Alzheimer’s Isn’t Inevitable: What Science Says You Can Control Starting Now | EP 375

Summary

Summary of Dr. Gundry Podcast EP 375

Title: Alzheimer’s Isn’t Inevitable: What Science Says You Can Control Starting Now
Date: January 6, 2026
Host: Dr. Stephen Gundry
Guest: Dr. Lisa Mosconi, neuroscientist and author

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dr. Stephen Gundry interviews Dr. Lisa Mosconi about Alzheimer's disease, focusing on why women are disproportionately affected and the powerful, evidence-based steps individuals can take—especially women—to reduce their risk. Dr. Mosconi shares the latest science on menopause, hormones, lifestyle interventions, and prevention, dispelling myths and providing practical guidance for brain health.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Alzheimer’s Affects More Women

• Women are at Higher Risk: Contrary to popular belief, more women develop Alzheimer's than men, despite women generally being healthier.
  • “Alzheimer's disease is the only age-related neurodegenerative condition that affects more women than men.” (Mosconi, 01:31)
• Hormonal Differences: Female hormonal health, particularly the dramatic drop in estrogen during menopause, plays a critical role in increasing risk.
  • "Hormones are actually incredibly powerful allies that protect you against Alzheimer's and brain aging at large… but they have different lifespans." (Mosconi, 02:05)

2. The Critical Role of Menopause & Hormones

• Men experience a slower decline in testosterone, while women have a sudden estrogen drop in midlife.
• Brain scans show some women start developing Alzheimer’s plaques during menopause, far earlier than previously thought.
  • "...drops in estrogen levels correlate with the formation of Alzheimer's plaques…Alzheimer's disease starts with changes in the brain years, if not decades, prior to clinical symptoms. And for women, that crucial time seems to overlap with menopause." (Mosconi, 03:34–04:15)

3. Rethinking Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)

• HRT may help some women, but it’s not a blanket recommendation; more research is needed.
  • "I would not say that…I'm very cautious in recommending medications for Alzheimer's prevention...there are many risk factors for Alzheimer's that we can control..." (Mosconi, 06:12)
• Individual responses to estrogen therapy can vary dramatically.
  • "For some women is a godsend. Some women really swear by it. Other women swear at it." (Mosconi, 08:24)

4. What Can Women Do to Lower Their Risk?

• Lifestyle Factors:
  • Diet:
    • Fish-rich, Mediterranean diets delay menopause and support brain/hormonal health.
    • Processed foods and high sugar accelerate menopause and may increase risk.
    • "A healthy diet is a big deal...the more fish you have in your diet, the later the onset of menopause." (Mosconi, 14:13)
  • Exercise:
    • Consistent, even low-intensity, exercise is strongly protective—more so for women.
    • Fitness in midlife predicts later Alzheimer's risk.
    • "There's a lot of evidence that lower intensity exercise, if done consistently, is just as good as high intensity exercise done once in a while." (Mosconi, 25:25)
  • Stress Reduction:
    • Chronic stress can accelerate menopause and may impact brain health.
    • "High level of chronic stress…is the number one cause of early menopause." (Mosconi, 11:30)
• Avoiding Smoking:
  • Smoking is the top cause of early menopause and increased Alzheimer's risk.

5. Menopause Myths & Genetic Factors

• Menopause timing is partly genetic but modifiable by lifestyle.
• "There are things that are known to precipitate menopause and other things that are known to delay the onset of menopause..." (Mosconi, 10:10)
• Education about menopause is lacking; starting in the brain, menopause is often misunderstood.
  • "Menopause starts in the brain, and so many women are not aware of that, and they feel so relieved when I mention that..." (Mosconi, 10:44)

6. Surgery and Menopause

• Surgeries like hysterectomy or oophorectomy (removal of uterus/ovaries) before menopause can drastically increase Alzheimer’s risk.
  • "Having the uterus and more so the ovaries removed prior to menopause correlate with a much higher risk of dementia later in life for women." (Mosconi, 16:45)

7. Pregnancy and Alzheimer’s

• Research is inconclusive about the link, if any, between number of pregnancies and Alzheimer's risk.
  • "The number of pregnancies is just not associated with Alzheimer's risk..." (Mosconi, 19:02)

8. Alzheimer’s Prevention: Feasible but Not Guaranteed

• "Reversing" Alzheimer's is not currently possible, but reducing risk/prevention is.
  • "Reversing Alzheimer's means that you're getting rid of the symptoms and you're getting rid of the pathology...So far, I haven't seen that happen. The hope is that it will." (Mosconi, 29:05)
• At least one third of Alzheimer's cases are considered preventable.
  • "There's a lot of data showing at the very least, one third of all Alzheimer's cases are potentially preventable." (Mosconi, 30:35)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On women’s unique risk:
  "Alzheimer's is the only age-related neurodegenerative disease that affects more women than men. That's something specific to women." (Mosconi, 01:31)

• On estrogen and brain health:
  "Hormones are very powerful...they really keep Alzheimer's plaques at bay. They're anti-inflammatory, they support neuronal growth and plasticity..." (Mosconi, 02:26)

• On prevention timeline:
  "You don't start worrying about your risk of Alzheimer's when you're 70 as a woman. You better start thinking about it when you're 40 and 50." (Mosconi, 04:32)

• On personalized HRT:
  "We need better tools to really predict whether each individual woman will benefit...We can measure hormones in blood but there is no correlation between those and the hormones inside the person's brain." (Mosconi, 08:24)

• On mythbusting menopause:
  "Menopause starts in the brain. Many women don’t know that and feel relieved when I mention it...there’s a lot of stigma, it’s still quite a taboo." (Mosconi, 10:44)

• On exercise as medicine:
  "Slow and steady wins the race as long as it's consistent." (Mosconi, 25:25) "Women in the lowest percentile of fitness declined to Alzheimer's at the rate of 30%. Which means of every three women who don't exercise, at least one is going to get Alzheimer's disease." (Mosconi, 25:00)

• On the importance of prevention:
  "One third of all Alzheimer's cases are potentially preventable. So I do believe in prevention." (Mosconi, 30:43)

• On surgery and increased risk:
  "If you go to your doctor because you have fibroids and they're like...let's talk about keeping the ovaries." (Mosconi, 17:55)

• On women putting themselves last:
  "We're just so good at putting everybody else and everything else before us...the downside is that we don't get to move our bodies as much as we could." (Mosconi, 23:35)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 01:09 – Stats: More women get Alzheimer's than men
• 02:05–04:44 – Hormones, menopause, and Alzheimer’s onset in women
• 05:04–08:24 – Hormone therapy controversies and individualized responses
• 10:00–12:21 – Menopause myths and genetics
• 14:05–15:39 – Diet’s impact on menopause and brain health
• 16:15–19:43 – Earlier menopause, surgical risks, and implications for Alzheimer’s
• 22:44–26:12 – Exercise, consistent movement, and direct health outcomes
• 29:05–30:51 – Prevention vs. reversal and what’s genuinely possible

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Practical Takeaways

• Prevention is possible: At least one-third of Alzheimer’s cases could be prevented with lifestyle changes, especially for women.
• Focus on diet, exercise, and stress management: These are central to brain and hormonal health.
• Start young: Women should be proactive about brain health in their 40s and 50s.
• Personalize HRT decisions: Don’t consider hormone therapy without proper evaluation; it’s not “one size fits all.”
• Be aware of surgical impacts: Avoid unnecessary ovary/uterus removal before menopause whenever possible.

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Guest Contact Information

• Instagram: @drmascone
• Website: lisamoscone.com
  "I actually answer direct messages...all the questions really inform my research." (Mosconi, 30:55)

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Final Thoughts

Dr. Gundry and Dr. Mosconi emphasize the crucial, often overlooked reality that Alzheimer’s is not solely a disease of old age nor is it “fated.” With a better understanding of hormonal and lifestyle influences, women can take tangible steps for brain health far earlier—and more effectively—than previously thought.

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[End of Content]

Transcript

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

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[Dr. Stephen Gundry]

Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast where Dr. Stephen Gundry shares his groundbreaking research from over 25 years of treating patients with diet and lifestyle changes alone. Dr. Gundry and other wellness experts offer inspiring stories, the latest scientific advancements and practical tips to empower you to take control of your health and live a long, happy life.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Most people, I think the general public assumes that men get dementia more than women. But in fact the opposite, like you say, is completely, you know, it's exactly the opposite.

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

It's exactly the opposite. Yeah.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

The vast majority of people who get dementia Alzheimer's are women. And you guys are so much healthier than us men.

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

I mean, you would assume, right? You would assume. And also what I think is really interesting is that Alzheimer's disease is the only age related neurodegenerative condition that affects more women than men. Like Parkinson's, more men, vascular dementia, 50. 50. So there seems to be something specific to women that increases risk of Alzheimer's.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

So what is it about women's brains that are unique that this, this seems to be a problem more for women than for men?

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

Yes. There are many things that make women's brains really unique and I think a big determining factor is really hormonal health. Because I think it's very helpful to think of brain health as impacted by a number of factors. Like you have your genes, you have your DNA, you have your lifestyle, you have your medical health, you have your environment, you have your hormone. All these factors really act synergistically to determine a person's risk of Alzheimer's. But at the same time, a person comes with allies. There are things that reduce your risk and other factors that can increase your risk, like the apolipoprotein E, the APOE4 gene. You mentioned before, hormones are actually incredibly powerful allies that protect you against Alzheimer's and brain aging at large. The difference is that men have a lot more androgens like testosterone. Women have a lot more estrogens like estradiol. All these hormones are very powerful. They're very energizing, and they really keep Alzheimer's plaques at bay. They're anti inflammatory, they support neuronal growth and plasticity. But they have different lifespans. Right. Testosterone levels don't really decline that much until later on in life, whereas female estrogens really drop pretty dramatically during menopause. And menopause is midlife. So when we started looking into that, we found that women's brains change quite a bit in midlife during menopause. And that for some women, and we looked at their brains using their brain scans, once, twice, over time, over the years, what we found is that for some women, the drops in estrogen levels correlate with the formation of Alzheimer's plaques, which is counterintuitive because we associate Alzheimer's with old age and menopause with middle age. That is a little bit like a paradox. Speaking to you about paradoxes, but it is true. What my work and other people's work has shown is that Alzheimer's disease starts with changes in the brain years, if not decades, prior to clinical symptoms. And for women, that crucial time seems to overlap with menopause. So you don't start worrying about your risk of Alzheimer's when you're 70 as a woman. You better start thinking about it when you're 40 and 50.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Okay, so that's the bad news. That's the bad news. So are you saying that. Let's just generalize that every woman should think about hormonal replacement to prevent Alzheimer's or what are you saying?

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

What I'm saying is that there are many things that one can do to reduce risk of Alzheimer's and hopefully prevent it. And what our data is given us as a timeline, we now know that women tend to develop Alzheimer's earlier than men in their brains, and that we can catch these signs of increased risk very early on in life. We're looking at women who are in their 40s, and we can really find signs of an increased risk of Alzheimer's. And then I think it's really. That's really the key to prevention. I think it gives us a timeline. And it also suggests that perhaps hormonal replacement therapy, which you mentioned, could be helpful. We don't know for sure. We don't know for sure. And I Think a lot more research is needed to test the preventative potential of hormonal therapy.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Okay, so nobody should go away from this saying, Dr. Moscone says I have to get on hormonal replacement therapy when I'm 40 or it's the end.

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

No, no, no. I would not say that. Actually. I'm very cautious in recommending medications for Alzheimer's prevention. I think. I believe in clinical trials. I believe that drugs should be tested very thoroughly for efficacy but also side effects. And we really need to understand who's eligible for it and who would benefit from these drugs. So something I want to clarify is that not all women who go through menopause develop Alzheimer's plaques, and not all women with the plaques develop dementia later in life. So I think phenotyping is very important. It's very important to have a solid baseline, and it's important to understand our own risks. And like what we were saying before, there are many risk factors for Alzheimer's that we can control that can also really help improve hormonal health. So instead of jumping to a pharmacy with a prescription in hand, there are other things that I would recommend doing first which really speak to lifestyle, like diet, exercise, other things that we know impact our hormones. Stress reduction is a big one.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

So that's a good segue into this. Cause, yeah, everyone who comes into my office does not get a prescription for estradiol and progesterone and testosterone, quite frankly. In fact, most don't.

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

Right.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

And I agree with you, and I actually just did a podcast on this. There are certainly well recognized effects of estrogen on women, particularly vascular reactivity. And I have a subset of women who even small amounts of estrogen replacement as a patch make a huge difference in the way their brain functions. And I was taught this by a gynecologist. He said, you know, believe it. You know, there are women who absolutely have to have a small amount of estrogen or their brain will not work and their vascular reactivity will not work in their brain. Is that what you guys are finding?

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

I think the response to estrogen replacement therapy is variable for some. For some women is a godsend. Some women really swear by it. Other women swear at it. So their response is very highly individualized. And I think that we need better tools and better tests to really predict whether or not each individual woman will benefit from the therapy. And we're working on developing that. And it's something that is very dear to my heart as a scientist, because in clinician, because we can measure hormones in blood but there is no correlation between those peripheral hormones and the hormones inside the person's brain. So we need to be able to quantify estrogen levels in the brain, to really dose the therapy correctly, and to refine the timing so that we. We can better understand when to start and when to stop. Like, do we want to wait until a woman is menopausal to give her the patch, which is kind of common practice, or would it be better to perhaps start earlier and see we can delay menopause? Would that be better? So I think there's a lot of research that really needs to happen and hasn't happened yet, which is honestly offensive. You know, women have been going through menopause forever, and everybody's complaining of hot flashes, night sweats, depression, mood swings, brain fog, memory lapses. And we haven't really done the research that we need yet, and that's half of the population.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

So you say in your book that the idea that women have no control over menopause is a myth. Can you elaborate on that?

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

Yeah, there are many myths surrounding menopause. There are many things that we don't fully understand or that perhaps are not being explained thoroughly or accurately to women. So many women don't actually know how menopause works. And I find endearing in some ways when I. When I do explain that menopause starts in the brain, and so many women are not aware of that, and they feel so relieved when I mention that, because any woman can tell you that, like you were saying before, that something is happening inside their heads and they're worried that they might be going crazy or that maybe it's happening only to them and not to the other 850 million women around the planet who are not going through menopause and that are, you know, experiencing exactly the same level of confusion or changes. So that. That's something that really made a point of clarifying in the book. Then there is a lot of stigma around menopause in 2020 is still quite a taboo. But there is so much that we understand now that we really need to talk about and discuss with women and, you know, between women and with men, honestly, because it's a family thing in the end. And going back to your point, menopause is partially genetically mediated in that if your mom went through menopause when she was 43, chances are you're also going to menopause at the same age. If your mom went through menopause at 55, then you're very fortunate because there's a good chance you may also go through menopause later than average. However, there are things that are known to precipitate menopause and other things that are known to delay the onset of menopause. The bad things are definitely smoking, which is the number one cause of early menopause, an unhealthy diet, and a very high level of chronic stress. So if your mom went through menopause at 58, right, but you've been smoking for 20 years, chances are that you'll go through menopause much earlier than she did.

[Podcast Host / Dr. Gundry's Assistant or Co-host]

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[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

And then there are all the good things that actually delay menopause, which are the good things we always talk about.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Oh, let's hear it.

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

Let's talk about. Well, a healthy diet is a big deal. There are many studies, including an examination of hundreds of thousands of people, showing that the more fish you have in your diet, the later the onset of menopause. As a woman, of course. And on the other side, if you eat a lot of refined sugar and refined grains, that seems to accelerate the hormonal decline that leads to menopause. It's good to think about diet in terms of something that can actually impact the health of your hormones as well as the health of your brain. There's evidence that dietary patterns like the Mediterranean diet, for example, also really promote hormonal health in women, also support fertility, and they're associated with fewer hot flashes in the later onset age and menopause, as well as a number of other things. So better cognitive health, reduce cardiovascular issues, reduced depression in women. So a healthy diet is very crucial, I think, for overall health. And, you know, everybody's on a different diet. But I think that on average, just staying away from processed foods would be a really good positive change in everybody's life.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

So let me back up for a second. Is there any evidence, then you're the expert on this, that if you go into menopause early, let's say in your 40s, early 40s, versus going into menopause in your 50s, that you're better off the later you go into menopause? Number one. And number two, if you go into menopause early, do you throw up your hands and say, I'm screwed. Oh, my gosh, now what do I do?

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

The first answer is yes. The second answer is no.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Ah, okay, good.

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

So there is increasing evidence that a longer reproductive lifespan is protective against dementia in women, especially in women. And by longer reproductive lifespan is kind of a metaphor for the longer your body is exposed to your estrogens. So women who develop and go through puberty at the average age or a little bit earlier, like when you're 12, and go through menopause later on, like Maybe around age 55, 56, they really seem to have the lower risk of dementia as compared to women who have a shorter reproductive lifespan. So they start menstruating later in life. And to go through menopause earlier, whether genetically or because of medical interventions. And I would like to mention hysterectomies and oophorectomies are the number one cause of early menopause for American women. And those are surgical procedures in which the uterus and or the ovaries are removed. And unfortunately, there is evidence that having the uterus and more so the ovaries removed prior to menopause correlate with a much higher risk of dementia later in life for women. So I think it's really important to talk about this, and it is depressing news and it is upsetting news, but it's really important that we talk about it because so many women are not aware and so many doctors are not aware. So Many obgyns just don't know. And so if you go to your doctor because you have fibroids and they're like, well, you know, you're suffering so much, maybe we should take out the uterus. Let's talk about keeping the ovaries. Because one of the major reasons for removing the ovaries is that they just happen to be there while we're in there.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

So I think it's really important to raise awareness of the fact that reproductive organs are there for a reason and they can't just be taken out that easily because there's a connection with your brain that is not the inner conversation material, but it's true. Your brain is in constant interaction with your ovaries as a woman, and the ovaries talk back to the brain, influencing brain health in return. So it's a network that we really need to nourish. And that's a big part of my book, is really about understanding this system and these interactions and how to really nurture them.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Now, another part of that is, okay, so what about pregnancy? Where does that come in in the picture?

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

It's a very good question. It looks like the number of pregnancies is just not associated with Alzheimer's risk. There are some studies have shown that the more pregnancies, the more children you have, the higher your risk of Alzheimer's, whereas other studies have shown absolutely the opposite. So at this point, we don't know. What we do know is that the more the number of pregnancy does not correlate with your age of menopause. It doesn't seem to, because some people think, well, I haven't had my cycle for nine months, so I'm going to catch up. You know, it's going to be. Menopause is going to be delayed by at least nine months. But that doesn't seem to happen.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Ah, interesting. So is there any correlation between pregnancy or no pregnancy and developing Alzheimer's or dementia?

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

I think the research is not clear on that. And this is something that we're looking into right now, clearly at the Women's Brain Initiative, because it's such a big deal for women's brains. And my friend, one of my friends, she's a psychiatrist, and she got pregnant years ago when having kids was not even a thing for me, not even on the radar. And she was telling me that she felt like she had postpartum dementia, that she couldn't. She could not remember things. She was having such a hard time just getting through the day mentally. She's one of the smartest, most capable women on this planet. And that was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you just need to sleep. Then I had my baby and it was like, oh, my God, what is happening to me, to my head? And so I think this is something I really want to look into. There's this beautiful study in nature neuroscience that came out just a few years ago showing women's brains after pregnancy, throughout pregnancy and after pregnancy, really go through a remodeling where the brain kind of loses gray matter that you can see on MRI scans, which sounds like a negative thing, right? I'm losing something inside my head. But a lot of people believe that these changes reflect a maturation process, like something that, like what happens in puberty, that the brain just starts going through this pruning phase where a lot of connections are discarded because you don't need them anymore. And it's much more efficient to have a very efficient, very compact brain. And it looks like something similar might happen to women's brains as we become moms, because all the attention needs to be on the baby that is better from an evolutionary perspective. And that leads to discarding other connections that are no longer needed. And I find that to be very insightful. And I wonder if something like that can also explain menopause. Because, you know, women, we actually humans, we're just one of the very few species that go through menopause at all. There are just two species on the entire planet that go through menopause, and these are women and killer whales. And I find that so cool. But if you think that all other species, in all other species, the female dies when she's no longer fertile, where for us is an advantage to become grandmothers at some point, or at least that that's what nature intended for us, and no longer be fertile, but still be around and help the family really thrive and grow. So I find that very. I find it beautiful in some ways.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Okay, so let's talk about exercise. Since we've been talking about food. How important for women is working out for brain health?

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

It is very, very important. And I think there's quite enough convincing research showing how women don't exercise nearly as much as they could or should. And they most certainly exercise less than men do for a number of reasons, which is not to blame women for it, but it's really a number of reasons that go from, you know, just being a mom mom and holding full time jobs and taking care of the family and taking care of your parents and your husband's parents. Perhaps there's Just so much that's going on in a woman's life and the men's life as well. But for some reason, women, and I think any woman would acknowledge that we're just so good at putting everybody else and everything else before us. And then the downside is that we don't get to move our bodies as much as we could. But there's a lot of evidence that exercise is not just good for overall health, it's also specifically helpful for your brain and is really a well established preventative against Alzheimer's and dementia. So the fact that women don't exercise as much as they should raises concerns because that could also be one of the reasons that more women than men end up with dementia later in life. There is very encouraging research showing that exercising reduces the risk of dementia for both men and women, but more so for women than for men. There was just this wonderful study published. It was over 200 women. They were followed for over 40 years, which I found was incredible. And they showed that your cardiovascular level, your fitness level in midlife is really predictive of future risk of Alzheimer's disease. So the women with the highest level of fitness basically did not decline to Alzheimer's disease. The decline rate was close to zero percent, whereas women in the lowest percentile of fitness declined to Alzheimer's at the rate of 30%. Which means of every three women who don't exercise, at least one is going to get Alzheimer's disease. So that's not convincing enough. I don't know what could be. And I also want to mention because I don't want anyone to feel bad about not exercising. We have so much guilt around not doing everything thing we could, which is clearly unsustainable. You know, you only have that much time in a day or a week. But there's very encouraging evidence that you don't have to run a marathon. You know, we think about exercise mostly in terms of running, jumping, aerobic exercise, and a lot of women just can't do that. Maybe they're too tired or they're going through menopause. There's so much else going on. But there's a lot of evidence that lower intensity exercise, if done consistently, is just as good as high intensity exercise done once in a while and is also less likely to cause inflammation in the body. For women who are going through menopause or perimenopause and have a lot of cortisol and have trouble sleeping. So slow and steady wins the race as long as it's consistent.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, I agree. In fact, I write prescriptions for many of my patients to get a dog because dogs actually make you exercise twice a day whether you want to or not.

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

Yeah, that's a lovely idea.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I actually write a prescription company, lower your stress level.

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[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

It's really interesting. I have a number of people who come back with that prescription frame that it was the best prescription adoption doctor had ever written for them. So I'm going to keep doing it.

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

I love that. If it's okay, I'm going to mention that you do that because it's such a good idea.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah. No, please.

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[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

So can you reverse dementia?

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

Reverse is an interesting word for a scientist. You know, I know it has Been used with books, podcasts, and magazines. For me, reversing Alzheimer's means that you're getting rid of the symptoms and you're getting rid of the pathology. The Alzheimer's plaques are gone, the tangles are gone, the inflammation are gone, your neurons are growing back, and your symptoms are gone. So far, I haven't seen that happen. The hope is that it will. Right now, I think we're, as a field, the Alzheimer's field is coming together in finally accepting that prevention is feasible. We got so much pushback for so long that we couldn't even publish a paper with the word prevention in it. Just recently, we had to cross it out at the title.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Really?

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

Yeah, absolutely. There were. I think we had six reviewers, which is a lot of reviewers, and at least three raised concerns about the word prevention. And so we had to cross it off and just replace it with risk reduction. You do what you're going to do. But the point is, a lot of people still don't believe that prevention is feasible. The risk reduction is more like, okay, it's not as strong a word, but obviously, I'm the associate director of the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell, which I thought was brave. So obviously I believe that prevention is feasible. And there's a lot of data showing at the very least, one third of all Alzheimer's cases are potentially preventable. So I do believe in prevention, and I most certainly hope that Alzheimer's disease would be reversible.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

All right, well, that's a good place to end all this.

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

As for getting in touch with me, I'm on Instagram. I'm not big on social media, but I am on Instagramsconi doctormascone, and I have a website which is lisamascone.com and I actually answer direct messages. Wow. Yeah, for now. No, I really do my best to really respond and make friends, to really be in touch with everybody because it's so informative. I find that all the questions really inform my research because as a scientist, there are a lot of questions that I have on my mind and a lot of things I wouldn't think about.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

All right, well, thanks for joining us. Good luck with the book. I know it's going to be great. And thanks for, you know, bringing this attention to women. For some obscure reason, we've got to get the word out that, you know, women are the main sufferers of Alzheimer's disease.

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

Yes. All right, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

[Podcast Host / Dr. Gundry's Assistant or Co-host]

Now it's time for the Question of the week. The question of the week comes from 329 on my YouTube episode about cheap proteins. They asked Dr. Gundry, what about papaya seeds? Are they healthy or not? Well, as a matter of fact, papaya seeds actually have a lot of proven health benefits in peer reviewed papers. They certainly are an antioxidant, they reduce reactive oxygen species and there are some interesting anti parasite, anti worm antiviral effects. But perhaps the most important thing is that they are an excellent source of soluble fiber that your gut buddies love. So yeah, papaya seeds are great for you. So don't throw them out. You can grind them up in a smoothie, you can swallow them whole if you like. Or you can of course get papaya seed powders in capsules or powders. Interestingly enough, there is some evidence that fermented papaya seeds naturally are even better for you. But what a great question. Now it's time for the review of the week. The review of the week comes from on my YouTube episode about matcha. They said. I'm sorry. Glad you're talking about this. I'm from Japan. The most reasonable authentic ceremony matcha is about $35 for a 20 gram can. Matcha sold in supermarkets here are less in quality. Thank you very much. Well, thank you for that review. You know, oftentimes the old saying you get what you pay for is correct. And having had ceremonial matcha tea by a matcha tea master, I can tell you that you're right. It really does make a difference the quality of matcha. So let's be careful out there on buying Matcha.

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

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[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Huzzah.

[Dr. Lisa Moscone]

Pluto TV stream now pay Never. You're welcome.

[Dr. Stephen Gundry]

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone's life when you take the time to share it with them. There's also the Dr. Gundry Podcast YouTube channel where we have tens of thousands of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long, vital life. Let's do this together.