WEBVTT - How to reduce your dementia risk by 45% 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:03.160 Why is it so hard to get real answers about 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:06.560 your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine, 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:09.680 but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it. 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:13.200 That's why I created Vitality three sixty to help you 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:16.439 better understand what's going on inside your body so that 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.680 you can take the targeted action needed. With a functional 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:23.560 health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork to 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.960 uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've teamed up 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:31.160 with Doctyesmina, an incredible integrative GP and together we will 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:34.879 help you decode your body's signals and answer questions like 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.880 why am I always exhausted? What's really causing my stubborn weight? 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:43.520 Am I inflamed? Insulin resistant? Or maybe missing key nutrients? 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.800 Because when you understand your body better, you can transform 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:49.680 your health. Visit v three sixty dot health or check 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.400 out the show notes for more. This is healthy Heir 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:55.960 with Amelia Phillips and welcome to one of my mini 0:00:56.120 --> 0:01:00.840 motivation episodes. These are shorter, targeted episodes we tackle one 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:05.360 specific question or challenge head on. Well. Today we are 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:09.920 bringing in neuroscientists doctor Sarah Mackay to discuss the very 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:13.160 real and practical strategies that can lower our risk of 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:17.000 dementia by a whopping forty five percent. So if you 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:23.600 have a family history of neurological disorders such as dementia, Alzheimer's, MS, Parkinson's, 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.160 or you simply are just wanting to lower your own risk, 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:31.000 today's episode is for you. Doctor Sarah is the author 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:35.560 of three neuroscience books on brain health, including her latest book, 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.240 Brain Health for Dummies, published earlier this year. She was 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.560 also recently on the Mel Robins podcast and she's got 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:45.959 a fabulous Instagram page which I'll pop a link in 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:49.320 the show notes too, because it's all about helping our 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:53.080 female brains thrive. So here is what doctor Sarah had 0:01:53.120 --> 0:02:10.960 to say about reducing our risk of dementia In Australia. Dementia, 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:16.200 which also includes Alzheimer's, has recently overtaken heart disease as 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.839 the number one killer of Australians. Researchers believe that this 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:24.040 is due to three main reasons. So firstly, we're living longer, 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:27.359 so that's a good thing. Secondly, we are now better 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:30.440 at preventing and managing heart disease, which is also a 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.960 good thing. And thirdly, we now have better diagnosis and 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.880 awareness of dementia, which is also a good thing, but 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:42.400 still we do want to avoid dementia ideally, So doctor 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.960 Sarah kicking off, what actually is dementia, it's in a 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:47.440 very broad general sense. 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.560 We often talk about nowadays Alzheimer's disease and related dementia's. 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:52.959 Like neurodegenerative disease. 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.600 Dementitsia's kind of the umbrella term which describes these sort 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.639 of symptoms that you would get, you know, when you're 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.760 hopefully when you're much much older, about which Alzheimer's disease 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:06.799 is one of the main causes one of the kind 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:11.160 of diseases that causes symptoms of dementia. So you could 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.119 also develop dementia. If you had Parkinson's disease, you could 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:17.000 have front to temporal dementia like what Bruce Willis has right, 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.000 perhaps some type of dimention cause by alcoholism. 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:24.119 So dementia's kind of actually dimess going on and neurons 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.880 not firing or shrinking. 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.680 Again, it bends on which of the diseases we're looking at. 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:31.720 If we were looking at Alzheimer's disease in a brain 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:36.960 that had clinically diagnosed Alzheimer's disease, that brain would be 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:39.440 much it would be very, very shrunken. We would see 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:41.440 a lot of death in the neurons. A lot of 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:43.480 the neurons that were still kind of living would be 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:45.320 would be kind of filled with all of these kind 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:49.080 of tangles of proteins, so you know, then the connections 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.920 between neurons would be lost. So the whole brain is 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.800 kind of really starting meted by well, starting to literally degenerate. 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.600 We're getting tissue degeneration, getting all the immune cells to 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.000 go in and kind of eat up the generating tassoe. 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:02.560 So that's what you would see in the case of 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:06.000 someone with extreme Alzheimer's disease. But you know, that process 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.720 can you know, take ten, twenty, even thirty years. So 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:12.560 sometimes the very very first signs of Alzheimer's disease are 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.320 these these classic things that people have heard about, like, 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:17.960 you know, kind of forgetfulness, getting lost is a really 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.040 big one. Losing your sense of smell, having memories from 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:22.920 your past but not being able to kind of remember 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:23.520 what happened. 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.840 You know, I get all those now, I know. 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:32.160 But it's also the inability to imagine the future. 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:34.200 Oh oh, that's an interesting. 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:37.840 Yeah, so we've got there. There's quite a tight correlation 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:42.200 between your autobiographical memories of your autobiographical past and your 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:45.320 ability to imagine the future. Very similar brain networks are involved. 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.440 So often people don't have the ability to kind of 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:49.960 just set in daydream. So there's a whole lot of 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:52.920 different symptoms, and you get personality change. You can often 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.240 get like kind of depression, you can get you know, aggression. 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.000 There's a whole host of symptoms under that. We typically 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.119 think it's about memory loss or forgetting your kids' names 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.159 or whatever, or it's people say, oh, I can't you know, 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.239 I always losing my glasses. I'm always losing my keys. 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:13.080 Someone with Alzheimer's disease would find their glasses, but then 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:14.200 they wouldn't know what to do with them. 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.680 Got it? But remember and you really know, like when 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.480 I'm thinking about those of us that have aging parents, 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:22.839 you know, and we all, oh, you know, mum, you 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:27.320 can't remember where you parked your car. That's not necessarily 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:29.760 a massive red flag, but I think most of us 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:31.359 can sense what happens. 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.160 It starts to happen regularly every day, and it's interfering 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:35.839 with people's you know, daily life. 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:36.440 That's fine. 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:38.039 I mean you go off to the doctor or you 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:40.559 take them. Sometimes they don't want to go because sometimes 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:43.360 they mightn't even notice that there's a problem. Often they 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.039 don't necessarily know that that there's issues. 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:47.680 As people on the outside. Yeah. 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:50.000 Yeah, And there's some really interesting gendered research on that, 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:54.320 particularly in like very traditional structured families that often the 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:56.920 gerry intoligist friend of mine told me that she will 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:02.320 see elderly gentle and coming and much further along in 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.760 their kind of disease process because they've got like say, 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:09.120 a really traditional wife who's cocked cleaned, cox olivers meals, 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:09.800 doesn't wash. 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:13.120 It's an amazing network whereund. 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.839 She gets Alzheimer's disease, he's not getting in his breakfast, 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:17.919 so he brings her in at a much earlier stage 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.320 of the disease, and particularly those traditional structured families, which 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:23.680 feeds into what you were saying there about when we're 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.679 looking at these statistics, we're looking you know, different people 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.119 are going to be diagnosed at different kind of points 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.080 in their life span, Like so that woman might have 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.640 been diagnosed far younger than the man, even though they 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:36.200 both started showing symptoms at the same age, because it's 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.640 the family structure that's determined that. We were also getting 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:42.520 just some good news about Alzheimer's and dementia. We've got 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.520 lots more old people, so there's more old people alive 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.560 that are developing it. But your individual risk, or we 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.600 might call the incidents, particularly in healthy, wealthy countries, is 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:55.040 actually declining. So my generation and your generation have a 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:57.839 much lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease in our mother's 0:06:57.880 --> 0:06:59.919 generation and our grandmother's generation. 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.880 But then why is it now overtaking heart disease. 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.000 Because we're better at treating heart disease, so people aren't 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.680 dying of that, they're living into their nineties, and so 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.160 they're more likely to get dementia in their nineties. But 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:13.440 we're going to be less likely to get it because 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:17.960 we're living healthier up until that point. Ok So someone 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:21.000 who was born in nineteen hundred, like you look at 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:22.600 a woman born in nineteen hundred, she might have left 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.120 school at twelve. I was still at university when I 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.080 was twenty five, So we've got the number of years 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.040 of education you have as an incredibly important protective factor. 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.840 She may have smoked, drunk, had a really stressful life 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:38.720 and not had very intellectually challenging kind of stimulating life, 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:42.920 never done any exercise, had diabetes that was perhaps untreated, 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:47.080 you know, been very metabolically unwell, and so she's much 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.920 more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than say I am. 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:53.080 But we've got more old people alive. So we've got 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:57.440 this prevalence problem and healthy wealthy countries, but the incidents 0:07:57.440 --> 0:07:59.520 in healthy wealthy countries is going down. We've got less 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:04.600 people flowing in, but an sort of lower socioeconomic countries, 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:08.640 incidence is increasing and the prevalence is increasing. Yeah, so 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:12.080 we've got to be careful when we talk about statistics, 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.160 how we make meaning of that in terms of individual risks. 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:17.400 Yeah. Well, I've also got some good news for you 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:23.560 around the prevention and delay of dementia. So an updated 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:28.400 Lancet Commission from twenty twenty four now identifies fourteen modifiable 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:30.720 risk factors. It used to be twelve apparently, but now 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.960 it's fourteen. So these are modifiable, so we can impact 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:37.559 them or change them. That together, if we modify and 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:41.320 manage them well, can prevent or delay up to forty 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:45.040 five percent of dementia cases, which is crazyally. 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.320 Yeah, I think globally is really important to realize there, 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:48.400 like across the planet. 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:49.560 Yeah, okay, and a lot. 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.160 Of that burden of risk has carried and you know 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:52.840 the load. 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:57.240 Right. Let me list out these fourteen modifiable risk factors, 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:00.680 and for a listener sitting here, you can say which 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.120 of these you think the levers you're pulling pretty well 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.280 and which you might want to be able to focus 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.480 on and put them into categories. So the first one 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.320 is early life and environment, so that covers low education, 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:15.199 so to your point earlier, if someone's uneducated or going 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:17.920 to university till they're twenty five, So low education and 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:20.040 air pollution that's in that category. 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:21.320 And air pollution is a really tough one for an 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.839 individual to change. Yeah, it's modifiable, but perhaps not modifiable 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:26.200 for a person. 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:29.920 Yes, exactly. So. Then the second bucket is lifestyle and behavior. 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:34.880 So we've got risk factors physical inactivity, smoking, and excessive 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.600 alcohol intake. So the next bucket is brain and sensory health, 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:42.680 so untreated vision loss, traumatic brain injury, which you could 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.360 also argue is not modifiable, but at least if you're 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.560 wearing a helmet or not, you know, don't climb a ladder. Yeah, yeah, 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:53.880 don't write a hood play. Yeah. And the third one 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.600 in that brain and sensory health is hearing loss, and 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:58.520 that's the new one. There's two new ones. 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.120 Loss and hearing loss, hearing life. Yeah, hearing is seven percent. Yeah, 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:04.280 this is globally, which is enormous. 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:06.600 By the way. Fun fact, if you own a pair 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.400 of Apple air pods, they now come with an in 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:15.360 built standardized hearing tests, do they Yes, I did it 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:17.800 on myself the other day. Yeah. My left is worse 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.240 than my right here. So that was the bucket of 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:22.840 brain and sensory health. So then the last two buckets 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.640 cardio metabolic health. So that's high blood pressure, type two, 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.320 diabetes and obesity. Okay, so you want to avoid those. 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:33.520 And then the final bucket is mental and social well being, 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:37.000 which is depression and social isolation. And sorry, the other 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:39.320 one in the cardio metabolic the new one I forgot 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.600 to mention is high LDL cholesterol. So they're the two 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:45.560 new additions, the hearing loss and the high LDL cholesterol, 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:45.840 which I. 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:47.520 Think are an enormous way. 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:48.040 Yes. 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.680 Yeah. I often talk about like those old fashioned scales, 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:53.640 if you imagine the weights like each of those risk factors, 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.200 like maybe you're at UNI until you were thirty, but 0:10:57.320 --> 0:10:59.560 you smoke. Yeah, you've kind of got weights on either 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:00.400 side of the risk. 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:02.640 Just to make it clear for my listeners, I'll pop 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.320 those fourteen risk factors in the show notes and maybe 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:07.240 you can just sit and read them and just reflect. 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:08.839 There's probably a lot you can tick and go, yeah, 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:10.760 I'm cooking with gas on those, But then there's a 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:12.560 couple of way, like you really want to focus on those. 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.400 Why is it so hard to get real answers about 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.800 your health If you've been told that everything looks fine, 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:33.920 but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it. 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.280 That's why I created Vitality three point sixty to help 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.560 you better understand what's going on inside your body so 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.400 that you can take the targeted action needed. With a 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:47.559 functional health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.040 to uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've teamed 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:55.080 up with Dottysmina, an incredible integrative GP, and together we 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.800 will help you decode your body's signals and answer questions 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.360 like why am I always exhausted? What's really causing my 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:06.720 stubborn weight, am I inflamed, insulin resistant, or maybe missing 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.160 key nutrients. Because when you understand your body better, you 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:13.480 can transform your health. Visit V three sixty dot health 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:25.040 or check out the show notes for more. But I 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.480 wanted to ask you, as you know, for a woman 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.800 in midlife, of these fourteen risk factors, do you think 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.920 there are any we need to particularly pay close attention 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:36.240 to if we want to lower our risk of dementia? Like, 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:37.679 is there a couple there that you just go, oh 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:39.400 my gosh, you really want to manage? Yeah? 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:41.959 Look, I really think the hearing loss is completely underrecognized 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:45.240 because it's not very sixy Yes, so it doesn't there's 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:49.480 not these like glossy, charismatic hearing loss influences. I mean 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.079 they probably are, but they're not reaching like midlife women 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.439 because we're only being told if you take hormone therapy, 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:56.560 job done. So. 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.199 I even felt funny doing the hearing tests on myself 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:00.800 the other day. I was like, I hope no one's 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:03.520 watching that. I don't want to tell anyone that I'm 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:05.640 taking a hearing test. It makes me sound really old. 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:07.640 Yeah, there's there's a lot of stigma around that, and 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:08.800 it could just be you know you went to too 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:10.600 many concerts when you were young. Well, you know your 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.360 work in construction. You know, there's and what happens when 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:18.679 you aren't hearing, You're losing you know, that sense of 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:22.079 connection and communication and interaction with the world around you. 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:24.640 So you kind of withdraw into yourself. So you're reducing 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:28.439 all of the sensory stimulation. Plus there's the added cognitive 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:30.839 load of like trying to hear people and trying to 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.800 pay attention to conversations. So there's kind of a few 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:36.400 different sort of pathways which and which that. 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:38.839 And also it's a bit of an easy fix if 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.319 you think about it, if you have been diagnosed with 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:45.079 hearing loss. There's so many options of aids. 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:47.280 Aren't what they used to be. Like, everyone's got them 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:49.120 hopped up to the you know, their phones, and some 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:51.120 people even have just them on the end of the glasses. 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.439 There's lots of really great interventions there, and I think 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:57.400 it's very underrecognized and we need some really beautiful people 0:13:57.559 --> 0:13:59.960 to talk about that on Instagram. Well we're doing that 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:00.320 right now. 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.319 Yeah. And you know, I kept my hearing results because 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:06.400 I thought I'm going to retest this every year. Yeah, 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.840 to track and see if I'm seeing a hearing loss decline, 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.120 because I'm curious to know if it's healthy now, where's 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:13.280 it going to be in five years? Yeah? 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.160 And another thing I think because it talks about education there, 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.000 and obviously once you've aged fifty, you can't go back 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.000 and readlive your life again, right, But the idea of 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.960 like staying intellectually and cognitively stimulated and engaged with the 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.520 world is incredibly important. And we know that people who 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.880 you know, kind of maintain those cognitive test schools, they 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:35.560 maintain they're kind of their verbal recall, their kind of 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:38.280 mental maths ability. They're good vocab, you know, they're good 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:40.040 at the word as they are. The people that kind 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:42.880 of keep on doing these things, they don't sort of stop. 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:45.600 They're still reading, you know, the literary fiction, the Book 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:49.720 of Prize when they are still engaged and reasonably intellectually 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.600 and cognitively challenging work. They haven't kind of stopped doing that. 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.520 Where I'm confused with that. I'd love your thoughts on 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:03.920 doing those cognitive actstivities like Sudoku, word all, etc. Versus 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.600 having purpose, Like if someone's sitting here and they do 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:10.040 all those things, and maybe they're learning a language or whatever. 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:13.320 Compared to someone who sits on a board or who 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:15.880 is part of a not for profit or who is 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:19.600 doing something that has a large sense of purpose in 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:22.160 their life. Would you say it doesn't really matter, like 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:24.480 if you're just spending your day reading some articles in 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.880 the paper, doing your cognitive you know, word all and sudoku, 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:30.920 or do you feel like it needs to be attached 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:33.960 to something that has a big purpose and meaning to you. 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:35.520 I mean lots of people get a lot of purpose 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:37.520 and meaning out of a crossword or word or business like. 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:39.440 It can be a bit of a social aspecture. I 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:42.440 think it's about the cognitive friction and kind of challenging 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:44.920 your intellect and finding ways to continue. 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:44.920 To do that. 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.480 But you do have to be careful that you know, 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.720 you don't overburden yourself that you kind of burn yourself out. 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.000 But it's about that bit of friction. Yeah, it's a 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:54.440 little bit like exercising. 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.080 You need a bit of a challenge. 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:59.520 Just go and left to two kilo wait every single 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:01.920 day for ten years and not keep on increasing the load. 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.720 It's about having a bit of challenge and if that challenge, 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:06.880 I mean my mum wouldn't go and sit on a board, 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.120 but you know she might do you know, a cross words. 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.680 We are very competitive in my word or chat right, 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:15.640 and my mum's always the first one of the day, 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:18.960 and yesterday she got it in three and so my 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:22.080 competitive side was like, I've got to get it in 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:23.080 cred goes as. 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:24.880 Well because it's kind of social and that kind of 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:28.040 keeps the motivation. And it's not just doing each other. 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:30.760 And it's just not just doing word or just doing 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.640 sudocal just and I mean, stay away from online brain 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:35.920 training if you've got a disk job and you're better 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:36.320 off to go. 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:36.840 For a rum. 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:41.760 But it's about continuing that intellectual and cognitive challenge and 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:45.320 stimulation throughout the lifespan, not just thinking, well, I leave 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:47.280 school when I was fifteen, I can't really do much 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:47.920 else about it. 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:52.000 If you were listening to this episode today and you 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:56.920 have a family history of these neuro degenerative diseases such 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.360 as dementia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and you really want to do 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:04.520 everything you can personally to delay or prevent it, what 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:06.359 would you do in this situation? 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.000 I would you would do all of the things you've 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:10.560 got to kind of make sure that you've not just 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.439 think of my grand got Alzheimer's disease when she was eighty. 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:17.639 It's about understanding, perhaps also the difference between do you 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.399 have a particular gene which increases your rists? 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.480 A po E four four is a test for. 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.440 But typically in Australia we're just not going to randomly test. 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.160 I mean, you can probably pay one of these longevity 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:31.560 clinics now to test at four. 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:33.679 You can ice screen does. 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:35.600 If you have like got a shitload of money. 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:38.320 Yes, I think it's somewhere between three to five hundred. 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:40.080 Vast majority of people aren't paying for that. 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.720 So what happens if you get so you say you 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:45.560 take this test to see if you have a po 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:47.520 E four and it's it's not even you've got like 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:48.760 one a lievel or two earlier. 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.440 Yeah yeah, yeah, and I think it was Chris Hemsworth 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.280 did this time. Yeah yeah, and show you're still going 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:56.560 to be doing exactly the same thing types of things 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:58.280 is what you would do if you hadn't got it ten. 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.159 And if you have, they're the one, you know, the 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:03.840 one or the two alleles which you know increases your 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:06.960 risk by x percent. Doesn't mean you're going to get dementia. 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:10.120 And if you come back with not carrying the genes 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:11.440 doesn't mean you're not going. 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:13.879 To be you know, like, is it gonna you know, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:16.160 tip the scales in your favor the odds in your 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:19.280 favor or not in your favorites. And like instance disease 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:21.800 where if you've got like, you know, this particular gene 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.439 for Huntington's disease, you will get Huntington's. 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.119 Yeah, or like bracker even like the evidence around bracker 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.760 for breast cancer is stronger. So if you're you know, 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.080 if you've got lots of money and you're interested in longevity, 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:35.000 sure go and take your test. You're going to do it. 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:36.400 You're gonna have to take them. 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:38.439 You're still going to have to do all the same things. 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:40.919 And there might be down the track there might be 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.160 more interventions. So when it's still super early days where 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.120 people are like, you know, will taking the g LP ones, 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.520 is that gonna like reduce people's risks who have the 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:52.960 genes versus don't have the genes, And it perhaps looks 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.600 and because the apoe gene is coding for a protein 0:18:56.640 --> 0:18:59.080 which is involved with kind of lipid transport, so it's 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.520 not just outzhider disease risks. All of that kind of 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.320 cardiovascular metabolic health is all kind of mixed up in there. 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:09.000 So it's really those fourteen So you're still. 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:10.960 Going to have to do the same things. That might 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:12.800 be more motivating for you, but some people might not 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.800 find that motivating. I think we also need to be 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.640 quite careful and thoughtful about when we do genetic testing. 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.919 Is that you understand one the insurance implications. Are you 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:23.440 going to then have to declare it if you're like 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:27.320 changing private health insurance providers? What does that implication? Does 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:29.040 that mean for family members who may or may not 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:31.480 want to get tested? If you know you've got a 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:35.000 particular gene, does that mean your mum or your dad 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:36.359 or your kids are going to have it? And what 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.320 implications does that have for their kind of informed consent 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:42.080 about knowing about that. So I think it's kind of 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:44.199 easy to throw caution to the wind and go and 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:46.919 get tested for all of the things. But is that 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.000 going to change, you know, a treatment plan or an outcome. 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:52.439 In time, I think we probably will get to the 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.680 point where we will have much more precision, individualized medicine 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.000 for these people. But right now, You're still going to 0:19:58.080 --> 0:19:59.560