October NEWSLETTER

yonca79

Oct 30

6 min read

October Newsletter

🧠 Brain Longevity Part 4—Is Your Brain Running Cold?

What happens when the brain isn't receiving the support it needs?

Posted by Yonca, Loop Stories Ltd

🐙Dear Loopers,

Over the past few months, we've been exploring brain longevity from different angles. We began by understanding our biomarkers, then investigated the inflammatory "Hot Brain", followed by September's "Sticky-Sweet Brain", where insulin resistance, glycation and metabolic health entered the conversation.

This month, we're turning our attention to another fascinating pattern described in Dr Dale Bredesen's ReCODE framework: Type 2, the Atrophic or "Cold Brain".

Unlike the inflammatory and glycotoxic patterns, where we focus on signals that may be excessive, the Cold Brain invites us to ask a different question: What happens when the brain isn't receiving enough of what it needs to maintain itself?

❄️ What Does a Cold Brain Actually Mean?

Our brains are constantly adapting, repairing and reorganising themselves. Neurons communicate through an extraordinary network of synapses, supported by hormones, nutrients, growth factors and an adequate supply of energy.

This ability to adapt is called neuroplasticity, and it doesn't simply disappear as we age. However, the biological environment in which our brain operates can become less supportive.

In Bredesen's proposed framework, the atrophic pattern describes cognitive decline associated with insufficient trophic support — the nutrients, hormones and growth signals involved in maintaining healthy neural connections.

It's important to recognise that this is a functional medicine framework rather than an established clinical classification of Alzheimer's disease. Nevertheless, it raises a useful question about the biology of brain ageing.

We spend considerable time discussing what we should avoid, but perhaps we should pay equal attention to what we might be missing.

🧠 Hormones: More Than Reproduction

One of the most interesting examples is the relationship between hormones and brain health, particularly during menopause.

Oestrogen is not simply a reproductive hormone. It is involved in brain energy metabolism, synaptic function and several processes associated with neuronal health. During the menopausal transition, fluctuating and declining oestrogen levels can affect sleep, mood, concentration and memory.

For many women, brain fog becomes one of the most unsettling symptoms of this transition.

But experiencing brain fog during menopause does not mean someone is developing Alzheimer's disease.

Research increasingly recognises menopause as an important neurological as well as reproductive transition. This doesn't mean hormone replacement therapy is an established dementia-prevention treatment — it isn't — but it does mean that women's brain health deserves attention long before cognitive symptoms appear later in life.

And hormones are only part of the story. Thyroid function, B12 status, iron availability, adequate protein, sleep and physical activity all contribute to the conditions in which our brains function.

🌱 Feeding the Brain's Ability to Adapt

Another fascinating part of this conversation is BDNF — brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

Think of BDNF as one of the brain's maintenance and adaptation signals. It supports neuronal survival and synaptic plasticity, both essential for learning and memory.

Physical activity, particularly aerobic exercise, has been shown to influence BDNF signalling. Resistance training, meanwhile, supports muscle mass and metabolic health, which become increasingly important as we age.

This is one reason I see exercise as much more than a tool for cardiovascular fitness or weight management. It is an investment in our cognitive future.

Nutrition matters too. We need sufficient protein, essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals to support the systems involved in brain function. Rather than chasing individual 'brain-boosting' supplements, I prefer to look at whether the foundations are genuinely in place and investigate deficiencies where appropriate.

The brain cannot thrive on what we continually fail to provide.

🔬 What Should We Be Looking At?

If you remember our July newsletter, you'll know that I'm interested in biomarkers as pieces of a much larger puzzle.

When considering this particular pattern, we might explore B12 and folate, thyroid function, vitamin D where indicated, iron status, nutritional adequacy and hormonal changes in the context of symptoms and life stage.

Not everyone needs an extensive panel of tests, and more testing isn't automatically better. What matters is understanding the person behind the results, their health history, nutritional intake, sleep, movement and the changes they're experiencing.

The aim isn't to create perfect numbers. It's to identify whether something important has been overlooked.

Does your mind feel overloaded? Do everyday decisions feel harder than they should?

I help you work towards clearer thinking, steadier energy and a calmer end to the day through personalised nutrition and lifestyle support.

Book a discovery call to explore what’s getting in your way and how I can help.

This 🍂 October , I gave myself a rather special birthday present — a retreat in beautiful Çeşme, İzmir. Having been exploring and practising Ayurveda for almost a year now, these few transformative days of yoga, reflection and reconnecting with myself felt particularly meaningful. It was a wonderful reminder that longevity isn't only about what we measure, investigate or optimise, but also about creating space to slow down, restore balance and nurture our capacity for resilience. Sometimes, the best gift we can give ourselves is simply the time to reconnect with our own rhythm.

Reflections: Learning, Longevity and Finding Our Resilience

This month has been a particularly inspiring month for me. I had the privilege of supporting the Nutritional Medicine Institute (NMI) Health Summit, where I was immersed in conversations about longevity alongside some extraordinary minds, including Dr Jeffrey Bland, Dr Nina Fuller-Shavel, Dr Denise Furness, Dr Felice Gersh and Dr Sally Moorcroft, as well as many other inspiring speakers.

Being part of an event that brings together so much scientific knowledge and curiosity was a real privilege, particularly as longevity is at the heart of my own Brain Longevity Series.

I've also been deepening my training in toxicology and attended the Delphi Genetics Forum's annual conference at the Royal Society, exploring the complexity of neural function and changes in the brain. These experiences continually remind me how interconnected our biological systems are and how much there is still to discover.

All this learning brings me back to why I do what I do. I'm particularly interested in helping people who feel stuck: those living with persistent brain fog, fluctuating energy, digestive discomfort or that difficult-to-describe feeling of being congested, sluggish or overwhelmed, both physically and mentally. I want to help people regain a sense of clarity, vitality and confidence in their own bodies.

And increasingly, I think the word that connects everything I'm learning is resilience.

When we talk about managing stress, we often focus on reducing or avoiding stressors. Yet stress is an unavoidable part of being alive, and some forms of stress are essential for adaptation and growth. What matters is our capacity to respond appropriately and recover afterwards.

By identifying and addressing the factors that may be disrupting our physiology — whether metabolic, nutritional, inflammatory, environmental or related to sleep — we can help create more supportive conditions for the body's natural regulatory and repair processes.

This is what I mean when I talk about quietening the noise and amplifying the signals. We cannot always remove life's challenges, but we can work towards improving how our bodies adapt to them.

And that, ultimately, is my purpose: to help people move from feeling foggy, depleted or stuck towards experiencing more consistent energy, clearer thinking and greater resilience. Not through a single miraculous intervention, but by understanding their individual biology and helping their systems work together more effectively.

🧠 Looking Ahead: The Toxic Brain

Next month, our Brain Longevity Series will explore the Toxic Brain, another of the patterns described in Dr Bredesen's ReCODE framework. Environmental exposures, our body's ability to process and eliminate substances, and their potential effects on neurological health form an enormous subject. With my recent Homotoxicology training, it's one I'm particularly excited to explore.

I won't attempt to cover everything in one newsletter, but I hope to share a few useful insights into how environmental factors may influence brain health, what the research tells us and where we can make meaningful changes without becoming fearful of everything around us.

If these newsletters resonate with you, please consider sharing them with someone who might benefit. My hope is to make the science of brain longevity and preventative health more accessible, helping more people recognise that persistent brain fog, fatigue or digestive symptoms deserve curiosity and appropriate investigation rather than simply being accepted as normal.

And if you're experiencing some of these challenges yourself, I'd be delighted to explore how we might work together, whether in person in London or virtually.

Links for further reading:

The neuroprotective actions of eostrodial and oestrogen receptors

Conversation with Dale Bredesen, MD

Exercise training alters resting brain-derives neurotrophic factor concentration in older adults: A systematic review with meat-analysis of randomized-controlled trials

🇬🇧 English Brain Longevity Nutritionist 👉 JOIN WhatsApp group

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please keep dancing, Yonca 🐙

Registered Nutritional Therapist

NT (Dip CNM), BA(Hons), M.A Design, mANP,

FMCHC (mUKIHCA)