What You Need To Do To Help Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease

The Girlfriend Doctor w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca

Women have a greater risk of having Alzheimer’s Disease when we get older than men. Alzheimer’s starts in the brain, so it’s important to protect our brain health from an early age. Dr. Lisa Mosconi joins us to talk about Alzheimer’s, brain health, and women’s changing bodies through menopause.

Lisa is Italian, living in America, and holds two PhDs in Neuroscience and Nuclear Medicine. She’s the author of two books, The XX Brain (coming soon) and Brain Food. As a certified Integrative Nutritionist, Lisa promotes eating a Mediterranean diet to have, not just a healthier body, but a healthy brain.

You should start looking after your brain health right away. If you haven’t been eating for health, it’s time to start. The brain is so important to our bodies and they begin deteriorating almost as soon as we start forgetting things.

Women are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than men because of our estrogen levels, which is necessary for optimal brain health, begin to decrease when we go through menopause.

Lisa talks about why physicians should use an integrative medical approach to women’s health to have maximum impact, prevent overlap, and get a clearer sense of what’s going on in your body. Lisa explains what you can start doing right now to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease from developing when you get older.

Women who have their ovaries removed are at higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease earlier in life. Plus, the symptoms typically associated with menopause, such as hot flashes, night sweats, memory fog, and even stress, all start in the brain. Lisa discusses why this happens to our brains and bodies.

Lisa talks about the role of progesterone in our bodies and how important it is for our brain health. Then, lastly, she returns to the concept of what we eat and says the single greatest thing we can do for our health is to eat at least one large salad every day.

Do you eat a salad a day? How do you keep your brain healthy and active? Are you in menopause or perimenopause?

In This Episode:

• How a Mediterranean diet can help your brain be healthier
• When you should start looking after your brain
• What happens to our bodies when our brains start forgetting
• Why more women have Alzheimer’s Disease than men
• How an integrative medical approach can make a more positive impact on your overall body health
• What you need to do to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease
• What happens to your brain’s physiology when you go through menopause
• What the role of progesterone is in our bodies
• Why you should eat at least one salad every day

Quotes:

“Estrogen makes your brain produce energy.” (12:24)

“Women develop Alzheimer’s earlier and that eventually leads to higher prevalence and death.” (16:28)

“20% of women physically don’t suffer from menopause, they have no hot flashes, night sweats, nothing. Whereas 80% of women have some brain signs of menopause. Some women only have hot flashes, but most women have a combination of things.” (38:49)

Links

Buy The XX Brain

Find Dr. Lisa Mosconi Online

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Check out the full episode page

Find Dr. Anna Online

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