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New weight-loss group starting August 17—sign up today!

Monthly Archives: June 2010

New weight-loss group starting August 17—sign up today!

June 29, 2010 – 4:00 am

Are you tired of struggling to lose weight? Have you gone on diet after diet only to lose weight and then gain it all back… and more? Have you been contemplating bariatric surgery as a last resort?

Did you know that stapling your stomach is working on the WRONG organ?

Most weight problems occur between the ears…
…in your brain.

It is your brain that pushes you away from the table telling you that you’ve had enough, or it is your brain that gives you permission to have that second bowl of ice cream, making you look and feel like a blob.

If you want a better body…

…the first place to always start
is by having a better brain.

It is time to take brain-centered approach to weight loss with the Change Your Brain, Change Your Body weight-loss program at the Amen Clinics.

Our 10-week brain centered weight-loss program, which is offered in person at our clinics and online, is a huge success.

The best thing about the program is that you can keep on losing weight after the 10 weeks because we give you all the tools you need to…

…lose weight and keep it off
for the rest of your life.

So far, the average weight loss is 10 pounds in 10 weeks (note: individual results may vary). But some participants have lost much more than that.

For example, Dan lost more than 50 pounds after participating in two cycles. He feels great, no longer has cravings, and has more energy than ever.

Did you know that not all overeaters are the same? Based on our brain imaging work…

…we have identified five types of overeaters
based on brain type.

Giving everyone the same diet plan will make some people better, but a lot of people worse.  Knowing about your own specific brain will make losing weight and keeping it off a whole lot easier.

With our program, you’ll get to take our Change Your Brain, Change Your Body Questionnaire to…

…determine your individual brain type
so you can find the best weight-loss strategies for you.

When you sign up for this life-changing program, you will also receive:

  • Change Your Brain, Change Your Body book — offers the tools you need to optimize your brain so you can get a better body
  • Change Your Brain, Change Your Body Daily Journal — helps you track your daily progress so you stay motivated (some of our participants say this is one of the most helpful parts of the whole program
  • Change Your Brain, Change Your Body DVD — gives you step-by-step instructions on how to boost your brain for a better body
  • Change Your Brain, Change Your Body Cookbook 2 CD Set — contains OVER 60 recipes for delicious, brain healthy breakfasts, lunch, dinner, snacks, soups, salads, and even desserts so you can start making brain healthy meals tonight
  • BMI Wheel — so you can see your progress as you lose weight

The next 10-week brain-centered weight-loss program
starts August 17—don’t miss out!

This is your chance to change your brain, change your body, and change your life! A better brain, a better body, and a better life can be yours for only $500. Compare that to the $18,000 (or more!) you would pay for gastric bypass surgery.

Are you ready to start changing your brain and body? Sign up today!

Call now to reserve your spot. Space is limited so act now.

Email: marketing@amenclinic.com

or

Call Jaclyn Fratalli at 949-266-3710

Starts August 17, 2010

Every Tuesday at 5:00 PM

$500 in person at the Amen Clinics Newport Beach or online

By Dr. Amen | Posted in Weight Loss | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (7)

Case of the Week: Joshua—drunk, violent, arrested

June 24, 2010 – 4:00 am

A few years ago, I received a call from an attorney named John asking me if our brain imaging work could be of any help to one of his clients. He explained that his client, Joshua, had already been arrested ten times for violence, but he added that Joshua only got violent when he was drunk.

John then told me about Joshua’s latest run-in with the law. Joshua had been sober for six months when his girlfriend broke up with him. He couldn’t handle the emotional stress of the breakup and went out and got drunk on a fifth of Peach Schnapps and a forty-ounce of St. Ides Malt Liquor.

Joshua then got into a car, drag raced his friend down the street, got into an accident, and left the scene of the accident. He flagged down a cab and drove around San Francisco for about half an hour. He thought, “I’m really in trouble now, so what the heck” and pulled a gun on the cabbie and stole $25 from him. The next morning, Joshua turned himself in.

His attorney John told me that the prosecutor wanted to put Joshua away for eleven years. John asked if I would help him. I told him that I would do it, but only on two conditions:

  1. Let me scan Joshua’s brain.
  2. Let me do a second brain scan while Joshua was drunk.

John laughed and said, “They don’t let inmates get drunk!” I told him if he really wanted my help, he would have to find a way to work it out. A couple days later, John called and told me he couldn’t believe it, but the judge had said, “Okay.”

So we scanned Joshua while he was sober, and his brain scan showed a pattern we call the Ring of Fire, in which there is overall increased activity in the brain. Joshua came back a second time wearing his orange jumpsuit with shackles and leg irons, and I proceeded to get him drunk. I had gone to the liquor store earlier and had bought the exact same brands of alcohol he had been drinking that fateful night. So he started drinking the fifth of Peach Schnapps and the forty-ounce St. Ides Malt Liquor.

About halfway through, he looked at me and with slurred speech, said, “This is the weirdest experience of my whole life. My doctor is getting me drunk while these two goons (the two police officers who had accompanied him) are watching.”

Joshua’s drunk scan showed a dramatic decrease in activity compared to his sober scan. There was low activity in his left temporal lobe, which is associated with violence. There was also low activity in his prefrontal cortex, which is the area associated with impulse control and planning, so he basically had no judgment.

The attorney, judge, and prosecutor came to my office to review the scans and reached a plea agreement. Joshua would have to serve three years in jail and then see an outpatient counselor every month for the next eight years. If he missed a single month, he would have to serve the whole eleven years in jail. The agreement addressed his responsibility for his actions but also took into account his illness. If we had never looked at his brain, we never would have known how much alcohol affected his behavior.

By Dr. Amen | Posted in SPECT Scans Case Study | Tagged , , , , | Comments (3)

My weekend at the Unchain Your Brain conference

June 21, 2010 – 4:00 am

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Western Conference on Behavioral Health and Addictive Disorders in Newport Beach. The theme of this year’s conference was “Unchain the Brain” to go with the release of my new book and 10-CD course, Unchain Your Brain, which I co-authored with Dr. David E. Smith.

In the morning, I spoke about:

  • How addictions get stuck in the brain and how to get them unstuck
  • Not all addicts are the same—there are six types of addicts based on brain type
  • Balancing the brain is the key to recovery and preventing relapse
  • Why treatment centers need to take a brain-centered approach to treatment

The response to my talk was incredible. When I went back to the exhibit room to our Amen Clinics booth, there was such a throng of people picking up copies of Unchain Your Brain and other books and tools, I could barely find a space to sit so I could sign copies of the book.

I am so excited that the addiction treatment community is starting to understand that brain-centered treatment is the key to helping their patients recover and prevent relapse.

A growing number of treatment centers, including Sierra Tucson and the Hanley Center, are already using SPECT brain imaging in their facilities and sending the brain scans to us at the Amen Clinics for interpretation. Looking at the brain helps them better diagnose and treat their patients.

As I always say, how do you know unless you look?

By Dr. Amen | Posted in Substance Abuse and Addictions | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (7)

Case of the Week: Anna—Healthy Brain

June 17, 2010 – 4:00 am

Anna's healthy brain

After years of scanning patients who were struggling with various disorders, I decided that I should build a large database of healthy brains for comparison purposes.

I started inviting seemingly normal, healthy individuals everywhere I went to be screened. In one of the graduate courses I teach, I asked for volunteers for the healthy brain study. One of my students approached me after class and said, “You have to scan my 82-year-old grandmother, Anna. She is one of the most normal people I know. You will love her.”

With Anna’s consent, we screened her and found that she met all the criteria for the study. Anna appeared to be a model human being—she was a loving wife, mother, and grandmother who had been married for 58 years.

She was sharp, had a lot of intellectual curiosity, and was very active in her community and at church. She enjoyed many long-term friendships that spanned decades. I was very excited to see her brain, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Anna’s brain, as you can see, is drop dead gorgeous, one of the healthiest I have ever seen. It has full, even, symmetrical activity. No wonder she has had such a wonderful life!

I scanned Anna’s brain several years ago, and since then we have scanned thousands of people as part of the Amen Clinics Healthy Brain Study.

Do you think you have a healthy brain?

To be in our study you have to meet the following five criteria:

  • No psychiatric illness at any point in their lives (that eliminates about 49 percent of the population)
  • No significant head injuries
  • No substance abuse
  • No neurological problems
  • No first-degree relative (mother, father, sibling, or child) with a psychiatric illness, including substance abuse problems

In addition, participants are thoroughly interviewed about the above issues, given a structured psychiatric screening test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), which is a test of personality, and a memory-screening test.

Only about one in 23 people who think have a healthy brain actually meet our criteria.

Learn more about the Healthy Brain Study by clicking here:

http://www.amenclinics.com/clinics/healthy-brain-study/

By Dr. Amen | Posted in SPECT Scans Case Study | Tagged , , , | Comments (6)

College students failing empathy

June 14, 2010 – 4:00 am

Pop Quiz!

True or False: Today’s college students are less empathetic than students in the 1980s and 1990s.

Answer: True

According to a University of Michigan review of 14,000 students over the past 30 years, today’s students are about 40 percent lower in empathy than students 20 or 30 years ago.

“Many people see the current group of college students—sometimes called ‘Generation Me’—as one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident and individualistic in recent history,” said Sara Konrath, a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research, in a news release.

The researchers mentioned numerous possible reasons behind the drop in empathy, including:

  • The increasing exposure to violent media is numbing
  • The rise of social media, which allows students to tune out when online friends need sympathy
  • An increasingly hypercompetitive environment and an emphasis on success
  • Our fast-paced society

I think all of these things are contributing to a lack of empathy not only in college students but in adults and adolescents as well. And empathy isn’t the only negative consequence of these changes in our society.

All of these things are detrimental to brain function. They are wearing out the brain’s pleasure centers. Whenever we do something enjoyable, it’s like pressing a button in the brain’s pleasure centers to release a little bit of dopamine to make us feel pleasure.

If we push these pleasure buttons too often or too strong, we reduce dopamine’s effectiveness. Eventually, it takes more and more excitement and stimulation to feel anything at all.

This can also lead to problems like shorter attention spans, impulsivity, and poor judgment in addition to lack of empathy.

To keep your brain’s pleasure centers healthy:

  • Limit TV time and avoid too much violent and high-excitement programming
  • Schedule times to check your email, cell phone, Facebook, and Twitter pages rather than checking them every minute of the day
  • Learn to take pleasure in the smaller things in life
  • Give yourself time to relax and re-energize
By Dr. Amen | Posted in Brain Health Problems | Tagged , , , | Comments (4)
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