The Manosphere Report

0:00There's lots of data now showing that people that are doing these like short bursts

0:04at least a minute long, but up to three minutes, they're moving faster with intent

0:10and it's having outsized effects on health outcomes.

0:14So for example, individuals that do on the high end, so they're doing, you know,

0:19three minutes of this short burst of an unstructured type of exercise snack and they

0:24do it three times a day.

0:25So it's a total of nine minutes a day.

0:28Okay. That's associated with a 40 % reduction in all -cause mortality, 40 % reduction

0:33in cancer -related mortality, a 50 % reduction in cardiovascular -related mortality.

0:37Wow. Nine minutes a day.

0:38Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science -based tools for

0:43everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford

0:52School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr.

0:55Rhonda Patrick, a biomedical scientist and leading public health educator.

0:58For over a decade, Rhonda has been one of the most trusted voices in building

1:02science -based health protocols. Today, we discuss what the latest and best research says we

1:07should all be doing to improve our health and vitality and avoid disease.

1:11Rhonda shares with us her exact exercise, nutrition, supplementation, and sauna protocols.

1:16And we get really detailed about the mechanisms and logic behind each one.

1:20We also discuss the things that science say you can do to significantly reduce your

1:24cancer and cardiovascular risk, including how to reduce visceral fat and arterial plaque.

1:29Today's discussion truly leaves no stone unturned.

1:32We discuss how eating can increase inflammation, believe it or not, ways to support your

1:37gut health, creatine, vitamin D, why broad vitamin and mineral and fiber support is crucial,

1:42as well as the different forms of magnesium and each of their unique effects.

1:46We also discuss omega -3s and why prescription sources of omega -3s may be the

1:50cleanest and most cost -efficient way to obtain sufficient omega -3 intake.

1:55We also discuss the importance of prioritizing regular resistance training and HIIT workouts over protein.

2:01You still need protein, but emphasizing the exercise component is crucial.

2:05And we discuss fiber, micronutrients, and why short -term fasting can be beneficial.

2:09Dr. Rhonda Patrick is a true wealth of knowledge.

2:12And today, she generously provides us a masterclass on how you can design and adjust

2:17the exact health protocols to meet your specific needs.

2:21Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching

2:24and research roles at Stanford.

2:26It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer

2:29information about science and science -related tools to the general public.

2:33In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors.

2:37And now for my discussion with Dr.

2:39Rhonda Patrick. Welcome back, Dr.

2:41Rhonda Patrick. Excited to be here.

2:44It's been a while. I'm so excited.

2:45There's so much to go into.

2:47And I'll start off the same way I started last time because it's even more

2:52true. Thank you for being first person into this public science health education business.

2:57I don't know if everyone's aware of it, but you were the first person in,

3:01which is why I didn't say first man in because the first person in was

3:05and is a woman. And you've done a marvelous job of educating people on science,

3:09how to parse papers and data, health practices.

3:13And, you know, the rest of us are just trying to follow in your wake.

3:17So thank you very much.

3:19I just want to thank you for being first.

3:21Oh, man. Thank you so much for that.

3:22And also thank you for doing what you do.

3:24I mean, you really do a great service for science communication, you know, education, helping

3:31people love science and get healthier.

3:32Thank you. Well, you're the pioneer.

3:36It's not always easy being a pioneer, but we all benefit.

3:38So let's jump in at exercise because lately you've actually been posting your workouts, which

3:45is awesome. And you're clearly very fit.

3:48I learned before talking to you today that you were a competitive athlete.

3:51You were a long jumper or triple jumper?

3:54I was a long jumper, but I would say my real competitive athleteness comes from

3:59my jump roping. I was on a professional jump roping team.

4:04Professional? Yes. Yeah. It was, we would compete.

4:07So my friend and I started the team when we were in second grade and

4:11it was called the San Diego Sandskippers.

4:13It was part of the International Rope Skipping Organization, which was actually started by her

4:17uncle. But there's jump rope teams all around the world.

4:21And, you know, now I think there's a new name, but like it got taken

4:25over by the Universal Jump Rope Team or something like that.

4:27I don't know exactly what it is, but so I was on a team and

4:31every year we would compete in Boulder, Colorado.

4:34There was competitions for all kinds of, you know, jumping rope.

4:37And I would perform and start jump rope teams around the school, around different schools

4:41in San Diego. So I used to get out of school, you know, get out

4:46of school free card. And my partner and I would go and start do workshops

4:51at other schools and help them start jump rope teams.

4:54And the idea was cardiovascular health, healthy heart.

4:57And yeah. So, so that's really, I would say my, my, my roots with being

5:02a competitive athlete. Awesome. I love skipping rope.

5:04Is it okay to say skipping rope or is jumping rope?

5:07Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Skipping rope, jumping rope.

5:08And actually it's a great opportunity for me to ask you what your thoughts are

5:11about exercise that isn't just linear, right?

5:15I know like real jump ropers can do crossovers.

5:18And, and these days I'm seeing a lot more about rope flow.

5:21I think it's David Weck and others online or, you know, stuff.

5:24It's getting people out of the standard, you know, curls, bench presses, lunges, you know,

5:29and getting movements that are more, just for lack of a better term, across the

5:33body. Do you think there's something to that in terms of real physical benefits?

5:38I mean, I imagine there is.

5:39Sure. I mean, I wouldn't be the expert to be able to give you a

5:42good answer on that, but I do think that jumping rope in general has unique

5:47benefits in addition to, obviously, it's a great cardiovascular exercise.

5:51You're getting the weight -bearing aspects as well for building bone density, and I think

5:55that earlier for me, you know, I was doing it as a young girl.

5:58So important, right, because you're kind of banking that bone density early on, which is

6:03important because at some point, you know, menopause will hit and estrogen goes down, and

6:08so you start to lose more bone.

6:10But, yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of benefits to jumping rope beyond what I'm

6:16describing as cardiovascular benefits and bone benefits that someone else could answer.

6:20Well, I'm certainly going to get back to jumping rope now that we, you know,

6:23resurrected it in this conversation.

6:25And I have to say, bone density measurements aside, you have awesome posture.

6:30I notice people's posture. Oh, really?

6:32Yeah, I didn't mean to put you on the spot here, but, yeah, when I

6:34walked in, I was like, if you ever interacted with Rhonda in person, which I

6:37have, you have amazing posture.

6:39And these days, good posture is rare, so who knows?

6:42Maybe the things are related.

6:44I imagine they probably are, bone health and posture and so forth.

6:47In terms of the sorts of exercise that people are more familiar with, what's your

6:51routine look like, and what sorts of things in your routine are non -negotiables, and

6:58where's the place for experimentation and kind of what you're exploring now?

7:02So for me, exercise is part of my personal hygiene, as you and I were

7:07discussing. It really is a non -negotiable.

7:10So I absolutely have to do exercise, just like I have to brush my teeth.

7:16And, you know, I kind of got that from Dr.

7:18Ben Levine, who is probably one of the world -leading cardiovascular exercise physiologists.

7:24He's at UT Southwest in Dallas.

7:25I just want to shout out his name because I've really learned a lot from

7:28him. But the non -negotiables for me really are getting cardiovascular exercise and getting my

7:36resistance training, so building muscle, maintaining muscle strength as well.

7:41So my routine for me, I work out probably about five to six hours a

7:45week. And those workouts, I largely am doing a combination of high -intensity interval training

7:52that's not necessarily like the Norwegian 4x4, where I'm going as hard as I can

7:57for four minutes and then recovering for three minutes and doing that four times.

8:00It's really, you know, the Norwegian 4x4 is a hard workout.

8:04It's really good for improving your cardiorespiratory fitness, which I think is one of the

8:08best markers for longevity. We can talk about that.

8:11I do a lot of, you know, it's a mixture of doing, you know, rowing

8:19machine, getting on the assault bike, and then mixing it in with lifting weights, doing

8:24some deadlifts, you know, doing squats.

8:27So it's really, for me, a non -negotiable to do my vigorous intensity exercise is

8:32what I would call it.

8:33So you're really kind of getting your heart rate up to, you know, 80 %

8:38max heart rate at points, not always, but especially during the intervals.

8:42I would say that's a non -negotiable for me.

8:44How many days a week are you doing that?

8:46I do my longer HIIT workouts.

8:49So I have four days a week where I'm doing at least an hour.

8:52So two of those sessions are more of a CrossFit type of training, where I'll

8:56do the first 30 minutes will be strength training.

8:58So I'll just be lifting heavier with, like, you know, fewer reps.

9:02What's the rest between sets?

9:04Sorry to get granular, but people will wonder.

9:05What's funny is I typically rest about two minutes between my sets.

9:09I recover pretty quick. And I do it with a coach, and my coach usually

9:15tells me that I'm spot on.

9:16I'm, like, ready to go, and it's been about two minutes.

9:18So I usually – that's my recovery time.

9:22And so the first 30 minutes is strength training, and that'll be, like, deadlifts.

9:25It'll be, you know, squats.

9:27I'll be cleaning. I'll be doing front squats.

9:29Sometimes I do barbell or back squats, right?

9:31Like, it's a mixture of different types of strength training.

9:34And then the last 30 minutes is more of a high -intensity interval training session.

9:38So it'll be, like, you know, where I'm getting my heart rate up.

9:41So I'm mixing in the row machine, and then I have, like – maybe I'm

9:44doing cleans, but they're lighter, right?

9:45So it's, like, more reps but lighter load, right?

9:48So that's – I do that twice a week, and that each is an hour

9:53session. And then I do also twice a week about an hour and 20 minutes

9:57of – it's also more high -intensity, but I have more recovery time because I'm

10:02doing it with my girlfriends, and we kind of chit -chat a little bit.

10:04And so – but it's very similar.

10:06We do, you know, rowing machine, assault bikes.

10:09We do the skier. You know, Rogue has that skier.

10:12And then we mix it in with, you know, chest presses, and we do, you

10:16know, assisted pull -ups, and we do, you know, lighter squats with, like, larger –

10:21you know, more reps. So that's another, you know, two hours a week.

10:24So I have four hours a week of just doing a lot of that sort

10:27of CrossFit HIIT type of training, and then I mix that in with my more,

10:34like, runs that I do, which I would say are still – they're still considered

10:38vigorous intensity. They're just not quite as high intensity.

10:40And I do probably – I run in, like, maybe six miles a week, so

10:46maybe at my max, but these days I'm mostly running probably for, like, four miles.

10:51a week. So those runs tend to be like, sometimes there are two miles, sometimes

10:56there are three miles. And you enjoy running.

10:59I do. I do. And I think it's important as well.

11:01And sometimes I'll run with my husband and we just kind of like chill out

11:04and talk. And, you know, it's, it's a nice time for me as well, just

11:09to kind of do that with him.

11:12And then on weekends, I'll probably do like a hike with my family.

11:17And sometimes we'll do like a sprint up the hill and, you know, but it's

11:20more just enjoyable time in nature, still moving, but, you know, it's, it's kind of

11:26family time too. Weight vests on the run or hike?

11:28No, I don't, not, I mean, I'm kind of wanting to experiment with that, but

11:32not really. I'm just kind of, sometimes we bring our puppy and, you know, so

11:37it's, it's more about the experience, I think, than like, I'm like, I get, I

11:40get a lot of workout throughout the week.

11:41Sure. But it's, like you said, it's non -negotiable for me.

11:44And, and times when I'm like, like today, so I, you know, I had a

11:48long drive. And so I got on my Peloton and I did a 10 minute,

11:52you know, I did a 10 minute Tabata back -to -back.

11:54So it was like two back -to -back Tabatas.

11:56Right. So it was, it ended up being 10 minutes.

11:58It was like 30 second recovery in between the two Tabata sessions, two to one

12:02ratio, 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off.

12:04But like, I have to do something every day.

12:07And if I'm traveling or I have like an early podcast or something, I'll, I'll

12:11just jump on the bike and I have to get that blood flow.

12:13Sometimes I'm in my hotel room and I don't want to go to the gym.

12:16I don't have time. And I just, in my room, you know, I do, I

12:19do the air squats, I'll do high knees, jumping jacks, and I have a repeat

12:22for 10 minutes. I'm getting my heart rate up and I'm, you know, I've got

12:24sweat on my brow. Like I'm not, it's not like the most intense workout, but

12:28it's so important for me.

12:29You know, there's, there's a variety of brain benefits that have been shown with even

12:34just 10 minutes of this vigorous type of intensity of workout you do, you know,

12:38where you're, I mean, you probably have seen this, this data where it's like just

12:4210 minutes of this vigorous type of exercise.

12:44You're immediately increasing neuronal connections.

12:48There's been studies showing that you have an improvement in executive function by like 14%,

12:54which is pretty big. I think it was like a 50 millisecond improvement processing speed

12:59or something, which doesn't sound a lot, but actually it translates to a big improvement

13:02in executive function. So my brain works better.

13:04I feel better, you know, better mood.

13:07There's even studies that have compared impulse control after various types of intensity of workout.

13:13So like there's one study that compared a more low intensity versus moderate intensity versus

13:19high intensity. So you're talking about like walking versus maybe, you know, jogging slowly where

13:25you can still have a conversation versus like you're doing a HIIT workout, right?

13:29When you're on, you're not really talking because you're going as hard as you can

13:32during that interval. And it was the high intensity, you know, vigorous intensity exercise that

13:37really increased plasma serotonin, which has been shown to associate with brain serotonin.

13:42Those studies have been done.

13:43And serotonin is very important for, as you know, for impulse control.

13:48I mean, a lot of people think about serotonin with respect to mood because we

13:51have these selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SSRIs that are used to treat, you know, depression,

13:57major depressive disorder. But serotonin, as you know, does so much more than that.

14:02And impulse control is one of the big things that serotonin plays a role in.

14:07And so those studies show that plasma serotonin increased in the higher intensity group and

14:11that correlated with improved impulse control.

14:14So of course, for us now in the modern day society that we live in,

14:17we're constantly being bombarded with, you know, social media and all these things.

14:22And like, you have to be able to kind of like filter that out and

14:26not like just go with the impulse, like check my social media, check my, you

14:29know, and how many likes did I get or whatever.

14:31You need to just be able to focus.

14:33And so that for me, you know, serotonin is important.

14:36And so I like to get that vigorous intensity exercise as well.

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17:03I love that you mentioned other functions of serotonin because as you point out, it

17:07is so heavily associated with this mood aspect and certainly has a role there, but

17:11the impulse control pieces, I think is a non -trivial aspect to the effects of

17:17exercise and just generally. I'm curious, do you bring your phone or feel compelled to

17:22check your phone during workouts?

17:24Or are you able to just say, I'm compartmentalizing now.

17:26This is the workout. You might put on music or maybe text here or there

17:30if you need to, but are you able to compartmentalize or do you struggle with

17:35the phone during workouts? Oh, I don't bring my phone to my workout at all.

17:39Like I don't, now I do have a watch that I wear that, you know,

17:43if there's like an emergency, I'll get a text message.

17:45Oftentimes I put it on silent, like on no notifications because I don't want to

17:48be bothered. But I don't really check my phone.

17:54I don't really like checking things like social media.

17:57For me, it's just a distraction.

18:00And frankly, I think it's terrible for people's brains, even though like my business kind

18:05of depends on it somewhat.

18:06I think social media is not really good for people, to be honest.

18:10So I don't really check my phone or bring my phone to my workouts.

18:14My workouts are, I like to chat with my friends when I'm working out with

18:18them and that's fun. Yeah.

18:19That's in real life. Yes.

18:21IRL is the kids say.

18:23Yeah, that's in real life.

18:25And yeah, phones for me are not something that I bring to my workout.

18:30Great. Yeah, I've been experimenting with not allowing the phone in my gym and just

18:35the workouts go so much better.

18:37And I find that the mental and physical resetting aspect of working out just seems

18:40to be enhanced. But it sounds like you were already there and I'm just arriving.

18:44So I have a couple other specific questions about your workouts because for my own

18:48interest, and I know many people will wonder, for the dedicated weight workouts, are these

18:53whole body workouts? And you said low reps.

18:55Maybe you could just tell us what low reps is for you.

18:58And then it seems like the ever -present question is to failure, close to failure.

19:04I mean, just to round out that portion of the workout picture.

19:08The workouts that I'm doing with my strength training workouts with my coach, it really

19:13depends. Most of those workouts are their multi -joint workouts.

19:18So I am most of the time doing, you know, some either front squat, back

19:23squat, or I'm cleaning it as well, right?

19:25Which obviously the weight goes down if I'm cleaning it because it's hard to clean.

19:31It's also the hard, like, it's the thing that I hate doing the most.

19:35Cleans. Oh, yeah. Cleans with front squat because it's really hard.

19:39And for me, I mean, for others who've been doing it for years, I'm sure

19:43it's like, you know, they love it.

19:44But for me, it's very hard.

19:45I've only been doing clean since, you know, February 2024.

19:51So I'm pretty new to it.

19:53And so it's mentally, like, I have to overcome that challenge, which, by the way,

19:58once I started doing all this sort of weight training, I've always been an endurance

20:02junkie. Like, I used to, like, go long runs and, you know, races and stuff

20:06like that. So for me, that's, like, my safe spot, right?

20:10That's what comes easy to me.

20:12Weight training and resistance training, strength training, definitely not something that I've done my whole

20:17life. I'm so glad that I started doing it.

20:19But very, very challenging for me.

20:21And so I would say the biggest effect was on my brain and the ability

20:25to handle stress better, where it was, like, unbelievable because it was so hard.

20:30And I just didn't want to do these cleans, you know, and these front squats.

20:36And then the rest of my day was not as hard.

20:38And that, to me, was, like, the biggest surprise for this type of training.

20:42But anyway, so I do a variety of – if I'm doing – if I'm

20:46going heavier, then it, you know, depends.

20:48Sometimes I'll start off – it's like, okay, we start off, we do five reps,

20:51and then we go down to four, and then we go down to three, and

20:54then we go down to one.

20:55Right. Are you doing singles?

20:56We do. Yeah, yeah. Awesome.

20:58And that's the hardest. It's the hardest.

21:00But then there's, like, my coach will, like, it's just one.

21:03It's just one. You know, sometimes we'll do, like, six, five, and then we do

21:07four twice, and then we do three twice, right?

21:09And so it all depends, you know, also on the day.

21:13There's some days where I'm just, like, you know, can we do lower reps and,

21:18like, lighter weight, right? Where I'm just, like, this is the day for me.

21:22I'm stressed. I'm not here.

21:23Like, so you kind of have to modify your workout, right, according to how you

21:28feel that day. But I would say that the majority of my strength training workouts

21:34are deadlifting. You know, I love deadlifting.

21:37I think I'm pretty good at pulling that weight up, lifting that weight up.

21:41It's a straight bar, hex bar.

21:42I do a straight bar.

21:43Mixed grip. There's so many variables.

21:44Straight bar, straight bar, and.

21:47Um, it's the same deal with that.

21:50Like most of the time with strength training, we'll do, you know, we start off

21:52at like five or six and then work our way down.

21:56And then I, I usually do a drop set after, you know, any of those

22:00sessions where I'll do 10 and then it's like a lot lighter.

22:02Right. So those, those are typically my strength training sessions are multi -joint.

22:07Sometimes I'll do accessory sessions, you know, where I'm working.

22:10I do, you know, the dips, um, or the Bulgarian, you know, the Bulgarian split

22:18squats. I mean, just the accessory stuff that you're working the like smaller stabilization muscles

22:22and stuff like that. I love that you call Bulgarian split squats, uh, accessory, smaller

22:26muscles for a lot of people.

22:28That's the compound work, which is just, I have to say, I, I am inside.

22:32I'm just like so delighted because I mean, obviously, uh, weight training is something that's

22:38caught on broadly for men and women now, but I don't know many women and

22:42I know they're out there, but I don't know many women who are, uh, working

22:45down to singles on multi -joint, like real multi -joint, like, you know, deadlifts, cleans.

22:54I know they're out there, but it's not that common to see in gyms.

22:57And, uh, this is going to no doubt spark a debate because, you know, some

23:00of the older, slightly ornery, but very credentialed strength training folks have been online recently

23:06saying that as people, um, past 35, that they shouldn't do squats, that they shouldn't

23:13do deadlifts and certainly shouldn't do them heavy because it is, because of this whole

23:17thing of, you know, you can do higher reps and you can go to failure

23:19and still get hypertrophy. But what I love is that you're not necessarily talking about

23:24hypertrophy, maybe some hypertrophy, but this is about strength.

23:27This is about building more strength and triples and doubles and singles.

23:33That's awesome. It's hard. That's awesome.

23:35It's so hard. And it's the part that I, I'm like all about, let's like

23:39the last 30 minutes we're in its hit and, and that's hard.

23:42It's a different kind of hard, but for me, the strength training is the hardest

23:46and there's definitely a mental component, right?

23:48Where I do not want to do it.

23:50It's like you talk about cold plunging, right?

23:52Like you, you just, it's so unpleasant and you don't want to do it.

23:56And like you do it and it's like that mental toughness that you're building, right?

24:00I, I, that's what I experienced when I'm doing these, you know, strength training exercises

24:04that I'm doing. And, and I don't know if it's going to get easier.

24:08Maybe it will. It's hasn't yet.

24:10I still, I still dread it, but I do it.

24:13And I'm proud of myself for doing it, but it is, it's definitely hard.

24:17And I am getting stronger, I think mentally and obviously physically as well.

24:23But I have to add in the aerobic as well, though.

24:25I think that's really important.

24:26That's your base. Yeah. Yeah.

24:28You love it. I love it.

24:30And I do think cardiorespiratory fitness is very important, you know, for, for long -term

24:33health as well as, you know, obviously building muscle and strength.

24:37Well, on the one hand, I want for you as a friend to, for you

24:40to hate the heavy work less.

24:42On the other hand, I don't because of this literature, I'm sure you're familiar with

24:47it, but the anterior mid -cingulate cortex, this brain area that is hyperplastic throughout the

24:53lifespan, which is rare for a brain area.

24:56And it enlarges when we do things we don't want to do.

25:00I mean, it's so clear.

25:01It's not just about doing hard things about, it's about doing the hard thing you

25:04hate. And, and for you, that sounds like the, the heavy compound movements for me.

25:10Yeah. I don't like the cold plunge, which is why I do it.

25:12I don't think it's magic.

25:13I just think it's a, it's a surefire stimulus that I hate to get mentally

25:18stronger. And I think having something that you really despise, that you know is good

25:23for you, seems to keep this anterior mid -cingulate cortex volume either increasing or the

25:28same. And that's actually the thing in these so -called superagers that is the strongest

25:33anatomical correlate that we have.

25:35So on the one hand, I hope it gets easier.

25:37On the other hand, for your sake, I hope it doesn't get easier because it's

25:40still, it's going to be so much more beneficial.

25:42I have a coach who can tell when it's getting easier and she will definitely

25:47up the weight. I mean, it keeps, I mean, it keeps going up.

25:52And so it doesn't, it gets easier in a sense, but it doesn't.

25:55Right. So, I mean, I think that's, that's the whole point is you're building strength

25:59and you keep making it heavier and it becomes harder again because now it's heavier.

26:04Awesome. But, and I haven't gotten injured.

26:06So that's also, you know, knock on wood.

26:09Yeah. No, knock on wood.

26:10But I, um, thank you for rounding out that picture.

26:13It's super inspiring for men and women, you know, so.

26:16It's not easy to post on social media because obviously I'm a newbie.

26:20So I have all sorts of, you know, things that I can, ways I can

26:24improve, but I'm posting it, you know.

26:26Well, and the fact that you're working down into triples, doubles, and singles, I think

26:29is something that I'm trying to do more of.

26:32And I think, um, this notion that you can get hypertrophy with higher reps if

26:36you take it to failure.

26:37Sure, I, I totally agree, read the studies, totally agree with the data, but not

26:41everything is about hypertrophy. I think that's what people forget.

26:43It's not all about growing muscle.

26:45Um, and VO2 max, which is great, but it's just, it's not all about, um,

26:50the top contour. And I, what I love about the way you approach everything is

26:54you're, you go through multiple layers of, of the, the health stratus, as it were.

26:59This is probably a good opportunity to talk about protein because I have a very

27:03specific question about protein. We all hear one gram of quality protein per pound of

27:07body weight or lean body weight.

27:08That's sort of what we're kind of what's thrown at us by doing the heavier

27:11weight training. Do you notice that your protein appetite?

27:15Has it increased? Like appetite specifically for protein foods?

27:18I don't know that I have.

27:20You know, I interestingly have been doing a little bit more intermittent fasting in which,

27:28you know, people think about intermittent fasting.

27:31They think about it as just one thing, one intervention.

27:33I think it's two. There's a behavioral aspect to it where it's a tool to

27:37sort of lower the amount of calories you're taking in.

27:39The other one would be this metabolic switch.

27:41But so I've actually since, I don't know, September, maybe last September of 2025, been

27:48doing more intermittent fasting. And what I mean by that is just really just eating

27:52less. And the reason for that is because I noticed that everything that I was

27:59doing, which was, you know, I eat healthy, I exercise a lot.

28:03And yet I was sort of gaining more fat in the belly section, right?

28:09The visceral fat. And the only thing that really helped me stop that, put the

28:16brakes on, was getting more in a caloric deficit.

28:20So maybe my drive to do that kind of is skewing whether or not my

28:26appetite for protein would go up.

28:28But I personally am on the scale of 1 .2 to 1 .6 grams per

28:34kilogram body weight. Per kilogram.

28:36Per kilogram, which is probably a little bit less than the pound.

28:39You know, it's a kind of a throwaway statement.

28:42A gram per pound. A gram of quality protein as defined as something with, you

28:47know, lots of the essential amino acids and so forth per pound or per lean

28:54pound of body mass. Yeah.

28:56Which is something I think I and many other people shoot for, but I'm curious

29:00how religious you are about the, you know, getting a certain protein amount or per

29:04meal. Basically, it wasn't working for me in terms of like, I was really trying

29:07to get aim for like the higher end of the, for me, you know, 1

29:11.6 grams per kilogram body weight, or even a little bit above that.

29:15And what I found, what was happening is that I was actually gaining more weight

29:19because I think I was consuming more calories at the same time.

29:22If you're getting it from whole foods, right?

29:24Like that's just kind of naturally going to happen.

29:26And so I had to slide down.

29:29But I'm still, I'm still, like I said, I'm still getting within that range of

29:33like, probably on average, maybe 1 .3, 1 .4 grams per kilogram body weight.

29:39And it's really, it's really worked well for me, but like people are different and

29:43you have different goals, right?

29:45You know, like I'm gaining muscle mass and I feel like all my training is

29:48like the most important thing.

29:49And I think that we need, generally speaking, I think people should become more obsessed

29:53with training and less obsessed with protein.

29:56Like the protein will compliment the training.

29:58And as you mentioned, if you're training, perhaps your appetite for protein will increase.

30:02And so you'll start to eat, you know, more protein and less refined carbohydrates.

30:07I already wasn't eating a lot of refined ultra processed foods in the first place.

30:11Probably not the answer you were expecting, but it's, it's really, for me, I just,

30:17focusing on getting more protein was, was not working for my body in terms of,

30:24but then again, I'm 47 years old, you know, that perimenopause phase, very different than

30:29someone who's 37, maybe. I don't know the answer to that.

30:32I, I, I do know that I hear from more and more people these days

30:36that they are having a hard time getting that one gram of protein per pound

30:39of body weight. It feels like a lot to them is what they're saying.

30:42They feel like they're kind of forcing themselves to do it.

30:44You shouldn't feel that way.

30:45Exactly. So I'm actually really pleased with your answer, not because I have an agenda

30:49here, but because I and many other people seem to feel like, unless there's a

30:54lot of resistance training or tremendous demands, like hiking, you know, while backpacking, where if

31:00you burn tons of calories, you're carrying, you're basically rocking like nine hours a day,

31:03right? Right. That they have a hard time getting that much protein down.

31:08And I think that's also the case if people are eating starches, like I eat

31:12rice and oatmeal and some breads and things like that.

31:15Not a lot of bread, but you know, it sounds like you eat starches.

31:17I do eat oatmeal too.

31:19It does satiate you. These days, because I really kind of more focused a little

31:24bit on, I did want to calorically restrict somewhat without, you know, being unhealthy.

31:31Obviously you can take every stressor to a bad unhealthy place, right?

31:35You don't want to starve yourself.

31:36You don't want to like not eat enough food.

31:38But my, my meals are mostly like healthy proteins.

31:42So I have homemade turkey burgers.

31:44I eat a lot of, I eat a lot of those.

31:45And then I eat chicken, you know, I eat pasture raised chicken.

31:49I do, I do still eat wild Alaskan salmon.

31:53And then I'll also mix in some like filet mignon, like I like grass fed

31:57steak as well. Yum. Those are my protein sources.

32:00And always I pair it with greens.

32:03So, or like some sort of vegetable.

32:06Most of the times it's, it's greens because they're the most, most micronutrient dense.

32:10And so these days I'm eating a lot of sauteed collard greens that are like

32:14pre -prepared, has garlic and onion.

32:16And I'll put that, you know, have that with my meal or I'll have some,

32:20you know, sauteed kale. Sometimes I'll have a salad with it, but the portions are

32:24smaller. And like I said, I also do a little bit of intermittent fasting.

32:28We can talk about that as well, but that's kind of these days what I'm

32:31doing for my meals. I haven't eaten as much.

32:34Sometimes I'll eat the high protein oats.

32:36They have those high protein oats that have you, have you seen those?

32:39They're pretty good. No, I eat oatmeal, but I like protein foods.

32:41I like vegetables. I like previous.

32:42So that's a much higher case.

32:42So you might see what Justin Bieber did.

32:42And the Simply Leggett, how are you getting the sociopaths and we had records in

32:42college fruit. I feel very lucky to like those foods mainly.

32:45And then the starch for me has to be very clean.

32:48I like oatmeal rice, homemade pastas I'll eat.

32:51Like if I go out, I'll have, sometimes I'll have some homemade pasta or a

32:54sourdough bread or something. But I find that most starches that are out there in

32:58the world have a bunch of other junk in them.

33:01And I just feel lousy, get kind of sleepy afterwards.

33:04So it sounds like we eat pretty similarly, although I probably eat more starches than

33:09you do. It's the more processed types of carbohydrates that, as you mentioned, it's like

33:13typically you don't feel good after you eat them.

33:16And, you know, part of that's the post -prandial inflammatory response because some of those

33:20foods are a little more inflammatory.

33:21I mean, a lot of additives and stuff that are affecting the gut, gut permeabilization,

33:25you're leaking lipopolysaccharide in the bloodstream, right?

33:28That's activating the immune system.

33:30We used to inject, I don't do any animal experiments anymore, and I'm actually grateful

33:34to not do them. So I didn't like working on animals, but it was what

33:38we did until I decided to work on humans.

33:40But we used to inject LPS to stimulate an inflammatory response to kind of prime

33:47a regeneration response that you could get through macrophages and things like that.

33:51And so LPS is a very potent way to generate local or even systemic inflammation.

33:55I think hearing that some starches will stimulate LPS, that's interesting.

34:01Well, let me clarify. It squares with my experience.

34:03Let me clarify. I'm not challenging.

34:04No, no, no. I'm not challenging.

34:05It squares with my experiences.

34:06I'm one of these, I never get stomach aches.

34:08I never get headaches. If I do, something's badly wrong with my stomach or my

34:10head. But if I eat certain starches, I'll be like, oh, like I feel lousy.

34:15And I'm wondering if it's this.

34:16So we have about a gram of LPS in our gut, like that's on average,

34:20because, you know, lipopolysaccharide is the outer component of a cell membrane of gram -negative

34:25bacteria, right? Yeast. We have a lot of bacteria in our gut, gram -negative bacteria,

34:29right? Trillions of bacteria in our gut.

34:30But so when we eat food, typically like our gut epithelial cells, we have a

34:36tight junction that's holding them together.

34:38When we eat food, they transiently open and then close.

34:41Like it's kind of a normal response, right?

34:44I would say the opposite end of the spectrum of that would be like celiac,

34:49where they eat gluten or something.

34:51It opens up and stays open.

34:53And so you get like a ton of LPS leakage into the system, which causes

34:56massive inflammation. It just happens with meals in general.

35:00You do get somewhat of a LPS response from a meal.

35:03Now, the type of meal does matter.

35:05So when I say refined carbohydrates, it's not necessarily like healthy, you know, carbohydrates like

35:12vegetables. It's like you're eating something that is refined sugar, typically with saturated fat.

35:19So those types of foods really cause like LPS response.

35:23You know, it's inflammation. It's bad.

35:25It's hard on the gut.

35:27But the postprandial inflammatory response essentially is that LPS getting into the system, activating the

35:32immune system, which draws the energy.

35:34I mean, it's like, it's very energy consuming to activate your immune system, right?

35:39That's why when you're sick, you're so sleepy too, right?

35:42Well, there's also cytokines that are somnogenic and promoting sleep, but like activating your immune

35:47system requires a ton of energy.

35:49And so when you're constantly activating the immune system, you know, that's an energy sink,

35:54right? And so you do feel tired.

35:55And that's why a lot of times after a meal, you're feeling kind of lethargic.

36:00To protein foods of the sort that you listed off before, do they cause less

36:05opening of the tight junctions of the gut?

36:08I think that the big deal with the opening of the tight junctions in the

36:11gut is, you know, I mean, eating a big meal will do it.

36:15Eating a very like ultra processed food meal will do it.

36:20But interestingly enough, just eating a bunch of saturated fat without a fiber matrix.

36:24So like, like butter, you're just like eating butter.

36:26Don't ever do that. But like, if you just eat butter, that's been shown.

36:31My niece, when she was little, now she's all grown up.

36:34But when she was little, I taught her how to eat like a little bit

36:37of Kerrygold butter and she loved it.

36:39So then we would do this thing where we'd do that.

36:44We won't do that anymore.

36:45I mean, a little bit's fine, but like, I mean, there's, there's studies showing that

36:48it does like saturated fat is hard on the gut.

36:50Yeah. Like I said, it's a sliding scale, like meals in general do it, but

36:53it's like you would, it's like you would think the healthier foods that you're eating,

36:57like whole foods, you're getting less of that LPS response.

37:00And then of course there's gluten and that complicates the whole story, especially for people

37:04that are celiac. Right. Cause that's.

37:06Which is a small percentage of people are actually celiac.

37:09Right. But a lot of people seem to believe, and I believe them that when

37:13they eat gluten, they feel worse than when they don't eat gluten.

37:16I'm sure there's some people that are sensitive to gluten that do feel worse.

37:19And then I'm sure some of that's the nocebo effect, right?

37:22That's been shown with gluten in, in particular.

37:25Did you, have you seen that study where people there's been, so, so there were

37:28people that think they're, you know, gluten sensitive.

37:33And so they were enrolled in this study and these individuals were separated into two

37:40groups. One group was getting, given the gluten bread with gluten and the other group

37:44was given the bread without gluten.

37:46And the people that were given the bread without gluten had a terrible, you know,

37:52abdominal response, like they were bloated.

37:53They felt terrible. I mean, it was all, and there was no gluten in the

37:56actual bread, but they thought there was.

37:58So it was thought that there's a nocebo effect where it's like the opposite of

38:02a placebo effect where you just, you're, you're, you've got that phenotype where you think

38:06things negative are going to happen and you can make them happen.

38:10can change your immune system.

38:11You can change your brain signaling and, you know, so probably a combination of both

38:16with that regard. In addition to like the lethargy, so I was talking about in

38:20the context, that's why it sparked my, you know, interest is like you were talking

38:24about feeling tired after a meal.

38:26And I do think that is part of that reason for feeling sleepy, but you

38:30know, what's interesting about LPS, you talked about injecting it to mice and I've also

38:34done experiments injecting LPS into mice.

38:36There have been studies where people have been injected with an amount of LPS that

38:41is, you know, similar to what you would find your gut releasing into your bloodstream

38:46or a placebo control, which in this case was saline and individuals that were injected

38:51with the LPS, high amounts of inflammatory markers like TNF alpha.

38:56I mean, we're talking like up to 50 % increase over baseline, right?

39:00So high amounts of inflammation, which makes sense.

39:02LPS is activating the immune system.

39:03Your immune system is like there's a foreign invader, right?

39:05It's not a foreign invader.

39:07It's just the food you ate that caused transient gut permeability.

39:10And those individuals also feel depressive symptoms and feelings of like social withdrawal.

39:15So the inflammation is affecting the brain, right?

39:19These inflammatory factors are getting in the brain, crossing the blood -brain barrier and affecting

39:22the way we feel. And we know now that inflammation plays a big role in

39:25major depressive disorder and depression, not in all cases, but there's a subset, right?

39:29Where it's really like it does, it seems to play a big role.

39:32In fact, interestingly, there's been some studies showing that people that don't respond to SSRIs

39:38have very high amounts of C -reactive protein.

39:40So this was the biomarker for a classical biomarker for inflammation.

39:43I would argue it's not that sensitive, but nonetheless, it is a biomarker for inflammation.

39:48And so people that don't respond to SSRIs have high amounts of inflammation, which kind

39:53of raises this question of, is there like this subset of depression that's really inflammatory

39:57driven, right? Interesting. So the LPS is affecting not only our, our energy levels, but

40:05also our mood. And then, you know, there's, there's also evidence that, so we know

40:11that LPS binds to LDL particles through lipid -lipid interactions.

40:16And in fact, it's kind of part of the adaptive response.

40:20It's why you don't want to ever go get your cholesterol measured like after, right

40:24after you're sick or had a very stressful event, something that causes inflammation because you

40:30will increase, VLDL production increases and LDL production increases.

40:35And it's sort of an adaptive response to bind that LPS to prevent it from,

40:39you know, causing more damage.

40:41And so it actually binds to LDL particles on the ApoB protein.

40:46So ApoB is a protein that is on these lipoproteins.

40:51And it's a very important protein because that is what's used by the LDL receptors

40:56present on our liver to recycle LDL particles.

41:00So what happens is these, these LPS particles are now bound to, you know, our,

41:05our lipoproteins and our lipoproteins are still doing their function, right?

41:08They're going around and they're, they're, they're giving, you know, triglycerides and, and fatty acids

41:14and to some degree cholesterol to our cells that need it, right?

41:17We're constantly making new cells and repairing and we, our cells need that.

41:21As they donate triglycerides and fatty acids, they get smaller in size.

41:25The lipoproteins, you probably heard of small, dense LDL, right?

41:28Like that's a very dangerous type of LDL particle.

41:30And that's one that's kind of been donating along, getting rid of triglycerides and whatever.

41:36If you think about a train with cargo, it's donating, you know, dropping off the

41:39cargo. And so when it's time to get recycled back into the liver, what do

41:43you know? The ApoB protein's obscured by that LPS and it's not recycled.

41:49And so it gets lodged into the arterial wall.

41:53And because there's an LPS bound to this, you know, small, dense LDL particle, macrophages,

42:01which are, as you mentioned, it's like the first line of defense against something like

42:04a bacterial invader, right? It comes and chews it up, right?

42:07Gets rid of the problem.

42:08So macrophages come in because they're seeing this signal of LPS and think it's a

42:13foreign invader when it's actually just a small, dense LDL particle bound to LPS that

42:17came from the gut, tries to engulf it, but it can't because it's not bacteria.

42:21And you get the macrophage stuck to that lipoprotein LPS, you know, complex, and you

42:27get the formation of a foam cell.

42:29You've probably heard of a foam cell.

42:30It's the beginning of atherosclerosis.

42:33And so this is where gut health and the food we eat is sort of,

42:38it's linked to cardiovascular health, right?

42:41Gut permeability, getting that LPS into our circulation is actually not a very good thing

42:46because you're, you're basically, you know, slow dripping in that inflammation, that inflammatory signal, and

42:53it's wreaking havoc in our arteries, on our brain.

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44:21Thank you for explaining that so clearly, because I don't think anyone has ever explained

44:26how exactly gut health is signaling cardiovascular health or pushing or pulling down on or

44:32raising cardiovascular health. As a neuro guy, I think about the vagus nerve as the

44:37primary conduit between gut and brain, and I was recalling that LPS injected into the

44:42gut is how you actually experimentally induce a fever, and if you cut the vagus,

44:47no fever. So there seems to be something about the way that the gut communicates

44:52with the brain and other organs that is critically dependent on some threshold level of

44:56LPS. Thank you also for reminding us that LPS is present in the gut, because

45:02we have yeast in our gut, some amount of yeast.

45:04You mentioned tight junctions, and the way I think about tight junctions, please correct me

45:09because I'm going to get some or all of this wrong, is that essentially they

45:12form like a cellar fence in the gut, and that transient opening or partial opening

45:18of these is a normal process.

45:19But it sounds like after a meal, some bacteria, when you say leaks out into

45:22our system, it's literally going into the bloodstream.

45:24So now we have bacteria circulating, and if some of that is small enough to

45:28get across the blood -brain barrier, that's another way that bacteria can start to cause

45:33inflammation at the brain level?

45:34It's LPS, which is like the outer component of bacteria that have died.

45:40Actual live bacteria getting in, I don't know as much about that, perhaps as well,

45:45but I know that the LPS is getting in, and I do know that the

45:48LPS activating the immune system and stuff in the resident glial cells and stuff in

45:54the brain does break down the blood -brain barrier.

45:58It's like the early, like we know neuroinflammation is really some of the early parts

46:03of breaking down in the blood -brain barrier, which is the early stages of neurodegenerative

46:08disease. It is how the gut health is linked to the brain and to neurodegenerative

46:12disease as well. So it's the inflammation, I think, that's really, it's really powerful in

46:20terms of, it's a driver of the aging process in general, like this inflammation, inflammaging,

46:27you've heard of inflammaging. You know, I think now it's pretty clear to me that

46:32is, if you're thinking about the molecular events that are leading to these hallmarks of

46:38aging, which lead to the phenotypes and, you know, frailty and the diseases, right?

46:43Like type two diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, like go upstream of that.

46:49And the inflammation is at the core of it.

46:51And so we hear this word inflammation a lot.

46:54And it's like, what does it mean?

46:56You know, and it's a lot, it means a lot of things.

46:57It's not just the gut.

46:59The gut is a component of it, but there's other things as well, right?

47:03I mean, you can have stress, you know, any emotional stress, like that can lead

47:08to inflammation, not getting enough sleep, right?

47:11There's a lot of things that can lead to inflammation.

47:15And so it is kind of an important point to think about is really like

47:21trying to have your inflammation low, right?

47:24And how do you do that?

47:25I'm going to take three different jumping off points here, all related to what you

47:29said. So don't think I'm a random subject generator here.

47:32We will get back to fasting, I promise.

47:34Lately, you've posted a bit about glutamine as a potential tool to perhaps buffer the

47:42immune system under times of stress.

47:44I've also been interested in L -glutamine as a way to reinforce tight junctions in

47:49the gut. I don't know if that literature is robust or not.

47:52I have to say, I started taking L -glutamine years ago in times when I

47:57was working a lot and not sleeping enough because someone told me it would help

48:00me not get sick. And indeed, I didn't get sick as much as the imaginary

48:04control experiment that I never got to do.

48:07Meaning, I don't know if it helped or not, but I continue to take L

48:11-glutamine when I'm feeling run down.

48:13I take a couple of other things too.

48:14But could you tell us about how or if or how L -glutamine is important

48:19for gut health and if and how L -glutamine might be helpful for reinforcing the

48:24immune system? There's not a ton of evidence in terms of like what's in the

48:29scientific literature supporting these statements, but there is some, you know, and it's enough to

48:33kind of go, well, I'm going to try to maybe experiment with it.

48:36So, you know, I first became interested in glutamine because when I was doing my

48:40graduate research, I was doing a lot of cancer metabolism studies and I would do

48:44nutrient withdrawal and I would, you know, remove glucose from cancer cells and see what

48:48would happen. And it's like, okay, well, I would get, I would remove glucose from,

48:52you know, lymphoma cancer cells in the Petri dish and a lot of them would

48:56die, but they wouldn't all die.

48:57And I was like, why aren't they all dying?

48:59Turns out, well, they had glutamine there.

49:00So glutamine was enough to sustain them.

49:04And so glutamine can... be converted into many things.

49:07So glutamine can be an amino acid, right?

49:09It's amino acid. Glutamine can be converted into the Krebs cycle.

49:15So it can be converted into intermediates that are used to make energy by the

49:18mitochondria. And glutamine can be converted into glutamate, right?

49:22Neurotransmitter, right? So there's a lot of pathways and different fates for glutamine.

49:25So I became interested in that because it was like, oh, glutamine is important for

49:30the survival of these cancer cells.

49:32Then I was doing a lot of activating immune cell studies.

49:36My graduate advisor is an immunologist by training.

49:41And so I was also doing that.

49:42It turns out glutamine was essential for the activation of immune cells.

49:45So that was kind of always in the background of my mind.

49:48And then in my postdoc, I did my postdoc with Dr.

49:52Bruce Ames and my colleague, Dr.

49:53Mark Shuganaga, was doing a lot of gut work.

49:56And this is why I know a lot about the LPS and the gut.

49:58It's from him, like brilliant guy.

50:00He's now a photographer, like not in science at all, but brilliant guy and did

50:04a lot of really amazing experiments looking at gut permeability and things that can help

50:09buffer gut permeability. And one of those things were glutamine.

50:14So glutamine can get converted into these intermediates that are used by mitochondria in the

50:21gut epithelial cells. And so that's like an easy source of energy as well for

50:25the gut. Now, these are all animal studies, right?

50:27So take it with a grain of salt, right?

50:29Like, cause at some point, you know, in my, in my opinion, animal studies are,

50:34are really important for understanding the mechanism behind why things work.

50:38And we need human studies, you know, as well, looking at the totality of evidence

50:41is important. It's the human studies that we're lacking.

50:44There's not a ton of them there.

50:46The ones that I have found more compelling, not necessarily, I mean, with the gut

50:51health, it's, it's, you know, it's sparse with humans.

50:57I found more compelling with respect to glutamine and human studies was the immune system.

51:02And this is where I started putting, connecting the dots, right?

51:04Where I started coming across this literature of these endurance athletes who do get a

51:08higher amount of respiratory track infections.

51:11You know, like when I mean endurance athletes, I mean, these guys that are like

51:14out running marathons all year, like they're just constantly training for a marathon.

51:17Right. And so they're really like, they're putting a lot of demand, right?

51:23Energetic expenditures happening at a really high rate.

51:26So they're, they're more prone to respiratory infections.

51:29And there's a few studies out there showing that if these athletes take a higher

51:32dose of glutamine, I think it's like 30 grams or something high like that, that

51:37they had a lower incidence of respiratory tract infections than once they weren't doing it.

51:41And then I went back to my, oh, I know that glutamine is really important

51:43for T cell activation. And I was like, I'm going to take this because being,

51:47being, being a mom and having a child that's bringing everything home, like a vector,

51:52you know, you're like desperate.

51:53You're the experiment. Yeah, exactly.

51:56And I never used to get sick ever.

51:57Like I would never get sick.

51:59And then all of a sudden I was getting sick like three times a year.

52:01And I was like, do I have cancer?

52:02Like what's going on? Like I literally was like worried.

52:05And, and then I started taking glutamine.

52:08Now I take it just, I only take five grams on a daily basis.

52:12But if, if my son's sick, if there's any exposure, if it's like during the

52:16season, if I'm traveling, I go up to 15, I go up to 20.

52:20All at once? Cause it can be a little hard on the gut.

52:22No, no, not all at once.

52:23Not all at once. I usually do it like in fives.

52:25So I do five grams, five grams, five grams.

52:27And, you know, I have to, with a caveat of, I do that, but I

52:31also take a lot of creatine as well.

52:33And so I don't know which one or both, but like, I really don't get

52:36sick. I'm not getting sick.

52:39And even, even if it's brought home in my house, I'm not getting sick.

52:41And maybe it's a placebo.

52:43And you know what? I am a -okay with that because placebo effect is real

52:46as long as I'm not getting sick.

52:48So I do think, I think with the glutamine, you know, it's not something that

52:51I would feel comfortable saying that it's, there's a lot of evidence.

52:55It's overwhelming and with confidence that it's improving gut health and it's improving immune, you

53:00know, it's going to help give your immune cells energy, particularly if they need to

53:02be activated, you know, upon exposure to any pathogen.

53:05But I feel like it's worth experimenting with.

53:09Perhaps maybe if someone has colon cancer, that would be more of a concern because

53:13I did mention that cancer cells, cancer cells love everything, anything that's good for you,

53:17right? Folate. I mean, if you don't have enough folate, you can cause double -stranded

53:21breaks to your DNA, which lead to mutations that lead to cancer.

53:24But if you have cancer and you take a bunch of folate, you need folate

53:27to make new DNA. And so they like the folate, right?

53:29So it's like - It's an abnormal growth.

53:31So anything that's associated with growth.

53:32Yeah, it's proliferating. MTOR. I saw the recent study on taurine, which scared a lot

53:36of people because taurine's in a lot of energy drinks, but that was an in

53:38vitro study. Yes, I was going to ask, you know, is there increased cancer risk

53:44if you're supplementing with glutamine because cancer cells love glutamine?

53:48So my personal opinion, I'm obviously not a medical physician.

53:51This is not a prescription.

53:52It's just my opinion. I personally am not scared of getting cancer from taking glutamine.

53:59If I had a colon tumor, a tumor in my colon, the first site that

54:03the glutamine is seeing, maybe the liver as well, since that's also the next step.

54:08But barring like having a tumor already in my liver or in my colon, those

54:14would be the only, you know, types of situations that I would be worried about

54:17taking glutamine. I don't think it's going to cause cancer, right?

54:20Now, I guess the question is like, what if you don't know you have?

54:23Well, hopefully the cost will come down on whole body MRIs.

54:26Actually, the cost is coming down on whole body MRIs that hopefully more people are

54:29able to get those. It's not just such a high -end exclusive thing in the

54:32near future. Like blood draws, used to be like panels of blood testing, you only

54:36got them if you really needed them.

54:38Now the cost of blood draws is really low.

54:40Right, right. So hopefully people will be more aware.

54:43Yeah, I will take a tablespoon of glutamine once or twice or three times a

54:49day if I'm feeling run down.

54:50You mentioned being exposed to pathogens from vectors of different sorts.

54:54Before we went on mic, we were talking about NAC, N -acetylcysteine.

54:58I take it once a day consistently, but I'll take it three times a day

55:03if I'm traveling a lot because I'm around sick people when I travel, especially in

55:07winter, or if I feel like I'm getting run down.

55:10And there, the data are pretty interesting.

55:11There's at least one study showing that it reduced flu transmission where people were deliberately

55:17exposed to flu. I think it took the number of people that contracted flu compared

55:20to the placebo group somewhere from the high 70 % area.

55:25I don't remember the exact number now.

55:26We'll put a link to the study, down to maybe high 20s, which is pretty

55:30impressive. And an ER doc came on this podcast, Roger Schwelt, and said he was

55:36a big proponent of N -acetylcysteine for people that are around sick people.

55:41Do you take NAC? So my only concern with taking it on a daily basis

55:45is it is a pretty powerful antioxidant.

55:48And, you know, I think that we need to understand like antioxidants and the opposite,

55:57which would be generating oxidation, right?

55:59Like it's not like oxidation is bad.

56:02It's bad when it's constant slow drip oxidation that's damaging, you know, other parts of

56:08our body, DNA, proteins, lipids.

56:11Some oxidation you want, like if you're exercising, right?

56:13There's a burst of oxidation.

56:15To get the adaptation. To get the adaptations.

56:17And so my concern would be for one, maybe timing it around your exercise.

56:21So not taking it close to when you're exercising.

56:23And these studies come out of, you know, studies that have been done with high

56:26dose vitamin E plus vitamin C.

56:29I haven't seen a lot of vitamin C studies alone that are blunting exercise adaptations.

56:35There's maybe one at a high dose.

56:37Most of the time it's vitamin C and vitamin E, vitamin E, alpha tocopherol.

56:41When I say high dose, usually it's 400 IUs.

56:43Just to give you a reference point, the RDA is like 24 IUs or something.

56:47So we're talking high dose.

56:48But a supplement can be 200 to 800.

56:50So it wouldn't be hard to blunt that exercise effect by accidentally.

56:53Yeah, I don't take vitamin E, it spiked my prostate specific antigen, which I was

56:59told is a known effect among urologists.

57:01The SELECT trial was done.

57:03So the SELECT trial was looking at selenium and vitamin E and if it could

57:09slow the progression of prostate cancer.

57:11And it turned out that the opposite was found.

57:13And it was really kind of due to this high dose of alpha tocopherol, which

57:17also has other effects of lowering another type of vitamin E in the body called

57:22gamma tocopherol, which is anti -inflammatory.

57:25And I think that has something to do with inflammation actually can increase the PSA,

57:30right? So anyways, the point here is that with NAC, my only concern would be,

57:37you know, blunting the oxidation that you're getting from beneficial, because I know you're highly

57:43active. I'm training hard. I don't want my training to be short -circuited from NAC.

57:47I'm perfectly happy to only take NAC if I'm feeling run down or exposed to

57:50illnesses around me. More I feel like maybe I'm coming down with something.

57:54So that's when I take it, but it's mostly because of, I wasn't familiar with

57:58the influenza data. That's interesting.

58:00I was just, it's good for lung health too.

58:02Like, so although if smokers take it, I think it has the opposite effect where,

58:06again, it's like the precancerous cells are using it to their benefit.

58:11You know, we used to think antioxidants, oh, it's so good, you know, just more,

58:14more, more. And it turns out it's not the case, right?

58:17Like, and that's why a lot of these other types of hormetic stressors or plant

58:21phytochemicals, they're actually generating an antioxidant response endogenously in our body by activating these antioxidant

58:29pathways, which are so much more powerful than what you would get from an antioxidant,

58:33right? And so that's kind of, and it's not like you don't want some antioxidants.

58:36It's just like, you don't want to overdose on taking too much NAC and too

58:41much vitamin C and too much vitamin E because there's also something called reductive stress.

58:46So we know about oxidative stress.

58:48Oxidative stress is when you're, you know, you're, you're, again, you're, you're causing these, these

58:52reactive oxygen species to damage things like your DNA, for example.

58:56And over time, eventually that happens in a part of the gene that can be

59:00oncogenic and lead to cancer.

59:02Well, reductive stress is, is like the opposite of that.

59:05So it's like too much of the reducing equivalents, like the, you know, the NADH,

59:10the NADPH, the, you know, so, and it also has negative effects.

59:14So you kind of don't want to go too far on either ends of the,

59:17of the spectrum, but also you want to, instead of having this like slow leaking

59:22effect of these pro -oxidants that are happening from eating a bad diet, from, you

59:28know, inflammation, things like that, you want it to be a short burst where you

59:31switch it on, you have the adaptation, it's off, right?

59:34And the adaptation, the audit adaptation happens in the recovery period, right?

59:38And when you're, for example, if you exercise, that's a big burst of reactive oxygen

59:41species that is beneficial and you want it, right?

59:44And you don't want to blunt those adaptations.

59:46And so that's, that's kind of my concern with daily dosing of NAC.

59:50Great. I don't cold plunge in the six to eight hours after resistance training for

59:54exactly the reason you're talking about.

59:56Yeah. I want the inflammation.

59:57I want the increased blood flow.

59:58I don't want to short circuit that.

59:59I'm perfectly happy to. I only take NAC under conditions where I'm a bit run

1:00:03down, and that's also when I'll take glutamine.

1:00:07If you take L -glutamine regularly, I personally observe that I get stronger at a

1:00:13steady state of starch intake.

1:00:15And I don't like dropping starches too low because I get weak.

1:00:18Yeah. And I also can't sleep as well if my starches are too low.

1:00:22I just am too wired.

1:00:23Yeah. There was a new study on eating starches and improving sleep.

1:00:28Yeah, and I'm so grateful for that because for several years I talked about that

1:00:31on the podcast, and people said, oh, you know, he's gorging himself with pasta and

1:00:34then passing out, and that's the worst time.

1:00:36I wasn't saying that. I'm saying that if you're not – if you're running like

1:00:40crazy, I'll hear from marathoners and ultra people, and people are doing a million things.

1:00:44They'll say, I'm not sleeping well, and they're exercising like crazy.

1:00:46It's like, well, when was the last time you had a bowl of pasta?

1:00:49Like, oh, no, I don't eat pasta.

1:00:50And then they'll have some rice or some pasta.

1:00:53Like, oh, I slept like a baby.

1:00:55And they were having it at lunch.

1:00:56And I just think that the brain doesn't shut down well when you have high

1:01:00levels of cortisol, and the cortisol starch thing is an interesting one.

1:01:03I'm so glad you brought this up because I think this is something that I

1:01:07did want to talk about really, and it has to do with stop eating three

1:01:10hours before bed for that very reason.

1:01:12So there was a new – even a new – but there's been several studies

1:01:15now really showing that this is important for that cardiovascular reset, right?

1:01:20Your parasympathetic activity is supposed to go higher.

1:01:23You're in your rest and recovery phase, right?

1:01:26When you're eating food, that's the sympathetic activity, right?

1:01:30That's activating the sympathetic nervous system.

1:01:32As you're eating, yeah. Yeah.

1:01:33And even as you're digesting.

1:01:35So you have to think about it.

1:01:36Like, you digest, and what, it takes like five or so hours to fully finish

1:01:39about? Yeah, depending on the meal.

1:01:41Depending on the meal, right.

1:01:42So if you're eating right before you go to bed, you are not in that

1:01:47parasympathetic activity, you know, part of the cycle that you want to be in.

1:01:53And so there was a new – even a new study that I shared like,

1:01:56I don't know, a couple days ago even, showing that if you stop eating three

1:02:01hours before bed – so these people were actually – it's interesting.

1:02:04They had their blood pressure measured for starting in the mid -afternoon all the way

1:02:10throughout the night. This is the first study that really not just one end point

1:02:13looking at blood pressure but just measuring it continuously.

1:02:16I don't know if it was every 15 minutes or something like that.

1:02:19But it was found that during sleep, if they had stopped eating three hours before

1:02:24bed versus the group that did not stop eating three hours before bed, their blood

1:02:28pressure dipped like lower. So you get that baroreflex dipping, right?

1:02:32So this is like part of the parasympathetic activation.

1:02:35As you know, very important for the blood pressure to go down.

1:02:38Heart rate went down like, you know, much, much lower.

1:02:42And that reset is so, so important for cardiovascular health.

1:02:46I think what was found was it was something like translated to like 20 %

1:02:51lower risk of cardiovascular events like heart attacks.

1:02:54So it's really pretty significant.

1:02:55Yeah. And it really is an easy thing to do to think about stopping eating,

1:03:00you know, three hours before you go to bed.

1:03:02Like that's something I think that is not that hard to implement and it will

1:03:07improve your sleep as well as your cardiovascular health.

1:03:10Although I think in that study, I don't know that sleep was really subjective and

1:03:13I don't think it really was improved more.

1:03:15But other studies have found that as well, that sleep does improve.

1:03:17I know Sachin Panda, he's been on my podcast, your podcast.

1:03:20He's had studies showing that it seemed like stop eating three hours before bed really

1:03:24does seem to improve sleep.

1:03:26But this parasympathetic activation, you know, you don't want to have a meal right before

1:03:31you bed because you want to be in the rest and recovery part, right?

1:03:35So, yeah, I think people hear and I understand why the nomenclature and the buzzwords

1:03:41of, you know, fight or flight for sympathetic and rest and digest for parasympathetic.

1:03:45But yeah, the evidence shows eating stimulates the sympathetic nervous system.

1:03:49It's not a stress event, but it requires energy.

1:03:53Anything that requires energy raises body temperature and your body's doing work.

1:03:56It's an awake event. An awake event.

1:03:57It's an awake. You don't eat while you're sleeping.

1:04:00Yeah, and that's why these phrases, while I don't demonize anyone for creating the, you

1:04:04know, fight or flight, well, I mean, there's ways that you want your sympathetic nervous

1:04:08system activated that are not about fight or flight.

1:04:10Like, I actually think if people just got the first hour of their day more

1:04:13active and energized, bright light, exercise, caffeine, if you're me, and Lord knows I'm grateful

1:04:18that caffeine exists, in the first hour of the day or first hours if you

1:04:22can't manage that because of schedule.

1:04:24And then the last hour of the day was strongly parasympathetic.

1:04:27I mean, everything would get better without having to think a ton about exactly how

1:04:31you're doing that because on a given day, you just do what you can.

1:04:34And that's what you want, right?

1:04:36I mean, so cortisol is circadian dependent, as you know.

1:04:39I mean, in the, like, early morning of, early hours of the morning, that's when

1:04:43you want it to peak, right?

1:04:44Part of the awakening response.

1:04:46Like, you want it to go up.

1:04:47And it's interesting. The reason I'm going on this is because it's a little bit

1:04:52of a soapbox for me.

1:04:53But so with the cortisol activation, people don't realize this.

1:05:00You know, obviously, it's a hormone, and it's binding to two different receptors.

1:05:04There's the glucocorticoid receptor, and then there's the mineralocorticoid receptor.

1:05:08And both of those, when cortisol binds to it, they go into the nucleus of

1:05:12the cell, and they're changing the expression.

1:05:15So they're activating genes and deactivating genes, like 20 % of the human genome.

1:05:20It's a large percentage, right?

1:05:21And this is on multiple different organs.

1:05:23So it's – cortisol has a very important role, and you want that peak.

1:05:28You want – that spike, right?

1:05:29That's what you want. And then you want it to shut off.

1:05:31And there are things that can activate it, obviously, like in the morning, going out,

1:05:35bright light exposure, as you mentioned, like that's very important for that cortisol awakening response.

1:05:39But you can also, like intensity, intense exercise can switch it on.

1:05:44But what's interesting, and so can intermittent fasting, that it was interesting, there's studies from

1:05:49Mark Mattson's lab, showing that, you know, the types of stressors that are beneficial, these

1:05:57hormetic stressors, like exercise, like, you know, intermittent fasting, perhaps even cold exposure, like these

1:06:05types of exposures change the receptor density of the receptors.

1:06:09So if you look at what activates cortisol in a negative way, chronic stress, let's

1:06:14say emotional, financial, psychological, chronic sleep deprivation, that bad type of stress, you're not getting

1:06:20a big spike, you're getting a slow drip of it.

1:06:23And so what happens is when you have that type of stress, you're increasing the

1:06:26glucocorticoid receptors, and you're decreasing the mineralocorticoid receptors.

1:06:31There's a different biological response in the brain, in the hypothalamus, but also in, you

1:06:36know, other organs as well.

1:06:38When you're activating cortisol through a beneficial type of stress, the hormetic stressors, like intermittent

1:06:43fasting, like exercise, I believe probably deliberate cold exposure as well, where it's a different

1:06:51biological response. And also, if you think about it, you know, you actually want cortisol

1:06:56to do its, you know, function, you want it to change the expression of just

1:06:59what it's supposed to do, right?

1:07:00The problem is, is when you have that slow drip, then, you know, not only

1:07:04are you're, you're increasing, they're changing the receptor, you know, activation, but also they become

1:07:09resistant to the cortisol. And so you're not getting the benefits.

1:07:12You know, cortisol represses inflammation, right?

1:07:15It's, it suppresses the immune system.

1:07:16But like, so you're not getting that anti -inflammatory effect from cortisol.

1:07:20It's being dysregulated. And that's what you don't want.

1:07:22You don't want cortisol to be dysregulated in terms of like the genes that it's

1:07:26supposed to activate or deactivate.

1:07:28You want it to be doing what it's supposed to.

1:07:29It's supposed to regulate. We're supposed to have the cortisol, you know, activation response.

1:07:33So anyways, that's something that I kind of want to clear in people's minds because

1:07:38I feel like a lot of people get worried about, oh my gosh, I'm doing,

1:07:42you know, HIIT and it's activating my cortisol.

1:07:44Well, that's fine. It's like, you know, I mean, I guess if you do too

1:07:48much HIIT, right, you can always take something to the extreme.

1:07:50Okay. With that caveat, obviously, I'm not talking about that, but with that caveat, like

1:07:54you do, you want your body to be able to turn it on and then

1:07:57turn it off and have the adaptation, have the response, right?

1:08:01And like I said, it's a different biological response than, than the chronic type of

1:08:05cortisol activation that you get with the bad types of stress.

1:08:09Yeah. I guess same goes for intermittent fasting.

1:08:11And maybe you could share with us what your intermittent fasting protocol is.

1:08:14I know that recently cortisol has been like increasingly demonized as the stress hormone, stress

1:08:20hormone, and people saw pictures of people with Cushing's disease, which is, you know, a

1:08:24drastically elevated cortisol and the moon face and the excessive visceral fat.

1:08:28And, and this, this sort of fear mongering around cortisol was particularly directed toward women.

1:08:36And this entered the health fitness space because I think in an appropriate way, I'll

1:08:42just be very direct here.

1:08:42I don't like, I no longer tap dance around who said, you know, what, in

1:08:45a very appropriate way that I appreciate Dr.

1:08:48Stacey Sims came on the podcast and she said, listen, some women shouldn't train fasted

1:08:54because they don't feel well when they train fasted and their cortisol is too high

1:08:58and so forth. That captured a lot of people's experience.

1:09:03A lot of women in particular, but some men certainly were like, yes, oh my

1:09:07God, thank you. Thank you.

1:09:08Thank you. Thank you. But then the, they, the message got contorted, right?

1:09:12As it does. Right. Yes.

1:09:14And then it became women shouldn't train fasted.

1:09:17And then we had a Lauren Colenso Semple on this podcast, who's a, you know,

1:09:20trained as a PhD. She has a background in nutrition, physiology, strength training coach, et

1:09:24cetera. And she said, no, listen, you can train fasted or not fasted as a

1:09:27woman or a man. It's kind of your preference, but that we don't need to

1:09:30fear these cortisol spikes and forgive me for going long here, but I think it

1:09:33is important that people hear this again, which is, there's also this idea that deliberate

1:09:38cold exposure increases cortisol. But when you look at the data, it definitely increases adrenaline

1:09:43and peripheral dopamine and probably I'll go on record.

1:09:47You're probably central dopamine, although we don't have as good evidence for that yet, but

1:09:52there evidence points to the fact that deliberate cold exposure lowers cortisol.

1:09:57So this then, you know, because, and again, I think Stacey appropriately said a lot

1:10:03of women who want to use cold shouldn't go as cold, but the message got

1:10:07contorted and it became women shouldn't do deliberate cold exposure because of the cortisol increase.

1:10:13And so part of the reason I'm going long here is I'm trying to correct

1:10:15the narrative on her behalf.

1:10:17She said, do what works for you.

1:10:19Right. And that's what Lauren's saying.

1:10:21And I'm guessing that's what you'll say as well.

1:10:23But I just need to get that out there because the message has gotten totally

1:10:26pretzel twisted up and cortisol is neither good nor bad.

1:10:31You want it high in the morning.

1:10:32You want it low at night in general.

1:10:34It sounds like you train fasted.

1:10:37I listen to how I feel.

1:10:39That's exactly what I do.

1:10:40So what, what your podcast guests and the researchers are talking about is exactly there

1:10:45are times when I wake up in the morning and I'm like, I need to

1:10:48eat something before I work out.

1:10:50And I do. But I oftentimes do train fasted for one, because I am practicing.

1:10:56intermittent fasting again, but I do it, I'm not like starving myself.

1:10:59And like I said, the reason, there's multiple reasons I do it.

1:11:02One reason is because it really did help me lose the belly fat, which is

1:11:06the visceral fat, which is like the worst kind of fat you can have.

1:11:09And we can talk more about that.

1:11:11But the second reason is I love the cognitive benefits I have in the morning

1:11:14with it. And it's the main reason I do it.

1:11:16And so there are many times when I do train fasted, but I am not

1:11:19out running 15 miles. Most of my, like I said, my sessions are about an

1:11:24hour long. And am I taking a little bit of a performance hit with the

1:11:28high intensity? Probably, probably yes, but it's not much to matter for me.

1:11:34And you do burn a little bit more fat if you train fasted.

1:11:37I mean, that's known. You will, if it is a longer session, you will take

1:11:41an important performance enhancement hit that is also known, right?

1:11:44So I think it really does come down to like, what is your goal?

1:11:48How do you feel? And then you kind of go with that.

1:11:51And I completely agree. Like there are times when, you know, I'm on my cycle

1:11:55and I feel fine and I'm working out just fine.

1:11:59And there are other times that I'm like, I don't feel good.

1:12:01Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna take it easier.

1:12:03But I still train. I just, you listen to your body.

1:12:05And I, that's a pretty easy, I think, rule of thumb.

1:12:10Sometimes people like to complicate things.

1:12:12You know, I don't, there's lots of reasons why I don't, we don't need to

1:12:14get into that. I have theories.

1:12:16Yeah. I have theories, but they're not important right now.

1:12:18No, it's not important. Yeah.

1:12:19So, so yeah, I do, I do train fasted and it is, for me, it

1:12:23has, it has helped me tremendously change my body composition.

1:12:26Like I said, I'm in a different part of my life than perhaps a 30

1:12:29year old woman is, right?

1:12:30So when I was 30, I mean, like I, I didn't have to train fasted.

1:12:34It was, it was, it was easy to keep, you know, the, the belly fat,

1:12:37the visceral fat lower. Hormonal changes are, do play a role in the way your

1:12:43body. So estrogen plays a role in telling your body how to store fat.

1:12:47So subcutaneous fat would be the kind of fat that you can just like pinch,

1:12:50right? The, the fat that we see, the visceral fat, that's that deep fat that's

1:12:55lining your organs. It's often belly fat, you know, and it's lining the intestines, the

1:13:00liver, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's an, it's almost like an endocrine organ.

1:13:04I mean, cause it is secreting hormones.

1:13:07It's secreting inflammatory factors. It's metabolically active.

1:13:11It's constantly breaking down triglycerides.

1:13:13It's associated with double the increased risk, double the risk of early death.

1:13:18People that have high visceral fat have 44 % higher chance of having cancer, many

1:13:22different types of cancers. It's huge.

1:13:24It's huge, you know, and, and, and of course, insulin resistance is the number one

1:13:28problem with visceral fat, right?

1:13:29And I'd love to talk about that, but if you want, I mean, we can,

1:13:34we can get into that.

1:13:35Yeah. It's, it's so with the visceral fat, and like I said, you know, visceral

1:13:38fat is something, if you really directly want to measure it, you do a DEXA

1:13:41scan, but you know, for the average person that isn't going to go out and

1:13:45do a DEXA scan, waist circumference is a proxy.

1:13:48It's used in a lot of studies.

1:13:50So women that have a waist circumference of 35 inches or above are considered to

1:13:54have a higher amount of visceral fat.

1:13:56Men that have a waist circumference of 40 inches or above are considered to have

1:14:00a higher amount of visceral fat.

1:14:01It's also that belly fat.

1:14:02Like you can, you can, you just know, right?

1:14:05Interestingly, like 70 % of women over the age of 50 have high visceral fat.

1:14:1150 % of men over the age of 52.

1:14:13You know, again, coming down to women go through menopause, estrogen plays an important role

1:14:19in telling the body, you know, to store the fat subcutaneously rather than viscerally deep

1:14:24around organs. And so as women transition to perimenopause, you know, the, the years before

1:14:30menopause and menopause, it, the, the estrogen goes down and that does change the way

1:14:35the body stores fat. And any woman that's going through either of those stages knows

1:14:40it. And it's also why you see often women over the age of 50 with

1:14:43more belly fat, right? I mean, that's something that I think it's, it's hard to

1:14:48deny, but it's, it's one of the reasons why I kind of went back to

1:14:54practicing intermittent fasting because there's a, there's a couple of ways that you can really

1:14:58powerfully lose visceral fat. And one of them is doing aerobic exercise, high intensity interval

1:15:04training also really powerfully can do it, but also being in a caloric deficit.

1:15:08And I think when you start to get the combination of both, that's what really

1:15:11worked for me. It's crazy how quickly you can gain it based on your diet

1:15:16as well. So it is different from the subcutaneous fat in many ways.

1:15:22I've mentioned it's secreting these inflammatory molecules, it's, you know, hormones, but it's also constantly

1:15:28breaking down triglycerides into free fatty acids.

1:15:32And the location of it is very dangerous because it's right surrounding the liver, right?

1:15:36It's this deep organ fat and that's very close to the portal vein.

1:15:40And so you're constantly getting this sort of mainlining free fatty acids to the liver.

1:15:46And visceral fat is very different from subcutaneous fat because it doesn't respond to insulin

1:15:51like subcutaneous fat does. In other words, when you have a meal, you eat a

1:15:55carbohydrate meal and you basically, your body increases insulin to help take it up glucose

1:16:01into your liver, muscle, adipose tissue, lipolysis shuts down, right?

1:16:05It's like, okay, no longer am I going to break down these fats.

1:16:07It's time to use this energy, right?

1:16:10Visceral fat doesn't respond to insulin, so it just keeps going, right?

1:16:13And these free fatty acids, because they're going right to the liver, it's essentially antagonizing

1:16:19the insulin receptors. So it causes insulin receptors to become...

1:16:24more resistant to insulin. And this is part of why people with high visceral fat,

1:16:30by the way, you can gain visceral fat without gaining a pound.

1:16:34And we can talk about those studies.

1:16:36Like people, people are skinny and can have high amounts of visceral fat.

1:16:40You've heard of like metabolically unhealthy, but lean individuals.

1:16:44Those people exist. And so you can have a high amount of visceral fat, but

1:16:49not really look like you do.

1:16:51So when, you know, obviously the insulin resistance is a problem for many reasons, but

1:16:57it also plays a role in those energy crashes that you experience, right?

1:17:02And that's kind of like some of the first signs of insulin resistance actually have

1:17:06to do with what you're feeling.

1:17:07So we talked about lethargy, right?

1:17:09So, you know, the inflammation that's being generated from this visceral fat constantly making these,

1:17:15you know, pro -inflammatory compounds are, and it's an energy sink, right?

1:17:19So you do constantly feel tired, but also because your cells are becoming insulin resistant,

1:17:25when you have a high glucose meal and you're not responding, the body kind of

1:17:31overcompensates and produces more insulin.

1:17:33So it's like, we got to get this blood glucose out of our system, right?

1:17:37It can cause a lot of damage if it sits around there.

1:17:39And so you make more insulin.

1:17:41And then what happens is you, your blood glucose goes way low because it was

1:17:44like this overcompensation, right? And then you feel a crash, you feel like this crash

1:17:48and that signals to the, you know, hypothalamus part of the brain.

1:17:52Uh, I need energy, right?

1:17:53So then you, you sort of crave, you get those cravings for those calorically energetic

1:17:58dense foods. What I'm talking about is like the experience of like, you know, insulin

1:18:03resistance. And what's interesting is that you can cause someone to gain visceral fat and

1:18:09their brain can become insulin resistant.

1:18:11So we think a lot about insulin resistance in the muscle, liver, your brain also

1:18:16can become insulin resistance quite quickly, actually.

1:18:19So, um, insulin is very important in the brain for a lot of reasons, as

1:18:23you know, but you know, a couple of the things relative to what we're relevant

1:18:27to what we're talking about would be one is it does act on the hypothalamus

1:18:31and help, you know, tell it to basically, um, stop eating, be satiated.

1:18:38Like I took a meal in, okay, like I'm going to be satiated, but it

1:18:41also plays a role in energy storage and telling the body how to store the

1:18:44energy. And so when your brain becomes insulin resistant, it's not doing that.

1:18:49And so you're not being satiated.

1:18:50So you eat more and you're storing the fat more viscerally.

1:18:54And there was a study that was published actually quite recently.

1:18:59I covered this in a, in a recent newsletter.

1:19:01It was a really interesting study because it was healthy young men and researchers put

1:19:06them on a a little bit of a calorically dense.

1:19:10So it was like, they were eating 1200 to 1500 more calories a day and

1:19:13it was high saturated fat, high sugar.

1:19:15So it was a processed foods, ultra processed foods, like, you know, ultimate, right?

1:19:19That's a lot of extra calories.

1:19:20A lot of extra calories are five days.

1:19:22It is. But what happened was there, they did cause their brain to become insulin

1:19:27resistant and they didn't gain weight, but they gained visceral fat and they started gaining

1:19:32fat around their liver. And that's something that happens as well because visceral fat is

1:19:36surrounding liver. You're getting a lot of free fatty acids and they're going right to

1:19:38the liver. So the liver has to store it, right?

1:19:40So you get this non -alcoholic, you know, fatty, fatty liver.

1:19:44But, and that happened after five days.

1:19:46I mean, without gaining - In otherwise young, healthy.

1:19:48Yeah. But, you know, they were eating a lot of calories, extra calories.

1:19:52Yeah. That's like a 1200, that's like a half a pizza extra above your maintenance

1:19:58calories per night. And that's probably what they were doing.

1:20:00They were eating lots of, they were eating like saturated fat and refined sugar.

1:20:03Burritos and French fries. Yeah.

1:20:04I mean, obviously if you're going to do the study, you want to kind of

1:20:06do it to a degree where you're going to see some change, right?

1:20:09So, so maybe like, maybe it's not going to happen in five days if you're,

1:20:14if you're only eating 500 more calories a day, but over time you will be

1:20:17gaining visceral fat, right? So it's not going to be the same degree.

1:20:21It's something to be concerned about.

1:20:23It's something to think about.

1:20:24And also because you can gain it and not really even know it, like, you

1:20:29know, without gaining a pound.

1:20:31And there are other things that cause it, not just, you know, eating too many

1:20:34calories or diet composition. I mean, you mentioned cortisol.

1:20:36I mean, chronic elevated cortisol makes you store the fat around, around, you know, visceral

1:20:41fat sleep loss. I mean, there's also studies showing that you take healthy men, sleep

1:20:45deprived them for a couple of weeks.

1:20:47I think four hours, they're getting four hours of sleep a night.

1:20:49They can start gaining visceral fat.

1:20:51I mean, pretty rapidly with only like a pound, gaining a pound of weight.

1:20:54So again, it's like not necessarily something that you're going to see on the scale,

1:20:58but it's happening, right? And it's affecting your short -term mood.

1:21:02I mean, how you feel, your energy.

1:21:03It's affecting, you know, the way you're eating.

1:21:06It's a vicious cycle because you start to eat more calories, right?

1:21:09And then it just becomes this vicious cycle that you start to gain more visceral

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1:22:33Such an important point that you can either not be gaining much or not gaining

1:22:38any total body weight, but gaining visceral fat.

1:22:41I think that's a first time I've heard that.

1:22:43And it's a vital message for people to hear because this visceral fat sounds like

1:22:47one of the major health hazards we need to worry about.

1:22:50You mentioned chronically elevated cortisol, sleep deprivation, will increase visceral fat.

1:22:55Once again, I know I'm beating a drum here almost to death, but having high

1:23:01cortisol early in the day and low cortisol in the evening is the definition of

1:23:05not chronically high cortisol. The definition of chronically high cortisol is somewhat elevated or elevate

1:23:13cortisol in the morning, but especially in the hours before sleep.

1:23:16And I actually have a theory that is not a stretch that one of the

1:23:20main reasons why it's so detrimental to our mental and physical health in the short

1:23:23and long term is because of the ways it disrupts sleep.

1:23:27And so, and we can't tease those apart.

1:23:29You can't do a study where you spike cortisol late in the day.

1:23:31Even if you can fall asleep just fine after the end of a really stressful

1:23:35day, the sleep is different.

1:23:37And people say, well, life has stress.

1:23:39And I totally agree. I mean, Lord knows, I've experienced life has stress.

1:23:42But getting that last hour of the day, doing things to push down on cortisol,

1:23:46push down on stress, lower heart rate, not eating, and certainly that last hour before

1:23:51sleep, ideally three, I feel like that small change can make an outsized positive difference.

1:23:57That's interesting, like the correlation between the high cortisol affecting your sleep and maybe that's

1:24:03also like they're related. And so the sleep loss really does make you, we know,

1:24:08we know from, you know, you probably know who the researchers are that have done

1:24:12those studies on sleep loss and it affecting appetite, right?

1:24:14I mean, like people - Oh, everything gets dysregulated.

1:24:16I mean, I don't want to take us off course, but I think you might

1:24:18find it interesting that there's a beautiful study where they look, measured metabolism during sleep.

1:24:24They basically had people breathe into a tube during sleep.

1:24:27They had a mask on.

1:24:28And it turns out that the brain cycles through all the different forms of metabolism

1:24:32during sleep. There's a phase of sleep where you're essentially running on sugar.

1:24:35There's a, then there's like a, it almost looks like somebody's ketogenic at one.

1:24:39And basically the middle of the night when we're, well, it should be at night,

1:24:42when you're sleeping is a, it's kind of a test run of all the systems,

1:24:45but they get recalibrated. And it's so important.

1:24:49I actually think, you know, most of the negative effects of alcohol that people talk

1:24:51about, yes, it's a poison.

1:24:52It's a class one carcinogen as classified by the World Health Organization.

1:24:57I think most of the negative effects of drinking are because of the negative effects

1:25:00of alcohol on sleep. I'm not telling people drink in the morning, but you know,

1:25:05and so I think that if you get your sleep right, you're not 90 %

1:25:09of the way there, but you're halfway there.

1:25:11Yeah. I really do believe that.

1:25:12And then getting your sleep right makes you do a bunch of other things.

1:25:15Right. You're more motivated to exercise for one.

1:25:19More motivated to exercise, your food choices.

1:25:22I mean, and on and on.

1:25:23The problem with talking about sleep is so important is people will get sleep anxiety.

1:25:27So we tap dance around this.

1:25:28Like, oh, we don't want people stressed.

1:25:29Learn how to fall asleep.

1:25:31Learn how to fall back asleep.

1:25:32These, no one gets it perfect.

1:25:33Yes, you'll survive. Like, without one poor night's sleep or an all -nighter, you're not

1:25:37going to die. Like, you know, just get good at it on average, right?

1:25:40That's what I'd say. Could you tell us what the structure of the intermittent fasting

1:25:43is for you? Does that mean skipping breakfast, skipping lunch, skipping dinner?

1:25:47Because I know a number of people are sort of getting drawn back to intermittent

1:25:51fasting after a couple of years of it getting beat up on.

1:25:54It's like not the best way to lose fat.

1:25:56I think it's a terrific way to do the sorts of things that you're describing,

1:26:00and I'm learning today more about the positive things it can do for insulin sensitivity

1:26:05and so forth. If you're on a bout of intermittent fasting, are you doing it

1:26:11by the clock? Are you doing it by feel?

1:26:13What does it look like?

1:26:14For me, it really does depend on the day, and I really do try to

1:26:18stop eating three hours before I go to bed.

1:26:21It doesn't always happen, you know, with family obligations, social obligations, but it's the habit

1:26:25that's important, right? Right, so intermittent fasting, you know, it's more than just one intervention.

1:26:30As I mentioned, it's a behavioral tool that you can use to limit your calorie

1:26:34intake without actually having to count all the calories, which some people like to do,

1:26:39some people don't, right? So it's a tool, but also it's really important for a

1:26:43metabolic switch. As you mentioned, insulin sensitivity, and the metabolic switch is something that Dr.

1:26:48Mark Mattson coined, and I love it because I feel like, you know, thinking about

1:26:54intermittent fasting in that way makes it a little more clear as to the benefits

1:26:59of it. It depends on the meal you have and how much exercise you do,

1:27:02right? But on average, let's say 11, 12 hours to deplete your liver glycogen levels.

1:27:07And once that happens, you do start to burn fat and use fatty acids as

1:27:12fuel and make ketone bodies.

1:27:14So you go into ketogenesis, right?

1:27:16And that's a metabolic switch.

1:27:18Metabolic flexibility. You're going from using carbohydrates as fuel to using fatty acids and making

1:27:23ketone bodies as fuel. And that's something that, you know, throughout human evolution was ingrained,

1:27:29right? Like we didn't always have access to Uber Eats and Instacart and you just

1:27:33add a swipe, you get food, right?

1:27:36I mean, there were many times when, you know, people had to not eat because

1:27:40they couldn't forage their foods, maybe the time of year, or they couldn't hunt their

1:27:44food because they didn't get a win or whatever.

1:27:47I don't know. So this metabolic flexibility is something that's really ingrained in our DNA

1:27:53in a sense, right? I mean, one of the reasons I like to do that

1:27:57is the ketone production. And why is that?

1:28:00You know, ketones are really clean.

1:28:03They're a clean way to burn energy.

1:28:05So they generate less oxidative stress, less oxidative products, but they also are energetically favorable

1:28:13in that it takes less energy to use them to make energy than glucose does.

1:28:18So it takes more energy to use glucose as energy than it does ketones.

1:28:21But they're also a signaling molecule.

1:28:24So it's a way for the body, you know, to signal to other parts of

1:28:27the body like, hey, this is a stressful time.

1:28:30There's no food. I'm, you know, burning.

1:28:33I'm in ketosis. Let's make you stronger, right?

1:28:37Because that's kind of what evolution wants.

1:28:39Like if you're not able to find or eat food, you have to be stronger

1:28:42to be able to do it, right?

1:28:44And so that's kind of at the, I'd say, core of this metabolic switch and

1:28:49why it's important. And I think that I really like Mark Mattson being the pioneer

1:28:53in this. And as a neuroscientist, really looking at the benefits in the brain as

1:28:56well, you know, these ketones like beta -hydroxybutyrate are activating, you know, growth factors like

1:29:03brain -derived neurotrophic factor in the brain.

1:29:05As you know, it's very important for, you know, learning memory, you know, synapse formation

1:29:11and stuff. That's hugely important for neuroplasticity.

1:29:15So it's activating beneficial compounds like that.

1:29:19And, again, it's not going to happen if you're never going into this metabolic switch.

1:29:24And there's other ways to get there, right?

1:29:25So you can limit your food, go into this ketosis, right, where you're basically depleting

1:29:30your liver glycogen. Or you can exercise a lot, right?

1:29:33So your energy expenditure goes up.

1:29:35So there's different ways to get to this metabolic switch.

1:29:38It doesn't necessarily have to be intermittent fasting.

1:29:40And I'm telling you this because I want to tell you why I'm sort of

1:29:44back on the intermittent fasting.

1:29:47And, by the way, it's not for everyone, like I said.

1:29:49I mean, I think that you can find other ways to get this metabolic switch.

1:29:53And for me, intermittent fasting works.

1:29:55And so what I do typically is I will do most of the time my

1:29:59workouts will be fasted. Not all the time.

1:30:01It does depend on how I feel.

1:30:03What time do you typically wake up?

1:30:04So I wake up, like, between 6 and 7.

1:30:07And if I didn't have a family, like, you know, getting my son ready, and

1:30:11I would probably work out right away.

1:30:13But I don't end up working out until, like, 8 .30.

1:30:17So I'm, you know— It's still pretty early.

1:30:19What time do you go to sleep, if you don't mind me asking?

1:30:21I'm asleep, like, I'm asleep by 10.

1:30:24I'm usually in bed at 9.

1:30:26It takes an hour of just, like, you know, hanging out.

1:30:29Sure. Yeah. So—or 9 .30 sometimes.

1:30:33But, yeah. Usually 10 o 'clock is when I'm sleeping.

1:30:35That's my bedtime. And so I do stop eating.

1:30:39I try to stop eating by 7 p .m.

1:30:42But typically my first meal on—it depends on the day, but it'll usually be, like,

1:30:46around 11, maybe sometimes 12.

1:30:48If I'm doing a podcast, it'll be later.

1:30:50And I do like to be fasted in the morning because the cognitive benefits is

1:30:55really what I'm interested in with that metabolic switch.

1:30:57And it does come down to ketones.

1:31:00And I know that Mark Mattson's talked a lot about this.

1:31:02I had it on my podcast a few years ago, actually.

1:31:04I learned so much. But the ketones, like beta -hydroxybutyrate, are increasing GABA.

1:31:09They're, like, balancing the glutamate, the, you know, excitatory neurotransmitter, with the inhibitory one GABA.

1:31:16And I think the increase in GABA is what helps me and what I love

1:31:20the most because it does help, I think, quiet down some of the other, I

1:31:24don't know, chitter -chatter in my brain and help me focus because it's, like, somehow

1:31:29the GABA is calming in a way.

1:31:31I don't know exactly. You could probably describe it better than I can.

1:31:33All I know is that I really like it.

1:31:36And so in the mornings, I like to be, you know, I like to be

1:31:39fasted. I like to be cognitively aware.

1:31:41It's when I get most of my productive work done.

1:31:43And I feel smarter. So I'm doing it.

1:31:47And that's why I typically like to shift my breakfast to later.

1:31:51Now, I do, I would say some days I do only eat two meals where

1:31:54I am, honestly, I'm skipping the quote -unquote breakfast.

1:31:59But some days I do have three meals.

1:32:03And, you know, oftentimes they're, like, different sized meals, right?

1:32:05And usually if I do have three meals, the third one will be the in

1:32:11-between the first meal and the second meal will be, like, a very, like, a

1:32:15half or a three -fourths of a turkey burger or something.

1:32:18So it's mostly protein and it's not heavy.

1:32:22But so I would say I'm, you know, usually 11 to 7 probably is when

1:32:26I'm eating my meals most days.

1:32:29Some days it's, you know, I fast for a shorter period of time.

1:32:31Some days I wake up in the morning because I did too early of, like,

1:32:36you know, I'd stopped eating, like, four or five hours before bed.

1:32:39And I'm, like, I need to eat.

1:32:40And guess what? I eat and then I work out.

1:32:42And it's, like, that's, you know, you kind of just listen to what your body

1:32:45is doing. Actually, Mark Madison.

1:32:47And just published a study very, very recently showing that he did a, I think

1:32:51he was doing a 5 -2 intermittent fasting protocol where it's like two days, you're

1:32:55getting pretty severe caloric restriction.

1:32:57Like you're eating one meal, but it's like 500 calories, you know, for that, for

1:33:02the day. And it's twice, two days, two days out of the week.

1:33:04The other five days, you're eating normal.

1:33:05And compare that to calorie, like eating, eating like a healthy diet.

1:33:09And they were somewhat calorie restricted, but not quite as much as the people that

1:33:12were doing the fasting. And they had, the fasting group had massive cognitive benefits, like

1:33:1620 % improvement in a battery of tests that were done.

1:33:19He attributes that to the ketones and the effective ketones on GABA.

1:33:23He does. He attributes it to the ketones.

1:33:24And like, can you get that to some degree with caloric restriction?

1:33:27Probably, especially the more severe caloric restriction you do, you can.

1:33:31If we're talking about weight loss, caloric restriction's key, right?

1:33:34You have to have that.

1:33:35If we're talking about the cardiovascular reset, like caloric restriction, if you're eating meals right

1:33:40before bed, you're not going to get that.

1:33:42Like, those studies have been done.

1:33:43And I think, you know, Courtney Peterson was one of the first ones to really

1:33:46show that effect on blood pressure, you know, like really significant.

1:33:50In fact, if you do early time -restricted eating and stop eating, you know, I

1:33:55don't know how early in the day it was, maybe 6 p .m., maybe it

1:33:58was 8 p .m. But, you know, there was like a blood pressure drop that

1:34:01was like 10, you know, 10, I think it was, points or something, millimeters of

1:34:07mercury. Significant. What is it?

1:34:09Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, that's very significant.

1:34:12It's on magnitude of what you'd see with like some of the first -line, you

1:34:16know, drugs that are used to treat hypertension.

1:34:19I would never say for someone to do that, but I'm just saying it's significant.

1:34:22And that's not something that you typically see if you're eating, you know, fewer calories,

1:34:25but you're eating constantly throughout the day.

1:34:27So, I do think there are special benefits that can be had.

1:34:31But, again, it's also a tool that people use.

1:34:34I use it as a tool as well.

1:34:35I don't like to count calories.

1:34:36Like, I don't, you know, some people do, and that's fine.

1:34:39Then, you know, that's the way you can do it.

1:34:42But I like it for the metabolic switch as well.

1:34:45If I were an endurance athlete running, you know, 10, 14 miles a day, I

1:34:50wouldn't have to do this.

1:34:51That would be my metabolic switch.

1:34:53And it's not that I'm not metabolically flexible.

1:34:56I mean, I do. I think you can just training itself, you know, does to

1:35:01some degree help with metabolic flexibility, right, the ability to switch between burning glucose and

1:35:07carbohydrates and then using fat and fatty acids as your energy source.

1:35:11It's that I really, I want that, I want that real switch to be on.

1:35:17And I want it to be on for a little bit of time.

1:35:19And then I want to turn it off by eating.

1:35:20You know, I'm not starving myself.

1:35:22And I think you can go too far with exercise and with fasting.

1:35:26The problems with fasting and the people that are like, oh, fasting is terrible for

1:35:30you. I mean, it comes down to, one, they were all about, it's like the

1:35:33weight loss is not just due to intermittent fasting itself.

1:35:36It's due to calorie restriction.

1:35:37Guess what? They were right.

1:35:38They were right. Number two, they're afraid of losing muscle.

1:35:41And I think we have enough data now that if you're training, if you're doing

1:35:44resistance training, you're not going to be losing muscle.

1:35:47Now, maybe you won't gain as much as if you were eating more protein.

1:35:52But you could. You could just eat more protein within the window that you're eating

1:35:57and be fine, right? So I think that's the other thing that people are worried

1:36:01about is muscle loss, including myself.

1:36:05And I train so much now.

1:36:06And it just works well for me.

1:36:08And I feel good. And it's like this clean feeling.

1:36:10You feel cognitively sharp. And it works.

1:36:13And I think that the metabolic switch is something to not be scared of as

1:36:16long as you're not, again, going to the extreme, right?

1:36:20And if you don't want to train while you're fast, don't train while you're fasted.

1:36:22You don't have to. You know?

1:36:24I think there's a little bit of an added benefit that works for me in

1:36:28terms of burning fat, which is what I, you know, particularly visceral fat.

1:36:32And to me, that's what works well.

1:36:35But you can, obviously, like, if you're training hard and a lot and really fasting,

1:36:41maybe that's too much. It's too much of a stress.

1:36:43So you have to kind of figure it out for yourself.

1:36:46Yeah, I think the known increase in adrenaline from being slightly fasted is awesome for

1:36:53cognitive function. I think it allows people to ingest fewer stimulants in the form of

1:36:59caffeine. You know, you don't need as much caffeine when you're doing some fasting.

1:37:03What you describe is similar to what I do, although I notice these days I'm

1:37:07waking up hungrier and hungrier.

1:37:08And I attribute that actually to my last bite of food, you know, coming a

1:37:13little bit earlier in the day and further from sleep.

1:37:15And also that thermogenic effect of eating raises core body temperature and, you know, to

1:37:20fall asleep, you want your body temperature dropping.

1:37:22So it all starts to, you know, what I think is kind of, is very

1:37:26exciting to me is that for a few years there, it seemed like there were

1:37:29just so many things, so many protocols, so many studies.

1:37:32But when I think about cortisol high in the morning, low in the evening, bracketing

1:37:37the day, what works best for sleep, but what you're describing.

1:37:40Certainly today you really, in addition to many other things, really clarified the relationship between

1:37:44gut and inflammation and brain and other tissues.

1:37:47Things start to fall into bins that it's, you know, like all of biology, so

1:37:52beautifully organized that it doesn't mean long lists of things for people to do.

1:37:56I love the idea that while it sounds like you're just saying, oh, if I

1:37:59wake up and I'm hungry, I eat.

1:38:01And if I'm not, and I think I can train faster, I like to train

1:38:04faster. That might seem like an obvious thing to some, but I think it's so

1:38:08critical because the mechanism that you're chasing in both cases is the same.

1:38:13You're trying to get great sleep, great.

1:38:14Great workouts, but you're not trying to optimize the workout to the point where, you

1:38:18know, you disrupt your sleep or you insist on doing something like eating or fasting,

1:38:22whatever it is. So the find out what works for you thing is so crucial

1:38:26because it's about feel that fits into a logic.

1:38:30And I have to say, that's initially what drew me to your work is there's

1:38:34a logic. You're not just saying, okay, this study said this, so I'm going to

1:38:37do this. It fits into a broader logic that comes from your training.

1:38:40So I just, that's a, just a point of gratitude.

1:38:42And I hope it will frame in people's minds that yes, do what you feel,

1:38:46do what works for you, but try and frame it in a certain logic.

1:38:49And that will, cause that's actually what gives you flexibility over time.

1:38:53Like, oh, you're traveling, you have to eat a little later.

1:38:55Okay. The next morning, maybe train fasted or vice versa.

1:38:57Yeah. It's about the habit.

1:38:59Exactly. It's about the habit.

1:39:00And there are days when I just like, I can't train fasted or there are

1:39:02days where I wake up and I have to eat exactly where you, you, you

1:39:05know, and there are days when I nights when I, when I'm eating later because

1:39:09of social obligations and I don't freak out about it because it's about the habit.

1:39:13I like the idea of one metabolic switch, uh, per day.

1:39:18You know, you said you could get it from exercise and I thought, you know,

1:39:21I can really imagine that in five years, a concept of, of health that hopefully

1:39:26everyone understands out there is that find a way to generate the metabolic switch once

1:39:31per day. Maybe you fast and exercise, maybe just exercise, maybe just fast.

1:39:34Cause you can't exercise because people's schedules are constrained, but the notion of the metabolic

1:39:39switch is being, here's where it fits in.

1:39:41Exactly. The logic is you want the metabolic switch.

1:39:44You do. And it's not just, you know, there's other components to this metabolic switch

1:39:49that we haven't even discussed, which is like when you're in that fasted state, when

1:39:54you're in the ketosis, like that's also repair mode for your body.

1:39:57Right. So there's the fed state, the grow anabolic.

1:40:01And of course we're all obsessed with anabolic now because the associated with muscle growth.

1:40:04Right. But there's also the repair and recovery state.

1:40:09Right. And so you don't always want the growth on, right.

1:40:12You want to repair damage and repairing damage can be damage to DNA.

1:40:16A lot of these genes are activated, you know, when, when you're in a nutrient

1:40:21deprived state, right. When you're in that metabolic switch and autophagy.

1:40:26And that's another one that people, some it's a buzz, it's a buzzword now, but

1:40:30it is something that is activated.

1:40:33It's first of all, we have basal amount of autophagy going on at any point,

1:40:36right? Like that's happening. Like you don't have to fast.

1:40:39You don't have to fast.

1:40:40Exactly. Or be in a caloric deficit, which will also exacerbate it.

1:40:43Right. You do have fasted activated autophagy and certain tissues are more sensitive, like the

1:40:49liver and the brain actually.

1:40:51And so, you know, we don't have a lot of human data on that in

1:40:55terms of like fasting exercise also activates it.

1:40:58We don't have a lot of great quality human data.

1:41:01And that's for a lot of reasons.

1:41:02One is the tissues that are most responsive to fasting induced autophagy are not blood

1:41:07cells. In fact, like blood cells are pretty restricted in their response to fasted induced

1:41:12autophagy, but that's the easiest cell to access if you're going to measure autophagy in

1:41:17humans, right. Muscle biopsies have been done.

1:41:19That's the muscles also responsive to fasting induced autophagy.

1:41:24It's responsive to exercise induced autophagy.

1:41:26By the way, the exercise, again, it's increasing energy expenditures.

1:41:30So at the end of the day, you're getting into that sort of ketosis, right,

1:41:34state, the metabolic switch. So there are studies showing that there's a signal there.

1:41:40But, you know, for some people, it's not enough.

1:41:42Well, it's not enough. We don't really know.

1:41:44And you can't go off the animal data.

1:41:45And, you know, I think to some degree, it's going to be hard to go

1:41:49get a liver. I mean, maybe we'll have some tools soon that we can easily

1:41:52access a liver biopsy. And that'd be great for many reasons, right?

1:41:56Not just looking at autophagy.

1:41:58But I think that to some degree, you kind of just have to know that,

1:42:02okay, autophagy is happening right now in our cells.

1:42:07Like, so we know that it's activated by like fasting, by exercise, by these types

1:42:11of stress. And so why wouldn't it be increased somewhat?

1:42:15And when I say autophagy, I'm talking about clearing out gunk that's built up in

1:42:20your cell, you know, throughout the day.

1:42:22We're talking about pieces of DNA, fragments of DNA.

1:42:24We're talking about protein aggregates that didn't get, they're either properly, like not properly folding

1:42:30or they're not being degraded, right?

1:42:32All sorts of stuff, right?

1:42:33And it's important. This is a cleanup process.

1:42:35It's important. And so, again, that's another part of the metabolic switch that I think

1:42:40is, it's important to think about because we are really obsessed with anabolic, anabolic, is

1:42:45it anabolic? It's great. You do want to, you definitely want to grow muscle, right?

1:42:49You do want to grow new brain cells and stuff too, but you also want

1:42:52to repair and you want to have recovery.

1:42:54And that's another, you know, it's like the yin and the yang, right?

1:42:58You kind of want both.

1:43:00So I think that's important to think about as well.

1:43:02And fasting, intermittent fasting, I do, I like the daily metabolic switch.

1:43:06It may not be for everyone, you know?

1:43:08I mean, like I said, it's not, I do think that you can find other

1:43:10ways to get there, exercise being the big one.

1:43:13Some people do, caloric restriction.

1:43:15Some people don't need to.

1:43:16Caloric restriction is something that helps if you're trying to lose weight, right?

1:43:21It helps if you're trying to lose visceral fat.

1:43:23It's one of the main ways you can do it, intermittent fasting, caloric restriction, exercise,

1:43:27aerobic exercise that helps lose visceral fat.

1:43:30But I mean, obviously we don't always want to be in a caloric deficit, but

1:43:33we always don't want to be constantly eating either.

1:43:35And that's why it comes down to, I think, the simple rule for people, like

1:43:38if they're going to do some sort of metabolic switch, some sort of...

1:43:42intermittent fast, it would be like, okay, let's try to at least stop eating three

1:43:45hours before bed, because then you're at least going to be extending that fast somewhat

1:43:49by three hours, right? So I think that's, and plus you're getting that, the cardiovascular

1:43:54benefits that are really, they seem to be important.

1:43:56And then not eating at night.

1:43:58So there's all these studies that have come out of Israel.

1:44:00I think it's, is it Jacobitz?

1:44:03Jacobitz and Freud, they're two researchers.

1:44:06I mean, Sachin Panda, I remember years ago, showed me one of the studies that

1:44:09was like published in Science showing that if you have the same exact meal, same

1:44:13calorie intake, same composition, macronutrient composition in the morning, the afternoon, in the evening, the

1:44:19insulin response is like, is different.

1:44:22Like you're the most insulin sensitive early in the morning as you start to go

1:44:25towards the evening and particularly three hours before your natural bedtime, your melatonin levels naturally

1:44:31rise, right? And as you know, you know, melatonin is important for the onset of

1:44:36sleep and preparing the body for sleep, but it's also preparing the other organs for

1:44:40rest and recovery, including the pancreas, which is making insulin.

1:44:44And so you're not making as much insulin when it's closer to your natural bedtime

1:44:48because of the melatonin levels that are rising.

1:44:50And so you don't want to be eating, particularly a carbohydrate rich meal, but a

1:44:54meal, you're not going to be as insulin sensitive.

1:44:57In the last three hours before sleep.

1:44:59Yeah. When you're starting to get into that melatonin rising phase of, you know, of

1:45:04your cycle. Yeah. It's interesting.

1:45:07I think when people hear, okay, you're most insulin sensitive in the morning, that would

1:45:11be the time to eat your biggest meal.

1:45:13But then people say, wait, but then I'm trying to fast before and I'm trying

1:45:15to exercise. And like, how do I do this?

1:45:17I think that's where for them, the confusion comes in.

1:45:19And to me, it's very simple.

1:45:21Just because your insulin sensitivity is highest first thing in the morning doesn't mean you

1:45:26have to eat right away.

1:45:27I mean, it just means avoid eating too close to bedtime, right?

1:45:31Sometime during the day. And also if you exercise fasted or after a small snack,

1:45:35it was kind of interesting when Stacey Sims said, not everyone should exercise fasted.

1:45:39She said, especially a lot of women don't like to do that.

1:45:41She didn't say eat a meal.

1:45:42She said like, have a scoop of whey protein with some, I think she said

1:45:45with like some almond milk in it.

1:45:47And you couldn't believe the response on the internet.

1:45:50It was like vindication, right?

1:45:52And I get it. It was like, it vindicated people's experience.

1:45:55Like, oh, thank you. Thank you.

1:45:56And it told me something really important about the kind of sociology of what we

1:46:00do, which is when something validates people's experience, they love it.

1:46:07But it doesn't mean that the things that work for other people don't work.

1:46:11And I think that that's the part that gets lost.

1:46:13And so if a study shows that insulin sensitivity is highest in the morning, but

1:46:18you can only exercise first thing in the morning, what do you do?

1:46:20You know? So you do the best you can.

1:46:23Right. I think it's the way it comes down to.

1:46:25In fact, I meant to ask you earlier, and this is a good time to

1:46:28talk about this. You've described that if you are slightly sleep deprived, so not four

1:46:35hours per night or an all -nighter, but if you've only slept five, or let's

1:46:38say you're getting an hour or two less than your normal ration of sleep, there's

1:46:42some pretty significant inflammation that occurs that's not good.

1:46:46But I've heard you cover that exercising can actually offset some of that inflammation.

1:46:51This answer is an important and common question, which is, if I have to pick

1:46:56between sleep and exercise, what do I do?

1:46:59And it sounds like if it's one night, poor sleep, exercise.

1:47:04But you don't want to make it a habit.

1:47:06Do I have that right?

1:47:07Yeah. I mean, so this data, a lot of it actually comes from, you can

1:47:11cause even acute insulin resistance after like a night of sleep deprivation, certainly after two

1:47:18to three nights of sleep deprivation.

1:47:20And, you know, again, a lot of that's coming down to some of the things

1:47:23we've already talked about. And, but exercise can help basically negate a lot of that.

1:47:30And I learned that firsthand through experience when I was wearing a continuous glucose monitor.

1:47:36And when I was a new parent, of course, you're not getting enough sleep.

1:47:40And so that's, I learned it before I actually dove into the science about it.

1:47:43I learned about it through my own data where I was, you know, I wasn't

1:47:48exercising as much and particularly in the first month, really, like you're kind of in

1:47:51a cave as a new mom.

1:47:52You don't really, you're not really exercising much at all.

1:47:54Evolution wants the baby to survive.

1:47:57You're recovering too. I mean, childbirth is a very, it's a very traumatic process on

1:48:01the body. And so I noticed that my, my glucose response was like, it was

1:48:06like pre -diabetic and I was like, what is going on?

1:48:09And, and that's when I started looking into the literature and happened to be around

1:48:15the same time when I was then starting up my, at the time I was

1:48:18doing spin classes. And then it was very clear to me, it was like, I

1:48:21do these high intensity interval training classes even just twice a week.

1:48:25And it was like almost completely negating what I had seen previously of my, my

1:48:30glucose being, my fasting glucose being really high and also my postprandial glucose being higher

1:48:34than, than usual. And so I looked into the studies and there's now, you can,

1:48:38you can find many studies out there and it really, I mean, obviously exercise is

1:48:42one of the best thing you can do to improve insulin sensitivity and to also

1:48:46bring glucose into your cells, right?

1:48:49And so that's part of what you were talking about with, oh, you're more insulin

1:48:52sensitive during the morning, at least during the evening.

1:48:54And I also mentioned that, but guess what?

1:48:56There's levers you can pull that like change the equation and exercise is a big

1:49:00one, right? If you're, if you're exercising, you're becoming more insulin sensitive, you're increasing more

1:49:05glucose transporters on your muscle that's causing glucose to go in easier, right?

1:49:08There's, so there's lots of.

1:49:10ways around some of these rules that we hear about.

1:49:13But with the sleep loss, it really is, it's interesting because people, like, when they

1:49:18don't get sleep, the last thing they want to do is work out.

1:49:22And obviously, like, you don't want to do, like, the hardest thing, especially if you're

1:49:25really, like, sleep deprived a lot.

1:49:28But it really does help negate the inflammation and the insulin insensitivity that can happen

1:49:33after even just a single night of sleep.

1:49:35And there's studies out there showing that.

1:49:36And then there's also these longitudinal studies that have been done looking at, you know,

1:49:41people. So obviously, poor sleep is a problem, you know, in the United States.

1:49:46I mean, a lot of people are sleeping fewer than seven hours a night.

1:49:49And but there's studies out that have looked at people that sleep either shorter, so

1:49:54fewer than seven hours a night, or they're sleeping more than 10, right?

1:49:56So you don't want to be on either end of the spectrum.

1:49:58And usually, like, sleeping long, there's, like, other disease states associated with it, right?

1:50:02But so people that are sleeping, you know, not getting enough sleep, they have a

1:50:06higher all -cause mortality than people that are getting at least seven to nine hours

1:50:10of sleep. And the same for, like, more than 10.

1:50:13They have a higher all -cause mortality than people getting between seven and nine.

1:50:16But if people exercise, if they're meeting the physical activity guidelines right now, which is

1:50:2375 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise and 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity exercise.

1:50:28Right, well, because the guidelines are helpful, but they're just guidelines because, I mean, doing

1:50:32the sort of workout that you're doing, working up to doubles and triples and singles

1:50:37on compound lifts and then doing cardio, like getting your heart rate elevated and then

1:50:43doing addition to that and then your hiking.

1:50:44I mean, that it's just, I think the guidelines are a good jumping off place

1:50:49for people to think about.

1:50:50Well, we can talk about that because there's a new study that kind of throws

1:50:54that on the head. But the point is, is that if people were exercising within

1:50:58the guideline range, that they basically, if they weren't getting enough sleep, if they were

1:51:02getting fewer than seven hours of sleep per night, that they basically had the same

1:51:07mortality rate as people that were getting enough sleep.

1:51:09So it's offsetting some of that unhealthy stuff, the insulin resistance, you know, the inflammation

1:51:13that we know, you know, can lead to diseases and early mortality.

1:51:17So find the time to exercise, folks.

1:51:20But of course, periods of time, like after a new child or new job or

1:51:26particularly stressful time, I don't know any human being.

1:51:30I don't care how driven.

1:51:31Okay. There's probably, Doggins and Cam Haynes being probably exceptions and a few others, you

1:51:37know, that only can ride out and a few others.

1:51:40But people who, everybody else seems to have periods of time where they need to

1:51:46just back off a bit.

1:51:48I know I certainly do.

1:51:49And I feel like I'm doing pretty well for myself, despite, you know, and I

1:51:53think that it's important that people not hold themselves to a standard that is going

1:51:58to make them sick or injured or miserable beyond.

1:52:02Yeah. You also want to continue to enjoy health promoting activities.

1:52:06Right. I mean, you got to say like, what's your goal?

1:52:08Like your goal is to be healthy, to be happy.

1:52:10If you're taking it to this extreme where you're trying to just go to the

1:52:14extreme, like go hard, go home, and it's, you're sacrificing your happiness too.

1:52:20I mean, that's a problem, right?

1:52:22Because that's part of the equation.

1:52:23Happiness is part of that healthy equation.

1:52:25Health is a daily and lifelong thing, but sometimes it means taking a day off.

1:52:29I think that's what people don't say.

1:52:31And I think it's in a time when perhaps a lot of people aren't exercising

1:52:35enough. So promoting the no days off thing can be helpful, but for those that

1:52:40are already, you know, forward center of mass, you know, coming off the accelerator can

1:52:46be really useful. Well, I also want to just mention because, you know, we talked

1:52:49about my, you know, I work out a lot and I am sort of addicted

1:52:53to it, but like not everyone has the time and motivation to go spend an

1:53:00hour block of time working out.

1:53:02And this is where I think that people can sigh a sigh of relief because

1:53:07there's now so much emerging data that have been coming out, you know, over the

1:53:11last decade on these short bursts of physical activity that add up.

1:53:17They add up and people aren't really thinking about them, you know, counting towards adding

1:53:23up to their physical activity, you know, requirements for the week.

1:53:28And so there's these, there's a lot of studies now there's on something called vigorous,

1:53:33intermittent lifestyle, physical activity, VILPA studies.

1:53:36Have you heard of those?

1:53:36Are these the exercise snacks?

1:53:38They're unstructured. They're unstructured and not everyone likes the word exercise snacks.

1:53:43I mean, I kind of like it, but the unstructured exercise, they're the moments in

1:53:47your life where you're taking advantage of everyday situations to get your heart rate up

1:53:51to move. And so that could be, I'm playing with my new puppy and I'm

1:53:55sprinting around with my new puppy.

1:53:57I'm, you know, chasing my grandkid around, I'm playing tag or my child.

1:54:00I'm sprinting up the stairs to get to my office.

1:54:03I'm running to catch the bus.

1:54:05I'm moving, right? And so researchers, and there have been several studies on this now,

1:54:10researchers use accelerometers rather than just relying on these questionnaires, which are, as you know,

1:54:17you know, extremely unreliable. I mean, it's very hard for people to remember how much

1:54:21exercise you, sitting here asking me about my exercise.

1:54:23I mean, there's always so much, you know, that you can be accurate when you're

1:54:26trying to recall that. So these accelerometers are worn on people's wrists and they're measuring

1:54:31like fast movement, the movement, right?

1:54:33And so thousands and thousands, like hundreds of thousands of participants.

1:54:37Lots of data now showing that people that are doing these, like, short bursts at

1:54:42least a minute long, but up to three minutes, right, where they're getting their –

1:54:47they're moving. I'm saying they're getting their heart rate.

1:54:49They're actually not measuring their heart rate in these days.

1:54:50They're moving faster with intent, right?

1:54:54They're jogging or they're – you know, they're not – of course, there's the cases

1:54:58where they're actually exercising. But the short bursts of it, they're doing the things that

1:55:03I just mentioned, and it's having outsized effects on health outcomes.

1:55:08So, for example, individuals that do on the high end, so they're doing, you know,

1:55:14three minutes of this short burst of an unstructured type of exercise snack, and they

1:55:19do it three times a day.

1:55:20So it's a total of nine minutes a day, okay, this type of activity.

1:55:25And it's considered more vigorous because of the intent to move, right?

1:55:28That's more vigorous even though they're not measuring heart rate.

1:55:30That's associated with a 40 % reduction in all -cause mortality, 40 % reduction in

1:55:35cancer -related mortality, a 50 % reduction in cardiovascular -related mortality.

1:55:39Wow. Nine minutes a day.

1:55:40And this is even in people that don't identify as exercisers.

1:55:44So they're not the kind of people like you and I that go and intentionally

1:55:46set out time to go to the gym.

1:55:48They're people that just – they're doing those things, right?

1:55:52They're playing with their grandkids or their kids or their puppies or whatever.

1:55:55And so these moments, they add up.

1:55:57And I'm citing one study, but, you know, it was a dose -dependent effect even

1:56:01doing three minutes a day.

1:56:02You know, there's a study in women showing, you know, three and a half minutes

1:56:05a day. I mean, they were having pretty profound benefits on all -cause mortality and

1:56:08cancer -related mortality as well.

1:56:10And multiple studies now have shown this.

1:56:12I mean, this is like one study after another after another.

1:56:14I mean, it's undeniable that these short moments of, you know, getting physically active do

1:56:20add up. And structured exercise snacks can be part of that.

1:56:24Like maybe you don't have a puppy.

1:56:26Maybe you don't have a kid yet.

1:56:27Maybe you work from home and you're not taking this – you know, maybe your

1:56:30situation is different than what I described.

1:56:32But you can take these moments to do exercise snacks.

1:56:35And that can be a minute long.

1:56:37And it can be – like there was – there's studies showing that – two

1:56:41studies, and I'll talk about one, showing that getting up and doing 10 body weight

1:56:45squats every 45 minutes over a seven -and -a -half -hour work day is better

1:56:51at regulating blood glucose levels than a 30 -minute walk, right?

1:56:55So you get up and you do 10 body weight squats.

1:56:57Pretty easy. I mean, it's also very good to break up that sedentary time.

1:57:01So being sedentary means like you're not moving.

1:57:05That also is an independent risk factor, even if you do exercise, for things like

1:57:09cancer being a big one.

1:57:11Although I would say if you're doing a lot of exercise, you're doing pretty good.

1:57:14But I'd just like to mention that as well.

1:57:16I would say being sedentary is a disease, actually.

1:57:19That's something – I mean, people aren't thinking about it, but – Even in the

1:57:23absence of what Lynn Norton calls energy toxicity, like even if somebody is at maintenance

1:57:29or below maintenance calories, if they're sedentary, that's problematic.

1:57:32We do have data, for one, measuring cardiorespiratory fitness, which is a marker of cardiovascular

1:57:39health, being physically fit, right?

1:57:41Obviously, the gold standard of that would be measuring VO2 max, your maximal oxygen uptake

1:57:46during maximal exercise. A lot of studies do not actually directly measure VO2 max.

1:57:51They'll do maybe a submaximal treadmill test or they'll estimate it, right?

1:57:57There's a calculation out there.

1:57:58You can do kind of what you're – if you wear like an Apple Watch

1:58:01or some sort of fitness tracker, what they do is which is it's looking at

1:58:04the distance that you run and the amount of time it takes, right?

1:58:07So, like a 12 -minute run would be an example.

1:58:11People do that. You run as fast as you can and maintain that pace for

1:58:1512 minutes. You're not going all out, obviously.

1:58:17You see how far you can go.

1:58:18Yeah. And then – and there's a calculation out there that's done to kind of

1:58:21estimate your VO2 max. And so some studies – or a lot of studies are

1:58:25actually doing sort of an estimation of cardiorespiratory fitness.

1:58:28So cardiorespiratory fitness is really important, I think, for, you know, marking your health and

1:58:35longevity. And, you know, if you have a low cardiorespiratory fitness, most of the times

1:58:40you are not physically active, right?

1:58:43And there are studies showing that if you don't have any, you know, diagnosable diseases,

1:58:47so you're not insulin resistant, you don't have cardiovascular disease, you don't have cancer, all

1:58:51that stuff, right? You're not obese, but you have a low cardiorespiratory fitness.

1:58:56It is as bad or worse in terms of your all -cause mortality, you know,

1:59:02predicting mortality than having cardiovascular disease or smoking or having hypertension or these things that

1:59:08we know that are really bad for health, right?

1:59:10So being sedentary, as I'm saying, it's a low cardiorespiratory fitness.

1:59:14I guess it's not exactly correct.

1:59:16It's a little bit – I'm stretching it a little bit.

1:59:18But cardiorespiratory fitness is a marker of, I would say, fitness.

1:59:22And so that's why I think being sedentary is a disease.

1:59:26And people with a low cardiorespiratory fitness, I mean, if you go anywhere above that,

1:59:32you know, from low to, like, low normal, that's associated with a two -year increase

1:59:36in life expectancy. If you go from low to high normal, you know, that's, like,

1:59:43almost a three -year increase in life expectancy.

1:59:45And if you go up to high, then you're talking about a five -year increase

1:59:47in life expectancy compared to where you're at at low.

1:59:49But, again, I'm not talking about VHMX.

1:59:52I'm talking about cardiorespiratory fitness.

1:59:53And it's really important. Here's another reason why I think that it's really bad.

1:59:57So these studies were done – by the way, cardiorespiratory fitness is improved by aerobic

2:00:01exercise in general. That's great.

2:00:04And then, you know, if you – If you add in high -intensity interval training

2:00:08in their mix, that also really helps because there are some people that don't respond

2:00:11necessarily to just doing cardiovascular.

2:00:14Slow, steady state. Yeah, about 40 % of people don't respond.

2:00:16So mixing in the high -intensity is good.

2:00:18If you're physically active and doing that, that's great.

2:00:20If you're doing these short bursts of physical activity, also good because it's a little

2:00:23bit of a high -intensity, you know, exercise, right?

2:00:27A minute running around chasing your grandkid or your puppy or your child.

2:00:31You know, that's a hit section.

2:00:32Taking the stairs, that's amazing.

2:00:33I was traveling with my team.

2:00:34Sprinting up the stairs. Sprinting up the stairs, or if you're carrying a lot of

2:00:37luggage in the airport, like going up the stairs or down the stairs.

2:00:40Right. It's wild. When you go to the airport, I like to notice this.

2:00:46Nobody takes the stairs. Yeah.

2:00:49Down or up. Yeah. Like the escalators are there.

2:00:51The luggage. And I'm always like, oh, this is a great opportunity.

2:00:53You get some extra steps and some extra work.

2:00:54But I realize that's me.

2:00:56But it's just, it's striking.

2:00:58And if you're in D .C.

2:01:00ever, you know, they've used the long stairwells that go up from the public transport.

2:01:05And that's a workout, you know.

2:01:07Carrying your luggage. And I'm always like, oh, free workout.

2:01:09Yeah. You know, like get it in my day.

2:01:11I mean, it sucks to arrive a little bit more sweaty than you would otherwise.

2:01:14But I just think if this were an experiment and we were looking at mice

2:01:17and we were videotaping from above, I always think to myself, like, which mouse am

2:01:20I going to be? All the mice are going up the automatic elevator.

2:01:23It makes sense. And then why they would want to do that.

2:01:26But these opportunities for exercise are clearly there.

2:01:29I feel like this is also, I would be remiss if I didn't do a

2:01:32quick shout out to Steve Magnus.

2:01:34Do you ever see his content?

2:01:36I've interacted with him. Yeah.

2:01:37I've never met him, but people should.

2:01:39On Twitter, I've interacted with him on X.

2:01:41Yeah. People should, I think, give him a follow.

2:01:43He's a very accomplished runner in his past, a running coach, I believe, as well,

2:01:47and a scientist. And I think has the best take on sort of measuring VO2

2:01:53max. It's kind of interesting.

2:01:55You know, he has a theory, which I think is strongly backed, that most measures

2:01:58of VO2 max are not measures of VO2 max at all.

2:02:01But one of the best measures of cardiorespiratory fitness is how fast can you run

2:02:04a mile? And he says people are generally surprised how easy the easy stuff should

2:02:09feel and how hard the hard stuff should feel.

2:02:12So I just want to credit Steve for saying that.

2:02:14So I try and keep that in mind around my cardio and do some high

2:02:17– I do less of what you do, I confess, some high -intensity interval training,

2:02:22Tabata -type stuff, and then a lot of walks, a lot of hikes.

2:02:24Yeah. And I haven't formally measured my VO2 max in a while, but I think

2:02:28he just nails it with that because I think people think the 30 -minute jog

2:02:32on the treadmill where you get sweaty and you're like, ah, that's accomplishing what you

2:02:36want. But actually, there's a much easier path to better health, which is what you

2:02:40do and more or less what Steve is describing as well.

2:02:44Yeah. Yeah. Does that square with your experience?

2:02:46Yeah, I think so. I mean, I do mix in quite a bit of probably

2:02:49more high -intensity interval training.

2:02:52But, you know, I don't feel – like if I felt like it was like

2:02:56if I didn't feel good, I would toggle down the paddle, right?

2:03:00I wouldn't keep going on it.

2:03:01Right. So I think you have to, again, just listen to your body, you know,

2:03:04you don't want to overdo things.

2:03:06And I am – I mean, there are people out there that are really like

2:03:08endurance athletes that are, you know, like that's not me.

2:03:12I'm a committed exerciser. I'm not necessarily an athlete.

2:03:17But, yeah, so that would – that's – there's different, I think, levels here.

2:03:21And Steve is obviously athlete.

2:03:23Anyway, I've learned from him around this topic.

2:03:25Yeah. It's been helpful. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of

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2:05:15I want to ask you about creatine.

2:05:17Yeah. I'm 50. I started taking weight training and running when I was like 16,

2:05:23maybe. Yeah. And I started taking creatine because back then I was skinny.

2:05:28I wanted to put on muscle.

2:05:29I think creatine was sort of first discussed or released.

2:05:33Peace. Peace. Peace. back then when I was maybe 18 or something like that, something

2:05:37like that, 18, 19. So I've been taking a long, long time, five to 10

2:05:41grams. But the original protocol, which nobody does anymore, but I confess I still do

2:05:47it because I enjoy it, was to take five grams three to five times per

2:05:53day. There was this loading phase and you would mix it with a little bit

2:05:57of grape juice because the idea was you were supposed to spike your insulin and

2:06:00then you get more into the muscles.

2:06:01And then you had a maintenance dose, which was five grams per day.

2:06:06And the idea back then was that you needed to do a washout every 20

2:06:10weeks or so where you just stop taking it, you urinate out a bunch of

2:06:13water, and then you reload.

2:06:14And I confess I've continued to do this minus the grape juice, but occasionally I'll

2:06:19do the grape juice thing.

2:06:20I don't think there's any real merit to the loading phase, maintenance phase idea.

2:06:25But back then and still now, I feel like creatine has made me feel great.

2:06:30I'm stronger. I wasn't aware of the cognitive benefits.

2:06:34They weren't being studied back then.

2:06:36They weren't being studied back then.

2:06:37But what are your thoughts on why creatine suddenly has become this like banner supplement?

2:06:44It's like supplement of the year.

2:06:45We should start a supplement of the year thing, right?

2:06:47For a while, I think vitamin D and melatonin came first.

2:06:51We'll have to figure out what years those were.

2:06:53Then I feel like creatine got supplement of the year for 2026 unless something else

2:06:58comes along. So creatine, supplement of the year, 2026, even though it's been around for

2:07:04a long, long time. What do you think happened?

2:07:06Well, so first I want to talk about your loading phase.

2:07:08That was really for the studies that were being done, right?

2:07:12Because if you're taking five grams a day of creatine, it takes about three to

2:07:16four weeks for your muscle creatine stores to become saturated.

2:07:20And researchers aren't going to do a study where they wait that long.

2:07:23So the loading phase really was just - Oh, so that's what inspired it.

2:07:27Yeah. It's in this isolated bubble of in the experimental protocol, but like in the

2:07:32real world, you have three weeks.

2:07:34Or if you're like an athlete and you hadn't, you know, taken the creatine, you

2:07:37don't have your creatine stores up and you have to quickly, rapidly - Got it.

2:07:40I was just amazed at how quickly it worked.

2:07:42I might be a hyper responder, but I legitimately put on, I realized some of

2:07:46it was water or most of it was water, but somewhere between probably four and

2:07:51eight pounds of water in the muscle mass.

2:07:55I don't want to call it lean mass because it's, you know, it's water in

2:07:58the muscle. But I just was, I was like, oh my goodness, this is crazy,

2:08:04you know? And then people thought maybe it was a steroid.

2:08:07It's not a steroid. Maybe it's bad for your kidneys.

2:08:09Turns out it's safe for your kidneys and most everyone.

2:08:12Pretty remarkable molecule. Yeah. I mean, obviously creatine is stored as creatine phosphate in our

2:08:18cells. We make to some degree between one to three grams of creatine a day

2:08:22or liver. Our brain also makes it.

2:08:24It's used to make energy.

2:08:26And so your muscles, if you're working out, you're really consuming a lot of energy,

2:08:31right? It's very energetically demanding.

2:08:33So having the creatine stores higher in your muscle is beneficial because one, you're going

2:08:40to be able to increase your training volume, right?

2:08:41So it's not like creatine is anabolic in the sense that protein or amino acids

2:08:45are, right? It's not like directly affecting muscle protein synthesis.

2:08:49It's just helping you train more, getting more reps and, you know, whatever it is,

2:08:55training, your training volume is going up.

2:08:57And because your training volume is going up, then you're obviously putting more stress on

2:09:01your muscles, which is going to lead to increased muscle protein synthesis.

2:09:04And, you know, obviously there's water probably as well.

2:09:07That said, you know, you asked me, you know, what happened.

2:09:10So I got interested in creatine back in 20, when I started basically weight training.

2:09:16And obviously I'd heard about it forever, never took it.

2:09:19And as I started to get into resistance training, I was like, I better start

2:09:23taking this. This is, I'm like in this, in this world now and started doing

2:09:27some research and taking it.

2:09:28So I was taking the five grams a day because that's really what most of

2:09:31the studies show, creatine monohydrate.

2:09:34That's the most well researched form of creatine.

2:09:37And I was taking five grams a day because I was interested in improving my

2:09:41training volume and getting the benefits of it, right?

2:09:45And then I had Darren Kando on the podcast.

2:09:50That was in 2024, I think it was.

2:09:53And once I had started getting into the creatine research, I, the brain stuff started,

2:09:59has been coming out over the past, you know, few years.

2:10:03And that's for me become very interesting.

2:10:05I remember the first time I heard about it years ago, it was like, oh,

2:10:07it's, it's helping improve cognitive function in older, older, you know, people.

2:10:11Yeah. The phosphor creatine system seems to be somewhat biased towards forebrain structures.

2:10:18You know, I mean, obviously it's in lots of brain areas, but that there might

2:10:21be a heavier reliance on it for brain areas that are associated with strategic planning

2:10:26and, you know, working memory.

2:10:28And yeah, if you, if you were to sort of just map the, the, the

2:10:31sort of density of usage of the phosphor creatine system, you'd, you'd see a frontal

2:10:35bias for sure. Okay. Yeah.

2:10:37Well, anyways, that's kind of where my interest in, in, you know, kind of diving

2:10:42deeper, anything that's helping the brain is interesting to me is I know it to

2:10:47you as well. And, and so I learned a lot from this podcast I did

2:10:53with Darren Kanda. He, you know, researches creatine and collaborates with a lot of different

2:10:57researchers that are doing, you know, research on the brain and muscle.

2:11:00And, you know, lots of the bone, it turns out it's beneficial for the bone

2:11:03as well. But the brain, it's interesting that we also make creatine in the brain,

2:11:07but it's not like, so it's kind of like the muscle, right?

2:11:11You're not just going to, if you take creatine, you don't work out, you're not

2:11:14going to, you're not going to get any increase in lean mass, right?

2:11:17It's not going to do much of anything because you're not putting in the work.

2:11:21I think the same goes with the brain as well, where it's like researchers started

2:11:25to find out that, well, you can't just take creatine and it's going to enhance

2:11:30cognitive. It's in the background of stressing the brain, right?

2:11:34You're stressing your muscles by workout.

2:11:35Same goes for the brain.

2:11:36It's like in these situations of stress, whether that's sleep deprivation, whether it's, you know,

2:11:43a traumatic brain injury. I mean, I would argue, you know, there's a lot of

2:11:47psychological stress, depression, constantly using your brain.

2:11:53Like you and I right now in this conversation, we're learning, we're thinking, I mean,

2:11:56it is stressful on the brain, right?

2:11:58So, I mean, I'm obviously speculating here and taking, I'm extrapolating, right?

2:12:04I'm not saying that there's studies showing that, but it does seem as though that

2:12:08that's when creatine seems to shine in the brain.

2:12:11And you might go, well, your brain makes it.

2:12:13And it's true. Your brain does make, you know, again, it's like between one to

2:12:16three grams or something. I'm not exactly sure how much, but it makes its own

2:12:19creatine. And it's kind of resistant to taking up the creatine that you're supplementing with,

2:12:23particularly because, for one, the muscle is very greedy.

2:12:28So when you're getting to that five -gram range, muscles are really consuming it.

2:12:32If you're working out in particular, right, your muscles are kind of consuming that because

2:12:35they're very greedy for it, right?

2:12:38And there have now been, I think, a handful of studies showing that when you

2:12:42start to get above that, there was a study out of Germany showing this.

2:12:44And it's a small study.

2:12:46This needs to be replicated.

2:12:47Like, this is all new, you know, emerging data.

2:12:51But that study showed that once you start to get to, you know, 10 grams,

2:12:55then if you look by MRI, you can start to see that creatine levels are

2:13:00increasing in certain brain regions and perhaps in the brain regions that you were talking

2:13:03about. And they're going higher than what you would get from just your brain normally

2:13:08making its own creatine. And so the 10 grams of creatine a day, which is

2:13:13now what my baseline is, is based off of that.

2:13:16But there's studies now showing that if you are in this sort of stressed state,

2:13:21your brain is stressed, like for sleep deprivation, for example, you're sleep deprived for 21

2:13:26hours and your brain's not working very good after not sleeping for 21 hours, right?

2:13:31I mean, that's obviously when I have a – when I travel internationally, I never

2:13:35really sleep good on an international flight.

2:13:36And so I'm, like, not – if you were to come find me after that

2:13:40flight, I'd be, like, not working very good, right?

2:13:43You and everybody else. Right.

2:13:44Yeah. Well, some people can sleep great on a plane, but I'm not one of

2:13:47those people. So there have now been at least one study showing that if you

2:13:53give someone – it's, like, something like 0 .35 grams per kilogram body weight of

2:13:59creatine, which comes out to a lot.

2:14:01I mean, it's, like, 20, 25 – it depends on your body weight, right?

2:14:03Like, 20, 25 grams, perhaps even more.

2:14:06I mean – I mean, I'm 100 kilograms.

2:14:08Yeah. So you would be a lot.

2:14:09Yeah. So for me, it's more like 20, 25 grams, right?

2:14:12But if you give individuals that high dose in that, you know, sleep deprived state,

2:14:17that they're cognitively not only performing normal, but they're performing better than their baseline.

2:14:24And that, of course, generated a lot of interest.

2:14:28There have been studies coming out since then showing that, okay, if you give older

2:14:32adults with mild cognitive impairment, perhaps mild, you know, early stage Alzheimer's disease, again, 20

2:14:37grams. You're giving them the 20 -gram range of creatine.

2:14:40It's improving their cognitive function.

2:14:42Why is that? Well, creatine is important to make energy.

2:14:47And when your brain cells are stressed out, right, I mean, like, energy – energetic

2:14:51demand goes up, and if you have more creatine, it's going to make things easier.

2:14:55There's also some inflammation that's being generated in that stress state, and it seems as

2:14:59though creatine is also having both an indirect and direct effect on inflammatory processes as

2:15:03well. This is all early, early data.

2:15:07Like, more needs to be done, but I think there's enough safety data out there

2:15:13now where it's like, well, it's really not harmful to take 10 grams a day.

2:15:17I take 10 grams a day every day.

2:15:19You spread it out? I do it in two doses.

2:15:22I mean, some people are very sensitive to a 10 -gram dose where they might,

2:15:25like, get a GI irritation effect.

2:15:27It can give some people diarrhea.

2:15:30Diarrhea, exactly, yeah. So, the very scientific way of putting it in.

2:15:33But, I mean, so I do spread it out, and I take it – I

2:15:37don't take it at night.

2:15:38I like to take mine in the morning.

2:15:39And I don't know, Andrew, this might be a placebo.

2:15:42I feel like I'm constantly in a stress – I'm constantly in a – my

2:15:46brain is under a lot of stress.

2:15:47I'm constantly learning. I'm reading papers.

2:15:49And like I said, I'm extrapolating here.

2:15:51This isn't sleep deprivation. That's obviously a much more extreme type of stress.

2:15:56But I have noticed that taking my 10 grams, going from 5 to 10, really

2:16:01does seem to affect my brain functioning, like, later in the day, where I seem

2:16:06to keep going better, where I'm not getting as tired.

2:16:11And it could be placebo, which is fine.

2:16:13Like I said, I am fine with placebo effects.

2:16:15As long as what I'm ingesting is not actually bad for you, placebo is fine

2:16:18with me. But it is working for me.

2:16:21When I travel, I do when I'm going to the East Coast.

2:16:25I mean, I'm on the West Coast, so when I go anywhere and I have

2:16:27to give a talk early – in the morning and I never sleep good in

2:16:30a hotel. I'm always sleep deprived.

2:16:32I mean, I don't know that a time that I haven't been traveling and I'm

2:16:36going to start traveling with my pillow like you do because that's brilliant because that's

2:16:39like one of my, that's one of my problems.

2:16:40But there's many problems in hotel rooms that lead to me not sleeping as good,

2:16:44right? So I take 20, sometimes 25 grams of creatine in those situations and they're,

2:16:51it's like, you know, it's not all the time, but it seems to help me

2:16:55again. And like I said, I'm okay with placebo, which is fine, but we do

2:16:59have some evidence that it might.

2:17:01And I think this is kind of where people are already interested in creatine.

2:17:05And so when you start to go, well, maybe it's going to be beneficial for

2:17:07the brain. If it's going to improve cognitive function, that's really something that people are

2:17:10interested in. Right. Now, again, I don't know that it's like, if you're just some

2:17:13young, healthy person that gets all there's, you're getting, you're sleeping well, you're exercising, everything's

2:17:18great. You know, and I'm mostly sleep well and exercise great.

2:17:21I'm extrapolating here, but like, you know, Alzheimer's disease on the extreme end, TBI also

2:17:26on the extreme human. That's real time aging.

2:17:28Right. And there's some evidence that may be helpful for that as well.

2:17:30There's been some studies with children looking at creatine supplementation after a TBI and it

2:17:36seems to help with their, their recovery.

2:17:39I am probably experiencing brain aging.

2:17:42So I'm just kind of.

2:17:43I'm going to interrupt there.

2:17:44I don't think so. I'm not trying to just be complimentary.

2:17:47You know, I paid close attention to the data and it seems like in certain

2:17:51fields like math and physics that people tend to peak with their contributions early.

2:17:58There's a reason why the fields metal is only given to people, you know, like,

2:18:00I think it's 40 or younger.

2:18:02My dad's a physicist, so he can check me on this one, but biologists, at

2:18:07least the ones I know that took good care of themselves, they're known to make

2:18:09great discoveries, be cognitively sharp, intellectually strong, well into their seventies and eighties.

2:18:16I mean, Torsten Weasel, co -recipient of the Nobel prize for brain plasticity and vision,

2:18:20he's still alive. And he was, I think he still runs.

2:18:22He's in his late nineties and he paints and he's, and he's sharp.

2:18:26So I just, I, I, I made a point to only interrupt here.

2:18:30People can check the data on the previous portions of the podcast, but, and just

2:18:33say, I actually think that cognitively I'm using biologists as an example.

2:18:39It's possible in aspects of life where you're, where you're building a base of data

2:18:46to pull from, which is what biology really is.

2:18:48It's just an example here that to get cognitively stronger and stronger with age.

2:18:52Right. There's a theory, but I see you as that.

2:18:55And I'm, again, I'm not just saying it to be complimentary, although it is a

2:18:58compliment. I mean, it seems like you're, you're picking up steam.

2:19:01You're thinking about things. You're not forgetting things from way back when you're building on

2:19:05the concepts and knowledge from way back when.

2:19:07So I find it reassuring that you biologists in particular seem to have this, you

2:19:12know, up into the right trajectory for cognition.

2:19:15It's interesting. My, my late mentor, Dr.

2:19:18Bruce Ames was every bit of that.

2:19:20I mean, you know, he passed away a little over a year ago when he's

2:19:2296, but, you know, some of his most, he claims some of his best work

2:19:27was done, you know, in his late eighties.

2:19:29Right. You know, you don't see that in math or physics.

2:19:31Yeah. So that's interesting. And, and, you know, I don't know exactly the difference.

2:19:34I mean, I don't know how much learning goes into math and physics as you're,

2:19:40as you're like, I, I just don't know, but like with biology and I mean,

2:19:44we're constantly learning new things and reading new papers.

2:19:48And then I think even just the novelty of learning new things, I mean, that's

2:19:51brain -derived neurotrophic factor, right?

2:19:53Like that's like you're, you're, you're increasing synaptic connections and neuroplasticity and you're keeping your

2:19:59brain younger in that way too.

2:20:01Right. So I think the learning process is super important, whether it's biology or whatever

2:20:06you're passionate about, right? Like you learn new languages, whatever, like the learning process, itself

2:20:11is something that is so important for, for brain aging as well.

2:20:17And yeah, so I, I would agree with you that, but brain aging in general,

2:20:20yeah, I'm obviously chronologically aging and there is some degree of aging going on in

2:20:24my brain, but, you know, so that's, that's, I think where the creatine craze has

2:20:29come from is the interest in, and I, and I've definitely played a role in

2:20:32some of this, you know, by, you know, talking, talking about my experience and, and,

2:20:38and being super interested in it because it's like, it's felt good for me and

2:20:42I've noticed this experience and this is completely anecdata again, but in addition with the

2:20:47small studies and they are small and like, I don't know if you've looked at

2:20:50them, but they're, they're, you can, you can.

2:20:53Subject numbers. Yeah. They're small and you can poke holes in them and you would

2:20:57be completely, you know, okay poking holes because they're small, you know, sample sizes, but

2:21:03it is kind of a consistent trend line where we're seeing more studies come out

2:21:06and show the same thing, same thing.

2:21:08And it's like, okay, you know, to a certain point, um, maybe there's something here.

2:21:12I think that more research is going to come out on it and I feel

2:21:16great doing it. So, I mean, and even to the point where if I don't

2:21:20have my 10 grams and it's only five, like I'll notice.

2:21:24Oh yeah. Yeah. But again, it could be that, you know, placebo, nocebo thing where

2:21:29who knows, who knows, but, you know, let's just say it is real, you know,

2:21:32for me, I gotta have, I gotta have my, my 10 grams of creatine for

2:21:36my brain. Um, you know, who knows?

2:21:38I may in five years be like, I was wrong.

2:21:40We'll see new data come out, but I don't think so.

2:21:42I think, I think we're going to have, I think this is like the next,

2:21:46a lot of people doing creatine research.

2:21:48It's, it's the new thing that really, cause there's been a lot of work on

2:21:51exercise physiology and, you know, the safety data are there.

2:21:55So it's not like after.

2:21:56get a lot of, you know, human subjects clearance.

2:21:58The safety data is, I mean, it's the most well studied, you know, one of

2:22:02the most well studied supplements out there.

2:22:04Like you said, I mean, you were taking it when you were 18 and it

2:22:07was studied back then. Yeah.

2:22:08And it's just been studied the, you know, for all the years that you've been

2:22:12taking it. So, I mean, if it was unsafe, like we really would know.

2:22:15And again, I don't want to get into all the data on the safety, but

2:22:19I think that it's pretty, pretty solid that it's now, of course, like if you're

2:22:23going to go like mainline 50 grams a day, I mean, I don't know, that's

2:22:26a little much. Someone on the internet will do it.

2:22:28Yeah. There's always the extreme.

2:22:30People have died dry scooping energy drinks.

2:22:33I mean, there's always a moron or two out there that are going to take

2:22:36things to the extreme and harm themselves doing something that no one else is dumb

2:22:41enough to do. But I think we look at the center of mass for things.

2:22:45You know, as we're talking about creatine, I want to talk about some other supplements.

2:22:50But it occurs to me that if there's some data, ideally from animal studies and

2:22:59humans, and something is safe, I think the question nowadays, because of how broadly health

2:23:06and supplement and other kinds of information goes in the world, I think the question

2:23:10that everyone should ask themselves is, okay, do I want to be in the experimental

2:23:15or the control group? Mm -hmm.

2:23:16That's how I think about it.

2:23:18So like if there's a study about creatine or some new molecule, I'm going to

2:23:22ask you about magnesium in a moment, right?

2:23:24I look at the safety margins on magnesium.

2:23:27Okay. I'm comfortable with those safety margins.

2:23:30So that should always be question number one.

2:23:32And then it's, do I want to be in the experimental or the control group?

2:23:35And I think that these days people who are against supplements or against something, they'll

2:23:40say, well, the effect isn't nearly as big as you get from exercise.

2:23:44Totally. Absolutely. But that's not really what we're talking about.

2:23:47People love this in the cannabis and alcohol thing.

2:23:49Whenever I make a point about alcohol or cannabis, they'll say, well, alcohol is worse.

2:23:54I'm like, yeah, like, and, you know, I mean, these are two separate entities.

2:23:58So I think that people should just ask themselves, are you comfortable with the safety

2:24:02margins? And do you want to be in the experimental or the control group?

2:24:06And then of course there's the, can I afford to be in the experimental group

2:24:09if I do something? But those are really the only questions.

2:24:12There's no one saying that creatine is better than anything else or worse than anything

2:24:17else. Right. But somehow the messaging gets all messed up.

2:24:21And then all these news articles get generated about what creatine is and it isn't.

2:24:26And I find it like, um, kind of frustrating because that's the issue is not

2:24:33whether or not creatine is better than exercise and good sleep.

2:24:37Question is, do you want to be in the experimental or the control group?

2:24:40And can you afford to be in the experimental group?

2:24:42Right. I like that. I like that framework, especially if it's like, well, we know

2:24:45it's safe. Okay. So I can potentially be in the experimental group because that's question

2:24:50number one. You have to have that answer first, right?

2:24:52At least in my book.

2:24:54But yeah, I mean, there's flaws with all sorts of studies and creatine studies included,

2:24:59right? And people make all sorts of claims about it and, you know, you got

2:25:03to tone it down a little bit.

2:25:04I mean, it's not like, like the best performance enhancer ever, but it seems pretty

2:25:10good at, you know, improving exercise volume recovery as well.

2:25:14I mean, that's like also something that's been shown and then helping with the stressed

2:25:17out brain. On the basis of our last conversation some years ago on this podcast,

2:25:21I started taking Lovasa, which is a, as you know, a prescription omega -3.

2:25:28So very high concentration omega -3 because I was getting it from, you know, standard

2:25:32sources. And I thought, well, I'm hitting 50 and, you know, up my omega -3

2:25:36and I want clean omega -3.

2:25:38I don't want it contaminated with mercury and other things.

2:25:40So I'll take omega -3s in the form of Lovasa.

2:25:45It's available generic form now, so it's pretty inexpensive.

2:25:49And I have to say my blood profiles were pretty good, but they improved pretty

2:25:53dramatically when I started taking Lovasa.

2:25:55So I'm grateful to you for encouraging the omega -3 you know, take the omega

2:26:01-3 path. Have you ever had an omega -3 index test done?

2:26:04No. To measure the... Oh, oh, if it's on the function test and then it

2:26:07would be... I think it is.

2:26:08Then it's in normal range.

2:26:09I know it wasn't flagged, but I don't recall what the level was.

2:26:13Yeah. You want to be in the high index, not the low, right?

2:26:15Well, obviously if you're taking it, you're not going to be in the low.

2:26:18Yeah. Usually it's around two grams a day to get you from low to high.

2:26:22And I do think that's one of the low -hanging fruits in terms of like

2:26:25something powerful and having an outside effect on your health that people can do that's

2:26:29not that much effort. It's not like exercise and exercise effort.

2:26:33Or eating salmon. I don't like fish.

2:26:36No. Yeah. And a lot of people don't like fish.

2:26:38And also there's now microplastic contamination in our seafood sources.

2:26:44There's the heavy metals, PCBs, contaminants.

2:26:47I mean, I still eat salmon, but it's not like it used to be.

2:26:53So there are other cleaner ways to get your omega -3 levels higher.

2:26:57And omega -3 is very important for cardiovascular.

2:27:00It's one of the most important, I would say the most powerful, naturally occurring dietary

2:27:07compounds for suppressing inflammation and resolving inflammation would be a better way of putting it,

2:27:11right? I mean, and that's, again, at the core of aging.

2:27:14And if you look at any sort of measure of aging, whether it's even these

2:27:18epigenetic aging clocks, they're very sensitive to inflammation.

2:27:21And that's why there's so many studies coming.

2:27:23out now showing omega -3 can slow this, you know, biological aging as measured by

2:27:29these epigenetic aging clocks. And that's, I think, even in randomized controlled trials showing this,

2:27:34that it's doing that. And that leads to functional outcomes as well.

2:27:38So, like, even if you're only slowing the clock, let's say, by three months, you're

2:27:44still having outcomes like where, for example, three months slowing the epigenetic aging clock by

2:27:50omega -3 only is going to get you like, you know, 16 % lower pre

2:27:54-frailty. Or if you add in vitamin D and resistance training, because the study showed

2:27:58it a synergy between the three, then you're talking about like lowering the chance of

2:28:03invasive cancer by 66%, even though you're only getting - Yeah.

2:28:06Even though you're only getting - So, vitamin D resistance training and - And omega

2:28:09-3. And omega -3. Yeah.

2:28:11And this was, this was, the trial was actually out of Switzerland, I believed.

2:28:16And it looked at omega -3, vitamin D alone, or resistance training alone.

2:28:21And the only thing that actually slowed the aging of the clocks was omega -3.

2:28:28Now, I'll say that with a caveat, okay?

2:28:30The baseline exercise in this Switzerland group, 88 % of these people were physically active,

2:28:36like doing exercise. So, adding, you know, 30 minutes, three times a week of resistance

2:28:41training on top of that didn't slow the clock more.

2:28:44And I wouldn't expect it to, to be honest, when you're already physically active and

2:28:47that's your baseline. Clearly, they weren't eating enough omega -3.

2:28:51Right. Because that did slow the epigenetic aging clock.

2:28:54Other studies have shown if you're vitamin D deficient, severely vitamin D deficient, like African

2:28:58-Americans, for example, who are obese or overweight, if they add in vitamin D and

2:29:03supplement with 4 ,000 I use a day for six weeks, they can actually slow

2:29:09their epigenetic, reverse their epigenetic aging as well.

2:29:11So, I think, again, it's all like where you're starting from, but the point is

2:29:15that the omega -3 alone did slow the aging of these clocks, and you add

2:29:20in the resistance training and vitamin D, those alone didn't do it.

2:29:22But when you add it with the omega -3, there was synergy, so it kept

2:29:25going down. And when the three combined, it slowed the epigenetic aging by like 3

2:29:30.8 months, but that translated to like 66 % less likely to get invasive cancer.

2:29:38And then the pre -failty was the omega -3 alone.

2:29:40And there was another marker, I can't remember.

2:29:42I covered this in a newsletter a while back.

2:29:44But like, you know, this, and this is like, this isn't the first study to

2:29:47show this with omega -3.

2:29:49Omega -3s are really, I went on this tangent.

2:29:52I'm sorry, Andrew, you got me on one of my favorite topics.

2:29:55I mean, I'm excited because I take Levaza, I take vitamin D, D3, I take

2:30:00a lot. I take 5 ,000 to 8 ,000 IUs per day, and I get

2:30:03sunlight. People actually ask me, this is just a quick window into the messaging around

2:30:07sunlight. Some people will say, if I take vitamin D, do I still need sunlight?

2:30:11And, you know, a big part of my messaging is trying to tell me that

2:30:14sunlight does a bunch of other things.

2:30:16But I take vitamin D at that level.

2:30:18I take the Levaza, and of course, I resistance train, and the Levaza move.

2:30:21And actually, increasing the vitamin D was on the basis of, yes, blood work, but

2:30:25also our prior conversation. I feel much better.

2:30:28Yeah. Much better when I do it.

2:30:30I take about 5 ,000 IUs a day as well, and I do get sunlight.

2:30:33And I agree with you, sunlight's important for, sunlight's not, and vitamin D production is

2:30:37not the only thing that sunlight is doing, obviously.

2:30:39You've talked in great, you know, depth about that.

2:30:43I'm going to go into the grave.

2:30:44I actually want a little window over my grave.

2:30:46It'll be a little morbid, so I can get morning sunlight.

2:30:48I'm just kidding, folks. When I'm in the ground, I'm in the ground.

2:30:51No, I think the omega -3 literature has been greatly assisted by your messaging around

2:30:57it, because it got pretty confusing out there for a while.

2:31:00There was the usual pushback that comes after supplement of the year is released.

2:31:04It's a joke, folks. Is the, oh, no, it's actually bad for us.

2:31:08You know, there's always a few of those.

2:31:09And then we eventually arrive at sanity again, and you go, no, the bulk of

2:31:13studies point in the direction of this being healthy.

2:31:15Randomized control trial showing it improves cardiovascular health, lowers the incidence of, you know, cardiovascular

2:31:20events, including heart attacks and strokes, right?

2:31:22These are the gold standard.

2:31:24We've got the observational data.

2:31:25We have now looking at the molecular events, you know, epigenetic aging.

2:31:30We know that it's really good at resolving inflammation because you want your immune system

2:31:34to be active, but you don't want it to be overactive.

2:31:36You want it to be active and then turn off, right?

2:31:39And so the omega -3 fatty acids like DHA and EPA, which are in LaVaza

2:31:43or LaVaza, are what the, when they're metabolized, they're forming these molecules, resolvents, protectants.

2:31:50These things are resolving inflammation.

2:31:51And so I think that it's just, it's one of the easiest ways that you

2:31:56can, you can increase your anti -inflammatory response and exercise obviously being another very powerful

2:32:02one, but the omega -3s, it's always easier to take a supplement.

2:32:05And so like I have my parents taking it, you know, anyone that I care

2:32:08about, it's like, you know, easy, easy, done, you know, take your two grams a

2:32:12day. I say two grams a day because, you know, LaVaza is prescribed at four

2:32:16grams a day. You know, so two grams is pretty on the conservative side of,

2:32:19and that's really what's been shown by Dr.

2:32:21Bill Harris and some of his colleagues that can basically, you can take someone from

2:32:25a low omega -3 index of 4 % up to a high omega -3 index

2:32:28of 8 % by supplementing with about two grams a day.

2:32:33So, and by the way, there's all sorts of data on that front with the

2:32:38omega -3 index. And I think we talked about this last time, but, you know,

2:32:41five -year increased life expectancy if you're on the high end.

2:32:44You're talking about 90 % reduction in sudden cardiac death.

2:32:47Brain weight in children if pregnant women are taken.

2:32:50Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's important throughout the lifespan.

2:32:53It's, you know, from in utero development, throughout childhood, all the way through adult life

2:32:57and into old age. You know, these omega -3 fatty acids are, I'm talking about

2:33:02the resolving inflammation, but they're also very important for, they are incorporated into our cell

2:33:08membranes, DHA and to some degree EPA.

2:33:11And that has a very important role in the fluidity of our cell membranes.

2:33:14And this is important for, if you think about our endothelial cells lining our vascular

2:33:18system, our arteries, you want them to be fluid and more flexible, right?

2:33:23That's very important for being able to respond to a stressful situation.

2:33:27In fact, the stiffening of our heart with age, you know, the collagen that surrounds

2:33:32our pericardium or that's surrounding our heart, our pericardium and our myocardium, like that increases

2:33:38the risk of a heart attack, you know, a cardiovascular event.

2:33:41You want your cells to be more flexible.

2:33:43So that's what, you know, these omega -3s are also doing.

2:33:46And that's why they're also really important for cardiovascular health in addition.

2:33:50And in the brain as well.

2:33:51I mean, these, all of our transporters, all of our receptors, right, they're embedded in

2:33:55the cell membrane. And the fluidity of that membrane is important for the structure and

2:33:59function of these things. And that's why omega -3 affects dopamine, serotonin, right?

2:34:03It's why it's affecting, you know, it's not the only reason, inflammation is also, but

2:34:07part of the reason is because it's changing the way our cell is like, you

2:34:12know, structurally composed. And if you think about trans fats, like that's, they do the

2:34:19opposite, right? They stiffen the cell membranes.

2:34:21And that's why it's like the worst thing you could do for your cardio, one

2:34:23of the worst things that you could do for your cardiovascular health is eat a

2:34:26bunch of trans fats. Smoking is another one.

2:34:28Smoking is terrible for your cardiovascular health.

2:34:30Do people still eat trans fats?

2:34:32No. I feel like trans fats got executed in 20, when was it that trans

2:34:37fats got executed? It all became, I think it was 2018, when they're all like

2:34:41- Yeah, they were sentenced to death.

2:34:43Yeah. No, it's, the point is that we all know trans fats are bad for

2:34:47our heart, but we don't think about why.

2:34:51And they stiff, I mean, the researchers doing it know, I mean, it's stiffening your

2:34:55cell, your endothelial cells. Well, donuts, right?

2:34:58As in like, if you go get a donut, as in a donut, have a

2:35:00bunch of - I don't know how much - Fried foods.

2:35:02There's probably some amount of trans fat that's like below the threshold of being -

2:35:08It's the only bad food I miss.

2:35:09Yeah. The late night donut.

2:35:11I had so much margarine as a kid.

2:35:14My mom used to buy it by the tub.

2:35:15I remember it. It's like this, she used to go to Costco and get like

2:35:18this big yellow tub of margarine.

2:35:20I remember those tubs. And everything was cooked in it.

2:35:22And I mean, it was like on our toast and - This was a battle

2:35:25in my home. Actually, I'm going to resurrect some family battles of the butter -margarine

2:35:32battle was a battle. Yeah.

2:35:35Butter won. Yeah. It doesn't taste the same.

2:35:38But, you know, that was the craze.

2:35:40It was the loaf, like the fat was bad and butter was bad and margin

2:35:43was good. And it turns out, nope, trans fats are really bad.

2:35:47But the point I was trying to make was to help contrast for people to

2:35:50understand. Sometimes when I talk self -fluidity, people are like, what?

2:35:53No, it's good that people - I mean, I think it's very important that people

2:35:56understand some of the cellular and molecular underpinnings of protocols, because I strongly believe that

2:36:04understanding mechanism, even just a little bit, or striving to understand it, embeds the information

2:36:09for people, makes it more likely that they'll do the behaviors, and gives them a

2:36:15logic to work from when they have to make choices, because life isn't perfect.

2:36:20Right. That's, I know that to be certain.

2:36:23I completely agree with you.

2:36:24It's certainly for me, but that is also my hope.

2:36:27I think that if people kind of understand somewhat of the why, it's motivating to

2:36:32try to adopt the healthy habit.

2:36:34But also, I think it helps them remember, like, why it's important, right?

2:36:38It's how the brain learns.

2:36:40It's the secret is context.

2:36:43The way to remember something is context.

2:36:45People always say it's story.

2:36:47No, it's context. And anyway, you and I know that to be true from our

2:36:50background. If I may, I'd like to ask about magnesium.

2:36:53I'm very bullish on magnesium, in particular, magnesium threonate before sleep.

2:36:58For sleep, I take AGZ because I help them build it.

2:37:01It just has a bunch of things like magnesium threonate and saffron and tart cherry,

2:37:05the things that have either been shown or are, you know, gradually, they're amassing research

2:37:12data to other people, studies out there to support that it can facilitate either transition

2:37:18to sleep or sleep. But magnesium threonate and magnesium bisglycinate, to me, are interchangeable with

2:37:25respect to sleep. But magnesium threonate, I'm aware there are some studies that there may

2:37:30be some cognitive benefits. So magnesium, obviously, could be split into a number of things.

2:37:34But maybe we just start there with threonate bisglycinate.

2:37:36I have a feeling that you're aware of some additional differences between them, and I'd

2:37:40like to know what you prefer for sleep or for cognitive benefits, and then maybe

2:37:44we get into the other magnesiums.

2:37:46Yeah. I think so. If we're comparing magnesium bisglycinate or magnesium glycinate, depending on how

2:37:53many molecules of glycine are attached to the magnesium, compared to magnesium L -threonate, the

2:38:00main difference here, and this is based on very limited amount of data, a lot

2:38:05of it animal data, with respect to the magnesium threonate, is that that form of

2:38:10magnesium is supposed to get into and cross the blood -brain barrier more readily and

2:38:15get into the brain better.

2:38:16And in the brain, it's, you know, helping facilitate.

2:38:19state, neurotransmission, et cetera, right, helping improve cognitive function.

2:38:22And so whereas magnesium glycinate or bisglycinate, you're having the magnesium attached to the glycine.

2:38:31Glycine also is great to take for sleep.

2:38:34So I like to take magnesium bisglycinate or glycinate for sleep.

2:38:38And so that I would say if you're interested in more the cognition aspect.

2:38:44Well, the studies, I think you're referring to the Gursong Liu's data, you know, show

2:38:50some in mice, some cognitive enhancement, or at least some offsetting of cognitive decline.

2:38:55Those are different, but related, obviously.

2:38:57In anticipation of today's discussion, I was able to find one study, seems okay.

2:39:02It's not a huge sample size, showing a positive reports on sleep quality after magnesium

2:39:08L3 and 8. So the studies are starting to show up.

2:39:12Right, starting to show up.

2:39:12But there aren't a lot of studies on magnesium for specific outcomes in humans.

2:39:18And I think it's because it hits like what, 3 ,000 plus pathways.

2:39:23There's a lot of pathways.

2:39:24Yeah. It's a co -factor for many enzymes.

2:39:26So if you're taking bisglycinate before sleep, are you taking a half hour or 60

2:39:31minutes before sleep? I'm usually taking it, I would say like a couple hours before

2:39:35bed. You know, sometimes I add a little bit more magnesium in the mix depends

2:39:41on the day. And if I exercise more, because you do sweat out magnesium.

2:39:45And so if you're pretty athletic, your requirements can go up by even as much

2:39:49as 20%. But yeah, the magnesium L3, it's interesting.

2:39:53I very recently got interested in experimenting with it.

2:39:56You know, there's a little bit of human evidence as well that it improves cognition.

2:40:00Not strong, but again, it's that, you know, we just don't have a lot of

2:40:03people researching it. And we have the animal data.

2:40:05The animal data is a little stronger.

2:40:07Don't have a lot of human data, but it seems to signal it might be

2:40:11important. It might help with cognition, right?

2:40:13And so I kind of got interested in experimenting with the magnesium L3 in it,

2:40:17which I haven't usually, it's a new thing for me.

2:40:20I've been doing magnesium glycinate for a while.

2:40:22I think the study actually looked at the Magteen.

2:40:25Yes. I have no financial relationship to Magteen.

2:40:27I want to be very clear.

2:40:29I just mentioned that because that's a common one out there.

2:40:31And as far as I know, I'll double check, but they weren't paid by Magteen.

2:40:34I think the Magteen did fund the study.

2:40:36Oh, they did? Okay. All right.

2:40:38We'll put a link to it.

2:40:39Doesn't discredit it unless there's some, you know, bad things going on, which I like

2:40:44to think not. I mean, you know.

2:40:46It's supposed to be done independently.

2:40:47I mean, when they pay for a group to do, I mean, by law, they're

2:40:51supposed to blind the data and not bias the outcomes.

2:40:54One hopes that's what they do.

2:40:56Yeah. And I think for the most part, you're probably okay, but it is something

2:41:01to consider if there's a potential COI, right?

2:41:05But yeah, so I don't know.

2:41:06So that was the first part of your question was the difference between the glycinate

2:41:10and that three. And then the concern that I might have, which might be something

2:41:14you're not thinking about is, okay, well, I need to fulfill my magnesium requirements, right?

2:41:19And so our daily magnesium requirements, again, based on our gender and our physical activity,

2:41:23it's a range. It's a sliding scale.

2:41:26So, you know, women, 300, 350 milligrams a day, men, 350, 400 milligrams a day,

2:41:31really depending on how physically active you are.

2:41:33And this is just, you know, your daily requirements to have enough magnesium to run,

2:41:38you know, repairing DNA damage to run.

2:41:42You need magnesium to make energy, to utilize energy.

2:41:44You need it for neurotransmission.

2:41:46Like there's so many different, you know, important functions in our body that require magnesium

2:41:51torque to make vitamin, to convert vitamin D3 into the active steroid hormone.

2:41:56And this, this to me is like to some degree vindicating, but also I'm super

2:42:02annoyed by it because, you know, we have all these different studies out there on

2:42:08vitamin D supplementation and does it, is it important?

2:42:11And I mean, there's so many negative data out there.

2:42:13Well, it doesn't do what we thought.

2:42:14It's not doing anything. But half, half the U .S.

2:42:17population doesn't get enough magnesium.

2:42:19And so those enzymes that are important for converting the D3 that you're taking into

2:42:24the active steroid hormone are not working properly.

2:42:26So anyways, I'm not going to go on that tangent, but I'm just saying magnesium

2:42:30is doing a lot of things.

2:42:31So if you are taking the magnesium threonate and let's say it is getting, it's

2:42:38going into the blood, you know, more, sorry, the brain more readily, then the concern

2:42:43would be, well, not enough of it is around for, you know, a repair and

2:42:47other organs and stuff. And so you might want to get another source of magnesium.

2:42:51It's all theoretical, right? And like, that's not, I would, there's no data on that.

2:42:55So just mostly because no one's looking at it.

2:42:57No one's investigating it. There's not a lot of incentive.

2:43:00It's funny when people will always say, well, there's no incentive because the drug companies

2:43:04can't make a lot of money on it.

2:43:05And I, sometimes that's true, but I have to chuckle because as scientists, I will

2:43:09tell you folks, and like, I wish I could just like paint this across the

2:43:14sky, but then I get accused of being like a chemtrail person or something.

2:43:18The reason there's no studies on BPC -157, the reason there's no like RCTs on

2:43:24a randomized control on different forms of magnesium and large sample sizes, because we barely

2:43:29have enough money to fund the current research.

2:43:33Like I, I, I'm not trying to get, make this political.

2:43:35Like we just had a 1 % increase in the NIH budget, but like there

2:43:39isn't an infinite amount of money to run studies.

2:43:41And so scientists are, if they already work on magnesium or, or it becomes Interesting

2:43:47to them, because it came up in a screen of pathways, people aren't, there are

2:43:51not a lot of scientists sitting around going, oh, like, maybe I should study, compare

2:43:54magnesium, malate, bisglycinate, threonate in sleep, in 2 ,000 subjects, male, female, like, pregnant and

2:44:01perimenopausal, like, no, no, there's no money to do it.

2:44:04So that's where I get back to, is it safe?

2:44:08Do you want to be in the experimental or the control group?

2:44:11Can you afford to be in the experimental or the control group?

2:44:14Yeah. I feel like that's, that's like all we've got.

2:44:16And I'm only, I'm chuckling out of, it's sort of like a laughter of pain,

2:44:21because I get where people are coming from, but the drug companies are not, like,

2:44:25avoiding studying magnesium because there's no money to make.

2:44:28It's because, I don't know, what would that even look like?

2:44:30What end point? What disease?

2:44:32What, like, yeah, anyway. Forgive me for editorializing.

2:44:36Yeah. You're not going to cure, you know, cardiovascular disease or cancer by taking a

2:44:40magnesium supplement. I mean, these, these nutraceuticals, these vitamins and minerals, they're, they're about prevention,

2:44:47really. And, and, and giving your body the right nutrients that it needs to do

2:44:51and function properly, you know, whether that is, you know, getting enough sleep, you know,

2:44:56when you're, when you're stressed, when your cortisol goes up, you know, chronically, you're depleting

2:45:00magnesium. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's very, like, magnesium is being used to deal

2:45:04with that stress, right? So there's a reason that we need things like magnesium and,

2:45:10you know, vitamin D, it's just, it gets converted into steroid hormone, changing 5 %

2:45:15of our, you know, our, our genome.

2:45:19So, yeah, it's different. It's not like a pharmaceutical where you're, you don't need this,

2:45:23you know, to function optimally, but it might, it's, it's the whole, like, okay, I'm

2:45:27sick and now I need this, you know, or I, or I'm overweight, right?

2:45:32We got the GLP ones, right?

2:45:33I'm, I'm fat, I'm obese.

2:45:34Um, and I need to, you know, help fix that.

2:45:37And so that's kind of a different paradigm.

2:45:40Specific endpoint type stuff. Yeah, exactly.

2:45:42Yeah. I think that's super important for people to hear that.

2:45:45Oh, by the way, I, I should just say, um, for your, for your sake,

2:45:48um, and for the listeners, I divide supplements into basically four categories, like, um, food

2:45:55replacement, like whey protein or a protein bar, or, you know, obvious sort of general

2:45:59support, specific effects, and then experimental maybe.

2:46:03Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so I think what we're talking about here with magnesium is

2:46:06kind of combination of maybe helps with sleep, um, some specific effects that you're aware

2:46:12of, like required and you're trying to top off.

2:46:14You're trying to make sure that you're covering a deficiency.

2:46:16Yes. Okay. Yes. Got it.

2:46:18Trying to make sure you're getting enough of the magnesium.

2:46:20Exactly. Are there any other things that you take that are just trying to make

2:46:23sure that you're not deficient anywhere, um, or for specific reasons?

2:46:28We've talked about a few along the way here, glutamine, vitamin D, uh, omega threes,

2:46:32creatine. I take a multivitamin and that is to cover my bases because, you know,

2:46:37there's, there's a lot of things in a multivitamin.

2:46:40You have to find it obviously a good quality one, but, um, and anyone that

2:46:46tells you that multivitamins are useless, they're wrong.

2:46:49I'm going to tell you that they're wrong because I think now we have pretty

2:46:54strong data, three very large randomized controlled trials, part of the Cosmos trials.

2:46:59Have you heard of these studies?

2:47:00And it's really, I think pretty clear that in these studies, older adults, we're talking

2:47:0665 years and older that are taking a multivitamin supplement for, you know, was it

2:47:12a year? I think it was, um, it could be two, but I think it

2:47:15was a year. And it was, by the way, Centrum Silver, it was like your

2:47:18standard, you know, anyone could afford to get it, get it at Walmart type of

2:47:22vitamin. Um, and after a year of taking this multivitamin, it globally reduced brain aging

2:47:29by about 2 .1 years.

2:47:31Three trials globally reduced, reduced brain aging by 2 .1 years, battery of tests that

2:47:36are done, right? I mean, it's, you know, I'm just talking about general here.

2:47:40And it also reduced episodic brain aging by 4 .9 years.

2:47:45So that would be, you know, as people probably are already familiar with that listen

2:47:48to this podcast, you know, episodic memory, that's the part of memory that's involved in

2:47:52like remembering events and people and like experiences.

2:47:56Am I right? I mean, it's part of like, not as much.

2:47:58A sequence of things. Sequence of things.

2:48:00Yeah. And so, you know, that's a big effect for just a daily multivitamin, you

2:48:06know? And so for that reason, you know, I mean, I've been taking it before

2:48:11this, these studies came out, but my parents, you know, anyone that's older adult should

2:48:16be taking a multivitamin. So that's another one that I take.

2:48:20And I take it to cover my bases as well.

2:48:22I'm obviously not an older adult and who knows, it might not have the same

2:48:25effect on me, but you know, it's one of those that it's, it's not harmful.

2:48:30If I'm, you know, it's a little bit of an expensive urine, fine, but I

2:48:32know there are, it is covering some of my bases in terms of some of

2:48:35the micronutrients in it. The other ones that I take in besides the one that

2:48:40you mentioned, which is vitamin D, omega -3, I do creatine, magnesium.

2:48:44I do, I do magnesium glycinate.

2:48:47I should look into the bisglycinate because I definitely would like another molecule of glycine

2:48:51I like for my sleep.

2:48:52But I also sometimes take another form of magnesium, which is, it's like a mixture

2:48:57of magnesium malate and tarate, I think, and glycinate is also in that.

2:49:03But sometimes I take that for sleep.

2:49:05And then I take ubiquinol for mitochondrial health.

2:49:10You like the data on that, obviously, if you're taking it.

2:49:13There's stronger data, I think, on ubiquinol.

2:49:14known, which is the oxidized form.

2:49:17It's more stable. There's just, when I say stronger, I mean more data.

2:49:20Do you take Coenzyme Q10?

2:49:22So CoQ10 is, yeah, CoQ10 is ubiquinol.

2:49:26Okay. Yeah. And so, and so I'm taking the reduced form of it, which is

2:49:29ubiquinol. The more stable form would be ubiquinone.

2:49:32Are those trademark names? Because I take Coenzyme Q10.

2:49:37I'm guessing if I took a closer look at the bottle, I'd say the ubiquinone.

2:49:40It's ubiquinone. Okay. Ubiquinone. The ubiquinol is a little bit more bioavailable, but yeah.

2:49:44So I'm pretty convinced that that helps with mitochondrial function.

2:49:50You know, it's not like, you could always have more data, right?

2:49:52So we'll just leave it at that.

2:49:54The other one I take is, now I'm taking urolithin A in the form of,

2:50:00I'm taking mitopure, by the way, I have nothing to do with these companies, but

2:50:03there's now, I've just been over the years increasingly interested.

2:50:07So urolithin A is something that is formed from a type of polyphenol that's found

2:50:12in some fruits, like pomegranate being the main one.

2:50:16I think raspberries may also have some, I think walnuts also, but it's elagitannin is

2:50:22the polyphenol. And these elagitannins get metabolized by the gut microbiome and the metabolites that

2:50:29are formed. One of them is called urolithin A.

2:50:32And so urolithin A is a compound that seems to stimulate the process of mitophagy,

2:50:40which is a very specific form of autophagy that's only for mitochondria.

2:50:45And, you know, that's been shown in, there have been randomized control trials showing this

2:50:51in humans. It does stimulate mitophagy, blood cells as well as muscle biopsy, but that's

2:50:58an important cleanup process for how our mitochondria repair themselves.

2:51:02There's no repair enzymes, right?

2:51:04Like they're, you know, part of that repair process is mitophagy where they're getting rid

2:51:08of selectively can get rid of parts of mitochondria that are damaged.

2:51:11So it's really a rejuvenation.

2:51:13And some of this, the clinical data I would say is emerging, more needs to

2:51:17be done, but it seems to, in some cases, improve endurance performance, which makes sense

2:51:21because they rely heavily on mitochondria, but even also help with the immune system and

2:51:26this whole inflammation. So it helps keep immune cells.

2:51:29It seems like it's helping keeping immune cells, quote unquote, younger.

2:51:34So again, emerging data, but it's, I'm in that, I'm like, I'm the experiment group.

2:51:39It seems to be safe and I'm not taking too high of a dose.

2:51:42So that's another one that I'm supplementing with.

2:51:45The other one that I'm taking also is a very, a form of, I would

2:51:51say, I'm going to call it sulforaphane, but it's not sulforaphane.

2:51:54It's the precursor to sulforaphane, glucoraphanin, because that's more stable.

2:51:58And so I take something called Avmacol, which the reason I take that one is

2:52:03because there's, oh, it's 13 now, a new state just came out, 13 studies using

2:52:07that, that form. And sulforaphane is also one of those plant phytochemicals.

2:52:12It's formed, it's found in crucifix vegetables.

2:52:15As you know, we've talked about this before, so I'll, I'll try to leave, make

2:52:18it brief. But so glucoraphanin is in, in these crucifix vegetables, like broccoli, broccoli sprouts

2:52:23are really, really great source of it.

2:52:25And when the plant is crushed, you know, like when you eat it, eat broccoli

2:52:30or chew it, whatever, an enzyme is activated that converts glucoraphanin into sulforaphane.

2:52:35The reason I take it is because I've been now convinced by, I would say,

2:52:38the limited number of human studies, clinical studies, but also the totality of evidence looking

2:52:43at crucifix vegetables in general, and then also animal data, that it's really important.

2:52:49It's probably the best naturally occurring dietary activator of a stress response pathway that is

2:52:56important for detoxification. And that pathway is the NRF2 pathway.

2:52:59I'm sure you've heard of that pathway.

2:53:01Sulforaphane is a very, very powerful activator of that pathway.

2:53:04And what I mean by pathway is that gene is turning on and turning off

2:53:08many, many other genes. What we know about it is that it's very important for

2:53:12activating the detoxification genes that are involved in detoxifying things that are harmful to us.

2:53:19And so the classic studies that have been done, some of them, most of them

2:53:22in China, where air pollution is very high, is that if you take, you know,

2:53:26this broccoli sprout sulforaphane extract, you can start to excrete compounds that are found in

2:53:32air pollution, like benzene, that are carcinogenic, right?

2:53:35And you can start to excrete it after 24 hours by like 60%.

2:53:39Great. What about plastics? So that's my thing.

2:53:42That's why I'm taking it in my whole family.

2:53:44Because the same enzymes that are activated by the sulforaphane that detoxify benzene.

2:53:54So basically you're detoxifying it.

2:53:56What I mean is you're basically making it water soluble so you can excrete it

2:53:59through urine. Okay. The same ones, that's exactly what those enzymes do to BPA.

2:54:04They make it water soluble and help you excrete it through urine.

2:54:09There's no human data showing this yet.

2:54:12I want someone to do the study, but we do have animal evidence where, you

2:54:16know, animals are given a high dose of BPA and sulforaphane and it protects against

2:54:20the toxicity. I basically think that someone's going to show it and it's going to

2:54:25be clear because the enzymes that are, you know, involved are activated by this, you

2:54:29know, by sulforaphane and that's been shown with benzene and acrylene excretion, right?

2:54:32So why wouldn't it be BPA?

2:54:33Yeah, the mechanistic logic is there.

2:54:35Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that's another reason why also it increases.

2:54:39It's been shown in human studies to very powerfully increase gluten.

2:54:42The thione in both the plasma and the brain, and that's also through the NRF2

2:54:46pathway. It activates the powerful antioxidant pathway.

2:54:49It also deactivates phase one biotransformation enzymes.

2:54:52Those are involved in turning a pro carcinogen into a carcinogen.

2:54:56So those are things like you're eating, you know, you're grilling your meat at a

2:55:00high temperature and you're getting heterocyclic amines, right?

2:55:02I mean, these things can be harmful, but our body can deal with it.

2:55:09Yeah, we had a cancer doc on here recently, and I was scared to ask

2:55:12him the question because I didn't want the answer.

2:55:13But I did want the answer of, you know, the char on meat.

2:55:16Yeah. And he's like, it's a pretty serious carcinogen.

2:55:19That's real. I mean, the occasional thing isn't going to be a problem.

2:55:23You'll be relieved to know, and this is not a promotional, that the can that

2:55:26you're drinking out of, these are intentionally BPA, BPS, and PFAS free.

2:55:30We attest them I'd be happy to send you the results.

2:55:31Yeah, I already know. I already knew about that.

2:55:33Because I know that you and I are both – I am wary of the

2:55:36BPAs and the rest. I think it's wild that 10 years ago, people like Charles

2:55:42Poliquin were saying, don't handle receipts.

2:55:44And, you know, and everyone was like, this is really kooky.

2:55:47Actually, back then, no one even heard what he was saying.

2:55:49It was such a niche thing.

2:55:50Then people were very, I think, disparaging of people saying, be wary of receipts.

2:55:54Now, I think the microplastics and the BPA, BPS, PFAS concern is really taking hold

2:56:04more broadly. And I think that, you know, the tables have turned.

2:56:10Yeah. And really, obviously, you can't eliminate them completely.

2:56:14It's impossible. They're everywhere. Yeah.

2:56:16They're everywhere. I mean, we're – Clothing, I heard, is the main – It's the

2:56:20main source of microplastics in the ocean, right, because we're washing our clothes and there's

2:56:25– this cute shirt that I'm wearing.

2:56:28I mean, it's got microplastics in it for sure.

2:56:30And so every time you're washing your clothes, your – all the microplastics are coming

2:56:35out and getting into the ocean.

2:56:38And also then when you put your clothes in the dryer and if your dryer

2:56:40is ventilating anywhere in your house, the microplastics, you're breathing those in, the microplastics.

2:56:46They sell these traps. When I did the episode of microplastics, I found out that

2:56:49online you can – I think it costs – it's not cheap, cheap.

2:56:52But it's like – considering they last a while, I think they're somewhere with refill

2:56:56somewhere in the neighborhood of – I want to say something like $70.

2:56:59But it traps – supposedly it traps the microplastics.

2:57:01In the washing machine. In the washing machine.

2:57:03And in Europe, I think this is actually built in or is required in a

2:57:07number of countries. Like, they're way ahead of us.

2:57:10They're always – yeah. They're way ahead of us on a number of things.

2:57:12I mean, on a few things, they're really – they're far behind, I must say,

2:57:15with respect to health. But on many things, they are way ahead of us.

2:57:19Yeah. Well, clearly with the Switzerland – people in Switzerland being – like, 88 %

2:57:23of them being physically active, they're way ahead of us on that.

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2:58:27What is your threshold for you?

2:58:31And what do you think is kind of reasonable levels of what's actionable for you?

2:58:36Like, how do you set that?

2:58:37I think it will help people kind of understand how you're approaching stuff.

2:58:41What's actionable in terms of improving what I'm interested in improving my health?

2:58:44Yeah, like, I mean, without picking any specific example, like, when you look at the

2:58:48literature and you see, let's say, let's take BPC -157.

2:58:52It's kind of a fun one because everyone's excited about this now except the physicians

2:58:55who don't like working with peptides besides GLPs or other FDA -approved peptides.

2:59:01They're, like, freaking out online from them all the time.

2:59:04Compounding Pharmacy has just got the green light that they're going to be able to

2:59:07do basically whatever except cell retitrutide, which is under patent.

2:59:12And so there are many, many animal studies on BPC -157 showing accelerated cartilage growth,

2:59:20nerve growth after injury, and on and on and on and on, and angiogenesis.

2:59:24So there's some potential cancer risks there, right?

2:59:27But basically zero human data.

2:59:29There's one study, weak study, self -report.

2:59:32There's actually a clinical trial where they, I'm not making this up, folks, is BPC

2:59:36enemas, very high doses for some sort of bowel disease or bowel inflammation.

2:59:42And the study was, like, I don't think the study was completed or something like

2:59:46that. Don't ask me why.

2:59:48No, I'm not making this up.

2:59:50But that's pretty much the only human data that I'm aware of.

2:59:55But tons of people injecting and swallowing BPC and saying, yeah, it helped me recover,

3:00:02you know, heal more quickly.

3:00:04How do you think about something like that, like that current condition?

3:00:08First of all, if you're not doing it, you're not going to be doing this.

3:00:10every day forever, right? Like this is a short defined period of time where you're

3:00:14going to do your injections.

3:00:15Oh, really? Okay. I know.

3:00:16I know. I mean, I don't know what people do.

3:00:18Unfortunately, I think some people like to take it every day, but let's assume for,

3:00:22let's assume two months maximum to work around an injury or through an injury.

3:00:26Yeah. I like for the people that I know that have experimented with it, it's

3:00:29been like three months and a period of time and they did have improvements and

3:00:34they could have been through placebo, which I will, you know, say is possible.

3:00:37But for me, it really comes down to like, is it safe?

3:00:40Is it safe? Okay. If it's safe, you obviously have to get the good source

3:00:45because if it's all these pharmacies now, I mean, that's a problem because we do

3:00:48know that that's a big area of, I would say concern with any sort of

3:00:53nutraceutical, you know, sort of thing.

3:00:56And I would put this into that category is that, you know, people are putting

3:01:00things in the products that are not necessarily what's supposed to be in there.

3:01:04And they're not really paying attention to quality because it's not regulated.

3:01:08Right. So, so if you can get a good source of it and you're trust

3:01:12the source of it and you have maybe someone who is qualified to prescribe it

3:01:17to you, because there are, you know, naturopaths and stuff like that, functional medicine practitioners,

3:01:22there are people that are prescribing them.

3:01:24And some MDs, some board certified, did their residency, did all the thing I know

3:01:29because I'm friends with some of them.

3:01:31And a lot of doctors are happy to prescribe peptides off, sort of off label,

3:01:36like surmerelin for purposes other than what it was FDA approved for.

3:01:40I mean, I'm not taking it, you know, as I mentioned earlier, but.

3:01:43But you've tried it. It very quickly spiked my PSA and nuked my REM sleep

3:01:48and increased my deep sleep.

3:01:50So I was like, I don't want to, I don't, I'm not interested in those

3:01:52effects. And, and I do worry about tickling the growth hormone pathway too much or

3:01:58too long because of, you know, I don't, you know, hopefully I don't have any

3:02:02tumors sitting around, but if I do, I don't want to vascularize them or grow

3:02:06them. Right. Yeah. So for me, I mean, I'm always more on the cautious side,

3:02:10to be honest. And so for me, the safety thing has to be checked first.

3:02:14And then at that point, if I can check the safety thing, then it's like

3:02:19you said, I mean, I can't, I'll, I'll try it.

3:02:21Like, I mean, I'm doing like some of these supplements that like might appear for

3:02:24one, like the urolithin A.

3:02:25I mean, it's not like tons and tons of data on it, but it seems

3:02:28to be safe. And, you know, I'm experimenting with it.

3:02:32I'm also experimenting, experimenting with a lot of other things.

3:02:34So it's hard to know what's working.

3:02:36Sure. Nicotinamide riboside is another one I take back onto the, what I, what I

3:02:40take. Is that for a longevity effect?

3:02:42I mean, I take a sublingual NMN, no, no relationship to any company that sells

3:02:46NMN. At least the one I take is from, they hate it when I do

3:02:49this, but from Renew by Science, it's the cheapest version.

3:02:51That's not why I take it.

3:02:52I just like the powder put under my tongue.

3:02:54I like the energy effect.

3:02:55I will say this, and I've done the control experiment on myself and my family

3:02:59members have done it too.

3:02:59It makes my hair grow crazy fast and my nails grow crazy fast.

3:03:04I know it's because if I stop that, that halts, those aren't really effects I'm

3:03:09looking for. And it worries me a little bit because what else is it making

3:03:13grow crazy fast? Again, I don't think I have a tumor, but what else is

3:03:17it, you know, if I have like a polyp or something, is it making that

3:03:20grow crazy fast? I don't know.

3:03:21I asked that question to Dr.

3:03:24Charles Brenner when I had him on the podcast because there was a study on

3:03:27NMN in mice that the mice had tumors and then they, you know, gave them,

3:03:32I think they injected them with NMN or maybe it was orgovage.

3:03:35I don't remember which way it was, but it accelerated the growth of those rare

3:03:39types of pancreatic cancer cells.

3:03:41And so I was, you know, obviously energy, yes, cancer cells love energy too, right?

3:03:46Brenner doesn't like NMN. And I will take NR sometimes.

3:03:49I do take true nitrogen.

3:03:50Well, it doesn't, I mean, either way.

3:03:51So the same end point here, we're increasing NAD, right?

3:03:54So the question is then, okay, well, should I be worried about cancer?

3:03:58And he pointed me to some study out of Australia where I think it was,

3:04:03maybe it might've been nicotinamide that basically prevented some kind of, it wasn't melanoma, but

3:04:10it was another type of skin cancer.

3:04:12And so I was like, okay, well, that seems sort of the point here.

3:04:16I am experimenting with it.

3:04:17Why? First of all, I became interested in it because the effects on mitochondrial health,

3:04:21there is effects on fertility, you know, energy recovery.

3:04:26When I started, it just, you know, and then again, you can find a couple

3:04:29of studies where like, maybe, you know, you're not as insulin sensitive and who knows?

3:04:34Like it's not, there's not enough data there.

3:04:36So I would say I'm cautiously experimenting with it, but so far I love it.

3:04:40And I don't, again, you never know what's placebo here.

3:04:43So I do take, they don't pay me.

3:04:47I buy it. I do take TruNiagen, NR.

3:04:50That's what I take, yeah.

3:04:51NR. And on the data sheet, they include some human studies.

3:04:55I have a family member, I'll just say, my sister takes it.

3:04:57She like loves it. Yeah.

3:04:59She's convinced. Now that could be placebo, but she is so convinced.

3:05:03She texts me about it.

3:05:03I feel so much better.

3:05:04I have so much better.

3:05:05I have no idea. She has no idea if it's placebo, but Brenner's a very

3:05:09good scientist. I will say he's, he's a, he's what, you know, what we call

3:05:12in our business, you and me, a serious scientist.

3:05:15I just don't think any of that's going to make me have a direct effect

3:05:18on living longer. I don't know that it is.

3:05:21I don't know that it's the, it's not one of my, like, if I had

3:05:24to like, you know, shrink down to my core supplements, like it wouldn't be in

3:05:28there. And you know, there's many other things that are important, I think before.

3:05:32So if you were budget limited, it wouldn't get above the, above threshold.

3:05:35Like if someone out there had no, like just a, like $100 or $200 to

3:05:40spend on supplements, which is a lot for a lot of people.

3:05:43I don't know that it's going to help you live longer either.

3:05:45Now, it might help with your exercise recovery a bit, right?

3:05:49It might help improve mitochondrial function.

3:05:51I mean, maybe it's going to help with repleting some of the NAD stores.

3:05:55I mean, if you can improve mitochondrial health and, you know, you're improving things, like,

3:05:59on a small scale, right?

3:06:01So mitochondrial health is at the core of everything.

3:06:04So that's something to consider.

3:06:06But, yeah, I'm not convinced it's the end of either, but I do take it.

3:06:10And it is something I'm experimenting with.

3:06:12I think it seems to be safe.

3:06:13And there's a lot of emerging data that caught my interest.

3:06:17But omega -3 is the top, right?

3:06:18Like, there's nothing NAD, the nicotinamide riboside, or NMN, if you can find a good

3:06:23source of it, that's not comparable in my books.

3:06:27Have you experimented with L -carnitine because of the mitochondrial effects?

3:06:32Because I was able to find some good studies on sperm and egg quality, which

3:06:37are thought to be downstream of mitochondrial health.

3:06:40Right. That's the idea. If you can improve mitochondrial health, fertility, which is why NR

3:06:44is now involved with fertility, seems to be improving fertility.

3:06:47It's right. If you can improve mitochondrial health, then you're going to improve fertility, sperm

3:06:52health, right, egg health, right?

3:06:54Yeah. L -carnitine, a lot of those studies came out of my mentor's lab for

3:06:57the same. So he looked at the combination of L -carnitine and alpha -lipoic acid

3:07:01improving mitochondrial health and came up with a supplement that – it's called Juvenon now,

3:07:06but it's L -carnitine with alpha -lipoic acid.

3:07:09It's a pill. It's a supplement, yeah.

3:07:11Okay, yeah. And so, yes, I have experimented with that.

3:07:14And, in fact, my husband takes it.

3:07:16But, I mean, I just can't take so many supplements.

3:07:21Right, yeah. I was just curious.

3:07:23We have our – yeah, but it is – you know, you can find evidence

3:07:26that it improves mitochondrial health.

3:07:29So, you know, it's just a matter of, again, like what are you looking for?

3:07:35I feel like I'm doing a lot of high -intensity interval training, too, and I'm

3:07:38taking the urolithin A. That's a lot – you know, I'm doing a lot of

3:07:42stuff to optimize mitochondrial health.

3:07:43I mean, at some point you have to, like, not – you can't do everything

3:07:46there is. Sure. No, of course not.

3:07:48But, yeah, L -carnitine. And then it's budget -limited, too.

3:07:49But maybe, you know, maybe I should add the L -carnitine in.

3:07:51I mean, it's possible, right?

3:07:53I started – I've started experimenting with it, but I take it in injectable form.

3:07:57Really? It's going to shock some people.

3:07:58You can get away with taking much lower milligram count.

3:08:01Otherwise, you have to take a lot of it because a lot of it just

3:08:04isn't absorbed if you take it orally.

3:08:05And then I was told that if you take it orally, you also have to

3:08:08do something to offset the increase in TMAO.

3:08:11And that worried me. So, I figured needles don't scare me.

3:08:14I'll just inject it. Interesting.

3:08:16Yeah. Yeah, the TMAO thing.

3:08:18I mean, so not – it depends on your gut bacteria, whether or not you're

3:08:21metabolizing L -carnitine into TMAO.

3:08:23There's actually a lot of complexity involved in that whole thing.

3:08:26But you can get your TMAO measured.

3:08:28So, if you're supplementing with it – I mean, the same goes for choline.

3:08:31Yeah. You know, like if you're worried, like, choline can be converted into TMAO.

3:08:34Yeah. I'll take alpha -GPC before a workout sometimes or if I need to –

3:08:37if I ever need to focus late in the day, I don't want caffeine because

3:08:42it impedes my sleep. But I'll take alpha -GPC because this is kind of a

3:08:44cool effect. Alpha -GPC actually will improve your REM sleep.

3:08:48It's not a huge effect, but you'll notice you'll get more REM sleep.

3:08:51So, it's one of the few things I've found that can increase energy late in

3:08:54the day. Do a workout or work if I have to work later into the

3:08:58day. Still sleep just fine and actually sleep better.

3:09:00What does work later into the day mean for you, like, working until, like, 8,

3:09:039 o 'clock or later?

3:09:04Yeah. Well, I do that often.

3:09:06But I don't like to work out after 2 p .m.

3:09:10because I like caffeine before I work out.

3:09:13Yeah. But I'll do some cardio in the afternoon or something.

3:09:15But if I really have to push, push, push or if I've traveled and I

3:09:18really need exercise and I want to get a 6 p .m.

3:09:20workout but I also want to fall asleep at 10 .30, I'll take some alpha

3:09:24-GPC. I used to take that, like, I don't know, it's been maybe, like, 10

3:09:29years, but it's interesting. I might try experimenting with that again.

3:09:33I'm always looking for things that I find a little bit safer, like I don't

3:09:36do the nicotine, as you know.

3:09:38It is shocking how many young people are taking nicotine now.

3:09:41Oh, I know. Yeah. I've never tried it.

3:09:43First of all, it's highly addictive.

3:09:44Forget the blood pressure and the vasoconcer.

3:09:45That's all bad. Right. You know, I think the big issue is that if I

3:09:49take it, I start getting the spasming in my throat when I don't take it.

3:09:53And that's because I have a friend who works on these pathways and it's because

3:09:56of the activation of the muscarinic receptors.

3:09:58Oh, yeah. So on smooth muscle, you start getting a tick and kind of a

3:10:01clearing of your throat and then you take more nicotine and you feel fine.

3:10:05So I didn't want to become dependent on it.

3:10:07Yeah. And I don't like it.

3:10:09I think it's a bad habit that a lot of people are going to be

3:10:13seeking to quit later. A lot of young people.

3:10:15Older people might benefit from it because of the cognitive enhancement, but that's a whole

3:10:19other story. Well, maybe the alpha -GPC and the creatine and magnesium L3.

3:10:24Yeah. Alpha -GPC is very helpful for if you need to really lock in for

3:10:28a few hours and do something physically.

3:10:29What does? I take 600 milligrams.

3:10:31You can take up to 900, but I do just fine on 600.

3:10:35So I think I just take it in pure form and, you know, capsule.

3:10:38Yeah. Any of them out there that come from a reputable brand is like going

3:10:41to work. What about like before a podcast or something like that?

3:10:43Does that, does it have any effect or why?

3:10:45Oh yeah. It does. Yeah.

3:10:46It'll put you into, you know, I mean, if you feel like you want to

3:10:49be heightened focus, but I rely on water, caffeine, electrolytes, and good sleep.

3:10:54There's this wild study. We don't want to go, I don't want to take us

3:10:56too far off track here, but there's a study out of WashU recently, really, really

3:11:02talented researcher. I want to bring him on this.

3:11:05podcast, does brain imaging, and he compared essentially the effects of drugs for ADHD versus

3:11:13a good night's sleep, and basically found that there's no focus enhancement of Adderall, Vyvanse,

3:11:19Ritalin -type drugs. They mainly looked at Ritalin.

3:11:21All it's doing is increasing alertness to the level that you would get after a

3:11:24good night's sleep. It may be that these drugs just increase alertness, which allows you

3:11:28to dial in focus, but if you're sleeping well and enough, you make up the

3:11:33gap, and people with ADHD might just be having some serious sleep defects.

3:11:37Right, right. So, you know, it speaks to this thing, like, I don't know that

3:11:41there's a single drug that can actually increase cognition and focus.

3:11:45Most of them probably just get you in the plane of alertness that allows you

3:11:49to dial in your focus.

3:11:50Some people will be like, that's BS, they take Modafinil, but this is just another

3:11:53form of increasing alertness. Well, reducing anxiety, I think, things that are anxiolytic help with

3:12:00that as well, and I think I was talking about, I don't know if I

3:12:02was telling you or someone else before the podcast, one of the reasons why I

3:12:05also like that metabolic switch with the ketosis and the beta -hydroxybutyrate, and sometimes I'll

3:12:09take exogenous ketones too, although if you take them in a fasted state, it kind

3:12:13of shuts down the lipolysis.

3:12:15But anyways, it's because it increases GABA.

3:12:18The beta -hydroxybutyrate increases GABA, and for me, it's beneficial because I am the phenotype

3:12:24where I, like, you know, I can have other things going on in my mind

3:12:27that it's, I don't want to, it's not anxiety, but it's more of that anxious

3:12:31phenotype, if that makes sense.

3:12:32And so the increase in GABA really does help me with focus because it's quieting

3:12:39down, I think. I actually think that a lot of people who are very intellectually

3:12:43engaged, which clearly you are over many, many years, and very physically active and healthy,

3:12:48there's a lot of capacity there.

3:12:50And unless there's something to really absorb all that capacity, you can get multiple tracks

3:12:54going. And we sometimes think of that as anxiety or even some people will say

3:12:59it's ADHD. I don't necessarily think it's that, but it's an uncomfortable state to be

3:13:03in. And it's so pleasureful to be, like, where all one's resources, physical or cognitive

3:13:08or both, are harnessed. It's a very pleasant state.

3:13:11Earlier, you were saying the GABA increase from the ketosis.

3:13:14I think more and more, we're just realizing that people have differing levels of excitatory

3:13:19to inhibitory balance in the brain.

3:13:20And so some people like things that bring GABA up.

3:13:23Some people like things that bring glutamate up, broadly speaking.

3:13:26And finding that sweet spot is where you go, oh, like I'm alert, but calm.

3:13:31Right. And that's what we want.

3:13:32That's what it does for me.

3:13:33Alert, but calm. Great. And for me, I'm like, and I noticed that there was

3:13:38a few years ago, I really experimented with a ketogenic diet.

3:13:41I just can't do that type of diet, but I did experiment with it.

3:13:43And that was the, one of the main things that I noticed is like, I'm

3:13:46alert, but calm. And it's like, I liked it.

3:13:49Well, then don't take nicotine because the reason people like nicotine is it's a stimulant

3:13:54that calms you down. So I do think that one of the reasons it's so

3:13:57habit forming is because I know of nothing else that puts you in that plane

3:14:02of focus of alert, but calm, that is reasonably low cost, that is legal.

3:14:08I've never, I'll, I'm completely, I've never done amphetamine or cocaine, so I'm not, I

3:14:12wouldn't want to. And clearly that's a path to destruction.

3:14:14So the reason so many young people are taking it is because it gets them

3:14:19right in that plane of alert, but calm, but it has all these negative effects

3:14:23that go with it. Yeah.

3:14:24And that's why I have stayed away from it.

3:14:26Cause I know I probably love it.

3:14:28I've asked some young folks who ask me about nicotine.

3:14:30How many milligrams are you taking?

3:14:32They'll say nine milligrams. I'll say how many times per day?

3:14:35And they'll say eight times per day.

3:14:37I'm like, Oh my God, like, that's crazy.

3:14:40But they didn't start there.

3:14:41No, you just quickly get there.

3:14:43Yeah. So I, I, you know, I, I don't want to sound like that curmudgeon

3:14:47that's like, don't drink and don't take nicotine and this kind of thing, but it's

3:14:51a, it's a slippery slope.

3:14:52Right. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's other things that you can do that maybe it's

3:14:56not going to be as potent, but like, alpha GPC, alpha GPC.

3:14:59And for me, I like doing, I like my, my metabolic switch and my ketones.

3:15:03Nice. Well, I'd be curious to, to hear how you feel in the alpha GPC.

3:15:07I remember liking it. I don't know why, I think I stopped taking it because

3:15:11I got pregnant. It's probably what it was.

3:15:13And then I just, it's one of those things where you just forget.

3:15:16Like you go back to the basics and then like the, yeah.

3:15:18Different experiment. Yeah. Before I came on here, I did put out a call for

3:15:22some questions to the world.

3:15:25Okay. Rapid fire Q and a from the land of X and Instagram.

3:15:31Oh, this is, this, these are the students of the class of your class and

3:15:36this way I think about it.

3:15:37Actually, I wanted to ask about this.

3:15:38So I'm so grateful that this person asked about natto kinase for improving blood lipid

3:15:44profiles. Is, is it something you're interested in or have experimented with?

3:15:48It's not something that I've experimented with and I've been more interested in natto, the

3:15:54natto kinase. I know some, I really would have to say, I don't have enough

3:15:58data to really have an opinion on it.

3:16:01Okay. Well, I don't have enough data to have an opinion on it, but I

3:16:04take it anyway. A lot of questions about things we already talked about.

3:16:08So cold plunge, et cetera, but an exceptional number of questions about microplastics.

3:16:13And I know we touched into it, but on a scale of one to 10,

3:16:1710 being like, you're really concerned.

3:16:19How concerned are you about microplastics for mental and physical health longevity, just broadly speaking?

3:16:25I would say I am less concerned about microplastics than I am about not getting

3:16:31the right nutrition. and micronutrients from our foods because our body can detoxify at least

3:16:38some of the chemicals associated with them, the microplastics themselves.

3:16:41I mean, I guess it's not, we don't really know what they're going to do

3:16:45long -term, but I'm concerned enough to try to avoid, to, sorry, limit my exposure

3:16:51to them as much as possible.

3:16:52So you don't drink out of plastic water bottles?

3:16:54I mean, I try not to as much as possible.

3:16:57I mean, you know, I definitely have to at some points, but I try not

3:17:01to, yes. And when I do, I just realize it's the habit and you kind

3:17:05of have to let go.

3:17:06I mean, I know some people that like don't drink and like they're like, they're

3:17:10going to get their water from their food, their fruits while they're traveling.

3:17:12Pretty extreme. Yeah. But I think mental health is important.

3:17:16So I mean, it's like, is the stress of avoiding the microplastics worse than the

3:17:22actual little bit of microplastics you're being exposed to might be?

3:17:25TSA is going to hate me, but I lost a bet two days ago to

3:17:29a member of our podcast team.

3:17:31He bet me, we bet that I said one couldn't bring a Mountain Valley spring

3:17:38water bottle through security at the airport.

3:17:41And he said that you absolutely can.

3:17:43And I said, there's no way.

3:17:45So I made him a bet and I lost.

3:17:46He brought it through. Full of water?

3:17:48Full of water. You tell them it's for medical reasons.

3:17:51You don't have to state what they are.

3:17:53They open the cap. They take a sample out.

3:17:56They test it. So there's a time constraint and it's going to create more jobs

3:18:00for TSA. Sorry. That was sort of a joke, sort of not a joke.

3:18:05TSA has been in tricky circumstances lately.

3:18:08And he showed up at the gate with it and was like, here's your water.

3:18:11You absolutely can bring water through in glass vessels or whatever vessel, but they're going

3:18:17to test it and it helps if it's a commercial vessel.

3:18:19It's not like your own glass water bottle.

3:18:21Can I pause for a minute?

3:18:22Because you mentioned a specific brand, which I also, when I travel.

3:18:25Oh yeah. No, I don't make money from them.

3:18:27Same. When I'm traveling, that's the brand that I go to.

3:18:31And there was a study that came out showing that there's actually a larger volume

3:18:37of microplastics within this study from glass bottles versus plastic bottles, which was a very

3:18:43shocking finding. So there's more microplastic number coming from the glass bottles.

3:18:50It turns out this was a study out of France.

3:18:52There was a study out of France and also in the US.

3:18:55It's the paint on the lids.

3:18:56You mentioned the lid. And so it's the paint on the lid that's contaminating, getting

3:19:00contaminated in the bottling of the whole bottling of this water that is getting into

3:19:05the water. But I do want to mention that the size was shown to be

3:19:10larger from the glass bottles versus the plastic.

3:19:13So the microplastic size was larger.

3:19:14And as you probably know, larger microplastics are not well absorbed through the gut epithelial

3:19:20cells. So when you're taking them in, in the gut, they're coming out, they're being

3:19:25excreted through your feces and less likely to be taken up into your gut and

3:19:30then get into your body.

3:19:31And that's actually well known.

3:19:32And so I'm actually more concerned about the size of microplastics.

3:19:35And it wasn't like the huge orders of magnitude difference between the water from glass

3:19:40versus the plastic. It's so counterintuitive.

3:19:42You think, wait, what? Why is it?

3:19:44So it's the paint that's on the lids.

3:19:47But anyways, I just want to mention that I still drink when I'm traveling.

3:19:50I still go for the glass, not the plastic because of the size of the

3:19:53microplastics and knowing because the size was much bigger that it's very, I would say

3:19:59more data is going to come out on this, but I would be surprised if

3:20:02you're absorbing more of the larger particles because it's known that you absorb the smaller

3:20:05ones. Thank you for that.

3:20:07And if you want, you can now take your glass bottle through security.

3:20:11Full seed oils, the dreaded seed oil debate.

3:20:15Where do you land on this?

3:20:17I try to avoid them mostly because one, if you're avoiding seed oils, you're going

3:20:23to avoid a lot of the processed packaged foods that they come in, which I

3:20:26know are terrible for you.

3:20:28Two, because I think that cooking them or heating them, I mean, is more of

3:20:35my concern because they are, you know, polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are very prone to

3:20:40oxidation. And when you're heating something that's prone to oxidation, you're accelerating that whole process.

3:20:44I don't want to consume oxidized lipids.

3:20:47I've seen, I've looked into that literature and the last time I looked into it

3:20:50was I think 2024. At that time, I was pretty convinced that if you are

3:20:57heating and reheating, you know, oils like they do in fast food, for sure, you're

3:21:01increasing inflammatory markers that's been shown.

3:21:03And I think also when you're really having a higher level of, you know, omega

3:21:09-6s and stuff around, I'm not as concerned because I'm getting a lot of omega

3:21:11-3, but it does also increase your vitamin E requirements as well because of the

3:21:16oxidation of these polyunsaturated fatty acids.

3:21:19So do I think it's like the worst ever?

3:21:22I mean, you can find all this data out there showing that, you know, if

3:21:25you replace, you know, saturated fat with some of these seed oils, there's improvements in

3:21:31lipid profiles. But at the end of the day, the question is really what if

3:21:37like you had olive oil instead or avocado oil instead, would it be even better?

3:21:41I think possibly. So if you're really trying to go for the optimum, I avoid

3:21:45them as much as I can for that reason.

3:21:47But I think there's a little bit more hype when it comes to the seed

3:21:50oil. But if that makes sense, you know, I'm kind of, that's my, that's my

3:21:55take. Makes sense to me for what it's worth.

3:21:58I stick to olive oil and small amounts of butter.

3:22:01And that's because I also think seed oils taste terrible.

3:22:05How come no one talks about that?

3:22:06But anyway, and olive oil and butter are delicious.

3:22:09It's been so long since I've actually like, I mean, had the seed oil, but

3:22:13yeah. Well, you know, and no one can convince me that they don't taste bad

3:22:17to me. So then the debate just kind of falls away.

3:22:20How often are you doing the sauna nowadays?

3:22:24And what is the top contour of that protocol look like?

3:22:27So I've taken a little pause on the sauna right now, but typically I'm doing,

3:22:32I was doing it like I would say five nights a week.

3:22:36And I say nights cause I was usually doing them in the night and it

3:22:40was mixed, a mixture between either getting in the sauna or hot tub.

3:22:45So I like, I like getting in the hot tub, head out under the stars

3:22:48there with my husband. It's like our time.

3:22:51So yeah, usually it's like 20 minutes and temperature wise, you know, I don't go

3:22:55that hot. I honestly, I'm like 180.

3:22:57Five nights a week is great.

3:22:58Gosh, I need to get back on a five night a week sauna or hot

3:23:02tub protocol. I do like the hot tub, especially, I don't know, there's something about

3:23:05being outside. And I think now there's just, there's evidence that the benefits are really

3:23:10like the same. It's the deliberate heat exposure, right?

3:23:12You're getting that, you're getting that through the hot tub or through the sauna.

3:23:15Creatine for kids, like young kids, like younger than 16.

3:23:19Any data and or ideas about this, good or bad?

3:23:23Yeah. So there is data in the literature showing that if you give younger, younger

3:23:26children that are doing like, for example, sports like soccer, it does seem to improve

3:23:32their agility and it seems to be safe.

3:23:34I do give my son two and a half grams of creatine.

3:23:38So a day. Cool. So that's how I feel.

3:23:43There's no better indication of how, of how one feels and what they're willing to

3:23:47deliberately give their kids. I don't know where this stems from and we can cut

3:23:52it if you want. Someone asked, why did you single -handedly ruin bananas for this

3:23:57person? Did you ruin bananas?

3:24:00So I used to put bananas in my smoothies and there's an enzyme that is

3:24:05produced in bananas that break down polyphenols, particularly ones that are found in blueberries.

3:24:09And the reason I was getting my smoothies was one for the greens, but two

3:24:12for the blueberries because the polyphenols have been shown to improve cognition.

3:24:15Love blueberries. So sorry, sorry, don't mix the blueberry with the banana smoothie because it

3:24:21has been shown to decrease the polyphenols, which are important.

3:24:24Yeah. Yeah. Well, the alcohol industry will come for me someday and the banana industry

3:24:29will come for you. And I think we're safe for a while.

3:24:35Should we ignore studies that have less than X number of subjects?

3:24:40I think that's a really good question.

3:24:42Like, obviously it depends, but when we're talking about human studies, where's the line for

3:24:47small study versus large, meaningful study for you?

3:24:50Obviously how strongly it's powered, but how do you think about that?

3:24:53Well, I'll tell you when I was first looking at the sauna literature, all the

3:24:58studies that I was looking at were like N of 10 or smaller.

3:25:02And it's really the aggregate of those studies.

3:25:05And then looking at like animal data, and then you start to, you know, you

3:25:10start to look at observational data and the totality of evidence and you put together

3:25:14this picture. I don't think you should ignore studies that are small.

3:25:17I think that it's part of the story.

3:25:19I think we're getting a little too caught up and it's got to be the

3:25:22randomized placebo controlled trial. It's got to have lots of participants.

3:25:26And I mean, that's great if we have that data, but we don't always have

3:25:29that data. And I don't know that we will always have that data with everything

3:25:32that we're interested in understanding.

3:25:34Right. So the way I look at it is if it's like just one study

3:25:38with an N of 10.

3:25:39Okay. Interesting. Like with the creatine, right?

3:25:42Like, I mean, these studies have been small sample sizes.

3:25:45Now there's more than one, but, you know, at the end of the day, it's

3:25:48still very, I would say in this, you know, pilot study phase, right?

3:25:54We have just small studies.

3:25:55So I do not ignore them, but I also don't hedge all my bets on

3:25:59them either. I do know that there were a lot of people that were criticizing

3:26:02me on my sauna. I mean, back in, you know, 2014 published an article on

3:26:07Tim Ferriss's blog, went on Joe Rogan's podcast and talked about, you know, the benefits

3:26:12of sauna. And I had people that were going, your studies, your sample sizes are

3:26:16too small. And now we have so much data that has come out since then

3:26:19really kind of validating everything and showing even more benefits.

3:26:23You kind of have to look at the totality of evidence and what endpoints are

3:26:27you looking at and how can you gather, you know, data from different sources, whether

3:26:31it's clinical studies or observational studies or animal studies and try to come up with

3:26:36the bigger picture, right? But then also don't be too confident in your statements.

3:26:40I'm very gratified to know that pretty much every other question you addressed the answer

3:26:47to en route to where we are now in the podcast, truly.

3:26:50And I'll leave them up so you can see them later if you choose.

3:26:53Cold plunges, notwithstanding, vitamin D, exercise and all its contours, specificity, fasting, magnesium, lots of

3:27:05questions about supplements, which we covered, creatine, lots of questions about inflammation, longevity.

3:27:10And so I just have to say, first of all, on behalf of everybody, thank

3:27:14you so much. This was really an incredible tutorial and so much of it is

3:27:18actionable. And as you are known for, it was incredibly thorough in terms of setting

3:27:24the context within mechanisms of what we know, what we still don't know.

3:27:28And I also personally want to thank you because when you speak, I learn.

3:27:33And when you speak, I also learn things that change my behavior.

3:27:36And that's a whole other level.

3:27:38Since our last conversation, I can think of at least four and probably as many

3:27:43as a dozen things that I do on a daily basis as a consequence of

3:27:45that conversation. And just the gut, inflammation, health, brain, body axis conversation that we had

3:27:55earlier. I'm going to listen to this again and take notes because there's just so

3:27:58much there. And the metabolic flexibility thing has an input that can come from multiple

3:28:04sources and just on and on.

3:28:06So thank you for doing what you do.

3:28:08Thank you for being you, for being first in and still going and doing things

3:28:11with such rigor. And really so much grace.

3:28:14It's just awesome. People love you.

3:28:17I certainly do and appreciate you.

3:28:19And it's just a wonderful thing for me to have a colleague like you.

3:28:23And you really set the standard.

3:28:25So thank you so much for coming here and doing this marathon.

3:28:29And can't wait to do it again.

3:28:31Thank you so much, Andrew.

3:28:32It's really been great. I learned so much from you as well and appreciate everything.

3:28:36Thank you. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Dr.

3:28:39Rhonda Patrick. To learn more about her work, please see the links in the show

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3:29:16the comments section on YouTube.

3:29:17I do read all the comments.

3:29:19For those of you that haven't heard, I have a new book coming out.

3:29:21It's my very first book.

3:29:23It's entitled Protocols, an Operating Manual for the Human Body.

3:29:26This is a book that I've been working on for more than five years, and

3:29:29that's based on more than 30 years of research and experience.

3:29:32And it covers protocols for everything from sleep to exercise to stress control, protocols related

3:29:39to focus and motivation. And of course, I provide the scientific substantiation for the protocols

3:29:45that are included. The book is now available by presale at protocolsbook .com.

The Best Vitality & Health Protocols | Dr. Rhonda Patrick