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Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager - Memory Is Who We Are | Sue Halpern · Salem Podcast Network

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Life Audio. On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: My guest is Sue Halpern, H-A-L-P-E-R-N. She has written this book,
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Can't Remember What I Forgot.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Let's see.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Moira in Minneapolis lost my memory from taking bad meds.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: What exercises can I do to recover my memory?
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Well, it depends on what that really means. So if
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: your memory is bad because there's a physiological problem, something
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: kind of is broken in there, probably nothing. But if
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: it's just everyday life and you have to recover your memory,
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: the very, very best thing to do It's not mental
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: exercise particularly. It's something that has a mental component, a
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: physical component, and a social component. And the best thing
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: to do would be to go dancing.
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Welcome
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. This is Dennis Prager, and I welcome you
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: to the show.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: We'll talk to a woman whose book has just been
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: published on memory. A word, though, from Dennis about memory.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: I almost have the chills about what I am about
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: to say, and that is we essentially, we humans, we
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: are memory. If we don't have memory, we don't have us.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: That's how important memory is. And it's funny because I
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: have done, I think at least, I know at least once,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: maybe twice, I have actually discussed this issue in this way.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: I have asked people who lost their, if they had
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: a wonderful marriage and they lost their partner after 30,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: 40 years. Do the memories of your marriage help you
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: to go on, or is only the present and its
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: pain and its loneliness are only those issues in your life?
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: So memory is close to being everything. My guest is
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Sue Halpern, H-A-L-P-E-R-N. She has written this book, Can't Remember
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: What I Forgot.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Great title, by the way. You're very welcome. Was it yours,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: by the way?
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: My title?
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: You know, it's funny. You should ask that question. It
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: was mine because I was driving one day, and I
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: heard this song on the radio. It was kind of
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: a country-ish song, and it had those words in it,
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: and I thought, that's a good title. I think I'll
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: use that.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I want to say something. I already like you.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: And anybody who got a doctorate from Oxford and uses
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: the title from Country Western Music, I like that.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: No snobbery there.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: Hope not.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Can't remember what I forgot is the name of the book,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: All right. There really is good news. I'm dying to
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: hear it. What is it?
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: There's tons of good news. You know, it's really funny.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: I know, I mean, first of all, I just want
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: to say that what you just said about memory being
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: everything is absolutely correct. It's who we are.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, that's part of it.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: That's why, forgive me one moment, Ms. Halpern, but I
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: just want to say the proof is what do people
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: save after living beings if there's a fire?
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Pictures.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Right. Okay, go ahead.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Okay, but back to your original question. There's a lot
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: of good news. The thing is, and I will go
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: through it, but the thing is, this is a huge subject, memory,
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: particularly memory repair, because that's what we're really talking about
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: when we're, you know, what's gone wrong. And it's really complicated.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: And so everyone's sort of expecting there's going to be
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: A single moment, a pill, it's going to arrive and
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: it's going to do everything we want it to do,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: and that's what we're waiting for. But in fact, science
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: is really incremental. It moves slowly and in steps. And
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: this is a very exciting year right now, the one
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: we're in, for bunches of reasons. For one reason is
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: that for the first time, scientists and doctors are able
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: to see Alzheimer's disease in a living brain. That's never
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: before been true. you had to wait until you were
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: dead to actually have a positive diagnosis. For the first time,
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: they're able to see the progression of the disease before
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: there are ever symptoms, maybe 10 years before there are
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: ever symptoms. And while that might sound kind of creepy
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: right now because there's not a whole lot you can
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: do about it, in fact, a lot of the drugs
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: that are in development that are coming to fruition right
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: now are drugs that will have to be taken well
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: before there's damage.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, he was perfectly non-Alzheimer-ish, if I may be unscientific,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: but announced, I have the symptoms.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I know I'm going to have it.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: And if there's a drug that you can take 10
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: years before you start slipping into insensibility, if there's such
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: a thing, you're going to want that test.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Ginkgo biloba.
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: Well.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: And I'm kidding. No.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: That's what you hear, though, if you look on the Internet.
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Memory issues take ginkgo biloba.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 3: That's what everyone says. And it's kind of funny because,
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's a fair amount of anecdotal evidence that
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: suggests that it does something, and it does do something.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: It does? Oh, I'll take it then. I love supplements.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Not necessarily for memory.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, for the ginkgo biloba stock.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Well, it does that for sure.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: No, no, really. What does it do?
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: Well, it's one of those, it's a vasodilator. It, you know,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: brings more blood into your, you know, expands your capillaries.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: But the thing about Ginkgo is that every, the government
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: actually paid for all these tests to see, you know,
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: because it's not... They don't test ginkgo and those kinds
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: of supplements with the FDA. So they decided they would
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: try to test this stuff. Nothing turned out conclusively that
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: it affected memory in a positive way. But what it
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: can do is if you're taking like Coumadin or a
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: blood thinner, it can have bad effects on you. So
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: you can't go into the store and say, oh, I'm
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: in the health food store.
• 7:06
  Speaker 6: It must be healthy.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Wait, a blood thinner can have bad effects on your memory?
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: No, it can have bad effects not on your memory.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: If you're taking ginkgo and you have, if you're taking
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: also a blood thinner and then you take ginkgo on
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: top of it, that can just have bad effects for
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: your body.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, I see, that combination. Okay, what if you take,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: as millions do, a daily aspirin?
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: I think, I mean, it's good for your body because it's.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: You know. But not good with, but also not good
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: with ginkgo. All right, let's go back to memory.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: I don't want to get you off track here. So
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: you're saying that the good news, because I'm asking you
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: what the good news of your subtitle is. One good
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: news is we can now see Alzheimer's in the brain, and,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: in fact, we can see pre-Alzheimer's.
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: But, of course, that's only good news potentially.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: Well, no, because, yes, but now there are a couple
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: of drugs that are in development that are very close
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: to being finished with their clinical trials. And they should
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: be able to be done this summer. So we're waiting
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: for that. And it's working on a new paradigm that
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: never existed before because until about five years ago, the
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: genetics of this thing weren't really well worked out. So
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: this is a new set of drugs that hasn't been
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: seen before. that actually tries to attack the problem rather
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: than the symptoms. So right now, if you take, you know,
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: Aricept or something, it's a kind of stopgap thing. But
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  Speaker 3: these new drugs are trying to, like, stave it off.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: And they're coming down the pipeline. But on the other side,
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: there's a whole other set of stuff that I write about,
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: which is normal memory loss.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is what we'll concentrate on.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: That I do.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: And the whole question of what is memory. But I
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: just want to understand on the Alzheimer's issue specifically, obviously
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: they can only attack what they now understand.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Right. So what is it? Is it a virus?
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Is it an eating away at that part of the brain?
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: What is it?
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  Speaker 3: Okay. Here's a little lesson in your brain. There are
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: a couple of parts of your brain that are very
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  Speaker 3: specifically known to command and control your memory. Memory doesn't
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  Speaker 3: reside in one particular place, but there are a couple
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  Speaker 3: of places in your brain that are crucial for the
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  Speaker 3: formation of new memories. One of them is a place
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  Speaker 3: called the hippocampus. The hippocampus starts to get smaller and
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: starts to break down in Alzheimer's disease early. One of
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: the pieces of good news in my book is that
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: why that might be, why that is. So in the past,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: no one really understood why that was. And now there's
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: a pretty good working model of why that is. And
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: that working model... has only come to our knowledge in
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: the last few years because the technology wasn't there until
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: very recently to understand it. And basically what's happening is
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: that your body is suddenly, for some inexplicable reason that,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: looks to be like kind of a switch gone wrong,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: producing too much of a chemical called beta amyloid 42.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: And that chemical starts to build up in your brain,
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: and it's sticky, essentially. And it's what allows your body
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: or kind of tricks your body into forming these plaques
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: that kind of colonize the brain.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And they start to shrink the hippocampus?
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: So the question is, what's shrinking the hippocampus? And what
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: they think is that it's a kind of feedback loop
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: so that your body is creating too much of this
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: beta amyloid 42. It's creating plaques. The plaques are, and
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: the beta amyloid itself is toxic. and it is killing synapses,
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: and the synapses are killing neurons.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Wow, all right.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, the book is Can't Remember What I Forgot. Take
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: your calls.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: I want to ask her about something in my memory
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: since I'm a kid when we come back.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Now,
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: We really are our memories. That's what we are. And,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: by the way, that leads to another. That's why I've
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: never found comfort. I'm not saying that it's bad or
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: wrong or anything. But I've never found comfort in reincarnation
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: as in, you know, Dennis coming back as another person.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Because since I don't remember Dennis... It doesn't matter to Dennis.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: So I've always wondered why that was comforting to people,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: but we'll do that on the Ultimate Issues Hour.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Anyway, Dr.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Halpern, we're talking about memory here, and now that they
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: can map Alzheimer's, they can see it in the brain,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: and they're even having some... Do you have hope for
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: these new drugs, by the way?
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: Well, I do, actually. I mean, I believe in this
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: new paradigm that they've come up with, where they need
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: to attack it. These particular drugs might not be it,
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: but I think they're getting pretty close. The other thing
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: is there's a vaccine that clinical trials, I think, ended
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: last summer, and the vaccine basically attempts to clear plaques
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: from the brain, and the preliminary results look really good.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: So that would be an Alzheimer vaccine?
• 12:59
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: So that's on the horizon, very close. And, you know,
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: all this stuff is happening now. One of the things
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: I write about is that historically when you ask a
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: doctor or a scientist who's working on this stuff, you know,
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: when's the big breakthrough going to be? And they'd always
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: say in five years. Actually, what they're saying now is,
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: you know, we were just saying that, but now it
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: really is. It looks like it.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: By the way, are you at Columbia University College of
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Physicians and Surgeons?
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: I was at Columbia University, but I now live in Vermont,
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: so I'm at Middlebury College.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see. I got you. I got you. Because
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: my brother is a physician. In fact, he's head of
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: medical ethics there.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: You're kidding.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: No, I'm not kidding. Who would kid about that?
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: I don't know. That's so interesting.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: It is. I know. It's a small world. I know.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: It's true. Dr. Kenneth Prager.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I'm very proud of him, even though he's my older brother.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Usually you're proud of your younger brother, but I'm proud
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: of my older brother.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: Well, I gave a talk at Columbia. It's not that
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: long ago.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Well, anyway, I was very curious. So now back to
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: memory issues. I'd like to tell you one, which ironically,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: or given that I just mentioned my brother, my brother
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: and I have the exact same problem and have always
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: had it. And I wonder, no one has ever been
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: able to shed light on it. And it's actually a
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: problem for me. And it's a very, very specific memory problem.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: And my brother has it exactly as I do. And
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: that is people's names. But no, it's not a matter
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: of I will meet people at a reception and then
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: I will forget their name next time I meet them.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about I will know somebody for years....
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden their name will escape me.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: And so when I go into events, and I'm being
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: very open here, obviously, when I go into events, I
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: mean even with relatives, I will rehearse their names in
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: my brain, lest I blow it. And I remember in
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: graduate school, I was dating a girl for six months,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: and I got her last name wrong. in introducing her
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: people at a party, and she was very offended. My
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: brother has the exact same problem and only names. Do
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: you have anything to say about that?
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Well, I have two things to say about that. One
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: is I'm married to someone who has the exact same problem.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Is there a Prager in his family?
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: No.
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: No.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: But I can tell you that when we... He basically
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: tells people that the real reason he keeps me around
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: is so that I can stand by his side and
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: whisper in his ears.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, or say the name out loud. Exactly.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: And so I completely understand it. And what's funny is
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: that it's something that's historically been true. It's not something
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: that just developed. It's always been true for him. On
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: the other hand, he can remember... You know, very, very specific.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, me too. Yes, exactly.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: If you told me right now six reasons why you
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: love your husband, I would remember them next year.
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: Right, exactly.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: So I actually, because of this problem, I brought this
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: up with a lot of different people as I traveled around. And,
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: you know, basically they said a couple things. One is
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: it's a wiring issue.
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: You're wired and he's wired in a particular way, and
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: the wiring that you have isn't, for whatever reasons.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Functioning. Or functioning.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, in that particular way. And when you say your
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: brother has it, too, that makes it sound even more
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: plausible that it's a kind of genetic situation that you're
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: involved in there.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but can you identify name wires?
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: We're not near that specificity, are we?
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: No.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: No, but it's enough of a problem that when you
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: go and you read the books about how to improve
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: your memory and you go to the seminars where they
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: teach you memory tricks, this is one of the biggest
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: issues that people have. You mean what, names?
• 17:32
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: And there are people who make their living, I kid
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: you not, training other people how to remember names.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: I understand that on how to train yourself to remember
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: names at a given social event.
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: No, forever.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, forever. Really?
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: To really remember it, yeah.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: You mean like my cousins?
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like your cousins, exactly.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. How you doing, Ted? I mean, Jed.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: It's... But wait, that's different. That's behavioral, like reorienting. We'll
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: do different wires maybe.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But we still are very far away from mapping that, correct? Yeah, absolutely. Okay.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: So there's no hope. I have to take a course.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: You have to have a really good wife. That's right.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: That's a good point. 1-8 Prager 776. Do you know,
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: there are times where I have even said, 1-8, why
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: did I always say Prager 776? Although I have a
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: much better memory for numbers.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Right? That's a different wire.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: And, you know, the other thing is that, you know,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: it depends also on what's important to you on some level.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: You know, and maybe for you, it's remembering....
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, let me tell you, remembering names is– I'm a
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: public person. Remembering names is unbelievably important to me.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: No, no, it is a price paid. I feel terrible.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: There are people I know that I adore, and it
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: doesn't work out. All right, I'll take your questions, and
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: I have some more here, especially one about brain injury.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: The book, Can't Remember What I Forgot. I'm Dennis Prager.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Now,
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Hi, everybody.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Dennis Prager here. I'm talking to a memory expert, Dr.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Sue Halpern. Her book is Can't Remember What I Forgot,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Let me take some questions. here, and then I have
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: my own further questions. And let's go to Jody in
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Los Angeles. Oh, no, I knocked her out. I went
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: to Jody and knocked out Dr.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Halpern.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: This is not a good system. You press this button
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: and then goodbye to the other one. I will get
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: her back in a moment. So why don't you pose
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: your question and I'll relate it.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Hi, Jody. How are you doing?
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: Hi there. Good morning.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Do you remember my name? Yes, definitely.
• 20:22
  Speaker 6: I'm trying to say this as succinctly as I can.
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: Since my late 40s, I started forgetting words, faces, people, events.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: How old are you now?
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: Forty-eight.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: So in other words, in this period of your late 40s,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: you have been forgetting names, faces, what else, dates? Dates.
• 20:46
  Speaker 6: Words is the biggest thing where I can't remember a word.
• 20:49
  Speaker 6: I'm in the middle of a sentence and I can't remember.
• 20:52
  Speaker 6: And I've gone to my doctor to state that I'm
• 20:54
  Speaker 6: concerned about it. And it just gets laughed off. Ah,
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: it happens to everybody in their 40s. Your eyes are
• 21:02
  Speaker 6: going to go, your memory is going to go, and
• 21:03
  Speaker 6: they start telling me how they forget things. But I'm
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: really concerned. It's not getting any better. I really think
• 21:09
  Speaker 6: it's getting worse. And I was wondering whether this is
• 21:14
  Speaker 6: whether I'm right and whether you just shouldn't listen to
• 21:17
  Speaker 6: your doctor. They're not you, and they don't know how
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: serious it is, and they don't know how many things
• 21:21
  Speaker 6: you've really forgotten.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: All right, let me repeat that briefly. You tell me, Jody,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: if I got it right. And Sue Halpern, I'm sorry
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: for that. It was a malfunction of the buttons and me.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: But here is Jody. She's 48, and she has been
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: forgetting names, faces, dates. The doctor says, oh, everything goes,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: you know, at that age. But it doesn't sound to
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: me like everything goes at 48.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: She's a little concerned. What would you say to her?
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: Two things. One is the reason why your doctor is
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: saying that is because as you get older, your body
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: sort of naturally starts changing. to decline in almost every way.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: And there are really serious physiological things that are going
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: on in your brain that do make it more likely
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: that you'll forget things that you had a very good
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: fluency with earlier. So that's probably part of it. But
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: if you're worried in that way and you feel like
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: your doctor's really just not on top of it, the
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: very best thing to do is to track down a
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: neuropsychologist And put yourself through a battery of tests. It
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: takes about four, five, six hours, usually over a day
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: or two. And it will give you as good a
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: picture of your brain and your capacities as there could
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: possibly be, even better in a certain way than getting
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: a brain scan. And that's what I would do. And
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: I did do that myself to write the book. I
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: think it's really useful.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: I think you should, Jody.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want to worry you at all,
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: but I don't, I mean, Most people I know at 48,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: you know, aren't undergoing major forgetfulness things.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: But, you know, there's another issue, which is if you
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: get stressed out because you're worried about your memory, that
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: will actually impede your memory. It will interfere with your memory.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: Stress is as though you have flipped a switch.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: That's fascinating.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Good luck, Jody. That was an important, I think, a
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: lot of people. You know, I also, I get from
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: friends all the time now of... You know, they forgot
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: their keys or something. It's a senior moment. I mean,
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: maybe I forget that I have senior moments, but I
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: don't have any senior moments. I have the same lousy
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: memory for days that I've had since I'm seven. But
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: beyond that, you know, I have forgotten keys when I
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: was 20. I think people over-engage in that line, I'm
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: having a senior moment.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: You're absolutely right. You know, what I say to people is,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: you know, go to any junior high school and go
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: to the lost and found.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Bravo. That's exactly right. If anybody has senior moments, it's
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: teenage boys.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: That's right. My mother said to me, and I now
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: reflect on it, she was right. I didn't like when
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: she said, if your head were not attached, you would
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: forget it.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And I realize now she was right.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: Well, what she's really saying is something I write about,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: which is that attention is very closely linked to memory.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: So if you can't attend to something, i.e. if you can't,
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: you know, if you put your keys down and you
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: walk away because you've got something else on your mind.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I got to take a break.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: Your beloved dog and a stranger are both drowning. You
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: can only save one. Who do you save? Every time
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: Dennis Prager asks that question, his audience splits three ways.
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: One-third chooses the dog, one-third chooses the stranger, and one-third
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: aren't sure.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: Because we live in an age where increasingly feelings define
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: right and wrong. But if morality is based on emotion,
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: then murder, rape, and theft... are just opinions. And if
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: people feel justified, why is rioting or destruction wrong at all?
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: In his new book, If There Is No God, Dennis
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: Prager explains why civilizations cannot survive without objective morality and
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: why Judeo-Christian values shape the moral foundations of the free world.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: If you claim that certain things are good, certain things
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: are evil, independent of how you feel about it, you
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: are ineffective.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: Affirming god if there is no god by dennis prager
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: available now at prager store.com that's prager store.com now back
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: to more of dennis prager's timeless wisdom.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Since memory is who we are it's a rather big
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: subject you mentioned something of extreme significance just as we
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: went through a break dr halpern and that is the
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: relationship between memory and attention.
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: It's crucial. Earlier we were talking about the part of
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: the brain called the hippocampus, and that part of the
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: brain basically is the gatekeeper for your memory. Any kind
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: of sensory information that you experience, like what you're seeing
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: or hearing or tasting or smelling or whatever, has to
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: first go through there. If you're looking around or you're
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: listening to music and someone's talking to you or whatever
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: it is and your sensory data isn't getting through, it's
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: not because you have a bad memory. It's because you're
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: not paying attention to it. If you can't pay attention
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: to something, you And it doesn't get in. And if
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: it doesn't get in, you can't remember it.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: What do you think, then, about people who have a
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: mild traumatic brain injury, for example, in an accident? Maybe
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: they ought to take the same drug that people may
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: take for ADD.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Good question. Really good question. And I write about this,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: in fact, because I'm interested in this, too.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: And.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: If you were to take something like Ritalin, that wouldn't
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: necessarily be a good thing. Ritalin is a kind of
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: a form of speed, and it basically wakes up a
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: part of your brain called the prefrontal cortex. But there's
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: a scientist at Yale named Amy Arnston who's working with
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: a different drug, and she's working with it not only
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: with people with ADD, both kids and adults, but also
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: people with traumatic brain injuries because it's a different class
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: of drugs. And she's having some very, very good luck
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: with it. She's still testing it in animals, but in
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: primates like monkeys.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: So what drug, for example?
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: It's a new drug that I write about. It's got
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: a funny name. It's called glycinesin.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Which is not available now.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: Not yet, no, but... you know, it's getting closer. They're
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: in phase two trials, I believe. So we're getting there.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: But it's a good question because, in fact, yeah, I mean,
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: a lot of this stuff is related. And so, you know,
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: if you get a drug.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: That addresses attention disorder, you might get a drug that
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: addresses memory disorder.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. But it wouldn't address something like Alzheimer's, which is.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: No, no, no.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: I spoke specifically about brain injury. All right, let me
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: go to some more calls here. San Diego, California. And Danielle, Danielle,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Dennis Prager with Dr. Sue Halpern.
• 29:00
  Speaker 7: Hi.
• 29:01
  Speaker 6: Hello.
• 29:03
  Speaker 8: I was just wondering what types of effects marijuana has
• 29:07
  Speaker 8: on long-term memory. I'm 25, and when I was in
• 29:11
  Speaker 8: high school, I smoked a lot, and I noticed my
• 29:15
  Speaker 8: memory now, you know, some seven years later, is greatly
• 29:18
  Speaker 8: still affected.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Huh.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: It's a bad connection, so I'm letting you go, but
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I'll just repeat that for everybody else. Danielle is 25.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: She smoked a lot of pot as a teenager, and
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: she wonders because she feels her memory is not as
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: good as it has been affected and has not been
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: not come back as it were you know.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: I don't know a whole lot about marijuana itself and
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: I mean I know that they're actually it's probably a
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: Google Google a bowl subject because I know that other
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: people have have been concerned about it but smoking just
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: any you know in inhaling anything and it goes for
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: pot or it goes for cigarettes, is one of the
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: worst things you can do for your brain. It is
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: just horrible.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: That's interesting because I.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Smoke a cigar, which is not related to cigarettes because
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: you don't inhale, so I don't have any defensiveness here.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: That I never heard. I'm not saying you're wrong at all,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: and this is your area of expertise, but I thought,
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: for example, so many writers... would smoke cigarette after cigarette,
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: and they would say that it helped their brains, in fact,
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: function better.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Well, they probably were saying it calmed them down, which
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: it might have in the short term. But remember, there's
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: a long-term effect as well, and the long-term effect is
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: the same long-term effect that creates vascular disease. So if
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: you're doing things that are going to create.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: Vascular problems, then you're basically harming your brain as well.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: I suspect, though, that unfortunately, because kids don't deserve to
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: have permanent consequences from stupid errors when they're teenagers, but
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: the body doesn't take that into consideration. I wouldn't be
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: surprised if marijuana does have long-term effects.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't be surprised either, especially if you're doing it
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: in kind of large quantities. Certainly alcohol does. I mean,
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: I've seen brain scans of people who are serious alcoholics
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: and people who have Alzheimer's disease, and those brains look
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: very similar. Scary.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Scary.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's go to San Antonio, Texas, and Margaret.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Margaret, you're on with Dr. Sue Halpern and Dennis Prager.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Thanks for calling.
• 31:48
  Speaker 7: Dr.
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: Helfen, thanks for the topic today. A friend of mine
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: has a child with autism, and she sent me some
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: information because the doctor was talking about putting this child
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: on a medication that they use for Alzheimer's, that they
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: have had beneficial results in memory and learning ability and
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: speech and social behaviors.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: What drug is it?
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I wish I could remember. It was late last night.
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: It begins with a G or an M. But I
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: haven't seen anything. I know they're doing clinical trials on
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: mice with relation to medication and autism and seeing some benefits.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: I've never heard of that, but that's certainly interesting.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Well, now you know why we all in talk radio
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: say we learn so much from our listeners.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: There's a perfect example.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it is.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: It's like having the world's largest database of humanity to
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: have a talk show. We'll be back in a moment.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Final segment coming up with Dr. Sue Halpern, her book,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Can't Remember What I Forgot. I'm Dennis Prager.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Now,
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Let's see.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Moira in Minneapolis. Lost my memory from taking bad meds.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: What exercises can I do to recover my memory?
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: Well, it depends on what that really means. So if
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: your memory is bad because there's a physiological problem, something
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: kind of is broken in there, probably nothing. But if
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: it's just everyday life and you have to recover your memory,
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: the very, very best thing to do It's not mental
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: exercise particularly. It's something that has a mental component, a
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: physical component, and a social component. The best thing to
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: do would be to go dancing.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Dancing?
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like contra-dancing or tango or ballroom dancing.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: That's the worst thing you could have said to me.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: Sorry, but how about this then? It turns out, and
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: we just noticed now, like in the last year.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: How about watching baseball games?
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Well, I do that, but.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: All right, all right, it doesn't work. Okay, go ahead.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Not even for the baseball players. Aerobic exercise is the very, very,
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: very best thing you can do for your brain.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: Yep, and here's why. This is so cool. When you
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: get older, your brain stops producing as many new brain
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: cells as it did when you were younger, and that's
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: one of the reasons why your memory is not as good.
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: If you exercise, your brain actually increases the production of
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: new brain cells. That's huge.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: That is huge. All right, Roger in Fort Worth, Texas.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: My grandmother had Alzheimer's and had a drug from Germany
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: that is banned here, and the name is Regenison, or Regenison,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: and it really helped her, but the government wouldn't allow it,
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: he claims.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: You ever hear of it? Never.
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: Never.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: There's another thing for you. R-E-G-E-N-I-C-I-N.
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: I don't.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: But one of the things, I don't know what that
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: means because, in fact, this world of Alzheimer's research is global.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: And when someone gets a good result in one country,
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: it tends to travel pretty fast somewhere else. And if
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: there's a drug that's out there and available and it's good.
• 35:14
  Speaker 8: All right.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: I got you.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: I'm just rushing because we have so little time. Marianne
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: in Sacramento, California. What effects do hormones have on memory?
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: She had a worse memory during pregnancy.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah. They have a big effect. Big, big, big effect.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: And people are just trying to work this out now
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: because menopause is another kind of memory robber. And so
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: the question is, if you take hormone replacement... That's charming.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Menopause is a real charmer.
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: What?
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to ask God about that and the mosquito.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Two bad inventions. Dr. Sue Halpern, it's been a real joy.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Dennis. It was great.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much. The book, again, Can't Remember What
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: I Forgot. It's up at PragerRadio.com. I'm Dennis Prager here.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Tomorrow, Untimeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: In your experience of your many years as a psychiatrist,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: And I might add, at least as important, if I
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: may take the liberty of saying, being a parent yourself.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: What are the most common mistakes that you have seen
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: from seeing patients who you've seen, of course, every patient
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: you've seen has been a child, obviously. Not everyone is
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: a parent, but you've had a lot who are also parents.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: So you've had both perspectives, I take it, as a therapist.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, I have.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: So I want to know what you feel in this,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: and it truly is a vast experience, both as a therapist,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: as a psychiatrist, and as a parent, what you might
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: feel the most common mistakes that parents make are. And
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: I want to tie this into the happiness theme, of course,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: because is it fair to say, and it may be
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: so obvious that it's almost silly to say, but I still,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: I'll take that risk, that the mistakes that our parents
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: make or that we make as parents are can truly
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: affect the happiness of a human forever. Precisely.
• 37:16
  Speaker 7: I have a three-month-old son, and my husband comes from
• 37:22
  Speaker 7: a long line of teasers. And I'm just wondering if Dr.
• 37:26
  Speaker 7: Marmer can talk about how I can get my husband
• 37:30
  Speaker 7: not to tease my son.
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses,
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: We want to take just a second to thank the
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: the podcast. Go to LifeAudio.com to find dozens of other
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: faith-centered podcasts and their network, including shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting,
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: and more.