Alzheimer's Toolkit for Midlife: Empower Your Brain Health with Dr. Heather Sandison

Are you worried about aging and memory health? Join us as we dive into strategies that empower women in their 50s to live healthy, vibrant lives while reducing the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's. In this episode, Dr. Heather Sandison discusses cognitive health strategies to combat dementia and Alzheimer's. This episode dives into the early signs of these neurodegenerative diseases, emphasizing the importance of lifestyle interventions, such as diet, exercise, and sleep. Dr. Sandison also explores scientific misconceptions around existing treatments, focusing on the benefits of ketosis, metabolic health, and innovative treatments. Dr. Sandison shares her professional insights and practical tips for those caring for aging parents, as well as providing guidance on the path to optimizing brain health at any age. To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://drmindypelz.com/ep266 Dr. Heather Sandison is the NYT bestselling author of "Reversing Alzheimer's: The New Toolkit to Improve Cognition and Protect Brain Health". She is a renowned naturopathic doctor specializing in neurocognitive medicine and the founder of Solcere Health Clinic, a premier brain optimization clinic based in San Diego, and Marama, a residential program changing memory care to memory recovery. Dr. Sandison is dedicated to supporting those suffering with dementia and is the primary author of peer-reviewed research published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. She is shattering common misconceptions about Alzheimer's teaching lifestyle change protocols that keep your brain sharp at any age. Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/. Please note our medical disclaimer https://drmindypelz.com/medical-disclaimer/.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Mindy Pelz?

  On this episode of the Resetter Podcast, I bring you Dr. Heather Sanderson. Now, this is another gem of a conversation for those of you that are either worried about dementia and Alzheimer's and memory loss in your own life, or those of you that are dealing with a parent that has dementia and Alzheimer's. And let me give you a little bit of a background on Dr. Sanderson and what you're going to hear in this conversation, because I think there's a lot for all of us to learn in what Dr. Sanderson is teaching.

• 0:42Mindy Pelz?

  So for starters, she's a New York Times bestselling author, and her book, Reversing Alzheimer's, just came out. I can tell you, I will be buying it, because as you'll hear in this conversation, it's something that we can actually give caregivers. If you have an aging parent, she actually speaks directly to that caregiver that is feeding your parent and looking after your parent. What's really cool is she's created this new toolkit to not only help us improve cognition and protect brain health, but again, she is also trying to change the cultural conversation around Alzheimer's.

• 1:25Mindy Pelz?

  And she studied under Dr. Dale Bredesen, who I have brought him onto this podcast. And with his teachings, her experience, and this new book, it's really becoming clear that Alzheimer's is optional. So what you're going to hear in this specific conversation is not only the toolbox, you're not only going to hear this new toolbox that she has, and she goes through six different things that we can be doing in our life to really make sure that we keep our cognition at its best. But then in the back half of the conversation, we went into ketones and ketosis, and where does that fit in to stopping Alzheimer's? Of course, this is one that's near and dear to my heart.

• 2:10Mindy Pelz?

  Because I have witnessed over and over and over again in our community, when you put a 60 year old, a 70 year old, an 80 year old into ketosis, you get their brain back. And it is really a quick, quick way into better cognition. So I wanted to understand from a science level, I wanted to understand like, how do we actually get an aging parent into ketosis? When do we need to be start thinking about ketosis in our own life? So we can get that neuroprotective benefit from ketones? If you wanted to know anything from fasting to low carb dieting to

• 2:50Mindy Pelz?

  the power of a ketone on a person's brain, this is absolutely the conversation for you. And you know, with aging parents, the interesting part of that is we have other resources outside of just fasting them. We talk about exogenous ketones. And what is, can they actually take a supplement and get those ketones in in a new way without having to change diet? So there's so much here that I hope will not only be beneficial to you, but also be beneficial to an aging parent that you might be taking care of. So incredible toolbox on Alzheimer's, incredible resource, and I'm so excited to bring you Dr. Heather Sanderson.

• 3:35Mindy Pelz?

  Welcome to the Resetter Podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you.

• 3:59Mindy Pelz?

  Let's start the conversation, Buzz, just by welcoming you to the Resetter Podcast. I'm so happy you're here.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Well, thank you so much for having me, Mindy. It's a pleasure to be here.

• 4:09Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. So I always like to teach from humanity. I feel like we're, you know, we're all swimming in this life together and we're all have similar, similar issues that we're dealing with. And I think a lot of people are in my shoes right now in their 50s, trying to figure out how to take care of aging parents and are also trying to make sure that we don't get dementia and Alzheimer's. So where I'd like to start this conversation is from the place of how, what are the early signs? Like, I'm going to start from my 54 year old lens. What are the early signs of dementia and Alzheimer's that I should be concerned about?

• 4:55Speaker 01

  So the first sign many people tell me about is an inability to come up with words, especially nouns or names. And also this feeling of overwhelm of, oh, 10 years ago, I would have planned that trip to Europe and it would have been no problem, or I would have hosted that Thanksgiving dinner for 25 people and it would have been a non-issue. But now that feels so overwhelming, I can't wrap my head around it, or I'm getting confused. And it just feels like it'll take too much energy for me to pull off something I used to be able to do. So those are some early signs. But those symptoms, Mindy, they don't show up until decades often, after the pathophysiological process starts happening in the brain.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  And so what that means is that there's this really empowering time for 10, 20 years, where we can do things to optimize our cognitive function, so that at the very least, we delay and prevent that from happening. And sometimes we can even reverse that. In fact, oftentimes, we can reverse those early signs. And even in late-stage dementia, we can get some improvements. Now, none of this is a cure, right? You have to stay on the program long-term in terms of diet, exercise, lifestyle interventions. But there is so much hope for this disease. And when it comes to aging parents, many of them are stuck in that, you know, medicine of the 1980s. Nineties.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  The doctor is the penultimate, they know best and they're going to tell me what to do and they're going to have this cure for me that comes in the form of a pill or an IV, maybe. And that's going to solve my problem. The science is going to catch up, right? This promise of better living through chemistry and all of those messages that our parents were told, they still hang on to that. And then when they go to the neurologist and they're, they're told, sorry, there really isn't a medication that can help. There isn't much that we can do. Go ahead and put your affairs in order. Sorry, I've probably got to take away your driver's license. I'll see you in six to 12 months and we'll measure the decline. That is heartbreaking and they take it as gospel. And unfortunately, it's factually inaccurate that there's nothing we can do for dementia and Alzheimer's.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  In fact, there's almost an overwhelming amount that we can do and getting strategic about it and getting organized about it so that we can help to our aging parents who might be starting to suffer and then also, most importantly, help ourselves so that we can prevent, you know, our kids from bearing the burden of caring for us later.

• 7:26Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, it's a really interesting time of life because I feel like I, my kids are 24 and 22. So they're, they're off doing their adulting and for the first time I have freedom. And now I'm looking at my parents and really having to parent them. And so, and then in the parenting of them, I've been thinking a lot about how do I make sure, my parents are 80, 85 and 88. And I'm like, how do I make sure I don't end up like that? So it's like a really weird juxtaposition of like, you're caring for them and at the same time you're like, how do I not end up here? So can we start with this thought of what's

• 8:09Mindy Pelz?

  the difference between dementia and Alzheimer's? And just so we're clear on that and what like right now in my 50, you know, almost 55th year, what do I need to know about my lifestyle now? So I don't end up with dementia and Alzheimer's. Like, are there foods I can eat differently right now? Foods I should be avoiding right now? And, you know, what's that difference? Cause I think dementia and Alzheimer's just gets thrown out all the time as sort of mixed together. Is there a difference?

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, so dementia is the umbrella term and underneath that is Alzheimer's dementia, which is a, it's a type of dementia, right? Dementia is memory loss associated with aging. And Lewy body dementia, which Robin Williams had, frontotemporal dementia, which Bruce Willis was diagnosed with earlier this year, these are other types of dementia. Vascular dementia is another form. So there, there's many of them and there's a lot of overlap between them. So somebody with Lewy body pathology often has amyloid pathology. So Alzheimer's disease is characterized by beta amyloid plaques and tau proteins that are misfolded and they create these tangles. And so these changes in the brain structure essentially

• 9:23Speaker 01

  are what typically characterizes Alzheimer's disease. Now that being said, there's a lot of confusion even among neurologists. When there, everybody has amyloid plaque except for 2% of the population. When you, this was a 2011 study showed that if you take all of the people on the planet, essentially, from babies to centenarians, only 2% of the population does not have amyloid. So we all create amyloid. In fact, amyloid is there to protect us. It's antimicrobial. So it's, it, we pull that trigger when there's toxins or infections that create some inflammation in the brain, that promotes the production of amyloid. When we don't get restful sleep, we don't clear the amyloid. So then it accumulates in the brain. And so there's lots of things that we can do to reduce the production of

• 10:05Speaker 01

  amyloid. But knowing that, you know, the, even though Alzheimer's is kind of characterized by this, when we get rid of amyloid, we don't get better cognition. And part of that is this paradigm, right? This one pill for an ill, that if we get rid of...

• 10:21Mindy Pelz?

  Right.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, if we get rid of this...

• 10:23Mindy Pelz?

  I hate the one pill for an ill. It's not a, it's not a helpful, it's not a helpful mechanism when it comes to healthcare.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Well, and it doesn't work. And we've spent so much time and money putting effort towards this as a society, right? Our taxpayer dollars goes into funding these, these potential cures. And when we get rid of amyloid, we see that we can, we're good at that. We can get rid of the amyloid, but it doesn't improve cognitive function, which is where the rubber meets the road. That is what we... Care about as we age and if we're worried about developing dementia. So what can we do, right? If Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, it's associated with these amyloid plaques, but that's not the whole story, right? Because there are people who are centenarians who have plenty of amyloid plaque, but have good cognition. There are people without amyloid who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And the testing and diagnosis are getting better.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  But what we really care about is cognition as we age. And so how do we optimize for that? Well, we can go upstream of the amyloid and we can start applying a different paradigm, a complex system science paradigm to neurodegeneration. Now, whatever the diagnosis of dementia is, whether it's Lewy body or vascular dementia, or frontotemporal dementia, or Alzheimer's, we can say what we want to do is improve the health of every neuron, of every cell in the brain and the connections between them. So when we think through that, you know, I have a house plant behind me, right? If we were to see a house plant that was suffering, we wouldn't look at it and go, oh, misfolded proteins, we should get rid of those and the plant will thrive, right? We would think, is it getting enough water?

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Is it getting enough light? Is it getting enough, does it have too much water, right? Does it have toxins potentially? Does it have nutrients in the soil? And if we apply the same concept, simple, and if we're systematic about how we apply these concepts to the brain, we can think through the causal level issues that might potentially trigger amyloid or Lewy body pathology or tau pathology. And when we turn that off, we get better neuronal function.

• 12:25Mindy Pelz?

  So is there a checklist we can lean into? You know, I geek out on neurons. I love neurons and I, there's just so many, there's so much going on in the connection between the dendrites and the neurotransmitters and then the toxins that can get stuck in there. Like you could, you can spend your whole life, obviously you have, really understanding neuronal health. But is there like a checklist of like, here are the five things you want to do every day? Six, great, tell me what they are.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  So what I'm going to actually start with is this framework, right? The six components of brain health. If there is imbalance in any of these six factors, then we are going to get downstream dysregulation. Right, so we want balance, the right amounts at the right time and the right place of toxins, right? We're going to get toxins in our brain. That's just part of living on earth today. And it's part of cellular metabolism. There is waste. And so we need to be able to get rid of that. So toxins, the right amounts and the right place at the right time. Nutrients, again, you talk a lot about fasting and metabolism and how crucially important this is, not just for brain health, but right for bone health, for healthy metabolism, right? For cancer prevention, for diabetes prevention,

• 13:41Speaker 01

  for heart health optimization. We need to be aware of our metabolism and our nutrients, right, at a macro level in terms of carbohydrates, fats and proteins, but also at that micronutrient level. Do we have enough minerals? Do we have enough B vitamins? Do we have enough antioxidants? In order for our cells to be optimally functioning, because that's what we're looking for is optimization. And then, third, we want to look at stress, right? Many people, people in your position, right, where we're considering being a caregiver. Caregivers for someone with dementia are anywhere from two and a half to six times more likely to be diagnosed with dementia later in their lives compared to those who never serve as caregivers.

• 14:19Mindy Pelz?

  Oh, wow. Wait, so wait, wait, stop for a second. So that means now, at almost 55 years old, as I'm caring for my parents, definitely the stress has gone up. And that's leading me to the path, potentially, of what I'm caring for my parents for.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  That's precisely right. And this is terrifying when you see spouses caring for each other, right? Like, if your mom was to serve as the primary care partner for your dad, that can put a very high burden on her, especially if he becomes unable to keep his circadian rhythm as the disease progresses and he's awake at night. Now it's interrupting her sleep. Many care partners, you know, they're so dedicated and they're just such an inspiration. And yet, they become martyrs. They're not getting the exercise. They're not eating well. They their identity gets lost in caring for this person. And so they lose their friends, they're not socializing. All of those brain protective things that we know are so beneficial

• 15:18Speaker 01

  get put to the wayside in order to care for that person. So that's too much stress, right? What we want is enough stress that we have. We're excited to get out of bed and seize the day, right? We have purpose and meaning, whatever that is for you. You're engaged in some sort of physical activity that keeps you, right? Use it or lose it. You need to use your cognitive function. You need to use your physical body in order to maintain enough stress. They were kind of pushing against that edge and we're not losing our function. So toxins, nutrients, stress, structure. So you mentioned your parent is suffering potentially with dementia or Alzheimer's. Are you at genetic risk?

• 16:02Speaker 01

  Becomes one of the questions that comes up. And I think is really important to answer when we're in our 40s, 50s, 60s, before we're starting to experience symptoms. Because this can motivate us. If we know our APOE status, A P O E. If we carry one or two copies of APOE4, then we know that we have to work harder than our spouse or our neighbor who doesn't have that genetic risk. And we need to start looking earlier at our risk factors so that we can mitigate them sooner. And again, delay, prevent, and then potentially reverse any cognitive decline that's already happening. So structure comes in macro and micro as well. So that microstructure is that genetic molecular structure.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Now, the macrostructure, I know you can probably speak to even better than I can as a chiropractor. We need to be able to get blood to our brain and out of our brain. We need to have, you know, our head carriage can't be too far forward. If we're in chronic pain, the cortisol that comes with that can become toxic to the hippocampus, the memory center of our brain. And if we can't keep our airway open at night, if we struggle with sleep apnea, this essentially becomes mild brain damage each night. Hypoxia is very, very toxic to the brain. We need to be able to get oxygen and fuel. To the brain and especially at night if we have suffer with sleep apnea, we're not getting the restorative healing REM sleep and deep sleep that we so desperately need to maintain cognitive function.

• 17:30Mindy Pelz?

  Structure was number five, four?

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Four.

• 17:33Mindy Pelz?

  Okay.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  So number five-

• 17:34Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, we're the last two.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Is infection and number six is signaling. So infections, there's a handful that are really important when it comes to cognitive function. One is P gingivalis. So gingivitis, the bacteria that cause gingivitis, when they get into our bloodstream, they can cause cardiovascular risk, but also directly trigger the production of beta amyloid in the brain. So we want to make sure, you know, you talk about this so much. So I know your audience is very familiar with this adage that health starts in the gut, but the gut starts in the mouth. So we've got to maintain really good oral hygiene so that we can maintain good cardiovascular health and good brain health. Really important.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  And then also there can be kind of latent infections underneath root canals, in cavitations associated with the-

• 18:25Mindy Pelz?

  That's a whole, that's, yeah, that's like a- That's such a can of worms, but for some people it's really important. So I hear you on that.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  I measure LPPLA2 on advanced cardiometabolic workup. And if I see that regularly, you know, two or three times, if I see that elevated and someone tells me they have maybe complicated dental history, then I'm referring out to a biological dentist. If you had told me in training that root canals would be associated with complex chronic disease and outside of the mouth, I would have thought you were totally nuts. But I have seen it enough now. I've seen this play out with enough patients that oral health, I mean, it's so, so, so important. So signaling, oh, sorry, let me go through these other, other infections. So P gingivalis in the mouth and then also herpes simplex virus one in particular. So if you get regular cold sores, that's something, I'm a naturopath, right?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  I don't, I'm not reaching for pharmaceuticals that frequently and there's a lot we can do with lysine and lemon balm and some other anti- Viral herbs that you can do for prophylaxis. However, if you're prone towards regular herpes outbreaks, repeated herpes outbreaks, then it's important to get ahead of those. And I typically will give my patients, certainly acyclovir or balsiclovir, to have on hand with travel, with stress, anything that's going to trigger an outbreak. And I'm pretty quick to get aggressive about that, just because the research is pretty clear that when we treat that relatively aggressively versus when we don't, the people who treat are at lower rates of dementia. Because again, that virus that hangs out in the nervous system

• 20:02Speaker 01

  triggers the production of neurodegenerative processes. So, pigeon javelis, herpes simplex, COVID is another one that comes up. And this is a little bit different mechanism.

• 20:15Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  So this one tends to create more hypocoagulability. And so it's in the vascular system, but can prevent good blood flow to the brain. So we come at that a little bit differently in that we're trying to reduce inflammation in the cardiovascular system. So looking at things like lumbrokinase and nattokinase, that kind of thing to help with the viscosity of the blood. And then the Lyme spirochetes are another one. We know that syphilis, another spirochete, has a neurological presentation. Lyme also has a neurological presentation. And so it's important to be screening for these Lyme, borrelia, babesia, bartonella, or lichia, that and the co-infections. So not just borrelia, the kind of classic Lyme disease,

• 20:59Speaker 01

  but also the co-infections that can have an impact and wear on the immune system and put us at higher risk for cognitive decline as we age. So those are the infections that I really like to kind of be, if you go on PubMed and you look at H. pylori and dementia, there's a connection. Generally, we want to keep our infectious burden overall to a minimum so that our body's not spending time and effort and energy combating those, right, protecting against them. But we can spend our time and effort and energy and resource creating new neurons and connections between them. The last one is signaling. And this is a really exciting conversation, I think, with this, with your population. And your audience in particular because of the new research that came out recently

• 21:43Speaker 01

  looking at postmenopausal women, women over 65 in the Medicare system, 11 million women were included in this study. And it showed, I think unequivocally, that bio-identical hormone replacement as we age reduces our risk of all-cause mortality, cancer, dementia by about 10%, and then cardiovascular disease. So there was a lot of confusion around the Women's Health Initiative study that came out in the early 2000s. And that has completely been turned on its head. And it's really, I think, an empowering time showing women that you don't have to get off by a hormone replacement. You know, that was kind of the words of wisdom from people who were suffering with two people who are suffering with severe hot flashes, or sleep deprivation, or mood changes

• 22:28Speaker 01

  as they went through menopause. It's like, you can stay on this, but not for too long. And for many people, they were talked out of even getting on it. And I talk to patients in my practice all the time who are terrified of hormone replacement, when in fact, it seems to really be beneficial for almost all health outcomes as we age. And I didn't even mention bone density, because that wasn't included in the trial. But that is another, the reduction of the rates of osteoporosis and osteopenia are very clearly understood with the addition of estrogen in particular.

• 23:00Mindy Pelz?

  You know, it's interesting, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking, wow, like, we have really redefined the path into these aging years, you know. It's in, and I think our parents are, like you said, remnants of an old healthcare model. And this kind of discussion you and I are having right now, they didn't get that discussion. And so, you know, I think for, you know, like, my generation, I'm a Gen Xer. Like, in that generation, we are all starting to look at aging from a new lens. And I hope that my kids, who are Gen Z'ers,

• 23:40Mindy Pelz?

  by the time they come into this conversation, it'll be very clear that lifestyle matters when you start to age. Of the six you just said, the two that are, that, you know, as I was listening to that, I was thinking, yeah, that's an amazing list. And if I was somebody who was just trying to understand how to prevent Alzheimer's and dementia, I would be overwhelmed with those six things. Because how, you know, how can I, I'm managing an aging parent, I'm managing my own life, and now I gotta manage those six things. But when you break it down, I feel like the door in, the easiest door in to increasing your immune system, to balancing

• 24:24Mindy Pelz?

  your hormones, to helping your body detox, is the second one, your metabolism. And this is why I'm such a fan of fasting and looking at our glucose levels and our ketone levels and how that affects brain function. So that leads me to this question, and it was something that Lisa Moscone and I discussed when she came on this podcast. And that was that as we age as women, our brain becomes less sensitive to glucose and more sensitive to ketones. So I want to ask if you find the same thing. And does, I mean, of course,

• 25:06Mindy Pelz?

  I have to go into the fasting realm. Have you seen as women, and this probably works for men, too, as we age, the more we can get some of those ketone hits, the healthier our brain is as we go through those years?

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Unequivocally, in my clinical practice and my experience, getting into ketosis is one of the most miraculous interventions for cognitive decline.

• 25:30Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  It is a game changer. And I think it does about 50% of the heavy lifting of everything that we do. Now, if there's a smoking gun, like a ton of mercury, or a ton of mold toxicity, or a severe B vitamin deficiency, right, we need to find that, right? That's important. The functional medicine perspective of this, I think, is important.

• 25:52Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Now, that being said, I don't think anyone should be in ketosis forever, right? I'm wearing a continuous glucose monitor right now.

• 25:59Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, me too.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. So

• 26:03Speaker 01

  I think like what nine out of 10 diseases associated with aging are chronic conditions associated with aging have to do with high blood sugar. Right. We have created a society where we're sick, we're obese and sick and have diabetes and a heart disease and cognitive decline because of the amount of processed food that we consume and particularly the amount of sugar. And these blood sugar swings and spikes, they are so detrimental to sleep, to mood, to energy levels, to so many of the other downstream things. And so absolutely what we see, I have patients who have gone from not being able to remember their grandchildren's names to being totally incontinent to three days later, 72 hours about what it takes to get into ketosis with a significant carbohydrate restriction.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  And we see that they remember their grandchildren's names and they have control of their bladder and bowels. I mean, it is profound. And people, my personal experience with ketosis, I get an hour and a half back in my day because I wake up at 5:00 AM, ready to go. I don't have to go through that kind of groggy 6 to 6:30, like I need my matcha kind of vibe. I can just get started with my meditation and my morning routine and I don't, there's no delay. And I also, my mood is better, my sleep is on my Oura ring, I can track it, my sleep improves, my deep sleep improves, my HRV improves, and you, I just get off the roller coaster. So many people can relate to this. Also, the bloating goes away, right?

• 27:31Speaker 01

  My stomach is flat again, you know, just aesthetically, it feels great. So we guide people into ketosis and I recommend for anyone struggling with cognitive decline, three to six months solidly in ketosis and then going back and forth between potentially a plant-based diet or a paleo Mediterranean diet, still a non-processed diet when you're going back and forth. Now, trips to Italy happen, I want you to enjoy that. Weddings happen, I want you to enjoy that. So people come off and I think that's okay. It's all about being in the mindset that if I am genetically at risk or if I'm symptomatically feeling like my cognition is not optimized, I need to get back into ketosis and I need to spend more time in ketosis than not.

• 28:12Mindy Pelz?

  Oh my gosh, thank you so much for saying that because it's been interesting being in the keto world. I've been in this world for a long time and there have been a lot of critics of ketosis. And the way I like to get people into ketosis is through the door of fasting. Like just take that window, compress it so you have this longer period of fasting, and then clean up your food in that eating window. And if you go low carb in that eating window, you're going to go into even deeper ketosis. And this is why Fast Like a Girl was written, was because so many people were like, no, this isn't good for women. This isn't good for women. And I'm like, really? Because I got 80 year olds that are dropping weight and like you said, remembering their childhood phone

• 28:57Mindy Pelz?

  number because I put them in ketosis. And so I don't know if there's like a media attempt to keep people out of ketosis because then they'll need drugs for some reason. But I have seen the same thing across hundreds of thousands of people, that if you take a menopausal woman, if you take an aging woman and you put her into ketosis, you give her her brain and body back. And I think it's something we should be shouting from the rooftops.

• 29:29Mindy Pelz?

  Now, the second thing I want to say is when you balance somebody's metabolic health, you also balance their immune system. So when we look at those infections you're talking about, if I can get them metabolically healthy, I can get their immune system up. And when I can balance their metabolism and get that hemoglobin A1C down, I can also see that they need less bio-identicals. That I think is the wild, wild west right now. I believe in us all getting on them. But there's a huge learning curve for women when they get on these bio-identicals. So we have to pair the lifestyle to that. So, you know, I think,

• 30:12Mindy Pelz?

  and I'm a question for you, is every woman should start this keto journey when the hormones start to go crazy in those perimenopausal years, like at 40. And would you say there's a time that you just stop ignoring that ketones are this driving fuel source for your brain? And you really need to embrace a lifestyle that brings ketones back in?

• 30:37Speaker 01

  So I think that all humans should go in and out of ketosis. That's what we're designed to do. We're essentially hybrid engines and our ancestors. The consistent thing about ancestral diets was inconsistency. We didn't have blueberries in December. Yes, thank you. And so we had meat available in the winter that was stored or frozen or salted or whatever it was. But we didn't have abundant amounts of carbohydrates available 365 days a year. It just wasn't how our bodies were designed. And now we are overfed. And so it's really important that we get inconsistency in our diet. And this is part of fasting. Now, that being said, with what might be good for you,

• 31:20Speaker 01

  if you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s, might not necessarily be good for mom or grandma because there is weight loss associated with ketosis and we don't want to go in the direction of frailty. Now, there are great ways to mitigate that and we have tons of resources. I'm sure you do as well. But going into fasting plus ketosis for someone who's already frail, it can be a little bit too much sometimes. So we want to build resilience. This is that hormetic effect, right? We're stressing the system by going into fasting or a fasting mimicking state with ketosis. And what we want to do is stress the system so that it's more resilient. This is a definition of health, right? Is more resilience when we come into contact with any sort of stressor. Now, that being said, if someone's frail,

• 32:04Speaker 01

  that stress can lead to decompensation a little bit quicker. So for those of us in this perimenopausal range, I would say it's better to start even earlier. Right there, I think women in their 20s and 30s can get tremendous benefits from going into ketosis. In terms of hormonal regulation with this insulin, insulin resistance can start early depending on what lifestyle and diet habits have been. But PCOS is something that I think can be really supported through fasting and ketogenic diet and getting the sugar down. You mentioned the connection between ketosis and metabolism and addressing metabolism and how it impacts the immune system. Sugar feeds cancer. Sugar feeds.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Feeds candida in the gut, but not just that, it feeds the gingivitis in your gums. It feeds every other infection. So getting the sugars down, that starves out these infectious agents. And you can really reduce that burden significantly, directly, right? And then you also get all of these other benefits. You mentioned the conversation with Lisa Moscone and how all of us, regardless of our diabetes status, regardless of our fasting insulin or our blood sugar, fasting blood sugar. As we age, we become less sensitive to glucose in our brain. Our brain prefers ketones to sugar. And again, I think back, not that I was there, but to ancestors.

• 33:28Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, I think back all the time. Maybe we were there. We've been reincarnated.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  But if we were running from a bear, if we didn't have food, shelter, or water, if we didn't have that food, we didn't need our brains to turn off, we actually needed them to turn on. And so when we get into a fasting mimicking state because there's food scarcity, right? This is contrived in our day and age, but if the way it was for our ancestors, our brains turn on. And it's this ancestry, it's this evolutionary, it's like design, right? It's just a divine design that if we are on the edge of starvation or going in that direction, we need to be able to think clearly, find food, find what we need, find the resource we need. And so that happens, that's we have the benefit of that now.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  And we just have to put, yes, it can be somewhat uncomfortable, but the rewards are so worth it.

• 34:24Mindy Pelz?

  They're so worth it. I mean, I'm sure you do it this way, too, is like when I have a day where I need my brain to be on, that's when I fast. It's like, I need those ketones because they work so much better than glucose when I need that sharpness. What, one of the struggles I have found, and I think other people may have found this too, is getting my 80-year-old parents to adhere to certain diet changes. And one of the things, my dad, just with full transparency, he's the one we're the most concerned about right now. Is that he forgets. So when I'm like, hey dad, you're not eating a big bowl of cereal. First thing when you get in the morning, up in the morning, he's like, okay.

• 35:07Mindy Pelz?

  He remembers when I tell him and then the next morning he goes and eats a bowl of cereal. So I have been trying to figure out outside of just going in and making sure there's no cereal in his house. Like I've even wondered about something like exogenous ketones. Could I get put some exogenous ketones into him to be able to spark that brain activity? And how do I, how do I get an aging parent to change their food habits? Cause that has been tough.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  It's such a great question. I was with my mom recently and she always gives me a hard time. She's like, you're trying to give me an eating disorder when you get me into, when you try to get me into ketosis. And so I, you know, I, I got my CGM on and I asked her to put her one on her and supported her in that process. Just so she could learn, so she could get more information about what's going on and start connecting what she's eating to how she's feeling. And sometimes that's just an invitation, right? We can't change other people's behavior, but sometimes they can influence it. And I think that modeling is one of the most important things. So us taking this on, showing what's possible, sharing how we feel. Sometimes my mom's cousins are really into it and so they've started doing it.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  And all of a sudden she's like, oh, maybe I should listen to Heather, right? Like it changed her perspective, right? Who's influencing your dad? Right? Is there a good friend of his? Is there someone in his bridge club or somebody that he plays tennis with? Who might have a bigger impact than us as the daughter, right? Like what do you know? I'm the parent in this relationship. And so that can be one strategy. You mentioned environment, like what should I just take the cereal out of his house? Yeah, I think you should, right? We call this cleanse your kitchen. You go in and you take everything out because people struggling with dementia, if there's a banana on the counter, they're going to go, oh, this is healthy for me. And especially people in their seventies, eighties, right? They remember that food pyramid from the eighties and nineties that.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  That killed people, literally has caused chronic disease in this country, right? It's criminal that we were told to eat eight servings of grains a day. And that was the foundation of our diet with sugar, processed grains. I mean, and that fats were vilified. Really, that should be turned on its head and we should be having a lot of fats. But fruits are one of those really confusing ones for people. Are you telling me fruit is bad for me? No, but it won't help you get into ketosis if that's the goal. No. Right? So, so we need to be strategic about what we allow into the kitchen. And so that somebody who is struggling with dementia or even wrap their head around the concept doesn't have a lot of the junk or even anything that's going to raise blood sugar easily accessible.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Now, this is part of why I created Murama, which is a residential care facility for the elderly. Where we have an immersive experience in this approach. It includes an organic ketogenic diet, all of the brain healing exercises, the socialization, a non-toxic environment, and caregivers who are trained to expect people to get better. And also know how to manage the supplements and the hormones and all of the things, the medications that someone on a Breterson-type approach would be doing. And so it's because of this question from people like you, right? I want my dad to get the benefit of Dr. Breterson's approach, my mentor's approach. But what am, can I, do I move in with him? Do I quit my job? Like, what about my kids? What about my relationship?

• 38:32Speaker 01

  How do I navigate this and get him the benefit when I can't drop everything and do it for him? And this is challenging and the dynamics are different, right? Often we'll talk to people and, hey, my sister doesn't believe that there's any science behind this. Yes. Send her, you can send her the ornish paper that came out in June, which showed that lifestyle randomized controlled trial, the first of its kind, that showed that these interventions can be helpful. They use a vegan diet. So, you know, I'm a fan of keto with animal products. I think that that makes it so that our diet is not too restrictive. But you have options, right? There is, there's science suggesting that changing to a, from a standard American diet to a vegan diet or a ketogenic diet can be very, very helpful for cognition.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  And so, you know, there's science out there, but if your, your sister is totally anti. Come back to you. Be the model. Do it for you and prevent cognitive decline, especially if you're genetically related to whoever you're concerned about. Make sure that you are being the model and you are putting this information to work for your brain. We're not going to be able to convince everyone, but we can give them information and we can set things up. There's meal delivery programs through Apollo Health. Nutrition for Longevity does ketogenic meal delivery, which makes it a lot easier. So there's resources and there's support.

• 39:53Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, it's funny because on that topic, my brain has been saying over and over again, like, "Don't lose your life in trying to save theirs." And it's a little bit like I can feel them declining very quickly. And my sister and I are like tag teaming every day, talking about, "Okay, I talked to them today. They're doing this. We've had to take over their finances because my dad was paying things like five, six times." And it's interesting what you said about there's this line between you want to help them, but you also want to save yourself and not lose your life in that process.

• 40:34Mindy Pelz?

  So I tried the glucose monitor on my dad and he couldn't figure out how to use it. It was like so complicated. I'm like, "Okay, I'd have to be with him day in and day out and scan it for him to see it." So would you say that if you had an aging parent, that is going through this, a really good number just to keep your eye on is hemoglobin A1C?

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Absolutely, without a doubt. And we use the MOCAS score, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, as a way to put a number on where someone's cognition is. And we have much more confidence, right? The earlier on in the disease process, the easier it is to turn things around. So if you're starting to notice that mom or dad is forgetful, start then. Get a MOCAS score and then do what Dr. Bredesen calls a cognoscopy, right? Just like we get a colonoscopy to see if we have risk for colon cancer, get all of the lab testing done. Look at toxins. Nutrients, look at gut, look at all of the things a functional medicine doctor would look at and see if there are risk factors that you have control over. And then do what you can to address them. And of course, the lifestyle medicine is the most important. That is the the foundation, right?

• 41:45Speaker 01

  The the functional medicine testing and all that is the icing on the the foundational cake of diet, exercise, sleep and stress management. So get those things dialed as much as you can. And then in these conversations, you know, it's just, I mentioned I was with family recently. And I have an aunt who's the matriarch of my family. I mean, I just adore her. She's been one of the most impactful people, taught me so much throughout my whole life. And she's been suffering with dementia for five or six years. And her husband is a conventional M D. And they had very little interest in what I was doing. And just recently, my mom texted me this morning. She's like, oh, that, you know, they're asking questions and they're engaging about what's in your book. And I was like, what? Like, I brought tears to my eyes, like, what?

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Like, I might be able to help this woman I love so much. After feeling for, sorry, I'm like getting emotional. After feeling for years, like, I couldn't, right? Because I wasn't speaking her language. And so sometimes it just takes a little bit of patience and putting it out there. And not pushing too hard. I think when we push too hard, people become resistance resistant. It's human nature, right? If we, especially if we're trying to control someone else's behavior. But if we can just keep modeling, giving them information, maybe putting resources in front of them, like meal delivery that make it easy. Then I think that is potentially a way to get some change. And then there's so many directions we could go with this.

• 43:12Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, right, exactly.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Well, the ketones.

• 43:16Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, well, let me, before you answer that, I want to address the the doctor issue. Because every time my dad goes and gets blood work, I I say, give it to me. Let me take a look at it. And what I'm finding is not happening in the doctor's office with him is this acknowledgement of how important hemoglobin A1C is. I feel like if we just used one target. Let's just like create one target for everybody. And so he's like, my doctor says I'm fine. And I'm like, yeah, but

• 43:47Speaker 01

  But he's at what, like 6.2 or something?

• 43:49Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, I'm like, you're at a really like, I want you at 5.0. And he's at about 5.7. So he's like, my doctor says I'm fine. I'm like, you're not fine. We have to get this one thing down. So is there a way, do you think that story about your aunt and, you know, do we, is, are the tides turning? Are doctors waking up and realizing that neurodegenerative decline has, is intimately tied to metabolically unfit humans?

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Well, certainly the research is there, right? This is published, but it takes a long time to get in front of primary care providers and neurologists who are having these conversations with people day to day. And I think there's also this element of, well, this person's retired. They've done the work. Let them indulge. Let them enjoy their retirement.

• 44:43Mindy Pelz?

  Yes.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  And I think that that does people a disservice. Not everyone wants to hear that. There are people who, you know, when they're facing this last chapter of life or this last season of life, they want to live it fully. They want to be present at their

• 44:57Mindy Pelz?

  That's what my dad says.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so

• 44:59Mindy Pelz?

  He's like, I'm tired of being disciplined. He's like, I just, he's, he's kind of got a fuck it attitude. He's like, whatever. I don't know how much longer I have here.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  I had a conversation with a 95 year old gentleman recently in the Aresceptin, so a couple of medications that are available for dementia, they don't work very well. And five years later, people are not doing as well as if they never started them. Right? Donepezil or Aresceptin, the Nemenda or Remantin, these two medications, they get used together and separately. And if you start them, sometimes people get a little bump. But five years later, they're worse off cognitively than if they never started them. So I had this conversation with a 95 year old man. He's like, I'm not going to be here in five years. Just put me on them. You know, and so, and I had to laugh and I had to respect that, right? It's his decision. And so all we can do is give people information. And then there's, it's not for everyone. It requires work. It requires some, yes, some discipline and some.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Figuring out the Dexcom or whatever continuous glucose monitor you use. Figuring out the ketone, all of these things. And I'd love to go back to the exogenous ketones because I do think that's a great conversation that can make it easier for people to get into ketosis. And for some neurodegenerative diseases like ALS in particular, we do not want to restrict carbs. We want to have ketones and carbohydrates because resources are being utilized so quickly. It's really hard for anyone to keep up. In fact, that's part of the disease process. So when we add exogenous ketones, what we can do is get into ketosis, get the benefit of the ketones without having to do so much carb restriction. And sometimes for people who are at risk of frailty or weight loss, this can be kind of a happy medium.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Or like your dad, hard to get him there, feels almost impossible to get him into carb restriction. Okay, let's just add some ketones. So there's different kinds of ketones. There's ketone salts and ketone esters. And I think they both taste disgusting. Yeah, they're horrible. Especially the ketone esters taste like gasoline. But this is what professional athletes will use these and they will get your ketone levels up. So if myoketosis is 0.5 to 0.9, I think of actual ketosis as 1.0. Usually you're getting maybe to 3.0 on that very high end, just with fasting and consuming fats. And then if you start adding ketone esters, these are the gasoline, like the real fuel,

• 47:23Speaker 01

  you can get that ketone number up often to 5. And with ketone salts, we're going to see those ketone numbers go more like to what you could get to metabolically between 1 and 3, but you're going to get there faster with less carb restrictions. So there's powders, there's capsules. I'm personally a fan of the ketone capsules because I hate the taste. But some people love the sweet taste of the ketone salts and they can use it as a snack between meals when they're starting to either fast or they're starting to go into ketosis and carb restriction. I don't, you probably have the, oh, go ahead.

• 48:01Mindy Pelz?

  Well, no, so what, here's the question I always ask myself is, so ketones were meant to be present when glucose was low. So my intuitive, and I'm actually, as I'm going through this conversation with you, thinking, okay, yeah, I'm definitely gonna try the exogenous with my dad. But it would, I would intuitively say it needs to be in the morning before he eats anything and brings his glucose up. Now, having said that, I have had Lat Manzor on here, who is the founder of Ketone IQ. And he believes that if your glucose is high and you take these exogenous ketones, it actually helps, it can mitigate the high spiking blood sugar.

• 48:46Mindy Pelz?

  So it can actually be a tool for bringing the blood sugar down. So do you have an opinion on that? And then the second part of that question is, ketones are neuroprotective, right? Are they going to create, are they gonna stop the plating? Are they gonna stop the degeneration? Will they block the neurons from being infected by the infection or the toxins? Like, is that like a shield for these decaying and plating neurons?

• 49:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, great question. So the brain takes up 2% of body weight, but 20% of energy expenditure every day. It's a very, very expensive machine to run, right? In terms of resource. And when we can't turn, ATP is the fuel that our neurons run on, every cell in our body runs on. So we need to be able to turn the fuel source into ATP. And that fuel source can be, we're hybrid engines, right? We can, it can be glucose, carbohydrates, sugar, we'll use those interchangeably, or fats or ketones. And when we make ketones available, whether there's glucose there or not, we're basically saying, here, brain, here's some extra resource. The way Dr. Bredesen talks about the brain, he uses the analogy of like, your brain being a country, my brain is done.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  And if your brain is at war, right? If it is fighting and defending, like, think of your brain like Ukraine, right? It is out of money. It is desperate. It is fighting and defending and can barely maintain any function. So if we can resolve, if we can give it extra resource, right? If we can get that extra money to that country at war and get them the extra things that they need to resolve it, right? To fight those infections, get rid of the toxins, then now we free up resource. And we can go on to regenerate. We can create new neurons, new synapses, the connections between the neurons. And that's what we're trying to do when we add more resource to the brain with ketosis. Now, with exogenous ketones, I should say.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Now, if we're actually in metabolic ketosis with carb restriction, we get the benefits of less oxidative stress. Burning sugar for fuel creates oxidative stress, so we skip that. And we don't get that oxidative kind of trash that we, when we're burning ketones for fuel.

• 50:56Mindy Pelz?

  Amazing.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Additionally, in ketosis, as you well know, we're metabolizing fats, which is where we hold a lot of fat soluble toxicity, so we can start getting rid of toxins. So it's antioxidant, it's detoxifying, it's anti-inflammatory, reduces inflammatory burden, which is part of the trigger of neurodegeneration. So there are so many benefits to getting into ketosis. And I think that we don't even fully understand all of the mechanisms. Dr. Stephen Gundry talks about the mitochondrial uncoupling as one of the proposed mechanisms. I think there are many, many, many at play. But primarily, when we're talking about adding exogenous ketones, when you're not in carb restriction, I think what we're trying to get is this resource utilization question answered. And just basically, give the brain as a gift.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Here's more fuel to get, to do the jobs that you need to do throughout the day, particularly resolving these highly resource, you know, resource draining things like fighting infections and toxins.

• 51:54Mindy Pelz?

  So then you would be a fan of, it doesn't matter if glucose is high. You're just given another resource for the brain and it, you, it wouldn't bother you to put the two together?

• 52:06Speaker 01

  In an ideal world, we're doing carb restriction as well. But if we can't get that.

• 52:09Mindy Pelz?

  But we have an aging parent.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  The reality, so much of what we do is pragmatic. It's like, what's gonna work?

• 52:16Mindy Pelz?

  Exactly.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  And I think that ketones are kind of a cheater's way to get this extra fuel source to the brain.

• 52:24Mindy Pelz?

  Yes. Yeah, and you really, it's so funny because when I first discovered fasting, my parents were in their late 70s. And they were like up for anything. They, they, my mom actually raised me in a very clean, nutritionally clean home. She, we didn't have sugar in it, like so much of what she did with us in our childhood, she's actually not doing in her, her senior years. And so, but one of the things, when I first started understanding fasting and teaching it to them, I mean, they were the most vibrant I have seen them in their late 70s. Because of skipping breakfast and compressing their eating window, and they were willing to do all of that.

• 53:06Mindy Pelz?

  And now, as they've gotten older, the willingness has gone away. And one of the places it's gone away, and this would be another question for you, is that they have a caregiver now. And as wonderful as the caregiver is, my dad no longer cooks and cleans. And we're making him walk the dog, but life got really easy. And so, what part, I mean, this is where you could also look, if you can get them to fast a little bit longer, or get some carbohydrate restriction out, so you get the ketone, but you're also microdosing hard. And I'm curious if microdosing hard in an 80-year-old is still increasing neuroplasticity

• 53:51Mindy Pelz?

  because the brain has to find new pathways to deal with the hard.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, I think there's a couple of things that come up here. One, caregiving. So I think for any family who has somebody with dementia, find a caregiver fast. Before you think you need them, get somebody who your parent knows, enjoys, likes being around, who knows them. That is really helpful because I have seen too many families backed into a corner out of desperation, just finding a warm body to show up and babysit. Because they are pulled away for some other family emergency, or they have a fall, or their primary caregiver is unavailable. And so having somebody who's kind of in the family already makes it so much easier if there's ever any transition. The other thing is caregivers need time for themselves.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  So having, if like your dad needs someone there all the time, then giving your mom that break so that she can go play cards with her friends or go to lunch and not talk about dementia and her husband, and she can get that social connection and have that identity outside of caring for him, that is really, really important to her long-term health. Now, okay, so the caregiver, we have caregiver training programs because it's so many caregivers are, they want the person they're caring for to like them. So they want to feed them cookies and ice cream. They want to shop for them in that way. And they want to let them sit at, you know, at the TV and they want to take care of everything because that's what that person wants, even though it's not what's best for them. And so having caregivers that are well-trained to engage that person,

• 55:22Speaker 01

  that they know what motivates them, they know how to engage them so that they can have a good time staying cognitively engaged, physically engaged, and eating the right foods. So the caregiver's mindset needs to be, and their values need to be in alignment with this Protestant approach, I think, to get the most out of it. And that can be done. We see it all the time. It's fantastic.

• 55:43Mindy Pelz?

  What's the name of the program, the caregiver training program?

• 55:46Speaker 01

  It's called Reversing Alzheimer's at Home. So that's actually where my book is from. Reversing Alzheimer's is my book that came out in June with Harper Collins. We hit the New York Times Bestseller List.

• 55:56Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, congrats, by the way. I know it's done really well.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  It's available wherever books are sold. And this is, we had designed the training program. We were doing it. We did it for about 200 people and then wrote the book based on what we were doing in the caregiver training courses. And so that's what the book is. And then we have group coaching programs that go about 12 weeks. We're starting the next one on Labor Day. And we run those about three times a year so that we create community, so that we have people sharing their secrets. And I mean, it's so valuable to have that dialogue around what's working, what's not, what's coming up for people, how to best serve those. We love suffering with dementia and prevent it for ourselves.

• 56:34Mindy Pelz?

  That's so smart because I mean that I've had to really work with the caregiver. So I'm, did you do the audiobook? Did you read your audiobook?

• 56:42Speaker 01

  I heard you saying that you were doing that. So I had to negotiate with them and I was able to do the introduction and the acknowledgements. They were like, no, no, we're getting professional for the rest of it. You know, I I'm torn. I have mixed emotions, but you've done your audiobooks, right?

• 56:56Mindy Pelz?

  Oh, yeah, I do all my audiobooks and they're horrifically hard to do. But the reason I ask is because I may have the caregiver listen to your audiobook. Especially as she's cooking or doing anything like that, I can see that where that would be really helpful. Do you, do you think with this new explosion of conversation around dementia and Alzheimer's that we literally, if we like, listen to podcasts like this and we really read books like yours and we, we understand the impact of lifestyle, that by the time our grandchildren go into, into their senior years, that Alzheimer's and dementia could be a thing of the past?

• 57:34Speaker 01

  I believe that for our generation, Mindy, Alzheimer's is optional. That there is so much we can do to prevent this disease. That if we are willing to do the work and do what it takes, then yes, we can prevent having this disease as we age.

• 57:49Mindy Pelz?

  Amazing, amazing. Well, again, I'm going to send everybody to get your book. I, you know, I know they call us the sandwich generation. We're like sandwiched between the kids and the parents, but my kids are, you know, off and learning how to adult. And I'm left with my parents and, you know, this conversation has never been more real for me. And it came on so quickly, so quickly, like out of nowhere. It was like my mom was thinking my dad had dementia and I'm like, yeah, I don't think so. And then as I look closer, I was like, ooh, yeah, she's right. So work like yours is, is really important. So I, I really appreciate that. And what you're doing and how can people find you and find all the wonderful things you are up to?

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Thank you. Yeah, Dr. Heather Sandison, S A N D I S O N dot com, where you can stay up to date about the latest research and our offerings and support for those suffering with dementia in their families. You know, Mindy, I have the privilege of talking to many, many patients and coaching clients and residents at Murama who are in that sunset of their lives, right? And asking them, what's most important? What have been your happiest memories? What do you, what lights you up to think back on? And it's the connections. It's the, it's the connections with the people that they love nine out of 10 times. It's not how much money they made or the vacations that they went on unless they went with family.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  And that is just this reminder, like, we have this opportunity to maintain meaningful connection as we age if we maintain our memory and our brain health. And it takes some responsibility, it takes some action, but it is so well worth it and it is so accessible if we're willing to do it.

• 59:35Mindy Pelz?

  Amazing, amazing. So, and I agree, I agree. And I can even say at 54, you know, connections matter more than anything to me now. So I can only imagine what it is for my parents. And you watch them light up when the grandkids are around and when we walk in. And it really, I can really see that. So, let, let me finish on this question. It's one I ask everybody, and that is, what is your definition of health? You personally? And how do you know when you're healthy? Do you have a measurement for it?

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so getting up in the morning, feeling good and ready to start the day is my personal definition of health. Just feeling like I can take it on, feeling excited about what I'm doing, and thinking about how I'm gonna have an amazing day, and feeling like I have the energy for it. That is my personal feeling of like, yes, I'm healthy. Now, there is another one that I offered. A definition of health is how well, how resilient we are to stress.

• 1:00:35Mindy Pelz?

  Yes.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  And I do think this hermetic effect, right? Fasting, ketosis, exercise, cold, hot and cold therapies, even oxygen contrast therapy, can be things that are uncomfortable when we get outside of our comfort zone, but expand our resilience to stress. I think that that is a, it's a continuum, right? Health is a continuum. It's like a homeostatic dynamic state, right? It changes throughout the day and throughout the month and throughout the years. But when we can expand our resilience to stress, I think that that puts us in a healthier state.

• 1:01:08Mindy Pelz?

  Oh, I love that. I love that. Well, keep doing the amazing work you're doing. This is such a necessary topic and so many of us are sitting in the position I'm sitting in, like really wanting to prevent it for ourselves and managing it with elderly parents. So, you know, if anybody listening to this gets a little sense of peace, like I just had over the last hour of talking to you, I hope that we can, we can change the way that we look at this because it's, it's really hard to watch the people you love decline so quickly. So, just thank you for everything you're doing. And how do people, the people can come to your website? Is that like where your main source is?

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Yep. DrHeatherSandison.com. Again, S-A-N-D-I-S-O-N. And the book is Reversing Alzheimer's. And thank you so much, Mindy, for having me. I really appreciate you helping me to change the narrative around what's possible for those suffering with Alzheimer's and dementia and reduce that suffering, hopefully in real time.

• 1:02:06Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. Thank you, Heather. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it, so please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.