Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #264 BITESIZE | How to Optimise Your Brain Health as You Age | Dr. Lisa Mosconi

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to

Starting point is 00:00:51 10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 129 of the podcast with the neuroscientist Dr. Lisa Moscone. In this clip, Lisa explains how changes in the brain that cause dementia can actually begin in midlife. She also explains how what we do now can affect our brain health as we age, and she gives some great tips on how to look after our brains, both for now and for the future.

Starting point is 00:01:55 Alzheimer's disease is not a disease of old age. We tend to associate it with the elderly because the symptoms develop usually when people are in their 70s. The average age at onset here in the united states is 71 years old but in truth alzheimer's disease starts with negative changes in the brain years if not decades prior to the cognitive symptoms it's so important for people to get that because you know i've spent a lot of time with Professor Dale Bredesen in California. I'm sure you've seen some of Dale's work and some of his research. And, you know, he said on many occasions that, you know, Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia may be starting even 30 years before it shows up. The idea being that when you get symptoms is not when this starts. This starts

Starting point is 00:02:47 a long way before. And therefore there's an opportunity if we're aware of that to start taking preemptive and preventive action, you know, in our thirties and our forties and our fifties, not when we're suddenly getting the diagnosis at the age of 72, let's say. Alzheimer's disease is not like you just all of a sudden catch a cold. It's not like tomorrow you go to the doctor and boom, you have Alzheimer's disease. There's something that's been happening in your brain for a really, really long time that eventually leads to the symptoms, which again, speaks to how resilient the brain is, how strong these brains we have are because they can literally fend off a whole amount of pathology and insults and problems for years and years and years

Starting point is 00:03:34 and your ability and your brain's cognitive reserve of reserve right against these insults is really largely based on the way you live your life there is a genetic component our dna is part of whoever we are everything we are is involved in every bodily and neurological function however your medical report heart report card and your lifestyle matter just as much for the vast majority of people like even in patients with genetically determined alzheimer's even for those very rare patients who carry genetic mutations that cause alzheimer's at a young age there's evidence that things like exercise can really delay the onset of dementia. And for the vast majority of the population, over 98% of people do not carry this genetic mutation. So risk is really more about the interplay of factors like, sure, there are genetic risk factors.

Starting point is 00:04:42 Your genes are important, but your lifestyle is just as important. Your environment is just as important. Your medical health is just as important. And those are the things that we need to take care of pretty much as soon as we're aware that they're important. It's not like you're 50 and today you have to take care of your brain. No, this brain health should really be part of overall health. We should really start thinking about our brains as our best friends.

Starting point is 00:05:11 Yeah. They're part of us. They need nurturing and supporting. That is doing so much for us, right? So I think it's really important that we make choices that really support the brain. And I usually like to say that I encourage everyone to think of their brains more like a muscle right there are things that you can do to make your brain stronger you can exercise it properly you can feed it properly you can take care of it properly and your brain

Starting point is 00:05:38 will perform so much better for you I've done so much research using brain scans where we show quite clearly that if you're a 50-year-old woman on a Mediterranean diet, your brain looks at least five years younger as compared to a woman who's also 50 years old, but has been on a Western diet for most of her life. I mean, you can see that. You can see the brain scans, you can see the way the brain doesn't change when you follow a Mediterranean style diet and the way your brain literally shrinks at age 50 when you are on a Western style diet. You know, is there some general broad principles of what you're talking about when you say the Mediterranean diet? Yes. And I think, again, it to say mediterranean style diet because otherwise it becomes really impractical even for

Starting point is 00:06:30 me i can't find the same foods here that i used to eat in italy growing up but the point is plant-centric the vegetables and fruit and grains and legumes are really the focus of the diet and fruit and grains and legumes are really the focus of the diet. When we use condiments, they're more like unrefined vegetable oils, like extra virgin olive oil, flax oil. Flax oil is incredible for vegans. Also, fish is a big part of the Mediterranean diet, whereas meat and dairy products are considered more like a treat like an occasional treat it's a very

Starting point is 00:07:07 flexible diet it's a very reasonable yeah diet is not you know it's not in any way suggesting deprivation or food restriction which i find very sensible as a scientist we always talk about diversity in the diet has been real key to health. Yeah. And I think that the diets, which over and over again around the world, no matter how you sort of chop them up, that are associated with good health and longevity tend to be these diverse diets, minimally processed, a focus on whole foods, a focus on lots of different colors, right? It's these are the principles which I know you support as well. And this is what the evidence certainly supports.

Starting point is 00:07:51 You talk about physical activity. We know that's a big problem, particularly with women, certainly in the UK. There's been quite a lot of national campaigns to try and get more women active. Yes. So exercise, for a really long time time nobody believed that exercise had an actual impact on brain health and things have changed so much that now every single recommendation as related to brain health is really about exercising regularly and especially for alzheimer's disease we know that exercise is a strong preventative. I guess Alzheimer's is perhaps a strong word if any scientist is listening, but exercise is really important for

Starting point is 00:08:30 risk reduction, not just of Alzheimer's disease, but of the depression, anxiety of a number of conditions that can impact and affect the brain. And what's interesting, I think, is that exercise is just equally important for men and women. It's really men need to exercise, women need to exercise. But recent studies have shown that the benefits of exercise on brain health might be even stronger for women. There are these beautiful studies with hundreds of women followed for like 40 years, they really show very conclusively that your level of fitness in midlife is so strongly correlated with your brain health later on in life. So if you're actively, if you're physically active, if you're physically fit

Starting point is 00:09:20 in midlife, you have a 30% lower risk of dementia later in life as compared to a middle-aged woman who's not working out at all, who's sedentary. 30%. Now, if I had a drug that could lower your risk of Alzheimer's by 30%, I would be rich and everybody would buy it. Instead, the prescription is simply move your body, exercise. And what research in women has shown is that a low to moderate intensity seems to work best for women, bodies and brain, especially from perimenopause onward. There's literally an inverted U shape between intensity and gains but no intensity no gains moderate intensity maximum gains very high intensity the gains go down yeah so you want to catch that specific i think the specific balance of intensity and gains that works for you.

Starting point is 00:10:25 And also I feel like there's so much guilt around not being able to perform as well as the latest celebrity on TV. I find that we have unrealistic expectations and that it's not about what other people are doing. It's really about what's the best that you can do. What is something that you actually enjoy doing yeah let's talk about having fun and not just doing things out of duty or because you have to i personally i love running and that makes me happy and so i do it but it doesn't mean that somebody else has to go running you know you can find something else that really works for you that is not too stressful I think there's plenty of research showing that doing the stairs is good

Starting point is 00:11:11 enough for your brain that going for a walk walking a little bit faster than just thrombing would be really it's just just really good for your brain so if you can push yourself harder by all means do it but if you can you can't, don't feel bad. Just really be proud of doing enough, of taking care of yourself and your body. Because really, your healthy midlife is the best predictor of your health for the rest of your life. This is the time to really start being consistent. And if you're past midlife, then you have to be more consistent. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:11:48 But it's the same strategies, the same process. It takes discipline to take care of our brains, but the benefits are for life. Really hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back next week with my long-form conversational Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.

Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #264 BITESIZE | How to Optimise Your Brain Health as You Age | Dr. Lisa Mosconi

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