The Dr. Jules Plant-Based Podcast

Fear and Hope: My Personal Journey with Alzheimer's

• Dr. Jules Cormier (MD) • Season 2 • Episode 84

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Fear can be a powerful motivator for change. In this deeply personal episode, I pull back the curtain on my greatest medical fear—Alzheimer's disease—and why it haunts me both professionally and personally. Having watched both my grandmothers lose themselves to dementia, including one who mistook me for her long-deceased husband when I was just a child, these experiences left emotional scars that continue to shape my approach to brain health.

As a physician who diagnosed seven patients with dementia this year alone, I've witnessed the devastating progression that robs people of their memories, independence, and ultimately, their sense of self. The average life expectancy after diagnosis is seven to ten years—many spent in confusion and decline. But amid this sobering reality, emerging science offers genuine hope. The evidence shows that up to 40% of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed through lifestyle interventions.

I break down the three most powerful evidence-based strategies for protecting your cognitive function. The MIND diet, which emphasizes berries, leafy greens, whole grains, and plant proteins while limiting animal products and processed foods, can reduce Alzheimer's risk by up to 53%. Physical activity protects memory centers in the brain, with just 30 minutes of daily movement associated with increased brain volume in critical memory regions. And quality sleep activates your brain's crucial cleaning system that removes the toxic proteins linked directly to Alzheimer's development. Together with stress management, social connection, and avoiding harmful substances, these approaches create a comprehensive brain protection strategy that improves your life today while safeguarding your cognitive future.

Ready to take control of your brain health? This episode provides the blueprint for making meaningful changes that benefit both your present quality of life and your long-term cognitive resilience. Share this episode with someone you love—because protecting the mind is truly an act of self-care and compassion.

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Speaker 1:

Hey everyone, welcome to Season 2 of the Dr Jules Plan-Based Podcast, where we discuss everything from plant-based nutrition to the main pillars of lifestyle medicine. Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Today's episode is a deeply personal one. I want to talk about Alzheimer's disease and why I'm scared of it. I want to talk about a disease that terrifies me, one that I see way too often in the clinic, one that affected my own family, and one that many people wrongly assume is just a normal part of aging. We're talking about Alzheimer's disease and, more broadly, dementia, and I want to be honest with you. This topic hits close to home. Let's start with the basics.

Speaker 1:

Alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia. Dementia isn't a single medical condition. It's a general term that we use to describe a decline in cognitive function that is severe enough to interfere with daily life. Now, memory loss is a common symptom of dementia, but dementia is more than that. Dementia affects thinking, language, judgment, orientation and even personality, and there are many different types of dementia, but the most common one by far is Alzheimer's disease. It probably accounts for roughly anywhere from 60 to 80% of all cases.

Speaker 1:

Now, although Alzheimer's dementia accounts for the vast majority of cases of dementia, there are many other different types, and the other types include vascular dementia. Now, vascular dementia often occurs after patients have had long-standing vascular risk factors like high blood pressure, diabetes or poorly controlled blood sugars, poorly controlled cholesterol, and these patients can either manifest symptoms of dementia after a massive stroke or after small recurrent strokes. Patients who smoke are also at higher risk. Patients who smoke are also at higher risk and actually one of the most common causes of dementia after Alzheimer's is a condition called mixed dementia. So mixed dementia is when patients that have exhibited chronic risk factors for vascular disease also have Alzheimer's disease, also have Alzheimer's. So a lot of these patients, when we diagnose them with Alzheimer's, we do imaging and on imaging studies there is often proof of either small strokes that that patient has had at some point in their lives, and in these patients there are features of both types of dementia. Now we know that vascular risk factors like smoking, high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes can increase the risk of vascular dementia, but they can actually increase the risk of manifesting Alzheimer's disease. So these risk factors are important for both types of dementia and that's why they often coexist together in a dementia called mixed dementia. There's also a type of dementia called Lewy body dementia, and this one involves hallucinations and often movement issues. And we also have frontotemporal dementia, which tends to impact younger adults and starts with changes in behavior and language.

Speaker 1:

Now, dementia is often progressive, and the same thing goes for Alzheimer's disease. It slowly robs people of their memories, their ability to communicate and, eventually, their independence. Now, as I've said before, this condition scares me and I want to talk about it, not just because it's the leading cause of dementia worldwide, but because it has impacted my own family directly and I've watched it unfold in real time. Now, as a physician, I've seen countless patients lose their minds and their lives to Alzheimer's disease. But it's more than just clinical for me.

Speaker 1:

Both of my grandparents suffered from dementia, and I still remember Mémé Alcamié looking right at me and calling me Alphonse, her husband, who had passed away decades earlier, and I was just a young kid at the time. I found that experience quite traumatic and vividly remember how it made me feel. Now I wasn't even old enough to stay home alone at the time, so when my mom and my dad went to see Mimère Cormier, I had to tag along. She was in a long-term care home with advanced dementia and although I did have very precious memories spending time with her. Going to visit her in that home was not a positive experience for me, and while I do remember having so many beautiful memories, I also remember wanting to avoid going to visit her because I just couldn't bear to see her like that. It wasn't her anymore that I was going to visit, it was someone else, and those childhood memories did leave a mark.

Speaker 1:

Now it's almost 35 years later and I still carry this deep phobia of being diagnosed with Alzheimer's myself. Even my grandmother from my mom's side also passed away with Alzheimer's dementia. Now, as someone who loves music, physics, critical thinking, writing, composing, the thought of losing that part of me is terrifying. Now, unfortunately, the reality is that this year alone, I diagnosed at least seven patients with Alzheimer's or another form of dementia. Now the average life expectancy after diagnosis is about seven to ten years, and many of those years, unfortunately, are spent in a state of confusion, dependency and decline.

Speaker 1:

But here's the part that gives me some hope. Dementia is not entirely out of our control. There are genes and there's age, but what we do or don't do matters a lot. Lifestyle medicine has been shown to reduce the risk of getting diagnosed has been shown to slow progression and to improve quality of life in those already diagnosed. Now let's break down three of the biggest factors that you can actually control to reduce your risk of getting diagnosed with Alzheimer's, slowing its progression and improving quality of life if you've already got a diagnosis, either in yourself or in someone you love.

Speaker 1:

Now the first factor directly impacting cognitive function is what you feed your brain, and there's a powerful dietary pattern called the mind diet. It's a blend of the Mediterranean diet and of the DASH diets that are designed specifically to protect brain health, and it does so by emphasizing dark leafy greens and veggies, berries especially blueberries whole grains and legumes like chickpeas, beans, lentils and soy products, by increasing the amount of nuts, seeds and olive oil and limiting red meats, butter, cheese and fried food. And one study showed that people who followed this dietary pattern moderately reduced their risk of Alzheimer's by up to 35%, and those who follow it more strictly up to 53% lower risk of dementia. Now, that's huge. Now these dyes are rich in polyphenols from foods like berries, cocoa and green tea. They can reduce oxidative stress and beta amyloid accumulation, which are both implicated in Alzheimer's disease. So your food literally feeds or fights dementia.

Speaker 1:

The second factor to consider is exercise. Physical activity isn't just for your heart, it's actually medicine for your brain. It improves blood flow, reduces inflammation and increases a compound called BDNF, brain-derived neurotropic factor, a brain growth factor that's essential for memory and for learning factor. That's essential for memory and for learning. Now, older adults who exercise regularly have a 38% lower risk of cognitive decline, and just 30 minutes a day of moderate activity, like brisk walking, has been linked to larger brain volume, especially in the memory-critical hippocampus. Even in people with mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, aerobic exercise has been shown to measurably benefit memory and function. If you're looking for a reason to get moving today, this is it. Muscles are made for moving and when they move, they reward you with chemical compounds called myokines and myokines. They circulate everywhere inside of your body, cross the blood-brain barrier and impact everything from metabolic health to cognitive function.

Speaker 1:

Now, a highly misunderstood medicine that we can all benefit more from is sleep. Go back and listen to my full podcast episode on sleep, where I reviewed the different sleep stages and, if you remember in N3, deep sleep, slow, wave sleep is where the magic happens and that's where your glymphatic system clears the brain's waste that has accumulated throughout the day. Now that cleaning system, the glymphatic system. It only works well while you sleep, and during deep sleep your brain flushes out beta, amyloid and tau proteins, which are the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. So if you are sleep deprived, that means that your brain's garbage doesn't get taken out and these metabolic byproducts they accumulate. Now studies have shown that people who sleep less than 6 hours on average in midlife have a 30% higher risk of getting diagnosed with dementia and people with sleep apnea up to 70% higher risk of cognitive impairment.

Speaker 1:

Now, getting good and consistent and restorative sleep isn't a luxury. It's actually essential for brain health maintenance. Now what about stress, loneliness and substances, the other pillars of lifestyle medicine? They matter too. Chronic stress increases cortisol and cortisol can damage memory centers in the brain. And, as we've discussed in the sleep episode, high cortisol before going to bed impacts sleep quantity and sleep quality. Loneliness is also a big risk factor for cognitive decline, as some of our physical diseases and alcohol or substance abuse can accelerate brain aging. So your social health, your mental health and your emotional health they all tie into brain resilience.

Speaker 1:

But how much power do we really have? According to the Lancet Commission, up to 40% of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by addressing modifiable risk factors. And that's the way we eat and the way we move and how we sleep and how we connect and how we manage stress will all determine how we manage chronic condition. All of it matters. You don't have to be perfect, but you do have to be intentional. Now, if you've seen Alzheimer's disease close up, you know it's brutal, it's slow, it's heartbreaking and it can feel hopeless. But there is hope. Look, we may not be able to control everything, but we can control a lot more than we think. And the changes that we make today, they're not just for someday, they're for right now, for better energy, better focus, better living. So you improve your life today, but you also improve it for the future.

Speaker 1:

What I want people to take away is that the mind diet can lower Alzheimer's risk by up to 53%. 30 minutes of movement a day protects memory and brain structure and reduces the risk of getting diagnosed with cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's or other types of dementia, and improves function in people already diagnosed. And then there's deep sleep, which clears toxic proteins that are directly linked to Alzheimer's. Now, lifestyle medicine is powerful, and more powerful than the vast majority of medication that we actually have. So eating right, moving your body, managing stress, connecting socially, making sure to have adequate quantity and quality of sleep, and avoiding substances that are known to impact brain function will put all of the chances on your side and reduce the risk of you having to go through what my family has gone through.

Speaker 1:

But let's keep the conversation going, because real health isn't just about adding years to your life. It's about adding life to your years, and if this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone you love in hopes of reducing the chance that you'll have to go through either a diagnosis in yourself or in your family. Until next time, stay strong, stay curious and stay kind. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you at the next episode Peace. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you at the next episode, peace. Hey, everyone, go check out my website plantbaseddrjulescom to find free downloadable resources, and remember that you can find me on facebook and instagram at drjulescormier, and on youtube at Plant Based Dr Jules.

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Dr. Jules Cormier

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