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Episode 307:
Show Notes
In this episode, Dr Lucy Burns and Dr Mary Barson dive deep into brain health and dementia, covering the types of dementia, the powerful link between metabolic health and cognitive decline, and practical lifestyle strategies for prevention.
Types of Dementia
The episode outlines the main forms of dementia:
- Alzheimer's disease - The most common type, strongly linked to brain insulin resistance; some researchers call it "Type 3 Diabetes"
- Vascular dementia - Caused by impaired blood flow to the brain from strokes, small vessel disease, or atherosclerosis
- Lewy body dementia - Driven by toxic alpha-synuclein protein build-up; shares a very similar metabolic risk pattern to Alzheimer's
- Frontotemporal dementia - Often affects younger people, has a stronger genetic component, but is still influenced by metabolic and inflammatory environments
- Other causes - Chronic alcohol use, traumatic brain injury (e.g., CTE in AFL players), and smoking (especially for vascular dementia)
The Metabolic-Brain Connection
Metabolic syndrome (elevated waist circumference, high blood glucose, high triglycerides, low HDL, and high blood pressure) significantly raises dementia risk. Key mechanisms include:
- Brain insulin resistance - The brain becomes unable to use glucose for fuel, causing an "energy crisis" that precedes the classic amyloid plaques of Alzheimer's by years
- Neuroinflammation - Inflammatory molecules from metabolic syndrome cross into the brain, damaging cells and promoting toxic protein build-up
- Vascular damage - Insulin resistance drives atherosclerosis and high blood pressure, reducing blood flow to the brain
- Oxidative stress - High blood sugar and inflammation generate reactive oxygen species that effectively "rust" the brain
Importantly, you don't need to have obesity or diabetes for this to be happening. Metabolic dysfunction can be present in people of all body sizes.
The Role of Sleep
Sleep is highlighted as one of the most critical and underrated levers for brain health:
- During deep sleep, the brain's glymphatic system activates, pumping cerebral spinal fluid through the brain to flush out toxic waste products like amyloid and tau proteins
- Neurons fire in coordinated waves (like a "Mexican wave") during deep sleep to physically drive this clean-out process
- Sleep deprivation worsens insulin resistance, creating a dangerous downward spiral
- Sleep apnoea is flagged as a serious concern, with CPAP therapy offering profound protective benefits
Key Lifestyle Interventions
The doctors emphasise that cognitive decline begins as early as the 40s and 50s, meaning it is never too early to act. Their recommended actions:
- Low-carb, high-protein eating to address insulin resistance
- Omega-3 fatty acids (oily fish twice a week, or chia seeds and walnuts) for brain protection
- Antioxidant-rich foods like berries and polyphenol-rich vegetables to reduce oxidative stress
- Strength training and movement to boost BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor), which supports neuroplasticity and cognition
- Stress management - Chronic cortisol elevation physically shrinks the hippocampus and impairs memory; mindfulness and hypnosis are flagged as evidence-based, not "woo-woo"
- Ketogenic diet - Emerging evidence suggests ketones can serve as an alternative fuel for an insulin-resistant brain, with promising (though not yet large-scale) research for Alzheimer's prevention and treatment
Genetics and Hope
The APOE4 gene increases dementia risk, but it is not a guaranteed sentence. The doctors stress that epigenetics means genes can be turned on and off, and that proactively managing insulin resistance and metabolic health is the most powerful response for those with genetic risk.
Next episode preview: Menopause and dementia risk, including the potential role of MHT (Menopausal Hormone Therapy) for women at all stages of menopause.
Work With Real Life Medicine
For a step-by-step approach to improving metabolic health in perimenopause, menopause and beyond, check out My Metabolic Action Plan. This doctor-led comprehensive program gives you:
- Strategies to improve metabolism
- Skills to develop mindset
- Tools so you will implement!
Episode 307:
Transcript
Dr Mary Barson (00:05) Hello lovely friend, I am Dr Mary Barson.
Dr Lucy Burns (00:09) And I'm Dr Lucy Burns.
Both (00:11) We are doctors, weight management and metabolic health experts. We are the creators of My Metabolic Action Plan, your two-step map to real health and weight loss, which is in fact the name of this podcast. Join MyMap now at rlmedicine.com.
Dr Lucy Burns (00:30) Good morning, lovely friend. It's Dr. Lucy here with the fabulous Dr. Mary, and I'm excited about today's topic, Miss.
Dr Mary Barson (00:38) Me too. It's a big one, and it's a very important one.
Dr Lucy Burns (00:41) Absolutely. So, brain health. You know, humans have phenomenal brains, and it is really, really important that our brain works optimally. And so today we're actually going to talk a bit about dementia, all the causes of dementia, including the metabolic implications.
Dr Mary Barson (01:03) Dementia is, it can be such a devastating illness. It's really common. It affects tens of millions of people around the world, and its incidence is increasing. And it's becoming the leading cause of death in women in Australia. And it is a real significant burden to families, to individuals, and to whole entire health systems. And metabolic health plays an important role. So our aim today is to provide information that is helpful and could also help people prevent dementia.
Dr Lucy Burns (01:43) Indeed. So I thought we'd start by just briefly discussing that there are multiple types of dementia. So when people talk about Alzheimer's, they're often talking about a specific condition. But sometimes Alzheimer's is just used to describe any sort of dementia. But there are multiple causes. So dementia specifically refers to declining brain function. And how's this for language? In the old days, it was called senile dementia because senile technically just means old But now, of course, senile is a pejorative term, and people will use it as a slur and talk about people being senile. And it's like, hmm. So anyway, that's gone out of favour, and now we're just calling it dementia. So, Miss, do you want to go through the types of dementia?
Dr Mary Barson (02:32) So the most common type is Alzheimer's disease. And this is where the metabolic story is strongest. Alzheimer's is a disease where toxic metabolites build up in the brain, and the brain stops responding to glucose and to its fuel sources quite early on. Some people choose to call this type 3 diabetes because it reflects how strongly insulin resistance plays a role in the brain. We don't love the term type 3 diabetes, but it does indicate that brain insulin resistance is an extremely important part of the picture with Alzheimer's disease. There's also vascular dementia, and that's exactly what it sounds like.
It's caused by problems with the blood flow to the brain, the blood vessels in the brain. Things like strokes or mini strokes or small vessel disease create multiple insults to the brain and create problems with the brain cells getting the nutrients and energy they require. And this all adds up to cognitive decline. There's dementia with Lewy bodies, or Lewy body dementia, and this has a different villain in there. There is a protein called alpha-synuclein which builds up and creates a toxic environment for the brain. It is in many ways similar to Alzheimer's disease, and it has a very similar metabolic risk pattern to Alzheimer's disease. So metabolic health can help prevent Lewy body dementia just as it can Alzheimer's dementia and definitely vascular dementia. There's also frontotemporal dementia, which is a bit different. This is often showing up in younger people. It has a stronger genetic component, though it can just occur spontaneously. It's not always genetic. And it has a different cause behind it. But even here, the metabolic and inflammatory environments for the brain still really matter for the development and progression of frontotemporal dementia. Then there are others, alcohol dementia that's associated with chronic alcohol use, and there's dementia associated with traumatic brain injuries as well.
Dr Lucy Burns (04:52) Absolutely. And that is particularly relevant, I guess, for Australian rules football. We're seeing more and more people now being diagnosed post-mortem with chronic traumatic encephalopathy that definitely affects their brain and brain health. I guess the third little thing we pop in there that we haven't mentioned is smoking. Smoking, again, increases the risk, particularly of vascular dementia. So there's things in there that are definitely toxins to brains. And we're all trying to preserve our brain health because without your brain, it's hard to live your glory years in glory.
Dr Mary Barson (05:30) It is. And I'd like to shout out that anybody who's seen a loved one develop dementia and seen the process, it really is heartbreaking. And we want to do everything we can to help preserve our brains and at the same time acknowledge that dementia is a really heartbreaking and horrible illness that so many people have to deal with, either firsthand or secondhand.
Dr Lucy Burns (05:55) Yes, absolutely. So just reinforcing last week's, or the last couple of weeks, where we talked about what is metabolic health, metabolic syndrome. And this is so interesting because when I was a medical student, which was probably a significant time ago now, metabolic syndrome didn't exist. It wasn't known. It was called Syndrome X. It was this sort of weird cluster of things that very few people had, and it's now been renamed metabolic syndrome. And so the cluster includes increased waist circumference, so again where you store your body fat, visceral fat, elevated blood glucose, triglyceride levels, low HDL cholesterol levels, and high blood pressure. And you don't need all of these to have metabolic syndrome. You only need three out of those five to meet the criteria. But we certainly know that the more of those five you have, the higher your risk of developing dementia is. And again, not to fearmonger people, but remembering from the last couple of weeks' episodes, we spoke about how malleable metabolic health is to lifestyle, and so there is actually things that you can do about it. So we don't want to just be all doom and gloom. There is stuff that you can do, and that's the most exciting part of it.
Dr Mary Barson (07:19) Yes. Metabolic syndrome is not good. It's long been linked with heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, but there is now very robust data showing that it's also linked to dementia risk and cognitive decline. So it's just one more reason, and I think one extremely compelling reason, to start paying attention to your metabolic health and doing everything that you can to optimise it. And this is stuff that can turn around quite quickly. There's lots of hope. I would like to pepper this podcast with lots and lots of hope.
Dr Lucy Burns (07:54) Yes. And I would just like to throw in a little, I guess, thing to note that not everybody who has metabolic syndrome also has obesity. So I think there's this idea that, you know, you'd know because you're overweight or your BMI is over 30 or whatever it might be, but we have the concept, as you know, at Real Life Medicine of the HOTI, where you're healthy on the inside, and this was in reference to the TOFI concept, which is thin on the outside but fat on the inside, and that's where you store your body fat. So in particular, there are various ethnic groups that have higher risk of metabolic syndrome at lower body weight. So your external appearance isn't always an indicator. And conversely, you can be, you know, you don't need a BMI of 23. You can have a higher BMI and be a hottie, healthy on the inside, so not have any metabolic syndrome, have good metabolic health, and you don't convey this risk.
Dr Mary Barson (09:01) Yes. So it's definitely not, it's what's going on on the inside that counts, not so much what's happening on the outside. Correct.
Dr Lucy Burns (09:07) Correct. So I'd love to go through, Miss. I mean, you know, you're the biochemist. Let's talk a little bit about how metabolism in the brain actually works.
Dr Mary Barson (09:22) Yes. So there are several pathways by which our metabolism and our brain health intersect in really important ways, and I think that the biggest and most important one is insulin resistance, something that you and I talk about quite a lot. Insulin resistance doesn't just play out at your pancreas or at your fat cells. It plays out throughout your entire body. Every organ system in your body has insulin receptors, and every organ system in your body needs insulin at the right amounts, at the right times. It needs your insulin to be well balanced, and every organ system in your body can be adversely affected in differing ways when insulin is not in a good balance and at the right levels. So our brain is an insulin-sensitive organ. Insulin in the brain is really important to help nerve cells, our brain cells, use their fuel, to use glucose and to use fats for fuel, and it helps support their function, which is everything we do, keeping us alive as well as learning and memory. And also, insulin plays a role in helping clear out toxic proteins like the amyloids that can build up in Alzheimer's dementia. So when you have a situation where there is chronic high insulin and insulin resistance in the body, that pattern can show up in the brain too, and the brain cells can stop responding properly to insulin. They become insulin resistant, which means they're not able to use their fuel properly, which can set up a toxic environment for the cells. It could be a situation where there is plenty of fuel around. There could be high blood sugar even, which is also causing damage through other pathways, but the brain just isn't able to access it. And much...
Dr Lucy Burns (11:14) I was going to say, much like the woodshed. Exactly. It is the same idea. It is. Except rather than being fat logs, this is actually glucose in the brain, and it can't use it.
Dr Mary Barson (11:23) Yeah, that's right. And then we get a situation of basically energy failure in the brain, which is not good. The brain is running on empty, and this is where the type 3 diabetes term that we don't love comes from with Alzheimer's dementia. So long before people have developed obvious symptoms of Alzheimer's dementia, studies have shown that they have reduced glucose use, reduced sugar use, in key areas of the brain. So this is... It's called glucose hypometabolism. The brain is not utilising glucose, and the brain actually essentially develops an energy crisis. So yeah, it's like fuel everywhere, but it can't burn it.
Dr Lucy Burns (12:06) I know. I've got another analogy, another favourite. It's like you're on a raft in the ocean and you're thirsty. That's right. And you can't drink the water.
Dr Mary Barson (12:18) Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. Exactly. And like the little starving person on that, sorry, the dehydrated person on that raft in the ocean, the brain cells are swimming in glucose, but they're unable to use it. And this energy deficit actually happens before the classic amyloid plaque and tau tangles deposition that people with Alzheimer's have. So this metabolic dysfunction, it's very likely that it's an early driver, not a late effect, but actually one of the early drivers.
Dr Lucy Burns (12:49) Yes. And the thing is that I think a lot of people think, oh, well, you must have to have diabetes to have this going on. But this is decades before the development of diabetes is happening, and not everyone who develops Alzheimer's disease actually has diabetes. So it's complex.
Dr Mary Barson (13:11) It is complex. And genetics no doubt plays a role as to how susceptible or non-susceptible we are to this, but so does our lifestyle and our internal metabolic environment. The other one is inflammation, or as I like to say, neuroinflammation, which just means inflammation in the brain. So this whole metabolic syndrome creates chronic low-grade inflammation through various ways, and we can measure this. People who have got metabolic syndrome often have got increased inflammation in their body that we can measure through CRP, for example, the blood test. But basically, there's more inflammatory molecules and inflammatory cytokines flowing through the blood of people with metabolic syndrome, and these inflammatory molecules can cross into the brain and can activate the brain's immune system and then can switch on inflammatory cycles within the brain, which can damage the brain cells and can also promote the buildup of toxic metabolites of amyloid and tau that we see in Alzheimer's dementia. And also we think this has a role in Lewy bodies as well, with Lewy body dementia. But you can see that multiple mechanisms are starting to compound now and that you can get a vicious cycle essentially starting to develop.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:28) Yes, absolutely.
Dr Mary Barson (14:30) We also mentioned vascular dementia. So the other way is anything that affects our blood vessels is going to affect our brain because our brain needs blood, and insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, is a key driver of plaque formation and atherosclerosis, which can affect our brain. It's also a driver of high blood pressure, which thickens arteries and can damage particularly the small arteries. And all of these things can accumulate to affect the blood flow to the brain, which is problematic. And also oxidative stress is the other one. So high blood sugar, high lipids, the inflammatory processes of metabolic syndrome create more of these reactive oxygen species, which we've talked about ages ago. But basically they're these obnoxious compounds that just like to rip through and take the oxygen out of absolutely anything that they can find. And you can kind of think of it a little bit like rusting. The oxygen rusts the iron. It can rust your body, and you can get brain rust. It's a very non-specific way, non-precise way, but I think it's a helpful way of figuring out what can happen. So you can get brain rust as well.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:49) Ah, absolutely. And I think, yes, I love that. I love browning of the apple. That's the other oxidative process that's clear for people to understand, and browning of toast, which is when the oxidative process is heated up. It's, as you said, multifactorial. The kicker being that vascular dementia and Alzheimer's dementia often overlap. People have both, which accelerates the process even more. Again, the management or the things that we can do to help prevent it will affect both. So they will improve both vascular and Alzheimer's dementia. And then I guess there's the last little bit, which really, I mean, you alluded to earlier around genes. And there is, many people will be aware of a gene called APOE4 that does increase your risk. Now, again, just because something increases your risk doesn't mean you're going to get it. I think that's what we really need to know, that we have genes and genes can be turned off and turned on, upregulated and downregulated. There's epigenetics that we don't even know about yet. Like, honestly, again, talking about Syndrome X, epigenetics didn't exist when I was a medical student. So there's lots and lots of things that we know now that we didn't know then, and I reckon there will be a whole heap of stuff that we still don't know that we will look back in 20 years' time and go, oh, imagine. Remember back then when we thought it was caused by yada yada and now we know? So yeah, again, if you've got the APOE gene, and a lot of people have, it's not a rare gene, it doesn't mean you're getting dementia, but it does mean that you therefore need to be really proactive about managing all of your other risk factors, in particular insulin resistance and optimising your metabolic health.
Dr Mary Barson (17:46) Absolutely. And we talk about this lever a lot. We can talk about mental levers now about what you can do to improve your metabolic health, but when it comes to your brain health, one of the most important levers is sleep. For many reasons, sleep underpins good metabolic health. It makes absolutely everything better and everything easier. There's a very, very specific reason why good sleep is important for brain health. I mean, it seems kind of obvious. But sleep is when our brain cleans itself, and it's like it kind of has a dishwasher cycle that goes on when we sleep. And without this, if we shortchange ourselves with sleep, our brain can't clear out its metabolic waste, and it can increase the amount of damage that happens to our brain.
Dr Lucy Burns (18:42) Absolutely. And I love this system that probably we don't talk enough about and, in fact, maybe some of you have never heard of it, called the glymphatic system. So it's not lymphatic, it's glymph, with a gl.
Yeah. A Glinda.
Dr Mary Barson (18:57) That's right, Glinda. That's it.
Dr Lucy Burns (19:00) Glinda, the glymphatic system. The glymphatic system. The glymphatic system. Yeah, is how the brain flushes out its metabolic waste, including this amyloid and the tau, and it moves it into the bloodstream where the liver and kidney do their magic
Dr Mary Barson (19:20) I love it. I just think it's so magical what happens in our brain when we sleep. Sleep is an incredibly intricate and active neurological process. It's not just lying unconscious for eight hours. It's incredible what goes on in our brain. And we have different stages of sleep. So that's the sleep architecture. And a summarised way of thinking about our sleep architecture is that initially we've got light sleep, then we move into deep sleep, then we move into rapid eye movement sleep. So we've got the non-REM sleep, which is light and deep, and then REM sleep. There are more, and you could break it up into much detail than that, but that's the broad categories. And each of these stages are important, and different things happen in our brain and our body in each of these stages. But deep sleep in particular is really important for this brain cleaning. So our brain in deep sleep goes into this sort of pumping mechanism. And if you're watching functional MRIs of people who are in deep sleep, they get these waves of activation of their neurons. It's kind of like a Mexican wave going through an entire stadium, where every single neuron in turn sort of gets up and waves and then moves along, and these waves pump through. And it's this activation during deep sleep that is like physically pumping the fluid around the brain, which is called the CSF, the cerebral spinal fluid. It's washing through the brain, and it's pumping out those metabolic wastes into the bloodstream, as you said, and this happens in our deep sleep. So we want to do everything we can.
Dr Lucy Burns (21:04) It's exactly like a dishwasher, isn't it?
Dr Mary Barson (21:07) It is. It is. It's just whoo, whoo. Yeah, it is. It's like a dishwashing cycle. Yeah, pumping it out. That's it. This overnight cleanup crew. So deep sleep is absolutely crucial for our metabolic health, and if we shortchange ourselves with deep sleep over time, we are significantly increasing our risk of particularly Alzheimer's disease, but for other neurodegenerative diseases as well.
Dr Lucy Burns (21:34) Yes. And the kind of kicker with all of this is that when we are sleep deprived, insulin resistance is worse. So it's that same thing. You can either spiral down with what you do in your lifestyle or spiral up. So when you sleep well, when you get enough sleep, and again, we've spoken about sleep apnea, and honestly, I would urge people to get assessed for sleep apnea if they're at all worried, because the therapeutic effect of CPAP on all of this is profound. But making sure that you go to bed, people, go to bed, don't scroll on your phone, get your deep sleep, get your brain pumping. It's phenomenal. And you get to do it all for free. This is it. It's free brain cleansing activity.
Dr Mary Barson (22:31) Yes, it is. It's extraordinary. And bad sleep makes everything worse. Good sleep makes everything better. And things can start to improve. You can spiral upwards with a few interventions. As we say with metabolic health, things can change quickly. This is not something that's measured in years. Many of these markers are measured in weeks. You have weeks. You could be feeling better and improving your health in weeks, not years. Absolutely.
Dr Lucy Burns (23:03) And so yes, we definitely know sleep is important. And in fact, there's plenty of evidence around lifestyle for brain health, plenty of evidence around food. And again, I know we bang this low carb, high protein drum for good reason. It is a really, really effective way to manage insulin resistance. But I'd also just like to throw in there that improving or increasing the amount of omega-3 in your diet is pretty well researched these days. So again, that includes oily fish, which I know for a lot of Australians is hard because it's not what we've grown up eating. We're not like the Norwegians who have salmon for breakfast. It's not our natural way. But we can add oily fish in. It doesn't have to be salmon. It can be tuna. It can be sardines. It can be mackerel. Just thinking of creative ways to try and include it twice a week. But you can also get omega-3s from plant foods like chia and walnuts. So adding those into your diet just regularly, it doesn't have to be tons, but just small amounts most days can make a big difference. And again, antioxidants in all of your berries and things like that, the polyphenols, they're all helpful.
Dr Mary Barson (24:27) They are, yes. And that is one of those pleiotropic things where that real food, good food, is going to help reduce oxidation, reduce inflammation, reduce blood sugar. It's going to reduce insulin. It's going to improve your brain energy. And things can just start to move quickly when you can start doing things like eating well and going to bed on time.
Dr Lucy Burns (24:53) Totally. And I mean, look, we don't speak these days very often about a ketogenic diet. I know a lot of our followers, a lot of you out there, might do keto, and that's fine. And there is some evidence, again, that the brain, an insulin-resistant brain, can utilise ketones. So again, there's exciting science around the idea that using a ketogenic diet to not just prevent Alzheimer's but potentially treat it is really promising. Again, it's tricky because funding trials around this idea is expensive, and who's going to pay for it, and compliance, and measuring compliance, and confounders, and all of that, the usual flaws in nutritional science. But the mechanism for it is sound. And so I think it's something that people could definitely explore.
Dr Mary Barson (25:44) Yes, it's providing that alternate brain fuel.
Dr Lucy Burns (25:48) Yes. And then, of course, just to round it all off, the pillars. So we've done the food, the sleep. Of course, strength and movement. We spoke about BDNF last week briefly, how it is helpful for mood. BDNF is produced when muscles contract, and the brain loves it. It's really helpful for mood and cognition and neuroplasticity, which is where the brain can change. I mean, honestly, the brain. I used to think the liver was my favourite organ, but really, maybe I'm going to the brain. The brain is amazing. It is bloody incredible. Yes. It is incredible. And again, when we talk about strength and movement, you don't have to be running 10Ks and you don't have to be lifting heavy like everyone is saying, but finding ways to increase your movement and improve your strength, so getting stronger, is really useful.
Dr Mary Barson (26:48) Yes. Yes, you get that beautiful brain-derived neurotrophic factor in there, helping your brain, protecting it in every way. We've also talked about sleep, which is very important. Everybody, prioritise your sleep, please. But also stress management is really helpful too, and our stress nervous system, as we mentioned last week, is a metabolic player. How stressed we are or how calm we are, how regulated our nervous system is or how dysregulated, is going to affect our metabolic health. So stress management, it's not something soft and fluffy. It's not like, wouldn't it be nice if I was a little bit less stressed, but oh well. It actually is like a hardcore neuroprotective intervention. If you can take steps to manage your stress, just moments of calm throughout the day, practising mindfulness, doing hypnosis, taking steps to actively calm yourself down for a few moments a day is going to be neuroprotective because it helps your brain, it helps your metabolism, and because it helps your metabolism, it also helps your brain. It's one of those great spiralling upward ones again.
Dr Lucy Burns (28:03) Absolutely. And as you mentioned, Miss, this is not soft woo-woo stuff. Elevated cortisol, chronically elevated cortisol, so this is elevated over weeks, months, years, shrinks. It shrinks the hippocampus, which is part of our brain, and impairs memory. So there is, again, solid evidence for this. So yeah, you are right. Definitely it's not woo-woo. It is so important, and yet we often just sort of muddle along in our day because we get through, like we do. Humans, again, we're pretty resourceful. We will survive a day, but we're not necessarily thriving every day.
Dr Mary Barson (28:43) Yes. Dementia and cognitive decline, it's not something that just suddenly appears when you're 75 or 80. It's actually a process that starts in the 40s and 50s, sometimes earlier, but it is a process that has been grumbling along in the background for a long time. And at any point, you can take small actions, small regular actions to just shift the whole trajectory. Going one way is increasing neuroinflammation, increasing brain insulin resistance, increasing neural degeneration. A few changes, and you can move in a totally different direction where you're protecting your brain and protecting your metabolism.
Dr Lucy Burns (29:30) Absolutely. And I guess just to help people out if they're interested, my metabolic action plan, this is what we do. Yes. We give you the knowledge so you're going in the right direction. We give you the tools to activate it so you've turned the car key on. No point sitting in the car with just your map. You actually need to drive it. So yeah, you can join my metabolic action plan and get started on your brain health now. Just to finish off, my lovely friends, next week we are talking specifically around menopause and dementia risk and the role, or where MHT may or may not fit in for that, and again the steps that you can do as a woman who is either pre-, peri- or post-menopause.
Dr Mary Barson (30:24) So basically all women. This is important for all women.
Dr Lucy Burns (30:27) All women. Yes. Absolutely. Lovely friends, we hope this has been helpful. Let us know. And any of you who have joined my metabolic action plan, we will see you on the inside.
Dr Mary Barson (30:39) Bye, everybody.
Dr Lucy Burns (30:44) The information shared on the Real Health and Weight Loss Podcast, including show notes and links, provides general information only. It is not a substitute, nor is it intended to provide individualised medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, nor can it be construed as such. Please consult your doctor for any medical concerns.
