Simple Steps to Improve Your Metabolism | Dr. Casey Means & Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | - Maybe we could just touch on some of the lifestyle factors
00:00:05.000 | that you just mentioned,
00:00:06.740 | 'cause I do think it's important that people
00:00:08.660 | really start to feel into their sense of agency.
00:00:10.620 | And here we're talking about things
00:00:12.820 | that are relatively low time investment,
00:00:15.500 | certainly don't have much financial cost
00:00:17.860 | in the sense that they could be done in gyms
00:00:19.660 | and with fancy equipment, but they don't require that.
00:00:22.360 | Again, I wanna point out that these are not
00:00:25.900 | like strict prescriptives,
00:00:27.620 | but if you had a magic wand,
00:00:30.500 | and because you are interested in the health of humans,
00:00:33.360 | let's talk about a few of these things
00:00:36.180 | that can improve glucose disposal
00:00:39.940 | and mitochondrial function,
00:00:42.060 | mitophagy, the removal of dead or dysfunctional mitochondria
00:00:45.500 | so they can be replaced.
00:00:47.260 | Let's talk about the walking one first.
00:00:48.900 | You said 7,000 steps a day.
00:00:50.220 | I don't track my steps.
00:00:52.020 | What are we really talking about there?
00:00:53.460 | We're talking about taking the stairs
00:00:54.680 | and trying to walk as much as possible.
00:00:56.300 | Maybe we were gonna just give
00:00:57.820 | a really crude prescription.
00:00:59.020 | You're a doctor, so you can prescribe things.
00:01:01.580 | What would you tell people to do?
00:01:03.180 | How many short walks per day?
00:01:05.020 | Is it three?
00:01:05.860 | Is it five?
00:01:07.540 | What are we talking?
00:01:08.380 | - I would say, I mean, at least three.
00:01:11.500 | I would say aiming for more than that is good though.
00:01:14.140 | So to sort of just give a sense of the picture of walking,
00:01:18.260 | if walking were a pill,
00:01:19.620 | it would be the most impactful pill we've ever had
00:01:23.400 | in all of modern medicine.
00:01:26.220 | There was a paper in JAMA,
00:01:28.460 | 6,300 participants followed for 10 to 11 years.
00:01:33.460 | And the people who simply walked 7,000 steps per day
00:01:39.860 | compared to less than that had an up to 70% lower risk
00:01:44.540 | of all-cause mortality in the follow-up period.
00:01:46.580 | So not causality, but it's pretty incredible.
00:01:49.540 | They've done follow-up research
00:01:51.300 | with slightly different numbers showing,
00:01:53.340 | again though, like many thousands of people in the study
00:01:57.500 | followed for about 10 years,
00:01:59.220 | 8,000 to 12,000 steps per day
00:02:02.300 | was associated with 50 to 65% lower all-cause mortality.
00:02:07.180 | And this has been played out in many studies
00:02:08.980 | showing about a 50% reduction in Alzheimer's,
00:02:12.560 | dementia, obesity, type two diabetes,
00:02:15.180 | depression, cancer, gastric reflux,
00:02:18.480 | just all across the board.
00:02:20.580 | And I think the key thing is that it's not about the steps.
00:02:25.300 | It's about the fact that muscle contraction is medicine.
00:02:29.980 | When we contract our muscles,
00:02:31.500 | even in a very like low-grade way,
00:02:33.860 | like walking or doing a couple of air squats,
00:02:36.540 | we're activating AMPK and we are essentially causing
00:02:41.540 | that cell to have a stimulus to push glucose channels
00:02:46.660 | to the cell membrane.
00:02:47.860 | Most of the time, the glucose channels are like in vesicles,
00:02:51.340 | in little bags inside the cells.
00:02:53.660 | They're not on the cell membrane.
00:02:55.540 | So of course that's gonna keep the glucose
00:02:57.540 | in your bloodstream not being processed by the mitochondria.
00:03:01.380 | So when we think about steps,
00:03:03.380 | it's a proxy metric for just moving more throughout the day.
00:03:07.100 | So let's take two people.
00:03:08.580 | You have a person who's walking for one to two minutes
00:03:11.780 | every 30 minutes throughout the day.
00:03:14.220 | Maybe they're exercising at the end of the day
00:03:15.740 | or the beginning of the day, maybe they're not.
00:03:17.300 | That person is stimulating glucose channels
00:03:20.980 | to be at the membrane all day.
00:03:24.180 | Now let's take another person
00:03:26.020 | who works out really hard for one hour
00:03:28.740 | in the beginning or the end of the day.
00:03:30.020 | They feel great about it.
00:03:30.940 | They've checked that off their box,
00:03:32.260 | but they're sitting the entire rest of the day.
00:03:34.660 | Yes, they have gotten the benefits from the exercise,
00:03:37.980 | but for a lot of that day,
00:03:39.800 | those glucose channels are inside the cell,
00:03:42.100 | not doing the work they could be doing.
00:03:44.140 | So I think about these little teeny short walking breaks
00:03:47.420 | or pushup breaks or air squat breaks
00:03:49.260 | every 30 minutes or so throughout the day
00:03:52.100 | as me essentially inside the cell
00:03:54.780 | pushing the glucose channels, the cell membrane
00:03:56.940 | to make them constitutively active.
00:03:59.400 | It's totally different physiology and it's so easy.
00:04:02.420 | So it's not about the steps.
00:04:03.460 | It's about muscle contraction regularly throughout the day.
00:04:08.340 | And this has been shown out
00:04:09.700 | in actually more clinical research, which has taken,
00:04:12.140 | there's been several studies.
00:04:13.820 | Two that I think are fascinating
00:04:15.100 | where they basically took two groups and they said,
00:04:16.900 | okay, we're gonna have you walk 20 minutes
00:04:18.980 | before each meal, three times a day,
00:04:21.380 | 20 minutes after each meal.
00:04:24.140 | So that's also three times a day
00:04:25.660 | or for like two minutes every 30 minutes throughout the day.
00:04:29.180 | - So these are three separate groups.
00:04:30.260 | - Three separate groups.
00:04:31.100 | - Either 20 minutes before, either 20 minutes after or.
00:04:34.420 | - Two to three minutes every 30 minutes.
00:04:36.460 | All added up to 60 minutes of walking
00:04:39.420 | or light jogging a day.
00:04:41.060 | I'm kind of paraphrasing two different studies
00:04:42.800 | that showed the same thing.
00:04:43.700 | One was jogging, one was walking,
00:04:45.060 | but it was basically chunks versus short walks
00:04:49.180 | every 30 minutes throughout the waking day.
00:04:51.820 | The groups that do the short movement
00:04:55.100 | regularly throughout the day,
00:04:56.620 | even though the total time is the same
00:04:58.820 | across all the groups, have significantly lower
00:05:01.780 | 24-hour glucose level averages,
00:05:04.020 | 24-hour insulin level averages.
00:05:06.000 | They are metabolically healthier.
00:05:07.620 | And I believe, and the research mechanistically has shown
00:05:10.380 | that it's because we're constitutively putting
00:05:12.940 | these channels of the membrane to take up the substrate,
00:05:16.240 | use the substrate.
00:05:17.340 | So this is not to replace exercise,
00:05:20.780 | but I think it's a reframe.
00:05:22.460 | I think the concept of exercise is something
00:05:25.820 | we're really very wedded to in our Western culture.
00:05:29.980 | And you look at more like the Blue Zones
00:05:31.620 | and the Centenarians, and it's like they're kind of moving
00:05:33.700 | as built into their everyday life.
00:05:34.900 | So we've taken movement out of our everyday life
00:05:38.340 | as these knowledge workers, as we've been industrialized.
00:05:41.380 | And then we think that exercise replaces
00:05:44.540 | that all day movement, but biochemically it does not.
00:05:48.800 | So I think a big part of kind of digging ourselves
00:05:51.340 | out of this chronic disease mess
00:05:52.940 | and creating capacity for mitochondria
00:05:55.000 | is finding ways to take a lot of the activities
00:05:57.360 | we do now seated and just find a way to do more of them
00:06:01.140 | moving, standing, or walking.
00:06:03.760 | Or if that's tough, you really need to sit
00:06:06.160 | at your desk all day, then every 30 minutes,
00:06:08.860 | taking two minutes to do some just light movement,
00:06:13.420 | flex those muscles, get the glucose channels
00:06:15.540 | of the membrane, get the mitochondria active.
00:06:18.380 | So, and I think another fascinating stat is like,
00:06:22.180 | our gym memberships in the US have doubled
00:06:25.140 | since the year 2000, and obesity has gone up
00:06:27.660 | in the same period.
00:06:28.600 | So there's some mismatch between our obsession
00:06:30.820 | with exercise and our actual outcomes that we're seeing.
00:06:34.340 | And I think it's that we have not actually rebuilt
00:06:38.700 | constitutive movement into our daily lives.
00:06:40.900 | - Very interesting, 'cause I think a lot of people
00:06:42.800 | are now working out, so to speak,
00:06:44.780 | doing resistance training, which I think is terrific.
00:06:46.860 | - Terrific, yeah.
00:06:47.700 | - Used to be such, you know, so restricted
00:06:50.340 | to niche subculture stuff like bodybuilding,
00:06:52.600 | pre-season football, military, et cetera.
00:06:54.580 | And now it's more ubiquitous for everybody,
00:06:57.980 | men, women, young, old, that's terrific.
00:07:00.140 | Same thing with things like yoga and cardiovascular training.
00:07:02.820 | I mean, I like to study the history of exercise culture,
00:07:07.700 | and it wasn't, but in the '60s when, you know,
00:07:10.060 | jogging was considered kind of like, whoa,
00:07:11.780 | that's like a really esoteric niche culture thing.
00:07:13.980 | So lots changed.
00:07:15.620 | I love the prescriptives you gave,
00:07:17.020 | because it's just very straightforward.
00:07:18.820 | A couple of short walks, it just makes so much sense.
00:07:22.460 | And I love the visual, and I hope people
00:07:24.580 | will really hold it in mind.
00:07:26.020 | So I'll reiterate it, the translocation
00:07:29.720 | of these energy utilization stores, vesicles,
00:07:33.640 | as you call them, these little packets
00:07:35.520 | from the center of the cell out to the cell surface,
00:07:37.920 | where then they can be involved, excuse me,
00:07:40.480 | in metabolic processes and the utilization of energy
00:07:43.360 | in ways that otherwise they wouldn't.
00:07:45.880 | And glucose disposal being a big part of this.
00:07:48.360 | So I have heard that a short walk after a meal
00:07:51.020 | will reduce blood glucose in a way that's really dramatic.
00:07:54.240 | - Huge amount, 30, 35%, just taking a walk
00:07:57.620 | around the block after a meal.
00:07:58.880 | That's definitely a prescription I think everyone should do,
00:08:01.920 | 'cause the research is so strong on it,
00:08:03.760 | is that building in simply a 10-minute walk
00:08:08.440 | around the block or a dance party in the kitchen,
00:08:10.660 | moving your muscles for 10 minutes after a meal
00:08:13.920 | can drastically reduce your glucose response,
00:08:17.020 | 'cause you're just bringing all those channels
00:08:18.320 | to the membrane, you're taking up the glucose,
00:08:19.640 | you're using it, it's a whole different physiology
00:08:21.460 | than sitting on the couch after a meal.
00:08:23.240 | That's very high impact, it's high leverage
00:08:25.320 | if it's after a meal, so highly recommend that.
00:08:27.480 | And the levels data and clinical data
00:08:29.960 | has shown that out time and time again.
00:08:32.000 | - Whenever I go to a city like New York,
00:08:34.520 | when I am forced to walk more,
00:08:36.760 | I always just feel so much better.
00:08:38.640 | We also know that the optic flow
00:08:40.200 | that one experiences with walking
00:08:41.840 | has some interesting effects on the limbic pathways
00:08:44.020 | and quieting of some of the anxiety
00:08:46.180 | and stress-related pathways.
00:08:48.260 | This links up with things like EMDR,
00:08:50.040 | although there are factors that are separate from EMDR.
00:08:53.780 | Basically moving through space, not outer space,
00:08:56.700 | but walking through space with optic flow
00:08:58.480 | has a certain anxiety reduction function in the brain,
00:09:03.000 | which they're beautiful data there, in my opinion.
00:09:06.320 | Okay, so that touches on walking.
00:09:08.600 | You did mention higher intensity exercise.
00:09:11.000 | So let's keep it within the cardiovascular realm for now.
00:09:14.720 | So getting heart rate way, way up,
00:09:18.660 | getting breathing hard for some minutes each week,
00:09:23.660 | maybe a couple of times per week.
00:09:26.360 | It seems that's a good way to increase
00:09:28.100 | mitochondrial function and mitochondrial number.
00:09:30.520 | Is that right?
00:09:31.800 | - Yeah, so you take sort of each type of exercise.
00:09:35.700 | We've got walking, we've got resistance training,
00:09:38.380 | we've got high intensity interval training,
00:09:40.640 | we've got endurance training,
00:09:42.640 | and then we've got sort of more like zone two.
00:09:45.880 | So we've got these different flavors
00:09:49.240 | of how we get our heart rate up,
00:09:50.520 | how we get the blood flowing, what we signal to the cells.
00:09:53.000 | And each one actually has like a slightly different impact
00:09:55.960 | on the mitochondria.
00:09:56.920 | When we think about biogenesis,
00:09:58.640 | we're thinking mostly like endurance exercise
00:10:02.160 | and really more of that zone two.
00:10:05.680 | And like that is really gonna be a stimulus inside the cell
00:10:08.980 | to print more mitochondria.
00:10:11.280 | When we think about improving mitochondrial fusion,
00:10:13.640 | high intensity interval training
00:10:15.040 | is really, really good for that.
00:10:16.680 | When we think about resistance training,
00:10:18.400 | it's like that's like muscle hypertrophy.
00:10:20.160 | We're gonna be creating more muscle cells
00:10:21.480 | and we need more mitochondria for those.
00:10:22.920 | So each one has kind of a different impact.
00:10:26.320 | And I think this is where honestly,
00:10:28.160 | I think the regular guidelines that we have
00:10:30.420 | even by our government actually make a lot of sense.
00:10:34.200 | It's like work every major muscle group three times a week
00:10:37.400 | in a resistance type training,
00:10:39.020 | and then work to get 75 to 150 minutes
00:10:42.920 | of moderate to strenuous activity.
00:10:44.160 | So 75 minutes of strenuous activity
00:10:46.720 | or 150 minutes per week of moderate activity.
00:10:49.300 | So that actually makes a lot of sense.
00:10:52.140 | 80% of Americans are not meeting
00:10:54.320 | those very basic guidelines.
00:10:56.280 | And 20% of Americans don't get any physical activity
00:10:58.980 | really at all.
00:10:59.820 | Activity for the average American
00:11:01.360 | is 3,000 to 4,000 steps per day,
00:11:04.400 | which is less than two miles.
00:11:06.040 | So we are not even close to even meeting
00:11:08.260 | the basic recommendations that are out there.
00:11:10.800 | But I think those are pretty reasonable.
00:11:13.000 | Resistance training two to three times a week,
00:11:15.400 | most major muscle groups and working to get the heart rate
00:11:20.960 | up moderate level for 150 minutes a week
00:11:24.460 | or strenuous for 75 minutes a week.
00:11:26.820 | Those are going together to be potent stimuli
00:11:31.780 | for biogenesis, mitophagy, mitochondrial fusion,
00:11:35.200 | for increasing antioxidant enzymes
00:11:37.460 | that are gonna protect the mitochondria
00:11:39.540 | from that oxidative stress.
00:11:41.120 | And the one that's just actually not in there
00:11:45.060 | in sort of the basic recommendations for Americans
00:11:47.380 | is the walking.
00:11:48.200 | I would just absolutely add to that
00:11:50.060 | at least 7,000 steps per day
00:11:52.500 | based on what the data is showing,
00:11:54.800 | which honestly would probably take less than an hour total
00:11:59.600 | to do if you break it up throughout the day,
00:12:01.700 | it's just a few minutes a day.
00:12:03.600 | So that right there are gonna be like a big multifaceted
00:12:08.200 | set of signals for increasing mitochondrial capacity
00:12:12.000 | in different ways.
00:12:13.340 | - Thank you for tuning in
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