#2450 - Tommy Wood

Joe Rogan (0:01)

Joe Rogan Podcast, checking out The Joe Rogan Experience.

Tommy Wood (0:06)

Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

Joe Rogan (0:12)

All right, nice to meet you, sir. Stimulated mind, a future-proof for your brain. Is that possible? Future-proof? Why can't I say that? I already have dementia. Future-proof your brain from dementia and stay sharp at any age.

First of all, what prompted you to write this?

Tommy Wood (0:34)

So I've spent a long time working in a whole range of different spheres related to the brain. How to treat new born brain injury, how to treat and maybe even prevent certain traumatic brain injuries and concussions, looking at what affects long-term cognitive decline and dementia, as well as working with elite professional athletes, particularly Formula One drivers, trying to help them stay on top of their game for as long as possible. I saw across all those different areas, there are these core things that the brain seems to thrive on, that are required either for development or maintenance of cognitive function. These are things that people can apply to themselves on a day-to-day basis, improve their focus and well-being now, and then long-term, that translates to a lower risk of dementia.

Joe Rogan (1:27)

So is dementia and is it a genetic thing or is it a function of atrophy? Is it a combination of those things?

Tommy Wood (1:40)

It's a combination of those things. Certainly, there's a genetic component. So maybe I will zoom out to start with and just think about what is dementia? Dementia is the clinical diagnosis of losing so much cognitive function that you're not able to take care of yourself on a day-to-day basis. There are several different types of dementia. The most common is Alzheimer's disease. That's something like 60 to 80% of cases of dementia. The next most common is vascular dementia, something like 10 to 20%. And then there are others like frontotemporal dementia, Lewy body dementia, dementia you get with Parkinson's disease. But those first two, something like 70 to 90% of dementias, they are directly tied to lifestyle and the environment. And right now, it's estimated that somewhere between 45 and maybe even 70 or more percent of dementias are preventable. And most of those fall into those two categories. There is a genetic component. So Alzheimer's disease has two broad types. There is early onset Alzheimer's disease. That's caused by a single mutation in a single gene, something like the amyloid precursor protein gene or one of the pre-synodin genes. Those people get Alzheimer's in their 30s to 50s. It's a very predictable and quite rapid decline sometimes. But that's maybe 1% of Alzheimer's. The vast majority, like when we think about Alzheimer's, we think about an age-related dementia. And this is much more related to the environment. So, there is a genetic component. You might have heard of ApoE4.

So you can have 3 different flavors of ApoE, ApoLipoprotein E, 2, 3 and 4 You get 2 copies.

Joe Rogan (3:28)

Which is the one that makes you more likely to get CTE? Is that 2?

Tommy Wood (3:34)

No, so that's 4 as well. Yeah, so 4 essentially has an effect of amplifying certain inflammatory effects in the brain. That's probably why it makes CTE worse, makes it more likely for you to get CTE. Because if you're getting repetitive impacts, repetitive injuries, then it sort of exacerbates or makes that inflammatory response worse. But when you think about that in terms of Alzheimer's, if you have one copy of ApoE4, your risk of Alzheimer's is increased by sort of 2 to 6 times. If you have 2 copies, it's 6 to 20 times, depending on how you look at it. But all the data suggest that ApoE4 is a risk multiplier. So it's not that if you have a copy of ApoE4, you're definitely going to get dementia. It's that in the setting, particularly of the modern environment, risks of dementia or risk factors for dementia are amplified, like excessive alcohol intake, physical inactivity, low-quality diet. So that also means that if you then address those risk factors, you have greater benefit, right? Because you're offsetting some of that additional risk. So however you look at dementia from a genetic standpoint, and it can also be family history, right? If you have a family history of dementia, you have an increased risk of dementia. But a lot of what comes with family history is shared environment and shared lifestyle, right? You eat and sleep and move like your parents did. And so if they had a lifestyle that might increase their risk of dementia, you get that as well. So even if you do have an increased genetic risk, you can offset a large part of that through lifestyle and other environmental factors.