00:00:00
And we have this white powder in front of me. You got a big smile on your face. >> I do because I don't care who you are,
00:00:05
you should definitely be having this. Let's talk about creatine. Phenomenal research shows you can creatine your way
00:00:12
out of sleep deprivation. It can protect your brain against a concussion, stroke,
00:00:16
from stress. And there was a study done on Alzheimer's disease patients. And
00:00:20
they found that patients not only preserved their cognitive functions, but they had more energy and they were able
00:00:27
to exercise more. And I know this because I'm a clinician and over the last decade I've been surrounded by the
00:00:33
greatest neurosurgeons in the world studying the brain. And so I'm here to tackle one disease and that is
00:00:39
Alzheimer's because it generally starts in our 30s and 60 million people worldwide have Alzheimer's. 70% being
00:00:47
women. And I get angry and I get passionate because women have been lied to. They've been underrepresented. They
00:00:54
downplay their symptoms or they're too scared to ask their doctor for advice.
00:00:58
And what people don't really know is that it is a preventable disease, but it's like endstage cancer. Once you get
00:01:04
the diagnosis, there is no cure. And the fact that so many people are at the mercy of a disease that is preventable
00:01:11
is not okay with me. And I don't think people understand these things. Like people don't really know that we're
00:01:16
becoming more sedentary, which is a disease. And there was a study that was done on this that showed that if you do
00:01:22
10 air squats every hour, this can compensate for your sedentary lifestyle. And then we have several lifestyle
00:01:28
factors that can lower your risk of getting Alzheimer's disease, as well as showing you what 5 minutes a day can do
00:01:34
for your brain performance. Just using a tennis ball and an eye patch. Guys, I've got a quick favor to ask you.
00:01:44
We're approaching a significant subscriber milestone on this show, and roughly 69% of you that listen and love
00:01:50
the show haven't yet subscribed for whatever reason. If there was ever a time for you to do us a favor, if we've
00:01:56
ever done anything for you, giving you value in any way, it is simply hitting that subscribe button. And it means so
00:02:02
much to myself, but also to my team because when we hit these milestones, we go away as a team and celebrate. And
00:02:06
it's the thing, the simple, free, easy thing you can do to help make this show
00:02:08
a little bit better every single week. So, that's a favor I would ask you. And
00:02:13
um if you do hit the subscribe button, I won't let you down. And we'll continue
00:02:17
to find small ways to make this whole production better. Thank you so much for being part of this journey. Means the
00:02:22
world. And uh yeah, let's do this. Louisa, what is it you do in simple terms? And I
00:02:35
guess most importantly, why is it that you do it? And why now? >> Over the last decade, I've been studying
00:02:41
the brain. I'm both a clinician and an academic. So, I get to see the brain and
00:02:47
I also get to research it. And I'm really here to tackle one disease and that is Alzheimer's disease.
00:02:54
>> Why is this so important now? >> Right now because 60 million people
00:02:59
worldwide have Alzheimer's disease. That number is going to triple by the year
00:03:05
2050. 110 million women will have Alzheimer's disease by the year 2050. This is a disease that robs you of who
00:03:16
you are, your complete identity. So, we're going to get really into this straight away cuz I brought Henry with
00:03:22
me, right? >> And for anyone that can't see, Henry is a model brain that she's holding in her
00:03:26
hands. >> This is around 2 lb. And if you actually feel it and you know, if you actually
00:03:32
feel a real human brain, it feels like tofu, but this is everything you are. And the fact that so many people are at
00:03:40
the mercy of a disease that is preventable is not okay with me. It doesn't sit well with me. We used to
00:03:47
think that women were disproportionately affected by Alzheimer's disease because
00:03:52
we lived longer because age played a role in it. But we now have substantial evidence to show that it's not the fact
00:03:59
that women live longer or people in general because dementia and Alzheimer's
00:04:03
disease are not part of the natural brain aging process. For women, and they differ from men, and we can separate the
00:04:10
sexes and talk about it, for women, it is purely because being a woman is a risk factor for getting this disease.
00:04:19
Now, if we go through and we have a look at all of the people that currently have
00:04:22
Alzheimer's disease, 95% of them could have been prevented because this is not
00:04:27
a disease of genetics. It's a disease of lifestyle. >> 95% of it could have been prevented.
00:04:33
>> Correct? We're we're born with our with our genetic makeup. Meaning that, for
00:04:38
example, if you have a genetic mutation on chromosome 4, you will get Huntington's disease. There is nothing
00:04:46
we can do about that. That's how you were born. But when it comes to Alzheimer's disease, there's around 20
00:04:52
to 30 genes involved in the disease. Only around 3% of the disease cases right now were
00:04:59
driven through those genetic mutations. The genetic mutations that you are born with, you get them from mom and dad are
00:05:08
presinelin one, presinelin 2 and the amaloid precursor protein. So you if you have a genetic mutation in one of these
00:05:17
genes, you will get some form of dementia. >> What is the age range where people will
00:05:23
start to experience Alzheimer's? >> Let's just actually take a broad
00:05:27
overview of what Alzheimer's disease is. Okay. So you've probably heard of
00:05:30
dementia. Yeah. >> So dementia is the umbrella term. So Alzheimer's disease is sits under the
00:05:36
umbrella. It's a form of dementia. There's fronttotemporal dementia which
00:05:40
is what Bruce Willis has. There's dementia with Louis bodies. There's Parkinson's dementia. There's vascular
00:05:46
dementia. This disease dementia or Alzheimer's disease is a disease of midlife. And so it generally starts in
00:05:55
our 30s. It starts in our 30s, but the first symptoms show up in our late 60s, 70s and beyond.
00:06:04
>> When you say it starts, >> yeah, our brain fully develops at around
00:06:08
25 years old. 25 to 30. And after that that's when we if we don't take care of
00:06:14
our brain we start getting a decline in these functions. Now let's go back to
00:06:19
the brain. The brain is 87 billion neurons around 5 to 10,000 connections per neuron. The my favorite area of the
00:06:27
brain is the cerebellum. And the piking cells inside the cerebellum have upwards
00:06:31
of 50,000 connections per cell. So so tightly dense and there is so much happening. It takes 20% of the total
00:06:41
calories that you consume every day to power this thing. And it's the most vascular richch organ in the entire
00:06:48
body. Over time, through things such as sleep deprivation, poor diet, lack of physical activity,
00:06:55
environmental toxins, this slowly erodess at the functioning of the brain. And over time, this starts to compound
00:07:03
because that's what biology is. Everything is compounding. One night of sleep deprivation raises your risk of
00:07:09
amaloid beta, which is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease pathology, by 4%. That's just one night
00:07:15
of sleep deprivation. Imagine a new mother or a shift worker or a physician in their residency getting countless
00:07:23
nights of sleep deprivation day in and day out. Imagine all of that compounding. And what happens? Well, we
00:07:32
end up with either neuronal loss, which is like the complete atrophy of certain parts of the brain. And that's what is
00:07:40
mild cognitive impairment. Mild cognitive impairment is a pre-dementure state. >> So, what is this that I have here? This
00:07:45
photo um of a brain. >> You've got the sagittal view right now of the brain. And we're looking at a
00:07:52
healthy brain on here. As you can see, I'm going to show it up here on the left
00:07:56
hand side. You can see that the brain is thick. We can see that the integrity of
00:07:59
the gray matter which sits out here is thick. It's voluous. Okay. We can see
00:08:05
that the ventricles are smaller. We go over here and we see thinning of the cortex. You can see these big spaces
00:08:12
between the gy. These are thick because the gray matter has atrophied. It's shrunk. You can see that the space
00:08:20
between the cortex itself and the skull, there's a bigger space. You can see
00:08:25
these ventricles here, these butterflyshaped ventricles. This is thicker. This is thinner. We can see
00:08:31
atrophy down here. So essentially, the brain is getting smaller and smaller >> at the age of 30. If I do everything
00:08:40
right, and we were to sort of plot this on a graph of where I land at 70, what is the variance of where I'll end up at
00:08:49
70? You know, my brain is quite important to me. And I do worry. I think like I think I worry in part
00:08:55
because I I I sit and interview a lot of people at a lot of different ages and one thing you notice as an interviewer
00:09:01
is some people at 60 have are razor sharp >> and some people at 60 are not as razor
00:09:09
sharp. >> Yeah. >> Their ability to articulate their words, their memory recall, their ability to
00:09:14
understand stats and stories, all of this. And I sit here and go, I wonder what the difference is.
00:09:17
>> Yeah. And that's actually beautiful because it brings up this important
00:09:21
concept in neuroscience called cognitive reserve. And that's your brain's ability
00:09:27
to withhold capacity to overcome stresses. Okay. So you've probably heard for example, let's use the analogy of
00:09:35
physical performance, your V2 max, which is a measure of your peak respiratory fitness. You know how well you can
00:09:42
utilize oxygen >> when you are at a at a high intensity state. How well does your body utilize
00:09:48
oxygen? The the fitter you are, the more reserve you have to overcome stress. Stress such as an infection, everyday
00:09:59
stresses, sleep deprivation, surgery, the more reserve you have in your bank to overcome that. The same is with your
00:10:07
brain. The more cognitive reserve that you have, the more cognitive capacity that you have been training year on and
00:10:16
year out will save you at 60 from harmful insults such as you can get a woman at the age of 80 with a head full
00:10:27
of amaloid beta. >> Amaloid beta being >> the one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's
00:10:32
disease. You can get somebody with a head full of amaloid >> which is like a plaque on the brain.
00:10:36
>> Yeah. it it's a protein that's actually it's a it's a protein that lives inside
00:10:41
the neuron itself and we can explain what that is which I will in a second but let me just tell you you can have a
00:10:48
head full of amaloid in this person and they have retained their cognitive functions then you can have somebody
00:10:54
else with hardly any amaloid but they've lost their cognitive functions and this
00:10:59
all comes down to cognitive reserve >> and cognitive reserve lives where in the
00:11:04
head >> you've got around 5 to 10,000 connections per cell. Over time, those
00:11:09
connections fail. Now, those connections are responsible for your thinking, your
00:11:13
processing speed. Every time you have a thought, you build a new connection. The
00:11:17
more connections that you have, the more things that you see, the more novelty that you give your brain, the richer it
00:11:24
gets, the more stable it gets. So, the ends of these of the neurons, we have dendrites. And coming off the dendrites
00:11:32
are these little trees. Imagine a branch. That's the dendrite. And all of the leaves that come off it, all these
00:11:38
little dendritic trees, if you will, and they connect to nearby cells, 10 10,000
00:11:43
cells over time, those are the connections that fall. Those are the connections that fail. They fail because
00:11:50
you don't utilize them. >> So, the way that one would build reserve at the age of 30 is to
00:11:57
>> is by exercising. We can build reserve in a number of different ways. In fact,
00:12:01
there was a really wonderful study that just came out that I just read about and
00:12:05
they found that those who preserved cognitive capacity at 75 years old were handwriting and reading. So, handwriting
00:12:14
and reading preserves cognitive functions. Exercise is one of the most potent stimulus for brain health and
00:12:24
Alzheimer's disease prevention and cognitive reserve. The more you exercise, the bigger your brain.
00:12:32
>> What about scrolling on social media? Does it improve my reserve if I'm
00:12:36
watching videos? >> It's in the opposite. >> Why would that be? Cuz I'm still
00:12:39
learning stuff. >> Yeah. >> When I'm on the internet. >> Because what you're doing then is you
00:12:43
are relying on short dopamine hits. Every time you scroll, you're sending signals to your brain that you're
00:12:50
getting a dopamine hit. And your brain gets used to it. Remember, your brain is only there for two things, survival and
00:12:58
reproduction. So every time that you stress your brain in the smallest amount of times, you're giving it dopamine
00:13:04
hits, it doesn't allow us to do other things for a sustained period of time like focus, read, have a conversation.
00:13:14
>> So writing and reading are good for building up my neurological reserves.
00:13:19
>> Yeah, neurological reserves. It doesn't compare to what exercise can do for the
00:13:25
brain. And it's so sad because around 80% of the US population don't exercise
00:13:32
for at least 30 30 minutes a week, which is actually quite scary. The physical activity guidelines are 150 minutes to
00:13:40
300 minutes of moderate to rigorous physical activity per week. What's the most compelling study you've ever
00:13:46
encountered that proves that exercise is central to Alzheimer's prevention and
00:13:50
brain health? >> When we look at all of the data, we can see that the biggest amount of return on
00:13:57
investment is from resistance training. >> Resistance training being >> strength training. One of the most
00:14:03
compelling studies was probably the um the smart trial where they uh took a group of people with mild cognitive
00:14:10
impairment and gave them two to three times per week of resistance training and they not only preserved their
00:14:16
cognitive functions. They enhanced their processing speed. They enhanced their fluid intelligence and they had slowing
00:14:23
of the gray matter. >> The gray matter. >> Yeah. So your brain consists of both
00:14:28
gray and white matter. So gray matter are the cell bodies that lives on the outer side outer portions of your brain
00:14:34
and the white matter is deep within the brain and that's where all of our myelinated neurons live and over time we
00:14:41
see that we can have little lesions in the white matter of the brain. So, a lot of the times people will ask me,
00:14:49
"Stephen, I'm scared my mother had Alzheimer's disease. I'm scared I'm
00:14:53
going to get it." And we were talking about genetics before. And there's
00:14:58
another genetic risk factor that we didn't talk about. The APOE E4 gene uh is one of the the strongest risk factors
00:15:06
of getting Alzheimer's disease, but it is not a foregone conclusion that you're
00:15:10
going to get it. So, Chris Hemsworth was tested and he has two copies of this gene. So you get two copies, one from
00:15:17
mom, one from dad. It's the apo lipoprotein E gene and it comes in three main variants. So you've got APOE E2,
00:15:26
ApoE3 and ApoE E4. So I'm a 33 carrier. I've been tested and that's the general population.
00:15:36
They're 33. So it doesn't raise my risk of getting the disease, but it also
00:15:40
doesn't protect me. If you've got a copy of the APOE E2 gene, it protects you
00:15:45
against the disease. But when you have a copy of the APOE E4 gene, it raises your
00:15:50
risk by two to three times. If you have two copies of the gene, it raises your risk by 10 times. If you are
00:15:59
a male, here's the devastating thing. If you are a female with one copy of the gene, you
00:16:06
are at doubled the risk than your male counterpart. So one copy of the gene of ApoE4 gene for a female raises your risk
00:16:14
by about sixfold whereas two copies raises your risk by 15fold. >> And how would one go and get checked?
00:16:23
>> You can get the ApoE4 gene checked uh with your doctor. It's a simple blood
00:16:27
test. >> On this point of resistance training, I've heard you talk about how the legs
00:16:33
>> Mhm. >> are so important. Having strong legs, >> having strong legs is by far the most
00:16:40
important tool in your toolbox for the prevention of Alzheimer's disease. And
00:16:45
this was made certain to me when I read a study done on identical twins, exact same genetic profile,
00:16:54
>> and they tracked them. And they did cognitive tests and MRIs, and they tracked them over a 10-year period. And
00:17:00
what they found was that the twin who possessed the greater strength and the most leg power had a bigger brain,
00:17:11
larger gray matter volume. They preserved their cognitive functions. They uh did better on different
00:17:18
cognitive tests. >> Why is resistance training increasing the size of my brain?
00:17:24
>> Resistance training does so much for your brain. The first thing is we have
00:17:28
to think about the journey that we're going on, right? So when you look at all
00:17:33
of the studies, I want to make it really clear, all of the studies show that in order to produce the neural effects of
00:17:40
resistance training, you need to be lifting at around 80% of your one repetition max. So 80% of one RM. So
00:17:49
that's quite heavy. There is so much controversy on social media right now. Should I lift heavy? Should I lift
00:17:56
light? And when it comes to hypertrophy alone, so increase in muscle, muscle mass, muscle cell size, you can get
00:18:03
there, men can get there, women can get there by lifting light, high reps, or you can get there by lifting heavy and
00:18:11
low reps. It just depends on who you are and how much time you have. But when it
00:18:15
comes to the brain specifically, you want to be lifting heavy for several reasons. The first one is when we lift
00:18:22
heavy, when we literally like when we contract our muscle like this, we are releasing a whole set of chemicals.
00:18:30
They're called myioines. And when they're released from the muscle, they
00:18:34
go up to the brain and they do beneficial things for our cognitive performance, our cognition, and they
00:18:40
help with the growth and proliferation of new neurons in the hippocampus. And it's the first thing to go during
00:18:47
Alzheimer's disease. it actually shrinks. This holds our memory. This is where a lot of our memory consolidation
00:18:54
and learning takes place, which is why short-term memory is the first thing to go during this disease. Okay? And as we
00:19:01
get older and what we found is that you can grow new neurons in the hippocampus from structured exercise and consistent
00:19:11
exercise. the biggest growth is going to occur because of BDNF, brain derived neurotropic factor. So this is a growth
00:19:20
factor for the brain and it gets released when we exercise. It gets released abundantly when we are doing
00:19:26
aerobic training, when we're running, when we're cycling for long distances,
00:19:31
but also gets released when we do resistance training. Now, here's the beautiful thing about it. When we do
00:19:36
resist resistance training and we're releasing all of these myioines, these myioines are signaling molecules. They
00:19:43
work together. So we've got one called irri, okay? And that's a messenger
00:19:49
molecule. So what it does is it actually helps BDNF express itself. So when we release this myioin, it goes into the
00:19:57
brain, crosses the bloodb brain barrier and it tells BDNF to express itself. So then BDNF goes in and it helps grow new
00:20:06
neurons in the hippocampus. But then we've got another mioine. Let's just
00:20:10
take isle 6. Interlucan 6 that comes from the interlucan family. >> What is that? Sorry.
00:20:15
>> The interlucan family is a a class of pro-inflammatory cytoines. So these get
00:20:21
released when we are under stress or you've got an infection or a virus for example. But when we exercise, it
00:20:30
depends on where the site is. Interlucan 6 instead of acting as a pro-inflammatory cytoine.
00:20:35
>> Mhm. >> Instead of creating inflammation, it acts as an anti-inflammatory cytoine.
00:20:40
So, it goes into the brain and it lowers inflammation. In fact, this is uh one of
00:20:45
this was one of the uh first ever myioines to be studied and they showed that interlucan 6 is also responsible
00:20:54
for the down reggulation of tumor cell growth. So exercise is a potent anti-cancer intervention as well by way
00:21:04
of myioines. How much exercise does one need to do to avoid the uh cancer related um side effects but also the
00:21:12
Alzheimer's problem? >> Well, just 30 minutes a day of aerobic physical activity can downregulate 13
00:21:21
types of cancers and the most prominent ones being breast cancer, colon cancer and prostate cancer. So these three have
00:21:31
been studied most and you get your anti-cancer effects from the myioine release. So quite specifically when we
00:21:39
exercise we're getting a robust release of something called natural killer cells.
00:21:46
And when we get these natural killer cells into the plasma and into the bloodstream, they go into the tumor site
00:21:54
and they do what they were born to do. They kill. So they go into the tumor site and they start to kill the tumor
00:22:02
and this is where you get your anti-cancer effects of it. But you can also get it from the anti-inflammatory
00:22:08
effects of resistance training, anti-inflammatory effects of aerobic training. So these myioind
00:22:14
powerful in fact pharmaceuticals are spending billions of dollars trying to replicate these myioind.
00:22:23
I want both men and women lifting heavy because you've got areas in your brain.
00:22:28
Right across here lives your motor cortex. Think of your brain as real estate. There's real estate in your brain
00:22:36
reserved for lifting heavy. So every time you lift a heavy weight as opposed to a lightweight, it takes more neural
00:22:44
real estate to lift that heavy weight. So the heavier you lift, the greater the neural drive. The greater the neural
00:22:52
drive, the better it is for your brain. >> If you had to do just one exercise for
00:22:57
the rest of your life to protect your brain and you could only pick one, >> what would it be?
00:23:02
>> Deadlift. >> Why? >> If done correctly, the deadlift can use
00:23:09
almost every muscle in your body. Erect spine a you've got the glutes, you've
00:23:13
got the quads, you've even got seratus anterior, you've got the you've got your
00:23:17
calf muscles. There is so much compounding in that one lift would probably be comparable to a barbell
00:23:25
squat as well. >> According to the World Health Organization, we're getting increasingly
00:23:28
more sedentary. I we're moving less and less in part because of technology, but
00:23:33
also there was this really interesting study done by the Cleveland Clinic where they talk about people who are active
00:23:39
sedentary. And this this felt a little bit personal if I'm honest. It says a major finding in 2025
00:23:47
found a danger of being active sedentary, which is people who exercise for like 30 to 60 minutes but sit for
00:23:54
the remaining 10 hours a day. If you sit for more than 10 hours a day, your risk
00:23:58
of cardiovascular disease increases even if you meet weekly exercise goals because prolonged sitting shuts down
00:24:06
lipoprotein lipes, an enzyme essential for burning fat and cleaning glucose from the blood.
00:24:13
That wasn't that's annoying to read because I feel like that's me. >> Yeah. And being sedentry is a disease.
00:24:20
You can change the trajectory of your life by doing 10 air squats every hour on the hour. And there was a study that
00:24:29
was done on this that showed that if you do 10 air squats every hour, this can compensate for your sedentary lifestyle.
00:24:36
Because unfortunately, this is the life we're living in. We are becoming more
00:24:40
sedentary in our day-to-day lives. We're sitting more. We're not going out as
00:24:44
much. There's younger kids uh on video games. They're scrolling. There's so
00:24:48
much happening that is involving our sedentary lifestyle, which is obviously, like you said, increasing our risk of
00:24:53
type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc. >> Yep. You can do it >> like this.
00:25:01
>> There you go. 10 of those. If you do 10 of those, you can outweigh the benefits
00:25:06
of a 30 minute power walk >> every hour. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> For how many hours?
00:25:11
>> 8. >> Okay. So, I could set an alarm on my phone. >> Every hour. Just get up or every 45
00:25:17
minutes get up and do an air squat. And this is primarily because have you heard
00:25:22
that when you eat you get a massive spike of glucose. And the best way to bring that glucose spike back down is by
00:25:30
doing any form of exercise. You can albe it go out and go for a a fast run, do an
00:25:35
air squat, bring that uh bring that glucose level back to baseline. And do you think much about aerobic training as
00:25:42
a preventative measure for Alzheimer's? >> I love aerobic training. Women are
00:25:47
facing a dilemma on social media because they're being given so much information.
00:25:52
There is this huge uproar of should I do zone 2 exercise or should I not do zone
00:26:01
2 exercise? >> What is zone 2 exercise? >> So we can think of uh physiology in
00:26:06
zones. Zone one is what you and I are in right now, >> right? Zone two is that next level up
00:26:13
and that's generally when we're looking at exercising at around 60% of our maximum heart rate and it's where
00:26:22
you can where you're jogging but you can have a conversation but where you're
00:26:25
huffing and puffing. When we're exercising we need to produce energy and that energy firstly starts in the
00:26:33
mitochondria. So we need uh all of our energy gets created. We create ATP and that's how we are able to perform the
00:26:41
given task. As soon as we get out of that zone and we go into zone 3, zone 4 and zone 5, we're producing energy
00:26:48
outside of the mitochondria in the cytoplasm. And when we're doing that, in order to do that, we're breaking down
00:26:55
glucose so fast via a pathway called glycolysis. The byproduct of that is lactate. And then we produce lactate and
00:27:06
that's actually a fuel source for the brain. It's also a mioine, right? So
00:27:11
that's when we're in zone 3, zone 4, zone 5. So a lot of women have been
00:27:18
doing zone 2. They've been going to the gym. They've been doing zone 2. And I'm
00:27:22
trying to push women to get out of zone 2 for several reasons. Not because it's not good for you. I
00:27:32
think all forms of exercise are good for you. The more you move, the better, right? But let's be really honest. A lot
00:27:40
of people in midlife are busy. They're time poor. Men actually get a greater
00:27:45
return on investment by doing zone 2. Women don't get the same return on investment from doing zone 2. So, I'm
00:27:52
trying to push women to first work on zone five, zone 3, zone 4, zone 5. If they can, just do zone five.
00:28:01
Then do two to three sessions of resistance training a week. And if you have time left over, that's right there.
00:28:07
I've just described around 4 hours of exercise. If you have time left over, then you can work in zone 2. Now, zone 2
00:28:15
is great. If you're going to go out and go for a long run, you're doing many
00:28:19
things. You are secretreting a lot of BDNF, which we need. It's a growth factor for the brain. You're getting a
00:28:26
massive uh amount of blood that's going into the brain which is great as well.
00:28:30
It's sustained blood delivers oxygen and nutrients to the brain. You're doing a
00:28:35
lot of things, right? But what you're not doing is having a complete effect on
00:28:42
the chambers of your heart. >> Is it better for me to do 5 km on a treadmill or outside? I would say it's
00:28:50
better for you for the brain to do a smaller amount of exercise and a higher threshold
00:28:56
>> because I I was I think I read somewhere one time that running outside is better
00:29:00
for the brain because it stimulates the brain >> of well you're outside so you've got so
00:29:05
many things around you. Imagine your brain I told you it's got prime real estate. Every part of the brain is
00:29:10
responsible for a different function from what you see to what you hear. You go outside and you can see so many
00:29:17
things. You've got forward ambulation. So that's going to help you with drive,
00:29:21
motivation, dopamine, but then you're also taking in the sounds, the senses.
00:29:26
It downregulates inflammation. So you get so many other things from doing that. Yes. But 5 km outside compared to
00:29:36
20 minutes of high aerobic physical activity. What is better for the brain? I would say that the zone 5 is better
00:29:43
for the brain. The zone 5 training does a lot for the chambers of your heart as well. Now, I'm going to grab this. We've
00:29:49
got a little model here, and we can see that we have h a left chamber. We have a
00:29:55
right chamber, we have actually four chambers of the heart, but we have something in the heart called a
00:30:01
ventricle. We've got a left ventricle, and we've got a right ventricle. Now,
00:30:04
the left ventricle delivers oxygenated blood to the entire body. It's really
00:30:09
interesting because the chamber of the left ventricle is like a is like a muscle, right? It's responsible for
00:30:17
pumping blood to your entire body. It first gives blood to the brain, which means it's the most important part of
00:30:24
your body. After it's done giving blood to the brain, it goes through to the
00:30:27
rest of the body. As we get older, we get stiffening of these arteries. Okay? Stiffening of all of the arteries in the
00:30:36
heart. and we get we get something called left ventricular hypertrophy. So that's when the ventricle
00:30:44
the left ventricle it starts to get thicker and when it gets thicker that means that we can't it's not as strong
00:30:50
it can't pump a lot of blood as much as it could when it was younger to the rest
00:30:54
of the body. Ben Lavine, Dr. Ben Lavine, he's a sports cardiologist and he did
00:30:59
this landmark study which changed how I thought about zone 5 training. He took a
00:31:06
group of sedentary males, average age, I think it was around 47 to 55, so around
00:31:12
50 years old, and he scanned their hearts. He did, you know, he looked at, he did echo cardiograms, he took photos
00:31:19
of the heart. He did everything he could to see when they was first starting the
00:31:23
protocol, what does their heart look like? He then subjected them to around 4 hours of exercise per week. And that was
00:31:31
stratified against he did one resistance training session a week. One was highintensity physical activity at
00:31:38
around 90% of the maximum heart rate, the V2 max heart rate. And then in between he did some long sessions as
00:31:45
well, right? But it was all moderate to rigorous exercise and that was done over
00:31:52
two years. At the end of those two years, what he found was that he remodeled the heart by 20 years. So he
00:32:00
reversed the age related effects and defects of the heart by 20 years. Essentially turning the 50-year-old
00:32:07
hearts into 30-year-old hearts just from physical activity alone. >> 4 hours a week for 2 years.
00:32:14
>> 4 hours a week for 2 years. >> And what kind of exercise was it? >> So he got them to do like let's say for
00:32:20
example one of the um one of the protocols was exercising at 90% of your maximum heart rate. So when we do this,
00:32:28
we're generally looking at increasing our V2 max. So you've probably heard
00:32:33
that V2 max along with strength, but V2 max is the strongest predictor of all cause mortality, right? So if you want
00:32:42
to improve your V2 max and if you want to get the heart related changes that he did, what you want to do is you want to
00:32:51
do 20 minutes of V2 max per week just to keep your V2 max because it does decline
00:32:56
year on and year out. Starting at the age of around 35, we start to see a decline in V2 max. So, if we want to
00:33:03
work on our V2 max, we want to be doing a what we call the Norwegian 4x4. It's
00:33:11
the gold standard of increasing your V2 max. So, you want to get your heart rate
00:33:15
elevated to 90 to 95% for 4 minutes on, 4 minutes off, repeat four times. So, how do I do this? Well, I actually
00:33:26
do this twice a week because the more you do, the better. I do this on a stepper. I do this at the gym and I put
00:33:36
my stepper onto I think I'm at like a level 14 and I'm working my way up and
00:33:42
I'm staying on there for 4 minutes and then I'm having a complete stop and a
00:33:46
complete rest for 4 minutes and I'm repeating that four times. >> Mhm.
00:33:52
>> So what I'm doing in that moment, I'm not just getting a massive shunting of
00:33:58
blood to the brain. Okay, which is good. I'm not just getting a massive release
00:34:03
of myioines and exocines to the brain. I'm also remodeling the heart. I'm
00:34:10
downregulating tumor cell growth. I'm improving my cognitive performance. I'm
00:34:15
doing so much more than just exercising alone. >> So that's once once a week in Lavine's
00:34:22
study that reversed these guys hearts by 20 years. Y >> um >> that you do that once a week. you only
00:34:28
have to do that once a week, but he also did um he did around 70% of maximum heart rate for around 2 hours a week.
00:34:35
And he also threw in one resistance training session. So consistency is key. >> I'm just looking at some of the findings
00:34:43
of that study and one of the surprising things is it showed that there is a biological exploration date per se for
00:34:52
the reversal of the heart. Yeah. And then the heart retains its plasticity, the ability to remodel itself until the
00:34:57
age of 65. If this intervention had started after the age of 65, the heart was too stiff to be physically remodeled
00:35:04
to get that 20 year reversal. >> Yeah. >> You have to start in late middle age.
00:35:09
>> Exactly. So midlife is the window of opportunity for brain health and for
00:35:15
longevity. >> I didn't realize you could sort of remodel the heart yourself. That's
00:35:19
interesting. >> Yeah, you can remodel the heart. And the heart is amazing. Okay. Because what you
00:35:24
see with the aorta, right? So the aorta goes up and we've got we've got two
00:35:29
we've got uh the main blood supply for the brain exist in the vertebral arteries. Okay? So there's branching off
00:35:35
of the aorta comes from the heart. Vertebral arteries which supply the posterior part of the brain and the
00:35:40
cerebellum with blood. And then you've got the corroted arteries. So one on each side branching off the aorta which
00:35:47
supply the uh frontal and middle part of your brain with blood. The brain is the
00:35:52
most vascular rich organ in the entire body. In times of stress such as hypertension, okay, that is elevated
00:36:02
blood pressure. We see that we can actually kill off the tiniest parts of the blood vessels which are called the
00:36:10
capillaries. You can see the capillaries up here. They supply even the bloodb brain barrier. So they supply mainly the
00:36:16
outer cortex of the brain with blood. When we have elevated blood pressure, we are starting to kill off those tiny
00:36:25
little capillaries of the brain. Those capillaries are feeding different neurons in the brain and also feeding
00:36:32
the bloodb brain barrier. So when we get breaking off of these, we lose the blood
00:36:37
supply, we lose the oxygenation, we get um a breakdown of the bloodb brain barrier itself, which is scary. And we
00:36:44
see that in patients who have got mild cognitive impairment. You can call it, you've heard of leaky gut, we can call
00:36:50
it leaky brain. If you have a leaky brain, what happens eventually is so your bloodb brain barrier sits like
00:36:58
this. Okay? And there are cells and we call them parasites for example and they're bound together by tight
00:37:05
junctions. That's what the bloodb brain barrier is. It's like a you think of the
00:37:09
bloodb brain barrier as the bouncer of a nightclub. They are all standing there like this responsible for who can come
00:37:16
in and who can't. and they don't allow some molecules to get in. But over time,
00:37:21
when this starts to degrade and become leaky, they start to spread apart. And when they do, you can have the passive
00:37:29
diffusion of all these molecules coming in. And that's really bad for your brain. So, we want to maintain the
00:37:35
integrity of the bloodb brain barrier by maintaining the capillary health. We don't want the capillaries to die.
00:37:42
They're one cell thick. Any type of damage can damage them and kill them. hypertension. There was a really great
00:37:48
study. It was called it was actually the sprint trial and it was it's now the
00:37:52
gold standard for the recommendation of 120 over 80. What's >> that? >> So when you have your blood pressure
00:37:59
taken, we get the systolic over diastolic. And you've probably I don't know if you take your blood pressure,
00:38:05
but doing your blood pressure every day is a really great inexpensive and effective tool for maintaining good
00:38:13
brain health. So you measure your blood pressure and if you are hypertensive this is anywhere over
00:38:23
135 okay systolic over 135 that's when things start to break down that's when we start to get the
00:38:32
breakdown of those small one cell thick capillaries. So in this trial, in the spring trial, what they found was that
00:38:40
when they aggressively manage these patients and they bring their blood pressure down, they did it
00:38:46
pharmacologically through something called an ACE inhibitor. It's a medication to drive down blood pressure.
00:38:51
When they bring it down pharmacologically, these patients preserved their brain gray matter and
00:38:58
their cognitive functions. So we now have a gold standard. And this is what I would recommend anybody on Amazon. And
00:39:04
it costs about $25 for a blood an automatic blood pressure monitor. Do it every single morning and watch your
00:39:12
blood pressure. >> And then if it's high, what do I do about it? >> Well, outside of pharmarmacology, if we
00:39:17
don't want to take a medication, we want to get stronger. And we want to do this
00:39:21
via exercise. Stress is one of the biggest things driving high blood pressure. manage
00:39:27
stress, manage cortisol, manage chronic inflammation by way of exercise, sleep, all of the things that mother nature
00:39:34
gave us. >> I was just looking at the um the study that reversed the heart by 20 years and
00:39:40
trying to figure out what exercises they did. And as you said, the first one was
00:39:43
a highintensity workout, the 4x4. >> Um then they did a long aerobic exercise. Again, this is all once a
00:39:49
week. So 60 minutes once a week doing a longer exercise like it could be hiking or tennis or cycling. a moderate
00:39:56
intensity workout, 30 minutes where they did the talk test, you should be able to
00:40:00
break a sweat but still be able to speak. So that was once a week. And then lastly, strength training once a week.
00:40:05
So it's really a variety >> of exercises that caused such a profound impact on the heart.
00:40:13
>> And I think cardiovascular diseases are the single biggest killer. >> Yeah. Cardiovascular disease,
00:40:20
dementia is the number one killer of women in the UK. The number one >> really. It's the number one cause of
00:40:26
death in Australia for both men and women. >> How does it kill you? Because we all
00:40:31
think about memory loss and stuff like that, but >> and so this is the actual devastating
00:40:36
part. We don't die of Alzheimer's disease specifically. Over time, what happens is in these patients, you have
00:40:43
to remember Alzheimer's disease is like endstage cancer. Once you get the diagnosis, there is no cure. There is no
00:40:51
going back. There is no reversal. you have the disease and that's the scariest
00:40:57
part. Mild cognitive impairment, you can slow the progression of that. Like I said to you, it goes for 20 years. Mild
00:41:04
cognitive impairment, you can slow the progression of mild cognitive impairment, but as soon as you get
00:41:09
diagnosed on that awful day that your mother or your friend gets diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, it's a sad
00:41:16
day. And what ends up happening with these patients is you can die of esphyxiation. You can die of you. Your
00:41:25
brain loses the signal to swallow. It loses the signal to maybe you fall because you've lost balance. It's really
00:41:35
it's a really scary moment, but it's not like you die of Alzheimer's disease
00:41:40
specifically. If you were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, it's an interesting reaction.
00:41:51
>> Because I would have no hope. I think a a better question is >> you'd have no hope.
00:41:57
>> If I was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, there is nothing I could do.
00:42:03
>> How would that change your life and the decisions you make? Or would it at all? I would aggressively
00:42:12
aggressively exercise. I would monitor my diet. I would aggressively monitor my diet and I would potentially have a
00:42:20
ketogenic diet because what we've found is that during this metabolic crisis
00:42:26
that happens in your brain, okay? Where you lose the ability to use glucose as your primary fuel source. So the brain
00:42:34
doesn't know how to use glucose as its primary fuel source. So it's under
00:42:38
attack. during Alzheimer's >> during Alzheimer's but also during this
00:42:43
window in of for women as well in the pmenopause state. So the brain cell when it's under attack and it can't utilize
00:42:49
glucose effectively and it doesn't have any energy it starts to think about survival. It starts to think what can I
00:42:56
do? I'm under attack. So it starts to break down the myelin sheath. And in that moment it's actually the
00:43:03
aststerittes they're the supporters of the brain so of the brain cells. So they
00:43:08
start to think okay let's break down the myelin sheath from that the astroytes
00:43:14
produce ketone bodies and then the ketone bodies get shuttled into the brain and that's how we use uh energy in
00:43:20
the brain. So in that state of metabolic crisis I would make sure that I am having a ketone rich diet or I may be
00:43:31
getting exogenous ketones. I would aggressively exercise. I would aggressively manage my my lipids. I'd
00:43:37
have a high intake of omega-3 fatty acids and I would preserve if I could any form of cognitive function by way of
00:43:46
talking to people by going outside, socializing, having hard conversations if I was intact and I could do so. I
00:43:54
would throw tennis balls to the wall. So on that point of the ketogenic diet, the reason is because ketones are an
00:44:03
alternative fuel source to glucose. >> Y >> and the brain likes ketones.
00:44:10
>> The brain loves ketones and it actually utilizes them more effectively than
00:44:14
glucose. But glucose is the primary fuel source for the brain. And here's what's
00:44:19
really interesting uh and devastating if you will for females during the onset of
00:44:25
pmenopause, right? when we see a decline in estrogen, right? We see a decline in
00:44:32
estrogen, what happens is a 30% reduction in brain glucose metabolism. So, when these receptors start to die
00:44:41
because we don't have uh we don't have a lot of estrogen circulating in the
00:44:45
bloodstream anymore, what happens? Well, we can't utilize glucose as effectively.
00:44:51
So during that state, that's when we start to get the breakdown of the myelin
00:44:55
sheath to use that as uh as ketone bodies as an alternative brain fuel source. >> So do you think women going through
00:45:03
menopause should be considering a ketogenic diet? Yes, I do think that I think that women who are
00:45:10
going through pmenopause and who are at the mercy of this brain energetic crisis
00:45:17
should be adopting if they can a ketogenic diet. It's one of the best diets for the brain.
00:45:24
>> I didn't really understand this idea that during menopause there was a
00:45:29
glucose deficiency or metabolism problem in the brain. >> 30% reduction in brain glucose
00:45:34
metabolism. Is this why women report to having brain fog and all these kinds of things?
00:45:39
>> Yeah, absolutely. Because when the brain can't utilize its fuel source
00:45:43
effectively, what happens? Well, metabolites start to shift. We don't sleep properly. Around 60 to 65% of
00:45:53
women in menopause report having a hot flash or night sweats. It wakes them up at night. That's also causing cognitive
00:46:01
decline and brain fog. So, I mean, this graph is pretty shocking. >> Um, can you explain what it shows?
00:46:09
>> Oh, this is showing the um estrogen levels at birth going through all of the
00:46:14
life cycles that a woman will go through, puberty, pmenopause, and then eventually menopause. There is one thing
00:46:21
that is certain. After age, I mentioned earlier being a woman is the next strongest risk factor
00:46:29
for getting this disease, >> forgetting Alzheimer's. forgetting Alzheimer's and that largely lies in our
00:46:37
par in our menopausal shift that occurs the downsizing of estrogen. However, we do have forms of estrogen that we can
00:46:47
you know supplement with. >> So I just need to keep the estrogen up. >> Yeah.
00:46:50
>> Because then the brain health is going to be up and normal. >> This is where the controversy lies. Yes
00:46:56
and no. So I want everyone to understand I am sitting right now. So my entire doctoral thesis is focused on women and
00:47:03
Alzheimer's disease and I'm Switzerland right now when it comes to hormone
00:47:08
replacement therapy. That is replacing your hormones. >> You're Switzerland.
00:47:12
>> I'm Switzerland. Meaning that there is no evidence to suggest right now we
00:47:18
don't have largecale randomized control trials to show that hormone replacement
00:47:22
therapy prevents dementia. So what I will tell you is this. It is a signal. It is a supporter. It will help you do
00:47:31
the things that can lower your risk of dementia. We've seen multiple times that
00:47:39
having hormone replacement therapy can reduce your risk of getting Alzheimer's
00:47:43
disease by up to 30%. We know that. But it's not because estrogen alone is minimizing your risk. It's because when
00:47:53
you have estrogen, it helps get rid of the hot flashes. It helps with the night sweats because during menopause when we
00:48:01
actually have a disregulation of the of estrogen in our brain, what happens in the hypothalamus which is an area in the
00:48:09
brain that controls our temperature regulation when we lose the ability to monitor our temperature for a woman.
00:48:17
What will happen is when she feels the slightest bit hot, her temperature, you know, is rising a little bit. The
00:48:26
hypothalamus doesn't know what to do. So, it signals, I'm super hot. So, it'll
00:48:29
raise your temperature right up, and that's a hot flash. And then it'll bring
00:48:32
it right down. And as a result, this is keeping women up at night. And we know that sleep deprivation is a risk factor
00:48:39
for Alzheimer's disease. Of course, it is. compounding sleep deprivation will
00:48:45
accumulate amaloid beta in your brain. So if we can replace if we can use hormone replacement therapy as a signal
00:48:53
and as a support to help us sleep at night then that's a good thing. Another
00:48:59
thing estrogen is anabolic to muscle. >> What does that mean? >> It means that it helps with muscle
00:49:06
protein synthesis. >> Oh it helps me make muscle. >> Yeah. We've got estrogen receptors on
00:49:10
our bone. We've got estrogen receptors on our muscle. So if estrogen is anabolic to muscle, if estrogen helps
00:49:19
with muscle protein synthesis, if estrogen helps with bone mineral density, then replacing estrogen during
00:49:27
that menopause state is going to help us with all of the risk factors of Alzheimer's disease.
00:49:33
>> So when does estrogen I mean it really in this image drops off a cliff >> and Yeah. And it varies. So it tends to
00:49:40
generally happen at around 45 years old as an average and that that pmenopause stage lasts around 10 years
00:49:48
>> but it starts going down on this graph at about 30. >> It starts to go down and everyone's
00:49:53
different. Okay, you can have a woman in her late 30s go into pmenopause or the general age is around 42 to 45. Most
00:50:01
OBGYNS that I've spoken to say that you need to start checking in with your doctor at around 40 years old to check
00:50:09
for this. >> So, do you thinking about my fiance now, do you think that someone like her should go on hormone
00:50:17
replacement therapy at like 40? >> Well, so that's the that's the big
00:50:20
question. That's the elephant in the room. Should you go on hormone replacement therapy or should you not?
00:50:24
And that's definitely a conversation between you and your physician. However,
00:50:28
we've got largecale studies right now to show that we don't have to be afraid of
00:50:34
hormone replacement therapy. And without going too deep into the weeds, there was
00:50:38
a massive study that was done, the women women's health initiative, that scared
00:50:42
women out of taking hormone replacement therapy in fear >> of getting breast cancer. Correct. We
00:50:49
went from having 40% of women on hormone replacement therapy to just 4% of women
00:50:56
on hormone replacement therapy. We know that even at the onset of menopause, a woman's risk of having a heart related
00:51:05
event triples. A woman's risk of getting Alzheimer's disease increases. So there is something
00:51:15
to posit here about the benefits of hormone replacement therapy that we still haven't yet studied.
00:51:22
>> Will you do hormone replacement therapy? >> I definitely will. >> And what kind of hormone?
00:51:26
>> And look, so this is really interesting. So um this was given to me by a friend
00:51:30
and there's this is the um this is the capsule. So this is estradile and progesterone. Okay, so progesterone is
00:51:38
that one that's going to help you sleep at night. This one here is vaginal estrogen. So, this is a cream that
00:51:45
actually gets uh you know, depending on how it is, it can get inserted and the vaginal estrogen apparently if you put
00:51:52
it on your face is probably the best form of skin care that you could ever have. Yeah, we have estrogen receptors
00:52:00
all over our tissues, including our skin. These are estradiol inserts. So, that's not the cream itself, but if you
00:52:07
get vaginal estrogen in the form of a cream, you can put it on your face and it can help with skin elasticity,
00:52:13
collagen, uh dermal thickness. This is why I'm actually most excited about it.
00:52:18
>> So, I mean, is this are these the only ways that one can do hormone? >> No, there's also um a patch, and that's
00:52:24
what most women are opting in for. The transmal patch >> when the time comes.
00:52:28
>> Uh I will probably do the the the patch. >> Why? because it's the the easiest.
00:52:34
That's the one that um I've researched the most. Uh I'm not afraid of hormone
00:52:38
replacement therapy in the slightest. You do have to, you know, everyone has to check with their doctor, but I
00:52:44
definitely think that this is going to be one thing that is going to help with the Alzheimer's disease crisis that is
00:52:51
occurring. >> Go ahead. >> I mentioned earlier plaques, right? So a lot of people ask well what
00:53:00
distinguishes Alzheimer's disease from the rest of the dementias and it comes
00:53:06
down to two proteins amaloid beta and tow protein and here's where it gets really interesting and actually dates
00:53:13
back to 1901 the first ever Alzheimer's disease patient Augusta she was 52 years
00:53:20
old and she went to the hospital her and her husband went complaining of difficulties of word finding
00:53:28
word fluency and she couldn't remember where she put her keys and her husband
00:53:34
said she is delirious and Augusta told the doctor on board he was a psychiatrist his name was Eloise
00:53:43
Alzheimer she said to him and I quote I don't know who I am anymore as I mentioned this disease robs you of
00:53:52
who you are in 1906 066 August busted died and that was the first ever patient to be recorded of having Alzheimer's
00:54:05
disease and so postmortem they cut her brain open and they found that she had these plaques in her brain and they
00:54:13
didn't really know they didn't really understand what it was but that was the
00:54:16
first ever induction of this disease in society and ever since then ever since then we are still trying to tackle this
00:54:24
disease in the 2000s We had this notion that Alzheimer's disease was the amaloid
00:54:30
cascade hypothesis. Meaning that great Alzheimer's disease means when you get a
00:54:35
head full of amaloid, this toxic protein that builds up. So we were demonizing this protein. We were demonizing this
00:54:42
peptide protein that builds up in the head. And so then came the medications, okay? In the form of IV drugs. So you go
00:54:52
to the hospital, you get an IV in the promise that it will clear out amaloid. Great, we've got a cure. But what they
00:54:59
found was that when they were taking out the amaloid in these brains, they were taking with them brain tissue and
00:55:06
causing microhemorrhages. And in some patients, it was resulting in death. So we now know that the problem here
00:55:18
isn't amaloid. In fact, amalloid is a antimicrobial peptide. So, amaloid is actually a good thing. Amalloid beta is
00:55:31
a good thing because it protects the brain cells. Now, here's what happens. We have this beautiful process during
00:55:38
sleep that occurs when we get into deep sleep. We activate the glimpmphatic system. Okay? So, the glimpmphatic
00:55:47
system comes from the word gals. Gal cells. We have gleal cells in the brain. They sit outside of the neurons and this
00:55:55
is what uh is responsible for immunity. They're our chief um immune response
00:56:01
cell. During deep sleep they shrink and when they shrink all of this amaloid beta that's floating around in the
00:56:08
cerebral spinal fluid gets washed out. So it's like a washing machine that occurs in your brain. Right? But what
00:56:16
tends to happen in Alzheimer's patients is they don't get a chance to wash out
00:56:21
the amaloid. What happens in pmenopause and menopause due to the hot flashes, you don't get to get into deep sleep
00:56:29
because you're having a fragmented sleep because you're waking up due to hot
00:56:32
flashes and night sweats. So that is what's do that is what's causing the
00:56:36
buildup of amaloid. Now stick with me. We've got another protein that is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. It's
00:56:45
towel protein and towel lives in the axon of the cell. The one that I said is covered in the myelin sheath and what
00:56:54
happens under times of stress. What happens is this tow protein phosphorolates. So it breaks off and basically tow
00:57:05
protein stabilizes the microtubules. Okay, imagine these railro road tracks in the axon, okay? Just going up and
00:57:13
down the axon. >> The axon's in the in the cell or in the brain. >> And so the the the brain cell itself,
00:57:18
the neuron is the neuron cell body and the axon is like the trunk of the tree. >> Okay.
00:57:25
>> Right. So holding up the tree are microtubules and those microtubules are
00:57:31
bound by tow proteins. The the tow proteins keep the microtubules intact. So the trunk of the tree is stabilized
00:57:38
and it sits there. Why does it need to be stabilized? Because that's how speed
00:57:42
of thought travels. Information processing speed travels up there. When the tow protein phosphorolates,
00:57:50
it starts to form tangles. They're called neuroiary tangles. So that happens in the axon. And when all these
00:57:58
tangles clump together, we get the collapse of this axon, the collapse of these microtubules.
00:58:06
So we're not just having a cascade of environmental disaster inside the cerebral spinal fluid of the brain and
00:58:14
inside the brain, outside the cells. We've also got this cascade happening inside the cell body itself. So the
00:58:21
brain is under attack inside the cell and outside the cell. >> Why? Why exactly? Why? Why does this
00:58:28
happen? Because of how we treat our brains. >> Because of how we treat our brains.
00:58:33
>> Yes. The reason why your brain is hyperphosphorilated and the reason why
00:58:38
these tower proteins are hyperphosphorilated is because of many things. One is we have seen time and
00:58:45
time again that we have estrogen receptors that are on in the brain cell themselves
00:58:53
in the axon. So when we don't have adequate estrogen, estrogen actually is so smart what it is doing, it's blocking
00:59:02
an enzyme that is responsible for phosphorolating the towel. So if we don't have the
00:59:10
estrogen there, then the towel, the enzyme is there to phosphorolate the towel and break it
00:59:18
down and cause these neuropiary tangles. But let's just say you're a man and you
00:59:22
don't have you don't need the testo you don't need the estrogen there. Although
00:59:26
testosterone is neuroprotective. Testosterone actually aromatizes into estrogen which is why you actually have
00:59:34
an extra added protection in your life. Um what else causes this? Well stress. >> You're talking about sleep there.
00:59:42
>> Yeah. So sleep is, I think, by far the most underrated Alzheimer's disease prevention tool that
00:59:50
we have. It's underrated because we have been doing it all our lives and we think that we can just go to sleep
00:59:57
and the magic happens. But I think now in 2026, we actually need to train for sleep. So during deep sleep we activate
01:00:07
the glimpmphatic system and sadly a large proportion of us aren't getting into deep sleep. So sleep is uh one of
01:00:15
the reasons. >> How do you sleep? >> Yeah, I sleep I make sure I sleep 7 and
01:00:20
1/2 hours a night. >> This message is brought to you by Apple Card. It's a great time to apply for an
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Terms and limitations apply. All I had to do was brain dump. Imagine if you had someone with you at all times that could
01:00:58
take the ideas you have in your head, synthesize them with AI to make them sound better and more grammatically
01:01:04
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01:01:49
find that link to Whisperflow in the description below. A lot of people struggle with sleep and
01:01:56
um they've just kind of gotten used to it. I hear this from friends of mine that will say, you know, I'm a bad
01:02:01
sleeper. I'll sleep for 5 hours. And they kind of have just gotten used to it. Do you think that's okay?
01:02:07
>> No. And they will pay for this in their 60s and 70s. >> How do you know?
01:02:14
>> Because I know that just one night of sleep deprivation is raising your risk
01:02:18
of amaloid beta by at least 4 to 5%. just one night. >> So you can imagine the accumulation of
01:02:27
this. Not only that, we know that you're interrupting with the hormones that are
01:02:32
responsible for hunger and society. We know for hunger and satiety. We know that you're increasing your risk of type
01:02:40
2 diabetes with um sleep deprivation. But not just that, we also see that this compound effect can't be reversed.
01:02:50
Meaning that a lot of people think, I'll just sleep for 6 hours a night and then
01:02:55
just bank on it on the weekend. But sadly, that's not how our brain works. It's not like debt that we can repay to
01:03:01
the bank. >> I heard from Matthew Walker the other day though that we can save it up. He
01:03:06
said um he said you can't make up for lost sleep. >> Exactly. >> But if on Monday I've got something
01:03:11
where I know I'm going to be deprived. He says on the weekends like Saturday
01:03:15
and Sunday, if I got a huge amount of sleep, it's kind of like >> I can use that. Yeah, it's kind of like
01:03:21
Yeah, it's kind of like the reserve. Yeah, actually I do this. I do long haul
01:03:25
flights. I'll be it like 6 hours between LA and New York, but also to Australia.
01:03:30
And so if I know I'm going on a long haul flight, I'll bank on my sleep for
01:03:35
about a week leading up to that cuz I know I'm going to be sleepd deprived on
01:03:38
the plane. So, if you were one of those people that struggles with sleep, that's
01:03:41
listening right now and they're slightly concerned that, you know, you talked
01:03:45
about this um glimpmphatic system which sort of comes out at night and cleans up
01:03:49
the brain >> and they're hearing, you know, my glimpy system isn't going to be optimal
01:03:53
if I'm not sleeping. >> If that was you, and for whatever reason, you start sleeping poorly.
01:03:58
>> Mhm. >> What would you do about it? >> I would get really serious about
01:04:03
examining my lifestyle the day before. So, this generally involves two things. You have to ask yourself, are you having
01:04:10
trouble falling asleep or are you having trouble staying asleep? A lot of women report trouble falling asleep,
01:04:20
meaning they've got a racing mind. Men, too, they've got this racing mind. They
01:04:24
can't, you know, just stop that default mode network and the the racing thoughts
01:04:29
that happen. That's one thing. And then there's the I can't stay asleep
01:04:35
meaning that uh I'm waking up due to heat. I'm waking up because uh I'm
01:04:40
stressed and I'm having bad dreams. There's all different reasons as to why
01:04:43
you wake up. So for the person who is having trouble falling asleep at night, I would strongly recommend
01:04:51
introducing a supplement called GABA, which is gamma aminoic acid. It's our chief inhibitory neurotransmitter.
01:05:02
And when you have this, it really helps stabilize all those thoughts. It helps with erasing mind and it can help calm
01:05:09
you down at night. The next thing I'll do is I will think about what I'm
01:05:15
eating. Actually, it turns out that um eating starchy vegetables, something that's going to make you like, you know,
01:05:22
sweet potatoes for example, it's going to have a better benefit uh backloading
01:05:27
uh your carbs at night for helping you sleep. If you start training for sleep as if sleep is your marathon and start
01:05:35
preparing for that at 8:00 p.m. at night, getting off, you know, don't email, don't have any hard
01:05:41
conversations, don't watch anything crazy at night, you'll settle your mind
01:05:46
down, you'll settle your nervous system down, but where I think uh most of the
01:05:52
optimization occurs is when you're actually in sleep. I would also work on um sleep regulation. So, what we know is
01:06:02
that in order to fall asleep and stay asleep, our core body temperature needs to drop at least 2°. And I'm doing this
01:06:09
with a temperature controlled mattress cuz it's working on thermal regulation.
01:06:13
A lot of people who don't have that can do uh several things like sleeping with
01:06:18
their feet outside of the sheets or turn turning the the air conditioning on, the
01:06:23
thermostat on to cooling the room, to cooling down your body temperature, core body temperature. One thing that um you
01:06:28
can supplement with is glycine, which I think is amazing because it helps with sleep by way of temperature regulation.
01:06:37
It can bring down your core body temperature. And in fact, and I don't know too much about the mechanism behind
01:06:41
this, glycine itself has one of the greatest longevity benefits for improving lifespan. So, taking glycine
01:06:52
can also help with that. Now, in terms of the person who is having trouble staying asleep,
01:06:58
>> what about this one? You don't talk about the um the old ashwagandha.
01:07:03
>> Oh, yeah. Ashwagandha is great. Okay. Ashwagandha is going to help you with
01:07:09
stress. And you've got here Ashwagandha rodeiola. So, what they both are, they
01:07:15
are adaptogens. And basically an adaptogen is great because it it goes in and it adapts to
01:07:22
what is happening in your body. So let's just say you have elevated cortisol. And
01:07:27
this tends to happen you know during different cycles during the day mainly during the uh daytime when we wake up
01:07:33
where cortisol levels are at its peak but it can also happen at night. Having this can actually stabilize that
01:07:40
cortisol because it can go in and combine to cortisol and bring it down. likely if something is not elevated and
01:07:47
it's low, it can bring it up. So, it's really good. It's an adaptogen and
01:07:52
studies show that you can actually take this three times a day and you won't
01:07:56
feel fatigued. It doesn't disrupt anything and it pairs really well with caffeine, for example. So does
01:08:02
theineine. So, this is actually a really great um adjunct to your supplement stack. And you really talk about how you
01:08:10
need to sort of warm up to warm down or warm up to go to sleep. >> Oh, yeah.
01:08:15
>> Starting at like 7:00 p.m. >> Yeah. Starting at like 8:00 p.m. And
01:08:18
that's in line with circadian rhythm and circadian biology. You want to try and
01:08:22
when it comes to sleep and your circadian rhythm, you kind of want to mimic the sun and mother nature. And
01:08:30
when does the sun start to go down? It starts to go down at around 8:00 p.m. depending on where you are in the world.
01:08:36
And when this happens, we also get the natural release of I love that you're
01:08:43
taking that, by the way. You must be stressed right now. You get the natural release of melatonin. So melatonin is
01:08:50
that sleepy hormone that gets released in response to darkness. This may also be another reason why somebody somebody
01:08:56
is having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. So we want to get the natural release of that. So, these bio
01:09:03
hacks that occur right now, sleeping with our red light mask on, dimming the lights. Look, dimming the lights is
01:09:09
great. Um, I've actually replaced all of my light bulbs um at home with in my
01:09:15
bedroom as well with red light bulbs. So, I'm getting um I'm getting rid of
01:09:20
the blue light, the junk light. I'm replacing it with red light to help down
01:09:23
regulate the nervous system. Yes, I do wear blue light blocking goggles or glasses, I should say. Do I think that
01:09:30
they're providing an immediate and huge benefit? I don't know. But they could
01:09:36
have a minor benefit there. So warming down involves doing these things that are going to help you downregulate your
01:09:44
nervous system so you can fall asleep faster. >> Sticking on supplements for a second.
01:09:52
Omega-3. >> Yes. >> Um I've got some omega-3 here. I've got two of them here. Mhm.
01:09:57
>> But when I brought both of them out, you said that I've got to be quite careful
01:10:00
about what brand I buy, but also something about temperature. >> So, by far out of all of the
01:10:06
supplements, omega3 is probably the only one that you have to make sure that you
01:10:14
look at the supplement label for there. There was this study that was done that showed that around 95%
01:10:23
of the most popular omega-3 supplements in the US, and there was about 85 of them that were tested, exceeded the
01:10:31
normal oxidation level, meaning that these pills, because they're omega-3 fatty acids, they come from fish oil,
01:10:39
they are oil, they can become rancid and oxidized. And they usually do this when
01:10:46
they're in a heated environment. Here are the here are the rules of thumbs. One, you want to look for a manufacturer
01:10:52
that is highly credible and that is certified. >> Certified. >> Yeah. So NSF certified. So it's an
01:11:01
external governing uh board that certifies them on, you know, everything heavy metals. They make sure that the um
01:11:08
oxidation levels are met and they make sure that, you know, what's in the capsule is actually in the capsule.
01:11:13
That's another thing that is scary. The supplement industry is highly unregulated. And I treat my omega-3s the
01:11:20
same way I treat my olive oil. You want to get oil that is sourced in the area that you are. We're in California right
01:11:28
now. So, you might want to find an omega-3 that is sourced in California. >> Do I want to put it in the fridge?
01:11:34
>> You want to put it in the fridge the moment that you get it. >> Really? Yeah.
01:11:37
>> Why does nobody talk about that? >> I'm not sure. But, um, it's just the
01:11:41
same as olive oil. You don't want the olive oil to become rancid, so you don't
01:11:44
leave it near the near the stove. You want to put it in a cupboard away from the stove.
01:11:50
>> And these are good for the brain. >> Oh, omega-3 is by far uh one of the most
01:11:55
potent stimulus that you could have for the brain. They help with cell membrane fluidity. So, where your cells meet
01:12:02
neuron to neuron, they create something called a syninnapse. And in order for that to occur, we have a massive influx
01:12:08
of all of these neurotransmitters, dopamine, serotonin. We've also got calcium and potassium. And these help
01:12:16
our brain cells communicate. Okay? We want to make sure that our membranes, the cell membranes are fluid and they
01:12:24
glide in order to help with that synaptic transmission. Another thing that they do is
01:12:31
they are comparable to an NSAID, an anti-inflammatory medication. These have massive anti-inflammatory
01:12:42
effects. In fact, I think that these have the safety profile of an FDA approved drug and there's only benefits
01:12:52
from it. There's no side effects from it. Uh not just that 60% of our brain is
01:12:58
made of fat. 70% of that is made of DHA. And DHA comes from omega-3 fatty acids. So why
01:13:10
do I not want to replace my brain or the fat in my brain with what it's made of?
01:13:17
And that's what you do when you have omega-3 fatty acids. In fact, there's
01:13:21
been several trials um to show that omega-3 fatty acids are most beneficial and most effective for mild cognitive
01:13:31
impairment patients, people who have the APOE4 gene and people who have got Alzheimer's disease
01:13:39
because when I told you that our we get the breakdown of the bloodb brain barrier, those parasites on the bloodb
01:13:47
brain barrier require DHA. In fact, there's a transporter on the outside of our brain that allows the um that allows
01:13:57
the DHA to come in and get into the brain. >> And I know you're a big fan of vitamin D
01:14:03
as well because there's been some very encouraging studies done there. >> Vitamin D is phenomenal. We have vitamin
01:14:08
D receptors all over our brain brain stem and and they're abundantly found in the hippocampus and the memory
01:14:16
centers of our brain. And there was this act there was actually a study done on centinarians in China.
01:14:24
>> Centinarians? >> Yeah. Those who lived to 100, but it was done in women. And they showed that the
01:14:30
women who preserved their cognitive functions and who didn't get Alzheimer's
01:14:34
disease had high levels of vitamin D. So they weren't vitamin D deficient. In
01:14:41
fact, being vitamin D deficient can increase your risk of all cause dementia by 40%.
01:14:47
likely being having a high level of vitamin D which is around 60 nanogs per deciliter can lower your risk of getting
01:14:57
Alzheimer's disease by around 80%. >> And then we have this white powder in
01:15:03
front of me. >> You've got a big smile on your face. I do because there is just so much
01:15:11
benefit to this. Depending on which brand you've bought, of course, but I can't say enough about creatine. I have
01:15:20
my parents on creatine. They're 71 years old. I've got my dad on highdose
01:15:24
creatine. I've got my mother on lowdose creatine. It's the most widely studied
01:15:29
supplement on the market. >> I've never seen you this excited. I'm so
01:15:33
excited because I think that this is a really cheap and effective way to get everything you want from both your
01:15:41
physiology, an upgrade on your physiology and your neurohysiology. So, let's actually talk about creatine
01:15:48
because I know it gets a lot of air time, but women and men are still scared of it. And they're scared of it for two
01:15:55
reasons. One, they're scared it's going to cause kidney damage. And two, it's
01:16:00
they're scared their hair is going to fall out. And I'm going to address both
01:16:04
of those fears. But first, let's talk about what it is. So, creatine is a naturally occurring molecule. We it's we
01:16:12
get we produce around 2 to three grams of creatine per day. Gets secreted from a bit from the brain, but a lot from the
01:16:18
liver. And 2 to three grams a day is great, but it's not enough. So, we have
01:16:23
to supplement with it. And all through the 90s and all through the 2000s, people were supplementing with five
01:16:30
grams a day. That is this scoop here. 5 g of creatine per day. Now that we're
01:16:35
getting more uh rigorous with our brain health studies, we have found that creatine has enormous benefits for the
01:16:43
brain. But here's the problem. When you have 5 g of creatine, you're saturating
01:16:48
the muscles. Okay, remember the muscles are so hungry, so they get first dibs and they take up all of that creatine.
01:16:56
So then there's none left for the brain. We also lose a bit of the bioavailability when the creatine goes
01:17:02
into the brain. It crosses the bloodb brain barrier, but when it goes into the brain, we lose some of it. So, we have
01:17:08
to supplement with more than 5 g. And one of the studies that changed my thinking came out last year. It was the
01:17:16
first ever pilot study done on Alzheimer's disease patients. You're talking about patients whose brains are
01:17:23
under attack. They're in an energetic crisis. They cannot produce energy effectively. ATP is all skewed. Brain
01:17:32
glucose metabolism is skewed. They don't remember left from right. Cognitive
01:17:36
functions are declined. They put them on at 20 g of creatine per day, >> which is how much? I mean
01:17:43
>> that well actually that is four of this. So you want to go one and I don't know
01:17:50
if they did this all at once. That's two. Or if they did it like me over four
01:17:56
separate intervals throughout the day. There we go. >> That's a lot of
01:17:59
>> That's a lot. Which is why you probably want to have this skewed throughout the
01:18:03
day, which is what I did. I had 20 grams today. I had five grams in the morning,
01:18:08
five midm morning, and then I think I had 10 all at once before I got here. So that is a lot for all at once. And what
01:18:16
they found was that these patients not only preserved their cognitive functions, but they had more energy and
01:18:26
they were able to exercise more. And it blew my mind that it does not matter how
01:18:34
old you are. It doesn't discriminate based on gender. Creatine doesn't discriminate based on age. It doesn't
01:18:41
discriminate based on weight. It doesn't discriminate based on pathology or disease states or ethnicity.
01:18:51
It is just there. It is there to support you. It's the most widely studied supplement on the market.
01:18:56
>> And it's all risk. >> It's all reward. There is no risk. It's
01:19:00
helping with cell energy metabolism. So basically, it's helping ATP create energy.
01:19:09
>> So if you're someone that is low energy, you should definitely be having
01:19:12
creatine. I don't care who you are, you should definitely be having creatine.
01:19:15
>> People with brain fog and >> yeah, people with brain fog, you know, I
01:19:19
think one of the greatest benefits are men who are in football, football players, you can actually, it's actually
01:19:28
a protective molecule. So, what studies has shown is that at high doses of creatine, around 30 grams a day, it can
01:19:38
protect you against insults. insults meaning you take a hit to the head like a concussion.
01:19:45
>> H >> it can protect your brain against a concussion. It can protect your g brain
01:19:49
against a stroke. It can protect your brain from stress. The best thing about creatine is that it works in the
01:19:55
background of stress. I think that's where most that's where you'll get most
01:19:59
of the benefits from. >> After hearing so much about creatine on this podcast, I started recommending it
01:20:04
to all of the people in my life. There's one particular person actually that's
01:20:07
probably out out there in my house at the moment who had gone through uh cancer treatments.
01:20:14
>> Yeah. >> And had survived cancer treatments and in their words wasn't the same on the
01:20:19
other side of the cancer treatments. And I talked to her about um creatine and she said to me the other day she I think
01:20:25
the exact quote was >> I feel like I've got my life back >> because it's she's been taking creatine
01:20:31
every single day for the last I'd say 5 months or so. >> It's funny you said that because just
01:20:38
recently in the last two weeks uh this study was done to show the anti-cancer effects of creatine. And if my memory
01:20:48
serves clear, they uh they dosed it at uh they dosed it at 0.36 g per kilogram of body weight. So if you are a 70 kilo
01:21:00
person, if my mathematics is correct, you're looking at around 25 g of creatine per day that can have the
01:21:07
effects, the anti-cancer effects. >> So the the study you're referring to,
01:21:10
I'll put up on the screen as well for anyone that wants to see it. It's um the
01:21:13
NANS 2025 study, which is a major study involving over 25,000 adults, found a linear negative association between
01:21:20
dietary creatine and cancer prevalence. For every standard deviation increase in
01:21:24
dietary creatine intake, the risk of having cancer decreased by roughly 5% to 18% depending on the demographic.
01:21:32
>> That is wild. This protective association was strongest in adults over the age of 50,
01:21:39
suggesting that as we age, maintaining higher creatine levels might be more critical for cellular health and immune
01:21:45
surveillance. >> Well, if you think about life and think about energy, um we need energy to
01:21:53
survive. We need energy to fight off infections. We need energy to fight off stress, preserve our normal normal
01:22:02
bodily functions. So when we are at the mercy of a low energy crisis, we can't
01:22:08
fight off tumor cells, we we can't fight off these uh debilitating diseases. So
01:22:14
it actually makes sense that with more energy and with more functional energy, meaning like if our cells can function
01:22:20
better, it makes sense that you can see a reduction in cancer incidents likely you can see a reduction in Alzheimer's
01:22:26
disease incidents. when I said that creatine works in the background of stress. Also, there was uh there's been
01:22:35
phenomenal research to show that you can basically creatine your way out of sleep
01:22:42
deprivation. If you've had a uh if you've had a a long night and you you're
01:22:47
sleep deprived, maybe you slept four, five, 6 hours, you're sleepd deprived,
01:22:51
you can take uh you can take highdose creatine in the form of around 15 to 20 grams a day and you can reverse the
01:22:59
negative effects associated with that sleep deprivation. >> Does it matter what time you take the
01:23:04
creatine? >> It doesn't matter what time you take the creatine. It doesn't degrade in hot
01:23:09
water. it uh you can take it any time throughout the day and it doesn't matter
01:23:16
whether you're taking it right before exercise, during exercise, after exercise, it works phenomenally. Some
01:23:22
people uh researchers are now uh wondering if taking it at night before bed helps with sleep performance and I
01:23:29
think that that's a really exciting area. But the one thing that I want to tell everybody because a lot of people
01:23:35
are scared of this biioarker called creatinine meaning that >> oh my doctor said that to me.
01:23:42
>> Yeah. So meaning that you've got a a high creatinine level. And this is a
01:23:48
marker of it's one marker of kidney function. But this is where I find it uh
01:23:54
really invaluable. And this is where a lot of the nonsense comes around on Instagram and social media. A lot of
01:24:00
people say, "Well, I had so much creatine that my doctor told me to get off it because my creatinine levels were
01:24:05
high." But creatinine levels are high during times of stress, during times of
01:24:09
intense physical activity. Uh, and also people who have a lot of muscle mass, >> higher muscle mass, that's you have
01:24:17
higher creatinine levels. What you want to test a greater marker of kidney function and GFR
01:24:25
is cyatin C. So all you have to ask, it's really easy. Ask your doctor, could
01:24:31
I please get cyatin C in my blood work? And if that is elevated and without not within normal range, then maybe get off
01:24:42
creatine. But right now, I cannot see any reason as to not have creatine every single day. I think every single person,
01:24:52
no matter what age you are, everybody should be supplementing with creatine. Now, there was this uh recent study that
01:25:00
came out on menopausal women and it was a really small study. It was a randomized control trial and they split
01:25:10
women into four groups and these were permenopausal women. They split them into lowd dose creatine where I think
01:25:18
they were having 750 mg a day, medium dose which was around 1.5 g a day. Then they had them supplement with a range of
01:25:30
both creatine monohydrate and creatine hydrochloride. This was a hydrochloride creatine study. And then there was a
01:25:38
placebo group. What they found was a very small study, very small group. What they found was that those in the medium
01:25:46
range having the 1.5 had substantial increases in their mood and their cognitive functions. So creatine is now
01:25:56
being explored in females across the lifespan as it relates to permenopause, pregnancy, menopause, and dementia. So
01:26:06
there's just there it's it's it's phenomenal. The only thing I want to point out, what
01:26:12
you want to look for when it comes to creatine are two things when it comes to manufacturing standards. You want to
01:26:18
look A, has it been NSF certified? And B, you want to look for is it Creapure? And
01:26:27
that's the gold standard of creatine and it comes from Germany and a lot. So the
01:26:33
one that you've got there, I can tell it's not Creapure. >> Excuse me.
01:26:36
>> I know my creatine. How can you tell what it is by looking at it? >> I can just tell. I can I I I bet you a
01:26:42
million dollars that it is the brand that I think it is because it's got this
01:26:47
powdered icing sugar substance. If it was pure gold standard Creapure, it would be gritty. The reason why it's
01:26:56
like this is because a lot of manufacturers want to add these different agents in there in order for
01:27:02
it to mix well. This probably mixes really well. A lot of uh people also complain of feeling uh GI distress when
01:27:11
they take it. And all I have to say is that's not a reason to stop taking it.
01:27:16
Maybe take two grams at a time, maybe take three grams at a time, but don't stop taking it.
01:27:23
>> What do you test for with your own health and how frequently do you test?
01:27:27
>> I test every 3 to four months. >> What do you test? >> Oh, I do everything. Um Oh, I've I I
01:27:33
just did um lab work. uh December 15th, the day before my birthday. I do it, you
01:27:40
know, around that age. But every year, funnily enough, I test my biological age.
01:27:44
>> What is your biological age? >> It came back as 22. >> Okay. What's the most important test
01:27:49
they don't typically do that you think everybody should be doing? >> Lipoprotein little a raises your risk of
01:27:55
having a heart related event or raises your risk of getting cardiovascular disease, but it's hereditary. And then
01:28:03
for for dementia, >> this is a really exciting part at least in the US. We now have a predictable way
01:28:09
of picking up on mild cognitive impairment and picking up on these Alzheimer's hallmarks. Tao protein, PTA
01:28:16
217, it's called on blood work and amaloid beta. So we can now pick up on this with 90% accuracy of a PET scan.
01:28:26
>> What are those cards over there? These are here to test your processing
01:28:31
speed. >> Pink. >> So, >> it says pink on it. >> Yeah. So, this is actually a great
01:28:36
measure of brain function. Your brain processes visual information 15 times faster than written words. And so, this
01:28:43
is going to test your uh brain function. Okay. >> So, what I want you to do is you're
01:28:48
going to see the color. >> Yeah. >> I want you to actually say the color of
01:28:51
the card, not the word. >> Okay. Let me just program my brain. Say the color, not the word. Okay. Are you
01:28:57
ready? >> Green, orange, yellow, green, orange, green, orange, yellow, pink, orange, green.
01:29:15
>> Now, let's do the reverse. I want you to say the words. >> Wait, let me just
01:29:20
Okay. Yellow, blue, green, black, purple. brown. >> Okay, so you're good.
01:29:29
>> Thank you. Let's do it to Jack. Jack, you come sit in the J. >> You caught him off guard and he hasn't
01:29:35
got creepy. And that's behind >> there. Grabs a creep. >> He It's an unfair advantage.
01:29:42
>> Okay, you ready? >> Wait. So, what am I doing? >> Just say the color of the card.
01:29:46
>> Okay, just the color of the card. Yeah. Okay. Ready? >> Green. Uh, orange, pink, yellow,
01:29:54
yellow. Yeah. Orange, pink. >> Now, let's rolls reverse. I want you to
01:30:01
say what's on the card itself. So, just read it. >> Okay. Brown, purple, pink,
01:30:08
green, black, yellow. >> Okay. So, now we're going to test it even more. That was the starting one.
01:30:15
Not good. >> Not too bad. >> That was not too bad. So, I want you This actually involves us standing up
01:30:21
and using a tennis ball. So, we're going to train your visual cortex, which sits
01:30:25
at the back here in the occipital lobe. We're going to train your um processing
01:30:29
speed, your reaction time, your hand eye coordinations. One of the best exercises
01:30:32
that you can do, physical exercises, is actually hand eye coordination drills. Tennis, racket sports. But I'm going to
01:30:39
show you what 5 minutes a day can do for your cognitive reserve and your brain performance just using a tennis ball and
01:30:46
an eye patch. >> Okay. So, >> first things first, >> I'm going to give you this tennis ball.
01:30:56
Yeah. >> And for the whole time, I want you to throw the ball with an overhand grip.
01:31:01
>> Oh, like this? >> Yep. >> Okay. >> So, I want you to just throw it with the
01:31:04
right arm and catch with the right arm. >> Over. I mean, what's this one?
01:31:08
>> Underarm. >> I'm just checking the wall. Okay. Okay. So, like this.
01:31:13
>> So, you might want to move back where the chair is. Okay. No, you would
01:31:16
>> cut that. Cut that out. Good. So now throw with the right and catch with the left and alternate.
01:31:27
>> Yep. >> Okay. >> You've got it. So what we're doing,
01:31:35
we're engaging almost all the executive functions. Now you've got hand. You
01:31:40
should be able to do this for a minute. Okay. Okay. >> Now we're going to make it even harder.
01:31:44
It's like placing weight as well. Well, I I'm not going to do the one with the
01:31:47
eye patch. I'll do the next one. Okay. So, basically what you want to do, and
01:31:52
if you do it with a black ball, it's actually Oh, even better. So, now we're going to make it a bit
01:31:59
hard and a bit neurally demanding. We're going to put an eye patch on you, which
01:32:03
is really going to block out like 50% of the vision. >> Okay. Which eye? >> Any eye.
01:32:09
>> Let's do the left one. >> Now, let's see how many you can do. I
01:32:13
think you we counted around eight before. a pirate. >> I just need you to look at
01:32:18
>> what? Wait, this is not flattering. >> Okay, >> let's go.
01:32:24
>> Oh, that's so different. >> Yeah. >> Wow. This feels significantly harder.
01:32:28
>> I know. Let's go. >> This feels No, this feels like really hard. Let me just double check.
01:32:32
hell. >> That's That's really That's so hard. This is >> There you go. You've got it.
01:32:42
>> Joking. Okay, let's alternate now. Left hand, right hand, >> left hand, right around like this.
01:32:49
>> Yeah, >> you're training your visual system to work under load and under stress. So,
01:32:58
when you do this, >> I'm interrupting you. >> No, it's okay.
01:33:03
>> You got it. You got it. You got it. Good. Good. Good. And then to even make
01:33:07
it even harder. Okay. >> Stand on your right foot. >> Yeah. >> And put your other foot. There you go.
01:33:13
>> Or on one leg. Yep. Standing on one leg is now engaging the cerebellum.
01:33:18
>> Okay, >> we're getting spatial awareness. Let's go. Posture.
01:33:22
>> Left, right, left, right. >> Yep. >> Oh my gosh. >> You got it.
01:33:32
>> I want to see you do it >> with the eye patch on. >> Yeah. >> Wow.
01:33:39
I mean, I can be great. My eyelashes have gone now. It's okay. We can AI that
01:33:44
out. >> This actually looks great. >> Mhm. >> Okay, we're ready.
01:33:50
Well, I blame my nails. I blame my nails. Let's do it. >> Okay. >> It's hard.
01:33:59
>> It's so hard. >> And so, what is this doing? It's >> This is engaging executive functions,
01:34:05
processing speed, hand eye coordination. >> And you did this with NBA players. I did
01:34:10
this with NBA players to improve uh their executive functions, decrease their reaction time,
01:34:17
>> and this will this will change my brain if I do this frequently. >> Not just that, but you're also improving
01:34:22
cognitive reserve. You're building new connections between the brain cells. You're strengthening neural networks and
01:34:29
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If there's anything we need, it is connection. Especially in the world we're living in today. And that is
01:35:37
exactly why we created these conversation cards. Because on this show, when I sit here with my guests and
01:35:42
have those deep, intimate conversations, this remarkable thing happens time and time again. We feel deeply connected to
01:35:49
each other. At the end of every episode, the guest I'm interviewing leaves a
01:35:53
question for the next guest, and we've turned them into these conversation cards. And we've added these twist cards
01:35:59
to make your conversations even more interesting. And there are so many more twists along the way with the
01:36:04
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cards. So get yours now before the limited edition gold cards are all gone. Head to the link in the description
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below. >> So doing hard things is what is going to improve brain function over the
01:36:31
lifespan. Doing hard things tells your brain that you can do hard things. Meaning have you ever heard of this um
01:36:40
brain area a little area in the brain called the anterior mid singular >> cortex? Yes, I have.
01:36:47
>> What do you know about it? >> I'll let you say it. >> Well, it's shown that it's larger in
01:36:52
what we call super ages and people who age really well and who can uh withhold a lot of uh cognitive capacity and it's
01:37:03
really profound in people who can diet well. It gets bigger when we do hard things. So, when we do really hard
01:37:10
things, this area in the brain gets bigger. And basically what that is, it's reserve for when life
01:37:18
gets hard. It means it basically tells your brain that no matter what happens, no matter what event comes my way, I
01:37:25
have the ability to go in, welcome it, and push through it no matter how hard it's going to be. When you give up or
01:37:35
when you don't do hard things, this little area doesn't grow. It doesn't get
01:37:40
bigger. So doing these neural activating uh drills that we just did, going to the
01:37:47
gym and pushing well above your threshold and pushing really hard is going to help uh grow this little area
01:37:54
of the brain. >> And they call this the willpower muscle. >> The willpower. This is why I think that
01:38:00
um when people go out to set their goals during the year and they say, "I'm going
01:38:04
to lose 20 pounds. I'm going to do this. I'm just going to increase my willpower." I think it's not willpower,
01:38:11
it's neurobiology. >> I think it's really important to just spend a little bit of moment talking
01:38:16
about this part of the brain because when I discovered it, I found it absolutely fascinating. And I think it
01:38:20
was Andrew Huberman who said >> either to me or he said publicly that he thinks it's one of the most fascinating
01:38:26
or important discoveries of the last century. >> Of course, well, you think about um how
01:38:31
we're living our lives. We're we're punishing ourselves for not being able
01:38:36
to read a book, for not being able to pay attention. How many, you know, people are now diagnosing, self
01:38:42
diagnosing themselves with ADHD, low attention spans, and they're blaming it
01:38:47
on environment? They're blaming it on circumstances when they should be blaming it on neurobiology and they
01:38:53
should be blaming it on their brain state. this area of the brain if you can push it and this is why these super
01:39:01
aagers seem to have >> what's a superager >> a superager is somebody who is aging
01:39:06
well so they're going through life uh low uh cardiovascular disease state they've maintained their cognitive
01:39:13
functions they're at the age of 80 90 with a a V2 max profile of maybe a 50 or
01:39:20
60 year old so they're aging quite well biologically So these you know super ages have many
01:39:28
many different facets to them and one of them is a larger mid singular cortex. Conversely the AMCC anterior midsular
01:39:38
cortex shrinks in people who live sedentary lives or avoid challenges. It literally atrophies if you play it safe
01:39:46
in life too often. Growth only occurs during resistance. If you love taking ice baths and you take one, your AMCC
01:39:53
doesn't change. If you hate the cold but force yourself to do it anyway, the AMCC
01:39:59
grows. >> Scientists now view the AMCC as the seat of the will to live. Its size and
01:40:05
activity level are strong predictors of how long an individual will survive after a major setback in their life,
01:40:10
whether it's a health setback or a surgery. >> There's something really philosophical
01:40:17
about that as well. You know, if you I don't know if you read um stoicism or
01:40:21
anything, but it it it really dates back to how the Stoics lived their life, especially Marcus Aurelius, with being
01:40:30
able to push through hard times. Little did they know that it was this little area in the brain.
01:40:36
>> Yeah. Yeah, I think I was telling the story the other day of Roosevelt and
01:40:40
what happened in his life as a young man when he came home one day on Valentine's
01:40:43
Day and found that his mother and his wife of who had just had his newborn baby had both died, one upstairs, one
01:40:49
downstairs, and he went off to the bad lands for two I think it was 2 to four years. The Badlands in America were just
01:40:55
this like horrific um natural place where he'd get up at 4:00 a.m. ride these like horses in the freezing cold
01:41:02
where like the horses would literally die standing still because it was so horrific. He did that to two years to
01:41:06
like deal with the grief. But when he came back to New York City after this two years in the Badlands, all of his
01:41:11
friends said he was just a completely different man. He had and what they now know from a neuroscience perspective is
01:41:17
that he didn't just build his muscles. He literally like rewired his his brain.
01:41:21
He went on to become the youngest US president of all time. He got shot um during a speech and carried on doing the
01:41:26
speech. He led the charge in various wars. He's just this unbelievable. I think he won the Nobel Prize. and they
01:41:32
point at those two years in the bad lands and say actually that that forged not just the man but his his brain his
01:41:37
AMCC. The studies also show that athletes consider consistently show much larger AMCC volume and studies show that
01:41:46
individuals struggling with obesity often have smaller AMCC's but but it begins to grow the moment they start a
01:41:53
successful challenging dietary or exercise intervention. that it's that word challenging because when you place
01:42:00
stimulus upon a system, it adapts and grows and that is neurobiology at its most infinite source. And this is why we
01:42:12
get the breakdown of these synapses. This is why we get into a place of going from 5,000 to 10,000 connections to
01:42:21
2,000 or no connections. these dendritic spines end up breaking down because we don't do the hard thing. And I also
01:42:29
think being deep rooted in neurobiology, you can see that everything is cause and
01:42:33
effect and it's a cycle. Uh if you don't do the hard thing, you don't grow the
01:42:39
AMCC. You don't grow the AMCC, you don't do the hard thing again. And it's just
01:42:44
this loop and it's this cycle which is why so many resolutions, New Year's
01:42:49
resolutions end by February 1st. It's why we have the obesity epidemic. It's
01:42:57
largely why I think we've got a a crisis of people not being able to uh meet
01:43:02
their goals. I'm just fascinated from an evolutionary perspective as to why we needed one and
01:43:08
like why it wasn't just always big >> in the pursuit uh you know evolutionarily uh in the pursuit of
01:43:14
hunting and going out and and hunting for food sources and being motivated to do that in a near starvation state when
01:43:23
times were tough >> and so when times got easier we didn't need it as much so we could conserve I
01:43:31
guess our energy so we could like scale down our willpower when times were good.
01:43:34
>> Well, it's interesting that you say that because this brings up the whole brain
01:43:38
rot and AI era just like with, you know, in uh 2024, Oxford dictionary, I think,
01:43:44
named brain rot the word of the year. And it's interesting because it plays into evolution and what's happening with
01:43:52
this AMCC, meaning like we're just there scrolling at mindless information every
01:43:58
day, training our brain to get these small dopamine hits, these small rewards from doing absolutely nothing.
01:44:07
>> What do you think of these uh chat bots that everybody's using at the moment to
01:44:11
write for them and think for them, etc.? >> Oh my god. I think it's uh on the
01:44:16
spectrum of being so incredible but being so detrimentally harmful. I know this with myself. So I was a
01:44:24
mathematician. I did my masters of mathematics and I was able Steven to the trigonometry and pure calculus that I
01:44:33
could do back then with just my head and a pen was fascinating. Now I'm going to
01:44:39
I'm going out and I'm calculating on chat GPT the bill the the the 20% tip on
01:44:45
top of this bill. How much does it cost? And I think how dumb am I actually getting? So I think it's both good and
01:44:52
bad. I think the rate of decline we're seeing in people reading books and exercising their brain is declining. Um,
01:44:59
and our ability to think and and use our our cognition is declining. >> Louis, I've I've um waited uh a long
01:45:12
time to ask you one particular question, which is I think is very important, which is you're clearly very passionate
01:45:19
about this stuff. One might say you're pretty obsessed with it. You come across as pretty
01:45:24
obsessed. >> Do I? >> You do. Yeah. Why? >> We are living in a society
01:45:33
that doesn't allow women to ask for what they want. We're living in a society
01:45:39
that doesn't allow women to ask for what they need. And when this happens, it
01:45:45
results in 70% of all Alzheimer's disease cases being women. It results in 80% of all autoimmune diseases being
01:45:55
female. And these are largely preventable diseases. And when I ask why and I hear that women are wildly
01:46:04
misrepresented in academic literature, when I when I see women who downplay their symptoms or they're too scared to
01:46:12
ask their doctor for advice or they're too scared to ask somebody else for advice because of what they're going
01:46:18
through or they're ashamed of some of their symptoms, I get angry and I get passionate. And it reminds me of my
01:46:26
grandmother who uh she was my best friend. Her name was Louisa. And >> you're named after her.
01:46:32
>> I was named after her. Yes. And we spent every day together. And And I'm getting
01:46:37
emotional now cuz I remember her. And she sadly died of pancreatic cancer. It was ovarian cancer that went to
01:46:44
pancreatic cancer. And she never asked for what she wanted. And she never asked for what she needed,
01:46:52
which was help. She didn't understand her symptoms. She didn't go to the
01:46:58
doctor when she needed to because she was just more inclined to look after the family and
01:47:07
look after the household. And when the time came that she was given her diagnosis, I was sitting there with her.
01:47:14
It was um it was at home and the doctor came. She did a house call and my grandmother looked at her. She hardly
01:47:22
spoke that much English and she said, "Please, is there something I can do? I
01:47:26
don't want to die." And the doctor said, "There's I'm sorry, there's nothing you
01:47:31
can do." And I spent every day with her in the hospital. And I think about that,
01:47:36
it's been almost 20 years now, but I think about that moment and I kick myself thinking, why didn't we why
01:47:44
didn't we get her a scan? She told us several times that her stomach was hurting. She told her several times that
01:47:51
she felt pain. She never she hid her symptoms. She hardly ever ate at one point and we never stopped to think
01:48:00
about why and she never stopped to think about why. So I think about her every day. And then I think about my mother
01:48:06
too and these women, you know, first generation, they came uh we migrated to Australia from a country called Cyprus
01:48:16
and they've just been so they put themselves second and they they just look after the family and I can't stand
01:48:26
that. And when I see women coming in as patients or caregivers, I think to myself, do you
01:48:34
not know that there is something for you to do? And most women don't. And I I
01:48:40
can't believe the amount of money that we are spending that is going towards
01:48:46
putting us on rockets to go to Mars, but we haven't yet found a cure for this
01:48:52
disease that is largely preventable. It's just not okay with me. And I would
01:48:57
hate to see women go through this. >> The emotion is still very present in
01:49:02
your face even though it was so long ago. >> It was so long ago. I mean, I was very
01:49:07
close to her. I'm very close with my mother. I I check in with her twice, three times a day. And I just don't
01:49:14
think it's fair. I think women deserve the truth. They've been lied to. They've
01:49:20
been underrepresented. And we need to change that. with Louisa, your grandmother, what are those range
01:49:29
of emotions that have turned into this incredible fire? You have >> anger.
01:49:35
>> Anger is one of the emotions. Anger at society that places women to be everything. To be a a mother, a
01:49:47
caregiver, to go to work, to represent the family. women represent 51% of the total population
01:49:58
and then it becomes I feel political if that's an emotion because you think about health care you think health care
01:50:06
should be accessible to everybody but it seems as though especially in this country that health care is only really
01:50:12
accessible by those with a high socioeconomic status and that I'm not okay with so it does become political
01:50:20
even though healthcare I Yes, healthcare is political because policies have been
01:50:25
set, but a woman in need is apolitical. And my grandmother was a-political and her needs
01:50:35
just were not met. anger, >> frustration at the system, frustration at the fact that we still have only 4%
01:50:47
of women taking hormone replacement therapy in fear that they're going to get this disease, uh that they're going
01:50:53
to get breast cancer, utterly frustrated at the cycles of administration who vouched to help you. you look to your,
01:51:04
you know, your government and your administration to look up to, to guide you when you
01:51:10
have Secretary Kennedy in 2014 go on national television and say, "Vaccines
01:51:18
are totally safe. I had all my kids vaccinated. They've eradicated some of the most deadliest diseases that have
01:51:25
plagued this world. Vaccines are so safe." to fast forward to 2025 saying vaccines are so unsafe. Do not
01:51:33
trust your medical doctor. You need to take your health into your own hands. You start to lose trust.
01:51:42
And it's not that we're uninformed. It's the fact that we are confused
01:51:48
because we hear vaccines are bad. Oh, vaccines are good. Vaccines are are really good. Take them. Don't get your
01:51:56
kid vaccine. You've got women here who don't even know their they they don't
01:52:02
even know how to get on the internet or order a blood testing. You're expecting
01:52:07
them to take their health into their own hands. So, it upsets me that you see women who are so vulnerable
01:52:13
being sold a a a vaccine lie which could potentially save them from a disease which could potentially save them or
01:52:22
their child from getting the flu, hepatitis B, menitis, which was just eradicated from
01:52:32
the vaccine schedule. Um, I'm not, this is not meant to be political. I am I am
01:52:37
a scientist. I am not. This is not propaganda. This is not ideology. This is just women who deserve to be treated
01:52:47
better. >> You're 36. Louisa passed away when you were how old? >> Oh, I was uh probably 18 at the time.
01:52:59
>> You were 18 when you >> Around that 18, 19 >> when she got the diagnosis.
01:53:03
>> Yeah, it was very fast. It was within a two month time frame. Not even.
01:53:08
>> And had she not got that diagnosis and had you not sat there and watched her
01:53:12
ask that doctor if there's something that she could do, >> do you think your career would have
01:53:18
taken this course? >> I became utterly obsessed with disease management. But when I first saw a human
01:53:26
brain, I was 21. I was in a lab and we had to go into a cadaavver lab and I saw a brain being harvested from a a body
01:53:35
that was donated and I stayed back that day. I remember and I helped in the pathology lab and when I saw that brain
01:53:44
I knew that I wanted to dedicate my life to it. So ever since then I've been in
01:53:48
OS and it's where I feel most alive. >> Why why did you want to dedicate your
01:53:53
life to it? Because when you know what the brain is that it is responsible for the life that we have and you can use it
01:54:00
for your advantage to overcome any obstacle that comes your way you become obsessed with understanding it.
01:54:07
Metacognition is thinking about your thoughts and every day if you can think about why you think about the things you
01:54:16
think about you can challenge yourself to overcome any adversity. Is there a cost to your obsession and your passion?
01:54:25
>> Yes. >> What's the cost? >> I moved away from my family to be
01:54:28
surrounded by the greatest neurosurgeons in the world, which I am, and I'm very
01:54:33
thankful for that. I moved away from a population of 22 million to come to the hardest city in the world,
01:54:40
>> New York. >> New York City. >> Are you still paying a cost?
01:54:43
>> I'm still paying a cost. My health pays a cost. I've missed family events, traveling for
01:54:50
my career. But I wouldn't have it any other way because the people that I've met have
01:54:58
forged the way for me to live the life that I want. I'm surrounded by incredible thought leaders in health and
01:55:04
medicine. And >> so what is success to you then at the deepest possible level? What is success?
01:55:12
We meet again in 10 years time. You say my life has been a success or I feel successful. I'm a Louisa says I am a
01:55:20
successful woman. What does that mean? What happened? >> Being able to control my brain states.
01:55:27
>> Being able to control your brain states. >> I think that the ultimate form of
01:55:33
success and high performance or being able to perform at your peak is being able to go from brain state to brain
01:55:42
state and then be able to recover. >> What do you mean by brain state? meaning
01:55:47
like being able to get switched on when you need to be switched on and invite the neurotransmitters involved in that.
01:55:53
Norepinephrine, adrenaline, dopamine, but not having that in constant overdrive and being able to know when to
01:56:01
switch off. And I think that that is what high performance is. The book that changed my mind on that was flow by Mihi
01:56:07
Chicksimni, which actually speaks about the flow state. So being able to know how to uh separate yourself in these
01:56:16
states. >> Any goals outside of your professional >> kids, family, life? Love kids, family.
01:56:24
>> Yeah, definitely. >> It's tough, isn't it? >> It's tough. I was saying earlier to my
01:56:30
friend that, you know, I kind of just thought the minute I wanted to have kids, they would just appear. But it's
01:56:35
not so strange. >> That's what I thought, too, until I realized, oh, but I'm the woman.
01:56:41
I actually have to bear the the children as well, >> which is a big sacrifice and an
01:56:46
>> honor. It's an honor and a privilege and a sacrifice that I think everybody Yeah,
01:56:51
I I mean I think I I definitely want. >> Are you hopeful for all of your professional endeavors?
01:56:59
>> Yes, >> you are hopeful. >> I'm in control. you think we're going to move in a good
01:57:06
direction as a society as it relates to >> Alzheimer's and >> Yes, I I am hopeful for that. I'm
01:57:16
hopeful for the message that I'm getting across. I think uh social media is providing the platform for free
01:57:22
education and for people to understand that they have agency over their brains. Uh, I'm not hopeful for um anybody
01:57:32
saving us or coming in and giving us a easy way forward. >> Do you ever have days where you wish you
01:57:38
were less obsessed with your craft? >> Has there ever been a day where you're
01:57:42
like, you know, I wish I was just a little bit less captivated by this? >> Sometimes I do. Yeah, I think if I
01:57:47
didn't, well, I'd be probably back home in Australia living an average person's
01:57:53
life. I'm not saying that that's it. I'm just saying, you know, maybe I would
01:57:56
have done it done my life differently. >> I have days like that where I think if
01:58:02
obviously cuz the obsessed brain is the one making this decision. So, it's quite
01:58:06
difficult to detach. But like if you put a knob in front of me and I could just turn it down just a little bit, would I?
01:58:12
Now, my obsessed brain is is the one making this decision. So, my obsessed brain is like, "Fuck it, turn it up."
01:58:17
>> But I think I do wonder sometimes. I am the way that I am, right? Um, but I do
01:58:22
wonder sometimes if I would be happier overall if I could just turn it down a little bit.
01:58:30
>> But isn't the whole point of life to know thyself and in pursuit of something
01:58:36
bigger and better? >> Yeah, it is. But I just sometimes worry about what I'm sacrificing and whether
01:58:41
at some point, I don't know, when I'm on my deathbed at 80 years old, I'm going
01:58:43
to look back and say, "Actually, I made a bad trade." >> Well, exactly. And but we're never going
01:58:50
to know that. I I think about that often. I know you think about that often and you think, well, if the world came
01:58:55
to a a collapse tomorrow, what would you regret today not having done? >> I think it would be like making more
01:59:04
memories with people I love. I think that's one of the big ones. I think >> did you hear what you just said? Making
01:59:09
more memories >> and imagine losing those. Imagine a life full of like >> you know creating these experiences and
01:59:17
these memories to have them being taken away from you. >> Yeah. >> To not being able to recognize your
01:59:24
wife, your kids, and looking in the mirror and not being able to recognize yourself.
01:59:31
>> That's why Alzheimer's is just such a disgusting, sinister, like horrific
01:59:36
thing cuz Yeah. It's just >> the most heartbreaking thing to to lose someone while they're still alive.
01:59:45
>> Yeah. And to lose yourself. We've got this one woman who looks in the mirror
01:59:49
and she says, "Who's that?" >> Really? >> Yeah. And you know, it's it's sad
01:59:54
because two years ago she knew who I was and now she asks, "Are you my daughter?"
01:59:59
And when you're confronted with that every single day, it gets you thinking.
02:00:04
You don't live a normal life. You don't live an average life because you do
02:00:08
think about every facet of medicine. You think about history. You think about diseases. And then you think about life
02:00:15
and the people that you spend the most time with. >> We have a closing tradition where the
02:00:20
last guest leaves the question for the next not knowing who they're leaving it
02:00:22
for. And the question left for you is, what is God to you? God is that power that you feel and have faith
02:00:33
in that you cannot see. The power that um basically makes you feel like there is
02:00:43
somebody there that has you and that is guiding you that always has a a path for you knowing
02:00:54
>> you you believe in God. Yes, I'm I'm I'm a I'm I'm Christian. I'm Greek Orthodox.
02:00:59
>> When you see the brain deteriorating in such a way and you think about this
02:01:04
concept of prayer, like asking God to help me with something, doesn't it feel
02:01:08
pretty I mean, it's the definition of like hopelessness is watching your brain
02:01:12
deteriorate. And I think some part of my struggles with religion since I was an 18-year-old and I came from a very
02:01:19
religious family was seeing injustice in the world. And there's doesn't seem to
02:01:23
be much greater injustice than watching someone's brain just deteriorate in front of their family.
02:01:28
>> Yeah. Or somebody going through losing their child and you start to think about
02:01:33
God. >> People pray for I can't find my keys. I want my football team to win. And I go
02:01:38
there's no point. If people praying for an Alzheimer's cure are having no luck,
02:01:42
then maybe I should stop praying for Manchester United to win. >> Yeah. If you understood the intricacies
02:01:50
of how we were actually brought into this world from the point of conception, from the point of conception to the
02:02:00
point of neural development, how a baby is formed and how precise everything has
02:02:06
to be for you to come out the way you did. It is so beautiful and so miraculous and
02:02:14
so rare. even though there are billions of people in this world that you cannot just turn to biology anymore, you have
02:02:23
to turn to something bigger. And I used to, trust me, even as a as a Greek, as a
02:02:30
Christian who's read the Bible, I even in my early 20s when I was getting into
02:02:36
medicine and science, I I was so gung-ho about we we're born in a body, we die in a
02:02:43
body. But then when you get so deep into the literature of science and medicine and biology,
02:02:51
it's hard to ignore God. And it's hard to ignore that there is a higher power
02:02:56
out there. And why is it that there are chapels in hospitals? >> Because people want to go to heaven.
02:03:05
Because people want an alter an alternative method of getting through whatever it is that they can get
02:03:14
through. Something that science and medicine cannot offer and believing in something that is not there or something
02:03:22
that hasn't occurred yet is having faith. I work in neurosurgery and some of the
02:03:30
cases you think this person's not coming out of here alive and the fact that they
02:03:34
do and they preserve their cognitive functions and they look next to normal after they've had a massive tumor
02:03:40
resected which is a true story from here the tumor was going all along this one woman's face who was 78 years old who
02:03:48
traveled here from France to have the tumor reected how is it that she's walking and she's cognitively normal and
02:03:55
she's not even on any medication the next day. How is that possible? Is it God? Is it just miraculous
02:04:01
neurosurgeons? There's just some things that medicine can't answer. >> I agree with that. I am I don't think
02:04:10
I'm arrogant enough to say that I know and I'm curious and I think I'll never know.
02:04:17
>> Yeah. >> So, I guess that's where we need to have faith. >> Yep.
02:04:20
>> Louisa, thank you so much. Um it's very important that you do the work that you
02:04:23
do because uh it's people like yourself that are so passionate, so obsessed and
02:04:26
so good at communicating that um help average people who aren't who don't have
02:04:31
access to the wisdom and the research and studies and information that you have understand all of these things. And
02:04:36
it's through this understanding that we can make better choices and preserve our
02:04:38
life, preserve our brains and if we preserve our brains, we preserve everything that matters.
02:04:42
>> Correct. Thank you. >> So thank you for doing what you do and I appreciate your passion and dedication
02:04:46
to it because it's very very important. I know it comes at a cost. So, I feel
02:04:50
obliged to tell you that as a normal person who isn't involved in your field,
02:04:53
we're grateful. >> Thank you so much, Stephen. >> Thank you. YouTube have this new crazy
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