you know, and I apologize for that. So but yes,
there definitely were.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Se issues, all right, Well, so I appreciate that. I
do think that President Biden unfortunately was showing signs of
early cognitive decline early on in the presidency and it
kind of rapidly progressed. And I agree with you. I
think it was a very stressful situation. And if it
(24:55):
were my loved one, I would probably have had them
in a different situation. But you know, that is of
the past.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I think you need. Yes, the point that I was
trying to make is you need to admit to it
rather than shrink away from her hindans heid.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
That's a big question, but that's not what we're going
to talk about for today. So back to microplastics, which
you know, I think we all are exposed to. Before
I get your advice on something, I also saw something
that microplastics. Again I hate saying all this research, but
microplastics shown to be in the ath aroma plaques which
(25:32):
you mentioned, which are leading to heart attacks and strokes.
Also we're seeing in dementia patients. They also have mentioned
in gbms. Those gleoblastoma multiform which I'll let you talk
about you're the expert, are very aggressive primary brain tumor.
Former center John McCain actually died from it. We've also
(25:52):
seen other people died from it. It's becoming a little
bit more of a public topic because John McCain's daughter,
Megan McCain talks about it. Brings awareness. Honest opinion, Do
you think there's a rise in incidents and prevalence of
these aggressive brain tumors because the research is saying that
it's possibly linked to microplastics. Do you buy it?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I think that there definitely is a rise of the incidence.
The question is why, right, So we in twenty twenty five,
that's compared to twenty years ago or forty years ago,
we have more easy access to advanced image MRIs and
so on.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
So what can I say something as a radiologist there,
I just want to defend us a little bit because
people that is a very common argument, Oh, we are
diagnosing more, which is true, by the way, especially when
it comes to like brain tumors. Skin can't. I'm not
sorry brain tumors, but breast cancers, skin cancers, not very
aggressive lung cancers. See, we're doing all these screening tests.
(26:52):
We're finding these early cancers. Maybe people would have died
from them, maybe they wouldn't have. But gbms, come on,
gbms are rapidly aggressive. People die from them. So how
can we say, oh, we're just finding more. Were they
just being misdiagnosed because they just died and we didn't
(27:12):
know why they died. Like it's not like, oh, they
were diagnosed with a GBM early, we intervened and then
they lived. Because even if we intervene early with gbms.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
That's a great point. I think maybe maybe the concept
of brain towers in general being diagnosed, so maybe the
more advanced ones that are symptomatic, we would have potentially
caught all those at the same timeframe. To your point,
during symptoms, you're getting an MRI whether or not you
can get an emerald literally around the corner or you
(27:44):
had to go to the corner of your state, because
back forty years ago, there weren't that many MRI machines
capable of doing brain imaging. In general, I think that
MRI imaging of the brain and the nervous system is
just so much more commonplace that we are finding a
lot more issues. However, the malignant brain tumors the really
(28:05):
scary ones. So you keep saying it, kept saying the
name GBM bluoblastom gluoblastoma multiformat is you know, let's you
mention that a lot. That is the brain cancer when
we talk about brain cancer and almost you know, that's
where the.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Cancer starts in the brain. It's not like it went
from the breast or the pain crests or whatever and
it went to the brain, but it starts in the rain.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
And that is, you know, inarguably one of the worst
cancers to have the sense that our treatment options for them.
While we do a lot of surgery, radiation, and keepotherapy
and a lot of those techniques continue to evolve, we've
made shockingly little headway unfortunately in the past, you know,
several decades to these patients, and my heart goes out
(28:48):
to all my patients that I treat with them. You know,
we have great strides, you know, surgical, our surgical technique
has it improved, so we can treat tumors that maybe
before they weren't able to treat so and so. But
the problem is that these are just such aggressive tumors
and unfortunately, once you're stricken with it, it really is
it's it's it's a really it's a travesty. It breaks
(29:09):
havoc on the family patient obviously, you know it's tough.
So where are they coming from? That's a huge question.
This concept of microplastics and you know, the hydrocarbons and
the vinyls and all these things. That's something that's been
discussed in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
All all, and we're still consuming products, food, drinks, everything
around this.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yes, that again, a hydrocarbon that has been something that
I remember reading that was you know, when I was
in medical school in the nineties was a lot of
area of investigation, and a lot of people thought that
maybe there was a correlation with them. And again, like
a lot of things like heart disease, Right, you may
(29:54):
have obesity or high cholesterol, high blood pressure, for genetics,
and then and you may have all those factors and
you may not actually end up having heart disease, or
you may have none event and have heart disease. What's
the magic you know, the magic combination that leads to
having a medical condition. That's that's a great I.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Note a lot of correlation, it's a lot of causation.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
And sometimes for people it's just hitting one, two and
three and then unfortunately is to come to something. So
I do think that there probably is a lot to that.
Is that to say that people didn't have GBM back
in the fifteen hundreds, of course they did, right, of course,
I mean these are things that happened back that. Unfortunately, again,
people didn't live that lot. Right If the lat average
(30:36):
life expectancy was forty years old, and the average the
average age of onsite for GBM is between the age
of forty and fifty or sixty, well you could see
that maybe you.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Didn't see as chuption. Okay, so we can't avoid microplastics
in total. There are some things we can do to
reduce it, and I'll talk about them a little bit,
But for you, I want to hear about specifically, what
do you institute in our household and what do you
say to your patients and your friends and your family.
(31:07):
What can you do to preserve brain health. We can't
avoid everything, we can't at all. We know that you
and I both live in this and work in this
world where you can do everything right and bad things
can still happen. But there are some things that you
can do to reduce your risk. So when it comes
to brain health, if you had a few tips for us,
what should we all be doing to try and preserve
(31:29):
our brain health?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Well, I think the first thing I'd say is sort
of the synopsis at the end, which is healthy living. Man.
I mean, it sounds kind of silly and very almost
you know, you know, we get it, we get it,
but it's true healthy living whatever and HONESO. They do
tell my patients, whatever is healthy for your heart is
healthy for your brain. Right, So all the common sense things,
(31:51):
should you stop smoking, should you drink less alcohol, should
you exercise more, should you lose some way, should you
eat less red meat, have more balanced diet and have
more fiber and some healthy natural natural foods and organic
foods and organic products. For absolutely all that stuff is
a given, and it's it's kind of like when you're
in school. We could all read more, we could all
(32:12):
study more, we can exercise more. So so yes, we
could all improve in that in that po but definitely
the natural organists. You know, you and I talked about,
you know, raising our family and our kids, but having
a better lifestyle in a house. We tried very much.
We have all the organic eggs in our house right now. Chickens.
You're I mean, you're the chicken mama. You're raising those
(32:35):
babies and these eggs fantastic. By the way, we also,
you know, to your to your credit, we have a
huge garden right now. We have a lot of natural stones.
We've got things, you know, things that are great with
you know, the natural herbs, the natural vegetables, which are fantastic.
Rosemary is a huge one. I'm a huge rosemary.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Roseberries all over our proper getting.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
They have introduced you to rosemary. However, back in the day, Okay,
that's fourteen years ago admit.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
That that was all you.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah, I think so. I think that may be true.
But it's certainly a lot of the additional supplements that
maybe we're not harvesting in our house, but you can
find gink go bloga digin saying those are great. You know,
you actually, to your credit and started a national supplement line,
the Drop of our Ax, which is phenomenal. I take it,
(33:26):
I cans take it. A lot of my colleagues have
also sworn by it. Uh there. You know, when when
you were forming that product line, one area that I
kind of mentioned to you was what about brain health?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
I know that obviously wasn't on my radar. When I
when you hear me talk about like natural herbs having
an autoimmune disease, I always think about, you know, systemic
inflammation and pain. I feel that a lot. I also
feel some ink sometimes. So I was all about decreasing
that systemic inflammation, which I guess goes along with brain health. Obviously,
if you're talkingalking about decreasing your body's inflammation, you also
(34:03):
want to.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Decase your brain.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
But I never specifically thought about, well, what's good with
your brain? But thank goodness, I'm married a brain surgeon,
because all of a sudden, he's like, Uh, you're focusing
on a lot of the peripheral stuff. I'm sorry you're Paul,
I'm doctor sas in this episode, but it was very
interesting to me because I was always about, like I
have to focus on my pain and the peripheral body.
(34:28):
And my husband's always said to me, he's like, your
body is worth nothing if your brain isn't healthy, and
that it took a minute for me to really to
really digest, but he's right, like, we're always focused on
how can we get our body looking good, going to
the gym for some plastic surgery and botox and all
(34:49):
of these skincare lines and dyeing our hair and getting
our nails done. Not that you do that, but I
may do that. But if your brain is not healthy,
what was all of that for? And so we have
really done a one eight in the Sapphire household and
doing everything we can to make sure our brain is
unhealthy as possible. It doesn't mean that we're not going
(35:10):
to succumb at some point to some level of dementia
or god forbid, one of these brain cancers. But as
long as we know that we're doing what we can
to decrease that risk. That's really the best you can do.
And the biggest thing for us is also make sure
you're living your life absolutely.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I mean, so anything can happen to anywhere, right, and
you want to make reasonable, rational decisions and choices. So
that way, when you look back and you say, oh,
shoot something, you know, something maybe unforeseen or unfortunate happens
to me, you never want to look back. At least
my perspective is you never want to look back and say, well,
I could have done this better. I should I shouldn't have.
I shouldn't have been smoking with cigarettes. I shouldn't been
(35:48):
drinking so much alcoholic. Should have been more blueberries, more
blueberg fantastic, I should have I should have exercised a
little bit more. Right. You know, you want to say,
you know, I did the best things I can. If
you do all these things right and then forbid something
unfortunate happens to you, that's life. I know that sounds
it was trivial to say it and almost dispissive, and
they don't mean to sound that way, but that's true.
(36:08):
Anything can happen to anybody at any point, So you
want to look back and say you made the best
choice of the best decisions that you can going forward.
So that way, if unfortunate something happens to you, you
don't think through something were all shoot, I couldn't change things.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
And which, by the way, this is not medical advice whatsoever.
But at the end of the day, we all work
for a living and we all try to save as
much as we can, and that's why trying to enjoy
every aspect of your life is more important than anything.
And so whether it's just staying at home, playing charades,
playing monopoly, going on a trip, but spending that quality
(36:44):
time with your friends and your family, whatever it is
that makes you happy and brings you that piece is
probably the best advice that I can ever give someone.
We could all do everything right, go to the gym,
eat right, get all of your screening exams. We are
not in charge of our future, so just make sure
you are enjoying every bit of your life.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
That's right, Absolutely, That's.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Why I enjoy you all right, well, doctor Paul Sapphire,
Paul please doctor pul Sapphire's husband, thank you so much
for coming on. I truly your advice regarding brain howth
is invaluable. Obviously we've adopted into our household. It's changed
the way I think of a lot of things. And
I'll be honest, the microplastics things really scares me. But
(37:27):
it's one of those things, just like knowing that there
are gene mutations that I can't do anything about that
can lead to disease. I can do what I can
to reduce microplastics exposures in our house, but I will
never keep our family completely safe from them. So anything
that we can do to try and live a healthier life,
you know, we're working forward. It's baby steps. I still
(37:51):
will have water out of a plastic bottle occasionally, and
I feel bad about that, but you know, it's baby steps.
We're getting there.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah, all that's up. Thank you for having me, Thanks.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
For being ann. You're listening to Wellness and mass. We'll
be right back with more. All right, Well, our conversation
probably went off the rails here or there once or
twice during that interview, but that's what happens when you're
married to your guest. You have a lot to talk about.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
But I think the.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Bottom line and the real take home points that I
take from you know, when I talk to him about
what we can be doing best for our brain health
is first of all, when it comes to microplastics exposure,
there's no way to completely avoid microplastics there absolutely everywhere
at this point unless you go and live in a bubble,
and by the way, it would have to be a
glass bubble, couldn't even be a plastic bubble, and you're
(38:42):
completely isolated from the world. I mean, maybe on top
of a mountain in Nepal, I don't know, and you're
probably going to be exposed to some level of microplastics.
But the good news is there are some things that
we can do to reduce that exposure, so maybe not
be exposed to as much microplastics and things that in
our household that we're really trying to focus on. And
(39:03):
by the way, it takes some work. You don't have
to do everything all at once. You can kind of
do you know. It's like an onion peel the layers back.
Try and decrease your exposure over time. You have to
stop heating food in plastic containers. We're all guilty of
sticking some plastic container in the microwave heating it up.
Try to use glass or stainless steel. We have converted
(39:25):
our tupperware, We've gotten rid of the plastics and we
have moved on to the glass ones. That was our
first step here in the Sapphire household. You also want
to filter your drinking water because the harsh reality is
there are microplastics in our drinking water. And while even
filtering your drinking water probably won't get rid of all
the microplastics, it'll certainly get rid of some. So every
(39:46):
little bit counts. You want to maybe try to limit
the use of your synthetic fibers and fabrics. We haven't
really done that here, one because I don't know exactly
which ones I should be doing away with, and second,
we already have so much of that in our household.
What am I going to do? I'm going to throw
away all of our clothes and start afresh. I don't
have that kind of money, so I'm not doing that.
(40:06):
But that's something you certainly could do. And going with
the organic cottons and without those synthetic fibers, that's one
thing you can do. Also, avoid bottled water, think of
those single use plastic bottles. It's sitting in plastic obviously,
especially if it warms up, whether it's in your car,
it's been on a pallette somewhere and it gets heated,
(40:27):
that's probably going to cause some of the microparticles microplastics
from the bottle to go into the water. So maybe
you should do that. Also your packaged produce. If you
get packaged produced, it's usually wrapped in plastic. There's even
some that say, oh it's microwave safe containers that these
bags come in their plastic bags. Try to get fresh
(40:49):
produce if you can. Those are some of the things
that we're doing here in our household. We've also changed
our cutting board away from like the plastic cutting boards.
We've gone to a real steeter cutting board. Shame because
we never want to get it dirty or mess it
up because it's such a pretty cutting board, but that's
what it's for. I mean, it gives it some character
if you actually chop on it and stuff. So those
(41:10):
are some things we're doing to decrease our exposure to
micro plastics in our household. But also when we talk
about overall brain health, there are some things you can do. Yes,
age is the most important risk factor when it comes
to dementia risk and cognitive decline, but there are some
things that you can do to try and decrease those
risks as well, because lifestyle certainly plays a role in
(41:34):
whether or not we get dementia. First things first, as
I mentioned, make sure you're being social. Talk to your friends,
play games. I started Majong last year. It's hard and
I love it. But I'm not only with my friends.
I'm socializing, but I'm also focusing on my using my
brain by learning something new. I mean, yes, sometimes our
day jobs are challenging. Mind certainly is, but if it's
(41:55):
the same thing over and over and over, you're not
really challenging your brain the way your brain needs. So
some of the best things you can do doing puzzles
every single day, learning a new language. I know that
sounds crazy, but you tap into different areas of your
brain if you try and learn a new language. You
also need to exercise regularly. You're going to hear me
say that at nauseum, but when you exercise, you're increasing
(42:16):
blood flow to your body, and part of that is
increasing blood flow to your brain. You want to maximize
your brain blood flow. That makes sense, That's how you
get oxygen to your brain. You also want to make
sure you're getting adequate seat sleep. Sleep deprivation is directly
linked to cognitive decline and not full mental performance, so
prioritize your sleep as well. Eat a brain friendly diet.
(42:38):
Here in our household, we are all about superfoods and
natural herbs. You actually heard my husband mention some natural herbs.
I did put together my favorite liquid blend of natural
herbs for brain health, rosemary, sage, Kinko, baloba, ginsing. These
are all great for brain health. You can also take
some klione as well. It's also helped in terms of
(43:01):
making sure your brain is healthy. We like blueberries and
salmon high and omega threes, and even walnuts. It's kind
of funny, you know, the little walnuts.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
What does that look like to you?
Speaker 1 (43:12):
If you look at a mini walnut, does that look
like anything to you? It looks like a mini brain.
So just think of that walnut brain. So grab some
walnuts because they're good for your brain. And lastly, you
also want to minimize your talks and exposure. We already
talked about microplastics, but it goes on from there. Air pollutants,
heavy metals, all of that. Anything you can do to
(43:33):
kind of live your healthiest, cleanest life. That's what I recommend.
And it's hard to completely eliminate risks everywhere. It's just
not the world we live in. But every little bit
counts and so it's all about baby steps for me
and my family, and that's what I recommend to you.
Thanks for listening to Wellness on MASS on America's number
one podcast network, iHeart. Follow Wellness on MASS with doctor
(43:53):
Nicole Sapfire and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Catch you
next time.
Welcome to Wellness on Mass with doctor Nicole Saffire. I'm
your host, sport certified physician, mom and forever truth seeker. Today,
I want to dive right into a very important topic
that everyone is constantly asking me about, and by the way,
I'm always asking myself and my friends and my colleagues
about it as well. It's brain health. At this point,
everyone knows someone who is living with dementia because it
(00:24):
really is that prevalent people all around us. Now, there
are many different types of dementias. We're not going to
get into that, Alzheimer's being the most common. When we
talk about dementia, it's not one size fits all. Not
two presentations are exactly the same. And in fact, sometimes
people don't even realize that they have maybe some mild dementia.
They're just living life thinking maybe I have a little
(00:46):
bit of brain fog. But let's dive right in. Dementia
is incredibly prevalent. About fifty five million people worldwide are
living with it. In the next twenty years, that number
is probably going to double. Now, the question is is
that number double because we have an increased prevalence and
incidence of dementia, meaning more people are being diagnosed with
it and this should be raising red flags or is
(01:09):
it the fact that we have an aging population. Well,
it's a really good question, and if you really look
at the numbers, it looks like actually, our dementia incidence
over the last five to ten years is slightly decreasing,
meaning a smaller percentage of the population is being diagnosed
with dementia. However, we have more cases of dementia, more
(01:31):
prevalence of dementia because we have an aging population. So
take it as what you will. For me, I would
think that with our innovation, our technology, and everything that
we have today, that we should be seeing fewer cases
of dementia statistically significant fewer, not just you know, one
to four percentage points. Why isn't it ten percent decrease,
(01:52):
twenty percent decrease. Well, I suspect that's because of our
lifestyle factors. And you know what, the data backs me
up on that too. So nearly two thirds of Americans
with dementia are actually females. That's right, ladies, you are
more likely to get dementia than your husband. And why
is that. Well, there's a lot of theories, but I
(02:14):
definitely point to a lot of our hormones. The hormones
in our bodies certainly negatively impact us, especially when it
comes to autoimmune diseases and cancer and other things. So
why not why wouldn't it also influence our dementia risk.
We also are at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease,
and we know that cardiovascular disease directly is linked to
(02:34):
dementia risk, so that's another reason for us. There are
also some racial disparities as well. Black men Hispanic men
are twice as likely to have dementia than say, a
white man is, and that's pointed to maybe some socioeconomic factors.
Also higher incidences of cardiovascular diseases in those populations compared
(02:55):
to white men. Maybe it's because of decreased access to care,
maybe it's lifestyle. Hard to say, but those are the statistics,
and I want to make sure you have that. By
the age of eighty five, nearly half of people living
have some sort of cognitive decline and also dementia. It's
just the fact of life. Our body is aging and
so is our brain, and therefore you will start to
(03:15):
have some cognitive decline. Now, don't worry. There are some
things that we've gotten from research that show there are
ways to decrease our dementia risk, and we're going to
get to that, but at first I want to talk
about why are we seeing maybe some more dementia. What
is it in our lifestyle that's potentially leading to dementia. Well,
I've already mentioned a really big one that is cardiovascular disease.
(03:40):
So if you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, you're overweight,
all of these things increases your risk of dementia because
you have tiny blood vessels, and you have larger blood
vessels too in your brain. So if they are sick unhealthy,
just like your vessels in your body, just like leading
to your heart, you have to imagine that the ones
going to your brain are dealing with the same sickness.
(04:01):
They're having the same blood flow issues. When you have
decrease oxygen to the brain, you can have micro infarcs,
meaning tiny little areas that are dying. So yeah, of
course that's going to lead to dementia risk. I mean
the big one is a stroke. It's essentially it's essentially
when you talk about the brain, the brain is like
your heart. Your heart supplies blood to the body, but
your brain is what keeps you alive. So if you're
(04:23):
decreasing oxygen in the blood, so decreasing blood flow to
the heart, you have a heart attack, and areas of
your heart can die. If you decrease the blood flow
to your brain, you're decreasing the oxygen in the blood.
Therefore you have these infarcs or these areas that start dying.
A huge one is a stroke. Sometimes it can be lethal,
just like a heart attack can be lethal. Sometimes it
(04:44):
can leave you with severe physical and mental incapacities. And
sometimes you don't even realize they're happening because they're so tiny.
But over time, those tiny little infarcs kind of convless
together and really make it that your brain starts having
cognitive decline akay demension, schemic dementia, microvascular dementia, all that
what we're talking about right now is incredibly common. Also,
(05:07):
social isolation if you are not being social, if you're
not being social with your family, your friends, your colleagues,
that also leads to an increased risk of dementia. We
are humans, we are social beings. We are meant to
interact with other people. If you don't do that, your
brain suffers. Another thing that's starting to emerge. And you've
(05:28):
heard me talk about this, if you've seen me on TV. Microplastics.
I don't like talking about it because it scares people.
But the reality is microplastics are everywhere. Now, water microplastics.
There's these tiny little particles of plastic, and they're really everywhere.
They're in the air because they've become aerosolized. They're in
our water, they are drinking water. They're in our foods,
(05:50):
especially those ultra processed foods. And in fact, there's been
studies they looked at postmortem studies on humans. Essentially after
someone died, they looked at their and people with dementia
had ten times the amount of microplastics deposited in their brain,
specifically the frontal lobe that's where your decision making and
your personality, that's where that's all controlled from. So patients
(06:13):
with dementia had significantly higher levels of microplastics deposited in
their brain. Does this mean that the microplastics contributed to
that inflammation in the brain and maybe have led them
to have Alzheimer's and dementia. It's possible. We have animal
studies suggesting that the microplastics in the brain are causing inflammation. Again,
these are some correlations, not actual causation in human trials.
(06:37):
But let's be honest, guys. If you have plastic being
deposited in your brain, I might be going out on
a limb here, but I don't think that's very healthy
for your brain. Absolutely not. You're also finding microplastics in
the vessels in your body too, leading to narrowing of
the vessels, leading to decreased blood flow. Safe to assume
it's probably happening in the brain as well. So I
(06:59):
want to talk about microplastics. I want to talk about
brain health. I could ask a million people to come
on and talk about this, but I figured I would
bring on an actual expert, someone who's an endovascular neurosurgeon.
And that's just a fancy way of saying that he
specializes in the blood vessels in the brain when it
comes to stroke, aneurysm, brain tumors and all of that.
(07:20):
I just so happened to be married to him, doctor
Paul Sapphire, and in our household, brain health is incredibly
important because he sees every single day what can happen
if you are not prioritizing your brain health. So I
want to bring in my husband, doctor Paul Sapphire, word
certified endovascular nerve surgeon, and we're going to talk a
little bit more about microplastics and brain health. Okay, Well,
(07:44):
I like to talk about studies, and I like to
dissect a lot of research, but I am not an
expert in everything. But the good news is I'm actually
married to an expert in everything that we're talking about
right now. So you hear me say a lot of
times cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death,
especially here in the United States, especially amongst women. But
(08:06):
when people hear me say cardiovascular disease, they immediately think
that that just means heart health, you know, heart attacks.
But part of that whole cardiovascular disease spectrum are strokes.
And one of the things that I was blown away
by in the last month, which I've mentioned, is microplastics
are actually being linked to an increased risk of stroke.
(08:29):
Stroke and cardiovascular disease was already the number one cause
of death amongst American females, but now all of a sudden,
microplastics are being linked to it too, So is that
also increasing our risk of death? Good news, I'm married
to This is doctor Paul Sapphire. He is an endovascular neurosurgeon,
(08:49):
which means that his specialty is Yes, he's a neurosurgeon,
so he operates on the brain and the spine, but
his actual niche is when it comes to stroke aneurysms
and bring to so excellent topic to bring in my husband,
doctor Paul Sapphire. Welcome to Wellness sun Mass.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Thank you for having me. By the way, Can I
just say that you're doing next sun job. Thank you
not only just this but everything. I get a lot
of compliments, not from just a lot of my patients
who are a huge fan base, but also for many hospitals.
They're big fans, So bravos to you and everything that
you're doing here.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Well hopefully they have subscribed and they're listening to this
podcast because I can tell you that this is going
to be an important one. So I'm going to call
you Paul, because to call you doctor Sapphire, I don't
want to get confused because I write doctor, I'm the
doctor Sapphire of Wellness sun Mass. It's very confused you doctor,
if you wouldn't mind, so thank you. Oh awesome. So
(09:44):
quick question, so Honestly, I talked to you about this
the moment I read about this study. You know, you
know I have been a little bit wary of the microplastics.
Even in our own kitchen. I've started saying, we have
to do what we can to reduce our exposure to microplastics. Look,
we're not going to go live in the glass bubble,
because that's probably the only way to truly rid ourselves
(10:05):
exposure to microplastics. Not a plastic bubble, not a plastic bubble,
but a glass bubble. But here's the question I have
for you, what really is the link to microplastics and
brain health is it? Is it all hype or is
there something behind.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
This great question? Well, unfortunately, microplastics are pervasive, right They're
everywhere right now that we're finding microplastics in the deep
sea to the cells within our body and everything in between,
and that's very unfortunate. What this one study recently discovered
was that for patients who unfortunately suffered a stroke, there
(10:42):
was a higher percentage of patients than had microplastics within
the atheroma or the plaques within the blood vessels that
were so athroosclerotic disease. When you're talking about serblascar disease,
build up of plaque junk, you know, all the bad
stuff within the blood vessels and creates the bloodvests become
more narrow. There's a higher deposit of those plastics, which
(11:06):
by the way.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
For most people, that's essentially when you eat like yucky,
fatty foods and all of that. That kind of when
we talk about clogging your arteries, that's what atheromas are
and stuff. But what they're finding is in these athromas
are not just jumped from the food.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
But what specifically, these little deposits of plastic, these microplastics
are within it, which is quite awful. There's a component
of the plasts, these HydroD departments, which we talked about earlier.
You know, they are these sort of chemical byproducts that
are that are related to the manufacturing of these plastics.
They are essential to how these plastics are made and
(11:44):
it's you know, you need you need them to build
these plastics. But unfortunately they don't biodegray and they're you know,
we're ingesting them, either you know, passively or actively, and
they filter through our body and they don't go anywhere.
They stay within our body is they break they break
down to these small, microscopic little particles and they get
(12:05):
you know, incorporated into these plaques, and these build up
the junk and it creates a lot of problems, not
just for troup of aster disease well and so so on.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
So we make this plaque. The plaque is from the
junk we eat. Now we're finding out that there are
microplastics in it. But what's the big problem. What happens
when you have these plaques?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Well, what happens when we have these plaques. So there's
a lot of similarities between the heart disease and the
brain disease. In fact, I tell a lot of my
patients when you have a stroke, that's like a heart attack,
but for the brain, brain attack is another sort of
synonymous synonym that we use. Right, So, what happens when
you get these plaques is building with junk within the bloodvessel.
It narrows the blood vessel. Blood flow can't get through.
(12:43):
And then sometimes what happens is not only is a
blood flow not able to get through, but these plaques
they break apart, and these little flecks of debris get
pushed upstream, so to speak, and they travel on the
bloodstream and then they get lodged in the small blood
vessels that in this case lead to brain, and it plods.
A blood vessel is in the brain and that part
of the brain is stopartical oxygen and then it dies irreversibly.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
So that's an eschemicx stroke, meaning you're not getting enough
blood flow to the brain. That piece of brain unless
someone intervenes immediately, is going to die. And that's the
same thing that can happen with a heart attack.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's correct, it's very similar heart attack. Again, we say
a heart attack and a brain attack are almost the
same exact thing.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
So you're an end of ascolinusurgeon. Most people don't really
know what that means when it comes to treating strokes, which,
as you say, is synonymous and kind of parallels to
how you can treat heart attacks these days, What is
your niche like what can be done when someone is
having the stroke?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So sometimes if you're having a large stroke and you
fall within a certain time period where we can actually
intervene or treat that strike, what's that time perod So
it varies, you know, and a lot of people that's
coming to question. That's a whole other topic which I
don't take a messure.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
You know those academics, they love to argue that what
that magical.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Hours You talk about four and a half hours, we
can talk about six, we can talk about eight, we
can talk about it. Time doesn't there. Nonetheless, let's just
say that you fall within a time frame that we
can treat that stroke. Sometimes a doctor like myself can
go in and perform a procedure, again very similar to
what the cardiologists can do for the heart. But what
I can do is oftentimes go through the arguing the
(14:23):
wrist with a very thin but long tuber catheter using
X rays, guide that all the way up to the
bloodvelts that lead through the heart up to the brain.
Get in there and try to grab that clot, try
to grab that blockage and pull it out.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
You know that whole thing when you see the commercials
for a plumber and they love to show like those long,
windy pathways are there.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Paul just called formerly doctor Paul, now just Paul a plumber.
But that's okay, that's right, that's okay.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I mean, can I finish my thought?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I went to a lot of school, not I mean,
we're discussing it.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
It's not rocket science, okay, we're just stucking brain swist.
It's not rocket science. Let's just talk about so. You
know when you see those plumbing commercials and they show
you those super windy pipes and they're like, oh, there's
a clog there, but all of a sudden they have
this massive clog buster that all you have to do
is pour it down the drain and it goes right
(15:21):
to where that clog is and magically that clog disappears.
That is what doctor Paul Sapphire is describing, except it's
not as simple as just injecting a medication into a
patient and all of a sudden this clot goes away.
Although they do try to do that.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
There's a lot of the medication is called trainer. I'm joking.
That's not true at all.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
We're not injecting people just like we don't ever expect
anyone to swallow bleach. I'm not saying that. But what
we're saying is, so what Paul is saying is he
actually either through a vessel in the wrist or even
sometimes in the groin, he goes in there with a
(16:05):
tiny little catheter and strings it all the way to
the brain. Do you know how many twists and turns
it takes to get there. It's not like it just
goes magically by itself, but they do use X rays
to get all the way to the brain. He identifies
the clot and he's able to actually use a basket
device and pull that clot down, and sometimes they give
medication to dissolve that clot. It's really quite remarkable because
(16:28):
when you think of brain surgery, do you think of
that massive surgery where you have to take off half
of the skull and it's incredibly invasive. And don't get
me wrong, he does that all the time. But there's
this very small niche where you can have brain surgery
and all you have is little nick in your wrist
and it really does save your life. I mean, that's
a whole nother episode we can talk about.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
It is crazy how much you know medicine in general,
specifically my field has evolved, if you think about it.
I graduated med school at.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
We don't like to aid ourselves on twelve vytor I've
started to think I did, and in that twenty five
years since I graduate medical school, there's been a tremendous effort.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Thank you very much. My children like that. In personal
honest old dam But in those twenty five some odd
years that I've graduated, there's been a tremendous evolution, not
just in my field, in every field, but especially in
my small little microcosts and my small little niche in
this in this place, a tremendous evolution, and specifically with
stroke care. So what we're doing today we weren't doing yesterday.
(17:35):
And by the way, tomorrow, who knows what we're going
to be doing?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
So well, I mean to be continued. We will see
what happens tomorrow. But I can tell you what's happening
right now in terms of stroke care, also aneurism treatments,
and even brain tumors. It's quite remarkable. But I really
want to get back to microplastics. So this study showed
that microplastics are in the plaques which are leading to
(17:59):
it being broken off, being shot off into the brain,
potentially causing strokes, heart attacks and other things. But microplastics
aren't just being linked to strokes, especially when it comes
to brain health. There was that one study that showed,
of course, it was a post mortem study, and they
looked at the cadavers and in the cadavers the brains
(18:20):
actually had the brains of dementia patients, those who had
been diagnosed with Alzheimer's had a higher risk of deposits
of microplastics in their brain. What's your thought of these
microplastics causing an increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer's and
all the other sorts, Because let's be honest, it seems
like it's getting a lot more common than it was before.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Well, I mean, I'm not surprised by that for sure.
You know, we just talked about how strokes are related
to these microplastics. There are many different types of dementia.
Certainly poor blood flow microvascular schemic dementia, that's the most common,
probably the most common essentially globally or the entire brain
is the product of blood flow.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Even in this starting in repeat, is that because of
our diet and our lifestyle, like there's a brain not
getting enough flood.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
I mean, there's that. You also have to keep in
mind that in the twentieth century, from the beginning to
the end of the twentieth century, we doubled our life expects.
Right from nineteen hundred to year two thousand, we went
from an average life expend in forties to seventies.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
But actually, interestingly, in the last two decades it hasn't
increased anymore.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
It has really.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
It's almost started to dig.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Well. My point though, is that we're living longer, and
so we're seeing more long term effects of paging, especially
in the brain apropos that we're having more long term
effects of deposits. Right, So junk in our body, these junks,
these deposits don't go anywhere. So if you were only
to live to say, forty five years old, right back
(19:56):
in nineteen certainly microplastics were around them, but let's just
say that they were even I have forty five years
worth of deposits those plus who don't go anywhere, and
just getting your brain, they don't go anywhere. Now, if
we're living to our seventies, maybe eighties in some instances, right,
we're having that much more, almost double the length of
time that these deposits build up. So therefore the consequences
(20:19):
of it are ramping up, right, It's exponentially increased, So
that I think is what we're seeing. We're seeing a
lot of those effects because we are living longer. Medicine
in general, we're having that medicine for heart disease, blood pressure, diabetes,
and so on and so forth. That people are surviving
all these other you know, uh, medical issues that would
(20:40):
have you know, crippled them earlier and taken their life,
and now we're seeing the long term effects in our brain.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Well. And also remember that last you know, decades and
decades ago, they would have probably said like, oh, we
have that old crazy uncle or that old crazy very sister,
very distant. Maybe they were just crazy, maybe their brain
was suffering.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Of course people just had senile dementia. What is senile dementia?
Just you're getting old and you have dementia. Well, that's
maybe not right. The more we know, literally we can
segregate all these different types of dementias, and there are
some that maybe we can treat with surgical interventions or
medical therapy, so unfortunately can but I think that ultimately
(21:23):
what we're seeing is the effects of lifestyle and all
these deposits' long term deposits, because we're living longer and
we're living a better life. What we want to be
when we're sixty years old today in twenty twenty five
is not what when I was in nineteen eighty five,
when I was a kid, a six year old person
is not the same person.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That's true. Well, since you brought up senile dementia, I
feel like this is a great opportunity.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
And by the way, you don't have to answer this.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Wellness and masks is all about whatever you want to
talk about. Joe Biden, former President Joe Biden. There was
he was president for four years, we saw him as
vice president under President Barack Obama, we saw him for
decades as a senator and also in the public eye.
Did you have an opinion on how he was doing?
(22:13):
I mean, I was publicly outspoken about I felt that
he was declining cognitively, and I felt that it was
very important that he submit.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
To a cognitive valuation.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Did you have any opinions that you want to share.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Well, certainly, I think that you know too. You shouldn't
hide from them.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
You may have cut him off guard.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
You've got me a little bit off guard, and that's
that's okay, that's okay. So look, let's just let's just
be honest. You know, cognitivecline and function that that happens,
that happens a lot. It is permissive, and maybe maybe
we don't talk about it enough. And I think that
if a lot of people embraced in the sense that
we say that we recognize that our loved ones are
(22:56):
suffering from these issues, that again, maybe we can meet
it earlier rather than being dismissive and institute treatment, even
if the treatment isn't medicinal. We can't undo the effects
of whatever the culprit of that dementia is, but we
can modify the living environments for that person. Now, it's
hard to do for the President United State, it's in
(23:18):
arguably the most one of the most powerful people, if
not the most powerful person in every world. You can't
really modify their living environment so much. And has a
lot to do with that. However, for the rest of
us that are normal, you know, normal folk, if we
see a loved one that's suffering from the dementia, you know,
(23:38):
maybe we don't put them in an environment that exacerbates
the constantly changing and evolving. Look, I mean, the President
United says, one day in Turkey, the next day, you're
you're you're all the way in the Middle East, the
next day you're back in Rome, and then back into
New York City wherever on the meatia Delaware. My point
is you're traveling all the place, you're in constantly evolving situation.
(24:01):
You're seeing hundreds of people a day. I'm sure you're
dealing with a lot of you know, revolving faces environments.
That's hard if you were facing cognitive decline. That's only
going to exacerbate that. You're only going to make that
those symptoms worse. So you know, if it were my
loved one, I would try to keep them in a
(24:21):
relatively stable environment. Again, the president that says you can't
be in a stable environment, and it says that you
have to constantly move around. You're just seeing some way
to fix Again, we off the rails a little bit,
you know, and I apologize for that. So but yes,
there definitely were.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Se issues, all right, Well, so I appreciate that. I
do think that President Biden unfortunately was showing signs of
early cognitive decline early on in the presidency and it
kind of rapidly progressed. And I agree with you. I
think it was a very stressful situation. And if it
(24:55):
were my loved one, I would probably have had them
in a different situation. But you know, that is of
the past.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I think you need. Yes, the point that I was
trying to make is you need to admit to it
rather than shrink away from her hindans heid.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
That's a big question, but that's not what we're going
to talk about for today. So back to microplastics, which
you know, I think we all are exposed to. Before
I get your advice on something, I also saw something
that microplastics. Again I hate saying all this research, but
microplastics shown to be in the ath aroma plaques which
(25:32):
you mentioned, which are leading to heart attacks and strokes.
Also we're seeing in dementia patients. They also have mentioned
in gbms. Those gleoblastoma multiform which I'll let you talk
about you're the expert, are very aggressive primary brain tumor.
Former center John McCain actually died from it. We've also
(25:52):
seen other people died from it. It's becoming a little
bit more of a public topic because John McCain's daughter,
Megan McCain talks about it. Brings awareness. Honest opinion, Do
you think there's a rise in incidents and prevalence of
these aggressive brain tumors because the research is saying that
it's possibly linked to microplastics. Do you buy it?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I think that there definitely is a rise of the incidence.
The question is why, right, So we in twenty twenty five,
that's compared to twenty years ago or forty years ago,
we have more easy access to advanced image MRIs and
so on.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
So what can I say something as a radiologist there,
I just want to defend us a little bit because
people that is a very common argument, Oh, we are
diagnosing more, which is true, by the way, especially when
it comes to like brain tumors. Skin can't. I'm not
sorry brain tumors, but breast cancers, skin cancers, not very
aggressive lung cancers. See, we're doing all these screening tests.
(26:52):
We're finding these early cancers. Maybe people would have died
from them, maybe they wouldn't have. But gbms, come on,
gbms are rapidly aggressive. People die from them. So how
can we say, oh, we're just finding more. Were they
just being misdiagnosed because they just died and we didn't
(27:12):
know why they died. Like it's not like, oh, they
were diagnosed with a GBM early, we intervened and then
they lived. Because even if we intervene early with gbms.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
That's a great point. I think maybe maybe the concept
of brain towers in general being diagnosed, so maybe the
more advanced ones that are symptomatic, we would have potentially
caught all those at the same timeframe. To your point,
during symptoms, you're getting an MRI whether or not you
can get an emerald literally around the corner or you
(27:44):
had to go to the corner of your state, because
back forty years ago, there weren't that many MRI machines
capable of doing brain imaging. In general, I think that
MRI imaging of the brain and the nervous system is
just so much more commonplace that we are finding a
lot more issues. However, the malignant brain tumors the really
(28:05):
scary ones. So you keep saying it, kept saying the
name GBM bluoblastom gluoblastoma multiformat is you know, let's you
mention that a lot. That is the brain cancer when
we talk about brain cancer and almost you know, that's
where the.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Cancer starts in the brain. It's not like it went
from the breast or the pain crests or whatever and
it went to the brain, but it starts in the rain.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
And that is, you know, inarguably one of the worst
cancers to have the sense that our treatment options for them.
While we do a lot of surgery, radiation, and keepotherapy
and a lot of those techniques continue to evolve, we've
made shockingly little headway unfortunately in the past, you know,
several decades to these patients, and my heart goes out
(28:48):
to all my patients that I treat with them. You know,
we have great strides, you know, surgical, our surgical technique
has it improved, so we can treat tumors that maybe
before they weren't able to treat so and so. But
the problem is that these are just such aggressive tumors
and unfortunately, once you're stricken with it, it really is
it's it's it's a really it's a travesty. It breaks
(29:09):
havoc on the family patient obviously, you know it's tough.
So where are they coming from? That's a huge question.
This concept of microplastics and you know, the hydrocarbons and
the vinyls and all these things. That's something that's been
discussed in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
All all, and we're still consuming products, food, drinks, everything
around this.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yes, that again, a hydrocarbon that has been something that
I remember reading that was you know, when I was
in medical school in the nineties was a lot of
area of investigation, and a lot of people thought that
maybe there was a correlation with them. And again, like
a lot of things like heart disease, Right, you may
(29:54):
have obesity or high cholesterol, high blood pressure, for genetics,
and then and you may have all those factors and
you may not actually end up having heart disease, or
you may have none event and have heart disease. What's
the magic you know, the magic combination that leads to
having a medical condition. That's that's a great I.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Note a lot of correlation, it's a lot of causation.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
And sometimes for people it's just hitting one, two and
three and then unfortunately is to come to something. So
I do think that there probably is a lot to that.
Is that to say that people didn't have GBM back
in the fifteen hundreds, of course they did, right, of course,
I mean these are things that happened back that. Unfortunately, again,
people didn't live that lot. Right If the lat average
(30:36):
life expectancy was forty years old, and the average the
average age of onsite for GBM is between the age
of forty and fifty or sixty, well you could see
that maybe you.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Didn't see as chuption. Okay, so we can't avoid microplastics
in total. There are some things we can do to
reduce it, and I'll talk about them a little bit,
But for you, I want to hear about specifically, what
do you institute in our household and what do you
say to your patients and your friends and your family.
(31:07):
What can you do to preserve brain health. We can't
avoid everything, we can't at all. We know that you
and I both live in this and work in this
world where you can do everything right and bad things
can still happen. But there are some things that you
can do to reduce your risk. So when it comes
to brain health, if you had a few tips for us,
what should we all be doing to try and preserve
(31:29):
our brain health?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Well, I think the first thing I'd say is sort
of the synopsis at the end, which is healthy living. Man.
I mean, it sounds kind of silly and very almost
you know, you know, we get it, we get it,
but it's true healthy living whatever and HONESO. They do
tell my patients, whatever is healthy for your heart is
healthy for your brain. Right, So all the common sense things,
(31:51):
should you stop smoking, should you drink less alcohol, should
you exercise more, should you lose some way, should you
eat less red meat, have more balanced diet and have
more fiber and some healthy natural natural foods and organic
foods and organic products. For absolutely all that stuff is
a given, and it's it's kind of like when you're
in school. We could all read more, we could all
(32:12):
study more, we can exercise more. So so yes, we
could all improve in that in that po but definitely
the natural organists. You know, you and I talked about,
you know, raising our family and our kids, but having
a better lifestyle in a house. We tried very much.
We have all the organic eggs in our house right now. Chickens.
You're I mean, you're the chicken mama. You're raising those
(32:35):
babies and these eggs fantastic. By the way, we also,
you know, to your to your credit, we have a
huge garden right now. We have a lot of natural stones.
We've got things, you know, things that are great with
you know, the natural herbs, the natural vegetables, which are fantastic.
Rosemary is a huge one. I'm a huge rosemary.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Roseberries all over our proper getting.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
They have introduced you to rosemary. However, back in the day, Okay,
that's fourteen years ago admit.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
That that was all you.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah, I think so. I think that may be true.
But it's certainly a lot of the additional supplements that
maybe we're not harvesting in our house, but you can
find gink go bloga digin saying those are great. You know,
you actually, to your credit and started a national supplement line,
the Drop of our Ax, which is phenomenal. I take it,
(33:26):
I cans take it. A lot of my colleagues have
also sworn by it. Uh there. You know, when when
you were forming that product line, one area that I
kind of mentioned to you was what about brain health?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
I know that obviously wasn't on my radar. When I
when you hear me talk about like natural herbs having
an autoimmune disease, I always think about, you know, systemic
inflammation and pain. I feel that a lot. I also
feel some ink sometimes. So I was all about decreasing
that systemic inflammation, which I guess goes along with brain health. Obviously,
if you're talkingalking about decreasing your body's inflammation, you also
(34:03):
want to.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Decase your brain.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
But I never specifically thought about, well, what's good with
your brain? But thank goodness, I'm married a brain surgeon,
because all of a sudden, he's like, Uh, you're focusing
on a lot of the peripheral stuff. I'm sorry you're Paul,
I'm doctor sas in this episode, but it was very
interesting to me because I was always about, like I
have to focus on my pain and the peripheral body.
(34:28):
And my husband's always said to me, he's like, your
body is worth nothing if your brain isn't healthy, and
that it took a minute for me to really to
really digest, but he's right, like, we're always focused on
how can we get our body looking good, going to
the gym for some plastic surgery and botox and all
(34:49):
of these skincare lines and dyeing our hair and getting
our nails done. Not that you do that, but I
may do that. But if your brain is not healthy,
what was all of that for? And so we have
really done a one eight in the Sapphire household and
doing everything we can to make sure our brain is
unhealthy as possible. It doesn't mean that we're not going
(35:10):
to succumb at some point to some level of dementia
or god forbid, one of these brain cancers. But as
long as we know that we're doing what we can
to decrease that risk. That's really the best you can do.
And the biggest thing for us is also make sure
you're living your life absolutely.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I mean, so anything can happen to anywhere, right, and
you want to make reasonable, rational decisions and choices. So
that way, when you look back and you say, oh,
shoot something, you know, something maybe unforeseen or unfortunate happens
to me, you never want to look back. At least
my perspective is you never want to look back and say, well,
I could have done this better. I should I shouldn't have.
I shouldn't have been smoking with cigarettes. I shouldn't been
(35:48):
drinking so much alcoholic. Should have been more blueberries, more
blueberg fantastic, I should have I should have exercised a
little bit more. Right. You know, you want to say,
you know, I did the best things I can. If
you do all these things right and then forbid something
unfortunate happens to you, that's life. I know that sounds
it was trivial to say it and almost dispissive, and
they don't mean to sound that way, but that's true.
(36:08):
Anything can happen to anybody at any point, So you
want to look back and say you made the best
choice of the best decisions that you can going forward.
So that way, if unfortunate something happens to you, you
don't think through something were all shoot, I couldn't change things.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
And which, by the way, this is not medical advice whatsoever.
But at the end of the day, we all work
for a living and we all try to save as
much as we can, and that's why trying to enjoy
every aspect of your life is more important than anything.
And so whether it's just staying at home, playing charades,
playing monopoly, going on a trip, but spending that quality
(36:44):
time with your friends and your family, whatever it is
that makes you happy and brings you that piece is
probably the best advice that I can ever give someone.
We could all do everything right, go to the gym,
eat right, get all of your screening exams. We are
not in charge of our future, so just make sure
you are enjoying every bit of your life.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
That's right, Absolutely, That's.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Why I enjoy you all right, well, doctor Paul Sapphire,
Paul please doctor pul Sapphire's husband, thank you so much
for coming on. I truly your advice regarding brain howth
is invaluable. Obviously we've adopted into our household. It's changed
the way I think of a lot of things. And
I'll be honest, the microplastics things really scares me. But
(37:27):
it's one of those things, just like knowing that there
are gene mutations that I can't do anything about that
can lead to disease. I can do what I can
to reduce microplastics exposures in our house, but I will
never keep our family completely safe from them. So anything
that we can do to try and live a healthier life,
you know, we're working forward. It's baby steps. I still
(37:51):
will have water out of a plastic bottle occasionally, and
I feel bad about that, but you know, it's baby steps.
We're getting there.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah, all that's up. Thank you for having me, Thanks.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
For being ann. You're listening to Wellness and mass. We'll
be right back with more. All right, Well, our conversation
probably went off the rails here or there once or
twice during that interview, but that's what happens when you're
married to your guest. You have a lot to talk about.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
But I think the.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Bottom line and the real take home points that I
take from you know, when I talk to him about
what we can be doing best for our brain health
is first of all, when it comes to microplastics exposure,
there's no way to completely avoid microplastics there absolutely everywhere
at this point unless you go and live in a bubble,
and by the way, it would have to be a
glass bubble, couldn't even be a plastic bubble, and you're
(38:42):
completely isolated from the world. I mean, maybe on top
of a mountain in Nepal, I don't know, and you're
probably going to be exposed to some level of microplastics.
But the good news is there are some things that
we can do to reduce that exposure, so maybe not
be exposed to as much microplastics and things that in
our household that we're really trying to focus on. And
(39:03):
by the way, it takes some work. You don't have
to do everything all at once. You can kind of
do you know. It's like an onion peel the layers back.
Try and decrease your exposure over time. You have to
stop heating food in plastic containers. We're all guilty of
sticking some plastic container in the microwave heating it up.
Try to use glass or stainless steel. We have converted
(39:25):
our tupperware, We've gotten rid of the plastics and we
have moved on to the glass ones. That was our
first step here in the Sapphire household. You also want
to filter your drinking water because the harsh reality is
there are microplastics in our drinking water. And while even
filtering your drinking water probably won't get rid of all
the microplastics, it'll certainly get rid of some. So every
(39:46):
little bit counts. You want to maybe try to limit
the use of your synthetic fibers and fabrics. We haven't
really done that here, one because I don't know exactly
which ones I should be doing away with, and second,
we already have so much of that in our household.
What am I going to do? I'm going to throw
away all of our clothes and start afresh. I don't
have that kind of money, so I'm not doing that.
(40:06):
But that's something you certainly could do. And going with
the organic cottons and without those synthetic fibers, that's one
thing you can do. Also, avoid bottled water, think of
those single use plastic bottles. It's sitting in plastic obviously,
especially if it warms up, whether it's in your car,
it's been on a pallette somewhere and it gets heated,
(40:27):
that's probably going to cause some of the microparticles microplastics
from the bottle to go into the water. So maybe
you should do that. Also your packaged produce. If you
get packaged produced, it's usually wrapped in plastic. There's even
some that say, oh it's microwave safe containers that these
bags come in their plastic bags. Try to get fresh
(40:49):
produce if you can. Those are some of the things
that we're doing here in our household. We've also changed
our cutting board away from like the plastic cutting boards.
We've gone to a real steeter cutting board. Shame because
we never want to get it dirty or mess it
up because it's such a pretty cutting board, but that's
what it's for. I mean, it gives it some character
if you actually chop on it and stuff. So those
(41:10):
are some things we're doing to decrease our exposure to
micro plastics in our household. But also when we talk
about overall brain health, there are some things you can do. Yes,
age is the most important risk factor when it comes
to dementia risk and cognitive decline, but there are some
things that you can do to try and decrease those
risks as well, because lifestyle certainly plays a role in
(41:34):
whether or not we get dementia. First things first, as
I mentioned, make sure you're being social. Talk to your friends,
play games. I started Majong last year. It's hard and
I love it. But I'm not only with my friends.
I'm socializing, but I'm also focusing on my using my
brain by learning something new. I mean, yes, sometimes our
day jobs are challenging. Mind certainly is, but if it's
(41:55):
the same thing over and over and over, you're not
really challenging your brain the way your brain needs. So
some of the best things you can do doing puzzles
every single day, learning a new language. I know that
sounds crazy, but you tap into different areas of your
brain if you try and learn a new language. You
also need to exercise regularly. You're going to hear me
say that at nauseum, but when you exercise, you're increasing
(42:16):
blood flow to your body, and part of that is
increasing blood flow to your brain. You want to maximize
your brain blood flow. That makes sense, That's how you
get oxygen to your brain. You also want to make
sure you're getting adequate seat sleep. Sleep deprivation is directly
linked to cognitive decline and not full mental performance, so
prioritize your sleep as well. Eat a brain friendly diet.
(42:38):
Here in our household, we are all about superfoods and
natural herbs. You actually heard my husband mention some natural herbs.
I did put together my favorite liquid blend of natural
herbs for brain health, rosemary, sage, Kinko, baloba, ginsing. These
are all great for brain health. You can also take
some klione as well. It's also helped in terms of
(43:01):
making sure your brain is healthy. We like blueberries and
salmon high and omega threes, and even walnuts. It's kind
of funny, you know, the little walnuts.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
What does that look like to you?
Speaker 1 (43:12):
If you look at a mini walnut, does that look
like anything to you? It looks like a mini brain.
So just think of that walnut brain. So grab some
walnuts because they're good for your brain. And lastly, you
also want to minimize your talks and exposure. We already
talked about microplastics, but it goes on from there. Air pollutants,
heavy metals, all of that. Anything you can do to
(43:33):
kind of live your healthiest, cleanest life. That's what I recommend.
And it's hard to completely eliminate risks everywhere. It's just
not the world we live in. But every little bit
counts and so it's all about baby steps for me
and my family, and that's what I recommend to you.
Thanks for listening to Wellness on MASS on America's number
one podcast network, iHeart. Follow Wellness on MASS with doctor
(43:53):
Nicole Sapfire and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Catch you
next time.
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