Confronting Dr. Amen On His Viral Brain Scans

- Don't you wanna try and disprove your method

in order to prove how strong it is?

- So at this point in my career, no.

- [Reporter] A SPECT scan takes 3D images of the brain,

looking at blood flow and activity.

Dr. Amen says the images can be a powerful tool

to diagnose underlying problems.

- I have more experience in this

than anybody probably in the history of the world.

- Do you not feel that it's an issue

that there is no randomized controlled data?

- You know, I went and got a brain scan

by this guy called Daniel Amen.

- How do you know what is actually going on

in that person's brain without looking?

- By asking them questions.

By doing some validated- - That's complete

crap, Mike. - Questions.

It's complete crap.

- Today's guest is Dr. Daniel Amen,

a physician with double board certifications

in psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry.

He's a multiple New York Times bestselling author

and has just published a new book called,

"Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain."

He's also the founder of a Amen Clinics,

a nationwide network of offices

that rely heavily on SPECT scans,

a unique functional imaging approach that Dr. Amen claims

is capable of identifying psychiatric diagnoses

within the brain, which allows him

to create better treatment plans for his patients,

which often includes supplements he sells

through his other company, BrainMD.

As you'll hear him say,

he's reviewed hundreds of thousands of these scans,

which he's used to improve the lives

of countless patients over his decades long career.

Given that major health organizations

have come out against using SPECT in this way,

I needed to ask what research he was using

to guide his protocols.

Because if you're gonna go against the APA, the AAN,

you have to have some pretty compelling data, right?

Let's talk historically how you got into this space,

because I don't see a lot of folks,

at least on the internet, talking about neurology,

psychiatry and the, how these two fields come together.

Is this a unique field?

I'm not certainly exposed to it as a primary care doctor.

So, I'm curious how you found your interest in that.

- So when I was 18, Vietnam was going on

and I became an infantry medic,

and that's where my love of medicine was born.

But about a year into it,

I realized I didn't like being shot at.

So, I got retrained as an x-ray technician.

And that was pivotal for me,

because our professors used to say,

"How do you know unless you look?"

And then 1979, I'm a second year medical student,

someone I love tries to kill herself

and I took her to see a wonderful psychiatrist.

And I came to realize if he helped her, which he did,

it wouldn't just help her, that it would help me.

It would help her children. It would help her grandchildren.

They would be shaped by someone

who is happier and more stable.

So 46 years ago, I fell in love with psychiatry.

I've loved it every day since.

The only medical specialty

that never looks at the organ it treats, think about that.

- Is that true?

- That is absolutely true.

That they still make diagnoses based on symptom clusters,

the DSM, that has no neuroscience in it.

They make diagnoses based on symptom clusters

with no biological data, exactly like they did

with Abraham Lincoln in 1841.

So, think about that.

- Yeah, why is that?

- Because it's the paradigm

that feeds the pharmaceutical industry.

It doesn't feed outcomes

'cause our outcomes are not better

than they were in the 1950s, the year I was born.

- How are you?

Where is the- - That should be-

- Like in terms of more people being sick

or people not being helped?

- More people being sick.

And if you are sick, your ability to get better, right?

Imipramine was released in the 1950s.

We don't have antidepressants that are more effective now.

We have ones with fewer side effects, but not more efficacy.

Thorazine was released in the 1950s.

Ritalin was released in the 1950s.

Why?

And so, I asked the question.

And when I was growing up,

my dad had two favorite phrases.

Bullshit was his first one,

like everything was bullshit.

And no.

Bullshit and no.

And so when I'm like, "Well, why aren't we looking?"

They go, "Well, it's the future."

And I'm like, "Bullshit.

No, we should do it now. There's technology now."

And in 1991, I went to a lecture

on the imaging study we do at Amen Clinics.

They have 11 clinics around the country.

It's called Brain SPECT Imaging.

SPECT is a nuclear medicine study

that looks at blood flow and activity.

It looks at how your brain works and-

- How's that different from functional MRI?

- So functional MRI is harder.

You have to catch that difference in brain activity.

SPECT actually gives you a look

at how the brain works over time.

So, it looks at about a two minute snapshot

of brain activity, but it happens to be very consistent

over your lifetime, unless you do things

to change your brain.

And so now, we have almost 300,000 scans

we've done on people from 155 countries.

And literally, it changed everything in my life

from the time I go to bed,

because what I realize most psychiatric illnesses

are not mental health issues.

They're brain health issues.

Get your brain healthy,

and your mind will follow.

And so when you-

- How is that, what's the difference between

mental versus brain? - So if you think of it

as mental health,

so number one, no one wants to be called mental, right?

Sure. - 'Cause it shames you.

It's stigmatizing, and it's sort of about you.

When it's brain health, well, everybody wants it.

And if it's mental health,

okay, diagnoses, symptom clusters,

let's do this medicine or that medicine, right?

As a family doctor, you treat more psychiatric patients

than most psychiatrists.

- Well.

- It's like almost half of the patients that come see you

are stressed.

They're not sleeping. They're anxious or depressed.

- Especially my pain patients.

- And the tools you have

in a limited office visit is medicine.

And yeah, it's like,

okay, symptom clusters, medicine or therapy,

and then I'll see you back.

Where if it's brain health, you have to lose weight.

Because I published three studies on 33,000 people

that show as your weight goes up,

the size and function of your brain goes down,

which should scare the fat off anyone.

You have to get your diabetes under control.

You need to go to bed.

Alcohol is not a health food and marijuana is not innocuous.

So what you begin every patient.

This is not true if it's sort of a mental health issue.

If it's a brain health issue, you have to ask yourself,

whatever you're doing today,

is it good or bad for your brain.

So, it's a completely different paradigm

and a completely different discussion.

- I'm trying to think of how I go about seeing a patient

that perhaps has a psychiatric concern

or maybe even doesn't and doesn't realize

that they have a psychiatric situation going on.

Obviously, doing the symptom clusters, the checklists,

the PHQ-9, all of these GAD-7s that they fill out.

And then, you're right, it's either therapy or medication,

a combination of medication, and then see you later.

Especially with our broken healthcare system,

it's near impossible for anyone

with not the greatest insurance or paying cash

to even get therapy, let alone quality therapy.

So, I see that happening.

But the idea of weight loss

and getting their diabetes under control,

to me as a family medicine doctor,

especially as a DO who thinks very holistically,

that is almost always included

in my mental health portfolio.

Is it just because I'm automatically thinking

about mental health as brain health?

- No, it's 'cause you're rare

That very few family doctors go,

"You're depressed could be from the inflammation

you're carrying, creating from the extra weight

and the ultra processed food."

It's, "You are depressed, that means you need an SSRI."

And you know, the serotonin hypothesis for depression,