Dhru Purohit Show - Brand New Research on The Radical Benefits of Walking for Lowering Cholesterol, Body Fat, and Glucose, and Improving Your Mental Clarity with Greg Mushen

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

This episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers, Cozy Earth, and Fatty15. While the “10,000 steps a day” idea came from a marketing company in Japan, that doesn’t mean walking itself is a gimmick. Today’s guest shares why he is so passionate about walking and the research that supports this accessible habit, one that can be incorporated into most people’s lives and lead to significant results and shifts in their health and wellness journey. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Greg Mushen to explore the profound benefits of walking as a fundamental aspect of health and wellness. Greg shares how walking can be more effective than medications for managing blood sugar. He explains why maintaining a high step count supports weight loss and mood regulation, and highlights the critical role walking plays in cardiovascular health. He also emphasizes the importance of fiber and potassium in the diet, the influence of genetics on health, and the benefits of personal experimentation in achieving optimal outcomes. The conversation reveals why walking, one of the most low-cost and accessible habits, could be the missing link to better health and why you’ll want to hear the data for yourself. Greg Mushen is a health researcher, writer, and systems thinker with a long career in the tech industry. After years of building and scaling technology products, he turned his focus to one of medicine’s biggest puzzles: why subsistence populations largely avoid chronic disease. His approach combines anthropology with modern science, connecting lipid kinetics, gut microbiome ecology, and evolutionary biology into a systems-level understanding of human health. A lifelong builder, whether in startups, overland rigs, or new health frameworks, Greg now approaches human healthspan as the ultimate engineering problem: resilience, adaptability, and longevity. In this episode, Dhru and Greg dive into:  The importance of doubling down on walking (1:10) Greg’s physical transformation through walking (9:31) Combining walking with resistance training (20:26) The link between lipid clearance, fat oxidation, and walking (26:25) Incorporating regular movement into daily life (27:45) Key comparisons between walking and running (34:08) Developing an elite VO₂ max (37:47) Vascular stiffening and endoPAT testing (41:47) Why fiber intake matters and how Greg increases intake (44:45) The role of genetics in cardiovascular health (58:43) The importance of potassium in the diet (1:08:15) Lessons from subsistence populations on chronic disease (1:14:02) Final thoughts and key takeaways (1:15:12) Also mentioned in this episode: Study on the Association of Daily Step Count and Step Intensity With Mortality Among US Adults Study on Postmeal Exercise Blunts Postprandial Glucose Excursions In People On Metformin Monotherapy Try This: 5 Things I Changed After Getting Genetic Testing Greg’s Chili Recipe For more on Greg, follow him on X/Twitter, Instagram, Threads, and Substack. This episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers, Cozy Earth, and Fatty15. Go to bioptimizers.com/dhru now and enter promo code DHRU to get 30% off any order of Magenesium Breakthrough and find out this month’s gift with purchase. Right now, get 20% off your Cozy Earth sheets and sleepwear. Just head over to cozyearth.com/dhru and use code DHRUP. Fatty15 is offering an additional 15% off its 90-day subscription Starter Kit. Go to fatty15.com/dhru and use code DHRU to replenish your C15 levels for long-term health. Sign up for Dhru’s Try This Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Greg, a pleasure to have you here. As I mentioned, I'm a huge fan of your tweets and your approach to health and wellness. And one of the reasons that I've asked you on the podcast is that over the last few years, I've had so many well-intentioned individuals come on my podcast and tell my audience about how walking isn't enough. And in particular, they're talking about the importance of strength training and sprinting, things that you would agree with as you've gone through your own body transformation. But the unintended consequence that's happened is that I've heard from so many of my community members and they're walking a lot less than they used to be walking. Now, I get it.

We only have so many hours in a day, so many hours in a week, and we're trying to prioritize it all. And for a lot of my core demographic, that's primarily women above the age of 40, they're taking care of kids. They're taking care of parents. So I totally get it. But I thought being a huge fan of your work, it'd be great. to have you come on the podcast and talk about why you are talking about the importance of doubling down on walking and all the different areas of the body that it can improve. I have been a really big fan of walking. I noticed the impacts that I was having on my body

and on my blood work a couple years ago when I was doing a transformation. But what really kicked my interest in it was trying to understand why these subsistence populations aren't getting the same diseases that we do. And so I got really interested in going into like all the aspects of their lifestyle. And one thing that I noticed that was incredibly consistent was how much they all walked. Even if you look at, you know, populations like the Amish in the United States, they are walking, you know, 18,000 steps. They have a lot less incidence of heart disease. They have a lot less incidence rates of hypertension, and then a lot fewer incidence rates of type 2 diabetes. And this is despite, you know, eating a diet that we wouldn't necessarily consider optimal.

You know, they're having one or two servings of cake or baked goods per day. It's like one and a half servings of vegetables per day. Their diet's very high in saturated fat. But despite that, they have a lot of better outcomes. So that's what really got me interested in it. And about a month and a half ago, I really started to try to understand why and going into all the mechanisms that in the body

that would account for that. And what I found was that I personally think that it could be difficult to replace walking. Now, one area where I would agree is, you know, I don't think walking is enough. I do think that you should resistance train. I do think that you should, you know, do some higher intensity, you know, aerobic effort. But I do also think that there are a few substitutes for that walking base.

And we can go into a couple of reasons why. But, you know, probably one of the biggest things is lipid clearance. So, you know, when we walk, we're going to clear the things, you know, that we ate. One of those things is glucose. and so one of my favorite studies was the study that they did on type 2 diabetics and they were comparing what happens if you go for

a walk after a meal versus metformin versus both and what was so interesting to me about that study is walking alone outperformed metformin alone in type 2 diabetics so they were doing a 50 minute walk in this case after they ate

and that 50 minute walk resulted in, you know, less glucose, they call it area under the curve, than metformin alone. So that is just incredibly, you know, powerful, I think. But it's not just glucose. It's actually lipids as well. And so when we walk, it's going to activate things like our LDLR, which is a receptor that will clear our lipids. So that is kind of one area where it's a little bit difficult to substitute higher intensity just because it's activated more on frequency than it is intensity. So if you went out and did a whole bunch of high intensity,

it would probably be better in that case to do a little bit lower intensity through the day. So the other thing that it is really good at is our endothelial health and our arterial stiffness. As early as like 2011, the general consensus was that there's no way to avoid our arteries getting stiffer as we aged. I found these 2011 guidance. And right in there in the first paragraph, they said that it's kind of an inevitable part of aging. and when you get stiff arteries, there are all sorts of diseases that can occur from that being the case.

Over the years, though, they've started to notice this new phenotype and they call it supernova. And so it's these people that have seemed to avoid this arterial stiffness. And in this big, it was in the Framingham study

where they identified it in a population, but about 20% of the population, population was the supernova phenotype. But I think that was released in 2021 and still didn't really know why. This year, they actually did a study on the Tismane and their subsistence population that live in South America. And what they found was that the Tizmone actually have the same arterial stiffness as an ultramarathon runner. And so it's identical. It's 6.5, which is very, very, very low.

The Tizmone also have the lowest is called coronary arterial calcium. So it's a measure of how much calcium is in your arteries, basically. And they also have the lowest coronary arterial calcium ever recorded in a population. It was zero at 40, even going up to 50. 50 was like eight, but they have virtually no heart disease. And I think there are two reasons for that. On average, they take about 18,000 steps per day. They live in this kind of hilly jungle area.

So all day, every day for years, they're just going through the jungle, they're walking. Their diet is very, very low in saturated fat. They get a lot of fiber. and in this paper it was the first time that scientists had really kind of attributed reason to why they might be that supernova phenotype and those are the things that they mentioned

so I think it's really interesting that you can get you know very low coronary artery scores have basically the arterial stiffness of an ultramarathoner and have virtually no heart disease. And I think it just comes from a lot of movement every single day. You also see very high VO2 maxes in the Tizmone.

And so I believe in a direct measurement, it was in the high 60s, which is incredible. It's very high. Yeah, it's very, very high. they are a little bit shorter stature. There were some, to be fair, there were some issues with this study. They didn't do a VO2 max test to exhaustion. So it has a little bit of error. It's probably between 8 and 13% error possibility.

But they did it on over 100 people. So that median is probably not too far off. in that high 60s. And even if you shave off 10%, that's still incredible. Super fascinating. And we're going to pull on all those threads here in this conversation. But I want to add in some context for our audience who's listening that the reason that you even got excited about walking in the first place was none of those things. It was actually to support fat burning and fat loss at the age of 47.

You ran into a friend at a party or something like that. And this friend literally came up to you and said, do you want to get in the best shape of your life? And you said absolutely yes. And you went on a journey together. They became a coach for you and helped you dial in your program, resistance training, increasing your protein and a bunch of other things. And one of those things were, your friend mentioned to you, try to shoot for a certain amount of steps every day because it will help with the fat loss part of your program. Is that accurate? Yeah, that's accurate. I went to my friend's birthday party. He was turning 57 at a time at the time. And he's just like been someone to really look

up to for health because he's about 10 years older than me. And he's in such incredible shape. So I've always admired him. And my friend John came up and literally asked that question, hey, do you want to get, do you want to get ripped in his words? I'm like, yes, I absolutely do. So he was, he became my coach. And one of the things that he recommended was steps. he had initially suggested 12,000 steps and I just asked him, would there be benefit to me getting around 17, would that be better? He's like, oh, yes, absolutely. If you could get 17,000 steps, that would be a lot better for you.

So I basically just did everything that he said. He helped me get my diet dialed in, got into a slight chlorite deficit, and then just started walking 17,000 steps every day. and I was I was really blown away at the results because what I noticed was the combination of those two I could literally see my body composition changing by the day and there's one thing that is exceptional about walking is that if you go for

let's say an eight or nine mile run you may not be able to do that every day but if you're walking 17,000 steps that has pretty low fatigue and that is something that you can do every day. So I was just noticing day by day changes in my body. I remember, I think, like, 11 days in, the abs were starting to poke through. And I was like, this is just absolutely incredible.

But I also couldn't believe how great it made me feel. Just being out there in the sun, you know, getting all these steps in. I would walk by people's houses because I took a lot of the, walks in the evening, you know, after dinner. And in Seattle, the summers are just absolutely beautiful. The weather in the evenings is perfect. And I remember looking inside people's houses, and I would see them, you know, in there watching TV. And I just remember thinking to myself, I'm so glad that I'm out here doing this. I would much rather be out here in this beautiful weather, you know, walking, changing my body than, you know, being inside watching TV.

You're talking about some of the results. I know you obviously were doing a few things at the same time. You were increasing your protein, your resistance training. You know, you're probably getting a little bit stricter about your diet and what you're consuming. I don't know if that point in time you had started increasing your fiber, but what were some of the results that you feel you can attribute, at least in some part, to the massive increase in steps that you started taking. You know what's kind of funny?

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chemicals, and is designed for comfort. No wonder Oprah has named Cozy Earth her favorite things five times in the past. If your fall routine could use a little more comfort, this is your sign. Right now, my listeners get 20% off sitewide at cozyearth.com slash drew with the code Drew P. That's cozy earth.com slash drew, D-H-R-U with the code D-H-R-UP. And if you get a post-purch survey, make sure to let them know you heard about cozy earth on this podcast. Yeah. So it was a substantial reduction in body fat. I think I started, you know, around 15, 16%, you know, and ended to under 10. Really incredible just to basically see,

be able to see abs and the aesthetic changes that it created. But also on the other side, my blood work looked so much better. I think that my natural testosterone was around 840, which at my age at that time, 47, is exceptional. My lipids had looked better than they'd ever looked. and then I also got a Dexa to measure visceral fat and that was the lowest it had ever been. It was I think 342 grams at the time,

which is very, very good. And visceral fat is kind of the fat around our organs and it can be a big contributor to inflammation, hepatic insulin resistance and all sorts of other. things. So yeah, I was seeing the aesthetic changes. I was seeing, you know, the quantitative changes on my blood work. And I was just kind of sold. It was just something that I knew that I wanted to stick with. So just for clarification purposes, if you had to rank these benefits that you got from the list of things that you were doing, you know, would you say number one would be,

you know, you're in a slight caloric deficit. You're not going to be able to lose weight without that, right, aspects. So you're in a slight chloric deficit. You're in a slight chloric deficit. and then what would you rank as the next items that played a role? Obviously, the beauty about walking that I've really learned from you is that it plays into everything that you're doing. All these things build off of each other, increasing your fiber, increasing your walking, doing resistance training. It's not like they live in isolation.

They kind of work together. But if you had to rank them, what would you put after being on a deficit calorically? What was the next thing for you? I would say it's kind of hard to rank two and three, but definitely protein intake and resistance training. you're having enough protein, especially when you're in a deficit, is going to be really important for muscle mass preservation because if you don't have enough amino acids,

your body is going to go start breaking down muscle to generate those amino acids. So protein is incredibly important to preserve that muscle mass so that when you're losing that weight, it's a fat that you're losing and not muscle. And resistance training as well is also absolutely critical. for just maintaining that muscle mass. And then, you know, third or fourth would be, I think, walking behind that.

And it does a lot of things, but one thing that it can do when you're in a deficit is push that deficit, you know, a little further. So, you know, instead of being on a, I think I was at a 300 calorie deficit at the time, you know, if you can burn another 300 to 500 calories just by walking, that's going to push you into deficit even more. And from my experience, it's been a little bit easier to have the deficit come from movement rather than from calories itself. I tried that during my transformation.

And one thing that I noticed was that it was a lot harder to have a steeper caloric deficit than to make that deficit a little smaller and then make up for that with movement. Yeah, it's a nice when there's a balance between the both of them. Another thing that I've seen when I got serious about resistance training and adding in walking when I turned in 40 and then I lost a little bit of it. Then I found your content. I got a little bit more excited and doubled down on walking again. But back when I turned 40 and I thought, okay, I need to stop being a skinny fat Indian and have my genetics that are not working for me with this modern sort of Western lifestyle. Let me combat some of this is that I found that walking.

made me a lot more adherent to my program between its impact on mood and the fact that sometimes we just eat because we're bored. And I didn't notice something, which is that when I would get in regularly 10 to 12,000 steps a day, I just wasn't feeling that urge to want to eat or snack on things that, you know, weren't as beneficial for what I was trying to put inside of my diet. I don't know how to explain that mechanism, but it just made me more adhering and less wanting to dip into some of the behaviors

that I was trying to step away from. Yeah, I noticed the same thing. Yeah, and I'm not sure exactly why that happens, but I noticed a few times if I was hungry and wanting to eat something that I probably shouldn't be eating, if I just went on a walk, it would kind of take that desire away. And I'm not sure exactly why that happens I know that GLP1 and PYYY can be signaled a little bit through movement.

So that may be one reason why I haven't really dug into that. But yeah, I've noticed that as well. And I've noticed a lot of other people say that too. So I think it was a few years ago when Peter Attia came out with his book on longevity that I saw a podcast that he was doing in the Q&A. And he was addressing the whole 10,000 steps phenomenon that's out there, which largely everybody knows came originally from. a pedometer company in Japan and the history around that.

But that still, it's a nice little measure for people to shoot for in the day. When you consider that the average North American is living a borderline sedentary lifestyle, according to the CDC, which is there are around like 4,000 steps. And I think that under 4,000 steps is considered sedentary, is what I've seen based on the data that's out there. But going back to Peter Attia, I remember thinking at the time like, wow, I'm getting in all this walking and I'm also resistance training. And I might have taken his words out of context, but he said something to the degree of like, I'm just not convinced about the benefits of walking in this Q&A for 10,000 steps. It wasn't that he was against it. But I think he was talking very similarly to a clip that I sent to you from a woman that was in my podcast, Dr. Vonda Wright, a few weeks prior to me reaching out to you.

you know, joining the podcast, I think he was saying, like, if we don't get in the resistance training, then walking is not going to make up for anything else. Then on the flip side, you've had people like Volta Longo and some of those individuals that are more adherent to the Blue Zones approach, say, well, look at all these Blue Zones groups that are out there. Look at these modern day hunter gatherer tribes that are there. They're not, you know, in the gym. They're not doing resistance training. And they're just walking. They're walking in hilly areas.

They're just getting a lot of walking on a regular basis. And largely the conclusion that I came to after seeing all of that. And some of your work has helped me with this conclusion is, hey, resistance training and being strong is so important to aging, especially when it comes to frailty. We don't want to be frail. We don't want to break our hip and end up in a position where we never end up walking again, which happens to about, I think, like 60% of women and a little bit less of a

percentage of men above the age of 60, that we dial into the protective benefits of maintaining quality muscle mass. And on top of that, as much as walking as you can get in, and at least shooting to double the sedentary numbers that are out there, if the average person is getting 4,000, if you can at least get in 8,000 to start off, you're going to get all the benefits. components that come into glucose, lipid clearance, which I didn't know about it as much until I started following your work, the mood benefits. And if I throw in a little layer and a little sprinkle of the world of Huberman on there, the benefits of sunlight throughout the day and its ability to modulate your health and your mood. So why not have both of them if you can

at least come up with a strategy of how to regularly get in walking, that doesn't make you feel discouraged or stressed or deprioritize, you know, strength training your life. So that's how I've come to sort of wrap all these things together. What do you think about that? Would you add any layers to that? Would you take away any layers to that? So first of all, I love Peter, love his work. I loved that book that he created. The Outlive was fantastic. I think one area where I would, you know, slightly disagree with him is I do think we have incredible evidence on the benefits of walking. There's a study, and I can send this to you after we're done so you can link it in the show notes.

But it was a large epidemiological study that looked at all-cause mortality and steps to make a correlation between them. Moving from 4,000 steps to 8,000 steps a day was associated with a 51% reduction in all-cause mortality. When you move that up to 12,000, from 8,000 of 12,000, that was a 65% reduction in all-cause mortality. So the other way that you can look at it is on the studies of being sedentary. And if you moved from the top quadrant to the next quadrant down. And so the people in the top quadrant for just being sedentary, you could think of them as like getting almost no movement.

The bottom quadrant was going to be the most movement. but moving from that top quadrant to the next quadrant down was associated with a 49% reduction of risk. And that is just like doing any movement. So I think that we can see it in the walking data. I think that we can see the inverse in the sedentary data. And then we do have, you know, all the results from these subsistence populations

and the blue zones where people, you know, predominantly do walking. The Hadza are really interesting to me because as the women age in that society, they don't see a lot of muscle loss. Their walking speed doesn't go down. Their bone density stays healthy. And this is, I think they're getting, the hodz of women are getting, I think, between 12 and 14,000 steps per day.

But they're also doing a lot of gardening. They dig for tubers. So they're just kind of moving all the time. They're not doing strict resistance training, but they can still, you know, avoid, you know, a lot of bone loss just from all of this low-level movement. That being said, you know, I still think resistance training is incredibly important, especially for women as we age.

Well said. You know, you talked about lipid clearance, and you kind of a little bit touched on that, but fat oxidation. Can you just explain that a little bit to our audience and its connection to walking? When we're doing kind of low-level exercise, we're going to burn a little bit more fat and we're oxidized a little bit more fat than we are glucose. As that intensity increases, you're going to start burning more glucose than you are fat. And this is just fat in our bloodstream. It's not usually the fat that's like subcutaneous or anything. But I think that that can be

incredibly important. So if you go all the way on the other end, do something really intense, like high-intensity interval training, you're going to be burning almost all glucose on that side. So what can be great about walking is the fact that you're

oxidizing mostly fat. And another thing about zone two is that I know that Peter really advocates for. I'm a really big fan too. But in that zone two is going to be where you're going to be burning you know, a little bit more fat than you are glucose. So, you know, folks are listening today

and they're saying, great, another thing that I'm adding on my list and that I'm trying to figure out how to get in. And you've tackled this pretty head-on. And you have a few, you had a pretty viral tweet that was talking about how regular movement, even a few minutes squeezed in every hour or 90 minutes, adds up when we're super consistent about that. Can you, can you you walk us through that approach? Yeah, absolutely. So it can be very difficult to get, you know, even 10,000 steps can seem like a really big challenge moving from 4,000 to 10,000. But I think it's a lot more manageable if you just think about like how to break it up. And so in that post that you were referring to, I was kind of going through the math of what it would be like if you just

try to move for five minutes every hour or 10 minutes every hour. And if you make the conscious effort of even just walking for five minutes per waking hour, that would be 8,000 steps, you know, on top of the other steps that you're taking through the day. So that would probably put most people at around 10 to 12,000 just by moving five minutes of every hour. If you move up to 10, I think that was 12,000 steps or thereabouts. So it can be difficult to think about, you know, moving, taking a two-hour walk per day. I don't think really anyone has, you know, much time for that. But, you know, that's not typically what we see in the subsistence populations.

You know, they're not going out for a two-hour intentional walk. it's very much broken up through the day and just kind of constant movement. So a couple of things that I've done in my life that have really helped is I have a standing desk. That's where I am now. I've got a walking pad underneath.

And so when I'm working or in meetings, I'll just turn that on. That has made a really big difference. I also have a walking pad in my living room. So, you know, for watching a movie or anything like that, I'll be on there sometimes. But it's just kind of incredible.

You know, if you just make some small changes in your habits, the results can be pretty big. Like if you just commit to taking a 10 to 15 minute walk after meals, maybe a 20-minute walk when you get up, a 20-minute walk before you get a bed. and that's going to put you right in the range of where you need to be. So, yeah, I think looking at it as this big number can be very intimidating, but with some very small changes in your habits,

it can be manageable, I think, for most people. Any do's and don'ts for the walking pad? You know, I've gone through a few, some have liked, some I've thought, oh, this is a little too bulky. You have a favorite brand that's out there for walking pad? I think it was called Sparax. it was kind of one of these off brands off of Amazon that I'm buying. I really like that.

But I do think it's important to look for one that's going to have enough stride length for you. Because if it's too short for you, you might feel like you're going to fall off all the time. So I think that's pretty important. And they're relatively inexpensive. I think you can sometimes find them on sale for around $100. And then another thing would just be it can be a lot easy. easier to store it if you're able to move it. And so finding one that's, you're going to be light enough for you to tip on its side by

your desk or something like that. Yeah, they've definitely gotten less bulkier and more inexpensive, which I really appreciate. I got one for my wife and I realized a few years ago, this was during COVID. It was very difficult for her to walk while she was doing work. Like she hadn't, you know, some people like it. Some people have a harder time doing it. So I thought, okay, let's get a walking pad that we keep in our living room, at least, that maybe if we're watching something.

But it was so bulky that it was hard for her to move or reposition that she just wasn't using it as much. And I wasn't using it as much because I do like it in different areas. So then finally she ended up getting one that was super a lot thinner. Again, no affiliation. I don't even know what the brand name is. And that made a huge difference that you can kind of move it a little bit here in there unless if you already have, you know, two, one in your office and one in your living room. So walking pads definitely can be a game changer. You know, talking talking about tweets,

you shared this tweet from a gentleman named Victor showing an extreme version of how somebody could log, I think it was 223 miles in a month, which is on part of somebody who is training for a marathon by simply, you know, massively increasing their steps. Can you describe that a little bit? Fall can be a grind. Shorter days, less sunlight, more demands on your time. If you've been feeling that dip in energy or focus, it might be a time that your cells need a little bit of backup.

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Yeah, I was really fascinating. I'm a big fan of this guy named Victor. He's a bodybuilder. But what I love about him is how disciplined he is and everything that he does is just so inspiring. But one thing that he does is he gets about 15,000 steps every day, day in and day out. And he shared his walking stats for the year.

And he was just like a machine, 15,000 steps every day. I'd also seen the mileage that was logged by a runner on X and how much mileage he was doing it was noticing that they were identical. And so he was in the mode of pairing for a marathon. And so his mileage was probably a little higher than it would have been otherwise. But it was just incredible to me that you could log

roughly the same mileage as somebody training for a marathon just by walking that much every day. and it's not exactly the same because there are going to be some different adaptations. You know, he's probably running six minute miles at least the marathon runner. He's a very, very good runner. So that's going to result in some slightly different adaptations

than just walking alone. The two parts of it are going to be what's called central. And so this is going to be, you know, changes to the amount of blood that you can pump through your heart. things like that. You can think of it as more of the power adaptations. So running will absolutely result in more of those. But there's the other side,

which is more peripheral adaptations. And so this is where you get what's called PGC1 activation. So one of the things that it controls is mitochondrial biogenesis. And so it's going to tell your body to build more mitochondria. it's going to increase nitric oxide in your blood vessels, which is going to make them in your arteries a little bit more supple. And so all those peripheral changes, those are what you're getting and walking.

And I suspect that those peripheral changes are probably a little bit more important to longevity than the central changes. And that's just looking at what we're seeing in these subsistence populations, where they have these supple arteries that are the same as ultramarathon runners where they have very low incidence rates of chronic disease. So, you know, Victor in his 15,000 steps per day,

he was getting, you know, almost all peripheral changes. And, you know, I would love to see that guy's blood work because I bet it's absolutely fantastic. Picking off of that, one of the things that got you, quote, quote, in trouble with some of the marathon runners that are out there is that, you were making the argument that look at all this mileage you're racking up as you mentioned if you're

walking you know consistently getting in 10 12 15000 steps every single day and then look at some of this data that's coming out of these subsistence populations that are there and the argument that I think that got you in trouble with some of these communities and earned you an interesting title which we'll talk about a second is that you were saying that You can develop elite level V-O-2 max, which is one measure of how well, you know, our longevity is heading if it's high or if it's really low, it's a greater predictor of mortality from the literature that's out there. And your argument was you can develop an elite level V-O-2 max simply by being super

consistent with high-volume walking. Is that right? And then tell us what happened after that. Yeah, I think what really got me in trouble was using the... the word elite. And because I think elite to that group that was being critical of what I said fairly, was that, you know, they're coming from a training standpoint. And so when they're thinking about an elite VOTMax,

they're thinking about somebody, you know, who has a VOTU Max in the 70s. You know, so very, very, very, very high. Which would be just for context. For our audience, if they're not familiar, that'd be like Olympic. level, right? Yes. Olympic level. Think about like an Olympic cross-country skier or something like that. So when they heard elite, that's what they were thinking, like, you know, Olympic level of you have two max. Where I was coming from was, you know, elite from a longevity perspective. There is a pretty big drop-off in terms of longevity benefits at some point in time. So if you move

to the top quartile, that's basically associated with about 97%. of the explanation in mortality. Moving, I think, to that top 2% only got you one absolute percentage point more. Getting a much higher doesn't seem to have too much benefit. So that's where I was coming from, from Elite VOTU max. I probably should have, you know,

a retrospect specified that. I think it would have avoided a lot of the arguments. But it did, you know, result in a great new title for me. so I have that going for me. Yeah, and that title, for those that are falling along, that title is Walking Grifter, and that also, I think you embrace this, which I love,

I love that you don't take yourself too seriously on that side, you engage in the dialogue. They call you a walking grifter. If you're listening and you're like, what is a grifter? You know, somebody trying to sell something or marketing something or sign you up for something. So the joke is that you're trying to sign up all these affiliates

because you're convincing everybody to walk more. And then you said people even accused you of being part of Big Walking, that you're being sponsored by Big Walking, which I love that. Those are all great things. We should totally get you the domain name Big Walking and, you know, get some merch out there so you can actually... Oh, that's a great idea. Have some stuff out there.

You know, it's a funny story, and but the beauty that came out of that, and I think the central message that's there for people is that there's going to be a lot of things in your life, at least from the literature that's out there, if you significantly can increase your walking and then... especially as you age, you know, I have some people that are part of my core demographic in my audience that are, you know, listening to this episode and they're, you know, in their 60s, they're in their 70s, and they're thinking about things that they can regularly do for their health, and they might not have the level of agility or movement or other aspects that they might have

had previously in their 40s and 50s. So knowing that there's still so much value that can come from doubling down on your walking is an important reminder for people who feel like, man, I can't do sprints yet. I'm not doing as much resistance training volume. I want to get there. You know, what are the other things that I can do that can still take me in the right direction as I continue to improve my health? So I think that's an important reminder for people. And obviously one of those central reasons that I wanted to have you back on the, that way that I want to have you on the podcast. I want to go into something that you mentioned earlier. which was the vascular stiffening.

Are you familiar with what are the best measures that we have available to us today? If somebody wanted to get a snapshot of where they're, you know, where they stood in terms of their vascular stiffening, what's available for them today that you know of that's out there or what are the best proxies to get a sense of where your vascular stiffening is if you wanted to measure it? Yeah, there is a measurement.

And it's called a CF, gosh, I might get this wrong, but it's basically a pulse wave measurement. And so you can go get it measured. It's what they're using in all of these different tests, but it will measure how stiff your arteries are. And it is available. So it's called pulse. It's a pulse wave technology you're saying? Pulse wave, yeah. Okay.

I'm familiar a little bit with, it's kind of related. to it, there's something called an endopat test. Have you heard of this? No, I haven't. Okay, so an endopat test is a device that looks at your endothelial health, and it's basically an arterial tone test. So it's a non-invasive diagnostic where you basically put this almost looks like a pulse ox meter on your finger. It has to be run by a clinician or a group that's there. The brand name is called endopat. And if you go on their website, they have a bunch of different, you know, they have a map and a directory where you can find out, like, who runs this test.

And it gives you back this report in terms of how stiff or functional your arterior lining is. I had it done. There's a cardiologist that I work with that's in St. Louis, who I've talked about before. He's been in my podcast. His name is Michael Twyman. it's one test that he uses in addition to a bunch of other test to look at your overall heart and arterial health that's there. So I don't have any affiliation with the company, but yeah, it's called endopat, E-N-D-O-P-A-T, and there's a bunch of different people. I think that the test is somewhere sub-300, so it is a little bit of an expense that's there.

But if people were curious, you know, that's one thing that they could check out. And yeah, maybe after the episode, you could tell me a little bit about what you were chatting about. And we can include that as a link or a resource that people could ask. Yeah, I have it right here. So it's called a carative femoral pulse wave velocity is the measurement or CFPWV. I think that's the gold standard, but this endopath sounds incredible. And for that test that you mentioned, do you know, like, can people get that direct to consumer? Do you have to have your clinician order it?

Like, how does that, is it only in research settings? That's what I don't know. We see a lot in research settings, but I'm not sure if that's something that, you know, is standard. You can just go in and measure. Walking plays right hand in hand into all these changes that you were making, right? Resistance training, increasing protein, the protein conversation. So many people have had that conversation. We've had that conversation here on our podcast many times.

And then also along with it, there was this doubling, down on fiber. And you mentioned this earlier as well, and I think it's worth touching on, is that, again, you were looking at a lot of these subsistence populations, like the Chimane, like the Hadsah, and you were seeing that one of the ideas of why they also seem to maybe not have the level of cardiovascular disease that we deal with in the Western world, which is, again, the number one killer around the world, is because of the, you know, the number one killer around the world, is because of, in addition, their activity levels,

it's their fiber levels. And you've been so bold to say that you shoot for a target of 70 to 80 grams of fiber in a day. So did I get that right? And anything you want to add to that? Yeah, you got that exactly right. So we do see a lot of fiber variation

in subsistence populations. You know, on one end, you have the chimane who are getting sometimes upwards of 100 grams per day. They have a diet that's about 70% carbs. A lot of that is tubers. And so they're going to be getting a lot of fermentable fiber from that. On the other end of the spectrum,

you know, yeah, people like the Maasai, and they get very, very little fiber intake. And so they both have exceptional outcomes. But I think that if you look at the differences between, you know, something like the Hadsah or Chimane who get more fiber intake versus, you know, the messiah that don't, you just see a little less cardiovascular disease in those who get a little bit more fiber and have lower saturated fat, lower cack, less fatty streaks. But yeah, I think fiber is incredible.

We have this tendency to think about, you know, fiber just kind of as roughage. And that is going to be the insoluble fiber, you know, typically where it doesn't go in, it doesn't ferment. But the fermentable fiber, you know, what that's going to do is it's going to ferment it down into these short chain fatty acids. And that's the important part. The important part is having enough of those. and if you have enough short-chain fatty acids, you're going to get a really good signaling for H-DAC inhibition. And so H-Dak, one of the things that it controls

is your tight junctions in your gut lining. And so if you inhibit H-Dak, your junctions in your gut lining are going to become more tight. If you do not have a lot of fiber, it's going to go in the opposite direction and your gut junctions will start loosening. One of the reasons why I think that is is because you're still going to need buterate

and what happens in settings of low fiber is the butyrate comes from a mucent from your gut lining that's then fermented instead of getting that from fiber. So H-DAC inhibition is one. Another thing that it will do is it will signal what's called FFAR2 and FFARR 3. And what those do indirectly is they will stimulate the production of

endogenous GLP1 to help with appetite control and then also PYY, which is also for appetite control. So it can also have impacts on insulin sensitivity. So if we don't have a lot of fiber in our diet and we're primarily at that point in time, your microbiome will switch over to fermenting mostly amino acids. When that happens, you can have resulting things like it's called IMP. So that can be something that's produced that has been associated with atherosclerosis and then also insulin resistance.

You can get byproducts like ammonia or another one called P crustal. So in a state of adequate and higher fiber, you're not going to see those toxic metabolites. You're going to have H-DAC inhibited so that your gut junctions are tight. You're going to see more signaling on the ChLP1 and PYYY side. And then also your immunity won't be as overreactual. overactive. So when you kind of remove fiber, I think one of the reasons, um, you know, why this may be the case is that it's kind of signaling to your body that there's not an abundance of food

out there. And so it kind of needs to go into, um, a period where it's preparing for, um, you know, just less food availability. Um, that's kind of my personal opinion. And when that happens, it needs to upregulate, um, our immune systems, it's, going to kind of upregate insulin resistance because you don't know

when you're going to get glucose next increase our hunger so that's kind of like why I think it's happening but I do believe it's meant to be

kind of a temporary state more to get us through like a winter where there's not as much plant material than the default state which it is for most people

so walk us through how do you get your 70 to 80 grams of fiber obviously we're talking about you this is your at a one

experience, but based on all the literature you've seen out there and the different types of fibers you want to try to incorporate your diet, how are you getting that in typically? I think that you can do pretty well if you include two to three servings of vegetables per day, but then also looking to incorporate things of what's called like RS2 or RS3. So these are resistant starches. And what's great about them is they will resist digestion. so they will make their way into your colon, you know, undigested. And this is great because then your microbiome is able to ferment those into the short chain fatty acids.

And so you can get resistant starches from things like green bananas are really high in them, if you can tolerate them. Heated and cooled potatoes or rice is another good one. So you heat them and then you cool them and they become RS3. that case. Or heated and cooled beans is another another version of that. So I think that if you can try to get at least a serving or two of those per day, you'd be in pretty good shape. There are also things that you can do like potato starch, putting like a tablespoon of potato starch in your diet or a green banana flour is another one that's really good. So that can be great.

However, you have a really big disclaimer here, and that is it's important to go very, very slowly and really observe any symptoms that you're having. Because if you're not used to having a lot of fiber in your diet, your microbiome may not be ready for it. And so you could get some gas, some floating. So if you're noticing those, you probably want to back off a bit and just go a little slower. Yeah, that's great advice. You know, connecting those two things together with something that I came across recently, which was an episode that Andrew Huberin was doing on the insulin resistance subtypes. I think you'd read it about it as well, too.

You know, the background that I come from is, I'm Indian. I was born in actually, I was born in Kenya. Interestingly enough, one of the coolest trips that I went on was I went and stayed at this camp in northern Kenya, where we were spending all this time over the course of a week with the Samburu, which are cousins of the Messiah, and getting a chance to see how they live, going on walks with them, seeing the area,

meeting their families. It was one of the coolest experiences that I ever had, like fetching water with them. Yeah, just like living a daily life with them. If anybody actually wants to check it out, The camp is really cool. I'll put the link in the show notes.

But my background is Indian. And in North America, Indians, the Indian subtype population, so South Asian, so Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, they have the highest cardiovascular risk of any ethnic minority that's there. And, you know, cardiovascular disease, even in India, is a big, big problem. not just, you know, the things that we typically deal with in the West, but there, too, it seems that air pollution is a big driver of poor endothelial health. I think of the top 50 most polluted cities in the world, India has like 10 of them that are there. So it's a very unfortunate

situation. Nonetheless, coming back to the Salvation population in the United States, from the time that I was young and always got blood work, I had always seen that, you know, my lipids were, were, uh, really, really off that my LDL was high. We weren't really looking at APOB back then. That's a more of a new phenomenon. And I noticed that my triglycerides, uh, would always, uh, jump up. Even once I started watching my diet, but then I'd add in some extra, uh, carbohydrates as I started training inside of the gym.

And my trainer would say, hey, let's, let's try to have you have like maybe 200, 250 grams of carbs as we're really sort of getting you in. the zone of increasing muscle mass, you know, replenishing glycogen. And I would get blood work after these periods of doing these N of one experiments, just like you're doing. And I would see my triglycerides had shot up all of a sudden. And the more and more that I learned through my cardiologist is that it seems that a lot of people from this region have a combination of a few different genes that they're dealing with

that make them more likely to be. In my instance, I'm a hyper reabsorber. So there's hyper producers that are out there that have familial hyper cholesterolemia. I'm in the category of being somebody that's a hyper reabsorber. So when I have some of these fats through my food and if they're excessive, my body just tends to recirculate a lot of those lipids that are there. And that's why clearance is going to be, you know, so important for somebody, somebody like me. In addition to that, there was a few other genes that I had.

I did a test. I wrote about it in my newsletter. I can link to it in the show notes that people are curious about it. Where I also was somebody who, for whatever reason, triglycerize also hang around a lot longer in my bloodstream as well, too. So I'm very sensitive to having a lot more carbohydrates in my diet as well. So now I sort of cycle on and off. I'll have a higher carbohydrate load on days that I train. And then I'll kind of bring it down to a more maintenance mode that was there.

The point of the reason that I'm bringing this up, talking to a lot of different South Asians who are living here in the West, one of the things that they see is, again, they tend to be programmers, they tend to be doctors, they tend to be these high, you know, Zoom professionals that are out there. That lifestyle comes with being a lot more sedentary, you're not moving as much. And then on top of that, when you audit the traditional sort of Indian and then American diet that they're having, they're not really having a lot of fiber in their diet as well too. So it definitely feels to me that it's one of the reasons that this group of individuals is having such a hard time with lipid clearance and having such poor blood results

that are increasing their cardiovascular risk. So that was a little, you know, just me sharing some context for my audience because I've talked about this before and the journey that I've been on, which is increasing my fiber and making sure I get activity. And then in my instance, because I am a hyper-reabsorver, I chose to go on a zetamide after looking at a lot of different data and working with my cardiologist. Again, not medical advice and I'm not a doctor. But the combination of those three things that I did made a significant difference

in my blood work. And also, I just felt better as well, too. So I'd love you to also make the connection of what do you know about? In addition to fiber being great for gut health and protecting that mucous lining and making sure that our body doesn't eat our own mucous lining because there's not enough fiber and short chain fatty acids that we're providing it with. What do you know about fiber and cardiovascular disease? That's another thing that it can help with is just cholesterol clearance. So certain types of fiber can really help clear cholesterol. So that could be one thing.

Going back, I do think genetics are so important. And it's so great that you found the genes that you have because I have some clearance genes myself, actually very similar. But if you're able to find these and kind of find the genetic reason why it can be a real game changer and being able to change your own health to understand what those are and to be able to modify your lifestyle around them. One other thing that I think could also be really interesting to think about too is I think

the South Asian diet sometimes can be a little lower in coline. Colleen is one of the most important things that we can have for cholesterol. And the reason why is it is used as a structural element. So phosphidylylcholine in packaging VLD. And so if you do not have choline, your VLDL is going to be exported with very triglyceride rich. And then ultimately this will result in more what's called SDLDL or small, dense, LDL, which is very atherogenic. So, yeah, it just made me wonder, you know, could that also be one of the problems

could be possibly low-colin as well. Yeah, that's a great insight. I'm going to share just really quickly because it could be interesting for our audience here. I wrote about it before, and then I want to hear about how you've gone through the journey as well, too. So just sharing my screen here, for those that are watching on YouTube, we'll link to it in the show notes as well. But here are a few of the ones.

So the test that I did, again, no affiliation. My cardiologist ordered it. I think a clinician has to order it. It's called GB Insights. It's a genetic test that comes back and helps you understand the specific genetic snips, genes. I don't know if the proper termination is, a terminology is that are related to cardiovascular. They have a few different ones that are there. So one that showed up for me was APOEE4, which is a strong risk factor for a high LDL cholesterol.

and higher lipoprotein A, which I do. I've always had a higher lipoprotein A. This next one here is CD-K-N-2-B-A-S-1, which is strongly associated with increased coronary artery disease and heart attack risk through its effect on blood vessel wall health. Again, these are your genetics, but obviously your lifestyle plays a huge factor into these. A couple others here. I'm not going to mention, you know, all of them.

They're quite technical, but another one for modestly raising coronary artery risk disease. Another one for likely increasing triglyceride levels. This is the one that I mentioned to you when I have originally my trainer was saying, look, I know you don't respond to carbohydrates well, but if it helps you increase your muscle mass, your muscle mass is going to help you clear other things like glucose, which is going to end up helping your heart health. So let's try this experiment. Ultimately, I ended up landing on only having a higher glucose, sorry, a higher carb load on the days that I train and kind of bringing it down to more of a maintenance load, which is for me, no more than about 110 grams on the days that I'm not training. And then a couple here that are contributing to cholesterol metabolism and impacting me there.

Again, you can find the details inside of the show notes, and I wrote a little bit more about. about it. And it's obviously great that tests like this, you know, exist in the first place. When you were going down that journey, Greg, yourself and you were looking at your genes and how they played into it, how did you do it? Are you doing like 23 and me and dumping it into like some sort of program or reader? Or was there some sort of other tests that you used? Yeah, I did 23 of me, downloaded the raw file. And I both analyzed that just manually. But there are also some software that you can use. It's free. It's called genetic genie. So that kind of. help you find certain things. But one of the things that I found as well was also APOE 4. And I was so glad that I did. I found it, I think, about nine years ago and also have high LPA as a result. But some of these can be so important to find because they can explain things that would otherwise be, you know, difficult to explain, like why you have high LPA or higher cholesterol. So really important to get done. So there are a lot of options for genetic testing. You can have your full genome sequence, which is going to be on the more expensive side, or you can do something a little more cheaply, which would be

kind of get the direct, direct consumer, you know, something like Ancestry.com, download the raw data. They're not going to be quite the same in terms of the information that they tell you, But even starting with one of those less expensive tests, I think they're under $100 now can give you a lot of information that you otherwise wouldn't have. That's great. Yeah. Anything else based on your genes that you've seen, again, in your sort of N1 experiments that you doubled down on in your health or you saw, you know what? I'm more genetically likely to have this happen. So I really need to focus on this nutrient or this other aspect.

Any other insights from your genetics? Yeah, probably one of the bigger ones was discovering these methylation genetics that I had. So I have what's called MTRR. And so with that, you kind of have trouble recycling B vitamins. You can have some issues with folate as well. There's another one that's a little bit related called MTHR, which can be very popular or very prevalent in the population. I think it's like 40% of the population has it. but those are probably the biggest ones was understanding my methylation genetics and then

optimizing to make sure that I got the right B vitamins and the right quantities. That made a huge difference in how I felt. I also have, you know, unfortunately, another one that's called Calm T, so COMT, and this can impact how fast or slow you can clear things like catacolamines. And so I'm a slow calm tea, which means that I kind of, you know, clear things like adrenaline a little bit slower. So that was another one because I'd always wonder, you know, why I didn't feel well after high periods of stress or, you know, really intense exercise.

And I think that gene probably explains it to a degree. So, yeah, there can be, you can go really deep down a rabbit hole and find all. sorts of things, but probably the two most important, in my opinion, are your lipid genetics to make sure that you understand those and anything that you need to do differently. And then I think number two would be your methylation genetics. And as mentioned earlier, genetic genie, that's a really easy way to just take that raw text file that you get from these direct-to-consumer companies. You can upload it and it will tell you all of your method.

methylation genetics and what you might need to do differently. So that can be a really useful resource. Yeah, my wife has some of those methylation genes. And I know for her, her doctors have her on, you know, methylated versions of certain, you know, vitamins and a few other tweaks. So in terms of seeing those things for you, what were some of the actions that you took in your life? like let's say the methylated genes or this com, you call it comte? Comte, yeah.

Anything that you've changed or anything that you've added in? Yeah, so I think the first for MTRR was just making sure that it got the right dosage and the right kind of vitamins. So I started taking a methylated B12 and it took me a while to get the dose right. Then also a methylfolate was a really important one for me. and then dialing in the dosage dosage for that to that resulted in a really big change.

It took some testing to really kind of nail the dosage to where I felt the best, but that made a really big difference not only just how I feel day to day, but also in my blood work as well. I had a higher homocysteine. It brought that down.

So, yeah, all my blood work looked a lot better. We'll have some of those links for that in the show notes if anybody wants to check out Genetic Genie and some of the ones you mentioned. Thanks for that. All right, Greg, as we're winding down here, we got to touch on one nutrient that you've been super hyped about, which maybe a lot of people are not giving as much love to, and they're not even sure why they should be giving as much love to.

And that's the topic of potassium. And you're shooting for six to seven grams of potassium a day. So give us the why, and then we'll talk about. the how? Why are you so excited about potassium? Yeah, I think it's, you know, probably one of the better ways to make sure that you, your endothelial health tastes good as you, as you get older. And I think I put protein number one. If you, if you think of that as kind of like the structure, then in my mind, potassium is kind of like the infrastructure, keeping your, your veins supple, your endothelial supple, making sure that they don't stiff in. But really what it does,

is you could think of your cells as almost like a battery in a way. And just like a battery, you basically have a chemical gradient that has a difference in it. And that difference is going to be what's going to create the potential energy. And so potassium is kind of the regulator of the intracellular potential, whereas sodium will be the regulator of the extracellular potential. So outside yourself versus inside yourself.

And if you can get those ratios right, then it will have a slightly negative potential and just allow it to function a lot better. I think that one problem in today's society is those ratios are kind of inverted. And so we have a lot more sodium than we do potassium. and this can result in, you know, a lot of different things.

Hypertension is one of them. But if you can kind of dial in that ratio a little bit better, it's just associated with a lot better outcomes. And I tend to go a little higher in potassium. I think there are some people who argue for a little bit lower potassium, but I think, you know, probably between four and seven grams per day, you'd probably be good, assuming you've talked to your doctor and you don't have any kidney issues, you're not on things like ACE inhibitors or any potassium sparing medication.

So before increasing potassium, I think it's important to talk to your doctor, make sure that your kidneys are looking good and you're not on any medications that would impact that. Now, give us the how. how are you getting that much potassium in in your in your day? I think there's kind of a brain dead way of thinking about it, which is if you if you just get two to three servings of fruits or vegetables with each meal, it's going to get you in the range. It's going to get you really, really close.

Vegetables are very fruits and vegetables are higher in potassium. And then if you just want to, layer on, things that are higher in potassium, like have a banana or two per day, have an avocado per day. Avocados are very high in potassium. Or little coconut water is also a really good one. Another one of my favorites is beans. So great northern beans are really high in potassium.

So I think just in general, you know, you don't have to overthink it. If you're just getting enough from fruits and vegetables, you're probably going to get close enough. And then if you have extra banana or avocado per day, it's going to get you close enough without having to put everything in chronometer and really calculate it. Should we link up your famous chili recipe in the show notes? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we can do that. In the slow cooker.

Yeah. Yeah. The reason why I like that is you kind of hit two burns with one stone. You get a lot of potassium and then you get a lot of RS3. that we were talking about earlier. So, yeah, we can link that up. It's really easy to make. I make it in like 10 minutes and it reheats really well.

That's awesome. You know, ever since I was a kid, and I don't know if it's through antibiotic exposure, obviously the Indian diet has a lot of lentils, has a lot of beans that are part of it. And always as a kid, I remember feeling like I had more of issues with, you know, gas and distension, having beans.

I had a lot of antibiotics when I was younger. It was one of those things where, you know, you have a bunch of doctors that are in the family. I know you have a bunch of doctors in your family as well, too. And, you know, kid has a cold or an ear infection. Okay, great. They're just going to give you an antibiotic like it's, you know, candy. And I definitely went through that period as a kid.

And I think I suffered for lifelong gastrointestinal issues just from that. Luckily, it's largely been, it's been, it's been great for a long time. And I do well on, you know, ramping up my fiber and everything. But beans and lentils is still one of those things that I've, I can't get around it. I try it with enzymes sometimes. I try it with other things. But I still don't feel 100% when I have a lot of, a lot of beans. So at least right now, it's not my primary source of fiber.

I go to other areas to make up my fiber load. I think we all have those foods that just don't agree with us. And I think, you know, once you find those, just remove them. Yeah, totally. There are always other sources where you can get things. Greg, anything else that you feel super passionate about right now that in the context of this interview, and especially for my audience and demographic, that you wanted to give some love to, attention, talk about at all?

You know, I think right now I'm most fascinated about, like, really going deeper into the assistance populations and understanding, you know, why they don't get these chronic diseases. So I started writing long form on my substack. I call it Dark Lab, which sounds ominous, but it's kind of a nod to how science used to be where it was kind of born in these candlelit rooms with people on their own drawing diagrams

and figuring out science. So I'm starting to do long form there. Where I'm currently focusing is on obesity in trying to figure out why when people come off of GLP-1s, why they're regaining weight. And so that's going to be the topic of my first post on there, which should be coming out in the next week. Oh, that's exciting.

I can't wait to sign up, and we'll link it in the show notes so that our audience gets a chance to check it out as well. Greg, you know, talking about, like, where science and medicine came from and, you know, these insights that have contributed a lot to our understanding over the years is that a lot of things came from. Yes, yes, clinical, yes, double blind trials are gray and everything like that. But so many insights in the history of medicine and health came from these

end of one experiments that people would do. And I see you, you know, you're always clear to tell people, you're not a doctor, you're not even, you're not a researcher, you're somebody who is deeply passionate about the literature and trying things, not to improve, not just to improve your own health, but to also see these end-of-one experiments can be things that can scale, that other people can get a chance to try. And that's one of the most positive uses of social media. And in this day and age where there's so much, you know, divisiveness that's out there. I want to remind people that there's these incredible communities, and you've definitely built one where I see it. I love reading, you know, the replies to your, to your, to your, uh,

post on X because people say, wow, this is what I tried and this is what I learned and and you're learning and they're learning. And that's a valuable place. And it's an important thing to highlight. And it's one of the reasons why I really felt like I was so excited to tell my team that I wanted to interview you because you have a lot of value to offer and share with our audience. So thanks so much for making the time to come on here. We'll link to your page on X, which is your first name, first name, last name, Greg

mushen, and we'll also link to your substack as well. Anywhere else you want to send our audience to? No, I think that's it. And yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, any equals one experiments can be so valuable just from figuring out your personal health. Especially when they're informed by a lot of the literature that's out there and the research that's out there, which you always point back to, and we'll link to some of the papers that you mentioned below in the show notes. Greg, thanks so much, man. It's been an absolute pleasure to get a chance to talk with you. Thank you so much. It's also likewise, been a pleasure. Hi, everyone, Drew here.

Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share it with a friend,

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