One woman's story of getting better - a conversation with Julie Gregory

Nov 15, 2017

On the cusp of her 50th birthday Julie Gregory started to experience symptoms of cognitive decline.  Feeling alone and terrified, and given her family history of Alzheimer's, Julie sought to do something. Julie learned that she was an ApoE-4 homozygote -  in other words she has both genetic copies of the ApoE4 gene which increased her chance of developing Alzheimer's by 50% - 90%. This episode discusses Julie's health journey and what she done to improve her cognitive and general health.

Along with a few other people, Julie founded ApoE4.Info Inc. - a crowdsourced website that brings people info in science and self-experimentation for those with one or two copies of the high risk gene for developing Alzheimer's (ie the ApoE4 gene).

Important NOTE: not everyone that is diagnosed with Alzheimer's has copies of the ApoE4 gene.

Julie's Most Effective Strategies for Brain Health

1. Exercise 60 minutes per day - low and moderate intensities.
2. "Super clean diet" - no grains, high numbers of natural colors, high vegetables, healthy fats (she focuses on plant fats and less so on the saturated animal fats).  
3. Reduced cerebral glucose utilization - ketones can create alternate fuel (mild ketosis) you can do this by reducing sugar intake and ingesting MCT oil
4. Optimizing sleep - blue blocker glasses 3 hours before bed (to ramp up melatonin production)
5. Meditation - any kind for any amount of time
6. Impeccable tooth care- coconut oil pulling  (10 minutes per day). Julie uses non-fluoride toothpaste
7. "Skin Deep Database" by the Environmental Working Group- to find safe skin care products

Minute 22:30 - Discussion about Babesia Duncani, Lyme related infections, chronic microbial infections (ie potential infectious micro-organisms) and how the research seems to suggest that these may lead to some of the proteins (beta amyloid in specific) that we know our causally related to Alzheimer's. Also, Julie tells her story about getting tested and treated for some of these infections.

Minute 32:01 On why talking about Alzheimer's or Pre-Alzheimer's is such a touchy subject and the goal of APOE4.INFO - the crowd-sourced website that Julie and others founded to help those looking for accurate information. They have an active forum and facebook page that you can interact with.  We also discuss the ethical controversy of genetic testing to understand your Alzheimer's risk (spoiler alert: Julie and I are both fans of checking) and the controversy around talking about the view that Alzheimer's is potentially reversible and preventable.

Find out more about Julie's organization to help you understand your risk: apoE4.info