Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
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Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Dr. Michael Lewis on Omega-3s, Brain Trauma & TBI Recovery
In this compelling episode of Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman, host Bruce sits down with Dr. Michael Lewis—renowned brain health expert and founder of the Brain Health Education and Research Institute—to unpack the devastating impact of repetitive brain trauma, especially among veterans, athletes, and youth in contact sports.
Dr. Lewis reveals the science behind omega-3 fatty acids and their potential to reduce inflammation, support traumatic brain injury (TBI) recovery, and improve overall mental health. Together, they discuss the silent nature of brain injuries, the underdiagnosis of TBI, and the urgent need for nutrition-first approaches in treatment protocols.
They also examine the importance of early detection, improved safety standards in youth sports, and the vital role of research funding in transforming brain trauma care.
🎧 Whether you're a veteran, athlete, parent, or health professional, this episode delivers actionable insights that could save lives.
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Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is sponsored by The Mac Parkman Foundation
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Repetitive Brain Trauma
02:22 The Brain Health Education and Research Institute
04:50 Understanding TBI and Omega-3s
06:52 Recognizing Symptoms of Brain Trauma
10:38 The Role of Medication in Treatment
12:41 Nutrition and Inflammation
14:01 Hope Through Omega-3s
18:20 Challenges in Research Funding
20:24 The Link Between Omega-3s and Mental Health
20:50 Optimizing Brain Health
26:19 The Importance of Omega-3 Ratios
28:40 Practical Dietary Changes
34:21 Results from the Brain Health Protocol
37:10 Cost and Accessibility of Treatment
41:09 Youth Sports and Brain Health
42:18 Making Contact Sports Safer
47:31 The Role of Nutrition in Sports
51:21 Public Health and Nutrition Awareness
55:19 Conclusion and Resources
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honoring our veterans through real solutions to brain trauma.
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Saturday, June 28th, 1:30 PM – 9:00 PM EDT
Produced by Security Halt Media
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken Brains with your host, Bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation, when we look at the issue of repetitive brain trauma in the form of repetitive head impacts from contact sports and repetitive blast exposure for our US military veterans, and what these conditions are doing to their brains and their careers and is causing the largest brain health cause of mental illness in this country, and how we're going to address this. So we reach out to researchers and advocates, patients and veterans and sports players that talk about this issue, because repetitive brain trauma is not taught in our nursing and medical and psychological communities advocates, patients and veterans and sports players that talk about this issue, because repetitive brain trauma is not taught in our nursing and medical and psychological communities. So you need to be informed so that you can make decisions to protect those that you love. On our show today, another amazing guest is Dr Michael Lewis, who is the president and founder of the Brain Health Education and Research Institute. He's an expert on nutritional interventions for brain health, particularly the use of omega-3 fatty acids for the prevention, management and rehabilitation of concussions and traumatic brain injuries. With TBI, he founded the Brain Health Education and Research Institute in late 2011.
Speaker 1:Upon retiring as a colonel after a distinguished 31-year career in the United States Army thank you for your service, sir.
Speaker 1:His pioneering work in the military and since has helped thousands of people around the world and he is regularly featured in the media, to include C-SPAN, Fox News and CNN's Sanjay Gupta MD Show, along with hundreds of radio shows and podcasts. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, go Army and Tulane University School of Medicine. He is board certified and a fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American College of Nutrition. He completed postgraduate training at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, John Hopkins University and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He is currently in practice in Potomac, Maryland, at the Brain Care Center and is a consultant to several organizations, institutes and nutrition companies around the world and a founding member of the Pop Warner Youth Football Medical Advisory Board and on the board of directors of National Collegiate Rugby. And, as an old rugger, always glad to talk to other rugby people and I see the t-shirt there, Dr Lewis. Welcome to the show, sir.
Speaker 2:Great to be with you, Bruce.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, man. So tell us about the Brain Health Education and Research Institute. Why was it founded and what do you focus on?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I got to go back a little bit before that, seven, eight years or so before that. I you know, I'm not a neurologist I came to this in a very roundabout way. I, through my training, my postgraduate training, I was trained in international infectious diseases and I was sent overseas. I was in Southeast Asia for a number of years. My job was to run around, find new and interesting things. I was a disease hunter.
Speaker 2:I happened to be over there when a bird flu and SARS happened and uh and a number of other things, that massive nationwide uh, you know, uh, outbreak investigations having the time of my life. And they said come back. The Army said come back and teach at the medical school in Bethesda. And I'm like, well, why would I want to do that? And they're like we're the Army, we're not giving you a choice. But now you've got Iraq and Afghanistan going on, you've got wounded warriors everywhere and you go to the gym, you go here or there, anywhere on the base there's wounded warriors.
Speaker 2:And so in 2006, I just kept hearing things and putting things together. I say I put two and two together. I came up with an odd number and asked the question. So I went to the head of the Defense Veteran Brain Injury Center, head of research, and I asked is anybody looking at the use of omega-3s, like you would get from fish oil, to help our soldiers recover from traumatic brain injury? And the answer was no, why don't you? And I tried to make up every excuse because I'm not a neurologist and so on. He goes, yeah, but you're the only one asking the question. He goes, yeah, but you're the only one asking the question. And that was December of 2006.
Speaker 2:So I've been on this quest for a long time. I thought I was being successful. Every time I asked a question it seemed like the military would throw more money at it. It was really being helpful and developing the research until I started looking like I might actually be successful. And then the Army started to throw roadblocks in my way and so finally I had enough. I said I got enough time to retire. I'm going to go out and do it myself. So I started the nonprofit Brain Health Education and Research to basically continue the kind of research that I was interested in but, more importantly, get the word out that there is more we can do to help with brain recovery after an injury.
Speaker 1:So when we start focusing on I mean, you know we talk a lot in the show about repetitive blast exposure and we know that the focus on TBI for years has kind of not allowed us to focus on one of the root causes of the mental illness problem that we're having with the veterans, but it all stems to brain health. So when you look at omega-3 fatty acids, what are you proposing and what are you finding? When it comes to the impact on the brain from a TBI or in the case of repetitive blast exposure, you know thousands of impacts that a soldier would take over their career.
Speaker 2:Well, so brain health, education, research. We have shifted the focus the last couple of years where we're dealing with veterans mostly veterans, law enforcement but others and the long-term effects. Those are the ones we're seeing. We're not seeing the concussions that happened yesterday and so the long-term effects, like you talked about, in some cases there was no direct blown up with an IED or you know some kind of kinetic type of thing we're talking about, maybe special forces, greenbury guys dropping 10,000 mortar rounds in the matter of a couple of months and that blast over pressure which is like alignment hitting their head over and over and over and over again in football, so that repetitive exposure.
Speaker 2:We're seeing that in the veteran community. You know somewhat on the active duty community but it seems like especially special operations, they hold it together longer than your average people because they're exceptional people, type A personalities. They hold it together, but then once they get into their mid-40s the wheels start to come off the bus and that's where we start to see some issues and that's when we step in and help and address it with nutrition. You know a very directed, targeted nutritional therapy that works for the most part.
Speaker 1:And let's talk about the wheels falling off the bus, because that's where you know we all come in right. I'm a retired Green Beret Sergeant Major. I had my own you know TBI or my own diagnosis from the VA of GAD because of all the stuff that they found out was done to my brain over time. I was 58 years old, or 59, okay and for our audience, you know a lot of their loved ones, whether they served in the military or they played contact sports for an excessively long time. Don't understand, when those wheels come off, what it might look like. So what are the indicators that you're seeing that are driving these men and women to come find you, or that you are determining that your modality can help them out? What are you seeing out there as far as indicators for our audience to look at? You know their loved one and say, hey, man, you might have to go see Dr Mike, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, in a lot of ways you may not realize it, but you pointed out a really important thing. It's often the spouse that recognizes it before the actual service member or athlete, and so that's really important. Member or athlete, and so that's really important. So spouses play a very important part in this, because they're the ones that notice, hey, you're flying off the handle a little bit easier, you're not as calm as you used to be, and the person themselves may be like geez, you know, where did I leave the keys and I seem to be forgetting everything. And just, you know, in some cases say they've risen up and, you know, gotten out of the military.
Speaker 2:Or you know, a lot of corporate executives were either came from the military or, more commonly, came from played college sports at some level, whether it was baseball, basketball, football because they've got that team mentality, that drive, that type A personality, and you know so we see a lot of those people that as they're getting into the 40s and 50s, right, they're not keeping the edge at the business level.
Speaker 2:And then you know we even worse, there's a spiral and you can, you can actually look at the spiral and re in retrospect where, you know, start to mismanage money, you know there might be, you're, you're flying off the handle, but that might lead to marital problems and divorce and then financial difficulties and then you're really down. You know, now you're really swirling Substance abuse and substance abuse. You're trying to self-medicate with alcohol and now you're really in the spiral. Right, you're in the whirlpool and getting sucked down the drain and the question is can we stop that spiral? And in fact it really is in many cases a death spiral, and we see it over and over again, whether it's NFL players or, you know, fighter pilots from all the G-forces, or Green Berets from the heavy weapons exposure, or artillery men or tankers.
Speaker 1:Or tankers, yep.
Speaker 2:You know, or you know, the college football player that has held it together until they don't.
Speaker 1:And when you find these people, especially in the first response, especially in the military side, you know, we know that when men and women start struggling, you know they might go to the VA, they might go to TRICARE and their mental illness is 100% of the times misdiagnosed. When it comes down to repetitive brain trauma right, because the brain is never looked at, they never consider brain health as part of their diagnosis. I mean, you're obviously mentally ill, you know. You're fighting, you're arguing with your wife, you're drinking, whatever it is right. So when these veterans find you, I mean, are you finding that they're already on like a heavy load of? But even the younger ones that got you know?
Speaker 2:more acutely got blown up and they come out of Walter Reed and other hospitals when they're on a. You know they're 25 years old and they're on a dozen medications because you know. So here's an Ambien. You know you got pain. Here's Motrin Well, that's not strong enough. Here's another one, all right. Here's aien. You know you got pain. Here's Motrin Well, that's not strong enough. Here's another one, all right. Here's, you know. Oh, now you're having. You know you're depressed. Here's a drug Now, oh, you're having side effects. Oh well, here's another drug for the side effects.
Speaker 1:We got a pill for that.
Speaker 2:We got a pill for that too, because, believe it or not, I don't think it's necessarily intentional. It's part two. Parts One is that you need, everybody needs to be their best own advocate or have somebody that's advocating for them and and point out hey, you know, they don't need to be, you don't need to be on another, yet another, yet another drug.
Speaker 1:You know, and then, you know.
Speaker 2:So you need a good advocate. But you also have to realize on the physician or nurse practitioner side, you want to do something to help. And what have we been taught? Here's a symptom, here's a drug, and you know. So I feel bad for you. You know I want to help, and what have we been taught? Here's a symptom, here's a drug, and you know. So I feel bad for you. I want to help you. I know you got the symptoms. So here's a drug. Nobody's looking more at the root cause, and I would argue that the root cause is really whether we're talking overt type of issues or whether we're talking more. Sometimes it is overt but mental health type of issues. Underlying that and brain health in general is inflammation, and inflammation is fueled by what we eat and what we're exposed to, and so you know, we're just not taught that in medical school, and that's one of the issues.
Speaker 1:And we also know that, you know, neuroinflammation is also caused by those repetitive exposures that damage the brain, that cause all those chain reactions within the brain to protect itself you know cytokine storms and that, over time, start actually eating at the brain itself. So you have, you know, a toxic environment that is, you know, is producing mental health due to the damage to key components of the brain. Now, I mean, you're talking about omega-3s, okay. We're talking about fish, okay. So, and you are treating like people with fish.
Speaker 1:And one of the problems that we have out here is that, whether we're talking to NFL players, right, that you know they have, they know they're going to have CT I'm going to have CT when I die, all right, but they think it's a death sentence, right. And veterans that are, you know, hearing noises or suffering in silence, that you know they're, they're, they're having psychosis or whatever their you know their problems are psychosis or whatever their you know their problems are Anger, rage, they think it's the end of the line, all right, none of these people, a lot of these folks, don't have hope, and part of it is because they're on those 12 drugs, right, and all that crazy stuff the VA puts them on, but you're offering hope with fish, right. So talk to us about that, because that's an amazing story. What are your protocols? And then, what's the research showing? I mean, because this is this, is this. This is amazing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and you know, one of the things that I'm going to address the last part really quick is what's the research showing? The research doesn't show you anything. Because nobody's willing to do the research, because who's going to make money off of it gets back to that.
Speaker 1:Now I will. I will tell you that basf, the big german community, uh, they, their omega-3 people, contacted us at our last repetitive brain summit and we're looking for a way to monetize omega-3s for brain treatment. And because we were talking about neuroinflammation and there's a distinct correlation between omega-3s, which I'm sure you're going to explain, and inflammation, anti-inflammation, whatever you want to call it. So yeah, but anyways, that conversation just popped up in my mind. They had all their scientists. But yeah, talk to us about that Right.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean BASF, you know, puts out, you know whatever. Nothing keeps you from going to CVS and buying fish oil or Costco, you know. So it's already got a generic and so drug companies don't make money off of. You know, when there's something already out there, it's generic and so there's not a lot of interest from a financial side for companies like BASF and DSM and you know Bayer and GSK and Pfizer and whatever, because they're not going to make the money off it, they're not going to get the return. You want that billion-dollar drug that people are going to have to take all the time, which?
Speaker 1:sucks.
Speaker 2:Which like for hypertension or whatever. So that's, that's part of the issue. So one of the things that I'll point out and I know there's, there's thousands of you know probably of better organizations out there trying to help veterans, and there's one in 36,000 of them, 36,000 VSOs exist in the United States.
Speaker 1:Right now Just a couple.
Speaker 2:There's a couple and there's one that I know of, without naming it. It's very well funded, but it's very much focused on inpatient care, and inpatient care that costs around $80,000. And yet what they're really doing is they're just diagnosing One of the issues you know. So one of the reasons why I left the military retired was I was having coffee with the leading neurologist in the military at the time MD, phd, smart guy you ever want to meet. And we were having coffee, we were friends and he goes. You know you're never going to be successful. I'm like what do you mean? And he goes. Well, the university. I was at the Uniformed Services University, the military medical school in.
Speaker 1:Bethesda. I have played their rugby team as a Fort Bragg rugger several times.
Speaker 2:Well, they just this is I'm going to say 2010, 2009,. Something like that and he said they just got a $70 million grant to study. The problem and I'm like, okay, and he goes, shorten this conversation is you've skipped over the problem. You have a five cent solution and if you're correct and I think you are you're going to kill the cash cow. You're going to make them look like fools because you already got a solution and they've got $70 million a year coming in the door. Who do you think is going to win that play? And sure enough, I got asked to leave the university and told by the head of research if you want a continuous line of research, go somewhere else. We will not support you.
Speaker 1:What was your line of research at the time? Was it specifically for Omega-3s?
Speaker 2:For traumatic brain injury. I said so. We're not interested in helping soldiers recover from traumatic brain injury. End the conversation, please leave. Soldiers recovered from traumatic brain injury End of conversation, please leave. And that research institute to this day continues to draw in tens of millions of dollars a year in research funding. And I just went. A couple of months ago they had a one-day symposium to show off all the research. All the research was about trying to diagnose the problem a TBI or the like.
Speaker 2:We're still trying to understand how you? You know what's the best diagnostic and how do you best define it. How do you? It's like I skipped over the problem 15, 20 years ago, and like I'm trying to implement a solution and they're still talking about what the problem is, you know. So, a billion dollars later, they're still trying to DOD, still trying to figure out what the problem is, and you and I know what the problem is, you know, and it's it's yeah, it's important to do that basic science, but let's get a little bit more aggressive.
Speaker 2:Nobody wants to talk about nutrition. It's too simple. And I mean I've got emails that got forwarded to me from two star and three star generals basically saying how do we shut this guy up and make him go away?
Speaker 1:Wow, man, yeah, no, I do not doubt it. I mean, it's all it's. It's so unfortunate that we are not focused on the actual problem, which is saving soldiers lives and protecting them when these you know political or monetary interests get in our way. Because, you know, the medical community in some ways is a corporation right. Anything that threatens their existence gets shut down. You know whether it's you yelling about a five-cent solution for a $70 million problem or you know people out there going. You know we've had all these. You know young men and women take their lives. Has anybody looked for the impact of their combat service or their MOS on the health of their brain? And nobody wants to touch that box right now.
Speaker 2:I'll up that one a little bit, because one of the last things I did before I left active duty was I published a study the end of 2011 and I retired the end of 2011. And the study was with a colleague at the NIH and we looked at 800 documented and investigated suicides in active duty personnel 100 a year for eight years with well-matched controls and what we showed was a 62% increased risk with low omega-3 levels. And it was a greater risk than combat seeing your best friend killed next to you.
Speaker 1:Mental health illness, anything it was a greater risk factor than any of the mental health potential risk factors. Just low omega-3 levels in the blood that were taken from these people before You're looking at blood tests that they had before they passed on.
Speaker 1:Yes, wow, okay, well, I mean. So let's talk about that real quick. I mean you, you have spent a lot of time and you've risked your military career for you know your belief that omega-3s are absolutely essential to you know, nutritional, you know brain, brain optimization, a healthy brain environment, which, when we start talking about damaged brains from repetitive brain trauma, that is the issue that we're not addressing. We're talking therapy, we're talking pharmaceuticals. We need to improve brain health. We need to challenge the brain, to start stimulating new neuroplasticity, new neural pathway growth, yada, yada, yada. How do omega-3s help and what do they do?
Speaker 2:So it's very. It's a two semester, it's a PhD course in it. So you know how do we? How do we summarize what it does? So the two long chain omega-3s, epa and DHA 20 carbon, 22 carbon in length.
Speaker 2:So if you look at omega-3s and you can't talk about omega-3s without talking about omega-6s, so omega-6s it depends on where the double bond is. And if you take one of those high school chemistry stick and ball things and you make the molecule, an omega-6 molecule is very stiff. Omega-3 molecule is very flexible and that gets to the point of if that's what your membrane and the cell membranes are made of, do you want a stiff molecule or a flexible? And clearly you should want a flexible. It allows nutrients in and it allows the waste products out of a cell much easier. And so we're talking about 30 to 40 percent it varies on whose opinion. But the dry weight of the brain so you take all the water out the dry weight of the brain is about 30 or 40 percent.
Speaker 2:Dha, the 22 carbon chain, omega-3. Epa is the heart healthy one. The eicosanoids that come from EPA counter the eicosanoids that come from arachidonic acid. The omega-6s. And the problem is we have in that study that suicide study at a ratio of either 25 or 26 to 1 of too many omega-3s to, I'm sorry, 25 to 1 omega-6s for every omega-3 in our body and it's meant to be in balance, one to one Humans, one to one. We are meant to be in balance. In the industrial revolution revolution that started to change and so it's pretty well accepted and a lot of sciences show that four-to-one or better results in a 70% decreased risk in all death mortality.
Speaker 1:And yet Four-to-one.
Speaker 2:Four-to-one and we're at 25-to-one. And that was how many years, 14 years ago. So I don't think we're getting any better.
Speaker 1:Where does all this omega-6 come from? We're nutritionally deficient in 6s and 9s and I mean those are even harder pills to get. Is that something that's produced by the brain, by the body?
Speaker 2:Well, no. So omega-9s are different. Omega-6s and omega threes are essential fatty acids, meaning we have to consume them. Well, the interesting thing is it's the 18 carbon chain, linoleic acid, or LA and ALA. On the omega three side, they're 18 carbon. That's what's essential. But because our bodies can then produce the longer chain, omega-3s. Well, food generally has a large amount processed food in particular has a large amount of omega-6s arachidonic acid and linoleic acid, and seed oils and things like that. They're not necessarily all bad. Right, the eicosanoids from arachidonic acid some of them, like GLA, for example, are very, you know, help resolve inflammation and are actually quite good for us on the omega-6 side. So they're not all bad. The problem is not omega-6s. The problem is we have way too many omega-6s.
Speaker 2:Way too many omega-6s and it's no longer a fair fight. They use the same enzymes. They use the same enzymes for everything, because they were meant to be a balance. So what do omega-6s do? They promote inflammation for the most part, and omega-3s resolve the inflammation for the most part. They also, you know, omega-6s promote the blood to clot and omega-3s help try to keep the blood from clotting. As you can imagine, blood clotting is a balance. We need that balance. You need the blood to clot and it needs to clot, but if it clots too much, you have a heart attack or a stroke. So it's meant to be a balance. And, like I said, about 30% of the weight of the brain is DHA, because it's in every cell in our body. Because it's in every cell in our body, but no more concentrated than in the neurons in our body and even in the retina and the back of our eyes 30% of the brain.
Speaker 1:So now, so if you have the right balance of omega-3s to omega-6s or say you're looking at a damaged brain right, and not only you know, I mean, there's other ways to stimulate, but we, we have to optimize the brain health. So by having that balance of the right ratio of of of threes to sixes, what, what, what? What is happening inside our brain when we have that, that, that balance that we didn't have before? What's its impact on neuroinflammation?
Speaker 2:So if you look at the, you know there's something called SPM special protective mediators that you know because that's where people are like oh, here's the million-dollar drug. Well, it's the downstream effect from the omega-6s and the omega-3s, but from DHA, the SPMs they have great names, protectins and resolvins. Just to give you an idea.
Speaker 1:Those are good names.
Speaker 2:They do right, they're good names, so that just gives you right there you know the clues in the name of what they do. And so omega-3s help resolve inflammation and they help protect brain, the neurons, the brain health. And so combine that with the effects of the EPA, and EPA being the more heart healthy one, has a lot of antioxidant capacity but also interacts with the lining of our arteries, our arterioles, to relax the blood vessels, so it actually can lower blood pressure. But more importantly, when we're talking about the brain, it can allow blood flow deeper into the brain.
Speaker 1:May not be seeing blood flow on a regular basis is there any um danger to having you know way to you know, somebody hears this and all of a sudden there's a pop in omega-3s, right um, is there like, does the body kind of regulate how much? Or is there actually, if the balance is two to one, for you know, omega, omega threes or sixes, or four to one? Is there any benefit to that? And that year is that your?
Speaker 2:ratio of Omega six to three. It's always best to try to keep the sixes on the top and the threes just by convention, Otherwise you get. You know you're reversing ratios and which. What are we talking about now? You know so, Omega six to omega-3, like I said, greater than four to one. This is 70 increased risk of death. All right, I'm not sure how much more you want, so we don't want the ones.
Speaker 2:Good yeah so we don't want the ones. Good, but one to one's really difficult to achieve. Two to one, three, you know. Three to one. To four or one, you can get under five to one. Three to one, you know. Three to one. To four to one, you can get under five to one. You're doing really, really good, and the only way you're going to get there is if you're eating sardines for breakfast and salmon for dinner every single day, and most people aren't willing to do that and it gets expensive. It's really about trying to. You know, one of the things you can do is you can swap oils, like the only oil I have in my house is olive oil, some avocado oil that we use once in a while and some coconut oil we use once in a while, but 90% of everything we use is olive oil. So if you have canola oil, vegetable oil or whatever, toss it out. Beef tallow, toss it out. Sorry, rfk, you know so. Saturated fats are a whole different story, but you know so.
Speaker 1:But olive oil and why olive oil.
Speaker 2:Because it's high in omega-3s. It's high, it's higher. It's not that high in omega-3s but it has a good amount of omega-9s in it which are also healthy. But more importantly, olive oil has polyphenols and polyphenols are a whole different class of protection for our cells and other things and other things. So here's an interesting thing is when you process fish oil to get omega-3 capsules, fish oil capsules and so on, if you look at where do the omega-3s come from, they all come from algae. It all starts at the algae level and at the algae level the omega-3s are wrapped in polyphenols for protection, like a layer of protection. And as the little fish eat the bigger fish and then the bigger fish and the bigger fish and the bigger fish up the food chain, the bioaccumulation, that algae protected by the polyphenols stays protected. But when man gets a hold of all of this, even with the smaller feeder fish and we grind up the fish, but now we got to clean it right, because we don't want mercury, we don't want heavy metals and plastics and stuff like that. So we got to clean it.
Speaker 2:And the way we clean it, the manufacturing is like homogenizing and pasteurizing milk. It destroys all the goodness in the milk. So we have to add vitamin A and D and calcium back into it. Well, the same thing kind of happens with fish. We have to destroy the fish in order to save it. Does that sound familiar? Yep, so you got to destroy the fish and basically now you've got to break the fish all apart at the molecular level and now you have free fatty acids. Well, you can't have that. They're not stable. Sodium needs chloride, acid needs base. So we got to attach those free fatty acids to an alcohol molecule to keep it stable so that we can clean it. But now we destroyed the polyphenol part of it. We no longer have that protective coating.
Speaker 2:And then, even if the best companies which the best companies put it, reverse it and put it back into triglyceride form, even at that level, we got concentrated, we got triglyceride form. Even even at that level, we got concentrated. We got triglyceride, which is really good for you, but it's still not protected by the polyphenols. So then we have to add vitamin e in to keep the fish oil from spoiling, because omega-3s will spoil very quickly. Omega-6s will last forever. You put a box of crackers out in the sun for three days. They might be stale from the humidity, but you can still eat the crackers. But you put a piece of fish in the sun for an hour, you probably go on you. Plus, the Omega-3s spoil right. Omega-6s are stable. They're stiff and they're stable. Omega-3s are flexible and they'll spoil very quickly. So that's why we manufacture, it's why we process foods with Omega-6s, so it's shelf stable, so we can ship it around the world.
Speaker 1:So the only I guess, from what you're saying the best way to get the omega-3s, with all the benefits, is to eat a crap load of fish. Eat a whole bunch of fish.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And olive oil. Fish with olive oil.
Speaker 2:With olive oil. Now I was an advisor to Nordic Naturals for about 15 years. They're the largest fish oil brand in the world uh, the biggest retailer and they've got a great product. They do that whole thing. They reverse it, they put concentrated, they got it in triglyceride form. It's the best fish oil you can buy retail.
Speaker 2:And recently I would come in contact with a company out of Norway and it turned out they reached out to me about 12. The lead scientist reached out to me like 12 years ago and he goes hey, I'm working on a really interesting project, I want to get you involved or get your opinion on. And it turned out that this project, or this oil that he was working on, was how to take fish oil and olive oil and recombine it back at the molecular level so that it creates that protective coating at the molecular level around the omega-3. So it's shelf stable. It's like five to seven times longer shelf stable under test conditions than even the best concentrates that you can find on the market. So there is for that olive oil, fish oil combination.
Speaker 2:And we'll see products like that.
Speaker 1:All right, I mean. Well, that's amazing. So I mean, I mean and so where are you at like with the Research Institute? I mean and so where are you at like with the Research Institute? Obviously, you're advising and treating soldiers, first responders, EMS with this protocol. What are you finding? What are the results right now?
Speaker 2:So we use a combination. Well, there's a couple of things. Number one is it's not a six-month waiting list to get into an inpatient program, like some of these other ones are, you know and what's. That doesn't really help much. You know you might have an $80,000 a person you know for two weeks inpatient and figure out what's wrong with you, but you know what are you doing for me. Now we can have somebody under our care. So I've got an operations guy Once I got out of the way things started to happen right. So I've got an operations guy Once I got out of the way things started to happen right. So I got me a good green beret who runs my operations and does a fantastic job and he can have somebody under care within 24 to 48 hours of them reaching out to us. So, number one we got somebody talking to you. So you know somebody cares and half the time that's half right, that's half the problem.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir.
Speaker 2:Nobody understands me, nobody listens to me. You know I'd go to this doctor and whatever I mean. The smartest person I know when it comes to all this stuff is a guy out of LA. He does a fantastic job but he never served a day in the military and as a military guy you know that makes a big difference. I'm the doctor with an airborne ranger tab and flight surgeon wings and spent time in the infantry and stuff like that, so I can talk the same language. I may not be nearly as smart as the other guy, but I can relate to you, so you know.
Speaker 2:So somebody reaches out to us, we can have them and you know, like I said, I've got a Green Beret that's running the operations. Now Military spouses or former military or former patients that are acting as the case managers somebody to talk to, and that's how the battle is. I just need somebody that understands what I'm going through. But, more importantly, my operations guy used to be the head of the warehouse for all of Walmart, so he knows how to get shit out the door and so he gets my protocol out the door in the mail within 24, 48 hours, plus somebody talking to him holding their hand. And what are we seeing? We're seeing, you know, and we're also trying to measure it using, you know, symptom inventories on a scale of zero, nothing. Six is the worst ever type of thing. So 132 points possible. We're seeing, you know, 70, 75% reduction in overall symptom scores, and sometimes as quick as a month I've got a guy Go ahead, no, no.
Speaker 1:And what would be the cost of your protocol for a month? There's just looking for, you know, a comparison.
Speaker 2:So the entire protocol, we did all. We literally five products plus. What we're also doing is we are doing testing. So do you know what your omega-3 levels are?
Speaker 1:I ain't got a clue. I missed my VA appointment this morning. I know they're at the 200 range, but my good cholesterol is 70 or something. I eat a lot of fish oil, by the way. I eat a lot of salmon too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we know what our cholesterols are, but we don't know what our omega-3 levels are. It's probably the most important number that we don't know, but we can test for it. Wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 1:So on your blood test that cholesterol number. That's not an omega-3 number.
Speaker 2:No Shoot, I didn't know that Ch whole different conversation ah, okay, if you take so there's a number if you take the chemical structure of testosterone and then look at it compared to the chemical structure of cholesterol, you'd think they were the exact same thing. That that's how important cholesterol is. So when we talk about lowering our cholesterol too far, we're also talking about what is that doing to our testosterone levels.
Speaker 1:So you do a test for omega-3s so people actually know what their omega-3 level is.
Speaker 2:On your kitchen counter. You do a little, stick your finger drip drip on a piece of filter paper, you register it online, you stick it in the mail and off it goes. And two, three weeks later you'll get your results back and the average result in the United States right now is 29 to 1, omega-6 to omega-3.
Speaker 1:Where 4 to 5 is acceptable.
Speaker 2:Right 3 to 1, even better 3 to 1, even better.
Speaker 2:And even if you're taking fish oil every day, we're not seeing. I take fish oil every day for 20 years. I've got a very high omega-3 index, but my omega-6 to 3 ratio came back as 10 to 1. I'm like, how'd that happen? So it don't work. So then I started taking my own protocol. You know I'm patient number one, so I you know I got to try it out on myself. So I all right, I'm going to try. I'm going to try a new protocol. I want to see what happens. And my ratio drop went from 10 to 1 down to 3 to 1. And my cholesterol dropped from 220 down to like 178. But on the protocol that we send out now to every soldier, sailor, airman, first responder, if they reach out to us, we put them on protocol. Test included would be about $280 for the just the first month, and then about 200, $180, I think it is on an ongoing basis and the reason why it's a little bit more is for that test.
Speaker 2:Cause somebody has got to pay for the test. But the company that I'm working with. They'll send you a free test after four months so you can prove to yourself it's working.
Speaker 1:Wow. And so in order to maintain that ratio, it's just like a, you know, like a month to month kind of, you know, until they feel better, or I mean, because when you talk about the cost of therapy and pharmaceutical care, this is nothing right. So you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, it's nothing. And you know, if you're a down and out veteran and you can't afford it, we're a nonprofit and we're always trying to raise funds to cover the costs for the veterans that can't afford it, because we don't want the cost to be an issue. If you can afford it, great. If you can't afford it, great. Or you know we got your back. I mean that's another thing, right. We served in the military. You know you're my brother. I'm going to take care of you. I'm not going to let money stand between you and me because you can't afford it.
Speaker 1:All right, let's step on to another track right now, because I notice you're on the board of the Pop Warner Youth Football Medical Advisory Board and Collegiate Rugby. I'm a rugby player, ok, and as you know, I lost my son to the impact, the repetitive impact, from contact sports, and I fund a lot of research. Yet we're still putting helmets on six-year-olds right while their brains are developing, helmets on six-year-olds right While their brains are developing, while you know, you know and and and we know through research and science. This is just not healthy right now, at this time.
Speaker 2:But what do you? What do you? What is your position on this? I mean, my position is not. I don't want to speak for Pop Warner on this. My personal position on this is that tackle football. There's not really any particular reason why we need to be doing tackle football until middle school. Yeah, you know it's. And if you want to eliminate, you want to get radical and you say say, well, football is evil and we need to eliminate it. Great, guess what soccer players? They're coming for you now we're not.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about, I'm talking contact sports, and we know that.
Speaker 2:So, but you know the position of if we eliminate american football, soccer or hockey or whatever? Or lacrosse is next right, but we don't.
Speaker 1:We don't need to eliminate football, we need to make it safer, because the danger is not tackling, the danger is the continuous exposure, repetitive head impacts, starting at younger ages all the way till they get to the NFL, when their brains are just an absolute like bucket of stew.
Speaker 1:And the only way to resolve that is what you just said. Now we say that when the prefrontal cortex starts to develop, which is 14, then flag till 14, no contact to high school. And because the brain of a child is just something that we now know, I didn't know this I allowed my son to football, moved right to wrestling, right to snowboarding 10 months a year until since age of six, and there is a time where we do too much. And so you know for children to be tackling and not just tackling heading soccer balls, checking in hockey, you know, hitting each other with lacrosse, equestrian events, right. We just need to make better decisions on how we're exposing our children's brain. So we're not talking football, we're talking about a lifestyle that you know, in Florida you could play football or head soccer balls year round, right? So it's not about football, it's up. Like you know, it's how do we make these sports safer and and unfortunately I think Pop Warner is not dealing with this, you know correctly I would.
Speaker 2:I would argue against that. So many of the changes that we see in youth football have come from the medical advisory board at Pop Warner.
Speaker 1:And what changes are those?
Speaker 2:So what changes are those? Offensive linemen are not allowed in a three-point stance, they have to be in a two-point stance. Major pushback on that, but that's huge. Eliminating kickoffs up until like age 12 or so, because, heck, a 10-year-old can't kick a ball anyway, you know.
Speaker 1:So that's true.
Speaker 2:You know. So you know, one of the things that I'm arguing for is I think that we should be putting a limit on punting, because you've got the same similar exposures that you have with kickoffs, and so just by eliminating a three-point stance, you're taking a huge part of the head-to-head aspect out of the game and, plus, we have put very strict limits on the amount of contact that you have during the week.
Speaker 1:But you're still contacting a brain that's developing doctor. That brain right now is all our children have.
Speaker 2:I've seen. I've seen mothers of four year olds whining and crying that they couldn't put their kids.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm not, I'm not the parents are the worst problem, sir. All right, the parents are the worst problem, but my point is on top of point Warner. We cannot control what those parents are also doing with their children. And by allowing, by condoning the fact that we know that a critical organ to a child that needs to develop, that needs to be free from trauma, by doing that, I don't think Pop Warner is doing the right thing, and that's a difference that you and I have.
Speaker 2:I would say we're doing the right thing. We could do a difference that you and I have. I would say we're doing the right thing.
Speaker 1:We could do more is how I would put it. We could. And if Pop Warner went the flag, I mean they would not only bring girls in. That would be the best thing for Pop Warner right now and any other. You know, like these childhood soccer teams, by delaying, like when they said no heading soccer until 12, no checking hockey till 12, participation in those sports went up 30 and 40%. Because parents know innately we can't do this and we can't make this any safer. Helmets don't work. You know, it's all that. But I think Pop Warner could do a better job.
Speaker 1:But collegiate rugby, I mean, here we are so rugby fastest growing. Here we are so rugby fastest growing sport for women in America. And yet we got the same problem where we're condoning tackling for girls just like boys. And what is the position on collegiate rugby? I love rugby, man. I mean it is my sport. It hurt me right. I'm a tighthead prop. I played on the All-Army National Championship three-peated and I've won club ball. I've done a lot of good rugby out there.
Speaker 1:But we also know that much like football, you know, too much is too much. I mean, is there any way? Well, and we know in college, well, the NFL, that they don't tackle and practice anymore. You know it's moving down to the colleges. What kind of changes can we do there to address the impact of that sport? Because I played against Ushu's multiple times back in the day. You know played a lot of good teams when I was on the DC Irish squad, you know when I was stationed up in Fort Belvoir, you know what can we do. I mean, the whole issue is Doc is, you are on these boards and we know that it's the total aggregate exposure. If we can reduce that total, if we just say that, even for Pop Warner, if they just did, and I'm not even saying this is actual.
Speaker 2:Well, that's why Pop Warner has put stricter and stricter restrictions on the amount of contact is to decrease the overall exposure. So we take an exposure that make up a number on our mythical scale, the exposure is a 10, we've taken it down to a four or even a three.
Speaker 1:When it should be zero. I when it should be zero, I mean it should be zero. I mean, this is a developing brain. There's nothing to be gained with tackling at its child.
Speaker 2:Some of the worst concussions I've ever seen on the sideline as a father have been on seven on seven and flag football. Some of the worst concussions because you're not wearing a helmet, you have no protection.
Speaker 1:But the concussions are not the problem, Doc. You can heal from a concussion. You can't heal from a lifetime of continuous exposure.
Speaker 2:That's science, that's research. But flag football has its own issues.
Speaker 1:No, do not doubt it, you're talking to a guy. I've woken up from loss of conscious concussions on rugby fields more times I can remember. But the concussions, just like TBI, is not the problem. We're focused on concussions in sports. We're focused on TBI and our veterans. The real problem is repetitive impacts in contact sports in the total amount and it's repetitive blast exposure for the military and that's why you know we're talking. But I wanted to get your take on that because you know that is a point of concern for us and it's good to hear that Pop Warner is moving in the right direction, you know.
Speaker 2:And you're absolutely right. How do you decrease that overall amount of? You know? How do you measure it? You know that's one question, but you contact save it for skills.
Speaker 1:These kids. We can make football so safe that we can eradicate CTE. Cte is not caused by concussions. Cte is caused by a lifetime of total aggregate RHI exposure and that's admitted by Dr Amakee, because I funded the first study at Boston University that finally looked at under 30 brains. Because the CTE crowd, you know they're testing all these adult athletes. I'm like have you ever looked at kids? Have we ever looked at kids? And so now everybody admits the root cause of CTE and a lot of the neurodegenerative diseases that we have RHI. So by eliminating RHI as a child, taking it out of practice, save it for game day, we could eliminate CTE.
Speaker 2:All right, but we got to make some steps. Let's layer this in what about the nutritional status in the United States? Across the board?
Speaker 2:I propose to certain NFL teams that at the end of every season every player should be mandated to take 30 days of high-dose omega-3 fish oil at the end of every season and you'll eliminate the CTE problem. And that's at the NFL level. And now if we could address it in the bigger picture of things, right? So if I told you and you tested yourself and you are 30 to 1 of omega-6 to omega-3, what would you think about that? What would you do about that? You'd want to do something about it.
Speaker 1:I'd start pumping up some omega-3s, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that's the really big picture. Public health issue I do From a nutritional side of things, but they go hand in hand, they go together and, yes, we need to decrease the load of M-backs.
Speaker 1:But we're going to be Got to improve nutrition.
Speaker 2:If we're not addressing the nutrition as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I agree, and um, and I and I think there's a lot there, I think but that when we get to the NFL we're dealing with heavily damaged brains and while we can reduce nerve inflammation, we need to get other forms of treatment in there, whether it's HBOT, trans you know all the electric modalities, vagus, nerve stimulation, stellate, ganglion blocks, psychedelics all are challenging and building new neural growth. Be great to see if you know omega-3s can help with that, but no, doubt that nutrition has lots of it.
Speaker 2:Are you familiar with the endocannabinoid system in our bodies? I?
Speaker 1:don't even know that word has more than 10 letters in it. So, as a Sergeant Major no, I don't know what you just said.
Speaker 2:So you know, in spite of what some people may think, thc and you know, marijuana our brains have receptors for THC. That gets us high, right? Well, god didn't make us, we didn't get made with THC receptors. They're there for another reason, and the other reason is our bodies actually make these. So that runner's high is our endogenous cannabinoid system that interacts, something called here's the 20-cent word arachidonyl ethanolamide. The 20 cent word arachidontal ethanolamide interacts with the CB1 receptors in our brain to make us high, but it has a half-life of a few seconds and so it's that runner's high, it's that good feeling from your mother's hug or whatever. It's a constant thing, but it only lasts for a couple of seconds. So you got that.
Speaker 2:Well, arachidonyl ethanolamide is nicknamed anandamide Ananda, meaning bliss my molecule, it's your bliss molecule. Well, it's made from and broken down into arachidonic acid, that omega-6 that I said is what we don't need. So it makes us happy. So it makes us fat, dumb and happy. It makes us Homer Simpson, right. But if arachidonic acid is involved in this, that must mean there's an omega-3 part of this. In fact, it gets way more complicated. Omega-3 part of this, in fact there's. It gets way more complicated. But DHA that's found in the brain, the omega-3, its counterpart to anandamide is called synaptamide or docosahexaenoic ethanolamide. Um, but so so I practice these a lot um but, but, um, you know, but synaptomide is its nickname synaptic.
Speaker 2:Right, it makes more synapses actually. So when you add dha and you can do this, you can see this at cellular cell cultural level, cell culture level and stuff like that. There's great work out of the NIH with fluorescence and stuff like that and you see like a deficient diet and what it looks like neuron to neuron and then a diet that's got a good amount of DHA, the omega-3, and there's like neurons everywhere you know connections. But then when you add an inhibitor to it, it gets crazy the amount of connections that you have. And so there are different foods that actually can act as an inhibitor that keep the DHA around longer and keep the anandamide around longer. So it makes us happier and it helps connect more neurons, makes our those branches on the neurons. They make them longer and branchier and thus make more synapses that is interesting.
Speaker 1:I would love to know more about that it's, it's. You know there's lots of great science out there, but your average emergency room physician no, and as they never ask about you know there, has you know tommy's mentally ill, how long she's been playing football right, and they don't get that. We're going to get there one of these days, yeah that's not even digging into.
Speaker 2:You know what? All those repetitive, repetitive head injuries? What does that do to your pituitary gland and subsequently, your testosterone and other hormones? You? Know that's a whole, nother conversation right.
Speaker 1:I will, and we should have that one day. Now we might not agree on Pop Warner, but we both agree that repetitive impacts are not good for the brain.
Speaker 2:We do agree on Pop Warner that we can always do better.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't think there is a place for Pop Warner. I do not think there's no risk for a kid's brain. It's unnecessary. There's nothing for them to learn. Tackling is not a skill. They can wait till high school, and if they wait till high school, they don't get bad skills or they don't get bad habits from all those horrible dad coaches. They deal with their whole lives too. I mean God, I mean it's crazy, but we can take that down a line.
Speaker 1:I just don't think there's a world with right now, with the research and science, that Pop Warner needs to exist. I think they need to go to flag, protect their pockets because you know, I mean protect their industry, man. They're there to put kids on the ground, put kids on teams, learn how to play sports. Sports are supposed to be healthy, not harmful, but you know, got it, We'll get to that point. I want to thank you for your service. I want to thank you for the time you spend here, but I also want people to know where do they find Mike Lewis? What do you have going on? What's your next steps? Talk about how, if they know somebody that is been impacted by contact sports or military or or military service, how can they find you and your Institute in order to check out your protocols? Sir?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I appreciate you asking that. So I'm going to give you a couple of initials, I'm going to spell it out and I'll give you a couple of initials. But you want to look. You know you're looking for brain health education and research, but the best website is the initials B-H-E-R-I right Brain Health Education Research Institute, b-h-e-r-iorg. And there is a, you know, what type of help do you need at BHERIorg? And you know, are you a you know short, you know recent, you know long-term issue? Are you a? You know, are you a veteran that's struggling? And we will, you know, reach out and help you. And, like I said, and we will reach out and help you and, like I said, we're seeing amazing results with the whole protocol, because it's not just the fish oil. We've got a couple other products in there that help, everything from kind of calming the anxiety down to helping with our gut health.
Speaker 1:A whole other subject Gut brain access. Yeah, a whole. Nother subject the gut-brain axis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the gut-brain axis. So we're trying to hit all the parts all at the same time nutritionally, and, when we need to, we will dig into your blood work and we'll start to look at your hormones as well. But that's step two and step three. But we can reach out and get you, get you started nutritionally and have a major impact on your life.
Speaker 1:This is amazing, doc. I mean I didn't know. I mean like we needed another reason to start popping those fish pills, man, but it's obviously you just, you know, and that's the other, right, how do you know?
Speaker 2:you know a scrum half and a second row. And why were they taking the? You know two capsules of fish oil. They're kind of different size. I'm a scrum half, so you know we're different sizes, right, but the bottle tells us to take two pills. Well, that's the thing I like about this oil. Number one you can't get in capsules, but really you want to make the biggest difference. Take the liquid tastes great and it's weight-based One ml for every 10 pounds. So if you're 150 pounds, you take 15 ml. If you're 200, you take 20. If you're 250 pounds, you take 25 ml a day. So it's based on your weight to make the biggest impact.
Speaker 1:Well, can't argue with it, Doc, I'm just happy that number one, you're doing stuff for our veterans that's so sorely needed. I'm also very interested in the fact that omega-3s can not only help with neuroinflammation, but with synaptic growth and neuronal growth and other pathways. Amazing, but no, I really appreciate your time. Amazing episode. Want to help you back. Thank you again for your service to our veterans and everything that you're doing for their brains as well as our first responders. So great show today.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your service as well, Bruce. Thanks, Not a problem, and folks remember get on the website.
Speaker 2:The only book for parents out there that talks about repetitive impacts, and contact sports.
Speaker 1:Get your free copy. Make sure that you got this thing out there. Look at when brains collide when they're a kid. 4th, the only summit of repetitive brain health in the world, here in Tampa. We're hosting it. Dr Lewis love to invite you to come down and meet the gang. Talk about it. We've got the US SOCOM commander that's going to be opening, mr Frank Larkin, the 60 Minutes RHI person speaking. We've got a ton of other very important researchers, scientists, presentations. We're going to talk about not only veterans and sports, but we're going to talk about treatment, taking action, much like Dr Lewis has done with his protocol there. And then don't forget the HeadSmart app on the Apple and Google store. Go get it, Like us, pass it around, tell everybody about what we got going on, because you only got one melon and you got to take care of it, especially those children. No-transcript.