The Alzheimer's Warning Nobody Gave Us

Johanna breaks down a conversation from the unPaused podcast that every woman in midlife needs to hear. Dr. Louisa Nicola — neurophysiologist and Alzheimer's researcher — explains why almost two thirds of Alzheimer's patients are women, why the disease starts building in your thirties and forties, and what the research actually says you can do about it right now.

- unPaused Podcast episode: thepauselife.com 

- instagram.com/louisanicola_

Transcript

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Middle has come and honey or nobody's full. Come and sing along.

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Hello, my friends, and welcome back to Not Your Mother's Midlife. I'm your host, Joanna, and today I want to share something I listened to recently. Um, and it was an episode of the Unpaused podcast with Dr. Mary Claire Haver, where she sat down with a neurophysiologist and Alzheimer's researcher named Dr. Louisa Nicola, and I wanted to share it with you. What I didn't know and what I learned from this episode is that almost two-thirds of everyone living with Alzheimer's dementia is a woman. Two-thirds. And you might be thinking, well, that's just probably because women live longer, so that makes sense. Longevity is part of the picture, but it is not the whole explanation. There is something specifically happening in women's bodies and women's brains during perimenopause and menopause that is driving the risk up. And it's not being talked about, not nearly enough. So that's what uh today's episode is going to be about. I'm going to walk you through what I took from the conversation. Um, of course, I'll share it in the show notes. And I want to say straight away that this episode is not all doom and gloom because there is action that you can take. Research back, good news in here as well. Okay, so let's get to it. Dr. Louisa Nicola is a clinical neurophysiologist and Alzheimer's researcher who trained at the University of Sydney Medical School. Excuse my voice if it sounds a bit strangled today. I um I was around um a cat and all my allergies have like flared up. My nose is running and my throat is kind of tight, so bear with me. Anyway, back to you, so Dr. Louisa Nicola. She relocated to New York to work alongside world-class neurosurgeons and has spent over 13 years studying the brain from the operating room to the research lab. She's also a former elite triathlete, which matters because when she talks about exercise and brain health, she's not just speaking theoretically. She lives it, she studies it. And the way she explains it makes it accessible, which is not easy when you're talking about neuroscience. The thing that surprised me most in the episode is that Alzheimer's disease does not suddenly appear at 70. It starts quietly in our 30s and 40s, building up over a 30-year progression before any symptoms become visible over 30 years. It's kind of scary, I know. That means that the window we're in right now, in perimenopause and menopause, our 40s or 50s, it's not too late to do something right now because the changes in our bodies now are either setting us up for protection or setting us up for vulnerability decades before anything shows up on a scan or symptoms. And here is why menopause specifically matters for the brain. Estrogen, progesterone, and other female hormones, yes, we're back to that subject of hormones, actually help keep certain toxic proteins in check. Proteins that when they accumulate are directly linked to the development of Alzheimer's. When estrogen drops, that protection is reduced. Estrogen also supports the brain's ability to use glucose for fuel and maintain the connections between brain cells that allow us to think, allow us to remember, allow the brain to actually function as it should. So when the scaffolding shifts during menopause, the brain becomes more vulnerable in ways most of us have never been told before about. This is why brain fog, um, trying to find that word, you know, like forgetting words. The moment you start forgetting things that you never used to forget, but these are not just normal aging, they are hormonal signals. Your brain is telling you something has changed, and what you do in response really does matter at this point. Sleep. That's one of the most important things Dr. Nicola covers. The brain actually has its own waste clearing system that runs most actively during sleep, deep sleep. This is when it flushes out the accumulated proteins associated with Alzheimer's. You can refer back to my episode on sleep for more in-depth sleep help. But every night of disrupted sleep is a night that that process doesn't run properly. And for women in perimenopause dealing with night sweats, waking up at 4 a.m., um just broken sleep, this is not a small issue. It is a brain health issue. Then there's exercise and specifically resistance training. Dr. Nicola is currently pursuing her doctorate studying the effects of resistance exercise on brain health. Lifting weights doesn't just build muscle and protect your bones, it actually leads to structural changes in the brain. Studies show it increases the size of the hippocampus, that's the brain's memory center, and the first area affected by Alzheimer's. If you need one more reason to pick up weights, there it is. She also covers omega fatty acids, creatine for the brain health and managing chronic stress, because chronically elevated cortisol is directly damaging to the memory center of the brain. And the conversation around hormones and whether hormone replacement therapy has a role in cognitive protection. That last one is a discussion more doctors need to be having with their patients, and it connects directly to everything we've talked about in previous episodes about hormone replacement therapy or HRT. But the thread running through all of this is that there is not just one brain health protocol. It is the same foundation that we keep repeating sleep, resistance training, nutrition, stress management, hormones. I came away from the episode feeling unsettled by the statistics because the timeline starts earlier than most of us ever realize, as I said before, and really motivated to share this because this is one of those health conversations where you don't worry about feeling helpless. You walk away with a list of things you can actually do right now. I will link the episode in the show notes. It's the episode called Understanding Your Brain Through Perimenopause and Menopause. Go listen to it. This one deserves a bigger audience. So please share. And thank you for listening. Please follow, rate, and leave me a comment. It really does help my show to grow and so this message can reach more people. I really appreciate those of you that have already done this. Until next week, I'm Joanna, and hopefully my voice sounds better. And this is not your mother's midlife. Bye.