Bookpleasures.com welcomes as our guest Dr. Timothy J. Smith author of Reversing Alzheimer’s: How to Prevent Dementia and Revitalize Your Brain.

Dr. Smith is a functional and molecular medicine family physician, brain biochemist, and specialist in anti-aging medicine. He has studied and practiced alternative, nutritional, and conventional healing principles for more than thirty years. He is also the author of Renewal: The Anti-Aging Revolution. 

Norm: Good day Dr. Smith and thanks for participating in our interview.

What do you consider to be your greatest success (or successes) so far in your career?

Dr. Smith: I feel blessed to have had an exciting, challenging, truly incredible career in medicine. I think fifty years of working for and learning from my patients would have to be my greatest success. My patients have truly been my best teachers.

Norm: What has been your greatest challenge (professionally) that you’ve overcome in getting to where you’re at today?

Dr. Smith: In 1970, as an intern, I began to challenge much of what I had been taught in medical school.

The treatments we had back then were largely based on the “slash and burn” of drugs and surgery and were often counterproductive or outright toxic.

This spurred my interest in holistic medicine, which morphed into alternative and integrative medicine. It worked better and was patient friendly but at times drew negative attention from the medical powers that be. Though these alternative modalities are now widely accepted, back then there was much more pressure to conform.

Norm: Why is it important to ask your doctor about brain health early on?

Dr. Smith: If you think your brain health is declining and memory problems are already happening, your family doctor might do a cognitive exam and can refer you to a neurologist if necessary.

Unfortunately, mainstream neurologists do not have much to offer other than sympathy and watchful waiting and perhaps some drugs to manage symptoms—as in monitoring a sinking ship. The sad part, and the part we are trying to change, is that at that point you are in the range where prevention of progression and reversal are worth attempting.

Norm: Should people be thinking about their brain the same way they do their heart, colon or breasts?

Dr. Smith: If you mean should we get tested, the answer is yes.

In my book I give a list of the "biomarker" tests that should be done by everyone over forty to protect brain health and optimize cognitive functioning. These include tests for blood pressure, gut health, and other health factors. Once you know your unique metabolic imbalances, you can work to correct them using the diet, exercise, and supplements described in the book.

Norm: How long can a person function normally after receiving an Alzheimer's diagnosis? 

Dr. Smith: Some patients may rapidly decline and die in just a few years. In others, the progression is slow, and many patients have lived with the disease for decades.

Norm: Does Alzheimer's run in families?

Dr. Smith: Yes. If you have a parent or sibling with Alzheimer's, you are more likely to develop the disease.

A typical healthy person has a risk of about one in three, or 33 percent. If a family member developed the illness, your risk goes up to about 50 percent. If your biomarkers are positive, the risk is substantially higher. Since there is significant risk for all, I believe it is important for all people over forty to get tested.

Norm: Why is there a perceived stigma when one suffers from Alzheimer's disease?

Dr. Smith: I do not really know what “perceived stigma" means. I think there is a broad spectrum of possible reactions by patients to the disease. Some are based on fear, others on projection, and still others on a misunderstanding of what the disease really is.

Norm: What motivated you to write Reversing Alzheimer’s: How to Prevent Dementia and Revitalize Your Brain?

Dr. Smith: In 2003, my mother died of Alzheimer’s. This was very stressful because as a physician, I had no treatment to offer her that worked.

In 2014 I read a research paper by Dr. Dale Bredesen, a noted neurology professor and researcher. He accomplished something that no one had done in over 100 years of Alzheimer’s research: he reversed the symptoms of Alzheimer’s in 9 of 10 patients by identifying the many causes in each patient and then applying a treatment program designed to reverse these causes.

Having applied this method in my private practice since the 1970s, I was very familiar with it, and I understood exactly why and how he had accomplished the first reversals of this previously incurable disease. I wrote Reversing Alzheimer’s because I wanted to share that story with the world.

Norm: What makes your book stand out from the crowd dealing with the same subject matter?

Dr. Smith: My book explains exactly why we have a treatment that works and how to use it. Reversing Alzheimer’s translates the complex biochemistry of neurodegenerative disease into everyday language and shows you how it works.

Everyone has different potential causes of neurodegenerative disease, so the book explains how to use biomarker testing find your own personal causes of the disease. These causative factors are then targeted with an individualized program of interventions.

My book is unique in that it provides an anti-Alzheimer’s diet and supplement program; I describe how the body uses foods and supplements and other natural therapies to rebuild, regenerate, and rejuvenate damaged nerves.

Finally, no other book explains how the newly emerging science of epigenetics enables us to make lifestyle choices that optimize the expression of our genes to amplify cognition and brain health.

Norm: What purpose do you believe your book serves and what matters to your book?

Dr. Smith: I want people to know that Alzheimer’s is not inevitable. They need to know that they can prevent the disease and they can reverse it in the early stages. The tools we need are available, and we have extensive scientific proof that they work. The purpose of my book is to show people how to apply this information to reverse the disease process.

Norm: Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?  

Dr. Smith: One does not spend five years poring over the scientific literature without learning a lot, but I think the most significant lesson for me began after I finished writing the book. I have been learning about the meaning of hope.

Shortly after completing this book, I found myself fending off accusations from so-called experts that promoting the idea of reversing Alzheimer’s disease creates “false hope.”

They say we must do randomized clinical trials (RCTs) to prove my method is safe and effective.

But RCTs are not designed to look at complicated issues like the effectiveness of an entire system of diagnosis and treatment on multiple body systems. The complexity of this is beyond RCTs and requires a new paradigm. Meanwhile, the functional medicine approach is available right now. It has been safely used for decades and has proven effectiveness. 

The treatment program I recommend offers very real hope for the millions who can avoid this otherwise devastating disease.

Norm: Where can our readers find out more about you and Reversing Alzheimer’s: How to Prevent Dementia and Revitalize Your Brain?

Dr. Smith: They can go to my website, www.timsmithmd.com. This is a rapidly changing field with new discoveries almost every day. My site will keep you up to date on the most relevant new developments.

Norm: What is next for Dr. Timothy J. Smith?

Dr. Smith: I have become very interested in the emerging science of epigenetics, which plays a key role in gene expression and is the future of Alzheimer’s research.

 I am fascinated by how epigenetics places us in control of our genes and how simple choices we make powerfully influence genetic expression. We are no longer victims of our genes! Every food choice, herb, vitamin, mineral, and natural medicine I recommend in the book exerts strong influences at the epigenetic level, and science is just beginning to scratch the surface in terms of understanding how this works.

Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors.

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