I did my post doc training and nutrition in specifically looking at micronutrients. So these are about 40 or so essential vitamins and minerals.
And these micronutrients are running our metabolism. They're running everything our neurotransmitters that we're producing. So our cognition just absolutely everything that is going on in our body. So when you think about the micronutrients that you need in your diet, it makes it a little bit easier to think about what you should be eating.
Welcome to the knowledge project a podcast about mastering the best of what other people have already figured out so you can apply their insights to your life. I'm your host Shane Parish. If you're listening to this you're missing out. If you'd like access to the podcast before everyone else special episodes just for you hand edited transcripts or you just want to support the show you love join at fs.browardschools.com.
Today, my guest is Rhonda Patrick a research scientist with expertise in the areas of Aging cancer and nutrition. I first came across her work years ago and a friend of mine sent me this Mammoth article. She posted online on the benefits of a sauna. In fact, this is the reason I started to sauna our main focus in this conversation is lifestyle habits that reduce biological aging improve health span and improve our cognition. We cover a framework for approaching nutrition and decisions about food as well as a deep dive into vitamin d sun sun sunscreen and hot exposure it's time to listen and learn.
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When I was thinking about where to start I think the best place to start is to give people practical Frameworks for approaching topics that we come across every day. So why don't we start with a practical framework for approaching nutrition and decisions about the food that we can consume?
I you know, I kind of have my own framework for approaching nutrition in
And it it has a lot to do with you know, I I did my posto training and nutrition and um in specifically looking at micro nutrients. So these are about 40 or so essential vitamins and minerals that fatty acids also and amino acids that we have to get from our diet. Those are in a variety of foods in different foods have different levels and quantities of them.
And these micronutrients are running our metabolism. They're running everything our neurotransmitters that we're producing. So our cognition just absolutely everything that is going on in our body. So it's important to get them because if we don't get them we can have deficiencies or insufficiencies, which is quite worse because insufficiencies are kind of something that you don't notice every day, but there's like Insidious types of damage Just Happening each and every day and it accumulates over time and plays a role in age related diseases like cancer and neurodegenerative disease. So these um, micronutrients are things like, you know, calcium magnesium vitamin K Vitamin D, which I'm sure we'll talk about is actually something you can mostly get from the Sun, uh omega-3. And so when you think about the micronutrients that you need in your diet, it makes it a little bit easier to think about what you should be eating. Well, let's start
With like some of the most common deficiencies in micronutrients, we have uh magnesium. So almost half of the US population they get insufficient magnesium intake magnesium is it's at the center of a chlorophyll molecule. So chlorophyll makes plant gives plants their green color. So it's really easy to think about foods. You should eat to get magnesium. You should be eating greens particularly dark leafy greens. Well greens are also very high in vitamin K and um vitamin K1. There's 2 forms vitamin K1.
Vitamin K1 is essential for all your blood coding processes. So you like in order to like have your blood clotting which is important, you know, if you have a cut or something, you know, an injury you want that clotting to happen so that you don't have like a hemorrhage, right? So Vitamin K is also, you know high in leafy greens. You can also get calcium as well from greens. So that's really an easy way to kind of think about greens.
The other way the other thing is Omega-3s, right? So Omega-3s are very high in.
Fatty fish so this would be wild Alaskan salmon or Cod or mackerel sardines. Like these are good forms of fish that have the Marine types of Omega-3. So that would be DHA and EPA. Those are very important for a lot of functions including brain health and cardiovascular health and a lot of work has been done by Bill Harris in his group at the fatty acid Research Institute.
And um, they have they look at Omega the omega-3 index which is a way you can actually quantify your omega-3 levels and that's really good to be able to quantify something because if you don't quantify it, you don't really know if you are getting enough of it, right? So the mega-3 index is they're they're characterizing it from red blood cells, which is different than a lot of other ways of measuring omega-3. Like for example plasma omega-3, which is basically kind of reflective of your dietary intake the last week or so the red blood cell or the omega-3 index is more of a long-term status. So it's like a 120 days for a red blood cell a turnover. So and the omega-3 index is a good marker of your omega-3 status.
People that have a high omega-3 index and that would be 8% or more.
Have a 5 year increase life expectancy compared to people with a lower omega-3 index which is more like 4% Now people in the United States on average have about an omega-3 index of about 5% and you compare that to for example countries like Japan where they eat a lot of seafood. Their omega-3 index is around 10% There's been tons of studies looking at omega-3 index and life expectancy and there's been also like data where they strata stratis like looking at, you know, for example, and this I like talking about this because I think it really puts in prospective.
You the framework of nutrition and thinking about instead of focusing on what to avoid focusing on what you need because if you focus on what you need, then it's obvious what you don't need right? There's no nutritional value in processed foods, you're not getting micronutrients. You're getting calories. You're not getting protein. You're not getting things that you need. So, um smoking is something that everyone knows is bad. You should avoid smoking right? It's, you know, heart disease cancer. You're going to have to decrease life expectancy and FEMA all kinds of problems, right?
What Bill Harris's group had done has they looked at life expectancy of smokers and non-smokers and then they categorized their omega-3 index.
And if you look at this data, it's it's just mind-blowing. So obviously non-smokers that have a high omega-3 index of 8% or more have the highest life expectancy.
And um, the lowest life expectancy is smokers with a low omega-3 index.
So there's like that's the worst of the worst.
But when you look at smokers with a high omega-3 index.
they have they have the same life expectancy as non-smokers with a low omega-3 index in other words having low omega-3 or having a low and omega-3 index was like smoking and when I say you look the life expectancy, if you look at the graph in the publication the curves like overlay perfectly, its kind of freakish where you're like whoa, like the people that are smoking but they're getting a lot of Omega-3
Have the same like life expectancy of these people that don't smoke but have very low omega-3 and that's kind of like I I like talking about that because I feel like it puts it in perspective for people because like I said, no 1's really thinking about I'm not eating my fish today. I'm not supplementing with an omega-3 supplement to get that those Omega-3s, you know, but people are thinking about oh, I shouldn't smoke because it's bad, right? So again, it goes back to that framework of thinking about what you need and and starting there. Um as opposed to like just like, okay, what should I avoid? Because when you think about what should I avoid? Then you're not like people aren't thinking about magnesium. They're not thinking about you know, the vitamin K. They're not thinking about omega-3. And by the way magnesium, you know, I said about half the half the population in the United States doesn't get enough. They're not eating enough greens. And unfortunately, there's not a great test for magnesium because our body's storage magnesium in our bones. And so anytime we're not getting enough in our diet our body pulls it.
Out of her bones to like because we need it. It's so important you needed to make energy like without magnesium. You can't make energy so nothing's going to function you also it it's needed to repair damaged. Like every time you have you know, like right now you and I were were having a conversation, you know, we're you know, neurotransmitters are firing. We're thinking about things like that's causing damage metabolism all that stuff causes damage on a daily basis, but our body repairs that damage but magnesium is a co-factor for these enzymes. These are proteins that are doing everything for that to function properly. And so if you don't get enough of that magnesium to do that what happens is you don't repair that damage properly and that can increase the risk of getting a mutation that can lead to cancer.
You know, it's been found that for example for every 100, you know milligram increase in magnesium intake. There's something like a 20% decrease in pancreatic cancer risk and there's been lots of studies like this looking at magnesium intake and cancer risk. And so the higher the Magnesium intake the lower the cancer risk. So again, it's 1 of those things where you can't look in the mirror and go as you're brushing your teeth. Oh, I don't have enough magnesium today. Right like nothing's like showing you that but it's happening that damage is Insidious and I mentioned you pull it out of your bone. Like it's pulled out of your bones. And that's another thing it leads to osteoporosis over time. So remembering to eat your leafy greens is getting your magnesium. So you so women need about I'd say about 320 milligrams a day adult women need about 320 milligrams a day of magnesium men need around 420 milligrams a day, you know, this can change based on your your physical activity level as well. So like if you're physically active if you're sweating you sweat out magnesium you also use
Use it up for energy. So you might actually require anywhere between 10% to 20% more than that level. So which What's called the recommended daily allowance in the United States? So, you know again and people aren't even meeting that.
So there's lots of reasons to invest in, you know these micronutrients and to think about the foods that you need to eat.
I have so many questions 1 is is there a difference between consuming magnesium and omega-3 through food like leafy greens or fish and supplementation?
Yes, let's start with magnesium. So magnesium if you're consuming it in the form of leafy greens. Um, it is it is bound to a it's like the fiber matrix. It's called fatete and that does decrease the bioavailability of it you can do raw but also cooking them will increase the bioavailability of minerals like magnesium and it is good. You want to kind of get a variety of things you want to have some raw veggies, but you also want to have cooked and um, when you cook it it it does actually increase the bioavailability of not just magnesium other minerals as well that are bound to that that fiber Matrix that um, which has fatete their supplementation is also kind of tricky with respect to magnesium because you don't really absorb more. I mean, it's about 100 I would say anywhere between 100 and 12
20 to 150 milligrams per dose, like once you get above that, you're not really absorbing more. You're just kind of causing more GI distress and it it's a little bit of like a laxative effect. So some people actually use it specifically for that reason. So they do higher doses generally speaking. If you are supplementing with magnesium you want to make sure you're going at a lower dose because you're not really going to absorb more and it's just going to cause like gut issues if you want to supplement with more than just 150. You have to spread your doses out.
You know take it earlier with the meal and then take it later in the day as well. The other thing is that when you're getting it from food it is packaged in with other minerals and there are there's some
argument to be made that having for example, there's like, you know twice as much calcium as magnesium.
In in a lot of the foods and so you're getting this 2 to 1 ratio. And so, um, you know, there's there's kind of a reason for that. I I wouldn't say that it's been heavily studied but it's thought that you kind of want to keep that ratio. Correct like 2 to 1 calcium to magnesium ratio. So if you're just like supplementing with lots of magnesium and let's say you don't get enough maybe you don't eat dairy or maybe you're lactose intolerant or you know, maybe you're just not getting enough calcium. You can kind of have mineral imbalances as well. And then there's the form that you're going to supplement with right. So there's a lot of different magnesium supplements out there.
The most important difference when you're looking for a magnesium supplement.
Is to avoid the What's called the inorganic forms and this isn't like organic pesticide. What we're talking about is so like a magnesium oxide or magnesium sulfate like they're just not very bioavailable. Like you're not going to absorb as much from those but if you get like the organic form, so this would be something that has like
An organic molecule so magnesium citrate magnesium malate magnesium glycinate magnesium taurate. These are all forms of magnesium that are relatively the same in terms of their bioavailability. I personally like taking magnesium glycinate because glycinate is like a form of glycine which is a inhibitory neurotransmitter. And so I like getting a little bit extra glycine. There's like there's some science behind, um, you know glycine perhaps being beneficial and supplementing with it. Just I think that's the main thing with respect to magnesium.
Supplementation is is that the forms do kind of matter and the dose?
And what about the Omega-3s is it can I just go to the store? If I'm not going to eat a lot of fish and buy an omega-3 supplement and or is fish the primary way that we actually get bioavailability from this.
Yeah. That's also a great question. It really does obviously depend on um, quite a few factors. So with respect to the seafood and fish the type of fish does matter right so like you need like there's some fish like that's just not that fatty the Omega-3s EPA and DHA are the Marine forms of the omega-3. And those are the ones I was talking about with the omega-3 index and life expectancy. Those are the forms that have been used in randomized control trials with supplementation that have decreased cardiovascular events by like 25% compared to Placebo. Those are the ones that that are important. They're they're only in the really oily fatty fish. So 1 of the best forms is salmon and wild salmon has higher levels than
Farmed, for example while the Alaskan salmon is probably 1 of the best salmon to to consume for omega-3. Um, it also has asanin it's what gives the fish that pink color. If you are eating quite a lot of fish you'd have to really get an omega-3 index test to know for sure how much you require but you know, I would say probably like at least, you know, you're eating it 4 times a week something like that, which most people do do not do Japan they do and their omega-3 index is very high. Like I don't even know if many Japanese supplement. They're just they eat seafood like every day. The other thing to consider is well what type of fish so we talked about oily and fatty fish, but also you want to look at um contaminants like larger fish have things like pcbs and Mercury because they're eating smaller fish. So it those things accumulate in their fat so like you don't want to eat swordfish, for example, it's just they're the Mercury and swordfish is just through the roof, right? So it's really like the trade-off there.
Isn't very good. So again, that's where salmon comes into the picture because it's very low in mercury. It's high in omega-3 smaller fish. So sardines would be another 1 again. There's a lot of data out there that you can look up like USDA has all this like contamination Mercury, um levels versus omega-3. So that stuff is easy for people to find I would say by and large the easiest way to get a high omega-3 index and these Studies have been done randomized control trials people giving supplement supplement forms of Omega-3 is definitely to supplement and fish oil supplements generally speaking if you're taking your around 2 grams a day.
Of official supplement that is enough to raise someone from a 4% omega-3 index which is the low end to a 8% omega-3 index which is the high end.
You obviously want to make sure you're getting enough of the EPA and DHA those 2 important Omega-3s and you want to make sure you're not getting a high contaminant level like Mercury pcbs. But the other thing to keep in mind is you'd want to low oxidation level. So omega-3 fatty acids are prone to oxidation just because they're molecular structure. It's a polyunsaturated fatty acid. And so the way people uh, companies are, you know are manufacturing this fish oil matters. So, um some good third-party testing sites to look at I would say, um consumer lab is 1 that's really
There they go and just go to grocery stores and where people are generally going and buying their supplements and they just measure and test all this stuff and there there's some really affordable brands that have decent omega-3 levels DHA and EPA levels and low oxidation low contaminant levels and consumer lab, you know test all those so that would be a good site to go to to find a good omega-3 supplement. Another 1 is the international fish oil standard site ifos. Those are for the data nerds to be honest because there's like a lot more data there and if you're like into this stuff and you want to like really dig because they just give you everything like all the data like you can imagine. Um, but that's a great site for people that are sort of nerd want to nerd out on that. But for some people they're like, I just want to know my grocery store. What do I get? Then consumer lab is a great option it.
It's like it's broken down in a way that like a child could even understand. It's okay. This is the 1 I want to buy.
Is there a difference between wild and uh non- wild I guess or captive or factory farm, whatever you want to call it farmed fish in terms of the nutrient density
that we're pulling out of them. You know, there is a difference. I mean the the wild salmon they're out they're in the ocean and they're eating fish and like, you know Crustaceans and all the things that they're supposed to eat. Like that's what they eat right in the the farmed salmon. I you know, correct. I I I'm pretty sure there's there's some there's some feeding of stuff. That's like not even I mean we're talking like corn and stuff too. Yeah, if you were to look at the fish, uh before in the factories before they inject it with aaan that they they look albino because their lack because they don't eat all the right things. So they're not naturally pink I said inject but I'm not sure maybe they actually just give it a asisan than they eat it. I forgot but they're they're they're giving it exogenous acid. And so that it does have the pink color. The omega-3 content was also
so higher in the wild.
Salmon, so again to your question. Yes, there is a difference between the farmed salmon and the wild salmon but you know, sometimes when you're out at a restaurant like you're not going to get they're not going to get the wild salmon is it is it the end of the world and my opinion know like I said choose your battles. I still think you still are getting Omega-3s. You're still getting DHA and EPA. It's not like it's terrible, but I do think it's preferable if you are getting the wild salmon
and you mentioned
organic
Is there a difference between organic and inorganic I guess but inorganic in the sense of being non-organic produce, why would we choose 1 over another and what difference does it make from a composition or bioavailability point of view so
pesticides um are obviously something that are are used now in agriculture because we're you know, these Farms are huge and we're growing mass quantities of foods. And so they're spraying things that'll ward off insects. So insecticides or pesticides are known and also fungicides and other things to prevent fungus and anything that's going to destroy the crop right A lot of these types of pesticides are obviously damaging to the insects. But um to humans the question is well are they damaging to humans? You know there there were a lot especially things like rote known paraquat. These were used for a long time. And those are those are chemicals that actually cause we we use them scientists use them. I've used it myself in the lab.
To induce Parkinson like symptoms in animals because it disrupts your mitochondria, which are the their little organ inside of almost all of your cells and that are producing energy super important and in Parkinson's disease the mitochondria mitochondria and your neurons kind of become dysfunctional and you can do you can cause this by just giving them this this pesticide paraquat or Renown. I remember this is it's funny. I remember the first time I I was learning about this in you know, this was actually even before I was in graduate school, but also in graduate school, I was like, oh I'm putting this stuff and you know to to give it to a to a mouse to study, you know, Parkinson's or to induce a Parkinson like human sort of model of Parkinson's and this was like put on our produce and I was like that was like really kind of upsetting to think about there's been studies even on the newer types of pesticides that are used on produce, you know, there have been studies that have shown their probably not good to have on
a daily basis because of that Insidious damage that they're causing and I get you know, people are probably thinking of like glyphosate right round up is a big 1 as well when it comes to those pesticides that are used.
There are there are certain vegetables and fruits that are very thin skinned that absorb it so even if you wash the vegetable off, it's already been absorbed through the skin and so like let's talk about an avocado versus a strawberry right? Like like is it so important to eat organic for avocados? Not really. It's got a really thick skin strawberries on the other hand have a very thin skin and you know, and so that that would be something that you want to choose organic. I would say that yes organic would be the best choice if you can't always afford organic then choose. Okay bananas, is that a so important? Probably not avocado is probably not oranges. Probably not apples. Yes right thin skin and there's like again, there's like lists out there that like will list the things that are like, okay, if you're going to not do organic. Here's the 1 here's the vegetables and fruits that are the safest to not
I I love the I mean the dirty dozen list, but it's actually more practical to remember the thickness of the skin as sort of like the barrier or the membrane between pesticides and you how do you wash your produce?
And and like and I say this having seen I think last night on Instagram, you know some uh guy putting baking soda and vinegar and like soaking it for 20 minutes and like is that how we wash produce like, how do you wash produce to like get stuff off of it? What do you do?
I just use water. I just use water and wash it because I do buy organic as well.
So you're thinking about pesticides you're like, oh, well, I don't want to get Parkinson's disease or cancer, right? It's causing damage. But so my mentor Bruce Ames. Um, he's you know now 96 years old.
I don't know how many years ago. It was. It must have been back in the 80s. He had done some experiments with uh hematologist from his lab and they were looking at what happens if you don't get enough folate, so that's another 1 of those essential micronutrients that you have to get from your diet. Guess what leafy greens are 1 of the best source of folate so leafy greens are are just they're they're packed with certain micronutrients, but they don't have a lot of protein right so folate again, we have to get from our diet and if we don't get enough folate, it actually causes damage to our DNA much more than eating a pesticide would
because folate is required to make new DNA, you know, we're constantly making new cells in our body and if you don't have that folate the precursor to make 1 of the nucleotides of DNA isn't going to be there and so your body is substitute something else in there. That's from RNA that's not supposed to be there and it causes DNA damage and he had done these studies where it was like he took animals put them on a low folate diet similar to what some people in the United States get and then he took the other group of animals and he he he irradiated them with ionizing radiation. Okay, this is like
Yeah, you're gonna want this. Right and the folate deficiency was like ionizing radiation. It did the exact same thing. It caused double strand breaks in DNA exactly like the ionizing radiation. So not getting that important micronutrient from your leafy greens folate was like being getting ionizing radiation. So again back to that theme that we started with thinking about what you need is so important and we're sitting here talking about pesticides. Oh we should avoid them. Yes, but guess what's worse? If you don't eat the greens, you're not going to get enough folate folate is so important. It's it's you know, it's it's in every processed food. They put the oxidized form of it folic acid.
It's kind of 1 of those things where it's like, oh, it's a it's it's a it's another form of of folate and um it is
More more stable which is why it's used um in processed foods rather than folate but uh, it's it is not the exact same as folate. It's preferable if you're going to get the folate from your diet from leafy greens.
Yeah, let's come back to sort of the framework for approaching this and so we've talked about micronutrients a little bit. Let's talk about macro. So I mean so I'm sitting here talking about all these
micronutrients and it it was like vegetables was a big thing. We were talking about right but we also hit on Omega-3s and that was fish.
Protein is you know amino acids are something that we need to get from our diet every day.
much like
we store glucose as glycogen in our liver and our muscles. We store fat like triglycerides right adapost tissue.
We don't really store amino acids, Although our muscle skeletal muscle is kind of a reservoir for them and during periods of fasting or low protein intake we pull from our muscle to get amino acids because they're essential to survive. And what does that mean? That means you're pulling important?
Protein from your muscle and that does cause muscle atrophy. So you want to avoid that right? And so in order to help avoid that all these you know regulatory committees had come up with let's figure out how much protein people need to take in every single day to avoid those losses. Right? And so studies were done many many years ago and that number came up to be 0.8 grams of protein.
Per kilogram of body weight is what was the recommended daily allowance for protein intake?
Fast forward decades, you know, you've got all this new science and new technology that's come out and new ways of measuring things and you know, any scientists will tell you that your data is only as sensitive as the tools that you're using Okay data from experts like Dr. Stuart Phillips and others.
They started to you know, look into how you measure protein losses and amino acid losses and and and turns out that those studies that were done decades ago.
Were using tools that were oh they were basically underestimating the losses of amino acids. It turns out using new techniques that are more sensitive that in order to just prevent your body from like pulling from you know, your your your skeletal muscle to get amino acids. The minimum amount of protein you need to take in is actually 1.2.
Grams per kilogram body weight Which is higher than the 0.8 grams per kilogram body weight, right?
And they also did some studies looking at. Well, what if you're physically active right you're
You're causing damage to your muscle. You're using a lot of energy. I mean lots of things going on. Um, that number goes up to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram body weight. This was a big eye opener for me a couple of years ago when I talked to to Dr. Phillips and started looking and reading his research because I always thought people were getting enough protein and trans out. A lot of people are not getting enough protein because they are not getting that at least that 1.2 grams per kilogram, you know body weight bare minimum that I think is you have to think about. Okay. Well, where do I get my protein meat is all animal Meats probably when the best sources because essential amino acids are very highly concentrated in poultry and Meat and Fish. Um, if you're a vegetarian or a vegan, you just have to really work really hard and supplement with protein powders and stuff to kind of get that amino acid composition
up is is all sort of like animal protein the same like is I I imagine you
Need to to complete set of sort of amino acids for it to be the most bioavailable in your body. I don't know what I'm talking about here. Obviously, uh, but is there like a big difference between steak and chicken and sort of other sources of protein that we typically think of
there are differences with respect to their their micronutrient profiles.
Steak has a lot more iron. For example, you know, there's a lot of zinc in like shellfish like oysters. So with respect to just the essential amino acids, you know, like getting them from those any of those sources is pretty good with respect to like protein. You will find that they'll like per ounce of food that you're eating. Maybe there's like a little bit more in like denser in meat than fish or something like that. But there there are there are subtle differences between them. But also just in the whole micronutrient profile itself, but with respect to the essential amino acids, like if you're really trying to hit that 1.2 to 1.6 grams a day per per I mean 1.6 grams per kilogram body weight. That's very important.
That's that's a lot.
It's a lot of protein it is it actually is really a lot of protein especially for people that are Physically Active. Why is that so important? Well, like if you are constantly pulling amino acids from your muscle
It's like pulling from your retirement fund early, right? Like because our our muscle mass Peak is probably I would say anywhere between 20 to 30 years old is when we're like Peak muscle mass.
After 30 as you get into 40.
You start going down. You want to try to build up that muscle mass Reservoir earlier in life kind of like you do what your retirement fund, right like you want to build it up because you're going to be pulling from it. No matter what even if you're working out later in life. You're still going to be pulling from it because you just lose more muscle mass and strength as you age. It's just part of the aging process. And so the more the more you can kind of counter that with resistance training with making sure you're getting enough protein then the better off you're going to be if if you didn't do it earlier in life. It's never too late. Like that's something also to like keep in mind like don't give up like, oh, I'm already 50. It's too late for me know because like you can you can get gains and muscle mass and really actually
Great gains and strength particularly with resistance training, uh protein intake is 1 easy thing. Like a lot of people like Elder like our parents like not everyone's exercising, right? They're not doing resistance training and so get that protein intake becomes even more important at that that point and something also that you might find interesting Shane is that we're talking about Omega-3s. So there's some work from Chris mcglory. He had basically done some research that have found.
Omega high dose Omega-3s could prevent disuse atrophy. So like when people are older they're not using their muscles a lot and when you're not using your muscles a lot and you're certainly not getting enough protein you start to atrophy even more right? But if there was like if he gave him a high dose omega-3. So this was like 4 grams a day 4 to 5 grams a day. It totally prevented disuse atrophy. They did the study and younger adults and younger females, but it was like 50% less. He's he's done some other studies and mechanism and looking into it and he thinks that what's happening is Omega-3s are sensitizing your skeletal muscle to amino acids. In other words. It's you're you're you're getting more amino acids into the M. You're getting more bang for your buck. So more amino acids are getting in when you have the Omega-3s there because yeah Omega-3s are really important for the the skeletal muscle like membrane and stuff. And so it might be easier just to get the nutrients in
I want to like start using this in in a
In a practical way right? Like so if I were to make a smoothie in the morning
What is the best thing to put in my body at the start of the day after having slept which means I've been fasting what is like the most incredible smoothie you can think of that would just be full of health benefits for the day. So it would have like a mega-3 it would have protein powder. It would have like leafy like walk me through this. What do you do you do this?
I do smoothie. It does. It doesn't have omega-3, but I'll walk you through my my my smoothie that I do. I I probably
4 to 5 days a week have have this smoothie. Typically the Smoothie is about
I don't know 4 or so kale leaves and that's usually my green source that I use and so I'm getting the Magnesium. I'm getting the vitamin K. I'm getting the folate, but I'm also getting something in there called lutein and zean which is these are carotenoids much like beta carotene or aan like we were talking about it's another 1 that accumulates in the eye rods and cones of the eye so it helps prevent macular degeneration, but it accumulates in the brain as well and it's so interesting because there's been studies that have shown that giving older adults like supplementing with something like 20 migs, which is what like 3 kale leaves has of lutein, um, it improves neural efficiency. So so basically like your brain works better with less energy, there's been other studies in older adults where giving them lutein and zaizen will improve crystallized intelligence. So that's basically as you get older it's the ability to still kind of use all the information that you've learned through.
Throughout your life and like still use it. Um, so so that's the kale. It also has fiber right? It's fiber is great for your gut. I also add an avocado and the avocado also increases the bioavailability of those carotenoids the lutein and zanthin by like up to 6 folds making them more bioavailable by adding the avocado. Also. It's a great source of mono and saturated fat avocados are high in potassium something like 96% of the US population doesn't get enough potassium. And then I add a ton of frozen blueberries. Um, and blueberries are yes, you're getting your vitamin C and you're getting some fermentable Fiber for the gut but they're also high in those phytochemicals so they have polyphenols in them.
And they have um anthocyanins they're like superpowers for the brain. So there's been so many studies that have been done randomized control trials either with freeze-dried blueberry extract or actually just blueberries.
Showing it improves cognition. Yeah, it improves mood when I was a postdoc. I did some studies in people. We were looking at freeze dried blueberry powder. I was looking at DNA damage and their blood cells.
So markers of those double stranded breaks I talked about like if you don't get enough folate, it causes double stranded breaks people that are people that are eating terrible diets and that are you know overweight and obese have more double stranded breaks in their their blood cells. So that's something that I've uh measured we were getting a population of people that were overweight and obese and then giving them this free dried blue blueberry extract and over the course of 4 8 weeks it lowered their DNA damage personally. It's like I I what I noticed is like the mood enhancer. It's like I get that blueberry and it's like whoa, I used to add bananas to my my my my my smoothie years and years ago. It's not that bananas are bad for you, but they have this enzyme in them called polyphenol oxidase PPO.
Well as the name implies it breaks down polyphenols, which is what you want from the blueberries to get the benefits in the brain and the benefits. Yeah, exactly. There was a very very recent study in 2023 that came out and this was a controlled trial where people were given a smoothie with blueberries either with and without the banana and then metabolites of polyphenols were measured in their in their urine and blood and if they had the banana their polyphenol levels were just plummeted like they weren't getting them from the blueberries and this is I'll tell you what's in Raging about it is anywhere you go like if you want to buy a smoothie when you're out and about everything has a has a banana in it and you know, like I'm a parent and so I like, you know, I'm out and about and I have my my kid with me and it's like I want to get him a smoothie.
And it has blueberries in it and I'm like but it also has a banana and I'm like but you know, there's been studies on children as well and giving children blueberries improves their their cognition. So they they perform better on like tests. You know, it's not just good for adults. It's like throughout the lifespan. And so now I have to like tell them. Okay, don't put the banana but like everywhere you go. There's a banana in this smooth. So
that's interesting. I'm gonna give you my smoothie recipe after you can create it, but I'm going to switch out the banana starting tomorrow. Okay, so we have kale leaves avocado frozen blueberries and protein powder. So, um
protein powder, especially if I'm doing it like you said first thing in the morning when I'm in a sometimes, I'll have my smoothie in the afternoon in which case like if I didn't work out and I've already gotten my protein like I won't put the protein powder but these days I'm mostly always putting them to be honest. I'm like doing something every day. And so and I just it's hard to get the protein requirement for me. So I usually do um some whey protein,
And then I also add a little bit of hydrolyzed collagen powder as well. If you're getting the protein you probably don't need the hydrolyzed collagen powder. But there I personally there's studies showing that um randomized control trials showing that it improves like skin elasticity and you know things that I'm also interested in addition, uh with respect to skin. I mean, there's all sorts of studies also showing it helps with joint health and this and that and then the other thing I add is I do a little bit of Moringa powder.
So Moringa, it's high in some micronutrients. Like it has things like zinc and iron and magnesium but it also has something in it that is called um mingun.
And it is a phytochemical that is very similar to sulfur which is found in like broccoli broccoli Sprouts. It's really high in broccoli sprouts and it activates genetic Pathways in our body the same ones that sulphurine activates.
That have been shown to increase antioxidants in the brain, like glutathione that have been shown to lower DNA damage in our cells all sorts of benefits, but the other thing that it does and I've noticed this so I used to wear a continuous glucose monitor like
for years,
it blunts the postprandial glucose rise from a smoothie when I put Moringa powder in it.
And so I put that in my smoothie as well. Now that's a little spicy tasting I would say.
If you're like in 1 of those moods where you don't want the like like not so great tasting smoothie, you know, you can skip the moringa or go go for a smaller amount, but I do like a big heaping tablespoon of it.
Do you use like a liquid and then I add some water? Yeah water. Okay
to kind of mix it up.
That's pretty cool. I'm going to give you my smoothie. You can give me a grade on this and keep in mind. I'm a parent uh of 2 boys who devour food so we came up with this and I've never told anybody that the exact recipe before but here here's basically what it is.
And we call it the Tom Brady. It's got protein powder in it. It's got ag1. It's got walnuts. It's got blueberries yogurt almond milk, but like real almond milk. No other additives or anything banana chia seeds and hemp seeds.
Yes, you're going for the the the the kind of Omega-3 that's in those plant sources like walnuts and chia seeds. Um is Allah. Okay and um, we were talking a lot about the EPA and DHA which are from the Marine sources Allah. I mean now walnuts are great. There's like studies showing like if you eat a handful of walnuts a day or you know, you have lower cancer risk and cardiovascular disease risk. They're clearly good for you. They're not the same as the EP and DHA so don't substitute. I'll tell you you can so your body does convert ala from plant sources of Omega-3 into EPA and DHA, which is essentially what you're the final products that you need are.
But everybody does it differently.
And the conversion efficiency is about 5%
Okay
now women when they're making when they're high in estrogen that can go up really that can go up much higher and um, I think that's because because during pregnancy and and child development in utero. The the DHA is so important that your body makes sure you're just turning all that Allah into that that DHA because when you're pregnant your estrogen level, it's like a 100 fold higher. It's like super high if there are people that are relying on just plant sources of Omega-3 that is a mistake and if you do an omega-3 index test and there's you know, Omega Quant is probably 1 of the best places to do that. Um, then you'll figure you'll figure that out really quick that
okay. Well, yeah. Well, this is great. Right? So like what would we supplement? Here? We we take out the bananas and because they're counteracting the blueberries we'd add to avocado. That's a lot of fat in there. What else would we like take out?
Or add or or switch, what would you say?
So so you're you're doing the AG greens as your source of green?
Uh, I'm doing that as sort of like the base vitamin because they have a daily multivitamin and I just count that
as their daily meal. That's their daily multivitamin. Okay, but what what did you add any greens in there? I didn't
know there's no green.
So that would be that would be something.
That I would like add some sneak some kale leaves in. Oh my God, if they saw that they wouldn't drink it.
No, don't let them see or
part of it. So I put
Leaves in in my sons, um or even romaine lettuce. Here's the other thing. So there's really not a lot of foods that can go into a smoothie that would degrade the polyphenols because they're high in that enzyme polyphenol oxidase, but the ones that are are bananas and beets and anything in that family. So like charred I used to put shard in my smoothie like like Swiss chard, you know, like they're so it's so good and look these are great foods to eat. Like just don't put them on
your smoothie with blueberries blueberries. Just not with blueberries
exactly. Um, so I I mean, I used to put chart in my smoothie and like this this like changed my world. I was like, this is unbelievable. Like I can't, you know, thankfully. I stopped doing the banana and my smoothie quite a in fact, I just kind of just got lazy and it was like, okay kale. I just need like a base of like greens, you know what I mean thankfully like years ago. So even though this study just kind of came out
Last year, I've I've been
ahead of I wish I I knew that they're going to blame me for their poor test results. Now, they're going to be it's like, you know, you sent us to school with blueberries and bananas dad. Like what were you thinking
are they are they Physically Active cardio respiratory Fitness is another thing that's like it correlates with academic performance. So like the better fit the child is like they they score better on a lot of academic tests as well. So,
okay. I want to get to Fitness in a sec. I want to cover a sort of grass-fed and then he can cold exposure and then we we can dive into fitness grass-fed non-graded. Is there a difference I see this everywhere between grass-fed butter. Non- grass-fed butter grass-fed beef non grass-fed beef. Is there a difference from a a consumer point of view in terms of what I'm ingesting
there? There's slight differences. There are definitely um, so we were just talking about the omega-3 profile. So I would say 1 of the biggest differences is the omega-3 and then the omega-6 profile in let's talk about meat like grass-fed, you know,
Cows that are grass-fed versus not so what I mean by that is like they're getting that plant source of Omega-3 ala that that plant source of Omega-3. They're getting if they're they're eating like grass, right? They're getting it from from the plants that they're eating and they're also not getting as much of what would be a type of food that is higher in omega-6.
So this would be like if they're being fed corn for example or corn you know oil is processed kind of like pellets or whatever, you know, if you're eating, you know, for example ground beef from a just conventional cow, then you're going to have a lot more of the omega-6 and less of the omega-3.
I never thought about this before but like you just said like we're not supposed to eat processed foods, but then we're eating animals that are eating processed foods.
Yeah again, this goes back to my take on nutrition and how to and thinking about the framework of how to eat first and foremost. I think the most important thing is how do I get these important vitamins and minerals and fatty acids and amino acids like protein. How do I get all those right? Okay. I'm getting I'm getting an idea of how I should be eating and then it comes the next layer.
Do I need to have organic or you know is a little bit of pesticides? Okay. Do I need to eat grass-fed or you know because at the end of the day food's expensive
Yeah, totally and way more expensive now than years ago.
Exactly. It's it's it's even worse now. And so I do think it is better. If you can
you can afford it great if you can if not, don't worry about it.
If if you if you if not, like the most important thing is what if you're eating conventional meat and you're getting a little bit higher omega-6. Well, if you're supplementing with fish oil over day who cares you're getting that getting the omega-3 is what is most important it's and people are so focused on oh, but the omega-6 is so high when your body actually needs omega-6. So if you're getting it from like, you know dietary sources versus like oils processed cooking oils and stuff. And even that look I don't cook with vegetable oil. I don't use vegetable oil at all. However, I'm going to be frank. Okay, when you look at the data taking people that are eating like a high saturated fat diet. So they're eating more like butter.
Uh, you know saturated fat like coconut oil and substituting that with vegetable oil. There's no effect in their cardiovascular disease risk, or they do better. You can look at this 2 ways. You can say. Oh, well, if it's the same saturated fat versus vegetable oil, then clearly saturated fats not as bad as we thought it was that's true. But the second way you can look at it is oh
The substituted the saturated fat with the vegetable oil and it wasn't any worse. So maybe the vegetable isn't killing us as bad as we thought and this is the 1.0 because
I still don't use them because when I think about it from like my mechanistic brain point of view, it's like well vegetable oil is very high in polyunsaturated fat. Like we talked about Omega-3s being a type of a poly they're prone to oxidation and when you add heat into the picture
boom that's like tons of oxidation perhaps in those studies where there are substituting saturated fat for vegetable where they putting vegetable oil on salads or where they
Frying it deep frying and you know, like consuming oxidized lipids. Like we don't really know it. It's still better. You're still better off avoiding the vegetable oil particularly for cooking like in anything that's with heat, you know, and then I mean obviously processed foods have tons of vegetable oil, but that have been cooked at a high heat when you go out to eat. I mean like those restaurants are using vegetable oil. It's cheaper. They're probably reusing it which is even more oxidized right? I mean, these are things like you don't want to think about it. You'll just never go out. I mean like you have to like enjoy life right
practically totally like let's not like
you can't obsess over everything or like you become like a maniac
1 thing we can all afford is vitamin D and we're all sort of lacking in that walk me through sort of um.
How we can get that the difference between sunlight and supplementation as well as the effect of sunscreen on our absorption of uh vitamin D and is sunscreen actually killing us more than just being in the sun.
So vitamin D food is not a great source of it. Like you can find like it's it is fortified in some fatty foods. Unfortunately. It's fortified with the wrong form. It's fortified with D2 rather than D3 which is what we make in our our scan from the Sun the primary source of it is as you mentioned, it's from the Sun and specifically its UVB radiation from the Sun that is really important because UVB radiation only occurs during certain times of the year in regions where you're more Northern. So for example in Canada, you're not making vitamin D a good, you know, 4 or 5 months out of the year. It's very it's very challenging to make a lot of vitamin D from being out in the sun.
Summertime, you know different lots of VB UVB radiation, right? So you need to be in the Sun and you need to be at a certain time of year depending on where you live it all there's lots of things.
You mentioned sunscreen as well. There's a lot of factors that are that are involved in.
You know the ability to produce vitamin D3 in the skin from the UVB radiation and that has to do with sunscreen. So anything that blocks out UVB radiation is going to block out the ability to make vitamin D. Um, melanin the the pigmentation that is like a sunscreen its natural sunscreen and people that some people have like in some regions of the world that are certainly more equatorial that is also a natural sunscreen. It blocks out UVB radiation, which is why your body responds when you're in the sun your body tends because it's like, oh next time. I'm in the sun. I need to protect myself. It's a it's an adaptation the other thing that regulates the production of vitamin D3 from the Sun is age the older you get the worse the the the less I would say your body. Is it making vitamin D3 from the Sun? So for example a 70 year old makes like 4 times less than their 20 year old former self.
Bioavailability of vitamin D3 is important as well. And that's regulated by body mass and weight. So so you make vitamin D3 in your skin, but it gets released into your bloodstream. Then it's converted into another form. That is actually not a vitamin. It's a steroid hormone. So vitamin D is actually much more important. It's not just a vitamin. It's actually a hormone that our body needs so B. So basically the more body fat you have the less bioavailable vitamin D3 is and so you actually need more vitamin D3 the more body weight the more body fat that you have. So this hormone is is extremely important because it is regulating about 5% of the human genome the protein encoding Human Genome. So it's a lot it's doing a lot of things and you can imagine so what it does there's actually little sequins inside of our our DNA in you know, it's it's a little repeat sequence that vitamin D recognizes.
And it like this whole complex of vitamin D in a receptor goes down and binds that little sequence of DNA and it turns on a gene or it turns off a gene and it does it in a very coordinated Manner and when you don't have enough vitamin D.
That stuff all goes wrong. And and so lots of things can can happen because of sunscreen because of our modern-day Lifestyles where inside technology we're on our computers less less farming less agricultural work out in the sun. Majority of people are not getting enough vitamin D3. And so, um something around 70% of the US population is insufficient in vitamin D3. So that that is defined as having blood levels of vitamin D less than 30 nanograms per milliliter and then a another percentage of the population is deficient. So they'd be less than 20 nanograms per milliliter,
but we've been told like not to go outside. We've been told to you know layer up the sunscreen we've been I mean are these things getting in the way of vitamin D. Are they helping us? What?
How do we make sense of all this?
Let's not like let's get be clear like you you if you have you know fair skin and you're going out in the sun a lot, then you can increase your risk for DNA damage and you know skin cancer is 1 like for example, Australia Australia's like like the the melanoma cancer is like through the roof and in Australia and melanoma is like the worst type of skin cancer to get you know, there's a lot of fair skinned people living there in Australia is very close to the equator, you know, there's this definitely many months out of the Year where you're just lots and lots of UVB radiation. But um people that were sort of native to that region had darker, um skin they had more melanin and so the solution to people that are more fair skinned living in Australia is actually sunscreen and a hat and um and a vitamin D3 supplement.
Yeah, the the the question is, where do you find the balance? Right like how much sun exposure is enough and do I need to supplement and do I have to wear sunscreen and I think that all depends on a variety of factors. It isn't like a 1 size fits all it's like okay. Well, where do you live? Do you live? You know in Southern California? Like where I do? Do you live in Australia? Uh, do you live in Canada? Those are those are all factors to keep in mind and then just measuring vitamin D levels, where am I at then then you can go. Okay. Well clearly, I don't wear sunscreen. I don't go out in the sun a lot because I'm indoor work. I work inside a lot. So, you know, even without the sunscreen I'm still not, you know, getting enough vitamin D3. So you have to kind of measure something. So is there a difference like if I go out and buy a vitamin
D3 supplement, uh, is there a difference between that and the Sun and then do I want to take that with anything I notice I think athletic greens includes vitamin K with that is that for?
The bioavailability
know it's not for the bioavailability.
Let's let's let's address your questions because they're really great questions, um differences between sun exposure and supplemental form again, um vitamin D3 supplemental form which is which is key. So the differences between vitamin D3 from the Sun versus supplemental. Yes, there's differences. So like let's let's say your um, your like in like sub Sahara Africa where you're like, so close to the equator and you just, you know, you can make vitamin D, you know 3 from the Sun and you're out in the sun. Let's say you're like a a Bushmen or something out there all the time.
There's been studies that have measured the levels of people that are like Aboriginal to these equatorial regions like Bushman and Subs here in Africa and their natural vitamin D levels are something like anywhere between 80 to 100 nanograms per mil, but they don't really go above that.
And the reason is because your body senses like the vitamin D levels and when you're still being exposed to the Sun instead of converting it into like vitamin D3 it like converts it into this other metabolites. So it's like it's like, okay, we're putting the the brakes on this we're not going to do anymore. If you're taking a supplement and you don't measure anything like you can let's say you're taking like an insane number like there's there's upper limits that have been sort of identified as the safe amount to supplement with vitamin D3 every day. So like The Institute of medicine in the United States has set that as 4,000 IUS a day. That doesn't mean you can't go above that. That's just the the safe upper limit where you're not going to have any toxicity effects.
But like let's say you're taking like a 100 thousand IUS a day like way over 4,000 right? I mean those natural mechanisms aren't going to kick in and the skin that like they do when the when you you're being exposed to a lot of UB radiation and your your body's like, oh I have enough vitamin D3, so I'm going to you know, stop.
So, um, you can over supplement with vitamin D3. It is fat soluble and it can be toxic. It's challenging to do like you would have to take something like
100 thousand I use you know or something a day for like a year and the biggest effect is um vitamin D3 can you can make your calcium more bioavailable. So we're talking about bioavailability of other minerals. Um, calcium is much more bioavailable in the presence of vitamin D. So you absorb about 40% more calcium from your diet. If you have adequate levels of vitamin D 1 concern is well if I have a lot of vitamin D and I'm taking calcium then maybe I'm going to get hypercalcemia right too much calcium in the bloodstream. There are studies that have shown it's in it's exceedingly high doses that you have to do for a long time to get that but um, that is the concern with with taking too much vitamin D3 is that you're going to get too much calcium in your blood which can have acute toxicity effects, but also long-term effects with calcification of you know, your arteries and your vascular system because calcium can form a precipitate really easy. That's that's the concern and you mentioned
Your your athletic greens so they put vitamin K2 in there which is so I mentioned vitamin K1 which is found in leafy greens and it's invo involved in blood coagulation. So clotting which when you take in Your Greens you make you're getting the vitamin K 1 it goes to the liver and it activates all those coagulation proteins blood for blood clotting.
When you get enough of that from the greens it it stays in circulation and it does exactly what vitamin K2 does which is activates proteins that are involved in shuttling calcium out of your vascular system and bringing it to your bones bringing it to your muscle where you want calcium to be and not in your vascular system where it can form a precipitate and then a plaque but I want to mention 1 other thing because you did say bioavailability and its related and it has to do with magnesium we were talking about it's a co-actor for enzymes like DNA repair. I didn't talk about a really important 1 it's it's actually a co-actor for both enzymes that convert vitamin D3 into the circulating form of vitamin D that we go and we measure it's called 25 hydroxy vitamin D and then eventually into the active steroid hormone. And so there's been studies showing that people that don't get enough magnesium, even if they're getting enough vitamin D. Even if they're supplementing with it. They won't convert it into the steroid hormone. It's a hormone that we need I as I mentioned half of the US population doesn't get enough.
Magnesium, so if you're not getting that magnesium that that's a problem. So something like athletic greens does have magnesium in it. I think but also if you're doing greens, right that's like a really good source of magnesium as well. So you want to make sure you have your magnesium covered especially for the Vitamin D as well because they work together. You need them both.
Let's switch gears and talk about uh, a framework for approaching, uh, deliberate heat and possibly deliberate cold exposure
deliberate heat exposure. I want
say deliberate heat. It's it's really, you know, you're you're going into a hot environment. Right? So you're you're going to do something like a hot sauna, uh steam room a hot bath something that is either the ambient temperature of the room is elevated or the the water and your body is like, you know submerged in the water, right? What does that do? Well, that is actually
Kicking on uh, physiological response that is in in many ways very similar to moderate intensity aerobic exercise because when you are when you're exposed to this deliberate heat exposure when you're exposed to the ambient, you know increases in temperature.
Your elevating your core body temperature, which is what's happening with physical activity your heart rate increases your plasma flow increases. Um, your stroke volume increases all these things that are happening during physical exercise are happening during this deliberate heat exposure. And so there's like, there's like a a somewhat of a I would say mimicking effect of moderate intensity aerobic exercise and there's actually been studies that have compared that head-to-head. So they've looked at being on a stationary cycle doing, you know, not not anything crazy, but like 120 watts.
And then comparing that to sitting in a sauna for 20 minutes doing each of those for 20 minutes and they were comparable in terms of heart rate elevation during the physical activity or during the heat exposure. Um, the changes in blood pressure during the activity and then the improvements after so blood pressure improved after the stationary cycling blood pressure improved after the deliberate heat exposure heart rate, resting heart rate improved after the stationary cycling and resting heart rate improved after the delivery heat exposure. Certainly, it's important for people that are disabled people that can't go for a run or a jog or even get on a bike but it's also important for the population. I think of people that won't get on a bike or go for a run or they would rather just feel like they're sitting in a spa and um, and and at the very least or maybe people that are just so add adverse. There are people that are so adverse to cardiovascular exercise.
That if you can just get them into a sauna and we can talk about parameters in a minute. But like if you can get them into something that's sort of at least mimicking the modern intensity cardiovascular exercise and they're getting those those adaptations those cardiovascular adaptations that they would get with at least a little mild to moderate intensity exercise that's going to be beneficial in in the long run as well.
And then it's also beneficial for people that are Physically Active. You might go well, why is that so being Physically Active like being aerobically active doing aerobic exercise 1 of the the best benefits is it improves what's called cardio respiratory Fitness and that's probably 1 of the I would say 1 of the best biomarkers of longevity, like like concrete things that you can measure its measured by by measuring something called VO2 max. It's the maximum out of oxygen you can take in during maximal exercise.
Cardiovascular exercise improves that particularly if you're doing a high intensity, um exercise training things that are like high intensity interval training for example is 1 of the best ways to improve it, especially if you're doing longer intervals of like at least a minute. So there's been 2 types of studies observational data looking at people that just routinely exercise or people that routinely exercise and do the sauna and then they they measured these, you know, there there was measurements of cardiorespiratory Fitness and it was pretty clear that people that routinely exercised and routinely did the sauna had I better cut a respiratory Fitness than people that only routinely exercise in other words. There was a benefit to do sauna on top of the exercise, right and then there's been intervention studies where it's like, okay, we're going to take people give them an exercise workout. Uh, I think it was the stationary bike and then right after that exercise workout. They're either going to just do passive recovery, or they're going to go into a sauna and recover for 15 minutes.
I forgot how many weeks it was something like on the order of 4 weeks or something like that. They measured cardiorespiratory Fitness in a variety of other biomarkers like lipids like LDL total cholesterol blood pressure things like that while there was improvements obviously with exercise the ones that did exercise plus the sauna had an even greater Improvement in the cardio respiratory Fitness. So they're va2 Max was improved even more than exercise alone. They also had greater improvements in blood pressure and greater improvements in their lipid numbers and things like that. So there was every reason to add uh deliberate heat exposure on top of exercise as well.
You're the reason I have a sauna. I think I first came across your work and you had this like 70 page, uh website on the benefits of a sauna and I remember like skimming the first like 3 pages of it going. I really need a sauna and so you're the reason I have us on it, but when we say doing the sauna,
Like what what what does that mean in terms of temperature in terms of duration is a hot tub the same as the sauna talk to me about that.
So a lot of the studies that have been done on sauna have come out of Finland where they're using Finnish from us, which are generally speaking it it would be what I would call like
It's it's a regular sauna where you have like an electric heater with some rocks that are hot, um in in Finland, they often use water and they pour it on the hot rocks. And so there's a humidity aspect there any anywhere between 10 to 20% from humidity. So a lot of the observational studies and intervention studies showing like I just mentioned 1 about BO2 Max improvements blood pressure improvements. They're they're done in Finland and a lot of those parameters used generally speaking are you know regular saunas about 175 degrees Fahrenheit and 10 to 20% humidity the average time spent in this sauna.
Is about 20 minutes for the for the benefits to really be I would say that robust and and then that there's frequency right. So like how often do you do it and so there have been a variety of studies that have looked at all cause mortality so D. So so, you know dying early from all causes that are non accidental and then looking at cardiovascular related mortality mortality like dying from a heart attack for example, and people that are more more frequently using the sauna that's a dose dependent effect. So people that use this on a for example 2 to 3 times a week have a 24% lower all cause mortality compared to people that only use it 1 time a week, but people that use it for to 7 times a week have a 40% lower all cause mortality compared to people that only use it 1 time a week. So in other words, it seems like the minimal effective dose to get the most robust effect would be 4 times a week and the same goes for other parameters. So cardiovascular dying.
you know cardiovascular related mortality. It's 50% lower in people that use this on a 4 to 7 times a week compared to 1 time a week. Whereas if you're only doing it 2 to 3 times a week. It's something like 27% lower and when I said duration in the sauna, it's really important to those studies were also done looking at okay, let's say people are only staying in the sauna for 11 minutes versus like greater than 19 minutes. So like 20 minutes, right?
Um, they didn't have that robust 50% reduction in all sorry in cardiovascular related mortality if they only stayed in for 11 minutes, it was much less. It was a little bit like it was improved but it was not 50% the temperature and the duration and the frequency. Those are 3 parameters that are important with respect to to using you know, a regular hot sauna and when I say I the reason I say regular hot sauna is because another type of sauna that's very popular are Infrareds on us and infrared saunas.
Do not get as hot. So they're not warming the ambient air around you they're working through another mechanism and they're sort of like moving molecules inside your body around and and sort of heating you up in a different way. And you do sweat a lot and you do get your you can get your core body temperature elevated particularly. If you stay in quite a long time, you do have to to keep in mind that you can't take those parameters and go I'm going to stay in 145 degree infrared sauna for only 20 minutes because that's what those finish Studies have shown because they're completely different if you're just staying in for 20 minutes like the same amount of time in each. You're not going to get those blood pressure improvements from an infrared sauna, which makes sense. It's not as hot, right, you're not it takes longer to elevate that Core Body to get your heart rate elevated. And anyone that's done. Like I've done a lot of infrared sauna and I've done a lot of regular hot sauna and you know, I know and also wearing a heart rate monitor, right? You can wear like your Fitbit or your whoop or whatever in in,
Into the sauna and you'll you'll know when your heart rate starts to get elevated and it's not going to be after 20 minutes in an infrared sauna.
For me, I have to stay in like 45 like I'd say 60 Minutes is more like the duration that I would have to stay in to start to get more elevations in my heart rate. Um again, that's that mimicking of the modern intensity exercise, but there's also biomarkers that have been measured. So for example, um, we haven't gone gone into this yet, but heat shock proteins. These are 1 of the adaptations that happen when your body is forced, um to increase its core body temperature whether that's through physical activity, which is making you hot and making you sweat or if it's deliberate heat exposure and Studies have been done looking at people that go into a relatively hot sauna. So this would be a 163 degree Fahrenheit sauna if they stay in for 30 minutes, they can raise their heat check proteins about 50% over their Baseline levels and heat shock proteins have a lot of beneficial effects. So they they're involved with preventing proteins from aggregating and forming plaques, uh in the brain and the vascular system.
They also are very important for preventing muscle atrophy. And there have now been studies that have been done showing that just even locally heating, you know, so the studies that have been done have been like they're called immobilization studies where they're sort mimicking an injury or an event. Like let's say you go and like an older person goes into the hospital. They have the flu whatever they're they're basically immobilized for a period of weeks. And so they're not using their muscles and their muscles were atrophying at a rapid rate Studies have been done where if you if you apply even just local heat that you can cut that disuse atrophy by as much as 40% So heat shock proteins are a good biomarker for heat stress. So is increased heart rate we talked about like you're getting up to 1101 120. You can get up to 120 beats per minute, um sitting in the hot sauna and that's really an indication that your core body temperature is being elevated your your body is doing that work and you can elevate your heat shock proteins by being submerged from the shoulders down for about 20 minutes and about 104 degree Fahrenheit water.
which is a standard hot tub level. I do think there are.
Comparable effects with respect to the modality of heat exposure whether we're talking about a hot sauna or a hot bath perhaps an infrared sauna again, the duration the parameters will change the parameters will change but I do think that you can find comparable effects. There are personal preferences at play. Like I I like both hot tub and hot sauna. I find that I cheat more with a hot tub. Like I'm like more prone to put my arms out when I get really hot when I'm in the sauna like there's nowhere to go right like like if I if I'm getting hot then I have to get out and then I'm like, oh I'm giving up like mentally I'm like, no, I'm not going to give up but if I'm in the hot tub, I don't feel like I'm giving up when I'm just like getting my arms out.
There's an immune benefit too like your immune system, isn't
there there is yeah, so there was um, there have been some observational data studies as well looking at like pneumonia risk. It's I think it was something like 40% lower in people that use the sauna 4 to 7 times a week and there have been a lot of really early studies on. Um, again, these are coming out of Finland where there's humidity so, you know, there's steam involved as well. You're you're you're working your cardiovascular system. I mean, the lungs are affected and I don't know all the the mechanisms and I don't know that they've all been worked out but there is some sort of benefit on the lugs and also just the immune system as well. It seems like immune changes happen as well. And it's funny. I do get into the sauna when I'm feeling
A little under the weather or even if I am sick it because I find it's easier than getting on my pelaton. I I get in there and I'll do the Steam and I feel so much better. I feel so much better.
It's like, uh, there's my my grandmother or grandfather used to tell me like sweat it out and there's almost like something true to that when you are feeling sick.
Absolutely. So when you are sick, you get a fever and the fever responds your your core body temperature is elevated and heat shock proteins are activated and heat shock proteins do play a role in what is called the in in the innate immune response. So that's the immune response that you have when you've never seen a virus or a bacterial pathogen before it's that like
It's not the antibody response. It's that like, okay, let's fire away and get so heat shock proteins do play a role in that and um when you are getting in the sauna when you're doing some form of deliberate heat exposure, you are elevating your core body temperature. And so the fever response is a very important part of our immune way our immune system's way of um, dealing with the pathogen right? It's important like we get a fever for a reason. The reason I actually got into the sauna way back in like 2009 had nothing to do with cardiovascular effects or you know, even the effects on on muscle mass. But um,
It was the effects on my mood and that was you know, I was very stressed out in graduate school. And this was like 2009 and I was using the sauna every morning before I would go into the lab and do my experiments that would often fail is very stressful and um, I started to notice quite quickly that I was able to handle that stress a lot better. I was just I was like, I wasn't getting so depressed after and so like down and anxious and um, and that's when I was like something is going on here like it was very noticeable for me. And so then I started to look into the literature and come up with my own sort of theories, which um, I connecting the dots where I I actually did publish on this back in 2022. It's in my huge review article on the sauna. It's called how sauna or sauna use can increase health span and I think it has to do with when you get into this sauna again, you're mimicking a lot of the same effects that cardiovascular exercise. And so you're you're releasing a lot of endorphins as well. Those are the feel-good opioids that were released in our brain, but what's really interesting.
Is that also the opposite of endorphin is called dinorphia?
Cools down your body. So it's playing a role in it's like, okay, you're you're getting you're elevating your core body temperature. And so the Adaptive response is okay. We need to cool down somewhat dorfin plays a role in that but it also is what's responsible for that uncomfortable feeling when you're like, oh, I'm so hot. I want to get out when you release Doran. You have a response a feedback loop in your brain where dorfin causes your body to make more receptors to the feel-good Endorphin and it sensitizes their those receptors and it makes sense. If you think about it, right when your body is not feeling good and you're getting that uncomfortable feeling it wants to make sure that it's going to counter that with feeling good.
Yeah,
the next time you make endorphins from a hug from your child or a joke you laugh at whatever you're going to feel even better because you're going to be more sensitive to those to those endorphins from those. Um, it's called mu opioid receptors and that's what you make when you increase endorphin anyways, but now there's lots more research coming out so work from Dr. Charles raison and now um his prochet
Dr. Ashley Mason, it's it's a type of sauna. That's like a it's like a bed and it's a chamber with the head out. And so your whole body is in it. They are elevating your core body temperature to about 101.3 degrees Fahrenheit. So you're getting a fever. They're inducing a feverish response. Now many people have to be into in this sauna and it it's an infrared that gets up to about 1:45 or something like that and they're in there for like 60 minutes and you 50 minutes to 60 minutes and they're getting they're getting a feverish response. So it's not it's a it's a very intense procedure and but they induce this feverous response 101.3 Fahrenheit just 1 time and people with like major depressive disorder.
And um they or they did a sham control where they made them feel like they were getting hot but it like wasn't hot enough and the people that got the active treatment had an anti-depressant effect that lasted like 6 weeks after it was like enormous and crazy placebo group didn't get it at all.
It's amazing what our body can do to heal itself when you know, we're not sort of always injecting it with stuff too. There's all these other ways to go about healing it. It's almost like it knows what it's doing. Sometimes
it does. I I agree with I mean, it's it's it's so exciting to potentially have a non-pharmacological treatment for depression because it's undeniable that doing aerobic exercise. Like they've compared running to classical antidepressants like SSRI so serotonin and um reuptake Inhibitors, right the the in terms of the anti-depressant effects. It's like the same only the running has all the other benefits, right? There's people that are really severely depressed that like just can't even get out of bed.
Yeah,
like they're not going to go for a run and it's true. There are people that will not get out of bed. But will they get into a sauna?
Yeah.
I mean it's it's a lot easier and so it really opens up doors that are just it's just so exciting
super promising as we age too for the Aging population. A lot of people who don't want to exercise when they get a lot of
Folder or the you know, the aches and pains and maybe it's a low intensity way to do that. I can say for myself during coid was probably the you know 1 of the most stressful periods of my life and the sauna like, you know, I think it saved my life a lot. You know what I mean? Like it I was using the sauna 5 6 times a week and it was just sort of like a it was mentally grounding. It was something I look forward to is a great ritual but it sort of kept me out of trouble for some reason and I could never explain it and I'm an N of 1 and you know, I'm not super scientific and all that but I was like, this is working. This is keeping me like happy and going and motivated and I got to keep doing more of this because uh, yeah, it was really crazy. I want to talk about exercise. Uh, maybe we'll do that in part 2 because I don't think we're going to do it justice here in the next 10 minutes, but maybe we can end with sort of the top.
3
Uh interventions, you can think of from a diet perspective and then the top 3 interventions you can think of from a behavioral perspective that would have the biggest bang on people's lives. Diet-wise like the top 3
Things that people can think about would be to make sure they're getting enough of their Marine source of Omega-3. So supplementing with 2 grams of a pretty decent quality fish brand fish oil brand per day and that's so it's like low hanging fruit and then I would say vitamin D3 most people, uh, 4,000 I use is a pretty safe bet and and that you're you know, I think that at the very least doing 4,000 IUS A Day vitamin D3 as you mentioned, it's like the cheapest supplement. It's something like a penny a pill it's like the most affordable thing, um, you know to do and then um, making sure you're eating your greens and getting your protein. So like the magnet Thinking about the magnesium and then the the 1.2 grams per kilogram body weight a day are are are like the biggest bang for your buck I think and then with respect to behavioral exercise and particularly doing a good amount of high-intensity exercise and we didn't get so much in.
it, but it really is 1 of the most important things that you can do. I mean there's studies showing that people just doing 1 to 3 minutes of like getting their heart rate up to 80% max heart rate for like 1 to 1 to 3 minutes, you know, 3 times a week is associated with like a 50% reduction in all cause mortality and cancer related mortality. So it's easy to do like you can do that right? You can just get up and do 3 minutes, you know, like it's not it's not that challenging.
also, I mean resistance training and muscle mass super important like you need to be you need to be building that muscle mass and maintaining it because Frailty, um, you know, you get to a point when you start to get older and all of a sudden you have an event where you're you got the influenza, whatever and then you start to you're not working out you lose so much muscle and you get a couple of those stacked on over a couple of years and then all of a sudden you can't walk
Your Mobility goes down and then it's just the curve just drops. Right? So, um resistance training is extremely important. And if you're doing those 2 things you're probably going to be you know, maintaining a healthy body weight because at the end of the day calories in calories out doesn't matter, right? So if you're doing the exercise and the resistance training, um, and you're kind of focusing on like getting the the proper micronutrients from your veggies and protein intake, you're probably not going to be eating all the the junk but then on top on the last thing I would say, um behavioral wise I would I would add I would add sauna in or deliberate heat exposure. I think I think that's huge for um, a lot of reasons, you know for the cardiovascular reasons, there's there's mental health effects as we talked about. There's also other brain effects, um dementia risk is lower as well and then muscle atrophy. You can do the deliberate heat exposure to help prevent muscle atrophy as well. So I think those are the 3 behavioral
Changes and by the way exercise can forgive a lot of sins including lack of sleep. That's why I start with that and and and I I don't make the Sleep the most important. I actually think it's exercise.
So
we're gonna have to have you on for part 2 because I really want to dive into both resistance training and cardiovascular exercise with you, but this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for your time.
Well, I look forward to around to Shane and thank you for all the great questions. It's been a lot of fun.
Wow, what a fun conversation that was with Dr. Rhonda Patrick, and I just want to go through some of my takeaways and notes from this 1. Uh, you know, I think the big overarching message that we got across today is that
A lot of people focus on the micro and if you notice Veronica kept bringing back to the macro and I don't mean in terms of nutrients. I mean in terms of what we focus on we're we're overly focused on these little minute things because they're really within our control and we want to feel uh, like we're doing something when in reality there's these big things that we're not focused on that. Nobody's really arguing about so you might argue whether seed oils bad for you. I think it is, uh or not but at the end of the day, you know, are we getting the right? Um magnesium are we getting folate? Are we getting Omega-3s? How are we positioning ourselves? And this is how I think about food personally. It's the this is 1 of the reasons. I'm exploring this with with Dr. Rhonda Patrick and you know, some other guests is the food that you put into your body is sort of a lead Domino for a whole bunch of other things. It affects your mood. It affects your energy. It affects how you handle stress. It affects how you handle your emotions.
It really dictates a lot of what comes Downstream and so paying attention to the food in your body is a really good way to take control of your life. It's a really small thing you can do to put yourself on easy mode every day. We didn't get in to talking about sugars. We didn't talk about oils too much. I really wanted to get into that also really wanted to get into exercise routines and talk about that. Uh, but I think we'll try to do that in the next episode. We'll definitely do a part 2 of this. Um, I did take away sort of like, you know, uh, grass-fed was better if you can afford it. If not don't stress over it same as organic if you can afford it great. If you can't don't stress over it. And again, uh, if you had to pick and choose I loved her historic using thin and Si thick skin as the way to pick and choose If you're sort of like, oh I want to do some organic and and not all uh, I liked her approach to sort of washing veggies. It's very practical and pragmatic.
You know, it doesn't have to be sort of the uh, Instagram that you see of the vinegar and the baking soda and the water and soaking it for 15 minutes.
I liked uh, the very end when we talked about sort of like here are 3 behavioral interventions that you can do that really make a difference. Uh, and here are 3 sort of supplement dietary things. And again, they were fish oil, uh, vitamin D3 greens and protein and then high intensity exercise, um, resistance training and Sonu, which I really like um in part because I'm biased I have a sauna and I think that that makes a big difference it made a big difference for me during co uh, I think it's made a big difference for other people, um that I've talked to you and 1 thing we didn't talk about was sleep. And I know a friend of mine Andrew Woodson has 1 and he says it really really drives his sleep. I don't know if it helps me sleep. Sometimes I get in there and I I nap to be honest with you. I like talking about the smoothie and if you remember she had a smoothie recipe and it was sort of like 4K leaves avocado frozen blueberries, which she actually went out of the way.
To say a ton of frozen blueberries protein powder collagen powder and there was that Moringa powder and water and then we talked about my smoothie the 1 that I make with the kids and how I was unintentionally adding bananas and blueberries together and sort of undoing the amazing effect of blueberries. And uh, I'm going to switch. I'm going to try to switch it out and see what the kids think or even if they notice switch out the banana put in avocado. Um, but again in my we call it the Tom Brady it was protein ag1 walnuts blueberries yogurt almond milk. Uh, I'm going to switch out the banana chia seeds and hemp seeds. If you want to uh hemp seeds are a really good sort of um source of extra calories and fat for uh for the kids if you are trying to get them to eat more which you know, I have 1 kid who eats a lot and 1 kid who doesn't eat a lot. Um, so I'm always trying to get more nutrient-dense food into both of them. Uh, what else do we talked about? We
Sort of talked about the Sun and sunscreen and and so circumstantial there's not a lot of take away from that, uh other than you know, when you're out in the sun be careful about what you're you're sort of uh, putting on your skin and also, um, be careful about how much sun you are getting. You don't want to get sunburned and yeah, I just uh, really thank you guys for listening and if you have any questions or follow-ups just send me an email Shane at fsop and what I'll do is I'll also like create a little sheet and we can make a questions for follow-up for Round 2. We're definitely going to do this again.
I really appreciate you taking the time to
listen and learn with me as you can see. This is my journey and uh, I'm learning along with you. So I really appreciate it.
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