Delicious Science with Dr Joanna McMillan
Aug 25, 2026 · 23 min · 7 segments
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Joanna McMillanHost
I'm Dr. Joanna McMillan, nutrition scientist, dietician, and someone who thinks about strength a lot.
Now, I don't mean the gym mirror kind, the kind that means that you can carry your own groceries when you're aged 80, the kind that means that you can get back up after a fall, the kind that means that you keep living on your own terms for as long as possible.
Today's episode is inspired by a story that literally did stop me in my tracks when I read it.
She has an OAM for her service to community health, and she recently launched a new health promotion charity called Strong Australia, and it has the goal of making muscle strength a national health priority.
The reason she did it isn't a statistic or a research paper, it was her mother, and my mum is also in her 80s, so another reason that it resonated.
Her mother, Bonnie Jean, is a prolific artist and a fiercely independent woman, but she gradually lost the strength to do the things that defined her.
And Dr. Wales told the story of the day that her mother said that she no longer had the strength to get in and out of bed, so she decided to sleep in her chair instead.
Like so many of us watching a parent age, she assumed that this was just what getting older looked like, and she now believes that it doesn't have to be that way.
That is exactly what I want to talk about today because there's a mountain of evidence showing that strength loss, the kind that leads to frailty, to falls, to loss of independence, is not an inevitable part of aging.
If you haven't listened to my earlier episode on muscle, in that one I do go deep on protein, supplements, and the basics of sarcopenia.
So go back and have a listen to that full episode as a nice component to add to this one.
You've heard of the gut-brain, right? Well, there is also a gut-muscle connection.
I want to talk about the role of your whole dietary pattern, the brain-strength link, and why this conversation matters at a population level and not just at an individual one.
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I'm Dr. Joanna McMillan, nutrition scientist, dietician, and someone who thinks about strength a lot.
Now, I don't mean the gym mirror kind, the kind that means that you can carry your own groceries when you're aged 80, the kind that means that you can get back up after a fall, the kind that means that you keep living on your own terms for as long as possible.
Today's episode is inspired by a story that literally did stop me in my tracks when I read it.
She has an OAM for her service to community health, and she recently launched a new health promotion charity called Strong Australia, and it has the goal of making muscle strength a national health priority.
The reason she did it isn't a statistic or a research paper, it was her mother, and my mum is also in her 80s, so another reason that it resonated.
Her mother, Bonnie Jean, is a prolific artist and a fiercely independent woman, but she gradually lost the strength to do the things that defined her.
And Dr. Wales told the story of the day that her mother said that she no longer had the strength to get in and out of bed, so she decided to sleep in her chair instead.
Like so many of us watching a parent age, she assumed that this was just what getting older looked like, and she now believes that it doesn't have to be that way.
That is exactly what I want to talk about today because there's a mountain of evidence showing that strength loss, the kind that leads to frailty, to falls, to loss of independence, is not an inevitable part of aging.
If you haven't listened to my earlier episode on muscle, in that one I do go deep on protein, supplements, and the basics of sarcopenia.
So go back and have a listen to that full episode as a nice component to add to this one.
You've heard of the gut-brain, right? Well, there is also a gut-muscle connection.
I want to talk about the role of your whole dietary pattern, the brain-strength link, and why this conversation matters at a population level and not just at an individual one.