Barbell Shrugged - [Brain Health] Science and Strategies for Optimizing Brain Health w/ Dan Garner, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash #686

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

In today’s episode of Barbell Shrugged, we'll be discussing the various factors that impact brain health and exploring strategies for optimizing brain function. First, we'll be discussing the impact of exercise on brain health. Research has shown that regular exercise can help to improve brain function, enhance cognitive performance, and even reduce the risk of certain neurological disorders. We'll also be discussing the types of exercise that are most beneficial for the brain. Next, we'll be exploring the role of nutrition and supplements in promoting brain health. Certain foods and supplements have been shown to improve brain function and reduce the risk of cognitive decline. We'll be discussing which foods and supplements are most effective and how to incorporate them into your diet. Stress is another important factor that can impact brain health. Chronic stress has been shown to have negative effects on the brain, including impairing cognitive function and increasing the risk of neurological disorders. We'll be exploring strategies for managing stress to optimize brain health. There are several lab markers that can provide insights into brain health, such as inflammatory markers, lipid levels, and neurotrophic factors. We'll be discussing the significance of these markers and how they can be used to assess brain health. Sleep is also essential for brain health, as it plays a critical role in memory consolidation and cognitive function. We'll be discussing the importance of getting adequate sleep and strategies for improving sleep quality. Finally, we'll be exploring the impact of alcohol on the brain. While moderate alcohol consumption has been shown to have some health benefits, excessive alcohol consumption can have negative effects on brain function and increase the risk of neurological disorders.   To learn more, please go to https://rapidhealthreport.com Connect with our guests: Dan Garner on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, we are digging into brain health and understanding exercises impact on brain health, foods and supplements that you can take and eat, digest to improve cognitive function, as well as understanding stress, digging into some lab markers, and then of course, sleep, alcohol. And then at the end here, Dan Garner actually just wrote a book with Sugar Sean O'Malley, the number one MMA. I don't know all the weight classes. Let's be honest. I definitely don't even know what those weight classes are called. But he wrote a book with Sean O'Malley that they've been working on together for brain health and kind of like a

concussion protocol. So if you know anybody that has had a concussion or a recent concussion or wanna just get the book, make sure you check it out over to Amazon. And as always, friends, you can head over to rapidhealthreport.com. Check out Dr. Andy Galpin, as well as Dan Garner doing their thing, a real analysis on labs, lifestyle,

and performance. And you can see that over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, brain health, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, Dan Garner. Today on Barbell Shrug, we're going to be talking brain health. And guess what? At the end of the show, Dan Garner is going to tell you where to go get his brand new concussion protocol. I'm putting that at the end of the show, Dan Garner is going to tell you where to go get his brand new concussion protocol. I'm putting that at the top of the show, even though you want to talk about the end of the show. So we're going to make sure we get to the concussion protocol that you and O'Malley

are working on. Yo, but today I want to dig in because brain health is really at like the top of, it's like, I think I figured out how this body works for the most part. And all the questions that I have, Dan Garner knows the answers to. So we're good there. The brain thing, though, I have like some serious family problems on the brain side of things. My family goes a long time and the brain disappears towards the end. But I love to even start out just more than the long-term kind of dementia

side of things and really talk about kind of like the impact of just basic exercise and how brain health and movement, training, how those things are correlated as just kind of like a high level start to understanding brain health. Sure. So, I mean, at the highest level going on was is something that is something that is already beneficial for the brain. Like there are many complicated and nuanced conversations surrounding nootropics and micronutrients and very complicated situations in inflammations and fatty acids. But going on a walk like the University of Illinois,

they took it was 126 sedentary subjects and had them just walk three times per week. And at the beginning of the study, they measured the size of their hippocampus which is the center of memory consolidation yeah and then after one year of going on bris walks three times per week as you age your hippocampus actually progressively shrinks after one year the hippocampus did not only not shrink it actually grew a bit with three bris walks per week and then at the end of this, they actually came up with their own progressive system and cutoff point to our beginning at three 10 minute walks per week.

And then you add five minutes. So on week one, it's three 10 minute walks. Week two, three 15 minute walks. Week three, three 20 minute walks. You actually ramp that up until it's three 40 minute walks per week. That was the conclusion that they came to for hippocampal health. So just kind of off the hop, like if you already want to do something beneficial for your brain, and I'm talking to

a lot of people out there who just skip cardio because they think it's boring. This is not just about, you know, fighting catabolism, which you can actually walk with that anyways. But it's your brain health, man. It's your hippocampus. It's something that's been demonstrated. I think that right out of the gates, I think that's something that absolutely everybody could do from an exercise perspective. But I also want to actually kind of kick this off with something else that veers away from the complicated and nuanced conversations and revolves purely around context. Context, we know very little about the brain at this point in time.

There are people way smarter than me who know a lot more about the brain. But there are also things that are extremely misunderstood, like, for example, lactobacillus ruderi, that is a bacteria that has been demonstrated to lower kids with ASD, autism spectrum disorder, lower symptoms, and even improve learning. So bacteria, lactobacillus ruderi, playing a big role in how the brain responds to stimuli and even learns. Or in mice, if you give mice the colonization of Toxoplasma gondii, they actually have this weird thing where they stop becoming afraid of cats. And they'll actually walk right up to them completely unafraid. They've lost their ability to recognize that that is a predator.

Like bacteria actually is programming our brain to do things in ways that we do not understand yet. So like, as far as zooming out from a context perspective, I always find it very difficult to just say, this is good for brain health. And that's good for brain health. And this is good for brain health. Because what's the context of the brain health? Like if somebody has anxiety, like let's just even if somebody has anxiety, I think you guys would probably all agree that instead of taking something to just wildly suppress anxiety, we should probably address where that anxiety is even coming from. To begin with, like that's that's super common in the industry. What herbs can I take for anxiety? What can I take to lower anxiety? It's kind of like,

well, where's your anxiety coming from? Because like from a brain health perspective, the way in which I would coach you can go in so many different directions. Because did you get some lab work back and your cholesterol values were really bad and your lipoprotein A was bad and that resulted in anxiety? Well, should I give you ashwagandha to lower your anxiety? Or should we actually get on a protocol to improve your cardiac markers and lose some weight?

Because that's what's actually going to result in the thing that needs to take place in order to reduce anxiety. Or maybe you're walking around the day with a lot of brain fog and you're just you're lacking productivity because you have this brain fog. Well, in that case, a nootropic might actually be in order to stimulate productivity, to stimulate focus and attention, stimulate memory consolidation, something like Nupept,

which increases acetylcholine to help with all of those things, that could actually keep you the productivity you need so that you're not as behind on your schedule as you currently are, so that you can relieve yourself of the anxiety that you're giving yourself on a day-to-day basis because of productivity

and not because you need to suppress a chemistry associated with anxiety. But if it is truly chemistry-based, then yeah, ashwagandha when the sun goes down, that's something that can be really beneficial in lowering anxiety. So brain health, as it pertains to utilizing certain foods and certain nutrients to create an efficacious result is still a context specific. It's, it's, it's, it's something that you need to actually have an assessment for first, before you just start diving into things. And I think that one thing that I think is globally recommended could be the walks per day. But but after that, beyond just eating a healthy diet, I do think things are very, very context specific. Would you say that if you read the book, what is it?

Oh, man. John Rady, Spark, the book Spark, where they talked about there was a school in Naperville, Naperville Central in Chicago. It's like a Chicago suburb and where they introduced PE back to the students and then their grades shot through the roof, which sparked this guy. He's a psychiatrist at Harvardvard teaches psychiatry at harvard and um so they started doing more research and they realized you know that exercise would spark you know um work in the hippocampus or it would spark action activity in the in the hippocampus and then they started doing they've

recently done more research that they're about to write about where they've added now, um, not just resistance exercise, but things like either gymnastics or martial arts or like Olympic weightlifting, something that's more complicated, which has sparked other areas of the brain that led to better balance, um, more creative thinking. But aren't there, though, some best practices is my point. Yeah, it's funny, because like something like the the journey of martial arts is one that I think is so beneficial for so many reasons. I think that that's a great, a great way in which someone could go about improving their overall health, but also their brain health, you know, obviously contact aside, that's something that's of course going to negatively impact that. But the pursuit of accomplishment, getting your next belt, like I remember when I was going through the ranks in Taekwondo, like man, getting that next belt, it was the best

feeling in the world. But then all I wanted to do was get the next one. Like you just kept freaking it's something that just, yeah. It's a dopamine response, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that dopamine response is kind of what I'm getting at here because it's so rare where people do something for themselves these days. Like when I'm working with someone

who wants to drop body fat, like it's super, super common because they recently had a breakup and now they want to get lean again or because they're doing something and they want to show someone or they're getting a breakup and now they want to get lean again, or because they're doing something and they want to show someone or they're doing, they're getting a great body because they want it for social media. Like it's very rare. Do that before you get a breakup. I'm just, there's a little hand out there. I won't get a breakup then.

Yeah. But like, it's super rare that people do things for themselves these days. And you're talking about building dopamine pathways. Why don't you build a reward pathway for yourself? Like that's actually what I think is so beneficial about martial arts is you're actually building discipline, you're building confidence, you're doing this for you, you are the one who's now empowered by this new skill that you're learning. Not to mention the skill acquisition is going to play towards brain health. Being leaner and more mobile is going to play towards brain health. The kids having physical education in school, well, that activity is going to play towards brain health, but activity in and of itself improves sleep quality, which also improves

brain health. So these things all have great cycles, but one of the best cycle you could ever be caught in is the dopamine pathway that serves you and not serves others. Shark family, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com. When you get to rapidhealthreport.com, you will see an area for you to opt in in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now, you know that we've been working at Rapid Health Optimization on programs for optimizing health. Now, what does that actually mean? It means in

three parts, we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside out approach. So we're not going to be guessing your macros. We're not going to be guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually going to be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you. Nutrition, supplementation, sleep. Then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns. And then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the most severe things first. This truly is a world class program. And we invite you to see step one of this process by going over to rapidhealthreport.com. You can see Dan reading my labs, the nutrition and supplementation that he has recommended that

has radically shifted the way that I sleep, the energy that I have during the day, my total testosterone level, and it's my ability to trust and have confidence in my health going forward. I really, really hope that you're able to go over to rapidhealthreport.com, watch the video of my labs, and see what is possible. And if it is something that you are interested in, please schedule a call with me on that page. Once again, it's rapidhealthreport.com, and let's get back to the show. Because if you keep staying on a pathway, which is you against the world, well, your body has a weird way of staying in these rhythms and staying in these pathways, you can actually like stay stuck in a pattern of depression, you can stay stuck in a pattern of anxiety, you can stay stuck

in a pattern of doing everything for everyone else and not for yourself. These small things that have no complicated discussion behind and simply just doing something for you, losing weight for you. It's some of the most brain healthy things you could ever do acutely and chronically for yourself. You just mentioned sleep a second ago. I really kind of assumed unconsciously that that was going to be the first thing that you mentioned you mentioned the walks as the the first thing on this episode i really felt like sleep was going to be the first thing uh how does sleep play into this uh compared to something like going for a walk i feel like it's got to be like as far as

like the hierarchy goes it's got to be toward the top of the list right sure yeah and and honestly i think a lot of things could have been the first thing depending on, uh, you know, where, where we, where we have the context and, um, man, when it comes to the brain, if there is like a top 10 things to do, I feel like it would be like number one and then number one and then number one and then number one, like the list would all be ones and not one to 10 because it's revolving around your freaking brain right like it's i think that if we were all asked like what's the last thing you want to give up it'd be your mind i would give up my biceps before my mind and that's saying something hey just so you know dan you're not giving up that much but i understand the point i walked right into that.

He's going to start back on the 405 bench program again. He's going down right now. He's deflating. He's deflating right now. He said that. Now he's going to say that. And now I'm going to build the wrong pathway because I'm going to show Anders what the fuck is up.

Yeah, exactly. You'll get some dopamine response now, baby. Right, exactly. You'll get some dopamine response now, baby. Right, right. But to go back to sleep, sleep is a big one because most all systems are anabolic when you sleep. The bones are anabolic when you sleep through osteoclast and osteoblast. The muscles are anabolic when you sleep, rebuilding and creating protein synthesis. The hormones, you have many pulsatile activities of hormone activity happening while you sleep, neurotransmitter pools are being restocked while you sleep, like this is the entire body is systemically anabolic, the purpose of sleep

is to restore, repair, regenerate. A part of that process is a to restore neurotransmitter pools, which play a huge role in brain health, and how we interact and react with the world. But then be cerebrospinal fluid actually crosses our blood brain barrier, and can clean up waste product within our brain, which is a super, super fascinating discovery. So just like your muscles, if you went and trained really hard, and you build up a lot of fatigue metabolites, and then our cardiovascular system's got to get all that stuff out of there. Well, when you've been thinking all day or stressing all day or working all day, you're building up quote, fatigue metabolites, just like your muscle would. But instead of the cardiovascular system pulling it out, like it does with our metabolite waste system with hydrogen

ions and lactate and all of that, it's our cerebrospinal fluid that actually goes into our brain and removes waste products from our brain. So our brain truly detoxifies while we sleep. And that's one of the most important brain health components that anybody could ever have. Wow. What about where Andy talked about lactate being like the brain food, which caused me to think, you think about what I said about Dr. Rady, where exercise caused people to be smarter, and the hippocampus especially. But what are your thoughts there with lactate being a more efficient fuel for the brain than even glucose. Sorry.

Right. So lactate is definitely a fuel source for the brain. It's also a fuel source for the heart. And you'll actually see this in diabetics, that diabetics, they'll actually have, if you have a real problem with glucose control, your body will have an increase in lactate dehydrogenase, which is an enzyme that helps you produce more lactate to supply more readily available fuel to important organs. So lactate has absolutely been demonstrated as an excellent fuel source for organs. But beyond

its true mechanistic pathways, I wouldn't really be able to explain at a, at a granular level. Right. Go back to referencing the walks again. Like there's many things happening during a walk. There's like the actual movement itself and the circulation and whatever else. And then there's like the being outside component. There's,

I'm assuming they're outside going with the walk. Yeah. There's the kind of the peace of mind component where you're, you're not entertaining yourself or distracted by anything. It's quiet. You have time, you know, just time with your own thoughts, so to speak. You know, there's no pressure on you to get anything done in that time. It's like there's the relaxation component to it.

Like certainly there's many factors here and one, it might not be one single thing versus the combination of factors. But what do you think are, what's like the main thing there? Like if there's, as an example, like the peace of mind component, if you go for a 40 minute walk and you're just like relaxed for 40 minutes versus like sitting and meditating outside for 40 minutes, like is that roughly the same as far as brain health goes?

Or is like the walking component, really the movement side of it, really that critical versus maybe going for a 40 minute jog? Is a 40 minute jog even that much better because there's more movement compared to walking? What are all the distinctions there, do you think? I think that that would come largely down to the health and fitness of that existent person. I think that if somebody was already lean and fit, then meditation would likely have a very similar value to walking. I also know a lot of people who don't like to meditate and was said would rather walk

and would rather just keep moving. I am one of those people as well. I find like meditation. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Yeah. So all of us then. Yeah. I find movement meditation to be a lot more relaxing for me. If I am absolutely in a meditative state when I'm walking my dog, Lucy, I think that that's a very, very huge component to it. A big part of this simply just comes down to doing what you need to do in order to reduce stress. There's something known as the cortisol to DHEA ratio, which plays a huge role in brain health. Basically, on one end of the spectrum, you have DHEA. And DHEA is a precursor to many things, androstenedione, androstenediol, testosterone, estrone, estradiol, estriol. It's a precursor to all of these things. But on the other end of the

spectrum here, we do have cortisol. And in states of higher stress, we can produce excess cortisol in relation to how much DHEA we produce. That's really important to care about because research has demonstrated that excess cortisol creates oxidative damage to the hippocampus. So we can actually quite literally in a mechanistic way, impact our memory consolidation and memory storage through excess cortisol, damaging through oxidative stress, the hippocampus. DHEA is protective against that. So when we're making less cortisol, then we're allowing more DHEA to be present in order to protect our hippocampus from the damaging effects of stress. So that's absolutely huge. So comparing meditation versus walking, I think, first and foremost, what you need to do to reduce stress is more important

than the exact vehicle in which you choose to do it. But I would suspect that you would probably get a greater health response from walking if you're currently over 20% body fat as a male, or over 30% body fat as a female, the further you are away from optimal leanness would likely infer a greater benefit towards active meditation rather than seated meditation. But once you are lean, I think that it would really just be a vehicle towards what is going to allow you to reduce stress and improve the cortisol to DHEA ratio in your body. Yeah. You're just mentioning being lean. How does being lean versus being overweight play into this as a single factor?

Sorry, Anders. Are you good? No, he said, sorry, Anders, because you're overweight. That's why he said that. If Anders is overweight, because you're overweight. For those who don't know, we have an internal fitness challenge, so to speak, within the company right now. So Anders and Dan have been talking endless shit to each other. So yeah, it's more of that. The amount of crap being spoken back and forth between Dan and I makes me think nobody else is even doing it.

I'm just speaking the truth. I'm not trying to talk crap. We have a 20-pound difference come cut time starting right now. Dan, 207. Anders, 187. I don't think I would talk shit to Anders about fitness. I think he might get you, Dan, on this one. Anders? Yeah. fitness. I think he might get you, Dan, on this one. Andrews?

Yeah. That dude is Mr. CrossFit. Once I saw him whip into makeup, I saw him whip some ass in fitness. I'm not talking shit to Andrews about anything fitness-related. Talking a little bit more about the performance.

If you want a max squat yeah then we'll we'll do that like individual an individual event we just got to play the game long enough until everybody else falls off okay i'm so curious i don't even know the the question anymore you want to talk about brain health this is how you mess with dance tell him i'm gonna beat him hey chavis this is a leanness contest it's not a fitness contest yes oh see we're gonna get the most ripped you got how you gonna measure before and afters that's it are we doing decks though what are you doing it's gonna be clear there's a part in like pumping iron two or three one of the one of them that i've watched and i interviewed the judge at the end of mr olympia and he goes everybody's world class

until you put them side by side and then the winner is just so obvious so there isn't even a competition yeah that's what i'm gonna look like all right back to the show completely derailed how do we unwind dan's brain fog at this point yeah lean versus not so lean how does that play into brain health oh right right right um well a huge part of it is people so insulin resistance has actually been associated in literature literature to brain shrinkage. So that all by itself is something huge. And insulin resistance, number one correlate is body fat percentage and body fat percentage. When you have elevated body fat percentage that creates inflammation, inflammation creates

oxidative damage to the brain, not just to other your joints. It doesn't just make your elbow hurt. That creates system- wide oxidative damage, things like IL-6, things like that are downstream, like for example, cortisol, like serum, serum cortisol is higher in those who are overweight. Serum cortisol, not even free cortisol via salivary measures, serum cortisol, just mourning in the blood is associated with Alzheimer's. So the fact that you can drive all of these correlates towards blood flow to the brain, brain trinkets, inflammation, stress hormones, these are all things that in combination, absolutely result in a less effective approach towards brain health,

if true brain health is something that you want to have long term weight loss alone is going to correct many many many things metabolically which in turn improve health systemically mind and body yeah go ahead doug yeah sorry about that question gonna cut you out twice in a row here. Yeah, go ahead. Uh, yo regarding stress in general, like we, I mentioned with the walks, like there's the relaxation, meditation, blah, blah, blah. Uh, what, what does stress reduction have, uh, to do with this? Like you mentioned the cortisol to DHEA ratio, uh, you know, just simply like taking time off and going on vacation or intentionally getting a massage or just, you know, just simply like taking time off and going on vacation or intentionally getting a

massage or just, you know, for some people like working out as a stress reduction, even though it's a stressor in many ways, like how does just eliminating stressors from your life play into long-term brain health? The, the correction of cortisol to DHA ratio. I think that that has an absolutely enormous way to it. I think that it's probably twofold. Like I think the chemical answer to this would be the correction of the cortisol to DHEA ratio so that the reduction of stress reduces cortisol, which reduces oxidative damage that's unique to the hippocampus.

That's absolutely huge. But I also think that your pursuit of the things that reducing the things that stress you out is also going to be the pursuit of you living a much happier and fulfilling life, which is going to play towards many correct decisions towards brain health, much like the martial arts, rewarding pathway of continuing to climb and climb and climb doing something truly for you. I think that the pursuit of reducing stressors means that you've gained a lot of self respect for yourself and that you deserve to live the life that you want to live. And that's just ultimately going to result in far better brain health over the long term. When you're always doing something, when you're always

striving for something new, there's even in the world of martial arts to stay in that analogy, there's many, many, many old grandmasters who are like in their eighties and their nineties, and they're still involved in martial arts to some degree, like that this is this is something that has been around for a very long time, when you're always learning something new, and you're always doing something for you, you're correcting the cortisol DHEA pathway as kind of a byproduct of being the person that you're supposed to be. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about kind of like chronic alcohol use and its impact on the brain? And I'm kind of thinking not even so much along the lines of like binge drinking, which obviously is like just bashing yourself over the head with pouring gasoline down your throat and it just crushes your body.

But like the the very low level, like tapping the nail every night or just having like one to three drinks casually, you know, multiple nights a week. What is what does that impact over time to your brain from alcohol? Sure. So again, fatty liver has been linked to brain shrinkage as well. So fatty liver is something that can over time tapping the nail 111 over the course of 1020 years, people do that as just one to three drinks, what's the big deal? That is something that actually ends up tapping the nail slowly, slowly, slowly until it's fully in. And it ends up creating a major stressor to physiology. So fatty liver is already associated to brain shrinkage as well. That I believe we've talked about on a previous episode, the UK,

the UK biobank, they came out with a study associating just alcohol, not even fatty liver, to brain shrinkage, even at one drink, even just that one drink, there was no like, low threshold, it was just that one drink was resulting or creating a type of brain shrinkage in people. And alcohol is also something that creates intestinal permeability. So it's been demonstrated in the past that just three shots of vodka can create intestinal permeability, which allows lipopolysaccharides, which is an inflammatory bacteria to reach into blood circulation. Lipopolysaccharides actually suppress something known as BDNF, which is brain derived neurotrophic factor, that is supportive of neuronal growth in the brain, neuronal growth and neuronal repair.

It's something to be aware of, for example, in post concussion. But when somebody has alcohol, which creates the intestinal permeability, which allows lipopolysaccharides to seek into circulation, and those lipopolysaccharides suppress BDNF. Well, then that's going to contribute to brain issues as well. So on top of the liver issue, on top of the brain direct issue via shrinkage, on top of the suppression of brain derived neurotrophic factor, you're also doing a lot of other things that are just non-optimal for brain health, such as likely dehydration, likely terrible sleep, terrible sleep, right? Terrible sleep, likely depletion of micronutrients among many many other things like alcohol alcohol is one of those things that's um it's certainly a social lubricant and allows you to um have fun with your bros or whatever it's

going to be but it's one of those things that is has like no positive to it so it's certainly a decision that you make, like, yeah, I'm gonna have some fun tonight and that's the decision I'm gonna own. But the lie that people tell to themselves about how it helps them sleep is a complete opposite. It reduces REM sleep and makes your sleep quality worse or that you're using it.

Here's the thing with alcohol too, and to tie into Doug's question revolving around stress, like alcohol, when you talk about or when people talk to you about alcohol and they're in it, right, they're having it every single day. One of the reasons you have alcohol every single day is because you're stressed out, right? You're stressed as a parent, or you're stressed in a relationship, or you're stressed out from work is super common. So the way in which to take the edge off or to reduce stress is to have a drink each and every single night, right? Alcohol is a stressor. It's not a de-stress. So you're actually adding a stressor on top of your stressed out lifestyle. It's something that is, it's going to take more from you than give back because now,

if you have alcohol tonight, it's probably going to take more from you than give back because now if you have alcohol tonight, it's probably going to take away your ability to do a morning walk tomorrow morning or take away your ability to work out before work. It's probably certainly going to reduce your sleep quality, which is going to give you a shorter temper with your loved ones around you. It's going to reduce your testosterone over time through alcohol itself, but then also through reduced sleep. A lot of people forget testosterone was actually originally prescribed as an antidepressant. And so you're going to lower something that is very good mood altering mood altering capabilities. So alcohol, it seems so often as this de-stressor, but it's absolutely just adding another stressor,

which is delaying you facing the things that you really need to face in order to actually reduce your total stress load in your life. Yeah. I always, uh, kind of the, the thing with alcohol that's so interesting to me is once I decided to start my taking my life seriously, that was like the first thing that I realized needed to go. Yeah. Like it was, it was number one. It was without a doubt. The most important first step was to wake up feeling good every day. And if you have like just two drinks and you're just like a person that goes to the bar to meet your friends, you do not wake up feeling good. You might, it might be how you wake up every day. So it feels

normal, but it's not good. And it kills your energy. It kills your ability to function. Like, you know, the number of people that I talk to on a daily basis that have like brain fog, and they also have a bottle of wine each night. It's like, I wonder where all that's coming from. I wonder how that all fits together. And it's, it's, yeah, it starts with dinner each night. And dude, then in terms of like reducing anxiety, like alcohol in a big way, a lot of people take it to reduce stress or reduce anxiety, right? Alcohol in the short term does reduce anxiety. It does increase serotonin.

It does help you reduce anxiety dramatically. But alcohol actually through the back door depletes your own body's ability to make serotonin. So what happens is alcohol in and of itself early in your relationship with alcohol reduces anxiety because it's increasing serotonin. But as you consistently drink alcohol, it actually depletes your own endogenous production of serotonin because the body is the ultimate efficiency machine. Why is it going to make something if it knows it's going to come in

from an exogenous source? It simply won't. So alcohol actually depletes your brain's own ability to make serotonin, which makes you even more susceptible to feelings of anxiety in the absence of alcohol, which creates a dependence on alcohol. So alcohol in the beginning reduces anxiety, but then it reduced your own endogenous production of the chemicals that help you deal with anxiety naturally on your own. That creates a dependency with alcohol, but then alcohol is also dose dependent. So over time, we end up increasing the dose that we require in order to still get the anti-anxiety feelings. And that's when you run into things like fatty liver, reduced testosterone, reduced sleep.

It's all one cycle of things that ends up impacting your entire life. Yeah. Beautiful. I was going to say, what about like, you know, as we get older, continuing to read or sometimes you'll see these like, you know, brain games or whatever. Is there any, do those, you know, like, does have anything to do with keeping the brain, you know, and the, you know, the nerves continuing to, you know, grow, continue to be strong? I know they absolutely do, but I wouldn't be able to explain the mechanism behind them. Much of my research has been involved in athletic performance, general health, and post-concussion. But I am aware,

actually, that actually one of the greatest things that you can do to keep your brain healthy as you age is learn an instrument. I saw an absolutely fascinating study, and that's what actually was a conclusion of it, is that learning an instrument is one of the absolute best things that you can do to maintain skill acquisition and brain health because you are doing something new physically and neurologically you're also learning something at the same time and it's also activating creative pathways in your brain so between logical skill acquisition acquisition creative um uh creative structure and pathways towards goal setting and creating something on your own and doing something new. It was extremely, extremely beneficial. It checked so many boxes all at the same time, just starting the instrument that you wanted to learn that you

told yourself you were going to learn over the past 20 years that you just never did. I wonder with Dr. Rainey talking about, you know, doing the martial arts or something, you know, something that wasn't just, you know, if you go to the gym and you do machines, you don't have to do a lot of thinking. But like when you do martial arts, jujitsu, for example, you know, there's a lot of thinking involved. I wonder if it's the same pathways, you know, as learning like an instrument. Both are brand new. Both, you know, is using multiple, you know, parts of like, you know of touch, taste, all the different feelings, thoughts. Yeah, probably better because you're – I was going to say it's probably better because there's a life and death scenario that your body is kind of adapting to.

It needs to adapt quicker when you're getting choked out. It's my understanding that it's the newness. It's not the challenging aspect of it. It's the newness aspect of it that seems to be the most beneficial for brain health. Like if you have a, like we have our active day-to-day jobs, like it might be very challenging the work you do,

but if it's not actually learning something that's truly new ground for you, then it's not quite as beneficial as if you're learning, say, like Dan mentioned, a new instrument or a new, I always hear a new language is one of the things that's like, it's tough to learn a new language. Like there's a lot that goes into learning a new language and it's hard to do. It takes a lot of work to actually become proficient. It's the newness of it that really helps with the maintenance of brain health long-term.

Who did we interview recently that was really talking about this? Tommy Wood. It was Tommy, that's right. It was fantastic. We did a whole episode. It was really fantastic. We took a deep dive. I think there was like six main things they found.

One was language, training, social interactions, obviously fitness. There was like six pieces of it that him, Galpin was on that show as well. So you can scroll back. I want to say it's probably two months ago that we had him on or late 2022. Nutrition on that list? Nutrition was on there, but it was the skill acquisition piece.

I remember that was like the most important piece. So I shouldn't say most important, but it was what they specifically studied in that the acquisition of skills and what skills lend itself to keeping your brain as up to date and constantly learning so that there isn't that slow, just basically atrophy of brain and language was language was a big one. Uh, and then kind of the music one that you talked about was, was also something that they, that they discussed, which was very cool. So basically what we need to be doing is lifting weights and in between sets, learning how to play the drums while we talk to people in different languages. And now that's the recipe for success.

Beautiful. Yeah. We actually got to the end of that show and we realized that we, we talk about so much stuff and it was fantastic, but we, we hadn't even gone into the nutrition piece of it. And so we really need to do a part two with Tommy to talk over nutrition. What about asking the genius here? Like, Dan, what is the best for nutrition? Yeah, I actually, um, I actually, I wrote or edited an email that you wrote where there was a, I think you wrote an article for XPT about specific foods that are very beneficial for health. And if I remember correctly, blueberries were one of them. So that's why I take as many as I can into my hand and then slam them all into my face at once. Yes. Yeah. Blueberries and basically like things that are blue or purple. So when you're

a grape or you're a blueberry, you're in the sun with a very thin, thin skin. And the way in which you can protect yourself from the sun is to produce your own antioxidants to protect against that. So not like a banana banana doesn't have the actual banana itself is not dark at all, because it didn't need to produce the same type of antioxidants because it has such a thin I mean, such a thick peel around it. Whereas grapes and blueberries, these are things very high in anthocyanins, which are produced in response to direct sunlight nonstop and having a thin skin. Anthocyanins have been demonstrated to reduce oxidative damage within the brain, but also even improve things like memory and even brain performance.

It's something that I use with my athletes actually quite frequently. But also kind of through the back door, blueberries contain vitamin E. And vitamin E is a lot more beneficial in nature than it is in supplementation form, because nature actually has eight different vitamin E's. There's eight, vitamin E is actually a family, there's eight different vitamin E's. Whereas in supplement form, you're typically only getting the alpha or gamma versions. Now those have been demonstrated to create the most effects in physiology, but nature tends to always find a way to know better than us about what should be in certain things and what shouldn't. And vitamin E in nature's form, it's actually very, very good for the brain because there's two actually heavy metals, copper and iron. When they are in excess in our diet, they actually create oxidative damage within the brain. They're one of those things where a small amount is absolutely fantastic, like a U-shaped curve.

A small amount, a too small amount is not good, but the perfect amount is excellent. But then as you get too much copper and iron, it actually becomes a pro-oxidant and creates inflammation that is connected to Alzheimer's. Vitamin E is a fire extinguisher that helps us neutralize that inflammation and oxidative damage. So on top of the blueberries being a vehicle for anthocyanins, it's also a vehicle for vitamin E, which aids in the health of the brain as well. In terms of other nutritional therapies towards aiding in brain health, the Chicago, there was a Chicago Health and Aging Project. And they basically took thousands of people,

followed them, tracked their diet and identified when they were, or when or if that was going to take place with dementia or which populations develop dementia. And what they found was diets higher, kind of unsurprisingly, diets higher in saturated fat and trans fats, actually increased your risk for Alzheimer's way, way more than diets lower in trans fats, in saturated fats. And then that by itself kind of kicked off a lot of people just purely trying to isolate saturated fats and trans fats to Alzheimer's.

So then researchers in Finland, they actually repeated the study and found the exact same thing. And then they repeated the study again, utilizing an actual gene. So there's something known as an ApoE gene that's becoming pretty popular in conversations these days. ApoE gene, it's a gene that increases your risk for the development of Alzheimer's over time. If you get the ApoE gene from one parent, it triples your risk for Alzheimer's. If you get the ApoE gene from both parents, it creates a 15x risk of your development of Alzheimer's in your life. Now, why I'm bringing that into this equation here is the researchers in Finland,

they not only repeated the Chicago study, but they demonstrated that even if you have the ApoE gene, a diet lower in saturated fats and trans fats was still dramatically reducing your risk compared to the diet higher in saturated fat and trans fats. So even when they adjusted for and corrected for the gene that is directly associated with increasing your risk for Alzheimer's diets, higher in saturated fats and trans fats still increase your risk, regardless of gene status. So basically, what was found in that study is that basically genes aren't destiny. They are your current gene set. And there's nothing you can do about it because you can't change your parents. But the actions you take today determine whether or not those genes actually get turned on or not. So cleaning up the diet and doing the right things

with your nutrition and supplementation, even if you have those genes, it's not a destiny. You can do a lot to prevent issues from taking place and improve your overall brain health. What about healthy fats? Aren't they supposedly good for the brain? And why is that? Yeah. No, our brain is made of 60%. Our 60% of our brain is fat. So much like when you are breaking down a muscle in the gym, in order to create a stress response to build up, you want protein to support that muscle tissue. If you have a lot of energy expenditure happening within the brain, and by the way, it's one of the most energy expensive organs in our entire body, it determines a lot of our metabolic rate, you're going to create waste products that yes, get removed from the cerebrospinal

fluid while we sleep. But we also need to supply the things that actually support what the brain is to begin with, which is an array of healthy fats, which is why eating from the sea has been demonstrated to be good for brain health so many times. That's actually in the XPT article that I wrote Anders was wild salmon. Wild salmon is one of the brain health in one of the healthiest brain foods that you could ever have with respect to healthy fats, but also omega three content and what that does for the neuronal connections and communication efficiency in the brain. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Gotcha. Hey, man, I want to let you talk about this concussion protocol

you just put together with O'Malley and where people can find it. Cause I think, hey, Rogan's giving you the shout out of doing something. Just, I feel like I get used to you being Dan Garner and things like this happening in our lives. But this is a really special stuff and kind of the first of its kind. So I'd love to kind of turn it over of just where did it come from? What can people expect? And then where can people find it? I appreciate that, man. Yeah. So like I kind of said to Travis, much of my research in this world has revolved around the concussion area of things and the athletic performance area because that's really where I built a name for myself and UFC has been my favorite sport or MMA has been my

favorite sport UFC the best vehicle to watch it has been the it's been 20 plus years where that's been like my absolute favorite thing to watch and then through like manifestation a lot of attraction I ended up working with tons of UFC fighters. So I've worked with a lot of UFC fighters, easily over 20, probably over 30 at this point in time. And on a one-on-one basis. And I always want to find a way to help my people the most. And one thing I found in nutrition was a lot of nutritionists, they get, they're very,

very wrapped up in purely the muscle cell. How can I provide electrolytes for the muscle? How can I hydrate the muscle? How can I provide amino acids and glucose to the muscle? What can I do to perform and it was always very muscle specific. But these fighters were so conscious of their brain health as well. And then also at the end of the day, you know, what tells the muscles what to do? It's your brain performance, brain performance is as important as muscular performance, because it's your brain that's telling your muscles what to do. Like you take two fighters and of equal ability, but one's in the zone that day and the other is not. Well, I can tell you who's going to be the hammer and who's going to

be the nail that your mind state and your brain performance is absolutely huge. So a way in which I was able to differentiate myself from other nutrition coaches was to emphasize brain performance. And then now emphasizing brain recovery is just the next level of that. There's enough research now on the world of post concussion, what we can do. And I basically break it up into three phases, immediately post fight within the 14 days post fight, and then within 30 days post-fight. So it's basically on fight day, and then two weeks after the fight, and then up to day 30. That's phase one, two, and three. Phase one's damage control.

We're immediately going to reverse things that happened in the fight. Phase two is the overall repair process. And then phase three is actually brain resilience. You can do certain things in order to create a more resilient brain towards trauma in the future. So I've included all of this into that manual. It's the exact protocol that I give my professional athletes who pay a lot to work with me. It's the exact same formula, and it's accessible for people on Amazon and Kindle. One of the number one questions I get is accessible for people on Amazon and Kindle.

One of the number one questions I get is, I don't have a Kindle. How can I get this? You don't have to have a physical Kindle. A Kindle is a free app. So you can download the free app on your desktop. You can download it on your phone. It's a free app. You don't have to have the physical thing.

So you just go to Amazon Kindle, you download it there and then have it on your app and you're going to have the exact protocol for brain repair brain recovery and brain resilience moving forward for i'm getting that today awesome is that something um is that something that uh for call it the high school soccer player that goes up for a header and bangs head with the with the opponent and goes down um is that is that the same as coming out of a fight can that can this be used by them dude i recommend it for basically everybody and i know that sounds very self-serving but i mean it um probably all four of us on this podcast have suffered a concussion in the past or

many of them um but a concussion is a concussion. If you're in soccer, if you're in football, if you're in hockey, if you're in MMA, like it doesn't matter who you are or where you're at. I think that it's very beneficial to have this and don't wait for a concussion to get it because then you're still going to have to order supplements. You're still going to have to go to the grocery store and get the foods. And I include the foods, the exercise, the supplements. It's a full protocol design. So don't wait to get it. You want to be prepared if anything like that ever happens, because it's your brain.

It's awesome, man. And where can people find it again? Go to Amazon. It's available worldwide. So whatever your country's Amazon is, and then type in the brain synergy protocol in Amazon and you will find it. It's written by myself and my fighter Sean O'Malley. There it

is. Sugar Sean. Yes soon to be number one in the world. Current number one in the world but doesn't have the belt yet. Soon to be the new on him. We're actually currently kicking off a bit of a camp here in case someone pulls out of the Henry Aljo fight in nine weeks.

There's a good chance. I see. I feel like someone pulls out every single match. It's like, we're going to be ready. Never what's planned. Yeah. I'm going to be ready.

Where can people find you, Dan? You can find me at Dan Garner nutrition on Instagram. You can also find the brain synergy protocol through the link in my bio on instagram there you go beautiful travis mash mashley.com but i'm gonna go to dan's bio right now and buy that yeah there it is you gotta click you gotta click i like that doug larson bet on instagram douglas e larson i'm anders varner at anders varner we are barbell shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged.

You can also get over to Rapid Health Report on Instagram to follow us there. And then, of course, head over to RapidHealthReport.com. That is where Dan and Dr. Andy Galpin are breaking down lifestyle performance and lab analysis for one of our clients inside Rapid Health Optimization. So you can see them doing their magic. That's over at RapidHehealthreport.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.