Rich, Fit and Happy Show

56 | Thriving Beyond 50: Unleashing Wellness Wisdom with Gregory Ann Cox

• Crystal O'Connor • Season 2 • Episode 56

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Are you ready to embrace a fit, healthy, and energized life after 50? 

I'm joined by Gregory Ann, a life coach and weight loss coach with a certificate in nutrition and have invested countless hours and dollars in learning about all aspects of women's health from hormones to thyroid health, genetics and alternative options for healthy ageing. From adjusting habits to better align with our priorities to understanding the changes in our hormones and metabolism, this conversation is packed with valuable insights and practical advice.

Discover the truth about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy as Gregory Ann debunks common misconceptions and highlights the importance of estrogen for women's health. We'll also explore the power of five in nutrition coaching, the challenges of veganism, and the significance of listening to our bodies when it comes to what we eat. Let's set realistic goals and take action to prioritize our physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

Finally, we'll delve into the connection between estrogen levels, lifestyle habits, and Alzheimer's disease. Gregory Ann shares her thoughts on genetic testing and the role of macronutrients in our overall health. We'll also discuss the heart-wrenching reality of dealing with dementia and the importance of patience and understanding. Tune in to this enlightening episode and learn how you can stay fit, healthy, and sharp in your 50s and beyond.

I'm both serious about this work and funny about getting older and being this rebellious being that I am. 

Find more about Gregory Ann at:

Sign up with Ageless Ambition by visiting https://www.AgelessAmbition.com

You can also schedule a call with me or one of my team members at https://www.calendly.com/wealthy-wellness

Health and Wellness practitioners: you can learn more at http://www.WealthyWellnessAcademy.com

Speaker 1:

Why is it when I became, say, 42, 43, did I suddenly have to? I couldn't lose weight. I like gained it easily, and then it took forever to come. I felt like I needed to be a scientist to get one pound off.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, i hear you And I can only not to complicate it or make anybody like I'm not Debbie Downer but it doesn't get any easier That whole weight loss thing as you get older, because I'm older than you by a number of years And one of the things that's true is that our metabolism does slow down And when our hormones are in flux it makes it harder for the body to stay stable, whether it's weight, craving, sleep, you know we get all these crazy things happening, and so it's not our imagination, it really truly is.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Rich, fit and Happy podcast. I'm Crystal O'Connor, where we want to take you from drab to fab in this beautiful life. Let's go. Hello. Hello. It's Crystal O'Connor with Rich, fit and Happy podcast, and today I have a guest.

Speaker 1:

I brought her on because I myself am 53. And boy have things changed with regard to staying fit and trying to fit into the same size. That I did easily in my 30s. It was easy to lose five pounds. It was so easy And all I had to do is go do a spin class And it seemed like all the baby weight came off after I had my kids. It was just easy And I couldn't figure out why some women in my family they couldn't do it. So then I hit maybe early 40s and it became harder and harder. And it wasn't just the food that I had to change, it was what I did in the gym. It was a lot of things. So that's one of the reasons why I brought in Gregory Ann as a guest today And we're going to talk about that because she has a business, she's a nutrition coach and a life coach, because the brain and the gut work together.

Speaker 1:

We're going to talk about that And she's going to give us some suggestions or what she knows about Alzheimer's, the brain, because here's the thing. I want to stay looking great but also feeling great, and I want my brain to be working because I've got grandkids on the way. My first grandson was born just the 12th, just this month. I'm a grandma. My daughter just chose to speed that whole process up, apparently because she's only 24. And that's fine. I just wasn't expecting to be called grandma at such a young age. Gregory Ann, thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, crystal. I appreciate you having me Yeah where should we start?

Speaker 1:

What do you want to talk about first? Because I've got like all these questions but I don't know where to start.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you can ask anything you want. but to your point about how things change, it's true. I say that midlife is like the Olympics have changed from midlife beyond 48, 47, 45 for some women it's younger And then even people say, well, once you're through menopause, then it's going to stabilize. I don't agree. We just constantly have to be adjusting how we do things.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you know, in business it's like that because business always changes. And boy, we're going through a huge change with AI coming on board and that's going to change everything. So, yeah, just get used to it, because everything is. But see, everything is kind of cyclical too. They say So not to complicate it even more. I didn't mean do that by saying that, but let's talk about why things get harder as we age, like why is it? when I became, say, 42, 43, did I suddenly have to? I couldn't lose weight. I like gained it easily and then it took forever to come. I felt like I needed to be a scientist to get one pound off.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, i hear you And I can only not to complicate it or make anybody beat like I'm not Debbie Downer but it doesn't get any easier, that whole weight loss thing as you get older, because I'm older than you by a number of years, and one of the things that's true is that our metabolism does slow down And when our hormones are in flux it makes it harder for the body to stay stable, whether it's weight, craving, sleep. You know we get all these crazy things happening And so it's not our imagination, it really truly is. And then you know, some people will poo poo that and say, oh, that's not true. People get lazy, or they get busy, they have their kids. You know you can't deny the physiology, and the physiology is such that it slows down.

Speaker 2:

And sometimes we do too, maybe not in our 40s, but like 50, mid 50s. Some people just want to take it easy. They've worked hard, they've been running, they've had kids, they're just like done with taking that extra exercise glass, right, so but we have to kind of like. You said, your priority, you want to look good, feel good, you want your brain to be sharp. Well, those are priorities for you. So you're going to line up your habits behind your priorities right.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about those habits, Can we like? what habits do I need to change? What do you feel like are the most important for women over 50? What habits are the most important to keep her energy up?

Speaker 2:

Number 1, you have to listen to the body when it talks to you about how you're eating. That may sound crazy, but something as simple as indigestion, getting tired right after we eat, getting hungry right after we eat an hour Heartburn.

Speaker 1:

can I put that in there?

Speaker 2:

Which one?

Speaker 1:

Heartburn, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

People say my body doesn't speak to me. Those are all. that's the language of the body, a symptom of something.

Speaker 1:

I don't know why so many women struggle with that. I don't. But what's that all about? Maybe you could share what all of those stomach things are affecting the brain too. Right, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

The heart, the brain, how are? whatever hormones we have left are also affected, And one of the things that people have to realize we're going to talk about Alzheimer's in a bit Estrogen is the youthful hormone. It keeps us young, It's why we got breasts, because it created what's that like. Cells go Not everybody says that.

Speaker 1:

Not everybody says what you said, Gregory, because can I just call you Gregory or do you go by Greg? That is fine. No, Greg is fine, Because most people I mean I feel like everyone's just afraid of estrogen and they think that it's the cancer hormone. I don't know why it's poo pooed on so much.

Speaker 2:

Tell us why There was a study called the Women's Health Initiative. I don't know how many years ago, but it was to test hormone replacement therapy and it was flawed in many ways. Most of the participants were older, like over 60 and into their 70s, which is not a bad time to start hormone replacement, we know now. But many of them had problems already. They had heart disease, they had diabetes, they had things that were going to go awry. If that kind of a drug would cause a problem, they were going to get it. These drugs were not natural hormones. They were made in a lab or they were using equine urine, horse urine I'm sure some people have heard of that. These things are not things that the body is used to. Then some people got more heart disease. Some people very few, but it became the big headline ended up having breast cancer Not many more than would have, just because one out of eight women gets breast cancer. They didn't take that into account. All of the headlines were like it causes heart disease and breast cancer. We're going to throw it all away. We're going to take all of these women off their medication, which we're helping some people feel better.

Speaker 2:

That's the lingering thing now. We equate a cancer gene with a cancer diagnosis. Estrogen is a cancer because people that have breast cancer have an estrogen dependent kind of cancer or non. Estrogen creates proliferation of cells and grows tissue. Naturally, if some women have a cancer gene, it's never one gene genes that cause cancer in their body. Their cells are going to proliferate. If it's estrogen dependent But not every but we all have a brachy gene. Who's a female? because we have breasts, we came with a brachy gene. It doesn't mean it's going to turn into cancer. So, like so much else in conventional wisdom medicine these days, there's old news and then there's new science, and not all the new science gets its proper spotlight. It's being suppressed.

Speaker 1:

I feel like that it is Okay. so it's almost like I feel like sometimes, if it is suppressed or if I hear something new and people are like it's not popular, it's because it's true. I feel that I'm starting to feel that more and more. So tell me about estrogen, like let's talk about estrogen and how it is actually the youthful hormones and how it tends to drop off and how can we like raise it, because I hear about estrogen dominance so much that I thought that was the problem.

Speaker 2:

So there are. I had estrogen dominance I didn't know that that's what it was when I was having horrendous periods and bleeding and finally had my uterus taken out because I was like I can't do this anymore because of fibroids. That's an estrogen dominant problem, right, But as our estrogen declines, it creates another set of problems, which is since the brain, the heart, the bones, everything depends on. Every cell in the body likes estrogen. So all of those things that are estrogen dependent are suddenly starving, screaming. The estrogen is going down. We don't have any. We have very little in our body. One of the reasons that we gain weight is because fat is a natural source of estrogen in the body and the body knows it likes estrogen. So what's it going to do? It's going to create a little factory of its own to make back some of that estrogen.

Speaker 2:

So one way that you can replenish estrogen or raise your estrogen level is by using bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. I'm not saying that's the answer for everyone, but it did me a world of good, and there are so many studies about the safety and efficacy. Now, if you have the right doctor who understands the protocol, you're given a transdermal prescription rather than taking a pill. That's the safest way because it doesn't have to go through the liver. But if all these things were helped in our 20s and 30s by the abundant estrogen supply we had, and then suddenly estrogen falls off the map, you would imagine that if you could put it back, you'd start to feel more youthful, have a better, because a lot of people complain about brain fog. Bioidentical hormone therapy is one of the fastest things to get your brain back to sort of like wow, I feel like myself. Okay, Yeah, Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I've heard this. Okay, i'm not taking it right now, but you've got me interested And I have in the past and I didn't yeah, i won't get into that. I need to find the right doctor. So you said the key words find the right doctor that really knows what they're doing. And it's so confusing because I think that anyone with a medical license tries to act like they know what they're talking about or what they're doing. But I've heard from people and doctors that go to conferences. They go to conferences and there's a lot. Even in the conferences there's a lot of different opinions and they don't really know what they're doing And it's almost like they're using some of their patients as a guinea pig. Do you feel like that?

Speaker 2:

I would hate to. I'm sure that it's true. I guess I've been lucky, but my brand of rebellious wellness, one of the things why rebellious wellness, because I think it's an active rebellion to do as much on your behalf to get that, to get the treatment you want, to decline treatment you don't want, or medication you don't want to find the right doctors, And I've always been this way, so I guess, and I've stopped working with doctors because they were sort of going well, you know it's a throwaway. Let me give you this and you'll feel better. I don't want that to make me feel better. I want to find out what the problem is, right.

Speaker 1:

How do you? Okay, so now maybe I might be a little confused, or I just need a little bit of clarity. How then are you able to get your bio identical hormones if you're not going to doctors?

Speaker 2:

No, no, i didn't mean to say I'm not going. I have in the past said no to doctors who were just going to throw like, oh, we'll give you some estrogen and it's a pill and you'll be fine, you know, or you should have a testosterone pellet inserted into your butt. I'm, like you know, not the doctor for me.

Speaker 1:

So I do. You don't believe in those.

Speaker 2:

I don't believe in them for me. That's my caveat. There's something works for different people in different ways. The thing I don't like about a pellet is that once it's in, if it's too much, it's staying by the way, audience that it doesn't actually go in your butt, that goes in your muscle.

Speaker 1:

You know it's inserted in your skin, right?

Speaker 2:

But it's still inserted in as in if it's too much for you. they have to then go sort of like pull it out with a knife, I get a big. So I just didn't want to have that experience.

Speaker 1:

So you felt like it was too much. And, by the way, isn't that testosterone?

Speaker 2:

I did say testosterone, I thought maybe even Yeah no, no, no, it's okay.

Speaker 1:

I just want to clarify it for myself and for anyone. So what symptoms were you having that made you think it was too much? I didn't have the testosterone wave at first.

Speaker 2:

The first time I took bioidenticals I was about 47 and I was going through all the symptoms Hot flashes, not sleeping, cranky. couldn't think I was, like you, always running a business, because I've been an entrepreneur forever. I was engaged to be married to a guy that was younger than me So every time he touched me and I was hot I'd be like don't touch me as a go. This cannot stand. We must do something immediately. So luckily I had a doctor who was a functional medicine doc and I went and I said here are the problems and he said okay, are you willing to try this? So I researched it because first of all I tried everything natural black cohosh, raspberry, progesterone, cream from nanolives, whatever And I wasn't getting any results.

Speaker 2:

So my research said that there were lots of things that I said was safe. So I said, okay, i'll try it. And he gave me a little and it was a cream a little estrogen in. I probably had progesterone mixed in, because you sort of want to balance those. And at first it was too much And I was like feeling better but I was really kind of groggy, sleepy, so we lowered it down again And then all of a sudden I was like back to my old happy self And it's been like that forever. Like since then. I have just been on various doses. I only started using testosterone about a year and a half ago because I felt like my energy was. I couldn't work out to the level that I like.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And I get it. As you get older Sometimes you have to back off of some of the stuff you like. But I wasn't ready to. So I went to my now doctor I've moved since that first time And he said what do you think? and he said you have no testosterone. Look at your blood work There's none. I think it would help. And I was a little afraid because I've heard stories. You know your voice is going to deepen, you're going to get facial hair, could cause cancer. But again, i went to the books. I went to, you know, google scholar and plus one, and I found a lot of research that said it's safe. And I have a little bit of testosterone now in my prescription and I feel like myself again at this age. Myself is not the same self as I was at 47, but myself that I like to feel And you feel like that.

Speaker 1:

that was the estrogen, was the missing component.

Speaker 2:

Originally estrogen was definitely what was. Yeah, and that again the perimenopause that you're going up and down and up and down. All it did was sort of balance out that fluctuation, which is what causes for many women. It's interesting to me that some women have no symptoms.

Speaker 1:

And envy them. Well, let's look at that. Okay, so you help with diet. to how much does diet help And how.

Speaker 2:

So diet definitely helps balance the body's hormones. Everything we eat, everything we think, creates a cascade of hormones, neurotransmitters and hormones in the body. I definitely had to look at what I was eating, what time I stopped eating. I was a chef for years. I didn't get done work till 910, 11 o'clock. I might have had dinner at 10, i stayed up and had wine till one. Then I got up and did it all over again and suddenly that was not a plan for health. So I definitely did.

Speaker 2:

But I again, like I said, i tried all the natural things first, you know, no salt and taking out dairy, and it really wasn't. First of all, i didn't want to change my lifestyle such that I was hating life. Right, i like food and I like to enjoy it, but it didn't change. No salt, no dairy, no wheat. That didn't change any of my symptoms. So I thought, okay, that's not where the root of this problem is. It truly is going to take more than just this. For some people it will be the magic bullet. They can change their lifestyle and they'll be great again, or they'll just going to tough it out through the symptoms into menopause and then sort of decline from there. I don't mean to be mean, but if you have more estrogen in your body, even after menopause, you'll do better than people that don't, in terms of feeling good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Okay. so what is your program like? Tell me about what you have to offer and your website.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so the website is rebellious wellness over 50. And the way I work with people is first I do an assessment to find out you're like in the mall and it's like the. You are here, and then there's all the stores So you can find out how to get to where you want to go. A lot of women that come to me say I don't know whether I'm doing enough, or I kind of think I'm doing right by my body, but I'm not really sure. So then we have to ask the questions beyond that. What do you do every day? How do you sleep? How do you eat? How do you feel after you eat? You know there's a whole. It's like you crystal with a business. You're going to find out what the person wants from their business, where they are now, how they feel and what's the gap. How are we going to fill that gap? Well, mostly there's more questions to be asked, and then my power of five. It's basically we're going to work on your sleep, make sure you get enough protein, make sure you fall in love with fat because fat is the long, slow burn energy food that we need And mindset is huge and balancing your blood sugar.

Speaker 2:

I'm sure lots of people listening have heard this. It's critically important And that goes back to our conversation about listening to your body after you eat. You're tired after you eat. If you're craving within an hour after you eat, there's something going on with your blood sugar. It goes up when we eat, naturally, but then in an hour, in 90 minutes, two hours, it should come back down to what's baseline, healthy for you. If it doesn't do that and it stays high and then it crashes, that's why people get like a low, you know, all of a sudden they want to take a nap, feeling So it's important And you mentioned you felt like you had to have a science degree. Balancing your blood sugar sounds like you need all this chemistry in your head. You don't. You just have to listen to your body and think about the food you're putting in, have a little understanding about what kind of food you eat. Do they cause a big spike in blood sugar Or are they pretty benign? which is why I feature I love protein and fat because they are not blood sugar raising elements of our diet, and it doesn't matter whether you're vegan or keto or it doesn't matter, it's still the same principles. And so those are the five things we work on.

Speaker 2:

And again, if somebody says well, here's my. This is one thing that I might be different. If somebody comes to me and says I really need to lose 30 pounds and I want to do it in three months because my daughter is getting married, for me that's sort of an impossible situation, especially for women over 50, because our emotional attachment to the date does not necessarily translate into our body's respect of time. It takes us longer, as you said, to lose weight than it did when we were younger. We say three months, 30 pounds. That sounds doable, but what if it isn't? So let's tie your feeling of success to something else, to your actions, to your new habits, to how you're feeling. Get a different size dress. You don't get the 30 pounds off, but don't be attached to that number, because more stress equals more problems.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's interesting, like maybe get a dress that's try on a lot of them and find one that actually looks good, makes you feel better, and then that will maybe dissipate some of the urgency Like, oh my God, this has to happen, because then we sabotage ourselves, right, exactly. Yeah, okay, so do you help with telling them what to eat in the program? I don't like to tell people what to eat With.

Speaker 2:

yes, there are categories, but what to eat? if a person feels like I can't get to the store today or I don't really like that food, i'm setting somebody up for more stress. But what I will say is if you're a person, if you're an omnivore, then here are some proteins you can choose throughout the day. I really don't know how to keep a vegan healthy. I'll be perfectly honest with you, because it's so I just had this conversation with my daughter.

Speaker 1:

I have two daughters but one, you know she doesn't like protein. I said honey, you have to have protein. Yeah, so what do you tell someone like that?

Speaker 2:

Generally, i just tell them right up front when we're having our conversation before somebody I don't offer everybody, probably like you, who says I'd like to work with you, okay, let's discover whether that's the right next step for you. I may not be the right coach, so I'll tell people that. And if they're vegan, you know honestly and I have nothing against veganism I just don't know how to require or to encourage people to get the right amounts of the kinds of foods you need to get all the amino acids and yadda, yadda.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so, yeah, so it's about minerals and amino acids and vitamins too, but they really do best when they're coming from food, right? Yeah, so it affects their blood sugar, doesn't it? When a vegan is not getting enough protein, their blood sugar is a little wonky, is that right?

Speaker 2:

You know, i wouldn't say that the protein is part of the blood sugar wonky equation, but if they aren't, so if the body isn't getting what it needs, it gets into a stress situation and could get it into an inflammation situation. Those things relate to higher blood sugar. Plus, many vegans eat lots of beans and legumes, asta things like that, which are naturally high in some complex carbohydrates, some not so, which could lead to a sustained higher blood sugar level. But again, when people are young, the body is more forgiving And I know lots of recovered vegans they will call themselves that who just woke up one day and didn't feel well in their 40s and 50s, didn't have the energy they used to have, had a pallor to their skin that they didn't like, and just adding back a little bit of fish my sister's an example a little bit of fish or a bite of chicken and egg here, and they are really made a big difference. Yogurt, you know, it doesn't even have to be animal protein, just some source of nutrition that has more of them.

Speaker 1:

So macros, do you have them? pay attention to macros? Is it something you talk about?

Speaker 2:

I'm going to keep it as simple as possible kind of person. If somebody really has never been a vegetable fan, then I'm going to suggest that we make you know that part of our nutrition that's going to be a big part of your lifestyle change, and maybe there are certain macronutrients in that vegetable world that I can suggest that they'll get down more easily than you know. eat a huge bowl of leafy greens. Let's drill it down and see. Maybe it's taking some seaweed tablets. you know there are lots of ways to get where people want to go And I it's like seaweed tablets.

Speaker 1:

That's interesting.

Speaker 2:

Green life? Yeah, i mean they. There are lots of great products Organic. You want to get them?

Speaker 1:

organic Sounds like you've got a lot of little hidden gyms and some tools and high value in your program, because there are little things like that that I've learned. When I say, like that, i don't do the seaweed but I'm not interested, like little things. Like magnesium that I introduced into my diet changed my life because like I could sleep better. It stopped the heart palpitations. You know my hands would go numb. It stopped that Like there's so many things that you could add, just little things that make a huge difference, and what happened with me was that that and a couple of other little things like that that I added that made huge changes, led me to become just even more curious. Like I'm always digging for information because I want to feel and look my best for as long as possible. And you can, it sounds like right, you can, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, if I were to get close up to the camera right now, would I be horrified by the wrinkles around my lips Cause I smoke? Yes, But guess what? Overall, I think for me at this age, I feel like I'm looking pretty good cause I look healthy. That's what good equals to me. Now It doesn't you know, it's not like you know smoke anymore though right, oh heavens, no I haven't.

Speaker 1:

I wouldn't think that you'd be a nutritionist in talking about fit over No heaven. But you know what? I think that you admitting that you did it one time and now you don't, and how you overcame that adds even more value to your program, because people want to know how you did it. I had a grandmother that I had one that lived to be 99 and a half, so she just passed away a couple of years ago. And then I had one that died at 56. And she smoked.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, i think she was really. You know just little stories I hear. I think she's really mineral deficient too. So isn't that just so drastic? So one lived almost double the amount of time She had, double the life. That's amazing. And one looked a lot younger. So that 99 and a half, she looked, i would say, 15 to 20 years younger. And she always did. It was wild, people wouldn't mention it And yeah. So some of it was genetic. But she also never smoked. Yeah, she didn't smoke, she didn't do some of those things. So, gregory, i want to say thank you and in the show notes for those watching or listening in the show notes, i'm going to have some links in there to find Gregory Ann, and then do you want to finish up with anything, as we I want to just throw a new tool in my toolbox, and it is.

Speaker 2:

It's the cutting edge of leading edge, whatever you please show you want to throw at it, and that is genetic testing from a reputable company, but only a company. I have my favorite that takes into account your biochemistry. What is actually going on in your body on top of the genetic blueprint that we are, why one grandmother lived so long? The other woman had a susceptibility to smoking as her demise and the other didn't smoke, so she didn't have that in there. But she may have had a gene for addiction. It just never came into her lifestyle as a problem, right?

Speaker 2:

We talk about macronutrients. Some people do really well with something like turmeric. Everybody should take turmeric for inflammation. In certain people turmeric would be a death. now It would cause more joint pain than the reverse. So anyway, it's my new, latest thing. I'm really excited about it and the company that I use. They have great.

Speaker 1:

So you offer that as a service?

Speaker 2:

I don't do it at all. I just recommend this one company because I've done research on all the companies and these guys are. They're ethical, they don't share your information and they give you the most information with specific, targeted to your biochemistry, which is the different piece Not just your genetic blueprint, but what's actually causing problems within the body.

Speaker 1:

I just remembered, it just hit me. We didn't talk about Alzheimer's, so I'm going to have we're going to end after this, so can we touch on that?

Speaker 2:

I don't know why I forgot, even though that was one of the things I wanted to talk about, it's okay And if somebody wants to know the in depth, i did a two part report on women and Alzheimer's on my blog, which is on the website. Basically, it comes down to one of the main problems with Alzheimer's and more women to the tune of two to one than men suffer from Alzheimer's. It is directly linked to estrogen depletion and diet and lifestyle, inflammation and high blood sugar combined with a lack of estrogen, combined with not enough movement. But estrogen is just one of those three or four components that really make us more susceptible than just the average the odds.

Speaker 1:

Wow, okay. So do you think that lack of estrogen and not feeling well can lead to bad behaviors and bad habits?

Speaker 2:

Yes, if we don't feel that we're not going to do that.

Speaker 1:

That's that cyclical thing I was talking about right there, i think. So estrogen can make you want to get up and do things and make it a little bit easier so that you're not fighting to do it, and lead you to want to make better choices, it sounds like Oh, absolutely, yes, again, it's one of the pieces.

Speaker 2:

I don't want to put it as the piece, yeah, but one thing leads like if you don't get enough sleep, you don't want to exercise, you don't want to exit right, but then throw estrogen into it and it all sort of becomes.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so that is linked to Alzheimer's and probably what's the other one? Dementia, blood sugar inflammation. Oh, dementia, yeah, i really don't know the differences in symptoms. They are different because they have different names, but do you feel like that that is also linked to estrogen?

Speaker 2:

It is. And again we have the genetic component, the many genes that figure into these things. If anybody's interested, there's a great book called the X? X brain the female brain by a doctor who's a researcher at Wild Cornell in New York City. I think she's been studying this for 15 years The connection to women's brains and dementia and Alzheimer's and all its variations. Very interesting book.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for showing that That's so valuable. And I just, coincidentally and sadly, i have an aunt that's only in her mid 60s that has she's actually not blood. She married into the family but she is in her 60s and has pretty much full on dementia. That is so sad to watch. I worry about her every day And you know conversations. I love talking to her because she's fun to talk to, but there is a loop going on and she forgets so many things that I just told her that I can see How isolating it could be because not everybody's patient enough to deal with it. They don't know how and it's just heartbreaking. Anyway, not to leave on a sad note, but it sounds like this book and then you can help with all of that. I certainly try, okay, okay. Thank you so much, gregorianne, for joining us and sharing what you know.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for your show, Crystal.

Speaker 1:

Okay, bye, bye everyone.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Crystal O'Connor

Host