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The Brain Trauma Crisis We Can No Longer Ignore · Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hey folks, Bruce Parkman here with another episode of Broken Brains, the official podcast of the Mac Parkman Foundation, where we look at the repetitive the issue of repetitive brain trauma from both the side of contact sports, repetitive head impacts, and from our veterans who suffer from repetitive blast exposure and what this condition is doing to the lives, mental health, and futures of our soldiers, athletes, and children.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Today, I get to have one of my favorite I get to enjoy what I do.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I actually love doing these podcasts.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I love meeting the guests and talking about all the innovation that's going on in the space.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I get to compare it to where I was five years ago when my son took his life.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the absolute lack of knowledge and the lack of hope that I personally had as I had the piece together while while my son wasn't here.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And during that journey, it's made me, I guess, optimistic because now we have so much evidence out there that this these issues that have been around us for years need to be addressed, that they can no longer be ignored, that we have to make change.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we're starting to recognize this in amazing ways on both the civilian side, I say as a veteran, right?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: The the athletic side of things.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And even in the trauma the traumatic brain injury part of this country, where you've got car crashes, domestic abuse, you got violence, people's brains get messed up.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking millions of Americans have had a brain injury.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it is absolutely the most underreported and under treated or mistreated condition in America.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about that next.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: About that.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, you know what?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to dive into that right now because this is a topic that you should be aware of.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: The issue of repetitive brain trauma right now, when it comes down to what diseases cause more damage in this country, is right at the top of the list.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And yet none of you would think about that.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: When you say, all right, what's killing more Americans every year?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: You'd probably think cancer.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: You'd probably think, you know, heart attacks.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: You might think car crashes, right?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever think about contact sports and military service?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yet through those two areas, those two events, those two just say markets or big word Wednesday right now.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, it's not even Wednesday.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Anything over 10 letters drives me crazy right now as a sergeant major.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, right now, we never associate contact sports or military service with a disease, right?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say disease, let's call it a condition that significantly impacts this country.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to repetitive brain trauma and brain trauma alone, if we address this seriously, we could impact America like nothing else.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not making this up.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, solving cancer would be great.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, no problem.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Curing it would be amazing, okay?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, lowering heart attacks and lowering all these negative diseases, diabetes, you know, everything that's impacting, you know, our population.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we're all focused on.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yet we talk about mental health every day.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about the pandemic of mental health, the epidemic of mental health, and yet we're not doing anything about it.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: We think that mental health is just, you know, ah, it's a bad childhood.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, I'm so sorry he went and saw some dead bodies at war, or if they saw this horrific accident, or well, they went through an unbelievable family tragedy.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: But that's why they're mentally hell, mentally ill.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: What if mental health was not only treatable, but preventable?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it all gets down to treating the brain.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: We know less about the brain than we know about outer space.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we I mean, Elon Musk and Bezos, all this, you know, go to Mars stuff, that's great, man.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we know more about outer space than we know about the brain.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: With all the technology that we have, all the brainiacs that we deal with in the research and scientific community, we are yet unable to treat illnesses that impact the brain.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yet the brain is responsible for everything we do.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: It determines who we love, our socioeconomic status.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's who we are.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when we are born, you know, our brain is just this amazing organ that is going to determine who we are.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is it's the computer chip in your computer.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's the computer chip in your car.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: It is the one organ that drives you and enables you to be successful.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yet we treat the brain like a muscle.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: We, you know, we, it's in a it's in a skull.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's safe, right?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let's put a helmet on.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's even safer, right?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: We now know that that is absolutely not true.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we take these amazing fragile brains that have 100,000 miles of myelin in it, sometimes they're not even myelinated, right?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Especially when you're a child before the age of 14, this whole part of your brain right here is not even myelinated, it's not even protected.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, it's safe, right?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just hit it.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's no symptoms, you know, it's all good.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so through not just sports and not just military veterans who suffer a lot of injuries from both repetitive head impacts and repetitive blast exposure, we have all the other areas where brain treatment, you know, is just, you know, kind of a novelty right now.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, that's what it is.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, treating the brain is kind of a joke.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so you talk car crash victims and domestic abuse victims and victims of violence and all the other tragic tragedies that occur every day in America where people's brains are damaged.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And once they're damaged, then every one of them suffers from some form of mental illness.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the or not only mental illness, but physical impairment, right?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: They can't move an arm, they can't talk, right?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And yet our ability to treat and impact the brain is really, you know, not that much, you know, you know, has not really increased that dramatically.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you'll hear about, ah, they put a chip back here and he can move his arm, they can, you know, do this, you know, and and uh, you know, it but these are not scalable.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: The vast majority of Americans with brain injuries are still not treated properly.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're given drugs, right?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're medicated, you know, to to you know, you know, uh make them feel better, right?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or to function, okay, but that's not treating the brain.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's not healing the brain.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if we focused on healing the brain, diagnosing that the brain's impacted, validating that's the brain, that the brain's impacted, and treating it, then it is amazing what we could accomplish.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Think of all the areas of in America right now that we talk about, all the social ills that we deal with, unemployment, mental illness, suicidal ideation, domestic abuse, violence, incarceration.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh these are all areas that are usually involved with some form of mental health issues.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: People just don't go to jail.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: They they they make bad moves.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Are they mentally ill?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say a significant population of our inmates are mentally ill.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Do they get treated?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's why they end up going back.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, our veterans that suffer repetitive blast exposure, many of them don't even know that they've been impacted.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're just trying to get the word out.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And yet the modality and protocol for decades has been pharmaceutical drugs.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Our children, when they're mentally ill, we chuck drugs at them like nobody's business, many of them, with significant black box warnings and bad, bad side effects.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's common now that when you have a brain injury, which is one of the, you know, the largest amount of injuries that happen in America and the most serious.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not, it's not like a broken bone.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: When a brain is impacted, it's impacted.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: But our primary recourse is let's give you some drugs.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and those drugs are causing symptoms.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Let's give you some more.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the path forward.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we now know that we have treatment options out there.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: We've got, you know, just feeding your brain better.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: You got omega-3 programs, mushroom supplements are out there, you know, Dr.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Mark Gordon's protocol, the, the, the, I mean, the the the there are a number of brain supplementation programs out there, all built, and diets to just feed the brain, okay, and balance it out.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then we have all the electronic and other technical modalities that are out there: TMS, MERT, MRT, photobiomodulation, neurofeedback, hyperbaric oxygen treatment, uh, vestibular training.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, there is red light therapy, contrast therapy.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: There is a host of non-pharmaceutical options out there to stimulate the brain.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Then we start talking about the psychedelics.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And oh my God, he said that word, psychedelics.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: We can't talk about this.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: We can absolutely talk about this.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because the ability for psychedelics to impact the brain from a neuroplasticity perspective, from a neuronal growth perspective, from, you know, from the ability to stimulate the brain to recover is unparalleled.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we haven't even started to look at that because they've been a Schedule I drug or what, you know, however they've been classified, they're off the charts.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yet we have seen amazing results with entry-level pharmapsychedelics like ketamine.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Ketamine treatment, I've been through it myself.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: We have just provided ketamine treatment to 54 veterans, along with brain supplementation treatments from Dr.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Mark Gordon's Millennial Lab program.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And already two of them have come back and said, if it wasn't for this treatment, I'd be dead.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how much money is that worth?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And isn't it worth, you know, at least allowing, you know, the making these treatments available for veterans for anybody that needs them?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have some outpatient procedures like stillate ganglion blocks, and we've got these amazing new diagnostic tools.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what is evident now that between health and diet and these non-invasive treatments and medicines that have been around for thousands of years, we have a plethora of options and combination of options that can be made available to our brain-impacted populations in order to heal them.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: But they're not.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, right now, most of these modalities, if not all of them, are not covered by insurance programs or VA, TRICARE.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, a lot of it centers around they're not FDA approved.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've got it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've got that.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: But there is such a thing as evidence-backed and evidence-based modalities.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when something's been dealt with for thousands of years, like you can find TMS in any doctor's office in Europe, right?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're all over the place.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're hard to find here in America.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, but when thousands and thousands of people have taken a uh, you know, have gone through a modality, have gone through this particular therapy, or have taken this particular psychedelic, and none of them have died, okay?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it and then on the psychedelic side, ayahuasca and Ibogang, you better, if you're not up front, and I know of uh one death right now that occurred because somebody lied.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, doesn't make the modality any less, you know, um, any less effective, okay, but the gentleman lied and died because of an interaction between an SSRI and ayahuasca.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, but these modalities are safe.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're evidence-backed, evidence-based.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And when we have the most significant impact on our country's GDP right now, a brain-impacted population, that regardless of the modality, psychedelic, you know, technical modality, you know, treatment plan, uh, you know, brain supplementation, why aren't these available?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they should be.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because by impacting, by addressing this issue and healing these people, and making them more productive, we lower all those social ills that we talked about earlier.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Unemployment, domestic abuse, incarceration, violence, crime, mental illness, suicidal ideation, homicidal ideation, all of these drop.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what we want?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what we want for our children?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that the future we should have where the brain is as important as the heart or our lungs, you know, or our kneecap.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it should be.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yet because we have relegated the brain to, ah, you got to go see a neurologist, good luck with that, you know, sitting around for months suffering because you can't get a hold of a neurologist, and then most of them aren't even properly trained on reading an MRI, which can't even really see the damage, anyways, on uh when you have a brain that's impacted by repetitive, you know, blast or repetitive head impacts.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to do a lot of educating and a lot of awareness, hence this podcast, in order to understand, to get people to understand that with proper policy, if we could make the brain as important as the rest of our body, and I know I say this over and over again, folks, we can change so much.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: We talk to parents and veterans and athletes all the time with horror stories about, you know, just not being able to get to the treatments that they need, and then going through an unbelievable challenge of mental health and addiction to try and get there.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't matter whether the brain injury is from repetitive brain trauma, which we do focus on here, or anything else.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is the same.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: The lack of treatment, the lack of proper diagnosis, the misdiagnosis, in our case, a repetitive brain trauma of the mental illness, and then the mistreatment with pharmaceutical intervention.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this can all be repaired.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: It can be made better.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Can we eliminate it?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Can we cure it?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, because the brain will always be impacted, and we still yet have to understand how to completely cure something that we can't see that is so enormously complex that, you know, you know, it's it's it's not impossible.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: What we do know is we can make it better.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if we make it better, we make America better.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you to learn more about this subject, because it is it is a significant issue that a lot of us do not know about and do not understand, yet impacts so many people that we know.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: So please, you know, you know, take a look at what we're saying here, you know, as a foundation, and understand that if we can prioritize brain health like we prioritize, you know, so many things in this country, man, nothing, not one other single issue can have the impact on this country that that that but that that resolving that issue of prioritizing brain health could have.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Till the next time, uh thank you for your time on the show.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Really appreciate it.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, please, if you like what we're our like our message and what we discuss here, send this around.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: We are one of the fastest growing brain podcasts on the on the internet.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we really appreciate your support.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, put it out on social media, like us, subscribe to us, please.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: We love it.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, look at the events that we promote, that we participate in.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, send us ideas for speakers, for topics.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: We get all kinds of great questions from all of you out there and help us promote this issue.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Someday we shouldn't have to be in existence because we're gonna fix this.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: With your help, we're gonna make this happen.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Till next time, uh, and on the next episode of Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman, the official podcast of the Mark Parkman Foundation.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you then.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: You only got one melon.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Please take care of it.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you all.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.