Speaker 1: In the chaos of your day to day life, do
Speaker 1: you feel like you lose touch with the deeper and
Speaker 1: wiser part of yourself. If you feel like you have
Speaker 1: knowledge about spiritual ideas but struggle to consistently apply this
Speaker 1: knowledge to your life, You're not alone, and that's exactly
Speaker 1: what spiritual habits can help you to do. Spiritual habits
Speaker 1: combine the science of behavior change with the wisdom of
Speaker 1: spiritual principles so that you feel calmer, more at ease,
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Speaker 1: wisdom that you value. Change happens in yourself and in
Speaker 1: the world around you. I've spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: contemplating whether or not to offer the Spiritual Habits group
Speaker 1: program right now in the midst of all that's going
Speaker 1: on in the world, and what I've come to realize
Speaker 1: is that now is the exact time when we need
Speaker 1: spiritual habits. Knowing what matters to us and having the
Speaker 1: tools and practices to connect back into those deeper truths,
Speaker 1: especially when the world is full of chaos and distress.
Speaker 1: That is how we move forward with strength, clarity, and compassion.
Speaker 1: So I'm excited to announce that the doors are now
Speaker 1: open for enrollment in a special group edition of the
Speaker 1: Spiritual Habits program. You can go to group dot Spiritual
Speaker 1: Habits dot net to learn all about it. I've priced
Speaker 1: this program to make it accessible to as many people
Speaker 1: as possible. Again, that's group dot Spiritual Habits dot net.
Speaker 1: Or click on the link in the show notes and
Speaker 1: I hope to see you there. Health should not be
Speaker 1: a privilege of the wealthy, but it is. It's deeply unfair,
Speaker 1: especially because we know of all the negative effects that
Speaker 1: these foods can have. What not held welcome to the
Speaker 1: one you feed Throughout time, great tinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction.
Speaker 1: How they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Lisa Mosconi. Lisa is
Speaker 1: a PhD in neuroscience and nuclear medicine and is a
Speaker 1: certified integrative nutritionist and holistic healthcare practitioner at wild No
Speaker 1: Medical College in New York. She is both the Director
Speaker 1: of the Women's Brain Initiative in the Department of Neurology
Speaker 1: and Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Neurology and Radiology. She's
Speaker 1: also the author of countless medical journal papers and books. Today,
Speaker 1: Lisa and Eric discuss her book The x X Brain,
Speaker 1: The groundbreaking science empowering Women to maximize cognitive health and
Speaker 1: prevent Alzheimer's Disease. Hi, Lisa, Welcome to the show. Hi,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me. I am really
Speaker 1: happy to have you on. You are a real expert
Speaker 1: in how to eat in such a way and other
Speaker 1: ways of taking care of our brain. And we're going
Speaker 1: to get into all those details in a moment. But
Speaker 1: let's start like we always do with the parable. There's
Speaker 1: a grandmother who's talking with their granddaughter and she says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and she
Speaker 1: thinks about it for a second. She looks up at
Speaker 1: her grandmother and she said, grandmother, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. It really means a lot. Actually, is such
Speaker 1: a good story, and I have a similar version that
Speaker 1: I tell my daughter. I have a little girl who's
Speaker 1: foot and a half. And I think there's an Italian
Speaker 1: version of that story about the wolves, and that you
Speaker 1: really have to make choices all the time, and that
Speaker 1: the choices you make and the language you use in
Speaker 1: your mind really shapes who you are in your future
Speaker 1: and in good part your health as well. And so
Speaker 1: it's really important to always ask yourself, well, what should
Speaker 1: I do here? What what kind of choices would really
Speaker 1: make me be the best version of myself that I
Speaker 1: can possibly be? And that's how you notice yourself in
Speaker 1: so many ways, including a spiritual way that I think
Speaker 1: is really important. Yeah, I love that, and you you
Speaker 1: reference sort of our nutritional choices, and that's really the
Speaker 1: focus of a lot of your life's work is on
Speaker 1: the fact that the foods we eat really contribute to
Speaker 1: our overall health and in your case, very much brain healthy.
Speaker 1: You're very focused on neuro nutrition, So could you tell
Speaker 1: us what neuro nutrition is? Sure, neuro nutrition is really
Speaker 1: the science of how to nourish our brains via the
Speaker 1: foods that we eat and the nutrients that we can
Speaker 1: glean from these foods, and there's a whole science to it.
Speaker 1: There's also a lot of marketing, honestly, especially internet and
Speaker 1: blogs and all these felt proclaimed experts that really contribute
Speaker 1: to creating a very difficult picture, and so with a
Speaker 1: very complicated picture. But for me personally, as a scientist,
Speaker 1: I find that the science of nutrition is definitely complex,
Speaker 1: but also quite clear in its message and really the
Speaker 1: core principles are not as variable, if you will, as
Speaker 1: the marketing around food and health. So for me, I'm
Speaker 1: an autoscientist by training. I grew up in Italy, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, um so it was born and raised in
Speaker 1: Florence in Italy, and my parents are both nuclear physicists,
Speaker 1: if you can't imagine that. So I grew up in
Speaker 1: a family there was very heavily science based and science focused.
Speaker 1: But also in Eily, there's a huge attention paid to food,
Speaker 1: Like our our entire culture is really revolving around the
Speaker 1: food and the culture of food and just sharing food
Speaker 1: with the family, with their friends. There's a whole holistic
Speaker 1: component to eating food. It's not just showing something inside
Speaker 1: your mouth and hoping for the best, but there's there's
Speaker 1: a whole lot of thought and thinking that goes into it.
Speaker 1: And so it was really interesting for me because I
Speaker 1: started to really appreciate the chemistry of food and physiology really.
Speaker 1: And then I started studying neuroscience when I was eighteen,
Speaker 1: and at first I didn't really appreciate how the brain
Speaker 1: is just so specifically built on food, right, which is
Speaker 1: something that as a society, which is not made to
Speaker 1: appreciate really, because we're aware that we feed their bodies
Speaker 1: and that the foods we eat will have an impact
Speaker 1: on the way we look right, and what kind of
Speaker 1: clothing will fit and what you can wear and what
Speaker 1: you shouldn't we're really But at the same time, I
Speaker 1: think we're much less aware that the foods we eat
Speaker 1: really impact the health of our brains and therefore the
Speaker 1: way we think as well. So that's really what is
Speaker 1: fascinating to me. How you have basically three chances every
Speaker 1: day breakfast, lunch, and dinner to make a positive choice
Speaker 1: for your health and for the health of your brain,
Speaker 1: or feed the angry wolf, right and just put a
Speaker 1: lot of poisons and toxins and bad foods into your system,
Speaker 1: and those same negative foods and bad foods will also
Speaker 1: negatively impact your brain. Yeah. I became aware of your
Speaker 1: work after my partner's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and
Speaker 1: she started really looking into like, Okay, well I don't
Speaker 1: want that to happen to me. What can I do?
Speaker 1: And I think we went into it with the same
Speaker 1: thing that a lot of people think, which is like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: it's it's genetic. It's you know, it's genetic. And so
Speaker 1: we were sort of led to your work as we
Speaker 1: sort of looked for like, well, what can we do?
Speaker 1: And we became convinced by looking at your work and
Speaker 1: several other people's that yeah, jeans play a role, but
Speaker 1: they're not the whole thing. You've got a phrase you say,
Speaker 1: jeans load the gun, but lifestyle pulls the trigger. Tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit more about that, sure. So one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that I've been looking at Alzheimer's disease
Speaker 1: pretty much ever since I was eighteen nineteen is that
Speaker 1: I also have a family history of us Czeimer's that
Speaker 1: really hits the women in my family pretty hard. So
Speaker 1: my grandmother, like your partner's grandmother, developed Alzheimer's disease, and
Speaker 1: um that was Inedialy. There's very limited support for Alzheimer's
Speaker 1: care in Italy, so she really lived with my parents
Speaker 1: and with me at first until I moved to the
Speaker 1: United States and my mom was the primary caregiver and
Speaker 1: we were we were literally shocked by what kind of
Speaker 1: progression that really is and impact it has on the patient,
Speaker 1: but also in the families. And so just a few
Speaker 1: years after my grandmother developed Alzheimer's, her two younger sisters
Speaker 1: also developed dementia, whereas their brother did not, which for
Speaker 1: me it was very scary and also was a big
Speaker 1: question mark because I really wanted to better understand the risk,
Speaker 1: you know, for my mother, but also for myself, and
Speaker 1: now since I'm a mother myself, I want to better
Speaker 1: understand how to protect my daughter and really have answers
Speaker 1: and solutions and things that she can do like now
Speaker 1: to make sure that she keeps dementia at bay and
Speaker 1: really minimize any risks. And when I started, which is
Speaker 1: basically twenty years ago, I really can't quite believe that
Speaker 1: everybody thought of Alzheimer's disease as the result of either
Speaker 1: bad genes in your DNA or aging, or a combination
Speaker 1: of the two. And it turns out then neither one
Speaker 1: of these alternatives is necessarily the truth for most people.
Speaker 1: It's not the universal outcomes. So the most important thing
Speaker 1: I think, in my opinion and for many of my patients,
Speaker 1: is to really appreciate how Alzheimer's disease is not nearly
Speaker 1: as genetically determined as we previously thought. Like back then
Speaker 1: when I started, it was all about genetics, Like my
Speaker 1: pH d thesis was about genetic mutations the cause Alzheimer's
Speaker 1: disease and how early on you can catch the active
Speaker 1: the mutations. So it turns out that yes, there are
Speaker 1: some mutations in one of three genes that can cause
Speaker 1: Alzheimer's disease. But that is actually a very rare form
Speaker 1: of Alzheimer's that really manifests itself when people are in
Speaker 1: their thirties and forties and fifties, so at the very
Speaker 1: very very early young age. But this cases account for
Speaker 1: less than two percent of the entire Alzheimer's population. So
Speaker 1: if you take all the Alzheimer's patients, you have only
Speaker 1: two percent have a genetic mutation that causes Alzheimer's disease.
Speaker 1: For the other ninety eight percent of cases, risk is
Speaker 1: due to a number of factors that include your DNA,
Speaker 1: because your DNA is involved in every aspect of your health,
Speaker 1: but not in a I'm going to make you sick
Speaker 1: kind of way. It's just the some genetic risk factors
Speaker 1: increase your risk, whereas other genetic factors decrease your risk.
Speaker 1: And you have a number of those, and they work
Speaker 1: in synergy with your lifestyle, with your environment, and thoso
Speaker 1: with your medical health. So your medical report card is
Speaker 1: actually just as important as your DNA blueprint in many ways.
Speaker 1: So a lot of this is our our genetics are
Speaker 1: our destiny, right, they contribute, But there's lots of other
Speaker 1: factors that contribute as much, if not much more, and
Speaker 1: those things we can affect, and one of the big
Speaker 1: ones is nutrition. And you have a line that says
Speaker 1: that there's a fast growing body of evidence showing that
Speaker 1: we might very well be eating our way to dementia. Right, Yes,
Speaker 1: and that's a good part of my work. I noticed
Speaker 1: as a scientist that my my work is really kind
Speaker 1: of goose in chapters. I had this big chapter all
Speaker 1: about lifestyle and nutrition, and then I moved on to
Speaker 1: women's health, and I went back to nutrition, and now
Speaker 1: I'm looking at them overlap between the two. But yes,
Speaker 1: I do believe that. Mean, my research has shown that
Speaker 1: the foods you eat have an almost immediate impact on
Speaker 1: the health of your brain, and especially the way your
Speaker 1: brain ages. And when I started in this field, a
Speaker 1: lot of people did not take me seriously. Let me
Speaker 1: tell that would be better than I was. Yes, it
Speaker 1: was considered really some kind of past time, almost like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're looking at diet. Yeah, yeah, I sure, good luck.
Speaker 1: But what we do. What I do there was very
Speaker 1: new back then, was to use brain scans. Because when
Speaker 1: I started, one of the problems that we had in
Speaker 1: the field is that everybody was I mean, the few
Speaker 1: people who were looking into diet and risk of Alzheimer's
Speaker 1: would basically try to describe and quantify your diet today
Speaker 1: and then follow you clinically for ten twenty years, and
Speaker 1: then you know, you kind of diagnosed people who went
Speaker 1: on to develop a Czimer's and people who do not,
Speaker 1: and then go back twenty years and say, oh, I
Speaker 1: see so if you ate this kind of diet, then
Speaker 1: you risk of Alzheimer's is lower than this other person's
Speaker 1: risk of Alzheimer's. And that's totally bypassing the brain, right.
Speaker 1: I wanted to see the effect of the diet on
Speaker 1: the brain. Like now you walk in the door to
Speaker 1: me and I am like, okay, let me give your
Speaker 1: brain scan and then we're going to talk about your diet.
Speaker 1: And instead of just talking about your diet, I really
Speaker 1: want to measure your nutrients in your blood and plasma
Speaker 1: because it's a much more objective way to really measure that.
Speaker 1: You know, so many people will come to me in
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, how often do you cookies? Never? How
Speaker 1: often do you do you pie? Maybe once a month?
Speaker 1: And you're like, lady, I see you. There is no
Speaker 1: way you're not in it any of those things. So
Speaker 1: we really try to make things much more quantifiable and
Speaker 1: reliable and objective. And what we found is that people
Speaker 1: who follow a healthy diet, if you will, which is
Speaker 1: a Mediterranean style diet, show much healthier brain the minute
Speaker 1: they walk in the door at any age relative to
Speaker 1: people who follow a more Western style diet. And if
Speaker 1: you follow these people over time, those on the Western diet,
Speaker 1: their brains age in the rate it is like five
Speaker 1: times faster, it's compared to people on a Mediterranean style diet.
Speaker 1: And so you can see these changes in the actual
Speaker 1: brain right, yes, And they're quite clear, and we can
Speaker 1: see these changes already when people are liking their tournism.
Speaker 1: For this, I want to also emphasize that we're talking
Speaker 1: about Alzheimer's here, but the eating this way or or
Speaker 1: or not eating this way impacts our brain in general
Speaker 1: and often other disorders like depression or anxiety or other things.
Speaker 1: And that this way of eating appears to be a
Speaker 1: not only good for the brain, but line up very
Speaker 1: much with what we know to be good for the body.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of all works together, I believe so.
Speaker 1: And also I'm not the kind of person who would
Speaker 1: try and push any specific diet on people. But I'm
Speaker 1: really big advocate for common sense, and common sense means
Speaker 1: that you need to have a very diversified diet that
Speaker 1: is rich in foods. They have a function in your
Speaker 1: body and brain. Right, It's not just you not just
Speaker 1: eating for pleasure. You're not just eating because you have to.
Speaker 1: It's not just about growing muscles or being able to perform.
Speaker 1: There's a whole science to nutrition where you really want
Speaker 1: to maximize in quote functional foods, like foods have a functionality.
Speaker 1: Like right now, everybody is worried about infections and viruses, right,
Speaker 1: so something we should really consider is antioxidants because we
Speaker 1: know that they really support the immune system, and zinc
Speaker 1: because zinc is an anti viral that is really helpful
Speaker 1: as well to support immunity. If you were having a
Speaker 1: bad day, and many people offer from mood swings or
Speaker 1: mild depression, then it's really important to to follow a
Speaker 1: diet that is rich in foods that can support the
Speaker 1: production of serotonin in the brain. A serotonin is the
Speaker 1: main feel good neuro transmitters. So I'm very interested in
Speaker 1: in how the properties of foods and nutrients can support
Speaker 1: people not just in terms of Alzheimer's prevention, but just
Speaker 1: for for brain health as a whole. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about some underlying principles. You've got two books worth of stuff,
Speaker 1: so we're not going to be able to cover that.
Speaker 1: But I do think there are some really big ideas
Speaker 1: that we could lay out that will point the direction.
Speaker 1: And and one of the ones that you talk about
Speaker 1: then you say, one of the most important things we
Speaker 1: can do for our brain health. I knew that. I
Speaker 1: knew that what's coming. Yeah, I thought it was the
Speaker 1: most obvious thing, And instead it is what everybody wants
Speaker 1: to talk about. This water. I find it fascinating and
Speaker 1: it's great because it's such an easy thing to do.
Speaker 1: There are official statistics also, the CDC really explains how
Speaker 1: over fifty percent of Americans drink less than the eight
Speaker 1: cups of water that everybody kind of frowns upon. People
Speaker 1: would always ask to me, like, is it true that
Speaker 1: you need to drink a glasses of water to day?
Speaker 1: Like some kind of myth, that's something silly, And they're like, well,
Speaker 1: that's the amount of water that the average person needs
Speaker 1: to really replenish all the fluids that you're naturally lose
Speaker 1: throughout the day. So I would say that's the minimum
Speaker 1: amount to water that the average person needs. Now, if
Speaker 1: you're taller, bigger, stronger, muscular, older, younger, you may need
Speaker 1: a different amount. But ballpark, yeah, that actually makes sense.
Speaker 1: It's not something to make fun of. It's it's a
Speaker 1: very good starting point at least. And then I would
Speaker 1: always ask, but do you drink that a glasses of
Speaker 1: water to day? And the ends are very often it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't drink water at all. I don't like it.
Speaker 1: I don't like it. It's like, how do you know
Speaker 1: like water? And then the answer is like, because it
Speaker 1: doesn't have any flavor. But that's the point, right, that's
Speaker 1: why you're drinking. Actually, to me, water has flavors, yes,
Speaker 1: and they really I think in Italy we we also
Speaker 1: have a little bit of a culture where it was
Speaker 1: slightly it is nutty when it comes to food and water.
Speaker 1: You know, we really want the best of quality foods
Speaker 1: and water. So I like very specific type. But I'm
Speaker 1: always amazed how many people in the United States just
Speaker 1: do not drink water at all, and when they do
Speaker 1: is actually purified water, which is not exactly water. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a step back and tell you why
Speaker 1: water is important and why purified water is not a
Speaker 1: good Okay, great, Okay. So the brain, the human brain
Speaker 1: is eighty percent water, which means eight of the grain
Speaker 1: and white matter of the brain and the CSF, the
Speaker 1: cerebrospinal fluid surrounds the brain is really water, which is
Speaker 1: a higher concentration of water than in any other organ
Speaker 1: in the body. That also means that the brain literally
Speaker 1: needs water to be healthy and thrive because every chemical
Speaker 1: reaction that takes place in the brain really needs water
Speaker 1: just to take place. Whether is the substrate for every
Speaker 1: single cellular reaction inside the brain, including energy production, which
Speaker 1: means that the brain is very sensitive to the hydration.
Speaker 1: Even very mild the hydration, like a two percent water loss,
Speaker 1: like between the two and four percent water loss can
Speaker 1: cause actual actual neurological symptoms from dizziness, fatigue, confusion, headaches.
Speaker 1: I mean, the hydration is like one of the biggest
Speaker 1: reasons for for headaches and migrants and also brain scans,
Speaker 1: brain image and studies have shown that people who are
Speaker 1: chronically dehydrated, even just mightily dehydrated, show brain shrinkage. And
Speaker 1: we don't want that we don't. You don't want your
Speaker 1: brain to shrinking, and that can be easily reversed by
Speaker 1: just drinking water and really replenishing these fluids. So I
Speaker 1: think that's really important to know. And what our brains
Speaker 1: and their bodies want is water that contains electrolytes. So
Speaker 1: it's not just fluids. It's not just something wet, right,
Speaker 1: it has to be a fluid h to oh, that
Speaker 1: contains specific minerals and salts. They have a rehydrated property,
Speaker 1: and that's what you find in water that is actually
Speaker 1: not purified. It can be filtered for toxins and impurities,
Speaker 1: but the electrolytes need to be there. Otherwise it's just
Speaker 1: fluids that can increase your volume and blood pressure, but
Speaker 1: it's not the same as actually rehydrating your brain. So
Speaker 1: top water is better if it's clean and safe. Otherwise
Speaker 1: spring water is much better. And so if you take
Speaker 1: tap water and run it through like a Bridle filter
Speaker 1: for example, is that okay, it's a very good starting point.
Speaker 1: Brit Of filters are not as effective removing toxins, right,
Speaker 1: So there are some other filters that are a little
Speaker 1: bit They're more expensive perhaps, but they're a little bit
Speaker 1: more accurate. And what I learned because I did a
Speaker 1: lot of research and this, of course, we had the
Speaker 1: kitchen redone, so I really wanted to have an under
Speaker 1: the sink filter that we could use for a really
Speaker 1: long time. I think it's a really good investment if
Speaker 1: you would, like me, really care about the quality of
Speaker 1: the water you drink. And so what I learned is done.
Speaker 1: It's really housed by house or home by home, and
Speaker 1: the thing that makes the most sense is to go
Speaker 1: to the city and have the city come to the
Speaker 1: house and test the water and give you your own report.
Speaker 1: Because it's not just the water from whatever source outside
Speaker 1: the house, it's also your pipes that contribute to impurity.
Speaker 1: So you really want to measure both and then you
Speaker 1: get your own little report and you can choose the
Speaker 1: filter that makes the most sense for your house. So,
Speaker 1: after water, what are some other, you know, really key
Speaker 1: things that we should be thinking about with eating for
Speaker 1: our brain health. So I think some of the most
Speaker 1: important nutrients are omega three fairy acids and and antioxidants
Speaker 1: and also fiber in a kind of indirect way, so
Speaker 1: omega three fair acids are perhaps the most important source
Speaker 1: of brain fat. And see, the brain is mostly phospholipids,
Speaker 1: and phospholipids are a specific kind of fat that contains
Speaker 1: a lot of omega three's and the megazix fatty acids
Speaker 1: in a two to one proportions, so there's like two
Speaker 1: units or two molecules of omega six for every molecule
Speaker 1: of omega three. And it's really helpful if the foods
Speaker 1: we eat and our diet in general can reflect this
Speaker 1: ratio um so that these fats will enter inside the
Speaker 1: brain and really replenish the fat that's being utilized and
Speaker 1: oxidized pretty much continuously during the process of aging. And
Speaker 1: I really want to point out that there's a good
Speaker 1: amount of confusion I think out there on what kind
Speaker 1: of fats are really important for the brain. And I've
Speaker 1: read a number of times that people should eat a
Speaker 1: lot of cholesterol because the brain contains a lot of cholesterol,
Speaker 1: and they really want to clarify I hear the cholestero
Speaker 1: from the diet actually cannot even get inside the brain.
Speaker 1: So eating cholestero from food will have no impact on
Speaker 1: the health of your brain whatsoever unless it gives your
Speaker 1: heart disease, and then it has a negative impact, so
Speaker 1: it can across the blood brain barrier. That's right, which
Speaker 1: I was just going to say for listeners who may
Speaker 1: not be aware that the brain has a it's called
Speaker 1: the blood brain barrier, and it's a it's a specific
Speaker 1: way the brain says, like I'll lot certain things in,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to let other things, and it's
Speaker 1: a it's a way it protects itself. Right, And the
Speaker 1: fact that cholesterol cannot get inside the brain, I think
Speaker 1: it's a good indication of how much we should get
Speaker 1: in the diet, right, I mean, it's important for other
Speaker 1: body functions. Of course, it's never about excluding nutrients completely.
Speaker 1: It's just that there's so much disinformation where people are
Speaker 1: actively encouraged to eat a lot of cholesterol specifically for
Speaker 1: their brains. So I just wanted to point out that
Speaker 1: that's not right. Instead, the brain really needs these mega
Speaker 1: three's and omega six fatty acids. However, the standard American
Speaker 1: diet contains a ton of omega sixes, right, and very
Speaker 1: little omega three's, so it's really important to focus on those.
Speaker 1: And these really come from nuts and seeds and healthy
Speaker 1: oils like extra virginalitive oil, and especially from fish. Fish
Speaker 1: is a fantastic source of d h A, which is
Speaker 1: the most important type of brain fat. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of research showing that if you have if you
Speaker 1: consume at least four grams of omega three's in your diet,
Speaker 1: your risk of dementia is seventy lower than that of
Speaker 1: a person who eats less than two grams per day. Well, yeah, se,
Speaker 1: so if I had a pill, right, they can lower
Speaker 1: the risk of the mansion by se, I would be
Speaker 1: rich and everybody would would just buy it instead. The
Speaker 1: prescription is just eat fish. Actually, he was vegetarian for
Speaker 1: years and in the last year or so have started
Speaker 1: to add back in fish, uh to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: just simply because of a lot of the research that
Speaker 1: you're referencing. You know. The other thing I didn't mention
Speaker 1: is my my partner's mother has Alzheimer's and my father
Speaker 1: recently was diagnosed with it. So we're we've kind of
Speaker 1: got it. Yeah, yeah, we're swimming in it, so to speak.
Speaker 1: So you guys should come get a brain scan, you
Speaker 1: should come together. Yes, yes, yeah, Is that is that
Speaker 1: a service that you are offering? Absolutely? I'm the director
Speaker 1: of the Women's Brain Initiative a World Cornel and the
Speaker 1: Women's Brain Initiative is an entire research program dedicated to
Speaker 1: really understanding how brain heald plays out differently in women
Speaker 1: than in men. So we have we have an arm
Speaker 1: of the research that is dedicated to women, and then
Speaker 1: there's the other arm that is really for men, because
Speaker 1: we really want to understand which risk factors increased risk
Speaker 1: of dementia differently from men and for women, and then
Speaker 1: how we can prevent it. And as part of this research,
Speaker 1: we do brain scans on all our participants and no
Speaker 1: cost to participants. We cover everything with my research funds. Wow,
Speaker 1: well let's yeah, Okay, it's a deal. Good And we're
Speaker 1: open to enrollment, which is well, right now we're stuck
Speaker 1: because the pandemic, but as soon as we're able to
Speaker 1: to have human contact again, then we're we're definitely open
Speaker 1: to enrollment. Yes, so eating fish is good. You can
Speaker 1: take Omega three fish oil. Is that good? It should?
Speaker 1: It makes sense to thinks that it would be perhaps
Speaker 1: not the same, but it shouldn't harm for sure. Oversay
Speaker 1: then expects the best thing. There isn't a lot of
Speaker 1: research on supplement. There's a lot more research on getting
Speaker 1: these nutrients from foods, and actually there's quite a little
Speaker 1: bit of work showing that nutrients from food they are
Speaker 1: always superior to nutrients from eplements artificial supplements, especially for antioxidants,
Speaker 1: which is the other nutrients that wanted to mention. Our
Speaker 1: brains are very vulnerable to oxidating stress, which is a
Speaker 1: sort of rusting effect that just takes place naturally over time,
Speaker 1: and it's like there's a lot of free radical production
Speaker 1: going on in the brain any any given moment just
Speaker 1: because of the way the brains are, and so it's
Speaker 1: really important that we introduce antioxidants from the diet and antioxidants.
Speaker 1: The most important ones are vitamin C and vitamin E
Speaker 1: and they come from a number of fruits like berries
Speaker 1: and great source and um oranges, lemons, grape fruits, Almonds
Speaker 1: are a really good source extra virgin olive as so
Speaker 1: basically plant based foods, and research has shown that if
Speaker 1: you consume enough all these antioxidants that also reduces your
Speaker 1: risk of Alzheimer's by a good solidar dy present. But
Speaker 1: in clinic cultur aisles they actually used the supplements, there
Speaker 1: was very little benefit and when people looked into that,
Speaker 1: they concluded that it's really because the foods contain different
Speaker 1: isoforms of the same vitamin. For example, vitamin E comes
Speaker 1: in eight different forms, and every form has a slightly
Speaker 1: different effect um in your body and brain. Like one
Speaker 1: type increases blood flow, the other type is better food oxygenation,
Speaker 1: the other one it's more end inflammatory. So if you
Speaker 1: eat foods that contain all eight types, you have all
Speaker 1: different properties going on for you, whereas if you take
Speaker 1: a supplement is just one form or perhaps two forms,
Speaker 1: but you don't get the full benefit. Right. There seems
Speaker 1: to be a lot of data that points to this
Speaker 1: that the whole food is preferable way to get nutrients,
Speaker 1: and then you start getting into things like phyto nutrients
Speaker 1: and all this other stuff that exactly it's really really important,
Speaker 1: and so that supplements might be an okay backstop, but
Speaker 1: that we really should be folk as sing on food. Right,
Speaker 1: So supplements should be used to supplement a healthy diet
Speaker 1: or perhaps optimize it if you have like a specific
Speaker 1: health concern or maybe subclinical deficiency or an actual deficiency.
Speaker 1: But I think it's really important to have a really
Speaker 1: healthy diet first and then take your supplements. Whereas I
Speaker 1: find that a lot of people kind of bypass the
Speaker 1: diet and just go for the supplements. Right. It's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: it took my twenty five different pills, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to have pizza for dinner and then maybe ice cream
Speaker 1: because I know in a minute, right, right, And so
Speaker 1: I want to transition here in a second to women's
Speaker 1: brain health. But I think if there's one other sort
Speaker 1: of overarching nutritional principle that goes throughout your work, would
Speaker 1: be less processed food and much more whole food, you know, fruits, vegetables,
Speaker 1: whole grains, all that. And so to move away from
Speaker 1: processed foods in general, can you just give us a
Speaker 1: minute or too on why that's so important? Tour sure,
Speaker 1: I think that that actually has a great sumbody of
Speaker 1: twenty years of work process food. We know that processed
Speaker 1: foods are really bad news for men and women, but
Speaker 1: also especially for women. There are very large scale studies
Speaker 1: with hundreds of thousands of people showing very strong associations
Speaker 1: between consumption of process food to be clear on a
Speaker 1: daily basis, right, So, regular consumption of process food and
Speaker 1: then increased risk of every possible chronic condition from heart disease,
Speaker 1: to a busy and diabetes and Alzheimer's, and then mentioned
Speaker 1: all the way to breast cancer. So when I started
Speaker 1: in this field, the associations were not as clear or
Speaker 1: as rigorously established. But I think at this point in time,
Speaker 1: we really have plenty of evidence that processed food is
Speaker 1: just not good for your brain. There are so many
Speaker 1: studies showing that even just assuming two grams a day
Speaker 1: or trans Saturday, the fats, which are the worst type
Speaker 1: of fat you can possibly eat, increases the risk of
Speaker 1: heart disease by over doubles the risk of dementia, and
Speaker 1: increase the risk of cancer by two fold. Also, processed
Speaker 1: food doesn't even taste good, So what's the point, right?
Speaker 1: I think it's more cultural. It's like a cultural inclination.
Speaker 1: It is more marketing that makes it look appealing, but
Speaker 1: there's really no particular reason to go for it. Like
Speaker 1: you said, it's somewhat culturally set up. It's what's very
Speaker 1: very available, tends to in some cases be quicker. You
Speaker 1: don't need to think as much about it, right. I
Speaker 1: think the problem is accessibility, Like it's literally everywhere, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it's the only way type of food you can get,
Speaker 1: which I find incredible, And the other problem is that
Speaker 1: is cheap. Right, Whenever I talk to people about trying
Speaker 1: to eat more healthy, whole foods, possibly organic, as much
Speaker 1: as you can, a lot of the concerns of really
Speaker 1: about costs. You know, if I go to McDonald's, I
Speaker 1: can I can get a full dinner for me and
Speaker 1: my family for ten dollars. If I go to a
Speaker 1: health food store, I get nothing for ten dollars, get
Speaker 1: to apples. And that that's true. It is not my fault, obviously,
Speaker 1: but it's very true. And I think it's really something
Speaker 1: that people should take up with the government because these
Speaker 1: are policies that need to be changed, because really, health
Speaker 1: should not be a privilege of the wealthy, but it
Speaker 1: is at this point in time, and it's really it's
Speaker 1: deeply unfair, especially because we know of all the negative
Speaker 1: effects that these foods can have one on our health.
Speaker 1: I agree, I think what we choose to subsidize in
Speaker 1: foods in this country contributes to all that. But I
Speaker 1: also think that yes, to eat a fully healthy diet,
Speaker 1: you know, go all the way is definitely a lot
Speaker 1: more expensive. But I think we can make a lot
Speaker 1: of changes and can eat a lot more foods that
Speaker 1: are actual whole foods without breaking the bank. I think
Speaker 1: it can get set up as well. If I don't
Speaker 1: have a ton of money that I can't make any changes.
Speaker 1: And and I'm always a believer in life with kind
Speaker 1: of anything that we can take steps in the direction
Speaker 1: of where we want to be. From wherever we are,
Speaker 1: there are steps we can take in the right direction. Yes,
Speaker 1: And it's really about thinking about it and planning and
Speaker 1: finding solutions, which is something that I try to really
Speaker 1: approach in Brain Food, which is my first book, and
Speaker 1: more so in my new book, The XX Brain. Because
Speaker 1: there's new evidence that pollutants and environmental toxins can have
Speaker 1: an anti estrogen effect, or actually they contain chemicals called
Speaker 1: xeno estrogens or foreign estrogens. They really can mimic the
Speaker 1: facts of estrogen in the body, but in a very
Speaker 1: negative way, and they really really like a health risk.
Speaker 1: They're big concern, especially for women, pregnant women and children,
Speaker 1: and so it really tried to warn people to try
Speaker 1: and avoid these sources of chemicals as much as possible,
Speaker 1: which really speaks also to include more organic foods in
Speaker 1: the diet. And so since I'm very mindful that the
Speaker 1: organic food is sadly more expensive than I have a
Speaker 1: lot of tips in the book to really help people
Speaker 1: make the right choices and find the right sources and
Speaker 1: products and really save some money in the process as well.
Speaker 1: You just made a great transition that I'd like to
Speaker 1: move to, which is really talking about your latest book
Speaker 1: called The XX Brain, The Groundbreaking Science Empowering Women to
Speaker 1: maximize cognitive health and prevent Alzheimer's. And the main thing
Speaker 1: again to try and summarize is that estrogen is really
Speaker 1: a neuroprotective and neurometabolic hormone and that it plays a
Speaker 1: really important role in our brain. Yes, a huge role
Speaker 1: in the brain. They were trying to really revamp some
Speaker 1: ways because women and hormones has always been a little
Speaker 1: bit of suspicion around what happens to you when when
Speaker 1: you're PMS or there's a lot of stigma around women
Speaker 1: and hormones, especially as part as their brains are concerned.
Speaker 1: But a lot of my research is really focused on
Speaker 1: women's health and women's brains. I really work at the
Speaker 1: intersection between neurology and women's health, which is a very
Speaker 1: strange thing to do, but I love it personally. And
Speaker 1: whatever research has shown is that women's brains age differently
Speaker 1: than men's brains, and the menopauise and hormonal changes leading
Speaker 1: up to menopause really play a key role here for
Speaker 1: women because what people don't realize, what most people don't realize,
Speaker 1: is that the brain is in constant communication with the
Speaker 1: reproductive organs and the ovaries, and the ovaries are in
Speaker 1: constant interaction and communication with their brains, So the health
Speaker 1: of the ovaries is really key to the health of
Speaker 1: the brain and the way that the brain ages and women,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the aging process is really supported
Speaker 1: by your hormones, especially estrogens, which are not just involved
Speaker 1: in reproduction but really play a whole number of roles
Speaker 1: and functions in the brain. First of all, energy production,
Speaker 1: so estrogens literally push your neurons to make energy. So
Speaker 1: if your estrogens are high, your brain energy is high.
Speaker 1: But when your estrogens decline, your neurons start aging faster
Speaker 1: and kind of slow down as well, which we see
Speaker 1: when we do the brain scans. And for some women,
Speaker 1: this slowdown has also been linked to an increased risk
Speaker 1: of Alzheimi disease and increase risk of accumulating Alzheimer's plaques,
Speaker 1: which is actually in a way it is good information,
Speaker 1: is actually very good important information to have, is not
Speaker 1: just scary, because it really gives us a timeline to
Speaker 1: start looking for these changes in women's brains, not when
Speaker 1: we're in our seventies and eighties, but already in midlife,
Speaker 1: in our forties and fifties. So I strongly believe that
Speaker 1: Alzheimer's preventions should start as soon as the woman's hits
Speaker 1: forty and that my hope is that one day doing
Speaker 1: brain scans will become a really crucial part of the
Speaker 1: clinical world cup for Alzheimer's dementia prevention. The same way
Speaker 1: that women receives mammograms when they're hit in midlife, the
Speaker 1: same way that we get colonoscopy, is the same way
Speaker 1: that we get pop tests. You know, we should also
Speaker 1: really start thinking about the health of our brains. And
Speaker 1: this is why the book is about right, and women
Speaker 1: account for two thirds of Alzheimer's cases, right, Right, So
Speaker 1: that we were talking about before. When my grandmother developed
Speaker 1: Alzheimer's and then her two sisters got Alzheimer's and their
Speaker 1: brother did not, I started asking questions. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: is it just my family, or is this something that
Speaker 1: we should really look into? And it took a few
Speaker 1: more years for scientists to really figure out that that
Speaker 1: is indeed the global population, like you said, today, almost
Speaker 1: two thirds of all Alzheimer's patients are women, which means
Speaker 1: that for every men suffering from Alzheimer's, there are two women.
Speaker 1: So it's not ever discounting the suffering of a male
Speaker 1: with Alzheimer's disease, but it's really about the knowledge in
Speaker 1: the fact that more women than men end up with Alzheimer's,
Speaker 1: which is really important to number one to recognize this
Speaker 1: because nobody talks about it, and number two to really
Speaker 1: focus on interventions that are specifically affect for women and
Speaker 1: for men. However, most of the research has been done
Speaker 1: in men, so we kind of know a little bit
Speaker 1: better what what a male risk factor is, Like heart
Speaker 1: disease is a huge risk factor for Alzheimer's, but much
Speaker 1: more so in men than in women. We now need
Speaker 1: to better understand what really provokes Alzheimer's disease and women,
Speaker 1: and my research points to metabolic and hormonal changes that
Speaker 1: they're not usually looked at when you go for an
Speaker 1: Alzheimer's prevention consultation, and so what sort of things can
Speaker 1: can women be doing specifically, particularly women as they as
Speaker 1: you said, is there as they're hitting forty and above
Speaker 1: and heading towards or beginning menopause, depending on where they are,
Speaker 1: what are some of the things that they can be
Speaker 1: doing specifically that maybe it is a little different than
Speaker 1: what men should be doing. Right, So, there are many
Speaker 1: things that every woman can do today to really support
Speaker 1: her commons and their effects on the brain. And for
Speaker 1: many women it's a combination of a number of things
Speaker 1: that fortunately we can resolve for ourselves, which is really
Speaker 1: why I wrote the book to be a guide. So
Speaker 1: I divided the book into three parts. The first part
Speaker 1: is really the science about not just out time it's prevention,
Speaker 1: but just how to optimize cognitive health in women. Then
Speaker 1: there's a part about questionnaires and how to understand what
Speaker 1: kind of tests are really valuable to women and what
Speaker 1: kind of information you really need to know. It's really
Speaker 1: know your numbers and the important numbers. And then the
Speaker 1: last part is really about accommendations and all the things
Speaker 1: that we know could really help a woman's brain. There
Speaker 1: are many things, including hormonotherapy, which unfortunately we don't have
Speaker 1: time to get into right now, but it's something that
Speaker 1: I I am very interested in exploring more. But also
Speaker 1: other things like diet, which we talked about a little bit,
Speaker 1: there are some specific foods and nutrients that seem to
Speaker 1: be even more important for women's brains. Exercise, sleep, stress reduction,
Speaker 1: staying away from toxins. Right. We talked about that a
Speaker 1: little bit. So it's really important to to focus on
Speaker 1: all these things because they're really in our control. And
Speaker 1: we can just talk about one perhaps if you like,
Speaker 1: I will talk about stress right now. Everybody is under stress,
Speaker 1: right and but also in general, pretty much every woman
Speaker 1: I know is under some stress, especially after age three,
Speaker 1: five or four. They But one thing we don't talk
Speaker 1: about enough is that stress can literally steal your estrogens
Speaker 1: with negative effects for women's brains. And that is because
Speaker 1: our sex hormones like estrogens to stossed it and progester
Speaker 1: and they're working balance with the stress hormone cortisol. So
Speaker 1: the court is all this is high your estrogens go down.
Speaker 1: If you can't reduce your stress levels and therefore reduce
Speaker 1: your cortisol levels, then your hormones go back up. And
Speaker 1: that is really the really important because there's a lot
Speaker 1: of research showing that chronic stress in your life is
Speaker 1: not just the trigger for heart disease, liver disease, anxiety, depression,
Speaker 1: but also for dementia. So I think this is something
Speaker 1: that that we really need to underline. You know, really,
Speaker 1: reducing stress doesn't just save your day if you will,
Speaker 1: it also really saves your brain for the long term.
Speaker 1: So it's really important to to focus on stress reduction today. Wonderful,
Speaker 1: and I think the thing that's so great about this
Speaker 1: is that it points to things that we know in
Speaker 1: general are important reduce our stress, sleep well, exercise, eat well. Like.
Speaker 1: The thing I like about these things is that they
Speaker 1: support me today in my life, right. They support me
Speaker 1: in my mental and emotional well being right now today,
Speaker 1: and they also really bode well for the future that's coming,
Speaker 1: both both in my body's how and in my brains
Speaker 1: health right. And I love that there's so much that
Speaker 1: we can do because a lot of times in the world,
Speaker 1: and this is one of those times, there's a lot
Speaker 1: that feels out of control, but there is a lot
Speaker 1: we can do that effects are are well being in
Speaker 1: our health. Right. So I mentioned that to you before
Speaker 1: we started recording that we're now kind of in a
Speaker 1: barn in the middle of nowhere, and my daughter's foot
Speaker 1: and a half has just been homeschooled, which really is
Speaker 1: a challenge because I'm working full time stealing so it
Speaker 1: is my husband. And so I really tried to squeeze
Speaker 1: in you know, a little exercise, a little vegitation, and
Speaker 1: a little yoga. And today I was planking, and I
Speaker 1: like to plank. It's you know, if you if you're
Speaker 1: able to do it for ten minutes, I think that
Speaker 1: that's a fantastic work out. So I was really trying
Speaker 1: so hard, and I had this little girl just like
Speaker 1: climbing all over me, and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you're making it so hard for me. But I think
Speaker 1: it's so important to to really prioritize self care in
Speaker 1: a way and to really appreciate how in the end,
Speaker 1: healthy lifestyle is actually very strong preventative against the number
Speaker 1: of issues from hormonal issue all the way to brain
Speaker 1: aging in the mania. I think we all kind of
Speaker 1: understand the benefits of a healthy lifestyle intuitively, but a
Speaker 1: lot of people have a hard time just incorporating these
Speaker 1: tips and in these principles in their data lives and
Speaker 1: that which just really encourage everyone to think of their
Speaker 1: brain more like a muscle. You know, there are there
Speaker 1: are things that you can do to make it stronger.
Speaker 1: You can feed it properly, you can exercise it properly,
Speaker 1: you can really take care of it properly, and your
Speaker 1: brain will perform so much better for you at any age.
Speaker 1: So yes, it takes discipline, but really the benefits are
Speaker 1: for life. Yeah, wonderful. Well, I think that is a
Speaker 1: great place for us to wrap up this conversation. Lisa,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to come
Speaker 1: on the show. Oh, thank you so much for having
Speaker 1: men with such a pleasure. Oh good, I'm glad me
Speaker 1: to thank you. If what you just heard was helpful
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