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The Neuro Experience
95% of Alzheimer’s Cases Are Preventable | A Woman’s Guide to Alzheimer’s Disease | Part 1
00:11:32
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Hello, everybody.
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Welcome back to the show. My name is Louise Nicola and today marks episode one of the Women's Guide to Alzheimer's Disease. This will be a 10 part series that I'll be delivering to you every two weeks. So you can not only optimize your brain's performance, but you can start to educate yourself on what is Alzheimer's disease and how to protect yourself against these age related diseases. So in today's episode, we're going to be talking about the brain and how to understand the brain, how your neurons, blood flow and connections shape your mind. So let's get into it. Before we talk about Alzheimer's disease, we really have to talk about the brain. And this is often a topic that is misunderstood. How do we even fight a disease if we can't understand what is damaging it? Your brain is the most complex structure in the known universe. It weighs just three pounds and it has the consistency of hard jello. That's how I describe it. But it controls everything you do, from your thoughts to your emotions, your movements, your memories, even your ability to know who you are. Now here is the thing that I always say. Out of all of the diseases that is going to kill you, Alzheimer's disease is the only one that robs you of who you are. Every single one of the functions that I just mentioned depends on these specialized cells called neurons. So neurons are brain cells. So in today's episode, we're going to build the foundation. We'll talk about how the brain works, how neurons communicate, and why your vascular health is just as important for cognitive health as it is for heart disease. Because when we talk about Alzheimer's disease, we're really talking about a breakdown in all, all of these systems. And if we understand why, we can start taking steps to protect and optimize our brain for life. So let's get into it. Let's talk about the command center, which is your brain. So at birth, we're born with around 87 billion neurons. And to put that into perspective, that's more stars than you can see in the Milky Way. And neurons are the building blocks of your brain. They're specialized cells that transmit signals and process information. They don't walk alone. They connect with other neurons, forming what we call synapses. And they're basically communication points. So your brain has around a hundred trillion of these connections. Just think around 87 billion neurons. Each neuron has around 10 to 15,000 connections, depending on how healthy the neuron is. So that's over 100 trillion connections. You can imagine Neurons as connections and these synapses as the highways that allow information to travel between them. The more connected your brain is, the stronger your cognitive function. This is what allows us to remember where you put your keys, solve problems, or even recognize your loved ones faces. Now here's the key. Neurons don't just exist. They need fuel, oxygen and nutrients to function. And that's where the vascular system comes in. So let's talk about blood flow and the brain and why your brain runs on oxygen. Here is a known fact. Your brain is the most vascular rich organ in the entire body. Actually, if you were to pull all of the blood vessels, and when I say vascular system, I'm talking about blood vessels, arteries, veins, all of that. If you were to pull it apart, it would span around 400km. So that's pretty tight network right there.
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You know that feeling when something feels off but you keep putting off seeing a doctor. Maybe you think I don't have time or I don't even know which doctor to go to. That's why zocdoc exists. It's a free app and website that.
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Makes it easy to find and book.
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Top rated in network doctors across every specialty, Mental health, primary care, urgent care and more. You can filter by insurance, location and patient reviews. And book appointments instantly. No more waiting months to see a doctor. Appointments happen fast, often within 24 to 72 hours. Regular medical checkups are crucial for early detection and prevention of chronic chronic conditions, significantly improving long term health outcomes. Just go to zocdoc.comneuro to book an appointment today. That is zocdoc.comneuro so your brain is.
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Just 2% of your body weight. It consumes around 20% of your total oxygen and blood supply. So your brain is an extremely hungry organ. Why is that? That's because neurons are energy hungry. And the cerebral vasculature is pretty much like a vast network of blood vessels that deliver oxygen and nutrients to the brain. As I mentioned earlier, your brain has 400 miles of blood vessels and these vessels carry oxygen and glucose. So without them, neurons start to die. Then we've got something else that you've probably heard of. It's called the blood brain barrier and that acts as a protective shield, filtering out toxins and preventing harmful substances from entering the brain. I often refer to the blood brain barrier, the bbb, as the bouncer of a nightclub. He's basically there to say who can come in and who can't. There are certain molecules, like certain substances in drugs that can cross the blood brain barrier we know that certain chemicals when we exercise, such as myokines, they can cross the blood brain barrier, but then there's other substances that can't. And that's a really good thing because we don't want everything coming into the brain. Here's Things start to connect to Alzheimer's disease when the vascular health of your brain declines, like when blood flow is reduced due to maybe hypertension, that is high blood pressure, poor circulation or inflammation. Our neurons are deprived of oxygen and fuel and this leads to neurodegeneration. This then leads to diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. One of the earliest warning signs of Alzheimer's isn't memory loss. It's a reduction in cerebral blood flow. And this happens sometimes decades before your symptoms appear. In fact, some of the most widely studied effects of hypertension, which is high blood pressure, show that even just a 130 over 80 or a 130 over 90 reading, you know, the, the gold standard for blood pressure is 120 over 80. Even if you get to systolic 130 over 90 diastolic, we see a breakdown of these tiny little blood vessels in the brain. And when these break down, you obviously lose oxygen and nutrients to the cell. And that's when we get cell death. Let's now talk about synaptic plasticity. That is how your brain learns and adapts. Your brain isn't static. Every time you learn something new, meet someone, or experience something different, your brain changes, either for the good or the bad. But this ability to adapt is called neuroplasticity. Synaptic plasticity, on the other hand, refers to the brain's ability to strengthen or weaken connections based on its use. This is why you can learn a new skill at any age. Your brain is constantly rewiring itself. Exercise, deep sleep and mental stimulation increase synaptic plasticity. On the other hand, chronic stress, inflammation and poor diet can weaken it. In Alzheimer's disease, we see a loss of synaptic connections. And when these connections are lost, the neurons shrink and cognitive function declines. But here's the key. It doesn't happen overnight. The process starts long before symptoms appear, which means that we have a window of opportunity to intervene. In fact, I always say that Alzheimer's disease isn't a one point stamp in your life where you're diagnosed. Most of the time, people are diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in their 70s and that's based upon neuroimaging, PET scans, etc. But that doesn't mean, oh, you just contracted this disease. No Alzheimer's disease starts in your 20s and in your 30s, and it just takes that long for you to see your first symptom. Let's talk about something now which relates to energetics, and that's the mitochondria. That's pretty much the brain's energy factories. Neurons don't just need oxygen and nutrients, they need energy. And that's where the mitochondria come in. Mitochondria are pretty much the powerhouses of your cell. They take in nutrients and they produce something called ATP, which is just pretty much energy. So your brain has the highest concentration of mitochondria in the body. So think about mitochondrial dysfunction really means lower energy production. When you've got lower energy production, you have brain fog, memory loss, and cognitive decline. Then we have something different, which I'll actually touch on in episode two. This is the APOE4 gene. So APOE4 carriers have been shown to have impaired mitochondrial function. This is why one of the reasons why they are at higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. So if we want to fight Alzheimer's, we have to protect neurons, blood flow, synaptic connections, and mitochondrial energy production. What is the good news? We can do that with the right interventions. Something that you probably don't know is the fact that Alzheimer's disease. Around 55 million people currently have Alzheimer's disease worldwide. That number is said to triple by the year 2050. A third of all of these cases are female. We still don't know why that is, but I have a pretty good reason why that may be the case. Second to that is A. Around 95 to 97% of all Alzheimer's disease cases are driven through lifestyle factors, meaning that regardless of your genetic makeup, you can get Alzheimer's disease from the way that you live your life. So what are we going to be speaking about in the next episode? Today, we've laid out the foundation about the brain. You know, your brain isn't just one thing. It's a complex system of neurons, connections, blood flow and energy production. And one of these systems break down. Cognitive decline begins. Where we go next. Over the next nine episodes, we're going to break down everything you need to know about preventing Alzheimer's disease and optimizing cognitive function. What I want to leave you with is the fact that Alzheimer's doesn't start when you forget a name or misplace your keys. It starts decades earlier. And what you do today matters. So if this episode resonated with you, make sure you've subscribed. Share it with someone who needs to hear this. You have more control over your brain health than you think. I'm so excited to see you in episode two.