Daniel Amen: Clinical neuroscientist, psychiatrist, brain health expert and New York Times best-selling author who founded Amen Clinics and has performed over 230,000 brain SPECT scans, including on celebrities like Bella Hadid, Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber.
What this episode covers
Dr. Daniel Amen explains how a suicide attempt by someone he loved drew him into psychiatry, and how brain SPECT imaging convinced him that most psychiatric illnesses are actually brain health issues that can be measured and treated. He recounts personal stories about scanning his combative father and grandmother, discovering a brain cyst that was driving his nephew's violence, and using imaging to save failing marriages. He lays out his BRIGHT MINDS risk-factor framework, warning against caffeine, marijuana, alcohol, the standard American diet, toxins in personal products, and untreated hormone and vitamin deficiencies. He also covers his five brain types, the value of EMDR for trauma, the ACE childhood-trauma quiz, and simple daily habits like asking whether a choice is good or bad for your brain. He closes with a sharp critique of a mental health industry he says diagnoses by symptoms and over-prescribes drugs.
Recommended on this episode
The No Asshole Rule
Robert Sutton
“So there's a book by a Stanford professor called The No [ __ ] Rule. Love that book.”— Daniel Amen
The Toxin Solution
Joe Pizzorno
“If you want to get rid of the doubt, it's called The Toxin Solution by Joe Pizzorno, who started Bastyr University.”— Daniel Amen
Think Dirty (app)
Think Dirty
“There's an app I like called Think Dirty. It allows you to scan your personal products, and it tells you on a scale of 1 to 10 how quickly they're killing you.”— Daniel Amen
Kiss My Face
Kiss My Face
“now I shave with something called Kiss My Face. It's a two. Last longer than Barbasol. And I do that because I love myself.”— Daniel Amen
The guest's own work
The End of Mental Illness
Daniel Amen
“if you want a shortened version, read my book, The End of Mental Illness, cuz there's a whole section on toxins with about 100 scientific references.”— Daniel Amen
You, Happier: The 7 Neuroscience Secrets of Feeling Good Based on Your Brain Type
Daniel Amen
“You, Happier, the seven neuroscience secrets of a feeling good based on your brain type. Now the concept of having a brain type I find really compelling.”— Steven Bartlett
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child
Tana Amen
“My wife, and she wrote a book about this called The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child, has eight out of 10.”— Daniel Amen
Metformin
“And if it tends to run high, you can go, Oh, I take Metformin for that. Or you can get rid of the simple carbohydrates in your diet.”— Daniel Amen
Big reveals from this episode
- Amen confirms he has been Miley Cyrus's doctor for 11 years, appears in Justin Bieber's docu-series, and that Bella Hadid said she stopped drinking because of him.
- A scan of his violent 9-year-old nephew revealed a golf-ball-sized cyst occupying his left temporal lobe; draining it returned his behavior to normal.
- In his NFL study scanning 350 players, 80% of players improved on a brain rehabilitation program, proving brain damage can be reversed.
- A mixed martial artist's troubled brain looked remarkably better just 2.5 hours after taking Amen's NFL supplement formula.
- The ACE childhood-trauma quiz: four or more adverse experiences raise risk of seven of the top 10 causes of death; six or more means dying 20 years earlier.
- His Couples From Hell study scanned 500 couples who failed marital therapy; in 80%, one or both partners needed a brain tune-up.
- After scanning a couple he couldn't help (his ADD, her OCD tendencies) and treating them with Ritalin and Prozac, they have stayed married 33 years.
- Amen closes by calling the modern mental health industry insane, citing 337 million antidepressant prescriptions last year and rampant benzodiazepine prescribing.
Worth remembering
- Roughly 50% of the population is diabetic or pre-diabetic and 72% are overweight or obese, per Amen.
- A fat-based diet of nuts, seeds, greens, fish and healthy oils carries 42% less Alzheimer's risk; a simple-carb diet carries a 400% increased risk.
- Caffeine increases cortisol, shrinks the hippocampus, and constricts blood flow by 30% on SPECT scans.
- His patient Jeff was drinking about 600 mg of caffeine a day; one Venti Starbucks contains 330 mg.
- Brain myelination proceeds from back to front and isn't complete in the prefrontal cortex until about age 25.
- More than half of young males now have low or low-normal testosterone, which Amen attributes partly to toxins in personal products.
- Low vitamin D affects about 60% of the population; a new study found vitamin D supplements cut Alzheimer's risk by 40%.
- The Stanford marshmallow test linked delayed gratification to better self-esteem and success, and Amen notes the ability can be trained.
- Immigrants moving from sunny Botswana or the Bahamas to the UK showed increased psychosis rates, linked to dropping vitamin D.
- The original ACE study, run with the CDC and Kaiser, surveyed 17,000 people about 10 common childhood traumas.