Ep. 4 The Case for Taking Sleep Seriously: What the Research Says and How to Use Your Data

Ep. 8 The Alzheimer's Risk Factor Hidden in Your Nightly Glass of Wine

I was having a glass of wine most nights when I got my Oura Ring. Not a lot, or so I thought. Within weeks the data told a different story. My HRV baseline runs in the nineties. On mornings after drinking, even one glass, it dropped to the thirties or forties. Every time. Without exception. That data started a three-year experiment I didn't plan to run. And on December 31st, 2024, I eliminated alcohol entirely. What I expected was clarity. What I got instead, and what eventually led me to the p-tau217 test, a reinfected root canal, and a completely different understanding of why a clean baseline matters, is the story this episode tells. The research on alcohol and Alzheimer's has shifted significantly in the last few years and most people haven't caught up to it. The apparent protective effect of moderate drinking has largely collapsed under methodological scrutiny. The 2025 ALBION study found that light-to-moderate drinkers had nearly three times the odds of amyloid-beta positivity compared to abstainers. Not heavy drinkers. People who would never describe themselves as having a drinking problem. For APOE4 carriers specifically, one prospective study found that drinking at least once a month was associated with seven times the dementia risk compared to never drinking. Same behavior. Completely different biological outcome depending on what's in your DNA. This episode covers what the research actually says, why the APOE4 picture is categorically different from the general population, what eighteen months of not drinking actually cost me socially, and the thing I least expected to learn about why elimination matters beyond optimization. Show Notes [https://raceagainstmind.com/episodes/alcohol-apoe4-alzheimers-risk]

Ep.7 Blueberries, Coconut Oil, and the Mediterranean Diet: What the Nutrition Research Actually Says

Someone told me to give my mom coconut oil after her Alzheimer's diagnosis. My mom couldn't remember I was pregnant at the time. The person meant well. The advice was wrong. And for someone with APOE4 genetics — which both my mom and I carry — it wasn't just wrong. It was potentially the opposite of what the research supports. That moment is where this episode starts. Because the problem isn't people giving bad advice. The problem is an information ecosystem built to capture attention rather than convey evidence. Confident nutrition claims travel faster than careful ones, and for APOE4 carriers specifically, some of what's circulating online isn't just unhelpful, it's working against you. This is the third and final episode in the Race Against Mind nutrition series. Episodes 5 and 6 covered the personal cholesterol arc and the APOE4 lipid mechanism. This episode covers the broader nutrition research: what the science actually says about coconut oil, MCT oil, blueberries, the Mediterranean diet, omega-3s, B vitamins, ketogenic diets, and more. What's signal, what's noise, and what the internet consistently gets wrong. The structure is deliberate: myths first, nuanced middle, then what actually has evidence. Because knowing what to be skeptical of makes the things that are genuinely supported land differently. If you've been eating well for years and wondering why nutrition advice keeps disappointing you — this episode is for you. Show Notes [https://raceagainstmind.com/episodes/alzheimers-nutrition-myths]

Ep. 6 APOE4, Cholesterol, and Alzheimer's Risk: What Your Lipid Panel Is Missing

In February of last year, I woke up with brain fog so severe I started researching how to get a brain scan. I was convinced I had amyloid accumulating. I wanted data, not reassurance. It turned out to be a reinfected root canal. But that fear led somewhere useful — to a p-tau217 baseline test and a consulting engagement with an Alzheimer's prevention company that finally gave me the answer I'd been missing for twenty years. Sitting down to write a research paper on cholesterol and Alzheimer's risk, something clicked: of course my cholesterol is high. My APOE4 genotype makes lipid handling harder. That's not a diet failure. That's a design problem. This episode is the science companion to Episode 5. Where Episode 5 was the lived experience of five years of dietary intervention that barely moved the needle, this episode is the explanation — why cholesterol is a fundamentally different problem for APOE4 carriers, what it actually does in the brain, and why the standard lipid panel isn't giving you the full picture. We cover: what APOE4 actually does to lipid transport, amyloid clearance, neuroinflammation, and tau vulnerability. Why ApoB matters more than LDL for APOE4 carriers — and what the garbage bag analogy actually means for your cardiovascular and brain risk. What Lp(a) is and why you need to test it at least once. Why the connection between cardiovascular risk and Alzheimer's risk isn't two separate conversations for people with this genotype — it's one. And why understanding the mechanism finally made the statin decision obvious. Sarah is six weeks into a statin as of this recording, with no post-statin labs yet. She also has a p-tau217 baseline in — and explains why one result doesn't tell you much, but a trend over time could tell you everything. Show Notes [https://raceagainstmind.com/episodes/apoe4-cholesterol-alzheimers-risk-what-lipid-panel-missing]

Ep. 5 Why Keto Backfired: MCT Oil, APOE4, and the Cholesterol I Couldn't Fix With Diet

I've had high cholesterol since I was nine years old. I know, because my mom took away my chicken nuggets and put me on a diet. Three months later it came back to normal. Problem solved — or so I thought. It took until I was twenty-seven, two years into being vegetarian, to see a normal reading again. Total cholesterol of 139. I remember thinking: I finally figured it out. That one number became my proof of concept for the next 15 years. In this episode, I walk through five years of serious dietary intervention after getting my APOE4 result and a baseline LDL of 220. High Fiber Keto. Bulletproof coffee with MCT oil. KetoFlex 12/3. Extended fasting. Paleo. Plant-based. Supplements. And as of August 2025 — after all of it — my LDL was 149. Still high. Still not where it needs to be for someone with my risk profile. So I started a statin. This episode is about what that journey revealed — about the APOE4-specific reasons keto and MCT oil backfired, about why plant-based eating barely moved my numbers, and about what it looks like when the pillar you believed in most turns out not to be the lever you thought it was. I also get into why someone who's been eating well for twenty years shouldn't expect the same results from dietary intervention as someone who hasn't — and why that distinction matters more than most nutrition advice acknowledges. Note: this is the first of three nutrition episodes. Episode 6 covers the cholesterol mechanism and why APOE4 carriers have a fundamentally different lipid problem than most people. Episode 7 covers the broader nutrition and Alzheimer's prevention research — blueberries, the Mediterranean diet, omega-3s, and what the science actually says. Show Notes [https://raceagainstmind.com/episodes/why-keto-backfired]

Ep. 4 The Case for Taking Sleep Seriously: What the Research Says and How to Use Your Data

Sleep is the most underrated lever in brain health. The research is unusually clear: what happens during deep sleep directly affects your risk of cognitive decline, the hormones that regulate hunger, your cardiovascular recovery, and your body's ability to clear the metabolic waste that accumulates in your brain every single day. Most people know sleep matters. Far fewer understand what's actually breaking it. This episode covers the science of why sleep is especially high-stakes for anyone thinking about long-term brain health, what the research says about glymphatic clearance, HRV, the sleep-eating cycle, and circadian consistency, and how tracking your own data can reveal the specific variables disrupting your sleep in ways general advice never will. The personal thread: three years of sleep data, a fasting protocol that accidentally improved sleep architecture, the discovery that alcohol and late eating affect sleep through completely different mechanisms, and what a continuous glucose monitor revealed about a 4am waking pattern that took months to explain. Show Notes [https://raceagainstmind.com/episodes/the-case-for-taking-sleep-seriously]