The Joe Rogan Experience - #901 - Dr. Rhonda Patrick

Episode Date: January 19, 2017

Dr. Rhonda Patrick is a Ph.D. in biomedical science and expert on nutritional health. Her podcasts and other videos can be found at FoundMyFitness.com

five four three two one dr ronda patrick hello hello welcome back you got a big fat book of notes over there i do it's uh it's like intimidating it's something i use like before i'm giving a talk or something like that where I like to something about writing handwriting things like helps me remember oh yeah this they've shown that I do that before shows if you looked at my notebook and you think if you ever thought that I like actually wrote in my notebook you'd think I'm a crazy person because I'm writing the same thing over and over again like all work no play makes jack a tall boy it's I just like before a set what i do is i just write out the key things that i wanted to work on and i'll write them out over and over again so like i'll have a

hundred page notebook and it's like a hundred pages of like half of it's the same stuff yeah over and over again yeah i'm kind of the same way like i'll write out things like that are in more detail and then like you said i'll like write just just like a cue you know well like it's different when you're giving a talk at least like in academia like a powerpoint talk you have a slide and the slide cues like a couple of minutes of talk so you've got like it helps you remember what you're gonna

talk about yeah that would help for comedy I bet that's probably a good idea I should have a slide show you know like that would actually be a really good idea for like particular points a slideshow. That would actually be a really good idea for particular points where you could show that you weren't lying. Like, look, this is a real thing. Right. Yeah. You have a reference there. Because there's a couple of things that I'm talking about in my new set where I have to

reassure people that I'm not making this up because it's so ridiculous. You know, and like one of them was this woman who posed as a high school student. She was a 25-year-old police officer, super attractive. And she posed as a high school student and convinced a young boy to sell her marijuana and then arrested him. So it was just an experiment? No, it was a sting operation. Wow. And he was a regular kid. He was an honor roll kid

oh my god and now he's a felon that is crazy yeah there it is teen falls in love with undercover cop and marijuana sting gets arrested yeah so this is one of them i would love to be able to put that up and go see i'm not because you could i guess you could just make stuff up if you wanted to you know but isn't that what comedians do? They make stuff up. I mean. You can. A lot.

But if you made something up, like, hey, there was a story in the news and you just made it up. That sounds great. I guess who cares if it's funny? You know, people just come to laugh, but. Yeah, I guess you're right. People like comedians usually make up personal stories. Yes. But sometimes they say it's true.

And I'm like, it's so outrageous. Is it really true? Like, I don't know. Because it's just so funny. You know, like's so outrageous. Is it really true? Like, I don't know, because it's just so funny. You know, like some of the stories that some of these comedians tell. And I'm just like, how can this be true? They said it was true. But it's like, is that part of comedy?

Can you do that? You definitely can. My friend Dom Herrera has a really funny joke about that. He goes, he goes, here's a true story. He goes, hey, how about you just make something up that's funny? You know, like it doesn't have to be true, buddy. then they say it's true so it's kind of like messing with you because the whole time they're doing their bit you're like is that really true because that's fucking hilarious yeah sometimes it's true sometimes it's not i guess it depends depends

on the person yeah i assume everything in your notebook is true well i hope so you know the other thing that helps me like so this this helps this helps, you know, writing it down helps me, but also there's the running, running like helps. So actually this was very interesting because the study just came out not long ago showing that if you, so if you run before you're going to learn something and you want to like, let's say you want to like, you know, do something short-term recall. So you're going to learn something and you want to like, let's say you want to like, you know, do something short term recall. So you're going to go up on stage and say something, you know, say a skit or whatever. And if you run right before that, it improves the short term like memory. So your short term recall, if you run right before whatever it is, you're quickly read over something and then you want to remember it.

But if you are learning something and then you run after you learn it and then like the next day you want to remember it so it's more of a longer term memory it improves that so it's like whether or not you're running before after you learn it affects the short-term versus long-term memory wow how did they work that out that's bizarre well it wasn't like they were testing for that they just found it out through because they were just you know doing running before after they're probably looking at just to see how it affects short and long-term memory recall and they were surprised to find out this was a study that was done um i can't remember where it was done i know i tweeted about it not long ago because it was like within this last month that it came out so you know it's like if you want to if you want to so like while i'm you know learning new's like, if you want to, if you want to, so like, while I'm,

you know, learning new material throughout the day, then I go for a run in the evening. And then the next day I'll be able to recall it better. Theoretically. Now I'm subject to the placebo effects. I know about this. I'm like, Oh, right. That's a problem. Yeah. I don't run normally, but I did a 5k on Monday. Like I don't run run at all but a buddy of mine had a 5k race in vegas so i flew in for him and my friend cameron haynes and uh i ran it and it was surprisingly hard i was like with all the working out i do but like it's only three miles it's like 3.1 or something yeah like how hard is that it's fucking hard it's not easy no. So do you do any like aerobic exercise? Yes, yeah. Between kickboxing, jujitsu, and I do elliptical machine a lot. And I do a lot of yoga.

I've been trying to do yoga three times a week. I'm not always successful at getting in there. I got there last week three times a week. But I don't run. So I figured, but all that stuff I do, I'm like, I'll have, I'll be fine. Nope, not really. So you didn't train at all. You just kind of like on the fly just did this 5K.

Yeah. And I saw you post something about this. And doesn't Cameron, isn't he like some kind of like crazy runner? Oh, he's a freak. Yeah. He's preparing right now for the Moab race, which is 235 or 234 miles, something crazy like that. And Jamie's a runner. So when Jamie shakes his head like that, you know, it's really gross.

Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, he's a nut. He did 205 last year. He did the Bigfoot 200, which is 205 miles. Plus it has something insane like 55,000 feet of elevation change over the course of the entire race because you're constantly going up and down and up and down and at some points in the race it's so steep and the terrain it's an outdoor race over mount saint helens so and sometimes the terrain is so brutal that the top speed is two miles an hour he's going to be like one of those like amazing super agers like like like that just very mentally sharp when he's in when he's older either that or he's not

gonna be that's been shown like it's been shown like if you part of being a super ager like being a super ager means you're old but you're you're physically fit you're mentally sharp and mentally sharp is is really the key thing you know because yeah we start losing brain mass at like the age of 20 and by the time if you can actually make it to 100 years old you lose like 20 of your brain mass so whoa they found that um one of the keys to like maintaining your brain mass is pushing past uh that comfortable zone physically so like you know exercise wise and also um mentally just you know obviously obviously like learning new things and challenging yourself. So, you know, so when you're working out, you don't do this kind of like, you know, half-assed thing.

You have to push yourself. You have to really push yourself. And that seems to be key for becoming a super ager. That's crazy that it works with your brain. Why? Exercise, I mean, exercise has profound effects on your brain. I mean, specifically, if you're looking at, you know, aerobic, aerobic exercise, it's hard. Aerobic exercise, as you said, doing a 5k, running three miles, I mean, you do,

you do a lot of training, and yet that was still hard for you, you know, because doing that type of aerobic exercise is difficult. Studies have shown that even just like 20 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise can in healthy young men increase serum BDNF. So which is brain drive neurotrophic factor. This is a growth factor that is involved in growing new brain cells and in allowing the existing brain cells to survive. So, you know, talking about combating brain atrophy, you're talking about combating the fact that your brain is atrophying starting at the age of 20. That's the way to do it.

Your brain starts to atrophy at 20? At 20, you start to lose brain mass. Oh, my God, I'm doomed. I know. It's really frightening. 20? You start at 20. You're at your peak at 20?

Yes. But I was so stupid at 20. I'm so much smarter than I was when I was 20. No, I agree. I agree. Even though I'm still stupid. I mean, it's not necessarily like brain mass and intelligence. I mean, I don't know if, you know, that there's definitely a correlate.

But like when you start losing mass in your hippocampus, I mean, that's memory learning, you know, that part of the brain. But there's just so many studies showing that exercise, aerobic exercise. And also, you know, it doesn't have to be aerobic. You can do resistance training. That sort of stuff also affects the brain as well. But for me, like I've been a runner since high school and track, I guess, a long time. And for me, you know, I've done like a few races. I've done a marathon.

And I don't feel like marathons are my thing. Like I felt like that was just really rough, you know, like it was I mean, I'll run three miles and and I will feel challenged. Like if I push myself, I can do that. And that I feel like doing that a couple times, three times a week is plenty for me. But when I run, you know, for me, it's my I entered this like state of of like daydreaming sort of I get creative, you know, when I'm going on like a three mile run. I'm just I start thinking about things. If I have an important decision to make or something that's causing me some sort of anxiety, I go for a run and I feel like I can address that issue better. And what's interesting is that there have been studies that have shown that going for a run and specifically aerobic

exercise, it activates the part of your brain involved in executive function, which helps you make decisions. You know, it's, it's kind of like that overarching part of your brain that like helps with all the planning, long-term planning and all that. And so I always, I do, I feel like if I go for a run, if something's bothering me, if I'm anxious, I always feel better 100% of the time. Like there's not a single time that I go for a run and I'm like, damn, I feel worse. Why did I do that? You know, it's like, I feel, I feel like crap while I'm doing it. I'm like, oh, this is awful. Well, I feel like the human mind, I mean, this is all just theoretical in my own theories. I think the human mind is designed to confront serious things like predators and dangerous enemies. And we don't really get

much of that in this life. So when a person is dealing with stress, I think the mind is preparing for some things that don't exist. So even if you can work things out logically, there still remains like this residual effect of all these human reward systems that are kind of in place from the time we really did have to have all those reactions in place to deal with, you know, dangerous invaders or, you know, in place to deal with, you know, dangerous invaders or, you know, horrible natural conditions, you know, whatever they would be that we hardly ever experience anymore. So like when I work out, if I have anything that's bothering me or troubling me, I think I get like a distorted perception of the danger of it or the physical reality. Like it could be something real simple. Like I have

an issue at work that I have to deal with. Like maybe I have to make a decision or maybe, you know, I'm stressed about something. And I feel this no matter how much I work it out logically, I still feel this physical, like residual issue. And that issue only seems to be resolved for me because I don't run with hitting the bag. Like for me, because I don't run, with hitting the bag. Like, for me, it's a punching bag, which is really hard to do. Like, when you do rounds, like kickboxing rounds on a bag, I have a timer, and I can set it for three to five minutes. Actually, it'll allow you to set it all the way down to one, and then it has, like, intervals. So it gives me, like, 30 seconds.

Every 30 seconds, the buzzer will go off. And it has two lights. One light is yellow and one light is blue. And so the yellow light, I kind of, I go at like 60, 70%. And then the blue light, I sprint. So it's like sprint, try to catch your breath, sprint, try to catch your breath. And I do that for seven to eight rounds. And when I do that, I don't give a fuck about anything.

After it's over, I'm like, who cares? Like, it's amazing what it does. Because like my mind still has all the same data. I still understand all whatever it is, like work related nonsense. I still understand all the issues about it. And they're all there's no new information. But now the information is coming into my brain and it's going oh this isn't a foreign invader these aren't vikings that are coming over in a

fucking boat with a dragon's head at the front of it swinging swords like this is just some nonsense whatever it is you know agent issue or manager issue or tax issue or whatever the fuck it is that seems so physically daunting before the exercise. But then afterwards, when that aspect of the problem is alleviated, that stress, it's almost like our bodies are just like confused as to what these problems actually are. I'm like, I love your interpretation of this because it's exactly the way that I would like to talk about why we need this type of stress. I actually, just like you said, I actually think that from an evolutionary perspective, that we were meant to be stressed.

We were meant to be outside either hunting, tilling the land to prepare food, out bombarded by UVB radiation, which is stressful. We were designed to have stress. And what I mean by designed was we have genetic switches, which are supposed to be turned on. These genetic switches that are activated by stress are supposed to be turned on. And just like you said, we're in a really novel time now where we don't have to go outside. We don't have to till the land. We don't have to hunt for our food. We can sit on the couch on our butt all day and order delivery or go to the grocery store. And

we don't have to eat foods with polyphenols or flavonoids or things that are also slightly stressful. So this is kind of that concept of hormesis. But it's I like the way you explained it, because I really agree with you. I think that humans were meant to be stressed. Exercise is a form of that stress. And there's different various different types of that stress. And I think that we were supposed to switch on those those genetic switches, those genes that are helping us deal with stress. So like you said, you have a problem. And I'm the same way with my run. I'll have something that's bothering me.

I have to deal with whatever it is. I mean, in my mind, I blow it up. It may not even be that big of a deal. But I go for a run with no new information, with nothing new. I feel better. And I think that's partly because I'm switching on all these, you know, stress response pathways that help me deal with the stress better. These anti-inflammatory pathways, just all this really good, you know, these good genetic switches that are being switched on. So. I mean, it totally makes sense. I think this new time that we live in,

I just don't necessarily think the body understands where the stress is coming from. I think, you know, your body's a physical organism and nature is an absolutely brutal thing. And it has been for us as well as for all these other animals forever. But now for us, it's not really that brutal anymore. And so all these mechanisms are in place to protect you and they don't get served. And for me, martial arts has always been like the best one to deal with. Although weightlifting is good too. Like a good kettlebell workout does it too. But like the big ones for me are jujitsu and kickboxing.

Because jujitsu is really, really hard to do. And it's also you are solving problems. So I think jujitsu is really, really hard to do. And it's also, you are solving problems. So I think jujitsu serves two purposes. It's incredibly grueling as far as like the sparring process of just rolling and, you know, and competing with each other, even in a friendly role, like with a guy that I really like and we're laughing and we slap hands, you know, every time someone gets tapped out or whatever. It's so difficult. Like your body's taxed so hard and your mind is taxed because you're dealing with countering, you're dealing with setting up moves, you're dealing with, you're thinking several steps

ahead and then you're adjusting those thoughts based on whatever this person that you're sparring with is doing too. So people get really, really addicted to jiu-jitsu for all the right reasons. And one of the things that I found is that jiu-jitsu people, for the most part, are way more mellow than most people would expect. Way more chill about stuff. Way less likely to respond to something in a dumb or an imbalanced way because they, whatever your body, whatever these requirements are that we're addressing, your body has all that in jujitsu, but without the real, real violence.

You know what I mean? Like no one's trying to kill you. They're just trying to do this thing to you and you're trying to do that thing to them. They're just trying to do this thing to you and you're trying to do that thing to them. And those things mimic actual combat, actual real life and death struggle in a friendly. And also it has this camaraderie built into it, too, because you kind of understand that you're going through person to go through that and get past all these psychological hurdles, all these physiological hurdles. And then you also are aware that this person understands like really clearly the kinship that you all share in having this experience together. That's really, that's really neat. I kind of relate. I mean, not to the same degree, like what you're, what you're describing is on a whole other level. But I experienced something similar when I'm, when I'm out surfing.

and getting pulled under and drowning and getting tangled with my cord. There's like a million. And every time I do it, I always have that fear paddling out there. But I get out there. There's a group of surfers, and we're all sitting out there. And there is a sort of friendship that we develop out there because we all love surfing. And we know it's like, oh, here comes the wave. We're helping each other.

Like, look, there's one on the outside. Paddle out. So it's kind of like completely different level from what you're describing with jujitsu. But still, I kind of can relate a little bit. I don't know if it is a different level. And a lot of jujitsu people surf as well. I think there's like a similar attraction to it. Because also, you're a monster dodger. Like you're out there in the monster soup yeah it's it's um that's what that is it's crazy that i still haven't you know

you'd think that after doing it for so many years that i would get over that fear but they're so powerful yeah i mean how can you get over that fear I'm um my friend Shane Dorian is a big wave surfer and he's been on the podcast before and he's a big time bow hunter too and we talk all the time about this and you know um the way he describes it is just uh it's so attractive like I want to try it but there's not enough hours in a day for me there's not I'm I get too addicted to things and it's just, and I have a fucking real fear of sharks. It's real.

Sharks are scary. They're really scary. They're so, but they're real. They're out there. Oh Jesus, what is this, Jamie? This is Shane Dorian's

big wave. Oh my God. My hands are sweating watching this. He is out of his fucking mind. Totally. He's a legit maniac.

Wow. Like that is, what is, how high would you say that wave is? It's gotta be 50 feet, right? Oh yeah.

It's in Hawaii. It's called Jaws is the name of the wave. Jaws. Oh my God. Look at the size of, that is so insane. That's so insane.

I'm like losing my mind just when I see these guys big wave surfing like this. My heart starts racing. I'm so anxious right now watching this. Oh, my God. It's so insane. That's more than 50 feet, right?

I would say. At the very peak of it. It does look like it's more than a 50-foot face. Now, when it comes down, does it say there on the YouTube thing? No. When it comes down on you, I mean, it doesn't really matter. If you got smushed, like if you fell and that came down on you, I mean, you're probably fucked, right? That's the fear, yeah.

I mean, the biggest way I've ever surfed is like overhead, you know, like over time and a half overhead. So not even double overhead. And that was like, I had a couple of scary moments where I was just tumbling during donuts and I couldn't find which way was up or down. You know, I've had one time I was surfing out in this place in San Diego called Sunset Cliffs and it's a reef break. And it's really hard to get out there. So you have to like time you have to like jump out when the you know, after the wave breaks and then you paddle out and there's all these kelp beds. And I was surfing there this one time. And this was back when I was really dumb and didn't wear a leash because I was like leashes.

You know, I like to dance on my board and they get in my way. And so I didn't wear a leash. But I, you know, there's a big wave and I was riding it and I wiped out and I like got caught in the kelp. Oh, shit. And so it was like the scare. You know, you have this moment where you panic and that's really bad like panicking when you're like in the water because panic takes like your energy yeah and and i panicked and i was because i'm i thought i was gonna die i was gonna suffocate

in this kelp bed so i remember having nightmares seaweed yes i've had nightmares about it like that stuck with me that was like that was one of those moments that, you know, sort of traumatizing in a way. How long did it take to get out of the kelp? I don't remember. I don't remember because it was just, I think the panic sort of, I just lost track. It seemed like forever to me. Like, I don't know how long it actually took. And of course, I lost my board and I had to swim in and I got cut up on the reef.

Yeah, reefs are brutal. Reefs are brutal. Yeah, I actually stick to beach breaks now, but like you said, I don't even get to surf that much anymore because I just don't have time. So people that when they surf breaks that are over those reefs, you just can't wipe out. If you wipe out, you're going to go right into all that jagged shit right yeah it depends on where the reef is like like i was riding the wave in kind of in more so i was closer to where the reef was but yes you can it's it's dangerous the beginners

should not ever go out on a reef and i've seen many beginners out there but it's yeah it's definitely more dangerous just feel all the scratches and cuts. Yep. Pretty, pretty, pretty brutal. Do you have any shark encounters? No. The only sharks I've actually, actually, I shouldn't say that's not, that's not actually accurate. I don't have any scary shark encounters.

I served for a long time in La Jolla and there's a breeding ground there for leopard sharks, which are not to be confused with tiger sharks. Tiger sharks are definitely scary. Leopard sharks are the ones that have like the spots on them. And they're really harmless. Oh, really? They're kind of like nurse sharks. Yeah. Oh, they don't eat?

They're not like... They're like sand sharks. They just... Swim around? Yeah. And they're really cool to look at But I've never had I've never actually known anyone That surfs in Southern California That is

You know With all the surfers that I've known That has had an encounter In Southern California With a shark Wow I do know people That have encountered them

In the Bay Area Yeah the Bay Area Is a big breeding ground For great whites I would never surf there Really No I would never surf No I would never surf there

It's too scary Yeah Yeah, the sharks. Look at you. You say yeah to sharks, but it's all connected. It's like, don't go outside. There's a bad neighborhood somewhere. They can move around. I guess just in my head, I've sort of convinced myself that they're not

coming to San Diego. There's a video of a drone flying over Malibu where some guy takes a drone and he's flying over the malibu surf and he's like the drone is like maybe a few hundred yards away from some surfers and you see a big fucking great white just swimming along just swimming don't show me this video drone shark footage soone shark footage. So here's these people. They're all on this board. They came and we're just Southern California.

New big deal. And when the drone keeps going further and further out, you see this fucking whopper shark that's not far away from these people. We'll find it here. Jamie will find it. There's one right there. Where is this? Oh, here. Jamie will find it. There's one right there. Where is this?

Oh, nothing. Just Malibu. Oh, nothing. Just a shark right there. I've definitely surfed Malibu before. Right there. What the fuck? Damn it, Joe.

Don't show me this. Well, you know. You're a smart woman. You understand. I do. It's monster soup. I try not to think about the sharks, though. Well, it's a good...

Oh, look. There's two of them. Interesting. Look at that. Surfer try not to think about the sharks, though. Well, it's a good... Oh, look, there's two of them. Interesting. Look at that. Surfer and two sharks. No big deal, guys. Yeah, that's pretty scary. Yeah, it's supposed to be scary.

Just, I don't know. I don't know. Apparently, Catalina, that whole area outside of Catalina, is a crazy shark fishing mecca where I have a friend of mine from Texas, and he traveled to Catalina Island a crazy shark fishing Mecca where I have a friend of mine from Texas and he traveled to Catalina Island and he said it is the most savage stretch of water in all of North America. He said it's just infested with Mako sharks and they go out there to catch Mako sharks, which are delicious. Mako sharks are really, really good to eat, too. They taste like swordfish. They taste amazing.

Are they dangerous? Oh, yeah. They'll fuck you up they'll bite you but the thing about um sharks now it's because of people are so silly because of the awareness of shark fin soup you know because shark fin soup is the the practice of acquiring shark fins is really brutal and not sustainable at all. It's really horrific. And a lot of Asian fisheries engage in these unsustainable practices where they'll scoop up thousands and thousands of sharks, cut their fins off, and then throw them right back in the water. So they waste most of the shark in order to get the fins for sharkfish soup. And so because they're trying to raise awareness of this, now people are getting really upset at anyone who catches sharks, even if they catch sharks legally for food, because sharks are not endangered and is in any more sense than

tuna is endangered because tuna are in vastly diminished numbers than they were just a few decades ago. If you talk to anyone who's a commercial fisherman or even a sport fisherman, like these guys that run these charter boats, they'll tell you they used to catch way more tuna. It used to be way more prevalent. I think that was something they addressed in that Jiro Dreams of Sushi movie as well, is that the commercial fishing is just brutalizing the tuna market, but yet everybody still eats tuna and they don't think twice about it because this campaign against shark fin soup has made people like really upset at people that

catch sharks to eat even people that eat meat it's like we're so simplistic in like our protesting and like people just have it in their head that i heard you're not supposed to eat sharks anymore like are you catching sharks you fucking asshole like like that is the one thing that you know i mean if you you want to talk about like fish that don't do no harm to human beings like sharks aren't on that list you know i mean this is this is a scary goddamn animal and if you could eat that i say kudos kudos to you aren't because sharks are higher up on the uh food chain don't they have higher mercury levels it's a good question because i know like swordfish like i would not eat swordfish really hell no no yeah there is like i wish i could remember the amount it's something like 150 micrograms per like four ounces or something

so compare that to uh wild atlantic salmon which has like four micrograms. Whoa. Yeah. Swordfish. So the ones that are really safe to eat that I know of are the wild Atlantic salmon, wild Alaskan. Sorry, not Atlantic. Wild Alaskan salmon, cod. Let's see. White tuna is okay, but the albacore tuna has a little bit more mercury. I think it's like, you know, twice as much or something, but I'm a, I'm a little thinking that, sushi like every day. I know they have had issues with mercury in the past.

I actually had an arsenic issue with sardines because sardines are bottom dwellers. And I used to eat sardines all the time. I love sardines. Yeah, I love sardines too. And if you eat canned sardines too much, I got some blood work done. And the doctor was like,

you have some significant amounts of arsenic in your system. I got some blood work done. And the doctor was like, you have some significant amounts of arsenic in your system. I'm like, am I being poisoned? He's like, no, not, not that. He goes, it's not like someone's trying to kill you, but it is like a dietary issue. And then he asked me what I ate. And I said, you know, we went through all my food. He's like, nothing else. I go, he goes, what about seafood? I go, oh yeah, I eat seafood. Oh yeah. I eat a lot of sardines. He's like, that's it. I didn't know sardines accumulated arsenic. Big time. But I guess that makes sense.

So I backed off. I didn't eat sardines at all for three months. Came back, the issue was completely resolved. Yeah. You know what? Besides sweat, you sweat out a lot of these heavy metals like mercury, arsenic, garlic. garlic, some of the beta-mercaptans in garlic, they bind and chelate mercury and help pull it and excrete it out of your body through urine. So whenever I make salmon or fish, which I actually do eat a lot of salmon, I probably eat it like two or three times a week, I always have fresh

garlic with it. Oh, wow. That's amazing. And salmon is outstanding, too, because it's so high in essential fatty acids, right? Exactly. It's really good for you. Exactly. Yeah. It's really high in omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA. And then it's got a modest amount of vitamin D. Whenever I'm sick, I eat giant cloves of garlic.

I'll just break it down to a point where it makes me feel horrible. I'll have a big glass of kombucha and I'll take like a lump of garlic and I'll break off like four or five cloves and I'll just take off the skin and chew those bitches down and chug it with kombucha. It's awful. Sometimes it's painful.

Yeah, it's spicy. As it's going down, my system is like, what in the fuck is this? I could feel it inside my body burning i love it i've i've done the same thing previously i mean i don't do that anymore but uh yeah i mean garlic is very powerful antimicrobial compounds in it so i mean that you know makes perfect sense last time i did it i went i had to take a knee oh a knee yeah i go down on a knee really yeah like i didn't actually go down but what i did was i put both my arms on the counter

and i went down like this like oh because it was just burning going down i just was like what this is probably not even working i'm just being retarded you know getting back to some of those like pungent compounds that are in these these these plants i mean that kind of gets back to what we were talking about a minute ago with switching on those genetic switches that are um meant to be switched on they're meant we're supposed to eat these kinds of foods garlic you know broccoli cauliflower you know kale these things that have that pungent mustard, that pungent taste.

I mean, these things are various different polyphenols and compounds. And one in particular I become obsessed with lately is sulforaphane. And that's present in most of the cruciferous family, like kale, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, wasabi, bok choy, just, you know, that whole family of vegetables. Pretty much, I ate those vegetables a lot, but I've become very obsessed with this, this compound that is, it's actually, sulforaphane's not in the plant. It gets formed once you break the plant tissue, once it's like chewed or crushed or blended or whatever, chopped somehow, because it's stored as a precursor.

And then once the tissue gets, you know, chopped or whatever, then it forms sulforaphane. And that's part of its, you know, hormetic response. It's plant response to try to like ward off insects or whatever thing. So that's why it forms. But it actually, when we ingest it, it's really, really, really good for us. You know, so the sulforaphane in particular, which is actually really, really high in broccoli sprouts. Have you ever had broccoli sprouts?

Yes, I have. Yeah. So broccoli sprouts actually contain like 100 times more of it than mature broccoli. Yeah. So broccoli sprouts actually contain like 100 times more of it than mature broccoli. So it's like probably the best source of of sulforaphane, dietary source of sulforaphane out there. I saw on your Instagram that you you make shakes with that, right? I do. Yeah, I've become sort of convinced that it's very powerful anti aging and also powerful. It's very powerful anti-aging and also powerful nootropic in a way, I guess I could say. And I can elaborate.

But, you know, so I've been doing these shakes where you can sprout. You can sprout your own sprouts at home for relatively cheap. You just buy some organic broccoli seeds. Bam. There I am. You look like a weed dealer. That's what everyone said on my Instagram. 3.5 pounds of broccoli spouts. Wink, wink.

That's what they're calling it, these kids. Believe it or not, though, if you freeze them, so I was actually, I'm freezing, so those bags are going in the freezer. When you freeze them, because when you freeze the plant, the tissue also gets broken, it actually doubles in some cases, you can up to double the amount of sulforaphane because it like has a longer time to form this. So you can actually have a more concentrated.

I learned that the hard way, but what, what hard way? I mean, just because it's so pungent and powerful that if you make a shake with it and you're doing like, at first I was doing fresh shakes and then we started freezing them and I was making shakes that were you know from previously frozen sprouts and it's like I needed like half the dose um you know to feel to feel the same

thing or if I had too much um okay so I guess I should probably you know it's kind of just like like when you drink coffee you know how's kind of just like like when you drink coffee you know how you kind of just you feel a little pappy and good and you feel a little more alert um sort of like that and it's the thing is is that it's it's been shown so there have been clinical studies in humans and this is very interesting because it's been shown um like if you give it you give you know even just a small amount i think it was like between 7 to 30 milligrams of sulforaphane a day to to um young adults with autism it improved their autistic scores by like 34 and autistic scores they like there's a you know a range of different you know tests that

are done to like measure different various brain functions but improve this and this autistic you know these autistic individuals by like 34 the same was done um in a pilot study for people with schizophrenia where it like improved their their symptoms so they're just their brain functions better wow yeah so and this is like pretty um, the results were so powerful that, you know, this was done at Johns Hopkins. The study is now being repeated. Um, you know, because it's like, this is what is going on here. Like, how is this affecting the brain? And I think, you know, if you look at a lot of the animal studies, there's lots and lots of animal studies that have been done, uh, which are, you know, people aren't quite as convinced because it's like, well, how much of this relates to humans?

But it's been shown to be as effective as the antidepressant Prozac in alleviating depression in mice. And they do all these battery of tests where they like stress the mice out and make them depressed and social defeat. And like they hang them by their tail. It's actually just kind of gnarly. social defeat and like they hang them by their tail. It's actually just kind of gnarly. But and then, you know, there's like, you know, a bunch of tests they do to see if they're depressed and you give them, you know, your your placebo, you give them Prozac or you give them the broccoli sprout extract and it performed just as well. So it helps depression. It's been shown to help with neurodegenerative diseases, all sorts of things. But the point is, I think that the reason it's actually affecting

all these brain functions, and why even, you know, someone like me may notice a small effect from eating them, is because it has very profound effect on inflammation. And that is because, as I mentioned, it switches on one of those switches that was meant to be switched on, a pathway called NRF2 in our body that controls over 200 genes. And sulforaphane is the most potent naturally occurring compound that we've discovered yet that activates this pathway. So it's no other plant compound, no other naturally occurring plant compound can activate this pathway as potent as sulforaphane. And NRF2 is, I mean, it's been

shown in multiple studies to be involved in delaying aging. And a lot of that happens through lowering tons of different inflammatory genes, activating anti-inflammatory genes, lowering oxidative stress, all these glutathione-related enzymes that helps with detoxifying compounds that we're exposed to on a daily basis, like carcinogens and things. So I think that we're having a low level of this inflammation stuff that we're constantly being exposed to, and it affects the brain. So if you get a dose of this, you may notice a small effect. Now, with someone that has autism or schizophrenia, inflammation and oxidative stress have been shown in previous studies, or schizophrenia, inflammation and oxidative stress have been shown in previous studies,

multiple previous studies to play a role in the etiology of those diseases. So I think that's how it may be affecting the brain. But it's not just affecting the brain. And probably one of the most well-known functions of sulforaphane is that it's like a very powerful cancer preventative compound. So it's, you know, it's been shown to prevent cancer. For example, men that had prostate cancer, when they were given 60 milligrams of sulforaphane a day for, I think it was like a month. I don't remember exactly how long. It slowed the doubling rate of a tumor biomarker called prostate-specific antigen, PSA, which is what is usually measured when men have prostate cancer. You measure the progression of it because it has a doubling rate. It doubles every so often. But it slowed that doubling rate by 86%, which is pretty profound. Of course, there's lots and lots of associative studies that have shown cruciferous vegetables, you know, if you eat more of them, you have a lower risk of bladder, ovarian, prostate, kidney, just all sorts of cancers.

But there's the clinical trials, I think, are what's really telling because they're, you know, you're giving someone this compound and it's lowering a tumor progression marker by 86%. progressive progression marker by 86 percent there's another study which is really interesting also and this is kind of like what really got me interested i'm not sure if other people are interested in it but um you know we're exposed to to compounds from like air pollution so like living in los angeles for example is probably like definitely one of the places that you're going to be more exposed to the to some of these airborne carcinogens so benzene's one of the places that you're going to be more exposed to some of these airborne carcinogens. So benzene is one of them, aquiline. These things are in the air. We're breathing them in. We're getting to some degree, we have it. We have benzene in our system and it is a carcinogen. It's been shown to cause cancer, specifically linked to leukemias. Smokers get a ton of it because it's in cigarettes.

So cigarette smokers are like really loaded up with benzene. But there was a study where people were given like 40 milligrams of the sulforaphane in the form of a broccoli sprout drink a day for like a week. And starting on day one of drinking this drink, they excreted 61% of the benzene, like on day one. 61% of benzene was just coming out of their urine, like as you measure in metabolites. And I was like, wow, that is amazing. Like getting rid of some of that stuff, you know, because I definitely want to get rid of the benzene and all that stuff that I'm being exposed to. So that really got my attention too, because

it was just so significant and a profound of effect just after one day. So that that was another sort of thing that got me really into it. And then the aging stuff, where you know, it's been shown. So inflammation has been identified as a key ager of aging. Taking sulforaphane has been shown to lower inflammatory markers in people by like 20% C-reactive protein, other inflammatory markers. Of course, there's like dozens of studies in animals that have been done, but I'm sort of, I think the human studies are more interesting to talk about. So definitely more relevant. And then also it's been shown to affect cardiovascular health because of the inflammation, I think.

So type 2 diabetics that were given some dose, I think it was something around 40 milligrams as well of sulforaphane. They were given this daily and for a month, for four weeks. And it lowered their triglycerides by 20%. It lowered their atherogenic index, which is like measuring, you know, the dangerous type of LDL, small, dense LDLs or glycerides, looking at all these things that lowered that by 50 percent, improved their blood sugar by like almost 20 percent. So that's like I'm getting that my mouth. I'm trying to get my mom on this. You know, my mom, she she definitely has got like high triglycerides, you know. So I'm really convinced. And then there's been studies in

animals that's just shown that it like delays aging. So I'm convinced that. And then there's been studies in animals that's just shown that it delays aging. So I'm convinced that I think it's one of those things like you get it in kale. And I think that I've been getting a good dose of it. I've been drinking kale smoothies pretty regularly since probably like 2010. Yeah, probably about six or seven years. And I do feel like it's like help age like help me age like a little better I mean it could be completely in my mind but just because I know kale is healthy but I think that I've found something to take it to another level where I think that I'm pretty

convinced that if I continue taking the sulforaphane I think it will absolutely affect the way I age and I think it'll affect my brain aging as well. I mean, it's been shown to at least an animal study is to affect brain aging, traumatic brain injury. I mean, if you administer it after traumatic brain injury, it improves outcome, improves like brain swelling and all that by like 50%, you know, just all sorts of nons. It's just like, I could go on it. I have a video I did like a 45 minute video where I'm literally just talking about this for 45 minutes. And then I went on YouTube. It's just like, I could go on it. I have a video. I did like a 45 minute video where I'm literally just talking about this for 45 minutes. And then I went on YouTube. It's on YouTube. Yeah. And I, um, I did this, this research took a month, many months, and it's like a 16 page article I

wrote. Um, and I hope to get published. I think I'm going to submit it for publication because it's just, it was a lot of work and I haven't seen anything in the literature as comprehensive covering every base like I just I tried to cover everything that was like a good study you know that was important and so so and then I flew out to Johns Hopkins recently I was invited to give a talk there and I met it just so happens the guy who discovered that first of all the guy who discovered sulforaphane is there but he's much older i didn't meet with i met with someone who trained with him who discovered that broccoli sprouts are the best source of sulforaphane so he made that discovery back in the 90s um and i interviewed him and he just went on and on and on and talked about

sulforaphane like in addition to like what i had already talked about on one of the videos I did and he actually had some really interesting stuff to talk about in terms of like you know you so in order to get the sulforaphane you have to the plant has to be crushed or chopped and that's because it has an enzyme in it called my Rosson a's and my Rosson a's is heat sensitive so when you when you when you steam your broccoli, when you boil your kale, when you saute your kale, any of that stuff, unfortunately, you're inactivating myrosinase. And so you're not getting as much sulforaphane. You're getting dramatically less. I mean, dramatic, almost non-existent.

The precursor, glucoraphanin, is still in that plant. So youexistent the precursor glucoraphanin is still in that plant so so you're getting the precursor and we do have some bacteria some types of bifidobacteria in our gut that contain the myrosinase enzyme highly variable from individual to individual but so you can convert some of that to sulforaphane but what was interesting that he mentioned is you can actually sprinkle mustard powder, like mustard powder that you buy after you saute your kale or after you steam your vegetables or if you cook, if you apply heat to any of your cruciferous vegetables afterwards, you put the mustard powder on, mustard powder, it has active myrosinase in it. And it's pretty, the myrosinase in the mustard seed is more heat stable. So you can actually convert your precursor into the sulforaphane

by adding the mustard powder. And I was like, that is a really great thing to know. Because now I'm like, because I do cook a lot of, I saute kale all the time. I steam my broccoli, put some butter and salt and pepper. That's how I eat my broccoli. So it's very useful. Sorry to interrupt, but are there any compounds in kale or broccoli or anything else that make them more bioavailable when you do cook them? Yeah. I mean, a lot of the minerals and stuff in it, like magnesium, the calcium, those things become more bioavailable when you cook them. the calcium, those things are, those things become more bioavailable when you cook them.

And so you would get that benefit plus if you just cooked it and then add the mustard. Right. But when the mustard seed powder, you have to make sure it's like, what I like to do is sprinkle a little bit on my hand and like lick it. Like it's got to give, it has to have that bite. If it doesn't have the bite, it's like, it's been degraded. It's been on the shelf for too long it's been an amazon shelves for too long whatever you know so um yeah it has to have that like mustard bite to it could you just use regular mustard like i don't think so no mustard seed i think the mustard seed yeah uh so that so that was a very useful like you know because the sulforaphane it's really good joe i i really am i'm trying to like you know get people to i think the more people that get the sulforaphane in life i think they're

going to be healthier i think it can help prevent cancer lower inflammation i'm just so many different good things so smokers for god's sake if you're a smoker they should be taking sulforaphane they should be drinking those shakes i'm drinking like every day, you know, because they are getting so much benzene. So two questions about this. One, where does someone get broccoli sprouts? Where would you get that? Well, so the thing is, is that you can buy broccoli sprouts already sprouted at like Whole Foods or Sprouts or whatever your local, you know, grocery store is. Most of grocery stores have broccoli sprouts.

I've seen alfalfa sprouts. It's very rare that you find broccoli sprouts, isn't it? They're at Whole Foods. They're at Sprouts. Yeah. But the problem, here's the problem with buying sprouts. They're very prone to bacterial contamination. like e coli like the longer they sit on the shelf and a lot of times when you go into these grocery stores they're sitting on the

shelf and so they're probably likely a little more contaminated with like e coli than if you were to sprout them yourself and get them fresh so you can buy them um but i think and they also charge like it's like five bucks for like a little like package of it you know it's like one shake right yeah it's a one shake whereas you can like spend 20 bucks and get like a pound of seeds and so how do you grow it um well there there's lots of different methods. You can use hemp. So previously we used to do these hemp bags where you put the seeds in the bag and you add some water. You basically just keep adding water to them and let it drip and they sprout within like four days. Then we started doing this jar method where now we have mason jars with a lid on top that has like little holes that are big enough for water to come out obviously but not for the seeds to come out and so you know you get these jars and you add water let it sit for

like six hours and then dump it out and then you just after that you continually just add the water and dump it out and add the water and dump it out and kind of leave it tilted so that the water isn't just like you don't want you know the water just sitting in there so that it's like growing bacteria and stuff so so you like let you know tilt the water just sitting in there so that it's like growing bacteria and stuff. So you like let, you know, tilt the water. So you just want it wet? Is that what it is? Yeah. And it really just takes like four days and then you have sprouts. The only thing is you do have to be, you know, clean.

Like if your counter's all dirty and your hands are dirty and all the dishware you're using is dirty, then you're probably going to contaminate them. So you have to like be a little fastidious about the way you sprout these things. You know, but I think once you're aware of that, then it's okay. The other thing is, and this is something that I'm going to talk to the expert, his name's Dr. Jed Fahey. I recently interviewed him on a podcast. He mentioned something to me that like caught my interest. He said the seed itself, the broccoli seed itself has the enzyme, it has the pre-crystallized sulforaphane. And if you break or crush the seed or chew the seed, then you're actually getting sulforaphane. So you can actually crush up the seed in like a coffee grinder or something and like take a shot

of it. But the thing is, is there's been no research doing this method. So all these studies that I just talked about in humans, those were all done from like broccoli sprout powder extract from the sprouts. Powder extract. Is this something you could buy as a supplement? Great question. So, well, the powder extracts were mostly made by researchers. In fact, Jed has supplied a lot of different universities with the extract himself. But there are, so supplement-wise, that's the other thing that he really sort of illuminated for me because he's actually been measuring certain supplements that are on the market

and, like, if they actually have what they say they have. supplements that are on the market and like if they actually have what they say they have. And so because myrosinase is so unstable, it is hard to make a supplement with sulforaphane. There is one supplement, only one that I know of that actually has sulforaphane, the actual active compound, and that's called prostaphane. And that's only available in France. By the way, I have no affiliation with any of these like supplement companies at all. I'm just telling information. It's only available in France. By the way, I have no affiliation with any of these supplement companies at all. I'm just telling information. It's only available in France. It's only available in France.

And so he actually tested that one. And people that were given prostafane, the bioavailability of the sulforaphane was 70%. So 70% of it ended up in their bloodstream. There's another supplement called Avmacol. Avmacol has glucoraphanin plus myrosinase in it. So it doesn't have the sulforaphane, has the two compounds that can form sulforaphane, but has them together. That has been tested and that was about 40% bioavailability. So about 40% of it was you were actually getting sulforaphane 40% of the

time. And that was also tested. There's another supplement and that is available in the US. There's another supplement by Thorne called Crucera, I think. And Crucera only has the precursor, no enzyme. So you're totally relying on your gut bacteria. And some people, it's very variable. So that only had like a 10% bioavailability. Other than that, those are the three supplements that he really could, and this is a study he just published recently, that he got behind. I asked him about a few others because I'd actually been taking, there's another one called Broccomax by Jaro. And he kind of was like, I asked him about it and he was kind of like, Hmm, it has some of what it says in there,

but not all, you know, and, and the problem is, is that these supplements, I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of the times, like he was telling me like, geez, like seven out of 10 times, these supplements had like clover leaf in them when they were supposed to have like the cruciferous you know precursor glucoraphanin so it's just like it's kind of disgusting how supplement company how supplement companies are you know totally just putting all this clover leaf and whatever and there was a study that came out like a couple years ago on this like like 75 of all these like herbal echinacea like all these you know compounds that are you know you know marketed for whatever don't actually even contain echinacea or whatever they say they contain it's really it's really kind of bad yeah it's a giant issue

and if you're a company that sells that stuff a lot of times you're not even you're not even getting it directly from the source you know they're buying it from companies that supply it to them. And a lot of times these companies are in China and places where their regulations are not that strict. Yeah. Right. You can get just, I mean, we had an issue with that when we first started making AlphaBrain, where we would get stuff tested. We'd get batches tested and the batches of different individual ingredients would have stuff in it that they weren't supposed to have in it, just because they're mixing it all up in the same bins.

Oh, yeah, that's true. There's also that. Yeah, I mean, there's just, you've got to find a reliable brand, you know, and I think, you know, Thorne seems to be a pretty reliable one that I've seen in multiple different, you know, times where scientists are like, yeah, we've tested that. It's more expensive, but they seem to be pretty reliable. So it seems like the best method is to sprout your own broccoli sprouts, though. Yeah, I think that's the best method. And it seems like very cost effective, too, right?

Exactly. It's cost effective. You don't, you don't have to, you know, have extra cash to buy all these expensive supplements because all the ones I just mentioned that actually are effective and have what they say, they're not cheap. So that those bags that you had in that Instagram photo, is that all sprouts that you had made yourself? Yeah. How many Mason jars did it take? Six. Six. That was six. Oh wow. That's not that bad. Yeah. I mean, they get really dense too. They fill up inside the not that bad. Yeah. I mean, they get really dense, too. They fill up. Inside the jar? Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. I have other pictures somewhere on there. They were there with the jars. But I'm thinking I might just do a quick sprouting video. Yeah. Do it. Just like a five or six minute. I'm already going in my head about how I'm going to start sprouting.

Awesome. And they're good. You don't have to do. I always sort of take it to the next level. I make my shake. And it's like. But they're good. You don't have to do – I always sort of take it to the next level. I make my shake and it's like – but they're good on salads. I mean you can sprinkle them on anything. I really like them on salads quite a bit. That's amazing.

Now, there you go. Oh, wow. There we go. Yeah. So those are mason jars that have holes already in them. Yeah. So you can actually buy the sprouting kit. So these actually we found, these are the old lids we were using.

We actually found better lids that have even smaller holes because some of the seeds were getting out of this. But this came as a kit, a sprouting kit. You can buy on Amazon. It has like a little wooden thing to set the mason jars in. So they're like tilted and you can like, you know, drip the water out. They came with those lids. Wow. But then we did some experimentation and found other lids that are superior to those.

How much maintenance is involved in making these? Like how often do you have to tend to these things? Oh, it's just like after the first initial like six hour water, you know, where you let them sit. It's like twice a day in the morning and evening. Dump water on them. But you have to do it every day. And how many days does it take to grow that? That was about five days, I think.

Four or five days. So for a guy like me who goes away on weekends a lot, I'd have to make sure that I'm home for a stretch before I make something like that. Well, you can. So you could have harvested. Actually, so here's the thing you the longer you're letting them sprout so i was just trying to like maximize i want more dense you know because i wanted to get my bang for my buck but you can actually you could have harvard harvested those probably like early like three days three and a half days oh wow um and actually

the longer you wait the more you have to be careful with contamination, too. So it's better probably even to harvest them sooner, freeze them so they're like, you know, no bacteria. You know, that way you're safe. And you're just putting them in like Ziploc storage bags? Yeah. Do you ever vacuum seal things and freeze them? No, I should. I do that with meat. Yeah, it's a good idea.

I mean, that would be a good idea to do. Wow, that's really intense stuff. The other question that I wanted to have to talk to you about was when you were saying schizophrenia and how sulforaphane can prevent or somehow mitigate the effects of schizophrenia, effects of schizophrenia. Do you think that there is a possible correlation between a lot of these mental health diseases and a lack of proper nutrition? Oh, absolutely. I think that a lack of proper nutrition is a huge component of a lot of mental diseases and psychological diseases in general. In fact, inflammation is now it's really been identified as a cause playing a causal role in depression. And that's something that, you know, so with the depression thing, it's here's, here's kind of a funny story. And it's not that funny. It's actually kind of eye opening. But back in the so the CDC has like estimated that about 11 percent of of Americans are on some sort of antidepressant.

Eleven percent. It's a lot. So here's the story behind that. That's so crazy. It is. And I I know several people that are on them or have taken them or, you know, you know, whatever. are on them or have taken them or, you know, you know, whatever. But the story behind that is kind of interesting, because back in like the early 70s, a lot of these clinical trials were being done on antidepressants with people that had depression. And at that time, people that had

depression, that were involved in these trials, were people that were severely depressed and hospitalized. So they were so depressed that they had been hospitalized for depression. I don't know many people that have been hospitalized for depression nowadays, but so they were hospitalized for depression. And then they were given either a placebo or antidepressant. And in multiple trials, you know, FDA had reviewed these trials. 70% of the time, the antidepressant, so the antidepressant worked in 70% of the patients compared to 30% of the patients where placebo worked, right? 70% is pretty good. If you're comparing that to 30% placebo, it's like, well, that's efficacious. That seems to work, right? What then happened after those trials

were done, starting in the 70s and like 80s, is that the clinical diagnostic manual, it's called the DSM. At that time, it was the DSM-2. They changed all their diagnosis, you know, markers and symptoms for depression. And they expanded it a great, great deal. And they then called depression major depressive disorder. So it became this sort of like broader, you know, disease, quote unquote, where it was like, it's not just these people that are severely hospitalized. It's people that are feeling depressed and anxious and sad or what, you know, it's just

basically you're getting a bigger group of people, which is probably a great opportunity for a pharmaceutical company. But then when clinical trials were repeated on this new population of people, so these are clinical trials that were done from like the 80s all the way up until like the 2000, year 2000. When those were reviewed by the FDA, what was found was quite shocking. And that was that only 40% of people were now responding to like antidepressants, SSRIs, other, you know, norepinephrine, reuptake inhibitors,

whatever the standard of care is, compared to 30% placebo. So now you're talking about only 10, they're performing only 10, antidepressants performing only 10 better than placebo it's like okay something so clearly it's not that the antidepressants don't ever work it's just that we are now over prescribing them to people that you know or have this major depressive disorder and they're not working on people that weren't

you know the the initial group of people that were like severely depressed and hospitalized you know so it's like okay that's that's a big problem because they're i mean they're prescribed like i mean i just like i can't even believe it you know i just have so many personal stories people i know you know that have gone you know going through some crisis some personal yeah breakup a divorce whatever and all of a sudden they're giving you some crazy all of a sudden they're giving some crazy drug and they change the personality of the person and i'm just like please get off of this like you know it's not like and like i said it's not like they don't ever work it's just just that, you know, I think once the clinical diagnostic, you know, book changed the whole like, you know, procedure for diagnosing depression and became major

depressive disorder, all of a sudden you're getting people that are now like having just, you know, whatever stressful event in their life that's making them a little depressed at the time, which everyone's probably experienced, are now being, you know, given this antidepressant when they don't really need it. And there are effects that are not good with taking some of these, you know, antidepressants. So, you know. Well, there's a big effect on libido. Yeah, on libido. Yeah, I know a lot of people that have taken it where their sex drive just goes away. Yeah, there's actually a gene that, a gene polymorphism, a variation in a gene that is linked to that. So people that have it have even more severe effect where they really don't.

They really have like sexual dysfunction in response to it. Yeah, it just shuts down. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't happen to everyone quite as much, but there's a percentage of people that it really, really affects. And there's lots of other things. I mean, it's just it's changing your brain chemistry.

Right. And it's not exact. It's not an exact science. There's a lot of experimentation going on with it. I had a friend of mine who had gone to several doctors, and they had prescribed a bunch of different things to him. And he was severely depressed, and eventually they gave up. And he had to find a much better doctor that his care, whatever his insurance package, would not pay for. And once he found that doctor, then the doctor was just more knowledgeable about potential different ones.

I mean, I don't know how many different ones there are. But they got him on something that actually worked. He's off it now. It took him a while. And then he eventually got happy. He's off it now. It took him a while and then, you know, he eventually got happy. And then oddly enough, which is an interesting thing, people always want to connect depression. They want to say depression is a disease and they want to say it almost like, oh, you got herpes. Like, you need medicine. And for him, the one of the big factors in fixing everything was his own success, his own personal success. And then he became more happy. And then his the medication helped, he became more successful. And then as he became eventually really successful, he started to experience like a better quality of life, he was happier, he was more confident. And then he slowly weaned himself off. And now he has no need for them to mean that is so fascinating because so we bridge the gap between an unhealthy mental state and a healthy mental state. But a lot of that health had to do with his own life. He still eats like shit.

I mean, he's not like the healthiest guy. He eats a lot of fucking candy, but he's really healthy now as far as like his mind. He's very happy. Yeah, he's not lying. You know, he's not faking it. So to me, it's always I mean when when you know I've talked to friends that have had Really good results with antidepressants So I think there are some dark moments in people's lives where that can kind of get them out of that But then part of me doesn't buy that that's the way to go because part of me is like, okay

Well, did you exercise? No. Did you take, like, really healthy foods? No. Did you clean your life up? No. Did you, you know, like, how, what happened here? And one of the things that a lot of these antidepressants do is they make you not feel bad about stuff. Like, about anything.

Like, I had a friend who was on Zoloft. And she said, like, she took it for a year. And she's like, I kind of lost a year of my life. Like, I didn't give a fuck about anything. Like I had a friend who was on Zoloft and she said like she took it for a year and she's like, I kind of lost a year of my life. Like I didn't give a fuck about anything during that year. Like anything can happen. It's kind of scary. Yeah. But that not giving a fuck, not feeling bad. You also, you don't feel great either.

You don't feel great. Like you don't feel like, God, it's a good time to be alive. Look at me. I'm healthy. I can move. You're like all those thoughts don't sort of come into to play it's like it dulls everything it dulls the highs and it dulls the lows and it keeps the pain away that's kind of interesting because believe it or not that's actually a symptom of depression i think it's called like hedonia or something where someone's not like really responsive to anything it's like you can't like you just

can't like you know you know you can't like excite them or or like make them super anxious either they're just kind of like you know so that's actually kind of interesting that she was uh experiencing that while on uh an antidepressant well the results vary pretty widely totally yeah i mean with the same drugs, right? Yeah. Yeah. Now, is that because of biodiversity? Like what's causing that? Like you could take something and you would have a totally different reaction and I could take something and, you know, it would just be perfect for you.

Yeah. You know, I honestly, I don't think we actually know really why that is. But what we do know is that there are, I mean, there are different, you know, we are different people. And I've got different genes that are regulating how much serotonin I'm making, how much dopamine I'm making, how much I'm metabolizing, how quickly I'm metabolizing it than you and other people. And so when you like, and people, and this is this absolutely does affect how some of these drugs are, you know, when they're taken, how they're, what their biological effect is. Now, you know, why, I don't know, you know, so it's, there's definitely like a genetic variation that affects just the way our neurotransmitters are being fired away and the

way they're being metabolized. And so if you're adding a drug that's changing the way something's being metabolized already, then it's, you a drug that's changing the way something's being metabolized already, then it's, you know, it's going to affect people differently. I think that's one reason. But honestly, I don't know. Who knows? There's maybe like other, you know, life situations as well, other dietary situations, all these things probably play a role. You know, with the inflammation, I was talking about it actually playing a causal role. I mean, there have actually been studies where normal healthy people are injected with either a placebo, which is saline water, salt water, or they're injected with something that our gut produces called endotoxin. Our gut produces it when our immune cells in our gut attack the bacteria in our gut because endotoxin is actually a component of the bacterial cell membrane and that is released upon inflammation so when you're eating a terrible

diet lots of refined sugar and that's and that's actually been shown you release endotoxin and it causes inflammatory response so when people are injected with endotoxin or they're injected with pro-inflammatory cytokines like interferon gamma which we also make in our body when we're inflamed. People start to, normal healthy people, start to experience feelings of depression. They start to feel depressed, anxious, social withdrawal. People with the placebo did not experience that. Also, they had elevated levels of other inflammatory biomarkers in their blood. So it really like, and this is just, this is causal.

I mean, we're talking about injecting inflammation. All of a sudden, they're experiencing these like depressive symptoms. It was actually people that were then given one of the omega-3 fatty acids, EPA. They're given actually a pretty high dose of it. I think it was close to like two grams or something. Completely alleviated any of those symptoms. So those people that were getting the inflammatory cytokine or the endotoxin and the EPA did not experience those symptoms. So it was really like inflammation, you know, driven, these symptoms that were not experienced in the placebo.

So that's kind of, and there's been multiple studies showing this. You know, it's not just one study. There's multiple studies. Multiple studies, again, this is kind of like a new method people are using to explore how inflammation affects depression. It also has been shown the same sort of scenario where there's a placebo and they're injecting an inflammatory cytokine. Dopamine levels lower in the brains of people that were injected with the pro-inflammatory cytokine, but not the saline water. And also the reward pathway in the brain is also decreased. So, you know, again, like I was mentioning, you're not that excitable, you know, it's just kind of like, and that was not, that did not happen in the placebo group. So this was not just an effect of

being shot up with something, you know. So when scientists have looked at some of the mechanisms and explored, well, how is it that inflammation is affecting dopamine in the brain? How is it that it's, you know, affecting people's mood? It's thought now there's a variety of mechanisms. One is that, you know, these inflammatory cytokines, they actually cross the blood-brain barrier. They get into the brain and they disrupt dopamine release. They disrupt serotonin release. They disrupt norepinephrine release. You know, they're disrupting these neurotransmitters being released. The other thing is that there's been recently discovered that the lymphatic system is actually directly connected to the brain through the meninges. I mean, it was previously thought

that that was like cut off. The brain was protected from the lymphatic system. But it turns out we were wrong. You know, everything that we learned in textbooks for years and years in our science classes was not accurate. Actually, we are our lymphatic system is connected. And what that means is that our immune system, the chemicals, the inflammatory cytokines we're producing, you know, from our immune cells are getting into the brain and disrupting, you know, neurotransmitter release and other things. So there's obviously a really strong connection to inflammation and depression that's shown to be causal. But when you think about it, it's like, well, what causes inflammation? Okay, well, we can talk about the sugar stuff,

because that's been shown. Eating a terrible diet does. But the other thing that causes it and it's what you you mentioned, that is a stressful event in someone's life, an emotional event, you know, a breakup, a tragedy, work related stress, social anxiety, whatever it is, anything that causes you to release cortisol, stress hormones. Anything that causes you to release cortisol, stress hormones, believe it or not, those things actually affect inflammation in your gut. So it's like a two-way street here. I think that previously you and I have talked about in other podcasts like how gut microbiome bacteria, you know, you can take microbiome bacteria from an anxious mouse and transplant it into a non-anxious mouse and make it anxious and vice versa, right? So there's like some sort of gut-brain axis through something called the vagal nerve. Well, it goes both ways. You can go from the brain down to the gut. So it's been shown that like cortical releasing hormone, which is a stress hormone, you know, through the vagal nerve, when you release it, it goes into the gut it activates immune cells which then activate other proteins in the gut that chew up they're called proteases they chew up the gut barrier and then you start to release more influent you know inflammatory cells

which then like get in contact with bacteria more inflammation and then it goes back it's like this feedback loop so i think that's how stress also part of the mechanism, how a stressful event, any sort of breakup or tragedy, those sorts of things also cause inflammation. They cause inflammation. In fact, this is totally off topic, but that's one reason why people should never go and like get like blood work done, like a day or two after some kind of like traumatic event. So if you get fired, don't get your blood work done, like, like a day or two after some kind of like traumatic event. So if you get fired, don't get your blood work. Don't. Yeah. Like do not get your blood work or break up or whatever. Yeah. Cause it will like, it will skew everything. Wow. Everything. Well, that's, that's so amazing. And when you discuss this and when you lay all these facts out,

it makes it seem so irresponsible that 10% of the people are on this drug. 11%. Excuse me. Are on this drug or whatever, a category of these drugs. Instead of dealing with it, I mean, it seems like we're in a weird place when it comes to the holistic treatment of the human body. We're in a very weird place where we have to the holistic treatment of the human body. We're in a very weird place where we have all of this information now, but it doesn't seem like it's being applied when it comes to the average person who is suffering, the average person who's dealing

with a disease or depression, which I guess you could call a disease. And it just seems so insane that with all we know that we're treating it only with this chemical pathway. We're only treating it with a pill, this pharmacy, you know, this pharmacological solution to this, which just seems so limited. It's upsetting. It's so upsetting. It's very upsetting. I am like, it's like a mission of mine. You know, I think, you know, I think that the problem is multifold. You know, one is that you have, you know, psychiatrists and they're trained a certain way. And people, when their patients come in, they expect that they're going to come.

They come in because they want a pill most of the time. They do. They come in because they don't want to deal with it and they want a pill. And so, you know, that's kind of a problem because people need to understand that these pills are not the magic bullet. I mean, I just told you only 40% of people are responding to these antidepressants that are standard of care

compared to 30% that respond to placebo, a sugar pill. Like, that is ridiculous, you know. So I think I would love if there was some way, you know, to get a physician, usually their psychiatrist that people go to for these sorts of problems to like push someone to say you have to go run you know you're gonna run six miles a week you're gonna run you're gonna do that that is going to help you right like you know it's in fact it's been shown it's been shown in multiple studies that exercise helps improve depression and one of the ways it does it, very interestingly, is that aerobic exercise specifically has been shown that whole serotonin pathway. We're talking about inflammation inhibitingor to serotonin and tryptophan, when you have inflammation, so like

I said, an emotional event causes inflammation, doesn't have to be your sugar diet, okay? You know, inflammation can be caused by your cortisol release. When you have that inflammation, your body thinks that it needs to fight off something, but that's what it thinks. It's like, okay, this, I'm sick, I've got a foreign invader invader i need to kill it and so the tryptophan which usually is being transported in the brain to make serotonin which plays a role in how you feel it plays a role in lots of brain functions then gets diverted into another pathway because your body's like wait a minute i don't need to feel good i need to i need to survive i need to live So the tryptophan gets converted into this whole other pathway called kynurenine, which helps with basically immune cells needed to, different immune cells

needed to make different types of immune cells. So your body's like, okay, the tryptophan is going to this other pathway. I need more immune cells, blah, blah, blah. But the problem is that the kynurenine then gets converted into, so now what you have is you're depleting your brain of serotonin. Boom, right there, right? That's the first thing. So if you're not sick, if you have chronic inflammation, you're chronically stressed, you're chronically eating a terrible diet, then you are going to constantly be diverting the serotonin, you know, the tryptophan into this other pathway. You're going to be depleting your brain of serotonin, right?

So that's one thing. This is a twofold problem. Then that whole kynurenine thing gets converted into something called quinolitic acid, which actually crosses over the blood brain barrier, becomes a neurotoxin and also has been shown to cause depression. So not only you're not getting serotonin, you're getting this gnarly shit in your brain that's not supposed to be there. And exercise, it's been shown, specifically aerobic exercise, causes your muscle to soak up the kynurenine, actually another precursor to it, so that it can't form quinolonic acid. So it doesn't form the neurotoxin part. But, you know, exercise also causes you to make, it makes tryptophan go into your brain. You know, it alleviates some of the competition with branched chain amino acids like leucine and isoleucine.

So that's another way. It's doing a million things. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor, we talked about at the beginning of the competition with branched chain amino acids like leucine and isoleucine. So that's another way. It's doing a million things. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor we talked about at the beginning of the podcast. That also plays a role in depression, helping prevent depression. So neurogenesis, all that stuff that helps. Growing new brain cells, making new connections helps. Helps you deal with stress. That's why you make it when you stress your body. It seems like there could be some sort of a holistic approach, like a clinic that looks at all of these factors, looks at all these factors and prescribes, instead of just prescribing a pill, prescribes a very specific diet and exercise routine and maybe even meditation. or enhances mindfulness or promotes mindfulness, something that allows you to manage the way you're viewing

and taking in scenarios and scenes and events in your life and then processing them in a more healthy manner. It seems like all these things would be as effective or maybe more effective than just a pill. I agree with you, and I'm hopeful for the future. I think that the more, there's a lot of scientists that are studying this now, I mean, it's becoming very common to look in the scientific literature and see, you know, scientists researching inflammation and the role of inflammation, depression, and the role of exercise and helping treat it and the role of

other, you know, dietary lifestyle factors in causing and treating depression. So I think that, you know, I really am hopeful that in the near future that it, like you said, it's going to be a multi-pronged approach where it's not just a magic pill. And I'm not saying that's not also going to be included in some, you know, I'm just saying, you know, it's, I think, I think the diet lifestyle meditation exercise, if we could just get that into like, you know, the clinical world and if people were motivated enough to realize this will really help them, like it really will, people will be so much happier. I really, I really think so. Some people just don't want to fucking exercise. It's weird. They would so much rather go to a doctor and get a pill. It's it's so strange. It's a lot of people. Well, it's this fear of discomfort. People have this extreme feeling in their mind when it comes to their associations with exercise. They want to avoid discomfort. They feel like any type of exercise is just like something to be avoided. That's not for me.

Fuck that. I don't want to sweat. I don't want to strain. And a lot of times this association that they have is about the beginnings of getting in shape. It's not about once you're actually fit because once you're actually fit, exercise is something you look forward to.

It's an alleviation of stress. It feels great. Like if I can't get a workout in I look at my schedule I go oh shit I don't have any time for a workout which means I'm not gonna get that good feeling and so instead of looking at it like oh I've got to go grunt and sweat I'm thinking I'm not gonna feel good I'm not gonna feel relaxed I'm not gonna feel carefree and I'm not gonna feel even appreciative like my appreciation of things. And it gets enhanced greatly after exercise. I just feel better. I feel like I can take things in for what they are, rather than, you know, whatever that whatever sensory data that I'm getting from any event is just one more distraction that gets

in my way. And you know, that that's a lot of times how I look at things if I'm overstressed or if I'm working too much. Totally beautifully put. Because that's exactly like at least what's been shown from like neuroimaging studies is that exercise does, what you're talking about is the executive function. You're talking about feeling good without that sensory stuff, which is the amygdala, it's the emotional center, that's been shown to be decreased in activity after exercise, whereas the executive function is increased. So it's just, it's exactly in the right direction, right? So you're able to logically think about this more and you feel good

and it's like you're not that sensory response, that like gut, anxiety, you don't feel it as much. That part of your brain is actually quieter after exercise. Meditation does a similar thing. But if there was just a way to get this knowledge to and for people to understand people that are adverse to exercising, you know, if there was just some way and I'm really trying to find a way because there are many people that I care about in my life that are that way and that feel depressed and are on some sort of, you know, antidepressant, which doesn't really work for them still. And so I'm trying to find a way, like how, like I can tell them I'm having this conversation with you and you get it

because you experience it. You exercise, you, you know, you, you eat healthy, you experience these things, but for someone that's never experienced it, how do you communicate it to them? It's so hard for people to start anything new. It's, it's, it's hard for people to start a pottery class. That's not going to, you know, it's not going to be involved with any physical pain or any stress or any exhaustion. There's no, there's not that feeling that you get when you're really tired. You know, the feeling that you get for me is particularly difficult doing boring stuff like an elliptical machine, like an elliptical machine to me. Uh, it's a great workout. It's awesome if I'm at a gym, cause if I go to a gym, uh, like at a hotel and you know, they have

some bullshit weights and, but they have an elliptical machine. I go, okay, if this thing has a high setting, I can get a real workout in this. But those times when you're tired and you don't want to do it, they're so fucking boring. It's just shh, shh, shh. You have to listen to something. You have to watch something. Like other stimuli has to come in in order to get you pumped up. But I know this because I've done it a thousand times for someone who hasn't done it a thousand times. They get to that point like,

fuck this. I'm out of here. Oh my God. Let me get a donut. You know, give me a coffee. I'm gonna go outside and smoke a cigarette. Woo. I feel better, you know, and it's so hard to get past that because we have all these connections in our mind when it comes to comfort. Comfort and stress. Comfort and, like, our bodies, for whatever reason, most people, their associations are to avoid anything that's uncomfortable. But it's so illogical because when you look at comfort and you look at success and progress and then eventual the feelings of accomplishment and of getting past certain hurdles and in terms of like how you feel about life a lot of those are

connected to discomfort like discomfort is your friend it really is like discomfort and and not being happy and content with certain situations in life or certain feelings in life. There are massive, massive motivators and they're, they're amazing at, at facilitating change. And yet our instinct is to avoid those and just sit on the couch and watch some fucking reality show about dudes who make moonshine with our jaw open like it's bizarre it is it's too much too much of that like stimuli where you don't have to do anything and you can still like get yeah get that sensory information you know the need to act like to need to actually go out there and act is is so strong it's such a it's such an important thing but yet we resist it many people

i know you don't i don't but so many people do i but. Many people, I know you don't, I don't, but so many people do. But I feel the thing. I don't allow it to work, but I feel that. Fuck this. I don't want to work out. I feel it all the time, almost every time before I work out. I have at least an inclination to blow it off. I don't ever embrace it, but it's there.

It's there with everybody. No one is like completely 100 healthy and without any resistance yeah i wonder if also that has we were talking about this being a super ager i wonder if there is some uh association there you know we're we're looking at we're looking at how it's important to push past past that uncomfortableness whether it's physical or mental and that's linked to being a super ager but what if it's just like the ability to make yourself do that is important too right it's not just the act that you're doing it's not just the strenuous exercise which is obviously good we know that it's good from science but what if it's just being able to

like push yourself like yeah maybe some people don't have that ability for whatever reason or they just haven't tapped into it enough because they haven't really experienced it. I think that's it. I think it's a learned thing, you know, because if I take time off, like, I got sick recently, and I couldn't work out for like a week or, you know, six days or so. And the, the act of getting back into the gym, I think in a lot of ways, we rely on momentum. We rely on the momentum of past experiences where you're just conditioned to do that. It's one of the things that you do. And for me, at least, when I get like really disciplined and really, I get really consistent with my workouts.

One of the things that I feel, I almost feel momentum. I feel like there's like a push behind me, like, all right, we're, you know, like after I get out of the gym, I have a really good workout. I'm like, yeah, now I'm doing it. I'm doing it all the time now. And I'm looking forward to the next time. And it makes that resistance much weaker. And it makes my motivation and my discipline much stronger.

I think a lot of it is based on just the consistency. It's much weaker and it makes my motivation and my discipline much stronger. I think a lot of it is based on just the consistency. It's one of the things that I talked about recently on the podcast. I said blowing something off, it's not just not good. Like blowing off an exercise that you planned is not just bad for you physically. It's also bad mentally because then that option is now available. The option to fuck off is available. And you did it before, and you're probably going to do it again. And you'll get mediocre results, not just in that aspect of your life, but maybe in all aspects of your life. Because I think that option to fuck off when you embrace it,

that is a pathway that you might choose when it comes to dealing with conflict in your personal life, dealing with business decisions, dealing with career decisions, like an uncomfortable decision that you might be faced with where you maybe you need to make a change as far as like what your pathway is in life, but you don't do it. Instead, you fuck off. And that the inclination to fuck off, I think that gathers momentum as well. The inclination to be disciplined, that comes with momentum too. And I think both things, like you take a path, the path of the healthy person or the path of the fuck off, like both of them are available in whichever path you embrace. Totally, totally. I mean, I think that the same thing goes for like lying, too.

I mean, when you I think it's very bad to lie, like even if it's something that is really benign, like what they call a little tiny way. You look great. Yeah, that, you know, because then you start making these neural connections in your brain and and you start to like get used to doing it like you were saying. And you start to like get used to doing it, like you were saying. And I think that it just kind of dawned on me as you were saying this, that with the motivation and the momentum you were talking about, I think that's the same way. I think you're like building these neural pathways, these motivation pathways. And that's really important for that momentum to do it again and again. You know, there's been there was some studies, a few of them that have been done where you can take a person and do that direct transcranial stimulation, which I don't know much about, but I remember these studies. And stimulate a certain part of the brain that's involved in motivation, and you can motivate them to go to the gym. So you motivate them to actually go work out.

So that's in one of those electrodes that they put on a specific area of the outside of your head and then it's like a little nine volt battery is attached to it and it just zaps you a little bit zaps it zaps you a little bit and like activates a certain brain region and that that brain region it's activating specifically with this study i was talking about actually there's a couple of them were involved in motivation and that's probably with you and i we already have those pathways activated because we're constantly forcing ourselves to go. I mean, I feel the same way. There are times I'm like, God, I don't want to go for a run. Like it's so hard. But once you do it, goddamn, you feel great. You feel great. And

you know what? You accomplish something. So it's not only like you're feeling great from all the neural mechanisms that are being activated and all the biochemistry that's going on, but you have accomplished something. You did, you pushed past something you didn't want to do, and you feel good about doing that. After magnetic stimulation therapy, Wilmington woman finds motivation and energy. Yeah. There's a radio lab about this, a radio lab podcast.

It's called Nine Volt Nirvana. They're pretty good. I like radio lab. I love it. I love radio lab. And it actually deals with it's the first story the opening story is amazing because it deals with this woman who went to this like sniper training simulation video uh video uh thing that they do where they

they put you in front they give you like a fake gun and they put you in front of a video screen and a scenario plays out and then the scenario there's like a terrorist attack and you have to take out the bad guys. And they did it with her and she was, it's 20 minutes long. And she was terrible. Like she fucked it all up. It was just like a disaster. Like she didn't respond correctly. Then they put these electrodes.

What would you exactly call them? One of those things. Electrodes. It's electrodes. So they put these on her brain or on the outside of her head in very specific areas and stimulated it. And then recreated it. And in the recreation, she was 100% effective. She killed all the bad guys.

And she went through this 20-minute thing. And when it was over, when they told her that it was over, she thought they were fucking with her. Because she thought it was only two minutes. yeah like everything is incredible oh it's amazing the the way she describes it is amazing it's amazing it's a little scary too um just because i mean it's like can you like program someone to do something there's another study that was that was uh published like years ago. Same thing. Trans cranial direct stimulation. And I like I'm so not an expert on any of this, but I just remember this study because it was trying to investigate what part of the brain's fault in consciousness.

Right. And so she so that the study was designed in such a way where she was reading a book and then they zapped her in a certain part of the brain and she stopped reading the book this woman and like just looked at them like a zombie like no nothing no talk no and then they zapped her again and she started she picked up right where she left off had no recollection at all of doing that so this was like you know trying to figure out if this part of the brain is involved in consciousness anyways that was a little scary well that's yeah that is a real concern right because one of the things about this transcranial direct stimulation of the radio lab podcast was that they talked about how many people are out there just fucking experimenting where there's a

whole community online where people are talking about experimenting with the voltages and experimenting with the placement and one guy did something and lost his sense of taste and like So people are just buying these and like doing it? Yes! Well you can go, it's like you can go to fucking Radiolab. The consequences

of a world where anyone with $20 and access to RadioShack can make their own brain zapper. Yeah, is that from Radiolab? Yeah. Yeah, their podcast page. Wow. It's amazing because there's apparently this gigantic community of it.

Hold on a second. Go back up there and make that larger again. The last couple of years, TDCS, direct cranial stimulation, has been all over the news. Researchers claim that juicing the brain with just two milliamps, think nine-volt battery, can help with everything from learning languages to quitting smoking to overcoming depression. And so they brought in a neuroscientist, Michael Wysand,

at Wright State Research Institute into the studio to tell them how it works. Really interesting. Really interesting. Very interesting. You know, I feel like in terms of like treating depression or helping people get motivated to go to the gym, it may really have relevance. Yeah. But it also might be like slapping a supercharger on an old Chevy Nova

and you blow the fucking engine on the thing, you know? It's true. It's true. I mean, you don't really, we don't really know enough about what's going on. I certainly wouldn't be experimenting with that right now. I'm in. Let's do it. Are you doing it?

Yeah, fuck it. I'm thinking about going to Radio Shack right after I get out of here. Not really, but sort of. I mean, it's just interesting. It's amazing that we are really some sort of a system and you can juice that system. Like a little electricity here, a little vitamin there, you know, a little broccoli sprouts here.

Yeah. It's like that's the weirdest thing about people. And one of the weirdest things about people is how variable we are depending upon what we put inside of us. And we don't think of it that way most of the time. We think of ourselves as ourselves. You know, I'm sure you think of yourself as Rhonda Patrick, but Rhonda Patrick relies on a bunch of fucking chemicals to be Rhonda Patrick. Right. I mean, there's a lot of stuff going on in there. It's not just, it's not this one, like this is a laptop, you know, I'm not adding shit to this thing. Like I can put programs in it and stuff, but I mean, this is the, everything in there is kind of worked out you know there's a processor there's a motherboard it's all the

all this junk is in place and the electricity plugs into the back and it's not really variable you know the the human body's so fucking variable and pliable and malleable there's so many different things that you can do to make yourself better. I got this conversation with a friend of mine who's not a physical fitness guy and he's kind of a nihilist and nihilist, I guess you would say. I never say that word. I just read it. I think it's nihilist. And he's, you know, he's a little bit of a curmudgeon and he's like, yeah, what's the point? You know, like really, what is the point? You're always doing all this martial arts and exercise. I go, okay, really, what is the point? You're always doing all this martial arts and exercise. I go, okay, if I could give you a pill and that pill would turn you essentially into a super person,

like you can do shit that you can't do now. You could lift weights you can't lift. You could beat people up. You could do physical fitness fits, feats that, you know, what you right now are totally insurmountable and outside the realm of possibility would you take that pill so so simple and he goes no i wouldn't i go you wouldn't okay um if i could give you a pill that would prevent you from being a decaying old man and you could stay in the state you are right now would you take that he's like yeah i probably would take that i go well that's how it feels like to me motherfucker like that's how it feels like to me, motherfucker. Like, that's how it feels like to me. Like, you're a decaying old man. He's not much. I think he's a year older than me.

But he looks like he's 50 years older than me. I mean, his body's all humped. He's got a little punch. He doesn't have any muscle tone. And I'm like, dude, all of that is just physical fitness. Like, you're not broken. Like, there's nothing wrong with you. But if you got on, like, a steady yoga routine and started doing some resistance training and started maybe swimming

or something like that, a year from now, you would have a completely different body, you know? And so talking to me, I'm like, I've done it my whole life. So like stuff that I can do stuff that you don't think is possible. And to me, it's like two times a week, three times a week I do that stuff. Like this is not, like your body is like a race car that you can juice up yourself. Like you can add the fat tires. You can add the improved suspension. You can beef up the horsepower in the engine.

You could do all that yourself. Or you could just choose to have this shitty body that's always falling apart on you. Right. I mean, what you and I are both choosing to do is, you know, we're both kind of obsessed with nutrition and aging and being, you know, exercise and getting all the micronutrients and avoiding the refined sugar, which is causing inflammation and all that stuff. And it's really because that stuff is part of the aging process and it accelerates the aging process, you know, where I don't think people that don't do this stuff realize that.

It's like, it's not just about looking good. It's about aging. It's not just about looking good. It's about aging. It's about like being older and being fit and being mentally sharp and not being, you know, degenerate and decrepit. And how I mean, how awful would that be to be like 60, which is young? I mean, 60 is still young. And to be like, you know, broken. Yeah. Broken.

Which is really common. It's super common. Especially for sedentary people. Exactly. Most sedentary people are people that also choose to eat terrible diets. So it's like not only are they sedentary, they're also eating crappy food and not getting all the nutrients they need. So it's just like this mega explosion dynamite of just bad. Yeah, increasing inflammation.

explosion dynamite of just bad yeah increasing inflammation i think intelligent people like my friend he is intelligent and i think he connects vanity with those things and he thinks vanity is for fools and he thinks it's uh it's a it's a trait that he finds reprehensible he just doesn't like it you know he sees people that are you know you know, maybe it's flashy clothes, maybe it's, you know, the way they wear their hair, whatever it is that he thinks is preposterous. He connects that with physical fitness. I'm like, man, but it's your vehicle. It's like how you get through this life. And it's how you think it's, it's, it's so many different things that are all connected into one super organism, which is the life that you're living. It's, you know, I think everybody knows now.

I mean, it's not something we grew up knowing, but everybody knows now about your gut biome. This is a really huge factor in how you exist as an organism or as maybe even an organism is the wrong word because we're essentially ecosystems, you know, and we're we're in charge. This weird consciousness that has all this resistance and has all this inclination towards comfort and fucking off and blowing things off is what is in charge of making all these things happen that keep this ecosystem healthy. It's almost like if Earth itself had like a shitty manager you know if like there was a manager of a natural manager of earth that was like oh god who cares if it rains oh god you know like let's let you know i'm gonna stop growing things i don't give a shit anymore it's all stupid anyway i mean it's literally like the... Just blow it up.

Yeah, yeah. Fuck it. Let's just kill all the life. It's all going to die eventually. I mean, the sun only lasts 7 billion years. You see, that is the perspective a lot of people take with aging, where it's like, well, you're going to die. You're going to age.

You can't stop aging. And it's like, yes, you're right. But that's not the point. The point is to age better. Like, that's the point. The point is to age better. That's the point. The point is to increase your health span. And that, we know, is possible. There's some of these centenarians and super centenarians I've seen that are over 100 years old,

and they're riding bikes and racing. And it's like they're old. They are very old. But they're experiencing a very good quality of life. Yeah. And they're experiencing a quality of life that these other people that don't exercise feel. They physically feel their own body diminishing, and they just feel it's inevitable. It is what it is.

You're wasting your time. You're out there running around. But we're not because this experience right now, it's not like no one's under the illusion that you're going to live forever, but you are enhancing the experience that you're currently involved in right now. And you are alive. You are alive. You do experience this life.

But do you experience this life optimally? Is it as enjoyable as it can be? And we all know that there's a spectrum for that enjoyability. Like we've all had times in our life where it's not been so great. And then times in our life where everything came together, like what a fucking great day. Woo. Like make more of those. Like you can make more of those. And then the whole thing's better. And I think when that whole thing is better, it affects everybody you touch, everybody that's around you, everybody you come in contact with. And that in turn, I mean, it sounds so grandiose, but in turn can affect the entire race of human beings.

I agree. Totally. Totally agree. And I love the way you put it about the feeling good. It's not just about staving off cancer. It's not just about what's going to happen 20, 30 years from now. It's about now. It's about not being depressed. We know that, you know, it's about feeling better. It's about being smarter. It's about having more executive function, having more long term planning, less emotional amygdala, you know, anxiety. That is like right here, right now that is happening. That is so, you know, it's not just long term effects, which you also are, you know, also affecting, which is very good. So it's like a win-win. You're not just affecting the future. You're affecting right now how you feel, how you perform.

Yeah, it's an important concept that I continue to try to get across to people. And it also will optimize everything else you do, whether it's creative pursuits, whether it's relationships that you get into. A lot of those things are predicated on how you feel as you enter them, how you feel when you participate in them. And you can enhance that. You can enhance that. And I mean, there's a weird thing that people do where they want to pretend they're not trying to do better. You know, I'm fine. Everything's great. Like it's not, that's not true. You're, you're, you're putting out effort. It's a matter of you, you have a mindset or you have a connection in your brain with putting out more effort and connecting that to discomfort and that connecting things to discomfort.

Have you ever, um, uh, Steven Pressfield has a book called the war of art brought up in this podcast a million times. I actually have a copy of it. I'll give it to you afterwards because I bought like 50 copies of it. I hand it out to people. It's great. And he's been on this podcast before. And his book is essentially mostly about the creative pursuit. And it's about resistance that people feel when you know you should write, or you know you should paint, or whatever you should sculpt, whatever these things are that you pursue. And that there's this thing that comes up that tries to keep you from doing that, this resistance.

And he's like, this is a battle that you will fight for the rest of your life. But the key is to fight it, not to give in. Don't give in to that resistance. Just to fight that resistance. And in doing so, every day you do so, you have won the battle for that day. And you will continue to fight that resistance. And in doing so, every day you do so, you have won the battle for that day. And you will continue to fight that battle. And if you continue to fight that battle with that same mindset, you will win. And this is a guy that up until the time he was 40 years old, he was basically a loser.

He wasn't doing well. He was like a failed writer. And then he kind of just figured it out and got his shit together and then wrote books about it. And now he's like a really accomplished author. And it's an amazing story. And he's a really cool guy too. I had him on for a podcast and you know, in his enthusiasm and the way he approaches it in this book is like, it's very pragmatic. Like you can see the steps and he lays it all out in a way that's very easy to digest. Awesome. Yeah. I'd love to read it. I mean, I, I, I think that's something that's a very important part of, um, of, of the human experience is pushing past that resistance to, to whatever.

And, and you're right. It, once you do it, you get better at it next time too. I mean, it's still there, but you, you do get better at it next time. There's also a problem. I think that, um, what it comes up when you and i are doing these podcasts where there's so much data there is so much to take in i mean we have done how many podcasts now like six or seven sixth one yeah a lot and every one of them is three hours of like what in the fuck how does she know all this and just notebooks like when i put it up on twitter you know the that you're gonna be here everybody's like get your notebook out i mean that's like the number one response in the comments that's awesome yeah

there's a lot of stuff that i i enjoy learning you know and so it's something that i like to learn about um things that can make me, things that can make other people better mentally, physically, help aging and all that. So I like to share that with people. Have you heard of this? We were talking about an aging pill and it kind of came into my mind. We were talking about giving your friend that if you could take a pill that could, you know, delay the way you age or make you live you know longer or better um have you heard of like nicotinamide riboside or nicotinamide mononucleotide not at all not at all no oh wow it's like it's kind of like i guess it's maybe it's not made its way into the popular

media as much as i thought but it's definitely blown up in the science so um there's it's so nicotinamide riboside and nicotinamide mononucleotide, they're like precursor forms to vitamin B3. And in the body, they get converted into something called NAD. And NAD is something that you absolutely have, your mitochondria, which make energy, have to have to make energy. Like you can't oxidize fat, fatty acids, you can't oxidize glucose, you can't make energy from any of the food you eat without NAD because your mitochondria need it to make the energy. So it's very important for your mitochondria to function to make energy. But also, it's very important. It's like the levels of NAD always rise, like when

you're fasting in between meals. So like, you know, between breakfast and lunch or breakfast and dinner or whatever, your NAD levels go up like slowly after a meal and during the fasting state. And also when you exercise, so the levels of NAD will go up somewhat. But so these are precursors to NAD, right? I'm telling you this because this is kind of the studies that have been done, all the mechanisms go back to this forming NAD. NAD, right? I'm telling you this because this is kind of the studies that have been done, all the mechanisms go back to this forming NAD. NAD is something that decreases with age. It's something that, you know, it's just, it's very important for aging. Anytime you're inflamed, all the NAD gets sucked up into that inflammation because your energy, you know,

energy, it requires energy to like have your immune cells be activated and fighting off whatever they think they're fighting off, whether or not it's refined sugar or actual infection. But DNA damage sucks it up. So it's like, you know, it's it's six years, probably now, five or six years, where various scientists are, have been feeding mice, you know, this nicotinamide riboside or nicotinamide mononucleotide. And they're finding that, you know, for example, if you feed them nicotinamide mononucleotide, it delays aging in their liver, in their bones, in their eyes, their muscle. So it's basically like their tissues are aging better. They have enhanced endurance. They have better mitochondrial function. And these are doses like human equivalent dose to like 24 milligrams per kilogram body weight per day, which could be a lot if you weigh a lot. But showing that it improves mitochondrial function and nicotinamide riboside, which gets converted into nicotinamide mononucleotide,

it's kind of confusing. Anyways, lots of studies on that showing that if you give it to mice that have some sort of mitochondrial defect and their muscles all atrophying, it completely reverses that. Their muscles are like they're making lots of mitochondria and their improves muscle function and enhances performance anyways like you get the idea like lots and lots of animal studies recently there's been a human clinical trial done uh with nicotinamide riboside and that just to show that it's safe and that it actually does increase nad levels in in human blood which it does um even even as low as a 100 milligrams dose a day. And is this a supplement that people can buy? So nicotinamide mononucleotide is not. That's found in like broccoli. Broccoli is really high

in it. Cucumbers are really high in it. Cabbage is high in it. Edamame. But nicotinamide riboside, which gets converted into that, which eventually makes its way to NAD, it is a supplement. So a few scientists, actually some big name scientists in the aging field, like Lenny Guaranty and a couple of others, have started a supplement company called Elysium. Can you give me that pad? I forgot to put a pad over here. I got to write that down. Thank you. Yeah. And so it's called Elysium and it has nicotinamide.

Elysium like the Matt Damon movie? Yeah. E-L-Y-S-I-U-M. Oh, look at this. They have it. So it has nicotinamide. And by the way, I know affiliation. I don't have any affiliation with any supplement companies.

Is this a supplement company? What is the company, Jamie? I think it's a company called, the company is called Elysium or is it the supplement? The supplement is called Elysium. And how do you spell the actual nicotinamide? How do you say it? Nicotinamide, N-I-C,

N-I-C-O-T-I-N-A-M-I-D-E, riboside, R-I-B-O-S-I-D-E. Yeah, so it's interesting. It's also, there's another company, I think Thorne makes one with it in it. Thorne? Yeah, Thorne. The thing that's interesting about the Elysium, though, that I found, because I started looking into this, like, I've met Lenny Guarente. because I started looking into this,

like I've met Lenny Guaranty. He's the guy whose lab, the whole pathway that resveratrol acts on was discovered that, you know, so NAD switches on this whole like genetic pathway that's like anti-aging and it changes all these epigenetic factors, okay? Without getting into all the details and like boring people to death,

it's like, it's basically NAD levels rise, it acts as a switch. This rises NAD levels. So this is a supplement that's rising NAD levels. But what's interesting about the Elysium is that it has something in it called pterostilbene. Pterostilbene is found in blueberries. Blueberries is probably one of the best sources of it. But what is so interesting, I was trying to figure out why are they putting trying to figure out why they're putting terylstilbene with the nicotinamide riboside because nicotinamide riboside is affecting nad it's affecting mitochondrial biogenesis so it's it's been shown to increase mitochondrial biogenesis like i said these mice mice you know

were um were performing like 42 better at different endurance activities after being supplemented with this. That's insane. Yeah. But they're giving a lot. Like 24 to 32 milligrams per kilogram body weight would be the human equivalent dose. So, you know, figure that out. That's a lot. That's probably like four grams a day or something like that, right?

For like a 160 or 80 pound person, something like that. I don't know. Anyways, the pterostilbene is interesting because, well, in and of itself, it's interesting because it's actually, it's chemically similar to resveratrol, but it's four times more bioavailable than resveratrol. And it actually has been compared side by side in mouse studies to different mouse studies that have looked at cognitive function. And it's better at improving cognitive function in animals than resveratrol is largely because it's four times more bioavailable. So anyways, I was like, well, I don't know if that's why they're doing it, because it's not affecting the same pathway. But then I came across something

really interesting. And that is terostilbene actually has been shown, again, this is an animal study, to increase the type of bacteria in the gut that causes the conversion of certain compounds, elagitanins, which are found in berries and some nuts, but really high in pomegranate. and some nuts, but really high in pomegranate. Elagitanins get converted into something called urolithin A by your gut bacteria, which is what terostilbene is increasing that gut bacteria. So terostilbene is actually increasing the production of urolithin A from berries that are having this other compound. Urolithin A, what that does is, this has been shown also in other studies, it causes mitophagy or mitophagy, which is the clearing away of damaged mitochondria. So you're basically clearing away damaged mitochondria, like they eat themselves. So phagy would be eating itself, kind of like autophagy or

autophagy as it's called, which is a cell cell sort of a damaged cell that gets cleared away and eats itself that happens a lot during a fasting state well this mitophagy is doing it specifically for mitochondria and this the reason why this is so cool and i'm gonna try to like not bore you because i can go on and i just keep going don't worry about that um the reason this is so cool is because so you know mitochondria are very important for the way we age. It's not just muscle function, brain function. They're providing energy for everything, like, period. Like, your mitochondria decay, you decay. That's the way it is, like, period.

So, their mitochondria, as you're aging, they're decaying, they're getting damaged and all this stuff. Well, they have this whole repair system where you have lots of mitochondria inside one cell. Let's say you have one damaged mitochondria and one healthy. What they do is they fuse together, exchange all their content, and fizz back apart. So they kind of like repair each other. So you have a healthy one, a damaged one. The healthy one kind of mixes with the unhealthy one. And then you have two healthy-ish ones, right? So this is happening constantly inside every cell. If you look at a at a mitochondria, it's never like you never see mitochondria by themselves. They're always like like a network, like they look like vermicelli spaghetti because they're constantly doing this. Well, if you clear away the damaged ones and you increase mitochondrial biogenesis with a nicotinamide riboside.

So not only are you getting rid of the damaged pool, you're now creating new ones that are like brand new, healthy, young, brimming, young mitochondria like you had when you were a young person, young child. So now your pool that you're mixing with, it's like not mitochondrial biogenesis is good in and of itself because you're making new mitochondria. But having damaged ones still around can still dilute the pool out. You know, it can still dilute. So if you clear out those damaged ones and you're making new ones, it's kind of like, boom, you're going to get like young, new mitochondria. So I think that possibly is another reason why they combine those. I mean, it's completely speculation. But anyways, you learned some cool shit about pterostilbene and pterolithin A.

Yeah, mitophagy is a very interesting thing. Exercise, to some degree, can increase it. Fasting does. Why does fasting increase it? When you're fasting, you try to—so NAD levels rise. You try to conserve some of your energy, and the way you do that is by eating different organelles, eating the cell itself, which can then provide energy for other cells. So you,

so usually what happens is fasting will selectively, um, get rid of some of those damaged cells or damaged mitochondria. So that, that happens during, during a fasting. Does that make sense? Yeah,

it does. So it's interesting though, that the body manages it so well that it goes after the damaged ones before I know for the healthy ones. It's, well, there's lots of like molecular mechanisms that have molecular mechanisms that have been figured out why that is. And that's because the damaged one, their mitochondrial membrane potential is different. And it's all this complicated stuff.

But it all works out perfectly where it's like these enzymes that target it to basically undergo mitophagy, it's like they recognize a certain one with a lower membrane potential, which happens to be more of a damaged mitochondria. And it's just kind of beautiful how it just all works out that way. What was I going to say? I completely was going to say something else. I lost my train of thought there but um yeah so anyways the the fact that you can like have new mitochondria is like pretty i mean that's kind of like the big thing with with aging it's been that for a long time is like young new mitochondria i know you're probably aware of this study but they injected old mice

with the blood of young mice and they found that the old mice started behaving more lively and then they did the reverse they injected the young mice with the blood of old mice and the mice struggled and and deteriorated and now there's some crazy new startup where for what was like eight grand they'd fill you up with the blood of young people yeah okay i'm glad you mentioned this because i've been reading about it recently. Actually, you know, Peter Thiel,

the PayPal. Yes. He does that. He's, he, he's publicly talked about. He's the guy that he's, he's on Trump's board now,

isn't he? I think so. Yeah. But he's like one of the first people that Trump hired, which is fascinating. So fascinating. Yeah. Yeah.

He does. He's talked about how he's like, he gets blood injections okay so here's what has he said about it um i don't remember exactly what just that i don't think he said anything about whether it's doing anything right i think he's just mentioned showing up younger well no like he's got a snapchat filter on well here's the thing that was really interesting about this whole thing because i've been following this field for a while too because i find it very interesting for multiple reasons one it's like it could be applicable right I mean easily but there he is

look at him looks young as fuck he's nine years old he wants to inject himself with young people's blood or is doing it Trump delegate and Gawker bankruptor oh yeah he's the guy who he he financed Hulk Hogan's attack on Gawker because Gawker outed him as being. Did they out him as gay or they attacked him and they got really shitty with him? And, you know, he's a fucking billionaire. So he went off and thank you for turning off your ad blocker. Enjoy the Forbes ad light experience. Fuck off. Yeah.

Nick Denton files for personal bankruptcy. Yeah, he went after that guy because of it. Yeah. So anyway, go back to the other article. I changed articles there. So what he's doing, given Thiel's obsession with warding off death, it comes as no surprise that Silicon Valley billionaire is interested in at least one radical way of doing it, injecting himself with a young person's blood. Wow. Inc. Magazine published part of a year-old interview with Thiel in

which the venture capitalist explains that he's interested in parabiosis, which includes the practice of getting transfusions of blood from a younger person as a means of improving health and potentially reversing aging. He said, I'm looking into this stuff. I think it's really interesting. It's unclear whether the 48-year-old entrepreneur is currently receiving, guaranteed he is, reports that a Thiel Capital employee, actually the personal health director, he has a personal health director. Personal health a personal health director.

Personal health director to Peter Thiel. That's hilarious. That's what you do when you're a baller. I'm going to get a personal health director. It's the same company, Ambrosia LLC. This is the one that we were talking about the other day? Yeah. Oh, interesting.

So this is actually happening. It says Thiel spends $40,000 per quarter, per quarter, to get an infusion of blood from an 18-year-old based on research conducted at Stanford on extending the lives of mice. So he's got one fucking 18-year-old that he's vampiring. One kid, he's giving him beets and broccoli sprouts and making him run up hills. That's crazy. Well, you would have to hope that kid's not doing meth. You know, like he's got this 18-year-old kid.

He's probably measuring all these biomarkers in his blood. I would imagine. Yeah, because you would have to make sure. I mean, that's so weird. We're going to farm off young people. And wow, that is so crazy. He's given $6 million to biomedical gen gerontologist gerontologist oh aubrey de gray that crazy fucker i had him on i had him on my podcast too yeah he's interesting

but he drinks yes he boozes like every night he was like three in strong at 11 in the morning when i walked into his office yeah that's what i was saying when i was hanging out with him he's like well he he's basing all of he's putting all of his eggs in the basket of science he thinks that science and things like what peter thiel is doing is going to be able to mitigate all this stuff that he's doing yeah but i'm like dude you're what if you're stuck in that like position where it's like okay they can delay the aging but like like, you're stuck like now. Okay. We can't make you like 18, but we can stop you from dying. But you know, so it's like, that's possible. So he's going to be stuck like not. Well, he also doesn't exercise.

I found him to be perplexing. I really enjoyed talking to him, but I found him to be quite perplexing because of the booze and because of the lack of exercise and his big fucking crazy Gandalf beard. I'm like, what's going on with you, dude? There's a lot going on here. I'm like, there's a lot of image here, you know? Yeah, him and I disagreed on a lot of nutrition. Oh, well, hold on a second.

Let me talk about that. And some say that the pay-to-participate study with the potential to collect up to 4.8 million from as many as 600 participants amounts to a scam. From as many as 600 participants, it amounts to a scam. What's certain is it's based on some intriguing, if inconclusive, science. Carmazian, a 32-year-old Princeton graduate and competitive rower, said he was inspired by studies on mice that researchers had sewn together with their veins conjoined in a procedure called parabiosis. Okay, that's what we were talking about, that study about mice. So what did you guys disagree with?

Well, just the role that nutrition plays in aging. He didn't think it was a big role. No, he didn't think it was a big role He's boozing. So yeah boozing. He's not working out I mean, how can he ignore all the science on the the positive benefits of exercise and nutrition? Oh, there's lots of studies showing that diet and lifestyle have a huge impact on aging. I mean, just one more thing about this parabiosis though because it's kind of, people were thinking

that there was something in the young blood that was present, the GDNF11 that I just said on the screen, that was actually- GDNF11, what is that? Right.

It's a growth factor 11. Okay. Yeah. So it was thought that this was what was responsible for rejuvenating tissues and growing new brain cells because that's what happened when you gave it to the older mice. But then other studies started to come out, also out of Stanford, showing that, in fact, it may not be something that's in the young blood, but something that's in the old blood that's actually causing the aging something called uh vcam1 that starts to you start to make it as you're getting older and it like causes inflammation in the brain and like starts messing up things so there was a recent study that just came out and show that if you like make an antibody against that vcam1

and prevent it from like doing its action it's's like, you can stop that from happening. So anyways, there's a lot to be figured out. Is there an out of body that they're currently working on? Yeah. They're trying to make some kind of some, some, something that you can take. Goddamn solution to aging. That's going to be weird. It's going to be weird if you see like old people become young.

It's not going to be weird if people don't get any older, but it'll be kind of weird. But like if I came, if I ran into you like 20 years from now, I'm like, damn, Rhonda, you look exactly the same. It would be cool, but it wouldn't freak me out. What would freak me out if Arnold Schwarzenegger started looking like he was when he was 20 again. That would freak me out. If we start seeing the change in the process, we start seeing things reverse. Not just halt or slow down, which we kind of have seen

with like really healthy people. You know, like some people, you know, some people kind of defy aging, at least to a certain extent. Like Tom Cruise is a perfect example. I want to know what they're

filling that dude up with. You know who else I think, who I was thinking that defied aging, like famous wise? Keanu Reeves. I feel like that guy's looked the same for like a long time.

Yeah. And he's in his 50s now. Yeah. He looks great. Yeah. He looks great. I think he smokes too. What?

Yeah. No. Yes. Yeah. So that's to show you he's got some kind of like genetic. There are. There definitely are. Tom Cruise, 1983, 2014.

They're injecting him with some kind of young fluid. You know what I'm saying? I mean, look, he's got fucking ungodly sums of money. And that's part of the issue. You know, I mean, they've... Yeah, you can definitely do things with money that make you look younger. Trying to figure out what? Surgery-wise and stuff.

I don't think he's doing surgery, though. Oh, no? No. Well, you know, one of the things that they think is, what is that picture up above? What's that one with the shirt off one up there? Is that him working out up there? See, that shows aging. It's the one on the right.

Like, he's got substantially less tone to his muscles, but that could just be he's been busy. It says the Maverick days are over. Hold on. Go back. What does that say? Is it from 1986 to right on the set yesterday? So, yeah.

That's also, there's not that much of a variability there. That could easily be just he hasn isn't working out as hard. I mean, when you're on a movie set, you're working 15, 16 hours a day sometimes, especially these gigantic big budget budget blockbusters where you're involved in these crazy stunts and all that stuff. So interesting. Yeah. But, you know, back to this like diet aging thing that like Aubrey and I disagreed on. I mean, it's it's so it's so weird that someone that's he's familiar with the aging literature would would disagree, you know, with with some of the science out there. 12 ounce can of like sugar water or sugar soda, some kind of like sugary drink a day. They have, if you look at them, their telomeres and their white blood cells. So telomeres are a biomarker for aging.

When you look at their telomere length, their telomeres are shorter compared to people that don't have that soda every day. And that corresponds to like 4.6 years of biological aging. I mean, that's like someone that's the same exact age as you but has a telomere that looks you know either five years older you know that's fucking insane yeah it's totally insane all based off of like this refined sugar soda i wonder if it's like a personal thing with him because he knows that he's not addressing that in his own life maybe that's why he's decided to put up these blinders and ignore the science well i think also he's interested in extending lifespan to like a

massive point sugary soft drinks may be linked to accelerated dna aging study so he's i mean like i said he's putting all of his eggs in the basket of science yeah just kind of i mean who knows i mean there's it's it's kind of interesting that he is doing that, though, because he will concentrate, like, very heavily on that. And, again, when you were talking about all this nutrition and exercise, the benefits of it, like, God, there's so much to study. I know. There's so much that maybe his desire to eschew that and go straight to the science of it only and talk about genetic manipulation and all these other different variables like maybe maybe there's something to that maybe you really can't spend enough time in both fields totally yeah i think that makes

sense and i and i do think that there's hope for you know things like genetic engineering and stem cell therapies that will help tune humans up eventually. And that will make a big difference. And have I talked to you about my stem cell experiments? No, no. Okay. I have been getting stem cell shots. I got them for an injured shoulder. I had a shoulder that I had a rotator cuff tear, bicep tendon tear, and labrum tear in my shoulder. And it was most likely had been dislocated before, and I didn't know, which is just the side effects of years of doing difficult stuff with your body, especially jiu-jitsu, because jiu-jitsu is all about joint manipulations and joint locks and chokes and grappling,

and there's a lot of damage that your body goes through. Everybody that I know that does jiu-jitsu at a certain point in time either has to get some form of surgery or has some pretty significant injuries that they have to work around so uh i um went to a doctor that was like well you probably have to get surgery like this is gonna if if not now some sometime really soon because every time i'd work out it would get really sore and i'd have to ice it afterwards. I get these shots and they're doing them from, they're extracting the stem cells from women's placenta and they take the stem cells and then they shoot them into the area where you have the injury and the results are fucking freakish. You heal like Wolverine. I mean, it's really bizarre. And now this same shoulder that I had, you know, like a real problem with where I was worried about needing surgery.

I do 90 pound presses with kettlebells with one shoulder and it's not, I have no pain, no pain, no discomfort. It's not bothering me at all. And it's, it's unbelievable how much strength and function that the shoulder has now that's really cool i didn't realize they were doing that with placental stem cells yeah placental stem cells are like kind of like a gold mine because they um they possess a type of stem cell called multipotent stem cell which is able to form multiple different types of you know cartilage cells that you cells that form cartilage, cells that form bone, even cells that form neurons. So they're able to form lots of different types of cells.

And usually, placenta are just like thrown away. So it's kind of cool that I guess there's companies that are freezing them down and finding donors that match. Yeah, let me tell you the name of the company so people who are listening. My doctor's name is Dr. Roddy McGee and he's in Las Vegas and the company is, um, Oh, I don't have it listed here. That's good. I've got it on my Instagram. I've got my pen ready here too. You can't let me down. I won't let you down. Just give me a second. I'll scroll through my Instagram and I'll find him. Cause it wasn't that long ago that I was there. But I posted something about it on Instagram. But I'm a giant believer in it.

And I've had some friends. My friend John Dudley, who's an archer, was experiencing tendonitis in one of his elbows for a long time. I mean, he had it and it was, you know, something that he had been working through for quite a few years. And he had one stem cell shot and within two weeks the pain was completely gone. Whoa. Yeah, it's freaky what they're able to do. I'm fine. I'm all about it.

Stem cell therapies, I mean, that's something that I'm extremely excited about for the future. But have you ever tried a hydrolyzed collagen powder or like bone broth? Yes. I drink bone broth every morning okay awesome yeah so um that that's another thing like because i i've been getting into the bone broth but i was doing hydro i add hydrolyzed collagen powder to like my coffee in the morning and also my smoothies then what does that do well it's just like uh it's got a lot of the same things as bone broth. Bone broth is probably actually even better because it has more stuff. But it's been shown like in animal studies, if you take the hydrolyzed collagen powder and like radiolabel it so you can follow where it goes in an animal. It goes right to like the cartilage and the joints and ligaments. I used it.

It like has helped me heal like injured wrists. You know, obviously, like my my injuries are way, way less magnitude than something that you're experiencing in your shoulder. Here it is. Total Sports Medicine in Vegas. That's the name of the company that does the stem cell injections? Yes. What about the company that you-

Applied Biologics. It's called Flowgraft Amniotic Fluid Therapy. That's what they're calling it. But it's Total Sports Medicine in Las Vegas. That's where I got the stem cell shots. Applied Biologics is the company that freezes the placenta. Yes. Applied Biologics Flowgraft Amniotic Fluid Therapy.

And my friend Roddy McGee, Dr. Roddy McGee, is at Total Sports Medicine in Vegas. He's awesome. And he's such a knowledgeable guy, too. If you ever wanted to talk to him, I'd get you in contact with him, and he can explain all the details. He talks like you. You two could fucking geek out together and confuse the shit out of anybody standing next to you. Well, you know, pretty soon, you can make stem cells from skin cells now. Yeah, I've heard that.

I know they did that with a woman. They created a new bladder for her. She had bladder cancer, and they created a completely new bladder from her skin cells in a laboratory environment and then replaced her damaged bladder. That's amazing. I had only heard about the clinical study that they did with eye cells where some woman had some sort of blindness, and they were able to use skin cells from her own skin, you know, coax them into becoming retinal cells. But bladder is really cool too. I mean, so there's these lots and lots of animal studies, but every once in a while

there's like a new clinical study where they're just kind of piloting, you know, doing this and seeing the safety in humans. And that is where I'm like, I can't wait. Yeah. It's crazy. Stem cell injections for my brain. Right. I'm shooting, I can't wait. Yeah, it's crazy. Stem cell injections for my brain. Right. I'm shooting it right in my ear.

Yeah, I'll take it. It's going to be very bizarre when we get past a healthy human state. That's what I'm really not just concerned, not concerned about rather, but curious about. Like curious is not even a strong enough word. But I feel like within our lifetimes, maybe it's 50 years or whatever it's going to be, they're going to be able to engineer a human body to perform. And I'm sure, you know, you're aware of myostatin inhibitors and the benefits. They've shown that the accidental ones that they've done with like whippets and cows,

but now they've started to do it on purpose for mice. And the mice are living they're they're the mice are living longer they're super mice they're they are like way more muscular i think they're like two to three times more muscular than the average mouse they look freakish when they kill them when they kill them and they skin them and they show the body of the mouse compared to with the muscle structure in comparison to the body of a natural mouse. It's like, what in the fuck are you doing here? Like, this is, this is like the Hulk. It's like you're making a tiny thing, you know, and you're, you're putting all this extra muscle on it. And for whatever reason, it's living longer. Yeah. That is, that's the interesting part that it's living longer. I'm trying to figure that

out. Like what, you know, cause usually there's some sort of trade-off where you're like, well, it's. See if we can find that, Jamie. The thing, the myostatin inhibitor studies they did on mice because their physical performance was extraordinary. Like they could do things that the other mice just could not do. But on top of that, they actually lived longer. They did live longer. Yeah. See, that's very interesting.

Yeah. I know they were doing it with like pigs too or something. I think I've seen some pigs where they'd done some sort. I think they were doing gene engineering on them with the myostatin inhibitor. But yeah, it's all very interesting. Yeah, they've done it with animals that you use. I mean, they're thinking that you could do it with animals that we use for food. And they would just, they would provide more meat that way.

Right. Which is kind of interesting. But what's the matter? I found a couple of different studies. Some were older than like 10 years. So I Which is kind of interesting, but what's the matter? Exactly. I found a couple of different studies. Some were older than like 10 years, so I don't know.

Oh, okay. Increases muscle mass and muscle fiber in aged mice, but does not increase bone density or bone strength. Huh.

That could be a problem. Snap. That's an old study though, huh? This one's from 2003 That's why you need the nicotinamide riboside. This is 2009. This is 2013 is This one's from 2003 right here. That's why you need the nicotinamide riboside. This is 2009.

This is 2013 is the one I clicked on. Interesting. Maybe 2013 is probably where I saw it. But some of those images, click on those images, Jamie, because some of those images, you could see they had the, like go down there with the mice carcasses right there. You can see the difference in the size. No, that's not it. That's not necessarily it. i think it's actually the one where you maybe it's that yeah

hmm well there's plenty to look at but yeah there it is you can see like the difference in the the muscle size from the average mouse which is on the left versus the myostatin mouse the myostatin knockout mouse. But look at what they're standing there. That one mouse just looks like a giant-ass power lifter mouse. These are strange times when it comes to this science. Really strange times. I mean, muscle mass is correlated with longevity.

That's exactly what I saw. That's exactly the one that I saw. Whew. Good Lord. It's incredible. I mean, you've got like two levels of it. You've got level A and level B. You've got the natural mouse, which is on the left.

What is this image? What is this image titled, Jamie? Okay, bodybuilding and myostatin, and there's an image of three mice. One is a control, which is the average mouse. The other one says dominant, negative uh how does that word go at actrib actrib two eyes and the other one is phallostatin and in the phallostatin one it is just a fucking lee haney of mice you know that's a giant ass mouse it's ridiculous he's like double the size of the middle mouse which is double the size of the middle mouse,

which is double the size of the other mouse. I don't know what either of those, uh, pathways are or what they do, but clearly they regulate muscle mass. Something's going on. That would be kind of weird to like do an injection and like all of a sudden you're like gaining lean muscle mass without like doing anything,

doing anything. Yeah. It doesn't look like those mice are working out. No. I mean, that would be super weird. You know, that would, I don doing anything. Yeah, it doesn't look like those mice are working out. No. I mean, that would be super weird. Yeah. I don't know. Well, that's one of the misconceptions about steroids.

You know, people think that like you do steroids, you just get bigger and muscular. No, you actually have to work out. What, this is a guy? That's what it says is a myostatin product. Oh, this is bullshit. Yeah, obviously, right. This is bullshit. Yeah, this is just, dude, don't even click on that.

Take that fucking off. That's lies. These goddamn supplement companies that do that, that's really gross. One of the things they do is they pay someone to get in really great shape. So someone gets in really great shape. Like they'll give them steroids, they'll pump them up, and then they pay them to get fat. So they pay them to stop working out, they get fat, and then they change the way the lighting is. Like one of the things that you could see when you're dealing with fraudulent companies is uh these shirt off pics before and after what a transformation

is like in the the good picture they're tan and the lighting is really good for accentuating muscle uh you know the the shape of the muscles and the shadows and everything they look ripped and then the other one they're like pasty and white and they pay these guys to get fat a friend of mine they paid him to do it yeah these things right here like that guy on the right the after is the fucking before and the guy on the left the before is they paid that guy to stop working out and get fat how do people live with themselves like doing that like i just don't it seems like people are so fraudulent there's a lot of monsters out there i think this is from bigger stronger faster i think this was actually taken like the same day oh what did some like photoshop oh well they do that they do that

too for sure they definitely do that too and um our friend chris bell and uh mark bell who were in bigger stronger faster you know they know a lot more about that than we do. And there's a picture of him right above that. If you haven't seen that documentary, I highly recommend it, Bigger, Stronger, Faster, which talks about the supplement industry and the use of steroids and all these different things. But that's one of the weird practices they do. If you look at any of those before and after pictures, it's mostly what you're seeing. I mean, unless they're like a really ethical company and they hired someone to take their product and continue to work out. But even then, it's like when you show before and after, what was the guy doing before?

What was the guy doing after? How much of that is diet? How much of that is exercise? Like how do you know? You know, did you get a blood test on this guy? Is he on steroids? Like what's happening here? Yeah, I think we should just focus on ways we can actually.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And ways we know, like, we can increase muscle mass, you know, obviously, you know, weightlifting. I don't mean to beat up on Aubrey de Grey, but when you brought up the science of nutrition and the factors, you know, the positive benefits of it, what was his reaction? And what episode is this podcast this is an older podcast uh that that i did i can't remember what episode but it's it's been a year and a half at least i would say um i can't remember his exact reaction i mean you can tell if you listen to the pod i talk i talk a lot about we talk a lot about you know crisper and stem cell and a lot of these you know possible you know therapies that are being used that can potentially

extend lifespan but there's a point in the podcast where nutrition comes up and um you can tell it gets a little awkward between the two of us because we kind of have different viewpoints and i'm i'm sort of not trying to be rude because- Look at him there. Fucking wizard. He's a wizard. We were like so close in his office and he's- Yeah. Anyways. He's an odd guy.

That beard is fucking awesome though. God damn, that's a magnificent beard. I think his point was just that you can't, you're not going to extend lifespan by 40 or 50% with diet. And that's what he wants to do. And that's fair. But, you know, the point that I think, you know, it's, it's one thing to say that. And another thing to kind of disregard nutrition altogether, you know, cause that's, cause that's just stupid. Nutrition plays a role in the way you age. And so I think that should be, you know, it shouldn't be something that people should completely disregard and not think about. And not even not think about,

but when they talk publicly, talk it down. Like, I don't like that. Like, that's fine if you want to focus on technologies. And I agree with that. I mean, I'm all about, you know, all these gene therapy technologies and CRISPR and, you know, induced pluripotent stem cells. And I'm a huge, huge fan of all that. But I don't think that being a fan of that and being excited about what the science, you know, and what new technologies are going to be able to bring us should, you know, make us talk about like kind of poop on nutrition. Right. Well, I think also a big factor is the way you feel.

And a big factor, too. I mean, I assume he just doesn't just want to extend a shitty life, right? You want to extend a life where you feel wonderful, right? And well, if you're boozing all the time, like he is, that guy boozes every day. I talked to him, like we were drunk as fuck in New York. I went to that, what is it, 2045 conference. There's a conference in New York where all of these nutty people who think you're going to be able to download your brain into a supercomputer in the year 2045, like this extended life conference. And a lot of it was run by this Russian billionaire that I talked to, which he was a very odd character. But he was building a robot that they were not satisfied with the results of this robot so they uh they never uh unearthed it they never unveiled it rather but these all these people this 2045 conference in new york were all like this gathering of like

these super geeks that are all in various ways trying to extend life and aubrey de gray was there as well and i met him at the bar and we just got fucking hammered. We got hammered and we're talking. I'm like, are we extending life? It feels like we're just drinking Guinness. You're doing the opposite. You're causing massive inflammation and brain cell death. This is terrible, Aubrey.

What are we doing? But, you know, I mean, those are two like very contrary ways of uh existing yeah to look to extend life but yet to diminish the potential of the life you're currently experiencing but you know i guess he's having fun you know yeah i i don't you know he was an interesting guy and and i and enjoyed talking to him but i don't want to talk bad about him but when i was very shocked when i walked into his office at literally like 11 in the morning and he had already down two beers and he was on his third. And I was just like, I didn't I wasn't expecting that. Right.

I wasn't. I mean, it was completely shocking to me. Yeah. And so. God bless him. Out there hammering it. You know, who knows? Yeah.

Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. But I guess there's a lot of different approaches and i think he's his approach is welcome it's interesting it's and it's it's just as important you know that to have a guy like that that's kind of fucking up his body and still still after it like it's it's interesting right um you know this like i was saying though the the thing that with him and i you know, the major difference is focusing on nutrition.

And that's something that I want to get the message across. Right. Something you can do right now. Yeah. Something you can do right now. And meanwhile, still telling people about the awesome science coming out. But until then, let's, you know, keep it going. They're not mutually exclusive.

They're not. They're not mutually exclusive. They're not. They're not mutually exclusive. The other, you know, one of the things that we were talking about the muscle mass, I started thinking about this time-restricted eating. Have you heard about this at all, time-restricted eating? A little bit. Like eating within like a certain time period that correlates, you know, corresponds to like the day. It has really profound effects on muscle mass without any other factors, without having to exercise or anything. That's something

that's extremely interesting. But this like time restricted eating is, it's very important for health and metabolism. It's also something I've been obsessed with since like, probably early summer, I've been doing it like just, you know, really fanatically making sure that I'm eating within like no more than 12 hour period. I try to do like 10 hours. So like when you wake up in the morning, you have a cup of coffee or, you know, you eat even a cup of black coffee. The first thing you put into your system that's not water starts all these metabolic enzymes, starts them in your liver, you know, your gut, starts these enzymes. And those enzymes are on a clock because humans are diurnal creatures. We're meant to be awake and working and active and thinking during

the day and we sleep at night, which is different from nocturnal creatures like some rodents and other animals that are, you know, sleep during the day and active during night. So because we're meant, we are active during the day, we're diurnal, all these, all of our metabolism enzymes and all these things are active during the day. And things that activate them are light, light exposure, and also food intake. And xenobiotic is also something. So anything that gets metabolized, like by your by your system, by your liver, whatever, activates these enzymes. And once they're activated, they're on this like 12 hour clock, where it's like, okay, so you're metabolizing glucose, fatty acids, all these things, you know, well, if you're eating within that 12 hour clock, but when you go beyond that 12 hour clock, that's when things start to go really wrong,

because your metabolism enzymes start to go really wrong. Because your metabolism enzymes start to shut down and you're not doing things properly. So you're not like insulin responsive. You're not even fatty acids and things like that. Just metabolism in general isn't not working as well, you know, after 12 hours. And so that's kind of a big eye opener. I know there was a lot of people think they eat a 12 hour time period, like if you were to survey them, like, oh, yeah, I don't eat more than 12 hours. But there's actually a study done by a friend of mine who's an expert in this field. He's at the Salk Institute. His name is Sachin Panda, a very good scientist.

I interviewed him on my podcast, and he's done a lot of research on this this topic and he did the human study where he had like this app where people logged their they took pictures of the food that they ate and it like you know sent it to some database they had and it had a time stamp on it so they could you know see when the clock when they when their first cup of coffee or whatever was in the morning and then when they were eating at night turned out most people were actually eating in a 15 hour clock so they were having their cup of coffee you know at eight seven in the morning and they were you know they were eating at like nine nine ten ten o'clock yeah so they're eating much later um the the thing is is that like when

you do that you start to gain more more um fat you start to become more insulin insensitive and you start to like your muscle starts to waste regardless of what you eat regardless of what you eat so so okay no i take that back so you if you eat healthy if you eat healthy so if you're eating a terrible diet if you're eating a terrible diet that's and this has been shown in mice like lard fat plus sugar those two together, which is the actual bad combination. I'm glad you brought that up. I'm going to make a note, but keep going. Those two are the bad combinations.

So if you're eating that, if you're feeding the mice that, and you let them eat whenever they want so they can eat, they're nocturnal, but I'm just going to call it day and their day is actually night. Just know that that's true.

If they're eating during the day and night, they gain like, you know, tons of weight, become fat, become like, you know, type two weight, become fat, become like, you know, type two diabetic, fatty liver. I mean, they're just a mess. They're breaking down like, like earlier than they should. But if you eat normal, so if you're eating like a healthy diet, that's not high fat, high sugar, you don't necessarily, you're not necessarily going to gain more fat. You don't, you don't become type 2 diabetic and all that if you're not eating all

the crap. So you're probably just going to be okay. But if you take that same mouse who's eating a healthy diet and you make it eat within a time-restricted window of at least 12 hours, actually the best was 9 to 10, they gain way more muscle mass. This is on a normal diet, just way more muscle mass. And if they ate within a nine hour window, they had like a really improved endurance. That's something I've noticed in myself. If I eat within a nine hour window and I go for a run the next morning, my endurance is like very noticeably improved, like extremely noticeably improved. So do you have like a timer? Like how do you do you do you time yourself at the beginning of your day?

Like when you first eat and then? Yeah, so I typically, well, so my friend Kevin Rose has an app that like, it's called, darn, what did he? Kevin Rose has an app. Kevin Rose from Dig? Yeah. I've had him on. Love that guy. Yeah, he's awesome.

He's a big ketogenic diet proponent as well. Yeah, he doesn't actually do keto anymore. When did he stop? After he got a bunch of blood work done. I mean, there's different genes that people have that can affect the way they respond to that sort of diet. Most of the time, people can respond good. That's interesting because he was on here just more than a while ago. Introducing Xero, a new app to help you fast.

So he has an app that helps you do that, that actually works really well. Personally, what I do is I'm just kind of crazy about it, and I just remember it that day. So I'm like, okay, I had my first cup of coffee at 8 a.m. But his app actually is really cool because it really helps you keep track, and it sends you reminders. So it helps you, and it's a free app. Powerful Kevin Rose. It's a free app. Powerful Kevin Rose.

Anyways, it's really cool because you can just, like literally these mice were gaining more muscle mass just not by doing anything but eating within this time-restricted window. And the thing that was also very interesting about this was that you could cheat a couple of days a week. So they could like, let's say weekends when you have like social events and you're like out drinking or whatever, you can you can cheat two nights and still have the same benefits. So that at least in mice, we don't know if that's the same for humans. Sachin's doing trying to aggregate some data with humans. He actually has an ongoing trial that anyone can sign up for. It's called my circadian clock. And it's an also an app on his on the phone that you just basically all you do is like sign a consent form, take pictures of your food, and like allow certain data, you know, different fitness data for them to collect. And so they're doing this clinical study with humans from data that they're aggregating, which is kind of cool.

I'm getting his fasting tracker right now. Bam. Yeah. And you can do he has different options for Kevin's fasting. It's like the circadian option, which is the one I'm talking about. And then there's people that are doing intermittent fasting. What's the circadian option?

That's the time-restricted eating. That's just basically, circadian is the circadian clock you're on. So that's what it's this 24-hour cycle, day-night cycle. So eating within at least a 12 hour window is so 12 hour is the most you ever most so if you get up at eight o'clock in the morning that's when you have your first cup of coffee that's when it starts not with food it starts with first cup

of coffee because that's interesting because a lot of people don't think that they think that they're still fasting if they have a cup of coffee and then they go run that's the thing um so because coffee even if it's black so people think if they have black coffee of coffee and then they go run. That's the thing. So because coffee, even if it's black, so people think if they have black coffee, they're fasting and they go run. But black coffee is, caffeine is a xenobiotic. It's something that has to be metabolized by liver enzymes. Your gut processes it. So anything that has-

Other than water. Exactly. Anything other than water. And the same goes for like taking vitamin pills or drinking herbal tea late at night. Like the same thing goes. Even herbal tea. Herbal tea is also got herb stuff in it. So non-caffeinated herbal tea, like. Yeah, because those are xenobiotics, chamomile. I mean, that stuff's got to be processed by your liver or your gut. It's, it's not, it's not water, you know? So, I mean, and this is something that's kind of a big question, and that is, well, if the fasting, let's say you're eating within a, like, nine-hour window or, you know, 10-hour window.

Nine hours optimal. Nine hours is really what I found to be optimal for endurance. In terms of the animal studies, like, 10 hours also, if they're eating their healthy diet within 10 hours, they still had, they increased their lean muscle mass. They didn't have to do anything else. No extra exercising. It just, because what was happening is they were, they were basically, their mitochondria were working better. And they were also getting rid of fat easier. So, you know, so it increased their lean muscle mass.

That's incredible because I, I eat late at night all the time. Well, you're a comedian. Yeah. I mean, that's probably, you probably eat after a show or something. Yeah, I came home last night at 2 o'clock in the morning, pigged out after a show. I mean, it was healthy food. I ate like kefir and pistachio nuts. I buy those big jugs of shelled pistachios.

So the shells are removed. So I just eat like piles of pistachios. Because I feel like I'm not eating anything bad that's good for you but this knowledge now knowing this i'm gonna i'm gonna cut that out now please let me know how that goes i'm gonna i'm gonna start right now yeah that's awesome i mean like i said you can cheat there was cheating at least in mice twice twice a week was okay two times a week is a good cheat was a yeah and that's kind of cool because it's like a weekend, right? Right, yeah.

You know, so you have your social event. It's hard to do with social events and stuff if you have like something late. Right. And you kind of have to fast early in the morning all the way up and so you can do it later. Yeah. You know what I mean? I do a lot of workouts fasted now. And one of the things that I like to do is I get up in the morning without having anything and then I work out.

But I've been having coffee. So I thought I was fasting. Well, see, the thing is, and this is kind of what I was talking with Sachin about, is that if you're fasting itself, the fasting itself is having a positive effect on all these enzymes. So maybe there's some sort of cancelization out. It's not known. It's not as good. It's not as good, I would say. So just water.

We don't have actual empirical data on that saying, okay, well, and that's something that Satchin would like to look at in humans because it's like a big question. If you are just fasting, in theory, it's not. You're starting all those clocks.

The caffeine starts the clocks. That's known. But then again, like I said, fasting changes your metabolism in a way too that makes it better. So maybe it's not quite as bad. Not quite as bad, but not optimal. Exactly. I like that.

That's perfect. Okay. Yeah. So shoot for nine hours. That was like, nine hours is the best, especially for endurance, like enhancements. Like really. Nine hours is the best, especially for endurance enhancements. Like, really.

So if you get up and you're at, you know, if you're up at 8 o'clock in the morning or 7 o'clock in the morning, whatever it is, you almost have to eat dinner like at 5. Yeah, that's the problem. You have to either fast in the morning or you have to eat early, which is really hard for working people. Nine to fivers. Yeah. I mean, it's like you're eating breakfast before you go to work unless you're not. Right. And that's kind of the problem for people that are going, you know,

which is most humans. Yeah. I see. We have a, you know, life is kind of different now, but it's, you know,

there are people that we're talking about. They just take their breakfast to work and they wait. So they'll wait till like 10 o'clock to eat or something like that. Yeah. Because also there's people that like to go to the gym after work. And so that's more time. It's like, you got to get a race this clock. I got to eat, you know? So really, if you can start the clock later, if that's possible for people that are working like that, that don't have flexible hours, um, then, then it would be better to start the clock later. And there's a lot of

human data on this, like just looking at the associations between people that eat within an 11-hour period and fast for 13 hours. For example, women that do that, that have already had breast cancer, they reduce their breast cancer risk recurrence by like 40%. Wow. Yeah, because it lowers, it causes insulin sensitivity. It lowers like IGF-1 levels. I mean, it's just like it lowers all these like hormones and things that are known to promote cancer growth.

It's really a powerful thing and improves metabolism, really improves metabolism. And that's something that a couple of scientists that I've talked to that are at UCSD are looking at and actively seeing. It seems to be really important. Now, obviously, people doing shift work like nurses are kind of, I mean, that's the problem. Yeah. They're kind of fucked when you're doing that late shift stuff.

And they are there. They have twice the cancer incidents. Like, yeah. Twice. Twice. Wow. Shift workers.

They're also much more likely to be type two diabetic, you know, because you're eating, you're eating like when you're at night, you're eating, you you're at night. You're eating, you know, your metabolism is all screwed up. Not only are you like when you're eating after the 12-hour clock, are you not as insulin sensitive and so your blood glucose levels are higher. Also, you're confusing your clock.

So kind of like it says, okay, I'm restarting now because it's late. I'm getting my first signal in. It's been after 12 hours and it confuses it. So then when you go to sleep, say you eat at two in the morning, you go to sleep and you wake up the next morning and you have your meal, it's already going to have started that clock a while ago. So you won't be as insulin sensitive because the earlier in the day, the more insulin sensitive you are. So you know what I mean? So you're kind of like confusing the clock. It's like this very complicated, but I think important mechanism and system for people to understand. And time restricted eating, like I have really implemented that because I think that's something that also will affect the aging process. I've talked to people like at conferences I've given a talk at that have come up to me afterwards. And they were talking about how they've been on a ketogenic diet for two years and how it reversed their type 2 diabetes. It's been great.

But still, their fasting blood glucose levels were still on the high end. Even though they're no longer type 2 diabetic, I mean, which is really good. And they started doing the time-restricted eating where they were eating within a nine-hour window. And it completely resolved it completely resolved it and i've actually had multiple people tell me that and so it's saying it's and the amazing thing is the increase in muscle the muscle is really the increase the the interesting part i would like to like talk to satchin more about that and uh have him do more experiments if possible because we didn't dive as much into that on the

podcast when we chatted but he is such a phenomenal scientist and he's very proactive and into health and all this you know preventative medicine and he's just a great great person where's he out of the salk institute in la jolla very prestigious place to be there's a lot of really good scientists there did you do, um, your podcast with him through Skype or did you, you're down there? Yeah. Yeah. I usually try to, um, I like to meet with people when I, when I interviewed them. So I, so I, uh, I've noticed. Yeah. I can't like I've done Skype ones and they're just the, it's like there's a disconnect. There's something missing. Yeah. So what's nice for you is you actually have a studio and people come to your

studio. So right now I'm, I'm like going around to institutes and, you know, if I'm at like a place where I'm giving a talk and I'm like, there's great scientists there. I'm going to ask people to, to interview.

How do you spell his name? Um, S A T, uh, C H I N. Sachin Panda. He's a great name. Yeah.

Actually, his first name is Sachin Dhananda. What? That's his, because he's Indian. So he's shortened it to Sachin. But he's a really good person to talk to, too. Like, he's very, you know, just he speaks eloquently. He explained things. He has a little bit of an Indian accent, but, you know, it's just's just it's kind of like cute but his science has changed my life like oh yeah all of my circadian

knowledge i've i've been following him for a few years like i've really looked up to him for in fact i don't even know if i told him this but i was like interested in doing a postdoc with him a certain point like after i'd finished my ph, because I thought his, he was back, back in 2012 when I graduated, he was making these discoveries about late night eating and how it like, how it makes you, you know, more, so you're basically more insulin resistant, how it's like screwing up brain function too, all these things that I didn't even talk about. And so I got really interested in it because I know a lot of people that eat late at night and people that are having trouble losing weight and all that, they're eating late at night. So. Wow. That's amazing. I'm going to listen to his podcast with

you and, uh, or your podcast with him rather. Yeah. Check that out. That's a, that sounds awesome. That'd be cool. So the saturated fat sugar is what you wanted to, you wrote that down. Yeah, I did because you actually sent me an article about that, which I found was really fascinating. That there, although saturated fat is important, it's, how would you describe it as a precursor to hormones? It's, it's not just a precursor to hormones. So saturated, saturated fat increases LDL cholesterol, LDL lipoproteins,

which carry cholesterol and fatty acids. We always call it cholesterol. It's a transporter of cholesterol, but it also transports fatty acids and other things. But the thing is, the LDL is very, very important because every time you make a new cell

in your body, which is happening constantly, you're always making new immune cells, you're making new kidney cells, you're making new liver cells. I mean, it's happening all the time. Anytime you make a new cell, you need LDL there to transport cholesterol and fatty acids because cell membrane, the cell itself, the membrane is made of it. It has fatty acids and cholesterol and phospholipids and other things. But so you need that cholesterol when you damage a cell, you know, and you're repairing that damage. Cholesterol needs to be there. So, I mean, you really, really need cholesterol. LDL cholesterol is very important for that for that reason. And without it, you're kind of screwed. Right. I mean,

you can't like repair damage as well. You're not going to make as many new cells. So all these people that are avoiding saturated fats and cholesterol in their diet, they're doing, they're literally doing their cell regeneration a disservice. Well, I don't want to make that broad statement because I don't know what else they're, maybe they're getting other types of fatty acids that also help. But yes, people that are like on statins for example which is a very broad way of uh inhibiting like cholesterol synthesis brought like full stop um that's why a lot of those people people on statins um one of the major major side effects is muscle atrophy

and muscle wasting you know because your muscle is one of those cells you're constantly repairing damage and making the muscle and it's a big big, big problem, huge problem with statin users. And also, so a colleague of mine, Ron Krause, he's at the Children's Hospital in Oakland. He has been studying statins and their effect on mitochondria. And he was telling me that it's like toxic to mitochondria. And he's trying to figure out why. It's like maybe that's partly why it's also causing muscle wasting. So if people don't consume saturated fats or they lower, they radically lower the saturated fat in their diet, how does their body produce new cell membranes?

Well, I mean, you still, you're making cholesterol, you know, in your body and you're making it from, they're getting fatty acids and they're getting it from plants. I mean, plant sterols, they're getting them from other sources, you know, but I think the problem with the saturated fat was it's not so much that, because people still get it to some degree. I mean, it's like. But it's not optimum. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know. I can't, I'd have to see like the person. I think it varies depending on what else they're eating. But, you know, I think the problem was that saturated fat was demonized. Well, it was demonized in a very corrupt way, which is the recent New York Times article that was released, which is a mind blower, which detailed how the sugar industry had bribed scientists to release data blaming saturated fat for heart disease and obesity and all these issues when it was in fact sugar that was causing all that. So they were literally rigging the system and paying scientists. And it was a horrible article because that propaganda and these lies that they spread, I believe it was because it's just awful. It is really awful.

And it was an internal sugar industry document that was discovered by a researcher at the University of California in San Francisco. And it was published, it said Monday when this was out. I believe it was a couple of months ago. But it was amazing. It suggested that five decades of research into the role of nutrition and heart disease, including many of today's dietary recommendations, may have been largely shaped by the sugar industry and propaganda and money. They spent money to literally bribe scientists to release false data. It's horrible. It's really nasty.

But I mean, the thing is. Not that much money either. Go back to it. They paid three Harvard scientists the equivalent of $50,000 in today's dollars to publish a 1967 review of research on sugar, fat, and heart disease. The studies used in the review

were handpicked by the Sugar Group in the article, which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, minimized the link between sugar and heart health and cast aspirations on the role of saturated fat. Even though the influence peddling revealed in documents dates back to nearly 50 years, more recent reports show that the food industry has continued to influence nutrition science. This had such a negative, like, there were such negative consequences from this from from the demonization

of saturated fat because people then obviously started eating more refined like for breakfast in the morning instead of having eggs you're having like cereal but the real problem was the trans fats because trans fats can can have similar but they're hydrogen hydrogenated fats which you know you take like a a monosaturated fat and hydrogenate it and you can have similar, but they're hydrogenated fats, which, you know, you take like a monosaturated fat and hydrogenate it. And you can have similar properties as a saturated fat, like butter, how it's solid and then, you know, melts at a higher temperature. But these trans fats, I mean, I remember my mom had a big tub of margarine. I mean, we used to put margarine on our mashed potatoes. And everybody thought it was healthy.

And it was so, I mean, it's not just unhealthy. I mean, it was literally, that's what's, it causes heart disease because the trans fats, like I said, you take these fats up into your new cells, right? Because that's part of what, you know, fatty acids and cholesterol, that's part of what you're doing with them in your body. The trans fats get taken up and the whole structure of it's screwed up. So when this happens in the endothelial cells lining your blood vessels, it makes them real stiff, real stiff. And like, I mean, it just like screws it up.

So trans fats are like we have known about the like the fact that trans fats are playing a causal role in heart disease for like decades. FDA finally in 2015, 2015, okay, finally banned them from the U.S. and gave all the companies that are still putting them in their processed foods. And a lot of fast food companies use like Crisco because it's cheaper. Three years to get it off the market. So we have until 2018. Jesus Christ, three years to get rid of poison. And that's after already like decades of knowing.

It's like, you know, that this is like, it's like so bad so so bad for you um anyways that's a that's a whole that's one of the major repercussions and then obviously then you know people became scared of saturated fat and you know the thing the thing with the sugar and this is kind of what you were initially you know hinting at is that a lot of there were there have been a lot of studies that have linked you know that weren initially, you know, hinting at is that a lot of there were there have been a lot of studies that have linked, you know, that weren't corrupt, you know, by the sugar, like these were the early studies, but there have been studies that have linked saturated fat intake to heart disease. And, and a lot of those studies were also because people were eating in addition to saturated fat, they didn't correct for like refined sugar intake, which is really what the

problem is. And that has now been shown in multiple studies. So, you know, and this came down to actually being able to have new technology available that was able to then, you know, LDL is not there's not just one LDL, you know, cholesterol and the body comes in all sizes. And the type the type that we are talking about, the good type is the large, buoyant type. And that's what saturated fat increases. The type that we were talking about, the good type, is the large, buoyant type, and that's what saturated fat increases. There's also, it gets processed into smaller parts that are small, dense LDL, and that's what gets, basically, it can't get recycled back to the liver, so it stays around the bloodstream and undergoes inflammatory transformations and sticks in the blood vessels, causes all this problem, right? That's what refined sugar increases, and that's been shown in clinical studies so like healthy young men that were given 20 ounces of soda a day for three weeks it um totally healthy young men increased this increased their ld small dense ldl particles

like massively increased for small dense ldl particles and also increased their inflammatory markers c-reactive protein by like almost 100%, which is like crazy. So we're talking about like, you know, the refined sugar is what can make saturated fat dangerous when you combine the two because the LDL gets processed into the small dense and it's refined sugar that does that. So small dense LDL versus LDL. Yeah. And so the thing is, is that even now it's not standard of care to like measure all the particle sizes. It's like, we've known about this for at least a decade now. Like,

so Ron Krause, he is, he's the guy who actually pioneered this assay and figured out how to measure them. The small dense LDL, it's called the ion mobility assay. It's done in a quest labs does it, but you can also ask your physician. You can ask your physician to measure the particle size. But the thing is, is that because it's not something that's standard of care, when you go in to measure your LDL cholesterol and it's above a certain number, physicians are like freaking out and like you should get on statins. But the reality is that you need to look at the small dense LDL. That's what's actually, you know, puts you at risk for heart disease.

And that's just not standard of care. You have to like specifically ask for it, you know? That's so crazy that there's such a vast difference in the consequences for your health, but yet it's not tested, even though the knowledge is there. Well, that's what I was saying with the trans fat. I mean, the knowledge was there. Like I was talking to my like 88 year old mentor, Bruce Ames, and he was like, I remember back in the 80s oh we stayed away from that he never gave marjorie to my children i'm like well you're a scientist like my mom wasn't you know like he's known about this for like when i was like like five you know he's known he's known it for 30 fucking years that's insane now 2015 is when you know there's always a lag between

research and application of it but i mean i don't know what it. But I mean, I don't know what it takes. Not that much of a lag. I don't know what it takes to, you know, maybe these regulatory committees, there's probably a lot more than I know that goes into like figuring out like how you make these regulations. But it's only financially motivated. That's what's disgusting about it. They're giving these companies three years to get poison out of food. That is what really upsets me.

I'm like, okay, you finally, finally have banned it in the U.S., but you're giving three years? Three years for people to profit off of poisoning folks. Yeah, killing people. Yeah, and not letting them know. That don't realize, still. I mean, you should have a fucking cancer recommendation or a warning, the same way you have on cigarettes. Yeah, and it's not even, like, you can go, like, people go to the supermarket and they'll say no trans fats on their food and all that. But when they go to fast food or they go to some like restaurant where they're using Crisco,

they're not even going to know they're getting it. They're not even telling you. This was awesome. Oh, man. Totally. Goddamn. I loved it. This was great.

You blow my mind every time. This is amazing. There's a lot to study, folks. So go over this podcast 30 or 40 times. And I know I'm going to go over it a few, um, found my fitness on Twitter. Um, what your, your podcast has found my fitness. Yeah, I have a podcast. It's called found my fitness.

Um, and actually I just released a podcast today with, uh, Dr. Roland Griffiths, who is the notorious, um, psychedelic psilocybin researcher. I met with him when I was at Johns Hopkins amazing outside of my realm but you should listen to it I will I will definitely do that and let's do it again soon it's been too long so much fun thank you so much thanks Joe appreciate it alright folks see ya bye Oh, yeah.