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- [00:00]
Penn Holderness
Want a workout that actually works? Hydro delivers a full body workout that hits 86% of your muscles in just 20 minutes.
- [00:07]
Kim Holderness
Rowing with Hydro combines strength and cardio.
- [00:10]
Penn Holderness
With thousands of workouts led by Olympians in breathtaking locations.
- [00:14]
Kim Holderness
No wonder nine out of ten members are still active one year later.
- [00:17]
Penn Holderness
Try hydro risk free@hydro.com and use code RO to save up to $475 off your hydro pro rower. That's H Y-R-O-W.com code row.
- [00:32]
Kim Holderness
You know Kim, sun exposure is unavoidable and with so much information out there, it can be hard to know the best way to protect your skin.
- [00:40]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Blue Lizard is here to make it easy with just a few simple steps and many great products to help you and your family stay protected in the sun.
- [00:47]
Kim Holderness
Step out of the shade and live fearlessly in the sun with dermatologist and pediatrician Trusted Mineral sunscreens.
- [00:53]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
I seriously love Blue Lizard and have been using them for a long time. I love that Blue Lizard caps they they turn blue when harmful UV rays are present.
- [01:02]
Kim Holderness
With up to 80 minutes of water resistance, this is the ultimate choice for more fun under the sun.
- [01:08]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
My favorite part is that Blue Lizard Sensitive mineral sunscreens are made specifically for sensitive skin. Their formulas are free from potentially irritating parabens, phthalates and fragrances, and their sunscreen.
- [01:20]
Kim Holderness
Sticks provide broad spectrum UV protection in a compact package for easy application on the go.
- [01:26]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Go to blue lizardsunscreen.com to find out more information. Which sunscreens are right for your family and where to buy in store or visit the Blue Lizard Australian Sunscreen store on Amazon.
- [01:37]
Kim Holderness
Be fearless in the sun with Blue Lizard Hey Kim.
- [01:42]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah?
- [01:43]
Kim Holderness
You ever like run into someone and they're like, hey, how you doing? And you're like, I'm good. You?
- [01:47]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah. That's all I can come up with all the time.
- [01:49]
Kim Holderness
Right. But sometimes you're actually not good. You're like medium or nice.
- [01:53]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Exactly. That's why I've decided when I'm saying I'm good, I want to meet it. That's why why I'm using Headspace.
- [01:59]
Kim Holderness
Headspace is the app that helps 100 million people with their mental health and well being with guided meditations, mindfulness practices, breathing and calming exercises, and so much more.
- [02:09]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Headspace combines scientifically proven benefits of meditation and mindfulness with modern practices, and you learn from experienced meditation teachers.
- [02:18]
Kim Holderness
The app has customized personalized approaches to help you navigate through all of life's moments. So if you're a total newbie or if you've Been meditating for years. Either way, there's always content for what you're going through.
- [02:29]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
When I'm short on time, Headspace has these quick on the go programs that help me get in the right headspace in just a few minutes.
- [02:36]
Kim Holderness
With over a thousand hours of mindfulness exercises, it's got the most complete meditation library I have ever seen.
- [02:43]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
I personally love the breathing exercises. I know when my nervous system is acting up. Having tools to calm my breathing is the most impactful tool in my toolkit.
- [02:53]
Kim Holderness
So feel good and mean it when you say it. For a limited time, get Headspace for free for 60 days. Go to headspace.comholderness that's H E A-S-P-A.
- [03:05]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
C E.comholderness to unlock all of Headspace. Free for 60 days. Headspace.comholderness could these GLP1s help you stave off Alzheimer's?
- [03:17]
Penn Holderness
GLP1s, I believe, are going to be a absolutely critical part of the story of how we stave off Alzheimer's in our society.
- [03:26]
Kim Holderness
Yeah, we get older every day. Got more wrinkles. That's okay. Yeah, we're laughing. When we age, life is like a comedy stage. And that's why we got laugh lines.
- [03:43]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Hello, everybody. Welcome to Laugh Lines. I'm Kim Holderness.
- [03:46]
Kim Holderness
I'm Penn Holderness and this is our third one that's also on YouTube. Yes, I just call it a one. That's very eloquent of me. Simulcast.
- [03:56]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
This laugh Lines podcast is aimed at making aging tolerable by trying to laugh at it. Okay? So if you feel personally victimized by Bon Jovi being on the COVID of aarp, you are welcome here.
- [04:10]
Kim Holderness
That's right.
- [04:10]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
You are home now. And if you've ever said, why is this music so loud in this restaurant? Yeah, we are your people.
- [04:17]
Kim Holderness
Yeah.
- [04:17]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
We are your tribe.
- [04:18]
Kim Holderness
I also think there's a medical explanation for that, and I want to explore that.
- [04:20]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
We're going to explore that. Okay? And before we get to our amazing guest today, part of Laugh Lines is hearing from you on the left line. Get it? You can write us at. And I can't read the printer paper because my eyes are so freaking bad.
- [04:32]
Kim Holderness
I can do it.
- [04:33]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay.
- [04:33]
Kim Holderness
It's podcast. Theholdernessfamily.com or leave a voicemail. That's right. We have a voicemail. That's how old we are. 323-364-3929. Get your pocket out of your. Get your pen out of your pocket. Because if you're our age, you've got one of those. But we've also got a link in the show notes for all that info.
- [04:53]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yes. And upcoming episodes where you can leave a story. Is. Is it perimenopause or dep. Dementia? Why am I losing my mind? And what are these weird sounds my body is making and what can I do about it?
- [05:03]
Kim Holderness
That's going to be a fun one.
- [05:03]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
That's going to be a fun one. Okay, this, this episode today, you know, we like to laugh, we like to have fun, but I'm going to say it's a. It's a little personal. Right, babe?
- [05:13]
Kim Holderness
Yeah. We're talking about dementia and Alzheimer's. Now your family, you've got cancer.
- [05:19]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
We're cancer people.
- [05:20]
Kim Holderness
Yeah, that and that part you are. Have been proactive and careful about that in my family. Just personally from me, I've got some scary stat, right? Three of my four grandparents had either Alzheimer's or dementia at the end of their lives. My dad passed away two years ago. He had severe dementia. My mom is what we would call the late stages at this point of Alzheimer's. Now, for my grandparents, their condition was shrouded very well by their kids, by my parents. So I really didn't see much of it until the final year or so. For my parents, it's been over a decade. Right. They call it the long goodbye. And I, I know why now, because it keeps going and going. There have been some impossibly difficult conversations that we've had to have as well to get them into a safe place. And it meant restricting their freedom. It meant taking them away from their home of almost 50 years and in some cases taking them away from each other. If you're listening to this right now, you might be thinking, well, Penn, I know that sounds painful, but it's not your fault. You know, your parents, they should have been prepared for this and kept you from having to feel like this. Here's the crazy part. They were. They had crazy, crazy specific advanced directives about what to do at end of life.
- [06:33]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
My dad, very specific, very vocal, non.
- [06:36]
Kim Holderness
Specifically and non vocally. My dad told me about 15 times. Sometimes funny, sometimes serious. If I start acting like your granddad, I want you to drive me to the beach with a fishing pole and leave me there.
- [06:49]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah, he was serious.
- [06:50]
Kim Holderness
His requests got more graphic and more specific as time went on. And I'm not going to share them with you. But what you have to know is he was doing that completely out of love to try to keep me from having to go through what he went through with his dad. Bottom line, he was trying to spare me for that. But in the end, none of it mattered. Of course, my brother and I didn't do those things that my dad asked me to do. So the only other option we had was taking his and my mother's freedom away to find them somewhere safe. So I am coming to this podcast and wanting to talk to Dr. Isaacson, kind of in the same way my dad approached his middle aged years. Like wanting to be ready and not wanting to be this. Not wanting to subject my family to anything. However, there's so much more information. He knew nothing about lifestyle. He knew nothing about prevention. And that is what we're gonna talk about today. We have an incredible guest.
- [07:42]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
He's a rock star in the world of preventative neurology. I mean, I'd never heard of the term before I'd heard of Dr. Erickson. And we were very starstruck because Dr. Richard Isaacson. I said Erickson, by the way, he's one of the leading voices in the fight against Alzheimer's disease. Prevented. Dr. Isaacson has dedicated his career not just to treating memory loss, but working to stop it before it starts. He's the director of research at the Institute for Neurogen.
- [08:08]
Kim Holderness
It's a tough one.
- [08:09]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Neuro.
- [08:10]
Kim Holderness
You may hit you. I've just said this so many times. It's the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases ind. Yeah.
- [08:18]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
And the Director of the Preventative Prevention Program at Atria Health and Research Institute. What? Oh, my God. I can't read, you guys. My eyes are so bad. And Dr. Isaacson's on the line listening.
- [08:31]
Kim Holderness
I know. He's smiling and he's being fantastic.
- [08:33]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay, okay. Just you read it. I can't. My eyes are so bad.
- [08:37]
Kim Holderness
Okay. Dr. Isaacson is director of research at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases and director of the Precision Prevention Program at Atria Health and Research Institute. According to the Internet's, he has more than 100 peer reviewed publications. His research explores how personalized evidence based lifestyle interventions like nutrition, exercise and cognitive training can help reduce the risk of Alzheimer's long before symptoms appear.
- [09:05]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Welcome, Dr. Isaacson. I'm sorry you had to sit through that, but welcome to the show. We're so excited you're here. Truly starstruck.
- [09:12]
Penn Holderness
That was amazing. That was like so much fun for me. Like, can you do that again?
- [09:17]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
The whole thing just mess it up for you?
- [09:19]
Penn Holderness
No, it was great. Call me like Isaac Richardson. Like, I love that one. That one's a good one.
- [09:23]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Make it your own. Erickson. Isaacson. But the thing is, we know so much about you. We've been reading about you for a long time. I know. Well, here's the thing. Your official title is you call yourself a preventative neurologist, right?
- [09:39]
Penn Holderness
That's what I do. Yeah.
- [09:40]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
And we live in Raleigh, North Carolina. We're very close to unc, very close to Duke, the city of medicine. So people come from all over the world to come here. I've been typing preventative neurologist in the search bar here for 10 years. And I don't. Maybe, maybe you can point me in a different direction, but it doesn't exist here.
- [09:58]
Penn Holderness
There's. There's like a few of us. It's hard. It's just starting.
- [10:02]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah.
- [10:02]
Penn Holderness
But it's coming. It's coming. The tidal wave, thanks to you. You may, you guys may like get the message out far and wide. And they're coming.
- [10:10]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Talk to us first. What drew you to focus a medical career in Alzheimer's? Because it's not sexy, let's face it. And then truly point that focus into prevention.
- [10:20]
Penn Holderness
Yeah. So, you know, just like you, I've been affected by Alzheimer's, multiple family members. When, when I was in high school, my dad's uncle, so my great uncle Bob, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I did one of these kind of six year medical programs, these baby doc programs, University of Missouri, Kansas City. Go Kangaroos. The fighting kangaroos. And at 17, I'm, you know, I'm in med school, wet behind the ears, got my lab coat on, you know, every Tuesday and Thursday doing rounding in the hospital. And like, I'm like, all this is like, what I'm gonna do. And then my uncle's diagnosed and then there's nothing you can do. That's what I was told. I was told there's nothing you can do. There's no treatments. Prevention wasn't even like on the map. You couldn't. No one even talked about that, thought about that. And basically I, I guess just, I just was drawn to Alzheimer's disease because I just felt like this is going to be my career. I'm going to be in this career for decades. Something's going to change. You know, I think there was like a decade of the brain. The 90s or something was supposed to be like the decade of the brain. And like, then the 90s happened and like, not much changed. But to me, I felt like, where do I want to spend my career? I want to do something that's going to challenge me, that I'll be motivated by that I'll, you know, basically be able to make an impact in. And that I believe that in, like, 20 years from now, meaning then something would change, the field would explode, and then I'd be a part of that. And, like, wow, I wish I would have played the lotto or bought some stocks. I, like, I should have bought Apple or Facebook. Facebook didn't ex then, I guess. But, like, that's why I was drawn to this. I felt, like, helpless that I couldn't help my family member. I then finished all my training, like, in 2007. Like, a couple years later, I was at a wedding and my dad's other cousin was there and just kept repeating herself, repeating herself. And I'm like, wow, it's happening again. And, like, it took years for her to get a diagnosis. And that wasn't okay. Even after all this training, all this whatever, the medical profession just didn't know about it. And like, the fact that you googled preventive neurologists and there are no preventive neurologists, well, that's going to change next. And I guess to me, I was driven because I saw the suffering. It's like a terrible disease. The long goodbye, as you say, it's terrible. And I really think that today we can do something about it. And a decade ago, we could do something about it, but people weren't talking about it. And now it's okay to use the term Alzheimer's and prevention in the same sentence. I don't get as many tomatoes thrown at me anymore. But, yeah, I'm excited by this.
- [12:51]
Kim Holderness
We're talking to Dr. Emil Jorgensen. So one thing that you've said repeatedly is that you shouldn't be talking about Alzheimer's prevention in your 50s and 60s. You should start talking about it in your 30s and 40s.
- [13:06]
Penn Holderness
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Super, super important. I was taught that Alzheimer's and dementia is an old person's disease or older person's disease, and that's just not the case. When someone has a heart attack or a stroke, it's not like they have a heart attack or a stroke that day. The disease, the buildup, the plaques, the atherosclerosis, hardening of the arteries, builds up in blood vessels over decades. I have a friend of mine, Adam, he was the first person that I knew in their 20s that actually had high cholesterol. And he was put on a cholesterol drug. And I think he asked me about it, like, in his late 20s. And I'm like, yeah, why not? The disease is just going to build up over decades. So why not? And most doctors don't think about that. And just like heart disease and blood vessel disease starts in your 20s, 30s, and 40s, and then you have a heart attack or stroke in your 50s, 60s, or 70s. Brain disease is the exact same thing. And I believe Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders should be thought of as a disease of the middle aged, because that's when the disease starts silently. And believe it or not, there's 47 million Americans that have that Alzheimer's, that pathology, that problem building up in the brain decades before the first symptom of memory loss begins. And like, we gotta do something about that. We gotta talk about it. So thank you for bringing attention to this. Thank you for talking about it. And yeah, you know, in the Alzheimer's prevention clinic, we used to see people age 25 and up.
- [14:27]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Wow.
- [14:28]
Penn Holderness
And we started at 40 and up, and then we realized that wasn't enough. We had a 35 year old guy come in and his mom had symptoms in her 50s, and I'm like, wait, Max, like, that's not fair. We need to change the irb, the research approval. So we saw this guy max in his 30s, and then we had someone who's 29 and like. 29? You can't see a 29 year old, but of course you can. If her mom was diagnosed at 51, that's exactly when she should be seen in the clinic. So, yeah, I agree. This needs to start as early as possible.
- [14:56]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
I have so many questions to ask you, so I. I don't. You've not done the official blood test.
- [15:02]
Kim Holderness
I think I did the APOE thing, but it was like a long, long time ago.
- [15:07]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
I would assume he has at least one.
- [15:10]
Kim Holderness
I don't know if I have one or two. I would assume we should have him explain all this.
- [15:13]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah. Can you explain that kind of the blood markers, then? I want to know, even if he has these sort of blood markers, is that just. Is that it? Like, is he going to get Alzheimer's? We're coming right back.
- [15:28]
Kim Holderness
Hey, Kim.
- [15:29]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah?
- [15:30]
Kim Holderness
You ever, like, run into someone and they're like, hey, how you doing? And you're like, I'm good. You?
- [15:34]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah. That's all I can come up with all the time.
- [15:36]
Kim Holderness
Right. But sometimes you're actually not good. You're like medium or nice.
- [15:40]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Exactly. That's why I've decided when I'm saying I'm good, I want to meet it. That's why I'm using headspace.
- [15:46]
Kim Holderness
Headspace is the app that helps 100 million people with their mental health and well being with guided meditations, mindfulness practices, breathing and calming exercises, and so much more.
- [15:56]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Headspace combines scientifically proven benefits of meditation and mindfulness with modern practices, and you learn from experienced meditation teachers.
- [16:05]
Kim Holderness
The app has customized personalized approaches to help you navigate through all of life's moments. So if you're a total newbie or a if you've been meditating for years, either way, there's always content for what you're going through.
- [16:17]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
When I'm short on time, Headspace has these quick on the go programs that help me get in the right headspace in just a few minutes.
- [16:24]
Kim Holderness
With over a thousand hours of mindfulness exercises, it's got the most complete meditation library I have ever seen.
- [16:30]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
I personally love the breathing exercises. I know when my nervous system is acting up. Having tools to calm my breathing is the most impactful, impactful tool in my toolkit.
- [16:40]
Kim Holderness
So feel good and mean it when you say it. For a limited time get Headspace for free for 60 days go to headspace.comholderness.
- [16:49]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
That'S H-E-A-S-P-A C E.comholderness to unlock all of Headspace. Free for 60 days headspace.comholderness IQ mix.
- [17:01]
Kim Holderness
Is a zero sugar drink mix from IQ Bar that hydrates, boosts your mood and promotes mental clarity.
- [17:07]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
IQ Mix has three times the electrolytes of other sports drinks and is packed with electrolytes and nutrients shown to support sustained cognitive and physical performance.
- [17:16]
Kim Holderness
IQ Mix comes in seven refreshing flavors like Passion Fruit, Pina Colada, Lemon, Lime, Peach, Mango, Pink Lemonade and raspberry lemonade.
- [17:25]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
IQ mix is free from gluten, sugar, soy and GMOs. It's even certified vegan and kosher.
- [17:30]
Kim Holderness
With over 20,000 five star reviews and counting, more people than ever are starting their days on the right foot with IQ Bars, Brain and Body Boosting Bars, Hydration mixes, and Mushroom coffees.
- [17:42]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Anyone who knows me knows I'm always trying to get more water in, so IQ Mix is easy to drink because it's so delicious. And I don't know if I want to mention my favorite flavor in case it sells out, but it's Pink Lemonade.
- [17:53]
Kim Holderness
And right now IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ bar products. Plus you're going to get free shipping.
- [18:01]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
To get your 20% off. Text Boldness to 64,000 text Holderness to.
- [18:06]
Kim Holderness
64,000 that's Holderness to 64,000 message and data rates may apply. See terms for details.
- [18:15]
Penn Holderness
Want a workout that actually works? Hydro delivers a full body workout that hits 86% of your muscles in just 20 minutes.
- [18:22]
Kim Holderness
Rowing with Hydro combines strength and cardio.
- [18:24]
Penn Holderness
With thousands of workouts led by Olympians in breathtaking locations.
- [18:29]
Kim Holderness
No wonder nine out of ten members are still active one year later.
- [18:32]
Penn Holderness
Try hydro risk free@hydro.com and use code row to save up to $475 off your hydro pro rower. That's H Y-R-O-W.com code row. Yeah. Okay, so lots to unpack there. So first I'll say genes are not your destiny. You can win the tug of war against your genes. There are certain people that do everything right and they're still going to get Alzheimer's. And I get that. But a minimum of 45% of cases of dementia may be preventable if that person does everything right. And in the case of the 50 something percent, or probably less than that, actually, that someone may get the disease anyway. What if you can delay it by six months, a year, two years or five years? I mean, that may give enough time for a new blockbuster drug to come, for something else to happen. So genes are not your destiny. Let me start by saying that, number two, I'm very interested in your genetics because, you know, just doing a genetic test, especially this Apoe, which, which we'll talk about the Apoe 4 variant. Where was that discovered? I think at Duke. Whoa, wait a minute. Yeah, right in your neck of the woods. Dr. Alan Roses, an amazing, amazing guy. Got to have dinner with him about a decade ago. He kind of changed the way I think about things. Dr. Parachek Vance and amazing, amazing group at Duke, I believe, that found all this stuff, having one or more copies of the Apoe 4 variant, it's a genetic kind of thing that you. Is about 25% of the population. So 20 to 25%. Those people do not definitively get Alzheimer's. I want to be really clear on that. It can certainly increase your risk. But there are absolutely targeted, precision, personalized ways, specific things. It's like the term would be precision medicine. And you know, you mentioned earlier run a program called the Precision Prevention Program at atria. And that's what we do. We look at genetics, we look at these factors and we put people on a targeted plan based on these things. And if you want to learn more about this, by the way, I love that we're talking about this. We have free resources at our foundation@ind.org and it's all free. And you can learn stuff and it's cool and you can learn about APOE. I'll try to teach you about it in maybe 30 seconds or less. But it's really complicated. You get one gene from mom and dad. You get an APOE 2, a 3, or a 4. So someone can be a 2, 3, a 3, 3, a 3, 4, or a 4. 4 and 4 fours are about 1% of the population for people out there that have done 23andMe 23.andMe does tell you if you have one or two copies of Apoe 4. It doesn't tell you if you have a two or three. There are also commercial tests that you can do. But to me, knowledge is power, and I really want to know if you have a gene or not, because it doesn't mean you're going to get it. It just means I'm going to tell you to do something differently based on those results. So that's how I think about APOE 2, 3 and 4. Is that helpful?
- [21:27]
Kim Holderness
It is. And I, in turn, just, I feel like I probably have it. I also. This is so immature. This is like, this is like me in the colonoscopy all over again. It's like, I don't want, I like my life. I feel like I'm being sort of healthy and I feel like if I, if they, if they tell me I got two copies of this thing, I'm going to be, it's gonna feel like I'm walking on eggshells for the rest of my life. And I'm just sorry to admit that, like, that makes me a petty person.
- [21:54]
Penn Holderness
I get it, and I empathize with that. And I have Doctors that are Apoe4four that say the exact same thing, even though they know that they shouldn't really feel that way based on the science.
- [22:06]
Kim Holderness
Yeah, I agree that I shouldn't feel that way.
- [22:08]
Penn Holderness
Yeah. And, and it's, it's, you know, listen, I, I, I, I have cancer. Like, I have cancer in my family and I have Alzheimer's. Right. Those are the two things that I'm trying to solve for. And, you know, I'm screening and I'm, you know, doing all the right things for Alzheimer's, and I think I know what to do about Alzheimer's, so it doesn't bother me. But like, cancer and cancer genes bother me much more than an Apoe 4. Apoe 4 is something that you can in some ways do something about you can't do, like, you know, crispr and do genetic whatever, and, you know, Whatever, and take the gene out at this time. But there are absolutely things that people can do to reduce their risk. And like Apoe 4 Fours don't bother me. You know, there's patients and a guy yesterday, and he's been really public. His name's Simon. He's been public about his story. Simon has been seeing me in our research program for years. He sees Dr. Arthur Agatson, who's a cardiologist. Preventive. One of the first preventive cardiologists back then in the 80s when you googled preventive cardiology. Well, they didn't have Google back then.
- [23:02]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
But they put in the yellow pages when they opened it up.
- [23:06]
Penn Holderness
If you went to the yellow. I remember the yellow Pages.
- [23:09]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Remember, like, when it got delivered to you, it was just. Yeah, it was huge.
- [23:12]
Penn Holderness
Anyway, wait, the white pages was residential. Residential businesses.
- [23:16]
Kim Holderness
And. And we used it to just mostly stand on when we wanted to look taller in a picture.
- [23:20]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
No, but like, it was. So we had a drawer for it in our house.
- [23:23]
Kim Holderness
Okay.
- [23:24]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Like the. The yellow pages and the white pages. Anyway. Continue.
- [23:27]
Penn Holderness
Well, and the first page, the yellow page was like, aaaa.
- [23:31]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
That's what you should have been. He should have been AAA Cardiac Preventative Cardiologist.
- [23:36]
Penn Holderness
Well, Arthur Agatson, AAA Preventative Cardiologist.
- [23:39]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay.
- [23:40]
Penn Holderness
He was in the front of the book. Book, clearly. Well, he wrote a book called the South Beach Diet, and that did pretty well. But I met him way before the South Beach Diet, and he invented this thing called the calcium score. The calcium score is also something we should talk about from a preventive standpoint. But anyway, Simon sees this guy. Arthur Agatson is an amazing guy, sees me in our research program, and he's an APOE 4 4. He's told his story, it's online and all that kind of stuff. He just came back, literally a couple weeks ago, and this is new. And we both started crying just to whatever. And I sent him his most recent result. Like, he came in in 2019. He had a PET scan of the brain with amyloid in it. And he had some symptoms. And he was like 50. Something like 50. He has two small kids. In the last two years, knowing that he had APOE 4. 4. We. We hit it, like, we hit it like, all hands on deck. And he put in the work, like, this is him, not me. Like, I'm. I'm giving advice. He's putting in the work. And in the last two years, and this is all documented, all real, and we, you know, we have, like, a video of it and everything and this is new data we got literally yesterday. He's normalized everything. His amyloid and tau proteins are totally normal. His brain grew. Yes, that's real. His, his brain is larger now than it was two years ago. He looks freaking great. And like, I mean, he's an A344. He's in his 50s, early 50s. And he's winning right now. We're winning. I'm not 100% sure that we're going to like dodge the bullet. I'm not sure. But we're going to go and go and keep going and we're just doubling down and we're going to do something new now for him because we're excited, but we're not ready to take our foot off the gas. Jeans are not our destiny. We can learn what our genes are. We can do something different because we hear about them, double down and go and move forward. So.
- [25:30]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay. This makes me want to cry.
- [25:32]
Kim Holderness
Yeah.
- [25:32]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
And because I, I feel like if Penn's parents or grandparents had access to the information, I'm sure they would have tried this. But now I look at my husband and I'm gonna convince him to get these tests done.
- [25:48]
Kim Holderness
You don't need to convince him.
- [25:49]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
No, no. But when you say you really attack it. What, what did he do over these, the past years to if, if he can share?
- [25:57]
Penn Holderness
Yeah. What does he do? He's doing everything. He's modifying his cholesterol in a way that just brings his risk down exponentially. He is living the exact healthy right lifestyle that he needs to be. He exercises five, six days a week. He's in the gym, strength training, you know, at least three days a week for an hour, hour and a half. He's made this a part time job. He does, he walks. He doesn't love as much cardio as I'd like him to do, but he walks and he walks fast. And once you walk fast enough, you can get into fat burning mode. The nutrition aspect is really dialed in. Mediterranean style diet. He's gotten rid of the crappy food and the processed foods and he's really, really disciplined. And also he had a big belly. That's what happens to men sometimes. And we get bigger. The belly size, as the belly size gets larger, the memory center in the brain gets smaller and he's now on a very tiny dose, dose, some would say microdosing of what we know as GLP1 drugs, which is like the Ozempic, the Zeppelin, the Wegovy and all that kind of stuff. And I'm a big Proponent for the last couple of years of this concept of microdosing. And you may see my Grateful Dead pillow in the background. And this may now be on YouTube, but I'm not meaning that microdosing right now anyway. I'm meaning microdosing of GLP1 drugs.
- [27:12]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
That's a different podcast.
- [27:13]
Kim Holderness
I don't think that's a Grateful Dead thing anymore. People are microdosing mushrooms and LSD. Those drugs are. That people took in the 70s have come in quite handy the last couple of years.
- [27:23]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
So, okay, that, that led to this. I've been sending pen articles for the past six months about Ozempic and GLP1s. You were quoted in several of those about. And so I'm like, babe, you gotta go get on Ozempic. And he's, he's very lean and he's sort of. Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's hard. But if you're telling me a microdose could tell me, tell me about could ozempic. Could these GLP1s help you stave off Alzheimer's?
- [27:53]
Penn Holderness
Yeah, great idea. Needs to be studied further, and I think so, but I'm not certain yet. You know, lifestyle plus drugs in certain circumstances are the way that certain people need to follow to get themselves surely off the road to Alzheimer's. GLP1s, I believe, are going to be a absolutely critical part of the story of how we stave off Alzheimer's in our, in our, in our society. GLP1 drugs are tricky, though, because it can lead to, especially at higher doses, loss of muscle mass. And then that's just bad. You can only, you know, losing body fat is good, losing muscle mass is bad. Muscle mass maintenance is critical. Building muscle, especially as we age, we lose about 1% of muscle mass per year as we age. Over the age of 50, you need to have muscle to have a high metabolic rate. And the GLP1s, especially at higher doses, can really clamp that down and make people lose muscle. So to me, you know, we've always been very judicious and cautious with using these drugs. And what we do is we've studied the lower doses. So what I would say is I believe that in the right person at the right dose for the right duration of time, and if they're following the lifestyle plan, it's not like you can't take a magic pill and prevent or cure Alzheimer's. No way, Jose. You need to do like. Like you got to put in the work. So strength training, adequate amounts of protein and tiny doses of GLP1s may be part of that cocktail that could really keep people off the road to Alzheimer's.
- [29:24]
Kim Holderness
How, how expensive is all this? And I'm, I'm just asking for those who are curious and interested because it does sound like a, like a very functional medicine, like the kind of thing you're probably not going to get when you go to your insurance covered general practitioner.
- [29:39]
Penn Holderness
Yeah, I think there's a lot of low hanging fruit that is very, you know, either generic drugs or vitamins or supplements that are not catastrophically expensive. I do think there are some challenges, especially with some of the injectable drugs that are new, that are very costly. All the work that we do in terms of all the fancy blood biomarkers, brain proteins, we're trying to develop what we colloquially call the cholesterol test for the brain. So instead of going to the doctor in your 20s, 30s, 40s, you get, you know, HD, HDL, LDL, triglycerides, we have these brain proteins, amyloid, tau, whatever. All of those tests and a lot of the preventive tests that we do are actually covered by research. So there's no cost to people that participate in the research. So I want to make the distinction between clinical and research. The research stuff we do is really costly. Like we're talking $12,000 for every blood draw between all the blood tests that are sent, the processing, the equipment, the overhead, the assays, the personnel. Research is really expensive. Clinical care is also expensive. But you know, if you have insurance in the United States, sometimes things are covered. A lot of times you have to fight and things are horrible and it's like the worst. My poor friend Dave has had a back problem. They won't do injections, they won't even cover his mri. Like I'm a neurologist. This is crazy sauce. They're not covering anything. So I guess what I would say is in terms of the low hanging fruit, exercise isn't expensive, but it's time consuming. Eating a healthy Mediterranean style diet isn't trivial in terms of cost. And fatty fish, eating fatty fish, wild salmon twice a week is not trivial in terms of cost. Omega 3 fatty acid supplements, for example. I'm not a big supplement guy, but in some ways if you have an APOE 4 variant 1 or more, and you can't eat enough fish, you can take a supplement and that's 50 bucks a month, whatever it is. The prescription drugs are mostly generic. Yeah, but the injectable drugs are very costly if not covered by insurance.
- [31:41]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
That brings up, I have my husband on I hand him like this little tiny bowl of pills every morning and can I run through what I give to him and you tell me if it's a waste of money? Okay. Omega 3s you mentioned.
- [31:52]
Penn Holderness
So that's so Devil's in the Deep.
- [31:54]
Kim Holderness
Bunch of different types, right?
- [31:55]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Thorn? Omega 3 and I think it has like D in it or something like has some other stuff in it.
- [32:00]
Penn Holderness
Okay, so let me start by saying I have no commercial relationships to any pharmaceutical companies. Vitamin supplement, no disclosures, no bias. The devil's in the details. Where'd you get from what is the dose of the DHA and the EPA, the different types of omega 3s? Did you order it from Amazon or did you order it directly from the company? When you have omega 3 fatty acids in capsules that are stored in very hot warehouses, that's not good because that makes the fish oil go rancid or bad and yucky and smelly. And you're never going to know it because it's in a pill. So making sure that the fish oil is fresh, that it has adequate amounts of dha, docosahexaenoic acid and EPA is key. And basically putting together the plan. Our Omega, Omega 3 is good. Yes, but mostly if you have one or more copies of the Apoa 4 variant. If you don't have it, it may not be as helpful. You take it and then you have to check it. So I don't know how your omega 3 fatty acid levels are doing, but you can go online now. And again, this is allno. Nothing to disclose. OmegaQuant.com O M E G A Q U a n t for $50 or $99, depending on which one you wanna get. You can check the amount of omega 3 fatty acid in your blood from home and then personalize the dose and the amount for you. And you can detect are the things that I'm taking. Is my diet plus supplements getting me to a level that is sufficient based on my genetics.
- [33:21]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay, hold on. I have to go through tumeric. Is that good? Helpful?
- [33:26]
Penn Holderness
Which type? Which brand I got it from?
- [33:29]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
I went down a deep rabbit hole, Doc, and I think I got it from somewhere. It comes in a bag. I don't know. Yeah.
- [33:36]
Kim Holderness
Was tick tock part of the.
- [33:38]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
No, not even.
- [33:39]
Kim Holderness
Okay, just wondering, Just wondering, just wondering.
- [33:41]
Penn Holderness
Okay.
- [33:41]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
But it. Somebody told me. Yeah, I went on like a Reddit rabbit hole and so I can't tell you.
- [33:45]
Penn Holderness
Yes, well, that's where I get my medical care too. From the rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit hole.
- [33:50]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah, that one. Yes.
- [33:51]
Penn Holderness
Yeah, Whatever it's called. Okay, so here I'm gonna sound like a broken wreck. You just thought I was just gonna say yes.
- [33:58]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
No, no, no, no. This is good. This is helping people.
- [34:01]
Penn Holderness
Cool. Yeah. And by the way, like, I don't usually get these questions. This is great. And this is, like, really good, good information. So. So turmeric, curcumin, active ingredient, anti inflammatory, probably works better in some people versus others. There is a research study that shows that in people with amyloid in their brain, when you take turmeric, a specific type of turmeric that is nanoparticles, that can get into the brain. Aha. Take it. Does it go into the body or does it get into the brain? The nanoparticle version of turmeric was actually shown in the study to slow amyloid accumulation in the brain. So the nanoparticle version is the one that I recommend. Theracurmin t H e r a C u R I M I n is the version that I recommend to people when they need it. And I don't make a one size fits all. It's not like everyone should go out there and start taking this stuff, but in certain cases, we do recommend them.
- [34:56]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay, I have one more I want to clear.
- [34:58]
Kim Holderness
He said amyloid three times, and I think that's like, the stuff that causes the plaque. Right. But can you explain to people what amyloid is?
- [35:05]
Penn Holderness
Sure, sure. And this is so just like atherosclerosis, hardening of the arteries, cholesterol builds up in the blood vessel wall, and it gets, like, you know, inflamed and yucky. Amyloid is a pathologic protein that builds up in the brains of a person with Alzheimer's. Just because you have amyloid protein. It's a sticky plaque. It's sticky. It gets stuck in the brain cells. If this plaque, different type of plaque, amyloid plaque, gets stuck in the brain and builds up over time, that person is at an increased risk of cognitive decline due to Alzheimer's. But just having amyloid prot alone does not definitively mean you're going to have cognitive decline or Alzheimer's. This is confusing, and what I just said is very controversial. The rulebook, the instruction manual, online, the Internet say that if you have amyloid, you have Alzheimer's. I don't agree with that. This is a big loaded statement. Is this being recorded?
- [35:59]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Nobody's gonna. Nobody's gonna listen. Don't worry.
- [36:01]
Penn Holderness
Okay, great. Just us.
- [36:01]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Just us three.
- [36:02]
Penn Holderness
Okay, great. Sounds good. I believe amyloid is a marker, Marker of disease. I don't believe that amyloid really fully causes Alzheimer's, especially in all cases. But that's very controversial. I believe amyloid is bad. It's a sign of something bad, and we should track it. But just because someone has amyloid, I don't believe that they should be called Alzheimer's disease. The criteria on the Internet say that if you have amyloid and you're in your 40s or 50s and you have no symptoms, you have pre clinical Alzheimer's, which is stage one. I don't really like that. I think you're at risk for developing cognitive decline to Alzheimer's. I think it's a risk marker. I don't think it's a definitive disease marker. And I get a lot, a lot, a lot of criticism for that. Okay, do I want to get rid of amyloid? Sure. Do I want less amyloid? Absolutely. But it's not just amyloid. There's other proteins. The protein is called tau, and there's blood tests now that can track all this stuff. There's other proteins that we track too, that are not just amyloid and tau. But, yeah, this stuff's complicated.
- [37:03]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay, the last one is lion's mane. That's another one that is being sold to me a lot on TikTok.
- [37:08]
Penn Holderness
Yes.
- [37:08]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yes.
- [37:09]
Kim Holderness
Oh.
- [37:10]
Penn Holderness
So, okay, am I opposed to lion's mane? I think when it comes to supplements, we need to figure out, like, what we're trying to solve for. And I think lion's mane has theoretical potential, brain, healthy benefits. I'll just say that I think the challenge with lion's mane, there's this guy, call him Larry. Maybe that's his name or not. He did the same thing. He was on the Tik Toks and he was watching the videos and he's like, oh, lions man. He started taking this mushroom, whatever thing and like, his liver function started going like, wackadoo and like, oh, are you drinking too much? Are you this? And we start and like, all of a sudden we're like, oh, my gosh, it's the lion's man. It's like, so we stopped the lion's man. His liver. His liver wonkiness, like, up better. So lion's mane is not something that's on my recipe for Alzheimer's prevention at this time, because the level of evidence is like, I don't know. And there's a potential. Whether it's low or medium or tiny, whatever it is, there's some potential for risk. So lion's mane is not on my, my radar. I'm not anti. As long as all your labs look okay. But, you know, I think it's just, you know, not. Not there yet.
- [38:21]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay, one more question. You can jump in. Are there other supplements that are. I mean, I know you're not prescribing, you're not our doctor, and you're not prescribing anybody who's listening, but are there just supplements that wouldn't hurt for people to take that you would add in?
- [38:34]
Penn Holderness
So I really feel like people should be intentional about their Alzheimer's risk reduction plan. And I think if someone is adopting a supplement plan or their wife is giving them a handful of supplements or their partner or their husband is giving, you know, vice versa. I think we should pause and I will answer this question, I promise. I'm just going.
- [38:55]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah, yeah.
- [38:56]
Penn Holderness
Because it's all about like the drop in the bucket or like not peeing in the swimming pool. Something drop in the ocean. What's it called? I don't know. Wait a minute.
- [39:03]
Kim Holderness
I like peeing in a swimming pool. Yeah.
- [39:06]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
You actually like doing it.
- [39:08]
Kim Holderness
Well, who doesn't? But like, I like the metaphor because it's just a little tiny bit and it doesn't seem to really make a big difference, but it does.
- [39:16]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
But for you, it's gross.
- [39:17]
Kim Holderness
Yeah, it's great.
- [39:19]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
No, it's gross. Oh, my God.
- [39:21]
Kim Holderness
Sorry. Go ahead.
- [39:22]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Don't.
- [39:22]
Penn Holderness
Yeah, whatever that. Is that an aphorism? Is that.
- [39:26]
Kim Holderness
I don't know what these metaphors.
- [39:27]
Penn Holderness
I was bad at English. But if you're not exercising on a regular basis, if you're sleeping five hours a night, if you're eating crap, especially right before bed and your glucose is spiking, if your blood pressure, your cholesterol and your blood sugar are all over the map and you're not seeing a doctor regularly, you can take all the supplements you want and you ain't gonna get any progress in the fight against Alzheimer's disease. So it's totally cool. We're talking about supplements and vitamins and all that kind of stuff. And I'm not pro vitamin or antivitamin. I'm not pro supplement, anti supplement, pro drug, anti drug. I'm pro evidence and I'm pro individualizing a plan for a person and you know, for anyone there, you know, I out there listening. I care more about, like, what is your blood pressure, your cholesterol, your blood sugar, how much exercise, how much sleep, like, are you stressed out? What can you do about it? You know, are you keeping cognitively engaged? Those are the things I care about. The Most and then we're going to recalibrate and then, okay, let's, let's do the other things. Like this element here of precision medicine or personalized care is what we really try to advocate for. Know your numbers, right? And then take what you need to optimize them. If you can't get it through diet.
- [40:36]
Kim Holderness
Or through behavior, this is all great. This is all a lot. You are, I imagine, are probably constantly trying to balance between getting a message out to the masses about this that says know your numbers and gives a few examples of things that you can do. But really in the end this is incredibly subjective. So without blood work, what are people to do? I mean, maybe go get blood work.
- [41:00]
Penn Holderness
Our mission and my mission personally and professionally is to try to democratize access to this. Yeah, that's what I do every day. Most of my day job is uncompensated. I'm at the foundation. I don't take any compensation because I'm trying to spread the message. We have the software, we just proved the software to work in an NIH funded randomized controlled clinical trial. It's free, totally free. Retainyourbrain.com showed that if you go to this software and you go in and it tries to simulate the Alzheimer's prevention clinic experience where you go and do a risk assessment online. You take a 15 minute risk assessment, the software learns about you. You take a cognitive test on the software. It's all like automated care and then it's like a virtual neurologist in your pocket where basically the rules that we've taught it through a little bit machine learning, AI, whatever will basically the software will guide you through risk reduction interventions and then track you over time. The goal is to educate people and give access to information and that software will communicate with, with the person via text message. We try to put free education online. We have a Mastering brain health course ind.org learn 20 videos, videos about APOE. Like there's like 50 videos there from all, you know, all of our colleagues talking about lifestyle and healthy living and movement and gut health and, and just everything you could possibly do. So we try to get, get as much information out there as possible. Okay, that being said, that being said, the problem is, is that most doctors are unaware that the field of preventive neurology exists. Doctors have 15 minutes, especially primary care doctors, much empathy. They have no time to like even listen to the heart and lungs, let alone like think about the brain. So I think what people have to do is, is you know, grab a little by the horns and, and, and you kind of be a citizen scientist, learn as much as they can, know their numbers every year, get their blood, you know, everyone go to the pharmacy now and get their blood sugar, sorry, their blood pressure. You can also get your blood sugar checked. There's, there's at home, you know, available now over the counter glucose monitors that people can get. And yes, they're 100 bucks and there's cost and whatever, but people should try to know their numbers and then try to set targets for themselves and talk to their doctor. I hate to say it, but until there's a scalable solution in terms of democratized access, people are going to have gaps. And our health care system is a sick care system, not a health care system. At the Alzheimer's prevention clinic, we collected 28 cents on every dollar we billed because there's no preventative health code for Alzheimer's prevention. There's no diagnostic code. So I can't bill for it. So I don't have all the answers. But I feel like we do try to put as a lot of information out there as a stopgap at what.
- [43:44]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Are you excited about? Like, what are you looking forward to? Is there anything, is there good news on the horizon?
- [43:51]
Penn Holderness
Well, look, look, look what we're talking about. Like, we're talking about this. You know, 20 years ago I was, I don't know, I don't want to say laughed at, but laughed at. I was tomatoes thrown at me.
- [44:04]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah.
- [44:04]
Penn Holderness
You know, now this is like, okay, this is, this is talk about a lot. You know, Penn, like, you're courageous. You are talking about your story. That's really important. This is a vulnerability. There's stigma here. Like people listening could say, oh my gosh, wow, he's doomed. Wow, I'm so worried now. But no, you have agency. You talked about your story. I think we have either four or six spots left in our, in our clinical trial. So if you can somehow figure out a trip to Boca. We do do mobile blood draws in New York City also. But like you're the type of person that needs access to this type of, you know, research kind of structure and eventual care. I am hopeful that people are talking about this. That's what I'm hopeful for. I'm also hopeful about the democratizing access of the blood biomarkers that's coming. As I've said once before and got some, you know, side eye for. There's, there's this like dirty little secret when it comes to blood based biomarker testing for Alzheimer's disease. There's a lot of promise with blood testing, but there's a lot of confusion and lack of transparency and the accuracy of these tests. At ind, what we're doing is we are not just developing our own tests, but we're doing. We're running the same blood sample on every instrument that we can get access to. We send it to St. Louis and we send it to Indiana University, and we send it to Europe. And we have a lab that we run everything, and we run everything thing in duplicates because, like, we need to figure out, like, if you run it twice, you're going to get the same result. So the thing that I'm really excited about is having an objective measure rather than a subjective measure to say, oh, you're. You're taking Omega 3 and curcumin. Right. And I'm exercising, but I feel better. Am I doing better, though? And to have an objective measure like a cholesterol test for the brain that can be tracked over time, I'm really excited by that, too. So those are the two things, things.
- [45:55]
Kim Holderness
I need you to continue with. Like, you're really good at this paradigm shift. I'm just noticing that about you. You've got a positive way about you for a disease that is impossible to take the positive out of. You can't say, oh, well, at least. I mean, we're doing something at the end of the show called the top five funniest things that happen to Me with Alzheimer's. And that's about all I can do. The reason for that is because if we don't laugh, we'll cry as, as, as members of these families where this has happened. But I need you to keep that vibe going for me and, and tell me that it's gonna be okay if I go to this test and you're like, whoa, holy crap, you're done for.
- [46:36]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
He's gonna say that.
- [46:40]
Kim Holderness
But that's what I'm afraid that Dr. John Magnuson is going to say.
- [46:44]
Penn Holderness
Love that. This is not. This is not. Like, I'm trying to be like, cheerleader motivator over here or like, I'm. But you're a good one sugarcoating anything. There's nothing that I could check where I'm going to say, am I allowed to curse? I'm not going to curse, but you can.
- [46:58]
Kim Holderness
Yep.
- [46:59]
Penn Holderness
Okay. Like, I am not going to say, oh, shit, look what I just. Look what we just found. You are effed. It's just. It's just not going to happen. I don't check for early onset genes. There's like 1% of like minimum minimal amounts of cases where people, family members have onset of symptoms in their 40s and 50s. Like, I don't get that from you. I get from you. This is a late onset thing. And this, this is more likely due to apoe. You have a specific phenotype where you're tall, I believe, I can't tell exactly, but I believe you're tall, you're thin, light hair, light eyes. People that know me in my circles have heard me say this a hundred times. You are like a specific phenotype and you just fill a pattern. And I can name all the people and like, I kind of like, I think I know what we're going to find and it's not a big deal. It's like, let's just go and let's just do it. Genes manifest like the physics of things. Women, this is important. I really want to touch on this. Women with the, with the Apoe 4 variant, at least one copy, especially two. Their critical window of opportunity and their biggest risk phase in their, in their life course is the perimenopause transition. One of the things that we could do to impact public health and brain health more than anything else in the United States or around the world is to pay attention about perimenopause and that it's actually a neurological disease just as much as it is in a lot of ways as a, as a medical disease or a GYN disease. Women who have APOE 4, if you have, if someone out there has it, talk to your doctors. And if you are suffering with perimenopausal symptoms and you're on the fence about being on whatever and there's considerations, I get it, like this and that and the other thing and just estrogen is a protective hormone. There, I said it. I try to be really conservative about this stuff, but hormone replacement therapy in women during the perimeter menopause transition in A woman with APOE 4 is really impactful. Head injury is also something that I want to be a little bit more cautious of in, in kids with, with the Apoe 4 variant, you know, wearing a helmet every time they bike or whatever and going skiing, just, just put the helmet on. There's a chance, not certain, that if you have APOE 4 and if you have a head injury, maybe you're at higher risk of something. Finally, with kids or anyone. Apoe4eat fatty fish, you know, at least, and maybe not take supplements, you know, but, but like have, get fatty fish in, into the diet, even if it's Once a week. It's better than nothing. And there's mercury and there's this, and you gotta be whatever. But doing those sorts of things are critical. Just for protection from a child or younger person perspective.
- [49:31]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
I feel like I'm gonna have to go back and, like, re. Listen to this and, like, take notes and absorb all of this, because it has been so good and I could talk to you all day. I. Okay. I have two quick questions. I have so many questions, though. I have, like, 10 pages of questions.
- [49:42]
Kim Holderness
You look like you're apologizing. Want to. It's a podcast.
- [49:45]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
He has a job, and he has student loans. Want to be like, I. I have.
- [49:49]
Penn Holderness
To drop off a urine sample to the vet for my cat. Aside from that, I'm good.
- [49:53]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay. Got it.
- [49:54]
Penn Holderness
That's what I got on my agenda. Important doctor over here.
- [49:56]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah. So a lot of people in his family also have adhd. Is there any sort of, like, executive function Alzheimer's connection?
- [50:04]
Penn Holderness
Sort of, so. No, no, no, no. Not. Not in a bad way. You fit a phenotype, man. It's like, this is. This ain't rocket science. I'm a pattern recognition guy. And like, this is. I. I know you. I see you. I've seen you. I've. Whatever. You. Yeah, you. You just have this. So it's atypical. Alzheimer's is what the. The pattern is. Atypical means that when you do cognitive testing on people with Alzheimer's when they have learning disabilities. A great paper by Dr. Alone Siphon, who was the lead author on this over a decade ago. And it does not cause Alzheimer's. It just causes Alzheimer's to look different, differently. And people can kind of get cognitive testing done. And the COG tests say, oh, the person's fine. But actually, it's a different manifestation because there's a term called neurodevelopmental diversity that people with different brains develop differently. For example, people with two copies of the APOE 4 variant have a brain that is actually smaller at birth. They have to undergo adversity. It then gets larger. They then learn, and then they have, like, really cool brains because they had to, like, overcome, like, challenges. Learning disability brains +APOE brains manifest a very specific phenotype of Alzheimer's, but it does not increase risk, to my knowledge. And taking ADD drugs also does not increase risk. Again, to my knowledge.
- [51:18]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
My last question. Okay. Alcohol.
- [51:20]
Kim Holderness
Oh, yeah.
- [51:21]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Intake.
- [51:21]
Kim Holderness
Yeah.
- [51:21]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Where. Where do we sit on that?
- [51:23]
Penn Holderness
Yeah. This is a. Not a fun one for most people, but controversial. I'm just like, a Way less is more with alcohol. Alcohol to me just doesn't make any sense for brains especially. Here we go again. Apoe4brains. Apoe4brains are specifically susceptible to the negative effects of alcohol. Smoking, poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, low omega 3s, all that kind of stuff. Sleep problems too, you know, if someone does not have an Apoe 4 variant, is drinking in moderation? Okay, possibly. But what is moderation and when do you drink it? It? One drink with a meal at 5:30 in the afternoon for an early dinner and with a big meal doesn't mess up sleep because you're going to drink it, you're going to metabolize it slowly. It's not going to impact sleep cycles. And the amount of carbs will be kind of calmed down in terms of any spikes because you're going to eat food with it. Someone that has two or three drinks right before bed, within an hour or two of bed, the glucose spikes, the sleep is bad, bad. And there's the toxic effects of the alcohol. So it's not just about how much you drink, it's about when you drink it and how you drink it. So alcohol is complicated, but I'm a less is more kind of guy.
- [52:36]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah, no, that's not controversial.
- [52:38]
Kim Holderness
I've just, I've never heard anyone say anything different. In fact, that was like the first lifestyle change I made a few years ago.
- [52:45]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah.
- [52:45]
Kim Holderness
And I'm not perfect, but I'm like, I definitely, I have like a target number and I've discovered non alcoholic beers.
- [52:54]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
And you know, our son calls him a non alcoholic because he just drinks non alcoholic beers all the time.
- [52:58]
Kim Holderness
Not all the time, but not all the time. Definitely more so that. Yeah.
- [53:02]
Penn Holderness
All right, so sleep really important. I thought, and I was wrong, that you could just like, I don't know, power through stuff. Mind over matter. And not like my sleep's good now, but with the kids. But yeah, sleep is critical. And during sleep that's when the trash gets taken out. You've heard of the blood system, the bloodstream, you've heard of the lymphatic system, which is the fluid that gets rid of infection particles. The glymphatic system is where the trash gets taken out. And the garbage trucks comes at night during deep sleep and takes out the amyloid. So amyloid is a protein that builds up during the day, colloquially it loosens up during exercise. Comes down in mice actually, and in humans. And then you sleep adequately and then the trash gets taken out, the amyloid gets dumped into the blood and disposed the higher the amyloid is in the blood, the lower it is in the brain. It's like a inverse relationship. So without making a plan for sleep, prioritizing sleep, you could be doing everything right and still be at reasonable risk of Alzheimer's disease. Sleep is critical. And you know, we have all these like devices, you know, the lights, you know, you got the phones, the, the sounds. The kids blame the kids. Definitely, always, always the kids fault. Making a plan for sleep and you know, tracking sleep, you know, we have wearables that we use. Sleep is so important. That's the best that I can say.
- [54:30]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
You have been amazing. I hope that we get to talk to you again. I hope that my. Okay, so tell me, we'll talk offline about getting my. What is this study you're talking about?
- [54:41]
Penn Holderness
Sure. So, so we have a study called bioran. Biorand stands for the Biorepository for Alzheimer's Disease and neurodegenerative disease. BioRand. It's all on our ind.org website. We have either four or six slots left. We are hitting 200 pretty soon, which is amazing because this initial study was supposed to be 25 people, then 50, then we got funding for 100 and now 200. You may have heard newsflash that the NIH and all sorts of grant funding opportunities are now really, really, really, really different and hard. So we are capped right now. And I wish we could get more funding and one day I hope we will. But basically the BioRens study follows people with a family history of Alzheimer's disease that are at risk. And then what they do is they come in, they get a whole panel of experimental researchy blood tests, they get some other tests and they learn about their risk factors. And then their primary care doctors, we don't like provide care, but we can give feedback on the clinical grade tests to the primary care doctors. And then, then basically if the primary care doctor recommends something for risk factor reduction, whether it's a blood pressure thing or an exercise thing or a drug for cholesterol switch, then the people come back every six or 12 months, whatever it is, we recheck the blood and we say aha. The cognitive function improved or stayed the same. The amyloid and tau improved or stayed the same or got worse. So this is a research study that uses experimental blood tests to evaluate the effectiveness of risk reduction care in clinical practice. We do have five sites, one in Canada, two in New York, well, sort of. And then two in South Florida. And we are publishing data little by little every couple of Months.
- [56:22]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Thank you for what you do. My husband is. You're gonna hopefully sign up for this study.
- [56:29]
Kim Holderness
I don't want you to think that I'm not eager to start this journey or to do this. I'm just trying to be honest about, about my feelings of apprehension because I guarantee you there are other people who feel this way as well.
- [56:39]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah. Okay. Well, if I can get penned butt into this study.
- [56:43]
Penn Holderness
Totally. And that's totally, totally, totally. A thousand percent valid and I. Not atypical at all.
- [56:50]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay. If, if we choose to continue this, I hopefully we can talk to Dr. Isaacson again and follow along and keep everybody.
- [56:58]
Kim Holderness
So you're. The way you're looking and talking to me right now is how like a third grade teacher is trying to get their like, like their kid to finish their math homework.
- [57:06]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
I'm like, I give you a.
- [57:08]
Kim Holderness
This is like, I'm not an idiot. This sounds like an amazing thing for me to try to do. I'm just like, I'm going to be a hundred percent open and honest about all of this. It's like I don't want to feel like a ticking time bomb even though I know somewhere deep down that I am like, it's so.
- [57:23]
Penn Holderness
So a couple. So we do have provisions for this. So first of all, people don't find out their research biomarkers because they're research. So that's number one. You're not going to know most of the results. The only results we're allowed to share based on research approvals are clinical grade results. And people do not have to find out. About 10%, give or take, decide not to find out what their apoe before is. And that's okay too. We do check it based on our research study, but people don't have to find out. So there's a portion of our research study where people do decide to participate but don't want to know. And that's totally okay too cool.
- [57:59]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay, very valid you feel that way. But I'm also your wife and I.
- [58:03]
Kim Holderness
You're doing the look again.
- [58:04]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
I'm doing the look again. Okay, Dr. Isaacson.
- [58:07]
Penn Holderness
But the brain. We also have a brain transplant study. It's buy one, get one half off. We could try that one. Is that less? See that you're ready for that.
- [58:14]
Kim Holderness
Let's do that. Let's do that. Okay, Dr. Isaacson, this was really eye opening. Is there anything that you places we could find you any. Anything you like to promote or make sure people know about before we let you go?
- [58:29]
Penn Holderness
Yeah, we just want to promote Promote information and education. And ind.org has a lot of it. I run the Precision prevention program at Atri Institute, New York City, and then this free retainyourbrain.com software. You can sign up and. Yeah, there's just a lot out there. And just if someone's listening and you're apprehensive, that's okay. Deep breaths. But I urge you, fear is a paralyzer. And just get educated, get informed, and go at your own pace. But there's a lot of information out there that might. May help.
- [58:59]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
And if a generous person is listening and wants to make a donation, I mean, do you accept donations?
- [59:03]
Penn Holderness
Gosh. Please. Yes. Ind.org like, please. That. Why am I not even. That's what I should have said first. Yes, we are a 501c3 nonprofit. Please help. If you have a wealthy uncle, anything helps. Yeah, we. 70% of all of our research funds are philanthropy. And in 2026, based on the current landscape of grant funding, we're. We need help. Yeah. Yeah. We need. We're break. Yeah.
- [59:27]
Kim Holderness
Okay.
- [59:28]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
We'll make sure that that is distinguished in the show notes. And we also do a blog that goes on that will make sure that that's really important stuff. And thank you. Thank. Like, thank you for doing this work. I mean, I know you still have student loans and you have all this stuff, and you're doing all this stuff without a fee. Like, you could be, like, you're in South Florida. You could be in plastic surgery and making, like, buttloads of money.
- [59:46]
Penn Holderness
Well, I have a. I have a Botox clinic, like, around.
- [59:49]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
See that. Like, no more student loans. But thank you for doing this work. It's really incredible.
- [59:54]
Penn Holderness
And thanks for spreading the message. And I really enjoyed the conversation that.
- [59:57]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
That was. I'm, like, kind of speechless. I had five pages of questions to ask him, and I got through maybe one. How are you feeling?
- [60:04]
Kim Holderness
Good. Okay, fine. Like, so this is something I've been familiar with and dealing with since I was 14 years old. The first time. No, earlier than that. That was. My grandfather died when he was 14. I'd say, like, we found out when I was 12 or 13.
- [60:19]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah.
- [60:20]
Kim Holderness
Because like I said in the beginning, my family, they did a great job shielding it from it. So I've been around Alzheimer's for 38 years, and it sucks. And I'm saying this with laugh lines behind us, so we're gonna. But we're gonna put it out there anyway because it's that important to me. I feel like a lot of my fitness, a Lot of my general health habits, my. My friends have told me, like, you're really healthy. That's the reason why It's. It's. It's trying to outrun this thing. Right? But I know that even though I have worked hard and I've worked harder in recent years, I just know that I'm gonna go down there, and I'm gonna go down there if. If they'll invite me, and I'm. And it's gonna say that no matter what you've done here is the type of person that you are. Like, he started saying phenotypes, and I just, like. Like a. I had a pit in my stomach because I knew. I know. I know there's something going on inside my body. I've known it since I was really, really young that is conducive to this disease. I also know how bad it sucks. I'm struggling with the number one most important thing, which is not wanting to put my family through this. And number two, being a generally joyful human being who's having a good time with life and wondering if that gets, like, really heavily affected by either news about this or by just being, like, constantly reminded and afraid that it's coming and it being confirmed.
- [61:53]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
How about this? How about this?
- [61:54]
Kim Holderness
I'm just telling you how I feel.
- [61:55]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
No, it's not that.
- [61:56]
Kim Holderness
I'm not gonna do it.
- [61:56]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
No, no, no, I'm not. And everything you're saying is valid. I'm not trying to talk you out of this at all. But worst case scenario, okay, We've already cut back a lot on drinking. Let's say we cut back a little bit more.
- [62:06]
Kim Holderness
I can definitely cut back more.
- [62:07]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah. Okay. We go to, you know, a. The blood sugar, we really didn't get into on this, but it's a huge marker. So let's say I. I am the sugar person in the family. Like, I would love a partner in this quest because I need to do this stuff too. What if we go. We dedicate ourselves to, like, a Mediterranean diet. Like, he was saying, we really go low alcohol. I need to ditch the sweets and the sugar, and we take some supplements, and worst case scenario, you feel better.
- [62:34]
Kim Holderness
Yeah, I mean, he's like. Everything he was saying about. About the lifestyle stuff, like, eat more fish. Okay. Yeah, Eat more salmon. That's, like, my favorite thing to eat.
- [62:43]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
So even if you can't outrun it, God forbid you have, maybe you've extended the Runway a little bit, so there's that, and you feel good. So, like, I'm. I'M like down to clown.
- [62:58]
Kim Holderness
I don't think that's the correct.
- [63:00]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
That's not healthy.
- [63:01]
Kim Holderness
But probably need to put that in our Gen Z learning kit.
- [63:05]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
It down to clown on eating a Mediterranean diet.
- [63:08]
Kim Holderness
No, no, I love it. I don't really care for cheese. I don't like. I don't dairy. Like I just. I feel like I've been pretty healthy while also having occasional fun. I'm just like a scared third grader that I know I'm going to get my report card back and it's going to be crappy and I'm super competitive about that kind of thing.
- [63:27]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay, let's do it. Let's make it a competition.
- [63:29]
Kim Holderness
Okay.
- [63:30]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay.
- [63:30]
Kim Holderness
Wait, are you going to do this study?
- [63:32]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
I don't have a family history of Alzheimer's.
- [63:34]
Kim Holderness
Sure you do. Do you married in. Oh, you have to have a gen. Yeah.
- [63:36]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah.
- [63:36]
Kim Holderness
Okay. Got it.
- [63:37]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
We're not siblings.
- [63:39]
Kim Holderness
That's true. I know how it works. All right, let's do our show ending. Fun stuff.
- [63:45]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay. Okay. Well, Pen always has a top five list. We skipped to the last two episodes. This is hem. This is Pen Holderness who came up with this category. So I don't. I haven't read these, but Pen, in an effort to make this episode about Alzheimer's fun, these are the top five.
- [64:03]
Kim Holderness
Funniest Alzheimer's things I have experienced. Cuz Alzheimer's is hilarious.
- [64:09]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
It's hilarious.
- [64:10]
Kim Holderness
Number five, my dad introducing himself every single week to the woman who cuts his cheese at a supermarket. First of all, pretty funny that my dad went and maybe there's something that we could learn about this with lifestyles. He.
- [64:25]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
He loved American cheese, but he liked.
- [64:27]
Kim Holderness
Them to cut it freshly. At the del, they have a block of American cheese that you can cut freshly.
- [64:33]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Until I met Heywood Wilderness, I did not know. I thought, I thought that American cheese just came like wrapped by craft. I thought it was like it was born of the cow.
- [64:44]
Kim Holderness
So every single week he goes to the counter, same woman Friday afternoon, same woman at the Harris Teeter. And she goes, oh, hi, Mr. Hay. Would you like it extra thinly sliced? And he's like, whoa. How did you know that? Like it was so stunned.
- [64:55]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Sweet man.
- [64:56]
Kim Holderness
So I like either he was flirting and just wanted to act like silly like that. But I believe that he just was just wondrously surprised every time that this woman knew that he wanted to cut American cheese like a quarter inch thick. Not very thick. Okay, number four, we have. So you're gonna hear about this a couple times. My Mom's in a memory care unit. Like, you know, one of these homes for people who have Alzheimer's. And there's some like, really fun stuff going on. Like, stuff that like, makes you smile. There's this, like. So this is hope for the future. There's a guy. I'm not going to say his name. We call him like the Forest Gump.
- [65:29]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah.
- [65:30]
Kim Holderness
Of the group. He. I have never seen him not walking.
- [65:32]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah.
- [65:33]
Kim Holderness
And I'm there for hours at a time. He's constantly walking and he always, like, if I'm standing up, he'll walk next to me. If I'm walking, he'll walk behind beside me. Very nice. Always says hello, always introduces himself. Number three. The last time that my mom laughed.
- [65:48]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah.
- [65:48]
Kim Holderness
That we are aware of of was because I farted really, really, really loud.
- [65:53]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
It was about a year ago and we thought. We've sadly had a few calls of like, this is it. But it was about a year ago and we thought this is what it. You sat on her bed and farted and she went.
- [66:03]
Kim Holderness
Yeah, that was it.
- [66:04]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
It was great.
- [66:05]
Kim Holderness
That was awesome. Last time she farted. Last time she laughed was when I farted. She's probably farted since then. Okay. Number two, my dad. I'm going to attribute this to Alzheimer's because I just. I've. I'd never see him do it before. Yeah, he would like grab my mom's ass in public places all the time.
- [66:21]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
So they ended up in the same. So they were separated for a bit and Covid made it really hard. But then they ended up in the same space, which was great.
- [66:29]
Kim Holderness
Okay. And number one, I don't need a piece of paper for this. We had a Christmas party one time.
- [66:34]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
At the memory care.
- [66:35]
Kim Holderness
And I don't know if have I told this story on the podcast yet.
- [66:38]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
I don't know. But it's worth repeating. Cause it is one of the most joyful memories in my life.
- [66:43]
Kim Holderness
So they brought up musician who came and sang and it was fairly, you know, these things like no one's really going to participate. And they wanted to do like something where the families participated. And so they knew I was. They had a musical background and they came up with. They're like, would you do. Would you help lead us to the twelve days of Christmas with everyone? I was like, okay, sure, why not?
- [67:03]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Let me set the scene though here. So it is people in memory care. Most people are not mobile on their own. Most people are non verbal. But their families have come. And so it's a Christmas party where Everybody's families are there.
- [67:15]
Kim Holderness
However, I would say, like, we. We found some of the. The residents of. Of this facility who took part in it as well. And that was the main thing. We tried to get that. So. But what I should have done, I. They told me to pass out because they had all the four calling birds, three French hens. They were all on, like, a single piece of paper just like this. Right. And they're like, just pass it out to 12 people. You. You can do it to the families. And so I gave a couple of them to, like, sons and daughters and husbands, but I also gave quite a few of them to Alzheimer's patients. So they were all. So we got through it. It was like. And so I would sing on the first day of Christmas My true love gave to me and then I would point. And so they just obviously did not remember when it was their turn to sing every time.
- [68:06]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Did you ever recall? Which is hard when you have none, but something.
- [68:10]
Kim Holderness
The four calling birds guy was amazing. He had like, a New York accent. He was like four calling birds. And every time he was. He was with his kids, and he would be in the middle of a conversation, and we'd all stop and wait for him. And what. What a four calling birds. And mom was. Because she has a beautiful voice. She was five golden rings.
- [68:30]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah.
- [68:31]
Kim Holderness
She crushed it.
- [68:32]
Penn Holderness
Crushed it.
- [68:32]
Kim Holderness
It was. Funny story. This is not funny. But my mom could sing way after she could talk.
- [68:37]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah. If she could talk after she could. Lost her ability to talk, she could still sing.
- [68:41]
Kim Holderness
But we had these 12 to get through. These 12. And we got through all of them because something wonderful happened that all of the families were laughing. Yeah, because you're allowed to laugh when you're going through this. And it made all of their relatives laugh as well. So we were laughing at ourselves. We were laughing at our situation. Like something in their brains thought it was great too. And laughter was this, like, incredible medicine for a bunch of families at this Christmas party that is inherently unbelievably depressing because we're all here for the same reason, and it's really bad. But if you ever want to try to do the 12 Days of Christmas in a memory care unit, I wholeheartedly recommend it out of 10 because everyone had an awesome time. Okay, so that was the funniest thing about Alzheimer's.
- [69:30]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
The Pen holderness guide to dealing with Trauma. Make it funny. Hey, you know what? We. We do have some other segments.
- [69:39]
Kim Holderness
Yeah. Do you want to do one more? Two more? What are we feeling?
- [69:42]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay. I. We have this segment we're calling Non sponsored. I'm gonna show it on camera if you're watching on YouTube.
- [69:47]
Kim Holderness
Oh, yeah.
- [69:47]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Penn and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. And when we go out to dinner with each other, it is hard not to talk about the kids or work because all we do is work and have kids. And we. And we love each other and we love our kids and we love our job. But, you know. And so we went to this really fancy dinner. And a fancy dinner takes like an hour and a half. So I bought the game. Is it. I always say her name. Esther Perel.
- [70:12]
Kim Holderness
Esther Perel.
- [70:13]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
She has a game. It's on Amazon. Wasn't cheap, but it's called where should we Begin? A Game of Stories by Esther Perel. And so it's a conversation for couples and friends, and it's supposed to be a game. So I literally, in my little purse, I brought 20 cards to dinner with us. And there are some sassy ones. Like, there's some, like, little spicy ones. I didn't bring those. But it's like my guilty pleasure. The best gift I ever received. I'm most proud of my family. 4. I would ask, like, I'm most proud of my family. 4. And we did extended family, you know, like way back family, not just our core four. And that got into a whole. A lot of talk about resilience and all. So we had. We. We only went through a few of the cards and it took up an hour and a half and it was fascinating. So I recommend that for especially. We've known each other for a really long time, and I thought that was great.
- [71:02]
Kim Holderness
It's been a minute.
- [71:02]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
It's been a minute. Next segment, road to 50.
- [71:06]
Kim Holderness
Okay, this is Kim's road to 50. She has one year until she turns 50 and made quite a few go that she set for herself. Very impressive number. Including, like a ridiculous number of books that you were gonna try to read and steps you were gonna try to get in.
- [71:23]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah. Okay. So 10,000 steps a day. I've been kind of killing it.
- [71:26]
Kim Holderness
You're doing it.
- [71:27]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
I've been kind of killing it. Not every day. Like, Yesterday was like 6,000, but over the next couple days, I'll walk more. So, like, it'll even out the books is what I wanna focus on today. And you have to tell me, Those watching on YouTube, those listening, wherever you listen, Is this cheating? I've been killing the reading game, but I think I'm cheating. So I have a Kindle, but then I also buy the audible with it. It's like discounted when you buy the same time.
- [71:54]
Kim Holderness
Okay.
- [71:54]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
So I read the Kindle, and then if I have to get in the car and drive and like, pick my kid up from school, I can get. Then I can listen to like 30 minutes of it. And then when I go back to the Kindle, it's paired up. So I got through. I get through books and like, like four or five days.
- [72:11]
Kim Holderness
In no way is that cheating. Help me out.
- [72:12]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
That's not cheating.
- [72:13]
Kim Holderness
No, listen. Sorry, I'm coming through.
- [72:15]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Yeah, please. This is the. Sam, there's a name for this. It's called immersion reading.
- [72:20]
Kim Holderness
If you, if you listen and read.
- [72:21]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
At the same time or use the Both for. I use both. Yeah. And I will fight in the streets. Anyone who says listening to audiobooks is not reading, it's reading. Right?
- [72:32]
Penn Holderness
That's reading.
- [72:32]
Kim Holderness
Yeah.
- [72:33]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
You finish.
- [72:33]
Kim Holderness
You.
- [72:33]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
You didn't skip pages.
- [72:34]
Penn Holderness
You.
- [72:35]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
You listen to it from front to back. Back. That is finishing a book. Yeah. And sometimes I think the audio I hear, like, I, I absorb it better sometimes through audio.
- [72:43]
Kim Holderness
Do you 1.5 exit or do you.
- [72:44]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
No, no, no, no. I like to hear it all. Like, the accents I like. You know, I. There are some books I enjoy. I started reading Tom Lake, like, last year, and I loved Ann Patchett. So I was like, it was kind, but the read was. It was a hard read. But then I heard Meryl Streep narrated it. So then I listened to it.
- [73:01]
Kim Holderness
Oh, yeah.
- [73:02]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
10 out of 10. But the read was different, you know, because some, sometimes they're better on audible. So as an update, I've been crushing the walks. I've been crushing the books. I was going to focus on an act of kindness every week, and I have been doing that. I have been, like, looking for ways to just be nice to people. And it's been in little. It's been in like, little moments, like, okay.
- [73:25]
Kim Holderness
You know, they don't need to be big moments. That's the. I think the whole point, you don't want to be like, I've done this.
- [73:31]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
I know, I know. And I, I. And I. That kind of makes me. My armpit sweat too, is like, should I announce this, you know, thing I did? But that, that kind of defeats the purpose of an act of kindness to me. So the only thing I'm not crushing it on is I wanted to do an unassisted pull up. And I did one recently by just hanging, and I could barely hang. And I've not done anything since. And that's been two weeks. I've worked out but I've not done a pull up.
- [73:56]
Kim Holderness
This guy's got all the equipment that you need.
- [73:58]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
He has a pull up bar in the garage, but it is so high I have to get on a ladder and it feels like I'm gonna die.
- [74:02]
Kim Holderness
I have a plyo box. It's 24 inches. That's right underneath it. That instantly makes you super tall enough to do all this.
- [74:08]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Okay, I'm just making excuses.
- [74:10]
Kim Holderness
Yes, okay, but you're doing everything else. Well, if you pull off all of these, I'm going to be really impressed. And the pull up, we can, we can get to work. You got time.
- [74:17]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
If you had any reaction to today's episode, I'd love it if you emailed us. Podcast theholdernessfamily.com or call us 323-364-3929. Tell me your thoughts. Thoughts. Tell me your questions. I have a feeling that's not the last you'll hear from Dr. Isaacson Erickson Jorgensen.
- [74:38]
Kim Holderness
Ver Magnason.
- [74:39]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Ver Magnason. That is not the last you'll hear from him or this topic.
- [74:43]
Kim Holderness
That does it for Laugh Lines. Laugh Lines is hosted in executive produced by Pen Holderness and Kim Holderness with original music by Pen Holderness. Laugh Lines is also written and produced by Anne Marie Tapke and edited, produced and filmed by by Sam Allen. It is audio engineered by Max Trujillo and hosted by Acast.
- [75:03]
Penn Holderness
Optimize your nutrition this year with Factor.
- [75:05]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
America's number one ready to eat meal service.
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Penn Holderness
Factor's fresh Never frozen meals are dietitian approved. Ready to eat in just 2 minutes. Choose from 40 weekly options across 8 dietary preferences like calorie smart, protein plus and keto.
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Dr. Richard Isaacson
Eat smarter at factor meals.com and use code listen50 for 50% off plus free.
- [75:26]
Penn Holderness
Shipping on your first box. Factor meals.com listen50 code listen50 want a workout that actually works? Hydro delivers a full body workout that hits 86% of your muscles in just 20 minutes.
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Kim Holderness
Rowing with Hydro combines strength and cardio.
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Penn Holderness
With thousands of workouts led by Olympians in breathtaking locations.
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Kim Holderness
No wonder nine out of ten members.
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Penn Holderness
Are still active one year later. Try Hydro risk free@hydro.com and use code.
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Kim Holderness
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- [75:56]
Penn Holderness
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- [76:04]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. Summer's here and with weekend getaways, celebrations and more on your calendar. Nordstrom has everything you need for your best dress season ever, from playful prints and breezy fabrics to 70s inspired looks and bright handbags. Discover new arrivals from your favorite brands like Reformation, Veronica Beard, Farm, Rio, Levi's and more. It's easy too, with free shipping and free returns in store order, pickup and more. Plus NordicLub members enjoy free two day shipping on thousands of items in select areas. Shop today in stores and@nordstrom.com Ever wonder.
- [76:43]
Penn Holderness
What your lashes are destined for? The cards have spoken. Maybelline New York Mascara does it all. Whether you crave fully Fan Lashes with Lash Sensational Big Bold Volume from the.
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Dr. Richard Isaacson
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- [76:56]
Penn Holderness
Lift or Natural Looking Volume from Great Lash. Your perfect Lash future awaits.
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Dr. Richard Isaacson
Manifest your best mascara today.
- [77:03]
Penn Holderness
Shop Maybelline New York and discover your Lash destiny.
- [77:06]
Dr. Richard Isaacson
Shop now at Walmart.