How to Reduce Your Risk of Alzheimer’s: Small Habits to Start This Week

The full transcript of this episode is below. Lightly edited for readability.

The full transcript of this episode is below. Lightly edited for readability.

Kelly [00:01]: Hey Jo, thank you so much. Welcome to the show. I’m so grateful you’re here. You and I have chatted about this — about my life and my mum and everything. So it’s really personal for me. I’m happy to bring people this information and hopefully today we can break some myths about Alzheimer’s. We start each show trying to delve a little bit into your life so the listeners can get a sense of who you are. What does your morning look like? How do you set yourself up for success?

Jo [01:54]: …just things that switch my brain on and keep me stable — energetically, physically, mentally, cognitively stable for the rest of the day. And then I start my day at work. My work day starts at about 7:30 and goes until I can manage to get home.

Kelly [02:04]: Oh my God, that’s epic. I was thinking, should I ask her this question? Because she’s pregnant — maybe she’s chilling. Far out.

Jo [03:56]: …the mental capacity that exercise gives me is just above and beyond. It’s something I wish everyone could fall in love with — it’s never too late. I’m often meeting women, particularly from perimenopause on, who are just discovering it for the first time.

Kelly [04:27]: Yeah, I agree. I’ve been doing it since I was about 13 and I get irritated when I miss the gym for too long. I think when things become part of your identity — core to who you are — that makes such a difference. So I’m really interested in what you said about hyperbaric. Why that modality every morning? You’ve got a clinic full of options.

Jo [05:53]: The big thing I love about hyperbaric — and we always say this — is hyperbaric cures nothing but helps everything. It supports every cell in your body. It reduces inflammation, supports tissue recovery — literally triples the rate of tissue healing — supports your immune system, increases antioxidants, helps your cells work better energetically. We were one of the first hyperbaric clinics in Sydney.

Jo [07:30]: The research for cognitive conditions isn’t necessarily high pressure. It just didn’t make sense to me that we couldn’t use it. So I did it. And also — because I’m in a contained space — it makes me stop. I could go into our brain room and do a Vielight session, or a Brain Tap session, or have a sauna. But the hyperbaric forces me to pause.

Kelly [08:50]: There’s a lot of research about hyperbaric and brain health. I’m interested — you said the research for cognitive health points to low to medium pressure settings. I always assumed you needed high medical-grade pressure to see noticeable differences.

Jo [09:48]: They were at about 2 to 2.4 atmospheres, thinking more is better. But what they actually found is that different pressures impacted different genes, different inflammatory markers, and different biomarkers in different ways. In an ideal world I’d love to have a clinic with medical grade as well, but there’s a lot more regulation around that.

Jo [11:28]: Higher pressures are better for peripheral areas — like fingers and toes — which is why they’re used for peripheral neuropathy after chemotherapy, or severe brain injury where a section of the brain has no blood flow. Even then, 1.5 atmospheres is enough to help with new blood vessel growth.

Kelly [12:09]: My partner tried it and has asthma — couldn’t get past about 1.2. Whereas I can go high, no problem. One final question before we move on: is it the continuity that matters, rather than one session here and there?

Kelly [13:52]: So today we’re talking about Alzheimer’s and Alzheimer’s prevention. There’s a common belief — and I know my mum had it — that once you have Alzheimer’s, that’s it. Nothing you can do. I saw this firsthand with my mum — this real terror. I’d love for you to tell us about the Bredesen Protocol and how that’s changing things.

Jo [15:55]: Looking at 45% plus of cases that could be prevented if you do the work in time — and even then, the system isn’t covering all the issues that we would look at.

Jo [17:35]: You get your body really healthy, it’s going to have a reflective effect on your brain. That whole prevention piece is crucial. The evidence is already there to show that nearly half the cases could actually be prevented. So why aren’t we doing it? And then on the reversal side, there are lots of steps. Some people come to me just for brain optimisation and prevention.

Jo [19:36]: For me — I got accepted, and found out on the day we got there that the 60 of us who trained in that first group were chosen from 3,000 applicants. Only six of us were nutritionists. The rest were doctors, researchers, and neurologists. I was pretty taken aback, given the way nutritionists tend to get treated by the medical establishment. We really don’t have a great deal of perceived value — and we are very different to a dietician.

Jo [21:48]: I watched my grandpa go down when I was a kid. For me it was very much about getting my hormones optimised — and given that I’m now the age I’m at, and I’m pregnant, ten years ago I was told I was probably heading into early menopause. Wasn’t loving that.

Jo [23:00]: I’ve got the Alzheimer’s gene. I’ve had mould illness. On the other side of my family it’s four generations of diabetics who ended up with amputations. So I’m like — not going down that path. What are all the things I need to do to not follow my genetics or my family history, and create a life around that?

Kelly [23:10]: So inspiring — because people can look at that family history, or find out their DNA results, and feel terror. I also carry APOE4 — it was scary when I first found out. But I took a step back and thought: this is a roadmap. It’s showing me where to direct my attention. Not that I’m stuck with it.

Jo [25:48]: Only a couple of weeks ago, the Australian Human Rights Commission actually stepped in — because life insurance companies had started to let APOE4 status affect people’s insurance. I remember being in a meeting with insurance companies when I first came back from training with Bredesen. I flagged that exact question. They said, ‘Of course not, we’d never do anything like that.’ And then last year that started to become quite a problem.

Jo [27:34]: If you’re in prevention, these are the ideal things to do — but right now, with no symptoms, you can pick and choose a bit. If you start to notice anything, let’s revisit. You get more leeway in the prevention space. Once someone is showing symptoms, I can be a little more direct.

Kelly [27:42]: That makes sense. Dr. Bredesen talks about what he calls a cognoscopy — which needs a rebrand, I think. He recommends everyone have a comprehensive brain assessment at age 45. Do you recommend that for everyone, or just people with a family history?

Jo [29:30]: Our young-onset dementia population is growing quickly. I already have a patient who’s 38 — a medic, actually — who is showing significant issues and is very challenged by the fact that medicine has nothing to offer. They’re saying that within the next 20 years, it might not be unusual for people in their 30s to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia.

Kelly [29:57]: Why is it becoming younger? What’s driving that?

Jo [31:42]: Mould is an absolute shocker and a major, major contributor. New homes off-gas these materials and there aren’t great regulations around waterproofing — so even a brand new home can have a mould issue. And chronic stress is a huge problem. All the things that modern society brings with it.

Kelly [32:23]: So what does a base assessment at Bounce Matters actually include?

Jo [33:57]: I want to understand the background. Recreational drug use — I don’t care that you did it, I just want to know. Did you ever live in a home with mould — maybe the one you grew up in? What jobs did your parents do? Maybe you spent time with them and had toxic exposures, and genetically you don’t clean those up well.

Jo [35:52]: If someone has chronic inflammation — maybe chronic pain that can’t be explained — we might do food inflammation testing, organic acids testing for cellular function, environmental toxins, heavy metals, mould. There’s quite an extensive list, but those are the top-of-tree things we start with.

Kelly [36:18]: So comprehensive. I’ve already said I’m coming in for an assessment and I want to take the audience on that journey. Dr. Bredesen also talks about subtypes of Alzheimer’s. Could you explain those?

Jo [37:42]: Type 1 is glycotoxic — where your insulin level shows you’ve moved out of a healthy glucose response into pre-diabetic territory. That’s the one we consider easiest to turn around, because it’s mostly about food, lifestyle, and movement. Type 2 is atrophic — you’re lacking hormones.

Jo [39:42]: Especially patients in their 40s and 50s — they’ll often have nutrient deficiencies alongside a toxic load the body hasn’t been able to clear. Type 4 is vascular. Patients with cardiovascular history, or a family history of stroke and heart attack. My sister had varicose veins removed at 18 — she clearly inherited vascular issues from my Nana.

Kelly [40:36]: Let’s talk about what people can actually do. Let’s start with sleep — how does sleep quality affect prevention?

Jo [43:32]: Often I’ll recommend people have a sleep study — it’s not expensive. Tracking sleep and having a really good sleep routine matters enormously. Not watching your phone with blue light coming at you for the last half hour before bed — and then wondering why you can’t sleep, because the blue light will just annihilate your melatonin.

Kelly [43:51]: And diet — what does the research say about dietary prevention of Alzheimer’s?

Jo [45:35]: Research from Alessio Fasano — a paediatric gastroenterologist — showed that every human gut will get some level of inflammation from gluten. And if there’s inflammation in your gut, there will be reciprocal inflammation in your brain. Every patient I’ve ever seen with brain fog, whatever the cause — my first port of call is their water intake. Then gluten.

Jo [47:52]: Gluten, water, food timing, being thoughtful around alcohol, and as many colours of the rainbow as you can every day. I had a patient recently — I asked him to step through what he ate in a day. Vegetarian breakfast, banana sandwich at lunch, chicken or lamb cutlets at dinner. No vegetables. No colour. No fibre.

Kelly [48:19]: With some beer by the sounds of it — because that sounds very Australian.

Kelly [49:54]: What specific exercise is best for brain health?

Jo [49:55]: When I first trained with Bredesen ten years ago, the main directives were 45 to 60 minutes of moderate cardio, five to six days a week. It’s evolved since then. The hard and fast research now is on resistance training — for people under 70, or depending on fitness level, some level of heat training. But not a lot. Getting people moving every single day will increase oxygen to the brain regardless.

Kelly [52:32]: What about brain training devices and apps — what actually works versus what’s just good marketing?

Jo [53:52]: Near-infrared lights are very specifically located around the brain to affect mitochondrial function around the default mode network. I say to people — sign up for Brain HQ and Lumosity, because Lumosity has a lot more creativity and variety, and alternate days. But for people who hate being online: learn a new language, do crosswords or puzzles. My grandpa lived until he was 95 and taught himself to build his own computer at 80.

Jo [57:34]: The company that makes the near-infrared device is called Active Minds Global. They have a brain recovery set with about six or seven tracks. They also have one for students — LearnShark — and one for everyday people who just want to be a bit more switched on.

Kelly [58:09]: What else do you offer at Bounce Matters that we haven’t covered?

Jo [59:49]: We use the cognitive baseline testing that Dr. Bredesen used in the big trial they finished at the end of October. It reads a whole range of cognitive processing categories — from above average through to below average. I’ll often do that for prevention patients so we have a starting point to compare against. And we do exercise with oxygen therapy — a spin bike with 100% oxygen.

Kelly [1:00:56]: To finish up — the role of stress. What does the research actually say?

Jo [1:01:51]: Our emotional centres — the amygdala — are directly attached to our hippocampus, which is our learning and memory centre. When we’re sitting in high stress, high cortisol — that’s why people find they can’t think or remember things when they’re stressed. It’s not psychological. It’s literal neurobiology.

Jo [1:03:33]: I had a 30-year-old male patient — a lot going on at home and in his business. He went and got tests because he was quite depressed, which was very different from his normal state. His testosterone was below range. It was actually his psychologist who picked it up. Chronic stress had essentially shut down his testosterone production.

Jo [1:05:39]: Emotional stress plays such a massive part in everything about our health — the way our brain functions, the pain we’re in, the way we recover, the fact that we can’t sleep. Learning to work with and manage stress — for some people it’ll be breathwork, for some meditation, for some yoga, for some walking barefoot on the beach. But something, most days.

Kelly [1:06:25]: It’s simple, not easy — because there are so many things pulling at us. But small shifts that don’t require lots of money or time can make a world of difference. It all starts with the awareness.

Kelly [1:09:34]: To bring it back for the audience — if someone could only do one thing from everything we’ve talked about today, where would you start?

Jo [1:09:54]: My first thing would be looking at your food intake. Could you make better choices today? Could you add more vegetables? Could you eat a little bit earlier? Could you drink more water? That would be my first thing. Then: how often and how much do you move? And finally — human connection. Have a think about what you used to do for fun. Loneliness is a significant cognitive risk factor that most people never think about.

Kelly [1:12:20]: I’ve loved connecting with you today. Tell people where they can find you.

Jo [1:14:10]: I used to say I train in hope and healing. As long as you’re alive and kicking and willing to put in some effort, there’s always going to be something you can do. Thanks for having me, sweetie.

Kelly [1:14:19]: Thank you so much.