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The Peter Attia Drive

#251 - AMA #46: Optimizing brain health: Alzheimer's disease risk factors, APOE, prevention strategies, and more

The Peter Attia Drive

Peter Attia, MD

Health & Fitness, Medicine, Fitness

4.77.3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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In this “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) episode, Peter goes into depth on the topic of brain health, starting with how Alzheimer's disease is diagnosed, the significance of blood-based biomarkers in diagnosis, and what the various APOE gene variants mean in terms of a person's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Next, Peter discusses the various strategies for preventing Alzheimer's disease and neurodegeneration. He touches briefly on exercise as a potent tool, but focuses more on lesser-known factors that could impact brain health, such as nutrition supplementation, lipid management, brain games, sauna, oral health, hearing loss, and more.

If you’re not a subscriber and are listening on a podcast player, you’ll only be able to hear a preview of the AMA. If you’re a subscriber, you can now listen to this full episode on your private RSS feed or our website at the AMA #46 show notes page. If you are not a subscriber, you can learn more about the subscriber benefits here.

We discuss:

  • Diagnosing Alzheimer's disease [2:45];
  • Biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease, the C2N test, and other tools for diagnosis [7:30];
  • Genetic component of Alzheimer’s disease: genes that confer risk [12:45];
  • Understanding your APOE status and why it’s important to know [17:15];
  • The prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, and who is at higher risk [21:15];
  • Can the risk of Alzheimer’s disease be decreased with behavioral changes? [24:15];
  • Overview of modifiable behaviors that potentially play a role in risk reduction of neurodegeneration [30:15];
  • Things that clearly impact brain health: smoking, alcohol, sleep, head injuries, blood pressure, and more [34:15];
  • How nutrition impacts brain health: common diets, metabolic health, energy balance, and more [46:15];
  • Comparing common diets: data showing the association between the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and specific diets [59:45];
  • Supplements: EPA and DHA, vitamin D, and B vitamins [1:13:00];
  • Supplements: theracurmin, cocoa flavonols, and magnesium L-threonate [1:25:15];
  • Impact of exercise on brain health, minimum effective dose, and the most important types of exercise [1:33:00];
  • Challenging the mind with brain games—does it impact neurodegeneration? [1:43:00];
  • The data on sauna and brain health [1:49:45];
  • Oral health and its association with brain health [1:52:45];
  • How reducing lipids can improve brain health and prevent neurodegeneration [1:55:30];
  • The potential impact of hearing loss on brain health and neurodegeneration [2:04:30]; and
  • More.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey everyone, welcome to a sneak peek, ask me anything, or AMA episode of the Drive Podcast.

0:16.5

I'm your host, Peter Atia.

0:18.3

At the end of this short episode, I'll explain how you can access the AMA episodes in full,

0:22.9

along with a ton of other membership benefits we've created.

0:26.0

Before you can learn more now by going to peteratia-md.com forward slash subscribe.

0:31.5

So without further delay, here's today's sneak peek of the Ask Me Anything episode.

0:39.7

Welcome to Ask Me Anything, episode 46.

0:43.1

I'm once again joined by my co-host Nick Stenson.

0:46.6

In today's episode, we have compiled a lot of recent questions that we've received

0:50.7

around brain health.

0:52.3

This has been in response to recent podcasts on brain health, Alzheimer's disease, neurodegeneration,

0:58.2

and the recent series on limitless where I worked closely with Chris Hemsworth during

1:04.0

a time when he learned that he had two copies of the APOE4 gene.

1:08.3

So needless to say over the past, call it four or five months.

1:11.3

We have been overrun by questions on all things that pertain to brain health.

1:15.5

In today's AMA, we discuss the following.

1:17.4

How Alzheimer's disease is diagnosed, what we need to know about it based on blood-based

1:21.9

biomarkers, how these predict risk of disease, what the various APOE genes mean in terms

1:27.2

of a person's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, and why I believe it's important

1:30.4

for everyone to know their APOE gene, which is really code for, I believe, we can do something

1:35.3

about it regardless of the outcome.

1:37.1

From there, the conversation shifts over into what someone can do to prevent Alzheimer's

...

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