My first question to you, Ray, would be, could you provide one or two examples of each of these toxicants that fall into these three categories that have really shown that connection to Parkinson's disease?

Yeah, so let me take a step back.

First of all, why do we think that these diseases are preventable? And what are the causes, principal causes of Parkinson's disease? One central tenet of Western medicine is that diseases have causes.

You don't get Parkinson's disease.

You don't get cancer because of the sins of your aunt.

You get cancer or Parkinson's disease because something caused you to have the disease.

You get pneumonia because you got exposed to a virus or a bacteria and that gave you infectious disease.

So where do we go from here?

What is the strongest evidence that the rise is not just aging, longer survival, or better diagnostic methods?

Yeah, so this is what my colleagues think.

If we're aging, well, let's just go back in 1800.

So 1800 London, there's over a million people there.

And there are about 100,000 people, 50 to 100,000 people over age 60 in 1800 London.

Today, about 1% of Londoners over age 60 have Parkinson's disease.

If that were true, when Dr. Parkinson described the disease, there'd be 1,000 people with Parkinson's disease.

So I wanted to really like, set the stage here for the next part of the discussion which is okay dr dorsey we i think we've made a strong case that this is parkinson's is a man-made disease caused by environmental toxins now the two biggest questions are going to be on the listeners minds are going to be how do i know if i'm exposed and therefore how can i reduce my risk like what are the biggest drivers is there an 80 20 rule here like you know, before I excavate my entire life, what are the biggest drivers that are going to give me the biggest bang for my buck in terms of identifying exposure?

It's not just like a

10 or 20% increase.

Parkinson's disease, the first major description of the disease was by Dr. James Parkinson in 1817 in London.

So he's 61.

He's a surgeon, actually, and he's actually even a geologist.

And he sees something new on the streets of London, something so new that at 61, he bothers to write a case series.

He basically writes his case series on six people, five, at least five of whom are men.

That's P-I-Q-E life.com slash hymen.

Tell, tell us a little bit about the genesis.

Yeah.

Um, so, uh, diseases have causes.

Parkinson's is one of the world's fastest growing brain diseases.

You sit in Canada, I sit in the United States, and south of us is Argentina.

Those three countries have the highest rates of Parkinson's disease in the world.

The principal causes I think, uh, for Parkinson's disease in many countries are either pesticides, dry cleaning, and degreasing chemicals.

Nice.

Are there some exposures, neurologically speaking, that anyone who's trying to conceive should be concerned about in regards to trying to conceive a healthy baby? I know things that are mentioned in the book, radon, pesticides, like you just said, herbicides, manganese, solvents like TC and air pollution in the book.

Yeah, so I've talked a little bit about pesticides.

So if you want to avoid intellectual disabilities, avoiding exposure to pesticides is important.

It's also worth knowing that pesticides are sprayed on kids' schools and playgrounds.

I didn't know that until writing the book, Many schools and playgrounds are sprayed with it, fortunately in California, the Healthy Schools Act, which limits the use of the most toxic pesticides on kids' playgrounds and schools and requires that parents be notified in writing in advance of the use of such pesticides.

But for the rest of the country, pesticides are routinely sprayed on kids' schools and playgrounds, and we ask why 1 in 31 children have autism.

I think we need to start looking at these things much more carefully, as you may recall that many pesticides are nerve toxins.

Are there laws about golf courses and the use of pesticides that you know of? I haven't done research on it, but I'm wondering if you should be calling the golf course.

Yeah.

So I emailed him and I said, "Hey, how does this model fit in with toxic chemicals that we ingest or swallow?" So if you drink well water, which is often contaminated, often in rural areas, often near farms, contaminated by pesticides, not regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, you consume pesticides.

These pesticides could lead to misfolding of a protein, something called alpha-synuclein, that starts in the gut and then spreads up the vagus nerve.

So as you know, the vagus nerve goes from our gut all the way up to the lower part of our brain, and once it gets to the lower part of the brain, it then spreads...

The misfolded protein spreads from nerve cell to nerve cell.

So it goes from the lower part, something called the medulla, to the part of the brain that's responsible for sleep.

So you get early sleep disturbances, REM sleep behavior disorder, and it spreads from that part to the substantia nigra, where you get the motor features of the disease.

I do appreciate, if you read this book, to rate it on Amazon and provide your comments and a review.

What policy related changes? What needs to kind of move the needle to allow folks who are underserved in more rural neighborhoods to be able to have better access to care? What do you think that looks like?

Michael's experts, you know, I'll start.

I think Michael and I called for a 10-fold increase in the number of centers of excellence throughout the country so that more and more people can get access to care.

People in the conferences community are upset.

They know that there are really great places to get care.

Michael was heard from as a person who said, I'd love to come to University of Florida, but the wait time is a year.

And that really shouldn't be acceptable.

But I always say the work starts literally when we get home.

And what parts of the brain... are distinct to Parkinson's disease in terms of the pathology as compared to some of the other, you know, areas that we hear about, like ALS and MS and some of these other brain-related conditions.

So classically, the area part of the brain that's most affected in Parkinson's disease is an area of the brain called the substantia nigra.

It's called substantia nigra because it's black when you look at it closely.

And the brain, it's black, and it's filled with dopamine-producing nerve cells.

And loss of these dopamine-producing nerve cells produce the class A. movement features or motor features in the disease, the tremor, the slowness of movement, the stiffness and the difficulties walking.

When Dr. Parkinson described the condition, he didn't know what caused it.

He said he looked forward to the future anatomists who would identify where the disease was beginning.

You mentioned a carbon block in the book, and I was just curious about what your thoughts are on even reverse osmosis and which technology has actually considered to be more aggressive so maybe tell us a little bit about that that golf course study and why that was so you know uh made the headlines and really traveled had legs on it

When these chemicals come into the body, take me through how that leads to Parkinson's.

Yeah.

So when Dr. Parkinson described the, uh, disease in 1817, he wasn't sure where the disease began.

He thought it might begin in, in, uh, part of the brain, and he said he looked forward to, uh, anatomists who would de- determine where the disease began.

In 2003, a really, really smart German pathologist named Heiko Braak, uh, came up, uh, said, "I've looked at..." Came up with a new idea.

He said that Parkinson's disease does not begin in the brain.

He said that Parkinson's disease, which we think of a brain disease, does not begin in the brain.

But I'll have you share your thoughts.

Let's paint the broad strokes at first about Parkinson's being an environmentally related disease.

Yeah.

So, um, first let's say what a man-made disease is.

Uh, diseases come and go.

Diseases aren't with us forever.

Uh, we didn't really get infectious diseases until people started living close to one another after the Agrarian Revolution, and we didn't start getting chronic diseases, really many chronic diseases, until the Industrial Revolution.

Even when you and I were in medical school, you know, type 2 diabetes was rare.

What can we do to protect ourselves as it relates to these particles?

Mm.

The fancy term is particulate matter.

Most of them we cough out or sneeze out.

But some are so small, less than one-thirtieth the width of our hair, they penetrate the nerve that hangs down, they're responsible for smell, that hangs down in our nasal passages.

And hitchhiking on those pieces of dirt and soot are toxic metals.

Yeah

... converters.

And so people with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's both have high, high levels of metals in their brain.

this, this happens.

So I think the reason we're u-uncomfortable with it, like why is Mark uncomfortable? Quite frankly, why was I uncomfortable with it? It's 'cause we were in medical school, and, uh, we were taught that Parkinson's disease, uh, was some combination of, uh, bad genes, natural consequence of aging, worried about bad luck, and maybe, uh, a, a sprinkling and quick mention of pesticides.

And that's what we were taught in medical school were the principal causes of Parkinson's disease.

And I think that's largely all wrong.

Um, uh, as I mentioned, you put a mouse in the laboratory and you let it age, it will never spontaneously develop Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's disease, only if you manipulate its genes or expose it to toxic chemicals.

Um, in 1826, John Adams, age ninety, is writing letters to Thomas Jefferson, age eighty-three.

They're both clear as day.

But how do people leave this conversation?

How come she doesn't have Parkinson's? And I'm grateful for that.

So let's first talk about why you might.

So, uh, what was sprayed on corn in, uh, Nebraska? So one of the most common weed killers used on corn is a pesticide called, uh, paraquat.

Uh, Dr. Tanner showed that pe- farmers who work with paraquat have 150% increased risk of developing the disease.

Beate Ritz at UCLA, Dr. Beate Ritz at UCLA, and her colleague Dr. Kimberly Paul showed that simply living or working, you're not the farmer, you simply live or work near where paraquat is sprayed, and your risk is doubled.

Um, the paraquat's been used to commit homicide and suicide, and because of its toxicity and link to Parkinson's, over 70 countries, including China, have banned it.

But the United States still permits it to use.

You're looking at other brain illnesses as also being, you know, doing this can help eliminate other diseases as well for the brain is what your, your belief is, correct?

But what, you know, what can you do?

A, a lot.

Uh, and so on page 237 of our book, we give you 25 actions individuals can take to reduce their risk of ever getting Parkinson's disease and 25 actions people like Lisa can do to likely slow the rate of progression.

So let's take the farmer.

If a farmer lives in, uh, a rural area and has well water, you know, he or she can, uh, get a, um, a carbon filter reverse osmosis system for them today.

Um, there have been studies that show that personal protective equipment, gloves and masks, long-sleeve clothing, can decrease your, uh, risk of developing, uh, Parkinson's and exposure to the toxic effects.

You can use less toxic pesticides.

And then, is coffee good or bad? I can't-

Alzheimer's is growing very fast.

It can't be genetics because our genes, you know, don't change, generally speaking, for just 200 years.

So it has to be in our environment.

And if you look at a map of the world, areas of the world that are most industrialized, like the U.S. and Canada, have the highest rates of disease.

Areas of the world that are least industrialized, like Sahara and Africa, adjusted for age, have the lowest rates of the disease.

And areas of the world undergoing the most rapid industrialization and pollution, India and China, have the fastest increasing rates of the disease.

And so these chemicals, the ones that are implicated in Parkinson's disease, are all mitochondrial toxicants.

and stuff like that.