Digital Social Hour - The Ugly Truth About Seed Oils: What They Don’t Want You to Know I Max Lugavere DSH #485

Episode Date: June 9, 2024

🛑 The Ugly Truth About Seed Oils: What They Don’t Want You to Know 🛑 Are you ready to uncover the shocking secrets behind seed oils that nobody's talking about? Tune in now to the *Digital Social Hour* with Sean Kelly and special guest Max Lugavere as they dive deep into the dangers lurking in your kitchen pantry! 🧐 In this eye-opening episode, you'll discover: - The controversial link between seed oils and health issues like migraines and neuroinflammation 🧠⚠️ - How these industrially refined oils sneak into your favorite foods and wreak havoc on your body 🍟🛢️ - Real-life stories of avoiding these harmful fats and making healthier choices 💪🥗 Join the conversation and get packed with valuable insights that could change the way you eat forever! Don't miss out—watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀 Watch now and take control of your health—because what you don’t know *can* hurt you! 🔍💥 #HealthRisks #HealthyLiving #MaxLugavere #HealthPodcast #WellnessAdvice CHAPTERS: 0:00 - Intro 0:41 - Why Ben is moving to Vegas 2:32 - Eating out healthy 7:16 - My brain scan 11:06 - Your Mom’s Dementia & Parkinson’s 15:57 - Air Pollution Causes Alzheimer’s 18:55 - Apply to be on the Digital Social Hour 22:00 - The government isn’t protecting us 24:17 - How grocery stores are designed 25:00 - Microplastics in our food 27:30 - Modern life challenges 31:51 - Eastern medicine benefits 36:23 - Where to find Max 36:26 - Max’s upcoming projects 36:48 - Little Empty Boxes 37:09 - OUTRO APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/D2cLkWfJx46pDK1MA BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] GUEST: Max Lugavere https://www.instagram.com/maxlugavere/ https://littleemptyboxes.com/ SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There is some evidence that, for example, there was a very small study that showed that when people reduced their intake of, you know, these high linoleic acid seed oils that they saw a reduction in migraine frequency, which is, you know, a neuroinflammatory, neurovascular, can be really painful. You know, I myself am an occasional migraine sufferer. I think these oils are definitely better off avoiding them, even though even that's a controversial statement to say on social media. Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe. It helps a lot with the algorithm. It helps us get bigger and better guests, and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting, and here's the episode.

All right, guys. Max Lugavere here today. We got him in Vegas. What up? From LA, man. What you out here for? Well, actually, part of my family, ultimately my entire family is moving to Vegas, believe it or not. Save on state tax, baby. Save on state tax. And my family, we like warm weather. We like kind of the cosmopolitan vibe. And I live in Los Angeles, so it's a city that's close to LA, in close proximity to where I am.

So yeah, I'm going to be spending more time out here. I'm excited. Yeah, I just came back from LA. I love how big people are on health out there. I went to a wellness center. It was really fun. That's cool. Yeah, there's not many of those out here.

Interesting. I feel like it's kind of bubbling up. I see there's some great gyms, for example. Lifetime. Yeah. Dragon's Lair. Yeah. There was a gym that I was a members-only gym in Summerlin that I got to check out.

Oh, is that Sean Freetest's gym? I don't know. Project Wellbeing. I don't know. It was pretty sick, though. It had a hyperbaric oxygen chamber in it. Yeah, maybe. And also, I don't know if you know Stan Everding.

He lives out here. No. There's a bunch of cool people in the fitness space that live out here, but it's, I guess, a little bit dispersed. It's not like LA where everything feels a lot more centralized. Yeah. It's definitely spread out out here. It took me a year to find my group of people. Everyone's hiding. But I like it. I like Vegas a lot. Vegas is cool. Yeah. I mean, no state tax. Food's good. Food's great. Close to LA. Yeah. i ate at this epic peruvian restaurant last night really called moya i think it's called i gotta remember that very clearly established in what used to be a strip club clearly that sounds like vegas very vegas but like the some of the best if not the

best peruvian food i've ever had i'm a huge ceviche fan um and yeah it was like 10 out of 10 it was amazing but the fact that the food was like so good, like world-class quality food in this like clearly gutted strip club, it was just, it was kind of funny. It's exciting. Do you struggle eating out because you're so healthy? Um, no, cause I'm, I'm not like obsessed, you know, I, uh, I do my best. Um, but because I travel a lot, like it would, I think I would be a lot more stressed if, uh, if I, if I were obsessed, you know, but I think like once you actually have the, the knowledge base of how to tweak certain things and, and assess a menu, it becomes a lot easier. Yeah. You know, and there's a lot of chains now, like restaurants, like I'm a huge fast casual fan

that are really, um, doing a lot to, to, you know, turn the tide in the restaurant industry and institute a healthier way of doing things. I have no commercial affiliation with Sweetgreen, for example, but Sweetgreen is a pretty common salad chain, and they just committed to not cooking any of their proteins in industrially refined seed oils, and they now have grass-fed beef on the menu, which I think is incredible.

There's a place called True Food Kitchen, which is, actually, I think you have one of those in Vegas. Yeah, I've been to the one here. Yeah, it's great, 10 out of 10. Like, no, they don't use any of these ultra-refined seed oils. All their food is regeneratively sourced, at least according to what I've heard and read about the place. So yeah, I think it's fairly easy at this point.

But even if I have to eat at Chipotle or something, it's not, you know, I mean, you can still make a healthy dish. Well, they actually announced they're getting away from seed oils eventually too. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, seed oils are not the smoking gun. I think like a lot of people have made, there's, you know, everybody's talking about them these days.

And I don't think that they are the primary thing to focus your attention on. Um, but I do think, you know, insofar as I can, you know, reduce my intake of these highly refined bleached and deodorized, you know, novel fats and, um, and, and, you know, have extra virgin olive oil, for example, be the primary oil in my diet. If, if I'm consuming any oil at all, you know, have extra virgin olive oil, for example, be the primary oil in my diet. If I'm consuming any oil at all, I mean, there's really no, there's no biological need to ingest oil at any point. I mean, there's really good evidence on extra virgin olive oil from a cardiometabolic brain health standpoint. But yeah, like it's not, you don't need to consume oil. Yeah. Have you tried Brian Johnson's olive oil yet?

I have not. I have not. I've heard good oil. Yeah. Have you tried Brian Johnson's olive oil yet? I have not. I have not. I've heard good things. Yeah. Yeah. It's thicker than I'd say most I've tried. Interesting. Yeah. I don't know what he did differently, but it's good. Yeah. I mean, it's not hard to find really high quality extra virgin olive oil. So, I mean, I don't know what he's selling it for or the claims that he's made, but I buy generally organic, extra virgin olive oil. And I don't have a particularly favorite brand that I go to because I actually think one of the interesting things about developing a culinary, developing a palate

and developing a culinary skill set is to try different brands and to regularly try and get a sense for how to taste extra virgin olive oil and to appreciate its, you know, its differences brand to brand. Yeah. Yeah. I use that coconut oil, avocado oil. I try to avoid any other seed oils. That's good. Yeah. I think that's smart. Yeah. I think that's smart. There's, you know, the data on seed oils is equivocal. The research is, I think, not the best quality research. And mechanistically, there is a signal of at least the potential of harm. We know that they're novel fats.

They essentially first appeared in the human industry, primarily, you know, in the form of fried foods, generates some really noxious compounds like aldehydes and things like that. And, yeah, there's just – I don't know why anybody would choose to use them. You know, obviously, as a part of – Margin, yeah, because they're dirt cheap to produce. Yeah. Yeah, because they're dirt cheap to produce. But we actually don't have any long-term data on what these oils are doing to tissues in the body like brain, which is a major concern for me. There is some evidence that, for example, there was a very small study that showed that when people reduced their intake of these high linoleic acid seed oils that they saw a reduction in migraine frequency, which is a neuroinflammatory, neurovascular event. And obviously it can be really painful. I myself am an occasional migraine sufferer.

Wow. Yeah. So I think these oils, you're definitely better off avoiding them, even though even that's a controversial statement to say on social media. I think you're definitely better off avoiding them with, avoiding them with the, you know, acknowledgement that they're not the sole problem. Like if you're hyper fixating on them, you know, I don't think there's any need to do that, but, uh, but yeah, that's just my stance. I know you're big on brain health. You talk about it a lot. I actually just got a brain scan last week. Oh my God. Yeah. What kind of

brain scan? Uh, was that Dr. Amen's clinic? Oh, interesting. Yeah. I don't know the name of the type, but it was fascinating to see what my brain looked like. How'd it look? Not as good as I hoped. At least you were able to confirm that you have a brain. That's a good thing, right? Yeah. At least there was something there, right? No, but I had some, uh, some permanent brain damage. He said likely chance of ADHD, uh, possibly autism and, uh, childhood trauma. See, I don't know how evidence-based that scan is for those kinds of diagnoses. I'm not... Yeah, he wouldn't diagnose it, but he said likely.

You know what I mean? But if you're not, if you don't have issues with attention, could that kind of suggestion actually be harmful? Possibly. I would say I do, because they tried telling me in fourth grade I had ADHD also. So I might actually have that one,

but who knows? There's a specific test I'm sure to take. I think that's a spectrum. I think we all have a bit of attention difficulty, particularly today. You take your average child and you feed them the ultra-processed standard American diet. Your average child today, about 70% of the calories that they're consuming come from

ultra-processed foods. They're drinking sugar-sweetened beverages left and right. And we ask them to sit still in a classroom for nine hours a day. And when they're unable to do that, we diagnose them with ADD and we throw Adderall and Ritalin at them. And I think that's a huge problem. I think I've always had subclinical ADD, ADHD. It's always been really difficult for me to get through books. Unless I'm like, my brain is very binary. I'm either like obsessed with something or I'm not interested at all. I can't sit still for five minutes focusing on it. That does sound like ADD. Yeah. Yeah. But I was never diagnosed. It's just, it's led to really

mediocre academic performance for me because I would excel in the classes that I was interested in. You know, I'd get like A's in the classes that I was interested in, like biology, chemistry, things like that. But then I would get D's in like the quote unquote easy classes that everybody took to get the easy A's. And so it led for me academically to a GPA that was always like really mediocre. And it's part of the reason why I didn't go into like medicine. Cause I just knew that I wouldn't be competitive just because of my overall academic performance. You need like a four, two to be competitive medicine. Yeah. There you go. Crazy. Which is fine for me. I ended up realizing that I'm like creative and a storyteller and you know, all good. Yeah. But it's cool to study the root

cause of health is, which is what you're doing. Medicine is just a temporary fix. Yeah. But it's cool to study the root cause of health is, which is what you're doing. Medicine is just a temporary fix. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I think like medicine is definitely important when you have an acute issue, you know, like if I break a bone or if I need a tumor cut out, God forbid, you know, I'm going to a Western trained physician, but when it comes to these kinds of chronic conditions, these non-communicable chronic conditions now, which are saddling society, 60%, if not more of people today will die due to,

you know, one of these kinds of conditions that were relatively rare in antiquity. I think Western medicine is really poorly adapted to, to adequately, adequately address those kinds of conditions. These are conditions that are largely lifestyle mediated. And that's where I think paying attention to nutrition, to diet, to lifestyle is super important. And people are typically uneducated on those topics. And as somebody who has seen up close and personal, like real chronic illness, um, and who has the

ability to reach people, I've sort of realized that it's my life's purpose in a way to help people, you know, better set, better understand the difference between fact and fiction online today with regard to nutrition. Right. There's a lot of competing voices. There's a lot of, you know, misinformation, disinformation, and, uh, and yeah, I think it's a big problem. Yeah, and you've done a lot of research into Alzheimer's, right? Yeah, so brain health primarily, although underneath that umbrella of brain health, you know, you obviously have cardiovascular health, it's very important, metabolic health, body composition, fitness, all that stuff plays a, you know, influences the brain.

But I became obsessed with this topic when my mom at a very young age developed a form of dementia called Lewy body dementia, which is, um, it's a super rare niche form of dementia. The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer's disease. Um, but Lewy body dementia is akin to having both Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Holy crap. In terms of the symptoms. Yeah. And, um,

and that was really heartbreaking and, and, and traumatic to have to come to terms with that. The fact that my mom had this awful condition and she developed it when she was still super young, very much in the prime of her life. And that's what's led to me becoming obsessed with trying to understand all that I can about these topics,

you know, to help. Initially, my mom passed away in 2018, but initially it was to see if there was anything from a dietary and lifestyle perspective that might exist for me to help her in a way that, you know, was maybe more effective than the drugs, which were minimally effective, effective at all. And then ultimately it became about prevention for myself, because I now, I recognize that I now had this risk factor. And then the more I would learn, the more I would feel compelled to share what I was learning.

So with her, was it genetic or was it environment? Did you find out? It's very seldom the case that these conditions are genetic. So with Alzheimer's disease, for example, only about 2% to 3% of cases are due to what are called deterministic genes. So genes that will directly determine a person's outcome. And the term for that is early onset familial. So again, a very small minority of cases have this early onset gene, and that's a mutation. So that's a genetic mutation, like an error in your genome

that will directly essentially cause Alzheimer's disease or a variant of Alzheimer's disease. But for the majority of Alzheimer's sufferers, that's due to late onset sporadic Alzheimer's disease, which is influenced to some degree by genetic risk factors. But again, those aren't genes that are deterministic. It's really about the interaction between a person's genes and the environment in which they live. The food environment, the environment with regard to activity levels, exposure to environmental toxins, and the like.

And so what that suggests, and especially knowing that these conditions begin decades prior to the first symptom, that presents a window of opportunity, a window to intervene and to do things differently, do things that might reduce your risk, for example. And then with Parkinson's disease, which is now the fastest growing brain disease. Really? Yeah, very low heritability. So Parkinson's disease, there's a lot less research, but there's now this, I think, really compelling and, dare I say, even convincing signal in the literature that Parkinson's disease is largely driven by exposure to certain pesticides like paraquat or rotanone or compounds that are still today used in, you know, for industrial applications like degreasing metal, dry cleaning. There are compounds like trichloroethylene or TCE,

or it's, you know, one of its replacement chemicals, PCE, per chloroethylene, which are, which have been shown, you know, to be associated with dramatically increased risk when exposed occupationally to, um, to Parkinson's disease. And some of these chemicals are actually used to create Parkinson's disease in animal models. Oh my God. Yeah. And humans are just being like exposed to them. It's in our house or where is it? It can be. Yeah. So people that live close to dry cleaners that are still using these compounds are being exposed to this compound. Holy crap. Yeah. TCE and PCE because they're volatile organic compounds.

They readily evaporate. They can easily infiltrate groundwater, infiltrate the air. They can get sequestered and stored in fatty foods. So they've shown that people who live near dry cleaners that are still using this compound, their butter in their fridge actually can be contaminated by TCE. Dang. Yeah. It's a fascinating topic. And I owe a lot of what I know about it actually to a researcher and neurologist at the University of Rochester named Ray Dorsey who's published a ton on this and is doing incredible advocacy work. But because my mom had a condition that was actually had more in common with Parkinson's disease than, than Alzheimer's, this Lewy body

dementia complex is a Parkinsonian condition. Um, this has obviously become something of, of, you know, great concern to me, our exposure to these kinds of compounds, which are also, by the way, you know, we're now starting to see that air pollution, um, is potentially causal with regards to Alzheimer's disease as well. Wow. So living in the city. Living in a city with very polluted air. Yeah.

As of 2020, it was recognized by The Lancet actually as being one of the dozen of modifiable risk factors for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. Air pollution, exposure to air. Yeah. I'd be curious the rates of babies that are born with it in like a New York City versus the Southwest or something rural. Yeah, well, they've shown. I mean, I was born in New York City, and my mom was a born and bred New Yorker.

But they've shown in really polluted parts of the world, like in Mexico City, that you take people that have, you know, unfortunately died across the age spectrum. And even in children, like they've shown that there is pathology that looks a lot like Alzheimer's disease. In children? In the brains of like children. Yeah. That are exposed to, you know, to very high levels of air pollution.

That's scary. Yeah. It is scary. You got to make sure that your air is clean. So like PM 2.5, this is a form of fine particulate matter. It's a form of air pollution has been shown to literally get through the blood brain barrier through our nose when we inhale it and aggregate in the brain and initiate these pathological changes that we associate with late onset Alzheimer's

disease. I mean, it's terrifying, but it just goes to show you how, you know, toxic in many ways the modern world has become. And as I don't like to lead with fear, but I think it's important to be aware of all this stuff, you know, like, you know, being in a, in a highly polluted area, it doesn't just make it difficult to breathe. You know, it's, it's ha it has a physiologic effect on the body, on the cardiovascular system, you know, on the brain. And that's why we have to, you know, we have to urge for policy changes and for, you know, just this greater awareness, um, to, uh, yeah, to help clean things up. That's super concerning as someone who wants to have kids one day, that's something to be noted, you know, where I want to have them. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, I mean, air pollution is a,

it's a huge problem. Unfortunately, they've studies in China have suggested that air pollution actually does have an impact on, on the IQ of children. Wow. Yeah. I mean, there's confounding variables there because, you know, a densely highly polluted region might also have higher levels of, this could be potentially like a food desert, for example, where you have a lot more fast food, you have a lot more. So more research needs to be done. Air pollution obviously probably covariates with different other unfortunate socioeconomic aspects that also tend to lead

to higher risk for certain conditions and the like. But mechanistically, there's plausibility there. We see that air pollution is not good for our health. I remember in Beijing during the Olympics, they made it rain because it was so polluted. Do you remember that? No. 2008? They made it rain? Like cloud seeding? Yeah. They did cloud seeding or whatever. Are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest? Well, click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life.

Click the application link below. And here's the episode, guys. But now I don't even know if that would work because there's glyphosate in the rain, 60% of rain. So I don't even know if that would work because there's glyphosate in the rain, 60% of rain. So I don't even know if that would work these days. Yeah. I mean, I'm not, you know, I don't eat everything organic. I'm not like a, you know, obsessed in that way, but I do think that, you know, there have been, I practice what's called the precautionary principle. There have been way too many times throughout history where, you know, a new chemical or product has been foisted, you know, onto the American public only later, decades later, sometimes found to be harmful.

And this is continually happening. Like this wasn't just like a one-time incident. Like we used to put lead in paint. We used to build buildings with asbestos, right? We used to have a food supply that was saturated with partially hydrogenated fats, which are trans fats, man-made trans fats, which we know are poisonous to the cardiovascular system, to the brain. There have been numerous cases. There was just recently an article that came out. I didn't read the article, but I'm generally familiar with the fact that a lot of these companies, for example, companies that produce forever chemicals like PFAS, they will routinely do what they can to obfuscate the science surrounding how harmful these chemicals are.

Wow. There's evidence that the, I mentioned Paraquat, which is one of these herbicides that is likely causal with regards to Parkinson's disease, knew for decades that this compound, you know, was toxic to the brain and built essentially a SWAT team of scientists to, to obscure that data and to, and, and they essentially lied about it. Um, and so, yeah, we know where, where money is involved, especially at the scale that's, that it's involved with these, you know involved with these kinds of agrochemicals,

that truth is often an afterthought. Yeah. It's scary because I am a fan of capitalism, but once it affects other people's health, that's kind of where I draw the line. A hundred percent. I'm a fan of capitalism too. I'm a capitalist, but I think one of the roles that all governments should have is to protect citizens from harm, physical harm. It's great that we have cops that if somebody were to break into my house and assault a family member, that I can call the police and get that person arrested. Unless you're in LA. Unless you're in LA. Yes. Seemingly.

Yeah. They're not coming for that no no but i think that that you know insofar as these companies are actually like doing harm and and lying i think that's a big problem yeah and like you know taking steps to to hide the truth you know um yeah that's too far yeah and that's the thing though because we think these government agencies are protecting us. But when you look at the FDA and you look at everything going on with the supplement industry right now, they're finding heavy metals and all these supplements,

they're not really protecting the supplement industry at all. No, I mean, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a problem and there's, we don't live in a perfect world. So I think it's important to kind of acknowledge that this idea of perfection doesn't exist. So how can we take stock and do what we can to reduce our exposures and to do the best we can, right? Yeah. Because I think if you're trying to be perfect and you're trying to avoid all potential exposures today. It's impossible. It's impossible.

You're going to drive yourself nuts. And stress has a negative downstream health impact as well, chronic stress. So I think you just have to do the best that you can. And you can't feel bad about your choices and your situation. You just have to always strive to be a little bit better tomorrow than you were today. And, you know, again, like, I eat out a fairly regular basis due to my life circumstances, which required me to travel, you know, a lot. I know that, you know, for example, organic can be more expensive. Organic isn't perfect. And, you know, foods that are, things that are natural aren't always, you know,

the answer either, because some of the most toxic chemicals on earth are quote unquote natural. But it's important to be aware that synthetic compounds, industrially produced creations, like if you get sick one day before the data has fully come out, the science has settled, so to speak. A company like Bayer,

which now owns Monsanto, they're not going to have your back. They don't have your back. You've got to have your back. They don't have your back. You've got to have your back. Your doctor also isn't like, again, doctors are amazing for acute care, but they're not there to provide wellness unto you. Wellness is something that

when you're pushing your shopping cart around the perimeter of the supermarket, avoiding the aisles because that's where most of the ultra-processed foods tend to be like, that's wellness, you know, when you're negotiating with yourself to get off, get up off the couch and go to the gym, or go for even a walk around your block, right? If you've been sedentary all day, that's wellness. I think it's really important for people to, to understand that and that those small changes actually do when sustained when made consistent, have a huge impact.

Absolutely. Over the long term. Yeah, I only shop on the outside at grocery stores now. Yeah, it's smart. As a kid, I used to sprint through the aisles. Yeah, most people don't know this, but grocery stores tend to be designed the same way. The perimeters of the supermarket is where you have the perishable food. And it's the aisles where you tend to find these ultra-processed, boxed, bagged, packaged foods

that we know are hyper-calorie dense. They're hyper-palatable, so we don't tire of eating them. They drive their own overconsumption. They're nutrient-poor, typically. And ultra-processed foods are also a major gateway by which people are now ingesting these environmental toxicants, like phthalates. Yeah. Microplastics, PFAs. Microplastics, PFAs, things like that. Yeah. By way of ultra-processed foods. I didn't even think about that. But yeah, there's plastic in the bags, like the bag of

chips, right? Yeah. There was a study that just came out recently and it found that for every 10, something like for every 10% increment in ultra processed foods that pregnant women were consuming, they were consuming about 14% higher levels of one of the most well studied and harmful phthalates. Holy crap. Which is an endocrine disruptor. Jeez. Yeah. I don't know if you've seen or read about any of Shauna Swan's work. She was on Rogan a couple years ago. I haven't. Yeah. I mean, she's done work and advocated for reducing our exposure to these compounds because

they show in boys. They're like having a feminizing effect on boys. Jeez. Yeah. They reduce what's called the anogenital distance in boys. There's this trend over time that boys are essentially becoming feminized, which that's just like a crude indicator of the effect that these chemicals are likely having on our physiology. But what are all of the other unseen changes that are happening? The changes that are happening potentially to our brains?

We just don't know. Only time will tell, right? It's a huge science experiment. For real. They just found out. I mean, there was this headline that I saw. I didn't look into the study or anything like that, but like 100% of men today have microplastics in their balls. I saw that. That's crazy.

Almost 100 guys, too. It was a pretty large pool. We're seeing that we have microplastics now in our arteries, like that there are microplastics now in atheromas, which is where essentially the occlusion of our arteries, that there's a two- to three-fold increased risk of cardiovascular mortality for people with higher levels of these microplastics in their blood vessels.

It's crazy. No, it's not. It's not fear-mongering to be talking about this stuff either. It's real data. I had a heart surgeon on. He found it in a heart, microplastics, inside of a person's heart. That's nuts.

I had to throw out all my polyester clothing, but who knows? I probably already have it in my body. Dude, we all do. I mean, I definitely sweat in the polyester. It just gets in your bloodstream. Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't know about the poly, but I'm, you know, I did like nothing would surprise me at this point, you know? Yeah. Um, so I do my best. You guys are drinking water of glass. I think that's great. You know? I mean, I still don't know, like, we don't know where the waters come from. It's fine. It's all, you can't drive your, you can't drive yourself nuts, but it's like, you know,

it's just the modern, yeah. Things have just become so, we've been led so far astray. We have miscarriage rates, all time high autism. Yeah. Men are there. We're seeing a testosterone crisis in men. Yeah. People coming out as gay all time high.

And which there's a hormonal impact. Or a hormonal, there's a hormonal in men. Yeah, people coming out as gay, all-time high. Which there's a hormonal impact. There's a hormonal influence there, right? Like in utero. The Environmental Working Group identified something like, I think it was 217 industrial chemicals in umbilical cord blood. Jeez. And these are not just like, you know, these are xenobiotic chemicals, chemicals that have no place in the human body.

Like byproducts of burning, of like the burning of plastics and coal and things like that. And that's in the umbilical cord? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, the Environmental Working Group. That's scary, man. So all that's going in the baby while they're born. Right.

So it's, I think you have to do your best. You know, you have to, you know, reduce your exposure to these kinds of industrial chemicals, eat a diet that is primarily comprised of whole foods, you know, whole foods don't have extensive ingredients lists. They are the ingredients. And so basing your diet around those as best you can, I think that's crucially important. I think sweating regularly, making sure that your digestion is on point, that you're, you know, that you're pooping regularly. That's super important. Nobody likes to talk about it, but like, you know, making sure that you're having regular bowel movements. That's a major route of detoxification that you're hydrating,

that you're peeing. Cause one of the solutions to pollution is dilution. So you're making sure that you're drinking like good, clean water're making sure that you're drinking good, clean water, making sure that you're filtering your water. I think potentially having an air purifier in your house can be beneficial. We've seen that when looking at certain kinds of chemicals, that indoor air pollution can be way worse than outside air pollution. Really? Yeah, the off-gassing of certain, whether we're talking about furniture or the chipping of paint

and the ultimate, like, the dust that's in the air is comprised of these, like, plastic compounds. Holy crap. I need to buy those, man. Wet dusting is really important as opposed to dry dusting. When you're dry dusting, you're just redistributing the dust,

whereas wet dusting or dusting with, like, a damp paper towel or vacuuming, all really effective at reducing, you know, exposure to these, to these toxicants because you're, you're sequestering them, you know, with like a damp cloth and then you, you either, you can like throw that cloth away or you wash it. Yeah. Um, those are effective ways of reducing your exposure to these kinds of pollutants in the air. Wow. Yeah, exercising and then eating a nutrient-dense diet that gives your body – because your body is resilient too at the end of the day to make sure that you're eating foods that give your body the raw materials required to create these certain defense compounds, whether you're talking about like glutathione or the like. So eating, you know,

cruciferous vegetables. Um, I'm a big advocate of eating fruits and vegetables, which, you know, that in, in and of itself is a controversial statement today, it seems, but yeah, eating fruits and vegetables, meat products, animal source foods, I think crucially important. And yeah, it's just like, I guess start there. Yeah. Control what you can, man. Control what you can. Don't freak out. Exactly. Yeah. There's a lot of info online. So I could see why people get overwhelmed, but you just stick with that. I feel like that's most of it. And then you could get extreme from there. Yeah. And again, like perfection doesn't exist. So, you know, if 80% of the time you're like doing your best, um, you know, and you drink out of your filtered water system at home or what have you, and you're drinking water out of glass or like you're eating primarily whole foods. And

then 20% of the time, like you're traveling and you're drinking out of a plastic bottle, I think that's better than nothing. And that's certainly how I live. Again, I try not to let this stuff drive me crazy. And when I'm thirsty at an airport, I buy water out of plastic. Or if glass is available, I'll buy that, obviously. But that can be more expensive.

So you just want to be kind of cognizant of not majoring in the minors, majoring in the majors, and doing the best you can most of the time. Do you adopt any Eastern medicine practices? I know a lot of it's not proven scientifically yet, but do you do anything there? Not really, no. I mean, there are certain herbs that have been used in Eastern medicine that, you know, have been the focus of, you I've like chronic low back issues. So, um, I thought this study was really interesting that found that two grams of, um,

curcumin phytosome, which is like a, uh, you know, curcumin formulation. Curcumin is like one of the most well-studied, uh, components of turmeric, um, found that two grams of this curcumin extract was as effective for pain relief, small study, but as effective as one gram of acetaminophen. Wow. Yeah. Which is like Tylenol or paracetamol. And, and I thought that's crazy. I got lower back pain too. Yeah. Who doesn't these days? It's pretty crazy. Especially if you like lift, you know, if you're a guy. Yeah. Yeah. It's the worst, but you know, I think you guy yeah um yeah it's the worst but you know i think you can manage it to some degree with healthy diet lifestyle yeah for me it's just being sedentary sitting on my ass all day you know yeah i got it from like being an idiot and squatting

improperly and that's why i don't squat yeah it's so easy to get injured dude you know i know that i'm not like i don't you know i'm not like an exercise physiology expert or anything like that, but I think that unless you really know how to squat properly and you have the biomechanics to lend itself to weighted back squats and deadlifts, I think you really have to be careful. This is something that people just see others doing, jack people on social media doing, and they go to their gym and they try it. And it's, I think a lot more dangerous than,

especially today with like chronic sitting and unhealthy movement patterns, you know, tight hip flexor and all the things that like, you know, so many of us inadvertently suffer from today, just going to the gym and like loading up a bar and doing about, I think that's actually a really dangerous thing for sure. You know, I'm good on that, man. Yeah. I'm never squatting again. I'm never dead lifting too. Yeah. I mean, working with a pro in my case,

working with a personal, personal trainer, like a professional would have been probably very helpful, but, um, but yeah, with relatively low weight about 10 years ago, I screwed up my low back and it still hurts 10 years yeah i mean i manage it it's positional and it's like you know i'm most most of the time fine yeah but it's something that like you know it'll never be the same wow so i mean you saw that with lane norton he's been getting injured for nine years and he finally broke his uh previous record but damn that's pretty good yeah there's different there are different kinds of back injuries, you know? And, um, I'm not like an expert on this, but I'm, you know, I have like disc desiccation. I have like, you know, something called modic changes, which is like,

you know, it's a problem. So I've got a, like, I went, you know, my, my spine doctor is like, you really shouldn't run. You shouldn't jump. Like you really want to like, keep your like no, you know, reduce reduce the compression on on that disc as much as you can and um but it's fine like i still work out i'm the best shape i've ever been in okay and you're still hitting the sauna too i still hit the sauna yeah i still and i still like working my legs and like it's all good i'm at i think like the stronger your core is like the better off you know the better you're able to like manage these kinds of things yeah and yeah yeah i'm a huge fan of the sauna. I'm about to hit it after this.

Dude, sauna's dope. I love it. Yeah. Sauna's great. It's like the best workout you could have while sitting, absolutely. Facts. Yeah, facts. It boosts your heart rate.

It boosts nitric oxide throughout the body, which is really important from a cardiovascular health standpoint. Also, from a metabolic health standpoint, there's data out of Finland suggesting that regular sauna use is associated with a significantly reduced risk for Alzheimer's disease, hypertension, cardiovascular events. It seems to be really beneficial. Yeah. I don't see any downside to it. I've never heard any negative studies. Yeah. You just want to be careful and know your limits because there's always going to be risk. It is a stressor on the body,

and that's part of the reason why it's actually good for you because it's a source of hormetic stress, a dose low enough of stress that you not only survive it, but you actually adapt and you get stronger as a result. And so in that way,

I think, yeah, saunas are amazing. I love them, man. Well, Max, where can people find you and your podcast, man? Yeah, so I'm the host of the Genius Life podcast. We put up two episodes a week. And I also am dropping my first ever documentary on the science of dementia prevention. So if you are concerned about brain health, if you've ever experienced dementia in your family tree, this is going to be a highly relatable journey and experience to watch. And

it's called Little Empty Boxes. And you can check that out at littleemptyboxes.com. It's the most important thing I've ever done. Wow. Yeah. Little Empty Boxes. And documents my why and anybody who's ever had dementia in their family or any kind of chronic illness, really, which can be a really alienating place to be, you know, we. We'll find solace in the film. So again, littleemptyboxes.com. I think every family can relate to that, man. So thank you for that. Thank you, Sean.

Yeah, thanks for coming on. Thanks for watching, guys, as always. See you next time.