Mark Bell's Power Project - Can We Engineer Superhuman Genetics Ryan Rosner, PhD

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

In this episode, we sit down with geneticist Ryan Rosner, PhD, to explore what our DNA can tell us about performance, health, longevity, and the future of human enhancement.We get into the genetics of elite athletes like Devin Larratt, what genetic sequencing can actually reveal, “superhuman” mutations, gene therapy, cognition, mitochondrial function, bone density, Alzheimer’s risk, peptides, supplementation, and whether we’re approaching a point where humans can intentionally alter their own biology.Ryan also explains why he believes genetic sequencing is one of the most underutilized tools available today, where the science is still limited, and why the next generation of gene therapies could look very different from anything we’ve seen before.

The promise of gene therapy is like X-Men. We're just at the infancy of this technology. We know a bunch of superhuman mutations that are almost consequence-free. The real fear is leaving this data on the table. Whether it's you or honestly your family, in 10 years, I think it's going to be nuts to not sequence kids at birth, to not have sequencing be the first thing you do when you go to a doctor because trying to treat difficult conditions without that code that you run on

is like you're just grasping in the dark. I can think of 10 ways to improve cognition through genetics that could be rolled out within a year. There are some known variants, and for physical performance, too, there are known superhuman protective variants. I think sequencing is the most neglected piece by far. Right. If you can give us a little synopsis here on what you're learning from genetics, that would be really cool, because we can get into the history of how you got into genetics and stuff too, but maybe give us a little bit of background on. I'm like, what's fascinating you about this? And then maybe later we can get into the particulars on what people can do

if they start to learn about what kind of genetics they have. Yeah, absolutely. There's so many fascinating things. I think there's a few sources of fascination. One is looking at the genetics of extremely elite performers. So Devin, Larritt is a great example of this, you know, Tier 1, Spegops guy, world champion in arm wrestling for 20 years. I got to interrupt for one second.

That guy is amazing. Like me and his team have been watching his stuff for a while and just seeing him like he's like in interviews and he's just sitting there like training his hands. We're pretty nuts that way. We love training all the time. Right now we're standing on these things and like digging into our feet. That's awesome. So props to Devin for being a savage. Oh yeah.

Devin is definitely a savage. Yeah. So we sequenced him like maybe two and a half years ago at this point. And that was that combined with, you know, hanging around with Devin, it pushes me to hold such a high standard. I can't like complain about stuff around him. So if he's like, yeah, get that done. I'm going to get it done. But yeah, it also, it pushes us to dig really super hard in his genome.

And we absolutely have found stuff that is, I think, new and unexpected and really interesting. So like, this is kind of compliment. to the way science is often done, which is like big studies, really hesitant to go out on a limb and suggest conclusions. We're digging in super hard to exceptional people and not being afraid to say stuff. So that's one source of fascination. Another is trying to understand genetics like the back of my hand. So that means, yeah, understanding the history of human genetic evolution, understanding those 23 chromosomes insisting that they are understandable. And this has led to a lot of actionable understanding that's fascinating in its own way.

So yeah, those are two of the main sources of fascination. Something I think is interesting is like I just was thinking about this the other day, just the thought of, you know, did we all evolve sort of separately, you know, and apart from each other? Yeah. Or did we all come from like one origin? You know, it's like it seems like we're, I don't know. It's hard to figure out.

I don't think anybody knows it, I think is the hard part. It's one of the, so I've been learning. I actually had a big cluster of learning this a few weeks ago. And the field of archaeogenetics, I think David Reich at Harvard is one of the leading guys. This field is emerging in real time. Because the sequencing technology we can apply to ourselves is the same technology that's applied to Neanderthal. remains that we find things like this. So that's being pieced together in real time in academia.

And it's a fascinating and emerging story. Absolutely. Yeah, it's super surprising too. Just remarkable. Yeah. I have a question for you. And I think, you know, the conversation of genetics, I think, is super cool. But at the same time, it can get very dark when you go into sectors of talking about genetics.

One thing I'm curious about is, you know, as someone's listening to this. What is your advice on looking at one's own genetics, getting it tested, et cetera? Because I think that what happens here is just like what happens in fitness, except it's at a deeper level because it's inside of you. So you're seeing something about somebody's genetics. And they're like, oh, that's so amazing. There's genetics for intelligence. They have genetics for this. And I suck, right?

So, like, because what's your main piece on just how to look at this, how to take just face value at this? Yeah, great question. The first thing I would say is, no offense, but all of humanity sucks significantly, like to a degree that we don't appreciate. We have three billion digits of code and we each are who we are because a unique set of five million mutations in that code. You can't have five million mutations in three billion bases and have most of them be good. They're mostly bad. So that's one thing I would reframe it is like even if you feel like you got, you know, Delta bad hand, all of them. humanity did to a degree that we don't appreciate. And also we're in a design phase. When you asked me earlier what's fascinating, the most fascinating thing is actually our emerging ability to redesign our genetics and enhance them. But yeah, apart from that, the two big things that people are worried about with their genetics are, I don't want my data stolen and what am I going to do with the data? If bad actors on like the deep state level want to steal your data, they're going to steal it whether you sign up for genetic tests or not.

So I would say just don't worry about that. This is your one chance to be as powerful as those entities and get big data on yourself for yourself. I would say in principle, that kind of acquisition of information is just good. Also, you can sign up with a fake name and make it super hard to trace. So like I would say sequencing.com. Yeah, I'm not affiliated with them. I just think they have a good data privacy policy, a good user interface.

They've been the easiest to use. So really easy point of entry for people. It's $400. People spend that on dinner. You can spend it. It's a once in your life cost. You only have to get it done once. Your genetics do not change.

And then you have the code that you run on. It's a base layer of your biology. Everything else flows from that for the rest of your life. Yeah. With someone like Devin being an athlete, has there been stuff that you guys have found in his genetics? And then you've been able to do something from a dietary standpoint or a training standpoint that has impacted him positively.

That's a great cut. Or it's health. Yeah, that's a great question. I'm trying to think for Devin. The main things that we've found with him have not been so actionable, but also we sequenced him first, and then he and I have both largely neglected our genetics in favor of just like promoting this mission. The main stuff we've found with him hasn't been actionable so much as novel.

So things that explain his freakish athleticism. Yeah. Jesus. How old is he? I wonder how much that weighs, do you know? About 175. That would rip my tendons. Yes.

Takes some getting used to, obviously, right? Yeah. You know, I wish we could, like, somehow get a test to understand the thickness of, like, Devin's bicep and shoulder. Because, like, you can't do that, you know, until he dies, right? I don't, this is a great question. I suspect there is imaging that can... Imaging, yes. Assess tendons, yeah, because Dexa is so.

great and still underutilized but for arm wrestlers especially but for a lot of athletes tendon quality assessment is just as interesting yeah yeah so somebody could learn certain things about their genetics i mean um some genetic testing it might be fairly easy to get done within the confines of even just getting some regular blood work done right like it's it's the easiest you order a kit It shows up in like three days. You swab your cheek, send it back in a prepaid mailer, done for life. It's super easy. You only have to do it once.

It's often actionable, though, to be honest, not as actionable as people expect. The two big questions people ask are, will tell me if I'm going to get cancer and will tell me what supplements to take. Not usually for either. I mean, most people have some enzymatic deficiency that they would benefit from B12. I actually have a complex two mutation in my mitochondria that alter. I sucks and eight levels and like... We were talking about that before you got here today.

I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm no idea what you just said. Okay. Yeah. Just tell me if I'm geeking out too much. But I would say, you know, we do find actionable stuff, absolutely. Whether it's muscle fiber type or nutrient pathways, there's always something for sure. You know, I know sometimes routinely when somebody gets blood work done, especially if they're getting like a cardio lipid profile or getting their LP little A, looked at or the APOB and APO E and all these different things. It does seem like there's some actionable things they can do surrounding that.

But I get a little confused about something like LP little A where they're like, oh, you know, it's just genetics. But then that seems to move around quite a bit for some people. And it seems like there's medications that lower it. So it's like, well, if it's genetics, then how does a medication like alter it? Yeah, that's a good question. I had the same impression of LPA that it was genetic. and then I saw a buddy's test over time

and it absolutely moved and I was like, it seems like it's movable. Right. So, yeah, I'm not, maybe it's more genetic than let's say LDL, but something like that. Quick question, because I know you've definitely thought about this. On the data side of things,

for those who are scared, they're like, oh, they have my data. What in theory, if your data was, you know, taken by the government or some, you know, entities, what could be done with your, like, could there anything, like, is there anything I could endanger me if I did that or, you know, theoretically? Theoretically, mathematically, yes, but, like, a powerful entity going to the lens of making like a bioweapon targeting an individual, they, like, Devin's exact words were like,

bullets are super effective. Like, they don't need to make a thing. So, I think it's. That is so scary for me. He's terrifying, yeah. So I think it's a... Yeah, he is a terrifying guy. He's like well-trained and everything too.

And he was a military. He was like a special ops guy. He just doesn't talk much about it. He seems like a nice guy. He's the best dude ever. But also terrifying. Yeah. Rip your arms off.

Yeah. He, yeah, I think it's a very natural fear, especially in this age of like data, privacy violations, but I think it's just, it's, you know, 23 me sold some people's data. That was very unfortunate. But it's, I think it's just a misplaced fear. The real fear is leaving this data on the table. Like, whether it's you or honestly your family, like in 10 years, I think it's going to be nuts to not sequence kids at birth, to not have sequencing be the first you do when you go to a doctor because trying to treat difficult conditions without that code that

you run on is like you're, you know, just grasping in the dark. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get let's okay. You know on on that testing children. This is something that has like made me think a lot. Because you know, I have a sister who has schizophrenia. Okay. I have a cousin who because of a traumatic event. Yeah. It also has it. Right. So, understanding that about what may be in my genetics. It has made me very wary of having children. And I'm actually like I'm, I've always wanted to. But at this point, because I don't know and because seeing how this has altered the lives of people within my family,

it's one of those things where I don't know if it'd be responsible for me to do so. And I don't know if I can test for that. You know what I mean? So do you know anything in that realm? Yeah, we look at schizophrenia a lot. We've actually, there's been tremendous interest and please don't laugh. but in like what might be called sigh abilities like telebathy. And so schizophrenia, epilepsy, autism, we look at these genes associated with these conditions

to kind of look at sci abilities. You know, on another note, real quick, not even another note. It's interesting you say the sigh ability because, for example, the schizophrenia with within, when you go back to Nigeria and other places, there are some people who they look at, like some people, maybe they are schizophrenic, but they look at some of these people as having, a level of like spiritual understanding. And then some people, they just look at as being crazy. Okay.

Right. So it's just, it's interesting that you mentioned that because in other places, not just Nigeria too, and other places in general, what you're saying is like, makes a lot of sense for those individuals. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I think epilepsy used to be called the sacred disease. There's a lot of like super interesting biology there.

Yeah. To your point, which is a great question, your genetics will probably give you a ton of insight into this issue. It probably won't be 100% certainty, but it's like the most essential piece of data you can get to help you address this question. Because there are well-known risk factors for schizophrenia that are genetic,

and, you know, again, it's trivial to get your data around this. Like $400, bam, you have it, and, you know, it's, now you know what your code is. Yeah. Okay. So I sometimes look at people, and I just like observe, I'm like, man that guy's back is probably totally killing him.

He could like tell by the way someone moves or something or man that guy's knee probably bothers him a locks his knees way in and his foot's turned out or whatever. Can you kind of see genetics a little bit or have you been proven wrong many too many times to count? Yeah, that's a good question. You know what I mean? Like you look at someone like I wonder if they have the same thing as me. You know, I wonder if they have this variation.

Yeah, 100%. I do try to guess before I, I, I, I look at people's results and I'm not that good yet. It's pretty surprising, yeah. Yeah, I would imagine it's got to be really hard. It is hard, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's hard. And then what have you seen that has told you, you know,

told you something about someone's genetics that you've been able to have someone have an actionable item, like a particular diet or maybe other lifestyle habits that have really sort of move the needle? Because that's where my interest is in that. Like, you know, if we're going to learn about it, like, then what can we do further to, I guess, coordinate with the genetics? Totally. Yeah. Honestly, I think I might be the best example. So, you know, my complex, too, is severely compromised in my mitochondria.

So this leads to, the most actionable thing this leads to, I think, is that I'm probably going to hyper respond to low doses of methylene blue, which can help me bypass complex too. It also suggests that I might, because basically Complex 2 handles FAD, Complex 1 handles NAD. When you use fat for energy, you use Complex 2 more. So I might, like, I eat fat and carbs pretty freely, but I could potentially control my energy sources dieterally to, like, optimize around this. It can also lead to supplements or medications like Maldivial. The Russian medication like pushes towards more in AD usage and therefore more complex one. Those pretty deep actionable items that come from that.

For most people trying to think, but yeah, that would be a first example for sure. Very cool. Well, this is going back to the child thing. Because I know that they're in China, I think that they already I don't know if it was, it wasn't legal, but they adjusted some DNA of some babies. Yes, I do. Right? So how close are we to that being like a big?

What are you laughing at? Tell me. A lot, man. So this dude, Heizhong Hui, okay? I don't know to what degree he represents China. I think China does have some competitive advantages culturally where they can maybe move faster in this regard unless we kind of pick up our pace. but hijan quay i think was a bit of a rogue element i think i think he was like didn't ask permission

and was like people are going to see me as a hero and then here and there people were like what are you doing yeah uh yeah and he's also kind of flirted with moving to austin where i'm at so like we we think about he's jang quay quite a bit so he's not in any legal trouble or anything he went to prison for three years okay yeah um which is kind of a slap on the wrist for like gene editing embryos that are them born. So those babies are alive. I think so, yeah. So what is that he did?

Yeah, so he, the main thing he did that I'm aware of is he edited a mutation called Delta 32 into a gene called CCR5. And this basically made the babies so they can't get the main form of HIV, which their biological parents had. It also raises your IQ a little bit. So, yeah, I mean. Two thumbs up. Yeah, obviously, yeah.

It's crazy. know a bunch of superhuman mutations that are almost consequence free. The tricky part is editing them in correctly. There are ways to derisk this that I think we should be more aggressively pursuing in the lab. But yeah, so he he did that. And I've talked to people who said that maybe his science was like not, they weren't maximally impressed by it. Yeah. But, you know, that's the story as I understand it. Do you think currently there's cures for cancer out there? I mean, it's a probably, and if there aren't,

I honestly think at this point we could make them so fast that like there should, this is why I'm arguing constantly for like a, a grassroots just like swell of enthusiasm and increased understanding because people do not realize what is possible like now. Get everyone together and get everybody thinking on this. so we can advance science. Absolutely. I mean, there's so many,

I'm not like a radical anti-Big Farm, anti-FDA guy, but I think there are valid criticisms that have become much more widespread than previously. I think similarly, as opposed to criticism, there's just like a case to be made for science that moves

at the speed of science, a more grassroots kind of decentralized mode. And because, you know, cancer, Alzheimer's, all these things, like, you know, this ties into this human evolutionary story. It's been tens of thousands of years. Just ice ages, famines, like wars. We have all the tools now.

It's basically over. We're ready to like go to space, do genetics. The only thing in our way is like politics, basically. That should not be the case, I don't think. Yeah, it makes you kind of wonder like why, you know, there's certain genes that people have. is my understanding where they can't get cancer. There are some, with a number of major killer diseases,

cancer neurodegeneration, there are some known variants, and for physical performance too, there are known superhuman protective variants. Some of the easiest cases for like, you know, I've heard people refer to it as a Manhattan project for biology. Like we dropped everything and built a bomb during the war.

This is a case for doing that for some, something that's not a bomb, you know, just scientists who are motivated support these people to drop everything and advance humanity because that's the stage we're at. So in some of the gene testing, I would imagine you would be able to tell if someone's more susceptible to certain diseases, more susceptible to Alzheimer's, things like that. Definitely. We rarely see anything super severe or superhuman, but you see a lot of APOE4, a lot of other things. A surprising amount of cystic fibrosis, actually. People, will be like, yeah, my family has gut problems for generations.

I was like, yeah, you have, you're a carrier, which it can also be called haploid sufficiency. You're a symptomatic carrier for cystic fibrosis, you know? So yeah, we see a lot. It's rarely at the extreme ends, but we do see a lot. I'm curious, like, even in the past few years, how far, like, some of this has come. We had somebody a deal con on our show a few years,

but he was talking about the fall of satin therapy. But recently, I've been seeing a lot of, people that have like, let's say they went to his clinic and there's, there's been a bit of, let's say, negative things that have happened to some of the people who have gotten those things, right? So I'm curious, like, your thoughts on how that's progressing and like where we are with some of that. Totally. Great question. So I know a deal, have worked with him personally, you know, was just working at the company that provided him with that Falstatin gene therapy. I think, you know, that company and a deal, in this kind of space, you're going to select for people who are very comfortable living on the edge.

Yeah. And that can often lead to increased risk. And so I think it's good to have pioneers and people who are risk accepting. You also have to, if you're going to work in a decentralized way, you also have to hold a higher standard and you have to, you know, be accountable if something goes wrong. But, you know, I think it's, we don't want stuff going wrong, but it's kind of natural from that perspective that if you have people really gunning it and pushing the frontier, that it's going to be increased risk. It's not a reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You just want to kind of recalibrate, do it again, but do it better. Yeah.

And I think like, I mean, it just seems to me if you're someone who is, let's say you're electing to take part in some of these therapies, understand that like, even though there's, you know, everyone has the best. best intentions. You're still in, it seems that you are still an early subject, correct? This isn't like peptides or like it's, you know, but before I worked at that company, I signed up for a gene therapy trial on an island because I just wanted to get my foot in the door. And flying down there, I was like, this might be the last bad decision I ever get to make. Like this could be, but what was the trial? Like falls down in gene therapy. And it was way better than I expected. Yeah, if you, if you're going to islands for experimental gene therapy, like you're accepting risk. And so you got to navigate it. But yeah, of course. And most people are comfortable with that. Yeah. Were there benefits you found

for yourself? Yeah, there were for sure. The data were strong and personally I experienced benefits. I mean, I would say for me, I could like work out maybe one set a week per body part and maintain muscle more easily. You know, I think it's still all credit there for, you know, the promise of gene therapy is like X-Men. Like, you take it and you're like, oh, like, too much, you know, you don't want to, you want to be like, you don't want to be like, you don't want to be like transforming. So I think, and this is so possible. So I think, this is like, we're just at the infancy of this technology. And the, like, if you look at the animal data, they made like Ronnie Coleman mice.

Like, it's crazy. That was a long time ago. 2001. Yeah. Mice staten inhibition and false satin over experimental quadruple muscular mice. Like some of the mice got spontaneous tibial fractures because their muscles just snap their bones. Yeah, that happens to the cows too. Yeah.

And the cows that are genetic, they're the, The cows are just bred that way. Yeah. The Pied Montese cattle and some other cows like that. They have to actually, they have to control the amount of exercise and activity they get because they can get so muscular they end up weighing so much they break their bones. This is why we need to study your genetics so we can prevent those fractures. Yeah.

What is going on with your bone density over there? I have a theory. We'll pull it up. But like I was telling him like, you know, I was looking up a lot of stuff about bone density. through the years. And there are many ways you can like stress your structure. Not just, I mean, we talk about weight lifting, but there are rotational forces that stress your structure.

I think they did a study on female soccer players versus female distance runners and noticed that throughout the whole structure everywhere had more resilient density because of the multidirectional forces. Interesting. The soccer players were putting on their body versus the just the straight linear forces, right? So I've been playing soccer since I was six. I've been lifting for a really, really long time.

I am African or black, right? And on average, black people do have higher bone density. But I think that it's one of those things. Because even in the stronger human community, we, you know, I have been help. I've been telling people about different ways they could do things, whether it's working out, et cetera, it's increased your bone density. And everyone who's been making a conceited effort has actually been moving forward with their bone density, even though it's different ranges.

So with that being said, curious about your thoughts on all of that. Yeah, I think bone density is still undervalued despite, starting to pop on people's radar with Dex's. But, you know, that's your macro structural integrity. And unfortunately, after middle age, it does kind of start to go off a cliff unless you really use all tools at your disposal. So, yeah, all these things. I mean, I think you guys are probably some of the best examples of, like, well-rounded commitment to fitness. Because you want to be strong, mobile, healthy from every system, top to bottom, like your macro structure to your cellular.

components you want and we we have the data uh pretty easily available we have the tools like you want to optimize all systems yeah yeah and that's what the results are 7.7 yeah that was in 2025 yeah what did you do no the good thing is that it's crazy it's it's been like I think the year before that it was around 7.3 or 7.4 and there was a point in my early 20s because I've been getting my bone density done for a while where it's 6.8, 6.9. So, like, I've been trying to figure out and do to, yeah, anyway. Like that happy face just hard pinned. Yeah, yeah, all the way to the side.

That's the highest you've ever seen? Yeah, but, like, that's crazy. So, you know. And no, I'm not on PEDs before anybody asked me that question. Dude, there's. Bone enhancement therapy. There are plenty of guys on PEDs. who that's just extraordinary like that's that's that's super awesome yeah I mean I

I don't know I'm trying to see the the grams per centimeter yeah but yeah I mean seven point seven the highest I've seen is six point five standard deviations and that's extreme six is crazy seven point seven if you look at the literature LRP5 G171 V mutation 20 years ago New England Dude got a car crash, should have been smashed by it. He just walked off. And they were like, buddy, you got to come to the hospital. So they, like, imaged him in his bone density.

If you're in that seven to eight standard deviations range, it's diagnostic, I think, for LRP5 mutation. What does that mean? LRP5 is like the, you know, you can basically, if you have G171V, which is glycine, position 171 to valine, or a similar mutation, you can basically have unbreakable, functionally unbreakable bones. And so... What a great movie that is, too, on Breakable. Ever see it? I haven't seen it, but I'm probably sure that there's a few genetics movies I need to watch.

But yeah, no, that's just like, that's one of the most extraordinary pieces of data I've ever seen in any athlete. That's crazy. What are some ways that people lose bone density? Because I know there's some people that obviously we have like lifting weights and we hear about, you know, the benefits of like loading your spine and sprinting and punching and kicking. they all seem to have a impact on, you know, helping us hold onto it. But there's some people that for some reason, their bodies just kind of shut down their ability to like, I guess, hold calcium or something like that. Yeah, that's a great question.

I mean, there are a number of hormones at play. I generally think that we have tools for hormonal optimization with age now. And they're still unfortunately stigmatized excessively. Like a lot of hormones just really go off a cliff after middle age. So that could be part of it. Because it happens to a lot of women, right? They have osteoporosis, right? Yeah, so I think estrogen actually can be more important than testosterone in maintaining

bone density. So that could be why women suffer disproportionately. Also, I'm curious about this. The place where I get to Xis cancer, they actually mentioned that there are certain aspects of performance enhancing drugs that can actually have a negative impact on bone density, but positive impact on muscle. So do you know anything about that? I've not come across that.

The main thing I've come across repeatedly is just that estrogen may be a more important component than testosterone. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So you maybe block estrogen or try to lower estrogen, which can be common for people that take a lot of performance enhancing drugs. Yeah, if you block it excessively, I think you might. I tend to think that the weightlifting would still confound the date. Like you'd still get the benefits of the weightlifting. There's bone quality in addition to density too that I'm not as deeply knowledgeable there.

When you say bone quality versus density, what does that mean? Yeah, some of the people who have really high bone density have something called osteopatrosis where their bones get really brittle despite being very dense. Yeah, so this LRP5 G171V people were noteworthy in that they had the extreme density coupled to structural integrity. So yeah, and then I would imagine at lower densities as well, there can be differences in structure that lead to different quality strength. Yeah, that's one thing. Like, you know, that's a high number. But something in my mind, because I talked to you about this, my grandma on my dad's side, she's, she's passed.

But when I went to visitor when I was 16 years old, you know, she had levels of arthritis. And she was like, she had these, a lot of swelling in certain areas. She was chairbound. So it's one of those things where like I really do want to get the sequencing stuff done. because again, it's like, I'm the only one who gets these tests done in my family. Yeah, yeah. I don't want to end up like that because of some potentially, you know what I mean? 100%.

Yeah. Yeah, I have high bone density, not as high as yours. I'm like at five standard deviations. And I have bone spur overgrowth in three of my four ankles and wrists at this point. So, yeah, but there can be all kinds of pathological versions of, you know, or associations with high bone density. Yeah. What are some of the more interesting things that you've seen?

Like there's some people have conditions like agramaglia. Yeah. If I'm saying that correctly, like almost like giantism. Absolutely. Like I just, I don't know. I just, I find all this stuff real fascinating. Sometimes people, you know, have some sort of genes where they just have like giant hands or giant feet. Yeah.

Yeah. The guy that, you know, Devin is a mutant is a freak, right? But then you're in like the league of mutants when you start to get to the top tier of arm wrestling. And the guy that he arm wrestles against his hand, you know, looks like a baseball mitt or something. I mean, the guy's just, and the guy is massive. Massive is an understatement. Yeah. So LeVon, there's any of the proportions like that.

I don't think there's been a person like Levin before. He's so specialized. So Devin, my wrist circumference, I think, is like seven or seven and a half. my hand volume, which is a really cool piece of data, is about 500 cubic centimeters. How do they get that from tip to tip kind of? They're not small. Yeah. But like, so you actually do water displacement.

We actually are pioneering this for Devin and arm wrestlers to get this. That's funny. The guys are always like, how big is my hand they're looking at the thickness? You want a number. And then you want to try and increase the number. It's funny the way we size each other up. Yeah. I do notice stuff like that.

I know it's people's hand all the time. Yeah, if you're a strength athlete. I'm like, holy shit, I think a guy would kill me. Seriously, right? Like if there's certain, when you're a fighter or strength athlete, you start to look at different body and you're like hands, neck, you know, ears and you're like, no. Yeah.

So Devin, Devin's wrist circumference is about nine and a quarter, I think. Levant's is 11 inches. Considering Devin Devin Lurit is. Just something. Sorry. Oh, yeah. And Devon's hand volume is just under 800 cubic centimeters.

And we think Levan is probably over a liter, which is, to be clear, is twice my hand volume, which is like just terrible, terrifying. She can bring up pictures of that guy. What's his name? Levon Saginawili, L-E-V-A-N. Yeah, I have, I have... Have you seen pictures of this guy before?

What's the last name? I've seen their match. I've watched some of their matches. Yeah. What's the last name? Saginawili, so S-A-G-I-N-A-S-H-V-I-L-L-I. Yeah. There we go. That wrist is not distorted by the camera angle. Like, what?

In person. So the thing is, I had the life experience of being on stage when LeVon competed. And I like, I went and actually talked to him backstage. Holy cow. Like, not only is he physically, you know, in a sports specific way, the biggest dude I've ever seen by far, but his intensity pre-match was terrifying. Like, it was like mythical levels of intensity. It was really something. So, yeah, LeVan is a tough customer.

You know, the wrist thing that you're mentioning is really, really interesting. I made a, there's a video I made when I was in my early 20s. Have you ever heard of the FFMI? Oh, I love FFMI. Okay. So when I was like 21 or 22, I made a video and I got a bunch of wrist circumference, ankles, all the FFMI stuff. I got all of that data from a bunch of natural bodybuilders and lifters and people,

along with their chest measurements and all that. What is this that you're saying? What is it? The fat-free mass index. Okay, there we go. My bad. The fat-free mass index. And I got all their chest measurements, legs, et cetera.

And one thing I noticed is that, like, for me personally, I have very small. for my weight and size. But then when I also paid attention to my measurements, compared to my lower body, my ankles were very thick. But it also means that for my lower body, I'm very easily able to grow muscle on my lower body, whereas upper body, I've always found it harder. Interesting.

And partially that's because of structure. So my curiosity for you is first off, what are your thoughts on the FFMI? And then also like, when looking at Levant's structure, it makes sense. And like, because when you think about like his bones under there, he has the scaffolding. Oh, yeah.

To be able to, you know. Got that Eric Spoto look going on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think FFMI, I think, is one of the most underappreciated single pieces of data that exists. Because for a couple of reasons. One, we have data on bodybuilders before and after the invention of, or introduction of steroids. Yeah. My impression is that FFMI plateaued around 25 prior to, you know, testosterone and D ball or whatever in the mid 50s. The second piece. second piece of this is that we all know BMI is next to useless but um there's so I think a lot of

dudes over index on strength like they get to their bench in 400 then they're still like they're not looking at their blood work they're not looking at their mile time or their 100 meter dash yeah it's like dude you can crush 99% of people like they're like more metallic and more deadlift exactly yeah so I think ffm like if you're cruising at like 24.5 25 ffm your platform is good. Like if, you know, something breaks out and you got to go crush stuff, like you can.

So yeah, I think FFMI is just severely underappreciative. I don't, I've probably met certainly fewer than five strength athletes who are even aware of this metric. So it's awesome to hear you enthusiastic about it. Yeah.

One of the reasons why I was very enthusiastic about the FFMI was because like it was one of those big things. People have been using it as like a rule. And it makes sense, but it's like if your OFMI is over this, you're probably on drugs. And at that point, my FFMI was like, I don't know, 26 or 26. You know what I mean? But it is like, it's very interesting to look into.

Yeah. It's also really difficult to figure out like what's genetic. And I mean, this is the age old question, you know, what's genetic and what's epigenetic? Yeah. The nature and nurture thing is a. Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, the cool thing about your genetic. is they're so hardwired.

So you get the data, you look at them, and now you know your genetics. Epigenetics, we have some ways to assess them a little bit harder, like a little more fluid, also a little more tissue specific. But yeah, you know, it's just a case for studying, really studying everybody, but especially studying exceptional people. It's shocking.

You know, I saw you guys had a picture of John Jones out there and one of the greatest athletes of all time. Yeah. We had the opportunity to see. him and to my knowledge he had not been sequenced before and if you want to look at a case of a guy with very likely outstanding genetics a guy with two brothers who are NFL champion all pro defensive line like how has that been left on the table like he's his brothers his brother's made fun of him his whole life yeah yeah they're like you can't jump and you're not fast and you're not

this not that they were like better that stuff than him yeah that's that's also terrifying But yeah, yeah, it's, you know, I think we have the tools to answer questions like the one you asked. We just haven't been aggressive enough in going after it. What about height? Height is such a weird one because I heard recently and, you know, this is something I just saw quickly. So I didn't really look into it. But I think I heard that your height is like 60 or 50% genetic. And I'm like, well, what's the other percent?

Like clearly there could be nutrients and there could be like epigenetics in your environment. Like if you, you know, grew up with a bad environment, didn't have the right nutrients. I mean, it'd be obvious that you would have an issue with development, right? Like, that makes sense. But I was kind of surprised. I'm like, man, I thought that would be like 80% or 90%. Yeah, that's not an unreasonable guess in my opinion. You know, again, height and strength are two of the,

thus far they've been two of the hardest things to look at in people's genetics. You know, height we looked at like, you know, the growth hormone axis, GH, IGF1, one of the genes that popped out of the literature was a gene called ACAN, which the protein is agri-can. But yeah, you know, some traits are more challenging to get at than others, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't try. I mean, because we can figure it out if we put enough working. And it's going to be cool when we, like, master this.

Have you ever seen anything in someone's genetics that would lead you to believe that they can't change? They can't make changes. They can't. like they couldn't improve in a certain athletic or other performance domain. I would say there's... I mean, it seems to make sense that there would be like, okay, maybe this person would have a hard time, you know, being the fastest person ever.

Like maybe it would be more difficult for that person. But they could still probably improve, right? Like, I mean... I think if you're looking at like a Yucine Bolt, you're probably looking at a perfect storm of factors. So, but... You know, so I would say in some of the hyper-elite guys we've looked at, there is often an odd or like extraordinary combination of genetic advantages.

And sometimes I'm kind of like, ah, yeah, that could be tough to like catch up to. Devin is a great example of this with the stuff we talked about earlier. But we also see cases where people have less fewer extraordinary, obvious genetic advantages, but they, you know, are certainly at the world, world champion level. That could be something that separates, you know, goat or all-time great Mount Rushmore guys from, like, world champions. But I tend to think people can overcome and win, you know, if they want it bad enough and commit enough, you know.

How about the, you know, the idea of, like, IQ and genetics and intelligence? Because I think one thing that, one thing that people see, potentially coming along the horizon is the Neurolink idea. And being able to, when that advances enough, if you can implant something that you can like, now that can get all the answers to everything rather immediately. Or it can improve firing, right? Yeah.

But then on the farther down the road, potentially, do you see people being able to increase their cognition and increase their intelligence? Yeah, no, that's here now. That's available now. That's how, what? The first one is Clotho. So Clotho.

Clotho is maybe the strongest single gene that can enhance intelligence. You know, more is not better in an unlimited amount, but a little bit more is better. It's one of the strongest datasets in literature I've ever seen. And it improves cognition and longevity. Eye sight. I think I might have heard someone talking about eyesight. Jake Campbell has been talking a lot.

I mean, he sells it, but he's talking a lot about it. I don't work with, I've never met Jay Camel, but I'll say that I think he's pretty smart. Yeah, like he stands out a little bit to my eye in terms of intelligence around this stuff. He seems like he's always kind of hovering around some of the latest data. I think he is in a lot of cases. I hadn't heard about eyesight. That's interesting. But yeah, but again, like Falstatt, and this is really the tip of the iceberg.

Like there, I can think of 10 ways to improve. cognition through genetics that could be rolled out within a year and pretty safely too so again this is the kind of thing that it's like we should do that yeah it's super interesting you know with the glp1 drugs and how quickly they're kind of moving on those things probably because of the amount of money that's associated with it but you know now they're trying to add elements to like add a little muscle and you kind of just see like oh we're going down this path like this is real interesting because what else would they you know it's like maybe making things like a combination like i don't know how good of an idea that is but it is interesting so maybe you make something that's great for losing body

fat you you make something that pulls a little bit more muscle on you and you make something that has some cognition power behind it why wouldn't you make you know why wouldn't you make this uh cluster you You should make it. Yeah, you should. Yeah, I mean, Eli Lilly, I think they're combo with the Glyp Ones. They're using monoclonal antibody bimagromab to target the false statin pathway. You know, again, I'm not a big pharma hater,

but like I think they made these monoclonal antibodies a few decades ago and are kind of like really getting everything they can. You know, maybe it's a great, I don't know monoclonal antibodies that well, but genetics, a lot of people are actually not aware of this. A peptides are, a peptide is a short protein. All a gene does is it's blueprints for making a protein, aka a peptides.

All these peptides people love, those can also be encoded by gene therapies. And then it's like giving a man a fish versus teaching a man to fish. You give your body instructions to make it instead of just having to give it to your body every day. And gene therapies are actually easier to make than peptides. And you can change them up more.

You have more control over the sequence. Yeah, I think to answer your question, we should make those combinations, and there's plenty of ways to test them safely in animal models, et cetera, or I'm honestly a big freedom guy, like this is America. If people want to go to an island and, like, accept some risk, or if somebody was right to try or something, like, there's a lot of ways this can move fast and be safe, and there's basically infinity money to go around.

Like, nobody needs to lose in this scenario. And it's 2026, like, we should build the future. Is Clotho a gene therapy? Yeah, I think Jay Campbell's selling it as a protein, and it can work that way, but it can also be made as a gene therapy. Okay, I was looking up some stuff about Clotho, and apparently you can,

your body will produce Clotho as you exercise. That's right. People who have worse kidney function are deficient. So this makes me wonder, because this is an interesting thing. A lot of, I don't know what causes the, problem with kidneys from aspects of PED usage. Yeah, absolutely.

But how can I guess people who love to exercise and maybe they're thinking about this clotho stuff, how can they mitigate the kidney damage that could mess with their clotheau production? Yeah, that's a great question. I'm actually at a bit of elevated risk for kidney damage. That mutation I talked about my body thinks it's at altitude all the time. So I have like thick blood and my kidneys get stressed before anything else does. Yeah, how can you maybe get kidney damage?

I think there's a lot of tools, you know, hydration. There are some kidney protective medications and supplements. Yeah, I think biology is it's complex, wet, messy systems. And anytime you want to like interact with one in an effective way, you got to be prepared to do everything it takes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Why do you think, like again, I've seen some of this stuff come down where they're talking about most of kids athleticism comes from like their mother. I've heard of like mitochondria predominantly coming from mom. Like do you think that that's, do you, in what you've studied, do you think that's accurate or you think that that that'll be proven to be maybe inaccurate? I think it's both accurate and inaccurate. So most of the crazy athleticism mutations I've seen have been outside the mitochondrial DNA. So just for everybody that's watching, like, you know, you have 23 chromosomes, and then they're like about 100 million bases each. And then you have in your mitochondria a totally separate genome that's like 15,000 base pairs.

It only encodes 11 or 13 genes. It also encodes peptides like MOTC is encoded by that. So this actually touches on human evolution. The way we trace populations is by the Y chromosome and the mitochondria. You absolutely do basically only get your mitochondria from your mom. So mitochondrial haplogroups are well defined. And some mitochondria do confer advantages. But I think that most athleticism advantages genetically are due to mutations on the other 23

chromosomes in my experience. How did you get into all this stuff in the first place? Because this is like just really fascinating stuff to get into. It's pretty niche even within all the stuff we talk about on the show. Genetics is something we don't talk about that much. Yeah. And like first of all, we should talk about it. I'm super glad you guys are open this and excited about it.

But so I didn't start science until my late 20s. My mom got cancer when I was four. It was like the defining event of my life. I studied philosophy to understand that. It did not answer my questions. Eventually I came to science and just got hooked. I'm an ex-athlete, so I kind of have, like, the ability to apply science to myself

in the way that an athlete can. And once I got into it, I was just, I went all-in. Like, I'm a massive, like, all-in dude. So I've optimized my life to just be able to do this 100% of time, and that's paid off. So that's kind of the story. I will never go to a doctor ever again about my general health. All they want to do is put you on pills. Really well said there by Dana White. Couldn't agree with them more. A lot of us are trying to get

jacked and tan. A lot of us just want to look good, feel good. And a lot of the symptoms that we might acquire as we get older, some of the things that we might have high cholesterol or these various things, it's amazing to have somebody looking at your blood work as you're going through the process, as you're trying to become a better athlete, somebody that knows what they're doing. They can look at your cholesterol. They can look at the various markers that you have. And they can kind of see where you're at

and they can help guide you through that. And there's a few aspects too where it's like, yes, I mean, no, no shade to doctors, but a lot of times they do want to just stick you on medication. A lot of times there is supplementation that can help with this. Merrick Health, these patient care coordinators are going to also look at the way you're living your lifestyle because there's a lot of things you might be doing.

If you just adjust that, boom, you could be at the right levels, including working with your testosterone. And there's so many people that I know that are looking for, they're like, hey, should I do that? They're very curious. And they think that testosterone is going to all of a sudden kind of turn them into the hole. But that's not really what happens.

It can be something that can be really great for your health because you can just basically live your life a little stronger, just like you were maybe in your 20s and 30s. And this is the last thing to keep in mind, guys. When you get your blood work done at a hospital, they're just looking at like these minimum levels. At Merrick Health, they try to bring you up to ideal levels

for everything you're working with. Whereas if you go into a hospital and you have 300 nanograms per deciliter of test, you're good, bro, even though you're probably feeling like shit. At Merrick Health, they're going to try to figure out what things you can do in terms of your lifestyle.

And if you're a candidate, potentially TRT. So these are things to pay attention to get you to your best self. And what I love about it is a little bit of the back and forth that you get with the patient care coordinator. They're dissecting your blood work.

It's not like you just get this email back and it's just like, hey, try these five things. Somebody's actually on the phone with you going over every step and what you should do. Sometimes it's supplementation, sometimes it's TRT, and sometimes it's simply just some lifestyle habit changes. All right, guys,

if you want to get your blood work checked and also get professional help from people who are going to be able to get you towards your best levels, head to Merichhealth.com and use code power project for 10% off any panel of your choice. When you say you got into science,

because it's really interesting, what age did you like get into some of this stuff? And because most people don't switch to, from philosophy to let me study genetics in my late 20s. So how did you, I guess, balance your life and kind of also think about doing something like that so late because it's quite an undertaking. Yeah, yeah.

I think I'm very lucky. I have like a combination of factors. You know, my family was supportive. But I was a college athlete, so I didn't have to pay for college. I kind of like didn't have debt or anything. Nice. I had a lot of social capital because I was like a cool athlete, so I had a high confidence. Okay.

And so when I saw this opportunity, it took me seven years to finish my undergrad, so that took me to age 25. Okay. And then I got bid by a science bug and I was just like, was in a position where I could go all in. So I moved across country, got in a lab and just balanced. was not the biggest part of the equation, nor it's just like, you know, sometimes you get an opportunity, you just go all in. And that's real, I did not particularly have an aptitude for science. Like I'm a big feelings guy, like athlete, artist, but if you want something bad enough

and you're willing to do what it takes, you can make progress typically, you know, so that over the years, that's kind of paid off. And I, this is what I encourage, I've taught sixth grade science, you know, I encourage everybody to not feel like the genome or science is like some alien thing only for like geniuses. You can learn it. I think it's actually a failure of the scientific community to teach it effectively in many cases. It doesn't have to be complicated to be smart. Like there are very simple ways to teach genetics to the public. I remember listening to stuff that had, you know, stuff talking about science or biology and stuff years ago, just thinking in my head like, holy shit.

I'm never going to be able to retain any of this. But then over time, you know, you start to, if you're interested in it and you like it, you start to read about it more, hear about it more, and you start to kind of link the things together. You're like, oh, those two things are related. I'm pretty sure. And then you learn over time. I think it's a while, though. It can, yeah.

I think good teaching can accelerate it. And I think one of the key components of learning is excitement. Once it's important to people and they see how it applies to them, and I think athletes are great case for this. I think once it clicks, it's going to spread like wildfire, especially with genetics, and that's going to be a lot of fun. What's with some of these peptides that are a little bit more on the memory side, Selank and some various things like that? We've had a few guests talk about some of these things and just kind of on that same note, is there things that are promising that could help us get away from 50% of the population is

predicted to have Alzheimer's in the next 20 or 30 years or something like that. So how do we avoid that? That's a great question. A lot of people share that concern. I started thinking about Alzheimer's more seriously recently. Peptides, you know, so a lot of longevity and brain health and athletic performance converges on the mitochondria. You know, your brain can only do mitochondrial energy generation and you can't really, like,

you can't really get new brain cells the way you can. So you got to keep them like running clean and in good shape. A few things that are not, is it okay if I say a couple things that aren't just peptides in addition to peptide. Yeah. Okay. So peptide wise, you know, I think of maybe SS31, MOTC, Huminen, and what's the other one I'm thinking? ARA290 is a new fragment of EPO that eliminates the thickened blood, but it activates the innate repair receptor, which can heal nerves and neurons. AR-23.

AR-290. AR-8-2-90. I'm bullish. And athletes are probably using that right now, right? I've not talked to an athlete who's aware of it yet, even though it's on a lot of the gray market websites. I think it's EPO, I have a very positive impression of,

but I think it has, you know, side effects can be tricky to manage. So A-R-290, I think, is interesting. Those are peptides. It's worth noting. You asked about the mitochondria, so there are a few populations in the world that have, So humanin and MOTC are encoded in the mitochondria.

There are a few populations that have naturally occurring mutations in these that confer Alzheimer's protection. So humanin is also sold as H&G. That's not a naturally occurring variant, but I think it's like a thousand times more potent. Humanin P3S, proline, position three, change the serine is also more potent. That's naturally occurring.

MOTC, K-14Q. And again, these are potentially advanced peptide options or you could make them as gene therapies. Beyond peptides, a couple super fun things for Alzheimer's prevention and brain health are xenon gas. So the Russians use this in athletes allegedly and out props to them. I think they've made some awesome athletes over the years. But xenon gas is like, I think our, like, it's 2026 sleep.

You have an eight hour passive exposure at anything you want. And we're just like it should be a soft bed. we should be sleeping in pods with like gas control, in my opinion. There should be xenon there. Why not get benefits of either altitude or maybe you change things for different days or different occasions or different training protocols. Exactly. I think we, yeah. Go ahead.

And then the other one that's super cool is deuterated DHA fish oil. So your brain mitochondrial membranes have a tremendous amount of DHA in them because they have to be extremely fluid to do their brain. neuron jobs, but the problem is that DHA is extremely susceptible to oxidative damage. And you're doing all this mitochondrial metabolism might be dangerous. But if you replace the hydrogen in DHA with heavy hydrogen, deuterium, it renders it invulnerable to oxidative damage. And duerated DHA is kind of sort of available in biohacker circles. And so this is like, I've seen you talk about this on your Instagram.

You're like, if somebody made this, so somebody actually did make it. Dude. Yeah. Does somebody contact you and say, hey, I actually made it? A buddy has a buddy of mine who's a very high level biohacker. He has homos, I guess, APOEE4. So he's at high risk for Alzheimer's. Wow.

He's empowered. He's connected. So he sourced it. And he's like, yeah, I got the hookup. But, yeah, stuff like that should trickle down faster. Like there's nothing, I don't think there's anything dangerous about DHA. There's, there's peer-reviewed literature on it. Anyway, those are two fun ones apart.

Yeah, fish oil can, you can end up with. pre-oxidation, I guess, right? Yeah, this is a, I typically Omega-3s. Yeah, it's certainly, I mean, it's certainly a risk. I typically still argue that fish oil is underutilized generally. Still a net positive.

I think, so there's a test omega-quant that gives you the red blood cell lipid composition of your red blood cell membranes and it gives you a number for your omega-6-3 ratio. This is what I think people often fail that appreciate about

seed oils is that their omega-6 component is what's so pro-inflammatory. And so most people's omega-6-3 ratio is way too high. And so I typically, for me, keeping my omega-3s from fish oil high is the biggest thing that keeps my inflammation down. So I advocate for this to people a lot. But yeah, polyunsaturated fats are highly susceptible to oxidative damage. So you've got to be careful with that. Zinon gas. Yeah. Like what are the effects of that? Like, I've never heard. I'm going to have heard of the elements. Yeah, yeah.

What is xenon gas? Yeah, xen gas is a noble gas, so it doesn't react with anything. I was studying the hypoxic response in worms 15 years ago. I came across an article on xenon and I was like, what? Like, why would a noble gas be neuroprotective? I guess it does a few things. It stimulates the hypoxic response like altitude, and so it's neuroprotective in this way.

And they sell it. Like you can get it when you're out altitude, right? Or am I thinking of something different? Maybe. It's expensive, not pretty. inhibitively expensive, but it's expensive. I don't know that sports culture enough. But yeah, it simulates an hypoxic response a little bit. It inhibits NMDA receptors like ketamine can do in a neuroprotective way. It also, what else does it do? Those are two of the main things,

but the data are strong and it's just like so puzzlingly underappreciated. And it's just cool. It's called xenon. Like, yeah. Brian, can you look up like what else is what else is that gas used for? I thought it had some sort of like has some sort of normal use that I can't remember what it was. But I could be thinking of something different. That's interesting. You know, okay, something I am curious about like as he looks up the xenon thing is so within people's genetics and I'm you know, not only do I want to get my sequencing done,

but I am curious in getting my sisters and some of the other people in my family. But, you know, for her, that switch didn't happen until the introduction of marijuana. Interesting. Before she likes 22 or something. That, and it's like a switch was flipped. So what, when it comes to your genetics, how can people find out if they have things that can literally switches that can be flipped by certain substances? Yeah. I mean, and that's the only thing that comes to mind right now.

And I've seen that people have like research like there are certain people like many people can smoke weed. Yeah, I've smoked weed without issue. I was actually very scared when I found out about that because I was like, this could be the last day. You know what I mean? Luckily wasn't right. But for her, that was a switch. So what is it when it comes to genetics that that can happen? Yeah, that's a good question. It's I've not seen anything as easily definable as a switch in some of genetics. I have a pretty close friend. who has a family history of schizophrenia. She had me look at her genetics for it. Nothing jumped out in her genetics. That's not to say it's not useful to go in there and look.

Like, you know, I'm arguably an expert, but like the state of analysis is really in its infancy. I go over people's genetics over and over again and stuff comes out in passes. The more motivated you are to learn about something, like a serious health risk, the more you can find, you know? Okay. So xenon gas is used in a number of different things.

It's used in anesthesia, medical imaging, camera flashes, strobes, spacecraft propulsion. It's also used in lung physiology, erythro protein signaling, cell survival signaling, organ protection, a whole bunch of stuff. What do you got in terms of supplements? What do you got up your sleeve? you did mention methylene blue and how it's pretty effective for you. Yeah. What are some other things that you've seen really move the needle for people? Yeah.

Supplements? Yeah, I think a lot. Yeah, I'm a big supplement guy. I think glycerol is one of the most underappreciated potentially. I'm trying to think. Glaceryl, you know, is kind of funny because I don't know if people, I don't know how old people are listening to this, but it was used in protein bars years ago.

Like that the old school protein bars, some of the original protein bars that had lower carbohydrate. They did use glycerol. Interesting. Interesting. And so it had like a syrupy taste to it. Yeah. It tastes. It tastes kind of good, yeah.

Almost too sweet, you know. Yeah. But like if you put it in water, like a ball like this, like 50, 100 millimeters in here, it dilutes it. It's very easy to drink. Energy source? Yeah. This is one of the coolest things I know of. I mean, you know, it came up in longevity research.

It came up in hibernation research. And, you know, basically glucose gets in your cell, and it goes through 10-step glycolysis where it's converted to acetyl-CoA. Now, this touches on what we were talking about before. Acetyl Co-A, co-A is a giant vitamin that gets attached. It's not a product of glucose. Acetyl is the product of glucose.

That's vinegar, basically. It's just acetic acid. So what you do, whether it's fats or carbs, you chop them up into vinegar in 10 steps. I think it's five steps down. You've converted it to glycerol. So like if you take glycerol, it doesn't stimulate insulin. I think it goes through a different gut transporter than glucose and other sugars. So for endurance athletes, I think this may be a way.

They're always like trying to maximize their carb usage. think they could maybe get another big chunk just by using glycerol because it doesn't occupy the same transporter. But basically, you know, it doesn't stimulate insulin. You might say, okay, fructose doesn't also, but fructose gets used by liver. Glaclycerol acts more like glucose, but without stimulating insulin. And it just shunts in to glycolysis halfway down. It also hyperhidrates your cells, which is almost always a good thing. Yeah, it's just broadly cytopprotective. It doesn't turn on insulin, which is, you know, insulin governs so many of the mechanisms of fasting or a low-carb diet. Insulin suppression is one of the key elements, as I understand it.

So glycerol is a super fun one. Like, I buy $20 gallons of glycerol on Amazon, and then I screw the top off and I buy universal, you know, threaded, like pump. So I have like a gallon and I just dump it into like whatever you're drinking. Exactly, yeah. I like to go through my days, low-carb, high adrenaline. and so in my morning smoothie I'll often put glycerol, so I basically have the benefits of carbs without break in my fast. Do you use like MCT oil or ketones or anything like that as other forms of energy?

Absolutely. MCT, C8 MCT powder works super well for me. Ketones, I believe in them, or I think they work, but like the taste is a little challenging for me. They're a little hard to figure out, and there's a lot of different types of ketones. lot to like learn yeah i i think they're the the story of ketones is absolutely fascinating and like one of the highest uh pedigrees in possible in biology i mean like crebs protege vich like of the

crebs that's the guy who pioneered it so like that's super legit um yeah i i i use both of those c8 more than ketones um the c8 converts into ketones easy yeah that's that's so morning i often how protein, c.8, and glycerol. Just kind of quickly on the ketone note for people that are interested, the ketone salts seem to be fairly effective, but it's hard to get the right dose because they can be gross and they can also oversaturate you with various types of salt, whether it be magnesium, potassium, or sodium.

And then there's the 1-3 butane diol versions, which can sometimes be hepatoxic, which is liver toxin. So, yeah, you got to kind of like, you know, you got to learn a little bit about it and you got to experiment on your own to sort of figure out. None of them are dangerous, in my opinion. They're not dangerous at all. So you can experiment and safely, I believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've experimented with them a lot.

I think they're tremendous potential. I think of, you know, metabolism, like a goal of metabolism is being like cold fusion metabolism, where you have like super low input, super clean burning, super high yield. I think low carb and ketones are an important part of that, like future human metabolism. Yeah. So in terms of your application of your understanding of that, like why would somebody want to, I guess, maybe adjust their diet for some of that?

Because, you know, like we've talked about low carb, normal carb, carb, all that type of stuff on this podcast. And people find that they can. have different levels of performance. Some people find that, oh, when I'm on higher carbs, I perform really well. Because we've had athletes on who are low carb and keto, they also perform really, really well. Yeah. So, you know, when you apply this to yourself, what are you thinking about? Yeah, I'm thinking about, I have to, it kind of comes in cycles for me. Like, often I'll hit a multi-week stretch of very low carb where I'm just super sharp. My inflammation goes down. I'll lean

out a bit. Yeah. And then I kind of just need to like burst through some problem and I'll, I'll do more cardio and eat more carbs, even like ad lib carbs. That might be metabolic flexibility. For me, I think you always have to listen to your body. But for me, performance is really, I'm like a brain athlete. And then secondarily, I want to, longer term, I'd like to do. Like, I think mitochondrial metabolism is like, I want to try to basically be like a migrating bird. Like I want to have like infinity.

I want to do something there. Flap your wings once and be able to go from here to Florida or something. Did you guys ever play like Mario on original Nintendo? I don't pull this out a lot. I don't know why I'm brain. But the P wing you could get in Mario 3 where you just had like unlimited flight ability. I basically want that. Like I want to be able to like and then just run that metabolism 24.

We got a same image of this, Ryan. Yeah, yeah. I think there's a, there we go. Yeah, yeah. Hell yeah. You know, Christian Blumenfeld in Norway just broke 100 B.O2 Max for the first time in human history, which is insanely impressive. Is he a cyclist or something?

Triathlete. And he is, he's badass. But I think, based on my understanding of the biology, I think, like, we could have a breakthrough. Like, the amount of oxygen we waste when we breathe, like mitochondrial optimizations. fuel sources. I just think there's something there that can be pushed. I could be naive. Like,

I'm sure triathletes push really hard and have scientists. But, yeah, but I'm a brain athlete first. That's my priority. And then secondarily, I want to be like a, you know, like a migrating bird. We say the amount of oxygen waste. What do you think? I, yeah, somebody might correct me on this. Like, I'm a very high excitement person.

And I am a rigorous scientist, but, you know, I lead with excitement. But, you know, my impression is, You breathe in, the air is 21% oxygen. We could just say 20. Okay. When you exhale, you exhale 15% oxygen. And I think it's limited by the gas exchange of the capillaries in your lungs. I could be wrong, but it seems like you waste a lot of the oxygen you breathe.

Like, which is kind of strange. You'd think you'd be like getting, evolution would have made it. So you're getting like every drop. But that does not appear to be the case. Yeah. You know, regarding supplements, this is on the borderline between a supplement and a drug, but its legal status is more akin to a supplement. I think ITPP, enosotol-trist pyrophosphate increases hemoglobin's ability to drop off oxygen.

It's very safe. It's anti-cancer. You can get benefits up to 25 grams a week. It's just like Xenon and Dutrated DHA, it's not widely available. It's often underdose, but that's like maybe a cool one there. Yeah, once you're talking about with breathing, we've had many people come on the show and talk about, you know, ways to breathe. And we've had people talk about breath holds. We've had people talk about nasal breathing, you know, basically only breathing in and out of your nose.

We've had people come on the show and talk about, you know, mouth taping your mouth at night so that you're only breathing in and out of your nose. And I found it to be really effective. And I would agree with you. I think that there probably is a lot of. lot left on the table. Because when you're talking about an athlete, there's so many other things to think about that even the highest level athlete with some of the best coaches and best people in their corner, could sometimes have a blind spot.

They can be like, I never really even, I never really thought about the breathing side of things. Usually you think about the breathing, you think about these things kind of after you already made a huge dent in your, you know, in your career or in your progress, you start to have the capacity to start to think a little bit outside the box of these like extra little things that are going to help you. So it is a blind spot for some people. And I do agree that there's probably ways to be more efficient. I think it's worth investigating at a minimum. Yeah. I've seen that guy. What was the guy's name that you said? It has 100 V02 Max?

Christian Blumenfeld. I've seen some videos of him training on a hill and like he's riding a bike up a hill and it's just like it said something about him doing like a 14 mile ride yeah and how it was kind of a chill it was a chill day for him yeah and i think sometimes what people don't understand is like when you develop this fitness level that's so high so many other things that you do um are going to be you know really low because you can only like push yourself like crazy yeah so often so you probably really only pushes themselves super hard maybe once or twice a month i bet yeah most of the other stuff probably a little bit in that. You hear so much about Zone 2, Zone 2.

Yeah. It's kind of hard to really practice a lot of Zone 2, though, when you're not an athlete that has like all five gears available. Yeah. You know, the more gears that you have, the more Miles Garrett you are, the more you're like this guy. Yeah.

The easier it is to pull back on your training sometimes because you do have that, you have that oomph, you've got that next gear. Yeah, the higher gears are probably much better defined for these guys. Also, professional athletes have a lot of time. And, you know, hobbyist athletes do not have as much time. You can make time. But, you know, I feel like endurance training is the only thing that really requires a lot of time.

Strength, sprinting, even mobility. You can replace time with intensity to an important degree. But for that engine, Zone 2 training, you kind of just, you got to sit on a bike for two or five hours. Yeah, a long time. Yeah. Do you feel like some of this move and some of the shift into more science type stuff, sort of made it easier transition for you from being an athlete? Because you said you played football and you played it sound like high level.

Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's honestly, I think one of my biggest advantages by far, because I think when you don't create this loop where you apply your science to yourself, I think you become limited. Nothing works, especially in biology. Biology doesn't follow rules. Again, it's wet and messy. You have to do the experiment and get the data.

And if you don't do it on yourself, I think you don't understand the data as well. So yeah, I think athletic background helps in every way. One of my biggest advantages is a scientist. You were mentioning earlier about B12. Have you found, and maybe you can talk about that a little bit more, but have you found other just vitamins to be real powerful for people? Yeah, that's a great question.

I mean, when you ask me about supplements is like I'm trying to. Oh, there's so many. Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's like, what the hell are we talking about here? Yeah, but B vitamins are interesting. You know, the, the methyl cycle is underappreciated despite being focused on by many people. But the B vitamin that's most interesting to me is a thymine derivative. I think it's called TTFD. It's a more bioavailable form of thymine.

And in the prefrontal cortex, where you do your... Is that B1? I think so, yeah. Yeah, like that's Benphotamine, right? It's, it's, I think it's a Benphotototiamine or Benphot is an attempt to make it more bioavailable. And then a Japanese team made this other version that I think is even more bioavailable

is what I've heard. And the reason this is of interest, as I understand is because in prefrontal cortex, glucose, oxygen, and B1 are the three limiting factors for the metabolism. And so it hasn't honest, I've taken it. It hasn't, like radically enhanced my cognition, but it's still on my radar. It's just like theoretically it makes sense that it might. What about niacin? That's a weird one.

It is a weird one, yeah. Like, I mean, it makes you all flush and everything. I know there's like the flush free version, but I don't know. I just found, I always found that one to be interesting. Like, it just makes your skin blotchy and red. I think it feels cool personally. Like the tingling doesn't bother me. I, when I first started, I just kind of wonder like why, like why is that? It's interesting.

Yeah, I can't, I haven't even defined the mechanism, which is, uh, I took Nyacin to lower my LDL initially when I was just like painting with broad strokes, trying to place a safe bet around cholesterol. And, uh, it was part of a suite of, you know, tools that got my LDL super, super low, um, which was at least I exerted control over that. Um, I'm still. Honestly, the whole NED precursor thing, I'm a little skeptical of like NMN and NR. I am. Nyacin is dirt cheap and it's, it is effective at many things. I'm actually still kind of pro-Nyacin.

I might be wrong, but I'm kind of into niacin. Yeah. You know, the longevity athlete thing is something that I think is quite interesting. There's Brian Johnson, but I've been seeing so many other people like a same land. And there's this Asian guy who's been popping up on my feed too. Everyone's trying to do things to reduce their speed of age. And I'm curious if there has been anything that you've seen in the genetics of people who do live a long time, like centenarians, et cetera. Because, like, again, you always hear the stories of somebody who doesn't take care of himself at all and lives a super long time.

Yeah. You know, so curious that. Yeah. Here's what I would say. So I'd say there are things that we know of that pop up in people who live longer. but this is what I think about this. So I think looking at people who live in a hundred well is like, I'm trying to think how to say this.

Just say it. I think it's like going to a, I think it's like going to a really like, you know, underprivileged, you know, challenged neighborhood and being like, who's the richest person here? Instead of like studying Warren Buffett. Because I think all of humanity,

if you look at the average lifespan, the far ends of the spectrum are maybe like 85 and 65. So people that are over 100 are pussies. They've played it safe. They're massive pussy. No, I do get what you're saying. They probably, some of them, not all of them,

but some of them probably have avoided. I think also we need to look at theory for longevity. We shouldn't be like, how can I eke out a few more years? to like we should be like what is failing and how do we fix it in principle so we can get to as long as we I don't like to use a term immortality I like to use a term live indefinitely um because immortality people start thinking about like billionaire space vampires and they go to all kind of bad and immortality is kind of an arrogant word but live indefinitely the option to die is always on the table right now the option to live is not and it's not about this

absolute power. It's about wanting to explore life without being arbitrarily subjected to a death sentence on a timeline. And I think 100 is too conservative personally. I think there are things we can learn from centenarians, but I think there's more things we can learn from other species and from just the principles and the data around what breaks. Yeah. So this kind of makes me wonder, you know how there are some people like The Rock or Jocko Willinkoo? Yeah. Apparently they have a gene that makes them only need four hours of sleep to be able to do what they do, right? Well, you know, let's say not thinking about those guys,

but other people who may have that, you know, people talk about sleep so much as being something that's necessary to slow your level of aging, right? So how do we think about kind of your genes when it comes, or maybe I don't know if that's linked to your circadian genes, but how do we look at that when that's linked

to recovery and aging? Yeah, I think, I think there are genetic differences that can influence how much you need to sleep. Some of them are in adrenaline pathways, which makes you think you're just kind of like when we're on edge. Another one is in a gene. I want to say, it's either deck P2 or mech. But there's another one that's well defined.

I think the short answer, though, is you know if you're recovered. And I think you want to just feel recovered and perform well on a. regular basis. I think sleep and recovery are super important. I think you got to be willing to get after it when necessary, but I think generally recovery and sleep are important. Yeah. And kind of last question on that, because there's no perfect answer for this. But, you know, for people who do get after it, right? Yeah. Of course there's a balance. You don't want to, or most people don't want to drill themselves into the ground if they also want to potentially maximum live indefinitely yeah but how how do we think about that the reason why I'm asking

this is because you've seen people who start getting active in their 60s and 70s yep and then you see them 10 years later and they're like an amazing shape and then you see people have been getting after it for a long time yep and some of them when they get to that they're they've they've done it for too long or too intensely and you're not living the greatest life on their older so how do you think about that yeah um I think about it a lot of ways this actually uh I brought you guys something. I can answer that question on your previous one with this thing I brought you guys. Okay.

Okay. If it's a penis pump, we already have a few. It's a new penis pump. Oh, okay, great. It's scientific. No, so this is a, this is not like a, like a lot of stuff I do, I don't make like any money off of. I just like really, I'm just like really want to see this. science progress and like mark i knew you have been making this like awesome transition from

like world-class strength to this like super well-rounded very cool thank you yeah yeah um so the thing that's on here that i think is really novel and of high value and i apologize the font is very small there's a digital version this scorecard okay so the the premise here is that like athletes solve impossible problems. 500 kilo deadlift, free solo, you name it, 100 V-O-2 max. But if you want to point people that are so motivated at longevity,

there's no number. So this is, like, when I was a kid, Marvel put out these trading cards where the superheroes and supervillains had seven power categories that went to a maximum of seven points each. And so I was like, we need that for longevity. But 100 is a, we all got scored tests out of 100 in school.

So this is 10 categories, 10 points each, attempts to cover all the systems. Yeah. And then the highest score anybody's gotten on this so far is at 86. So I want to see like if anybody can get a 90 just to start. Because the most limiting factor on here is genetics. Yeah. But to get a 90 on this is deceptively hard. It accounts for social relationship health, like cellular health, physical performance, just everything, cognition.

So I just want to give you guys this. No, no BS. This is how I think of AI facial age. Yeah, how's it, you know. That's cool. Yeah, yeah. So we've tested this with like spec ops guys, like athletes. And then I could probably give you, I could probably give you more information.

100% potentially, right? And then you can get a bit of not a better score, but more accurate. No, no, yeah. Your feedback is super. Every user's feedback is super valuable, but especially yours. If something's difficult to do, if you think there's a better way, like we just, we want this to be as easy as possible and as useful as possible. Because if people start doing this, I think we're going to crowdsource answers to longevity. Like people are going to solve it in, in novel ways. And then we'll be like, bam, this is how you cruise at like a 95 out of 100. this is what I think. So, yeah.

I think this is like stuff like this, like this, like stuff like this, I think is, is kind of revolutionary in some interesting ways. Like, I, I think that AI and there's some algorithm, algorithms and things that can, that could almost show you, like, let's say you gave this to me at, at 28. Yeah. And you're like, this is where you're at now. I see where you're heading. Like, you seem like you really love power lifting and you're heading in that direction.

Yeah. That will bring your score down. but it might only be temporary. Yep. It'll bring your, your lifespan score down, you know what I mean? Like,

so you might be able to like, I guess, I guess just know more going into certain situations. Yeah, I think, you know, for guys,

strength is such a great and familiar example for guys like us, like, guys get blood work and stuff, but like, you know, there's so many tradeoffs

that can occur. And if you have, like, I've seen so many people with like spreadsheets of data. And, like if it can just be like you know like that x-men card i think it makes it more tractable for people yeah okay uh you you brought up x-men multiple times i'm curious man like

if we get to the point what like if you could somehow edit like what powers do you see being even edit because you've talked about telepathy yeah yeah yeah there's what are some things that you and actually even before we get to the x-men thing yeah this telephemy empathy stuff. Yeah, yeah. We just kind of, kind of crossed by it. Yeah.

What do you, what are you talking about there? Like, yeah, man. So I was very lucky. I had the opportunity to co-published a paper with ions a few months ago. Mm-hmm. They looked at the whole genomes of 100 people who self-reported as having

psychic experience of different kinds. And then they looked for patterns in the genetics. And then they called me or emailed me and were like, hey, can you like make some sense of these genetic patterns? Yeah, I think almost every person you talk to has had at least one psychic experience that they do not attribute to coincidence. It's often a predictive dream. It can be knowing about the death of a loved one before they were alerted to it.

It's often there's like one person in their life who they can kind of read each other's minds. It's one of the most universal things I've seen, but the stigma prevents people from talking about it in a plain spoken way. Like, yeah, this happened to me. And so anything, we can get at the mechanisms of anything. There are very plausible hypotheses for how this could work. One of the most fun ones is that sharks can sense the bioelectricity of their prey or other animals at a distance via calcium channels. And Devin actually told this story of demonic possession on Joe Rogan recently.

This was the craziest thing. Devin is the guy, he told me to figure out telebathy and I was like, got it. And so the symptoms of the demonic possession that he described, a demonic possession of who? A soldier in Iraq. Yeah. So the guy experienced intermittent paralysis prior to the major event. And this is consistent with people who have mutations in these calcium channels,

they get intermittent paralysis. And it's like, basically, this hypothesis is. is just super attractive because the more evolutionarily ancient calcium channels that we share with sharks functionally is only 5% of ours. And the newer kind that we have is all the literature on like, you know, Wi-Fi and like telecommunications converges on those artificial radio frequencies chronically hyper-activating our newer, more prevalent type of calcium channels, which would lead to a model where like noise is drowning out signal.

And so, but yeah, I mean, I would say the short answer, though, is that sci phenomena appear to be real and widespread, basically universal, and there are plausible hypotheses, and we should investigate them because science should be fun. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah, this kind of stuff is really interesting.

I've heard people talk about calcium channels being compromised by Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Yeah, exactly. And things like that. I've even heard somebody say that, I think it was maybe Wi-Fi and Bluetooth that neither one of them can exist without a human body. Really? I was like, what? Yeah, that's, I don't know what that means exactly, but, you know, some of it getting

almost transmitted through you. That's, because we are kind of like an antenna, a receiver. Yeah, we are. I don't know. It's interesting. We are, well, you know, as, as sports guys, you know, so 50% of our daily. energy goes to resetting neurons. I learned this when I was studying hibernation for the military.

And you think about it, if you're chronically inappropriately hyperactivating a bunch of neurons, is that creating metabolic waste? Are you just constantly in a state of having to reset these neurons? Like, you probably want your nervous system and be calm. You know, you want efficiency. A lot of interesting questions there. None of them are like dangerous or anything. It's just, yeah, we should learn about this stuff.

Yeah, I think it could just make you. potentially just the way that we are and the way that we're connected to the earth, I think it could potentially just make us more vulnerable. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think almost like the opposite of grounding. 100%. Yeah. And I think we developed all this awesome technology and we got so excited we let us pull it away

from our connection to the earth. And it's basically time like, okay, we made all the stuff. Let's re-ground and like use it in a balanced way, I think. What do you do training-wise and stuff like that for yourself? Yeah, I try to, you know, I try to do Monday through Friday. I do 18 minutes slow on the echo bike or like 18-minute run with a two-minute like death sprint at the end. And then I do like a five-minute weightlifting complex where I'm like deadlift, squat,

press. Saturday I'll do like a little solo triathlon or like a rock or something. And Sunday I try to walk around barefoot in the forest. Yeah, so. That's cool. So you're hitting a lot of different pillars there. Yeah, I try to hit, you know, slow cardio, then fast, then strength. I basically guided by my FFMI, like, I just want to stay strong.

And then I try to throw in some holistic, like, health stuff and then some, like, adventure stuff on Saturday, yeah. I saw some people recently hammering the echo bike from Rogue. Dude, I love that. And I just, you know, there's certain things sometimes. I don't know why you just don't think of certain things. Yeah. But they were, like, racing.

other to see how many miles per hour they could go. Okay. And I was like, I've never, I just never tried that before. I've got the Watts up before and I've done things like that. But I was like, I don't know why I never thought of that. Like that's kind of fun. Dude, I think the rogue echo bike I think is the best cardio tool ever made. It's a skill independent, massively durable, you know, maximum intensity quantified cardio

implement. I think five minutes max calories on that is like... And your toast. Yeah. I think this is the best test. It's, you know, you don't have to wear a mask of VOTU max, but that number, five minutes max calories is, first of all, it's so hard.

And it's, I want to see what people can get on that. The highest I've seen is one, I think the world record is like 160, which is horrible. 160 calories? Yeah. Damn. I'd like to say, this is, this is the test I go for. Anyway, yeah.

I just, I think, I want to see what people can do. that. Yeah, I saw Miles Garrett was on there. He did like a 33, 33, 34 miles an hour on there. Okay. I've never tried that. I'm going to have to see my next to you. Yeah, that's what I was super curious. I'm like, well, I'm probably not as powerful as he is, but I could figure something out on there. I bet. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Well, thanks for coming out, man. Really appreciate you taking your time. Where can people find you? And thank you so much for these diagrams. Really appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. I just thought it would, it would be cool for you guys. Yeah, I'm on, this is on our website, Astraltaran Genetics.com.

And then I'm on Instagram at Ryan Rosner underscore PhD. Are we allowed to ask you about Brian Shaw? Yeah, of course, yeah. And didn't you find some, I mean, it's quite obvious the guy's got some cool genetics going on. Brian is obviously extremely gifted and has made the most of his gifts with hard work. Brian is a case where Brian was super gracious and let us, he was the second guy we sequenced after death. Devin. Devin was on Joe Rogan recently and in excitement, like, talked about Brian's genetics a little bit. I don't think Brian was super happy about that. Okay. In fact, I know he was not super happy about that.

So I'm going to refrain from talking about Brian's genetics. It's genetics, you know, as we discuss, is a super sensitive subject, and it's really important to treat it with the respect that it deserves. Not like medical information. Yeah. You know, it can be, you know, when it comes to HIPAA, I've seen that in practice and it can be overblown. But it's really, it comes down to respecting individuals. Me and Devin are just like, we don't care. But, you know, Brian expressed that he was not happy about that. And I respect Brian a lot.

So I, I, I,