In this Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast episode, host Claudia von Boeselager shares her personal motivation and practical roadmap for preventing and reversing cognitive decline, memory loss, and dementia. Drawing on her mother’s experience with dementia after multiple head traumas and hormone loss, Claudia introduces Dr. Dale Bredesen’s "The End of Alzheimer’s Program" and explains that up to 38 distinct factors (e.g., mercury exposure, inflammation, low vitamin D, mycotoxins) can drive neurodegeneration. She emphasizes early detection through testing—MoCA cognitive assessments, APOE4 genotyping, and comprehensive lab panels—and recommends engaging with the PreCODE (pre‑symptomatic) or ReCODE (symptomatic) protocols via Apollo Health’s network of trained practitioners. Lifestyle interventions form the core of her three‑step plan: (1) a strict ketogenic diet combined with intermittent fasting (12‑14 hour nightly fast) to address brain insulin resistance; (2) daily aerobic movement to boost cerebral blood flow; (3) hormone optimization, especially post‑menopausal HRT, and detoxification of heavy metals and mycotoxins. Claudia also highlights advanced therapies such as hyperbaric oxygen treatment, citing clinical work with NFL players led by Dr. Kristin Willmeyer. Throughout, she stresses that dementia is a 20‑year‑in‑the‑making disease that can be halted or reversed if caught early, and she invites listeners to reach out for personalized guidance. The episode concludes with a brief promotional plug for a longevity‑focused email newsletter.
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Hello, longevity friends, and welcome to another episode of the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast. I'm Claudia von Boeselager, your host, here to uncover the groundbreaking strategies, tools, and practices from the world's leading experts to help you live at your best and reach your fullest potential. If you haven't done so already, make sure to grab my 10 Hacks to Improve Your Life and Longevity Playbook by going to longevity-and-lifestyle.com/10, the number 10, hacks, H-A-C-K-S. Today's episode is from an Instagram Live I did on how to reverse cognitive decline, memory loss, and dementia at any age. In this episode, I share my top tips on where to start if you or a loved one is suffering from memory loss or any other neurodegenerative. As many of you will know, this is a topic close to my heart with my mother at a more later stage of dementia. So I really implore you all to get on top of it as soon as possible because it is reversible if caught on time.
Please enjoy. This week I've had 3 people reach out asking about where to start with family members and even a patient who has Alzheimer's and dementia. And as we know, it's so painful to watch people that you love and have been such a light to suffer from this. As some of you will know, my mother suffers from dementia and it's just so sad to see someone who used to be such a shining light really just start fading away. And it's not only just for the family member, and it's also very sad for them when they start realizing they can't do things and they're not their old self and forgetting basic things, et cetera. But also it's a huge burden for those around and the suffering as well. The good news is that it is reversible if caught on time, or there are steps that you can take to actually proactively prevent it. So I've had the honor and pleasure of speaking with Dr. Dale Bredesen, who is a pioneering scientist in this space, and also Dr. Kristin Willmeyer. Author of Biohack Your Brain, that have developed protocols on what can be done. And I just feel like more people need to know about this. As I've spent my week briefing a few people on some insights that I've had and some experiences, I'm really happy to share some with you also today. What I'd really like to do is just to empower to know what are the steps. I also think is also to understand that it's a 20-year-in-the-making disease, that if you catch it on time, if you are checking regularly, so even like from your 40s, to just have your eye on what are the key markers and what you need to know and where the levels need to be. And so I just wanted to share tips on where to start. And obviously if there's interest, you feel free to reach out. So number one, what I would recommend to start with is really, and this was a game changer for me, is Dr. Dale Bredesen's book. It's called The End of Alzheimer's Program: The First Protocol to Enhance Cognition and Reverse Decline at Any Age, because it's really well-written in terms of explaining what's actually going on and explaining also why there's never going to be just one pill that's going to reverse Alzheimer's and dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases, because through Dr. Dale Bredesen's research in his lab, what they've discovered is that there are 38 different contributing factors. So for example, there's people still walking around with mercury fillings and mercury is so toxic. But if you know about this and you can have them removed and you can do a mercury detox, but also from eating certain fish that have a lot of mercury exposure as well, you could have a buildup of mercury in your system, and this could be causing cognitive decline as well. So doing certain tests, or even for example, if you have high levels of inflammation in your body, mycotoxins, low vitamin D levels, a lot of people suffer from this as well. And so these are all different contributing factors. My understanding is that it's not typically just one factor that causes dementia and memory loss, but that actually it's a contribution of factors as well. So if you know what to look out for, and it's really well described in the book, and where your optimal levels are and not just the lower end of a normal range, then you can adjust accordingly and make sure to keep on top of that and just track them over time. So I'd really empower you to just really be on top of this as well. Great resource to start is that book, "The End of Alzheimer's Program" by Dr. Dale Bredesen. He recently brought out results of a clinical trial, which is really exciting. So there was a cognitive assessment tool. It's called a MoCA test. I think it's like the Montreal Cognition Assessment. And if you're in perfect cognitive health, you have a score of 30, but over time, and as cognition decreases, it starts going down. And already I believe that sort of mild dementia memory loss is diagnosed from like a score of 22 or 24/22. And the recent clinical trials that Dr. Bredesen and his team brought out was that even people who had a score of 18, if they followed his protocol, were able to come back up to a score of 30, which is just phenomenal. And knowing that and keeping on top of it. So with the case with my mother, sadly, was that her MoCA score was already at 11. So it was quite advanced before we found out about it. And by the way, we hear about dementia memory loss and it's, oh, there's this disease that you have. My mother's memory loss is from head trauma. So literally she was at a gym once and a treadmill was left running and she was talking to somebody and she wasn't paying attention and she flew off a treadmill treadmill. That was one head trauma incident. Then she fell very badly tripping over something. And then 2 years ago, she had a very bad fall. And the accumulation of different head trauma events together with— and especially for women listening to this— together with a lack of HRT or hormone replacement therapy after a hysterectomy, so when it induced menopause in her, were leading contributing factors to her levels. So that's why Knowing how to optimize your hormone levels is super important as well, also for your biological age. So we've discussed this separately on the podcast with Nina Nicolina from GlycanAge. Another thing also to really look out for, and this is going to affect your cognitive health as well. So something to also stay on top of. So start with the book, The End of Alzheimer's Program with Dr. Dale Bredesen. Then number 2 is the testing, and you really need to find someone who is familiar with this. I would almost recommend starting, if you want to preempt this, there's a Precode. It's, that's one of their protocols, the Precode Protocol. And if you are already on the path to, or have a family member, a loved one already on the path of cognitive decline, then it's the Recode Protocol. And if you sign up for Apollo Health online resources, you can also find local practitioners. And I'm not sure how many countries, I believe it was in 77 countries in the world, they have somebody trained, but now we're in the digital world anyway. So you could even have someone helping you with this in another country, but just if you need a bit more handholding, it is a lot to get your head around depending on how involved you are in the space in terms of knowing your nutrition and exercise and testing and things like that as well. But it's really worth it because very sadly my mother was too advanced and now we have good days and bad days, but it's just, it's so sad to see someone that was such a shining light suffer so much. I really implore you to get active on with this and to look into it in more detail. So yeah, one is the testing as well. And even if you feel like, okay, I'm in a good state, I'm in a good place, it's great just to have the scores as a baseline so that when you go back and test in a year, 2 years, 3 years, or whatever that number is for you, depending on your age, you can see, is there been any deviation? Is there anything that's been changed? And what might need to be addressed in order to prevent going down that path. Because again, Alzheimer's and dementia is a 20-year-in-the-making disease unless there's been some like critical accident. So it's reversible, it's preventable. So like we, this should be a disease of the past and let's make it that way. So I really want to help educate people and know that they can actually do something about this as well. And that there is no drug that is available that will reverse it. It might help some with some of the symptoms temporarily, but it will not prevent. And then the third one is around diet and exercise. So even while you're getting started with the testing, and that's a bit of a process and getting your head around. One of the most important things you can do is really have a look at your diet and what you're eating and really just think about, you want to be feeding your brain the best way possible. And one of the drivers is insulin resistance of the brain. So it means that part of the brain isn't getting energy and getting what it needs. This is why part of Dr. Bredesen's protocol recommends going on a ketogenic diet or a keto ketogenic diet. Some people will be familiar with it. For a lot of people, it's tricky because it's a, it's a sort of binary, right? All or nothing. If you do it, you need to do it 100%. If you mix up with too much protein or carbohydrates, it's going the wrong way. So if you're going to do it properly and combine that with intermittent fasting, so at the very, very least you want a 12-hour window overnight where you're not eating. So it allows the body to reset and there's all these amazing things that happen. And I've done a separate Instagram Live on intermittent fasting as well with Elena Letiagina. But that ketogenic diet in terms of nutrition, and at the very least, just super clean eating, but ideally you want to go into ketosis because your brain loves ketones, which is another energy source. And it really helps to detox the body. That's recommended as part of the protocol and together with the intermittent fasting and Dale Bredesen calls it like the 12:3, right? So 12 hours overnight, you're not You're not eating at least, if not 14 hours, and you should stop eating 3 hours before bedtime as well. Obviously alcohol, things like this, or just anything that's not good for the brain. If someone is suffering from brain injury or dementia, memory loss, these are things that you just want to be avoiding for the moment. Then exercise, right? So we all hear exercise and exercise is good for you. But if you think about it, like the brain needs, and there's all these deep capillaries and everything in the brain, it needs blood flow and it needs all the resources that come with that and the oxygen. What you're going to be looking at, mother's 76 years old, we're really trying to make sure that she gets that half an hour of movement and nonstop movement during each day. And she has other complications. She has low blood pressure, which means that she is scared she's going to fall again. There will be tricky parts to that as well. But no matter what, even if it's a stationary bike, you really want that blood flow going through the brain every single day, ideally in the morning. Obviously there's different ways you can do it, but if you have a family member that's, oh, giving up, if you will, I have memory loss and there's no point, and I'm just going to sit on the sofa, they will deteriorate very quickly. And so that's one of the things, or if you're younger and you're just looking to preempt it as well, just really focus on your exercise and getting that blood flow to the brain every single day. So those are 3 of my top tips. I can obviously go into more detail. There's obviously the genetic testing you can do. The sort of Alzheimer's, as it's called, gene is the APOE4 gene, and you can either have a single copy or a double copy. I actually have a single copy, which would mean officially that I have a 30% lifetime chance of developing Alzheimer's and cognitive decline. However, if I did nothing about it, so I'm obviously on top of it, but interestingly, my mother does not have that gene. If you have two copies and you don't do anything about it, you have, I believe it's like a 50 to 70% lifetime chance of developing. Alzheimer's and memory loss and dementia. So knowing and testing so that you have your markers and where you're strong and where you need to improve, that's an amazing way to start. And the book, I think, is just a fabulous resource. Dr. Dale Bredesen and his work, I think it's just really well summarized in there. The sooner that it's tackled, the better. Feel free to reach out. I'm happy to share some experiences and some some learnings that, that we have gone through. And one final point that I would also really love to recommend, Dr. Kristen Willomeyer, who is head of, director of brain imaging at the Amen Clinics in the US, who you might be familiar with. They did clinical trials with NFL players, which you can imagine have extensive head trauma through their career. With the NFL players, Dr. Kristen Willomeyer also has a protocol for helping the NFL players who many go down the path of dementia and ALS. Which is just a very cruel disease, Parkinson's, et cetera. They developed a protocol to help them. And one of the therapies that they were looking at is called the hypobaric oxygen therapy or hyperbaric oxygen chamber. And you can imagine it, it's almost just like sitting in a capsule or like a little space plane or an airplane. You have an oxygen mask on and the pressure in the capsule goes down to about 50 meters below sea level. What does that feel like? It's if you're in an airplane and you just feel that pressure on your skin, it's not too bad. But the fact that you're over-oxygenizing the body with the oxygen mask that you're wearing, it pushes the oxygen in from the bloodstream into all the cells. There's just spectacular results that are showing from stem cell regrowth, regeneration. But interestingly, from the brain imaging scans that they did, there was one NFL player who refused to change diet and exercise, but they just did the hyperbaric oxygen therapy sessions. And you could actually visibly see differences in brain regrowth after doing the hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy. So if you have a family member that's suffering, highly recommend even just trying it out, do a certain amount of sessions, obviously speak with the local expert on it. And many places now, I think you will be able to find a hyperbaric oxygen chamber or therapy. There are a bunch of functional medicine institutes at this point, if it's a family member you love, just throw everything at it and try and get them ideally back to optimum cognition, but if not, at least to slow the decline and ideally improve it a little bit from there. And that's all based on that MoCA score, which is the cognitive assessment score. I just wanted to share those tips and advice to you, dear audience. I know this is such a personal and painful topic. Hopefully we can all contribute to making it a disease of the past. Thanks so much for joining today, and I look forward to continue to serve you.
Hi everyone, this is Claudia again.
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