Episode 34 - Dr Nichola Conlon on how oestrogen levels impact our brain and how we can reverse our biological age

Join me this time in the first of a (slightly serendipitous) series of three episodes on the topic of aging well. 

Dr Nichola Conlon is a scientist specialising in the study of healthy aging.  Nichola has a passion for sharing the latest breakthroughs, with a skill for translating science in a digestible and engaging way, encouraging people to age well.  

We talk about the science behind some pernicious peri symptoms - brain fog and fatigue - how and why our diminishing oestrogen levels play havoc with our many millions of mitochondria which then leads to a drop in our energy levels. Did you know our hormones are responsible for creating neural connections in the areas of our brain involved in memory and learning? Mind, blown...

We dig in to why our chronological age and our biological age might very well be different. Shockingly research has shown that in just six months of perimenopause our biological age can increase by up to nine years - and by the end of perimenopause our biological age may have jumped up by a total of 20 years!

The good news though is that only 20% of our rate of biological aging is predetermined by our genetics - the other 80% is modifiable through lifestyle changes. 

We also cover how oestrogen levels dropping impacts our immune system, creating chronic low-grade inflammation in our cells - and how we can tackle that to improve our overall cellular health.

We then move on to how critical NAD is for both energy levels and cellular repair, how wildly inconvenient it is that levels of NAD start to fall at the same time we experience falling levels of oestrogen and how we can boost our levels of NAD - tune in to find out more. 

As a science nerd I found this whole conversation absolutely fascinating - I hope you do too!

You can find out more about Nichola's company Nuchido here: https://nuchido.com/ 

You can also find her on Instagram here: www.instagram.com/drnicholaconlon where she discusses all things science and aging.