Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Micronutrients for Health & Longevity

00:00:00.320 | - Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:00:02.280 | where we discuss science and science-based tools

00:00:04.880 | for everyday life.

00:00:05.900 | I'm Andrew Huberman,

00:00:10.160 | and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology

00:00:13.040 | at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:14.880 | Today, my guest is Dr. Rhonda Patrick.

00:00:17.560 | Dr. Patrick is known to some of you as a podcaster

00:00:20.560 | and one of the premier educators in the landscape

00:00:23.760 | of mitochondria, metabolism, stress,

00:00:26.840 | and other aspects of brain and body health.

00:00:29.480 | Her podcast, Found My Fitness,

00:00:31.940 | is one of the premier podcasts in the world

00:00:34.000 | for disseminating knowledge about how the brain

00:00:36.560 | and body work and how we can use behavioral tools,

00:00:39.520 | micronutrients, supplements, and other protocols

00:00:42.880 | in order to maximize our immediate and long-term health.

00:00:46.180 | Dr. Patrick did her formal training in cell biology,

00:00:49.480 | exploring the links between mitochondrial metabolism,

00:00:52.760 | apoptosis, which is naturally occurring cell death,

00:00:55.600 | which is a healthy form of cell death

00:00:57.960 | that occurs in our brain and body throughout the lifespan,

00:01:00.200 | and cancer biology.

00:01:02.460 | She then went on to do postdoctoral training

00:01:04.660 | with Dr. Bruce Ames investigating the effects

00:01:06.960 | of micronutrients, meaning vitamins and minerals,

00:01:09.480 | and how they affect metabolism, inflammation,

00:01:12.520 | DNA damage, and the aging process.

00:01:15.060 | She has published landmark review articles

00:01:17.520 | and primary research, meaning original research articles,

00:01:21.160 | in some of the premier journals in the world,

00:01:22.880 | including Science, Nature Cell Biology,

00:01:25.680 | Trends in Cell Biology, and FASEB.

00:01:28.060 | Indeed, Dr. Patrick is an expert

00:01:30.240 | in an extraordinarily broad range of topics

00:01:33.320 | that impact our health.

00:01:34.840 | For today's episode, we focus primarily

00:01:36.860 | on the major categories of micronutrients

00:01:39.440 | that are essential for brain and body health.

00:01:42.640 | I have to confess that before the discussion

00:01:44.560 | with Dr. Patrick, I was aware of only one of the categories

00:01:47.540 | of micronutrients that we discuss.

00:01:49.380 | And so you'll notice that I am wrapped with attention

00:01:51.900 | throughout the discussion.

00:01:53.580 | And I think that you'll want to have a pen and paper handy

00:01:56.120 | because she offers not only a very clear understanding

00:01:59.920 | of the biological mechanisms

00:02:01.440 | by which other micronutrients operate,

00:02:04.100 | but some very clear and actionable tools

00:02:07.280 | and items that we can all embark on

00:02:09.780 | if we are to optimize our brain and body health.

00:02:12.640 | We also discuss behavioral protocols.

00:02:15.220 | Dr. Patrick is well-known for her understanding

00:02:17.420 | of the scientific literature on sauna

00:02:19.640 | and the use of heat and cold for optimizing things

00:02:22.680 | like metabolism, longevity, cardiovascular health.

00:02:25.840 | And I'm delighted to say that we discussed that as well

00:02:28.600 | and how behavioral protocols can interface

00:02:31.920 | with supplement-based and nutritional protocols.

00:02:34.880 | I'm confident that you'll learn a tremendous amount

00:02:36.840 | of information from Dr. Patrick,

00:02:38.920 | much of which is immediately actionable.

00:02:41.340 | And if you're not already following and listening

00:02:43.080 | to her excellent podcast, you'll absolutely want to do that.

00:02:46.040 | It's foundmyfitness.com is the website

00:02:48.940 | where you can get access to that podcast.

00:02:50.660 | It's also on Apple and Spotify and YouTube

00:02:53.860 | as foundmyfitness.

00:02:55.400 | Dr. Patrick also has a terrific newsletter

00:02:57.340 | that I recommend signing up for.

00:02:58.660 | It's foundmyfitness.com/newsletter is where you'll find it.

00:03:03.060 | And it includes research on fasting, micronutrients,

00:03:06.720 | sleep, depression, fitness, longevity, and far more,

00:03:09.940 | along of course with actionable protocols.

00:03:12.540 | I'm pleased to announce that the Huberman Lab Podcast

00:03:15.040 | is now partnered with Momentous Supplements.

00:03:17.700 | Our motivation for partnering with Momentous

00:03:19.880 | is to provide people one location where they can go

00:03:22.760 | to access the highest quality supplements

00:03:25.520 | in the specific dosages that are best supported

00:03:28.540 | by the scientific research and that are discussed

00:03:31.240 | during various episodes of the Huberman Lab Podcast.

00:03:33.880 | If you go to livemomentous.com/huberman,

00:03:37.280 | you will see those formulations.

00:03:38.840 | I should mention that we are going to add more formulations

00:03:41.320 | in the months to come.

00:03:43.060 | And you will see specific suggestions

00:03:45.580 | about how best to take those supplements,

00:03:47.480 | meaning what dosages and times of day,

00:03:49.600 | and in fact, how to combine those supplements

00:03:52.400 | with specific behavioral protocols

00:03:54.660 | that have been discussed on the podcast

00:03:56.320 | and are science supported in order to derive

00:03:58.560 | the maximum benefit from those supplements.

00:04:01.600 | And many of you will probably also be pleased to learn

00:04:04.640 | that Momentous ships not just within the United States,

00:04:07.240 | but also internationally.

00:04:08.920 | So once again, if you go to livemomentous.com/huberman,

00:04:12.640 | you will find what we firmly believe

00:04:14.160 | to be the best quality supplements in the precise dosages

00:04:19.200 | and the best protocols for taking those supplements,

00:04:22.840 | along with the ideal behavioral protocols

00:04:25.660 | to combine with those supplement formulations.

00:04:27.760 | I'm pleased to announce

00:04:28.600 | that I'm hosting two live events this May.

00:04:31.440 | The first live event will be hosted

00:04:32.960 | in Seattle, Washington on May 17th.

00:04:35.640 | The second live event will be hosted

00:04:37.240 | in Portland, Oregon on May 18th.

00:04:39.640 | Both are part of a lecture series entitled

00:04:41.640 | The Brain-Body Contract,

00:04:43.240 | during which I will discuss science and science-based tools

00:04:46.280 | for mental health, physical health, and performance.

00:04:48.920 | And I should point out that while some of the material

00:04:51.360 | I'll cover will overlap with information covered here

00:04:54.040 | on the Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:04:55.680 | and on various social media posts,

00:04:57.520 | most of the information I will cover is going to be distinct

00:05:00.660 | from information covered on the podcast or elsewhere.

00:05:03.560 | So once again, it's Seattle on May 17th,

00:05:06.080 | Portland on May 18th.

00:05:07.440 | You can access tickets by going to hubermanlab.com/tour,

00:05:11.520 | and I hope to see you there.

00:05:12.820 | Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast

00:05:15.360 | is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

00:05:18.300 | It is, however, part of my desire and effort

00:05:20.520 | to bring zero cost to consumer information about science

00:05:23.140 | and science-related tools to the general public.

00:05:25.920 | In keeping with that theme,

00:05:27.000 | I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

00:05:29.720 | Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens.

00:05:31.960 | Athletic Greens is an all-in-one

00:05:33.480 | vitamin mineral probiotic drink.

00:05:35.920 | I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012,

00:05:38.800 | so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast.

00:05:41.240 | The reason I started taking Athletic Greens

00:05:42.960 | and the reason I still take Athletic Greens

00:05:44.400 | once or twice a day is that it helps me cover

00:05:46.660 | all of my basic nutritional needs.

00:05:48.400 | It makes up for any deficiencies that I might have.

00:05:50.880 | In addition, it has probiotics,

00:05:52.880 | which are vital for microbiome health.

00:05:55.500 | I've done a couple of episodes now

00:05:57.360 | on the so-called gut microbiome

00:05:59.280 | and the ways in which the microbiome interacts

00:06:02.040 | with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood,

00:06:05.120 | and essentially with every biological system

00:06:07.280 | relevant to health throughout your brain and body.

00:06:10.040 | With Athletic Greens, I get the vitamins I need,

00:06:11.820 | the minerals I need,

00:06:12.820 | and the probiotics to support my microbiome.

00:06:15.600 | If you'd like to try Athletic Greens,

00:06:17.000 | you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman

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00:06:25.740 | plus a year's supply of vitamin D3K2.

00:06:29.040 | There are a ton of data now showing that vitamin D3

00:06:31.380 | is essential for various aspects of our brain

00:06:33.640 | and body health.

00:06:34.500 | Even if we're getting a lot of sunshine,

00:06:36.600 | many of us are still deficient in vitamin D3.

00:06:38.980 | And K2 is also important because it regulates things

00:06:41.420 | like cardiovascular function, calcium in the body,

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00:06:44.940 | Again, go to athleticgreens.com/huberman

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00:06:52.740 | Today's episode is also brought to us by Thesis.

00:06:55.420 | Thesis makes what are called nootropics,

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00:09:39.160 | And now for my discussion with Dr. Rhonda Patrick.

00:09:42.400 | Rhonda, welcome.

00:09:43.700 | This has been a long time coming,

00:09:45.460 | even longer than you know,

00:09:46.520 | because even before we discussed you coming

00:09:49.220 | on this podcast as a guest,

00:09:50.600 | I've been watching your content for a very long time.

00:09:53.040 | So I want to start off by saying thank you.

00:09:54.860 | You were the spearhead to break through

00:09:58.360 | from academic science to public education.

00:10:01.700 | So I consider you first in,

00:10:04.560 | and the rest of us are just in your wake.

00:10:06.660 | So thank you for that.

00:10:08.000 | That's been-

00:10:08.840 | - Oh, that is so kind.

00:10:09.940 | Thank you.

00:10:10.780 | Thank you so much.

00:10:11.600 | - Well, it's absolutely true.

00:10:12.440 | - I am so excited to be here having a conversation with you.

00:10:14.480 | - Thank you.

00:10:15.860 | It's absolutely true.

00:10:16.880 | If anyone does their research,

00:10:18.860 | they will realize that the statement I just made

00:10:20.760 | is absolutely true.

00:10:21.600 | And there isn't even a close second, you know,

00:10:23.680 | any other public facing educators

00:10:26.200 | that have formal science training

00:10:28.320 | and do regular posting of content came in several years

00:10:33.720 | after you initiated it.

00:10:34.880 | So we're all grateful.

00:10:37.060 | I have so many questions,

00:10:39.060 | but I want to start off with a kind of a new,

00:10:43.080 | but old theme that you're very familiar with.

00:10:46.340 | So temperature is a powerful stimulus,

00:10:49.400 | as we know for biology.

00:10:50.880 | And you've covered a lot of material related

00:10:53.540 | to the utility of cold,

00:10:56.200 | but also the utility of heat.

00:10:58.240 | And as I learn more and more from your content

00:11:01.280 | and from the various papers,

00:11:02.980 | it seems that there's a bit of a conundrum

00:11:07.060 | in that cold can stimulate a number of things

00:11:10.520 | like increases in metabolism, brown fat,

00:11:12.280 | et cetera, et cetera.

00:11:13.120 | Hopefully you'll tell us more about those,

00:11:14.900 | but heat seems to be able to do a lot of the same things.

00:11:18.340 | And I wonder whether or not the discomfort of cold,

00:11:22.640 | deliberate cold exposure and the discomfort of heat

00:11:25.060 | might be anchoring to the same pathway.

00:11:28.200 | So would you mind sharing with us a little bit

00:11:30.080 | about what happens when we get into a cold environment

00:11:33.940 | on purpose and what happens when we get

00:11:35.980 | into a hot environment on purpose?

00:11:37.960 | And I'm hoping that this might eventually lead us

00:11:40.100 | to some point of convergent understanding.

00:11:43.040 | So if you would.

00:11:44.980 | - I would love to, let's take a step back.

00:11:47.100 | And I think you brought up a really important point here.

00:11:49.940 | And I think that point has to do

00:11:51.380 | with the intermittent challenging of yourself

00:11:55.100 | and whether that is through temperature changes

00:11:58.580 | like cold or heat or through other types of stressors

00:12:02.900 | like physical activity or perhaps even dietary compounds

00:12:07.120 | that are found in plants.

00:12:08.900 | These are things like polyphenols or flavanols.

00:12:12.000 | Humans, we evolved to intermittently challenge ourselves.

00:12:16.920 | And before we had Instacart where you could basically

00:12:20.600 | just get your food delivered to you,

00:12:22.260 | before the industrial revolution occurred,

00:12:26.020 | we were out hunting, and I say we, not us, but humans,

00:12:31.020 | we were out gathering, we were moving,

00:12:34.840 | and we had to be physically fit.

00:12:36.260 | You couldn't catch your prey

00:12:37.980 | if you were a sedentary slob, right?

00:12:40.140 | We're moving and you had to pick your berries,

00:12:42.860 | you had to move.

00:12:43.700 | And so physical activity was a part of everyday life.

00:12:48.380 | And caloric restriction or intermittent fasting

00:12:51.100 | was also a part of it.

00:12:52.020 | This is another type of challenge.

00:12:54.300 | We didn't always have a prey that we caught

00:12:57.700 | or maybe temperatures were such that

00:13:00.120 | there was nothing for us to gather, right?

00:13:02.060 | So food scarcity was something common

00:13:04.740 | as well as eating plants.

00:13:06.220 | So getting these compounds that I mentioned.

00:13:07.940 | So these are all types of stress, intermittent challenges

00:13:12.580 | that activate genetic pathways in our bodies.

00:13:16.340 | These are often referred to in science

00:13:18.720 | as stress response pathways

00:13:20.860 | because they respond to a little bit of stress.

00:13:23.340 | Physical activity is strenuous.

00:13:25.060 | Fasting is a little bit stressful.

00:13:26.400 | Heat, cold, these things are all types

00:13:28.540 | of little intermittent challenges.

00:13:30.620 | And there is a lot of crosstalk between these stressors

00:13:35.620 | and the genetic pathways that they activate.

00:13:38.680 | And these genetic pathways that are activated

00:13:41.100 | help you deal with stress.

00:13:42.620 | And they do it in a way that is not only beneficial

00:13:46.820 | to help you deal with that little stressor,

00:13:48.960 | exercise or heat, it stays active

00:13:51.940 | and it helps you deal with the stress of normal metabolism,

00:13:55.740 | normal immune function happening, just life, aging, right?

00:13:58.680 | So this concept is referred to as hormesis, right?

00:14:01.420 | This is a little bit of stressful challenge

00:14:04.780 | that activates these stress response pathways

00:14:06.820 | in a beneficial way that is a net positive

00:14:09.120 | that actually has a very profound antioxidant,

00:14:13.180 | anti-inflammatory response or whatever the response is.

00:14:16.660 | It could be the production of more stem cells.

00:14:19.180 | These are cells that help regenerate

00:14:20.580 | different cells within tissues or something like autophagy,

00:14:24.580 | which is a process that can clear away

00:14:26.500 | all the gunk inside of our cells,

00:14:28.340 | pieces of DNA, protein aggregates.

00:14:30.740 | So you'll find that these stress response pathways

00:14:34.500 | are activated by a variety of stressors.

00:14:37.980 | So for example, one pathway is called heat shock proteins.

00:14:41.300 | And as their name would apply, one would go,

00:14:42.860 | "Oh, they're activated by heat."

00:14:44.780 | Well, correct, they are activated very robustly by heat,

00:14:47.420 | and we can talk about that.

00:14:48.300 | But you can eat a plant like broccoli sprouts,

00:14:53.100 | which is high in something called sulforaphane.

00:14:54.980 | This is a compound that is sort of like a hormetic compound,

00:14:58.860 | or as David Sinclair likes to say,

00:15:00.180 | it's a xenohormetic compound.

00:15:02.020 | I love that, I love that term.

00:15:03.560 | And it activates heat shock proteins, among other things.

00:15:07.780 | It also activates a very powerful detoxification pathway

00:15:10.900 | called NRF2, which helps you detoxify things

00:15:14.300 | like carcinogens that you're exposed to.

00:15:15.860 | Well, guess what?

00:15:16.700 | Heat activates that.

00:15:17.780 | So what I'm getting at is there is overlap.

00:15:20.360 | Like cold also activates heat shock proteins.

00:15:23.020 | You're like, "Really, cold?"

00:15:24.020 | Yes, it activates.

00:15:25.300 | These are stress response pathways,

00:15:27.700 | and they are activated by various types of stressors.

00:15:30.620 | Now, you're gonna more robustly activate heat shock proteins

00:15:34.340 | from heat versus cold, but there is some overlap.

00:15:39.300 | So I think that sort of forms a foundation there.

00:15:42.940 | - Yeah, that's very helpful.

00:15:44.380 | And it brings to mind in the context of the nervous system,

00:15:47.740 | I always tell people, you only have a small kit

00:15:51.060 | of neurochemicals to work with.

00:15:52.780 | There isn't dopamine for Netflix,

00:15:55.780 | and then dopamine for relationship,

00:15:57.220 | and dopamine for work, et cetera.

00:15:59.600 | Dopamine is a generic pathway

00:16:01.300 | by which motivation, craving, and pursuit emerge, et cetera.

00:16:05.800 | Just like adrenaline is a generic theme

00:16:08.980 | of many different behaviors.

00:16:10.140 | And it seems that it is the job of biological systems

00:16:13.680 | to be able to take a diverse range of inputs,

00:16:15.940 | even unknown inputs.

00:16:17.740 | Like we don't know what technology will look like

00:16:19.820 | in three years, but you can bet

00:16:21.380 | that some of those novel technologies will tap

00:16:23.080 | into the very systems that I'm talking about now.

00:16:24.980 | And there certainly will be other stressors to come about

00:16:28.740 | that will tap into these pathways.

00:16:30.420 | I have two questions related to what you just said

00:16:33.180 | before we talk a little bit more about cold and heat.

00:16:36.540 | You mentioned plants as a route

00:16:39.500 | to creating intermittent challenge.

00:16:43.140 | There's a lot of debate, mostly online,

00:16:45.200 | about whether or not plants are our friends

00:16:46.640 | or plants are trying to kill us.

00:16:48.360 | The extreme version from the carnivore types,

00:16:51.500 | pure carnivore diet types,

00:16:52.760 | is that plants are trying to kill us.

00:16:54.420 | From the plant-based diet folks,

00:16:56.040 | it seems like it's more about what's healthy

00:16:58.860 | for the plant and animals, and maybe for us.

00:17:01.200 | But if we set aside that argument,

00:17:03.480 | and we just raise the hypothesis

00:17:05.560 | that plants have compounds that are bad for us,

00:17:09.420 | but maybe by consuming them in small amounts,

00:17:12.080 | they're creating this hormesis-type scenario.

00:17:15.500 | So then I think we conceivably solve the problem.

00:17:20.060 | We could say, yes, plants are bad for us,

00:17:24.360 | but in small amounts, they provide this hormetic response,

00:17:26.980 | and they're good for us, right?

00:17:28.240 | So in the same way that too much heat is bad for us,

00:17:31.600 | too much cold is bad for us, can kill us, can kill neurons,

00:17:34.060 | but appropriately dosed in an intermittent challenge

00:17:37.300 | type of scenarios can be good for us.

00:17:38.960 | Is that how I should think about plants and these compounds?

00:17:41.340 | Do you think of them as good for us or as bad for us?

00:17:45.200 | They're a very sharp blade, and we want to use them potently.

00:17:48.200 | - I actually, I think that it's almost impossible.

00:17:52.120 | I mean, you'd have to eat nothing but the same plant

00:17:56.080 | all day, every day, in large.

00:17:57.760 | I mean, the bioavailability of these compounds

00:18:01.400 | in the plants, they're attached to a food matrix.

00:18:04.480 | You know, it's not like taking it

00:18:06.020 | in a supplement form as well.

00:18:08.620 | It's such that it's very difficult to make it toxic.

00:18:13.620 | Now, there are some cases, for example, if you eat cabbage,

00:18:18.240 | and I think there's some group in Africa or somewhere

00:18:20.400 | that that's all they eat is cabbage,

00:18:22.560 | and there is a goitrogen in cabbage.

00:18:24.640 | It's not sulforaphane, it's another compound,

00:18:26.880 | but that's all they eat every day.

00:18:28.880 | Nothing but that.

00:18:29.720 | - They get goiter, the thick neck.

00:18:30.840 | - Yeah, and they're like iodine deficient on top of that.

00:18:33.360 | So I do think you can, of course, make,

00:18:38.480 | I mean, there are types of plants that are toxic

00:18:40.440 | in small quantities, right?

00:18:41.740 | - Hemlock. - Hemlock, exactly.

00:18:43.840 | - We'll kill you.

00:18:44.680 | Folks, don't play this game with hemlock.

00:18:46.760 | - But you're not gonna get poison from eating,

00:18:50.200 | you're serving of broccoli at dinner, right?

00:18:53.480 | So I mean, it depends on the plant.

00:18:56.140 | These generalizations are kind of, they're just not useful,

00:19:00.660 | and I think that a lot of people online,

00:19:03.460 | in the blogosphere, they gravitate towards them

00:19:07.300 | because it's just easier and it's a lot more sensational.

00:19:10.840 | - Plants, meat, and starches,

00:19:12.320 | I'm one of those rare omnivores out there now.

00:19:15.020 | I feel like it's rare to be an omnivore,

00:19:17.680 | but I think once you step out of the social media,

00:19:20.320 | as you said, the blogosphere, most people,

00:19:23.280 | I would say 99% of people on the planet

00:19:25.920 | are probably omnivores.

00:19:27.440 | - Right.

00:19:28.280 | - And someone will probably correct me,

00:19:29.180 | but I doubt the number falls below 98.

00:19:33.200 | - I think if you look at data,

00:19:36.160 | when we have carnivore data, I can't wait to see it,

00:19:39.980 | but right now it's a lot of, okay,

00:19:42.300 | well this is a lot of anecdotal evidence,

00:19:44.980 | and there's a lot of good starts with anecdotes,

00:19:49.500 | but people change a thousand things at once,

00:19:51.820 | and they don't realize that, but they do.

00:19:55.140 | And so anecdotal data is only so good, right?

00:19:58.180 | It's a starting point.

00:19:59.680 | And so we don't really know long-term

00:20:02.280 | what carnivore diets are gonna do.

00:20:04.320 | They may be beneficial short-term.

00:20:06.840 | They may be beneficial for reasons of elimination

00:20:09.420 | of other things, like who knows, right?

00:20:11.060 | Lots of possibilities, but I do think

00:20:12.720 | with respect to plants, there's so much evidence,

00:20:17.720 | like for example, sulforaphane is one that I really like

00:20:21.880 | because there's just evidence that sulforaphane

00:20:25.960 | is a very powerful activator of the Nrf2 pathway,

00:20:29.200 | and this is a pathway that regulates a lot of genes,

00:20:31.960 | and a lot of genes that are related

00:20:33.080 | to like glutathione production,

00:20:35.280 | genes that are involved in detoxifying compounds

00:20:38.200 | that we're exposed to from our food,

00:20:39.520 | like heterocyclic amines.

00:20:40.880 | In fact, there have been GWAS studies,

00:20:43.540 | so these are genetically, these are studies

00:20:45.960 | that are genome-wide associated studies

00:20:48.640 | for people listening that aren't familiar.

00:20:51.120 | People have a variety of versions of genes,

00:20:54.280 | and we have a gene that's able to make heterocyclic amines

00:20:59.840 | to basically detoxify it so it's not as harmful.

00:21:03.920 | And people that don't have a certain version

00:21:07.520 | of that that's doing it well are very prone

00:21:09.760 | to like colon cancer and increased cancer risk.

00:21:12.640 | But if they eat a lot of broccoli

00:21:14.720 | and cruciferous vegetables, it negates that risk

00:21:16.840 | because they're getting sulforaphane,

00:21:18.960 | which activates a lot of the glutathione transferase

00:21:21.960 | and synthase genes.

00:21:24.920 | So glutathione's a major antioxidant in our brain,

00:21:28.180 | in our vascular system, in our body, basically.

00:21:31.660 | So there's evidence that eating things like compounds

00:21:36.660 | that are like sulforaphane or broccoli or broccoli sprouts,

00:21:41.720 | which have up to 100 times more sulforaphane than broccoli,

00:21:45.280 | are activating glutathione in the brain.

00:21:47.160 | There's human evidence of that.

00:21:48.160 | I mean, that's amazing.

00:21:49.220 | - That is amazing.

00:21:50.060 | - And plasma, yeah.

00:21:51.380 | - Sorry to interrupt.

00:21:52.220 | I just want to make sure when,

00:21:53.840 | so broccoli sprouts are different than broccoli,

00:21:55.760 | and you just told us that they have much,

00:21:58.940 | they're much richer in these compounds.

00:22:02.600 | So note to self, I should have broccoli sprouts,

00:22:05.160 | not just broccoli.

00:22:06.340 | Can we cook the broccoli and still get these nutrients

00:22:08.560 | or do we have to eat it raw?

00:22:09.400 | I confess eating raw broccoli is really aversive to me.

00:22:12.420 | - So the sulforaphane is formed

00:22:17.580 | from a compound called glucoraphanin,

00:22:19.660 | which is in the broccoli.

00:22:21.520 | And the enzyme that converted into sulforaphane

00:22:23.940 | is myrosinase and it's heat sensitive.

00:22:26.620 | So you do somewhat lower the sulforaphane levels

00:22:29.920 | when you cook the broccoli.

00:22:31.820 | However, there was a study a few years back

00:22:34.620 | that showed adding one gram of mustard seed powder,

00:22:37.720 | ground mustard seed powder,

00:22:39.700 | which also contains the myrosinase enzyme,

00:22:42.620 | to your cooked broccoli,

00:22:44.500 | increases the sulforaphane by fourfold.

00:22:46.940 | - So this is great 'cause I confess I like broccoli

00:22:51.320 | if it's cooked to the appropriate density,

00:22:54.200 | not too mushy, but definitely not raw.

00:22:56.420 | The idea of eating raw broccoli to me just sounds horrible,

00:22:58.920 | but I like the way mustard seed sounds.

00:23:01.140 | So just a little bit of mustard seed powder

00:23:03.820 | added to the cooked broccoli

00:23:05.120 | can recover some of these compounds.

00:23:07.240 | - Yes, so what I do is I will lightly steam my broccoli

00:23:11.600 | and then I add a little bit of my Kerrygold butter

00:23:15.120 | and then I add some mustard seed powder on the top of that.

00:23:18.440 | And it's got a little kick,

00:23:20.060 | like it's just a little spice.

00:23:21.840 | And if you don't taste that, it's expired,

00:23:23.860 | like it should have a little kick.

00:23:25.620 | - And because I know people will want to know

00:23:26.980 | how often and how much,

00:23:28.440 | are you eating this every day or most days of the week?

00:23:32.980 | - Well, I had shifted to supplementation with sulforaphane.

00:23:37.980 | I've admitted, I'm admitting right now

00:23:40.940 | that I've been terrible about it the past,

00:23:42.460 | like, I don't know, six months or so.

00:23:44.940 | - The supplementation or the broccoli?

00:23:46.780 | - Yes, the supplementation.

00:23:48.800 | And so there's another way to get,

00:23:52.640 | there's another compound,

00:23:53.960 | and it's actually called moringa.

00:23:55.960 | And Dr. Jed Fahey, who's really the expert on sulforaphane,

00:24:00.960 | he's a good friend of mine,

00:24:02.300 | he's been on the podcast a couple of times,

00:24:03.700 | he basically thinks and has done a lot of research

00:24:08.700 | on moringa as well, that it's like a cousin

00:24:12.320 | and it activates the NRF2 pathway similarly to sulforaphane.

00:24:16.800 | And so I've been buying this Cooli Cooli moringa powder.

00:24:20.000 | I don't have any affiliation with them.

00:24:21.240 | - Cooli Cooli is a brand.

00:24:22.200 | - Cooli Cooli is a brand.

00:24:23.280 | - That you have no affiliation to.

00:24:24.120 | - I have no affiliation, but Jed Fahey has researched it,

00:24:27.220 | like that specific brand.

00:24:29.040 | And so it's like, it's legit, it's like science-backed

00:24:32.880 | in terms of actually containing moringa

00:24:35.200 | and activating NRF2, and I add it to my smoothies.

00:24:39.040 | So that's what I've been doing.

00:24:41.120 | - What are some dose ranges?

00:24:43.920 | And of course we give the usual recommendations

00:24:46.020 | that people should talk to their physician,

00:24:47.260 | et cetera, et cetera.

00:24:48.100 | But if people are going to, what do you take?

00:24:51.440 | That's always the, let's take the David Sinclairian approach

00:24:55.760 | where he'll talk about what he does

00:24:58.400 | as a way to deal with this.

00:24:59.640 | And of course, everybody's different and should,

00:25:01.800 | in all seriousness, should, anytime you add or delete

00:25:04.840 | something from your consumption,

00:25:07.260 | should consult some trusted healthcare professional,

00:25:10.720 | trusted by you.

00:25:12.200 | What, do you recall the dosages?

00:25:14.240 | - I do a big heaping tablespoon.

00:25:16.780 | - So moringa, coolly coolly moringa, it sounds like a song.

00:25:19.900 | - It's with a K, I know.

00:25:21.100 | But for people also listening, it's like,

00:25:25.960 | well, why would I do that?

00:25:26.900 | I mentioned the glutathione in the brain.

00:25:28.340 | I mentioned it in plasma.

00:25:30.900 | It's been shown to lower DNA damage in people

00:25:33.220 | and white blood cells.

00:25:35.460 | It's also been shown,

00:25:36.580 | there's been several different studies in China.

00:25:39.020 | In China, there's a lot of air pollution.

00:25:40.600 | And I mentioned that it's a very powerful activator NRF2,

00:25:43.820 | and I know you're familiar with NRF2,

00:25:45.260 | but NRF2 is like, it's your transcription factor

00:25:48.160 | that is, it is binding to a little specific sequence

00:25:52.500 | in a variety of different genes,

00:25:53.760 | and it's like turning them on,

00:25:55.560 | or in some cases, turning them off.

00:25:57.220 | It's regulating what's being activated

00:25:59.220 | or what's not being activated or being turned off.

00:26:01.460 | And some of the genes are basically

00:26:04.100 | these detoxifying pathways.

00:26:06.160 | We talked a little bit about the glutathione,

00:26:07.700 | but there's also ones that are involved

00:26:09.200 | in airborne carcinogens like benzene.

00:26:13.400 | So benzene is found in air pollution.

00:26:15.240 | I mean, cigarette smoke.

00:26:17.000 | If you're smoking cigarettes still, please try to quit.

00:26:19.820 | - Yeah, you're mutating your DNA.

00:26:21.660 | Just say nothing of the lung cancer,

00:26:23.220 | you're mutating your DNA.

00:26:24.340 | - And heart disease risk, heart disease risk.

00:26:26.220 | But anyways, people, and this has been repeated

00:26:29.780 | in more than one study,

00:26:31.220 | that literally after 24 hours of taking,

00:26:33.980 | I can't remember off the top of my head

00:26:35.380 | what the dose of sulforaphane from broccoli extract,

00:26:39.660 | broccoli seed extract was, or broccoli sprouts extract,

00:26:44.480 | not the seed, it was the sprouts.

00:26:46.520 | Anyways, they started excreting

00:26:47.920 | like 60% benzene and acrolein.

00:26:50.040 | I mean, that's something that we get in cooked food.

00:26:51.520 | - It's coming out in their urine?

00:26:52.440 | - Coming out in their urine, yeah.

00:26:54.440 | - Well, I'm not a smoker, and I have to be honest,

00:26:56.640 | it's rare that I hear of a supplement for the first time,

00:26:59.480 | 'cause I've been deep diving on supplements

00:27:02.760 | since I was in my teens.

00:27:04.480 | This is fascinating.

00:27:05.960 | And it brings me back to this question that we had before,

00:27:09.000 | and I appreciate that you answered it very clearly.

00:27:12.300 | Plants have compounds that are good for us.

00:27:14.140 | They're not just stressing us.

00:27:15.400 | They're activating pathways that are reparative.

00:27:18.440 | That's what I'm taking away

00:27:19.920 | from everything you're telling me.

00:27:21.220 | - Right, and that our bodies,

00:27:24.840 | we're supposed to be getting that stress

00:27:27.600 | to have those pathways activated.

00:27:29.280 | Like it is, you know, right?

00:27:32.040 | I mean, this is conserved among different animals.

00:27:34.520 | Like this is something that is, it's supposed to happen.

00:27:39.520 | And in our modern day world, we don't have to eat plants.

00:27:44.640 | We don't have to move anywhere or exercise.

00:27:48.080 | We don't have to go through periods of not eating food

00:27:50.160 | because we can have it at our fingertips at any second,

00:27:52.300 | right?

00:27:53.140 | So I mean, we've got this conundrum

00:27:56.640 | of we're never activating these stress response pathways

00:27:59.240 | that we're supposed to activate.

00:28:01.320 | We're supposed to.

00:28:02.160 | - I find that fascinating.

00:28:03.120 | Again, drawing a parallel to the nervous system.

00:28:07.200 | So what I'm hearing you say is that historically,

00:28:10.440 | we would have to go through some stress,

00:28:12.160 | some confront cold or confront heat or confront effort

00:28:15.640 | or hunger and have to exercise essentially

00:28:18.960 | in order to obtain these compounds.

00:28:20.880 | And then those compounds are reparative.

00:28:22.760 | Yeah, I feel that resembles the dopamine pathway.

00:28:27.280 | I always say, you know, there's nothing wrong with dopamine.

00:28:29.120 | People think about dopamine hits as bad

00:28:30.840 | or dopamine is bad.

00:28:31.680 | There's absolutely nothing wrong with dopamine.

00:28:33.720 | The problem is dopamine, especially high levels of dopamine

00:28:37.280 | released without the need for effort

00:28:40.520 | to access that dopamine is problematic.

00:28:42.920 | So a line of cocaine gives you a ton of dopamine

00:28:45.220 | with no effort except to ingest the drug.

00:28:47.500 | Whereas working for four years or more to get your degree

00:28:51.460 | will release a lot of dopamine

00:28:53.200 | and a lot of cortisol along the way, as we know.

00:28:56.240 | And it's considered a healthy accomplishment in most cases.

00:28:59.900 | A tremendous amount of, we're approaching the spring

00:29:02.860 | and there'll be a lot of graduations.

00:29:04.160 | Weddings are coming up now that the pandemic

00:29:06.020 | is kind of hopefully slowing.

00:29:08.100 | And there'll be a lot of dopamine.

00:29:09.500 | High levels of dopamine are great,

00:29:10.820 | but only after the effort of having done something

00:29:13.980 | in order to access it.

00:29:14.940 | And so that's what I'm taking away from what you're saying

00:29:17.080 | is that we need to go through this intermittent,

00:29:20.340 | the different types of intermittent challenge.

00:29:22.160 | And we are rewarded with particular compounds

00:29:26.420 | that are reparative, both for the challenge,

00:29:28.380 | but then make us stronger.

00:29:29.620 | It is, hormesis really is, it seems,

00:29:31.220 | a case of what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

00:29:33.660 | So you mentioned-

00:29:35.820 | - Can I add to that one thing you just said?

00:29:37.380 | - Please, please.

00:29:38.220 | - Because this has been shown with, for example,

00:29:40.500 | sulforaphane in animal studies,

00:29:42.420 | you precondition, give the animal sulforaphane,

00:29:44.860 | and then you expose them to like hypoxia

00:29:47.460 | or some sort of ischemic stroke condition,

00:29:50.060 | whatever they do to induce that.

00:29:51.600 | And the sulforaphane, it basically protects them.

00:29:55.460 | Like their precondition and their stress response pathways

00:29:59.020 | are primed, and so when they're then exposed

00:30:01.500 | to the ischemic stroke, their outcomes are so much better,

00:30:05.660 | so much better than the animals

00:30:07.460 | that didn't get the sulforaphane 48 hours before,

00:30:09.500 | whatever it was.

00:30:10.340 | You know, and this has been shown in multiple animal studies

00:30:13.400 | with sulforaphane specifically in the brain.

00:30:15.820 | I know Dr. Mark Mattson, he's often thought of

00:30:19.500 | as the intermittent fasting king,

00:30:21.820 | but he's a neuroscientist, and he did publish some work

00:30:26.020 | and talks about sulforaphane as well.

00:30:28.100 | - I'm really glad you brought that example up

00:30:30.920 | because many of the questions I get on social media

00:30:34.060 | and elsewhere are about traumatic brain injury,

00:30:36.700 | and TBI is just one example.

00:30:40.500 | And people always think, oh, sports, it's football.

00:30:42.980 | Whenever you say TBI, people always think football,

00:30:44.820 | and I just want to just take a moment to editorialize.

00:30:48.800 | 90% or more of traumatic brain injury

00:30:51.220 | is construction work, at-home accidents.

00:30:54.940 | Football players, hockey players, martial artists

00:30:58.180 | are a tiny fraction of the people who have TBI

00:31:01.500 | and concussion of various kinds.

00:31:03.020 | It just so happens that within those communities,

00:31:05.220 | many of them, 75% or more, experience those.

00:31:08.020 | So it's salient within those communities,

00:31:09.700 | but concussion is prominent.

00:31:12.220 | People are always asking, what can I do

00:31:14.480 | in order to offset brain injury?

00:31:17.020 | I had a concussion two years ago, what can I do?

00:31:19.060 | And it's been a tough question

00:31:21.060 | because we really don't have anything for them.

00:31:23.240 | I mean, you tell them sleep well, eat well, exercise,

00:31:26.980 | but it sounds like some of these reparative pathways

00:31:30.140 | either should be explored in the context of brain injury

00:31:33.260 | or I'm guessing are being explored

00:31:35.000 | in the context of brain injury.

00:31:36.100 | - Yeah, so a couple of things there.

00:31:38.040 | One is that, I mean, traumatic brain injury,

00:31:40.800 | I mean, it's terrible, but it's also, it's so interesting

00:31:44.200 | because it's also like literal real-time brain aging.

00:31:48.620 | Like, you know, you're able to like accelerate it

00:31:51.960 | and understand, so I often think of,

00:31:54.300 | when I think of traumatic brain injury,

00:31:56.220 | I think of so much overlap between Alzheimer's disease

00:31:59.020 | and dementia and these neurodegenerative diseases

00:32:01.020 | because there are a lot of similarities there, you know?

00:32:04.820 | And so sulforaphane, I personally think,

00:32:08.060 | and I do think there's been some animal research with TBI,

00:32:11.060 | I mean, and sulforaphane,

00:32:13.780 | mostly preconditioning rather than treatment.

00:32:17.580 | So again, it's like, well, I mean, if you're gonna,

00:32:20.260 | if you want a healthy lifestyle thing

00:32:21.700 | and you're a construction worker

00:32:22.920 | or you're fill in the blank, that's, you know, gonna,

00:32:25.300 | I mean, anyone that drives into a car,

00:32:26.700 | I mean, you're at risk to some degree, right?

00:32:28.220 | - Or bicycle.

00:32:29.060 | - Bicycle, yeah.

00:32:29.900 | - Around Stanford, we have, you know, I would say,

00:32:32.400 | people demonize motorcycles,

00:32:34.420 | people demonize a lot of things,

00:32:35.940 | but moving fast through space on a small object

00:32:39.820 | next to a 3,000 pound vehicle, I mean, we've lost,

00:32:43.340 | we have a number of friends that have died,

00:32:44.600 | we have a number of people with traumatic brain injury.

00:32:46.740 | I'm not against cycling or cyclists,

00:32:48.200 | but it's a risky sport by any stretch.

00:32:53.200 | So in taking things like moringa

00:32:56.740 | or eating my broccoli sprouts,

00:32:59.200 | maybe cooking them a little less

00:33:00.320 | than I'm currently cooking them,

00:33:01.320 | putting on the mustard seed, is there evidence that,

00:33:05.940 | well, first of all, NRF2 is expressed in neurons, right?

00:33:09.440 | So those cells should be protected.

00:33:11.040 | Are there other cells of the body

00:33:12.400 | that could possibly gain protection from these pathways?

00:33:15.840 | - Well, lungs, for one, but, you know,

00:33:19.000 | just even in plasma cells, I mean, I think it's pretty,

00:33:22.920 | NRF2 is pretty ubiquitously expressed.

00:33:25.920 | Liver, so there's, I mean, there's so many animal studies

00:33:29.680 | that have looked at all those things.

00:33:30.640 | I try to kind of gravitate towards human ones

00:33:32.640 | 'cause it's a little, a lot more relevant.

00:33:35.320 | But I think, you know, overall, like I mentioned,

00:33:38.000 | you know, DNA damage lower, I think it was like 24 or 34%

00:33:42.680 | lower in human blood cells after broccoli sprout powder

00:33:47.680 | supplementation, and I made a video on this like years ago,

00:33:51.660 | 2016 maybe, and I think I have like the references on there

00:33:54.880 | to exact amounts, I can't remember.

00:33:56.640 | - We can link to the video here.

00:33:57.480 | - But it's kind of an old video, it's 2016.

00:34:00.400 | But I also had Jed on the podcast,

00:34:02.600 | and he did talk about this, but, you know,

00:34:04.960 | it's also been shown in randomized controlled trials

00:34:07.080 | to help treat autism and autistic symptoms.

00:34:09.360 | And yet again, it's doing interesting things in the brain,

00:34:12.420 | and I think it does have something to do

00:34:15.940 | with the oxidative stress and the glutathione,

00:34:18.180 | which would be relevant for TBI treatment.

00:34:21.320 | It hasn't been shown empirically that that helps

00:34:24.820 | with treatment, but I do think someone could do that study.

00:34:28.300 | I think that it should be done, honestly,

00:34:31.860 | because it's a low-hanging fruit.

00:34:33.260 | I mean, if there's any impact, and there is at least

00:34:36.220 | one preliminary study that glutathione is increased

00:34:38.500 | in the brain after humans are basically taking sulforaphane.

00:34:42.480 | - Which is really, for people listening,

00:34:45.160 | that's so important because a number of compounds

00:34:47.320 | that people take in supplement form

00:34:49.060 | don't cross the blood-brain barrier,

00:34:50.920 | or they get metabolized in ways that what's listed

00:34:53.620 | on the bottle almost becomes irrelevant

00:34:55.240 | for what your cells actually experience.

00:34:57.400 | So that's very reassuring.

00:34:59.440 | We will get back to heat and cold and this theme

00:35:01.560 | that I tried to service, but I just find this

00:35:03.120 | too interesting to diverge at this point from these themes.

00:35:08.440 | So what other compounds or micronutrients do you place

00:35:13.040 | in the top tier of useful, interesting,

00:35:16.580 | there are animal studies, maybe there are hopefully

00:35:19.660 | also some human studies.

00:35:21.140 | We've talked about a few.

00:35:22.700 | I know you've talked a lot about omega-3 fatty acids.

00:35:25.180 | So if you had to do your kind of top three,

00:35:28.740 | your superstars of nutrients for the brain and body,

00:35:32.760 | sounds like we've got one set.

00:35:35.060 | What would you put alongside them?

00:35:37.280 | - Omega-3, the marine omega-3 fatty acids.

00:35:40.480 | So these are found in marine types of animals,

00:35:45.480 | fish, cold water fish, fatty fish.

00:35:47.800 | So there's three fatty acids.

00:35:50.000 | There's one from a plant, and that's often referred to

00:35:53.440 | as ALA, people call it short, alpha-linolenic acid.

00:35:56.600 | And then there's eicosapentaenoic acid, or EPA,

00:35:59.800 | and docahexaenoic acid, which is DHA.

00:36:02.360 | Yeah, but EPA-- - I'm amazed

00:36:03.200 | you can pronounce two of the most difficult words

00:36:05.320 | to pronounce right next to, and spell,

00:36:07.920 | right next to ophthalmology, which if you can spell it.

00:36:10.620 | I know people who have appointments

00:36:12.240 | in ophthalmology departments

00:36:13.440 | that don't know how to spell ophthalmology.

00:36:15.640 | A little secret, there's an extra P in there.

00:36:18.560 | So the ALA, I'm not going to attempt to pronounce it

00:36:23.040 | because your pronunciation was perfect,

00:36:24.560 | of both of these two compounds,

00:36:26.600 | and you said are marine sources.

00:36:28.160 | So fish, so sardines, cod, this sort of thing,

00:36:30.600 | but what about krill?

00:36:31.920 | I've seen krill oil, and there was a few years back,

00:36:34.960 | people were saying krill is a better source

00:36:36.840 | for omega-3s than is fish oil.

00:36:41.360 | I took some krill oil capsules, made me itch all over,

00:36:46.360 | so I stopped.

00:36:47.240 | - Do you have a shellfish allergy?

00:36:48.280 | - No, I don't think so.

00:36:49.520 | I don't think so, I'm not a big fan of shellfish,

00:36:51.100 | but I like, you know, I'll have oysters every now and again,

00:36:53.200 | or shrimp or something, and feel fine, so.

00:36:55.780 | - Yeah, we can talk about sources.

00:36:57.040 | So krill is a source mostly of a type of DHA

00:37:02.040 | and EPA that's in phospholipid form.

00:37:04.280 | So it's a phosphatidylcholine omega-3 fatty acid,

00:37:08.240 | and that's different than most of the,

00:37:12.640 | well, if we're talking about fish oil supplements,

00:37:14.680 | that's a different story,

00:37:15.520 | but if you're talking about comparing fish to eating krill,

00:37:18.840 | like we're talking about the foods.

00:37:19.680 | - Oh, I would never eat krill.

00:37:20.520 | - Okay, are we talking about the supplements?

00:37:21.840 | Okay, so fish oil supplements.

00:37:22.880 | - Yes, I apologize.

00:37:23.720 | Yeah, krill supplement versus fish oil supplement,

00:37:27.400 | and if you, if it fits the food,

00:37:29.760 | and if you, if it fits in the conversation,

00:37:33.600 | talking about great sources of omega-3s in their whole form,

00:37:37.920 | I have a bad feeling you're going to tell me sardines.

00:37:41.400 | - Sardines are, yeah, they're awesome.

00:37:43.440 | Anyways, except for the- - Except for the taste.

00:37:45.520 | - And for the potential contaminants.

00:37:48.260 | Mercury, I think, was one.

00:37:50.880 | No, Joe was, yeah, it was mercury,

00:37:52.820 | and Joe was telling me about,

00:37:55.400 | like he used to eat sardines every day.

00:37:56.700 | Joe Rogan was telling me

00:37:57.540 | that he used to eat sardines every day,

00:37:59.340 | and then he had like really high mercury levels,

00:38:02.840 | and I was really shocked,

00:38:04.020 | because sardines are like low in the fish groups,

00:38:09.020 | so the higher up you get, like swordfish and sharks,

00:38:12.560 | like really high mercury,

00:38:13.720 | 'cause they're eating all the other fish, right?

00:38:16.220 | But I think some brands,

00:38:18.440 | and if you look at like Consumer Lab,

00:38:20.840 | Consumer Lab, it's like a third-party site

00:38:23.200 | that I'm affiliated with,

00:38:24.660 | but I use them because they do a lot of analysis

00:38:27.880 | of different foods and supplements,

00:38:30.240 | and so you can look at like some of their sardines,

00:38:32.740 | and they have a list of like ones that are pretty decent,

00:38:35.600 | but anyways, back to your question

00:38:37.800 | about fish oil supplements versus krill oil supplements.

00:38:41.400 | So one of the major differences

00:38:44.160 | is that fish oil supplements,

00:38:46.200 | if you get a high-quality one,

00:38:47.480 | it's in a triglyceride form,

00:38:50.200 | so you've got like a glycerol backbone

00:38:53.440 | with three fatty acids, and that's attached,

00:38:56.120 | and those are either DHA or the EPA.

00:38:58.320 | Or if you have a lower-quality fish oil supplement,

00:39:03.280 | then you have what's called ethyl ester form,

00:39:05.840 | and typically the reason for that

00:39:07.560 | is it's when fish oil is purified,

00:39:10.800 | it's run through this column with alcohol or something,

00:39:13.760 | they cleave it off the glycerol backbone,

00:39:15.700 | and then it's just kind of easier to leave it like that

00:39:18.000 | than like re-esterifying it, which costs more money,

00:39:20.600 | so you can get it in ethyl ester form,

00:39:22.600 | which isn't as bioavailable,

00:39:25.600 | and in fact, if you don't take it with food,

00:39:28.200 | you're going to be in trouble.

00:39:29.280 | You're not going to absorb much of it at all.

00:39:31.880 | - Would you see this on the packaging?

00:39:33.400 | Is it going to say it's in this ethyl form?

00:39:35.920 | - Some fish oil brands will put it on their website,

00:39:40.140 | perhaps on their packaging,

00:39:41.380 | but most of the time,

00:39:43.000 | you'll have to dig for it on the website and/or call them,

00:39:46.520 | but I think for the most part,

00:39:48.240 | ones that are like higher-end

00:39:49.680 | will market it like triglyceride form,

00:39:51.920 | and it's not that ethyl ester is bad.

00:39:53.440 | It just means take it with food,

00:39:54.440 | so one of the major prescription omega-3s out there

00:39:59.440 | is both of them, actually.

00:40:01.040 | Lavazza, which is a mixture of DHA and EPA,

00:40:04.720 | as well as Vasipa, which is a highly purified EPA.

00:40:07.360 | These are both prescribed by physicians

00:40:09.680 | to patients with hypertriglyceridemia,

00:40:12.200 | so high triglycerides, among other things,

00:40:14.960 | I think maybe dysregulation of lipids as well.

00:40:18.600 | - This is amazing for people.

00:40:20.360 | So these are prescription drugs

00:40:22.160 | that are essentially very high potency purified omega-3s,

00:40:25.500 | but they're given to people for lipid issues,

00:40:27.920 | so this is the treatment of issues with fat metabolism

00:40:31.100 | by giving people fat.

00:40:32.640 | Just to really, I just want to push home,

00:40:35.200 | again, I'm not carnivore keto or anything, I'm an omnivore,

00:40:37.500 | but to just push home that one thing that's so wonderful

00:40:42.500 | that you've done over the years that you continue to do

00:40:44.880 | is to move away from these very broad sweeping statements

00:40:49.880 | about fat is bad.

00:40:51.200 | I mean, here's a case where we're saying fat

00:40:52.680 | is not only good,

00:40:54.160 | it can be used to combat issues with that metabolism.

00:40:57.880 | And fats are not just one thing, they're many things.

00:41:02.120 | So anyway, I just want to put a little highlighter

00:41:04.200 | and a point of appreciation there

00:41:05.680 | and make sure that people are sensitized to the fact

00:41:08.560 | that if you hear that fat is bad,

00:41:11.540 | you have to ask what kind of fat, right?

00:41:13.080 | And here we're talking about these omega-3s.

00:41:15.420 | Okay, so the triglyceride form can be taken

00:41:17.680 | with or without food,

00:41:20.360 | and there's the prescription forms.

00:41:22.620 | I don't know if I can get ahold of the prescription form

00:41:26.460 | unless-

00:41:27.400 | - You have high triglycerides.

00:41:28.680 | - Or I have a friend with high triglycerides.

00:41:30.160 | Nah, it's illegal, folks.

00:41:31.400 | Don't share prescription drugs.

00:41:33.280 | - Or you talk to your doctor and you say,

00:41:34.600 | I'm already taking this from,

00:41:36.600 | I mean, I don't know how it works.

00:41:37.520 | Anyways.

00:41:38.360 | - What's the dosage that you recommend people get

00:41:40.440 | one way or another?

00:41:42.720 | - All right, okay.

00:41:43.680 | So the dosage that physicians prescribe

00:41:46.040 | for high triglycerides, for example, is four grams a day.

00:41:49.960 | - Four grams of EPA?

00:41:51.360 | - Of, yes, of the vesipa.

00:41:55.120 | I think Lavazza is also prescribed at four grams a day,

00:41:58.180 | and you can get either of those from your physician.

00:42:01.760 | My father-in-law just got one of them prescribed

00:42:03.320 | because we were buying our own omega-3 for years and years.

00:42:05.520 | It's like, hey, you can actually get this,

00:42:07.000 | and health insurance can cover it,

00:42:08.480 | and it's a really purified form,

00:42:09.900 | but you have to take it with food.

00:42:11.160 | That was the bottom line.

00:42:12.980 | I've totally gone on tangents,

00:42:14.520 | but you're asking more interesting questions anyway, so.

00:42:16.880 | - Well, normally I ask about mechanism,

00:42:18.540 | and then I talk about protocols,

00:42:19.880 | but in the-- - Or the why.

00:42:21.840 | - Or the why.

00:42:22.680 | - I mean, we haven't gotten there yet.

00:42:23.760 | - But I think that, and we definitely will get there,

00:42:25.960 | but I think a number of people nowadays

00:42:27.800 | are just really excited

00:42:29.680 | about what they can do for their health,

00:42:31.240 | and so here we're just raising the importance of omega-3s,

00:42:34.600 | and then we'll definitely get to the why

00:42:35.720 | and the underlying mechanism.

00:42:37.000 | - I think four grams is, I mean, and in fact,

00:42:40.520 | Bill Harris, Dr. Bill Harris is,

00:42:44.680 | he's just one of the pioneers

00:42:46.260 | on omega-3 fatty acid research.

00:42:47.880 | He was on our podcast not, you know, last August,

00:42:51.280 | and he was saying the reason FDA chose that

00:42:54.440 | was literally just because how much

00:42:56.680 | they could get people to take.

00:42:58.480 | Like, it wasn't like an upper end,

00:43:00.600 | like, oh, this is not, anything above that is unsafe.

00:43:02.860 | That wasn't the case.

00:43:04.360 | I mean, it was just purely like cost and like compliance,

00:43:09.360 | so like what they can get into a pill,

00:43:13.080 | the amount they can get,

00:43:13.900 | and how many pills they can get people to take.

00:43:15.960 | - I'm smiling because our good friend,

00:43:18.360 | Sachin Panda at the Salk Institute,

00:43:20.520 | who's done a lot of important work on intermittent fasting

00:43:22.680 | and other incredible work on circadian rhythms, et cetera.

00:43:26.680 | When I was talking to him in preparation

00:43:29.000 | for an episode on intermittent fasting,

00:43:31.120 | I said, why the eight hour feeding window?

00:43:33.340 | And he said, well, the graduate student

00:43:34.940 | who ran those studies had a partner,

00:43:37.200 | I think it was a girlfriend, as I recall,

00:43:38.840 | hope I didn't get that backward,

00:43:40.200 | and the partner said, listen,

00:43:42.820 | you can be in lab 10 hours a day,

00:43:45.700 | but you can't be in lab 14 hours a day

00:43:47.420 | if you want this relationship to work.

00:43:49.180 | And so it was eight hours of feeding window,

00:43:50.900 | plus some measurements,

00:43:52.500 | time to walk into the lab, park the car, et cetera.

00:43:54.740 | And so the eight hour feeding window

00:43:56.060 | that everyone holds so wholly

00:43:57.800 | was actually just born out of this relationship

00:44:00.540 | between these two graduate students.

00:44:01.960 | Had they been single,

00:44:03.560 | I was single all through graduate school

00:44:05.380 | or most of it anyway, and I lived in the lab.

00:44:07.680 | So if it'd been me, we'd all be,

00:44:09.280 | intermittent fasting would mean eating 14 hours a day.

00:44:11.740 | That was a joke, not a good one,

00:44:13.360 | but I just want to make clear I'm joking.

00:44:15.280 | But the point that you're making is a really good one,

00:44:17.160 | that the four gram amount is not a threshold

00:44:22.160 | based on anything except the threshold

00:44:25.200 | of people's willingness to actually take the stop.

00:44:28.380 | So, and I think that's important for people to hear

00:44:30.900 | because so often we hear the eight hour feeding window,

00:44:33.200 | four grams of EPA, 150 minutes of cardio,

00:44:37.480 | and it's really a question of what you can reasonably do

00:44:40.180 | in a study.

00:44:41.440 | - So I take four grams a day.

00:44:42.840 | I take two in the morning, two grams in the morning,

00:44:44.880 | and I take two grams in the evening.

00:44:46.260 | I take my EPA in the morning

00:44:47.940 | and I take my DHA in the evening.

00:44:49.820 | - You split them.

00:44:50.720 | - I do.

00:44:52.160 | I don't know if, I don't think it's necessary,

00:44:54.640 | not necessarily.

00:44:55.960 | I just happen to buy,

00:44:57.060 | I happen to get a certain fish oil supplement

00:44:59.060 | that's like separates them.

00:45:00.480 | And so, you know, like Lavazza,

00:45:02.720 | Lavazza is a great one and it's all like in one

00:45:04.720 | and it's easier.

00:45:05.560 | - What if someone doesn't have a prescription?

00:45:07.000 | So I take over the counter fish oil.

00:45:09.680 | I know I feel better

00:45:10.900 | 'cause I've done the experiment of going on and off.

00:45:12.600 | I take the mainly for,

00:45:13.960 | I don't have depression,

00:45:14.960 | but my mood is better.

00:45:18.080 | My joints feel better.

00:45:19.600 | I just feel better.

00:45:21.400 | And I like to think that my platelets are slipperier

00:45:23.440 | and they're cruising through any little obstructions

00:45:27.720 | in my veins or arteries.

00:45:28.960 | That's the image I have in my head,

00:45:30.320 | but I don't have any data to support that part.

00:45:32.440 | - Yeah, I mean, so if you're asking for like,

00:45:35.240 | where do people get these fish oil supplements?

00:45:37.280 | - Well, let's say I look at the bottle

00:45:38.400 | and it says two grams per serving,

00:45:41.760 | but then I look and it's 750 milligrams of EPA, right?

00:45:46.760 | Or a thousand milligrams of EPA.

00:45:49.640 | Let's say half of it is EPA.

00:45:50.800 | Then do I want to hit a threshold of EPA

00:45:53.800 | or a threshold of what's listed on the bottle, right?

00:45:58.800 | On the front of the bottle.

00:46:00.560 | And because my understanding is that

00:46:02.360 | we need to hit a threshold level of EPA

00:46:05.240 | in order to derive these important benefits.

00:46:08.280 | - I think two grams is a good threshold.

00:46:11.460 | Now, the International Fish Oil Standards, IFSO,

00:46:16.460 | they have a website where they do third-party testing

00:46:20.240 | of a ton of different fish oil supplements

00:46:23.840 | from around the world.

00:46:25.360 | And they measure the concentration

00:46:27.580 | of the omega-3 fatty acids in the actual supplement

00:46:30.460 | because nothing is ever what it says on the bottle.

00:46:33.800 | And then they also measure contaminants,

00:46:36.640 | so mercury, PCBs, dioxins,

00:46:38.960 | things that you'd find potentially in fish

00:46:41.340 | that are harmful to humans.

00:46:43.380 | And they also measure mercury

00:46:45.000 | and then oxidized fatty acids.

00:46:47.600 | So these omega-3 fatty acids

00:46:49.520 | are polyunsaturated fatty acids,

00:46:51.760 | which are extremely prone to oxidation.

00:46:54.360 | So please keep your fish oil in the refrigerator

00:46:57.360 | because it's colder.

00:46:58.440 | Yeah, they're extremely prone.

00:46:59.760 | - Mine's in the cupboard, so now I know.

00:47:01.360 | - The shelf life's increased, lower oxidation.

00:47:05.520 | - It makes perfect sense.

00:47:06.360 | - Right.

00:47:07.680 | So anyways, they measure that.

00:47:10.400 | And I typically like to look for,

00:47:12.240 | they give you a total oxidation number.

00:47:14.000 | It's called TOTOX, TOTOX is what we call it for short.

00:47:19.000 | And I like it to be at the least under 10,

00:47:22.720 | ideally under six.

00:47:23.620 | It's really hard to find all the right mixtures of things.

00:47:26.880 | But people can go to this website

00:47:30.160 | and they can browse through the products.

00:47:31.760 | I've put together an Excel sheet,

00:47:34.400 | which I have a YouTube little screencast

00:47:37.720 | that I'm yet to publish, press the Publish button on.

00:47:40.080 | But basically you have to go back and check and update

00:47:42.600 | 'cause these are from different lot numbers of the products.

00:47:45.960 | They do have up to like 20, 27 or something.

00:47:48.980 | And so I've gone through and found my top picks

00:47:51.800 | of high EPA brands and high DHA brands

00:47:54.640 | if I were to buy some, the ones that I would choose

00:47:57.440 | because of the low total oxidation

00:47:59.800 | and the high concentration of either EPA or DHA.

00:48:02.440 | Now people can go and do this themselves.

00:48:05.280 | It just takes some work.

00:48:06.280 | - No, I'm glad that you did the work.

00:48:07.960 | I'm going to put up a tweet every week with you tagged

00:48:12.960 | until this list is published online.

00:48:15.160 | Sorry, Rhonda, but I'm going to do it.

00:48:16.960 | I know it's very sadistic of me,

00:48:18.360 | but in service to the community and myself.

00:48:21.120 | - And I chose five brands from each and I tried to choose.

00:48:23.080 | I tried to find one in like Europe and one in Canada.

00:48:25.440 | So there was a great selection of US and other.

00:48:28.560 | - I don't want to do that work and I trust you.

00:48:31.220 | So yeah, I try and get two grams per day of EPA

00:48:35.000 | from supplementation.

00:48:36.160 | I'll now put it in the refrigerator.

00:48:37.980 | Mood is better.

00:48:38.820 | I made that decision mainly based on the data

00:48:42.000 | that I'm aware of looking at comparison

00:48:45.360 | of people doing that anywhere from two to four grams

00:48:47.980 | of EPA per day, compared to SSRI serotonin,

00:48:52.280 | selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors

00:48:54.080 | and treatment of depression.

00:48:55.680 | And I don't want to take an SSRI if I don't have to.

00:48:57.960 | And fortunately I don't have to,

00:48:59.200 | but the data by my read are remarkable.

00:49:02.160 | People that take these things in sufficient doses,

00:49:04.440 | meaning the EPAs are able to get by with much lower dosages

00:49:08.860 | of SSRIs for depression relief,

00:49:11.500 | or in some cases to come off their SSRIs completely

00:49:14.360 | or avoid going on antidepressant medication.

00:49:18.080 | Now, of course, this is not something people should cowboy.

00:49:20.480 | Mental health issues are serious, but what other reasons,

00:49:25.480 | I'd love your thoughts on that, on the mental health part.

00:49:28.000 | And so maybe you could tell us what are some things

00:49:30.480 | that getting two to four grams of EPA per day

00:49:33.060 | is going to help with in our brain

00:49:34.580 | and the rest of our body.

00:49:35.980 | - So do you know, so I actually published a paper

00:49:39.520 | back in 2015 about the role of omega-3 and vitamin D

00:49:43.920 | in depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia,

00:49:48.100 | and impulsive behavior.

00:49:49.600 | But so like within that paper, like the doing background

00:49:54.600 | research, and this was a review article, by the way,

00:49:56.240 | I was just connecting dots 'cause I-

00:49:57.640 | - No, I'm going to grab that.

00:49:59.080 | I confess I don't know the paper,

00:50:00.540 | but I love quality reviews

00:50:03.480 | because the references they're in are so useful.

00:50:06.160 | - Well, there's a huge role for inflammation,

00:50:09.540 | the cause of inflammation and depression.

00:50:11.600 | And I think we did a short animated video on this as well

00:50:15.080 | like years ago, back when I was publishing that work,

00:50:18.260 | where people are injected with lipopolysaccharide.

00:50:22.200 | I mean, this is something that we're generating

00:50:24.840 | from our gut, mostly from our gut permeability,

00:50:28.480 | which happens a lot, endotoxin, it's also called,

00:50:32.080 | it's endotoxin lipopolysaccharide.

00:50:34.080 | It's basically the outer membrane of bacterial cells

00:50:36.820 | when bacteria die.

00:50:38.540 | So like when the immune cells in our gut come into contact

00:50:41.000 | with the bacteria because we drank alcohol five days

00:50:45.200 | in a row or whatever, we release endotoxin

00:50:48.520 | or something stressed us out.

00:50:49.940 | We release endotoxin into our body

00:50:52.000 | and that causes inflammation.

00:50:53.480 | And so you can inject people with lipopolysaccharide

00:50:56.800 | and cause depressive symptoms.

00:50:58.800 | However, if you take those same cohort of people,

00:51:01.680 | give them EPA, and I think it was somewhere around two grams

00:51:04.840 | and then inject them with lipopolysaccharide.

00:51:06.640 | We're establishing causation here, right?

00:51:09.040 | It totally, the depressive symptoms versus the placebo.

00:51:11.480 | So the placebo was saline control.

00:51:13.480 | So this was a placebo control

00:51:15.000 | because obviously it's hugely important for depression.

00:51:18.040 | It ameliorated the depressive symptoms

00:51:20.160 | that was caused by lipopolysaccharide.

00:51:21.840 | - Amazing, and LPS, lipopolysaccharide, is no joke.

00:51:25.880 | Years ago when I was working on thermal regulation,

00:51:28.440 | we would inject animals with LPS to induce fever.

00:51:33.160 | There's the vagus nerve registers,

00:51:36.160 | the presence of LPS signals

00:51:37.560 | to these particular hypothalamic areas

00:51:40.560 | and cranks up body temperature

00:51:41.800 | because basically it's a signal

00:51:43.000 | that the body is infected, right?

00:51:45.160 | Amazing, so I will continue with my two grams per day.

00:51:51.000 | Maybe I'll ramp it up to four.

00:51:52.440 | I'm not doing the DHA separately.

00:51:55.440 | There's DHA in the same supplement.

00:51:58.360 | Is that okay?

00:51:59.200 | - Yes, yeah, yeah.

00:52:00.040 | And to kind of, well, we've got a lot of things

00:52:03.320 | to hit back on because one of your original questions

00:52:06.000 | was krill oil versus fish oil.

00:52:08.240 | And DHA specifically is in phospholipid form.

00:52:13.240 | It's more bioavailable.

00:52:17.720 | So our bodies, if you're comparing exact quantity

00:52:21.680 | or concentration in triglyceride form

00:52:24.800 | versus phospholipid form,

00:52:27.080 | you will get more in your plasma cells,

00:52:30.360 | in your plasma plasma cell, in your plasma with krill oil.

00:52:34.240 | However, krill oil supplements are so low dose.

00:52:39.240 | Like, I mean, good luck getting two grams

00:52:43.400 | of omega-3 from krill oil.

00:52:45.560 | And also krill oil supplements are notoriously rancid.

00:52:49.120 | I don't know for whatever reason.

00:52:49.960 | - Maybe that's what made me itchy all over.

00:52:52.080 | - I think they're just, like, I haven't found

00:52:55.400 | a good krill oil supplement.

00:52:57.760 | I pretty much stay away from it.

00:52:59.440 | I mean, if you smell it too, I mean, it's just like,

00:53:02.120 | like, it just smells rancid.

00:53:03.680 | So, but the thing is, and I also published a paper on this

00:53:07.520 | back in 2019 or, yeah, something like that,

00:53:12.520 | about DHA in phospholipid form getting into the brain

00:53:19.560 | through a different mechanism than DHA in triglyceride form,

00:53:22.200 | and so it's going through a transporter

00:53:24.240 | called the MFSD2A transporter,

00:53:26.120 | and I think it's very relevant

00:53:27.120 | for people with an ApoE4 allele.

00:53:29.280 | So I kind of--

00:53:30.960 | - With an Alzheimer's susceptibility.

00:53:32.200 | - Right, so like 25% of the population has an allele

00:53:36.080 | and a gene called ApoE4, and basically it's ApoE,

00:53:41.080 | but the four is referred to as the bad kind of version of it.

00:53:46.840 | This is something in our bodies.

00:53:48.640 | It's also in our brain,

00:53:49.840 | and if people have one of these versions,

00:53:52.240 | if they got one from their mom or their dad,

00:53:53.920 | they have a twofold increased risk for Alzheimer's disease

00:53:56.280 | if they get two, which is much,

00:53:58.280 | it's much more, it's less common.

00:54:00.640 | I think it's like 2% of the population

00:54:02.240 | or something has two alleles,

00:54:03.360 | but they have like a 10 or 11 fold

00:54:04.920 | increased risk of Alzheimer's disease.

00:54:06.840 | So there is a role for phospholipid form,

00:54:10.840 | DHA in the brain,

00:54:11.680 | but you also make phospholipid DHA inside your body,

00:54:14.240 | and you can do that by taking in more triglyceride forms,

00:54:16.840 | the two grams like the magic,

00:54:19.040 | two grams or more is the magic number, I think.

00:54:21.680 | So kind of back to like the Y for fish oil,

00:54:26.720 | and I personally think it is one of the most powerful

00:54:31.080 | anti-inflammatory things, dietary lifestyle,

00:54:36.440 | things that we can get easily, relatively easily,

00:54:41.000 | that is gonna powerfully modulate the way you think,

00:54:45.440 | the way you feel, and the way you age.

00:54:48.360 | And a variety of different types of studies

00:54:52.680 | kind of led me to that conclusion,

00:54:54.680 | a variety of observational studies.

00:54:57.320 | So there's been lots of work by Dr. Bill Harris

00:54:59.440 | and his collaborators looking at what,

00:55:01.920 | it's called the Omega-3 index.

00:55:03.880 | So this is actually the Omega-3 level in red blood cells.

00:55:07.880 | So red blood cells turn over about every 120 days.

00:55:10.960 | So it's a long-term marker of Omega-3 status.

00:55:14.160 | This is very different from 99.9% of any study you see

00:55:19.160 | or any lab that you go to

00:55:22.040 | to get your Omega-3 levels tested.

00:55:23.360 | You're getting your plasma phospholipid levels tested,

00:55:25.960 | which is kind of like, you can think of it as,

00:55:28.480 | what did I eat a couple days before?

00:55:30.120 | Oh, I had fish.

00:55:31.440 | My Omega-3 levels are great,

00:55:33.280 | but did you eat fish like that every week?

00:55:36.120 | Or was it like, you know, it was like you went out to dinner.

00:55:38.720 | So it's not a great biomarker for long-term Omega-3 status.

00:55:44.140 | It's kind of like the fasting blood glucose levels

00:55:47.680 | versus the HbA1c, which is like a long-term marker, right,

00:55:50.680 | of your blood glucose levels.

00:55:52.320 | So the Omega-3 index, he's done a variety of studies,

00:55:55.800 | observational studies.

00:55:56.840 | So for people listening, these are studies

00:55:58.980 | that are obviously flawed

00:56:00.460 | because they're not establishing causality.

00:56:03.680 | They're, you know, you're looking at people's lifestyles.

00:56:08.120 | But in the case of Bill Harris's work,

00:56:10.680 | he's measuring something.

00:56:11.860 | So he's measuring the Omega-3 index.

00:56:14.020 | And he's measuring the Omega-3 index in people

00:56:16.600 | and then looking at their mortality risk, for example,

00:56:19.000 | or their cardiovascular disease risk.

00:56:21.200 | And what he has found is that most,

00:56:24.840 | first of all, standard American diet

00:56:27.200 | has an Omega-3 index of 5%.

00:56:29.800 | Japan, by contrast, has an Omega-3 index

00:56:32.920 | of around 10 to 11%.

00:56:35.720 | Big difference there.

00:56:36.760 | And they also have about a five-year

00:56:39.120 | increased life expectancy compared to people in the US.

00:56:42.560 | - Do you think that's mainly due to their fish intake,

00:56:44.600 | seafood intake?

00:56:45.440 | - So what he showed was, I think it's a big part of it.

00:56:49.660 | I mean, you can't always say it's the only thing.

00:56:51.660 | But what he showed in his data was that in,

00:56:54.640 | and I think it was Framingham's study,

00:56:56.860 | where he looked at the Omega-3 index

00:56:59.260 | in people that had a Omega-3 index of 4% or lower,

00:57:03.480 | so close to what the standard American is,

00:57:05.060 | but a little bit lower.

00:57:06.980 | They had a five-year decreased life expectancy

00:57:10.880 | compared to people that had an 8% Omega-3 index.

00:57:14.600 | And so, big difference there, right?

00:57:17.080 | Five years life expectancy.

00:57:19.000 | But here's the really interesting thing, Andrew.

00:57:21.000 | He also looked at smokers and their Omega-3 levels.

00:57:25.120 | And so he stratified it, right?

00:57:26.240 | And he found smokers that had no Omega-3

00:57:30.720 | were like the worst of all.

00:57:31.800 | I mean, it was just like the worst, right?

00:57:33.840 | We all know smoking is bad for us

00:57:35.720 | and will take years off our life expectancy.

00:57:38.240 | But smokers that had the high level,

00:57:40.480 | like smokers that were taking their fish oil

00:57:42.320 | or eating fish or whatever it was

00:57:43.480 | they were doing to get them up to 8%,

00:57:45.720 | they had the same life expectancy as non-smokers

00:57:48.520 | with the low Omega-3 index, right?

00:57:51.560 | - Wow.

00:57:52.400 | And that's amazing.

00:57:55.840 | And it's also amazing to me

00:57:56.760 | that people still smoke cigarettes,

00:57:58.300 | but I see a lot of people vaping.

00:58:00.260 | And I know a lot of people consume cannabis, right?

00:58:05.340 | Has there been any studies specifically of vaping

00:58:08.400 | or people smoking marijuana and all cause mortality?

00:58:13.400 | - I haven't seen those.

00:58:15.400 | I haven't seen those.

00:58:16.240 | - They're not motivated enough

00:58:17.080 | to come in as research subjects.

00:58:19.080 | That was, again, a poor joke.

00:58:21.720 | It is hard to study people marijuana use,

00:58:24.680 | unless I'm told by my colleagues that study this stuff,

00:58:27.440 | unless you offer people marijuana,

00:58:28.960 | in which case they'll do it.

00:58:31.000 | But again, they're actually not very good research subjects

00:58:33.680 | in all seriousness,

00:58:34.520 | 'cause they are not very motivated or consistent

00:58:36.320 | and they forget their appointments.

00:58:38.320 | So that's incredible.

00:58:41.440 | And you mentioned that the data on pollution

00:58:43.400 | related to the plant compounds earlier.

00:58:45.520 | So it's almost like these things are, again,

00:58:47.660 | are acting in a reparative way.

00:58:49.860 | - The Omega-3s are, I mean,

00:58:54.040 | they are resolving inflammation.

00:58:57.180 | They're like blunting inflammation.

00:58:58.880 | They're doing so many different,

00:59:01.560 | like they affect so many different parts

00:59:03.920 | of the inflammatory pathway,

00:59:05.000 | which is, I think it plays a huge role

00:59:07.700 | in the way we age, the way our brain ages,

00:59:09.760 | the way we feel, our mood, just our joints, all that.

00:59:12.840 | And so it's amazing, but it's not...

00:59:17.000 | - I love fish oil.

00:59:18.400 | I feel better when I take it.

00:59:19.720 | I try to eat some fatty fish a couple times a week.

00:59:23.800 | I do want to just touch on food sources for a moment.

00:59:26.440 | First of all, are there plants that are rich in Omega-3s?

00:59:31.680 | And second, I have some friends who are really into meat

00:59:36.500 | and I like meat a lot.

00:59:38.480 | My dad's Argentine, but I don't eat very much of it.

00:59:40.840 | I try and eat high quality meats

00:59:42.040 | in relatively limited amounts, but I do eat pretty often.

00:59:46.440 | But I've been told by these sources

00:59:50.800 | of a questionable authority

00:59:52.520 | that if an animal grazes on really good grasses,

00:59:55.440 | for instance, that the meat can contain a lot of Omega-3s,

00:59:59.280 | which in principle makes sense based on this Omega-3 index,

01:00:02.480 | 'cause you're telling me that a lot of this Omega-3

01:00:04.400 | is sequestered into the red blood cells.

01:00:06.560 | So if I'm eating high quality grass-fed meat

01:00:09.200 | and the grasses had Omega-3s,

01:00:11.800 | do my steaks have Omega-3s or no?

01:00:13.960 | - So there was a study published

01:00:16.720 | that compared conventional meat,

01:00:19.680 | so meat that animals are fed corn or soy or whatever it is.

01:00:24.680 | - Which is terrible for animals and people.

01:00:27.840 | As far as I can tell, I'm sure I'll get some attacks,

01:00:31.700 | but that's okay.

01:00:32.540 | I won't read those comments.

01:00:33.680 | Again, a joke, I read all the comments,

01:00:37.120 | but it seems to me that these animals

01:00:40.960 | that have to either be taking fish oil

01:00:43.680 | or eat plants that are very rich in Omega-3s

01:00:47.040 | in order for the meat

01:00:48.340 | to actually contain sufficient Omega-3s.

01:00:50.960 | - So the meat, comparing the conventional meat

01:00:52.980 | to the grass-fed or pasture-raised cows or cattle,

01:00:57.980 | there were higher levels of alpha-linoleic acid.

01:01:03.080 | And ALA, it can be converted into EPA and DHA,

01:01:08.080 | but the conversion is very inefficient

01:01:13.200 | and very dependent on a variety of factors,

01:01:15.880 | including genetics.

01:01:17.640 | Genetics, a huge regulator.

01:01:20.800 | Some people can do it much better.

01:01:23.180 | Others, you're getting 5% of conversion to EPA.

01:01:27.940 | Estrogen is a major regulator of making that more efficient

01:01:32.800 | and it makes sense because pregnancy,

01:01:35.260 | when your estrogen just goes through the roof,

01:01:37.480 | I mean, these Omega-3 fatty acids

01:01:39.880 | play a very important role in brain development.

01:01:42.000 | So women are supposed to be converting any ALA they can

01:01:47.000 | into the longer chain Omega-3 fatty acids, right?

01:01:50.400 | So estrogen does affect that.

01:01:53.400 | But I would say plant sources,

01:01:55.200 | so if you're looking for the ALA,

01:01:57.940 | plant sources would be walnuts, flax seeds,

01:02:01.440 | those are probably the highest.

01:02:03.120 | But if a person is a vegan or a vegetarian,

01:02:06.880 | their best bet is to actually get microalgae oil

01:02:10.180 | and you can supplement with microalgae oil

01:02:12.120 | because microalgae, they do make the DHA.

01:02:16.800 | And so that would be a better source

01:02:20.700 | for people that are vegetarian and vegan

01:02:23.960 | rather than doing the flax seed oil

01:02:26.360 | because that conversion inefficiency,

01:02:28.400 | enzymes that convert ALA into EPA and DHA.

01:02:32.280 | Again, it's inefficient.

01:02:33.920 | - And then for people that eat fish, sardines, you said?

01:02:38.240 | - Salmon. - Salmon,

01:02:39.400 | and you have to eat the skin, as I understand.

01:02:42.320 | - You don't have to, but it's good.

01:02:44.080 | - It's rich with-- - The oil.

01:02:45.520 | Yeah, and the reason I say,

01:02:47.360 | I think the best would be wild Alaskan salmon

01:02:52.160 | versus the farm-raised because the farm-raised,

01:02:54.120 | again, they're feeding them corn,

01:02:57.280 | they're feeding them like green and stuff,

01:02:59.120 | and then they give them astaxanthin.

01:03:00.720 | So astaxanthin is a carotenoid.

01:03:02.840 | It's the carotenoid that's in things like

01:03:04.640 | krill crustaceans that make their red pigment.

01:03:07.160 | - Yeah, it's also being used now as a supplement

01:03:09.960 | and there's a prescription form

01:03:12.000 | to try and rescue some age-related vision loss

01:03:15.200 | because of the role of the vitamin A pathway

01:03:18.480 | in photoreceptors.

01:03:20.080 | - Yeah, well, you know, actually the carotenoids themselves,

01:03:22.540 | so like luteinine, zeaxanthin,

01:03:23.840 | they're really good at sequestering singlet oxygen,

01:03:26.720 | which is some damaging, right?

01:03:29.000 | - Yeah, as we age, because the retinal cells,

01:03:33.140 | cells of the eye are so metabolically active,

01:03:35.220 | they accumulate a lot of reactive oxygen species

01:03:38.200 | and mitochondrial repair and limiting reactive oxygen species

01:03:43.120 | is a major theme of trying to rescue vision, I think.

01:03:47.280 | That's a whole other podcast and story.

01:03:49.120 | There's some really interesting data now

01:03:50.560 | on the use of red light to try and trigger these pathways.

01:03:53.200 | - I've seen some--

01:03:54.260 | - That's my good friend of many years

01:03:56.640 | and amazing scientist, Glenn Jeffries Lab

01:03:58.480 | at the University College London.

01:04:00.640 | We should talk about that at some point, if not today.

01:04:02.480 | - I saw that study like 2020, was it?

01:04:04.320 | - Now they have a second study.

01:04:05.200 | - Oh, do they?

01:04:06.040 | - Yeah, it's looking real.

01:04:07.560 | I mean, you know, they're cautious.

01:04:09.460 | They're appropriately British and cautious about it.

01:04:12.320 | You know, I always joke

01:04:13.800 | if those studies have been done over here,

01:04:15.120 | everyone would already know about it.

01:04:16.880 | Glenn is a very conservative guy,

01:04:19.020 | but they've done this stuff now in pigs and rodent models

01:04:22.080 | and now also two studies in humans.

01:04:23.780 | It's looking pretty interesting.

01:04:26.580 | So sardines, but also anchovies.

01:04:29.700 | I mean, by the way, I hate all the food items

01:04:31.980 | that I'm describing.

01:04:32.800 | I can barely tolerate salmon.

01:04:34.440 | I don't like fish at all.

01:04:35.780 | Actually, I like live fish.

01:04:37.320 | I had fish tanks when I was a kid.

01:04:38.700 | I just don't.

01:04:39.540 | No, I find fish, unless it's in sushi form,

01:04:41.600 | I find it absolutely repulsive.

01:04:43.880 | And I don't know why.

01:04:44.720 | I probably have some mutation.

01:04:45.900 | - So raw fish is actually higher in mercury than cooked.

01:04:49.180 | - Okay, well, that's good.

01:04:50.020 | Now I don't really like sushi that much anyway.

01:04:52.500 | You're giving me great reasons to not eat fish,

01:04:54.900 | but except I should eat these other fish sources

01:04:57.040 | or supplement more heavily.

01:04:58.380 | That's the message I'm getting.

01:04:59.540 | - I eat sardines, like every day,

01:05:01.780 | my like first meal almost is like a can of sardines

01:05:04.600 | and an avocado with like-

01:05:05.980 | - Avocado is good.

01:05:07.280 | - Yeah, with a little bit of lemon

01:05:08.420 | and then some little hot sauce, like, you know.

01:05:10.980 | - Does avocado have omega-3s?

01:05:12.660 | - Avocado is very good in monounsaturated fat.

01:05:15.900 | It's not really high in polyunsaturated fat.

01:05:17.580 | Omega-3 really, I mean, it's either the DHA and EPA

01:05:22.140 | that's in the marine sources fish,

01:05:24.380 | or it's the plant ALA source,

01:05:26.300 | which is like the flaxseed or the walnuts.

01:05:29.300 | - So it's rough.

01:05:30.260 | I mean, all these companies now

01:05:32.860 | are making these plant-based products that taste like meat.

01:05:37.420 | My wish is that they would just make a fish

01:05:39.300 | that tastes like a steak, but that's-

01:05:41.340 | - The fish come out albino, the ones that they farm raise,

01:05:43.540 | because they don't eat any of the-

01:05:45.580 | - I'm joking.

01:05:46.420 | I don't want a genetically modified fish

01:05:48.380 | that tastes like a steak.

01:05:49.280 | Although, you know, I love the taste of steak.

01:05:51.720 | The point here is that if one doesn't see themselves

01:05:56.240 | regularly consuming these fish sources of omega-3s,

01:06:01.240 | it seems to me that the only way to really get them

01:06:04.820 | is from supplementation.

01:06:07.440 | - And supplementation is a good way to get a high dose,

01:06:11.200 | and to get back to your dose point.

01:06:13.400 | There was a couple of studies that basically, you know,

01:06:18.400 | I think there was some way they showed that people

01:06:20.800 | that are in the 4% omega-3 index range,

01:06:23.820 | in order to get to the 8%, right,

01:06:25.460 | the five-year increased life expectancy,

01:06:27.780 | if we're comparing the two groups,

01:06:29.580 | was to supplement with at least two grams.

01:06:32.220 | It was about two grams a day.

01:06:33.860 | And I think it was a little bit less

01:06:36.020 | if it was triglyceride form,

01:06:36.940 | but I think two grams is a good, safe number.

01:06:40.140 | So most Americans that are not eating a lot of fish

01:06:43.740 | and they're not supplementing are probably

01:06:45.020 | around a 4% to 5% omega-3 index.

01:06:47.680 | And to get to the 8%,

01:06:49.220 | and I think that's a good empirical way

01:06:52.700 | of thinking about it, right?

01:06:53.760 | Okay, well, I want to get to that 8%.

01:06:55.100 | By the way, I'm almost 16% omega-3 index.

01:06:57.640 | - Yeah, I was going to ask about testing.

01:06:59.900 | So where can somebody measure,

01:07:03.140 | where and how can somebody measure their omega-3 index?

01:07:05.940 | Which again, just to remind people,

01:07:07.100 | is essentially the percentage of omega-3s

01:07:09.660 | that you have in your blood with the caveat

01:07:12.940 | that the omega-3 index will be heavily biased

01:07:16.740 | by what you ate in the previous days.

01:07:18.700 | Not the omega-3 index.

01:07:19.940 | Okay, so the omega-3- - Sorry, I misunderstood.

01:07:21.460 | I thought you said in red blood cells.

01:07:22.780 | If I ate salmon two days ago,

01:07:24.140 | my omega-3 index is going to go up.

01:07:25.800 | - No, that was plasma.

01:07:27.060 | - I misunderstood.

01:07:27.900 | - So most people are measuring,

01:07:30.140 | like if you look at a lot of studies,

01:07:31.700 | and honestly, Andrew, I think a lot of the reason

01:07:33.620 | for conflicting data is because people

01:07:37.180 | are measuring plasma omega-3 levels, the phospholipids.

01:07:40.800 | It's in a phospholipid, right?

01:07:41.880 | So your phospholipids are carrying things.

01:07:44.260 | These are lipoproteins, they're carrying things

01:07:46.540 | like omega-3 and triglycerides and stuff

01:07:48.420 | and shuttling them around.

01:07:49.300 | So the omega-3 index is actually in the red blood cells,

01:07:53.680 | and red blood cells take 120 days to turn over.

01:07:56.780 | So if you're gonna do a baseline test,

01:07:59.660 | if you wanna know before supplementing what your level is,

01:08:02.620 | you have to wait 120 days before doing the second test

01:08:06.060 | after supplementing to know how much you went up,

01:08:08.160 | because that's how long it takes

01:08:10.540 | for your red blood cell to turn over.

01:08:12.340 | So the omega-3 index, Bill Harris has a company

01:08:17.160 | that he co-founded, it's called Omega Quant,

01:08:21.360 | and they measure the omega-3 index.

01:08:23.400 | They have a variety of different index tests.

01:08:25.800 | You can do like a basic one or a little more advanced.

01:08:27.620 | - This is from a blood draw.

01:08:28.620 | - It is, it's a little blood spot thing, yeah.

01:08:31.160 | And he uses money to funnel back into doing lipid research,

01:08:35.060 | so he's out there doing all sorts of interesting studies

01:08:37.700 | on omega-3s, it's great.

01:08:39.060 | But the omega-3 index is great.

01:08:41.260 | I think that, honestly, more people and more researchers

01:08:45.380 | should be using it because the conflicting data,

01:08:49.580 | it always comes down to what we're measuring,

01:08:52.480 | the sensitivity of it, are we even measuring anything?

01:08:56.140 | So you're giving someone 500 milligrams of DHA

01:08:59.980 | and you don't see any effect.

01:09:00.980 | Well, did you measure what their levels were

01:09:02.840 | and did you measure the omega-3 index?

01:09:05.820 | There's all sorts of problems

01:09:07.180 | with randomized controlled trials,

01:09:09.420 | and I think that we need to, as scientists,

01:09:13.220 | we need to come together and like make some progress.

01:09:16.060 | I mean, you know, let's all talk to each other.

01:09:18.380 | Let's figure things out.

01:09:20.060 | Like this test is out there, it should be used.

01:09:23.360 | It should be used not just by Bill's group,

01:09:25.100 | but like everyone.

01:09:26.260 | - Yeah, well, and I'm learning so much from you,

01:09:29.300 | and I agree we need more collaboration.

01:09:32.020 | I've always enjoyed really fruitful collaborations

01:09:34.500 | in my lab at Stanford,

01:09:35.620 | and collaborating is just so much more fun.

01:09:37.980 | Online, there seems to be a bias

01:09:39.740 | more towards creating silos as opposed to bridges,

01:09:43.780 | but I appreciate that you bring up the need

01:09:46.900 | for more collaboration, and knowing which measures are best,

01:09:50.020 | and in this case, now I'll thank you for the clarification.

01:09:52.380 | I understand this omega-3 index is going to be best.

01:09:54.920 | You mentioned you, so basically when now I look at you,

01:09:57.000 | I think you are 16% omega-3.

01:09:59.100 | - And dolphins are 19%.

01:10:00.740 | I'm almost-

01:10:01.580 | - Is that your goal?

01:10:02.400 | You're trying to get there?

01:10:03.240 | - It is.

01:10:04.080 | [laughing]

01:10:04.900 | - To do the interesting.

01:10:06.760 | Actually, they should probably do something

01:10:07.860 | where you're trying to achieve the omega-3 ratio

01:10:10.940 | of your favorite species.

01:10:13.060 | Now that we've covered a bit of how to get these things

01:10:17.060 | into one system, depending on what one eats, et cetera,

01:10:20.060 | and some of the better measurements,

01:10:21.860 | how is omega-3 and some of these other related lipids,

01:10:27.540 | how are they having these positive effects?

01:10:29.300 | In my mind, and this is incredibly elementary,

01:10:33.100 | but my understanding is that at some level,

01:10:35.060 | they're making platelets more slippery.

01:10:37.060 | Is that true or not?

01:10:38.060 | I hope, I'm happy to be wrong.

01:10:40.460 | How is it possibly impacting my mood?

01:10:43.020 | Is it through the synthesis of membrane on neurons

01:10:45.860 | that allows neurons to release more transmitter,

01:10:48.520 | like serotonin and dopamine?

01:10:50.180 | I mean, what are some of the purported,

01:10:52.620 | reported, and known mechanisms?

01:10:55.520 | - I think some of the most well-known mechanisms

01:10:59.620 | do have to do with the omega-3 fatty acids

01:11:02.740 | being very powerful regulators of the inflammatory process

01:11:07.580 | in some way, shape, or form,

01:11:09.220 | whether that has to do with resolvins that are produced,

01:11:11.900 | so from the metabolites of like DHA, for example,

01:11:16.080 | resolvins play a role in resolving inflammation.

01:11:19.700 | Like you want your inflammatory response to be activated

01:11:22.400 | when it's supposed to be,

01:11:23.620 | but you want to resolve that inflammation

01:11:25.240 | and the inflammatory response in a timely manner, right?

01:11:29.020 | And resolvins help do that.

01:11:30.660 | And so resolvins are one.

01:11:32.700 | And then there's these specialized

01:11:34.740 | pro-mediating molecules, the SPMs,

01:11:36.860 | that also help resolve the inflammation.

01:11:39.500 | There's, like you mentioned, the leukotrienes

01:11:41.260 | and prostaglandins, and these things are being affected

01:11:43.220 | by EPA, and they do affect platelets

01:11:46.020 | and platelet aggregation, and they do affect

01:11:48.900 | that whole pathway as well.

01:11:50.860 | And so there's just, and there's, you know,

01:11:52.900 | I think there's just so many different ways and inputs.

01:11:57.220 | And so when we talk about inflammation,

01:11:59.020 | honestly, it's a big general term,

01:12:01.640 | but you're talking about, when you're talking

01:12:03.360 | about serotonin release, you know, at the level of neurons,

01:12:07.220 | you know, we know that these inflammatory molecules

01:12:09.300 | cross the blood-brain barrier.

01:12:10.480 | And I just mentioned ago about injecting people

01:12:12.380 | with lipopolysaccharide and causing depressive symptoms.

01:12:15.080 | You know, it's known that omega-3, actually specifically,

01:12:20.380 | EPA is able to help serotonin,

01:12:23.980 | inflammation inhibits the release of serotonin.

01:12:26.700 | And so EPA is actually able to blunt inflammatory responses

01:12:31.420 | along with DHA as well.

01:12:32.540 | DHA does that through solvents and stuff,

01:12:34.460 | and this then helps more serotonin be released

01:12:37.520 | because you're not having so much inflammation

01:12:40.180 | getting into the brain and affecting serotonin release,

01:12:42.660 | right, that's one mechanism.

01:12:44.100 | And then another would be, well, DHA itself has been shown,

01:12:46.860 | it's a very important fatty acid

01:12:49.660 | that makes up cell membranes, many cell membranes,

01:12:51.660 | including in our neurons.

01:12:53.100 | And as you very well know, Andrew,

01:12:55.140 | the structure and function of receptors, of transporters,

01:12:58.740 | these membrane-bound proteins on the surface of our cells,

01:13:02.700 | including neurons, are affected by the membrane fluidity,

01:13:06.300 | you know, like how rigid and how fluid the cell membrane is.

01:13:10.900 | And DHA plays a role in that.

01:13:12.820 | And so, for example, in animal studies,

01:13:14.700 | if you make an animal deficient in DHA,

01:13:17.300 | their serotonin receptors, dopamine receptors,

01:13:20.020 | they're affected because the structure of them is affected

01:13:23.620 | through the fluidity of the membrane.

01:13:25.940 | And so I think that's another mechanism,

01:13:29.300 | and I'm talking sort of general

01:13:31.260 | 'cause I'm not a neuroscientist.

01:13:32.620 | - No, but it makes perfect sense.

01:13:33.900 | I mean, we know, for instance, neuroplasticity almost always

01:13:38.900 | involves the recruitment of more receptors

01:13:41.420 | or an improvement in some feature of receptors

01:13:45.260 | to neurotransmitters, and they literally move laterally

01:13:48.780 | in the membrane, they kind of float around

01:13:50.260 | like little rafts.

01:13:51.080 | Sometimes they are, in fact, in lipid rafts.

01:13:53.020 | And so it makes perfect sense that these molecules like DHA,

01:13:56.260 | which are part of the structural fat of the neuron,

01:13:58.900 | because, of course, the outsides of neurons

01:14:00.440 | are basically fat, not just the myelin

01:14:02.620 | that people have heard of, but the actual membranes,

01:14:05.100 | that if getting that right,

01:14:07.920 | you wouldn't want it as rigid as concrete,

01:14:09.660 | but you wouldn't want it as soft as,

01:14:12.600 | need to come up with something here.

01:14:14.060 | What's that gooey stuff that kids play with?

01:14:15.940 | It's like that goo.

01:14:17.220 | Anyway, it's disgusting,

01:14:19.800 | and it's too soft to be a membrane for a neuron.

01:14:22.000 | That's what we know. - You get it in those machines.

01:14:23.240 | - Someone put it in the comments

01:14:24.880 | and tell me what that disgusting gooey stuff is.

01:14:27.360 | You don't want your neurons to be that gooey,

01:14:29.640 | and yet you don't want them to be like concrete either.

01:14:31.800 | - It's a balance. - It's a balance.

01:14:34.220 | And in mentioning DHA,

01:14:37.040 | I'm just going to realize I'm backtracking,

01:14:38.800 | but I want to make sure

01:14:39.640 | that we close all the hatches for people.

01:14:42.040 | We talked a lot about EPA,

01:14:44.480 | but are food sources of DHA

01:14:47.640 | that you find particularly attractive

01:14:51.040 | either by taste or by potency for DHA?

01:14:53.760 | What are just a few that we could throw out?

01:14:55.880 | Because I am aware that there are supplements

01:14:58.560 | where you can get a nice ratio of EPA to DHA,

01:15:00.960 | or you take them separately as you do.

01:15:02.680 | But if I want to make sure that I'm getting enough DHA,

01:15:05.000 | what do I need to be sure I'm eating on a regular basis?

01:15:07.240 | - Well, the fish is packaging the DHA and EPA in the ratio.

01:15:11.200 | But I also do eat salmon roe, which is very salty,

01:15:16.340 | and it's a really high source of the phosphatidylcholine DHA

01:15:21.340 | that we talked about. - So this is fish eggs?

01:15:23.460 | - It is. - Yeah.

01:15:24.300 | - Yeah, and actually-

01:15:25.140 | - That I like for some reason.

01:15:26.580 | - Oh, do you? - Yeah, I'll eat.

01:15:27.660 | So I'm discovering something about myself.

01:15:30.380 | This was not meant to be nutritional psychotherapy,

01:15:33.220 | but you're doing that for me anyway.

01:15:34.900 | I'm discovering that, yeah, I like eating embryonic fish.

01:15:37.580 | I just don't like eating the actual fish.

01:15:39.500 | - Okay, well-

01:15:40.540 | - Okay, so fish eggs are okay.

01:15:42.700 | So caviar, basically. - Caviar, yes.

01:15:44.540 | - And that's a good source of the phospholipid form.

01:15:47.020 | And I was consuming that a lot

01:15:48.420 | because I wanted to get the phospholipid form.

01:15:51.180 | So, and it's actually really good.

01:15:52.500 | There's been some animal studies

01:15:53.780 | in piglets and rodents as well,

01:15:55.860 | showing that consuming phospholipid DHA

01:16:00.060 | during fetal brain development,

01:16:02.980 | like gets like 10 times more DHA in the brain.

01:16:06.100 | Again, it's-

01:16:07.180 | - Makes sense based on fetal development.

01:16:09.840 | So do I need to buy Beluga caviar?

01:16:13.460 | Stuff can get pretty expensive at $200 a tin.

01:16:15.300 | - I don't think you need to, yeah.

01:16:17.060 | I think it's a matter of preference.

01:16:20.100 | And if you're supplementing

01:16:22.340 | with your two to four grams of fish oil,

01:16:25.260 | I mean, you're going to get phospholipid form anyway,

01:16:28.420 | 'cause your body's going to make it.

01:16:29.580 | - Okay, I've seen some containers

01:16:31.100 | of what I assume to be quality fish eggs

01:16:34.140 | that are not at the caviar level

01:16:36.620 | that you can find in the better grocery stores

01:16:38.660 | that aren't super expensive.

01:16:40.380 | I wouldn't dip as low as to go eat, for instance,

01:16:42.540 | like fishing bait.

01:16:44.380 | Like when we were kids, we used to go fishing.

01:16:45.820 | You'd put the fish egg on the thing.

01:16:47.140 | That's probably not good.

01:16:48.340 | Although it's good enough for the fish apparently.

01:16:50.140 | Okay, only half joking here, folks.

01:16:52.580 | I'm just trying to protect you from yourselves.

01:16:54.540 | Don't get any crazy ideas about eating fishing bait.

01:16:57.140 | Okay, so that's great to know.

01:17:00.620 | So we have these plant-based compounds.

01:17:02.380 | We have the omega-3s, so EPA, DHA.

01:17:04.860 | And then you mentioned there's a third category.

01:17:07.220 | What would you place in your third category

01:17:09.220 | of foods or supplement-based nutrients

01:17:14.220 | that our health, brain and/or body health

01:17:17.820 | can really benefit from?

01:17:19.100 | - I mean, I think the most obvious would be vitamin D,

01:17:21.580 | which is actually, as you know,

01:17:23.500 | a steroid hormone that we produce when we're in the sun.

01:17:28.060 | Depending on the time of year, we can make it in our skin.

01:17:31.740 | And depending on how much melanin we have in our skin

01:17:34.200 | or whether or not we're wearing sunscreen

01:17:35.500 | or how old we are, it's a very,

01:17:38.100 | there's a sliding scale on how efficient that process is.

01:17:41.060 | - And as I understand, there's an inverse relationship

01:17:43.460 | where the darker your skin is naturally,

01:17:48.220 | the more vitamin D you need to consume, is that right?

01:17:51.300 | - Well, the darker your skin is, the harder it is.

01:17:54.420 | So there was a study out of the University of Chicago,

01:17:56.780 | this was several years ago,

01:17:57.820 | where they looked at African-Americans

01:18:00.620 | and compared African-Americans to Caucasians

01:18:03.920 | with light skin, fair skin,

01:18:05.480 | and how well they could make vitamin D

01:18:07.580 | from sun exposure and how long they had to be in the sun

01:18:11.700 | to make X amount, right?

01:18:13.300 | And it turns out that African-Americans

01:18:15.580 | with darker pigmentation,

01:18:17.100 | which protects them from the burning rays of the sun,

01:18:18.980 | it's a natural sunscreen,

01:18:20.420 | had to stay in the sun like six times

01:18:23.260 | as long as someone with none of that natural sunscreen.

01:18:26.900 | So I think the take home there is,

01:18:31.300 | you know, a lot of people with darker skin

01:18:33.180 | living in Sub-Saharan Africa

01:18:34.620 | or people living in India with darker skin

01:18:37.120 | or in the Philippines, you know,

01:18:38.500 | these equatorial regions where there's,

01:18:41.060 | you tend to see darker skin because it's protection

01:18:43.600 | from the burning rays of the sun.

01:18:44.440 | - And adaptation.

01:18:45.420 | - They are in the sun war.

01:18:46.520 | - Right, yeah.

01:18:47.360 | - And they're getting more vitamin D,

01:18:48.860 | but people that maybe moved to the United States,

01:18:51.220 | to like Minnesota or in a place where, you know,

01:18:54.280 | UVB radiation isn't, you know,

01:18:56.700 | getting to the atmosphere 12 months out of the year,

01:18:58.900 | it's only getting there four months, for example.

01:19:01.980 | Or even living in our modern day society

01:19:03.460 | where people just don't go outside anymore.

01:19:04.940 | I mean, we're inside, our laptops in school,

01:19:07.820 | we're at work, we're in our cubicle, whatever.

01:19:09.540 | So supplementation does play a major role,

01:19:12.420 | not only for people with, you know,

01:19:14.400 | darker skin that aren't outside all the time,

01:19:16.480 | but for everyone.

01:19:17.320 | 70% of the US population has inadequate vitamin D levels.

01:19:21.800 | 70 of the whole US. - Amazing.

01:19:24.380 | - So this is everyone.

01:19:25.860 | And so I think that insufficient levels defined

01:19:29.380 | as less than 30 nanograms per milliliter,

01:19:33.760 | and that's sort of defined by the Endriken Society,

01:19:38.180 | looking at a lot of different aggregate studies

01:19:41.500 | and all-cause mortality, for example.

01:19:43.960 | There's been a lot of different meta-analyses

01:19:46.160 | of all-cause mortality studies where vitamin D levels

01:19:49.500 | really seem to be ideal

01:19:51.380 | between 40 to 60 nanograms per milliliter.

01:19:54.860 | And so in order to get to that level,

01:19:57.980 | if you are not outside all the time,

01:20:01.260 | live in Southern California where you're always outside,

01:20:03.740 | without sunscreen on.

01:20:04.920 | I always wear sunscreen because I'm trying to protect

01:20:07.200 | my skin from so many wrinkles and stuff, right?

01:20:09.620 | But also skin cancer is, you know,

01:20:11.780 | somewhat of an issue as well.

01:20:13.180 | So basically the point is that vitamin D

01:20:16.680 | is a steroid hormone, meaning it actually binds

01:20:20.040 | to a receptor, and another receptor dimerizes with it,

01:20:24.440 | vitamin, the retinoid receptor.

01:20:26.240 | And that complex goes into the nucleus of a cell

01:20:29.900 | where your DNA is, and it recognizes

01:20:33.020 | little sequences of DNA called vitamin D response elements.

01:20:35.980 | They're called VDREs.

01:20:37.440 | They're specific sequences of DNA

01:20:39.460 | that this complex, bound with the vitamin D receptor,

01:20:42.900 | goes inside and recognizes and turns on a whole host

01:20:46.100 | of genes, turns off a whole host of genes.

01:20:47.860 | I mean, this is important stuff.

01:20:51.260 | Like imagine 70% of the population

01:20:53.740 | having insufficient testosterone, right?

01:20:56.380 | It's a steroid hormone.

01:20:57.940 | - We might be headed there, but probably not.

01:21:00.980 | - You know, I think that its names are very important.

01:21:03.980 | And I think that one of the issues is that vitamin D

01:21:07.080 | is called vitamin D.

01:21:09.300 | It's not called DHEA or, you know, variant, blah, blah, blah.

01:21:13.760 | It doesn't sound like a hormone.

01:21:15.300 | I also, I'm glad that you're mentioning skin

01:21:18.060 | as the major kind of interface between the environment

01:21:21.060 | and vitamin D synthesis, because a lot of people

01:21:23.660 | think of skin as just a protective sheath around us

01:21:26.860 | or something to adorn ourselves with earrings

01:21:28.780 | or tattoos or whatever.

01:21:30.140 | But skin obviously serves those roles,

01:21:32.420 | but the skin is an endocrine organ.

01:21:34.960 | It has the capacity to make things that impact hormones

01:21:38.140 | and to make hormones.

01:21:39.660 | There's this beautiful study out this last year

01:21:42.020 | where this took place in over in Israel,

01:21:44.180 | where they had people get outside for 20 or 30 minutes a day

01:21:47.660 | three times a week, exposing a culturally acceptable yet,

01:21:52.660 | you know, substantial amount of their skin during that time

01:21:55.940 | and saw big increases in testosterone and estrogen.

01:21:59.500 | And this is through a keratinocyte linked pathway

01:22:01.940 | involving P53.

01:22:03.020 | They did a bunch of, this was done in humans,

01:22:04.660 | but they did some knockout studies in parallel.

01:22:06.300 | And what this study told me or reminded me

01:22:08.380 | is that skin is an endocrine organ.

01:22:09.900 | So the idea that sun could trigger the activation

01:22:12.420 | of a production of a hormone is really interesting

01:22:16.540 | and makes total sense.

01:22:17.780 | So when vitamin D gets into cells

01:22:20.180 | and it's binding to these VDREs,

01:22:22.260 | what sorts of things are they triggering?

01:22:27.780 | So like for testosterone, we know it's going to trigger

01:22:29.760 | protein synthesis, muscle growth, tendon strength, et cetera.

01:22:32.300 | With estrogen, it's going to be keep your neurons going,

01:22:35.340 | your joints feeling good.

01:22:36.700 | I always remind people that, by the way,

01:22:39.020 | 'cause guys are always seem to want to increase

01:22:41.340 | their testosterone and reduce their estrogen.

01:22:43.060 | Just remind people, if you reduce your estrogen, guys,

01:22:45.780 | your libido will plummet to near zero.

01:22:47.820 | Don't crush your estrogen.

01:22:49.620 | It'll also make you stupid.

01:22:50.980 | If you're not already stupid, it will make you stupid.

01:22:55.760 | So estrogen's vitally important for males and females.

01:22:58.900 | When vitamin D gets into cells,

01:23:01.460 | what sorts of things is it stimulating?

01:23:03.920 | - Okay, so first of all, it's regulating more than 5%

01:23:06.960 | of the protein-encoded human genome.

01:23:09.100 | More than, and this was, I say more than

01:23:11.640 | because when I was looking at this data really in depth

01:23:15.060 | back in, starting in 2012 to 2014, it was that.

01:23:20.060 | And then it's now grown.

01:23:22.760 | But one of the important things

01:23:24.840 | that you'll find interesting

01:23:25.780 | that I published on back in 2014

01:23:27.420 | was that I'd gone through this big published database

01:23:32.420 | where someone had published all these genes

01:23:34.720 | they found VDREs in.

01:23:36.480 | And basically I found that tryptophan hydroxylase one

01:23:41.480 | and tryptophan hydroxylase two was on there.

01:23:44.900 | And so then I started looking at the sequence

01:23:46.300 | and I was doing some in silico work.

01:23:48.100 | And it turns out that the VDREs

01:23:50.980 | in tryptophan hydroxylase two,

01:23:52.940 | so for people listening, tryptophan hydroxylase

01:23:56.840 | is an enzyme that converts tryptophan into serotonin.

01:24:00.880 | So tryptophan is an amino acid that we get from our food.

01:24:05.080 | You convert tryptophan into serotonin in the gut,

01:24:09.520 | but you also do it in the brain.

01:24:11.280 | However, serotonin does not cross the blood-brain barrier.

01:24:13.880 | So tryptophan has to get into your brain

01:24:16.480 | and then you have to convert it to serotonin in your brain.

01:24:19.000 | Well, the enzyme that does that in your brain

01:24:21.640 | is called tryptophan hydroxylase two

01:24:23.720 | and it's activated by vitamin D.

01:24:26.720 | The one in the gut is actually tryptophan hydroxylase one.

01:24:30.600 | Some of my published work hypothesized

01:24:33.440 | that it might actually be repressed by vitamin D

01:24:35.860 | because it has a sequence.

01:24:37.720 | The sequence itself, this 12 nucleotide sequence,

01:24:41.520 | it can determine to some degree

01:24:44.040 | whether it's gonna be activated or turned off.

01:24:45.540 | And so I was able to kind of look at that

01:24:47.320 | and think, oh, maybe this and that.

01:24:48.640 | And so since then there have been some groups

01:24:50.640 | that have confirmed more with in vivo

01:24:53.360 | and/or in vitro studies,

01:24:54.640 | 'cause mine was all in silico and all that stuff.

01:24:57.120 | But anyways, so serotonin, a really important one.

01:25:00.860 | But most people, I mean, this is regulating

01:25:03.040 | our immune cell, immune system.

01:25:05.560 | It's regulating our blood pressure,

01:25:09.160 | all that water retention.

01:25:12.160 | I mean, bone, of course, homeostasis, 5%, more than 5%.

01:25:16.200 | I mean, I can't tell you so much.

01:25:19.400 | And with 70% of the US population deficient,

01:25:23.600 | I'm beginning to think that this could be the linchpin

01:25:27.400 | in a number of really important issues.

01:25:29.960 | So supplementing vitamin D3 is what I normally hear is the,

01:25:34.960 | I do, I take, I think I end up taking 5,000 IUs,

01:25:39.520 | sometimes 10 IUs of vitamin D3 per day.

01:25:42.340 | Just done that for a long time

01:25:43.480 | and I've had my levels tested and they're in range.

01:25:45.820 | But I have a family member, I'll just mention this.

01:25:48.160 | I have a family member who was not feeling well,

01:25:51.020 | just kind of feeling off, a little low,

01:25:53.000 | had some digestive issues.

01:25:54.400 | This went on a long period of time.

01:25:56.580 | Was taking, on my recommendation, 15,000 IUs of D3

01:26:01.360 | and was still deficient in D3.

01:26:03.760 | Now takes, and I'm not suggesting anyone do this

01:26:06.040 | as a special case, perhaps,

01:26:07.840 | but no chronic illness that we're aware of,

01:26:11.200 | needs to take 30,000 IUs per day

01:26:13.800 | in order to bring their D3 range just into normal.

01:26:18.080 | Which is, to me, is striking because they eat quite well,

01:26:20.440 | they're a healthy weight, et cetera.

01:26:22.240 | But it, and it's made a tremendous difference

01:26:24.040 | in terms of their mood.

01:26:24.860 | Now, of course, this is correlative.

01:26:25.920 | Now they feel better, they're doing it.

01:26:27.200 | Who knows, they're probably also getting outside more.

01:26:29.300 | But I mean, I think people need to get tested.

01:26:32.940 | They need to get their D3 levels tested.

01:26:35.520 | But where and what is a good starting range

01:26:38.620 | for people to think about D3 supplementation?

01:26:41.240 | And again, foods that can increase D3.

01:26:45.440 | - So vitamin D3 is a good way to supplement with it.

01:26:48.920 | Their vitamin D2 would be a plant source.

01:26:50.960 | You often find it as fortified in like foods like milk.

01:26:54.360 | Usually D2, there's been a few-

01:26:56.200 | - Does anyone still drink milk besides kids?

01:26:58.360 | Oh, here it's like, you can't find cow's milk.

01:27:02.240 | - I mean, all the lattes that you're getting.

01:27:03.880 | - Oat milk, soy milk, what's the other one?

01:27:06.120 | - They're fortified in those as well.

01:27:07.840 | - Oh, they are, okay.

01:27:08.680 | - They are, yeah, they're fortified in-

01:27:09.760 | - I have a hard time finding cow's milk.

01:27:10.600 | - Almond milk and oat milk and all that stuff.

01:27:12.880 | Yeah, they're in all that stuff.

01:27:15.680 | Vitamin D is naturally, to some degree in fatty fish,

01:27:19.040 | like you think about cod liver oil, right?

01:27:22.360 | It has vitamin D, but it's not,

01:27:24.600 | you're not gonna correct a deficiency with eating fish

01:27:28.560 | for your vitamin D.

01:27:29.400 | Like you're either gonna correct it with sun exposure,

01:27:31.960 | being in the right area, having the right amount of sun,

01:27:34.320 | and being the right age, because as you get old,

01:27:37.120 | you become very inefficient at doing that,

01:27:39.600 | converting vitamin D, making vitamin D3 in your skin.

01:27:43.720 | So that's probably what was going on here,

01:27:45.360 | 'cause this person is getting up in their area.

01:27:47.080 | - There's a lot of single nucleotide polymorphisms.

01:27:50.400 | We talked about ApoE4 previously,

01:27:52.160 | but there's a variety of genes that people have,

01:27:56.320 | very common, actually.

01:27:57.520 | In fact, I've had many people

01:27:58.800 | that have done that exact same thing.

01:28:01.160 | So measuring your vitamin D levels

01:28:04.560 | before and after supplementation

01:28:06.320 | is the only way you're gonna figure that out, right?

01:28:08.440 | Very important.

01:28:09.280 | If you don't measure it, you don't know.

01:28:11.560 | You can't know what you don't measure.

01:28:13.440 | So there's a variety of SNPs

01:28:16.640 | that basically make that conversion inefficient.

01:28:19.160 | And in fact, there have been a lot

01:28:21.320 | of these Mendelian randomization studies.

01:28:23.440 | So these are studies where people,

01:28:26.480 | scientists will look at common SNPs,

01:28:30.680 | people that have these common variations of a gene

01:28:33.360 | that's more than 1% of the population.

01:28:35.900 | So it's not a random mutation.

01:28:37.280 | It's actually found in a sizable percent of the population.

01:28:41.340 | And then they've looked at various outcomes.

01:28:43.460 | And a lot of times, they'll look at genes

01:28:45.400 | that are also involved in some kind of lifestyle factor,

01:28:47.940 | so vitamin D and SNPs that basically make the conversion

01:28:52.060 | of either vitamin D precursor into D3

01:28:55.540 | or in D3 into 25-hydroxy vitamin D

01:28:58.240 | or into the active steroid hormone,

01:28:59.860 | which is 125-hydroxy vitamin D.

01:29:02.180 | And there's a variety of different SNPs that show people.

01:29:05.620 | So you're not looking at vitamin D levels at all.

01:29:07.720 | You're looking at just the SNPs.

01:29:08.940 | And you know if they have it,

01:29:10.300 | they have low vitamin D.

01:29:11.540 | So it's really a way of doing a beautifully randomized

01:29:15.800 | controlled trial with an observational study

01:29:18.700 | because you're not biased.

01:29:22.300 | Vitamin D levels are also associated with health.

01:29:24.500 | People that have higher vitamin D are either outside more,

01:29:27.560 | they're more physically active,

01:29:28.720 | or they're aware of their health

01:29:30.440 | and their supplementing, right?

01:29:31.480 | So you always have to worry about that

01:29:33.580 | when you're doing an observational study.

01:29:35.480 | But Mendelian randomization is beautiful for that reason

01:29:37.780 | where you now just randomly, people randomly have these genes

01:29:41.420 | and it's not like, there's no health status.

01:29:43.740 | Like if you have the SNP, like your friend,

01:29:45.700 | like your family member was healthy and all that,

01:29:47.900 | they were healthy and yet they couldn't get

01:29:49.340 | their D levels up, right?

01:29:50.740 | So these Mendelian randomization studies have found

01:29:53.700 | that people that can't convert into the precursor,

01:29:58.020 | the 25-hydroxy vitamin D,

01:29:59.380 | which is usually what's measured,

01:30:00.460 | it's the most stable form of vitamin D in the body,

01:30:03.580 | they have a higher all-cause mortality if they can't do it.

01:30:06.320 | People that don't have it have a lower all-cause mortality.

01:30:09.580 | They have a higher respiratory-related mortality.

01:30:12.940 | They have a higher cancer-related mortality.

01:30:15.140 | So to me, now why did I get on this rant?

01:30:19.220 | Oh, because you're a family member.

01:30:21.100 | So basically, they also are more likely

01:30:23.460 | to get multiple sclerosis.

01:30:24.500 | This has all been done with Mendelian randomization.

01:30:26.340 | And so it really does hammer home the importance

01:30:29.580 | of measuring your vitamin D levels

01:30:31.700 | and being very proactive about that.

01:30:34.840 | I mean, you can get it done anyway.

01:30:36.820 | Your doctor will do it.

01:30:37.660 | You ask them to do it.

01:30:39.140 | So supplementation-wise,

01:30:41.700 | typically, if you don't have one of those SNPs,

01:30:44.580 | for the most part, taking 1,000 IUs of vitamin D

01:30:47.900 | will raise blood levels

01:30:49.460 | by around five nanograms per milliliter.

01:30:52.000 | So let's say you're deficient,

01:30:53.200 | you're 20 nanograms per milliliter,

01:30:55.220 | and you wanna get to 40.

01:30:57.060 | You're gonna need at least 4,000 IUs

01:30:59.020 | if you normally don't have any of these SNPs

01:31:02.580 | that change your metabolism of vitamin D, right?

01:31:04.420 | Does it matter when you take it relative to sun exposure,

01:31:08.180 | time of day, with or without food?

01:31:11.100 | - I've seen some not so great preliminary evidence

01:31:15.840 | suggesting maybe time of day is important.

01:31:18.860 | I don't think it really...

01:31:20.020 | Like, I can't seem to find anything that really suggests,

01:31:24.520 | because for it to actually be converted into the hormone,

01:31:27.260 | I mean, it's stored.

01:31:28.560 | - It's a slow acting.

01:31:29.400 | These steroid hormones are slow acting.

01:31:31.020 | - Yeah, it's not like a media thing, right?

01:31:33.360 | So maybe we'll get some new data that's like otherwise,

01:31:36.980 | but I just don't, yeah.

01:31:38.380 | - It simplifies the problem anyway.

01:31:40.060 | So for people who are going to be stubborn

01:31:42.480 | and not get their D3 levels tested,

01:31:44.520 | or their D levels tested,

01:31:46.220 | and simply say, "Oh, I'll just take some D3."

01:31:50.840 | That was me, by the way, until I got tested.

01:31:55.060 | I threw 5,000 IUs into the mix and figured,

01:31:57.380 | well, it's not gonna kill me.

01:31:58.260 | It'll bring my vitamin D levels up.

01:32:00.140 | I realize that's a bit of a coarse way to approach it,

01:32:03.480 | but I feel fine and I'm still breathing an ambulatory.

01:32:06.720 | So is that reasonable?

01:32:09.540 | 1,000 to 5,000 IUs for most people will be reasonably safe.

01:32:12.580 | Again, we're not making...

01:32:13.840 | Just assuming that people are gonna just jump to it

01:32:16.480 | without the blood test.

01:32:17.840 | - Of course.

01:32:18.680 | I think that if we look at the literature,

01:32:22.800 | the scientific literature,

01:32:24.480 | it is extremely hard to get like hypercalcemia,

01:32:27.840 | which would be the major concern with really high levels

01:32:30.660 | of vitamin D3 supplementation.

01:32:32.380 | I mean, we're talking like hundreds of thousands of IU

01:32:35.580 | a day for a long time.

01:32:38.040 | - Hundreds of thousands.

01:32:39.080 | - Yes, yes.

01:32:40.720 | Now, the upper tolerable intake was set

01:32:43.480 | by the Medicine Institute to be 4,000.

01:32:48.480 | It was just like the safe...

01:32:49.960 | It was kind of like one of those things where it's safe.

01:32:52.480 | I personally take 5,000 IUs a day as well,

01:32:55.560 | and my levels really hover around 50 nanograms per mil,

01:32:59.960 | and I do out...

01:33:01.320 | You know, I don't put sunscreen on like all the time.

01:33:04.560 | Like I do put it on my face and I wear a hat,

01:33:06.040 | but like some of my skin is being exposed.

01:33:07.840 | So I do make it from the sun as well, but...

01:33:10.920 | - I'm glad you brought up the fact

01:33:13.640 | that you keep arms exposed if you...

01:33:15.320 | Because in these studies that I mentioned before,

01:33:18.360 | looking at sun exposure on skin

01:33:20.320 | and increases in other hormones,

01:33:22.520 | testosterone, estrogen mainly,

01:33:25.100 | it became clear from looking at those data

01:33:26.880 | that the amount of skin that you expose is important,

01:33:30.040 | which makes perfect sense once you hear that.

01:33:31.720 | But I think most people are thinking,

01:33:32.640 | oh, I'm out in the sun,

01:33:34.280 | but are you wearing shorts and a t-shirt

01:33:37.080 | or are you wearing a sweatshirt and it's a hoodie

01:33:39.200 | or are you all covered up out in the sun?

01:33:41.500 | Well, that might be great for setting your circadian rhythm

01:33:43.680 | by way of a light to through the eyes

01:33:45.500 | 'cause that's the primary mechanism for that.

01:33:47.400 | But seems to me that the more of your body surface

01:33:51.120 | that you can safely and appropriately,

01:33:54.160 | please folks, appropriately exposed to the sun,

01:33:57.380 | the more vitamin D you're going to create, right?

01:33:59.700 | So laying out on your back deck in shorts and a t-shirt

01:34:03.860 | with arms exposed and legs exposed

01:34:05.420 | is a very different stimulus

01:34:07.460 | than walking around in jeans and a sweatshirt, right?

01:34:10.820 | - Absolutely. - Okay.

01:34:11.660 | - Yeah. - Okay.

01:34:12.480 | Especially if you have sunscreen on your face.

01:34:13.920 | I know it almost seems like trivially simple,

01:34:16.080 | but I'm not sure that people are used to thinking

01:34:18.060 | about their skin as a interface to create these hormones.

01:34:22.820 | So surface area matters.

01:34:24.460 | - And by the way, there have been studies

01:34:27.600 | looking at people that are deficient in vitamin D.

01:34:31.500 | In this case, it was African-Americans

01:34:33.380 | that were given a 4,000 IU a day vitamin D supplement

01:34:36.540 | to bring them back to sufficient levels.

01:34:38.940 | And so this was a smaller study than I would like,

01:34:43.380 | but it reversed their epigenetic aging by like three years

01:34:47.860 | because again, it's a hormone.

01:34:51.180 | It's regulating more than 5%

01:34:53.220 | of your protein-encoding human genome.

01:34:55.220 | There's been studies looking

01:34:56.580 | at vitamin D receptor knockout mice,

01:34:59.780 | and I use this a lot in my presentations

01:35:01.700 | when I'm talking about vitamin D and longevity,

01:35:03.420 | but if you look at these animals,

01:35:05.780 | the vitamin D receptor, as I mentioned earlier,

01:35:08.700 | vitamin D binds to the receptor,

01:35:10.500 | and then it complexes with the retinoid receptor,

01:35:12.560 | and they go into the nucleus of the complex

01:35:14.100 | and you turn on and turn off genes.

01:35:16.140 | Well, if you get rid of that receptor,

01:35:17.460 | which is what you can do in animal studies,

01:35:20.320 | you can sort of determine what effects there will be

01:35:23.580 | with no vitamin D, right?

01:35:25.460 | How do you study no vitamin D?

01:35:26.980 | And so what was found was that these animals,

01:35:30.940 | and in fact, I don't think it was a complete knockout

01:35:34.040 | 'cause I think it might be embryonic lethal, but-

01:35:36.060 | - Some hypomorphism. - Yes.

01:35:37.680 | - Which is basically geek speak for a gene

01:35:40.360 | is vastly reduced in its number and function,

01:35:45.180 | people know what I mean, but isn't eliminated completely.

01:35:48.900 | - Right, well, these animals,

01:35:50.360 | if you look at them after the age of four months,

01:35:53.440 | I mean, the mice look like, I mean,

01:35:57.020 | they're accelerated aging, they're wrinkled,

01:35:58.960 | they have no hair, I mean, they just,

01:36:00.940 | I mean, their lifespan's shorter.

01:36:02.540 | I mean, you can look at this animal

01:36:04.540 | and not know anything about mice or work with them

01:36:06.600 | and be like, that animal looks like it's,

01:36:09.100 | of course, mice' lifespans are only like two,

01:36:11.780 | two and a half years, but like 500 years old.

01:36:14.400 | - Right, it looks like it went to graduate school twice.

01:36:17.480 | - Actually, graduate school is a lot of fun.

01:36:19.180 | I like to think I age backwards in graduate school,

01:36:21.100 | which is not true, I look at the photos,

01:36:22.500 | I definitely aged forward.

01:36:24.180 | You on the other hand look exactly the same way

01:36:26.220 | you did 10 years ago, I'm not saying that to flatter you,

01:36:28.640 | but it's absolutely true, I mean,

01:36:30.180 | the data are the data, it's remarkable.

01:36:32.340 | So I think it's, I'm definitely gonna try

01:36:34.340 | and get my omega-3 percentage up there,

01:36:36.560 | I'm not gonna hinge at all on that,

01:36:38.560 | but clearly you're doing a lot of things right.

01:36:40.900 | So if I'm taking vitamin D3,

01:36:45.960 | I still need to get out into the sun, correct?

01:36:48.680 | Okay, I think a lot of people don't know that,

01:36:50.880 | or at least I have family members

01:36:52.200 | that have been a little bit resistance,

01:36:53.320 | like I take my vitamin D,

01:36:54.400 | so I don't need to get outside as much.

01:36:56.440 | I think people are really afraid of getting out

01:36:58.200 | into the sun because they're worried about melanomas.

01:37:00.760 | And I'm as, to be honest, I'm as scared of sunscreen

01:37:04.900 | as I am of melanoma, like that some of the things

01:37:07.360 | in sunscreen are really spooky, mainly the compound,

01:37:10.840 | and here I'm not one of these, I drink tap water,

01:37:13.560 | listen folks, like people cringe, I drink tap water,

01:37:16.920 | I have the occasional croissant or donut,

01:37:18.600 | I'm 90%, 80% of the time I'm doing the right things

01:37:22.480 | the right way, I think, although I'm now gonna improve

01:37:24.640 | on them with this new knowledge.

01:37:25.700 | But I don't like what I see in most sunscreens

01:37:30.700 | because if you look at these compounds,

01:37:32.800 | they cross the blood-brain barrier.

01:37:35.040 | I don't want compounds crossing the blood-brain barrier.

01:37:38.240 | - Titanium dioxide?

01:37:39.080 | - Dioxide, some of the triclosans

01:37:40.920 | that are also in these cleansers.

01:37:42.640 | I mean, once you know a little bit about neurons, folks,

01:37:46.600 | you realize that the neurons you got are basically

01:37:48.600 | the ones you've got for your entire life.

01:37:50.700 | You know, there's a reason why there's a blood-brain barrier,

01:37:52.740 | a blood ovary, and a blood testes barriers

01:37:55.000 | because the genetic material resides in the testes,

01:37:57.120 | the ovaries, and the brain, those neurons don't turn over.

01:37:59.400 | There are a few new neurons, but not that many

01:38:01.760 | unless you're a mouse, frankly.

01:38:03.440 | And so protecting those is very key.

01:38:05.220 | And a lot of the things in sunscreen

01:38:07.160 | are downright dangerous.

01:38:10.040 | So I think there are sunscreens that are safe,

01:38:12.600 | but it's very hard to figure out which sunscreens

01:38:15.800 | are free of these compounds.

01:38:17.840 | I'm amazed that they're still on the market, frankly.

01:38:20.160 | - I've always geared towards the ones with the minerals

01:38:24.700 | that are like reflecting it.

01:38:26.440 | It is somewhat difficult to penetrate things

01:38:29.560 | all the way through the skin into the bloodstream.

01:38:32.620 | I don't, but I don't know,

01:38:33.920 | maybe some of these compounds get in there easily.

01:38:35.760 | I have seen the evidence with some of those things.

01:38:38.280 | - Yeah, there is some evidence they go transdermal.

01:38:41.000 | - And they get in, okay, well, I know that some of them

01:38:43.960 | react with the sun, and while they do protect

01:38:47.280 | from the UVA and/or B, they like form massive

01:38:50.320 | reactive oxygen species and carcinogen.

01:38:53.160 | I mean, it's like the very thing you're trying

01:38:54.600 | to protect yourself from might actually cause,

01:38:58.200 | we don't know, I mean, like it's completely speculation.

01:39:01.240 | But there is like, I think some more and more evidence

01:39:04.360 | coming out with some of those compounds.

01:39:05.480 | And I can't remember all of them off the top of my head,

01:39:08.240 | but a lot of high-end ones also have,

01:39:12.080 | it's the chemical sunscreen ones, the chemical ones.

01:39:14.880 | - We should do, I'm proposing that we do a journal club.

01:39:17.360 | A journal club, folks, is where academics get together

01:39:19.520 | and read papers and they get together

01:39:21.940 | and they pick apart the papers.

01:39:23.680 | There's a strong correlation between being

01:39:25.820 | an early graduate student and being the most critical,

01:39:28.200 | 'cause once you've actually published some papers,

01:39:29.640 | you realize that most studies, people are doing their best

01:39:33.340 | within the context of what they can do.

01:39:35.000 | But it'd be great to do a journal club at some point

01:39:37.360 | about sunscreens, 'cause I'd love to really figure out

01:39:40.180 | what's in these compounds.

01:39:41.360 | I mean, people are using them like crazy.

01:39:43.120 | And I'm not one of these people who's like,

01:39:44.400 | "Oh, I won't use commercial toothpaste

01:39:46.160 | or anything like that."

01:39:47.920 | Like I said, I drink tap water,

01:39:49.240 | I use commercial toothpaste, whatever.

01:39:50.800 | But when it comes to sunscreen, it freaks me out

01:39:52.700 | because some of these compounds do go transdermal

01:39:55.760 | and some of them cross the blood brain barrier.

01:39:57.920 | And I'd like to keep my neurons free of that stuff.

01:40:00.760 | Anyway, we're speculating now.

01:40:02.360 | - Wear a hat.

01:40:03.180 | - Wear a hat.

01:40:04.960 | But get out in the sun and get your D3 levels up.

01:40:08.120 | Okay, so we've talked about these plant-based compounds,

01:40:10.640 | the omega-3s and D3.

01:40:13.280 | Unless there's something else that you just absolutely

01:40:16.640 | must throw into the mix,

01:40:18.220 | I probably will return us to the conversation

01:40:21.080 | that I opened up with, which is about cold and heat,

01:40:23.120 | which admittedly, I pulled us off that path.

01:40:25.900 | So I want to take full responsibility for that.

01:40:28.360 | But before I do that,

01:40:29.780 | I just want to offer you the opportunity.

01:40:31.120 | Is there anything that fit to supplement-based

01:40:36.120 | or food-based compounds that you think

01:40:40.620 | are especially useful for brain and/or body health?

01:40:43.640 | - I do think magnesium is important in there as well.

01:40:46.460 | I mean, I think, again, about 40% of the US population

01:40:50.960 | doesn't get enough magnesium.

01:40:52.500 | It's an essential mineral we're supposed to be getting

01:40:55.040 | from our diet and it's-

01:40:56.480 | - Involved in everything.

01:40:57.720 | - It is.

01:40:58.720 | It's also involved in vitamin D metabolism.

01:41:01.320 | And in fact, being deficient in magnesium

01:41:04.480 | may make it more difficult for you

01:41:06.400 | to actually make vitamin D hormone,

01:41:09.760 | so that 125-hydroxyvitamin D.

01:41:12.040 | So one of those other factors, again,

01:41:14.560 | we talked about genetics,

01:41:15.540 | but there's also magnesium status as well.

01:41:17.680 | Considering 40%, that's a big number.

01:41:20.720 | Now, magnesium's also involved in making ATP,

01:41:26.280 | the energetic currency of our cells.

01:41:29.400 | Basically, all of our cells need ATP to do anything.

01:41:31.880 | And it's also involved in utilizing ATP,

01:41:35.280 | as well as DNA repair enzymes.

01:41:36.920 | These are enzymes that are involved

01:41:38.080 | in repairing damage to our DNA.

01:41:40.020 | I personally think that magnesium insufficiency

01:41:43.480 | causes an insidious type of damage daily

01:41:48.260 | that you can't look in the mirror and see.

01:41:50.640 | When you're deficient in vitamin C,

01:41:53.240 | you're like, "My gums are falling apart, I have scurvy."

01:41:56.640 | But you can't see DNA damage.

01:41:58.560 | You can't see it, but it's happening.

01:41:59.640 | It's happening right now in my body,

01:42:00.880 | and it's happening in your body.

01:42:01.720 | It's happening, normal metabolism is happening every day.

01:42:05.720 | But we repair that damage.

01:42:07.120 | We have repair enzymes in our body

01:42:09.220 | called DNA repair enzymes.

01:42:10.840 | They require magnesium.

01:42:12.240 | Magnesium is a cofactor for them.

01:42:15.240 | What that means is a cofactor means

01:42:17.420 | enzymes need it to function properly.

01:42:19.680 | And so without that cofactor,

01:42:22.720 | they're not doing it properly.

01:42:23.840 | And the way I like to think about magnesium,

01:42:27.160 | it's easy 'cause people go, "What food should I eat?"

01:42:29.240 | Naturally, that's the next question.

01:42:30.780 | Well, magnesium is at the center of a chlorophyll molecule.

01:42:34.160 | Chlorophyll is what gives plants their green color.

01:42:36.720 | So dark leafy greens are high in magnesium.

01:42:40.520 | Basically, what does the 40% insufficiency in the US tell us?

01:42:46.640 | People aren't eating their greens.

01:42:47.820 | They're not eating their greens.

01:42:48.760 | They're eating their packaged food.

01:42:49.800 | They're eating their processed food.

01:42:50.720 | The standard American diet isn't really high

01:42:52.480 | in dark leafy greens.

01:42:54.100 | So dark leafy greens are how I like to get my magnesium.

01:42:57.840 | I think it comes along with all these other important,

01:43:00.600 | I mean, you get calcium in them, you get vitamin K1,

01:43:03.720 | you're getting a lot of other micronutrients,

01:43:05.240 | and you're getting other compounds that we don't know about

01:43:07.580 | and ones that we know about like sulforaphane, right?

01:43:10.420 | - As with broccoli,

01:43:13.600 | do I need to eat the dark leafy greens raw?

01:43:18.040 | And in this case, I'm a little more open to it

01:43:19.920 | because I actually like the taste of, dare I say, kale.

01:43:22.680 | And kale is a dark leafy green, right?

01:43:25.280 | It's obviously- - And it's high in

01:43:27.360 | lutein and zeaxanthin as well.

01:43:28.200 | - No, I'm a trichromat, meaning I'm not colorblind,

01:43:30.440 | but I just want to make sure it falls

01:43:32.000 | under the strict category.

01:43:33.080 | 'Cause every once in a while I'm like,

01:43:34.040 | "Oh, I eat my vegetables, I like avocados."

01:43:35.800 | And people remind me avocados is not a vegetable.

01:43:37.700 | I love vegetables also.

01:43:39.560 | But so kale, what are some other examples?

01:43:41.840 | - Kale, spinach, chard, like Swiss chard,

01:43:44.440 | rainbow chard, romaine lettuce.

01:43:47.160 | - Is the bitterness an important component to this?

01:43:49.160 | - For magnesium, no, but for sulforaphane,

01:43:53.060 | sulforaphane for cruciferous vegetables,

01:43:54.840 | that would be the brassica family.

01:43:58.720 | But your question about cooking them,

01:44:02.060 | so magnesium is, it is bound to the food matrix,

01:44:05.400 | and it can be somewhat less bioavailable.

01:44:10.400 | But so cooking it can somewhat release the magnesium,

01:44:16.700 | but it goes into the water too.

01:44:18.920 | So you have to either steam it or kind of get your water in.

01:44:23.920 | - You can drink it.

01:44:26.200 | - Yeah, I personally don't worry about it.

01:44:28.840 | I just don't worry.

01:44:29.680 | - Great, well if you don't worry, I'm not gonna worry.

01:44:31.400 | - But I also like, I too supplement with magnesium.

01:44:33.260 | I do take around, so supplementation with magnesium,

01:44:37.200 | I mean we could go on and on.

01:44:39.200 | Let's keep this short and sweet

01:44:40.680 | because we're gonna get back to the other stuff.

01:44:42.080 | But it can cause GI distress at high doses.

01:44:45.800 | I personally like to take around 130 or 135 milligrams.

01:44:50.800 | That way it's not like a huge bolus to my gut.

01:44:53.640 | - But I think it depends on the form of magnesium too.

01:44:55.880 | - Yes, yeah.

01:44:56.840 | I mean, you can take like magnesium three and eight,

01:44:59.360 | for example, and it doesn't affect the gut as much.

01:45:04.360 | - Magnesium citrate.

01:45:05.960 | - Citrate is what I take.

01:45:07.000 | - Yeah, it's a pretty potent gut stimulus.

01:45:12.000 | I mean, I feel like it's a little bit harder to digest.

01:45:14.000 | - Well, I take 135 milligrams should be pretty good.

01:45:16.960 | And citrate actually, oh boy, do we wanna go here?

01:45:19.680 | - Sure, I mean, it's up to you and we don't have to.

01:45:23.520 | I personally, I've been supplementing with magnesium

01:45:25.880 | for a long time.

01:45:26.720 | - Yeah.

01:45:28.280 | - I use three and eight and bisglycinate and malate

01:45:33.280 | for different reasons.

01:45:35.260 | So yes, I would love to go there if you're willing.

01:45:37.680 | - I would say malate would be the best.

01:45:39.240 | And that has to do with the short chain fatty acids

01:45:42.440 | being good for the gut and a lot of work done

01:45:44.200 | by a former colleague of mine and good friend,

01:45:45.840 | Mark Shiganaga, showing that the short chain fatty acid

01:45:48.400 | citrate, malate, lactate, but specifically malate

01:45:51.880 | really in lactate are the other major ones

01:45:53.820 | that get into the gut epithelial cells

01:45:56.800 | and are an energy source for the mitochondria

01:45:59.080 | and the goblet cells.

01:46:00.500 | So anyways, whole other topic.

01:46:03.640 | - That's okay.

01:46:04.480 | I take malate because I was told that it would be helpful.

01:46:08.700 | First of all, it doesn't make me sleepy

01:46:10.240 | like some of the other forms of magnesium,

01:46:12.220 | which act as a mild sedative for me.

01:46:15.000 | They do tap into the GABAergic pathway,

01:46:19.000 | neurotransmitter folks that in general,

01:46:21.640 | broad sweeping generalization here,

01:46:23.080 | can have somewhat of a sedative quality,

01:46:26.240 | which is why I take magnesium three and eight

01:46:28.900 | and/or bisglycinate before sleep,

01:46:31.360 | 30 to 60 minutes before sleep.

01:46:32.640 | Definitely enhances my transition time to sleep

01:46:35.640 | and the depth of sleep.

01:46:37.420 | No question in my experience.

01:46:40.100 | There's some data that three and eight can be,

01:46:42.680 | can be neuroprotective, although those are still,

01:46:45.200 | those studies are still ongoing.

01:46:46.820 | I'm getting the sense that maybe

01:46:48.380 | you're a little more skeptical of that than I am.

01:46:50.480 | - Yeah, no, I've seen the studies with the three and eight.

01:46:53.760 | I think like looking at the actual data

01:46:56.100 | from the one clinical study,

01:46:59.200 | there wasn't statistical significance

01:47:01.140 | until all three of the pieces of data were pulled together,

01:47:04.800 | but that really could just be

01:47:05.800 | because their sample size was too small.

01:47:07.240 | - Right. - Right?

01:47:08.080 | - I'm thinking that that paired with the, there's some work.

01:47:10.820 | Yeah, the Guosong Liu's work on with,

01:47:13.220 | so in the, this is getting kind of

01:47:15.340 | into inside ball of neuroscience,

01:47:16.980 | you know that the quality of the labs matters, folks.

01:47:19.980 | And that's something that's not accessible

01:47:21.620 | to people outside of fields.

01:47:22.740 | And Guosong Liu and some of the other folks

01:47:25.800 | at that time at MIT, I think very highly of their work.

01:47:29.440 | And so the animal studies are indeed just animal studies,

01:47:32.580 | but I was pretty impressed

01:47:33.700 | by what they did in those studies.

01:47:35.260 | Very pioneering when you think about this

01:47:37.420 | being done 10, 12, 15 years ago,

01:47:40.280 | and then yes, we need more human clinical data.

01:47:42.840 | But I, for me, I figured that the,

01:47:45.260 | given the safety profile of MAG3N8,

01:47:47.380 | given that it helps me sleep better

01:47:48.620 | and sleeping better is just better for everything, frankly,

01:47:52.820 | that's why I take it.

01:47:53.700 | And bisglycinate and 3N8 seem to be somewhat interchangeable,

01:47:57.020 | but there's, I don't know of any reports

01:47:58.920 | that bisglycinate can be neuroprotective.

01:48:01.020 | But malate, I take during the daytime.

01:48:03.080 | For me, and again, this is subjective,

01:48:06.020 | it has a tangible effect

01:48:07.620 | in improving the recovery time from exercise.

01:48:10.420 | So I don't know that I've been sore from a workout

01:48:13.340 | since I started taking malate,

01:48:14.860 | and I used to get very sore

01:48:17.020 | from even kind of trivial workout.

01:48:19.360 | So I don't know what's going on there,

01:48:20.740 | but I keep taking it.

01:48:22.380 | - Malate, again, the short chain fatty acid.

01:48:24.920 | And I mean, when you do heavy,

01:48:27.300 | when you do intense exercise,

01:48:28.900 | you release endotoxin from your gut.

01:48:31.780 | I'm just going back to the interesting work

01:48:33.500 | 'cause the malate being the short chain fatty acid

01:48:35.940 | and, you know, Mark Shugunaga's showing,

01:48:38.860 | this is all in animal research, by the way.

01:48:40.980 | But I mean, it was like feeding these animals malate.

01:48:43.940 | I mean, it really protected the gut, endotoxin release,

01:48:46.540 | and it affected metabolic syndrome and all sorts of things.

01:48:49.460 | But I think malate's awesome,

01:48:50.940 | and I always try to eat green apples.

01:48:52.660 | They're really high in malic acid.

01:48:53.980 | - Oh, good to know. - And tart cherries.

01:48:56.340 | Tart cherries are really high in it as well.

01:48:57.900 | - They also taste really good.

01:48:58.940 | - But I was really interested

01:49:00.420 | in the magnesium 3N8 stuff.

01:49:01.760 | I take a supplement called Magnesium by Moon Juice,

01:49:05.780 | and it's like a little powder.

01:49:07.820 | It's got a little bit of monk fruit, but it tastes good.

01:49:09.980 | So I do it a little bit before bedtime as well,

01:49:13.260 | probably several more hours though,

01:49:14.900 | because I don't like to drink tons and tons of fluids

01:49:16.860 | before I go to bed.

01:49:17.700 | And it has magnesium 3N8

01:49:19.540 | and a variety of other versions of magnesium in it as well,

01:49:23.020 | and I really like it.

01:49:24.060 | But I thought the magnesium 3N8 stuff

01:49:25.940 | was super interesting.

01:49:27.540 | I would love to see more clinical data as well,

01:49:29.500 | but I think, you know, once we get it,

01:49:31.140 | it'll probably be like, oh yeah,

01:49:32.460 | it's getting into the brain and it's awesome.

01:49:33.780 | So, you know, why wait? (laughs)

01:49:35.700 | - Right, and along those lines,

01:49:37.420 | I once put out a post that said, you know,

01:49:40.340 | I feel like there are a number of different categories

01:49:42.380 | of health information consumers online

01:49:45.620 | and understanding which one you're in

01:49:47.420 | for which topic can alleviate a lot of the strain and stress

01:49:49.940 | of finding the information.

01:49:50.940 | There's some people that are perfectly comfortable

01:49:53.020 | with data from a mouse study.

01:49:54.180 | It's like, if it's done in mice, great, I'll try it.

01:49:56.460 | Other people say, no, it has to be done in humans,

01:49:59.260 | double-blind placebo-controlled studies,

01:50:01.380 | randomized clinical trials, et cetera.

01:50:04.100 | Then other people are just say, you know what,

01:50:05.700 | I don't even care about any of that,

01:50:06.900 | just tell me what you do.

01:50:08.580 | And then other people are saying, you know what,

01:50:09.660 | I don't even care what you do, just tell me what to do.

01:50:12.100 | And then there's this other category,

01:50:13.780 | which are, if it's in pill form or powder form,

01:50:15.740 | they'll take it.

01:50:16.660 | And so I think a lot of the battles

01:50:18.460 | of people picking apart people's posts and things

01:50:21.020 | have to do with the fact that people don't realize

01:50:23.580 | that people are showing up to the table

01:50:26.740 | in one or some combination of those stances.

01:50:29.980 | We know people that will try anything

01:50:31.460 | and we know people that won't take anything.

01:50:33.300 | So the idea here is to create an array of possibilities

01:50:38.300 | for people, and I think the animal data

01:50:40.220 | are very impressive.

01:50:41.940 | We should have you back on to talk.

01:50:43.020 | - I take it with the hope of,

01:50:44.420 | because I feel like the animal data is very promising.

01:50:47.060 | And so I'm like, it probably is, so why not?

01:50:50.060 | - Well, and obviously you're doing things right.

01:50:52.460 | So cold and heat converge on some common pathways

01:50:59.260 | related to what you called intermittent challenge,

01:51:02.300 | which I love.

01:51:03.140 | I think if intermittent fasting, cold, heat, exercise,

01:51:08.140 | I mean, maybe even intermittent sleep deprivation,

01:51:10.100 | I keep waiting for the intermittent sleep deprivation

01:51:11.900 | movement, I will say I pull a few all-nighters per year

01:51:15.180 | just for work demands and procrastination and deadlines.

01:51:18.580 | And I'm the worst combination of academic

01:51:22.180 | 'cause I'm both a procrastinator and a perfectionist.

01:51:24.740 | So you end up pulling some all-nighters.

01:51:26.940 | The sleep I get the next night is pretty amazing.

01:51:29.820 | I must say, it's the sleep of gods,

01:51:31.820 | but I don't recommend anyone use sleep deprivation for that.

01:51:34.060 | But I could imagine that we also evolved

01:51:36.020 | having some sleepless nights.

01:51:37.980 | So this idea of intermittent challenges

01:51:40.180 | is a really attractive one.

01:51:41.100 | And I want to make sure that we credit you

01:51:42.420 | with the phrase intermittent challenge.

01:51:43.900 | - No, credit Dr. Mark Mattson.

01:51:45.780 | - Okay, Dr. Mark Mattson gets-

01:51:47.100 | - Who has published and he has used that-

01:51:48.940 | - Used that phrase, okay, great.

01:51:50.620 | We'll make sure.

01:51:51.460 | - Just like Dr. David Sinclair, I love the xenohormesis.

01:51:54.180 | He was in one of his publications just so many years ago.

01:51:56.660 | I just love it.

01:51:57.500 | It's brilliant, a brilliant term.

01:51:59.020 | So Mark Mattson-

01:52:00.300 | - Those Harvard guys are pretty smart.

01:52:02.420 | You know, I mean, it's a good school, I guess.

01:52:05.700 | Of course, it's a good school.

01:52:07.780 | We will credit the appropriate people.

01:52:09.460 | Thank you for that clarification.

01:52:11.380 | So you've talked a lot about the use of deliberate,

01:52:16.380 | what I call deliberate cold exposure,

01:52:17.900 | only to distinguish it from cold

01:52:19.820 | that you might just be accidentally exposed to.

01:52:21.580 | But it's sort of obvious when we say cold exposure.

01:52:24.780 | There are some amazing data on cold.

01:52:27.420 | The other day I saw a post from you

01:52:29.140 | and you've included this in talks before.

01:52:30.740 | I did not know this until I learned it from you.

01:52:32.820 | So credit to you.

01:52:33.940 | That even 20 seconds of immersion in,

01:52:38.340 | I think it was four degree-

01:52:39.740 | - 49 degree Fahrenheit.

01:52:41.020 | - 49 degree Fahrenheit.

01:52:42.720 | Okay, I was translating this.

01:52:43.560 | I'll say about 49 degree Fahrenheit water.

01:52:45.260 | So cold water can lead to long lasting increases

01:52:48.340 | in epinephrine, adrenaline.

01:52:49.700 | And I have to presume other neuromodulators

01:52:54.500 | and neurochemicals as well.

01:52:55.820 | What are some cold protocols that you find

01:53:00.260 | particularly interesting or attractive

01:53:02.460 | from the standpoint of, I don't know,

01:53:05.020 | pick your favorite, metabolism, neuro/mood effects,

01:53:10.020 | brown fat stimulation,

01:53:12.840 | which of course weaves back to metabolism.

01:53:15.100 | You know, we could do an entire episode all about cold,

01:53:17.860 | but what I'd love to know is what sort of activity

01:53:21.740 | or stimulus do you think is a reasonable

01:53:24.540 | and particularly potent one to use in terms of cold?

01:53:28.920 | - So today I did three minutes at 49 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:53:32.580 | I have a cold tub.

01:53:33.780 | - So you get in up to your neck?

01:53:35.300 | - Well, I try, I keep floating up.

01:53:37.900 | And so I'm like, it's like really hard.

01:53:40.180 | So like, I would say like maybe most of my shoulder,

01:53:45.180 | I mean, really I'm floating up.

01:53:46.740 | I was telling my husband, I was like,

01:53:48.980 | there's too much water in here for me.

01:53:50.240 | I can't- - Or too much salt in there?

01:53:51.380 | Or is it like the Dead Sea where you float on top?

01:53:53.660 | - Is there salt in there?

01:53:54.540 | I don't know, he takes care of all the stuff that,

01:53:56.820 | you know, it's the plunge.

01:53:59.700 | - Yeah, and by the way,

01:54:01.260 | the podcast "Nor I Am" sponsored by Plunge,

01:54:03.060 | they did give me one.

01:54:03.940 | That thing is fantastic.

01:54:05.080 | Also 'cause it circulates the water.

01:54:06.500 | - It does. - Which makes sure

01:54:07.320 | that you break up the thermal layer and it's even colder.

01:54:09.580 | - It is even colder, it sucks.

01:54:11.460 | Anyways, so look, I'll give it, I'll be honest here.

01:54:16.460 | I wish I did more cold than I do.

01:54:19.020 | I do cold when I'm gonna go on a podcast.

01:54:21.580 | I definitely do cold when I'm gonna do a podcast,

01:54:24.100 | when I'm gonna give a talk or when I'm anxious.

01:54:26.820 | I need to make it more of a ritual.

01:54:28.960 | I love doing the sauna.

01:54:30.940 | I hate the cold, I hate it, unless it's summertime.

01:54:33.260 | It's a lot easier for me

01:54:34.100 | to get in the cold in the summertime.

01:54:35.420 | But what I do love about the cold is how I feel after.

01:54:40.420 | And I feel less anxious, I feel good, I feel more focused,

01:54:47.080 | which is why I usually do it before any type

01:54:50.020 | of public speaking or when I'm just anxious.

01:54:54.640 | I'll just get in there.

01:54:55.480 | And so the 20 seconds at 49 degrees,

01:54:59.100 | I think it was 49 degrees Fahrenheit,

01:55:01.080 | was really a good number because time and temperature do,

01:55:06.080 | time or duration, I guess would be a better word,

01:55:09.140 | and temperature do matter.

01:55:11.180 | But you can do 20 seconds at a colder temperature,

01:55:16.340 | which is I prefer, or you can do a minute or longer

01:55:20.200 | at a warmer temperature.

01:55:21.040 | I think there was another study showing 59 degrees Fahrenheit

01:55:25.040 | at one hour, it was like two, three, four,

01:55:26.880 | but who wants to do one hour at 59?

01:55:28.340 | - Yeah, I'm familiar with that study.

01:55:30.400 | I love, so this is really reveals

01:55:32.580 | just how absolutely nerdy I am

01:55:34.940 | and maybe why some times and relationships in my life

01:55:37.600 | were challenged.

01:55:38.440 | I love reading the method sections of papers.

01:55:41.120 | So people can come at me with a number of things

01:55:43.240 | about papers and I might miss something.

01:55:45.580 | Surely I miss certain things like anybody does,

01:55:47.840 | but the methods I sort of, I relish in reading the methods.

01:55:51.320 | And that paper is really interesting

01:55:52.640 | 'cause they had people sit in lawn chairs basically

01:55:55.640 | in swimming pools for an hour.

01:55:58.480 | And it wasn't really, it was chilly.

01:56:00.240 | It wasn't super cold.

01:56:01.520 | I mean, 60 is not, it's not warm,

01:56:03.840 | but it's not ice cold, obviously.

01:56:06.040 | But an hour is ridiculous at some level,

01:56:09.040 | but the increases in dopamine were massive and lasted hours.

01:56:13.960 | So it's really, so the mood enhancing effects

01:56:16.660 | that you report are, they're not,

01:56:19.360 | you're not imagining that.

01:56:20.600 | Those are almost certainly the consequence

01:56:24.260 | of having slowly elevating,

01:56:26.100 | but significantly elevated dopamine that goes on for hours.

01:56:29.600 | That's almost a dream-like profile for dopamine

01:56:32.760 | because most everything else, like an Adderall,

01:56:34.560 | a Ritalin, a cup of coffee and a workout drink

01:56:38.460 | or pre-workout drink or something

01:56:39.760 | is gonna give you a big spike in adrenaline and dopamine

01:56:41.940 | and a big crash.

01:56:43.660 | And somehow it creates this really nice contoured profile.

01:56:47.900 | So I, whatever you're experiencing there

01:56:49.860 | is very nicely supported by the data.

01:56:52.440 | - Well, I need to get, I need to get doing it more.

01:56:54.760 | I've had a couple of scary experiences

01:56:57.560 | going from hot to cold where blood pressure changes,

01:57:02.380 | I think where I basically went straight

01:57:05.060 | from a really hot jacuzzi.

01:57:06.900 | I was in there for like 30 minutes.

01:57:08.620 | I mean, I was doing heat stress.

01:57:09.900 | - Jacuzzi, okay.

01:57:10.740 | - Yeah, 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

01:57:12.520 | - That's toasty.

01:57:13.360 | - And then I had for 30 minutes.

01:57:14.820 | And then I went straight into, at the time,

01:57:18.140 | it was our pool, it was in like February,

01:57:20.140 | it was like winter time and it was 50,

01:57:23.220 | it was in the 50s, it was cold.

01:57:24.960 | And I was in there and I was like listening

01:57:28.900 | to Simon Garfunkel, I was like trying to stay in a long time,

01:57:31.060 | get on my cold and I was trying to impress Dan

01:57:32.540 | 'cause he like goes in there for like,

01:57:34.220 | he'll stay in there for like 15 minutes.

01:57:36.220 | But I started to feel really like blinky,

01:57:40.640 | like low blood pressure or something and I got scared.

01:57:42.940 | I got out and then I couldn't stand like I had vertigo

01:57:46.600 | or something and I was so scared, I was so scared.

01:57:50.480 | And I've had a couple of times too where just going straight

01:57:53.880 | from the sauna to it, to the cold plunge,

01:57:57.040 | where I'm starting to feel, I'm like,

01:57:58.160 | ooh, I feel a little blood pressure change or something.

01:58:00.540 | And it makes sense, the sauna is causing vasodilation

01:58:04.620 | and the cold plunge or cold exposure

01:58:07.320 | is causing vasoconstriction.

01:58:09.340 | So it's like a very, just shock to my system.

01:58:12.980 | And so now I wait, like I wait like a few minutes

01:58:16.380 | before going in but I do need to kind of like make it more,

01:58:19.420 | the cold more routine because I talk all about the science,

01:58:22.280 | I'm familiar with all the science and the norepinephrine

01:58:25.700 | or noradrenaline, it's affecting brain and mood

01:58:29.500 | and you know way more about that than I do.

01:58:31.980 | I know how I feel and I know it's a neurotransmitter

01:58:34.740 | and it is released, at least in rats they've shown

01:58:38.780 | or it wasn't mice, I think it might've been rats,

01:58:40.340 | but multiple studies showing in that it's released

01:58:42.860 | from the cold in the brain.

01:58:44.300 | - And now in humans as well.

01:58:46.060 | - Oh, in the brain they've shown?

01:58:46.900 | - So in that study, we can put a link to this,

01:58:49.340 | it's published in 2000, European Journal of Physiology,

01:58:52.740 | that big dopamine increase.

01:58:53.900 | They also looked at epinephrine and cortisol

01:58:55.980 | and saw some really, yeah, so this has been done-

01:58:58.020 | - They did brain?

01:58:58.860 | Oh, I didn't realize. - Oh, no, no, not yet.

01:58:59.700 | - The plasma. - No, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:59:01.540 | Very hard to measure dopamine directly from the brain

01:59:03.860 | unless you're doing micro dialysis.

01:59:05.060 | No, unfortunately their skulls were intact.

01:59:08.460 | Fortunately for them,

01:59:09.580 | unfortunately for the research committee,

01:59:11.060 | their skulls were intact so they couldn't measure directly

01:59:13.460 | in the brain, but obviously there's a correlate there.

01:59:17.700 | You know, it's a very real effect.

01:59:20.700 | I think that, but the advantage of not doing it too often

01:59:25.380 | is that you're not cold adapted.

01:59:27.300 | Now it's very hard for anyone to get truly cold adapted.

01:59:30.460 | Some people start to look forward to the cold

01:59:32.500 | and what I think they're looking forward to

01:59:33.860 | is the feeling afterward, that dopamine rush.

01:59:37.600 | But if you get cold adapted,

01:59:39.640 | then it certainly blunts some of the effect.

01:59:42.860 | - But I want to be cold adapted

01:59:44.360 | because that means I have more mitochondria

01:59:46.940 | in my adipose tissue and perhaps even muscle,

01:59:50.460 | like that's been shown.

01:59:51.940 | - So maybe there's a good opportunity to,

01:59:54.200 | so cold and UCP1, if you could educate us on UCP1,

01:59:57.380 | I find this really interesting.

01:59:58.340 | And I learned about it from you, so.

01:59:59.820 | - Yeah, well, so norepinephrine

02:00:02.200 | actually released in the plasma.

02:00:03.500 | It does act as a hormone.

02:00:05.460 | Vasoconstriction is one thing it does,

02:00:06.980 | but it also regulates a variety of molecular functions

02:00:11.000 | that have to do with adaption to cold.

02:00:13.500 | One happening to be, you know,

02:00:16.560 | shivering is a very inefficient way to produce heat,

02:00:19.760 | which is what your body's trying to do

02:00:20.840 | when it's exposed to cold.

02:00:22.220 | And your muscles are basically contracting

02:00:24.380 | and producing heat from that,

02:00:26.960 | but that's just not very efficient.

02:00:28.420 | So the more eloquent way to do it,

02:00:31.260 | or elegant, I guess, way to do it

02:00:33.160 | is to basically have your mitochondria produce

02:00:37.200 | tons and tons of heat.

02:00:38.720 | So the way it does this is by activating a gene

02:00:41.880 | called UCP1, uncoupling protein one,

02:00:44.640 | norepinephrine is upstream of that, activating it.

02:00:46.760 | So what that does is essentially,

02:00:49.800 | so mitochondria are these little organelles

02:00:51.920 | inside of your cells that are responsible

02:00:54.360 | for producing energy.

02:00:55.400 | Usually that's in the form of adenosine triphosphate, ATP,

02:01:00.080 | and that's what lets everything function

02:01:02.240 | inside of your body, from your neurotransmitter production

02:01:04.640 | to your heart beating, et cetera.

02:01:07.120 | However, you can uncouple your mitochondria.

02:01:10.560 | Basically your mitochondria, they're like a little battery.

02:01:13.900 | So they have, well, they have a double membrane,

02:01:16.520 | first of all, their structure,

02:01:17.440 | but they have a negative charge on the inside,

02:01:19.800 | and they have a positive charge on the inner membrane.

02:01:22.600 | So in between the outer membrane and inside, the inside part.

02:01:26.840 | - Like a neuron.

02:01:27.940 | - Like a neuron, yeah.

02:01:28.780 | So I guess it's like a neuron.

02:01:30.060 | It's like a battery, negative and positive.

02:01:31.880 | So basically you can uncouple that charge,

02:01:34.120 | and so that positive charge protons

02:01:35.720 | start leaking out of the mitochondria,

02:01:37.400 | and your mitochondria freak out.

02:01:39.040 | So this is called uncoupling it.

02:01:41.400 | And they start to, it's maximum respiration as we call it.

02:01:45.300 | They try to make as much energy.

02:01:47.400 | They're like, I gotta get that proton back,

02:01:49.920 | that gradient, the electrochemical gradient.

02:01:52.120 | And so they just go insane,

02:01:54.520 | and they, in this case, it's uncoupled energy.

02:01:56.720 | So the energy they're making is actually heat, not ATP.

02:02:00.280 | But heat is, but you're essentially burning substrate,

02:02:03.400 | so who cares?

02:02:04.240 | You're burning glucose, you're burning lipids,

02:02:07.880 | you're basically burning things and making heat.

02:02:10.480 | And so that's what uncoupling it does,

02:02:12.740 | and that is a much more efficient way

02:02:14.600 | of producing heat than shivering.

02:02:16.440 | So as you become more adapted,

02:02:19.120 | maybe the longer duration that you've stayed in the cold

02:02:22.400 | or the more times you've done it,

02:02:23.640 | you'll no longer shiver anymore.

02:02:25.480 | You will start to then just do this uncoupling type

02:02:28.060 | of thermogenesis as it's called.

02:02:30.160 | And another type of adaptation that occurs

02:02:33.360 | is you actually produce more mitochondria

02:02:35.800 | in your adipose tissue.

02:02:37.520 | And that actually happens also regulated

02:02:40.600 | by norepinephrine or noradrenaline

02:02:42.640 | through a protein called PGC1 alpha.

02:02:46.600 | And what that protein does is it makes more mitochondria

02:02:51.600 | in your adipose cells.

02:02:53.420 | So per adipose cell, you're getting more mitochondria.

02:02:55.840 | It's a beautiful way to basically make more heat

02:02:59.320 | when you're, it's one of those things

02:03:00.760 | where it's like your body's going,

02:03:02.960 | okay, I'm gonna be exposed to this cold next time.

02:03:05.400 | How can I make sure I don't die?

02:03:07.640 | Oh, I can have more mitochondria

02:03:09.320 | and I'm gonna make more heat.

02:03:10.360 | And so you're making more mitochondria

02:03:12.360 | in your adipose tissue.

02:03:13.440 | And this is often referred to as like the browning of fat.

02:03:17.080 | And the reason for that is because if you look

02:03:18.940 | under a microscope at a lipid drop,

02:03:21.600 | basically a fat cell, not a lipid drop, adipocyte,

02:03:26.700 | you'll find that it looks darker

02:03:29.520 | because there's more mitochondria in there.

02:03:31.340 | So it's referred to as browning fat.

02:03:33.840 | And so I don't want to get into the whole beige fat, brown.

02:03:37.680 | You know, there's this whole,

02:03:38.800 | I'm sure you've had experts on that talk all about that.

02:03:40.840 | - No, not yet.

02:03:41.680 | I mean, I always think of white fat, beige fat, brown fat.

02:03:43.760 | And beige is kind of intermediate.

02:03:45.240 | White can be converted into beige, but-

02:03:46.960 | - Right, and beige can take on

02:03:48.040 | thermogenic characteristics essentially.

02:03:50.200 | And so you can activate beige fat so that it's thermogenic

02:03:54.400 | in the sense that it's burning glucose

02:03:57.280 | and or fatty acids and producing heat.

02:04:01.100 | So the more you expose yourself to cold,

02:04:05.580 | the more you can brown your fat, so to speak.

02:04:08.480 | And therefore you can tolerate the cold for longer periods,

02:04:12.400 | which people do notice.

02:04:14.000 | And you can then have the thermogenic qualities

02:04:17.560 | of having more brown adipose tissue or beige,

02:04:20.280 | activated beige adipose tissue,

02:04:22.100 | which is, you'll get a lot of naysayers out there saying,

02:04:25.160 | "Oh, brown fat doesn't regulate metabolism at all."

02:04:28.860 | And the reality is there's like thousands of researchers

02:04:31.220 | trying to pill up brown fat and thermogenic,

02:04:35.140 | like they're trying to make it a pill

02:04:36.700 | because it does affect metabolism.

02:04:39.220 | It's not the only thing.

02:04:40.240 | It's certainly, if you're obese and trying to lose weight,

02:04:42.980 | you're not gonna do that just by doing cold exposure.

02:04:45.820 | You need to do dietary and exercise changes predominantly.

02:04:50.060 | But it does affect metabolism.

02:04:52.520 | And this has been shown in human studies.

02:04:56.660 | So it is interesting.

02:04:59.420 | It's another possible mechanism for affecting metabolism.

02:05:04.260 | And that's an adipose tissue.

02:05:05.980 | But you also make more mitochondria and muscle tissue.

02:05:09.620 | And this is regulated not via norepinephrine,

02:05:12.380 | but it is still PGC1 alpha, interestingly.

02:05:14.620 | Not that anyone else really cares,

02:05:17.460 | but maybe you do, Andrew.

02:05:19.820 | - I'm eating this up.

02:05:21.520 | - So PGC1 alpha is response to norepinephrine

02:05:26.020 | and adipose tissue to make more mitochondria.

02:05:28.180 | But in muscle tissue, it's unclear what the regulator is.

02:05:32.340 | Cold exposure does it.

02:05:33.500 | So this was shown at least in a couple of studies I've seen

02:05:37.700 | where people that were exercising, I believe,

02:05:40.540 | or maybe it may have been men only

02:05:42.060 | that were exercising did some sort of training.

02:05:44.080 | And then did cold water immersion,

02:05:46.340 | something like 50 degrees Fahrenheit, 15 minutes.

02:05:49.420 | And PGC1 alpha, which is a biomarker

02:05:51.500 | for mitochondrial biogenesis,

02:05:52.940 | which is the generation of new mitochondria.

02:05:55.260 | By the way, that's awesome.

02:05:56.660 | You want more mitochondria in your muscle.

02:05:58.160 | It's associated with improved muscle mass,

02:06:01.060 | improved endurance.

02:06:02.100 | I mean, mitochondria are essentially

02:06:04.500 | either than making energy in your cell.

02:06:05.860 | And we don't make more mitochondria normally.

02:06:09.220 | Like you have certain inputs,

02:06:10.700 | high intensity interval training exercise can do it.

02:06:13.060 | - And actually make more mitochondria.

02:06:14.900 | - Yes, yeah, and that's been shown in people.

02:06:17.540 | - Weight training or just high intensity interval training?

02:06:20.460 | - I haven't seen weight training.

02:06:23.260 | I've seen it in high intensity interval training,

02:06:25.460 | endurance training,

02:06:27.300 | but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been shown.

02:06:29.380 | I just haven't seen it or that it hasn't been looked at.

02:06:31.180 | - It's good to know.

02:06:32.020 | I'm always looking for reasons to finally do more HIIT type

02:06:36.300 | high intensity interval training work.

02:06:37.600 | I do weight training and I do low intensity cardio.

02:06:40.340 | - There was a brilliant study by,

02:06:43.340 | at the time he was a postdoc, Matthew Robinson,

02:06:45.840 | and he's now gone on to start his own lab

02:06:49.920 | at the University of Oregon Health Science Center.

02:06:53.500 | - Great place, yeah.

02:06:54.960 | - And he did a study where both young and older people,

02:06:59.960 | they had this whole high intensity protocol,

02:07:02.500 | which I can't remember what it was,

02:07:03.800 | but their protocol for X amount of time,

02:07:07.140 | I'm sure it was at least a month,

02:07:09.000 | they then measured biomarkers of mitochondrial biogenesis

02:07:13.420 | in their muscle tissue.

02:07:14.260 | And the amount of mitochondrial biogenesis

02:07:17.560 | in old people specifically,

02:07:19.120 | it happened in both young and old from HIIT,

02:07:20.880 | from the high intensity interval training was,

02:07:23.020 | I mean, it was like enormous, at least 50% I think.

02:07:26.940 | So I mean, it was just like, whoa.

02:07:28.960 | And so like, why would you want that?

02:07:30.620 | Well, you know, mitochondria, you don't make,

02:07:34.680 | your cells are turning over, you make new cells,

02:07:36.620 | you replace old ones with your mitochondria.

02:07:39.040 | You don't really do that for the most part, you can.

02:07:41.620 | Mitochondrial biogenesis does happen,

02:07:43.160 | but you have to stimulate it to happen.

02:07:45.180 | And the way your mitochondria,

02:07:46.820 | like what happens with your mitochondria

02:07:48.220 | is they essentially are bobbing around inside of your cells,

02:07:50.760 | and then they fuse with other mitochondria,

02:07:53.740 | exchange all their content and mitochondrial DNA,

02:07:55.700 | and then fizz back apart.

02:07:56.580 | And that's how they kind of stay young-ish.

02:07:58.820 | But like as you age,

02:07:59.820 | you keep doing that with the same pool of mitochondria,

02:08:02.660 | then you're gonna get a bunch of old mitochondria

02:08:04.260 | mixing old stuff together, right?

02:08:06.200 | So why wouldn't you wanna like bring up new, healthy,

02:08:10.340 | young mitochondria into that pool, right?

02:08:13.440 | So in my mind, when I hear mitochondrial biogenesis,

02:08:16.140 | I'm like aging, like that's the first thing I think of.

02:08:19.100 | So anyways, cold exposure does that,

02:08:20.840 | other things as well, so.

02:08:23.140 | - You know, and please, thank you for offering to,

02:08:26.780 | you know, somehow filter the level of detail,

02:08:29.240 | but I assure you that listeners of this podcast

02:08:31.820 | are familiar with getting,

02:08:34.040 | drinking from the fire hose of mechanism,

02:08:36.100 | and that was really helpful.

02:08:37.700 | And again, this is just one example of maybe four

02:08:40.780 | or five other things that you've said at least

02:08:43.580 | that are gonna inspire me to change my behaviors.

02:08:46.300 | I'm gonna start doing some high intensity interval training.

02:08:48.100 | Dr. Andy Galpin was on this podcast recently,

02:08:50.820 | and he told me that the subtle zone two cardio

02:08:53.540 | and the weight training is great,

02:08:54.780 | but that I really should be doing

02:08:55.940 | some max heart rate work per week,

02:08:58.740 | you know, going into max heart rate for 90 seconds

02:09:00.760 | and resting and repeating that, maybe even mild repeats.

02:09:03.660 | I'm just curious as a brief aside

02:09:05.180 | before we talk about heat,

02:09:06.740 | what sort of cardiovascular

02:09:11.020 | or other types of training do you do?

02:09:13.020 | Do you do HIIT?

02:09:13.860 | I imagine you are doing high intensity interval training.

02:09:16.020 | If you could just give us a sense of the contour

02:09:18.100 | of your week as it relates to exercise

02:09:20.460 | and because you've been very gracious

02:09:22.620 | in sharing some of what you do for supplements and food,

02:09:24.980 | what about exercise?

02:09:26.980 | - So I, it all depends on my week, of course,

02:09:29.420 | and what I've got going on with my son

02:09:31.900 | and my work schedule, but I typically,

02:09:33.900 | I do a lot of high intensity interval Tabatas

02:09:37.500 | on a stationary cycle.

02:09:38.700 | I use Peloton because I just like that instructor there,

02:09:43.280 | like telling me what to do

02:09:44.120 | and then me competing with everyone else.

02:09:45.540 | I'm like, nah, you know?

02:09:46.620 | So it works.

02:09:47.460 | - You're revealing something about your psychology.

02:09:48.940 | This is good.

02:09:49.760 | We just learned about,

02:09:50.600 | so this podcast is actually just a decoy

02:09:52.700 | for a psychological assessment of the guests.

02:09:55.140 | No, I'm kidding.

02:09:56.100 | But so now we know you're competitive.

02:09:57.580 | Good? - Yeah.

02:09:58.620 | - That explains a lot of how you got

02:10:00.780 | through graduate school and then do what you do.

02:10:03.340 | So you're getting on the Peloton

02:10:04.700 | and what does it look like

02:10:05.540 | for someone who's not familiar with Peloton?

02:10:07.260 | I know what they are, but I've never been on one.

02:10:10.260 | You are pedaling against the instructor

02:10:12.520 | for how many seconds?

02:10:13.620 | - So there's a bunch of people that are online

02:10:16.300 | either doing the class with you at the same time

02:10:18.460 | or have all time doing it

02:10:20.220 | so you can kind of toggle on what you want

02:10:22.900 | and you can try to compete against the all time number.

02:10:24.700 | - Oh, so it's really competitive.

02:10:25.980 | - Oh, yeah. - Okay.

02:10:26.980 | - And the instructor is just there to whip you,

02:10:29.360 | like, you know, make you, there's a part of,

02:10:33.640 | the brilliance with Peloton is like I used to do rush,

02:10:38.120 | what's called rush cycle and I used to go

02:10:39.640 | and it's basically you go in and group cycle

02:10:41.980 | and have an instructor there

02:10:42.920 | and you do all this high intensity interval training stuff.

02:10:44.960 | And I loved it because there was a competitive aspect to it

02:10:48.920 | that had me working harder than I would work

02:10:52.160 | if it was just me in the room,

02:10:53.360 | like without an instructor or anyone there.

02:10:56.200 | And it was just like, I'm at a gym, any gym,

02:10:59.320 | and I'm just on a stationary cycle

02:11:00.720 | listening to a podcast, doing something,

02:11:02.040 | which is fine if that's your group, right?

02:11:03.880 | But there is something about that group setting

02:11:07.600 | that kind of holds you accountable too, right?

02:11:10.800 | And the Peloton made it somehow virtual, it was amazing.

02:11:14.720 | And I remember being back at rush cycle,

02:11:16.440 | this is before a pandemic

02:11:17.640 | and people talking about Peloton in my class

02:11:19.600 | and I'm like, oh, that's ridiculous, why would I do that?

02:11:21.240 | Like, that's never gonna work, I need to like be here.

02:11:23.920 | And then the pandemic hit

02:11:24.960 | and I was like all over the Peloton

02:11:27.160 | and it works for me really well.

02:11:29.360 | So I tend to do that at least three times a week.

02:11:33.400 | Sometimes I do it more, like I'll do four

02:11:35.960 | and I do a 10 minute, just 10,

02:11:38.720 | because it's efficient and I push my ass,

02:11:41.120 | I push myself really hard.

02:11:42.640 | - That's the Tabata.

02:11:43.480 | - It's 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off and it's 10 minutes.

02:11:46.800 | - And on means you're pedaling

02:11:48.040 | like your life depended on it.

02:11:48.860 | - You're maxing it.

02:11:50.040 | - And there's a lot of resistance in the pedals?

02:11:52.200 | - Well, so you basically, there's a part where you're,

02:11:53.920 | I always do resistance, I'm like the power,

02:11:55.880 | I do the power for, there's a part

02:11:57.600 | where you're sitting cycling

02:11:59.040 | and you're trying to go really fast,

02:12:00.120 | but I always crank the resistance up.

02:12:01.640 | I always go above what they give me.

02:12:03.440 | And then there's a part where you're standing

02:12:06.000 | and then you really crank the resistance up,

02:12:07.580 | which I really do and like you feel it in your glutes.

02:12:09.520 | - It's like going up a hill.

02:12:10.400 | - Yeah, exactly.

02:12:11.240 | And so they like break it up

02:12:12.240 | and most of the time you'll have like those two parts.

02:12:15.200 | And I love the efficiency of it.

02:12:17.440 | You just, you get it done

02:12:18.980 | and people sometimes hear me go 10 minutes

02:12:21.120 | or really you think you work.

02:12:22.020 | And I'm like, look, like you max, you do max,

02:12:24.860 | you do Tabata for 10 minutes and it's like, it's intense.

02:12:28.220 | - Yeah, most people can't sprint

02:12:29.480 | for the gate of an airplane

02:12:32.340 | they're about to miss carrying a backpack.

02:12:35.060 | So if you think about, if I think about that

02:12:37.140 | and then I've just described myself

02:12:39.180 | sprinting through the airport and going,

02:12:40.760 | all right, Andy Galpin, I got my 90 seconds max heart rate

02:12:43.280 | in for you carrying this thing.

02:12:45.600 | But 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off,

02:12:48.260 | repeating that over and over for 10 minutes.

02:12:50.240 | So by the time you're done, you're cooked.

02:12:52.040 | - And then I, because I'm competitive during the recovery

02:12:54.820 | that they give you at the minute at the end,

02:12:56.160 | I'm pushing it max.

02:12:57.100 | 'Cause I want to keep the numbers higher.

02:12:58.800 | - Great, so three times a week?

02:13:00.780 | - Yeah, three times a week.

02:13:01.700 | And then I always have my sauna on preheating up.

02:13:04.940 | It takes about an hour and a half

02:13:06.020 | and I get it to about 189 degrees Fahrenheit.

02:13:09.100 | I hop right in the sauna after my Peloton.

02:13:12.620 | - So the elevated heart rate continues?

02:13:14.140 | Is that the rationale?

02:13:15.220 | - I mean, I literally like down a bunch of water

02:13:17.780 | and then I get in and then I either read a science paper,

02:13:22.780 | prepare for a presentation or a podcast,

02:13:25.500 | or I hash over things in my mind.

02:13:28.760 | And it's interesting because something about getting

02:13:33.240 | in the sauna, I think the stress, the heat stress of it,

02:13:37.160 | so I started doing the sauna in 2009 in graduate school.

02:13:40.800 | Okay, and I-- - You're a early adopter.

02:13:42.440 | - I started doing it every day.

02:13:44.280 | I lived across the street.

02:13:45.120 | I lived in a studio apartment with Dan.

02:13:47.440 | I lived in the smallest apartment you could ever imagine.

02:13:50.520 | And it was across the street from a YMCA

02:13:52.700 | 'cause I was poor in graduate school.

02:13:54.200 | Very poor, very poor.

02:13:55.200 | - I recall, I recall being, I lived in my lab.

02:14:01.000 | - Wow, really? - But then again,

02:14:02.260 | I lived in my lab as a postdoc and as a, I admit,

02:14:05.180 | I lived in my lab with my bulldog as a faculty member

02:14:08.480 | for other reasons, but I get it.

02:14:11.260 | When you're a graduate student, you're poor.

02:14:12.920 | - Yes, and so I used to go to the sauna

02:14:16.920 | before going into the lab and I started noticing

02:14:21.920 | that I was all of a sudden able to handle stress better,

02:14:26.360 | like the stress of my six-month setback

02:14:30.280 | because of a failed experiment, which is crushing

02:14:33.440 | on top of the pressure from your, my advisor

02:14:37.440 | and my own pressure 'cause I'm very competitive

02:14:40.120 | with myself and I put a lot of pressure on myself.

02:14:41.520 | So I was having a hard time.

02:14:43.840 | I mean, I was very stressed out in graduate school

02:14:45.480 | and the sauna started to really noticeably affect my anxiety

02:14:50.480 | and my ability to handle stress.

02:14:52.480 | And I was like, what is going on here?

02:14:55.040 | So I started looking into the literature

02:14:57.000 | and started getting interested in the effects on the brain.

02:15:01.160 | And in fact, at the time I had a friend

02:15:03.440 | who was not actually experimentally,

02:15:05.760 | but theoretically looking into the opioid system

02:15:10.760 | and basically, so when you get in the sauna,

02:15:14.600 | you release a lot of endorphins.

02:15:16.000 | Endorphins are the feel-good opioids

02:15:19.520 | that make you feel good.

02:15:21.160 | But you also release something called dynorphin.

02:15:24.280 | And dynorphin is an endogenous opioid

02:15:26.920 | that binds to a receptor called the kappa opioid receptor,

02:15:30.880 | which dynorphin is responsible for that dysphoric feeling

02:15:34.800 | when you're in the sauna and you're hot

02:15:36.320 | and when you're running, doing exercise

02:15:38.040 | and you're like, you feel uncomfortable.

02:15:40.560 | Well, I think that's dynorphin, I'm speaking in absolute--

02:15:44.280 | - No, I think it is. - I think it is.

02:15:45.240 | - I mean, there's evidence in alcoholics

02:15:48.280 | that some of the symptoms of withdrawal

02:15:50.280 | that they experience are related to dynorphin.

02:15:52.600 | And dynorphin is known to negatively impact

02:15:56.360 | the dopamine receptor system.

02:15:58.600 | So basically, it's the feel like garbage pathway.

02:16:01.240 | - Right, you feel like garbage.

02:16:02.160 | And so you think that that would not be good,

02:16:05.800 | but this is where my friend that comes in,

02:16:08.200 | he was looking at the effects of treating morphine

02:16:12.560 | or heroin addiction and people that are using those drugs,

02:16:16.160 | they basically, the endorphins or the morphine or heroin,

02:16:21.160 | they bind to a receptor in the brain

02:16:24.320 | called the mu opioid receptor.

02:16:26.120 | And as they take these drugs,

02:16:28.720 | that mu opioid receptor becomes down-regulated

02:16:31.720 | and so you need more and more of the drug

02:16:34.520 | to feel as good as you did, right?

02:16:35.880 | Well, endorphins also bind to that receptor.

02:16:38.440 | And he was looking into some of the other drugs

02:16:42.040 | or like salvinorum or something, the salvia, it's called.

02:16:46.920 | It binds to the opioid receptor.

02:16:49.320 | It also makes you kind of feel uncomfortable.

02:16:50.840 | Anyways, he had put some studies in front of me

02:16:54.560 | that showed basically binding of either dynorphin

02:16:59.560 | or whatever ligand to the kappa opioid receptor

02:17:03.000 | basically sensitizes the mu opioid receptor

02:17:06.080 | to the feel-good endorphins and also changes.

02:17:08.840 | I think it also up-regulates it or something.

02:17:11.680 | So basically, there's a lasting effect of feeling good.

02:17:14.040 | So the endorphins that you release later

02:17:15.720 | from hugging someone or a joke you're laughing at

02:17:18.720 | or whatever, you feel it for longer, right?

02:17:22.000 | And so anyways, with respect to the sauna,

02:17:25.920 | it's a big sort of hypothesis of mine.

02:17:27.480 | I did kind of publish that part of my hypothesis

02:17:30.680 | in a review article, but I do wish more people

02:17:33.640 | would kind of look into that.

02:17:34.680 | That'd be amazing.

02:17:36.880 | But what I was getting at, I think,

02:17:38.520 | was I would use the sauna to memorize things.

02:17:43.520 | This is way back in the day, and I still do it.

02:17:46.720 | And I wanted to talk to you about this

02:17:48.200 | because you're a neuroscientist,

02:17:50.880 | that there's something about being in the sauna,

02:17:54.720 | and I don't know if it has to do with the stress response.

02:17:58.360 | Like when you have an emotional trigger,

02:18:00.880 | like you remember things better, right?

02:18:02.640 | - Absolutely.

02:18:03.480 | There is a clear and known explanation mechanism for this.

02:18:08.280 | So in the sauna, I mean, you also release norepinephrine,

02:18:12.120 | just like you do in the cold.

02:18:13.120 | There's a lot of overlap.

02:18:14.320 | You know, I mean, it is a stressor,

02:18:16.880 | but I like use it to remember things.

02:18:20.520 | Like I'm going through something.

02:18:21.640 | I want to go through a presentation or a talk

02:18:23.440 | or a podcast or whatever.

02:18:24.880 | And I go in that sauna and I mean, you should try it.

02:18:27.520 | Like if you haven't already, I don't know if you have.

02:18:28.880 | - I have a sauna and a cold plunge now,

02:18:30.560 | and I haven't tried prepare.

02:18:32.240 | I read books in the sauna in the evening.

02:18:34.560 | It's a time I insist on having my phone out of there.

02:18:38.600 | Mostly because I initially,

02:18:39.840 | because I thought I'd cook the phone,

02:18:41.400 | but also just to get some separation from the phone

02:18:43.360 | and screens in the evening.

02:18:44.200 | So I read books.

02:18:45.160 | The only challenge sometimes you're dripping sweat

02:18:46.760 | onto the books, but I'm willing to forego

02:18:48.040 | a few pages of a book.

02:18:50.080 | The idea that being in this semi-stressful environment

02:18:55.080 | would aid in the learning and retention of information

02:18:58.800 | is really well substantiated by this beautiful work

02:19:01.560 | by a guy named James McGaugh.

02:19:02.960 | I don't know if his lab's still active,

02:19:04.240 | but he was at UC Irvine for a while.

02:19:06.760 | And then I think at University of Arizona as well.

02:19:10.400 | They have a great memory group at both places,

02:19:12.500 | very strong in learning and memory in both places.

02:19:15.360 | And he was the one that really defined this

02:19:18.200 | kind of inverted U-shaped function

02:19:20.820 | for the relationship between adrenaline and memory.

02:19:24.200 | Basically, if you're too relaxed and not stressed enough,

02:19:27.880 | you're not gonna remember any information.

02:19:29.880 | At peak levels of stress, you actually are a memory machine,

02:19:34.720 | at least within the context of whatever it is

02:19:36.320 | you're trying to learn.

02:19:37.280 | So, what you're describing very well matches with that.

02:19:41.320 | And then, of course, it tapers off

02:19:42.480 | as you really increase adrenaline to the point

02:19:45.080 | where people are starting to lose autonomic function,

02:19:47.520 | where they're panicking, basically.

02:19:49.900 | But obviously, you're keeping it in range.

02:19:51.280 | The other thing that I would like to ask you about

02:19:53.280 | is in the sauna, of course, there's vasodilation.

02:19:55.480 | And perfusion of blood to the brain

02:19:57.000 | is a wonderful way to enhance cognition.

02:19:58.920 | There's even some really nice data showing

02:20:00.720 | that during inhales, as opposed to exhales,

02:20:03.720 | people are better at learning information.

02:20:06.840 | Believe it or not, during the inhale,

02:20:08.400 | you're taking in and absorbing and remembering more

02:20:10.640 | than during exhales.

02:20:11.520 | And these are beautiful studies done in humans, of course.

02:20:15.120 | So, I can imagine that vasodilation,

02:20:17.800 | getting more perfusion of blood to the brain,

02:20:19.640 | plus a little bit of stress, or maybe a lot of stress

02:20:22.440 | from the epinephrine, and then, of course,

02:20:25.940 | there's gonna be the, I don't wanna call it placebo,

02:20:27.840 | but there's gonna be the context,

02:20:29.720 | the conditioned place context of it.

02:20:32.040 | If we had a good experience remembering something

02:20:35.080 | in the sauna once, the positive association effect

02:20:37.600 | of that location is real.

02:20:38.800 | Just like if people go to a new city and they get robbed,

02:20:42.200 | like if you go to Cincinnati,

02:20:43.360 | I've never been to Cincinnati,

02:20:44.200 | but you get robbed in Cincinnati,

02:20:45.400 | your purse gets taken or your wallet gets taken,

02:20:47.240 | you kind of hate Cincinnati as a tourist,

02:20:49.440 | but that could happen in any number of different cities.

02:20:51.960 | The opposite is also true.

02:20:53.380 | So, if something good happens someplace.

02:20:55.120 | So, I'm imagining that it's a combination of those effects,

02:20:57.280 | but I'll start, it would be very hard

02:20:59.280 | to do this in the cold.

02:21:00.800 | I feel like the cold is a very potent,

02:21:03.160 | I think it takes you too far down that curve,

02:21:04.920 | the McGaugh curve.

02:21:05.760 | - I have to sing songs or something when I'm in it.

02:21:07.560 | - Distract yourself. - Oh, yeah, I sing songs.

02:21:09.120 | - But afterward, you're very efficient at learning.

02:21:10.800 | - After I am, and with respect to the sauna,

02:21:13.500 | the vasodilation does occur,

02:21:15.360 | so there's a lot of overlap

02:21:16.720 | between moderate intensity aerobic exercise and heat stress,

02:21:20.420 | and as you can imagine, when you're exercising,

02:21:22.320 | you're elevating your core body temperature,

02:21:24.560 | you're sweating, and when you're actually in the sauna,

02:21:28.400 | blood does get redistributed to the skin

02:21:31.360 | to facilitate sweating, but much like exercise,

02:21:34.880 | blood flow in general is improved,

02:21:37.200 | to the brain, to the muscles, everywhere.

02:21:39.600 | So, I think generally speaking that,

02:21:42.880 | and there's studies showing that sauna use

02:21:45.760 | is associated with a much lower risk

02:21:47.960 | of dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

02:21:49.400 | Like people that use it four to seven times a week

02:21:52.220 | have greater than 60% reduction in dementia

02:21:55.680 | and Alzheimer's disease risk compared to once.

02:21:57.760 | - Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

02:21:59.000 | You said people who use it, I apologize,

02:22:01.680 | but maybe you tell us again,

02:22:02.980 | people who use it four to seven times per week have?

02:22:05.880 | - They have a greater than 60% reduction

02:22:08.920 | in dementia risk and Alzheimer's disease risk

02:22:11.360 | compared to people that use it only one time a week.

02:22:14.280 | People that use it two to three times a week

02:22:16.280 | have something like a little greater than 20% reduction

02:22:19.840 | in risk, so there's a dose-dependent effect

02:22:22.320 | on dementia risk and Alzheimer's disease risk.

02:22:25.440 | It also has a profound, there's a big link

02:22:29.240 | between the cardiovascular system and the brain.

02:22:31.840 | Obviously, blood flow, a big one, right?

02:22:34.140 | You need to get blood to your brain.

02:22:36.000 | But cardiovascular mortality,

02:22:39.720 | so mortality from cardiovascular disease,

02:22:42.020 | if people use, or actually this was men,

02:22:43.760 | if men use the sauna four to seven times a week,

02:22:46.400 | it's a 50% reduction in cardiovascular-related mortality

02:22:50.140 | compared to one time a week.

02:22:51.800 | Again, dose-dependent manner two to three times a week

02:22:54.260 | is something like 24% death from cardiovascular disease.

02:22:58.940 | There's also lower, sudden cardiac death,

02:23:02.120 | so like a heart attack, that's like 60-something,

02:23:04.320 | greater than 60% lower if men use it

02:23:07.480 | four to seven times a week versus once.

02:23:09.440 | Again, a dose-dependent thing.

02:23:10.720 | And the thing that's so profound there also to me,

02:23:13.880 | again, looking at the methods, when I look at the data,

02:23:16.720 | and this is all work from Dr. Jari Laukonen.

02:23:19.480 | He's in the University of Eastern Finland

02:23:22.680 | and just one of the world experts on sauna use,

02:23:25.920 | especially with respect to cardiovascular health.

02:23:28.040 | What some of his data has also shown is that

02:23:31.640 | if you look at the duration, the time spent in the sauna,

02:23:34.200 | so a lot of the, so I mentioned the temperature I do

02:23:36.240 | is about, I do like 189 degrees Fahrenheit.

02:23:39.420 | Typically I go in there, I'm pretty heat-adapted.

02:23:42.860 | And so the more you do, the more you do the sauna

02:23:46.120 | or any sort of heat stress,

02:23:47.680 | whether it's a hot tub or jacuzzi, you become adapted.

02:23:51.260 | You basically start to sweat at a lower core body temperature

02:23:53.900 | to cool yourself down.

02:23:55.180 | All these sort of physiological changes

02:23:56.560 | start to happen earlier.

02:23:58.340 | And so I stay in for like 30 minutes.

02:24:01.540 | So I stay in a long time.

02:24:03.020 | That's a lot.

02:24:03.860 | You have to listen to your body.

02:24:04.860 | Most of the studies that I just talked about

02:24:07.140 | were from the duration, the time spent in the sauna,

02:24:11.340 | when I said 50% reduction

02:24:13.020 | in cardiovascular disease-related death.

02:24:15.620 | What was shown was that men that were in the sauna

02:24:18.020 | for only 11 minutes, even if they used it

02:24:20.580 | four to seven times a week,

02:24:21.620 | that reduction was only like 8% instead of 50.

02:24:24.780 | It had to be greater than 19 minutes,

02:24:28.220 | so like 20 minutes is the sweet spot,

02:24:29.900 | at about 174 degrees Fahrenheit.

02:24:33.340 | And most of the saunas in Finland, by the way,

02:24:36.580 | they're humid, so they put hot water on hot rocks

02:24:41.580 | to create steam.

02:24:43.660 | And so it's usually between 10 to 20% humidity

02:24:46.700 | in the finished sauna.

02:24:48.100 | So those studies were, I would say, most of the time

02:24:50.860 | you're gonna find that their humidity is also elevated.

02:24:53.620 | But to me, the dose-dependent nature of it

02:24:56.740 | and the duration, to me, that's a very strong data

02:25:01.740 | that this is more causal than some corollary thing,

02:25:05.740 | because that's always the problem

02:25:07.340 | with observational studies, including these,

02:25:09.900 | which they corrected for a whole host of factors,

02:25:12.340 | like cholesterol, exercise, just everything,

02:25:15.340 | everything under the sun.

02:25:16.220 | I mean, they corrected for those.

02:25:17.380 | And on top of that, you have the dose-dependent nature

02:25:19.980 | of the duration, the time spent in the sauna,

02:25:22.060 | and the frequency.

02:25:23.540 | So to me, it's like, something's going on here.

02:25:26.220 | Plus, there's been studies, intervention studies,

02:25:28.180 | where it's like comparing directly head-to-head

02:25:31.060 | moderate intensity aerobic exercise on a stationary cycle

02:25:34.520 | to 20 minutes in a sauna.

02:25:37.020 | They're physiologically, the same things happen.

02:25:39.560 | So heart rate elevates while you're doing the activity.

02:25:44.380 | Blood pressure increases while you're doing the activity.

02:25:46.460 | Then after, heart rate decreases,

02:25:49.300 | resting heart rate decreases below baseline.

02:25:51.660 | Blood pressure is improved, so it decreases below baseline.

02:25:54.420 | This is happening the same

02:25:55.620 | in moderate intensity cycling versus sauna.

02:25:58.260 | So again, this sauna, this heat stress,

02:26:01.060 | there's something about it that really mimics

02:26:03.820 | this moderate intensity aerobic exercise,

02:26:06.440 | which is really great for people that can't go for a run,

02:26:10.280 | that can't even get on a bike.

02:26:12.420 | So disabled people, granted there are some safety concerns,

02:26:15.640 | they're pretty mild, but they do exist.

02:26:18.820 | So people that had a recent heart attack

02:26:20.320 | or have some rare kind of heart disease or problem,

02:26:23.320 | drinking alcohol, never do that.

02:26:24.480 | Elderly people prone to low blood pressure,

02:26:27.360 | always talk to a physician before doing the sauna.

02:26:29.700 | It is stressful.

02:26:31.020 | - Pregnant.

02:26:31.860 | - Pregnant women, yeah, I definitely avoided saunas

02:26:34.320 | when I was pregnant.

02:26:35.320 | But it is, I think it's very relevant for disabled people

02:26:39.540 | and also people that are sedentary,

02:26:41.200 | have been sedentary most of their life.

02:26:42.340 | Like my mother, I've been able to get her in the sauna

02:26:45.920 | because she's not, I mean, I did get her on the Peloton once,

02:26:49.460 | but it's really much easier.

02:26:50.800 | She feels like it's a spa treatment

02:26:53.100 | and it's like she can listen to her music in there.

02:26:55.780 | And like I care about her health,

02:26:57.860 | but she's mostly been a sedentary person.

02:27:00.140 | And so I find it much easier to convince her

02:27:03.940 | to get in the sauna than to get on Peloton.

02:27:06.360 | Ideally you do both.

02:27:07.420 | The question would be, well, I exercise, I run,

02:27:10.080 | I do my high intensity interval training,

02:27:12.160 | why do I need to get in the sauna?

02:27:13.880 | And the reality is, and so I published all this

02:27:17.280 | in a review in the experimental gerontology last year,

02:27:21.320 | I guess, late last year.

02:27:23.160 | And basically, cardiorespiratory fitness,

02:27:27.400 | which is a marker of, it's a marker of health.

02:27:31.440 | You know, cardiorespiratory fitness is improved

02:27:34.480 | in people that do exercise and sauna

02:27:37.400 | compared to exercise alone or sauna alone.

02:27:40.040 | So for those healthy, fit people out there

02:27:43.000 | already exercising, there's a synergistic effect

02:27:47.360 | by also adding a sauna into that routine.

02:27:49.880 | And to me, that's great.

02:27:51.720 | And there's so many beneficial things happening

02:27:55.620 | with the heat stress in addition

02:27:57.320 | to like mimicking aerobic exercise.

02:27:59.120 | There's the heat check proteins

02:28:00.260 | that we talked about earlier.

02:28:01.680 | And those, it kind of brings me back

02:28:03.440 | to my early days of science

02:28:05.640 | when I was at the Salk Institute

02:28:07.960 | for Biological Studies doing research

02:28:09.960 | on little nematode worms that we,

02:28:14.080 | or someone else, injected amyloid beta-42,

02:28:17.820 | the peptide, the 42 amino acid peptide

02:28:21.160 | that is involved in amyloid plaques found in the brain

02:28:24.840 | correlated with Alzheimer's disease

02:28:26.240 | and other, you know, brain disorders.

02:28:28.200 | We injected those into the muscle tissue of worms.

02:28:31.500 | And basically, these worms become paralyzed with age

02:28:34.720 | because the aggregated proteins, these proteins aggregate.

02:28:39.720 | Well, heat shock proteins,

02:28:41.400 | one of the main things they do

02:28:43.100 | is they basically make sure the proteins

02:28:45.140 | inside of your cells maintain their proper

02:28:47.720 | three-dimensional structure and are folded right.

02:28:50.540 | And so they don't, they're not prone to aggregating

02:28:54.120 | and forming these plaques in your arteries

02:28:56.740 | and also in the brain.

02:28:57.980 | And there's, back to my worm studies I was doing,

02:29:02.120 | I would elevate heat shock proteins in those worms

02:29:04.880 | and it would totally correct the problem

02:29:07.400 | where they would no longer become paralyzed.

02:29:09.760 | They'd move around like they were young.

02:29:11.120 | So many animal studies have been done

02:29:13.360 | looking at Alzheimer's disease,

02:29:15.480 | like a human-like Alzheimer's disease in a rodent

02:29:20.260 | and heat shock proteins protecting from it.

02:29:22.400 | So heat shock proteins are robustly activated in humans.

02:29:26.440 | This has been shown to even, you know,

02:29:30.040 | 50% higher over baseline levels after just 30 minutes

02:29:33.640 | at 163 degrees Fahrenheit in the sauna.

02:29:36.620 | So, and they stay activated at least in rodents

02:29:39.720 | for, you know, 48 hours at least.

02:29:43.080 | So, you know, having these heat shock proteins around,

02:29:46.960 | making sure they're properly taking care of our proteins

02:29:50.040 | so they're not aggregating in our brains and in our plaques

02:29:52.840 | could be another potential way that saunas protecting

02:29:55.820 | from Alzheimer's disease and other, you know,

02:29:58.960 | cardiovascular health as well as longevity.

02:30:01.760 | So, you know, there's people that have SNPs

02:30:05.240 | in heat shock protein factor 70

02:30:08.140 | that if they have one of them,

02:30:10.300 | so they got one from their parents

02:30:11.460 | where they have more active heat shock protein 70,

02:30:13.640 | they live on average one year longer

02:30:15.360 | than people that don't have that SNP.

02:30:16.840 | And if they have two versions,

02:30:18.160 | they got one from their mom and one from their dad,

02:30:20.360 | they live on average two years longer

02:30:21.760 | than people that don't have that SNP.

02:30:23.020 | So it's also been associated with human longevity

02:30:25.380 | as well as in lower organisms.

02:30:26.760 | So you can heat shock a worm or a fly

02:30:28.640 | and they live 15% longer.

02:30:30.880 | This is work done by Gordon Lithgow

02:30:32.480 | at the Buck Institute years and years ago.

02:30:34.780 | So, anyways, I guess what I was getting at

02:30:38.880 | was the heat shock proteins are part

02:30:41.440 | of that stress response pathway that we talked about earlier

02:30:43.860 | and, you know, they're also activated by cold as well.

02:30:46.880 | Cold shock does activate heat shock proteins.

02:30:49.080 | Not as robust.

02:30:50.000 | Sulfuraphane activates them.

02:30:51.560 | Again, it's one of the reasons I think

02:30:52.760 | we should get all of these things

02:30:54.280 | because they are more robust inputs.

02:30:57.080 | You know, their input activating mechanisms

02:30:59.880 | are more robust for different ones.

02:31:02.080 | So there is crosstalk.

02:31:03.340 | There is, you know, I mean, I guess it'd be more accurate

02:31:06.880 | to say there's overlap.

02:31:08.840 | But, you know, it's also like you want to get

02:31:12.240 | the most robust from all of them, right?

02:31:14.060 | I do.

02:31:14.900 | So, I mean, that's why I want to do the sauna and exercise

02:31:18.120 | and eat my broccoli sprouts and all that stuff, so.

02:31:23.120 | - It's super interesting.

02:31:25.280 | A couple of questions came up for me.

02:31:28.200 | One is, you mentioned these SNPs, these nucleotide repeats,

02:31:33.160 | basically genes that some people have,

02:31:34.760 | more of or less of, than others

02:31:36.980 | that can predict longevity in some sense.

02:31:40.080 | Is that the FOXO3 pathway?

02:31:42.560 | - That's one that can, yeah.

02:31:44.080 | I mean, FOXO3 is, in fact, if you go back

02:31:47.360 | to the worm studies I was talking about,

02:31:48.860 | that was like one of the first things

02:31:50.600 | when you see it with your own eyes,

02:31:51.840 | you can take these worms that you basically decrease

02:31:56.000 | their insulin signaling pathway and their IGF-1.

02:31:59.000 | Worms have what are called homologous genes,

02:32:01.520 | so they have a lot of similarities to humans.

02:32:04.160 | They have an insulin-like receptor,

02:32:05.940 | they have an IGF-1-like receptor,

02:32:07.760 | and they make something like FOXO3, which we have.

02:32:10.440 | And basically, if you decrease

02:32:13.320 | that insulin signaling pathway,

02:32:14.580 | their FOXO3 is always active in those worms,

02:32:17.360 | and they live like 100% longer.

02:32:19.280 | And not only do they live longer,

02:32:21.180 | I mean, they are like a very young worm.

02:32:25.120 | I mean, they are like, you look at this thing

02:32:26.920 | and you're like, this looks like the worm

02:32:28.440 | that was just born like hours ago.

02:32:30.960 | What's going on?

02:32:31.780 | This thing's at the end of its life.

02:32:33.540 | Now, as a side note, the thing that always got me on this

02:32:36.960 | was, by the way, this was discovered by Cynthia Kenyon,

02:32:39.800 | and this was like back in the '90s.

02:32:42.200 | And honestly, I'm not sure that anything

02:32:44.480 | has been as exciting in the worm world since then,

02:32:46.580 | but I thought, I mean, it was a really big finding.

02:32:50.140 | The only caveat there is that the worms

02:32:52.720 | go through this dour, it's called a dour stage

02:32:55.720 | when this happens, when you decrease

02:32:57.340 | their insulin signaling and stuff.

02:32:58.960 | And they go into this metabolic stasis,

02:33:01.400 | like they're not eating as much or moving.

02:33:03.600 | And so it's like, okay, well, they live 100% longer,

02:33:05.560 | but they go into this weird state.

02:33:08.640 | - I know people like this.

02:33:09.540 | Some in the longevity community, they know who they are.

02:33:13.280 | But they'll get the last laugh 'cause I'll be dead,

02:33:15.640 | well-fed, but dead, and they'll still be going.

02:33:19.920 | So in terms of the many data on sauna,

02:33:23.460 | and I also just want to acknowledge these Finnish groups

02:33:27.420 | that did this work, it's really pioneering, right?

02:33:29.300 | When you think 20 years ago,

02:33:30.540 | long before social media or any of this,

02:33:32.760 | and they're out there, up there, I should say,

02:33:35.940 | measuring cortisol and growth hormone

02:33:38.220 | and all this stuff in people getting in and out of sauna,

02:33:41.920 | very, very interesting.

02:33:44.000 | So 20 minutes seems like the threshold

02:33:47.020 | at 170 degrees Fahrenheit, more times per week

02:33:52.020 | seems to be better than fewer

02:33:53.600 | when in terms of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular risk,

02:33:56.980 | according to what I just learned from you.

02:33:58.500 | - Four would be a good, I think, minimum effective dose.

02:34:01.420 | - Four times a week.

02:34:02.260 | And you combine it with the cold.

02:34:04.100 | I've also seen a protocol where,

02:34:06.700 | it's a very extreme protocol,

02:34:08.140 | I don't recommend this to people right off the bat,

02:34:09.920 | where they had human subjects get into the sauna

02:34:12.700 | for 30 minutes, get out for five,

02:34:14.400 | 30 minutes, get out for five, 30 minutes,

02:34:16.180 | for a total of two hours of exposure.

02:34:18.500 | But that was what led to these massive 16-fold increases

02:34:22.700 | in growth hormone.

02:34:24.140 | I actually have a, and they had to do it very seldom.

02:34:27.180 | So it sounds like these protocols

02:34:28.300 | you're describing 20 minutes done four times per week,

02:34:31.340 | far more reasonable for most people to access.

02:34:33.820 | But I know people are probably desperate to know

02:34:37.300 | what if they don't have a sauna?

02:34:39.020 | A sauna is kind of a unique item.

02:34:40.700 | So I have a couple of questions.

02:34:41.980 | Can people use hot baths?

02:34:43.440 | With the appropriate warning, of course,

02:34:45.860 | that without getting into description of the mechanics

02:34:49.240 | and the underlying biology, it's pretty obvious

02:34:51.540 | that the testes, if they get too warm, you'll kill sperm.

02:34:57.500 | That's the reason why the testes are housed in a structure

02:35:00.480 | called the scrotum that can move around.

02:35:02.220 | So just to be, you know, here we are, biologists,

02:35:04.540 | just talking about realities here.

02:35:06.780 | So if you're trying to conceive children

02:35:08.900 | or keep your sperm healthy,

02:35:10.820 | guys should probably stay out of warm, hot baths.

02:35:13.260 | - For at least six months, that's been shown.

02:35:14.780 | - Six months.

02:35:15.620 | So sperm motility goes down and sperm production goes down,

02:35:20.620 | but that is completely like corrected

02:35:23.420 | if they stay out of the sauna for six months.

02:35:25.740 | So through six months later, it's back to normal.

02:35:27.620 | - Great.

02:35:28.460 | That's very useful information, I'm sure,

02:35:29.940 | to a number of people out there.

02:35:32.260 | So if people don't have access to a sauna,

02:35:37.020 | and we get this about cold too.

02:35:38.340 | You always say, what about cold showers?

02:35:40.000 | And I always say, well,

02:35:40.840 | the studies have mainly been done on immersion

02:35:42.820 | 'cause it's hard to keep things controlled in cold showers.

02:35:45.540 | It just doesn't make for a very good experiment

02:35:46.980 | 'cause you get a bigger person,

02:35:49.100 | the less of them is under the shower.

02:35:50.480 | And so it doesn't make for a good experiment.

02:35:51.900 | So it's not as good as immersion, but with heat,

02:35:54.860 | I could imagine that a hot bath would work almost as well.

02:35:58.060 | - Yeah, so there's been some studies looking at,

02:35:59.780 | for example, activation of heat shock proteins,

02:36:01.660 | also brain drive neurotrophic factor increases

02:36:03.840 | with heat stress.

02:36:04.980 | And so the hot bath at around 104 degrees Fahrenheit,

02:36:09.540 | which is typically what studies will use for temperature,

02:36:12.280 | which is actually cooler than when I crank my bath hot.

02:36:15.080 | It's so hot.

02:36:15.920 | - But you're very heat adapted.

02:36:17.780 | - I'm very heat adapted, yeah.

02:36:19.120 | And it's 20 minutes from the shoulders down.

02:36:21.820 | And that is a very robust activation in heat shock proteins

02:36:25.220 | and in brain drive neurotrophic factor.

02:36:28.120 | And then heat shock proteins are also protecting

02:36:30.500 | against muscle atrophy.

02:36:31.580 | So that's also having to do with the protein structure

02:36:33.620 | in the muscle tissue as well.

02:36:34.740 | And this has been studies in animal data,

02:36:38.320 | as well as some recent human data as well.

02:36:40.620 | It was local hyperthermia or local heat treatment,

02:36:43.180 | but essentially it showed that it protected.

02:36:45.600 | I mean, it was like, there was a study

02:36:47.700 | where they were looking at muscle disuse

02:36:50.080 | and it was something like the local heat treatment

02:36:53.160 | prevented almost 40% of the muscle atrophy from disuse.

02:36:57.760 | And it's funny 'cause I used to use this on

02:36:59.420 | when I was injured and stuff.

02:37:00.400 | I would go in the sauna because I didn't know at the time

02:37:04.320 | 'cause I was a graduate student,

02:37:05.480 | but I knew just from experiments

02:37:07.680 | that I'm not losing as much muscle.

02:37:10.520 | I feel better.

02:37:12.060 | At the time I was reading a little about the growth hormone

02:37:14.200 | and stuff back then,

02:37:15.200 | and I knew about heat shock proteins.

02:37:18.280 | So I kind of knew, but that data wasn't around yet.

02:37:21.600 | And so now we have the data and I've always felt like

02:37:25.280 | I wasn't losing my muscle like I should have been

02:37:28.680 | when I was doing the sauna.

02:37:29.520 | And I was doing it literally seven days a week.

02:37:32.600 | It was like hardcore.

02:37:33.600 | - This is also during graduate school?

02:37:35.520 | - Yeah, now I'm doing the sauna like a bare minimum.

02:37:40.600 | I do three, but I try to do four because of that.

02:37:42.920 | It all depends on my schedule.

02:37:45.220 | I also like to do long runs.

02:37:46.660 | I really, it's like long being like three miles,

02:37:49.480 | not like Cam Haines that's too long.

02:37:52.360 | But I really, for me, and we were talking about this earlier

02:37:55.980 | like off camera that the runs for me are for my brain.

02:38:00.540 | And I get this mind wandering effect where I daydream

02:38:04.580 | and I think about things.

02:38:05.420 | I work through problems.

02:38:06.560 | I get creative.

02:38:07.400 | I come up with ideas and this is all happening on the runs.

02:38:10.540 | And so I just, I miss my runs if I don't do them

02:38:15.120 | and I miss it because of the brain effects I get from it.

02:38:19.020 | And when I exercise, it's funny because I'm a female

02:38:22.620 | and you think that I'd be exercising to stay fit

02:38:25.460 | and in shape and care about my figure.

02:38:27.420 | But when I exercise, literally what I'm thinking about

02:38:30.360 | is my brain and I'm like this is the best

02:38:33.080 | longevity drug there is.

02:38:34.840 | This is it right here, Rhonda.

02:38:36.560 | You're always wondering, you're always wanting to know,

02:38:38.080 | you're wanting to do the best.

02:38:38.900 | Like if you don't exercise, you're missing

02:38:40.580 | that essential dose.

02:38:42.200 | And so that for me is the motivation,

02:38:45.380 | the doping seeking thing I'm looking for.

02:38:48.260 | Admittedly, I need to, I do not do enough strength training

02:38:52.340 | and I have to do it, have to, have to, have to.

02:38:54.380 | I'm like I'm just, I'm so after the endurance and the hit

02:38:57.760 | and I really need to add that in because muscle mass

02:39:01.100 | is also extremely important for aging as well.

02:39:04.180 | So that's my fault.

02:39:06.580 | - The brain effects are really interesting.

02:39:09.920 | I also run, I try and get one longer run per week

02:39:12.700 | and a few other runs and I do it without a phone.

02:39:15.260 | I don't listen to podcasts.

02:39:16.580 | I occasionally will listen to music,

02:39:18.140 | but I really try not to.

02:39:19.640 | I also find that my mind solves problems.

02:39:22.060 | I feel like it washes out the cobwebs, so to speak.

02:39:26.220 | Some of the most brilliant and prolific neuroscientists

02:39:31.020 | that I know who've had very long careers,

02:39:33.420 | Eric Kandel, Nobel Prize winner at Columbia

02:39:35.380 | comes to mind for all his work on memory,

02:39:37.340 | used to swim a mile a day.

02:39:39.300 | And now I think swims half a mile a day,

02:39:41.260 | but he's in his late nineties and he's still sharp,

02:39:44.580 | which is incredible.

02:39:45.880 | And his lab has done some work showing that

02:39:47.900 | any load bearing exercise repeated,

02:39:50.260 | so endurance work, unlike the Peloton or cycling,

02:39:52.820 | that's really load bearing,

02:39:53.700 | although you're cycling really hard with the resistance,

02:39:55.780 | but causes the release of osteocalcin from the bones,

02:40:00.780 | which acts in an endocrine way, sort of like a hormone.

02:40:04.340 | Can actually travel to the hippocampus,

02:40:06.360 | and at least in these animal studies,

02:40:08.540 | induce the proliferation of neurons, growth of synapses,

02:40:11.980 | BDNF, a number of downstream things,

02:40:13.640 | which kind of makes sense.

02:40:15.340 | If we were to put a just so evolutionary story on this,

02:40:18.620 | a body that's active can signal to the brain

02:40:21.460 | that the body still needs cognition.

02:40:23.540 | An inactive body in some ways is depriving the brain

02:40:27.700 | of any signal of what the body is doing, right?

02:40:30.420 | This is, obviously I'm making this up as conjecture,

02:40:33.400 | but we know in ocean and various ocean animals

02:40:37.040 | that they'll swim around for some period of their life,

02:40:39.000 | and then they'll have a completely stationary

02:40:41.080 | portion of their life.

02:40:41.920 | And basically the brain degenerates.

02:40:44.480 | You don't need much of a nervous system

02:40:45.820 | if you're not moving.

02:40:46.800 | So I think there's really something there,

02:40:48.080 | and also just letting your ideas and mind drift.

02:40:51.280 | I love that you,

02:40:52.260 | and I appreciate that you shared your protocols,

02:40:54.340 | because I think right now we're in an interesting time

02:40:57.400 | in public health information history,

02:40:59.760 | where people are just kind of getting bombarded

02:41:02.080 | with cold is good, heat is gold,

02:41:03.720 | cold is good, heat is good, excuse me, I misspoke.

02:41:08.560 | There are all these micronutrients,

02:41:10.040 | and of course, macronutrients are important too.

02:41:12.000 | And today you've really enriched us

02:41:15.280 | with the description of the underlying mechanisms

02:41:18.680 | and the logic behind them.

02:41:19.680 | But also sharing what you do is really informative,

02:41:22.240 | because I think people need a jumping off place.

02:41:24.840 | And obviously they need to start someplace

02:41:27.680 | and getting heat adapted, et cetera, it takes time.

02:41:29.840 | But I really appreciate that you're willing to share

02:41:31.700 | your protocols and that you do the things

02:41:33.240 | that you teach and educate people about.

02:41:36.560 | As a final question, because I half, half, half to ask,

02:41:40.100 | red light sauna or no red light sauna?

02:41:44.560 | I've been a little bit vocal about my feelings

02:41:46.780 | that none of the red light saunas I've ever been in

02:41:49.020 | got hot enough and it was frustrating.

02:41:51.340 | So I feel like it's neither here nor there.

02:41:53.740 | However, I do acknowledge that red light

02:41:55.960 | and low level light therapies are now known

02:41:59.320 | to do a number of interesting things.

02:42:00.640 | There was a Nobel Prize in 1908 for phototherapy for lupus.

02:42:03.920 | So it's not like a new thing,

02:42:05.700 | the idea that red light and light could do things positive

02:42:08.880 | for our biology, but do you have a red light in your sauna?

02:42:12.320 | Do you think it's useful?

02:42:13.380 | And I mention this because this is the number one question

02:42:16.800 | I get about sauna, red light or no red light

02:42:19.820 | or some intermediate answer.

02:42:22.220 | - So I don't have an infrared sauna,

02:42:26.920 | but I do have, like I have a sauna that has lights.

02:42:29.280 | It makes red light, but I don't think it's the red light

02:42:30.920 | that you're talking about because it's not activating it

02:42:33.360 | at a specific wavelength, which is-

02:42:35.440 | - It's usually so that the range that seems to be helpful

02:42:38.280 | and I have, I confess, I use a red light panel

02:42:40.840 | for other things is 670 nanometer

02:42:45.480 | out to about 720 nanometer.

02:42:49.080 | So it looks like red and very dim lights,

02:42:53.600 | dim red and bright red.

02:42:55.320 | And the idea is that red light can travel,

02:42:57.360 | the photon and energy is such that it can travel down

02:42:59.920 | through the deep layers of the dermis of the skin.

02:43:02.840 | - I don't have a red light in my sauna.

02:43:06.220 | I don't know if it's essential or not.

02:43:09.960 | I don't think so based on all the studies I've talked about.

02:43:12.040 | I think that would be as is the potential effect

02:43:15.180 | on mitochondria is interesting.

02:43:17.800 | I do think there's a lack of really good solid evidence

02:43:22.020 | in humans, but that might only be because

02:43:26.300 | it's just not studied enough.

02:43:27.780 | And that's usually the case.

02:43:29.120 | So perhaps, you know, like there's the Juve, right?

02:43:32.320 | The Juve, they have those red light panels.

02:43:34.900 | - Juve and Cozy are the two ones I know, K-O-Z and Juve.

02:43:38.420 | They're there, as far as I know,

02:43:40.300 | I'm probably gonna insult both companies at the same time,

02:43:42.360 | but I'd rather insult them both at the same time

02:43:44.060 | than just compliment one or insult one.

02:43:47.060 | Both of them seem excellent

02:43:48.620 | for getting the appropriate wavelengths of red light.

02:43:50.520 | And I do not have a relationship to either of those.

02:43:52.900 | - Well, I personally think that the sauna in and of itself,

02:43:56.120 | it's about the heat stress.

02:43:57.480 | And typically the question I get

02:43:59.380 | is infrared sauna or regular sauna.

02:44:02.300 | And there are some differences as well.

02:44:04.440 | Infrared saunas, maybe the infrared saunas

02:44:06.920 | are the ones that have the red light

02:44:08.000 | that you're talking about.

02:44:09.160 | Infrared saunas only get up to around

02:44:11.080 | 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

02:44:14.000 | So as I mentioned, the studies were about

02:44:16.160 | 174 degrees Fahrenheit.

02:44:17.660 | And so you really have to stay in a longer period of time.

02:44:22.660 | However, there have been some studies coming out of Japan.

02:44:26.100 | They use infrared sauna.

02:44:29.400 | They have this whole protocol.

02:44:30.320 | It's called Weigh On Therapy.

02:44:31.940 | And they get people in infrared saunas

02:44:35.160 | and then they wrap them in a towel

02:44:36.660 | and they stay warm for X amount.

02:44:38.960 | So the whole protocol ends up being an hour long.

02:44:42.240 | But again, it's 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

02:44:44.240 | So it's an infrared sauna.

02:44:45.480 | And it's been shown to improve a variety

02:44:47.880 | of coronary heart disease and heart-related conditions.

02:44:52.160 | There have been some improvements.

02:44:53.620 | So obviously there's evidence that infrared saunas

02:44:56.840 | can be beneficial for cardiovascular health.

02:44:59.520 | I've used infrared saunas many times at my in-laws.

02:45:03.100 | They have infrared sauna.

02:45:04.120 | And I have to crank that thing up for a while

02:45:06.360 | until it's maxed.

02:45:07.680 | And then I have to sit in there for an hour at least.

02:45:11.080 | I do sweat a lot.

02:45:12.080 | And that's another thing we didn't talk about.

02:45:13.620 | You do sweat some heavy metals.

02:45:15.580 | And some heavy metals are excreted predominantly

02:45:19.920 | through sweat and others through urine.

02:45:22.320 | So for example, cadmium, there's like 125-fold increase

02:45:26.920 | in cadmium excretion from sweat when you get in the sauna.

02:45:30.660 | Also lead is something like 17-fold excretions higher.

02:45:34.760 | Another one is aluminum.

02:45:36.000 | It's about four-fold higher.

02:45:37.220 | So infrared, you do sweat a lot too.

02:45:39.620 | And that's because the main difference

02:45:41.300 | is that you're heating your body up

02:45:43.720 | through thermal radiation versus the ambient air.

02:45:47.880 | Like a standard sauna is a heater

02:45:50.880 | and the heater's heating up the air.

02:45:52.100 | And that's how you're heating yourself up.

02:45:54.320 | So it is a little bit of a different mechanism.

02:45:56.480 | I prefer regular saunas.

02:45:58.520 | Most of the data out there is from the heat stress itself.

02:46:01.520 | Like your heart rate's elevating when you're in there.

02:46:03.760 | You're feeling hot.

02:46:04.600 | You're getting that cardiovascular.

02:46:05.660 | I mean, that's what you're feeling

02:46:06.500 | when you're in a hot sauna.

02:46:07.900 | And that for me takes a really long time

02:46:10.320 | in the infrared sauna to get at the very end.

02:46:13.080 | But I do think there are some benefits from infrared.

02:46:15.100 | And they are more affordable.

02:46:16.560 | They're less of a fire hazard.

02:46:18.160 | But again, hot baths are I think

02:46:20.060 | a good alternative modality for heat stress

02:46:23.320 | compared to like a regular sauna.

02:46:25.600 | - Great, that's a really helpful answer.

02:46:27.700 | Like I said, I use the red light, but not in the sauna.

02:46:30.200 | And thank you for reminding us

02:46:32.800 | of that 174 degree Fahrenheit threshold

02:46:35.720 | that was mainly used in all these studies.

02:46:38.960 | So we covered a lot of territory,

02:46:40.920 | but I just want to thank you again.

02:46:42.800 | It was extremely thorough and extremely informative.

02:46:45.160 | I'd now have, my notes always look a little bit

02:46:48.720 | like they were drawn out by a macaque monkey

02:46:51.520 | who has no knowledge of the English language,

02:46:53.160 | but I can decipher this to tell you

02:46:55.300 | that there are at least 10 additions

02:46:59.280 | to my current protocols that I'm going to add.

02:47:01.520 | And I'll have lots of questions.

02:47:03.320 | So I apologize in advance for that,

02:47:04.940 | but on behalf of the listeners and just directly from me,

02:47:09.940 | thank you so much for your time.

02:47:11.920 | I learned a ton.

02:47:13.120 | - My pleasure.

02:47:13.960 | Thanks for having me on.

02:47:14.780 | It was really awesome conversation.

02:47:16.060 | So I enjoyed it a lot.

02:47:17.640 | Let's do it again.

02:47:18.880 | - Totally.

02:47:19.960 | - Great.

02:47:20.800 | Thank you for joining me

02:47:21.640 | for my discussion with Dr. Rhonda Patrick.

02:47:24.240 | I hope you found it as interesting

02:47:26.120 | and as actionable as I did.

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02:49:21.260 | Thank you once again for joining me

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Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Micronutrients for Health & Longevity | Huberman Lab Podcast #70

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