The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
The Ageing Doctor: These Are They Early Signs Of Arthritis! If You Run & Don't Do This, Start Now! The Secret Cause of Alzheimer's!
Thu, 06 Mar 2025
Could you be losing bone strength without realising it? Dr Vonda Wright breaks down the importance of bone health and its impact on osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, and longevity Dr Vonda Wright is an orthopaedic sports medicine surgeon and expert on active aging and mobility. She is the author of 44 research publications and of books such as, ‘Fitness After 40: Your Strong Body at 40, 50, 60, and Beyond’. In this conversation, Dr Vonda and Steven discuss topics such as, the truth about creatine for women, the early signs of arthritis, how running doesn’t build muscle, and the secret cause of Alzheimer's. 00:00 Intro 02:13 Vonda's Mission to Help People Live a Longer, Stronger Life 04:09 How Much of Vonda's Work Crosses Into the Cognitive Realm? 06:13 Training the Brain Like a Muscle 07:24 What Is Precision Longevity? 09:34 How Does the Body Change in Different Seasons of Life? 11:27 Why Do Men's Bones Maintain Their Density Longer Than Women's? 12:18 Is Loss of Bone Density Inevitable for Women? 14:01 Why Bone Health Is Crucial for Overall Health 19:57 How Do Bones Release Substances Into the Body? 22:02 What's Making Your Bones Fragile? 25:49 Importance of Impact Sports for Bone Health 26:52 How to Care for Bone Health During Pregnancy and Breastfeeding 27:57 What Is the Bone-Brain Axis? 29:30 What Is the Critical Decade for Bone Health? 34:14 What Is Osteoporosis? 35:42 How Many Americans Over 50 Have Osteopenia? 36:58 Early Warning Signs of Osteoporosis 37:54 Smoking vs. Bone Health 38:38 Is There a Link Between Alzheimer's and Bone Health? 39:19 Alzheimer's Disease in Vonda's Family 41:07 Would Vonda Choose an Able Body or an Able Brain? 42:02 Prediabetes 46:22 Diet for Good Cognitive Performance 48:21 The Perfect Diet for Vonda 50:38 Strong Muscles and Bones as Keys to Longevity 50:58 You're Never Too Old to Build Strength 53:38 Workout Strategies for Building Muscle 55:36 Higher or Lower Weights: What's Best for Building Muscle? 56:56 Why Is Muscle Critical for Longevity? 01:00:00 Nutrients for Muscle Preservation 01:01:41 Why People Get Creatine Wrong 01:03:16 How to Find Motivation to Take Responsibility for Your Health 01:04:07 Vitamin D: Crucial for Bone Health 01:04:38 How to Prevent Injury While Running 01:08:58 Why Should People Avoid Obesity as They Age? 01:12:57 Strategies to Promote Motivation 01:15:45 Myths About Menopause 01:18:36 Link Between Menopause and Bone Density 01:19:53 The Musculoskeletal Syndrome of Menopause 01:25:02 What Causes Arthritis? 01:26:23 Is HRT a Remedy for Musculoskeletal Symptoms of Menopause? 01:27:31 Why Is Back Pain on the Rise? 01:30:09 Back Pain Prevention 01:31:34 Study: Age-Related Decline in Performance Among Elite Senior Athletes 01:33:29 New Book: Unbreakable 01:35:56 Link Between Menopause, Diabetes, and Alzheimer's 01:37:03 The Importance of Men Knowing About Menopause 01:38:50 How Do You Know When To Stop? Follow Dr Vonda: Instagram - https://g2ul0.app.link/PgWdlIghuRb Website - https://g2ul0.app.link/fUepAxlhuRb Podcast - https://g2ul0.app.link/0MRGecrhuRb Spotify: You can purchase Dr Vonda’s book, ‘Fitness After 40: Your Strong Body at 40, 50, 60, and Beyond’, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/pldFkf4guRb Research Document: https://stevenbartlett.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/DOAC-Vonda-Wright-Independent-research-further-reading.pdf Watch the episodes on Youtube - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACEpisodes My new book! 'The 33 Laws Of Business & Life' is out now - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACBook You can purchase the The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards: Second Edition, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb Follow me: https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Get your hands on the Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards here: https://bit.ly/conversationcards-mp Vanta - https://vanta.com/steven ZOE - https://zoe.com PerfectTed - https://www.perfectted.com with code DIARY40 for 40% off Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Dr. Vonda Wright and what is her mission?
Runners who only run are hurt a lot, and it's usually due to a motion imbalance. So I always do this test to show them whether your butt muscles are strong enough to keep your pelvis straight and whether you're strong enough to keep your knee from falling into this position.
I look like I'm drunk or something. How are you doing this with your heels on? Dr. Vonda Wright is a leading orthopedic surgeon and longevity expert. Leveraging her expertise with elite athletes. To revolutionize the way we move, eat, and train.
To live longer, stronger, and better. I'm on a rampage to make bones sexy again. Because in the United States, at least 50% of women will get osteoporosis along with 2 million men. Now osteoporosis is low bone density. And studies show that people with low bone density have higher cognitive decline. It increases your risk of fracture.
If you break your hip, 50% of the time, whether you're a man or a woman, you will not return to pre-fall function. And 30% of the time, you will die. And there's a lot that causes bone fragility, such as aging, not building enough bone in our youth. It's our sedentary lifestyles, the myth that women have to be teeny tiny.
And it's even things like a woman breastfeeding will lose 20% of her bone density in the first six months. But it's not inevitable. And I will lay out a lifestyle that I call unbreakable. It's about muscle, bone, nutrition. But the most important part is mindset.
I'm very, very excited. But just to pause that, is there a link between menopause and bone density?
Yes. And it's because of the plummeting of estrogen, which is critical for muscle, bone, tendon, ligament, back. And without it, it can have dire effects. So you need to know the following.
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Chapter 2: How does bone health impact cognitive function?
So I know we do this to athletes to try to squeeze performance out of them.
When you use that term precision longevity, what does that mean?
So, you know, after the understanding of human DNA, knowing what we're truly made of, It pushed us out of a time in medicine where we've been for the last 150 years, which is observe, and one size fits nobody. Now that we've sequenced the human genome, we can develop health plans, your health plan, my health plan. It's not generic. Here's an example.
When I have people who want to talk to me about living healthier longer and we draw a set of biomarkers, it's not 6,000 biomarkers. It's just a set of about 23 that are beyond regular labs. And I see that, for instance, maybe, Stephen, you have a high load of senescent cells. Well, I'm going to specifically design your gap nutrition according to what you need. You might not need
anything for inflammation because maybe your inflammation labs are good. But historically, what we would have done is say, okay, let's just give everybody the same formula, but now we're able to devise what your body needs at your time. I do the same thing with exercise.
I never say, let's have you do 150 minutes of moderate exercise because I have access to lactate threshold testing where you're walking on a treadmill, running on a treadmill, or on a bike. Every four minutes, we're pricking your finger. And I can tell exactly when your mitochondria, the little energy storehouses in your cells, go from burning fat to burning carbohydrates.
And that place is called the fat max. And that is when your mitochondria, your energy organelles, are most efficient. And that's where we want to work out. 80% of the time. So that's just an example of how I'm going to tell you what heart rate you need to work out in.
I'm going to tell you how to fill the gaps in your nutrition instead of just doing broad guidelines because that's the state of the art right now.
When you think about personalization, I was thinking also not just about the individual, but different phases of life and how maybe in my 20s, there's a certain set of things I need to be thinking about more so than in my 30s, my 40s, my 50s, my 60s. Is that a useful way to think about it? Are there different things we need to be thinking about in different seasons of our life?
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Chapter 3: What are the critical years for maintaining bone density?
An extremely sharp mind. It's so interesting as a podcast when you sit here and you have all these conversations because some days you show up and sometimes these conversations last for four hours and your brain and mouth just don't feel like they're connected. Yeah. And then on other days I come here.
Like boom, boom.
And it's automatic.
Yeah.
It's like I don't have to think and it's just flowing off my mouth. And the variance, the big, I said, so the causal factors are obviously sleep is one of them. Mm-hmm. The other one is how many carbohydrates I've had in recent hours. So if I've had a lot of carbohydrates, something, you know, like I've had bread, my mouth and my brain have no connection.
If I've had lots of sugar, my mouth and my brain are completely done.
Agreed. Agreed. You know, because of the CGM thing, I found that if I only eat protein for breakfast, which egg white omelet or, you know, whatever, just protein, that I needed a little complex carbs in order for about 10 o'clock in the morning to be able to function at a high level with my patients. So now I've added 50 grams of carbs in the morning, but that's not a lot of carbs, not very much.
I just needed that little complex, but interesting, right?
And what do you eat?
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