Episode 30: Lifestyle & Brain Health with guest Dr. Mylea Charvat (Part 1)
This episode covers part 1 of a three-part series on the impact of lifestyle factors (including sleep, exercise, staying socially engaged and diet) on the health of your brain. Our guest, Dr. Mylea Charvat, is the founder and CEO of Savonix - a digital cognitive assessment company. This episode covers part 1 of this three-part series. Here you’ll learn about cognition and the first lifestyle factor that impacts the health of your brain: sleep.
About Dr. Mylea Charvat
Dr. Mylea Charvat became interested in cognition when she was a teenager and her grandmother started to exhibit signs of dementia. Witnessing her grandmother as she progressed through her disease, Mylea was struck by the cruelty and the loneliness of dementia. Even at the age of 13, Dr. Charvat recognized that we all deserve the right to age with dignity. At this young age, she knew that she wanted to grow up and be a part of solving this problem.
Dr. Charvat ended up studying neuropsychology. What struck her during her time at Stanford University is the realization that, if her grandmother were still alive, it would have taken her months to get an appointment to see Dr. Charvat because there are very few neuropsychologists that practice in the US. What’s more, is that if she did get that appointment - she probably couldn't afford a visit with Dr. Charvat. She realized then that she wanted to make neuropsychologist accessible and affordable to anyone in the world.
She was living in the heart of Silicon Valley at the time and started talking to people in the gaming software industry about how to give everyone access to testing of vital cognitive functions (e.g., working memory, verbal memory, spatial memory, impulse control, etc.). Dr. Charvat left Stanford in 2014 and founded Savonix in 2015.
Savonix
Dr. Mylea Charvat is the founder and CEO of Savonix - a digital cognitive assessment company. Dr. Charvat completed her fellowship in clinical neuroscience at Stanford University. At Savonix, Mylea drives strategy to address dementia globally with business and clinical leaders. She works as a domain expert in digital cognitive assessment with a variety of partners - from Boston University to Fortune 50 CEOs - seeking to detect and prevent cognitive decline and dementias.
What is Cognition?
The best definition of cognition, according to Dr. Charvat = the mental action or process of acquiring new information or knowledge.
Cognition involves learning through experience and then encoding that information to make it part of your memory.
Cognition is the brain's process of storing as well as creating knowledge and then utilizing the brain’s function to carry out activities of daily living.
What role does cognition play in disease?
There are a lot of ways that cognition impacts disease and that disease impact cognition.
For instance, having diabetes triples your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
There's a strong relationship between hypertension and the development of dementia later in life.
As such, the relationship between cognitive function and overall health is really important. For example, if you had hypertension as well as impaired executive function (higher-level thinking, e.g., planning, problem-solving, and abstract thinking), you would not be able to care for yourself. You would not be able to work, take care of your family, engage in your hobbies, drive a car safely etc. So, when talking about cognition as being the fifth vital sign, it is because literally, cognition is at the core of things like memory, identity, and the ability to carry out our daily lives.
What is the link between cognition and fall risk?
Cognitive impairment increases your risk of a fall, if you're over 65, by 5-fold.
22% of individuals who experience a hip fracture have cognitive impairment after that fracture, and of this 22% of individuals, 95% of them are less likely to rehabilitate successfully
Falls also place people at increased risk of early death (mortality).
Genes and Dementia
Gene activation is context dependent. In other words, a gene will turn on or off based on what you do.
The environment that you live in consists of a variety of different components:
Diet
Stress levels
Early childhood education
Dr. Mylea Charvat loves to make the breast cancer comparison. Thirty years ago, the thinking was that your risk for breast cancer was about 70 percent genetic. Then, the scientific community did massive population studies. Now we know that the genetic risk for breast cancer accounts for between 5-10% of your risk and that 90-95% of your risk for breast cancer is wholly driven by lifestyle.
You can't separate your genes from your environment. They affect one another.
What this tells us in Alzheimer's is what we do what we choose matters. If you choose the lettuce or kale over the deep-fried, sugary doughnut, that impacts you. If you choose the olive oil over the animal fat, that impacts you. If you choose to exercise every day, that impacts you.
Four lifestyle factors that impact the development of dementia:
Sleep
Exercise
Staying socially engaged
Diet
Lifestyle Factor #1: Sleep
What happens when you sleep is basically this is when the cleaning person comes out in your brain and cleans up the mess. When you're using your brain during the day, you're creating all sorts of waste. What happens when you experience deep sleep is these amazing cells called glial cells turn on, and they vacuum up all the junk in your brain. During a good night's sleep, your brain has time to flush out all the plaques (e.g., beta-amyloid) and toxins that you build up during the day. Studies have shown a 5% increase in plaque accumulation after just one night of sleep deprivation. But, the good news is that your brain can bounce back if you simply catch up on your sleep the next night.
What are beta-amyloid plaques?
Beta amyloid plaques are protein clumps that formed between your brain cells and disrupts how your brain cells communicate with each other; therefore, it's so important to flush plaques (e.g., beta-amyloid) out while you sleep. Also, an increased level of plaques (e.g., beta-amyloid) is associated with Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
Tips for improving the quality of your sleep
Quiet & dark room
Control temperature
Remove electronic devices (avoid screens 1-hr ahead of bedtime)
Maintain a regular sleep schedule
Avoid caffeinated drinks at night
Exercise regularly
Conclusion
To learn more about Dr. Mylea Charvat and Savonix you can visit their website by clicking here. Don’t forget to tune in next week, when we’ll be sharing part 2 of this series with Dr. Charvat.