The Best Vitality & Health Protocols | Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Full Transcript

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There's lots of data now showing that people that are doing these like short bursts at at least a minute long, but [clears throat] up to 3 minutes. They're moving faster with intent and it's having outsize effects on on health outcomes. So, for example, individuals that do on the high end, so they're doing, you know, 3 minutes of this short burst of an unstructured type of exercise snack, and they do it three times a day. So, it's a total of 9 minutes a day. Okay? That's associated with a 40% reduction in all-cause mortality, 40% reduction in cancer-related mortality, a 50% reduction in cardiovascular-related mortality. Wow. 9 minutes a day. Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools [music] for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Rhonda Patrick, a biomedical scientist and leading public health educator. For over a decade, Rhonda has been one of the most trusted voices in building science-based health protocols. Today, we discuss what the latest and best research says we should all be doing to improve our health and vitality and avoid disease. Rhonda shares with us her exact exercise, nutrition, supplementation, and sauna protocols, and we get really detailed about the mechanisms and logic behind each one. We also discuss the things that science say you can do to significantly reduce your cancer and cardiovascular risk, including how to reduce visceral fat and arterial plaque. Today's discussion truly leaves no stone unturned. We discuss how eating can increase inflammation, believe it or not, ways to support your gut health, creatine, vitamin D, why broad vitamin and mineral and fiber support is crucial, as well as the different forms of magnesium and each of their unique effects. We also discuss omega-3s and why prescription sources of omega-3s may be the cleanest and most cost-efficient way to obtain sufficient omega-3 intake. We also discuss the importance of prioritizing regular resistance training and hit workouts over protein. You still

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and hit workouts over protein. You still need protein, but emphasizing the exercise component is crucial. And we discuss fiber, micronutrients, and why short-term fasting can be beneficial. Dr. Rhonda Patrick is a true wealth of knowledge, and today she generously provides us a masterclass on how you can design and adjust the exact health protocols to meet your specific needs. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Welcome back, Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Excited to be here. It's been a while. I'm so excited. There's so much to go into. And I'll start off the same way I started last time because it's even more true. Thank you for being first person into this public science health education business. I don't know if everyone's aware of it, but you were the first person in, which is why I didn't say first man in, because the first person in was and is a woman, and you've done a marvelous job of educating people on science, how to parse papers and data, health practices, and um you know, the rest of us are just trying to follow in your wake. So, thank you very much. I just want to thank you for being first. Oh man, thank you so much for that. And also thank you for doing what you do. I mean, you really do a great service for science communication, um you know, education, helping people love science and get healthier. Thank you. Well, uh you're the pioneer. It's not always easy being a pioneer, but we all benefit, so let's jump in at exercise because um lately you've actually been posting your workouts, which is awesome. And uh you're clearly very fit. I learned before talking to you today that uh you were a competitive athlete. You were a long jumper or a triple jumper. I was a long jumper, but I would say my real competitive athleteness comes from my jump roping.

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my jump roping. Okay. [laughter] All right. I'm on a professional jump roping team. Professional? Yes. Yeah. It was we would compete. So, I my friend and I started the team when we were in second grade. And it was called the San Diego Sand Skippers. It was part of the International Rope Skipping Organization, which was actually started by her uncle, but there's jump rope teams all around the world and you know, now I think there's a new name, but like it got taken over by the Universal Jump Rope Team or something like that. I don't know exactly what it is, but um so, I was on a team and every year we would compete in in Boulder, Colorado. There was competitions for all kinds of you know, jumping rope and um I would perform and start jump rope teams around the school around different schools in San Diego. So, I I used to get out of school um you know, get out of school free card and uh my partner and I would go and and start um do workshops at other schools and help them start jump rope teams. And the idea was cardiovascular health, healthy heart, and uh yeah. So that's really I would say my roots with uh being a competitive athlete. Awesome. I love skipping rope. Is it okay to say skipping rope or is it jumping rope? Okay. rope, jumping rope. And actually, it's a great opportunity for me to ask you what your thoughts are about um exercise that isn't just linear, right? I know like real jump ropers can do crossovers and um and these days I'm seeing a lot more about rope flow. I think it's David Weck and others online or you know, stuff that's getting people out of the standard, you know, curls, bench presses, lunges, you know, and getting movements that are more just for lack of a better term, across the body. Do you think there's something to that in terms of real physical benefits? I mean, I imagine there is. Sure. I mean, I wouldn't be the expert to be able to give you a good answer on that, but I do think that jumping rope in general has unique benefits in addition to obviously it's a great cardiovascular exercise. You're getting the weight-bearing aspects as well for building bone density and I think that earlier for me, you know, I was doing it as a young girl. So important, right?

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as a young girl. So important, right? Cuz you're kind of banking that that bone density early on, which is important cuz at some point, you know, menopause will hit and and estrogen goes down and and so you start to lose more bone. But yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of benefits to jumping rope beyond what I'm describing as cardiovascular someone else could answer. [laughter] I'm certainly going to get back to jumping rope now that we you know, resurrected it in this conversation. And I have to say uh bone density measurements aside, you have awesome posture. I notice people's posture. Yeah, I didn't didn't mean to put you on the spot here, but yeah, when I walked in I was like, if you've ever interacted with Ronda in person, which I I have, you have amazing posture. And these days good posture is rare, so you know, it's maybe the things are related. I imagine they probably are, bone health and and posture and so forth. In terms of the sorts of exercise that people are more familiar with, what's your routine look like? And what sorts of things in your routine are non-negotiables? And where's the place for experimentation and kind of what you're exploring now? So for me, exercise is part of my personal hygiene as you and I were discussing. It it really is a non-negotiable. I absolutely have to do exercise just like I have to brush my teeth. And you know, I kind of got that from Dr. Ben Levine, who is a probably one of the world leading cardiovascular exercise physiologist. He's at UT Southwestern in Dallas. So I want to shout out his name because I really learned a lot from him, but the non-negotiables for me really are getting cardiovascular exercise and getting my my resistance training. So building muscle, maintaining muscle strength as well. So my routine for me, I work out probably about 5 to 6 hours a week and those workouts I largely am doing a combination of high-intensity interval training that's not necessarily like the Norwegian 4 by 4 where I'm going as hard as I can for 1 minute or 4 minutes and then recovering for 3 minutes and doing that four times.

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for 3 minutes and doing that four times. It's really, you know, the Norwegian 4 by 4 is a hard workout. Um it's really good for improving your cardiorespiratory fitness, which I think is one of the best markers for longevity. We can talk about that. Um I do a lot of, you know, it's a mixture of doing, you know, rowing machine, getting on the assault bike, and then doing mix it in mixing it in with lifting weights, doing some deadlifts, you know, doing squats. Um so, it's really for me a non-negotiable to to do my my vigorous-intensity exercise is what I would call it. So, you're really kind of getting your heart rate up to, you know, 80% max heart rate at at points, not always, but especially during the intervals. I would say that's a non-negotiable for me. How many days a week are you doing that? I do my my longer hit workouts. So, I have four days a week where I'm doing at least an hour. So, two of those sessions are more of a CrossFit type of training where I'll do the first 30 minutes will be strength training. So, I'll just be lifting heavier with like, you know, fewer reps. What's the rest between sets? Sorry to get granular, but people will wonder. what's funny is I typically rest about 2 minutes between my sets. I I recover pretty quick um and my I do it with a coach and my coach usually tells me that I'm spot-on. I'm like ready to go and it's been about 2 minutes. So, I I usually that's my recovery time. And so, the first 30 minutes of strength training and that'll be like deadlifts, it'll be, you know, squats, I'll be cleaning, I'll be doing front squats. Sometimes I do the barbell or back squats, right? Like it's a mixture of different types of strength training. And then the last 30 minutes is more of a high-intensity interval training session session. So, it'll be like you know, where I'm I'm getting my heart rate up. So, I'm mixing in the row machine and then I have like maybe I'm doing cleans, but they're lighter, right? So, it's like more reps, but lighter load, right? So, um that's I do that twice a week and that each is an hour session. And then I do also twice a week about an hour and 20 minutes of it's also more high intensity, but I

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it's also more high intensity, but I have more recovery time cuz I'm doing with my girlfriends and we kind of chit-chat a little bit and so, um but it's a very similar. We do, you know, rowing machine, assault bikes, we do the skier, you know, Rogue has that skier. And then we mix it in with, you know, chest presses and we do, you know, assisted pull-ups and we do, you know, lighter squats with like larger, you know, more reps. So, that's another, you know, 2 hours a week. So, I have 4 hours a week of just doing a lot of that sort of CrossFit HIIT type of training and then I mix that in with my more like runs that I do, which I would say are still they're still considered vigorous intensity. They're just not quite as high intensity. And I I do probably I run in like maybe 6 miles a week, so maybe maybe at a at my max, but these days I'm mostly running probably for like 4 miles a week. So, um those runs tend to be like sometimes they're 2 miles, sometimes they're 3 miles and, you know, enjoy running? I do. And I think it's important as well and sometimes I'll run with my husband and we just kind of like chill out and talk and, you know, it's it's a nice time for me as well just to kind of do that with him. Um and then on weekends I'll probably do like a hike with my family. And sometimes we'll do like a sprint up the hill and, you know, but it's more just enjoyable time in nature. Um still moving, but you know, it's it's kind of family time, too. Weight vests on the run or hike? No, I don't not I I I'm kind of wanting to experiment with that, but not really. I'm just kind of sometimes we bring our puppy and you know, so it's it's more about the experience, I think, than like I'm like I get a lot of work out throughout the week. Sure. But it's like you said, it's non-negotiable for me. And and times when I'm like like today, so I you know, I had a long drive and so I I got on my Peloton and I did a 10-minute you know, I did a 10-minute Tabata back-to - back. So it was like two back-to - back Tabatas. Right? So it was it ended up being 10 minutes. It was like 30-second recovery in between the two Tabata sessions.

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two Tabata sessions. Two to one ratio, 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. But like I have to do something every day. And if I'm traveling or I have like an early podcast or something, I'll I'll just jump on the bike and I have to get that blood flow. Sometimes I'm in my hotel room and I don't want to go to the gym, I don't have time, and I just in my room, you know, I do the air squats, I'll do high knees, jumping jacks, and I either repeat for 10 minutes. I'm getting my heart rate up and I'm you know, I've got sweat on my brow. Like I'm not it's not like the most intense workout, but it's so important for me. You know, it there's there's a variety of brain benefits that have been shown with even just 10 minutes of with this vigorous type of intensity of workout you do, you know, where you're I mean, you probably have seen this this data where it's like just 10 minutes of this vigorous type of exercise, you're immediately increasing neuronal connections. Um there's been studies showing that you have an improvement in executive function by like 14%, which is pretty big. I think it was like a 50-millisecond improvement processing speed or something which doesn't sound a lot, but actually translates to a big improvement in executive function. So my brain works better, I feel better, you know, better mood. Um there's even studies that have compared impulse control after various types of intensity of workout. So like there was one study that compared a more low intensity versus moderate intensity versus high intensity. So you're talking about like walking versus maybe, you know, jogging slowly where you can still have a conversation versus like you're doing a hit workout, right? You're on. When you're on, you're not really talking cuz you're going as hard as you can during that interval. And it was the high intensity, you know, vigorous intensity exercise that really increased plasma serotonin, which has been shown to associate with brain serotonin. The studies have been done. And serotonin is very important for, as you know, for impulse control. I mean, a lot of people think about serotonin with respect to mood because we have these selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SSRIs, that are used to treat, you know, depression, major depressive disorder. But serotonin, as you know, does so much

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But serotonin, as you know, does so much more more than that. And impulse control is one of the big things that serotonin plays a role in. And so the studies showed that plasma serotonin increased in the higher intensity group and that correlated with improved impulse control. So, of course, for us now in the modern-day society that we live in, we're constantly being bombarded with, you know, social media and all these things. And like, you have to be able to kind of like filter that out and not like just go with the impulse. Like, check my social media, check my, you know, and how many likes did I get or whatever. You need to just be able to focus. And so that, for me, you know, serotonin is important. And so I like to get that vigorous intensity exercise as well. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, Our Place. Surprisingly, toxic compounds such as PFASes, or forever chemicals, are still found in 80% of nonstick pans, as well as utensils, appliances, and countless other kitchen products. As I've discussed before on this podcast, these PFASes, or forever chemicals like Teflon, have been linked to major health issues such as hormone disruption, gut microbiome disruption, fertility issues, and many other health problems. So, it's very important to avoid them. This is why I'm a huge fan of Our Place. Our Place products are made with the highest quality materials and are all PFAS - and toxin-free. I particularly love their titanium Always Pan Pro. It's the first nonstick pan made with zero chemicals and zero coating. Instead, it uses pure titanium. That means it has no harmful forever chemicals and it does not degrade or lose its nonstick effect over time. It's also beautiful to look at. I cook my eggs in my titanium always pan pro almost every morning. The design allows for the eggs to cook perfectly without sticking to the pan. Right now, Our Place is having their biggest sale of the season. You can save up to 40% sitewide now through April 12th. Just head to fromourplace. com / Huberman. Again, that's fromourplace. com / huberman to save up to 40%. Today's episode is also brought to us by Lingo. One of the most important factors in your short-and

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most important factors in your short-and long-term health is your body's ability to manage glucose over time. Glucose directly impacts our brain function, mood, and energy. You want your glucose relatively stable across the day without big peaks or valleys. This is why I use the continuous glucose monitor and app from Lingo by Abbott. Lingo provides minute-by - minute glucose data directly within the app, showing you how your glucose responds to food, exercise, and stress. This information can help you make smarter choices to support your health both now and in the long term. The CDC estimates that more than one in three American adults has prediabetes and that many of these people don't know they are living with prediabetes. Visibility about how your diet and activity affect your glucose can be the first step toward informed conversations with your doctor and making smarter daily choices. If you'd like to try Lingo, Lingo is offering Huberman lab listeners in the US and UK 10% off a four-week plan. Just visit hellolingo. com / huberman for more information. Terms and conditions apply. Again, that's hellolingo. com / huberman. I love that you mentioned other other functions of serotonin because as you point out, it is so heavily associated with this mood aspect and certainly has a role there, but um the impulse control piece is I think is a non-trivial aspect to uh the effects of exercise and just generally. I'm curious do you bring your phone or feel compelled to check your phone during workouts or are you able to just say, "I'm compartmentalizing now. This is the workout." You might put on music or maybe text here or there if you need to, but are you able to compartmentalize or do you struggle with the phone during workouts? Oh, I don't bring my phone to my workout at all. Like I don't Now, I do have a watch that I wear that you know, if there's like an emergency I'll get a text message. Often times I put it on silent like I on no notifications because I don't want to be bothered, but I don't really check my phone. Um I don't really like checking things like social media. For me it's just a distraction and

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distraction and frankly, I think it's pretty terrible for people's brains even though like you know, my business kind of depends on it somewhat. I think social media is not really good for people to be honest. So, I don't really check my phone or bring my phone to my workouts. My workouts are I like to chat with my friends when I'm working out with them and that's fun. That's in real life. Yes, that's in real life as the kids say. That's in real life and yeah, phones phones for me are not something that I bring to my workout. Great. Yeah, I've been experimenting with not allowing the phone in my gym and just the workouts go so much better and I find that the mental and physical resetting aspect of working out just seems to be enhanced, but sounds like you were already there and I'm just arriving. So, I have a couple other specific about your workouts because for my own interest and I know many people will wonder for the dedicated weight workouts, are these whole body workouts? And you said low reps. Maybe you could just tell us what low reps is for you and then the seems like the the ever present question is to failure close to failure. I mean, just to you know, round out that that portion of the workout picture. The workouts that I'm doing with my strength training workouts with my coach, you know, it it really depends. Most of those workouts are they're they're multi-joint workouts. So, I am most of the time doing, you know, some either front squat, back squat, or I'm cleaning it as well, right? Which obviously the the weight goes down if I'm doing if I'm cleaning it cuz it's hard to clean. It's also the hard like it's the thing that I hate doing the most. Cleans. Oh, yeah. Cleans with front squat because it's really hard. And for me. I mean, for others who've been doing it for years, I'm sure it's like, you know, they love it. But for me, it's very hard. I've only been doing clean since, you know, February 2024. So, I'm pretty new to it. And so, it's mentally like I have to overcome that challenge. Which by the way, once I started doing all this sort of weight

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started doing all this sort of weight training, I've always been an endurance junkie. Like I used to like go long runs and, you know, races and stuff like that. So, for me, that's like my safe spot, right? That's what comes easy to me. Weight training and resistance training, strength training, definitely not something that I've done my whole life. I'm so glad that I started doing it, but very very challenging for me. And so, I would say the biggest effect was on my brain and the ability to handle stress better. Where it was like unbelievable cuz it was so hard. And I I just didn't want to do these cleans, you know, and these front squats. Um and then the rest of my day was not as hard. And that to me was like the biggest surprise for this type of training. But anyway, so um I do a variety of um if I'm doing if I'm going heavier, then it, you know, depends. Sometimes I'll start off as like, "Okay, we start off. We do five reps." And then we go down to four. And then we go down to three. And then we go down to one, Are you doing singles? We do. Mhm. I know Yeah. And that's the hardest. It's the hardest. But then there's there's like my coach will be like, "It's just one." You know, sometimes we'll do like six, five, and then we do four twice, and then we do three twice, right? And so, it all depends, you know, also on the day. There's some days where I'm just like, you know, can we do lower reps and like lighter weight, right? Where I'm just like, it's this is the day for me. I I'm I'm stressed. I'm not here. Like So, you kind of have to modify your workout, right? According to how you feel that day. Um but I would say that those the majority of my strength training workouts are or deadlifting, you know, I love deadlift deadlifting. I think I'm pretty good at at pulling that weight up, lifting that weight up. straight bar, hex bar? I do straight bar. there's so many variables, but yeah. bar, and um it's the same deal with that. Like most of the time with strength training we'll do, you know, we start off at like five or six, and then work our way down. And then I I usually do a drop set after, you know, any of those sessions where

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you know, any of those sessions where I'll do 10, and then it's like a lot lighter, right? So, those those are typically my strength training sessions are multi-joint. Sometimes I'll do accessory sessions, you know, where I'm working I do, you know, the dips um or the Bulgarian, you know, the Bulgarian split squats. I mean, just the accessory stuff that you're working the like smaller stabilization muscles and stuff like that. I love that you call Bulgarian split squats accessory smaller muscles. For a lot of people, that's the compound work. Which is just I have to say I I am inside I'm just like so delighted because I mean obviously weight training is something that's caught on broadly for men and women now, but I don't know many women, and I know they're out there, but I don't know many women who are uh working down to singles on multi-joint, like real multi-joint, like, you know, deadlifts, cleans. I know they're out there, but it's not that common to see in gyms, and uh this is going to no doubt spark a debate because you know, some of the older, slightly ornery, but very credentialed strength training folks have been online recently saying that as people um pass 35, that they shouldn't do squats, that they shouldn't do deadlifts, and certainly shouldn't do them heavy because it it because of this whole thing of, you know, you can do higher reps and you can go to failure and still get hypertrophy. But what I love is that you're not necessarily talking about hypertrophy, maybe some hypertrophy, but this is about strength. This is about building more strength. And triples and doubles and singles, that's awesome. It's hard. It's so hard, and it's the part that I I'm like all about let's like the last 30 minutes when it's hit, and then that's hard it's a different kind of hard. But for me, the strength training is the hardest, and there's definitely a mental component, right? Where I do not want to do it. It's like you talk about with cold plunging, right? Like you you just it's so unpleasant, and you don't want to do it, and like you do it, and it's like that mental toughness that you're building, right? I that's what I

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you're building, right? I that's what I experience when I'm doing these, you know, strength training exercises that I'm doing. And and I don't know if it's going to get easier, maybe it will. It's hasn't yet. I still dread it, but I do it, and I'm proud of myself for doing it, but it is is definitely hard, and I am getting stronger, I think mentally and obviously physically as well. But um I have to add in the aerobic as well, though. I think that's really important. That's your base. Yeah, for sure. You love it. I love it, and I do think cardiorespiratory fitness is very important, you know, for for long-term health as well as, you know, obviously building muscle and strength. Well, on the one hand, I want for you as a friend to for you to hate the heavy work less. On the other hand, I don't because of this literature, I'm sure you're familiar with it, but uh the anterior midcingulate cortex is the brain area that is hyperplastic throughout the lifespan, which is rare for a brain area, and it enlarges um when we do things we don't want to do. I mean, it's so clear. It's not just about doing hard things. It's about doing the hard thing you hate. [laughter] And And for you, that sounds like the heavy compound movements. For me, yeah, I don't like the cold plunge, which is why I do it. I don't think it's magic. I just think it's a sure fire stimulus that I hate to make get mentally stronger. And I think having something that you really despise that you know is good for you seems to keep this anterior mid-cingulate cortex volume either increasing or the same. And that's actually the thing in these so-called super agers that is the strongest anatomical correlate that we have. So, on the one hand, I hope it gets easier. On the other hand, for your sake, I hope it doesn't get it easier well, cuz it's still It's going to be so much more beneficial. a coach who can tell when it's getting easier, and she will definitely up the weight. Mhm. I mean, it keeps going up. And so, it doesn't It It gets easier in a sense, but it doesn't, right? So, I mean, I think that's that's the whole point is you're building strength, and you keep

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strength, and you keep making it heavier, and it becomes harder again because now it's heavier. Awesome. But, um and I haven't gotten injured, so that's also, you know, knock on wood. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah, knock on wood. I Thank you for rounding out that picture. It's super inspiring for men and women, you know, so It's not easy to post on social media because obviously I'm a newbie. So, I have all sorts of, you know, things that I can ways I can improve. But, I'm posting it, you know. Well, and the fact that you're working down into triples, doubles, and singles, I think is something that I'm trying to do more of, and I think this notion that you can get hypertrophy with higher reps if you take it to failure. Sure, I I totally agree. Read the studies. Totally agree with the data. But, not everything is about hypertrophy. I think that's what people forget. It's not all about growing muscle. Um and VO2 max, which is great, but it's just It's not all about um the top contour. And I What I love about the way you approach everything is you're you go through multiple layers of of the the health stratus, as it were. This is probably a good opportunity to talk about protein, because I have a very specific question about protein. We all hear 1 g of quality protein per pound of body weight or lean body weight. That's sort of what we're kind of what's thrown at us. By doing the heavier weight training, do you notice that your protein appetite has increased? Like appetite specifically for protein foods. I don't know that I have. You know, I interestingly have been doing a little bit more intermittent fasting, in which, you know, people think about intermittent fasting, they think about it as just one thing, one intervention. I think it's two. There's a behavioral aspect to it, where it's a tool to sort of lower the amount of calories you're taking in. The other one would be this metabolic switch, but so I've actually since I don't know, September, maybe last September of 2025, been been doing more intermittent fasting, and what I mean by this is really just eating less. And the reason for that is because I noticed that everything that I was doing, which was,

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everything that I was doing, which was, you know, I mean, I eat healthy, I exercise a lot, and yet I was sort of gaining more fat in the the belly section, right? The visceral fat. And the only thing that really helped me stop that, put the brakes on, was getting more in a caloric deficit. Um, so maybe my drive to do that kind of is skewing whether or not my appetite for protein would go up. But I personally am on the scale of 1. 2 to 1. 6 g per kilogram body weight, which Per kilogram? which is probably a little bit less than the pound. You know, it's it's a kind of a throwaway statement, a gram of quality protein, um, as defined as something with, you know, lots of the essential amino acids and uh uh so forth uh per pound or per lean pound of body mass. Yeah, so Which is something I think I and many other people shoot for, but I'm curious how religious you are about the, you know, getting a certain protein amount or per meal. Basically, it wasn't working for me in terms of like I was really trying to get aim for like the higher end of the for me, you know, 1. 6 g per kilogram body weight or even a little bit above that. And what I found what was happening is that I was actually gaining gaining more weight because I think I was consuming more calories at the same time. If you're getting it from whole foods, right? Like that's just kind of naturally going to happen. Uh and so I had to slide down. Um, but I'm still like I said, I'm still getting within that range of like probably on average maybe 1. 3, 1. 4 g per kilogram body weight. And it's really worked well for me, but like people are different and you have different goals, right? You know, like I'm gaining muscle mass and I feel like all my training is like the most important thing and I think that we need generally speaking, I think people should become more obsessed with training and less obsessed with protein. Like the protein will complement the training and as you mentioned, if you're training, perhaps your appetite for

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training, perhaps your appetite for protein will increase and so you'll start to eat, you know, more protein and less refined carbohydrates. I already wasn't eating a lot of refined ultra-processed foods in the first place. Probably not the answer you were expecting, but it's it's really um for me like I I just focusing on getting more protein was was not working for my body um in terms of but then again, I'm 47 years old, you know, that perimenopause phase very different than someone who's 37, maybe. I don't know the answer to that. I I um I do know that I hear from more and more people these days that they are having a hard time getting that 1 g of protein per pound of body weight. It it like a lot to them is what they're saying. They feel like they're kind of forcing themselves to do it. feel that way. Exactly. So, I'm actually really pleased with your answer not because I have an agenda here, but because I and many other people seem to feel like unless there's a lot of resistance training or tremendous demands like hiking, you know, while backpacking where you burn tons of calories. You're carrying you're basically walking like 9 hours a day, right? That um they have a hard time getting that much protein down. Um and I think it that's also the case if people are eating starches. Like I eat rice and oatmeal and breads and things like that. Not a lot of bread, but you know, it sounds like you eat starches. I do eat oatmeal, too. It does satiate you. These days because I really kind of more focused a little bit on I did want to to calorically restrict somewhat without, you know, being unhealthy. Obviously, you can take every stressor to a bad unhealthy place, right? You don't want to starve yourself. You don't want to like not eat enough food. But um my my meals are mostly like healthy protein. So, I have homemade turkey burgers. I eat a lot of those. And then I eat chicken. You know, I pasture-raised chicken. I do still eat wild Alaskan salmon. And then I'll um also mix in some like filet mignon. Like I like grass-fed steak as well. Yum. Those are my protein sources. And always

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Those are my protein sources. And always I pair it with greens. So, or like some sort of vegetable. Most of the times it's it's greens cuz they're the most most micronutrient dense. And so, these days I'm eating a lot of sauteed collard greens that are like pre-prepared. It has garlic and onion. And I'll put that, you know, have that with my meal or I'll have some, you know, sauteed kale. Sometimes I'll have a salad with it. But the portions are smaller and like I said, I I also do a little bit of intermittent fasting. We can talk about that as well, but that's kind of these days what I'm doing for my meals. I haven't eaten as much. Sometimes I'll eat the high protein oats. They have this high protein oats that Have you seen those? They're pretty good. but I I like protein foods, I like vegetables, I like fruit. I feel very lucky to like those foods mainly. Yeah. And then the starch for me has to be very clean. I like oatmeal, rice, homemade pastas I'll eat. Like if I go out, I'll have Sometimes I'll have some homemade pasta or or a sourdough bread or something, but I find that most starches that are out there in the world have a bunch other junk in them. And I just feel lousy. Get kind of sleepy afterwards. I just So I Uh so it sounds like we eat pretty similarly, although I probably eat more starches than you do. It's the more processed types of carbohydrates that as you mentioned, it's like you typically you don't feel good after you eat them. And you know, part of that's the postprandial inflammatory response cuz some of those foods are a little more inflammatory. I mean, a lot of additives and stuff that are affecting the gut, gut permeabilization, you're leaking lipopolysaccharide into the bloodstream, right? That's activating the immune system. We used to inject I don't do any animal experiments anymore, and I'm actually grateful to not do them. So I didn't like working on animals, but it was what we did until I decided to work on humans. But we used to inject LPS um to stimulate an inflammatory response to kind of prime a regeneration response that you could get through macrophages and things like that. And so LPS is a very potent way to generate local or even systemic inflammation. I think um hearing that some starches will stimulate LPS, that's uh interesting.

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stimulate LPS, that's uh interesting. Well, let me clarify. challenging. No, I'm I'm not challenging. It squares with my experiences. I'm one of these I never get stomach aches, I never get headaches. If I do, something's badly wrong with my stomach or my head. But if I eat certain starches, I'll be like, "Oh, like I feel lousy." And I'm wondering if it's this. So we have about a gram of LPS in our gut. Mhm. Like that's on average cuz you know, lipopolysaccharide is the outer component of a cell membrane of gram-negative bacteria, right? Yeah. We have a lot of bacteria in our gut, gram-negative bacteria, right? Trillions of bacteria in our gut. So um when when we eat food, typically like our gut epithelial cells, they have we have a tight junction that's holding them together. When we eat food, they transiently open and then close. Like it's kind of a normal response, right? Um, the the I would say the opposite end of the spectrum of that would be like celiac where they eat gluten or something, it opens up and stays open and so you get like a ton of LPS leakage into the system which causes massive inflammation. It just happens with meals in general. You do get somewhat of a LPS response from a meal. Now, the type of meal does matter. So, when I say refined carbohydrates, it's not necessarily like healthy, you know, carbohydrates like vegetables. It's like you're eating something that is refined sugar typically with saturated fat. So, those types of foods really cause like LPS response. You know, it's inflammation. It's bad it's hard on the gut. But, the postprandial inflammatory response essentially is that LPS getting into the system, activating the immune system which draws the energy. I mean, it's like it's very energy consuming to activate your immune system, right? Which is why That's why when you're sick, you're so sleepy, too, right? Well, there's also cytokines that are somnogenic and promoting sleep, but like activating your immune system requires a ton of energy. And so, when you're constantly activating the immune system, you know, that's an energy sink, right? And so, you do feel tired and that's why a lot of times after a meal, you're feeling kind of lethargic.

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feeling kind of lethargic. Do protein foods of the sort that you listed off before, um, do they cause less opening of the tight junctions of the gut? I think that the the big deal with the the opening of the tight junctions in the gut is, you know, I mean, eating eating a big meal will do it. Eating a very like ultra-processed food meal will do it. Interestingly enough, just eating a bunch of saturated fat without a fiber matrix, so like like butter. You're just like eating butter. Don't ever do that, but like if you just eat butter Got [laughter] it. It that's been shown. My niece when she was little, now she's all grown up, but when she was little I taught her how to eat like a little bit of Kerrygold butter and she loved it. So then we would do this thing where we'd do that. Um we won't do that, I mean a little bit's fine, but like I'm I mean there's there's studies showing that it does like saturated fat is hard on the gut. Yeah. Like I said, it's a sliding scale. Like meals in general do it, but it's like you would it's it's like you would think. The healthier foods that you're eating like whole foods, you're getting less of that LPS response. And then of course there's gluten and that complicates the whole story, especially for people that are celiac, right? Cuz that's Which is a small percentage of people that are actually celiac, right? But a lot of people seem to believe and I believe them that when they eat gluten they feel worse than when they don't eat gluten. I'm sure there's some people that are sensitive to gluten that do feel worse. And then I'm sure some of that's the nocebo effect, right? That's been shown with gluten in in particular. Did you have you seen that study? Where people there's been so so there were people that think they're you know, glu - gluten sensitive and so they were enrolled in a study and um these individuals were separated into two groups. One group was getting given the gluten bread with gluten and the other group was given the bread without gluten and the people that were given the bread without gluten had a terrible you know, abdominal res - like they were bloated, they felt terrible. I mean it was all and there was no gluten in the actual bread, but they thought there was. So it was thought that this is a nocebo effect where it's like the

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nocebo effect where it's like the opposite of a placebo effect where you just you're you've got that phenotype where you think things negative are going to happen and you can make them happen. You can change your immune system, you can change your brain signaling and you know, so probably a combination of both with that regard. In addition to like the lethargy, so we're talk - I was talking about in the context. That's why it my, you know, interest is like you were talking about feeling tired after a meal. And I do think that is part of that reason for feeling sleepy, but you know, what's interesting about LPS, you talked about injecting it to mice and I've also done experiments injecting LPS into mice. There have been studies where people have been injected with an amount of LPS that is, you know, similar to what you would find your gut releasing into your bloodstream or a placebo control, which in this case was saline. And individuals that were injected with the LPS, high amounts of inflammatory markers like TNF-alpha. I mean, we're talking like up to a 50% increase. Ooh. If over baseline, right? So, high amounts of inflammation, which makes sense. LPS is activating the immune your immune system is like there's a foreign invader, right? It's not a foreign invader, it's just the food you ate that caused transient gut permeability. [snorts] And those individuals also feel depressive symptoms and feelings of like social withdrawal. So, the inflammation is affecting the brain, right? These inflammatory factors are getting in the brain, crossing the blood-brain barrier, and affecting the way we feel. We know now that inflammation plays a big role in major depressive disorder and depression. Not in all cases, but there's a subset, right? Where it's really like it does it seems to play a big role. In fact, interestingly, there's been some studies showing that people that are that don't respond to SSRIs are have very high amounts of C-reactive protein. So, this was the biomarker for a classical biomarker for inflammation. I would argue it's not that sensitive, but nonetheless, it is a biomarker for inflammation. And so, people that um don't respond to SSRIs have high amounts of inflammation, which kind of raises this question of is there like this subset of depression that's really inflammatory driven, right? Um interesting. So the LPS is affecting

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interesting. So the LPS is affecting not only our our energy levels, but also our mood. And then, you know, there's there's also evidence that so, we know that LPS binds to LDL particles through lipid-lipid interactions. And in fact, it's kind of part of the adaptive response. It's why you don't want to ever go get your cholesterol measured like after right after you're sick or had a very stressful event, something that causes inflammation cuz you will increase VLDL production increases and LDL production increases and it's sort of an adaptive response to bind that LPS to prevent it from, you know, causing more damage. And so it actually binds to LDL particles on the apoB protein. So apoB is a protein that is on these lipoproteins and it's a a very important protein because that is what's used by the LDL receptors present on our liver to recycle LDL particles. And so what happens is these these LPS particles are now bound to you know, our our lipoproteins and our lipoproteins are still doing their function, right? They're going around and they're giving, you know, triglycerides and and fatty acids and to some degree cholesterol to our cells that need it, right? We're constantly making new cells and repairing and we our cells need that. As they donate triglycerides and fatty acids, they get smaller in size. The lipoproteins, you've probably heard of small dense LDL, right? Like that's a very dangerous type of LDL particle. And that's one that's kind of been donating along, getting rid of tiger triglycerides and um whatever. If you think about a train with cargo, it's donating the, you know, dropping off the cargo. And so um when it's time to get recycled back into the liver, what do you know? The apoB protein's obscured by that LPS and it's not recycled. And so it gets lodged into the arterial wall. And because there's an LPS bound to this, you know, small dense LDL particle, macrophages, which are, as you

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particle, macrophages, which are, as you mentioned, it's like the first line of defense against something like a bacterial invader, right? Comes and chews it up, right? Gets rid of the problem. So macrophages come in cuz they're seeing this signal of LPS and think it's a foreign invader when it's actually just a small dense LDL particle bound to LPS that came from the gut, tries to engulf it, but it can't cuz it's not bacteria, and you get the macrophage stuck to that lipoprotein LPS, you know, complex and you get the formation of a foam cell. You probably heard of a foam cell. It's the beginning of atherosclerosis. And so, this is where gut health and the food we eat is sort of it's linked to cardiovascular health, right? Gut permeability, getting that LPS into our circulation is actually not a very good thing because you're you're basically, you know, slow dripping in that infla - inflammation, that inflammatory signal, and it's wreaking havoc in our arteries, on our brain. As many of you know, I've been taking AG1 for nearly 15 years now. I discovered it way back in 2012, long before I ever had a podcast, and I've been taking it every day since. The reason I started taking it and the reason I still take it is because AG1 is to my knowledge the highest quality and most comprehensive of the foundational nutritional supplements on the market. It combines vitamins, minerals, prebiotics, probiotics, and adaptogens into a single scoop that's easy to drink, and it tastes great. It's designed to support things like gut health, immune health, and overall energy. And it does so by helping to fill any gaps you might have in your daily nutrition. Now, of course, everyone should strive to eat nutritious whole foods. I certainly do that every day. But, I'm often asked if you could take just one supplement, what would that supplement be? And my answer is always AG1 because it has just been oh so critical to supporting all aspects of my physical health, mental health, and performance. I know this from my own experience with AG1, and I continually hear this from other people who use AG1 daily. If you would like to try AG1, you

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daily. If you would like to try AG1, you can go to drinkag1. com / huberman to get a special offer. For a time, AG1 is giving away six free travel packs of AG1 and a bottle of vitamin D3K2 with your subscription. Again, that's drink AG1 with the numeral one. com / huberman to get six free travel packs and a bottle of vitamin D3K2 with your subscription. Thank you for explaining that so clearly because I don't think anyone has ever explained how exactly gut health is signaling cardiovascular health or pushing or pulling down on or raising cardiovascular health. As a neuro guy, I think about the vagus nerve as the primary conduit between gut and brain and it I was recalling that LPS injected into the gut is how you actually experimentally induce a fever because the and if you cut the vagus, no fever. So there's this there seems to be something about the way that the gut communicates with with the brain and other organs that is critically dependent on the some threshold level of LPS. And thank you also for reminding us that LPS is present in the gut cuz we have yeast in our gut, some amount of of yeast. You mentioned tight junctions and the way I think about tight junctions, please correct me cuz I'm going to get some or all of this wrong, is that essentially they form like a a cellular fence in the gut and that transient opening or partial opening of these is a normal process, but it sounds like after a meal some bacteria, when you say leaks out into our system, it's literally going into the bloodstream. So now we're have bacteria circulating and if some of that is small enough to get across the blood-brain barrier, that's another way that bacteria can start to cause inflammation at the brain level. It's LPS, which is like the outer component of bacteria that have died. Mhm. Actual live bacteria getting in, I don't know as much about that perhaps as well, but I know that the LPS is getting in and I do know that the LPS, you know, activating the immune system and stuff in the resident glial glial cells and stuff in the brain um does break down the blood-brain barrier. It's like the early like we know neuroinflammation

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the early like we know neuroinflammation is really some of the early parts of breaking down of the blood brain barrier, which is the early stages of neurodegenerative disease. It is how the gut is gut health is linked to the brain and to neurodegenerative disease as well. So, it's the inflammation I think that's really um it's it's really powerful in terms of it's it's a driver of the aging process in general. Like this inflammation, inflammaging, you've heard of inflammaging. You know, I think now it's pretty clear to me that is if you're thinking about the molecular events that are leading to these hallmarks of aging which lead to the phenotypes and you know, frailty and the diseases, right? Like type 2 diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, like go upstream of that and the inflammation is at the core of it. And so, we hear this word inflammation a lot and it's like, what does it mean? You know, and it's a lot it means a lot of things. It's not just the gut. The gut is a a component of it, but there's other things as well, right? I mean, you can have stress, you know, any emotional stress, like that can lead to inflammation, not getting enough sleep, right? There's a lot of things that can lead to inflammation. And so, it is kind of an important point to think about is is really like trying to have your inflammation low, right? And how do you do that? I'm going to take three different jumping off points here all related to what you said. So, don't think I'm a random subject generator here. We will get back to fasting, I promise. Lately, you've posted a bit about glutamine as a potential tool to perhaps buffer the immune system under times of stress. I've also been interested in L-glutamine as a way to reinforce tight junctions in the gut. I don't know if that literature is robust or not. I have to say I started taking L-glutamine years ago in times when I was working a lot and not sleeping enough because someone told me it would

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enough because someone told me it would help me not get sick. And indeed, I didn't get sick as much as the imaginary control experiment that I never got to do. Meaning, I don't know if it helped or not, but I continued to take L-glutamine when I'm feeling run down. I take a couple of other things, too. But could you tell us about how or if or how L-glutamine is important for gut health and if and how L-glutamine might be helpful for reinforcing the immune system? There's not a ton of evidence in terms of like what's in the scientific literature supporting these statements, but there is some, you know, and it's enough to kind of go, well, I'm going to try to maybe experiment with it. So, you know, I first became interested in in glutamine because when I was doing my graduate research, I was doing a lot of cancer metabolism studies and I would do nutrient withdrawal and I would, you know, remove glucose from cancer cells and see what would happen. And it's like, okay, well, I would get I would remove glucose from from, you know, lymphoma cancer cells in the Petri dish and a lot of them would die, but they wouldn't all die. And I was like, why aren't they all dying? Turns out, oh, they had glutamine there. So, glutamine was enough to sustain them. Um and and so, glutamine can be converted into many things. So, glutamine can be an amino acid, right? It's an amino acid. Glutamine can be converted into the the Krebs cycle, so it can be converted into intermediates that are used to make energy by the mitochondria. And glutamine can be converted into glutamate, right? Neurotransmitter, right? So, there's a lot of pathways and different fates for glutamine. So, I became interested in in that because it was like, oh, glutamine's important for the survival of these cancer cells. Then I was doing a lot of activating immune cells studies as, you know, all my my graduate advisor is an immunologist by training, and so I was also doing that. Turns out glutamine was essential for the activation of immune cells. So, that was kind of always in the back of my mind. And then in my postdoc, I did my postdoc with Dr. Bruce Ames and my colleague Dr. Mark Shigenaga was doing a lot of gut work and this is why I know a lot about the LPS in the gut like it's from him. Like brilliant guy.

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like it's from him. Like brilliant guy. He's now a photographer like not in science at all but brilliant guy and did a lot of really amazing experiments looking at, you know, gut permeability and things that can help buffer, you know, gut permeability and one of those things were glutamine. So, glutamine can get converted into these intermediates that are used by mitochondria in the gut epithelial cells and so this is like an easy source of energy as well for the gut. Now, these are all animal studies, right? So, take it with a grain of salt, right? Like cuz at some point, you know, in my opinion animal studies are really important for understanding the mechanism behind why things work and we need human studies, you know, as well. Looking at the totality of evidence is important. It's the human studies that were lacking. There's not a ton of them there. The ones that I have found more compelling, um, not necessarily I mean with the gut health it's it's, you know, it's sparse with humans. Um, I found more compelling with respect to you glutamine in human studies was the immune system and this is where I started putting connecting the dots, right? Where I started coming across this literature of these endurance athletes who do get a higher amount of respiratory tract infections, you know, like when I mean endurance athletes I mean these guys that are like outrunning marathons all year. Like they're just constantly training for a marathon, right? And so they're really like they're putting a lot of demand, right? Energetic expenditure is happening at a really high rate. So, um, they're they're more prone to respiratory infections and there's a few studies out there showing that if these athletes take a higher dose of glutamine, I think it's like 30 g or something high like that, that they had a lower incidence of respiratory tract infections than the ones that weren't doing it. And then I went back to my oh, I know that glutamine is really important for T-cell activation and I was like I'm going to take this because being being a mom and having a child that's bringing everything home like a vector, you know, you're like desperate. You're the experiment. exactly. And and I never used to get sick, ever. Like I would never get sick. And then all of a sudden I was getting sick like three times a year. And I was

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sick like three times a year. And I was like, do I have cancer? Like what's going on? Like I I literally was like worried. Um and and then I started taking glutamine. Now, I take it just I only take 5 g on a daily basis, but if if my son's sick, if there's any exposure, if it's like during the season, if I'm traveling, I go up to 15, I go up to 20. Cuz it can be a little hard on the gut, right? all at once. Not all at once. I usually do it like in fives. So, I do 5 g, And you know, I have to with the caveat of I do that, but I also take a lot of creatine as well. And so, I don't know which one or both, but like I really don't get sick. I'm not getting sick. And even even if it's brought home in my house, I'm not getting sick. And maybe it's a placebo. And you know what? I am A-OK with that because placebo effect is real. As long as I'm not getting sick. Um so, I do think I think with the glutamine, you know, it's not something that I would feel comfortable saying that it's there's a lot of evidence, it's overwhelming and with confidence that it's improving gut health and it's improving, you mean you know, it's going to help give your immune cells energy, particularly if they need to be activated, you know, upon exposure to any pathogen. But I feel like it's worth experimenting with. Um perhaps maybe if someone has colon cancer, that would be more of a concern cuz I did mention that cancer cells love everything, anything that's good for you. Right? Folate, I mean, if you don't have enough folate, you can cause double stranded breaks to your DNA, which lead to mutations that lead to cancer. But if you have cancer and you take a bunch of folate, you need folate to make new DNA. And so, they like the folate, right? So, it's like It's an abnormal growth. So, anything that's associated with drugs, mTOR. I saw the recent study on taurine, which scared a lot of people cuz taurine's in a lot of energy drinks, but that was an in vitro study. Um Um, yes, I was going to ask, you know, um, is is there increased cancer risk if you're supplementing with glutamine because cancer cells like glutamine? my personal opinion, I'm obviously not a medical physician. This is not a prescription. It's just my opinion. I I personally am not scared of getting cancer from taking glutamine.

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cancer from taking glutamine. If I had a colon tumor in a tumor in my colon, the the first site that the glutamine is seeing, maybe the liver as well, since that's also the next step, but uh barring like having a tumor already in my liver or in my colon, those would be the only, you know, types of situations that I would be worried about taking glutamine. I don't think it's going to cause cancer, right? Now, I guess the question is like what if you don't know you have Well, hopefully the cost will come down on whole body MRIs. Actually, the cost is coming down on whole body MRIs. Hopefully, more people are able to get those. It's not just such a high-end exclusive thing in the near future. Kind of like blood draws. Used to be like like panels of blood testing, you only got them if you really needed them. Now, the cost of blood draws is really low. Right. So, hopefully, people will be more aware. Yeah, I I will take a tablespoon of glutamine once or twice or three times a day if I'm feeling run down. You mentioned being exposed to pathogens from vectors of different sorts. Before we went on mic, we were talking about NAC, N-acetylcysteine. Um, I take it once a day uh consistently, but I'll take it three times a day if I'm traveling a lot and because I'm around sick people when I travel, especially in winter. Um, or if I feel like I'm getting run down. And there the data are pretty interesting. There's at least one study uh showing that it reduced flu transmission um where people were deliberately exposed to flu. I think it took the number of people that contracted flu compared to the placebo group somewhere from the high 70% area. I don't remember the exact number now. We'll put a link to the study down to maybe high 20s, which is pretty impressive. And then ER doc came on this podcast uh Roger Schwell, who um and said he was a big proponent of NAC system for people that are around sick people. Do you take NAC? So my only concern with taking on a daily basis is it is a pretty powerful antioxidant and you know I think that we need to understand like antioxidants and the opposite we should be generating oxidation right? Like It's

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be generating oxidation right? Like It's not like oxidation is bad. It's bad when it's constant slow drip oxidation that's damaging you know other parts of our body DNA proteins lipids. Some oxidation you want like if you're exercising right? There's a burst of oxidation. the adaptation. the adaptations. And so my concern would be for one maybe timing it around your exercise so not taking it close to when you're exercising and these studies come out of you know studies that have been done with high dose vitamin E plus vitamin C. I haven't seen a lot of vitamin C studies alone that are blunting exercise adaptations. There's maybe one at a high dose. Most of the time it's vitamin C and vitamin E alpha tocopherol. When I say high dose usually it's 400 IUs just to give you a reference point the RDA is like 24 IUs or something. So we're talking high dose. supplement can be 200 to 800. So it wouldn't be hard to blunt that exercise effect but accidentally. Yeah, I don't take vitamin E. It spiked my prostate specific antigen which I was told is a known effect among urologists. trial was done. So the select trial was um was looking at selenium and vitamin E and if it could slow the progression of prostate cancer and it turned out that um the opposite was found and it was really kind of due to this high dose of alpha tocopherol which also has other effects of um lowering another type of vitamin E in the body called gamma tocopherol which is anti-inflammatory and I think that has something to do with inflammation actually can increase the PSA right? So anyways um the point here is that with NAC, my only concern would be, you know, blunting the the oxidation that you're getting from beneficial cuz I know you're highly active. I'm training hard. I don't want my training to be short-circuited from NAC. I'm perfectly happy to only take NAC if I'm feeling run down or exposed to um illnesses around me, or I feel like maybe I'm coming down with something. I take it, but it's mostly because of I wasn't familiar with the flu influenza data that's interesting. I was just It's

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data that's interesting. I was just It's good for lung health, too. Like so, although if smokers take it, I think it has the opposite effect where again, it's like the can't the the precancerous cells are using it to their benefit. You know, we used to think antioxidants, oh, it's so good, you know, just more, and it turns out it's not the case, right? Like and that's why a lot of these other types of hormetic stressors or plant phytochemicals, they're actually generating an antioxidant response endogenously in our body by activating these antioxidant pathways, which are so much more powerful than what you would get from an antioxidant, right? And so, that's kind of And it's not like you don't want some antioxidants. It's just like you don't want to overdose on taking too much NAC and too much vitamin C and too much vitamin E because there's also something called reductive stress. So, we know about oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is when you're you know, you're you're again, you're you're causing these these reactive oxygen species to damage things like your DNA, for example, and over time, eventually that happens in a part of the gene that can be oncogenic, lead to cancer. Well, reductive stress is is like the opposite of that. So, it's like too much of the um reducing equivalents, like the, you know, the NADH, the NADPH, the you know, so and it also has negative effects. So, you kind of don't want to go too far on either ends of the spectrum. But also, you want to instead of having this like slow leaking effect of these pro-oxidants where that are happening from eating a bad diet, from you know, inflammation, things like that. You want it to be a short burst where you switch it on, you have the adaptation, it's off, right? And the adaptation, the adaptation happens in the recovery period, right? When you're For example, if you exercise, it's a big burst of reactive oxygen species that is beneficial and you want it, right? And you don't want to blunt those adaptations and So, that's that's kind of my concern with daily dosing of NAC. Great. I don't cold plunge in the 68 hours after resistance training for exactly the reason you're talking about. Yeah, I want the inflammation. I want the increased blood flow. I don't want to short-circuit that. I'm perfectly

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to short-circuit that. I'm perfectly happy to only take NAC under conditions where I'm run down and and that's also when I'll take glutamine. If you take L-glutamine regularly, I I personally observe that I get stronger um at a steady state of of starch intake. And I don't like dropping starches too low cuz I get weak. Yeah. And I also can't sleep as well if my starches are too low. I just I'm too wired. Yeah. There's a There was a new study on on eating starches and improving sleep. Yeah, and I'm so grateful for that because for several years I talked about that on the podcast and people said, "Oh, you know, he's gorging himself with pasta and then passing out and that's the worst time." I wasn't saying that. I'm saying that if you're not If you're running like crazy, I'll hear from marathoners and ultra people and people who are doing a million things. They'll say, "I'm not sleeping well." And they're exercising like crazy. It's like, "Well, when was the last time you had a bowl of pasta?" Like, "Oh, no, I don't eat pasta." And like, and then they'll have some rice or some pasta. Like, "Oh, I slept like a baby." And they were having it at lunch. And I just think that that the brain doesn't shut down well when you have high levels of cortisol. And the cortisol-starch thing is an interesting one. I'm so glad you brought this up because I think um this is something I did want to talk about really and it has to do with stop eating 3 hours before bed for that very reason. So, there was a new even a new study but there's been several studies now really showing that this is important for that cardiovascular reset, right? Your parasympathetic activity is supposed to go higher. You're in your rest and recovery phase, right? When you're eating food, that's the sympathetic activity, right? You're that's activating the sympathetic nervous system. As you're eating, yeah. And even as you're digesting. So, you have to think about it. Like, you digest it, what it takes like 5 or so hours to fully finish about Yeah, depending on the meal, right. So, if you're eating, you know, right before you go to bed, you are not in that parasym - sympathetic activity, you know, part of the, you know, the cycle that you want to be in. So, um there was a new even a new study that I shared like, I don't know, couple days ago even, showing that

1: 02: 00

know, couple days ago even, showing that if you stop eating 3 hours before bed, so these people were actually um this interesting they're they had their blood pressure measured for starting in the mid-afternoon all the way throughout the night. This is the first study that really not just one endpoint looking at blood pressure, but just measuring it continuously. I don't know if it was every 15 minutes or something like that. But, um it was found that there during sleep, if they had stopped eating 3 hours before bed versus the group that did not stop eating 3 hours before bed, their blood pressure dipped like lower. So, you get that barrel reflex dipping, right? So, this is like part of the parasympathetic activation. As you know, very important for you know, the blood pressure to go down, heart rate went down like, you know, much much lower. And that reset is so so important for cardiovascular health. I think what was found was it was something like um translated to like 20% lower risk of cardiovascular events, like heart attacks. So, it's really pretty significant. Yeah. And it really is an easy thing to do to think about stopping eating, you know, 3 hours before you go to bed. Like, that's that's something I think that is not that hard to implement. And it will improve your sleep as well as your cardiovascular health. Although, I think in that study, I don't know that sleep was really it was subjective and I don't think it really wasn't improved more, but other studies have found that as well. That sleep does improve. I know Sachin Panda, he's been on my podcast, your podcast. He's had studies showing that it seemed like stop stop eating 3 hours before bed really does seem to improve sleep. But this parasympathetic activation, you know, you don't want to have a meal right before you bed because you want to be in the rest and recovery part, right? So. Yeah, I think people hear uh and I understand why the nomenclature and the buzzwords of, you know, fight or flight for sympathetic and rest and digest for parasympathetic. But yeah, the evidence shows eating stimulates the sympathetic nervous system. It's not a stress event, but it it's a it requires energy. Anything that requires energy raises body temperature and your body's doing work. It's an awake event, right? It's an awake you don't eat while you're sleeping.

1: 04: 00

while you're sleeping. Yeah, and that's why these phrases, while I don't demonize anyone for creating the, you know, fight or flight and well, I mean, there's ways that you want your sympathetic nervous system activated that are not about fight or flight. Like I actually think that people just got the first hour of their day more active and energized bright light, exercise, caffeine if you're me and Lord knows I'm grateful that caffeine exists in the first hour of the day or first hours if you can't manage that because of schedule. And then the last hour of the day was strongly parasympathetic. I mean, everything would get better without having to think a ton about exactly how you're doing that cuz on a given day you just do what you can. And that's what you want, right? I mean, so cortisol is circadian dependent as you know. I mean, in the like early morning of early hours of the morning, that's when you want it to peak, right? The part of the awakening response. Like you want it to go up. And it's it's interesting. I I the reason I'm going on this is cuz it's a little bit of a um soapbox for me, but so with with the cortisol activation um people don't realize this, you know, obviously it's a hormone and it's binding to two different receptors. There's the glucocorticoid receptor and then there's the mineralocorticoid receptor and both of those um when cortisol binds to it, they go into the nucleus of the cell, and they're changing the expression. So, they're activating genes and deactivating genes, like 20% of the human genome. It's a large percentage, right? And this is on multiple different organs. So, it's it Cortisol has a very important role, and you want that peak. You want that spike, right? That's what you want, and then you want it to shut off. And there things that can activate it, obviously, like in the morning, going out, bright light exposure, as you mentioned. Like that's very important for that cortisol awakening response. But you can also, actually, like like intensity intense exercise can switch it on. Um but what's interesting, and so can intermittent fasting, that it What's interesting is there's studies from Mark Mattson's lab showing that, you know, the types of stressors that are beneficial, these hormetic stressors, like exercise, like, you know,

1: 06: 00

like exercise, like, you know, intermittent fasting, um perhaps even cold exposure, like these types of exposures change the receptor density of the receptors. So, if you look at what activates cortisol in a negative way, chronic stress, let's say emotional, financial, psychological, um chronic sleep deprivation, like that bad type of stress, you're getting a You're not getting a big spike, you're getting a slow drip of it. And so, what happens is when you have that type of stress, you're increasing the glucocorticoid receptors, and you're decreasing the mineralocorticoid receptors. There's a different biological response in the brain, in the hypothalamus, but also in you know, other organs as well, when you're activating cortisol through a beneficial type of stress, the hormetic stressors, like like intermittent fasting, like exercise. Um I believe probably deliberate cold exposure as well. Where um it's a different biological response, and also, if you think about it, you know, you actually want cortisol to do its, you know, function. You want it to change the expression of this. That's what it's supposed to do, right? The problem is is when you have that slow drip, then, you know, not only are your your increasing They're changing the receptor, you know, activation, but also they become resistant to the cortisol. And so you're not getting the benefits. You You know, cortisol represses inflammation, right? It's It suppresses the immune system. But like So you're not getting that anti-inflammatory effect from cortisol. It's being dysregulated. And that's what you don't want. You don't want cortisol to be dysregulated in terms of like the genes that it's supposed to activate or deactivate. You want it to be doing what it's supposed to. It's supposed to regulate. We're supposed to have the cortisol, you know, activation response. So, um, anyway, I that's something that I kind of want to clear in people's minds cuz I feel like a lot of people get worried about oh my gosh, I'm doing, you know, hit and it's activating my cortisol. Well, that's fine. It's like, you know, I mean, I guess if you do too much hit, right? You could always take something to the extreme. Okay, with that caveat, obviously I'm not talking about that. But with that caveat, like you do you you want your body to be able to turn it on and then turn it off and have the adaptation, have the response,

1: 08: 00

have the adaptation, have the response, right? And like I said, it's a different biological response than than the chronic type of cortisol activation that you get with the bad types of stress. Yeah, I guess same goes for intermittent fasting. And maybe you could share with us what your intermittent fasting protocol is. I know that recently cortisol has been like increasingly demonized as the stress hormone, and people saw pictures of people with Cushing's disease, which is, you know, a drastically elevated cortisol and the moon face and the excessive visceral fat and and this this sort of um, fear-mongering around cortisol was particularly directed toward women. And this entered the health fitness space because I think in an appropriate way, I'll just be very direct here. I don't like I no longer tap dance around who said, you know, what In a very appropriate way, um, that I appreciate, uh, Dr. Stacy Sims came on the podcast and she said, "Listen, some women shouldn't train fasted because they don't feel well when they train fasted and their cortisol is too high and so forth." That captured a lot of people's experience. a lot of women in particular, but some men certainly were like, "Yes. Oh my god, thank you." But then the they the message got contorted, right? As it does, right? And then it became women shouldn't train fasted. And then we had a Lauren Clenso Simple on this podcast who's a, you know, trained as a PhD, she has a background in nutrition, physiology, strength training coach, etc. And she said, "No, listen, you can train fasted or not fasted as a woman or a man, it's a kind of your preference. But that we don't need to fear these cortisol spikes. And forgive me for going long here, but I think it is important that people hear this, um, again, which is there's also this idea that deliberate cold exposure increases cortisol, but when you look at the data, it definitely increases adrenaline and peripheral dopamine and probably, I'll go on record, it probably central dopamine, although we don't have as good evidence for that yet. But their evidence points to the fact that deliberate cold exposure lowers cortisol. So this then, you know, because and I again I think Stacy

1: 10: 01

because and I again I think Stacy appropriately said a lot of women who want to use cold shouldn't go as cold, but the message got contorted and it became women shouldn't do deliberate cold exposure because of the cortisol increase. And so part of the reason I'm going long here is I'm trying to correct the narrative on her behalf. She said, "Do what works for you." Right? And that's what Lauren's saying and I'm guessing, um, that's what you'll say as well. Um, but I just need to get that out there because the message has gotten totally pretzel twisted up and cortisol is neither good nor bad. You want it high in the morning, you want it low at night, um, in general. Um, it sounds like you train fasted. I listen to how I feel. That's exactly what I do. So what what your podcast guests and and the researchers are talking about is exactly. There are times when I wake up in the morning and I'm like, I need to eat something before I work out. And I do. Um, but I oftentimes do train fasted one because I am practicing intermittent fasting again, but I do it I'm not like starving myself and like I said, the reason there's multiple reasons I do it. One reason is because it really did help me lose the belly fat, which is a visceral fat, which is like the worst kind of fat you can have. And we can talk more about that. But the second reason is I love the cognitive benefits I have in the morning with it. And it's the main reason I do it. And so there are many times when I do train fasted, but I am not out running 15 miles. Most of my my like I said, my sessions are about an hour long. And am I taking a little bit of a performance hit with the high intensity? Probably yes, but it's not much to matter for me. And you do burn a little bit more fat if you train fasted. I mean, that's known. You will if it is a longer session, you will take an a performance enhancement hit. That is also known, right? So I think it really does come down to like what is your goal? How do you feel? And and then you kind of go with that. And I I completely agree. Like there are times when you know, I'm on my cycle and I feel fine and I'm working out just fine. And there are other times that I'm like

1: 12: 00

And there are other times that I'm like I don't feel good. Like I'm going to take it easier. I still train, I just you listen to your body. And I that's a pretty easy, I think, rule of thumb. Sometimes people like to complicate things, you know, I don't there's lots of reasons why I don't we need to get into that. I have theories, yeah, I have theories, but they're not important right now. No, it's not important, yeah. So so yeah, I do train fasted and it is for me it is is helped me tremendously change my body composition. Like I said, I'm in a different part of my life than perhaps a 30-year - old woman is, right? So when I was 30, I mean, like I I didn't have to train fasted. It was easy to keep, you know, the the belly fat, the visceral fat lower. Hormonal changes are do play a role in the way your body so estrogen plays a role in telling your body how to store fat. So subcutaneous fat would be the kind of fat that you can just like pinch, right? The the fat that we see, the visceral fat, that's that deep fat that's lining your organs. It's often belly fat, you know, and it's lining the intestines, the liver, you know, it's it's almost like an endocrine organ. I mean, cuz it is secreting hormones. It's secreting inflammatory factors. It's metabolically active. It's constantly breaking down triglycerides. It's associated with double the increased risk double the risk of early death. Um people that have high visceral fat have 44% higher chance of having cancer, many different types of cancers. Wow. It's huge. You know, and of course insulin resistance is the number one problem with visceral fat, right? And I'd love to to talk about that, but um if you want, I mean, we can get into that. Yeah, it's it's so with the visceral fat and like I said, you know, visceral fat is something if you really directly want to measure it, you do a DEXA scan. But, you know, for the average person that isn't going to go out and do a DEXA scan, waist circumference is a proxy. It's used in a lot of studies. So, women that have a waist circumference of 35 in or above are considered to have a higher amount of visceral fat. Men that have a waist circumference of 40 in or above are considered to have

1: 14: 00

40 in or above are considered to have higher amount of visceral fat. It's also that belly fat. Like you can you just know, right? Um interestingly, like 70% of women over the age of 50 have high visceral fat. 50% of men over the age of 50, too. You know, again, it coming down to women go through menopause. Estrogen plays an important role in telling the body, you know, to store the fat subcutaneously rather than viscerally deep around organs. And so, as women transition to perimenopause, you know, that the years before menopause and menopause, it it their their estrogen goes down, and that does change the way the body stores fat. And any woman that's going through either of those stages knows it. And it's also why you see often women over the age of 50 with more belly fat, right? I mean, that's something that I think is it's hard to deny. But, um it's it's one of the reasons why I kind of went back to practicing intermittent fasting because there's a couple of ways that you can really powerfully lose visceral fat, and one of them is doing aerobic exercise, high-intensity interval training also really powerfully can do it, but also being in a caloric deficit. And I think when you start to get the combination of both, that's what really worked for me. It's crazy how quickly you can gain it based on your diet as well. So, it is different from the subcutaneous fat in many ways. I mentioned it's secreting these inflammatory molecules. It's, you know, hormones, but it's also constantly breaking down triglycerides into free fatty acids. And the location of it is very dangerous because it's right surrounding the liver, right? It's this deep organ fat. And that's very close to the portal vein. And so, you're constantly getting this sort of mainlining free fatty acids to the liver. And visceral fat is very different from subcutaneous fat because it doesn't respond to insulin like subcutaneous fat does. In other words, when you have a meal, you eat a carbohydrate meal, and you basically your body increases insulin to help take it up glucose into

1: 16: 01

insulin to help take it up glucose into your liver, muscle, adipose tissue, lipolysis shuts down, right? So, okay, no longer am I going to break down these fats, it's time to use this energy, right? Visceral fat doesn't respond to insulin, so it just keeps going, right? And these free fatty acids, because they're going right to the liver, uh it's it's essentially antagonizing the insulin receptors. So, it causes insulin receptors to become more resistant to insulin. And this is part of why people with high visceral fat, by the way, you can gain visceral fat without gaining a pound. And we can talk about those studies. Like, people people are skinny and can have high amounts of visceral fat. You've You've heard of like lean metabolically unhealthy but lean individuals. Those people exist and so you can have a high amount of visceral fat but not really look like you do. So, when you know, obviously the insulin resistance is a problem for many reasons, but it also plays a role in those energy crashes that you experience, right? And that's kind of like some of the first signs of insulin resistance actually have to do with what you're feeling. So, we talked about lethargy, right? So, you know, the the inflammation that's being generated from these this visceral fat constantly making these, you know, pro-inflammatory compounds are and it's an energy sink, right? So, you do constantly feel tired, but also because your cells are becoming insulin resistant, when you have a high glucose meal and you're not responding, the body kind of overcompensates and produces more insulin. So, it's like I we got to get this blood glucose out of our system, right? It can cause a lot of damage if it sits around there. And so, you make more insulin and then what happens is you your blood glucose goes way low cuz it was like this overcompensation, right? And then you feel a crash. You feel like this crash and that signals to the, you know, hypothalamus part of the brain, I need energy, right? So, then you you sort of crave you get those cravings for those calorically energetic dense foods. What I'm talking about is like the

1: 18: 00

What I'm talking about is like the experience of like you know, insulin resistance. And what's interesting is that you can cause someone to gain visceral fat and and their brain could become insulin resistant. So, we think a lot about insulin resistance in the muscle, liver, your brain also can become insulin resistant quite quickly actually. So, um insulin's very important in the brain for a lot of reasons as you know, but you know, a couple of the things relative to what we're or relevant to what we're talking about would be one is it does act on the hypothalamus and help, you know, tell it to basically um stop eating. Be satiated. Like I took a meal in, okay, like I'm going to be satiated. But it also plays a role in energy storage and telling the the body how to store the energy. And so when your brain becomes insulin resistant, it's not doing that. And so you're not being satiated, so you eat more, and you're storing the fat more viscerally. And there was a study that was published actually quite recently. I covered this in a recent newsletter. It was a really interesting study cuz it was healthy young men, and researchers put them on a little bit of a calorically dense, so it was like they were eating 1, 200 to 1, 500 more calories a day, and it was high saturated fat, high sugar. So it was a processed foods, ultra-processed foods, like, you know, ultimate, right? That's a lot of extra calories. extra calories for 5 days. It is. But what happened was their they did cause their brains to become insulin resistant, and they didn't gain weight, but they gained visceral fat. And they started gaining fat around their liver. And that's something that happens as well because visceral fat is surrounding liver, you're getting a lot of free fatty acids, and they're going right to the liver, so the liver has to store it, right? So you get this non-alcoholic, you know, fatty fatty liver. But and that happened after 5 days. I mean, without gaining young, healthy Yeah. But, you know, they were eating a lot of calories, extra calories. Yeah, that's like an a 1, 200 That's like a half a pizza uh extra above your maintenance calories per night. what they were doing. They were eating

1: 20: 00

what they were doing. They were eating lots of Well, they were eating like saturated fat and refined sugar, so it Doritos and french fries. Yeah, I mean, obviously if you're going to do the study, you want to kind of do it to a degree where you're going to see some change, right? So so maybe like maybe it's not going to happen in 5 days if you're only eating 500 more calories a day, but over time you will be gaining visceral fat, right? So it's not going to be the same degree. It's something to be concerned about, it's something to think about, and also because you can gain it and not really even know it, like, you know, without gaining a pound. And there are other things that cause it, not just, you know, eating too many calories or diet composition. I mean, you mentioned cortisol. I mean, chronic elevated cortisol makes you store the fat around around, you know, visceral fat. Sleep loss. I mean, there's also studies showing that you take healthy men, sleep deprive them for a couple of weeks, I think 4 hours, they're getting 4 hours of sleep at night, they can start gaining visceral fat, I mean, pretty rapidly with only like a pound gaining a pound of weight. So again, it's like not necessarily something that you're going to see on the scale, but it's happening. Right? And it's affecting your short-term mood, I mean, how you feel, your energy. It's affecting, you know, the way you're eating. It's a vicious cycle cuz you start to eat more calories, right? And then it just becomes this vicious cycle of that you start to gain more visceral fat. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, all in the correct ratios, but no sugar. Proper hydration is critical for brain and body function. Even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish your cognitive and physical performance. It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes. The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, are vital for the functioning of all cells in your body, especially your neurons or your nerve cells. Drinking Element makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes. My days tend to start really fast, meaning I have to jump right into work or right into exercise. So to make sure that I'm hydrated and I have sufficient electrolytes, when I

1: 22: 00

have sufficient electrolytes, when I first wake up in the morning, I drink 16 to 32 oz of water with an Element packet dissolved in it. I also drink Element dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. Element has a bunch of great tasting flavors. In fact, I love them all. I love the watermelon, the raspberry, the citrus, and I really love the lemonade flavor. So if you'd like to try Element, you can go to drinkelement. com / huberman to claim a free Element sample pack with any purchase. Again, that's drinkelement. com / huberman to claim a free sample pack. Such an important point that you can either not be gaining much or not gaining any total body weight, but gaining visceral fat. I think that's first time I've heard that and it's a vital message for people to hear because this visceral fat sounds like one of the major health hazards we need to worry about. You mentioned elevated chronically elevated cortisol, sleep deprivation will increase visceral fat. Once again, I know I'm beating a drum here almost to death, but having high cortisol early in the day and low cortisol in the evening is the definition of not chronically high cortisol. The definition of chronically high cortisol is somewhat elevated or elevated cortisol in the morning, but especially in the hours before sleep and I I actually have a theory that is not a stretch that one of the main reasons why it's so detrimental to our mental and physical health in the short and long term is because of the ways it's disrupt sleep. And so and we can't tease those apart. You can't do a study where you spike cortisol late in the day, even if you can fall asleep just fine after the end of a really stressful day, the sleep is different. And people say, "Well, life has stress." And I totally agree. I mean, Lord knows I've experienced life has stress, but getting that last hour of the day doing things to push down on cortisol, push down on stress, lower heart rate, not eating in that certainly that last hour before sleep, ideally three, I feel like that small change can make a an outsize positive difference. That's interesting like the

1: 24: 00

That's interesting like the correlation between the high cortisol affecting your sleep and maybe that's also like they're they're related and so the sleep loss really does make you We know. We know from, you know, you probably know who the researchers are that have done those studies on sleep loss and it affecting appetite, right? I mean, Oh, everything gets disregulated. I know I don't want to take us off course, but I think you might find it interesting that there's a beautiful study where they look measured metabolism during sleep. They basically had people breathe into a tube during sleep. They had a mask on and it turns out that the brain cycles through all the different forms of metabolism during sleep. There's a phase of sleep where you're essentially running on sugar. There's a you're then you're like a almost looks like somebody's ketogenic at one. Basically that the middle of the night when we're so well should be at night. When you're sleeping is a is kind of a test run of all the systems but they get recalibrated and it's so important. think you know most of the negative effects of alcohol that people talk about. Yes, it's a poison. It's a class one carcinogen as classified by the World Health Organization on a I think most of the negative effects of drinking are because of the negative effects of alcohol on sleep. I'm not telling people to drink in the morning but you know and so I I think that if you get your sleep right, you're not 90% of the way there but you're halfway there. Yeah. I really do believe that. And then getting your sleep right makes you do a bunch of other things. Right. You're more more motivated to exercise for one. [laughter] More motivated to exercise. Your food choices I mean and on. The the problem with talking about sleep is so important is people will get sleep anxiety. So we tap dance around this like we don't want people stress learn how to fall asleep, learn how to fall back asleep. These no one gets it perfect. Yes, you'll survive like it without one poor night's sleep or an all-nighter you're not going to die. Like you know just get good at it on average, right? That's what I'd say. Could you tell us what the structure of the intermittent fasting is for you? Does that mean skipping breakfast, skipping lunch, skipping dinner? Because I know a number of people are So we're getting drawn back to intermittent fasting after a couple years of it getting beat up on is like not the best way to lose fat or is a I think it's a terrific way to do the sorts of things that you're describing

1: 26: 00

sorts of things that you're describing and I'm learning today more about the positive things it can do for insulin sensitivity and so forth. If you're on a bout of intermittent fasting, are you doing it by the clock? Are you doing it by feel? What does it look like? For me it really does depend on the day and I really do try to stop eating 3 hours before I go to bed. It doesn't always happen, you know, with family obligations, social obligations, but it's the habit that's important, right? So, intermittent fasting, you know, it's more than just one intervention as I mentioned. It's a behavioral tool that you can use to limit your calorie intake with actually without actually having to count all the calories, which some people like to do, some people don't, right? So, it's a tool, but also it's really important for a metabolic switch. As you mentioned, insulin sensitivity. And the metabolic switch is something that Dr. Mark Mattson coined and I love it because I feel like, you know, thinking about intermittent fasting in that way makes it a little more clear as to the benefits of it. It depends on the meal you have and how much exercise you do, right? But on average, let's say 11-12 hours to deplete your liver glycogen levels. And once that happens, you do start to burn fat and use fatty acids as fuel and make ketone bodies, so you go into ketogenesis, right? And that's a metabolic switch, metabolic flexibility. You're not You're going from using carbohydrates as fuel to using fatty acids and making ketone bodies as fuel. And that's something that, you know, throughout human evolution was ingrained, right? Like we didn't always have access to Uber Eats and Instacart and you just at a swipe you get food, right? I mean, there were many times when, you know, people had to not eat because they couldn't forage their foods, maybe the time of year or they couldn't hunt their food because they didn't get a win or whatever. I don't know. So, this metabolic flexibility is something that's really ingrained in in our our DNA in a sense, right? I mean, one of the reasons I like to do that is the ketone production. And why is that, you

1: 28: 00

ketone production. And why is that, you know, ketones are really clean They're clean a clean way to burn energy. So, they generate less oxidative stress, less oxidative products, but they also are energetically favorable in that it takes less energy to use them to make energy than glucose does. So, it takes more energy to use glucose as energy than it does ketones. But, [snorts] they're also a signaling molecule. So, it's a way for the body, you know, to signal to other parts of the body like, "Hey, this is a stressful time. There's no food. I'm, you know, burning I'm I'm in in ketosis. Um let's let's make you stronger, right?" Cuz that's kind of what evolution wants. Like, if you're not able to find or eat food, you have to be stronger to be able to do it, right? And so, that's that's kind of at the I say core of of this metabolic switch and why it's important. And I think that I really like Mark Mattson being the pioneer in this. And as a neuroscientist really looking at the benefits in the brain as well, you know, these ketones like beta-hydroxybutyrate are activating, you know, growth factors like brain-derived neurotrophic factor in the brain. As you know, it's very important for, you know, learning, memory, you know, re - synap - synapse formation and stuff. This hugely important for syn - um neuroplasticity. So, it's activating beneficial compounds like that. And again, um it it's not going to happen if you're never going into this metabolic switch. And there's other ways to get there, right? So, you can limit your your food, go into this ketosis, right? Where you're basically depleting your liver glycogen. Or, you can exercise a lot, right? So, your energy expenditure goes up. So, there's there's different ways to get to this metabolic switch. It doesn't necessarily have to be intermittent fasting. God. And then, I'm telling you this because you I want to tell you why I'm I'm sort of back back on the intermittent fasting. And by the way, it's not for everyone. Like I said, I mean, I think that you can find other ways to get this metabolic switch. And um for me, intermittent fasting works. And so, what I do typically is I will do most of the time my fast my workouts will be fasted.

1: 30: 00

time my fast my workouts will be fasted. Not all the time. It it does depend on how I feel. What time do you typically wake up? So, I wake up like s - between 6: 00 and 7: 00. And if I didn't have a family, like, you know, getting my son ready and I would probably work out right away. But I don't end up working out until like 8: 30. So I'm, you know, and I still pretty early. What time do you go to sleep if you don't mind me asking? I'm I'm asleep like I'm asleep by 10. I'm usually in bed at 9. Takes an an hour of just like, you know, hanging out and yeah. So so um or 9: 30 sometimes, but yeah, usually 10: 00 is when I'm sleeping. That's my my bedtime. And uh so I do stop eating. I try to stop eating by 7: 00 p. m. But typically my first meal on it depends on the day, but it'll usually be like around 11, maybe sometimes 12. If I'm doing a podcast, it'll be later. And um I do like to be fasted in the morning because the cognitive benefits is is really what I'm interested in with that metabolic switch and it does come down to ketones and I know that um Mark Mattson's talked a lot about this. I had him on my podcast a couple year a few years ago actually. I learned so much. But the ketones like beta hydroxybutyrate are increasing GABA. They're like balancing the glutamate, the you know, excitatory neurotransmitter with the inhibitory one, GABA. And I think that increasing GABA is what helps me and what I love the most because it does help, I think, quiet down some of the other I don't know, chitter-chatter in my brain and help me focus because it's like somehow the GABA is calming in a way. I don't know exactly. You could probably describe it better than I can. All I know is that I really like it. And so in the mornings, I like to be, you know, I like to be fasted. I like to be cognitively aware. It's when I get most of my productive work done. And I feel smarter. So I'm doing it. And that's why I typically like to shift my breakfast to later. Now, I do I would say some days I do only eat two meals where I am on on honestly, I'm skipping the quote-unquote breakfast. But uh Uh,

1: 32: 00

the quote-unquote breakfast. But uh Uh, some days I do have three meals and, you know, oftentimes they're like different size meals, right? And usually my if I do have three meals, the third one will be the in-between the first meal and the second meal will be like a very like a half of or 3 / 4 of a turkey burger or something. So, it's it's mostly protein and it's not heavy. But, so I would say I'm, you know, usually 11: 00 to 7: 00 probably is when I'm eating my meals most most days. Some days it's, you know, I I fast for a shorter period of time. Some days I wake up in the morning because I I did too early of of like I, you know, I'd stopped eating like like 4 or 5 hours before bed and I'm like, I need to eat. And I guess what? I eat and then I work out and it's like that's, you know, you kind of just listen to the to what your body's doing. Actually, Mark Mattson just published a study very very recently showing that he did a I think he was doing a 5: 2 intermittent fasting protocol where it's like 2 days you're getting pretty severe caloric restriction. Like you're eating one meal, but it's like 500 calories, you know, for that for the day. And it's twice 2 days out of the week. The other 5 days you're eating normal and compared that to calorie like eating eating like a healthy diet and they were somewhat calorie restricted but not quite as much as the people that were doing the fasting and they had the fasting group had massive cognitive benefits like 20% improvement in a battery of tests that were done. He attributes that to the ketones and the effect of ketones on GABA. attributes it to the ketones and like can you get that to some degree with caloric restriction? Probably, especially the more severe caloric restriction you do. You can, if we're talking about weight loss, caloric restriction's key, right? You have to have that. If we're talking about the cardiovascular reset, like caloric restriction, if you're eating meals right before bed, you're not going to get that. Like that those studies have been done. I think, you know, Courtney Peterson was some of the one of the first ones to really show that effect on blood pressure, you know, like really significant. In fact, if you do early time restricted eating and stop eating, you know, I don't know how early in the day it was, maybe 6: 00 Maybe it was 8: 00 p. m. but you know, there was like a blood pressure drop

1: 34: 00

there was like a blood pressure drop that was like 10, you know, 10 I think was um uh points or something millimeters of mercury. Significant. Is it Yeah. Yep. So, I mean that's very significant. I saw it's on magnitude of what you'd see with like some of the first line, you know, drugs that are used to treat hypertension. I would never say for someone to do that, but I'm just saying it's significant. And that's not something that you typically see if you're eating you know, fewer calories but you're eating constantly throughout the day. So, I do think there are special benefits that can be had, but again, it's also a tool that people use. I use it as a tool as well. I don't like to count calories. Like I don't, you know, some people do and that's fine. Then, you know, that's that's the way you can do it. But, I like it for the metabolic switch as well. Definitely. Um if I were an endurance athlete running, you know, 10 14 miles a day, I wouldn't have to do [clears throat] this. That would be my metabolic switch. And it's not that I'm not metabolically flexible. I mean, I do I think you can just training itself, you know, does to some degree help with metabolic flexibility, right? The ability to switch between burning glucose and carbohydrates and and then burning burn using fat fat and fatty acids as your energy source. It's that I really I want that real switch to be on and I want it to be on for a little bit of of time and then I want to turn it off by eating. You know, I'm not starving myself and I think you can go too far with exercise and with your fasting. The problems with fasting and the people that are like, oh fasting's terrible for you. I mean, it comes down to one, they were all about it's like the weight loss is not just due to intermittent fasting itself, it's due to calorie restriction. Guess what? They were right. Number two, they're afraid of losing muscle. And I think we have enough data now that it's like if you're training, if you're doing resistance training, you're not going to be losing muscle. Now, maybe you won't gain as much as if you were eating more protein. But, um you could just eat more protein um within the window that you're eating and be fine, right? So, I think that's the

1: 36: 00

be fine, right? So, I think that's the other thing that people are worried about is muscle loss, including myself. And I train so much now, and it just works well for me, and I feel good, and I it's like this clean feeling. You feel cognitively sharp. And it works. And I think that the metabolic switch is something to not be scared of as long as you're not, again, going to the extreme, right? And if you don't want to train while you're fasted, don't train while you're fasted. You don't have to, you know? I I think there's a little bit of an added benefit that works for me in terms of burning fat, which is what I, you know, particularly visceral fat. And to me that that's that's what works well. But, um you can obviously, like if you're training hard and a lot and really fasting, maybe that's too much. It's too much of a stress. So, you have to kind of figure it out for yourself. Yeah, I think the uh the known increase in adrenaline from being slightly fasted is awesome for cognitive function. Um I think it allows people to ingest fewer stimulants in the form of caffeine. You can, you know, you don't need as much caffeine when you're doing some fasting. I What you describe is um similar to what I do, although I notice these days I'm waking up hungrier and hungrier, and I attribute that actually to my last bite of food you know, coming a little bit earlier in the day and further from sleep. And also that thermogenic effect of eating raises core body temperature, and and you know, to fall asleep, you want your body temperature dropping. So, it all starts to What You know what I think is kind of uh is very exciting to me is that for a few years there, it seemed like there were just so many things, so many protocols, so many studies. But, I when I think about cortisol high in the morning, low in the evening, bracketing the day, that what works best for sleep, but what you're describing, certainly today you really, in addition to many other things, really clarified the relationship between gut and inflammation and and brain and other tissues. Things start to fall into bins that it's, you know, like all of biology so beautifully organized that it doesn't mean long list of things for people to do. I love the idea that while it sounds like you're just saying, "Oh, if I wake up and I'm

1: 38: 00

just saying, "Oh, if I wake up and I'm hungry, I eat. And if I'm not and I think I can train faster, I like to train faster." That might seem like a like an obvious thing to some, but I think it's so critical because the mechanism that you're chasing in both cases is the same. You're trying to get great sleep, great great workouts, but you're not trying to optimize the workout to the point where, you know, you disrupt your sleep or you insist on doing something like eating or fasting, whatever it is. So, the find out what works for you thing is so crucial because it's about feel that fits into a logic. And I have to say that's initially what drew me to your work is there's a logic You're not just saying, "Okay, this study said this, so I'm going to do this." It fits into a broader logic that comes from your training. So, I just That's a just a point of gratitude and I hope it will frame in people's minds that yes, do what you feel, do what works for you, but try and frame it in a certain logic. And that will cuz that's actually what gives you flexibility over time. Like, "Oh, you're traveling, you have to eat a little later. Okay, the next morning maybe train fasted." Or vice versa. about the habit. Exactly, it's about the habit. And there are days when I just like I can't train fasted or there are days when I wake up and I have to eat. Exactly, where you you, you know. And there are days when I nights when I have when I'm eating later because of social obligations and I don't freak out about it because it's about the habit. I like the idea of one metabolic switch per day. You know, you said you could get it from exercise and I thought, you know, I can really imagine that in 5 years a concept of of health that hopefully everyone understands out there is that find a way to generate the metabolic switch once per day. Maybe you fast and exercise. Maybe you just fast cuz you can't exercise because people's schedules are constrained, but the notion of the metabolic switch is being Here's where it fits in exactly. The logic is you want the metabolic switch. You do. And it's not just, you know, there's other components this metabolic switch that we haven't even discussed, which is like when you're in that fasted state, when you're in the ketosis, like that's also repair mode for your body, right? So, there's the fed state, the grow, anabolic, and of course that we're

1: 40: 01

grow, anabolic, and of course that we're all obsessed with anabolic now because it's associated with muscle growth, right? But there's also the repair and recovery state, right? And so, you don't always want the growth on, right? You want to repair damage, and repairing damage can be damage to DNA. A lot of these genes are activated, you know, when when you're in a nutrient deprived deprived state, right? When you're in that metabolic switch. And autophagy, and that's another one that people some It's a buzz It's a buzzword now, but it is something that is activated. It's First of all, we have basal amount of autophagy going on at any point, right? Like that's happening. Like Yeah, you don't have to fast. Exactly. deficit, which will also exacerbate it. Yeah. do have fasted activated autophagy, and certain tissues are more sensitive, like the liver and the brain, actually. And so, you know, we don't have a lot of human data on that in terms of like fasting Exercise also activates it. We don't have a a lot of great quality human data, and that's for a lot of reasons. One is the tissues that are most responsive to fasting-induced autophagy are not blood cells. In fact, like blood cells are pretty restricted in their response to fasted-induced autophagy, but that's the easiest cell to act, you know, to access if you're going to measure autophagy in humans, right? Muscle biopsies have been done. That's The muscle's also response responsive to to fasting-induced autophagy. It's responsive to exercise-induced autophagy. By the way, the exercise again, it's increasing energy expenditure, so at the end of the day, you're you're getting into that sort of ketosis, right? state. The metabolic switch. So, um there are studies showing that there's a signal there, uh but, you know, for some people it's not enough. Well, it's not enough, we don't really know, and you can't go off the animal data, and, you know, I think to some degree it's going to be hard to go get a liver. I mean, maybe we'll have some tools soon that we can easily access a, you know, liver biopsy, and that'd be great for many reasons, right? Not just looking at autophagy. But, I think that it to some

1: 42: 00

autophagy. But, I think that it to some degree you kind of just have to know that, okay, autophagy's happening right now in our cells. Like, so we know that it's activated by like fasting, by exercise, by these types of stress, and so why wouldn't it be increased somewhat? And And when I say autophagy, I'm talking about clearing out gunk that's built up in your cell, you know, throughout the day. We're talking about pieces of DNA, fragments of DNA, we're talking about protein aggregates that didn't get They're either properly, like, not properly folding, or they're not being degraded, right? All sorts of stuff, right? And it's important. This is a cleanup process. It's important. And so, again, that's another part of the metabolic switch that I think is it's important to think about because we are really obsessed with anabolic, is it anabolic? It's great. You do want to You definitely want to grow muscle, right? You do want to grow new brain cells and stuff, too, but But, you also want to repair, and you want to have recovery, and and that's that's another, you know, it's like the yin and the yang, right? You kind of want both. So, I think that's important to think about as well. Um and fasting, intermittent fasting, I do I like the daily metabolic switch. It may not be for everyone, you know? I mean, like I said, it's not I do think that you can find other ways to get there, exercise being the big one. Some people do caloric restriction. Some people don't need to. Caloric restriction is something that helps if you're trying to lose weight, right? Um it helps if you're trying to lose visceral fat. It's one of the main ways you can do it. Intermittent fasting, caloric restriction, exercise, aerobic exercise that helps lose visceral fat. But, I mean, obviously, we don't want always want to be in caloric deficit, but we always don't want to be constantly eating either. And that's why it comes down to, I think, the simple rule for people, like if they're going to do some sort of metabolic switch, some sort of intermittent fast, it would be like, "Okay, let's try to at least stop eating 3 hours before bed." Because then you're at least going to be extending that fast somewhat by 3 hours, right? So, I think that's And then plus you're getting that the cardiovascular benefits that are really they seem to be important. And then not eating at night, so there's all these studies that have come out of Israel.

1: 44: 00

come out of Israel. I think it's Is it Jakubowicz, Jakubowicz and Freud? They're two researchers. Um I mean, Satchin Panda, I remember years ago showed me one of the studies that was like published in Science showing that if you have the same exact meal, same calorie intake, same composition, macronutrient composition, in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening, the insulin response is like is different. Like you're the most insulin sensitive early in the morning. As you start to go towards the evening, and particularly 3 hours before your natural bedtime, you your mel - your melatonin levels naturally rise, right? And as you know, melatonin is important for the onset of sleep and and preparing the body for sleep, but it's also preparing the other organs for rest and recovery, including the pancreas, which is making insulin. And so, you're not making as much insulin when it's closer to your natural bedtime because of the melatonin levels that are rising. And so, you don't want to be eating a particularly a carbohydrate-rich meal, but a meal, you're not going to be as as insulin sensitive. In the last 3 hours before sleep. Yeah, when you're starting to get into that melatonin rising phase of, you know, of your cycle. Yeah, it's interesting. I I think when people hear, "Okay, you're most insulin sensitive in the morning, that would be the time to eat your biggest meal." Then people say, "Wait, but then I'm trying to fast before and I'm trying to exercise and like how do I do this?" I think that's where for them the confusion comes in and it to me it's very simple. Uh just because your insulin sensitivity is highest first thing in the morning, doesn't mean you have to eat right away. I mean, it just means avoid eating too close to bedtime, right? Sometime during the day. And also, if you exercise fasted or after a small snack, it's kind of interesting what Stacy Sims said, not everyone should exercise fasted. She said especially a lot of women don't like to do that. She didn't say eat a meal. She said like have a scoop of whey protein with some I think she said with like some almond milk in it. And it and you couldn't believe the response on the internet. It was like vindication, right? And I get it. It was like it vindicated people's experience like, "Oh, thank you." And it told me something really important about the kind of sociology of what we

1: 46: 00

about the kind of sociology of what we do, which is when something validates people's experience, they love it. But it doesn't mean that the things that work for other people don't work. And I think that that's the the part that gets lost. And so, if a study shows that insulin sensitivity is highest in the morning, but you can only exercise first thing in the morning, what do you do? You know, so um you do the best you can. All right. I think that's where it comes down to. In fact, I meant to ask you earlier and it is a good time to um to talk about this. Uh you've described that if you are slightly sleep deprived, so not for 4 hours per night or an all-nighter, but if you've only slept 5 or let's say you're getting an hour or two less than your normal ration of sleep, there's some pretty significant inflammation that's that occurs. That's not good. But I've heard you cover that exercising can actually offset some of that inflammation. This answers a a an important and common question, which is if I have to pick between sleep and exercise, what do I do? Um and it sounds like if it's one night poor sleep, exercise. But you don't want to make it a habit. That's Do I have that right? I mean, so this this data, a lot of it actually comes from you can cause even acute insulin resistance after like a night of of sleep deprivation, certainly after two to three nights of sleep deprivation. And you know, again, a lot of that's coming down to some of the things we've already talked about. And but exercise can help basically negate a lot of that. And I learned that first hand through experience when I was wearing a continuous glucose monitor. I when I was a new parent, of course you're not getting enough sleep. And so that's I learned it before I actually dove into the science about it. I I learned about it through my own data. Where I was, you know, I wasn't exercising as much and particularly in the first month you really like you're kind of in a cave as a new mom. You don't really you're not really exercising much at all. Evolution wants the baby to survive. You're recovering too. I mean, childbirth is a very it's a very

1: 48: 00

childbirth is a very it's a very traumatic process on your body. And so I noticed that my my glucose response was like it was like pre-diabetic and I was like what is going on? And um and that's when I started looking into the literature and happened to be around the same time when I was then starting up my at the time I was doing spin classes and then it was very clear to me. It was like I do these high intensity interval training classes even just twice a week and it was like almost completely negating what I had seen previously of my my glucose being my fasting glucose being really high and also my postprandial glucose being higher than than usual. And so I looked into the studies and there's now you can find many studies out there and it really I mean obviously exercise is one of the best thing you can do to improve insulin sensitivity and to also bring glucose into your cells, right? And so that's part of what you were talking about with oh you're more insulin sensitive during morning least during the evening and I also mentioned that. But guess what? There's levers you can pull that like change the equation. And exercise is a big one, right? If you're exercising you're becoming more insulin sensitive. You're increasing more glucose transporters on your muscle. That's causing glucose to go in easier, right? There's so there's lots of ways around some of these rules that we hear about. But with the sleep loss it really is it's it's interesting because people like when they don't get sleep, the last thing they want to do is work out. And obviously like you don't want to do like the hardest thing, especially if you're really like sleep deprived a lot. But it really does help negate the inflammation and the insulin insensitivity that can happen after even just a single night of sleep and there's studies out there showing that. And then there's also these longitudinal studies that have been done looking at you know, people. So obviously poor sleep is a problem you know, in the United States. I mean a lot of people are are sleeping fewer than 7 hours a night. And um but there's studies out there that have looked at people that sleep either shorter, so fewer than 7 hours a night or they're sleeping more than 10, right? So you don't want to be on either end of the spectrum and usually like sleeping long, there's like

1: 50: 00

usually like sleeping long, there's like other disease states associated with it, right? But um so people that are sleeping, you know, not getting enough sleep, they have a higher all cause mortality than people that are getting at least 7 to 9 hours of sleep. And the same for like more than 10. They have a higher all cause mortality than people getting between 7 and and 9. But if people exercise, if they're meeting the physical activity guidelines right now, which is 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise and 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity exercise. Right. Well, cuz the guidelines are helpful, but they're just guidelines because I mean, doing the sort of workout that you're doing, working up to doubles and triples and singles on compound lifts and then doing uh cardio, like getting your heart rate elevated and then doing addition of that and then you're hiking. I mean, that it's just uh I think the guidelines are a good jumping off place for people to think about. Well, we can talk about that because there's a new study that kind of throws Yeah, you only that on the head. But but the point is is that if they were if people were exercising within the guideline range, that they basically if they weren't getting enough sleep, if they were getting fewer than 7 hours of sleep per night, that they they basically had the same mortality rate as people that were getting enough sleep. So it's offsetting some of that unhealthy stuff, the insulin resistance, you know, the inflammation that we know, you know, can lead to diseases and early mortality. So, find the time to exercise, folks. But, of course, periods of time like after a new child or new job or particularly stressful time, I don't know any human being, I don't care how driven, um okay, there's probably Goggins and Cam Hanes being probably exceptions and a few others, you know, I don't know if you can ride out in a few others, but people who everybody else seems to have periods of time where they need to just back off a bit. Mhm. I know I certainly do. And I feel like I'm doing pretty well for myself despite, you know, and and I think that it it's important that people not hold themselves to a standard that is going to make them sick or injured or

1: 52: 01

is going to make them sick or injured or miserable beyond Yeah, you also want to continue to enjoy health-promoting activities, right. I mean, you got to say like what's your goal? Like, your goal is to be healthy, to be happy. If you're taking it to this extreme where you're trying to just go to the extreme like go hard, go home, and it's you're sacrificing your happiness, too. I mean, then that's a problem, right? Cuz that's part of the equation. Happiness is part of that healthy equation. Health is a daily and lifelong thing, but sometimes it means taking a day off. I think that's what people don't say, um and I think it's in a time when perhaps a lot of people aren't exercising enough. So, promoting the no days off thing can be helpful, but for those that are already you know, forward center of mass, you know, coming off the accelerator can be really useful. I also want to just mention because, you know, we we talked about my, you know, I I work out a lot and I'm sort of addicted to it, but like not everyone has the time and motivation to to go spend an hour block of time working out. And this is where I think that people can sigh a sigh of relief because there's now so much emerging data that have been coming out you know, over the last decade on these short burst of physical activity that add up. They add up and people aren't really thinking about them and you know, counting towards adding up to to their physical activity, you know, requirements for the week. And so there's these there's a lot of studies now there's on something called um vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity Vilpa studies. Have you heard of those? Are these the exercise snacks? They're unstructured and not everyone likes the word exercise snacks. I mean, I I kind of like it, but the unstructured exercise they're they're the moments in your life where you're taking advantage of everyday situations to get your heart rate up to move. And so that could be I'm playing with my new puppy and I'm sprinting around with my new puppy. I'm, you know, chasing my grandkid around and playing tag or my child. I'm sprinting up the

1: 54: 01

tag or my child. I'm sprinting up the stairs to get to my office. I'm running to catch the bus. I'm moving, right? And so um researchers and there have been several studies on this now. Researchers use accelerometers rather than just relying on these questionnaires which are, as you know, extremely unreliable. I mean, it's very hard for people to remember how much exercise you I'm sitting here asking me about my exercise. I mean, there's only so much, you know, that you can be accurate with when you're trying to recall that. So these accelerometers are are worn on people's wrists and they're measuring like fast movement, the movement, right? And so thousands and thousands like hundreds of thousands of participants. There's lots of data now showing that people that are doing these like short burst at least a minute long, but up to 3 minutes, right? Where they're getting their they're moving. I'm saying they're getting their heart rate up. They're actually not measuring the heart rate in these days. They're moving faster with intent, right? They're they're jogging or they're um you know, they're not of course there's the cases where they're actually exercising, but but the short burst of it um they're doing the things that I just mentioned and it's having outsized effects on on health outcomes. So, for example, individuals that do on the high end, so they're doing, you know, 3 minutes of this short burst of an unstructured type of exercise snack and they do it three times a day. So, it's a total of 9 minutes a day. Okay, this type of activity, and it's considered more vigorous because you're the intent to move, right? That's more vigorous even though they're not measuring heart rate. That's associated with a 40% reduction in all-cause mortality, 40% reduction in cancer-related mortality, a 50% reduction in cardiovascular-related mortality. Wow. 9 minutes a day. And this is even in people that don't identify as exercisers, so they're not the kind of people like you and I that go and intentionally [clears throat] set out time to go to the gym. They're people that just they're just take their they're doing those things, right? They're playing with their grandkids or their kids or their puppies or whatever. And so, um, these moments they add up. And I'm I'm citing one study, but, you

1: 56: 00

And I'm I'm citing one study, but, you know, there was a dose-dependent effect even doing 3 minutes a day, you know, there's a study in women showing, you know, 3 and 1 / 2 minutes a day. I mean, they were having pretty profound benefits on all-cause mortality and cancer-related mortality as well. And multiple studies now have shown this. I mean, this is like one study after another. I mean, it is is undeniable that these short moments of, you know, getting physically active active do add up and structured exercise snacks can be part of that. Like, maybe you don't have a puppy, maybe you don't have a kid yet, maybe you work from home and you're not taking the stairs. You know, maybe your situation's different than what I described, but you can take these moments to do exercise snacks and that can be a minute long and it can be like there was there's studies showing that two two studies, and I'll talk about one, showing that getting up and doing 10 bodyweight squats every 45 minutes over a 7 and 1 / 2 hour work day is better at regulating blood glucose levels than a 30-minute walk, right? So, you get up and you do 10 bodyweight squats. Pretty easy. I mean, it's also very good to break up that sedentary time. So, being sedentary means like you're not moving. That also is an independent risk factor, even if you do exercise for things like cancer being a big one. Although, I would say if you're doing a lot of exercise, you're doing pretty good, but I just like to mention that as well. I would say being sedentary is a disease, actually. That's That's something I mean, people aren't thinking about it, but Even in the absence of what Layne Norton calls energy toxicity, like even if somebody is at maintenance or below maintenance calories, if they're sedentary, that's that's problematic. We do have data for one measuring cardio cardiorespiratory fitness, which is a marker of cardiovascular health. Being physically fit, right? Obviously, the gold standard of that would be measuring VO2 max, your maximal oxygen uptake during maximal exercise. A lot of studies do not actually directly measure VO2 max. They'll do, you know, maybe sub a submaximal treadmill test, or they'll estimate it, right? There's a calculation out there you can do kind of what your If you wear like an Apple

1: 58: 00

what your If you wear like an Apple Watch or some sort of fitness tracker, what they do is which is, you know, it's looking at the distance that you run and the amount of time it takes, right? So, like a 12-minute run would be an example. People do that. You You run as fast as you can and maintain that pace for 12 minutes. You're not going all out, obviously. You see how far you can go. Yeah. And then And there's a calculation out there that's done to kind of estimate your VO2 max. And so, some studies are a lot of studies are actually doing sort of an estimation of cardiorespiratory fitness. So, cardiorespiratory fitness is really important, I think, for, you know, marking your health and longevity. And, [snorts] you know, if you have a low cardiorespiratory fitness, most of the times you are not physically active, right? And there's studies showing that if you don't have any, you know, diagnosable diseases, so you're not insulin resistant, you don't have cardiovascular disease, you don't have cancer, all that stuff, right? You're not um obese, but you have a low cardiorespiratory fitness, it is as bad or worse in terms of your all-cause mortality, your you know, predicting mortality, than having cardiovascular disease or smoking or having hypertension or these things that we know that are really bad for health, right? So, being sedentary, as I'm saying, it's a low cardiorespiratory fitness, I guess it's not exactly correct. It's a little bit of I'm I'm stretching it a little bit, but cardiorespiratory fitness is a marker of, I would say, fitness. And so, [snorts] um that's why I think being sedentary is a disease. And people with a low cardiorespiratory fitness, I mean, if you go anywhere above that, you know, from low to like low normal, that's associated with a 2-year increase in life expectancy. If you go from low to um high normal, you know, that's like almost a 3-year increase in life expectancy. And if you go up to high, then you're talking about a 5-year increase in life expectancy compared to where you were at below. But again, I'm I'm not talking about your VO2 max, I'm talking about cardiorespiratory fitness. And it's it's really important. Here's another reason why I think that it's it's really bad. So, these these studies were done By the way, cardiorespiratory fitness is

2: 00

By the way, cardiorespiratory fitness is improved by aerobic exercise in general. That's great. And then, you know, if you add in high-intensity interval training in there, mix that also really helps because there are some people that don't respond necessarily to just doing cardiovascular Yeah, about 40% of people don't respond. So, mixing in the high-intensity is good. If you're physically active and doing that, that's great. If you're doing these short bursts of physical activity, also good because it's a little bit of a high-intensity, you know, exercise, right? A min - a minute running around chasing your your grandchild or your puppy or your child. You know, that's a hit session. is amazing. I was traveling with Sprinting up the stairs. Uh sprinting up the stairs or if you're carrying a lot of luggage in the airport, like going up the stairs or down the stairs. It's wild when you go to the airport, uh I I like to notice this. Um nobody takes the stairs. Yeah. Down or up. Like the escalators are there and I'm always like, "Oh, this is a great opportunity to get some extra steps and some extra work." But I realize that's me. Um but it's just it's striking. Um and if you're in DC ever, you know, they've used the long stairwells that go um up from the public transport and that's a workout, you know? Carrying your luggage. And I'm always like, "Oh, free workout." Like you know, like get it in my day. I mean, it sucks to arrive a little bit more sweaty than you would otherwise, but I just think if this were an experiment and we were looking at mice and we were videotaping from above, I would think to myself like which mouse am I going to be? All the mice are going up the automatic elevator. It makes sense. And then why they would want to do that. But these opportunities for exercise are clearly there. I I feel like this is also I I would be remiss if I didn't do a quick shout out to Steve Magnus. Do you follow ever see his content? interacted with him, yeah. I've never met him, but um people should I've interacted with him on X. Yeah. Uh people should um I think give him a follow. He's a very accomplished runner uh in his past, a running coach, I believe, as well, and um and a scientist. And I think has the best take on sort of measuring VO2 max. It's kind of interesting, you know, he has a theory which I think is strongly backed that most measures of VO2 max are not measures of VO2 max at all, but one of

2: 02: 01

measures of VO2 max at all, but one of the best measures of cardiorespiratory fitness is how fast can you run a mile? Mhm. And he says people are generally surprised how easy the easy stuff should feel and how hard the hard stuff should feel. So I want just want to credit Steve for saying that. So I try and keep that in mind around my cardio and do some high I do uh less of what you do, I I confess. Um some high-intensity interval training, Tabata type stuff, and then some a lot of walks, a lot of hikes. Yeah. And I haven't formally measured my VO2 max in a while, but I think he just nails it with that. Because I think people think the 30-minute jog on the treadmill where you get sweaty and you're like, "Ah." Like that's accomplishing what you want, but actually there's a much easier path to better health, which is what you do and more or less what Steve is describing as well. Yeah. Does that square with your your experience? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I do mix in quite a bit of probably more more high-intensity interval training, but um you know, I don't feel like if I felt like it was like if I didn't feel good, I would toggle down the the paddle, all right? I wouldn't keep keep going on it. So, I think you have to again just listen to your body. You know, you don't want to overdo things. And I am I mean, there are people out there that are really like endurance athletes that are you know, like that's not me. I'm a committed exerciser. I'm not an I'm not necessarily an athlete. Um but but yeah, so that would that's there's different I think levels here, and Steve is obviously athlete. Anyway, I've I've learned from him around this topic. It's been helpful. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function. Last year, I became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. Function provides over 100 advanced lab tests that give you a key snapshot of your entire bodily health. This snapshot offers you with insights on your heart health, hormone health, immune functioning, nutrient levels, and much more. They've also recently added tests for toxins such as BPA exposure from harmful plastics, and tests for PFAS's or forever chemicals. Function not only provides testing of over 100 biomarkers

2: 04: 01

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2: 06: 00

supposed to spike your insulin and then you get more into the muscles. And then you had a a maintenance dose, which was 5 g per day. Um and the idea back then was that you need to do a washout every 20 weeks or so, where you just stop taking it, you urinate out a bunch of water, and then you re - reload. And I confess, I've continued to do this minus the grape juice, but occasionally I'll do the grape juice thing. I don't think there's any real merit to the loading phase, maintenance phase idea, but back then and still now, I feel like creatine has made me feel great. Um stronger. Um I did I wasn't aware of the cognitive benefits. They weren't being studied back then. But, what are your thoughts on why creatine suddenly has become this like banner supplement? Like, supplement of the year. We should start a supplement of the year thing, right? For a while, I think vitamin D and melatonin came first. Um, we'll have to figure out what years those were. Then, uh, I feel like creatine got supplement of the year for 2026 is unless something else comes along. So, creatine, supplement of the year 2026, even though it's been around for a long, long time. What do you think happened? Well, so first I want to talk about your loading phase. And I like that was really for the studies that were being done, right? Because if you're taking 5 g a day of creatine, it takes about 3 to 4 weeks for your crea - for your muscle creatine stores to become saturated. And researchers aren't going to do a study where they wait that long. So, the loading phase really was just what inspired it. Yeah, it was it's in this isolated bubble of in the experimental protocol, but like in the real world, you have 3 weeks. Or if you're like an athlete and you hadn't, you know, taken the creatine, you don't have your creatine stores up and you have to quickly, rapidly Got it. I was just amazed at how quickly it worked. I I might be a hyper responder, but I legitimately put on I realized some of it was water or most of it was water, but somewhere between probably 4 and 8 lb of of water in the muscle mass. I don't want to call it lean mass because it's, you know, it's water in the muscle. Um,

2: 08: 00

Um, but I I just was I was like, "Oh my goodness, this is crazy." You know? And, um, and then people thought maybe it was a steroid. It's not a steroid. Maybe it's bad for your kidneys. Turns out safe for your kidneys in most everyone. Um, pretty remarkable molecule. Yeah, I mean, obviously creatine is stored as creatine phosphate in our cells. We make to some degree, you know, between 1 to 3 g of creatine a day. Our liver, our brain also makes it. It's used to make energy. And so, your muscles, if you're working out, you're really consuming a lot of energy, right? It's very energetically demanding. So, having the creatine stores higher in your muscle is beneficial because one, you're going to be able to increase your training volume, right? So, it's not like creatine is anabolic in the sense that protein or amino acids are, right? It's not like directly affecting muscle protein synthesis. It's just helping you train more, getting more reps in, you know, whatever it is, training your training volume's going up. And because your training volume's going up, then you're obviously putting more stress on your muscles, which is going to lead to increased muscle protein synthesis and, you know, obviously there's water probably as well. That said, you know, you asked me, you know, what happened. So, I got interested in creatine back in 20 when I started basically weight training. I've obviously had heard about it forever, never tried it. And um as I started to get into resistance training, I was like, I better start taking this. This is I'm I'm in this world now and started doing some research on taking it. So, I was taking the 5 g a day cuz that's really what most of the studies show creatine monohydrate. That's the most well-researched form of creatine. And I was taking 5 g a day because I was interested in improving my my training volume and and getting the benefits of it, right? Um and then I had Darren Candow on the podcast. Uh that was in 2024, I think it was. And um once I'd started getting into the creatine research, I the brain stuff started has

2: 10: 00

research, I the brain stuff started has been coming out over the past, you know, few years. And that's for me become very interesting. I remember the first time I heard about it years ago, I was like, oh, it's it's helping improve cognitive function in older older, you know, people. Yeah, the phosphocreatine system seems to be somewhat um biased towards forebrain structures. You know, I mean, obviously it's in lots of brain areas, but that there might be a reliance on it for brain areas that are associated with strategic planning and you know, working memory and yeah. If you were to sort of just map the sort of density of usage of the phosphocreatine system, you'd you'd see a frontal bias for sure. Okay. Yeah. Um well, anyways, that's kind of where my interest in in you know, kind of diving deeper. Anything that's helping the brain is interesting to me as I know it is to you as well. And um and so I learned a lot from this podcast I did with Darren Candow. He you know, researches creatine and collaborates with a lot of different researchers that are doing you know, research on the brain and muscle and you know, lots of the bone. Turns out it's beneficial for the bone as well. But the brain, it's interesting that we also make creatine in the brain, but um it's not like so it's kind of like the muscle, right? You're not just going to if you take creatine and you don't work out, you're not going to get any increase in lean mass, right? It's not going to do much of anything because you're not putting in the work. I think the same goes with the brain as well, where it's like you researchers started to find out that well, you can't just take creatine and it's going to enhance cognitive function. It's in the background of stressing the brain, right? You're stressing your muscles by workout. Same goes for the brain. It's like in these situations of stress, whether that's sleep deprivation, whether it's, you know, a traumatic brain injury. I mean, I would argue, you know, there's a lot of psychological stress, depression, constantly using your brain like you and I right now in this conversation. We're we're learning, we're thinking. I mean, it is stressful on the brain, right? So, I mean, I'm obviously speculating here

2: 12: 01

I mean, I'm obviously speculating here and taking taking I'm extrapolating, right? I'm I'm not saying that there's studies showing that, but it does seem as though that that's when creatine seems to shine in the brain. And you might go, well, your brain makes it and it's true. Your brain does make, you know, again, it's like think between 1 to 3 g or something. I'm not exactly sure how much, but it makes its own creatine and it's kind of resistant to taking up the creatine that you're supplementing with. Um particularly because for one, the muscle is very greedy. So, when you're getting to that 5 g range, muscles are really consuming it if you're working out in in particular, right? Your muscles are kind of consuming that because that's they're very greedy for it, right? Uh and and there have now been I think a handful of studies showing that when you start to get above that, there's a study out of Germany showing this. And it's a small study. This needs to be replicated. Like this is all new, you know, emerging data. But, that study showed that once you start to get to, you know, 10 g, then if you look by MRI, you can start to see that creatine levels are increasing in certain brain regions and perhaps in the brain regions that you were talking about. And they're going higher than than what you would get from just your brain normally making its own creatine. So, the 10 g of creatine a day, which is now what my baseline is, is based off of that. But, there's studies now showing that um if you are in this sort of stressed state, your brain is stressed like for sleep sleep deprivation, for example, you're sleep deprived for 21 hours and your brain's not working very good after not sleeping for 21 hours, right? I mean, that's obviously when I have a when I travel internationally, I never really sleep good on a an international flight. And so, I'm like not If you were to come find me after that flight, I'd be like not working very good, right? Cognitively. else. Right. Yeah. Well, some people can sleep great on a plane, but I'm not one of those people. So, um there have now been at least one study showing that if you give someone it's like something like. 35 g per kilogram body weight of creatine,

2: 14: 00

g per kilogram body weight of creatine, which comes out to a lot. I mean, it's like 20 25 depends on your body weight, right? Like you 20 25 g, perhaps even more. I mean, I'm 100 kg. That's a lot of creatine. So, for me, it's more like 20 25 grams, right? But if you give individuals that high dose in that, you know, sleep deprived state, that they're cognitively not only performing normal, but they're performing better than their baseline. And that, of course, generated a lot of interest. There've been studies coming out since then showing that, okay, if you give older adults with mild cognitive impairment, perhaps mild, you know, early stage Alzheimer's disease, again, 20 grams, you're giving them in the 20 g range of creatine, it's improving their cognitive function. Why is that? Well, creatine is important to make energy. And when your brain cells are stressed out, right? I mean, like energy energetic demand goes up, and if you have more creatine, it's going to make things easier. There's also some inflammation that's being generated in that stressed state, and it seems as though creatine is also having both an indirect and direct effect on inflammatory processes as well. This is all early early data. Like like more needs to be done, but I think there's enough safety data out there now where it's like, well, it's really not harmful to take 10 g a day. I take 10 g a day every day. You spread it out? I do it in two doses. I mean, some people are very sensitive to a 10 g dose where they might like get a GI irritation effect. It can give some people um diarrhea. exactly. Yeah. So, the very scientific way of putting it. But I mean, that So, I I do spread it out, and I take it I don't take it at night. I like to take mine in the morning. And I don't know, Andrew, this might be a placebo. I feel like I'm constantly in a stressed I'm constantly in a my brain is under a lot of stress. I'm constantly learning, I'm reading papers. And like I said, I'm I'm extrapolating here. This isn't sleep deprivation, that's obviously a much more extreme type of stress. But I have noticed that taking my 10 g, going from 5 to 10, really does seem to

2: 16: 02

going from 5 to 10, really does seem to affect my brain functioning like later in the day, where I seem to keep keep going better where I just I'm not getting as tired. And I could be placebo which is fine. Like I said, I am fine with placebo effects as long as what I'm ingesting is not actually bad for you. Placebo's fine with me. But it is working for me. When I travel I do when I'm going to the East Coast. I mean, I'm on the West Coast so when I go anywhere and I have to give a talk early in the morning and I never sleep good in a hotel. I I'm always sleep deprived. I mean, I don't know that a time that I haven't been traveling and I'm going to start traveling with my pill like you do cuz that's brilliant cuz that's like one of my that's one of my problems. But there's many problems in hotel rooms that lead to me not sleeping as good, right? So I take 20 sometimes 25 g of creatine in those situations and they're it's like, you know, it's not all the time. But it seems to help me again and like I said, I'm okay with placebo which is fine. But we do have some evidence that it might. And I think this is kind of where people are already interested in creatine and so when you start to go, well, maybe it's going to be beneficial for the brain. If it's going to improve cognitive function, that's really something that people are interested in. Now again, I don't know that it's like if you're just some young healthy person that gets all their you're getting your sleeping well, you're exercising, everything's great. You know, and I mostly sleep well and exercise great. I'm extrapolating here but like, you know, Alzheimer's disease on the extreme end, TBI also on the extreme end. That's real time aging, right? And there's some evidence it may be helpful for that as well. There's been some studies with children looking at creatine supplementation after a a TBI and it seems to help with their their recovery. Um I am probably experiencing brain aging. So I'm just kind [clears throat] of I'm going to interrupt there. I don't think so. I'm not trying to just be complimentary. You know, I paid close attention to the data and it seems like in certain fields like math and physics people tend to peak with their contributions early. There's a reason why the Fields Medal is only given to people, you know, like I

2: 18: 00

only given to people, you know, like I think it's 40 or younger. My dad's a physicist, so he can check me on this one, but biologists, at least the ones I know that took good care of themselves, they're known to make great discoveries, be cognitively sharp, intellectually strong well into their 70s and 80s. I mean, Torsten Wiesel, who co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for brain plasticity and vision, he's still alive and he he was I think he still runs. He's in his late 90s. And he paints and he's sharp. So, I just I made a point to only interrupt here. People are going to check the the data on the previous portions of the podcast, but and just say, I actually think that cognitively I'm using biologists as an example. It's possible in aspects of life where you're building a base of data to pull from, which is what biology really is, it's just an example here, that to get cognitively stronger and stronger with age. Right. I It is a theory, but I see you as that. And I'm again, I'm not just saying it to be complimentary, although it is a compliment. I It seems like you're you're picking up steam, you're thinking about things, you're not forgetting things from way back when, you're building on the the concepts and knowledge from way back when. So, I I find it reassuring that you biologists in particular seem to have this, you know, up and to the right trajectory for cognition. It's interesting. My my late mentor, Dr. Bruce Ames, was every bit of that. I mean, you know, he passed away a little over a year ago. He's 96, but you know, some of his most He claims some of his best work was done, you know, in his late 80s. Right. you don't see that in math or physics. Yeah. So, that's interesting. And and you know, I don't know exactly the difference. I mean, I don't know how much learning goes into math and physics as you're Like I just don't know, but like with biology, and I mean, we're constantly learning new things and and reading new papers and then I think even just the novelty of learning new things, I mean, that's brain-derived neurotrophic factor, right? Like that's like you're increasing synaptic connections and neuroplasticity and you're keeping your brain younger in

2: 20: 00

and you're keeping your brain younger in that way, too, right? So, uh I I think the learning process is is super important, whether it's biology or whatever you're passionate about, right? Like you learn new languages, whatever. Like the learning process itself is something that is so important for for brain aging as well. Um and yeah, so I would agree with you that but brain aging in general, yeah, I'm obviously chronologically aging and there is some degree of aging going on in my brain. But, you know, so that's that's I think where the creatine craze has come from is the interest in and I and I've definitely played a role in some of this, you know, by Yeah. you know, talking talking about my experience and being super interested in it because it's like it's felt good for me and I've noticed this experience and this is completely anecdota again. But, in addition with the small studies and they are small. Like, I don't know if you've looked at them, but they're they're you can Subject numbers are not Yeah, they're small and you can poke holes in them and you would be completely, you know, okay poking holes because it's they're small, you know, sample sizes. But, it is kind of a consistent trend line where we're seeing more studies come out and show the same thing, It's like, okay, you know, to a certain point, um maybe there's something here. I think that more research is going to come out on it. And I feel great doing it. So, I mean, and even to the point where if I don't have my 10 g and it's only five, like I'll notice. Oh, yeah, but again, it could be that you know, placebo nocebo thing where who knows? But, you know, let's just say it is real, you know, for me. I got to have my my 10 g of creatine for my brain. Um you know, who knows? I may in 5 years be like, I was wrong. We'll see new data come out, but I don't think so. I think we're going to have I think this is like the next a lot of people doing creatine research. It's it's the new thing. They're really cuz there's been a lot of work on exercise physiology and Yeah, but the safety data are there, so it's not like you have to get a lot of The safety data is there. The safety data is I mean it's the most

2: 22: 00

data is I mean it's the most well-studied, you know, one of the most well-studied supplements out there, like you said. I mean you were taking it when you were 18 and they were studied back then. Yeah, and it's just been studied the, you know, for all the years that that you've been taking it. So, I mean if it was unsafe, like we really would know. And again, I don't want to get into all the data on the safety, but I think that it's pretty pretty solid that it's Now, of course, like if you're going to go like mainline 50 g a day, I mean I don't know, that's a little much, but Someone on the internet will do that. They will dry What do they dry scoop? I mean people have died dry scooping energy drinks. I mean there's always a [__] or two out there that are going to take things to the extreme and harm themselves doing something that no one else is dumb enough to do, but I think we look at the center of mass for things. You know what, as we're talking about creatine, I want to talk about some other supplements. Um, but it occurs to me that if there's some data, ideally from animal studies and humans, and something is safe, I think the question nowadays, because of how broadly health and supplement and other kinds of information goes in the world, I think the question that everyone should ask themselves is okay, do I want to be in the experimental or the control group? That's how I think about it. So, like if there's a study about creatine or or some new molecule, I'm going to ask you about magnesium in a moment, right? I look at the safety margins on magnesium, okay. But I'm comfortable with those safety margins, so that should always be question number one. And then it's do I want to be in the experimental or the control group? And I think that these days people are who are against supplements or against something, they'll say, "Well, the effect isn't nearly as big as you get from exercise." Totally, absolutely. But that's not really what we're talking about. People love this in the cannabis and alcohol thing whenever I make a point about alcohol or cannabis, they'll say, "Well, alcohol is worse." Like, yeah, I like and you know, I mean, these are two separate entities. So, I think that people should just ask themselves,

2: 24: 01

that people should just ask themselves, are you comfortable with the safety margins? And do you want to be in the experimental or the control group? And then, of course, there's the do can I afford to be in the experimental group if I do something. But, that those are the really the only questions. There's no one saying that that creatine's better than anything else or worse than anything else. Right. But, somehow the messaging gets all messed up. And then, all these news articles get generated about what creatine is and it isn't. And I find it like um kind of frustrating because that's that the issue is not whether or not creatine is better than exercise and good sleep. Question is, do you want to be in the experimental or or the control group and can you afford to be in the experimental group? Right. I I like that. I like that framework especially if it's like, well, we know it's safe. Okay, so I can potentially be in the experimental group cuz that's question number one. You have to have that answer first, right? At least in my book. But, yeah, I mean, there's flaws with all sorts of studies and creatine studies included, right? And people make all sorts of claims about it and you know, you got to tone it down a little bit. I mean, it's not like the best performance enhancer ever. Right. But, it it seems pretty pretty good at, you know, improving exercise volume recovery as well. I mean, that's like also something that's been shown and then helping with the stressed-out brain. On the basis of our last conversation some years ago on this podcast, I um started taking Lovaza, which is a as you know, a a prescription omega-3, so very high concentration omega-3 cuz I was getting it from, you know, standard sources and I thought, well, I'm hitting 50 and you know, up my omega-3 and I want clean omega-3. I don't want it contaminated with mercury and other things. So, I'll take um omega-3s in the form of Lovaza. It's available in generic form now, so it's pretty inexpensive. And I have to say my my blood profiles were pretty good, but they improved pretty dramatically when I started taking Lovaza. So, I'm grateful to you for encouraging the omega-3 uh

2: 26: 00

uh uh you know, take the omega-3 path. Have you ever had an omega-3 index test done? No. To measure the Oh, if it's on the function test, then then it would be in it's in normal range. I know it wasn't flagged, but I don't recall what the level was. Yeah. You want to be in the high index, not the low, right? Well, obviously if you're taking it, you're not going to be in the low. Yeah. Usually it's around 2 g a day to get you from low to high. And I do think that's one of the low-hanging fruits in terms of like something powerful in having an outsize effect on your health that people can do that's not that much effort. It's not like exercise and exercise effort and or eating salmon. I don't like fish. Yeah, and and you know, a lot of people don't like fish. And also, there's now microplastic contamination in in our, you know, seafood sources. There's the heavy metals, PCBs, contaminants. I mean, I still eat salmon, but like you know, it's it's not like it used to be. So, there there are other cleaner ways to get your omega-3 levels higher. And omega-3 is very important for cardiovas - It's one of the most important I would say the most powerful naturally occurring dietary compounds for suppressing inflammation and resolving inflammation would be a better way of putting it, right? I mean, and that's again at the core of aging. And if you look at any sort of measure of aging, whether it's even these epigenetic aging clocks, they're very sensitive to inflammation. And that's why there's so many studies coming out now showing omega-3 can slow this, you know, biological aging as measured by these epigenetic aging clocks. And that's I think even in randomized controlled trials showing this that it's it's doing that. And that leads to functional outcomes as well. So, like even if you're only slowing the clock, let's say, by 3 months, um you're still having outcomes like where, for example, three three months slowing the epigenetic aging clock by omega-3 only is going to get you like, you know, 16% lower pre-frailty. Or if you add in vitamin D and resistance training, cuz the study showed it a synergy between the three, then you're talking about

2: 28: 01

the three, then you're talking about like lowering the chance of invasive cancer by 66%. Even No, you're only getting 66. Yeah. Even though you're only getting D, resistance training, and and omega-3. Yeah. And this was um the trial was actually out of Switzerland, I believe. And it looked at omega-3, vitamin D alone, or resistance training alone. And the only thing that actually slowed the vi - the uh aging of the clocks was by was omega-3. Now, I'll say that with a caveat, okay? The baseline exercise in this Switzerland group, 88% of these people are physically active, like doing exercise. So, adding, you know, 30 minutes three times a a week of resistance training on top of that didn't slow the clock more. And I wouldn't expect it to, to be honest, when you're already physically active and that's your baseline. Um clearly [snorts] they weren't eating enough omega-3, because that did slow the epigenetic aging clock. Other studies have shown if you're vitamin D deficient, severely vitamin D deficient, like African-Americans, for example, who are obese or overweight, if they add in vitamin D and supplement with 4, 000 IUs a day for six um six weeks, they can actually slow their reverse their epigenetic aging as well. So, I think it again, it's all like where you're starting from. But the point is that the omega-3 alone did slow the aging of these clocks. Um and you add in the resistance training and vitamin D, those alone didn't do it, but when you add it with the omega-3, there was synergy, so it kept going down. And when the three combined, it slowed the epigenetic aging by like 3. 8 months. but that translated to like 66% less likely to get invasive cancer. And then the pre-frailty was the omega-3 alone and there was another marker I can't remember. I covered this in the newsletter a while back, but like you know, this and this is like this isn't the first study to show this with omega-3. Omega-3s are really I'm I'm went on this tangent. I'm sorry Andrew, you got me on one of my favorite topics. excited cuz I take Lovaza, I take vitamin D, D3. I take a lot. I take 5 to 8, 000 I use

2: 30: 02

I take a lot. I take 5 to 8, 000 I use per day and I get sunlight. People actually ask me this is just a a quick window into the messaging around sunlight. Some people will say if I take vitamin D, do I still need sunlight? And you know, a big part of my messaging is trying to tell people sunlight does a bunch of other things, but I take vitamin D at that level, I take the Lovaza and of course I resistance train and the Lovaza move and actually increasing the vitamin D was on the basis of yes blood work, but also our prior conversation. I feel much better. Yeah. Much better with the about 5, 000 I use a day as well and I do get sunlight and I know I agree with you sunlight's important for sunlight's not and vitamin D production is not the only thing that sunlight is doing. Obviously, you've talked in great, you know, depth depth about that. to go into the grave. I actually want a little window over my grave. It'll be a little morbid so I can get morning sunlight. I'm just kidding, folks. And when I'm in the ground, Um no, I think the omega-3 literature has been greatly assisted by your messaging around it because it got pretty confusing out there for a while. There was the the usual pushback that comes after supplement to the year is released. It's a joke, folks. Is the oh no, it's actually bad for us. You know, there's always a few of those and then we eventually arrive at sanity again and you go, no, the bulk of studies point in the direction of this being healthy. control trials showing it improves cardiovascular health, lowers the incidence of, you know, cardiovascular events including heart attacks and strokes, right? These are the gold standard. We've got the observational data. We have now looking at the molecular events. We like you know, epigenetic aging. We know that it's really good at resolving inflammation cuz you want your immune system to be active, but you don't want it to be overactive. You want it to be active and then turn off, right? And so the omega-3 fatty acids like DHA and EPA which are in Lovaza or Lavaza are what the meta [clears throat] they're when they're metabolized they're forming these molecules, resolvins, protectins. These things are resolving inflammation. And so I think that um it's just it's one of the easiest ways that you can increase your anti-inflammatory response and exercise

2: 32: 01

anti-inflammatory response and exercise obviously being another very powerful one. But the omega-3s it's always easier to take a supplement. So like I have my parents taking it. You know, anyone that I care about it's like you know, easy easy done. You know, take your 2 g a day. I say 2 g a day because you know, Lovaza is prescribed at 4 g a day. You know, so 2 g is pretty on the conservative side and that's really what's been shown by um Dr. Bill Harris and some of his colleagues that can basically you can take someone from a low omega-3 index of 4% up to a high omega-3 index of 8% by supplementing with about 2 g a day. So um and by the way there's all sorts of data on that front with the omega-3 index and I think we talked about this last last time, but you know, 5-year increased life expectancy if you're on the high end. Um you're talking about 90% reduction in sudden cardiac death. Brain weight in children if pregnant women are taking. Yeah, I mean it's important throughout the lifespan. It's you know, from in utero development throughout childhood all the way through adult life and into old age. You know, these omega-3 fatty acids are I'm talking about the resolving inflammation, but they're also very important for they're incorporated into our cell membranes DHA and to some degree EPA. And that has a very important role in the fluidity of our our cell membranes. And this is important for if you think about our endothelial cells lining our our vascular system, our arteries you want them to be fluid and more flexible, right? That's very important for being able to respond to a stressful situation. In fact, the stiffening of our heart with age, you know, the collagen that surrounds our pericardium or that's surrounding our heart pericardium and our myocardium, like that's that's increases the risk of a heart attack, you know, a cardiovascular event. Um you want your cells to be more flexible. So, that's what, you know, these omega-3s are also doing and that's why they're also really important for cardiovascular health in addition. And in the brain as well. I mean, these all of our transporters, all of our our receptors, right? They're embedded in the cell membrane and the the fluidity of that membrane is important for the structure and function of these things. And that's why omega-3

2: 34: 01

of these things. And that's why omega-3 affects dopamine, serotonin, right? It's why it's affecting It's not the only reason. Inflammation is also, but part of the reason is because it's it's changing the way our cell is like, you know, structurally composed. And if you think about trans fats, like that's they do the opposite, right? They stiffen the cell membranes and that's why it's like the worst thing you could do for your cardio One of the worst things you could do for your cardiovascular health is eat a bunch of trans fats. Smoking is another one. Smoking's terrible for your cardiovascular health. Do people still eat trans fats? No. I feel like trans fats got executed in When when was it that trans fats got executed? became I think it was 2018. I mean, something when they're all like Yeah, they were sentenced to death. Yeah. No, it's the the point is that we all know trans fats are bad for for our heart, but we don't think about why. And they stiffen I mean, the research is doing it know. I mean, it's stiffen it's stiffening your cell, your endothelial cells. Well, donuts, right? As in like if you go get a donut, isn't a donut have a bunch Fried foods, some amount of trans fat that's like below that's threshold of being only bad food I miss. Yeah. The late night donut, right? I had so much margarine as a kid. My mom used to buy it by the tub. I I remember it as like this She used go to Costco and get like this big yellow tub of margarine and everything was cooked in it and I mean it was like on our toast and This was a battle in my home. Actually, I'm going to re - I'm going to resurrect some some family battles of the butter margarine battle was a battle. Yeah. Butter won. Yeah, it doesn't taste the same. But, you know, that was the craze. It was the loaf like the fat was bad and butter was bad and margarine was good and it turns out nope. Trans fats are really bad. Um but the point I was trying to make was to help contrast for people to understand. Sometimes when I talk self fluidity people are like What? good that people I mean, I think it's very important that people understand some of the cellular molecular

2: 36: 00

some of the cellular molecular underpinnings of protocols because I strongly believe that understanding mechanism even just a little bit or striving to understand it embeds the information for people makes it more likely that they'll do the behaviors and gives them a logic to work from when they have to make choices because life isn't perfect. Right. That's I know that to be certain. I I completely agree with you. I it's certainly for me, but I that that is also my hope. I think that if people kind of understand somewhat of the why it's it's motivating to try to adopt the the healthy habit. But also, I think it helps them remember like why it's important, right? it's how the brain learns. It's a it's the secret is context. The way to remember something is context. People always say it's story. No, it's context and anyway, you and I know that to be true from our our background. If I may, I'd like to ask about magnesium. I'm very bullish on magnesium in particular magnesium 3 and 8 before sleep. For sleep, I take AG1 cuz I helped them build it. It just has a bunch of things like magnesium 3 and 8 and saffron and tart cherry. The things that have either been shown or are you know, gradually there's amassing of uh research data to uh other people um studies out there to support that it can facilitate either transition to sleep or but magnesium threonate and magnesium bisglycinate to me are interchangeable uh with respect to sleep. But magnesium threonate I'm aware there are some studies that there may be some cognitive benefits. So magnesium obviously could be split into a number of things but maybe we just start there with threonate bisglycinate. I have a feeling that you're aware of some additional differences between them and I'd like to know what you prefer for sleep or for cognitive benefits and then maybe we get into the other magnesiums. Yeah, I think so if we if we're comparing mis - magnesium bisglycinate or magnesium glycinate depending on how many molecules of glycine are attached to the magnesium compared to magnesium L-threonate

2: 38: 00

L-threonate L-threonate the the main difference here and this is based on very limited amount of data a lot of it animal data with respect to the magnesium threonate is that that form of magnesium is supposed to get into and cross the blood brain barrier more readily and get into the brain better and then in the brain it's you know helping facilitate neurotransmission etc. right helping improve cognitive function. [clears throat] And so whereas magnesium glycinate or bisglycinate you're having the magnesium attached to the glycine um glycine also is great to take for sleep so I like to take magnesium bisglycinate or glycinate for sleep and um so that I would say if you're interested in more the cognition aspect Well the studies I think you're referring to the the Guosong Liu's data um you know show some in mice some cognitive enhancement or at least some offsetting of cognitive decline. Those are different but related obviously. In anticipation of today's discussion I was able to find one study seems okay it's not not a huge sample size showing a um um positive reports on sleep quality after magnesium L-threonine. So, the studies are starting to show up. But, there aren't a lot of studies on magnesium for specific outcomes in humans. And I think it's because it hits like what? 3, 000 plus pathways. You know, yeah, it's a cofactor for many enzymes. So, if you're taking bisglycinate before sleep, are you taking it a half hour or 60 minutes before sleep? I'm usually taking it, I would say like couple hours before before bed. You know, sometimes I add a little bit more magnesium in the mix. Depends on the day and if I exercise more because you do sweat out magnesium. And so, if you're pretty athletic, your requirements can go up by even as much as 20%. [snorts] Uh but yeah, the magnesium L-threonine, it's interesting. I very recently got interested in experimenting with it. You know, there's a little bit of human evidence as well that it improves cognition. Not Not strong, but again,

2: 40: 01

cognition. Not Not strong, but again, it's that you know, we just don't have a lot of people researching it. And we have the animal data. The animal data is a little stronger. Don't have a lot of human data, but it seems to signal it might be important. It might help with cognition, right? And so, I kind of got interested in in experimenting with the magnesium L-threonine, which I haven't use it's it's a new thing for me. I've been doing magnesium glycinate for a while. I think the study actually looked at the Magtein version. I have no financial relationship to Magtein. You know, we want to be very clear. I just mentioned that cuz that's a common one out there. And as far as I know, I'll double check, but they weren't paid by Magtein, but I think Magtein did fund the study. Oh, they did? So, yeah. Okay. All right. We'll We'll put a link to it. Doesn't discredit it unless unless there's some, you know, bad things going on, which I like to think not. I mean, you know, It's supposed to be done independently. I mean, when they pay for a group to do I mean, by law, they're supposed to blind the data and not bias the outcomes. One hopes that's what they do. Yeah. And I think to the most part, you're for the most part, you're probably okay. But, it is something to consider if there is a potential COI, right? Um, but yeah, so I don't know so that was the first part of your question was the difference between Yeah. the the glycinate and the threonate. And then then and then the the concern that I might have which might be something you're not thinking about is okay, well, I need to fulfill my magnesium requirements, right? And so our daily magnesium requirements again based on our gender and our physical activity it's a range. It's a sliding scale. So, you know, women 300 350 milligrams a day men 350 400 milligrams a day really depending on how physically active you are. And this is just you know, your daily requirements to have enough magnesium to run you know, repairing DNA damage to run you need magnesium to make energy to utilize energy. You need it for neurotransmission. Like it's there's so many different, you know, important functions in our body that require magnesium to work to make vitamin to convert vitamin D3 into the active steroid hormone. And this this to me is like to some degree

2: 42: 00

me is like to some degree vindicating but also I'm super annoyed by it because you know, we have all these different um, studies out there on vitamin D supplementation and does it is it important? And I mean there's so many negative data out there. Well, it doesn't do what we thought. It's not doing anything. Um, but half half the US population doesn't get enough magnesium and so those enzymes [clears throat] that are important for converting the D3 that you're taking into the active steroid hormone are not working properly. Um, so anyways, I'm I'm not going to go on that tangent but I'm just saying magnesium is doing a lot of things. So, um, if you are taking the magnesium threonate and let's say it is getting it's going into the blood, you know, more sorry, the brain more readily then the concern would be well, that not enough of it is around for, you know, DNA repair in other organs and stuff and so you might want to get another source of magnesium. It's all theoretical, [snorts] right? And like that's not I would there's no data on that. So, just mostly because no one's looking at it. No one's Yeah. There's not a lot of incentive. It's funny when people will always say, "Well, there's no incentive cuz the drug companies can't make a lot of money on it." And I sometimes that's true, but I have to chuckle cuz as scientists, I will tell you folks and like I wish I could just like paint this across the sky, but then I get accused of being like a chem trail person or something. Um the reason there's no studies on BPC-157, the reason there's no like RCTs on a randomized control on different forms of magnesium and large sample sizes because we barely have enough money to fund the current research. Like I I I'm not trying to get make this political. Like we just had a 1% increase in the NIH budget, but like there isn't an infinite amount of money to run studies. And so, scientists are if they already work on magnesium or or becomes interesting to them because it came up in a screen of pathways, people aren't they're not a lot of scientists sitting around going, "Oh, like maybe I should study compare magnesium malate bisglycinate 3 and 8 in sleep in 2, 000 subjects, male, female, like pregnant

2: 44: 00

subjects, male, female, like pregnant and perimenopausal." Like no. there's no money to do it. Like So, that's where I get back to is it safe? Do you want to be in the experimental or the control group? Can you afford to be in the experimental or the control group? Yeah. I feel like that's the that's like all we've got. And I'm only I'm chuckling out out of it's a it's sort of like a laughter of pain because I get where people are coming from, but the drug companies are not like avoiding studying magnesium because there's no money to make. It's because I don't know what would that even look like. What endpoint? What disease? What like Yeah. Anyway, forgive me for editorializing, but You're not going to cure you know, cardiovascular disease or cancer by taking a magnesium supplement. I mean, that these these nutraceuticals, these vitamins and minerals, they're they're about prevention, really. And giving your body the right nutrients that it needs to do and function properly, you know, whether that is, you know, getting enough sleep. You know, when you're stressed, when your cortisol goes up, you know, chronically, you're depleting magnesium. You know, it's very like magnesium is being used to deal with that stress, right? So, there there's a reason that we need things like magnesium and, you know, vitamin D. It's just it gets converted into steroid hormone changing 5% of our, you know, our our genome. So, it yeah, it's different. It's not like a pharmaceutical where you're you don't need this, you know, to function optimally, but it might It's it's the whole like, okay, I'm sick and now I need this, you know, or I'm overweight, right? We got the GLP-1s, right? I'm fat I'm obese um and I need to, you know, help fix that. And so, that's kind of a different paradigm. Specific endpoint type stuff. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think that's super important for people to hear that. Oh, by the way, I I should just say um for your sake um and for the listeners, I divide supplements into basically four categories like um food replacement like whey protein or a protein bar or you know, obvious sort of general support, specific effects,

2: 46: 01

of general support, specific effects, and then experimental maybe. Yeah. [laughter] Um and so, I think what we're talking about here with magnesium is kind of combination of maybe helps with sleep, um some specific effects that you're aware of like required and you're trying to top off, you're trying to make sure that you're covering a deficiency. Yes. Okay. Yes, you're trying to make sure you're getting enough of the magnesium, exactly. Are there any other things that you take that are just trying to make sure that you're not deficient anywhere um or for specific reasons. We've talked about a few along the way here, glutamine, vitamin D, uh omega-3s, creatine. I take a multivitamin and that is to cover my bases because, you know, there's there's a lot of things in a multivitamin. You have to find a obviously a good quality one, but um and anyone that tells you that multivitamins are useless, they're wrong. I'm going to tell you that. They're wrong because I think now we have pretty strong data. Three very large randomized control trials, part of the COSMOS trials. Have you heard of these studies? Mhm. And it's really I think pretty clear that in these studies older adults, so we're talking 65 years and older that are taking a multivitamin supplement for you know, what was it a year? I think it was. Um it could be two, but I think it was a year. And it was by the way Centrum Silver. It was like your standard, you know, anyone could afford it get in get it at Walmart type of vitamin. Um and after a year of taking this multivitamin it globally reduced brain aging by about 2. 1 years from like three trials. Globally reduced brain aging by 2. 1 years. Battery of tests that are done, right? I mean it's you know, I'm just talking about general here. And it also reduced episodic brain aging by 4. 9 years. Wow. So that would be, you know, as people probably already familiar with that listen to this podcast, you know, episodic memory, that's the part of memory that's involved in like like remembering events and and people and like experiences. Am I right? I mean it's sort of like not not as much as that. Yeah, sequence of things, yeah. And so, you

2: 48: 01

Sequence of things, yeah. And so, you know, that's a big effect for just a daily multivitamin, you know? And so uh for that reason, you know, I mean I've been taking it before this these studies came out, but that my parents, you know, that anyone that's older adult should be taking a multivitamin. So that's another one that I take. Um and I take it to cover my bases as well. I'm obviously not an older adult and who knows, it might not have the same effect on me, but um you know, it's one of those that it's it's not harmful. Mhm. Um if I'm, you know, it's a little bit of an expensive urine, fine, but I mean there are it is covering some of my bases in terms of some of the micronutrients in it, right? The other ones that I take in besides the one that you mentioned, which is vitamin D, omega-3, I do creatine, magnesium. I do magnesium glycinate. I should look into the bis glycinate cuz I definitely would like another molecule of glycine I like for my sleep. Mhm. But I also sometimes take another form of magnesium, which is it's like a mixture of magnesium malate and uh taurate, I think, are the and and glycinate is is also in that, but sometimes I take that for sleep. And then I take ubiquinol um for mitochondrial health. You like the data on that, obviously, if you're taking it. there's stronger data, I think, on ubiquinone, which is the oxidized form. It's more stable. Mhm. There's just When I say stronger, I mean more data. Do you take coenzyme Q10? So co - co-Q10 is Yeah, co-Q10 is ubiquinol. Okay. Yeah. And so I'm taking the reduced form of it, which is ubiquinol. The The more stable form would be ubiquinone. Are those trademark names? Cuz I take coenzyme Q10. Yeah, you're taking if I took a closer look at the bottle, I'd see that you ubiquinone. It's ubiquinol, yeah. Ubiquinol. The ubiquinol [clears throat] is a little bit more bioavailable, but yeah. So I I'm I'm pretty convinced that that helps with mitochondrial function. Um you know, it's not like you could always have more data, right? So we'll just leave it at that. The other one I take is Now I'm taking urolithin A Mhm. in the form of I'm taking MitoPure, by

2: 50: 01

in the form of I'm taking MitoPure, by the way. I have nothing to do with these companies. But there's now I've just been over the years increasingly interested. And so urolithin A is something that is formed from a type of polyphenol that's found in some fruits, uh like pomegranate being the main one, I think. And raspberries may also have some. I think walnuts also, but it's ellagitannin is the polyphenol, and these ellagitannins get metabolized by the gut microbiome, and the metabolites that are formed, one of them is called urolithin A. And so urolithin A is a compound that seems to stimulate the process of mitophagy, which is a very specific form of autophagy that's that's only for mitochondria. And you know, that's been shown in there have been randomized control trials showing this in humans. It does stimulate mitophagy um blood cells as well as muscle biopsy, but that's an important cleanup process for for how our mitochondria repair themselves. There's no repair enzymes, right? Like they're you know, part of that repair process is mitophagy where they're getting rid of selectively can get rid of parts of mitochondria that are damaged. So, it's really a rejuvenation and and some of this the clinical data, I would say is emerging. More needs to be done, but it seems to in some cases improve endurance performance, which makes sense cuz they rely heavily on mitochondria. But even also um help with the immune system and and this whole inflammaging. So, it helps keep immune cells It seems like it's helping keeping immune cells {quote} {unquote} younger. So, again, emerging data, but it's I'm in that I'm like I'm the experiment group. It seems to be safe and I'm not taking too high of a dose. So, that's another one of that I'm supplementing with. The other one that I'm taking also is uh a very a form of I would say I'm going to call it sulforaphane, but it's not sulforaphane. It's the precursor to sulforaphane, glucoraphanin. Cuz that's more stable. And so, I take something called Avmacol

2: 52: 00

something called Avmacol um which the reason I take that one is because there's oh, it's 13 now. And new stages came out. 13 studies using that that form. Um and sulforaphane is also one of those plant phytochemicals. It's formed It's found in cruciferous vegetables. As you know, we've talked about this before, so I'll I'll try to leave make it brief. But um so, glucoraphanin is in in these cruciferous vegetables like broccoli. Broccoli sprouts are really really great source of it. And when the plant is crushed, you know, like when you eat it eat broccoli or chew it, whatever, the an enzyme is activated that converts glucoraphanin into sulforaphane. The reason I take it is because I've been now convinced by I would say the limited number of human studies, clinical studies, but also the totality of evidence looking at cruciferous vegetables in general, and then also animal data that it's really important. It's probably the the best naturally occurring dietary activator of a stress response pathway that is important for detoxification. And that that pathway is the NRF2 pathway. I'm sure you've heard of that pathway. Sulforaphane is a very, very powerful activator of that pathway. And what I mean by pathway is that gene is turning on and turning off many, many other genes. What we know about it is that it's very important for activating the the detoxification genes that are involved in detoxifying things that are harmful to us. And so the classic studies that have been done, some of them most of them in China where air pollution is very high, is that if you take, you know, this broccoli sprout sulforaphane extract, you can start to excrete compounds that are found in air pollution like benzene that are carcinogenic, right? And you can start to excrete it after 24 hours by like 60% Great. What about plastics? So that's that's my thing. That's why I'm taking it, my whole family. Because the same enzymes that are activated by um by the the sulforaphane that detoxify benzene. So basically you're you're detoxifying it. What I mean is you're basically making it water soluble so you can excrete it through urine. Mhm.

2: 54: 00

Mhm. Okay. The same ones That's exactly what BP those enzymes do to BPA. They make it water soluble and help you excrete it through urine. There's no human data showing this yet. I want someone to do the study. But we do have animal evidence where you know, animals are given a high dose of BPA and sulforaphane and it protects against the toxicity. I basically think that if someone's going to show it and it's going to be clear because the the enzymes that are, you know, involved are activated by this you know, by sulforaphane and that's been shown with benzene and acrolein excretion, right? So, why wouldn't it be BPA? Yeah, the mechanistic logic is there. exactly. So, that's another reason why also it increases um it's been shown in human studies to very powerfully increase glutathione in both the plasma and the brain and that's also through the NRF2 pathway. It activates the powerful antioxidant pathway. It also deactivates phase one biotransformation enzymes that are involved in um turning a procarcinogen into a carcinogen. So, those are things like you're eating, you know, you're you're grilling your meat at a high temperature and you're getting heterocyclic amines, right? I mean, these these things can be harmful and Uh we had But our body can deal with it. had a cancer doc on here recently and I was scared to ask him the question cuz I didn't want the answer but I did want the answer but, you know, the the char on meat. And he's like it's pretty pretty serious carcinogen. That's real. I mean, the occasional thing isn't going to be a problem. You'll be relieved to know and this is not a promotional that they can that you're drinking out of these are intentionally BPA, BPS, and PFAS free. We got that we tested them. I'd be happy to send you the results. I already know. I already knew about that. I know that you and I are both I I am wary of of the the BPAs and um and and the rest. I think it's wild that 10 years ago people like Charles Poliquin were saying don't handle receipts and you know, and everyone was like this is really kooky. Or actually back then no one even heard what he was saying. It was a such a niche thing. Then people were very I think disparaging of people saying be wary of receipts. Now, I think the microplastics um and the BPA, BPS, uh PFAS

2: 56: 01

and the BPA, BPS, uh PFAS concern is is really taking hold more broadly and I think that, you know, the the tables have turned. Yeah, and really obviously you can't eliminate them completely. It's impossible. They're everywhere. I mean, we're we're Clothing I heard is the main It's the main source of microplastics in the ocean, right? Because they're washed We're washing our clothes and there's They're every this cute shirt that I'm wearing, I mean, it's it's got microplastics in it for sure. Um and and so every time you're washing your clothes, your all the microplastics are coming out and and getting into the ocean. And also then when you put your clothes in the dryer, and if your dryer is ventilating anywhere in your house, the microplastic You're breathing those in, the microplastics. these traps. When I did the episode on microplastics, I found out that they're online and you can I think it costs It's not cheap cheap, but it's like considering they last a while, I think they're somewhere with refill somewhere in the neighborhood of I want to say something like $ 70, but it traps supposedly traps the microplastics. In the wash In the washing machine. And in Europe, I think this is actually built in or is required in a number of countries. Like they're they're way ahead of us. They're way ahead of us on a number of things. I mean, on a few things they're really they're far behind, I must say, uh with respect to health, but on on many things they are way ahead of us. Yeah, well, clearly with the Switzerland People in Switzerland being 80% Like 88% of them being physically active, they're way ahead of us on that. I'm excited to share with you that Mateena, the yerba mate drink that I helped create, is now available at Sprouts Market nationwide. Longtime listeners of the Huberman Lab Podcast know that yerba mate is my preferred caffeine source. It provides a smooth energy lift without giving you the jitters, and it has many other benefits such as helping regulate blood sugar, improving digestion, mild appetite suppression, and more. Mateena is my absolute favorite of all the yerba mate brands out there, and believe me, I've tried them all. The flavors are fantastic. I drink at least three cans of Mateena every single day. You'll often see them on the table during our

2: 58: 01

often see them on the table during our podcast recordings. I absolutely love the product, and I'm proud to now have it sold at Sprouts Market. Also, there's a great new offer. They are giving away a free can of Mateena to anyone who buys it at Sprouts and sends in a photo of their receipt. To To more about how you can get a free can of Matina, go to drinkmatina. com / offer. Again, that's drinkmatina. com / offer to get a can of Matina for free at your local Sprouts Market. What is your threshold for you? And what do you think is kind of reasonable levels of what's actionable for you? Like how do you set that? I think it will help people kind of understand how you're approaching stuff. What's actionable in terms of improving what I'm interested in improving my health? Like Yeah, like I mean without picking any specific example, like when you look at the literature and you see, let's say let's take BPC 157. It's kind of a fun one because everyone's excited about this now except the physicians um who don't like working with peptides besides GLPs or other FDA approved peptides. They're like freaking out online. Okay. from them all the time. Compounding pharmacies just got the green light that they're going to be able to do basically whatever except except sell retatrutide, which is under patent. Um so there are many, many animal studies on BPC 157 showing accelerated cartilage growth, nerve growth after injury, and on. And angio - angiogenesis. So there's some potential cancer risk there, right? But basically zero human data. There's one study, weak study, self-report. There's actually a clinical trial where they I'm not making this up, folks. It's BPC enemas. Very high dose it for for a for some sort of bowel disease or bowel inflammation. And the study was like I don't think the study was completed or something like that. Don't ask me why. No, I'm not making this up. Um but that's pretty much the only human data that I'm aware of. Um but tons of people injecting and swallowing BPC

3: 00

swallowing BPC and saying, "Yeah, it helped me recover, you know, heal more quickly." How do you think about something like that? Like that current condition. First of all, if you're not doing it, you're not going to be doing this every day forever, right? Like this is a short defined period of time where you're going to do your injections. Okay, really? Okay. I know I you I mean I don't know what people do. Unfortunately, I think some people like to take it everyday, but let's assume for let's assume two months maximum to work around an injury or through an injury. Yeah, I like for the people that I know that have experimented with it, it's been like 3 months. And a period of time and they did have improvements and they could have been through placebo which I will, you know, say is possible, but for me it really comes down to like is it safe? Okay, if it's safe you obviously have to get the good source because if it's all these pharmacies now, I mean that's a problem because we do know that that's a big area of I would say concern with any sort of nutraceutical you know, sort of thing and I would put this into that category is that, you know, people are putting things in the products that are not necessarily what's supposed to be in there and they're not really paying attention to quality because it's not regulated, right? So if you can get a good source of it and you trust the source of it and you have maybe someone who is qualified to prescribe it to you cuz there are, you know, naturopaths and stuff like that, functional medicine practitioners. There are people that are prescribing them. And some MDs, some board certified did their residency, did all the thing. I know because I'm friends with some of them and a lot of doctors are happy to prescribe peptides off sort of off label like sermorelin for purposes other than what it was FDA approved for. I mean I'm not taking it, you know, as I mentioned earlier, but But you've tried it. It very quickly spiked my PSA and nuked my REM sleep and increased my deep sleep. So I was like I don't want to I don't I'm not interested in those effects and and I do worry about tickling the growth hormone pathway too much or too long because of you

3: 02: 00

too much or too long because of you know, I don't you know, hopefully I don't have any tumors sitting around, but if I do, I don't want to vascularize them or grow them. Right. Yeah, so for me, I mean, I'm always more on the cautious side, to be honest. And so, for me, the safety thing has to be checked first. And then, at that point, if I can check the safety thing, then it's like you said. I mean, I can't I'll try it. Like, I mean, I'm doing like some of these supplements that I like MitoPure for one, like the urolithin A. I mean, there's not like tons and tons of data on it, but it seems to be safe. And, you know, I'm experimenting with it. I'm also experiencing [clears throat] experimenting with a lot of other things. So, I have It's hard to know what's working. Sure. Nicotinamide riboside is another one I take. Um back on to the what I take cuz I was for a longevity effect? I mean, I take it a sublingual NMN. No No relationship to any company that sells NMN. At least the one I take is from They hate it when I do this, but from Renew by Science. It's the cheapest version. That's not why I take it. I just like the powder, put it under my tongue. I like the energy effect. I will say this, and I've done the control experiment on myself, and I family members have done it, too. It makes my hair grow crazy fast, and my nails grow crazy fast. I know it's cuz if I stop, that that halts. Those aren't really effects I'm looking for, and it worries me a little bit cuz what else is it making grow crazy fast? Again, I don't think I have a tumor, but what else is it, you know, if I have like a polyp or something, is it making that grow crazy fast? I don't know. I I asked that question to uh Dr. Charles Brenner when I had him on podcast because I There was a study on NMN in mice that they had The mice had tumors, and then they you know, gave them I think they injected them with NMN or maybe it was oral gavage. I don't remember which which way it was, but it accelerated the growth of those rare type of pancreatic cancer cells. And so, I was, you know, obviously, energy, yes. Cancer cells have energy, too, right? like NMN? And I will take NR sometimes. I do take True Niagen. it doesn't I mean, either way. So, it's the same end point here. We're increasing NAD, right? So, the question is then, okay, well, should I be worried about cancer? And um he pointed me to

3: 04: 00

about cancer? And um he pointed me to some study out of Australia where I think it was maybe might have been nicotinamide that basically prevented some kind of it wasn't melanoma but it was another type of of skin cancer. And so it was like okay well that seems sort of Yeah. the point here. I am experimenting with it. Why? First of all I became interested in it because the effects on mitochondrial health. There is effects on fertility you know energy recovery when I started it just you know and then again you can find a couple of studies where like maybe you know you're not as insulin sensitive and who knows like it's not there's not enough data there so I would say caution I'm cautiously experimenting with it. But um so far I love it and I don't again you never know what what's placebo here. So I do take they don't pay me I buy it I do take True Niagen NR. That's what I take. NR and on the data sheet they include some human studies. I have a family member I'll just say my sister take it she like loves it. She's convinced. Now that could be placebo but she is so convinced she texts me about it. I feel so much better I have so much energy. I have no idea she has no idea if it's placebo but Brenner is a very good scientist I will say he's he's a he's you know what we call in our business you and me a serious scientist. I just don't think any of that's going to make me have a direct effect on living longer. I don't know that it is. I don't know that it's the it's not one of my like if if I had to like you know shrink down to my core supplements like it wouldn't be in there and you know there's many other things that are important I think before So if you were budget limited it wouldn't get above the above threshold. Like if someone out there had like just like a hundred bucks or two hundred bucks to to spend on supplements they which is a lot for a lot of people. I don't know that it's going to help you live longer either. Now it might help with your exercise recovery a bit right it might help improve mitochondrial function. I mean maybe it's going to help with repleting some of the NAD stores. I mean if you can improve mitochondrial health and you know, you're improving things like

3: 06: 00

you know, you're improving things like on a small scale, right? So, mitochondrial health is at the core of everything. So, that that's something to consider, but yeah, I'm not convinced it's the end all be all either, but I do take it. And it is something I'm experimenting with. I think it is seems to be safe and there's a lot of emerging data that got caught my interest. But, um, omega-3s is the top, right? Like that's that's there's nothing NAD, the nicotinamide riboside or NMN, if you can find a good source of it that's not not comparable in my books. Have you experimented with, um, L-carnitine because of the mitochondrial effects? Cuz I was able to find some good studies on sperm and egg quality on my which are thought to be downstream of mitochondrial health. Right. It sounds right. If you can improve mitochondrial health, fertility, which is why NR is now involved with fertility. It seems to be improving fertility. It's right. If you can improve mitochondrial health, then you're going to improve fertility, sperm health, right? Egg health, right? Um, [snorts] yeah, carnitine a lot of those studies came out of my mentor's lab, Bruce Ames. So, he was he looked at the combination of L-carnitine and alpha-lipoic acid improving mitochondrial health. And came up with the supplement that it's it's called Juvenon now, but it's L-carnitine with alpha-lipoic acid. It's a pill. It's a supplement, yeah. And, um, so yes, I have experimented with that. And in fact, my husband takes it. But, I mean, I just can't take so many supplements. Right. [laughter] Yeah. You know, so we just I was just curious. We have our Yeah, but I it is you know, you can find evidence that it improves uh, mitochondrial health. So, you know, it's just a matter of again, like what what are you looking for? I I feel like I'm doing a lot of high-intensity interval training, too, and I'm taking the urolithin A. That's a lot, you know, I'm doing a lot of stuff to optimize mitochondrial health. I mean, at some point you have to like not you can't do everything there is. Sure. No, of course not. Yeah, L-carnitine And then it's budget limited, too. But, maybe, you know, maybe I should add the L-carnitine in. I mean, it's possible, right? You know. I I've started experimenting with it, but I take it in an injectable form. Really? to shock some people. You can get away with taking much lower milligram count.

3: 08: 01

with taking much lower milligram count. Otherwise, you have to take a lot of it because a lot of it just isn't absorbed if you take it orally. And then I was told that if you take it orally, you also have to do something to offset the increase in in TMAO. And that worried me, so I figured needles don't scare me. I'll just inject it. Interesting. Yeah, the TMAO thing. I mean, so not It depends on your gut bacteria whether or not your metabolizing the L-carnitine into TMAO. There's actually a lot of complexity involved in that whole thing, but you can get your TMAO measured. So, if you're supplementing with it, I mean, the same goes for choline, you know, like if you're worried like choline can be converted into TMAO. take alpha GPC before a workout sometimes or if I need to If I ever need to focus late in the day, I don't want caffeine cuz it impedes my sleep, but I'll take alpha GPC cuz this is kind of a cool effect. Alpha GPC [clears throat] actually will improve your REM sleep. It's not a huge effect, but you'll notice you'll get more REM sleep. So, it's one of the few things I found that can increase energy late in the day, do a workout or or work if I have to work later into the day, still sleep just fine, and actually sleep better. What does work later into the day mean for you? Like working until like 8: 00, 9: 00? Yeah, well, I do that often, but but I don't like to work out after 2: 00 p. m. because I like caffeine before I work out. So, but I'll I'll do some cardio in the afternoon or something. But if I really have to push, or if I've traveled and I really need exercise and I want to get that 6: 00 p. m. workout, but I also want to fall asleep at 10: 30, I'll take some alpha GPC. I used to take that like I don't know, it's been maybe like 10 years. Mhm. But um it's interesting. I might try experimenting with that again. I'm always looking for things that I find a little bit safer. Like I don't do the nicotine, as you know, like It is shocking how many young people are taking nicotine now. Oh, I know. I've never tried it. First of all, it's highly addictive. Forget the blood pressure and the vasoconstriction. That's all bad, you know. I think the the big issue is that if I take it, I start getting the spasm in my throat when I don't take it. And that's cuz of it's I have a friend who works on these pathways and it's because of the activation of the muscarinic receptors. So So on smooth muscle, you start

3: 10: 00

So So on smooth muscle, you start getting a tick and kind of clearing [clears throat] of your throat and then you take more nicotine, you feel fine. So I didn't want to become dependent on it. And I don't like it. I think it I think it's a bad habit that a lot of people are going to be seeking to quit later. A lot of young people. Older people might benefit from it because of the cognitive enhancement, but that's a whole other story. the alpha GPC and the creatine Yeah. Um magnesium L-threonate. Yeah. Alpha GPC is is very helpful for if you need to really lock in for a few hours and do something physically or cognitively. I take 600 mg. You can take up to 900, but I do just fine on 600. So I think I'll just take it in pure form and Okay. you know, in a capsule. Yeah. Any of them out there that come from a reputable brand is like going to work. What about like before a podcast or something like that? Does that Does it have any effect or why? Yeah, it'll put you into a you know, I mean, if you feel like you want to be heightened focus, but I rely on water, caffeine, electrolytes, and good good sleep. There's this wild study. We don't want to I don't want to take us too too far off track here. Um but there's a study for out of WashU recently, really really talented researcher. I want to bring him on this podcast. Does brain imaging and he compared um essentially the effects of drugs for ADHD versus a good night's sleep. And basically found that there's no focus enhancement of Adderall, Vyvanse, Ritalin type drugs. They mainly looked at Ritalin. All it's doing is increasing alertness to the level that you would get after after a good night's sleep. It may be that these drugs just increase alertness, which allows you to dial in focus. But if you're sleeping well and enough, you make up the gap. And people with ADHD might just be having some serious sleep defects. Right. So, you know, it speaks to this thing like I don't know that there's a single drug that can actually increase cognition and focus. Most of them probably just get you in the plane of alertness that allows you to dial in your focus. Some people be like, "That's BS." They take modafinil, but this is just another form of increasing alertness. Or reducing anxiety, I think things that are anxiolytic help with that as well.

3: 12: 00

are anxiolytic help with that as well. And I think I was talking about I don't know if I was telling you or someone else before the podcast. One of the reasons why I also like that metabolic switch with the ketosis and the beta-hydroxybutyrate, and sometimes I'll take exogenous ketones, too. Although, if you take them in a fasted state, it kind of shuts down the lipolysis. But anyways, it's because it increases GABA. The beta-hydroxybutyrate increases GABA. And for me, it's beneficial because I am the phenotype where I like, you know, I can have other things going on in my mind that it's I don't want to It's not anxiety, but it's more of that anxious phenotype, if that makes sense. And so, the the increasing GABA really does um help me with focus because it's quieting down I think. I actually think that a lot of people who are very intellectually engaged, which clearly you are over many, many years, and very physically active and healthy, there's a lot of capacity there. And unless there's something to really absorb all that capacity, you can get multiple tracks going. And we sometimes think of that as anxiety or even AD Some people will say it's ADHD. I don't necessarily think it's that, but it's an uncomfortable state to be in. Right. And so, pleasurable to be like where all one's resources, physical or cognitive or both, are are harnessed. It's a very pleasant state. Earlier you were saying the GABA increase from the ketosis, Yeah. I think more and more we're just realizing that people have differing levels of excitatory to inhibitory balance in the brain. And so, some people like things that bring GABA up. Some people like things that bring glutamate up, broadly speaking. And finding that sweet spot is where you go, oh, like I'm alert but calm. Right. what That's what we want. for me. Alert but calm. Great. And for me, I'm like and I I noticed that there was a few years ago I really experimented with the ketogenic diet. I I just can't do that type of diet, but I did experiment with it. And that was the one of the main things that I noticed is like, I'm alert but calm. And it's like, I liked it. Mhm. Well, then don't take nicotine because the reason people like nicotine is it's a stimulant that calms you down. So, I do think that one of the reasons it's so habit-forming is because I know of nothing else that puts you in that

3: 14: 01

of nothing else that puts you in that plane of focus of alert but calm that is reasonably low cost, that is legal. I've never I'll do I'm I'm clearly I've never done amphetamine or cocaine, so I'm not I wouldn't want to and clearly that's a path to destruction. So, the reason so many young people are taking it is because it gets them right in that plane of alert but calm, but it has all these negative effects that go with it. Yeah, and that's why I have stayed away from it because I know I'd probably love it. I've asked some young folks who ask me about nicotine, how many milligrams are you taking? They'll say 9 milligrams. I'll say, how many times per day? They'll say, eight times per day. I'm like, oh my god. Like that's crazy. start there. Do you have just quickly get there. Yeah, so I I you know, I I don't want to sound like that curmudgeon that's like, don't drink and don't take nicotine and this kind of thing, but it's a slippery slope. Right. Yeah, I mean there's there's other things that you can do that maybe it's not going to be as potent, but Alpha GPC. for me I like doing I like my my metabolic switch and and my ketones and Nice. I'll be curious to to hear how you feel on the Alpha GPC. I remember liking it. I I don't know why I think I stopped taking it because I got pregnant. It's probably what it was. And then I just It's one of those things where you just Yeah. forget. Yeah. [laughter] You go back to the basics and then like the experiment. Yeah. Before I came on here, I did put out a call for some questions to the world. Okay. Rapid-fire Q & A from the land of X and Instagram. Oh This is this these are the students of the class of your class. And this way I think about it. Actually, I wanted to ask about this. So, I'm so grateful that this person asked about nattokinase for improving blood lipid profiles. Is Is it something you're interested in or have experimented with? It's not something that I've experimented with and I've been more interested in natto than nattokinase. I know some I I really would have to say I don't have enough data to really have an opinion on

3: 16: 00

enough data to really have an opinion on it. Okay. Well, I don't have enough data to have an opinion on it, but I take it anyway. A lot of questions about things we already talked about. So, cold plunge, um etc. But an exceptional number of questions about microplastics. And I know we touched into it, but on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being like you're really concerned, how concerned are you about microplastics for mental and physical health, longevity, just broadly speaking? I would say I am less concerned about microplastics than I am about not getting the right nutrients and micronutrients from our foods cuz our body can detoxify at least some of the chemicals associated with them. The microplastics themselves, I mean, I guess it's not we don't really know what they're going to do long-term, but I'm I'm concerned enough to try to avoid uh to sorry, limit my exposure to them as much as possible. Mhm. So, you don't drink out of plastic water bottles? I mean, I try not to as much as possible. I mean, you know, I I definitely Sure. have to at some points, but um I I try not to. Yes. And when I do, I just realize it's the habit and you kind of have to let go. I mean, I know some people that like don't drink. And like they're they're like they're going to get their water from their food, their fruits while they're traveling. Pretty extreme. Yeah, that's Yeah. But I think mental health is important. So, I mean, it's like is the stress of avoiding the microplastics worse than the actual little bit of microplastics you're being exposed to? It might be. TSA is going to hate me, but I lost a bet 2 days ago to a member of our podcast team. He bet me, we bet that I said one couldn't bring a Mountain Valley Spring Water bottle through security at the airport and he said it that you absolutely can. And I said there's no way. So I made him a bet and I lost. He brought it through. Full of water? You tell them it's for medical reasons. You don't have to state what they are. They open the cap. They take a sample out. They test it. So there's a time constraint and it's going to create more jobs for TSA.

3: 18: 02

create more jobs for TSA. Uh sorry, that was sort of a joke, sort of not a joke. TSA has been you know, in tricky circumstances lately. And he showed up at the gate with it and was like, here's your water. You absolutely can bring water through in glass vessels or whatever vessel, but they're going to test it and it helps if it's a commercial vessel. It's not like your own glass water bottle. Can I pause for a minute because you mentioned a specific brand which I also when I when Oh yeah, I know. I don't make money from them. Yeah. Right. Same. I drink when I'm traveling, that's that's the brand that I go to. And there are there was a study that came out showing that there's actually a larger volume of microplastics in within the study in from glass bottles versus plastic bottles, which was a very shocking finding. Um so there's more mice microplastic number coming from the the glass bottles. It turns out this was a study out of France. There was a study out of France and also in the US. It's the paint on the lids. You mentioned the lid and and so it's the paint on the lid that's contaminating getting contaminated in the bottling of the the whole bottling of this, you know, water that is getting into the water, but I do want to mention that the size was was shown to be larger from the glass bottles versus the plastic. So the microplastic size was larger. And as you probably know, larger microplastics are not well absorbed through the gut epithelial cells. So when you're, you know, taking them in in the gut, they're coming out, they're being excreted through your your feces. Mhm. And less likely to be taken up into your gut and then get into your body. And that's actually well known. And so, I'm actually more concerned about the size of microplastics. Mhm. Um and it wasn't like the huge orders of magnitude difference between the the water from glass versus the plastic. It It's so counterintuitive. You think, "Wait, what? Why is it?" So, it's it's the paint that's Interesting. But anyways, I just want to mention that I still drink when I'm traveling. I still go for the glass, not the plastic, because of the size of the microplastics and knowing because the size was much bigger, um that it's very, I would say, more data is going to come out on this,

3: 20: 00

more data is going to come out on this, but I would be surprised if you're absorbing more of the larger particles cuz it's known that you absorb the smaller ones. Thank you for that. And if you want, you can now take your glass bottle through security full. Seed oils, the dreaded seed oil debate. Where do you land on this? I try to avoid them. Um mostly because one, if you're avoiding seed oils, you're going to avoid a lot of the processed packaged foods that they come in, which I know are terrible for you. Two, because I think that cooking them or heating them, I mean, is more of my concern because they are, you know, polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are very prone to oxidation. And when you're heating something that's prone to oxidation, you're accelerating that whole process. I don't want to consume oxidized lipids. I've seen I've looked into that literature. And the last time I looked into it was, I think, 2024. At [snorts] that time, I was pretty convinced that if you are heating and reheating, you know, oils like they do in fast food, for sure, you're increasing inflammatory markers. That's been shown. And I think also when you're really having a higher level of, you know, omega-6s and stuff around, I'm not as concerned cuz I'm getting a lot of omega-3, but it does also increase your vitamin E requirements as well because of the oxidation of these polyunsaturated fatty acids. So, do I think it's like like the worst ever? I mean, you can find all this data out there showing that, you know, if you replace, you know, saturated fat with [snorts] some of these seed oils, there's improvements in lipid profiles. But, at the end of the day, the question is really what if like you had olive oil instead or avocado oil instead? Would it be even better? I think possibly. So, if you're really trying to go for the optimal I avoid them as much as I can for that reason. But, I think there's a little bit more hype when it comes to the seed oil. Mhm. But, if that makes sense, you know, I'm kind of that's my take. Makes sense to me. For what it's worth, I stick to olive oil and small amounts of

3: 22: 00

stick to olive oil and small amounts of butter and that's because I also think seed oils taste terrible. How come no one talks about that? But, anyway, and olive oil and butter are delicious. like I mean, had the, you know, seed oil, but yeah. You know, and no one can convince me that they don't taste bad to me. So, then the debate just kind of falls away. How often are you doing the sauna nowadays and what does the top contour of that protocol look like? So, I've taken a little pause on the sauna right now, but typically I'm doing I was doing it like I would say five nights a week. And I say nights cuz I was usually doing them in the night. And it was mixed a mixture between either getting in the sauna or hot tub. So, I like getting in the hot tub head out under the stars there with my husband. It's like our time. Um so, yeah, usually it's like 20 minutes and temperature-wise, you know, I don't go that hot. I honestly I'm like 180. Five nights a week is great. Gosh, I I need to get back on a five-night - a-week sauna or hot tub protocol. I do like the hot tub especially. I don't know, there's something about being outside and I think now there's just there's evidence that the the benefits are really like the same. It's the deliberate heat exposure, right? You're getting that through the hot tub or through the sauna. Creatine for kids, like young kids, like younger than 16. Um any data and or ideas about this, good or bad? Yeah, so there is data in the literature showing that if you give younger younger children that are doing like, for example, sports like soccer, it does seem to improve their agility. And it seems to be safe. I do give my son 2 and 1 / 2 g of creatine, so. A day. Cool. So that's how I feel. There's no better indication of how you of how one feels and what they're willing to deliberately give their kids. I don't know where this stems from and we can cut it if you want, but there's someone asked why did you single-handedly ruin bananas? Oh. For this person. Yes. Uh did you ruin bananas?

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Uh did you ruin bananas? So I used to put bananas in my smoothies and there's an enzyme that is produced in bananas that break down polyphenols, particularly ones that are found in blueberries. And the reason I was getting my smoothies was one for the greens, but two for the blueberries because the polyphenols have been shown to improve coordination. Love blueberries. So, um sorry sorry, don't mix the blueberry with the banana smoothie because it it has been shown to decrease the the polyphenols, which are important. Yeah. Well, the alcohol industry will come for me someday and the banana industry will come for you. And uh I think we're safe for a while. Um Should we ignore studies that have less than X number of subjects? I think that's a really good question. Like obviously it depends, but when we're talking about human studies, where's the the line for small study versus large meaningful study for you? Obviously how strongly it's powered, but how do you think about that? Well, I'll tell you when I was first looking at the sauna literature, all the studies that I were looking at were like N of 10 or smaller. And it's really the aggregate of those studies and then looking at like animal data and then you start to you know you start to look at observational data and the totality of evidence and you put together this picture. I don't think you should ignore studies that are small. I think that it's part of the story. I think we're getting a little too caught up and it's got to be the randomized placebo controlled trial. It's got to have lot lots of participants and I mean that's great if we have that data, but we don't always have that data and I don't know that we will always have that data with everything that we're interested in in understanding, right? So, the way I look at it is if it's like just one study with an N of 10, okay, interesting. Um like with the creatine, right? Like I mean these studies have been small sample sizes. Now there's more than one, but you know at the end of the day it's still very I would say in this you know pilot study phase, right? Where you have just small studies. So, I I do not ignore them, but I also don't hedge all my bets on them either. I do know

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all my bets on them either. I do know that there were a lot of people that were criticizing me on my sauna. I mean back in I you know 2014 published an article on Tim Ferriss's blog, went on [snorts] Joe Rogan's podcast and talked about you know the benefits of sauna and and I had people that were going your studies your sample sizes are too small. And now we have so much data that has come out since then really kind of validating everything and and showing even more benefits. You kind of have to look at the totality of evidence and and what is it you're what end points are you looking at and how can you gather you know data from different sources, whether it's clinical studies or observational studies or animal studies and and try to come up with the bigger picture, right? But then also don't be too confident in your statements. I'm very gratified to know that pretty much every other question you addressed the answer to in route to where we are now in the podcast truly and I'll leave them up so you can see them later if you choose. Cold plunges uh notwithstanding um vitamin D um exercise in all its contour, specificity, fasting, uh magnesium, lots of questions about supplements, which we covered, creatine, lots of questions about inflammation, longevity. And so, I just have to say, first of all, on behalf of everybody, thank you so much. This was really an incredible tutorial, and so much of it is actionable, and as you are known for, it was incredibly thorough in terms of setting the context within mechanisms of what we know, what we still don't know, and uh I also personally want to thank you because when you speak, I learn, and when you speak, I also learn things that change my behavior, and that's a a whole other level. Uh since our last conversation, I can think of at least four, and probably as many as a dozen things that I do on a daily basis as a consequence of that conversation, and just the gut inflammation health brain body axis uh conversation that uh we had earlier, I'm going to listen to this again and take notes because um there's just so much there. Uh and the the metabolic

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much there. Uh and the the metabolic flexibility thing as an input that can come from multiple sources, it's just on and on. So, thank you for doing what you do. Thank you for being you, for being first in and still going and doing things with such rigor, and and really so much grace. It's It's just awesome. People love you. Um I certainly do and appreciate you, and and it's just um it it's a wonderful thing for me to have a colleague like you, and you really set the standard. So, thank you so much for coming here and doing this marathon, and uh can't wait to do it again. Thank you so much, Andrew. It's It's really been great. I learned so much from you as well, and appreciate everything. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. To learn more about her work, please see the links in the show note captions. If you're learning from and / or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero cost way to support us. In addition, please follow the podcast by clicking the follow button on both Spotify and Apple. And on both Spotify and Apple, you can leave us up to a five-star review. And you can now leave us comments at both Spotify and Apple. Please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode. That's the best way to support this podcast. If you have questions for me or comments about the podcast, or guests or topics that you'd like me to consider for the Huberman Lab podcast, please put those in the comment section on YouTube. I do read all the comments. For those of you that haven't heard, I have a new book coming out. It's my very first book. It's entitled Protocols, an operating manual for the human body. This is a book that I've been working on for more than 5 years, and that's based on more than 30 years of research and experience. And it covers protocols for everything from sleep to exercise, to stress control, protocols related to focus and motivation. And of course, I provide the scientific substantiation for the protocols that are included. The book is now available by pre-sale at protocolsbook. com. There you can find links to various vendors. You can pick the one that you like best. Again, the book is called Protocols, an operating manual for the human body. And if you're not already following me on social media, I am

3: 30: 01

following me on social media, I am Huberman Lab on all social media platforms. So, that's Instagram, X, Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And on all those platforms, I discuss science and science-related tools, some of which overlaps with the content of the Huberman Lab podcast, but much of which is distinct from the information on the Huberman Lab podcast. Again, it's Huberman Lab on all social media platforms. And if you haven't already subscribed to our Neural Network Newsletter, the Neural Network Newsletter is a zero-cost monthly newsletter that includes podcast summaries as well as what we call protocols in the form of one-to - three-page PDFs that cover everything from how to optimize your sleep, how to optimize dopamine, deliberate cold exposure. We have a foundational fitness protocol that covers cardiovascular training and resistance training. All of that is available completely zero cost. You simply go to hubermanlab. com, go to the menu tab in the top right corner, scroll down to newsletter, and enter your email. And I should emphasize that we do not share your email with anybody. Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. And last, but certainly not least, [music] thank you for your interest in science.