A Precision Medicine Approach to Alzheimer’s Disease

Nourish Balance Thrive

Family physician Deborah Gordon, MD is the founder and Medical Director of the Northwest Memory Center in Ashland, Oregon. Her decades-long practice has revolved around healthy and adoptable lifestyle choices that impact the development of health problems, with a more recent focus on choices that affect cognitive health and neurodegenerative disease. Deborah has been on the podcast before to talk about autoimmunity, and she’s with me today to discuss her new study, currently in the peer review process, in which potential contributors to cognitive decline are identified and targeted therapeutically.

​On this podcast, Deborah discusses the potential for using a precision medicine approach to Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment. Inspired by the work of physician and author Dr Dale Bredesen, Deborah has been working with patients to identify and treat root causes, including environmental exposures and infections, while promoting many of the lifestyle changes we talk about all the time on this podcast. The results are astounding, and call into question the current standard of care for Alzheimer’s.

Here’s the outline of this interview with Deborah Gordon:

[00:01:10] Deborah’s previous appearance on the podcast: How to Fix Autoimmunity in the over 50s.

[00:01:23] Deborah's interest in cognitive decline.

[00:01:38] Dale Bredesen, MD; The Buck Institute for Research on Aging.

[00:02:56] Tommy Wood, MD; Video: Systems Analysis and Multiple Sclerosis – Physicians for Ancestral health Symposium, 2015.

[00:03:31] Anne Hathaway, MD; Podcast: The Critical Role of Oestradiol for Women’s Cognition.

[00:03:45] Dr. Bredesen's study: Bredesen, Dale E. "Reversal of cognitive decline: a novel therapeutic program." Aging (Albany NY) 6.9 (2014): 707.

[00:05:54] Dr. Gordon's new paper: Toups, Kat, et al. "Precision Medicine Approach to Alzheimer's Disease: Successful Proof-of-Concept Trial." medRxiv (2021).

[00:06:07] Cognitive decline.

[00:07:20] Alz.org.

[00:10:53] Objective measures of cognition.

[00:11:51] Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA).

[00:13:47] CNS Vital Signs; Lumosity, Brain-HQ.

[00:19:09] The conventional standard of care for cognitive impairment.

[00:21:10] Medications for Alzheimer's.

[00:27:27] IntellxxDNA.

[00:29:20] Josh Turknett, MD; Josh on the NBT podcast: 1, 2, 3, 4.

[00:33:58] 4-Quadrant Model.

[00:41:24] Podcast: The Postmenopausal Longevity Paradox and the Evolutionary Advantage of Our Grandmothering Life History, with Kristen Hawkes, PhD.

[00:45:00] Toxic exposures and infections; mold remediation.

[00:48:45] Dr. Lyn Patrick, ND.

[01:01:53] Dr. Bredesen’s site: Apollo Health.

[01:03:49] Facebook: Dale Bredesen and The Official Bredesen Protocol Support Group.

[01:04:11] Dr. Bredesen's books: 1. The End of Alzheimer's: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline 2. The End of Alzheimer's Program: The First Protocol to Enhance Cognition and Reverse Decline at Any Age 3. The First Survivors of Alzheimer's: How Patients Recovered Life and Hope in Their Own Words.

[01:05:22] Where to find Deborah: Drdeborahmd.com; Northwest Wellness & Memory Center; Facebook.