Episode 19. Have your "senior moments" assessed on an objective scale, while they are still mild. Don't put up with it or minimize it. Many causes are reversible. Don't wait! Each memory is a neuron connection.

You have been exposed to thousands of toxins unless you’ve filtered your water and prepared your own food your entire life.

A 20-minute screening test from Canada, the home of modern Functional Medicine, has a good base of scientific evidence in detecting and monitoring subtle changes in memory loss or gain.1 I got certified in the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) because the company behind it has really done their due diligence to get all of the feedback you would ever want from the scientific community.2

Book A MoCA Test now

Book your appointment today. Your cognitive decline may be recoverable and will be an important part of your customized Mindshift Plan. The customization part of your Mindshift Plan can not be overemphasized here because the MoCA test has been validated in psychosis, mood disorders with electroconvulsive therapy, late-life Bipolar Disorder and Geriatric Psychiatry.3-6 Folks, these disorders are made much worse with memory loss, often culminating into a clinical picture involving extreme emotional experiences because of their lifelong accumulation of quantum drag leading to a simultaneous Accumulation Stress Injury.

https://vimeo.com/1132870234

Download and Share the Ambassador Slides HANDOUT.

Glymphatic System Washes Your Brain if you Sleep

Our brains have a washing cycle at night. Once per minute, a small amount of adrenaline causes a small arteriole squeeze all the way through the brain.7 This creates a small amount of space around the vessels for interstitial fluid to be moved and absorbed by the cranial veins. If the Glymphatic System is interfered with that we get a build-up of amyloid proteins that are toxic to the brain – and associated with Alzheimer’s Dementia. It appears that some anti-histamines are anti-cholinergic and these mechanisms stop the Glymphatic System. The over-the-counter shelves are full of antihistamines.8

Too bad sleep medications shut it down…

Some anti-histamines are anti-cholinergic also, but no one is really studying which of all these anti-histamines are ultimately neurotoxic. It would take decades and thousands or lab rats for us to catch up to this threat. From allergy pills to sleeping age, the entire world is consuming this stuff and no one realizes the risk. Do you want to research this question? Join me on a Research Mastermind Group.

Our brains collect lots of exogenous toxins (outside the body) that we absorb from our environment and consume in food and water. We lack the laboratory and animal model studies to show causality, but all of these toxins act the same on humans: estrogenic, neurotoxic, carcinogenic, and anti-fertility. Here are some cutting-edge research ideas for those that would like to go to graduate school on these topics:

BPA plastic in the brain is associated with a 10-fold risk in dementia.9

Tramadol is a weak opioid pain-killer associated with dementia.10

More than 2,500 medications are associated with dementia.11

Dementia MedicationsDownload

The prevalence of pollution, autism, ADHD, depression and cognitive slowing has garnered more attention in recent years. My experience in Springfield, MO opened my eyes to see the connection between contaminated water and a flood of ADHD patients with high cholesterol, low vitamin D, and a lot more thyroid disease than should have been expected. It turns out the PFAS epidemic has thousands of locations.

Toxic Exposures Hasten Dementia

It turns out that if people actually study it, there's laboratory evidence showing dementia in rats with toxic exposures. Episode 14 Proof Agent Orange Causes Dementia discusses the fact that it took from 1961 until 2024 for researchers to actually study it. Is this a lack of science? Or a lack of will to ask tough questions? I never lacked the will to ask tough questions.

Fortunately, I started asking original questions and demonstrated that neurotoxins that kill brain cells are expelled from the body during ionic foot baths and wrote a protocol for everyone, called the Firefighter's Detox.

I decided to become certified in the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) for two reasons. First, so that I could use the dementia screening test with veterans disability evaluations. Second, the research has continued to explode supporting it's helpfulness in recent years. View the MoCA Clinic data and you'll be impressed too. Their videos are worth the time if you really want to delve deeper in preventing and reversing dementia.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0735216215?psc=1&language=en_US

You can be located anywhere in the world. You will need to take the results to your own physician for interpretation. This appointment type is not for diagnoses or medications.

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It only takes 20 minutes and it could change your life.

References

1.         Corral S, Gaspar PA, Castillo-Passi RI, et al. Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) as a screening tool for cognitive impairment in early stages of psychosis. Schizophr Res Cogn. Jun 2024;36:100302. doi:10.1016/j.scog.2024.100302

2.         Dautzenberg G, Lijmer J, Beekman A. Clinical value of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) in patients suspected of cognitive impairment in old age psychiatry. Using the MoCA for triaging to a memory clinic. Cogn Neuropsychiatry. Jan 2021;26(1):1-17. doi:10.1080/13546805.2020.1850434

3.         Gil-Berrozpe GJ, Sánchez-Torres AM, García de Jalón E, et al. Utility of the MoCA for cognitive impairment screening in long-term psychosis patients. Schizophr Res. Feb 2020;216:429-434. doi:10.1016/j.schres.2019.10.054

4.         Hebbrecht K, Giltay EJ, Birkenhäger TK, et al. Cognitive change after electroconvulsive therapy in mood disorders measured with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. Acta Psychiatr Scand. Nov 2020;142(5):413-422. doi:10.1111/acps.13231

5.         Belvederi Murri M, Respino M, Proietti L, et al. Cognitive impairment in late life bipolar disorder: Risk factors and clinical outcomes. J Affect Disord. Oct 1 2019;257:166-172. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2019.07.052

6.         Gierus J, Mosiołek A, Koweszko T, Wnukiewicz P, Kozyra O, Szulc A. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment as a preliminary assessment tool in general psychiatry: Validity of MoCA in psychiatric patients. Gen Hosp Psychiatry. Sep-Oct 2015;37(5):476-80. doi:10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2015.05.011

7.         Buccellato FR, D'Anca M, Serpente M, Arighi A, Galimberti D. The Role of Glymphatic System in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease Pathogenesis. Biomedicines. Sep 13 2022;10(9)doi:10.3390/biomedicines10092261

8.         Hsieh M-L, Lu Y-T, Lin C-C, Lee C-P. Comparison of the target-controlled infusion and the manual infusion of propofol anesthesia during electroconvulsive therapy: an open-label randomized controlled trial. BMC psychiatry. 2021/02/04 2021;21(1):71. doi:10.1186/s12888-021-03069-6

9.         Gecegelen E, Ucdal M, Dogu BB. A novel risk factor for dementia: chronic microplastic exposure. Front Neurol. 2025;16:1581109. doi:10.3389/fneur.2025.1581109

10.       Oh SN, Kim HJ, Shim JY, et al. Tramadol use and incident dementia in older adults with musculoskeletal pain: a population-based retrospective cohort study. Scientific Reports. 2024/10/11 2024;14(1):23850. doi:10.1038/s41598-024-74817-3

11.       Wilkinson T, Schnier C, Bush K, et al. Drug prescriptions and dementia incidence: a medication-wide association study of 17000 dementia cases among half a million participants. J Epidemiol Community Health. Mar 2022;76(3):223-229. doi:10.1136/jech-2021-217090