73% Rate Brain Health as Biggest Concern

By Susan Sklar, M.D.

Hi. It’s Dr. Sklar with the thought of the week. This week, it’s about cognition, which as you know is one of my favorite topics. I recently was on a menopause summit called Menopause is a Trip. It was a great summit and I spoke about hormones and cognition.  At the end of the menopause summit in which 5,000 people participated, a survey was done to find out what the biggest health concerns were of the people who had listened to the summit. Not surprisingly, 73% of the respondents said the areas of brain function, cognitive health, and memory were their biggest health concerns and rightly so. Two-thirds of the people with Alzheimer’s disease are women. One in three people will die with Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia and we expect a huge rise in the coming years in the number of cases of people with Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia.

Many families are overwhelmed caring for people with these problems. It drains resources, time and of course, creates broken hearts over what used to be and is no more. I can’t sit idly by and let this happen. We know what you can do for prevention. The purpose of this series is to tell you exactly what to do so that your brain stays healthy for years and years to come.

We’ve discussed sleep and exercise so far in this video series. The next topic is nutrition, which is another really big factor. One thing you can do right now is cut out the sugar and the refined carbs. Carbs are death for your brain. They’re not good for your heart and blood vessels either but if the main thing that you are worried about like 73% of listeners on the summit, you need to stop eating sugar and refined carbohydrates.

What does that mean? Remove foods made with white flour such as bread, pasta, crackers, cookies, pretzels, and a variety of snack food. Admittedly, refined carbs are all around us. They’re difficult to avoid. You really have to make a concerted effort to substitute something else.  Start thinking about celery sticks with nut butter, apples with nut butters, nuts for a snack, turkey roll-ups with romaine lettuce and turkey. There are many, many things you can substitute for what you think you can’t do without. Instead of sandwiches you can eat salad. You have other options for snacks. This is one of the most important things you can do to keep your brain going in a healthy way.

I’ll be continuing to give you tips every week on how to maintain good brain function. I’m on a mission to help a million women keep their brains healthy into old age, so help me do that. Thank you.