Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 423: Dr. Andrew Hill on the Brain, Sugar, Cholesterol, Pre-Workout Supplements, Nootropics, Addiction, Bacon & More

Episode Date: December 22, 2016

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin have a very engaging interview Dr. Andrew Hill, neuroscientist and Founder @PeakBrainLA, Lead Neuroscientist @truBrain, Lecturer @UCLA, Entrepreneur, Scientist, & Explorer. Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you with a new video on our new YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. MAPS Prime the only pre-workout you need is now available at mindpumpmedia.com Get MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint AND the Sexy Athlete Mod (The RGB Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Get your Kimera Koffee, Mind Pump's first official sponsor, at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Add to the incredible brain enhancing effect of Kimera Koffee with www.brain.fm/mindpump 10 Free sessions! Music for the brain for incredible focus, sleep and naps! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts!

So really excited today we had Dr. Hill on man and we get into neutrophics and the difference between synthetic all natural and it was the difference between just a stimulant and a neutropic right right a new tropic is a completely different category of substances and he talked a lot about a product that he works with but he talked about some of the individual ingredients most of which are in Camera coffee.

Which was kind of cool. Well, and this is a lot of why we took so long to find a company that we were going to affiliate with was because we wanted somebody that we stood behind, we would stand behind going forward. We knew where the science was heading in this direction and loved what Chimera coffee has been doing in the products and the stuff that they're releasing. So, a huge fan of the company.

If you guys still have not tried out the Chi-Marikoffee, you guys can get it at Chi-Marri's website, but you can also get 10% off by using the MindPump discount. And you can get that link straight through our website at MindPumpMedia.com. Yeah, and the coupon code, I believe, is MindPump. But yeah, Neutropics, they're good for the brain. That's one of the big differences between Neutropic and just a good old-fashioned stimulant. And they work better and better over time,

which is probably why when I drink Camera, I notice better effects after I've been using it for consistently for a while, versus just one shot, you know, one time doing it. So check them out, guys, that support us and check out Camericaffee. If you wanna pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.

Mind, pop, mind, pop with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. All right, my and pump listeners, we had a fantastic interview just now. Possibly, we're not... Very stimulating. Probably one of my favorites, my and pump listeners. We had a fantastic interview just now. Possibly a very stimulating. Probably one of my favorites, if not my favorite. What's cool? So we talked to Dr. Andrew Hill,

who's, God, he's all over the podcast circuit, YouTube circuit. The guy is one of the leading researchers, neuroscientists on everything from Neutropics to how food affects the brain. He's a cognitive neuroscientists on everything from Neutropics to how food affects the brain. He's a cognitive neuroscientist. He founded the Brain Training Center at Peak Brain Institute. He teaches at UCLA. Very, very smart guy.

We talked a lot about Neutropics. We talked about nutrition. Talked about sugar, how sugar affects the brain, addiction. I asked him his thoughts on pre-workout. That was excellent to listen to that. Yeah, a really, really good episode. We had a lot of fun talking to him. You can find him on Twitter at Andrew Hill, PhD, or you can check him out on peakbraininstitute.com.

So without any further ado, here's Mind Pump interviewing Dr. Andrew Hill. A few years ago, I helped found an alternative addiction center which they know is called addiction alternatives. And the biggest difference in the way that addiction alternatives does their work compared to other places is they're really not a fan of 12 step. And I don't mean the 12 step community or the program but the perspective on being powerless, on giving up a sense of control, labeling yourself as an addict. Those are all things that we saw,

there's some other room for other solutions. And so I wasn't the addiction focused guy. Initially I came into the brain services for alternatives. Dr. Mark Kern and Dr. Adi Jaffy, the two sort of addiction focused founders of that company, Mark Kern is the chairman of the board and the founder of two free self-help groups that are other options besides 12-step. One's called Smart Recovery, it's an acronym, I forget what it stands for. The one's called Moderation Management.

They're very similar, but Smart has an abstinence focus and moderation management has a moderation focus and so a lot of the program Over at alternatives, which is in Beverly Hills Has a moderation Perspective meaning you come in you say you know, I don't want to stop drinking forever I just want to learn how to drink Appropriately and some of those people are folks that have out of control Let's say drinking behavior. Other folks have been absent for many, many years.

You know, you have folks coming in and say, look, I've been in alcoholic for 30 years, haven't had a drink in 20 years. I want to start drinking again, teach me how. And they do. It's a heavily structured program. It's not like we're throwing people into bars and walking away, but this sort of a structure program examining the cues and triggers that lead to a compromised relationship with a substance, all client and that program, do at least one month of abstinence at the beginning, regardless if they're an abstinence or moderation

track client. And the reason is that a big part of moderation sort of control, the reestablishing a moderate use pattern with a substance. For folks who have gotten into trouble with addiction, a big feature of it often is tolerance. And so taking a month off from alcohol resets your tolerance, and then you're able to use substances in a way that is much more measured and moderate because you get a stronger effect. So a big component of a moderation focused or even a harm reduction focus is reducing tolerance so you don't use at the top level of your substance.

So there's some variability. You can experience differences as you use. So I worked there for about three and a half years. I ran the brain side of that company. And we saw not only the addiction clients, but other brain general brain things. And I do a lot of what's called neurofeedback or biofeedback on the brain.

And it works for pretty much everyone who has a brain. So over time, I had more and more and more clients coming in that were not substance abuse perspective clients. And so after a few years, I created another company, which is just a broad brain training center. It does not specifically have an addiction focus, although occasionally we have folks coming through that have problems with alcohol or cannabis or other drugs. But at that company, which is called peak Brain, we just basically treat all comers with

whatever brain challenges they have. And some of those are people with substance abuse, some are people with developmental issues, ADHD or sleep issues. And other folks are people that just have nothing wrong, but want to stay sharp or get sharper, better rested or more creative and more focused. So explain neurofeedback. You use that term a couple times. How does that work?

What does that look like? And especially in relationship to helping people with... Sure. Yeah. So, neurofeedback or biofeedback on the central nervous system is... I mean, people have heard the term biofeedback before. And it evokes this idea of sitting and relaxing and trying to almost meditate.

And for forms of what we call peripheral biofeedback when you're training the peripheral nervous system, that's what it is. You're sitting and trying to pay attention to how you're feeling and trying to feel certain ways. And some examples of peripheral biofeedback include things like heart rate variability or handwarming or a galvanic skin response training. These are all sort of stress and wellness kind of technology assisted meditation almost. That's not what neurofeedback is. Neurofeedback is measuring fluctuations in the central nervous system.

And most of those fluctuations are happening in a time course that's too fast, if you will, to perceive. And so, while peripheral neurofeedback is voluntary, effortful, and you must practice it, central biofeedback or neurofeedback, which in this case, most neurofeedback is training EEG or brain waves. And some neurofeedback is also training blood flow. It's called HEEG, HEMO and cephalography. And either EEG, biofeedback or HEG, biofeedback in both cases, were measuring

fluctuating signals in the brain, via temperature or the amplitude of a brain wave or connectivity between two regions of the brain or some other sort of complicated mathematical parameter were measuring. But since you're alive, the brain is fluctuating dramatically moment to moment. And certain things we care about changing are themselves changing naturally. So let me give you an example. And I'll bring it back to the addiction. Often in addiction, you have a compromised relationship with the substance, and that's basically learning,

your brain has learned to become addicted to whatever it is you're struggling with. But you've also got underlying problems that might be driving the use behavior, including things like sleep onset problems, anxiety, and ADHD. Those are really, really common in people that abuse substances.

Interesting. Especially sleep issues in alcohol abuse. Now, sort of chicken and egg. Alcohol releases GABA, the neurotransmitter GABA in the brain, which is that calm, soft, sort of low-key feeling you get from alcohol. And that's a neurotransmitter the brain uses to downregulate, and it uses to shut things off at night as you start to fall asleep. And if you're a chronic drinker, when you aren't drinking, after years of that, the brain forgets, if you will, how to produce GABA when necessary. And the chronic burnt out alcoholic is over aroused.

They can't calm down. They can't fall asleep without a drink. They can't get a thought out of their mind without interrupting themselves 47 and a half times now this seems yeah, doc. This seems to this seems to be true with Many things other than just alcohol too, right? I mean you could marijuana and opiate Absolutely, I mean the the drug of choice is a little bit less important than The perspective on a compromise relationship with a substance. You have a compromised relationship with things like Television or food or sex as well. It's not about the drug. It's or any drug. It's about your relationship with a stimulus

And why you're using it. I mean if you have a couple drinks a night that could be healthy if you have A couple drinks every so often that could also be unhealthy. It's all about why you're doing it and what happens afterwards. Very interesting perspective. I love that. You know, we work in the fitness industry, and the biggest addiction we work with is the addiction to food. Yeah, like binging in, you know, how that all happens. Yeah, and it's all about...

So you have the orthorexia in the fitness industry, where people are so incredibly rich about their food, that that itself is a cognitive distortion about reality, about how you deal with things like food. If you're lovely, you're lovely. Lovely to hear you say that. That is one of the messages that we try to put out there that, you know, I came up through the competing and I actually worked my way all the way up through the professional level and man, one of the most glaring things that I saw was, wow, these are all the people on

covers, magazines and all these people aspire to be these people, but these, one of the most claring things that I saw was, wow, these are all the people on covers of magazines and all these people aspire to be these people. But some of these people have the worst addictions and the worst health issues going on. But yet everybody looks at them as like this health icon, right? And they're totally not. And we try and put that forward that people don't realize that, you know, even eating super regimen like that, so strict can become an addiction too, just like a drug. So that's so great to hear you talk about that.

Now with neurofeedback, when someone is, so the feedback aspect of it, I'm assuming it's the, when you're working with someone, they can see what's going on with their brain and they're trying to. Yes and no, yes and no. Now the word trying flat-nose, neurofeedback is involuntary. Okay.ose, neuropheback is involuntary.

Okay. Peripheral bophy back is voluntary. You've got to practice it until you learn how to do it, and you have to keep practicing it to keep the skill. But central biopheed back, we're shaping brain activity. You can't really perceive it alone control. And we give the brain some applause, if you will, in the form of a video game or music or a movie running better.

So let's say whenever your theta brain waves temporarily drop, theta is a high theta state's distractability, essentially, impulsivity, ADHD, problem flowing asleep, et cetera, is high theta. So whatever theta happens to briefly drop, maybe a spaceship flies faster and the audio tracks swells in volume. And the next moment your brain moves in, quote, unquote,

the wrong direction. The theta surges again. And the spaceship stalls, and the music goes quiet. For instance. And the next moment the brain happens to move in the right direction, meaning theta goes down, and the spaceship surges ahead on the screen. And the music gets louder again. And then over time, we move the goalposts.

So the brain can never get comfortable just doing one thing. And we shape. This is operant conditioning of the eeg or instrumental conditioning. Think Skinner not Pavlov. We're not making like your brain drool from some novel stimuli. We're taking things that's already doing and shaping it to do more or less. You know Skinner had pigeons that were taught to peck on bars for pellets of food. But the pigeon didn't the first time he was in the cage, walk over to the bar and take it three times and get some food.

You first reward or give the pigeon the pellet when it gets near the bar, and then you give the pigeon the pellet only when it steps in the bar, and then give the pigeon the pellet when it steps in the bar twice. If that's the behavior you're trying to reinforce. So this is that kind of shaping, the only place the metaphor breaks down is the things we're shaping are happening in like the tens of milliseconds time scale, which is way below your ability to perceive. So, we shape the brain gently, give it some applause in a specific direction, and then over a day and a half or so, we watch and see if that workout, if you will, produce the right

benefit. And if it did, great, we keep going. And we sort of gradually shape the brain further and further in a specific direction that's based on the combination of the goals they want, plus some brain mapping, quote unquote, I do. It's called a quantitative EEG. We assess aspects of your brain activity

and find patterns related to things like impulsivity, sleep issues, chronic alcoholism, OCD, PTSD, brain injuries, the list goes on. So we find these patterns and then exercise them away over time. And then based on how someone's experiencing the process, we find tune in the process to make sure they get long-term changes in their brain. Very interesting.

So over time, you see people, I guess, improve or get closer to their goal. But I have a question on that. So you're identifying brainwave patterns. You're moving them towards or exercising them towards an ideal or towards a direction that they may want to go to. Are there conflicting benefits and detriment to certain types of brainwave patterns? For example, I've noticed, and this is anecdote, I've worked in sales for long periods of time,

I've trained sales people, and anecdotally, I noticed a lot of sales people are ADD. And I was wondered if that made them good at sales. Is that true? Do you notice that? Do you notice how some things can, you know, certain braid wave patterns? Yeah, let me give you notice how some things can, you know, certain braid way in patterns? Yeah, let me give you an example. Theta, as I mentioned earlier, when it's high

with your eyes open, if it's staying high, then the brakes are off cognitively. Everything that comes in, you react to mentally or physically. Okay. And that's ADHD. It's a failure to inhibit. So you're reacting to the sort of bottom up, you know, all the different modules in the brain,

a sensory module, the visual module, the auditory module, et cetera. All in the brain, the sensory module, the visual module, the auditory module, etc. All those things are driving the ship when the prefrontal cortex is a little bit of sleep, meaning excess theta. So high theta means low executive function, which is not ideal. But if you make really good eyes close theta, then you have a really great ability to be creative to access memories, to go into a sort of a reverie or dream state. And so in one case, it's a positive thing.

In another case, it could be a negative thing. So if your goals are creativity, then yeah, you want to train up data potentially, but if your goals are getting rid of ADHD, you train down data. And sometimes people come in with conflicting goals. They need to be more alert, but also less anxious. And we have to really sort of hedge and do combinations of protocols and try different things. come in with conflicting goals. They need to be more alert, but also less anxious. And we have to really sort of hedge and do combinations of protocols and try different things.

The neurofeedback process starts with science, but from there it goes into art. And a lot of very subjective, like when I'm doing any specific intervention on someone's brain, it's a combination of the sort of evidence-based quantitative EEG database, quantum EEG or brain mapping, is a normative database-driven process.

So out of the map, I get a sense of how usual your brain is from the average population. And then we figure out the things that are most unusual might mean x, y, or z. So I'll say, oh, this excess theta that's three standard divisions above average usually means impulsivity. Are you impulsive? Oh, you are.

Okay, great, let's believe thisivity. Are you impulsive? Oh, you are. Okay, great. Let's believe this data. And we've sort of figure out the most statistically unusual things in your brain, which of those are actually related to things you want to change. Be that sleep issues, stress, problems, staying alert. All kinds of things we can work on.

When there's an addiction, you know, a problem or a substance abuse problem in the mix, then there's the cognitive or the habit piece of the addiction, but there's also resources. And if you're really impulsive, really anxious, can't tolerate sitting still, can't tolerate your emotions, and you can't fall asleep at night without downregulating your brain from the outside, so to speak, then you're probably going to use drug-drug alcohol, because you're stuck. You're unable to get out of your own way, and drugs in alcohol actually do affect your brain potentially positively or sort of self-medicating. If you remove those, you remove the

impulsivity, you remove the need to get stoned to fall asleep or to get drunk to fall asleep, then you give people freedom over their behavior and much more control over time. Very interesting. So, do you also use as part of your therapy, drugs or substances to help them along the process? I know if there's a lot, right now a big popular movement, and we work in the fitness industry, and you see a lot of neutropics, for example. Do you combine those with your therapies to help?

I don't actually, in spite of having created a true brain and working in the tropic space, I tend not to mix my sort of start-ups, if you will. And the reason is that when people are doing neurofeedback with me, it's a three to six month process and the goal is to make permanent change. Neutropics are the air to provide long-term decades of support, but they should help you gradually and more of a spot like you're getting effects from a dose from each days worth of neutropics you take, but also helping trajectories of things like aging

and performance. Neutropics aren't changing your baseline in any permanent way. They're adding on top of the baseline. So I do get a lot of biohackers who are very interested in doing everything to their brain. When they work with me, I tell them, okay, great, you know, I'm really happy, I'm happy to support your Neutropic Journey or other things you want to do. But let's first see what a couple of months of Neurofeedback does because the baseline will change so quickly and so dramatically. We want to see what that is, make sure it's replicable, make the permanent change, and then we can go further on that foundation and have neutropics. You know, if diet and meaning nutrition largely

sleep and stress are not managed, it's hard to build on top of that. And so just like somebody wouldn't be able to do all kinds of crazy exercise without developing a foundation Of small connectivity muscles, you know The first time someone goes to free weights after being on machines for 20 years They have no control because they just don't the muscles aren't really educated to control these you know big free weights and things And this is something that we talk heavily about is just I feel like we're one we're few of the

The burl a lot of people who says bros bunch of buff fitness guys and so and yet we talk a lot about the central nervous system And and I feel like Everyone wants to skip that process. They want to get right to like the best exercise that's going to build me this or the the best exercise to do this And it's like you first need to lay this solid foundation because if you're not well connected to all these things, you're never gonna get the maximal effort out of all of your muscles and the rest of your body. And the same goes with the nutrition piece.

I love hearing you talk about, you know, starting all the way from ground zero and then building you up. It's not to say that we won't eventually get to all these cool tricks and new tropics and other things and enhancements that we can utilize later down the road. But first, we need to build this solid foundation, and then we slowly build on top of that.

I feel like it's a very similar approach to how we talk about health and fitness. Yeah. So I would never say, sure, it takes some tropics because you aren't sleeping well. It's more like, let's fix your sleep, get you feeling much better, and then let's see when your tropics take you from there. If somebody had, they were aging, they had some risk of Alzheimer's, then I would say using the tropics prophylactically makes sense. But in terms of a biohack, it's much more important to get all of the foundation things in place and then build on that pyramid, just like you would in the body. The brain is physical tissue. So it's not muscles, but it does learn,

change, respond in a very similar way to educating muscle tissue. Now Dr. Hill, I know that exercise increases or improves brain activity. And now we know that exercise increases the amounts of BDNF, that's the membrane. Brain derived neurotropic factor, I, that's the small brain. Brain-derived neurotropic factor, I believe, is the correct term.

Yep, exactly. What does that do to the brain, increasing that? Why is that important? So BDNF is the final, well, it's a very hot molecule these days, but as far as we know, it's a plasticity, a growth factor, you can think of it in the brain. And the brain is always making new cells. This is something that was relatively new information,

past couple of decades. We are making new brain cells all the time, like continuously. Now, it's a much lower rate than it was when you were 10 years old, but you're still making all kinds of brain cells. And even like two weeks ago, up until a month ago, we thought that the places the brain makes cells

are this very narrow zone in the lateral ventricles is one place around the hippocampus, which is a very active part of the brain. We sort of thought that was the, those were the regions where the brain was still active with cell development. Two weeks ago, there was a paper published that showed that the meninges, these wrapping layers, which we thought most of them were cushioning and protecting the brain, are actually

replete with cells that generate new brain cells, in neural stem cells. So there's all kinds of new cells being born all the time. These cells are not born, if you will, as the final kind of cell they need to be. They're sort of a pluripotent, like a potential cell that can become any kind of brain cell. And they're not born, they aren't developed in the place they need to be. The brains are pretty big, you know, ball of jelly, and the cells are produced in one place or two places, and they travel to the place they need to be. On the way to, in that journey, they turn into the kind of cell they need to be, on the way to in that journey, they turn into the kind of cell

they need to become a glial cell, a neuron, a blood vessel, et cetera. And half of those cells that start that process die. And what determines if they die or if they make networks and connect to other parts of the brain and become thriving cells is access to BDNF. And access to BDNF is enhanced by making connection to other cells.

So this process, it's about a five week process for cells to be born, developing to the kind of cell that want to be as they travel throughout the brain, being bathed in BDNF encourages and ensures that that's going to be part of a network. So that's one big implication of BDNF, but anything that causes learning and an uptick in plasticity causes an increase of BDNF, but anything that causes learning and an uptick in plasticity causes an increase of BDNF.

So exploring novel environments, exercising, talk therapy, neurofeedback, there's good evidence all of these things, spike BDNF and therefore increased plasticity or the brain's ability to change. So you think that exercise will cause that, mainly because the body, it seems to me like the body's Obviously the brain

There's lots of neural connections that you know are connected to how we move and the sensors You know our senses our hands our feet and so exercise stimulates that BDN. Yeah, there's a somatic sensory input appropriate sub-tivine input But also just change, just new information, period. We'll change the percentage to a piano lesson today, and then at the end of the day, image your brain every single cell in the hand area of your motor cortex, every single cell

would have remapped in touching a different cell. In the same day. That's fast. So it's a very, very rapid process. Starts in the order of seconds when you start learning new information. One more thing about BDNF, it turns out BDNF is also the anti-depressant signal in the brain.

Anything that lifts depression, anything, seems to do so by raising BDNF in the hippocampus. Wow, so I have a question on that. You talked a lot, you just said, how novel experiences tend to increase that. And I'm reading this new research now, talking about how, you know, they're doing research on things like

psilocybin or lycergic acid and how that's helping people with everything from addiction to depression, to end of life therapy. And I've also read other studies showing how highly intelligent people tend to be more prone to unexperiment with psychedelics because of the novelty, the altered states of consciousness. Does that affect BDNF as well?

Is that also encourage new brain cell growth? Yeah, novelty certainly does. There's probably more to it than this, but at least one very specific example is the hippocampus has cells called place cells that fire. They get excited when they recognize the environment they've been in before. They learn cues of the environment, and they also get very, very excited when they explore new environments. So the act of like hiking out into the woods on a new hiking trail or something produces

a bigger BDNAF increase than walking around your house. Because it's novelty and the brain's gonna integrate, where's this new environment? Are there interesting things here I should learn about? This is a survival sort of based learning. And this is probably why exercise, other things also raise that. You have to have a ample BDNAF

because we don't usually run in place at high speeds, in evolutionarily, like a treadmill or something, it's not really a real environment. But a lot of physical motion tends to mean a lot of travel when we're primitive beings. And so this is why even going to the gym and banging on your body a lot probably does produce a novelty signal to the brain. So anything that affects depression is a BDF final common pathway for relief, including SSRIs. SSRIs actually don't raise serotonin in spite of what the marketing literature says. They actually suppress serotonin long term, believe it or not. But something about

monkey with serotonin in the synapse and causing a cascade of suppression through the autoreceptor on the sending neuron, which notices a rise in levels of serotonin that backs off, that ends up being a lower level serotonin long term. But, as is a rise, over time, spike BDNF in the hippocampus. So, it's a very indirect, low-key, sort of, you know, downstream effect effect to BDF, but that appears to be how all of these things work. Well, what do you think about right now, what seems to be big is the effect of the microbiome on the brain. Now, they're showing all these connections between things like gut flora and behavior, depression, anxiety. that gut flora and behavior, depression, anxiety,

and more recently, they've kind of found a direct connection between the gut and the brain through the lymphatic system. Yeah, what do you think about that? That sounds pretty exciting. It sounds like that's a new exciting. It's new, it's exciting, and it's more complicated than anything we've come across before. Or start to explore.

There are more genes in your gut than there are in the rest of your body combined. You have more genes from other organisms inside your body by a large number than you have as human genes, let's say. So billions of little creatures in your body whose microbiome, whose genetic expression affects everything around, including what you crave for food, including what kind of mood you're in, including who you're attracted to, and changes in the environment, change the microbiome, and that changes the mind. So, if you are somebody who eats lots of carbohydrates and sugar,

your microbiome adjusts to handle the carbohydrate load and then craves it and then makes you seek carbohydrates, for instance. So we are still just barely scratching the surface on the human genome. The microbiome is like 30,000 times more complex. And so yeah, citing, but way less. Almost daunting. Almost daunting a lot. We're not even close to it. I always I always like when we get a mind like yours on the show.

I always like to ask, where are you most excited right now as far as all the research that's out there? What are you currently researching? What excites you the most right now that's happening and what we're learning about? What are you into right now that's happening and what we're learning about. What are you into right now? Well, I'm a gerontologist as well as a general brain hacker. I teach a lot of courses in gerontology at UCLA. One of the very exciting things that we're getting much, much closer to understanding Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. All the diseases in aging, the other two big ones, of course, are cancer and diabetes. All of these things seem to have sugar as their major sort of mechanism,

including Alzheimer's, including Parkinson's. Alzheimer's is now being considered a type of three diabetes. Neurons in the brain become insulin resistant with high levels of glucose and insulin over time, which produces the same failure of insulinogenic systems that happen in diabetes in the body. That is exciting because it suggests mechanisms we can intervene around. Recently, there was a study out of UCLA. We've had a couple of a bit. Most Alzheimer's research for the past 20 or 30, 40 years has had the perspective where there's

some specific mechanism, or some specific treatment that shows interest or promise, and that a scientist will do a very narrow study examining one mechanism or one treatment, and that's been the bulk of the research. Somebody UCLA earlier this year said, you know what, let me try something different. Instead of examining one little thing, maybe in an animal model or on cells, let me use behavioral interventions on humans who already have Alzheimer's. I think it took 17 or 20 people, took them off all their meds and some of these people were fairly profoundly severe in their symptoms and then gave them an aggressive exercise,

high fat diet, et cetera, et cetera, kind of intervention strategy, and many of them had symptoms reverse. Wow. Many of them. That's awesome. And now, if you have somebody who has Alzheimer's symptoms, one of the new things you can try is

you can give your grandma or your mom, whoever it is, ketones, either coconut oil or actual prescribed ketones, supplemental ketones. And if the neurons in the brain are already insulin-resistant, so you're having performance issues and cognitive issues, but they haven't fully died yet, then supplementing aggressively with ketones will actually bring those neurons back up in activity and reverse symptoms. There's some evidence out there you can do this. And so things like that are showing us that, you know, one of the biggest killers, if you will,

in terms of cognitive ability and aging, is actually tractable and starting to become much more unraveled in all of its mechanisms. We're finding very similar things in all the other aging issues as well. Atharice chlerosis, cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's. There's a dramatic sugar sort of pathway of these disorders and minimizing all sugar coming into your diet, it's definitely all free sugars, and minimizing all non-complex

starch seems to be a really effective and powerful way to not only minimize risk, but potentially reverse symptoms, which is very exciting to me. Yeah, I'm glad you said that because we tend to battle people in our industry over, you know, whether it's just calories that matter or it's just proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, because it seems like sugar is connected to so many different things, everything from cancer to brain degeneration disorders. It's very, very interesting to me how, why that is. Do you have any clues as to why sugar tends to drive some of these things?

Yeah, one word, glycation. That's the concept that is key to all of these issues. Now, there's lots of things sugar does. Inflammation, it causes all kinds of weird insulin resistance, but the damage, the severe damage seems to be from glycation. A glycation is something that in the body is incredibly bad. Basically, it's lipids oxidizing. And they're oxidizing because of sugars usually.

Now, it's a horrible thing in the body. It's an amazing thing in the kitchen. If you like bacon, then glycation is your friend, you know. The in the kitchen we call this the may-hard reaction where you heat carbohydrates and fat together and you get this caramel flavor and the may-hard reaction is in the flavor that sort of caramel flavor is in bacon, coffee, organ meat, butter scotch, any of that smoky caramel, that's the main reaction. And so it tastes incredible, right? But when it's in your body, it's fats and carbohydrates and things destroying cells. And in some like Parkinson's, for instance, we know that Louis bodies, which are little,

tiny aggregates of junk, essentially, that are destroying brain tissue, Louis bodies are glycated on the edges. And that's why the destroyed brain tissue in Alzheimer's, beta-amoloid, which accumulates and causes some damage, is most damaging when it's glycated beta-amoloid, not when it's regular. We all have beta-amoloid, which accumulates and causes some damage, is most damaging when it's glycated beta-amoloid, not when it's regular. We all have beta-amoloid and tal.

These are not problematic compounds in the body when they're naturally, if you will, normally regulated. But once they're glycated, they accumulate faster, the dysteroct tissue faster, etc. So glycation, and this is the same process that leads to arterio and atherosclerosis over time as well, you know, hardening and sort of oxidation of the arteries, all the same damn process. And so, you can really minimize all of these things. Cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, atherosclerosis, arteriosclerosis by dropping sugar out of your diet.

Well, so, this is fascinating because more, I mean, relatively recently, you know, we were kind of led to believe that it was all saturated. Well, besides, you know, fat intake, it was just your genetics, your genetics were, you know, you know, people with Alzheimer's, you have this gene for it, you know, diabetes, you have this gene for it. Yeah. But it's that you don't actually. Wow.

In fact, the genetics are deterministic. The Mendelian, if you will, Alzheimer's risk is only very specific subtype of early Alzheimer's in your 40s and 50s. It's not the most common Alzheimer's at all. The most common form seems to be more systemic and natural if you will. No specific disease process. And yeah, we now know that in the absence of excess sugar, a diet high in saturated fats apparently is healthy.

Oh, that's so crazy. I'm so glad you said that. We've been talking about that from... There's still shocked people to this day. Well, I mean cholesterol's in fats. I mean, you know, the... Cholesterol's an essential nutrient. If you don't have cholesterol, you don't produce hormones, you get to press, you commit suicide. You know, cholesterol is incredibly important. Low cholesterol is one of the big risk factors. It's unusual, but if you have low cholesterol, it's a big risk factor for depression, for suicidal depression. We've actually predicted that that will be a popular supplement in the future, is that people

will start to supplement with cholesterol with the more and more research and science it comes out with that. Well, with exercise, we even find that high cholesterol intake or dietary cholesterol intake with people who exercise, it improves strength gains. Absolutely. And there's no evidence that dietary cholesterol raises serum cholesterol in the absence of sugar, zero evidence. In fact, cholesterol is considered this one big stock you know, stocking horse, you know, bad guy, but it's not. Clestrols at least three or four different molecules,

and they have names like high density, low density, and very low density lipoprotein that these are molecules that transport the individual cholesterol, little molecules. And HDL is the good cholesterol, and LDL is the bad cholesterol, except that it's not LDL that does the oxidation. It's VLDL, very low density, sometimes called VDL. And very low density lipoprotein is actually not produced from fat, from dietary fat. It's produced from dietary sugar.

When you eat sugar, your liver produces VLDL. And it produces these really easily oxidized, easily oxidized, big sort of goopy molecules that aren't very stable. And those molecules flitter on your bloodstream for a week after you eat sugar. In contrast, if you had a nice big plate of bacon, yeah sure, it causes an increase of LDL for one day and then it's back to normal. And LDL doesn't oxidize aggressively the same way that VLDL does. So it's really, we're really,

have been giving cholesterol a bad rap. It's essential nutrient. If you don't have cholesterol coming in, you actually are not healthy. It's necessary for hormone production. It's used in every single cell in the body as a membrane protein or a transporter. Heavily necessary, cholesterol is not necessary. Clestrol is not a favorite.

So then what's your take then on a lot of these prescription drugs to actually try and lower that? Do you think there's some adverse effects that people can be getting from taking? Not just some, only adverse effects. Wow. You know, there's a great article. Essentially, statins are only for people that eat bread. They're not good for anyone else.

And they're only good for you if you bread because of how bad your inflammatory system is. In fact, we know there are really dramatic downsides to statins. One example is statins disrupt the balance between the osteoblast and osteoclasts. Those are cells in our bone. Bona's dynamic tissue, we don't think of it as moving, but it actually does change all the time. When your stress, your bone gets dense, if you're allowing it, that all the time, bones get less dense. These are regulatory cells that work in a balance, osteoclasts consume old bone, they resorb it, an osteoblasts build, I think that's right order,

a build a new bone tissue. And if you're somebody who takes statins, and osteoblasts build, I think that's right, a build, a new bone tissue. And if you're somebody who takes statins, you've disrupted that balance and suddenly you are eating your own bones dramatically and bone density drops swiftly. Now if you're already a middle-aged or older woman who's already got bone density issues because of either genetic predisposition or lack of dairy or osteoporosis or something else coming in and then you add statins into the mix, forget it. Your bones are basically not existent.

So huge, huge issues we're discovering in statins. They are not good for anyone as far as I can tell. And there's no real evidence that dropping cholesterol improves cardiovascular risks. Yeah, and this show increasing saturated fat intake does increase LDL. However, it changes the type of LDL. You just talked about the super low density versions, which are the bad ones.

And so your LDL may rise, but you'll get kind of the fluffier versions of them which are protective. Is that correct? Other way around, the more dense ones are less easily broken down, so HDL is the most dense, the most small, if you will, version of the small and QL. LDL is what we used to think was bad, it's kind of a big molecule, it's less densely packed cholesterol molecules within it, and VLDL is really huge and fluffy and has very, very low packing of cholesterol

molecules and more triglycerides. And because of that, it oxidizes much, much faster. So what can people do, just everyday people do, to ensure that their brains stay healthy long term, that they have, the brain stays fully functioning, that they don't have these aged, degenerative type diseases in their brain. What are some things that people can do? Well, the big three, one is keeping your insulin sensitive, which really means minimizing all heavy sugar hits and keeping your carbs low and opt to keep insulin sensitive, which my rules of thumb are, you know, below 65 or 75 grams of carbs a day,

and below 20 grams at anyone's sitting, to make sure insulin is always listening hard for that carbohydrate signal and not getting, you know, a near to it because it's so incredibly powerful. So one is that. Two is sleep. You got to sleep. Sleep is important for many, many things, attention regulation, memory consolidation. We know that the brain sort of car washes itself with an agitated sort of serial spinal fluid bath when you're sleeping. If that doesn't happen, toxins build up in the brain. We know that the synaptic density that's accumulating when you're awake gets reset when you're sleeping, so your brain can actually learn again the next day. And so there's lots of, and then

chronically steep deprived brain, of which many of us are, looks very, very similar to a depressed brain. So sleep is key, it's not just useful, it's necessary as a foundation. So let's see, keeping sugar low, which I would say, primal paleo, keto, whatever you want to do, keeping your sleep regulated, meaning getting about seven or eight hours a night, getting up at the same time every day in the morning,

so that your photo period, your brain's understanding of where the Earth's light dark cycle is, is a consistent signal, so your brain's circadian rhythm gets lined up against the Earth's photo period. Tighten training to your light dark cycle against the planet's light dark cycle is profoundly good for mental health. And getting out of whack and free running where you're awake when you're asleep is really,

really dangerous for your brain. So an exercise, I would assume, exercise would be a problem. An exercise in, but I would say that exercise, the first quote, unquote, exercise that's necessary for brain health is meditation or mindfulness. Interesting. You can offset almost all psychiatric problems we know about and long-term mis-savaging in terms of brain, you know, things by meditation. It can do a lot over time, as much as drugs can do over time.

So those are the big three. Meditation, diet hacking and sleep hacking, and then once you have that foundation in, you can do the more aggressive and more dramatic thing. It's like neurofeedback, like neutropics, like other sort of second level things, but I would put physical exercise in that first category as well. Just like mindfulness is exercise for your brain tissue, I think exercise for your body will also encourage and improve all that stuff as well.

I think you need to be doing both. Body exercise and brain exercise are both very necessary. Combining them seems to accelerate benefits in both. So often that theory, right, in talking like this, do you find it almost silly when people are reaching for all the latest supplement or pill or things for them to take when all these other things are kind of at a whack when they're not to do yeah it's it's the same it's the same broken perspective you know why don't americans

why don't we all have um... you know good musculature low body fat and a six pack you know it's because we're You know, good musculature, low body fat, and a six pack. You know, it's because we're A not in educated, and it's more about the behaviors we're engaging in long-term. We don't like things that have to be engaged in long-term for benefits. We like quick fixes, like pills.

And so most of us would rather get diet pilled and go to the gym four days a week and work out. And there's lots of reasons for that. I mean, maybe we're lazy, neighbor busy, who knows. But we really do need to adopt more of a perspective on having control over our brains and bodies. We actually do. I mean, shift happens, it's going to happen, the body's going to change, the brain's

going to change, how it changes to some extent is up to you. You know, what you practice is what it gets better at doing. And so there's really no excuse for not sleeping well, being anxious, being OCD, being PTSD, having migraines. There's no reason to tolerate that because there are incredibly validated tools, including neurofeedback, meditation, etc.

That can change your brain. So if you're not rested, if you're in full-blown catastrophe mode working 80 hours a week, always scrambling, you're not being very efficient. You're not managing this sweet spot of stress and keeping yourself with enough environmental press to stay engaged, but not so much that you're overwhelmed and performance to grades. And humans can't judge and performance very efficiently anyway. So this has to be a habit, a lifestyle tweak versus a moment to moment pullback kind of thing on stress. That's funny because people tend to confuse being busy with being productive and taking time to be mindful will make you more productive. So it's that whole like, okay, I don't have

time. So because I got all these things to do, but it's that whole like, okay, I don't have time. So because I got all these things to do, but it's like if you take the time, you'll be able to get those things done. Exactly. It's important to, it's necessary to focus on things that are important versus urgent. Oh, very good. So, so now, that all being said now, let's talk about neutropics for a second. Tell us about what's exciting in the world in neutropics. Actually, before you even do that, how do you classify a neutropic? What does that mean?

Because I know there's stimulants and then there's, you know, that people make confused for being neutropics. Which are not, yeah. Yeah, so what's the difference? What is it? Right, and then there's synthetic, and then there's all natural versions of it.

Kind of get it dive into that. I'd like to hear you talk about that. So the initial definition of neutropic had lots of versions of it, kind of get it dive into that. I'd like to hear you talk about that. So the initial definition of new tropic had lots of features to it, including things like neuroprotective, good for long-term health, improving cognition, meaning the stress, memory, attention, sleep, something, and low or no side effects,

meaning not habit forming no tolerance. If that's don't wear off over time, and there's no real risk of taking them. Well, that eliminates caffeine. It absolutely does. Caffeine has cardiovascular risk, surprises appetite, it's having it forming, it's very addictive over time. Not that that's an issue for most people, but it is.

And so, no, caffeine is not a neotropic, Adderall is not a neotropic, but Daphneil is as far away from Neutropic as you can get. Wow. There's, these things are a neotropic. Adderol is not a neotropic. But daffinil is as far away from neotropic as you can get. Wow. These things are not neotropic. Neutropics are compounds that are gentle, subtle, over many, many days, weeks, and months. You're like, oh, yeah, I'm just firing all cylinders.

But anything that causes a dramatic change in your state, probably not a neotropic, because those are usually dopamine issues, and you can't sustain changes in dopamine. Nothing that you would develop tolerance to is an atrophic, or habit forming or any side effects. And so I'm really down on this whole wild west of marketing language, calling things neutropics that just are not. Maybe they're cognitive enhancers or smart drugs, but they are that category.

And so my classification is fairly narrow. There are some herbs out there that are called neotropic. There are some amino acid, there are natural compounds, synthetic compounds. But I think that's much less important if it's natural synthetic than does it have side effects. If you're trying to biohack, you're probably mostly healthy and performant and you're trying to take it up a level. With that perspective, you should tolerate no side effects. Because if you're already fairly performant, any deficit is a loss. If you're, you know, let's say you're profoundly ADHD,

okay, then maybe you take a stimulant to help you get some benefit and you tolerate the side effects on your way to improvement. But if you're already great, then any side effect is a major no-no from my perspective. And also things like Adderall, not that encouraging of cognition. Things like the Daphneil,

ridiculously ineffective for actually changing how your brain works. They make you feel really awake. But the side effects that's happening to me, the side effects from a Daphneil are life-threatening. And the hospital with head to toe hives for many days, having to be on course of steroids to shut down an overactive histamine response provoked by low dose as prescribed medallinal.

So dangerous stuff, if you don't need it, don't take it. If you're working with a drug or cognitive enhancer or a smart drug that has side effects, you should be only working in a perspective of fixing a problem with your psychiatrist, not just biohacking with random drugs that have side effects. It's very, very dangerous. So that all being said then, what would you consider to be Neutropics? Yeah, things like, well, I mean, of course I helped design true brain and all those ingredients are true Neutropics from my perspective, things like the racitaine class, parasitaine, oxyracitaine, antiracitaine, preamiaracitaine.

Those are all classic neutropics. Some herbs, like, well, we'll go in amino acids next. Altyracine, L-theanine. Altyracine is a naturally occurring amino acid that is the precursor to dopamine. So by feeding your brain full of L-tykyrosine, if you have dopamine issues, you might produce more stable levels of dopamine. Now very different perspective on that compared to giving yourself a stimulant that causes

massive releases of dopamine. In one case, you're feeding the raw material, feeding the system to act how it needs to. In the second case, you're altering the system dramatically, so it then has to adjust to what you've done and try to recover from it. So it's very important to only do things that are going to take the brain further in the direction it already wants to go in without munking with its core regulatory things, which means synaptic regulation. Other things, let's say, well, this is an intru true brain magnesium. Magnesium can both calm you down when you're over activated as well as help nerves fire. So it's both buffering low and over activation. Elf theonine is amino acid I mentioned.

Elf theonine is found in T-leaves. And it's a GABA urgic. It causes a nice calm, smooth release of GABA. And this is why T makes you feel calm and focused versus jittery and focused if you get that effect from coffee. And so you can combine those things. Take know, take caffeine but add some althene and now it's a much more neutrophic sort of optimized cocktail, if you will. Yeah, that's actually my favorite combination is having theanine with coffee.

And it's just it totally changes the side effects of caffeine for me. What about the colean, what about colean, you, like? Yeah, so there's a few colonergic that are neutropic most or not, most have side effects. But a couple don't. Alpha GPC and CITICOLINE or CDP COLINE are both pretty good forms of COLINE. You know, COLINE can be a little bit side effect the if you will, if you go up and dose too much,

you can get irritable. There's a little risk of depression, I think, with alpha GPC especially, if you go up and dose too much. And then, but the wonderful thing about especially CDP-colyne is, CITICOLINE affects the membrane transporters in the cellular membrane that turn colean into things like phosphatedral colean. So it not only changes, give yourself CDP-olein, not only gives the brain the raw materials

to make better membranes and to use that coolein to make acetyl coolein, the neurotransmitter involved in membrane attention, but it also affects the type of coolein in the cell membrane and the uptake of coolein into the cell to produce phosphatetidyl coolein, which is used in heavily in cell membrane signaling. So some of these things not only are used sort of primary as a nutritive, you know, making more of the neurotransmitter, but actually affect long-term cell regulation. This is probably how the racetams work, is by affecting the cell regulation. They don't really bind to a receptor of any sort, nor do the coline, you know, drugs.

They affect the cells, metabolism, not some receptor. So I think that the receptor targeting drugs are generally not neutropics, because the receptors aren't meant to be monkeyed with. They have machinery in place to adjust, so they're always responding to pressures, and it's tuning themselves, they can listen to the range that they're being presented with.

And if you totally monkey with the range, you break some of the regulation sometimes, or the ability of the brain to manage it is just lost, and then you have side effects. So yeah, racitimes, tyrosine, altheneine, mega-3 fatty acids, or neutropics, I would say, but not a lot of things that are being called neutropics these days, unfortunately. What about ketones? ketones are fuel, right? So they may have a Neutropic effect,

make you feel more clear. Okay. But if it's dramatic and you're having a huge hit of clarity, when you supplement ketones, you might be somebody who's been a little bit stuck in carbohydrates and your brain is starved and your neurons are insulin resistant. It feels incredible to take some ketones. You've got a drop sugar out of your diet completely and teach your body how to make ketones better.

Wow, that's a great, that's very interesting. Very lightning right there. Yeah, so if somebody goes, hey, I just went on a ketogenic diet and my God, the difference in my mind, I'm so much clearer, they might have an issue then with insulin sensitivity. And with inflammation, you dropped inflammation profound, they might have an issue then with insulin sensitivity. And with inflammation, you dropped inflammation profound, like you felt great after you went on a kidney to the diet for a couple of weeks.

Yeah. So I want to talk about the race attempt class of Neutropics for a second, because just, you know, they're popular, they're synthetic, they're classic. Well, I mean, they're synthetic, but what isn't these days? If you get some, you know, vitamin C, it's synthetic. Oh, not that there's a problem with that, they're synthetic, but what isn't these days if you get some you know vitamin C it's synthetic Oh, not that there's a problem with that just that they I know in some countries are classified as drugs and here you can purchase them

You know over the South South America Sorry South Africa and the UK you can't get parasitam into those countries for instance without without a prescription Are there any dangers with using other raceetam supplements? Or almost none. Almost none. They're incredibly well understood in terms of how little side effects they cause because of just decades of use. We still don't quite know what they're doing,

but we know they're fairly innocuous. There are a couple of country indications with racetams. One is especially poracetam, maybe oxyracetam. These things work by making cell membranes more flexible. That's probably one of the really serious sort of main ways that they actually exert their action. Because of that, if you have issues with your cells already being a little too slippery,

meaning hemophilia, then you can cause bleeding. If you're very interesting. If you're hemophiliac, you should not be taking racetam, so you might actually increase bleeding. If you're a hemophiliac. You should not be taking racetams. You might actually increase bleeding. If you're on large amounts of blood thinners, you can't even morph it in. Same thing. You probably shouldn't be mega dosing peracetam if you've got morphine and a cumin in

your system because you might cause bleeding. Now that's one contraindication that someone understood. The other one is peracetam is eliminated by your kidneys. It's renal elimination. So if you have kidney failure already, then the racetams would not be an ideal compound to start with. Very interesting.

I know that it's not a risk factor for kidneys. It's just if you have compromised kidneys, you wouldn't want to start there. Sure, and that's for lots of substances that are normal safe so. Exactly. I've seen conflicting information on doses for race of times. I've seen on message boards, people taking 10, 15 grams, and other people taking three

grams, and then people saying you need to take an attack dose when you first start taking them to build up in your brain. Is there any validity to this, or is it just an individual thing? People are foolish, is the short answer and people get stuck on one detail and somebody repeats it enough and loud enough and everyone else believes them. What you're referring to is the fact that some people take, there's some numbers out there. Four point, is it four point, five grams per dose or nine point,5 grams per dose or 9.6 grams per dose?

Those numbers came out of a study by Christoph Michele in the late 60s, 70s, who look at single dose effects in the brain, human brains, and showed micro-state complexity. Basically entropy in the brain or complexity is a sign of intelligence. It means more connectivity, more micro-states, faster to switch gears, internally, essentially. Christoph Michele found that there was a sweet spot with single dose, where 2.4 milligrams wasn't as good as 4.8 was. And 9.6 was worse than 4.8 in terms of complexity and micro-states. And so that's everyone ran with that.

But that was a cute dose, a single damn dose. That is not how it acts when you take it once or twice a day for many, many days. So people just, you know, repeat bits of information they think are valid without really thinking about why they might not be valid. I'm so glad you cleared that up because I've had questions. People have asked me how much they should take. When you go online to research and read, you've got companies selling racetam supplements or tropics. Their information is also extremely inconsistent. What is a dose that you recommend then of racetam on a regular basis?

Yes, so you asked about an attack dose. And I do find for some people that racetam do work better when you first take a little more. But it's not necessary. An attack dose might shorten the days it takes to start feeling it. And paracetam and oxyracetam, most of the racetam, do take a few days off and to really kick in the first time you take them. It's like an education process.

The brain needs to figure out how to use this stuff maybe. But, for instance, in true brain, there is an attack dose. True brain has a daily dose of about three grams of peracetam, but in the first 10 days, it's a 4.8 gram, 4.6 gram dose. And so we double the dose for the first two weeks and then back off a little bit. And race attempts seem to have a reverse tolerance. The more you take race attempts, the better they work. So it doesn't really matter. I don't think if you take an attack dose or if you just give it another week to see if it kicks in, they're pretty subtle. So people often expect major, major effects. And when there's only subtle effects or they don't get an effect on the second day, it's not working. It takes more.

Yeah, it reminds me of, I don't know, sometimes I think it's marketing because it reminds me of Crayteen when Crayteen first came out. Loading phase. Yeah, and you go to do the loading phase and then you kind of learn like it really doesn't matter. It's almost like they want you to get through the bottle faster, you know. Yeah, exactly. Take 20 grams a day for the first five days or whatever, and then, you know, five grams a day afterwards.

The press exam has this really broad, you know, inverted U pyramid of effects. So you can take small doses and have effect in large doses and have an effect and not have weird side effects. You know, other new tropics like NewPept, for instance, is basically an inverted V. Unless you get your dose perfect, you cause side effects. You know, NewPept, if you up and dose a little bit, impair short-term memory, pretty powerfully. And so, you know, the race stems at least have a pretty wide, effective dose range, and you can really monkey with different doses without dramatic side effects. And so they're fairly safe to try different things with. That is not true of many other compounds

you might want to take. I have a question, Doc, why we got you on here? I'm really interested in this because we've all been in the fitness industry for well over 15 years. And about 10 years ago, we saw this shift into the market with pre-workout supplements. And I find them very fascinating that it's exploded. And when we dive into like really what they all are, they're just like a... Caffeine? Yeah, just an overload of stimulants that people are putting in these things. it's it's exploded and when we dive into like really what they all are there's just like a caffeine yeah just a overload of stimulants that they that people are putting in these things filled with artificial sweeteners and dyes and other bullshit

What do you feel about that and what do you think that some of the things that could happen to people or What's your thought on that? I think the word bullshit is a great place to start with describing that that market that. I think the word bullshit is a great place to start with describing that market segment. One of my big red flags for supplements in general is any compound that obscures the amount of ingredients you take. You mean proprietary blends? Yeah, because then they they they put whatever they want in the label put almost none of the amount of the stuff you want in there, lit up with caffeine or sugar and that's what you feel. So I have a rule of thumb that anything that doesn't disclose exact amounts of ingredients is snake oil, is completely utterly bogus, and may actually cause problems.

And people do drink too many two workouts, go into the gym and have heart attacks because of the high caffeine level. Let me give you my little secret about a pre-workout. There is a compound called cell butyamine, which is a neutropic. And sulbutamine is a thiamine, B1, bound to B1, it's a dimer. And because it's dimer, thiamine in supplement form does not get through the blood brain barrier, but sulbutamine does. So if you take sulbutamine, you get get a really strong fireman hit to the brain.

And one of the things diamonds used for is basically just metabolism, oxygenation, if you will. And so subudiumine can be a nice, pretty subtle nitro picket to use for many things, not dramatic, but subudiumine before a workout. Oh my God. It's like a fire hose of oxygen was put into your body. You just don't get tired. You feel like you're burning fuel really efficiently And so I don't think you should be going after a pre-packaged

Pre-workouts because I don't think any of them are good I've not seen one I would trust I mean there may be some but I haven't seen any and as a space. I'm very suspicious now But a simple sub-udin mean and a cup of coffee would be my, if I needed caffeine boost, that would be my pre-workout. Now, I don't have anything before I work out. I don't eat, actually, I do a stonga yoga, which is fairly rigorous. And I do it from about 6.30 to 8 a.m.

And so for me, the first thing I do is work out. I don't eat anything. And I think that's good for improving insulin sensitivity, working out in a fasted state. I think it's better than eating in the work out in a fed state. And if you're eating sugar and caffeine, you've already sort of minimized some potential benefits of hammering on a slightly sleepy insulin system first thing in the morning to make it more sensitive. So I think that there's no benefit for pre-workouts and there's no real real use for them. I'd be more interested in feeding the body with things that would let it

continue to work out for longer and of course those do that but you could do the same thing with hydration, some caffeine and a little bit of subunit immune. So I'm not sure that there's any real benefit there and there's definitely some real risk. Crazy, crazy how a bullshit market like that can explode and become one of the most dominant. Well, let's be honest, it feels good to be high on stimulants. I mean, that's just the bottom line, you know?

That's why they sell so many bottles of stuff, you know? If you could load it with any stimulant, you know, people of course are gonna love it because they feel great until they're... That's why they throw nice and in there. So you get all hot and sweaty. I just find it so fast. That's what I'm saying exactly.

Yeah, it's like... And then your dopamine starts to down regulate and you start to get, you need it just to stay feel like you're alive, otherwise you feel horrible. I've had a lot of success with Neutropics pre-workout. I noticed if I just get my mind right, I have the best workouts ever where I'm up but I'm not overstimulated and I'm focused and then I don't crash afterwards. Which that seems to be the hallmark of the

stimulant heavy pre-workouts. Is that you go home and then you crash like you just died? And that doesn't sound like a good idea. Yeah, I don't want to bond during my workout or after, thank you. Well, it's been a pleasure talking to you. This has been... Yeah, nothing's wrong. Yeah, no, awesome, awesome. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps on a ballad, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundles

like having sal and an adjustment as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a 430-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindpunkMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a fine star rating and movie on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is MindPump.

Minecraft!