The biggest conversation in Phoenix about APOE4 this summer and what's coming next

Hi Phoenix friend,

The summer was busy both in our community and in building Phoenix.

In terms of conversations, members started 118 conversations across our community spaces. Those posts drew 1,104 comments and 896 reactions.

This is APOE4 carriers comparing notes on hormones, sleep, ADHD medication, blood pressure, pTau-217, keto lipids, spatial-navigation games, and the emotional weight of two copies of APOE4.

It is also how I decide what to build next.
Speaking of which, I have not 1 not 2 but 3 new initiatives that are coming, so this is a quick teaser

3 new Phoenix initiatives coming in September

1. Phoenix APOE4 Research: Everything we have learned about what works (and what doesn’t) from our community data.
   Interventions, supplement stacks, lifestyle and the results on biomarkers on actual (anonymized) members. This will come first as a report, and then as an online engine where you will be able to search:
   - “Best interventions to [outcome]” (e.g. Best interventions to reduce cholesterol)
   - “Effects of [intervention] ” (e.g. Effects of Creatine)

2. Brain Health 100 Awards: Celebrating the 100 individuals who have contributed the most to brain health: Clinicians, researchers, educators, content creators… You will be able to nominate them, leave them a message and they will be able to share more about what they are doing bringing the whole brain health community closer

3. Move the Odds: A community initiative to move (walking or running) to raise awareness about APOE4. Culminating at the Everest Marathon in May 2027.

I will share more in due time, but all 3 will start in September!

Launch of the APOE4: Beat the Odds podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcast

I have launched our Phoenix Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcast. I would be immensely grateful if you could go to your favorite platform, subscribe and rate us 5*, that will help spread the word and ultimately to get the best guests possible.

The summer belonged to hormones and the APOE4 brain

If I had to name one theme that owned July and August, it is this one.

We ran a live Q&A on HRT and the APOE4 brain with Steve Goldring. You submitted so many questions that we filmed for more than three hours to answer them all. The thread alone gathered 65 comments, and part 2 is on the way.
Episode 1 is on Youtube and Episode 2 will be released in the next few days (before Sept 1st)

A week later, Dr. Ashanthi Gajaweera joined us with a practical guide to menopause and the APOE4 brain (34 questions asked, we also had to split the episode in 2 given the amount of question!). Cycling progesterone versus daily. Surgical menopause. What the older studies got wrong about hormones.
You can expect the episode 1 to be released first week of September.

Why does this matter? Because the medical system has largely decided this topic is settled. It is not. Women in our community keep meeting doctors who have no APOE4-aware protocol for hormones at all. One member caring for a parent ran into the same wall.

So the community became the consultation.

The few threads that show who we are

One member asked a question medicine has not answered. She may have cerebral amyloid angiopathy on top of two copies of APOE4, and could not find a single functional-medicine voice addressing the combination. 26 comments later, she had research leads, an MRI question list, and people who understood why she was worried. She promised to update us after her December appointment. This is the community doing what journals do not.

The ADHD medication thread (55 comments) was equal parts science and laughter. Sleep on stimulants is hard. Members traded wearables data, deep-sleep numbers, and jokes about their devices "meeting in November to balance each other's books." Real support, real solutions, zero judgment.

The July & August Goals and Accountability thread hit 50 comments. Supplement stacks rebuilt from scratch after GI problems. Wine budgets redirected to health goals. Exercise restarts after illness. Nobody posted a perfect streak. Everybody posted a next step.

You kept running experiments on yourselves

• One member documented a full lipid experiment as a keto hyper-responder: diet shifts, a cholesterol-absorption medication, and ApoB results, shared openly so the rest of us learn what to test.

• The Younger Contest launched inside the community: a six-month push to reduce biological age, with brain-age testing included.

• Several of you registered for the obicetrapib webinar for APOE4 carriers and compared notes on early-access hopes.

• And when I shared Sea Hero Quest, a spatial-navigation game whose gameplay data feeds real dementia research, 31 comments later it was clear: you want this kind of thing in Phoenix. I am exploring it.

One more shift worth naming. Genetic counselors are now starting to recommend APOE testing with proper counseling, after years of calling it non-actionable. You were ahead of that conversation by two years.

The full sweep: everything that got airtime since July 1

A recap would be lying by omission if it only showed the highlights. Here is the real spread of the summer, 118 posts in full.

Drugs in development and trials you tracked: obicetrapib (three separate threads plus the NewAmsterdam webinar), trontinemab, Kisunla (including one member's temperature-pattern observation while on it), KCL-286, Cu(ATSM), GLP-1 plus lifestyle for cognition, anticoagulants and dementia risk, and the Vielight photobiomodulation results.

Hormones and the APOE4 brain: estrogen withdrawal and cognition, menopause and neurological disorders, hormone optimization, a member's research on APOE4 and bone quality in women, and the caregiver angle on HRT-friendly practitioners.

Biomarkers and measurement: pTau-217 staging frameworks, homocysteine that will not budge despite B vitamins, hs-CRP, baseline testing questions, Phoenix blood test analyses, a Function Health comparison, and the two-scan DEXA reproducibility experiment.

Supplements, food, medication: inositol for sleep (twice, it was that popular), glutathione and the GlyNAC protocol, a fresh look at rapamycin, homotaurine, creatine, ashwagandha, eleutherococcus, LPC-DHA skepticism, berberine updates, fish oil under fire, BCAA risks, vanadium and chromium, protein and leucine, mislabeled avocado oil, and whether coffee gets a yay (it did).

Genetics: TREM2, the APOE promoter variant rs405509, and the news that genetic counselors now recommend APOE testing with counseling.

Devices, tests, and tools: Oura and wearable sleep data, sauna blankets (one very public product warning), smell loss as a signal, brain-training games that clear amyloid in men, and Sea Hero Quest as possible research infrastructure.

The lived experience: disclosing APOE4 status to doctors (a US-specific thread), low-dose tirzepatide, ADHD medication and sleep, cosmetic surgery and mental health, loss, caregiving, chemotherapy and the blood-brain barrier, book clubs (LDL-lowering with food, women's brain health), the APOE4-at-80 documentary, interviews with Dr. Perlmutter, Dr. Gavi with Peter Attia, and a New Scientist brain-health podcast.

And the community itself: 11 new members introducing themselves, the goals thread, the Younger Contest, monthly check-in questions, app feedback (recordings and transcripts came up more than once, I heard you), and a very warm response to my founder letter.

If your topic is on this list, someone else in your situation is looking for your post right now.

Two things you can do this week

1. Your monthly check-in is open right now. The window runs through September 7. It takes a few minutes and it decides your pod matches for September. Open the app and start there.

2. Post the thing you have been sitting on. The question that feels too small. The result you are not sure about. The experiment halfway through. Every big thread this summer started exactly that way.

If you are not part of Phoenix yet, join here.

See you inside.

Kevin

P.S. What should the fall expert sessions cover? Reply to this email or drop it in Circle. The hormones series exists because enough of you asked. The next one is up to you.

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