The One You Feed - Lisa Mosconi on Eating for Brain Health

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

Lisa Mosconi holds a PhD degree in Neuroscience and Nuclear Medicine and is a certified Integrative Nutritionist and holistic healthcare practitioner. At Weil Cornel Medical College in New York, she is the Director of the Women’s Brain Initiative in the Department of Neurology, Associate Director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic, and Associate Professor of Neuroscience in Neurology and Radiology. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers in prestigious medical journals and is the author of 2 books, both of which she and Eric discuss in this episode: Brain Food: The Surprising Science of Eating for Cognitive Power and The XX Brain: The Groundbreaking Science Empowering Women To Maximize Cognitive Health and Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease.Spiritual Habits Group Program - Find Solid Ground In Shaky Times:Join Eric in this virtual, live group program to learn powerful Spiritual Habits to help you access your own deep wisdom and calm steadiness - even when the world feels upside down. Click here to learn more and sign up. Enrollment is open now through Sunday, July 19th, 2020Need help with completing your goals in 2020? The One You Feed Transformation Program can help you accomplish your goals this year.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!In This Interview, Lisa Mosconi and I Discuss the Eating for Brain Health and…Her books, Brain Food: The Surprising Science of Eating for Cognitive Power and The XX Brain: The Groundbreaking Science Empowering Women To Maximize Cognitive Health and Prevent Alzheimer’s DiseaseHow the foods we eat contribute to our brain healthNeuronutrition: the science of how to nourish our brain via the foods we eatHow in our health, genes load the gun but lifestyle pulls the triggerFoods you eat have an almost immediate impact on the health and function of your brainThe damage that results to your brain from eating a Western dietThe brain health benefits of a Mediterranean dietThe importance of drinking water – especially to support your brainThat the human brain is 80% water and therefore is very sensitive to dehydrationThe most important foods and nutrients for brain healthThe beneficial role in the brain of Omega 3 fatty acids in addition to antioxidantsNutritional benefit of whole foods vs supplementsDetrimental nature of regular consumption of processed foodThat health should not be a privilege of the wealthyThe energy production and protective roles of estrogen in the brainThe unique properties of women’s health and women’s brainsHow to reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia through the foods you eatWhat women can do to support their brains  The detrimental nature of chronic stress on women’s brainsLisa Mosconi Links:lisamosconi.comTwitterInstagramSeed: Scientifically validated, next-generation probiotics. Their mission: to bring much-needed precision, efficacy, and education to the global probiotics market. Go to www.seed.com/wolf or use promo code WOLF for 15% off your first month of The Daily Symbiotic.Talkspace: the online therapy company that lets you connect with a licensed therapist from anywhere at any time. Therapy on demand. Non-judgemental, practical help when you need it at a fraction of the cost of traditional therapy. Visit www.talkspace.com and enter Promo Code: WOLF to get $100 off your first month.Grammarly: The digital writing tool that you can rely on to get your message across clearly, effectively, and correctly. It works where you work: in Gmail, Google Docs, Slack and many other platforms. Get 20% off Grammarly Premium when you sign up at www.grammarly.com/feedIf you enjoyed this conversation with Lisa Mosconi on Eating for Brain Health, you might also enjoy these other episodes:Lisa Feldman BarrettFlorence WilliamsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the chaos of your day-to-day life, do you feel like you lose touch with the deeper and wiser part of yourself? If you feel like you have knowledge about spiritual ideas but struggle to consistently apply this knowledge to your life, you're not alone. And that's exactly what spiritual habits can help you to do. Spiritual habits combine the science of behavior change with the wisdom of spiritual principles so that you feel calmer, more at ease, and more fulfilled. When you are actually living out the wisdom that you value, change happens in yourself and in the world around you. I've spent a lot of time contemplating whether or not to offer the Spiritual Habits group program right now in the midst of all that's going

on in the world. And what I've come to realize is that now is the exact time when we need Spiritual Habits. Knowing what matters to us and having the tools and practices to connect back into those deeper truths, especially when the world is full of chaos and distress, that is how we move forward with strength, clarity, and compassion. That is how we move forward with strength, clarity, and compassion. So I'm excited to announce that the doors are now open for enrollment in a special group edition of the Spiritual Habits program. You can go to group.spiritualhabits.net to learn all about it. I've priced this program to make it accessible to as many people as possible. Again, that's group.spiritualhabits.net or click on the link in the show notes and I

hope to see you there. Health should not be a privilege of the wealthy, but it is. It's deeply unfair, especially because we know of all the negative effects that these foods can have on our health. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do.

We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast

is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Lisa Moscone. Lisa is a PhD in neuroscience and nuclear medicine and is a certified integrative

nutritionist and holistic healthcare practitioner. At Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, she is both the director of the Women's Brain Initiative in the Department of Neurology and associate professor of neuroscience and neurology and radiology. She's also the author of countless medical journal papers and books. Today, Lisa and Eric discuss her book, The XX Brain, the groundbreaking science empowering women to maximize cognitive health and prevent Alzheimer's disease. Hi Lisa, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I am really happy to have you on.

You are a real expert in how to eat in such a way and other ways of taking care of our brain. And we're going to get into all those details in a moment, but let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter and she says, In life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second. She looks up at her grandmother.

She says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. It really means a lot, actually. It's such a good story. And I have a similar version that I tell my daughter. I have a little girl who's four and a half, and I think there's an Italian version of that story about the wolves and that you really have to make choices all the time and that the choices you make and the language you use in your mind really shapes who you are and your future and in good part your health as well. And so it's really important to always ask yourself, well, what should I do here?

What kind of choices will really make me be the best version of myself that I can possibly be? And that's how you nourish yourself in so many ways, including a spiritual way that I think is really important. Yeah, I love that. And you reference sort of our nutritional choices. And that's really the focus of a lot of your life's work is on the fact that the foods we eat really contribute to our overall health. And in your case, very much brain health. You're very focused on neuro-nutrition. So could you tell us what neuro-nutrition is? Sure. Neuro-nutrition is really the science of how to nourish our brains via the foods that we eat and the nutrients that we can glean from those foods. And there's a whole science to it. There's also a lot of marketing, honestly, especially internet and blogs and all these self-proclaimed experts that really contribute to creating a very

difficult picture, in some ways a very complicated picture. But for me personally, as a scientist, I find that the science of nutrition is definitely complex, but also quite clear in its message. And really the core principles are not as variable, if you will, as the marketing around food and health. So for me, I'm a neuroscientist by training. I grew up in Italy, as I mentioned. So I was born and raised in Florence in Italy, and my parents are both nuclear physicists, if you can imagine that. So I grew up in a family that was very heavily science-based and science-focused, but also in Italy, there's a huge attention paid to food. Like our entire culture is really revolving around food

and the culture of food and just sharing food with the family, with their friends. There's a whole holistic component to eating food. It's not just showing something inside your mouth and hoping for the best. There's a whole lot of thought and thinking that goes into it. And so it was really interesting for me because I started to really appreciate the chemistry of food and physiology, really.

And then I started studying neuroscience when I was 18. And at first, I didn't really appreciate how the brain is just so specifically built on food, right? Which is something that as a society, we're just not made to appreciate really, because we're aware that we feed our bodies and that the foods we eat will have an impact on the way we look, right? And what kind of clothing will fit and what you can wear and what you shouldn't wear, really. But at the same time, I think we're much less aware that the foods we eat really impact the health of our brains and therefore the way we think as well. So that's really what is fascinating to me, how you have basically three chances every

day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, to make a positive choice for your health and for the health of your brain, or feed the angry wolf, right? And just put a lot of poisons and toxins and bad foods into your system. And those same negative foods and bad foods will also negatively impact your brain. Yeah. I became aware of your work after my partner's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and she started really looking into like, okay, well, I don't want that to happen to me. What can I do? And, and I think we went into it with the same thing that a lot of people think, which is like, oh, well, it's, it's genetic. It's, you know, it's genetic. And so we were sort of led to your work as we sort of looked for like, well, what can we do? And we became convinced by looking at your work and several other people's that, yeah, genes play a role, but they're not the whole thing. You've got a phrase, you say, genes load the gun, but lifestyle pulls the trigger. Tell me a little bit more about that. Sure. So one of the reasons that I've been looking at Alzheimer's disease pretty much ever since I was 18, 19, is that I also have a family history of Alzheimer's

that really hits the women in my family pretty hard. So my grandmother, like your partner's grandmother, developed Alzheimer's disease. And that was in Italy. There's very limited support for Alzheimer's care in Italy. So she really lived with my parents and with me at first until I moved to the United States. And my mom was the primary caregiver. And we were literally shocked by what kind of progression that really is and the impact it has on the patient, but also on the families. And so just a few years after my grandmother developed Alzheimer's, her two younger sisters also developed dementia, whereas their brother did not, which for me was very scary and also

was a big question mark because I really wanted to better understand the risk, you know, for my mother, but also for myself. And now, since I am a mother myself, I want to better understand how to protect my daughter and really have answers and solutions and things that she can do, like now, to make sure that she keeps dementia at bay and really minimize any risks. And when I started, which is basically 20 years ago, I really can't quite believe that, everybody thought of Alzheimer's disease as the result of either bad genes in your DNA, or aging, or a combination of the two. And it turns out that neither one of these alternatives is necessarily the truth for most people. It's not a universal outcome. So the most important thing, I think, in my opinion, and for many of my patients, is to really appreciate how Alzheimer's disease is not nearly as genetically determined as we previously thought. Like back then when I started, it was all about genetics.

then when I started, it was all about genetics. Like my PhD thesis was about genetic mutations that cause Alzheimer's disease and how early on you can catch the effect of the mutations. So it turns out that yes, there are some mutations in one or three genes that can cause Alzheimer's disease, but that is actually a very rare form of Alzheimer's that really manifests itself when people are in their 30s and 40s and 50s. So at a very, very, very early young age. But these cases account for less than 2% of the entire Alzheimer's population. So if you take all the Alzheimer's patients you have, only 2% have a genetic mutation that causes Alzheimer's disease. For the other 98% of cases, risk is due to a number of factors that include your DNA because your DNA is involved in every aspect of your health, but not in a, I'm going to make you sick kind of way. It's just that some genetic risk factors increase your risk, whereas other genetic factors decrease your risk. And you have a number of those and they work in synergy with your lifestyle, with your environment, and also with your medical health. So your medical report card is actually just as important as your DNA blueprint in many

ways. So a lot of this is our genetics aren't our destiny, right? They contribute, but there's lots of other factors that contribute as much, if not much more. And those things we can affect. And one of the big ones is nutrition. And you have a line that says that there's a fast growing body of evidence showing that we might very well be eating our way to dementia. Right. Yes, and that's a good part of my work. I noticed as a scientist that my work really kind of goes in chapters. I had this big chapter all about lifestyle and nutrition, and then I moved on to women's health. And then I went back to nutrition, and now I'm looking at the overlap between the two.

But yes, I do believe that. I mean, my research has shown that the foods you eat have an almost immediate impact on the health of your brain and especially the way your brain ages. And when I started in this field, a lot of people did not take me seriously. Let me tell you that. I'll be very, very honest. Yes, it was considered really some kind of pastime, almost like, oh, you're looking at diet. Yeah, yeah, sure. Good luck. But what we did, what I did that was very new back then was to use brain scans. Because when I started, one of the problems that we had in the field is that everybody was, I mean, the few people who were looking into diet and risk of Alzheimer's would basically try to describe and quantify your diet today and then follow you clinically for 10, 20 years.

you kind of diagnose people who went on to develop Alzheimer's and people who do not, and then go back 20 years and say, oh, I see. So if you ate this kind of diet, then your risk of Alzheimer's is lower than this other person's risk of Alzheimer's. And that's totally bypassing the brain, right? I wanted to see the effect of the diet on the brain. Like now you walk in the door to me and I'm like, okay okay let me give you a brain scan and then we're going to talk about your diet and instead of just talking about your diet I really want to measure your nutrients in your blood and plasma because it's a much more objective way to really measure that you know so many people will come to me and I'm like, okay, how often do you eat cookies? Never. How often do you eat pie?

Maybe once a month. And you're like, lady, I see you. There is no way you're not eating any of those things. So we really try to make things much more quantifiable and reliable and objective. And what we found is that people who follow a healthy diet, if you will, which is a Mediterranean style diet, show much healthier brain the minute they walk in the door at any age relative to people who follow a more Western style diet. And if you follow these people over time, those on the Western diet, their brains age at a rate that is like five times faster as compared to people on a Mediterranean style diet. And so you can see these changes in the actual brain.

Right. Yes. And they're quite clear. And we can see these changes already when people are like in their 30s and 40s. I want to also emphasize that we're talking about Alzheimer's here, but that eating this way or not eating this way impacts our brain in general and often other disorders like depression or anxiety or other things, and that this way of eating appears to be, A, not only good for the brain, but line up very much with what we know to be good for the body. So it sort of all works together. I believe so. And also, I'm not the kind of person who would try and push any specific diet on people, but I'm really a big advocate for common sense. And common sense means that you need to have a very diversified diet that is rich in foods that have a function in your body and brain right it's not just you're not just eating for

pleasure you're not just eating because you have to it's not just about growing muscles or being able to perform there's a whole science to nutrition where you really want to maximize in quote functional foods like foods have a functionality like right now everybody's worried about infections and viruses right so something we should really consider is antioxidants because we know that they really support the immune system and zinc because zinc is an antiviral that is really helpful as well to support immunity. If you were having a bad day and many people suffer from mood swings or mild depression, then it's really important to follow a diet that is rich in foods that can support the

production of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is the main feel-good neurotransmitters. in the brain as serotonin is the main feel-good neurotransmitters. So I'm very interested in how the properties, the foods and nutrients can support people, not just in terms of Alzheimer's prevention, but just for brain health as a whole. So let's talk about some underlying principles. You've got two books worth of stuff, so we're not going to be able to cover that. But I do think there are some really big ideas that we could lay out that will point the direction. And one of the ones that you talk about, then you say one of the most important things we could do for our brain health is to drink water. I knew that was coming. Yes, I thought it was the most obvious thing. And instead, it's what everybody wants to talk about, this water. I find it fascinating and it's great because it's such an easy thing to do.

Americans drink less than the eight cups of water that everybody kind of frowns upon. People would always ask me, like, is it true that you need to drink eight glasses of water a day? Like it's some kind of myth, it's something silly. And they're like, well, that's the amount of water that the average person needs to really replenish all the fluids that you naturally lose throughout the day. So I would say that's the minimum amount of water that the average person needs. Now, if you're taller, bigger, stronger, more muscular, older, younger, you may need a different amount.

But ballpark, yeah, that actually makes sense. It's not something to make fun of. It's a very good starting point, at least. And then I would always ask, but do you drink that? Eight glasses of water a day? And the answer very often is like, I don't drink water at all. I don't like it. I don't like it.

It's like, how do you not like water? And then the answer is like, because it doesn't have any flavor. But that's the point, right? That's why you're drinking actually to me water has flavors yeah yes and they're really i think in italy we also have a little bit of a culture where it was slightly snotty when it comes to food and water you know we really want the best of quality foods and water so i like very specific type but i i'm always amazed at how many people in the united states just do not drink water at all and when they do is actually purified water which is

not exactly water so i'm going to take a step back and tell you why water is important and why purified water is not as good okay great okay so the, the human brain is 80% water, which means 80% of the gray and white matter of the brain and the CSF, the cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds the brain is really water, which is a higher concentration of water than in any other organ in the body. That also means that the brain literally needs water to be healthy and thrive because every chemical reaction that takes place in the brain really needs water just to take place. Water is the substrate for every single cellular reaction inside the brain, including energy production, which means that the brain is very sensitive to dehydration, even very mild dehydration, like a 2% water loss, like between a 2% and a 4% water loss can cause actual neurological symptoms from dizziness, fatigue, confusion, headaches. So, I mean, dehydration is like one of the biggest reasons for headaches and

migraines. And also brain scans, brain imaging studies have shown that people who are chronically dehydrated, even just mildly dehydrated, show brain shrinkage. And we don't want that. You don't want your brain to shrink. And that can be easily reversed by just drinking water and really replenishing these fluids. So I think that's really important to know. And what our brains and their bodies want is water that contains electrolytes. So it's not just fluids. It's not just something wet, right? It has to be a fluid, H2O, that contains specific minerals and salts that have a rehydrated property.

And that's what you find in water that is actually not purified. It can be filtered for toxins and impurities, but the electrolytes need to be there. Otherwise, it's just fluids that can increase your volume and blood pressure, but it's not the same as actually rehydrating your brain. So tap water is better if it's clean and safe. Otherwise, spring water is much better. And so if you take tap water and run it through like a Brita filter, for example, is that okay? It's a very good starting point. Brita filters are not as effective at removing toxins, right? So there are some other filters that are a little bit,

they're more expensive perhaps, but they're a little bit more accurate. Okay. And what I learned, because I did a lot of research on this, of course, we had the kitchen redone. So I really wanted to have an under the sink filter that we could use for a really long time.

I think it's a really good investment if you like me really care about the quality of the water you drink. And so what I learned is then it's really house by house or home by home. And the thing that makes the most sense is to go to the city and have the city come to the house and test the water and give you your own report. Because it's not just the water from whatever source outside the house, it's also your pipes that contribute

to impurities. So you really want to measure both. And then you get your own little report and you can choose the filter that makes the most sense for your house. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor.

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It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So after water, what are some other, you know, really key things that we should be thinking about with eating for our brain health? So I think some of the most important nutrients are omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants and also fiber in a kind of indirect way. So omega-3 fatty acids are perhaps the most important source of brain fat. And so the brain is mostly phospholipids. And phospholipids are a specific kind of fat that contains a lot of omega-3s and omega-6 fatty acids in a two-to-one proportion. So there is like two units or two molecules of omega-6 for every molecule of omega-3. if the foods we eat and our diet in general can reflect this ratio, so that these fats will enter inside the brain and really replenish the fat that's been utilized and oxidized pretty much continuously during the process of aging.

And I really want to point out that there's a good amount of confusion, I think, out there on what kind of fats are really important for the brain. And I've read a number of times that people should eat a lot of cholesterol because the brain contains a lot of cholesterol. And I really want to clarify here that cholesterol from the diet actually cannot even get inside the brain. So eating cholesterol from food will have no impact on the health of your brain whatsoever, unless it gives you heart disease and then has a negative impact. So it can't cross the blood-brain barrier.

That's right. Which I was just going to say for listeners who may not be aware that the brain has a, it's called the blood-brain barrier, and it's a specific way the brain says, like, I'll let certain things in, but I'm not going to let other things in. It's a way it protects itself. Right. And the fact that cholesterol cannot get inside the brain, I think it's a good indication of how much we should get in the diet, right? I mean, it's important for other body functions, of course. It's never about excluding nutrients completely. It's just that there's so much disinformation where people are actively encouraged to eat a lot of cholesterol specifically for their brains.

So I just wanted to point out that that's not right. Instead, the brain really needs these omega-3s and omega-6 fatty acids. However, the standard American diet contains a ton of omega-6s and very little omega-3s. So it's really important to focus on those. And these really come from nuts and seeds and healthy oils like extra virgin olive oil, and especially from fish. Fish is a fantastic source of DHA, which is the most important type of brain fat. And there's a lot of research showing that if you consume at least four grams of omega-3s in your diet, your risk of dementia is 70% lower than that of a person who eats less than two grams per day. Wow.

Yeah, 70%. So if I had a pill that can lower the risk of dementia by 70%, I would be rich and everybody would just buy it. Instead, the prescription is just eat fish. I actually was vegetarian for years and in the last year or so have started to add back in fish to a certain extent just simply because of a lot of the research that you're referencing. You know, the other thing I didn't mention is my partner's mother has Alzheimer's and my father recently was diagnosed with it. So we've kind of got it. Yeah, we're swimming in it, so to speak. So you guys should come get a brain scan. You should come together.

Yes. Yeah. Is that a service that you are offering? Oh, absolutely. I'm the director of the Women's Brain Initiative at Walt Cornell. And the Women's Brain Initiative is an entire research program dedicated to really understanding how brain health plays out differently in women than in men. So we have an arm of the research that is dedicated to women. And then there's the other arm that is really for men, because we really want to understand which risk factors increase risk of dementia differently

for men and for women, and then how we can prevent that. And as part of this research, we do brain scans on all our participants at no cost to participants. We cover everything with my research funds. Wow. Well, let's, yeah.

Okay. It's a deal. Good. And we're open to enrollment, which is, well, right now we're stuck because of the pandemic. But as soon as we're able to have human contact again, then we're definitely open to enrollment. Yes. So eating fish is good. Yes. You can take omega-3 fish oil. Is that good? It should. It makes sense to think that it would be perhaps not the same, but it shouldn't harm

for sure. I would say it's the next best thing. There isn't a lot of research on supplement. There's a lot more research on getting these nutrients from foods. And actually there's quite a little bit of work showing that nutrients from food are always superior to nutrients from supplements, artificial supplements, especially for antioxidants, which is the other nutrient I wanted to mention, our brains are very vulnerable to oxidative stress, which is a sort of rusting effect that just takes place naturally over time. And it's like there's a lot of free radical production going on in the brain at any given moment, just because of the way the brains are. And so it's really important that we introduce antioxidants from the diet. And antioxidants, the most important ones are vitamin C and vitamin E.

And they come from a number of fruits, like berries are a great source, and oranges, lemons, grapefruits, almonds are a really good source, extra virgin olive oil. So basically plant-based foods. And research has shown that if you consume enough of these antioxidants, that also reduces your risk of Alzheimer's by a good solid 30%. But in clinical trials, they actually used supplements. There was very little benefit. And when people looked into that, they concluded that it's really because the foods contain

different isoforms of the same vitamin. For example, vitamin E comes in eight different forms and every form has a slightly different effect in your body and brain. Like one type increases blood flow. The other type is better for oxygenation. The other one, it's more anti-inflammatory. So if you eat foods that contain all eight types, you have all

different properties going on for you. Whereas if you take a supplement, it's just one form or perhaps two forms, but you don't get the full benefit. Right. There seems to be a lot of data that points to this, that whole food is a preferable way to get nutrients. And then you start getting into things like phytonutrients and all this other stuff that is really, really important. And so that supplements might be an okay backstop, but that we really should be focusing on food. Right. So supplements should be used to supplement a healthy diet or perhaps optimize it if you

have like a specific health concern or maybe a subclinical deficiency or an actual deficiency. But I think it's really important to have a really healthy diet first and then take your supplements. Whereas I find that a lot of people kind of bypass the diet and just go for the supplements, right? It's like, oh, well, I took my 25 different pills, so I'm going to have pizza for dinner and then maybe ice cream. I was like, no, wait a minute. Right, right. Not so easy. nutritional principle that goes throughout your work would be less processed food and much more whole food, you know, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, all that. And so to move away from

processed foods in general, can you just give us a minute or two on why that's so important? Sure, sure. I think that that actually hits a great summary of 20 years of work. Stay away from processed food. We know that processed foods are really bad news for men and women, but also especially for women. There are very large scale studies with hundreds of thousands of people showing very strong associations between consumption of processed food, to be clear, on a daily basis, right? So regular consumption of processed food and then increased risk of every possible chronic condition from heart disease to obesity and diabetes and Alzheimer's and dementia all the way to breast cancer. So when I started in this field, the associations

were not as clear or as rigorously established, but I think at this point in time, we really have plenty of evidence that processed food is just not good for your brain. There are so many studies showing that even just consuming two grams a day of trans saturated fats, which are the worst type of fat you can possibly eat, increases the risk of heart disease by over 30%,

doubles the risk of heart disease by over 30%, doubles the risk of dementia, and increase the risk of cancer by twofold. Also, processed food doesn't even taste good. So what's the point, right? I think it's more cultural. It's like a cultural inclination. It's more marketing that makes it look appealing. But there's really no particular reason to go for it. Like you said, it's somewhat culturally set up. It's what's very, very available.

It tends to, in some cases, be quicker. You don't need to think as much about it. Right. I think the problem is accessibility. It's literally everywhere. And sometimes it's the only type of food you can get, which I find incredible. And the other problem is that it's cheap. Whenever I talk to people about trying to eat more healthy, whole foods, possibly organic as much as you can, a lot of the concerns are really about costs. If I go to McDonald's, I can get a full dinner for me and my family for $10. If I go to a health food store, for me and my family for $10. If I go to a health food store, I get nothing for $10, get two apples.

And that's true. It's not my fault, obviously, but it's very true. And I think it's really something that people should take up with the government because these are policies that need to be changed because really health should not be a privilege of the wealthy, but it is at this point in time.

And it's really, it's deeply unfair, especially because we know of all the negative effects that these foods can have on our health. I agree. I think what we choose to subsidize in foods in this country contributes to all that. But I also think that, yes, to eat a fully healthy diet, you know, go all the way is definitely a lot more expensive. But I think we can make a lot of changes and can eat a lot more foods that are actual whole foods without breaking the bank. I think it can get set up as, well, if I don't have a ton of money, then I can't make any changes. And I'm always a believer in life with kind of anything that we can take steps in the direction of where we want to be. From wherever we are, there are steps

we can take in the right direction. Yes. And it's really about thinking about it and planning and finding solutions, which is something that I try to really approach in Brain Food, which is my first book, and more so in my new book, The XX Brain, because there's new evidence that pollutants and environmental toxins can have an anti-estrogen effect, where actually they contain chemicals called xenoestrogens or foreign estrogens that really can mimic the effects of estrogen in the body, but in a very negative way. And they're really like a health risk.

They're a big concern, especially for women, pregnant women and children. And so I really try to warn people to try and avoid the sources of chemicals as much as possible, which really speaks also to include more organic foods in the diet. which really speaks also to include more organic foods in the diet. And so since I'm very mindful that organic food is sadly more expensive, then I have a lot of tips in the book to really help people make the right choices and find the right sources and products and really save some money in the process as well. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts?

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and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You just made a great transition that I'd like to move to, which is really talking about your latest book called The XX Brain, the groundbreaking science empowering women to maximize cognitive health and prevent Alzheimer's. And the main thing, again, to try and summarize is that estrogen is really a neuroprotective and neurometabolic hormone, and that it plays a really important role in our brain.

Yes, a huge role in the brain that we're trying to really revamp in some ways because women and hormones has always been a little bit of suspicion, right, around what happens to you when you're PMS or there's a lot of stigma around women and hormones, especially as far as our brains are concerned. But a lot of my research is really focused on women's health and women's brains. I really work at the intersection between neurology and women's health, which is a very strange thing to do, but I love it personally. And what the research has shown is that women's brains age differently than men's brains.

And the menopause and hormonal changes leading up to menopause really play a key role here for women. Because what people don't realize, what most people don't realize is that the brain is in constant communication with the reproductive organs and the ovaries. And the ovaries are in constant interaction and communication with their brains. So the health of the ovaries is really key to the health of the brain and the way that the brain ages in women. And a lot of this aging process is really supported by your hormones, especially estrogens, which are not just involved in reproduction, but really play a whole number of roles and functions in the brain. First of all, energy production. So estrogens literally push your neurons to make energy. So if your estrogens are high, your brain energy is high.

But when your estrogens decline, your neurons start aging faster and kind of slow down as well, which we see when we do the brain scans. And for some women, this slowdown has also been linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease and increased risk of accumulating Alzheimer's plaques, which is actually, in a way, is good information. It's actually very good, important information to have. It's not just scary because it really gives us a timeline to start looking for those changes in women's brains,

not when we're in our 70s and 80s, but already in midlife, in our 40s and 50s. So I strongly believe that Alzheimer's prevention should start as soon as a woman hits 40. And my hope is that one day doing brain scans will become a really crucial part of the clinical workup for Alzheimer's dementia prevention. The same way that women receive mammograms when they're hitting midlife, the same way that we get colonoscopies, the same way that we get pap tests, you know, we should also really start thinking about the health of our brains. And this is what the book is about. Right. And women account for two thirds of Alzheimer's cases, right?

the book is about. Right. And women account for two-thirds of Alzheimer's cases, right? Right. So, like we were talking about before, when my grandmother developed Alzheimer's and then her two sisters got Alzheimer's and their brother did not, I started asking questions. I was like, well, is it just my family or is this something that we should really look into? And it took a few more years for scientists to really figure out that that is indeed the global population like you said today almost two-thirds of all alzheimer's patients are women which means that for every man suffering from alzheimer's there are two women so it's not ever discounting the suffering of a male with alz disease, but it's really about acknowledging the fact that more women than men end up with Alzheimer's, which is really important to, number one,

to recognize this because nobody talks about it. And number two, to really focus on interventions that are specifically effective for women and for men. However, most of the research has been done in men. So we kind of know a little bit better what a male risk factor is, like heart disease is a huge risk factor for Alzheimer's, but much more so in men than in women. We now need to better understand what really provokes Alzheimer's disease in women. And my research points to metabolic and hormonal changes that are not usually looked at when you go for an Alzheimer's prevention consultation. And so what sort of things can women be doing specifically, particularly women as they, as you said, as they're hitting 40 and above and heading towards or beginning menopause,

depending on where they are, what are some of the things that they can be doing specifically that maybe is a little different than what men should be doing? Right. So there are many things that every woman can do today to really support her hormones and their effects on the brain. And for many women, it's a combination of a number of things that fortunately we can resolve for ourselves, which is really why I wrote the book to be a guide. So I divided the book into three parts. The first part is really the science about not just Alzheimer's prevention, but just how to optimize cognitive health in women.

Then there's a part about questionnaires and how to understand what kind of tests are really valuable to women and what kind of information you really need to know. So really know your numbers and the important numbers. And then the last part is really about recommendations and all the things like diet, which we talked about a little bit. There are some specific foods and nutrients that seem to be even more important for women's brains. for women's brains, exercise, sleep, stress reduction, staying away from toxins, right? We talked about that a little bit. So it's really important to focus on all these things because they're really in our control. And we can just talk about one, perhaps, if you like, I would talk about stress. Right now, everybody's under stress, right? But also in general, pretty much every woman I know is under some stress, especially after age 35 or 40. But one thing we don't talk about enough is that stress

can literally steal your estrogens with negative effects for women's brains. And that is because our sex hormones, like estrogens, testosterone, progesterone, they work in balance with the stress hormone cortisol. So if cortisol is high, your estrogens go down. If you can't reduce your stress levels and therefore reduce your cortisol levels, then your hormones go back up. And that is really, really important because there's a lot of research showing that chronic stress in your life is not just a trigger for heart disease, liver disease, anxiety, depression, but also for dementia. So I

think this is something that we really need to underline. You know, really reducing stress doesn't just save your day, if you will, it also really saves your brain for the long term. So it's really important to focus on stress reduction today. Wonderful. And I think the thing that's so great about this is that it points to things that we know in general are important. Reduce our stress, sleep well, exercise, eat well. The thing I like about these things is that they a support me today in my life, right? They support me in my mental and emotional wellbeing right now today. And they also really bode well for the future that's coming both, both, uh, in my body's health and in my brain's health. Right. And I love that there's so much that we can do because a lot of times in the world,

and this is one of those times, there's a lot that feels out of control. But there is a lot we can do that affects our well-being and our health. Right. So I mentioned that to you before we started recording that we're now kind of in a barn in the middle of nowhere and my daughter is four and a half and she's been homeschooled which really is a challenge because I'm working

full-time still and so is my husband and so I really try to squeeze in you know a little exercise a little meditation a little yoga and today I was planking and they like to plank. It's, you know, if you're able to do it for 10 minutes, I think that that's a fantastic workout. And so I was really trying so hard and I had this little girl just like climbing all over me. And I was like, oh my God, you're making it so hard for me. But I think it's so important to really prioritize self-care in a way and to really appreciate how in the end a healthy lifestyle is actually a very strong preventative against a number of issues from hormonal issue all the way to brain aging and dementia. I think we all kind of understand the benefits of a healthy lifestyle intuitively, but a lot of people have a hard time just incorporating these tips and these principles in their daily lives. And they would just really encourage everyone to think of their brain more like a muscle. You know, there are things that you can do to make it stronger. You can feed it

properly. You can exercise it properly. You can really take care of it properly. And your brain will perform so much better for you at any age. So yes, it takes discipline, but really the benefits are for life. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, I think that is a great place for us to wrap up this conversation. Lisa, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. Oh, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It was such a pleasure. Oh, good.

I'm glad, me too. Same. Thank you. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level, and become a member

of the One You Feed community, go to oneyoufeed.net slash join. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead.

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