Doctor Shares: 5 Science-Backed Nutrients to Heal Your Brain with Dr. Austin Perlmutter

Today, I'm joined by Dr. Austin Perlmutter, a board certified internal medicine physician, New York Times bestselling author of Brainwash, researcher, educator, podcaster, and entrepreneur. He's on a mission to help people get their brains unstuck, to help them improve their cognition using the power of nutrition. Today, we're going to talk about the five key nutrients to help to support your brain function and slow brain aging and the things that you can do that are in your control to support Overall brain health. Dr. Perlmutter, thank you for being here. I want to start out with how do you explain the role that food and nutrition plays on overall brain health and even symptoms that arise for people like brain fog, cognitive decline, and lack of focus?

Well, the simple answer is that your brain is made of the food that you eat. There's no way around this. Your brain is made of structural elements, atoms, molecules, and they come from the food that we eat. If you expand that a little bit larger, we know that neurotransmitters come from the food that we eat. We know that the way that the brain is set up from an immune perspective, from a neuroplasticity perspective, which is the rewiring, all of these things are influenced by the food we eat. So as much as it's nice to think about food as well, I'm hangry, and therefore there's something going on with my brain, or maybe this food makes me feel a little bit jittery. The reality is that it is one of the fundamental levers for everything from dementia prevention to mental health. And it's something that we have so much agency over. So I just really want people to understand that making better dietary decisions is a, a powerful way to program your brain for better health.

Oh, I love that so much. And I think, especially when people think that they don't have as much control around the nutrition, like they're jumping to some kind of pharmaceutical intervention or conventional intervention that can only go so far as, as it can with potential side effects and thinking about how food really creates the, the structure of our brain cells. So if we talk about the five key nutrients that help to slow aging, what would you say those five key nutrients are that you're recommending that's concerned with their brain health?

Absolutely. Let me just say one thing before we get there. There is nothing more powerful than lifestyle modification as it relates to protecting and enhancing brain health for the planet. Right now, I'm a conventionally trained doctor. I know that there is incredible value in prescribing certain medications to Certain people. But if you look at the most common brain health issues around the world, for example, let's talk about dementia, which affects 60 million people around the world, estimated to affect 150 million people in the coming decades. We know that the most powerful tools right now at the end of 20, start of 2026, are lifestyle modification. And in that, food is central to the conversation. So you brought up this idea of kind of brain aging, and what can we do to help prevent brain aging and improve brain function. Most people don't know this, but every organ in the body ages at a different rate. So it's nice to think about your age in birthdays. That's not the most helpful way of thinking about aging. It turns out that your liver ages at a different rate from your heart, which ages at a different rate from your skin, which ages at a different rate from your brain. And the speed with which your different organs age is directly related to their function. So, for example, having a liver that's aging more rapidly is associated with the higher rate of metabolic liver disease. And similarly, having a brain that is aging more rapidly, that is atrophying more rapidly, is associated with a higher rate of cognitive decline. So you can't change your age and birthdays unless you're going to build a time machine, but you can change your age of your organ when you look at this biological aging, that you can change the speed with which your brain is aging. So with all that kind of background, food is a central intervention. We need to think about when we look more generally at the correlations between diet and brain aging, we see that people who eat a healthier diet have slower rates of brain aging. And you can look at this across a variety of different metrics. So cognitive decline, people who eat a healthier diet, a diet rich in minimally processed foods, have a lower rate of developing brain atrophy and conditions like Alzheimer's dementia. But we also see, when we look at brain imaging, that people who eat a healthier diet seem to have overall younger brains than people who eat an ultra processed or unhealthy diet. So again, that's all the background as to why we need to focus on nutrition for brain aging. And certainly it is the case that there are individual nutrients within our food that seem to have an outsize effect on preserving brain function and slowing the rate of brain aging. So if you want to jump right in, we can start with the Omega 3s. It's a topic that many of your listeners will be familiar with. Omega 3 fatty acids are essential fatty Acids, which means that we really need to be consuming them from our diet. Even though our body is able to convert in between these omega 3 fatty acids, it's not able to convert at a level that is anywhere near what we need to support healthy brain function. And that especially is the case for two specific omega 3s, EPA, cosepentaenoic acid and DHA, docosahexaenoic acid, which can be found in high concentrations in our food. But again, we're not getting enough if we're not actively trying to prioritize nutrition, where there's high levels of these molecules, and potentially considering supplementation if we're not getting enough from diet.

Okay, so when it comes to omega 3 fatty acids and trying to get enough through fatty fish, 2 to 3 servings per per week is what's recommended. What is your take on how many people are still deficient in omega 3 fatty acids even with consuming 2 to 3 servings of high omega 3 rich fish per week?

Yeah, so if you look at large scale data on this topic, most people are still not getting enough omega 3 fatty acids. And I think it's important to note that this isn't something that's like an integrative idea or functional medicine idea. This is a conventional medical idea, which is basically, we know that omega 3 fatty acid intake, specifically from diet, is correlated with better heart health, with better brain health, and that most people, because they're eating a junk diet, are not eating enough of these omega 3 rich foods. So that's why basically every recommendation here is for people to eat at least 2 to 3 servings of fatty fish a week. Now we can dive into what that actually represents, you know, what's in fish these days, what is a fatty fish. But I think it's fair to say that most people are not consuming enough omega 3 fats in their diet. And this, I'll just reemphasize, has significance because we're not just talking about kind of fringe journals. There was a study in 2014 in the journal Neurology, and they found that people who had higher levels of these DHA and epa, these essential fatty acids, had larger brains and in particular had larger hippocampi. These are the memory centers of the brain seen in postmenopausal women. And then there's been additional research since then showing that people who have higher levels of omega 3s have better cognitive function. So it's not some sort of a trivial idea. Let's come back to kind of a central theme here, which is most people are eating a diet that is not devoid but incredibly low in the essential nutrients for brain health. And so if we think about where Omega 3s are, we could talk about plant based sources, animal based sources or seafood based sources. You could absolutely get high levels of the EPA DHA precursor ala alpha linolenic acid from consuming plant based sources. So we talk about chia seeds and hemp hearts and other things like that. But again, most people aren't eating these types of foods. So this really isn't even a question about veganism or carnivore or anything like that. It's just an ultra processed modern diet is very low in omega 3s of any form. And so many people kind of then go to this omega 3, omega 6 ratio, talk about seed oils and the like. What I would say is the best data shows that eating more foods rich in omega 3 fatty acids is the best way to protect your brain. We could talk about supplementation, there's some data around that. But again, starting with this, two to three servings of fatty fish per week, which is going to get you roughly about 500 milligrams per day of DHA plus EPA combined. That's the start, starting point. And again, for people who don't eat animal products, you probably are going to need to supplement. It's really hard to get levels of EPA and DHA from plant based products alone simply because I would say you'd.

100% need to supplement.

Okay, thanks for being definitive on that. I mean it's.

You've seen people, I can't imagine how anyone would get like you can't. You're only converting about 8% of the alpha linoleic acid into EPA and DHA. So it, I just want to make sure that we're clear that if you are not eating fatty fish, you have to supplement in order to have therapeutic levels of omega 3 fats in your bloodstream.

Same. I think that's fair to say. I think there's, there's kind of this unhelpful way of looking at it which is people will say, oh, but chia seeds and hemp hearts I've heard are healthy too and they have omega 3s and they, they do. I'm not taking anything away from that. There, there are data showing that people who eat higher levels of the EPA or DHA precursor molecule ala have better health as well. But it doesn't get you to the levels of DHA and EPA that have been shown to be most beneficial based on these data specifically around brain health. So I think to your point, you know, in a perfect world, people are going out and finding out what their levels are of these omega 3s in their bloodstream so they can understand how much more they need. But in the absence of that, especially if you eat a primarily plant based diet that does not include marine based sources of fatty fish, you're almost certainly going to be consuming less than what you need.

Agreed. And I would say because you're highlighting one population that is eating a higher processed food diet, in, in the work that I've done, I've tested omega 3 fatty acids in thousands and thousands of people who are eating. They're more health conscious, right. They're like coming to functional medicine, they're, they're paying money to do our programs. And the majority of the time we still find that people aren't hitting that therapeutic reference range until you're able to then adjust the dosing of the supplementation that you need. So I think that of course it's so important for us to have the research, but then to dive into how to optimize your levels in order to support your brain health, you really need to know what your omega 3 fatt acids are. You can get this easily through a blood prick or through just like an actual blood test. You could even go to, to quest and place an order for yourself. Now you don't even need a doctor in order to do that. In order to understand are you in that therapeutic reference range of 8 to 12%.

It's a great point.

Okay, let's go on second nutrient that is so critical for brain health.

So this next group, it's a very big group, it's thousands of different molecules and they're found in plant based foods. But people have, for whatever reason undervalued these things for a long, long time. And this is a set of molecules called polyphenols. Polyphenols are pervasive in the plant based kingdom. And I think, you know, in contrast to the Omega 3 conversation, unless you're eating a lot of plant based foods, you're not getting enough polyphenols. So if we think about the extremes of diet, if you're a carnivore, you may be doing great on the Omega 3 side, but you may be very low in the polyphenol space. If you're vegan, you might be eating tons of polyphenols, provided you're not just doing an ultra processed vegan diet, which is another liability here for health. So polyphenols, again, a very Diverse group, about 8,000 or more in these plant based foods, they basically act as signaling molecules within the plant kingdom. So polyphenols are produced by plants to signal to soil microbes and they actually are a way that the plant can create a microbiome so that it can learn about its environment and bring in nutrients from other aspects of the soil, so from microbes in the soil. And it produces also polyphenols as part of its immune system. Very interesting there because when we consume polyphenols, it's been linked to metabolic and immune and other types of benefits in humans. But why I care about this so much as it relates to brain health is a series of studies published in journals like Neurology, so premium top tier medical journals, showing that consumption of more polyphenols is linked to a lower rate of developing dementia. We also have data that was just published on a group called the Green Med Diet. It's basically a subset of a group called the Direct plus study where they found that when they created an intervention where they took people and put them on a high polyphenol diet, they showed a slowing of their rate of brain aging based on MRI testing over an 18 month period. So there are lots of kind of individual pathways. We could talk about as to why polyphenols are so beneficial to brain health. They include the microbiome, changes in the immune system, changes in metabolism, changes in oxidative stress. I'd say that's probably the most popular way that these molecules are discussed because they are antioxidants. But their value is so much larger than just the idea that they're quenching these free radicals. I think that the, the takeaway for most people, again coming back to this idea of what the ultra processed diet takes away, is that we're not getting this data from plant based foods, from healthy animal based foods. And polyphenols are a huge part of the equation. So we can talk about some great sources of polyphenols. I will just highlight. We published a study, it was came out last year. I say that knowing that we're at the start of 2026, so roughly a year ago, and what we showed is that when you gave healthy people an intervention with polyphenols, these are specifically polyphenols from a plant called Himalayan tartery buckwheat, that it showed changes in their rates of aging, specifically looking at these immune aging parameters. So this is really interesting stuff because again, historically we've looked at these molecules as not super important. We talk about macronutrients, we talk about vitamins and minerals. Polyphenols are in a whole other category. But it turns out that these plant based molecules have a host of benefits specifically to brain health. And so, yes, we can talk about great sources of these molecules in our diet. Turns out the number one source for most people, probably myself included, is coffee. But these are the types of reasons why, you know, some of these foods have been linked to better health benefits. It's not. Coffee's not just great for you because it has caffeine, but it's also rich in these polyphenol molecules. So consuming more polyphenols seems to be a value specifically for brain health. Health.

You know, I'm obsessed with polyphenols, Austin. Like, it's my favorite thing in nutrition because I feel like even when, when you have people who are, let's say, trying to be more health conscious and they're not eating as many ultra processed foods, but they're eating like protein bars or almond flour crackers or, or rice cakes and peanut butter or other things that are like quote unquote healthier, I feel that people don't understand how much once that you have to add this, this layer. And when people talk about like high protein and high fiber, which more and more people are talking about the benefits of right now, I'm like, high protein, high fiber, high polyphenols, it has to like, this has to be a part of the entire equation. And in the nutrition plans that we create in my membership, where we create meal plans every week, the polyphenol variety is on the top of my radar because, like, I think that this, in 10 years, people will not be talking about macronutrients, they'll be talking about the variety of the thousands of phytochemicals that they're getting in their diet. For the reasons that you just presented.

I think you're absolutely right. And I just want to highlight here this kind of hubris that humans have had over the last centuries, which is thinking they've all of a sudden understood everything that's in a food. So we had it initially with calories, macronutrients, fats, carbs, proteins, vitamins, minerals. And we said, well, we figured out the things that are necessary to prevent deficiency. And really that's the only value of food. And polyphenols are just the complete opposite of that because there's so many we still don't understand. But it's the difference between saying we're going to basically isolate individual nutrients from a food and say that if you get enough of vitamin C or enough of iron, then you're good and saying, actually no, we've co evolved with these few, these foods over millennia. And there's actually a whole lot of additional signaling that's happening translated in between these ecosystems, from the soil to the plant to the animal to the human. Which is why eating a minimally processed food is so valuable. It's not just because that food hasn't been tampered with, with, you know, additives. It's also because it retains the original information from that plant or from that animal. And I think that's exactly what polyphenols represent. They're the magic, the complexity, the information, the data from nature. And it brings us right back to this concept of people who eat real food do better. Far more than what we can understand from just the amount of fats, carbs, proteins, vitamins and minerals in that food. Polyphenols are right in the middle of that conversation.

I'm so happy that you said that. You are, you're speaking my love language. Okay, next nutrient. Let's go to nutrient number three.

Great. So I put magnesium here. I know that magnesium is a, a popular thing to talk about right now. We know that eating more or consuming more dietary magnesium is linked to lower risk for dementia, but also a lower risk from going from a healthy brain to developing cognitive impairment. Uh, there was a study that came out, it was looking at over 500,000 people from the UK Biobank sample, and they found that people who, who consumed more dietary magnesium had larger brain volumes and again, larger memory centers. These are the hippocampi or the hippocampus of the brain. Here we run back into the same issue, which is magnesium is a critical nutrient for a number of different pathways throughout the body and throughout the brain. But what we see is that when you start consuming minimally processed or, sorry, ultra processed foods, you take away a lot of the value of what you would get from eating things like legumes or from almonds, from chia seeds, things that are naturally rich in magnesium. And I know we now find ourselves in a time where everything is about supplementation and there are a lot of different forms of magnesium. And so people always say, oh, well, should I take X, Y or Z form of magnesium in order to boost my brain function? But coming back to the central premise I think of this conversation, it's saying there is a reason why people who eat minimally processed foods rich in naturally occurring vitamins, minerals, polyphenols, and healthy nutrients do better. And so, you know, I'd be Curious your take on this as well. You've seen a lot more labs specifically around nutrition than I have, but there are some great sources of magnesium. Pumpkin seeds, for example, something that I always travel with to have in the backpack, very rich in magnesium. But I think when you actually understand your levels, for some people, supplementation can be very helpful. And there's certainly data on, for example, magnesium before bedtime as a way, an adjunct to improve sleep and a lot of kind of specific potential benefits to supplementation. Generally speaking, for brain health, most of the data are around a diet rich in magnesium as opposed to supplementation.

Yeah. And I think that what you're, you're highlighting is that when we talk about nutrients, most people think of nutrients in the form of supplementation, and we're talking about dietary nutrients that you can get through your diet first and then, of course, the addition of supplementation as needed. But I do agree with what you had started to say, is that in seeing so many people's blood work or urine sample, if they're doing an organic acid testing, I would say that Magnesium and omega 3 fatty acids are two of the most common nutrients that I see people have insufficient levels of or have actual deficiencies in, even when they're consuming enough variety through their diet. So I am absolutely a fan of magnesium supplementation either at nights and, or even first thing in the day, just as a way to help to support central nervous system function and improve energy and some of those things that are associated with magnesium's calming effect and the role that it can play in activating that parasympathetic state.

Excellent. Love that. That's why I get to talk with you as well, because you have a whole lot of data that I don't have access to.

Well, I think that it's, you do such a great job as a researcher of pointing out all of the research that exists. That has to be the guiding light. But as I continue to, you coach my, my community members on is that like, you have to take the research and then apply what works best for you. Knowing your body, knowing your data. And that's truly what, you know, the field of health optimization is all about. But I think that you have like, such an amazing knowledge base on all of the research and, and the ways that you're able to communicate it in, in such a very easy to understand way. Okay, let's go to nutrient number four, which is a popular one.

Well, it sounds like you already know what I'm gonna talk about. So you're, you're completely right. Right. You know what's funny about this nutrient is that it's something that has been studied and been used for decades and it's never really been all that exciting for brain health up until recently. But this is a supplement that I took literally in high school. Never thought about the brain specific effects. And now I take specifically for my brain function. And of course, we're talking here about creatine. Creatine. Interesting in that, yes, we have it in our bodies, yes, it's found in food, but supplementation boosts levels up to a hundred plus times higher than what would get from just eating food or what's in your body. And in particular, what we've seen over the last several years is a host of studies coming out, both reviews and interventional data showing that creatine, specifically creatine monohydrate, to a smaller extent, creatine hydrochloride supplementation is linked to brain specific effects. So let's talk a little bit about this. Creatine is basically a molecule that is involved in energy transfer. It helps to regenerate adenosine triphosphate from adenosine diphosphate. And, and for this reason, it's basically been seen as a booster specifically for athletic performance because it helps to regenerate energy in the muscle tissue. And it is absolutely the case that creatine supplementation has been studied and shown to boost certain aspects of exercise slash muscle performance. But it also turns out to be the case that while it's a smaller percentage, creatine appears to localize within the brain and helps to provide energy substrate to the brain. So what we've seen in the last few years is a host of different studies looking at the potential effects there. One of the more remarkable papers was a 2024 paper in Nature Scientific Reports. They found that people who were dosed, in this case with relatively high levels of creatine monohydrate were able to kind of offset the cognitive deficits that occur with sleep deficit. So I think it was around a 21 or so hour sleep deficit. And then they basically found that people who were given the creatine had better brain function. The people who did not, not. There's a lot of, you know, hypothetical ideas as to why this is the case as it relates to what it actually does to brain energy production. But we've also seen from recent reviews that in healthy people, supplementation with creatine monohydrate is linked to improved cognition. And while we're not talking about massive effect sizes, there's very little out There that I've seen that shows that if you take a healthy person, so again, not a person with a vitamin deficiency, not a person who has some sort of pre existing issue, but a healthy person, and you give them a supplement, then they will think clearer, then they will have better brain function. And so, as people would probably expect, there's been a lot of buzz around the potential for a condition like Alzheimer's disease, which, even though it's maybe not the only driver, has been associated with significant drop off in brain energy production. We can get into all that if it's interesting. But basically what's been shown is that in Alzheimer's disease, the brain seems to have a decreased affinity for the use of glucose and a decrease in metabolism in general in several regions associ associated with higher level cognition. So it's proposed and it's possible that creatine may be an adjunct to what care looks like for people who already have dementia. We don't have enough data to say that that's a good idea yet, but it is being investigated, generally speaking to kind of bring this to the ground. Most of the research around creatine monohydrate has been roughly in the range of 3 to 5 grams per day. There's some data now for higher levels, 10, even 20 grams that certain people are talking about. But again, again, most of the data around that lower range, 3 to 5 grams per day, some people have concerns about, well, what about kidney function, what about women? Both of those have been actually studied. And while I'm not making recommendations for anybody to go out and take a supplement without talking to their healthcare practitioner, it does seem like, number one, the kidney concerns are overblown. And number two, creatine monohydrate seems to be effective in women without a whole lot of concern for side effects that are unique to women. So I think, think in general this is one of the kind of best studied supplements that has been ever made. We have tons of data on it, specifically around athletic performance, but also safety profiles. And now we're starting to see that for the brain it does seem to be something worth considering. It's definitely one of the supplements that I'm pretty consistent about mostly, again for brain function. I also find it helps me in kind of my exercise capacity. But I, I'm, I guess I'm bullish on creatine, creatine monohydrate, and then again, as I said, there's a little data now on creatine hydrochloride, but generally speaking, just creatine seems to be supportive of brain function.

So good. And when it comes to women, it seems like there may be additional benefits for women, given that women's creatine production is lower.

Right.

And that in various hormonal shifts that creatine levels are actually much lower. Not to say that we're recommending it for, you know, times like pregnancy or postpartum for anyone that you'd obviously want to talk to your healthcare practitioner. If I personally were to be pregnant again, I'd. I'd probably take creatine based on the research that I've read. Are you finding the same thing for hormonal shifts and creatine?

It's such an interesting point. Right now there's a lot of wonderful conversation happening around women's health and specifically around perimenopause and postmenopausal brain specific effects. So we've long known that women have roughly two thirds of the cases of Alzheimer's disease, that depression and other mental health disorders seem to be much higher in women, and specifically that rates of these things tend to go up postmenopausal, and that this correlates with things like estrogen depletion as well as changes in brain energetics. And Lisa Moscone has done really wonderful work talking about kind of the sex specific changes in the brain and what we may be able to do about this. I think that the idea that we can target and boost brain energetics is so interesting as it stands and kind of today date, what we've seen is that you can positively influence brain energetics through an exercise program. So it's been shown that starting an exercise program in people who have some degree of metabolic dysfunction is linked to improved central insulin resistance, meaning improved basically brain's ability to utilize insulin, which is great. But if we could find a way to bypass some of these issues in energetics, especially in women, I'm all for it. I think there's. There's a lot more at play here than simply talking about a single molecule. Right. It's not like creatine deficiency in women is going to be the explanation for why women have, you know, again, two thirds of the cases of dementia. But it may speak to one of the central pathways here, which is brain energetics. Not to go too far down this tangent, but a study just came out. It was an animal model, but they showed that in the brains of female mice that the immune cells had different programming than the brains of male mice at the same age. And there were kind of two domains in which those brain immune cells were differentially programmed, one related specifically to glycolysis, basically the breakdown of glucose, and the other one related to interferon signaling, which is an immune specific signaling pathway. But if we can start to understand, you know, how are the brains of women different, which they are in several ways, and how can we create opportunities to help women to not experience higher rates of mental health, cognitive health disorders, I think that's absolutely something we need to be spending time on. And so a little bit of a tangent here, but I'm optimistic about the potential here. There was a study that I'm sure you're aware of looking at creatine hydrochloride and the potential effects for women. I think it was postmenopausal women. So it's the start of this, this, you know, dynamic conversation that I think has to happen, which how specifically can we create strategies to enhance women's health even if, God forbid, they have nothing to do with what is valuable to men? For a moment, I think it's been the opposite way for way too long.

Yes, I completely agree. And through every different hormonal phase, because for as much as, you know, perimenopause and menopause ends up contributing to, you know, half of, of a woman's life, even through postpartum, like I, I have found such great benefit in the time that you're like, have, you're experiencing more brain and that personally, like, brain health is one of my biggest motivators to continue to stay consistent with my lifestyle. Because I hate feeling tired and I hate feeling like my brain is sluggish and like my thoughts are even more scattered than they naturally are As a person that has a lot of thoughts constantly racing. And so postpartum it's been really challenging. But I find that creatine has helped me so much with just like regulating my brain health and making me feel more like myself.

Well, let's talk about that for just one second because I think it's so fundamental. If you have knee pain, people say, oh, go get that looked at or take something for the knee pain. You shouldn't be sitting around experiencing knee pain. That's not normal. Right. We'd say that there's something wrong and we should do something about it. But when it comes to the brain, it's like until you've developed depression or until you've developed dementia, there's really nothing that we should think about because there's nothing to do and, or it's not all that important. Important. And so these ideas of like, oh, my energy levels are Going down and I just take a bunch of caffeine. What can I do about it? Nothing. Because there's no diagnosis. That doesn't make any sense to me. So I think finding strategies to be able to augment to target brain energetics or brain just general health that are long before a person winds up saying, oh, you have major depression, you have dementia, and at this stage, we're looking at pharmaceutical management. It's got to happen. I think it challenges, you know, the. There's. There's not nearly enough conversation around or incentive for mass market education around these types of things. And important is because the research hasn't been done in the same way it has been done with pharmaceuticals. But these types of conversations, what you're just describing, which is, hey, I was feeling low energy, or hey, I was feeling down. What can I do about it before I wind up on a pharmaceutical? Why have we not said for the entirety of what we've been doing with modern medicine and that preventive neurology, preventive psychiatry, has to be at the top of the list, Meaning before you get the diagnosis of a psychiatric disorder, before you get the diagnosis of a neurological disorder, what are we doing ahead of time? You know, we think about this so much as it relates to heart disease, but almost none as it relates to what you can do to optimize your brain health on a given day and prevent brain health issues tomorrow. So I'm really happy you brought this up because we should not be waiting. We should not be waiting until these later periods where there's potentially less of an opportunity to intervene.

I think too, that. Can you talk about how even though there is more attention on prevention for heart disease, there's also more treatments, and that isn't the case for Alzheimer's disease?

Yeah, it's absolutely true. I mean, there are drugs that will slow the rate of decline for many diseases. Heart disease being a great example. So if you've had a heart attack, you know, we've got medications that will help to prevent a second heart attack, that will help to prevent your chances of getting heart failure, basically developing disability because of your heart. If we look at Alzheimer's disease right now, and, you know, I'll kind of just talk about this more generally if people want the specifics. Dale Bresson, Lisa Moscone, my dad, David Promer, have all kind of put out great, great information around this, but we have very little we can do once a person develops dementia. Meaning if a person was to go into the clinic right now and have a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, we would have some monoclonal antibodies, we could mess with some neurotransmitters, and best case, we could slow to a small extent how quickly they get worse. There's no drug that's been shown to reverse Alzheimer's. There's no drug that's been shown to meaningfully or dramatically slow the rate of decline. What we know as of now is that the most powerful tools for Alzheimer's are prevention. And the most powerful tools for Alzheimer's prevention as of right now are non pharmaceutical. A big study just came out looking at GLP1s and whether it might slow the rate of decline and it didn't. So we've got nothing right now that is, you know, the, the miracle magic bullet that's going to stop Alzheimer's disease unless we work on prevention. And one of the things that have been most strongly associated with Alzheimer's prevention, it's eating a healthy diet, it is getting regular exercise, it's prioritizing sleep, it's working on stress mitigation. Interestingly, a study just came out and it showed that people who have more purpose in Life have a 28% lower chance of developing cognitive impairment over a roughly eight year period. So these are the things that, you know, sound squishy, sound like, oh, well, you know, yeah, of course, find meaning in life, life. But they are the best studied tools for the most, in my opinion, problematic diseases of our day. So I think it's great to be having this conversation, but we need to normalize it everywhere, which is a brain healthy lifestyle. And again, you can pull me back from this tangent. But here we are at the end of the year, New Year's recently behind us. We for the most part live our lives with this understanding that maybe I'm making choices that aren't great for my health, but I'm going to enjoy the moment. Moment. And somehow we've been forced into this belief that if we're going to enjoy ourselves, it has to come at the cost of our future brain health, meaning all the things that we do to try to mitigate our stress in life or try to connect with other people. It's drinking a bunch of alcohol, it's eating junk food, it's staying up late, it's, you know, really being in these situations that we know are directly related to long term brain disability. And so my hope is coming into 2026, we can start to normalize the spending time doing things that are enjoyable that don't come with this massive opportunity cost of brain health. I think we've already seen some of this around alcohol consumption, which has dropped off dramatically in the last couple years. But what would it be like if we just normalize this idea that making choices for our short and long term brain health was the goal? I think it'd be a very different society.

I couldn't agree more. And the people who say, oh, I'm just gonna enjoy my life while I have it and enjoy the beer and enjoy the things, because I think that that way of thinking, I have a particular family member who told me many years ago, like, life is short. I'm gonna enjoy my beer and I'm not gonna be obsessive about healthy eating because it's such a restrictive way of living. And then you see that person cognitively decline for the last several years of their life, and everyone have to care for him and him not really knowing where he. These things that are so devastating, where it's like, was the, the beer and all of the additional things was is it really worth it? Because when you weigh that out to me, it's like, could not be less worth it.

Yeah, everyone's got their own set point around it, right? So obviously you and I are very deep in this research and wellness. And so, you know, for me, going out to the point where I'm drinking and coming back with a hangover, I know that the degree of hangover correlates with levels of interleukin 6 in my bloodstream, which is a potent and inflammat marker that is linked to higher rates of dementia. That's, you know, that's maybe not helpful for the average person to think about, well, how hungover I am directly correlates with inflammation and therefore it's a risk to my brain health. But I mean, I think you gotta find this balance. So, you know, Brian Johnson, who I'm sure you know, talking about this don't die thing, that's the extreme end of the spectrum where every choice he makes is to prolong lifespan and ideally not to die. And that's certainly not going to work for the average person. But the average person right now is making a series of decisions that are going to lead to a shorter lifespan and lower quality of life. When you look at statistics, when you look at large scale observational data, we know that, you know, for example, consuming more alcohol is linked to higher rates of dementia. Now, certainly there are correlates here, or I should say variables here, like addiction, like social stress, like lifestyle factors that, you know, you can't just say, don't do unhealthy things. When unhealthy foods are continued to be subsidized in the United States, are continuing to be. Be the most readily available foods, are continuing to be, you know, the sponsors of, of children's schools to where the vending machines in schools or in hospitals are loaded with junk food. So I think it's. It's unfair to put all of this on the person and say, look, you know, you, you just get more choices, so pick the healthy stuff. Or this is all part of a complete breakfast. So as long as you, I don't know, eat an apple along with your Frosted Lucky, you know, sugary cereal, you're in good shape. But I do think it's kind of got to be this groundswell or this grassroots movement. We don't have to get into politics here, but where people understand that they have been conditioned to believe and have kind of been placed into an environment in which brain unhealthy decisions have not only been normalized, but have been subsidized and have been explicitly designed such that they become the absolute most likely choice that a person makes. So I think what we're talking about here, you know, obviously this is a very small slice of the conversation, but my belief system is that if you can get your brain to a better place, then you can start making healthier decisions across multiple aspects of your life. And so we're talking here about some very key nutrients that can, based on the research, help you to get your brain to a healthier state, help to prevent premature brain aging, so that you can then be an agent of change in your own life and allow for those concentric circles to, to push outwards. You know, you're not going to be able to just force your family members to be healthy. But when you focus on being healthy and create a better kind of local ecosystem of that, people eventually will ask you what you're doing. You know, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably are already asking some of those questions. So I guess all of this is to say I think this is such an important conversation to have and to continue to have.

It's such an important conversation, you're the perfect person to have it with. And one other thing that I thought of as you were talking is I had recently watched something where they were talking about how, like, Steve Jobs didn't have his kids using iPads and how the people who are, like, running these companies, they're not drinking Pepsi and they're not drinking the things that they're producing that they're like, you know, throwing to the masses. And so I think that it's like instead of being brainwashed, hence the name of your book, but instead of being brainwashed by these massive corporations doing what is in your best interest rather than what is going to make the most profits for the industries that you know throughout the average advertising and the social norms. Okay, let's land the plane on the fifth, the fifth dietary nutrient.

Austin. So this is a nutrient that roughly half of people do not consume enough of. Most people I think are getting yet roughly half of what is recommended, maybe even less. And it's not a very sexy nutrient. And it is a reason why I am opposed to a carnivore diet for most people. One of the reasons, because you basically lose out on this nutrient. And this nutrient is of course dietary fiber. And eating more fiber is an to better cognition. There was an observational study, they showed in about 3,000 people consuming more dietary fiber was linked to a 25% lower risk for developing dementia over a 20 year period. There's also just longevity data. People who eat more fiber live longer lives. And so where do you get your fiber? You get it from eating minimally processed plant based foods. It's as simple as that. I know this is a topic that is interesting to you, so I, I'd be very excited to hear your take on it. But there's some consideration around how much fiber that correlates with, you know, your weight, whether you're male or female. But generally speaking, what the data have shown so far in adults is that eating up to around 34 grams a day of fiber is correlated with lower risk for developing cognitive issues or having better cognition. Why fiber is, is so amazing, despite the fact that it sounds so boring. There are lots of reasons. I think the, you know, the gut specific effect on the microbiome, wonderful. The metabolic effects, wonderful. The immune effects are wonderful. But to come back to the theme that we've continued to address throughout this conversation, There is something that happens in the body when you eat minimally processed food, where we haven't completely disturbed the food matrix, where we haven't completely kind of excised all of the nutrients that are found in an actual food. And it turns out that fiber, which is, you know, two types, soluble, insoluble, kind of the thing that people think about as a throwaway is a key part of what allows for a diet to be as brain healthy as possible. And so again, I'd love to hear your take on this, but I just want to focus in on one specific point, people will typically ask me, you know, okay, well what about a, a raw vegan diet or a carnivore diet? Which of those is better for brain health? Or should I be on a ketogenic diet or should I be on a paleo diet? And I think it's really easy to kind of decide. I have come up with this extreme diet and I think I would be more popular as an educator if I came up with some sort of an extreme diet and said everyone needs to be on this specific protocol for their brain health. You know, I don't think I have kind of the, the Liver King vibe within me, but let's just say I went there. The reality of it is that people who eat a minimally processed diet do best. And for an individual, that minimally processed diet may look very different because of the unique expression of their genes, the uniqueness of, of what has happened in their lives to their biology, their microbiome, their metabolic set point, whether or not they have insulin resistance, whether or not they have chronic inflammation. But if you look at the single best studied theme as it relates to nutrition and brain health, it is that people who eat less processed foods more of the time do better. And that's across the board for all sorts of diseases. Brain health is just one of them. So to, to land the plane at, as it were, dietary fiber. Eating more dietary fiber is strongly correlated with better brain health. You eat dietary fiber when you eat minimally processed plant based foods. Some people may have issues with dietary fiber in terms of digestion. There's a lot of correlates to this that we could dive into. But on a population level, eating more minimally processed plant based foods because of the fiber, in part because of the polyphenols, in part is a good plan.

I completely agree and I think that you, you did a great job of explaining how this is one of the side effects of having a higher processed diet and that some people do better on a diet that is a little bit more keto, where it is lower carb or some women especially. I really feel for central nervous system regulation, especially in more of the postpartum range and other things are going to not do as well on a super low carbohydrate diet. And so I think that what you said is that you have to, to eat primarily whole foods and then figure out what works best for you. Beyond that, I'm interested in your what, how do you feel the role of saturated fats plays into brain health?

Well, this is a bit of A contentious subject. There's a study that just came out looking at full fat dairy and showing that it was protective against brain decline, whereas low fat or fat free did not have the same effect. Which is interesting. My take on it would be saturated fat as a, a group of fats is not just the same thing as saying a single saturated fat. So there are many forms of saturated fats as there are many forms of unsaturated fats. And certain of these saturated fats are going to have different effects on our physiology than others. Generally speaking, eating a diet that is lower in saturated fat has been associated with better results brain health. When that saturated fat is being consumed instead or the fat content is instead coming from unsaturated fats. And I'm not saying here, that means that, you know, you go from eating your saturated fat in the case of minimally processed animal foods to a whole bunch of, dare I even say it, seed oil based products. Right. What I'm saying is that people who eat foods rich in naturally occurring unsaturated fats tend to have better brain health outcomes. We talked already about polyunsaturated fatty acids, specifically the omega 3 fats family. But I should also say monounsaturated fats, things you get from eating nuts and olive oil or avocados. These have been better studied in terms of their brain health effects. There is a good body of, I would say, mechanistic data suggesting that saturated fats may increase inflammatory pathways, oxidative stress, potentially even metabolic inflexibility. There's a, a subset of, on the driver of metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance that looks specifically at the effects of saturated fats. What I would say with all of that would be, I'm not completely opposed to saturated fat consumption for people who have APOE4 positivity, homozygotes or heterozygotes. There are some data to suggest that saturated fats may not be as well processed in their bodies. So I'd say they should be a bit more cautious. And I would certainly be cautious of some saying that because people think saturated fats are not so bad, then the right diet for brain health is one that is rich in a bunch of, you know, marbled animal products and butter. I don't think that is the best bet for brain health. And I know that that maybe goes against some of the people that we know and some of the perspectives that other people hold. I'm 100% here to have my perspective changed. And so as the data evolve, again, there's a study that I Just mentioned an observational study showing that full fat dairy was seemingly advantageous, which is counter to this idea that we shouldn't eat cheese and that fatty dairy products are bad for us. That's great. Let's keep collecting the data. But right now the majority of the data would suggest that a diet should not be one that is necessarily low in fat, but should be one that prioritizes unsaturated fats over saturated fats for brain health in particular. Again, my perspective as of now, you. I'd be curious, you may have a slightly different perspective on that.

No, I think we fall in a very similar category, but we're. So it sounds like for you, you're not saying that you have to have a vegan or vegetarian diet in order to have optimal brain health. Of course the different things work for different people. But that incorporating some red meats to get the bioavailable B vitamins and other things can be beneficial as long as you're not overdoing it to the point that the saturated fats become detrimental to your brain health.

Yeah, I guess what I'd say is this. I think for people who choose to be vegan for one reason or another, great. There are ways to make that super healthy. It is not the most optimal diet out of the box for brain health for a number of reasons. One, for example, you don't get enough B12. Right. That's just a thing. Doesn't mean you can't be vegan and still, you know, or that you can't be vegan and have a great brain health protocol. But out of the box, the vegan diet is not optimal. Similarly, out of the box, a carnivore diet is not optimal for brain health. If a person chooses to be a carnivore for one reason or another, hopefully there's, there's good reasons. You didn't just hear it on a podcast and think, you know, you're going to throw your Mediterranean diet aside. But if you go from an ultra processed diet to a vegan diet that's minimally processed, or a carnivore diet that's minimally processed, there's some huge advantage to that. But I think as we're looking at, you know, long term data on carnivore, which doesn't exist, cyst, I would be concerned about not only the high consumption of saturated fat coming from these animal sources, but also the absence of all of these wonderful things we've talked about, polyphenols, fiber and the like. So I think where I've Moved from the start of my training to now is that saturated fats are definitely not the number one villain. You know, they're not like trans fats where we see these strong correlations with negative outcomes. But I do think that if you have the choice ways, I would opt for things that have been shown to have a benefit to brain function as opposed to things which, you know, best case are equivocal but maybe could be a little bit detrimental, which is eating very high saturated fat animal based foods. So for me, I do eat red meat, but I'd say I'm most often eating seafood and then more poultry as opposed to, you know, eating a giant steak each night. And that's for a number of reasons, but I think that the data suggests, suggest that that type of diet, like a Mediterranean or a mind pattern diet, is what's most optimal. Last thing I'll say on this front is going back to the consideration around processing. There have been a number of studies showing that processed red meat is correlated with worse brain health. And so where people can run into problems both in a vegan diet or a carnivore or more animal based diet is the assumption that it's just the idea of only eating plant based foods or only eating animal based foods that has been associated with better health. Because that's not the case. You can eat an ultra processed vegan diet. I've seen many people do it and it's not healthy. You can also eat an ultraviolet and.

Their labs are a mess.

Exactly. Because again, it's not just about making sure you're only eating plants or meat. It's about what is actually in that food, both what's been added to it and what's been taken away. Similarly, you know, you could eat a, a carnivore diet where you're just, you know, pounding the, the meat chips or whatever. And that's not a good diet. I don't think anybody would say it's a good diet. It's the most, just maybe easy way for people to stay on that type of diet because eating a, a real carnivore diet with high quality red meat is super expensive. But takeaway here I think is to understand that food is more than any individual nutrient and it's the overall dietary quality that has been most strongly associated with health outcomes. So yes, I'm not opposed to people eating some red meat on occasion, but I think that they need to be aware, aware that that has not been shown to be anywhere near the most optimal diet in terms of an individual food. Or a diet that is super rich in red meat as it relates to brain health.

Yeah, I think it's helpful. And sometimes like when we're creating the meal plans, we'll often do like a rotation where you can literally go from Monday night having tofu to Tuesday night having salmon to Wednesday night having grass fed ground beef in a taco bowl that is low glycemic and has a lot of antioxidants. And you're getting the benefits of all these things. And I think including all the elements is something that I, you know, view as being an important part of nutrient densities, which is what you're speaking to is like how can you have the most nutrient dense diet to get the benefits of these nutrients while decreasing some of those compounds that we know are potentially more harmful?

I think that's, that's exactly it. It's not being an extremist, it's talking about maximizing nutrition. And then, you know, again, if, if you have access to somebody like you and you can talk about, well, actually the big issues that I see here is that my labs indicate, you know, metabolic dysfunction, my A1C is high, I have insulin res resistance, then you're probably somebody who would benefit from doing a more comprehensive low glycemic diet than maybe the average, well, the average person has some degree of metabolic dysfunction. But then you're talking about, hey, you know, maybe you would benefit from a keto diet diet, but saying, you know, that some 75 year old fit lady should be on a keto diet because she heard about it being the best one. Maybe not necessarily right. Maybe that's a person who really needs to have a little bit more nutrient density and diversity as opposed to just cutting out the carbs completely. And I think that's really the challenge, especially right now in the social media ecosystem, which is everyone wants definitive answers that apply to everyone and those things don't exist unless you stick to these high level points of here is what at a population level has been shown to be most healthy, helpful. And then somebody says, oh well I have this disease and I tried this and it didn't work. So therefore you're wrong. And again, that's, that's why personalization matters so much. It's why nuance is so important, unfortunately, something we've largely lost right now. But you know, I think you're doing a great job with this, trying to make democratized some of the basic information around how the food system has kind of led us astray and how, how simple steps to optimize for healthier nutrition can have such a massive impact on health, especially when they're done over a multi month period, as opposed to just the fad diet that starts for two weeks and then falls back off.

Could not agree more. And then can you address sugar? Because you talked about just briefly, the role of metabolic health and glycemic impact of food. Can you talk about the connection between sugar and brain health?

Yeah. So, you know, you can make a case for any nutrient, say, well, in moderation or, well, maybe some of it is actually good for you. I don't think there's a case to be made for added sugar being beneficial really to anyone in the, in the general public. You could say in a very small subset of people who are, let's say, very dehydrated or for people who are certain types of athletes. Athletes, maybe it's necessary. But if you consider the fact that based On a recent UNC publication, roughly 70% of foods in the American system contain added sweetener and then ask why, the reason why is because it makes foods more palatable. The, the downside to that, and I think specifically the, the food I would focus on or the beverage I would focus on is sugary beverages. When you get to the extent that you've highly processed, the food, added a ton of sugar, taken away the fiber, taken away the valuable nut, you're in essence just giving yourself a slug of glucose and potentially fructose. It's kind of another subject that has no real benefit to your health and based on a number of recent publications, is correlated with everything from higher risk for depression, for anxiety, for dementia, for brain fog. So my take on it would be added sugar, specifically in the case of sugar sweetened beverages, is kind of, I never do like, it's not 100%. Certainly there'll be a case here and there, but I don't find any value in drinking sugary beverages. There's nothing it's giving me that, you know, I really need. There's no, there's no health value to it. And so I kind of draw my line there. If you look at sugar in the context of food, so foods that are sweetened, which again we're talking literally 70% of foods, realize that sugar is just there to make you more likely to eat the food and it's not something that is good for, for your health. I like to come back to this Venn diagram, this overlap. You know, we play in these spheres of integrative medicine or functional medicine, lifestyle medicine, and there's places where that overlaps with conventional medicine. And there are places where they're, you know, on opposite ends of the spectrum. But conventional medicine, integrative medicine, functional medicine, they all agree that too much sugar, added sugar is bad for our health. This is, this has been decreed that we would benefit from eating less added sugar. So why is there still so much added sugar? It's because food manufacturers know that when they add sugar to a product, it makes it more likely that you will continue to consume it. There's very interesting work that's been published journalism showing how food manufacturers have done so much testing to find out the exact sweet spot to make a food hyper palatable, especially for children, so they will stay hooked on that level. And if you've ever done this experiment where you take an iced tea and you add sugar until it tastes sweet enough, what you'll find is that for people who don't consume much sugar, it's way, way lower than people who are consistently consuming sugar. And so what happens over time is our, our taste buds basically adapt to where it expects things to be incredibly sweet. Just the taste of okay. And so then we wind up consuming, you know, tens of pounds of extra sugar each year simply because it's background. We don't even think of these foods as sweet anymore. Why this matters, we can go into all the mechanisms, but consuming added sugar is linked to metabolic dysfunction, is linked to changes in the gut microbiome, is linked to alterations in the immune system. And over time, you're basically just putting your body into a perpetual state of unhealthy anabolic metabolism. So you're not letting your body have the opportunity to really process all this excess energy. In addition, there are all these pathways related to glycation of proteins that can make them basically less functional, advanced glycation, end products and, and the like. The one other thing I'll say here is, like everything else, you know, it's easy to say sugar is sugar and therefore any type of sugar is the same. But there's been a large body of research recently documented, and for those interested, um, my dad actually wrote a book on this called drop acid, looking at the differential effects of fructose, which is, you know, another monosaccharide in our diet that in contrast to glucose, even though it doesn't necessarily change insulin levels right off the bat, it actually leads to the buildup of liver fat. And there's this incredible kind of cascade of insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction that occurs throughout the body that seems to originate in part from the liver developing metabolic dysfunction. And this is something that is important in the context of the degree to which we are subsidizing fructose and glucose, basically any form of corn derived syrups into our food system. So I know we're kind of going on this long tangent of sugar here, but my take on it would be foods that are sweet taste good. Eating dessert without sugar is not really dessert. If you want to enjoy dessert, and I do on occasion, absolutely, yes. I think having some sugar in there is fine. I would at this stage in my life or me, I would rather have actual sugar cane syrup or otherwise compared to something like aspartame. I think there's emerging data suggesting that these artificial sweeteners may not be as innocuous as we once thought. I would personally prioritize stevia monk fruit over, over or to some extent allulose. I'm not necessarily saying that you should go out and eat a bunch of these things, but if you are choosing to eat sweet foods, as of now, these may be slightly better alternatives than things like xylitol, erythritol, aspartame, sucralose. But the key to this whole thing comes back to something we've already talked about, which is in an age in which everyone is so increasingly unhealthy, in which everyone is trying to market to us to get us to eat unhealthy food and basically stay unhealthy healthy, you have to take some agency over your taste buds and be willing to do and eat things that other people do not do and eat. And I think the sweet piece is, it's a, it's, it can be a line that you draw in the sand and maybe it changes depending on if you're with family and you know, Aunt Joe made her famous cherry cobbler. You gotta have a piece of that. But I think it's such an opportunity to kind of take a step back and say, hey, this food, this beverage has added sugar. I don't want to want that. And you're going to be seen as a bit of a weirdo. I perpetually am. When I ask, hey, does this have sugar in it? And you know, people are, are so shocked when you say, hey, actually I don't, I don't want that milk that you added 8 grams or 12 grams of sugar into. I mean, literally, I can't tell you how many times I've been in a coffee shop and I said, oh, is, is there sugar added to that almond milk or whatever? And they said, oh no, it's just, it's just the Sugar that's there naturally. Yeah. There's 12 grams of sugar in a third of a cup of almond milk. Naturally. Naturally. Like those almonds are sitting there just bathing in sugar. Anyway, I think. I think the. The idea here being there's really no value other than psychologically, if you want to enjoy food a bit more, to consuming the amount of sugar that people are consuming. And there's almost certainly going to be a risk posed to your health if you do this over a long period of time. It doesn't mean that eating a piece of cake is a huge issue, but it does mean that, you know, especially as it relates to brain health, starting to take some steps to decrease that added sugar, I think is a good plan.

Yes. And given that, like you said, more than 90% of adults in the United States are metabolically unhealthy and the incidence of Pre diabetes, type 2 diabetes, gestational diabetes is so high, almost 50% of the population, when you total those groups together and that in order to be the minority that is actually healthy, that you do have to take more action, especially when it comes to regulating your added sugar consumption, decreasing your refined grain consumption, limiting even some of those quote, unquote healthy grains so that you're not eating a high carb diet that's contributing to more of what a lot of people like, a lot of researchers and experts like you refer to as type 3 diabetes, where there's such a connection between elevations in blood sugar and risk of cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease. And in my mind, one of the easiest ways to progress, prevent Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline are the ones that you laid out with getting enough sleep and exercise and those sorts of things, but also eating a diet that is blood sugar balanced in order to support lower levels of insulin resistance, like you're talking about with your dad's work, optimal levels of uric acid in order to support overall metabolic health, but also your brain health.

I think that's it. I'm just gonna, you know, drive that point home, which is in an age in which most people are. Are sick, doing what most people do is a bad plan. In the United States right now, most people have a chronic disease. Most people are on one medication. I think about 40% of people are on two chronic medications. And this isn't to say that I'm not trying to cast blame or to say, you know, that these people are bad. I mean, many of these conditions are just kind of the result of our environment. But I think if you're a person looking at the next 10 to 70 plus years of your. Your life, you need to recognize that unless you start to do things that other people will call weird, your chances of having a long and healthy life are greatly diminished. And so it's these little decisions each day that your friends will say, like, hey, what's the big deal? You know, and it's because what you see, you know, I guess you and I are kind of both at this age where we see the people who got away with it, you know, for decades, like staying out late, drinking, eating unhealthy food, they start coming to you and saying, hey, my A1C is a little high, or, hey, I've gained this weight, or, hey, this thing started happening. What can I do about it? But sometimes it was the same people who, not that long ago were like, hey, we're going out for cheeseburgers. Like, how come you're just having a water? Or, you know, why don't you want to drink that daiquiri? And it's like, this is why, right? So it's all about this question of priorities. And I'm not in any way trying to blame or diminish the opinions of others. You get your own opinions. But statistically speaking, if you want to have a long and healthy life, you've got to be willing to depart from the status quo based on current rates of these diseases.

So good you guys are hearing this from a brain health expert that has contributed or dedicated his career to being able to study how to slow brain aging, decrease neuroinflammation, support brain longevity. I could not thank you more for being here. Can you tell everyone where they can find you?

Absolutely. You can find me on my website, which is austinpromoter.com or on the social media. The social Media is Dr. Austin Perlmutter.

And you have a great YouTube channel. You're working on tons of things with the Big Bold Health, we'll include all the links so that. So that you guys have. Have the links.

Let me just give one quick reference. So we're right now doing, I'd say, the largest randomized trial ever performed on a Food for Brain health at Big Bold Health. Very exciting stuff. So we'll have more on that in the next couple of months. But, you know, we're trying to figure out, how does food influence cognition in healthy people? We've got 850 people in this trial. It's a randomized trial. Super exciting. So for people who want to know the latest research on that, definitely check out Big Bold Health. So you can find out more and.

We'Ll have you back on. I. I would love to. Actually, I wanted to talk about the study today. We'll have you back on to talk about it, because I think that people would be really interested.

Fantastic.

Dr. Austin Perlmutter, thank you for being a part of the Being Bridget Show. Thank you for listening. Like, subscribe, follow all of the things, and until next time, we'll see you soon.