Joe Rogan Experience #2450 - Tommy Wood

1. SPSpeaker0:00

   [upbeat music] Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

2. TWTommy Wood0:04

   The Joe Rogan Experience.

3. SPSpeaker0:06

   Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. [upbeat music]

4. JRJoe Rogan0:12

   All right. Nice to meet you, sir. Stimulated Mind: A Fut- Future-Proof Your Brain. Is that possible? Future- future-proof... Why can't I say that? I already, I already have dementia.

5. TWTommy Wood0:23

   [chuckles]

6. JRJoe Rogan0:23

   Future-proof your brain from dementia and stay sharp at any age. Um, what-- first of all, what prompted you to write this?

7. TWTommy Wood0:35

   So I've spent a long time working in a whole range of different spheres related to the brain. Um, how to treat newborn 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, uh, professional athletes, particularly Formula One drivers, trying to help them, you know, stay on top of their game for as long as possible. And I saw across all those different areas, there were these core things that the brain seems to thrive on that are required either for development or maintenance of cognitive function. And these are things that people can apply to themselves on a day-to-day basis, improve their focus, um, and well-being now, and then long term, that translates to a lower risk of dementia.

8. JRJoe Rogan1:27

   So i- is dementia an... Is a, is a gene-- is it a genetic thing, or is it a function of atrophy? Is it a combination of those things?

9. TWTommy Wood1:40

   It's a combination of those things. Certainly, there's a genetic component, so maybe I will zoom out to start with and-

10. JRJoe Rogan1:47

    Okay

11. TWTommy Wood1:47

    ... just think about, like, 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, uh, sixty to eighty percent of cases of dementia. The next most common is vascular dementia, something like ten to twenty percent. And then there are others, like frontotemporal dementia, Lewy body dementia, dementia you get with Parkinson's disease. But those first two, something like seventy to ninety percent of dementias, they are directly tied to lifestyle and the environment, and right now, it's estimated that somewhere between forty-five and maybe even seventy or more percent of dementias are preventable, and most of those fall into those two categories. There is a genetic component, so, uh, Alzheimer's disease has two broad types. There's 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 presenilin genes. Those people get Alzheimer's in their thirties to fifties. It's a very, uh, predictable and quite rapid decline sometimes, but that's maybe one percent 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.

12. JRJoe Rogan3:21

    Yeah.

13. TWTommy Wood3:21

    So you can have three different flavors of APOE, apolipoprotein E, uh, two, three, and four. You get two copies.

14. JRJoe Rogan3:28

    Which is the one that makes you more, um, more likely to get CTE? Is that two?

15. TWTommy Wood3:34

    Oh, no. So that's, that's, that's four as well.

16. JRJoe Rogan3:36

    That's four as well?

17. TWTommy Wood3:37

    Yeah. So four, um, essentially has an effect of amplifying certain inflammatory effects, um, in the brain. That's probably why it makes CTE worse-

18. JRJoe Rogan3:46

    Mm-hmm

19. TWTommy Wood3:46

    ... makes it more likely for you to get CTE, 'cause if you're, if you're getting repetitive impacts, repetitive injuries, then it sort of exacerbates or makes that inflammatory response worse. Um, but when you, uh, think about that in terms of Alzheimer's, if you have one copy of, of APOE4, your increase-- your risk of Alzheimer's is increased by sort of two to six times. If you have two copies, it's six to twenty times, depending on how you look at it.

20. JRJoe Rogan4:10

    Wow!

21. TWTommy Wood4:10

    Um, but all the data suggest that APOE4 is a risk multiplier, right? So it's not that if you have a copy of APOE4, you're definitely gonna get, um, 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, uh, physical inactivity, low-quality diet. Um, so that also means that if you have, um, if you, 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.

22. JRJoe Rogan5:18

    Okay, so for some people, there's an increased genetic risk, but do some people who do not have this increased genetic risk, do they still have a possibility of getting dementia just from atrophy or just from sedentary lifestyle, no stimulation whatsoever?

23. TWTommy Wood5:32

    Yes. So the, the kind of the way we would say it is that not everybody who has APOE4 gets Alzheimer's, and most people who have Alzheimer's do not have APOE4.

24. JRJoe Rogan5:40

    Mm.

25. TWTommy Wood5:41

    So, absolutely.

26. JRJoe Rogan5:42

    Okay, so is it just like everything else? Like your muscles atrophy, your bones weaken when you don't put load on them. Is that what it is?

27. TWTommy Wood5:52

    Yeah. So that's, like, the core thesis of my book, right? It's called The Stimulated Mind-

28. JRJoe Rogan5:56

    Mm

29. TWTommy Wood5:56

    ... um, for that reason. I think that in the-... and the, and the title is slightly provocative, 'cause in the modern world, we are-

30. JRJoe Rogan6:04

    Hyperstimulated.

Episode duration: 2:11:07