Addressing Brain Degeneration With Dr. Gregory Eckel

Addressing Brain Degeneration

Addressing Brain Degeneration with Dr. Greg Eckel

Dr. Trevor Cates: Welcome to The Spa Dr. podcast. I am Dr. Trevor Cates. On today’s podcast we are discussing ways to prevent and address brain degeneration. We are living longer than we used to, so we want our brains to keep up so we can have excellent memory and focus and really the quality of life we all deserve. My guest today is Dr. Gregory Eckel, who has spent the last 20 years developing and refining his approach to chronic neurological conditions. In addition to his experience in clinical practice using a combination of Naturopathic and Chinese medicine, he also has a deep personal connection with chronic neurologic disease. Since his wife Sarieah passed away of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, (CJD), a condition with no known cure. She was the love of his life, he took a deep dive into research and uncovered and developed a brain regenerative program and in loving memory of his wife. He has continued to help others with neurodegenerative diseases, improve their quality of life and find natural solutions and he shares all of that in his Nature Cures Clinic in Portland, Oregon, and also through his online brain degeneration summit and his new book. Shake it off. You may remember Dr. Eckels was a guest on my podcast a few years ago, we went to Naturopathic Medical school together and he’s back on the podcast to share the wisdom he’s gained from his experience helping his patients. And we talk about dietary and lifestyle changes as well as supplements and natural treatments and some of his biggest takeaways from interviewing some top experts in this area. So please enjoy this interview.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Greg is so great to have you back on The Spa Dr. Podcast.

Dr. Gregory Eckel: Thank you.

Dr. Trevor Cates: So we are continuing from last time, but you have had a lot going on in your life, both, professionally and personally since we last had you on the podcast? And now you have got a book, you’ve got all kinds of great things coming out and so you have turned a challenging situation into a bit of a gift. So can you kind of catch everybody up to speed on what you have been up to?

Dr. Gregory Eckel: Yeah, for sure. Well, I have lost some facial hair since the last time we spoke on here. Life is a interesting journey for sure. Sarieah my wife at the time I don’t believe she had passed yet. We didn’t really know what was going on. But I got to be a loving husband and caretaker through a life ending event and disease process and neurodegeneration. So, I know firsthand what it is to navigate the healthcare system. It’s fractionated, it is frustrating, it is overwhelming and it is really isolating. So I got to experience that firsthand. I have always seen it from the other end as a provider, but to go through it with a loved one, it really creates a lot more empathy.

Dr. Gregory Eckel: I had a lot of empathy before, but just to do it firsthand, and the experience was like, wow, this system, I knew it was broken. But to go through it like that, it definitely is really telling like, wow, we really need to do a lot to change this. And on multiple levels, right. It split me open as a human being, really lifted the veil. This is significant grief, sadness, loss, all of that, to do it. We don’t do that well in our culture. And so to be able to go through it, express it, and just share it, it’s really interesting to see what one’s loss or grief, how that reflects in other people and how they experience it. That was a pretty interesting journey as well. Some people just can’t handle grief and they disappear, right? Like you think, Hey, these are really good friends, what happened to them? And then other beings just show up and are there for you. So it is without any judgment. I mean, people have their own experience of all of this stuff. I think I came through pretty well actually really whole and in a really solid place with motivation to share. I mean, I have got what I am calling Sarieah’s gifts. And when given lemons, make lemonade. I guess that is how the saying goes. And I have produced a book that we are going to talk about today and have all kinds of information sharing. And really, I am opening my heart even on a wider level to folks in suffering. There is a lot of suffering out there. And I am really trying to do my best with it and share it, and coming from a really human place, it really makes a difference for folks. And I think if my message, one thing that I wanted to share is that of hope, even through loss. I have lost other people, parents, grandparents. But to lose my wife, yeah, that was significant. I said I wasn’t going to crack up on the show today. But it is hard not to. So anyways, that aspect and really to transmit that through the airwaves here. I really appreciate the opportunity to share my story. And then also, a message of hope for folks that, you don’t have to be alone. You’re not in it by yourself, even though you might feel very lonely and separated and overwhelmed and depressed with these diagnoses of neurodegeneration are going through the roof. And we’re going to talk about why I think that is today. And I know you have had other guests that have talked about that too, environmental causes around health in particular for brain health.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Can you explain what neurodegenerative diseases are and because I think that’s the first thing. And then of course the typical treatment options for people.

Dr. Gregory Eckel: Yeah, for sure. So, neurodegeneration, neuro is the nervous system and degeneration is degeneration, but really you can look at it as your brain is broken. So you have anything from mild cognitive impairment, dementia through Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, these are all brain disorders that the brain’s proteins are mis-folded and the brain is not working well. So I lecture all the time and I will give a show of hands to anybody that has heard from their medical provider in particular with memory issues, just get used to it, you are getting old, or oh, I’m just having a senior moment. It is so commonplace that people think it’s normal aging. And I don’t want to go into agreement with a dysfunctional pathological society that is on a bunch of drugs. So if you have ever heard that from providers like, oh, get used to it, you’re getting old. Well then you need a new provider because that is not true. In fact, I really want to be living proof that we can age backwards and actually be more youthful, more flexible, more energetic, stronger. And I am seeing that in my patient base, I am exhibiting it as well. And that is what I want to promote. Which is definitely a contrary message out there, really, these things can be reversed and I wasn’t able to do it for Sarieah, but I really uncovered a ton of evidence-based therapies that work and are changing lives now. You asked me what can we do about it? So with regards to that, I wrote this book, Shake It Off. It is an integrative approach to Parkinson’s disease. Now Sarieah didn’t have Parkinson’s disease, but she had Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a very rare neurodegenerative condition. It is like one in a million, but you get in on the textbook of preonic activity or preonic diseases, which are misfolded proteins and these proteins they misfold and then they basically clog up or congest your brain functioning. So that is where tremors come from. Speech slows down in Parkinson’s, you get that cogwheel rigidity or walking issues, dementia, early cognitive decline, you start forgetting stuff. Multiple different factors on that front. So in that realm, there is a lot to do because we haven’t had any breakthroughs of any of these conditions. Some of them like Parkinson’s we have known for 250 years. We have had that label of that diagnosis and there has been no breakthroughs. Alzheimer’s and dementia all time rates like one in two people over the age of 65 are going to be showing signs of dementia, like losing their brains. So it’s basically losing themselves in the process and putting a huge burden on families and caregivers. So when we talk about really having an impact on the globe and in communities and in families and at the individual level. These things are touching all of our lives. And I just took my personal tragedy of what I found along the way. I was like, gosh, I just discovered and I experienced it firsthand and these are the things that I want to share. I’m just calling them Sarieah’s gifts and really trying to make the best out of the lemons I was given. And it is so rewarding. I hear from patients around the globe now, and thank you Dr. Eckel for sharing these gifts with us. And it’s super touching and motivating for me, and I really want to help as many people as I can. That’s why I got into medicine and this is just kind of helped me look at a much bigger picture of like, Oh, I could really influence and impact so many more lives with doing podcasts such as yours, writing a book, doing a summit. So we will talk about the particulars here in a moment.

Dr. Trevor Cates: When we look at aging and what is expected versus what a lot of doctors are saying, Oh, that’s normal aging. That’s typical. What do you expect? What do you see yourself and for your patients? That is normal?

Dr. Gregory Eckel: So normal aging is what I experienced. I lived in Vienna, Austria as an undergraduate and I was hiking mountains with 80 and 90 year olds. And the difference between me and them, they were using ski poles to get up the Hill. It took them a little bit longer to get to the top to have the pint of beer at the end of the hike. And that is normal healthy aging. You should be mobile, pain-free, energetic, still engaged in the world. That is aging that I have in my mind when I am talking about healthy aging. I just listened to a lecture by Aubrey De Grey, he puts on a conference in Germany every year called the Undoing Aging summit. And he had a Ted talk about aging and he is saying, we could put 30 to 60 years on people’s lives now. So if you start thinking about it, I have a 91 year old patient, Lois. She said at 91, she is healthier at 91 than she was at 81. So she came into my care a decade ago, and then she got on my YouTube channel and gave me a little testimonial, which I loved. And she’s like, I’m healthier. I can walk. I am going out on cruises. Like I’m reengaged with the world 10 years later. That is unheard of in our society. That’s not supposed to happen. You’re just supposed to decline. Right? So healthy aging is really engaging your mind, staying active, learning new activities, being creative. Smelling the roses for crying out loud. That is what I want to promote when I talk about healthy aging. Because there is such wisdom in that eighth, ninth, 10th, let’s call it the 11th decade. I want to push my age to 150. I think we can do it. And once you start thinking like that, what is interesting is your behaviors start to change today. I see so many 80 and nine year olds saying, gosh, if I would have known I was going live this long, I think I would have taken better care of myself. I am getting that information now at 50, you know, it’s like heck yeah. I am going to take notes from my elders and start taking better care of myself. So that is what you do.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Absolutely. So let’s talk about healthy aging first and then talk more about the actual disease and what we can do about neurodegeneration, and managing those and expectations on that. So with healthy aging to help us be active, pain-free, have good memory and focus and all that you are talking about, that you are seeing and what you are planning for yourself. And for your patients, what are the main things that you find are helpful for this?

Dr. Gregory Eckel: Well, it is kind of like your message of the mirror image. The skin is the mirror image of the internal environment. Staying hydrated, eating organically, you know, the levels of glyphosate and genetically modified organisms in our food are phenomenal. I mean, they are everywhere, right? They are in processed foods. A lot of times the complaint is all organic costs so much. No, they are actually very affordable when you look at the long term consequences of eating a conventionally grown diet. I gladly pay the money for the organics because it lowers the oxidative stress in the body, meaning the free radicals come in there and start creating arteriosclerosis and it accelerates the aging process in the body. So definitely, hydration and diet of course, coming from Naturopathic professionals, yes, eat your vegetables. That is the pat answer coming from the Naturopath. But it is so true and makes it organic. So the food choices, those kind of like aligned with your message of what you put on topically really does matter. Cleaning up your environment, getting really good skincare products. So many people are putting so much garbage and pollution on their skin and it is readily absorbed in. It creates an accelerated aging. You can measure your age, right? So biologically I will be 50 this year. But internally what made me feel really good is I measured my telomere length, which is the end of the DNA strand to say, well, how old do my cells think they are? My cells are telling me they’re 17 years younger, 32, that’s awesome. To get that information back, it’s like, okay, I’m going to keep living this lifestyle, and keep doing the things that I’m doing and I am going to measure it again this year and see if they are even younger, like, why not? So diet, lifestyle, and environment. Looking at your water, is it filtered? What is in the water? Like the time of Flint, Michigan, with the lead crisis. I am originally from Pennsylvania. There were four communities in Pennsylvania at the time of Flint where they just had basically darkened water, filled with lead. There were four communities, had higher lead levels in their water at the same time. It wasn’t reported on in the news. So on that environmental front, there’s water, there is also chlorine coming out of, you know, for men out of the shower head that can lead to prostate cancer. So you look at reducing your exposure. Start at home, clean up your home environment, what you are bringing in, get the plastics out, along those lines. And then there is the environment, so we started water, food, environment of the home, clean air in the home. Some of our homes are some of the most toxic places on the planet. Looking at your air sources, are you filtering the air? And then you look at detoxifying the body with saunas, exercise, caloric restriction, these things I really put in for all of my patients that come through. Then you look at sleep. So these are like huge categories that I just laid out there. But you know, there is so much data coming out on sleep. The deep restorative sleep is where your brain actually gets detoxified. When we went to medical school, we didn’t even know about the glymphatics in the brain, which is the lymph that cleans and cleanses the brain out. So if your sleep is off, that’s not happening and you are at a higher risk for cognitive decline and neurodegeneration and definitely not healthy aging at that point.

Dr. Trevor Cates: I think those are all things that we talk about as far as a healthy lifestyle and it is just a great reminder of the importance of these for not just for now, but for years to come and many decades, multiple decades to come.

Dr. Gregory Eckel: Yes, multiple. And there is this term of basically escape velocity at the rate of, we are kind of on this hockey stick curve of changing the evolution of medicine. With regenerative STEM cell therapies and peptides. And there is a lot of information out there and if you hold on long enough, take care of that body long enough, we are getting to the point where the body is able to regenerate itself, given the right information. It has always been the case. But now we have got some technologies in here naturally that really can help speed that up. So in the next 30 years it is predicted that we are adding 30 years on to the lifespan for everybody. Now that’s contrary to what has happened the last two to three years, which is the first time in history where in the United States, the lifespan actually decreased one to two years, which is telling. Here we have this big promise of hangout and we are going to extend your life. And then in reality, well it actually went down two years. What’s up with that. And I think that is a direct correlation to environmental toxicity and stress.

Dr. Trevor Cates: And just the general lifestyle that Americans tend to live with. The food, the sedentary lifestyle, too much time indoors, not enough time outdoors, all those kinds of things certainly play a big role in that. So now we have been talking about basically optimizing health, but then there is also, these neurodegenerative diseases that do tend to happen more as we get older. They are more common as we get older, and we are more likely to develop these. So what have you found in your practice as far as what is possible? We want to be realistic, right? But what are conventional doctors saying and what are you finding is actually possible?

Dr. Gregory Eckel: There have been cases. I was able to interview and talk with Dr. Mary Kay Ross about her work. She was the chief medical officer for Dale Bredesen who wrote the Alzheimer’s cure. And they have had severe Alzheimer’s patients get their driver licenses back. And they are basically doing Naturopathic medicine. Exactly what I laid out there on the different aspects of nutrition, exercise, sleep. So that is pretty phenomenal. It is not like we are destined to, well that’s old age and who wants to live longer. You are not going to remember it anyways. So that is possible. I always leave the door open. I’m not saying I’m curing Parkinson’s by any means, but I have had the quality of life go up for my patients. Their tremors have gone away. They are walking better. Their speech has improved. I had a patient come in with early mild cognitive decline and getting into a dementia diagnosis. And conventionally they have got nothing. There are some memory drugs that are out that they are really just bandaids and not really getting at underlying root causes. So what I have found is people are not getting a proper workup or assessment. And there are three areas that I think we should start with. One is stool analysis. Looking at the microbiome. The second one is hormone balance. And then the third is heavy metals because heavy metals in the United States are everywhere. They are around the globe and the four top heavy metals that I see most folks with the neuro, cognitive, neurodegenerative state, are cadmium, mercury, arsenic and lead. Now there are a whole slew of other ones that we test for. Those are the top four that come up in my practice when I’m helping people. So the gentleman that came in, they were thinking he might have had early onset Parkinson’s. And what we discovered was he had a very high lead burden in his body. We are doing a chelation therapy. And lo and behold, his wife comes in and he’s coming in and he’s like, wow, I’ve got my husband back. You know, he has been gone basically five years, really getting into dementia. And they are super pleased. He was a retired pharmacist. Very witty and smart and sharp. And then just really getting into that dementia state. And now he is getting it back. It is so exciting to see, like that is what’s possible. That was with one test. So when you go at it full, treating people, not disease processes and looking at what those factors are in life, stool analysis gives you information on one, your microbiome. There is tons of research coming out on that. And looking at dysbiosis, do you have any pathogenic bacteria? People might be saying, well, where am I getting these pathogenic bacteria? If you have ever been on antibiotics, you have wiped out the good and the bad and the ugly. And so whatever went in afterwards, those populations started to grow. If we removed your gut microbiome, we would have about four to seven pounds of material. That is a little bit gross when you think about it, but it’s also very important for health. Our neurotransmitters, dopamine, serotonin, these neurotransmitters are formed in our gut then go up to our brain. So we have got to assess the gut terrain. Do you have inflammation going on down there? These are easy markers to get and very easy to attain these kits to test that. And then the third part is like doing a Dutch analysis. That is my favorite hormone testing right now. I am really looking at somebody’s stress response. So if you’re having sleep difficulties, we definitely want to do that. Because you could be spiking cortisol at nighttime, diurnal variation, it spikes in the morning and then decreases throughout the day, and is a normal cortisol variance throughout the day. But then it also looks at estrogen and progesterone for women and testosterone for men and how those things get broken down. So those hormones are really important because they get balanced in the hypothalamus very high level action of homeostasis in our bodies. And so if that’s out of whack in hormones and then we look at your nervous system, like sympathetic to parasympathetic activity, that’s all at the hypothalamic level that’s in the brain deep processing there. So those three assessments should be done on pretty much everybody. But in particular for neurodegeneration, I am finding just huge pathways for folks that were not given any hope and just basically parked in a diagnosis and left to decline.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah. So what role can nutrition play and reversing some of these concerns and addressing some of these root causes that you have talked about microbiome, hormonal, oxidative damage, inflammation.

Dr. Gregory Eckel: It is huge. So eating colorful vegetables, getting antioxidants to reduce oxidative stress. Also the research shows by eating that varied multicolored rainbow of food you are also implanting good microbiome. You are growing good bacteria. You are feeding the bacteria that makes your body flourish. So, diet is foundational really for everybody that comes in through my clinic. When people come in with pain, I am giving them a diet diary. They are like, what’s up with this? It’s like, look, if you don’t have the building blocks in there, your body’s not able to heal. It doesn’t matter what goodness we put on top of that, or miracle cure we come up with, it’s the foundational stuff. So it’s essential. It is foundational for everybody.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Right. And so when you talk to people about their diet, do you think that there is a certain amount that needs to be plant-based? How do you feel about vegetarian, vegan, how much animal protein, all of that sort of thing.

Dr. Gregory Eckel: We are able to support people for ethical, moral, religious reasons. I was a vegetarian for over half of my life, 26 out of 50 years. I am not currently a vegetarian, but it’s really individualized to the person. There is the lectins, there is the blood type diet, there is the ketogenic diet. There is so much confusion around it and my general guidelines to the general population is whole food. I like the ratios of like 40, 30, 30, when you look at your plate, two thirds of the plate is vegetable matter, so a salad and a vegetable, a third of the plate. Then a protein source about the size of the Palm of your hand or a deck of cards. I am not adamant. If somebody wants to be vegetarian or vegan, great. You just have to be very educated because I used to be a junk food vegetarian. It is actually how I got into medical school, my early twenties. I was fatigued, and I lived in Portland and my community said, you have got to go to this school. They will address your diet. Maybe you will feel better. I went in there, I did a diet diary and they called me a junk food vegetarian. I thought I was eating healthy. I was like, I’m vegetarian, it’s healthy. It was like all packaged food, throw it in the microwave, you know, 20 something guys. Like what are you going to do? So that was not healthy. And even the gluten free component. I see a lot of patients come in and say, I am gluten free. Isn’t that great? I was like, no, because now you just changed it from gluten to all of these other ridiculous carbs, simple carbohydrates. So it is not healthy food eating. I like the predominantly plant-based. I think when you look at longevity research and that is one of my passions. Definitely a higher percentage of foods from vegetables is really the way to go. We don’t need as much protein as a muscle bodybuilder does. But you know, a general rule that I like is that it is about 0.5 grams. So half a gram per pound of weight. Now if you are overweight, you have to subtract the fat level off of that. But that is a good guideline as far as getting your complete amino acids. So that’s the thing with vegetarians and vegans, just making sure you get enough of the complete or essential amino acids are called essential because essentially you can not make them in your body. You can only get them from your diet. And then of course, I am a pro fat practitioner too, so I love good fats in the diet. You need that. So that is the other 30%.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Right. So what are your favorite good fat sources?

Dr. Gregory Eckel: Well, this may not be good fat, but I love organic butter. And avocados and really good oils, but don’t overheat them. If you are cooking them in the skillet, you never want to see the oils, oxidize or smoke. So olive oil, avocado oil, you can get in there as well. I like the medium chain triglycerides as well. So those middle chain coconut oils to cook a little bit higher heat, they can withstand a little bit more of that. Nuts and seeds are great ways as well to get those fats.

Dr. Trevor Cates: And for brain neuro health, what are some of the most important nutrients as far as supplements go?

Dr. Gregory Eckel: So definitely, Omega three fatty acids in particular from fish oil. So it is looking at EPA and DHA. DHA in particular is a mega three fatty acid, which is brain food. And I find almost a hundred percent of people are deficient in Omega three fatty acids and these are essential fatty acids, just like the essential amino acids that I just mentioned. And everybody actually gets on a supplementation for that for their brain health. Either putting it in a brain smoothie or taking supplements of the fish oil because getting those oils, they are anti-inflammatory, they are antidepressive. It is just basically energy for your brain. I love those in there. There is a whole bunch of research coming out on the endocannabinoid system. This is a little bit harder to measure. In particular the kind of the darling right now, of the supplement world, is CBD. Cannabidiol, and this again wasn’t known when we went to medical school. I am lecturing on that one nationally, and it is a great food for anti-inflammatory, but also feeds receptors in the brain that are essential for brain health. The other big ones are glutathione. I love liposomal glutathione, or other delivery methods of glutathione. Again, it is just a specific brain food. It is the super antioxidant and it will provide energy, detoxification and cleansing for the brain. In those three areas, there are also mushrooms and mushroom complexes. There’s tons of information coming out around lion’s mane and reishi mushroom, basically mushroom complexes in general are amazing. If I am going to go down that rabbit hole, I am really excited for the kind of psychedelic research that’s happening out there when you look at mushroom complexes and how those interface in the brain. We are like this close in Oregon to having that really opened up and I think we are going to see some breakthroughs in brain research for ALS, Parkinson’s. Through maps, I am kind of tied in to those research institutes and really tracking them closely. We are going to find some really amazing breakthroughs there. They fast tracked a lot of that around depression, and PTSD and anxiety. I think in phase two clinical or phase three clinical trials with some of those microdosing of medicinal mushrooms along those lines, and using other substances of that fashion for brain health. The other one after mushrooms, I was going to talk about is boswellia, which is a really interesting one. Frankincense has been around forever. It is anti-inflammatory, but it is specific for brain inflammation. And you look at a lot, even traumatic brain injuries or concussions, which I did not really put in the initial discussion about cognitive decline or neurodegeneration. This is a big one to put in your smoothie. So to put that in on a daily basis, it is almost like curcumin, turmeric, another big anti-inflammatory, but also really beneficial for the brain. So, don’t take all of these all at once. I really stress getting with a Naturopathic Dr., Integrated practitioner to really develop an individualized program. And I call it the chung of the formula or direction. So there is like an Emperor or Empress, some generals and some assistants lined up to move you in a certain direction. Because more is not better. Taking gobs of supplements every day, you have got to process that through your liver. I really stress working on nutrition, getting those fundamentals that we talked about there, unhealthy aging, and then you can really get into some targeted formulations there.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Perfect. Now you have been interviewing a lot of people for your summit, right? An online summit. So, tell everybody the types of people you have been interviewing, and what are some of the takeaways that you have received from that?

Dr. Gregory Eckel: Yeah, so I am so excited about it. So thank you for asking me. I have had the pleasure of interviewing 33 experts on all facets of care. I have got physicians and providers that have their specific protocols that they have been running and for particular conditions for dementia, for Alzheimer’s, for multiple sclerosis, for Parkinson’s, for ALS. So on top of that and one of the themes that I found, that is kind of day seven. I started at the back end of the summit and then you look at the different facets that we just talked about, the exercise, nutrition, environmental causes. I have folks talking about genetically modified foods and what the influences on brain health have been, what glyphosate actually is doing to our bodies, which I would say Monsanto has created a crime against humanity with that product because they are showing glyphosate or Roundup comes in and implants in our DNA causing really early decline and death, with all kinds of conditions. So that I am really excited to help get that message out, Stephanie is off doing that. I have Jeffrey Smith talking on genetically modified foods. I have David Perlmutter talking about nutrition and diet and its influence on regrowing your brain. I have folks talking about mental health and mental health being classified in neurodegeneration as well. And talking about ancestral history and trauma, and looking at traumas in general stressors and then also ancestral trauma. So really I went kind of metaphysical with it as well. All of the different levels of healing, it is not just a biochemical remedy that we need because, really the goal with the summit was one to show folks that you are not alone. Two, there are a lot of options that you have not been given at this point if you are just accessing conventional care. And three, there are a lot of professionals out here that are really trying to move the needle on these conditions, because we see the suffering. Some of us have been through it personally and really the different facets of what kind of resources can I get to people right now today in their homes? There are actionable items in there. The environmental causes of how to clean up your house. What are the products you need to use? What is the research on meditation? There is some amazing stuff. I had our colleague from the Noetic sciences. She is their director down there. Looking at what meditation does. They are imaging the brain before and after meditation showing amazing changes. It is so exciting to see. I have Dr. Lou Lim, of Vielight photobiomodulation. Red light therapy and what that does to change the brain. And he has an apparatus that goes on the head and beams a light beam into the brain, right where they are doing the deep brain stimulation surgery for Parkinson’s to get rid of tremors. So just amazing information that is really cutting edge that can really help now. Can you tell that I am excited about it?

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yes, and that is great to pull all those people and get all those experts together. Especially for neurodegenerative diseases, there are just not a lot of options when it comes to conventional medicine. And so many doctors are saying, I’m sorry, just do the best you can and there is really nothing I can do. Good luck with everything, and you should tell your family.

Dr. Gregory Eckel: Yeah. And another one that I want to mention on that front, I have Teepa Snow, really a gem of a woman who has been in dementia Alzheimer’s care for 20, 30 years and really helping people of family members of what to do with your loved one that has this and how to care for them without getting overwhelmed or frustrated and has some really amazing techniques on communication. And a key of how to handle a lot of conflict, because that is such a big issue for so many families and it can be overwhelming. I really tried to pull all of these research sources, put it in one spot and make it really easily accessible.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Beautiful. So tell everybody where they can find your book. Find your clinic, your website. And you are in Portland.

Dr. Gregory Eckel: The book is Shake It Off. An integrative approach to Parkinson’s solutions. It is on Amazon. And you can order it right there. It is on Kindle. It is also hard copy. It is so cool to actually have my first book in hand and published. And I have you to thank for helping me do that. Dr. Trevor. So that is one, you can go on to Amazon search there, you can go to Shake It Off the book and that will also get you there. My summit coming up is called TheBrainDegenerationSummit.com, and you can find that on my website. You can find it right there directly at that URL. That is coming up in April. And my clinic is; naturecuresclinic.com and it is right here in Portland, Oregon. I have people flying in from around the globe, for a brain regeneration program. So I have people that come out for what I call camp nature cures, and they are basically camped out at the clinic. That’s why it is called camp. No smores, but we have really great food around town too. So you eat well, you get treated well. A lot of times people say, I don’t want to go. You have cared for us so well. So those are the three areas, the book and the summit and the clinic. We are really in it for the long haul. Looking at creating some neurodegenerative centers of excellence just because what I am discovering, people are suffering around the U S around the globe and the providers are not tuned in to this integrative medicine and I really think that is what is going to move the needle for folks. And I am seeing it actually week in and week out, right here at Nature Cures.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah, that’s great. And so if people are listening to this post in April, they can still get the recordings of the Summit. But afterwards they can still buy it. We will have all the links up to everything too on The Spa Dr. podcast below your interview, Greg. Thanks again so much for coming on and sharing all this valuable information and your own personal journey and your story. I appreciate it.

Dr. Gregory Eckel: Thank you so much Trevor, and amazing job with what you have got going on over there. And I really appreciate the opportunity to help educate and get the word out. Thank you.

Dr. Trevor Cates: I hope you enjoyed this interview today with Dr. Gregory Eckel. To learn more about him, you can go to The Spa Dr. podcast, go to the podcast page with his interview and you will find all the information there, including how to find out more about his clinic, the Summit and his new book. Just go to TheSpaDr.com, go to the podcast page with his interview and while you are there at TheSpaDr.com, I invite you to join our community, so you don’t ever miss upcoming shows and information. Also, if you haven’t taken the skin quiz, you can go to thequiz.com to find out what messages your skin might be trying to tell you about your health and what you can do about it. Just go to theskinquiz.com. Also, I invite you to join us on social media. The Spa Dr. Is on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. You can find us there and join the conversation and I will see you next time on The Spa Dr. podcast.