Transcript Of Today's Episode
Dr.Martin Jr:[00:00:00]Hey, it's Dr. Martin jr here. And I just wanted to share with you quickly, something that I've come across quite frequently in research. the last, you know, probably few weeks that have really caught my attention it really has to do with this what you do in your forties, 50s, and sixties. Really determines how healthy your brain is going to be in your seventies and eighties. Now, my dad and I kind of talk a boat, a few things on a regular basis. And one of the observations that we've made throughout the years is, lifestyle habits when it comes to aging, lifestyle habits, smoking, heavy drinking and those kinds of things, really determines how.
Old, you look in [00:01:00] your forties 50s and 60s then. Muscle mass really determines how mobile you are in your seventies and then what you do in your forties 50s and 60s determines the health of your brain. So this is really something that has to do with anti-aging in whole. So remember, this is the graphic we've shared before, but.
As we age, there's a whole bunch of things that happens to us naturally. And the goal of anti-aging is to stop those things from happening or to slow the rate at which they're happening. And of course, one of the big problems with. Our brain as we age is the volume naturally shrinks. And again, that's a normal thing, but when it shrinks too much, then it's definitely correlated with a dimension Alzheimer’s.
I want to share with you what we call the six midlife. Brain killers. So six things that happen in midlife that will kill your brain, later in [00:02:00] life. So I'll go through these things quickly here. So the first thing has to do with muscles, and it's actually kind of interesting.
They found that, muscle mass determines a lot later on when it comes to risk of dementia. So again. You know, we've talked about this before on podcast episodes, in newsletters, but when you put on muscle in your midlife aside from a somosthetic stuff that goes along with that, it really comes back on the back end of our life and repays us.
you're putting on muscle now so that you can be healthy later on. You'll be more mobile. But also when it comes to your brain. So muscle mass in midlife is crucial for brain health later on, but so is muscle strength. you know, they've shown this, different studies have shown this, but stronger muscles definitely lead to a stronger brain.
So if you want to and look at the study, this was done in, In, in people that had already a [00:03:00] mild cognitive impairment, and they were kind of mid life and they found if they get their muscles stronger, their brain got stronger. And of course, this is a study that I came across and I found very interesting there is a direct to the, almost a brain leg access it to the health of your brain is tied in, in a lot of ways to your legs. So they found that. Leg exercises, specifically a weight bearing or resistant type of exercises actually led to the production of healthy neural cells. So think about the importance of leg exercises, leg muscle mass, going forward.
So everybody that goes to the gym hates leg days. every time you're doing leg exercise, just think that you're also doing brain exercises at the same time. So another big thing has to do with midlife blood pressure. A few studies show this over and over again. And here's an interesting one. So they found that higher blood pressure at midlife increases your risk for dementia.
But what's [00:04:00] interesting is that they found, so they made a note here, previous studies have found. That hypertension in midlife can increase the risk for dementia. But this study published here in the European heart journal found that your blood pressure doesn't even have to be diagnosis hypertension.
So it, it's something that they call high normal. So your blood pressure's normal, yet it's on the higher end of normal. So which begs a question, is it really considered normal? But it doesn't matter it, even if you're not quite diagnosed as hypertension, it can still increase your risk of dementia later in life.
Here's another one. Inflammation, midlife inflammation. So inflammation that you have in your forties 50s and 60s will definitely. Cause your brain to shrink faster as you age, therefore, increasing your risk of dementia and Alzheimer's. So again, very fascinating. And again, there's a lot of things that can cause information in midlife.
Everything from hormones to insulin to [00:05:00] stress, I mean, chemicals and leaky gut syndrome. There's so many things, but midlife inflammation. So if you're in your mid life. You want to definitely control that inflammation. and again, this is in relation to a lot of things, but inflammation is really what they call the accelerator of biological aging.
You age faster. And if you, the study looked at the effect that it had on everything from mitochondrial dysfunction to Alzheimer's, cardiovascular type two diabetes. At the end of the day, the more inflammation you have in mid life. The more you're going to age, it's bad news. Of course, insulin resistance is a big one.
Again, midlife insulin resistance leads to basically late-life brain amyloid accumulation, which there's a, you know, a lot of the studies done on Alzheimer's has to do with brain plaquing. So if you have insulin and midlife, you're putting more plaques in your brain, you're increasing your risk of Alzheimer’s.
Here's another big one as well. So [00:06:00] not only insulin, but. Blood sugar, and there's two studies I want to show you here. So if you have diabetes in your mid life, then your risk of. Alzheimer's goes up considerably. Also, high normal blood glucose, and this is another thing. So we're, we're seeing as a pattern here, even though they're considered normal, it's on the higher end of normal.
And when you have high normal blood glucose, your brain shrinks faster as you age. That's massive. So you're not even diabetic. You just have higher blood glucose levels or higher normal, and your brain is going to shrink faster, which again. Is going to set you up for some real failures. So let me just recap these things quickly.
High blood pressure shrinks your brain faster. High, normal blood sugar levels shrinks or blink brain foster high insulin puts plaque in your brain and many other studies show it also shrinks your brain faster. Midlife obesity shrinks your brain faster. Decreased muscle mass shrinks your [00:07:00] brain faster, decreased strength, shrinks your brain faster.
So these are all things that we can control in midlife right now. That can make a massive impact later in life. So if you've have been through our age proof, your brain training, then we have three-step program basically to help protect your brain, depending on where somebody's at.
But these are. What we recommend inside of that program. Again, if you haven't watched it, you can go to our website. It's for free on our website. Just sign up, watch the training, and we break down. we reverse engineer Alzheimer's, dementia. It's a great training. So again, thanks and have a great day.