Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Rhonda Patrick on Sauna Benefits to Increase Health Span EP 275

Episode Date: April 4, 2023

I am joined by Dr. Rhonda Patrick, a Doctor of Biomedical Science who is a renowned scientist, researcher, public speaker, and researcher. In this episode, Rhonda Patrick and I discuss the incredible benefits of regular sauna baths and their increase in popularity, as well as the crucial link between vitamins and minerals, stress, and aging.   In This Episode, Dr. Rhonda Patrick and I Discuss Sauna Benefits to Increase Your Health Span. Rhonda Patrick, the Found My Fitness Podcast host, explained the importance of balancing nutrient consumption, consistent heat stress, and exercise to keep the body healthy as we age. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/dr-rhonda-patrick-sauna-benefits-health-span/  Brought to you by Green Chef. Use code passionstruck60 to get $60 off, plus free shipping!” Brought to you by Indeed. Head to https://www.indeed.com/passionstruck, where you can receive a $75 credit to attract, interview, and hire in one place. Brought to you by Fabric by Gerber Life: Got to meet fabric dot com slash passion --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Prefer to watch this interview: https://youtu.be/QwDAzxjUpPg --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Want to hear my best interviews from 2022? Check out episode 233 on intentional greatness and episode 234 on intentional behavior change. ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m  Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/     

Coming up next on the Passion Struct Podcast. This is one of the most profound effects of the sauna. So there's been epidemiological studies. These are observational studies looking at correlations. And people that use the sauna four to seven times a week have a 46% reduced risk of hypertension. But there's also been intervention studies, some people that are into the sauna for 30 minutes,

and blood pressure is then measured, blood pressure is improved, both systolic and diastolic, blood pressure is improved after the sauna. There's a pretty profound effect on blood pressure, which is not only important for cardiovascular health, it's extremely important for brain aging and brain health. In fact, it's one of the most important lifestyle factors for preventing dementia. Welcome to PassionStruck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles.

And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guest ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators,

scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 275 of PassionStruck. Ranked by Apple is one of the top 20 health podcasts. Thank you to each and every one of you who comes back weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. And if you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. Or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or family member.

We now have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that we organize, and to convene the topics that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started. And in case you missed it, last week we had three amazing interviews. The first was with Harvard professor Arthur Brooks, and we discussed his number one New York Times best-selling book from Strength to Strength. I also interviewed Susan McSaman, who is the founder and director of the International Arts and Mind Lab Center

for Neuroesthetics at the Peterson Brain Science Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. And we discuss her brand new book, Your Brain on Art. Lastly, I interviewed Seton Hall Law School Professor Gaya Bernstein, and we discuss her brand new book, Unwired, gaining control of addictive technologies. Please check them out if you hadn't had a chance. And if you liked today's episode or any of those, we would so appreciate it if you gave us a 5-star rating interview, which goes such a long way in bringing more people into the passion-struck community where we can give them weekly doses of hope, meaning, connection,

and inspiration. Now let's talk about today's episode. The practice of using heat or purification, cleansing, and healing has ancient roots and is observed in many cultures today. You can find many variations of this practice from the Banyuza Russia, the sweat lodges of American Indians, and the famous Sanna's of Finland. Sanna use, also known as sunbathing, involves passive exposure to extreme heat for a short duration of time. The exposure causes mild hypothermia, which triggers a thermoregulatory response, involving

various mechanisms, restore, email stasis, and prepares the body for future heat stressors. In my interview today with Dr. Ronda Patrick, who is a renowned scientist and health educator. We discuss why in recent years, Sonnebae then has gained popularity as a way to improve overall health and increase lifespan. Back by compelling data from observational, interventional, and mechanistic studies, she explains how the ongoing OPO isch, heart disease risk factor study, which is followed over 2300 middle-aged men from Eastern Finland has shown strong associations between sauna use and reduced risk of disease. We discuss why using the sauna 2-3 times per week was associated with 24% lower all-cause

mortality, and 4-7 times per week decreased all-cause mortality by 40%. We discuss the most effective intervention to extend your life and prevent chronic disease. The new implications of scientific discoveries for increasing your lifespan and Ronda's personal sauna regimen. Ronda Patrick earned her doctoral degree in biomedical science from St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and has become one of the leading public health educators on the brain and general health, aging, cancer, and nutrition. Run as the host of the popular Found My Fitness Podcast and is a frequently requested speaker

who challenges the status quo and encourages the wider public to think about health and longevity using a proactive, preventative approach. Thank you for choosing PassionStruct and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. I am absolutely thrilled and honored to have Dr. Ronda Patrick on PassionStruct. Welcome, Ronda. Thanks, John. It's a real great pleasure to be here. I'm excited to have our discussion all things health and longevity today. Well, I have consumed your content for a very long time,

and I have to say you are really, if not the first scientist, one of the first to really bring rock solid academic content to the masses. So thank you for all that you've done over the years. There have been a lot of people who followed after your start. Thank you. Enjoy what I do. It's nice to make a difference in people's lives and feel good about it. Well before we jump into the interview, I did wanna give you a chance to talk about your fabulous podcast, Found My Fitness. And I thought we'd just jump into that right off the bat

because I think it's such a valuable source for so many of the listeners of my show. Oh, I appreciate it. Yes, I do have a podcast called Found My Fitness and I always enjoy getting new listeners. I do interviews with experts. Most of the time they are scientists, researchers, physicians that are doing research in the fields

of health and medicine and breaking down some of the low hanging fruit lifestyle factors that, when the science behind them in terms of what people can do to improve the way they feel, and the way they're aging, improve their disease risk, lower their disease risk in that sense. You know, we put out a variety of great shows

and episodes. We have one we just did on Alzheimer's disease, and so you can check that out on Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube, the podcast is found my fitness. So thank you. As the audience who are regular listeners know, I've had a number of recent guests on the show talking about longevity science and reverse aging, people like Mark Hyman, Carifid Stierold, Amy Shaw, and Will Cole. And I know this is an area that you specialize in as well, Ronda. However, I've gotten a lot of feedback from the audience that they want to do more of this,

but some of the things that they hear, maybe from David Sinclair or others are cost prohibitive. And I was hoping that you could share some of your more cost-effective secrets that can go a long way in helping the listeners increase their health span. Well, I can certainly speak to factors that I think are important for healthy aging, things that I personally am doing in my own life, and also things that I think are low-hanging fruit, in other words, things that are not so difficult for people to do. What I focus on in my own life, as I head into my mid-40s, is really an important one, I think the most important one that doesn't really cost any money because you can do it anywhere for free is short bursts of vigorous

exercise. So I mean, getting your heart rate up to an estimated 80% max heart rate for short periods of time. And we can dive into this a little bit later, but I think it's hugely important for improving the way our brain is aging and also improving our overall health of our cardiovascular health and other organs in our body as well. So you can do a sprint, you can do some burpees. I mean, these things don't require equipment, they don't require a gym membership, right?

They just require effort. So really, you have to be willing to put an effort. And so cost prohibitive is one thing. What I've noticed is one of the biggest barriers that people tend to have is the effort barrier. So if you could just bottle up exercise in a pill, I mean, it would be the most anti-aging pill you would ever find.

Like there's nothing more powerful and more potent in improving the way you age, delaying age-related diseases, improving your mental health the way you feel, than exercise and particularly vigorous exercise. So that's one, two, I really think there are a lot of low hanging fruit, things that we can reach in terms of our micronutrient deficiency. So these are about 40 or so essential vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids, that we can get from our diet. We need to get from our diet because our body requires them.

We don't make them in our body. However, most people are not eating diets that are getting out of quit amounts of certain micronutrients. And one of the micronutrients is actually even made from sun exposure. So this would be vitamin D. It's actually much more than a micronutrient. It's a hormone. Steroid hormone regulates more than 5% of our human genome.

And many entities are important for brain function, making serotonin, for example, which regulates the way you feel, regulates your executive function, your memory, learning, but also the vitamin D regulates immune function. And the way your immune system is working, how you're able to fight off infectious diseases, how that immune system is working with age. So most people in nowadays, we spend a lot of time inside.

We spend a lot of time on our laptops and our cubicles doing podcasts here. I mean, we're not outside doing farming like we did pre industrial era, right? So many people are not making enough vitamin D in their skin. If you look at a lot of these national nutrition and health surveys and Haines, about 70% of people in the United States do not have adequate levels of vitamin D. That would be blood levels of the precursor

to the hormone of about 30 would be the lowest amount. So 30 nanograms per milliliter. Ideally, if you look at meta-analyses of a variety of different studies published over the last 30 years, people that have blood levels of 25 hydroxy vitamin D is actually the biomarker that's measured when you go to the doctors and get your blood vitamin D measured. Between 40 to 60 nanograms per milliliter is the ideal range in terms of people have the lowest all-cause mortality. In other words, they are less likely to die earlier in life from many

different non-accidental causes of death, cancer, respiratory disease, heart disease, neurodegenerative disease, for example. So vitamin D supplements are one of the cheapest supplements that you can buy. It's pretty much like a penny a pill, at least it was before a lot of the inflation hit. So I mean, it's definitely a cheap vitamin. And as I said, 70% of the U.S. is not getting enough vitamin D globally, even if you go to places like Egypt or Saudi Arabia, a lot of people, particularly women, are covered up when they're out in the sun. As we get older, our bodies are less efficient at making vitamin D from the sun. In fact, we're 70% or so less likely to make enough vitamin D from the sun as we get older, our bodies are less efficient at making vitamin D from the sun. In fact, we're 70% or so less likely to make enough vitamin D from the sun. So there's a lot of reasons that a vitamin D supplement can be a very low hanging fruit and easy way

to kind of get you up to an adequate status. Another one, magnesium is something that's also required for vitamin D to actually be converted into the steroid hormone. So it's not just enough to have the vitamin D3 supplement. Your body converts it into this steroid hormone, estrogen is a steroid hormone, testosterone is a steroid hormone. People are very familiar with the steroid hormones. Well, imagine if 70% of the US population was deficient in testosterone, like that would be big. People would be thinking about it. So thinking about vitamin D in terms of the fact that it's a steroid hormone, it is regulating

our expression of our genes. It's important. Well, magnesium is required to actually convert that vitamin D3 into the act of steroid hormone. It's also required for a variety of enzymes that are involved in what's called DNA repair. So this is something just living, metabolize every time we eat food, every time we breathe in oxygen,

we are converting it into energy. And that whole process that we call metabolism is a wonderful thing, but also as a byproduct of it, we are damaging our cells, we're damaging our DNA. And that's happening constantly and over time, eventually the DNA gets damaged in a part of it that can lead to cancer, a mutation that can lead to cancer. So DNA repair enzymes in our body are repairing that damage all the time. But for those DNA repair enzymes to work, they need magnesium.

Magnesium is what's called a co-factor for them to work. Well, almost half the country doesn't get enough magnesium. Why is that? Well, magnesium is at the center of a chlorophyll molecule and chlorophyll is what give plants their green color. People are needing enough greens. And so in order to get enough magnesium, yes, you can supplement magnesium.

You do need to be a little careful with supplements and with magnesium. There's different forms of it. Many of the forms are pretty equivalent. If you're looking at magnesium, citrate, or magnesium, malate, magnesium, glycinate, these are all pretty bioavailable. But as you start to get higher doses above 150 milligrams, it could cause a little bit of a laxative effect, I guess, is a good way of putting it. So I personally like to get my magnesium from my food by eating more greens. It's also really,

it's magnesium's found in nuts, almonds are a great source and these are all really healthful foods to eat, which is not eating enough of them. So again, a low hanging fruit to greens. Greens, not that expensive to buy ahead of organic or romaine lettuce or kale, right? You need a handful of almonds, right? A day. So those are also a couple of great ways to increase magnesium. I focus on that as well. But in addition to that, Harvard came out with a study back in gosh, I must have been 2009, identifying omega-3 as one of the top six preventable causes of death, like up there with basically not smoking. And omega-3, and it was actually, it was omega-3 from marine sources. So this would be EPA and DHA,

they're both found in fatty fish. Fish oil supplements are also another way to get omega-3, and we can dive into that a little bit later if you want. A lot of studies have come out. Bill Harris's group has published a study recently looking at all-cause mortality and what's called the omega-3 index. This is a way to measure your omega-3 levels long term. So it's a red blood cell. You're looking at

omega-3 levels in red blood cells, which take about 220 days to turn over versus what I would say 99% of all omega-3 blood tests that you look at, their plasma, which is really more reflected of what you've eaten a couple of days before. You want your long-term status. So omega-3 index is a way to go for that. And people that have an omega-3 index, high, so 8% or more, which by the way is unheard of in the United States. United States, the average omega-3 index is about 4% to 5%. Japan, they have an 8% omega-3 index. But people in the US that do have an omega-3 index of 8% or more have a five-year increased life expectancy compared to people in the US that have a 4% omega-3 index.

Omega-3 supplementation is another thing I really do focus on. It's easy to go from 4% to 8% through supplementation of around two grams a day. Omega-3 has the safety profile of a nutrient, but the pharmacological effect. So it is prescribed as a pharmaceutical drug by physicians to treat high triglycerides, for example. And this is a doses that are prescribed are like up to four grams a day. So again, it's one of those easy low hanging fruit. People are not eating enough fish, and it's pretty easy and relatively cost, I think, effective to supplement with an omega-3 supplement. So I also

choose to do that. And then on top of my exercise, I also do the sauna. I do a form of heat stress, and the sauna. I know we were going to dive into that. In many ways, the sauna also mimics moderate cardiovascular exercise. And that's also, there's been studies looking at the effects of sauna and all-cause mortality, which also have been shown to be associated with reduced all-cause mortality as well. So we can dive into that as well. But those are a few of the things I do also focus on my sleep, but I will say sleep, and there's a variety of easy things you make making sure you're not drinking caffeine later in the day, making sure you are not being exposed

to bright blue light. When sun sets, like that's all the lights in the house should either either be really dim, or they should be red, so that your brain, it doesn't think it's still daytime sleeping in a quiet cold room also helps. But I will say this, exercise. And as when it's funny, because when I became parent, a mother, about five years ago, as all new parents experience, you don't get sleep. And there's nothing you can do. No health hack. I mean, you can't, like you have to tend to your baby, right? So you're stuck, right? There's no little trick that you can stop yourself from the sleep deprivation that you will experience

for a good year, I would say. And at that time, was wearing a continuous glucose monitor, which basically was a way to measure my blood glucose levels daily. And one of the most interesting things I found from wearing is called a CGM continuous glucose monitor. A lot of people ask me, Oh, what foods do we, like, what did you find? And I'll tell you, what's the most interesting thing I found was that my lack of sleep

was the thing that caused my fasting blood glucose and my post-prandial blood glucose. So the my blood glucose that rises after a meal to go out of control. In some cases, almost pre-diabetic, okay, was the fact that my sleep was being disrupted. And it was so profound. I was like, this is insane. I can't believe this. Like I would never have known that just disrupting my sleep would put me into this like metabolically unhealthy category. And then I started doing my high intensity spin classes. I was like, okay, like I was able to get a moment was like after the first couple of months. And it was clear that doing my high intensity exercise is totally reversed. My high blood glucose, both fasting and post-prangilate, normalized. I was back, even though I was still sleep deprived, I was back to what I normally

was like. And so I started diving in the literature and sure enough, there's multiple studies showing specifically high intensity interval training and getting that vigorous exercise, getting your heart rate up high does basically forgive the metabolic effects of sleep deprivation. And there's also been a very big epidemiological study looking at all-cause mortality. And sleep deprivation, getting shorter sleep duration. I can't remember off the top of my head. I think it was six hours or less or something like that. A night was associated with a higher all-cause mortality, so people were more likely to get heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease sooner in life, right, and die from it. But only in people that were not physically active.

In other words, again, exercise can forgive a lot of sins. And so I'm not saying don't focus on sleep, but I'm saying the number one thing to focus on is exercise. So with that long-winded answer, John, let's dive into whatever you'd like to. Well, I'm going to just go back to the supplements just for a second. It's interesting. I know a mutual friend of ours is Dom, Dogostino. He lives right up the road from me here in Tampa. And when he was on the show, he said, as you did that magnesium is one of the most overlooked supplements that can have one of the biggest benefits to our health. I was hoping when you talk about whether it was vitamin D, the magnesium, you get it from plants, but if someone wanted to take a supplement and also omega-3s, can you give what dosages

you would recommend and then with each should they take them in the morning or at night? Well, certainly I can speak to what I do and perhaps speak to some of the science. I'm not a medical physician, so I can't recommend anything to anyone. We've respect to magnesium as they, there are different forms of it. I take most of my supplements at nighttime after dinner. And magnesium is one of those. I do take magnesium glycinate, and I think it's around 130 milligrams or so. The RDA for women is about 350 milligrams a day. For men, it's about 400 a day. And that level can go up for physically active people that are exercising people that are also going into the sauna can go up anywhere between 10 even 20% for like endurance athletes.

And so oftentimes you can find also electrolyte supplements as well because you do lose some magnesium from sweat. You're mostly losing a lot of sodium, but you do also lose some magnesium. So the 125 or 30 milligrams are so a day that I supplement with. I do that to also make sure that I'm meeting my 350 daily requirement. And I do take it at night. There's some anecdotal evidence that magnesium

may also help with sleep. And so I don't know how solid that science is, but like I do take my night night. With respect to vitamin D3 is definitely better than vitamin D2, which is the plant version of vitamin D. And the vitamin D3 has been shown to be a superior in a couple of studies to vitamin D2. For people that are vegan or vegetarian, a better source of vitamin D would be lycan. So lycan is a plant source, but it is vitamin D3. So that would be better than getting the vitamin D2. Unfortunately, a lot of the fortification of dairy

and milk and nut milk products are vitamin D2. It is what it is. Measuring blood levels is key for vitamin D because we have a lot of genes that regulate how our body is metabolizing vitamin D, how we respond to vitamin D supplements. And so you really need to get a vitamin D blood test preferably before and after,

but definitely after supplementation to make sure you're doing an adequate dose. And for myself, I'm typically taking about 5,000 or so I use a day. And my blood levels are hover around 50 nanograms per milliliter. Now, some people might need to take more than that. On average, it takes about 1,000 I use a vitamin D3 to raise blood levels around five nanograms per mill. So that's just a kind of rough, I guess, guideline. But again, a blood test is absolutely essential for vitamin D3 in terms of figuring out the optimal.

Everyone's different. And so again, the range to be in ideally would be 40 to 60 nanograms per milliliter. Most people can get that with around four to five thousand, I use a day. Perhaps some people live close to the tropics and they're out in the sun a lot and they may be required last. But again, only a blood test is going to tell you that information. With respect to vitamin, sorry, with omega three, and I talked about the omega three index. And I have measured mine, the company that does about the omega 3 index. I have measured mine. The company that does that is omega quant.

They're really good because I do the long term marker of omega 3. Most all of the studies that I've been doing and looking at the omega 3 index have shown that an omega 3 index of 8% or more is ideal with respect to lower all cause mortality at 50% to mentor risk on and on in terms of health status. So many Americans, unfortunately, as I mentioned, are have an omega-3 index of about 4%. Studies have shown it takes around two or so grams of omega-3 supplementation, EPA and DHA per day, to bring someone up from a 4% omega-3 index to an 8% on average. But again, test, everyone is different. The best way to know if your two grams a day is getting you up there would be to do

an omega-3 index test. Now, I personally take a pretty large dose of omega-3 and I do take it throughout the day. I take about close to anywhere between two to three grams of a higher dose of EPA omega-3, which I still get a DHA also. I have a higher EPA ratio in the morning and then in the evening I take about two to three grams of a higher DHA dose. So on average, I personally, again, I take a experimentally high dose of omega three. I'm getting anywhere between four to six grams a day depending on the day. And the reason I take it throughout the day is there's two reasons behind my rationale. It's my personal rationale.

I may be overdoing it. I may be making things harder on myself like science may come out and say, oh, you just once a day, you're one and done. So again, this is my personal routine. When we take our DHA or EPA, there are metabolites called specialized pro mediators. And these are SPMs.

They are resolvings, mericens, protectants, there are metabolites that are resolving inflammation. And it's been shown that blood levels do rise after taking a supplement of omega-3, DHA and EPA, of these SPMs. And so I kind of want a constant flow of them in my circulation throughout the day.

So that's one reason why I do take it twice a day. The other reason is that you mentioned gut health. There's evidence that, so every time we eat a meal, there's something called post-prangial inflammation. The bigger the meal, the bigger the effect, it's unavoidable. I mentioned metabolism, generating, I mean, it's damaged, these oxidative stress products.

Well, just eating a meal, you're gonna have an inflammatory response and there's no way around it. Part of that inflammatory response is the release of something from our gut called endotoxin or LPS. It's present in the cell membrane of bacteria in our gut, where all the microbes are present, right? And when it gets released into the circulation, it's inducing an inflammatory response, which also results in an upregulation of low density LDL cholesterol

protein production as well, which is a whole other tangent. I won't go there today. There's clinical evidence that omega-3 blunts that LPS response, which is the major part of the inflammatory response from the gut. So I also like to have the omega-3 with my biggest meal, which is in the morning and my other biggest meal, which is in the evening. So I also, this is kind of my rationale. And in terms of like getting the supplements, looking for a quality supplements, there's a variety of third party testing sites.

I like to use a great one, pretty comprehensive, is consumer lab. They test a bunch of supplements to look for quality, contaminants, including omega three. And so oftentimes you'll actually be able to find cost-effective ways. You can get a quality supplement that's not like the highest cost supplement out there. International Fish Oil Standards website, IFOS is another website specifically focusing on omega-3 fish oil supplements. It's a lot harder to sift through their data.

You got to really put some effort in, but there are another resource as well. So, okay. Well, I'm glad I'm taking all three of the things that you're recommending. I do the magnesium and D3 at night, and I do very high omega-3s as well. I unfortunately suffered some traumatic brain injuries when I was in military service. And actually one of the doctors who treats me, Dr. Michael Lewis was a colonel in the military when he was on active duty. For seven years he led the DOD task force looking at veteran suicide and traumatic brain injury. And he

said the number one indicator that they found in both cases where people were significantly low on omega-3s and when they introduced omega-3s into both populations, they side-romatic changes in health outcomes and people reversing the suicidal thoughts and tendencies. So lots of research here, but ever since I've been working with him, I take it both and the morning and at nighttime as well. Glad my science I'm hearing is the same thing that your research has found as well. Well there's actually a lot of evidence that has emerged over the last decade look or meet more more than not even maybe last couple decades looking at specifically even DHA supplementation with respect to TBI and traumatic brain injury. Lots of animal studies

for one but also some human studies showing that it really does seem to make a big difference with respect to lowering the glass gap score. I think that it's called when they do, like they're measuring, and so mega three has been shown to be important for that. And interestingly, traumatic brain injury is like a insult in real time, almost that sort of accelerates brain aging in the sense that with increasing

TBI's, you have a much higher risk of Alzheimer's disease, which is the most common form of dementia. And basically blood brain barrier breakdown. And this is really interesting because blood brain barrier breakdown seems to be at the core root cause of all forms of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. And TBI also causes that, the APAWI for allele, the biggest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, causes blood brain barrier breakdown, type 2 diabetes, one of the major lifestyle factors that increases the risk of Alzheimer's disease also breaks down the blood brain barrier. And this is what's so interesting, John, is that there is a transporter in the brain that transports DHA into the brain, a certain form of

DHA, a phospholipid form. It's called MFSD2A. And those transporters, when you disrupt them, the blood brain barrier breaks down. And also TBI, those transporters go away with aging, they go away, but supplementation with DHA, at least in animal studies, has shown to increase those transporters. In other words, they're responding when you're bringing in moral mega three, the brain is responding by going, I need to increase this transporter to get more of the DHA supplementation is so important, not only for prevention of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, but also for people that have undergone a traumatic brain injury or that are in some sort of lifestyle, like the military or combative sports should be absolutely focusing on making sure they are taking their omega three and getting enough of the DHA omega-3 in their diet. If you want to go back to sleep and exercise, I know that sleep is extremely important because it's the cleansing mechanism where you're getting rid of the amyloids, black, and it's getting flushed. And if you're not getting enough sleep, which happens to a lot of people who've gone through traumatic situations or traumatic brain injuries,

you're not flushing the system. And a lot of it ends up building up, which, as you can then lead to Alzheimer's and dementia, ALS and other things. So we'll get this, John, when the blood brain barrier breaks down, your brain is inefficiently flushing those amyloid aggregates and other debris out of the brain, even when you sleep.

And so fixing the blood brain barrier is, again, at the root. And it's one thing, I mean, if you think about it, like if your blood brain barrier is made of vascular, and if it's compromised, how are you going to be squirting the stuff into the brain to wash it out, right? When the vascular is falling apart, yes, sleep is key. You're absolutely right. It's one of the main times that our brain is squirting

this cerebral spinal fluid through the brain or the lymphatic system is active to rinse out all those toxins. But again, it's even less efficient in people that have done undergone a TBI or do have Alzheimer's disease and their blood brain barriers compromised, and so it becomes a vicious cycle, right? Because then you're not getting rid of the amyloid

and accumulating more and more. And so it's probably one of the reasons why TBI does increase Alzheimer's disease risk is the blood brain barrier breakdown and the fact that they're not efficiently cleaning out the amyloid, as well as people that don't have that basically breakdown of the blood brain barrier. No, you're absolutely right.

And it's something that because I've had these things, I have put a lot of effort and time studying because I'm trying to do everything I can now to make sure I don't have a long-term repercussions that I think through the blood testing work that I get done and the supplementation and the sleep hygiene and other things. I'm trying to make sure I'm not going to have these issues later on in life.

Well, Rhonda, we've just deep-died on a couple of very important areas for the audience. If I have time, I might come and revisit a few of those, but I know one of the things that the audience really wanted to hear about is right now exposure to extreme temperature really seems to be the rage, and we both know that temperature is a powerful stimulus. And I wanted to ask you, could you go into a little bit of how to cold and heat kind of overlap when we subject ourselves to them? Where do you find the differences between the two different stressors? The idea behind exposing ourselves to them. Where do you find the differences between the two different stressors? The idea behind exposing ourselves to intermittent stress, it is beneficial in many ways because we have all these genes in our body that are waiting to be pressed. The buttons are waiting

to be pushed. They're stress-response genes. They react to stress. And it's something that throughout human history, we've pushed these buttons from the times of our physical exertion hunting, trying to get food for our families, right, or running from a threat. So, so that was the physical activity type of intermittent stress exercise, right? There's periods of not eating food. We didn't always have Instacart and basically get our groceries delivered to our door whenever we wanted. That's another type of intermittent stress,

like a period of not eating, right? And also we've throughout our human history eaten plants. These are plants that have compounds in them like sulfuricane, present in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli sprouts or risvera trull, present in the skin of grapes or curcumin in the turmeric root.

Like these are compounds that are by plants to ward off insects, to ward off fungi. They're toxic to those animals, but when humans ingest them, they activate stress response pathways. So we have a whole host of genes in our body that are just sitting around waiting to be turned on by some types of what's called intermittent stress. This is actually good forms of stress. Now, there's obviously chronic stress.

When we think of the word stress, we usually think of as the bad types of stress, so the kind of stress, financial stress, social stress, relationship stress, the emotional stress, psychological stress, the kind of PTSD kind of stress, right? Those are the chronic types of stress that are causing rumination, they're causing the inflammatory response to increase. It's not the good type of stress. Whereas the short bursts of like intense like stress from exercise or also from the heat. So that's another type of intermittent stress. And cold is also another type of intermittent stress. And you asked how these types of stressors overlap, there's a lot of contrast there for sure. And a little bit of similarity as well. And the similarity has to do with what I was talking about.

We have these genes, they're called stress response genes. And they oftentimes are genes that activate antioxidant pathways. They're helping negate some of the oxidative stress that happens just from normal aging, normal metabolism, but also from other things like air pollution. And ionizing radiation in factors that are a little bit external to us, right? Well, there's also activation of anti-inflammatory pathways, pathways that are negating inflammation because when you do expose your body to this short-term stressor, it does release a little bit of an inflammatory response,

but the body responds in such a way that it produces anti-inflammatory molecules, often cytokines and other molecules, to a more robust degree such that the net effect is anti-inflammatory, right? And it's lasting, it's an elasting effect. There's other stress response pathways that have to do with repairing damage, DNA damage, or getting rid of stuff, cellular debris, things floating around inside cells. Well, one of the stress response pathways is also activated by many stressors, including temperature changes. And they're called heat shock proteins.

Heat shock proteins, as their name implies, they do robustly respond to elevations in core body temperature, whether we're talking about from physical activity, like exercise, that elevates core body temperature, whether we're talking about from physical activity, like exercise, that elevates core body temperature, we're talking about the ambient temperature change, like sitting in a sauna, dry hot sauna, or even an infrared sauna, we're sitting in a hot tub or hot bath. These are also increasing temperature, and they increase the production of something called heat shock proteins. Heat shock proteins basically help our proteins inside of ourselves maintain their proper three-dimensional shape so that they're not aggregating together. So heat shock proteins play an important role. You

mentioned amyloid plaques earlier. Well, amyloid beta plaques form because they basically start to become misfolded and when they become misfolded, they aren't cleared out properly. We are system has a way of getting rid of proteins and that doesn't happen. And so they start to aggregate and form plaques. This can happen in the brain in the terms of amyloid beta plaques. It can happen in the cardiovascular system as well. So heechach proteins play a role in preventing that aggregation and helping these proteins basically stay in their proper shape and form. Heat shock proteins are activated by cold as well because they respond to stress. Not just temperature, temperature does robustly activate them,

but cold stress can also activate heat shock proteins. So I think that's one overlap between, I would say, the heat stress and the cold stress, these two types of temperature intermittent stress forms. Another overlap between the two would be the release of what's called Nora epinephrine. So Nora epinephrine is, it's a hormone that is produced in in circulation and it regulates regulates everything from Bay Zoo constriction to heart rate, but it's also at a neurotransmitter that can produce be produced in the brain. Now cold exposure robustly activates nor epinephrine and it is partly also one of those things that is a stress response, right?

The stress kind of activates it, which is why heat also activates norepinephrine. Cold variant robustly activates it. And in the brain, cold exposure in the brain is norepinephrine. And you can also measure that in plasma. And anywhere literally 20 seconds at like 40 degree Fahrenheit water can increase it twofold. So those are some overlaps. There's also some contrasting effects. So for example, heat stress increases vasodialation, this is blood flow, whereas cold causes vasoconstriction. Does the opposite. But when it comes to some of the similarities, I would say those are some of the top factors that come to my mind. With respect to like going from hot to cold, we can get into that a little bit,

but there are some cultures that do practice that. For example, Finland, where Sanna's are ubiquitous, they're very common. Most people have a Sanna, a personal Sanna, about their home, and there's public Sanna's that people can freely use them as well. A lot of the fins also go from the hot sauna into the cold and they kind of do that back and forth as well. Not a lot of science looking at that. There's a little bit. It is

something that is commonly practiced in some cultures like Finland and also I think Russia as well. And I'd be interested in understanding what led to your interest in Sanas to begin with. interest in Saunas to begin with? My answer will probably surprise you. So my interest in Saunas began back in around 2009 when I was a graduate student trying to eagerly earn my PhD. And I lived in an apartment, a studio apartment across the street from a YMCA. And so on my graduate student stipend, which was not very much, I was able to get a reasonable membership to the YMCA.

And so I would go over there and they had a sauna. And I would use the sauna in the mornings before I would go into my research lab before I would do my experiments for the day. And graduate school is a very stressful time as anyone who is pursuing a higher degree can attest. It's extremely stressful. In the natural sciences field, experiments fail all the time and you have to change protocols, you have to get things right.

It's a lot of stress. And so what I really began to notice is that my going to the sauna before going into the lab was affecting my anxiety and my ability to cope with the stress that I was experiencing from being a graduate student. And it was quite noticeable, in fact, so noticeable that I was convinced that there was something going on in my brain. The sauna was affecting me somehow. And so I started to read into this science, trying to look and understand how is it possible the sauna could be affecting my mood, how is it affecting my ability to cope with stress, my anxiety level. And at the time, I was connecting some dots and there wasn't a direct, it wasn't like there was a direct study looking at the effect of sauna on anxiety or even

depression, which also kind of goes hand in hand a little bit with anxiety. Since then, there has been some research, but back then there wasn't. And so at the time I was kind of looking into the fact that the sauna potently releases beta endorphins. Those are the feel good opioids that we produce in our brain, that we produce them when we laugh at a joke or we give someone we love a hug or a kiss or we're experiencing joy. We make we dump out beta and do our friends. Well, you also dump out beta and do our friends when you were exercising or when you use the sauna, but probably the most interesting thing I was coming across at the time was that actually when you are in the sauna, because it's what a lot of the

science is focused on is what I personally was doing at the time, but there are other forms and modalities of heat stress like hot tubs or even hot baths, right? Or exercise, right? Exercise, elevating, corbide temperature. When you are, when you're getting hot, you are physically uncomfortable. It feels uncomfortable. You don't feel good. You're like, this feels terrible. Like, I'm hot. I want to get out. Oh, I hate it. Same goes when you're working out. It feels uncomfortable. You don't feel good. You're like, this feels terrible. I'm high. I want to get out. Oh, hey, it's when you're working out. It's like that feeling and uncomfortable feeling. Well, there's another opioid that our brain produces in response to heat is called dynorphin. And dynorphin is the counter opposite of endorphin. Dynorphin

is responsible for that uncomfortable feeling, that feeling of discomfort. It binds to a different receptor in our brain than the beta endorphin. It binds to receptor called the capa opioid receptor. And when it does that, this actually affects the whole endorphin system. It affects the receptors that endorphins bind to by basically increasing them and making them more sensitive to endorphin. It's a feedback loop oftentimes in biology, you'll find this. Feedback loops are very common.

And it's the body's way of trying to maintain homeostasis. The body is going, oh, I've got this uncomfortable thing. I better counter that by making my receptors respond better to the good feeling, that way I'm not always feeling so uncomfortable, right? The same goes with the reason you're making dynorphin is because it cools the body down. Your body is hot, and your body's responding

to that heat by going, I need to cool it down. Dynorphin plays a role in the central nervous system for helping some of that cooling effect happen. And so I came up with this hypothesis that through the heat stress, my endorphin system was now sensitized days later. In other words, when I was getting a little hit of my endorphin, I was feeling it better. It was a greater effect and it was lasting longer.

I published a review article in the journal of experimental gerontology where I talk all about the many health benefits of the sauna and how it can improve and extend our health span. And part of that, I talk about this in Dwarf and Pathway. But since then, there's been a lot of data looking at the effect of heat stress in the form of actually infrared radiation. So infrared saunas typically don't get as hot as traditional saunas. Many of the health benefits from traditional saunas happen around 174, I would say to 179 degree Fahrenheit, 20 minutes at that temperature in terms of looking at benefits on cardiovascular related mortality lower, up to a 50% lower cardiovascular related mortality, using that four times a week, all-cause mortality, 40% lower, and other benefits.

Well, infrared zonas only get up to about 140 degrees Fahrenheit. They use a different way to heat up the body. They're using infrared wavelength, so infrared radiation. And so there's been some research. First came out of Dr. Charles Rayzanz lab. I had him on the podcast a couple of years ago, phenomenal guy, brilliant. And he had done a pilot randomized controlled trial, looking at heat stress, and they used this kind of funny device that was an infrared device that basically would elevate core body temperature to a pretty much feverish state. So I mean,

people were elevating their core body temperature I think about two degrees. And so that they were getting up to about a hundred degrees Fahrenheit body temp close to 101. And they had a placebo or sham control that would basically just heat the person up just a little bit, but it wasn't like getting them, it wasn't getting, it was enough to make them think they were getting the treatment, right? A placebo control. And what he found was just a single treatment of that had a robust antidepressant response in people with major depressive disorder. Okay, these are people that actually had major depressive disorder and they weren't typically responding to antidepressants. And one treatment of this heat stress, which is kind of like a quote unquote sauna, had an antidepressant effect that lasted six weeks after the one treatment.

Right, exactly. And it was only, so this was only in the treatment group, the sham control group did not experience that effect. And so since that time, Charles and his one of his mentees, Dr. Ashley Mason, who now has her own lab at UCSF. I've also had her on the podcast, and I'm collaborating with her on a couple of studies. She is now carried on the torch, and she is looking at the effects of her protocol, which is using what's called a heat bed. It's an infrared sauna heat bed that is basically raising people's

core body temperature again to a similar degree up to I think even up to like one 101 Fahrenheit. So they people are getting hot and it's a pretty pretty extensive protocol. I mean, they're in there for like 45 minutes and the I can't it's not published, but I can't I can say as the results are looking very promising. And it's very exciting. So that's how I got into the sauna, the effects on the brain, a lot of people are focusing on cardiovascular effects,

very robust cardiovascular effects, but also effects on mental health. And it's interesting because we know exercise. In fact, there's been some new studies coming out directly comparing exercise to antidepressants, being a better effect than antidepressants on basically depressive symptoms than antidepressants, classical antidepressants like SSRIs. And so, of course, as John focusing on behavioral changes, you have to have a person that's willing to put an effort to exercise. And it is a problem, people that are depressed don't have that motivation to go and run and get on the peloton or get on the exercise Viagr just do it like some do and that's

great. And it's exercise is king, but this is kind of where the sauna comes in, right? Because you're talking about people think it's like a spa treatment, right? They don't have to do much, but be willing to get in there and feel uncomfortable. Like it's not comfortable to be hot. Very hot, okay? So you are still going to be uncomfortable, right? But the response to that uncomfortable feeling could be so beneficial and so worth it. And I do think the compliance is easier to get a person to step into a heat bed sauna or compared to getting them to get on a peloton, at least in my experience with family members for that I personally

am trying to get them to work out. I can at least get them in the sauna. I just want to reiterate some of the things that you just talked about. So some of the health benefits. So I say it was sauna, our better cardiovascular health. It aids in reducing the risk of congestive heart failure, if I understand that correct hypertension, inflammation. So those are just some of the health benefits not getting into the mental health and cognition benefits. Did I miss any of the major ones? Well, yeah, let's dive a little more into the cardiovascular because it's a little more nuanced than that. So sauna in many respects, heat stress, hot tub, hot bath, sauna.

The physiological response to heat is happening, the same thing that's happening with exercise. So the physiological response is very similar. Your heart rate elevates to about 120 beats per minute. That's indicative about moderate intensity, aerobic exercise. Your blood flows increase to the skin to fill us facilitate sweating. So you start to sweat and help to cool down. These things all happen when you're in a sauna or hot bath or hot tub

or when you're doing moderate physical aerobic exercise. In fact, there's been a head to head comparison. The sauna, 20 minutes in a sauna, hot sauna, mimics 20 minutes on a stationary bike intensity or aerobic exercise. So this is, I think, about 100 or so watts, basically on a stationary bike. So the same effects are occurring. So basically while you're doing the sauna, while you are exercising on the stationary bike, your heart rate elevates, your blood pressure goes up during that activity. However, when you are completed with the sauna or the exercise bike, blood pressure goes down and improves. It goes down even below what your baseline is.

So this has been a head to head comparison in the sauna. And this is one of the most, I would say, profound effects of the sauna. So there's been epidemiological studies. These are observational studies looking at correlations and people that use the sauna four to seven times a week have a 46% reduced risk of hypertension. But there's also been intervention studies. So people that are again just get get into the sauna for 30 minutes and blood pressure is then measured, blood pressure is improved both systolic and diastolic blood pressure is improved after the sauna. And so there's a pretty profound effect on blood pressure, which is not only important for cardiovascular health, it's extremely important for brain aging and brain health. In fact, it's one of

the most important lifestyle factors early blood pressure it's one of the most important lifestyle factors early blood pressure control is one of the most important lifestyle factors for preventing dementia. And about 50% of people in the United States have hypertension, but 20% of young adults. So these are people that are age 18 to 39. 20% of those young adults have hypertension. That's where it's the most dangerous. And those are the people that probably don't care as much. They're like, I'm young, whatever. Well, it's the cumulative exposure to high blood pressure

that's damaging blood vessels at the blood brain barrier. That's the thing we talked about at the beginning of this podcast that starts to basically, it's like the early signal of blood brain barrier breakdown when you're basically damaging those blood vessels. So blood pressure is extremely important early on. And so that is one of the things that both exercise and sauna having common,

they very robustly improve blood pressure. You mentioned congestive heart failure. Well, the sauna use, there's been studies out of Finland from Dr. Yari Lackenins lab, Dr. Yare Lackenens has done a lot of these observational studies looking at the sauna and he has found that sudden cardiac death is 22% lower in men that use the on a 4 to 7 times a week. This is a typical finish sauna 174 degrees Fahrenheit temperature around 20% humidity, so it actually fills a lot hotter 10 to 20% humidity actually and 20 minutes was like the key sweet spot for actually the numbers that I just quoted but in addition to

sudden cardioid act death will all cause lower cardiovascular-related mortality from different types of cardiovascular disease is also affected. So men that use this on two to three times a week have a 27% lower cardiovascular-related mortality. If they use this on a four to seven times a week, a 50% lower cardiovascular-related mortality. Again, this is what's called a dose-dependent effect.

The more frequent the sauna use, the more robust the effect. All-cause mortality was also lower, so this is dying from other causes in addition to cardiovascular disease, like respiratory disease, for example. Again, dose-dependent effect, 24% lower in people that are using the sauna two to three to times a week, 40% lower people that are using the sauna 47 times a week. And again, the temperature was typically around 174 degrees Fahrenheit. 20-minute session was the key. Effects were still seen at a lower duration in the sauna, but they were not as robust. So for example, the sudden cardiac death, I mentioned, four to seven times a week was 50% lower. It had to be at least 19 minutes or greater spent in that at 170, 40 re-sona.

So if people were in there for just 11 minutes, up to 11 minutes, the reduction in sudden cardiac death was only 11% lower. So the duration in the sauna is also important as well. With epidemiological studies or observational studies, there's always the potential for reverse causality, right? Well, maybe people that are healthier can just stay in the sauna longer. Well, Dr. Lark-Yari Lalkinin is very aware of these things and they control for many different potential factors, body mass, serum cholesterol, blood pressure smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, socioeconomic status, they control for all these factors.

In addition to that, within a cohort of unhealthy people, so these are people that were metabolically unhealthy, had type 2 diabetes, they had hypertension, they also had a protective effect if they stayed in the sauna as well. And so it's not just a, oh, you have to be if they stayed in the sauna as well. And so it's not just, oh, you have to be healthy to stay in the sauna. Well, guess what? Unhealthy people were staying in the sauna for 20 minutes and they experienced a benefit. So I do tend to think the reverse causality arguments a bit lower, particularly considering now all the intervention data we have.

As I mentioned, the blood pressure into there's intervention son of studies showing that it lowers blood pressure. There's intervention trials showing that it improves heart rate variability. So this is the ability of your heart to respond to a stressful situation, which you want your heart to be at your heart to be able to, if there was a heart attack or something like that happening, you want your heart to respond in a favorable way, right? So so intervention data is also shown to improve what's called arterial compliance. So this is people that spend 30 minutes in the sauna. Their arterial compliance was improved. In other words, the ability of their arteries to respond to a to constrict and and basically dilate again,

responding to a stressful situation, it is improved. So that's also from, again, intervention trials, also intervention trials showing that inflammatory biomarkers. So they do go up, but this response is also in the body producing more anti-inflammatory molecules. So for example, IL-10 is also increased after ASANA. Looking at the greater body of evidence, the observational data, and the intervention data as well, I think putting them together, we also have mechanistic data from animal studies. I think in general, it all points to the fact that heat stress is a beneficial type of stress on the body, and moreover, it's beneficial in combination with exercise. In other words, I've been talking about how

sauna mimics your heat stress mimics moderate cardiovascular exercise, but the reality is there's data showing that actually people have a better what's called cardio respiratory fitness, oftentimes measured by VO2 max. This is the ability of your lungs to breathe in oxygen during physical activity and get them to your muscle performing working muscles. And cardio respiratory fitness is a biomarker of health. It can predict, again, it can predict healthy aging. It's associated higher cardio respiratory fitness is associated with a lower all cause mortality. So people that actually exercise and use the sauna have a higher cardiovascular fitness compared to people that exercise only or sauna only. So the two together are better than the anyone alone.

And then even on top of that, Dr. Lalkinins come out with some new data looking at intervention studies, people that are exercising or alone, or they exercise and do the sauna. Again, their VO2 max was improved if they did both compared to exercise alone. There's also a variety of lipid markers that were also improved as well

if they did both compared to just exercise alone. So I think for people that are already physically active like myself, it is just another reason to go, okay, here's one more thing that actually is this king. So that's clear. But if I still want to do something even more on top of that, adding the heat stress in the form of the sauna, even hot baths, hot baths can increase heat shock proteins. We know sauna increases heat shock proteins. You can sit in a 30 minute 163 degree Fahrenheit sauna and increase your heat shock proteins 50%. Well, going in a hot bath, we talk about cost-effective strategies at the beginning. Not everyone has a home sauna. Not

everyone has a gym membership or not everyone's gym has a sauna. This isn't Finland where everyone the sauna is or ubiquitous, right? Most people, not everyone, but most people do have a bathtub in their home. And hot bath, 104 degrees, that's a typical, typical temperature of a hot tub. So 104 degrees, 20 minutes, shoulders down, okay? It's not easy to do, it's hot, it's hot. You're gonna want to cheat, but you can't cheat. So shoulders down will increase heat check proteins by twofold after 20 minutes. So again, heat stress, we talk a lot about sauna.

That's where a lot of the science is. Hot baths have also been shown to improve depressive symptoms. Increased brain drive neurotrophic factor. This is an important neurotrophic factor in the brain that plays a role in not only brain aging, but also in mental health, because it helps the brain respond to changing environments and stressful things. So being able to adapt to a new environment, it's called neuroplasticity. Brain-driven neurotrophic factor increases neuroplasticity.

As we age, our ability to do that decreases. That's why young people can adapt to things so much better than older people can. But depression also has a malfunction in the neuroplasticity. And so people that are depressed, often there's a connection between they're not able to adapt. And that's causes depression when things are changing and you can't adapt to it, it's depressing, like you're anxious. It's like it's a cause of depression. So hot baths also play a role. And I know we talked about the sauna is helping with the progression, but I do think there's also a role for other

modalities of heat stress as well, muscle mass as well. So this is another thing that heat shock proteins affect. This is something that is extremely important with age. And in fact, when we were at the beginning talking about my strategies, some of the low hanging fruits, things that I'm doing to improve the way of age, I failed to mention that I have increased my protein intake. I have increased my protein, the RDA protein intake is 0.8 grams per kilogram body weight. And that has been shown by a variety of experts like Dr. Stewart Phillips, Dr. Brad Shownfeld. These are both

experts in physiology. I've had them on my podcast and they've really shown new techniques, radiolabeling technique that have found that actually 1.2 is more like the minimum requirement for optimal daily protein intake, 1.2 grams per kilogram body weight, and when you're physically active and when you're older, that number may even go up to 1.6. And so protein intake is really important for maintaining muscle mass. It's one of the major signals for muscle growth

in addition to strength training, which I also do, I should have mentioned that as well. Strength training and protein intake are very important for maintaining muscle mass, which is extremely important for aging. I mean, frailty is a big thing. As you get older and you succumb to some respiratory virus and you go into the hospital, you're going to start losing muscle mass at a rapid rate. And this could be the sort of

initiation of the downfall, the trajectory down into mortality. And most of us experienced a family member, a grandparent, perhaps a parent that is experienced that. So it's probably a very common. It makes sense, it's it makes sense, right? Well, going back to the heat circling back to the heat, heat shock proteins in particular play a role in preventing muscle atrophy. So they basically break down on muscle and this plays a role not only during aging, but also during injury. So there's been some studies that have been done on people where they basically take a limb and inactivate the limb by putting like a cast on it for a period of a week or so. And then expose those people to a local heat where their limb is basically immobilized.

And then or they have a control where they're just at normal room temperature. And it was found that basically exposing this in enacted this muscle that is not being worked, right? So there's its undergoing atrophy. It was 38% less likely to undergo atrophy if they was exposed to heat. And there's been a variety of animal studies confirming this where you put a little animal in a little sauna and they're immobilized a limb. And basically, it's like they're over 30% likely to less likely to have muscle atrophy occur. A lot of ongoing interest now in the effects of heat on basically preventing muscle

atrophy, but it is just yet another I think benefit to using the sauna or a hot bath or a modality of heat stress again to help maintain healthy muscle mass. So these are some of the really robust benefits, mental health, cardiovascular health, all cause mortality, also respiratory health, it plays a role in the lungs, the O2 max, healthy aging, muscle, it's just an endless list, and it's very, it's for me, it's very apparent that the sauna or heat stress itself through other modalities like hot baths, hot tubs, jacuzzi's should be added to the list of healthy lifestyle habits that people can do to improve their aging process, the way they're aging, their health man, and to improve their disease risk profile. And then one last quick question for your under would be, what is your personal sauna protocol from the standpoint of duration, temperature, humidity and frequency. So I have a couple of different protocols, oftentimes I switch between using a traditional sauna hot sauna and using a traditional hot tub, which is koozy. And so my hot sauna protocol is, I typically do a high intensity workout

on my peloton bike. And meanwhile, my sauna's warming up. And I'm usually, it's usually about 175 degrees Fahrenheit sauna these days. Then I get into my sauna and I do put water on hot rocks. And I generate steam. My high grometer in my sauna measures that I raise the humidity up about,

I would say to about 15% humidity. So it feels quite hot, hotter than 175. And I stay in there typically 20 minutes. It depends. If I don't do a high intensity workout right before I get in, then I will probably stay in about 30 minutes. And so it depends on whether or not I'm getting into that sauna right after the workout or not.

Now in terms of frequency, how many times a week I do it? So it depends. I also like to do a hot tub. We have a tucuzzi outside. I like to do it after I put my son to sleep and my husband and I go in there and it's we're under the stars. There's a bit of a very sort of relaxing effect and also it's our time together away from a way from our child so we have our personal time together. And honestly, I do two forms of heat stress a day, but I probably get my

heat stress. I probably am doing I would say likely around six times a week. I do two forms of heat stress a day, but I probably get my heat stress. I probably, I'm doing, I would say likely around six times a week. I do a lot. And that's because I do add in the hot tub as well. And I do like doing the hot tub at night because it helps with my sleep. It seems to really improve my sleep efficiency. So I don't really have a lot of issues with latency,

in other words, falling asleep, but in terms of like how many times I wake up, heat really seems to help with that. And so I like doing that hot tub at night. And I usually am in there about 20 to 30 minutes. And it's 104 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of my jacuzzi. And so I switch between those. And so like sometimes I'll do this on a two or three times a week, but I also at the same time I'm doing hot tub jacuzzi four to five times a week at least. I'm probably getting something in

the form of a hot tub or hot sauna six days a week for sure. So I think what I've just learned is that when I walk out of my spin class we've got saunas in our, so I'm gonna have to use it now four times a week. Nice. Yeah, four times is the sweet spot if you're looking for the so the minimum effective dose in terms of heat stress To get any benefit at all would be two times a week, right? That was like you were at least getting something at two times a week, but to get the robust Data effects so like for talking about all cosmortality, two times a week was like 24% lower, all cosmortality compared to one time a week. But four to seven times a week was 40% lower, all

cosmortality. Yeah. So four times a week would be, I would say what I would call the minimum effective dose with respect, because you want to get that robust effect. So, so I do aim for four times a week as my minimum effective heat stress dose, for example. And we didn't get much into cold, but it's got its own separate set of benefits. And I honestly, I do a lot less cold in the winter. It's just so hard. In the summer, I'm all about it. I'm in that cold. We got a cold plunge. I'm all I'm in there. It's 50 degree Fahrenheit and it's just tend to really like the heat more. But the cold has a has a don't set of benefits as well. Where's the best place if someone wants to learn more about you, read your

articles, get your great newsletter, etc. to do so. I have a podcast. Found my fitness podcast is on Apple podcast on Spotify, YouTube, just Google found my fitness all one word. We have a website called found my fitness found my fitness.com. You can go to it. It has topic pages where we have articles on many of the things we talked about, including the sauna. We have a newsletter. We put out that's phenomenal. We talk about a lot of important things that I think are important. So on on micronutrients, I also put out a lot of show notes on on my newsletter as well. So you can sign up for that at foundmyfitness.com and slash newsletter or just go to foundmyfitness.com.

And you'll see that there. But you will find everything there found my fitness.com has our topic pages. It has links to our podcasts. It has our newsletter. So pretty much everything can be foundmyfitness.com has our topic pages. It has links to our podcast. It has our newsletter. So pretty much everything can be found there. Thanks so much for a great discussion, John, is very interesting and love conversing with people

with similar interests. Yes, well, thank you so much for coming on the show again. I know this is gonna be a fan favorite. So really appreciate you doing this, Rhonda. Awesome, my pleasure. Thank you so much, John. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. I've wanted to have her on the show for a very long time, and I wanted to thank Rhonda and Dan Patrick for the honor and privilege of having her here today on the show. Links to all things Rhonda will be in the show notes

at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature on the show. All proceeds go to supporting this show and making it free for the listener. Videos are on YouTube at PassionStruct Clips and John R. Miles. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at PassionStruct.com slash deals. I'm on LinkedIn and you can also find me at John R. Miles on both Twitter and Instagram. And I provide daily tidbits of inspirational content that compliment everything that you hear on the show. And if you want to know how I book amazing guests like Dr. Ronda Patrick, it's because of my network. Go out there and build yours before

you need it. You're about to hear a preview of the PassionStrike podcast I did with Dr. John List, who is the Kenneth G. Griffin Distinguished Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago. He's also the chief economist at Walmart. We discuss his latest book, The Voltage Effect. How to make good ideas great and great ideas scale. Scalable ideas are all alike. Each unscalable idea is unscalable in its own way, but when it's unscalable, it will be because of one or multiple of the five vital signs.

So each of these five vital signs, you need to check the box. And if you check the box of each one, you have an idea that has the DNA of something that's scalable. You still have to execute, and that's what the second half of the book is about. It's four little behavioral economic secrets to execution. But the first half really establishes there is a science of scaling and a science of ideas. And we need to start taking that science seriously. Remember we rise by lifting others. So please share this show with those that you love and care about. If you know someone who is looking

at longevity, biohacks, or wants to understand the science behind SONAS, then definitely share today's episode. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you care and love. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show, so that you can live what you listen. And until next time, live life, Ash and Strut.