Daniel Amen, MD

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Volume 7

Daniel Amen, MD

Foods Your Brain Will Love CONTENTS:

Dr. Daniel Amen is a physician, a double board-certified  Toxic Food and Brain Health psychiatrist, the founder of Amen Clinics, and a Distinguished  Bigger Brain, Better Brain

Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Amen is  The Dinosaur Syndrome the lead researcher on the world’s largest brain imaging and  Unhealthy Relationships with Food brain rehabilitation study on professional football players, which  Supplements For the Brain demonstrated significant brain damage in a high percentage  Eat From the Rainbow of retired players, but also the possibility for rehabilitation. Dr.  Unnecessary Dairy Amen’s twelve popular television shows about the brain have  The Daniel Plan raised more than 55 million dollars for public television. His ten  The Optimal Diet for Alzheimer’s New York Times bestselling books include Change Your Brain,  Family History of Sweets Change Your Life, and The Amen Solution. Dr. Amen will share  A Legacy of Healthy Eating what tens of thousands of brain scans have taught him about how you can prevent dementia and optimize your brain’s health.

Connect at: AmenClinics.com

Ocean Robbins: Welcome to the Food Revolution Summit, where we explore how you can heal your body and your world — with food. This is Ocean Robbins, and I am joined by my dad and colleague, John Robbins, in welcoming our guest Dr. Daniel Amen. If you love your brain and you want to stay sharp at every stage of your life, you’re gonna love this interview.

Dr. Daniel Amen is a physician, a double board-certified psychiatrist, a 10-time New York Times bestselling author, founder of Amen Clinics, and a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Amen is the lead researcher on the world’s largest brain imaging and brain rehabilitation study on professional football players, which has established a scientific basis for profound problems in the sport of football and also pathways towards solutions.1 Dr. Amen’s 12 popular television shows about the brain have raised more than $55 million for public television. So now, Dr. Amen, we are so glad to have this time with you. For this interview, I’m gonna hand it over now to my dad, John Robbins.

John Robbins: Well, thank you, Ocean. Thank you, Daniel, for being with us once again.

Daniel Amen: What a joy for me to talk to both of you.

John Robbins: Well, a joy to have your voice in our summit and reaching more and more people in the world with your very important, and very well-substantiated, documented, and proven message. We’re learning more and more today about how the food that we eat impacts our physical health. That’s becoming more and more well known and recognized, but somehow the idea that what we eat might influence our brain health and our mental health has been comparatively, and often, overlooked.

I’ve read your wonderful new book, Memory Rescue, and if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying that conditions including Alzheimer’s — and other forms of dementia — and also depression, attention deficit disorder, PTSD, even bipolar disorders, are all deeply influenced by the food we eat. Daniel, am I hearing you accurately?

Daniel Amen: Yeah. Food is medicine, or it’s poison. We have this epidemic in the United States — it’s really global now — of toxic food leading to smaller brains and brains that are in trouble. I argue that we’re actually in a war for the health of our brains, everywhere we go. Everywhere. And I travel a lot. Someone’s [always] trying to shove bad food down your throat that will kill you early. [Those are] the real weapons of mass destruction.

I’m not kidding when I say this; ISIS has nothing on our food industry. The real weapons of mass destruction are highly processed, pesticide-sprayed, high-glycemic, low-fiber, food-like substances stored in plastic containers that are destroying the health of America. And it’s not okay because my five grandbabies... their generation will never be able to afford the tsunami of illness that’s coming their way.

1 Daniel G. Amen et al. “Impact of Playing American Professional Football on Long-Term Brain Function,” Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 23, no. 1 (2011): 98-106, doi: 10.1176/jnp.23.1.jnp98.

That’s a serious wake-up call. When you know Alzheimer’s disease is expected to triple in the next 25 years and all of the drug companies are actually getting out of the Alzheimer’s business because they won’t find one medicine. Medicine after medicine has failed. The answer is lifestyle.

John Robbins: And an important part of that lifestyle is the food we eat. Everyone knows, really, that too much alcohol poisons the liver. It’s very widely recognized that smoking causes lung cancer, but for some reason, we don’t as readily see that brain fog and cognitive decline and dementia can be direct consequences of what we’re eating. Somehow, we have a hard time grasping that the brain is deeply damaged by poor food choices. Perhaps more so, even, than any other bodily system.

Daniel, what do you say to those who have difficulty realizing that our cognitive health is inextricably linked to our overall health and that when we eat poorly and fail to optimally nourish our bodies, our brains, too, will suffer?

Daniel Amen: Well, I think the science is just so clear that for people who argue with it, it’s like, “Come on. Do you read?” I published two studies, and other people have replicated it, that show as your weight goes up, the physical size and function of your brain goes down, which should scare the fat off anyone.2,3 But as blood sugar goes up, the size and function of the brain goes down. Obesity and diabetes are a direct result of the food we put in our body. It’s just painfully clear to me.

And it’s funny; you know when I first started looking at the brain… That’s what we do at Amen Clinics. I have eight clinics around the country. We do a brain imaging study called SPECT that looks at blood flow and activity.4 Before I looked at my own brain, in 1991, I didn’t care one whit about it — and I’m a double board- certified psychiatrist, you know. Medical school, five years of post-graduate training, and I just didn’t care because I didn’t see it. But as soon as I started looking at it, I’m like, “Oh, this isn’t good. This needs to be better.” And how do you make it better? You stop hurting it and you start doing things that help it, and a major intervention is the food you eat.

John Robbins: When we eat poorly — when we consume too much alcohol or eat junk food — we take toxins into our bodies that then course through our bloodstreams and enter our brains, where they can harm our brain’s ability to create new brain cells. As a result, our brains will begin to shrink, or atrophy, while healthy diets are strongly associated with bigger brain size. You’ve mentioned something about smaller brains. Daniel, is bigger better when it comes to the human brain?

Daniel Amen: Generally, yes, bigger is better. Anything that makes it smaller, so alcohol. And just since you mentioned alcohol, so many people in the U.S. think alcohol is a health food. “Oh, I have to have my two glasses of red wine a day.” And I take that idea on in the book because alcohol’s directly related to seven different kinds of cancer. Why does my wife, who’s a nurse, put alcohol on your skin before she draws blood or gives you a shot? Because it kills bacteria. Well, what do you have in your gut? You have a hundred trillion

2 Kristen C. Willeumier, Derek V. Taylor, and Daniel G. Amen, “Elevated BMI Is Associated With Decreased Blood Flow in the Prefrontal Cortex Using SPECT Imaging in Healthy Adults,” Obesity 19, no. 5 (2011): 1095–97, doi: 10.1038%2Foby.2011.16. 3 Kristen C. Willeumier, Derek V. Taylor, and Daniel G. Amen, “Elevated Body Mass in National Football League Players Linked to Cognitive Impairment and Decreased Prefrontal Cortex and Temporal Pole Activity,” Translational Psychiatry 2, no. 1 (2012): e68, doi: 10.1038%2Ftp.2011.67. 4 “SPECT Research,” Amen Clinics, https://www.amenclinics.com/the-science/spect-research/.

bacteria, viruses, fungus and so on. Alcohol’s just not a health food. So, if we get that out of the way, less is clearly better. But when it comes to your brain, everything that shrinks it is bad for it.

John Robbins: Is there a link between brain size and obesity?

Daniel Amen: There is. In fact, these two studies I published... So the original study was published in 2008 or 2009 at the University of Pittsburgh by my friend Cyrus Raji, and they looked at MRI studies.5 What they found is people who are overweight, who had a BMI between 25 and 30, had eight percent less volume in their brain — and their brains looked significantly older. People who are obese had even less volume in their brain and their brains looked 16 years older than a healthy population.

John Robbins: So the more obese someone is, the more likely they are to have a brain that’s aging more rapidly and shrinking. What is the dinosaur syndrome? I know this is a phrase you used, I think.

Daniel Amen: Yeah, and it’s very rude, and I apologize for it. Once I published these studies and became quite horrified, I personally lost about 30 pounds after I figured out this connection. I was always a little chubby and tried every diet to lose weight, and nothing worked until I realized I was hurting my brain. Now I had the motivation to get it right. Interestingly, when I fixed my Vitamin D level, my cravings went away — so that’d be an interesting thing to talk about.

But I’m on a plane — for public television — going from Chicago to Des Moines, and they only have a small plane. There was a woman next to me that was 400 pounds, at least. Half of her body was in my seat, and that concerned me — for her. I went, Oh, you want to tell her not to be a dinosaur. You know, big body, little brain. You’re going to become extinct. Then, of course, the next thought I had in my head was, [LAUGHING] Shut your mouth. Don’t ever say that out loud. Then I told my wife about the dinosaur syndrome when I got off the plane, and she said, “Shut your mouth. Don’t ever say that out loud.”

There’s a New Testament Bible verse that I’m very fond of, John 8:32. “Know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” I’m like, People need to know about this. So I debated. I put it in a book. I put it in a public television special and, no lie, John, I have had people write to me saying because of the dinosaur syndrome, they’ve lost 100 pounds, 200 pounds, 400 pounds — because they didn’t want to be a dinosaur.

We need to take the obesity crisis seriously. And it’s not more Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, whatever. Because if you actually read the labels of the food they send you, it’s completely filled with crap. And that’s not okay because the food additives, artificial chemicals, and sweeteners… they are not good for your brain.

John Robbins: No. You know when you had the reticence — feeling it was rude to use the phrase dinosaur syndrome... I agree with you. Nobody should ever be stigmatized or shamed for being overweight. People who are carrying extra pounds have plenty of difficulties in our society. We don’t ever want to add to them. If they know that losing weight would have many advantages, but one of them is that their brains would be healthier and younger, and they’d be less likely to experience cognitive decline as they get older, less likely to have Alzheimer’s — perhaps much less likely — I could see how that would be a motivating factor that

5 Cyrus A. Raji et al. “Brain Structure and Obesity,” Human Brain Mapping 31, no. 3 (2010): 353–64, doi: 10.1002/hbm.20870.

might give them the courage, the strength, whatever they might need, to find themselves in a healthier sized body.

Daniel Amen: Yeah, no question. I used to be... maybe not as tactful as I could have been. But I saw how it would hurt someone’s feelings and so I’ve tempered the message. Because, the obesity epidemic is really not an individual person’s fault when you are bombarded with constant messaging to hurt yourself and then constant, confusing scientific messaging that’s out there, “Oh, I should eat this and not that.”

And then, the food companies actually hire scientists. So they hire neuroscientists like me, and they go, “Let’s get to the bliss point. Let’s combine fat, sugar, and salt to create that perfect taste that explodes with flavor in your mouth.” And so people will tell you they love Oreos or they love Coke or they love Cheetos, it’s because their brains have been hijacked by scientists for money, and I’m not okay with that.

John Robbins: When you talk about people saying they love junk food, that reminds me of relationships with people. You know, we can fall in love with people who are good for us, who resonate with and reflect our highest potentials — and reflect our inner beauty and remind us of it — or, [LAUGHING] we can fall in love with people who drag us down, who are addicted, and lead us into dark places. Finding foods that we love — that love us back, that are good for us — seems to be the trick.

Daniel Amen: When you do the right thing, well, then you’ll get what you really want. So that’s an act of adult love, mature love. When you want what you want, just because you want it, well, that’s a four-year-old.

I know of the hundreds of thousands of people who are listening to this, there are some people listening that have been like me and have had bad relationships in the past. So, not all of my relationships have served my well-being. I’m married to Tana, who, you know...we’ve been together the last 12 years, and I am so much happier when I am in a relationship with someone who loves me back. I am not going to be in love with food that hurts me. I’m not going to tolerate it in relationships. I’m for sure not going to tolerate it in food or things to drink that don’t love me back.

But, what I’ve learned is the brain hates change, and so, you have to be very careful what you allow your children to fall in love with or what you allow yourself to fall in love with. Why do people stay in abusive relationships? Why do people continue eating the same thing even though they’re obese and have diabetes, arthritis, depression, and cognitive impairment? Because the brain hates change. So, you have to be very careful what foods you fall in love with.

John Robbins: Well, some people love, or say they love...that they’re intensely attracted to, maybe even addicted to, bad foods. They experience cravings. You mentioned a moment ago that in your journey, vitamin D played a role in reducing your cravings. And you actually said something about maybe we’ll talk about it further. I would like to.

Daniel Amen: So important for me. So, I live in Southern California where the sun is out 330 days a year, but I don’t go outside during the day, mostly, because I work. And so, a normal vitamin D level is between 30 and 100 and my level was 17. And I’m like, “Oh no!” because low levels of vitamin D are associated with cancer, heart disease, depression, and dementia. Then I realized it’s also associated with leptin resistance. Leptin is the hormone that tells you you’re full and you don’t need to eat anymore. Well, when your vitamin D level is

low, you become leptin resistant. So, when I noticed that, more than 10 years ago I suppose now, I got more sun in a healthy way and I started taking vitamin D. Almost immediately, my cravings went away. And I’m like, that’s so easy.

It’s really important. 70 percent of the population is low on vitamin D. If you have a level under 20 like I did — compared to someone who’s over 40 — you have more than twice the risk of getting cancer.

John Robbins: I know that your clinics have published scientific studies on the impact of nutritional supplements on the brain.6 We’re talking about vitamin D. Are there other specific supplements that you have found to be uniquely helpful to optimize brain function?

Daniel Amen: I have, actually, a brand new study out on curcumin.7 Significant improvements in memory. It’s like, well, how simple is that? You know, it’s from the spice turmeric that they make curries from. There’s a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease in countries that eat a lot of curries, like India.

Curcumin is really good for two things. Decreasing inflammation and it also helps in the genetic risk factor because when you mix curcumin with vitamin D, it tends to break up the plaques thought to be responsible for Alzheimer’s disease. So, if you have it in your family, I would make turmeric your friend.

According to the CDC, 90 percent of Americans do not eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day — the minimum required to get the nutrition you need, especially B6, B12, folate, not folic acid, folate, are essential for brain health.

There’s actually a number of studies where they looked at people who had memory problems that were sort of headed to the dark place, and just taking B6, B12, and folate decreased the conversion of mild cognitive impairment — I have memory problems, but I don’t have Alzheimer’s.8 But it decreased the conversion of mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s. I’m like, well, that’s simple to do; Vitamin D as we discussed.

I’m a huge fan of omega-3 fatty acids. If someone’s a vegetarian, try to get them from either really high- quality supplements or algae-based DHA. But we still have the problem with EPA, and I don’t know how to fix that.

John Robbins: Well, the conversion rates from ALA — the omega-3s found in flax seeds and walnuts — to DHA and EPA — the longer chain omega-3s — is, as you said, difficult. It varies a great deal from person to person. There’s no test to know if you’re a good converter, an efficient converter, or not. That’s one of the

6 Daniel G. Amen et al. “Effects of Brain-Directed Nutrients on Cerebral Blood Flow and Neuropsychological Testing: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Crossover Trial,” Advances in Mind Body Medicine 27, no. 2 (2013): 24-33, https://www.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov/pubmed/23709409. 7 Gary W. Small et al. “Memory and Brain Amyloid and Tau Effects of a Bioavailable Form of Curcumin in Non-Demented Adults: A Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled 18-Month Trial,” The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 26, no. 3 (2018): 266-77, doi: 10.1016/j. jagp.2017.10.010. 8 Health Quality Ontario, “Vitamin B12 and Cognitive Function: An Evidence-Based Analysis,” Ontario Health Technology Assessment Series 13, no. 23 (2013): 1-45, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3874776/pdf/ohtas-13-45a.pdf.

reasons we recommend that anyone who is vegan take algae-based DHA. The conversion from DHA to EPA is actually much simpler and easier; you’re already into the long chains.

But I want to take a step back. You talked a moment ago about fruits and vegetables and how few people actually, in our society, get even the recommended amount. The recommended amount is, in fact, significantly lower than what would be the optimal amount. I’m thinking right now of a study that involved dozens of different fruits and vegetables, all of which have different phytochemical profiles.9 The researchers found that the different fruits and the different veggies support different cognitive functions. The consumption of certain fruits and vegetables was associated with a better executive function, perceptual speed, and long-term memory. The consumption of others was more consistently associated with enhanced visual, spatial skills and improved short-term memory.

Now, I think the take-home message from this is that we need to eat a wide spectrum of fruits and veggies in order to cover all the bases. We have an overwhelming body of evidence that a healthy diet filled with unprocessed, low-glycemic foods like green, leafy vegetables dramatically improves blood flow, and also lowers our risk of heart disease — for inflammation, for obesity, and diabetes. I’m hearing that you’re finding that the same diets choices that are so effective at preventing and even reversing these diseases are also effective at lowering our risk for depression and Alzheimer’s disease. Daniel, would you agree with me on that, or do you see it differently?

Daniel Amen: No, I’d absolutely agree with you. In fact, there’s one study that showed there was a linear relationship between the number of fruits and vegetables you ate a day and your level of happiness.10 So four was better than two, six was better than four, and eight was better than seven. So, up to eight. More than eight, it didn’t seem to make as much of a difference. But, there are just no side effects to increasing your fruits and vegetables as opposed to going on Prozac or something like that.

Now, it doesn’t mean I’m opposed to medicine because I’m not for people who need it, but why don’t we do the simple things, the smart things first, and then if you need medicine, that’s the next step. But it’s not the first step. Unfortunately, because people go to their family doctor in a seven-minute visit, they’ll get something for anxiety, something for depression, and something for sleep, which is just ludicrous when you could have given them a prescription for “Eat from the rainbow. I want you to put four different colors of fruits and vegetables in your diet every day.”

John Robbins: When I think of colorful fruits, I think of berries. The deep blue blueberries, darker blackberries, brilliant raspberries, strawberries, and even cherries and grapes. I mean, these fruits are beautiful, and they’re multicolored. Those colors are not just accidental. They actually signal to us, to a deep part of our brain, that they contain nutrients that our brains and bodies need for optimal functioning.

Blueberries, in particular, have a fantastic reputation for helping with brain health. Daniel, is that reputation deserved?

9 Eha Nurk et al. “Cognitive Performance among the Elderly in Relation to the Intake of Plant Foods. The Hordaland Health Study,” British Journal of Nutrition 104, no. 8 (2010): 1190-201, doi: 10.1017/S0007114510001807. 10 Redzo Mujcic and Andrew J.Oswald, “Evolution of Well-Being and Happiness After Increases in Consumption of Fruit and Vegetables,” American Journal of Public Health 106, no. 8 (2016): 1504–10, doi: 10.2105%2FAJPH.2016.303260.

Daniel Amen: For years, I used to call blueberries, “brain berries.” But, for sure, you want to get them organic or don’t eat them because blueberries hold pesticides more than most fruits. But, I’m a fan. I’m a fan of blueberries. I have a cup every day. I’m a fan of pomegranate seeds. Whatever I put in my mouth I’m like, “Do I have four colors going on here?” because they have polyphenols and flavonoid compounds that are like medicine to help me. So I find the tastes that I love — that love me back.

John Robbins: Which is a wisdom we could all employ. I’d like to talk a little bit about milk and brain health. The dairy industry has done a rather spectacular job in convincing us all to drink lots of milk. They’ve gotten the government to advise us all to drink several glasses a day even though much of the world’s population is unable to produce the enzyme that’s needed to break down lactose and to digest milk.

Now, when it comes to brain health, what most concerns me about dairy products is that casein — the primary protein in milk — can be an excitotoxin that can lead to brain inflammation and neurodegenerative diseases. Daniel, what role would you say cow’s milk has in the diet that’s designed to reverse memory loss and support clear thinking throughout the length of a person’s lifespan?

Daniel Amen: Yeah. I think it has no role. I often say that cow’s milk is great for baby cows. That’s where it should stay. I am also a child psychiatrist, and we treat a lot of autistic kids here. When I put them on a dairy- free, wheat-free diet, they often start speaking. I mean it’s just stunning. And people go, “ But what about calcium?” And it’s like, “No, you can get that from plants. You don’t need to drink milk.” “What about vitamin D?” It’s like “Yeah, go outside. Or take a vitamin D supplement.”

I just see it as a troublemaker. So many kids get addicted to it — adults as well — because when casein is mixed in the stomach with stomach acid, it turns into a morphine-like substance that makes you happy.

I remember before I was informed, I would go over to my mother’s house at Christmas. She’s a marvelous cook, even at 86 now. She would make these great pizzas. And I wouldn’t have like two slices, like a normal person. I’d have 10. I was like totally an addict. And then I realized, okay, this is not going to get you what you want in life. You need to eat before you go over there and stay away from the addictive substance.

We have to be more thoughtful, more careful. Parents think if they give a child chocolate milk they’re doing their duty to be a good parent and giving them something nutritious. I’m horrified that we’re not smarter.

John Robbins: One of the many things I appreciate about your work, Daniel, is that you’re continually dispelling the illusion that we’re stuck with the brain we have. You’re telling us, you’re reminding us, that our lifestyle choices — particularly our food choices — can have an enormous impact on how our brains function. Just about everywhere we go today in our society, we’re exposed to toxic food that will damage our brains.

I want to read a statement that a participant in one of your classes wrote to you. He wrote, “I visited one of the big box stores this weekend. There was death everywhere in the form of toxic food around every corner. I just kept hearing Dr. Amen in the back of my mind, so I walked past it all. I got my organic fruits and veggies and I left, which is saying a lot because it was nearly lunchtime and it all smelled so good. Thank you for giving me the tools to make good choices.”

Daniel, I’m sure it’s heartwarming for you to hear things like this from your patients and your students. What I want to ask you is, is it your experience that when people eat a fast food diet, they’ll have a fast food mind that’s less capable of clear thinking and reliable decision making?

Daniel Amen: Yeah, no question in my mind that people become dumber, that they increase their risk for multiple illnesses, and they’re not going to love their life because they’re not fueling their body and their brain that runs it. I think we just have to be so much more thoughtful, even though the brain hates change — so that’s been my challenge. In 2011, we created something for Saddleback Church called The Daniel Plan, not named after me, but after the prophet in the Old Testament who wouldn’t eat the king’s bad food. Fifteen thousand people signed up the first week.

The first year, they lost a quarter of a million pounds; it was so cool. But there were so many people, even inside the church, that went, “Oh, I’ll never do that.” They’d hold up their bag of potato chips or the candy on their desk, and it’s like, “No, have to do this. Have to do this.” Even with great education, it’s hard to change.

People change in one of three ways: they have an epiphany; they change the people they hang out with; or, they make tiny, incremental changes. When I saw my first scan, that was an epiphany. I needed to do better. When I published the study, “As your weight goes up the size of your brain goes down,” I lost 30 pounds.

My goal is to become [LAUGHING] like the person that went to the big box store. I remember getting that testimonial. It was so much fun to read in class, “I saw death, surrounded by death, covered in death.” Because they were seeing the truth that we live in a toxic society that does not encourage us to be healthy, and in that way, the medical industry makes a lot of money, the pharmaceutical industry makes a lot of money, and we’re becoming dumber as a society. We have to do better.

John Robbins: It’s my view that we’ve normalized toxic food to such an extent that you can eat better… you can eat more healthfully than 75 percent of the people around you and still not be eating a diet that would be optimal to avoid Alzheimer’s, to preserve your brain function, and your mental health.

Right now, Alzheimer’s disease is already one of the most feared and devastating illnesses in the world. Experts expect it to triple in the next 30 years. A lot of people are understandably frightened by the prospect that they might someday develop Alzheimer’s. It’s not an outcome anyone would wish for themselves or their loved ones.

Daniel, if you were going to design a diet that was specifically to lessen a person’s risk for Alzheimer’s, what would it include; what would it look like; what would it exclude?

Daniel Amen: When I think of the perfect plate, I think of what I had for lunch today. 80 percent plants — colorful plants. There were blueberries in there, a little butternut squash, pomegranate seeds, different kinds of lettuces, and celery. High-quality fats... so there was some olive oil mixed in with some form of protein because fat and protein together help balance blood sugar. It could be organic tofu; it could be high protein plants like spinach and broccoli. Or, if you’re a meat eater…

The problem with meat is most of it is unclean. Whether it’s red meat or chicken or pork or whatever, most of it is raised with hormones and antibiotics. And so those toxins, you have to get rid of. People go, “Oh, I can’t afford it.” Then get rid of it. Then don’t eat it.

I would also add chocolate because I’m a fan. I actually make two really great chocolate bars. They are dairy- free and sugar-free — sweetened with erythritol and stevia — and they’re amazing. If you look at the studies on chocolate — how it can increase blood flow, how it can be good for your heart, how it can help you focus — it has something in it called phenylalanines that alert your brain stem that something fun is about to happen.11,12,13 So, I pretty much every day have these things we make called Nutty Butter Cups. It’s our chocolate with a little cashew butter or almond butter in the middle of it. It’s phenomenal.

John Robbins: Most of the chocolate candy that’s sold in our supermarkets and grocery stores is full of... It’s got dairy in it. It’s milk chocolate, and the sugar levels are very high. We often look for the highest level of cocoa and get the darker chocolates, the darkest ones even, because they tend to have the least amount of sweetener and we don’t want to get the dairies. Is that consistent with what you’re about?

Daniel Amen: Well, it is, but I have a sweet tooth because my grandfather was a candymaker. I mean, that was his job. He had his own store on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. My best memories growing up were standing at a stove, on a stool, making fudge with my grandfather. So as a way to honor him — because he died of heart disease way too early, which I probably would have if I didn’t get serious about my health — as a way to honor him, it’s like “Look, you can have sweet things. You just have to know what to sweeten them with. Do you love it and does it love you back?” We made something sweet with our dark chocolate and quinoa. So sort of like a rice crispy. You just have to be thoughtful and creative on “Are the ingredients in this going to love me back?”

John Robbins: When you talked about your early childhood memories of your grandfather’s chocolate and candy store… I have very similar early memories from my own childhood. My father owned and ran Baskin- Robbins, at the time, the world’s largest ice cream company. I used to work in the factory, and some of my most happy memories were of gorging [LAUGHING] on chocolate ice cream when I was a kid. And my uncle, Burt Baskin, died of a heart attack at the age of 54. My dad’s partner and brother-in-law. Somewhat like your grandfather, the chickens did, in fact, come home to roost.

I’m grateful that I didn’t follow the path that was expected of me, to follow in my dad’s footsteps and take over the company, because I’ve lived a life that’s healthier, that’s hopefully of service to others in living healthier lives, and having more optimal brain function, clearer thinking, deeper thinking. I think there’s something about having a healthy mind, a balanced mind — the ability to think deeply and clearly — that is profound to our experience of ourselves as human beings.

11 Lorenzo Loffredo et al. “Dark Chocolate Acutely Improves Walking Autonomy in Patients With Peripheral Artery Disease,” Journal of the American Heart Association 3, no. 4 (2014): e001072, doi: 10.1161/JAHA.114.001072. 12 Roberto Corti et al. “Cocoa and Cardiovascular Health,” Circulation 119, no. 10 (2009): 1433-41, doi: 10.1161/ CIRCULATIONAHA.108.827022. 13 Valentina Socci et al. “Enhancing Human Cognition with Cocoa Flavonoids,” Frontiers in Nutrition 4, no. 19 (2017), doi: 10.3389%2Ffnut.2017.00019.

I think the work that you and I are doing, and others are doing, to help people live more brain-healthy lives, more physically healthy lives, and more lives that are in tune with their deepest purposes for being here in the first place, is a privilege. Do you have that sense?

Daniel Amen: We are mavericks together, and that brings me joy. Let me tell you ultimately why. Because I mean, we’re all going to die, right? People go, “Well, it’s not how long you live, it’s the quality of life.” Our quality of life is so much better because we’re not sick. When I was in medical school, and we learned about genetics, we sort of thought that genes were fixed. You got this or that from your mom. Whatever illnesses you got, it’s sort of like roulette.

What we’ve learned, in the last 25 years, is that was completely wrong and that your habits and your exposures turn on or off certain genes that make illness more or less likely in you. Your uncle had the heart attack... But it’s also in your babies and your grandbabies.

My daughter, Kaitlyn, is pregnant with my fifth grandchild. Her name is going to be, or I guess it is, Hayden. When Hayden is born, she’s going to be born with all of the eggs she will ever have. Kaitlyn’s habits before she got pregnant and during the pregnancy is going to start turning on or off genes in that baby’s ovaries. It is going to make illness more or less likely in her grandchildren — my great-grandchildren. That’s stunning when it comes to, “My life is not about me, it’s about generations of me.” We live in a ‘me’ society. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

I have no interest in really controlling people. I want to be the voice in their head [LAUGHING] that tells them to do the right thing. But, if you need a reason to do the right thing, it’s love. It’s because you love your family, because you’re modeling health, or you are modeling, today, illness. I’m a child psychiatrist like I said. Children don’t do what you tell them to do; they do what you do. Doing the right thing is the ultimate act of service and love for those you care about.

John Robbins: So eating healthfully — if you have little children in your house — modeling healthy eating practices and having healthy food around, instead of the junk food that’s become so common in our culture, is actually a form of nourishing your children that goes beyond just the obvious — the phytochemicals and the nutrients that you’re providing to them — but also you’re setting an example that they will listen to.

Daniel Amen: That’s it, and it’s the most important thing I think you can do for them. If you give them a healthy body, if you give them a healthy brain, then they can live at their potential. If you never think about that, or you only think about it when they’re sick, it is going to leave a legacy of illness.

John Robbins: Daniel, in so many ways I hear you telling us that Alzheimer’s and poor brain aging is optional, that it’s not an inherent and unavoidable part of growing older. I hear you saying that we can remain clear thinking with good memory as we grow older and that, in fact, none of us are stuck with the brain we have, but we can make it better.

This is an extraordinary message. It’s hopeful. It’s important. And I want to thank you, in particular, for emphasizing the role that a healthful diet plays in mental, as well as in physical, health. I think that’s been a hugely overlooked reality, and I’m very grateful to you for bringing it forward as clearly and as often as you do.

It’s been a real pleasure talking with you today as it has been in the past for me. On behalf of myself, Ocean, and everyone involved in the food revolution, I want to thank you, Daniel, for your caring heart, for your deep wisdom and of course for being with us today.

Daniel Amen: Well, thank you so much. You and Ocean are doing such a great service and I am grateful to be part of it.

Ocean Robbins: We’ve been talking with double board-certified psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Amen, founder of Amen Clinics, author of 10 New York Times bestselling books including, The Brain Warrior’s Way and Magnificent Mind at Any Age. Daniel, in a world in which psychiatrists are so often ignoring the role of food and brain health, your work is so informative and it’s so important.

We are grateful that you’ve stepped forward to make such a difference in so many lives and to help advance the conversation that our society so needs to have. We thank you for your work, for your leadership, and for your partnership in the food revolution.

Daniel Amen: Thank you so much.