Mark Bell's Power Project - You’re Quietly Increasing Your Risk of Alzheimer’s (It Starts Decades Before You Notice)

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

Alzheimer’s doesn’t start when symptoms show up—it starts decades earlier.In this episode, Max Lugavere breaks down how everyday habits are either protecting your brain… or slowly working against it. From body fat and muscle to sleep, diet, and activity levels, the biggest risk factors are often the most common behaviors.Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK/TRT/PEPTIDES! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com and use code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off Self-Service Labs and Guided Optimization®.🧠 Methylene Blue: Better Focus, Sleep and Mood 🧠 Use Code POWER10 for 10% off!➢https://troscriptions.com?utm_source=affiliate&ut-m_medium=podcast&ut-m_campaign=MarkBel-I_podcastBest 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ https://www.PowerProject.live➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject

The holy grail of Alzheimer's prevention is early detection. It's a condition that begins years, if not decades before the first symptom. Midlife obesity, midlife type 2 diabetes, midlife hypertension, are all related to increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. Body composition matters. And if you look at it from a public health standpoint, we're not doing too well. The cognitive reserve gives you more to lose before you lose it. If you're not really challenging your brain,

there's not going to be that impetus for your brain to create scaffolding around your pre-existing neural networks. Max Lugavir. You're looking pretty shredded over there. What's going on? Thanks, brother. I've been on a bit of a cut over the past couple months, and I feel great. I think I'm like probably around 10% body fat. Awesome.

And just trying to be more like you. Just trying to be like you, bro. Thanks, man. Yeah, no. I love the journey of like body composition, recomposition, and I've been into fitness my whole life. I wrote my high school senior thesis on creatine monohydrate, So this is a topic that I've been, you know, obsessively interested in for a very long time, or I should say passionate about it for a very long time.

And, yeah, and, you know, my body of work began with an investigation into the many factors that keep a brain healthy over time. But over the past couple of years, I would say specifically, I've done a deeper dive into the knobs and levers of changing body composition with a focus on fat loss and muscle growth. And yeah, it's been very rewarding. What kind of research is there around, you know, fat loss, fat accumulation and brain health? That's a great question. So the 2024 Lancet Commission on dementia prevention highlighted obesity and type 2 diabetes and hypertension as modifiable risk factors for dementia, which are obviously related to body composition.

And obesity is a big one. And these are all in midlife, by the way. So midlife obesity, midlife type 2 diabetes, midlife hypertension are all... 45 to 55 years old, somewhere in that range. Yeah, are all related to increased risk for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, which, you know, there's no going back from those conditions, unfortunately. And I say that as a person with a loved one that had the condition for many years. And so that's where I think that the science and, you know, the applied science of what you guys talk about all the time on this podcast are really relevant when it comes to brain health. And I think it goes above and beyond just staying active.

It goes above and beyond, you know, just a blanket recommendation, you know, the 150 minutes of exercise per week as recommended by the WHO. I think it's worth really doing an investigation into how to gain more muscle, gain more strength. lose body fat as you get older, especially in a time when by the year 2050, one and two adults in this country are going to be not just overweight but obese. Currently about 42% of the population is obese, which is like, that's a stark statistic. About two-thirds are either overweight or obese. But then if you look at other research, it posits that 70% of the adult population today is obese. So, you know, it depends on the definition. that you use to define obesity, but all that is to say is that body composition matters.

And if you look at a from a public health standpoint, we're not doing too well. And there's different types of fat though, right? There's visceral fat seems to be maybe more problematic in terms of like brain health, organ health, the health of the liver, the health of the heart and so on, right? Yeah, I mean, visceral fat is uniquely problematic. It's inflammatory. It wraps around your internal. organs. It is directly associated with, yeah, with all-cause mortality, with cardiovascular

disease. The brain relies on vascular health. The brain is a highly vascular organ. We know that, you know, oversized waste is a component of metabolic syndrome. So if you want to be metabolically healthy, it's worth it to, you know, reduce your visceral adiposity. And so, yeah, so it's a big problem. I mean, you know, many people today have that. apple-shaped body, which is definitely not something that you want to, that you want to maintain for too long. And unfortunately, many people are. So yeah, it's a problem. It promotes insulin resistance. I mean, these are all the things that you want to basically run in the opposite direction of if you want better brain health. We know there's, you know, tons of research on

exercising, you know, going to the gym and training and those kinds of things that are basically probably doing a lot of great things for brain health. And we'll dive into that maybe a little bit later, but has there been any sports? I know that sometimes they have related certain activities and sports to longevity. I think they, a while back I was hearing like the racket sports, tennis ball, racquet balls, things like that. These people had better chances like living a little bit longer. Is there any research in the area of Alzheimer's or dementia where people are playing tennis or volleyball or there's some sort of coordination that's necessary for some of these sports that's really carrying over and seeing people be able to avoid getting

Alzheimer's or dementia. Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, it's one thing to exercise regularly, to be in good cardio-resportory shape, to, you know, be strong in body and to have healthy skeletal muscle. But there is this other type of exercise. I actually had Tommy Wood recently on my podcast who's a PhD. And we talked about the value of skill-based training. So like, you know, forms of athleticism that are not just getting your heart rate up and that are not just providing stimulus to your musculature, but also require sort of like whole body coordination that seems to benefit the brain. And that's where I think some of these, you know, some of these sports may provide real value. I mean, I know that there is a line of research looking, you know, because

it's not like you can get somebody who's in advanced age to suddenly start playing volleyball, but there is a line of research suggesting that Tai Chi, which is a really gentle form of full body movement that has an exercise component to it, that that seems to play a protective therapeutic role, I think especially in the setting of Parkinsonism. So yeah, I mean, I definitely think, like, speculating, I think that there's probably lots of value to that. I know personally, you know, I've always been into like weightlifting. It's been my primary sport for the entirety of my life thus far.

But in 2020, I took up boxing. And boxing is not, I'm not going to make the claim that boxing is brain healthy because you do run the risk of getting hit in the head. I'm surprised you punched me on the way in. I was like, holy shit. Yeah, I actually, I quit because I did get hit in the head. And as a carrier with one copy of the APOE4 allele, it's not something that you want to be doing with, you know, too much regularity.

but I did notice that the cognitive demand was vastly superior, speaking, you know, purely from a cognitive standpoint with regards to boxing as it is, as it would be compared to just like. I feel like that's such an incredible input. You know, when a coach or somebody is giving you these cues on how to do these steps and how do these movements. It's insane. And you kind of keep messing them up. You're like, left, right, left.

And they're telling you, you know, left right, right. And you're doing left, right, left, left, left, left, left. And like, no, left, right, right. Yeah. And you keep kind of just, you screw it up a bunch of times, but then just something clicks. And you're like, oh, and it feels like I don't speak a second language, but I would imagine that that's what it would be like to be able to be able to speak multiple languages. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I think it just like greases the groove and it builds what's called the cognitive reserve.

So the cognitive reserve is basically, you know, they say that the more you have, the cognitive reserve gives you more to lose. before you lose it when it comes to your cognition. Oh, maybe so same thing with like being more jacked, right? You know? If you're more jacked and then you unfortunately run into some disease cancer or something like that, you might have a little bit more runway because you could afford to lose a little bit more muscle. Yeah, you're your skeletal muscle reserve.

It's a really great analogy. That's why you want to build that muscle bank, especially when you're in when you're in midlife because it becomes increasingly harder to do so as you get older. It's never impossible. You know, it's always, you're always. better, you know, getting started, but, you know, like earlier tends to be better. Getting ahead of these, you know, pathological processes tends to be, you know, a smarter approach typically. And so, yeah, with boxing and with other, you know, sorts of sports that require full body coordination. Also with,

you know, we were talking a little bit earlier about brain games and there's video games now. There's a line of research looking at how video games might be used to build a cognitive reserve. I know. GTA. GTA, yeah. There's a researcher named Adam Gazzali, who's long done, this kind of research. And so, yeah, the whole thinking is that you want to build your cognitive reserve. It's another reason why, you know, education is another modifiable risk factor. The more education you have, the more protected your brain seems to be from cognitive decline, particularly in early life. And so, so yeah, I mean, it makes perfect sense that that would be helpful. What's the fastest way? What would be the, what would be like the top three to five ways to

ensure that you're going to get Alzheimer's dementia? Wow. So I would say one is be sedentary. Like just sit on your butt all day long, never exercise. Don't get up off the couch. Just make that your way of life. Just sedentary behavior, doom scrolling Netflix. Set food close to you so you don't have to get up too many times. Keep your food close to you.

Phones close. Yeah, that's point one. Zero exercise. Just make sure that your muscles completely atrophy. Stay dehydrated a little bit. Yeah, some mild dehydration, total muscle atrophy, bone weakness. And by the way, I'm not trying to make a joke. of any of this. I just I just find this an interesting practice. It's an interesting practice of

it's a thought experiment. No, it's a valuable thought experiment. Yeah. So I mean, you want to, you basically want to encourage frailty in your body. So you want to sit as much as possible. You don't want to challenge your muscles. No, no axial loading, no loading on the bones. You want to make sure that your bones are weak and brittle. Crucial when it comes to developing, you know, to increasing your risk for Alzheimer's disease. From a dietary standpoint, so the second thing I would do is I would make sure that my diet is comprised primarily of ultra-processed foods. So skip the perimeter of the supermarket, shop primarily. It's hard for you to even work these things, huh?

It's a fun exercise because I'm reversing basically all the advice that I typically give. So skip the perimeter of the supermarket, bypass that completely. You want to shop primarily in the-seed oil-rich foods. Yeah, you want to prioritize refined, bleached, and deodorized seed oils, which we don't really actually know. That does from the standpoint of brain health, there's a great paper by Taha. The title of the paper is linoleic acid, good or bad for the brain. It espouses some very important questions with regards to what the overconsumption of these kinds of fats are doing to our brain health long term.

There's a lot of unanswered questions. I would say, you know, on that topic that there does seem to be with PUFAs in general, the polyunsaturated fatty acids. There just seem to be some oxidative stress. Those polyunsaturated fats are sensitive to heat. And it doesn't seem like they produce a lot of good results inside the body. No, I mean, and it's hard to find like good quality human data, but I think there's value in defaulting when these questions arise to the majors, not the minors. Like if you're avoiding ultra-processed foods, you're inevitably going to be avoiding seed oils.

If you're cooking at home more regularly, you're inevitably going to be reducing your exposure to seed oils. If you're prioritizing, you know, whole foods, like there are no seed oils in egg yolks. there are no seed oils and steak. So these are, this is like most of the arguments. Is that true? Because isn't there linoleic acid in eggs? Well,

there is linoleic acid in eggs. Yeah. But it's really small amount. I think you posted about it, didn't you? Yes, but also linoleic acid is an essential nutrient. So we tend to get consumed by minotia today on social media, which is not helpful.

And also, like, if you're 50 pounds overweight and you're worrying about whether your junk food has tallow versus seed oils in it, you're missing the point. Like, lose the 50 pounds. I'm eating casa chips. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like, yeah, I mean, I think it just gets really frustrating.

And then the noise and the debate is amplified by attention seekers on social media, and it's really problematic. All that being said, like we don't know the long-term consequences of over-consuming these novel oils and their impact on the brain. They do lower LDL cholesterol compared to saturated fat, compared to saturated fat. But on the other hand, any nutrient when over-consumed is going to do bad things. You over-consume fructose is going to do bad things. you overconsume glucose.

So why should linoleic acid be any different? We just don't know what that margin of safety is. But we are consuming more now than ever before in history. I mean, the bulk of our dietary fat today comes from plants, whereas historically it came from animals. And so we have to wonder, right? Like what's that? We know that it lowers LDL cholesterol, right?

But there's like a whole, there's a whole catalog of effects that it might have on the body outside of that, right? Which isn't to fearmonger. it's just to like pose what I think is an important question from the standpoint of brain health. So what happens first? Cognitive decline or disabilities of movement and mobility? That's a that's a good question. I mean primarily when it comes to neurodegenerative conditions, um, you generally will see cognitive decline first. Um, movement disorders like Parkinson's disease, the first symptoms are usually physical in nature. So Parkinson's,

disease is a movement disorder. Parkinson's disease will sometimes convert down the line to Parkinson's disease dementia, which is a cognitive challenge. But at least at the beginning, it's not a, you know, many people maintain their cognitive function for years despite having Parkinson's disease. There is a condition that's closely related to Parkinson's disease called Louis Body Dementia, which is what my mother had. And what differentiates that from Parkinson's disease is that that at the onset you get both the cognitive dysfunction as well as the movement symptoms but with Alzheimer's disease it's not typically it's not it's not a movement disorder so yeah the cognitive symptoms you'll see first typically what are some of the first signs like what

are some signs that somebody might have a little decline and is there anything they can do once there's a little bit of decline yeah so I mean generally you know if you're concerned that you're that you're more forgetful than normal. I mean, I think it's worth pointing out that there is a degree of forgetfulness that's completely normal and that tends to increase with age. Where you really ought to seek the advice of a professional, of a neurologist, is if somebody else in your life notices that you're more forgetful than... You have behavior that maybe is a little different too. Yeah, if your behavior has changed, if there's a shift generally. Now, there are some medical conditions. There could be, you know, stress can lead to an increase in forgetfulness.

There, it doesn't necessarily mean that you've got a disease process underlying that change. But especially if somebody else has sort of flagged it to you as a concern, then you should consider going to see a neurologist for sure. What about, uh, just like bad thoughts, you know, like, uh, I'm sitting here. I'm talking to you and I forget something. I'm like, man, I'm just getting old, you know. I think I got dementia, you know, and I maybe I'm joking, you know, but I do say it, you know, let's just hypothetically say, I say it a lot, you know.

Well, what are your thoughts on that? I mean, there's probably not a lot of research in that particular instance or that particular case. But I think we end up becoming, we end up becoming our thoughts. I think that the body starts to recognize that there's some truth to what you're saying about yourself. Yeah. Well, I mean, again, you know, the idea, if there's something on the tip of your tongue and it escapes you. I mean, that's, that's normal, especially today when we're just inundated with distraction. Like, there is a degree of normalcy there. If there's a change, like if you notice a

dramatic change in your thinking, or if, again, if somebody else does, I think that's when it's worth it to, you know, to find somebody who can help. There is a test that you can do at home. It's called the Sage test, if I recall correctly. It was devised at either Penn State or you pen. I forget exactly which. But it's basically a test that's a, it's a version of the mini mental status exam that you can do at home, which has a number of cognitive tests as well as a clock that you can draw. And it's not meant to be graded by you, but it's meant to be brought into your primary care provider to then, for them to then use as a baseline so that they can measure so they can assess your cognition over time. Because that's really the longitudinal data is what's most important. Has your

cognition changed? But if you're, you know, some people are just naturally more forgetful. Like I'm forgetful when it comes to, I mean, I'm forgetful about a lot of things outside of my, outside of the domain of my passions. Like I've got a photographic memory for nutrition and, you know, and the studies that I'm reading. Things you really enjoy. The things that I really enjoy. I'm like incredibly forgetful when it comes to like world history or like even sports. Like, I can't tell you how many times I've had friends or family members explain the rules of football to me. You know, every Super Bowl, like once a year. And then, And it's just like in one ear out the other.

Like I just forget. I'm just not interested. It's interested. So we have to give ourselves grace and realize that like not every time we forget something is that the sign of an underlying disease process. What about? I'm sure they're probably just general healthy practices. It's nice to have things to do.

It's nice to have things to look forward to. How important are, you know, I don't know, doing puzzles, reading, just maybe various things that people might have as like a little side hobby type thing. Yeah, reading super important, staying engaged, staying socially engaged is crucially important. I would say even more so probably than brain games and all that. But the general thinking is that the more you're, the more you can engage in activities that draw on a broad array of cognitive processes, the more likely that effort is going to have a is then going to spill over into other areas of your life. So for example, like doing Sudoku, the thinking generally is that regularly doing Sudoku, it's better than nothing, but you're just generally going to get better at doing Sudoku. Like there's a practice effect that occurs.

Whereas, you know, really robust VR video games, there's like studies now showing that the more these video games can actually mimic the broad array of cognitive demands that navigating real life does, the more that what you'd, Practice in the video game is gonna have a spillover effect and boost other areas of your of your life. So I would say that like whether we're talking brain games crossword puzzles Sudoku video games like knitting like things that you know the person might get into. Yeah like better than nothing but the but you want them to be You want them to be challenging similarly to like when you go to the gym you know like if you're just going in there and you're throwing around a bunch of weights you're moving your body. Yeah, it's like better than nothing but are you actually challenging your muscles like are you actually taking your sets to or close to failure? Because that's what provides a stimulus to tell your muscles to adapt or die, essentially, right? Well, I don't think it's all that dissimilar when it comes to, like, cognitive processes. Like, if you're not really challenging your brain, there's not going to be that impetus for your brain to create and bolster, right, to, like, create scaffolding around your preexisting neural networks. Whereas, like, learning a musical instrument, well, that's, like, really difficult.

Learning a new language, maybe learning to sing. like those are like way more challenging and the odds are I think going to be way higher that that the effort that you put in there the growth that you achieve there is going to then have a spillover effect into other areas of life have you seen anything be effective once somebody is diagnosed with Alzheimer's or dementia like what what should a loved one do what should other people around around that person maybe they should you know how can they assist them or help them ketogenic diet or ketones or supplements or yeah it's tricky um You know, we need a lot more research on the ketogenic diet,

but there is a signal that ketogenic therapies, the ketogenic diet may modestly help in the setting of Alzheimer's disease. It's not a cure, but... Might slow down the progression. You know, it might not... It may slow down the progression. I don't think that we have solid evidence to say that yet. I would say exercise, there's like way more robust data on that.

But the ketogenic diet, the reason why the ketogenic diet is thought to work to the... extent that it does anything is that it's been used for a century for epilepsy. And we know a thing or two about how the ketogenic diet modulates the neurochemistry of the brain. In the setting of Alzheimer's disease, there's an energetic crisis. So a brain with Alzheimer's disease struggles to create energy from glucose, which is its primary under the, under fed conditions, its primary energy substrate. The ketogenic diet basically provides ketones to the brain, which allow the brain, the brain to keep the lights on, so to speak.

When it's struggling to create energy from glucose, its ability to generate energy from ketones is unperturbed. So there have been some studies, particularly when, you know, earlier in the condition, like in the earlier stages, that ketones can lead to a modest improvement in daily functioning. But it's a really hard diet to adhere to for anybody, let alone somebody who has Alzheimer's disease.

Also, Alzheimer's disease tends to increase cravings for sweet foods. probably because the brain is like crying out for sugar because it can't access the sugar that's there. And so, you know, that can be challenging. There are obviously now ketogenic products on the market. You have ketone salts. You have MCT oil. You have MCT powder. You have there's even an FDA approved medical food called axona, which is like an MCT-based product.

And so it stands to reason that that might be helpful. But we don't know. We don't have like solid evidence to to say that. There is research now looking at creatine, which I think is super exciting. They found that in this pilot study that was performed and published just a couple months ago, that high dose of creatine, 20 grams a day in this patient population, led to a significant improvement in cognition across every domain that was measured. Now, there are some important caveats.

There was no placebo group. The dose was very high, although there were no adverse effects. We don't know if a lower dose would be sufficient. And it wasn't in patients with Alzheimer's. They had Alzheimer's. Oh, they had Alzheimer's. Yeah, they had Alzheimer's. So creatine in patients with Alzheimer's seemed in this pilot study to be safe.

We need more research to say, for sure, you know, what stages of Alzheimer's disease are going to be the most responsive. If there is, if the improvement is still shown when compared to placebo, because there was, again, there was no placebo group. But, you know, creatine's obviously, it's got a robust safety record and people have been using it for a long time now at this point. And yeah, so that led, that made me optimistic. There's also, you know, there's some data looking at B vitamins. Like B vitamins can be really, I think, useful for the right patient. People who are, you know, getting adequate omega-3 fatty acids who have elevated homocysteine with mild. cognitive impairment, they've shown that a B complex slowed the rate of atrophy of the brain.

So in Alzheimer's disease, there's global brain atrophy that occurs, unfortunately. And at least in patients that had not yet converted to Alzheimer's disease, they found that a B complex, including folate, B12, and vitamin B6, led to a reduced rate of atrophy. If their homocysteine levels were high and if they were, you know, replete with omega-3 fatty acids. This was the Vitacog trial, which is a really important trial in the, you know, in the Alzheimer's prevention space. So, you know, I don't think that that, that it's necessarily hopeless once you have, you know, that diagnosis. Nobody's unfortunately ever recovered from Alzheimer's disease. It's still a very sad condition. I want to be clear about that. But I think that

there are tools now in the toolkit that might potentially help slow the rate of progression. So it just seems like something we have to really work hard. It's just make sure that we never get. Yeah, prevention. I mean, because it's a condition that begins years, if not decades before the first symptom. And we don't yet know, like the holy grail of Alzheimer's prevention is early detection. It's being able to identify who is going to develop it and who's protected from it. Yeah, what was the gene that you said you had? The APOE for allele. Yeah, about one and four people carry it. It's just a test, a blood test. Yeah, this is a genetic test. Like, you know, any doctor. can run it 23 me if that's still around.

Is that, I mean, when you found that news out, where you, is that, that sounds pretty scary. I mean, I was not scared. Based on my read of the literature, genes are not destiny. It's not a deterministic gene. It's a gene that increases risk in the context of the standard American diet and lifestyle.

But it's, you know, it's a gene that can be modified. Its influence can be modified. So if you eat a diet, like what I described in my book, Genius Foods, the mind diet, the dash diet, the Mediterranean dietary pattern. These are all wonderful dietary patterns that will go a long way towards reducing your risk.

I first started hearing about transcriptions from Thomas to Lauer. And, you know, Thomas is somebody that's an animal with working out. You got a chance to work out with him. I worked out with him. And he's kind of always on the front lines of like, you know, finding out about these new companies that have cool things. But I didn't really realize that transcriptions was the first company to put out Methylene Blue. Now look at Methylene Blue. It's so popular. It's everywhere. It's one of those things. If you guys listen to this podcast, you know, I'm very iffy with the supplements that I take. Because there's a lot of shady stuff out there. You've got to be careful. The great thing about transcriptions is that when people want to get methylene Blue, usually they'll go on Amazon, they're going on with these other sites. It's not third-party testing. It's not dosed. A lot of people end up with toxicity from the blue that they get because there's no testing of it. Transcriptions, they have third-party testing for their products.

It's dose so you know easily what exact dose of methylene blue you're getting in each troki. So you're not making some type of mistake. There's not going to be anything in it. It's safe. You can have it dissolve and you can turn your whole world blue if you want or you can just swallow it. They have two different types of methylene blue. They have one that is, I believe, dose at 16 milligrams. And they have another one that's dosed at 50 milligrams.

So make sure you check the milligrams. I don't recommend anybody start at 50 milligrams. But the 16, I feel is very safe. You can also score the trokeys and you can break them up into smaller bits. Yeah, so I do. And in addition to that, on top of the methylene blue, they have a lot of other great products of stuff as well. They got stuff for sleep. They got stuff for calming down, all kinds of things.

I got to say, I use it about two or three times a week. I use it before Jiu-Jitsu. And the cool thing that I've noticed, and I've paid attention to this over the past few months, is that after sessions, I don't feel as tired. So it's almost like I've become more efficient with me. my, with just the way I use my body in these hard sessions of grappling. And it's like, cool, that means that, I mean, I could go for longer if I wanted to and my recovery is better affected. It's pretty great. I know Dr. Scott, sure, we had him on the podcast and he talked

quite a bit about how he recommends methylene blue to a lot of the athletes that he works with. Yeah. And they're seeing some profound impacts. And one of the things I've heard about it is that it can enhance red light. So those are you doing red light therapy or those of you that have some opportunities to get out into some good sunlight, it might be a good idea to try some methylene blue before you go out on your walk or run outside or whatever activity is that you're going to do outside. And this stuff is great, but please, like first off, they have stuff for staying calm, they have stuff for sleep. But remember, this stuff isn't a substitution for sleep. This isn't a substitution for taking care of nutrition. This is supposed to be an add-on to all

the things that we already should be doing, and it's going to make things so much better if you're doing everything else too. I think this is just a little different, too, than just adding some magnesium to your diet. I think this is a little different than, you know, treat these things appropriately. Make sure you do some of your own research, but. Oh, if you're taking medications. It's SSRIs, you better talk to your doctor first. Don't, don't be popping these things.

And if you're taking any medications at all, it would be good to double triple, quadruple check and make sure that you're safe. Transcriptions has a lot of great things that you need. So go and check out their website when you have the opportunity. Strength is never weakness, weakness, weakness. Catch you guys later. if you exercise regularly, if you expose, if you reduce your exposure to air pollution, if you stay socially connected, if you tend to your mental health, right?

Because depression in midlife is a risk factor. If you protect your vision, if you protect your hearing, if you make sure that you're not hypertensive, you want to make sure that you don't have high blood pressure. You're not, as we talked about earlier, you're not obese. You're not a type two diabetic. I mean, these are all ways to really significantly batten down the hatches. All that being said, you know, you can still do everything, quote, quote, right and still be diagnosed. We don't have all the answers, but we do have a roadmap.

Like we, we, we, we, we know, if you have this in your family tree, it should be even more impetus. It should be, you know, you should feel an even stronger call to action to implement these, these interventions. Do you feel like we have to figure out ways to utilize the energy that we're consuming, you know, for the, especially for those that are like, they're just like maybe a little 50-50 on their diet. They're not in the 80-20 space yet. They're not in a 90-10 space. They're 50-50, like 50% of the time. They make halfway decent choice and they're trying their best.

But shit, at least they exercise. Exercise. What's some of the information on exercise? How much has it been able to help? Yeah. I mean, well, that's where I think it's really valuable to connect the dots between like, you know, bodybuilding and fitness and everything that you talk about on your podcast.

that I strive to talk about on mine. Like, you know, that connection hasn't yet been made directly to the Alzheimer's space because science loves its silos. But we are starting to get a really powerful signal that muscle strength, leg strength, I mean, grip strength, these are all really powerful surrogate indicators for metabolic health, for vigor. And on the other side of the coin, you see frailty. sarcopenic obesity, you know. These are phenotypes that are, I think, closely related to

heightened risk for Alzheimer's disease. And so how do you fight that off? Well, you adopt the principles that we all talk about regularly in this space, right? You want to continually challenge your muscles. You want to be strong in body. You want to prioritize protein. Like nobody in the Alzheimer's space is really talking about dietary protein. I mean, there's now starting to be growing literature connecting protein intake, animal protein intake, for example, and a slowed rate of atrophy of the hippocampus, which is a study that was published just a couple months ago. But that's where you have to connect the dots. So, I mean, we know that prioritizing protein supports skeletal muscle.

So it stands to reason that by prioritizing protein, which is going to, right, like it's going to give you a greater sense of satiety. it's going to directly support, you know, muscle preservation as you get older. Like that is directly related to, it's not indirect. It's like no longer indirect. Like that's directly related to better brain health as we age. And so, yeah, and so far as like exercise is concerned, you want to make sure that you're regularly challenging your muscles. Like adopt a bodybuilding routine.

Why not? I mean, success leaves clues. Bodybuilders are, you know, I'm not going to say that it's an endeavor that's purely focused on health. It can be pretty unhealthy at times. But nonetheless, like bodybuilders have figured out how to support skeletal muscle, how to optimize around hypertrophy, how to optimize around strength. And so, yeah, I mean, there's definitely a lot of clues to be borrowed.

Is there a population that you don't see Alzheimer's and dementia hitting? Like, is there, you know, I believe there's some polymorphisms in certain, individuals and they are fairly resistant or maybe completely resistant to cancer, heart disease, things of that nature. Have we seen anything like that with dementias or parts of the world where you're like, that's odd? It does barely exist in this country. Yeah. So, I mean, there is the concept of polygenic risk where, you know, where we, there are so many more unanswered questions and there are answers.

But, but yeah, there are, there are possibly some genes that might cancel. out, you know, the APOE4 allele. We don't yet have that level of granularity when it comes to the human genome. But there are certainly parts of the world where the APOE4 allele, you see the same frequency of it, you know, in those parts of the world, as you would see here. And yet in those parts of the world, like in Ibidon, Nigeria, where the food supply is way less industrialized, you see that that gene has, you know, significantly attenuated impact on disease risk as compared to here. You see people, you know, for example, like, it's been a minute since I've reviewed this literature, but like, you know, Japanese nationals who would otherwise be at low risk for Alzheimer's

disease move to the United States and their risk shoots through the roof. whereas over there they might see higher risk for vascular dementia. Here you see higher prevalence among Japanese Americans for Alzheimer's disease. Don't quote me on that, but I think, you know, generally what we see is that, you know, when people of different ethnic backgrounds with different genotypes, you know, move to different parts of the world, like genes increase risk, but context is everything. Like there's a saying, you know, this, I said, this in my first book, like genes aren't destiny, but they do decide what the standard

American diet will do to you. So whatever your genetic, whatever that weak link is for you in your genes, whether it's type 2 diabetes, whether it's obesity, whether it's cardiovascular disease, I mean, the standard American diet is what is essentially pulling the trigger on, on that condition. You want to basically avoid the standard American diet. You want to avoid the standard American lifestyle. And you know, a lot of the kinds of chronic conditions that we see saddling society with today will, you know, you'll see your risk diminished. And it's not just Alzheimer's disease. It's cardiovascular disease. It's cancer as well. How is the sun play into this? You know, does it play into this at all? Like people not getting enough sunlight or you just think

like not getting enough sunlight is a little bit more of just a general health practice. That's just good for all of us to do. Yeah. I'm not familiar with any research linking sun exposure directly to, you know, reduce risk for Alzheimer's disease. But we do know that vitamin D is really important for brain health. I know that there was at least one paper that linked low vitamin D levels to increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. I believe it was like 20% of cases. This was just one paper, you know.

So take it with a grain of salt. But vitamin D is crucially important. I mean, 5% of the human genome is responsive to vitamin D status. which is a hormone, of course, in the body. And so I think the sun is really important from that standpoint. And the sun is also really important from the standpoint of helping to maintain healthy blood pressure. So as I mentioned, hypertension is a modifiable risk factor in midlife for Alzheimer's disease.

And when you expose your skin to the sun, you're creating nitric oxide under the skin, which helps to boost blood flow throughout the body, helps to normalize blood pressure. You don't want to burn, obviously, like the sun can do damage. If you've got a fair complexion, like if your ancestry is from northern Europe, for example, and you live in Las Vegas and you're spending excessive time in the sun in the summer there, like that's obviously like, don't be stupid. But yeah, no, the sun, there is some data linking like sun exposure to reduce risk of stroke of, you know, cardiovascular disease. And I think it probably has to do with the fact that the sun is good for good when it comes to, like, maintaining healthy blood pressure, which the brain is really important from the standpoint of the brain. So sleep's got to be a big one. Sleep is huge.

Because aren't we kind of clearing, you know, some of my understand they were kind of clearing out this gunk or this junk out of our brain when we're sleeping? Yeah. There was actually a paper. It just came out. Finding evidence of the glymphatic system at work in humans. So the glymphatic system, since it was discovered, I mean, we saw in humans the ducks, the channels that allow the...

these processes to work and we saw it in action in animal models. But now we know in humans that the glymphatic system is hard at work when we sleep, flushing out these proteins that might otherwise aggregate and become the insoluble plaques that we associate with Alzheimer's disease. So like amyloid beta, tau protein, basically how it works is when we sleep, cerebral spinal fluid swooshes through the brain and clears out these proteins and then washes them into cerebral spinal fluid, which then are flushed out into the blood and then dealt with, excreted, processed, what have you. And yeah, so it's crucially important to get adequate sleep every night. Sleep, we want to make sure that our sleep duration is good, sleep quality. And also,

this is also where exercise plays an important role, and even sun plays an important role, because a healthy cardiovascular system is really important when it comes to optimal glymphatic function. This paper pointed to the fact that, you know, this is a vascular process. Like we require healthy blood vessels to facilitate this glymphatic flow. So you want to make sure that you're in good, good cardiorespiratory shape. And even exercise during your waking hours also helps to support the flushing of these proteins. So staying active, keeping your body moving, crucially important from the standpoint of the brain. And sleep is, yeah, really important. I mean, it's good from a mental health standpoint, crucially important from a mental

health standpoint, there are indirect ways in which sleep rewards the brain. Like when we under sleep, there are now meta-analyses that show we tend to consume about 400 additional calories the next day when we're underslept. Like that can predispose you in and of itself to obesity, right? If you're chronically underslept, you can imagine how consuming 400 additional calories that you didn't need to consume every single day can lead over time to, that can cause a person to drift into obesity, right? That's a modifiable risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. So you just want to make sure that you're, yeah, catering to the needs of your body and brain. I mean, sleep is, there's, you know, it's not a mistake on the part of evolution that.

We spend a third of our lives sleeping. Like, it's very important from the standpoint of the brain and the body. Yeah, I think unfortunately, you know, in today's day, I don't think people are sleeping. No. And not sleeping nearly as much as they need or not sleeping, maybe just, maybe just not even just going to bed early enough. No, I mean, I struggle with it. You know, sometimes I go to bed late.

I can be a bit of a bit of a night owl. So it's not about perfection. And one poor night of sleep, like, isn't going to affect you in any one way. The same way that one, you know, suboptimal meal isn't going to change your body composition in any meaningful way. But it's about the pattern. It's about like, you know, over the course of the year. Like how many nights have you had getting good quality, sufficient duration, sufficient quality sleep? like half the year, three quarters of the year, or one quarter of the year.

So I think it's worth it to do an inventory. And that's where I think like the value of like sleep trackers come into play. Because just like stepping on a scale, like one night doesn't really matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. But some of these sleep trackers allow you to zoom out and see patterns like over a week, a month, a year. And that's where the needle really starts to move on health outcomes. I've been to your house before and I've seen you got you know you got to set up like me you got like supplements kind of all over the place scattered scattered throughout what's your like supplement stack look like and are you the kind of person that has like a stack for this

stack for that stack for this like I'm about to go to a workout so I'm going to have this and I'm about to go to sleep so I'm going to have that oh I just woke up I'm going to have this or are you like a little different than that yeah no I'm not a biohager but I don't take a kitchen sink approach to my supplementation regimen. I think that that's, you know, there's a lot of snake oil out there. I try to, you know, major in the majors. So for me, it tends to be the basics. I take creatine.

I utilize protein powder fairly regularly. I take an omega-3 fatty acid supplement every day. I take astazanthin, which I'm a huge fan of, which is the pigment in wild salmon that give it its characteristics. red color. It's a very powerful antioxidant. Great for skin, eyes, brain. I really do think that it's one of the more solid evidence-based quote-unquote longevity nutrients that one can take.

And that's pretty, those are the only magnesium. I take magnesium because it helps ward off migraines. I sometimes get migraines. Not often, though. I mean... And you have a diet where you're kind of pulling from a variety of foods. Yeah, I mean, I eat a very nutrient. dense diet. Like I practice what I preach. So I, I've coined the genius terms, the genius foods to describe the foods that I think provide the best bang for your buck. That's not just what I think. These are the foods that tend to always make it to the top of nutrient density. Indicators and

indices. And, you know, so red meat, wild fatty fish, dark leafy greens, berries, avocados, dark chocolate, nuts and seeds. I mean, these make up the foundation. of my diet. Extra virgin olive oil, although, you know, I use it very sparingly these days because I've kind of modified my position on added fats.

I think that you're generally better off getting your fat from whole foods. And I know we agree on that. Yeah. 100%. I just have always said, like, I don't understand what people are using oil for.

Yeah. Like what do you don't really, I guess I can understand, you know, greasing the pan a tiny bit for whatever food that might stick or to enhance flavor a little bit. Maybe you throw some

potatoes in your air fry. And yeah, they taste better with a little bit of olive oil on them and then you throw some salt on them and they're perfect. Yeah. But this is kind of small amounts. Yeah, 100%. I now use an extra virgin olive oil spray that has no propellants in it. And one of the coolest things that I figured out recently is you can basically put your spray on a digital food scale and zero it out and you can spray it and you can see exactly how many grams of the fat you've used from the spray. Yeah, it's a pretty cool. That's a good hack. It's a really good hack. Because usually it's like people think like a wild card? Well, it's not. You can just like put it on the scale, zero it out. Yeah. And if you've sprayed, which is by the way a long spray, like to get it to negative three after you've done that, that's like a multi-second spray. Who's doing that?

But that's just three. What about the calories that you burned, you know, doing that activity of the spray? You know, probably might be one one hundredth of a calorie. Yeah. You never know. But if it if you if it drops in weight by three grams, that's three grams. of extra virgin olive oil, that's like three grams of fat. Conversely, try eyeballing, you know, pouring your extra virgin olive oil, like into the bowl or into the whatever, it's a way bigger wildcard. And chances are you're pouring in a lot more calories. It's like way less efficient, you know, in doing that. So very useful hack. And, and yeah, so I do, I think extra virgin olive oil is the best oil. Like, if we're going to talk about any added oil, the seed oil conversation is irrelevant. Like extra virgin olive oil is, there's so much evidence in favor of it. It's,

the hallmark oil of the Mediterranean dietary pattern. There is no long-lived population for whom seed oils make up a large proportion of their diets. But there are long-lived populations who use extra virgin olive oil regularly. And so if you're- I love olives too. Yeah, and olives are great. So, yeah, so that, I mean, that's the staple oil for me. And yeah, so that's pretty much it.

So by sticking to those foods, like, I don't really need that much in the way of supplements. It's like I prioritize protein. I eat a very nutrient-dense diet. And yeah, and, you know, all that stuff, it goes a long way. What's next? What's next? What's coming up for you? I know you got your podcast and...

Yeah, I've got my podcast, The Genius Life. We try to be as rigorous as possible while still being fun, entertaining, and, you know, not long-winded. And we don't try to beat our audience over the head with endless caveats and preambles. So yeah, I have a good time over there. But no, I'm just, I'm kind of really enjoying like this fat loss journey that I've been on and learning more about that. I love seeing you on Joe Rogan, by the way. I was so pumped because I'm like, to me, your story is amazing. You know, what happened to your mother is a very big tragedy.

But the fact that you kind of turned into a superhero, being able to explain this information and get this information out to people, I think is awesome. Because to me, you sound like a well-research scientist. and I guess that's what you've turned into, but you're not officially. No, I'm not. You're not a doctor or PhD or anything like that. And I don't play one on TV. I never misrepresent myself. I'm just somebody who, you know, I think we all, I think we're all worse off for having

outsourced so much, so many different types of literacy today, whether it's financial literacy, whether it's health literacy. There's this illusion of expertise when it comes to how to feed ourselves. And I think that's propped up by, I mean, just, propped up, of course, by people online who are selling courses and books and whatnot, but it's also propped up by, you know, by academia, that there's this sort of like gatekeeping to knowledge and to information. And we live in a time now where knowledge, I think, should be free. And, and people should be curious about their health. And so, yeah, so I try to be as rigorous as possible in my research,

despite my non-academic background. But also, like, you know, I don't, I think that our space is riddled with like people that are, I don't know, that don't necessarily have like the best intentions for their audiences. You know, they might seem rigorous. They might seem well-intentioned, but today attention is currency. And so, you know, whether it's like three-hour podcasts or whatever, it's like, I try to be as like transparent and as upfront with my audience as I can be. And I think they appreciate it. So I'm grateful. Anything going on with these peptides in terms of Alzheimer's dementia? The only peptides of note that I think are worth looking into are the GLP1 drugs.

Like I'm not, I always take a food focused approach, but we know that these drugs are seemingly reducing risk for like a whole host of negative health outcomes because, you know, obesity is just so, can be so disastrous to the body, as can type 2 diabetes. These drugs treat both. So, you know, as I mentioned, type 2 diabetes is a modifiable risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. Having type 2 diabetes, you know, increases your risk between 2 and 4fold. So, and similarly with obesity, like if these drugs push you to a normal healthy body weight, if then that's going to do wonders for your long term. Yeah, for your long-term brain health outcome. And so we're now seeing a signal.

I think there's a peptide called salink. I don't know if you've heard of that one. Not familiar. And there's another one. They're supposed to be amazing for brain health, but I have no idea what the connection to something like Alzheimer's or dementia would be. No, I'd be super cautious. I mean, I've dabbled with some of them,

but I've done it at my own risk and knowing that there's not a ton of human data and a ton of human, a ton of hype. So, you know, proceed with caution, I would say, with people, you know, utilizing peptides. That being said, like there are lots of apps. anecdotes like online of people deriving real value from them. I just don't like recommend them.

And, you know, the GLP-1 drugs, like some of glutide, for example, trizapitide, they're peptides. So, and there's tons of now research going into those. So like safety, you know, safety data. Yeah, maybe pump the brakes a little bit on some of the new stuff that's out. We don't really know 100% just yet. I want to learn more about these various peptides because I've been hearing that like everybody is pretty much like all the bodybuilders now are like taking trizepid or whatever it's

called i don't even know red at a true tide red a true tide is a red at a true tide is a big one there's um there's a lot of there's a lot of different peptides obviously have like the bpc 157 and the tv 500 people think that you know for those peptides are really like regenerative um but it's more it's more like injury based you know someone pulls a muscle or something and somebody i've been hearing about the glow peptide what the hell yeah the glow uh is she copper no It's a combination of the copper peptide mixed with TB 500 and BPC 157. Copper peptide, interestingly enough, the shot hurts. So it's kind of annoying.

You have people like, I'm trying to get rid of my wrinkles and they take a shot. You know, usually people just take a shot just subcontaneous in their stomach. Is it worth the pains? Like, I don't think so. I think just showing your age is fine and working on the things you can control and trying to keep the wrinkles and keep the oldness at bay. Yeah, for as long as possible. Yeah, for as long as possible.

But I don't really think the, if the answer is in a bottle, there's a cost down the road. But one of my friends have said this very well, Andy Triana. He said, you're borrowing from tomorrow. As long as you understand, as long as you understand the cup of coffee, you're borrowing energy from later on in the day might be totally fine. That might be totally acceptable for you to do.

How much does someone want to borrow from tomorrow, whether it be performance-enhancing drugs or human growth hormone or whatever the various things that somebody might want to try to dabble in for whatever desired result they want, it's just really great if they know the ramifications of saying, hey, that might be borrowing a lot.

Yeah. From tomorrow and you might not think that you care right now, but what about, you know, what about your newborn child, you know, you're going to want to see their grandkids, you know, you want to have a grandkid someday or something like that, you know. Amen, yeah, be careful out there, kids. Super important stuff. Where can people find it? Where can I find out more about you?

Thank you, Mark Bell. So, yeah, I'm active on Instagram at Max Lugavir, also active on X. and then I host my own podcast called The Genius Life. So come say hi. Is that a real name, Max Lugavir? Yeah. I mean, it's not traceable. Like, it was probably like altered at Ellis Island at some point.

Because I'm multi-generational like New York. But it's cool. Whoever came up with it. Whoever came up with it. Yeah, somebody did. I don't know who. Somebody did a great job with your branding. Yeah, it's above my pay grade.

But no, it's my real last name. I'm the only Max Lugivir on planet Earth. I know that. So strength is never weakness weakness weakness never strength catch you guys later bye