Boost This Protein for Improved Brain Health

Jim Caras 0:00
I call it in a sense, and here’s why it’s so important. I call it Miracle Gro of the brain. Okay, because basically what it does, it does three specific functions and I’ll talk about a fourth number one is BDNF. The reason it’s so important how it increases memory and learning is it creates new brain cells. Number two is it protects and rejuvenates existing brain cells. Three, it strengthens the connections between them and throughout regions of the brain. So it’s vitally important BDNF, just to tell you a little how it does that as well is just skimming on the surface, it stimulates stem cells to grow new brain cells, it keeps when it when it enters the cell, it also stops the time clock of brain cell death. So rejuvenating preserving brain cells, so it’s crucial that you have adequate levels of BDNF.

Ed Jones 1:07
I want to welcome very much Jim Kerr is from health direct the president and CEO of that company, one that I extremely respected. Today we’re going to talk about a subject that I don’t know if there’s anyone over 40 years old that doesn’t want a better memory, sharpness, cognition, I am on a journey myself to put together the pieces to the puzzle that are continuing to arise about how do we do this. And we’re going to talk about something called brain derived neurotropic factor, which is probably the key player and why we are losing some of our abilities. But also, we are amazed at how I certain methods can increase this. So welcome to nutrition world podcast, Jim. Hey,

Jim Caras 1:50
Ed, great to be with you. Thank you for having me on.

Ed Jones 1:53
Oh, wait, you want to bet on one of the time that I know about and it was two plus years ago. And it had to do with how I what we talked about? I posted as far as how I recovered from my double hip replacement surgery. And he was one of the key players in how I recovered so quickly. So what I’m so excited about this second episode, because it’s totally different conversation. And it has to do with again, what can we do about retaining first, but then secondly, improving things like brain fog, depression, not being able to think about recalls like waiting something and then ask yourself, What did I just read and you’re like, I don’t really know what I just read. Those are frustrating moments. And I am on a pursuit very heavily on on many levels to help maintain this as I age almost a 67. At this point. Tell me what you now know that you did not know two years ago about this subject? Well,

Jim Caras 2:51
it all started with a phone call. So as you know, like we talked about last time on your podcast, we talked about college and I got a phone call from a mentor of mine. This was four years ago. So I’ll go back to the four years before the two. And he’s not an ordinary mentor. He is the he’s the man and research pharmacist who created developed and first patented hydrolyzed collagen. So I hold him in a really high regard. Anyone that’s ever used any collagen product, heard of the word collagen as far as a supplement, it all came from him back in the 70s. So he called me and he said, Jim, have you? Have you heard of BDNF? And I sort of scratched my head and I probably like most people out there hearing it for the first time today I said what is BDNF? And he’s told me brain derived neurotrophic factor. And I still didn’t ring a bell. And he said, Jim, this may be the first time you’ve heard about it, but it won’t be the last. And that’s what I like to share with people. Because this, this, it’s that significant person’s brain and whole body health. So I started the journey of researching it at that time. I found what we’ll talk about today how important BDNF is to the entire body, especially the brain, how it can improve memory, learning attention, mental fatigue, all the things we just talked about that we’ll get into today. And that started my journey two years ago. And then it It allowed us to get into an area of how can we increase and improve someone’s BDNF and we’ll talk about why that’s important. And that led to the creation of a new nootropic product that also involves collagen ironically, and we’ll talk a little about that how we found a specific type of collagen and a new technology for it that affects brain health. And so while we were working on this, our first level of collagen BDNF came into play and they just merged together to, in my opinion, create one of the most ideal forms to improving the brain

Ed Jones 4:58
excited Being very exciting, you know, when I 25 years old, it may not create the excitement, it certainly does as we get into an age of needing these kinds of products. And it’s a lot about, you know, there’s windows of opportunity and and health that I’ve witnessed for 45 years, and I speak about windows of opportunity. It’s never too late to do things, but the longer we wait, and the more we just hope that something doesn’t get bad, or maybe gets better. Sometimes we’re losing some traction with that. And here’s a tan a time and a chance, based on something extremely safe, and possibly very effective to help one maintain, I think a lot of us, if we can just maintain where we are at 40 and 50, we’d be pretty much okay, I want to do more than that I want to maintain and actually improve. And I certainly feel that that in today’s times, we have that ability, and we are so blessed in so many ways to be at 2024 and have the options that we didn’t have it 2014 And I’ve been in this industry 45 years and the growth of nutritional knowledge, green pharmacy knowledge, integrative activities that can help maintain and build the optimal build of the body. And what we can create is graceful aging. And Dr. Tia talks about putting together what he calls a decathlon, a centenarian decathlon, that’s a plan of action that helps us age strongly with resilience, it will not happen with hope alone, it has to have a plan, and I’m going to be on board with your plan as I was with the one type of college and that no one else makes. And this is not a sales job. We are here to empower and educate. So let’s talk about this brain derived neurotrophic factor. Okay.

Jim Caras 6:45
So I think a great place to start is what is it? That’s what most people ask. And basically, in its simplest sense, it’s a protein, also considered a neuro protein. It is the protein in your brain and throughout your body, but in your brain, it’s responsible for memory and learning, which is vitally important. Of course, it’s the it’s the basis for that. I call it in a sense, and here’s why it’s so important. I call it Miracle Gro of the brain. Because basically what it does, it does three specific functions, and I’ll talk about a fourth number one is BDNF. The reason it’s so important how it increases memory and learning is it creates new brain cells. Number two is it protects and rejuvenates existing brain cells. Three, it strengthens the connections between them and throughout regions of the brain. So it’s vitally important BDNF, just to tell you a little how it does that as well is just skimming on the surface. It stimulates stem cells to grow new brain cells, it keeps when it when it enters the cell. It also stops the time clock of brain cell death. So rejuvenating preserving brain cells. So it’s crucial that you have adequate levels of BDNF throughout the body. Now we talked about the brain a lot of people don’t know that BDNF occurs elsewhere in the body. So we talked about the brain, your your skin produces BDNF, your lungs, do your it occurs in your gut, your spleen, your your prostate, if you’re a man all throughout your body. And actually, there’s a lot of whole body effects of BDNF, your lungs, your your colon, your bladder actually producing contain more BDNF in your brain. Really, we’ll get a little more into that later. I think we should start with the brain first, but it’s vitally important for for memory and learning. And, and I can’t say enough about it’s the foundation of

Ed Jones 8:50
that. And we lessen At what age does it start declining?

Jim Caras 8:54
About 30. So and this is the interesting point. So when we talked last time, I always tell people about why collagen is so important call and I’m gonna give you a little comparison here. So around the age 25 to 30, our collagen levels start declining. It’s the same with BDNF around the age of 30. These levels start declining but let’s go back a step when you’re when you’re young. You’re a BDNF producing machine if we’ve ever wondered why, you know, kids, people that are younger, learn so much retain so much. Part of that has to do with the massive amounts of BDNF that that’s taking place in their body. So they have abundance about the age of 30. It starts declining, but different from the decline of collagen in the body. BDNF starts dropping rapidly. The older that you get actually around in your 60s it could drop about 5% a year. And it’s it it’s really detrimental to people’s mental health and their whole body health. If that level declines to low

Ed Jones 9:53
and 5% per year and 60 that means by 70 whatever you had your 50% less than Yeah, that’s scary. It could have ended up in that in that range there. Yes. And we think about kids who learn multiple languages or doot, doot doot, very hot intellectual skills. That seemed to come very easy. And here we are, you know, at 4050 and 60, most of us would not ever challenge ourselves with a new language at that age. So this could be the one of the major players in that and I know, I do a couple of things that help build what we call neuroplasticity, which is similar and what does that mean that word is regard to this. So

Jim Caras 10:33
I’m glad you brought that up. That’s another function of BDNF neuroplasticity. If I like to explain, it sounds complicated to people, I tell people, it’s a good word to know. Because as you get older, you’re going to learn it. As you meet with your doctor, you’re going to hear it. So just to take a quick moment on it. I break it down very simply, it comes from two Greek words and, and being that I Greek, I’m Greek I like to give my my Greek lesson of the day. And so the word neuro means comes from the Greek word means nerve. And also means brain brain cell. So neuron neuro brain cells, nerve cell. Plasticity comes from the Greek word plus Deus which means formed. So when we take the to a brain cell that’s formed, or neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to adapt structure to reorganize itself to create new neuro pathways. So what’s exciting about that is the previous belief in science years back was, and this is a little scary, by the way, is that you were born with the brain cells you have the rest of your life. To me, that’s a scary concept. And thank goodness for neuroplasticity, and in further science where they said no, you can grow new brain cells, you can restructure your brain, you can in essence, build a new and better brain. That’s what’s exciting about neuroplasticity. Very,

Ed Jones 11:55
very exciting. That’s one reason I didn’t drink alcohol. When I was young, I was afraid all those brain cells I would kill, I wouldn’t have any. Now I drink it because I know I can rebuild it. So I’m into the tequila but you know, I do two things that most people will not and probably can’t do. I do IV ketamine, which helps them produce neuroplasticity, quite expensive. And I do a drug called rapamycin. Those are two science, more medical oriented, costly types of options. And they they have they come with risk benefit. This that I’m reading about with what we’re talking is, is something you’ll drink every single day. It can work very quickly and over a period of even a short period of weeks. You can see tremendous benefit in most cases from the testimonies that I have seen. I actually had some before I came here to talk to you and I am very pleased with how pretty darn quickly you can actually feel some results with this with more of a focus mind and clarity that just tends to flow you know I have periods of time where I’m clicking like a pretty high pretty good computer that I have times where I’m just just slogging through the fog and it’s just like oh my gosh, I can’t put all these concepts together and have the right words. So tell our listeners again a little bit more about when they consume this product and what is the product and some of the details about it. Okay love to the product is called amino mind this is the what I call me no mind amino mind. Yes, amino

Jim Caras 13:29
in mind amino mind. And it’s the brainchild of my mentor and I have combining ingredients as we went on the quest we found specific ingredients that actually increase BDNF clinically proven to increase it. One of these ingredients is a unique form of coffee Berry, so all completely all natural, not like the coffee berry you’d find out there in most places. This is a unique patented standardized form standardized with the poly phenols. It’s the only one available that can cross the blood brain barrier which is really critical. Really you need to do that to to be able to increase BDNF. So the bottom line it of is is that when you take the product and this is one of the ingredients in there, the Clinical studies show that BDNF levels are increased 143% Within the first 60 minutes of taking it. So people are noticing a it almost in some cases an instant effect. So when we have something that’s declining with age and you can boost it or increase it that quickly it’s exciting. And the nutrients in the product. They actually when I say cross the blood brain barrier. BDNF has a very short half life in the body. When you produce it, it doesn’t last long. The nutrients in you wouldn’t add BDNF to your body the nutrients are actually getting into your your brain cells in your brain and it’s helping giving it the resources to produce BDNF yourself on a continual and constant basis. So that’s the exciting part. That’s the game changer of the product. You

Ed Jones 15:06
know me my philosophy over 45 years is to try my best to mimic Mother Nature. And you said it perfectly when you said we can’t really take BDNF. And we don’t want to because what I value so great is what I’ve kind of referred to as ancient wisdom, give the body what it needs to produce its own optimal levels, because we will never have the wisdom that the body has. So our book textbooks, it says take about this amount of something to produce more of level. And no, I want the body to be the orchestra director of that. And I love giving it raw materials so that it can’t decide in its own wisdom manner. Oh, you need this much. Or we can make this much which is optimal. Or when it drops down, we can make more, but we’re not going to make too much. And we’re not going to create an imbalance to a rippling effect. This is why drugs have side effects is because they don’t alter one function, they alter a downstream multiple functions of multiple types of systems in the body. And with nature, that doesn’t happen in a negative sense. It only happens either neutral or positive. So as far as like the two things I talked about, they’re not perfect, because they are drug like and almost use no drugs at all in my life. But those two I feel risk is minimal and benefits, great. But we’ve never had a product like this one that I can just take over the counter that will create the kind of hope that you we’re talking about here. And I know a lot of people, you know, most people, I think, agree, you know what if you had to choose your body going down or your mind going down, most people actually wants the mind to be there, even if the body is starting to decay. And I feel that way too. I don’t want to lose a sense of who I am and my ability to be functional on a cognitive level. And I did take some of the product and I actually there was no doubt I could feel that product in about 60 minutes. Now ongoing, it probably serves even more purposes as people keep taking it.

Jim Caras 17:01
Yeah, as you take the longer you take it. So the beauty of the product is a we’re increasing BDNF. B as we have a synergistic effect where we’re increasing brain structure or volume, there’s a specific type of and let me tie it back and forth for you here, there’s a specific type of collagen we use. So this is the world’s first new tropic collagen that builds BDNF, we’re able to take these couple ingredients combined with a few others. The collagen is unique because it’s unlike any other collagen out there. It’s specific, we’re able to take the collagen molecule and amp up or concentrate specific dye peptides in it Prolene, hydroxy, proline and glycine which are, which are found in higher levels in collagen. So we’re able to increase those to the level of one little tablespoon that you take would be equivalent of the amount you would get in 64 tablespoons of regular collagen. That’s how dramatic those dye peptides are. Those dye peptides have a specific function in the body, they actually stayed longer in the bloodstream than normal collagen, these they would in normal collagen. So they affect your brain health. It’s the only collagen that increases brain helps memory learning and brain health. So back to what you talked about what people will notice as they take the product longer. One of the studies on the product that backs the collagen and the other ingredients in there showed that within 28 days of taking the product, the ingredients that memory and learning, which was tested improved 40%. The other increased the interesting thing is brain structure helped to the brain structure started to develop and was trending upwards. That’s important because as we age, our brains shrink and you don’t want your brains and organs to shrink, you want to maintain the volume. But the astounding part about this study was in four weeks, it showed a reversal in brain aging by 3.65 years. So almost four years. So in four weeks of taking it, there was a reversal of brain aging by four years and just the first 28 days. What that means for people is people are noticing after they take it. Like you just said they’re more clear more. The first thing people notice is more mental energy. They’re more clear in the morning. That that happened to me with the product. I’ve always been a slow waker in the morning, it takes me a while to get going. I joke with my wife, my wife I tell her that I kept Fisher she didn’t know I was a sloth in the morning and I’m just you know sort of dragging along. When I take the product now. I’m clear I mentally alert I mentally function better in the morning. This is happening to a lot of people. They noticed that the within a few days. People tell us that like a fog is lifted there. They have clear thoughts, sharper thoughts, they make better better at this. I had a couple people tell me a good friend of mine who’s recovering from cancer treatments, who all the drugs in the system has caused him to be a foggy mind and everything. He’s like, you know, I I was in a place where I couldn’t make decisions. Well, I can make decisions now. And I’m clear. So people notice these things. And the longer you take it, the better the results, the sharper the memories are, the better the recall, the more mental energy you’ll have. And

Ed Jones 20:15
the opposite of that is pharmaceuticals. Normally, the longer you take it, the less they work and the more side effects you have. So when we give the body, the nutrients, the base is the platform of what it what actually was intended for it from day one. It can be magical, and you know, traditional thinking on health just doesn’t embrace this. And you know, a lot of people may say, I want to wait till there’s, you know, 800 studies on this product. Well, you know, what, if you’re already 40 or 50, you’re going to lose a whole decade or more waiting for that. And I just don’t feel like it’s worth the risk. Does this a product you take once a day as we start winding down here on the conversation? Is it once or twice a day, very simple ticket

Jim Caras 20:53
once taken in the morning, when you wake up? And boom, you’re done for the day? That’s it

Ed Jones 20:58
cool and simple. When you feel like spoon? Do you feel like that that has possibilities to maybe prevent the on coming of Alzheimer’s and dementia? I

Jim Caras 21:09
would say with memory in general. That based on the research I pulled, you know what, let me read something really quick read I pulled one thing that says that this is from the Journal of the American Medical Association. I wanted to have it handy because it’s just it just nails it right on the head of how important BDNF is. It says this was a report on BDNF Alzheimer’s memory. The quote is higher levels of BDNF may protect against the future occurrence of dementia and Alzheimer’s. Our findings suggest a role for BDNF in the body, and possibly the prevention of Alzheimer’s and dementia. So like I said, don’t take it from me take it from the science and the research that’s out there. So that’s the emerging science. It’s coming out on BDNF, that it’s possible it gives us the cognitive reserve to offset the negative things that happen. And I don’t want to go too far into but we all everyone. Everyone’s heard of amyloid plaque as people get Alzheimer’s and dementia. Well turns out that everyone eventually gets it. But certain people it affects and certain people it doesn’t. It’s turning out that people with higher levels of BDNF have that cognitive reserve to protect them from it. So I think that’s a little rounder, longer answer. But that’s why it’s so important to cover.

Ed Jones 22:28
That’s so cool. And I did not know you had that study. So it wasn’t set up for me to ask that question. And I’m so so intrigued by that. And I know I’ve been studying a lot about glycine, I know your product contains a lot of that. Dr. Mercola, who I vastly respect as far as his ability to really conversate about True Health talks about glycine actually helps us to have antiviral properties to keep us very well because it keeps the cell membranes so much more healthy, that the virus actually has a harder time reproducing within the cell. And glycine certainly makes me sleep better. So those are things now and last question. I know I take your other product because it was so revolutionary for my healing of my double hip replacement. Does this product replace the other collagen or is it an add on

Jim Caras 23:14
there, it’s an add on there too. Okay, I would look at them as two separate products. This is a collagen that has a specific function in the body to increase brain to brain activity memory learning and improve brain health. Regular collagen is going to give you more of the cosmetic and structural benefits throughout your body, hair, skin, nails, joints, tissue healing from surgery, repair of skin, lean body mass, so you’re going to use them to and by the way when you use them both together, I recommend taking amino mine first thing in the morning. And I’ve always recommended the best time to take collagen is at bedtime. Because it works with your we’ve talked about that before it works with your body to create it when you’re doing the more AMPM routine you’re getting the maximum anti aging benefit that can exist your mind and your whole body. It’s gonna it’s gonna beautiful people will see I call it the magic show of youth happening with their

Ed Jones 24:12
body. love it love it. And this is not a pie in the sky and and for people to learn more about your product, what would be a website? How could they contact you? They could

Jim Caras 24:21
go to our website health direct usa.com We have very detailed information on it. We have I think one of the best ways is I wrote a sort of an article report on it that you have in your store. And we have those for people for free if they come on in. And that has very detailed information all about BDNF, all the different applications of memory brain fog, how it works to help people with mental fatigue, health improves learning reaction time all that is in that article and that would be a great way for people to learn about it.

Ed Jones 24:55
I love it. Love your passion love the fact that you are so focused you’re not One of these companies that every month you’re coming out with some kind of product just to produce more sales. You really, truly believe in what you’ve done. And I know that that product, your older one has changed the lives of many, many people, especially in a market of college and where it’s everywhere. I mean, you can’t go anywhere to shop with there’s not a college and product. And, you know, seven, eight years ago, there was very few and you’ve been around longer than anyone I mean your your wages original college and has been tested in many hospital or used and utilized in hospital settings. I know. And I remember you telling me about people who were suffering with, you know, cancer and chemo and losing weight, that this helped maintain the muscle loss that if they would do the regular collagen, which rake, you know, that happens to people who are sick, and that sometimes can be their demise. And if we can help maintain their muscle and their structure with your regular college and not the new one, it can be life saving. So I am on board, I will be doing your products in the morning from now on it sits on my desk, and it I don’t mind the taste at all. There’ll be a few people who might be a little bit because it’s strong. You can tell it has some strong ingredients. I’d like that because I feel like it’s it’s a powerhouse in it. And I trust you and I trust the studies that you have already presented on that we have more to learn but anecdotally there’s no doubt this is going to be a very very popular product jam. And thank you so so very much for taking your time out to join us here at nutrition world podcast.

Jim Caras 26:31
Thanks for having me on.