- 00:03 Speaker 1: And traumatic brain injuries. Thank you so much for being here.
- 00:06 Speaker 2: Thank you for inviting me.
- 00:07 S1: Now, you were just awarded the patent for the US Patent and Trademark Office. Can you tell us about what your idea is that was just patented?
- 00:17 Matthews: The idea I just patented it was based on what would help the brain heal after a traumatic brain injury and a concussion. So basically what I did... My background is I have a degree in Chemistry from Ole Miss, and so I think like a chemist. So I think in steps and what can you do to make the situation better. Well, vitamin D is a hormone, it's not a vitamin. It was discovered 100 years ago, but it's a true hormone. And you have 30,000 genes in the human body, and it controls 3,000 out of those 30,000 human genes. Anything that controls 10% of your DNA is powerful. It controls your immune response, how well your white blood cells work in infections, and it controls your inflammatory response. So now we know that most diseases of aging are caused by chronic inflammation. You have acute inflammation, like if you sprain your ankle, your ankle swells, until you get off it, let it rest a while. But if that acute inflammation becomes chronic inflammation it starts breaking down the joint. So chronic inflammation is bad if it's not kept in check. So one of the things that vitamin D does, it decreases the amount of chronic inflammation. So after you have a traumatic brain injury, concussion, anti-inflammatory pills are removed, it decreases that chronic inflammation burden.
- 01:27 Matthews: Another thing it does is it's an antioxidant. Basically, I would like to show you these two examples. I'll show you what it does here. I cut an apple open at midnight last night. If you notice this is oxidation, you leave apple by itself it becomes oxidized. Oxidation are unpaired electrons in the outer shell of oxygen. This one we placed vitamin D and some glutathione which is the master antioxidant in the body. If you notice this one has rusted more and this has less rust. So basically, imagine your brain, this is like a brain without vitamin D, this is a brain with vitamin D and glutathione.
- 02:02 Matthews: So basically that's two of the main things that it does and so controlling 10% of your DNA. Once you learn how to use it, you can manipulate it to do a lot of things in the body.
- 02:11 Matthews: The next thing was heat-shock protein, which is your body makes heat-shock protein by itself any time it's stressed. Every protein in your body has a function, so when protein lose their shape, they lose their function. If I have a protein that's shaped like this and then after a traumatic brain injury, it's shaped like that, it becomes derailed, and it's not organized in the brain and neuro transmission cannot go along. So what this does is it keeps protein in the 3D shape. And so the problem was we could not make heat-shock protein commercially, so we figured out how to make it commercially.
- 02:44 Matthews: The third thing is glutathione as I just showed you in the bag here with the apple, it's the master antioxidant, it's located in every cell and tissue in your body, and those three things together probably are the three most powerful things to try to keep your body at homeostasis. That's how we came up with the patent.
- 03:00 S1: Very neat, very interesting. And I have to say that apple example is kind of really opened my eyes for sure. So I'm sure other people at home watching this also felt the same thing, 'cause it's crazy to see the difference that those pills did.
- 03:10 Matthews: Since midnight.
- 03:11 S1: Yeah, that's crazy.
- 03:12 Matthews: It's just 7:30, yeah.
- 03:13 S1: Well, I know a lot of times people, you know, you also mentioned, when I got your information that with Alzheimer's, and dementia, and Parkinson's, how will this affect those diseases as well?
- 03:23 Matthews: Okay, I've worked with a lot of people, well, very wealthy people that have had Alzheimer's, dementia, or Parkinson's on a very low-key level though. And with the vitamin D they were plateaued at about 40%, so I couldn't get them beyond the 40%. So I said I'm missing something. And so heat-shock protein works well because what it does is, like I said, in the past, we didn't know how to get these proteins out of your body. Imagine you're having toxic proteins in your brain and you can't remove them, so that's what heat-shock protein does, it removes these toxic proteins.
- 03:58 S1: Now, how many Americans typically are involved with a traumatic brain injury? I know that there's a big talk about it, especially right now with football and other college sports.
- 04:07 Matthews: Yes, yes. Well, as a trauma surgeon, I mean, we see the worst of the worst, a concussion is a form, a mild form of a traumatic brain injury. So we deal with people that have been shot in the head, from all the way from a concussions to, you know, crushed skulls and everything. So basically there are about 5 million people that have concussions every year or traumatic brain injuries, and out of that about 275,000 are admitted to the hospital, and then out of that about 50,000 die yearly. So it has a significant financial burden on the United States. I think presently, we're spending probably over $100 billion a year just on traumatic brain injuries alone.
- 04:44 S1: What is a way maybe people can prevent it? Are there ways that people can... Obviously, some are getting shot in the head and stuff. You know, you can't control that, but what are some of the ways that maybe people can try to prevent it maybe in sports?
- 04:57 Matthews: Well, first of all from a trauma surgeon's standpoint, you can wear your seat belts. And also if you're a motorcycle rider wear your helmets, do not ride without a helmet. Football wise, I worked with a football team, Martin Luther King High School, back in 2011. So all 58.4 million kids are vitamin D deficient in the United States. So your skull is a bone just like your wrist or hand so if you notice butting rams butt head all day, but they don't get concussions, 'cause they have a lot thicker skull. So the energy, kinetic energy, gets transmitted through the bone, but it doesn't reach the soft tissue. We have a thin skull compared to a ram. And a woodpecker does what? He slams his head into a tree 17,000 times a day, and it doesn't get a concussion either, because their skulls are relative thicker than ours. So what vitamin D does is make your bones stronger, it make them thicker, and then instead of getting a concussion, the energy is not most likely to get to the brain, and then if it does, it can decrease the swelling and the inflammation also.
- 05:55 S1: And I know some people may not know what to do if they do get some symptoms. What are some symptoms? And if they do have those what should they do? Do they call the doctor, what should they do?
- 06:00 Matthews: Well, in sports they usually always have a doctor on the sideline or they have trained medical personnel, and all the coaches now have to get training also. So one of the things to do, the first thing to do if you see a concussion, the person need to be evaluated by the online or sideline medical specialists, and then if they're severe enough they need to be transferred to the emergency room.
- 06:00 S1: Alright, so what are maybe some symptoms just for the everyday person?
- 06:00 Matthews: Symptoms after a concussion, I pay attention to those subtle details, a lot of people
- 06:00 ? ? ? picked up a concussion in a high school kid after a hit. He just get that brick
- 06:00]? ? ? missed by everybody else, and so I ran on the field and told the coach that he had to take the kid out of the game, and he admitted he did see stars.
- 06:00 Matthews: So seeing stars or you just get knocked unconscious, or some headaches, insomnia, inability to sleep at night, mood changes, you're going from hot to cold. Some of them have frequent headaches, their memory, focus, concentration is not that good. It's difficult going back to school, picking up where they were before. So those are some of the main symptoms that you see with concussions.
- 07:06 S1: Alright, well, Dr. Matthews, I wanna thank you so much for coming out today. I really... He just came in from Atlanta, so I appreciate you driving all the way here.