Why Depression, Anxiety, and Alzheimer’s are More Common in Women + How to Protect Women’s Brains from Aging and Disease with Dr. Lisa Mosconi

Science is science, right? Unfortunately, this is not always the case, especially when it comes to women’s health. Our understanding of the human brain and body has been clouded by years of gender bias—for decades many scientists and doctors have assumed that men and women are really the same, except for the bits and bobs that can be covered by a bikini. Yet, as this podcast guest and renowned researcher Dr. Lisa Mosconi points out, this kind of “bikini science” has dramatic implications for women’s mental and physical health that go beyond our reproductive organs, affecting every part of the brain and body. 

 

Dr. Lisa Mosconi, PhD, is the Director of the Women’s Brain Initiative and Associate Director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC)/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where she serves as an Associate Professor of Neuroscience in Neurology and Radiology. She is also an adjunct faculty member at the Department of Psychiatry at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine, and at the Department of Nutrition at NYU Steinhardt School of Nutrition and Public Health. Dr. Mosconi holds a PhD degree in Neuroscience and Nuclear Medicine, and is a certified Integrative Nutritionist and holistic healthcare practitioner.

Her expertise lies in examining the way gender impacts the health of the brain and body, and in overcoming the massive gender gap in the world of medicine. As she describes in her amazing book, The XX Brain, since the time of Darwin there was a long-held assumption that women’s brains are inferior because they are smaller, but women are generally smaller than men, which was not taken into account for decades, and still persists subconsciously in many areas of medicine and neuroscience.

 

Podcast Time Stamps

3:10 Why Lisa wanted to be a scientist and study the human mind and brain

9:22 Why Alzheimer’s is not just a result of genetic mutations and old age

12:12 The difference between early onset and late onset dementia

14:56 Why you should be careful of taking genetic tests like 23 & me

21:26 Why most research is done on men and the disaster at the heart of medicine

32:54 The communication between the female brain and the female reproductive system, and why our hormones are crucial for brain health

40:11 The brain in middle-aged women, and how menopause can contribute to cognitive decline

47:25 How you as a woman can take back your health and prevent memory loss!

59:00 How chronic stress impacts our hormones and brain health

1:07:25 The power of the X gene, and why women have more genes than men

 

For more info on Dr. Lisa Mosconi and to get her book visit: https://www.lisamosconi.com

 

Read the show blog and transcript here: https://drleaf.com/blogs/news/why-is-depression-anxiety-and-alzheimer-s-more-common-in-women-how-to-protect-women-s-brains-from-aging-and-disease-with-dr-lisa-mosconi

 

 

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