Navigating Neurodegeneration: A Personal Journey

Did you know dementia begins in the brain decades before symptoms start showing up? We can see changes in brain scans 30 or 40 years before forgetfulness and other disconcerting symptoms creep in. But I’ve seen so many patients overcome symptoms of brain dysfunction through the right diet and lifestyle changes. If our actions can have that much power to reverse some forms of brain illness, why aren’t we talking more about using them for prevention?  I’ve seen people with genetic predispositions avoid a diagnosis altogether by living a conscious life. 

That’s exactly what my guest and good friend, Max Lugavere, and I get into on this week’s episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy. Max lost his mom last year to a rare disease called Lewy body dementia, which comes along with the neurodegenerative and physical symptoms of both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Max is a filmmaker, health, and science journalist and the author of the New York Times bestselling book Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life. He is also the host of the #1 iTunes health podcast The Genius Life. Max is excited to release his sophomore book, The Genius Life: Heal Your Mind, Strengthen Your Body, and Become Extraordinary, a lifestyle guide to living happily and healthily with proven, research-based lifestyle tactics, which we dig into more throughout this episode.

This episode is brought to you by Lumen, Thrive Market, and Farmacy.

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Here are more of the details from our interview: 

• How Max’s mother’s illnesses as well as her life and death inspire him to become an expert how how to fix your brain (5:56)

• The interconnectedness of our brains, our cognition, our emotional wellness and our gut health, hormones, heart health, and more (11:19)

• The effects of natural and artificial light on the body and the brain (16:18)

• The importance of our body’s relationship to temperature and how to activate our thermoregulatory pathways (22:20)

• Nature as medicine and how air pollution affects cognitive function (27:54)

• Vitamin D, its connection to Alzheimer’s and depression, and how to get optimal levels (32:04)

• Fasting, intermittent fasting, and early time restricted eating (43:43)

• The connection between brain health and exercise, the benefits of resistance training, how muscle supports the body, and high intensity interval training (50:21)

• Max’s new book The Genius Life and his 21-Day plan for genius living to help us reset our brain and body to its factory settings  (59:11)

• Healing our relationship to food and the importance of avoiding ultra processed foods (1:02:24)

• Learn more about Max at https://www.maxlugavere.com/ and follow him on Facebook @MaxLugavere and on Instagram @maxlugavere.

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