Dhru Purohit Show - Stop Wasting Your Money on These Longevity Supplements with Dr. Brad Stanfield

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

This episode is brought to you by Momentous and Lumebox.  The supplement industry has experienced exponential growth, inundating consumers with a plethora of new recommendations. Navigating through the abundance of information to discern genuine needs and what is actually beneficial for longevity can be challenging. Today’s guest is here to help us navigate the research and clarify what is truly worth taking.  Today, on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Dr. Brad Stanfield to discuss the research behind the top supplements that are beneficial for longevity and the ones that fall short based on the studies. Dr. Stanfield shares the benefits of creatine, collagen peptides, and hyaluronic acid serums. He also discusses the importance of a quality multivitamin, adequate fiber, and the best way to take daily supplements. If you are looking to deep dive into the world of supplements, this episode is for you.   Dr. Brad Stanfield is a primary care physician hailing from Auckland, New Zealand who has garnered over 200,000 followers on YouTube for his video segments related to longevity-promoting strategies. In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Stanfield dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): The top three longevity supplements that are overhyped (0:00:33 / 0:00:33) The impact of lifestyle changes and lifestyle coaching (19:22 / 17:35) What we know about rapamycin (22:22 / 20:15) The slam dunk evidence behind creatine for recovery and cognition (24:47 / 22:40) Collagen peptides as a wrinkle reducer (31:05 / 27:15) Hyaluronic acid serums versus supplements (33:23 / 29:28) Increasing fiber intake with psyllium husk (39:45 / 36:06) The data behind Omega 3s and testing levels (45:28 / 41:41) Are daily multivitamins helpful? (55:49 / 52:00) The best way to take your daily supplements (1:01:53 / 58:06) Dr. Stanfield’s daily smoothie recommendation (1:03:50 / 59:41) Optimal protein intake (1:06:18 / 1:02:35) Exercise is more protective for health than any supplement (1:13:04 / 1:09:22) The fundamentals of a healthy diet (1:19:30 / 1:15:47)  Dr. Stanfield’s journey (1:21:50 / 1:18:09) Also mentioned in this episode: Dr. Stanfield's Video: Resveratrol To learn more about Dr. Stanfield, follow him on Twitter, YouTube, or his website.  Optimize your Omega-3 levels by choosing a quality fish oil made by and used by the best. Go to livemomentous.com and enter promo code DHRU to get 20% off any order.  Lumebox is offering my community $260 off their FDA-registered portable Red Light device! That's over 50% off! Go to thelumebox.com/dhru and get your Red Light device.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Brad Stanfield, today we're talking about the top longevity and health supplements that the data strongly suggest work and that can help us on our quest, hopefully knock on wood, to live to 100 and beyond. And we're also talking about the top supplements that may not be worth the hype and are actually in some cases, or at least could be damaging to our health. So I'd love to start there. You made a viral video titled, Avoid These Popular Supplements. These are a list of three supplements that have gotten a lot of hype, especially in the world of longevity. And I'd love to hear your argument for why you stopped taking them yourself. Let's go to the first one on the list, which is Resveratrol. Yeah, Resveratrol has got a lot of excitement in the longevity space. And unfortunately, I think a lot of that

excitement is misplaced. When I first started looking into this field, I was sucked into the hype as well and actually used to take Resveratrol myself. So it's a bit of a storied background, so bear with me here. We're going to focus on what the evidence actually shows. So the theory is that resveratrol is meant to activate an enzyme called Satuan 1, and that's meant to be a so-called longevity gene that's meant to give us all of these benefits. And all of this harks back to the early 2000s, where it was thought that if you over-activate an enzyme in yeast called Sir 2,

you can see these lifespan extension effects. What's interesting about that, though, is that subsequent papers in the 2000s said that actually if you delete the SER 2 gene, you can actually see these lifespan extension benefits as well. So that's probably where the hype should have stopped about resveratrol, but it continued because it appeared that if you use resveratrol in the lab, you can activate the sur 2 gene in yeast,

and you can see these lifespan extension effects. A mouse study was then done, giving resveratrol to mice, and it seemed to extend lifespan. So that initial research was then sold to a massive pharmaceutical company, GSK, for $720 million, because it was meant to be the next best thing that was going to be fantastic for humans, and we could extend lifespan. But if you actually dig deep into the papers, we can see that multiple labs tried to replicate these results, where they gave resveratrol to yeast. and there was no effect on the Sur 2 gene or the Setu and 1 gene.

They then looked at what the mice study showed. And what was actually happening in that initial mice study that generated all of the hype was that they were giving these mice a highly toxic diet. So it was very, very high in fats. And what was actually happening is that these mice were dying from their livers expanding to such a size that they were suffocating. So a truly bizarre way of how these mice were dying. And resveratrol seemed to prevent that from happening.

So it probably shouldn't have developed all of the hype that it did. And then when other mouse labs, such as the interventions testing program, trials resveratrol, there was no effect seen. And unfortunately, in the human studies as well, again, we see no positive effects either, be it on, you know, sugar levels or cholesterol. But the crucial thing about this is that in humans, it actually seems to worsen a couple of important factors. So in humans, resveratrol decreases testosterone levels, and it seems to blunt the positive effects of exercise. So these have been proven in randomized placebo-controlled trials. So not only is there no benefit from taking resveratrol, but it's probably harmful to humans

as well. So, yeah, again, when I first started looking into resveratrol, I got caught up into the hype, and I let people know that I got caught into the hype and started taking resveratrol so that hopefully people can learn from my mistakes and don't go down this rabbit. hole and take something that's potentially damaging. Well, I super appreciate the transparency on that. And that's one of the reasons I invited you to be on the show. I'm a huge fan of your work on YouTube and at least, you know, how you present your argument and how you show your work along the way. You know, when it comes to hype on any side of things, you know, pharmaceutical, supplement, dietary, you know,

there's this idea that sort of old, you know, hype dies hard. It's hard to kind of, you know, have people change their mind. So on the topic of resveratry, I still see a lot of that hype that's out there. And from some of the top people that are sort of experts in this space, why do you think that Resveratrol is still being championed, even with some of that data that you're showing, that doesn't add up to the merits of taking it? So I think the hype is primarily coming from one individual

that was involved in selling his research for the $720 million. So there's a significant financial reason for that person to be still trying to hype Resveratrol. But if you have a look at the people that were heavily involved in the Satuwen research, such as Professor Matt Kabiline, Professor Brian Kennedy, who are actually lab mates of the person that I'm referring to, they've both denounced Resveratrol. So, and all of the so-called longevity experts or people who are, you know, grounded in science, actually looking at this field, will also say that Resveratrol, you know, that the field has moved past Resveratrol. So it's only really one person that's continuing to try and stir up the excitement for it.

And I think it's unfortunate because, you know, we've got human research showing that it's probably harmful. So you just, it's a lesson that you need to be careful about, you know, what you come across online. And probably the best way of people are looking for supplements that they should, you know, potentially look at or even at best avoid is looking at the clinical guidelines. So the clinical guidelines actively discourage people to use resveratrol because of these concerns. So it's highlighted quite clearly in those guidelines. So yeah, it's just unfortunate that there's still the excitement around Resveratrol when, you know, the field has moved past it. This episode is brought you by Momentus.

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percent off omega-3 and all of their best in class products. That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-U-S-LivMomenus. With the code D-H-R-U, that's me, Drew, for 20 percent off today. Yeah, you've done some videos on this. You know, I don't want to keep the name and hide it from our audience. Do you care if I mention who that person is? Not that we're calling. So you're talking about David Sinclair. Is that correct? Yeah. So you've made multiple videos. We can link to it in the show notes. And, you know, again, if there was an opportunity that he wanted to come on and share his sort of counterpoint, great, awesome, we more than welcome that. But I think it's important for people to understand, you know, why something continues to exist and why,

especially on Twitter, I've seen many of the names that you've mentioned, engage in this debate and say, really to the benefit of the public, like, hey, we should be watching out for this. We don't want to cause harm to individuals. So thanks for giving that, you know, breakdown. And thanks for having the transparency of showing the audience how you, even yourself as a medical doctor, somebody who's deep in the research and learning about these things, you know, decided to change their mind. May we all change our mind when we're presented with new and better information. On that topic of changing your mind, there's another supplement that's there that you used to take and that you have held back and had stopped taking now that was also on that list.

and that one is N-M-N and also N-R, nicotinamide, talk to us about that. Where did some of the hype around that? And where do you stand on that supplement now? Yes, as you say, this is the supplement that I used to take. And again, I shouldn't have been caught up in the hype when I first started my YouTube channel, but, you know, I was and I've left the breadcrumbs there for people to follow, again, so that they don't make the same mistakes that I did.

So any men was hyped. I think it really sort of took off in its fame when Davidson Claire appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast and was talking about any men and how if you pair any men with resveratrol, they work synergistically and you can get even greater benefits and that's what he was seeing in his lab. At the time of that podcast, I don't think that a single human study on any men had been done. The first study that came out, I think it was shortly after that Joe Rogan podcast, was giving any men once to humans just to make sure that there was going to be no significant adverse events. But since then, there's been multiple randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trials,

looking at various health aspects of any men to see if there was going to be any improvement. So, you know, we've looked at things called the SF-36 questionnaire, which is basically a wellness questionnaire, like, do you feel energetic? And there's no difference. We've looked at hearing. There's been no difference. we've looked at eyesight, no difference, exercise performance, cholesterol, HBA1C for sugar levels, no difference either. So the more that you look into this field, the more you realize that

while something might work in single cell experiments or even mice, it may not translate into humans. And there's actually a very similar molecule called NR or nicotinamide riboside that was tested in mice by the interventions testing program, which I've referenced earlier in this video. And there was no lifespan extension seen when they used nicotinamide riboside, which again is very similar to NMM. So my excitement about this field has certainly decreased. I think there's potentially some indications where this therapy might be useful. For example, if someone is sick with, you know, if they're fighting off a virus or a bacterial infection, if their body is under significant stress, maybe that's where this therapy might be useful.

But for otherwise healthy people, I just don't think that the randomized placebo-controlled trials justify its use. So it's not that it's dangerous. I just don't think that the evidence is there for benefit. Yeah, and you know, this goes back to the larger content that you want to showcase on your YouTube and I highly recommend everybody follow you on YouTube. We have the link in the show notes. What you're trying to showcase with the full body of your work is human beings, can only make a certain amount of choices and decisions in a day. Most people are trying to live their life. Their primary focus and their job is not orientated around all things health. They're not deep in the weeds on studying which supplements work. They don't have an unlimited budget to

constantly try things out. In fact, what they have is they often have limited resources. They have limited attention. And so these supplements that are worth avoiding and the reasons that you also stop taking them minus risveratrol. Let's say there could be some harmful aspects that are there. The rest of them, the question is, does the prioritization match what the benefits are in the data? Because to contrast that, on one side, you have these things that are very hyped. On the other side, you have a bunch of supplements that have been studied for years. and are in the top, you know, three, four, five, six most studied supplements out of the entire, you know, in the entire world that have so much positive data that sometimes we don't want the

hype and the excitement around that to de-prioritize other things that we know that were. That's why we're starting off with why you've changed your mind and what supplements maybe are not worth the hype. We have one more to go. And then we're going to be following up with what, actually has the strongest data that people could double down on and make sure they're actually taking as part of their health and wellness and longevity routine. So it's not that we're just trying to call things out. We're in specific trying to help people double down on what actually has shown

to work. Is that a good summary of your viewpoint on this? Yeah, I think that's perfect. You know, there's virtually unlimited supplements that people can take. And as you say, you know, some of them have got evidence behind them, others less so. So, yeah, I think it's a lot of it's important to direct people to the stuff that actually works. Well, there was one more that was on the list, and people started taking it more as a supplement, even though it's a drug. And that one is metformin. Talk to us about metformin and why everybody in the longevity space was so excited about for a while, including yourself, and why you decided to stop taking it. Yeah, so I think this is quite a different story compared to Resveritrol, where the

hype probably shouldn't have been there in the first place. I think the hype around metformin was initially justified. There was a mouse study that showed that if you gave metformin, it seemed to extend lifespan by about 30%. But the caveat to that is that this particular strain of mouse, they were inbred, and they had particular genes that would cause them to have high blood pressure. So not particularly applicable to humans. But anyway, that sort of started off the hype train. Then you had a look at the human research, and there was a few observational studies, that were quite intriguing. You had type 2 diabetic patients who, if they only needed metformin to look after their type 2 diabetes, they actually seemed to have lower rates of heart disease

and death rates compared to people that didn't have diabetes and weren't on metformin. So you've got the initial mouse studies and some initial human research to say maybe there's something here. Maybe we should be all using metformin because it's a very cheap supplement. There's not that many side effects, which we'll talk about soon. And there looks to be a benefit. So if you look at the benefit versus harm ratio, some people, including myself, said, why not to start taking metformin? But then there was some further research that came out.

So starting with the mouse research, again, the interventions testing program, which I've third time that I've highlighted that program, tested metformin. And there was no lifespan extension scene. That's important because that program tests, it runs the same test at three separate labs at the same time to make sure that the result that they're seeing is true and reproducible, and it also uses genetically diverse mice, so not inbred mice, so a little bit more applicable to humans. And again, no benefits seen. Then if you have a look at the human research, there was a massive study done by the diabetes prevention program. This study started in the late 1990s,

and it took high-risk individuals, so they were overweight, but they weren't yet type 2 diabetic, and it gave half of them metformin, the other half of placebo, and it followed them up for about 15 years. And over that time frame, there was no benefits seen in terms of death rates, cancer, cardiovascular disease. So that's a really strong piece of evidence to say that actually non-diabetics should probably not be taking metformin because there doesn't appear to be any benefits. Now, again, when I mention this in my video, sometimes there's a bit of confusion. I'm talking about non-diabetics here using metformin for longevity purposes. So pre-diabetics and type 2 diabetic patients, there's very good evidence that they should be on metformin and I prescribe metformin every day

for them. What I'm talking about here is non-diabics using metformin. But if you have a look at, you know, again, benefit versus risk ratio, if there's likely no benefits for non-diabics taking metformin, what are the risks? And there are some risks. The biggest one, much like Resveratrol is that it seems to blunt the positive effects of exercise. So what some researchers have done is taken non-diabetics and exercised both groups. One group was taking metformin, the other group was taking placebo, and the benefits from exercise were blunted by about 50% in the metformin group. And it also appears to lower testosterone levels. So there are risks of taking metformin. So again, if you look at the benefit versus risk ratio, you'd probably say that non-diabatics,

should not be taking metformin. And it was because of that research, both the exercise and the diabetes prevention program research that convinced me to stop taking metformin. Super interesting. You know, a follow-up question on this topic is that, I'm not sure if you came across the book, The Sickening by Dr. John Abrams,

but inside of there, he talked about the diabetes prevention program research group, and they had done a study that was focused, on three groups, standard lifestyle recommendations plus placebo, standard lifestyle recommendations plus metformin, right, and then or intensive counseling about healthy diet, exercise, and behavior modifications plus placebo, right? And the results inside of there were stunning. And he wrote about this inside of his book. They resoundingly, I'm just reading here, and I'll share my screen. So we wrote about it in one of our our newsletters. And there's a follow-up

question that's there. That's a part of this. So the results were stunning. First, they resoundingly debunk the conventional wisdom that people won't change their habits and that physician's efforts to get them to do so are a waste of time. At the end of three years, the people assigned to the intensive lifestyle modification group

had lost an average of 12 pounds and significantly increased their physical exercise compared to the other two groups. And second, the study showed that by far the best way to prevent diabetes is through positive lifestyle changes. Intensive counseling on lifestyle modifications reduced risk of developing diabetes by 58% compared to the placebo group and by 39% compared to the group treated with metformin. How did you come across that information in your sort of research about, you know, even metformin for people who have diabetes and how it's compared

to lifestyle changes? Yeah, that when we treat. treat type 2 diabetics and pre-diabetics in the clinic. The clinical guidelines are very, very clear that we need to be promoting lifestyle changes because you can make such a massive difference to a patient's health if you get their diet and exercise and sleep correct. So one of the things I try and speak about on my channel all of the time is no supplement will ever replace a great diet, regular exercise and high quality sleep because we've got resounding evidence showing how powerful it is. So yeah, that's just another data point emphasizing that point. I'm emphasizing that point that we need to make sure that we're prioritizing diet, exercise, and sleep. Yeah, and I think

that's a message that you resoundingly shout through the rooftop. And it's an important reminder that even though the conversation here today is targeted on supplements, because everybody's always asking around, people ask me, and I'm not an expert, I don't have a background in this. I get to just have experts like you on the podcast that I get to ask great questions to. You know, people are always asking, what should we take? What should we not take? But really, hopefully the hook with this, you know, and the gimmick around talking about the supplements that actually work and don't is the reminder that the most powerful drugs that we have are lifestyle. In fact, exercise in a regular exercise routine, the way that I understand it from your content and other experts

in the space, is more powerful than any other supplement we're going to be talking about today to have positive impacts on your life, to reduce your risk of developing diabetes, although, you know, diet is important on that side to, to increase, you know, your, you're, your VO2 max, your grip strength, all these other things we like to talk about, and to decrease your risk of things like cancer, you know, so is that a fair statement to say that regularly having, obviously a solid, clean diet, we can talk about that at the end, and having a regular exercise routine that especially prioritizes things like resistance training, that's going to be more powerful than anything else that we talk about today. Is that fair to say?

Yeah, yeah, I'd say that that's fair to say. There's one molecule that we're looking at at the moment called rapamycin, which may have significant effects, but we're still waiting on the human research to come up. But to your point, you know, there's resounding evidence showing that if you get your diet, exercise, and sleep correct, you can add anywhere between, you know, 10 to 20 years of healthy lifespan to your life. So, yeah, I can't oversell that no matter what we're talking about on the podcast today, diet, exercise, and sleep are always number one. Well, since you mentioned it, before we go into the things that there's a ton of data on, give us a little bit of a preview of why there could be some excitement about rapamycin.

Yeah, so I do want to emphasize again that we're waiting still on the human research. So the excitement with this is based mainly on the mouse studies. So with that clarification out the way, when the interventions testing program trial rapamycin, over and over again, they see a lifespan extension in both males and females by about 20 to 25%. So this is a reproducible finding. and it's incredibly exciting because, you know, rapamycin is already used in humans, but it's got a bit of a dirty name in clinical medicine. So if you needed a kidney transplant, one of the drugs that you will be on to prevent your

body from rejecting that organ is rapamycin. So it's used as an immunosuppressant. So that's turned a lot of people off from studying rapamycin in humans, because it's thought that if you use rapamycin, you can, you know, increase cancer rates or you could increase infections. But we do have the safety research now in otherwise healthy people that if you use molecules such as rapamycin at the appropriate dosages, that doesn't happen. You don't have increased infection rates or cancer rates. So that's now set the stage where we can actually start to do these trials in humans looking at whether we can be using rapamycin and otherwise

healthy people to see if we can see further benefits in terms of exercise performance or, you know, muscle mass, extension of lifespan, those types of things. So, you know, I've set up a study looking at rapamycin and combining it with exercise to see if that will offer greater performance benefits compared to exercise alone. And there's a truckload of these studies now happening. So if you ever wanted to look at a molecule that's got a lot of excitement behind it that seems to be grounded in evidence, I think watch the space about rapamycin and wait for these human trials to come out. that's exciting well when they come out we'll have you back on the podcast to talk about them in the meantime we're going to move on from the things to avoid to the data that's out there and the slam dunk

supplements that have so much evidence based around it that we want to make sure that we don't get too distracted in one way or another and miss out on the benefits of these things that have been you know largely not only tested for safety but have been shown to work one of the first ones on your list is creatine. Talk to us about creatine, one of the most tested supplements in the history of supplements and why it's a part of your longevity routine. Yeah, I think probably most people who are listening to this podcast have probably heard about creatine. It's one of those supplements, as you say, that's been incredibly well studied and it works in the human randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trials. We can see it reduces muscle

sawness after exercise, it improves muscle recovery. The International Society of Sports Nutrition, which looked at all of the research, says that creatine is the number one supplement for improving exercise performance. Now, the caveat to this is that it seems to improve short bursts of exercise and strength. So if you're trying to use it and you're a marathon runner, it may not have performance improvements, but in saying that it may help you recover from your exercise a bit quicker. But so the exercise performance improvements, seem to be very, very well grounded in evidence. But there's a couple of other things that are coming through now as well.

So the brain also uses creatine, and as we get a bit older, the creatine stores in the brain seem to go down. So there's now coming out some human randomized controlled trials showing that older adults who take creatine compared to a placebo seem to have greater cognition compared to the placebo group. So it's possible that we might be able to use creatine, not only for its muscle performance improvements, but also for its cognitive benefits as well. And whenever we're considering a supplement, we have to make sure that it's safe as well.

So we've talked a lot about the safety of some other supplements. But if we have a look at creatine, there were some specific concerns about creatine. And number one was kidney health. So it was thought that if you take creatine, you might worsen your kidney health. But we've got randomized controlled trials going out five years, proving that that's not the case, and that's reflected in the clinical guidelines as well, that we're not concerned about kidney health with creatine supplements. And the other side effect that some people talk about is hair loss. And this was based on a study published in 2009 in rugby players, where they gave

creatine to rugby players, and they thought that they could see a slight increase in a hormone called Dht. And if your DHT is a bit too high, that's associated with hair loss. Now, that finding has been subsequently debunked in multiple randomized controlled trials, but those concerns are still there. So at the moment, there's no evidence that creatine worsens hair loss. What might be happening is that if people start to work out at the gym, their testosterone levels will go up. And in theory, their DHT levels will also rise with that. And that may be associated with the hair loss that people are seeing. So people might be blaming creatine for the hair loss, whereas creatine's actually got nothing to do with it. So overall, creatine is very safe and it's got very good human evidence

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This is one therapy I'm committed to, and I think you're going to love it too. Right now, Lombox is offering my community $260 off their point. red light device. That's over 50% off. Just go to the loombox.com slash Drew to get your device. That's the L-U-M-E-B-O-X.com, the loombox.com slash D-H-R-U to start stimulating your mitochondria today. That's incredible. I noticed that on the topic of working out when I started getting regular and prioritizing straight training. And I saw a hundred point jump in my testosterone. I, for the first time in my life noticed. And I'm sure my podcast listeners have noticed too, because I do video. I started to notice some hair loss. I started to notice that my hair

thinned a little bit. Obviously, you've talked about some of the medications that you're on because you want to sort of minimize that sort of hair loss. We can talk about that a little bit later on. That might be a whole other podcast to get into one day, you know, minimizing hair loss for men, especially as we age. So that's fantastic about creatine. And I would say that a lot of my audience, especially my YouTube audience, that would be in the sort of 50 plus audience range, they typically would have thought of creatine as something that was primarily for, you know, gym bros, right?

Or people that were, you know, only focused on muscle. So it's great to see creatine be studied for all these other reasons because now people are starting to prioritize it and also people understanding that separate from cognition, we don't want to lose muscle mass as we age. And after the age of 40, you know, based on the statistics that are out there, every decade, you know, we can be losing 10% of our muscle mass, which is problematic for our metabolic health, sarcopenia, and other issues. So I love to see a lot of people who typically weren't taking creatine now prioritize it now that the data is out there. Another hot topic that's out.

there is this world of collagen. Tell us why collagen made it onto your list of dues when it comes to supplements. Yeah, so there's a lot of excitement about collagen peptides. And to be honest, a lot of that excitement is a bit misplaced. There's very good evidence for one benefit of collagen. So you'll hear people taking collagen for joint health, for blood vessel health, but actually the research around those areas is lacking. The research is very positive, though, for skin health, specifically, you know, skin hydration and wrinkles. So we've got multiple randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trials where the researchers give the collagen peptides and compare it to another group that's just taking the placebo. And they follow these patients

up for, you know, six months or 12 months. And they measure the wrinkles. very, very, in a very controlled fashion, and they can see that over the 12-month period, you do reduce your wrinkles if you take collagen peptides. And then if you combine all of those studies together in what's called a meta-analysis, again, we do see these positive effects. But there is a bit of controversy because the collagen peptides, all they are are very short chains of amino acids, and amino acids make up proteins. So the people who speak out against collagen peptide supplements will say that

you know, so long as you're getting enough protein, there's probably going to be no benefit to supplementing with collagen peptides. But that's a little bit misplaced because in the body we've got specific peptide transporters. So when you isotopically label these collagen peptides and you see where they're going in the body, you can see that those specific peptides are absorbed and they get deposited in the skin to help rebuild your collagen within your skin. So We do have very good evidence showing that you can reduce wrinkles if you start taking collagen peptides. It's not brilliant for other things like I mentioned, you know, blood vessel health and joint health, or at least that the evidence is lacking in that department.

But for skin health, it's very interesting. Fantastic. There's another supplement that you recommend for skin health once you started to dig into the research. Can you talk about this other supplement that a lot of people haven't heard about? Yeah, I think you're referring to hyluronic acid. So, yeah, again, if my opinion about any of this doesn't matter, what matters is what the randomized human clinical studies show. So if you look at those studies, very similar to collagen peptides, you can see that

hyluronic acid supplements seem to improve skin wrinkles by about 15 to 20%. So that's quite significant. Now, the downside of hyluronic acid supplements, what was thought to be a downside is that if you give high dosages of hyluronic acid to cells in a lab, it seems to contribute to cancer growth. So that fueled concerns that the haleronic acid supplements may actually be fueling cancer growth. So to look at those, well, to investigate those fears, researchers, they took mice that already had cancers growing on them, and they gave them hyluronic acid supplements. And there was no difference in terms of the cancer growths there.

So I think the concerns about cancer in humans with haleronic acid supplements, I think it's a bit misplaced. But that's, yeah, one of the concerns with haleronic acids. I just wanted to clarify that. In terms of other benefits of haleronic acid, you know, it may improve joint health, but again, we're still waiting on human research for that. Now, whenever I talk about haleronic acid, there's always the concern about, well, the question about whether we should be using hyluronic acid. serum, so skin creams, or whether we should be taking supplements. Now, hyluronic acid is a fairly large molecule, so it can't penetrate through the skin into the deeper layers where you want to try and rebuild your structures.

So the evidence for hyluronic acid serums isn't particularly exciting. What is exciting is the supplements. So again, that's another supplement that I take at 200 milligrams. And I also want to clarify that just because I take a supplement, doesn't mean that anyone listening to this should as well. Yeah. This is a conversation and this is an opportunity for people to get more educated on things. As always, because you're a medical practitioner, you know, you want to let people know that they should work with a medical practitioner before making major changes to their medications, of course, for supplements as well. My sort of thought

on that is that most people are trying to make the right decision. They're typically, you know, their doctors are undereducated about supplements. So they're going to start to follow individuals they feel are willing to change their mind and give them the full range of the debate that's out there about the pros and cons. And that typically people are pretty good about making informed decisions as they start to get further down the rabbit hole. So this conversation here and of course your YouTube channel and you breaking down the studies. You know, here we're not showcasing each study. We're not linking to it. but you do that in your YouTube channel.

So anybody who wants to go deeper should really follow that and see the studies and your breakdown of them. You know, before we go on further to your next few supplements that are on your list, doesn't mean they have to be on other people's list, but you're showcasing the fact that they're on your list because of the vast evidence base that's there, and it's up to people to evaluate that evidence base

and how you presented. Let's talk about dosaging. You mentioned for a couple of these, just so people have it, for creatine, typically you would hear people say, you know, five grams is what you'd be targeting for in a day. And for some people who have gastrointestinal issues, you know, they'll be encouraged to maybe split that up into sort of, you know, two grams, 2.5 grams, you know, and having that twice a day. Is that your general recommendation and what you follow in your own life? That's the exact regimen that I follow. So if you're starting

creatine, it can take about a month for your muscle stores to, to, to, to, build up until they're saturated with creatine. So some people will advocate for higher dosages of creatine to start with, so about 20 grams a day. But that significantly increases your chances of gastro issues. So I'm not a particular fan of doing that. I think if you're taking five grams a day, you will eventually reach the point where your muscles are saturated with creatine. It may take a bit longer, but you're less likely to have any side effect. So I think it's reasonable to take, you know, five grams a day. There's also the question about what form of creatine to take. And the form that's studied and cheap is creatine monohydrate. So you'll see

supplement companies trying to sell you very expensive versions of creatine saying that it's better absorbed, et cetera, et cetera. But creatine monohydrate gets your muscle cells saturated with creatine. It's well studied. So, yeah, if anyone was considering starting creatine, I'd just stick with monohydrate. And give us that same breakdown in terms of dosaging and type of sourcing or any other caveats for collagen. Yeah, so the studies use a variety of different dosages from about 1 gram to 20 grams of collagen peptides. So for me, I take about 10 to 20, sorry, 10 to 15 grams of collagen peptides in a day. It comes in a powder, so I just mix it with my morning coffee. and I try and make sure that I select a brand that's third-party tested.

So there's a couple of really good websites that are great for third-party testing. So we've got ConsumerLab.com and there's also Labdor.com. So if you're ever looking for a brand, I'd highly recommend that you look at those because there's a lot of cowboys out there in terms of supplement companies that sell you something that doesn't match the label. So it's important that you choose, again, if you're choosing to supplement, just make sure that it's third-party tested. Well, one of the ways that you take your collagen for you, you know, yourself is that you put it into a morning smoothie. And along with a smoothie, and I'd love to hear

what else you put in that smoothie in terms of the actual, you know, if you're adding fruits or if you're making it with water, et cetera, you can chat about that in the second. But one of other supplements that you've included in there because of the evidence base, and it's one of the most underrated supplements that's out there. In fact, you just made a video on this topic about how Cillium Husk is one of the most underrated things, especially for people who are trying to improve their digestion or dealing with constipation. So talk to us about why you're super excited about Cillium Husk, and it's part of your routine. Yeah, so Cillium Husk is probably the most boring supplement. And because of that, it's not going to generate headlines, but the evidence is so strong

for it. We've got multiple randomized controlled trials looking at what happens if you increase your fiber intake. And overwhelmingly, if you increase your fiber intake, you decrease your cholesterol levels, you decrease your mortality rates, your heart disease rates, and over and over again, that's been proven in metronalases where they combine all of those trials together. And if you have a look specifically at the trials of Cillium Husk, we can also see the same thing, where we lower cholesterol levels, we lower heart disease, and it can be used for irritable bowel syndrome. So, you know, irritable bowel syndrome is incredibly common, and Sillium husk can be used to help with those digestive issues. So, you know, it's very, very boring, but I'd probably say that most people should be adding it to an already healthy diet.

Because coming back to the trials looking at fibre, it seems to be a dose response. As in, the more fibre you have in your diet, the more protective effects seem to be apparent. So if you've already got a high fibre diet and you're not having any gastro, intestinal issues, it's not a bad idea to try adding low doses of cillium husk and slowly building up that dose until you reach the perfect point for you, because the evidence backs it up. When you're talking about a high fiber diet, I've seen different sorts of ranges. Sometimes you'll hear people talk about, you know, 15 grams of fiber, 15 to 20 grams of fiber for every thousand calories that might be in the, you know, diet.

so if somebody's having, you know, around 2,000 calories as part of their diet or 2,500, you know, you're probably targeting around 30 to 45 grams of fiber a day. Is that what you recommend to your patients? How do you help them sort of navigate what does high fiber diet look like? That's absolutely right. The metronalysis that I'm referring to suggests that ideally people want to be having at least about 25 grams of protein a day, sorry, of fiber a day. But there is the caveat, though.

I've mentioned irritable bowel syndrome already. Some people who have irritable bowel syndrome, they can't tolerate a high fiber diet because a lot of the times when you're trying to digest that fiber, it causes fermentation. So it worsens bloating it, it worsens their symptoms. So again, just make sure that you speak with your own doctor. But that's, again, where I'm a big fan of Cillium Husk. Because of the type of fiber that Cillium Husk is, it's actually used to treat irritable bowel syndrome. So it's a type of fiber that's very, very well tolerated by the body, and it seems

that the more you have it, the better off you are, the caveat that if you start to really boost your dosages, they can actually make the constipation worse. So it's important that if you do choose to use Sillium Husk, you start at a low dose and you slowly work your way up, and you make sure that you're having plenty of water on board. Yeah, the water part is key because Sillium, from everything that I've understood about it, it absorbs a lot of water inside the body. So you have people that are chronically dehydrated taking cillium and they're already dealing with maybe some constipation and now they feel even more constipated because they haven't had enough water, you know, as a whole. How much water should people be targeting for? Again, there's different activity levels.

You know, there's, you know, gender differences, which typically relate to body size that's there. you know, is there a general rule of thumb in particular if people are having Cillium of like what is the sort of amount of water they should be targeting in the day? There's no hard and fast rule. But what I would say is that if you are having Cillium husk, just make sure to have a glass of water with it. And ideally, the best way to assess your hydration levels is the color of your urine. So you want it slightly yellow. And that is a great way to figure out if you're having enough fluid or not.

not. And when people are, I think this is one of the best things that people can do for their health, just as an aside, you know, so many people are addicted to fizzy drinks. And if you can switch that to water, the benefits that you get are immense. So if you are going to drink any fluids, yeah, make it water. That's fantastic. Just one other question on topic of a Silliam Husk. Sometimes I've noticed anecdotally friends that might have a hard time with Silliam Husk, might do a little bit better off with things like acacia fiber, right? Have you seen that that some people respond better to some fibers or another? Or is that just, you know, that's just people needing to test things out,

start slowly, and then kind of figure out which one works best for them? Yeah, it's a little bit like the diet conversation. So people sometimes ask, what is the best diet? And I think the best diet is the one that you can stick to and that you feel great on. And it's a similar story with fiber. So some people will say, Sillium Husk is the way to go. Other people will use different fibers

and that works for them. So it is about individualizing it to what you feel is best for your own body and obviously in discussion with your doctor as well. Fantastic. Well, let's continue on because we have a few more

that are on this list of your dues, the supplements that are part of your routine, because again, you've evaluated the data and you're showing your homework. The next one that's there, and we've had on some of the world top experts on this topic is omega three. Talk to us about omega three and how much are you shooting to get in a day? Yeah, so on the point of doing my own research, so I just wanted to clarify that what

I'm what I'm referring to here is what the clinical guidelines show, because the clinical guidelines, they outline exactly what randomized controlled trials have informed those guidelines. So everything that I'm speaking about is not my opinion. It's what the clinical guidelines suggest. So coming to omega-3, the clinical guidelines suggest that omega-3 can be used to help prevent cardiovascular disease. Now, it's not going to be the be-all-in-ind-all. There's still many other factors that you need to worry about with cardiovascular disease, but omega-3 can be an important tool to try and, you know, prevent those diseases. And the evidence from that comes from the vital study. So this was a massive study that ran for about five years, and it compared omega-3 to a

placebo and the group that were taking the omega-3, there was an unexpectedly high 28% reduction in the risk of heart attacks during that study, which is significant. And omega-3 seems to be a very well-tolerated medication. The side effects of it, there's a very small increase in the risk of developing atrial fibrillation, so that's an abnormal heart rhythm. But aside from that, it's very well-tolerated. So the dosages that I aim for is between 1 gram to 2 grams a day, and that's the mixture of both the EPA and DHA versions. The reason for that is when a metronalysis was done by the Mayo Clinic, and they looked at all of the evidence, looking at the different types of omega-3, essentially there wasn't enough

evidence to say which version was best, so that's why I take both. And that meta-analysis was done, I believe, in 2022. Now, there are some people who will advocate for getting for paying for blood tests to check your omega-3 index. And look, it's your money, your decision. I don't recommend it. I don't see the value add to it. But if people want to spend their money on something, again, your money, I think if you're taking omega-3 supplements and you're making sure that you're,

you know, including fish and salmon in your diet, your omega-3 will be absolutely fine. Well, I've shared about this on my podcast and I'll just add in, you know, not that I'm trying to convince you, but just sharing my sort of counterpoint on the, on the omega three, you know, I would say omega three from looking at your work in this space and, you know, you highlighting on the, you know, your YouTube channel and many other people that I get a chance to look up to, I would say omega three is in like the top five most researched supplements that are out there, right? Would you say that's a fair statement? Yeah, I'd say so, yeah. Yeah, it's probably in the top five. And there's so much data about the benefits of it. And yet,

when I look around, you know, if I know a hundred people, even I have many friends that are in the health space and kind of pride health as being, you know, the primary sort of principle or navigating point in their life. You know, they make so many decisions in their life based on health. And I would say out of the 100 friends that I know, who is consistently as a percentage taking omega-3 on a daily basis at the dose that's required to get into into sort of, uh, you know, good range. And then let's talk about optimal range, which, you know, Dr. Bill Harris and the folks at Omega Quant have done a lot of, you know, work on. I would say it's probably less than six people, right? There's less than six people that I would know out of 100 that are regularly. And of those six, right,

again, this is just an anecdotal thing. I don't have a study on this. I would say the vast majority are people that are often women that are trying to get pregnant or are pregnant and they've seen all the research and it's because they're bringing a new baby or they and their husbands in most instances that they're getting really focused on this beneficial nutrient. So the only reason that I've been such a champion of advocating for, you know, like an omega quant test, no affiliation with the company, it's $59. And if that's going to get you to take one of the most well-research supplements that are out there and be consistent about it and know that you're heading in the right direction. Sometimes I've seen that people, including myself, have needed that sort of proof to see

that they're so low that they actually have to work to get those levels that are up. But again, you know, to each their own and, you know, at the end of the day, you know, if you're taking the right amount of supplementation, you're eating fish, chances are your levels are going to be in the good range anyway. This is something that I don't think I communicate particularly well on my channel. So I just want to spend a bit of time on this. Please, please. The floor is yours. Yeah. So I'm a primary care position. And one of the things that we have to navigate is cost benefit. So if we are doing a test, we want to make sure that the test that we are doing is going to change management for that for that patient. Because we have to make sure, you know,

there's only so much money in the world. So from a population-based standpoint, we have to make sure that we're spending, you know, the health money that we've got in the best way possible. So coming back to the omega-3 tests, if people are already having, you know, a great diet with fish, if they're already taking omega-3 supplements, there's probably not a great benefit for, you know, spending the $59 on that omega-3 test. Whereas, you know, I can see if people, you know, wanted to measure everything about their body and they've, they had, you know, a lot of money to spare, absolutely, you know, your health, your decision. But, you know, from my perspective at the clinic that I work in, which is a semi-rural clinic where the patients are generally quite poor,

you know, the last thing I want to be trying to get them to do is spend $59 on a test. That's probably not going to change a huge amount of their management where their money would be better spent, you know, optimizing their diet or paying for a gym membership. So that's the, yeah, that's a perspective that I take. But again, you know, each person, each person is going to be different. No, I want to hear about that because I would say that the other component that I'd be very curious on is that, you know, there's the larger conversation, which is that we live in a world of primarily disease management, even at the health care level. You know, most money in health care is spent trying to manage a chronic disease after it's

already been established. There's very little conversation, except if people are lucky enough to have a doctor, like yourself, right? There's very little conversation about pre-diabetes, which in America alone, there's like 80 million people that are in the pre-diabetic range. And there's a lot of money spent on diabetes management once people actually have it and, you know, kidney dialysis and medications and other stuff. So really the larger argument would be that as the world shifts to, realizing that it's unsustainable to have all this chronic disease management so much later on in life once the disease is present.

And we need to spend more time and education and energy on prevention and education. The hope would be that, you know, $59 for a health care system, which in a place like New Zealand, which is where you're based out of, where you guys have national health care at a governmental level, maybe that test is like $10, right? If it was actually institutionalized, that would be one of the best $10 spent if we were actually thinking about prevention for people and the individual didn't have to pay for it themselves. Because my guess is it is even a lot of your rural patients, actually, I'm not sure, you know, because New Zealand is typically a little bit healthier than America. but my guess would be that the lower you are on the,

on, you know, the totem pole in terms of economic accessibility, probably you're eating more processed foods, even in a place like New Zealand, which means that you're not actually supplementing, if we're just talking about fish, and you probably are not getting a lot of fish in your diet as well, not to make this about omega-3s. But really, this is a bigger conversation,

which is that we need a new approach to health care and that obviously starts off with education, which is why we're having this discussion here on the podcast. Anything else that you want to add to that before we go on to the next item? Since I practice in New Zealand, it's quite a different healthcare system to the United States. So, you know, I've never practiced in the United States. I've never had anything to do with the healthcare system in the United States. So I don't fully understand the system over there. What I can speak to is the system that we've got here in New Zealand.

So since it's a public healthcare system, there is a massive emphasis on, well, for primary care physicians such as myself, to practice preventative care. So we want to, you know, prevent the heart attacks, prevent the strokes, prevent the diabetes before they come on. And there's a truckload of money that's spent on those programs. So that's the perspective that I come from where that money is directed to stuff that will actually make a difference. So again, I'm not entirely convinced that omega-3 testing would shift the needle.

I think it's more important that we use that resource or that money for other tests that probably do make a bit more of a difference. So again, it's just different perspectives coming from different healthcare systems. Yeah, no, I appreciate the perspectives. This is why we have long-format conversations, and this is why we allow guests like yourself who know way more than somebody like me who's not a medical doctor, doesn't have any expertise in the space, just gets a chance to ask questions and chime in with his own musings of things

that he's read about. This is the reason that we have these long format discussions. So thank you for sharing your thoughts on that. If it's okay with you, I'd love to move to another one of the supplements that you recommend that the clinical guidelines show strong evidence for,

and that is a multivitamin, multi-mineral. to us why you feel based on the data that's out there that this is something important that people should be paying attention to and some of the controversies that surround it as well yeah so this has changed massively so when I went through medical school so I graduated in 2015 multivitamins were seen as a way to have expensive urine that so long as you've got a great diet you don't need to worry about multivitamin supplementation that has somewhat changed based on the Cosmos study, specifically the Cosmos Mind study and the Cosmos Clinic study.

So these were large randomized controlled trials that looked at what happens when you give the general population a multivitamin and you compare it to a placebo. And what seemed to happen over the, I think it was a three-year period, was that the multivitamin group had their decrease in cognition was significantly less compared to the placebo group. So it seemed that multivitamin supplements appeared to be somewhat protective against cognitive decline. And these studies involved many people. So it was a well-powered study, giving that evidence. And what's important is that the population that this trial was conducted in was the general population.

So if you have a look at another study that was done a few years ago called the Physicians Study, that took male physicians. and when they gave half of those male physicians multivitamins and compared it to a placebo, there didn't seem to be any cognitive benefits. But the difference is with this new Cosmos Mind study was that the tests that were used for cognition were far more sensitive. So you could detect the changes in cognition far more effectively compared to the tests that were used in the Physicians study.

And also with the Cosmos Mind study, it was the general population rather than just relying on male physicians. So that kind of changed my thinking that a well-formulated multivitamin is probably a reasonable thing to do. The trouble is that most multivitamins mega-dose things, and they've got, you know, high levels of vitamin C, vitamin A and vitamin E, all of which are actually probably detrimental. So a well-formulated multivitamin and mineral supplement seems to have some good evidence for its cognitive protective effects. So I, yeah, I think that the guidelines have started to change to reflect that now. Fantastic. I think you've been involved in creating a multivitamin as well, you know, just to give you a little shout out for what you've done because you didn't

see something on the market that was designed in the way that you'd want it to be. Is that, is that correct in my understanding? Yeah, that's correct. So most multivitamin and mineral supplements will contain vitamin A and vitamin E. But we've got good evidence, from the Cochrane organization who looked at all of the research and analyzed it, and there's a fairly strong association between people who take vitamin E supplements and vitamin A and higher rates of death, which is obviously not what we want. Vitamin A supplements have also got a link between increasing the rates of prostate cancer. So I wouldn't want to take a supplement that's got vitamin A or vitamin E in it, with vitamin

C supplements, the recommended daily intake for vitamin C is about 90 milligrams a day for males. But most supplements have got, you know, orders of magnitude higher dosages of vitamin C in them. The problem with that is that vitamin C is an antioxidant. So there's good evidence showing that if you take, you know, vitamin C supplements or other antioxidant supplements after you exercise, that blunts the positive effects of exercise. So when you exercise, you release all sorts of oxidants and you're damaging your body. but that's a good thing because it signals to the body that it needs to become more efficient. So if you're getting in the way of that rise in oxidants by taking antioxidant supplements,

again, you blunt that signal and you blunt the positive effects of exercise. So, yeah, I wanted to take a multivitamin that had appropriately dosed vitamin C, as well as making sure that it had the minerals that I wanted, and I wanted a supplement that combined chloronic acid, which we've talked about for skin health, and also another supplement called TMG or trimethylglycine. So, yeah, I just couldn't find a supplement that met all of that criteria. And that's why I created microvitamin.

But again, just because I take a supplement doesn't mean that you should as well. Yeah, no, I watched your content on it. And I was really convinced on the data that you presented. And I didn't really have a strong multivitamin that I like. So actually, before we did our interview today, I ordered it myself just after watching a bunch of your content. So I'm excited to start taking it. it and again all the caveats that you mentioned we'll link to in the show notes if anybody wants to learn a little bit more about it so now these items that you have here right we

talked about creatine collagen uh hyluronic acid cillium husk omega-3 uh the TMG uh T EG T T T Mg is it TMG Trimg the multivin Multivin Multivin Multimg the multivin Multimmineral those are part of your sort of standard kind of routine that on the day that you take. Just a quick question about those because, you know, again, being a physician and working with individuals and first and foremost prioritizing lifestyle, which includes exercise, staying away from ultra-process foods, excess calories in general, and in particular, you know, sugar-sweetened beverages, which are causing a lot of harm to people and contributing to the obesity crisis that's there. Obviously, those are all the basics, including sleep, right? I'm sure I missed a few others that are there. You could add community. You could add

this. But generally speaking, for these items that you listed, your favorite nine or so supplements, how are you spreading them out of the day? And what is the best way that you found for yourself to just make sure that you're actually compliant? Because one of the things that I see, just because you know and have seen the date on a supplement and have been convinced by either your practitioner or somebody that you look up to that's worthwhile to take, there's also the habit of just actually taking it on a regular basis that's there. So any recommendations you have based on what you do when it comes to these supplements? Yeah, that's one of the big reasons why I created the microvitamin supplement because I wanted to combine some of the things together

just to make it a bit easier. So that's one way that I've found to be able to take all of these supplements. But then aside from that, since I know the research, I find it so compelling that I've just made it into a habit. In the morning, I just take my supplements with my breakfast, just because I know, again, how strong that the evidence is for these supplements. So it's the sort of thing that, you know, knowledge is power. Once you look at the clinical guidelines and the randomized clinical studies, you know, it gives a powerful reason to start taking some of these things.

Obviously, once you've optimized diet, exercise and sleep, of course. So, yeah, I've just made it into a habit that whenever I make a coffee or a tea, I pour a bit of collagen peptide powder into that in the morning. Again, with my breakfast, I just take the supplements that I want to take. And it's actually not that many pills now because I've got that combination supplement. So, yeah, that's how I've tried to manage it, at least. What else are you putting in your smoothie? And what are your guidelines to, you know, if you work with a patient who's trying to figure out,

like, hey, what's the best type of smoothie that I could be making? or what's the types of things that I want to avoid doing that a lot of people do that sort of ends up making a sugar bomb, you know, a smoothie, which is not something that we want people to be having. So what are you putting inside of your smoothie and what do you recommend to people? Again, everyone's going to be different. So it's important that you find a smoothie that you both like the taste of that's easy to make and that you'll that you'll actually use. So the smoothie that I have, you know, I base it on some Greek yogurt. So no, no sugar yogurt that's also high in protein. I mix in some pea protein powder. I mix in some, yeah,

mixed berries, some cillium husk, and I whisk that up. So it's nothing, it's nothing groundbreaking. It's not a, it's not a big secret or anything. But again, that's the one that I like the taste of, and that works for me. What we do have at our clinic is we've got dietitians that work with patients that's completely free of charge, again, all paid for by the government. So, you know, if people are interested in developing their own, you know, smoothie or breakfast or lunch or whatever it may be, I generally send those patients to the dietitian who have got a bit more experience than what I do as a medical doctor coming up with specific diets. Because on that point, I think, you know, even though I'm in this field and I'm a practicing medical doctor, I do need to

understand what limitations I have and where other people are better suited. So, you know, nutritionists are far better at coming up with a diet than what I can. I can give specific guidelines to a diet that people should generally adhere to. But in terms of actually formulating a diet and recipes and things, that's a little bit outside of my scope as a medical doctor. I generally use the dietitians for that. No, thanks for breaking that down. And because you pay attention to a lot of things in the health space, it's often nice to be able to get your perspective. Because I will say this, you know, even though a lot of these clinical guidelines are out there, you know, I come from a family that has a lot of physicians in my family here in America. And I'm not necessarily seeing all of my,

you know, family members, no, knock to them, right? Physicians are busy. They have so much stress on their plate, et cetera. You know, they'll often open up and they'll say they don't often pay attention or are not seeing all the latest sort of clinical guidelines, especially when it comes to maybe supplementation or dietary or other things like that. So I think a lot of people are trying to navigate. So you know, you mentioned one topic in an area that I'd love to give your perspective on, you know, because you pay attention to space. You mentioned starting off your morning with, you know, a certain amount of protein. Over the last few years, there's been a lot of individuals that are in the space of health and longevity talking about and having this debate about, you know,

are we having enough protein or are we not having enough protein? And one of the guys, that I've been very convinced of that's out there from individuals like Dr. Gabriel Lyon, Peter Atia, other people is targeting for that sort of gram of protein for, you know, what your ideal sort of healthy body weight would be and making sure to prioritize it, especially as we age to maintain healthy muscle mass, avoid sarcopenia, and all the other list of benefits that we've talked about in the podcast. I'm sure you've come across a lot of this, how are you convinced one way or another on the protein conversation? Because then on the flip side, you have individuals like researchers like Dr. Walter Longo and other people that say that

we have too much protein inside of our diet. I think even David Sinclair at one point in time was on the Joe Rogan podcast talking about how he's really worried about too much protein consumption and its relationship to mTOR inside of the body. So where have you fallen on this spectrum and conversation around protein. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack here. So I see patients at the at the end of their lives as well, where they're frail, they've lost their muscle mass, they've lost their independence. So I come from that background where I want to try and do everything that we can for our patients and also for ourselves to try and reduce psychopenia or muscle wasting as we get older. So we've got, you know, good evidence now showing that if you can maximize your muscle

strength in youth and try and maintain that muscle strength in your middle age, then when you start to get into your older age, you've got a much higher baseline where your muscle will invariably start to decrease. And you can hold on to your independence for a much longer period of time. And one of the best ways to try and maximize your muscle strength is combining protein with resistance exercise. We've also now got research. It's observational, so it's not a randomized controlled trial. But with that caveat, we've got research published in the British Medical Journal in 2020 showing that higher protein intakes are associated with longer lifespan, particularly plant-based proteins. So I, yeah, from the human research and from what I see in the cold face

in the clinic, I'm a fan of a higher protein intake. So just in terms of units, so 1.6 grams of protein intake per kilogram of body weight per day, which roughly equates to the one gram per pound, I think, that you were referring to. So the flip side is that, yeah, you do have some of these longevity scientists who advocate for low protein intake. And that's primarily based on mouse studies, rather than human studies. So I think it was published in 2014. There was a study that was done in mice that gave the mice 20 different diets and they wanted to see which diet was associated with the longest lifespan. And overwhelmingly it appeared that the lower protein intakes, the longer these mice lived. But we do need to be careful about how we interpret that because

in a lab, you know, the mice, they're not exposed to diseases. They, you know, they've got everything that they need in terms of their food, their water. So they can just exist. Whereas in humans, in the real world, we're exposed to all sorts of pathogens. attacks on our body that we need to remain strong for. So I'm not entirely convinced that we should be applying those mouse studies to humans, particularly when the human research, you know, suggests that we should be having a higher protein intake. And then when it comes to M-Tor, so this again harks back to the rapamycin discussion that we were having. So rapamycin blocks m-tore. And again, that's associated with a, you know, 20% lifespan extension. The trouble is,

well, the confusion comes in is that protein intake, specifically the amino acid lucene, powerfully activates mTOR. So, you know, that's where the longevity scientists come in, is that if we're activating mTOR all of the time through a high protein intake, that's probably, well, that might shorten lifespan because again, if we block mTOR, we extend lifespan. You know, but that's mice research. We live in the real world. We need to be strong and maintain our independence. So I'm, yeah, I've come down on the side of higher protein intake is probably better for humans. One thing that I've learned from a researcher who's been on this podcast as courtesy of introduction by Dr. Gabriel Lyon, his name of Dr. Donald Lehman, and he's one of the top

protein researchers here in the United States. And one of the things that he's talked about is that, again, there's all these nuances with mice studies. You know, one of the nuances that are there is obviously that you talked about when it came to some of these things like metformin or some of the other things like reservoir and what kind of myos are they using genetically. Well, there's another one which is, are you meal feeding the mice or are you continuous feeding them? And if mice have the opportunity to continuously feed, they typically genetically are living in a world that is not a lot of food abundance. And if they're going to have the opportunity to gorge themselves and eat continuously, they're going to do those things. So as I understand it as related to MTOR,

one of the questions is in the studies is that are those mice continuously eating or are they meal feeding? And I believe that I heard Dr. Donald Lehman say that they were continuously eating, which if you're continuously eating all the time without any sort of break for your body to rest and digest, you would see a continuous spike of mTOR that's there. But there are many other things that are positive benefits. And I saw this breakdown from Lane Norton, a student and, you know, a bodybuilder and a student of also Dr. Donald Lehman. I saw it on an interview that he had with Dr. Peter Attia, where he said, well, there's many other things that are beneficial to us that also spike mTOR. And we don't think of that as a bad thing.

And one of those things would be exercise. Exercise actually spikes mTOR inside of the body. So we want to make sure that we understand this mTOR conversation within this holistic discussion so that we see all the nuances that are a part of it. So I'm only beginning to, you know, pull on some of those threads myself, but I'm excited to see people like yourself be able to, you know, help the population understand and break them down so they can make the right decisions of, you know, most people are just trying to eat in a healthy way and make sure that they feel good.

So it's very confusing when it comes to nutrition. So I appreciate you breaking it down for our audience. Well, on that note, you know, you mentioned that when it comes to healthy aging, and we talked about this a little bit of the beginning of the podcast, that exercise in particular combined obviously with protein, exercise is one of the most protective elements and the most protective things that you could do inside of your body. And it's more protective than any supplement that we've mentioned today. It doesn't mean that you can't include supplements. It's just that if you're not exercising, you know, just thinking that a supplement is going to fix what you're dealing with is not going to be the full story. So when it comes to exercise, talk about what recommendations you give to your patients, especially when it comes to resistance training, which is going to be new for a lot of people. And what is your dosage, so to speak, of how much exercise, both traditional, you know, cardio exercise, as well,

as resistance training that you try to get in your own life. Yeah, as you say, no supplement is going to replace, you know, exercise and diet. So one of the, one of the famous examples, I suppose, of this is TMG or trimetall glycine. If you just give TMG to people, there's no exercise performance improvements. But if you combine exercise with TMG and compare exercise to placebo, then you see that TMG actually improves exercise performance. So yeah, yeah, there's no substitute for exercise. In terms of discussing this with patients, so, you know, generally I see older adults who have not done any resistance exercise before, and so they can be a bit daunted when I start discussing this concept with them, particularly if they say, you know, I already, you know, do gardening,

I go for walks, why do I need to do resistance exercise? And my response to that is, you know, gardening and walking is great, but it doesn't push you to failure. So say, for example, if you're doing push-ups, you reach a point where you can't do another push-up, and that point is failure. And that's a really powerful signal to the body that it needs to become more efficient, that it needs to build up its strength so that it can do more push-ups. And that's one of the best ways that you can actually hold on to your muscle strength and independence as you get a bit older. So it's that concept of pushing yourself to failure.

But in saying that, if you had to design the perfect resistance exercise program for people, with longevity in mind, you actually don't want to reach that point of failure. What you want to do is get to about one or two repetitions away from that point of failure, because if you hit failure, you significantly increase your chances of injury. So that's an important point to note. When you're also designing your resistance exercise program, there's the question of how many repetitions per set should you do. So if we're taking the push-ups, for example,

you know, how many push-ups do you want to do you want to do you want to do? Per set. Now, if you start to load up the weights, you decrease the amount of repetitions you can do before you reach the point of failure. So there is some evidence to suggest that if you have higher weights, where you can only do, say, three to five repetitions, overall you actually get more strength performance improvements doing that strategy compared to if you did, say, you know, 20 repetitions, of a particular exercise with a lower weight. But the difference is actually not that great in terms of the extra performance benefits you'll get from the higher weights. And the downside of the higher weights is that you increase your chance of injury. So I'm looking at the research, I'm more of a fan of adjusting

the weights that you're using to where you can do 15 to 20 repetitions per exercise until you start to reach that point of failure. Because that still gives you that really strong signal that to your body that it needs to become more efficient, but you significantly decrease the chance of injury, again, because you're using the lighter weights. So yeah, I try and mention that to the patients that I see in the clinic. And ideally, you do want, if you're new to this, you do want to be seeing a personal trainer because you want to make sure that you're, that you've got a program that's balanced. So you're not just working out, say, your chest, you also need to, you know, balance it with push, pull, with your legs and making sure that the exercises that you're doing are a good

form and a safe. So, you know, I'm not a personal trainer, so I'm not the best person to, I've got my own exercise routine that I do in conjunction, you know, from a personal trainer, but I'm not the best person to speak with about the exact resistance exercises that someone should do. I can give the general guidelines, but in terms of coming up with an exercise routine, it's best done by a personalized trainer, I think. Yeah, one of the best things that you could spend money on when it comes to the return on investment, even a few sessions with the personal trainer could really help you get oriented, make sure you dial in your form, and actually have a plan that is something that you can, you know, get a chance to stick to.

Brad, well, on that point, I think that's a five-minute spend of $59 compared to the omega-3 test. I think I have an affinity for the mega-3 test, and I'll tell you why. I've shared with my audience it's that it was that test that convinced me personally, not that I'm here to convince anybody else to stop being vegan and start incorporating fish in my diet. Because when I finally saw from a lab test, and it was the omega-quant test that I did, I've chatted about this before. Again, no affiliation with the company. When I finally did that and I saw that I was so deficient in my omega-3 and my omega-index

was kind of out of whack, it was sort of that wake-up call for me that said, okay, it's time to start including fish as a part of my diet and I stopped being vegan. Again, that's my own personal story. That's not everybody else's story, but I agree with you. You know, if you, you know, eat your fish, eat your healthy diet, get your resistance training in, you know, and find a good trainer. That's there. On the topic of diet while we have you here, Brad, you're not a nutritionist. You've shared that.

But key themes that you want to remind people, especially people that follow your work, on YouTube about diet, especially in this world where people are advocating for one diet over another, and there's no shortage of debates that are there. What are your key themes that you want people to keep in mind? Yeah, the first thing that I say to my patients at the clinic is that there's no one diet that works for everyone. So again, it's important that you find a diet that works for you, but there are some foundations of a healthy diet. And the first one is protein, because most patients that I speak with at the clinic, they're not getting enough protein. So if plant-based protein agrees with you, fantastic. You know, increase the, you know, the legumes and all of that in your diet. If you prefer meat,

that can also be healthy so long as it's lean cuts of meat, because we do want to try and decrease the saturated fat in the diet, which is, unfortunately, just on the point of saturated fat, online, it's heavily debated. Like, you'll see the keto and the carnival influences say that, saturated fat is good for you, which is really unfortunate because the clinical guidelines are very, very clear based on all of the human studies that we've got that you do want to be trying to reduce your saturated fat intake. But, you know, it's just, yeah, just a point that I thought I'd raise. Ideally, you want to have a whole food diet. So, you know, plenty of fruits and vegetables and yeah finding herbs and spices that make your that make you enjoy your food because

you know you do want to be enjoying the diet that you're on so that you can stick to it in the long term and then it's you know making sure that you're having water instead of fizzy we're decreasing your salt intake and and those are kind of the pillars of health and so you can see that if you've got those pillars of health you can actually design a lot of of different types of diets, but they all stick to those pillars. And I think that that's a good strategy because then you can help every patient that you see. Share a little bit about your story. How did you get into, obviously your background is your primary care physician, but how did you jump into the space of health, wellness, longevity? Because again, no knock on physicians.

They're working so hard, but many of them find that their work is so overwhelming and just trying to keep up with the daily demands that are there, especially here in America where you're dealing with insurance and other things, there's not a lot of room to go deeper and to go watch videos, read these papers, actually get a firsthand account of what some of the research is saying. So how did that bug bite you in a good way of wanting to lean into the longevity conversation? Yeah, when I was working as a junior doctor in the hospital, I started to notice that I was getting wrinkles or fine lines around my eyes. And that kind of got me thinking, you know, I'm relatively young, short, you know, and medicine has got all of these studies and we've got all of these

scientists. Surely we can do something about this aging thing, surely that we can either slow down or even reverse aging. So that kind of got me interested in looking at this field and there was a consultant at the time that I was working with, so a fully qualified doctor, who was also interested in that field as well. And he was, you know, taking Metformin, he was doing intimate and fasting, and that kind of got me looking into this field. And when I started looking into this field, you know, I realized that there was so much misinformation, I suppose, is the best way to describe it, where, you know, if you found a channel, invariably they would be saying, you know, this supplement is awesome, this supplement is awesome. And you didn't actually find any videos

from that particular influencer saying that, you know, any supplement is actually not worth your time. So that made me realize that there was a massive public need to actually get information out there that's based on the human clinical studies. Because most supplements that are there or most interventions are completely useless. So I wanted to just create a resource that people could go to that just followed the clinical guidelines and the human clinical research and focused on some of the more promising avenues of trying to address. aging that are grounded in science rather than hype. So yeah, that kind of got the bug. It was just simply looking at wrinkles around my eyes. Well, you went from not only implementing yourself, but then publishing videos online. How have those videos been received? And have you been surprised at all to see that a lot of them have gone, you know, viral? You know, I started my channel,

because again, I thought that there was a need for this type of content. What surprised me, I suppose, is the, whenever I create a video basically saying that, you know, this particular supplement has been investigated, there's not much evidence at all that it works and it may be harmful. Those are the videos that tend to get a lot of hate in the comments because people don't like it, it seems, that letting them know that the supplement that they're taking is actually, you know, not particularly useful. So I think those are the videos that I think are the most useful that I create. but they're also the ones that generate the most controversy in the comment section.

So I was surprised by that finding. But hey, you know, so long as I'm sticking with the human clinical research, and even if I convince one person that, you know, a particular supplement probably isn't worth their time, I think that's a good service to offer. Well, you've presented that information on today's podcast with us together, and I really appreciate it. Not only you putting out your own videos, but now, you know, inviting you to come on this podcast and you generously giving some of your time for us to answer,

I'm sorry, ask some of these important questions that are there. So Dr. Brad Stanfield, I want to thank you again for coming on, sharing your information, presenting the literature. We're going to have to have you back on. There's so many more topics that I want to get a chance to get into, but I think for people to process and digest, you've presented a whole bunch of things that are not worth people's times, a whole bunch of things that are worth doubling down on.

and also the reminder about why diet and lifestyle are the key things to prioritize before we get too deep down the rabbit hole of the nuances of supplements. So I want to thank you for that. We have the link to your YouTube below as well as your other social media accounts. And also, if people want to check it out, you have your own supplement, multivitamin that you created because you couldn't find something like that that's on the market. We have a link to that below. Anywhere else you'd want to send our audience? No, I think, yeah, if you haven't seen a personal trainer in a while, see a personal trainer. If you haven't seen your medical doctor in a while, I'd strongly advise that you do that

because one of the things that I struggle with as a primary care physician is that patients will come to me with a massive shopping list of things that they want to get through. And it leaves very little time for the preventative care conversation. So, you know, even if nothing is wrong with you, try and see your primary care physician and talk about the preventative care strategies, some of which we've gone through today. because yeah, the earlier you get onto the stuff, the more benefits you'll have. Powerful reminder. Dr. Brad Stanfield, thank you again for joining us on today's podcast. Thanks very much. I had fun.

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. Share with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter, and it's called Try This. Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy-to-digest protocol of simple steps that you or anyone you love can follow to optimize your own health.

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