In this enlightening episode, host Joe Fier welcomes Dr. Syed Asad, a seasoned neurologist and regenerative medicine expert, to dive deep into the world of brain health. Together, they explore the current landscape and future possibilities for preventing and treating neurological diseases, with a special focus on the power of plasma exchange, early detection, lifestyle strategies, and disease-modifying interventions. Dr. Asad shares both his clinical expertise and practical advice, leaving listeners informed—and inspired to take charge of their own cognitive health.

Topics Discussed

• The Brain in the Spotlight: Why brain health deserves top priority and how the field has evolved over recent decades.
• Symptom Management vs. Disease Modification: Understanding the difference and why the latter is key to long-term brain wellness.
• Early Detection: Advances in genetic testing, blood markers, and imaging for identifying neurological disease risk—often before symptoms appear.
• Lifestyle Factors: The impact of sleep, exercise, and stress management on brain function, neuroprotection, and regeneration.
• Inflammation and Neurological Disease: How chronic inflammation contributes to brain decline, and the role of balance and homeostasis.
• Plasma Exchange Therapy: Its traditional uses in autoimmune neurological disorders, new frontiers in treating inflammation, and potential for toxin removal.
• Regenerative & Integrative Approaches: Dr. Asad’s journey into combining conventional medicine with cutting-edge lifestyle and regenerative therapies.
• Neuroregeneration & Brain Plasticity: The science of growing new neurons, fostering recovery after injury, and long-term strategies for cognitive vitality.
• Practical Sleep Protocols: Tips and tools for optimizing sleep quality and quantity based on individual chronotypes.
• Addressing Mental Health: The neurological roots of depression, the role of inflammation, and holistic treatment strategies.

Resources Mentioned

• Universal Neurocare (universalneurocare.com)
• Oura Ring (ouraring.com)
• Apple Watch (apple.com/apple-watch)

Connect with Us

• TPE Blueprint Podcast Website: https://mdlifespan.com/the-tpe-blueprint-podcasts/
• Website: https://mdlifespan.com/
• Guidebooks: https://mdlifespan.com/guidebooks/
• Follow on Instagram: https://instagram.com/mdlifespan 
• Subscribe and Listen: https://mdlifespan.com/the-tpe-blueprint-podcasts/

Two Other Episodes You’ll Enjoy:

• Breaking Down a Real Toxin Test: What You Can Learn About Your Health 
• How Toxins Impact Testosterone and Health After 40 with Funk Roberts

Love what you heard? Don’t miss a future episode—hit subscribe on your preferred podcast platform, leave us a review, and share the show with friends or family passionate about optimal health. Your feedback and questions fuel our mission to bring you the latest insights from world-class experts. Stay curious, empowered, and keep striving for your best brain health!

Disclaimer:

MDLifespan PlasmaXchange protocols are designed to support general health and wellness. They are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The information provided on this podcast is for educational purposes only and should not replace medical advice. Please consult with your healthcare provider before beginning any new health program, especially if you have a medical condition or are taking prescribed medications.

What if your brain isn't just aging, but what if it's actually under attack, and

what could you do to stop or even reverse that decline before symptoms ever show up?

Today I'm joined by Dr. Syed Asad, a board certified neurologist and brain

health pioneer whose blending, cutting edge detection with regenerative

tools like plasma exchange to rewrite the future of cognitive decline.

Dr. Syed Asad, it's awesome to have you here.

And, um, you know, brain, brain health, brain talk, I mean, just everything brain.

I think that's a big topic right now, you know, and, and.

Across the board, I'm sure in, you know, in the, in the medical

community, but also just in on the streets, you know, with everyone.

And, um, that's what I want to talk about is, is kinda your perspective and,

you know, with your work, I want you to give us just a little brief little

background on, on what you've done as of yet, but also just where things

are at now, but where we're going with brain health and what's even possible

sure.

Um,

exchange and all that.

'cause you've been doing it, which is really cool.

But yeah.

For sure.

So, uh, I will start with, um, you know, you mentioned

the brain is in the limelight.

Uh, maybe this is a neurologist's bias, but I think the brain should

have always been in the limelight.

'cause the brain is the highest organ, right?

Um, it's, it's central command.

It, it basically controls everything.

And, uh, um, so, uh, as far as, um.

The field of neurology, uh, which is what I've been

practicing for the last 20 years.

Um, it started out with people being able to make diagnoses, but

not being able to do a whole lot.

The joke used to be diagnose adios and, you know, and, and unfortunately

there's still conditions like that from Lou Gehrig's disease to

Alzheimer's disease, et cetera.

Where beyond a certain point, there really isn't a whole lot you can do.

Um, the cool thing is that over the last few decades there's been

more and more interventions and I think that's what pulled me into the

regenerative medicine side where I was.

Definitely interested in treating my patients who came in with symptoms of

Parkinson's or symptoms of dementia, but I was always fascinated with the

idea of how about if we prevent this from happening in the first place?

How about if we figure out that someone is headed in that direction and do

certain things where we can avoid this or, or once it starts, what can we do to.

Prevent it from getting worse.

And I'm not just talking about symptomatic treatment.

I'm talking about actual disease.

Disease modifying treatment.

Can you break down the difference between symptoms?

I think that's fairly obvious, but the, the d disease modification,

uh, the second part there.

Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, so I'll give you an example.

So for with Alzheimer's disease, it's a complex pathophysiology, but in short,

you've got these two bad proteins.

You've got hyper phospho related tau, and you've got.

Beta amyloid that basically clumps together and forms amyloid plaques.

The amyloids outside the cell, the tau is inside the cell, and these two, along

with inflammation and other things.

Damage the neurons or kill the neurons, and, and that's basically

the decline that you see in people who have Alzheimer's disease.

So symptomatic treatment would be something like D Napole, uh, which is

a medicine that increases acetylcholine in the brain, which is nice.

If you give the brain more acetylcholine, it functions a little bit better.

But you're essentially rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The Titanic, unfortunately, is going down and so.

Disease modifying treatments would be a way to figure out that once those

amyloid plaques start forming, or once the neurofibrillary tangles with the

tau start forming, what can we do to make sure that process doesn't persist?

Or maybe even figure out, figure out when a person is heading in that

direction to avert it all together.

And that's where a disease modifying treatment would come in.

Interesting.

Okay.

And yeah, we, we already seeded that You've been using plasma exchange for a

while, you said for what, 20 years, right?

More.

Yeah,

we'll, we'll seed that for just a little bit.

I want to go a little, kind of set the seed a little bit more, but

that's, that's already intriguing, you know, is how it's been used

and, and how you're now doing it.

I'm curious on the detection side, like.

I guess, what's the approach?

Are there new improvements now in, in, I guess, what are the tools?

How, how is it done

And, and are you specifically talking about dementia?

I guess with any kind of neurological disease, like where would you start and,

and maybe some, what are some of these symptoms where you're finding people

and you're like, what's the first step when you see someone, you're like, okay.

Sure.

Yeah.

So, so broad categories with with neurology are, there's.

There's the central nervous system, which is the brain and the spinal cord,

and there's the peripheral nervous system, which is the nerves that come

out of the spinal cord and basically connect with muscles at the neuromuscular

junctions and, and spread from there.

in broad strokes, you've got diseases of the central nervous system like.

Dementia, like stroke, like epilepsy, like multiple sclerosis.

And then you've got diseases of the peripheral nervous system like

neuropathy and myasthenia gravis.

So when you're approaching a patient with neurological conditions,

you first localize where.

The disease is then you come up with a differential diagnosis of possibilities,

then you test your diagnosis.

Uh, if it's a central nervous system disease, you might wanna do an MRI.

You might wanna do an a spinal tap.

You want, you might wanna do blood work.

You, um, if it's a disease of the peripheral nervous system, you might

wanna do an EMG nerve conduction study.

So there's different testing modalities as time has gone on.

The technology has gotten better and better, and so we just hopefully

are doing a better job of nailing down the diagnosis and in the case

of neurodegenerative diseases, if we make the diagnosis ahead of time.

So for example, let's say someone who would normally start having memory

problems, let's say in their mid sixties.

And they would go to their primary doctor, then they would go to a neurologist,

then they would get, you know, testing, cognitive testing scans, et cetera,

and they would get a diagnosis.

Let's say someone has.

Uh, an A POE genetic test of E four, E four, that puts them

at high risk for dementia.

Let's say they're only in their early fifties right now, and with that

genetic profile, they get blood work that shows that they're also already

spilling amyloid and tau proteins.

From their brain into their bloodstream.

And then you do an amyloid PET scan that shows amyloid deposition is

already started in their brain.

They're cognitively completely normal, but they're showing signs of early dementia.

Well, that would be the time to strike.

And if you can remove, uh, either the factors that trigger the amyloid

and tau pathology in their brains.

Or have a mechanism to remove those, um, bad proteins or stop their

accumulation, uh, by the time they reach their mid sixties or beyond, you

might actually change the direction of, of, uh, where they're heading.

Interesting.

Okay.

So yeah, I've, I've definitely heard of, of that gene.

So basically having a genetic profile, and you said that's, would

that be a blood test primarily where

Yes, the E four, E four, uh, that, that would be on a blood test.

Blood test.

Okay.

And now, I mean, the amyloid and tau are serum markers as well.

When I was in training, um, we would do spinal taps to look for

amyloid and tau and, and that's fine.

I mean, that's, that's a good way to do it as well.

But yeah, a lot of people don't wanna be poked in their backs

and so a blood, blood work's.

Yeah.

A little more invasive.

So blood work's easy.

I got you.

Okay.

Well that's, that's interesting.

So detection.

Yeah.

Lots of ways to go about it.

It makes sense depending on what's going on.

Um, are you seeing trends, like are there different trends

now in the world we're in?

Um, like are, are these types of diseases popping up?

Earlier or in different ways.

Are there, uh, maybe more often cases that you're seeing than before?

Yes, if you look at the epidemiological data, uh, there are more and more cases.

Um, now some of that could be related to the fact that we're living longer.

So for dementia, for example, you know, the longer you live,

the higher the probability that you'll end up with dementia.

Uh, some of it may just be better.

Diagnostics where back in the day, maybe people didn't even realize

that, you know, they had these issues going on, especially in mild cases.

Um, but there is definitely an increase in prevalence of these,

uh, conditions, and that is probably related to many of the risk factors.

So there's.

You know, in this day and age, people are more sedentary than our ancestors were.

Um, that's just because we live in a comfortable world and, you know, don't

need to work as hard as our ancestors did.

Um, there's a. You know, foods that we're eating or lifestyles that are

promoting, uh, more what we call vascular risk factors, which can be a risk

factor for neurodegenerative diseases.

Uh, there's pollutants and toxins, uh, there's processed foods, um,

there's, there's more inflammation.

Um, and, and also just in terms of, you know, one of the things I

always talk to my patients about is.

Sleep.

Sleep is foundational.

We are designed to sp spend a third of our life sleeping.

That's eight hours out of every 24 should be dedicated to sleep.

And that's, again, that's not by accident, that's by design.

Because sleep is not just restorative to the brain, it repairs the brain.

And nowadays, you know, I, I love coffee too and I enjoy watching TV

and, you know, video games, whatnot.

But.

If we overdo it, if we do those things to the detriment of our

sleep, if we don't make sleep a priority, then we pay the price.

And, uh, that also increases the risk of at least neurodegenerative diseases.

I want to tap in on the sleep part.

'cause honestly, like I know, I, I think, I think it's just a lot.

I, I like to say I'm, I think I'm kind of normal in this, that like,

I know I don't get enough sleep, but I think it's because of the act.

It might be the phase of my life with kids too young kids around.

But I don't want to give excuses here.

I want like, what's your protocol to sleep?

Like, just lay it on me the most.

Yeah, no, I'm, so, it's interesting when I was in training, and this is

again, not a very long time ago, just over 20 years, um, we used to be told.

During the residency training that sleep is overrated.

In other words, in healthcare, we were told, you know what,

you guys, you know, if you're on call for 36 hours, that's okay.

Don't, you don't need to sleep.

Just, just do your work.

And I think that was noble in terms of like, you know, trying to

take care of patients at at night when, but the problem is, um, it.

If you continue that for too long, if you really deprive your, your brain of sleep,

and especially components of sleep, like deep sleep and REM sleep, um, there's,

there's certain things the brain does during those phases that are lost when

you're not getting those phases of sleep.

So it's not just the quality, it's also the qu It is not just the

quantity, it's also the quality.

Uh, so you were asking what's a good number?

Um.

So we have this ultradian rhythm, uh, the, this 90 minute rhythm

during the day and at night.

So for example, when you're sleeping, your brain goes through stage 1, 2,

3, rapid eye movement in 90 minutes.

And if you get about five 90 minute cycles, that's pretty healthy.

So that's seven and a half hours.

And if you wake up.

Uh, and you were just dreaming and you finished that dream and then you woke up.

That means you just finished that, that 90 minute cycle.

And, and generally you'll feel good if someone wakes you up out of like

REM sleep, you're not gonna like it.

And you're

and

have, yeah, you're gonna have that sleep latency.

And, and so for most people that's, that's a good amount.

But what I also tell people nowadays in, in the age of Apple watches and

aura rings and whatnot, I tell people, and I do this myself, and I actually

show them my, my sleep data, and I tell them, I'm, I'm not showing off.

I'm just.

Telling you that you can do this as well is, is monitor to make sure

that the combination of your deep sleep and REM sleep should be about

40% of your total sleep time, and that's, that's a healthy amount.

So

helpful.

Thank you.

Yeah, because one with an Apple watch that I'm always looking at the metro.

I don't necessarily, now I know,

Yeah.

that's, I mean, that's great.

And is there a timing that you like to shoot for, for going to bed?

Waking up.

Is there a window?

Yeah, so I, I use both the a uh, apple watch and the aura ring.

And the Aura Ring actually tells you your chronotype.

So once you've.

Worn it for three months or more, it'll figure out your chronotype.

So your chronotype is the ideal go to sleep time and

wake up time for your brain.

And it actually varies from person to person.

And it's good to know what yours is.

And this goes back to the time where we probably.

Lived in groups or tribes and the saber tooth cat could attack at night, and so

someone had to keep night watch, right?

So within the same family, people will have different chronotypes.

So I always knew that I was someone who went to sleep early

and woke up early, and sure enough.

Uh, my wearable told me that I'm supposed to go to sleep at nine or nine 30 and wake

up at five, which is what I do anyway.

It's natural.

Yeah.

yeah, but it determines that not just based on your habits, but

based on your heart rate and based on your temperature and based on a

whole host of other parameters, and it figures out what your ideal is.

And, and so I think I, I encourage everybody to figure that out.

My daughter, who's 22.

Mm-hmm.

And she's, um, doing her master's degree right now.

Um, she figured out that her chronotype is go to sleep at 1:00 AM, get up

00 AM and so I told her she's, she's learning video game design.

So I was like, you know, that's, that's, that's a cool field where

you can choose your hours hopefully.

So just choose, um, you know, uh, a, a job where you can basically stick

to your chronotype so you don't have to compromise how your brain is wired,

I've seen that for me and it's a little later at night and I'm

like, nah, I can't be right.

You know, I've always heard earlier,

yeah, no.

So it's not one, one size doesn't fit all.

And I think in, in society, we've kind of been, again trained that you should

get up early and you should go to sleep early, and that's not true for everybody.

You have to figure out what your chronotype is and hopefully

design your lifestyle according to how your brain is wired.

That's right.

I mean, kids though are that wild card where you're just like,

oh gosh, but it's a season, so.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I've definitely been there.

Mine are 22 and 19, so it gets easier.

thank God so well, and you mentioned, um, inflammation as well.

'cause of course inflammation's the root of what basically all disease, right?

Yeah.

So talk, talk to me like how do you think about inflammation then?

I'm also thinking of, you know, obviously we wanna reduce inflammation.

There is a healthy component to it, but how does that relate to what

you're seeing in neurological diseases?

I'm gonna answer that question, but I'm gonna talk about something else first.

So, I, I did, um, a certification in acupuncture like 15 years ago,

and I, I was always fascinated by it, but I thought I was just going

to learn another medical modality.

Uh, but it's a 3000 year old art, and the philosophy behind

it was fascinating to me.

Uh, so I, I practice a little bit of acupuncture.

You know, on, on my patients, mainly just neurological indications.

But in acupuncture they talk about balancing the forces, right?

So there's yin and there's yang, and you want balance.

Now in medicine we call that homeostasis, and everything needs to be in homeostasis.

Everything needs to be in balance, right?

And so, for example.

We have the autonomic nervous system.

There's sympathetic and there's parasympathetic.

Rest and digest.

Fight and flight, right?

And if you are.

Too hyper adrenergic and too hypo vagal.

That's, that's a problem.

So you wanna, you wanna bring balance to the force and, um, so your question was

about inflammation and like you said, correctly, you want to have inflammation

so that when you get injured, inflammation is what repairs the, the injury.

But you don't want that to turn into chronic inflammation, which

like you said, and I agree.

Is the root of almost every malady that we have out there, and especially in

the brain, uh, that that tends up being, ends up being a huge, huge problem

in a lot of conditions that we see.

do you feel like there's a better grasp these days with things like plasma

exchange to, uh, I guess to attack the bad, the chronic inflammation?

yeah.

So interestingly, we were talking earlier on about.

The fact that in neurology, we've used plasma exchange for a long period of time.

And interestingly, the indications are mainly for inflammatory and

specifically autoimmune conditions.

So in myasthenia gravis, for example, people develop antibodies that start

attacking their neuromuscular junctions.

So where the nerve ends, there's a synapse, uh, and then it connects to

the muscle and at the nerve ending.

The nerve releases when the action potential gets to the nerve

ending, it releases acetylcholine.

The acetylcholine crosses the synapse, uh, attaches to the acetylcholine

receptors and activates the muscle.

Well, in myasthenia, you have antibodies that attack those receptors and damage

the receptors, so the, the nerve is not able to activate the muscle.

And it tends to have a predilection for certain parts of the body.

So people start noticing their lids are drooping, their eyes

are not working together, so they become, they have double vision.

They can't swallow, they can't talk.

Their arms and legs are weak.

They can't go upstairs.

So, and in severe cases, it affects the muscles of breathing.

So if they can't breathe, they end up in an emergency room

with a tube down their throat.

So it can be a pretty severe, um, and debilitating condition.

So with myasthenia gravis for a long time, we've used plasma exchange where

we'll take their blood out, remove the plasma that has those bad antibodies.

And put normal saline albumin and put it back into the system.

And in that way, we clean their blood of these bad antibodies or

autoantibodies that are attacking their, um, uh, their, their receptors.

And, and again, that's, that's true for other autoimmune conditions as well.

Um, I was, I was mentioning CIDP, which is short for cr, chronic inflammatory

demyelinating polyneuropathy, that's a little bit of a mouthful.

Um.

look it up later.

Yeah,

But, um, but in that condition, you have antibodies to the myelin on the neurons,

and it rips the myelin off the neurons.

By the way, the, the acute version of that is also known as gilbar

syndrome or acute inflammatory, uh, demyelinating polyneuropathy.

And so in those conditions you can do the same thing.

You can use plasma exchange to remove those bad antibodies.

the cool thing is that.

When you're doing plasma exchange, if you can also remove other inflammatory

proteins or peptides, if you can remove toxins, if you can remove microplastics,

if you can remove, uh, you know, mold, uh, then you're really getting way more

benefit than what we previously thought.

Yeah.

No, it's, I mean, I, there was an episode, maybe a few back where

I went through my own toxin test.

It was actually, uh, Dr. Savage

I heard that one.

Oh, did you?

Yeah, I did.

oh, you know all about me then.

I don't need to, yeah.

Got a lot of mold in me about to get the TPE very soon though.

At least the first of four,

Yeah.

You, you, you and me both.

Oh, really?

Okay.

I'm, I'm in the process.

Well, I'm getting my test tomorrow, so we'll

Oh, very cool.

Well, thank you.

learn a lot.

Have you ever had one, uh, before a toxin test?

No, I mean, because, um, you know, it's, it's one of those things, um.

I've, I've always practiced traditional medicine and again, I

still practice traditional medicine, but, um, I started getting interested

in regenerative medicine, I wanna say maybe four or five years ago.

So it's pretty recent and started going to the meetings and it was an

eyeopener because a lot of things that we just don't think about, um, as the.

Potential triggers for a lot of conditions that we see.

I feel like we're not really paying a lot of attention to those things,

and then we're just treating the disease once it already happens.

So what, since that shift, I mean, yeah, it hasn't been too long.

Four or five years or so.

What has, um.

It's almost like what has surprised you, and then maybe as a second

bit, what are you doing differently now with that new info in your

practice?

the evidence is staggering.

I think that's the part that surprises me.

It also surprises me that.

Um, unlike people like Dr. Savage and Dr. Lee, more people are not waking up

to this, and I'm talking about healthcare professionals and, and maybe because

we're just kind of so hyper-focused on what we're doing, that we're not

looking outside the box and just doing things the way we've always done

you're in your bubble in a

You're You're in, in your bubble.

Yeah.

I'll give you an example.

Okay.

So Parkinson's disease, right?

Alzheimer's is the number one neurodegenerative disease.

Uh, and Parkinson's is number two, so that's pretty important as well.

Yeah.

Um, mitochondria are the cells in all are, are the, the batteries

in all of our cells, right?

Whether they be neurons, muscle cells, any cell on the body.

Energies produced by mitochondria.

So mitochondria is what, what drives that, uh, uh, cell act, cellular activity.

And what happens in Parkinson's is that pesticides will.

Affect the mitochondria.

The mitochondria, which power the Es that eat up the bad proteins.

So now the Es are not getting powered up.

And so alpha synuclein, which is one of the proteins that causes

Parkinson's, is piling up inside the neuron and damaging the neuron.

And particularly there's neurons in what's called the Stri nigro tract.

That is, um, sensitive to this particular issue.

And so when the str nigra cells start degenerating, um, they, and they stop

producing dopamine that goes into a part of the brain called the basal ganglia.

Uh, people start presenting with.

Uh, loss of facial expression, tremors, shuffling gait, right?

So when the patient walks into my office and they've got a masked face

and they're have rest tremors, and they're, you know, shuffling, and

I'm like, oh, you have Parkinson's?

And I can, I can do a scan, I can do a dad scan to confirm it, or

I can make a clinical diagnosis.

And then how do I treat them?

I give them different forms of dopamine because dopamine, the

neuron that's not producing dopamine.

Um, is causing these issues.

So when I give them a dopamine type drug, either a dopamine agonist

or carbidopa levodopa, I can improve their, uh, quality of life.

Am I gonna stop doing that for my Parkinson's patients?

Absolutely not.

If it's improving their quality of life, I still wanna do that.

But how about re, you know, rewind, like maybe 10, 15, 20 years, uh,

from the onset of this condition and.

If they are heading in that direction, are we able to power

up the mitochondria and maybe, uh.

Improve the vacu, you know, the, the VA function, the, the vacuum cleaner

function and prevent that pathology from happening in the first place.

And that's, those are some of the things that got me into utilizing

hyperbaric oxygen and molecular hydrogen and near infrared light therapy.

And because a lot of them are modalities that decrease, um.

Reactive o oxygen species, decrease inflammation, improve

mitochondrial function.

And you know, those are things that people can do while they're healthy.

Um, but if they have a predisposition, genetic predisposition, for example, to

these conditions, um, they can hopefully, um, avert it or at least, uh, mitigate it.

Do you see regeneration happening on that level as well?

Like when, when going through some of these treatments?

Yeah, so you know, most of, when we talk about neuro regeneration, a lot of what

we're talking about is brain plasticity.

Um, so for example, if someone has a stroke, um, a part of their

brain is damaged, unfortunately that part's not coming back.

So we do things for secondary stroke prevention, uh, so ways to prevent

another stroke from occurring, but also retraining the parts of the brain

that are not damaged to compensate for the parts that are damaged.

that's interesting.

Yeah, so we do the same thing in in brain injury medicine as well.

And, um.

That's helpful.

When I was in training, we were taught that once you lose

neurons, they never come back.

They're gone forever.

They're super specialized.

That has since been proven wrong.

Okay, so now we know that you can actually grow new neurons in parts of

your brain, uh, like the, uh, hippocampus, which is the memory part of the brain.

Yeah.

And one of the ways to do that is to, um, there, there's a substance

in our bodies called BDNF, brain derived neurotropic factor.

And one of the best ways to get BDNF is regular cardiovascular exercise.

So, so, you know, so there's, uh, so to your question about regeneration,

there's also some evidence for neuro regeneration with modalities like,

Hyperbaric, uh, oxygen therapy.

So, uh, again, uh, you know, there's not gonna be one treatment

that's going to work for everybody.

Uh, it's, you're probably going to have to try to attack it from all sides.

And, and that's, that's always been my, you know, modus operandi.

Like for my patients, I've always started with, listen, lifestyle's important, so.

Diet, exercise, sleep, stress reduction, managing triggers, you

know, let's, let's start there.

Let's, let's lay that as the foundation and then, you know, if

there's supplements, if there's medications, if they help.

Absolutely.

If there's.

You know, therapies that help, let's, let's bring that on.

If there's interventions, procedures that help, let's, let's bring that on.

Um, and, and that's, that's why I'm excited about plasma exchange,

because that's one more modality.

Do I think it's the end all be all?

No, but do I think that it's a really, really, you know, um.

Exciting treatment, uh, modality that potentially can be, uh, initiated

early on and, uh, even, even, you know, as, as the disease, uh, progresses,

uh, to mitigate the symptoms and potentially be disease modifying.

Yeah.

I'm excited to, to see how it goes.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's early and I'm sure there's more applications to come in the

future as well, and, and then paired up with a protocol that you're probably

already doing, maybe adjust it or put it in this, I a different po

part of it, you know, of the process.

I know you're going through the process.

I'm excited to go through the process, partly because I do wanna see.

What kind of toxins I have.

I wanna see if the treatment removes those toxins.

But I wanna walk through that process be, because when I send my patients

into this, I, I would like to know what they're gonna be going through.

yeah.

And once I do it, I'll just put it on the record.

I will talk about it, you know, I'm like, I've already, I

already put the toxins out there.

Might as well talk about everything else.

I really don't care, but I want to help others.

And yeah, it's such a exciting time.

I guess, um, just to wrap up, like, well, I'm just, my takeaway, I'll just say

this is like, we can all, we all have the ability to do things like move more sleep.

More higher quality.

You know, it's almost like do the things that you have the ability to

do that you, you have that control.

Not saying we can all do that perfectly, but at least you're

in that control more or less.

Right?

That part of it.

Yes.

Um.

And, and it's funny, so, uh, I used to get patients, um, and I, you

know, we, we do some screeners.

Uh, one of them is called a PHQ nine to see if they have depression

or vegetative signs of depression.

And I tell them, listen, you're, you're really depressed.

I, I need to put you on an antidepressant.

And they're like, doc, I've heard all kinds of bad things about

antidepressants, side effects and whatnot.

I'm like, okay, well why don't you use my favorite antidepressant?

They're like, what's that?

Um, I'd say hit the gym six in the morning.

And, so while I was basically, I was sincere in my recommendations, but

what my patients taught me over the years is some of my really depressed

patients, they were like, doc, I don't even have the motivation to get up

and brush my teeth in the morning.

Okay.

How do you expect me to hit the gym at six in the morning?

And I'm like, yeah, that's easy for me to say 'cause I don't have that problem.

But for a lot of people, they're stuck on square one because

they're just very, very depressed.

And people think of depression as.

Psychiatric and psychological, I think of it very much as a neurological issue.

In fact, I think of psychiatry and neurology as basically an arbitrary

separation of a continuum, right?

Because the amygdala is part of the brain, the frontal cortex, prefrontal

cortex is part of the brain.

Uh, the limbic system is part of the brain.

So as far as I'm concerned, those were all brain conditions.

And now we know that in.

Severe chronic depression.

There's inflammation right in PTSD, there's inflammation, right?

So it's not just like we tell people, oh, it's in your head, get over it.

It's not, it's not that easy.

So I guess point of saying that is if, if those people can be

helped with removing, um, the.

Inflammation that is at the heart of these conditions, then we can get them moving.

Now, I always tell people if I treat them like with my brain

injury patients and they get better.

I, I don't need for them to be on the symptomatic medicines forever.

We can taper off the medicines.

They're just a means to an end.

But if those medicines are going to get them going, um, cognitively mood wise,

you know, better sleep, better control of headaches, or other pain issues, then

let's do that once we get them better.

Start putting more lifestyle stuff in there and, and, you know,

uh, reducing the medications.

'cause that's, the medicines are not the goal.

I think that's actually a great way to, in, you know, wrap up, wrap up our chat.

Just because it's, you said it in a perfect way.

It's a, it's a great balance of everything, you know, it's, 'cause I

know there's a lot of fear, you know, with, with folks starting medication.

Some people, less of a fear, but Yeah.

It's a continuum.

It's all connected.

Yeah.

Yeah, and understandably so.

I'm, I, I tell patients I'm, I'm very, uh, conservative when it comes to

medications because I do realize that there's effects, but there's also a list

of side effects and, uh, but we always try to make sure that there's the risk

benefit ratio favors utilizing a medicine.

And again.

Uh, I, I also draw the distinction between disease modifying

drugs and symptomatic drugs.

I'm not against symptomatic drugs, but, um, if, you know, like if someone

has high blood pressure and untreated hypertension is the number one

modifiable risk factor for a stroke.

I really want them to get their blood pressure under control.

Now, whether did they do it with diet?

Or exercise or medicine or all of the above.

It doesn't matter.

Those numbers need to be perfect.

Um, but if it's a pain issue and it's mild and they can tolerate it and

they can manage the pain with physical therapy and exercise, absolutely.

Why not?

I love it.

I mean, just to wrap this up, where is, uh, do you have any place where you would

love folks to go explore a little bit more about you, what you're doing, um,

things you're putting out into the world?

Yeah, absolutely.

They could go to our website.

It's, um, universal neurocare.com and, um, so it has some of the,

you know, uh, it, it has all of our colleagues and it has all the modalities

that we have and, um, some of the things that we're, uh, moving into.

So, yeah.

Very cool.

Yeah, I'll put that in the show notes as well.

That'll all be linked up.

Dr. Syed.

Uh, Asad.

This has been great.

I mean, I'm gonna go sleep.

I gotta go.

How about naps?

Actually, I'm gonna wrap it on that like yes, no naps.

Uh.

Okay.

So if you look at the circadian rhythm, um, it basically, you know,

all your hormones and blood pressure parameters and everything else goes up.

Then it comes down a little bit and there's a smaller

rise and then it goes down.

So it's like, uh, we call that the diurnal rhythm.

And, and so in a lot of cultures, in a lot of human cultures,

um, an afternoon net would be.

Part of their routine.

Right?

Like the siesta.

And so that's fine if you know, again, depending on what kind of work you do,

like I wouldn't be able to do it at work.

But I know Google has, um, Google the company.

Don't they have like those pods

that

do.

I've been there before.

I've

Oh yeah.

There you go.

yeah.

and I love s I've, I've been to Spain too, and I'm like, man,

I love this Siesta concept.

Why don't we have it here in the

right.

Right.

So, um, yeah, so I think if someone can do that, there are

some recommendations though.

So if you complete a 90 minute cycle during your, uh, mid-afternoon

nap, that takes away your brain's appetite for sleep at night.

So if you have that tendency where you take a 90 minute nap, but then can't

sleep at night, it's better if you are taking a nap to limit it to 20 minutes.

'cause then that doesn't mess up your appetite for sleep at night.

So, uh, so.

We recommend like even setting an alarm and making sure you get up in 20 minutes.

Awesome.

Okay, cool.

We're leaving it there.

That was just like an open loop in my mind.

I had to close it, so.

All right, Dr. Asad, appreciate your time so much.

This

has been

great and all right,

Alright, thank you.