645: The truth about cognitive decline and what you can do about it | Tommy Wood, M.D., Ph.D.
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What are the latest insights on brain biomarkers?
Welcome to the My Buddy Green podcast. I'm Jason Wachub, founder and co-CEO of My Buddy Green and your host. This podcast was created in sponsorship with Toyota. At My Buddy Green, we believe in a well-lived life is one you share with people you love.
How can we modify our risk of dementia?
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Why is exercise crucial for brain health?
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What role does muscle play in cognitive function?
Today's guest is Dr. Tommy Wood, a neuroscientist at the forefront of brain health, cognitive decline, and traumatic brain injury. He holds degrees from Oxford and Cambridge and his new book, The Stimulated Mind, makes the case that the tools most likely to protect your brain aren't even found in a lab test. They're found in how you move, how you eat, how you challenge yourself, and how you connect with other people. What opens up about the years he's spent letting a bad night of sleep ruin his next day? and the best protocol he has found for maintaining brain health.
How can nutrition support brain health?
What he found changed how he operates, and I think it'll change how you think about performance too. Let's dive in. So testing has come such a long way in the past few years with regards to our cognitive health. And, you know, we can do genetic testing and look, do we have the APOE4 gene? Do we have a double copy of the gene?
What is the significance of creatine for cognitive function?
We can do the blood markers, you know, P-tau. amyloid. And it's fascinating and interesting. And I'm a believer that information is power and early intervention can be extraordinarily helpful and lifesaving. But the more I learn as it relates to cognitive decline and what we know about dementia and Alzheimer's, I kind of feel like we look at these things because they're measurable, but they may not be the most important drivers.
How does social connection impact cognitive health?
You're the expert, you tell me. So I have a lot of hope that these biomarkers will become more useful over time of course i want people to have as much information as possible and it to be actionable i think that's the most important the information is actionable and and that's where the gap really exists right now there's been some very nice discussion about this in the academic literature there was one paper called i think it was the tyranny of biomarkers um and they which i which i really liked and they made this point that We're developing these biomarkers largely because A, they're things we can measure and B, they're things that we can potentially modify with drugs, but they're not necessarily the things that actually matter when it comes to improving treatment and quality of life and disease progression for the patient.
So there's this disconnect between the biomarkers we're developing and what actually matters for the individual. And hopefully those things will align.
What practical steps can we take to enhance brain stimulation?
But right now you see lots of people testing these things And we don't really know what to do. What's quote unquote normal? What's benign? What do we do if a biomarker is elevated, but you're doing everything right and you display no symptoms and have nothing really to be concerned about? And right now, we just genuinely don't know. So this will come over time, but... I think that the thing that we can focus on right now is we know so much about the significant risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia. We know that they're modifiable. We know that if we address those, we could potentially dramatically decrease dementia burden.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the latest insights on brain biomarkers?
0:00–0:14
2
How can we modify our risk of dementia?
0:14–0:23
3
Why is exercise crucial for brain health?
0:23–1:06
4
What role does muscle play in cognitive function?
1:06–1:37
5
How can nutrition support brain health?
1:37–2:03
6
What is the significance of creatine for cognitive function?
2:03–2:36
7
How does social connection impact cognitive health?
2:36–3:28
8
What practical steps can we take to enhance brain stimulation?
3:28–43:15
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The mindbodygreen Podcast
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