This podcast explores groundbreaking research on Alzheimer’s disease, covering promising new treatments like the Benfotiamine clinical trial, immunotherapy, and current FDA-approved medications. It also highlights the critical role of lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, stress management, and social connection in improving cognitive function and potentially slowing the disease’s progression.
[01:14.840 – 01:29.560] Introducing Kirsten Porter Stransky
Host introduces neuroscientist Kirsten Porter Stransky from USC School of Medicine, Greenville.
[01:30.040 ] What is Alzheimer’s Disease?
Kirsten explains Alzheimer’s as a neurodegenerative disease, affecting older and some younger adults.]
[04:32.500 –] Benfotiamine Clinical Trial
Vitamin study for slowing Alzheimer’s progression; discussion on pronunciation.
[06:08.360 ] Abby Krasouris’s Report on Alzheimer’s Statistics
Report on high Alzheimer’s rates in the South and Southeast.
Study at Emory University: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2025/07/21/clinical-trial-offers-new-hope-alzheimers-patients-caregivers-georgia/
[10:20.780 ] Immune System to Fight Alzheimer’s
Using the immune system to combat Alzheimer’s.
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20250409/Tim-3-identified-as-promising-therapeutic-target-for-Alzheimers-disease.aspx
[11:51.760 ] Current Alzheimer’s Treatments: Donanemab and Lecanemab (Leqembi)
Discussion on existing FDA-approved treatments.
[12:55.400] Side Effects and Testing
Dr. John Absher, Prisma Health, discusses bleeding/swelling complications; extensive pre-testing is crucial.
[13:40.680 ] Vizamyl PET Imaging
Technology for visualizing amyloid plaque in the brain.
[17:31.940 ] GLP-1 Drugs and Alzheimer’s Disease
Weight loss drugs and their potential impact on Alzheimer’s.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10525376/#:~:text=Abstract,were%20retrieved%20from%20ClinicalTrials.gov
[20:30.750 ] Lifestyle Factors and Improving Cognition
Lifestyle factors and their role in improving cognitive function.
https://aaic.alz.org/releases-2025/us-pointer-study-results-announced.asp
[24:12.070 – 24:30.950] The MIND Diet
Low-sodium Mediterranean diet, emphasizing leafy greens, whole foods, fruits, vegetables, and reduced red meat/butter.
[24:30.950 – 24:55.270] Control Group and Small Changes
Even small lifestyle changes in the control group showed meaningful impacts against cognitive decline.
[24:55.270 ] Doctor Ornish’s Study: Reversing Alzheimer’s
Study with Alzheimer’s patients aimed to slow or reverse disease via intensive lifestyle changes.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13195-024-01482-z
[28:33.610 – 29:02.330] Actionable Advice: What People Should Be Doing Now
Kirsten offers advice for individuals with Alzheimer’s concerns.
[29:02.490 – 29:36.150] Power of Lifestyle Modifications
Lifestyle changes are powerful for preventing/treating Alzheimer’s and chronic conditions.
[29:36.490 – 29:42.890] Dietary Recommendations
More fruits/vegetables, less ultra-processed foods, sugars, and processed meats.
[29:42.890 – 30:22.830] Physical Activity
Engage in enjoyable physical activity (gardening, walking, hiking) rather than forced exercise.
[30:23.070 – 30:36.210] Stress Management
Address chronic stress with mindfulness, meditation, or yoga to protect brain function.
[30:36.910 – 31:00.530] Importance of Social Connection
Face-to-face social connection is crucial for brain health and happiness.
[31:01.390 – 31:33.770] Buffering Against Pathology: Education and Activity
Higher education and activity may buffer against Alzheimer’s pathology without cognitive impairment.
[31:34.450 – 32:40.890] Brain Games and Engagement
Staying active, socially engaged, eating healthy, and using brain games can buffer pathology.
We kind of call it uh tick- tock tick tock. Like every minute is important. The race against time is real. Alzheimer’s became the scariest word in the English language, surpassing cancer many years ago. But new research is showing promise. Hope that the drugs will work. Hope that the drugs will help others like me, even if I’m gone. Now we’re able to say is there plaque or not on a living person which will allow us to move forward with the correct path for that patient. Advancements that could change lives forever to realize that there might be light at the end of the tunnel where it may not put you back where you were but it’ll stop the slope and keep you on an even keel. That’s a miracle. Welcome to the Wellness Files, a podcast where we explore practical tools, research, and real stories. I’m your host, Carrie Beiel, and today we’re sitting down with neuroscientist Kirsten Porter Stransky to talk about new research on Alzheimer’s disease. Kirsten Porter Stransky, thank you so much for joining the Wellness Files. Thanks for having me. So, you’re a neuroscientist here at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Greenville, and I saw that your research has been cited over a thousand times. So, I thought that was pretty impressive. Thank you. And being a neuroscientist, I know you understand the brain, and with Alzheimer’s, everything goes on in the brain with this disease. Uh, the disease takes over your brain. So, I thought you’d be a great person to talk to to go over some of the new research that’s happening that I think a lot of people are interested in. Um, but first before we get into all of this new research, I want to go over what Alzheimer’s disease is, how it interacts in the brain, and, you know, help people understand it. So, can you just explain in simple terms what Alzheimer’s disease is, and what it does in the brain? Alzheimer’s disease is a ner degenerative disease that usually happens in older adults. However, it can happen in younger or middle-aged adults as well, especially if you have certain genetic mutations. And you develop this pathology in the brain that’s called uh amalloid plaques as well as neuropibrillary tangles. And so there’s lots of things that happen in our brain normally to keep it healthy. And when we sleep at night, there’s processes that help clean up the waste in our brain. Unfortunately, with age, sometimes uh things don’t get cleaned up quite as well. and also proteins can misfold in the brain and start to aggregate and uh perpetuate these neurodeenerative uh disorders. So the amaloid plaque it kind of gathers in different parts of our brain sometimes you were saying it takes over the brain and then what does this do? Why does it all of a sudden cause memory issues? Yeah. So you have part of your brain um in your temporal loes here called your hippocampus and that’s very important for learning and memory and a lot of the pathology can start near that hippocampus which is why we see deficits in learning and memory in patients with Alzheimer’s disease but as the disease progresses that can go to other areas of the brain as well. Um it causes the neurons to not function properly and eventually those neurons die. So you start getting shrinkage of the brain and as it spreads to other parts of the brain you can have other symptoms as well in Alzheimer’s disease. You know in addition to the memory deficits there can be changes in mood uh certain psychiatric symptoms uh changes in activity levels uh abnormalities in sleep. So that’s why we want to attack the amaloid lack. Okay. So I want to go over some of the things we’ll discuss today. We’ll discuss a vitamin that could help reduce Alzheimer’s disease or maybe slow the progression. We’ll discuss the immune system to fight Alzheimer’s. Current amalloid plaque treatments. We’ll go over PET imaging so we can identify the amoid plaque in our brain. Uh also weight loss drugs. So L uh GLP-1 drugs and Alzheimer’s disease. And then lifestyle factors. Um, you know, I I think that was really interesting when we’ve had some studies about if you just change a few things in your lifestyle that could decrease your chance of getting the disease or improve cognitive function. So, I thought that was really interesting. So, let’s first start with this vitamin study. Um, I thought this was really interesting. Our reporter in Atlanta, Abby Casaurus, she did a story on what’s called the Benfo team clinical trial. So she spoke with neurologist James Law from Emory University’s Brain Health Institute and they’re talking about benotamine if that if that’s how you say it. I’ve heard it pronounced a lot of different ways. There’s lots of different ways to say it. I often say benodium benotamine. There’s lots of way I say I’ve heard it pronounced like five different ways. So however you want to say it is fine. But can you explain what that is? Yes. Uh many of our listeners have probably heard of vitamin B1 or thymine. We get that naturally in our diet. Benodamine is uh related to thymine very closely. Your body converts it similarly uh to act as thymine in the body. However, it’s a fat soluble version rather than regular B1 which is water soluble. And what that means for our listeners is that it’s more readily absorbed and retained in the body. So it can pack more of a punch than regular dietary B1. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s an interesting study because, you know, with a vitamin, I hope that it would be a cheaper treatment than some of these other treatments that are out there currently that are very expensive. And I know that can be detrimental for people if they’re trying to afford it, get their insurance to cover it. Maybe their insurance covers part of it, but you know, cost is a big factor in a lot of this. So, my hope is that since something like that is basically already on the market, it’s something that could be affordable. We don’t know. Um, but that’s my hope for it. Now, our reporter Abby Casures, she did a story on this, so I want to listen to her a little bit. She’s broke down some of the statistics, particularly on Alzheimer’s in the South and Southeast. Some of the highest rates of Alzheimer’s disease are in the South and the Southeast. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates there are more than 180,000 Georgians living with Alzheimer’s and more than 340,000 caregivers. That number expected to double by 2050. researchers are trying to come up with ways to treat or slow the progression of the disease. So, I think Abby really brought home how many people this impacts. Um, both of my grandmothers had Alzheimer’s disease and unfortunately passed away. I think everybody at this point knows someone or has a loved one that has Alzheimer’s disease. She said it’s expected to double by 2050, which I think part of the reason for that is we’re diagnosing it more, which is good. Um, but we don’t know if it’s just diagnosing it more or if it’s happening more. You know, I think that’s something we’re still trying to figure out. Um, so with the potential of the Benotene clinical trial, you know, what have we seen so far with that? You know, I think a lot of people are reaching for that hope. They want to hold on to something that will give them a cure, an answer, uh, treatment in some way. Yes. One uh one study that was published thus far on benodamine uh gave it to individuals twice a day for a year and they found a significant reduction in cognitive decline just taking this vitamin twice a day a day twice a day. They took 300 mg twice a day. The good news was side effects were very low especially compared to other um other drugs on the market for Alzheimer’s disease. So to be clear this is not a FDA approved medication. definitely need to talk to your doctor. Don’t just go out and buy this vitamin. Um, you know, it’s something you need to talk to your doctor because we don’t know the side effects. That’s the thing with anything like this. That’s why you have it in a clinical trial so you can look at the side effects. Um, but it’s interesting. Yeah, it it is very interesting and a lot of people are curious what the mechanism here is. We do know that regular B1 is very important in the brain. If you don’t have enough B1, that can cause a variety of learning and memory issues even outside of Alzheimer’s disease. So, it’s actually not that surprising that B1 might be a great therapy for uh for learning and memory issues such as an Alzheimer’s disease. There are there are some studies showing that individuals with Alzheimer’s disease may have lower absorption of normal dietary B1 which is why this benodamine which is more readily absorbed in the body uh could be a great alternative to just regular regular dietary B1. That was going to be one of my questions. Why are we having it in this form rather than vitamin B1? Yes, regular vitamin B1 is water soluble um which is your body does uh take it in but it doesn’t retain it quite as long. Uh benodium is very similar uh chemically however it is what’s called fat soluble and your body can retain it a little bit better. We still think in these clinical trials patients would have to take it daily if not twice a day to get the levels you want. But thus far the data has been very promising that it’s readily absorbed into the body and uh you can see it on blood tests then when they measure it. Uh so it it is being absorbed, it’s circulating and we’re seeing these uh reductions in cognitive decline. So it is very promising. We still still need to finish some more clinical trials. And again, as you said, it could be a lot cheaper than other medications for Alzheimer’s disease. That’s the hope. All right. I want to show people where this clinical trial is happening. So, you can see in our area, it’s over down here in Charleston and in Georgia, but it’s also happening all across the country. You can see over here in California, Arizona, you have over here, I think that’s either Washington or Oregon, and then obviously a lot in the Northeast and the uh Detroit area over there, too. So, um yeah, if we’re interested, we’ll have a link to it in our show notes. We’ll also have Aby’s story in our show notes as well. So, let’s move on next to using the immune system to fight off Alzheimer’s. I already talked with you previously on this story and I found it so interesting because it’s kind of like the idea of amunotherapy where we’re trying to get our own immune system to attack the amaloid plaque. So explain what we found with this research. Yeah, there’s a few lines of research trying to use the immune system to directly fight Alzheimer’s disease. Some of this originally stemmed from cancer research that there are certain medications now for cancer that uh get the immune system to better attack the cancer through uh TIM 3 uh through through uh TIM 3 in the body. But what’s interesting is this is also expressed in the brain and you have immune cells in the brain that are called micro ga and those tend to be more active when you’re young in development and they’re sometimes less active the more you age and unfortunately then they’re not always effectively attacking the Alzheimer’s pathology in the brain those plaques that we talked about. And the idea is that either with an amunotherapy like this or if we can find a way to directly activate those micro GA in the brain, those brain immune cells, they might be able to better directly fight the Alzheimer’s pathology. All right. Well, let’s hope it works, you know, as we continue to study that. But very interesting. I mean, anything where we can use our own immune system. Um, I was talking to a co-orker the other day about CARD T- cell therapy, if you’re familiar with that and using that in amunotherapy for brain cancer. So any way we can you know teach our own body to fight off I think is really cool. Let’s next talk about the current treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. We have doanamab and lanamab which is also known as lmbi. Now um I previously did a story on this. So we’ll hear from Dr. Abshire in just a little bit but first I want to talk to you about these treatments. So how do these work? these uh these treatments are antibodies that are meant to directly attack the pathology in Alzheimer’s disease. So until these medications came out, most of the treatments were focused on managing symptoms and those treatments still have a role in the therapy for Alzheimer’s disease, but they weren’t stopping the progression of the disease. The hope is that these antibbody treatments might actually slow the progression or maybe even stop the progression of the disease because it attacks the amoid plaque and actually makes a shrink. Is this a cure? I would not be comfortable calling it a cure yet. Uh I hope that we are on our way to a cure. Um we are seeing some really promising results with these medications and slowing the progression of the disease. uh but I it it varies in how effective it is patient to patient and also it’s more effective when it started earlier in the disease. Okay. And so I spoke with neurologist Dr. Robert Abshire about this treatment. Um he said it’s not for everybody and there are some side effects. So let’s uh we’ll pull that up and listen. These bleeding complications and swelling complications are really uh you know a concern for all prescribers. uh uh they are do seem to be uncommon in the sense that about I think it was 12% of the subjects in in one study had the bleeding complications. Dr. Abshire says this is why patients must have extensive testing beforehand to make sure they are not more susceptible to complications. They would have to have an MRI scan uh completed within one year and then they would go through the cognitive screening to sort of see what their baseline is. All right. So, he was talking about the brain swelling complications. Do we know why that happens when you take this drug? In some cases, it it’s complicated, but as you can imagine, in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, there’s a variety of different things going on in their brain. They may also have some other risk factors, whether it’s vascular disease, high blood pressure, cholesterol, and there are some patients that are more um more susceptible to that as well. So these drugs although they’re very promising and exciting uh there are some serious risk factors. So it’s very important to have a full workup and make sure this is an appropriate medication for the individual. Okay. Obviously talk to your doctor see if this is the best treatment option for you. But yeah very interesting. And now this kind of leads into the next topic I want to discuss. It’s called Visil. So this is PET imaging um that you can look at the amalloid plaque that’s in your brain. So it’s my understanding this has been out for a while. we just got at Bons Secor in Greenville. So I got the chance to talk with a certified nuclear medicine technologist about this. And so she said basically how it works is um an agent is put in through an IV and that travels up to your brain and kind of latches on to the amoid plaque that’s in your brain and what it does is it allows a PET scan to then see that amalloid plaque that’s in your brain. Um I thought this was very interesting. I said you know is this something that anyone should get? you know, like once you reach I don’t know, I have a family history of Alzheimer’s. When I’m 60 years old, should I get this? She said, “Talk to your doctor about.” Um, is that a question she could answer? Um, but what do you think of this technology? I think this technology is very exciting. Uh, I I share the concerns about not everyone getting it right away. Uh, because although although it is very safe, you know, and I’ll play a sound bite from her in a minute, but yeah. Yeah. Although it is very safe, uh there you know it’s it’s a tool in the diagnostic process. So there is not one test yet that confirms Alzheimer’s disease. To do a proper workup, your doctor’s going to do a variety of tests. They’re going to do cognitive tests, a variety of cognitive tests. They’re going to take a history of how you’re doing. Also probably talk to your family members about how you’re doing. They’re going to do some blood work to rule out some other uh diagnoses. And even if it’s clear that you have some form of a neurocognitive um disorder, there’s a variety of different types of dementia. And it’s very important to figure out the right type of dementia for that diagnosis. They’re not all Alzheimer’s disease. There’s other types. And uh you want to figure out the right one to make inform the proper treatment plan. For example, if you have vascular dementia instead of Alzheimer’s disease, the treatment plan might be a little bit different. But brain imaging is definitely one component of this diagnostic process. So it’s very exciting that that technology is evolving and especially that we now have it here in Greenville. Yeah. And I know with the new drugs out there, you want to be able to measure is the amloid plaque shrinking or with a vitamin you want to be able to measure is amoid plaque shrinking. So for me, I thought this was a neat technology to help us measure the effectiveness of various drugs and treatments. Um, so I thought it was very interesting. Now I spoke with Jennifer Delisanti about the safety of this type of um, imaging because I think anytime somebody hears, you know, CAT scan, PET scan, X-ray, they might think, you know, what does that do to my body? So I did ask her just about the safety side of this. And here’s it is very controlled. It’s minimal. Uh, we monitor the patient when they come in and out to make sure that the lowest amount is achieved for exposure. So it is incredibly safe. It will also leave the body over time because it is not a contrast. So according to her, yeah, very uh very controlled and that it is safe for patients, but I think it’s still something that, you know, it’s only been around for a certain amount of time and the more patients that use it, the more we’ll understand, you know, uh exactly how safe it is. But yeah, good that we have the imaging technology out there to see the amaloid plaque. So next, let’s go over GLP-1 drugs and Alzheimer’s disease. So another term for this is the weight loss drugs, ompic, you know, mangaro, all of those. So a large uh metaanalysis of 26 preclinical studies found that these types of drugs actually improved learning and memory in Alzheimer’s disease rodent models, which I think is important. It wasn’t in human. Yes, this is only in rodents, which is usually, you know, the first they test it out in rodents and then it’d be in humans. Um, but what did you think of that? I think this is very exciting. These drugs are now being studied in so many different ways. They’ve been used for a long time for type 2 diabetes. Now, people are using them for obesity and we’re seeing all sorts of um effects in individuals using them that might be important for different psychiatric or neurodeenerative disorders. So, I think it’s great that we’re studying this for different brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Uh, I appreciate so much how you emphasize these are pre-clinical trials because unfortunately, uh, there are many many promising therapies that have emerged from rodent models of Alzheimer’s, but then don’t fully translate. So, uh, don’t take weight loss drugs for Alzheimer’s. I I think that’s about Oh, and there are some there are some side effects. I I did look into this and there was a systematic review published last year looking at what do we know in people so far with these GLP-1 medications for Alzheimer’s disease and uh the good news is that they do seem uh to have some neuroprotective effects in keeping the neurons somewhat healthy having healthy metabolism uh for the for your neurons in your brain. Uh unfortunately, we’re not seeing yet as robust uh effects on cognition um in the human trials as we are in the pre-clinical trials, but I wouldn’t rule out the GLP-1 medications just yet. I think we need more more studies and even if it doesn’t cure the disease, as you know, we have a variety of treatments that can be valuable in the treatment approach and there’s a possibility that this could be one of them down the line. Do you think some of the benefits we’ve seen so far from these weight loss drugs, do you think that’s just like a ripple effect of people getting healthier or do you think that’s actually the drug itself? That’s a great question and I don’t think we have enough data to know for sure yet. I think it could be both. We do know that if you are unhealthy uh that is not good for your brain and your body and so just getting a healthier body weight and then especially you do need to have good nutrition. You don’t want to just not eat. Um, you need to have good nutrition even on these medications. Being healthier can improve your brain. However, there are also receptors in your brain that that medication can directly affect. You have lots of of these receptors all throughout your body and your brain. And so, this also could be acting directly in your brain to change some neuronal processes. So, it’s possible um it’s not just making you healthy, it’s actually impacting impacting activity in your brain. All right. Well, next we’ll move on to lifestyle factors and improving cognition. So, this one was really interesting. I spoke with the Alzheimer’s Association about it. There is a international conference that just happened not too long ago and I want to play a little bit from Katherine Lambert. She is the regional vice president for the Alzheimer’s Association and I was talking to her about this conference as well as talking to her about uh just what this recent study found on lifestyle factors. The Alzheimer’s Association uh international research conference brings together thousands of researchers from around the globe to talk about all aspects of of how we all work together to ultimately end Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Now, Katherine Lambert is the regional vice president for the Alzheimer’s Association in the Carolinas in Georgia. She says there is promising research on lifestyle changes and brain health. One study was conducted at Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina. It was a two-year clinical trial involving more than 2,000 older adults, the first of its kind. It found that increasing physical activity, nutrition, cognitive engagement, and health monitoring can reduce cognitive decline. When you look at that cognitive function and that testing, they were testing roughly one to two years younger in cognitive function than their actual age. So yeah, that was very interesting. She said people were testing roughly one to two years younger in cognitive function than their actual age. Um, just to explain it again, there’s two groups. There’s the structured lifestyle intervention group and then the self-guided lifestyle intervention group. So, she was talking about the structured lifestyle intervention group, which I see it as like a prescription lifestyle type thing where basically the doctor was very involved in these peer meetings and telling them what to do with their lifestyle, how to work out, um, basically prescribing activity and designing a program. So, it’s a lot of involvement. I thought the other thing that’s important to mention about this study is most of these people were already somewhat unhealthy. So they maybe were overweight or didn’t exercise very often. Um so it wasn’t your typical s super healthy person. It it was somebody who was already um didn’t have the best lifestyle and they were just trying to help them improve it and they saw uh great benefits from it. So I know you work in lifestyle medicine as well at the university. So what did you think of this one? I think this is a very exciting area of research and as you said at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville we teach lifestyle medicine through all four years of medical training for these future physicians so that way they can incorporate these evidence-based lifestyle modifications to help both prevention and treatment of disease. And as you noted in this study, they had both a structured intervention group as well as a control group which was a self-guided lifestyle intervention. And to for our viewers to know it it is somewhat intense to go through the more structured. You’re exercising multiple times a week, aerobic exercise, some strength training, flexibility as well. Uh they’re on uh a specific diet, the MIND diet, which is been shown to be helpful in What is the Mind diet? Yeah, the Mind Great question. The Mind Diet is a low sodium version of the Mediterranean diet that emphasizes eating lots of leafy greens, whole foods, fruits and vegetables, um especially fresh berries, and you want to reduce how much red meat you’re eating. Um not have too much butter, those I’ll have to find a link to that as well. So, people want to learn more. That’s super interesting. And the other thing that I think is noteworthy here is their control group uh didn’t get nothing. They got the uh they were encourage they were given some educational materials that were publicly available and they were encouraged to you know try to do something that might fit their lifestyle and there were some improvements in that group. They weren’t uh nearly as as substantial as those in the structured lifestyle intervention. But that’s encouraging that even small changes in your daily lifestyle can have meaningful impacts in protecting against cognitive decline as you age. Super cool. So yeah, hopefully this is something they could start using like doctors could actually start using this, right? Absolutely. And I’d love to share with your listeners as well. There was another study done by uh Dr. Ornish that did intensive lifestyle change. So in the study we were just talking about those were older adults that were at risk for Alzheimer’s but weren’t diagnosed with Alzheimer’s yet. Uh Dr. Ornish did a study with actual Alzheimer’s patients um trying to figure out if we can slow the progression or even reverse the disease. and they did similar structured uh interventions. They did a whole food plant-based diet where the participants were provided all of their meals and lots of leafy greens, again, fruits and vegetables, lots of whole grains, no ultrarocessed food, no meat, no refined oils. And so, it’s a little bit of a different diet, but still a very healthy plantforward diet. They did very structured exercise. They also gave stress management, um some vitamins as well as some support for both the caretakers and the patients. And what was neat, they found, um again, these are patients that have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. They saw improvements on three different cognitive measures for um doing this only for less than a year’s time. And uh also they did a measure of a pathology you can do from a blood test and uh they actually saw reductions in um in that pathology from the test. So this these lifestyle interventions have cognitive improvements and they also might even uh slow or start to reverse the course of the disease. Very interesting. I’ll have to have you send me that link as well. Um but you were saying this is plant-based. I think there’s a big debate right now about meat. I still like to have my steak. I’m on the side of I think we do need a lot of protein. Um but I see it as maybe some people could benefit. I don’t know kind of where do you see that? Like from this study people might say, “Oh, I need to cut out meat.” Um kind of what do you think? Yeah. So the data are very strong that the more fruits and vegetables you eat and reducing processed foods is good for your brain and your body. Okay. So, fruits and vegetables first do that as much as you can. If you want the biggest bang for your buck, doing a completely whole food plant-based diet does seem to have very strong effects. Although, there also are data showing that the Mediterranean diet, which includes fish as well as any meat like chicken, is healthy. Uh, I’m not saying if you love steak, I’m not going to tell you you can’t ever have steak again. But um any progress towards reducing red meat and especially processed meat like hot dogs, sausage are not good for the body. No pepperoni there. It’s really not good for you. Yeah. Um but you know, I don’t want to scare listeners away because any step towards eating healthier can have significant effects on the body. So if you’re not eating fruits and vegetables, that’s a great place to start. Or more of them. Yeah. Or eat most people get a little bit, but just trying to get more of them into your diet. And the same with the whole grains. If you eat a lot of refined carbs with your breads, pastas, if you can start to switch some of those out to whole grains, uh that fiber is very important. Um it’s uh your GI system in your gut there. The you have lots of bacteria that are good bacteria, but there’s also bad bacteria in your gut. And that fiber is so important for the good bacteria to flourish, and that helps your body better absorb the nutrients that you need to be healthy. All right. Well, you kind of got to my last question, which is what should people be doing right now? I think about this because, yeah, my grandmother has had Alzheimer’s. I know I’m still young, but some people are getting it early on, early onset Alzheimer’s. Kind of freaks me out, you know? I I forget one thing and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, what’s going on?” You know? Um, so we kind of talked about diet. Anything else? Any other advice you’d have for people if they’re just trying to take simple steps? maybe they have a family history or maybe they’re just diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. Um some things they can do that maybe could help. Great question. I would say for for everyone these lifestyle modifications are so powerful uh in a for a variety of disorders both Alzheimer’s other neurodeenerative disorders and also uh a lot of disorders that people have chronic conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes. these lifestyle factors uh can both slow and potentially even reverse those disorders. So, start by again including more fruits and vegetables in your diet. Cut out some of those ultrarocessed foods, the the cake, the Twinkies, the the extra sugars. Um you know, don’t eat so much processed meat. Try to have some healthier versions of that. Exercise is very big. Physical activity. If you don’t enjoy structured exercise, that’s okay. I personally don’t like running. You know, if you put me on the track, that’s not going to go well. Um, but if whether you’re gardening, going for a walk, or hike with your friends, take the dog out, things like that are all great. Uh, stress management is very big. A lot of Americans are living with chronic stress, and that chronic stress uh can make your brain uh not work as well. And so if you want to protect against Alzheimer’s, uh maybe do do some mindfulness. Even fi starting with five minutes of a mindful meditation a day can be great. Maybe try a yoga class. Um and then I want to emphasize the importance of social connection. These days so many of us, we’re both connected and not at the same time. We’re all on our phones or the internet. Yeah, feel connected, but we rarely get to actually talk face to face with people. And there’s more and more research coming out that that social connection is very important for brain health and uh happiness long term as well. I’ve definitely heard about that that if you have a social group um that might determine how long you live just as much as your overall health. Um and that that’s very interesting that yeah there there’s even been some studies uh that are im trying to image the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease and there’s some individuals that they’ve seen the pathology through uh imaging but they’re not seeing the cognitive effects and so that’s an active area of research. Um so so you have Alzheimer’s based on like the PET scan but you’re not showing signs of it. Yes. And the idea the I could have Alzheimer’s right now, you know. Well, it’s not Alzheimer’s if there’s no uh significant impairment with your life. Okay. But you you you’re starting to have those bra some there are some people that are having those brain changes as they’re older, but they’re not showing the behavioral signs, the changes in learning and memory. And it’s thought that this is especially seen in individuals that have higher levels of education and maintain activity throughout their life. So if you use your brain a lot, if you stay active, stay engaged socially, if you eat healthy, it’s thought that that can actually buffer against some of that pathology and Alzheimer’s disease. They call them the brain games, right? You know, so social having a social group, brain games, just trying to test your brain, you know, like just don’t sit there and be a couch potato, I guess, find ways to engage any way you can to engage. And then you talk about lifestyle, diet, exercise, all of that. So super interesting. Well, thank you so much for joining us today and being on the Wellness Files podcast. Um, I really learned a lot today. I think this was very helpful for people out there who, you know, might have family history. Maybe they’re just curious. Who knows? So, thank you so much for having me, Carrie. It was an honor. All right. And I also want to thank Abby Casurus, uh, from Atlanta. She contributed to this podcast, and we will have a link to all of the things that we talked about, all the studies. I’ll have a link to the Benfo clinical trial and the map of where you can uh see where all those trials are happening. Um and then yeah, if there’s anything you ever want me to cover, just let me know. My name is Carrie Beal and you can send me an email, you can subscribe, you can comment any way you want to give your feedback, we welcome it. So, thank you so much. Thank you. [Music]
