#1842 - Andrew Huberman

[0] Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

[1] The Joe Rogan Experience.

[2] Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[3] All right, here we go.

[4] What's up, man?

[5] Great to see you.

[6] Good to see you, too.

[7] So we were just talking about Ari blacking out, trying to keep up with Shane Gillis, who is a superhuman drinker.

[8] It's bizarre, the volume he could put down.

[9] And you were saying, you were about to say something?

[10] Yeah, I mean, obviously there's a tolerance that's built up with drinking a lot, but I believe the number is approximately, nearly 8 % of people have a mutation in a gene such that when they drink alcohol, it increases their dopamine levels very quickly.

[11] And they get euphoric.

[12] They feel great.

[13] These are the people like that character in Mad Men, the Don Draper character, like he would go out and just get plastered.

[14] And the next day, you know, he's all fresh and ready.

[15] And part of that is tolerance.

[16] But in certain Scandinavian countries, northern European countries, this gene tends to be more prevalent.

[17] And these people are the people that can just keep drinking and drinking, they feel great when they drink, whereas most people, they feel disinhibited at the beginning.

[18] You know, you have a couple drinks.

[19] The forebrain shuts down a little bit because that's what it does.

[20] They start talking more, talking more, but if they keep drinking, they're blacking out, you know, they're stumbling, they're slurring their words.

[21] This 8 % of people by way of this genetic mutation, alcohol affects them very differently.

[22] It offsets all that sedative property and they could just go and go and go.

[23] This is the person who's doing a case a day or at the party You know, shot for shot and just looking like they're improving in function.

[24] Obviously, they're not.

[25] But you put one of those people against Ari Sheffir.

[26] Yeah.

[27] And that's what you get.

[28] Yeah.

[29] So even for those people, though, it still has a negative effect on your body, right?

[30] Oh, yeah.

[31] I mean, the toxicity of the alcohol is universal.

[32] But in terms of how it impacts brain function.

[33] And you see this across all these different categories of drugs, too, right?

[34] you know, somebody takes riddlin, Adderall, modafinil, or are modafinil.

[35] These are the common prescribed drugs now and people use them recreationally for ADHD.

[36] In fact, in researching an episode for our podcast on ADHD, turns out that more than 80, 0 % of college students will rely on ADHD meds, quote unquote, recreationally, not prescribed.

[37] They buy it from each other in order to study.

[38] 80%.

[39] And those drugs work mainly by increasing dopamine and increasing a drug.

[40] adrenaline and they make your focus like this narrow and you're you're in a trench and you can function but a number of people take them and feel super distracted and lousy but this is of course what they prescribe to kids with ADHD yeah now when you modafinos that's that's pro -vigil is that what that is yeah now there's some it's very expensive it's like a thousand dollars a month in some cases really yeah it was originally for a narcolepsy so to offset daytime sleepiness That was the original use of the drug.

[41] And then it also does work for enhancing focus, right?

[42] I mean, that has drawbacks.

[43] It's not perhaps as detrimental as, like, recreational drugs to increase focus.

[44] But most of the students out there and the tech workers and this is big in the finance world, too, are relying on Ritalin, Adderall, and things like Vivance.

[45] And to be clear, they have legitimate clinical uses.

[46] What is VIVAN?

[47] It's another one of these drugs for ADHD.

[48] Here's the story around why these drugs initially came to be.

[49] If you look at kids or adults with ADHD, like true attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity disorder, you don't always have the hyperactivity.

[50] What you find is they can focus really well if it's on something they like.

[51] So a kid with ADD or ADHD that loves video games, that kid will play video games with laser focus for three hours.

[52] That sounds like me. But then you put them in front of something they don't want to do and they just can't anchor their discipline.

[53] They just don't have the discipline.

[54] That also sounds like me. Although I doubt that.

[55] I don't know.

[56] Maybe we'll come up later, but your discipline for fitness and ice baths and training I like those things.

[57] Right.

[58] Well, and if you can arrange your life, such that most of your stuff is around that, great.

[59] But these kids prove that if you like something, you can focus.

[60] And it comes as no surprise in that the drugs for ADHD universally increase dopamine because dopamine is this incredible molecule that enhance.

[61] is focus, motivation, and drive, and literally narrows the aperture of your visual attention.

[62] And we've all experienced that.

[63] And of course, drugs like cocaine amphetamine do that to a hyper extent.

[64] And then there's a crash.

[65] But with these drugs, if prescribed in the right way, in the right situation, they're terrific.

[66] They teach the kids' brain how to focus.

[67] But nowadays, there is rampant adult ADHD and ADD.

[68] Part of that is probably due to the phone.

[69] Part of that That's probably just due to all sorts of things.

[70] But there is also a lot of recreational use of these prescription drugs, not illicit drugs like cocaine amphetamine, but prescription drugs that increase dopamine and supplementation for increasing dopamine as well.

[71] I had read something about modafinil, new vigil, pro -vigial, whichever one it was, that initially it was created as a performance enhancing drug, but they needed some sort of an ailment for it to, you know, to be prescribed.

[72] And that was when they decided to prescribe it for nocrolipsy.

[73] Had you heard anything like that?

[74] I thought it was in the reverse, but I'm open to hear it.

[75] And listen, the course of a lot of these drugs and how they hit market is super interesting.

[76] I've been learning more and more about this because one of my colleagues who works on aggression and mating behavior, which fascinates me, has identified some peptides that can really reduce anxiety.

[77] They put these to the pharmaceutical industry.

[78] Pharmaceutical wasn't interested in them at all, even though the safety margins are huge.

[79] So you say, why wouldn't they want this?

[80] Well, turns out these same drugs failed in a schizophrenia trial a long time ago, so no one will go near it with a 10 -foot pole.

[81] So the way the pharmaceutical industry generally approaches drugs is they love to remarket drugs for which there's already FDA approval, because then they don't have to go through all the safety stuff.

[82] And when they do that, they can renew the patent.

[83] This is crucial, right, because if you can get the generic version, now with things like good RX and these like little apps, you can get them, you can go into a pharmacy, you hit good R. X, and it'll say, oh, yeah, we've got some stuff that's about to expire.

[84] This $300 a month drug is $10.

[85] I've had this happen.

[86] It's amazing.

[87] If they can keep it out of the generic market, that's huge.

[88] And the way to do that is to find a new clinical use.

[89] So I don't know which one came first, narcolepsy or these focusing ADHD uses, or as a performance enhancer.

[90] But if the pharmaceutical industry, the people that own the patent to that drug can find a new, legitimate use, they just bought themselves, I think, another 10 years.

[91] on the on the patent so this was originally prescribed for schizophrenia and then they were going to use these peptides for mating uh yeah so here so in terms of the aggression this is really interesting this is the work of a guy at caltech named david anderson and he works on mating and aggression and the relationship in human beings in well he has work related to humans and the neighboring lab works on humans but these areas of the brain are really conserved this this we can talk about which brain area but what he discovered is that meaning um sorry that in mice and in humans these brain structures look identical and that the same classes of neurons exist that if you were to stimulate them because neurosurgeons have done this, people go into a rage or in animals if you stimulate them, the animals go into a rage.

[92] In fact, there are these videos online.

[93] They're incredible where this is Di Lin's work when she was in David Anders's lab.

[94] So you take two mice, male mouse and female mouse, and they're mating, right, as it were.

[95] And then they stimulate these neurons because they can do that now using light, believe it or not.

[96] And those animals, The male immediately tries to kill the female.

[97] You can even just put him in a cage alone with a glove filled with air.

[98] It's walking around.

[99] You stimulate these neurons and he just goes into a rage, right?

[100] Just trying to destroy this glove.

[101] But here's what's super interesting and no one understands.

[102] If you put this animal into a cage alone and stimulate, it looks pretty normal.

[103] It doesn't do anything.

[104] So it's not like it attacks itself.

[105] And every time there's this, you know, horrible news event like the school shooting thing or something like that, But I always think, you know, like what's going on in the, there's a certain brain area.

[106] It's called the ventramedial hypothalamus.

[107] This is a brain area that's really interesting because it has a population of neurons that control mating.

[108] You stimulate them and animals will just start trying to copulate with basically whatever is around.

[109] If you give them a choice of their usual preference of, you know, females if they're male, males if they're female, because that's the way mice go.

[110] One or the other, they will just try and start mating.

[111] You stimulate the other group of neurons and they will try and kill the other mouse.

[112] So these are like switches in the hypothalamus.

[113] And are these like very distinct?

[114] Like when we talk about like neurons and switches, like how do you distinguish between the one?

[115] Can you see them?

[116] Like what is the difference?

[117] Great question.

[118] So for many decades, it was known that if you stimulate this brain area, you could get aggression.

[119] This is actually Nobel Prize winning work of a guy whose last name is Hess.

[120] And what they found was if you stimulate this brain area, cats would go into either two kinds of aggression.

[121] It was either defensive aggression, kind of with, you know, hair up, or you would stimulate a little bit more, and they would do the, you know, predatory aggression, right?

[122] I'm probably doing this wrong, but, you know, like, ears forward and, you know, you're the hunter last time.

[123] I'm still learning about, you know, animal behavior in this way.

[124] But what's really interesting is that for years, no one could understand why if you also stimulated this brain area and you used a different pattern of stimulation, you get mating behavior.

[125] And it turns out that the neurons are mixed in there like salt and pepper.

[126] David Anderson's lab figured out that these are molecularly distinct neurons and what makes them distinct is really interesting.

[127] If they stimulate only the neurons that have the estrogen receptor, they become aggressive.

[128] And this again goes back to this thing that we talked about a while ago, which is that testosterone aromatized, converted into estrogen, has these incredible effects on aggression and masculinization of the brain.

[129] And a lot of people think, in fact, people heard me say that last time and said, oh, you're trying to say that estrogen, is doing everything testosterone is doing no it's that things like testosterone and estrogen control gene expression and so the fact that it's estrogen or testosterone it doesn't really matter it's the fact that these are molecular distinct neurons they can trigger these neurons and they can get very distinct outputs of behavior but what's crazy is you stop stimulating the animal just goes back to doing whatever and then it goes oh yeah i think i'll try and mate again now eventually the female's like hey this is getting confusing but this it's clear that these sorts of things are also happening in humans but normally we have kind of a weighting of aggression versus mating behavior right some people choose to combine those right there's the kind of extremes of that rape there's rough sex there's all sorts of you know it's it's uncomfortable for people to think about that but there's a continuum between a aggressive versus approach type behaviors and for whatever reason this drove me to start looking at different mating behaviors of animals online like if you watch ferrets mating it's like he's biting the back of her neck she's squealing all over the place like This is uncomfortable for some people.

[130] We'll see some people probably like watching this stuff.

[131] But you look at animals mating and there's a kind of a balancing act between, you know, what looks.

[132] It's not, you wouldn't call it lovemaking.

[133] Let's put it that.

[134] You'd call it mating that's pretty aggressive.

[135] And that's very common in the animal kingdom.

[136] Is it common in the animal kingdom because in order to have strong genes that pass on, you need a strong animal.

[137] And so they express themselves in this aggressive way.

[138] to prove to the female that they're strong enough to mate and procreate?

[139] Like, what is the reason for that sort of aggressive?

[140] Is there a reason?

[141] Well, it's a great question.

[142] So there's this theory called hydraulic pressure theory.

[143] This was developed by Conrad Lorenz, which is another Nobel Prize winner who studied animal behavior.

[144] And here's the idea is that all of these different populations of neurons are in the hypothalamus.

[145] This is a little tiny, tiny thing.

[146] I mean, it's the size of like a little gobstopper candy, like a little gumball.

[147] And you've got neurons for aggression.

[148] for mating, neurons that turn on to make sure that you, that animals don't try and mate with the wrong species, right?

[149] We take this for granted.

[150] Like, how come a cat doesn't try and mate with the dog?

[151] Now, the dog might hump, but that's a different thing altogether.

[152] So it's all harbored in there.

[153] And this hydraulic theory is that all of these things are kind of weighted probability.

[154] So there's never zero probability that any of this will happen unless they're in sleep.

[155] But maybe it's 10 % aggression, 80 % mating while they're mating.

[156] maybe another male enters the arena and now there's sort of like a confusion like am I going to have to fight or can I keep mating these kinds of things because oftentimes these animals are communal in some way.

[157] And so the way that Anderson explained this to me and we had a conversation about this recently is that the brain might actually get confused in certain moments.

[158] And there's also a kind of opioid pain relief thing that gets released during sexual activity.

[159] Pain threshold goes way up, right?

[160] And we were talking about this in the context of fetish.

[161] because, you know, if you look at fetishes, they're not random.

[162] True fetishes are, like, can be pathologies where people actually require the presence of some thing in order to become aroused.

[163] And those things almost always, if you look at true fetishes, are things like feet, dead bodies, feces, animals, things that are all very infectious.

[164] Exactly.

[165] Your facial expression illustrates it perfectly.

[166] My facial expression for those listening is yuck.

[167] Exactly.

[168] So, you know, that's disgusting.

[169] And you have circuits in your brain that are for disgust that are about getting you away from that thing because it's infectious, putrid, disgusting, and out of context.

[170] And then you think about sex and food appetite and all that.

[171] And it's it's all appetitive, as they call it.

[172] It's moving towards it.

[173] It's bringing in more of those molecules as opposed to trying to get away from like vomit or something.

[174] Right.

[175] But the feet thing, isn't it like guys like pretty feet?

[176] You know, we're very visual animals.

[177] And so it may cross over into visual perception.

[178] And what arouses people differs, obviously, people have their different proclivities.

[179] But true fetishes are a kind of a confusion of this circuitry, right, where people confuse or learn arousal associated with something that's actually quite dangerous.

[180] I mean, you take the extreme one, like dead body.

[181] It's like incredibly.

[182] Is that normal?

[183] No, no. Excuse me, not normal.

[184] Common.

[185] Like the dead body one?

[186] Not common.

[187] Not common.

[188] Common enough that you brought it up, though.

[189] Well, I've been reading up on this because I'm fascinated by the primitive as in addition to the more evolved parts of the brain.

[190] So the way Anderson describes is.

[191] you know, you'll see animals mating, and then all of a sudden, you know, he'll bite the back of her neck or sometimes she'll bite him.

[192] And the theory is that some of the neurons, and they've seen this in brain imaging in real time, because they can do that in animals.

[193] Some of the neurons that are responsible for aggression will just suddenly, you know, spike up there, right?

[194] And we'll kind of overtake the other behavior and then they'll go back to mating.

[195] Now, when you're talking about studies on animals and they're doing this, it's kind that there's these ethical questions if you're going to do a study on humans, if you wanted to stimulate.

[196] those same neurons and try to incite aggression or hostility or even arousal.

[197] But has anybody done it?

[198] They have.

[199] They have.

[200] They have.

[201] So a good friend of mine, Eddie Chang, he's the chair of neurosurgery at UCSF.

[202] He spends his life and he makes his living, probing around in the brain of people who have epilepsy, looking for the site where if they stimulate, the person will have a seizure so that they can burn that area out or make some other manipulation.

[203] And he's told me that he's been poking.

[204] You can't poke around at random.

[205] Right.

[206] You can't, you know, every scientist would love to just do that experiment, just go in and kind of search.

[207] But there are sites where they'll stimulate thinking they might evoke a feeling of pleasantness or no feeling at all.

[208] And the person will go into a rage in the, in the OR, in the operator.

[209] Because they're wide awake.

[210] You know, you've probably seen these things of people with neurosurgery and they're playing the violin or things that sort.

[211] Occasionally, they'll hit an area where the person will say, I'm feeling super angry right now.

[212] And they'll say, let's back off a little bit from there.

[213] And they'll chart where they were in the brain.

[214] That is wild.

[215] So there's just like a spot.

[216] Yeah, there is.

[217] And we have switches, right?

[218] I mean, we have switches for rage, switches for all these things.

[219] I mean, that's like the psychologist, Carl Jung, you know, this idea that we have all things inside of us.

[220] I mean, people vary in their propensity for rage or for love or for anything.

[221] But at some level, we do have all things inside of us.

[222] We have the circuitry within us.

[223] And do you feel like that variation is neurochemical?

[224] I think it is neurochemical.

[225] and I think it is learned as well.

[226] This peptide that we were talking about earlier becomes relevant in this context.

[227] So David's lab discovered there's a peptide called tachykinen.

[228] It's related to another molecule that's involved in pain relief called substance P that we all make.

[229] Tachykinin has a bunch of different forms, but in humans, there's tachykinin 1 and tachykinin 2.

[230] In mice or humans that are socially isolated for a period of time, tachykinin levels go through the roof.

[231] This is very relevant to the recent past around the pandemic, in my opinion.

[232] It goes through the roof.

[233] And what happens?

[234] It creates anxiety, anger, and in particular, aggression.

[235] And so there are drugs that are tachy -kinin inhibitors.

[236] And I asked David, I said, well, why aren't we giving tachy -kind inhibitors to people that are feeling anxious and aggressive and, you know, kind of tamp that down?

[237] And we just had yet another school shooting.

[238] And we could talk about what that's about or not.

[239] And he said, this drug is actually approved it's very safe when you stop what do you say what are you saying there's a drug that can but but you're saying what that's about but we're not oh is sorry that the the the the tachykinin I mean is was it elevated and for instance the kid that went in and shot all those kids and how could they find that out post -mortem I think they could do what's called MRI and see how much of the gene for tachycinum was being made I think they should do post -mortem I don't know how he was killed if his brain is still intact I think like most people, there's very little concern about him and more concern about the victims, as it should be.

[240] But just like with CT and football players, you want to know where the damage was.

[241] And also, whether or not there was a brain thing there.

[242] And if that brain thing was there, it doesn't mean necessarily that he was born with a bad brain.

[243] He might have been born with a dysfunctional brain.

[244] But social isolation increases anxiety and aggression.

[245] There's no question.

[246] And actually, I was in...

[247] Social isolation increases aggression.

[248] Absolutely.

[249] Really?

[250] Absolutely.

[251] Feelings of aggression and kind of friction.

[252] with the world us them kind of thinking I was in New York this is a few months back and it was the most eerie experience because we were there recording some podcasts and something came over the news that there was literally killer loose and it was like I in Brooklyn went into a subway release some smoke bombs and shot people right?

[253] They found him in the Lower East Side walking around someone found him so like Killer on the loose in New York became a real thing for the time we were there and it was super weird because we're staying down near the Lower East Side and they get the guy And what do they say?

[254] They say the same thing they always say about these guys.

[255] He was a loner.

[256] He was really socially isolated.

[257] Then you find the angry posts.

[258] You find the things online.

[259] But it's never like, oh, this, okay, you've got crazies like the BTK killer and people who were like in their church and stuff, but we're, you know, sociopathic killers on the, on the sly.

[260] But these kind of random act, what seemed like random acts of aggression, almost always these people were highly socially isolated, which, and I'm not evoking sympathy.

[261] I want to be very clear.

[262] I know what you're saying.

[263] You know, I mean.

[264] And nothing makes me more, I think everyone is furious and frustrated about this situation with the shooting.

[265] But I asked David about this.

[266] I was like, why aren't these drugs being used or prescribed?

[267] And he said, because years ago, there was a trial at a pharmaceutical company exploring the role of this drug in schizophrenia for reasons that aren't clear.

[268] And it didn't work.

[269] And it cost the company a ton of money.

[270] So now no companies want to go near it.

[271] There's this kind of, you know, blacklisting of drugs that failed in trials.

[272] And as a consequence, there's probably dozens, if not hundreds of very useful medications out there that are just not being explored.

[273] So when they do studies on people to try to find out what areas of the brain that you can ignite to get people hostile, how do they, how would they perform those studies?

[274] So unfortunately, I guess fortunately for guys like Elon, because they have companies based on this, but unfortunately for kind of the exploratory purposes making this easier, they shave of the head in a little spot, they drill it, they make a tiny little hole in the skull.

[275] and they're lowering electrodes down there.

[276] And the way these electrodes are built, they're not just a single wire.

[277] It's actually pretty cool.

[278] It's like a barrel of wires and they're able to put them to different depths.

[279] So you imagine 100 or 1 ,000 wires all at different depths and probing around and stimulating at different levels.

[280] So it's all happening very fast.

[281] And then they'll hit a spot where the person will say, I feel like I'm about to have a seizure or sometimes we'll have a full -blown seizure.

[282] And like, okay, that's the spot.

[283] Wow.

[284] And so in the...

[285] So we're kind of poking around the dark?

[286] They are, I mean, the brain, I'd love to tell you that we understand so much about how the brain works.

[287] I think we understand a lot, but most of what we know about how human brain structures work are from experiments like the one I just mentioned, which is clinically oriented, but then you're doing some experimentation along the way.

[288] Or case studies, like the famous HM, they always give their initials, not their names, because to maintain anonymity.

[289] But we know more about human memory from one guy who had both his hippocampi lesioned because he had epilepsy in his hippocampi.

[290] This is a memory encoding area.

[291] They kept him in the laboratory for years and studied him.

[292] And they learned things like, you might appreciate this.

[293] If you went in and you said, hey, I'm Joe, nice to meet you.

[294] He'd say, hi, I'm, you know, whoever he was, H .M. Henry, whatever.

[295] And you'd say, great.

[296] And you'd walk out and come back in and say, hi, who are you?

[297] And you'd say, I'm Joe.

[298] I'm going to tell you a joke.

[299] They did this experiment.

[300] And you tell him a joke and he'd laugh.

[301] You'd laugh.

[302] You leave, you come back.

[303] You tell him the same joke.

[304] He doesn't remember the joke, but he laughed.

[305] a little bit less, and the next time a little bit less.

[306] So something in his brain is familiar, right?

[307] This speaks to the importance of novelty and surprise and comedy, but he can't remember that he remembers.

[308] And so that starts to open up all sorts of interesting questions about consciousness and novelty.

[309] So he, like, kind of sees it coming, but he doesn't know why he sees it coming.

[310] Yeah, he doesn't know why it's not as funny the second time.

[311] I mean, it's never as funny the second time, right?

[312] But are the people that are saying it, are they saying it with the same enthusiasm?

[313] Is it the same person?

[314] They didn't control.

[315] I don't know that they use good comics or good jokes.

[316] Most of the jokes are pretty lame.

[317] They're kind of laboratory -style jokes, which are always lame.

[318] But they always, my understanding is that a lot of the joke, the laughter -evoking quality of a joke is the surprise.

[319] Although, I have to say, when I saw you go do comedy at the Vulcan a few months ago, there's some bits, you call them?

[320] Yeah, bits.

[321] Okay.

[322] That you do wear, like, I'm thinking to myself, oh, no, he's not going there.

[323] Is he?

[324] Is he really?

[325] Like you're leading us down this path and I'm thinking, oh, no, he's not going to say that.

[326] Is he?

[327] And then you go there and that's what's funny about it.

[328] So I realized when watching that, I took a mental note to myself.

[329] I was like, okay, so jokes aren't always about getting hit with the surprise.

[330] Sometimes it's, you know you're going down this path that is really, really uncomfortable.

[331] Well, it's very hard to describe what comedy is because you don't even know it unless you're doing it.

[332] Like while you're doing it, you're trying to work out bits.

[333] It's almost like you're on instinct.

[334] You're trying to sort you're almost like you're like the way you're probing the brain in the dark You're kind of doing that a little bit with comedy some of it's sneaky some of it you like sneaking things in on people You're catching them before they like because like you're the worst thing is when you know where someone's going And you see the setup and you you you anticipate the punchline then the punchline comes and you don't think it's funny Because you like I thought that myself I saw that coming the best ones are when you think something's going to happen and and then another thing happens instead, and it's even funnier.

[335] Right.

[336] Or when you recognize this thing that this person's saying that you didn't think other people recognized.

[337] And you're like, yes!

[338] Right.

[339] You know, there's that too.

[340] But you don't know what you're doing while you're doing it sometimes.

[341] I saw you do a question and answer part at the end.

[342] I was there with Lex, and he turns to me, he's like, I can't believe he's going to do this.

[343] I'm like, why not?

[344] Because that's real time.

[345] I mean, I guess you're...

[346] Yeah, you're fucking around.

[347] Yeah.

[348] Yeah.

[349] Well, it was amazing.

[350] I mean, I think that for us, we're just thinking like, wow, like you're, for two scientists, like two super nerds to put yourself into a situation deliberately where you don't know what's going to happen, it's like the worst.

[351] Everything about science is trying to control variables.

[352] It's all about control.

[353] Right.

[354] This is probably why Lex is still single.

[355] Just kidding, Lex.

[356] There's so many, there's so many women that want to marry.

[357] No, no, no, God, he's going to kill me. He's the Black Belt and Jiu -Jitsu, not me. Oh, no, Lex.

[358] I'm so sorry.

[359] Um, he's over in Russia right now.

[360] I hope he comes back.

[361] He's not going to listen.

[362] He'll be so far behind on podcasts.

[363] He's not going to listen to this one.

[364] Don't worry about it.

[365] He'll probably come back with a wife.

[366] Maybe.

[367] Yeah.

[368] Maybe that's his move.

[369] Find himself a nice lady over there.

[370] We'll understand him.

[371] Oh, goodness.

[372] There's so many things I want to say here, but I have to be very careful.

[373] Whoever Lex marries will be one lucky woman and vice versa.

[374] The only thing I would worry about with Lex is that he's so busy.

[375] I do not know if he has the time for a relationship.

[376] actually discussed that on a podcast I did with him on his podcast that's going to be really soon he was talking about whether or not he has time you know like he has time for a relationship he's not sure if he does well he's also going to have to start following a somewhat more normal schedule because this guy's basically nocturnal I get texts from him like four in the morning yeah but that's what he likes yeah he's nothing wrong with it you know I think some people's minds work best at I write my best material really late at night what's really late two three in the morning But you get up early, right?

[377] Yeah, but it depends on the day.

[378] Like if I stay, if I write till like three, four in the morning, I try not to get up before 10.

[379] But normal days I'm getting up at 7 or maybe even a little earlier.

[380] But when I come home from shows, oftentimes my mind is very excited.

[381] And that's when I like to, what's what I like to write?

[382] Yeah, you know, there's a really cool phenomenon where early in the day or after, we should say, after someone's been asleep for a while, for that first, first zero to nine hours of the day.

[383] I call this phase one, just because got to label everything with a name to make it clear.

[384] During that time, we know that dopamine, adrenaline, and cortisol, healthy levels of cortisol, are highest in your system in those first nine hours.

[385] You might not wake up quickly, but they're highest.

[386] And then those start to taper off, and molecules like serotonin start to predominate.

[387] And the way these molecules like dopamine, serotonin, they do a lot of different things.

[388] They're involved in tons of things.

[389] But we can generally say that they modulate.

[390] They're called neuromodulators.

[391] They bias the probability that certain brain circuits in areas will be active and certain ones won't.

[392] So when dopamine and epinephrine are really churning around in your brain, you're really good at linear types of things like math, organization, working out, sets and reps, this does this, this, we're going here, itineraries where there's a right answer and you're just trying to plug and chug.

[393] As serotonin and other molecules kick in, which is later in the day and at night, the brain becomes much better at these I call this phase two of the day they become so it's like seven to 16 hours after oh sorry 10 to 17 hours after waking so zero to nine for phase one and 10 to 17 for phase two your brain is much better at nonlinear thinking creative thinking brainstorming I don't know what the writing process comedy process is for you but you know you're doing anything creative you're organizing existing things into new ways you're kind of playing with ideas and it actually can be beneficial to be slightly sedated.

[394] This is actually why so many great writers and musicians and maybe comics have used a little bit of alcohol, a little bit of cannabis to put their brain into that kind of liminal state where you're not super lazered in.

[395] You're not looking for the right answer.

[396] The right answer just kind of comes to you.

[397] And for some people, they have a hard time accessing that when they're in this hyperdrive mode.

[398] And jazz musicians, right, famous for abusing a lot of substances because jazz is all about the sports.

[399] And jazz is all about spontaneous incorporation of notes and et cetera.

[400] So I think that late night creativity makes a lot of sense.

[401] Yeah, Tim Dillon and I were just having this conversation because Tim is sober.

[402] And, you know, Tim used to have a real problem with substances.

[403] And he says he does his podcast really late at night.

[404] Like they don't even start filming until like after midnight.

[405] Is that why he's got the aviators?

[406] Yeah, but it's also like that's sort of his drug, you know, like he's sleeping.

[407] and he's kind of just like half out of it.

[408] And, you know, when he puts the sunglasses on, he just, it's almost like he's in an altered state of consciousness, but without having to snort ketamine or whatever the fuck he was doing.

[409] Oh, goodness.

[410] He's definitely a healthier approach.

[411] That guy used to snort ketamine.

[412] I don't know.

[413] Ketamine's now legal, but please, I can't imagine snorting ketamine is good.

[414] Ketamine is legal, though.

[415] You can get, you can do ketamine therapies, which are really weird.

[416] Like, a lot of people are doing them for depression.

[417] Why?

[418] So here, I've got colleagues.

[419] who study ketamine, I've been spending a lot of time trying to understand how this drug works.

[420] It's a dissociative anesthetic.

[421] So it is, it's like PCP.

[422] It works by blocking something called the NMDA and Methyl -Di -Spartate receptor if people want to look that up.

[423] This very similar, right?

[424] Carl Hart was telling me that it's almost the same thing as PCP.

[425] Absolutely.

[426] This receptor is a receptor that becomes active only when you're hyper -focused on something and it has the capacity to create brain change in a very dramatic way.

[427] Because your brain can't, they say oh your brain is different five minutes after this conversation than was before that's that's bullshit basically your brain doesn't change unless it needs to and that signal of need to comes from something being really intense really stressful really exciting really novel right makes sense right why reprogram the machine unless there's a need and so you have a chemical signal ketamine basically was initially used to block memory formation after trauma so people would come into the into the emergency room, let's just imagine like horrible scenario, right?

[428] And someone was just in the passenger seat and watched their closest loved one get impaled on a steering column.

[429] That person is in a state of shock and they're never going to forget what they see.

[430] So what do you do?

[431] You give them ketamine, you try and dampen the plasticity, the brain change that would occur to remember that incredibly traumatic event.

[432] Now it's being used as a way to bring people into the clinic or it seems like it is pretty rampant use now and put people into this dissociative state.

[433] so that they see themselves having an experience.

[434] In fact, I've talked to people who've gone through ketamine trials and they describe it as watching themselves get out of their own car.

[435] They're like third personing themselves.

[436] This to me sounds like a horrible state to be in.

[437] But a lot of...

[438] Why is that?

[439] I mean, I've been working my whole life to just be comfortable with the body I'm in and I'd like to stay in it.

[440] Not because it's always comfortable to be there, but because, you know, getting good at that seems to be the key to having a good life, being able to tolerate discomfort.

[441] This is about getting out of your soul, Yeah, but isn't the point for these people to try to figure out what they're doing wrong with their life?

[442] So they can look at it objectively as a third party.

[443] Yeah, that makes sense to me that they would look at like, for instance, their suicidal depression and say, you know, like this, the new agey kind of thing is like you are not your feelings.

[444] That's a tough one for people to incorporate because when I have really strong feelings, it certainly feels like that's happening inside me. So this is allowing them to get next to their feelings and see their feelings as an experience, not them.

[445] Yeah, I mean, but even when you know that it's definitely happening to you, you know that you are also sometimes not burdened by those feelings.

[446] That's right.

[447] So it's some sort of an external factor or even if it's an internal factor.

[448] Right.

[449] It's a thing other than the core of what you are.

[450] Right.

[451] It doesn't define you.

[452] Right.

[453] It doesn't define you.

[454] I think that's what they're trying to do.

[455] They're trying to figure out like, why are they so overwhelming to the point where they want to leap off of a cliff?

[456] Like what is causing that?

[457] Yeah.

[458] And it seems to work quite well for intractable depression, as it's called.

[459] What's really odd about the fact that it works, at least to me, is that if you look at the other new emerging, very effective treatment for severe depression, it's the exact opposite.

[460] It's this incredible work that Matthew Johnson and colleagues are doing out at Johns Hopkins giving people macro doses of psilocybin.

[461] I talked to him.

[462] We had him on the podcast, and I asked him, I'm like, what are your thoughts on microdosing?

[463] And he was like, macro dose.

[464] And I thought like, whoa, this is an academic saying this.

[465] This isn't like some guy who's, you know, trying to push something.

[466] psychedelics for his own agenda.

[467] This is a guy who's studying these in like purely through the lens of science.

[468] What are you talking about?

[469] What's critical about the macro dose of suicide?

[470] When you say macro, what kind of dose are you talking about?

[471] I don't know how they dose these, but this would be like in the gram range.

[472] How many grams?

[473] One gram?

[474] I'm, I need to check with.

[475] We should check with Matt before people run off and start to take it.

[476] But certainly not micro, right?

[477] They're hallucinating.

[478] They're feeling a lot.

[479] And I said, what's the key thing?

[480] You're seeing success after success after eating disorders, depression, late.

[481] And he said, it seems to be, quote, unquote, letting go.

[482] And I'm like, well, that's not science, right?

[483] What is letting go?

[484] Are you talking about heart rate 50 % above baseline?

[485] Are you talking about breathe?

[486] And he said, there does seem to be something crucial about the people in these trials, experiencing what would normally give them a complete panic attack and being able to just let go and go into the experience without trying to control it, without trying to tamp it down or ramp it up, just be in it.

[487] What kind of experience that would give them a panic attack?

[488] For some people, he said there was one woman who came in, I believe it was a woman who there was a painting on the wall and she thought she could jump through it.

[489] And so they're holding her back, you know, yeah, they're holding your back.

[490] And they do give them tools to control their anxiety.

[491] So my lab works on a lot of breathing tools for real -time rapid control of anxiety and we handed some of those off to Matt.

[492] So they give these to people as tools.

[493] They also have defibrillators in there.

[494] They have everything because it's a, you know, it's a university side just in case.

[495] And he said that the key thing is that they kind of feel overwhelmed, but then they feel supported enough by the therapist to lean into whatever's happening and they stop trying to regulate it.

[496] And that's where apparently he thinks the breakthrough is.

[497] And so that reveals something very fundamental.

[498] It says that there's something powerful in terms of long -term depression relief that can be learned in those states.

[499] that has to do with not regulating oneself or one's need to run for safety.

[500] And I find that fascinating because, you know, it raises all these questions.

[501] For instance, do you need to hallucinate?

[502] Maybe not.

[503] Maybe it has nothing to do with hallucinations.

[504] Maybe it just has to do with getting the person into a state of like real fear and then allowing them to lean into it.

[505] I don't know.

[506] That's a speculation.

[507] But I think that what's interesting about all this work on psychedelics is it's clearly working in these clinical trials.

[508] I mean, overwhelmingly, the data are more positive.

[509] positive than negative.

[510] And yet no one knows exactly why it's working.

[511] No one knows what's being rewired in the brain.

[512] There's all the speculation like, oh, dendrites grow and there's plasticity, sure, but like in what direction?

[513] I mean, trauma is plasticity too.

[514] So something powerful is happening under the control of these psychedelic drugs in these clinical settings that are teaching people something valuable they can export.

[515] And everyone has a different narrative.

[516] Like, oh, I saw this face or the green gremlins or whatever, you know, melting reality.

[517] But it seems to be the ability to let go of the attempt to control one's internal state.

[518] The one of the weird things they found out when they started studying people while they were under the influence of psilocybin was the lack of brain activity.

[519] Do you, do you aware of that?

[520] Well, I know there's more.

[521] So that the receptors for psilocybin are many, but one of the main ones is the serotonin 2C and 2A receptor.

[522] And those are in this layer of the cortex, the outer lining of the brain, called layer five, which is extensively involved in lateral connections.

[523] And so it's absolutely true that you see more broad activation of the brain by any one stimulus.

[524] You know, show someone a picture.

[525] It's very broad compared to when they're not on these drugs.

[526] And when you brought in the amount of activity, I could imagine you reduce the total amount of activity in any one area.

[527] But my understanding is that these brain states are just so atypical.

[528] They're not like anything you see in sleep or dreaming, although they're similar.

[529] Right.

[530] There was a guy at Harvard for years, Alan Hobson, the genius, a neuroscientist, and he was saying, dreams are reparative.

[531] They help people through trauma.

[532] It's part of the trauma release process, blah, blah, blah, and psychedelics basically mimic that.

[533] And he may very well be right.

[534] He may very well be right.

[535] But they also mimic normal human neurochemistry, right?

[536] Like the most potent ones like DMT and even psilocybin is some sort of relationship to DMT, isn't it like, like, when it's, when the body processes it, isn't it something like four -foraloxy and dimethylptamine?

[537] Like, there's, there's some things that are happening while your body is processing it that mimic what is actual possible for your brain to produce.

[538] That's right.

[539] I mean, you have two component parts.

[540] One is made by the pineal, and the other is naturally made by neurons, and those have to be brought together.

[541] I've never done an ayahuasca journey.

[542] Admittedly, I just haven't done it.

[543] Have you done mushrooms?

[544] In my youth, you know?

[545] Back in the old days.

[546] Back in the old days.

[547] And not responsibly.

[548] I kind of regret it because I mean, I was like a wild punk rock skateboarder kid.

[549] I was not this, you know, I wasn't a university professor.

[550] And honestly, I regret doing it at a time when my brain was so plastic.

[551] I wish if I had done it, I would have done it in like clinical trial and gotten data and that kind of thing.

[552] But I'm a nerd.

[553] But you could always do it again.

[554] Sure.

[555] Yeah.

[556] I think that.

[557] Have you thought about it?

[558] Well, I was part of a clinical trial looking at this was originally intended to be three dose of MDMA.

[559] I did the two and then I decided that was enough.

[560] This, again, was part of a clinical study.

[561] I found it to be incredibly beneficial.

[562] I mean, I thought I was a nice guy before, but it made me not afraid to feel feelings.

[563] And I think before that I could feel from the neck up and from the waist down, but I had this block.

[564] And I remember taking MDMA, there's a physician there, they're talking to you, and all of a sudden I felt like, now I sound like a crazy person, but this is how it felt since from a sensation perspective, as if like my body had been in saran wrap before and it's just kind of unzipped.

[565] And from that point on, I've been able to feel things bodywide.

[566] And then I started thinking about all sorts of things like, I have an unusual number of deaths and losses in my life for somebody who wasn't in the military.

[567] or didn't grow up in the inner city.

[568] It just had some bad luck, you know, like, you know, new people that had bad luck.

[569] And all of a sudden, I was able to kind of digest that and think about it in a more reasonable way.

[570] I think before that I was just pack it away.

[571] Just work, work, ignore it.

[572] Or try and sublimated or turn it into anger or fuel, which, you know, it can be its own use, as you know.

[573] But at some point, I was like, you know, I think I need to actually spend some time on this.

[574] And, yeah, I think it made me a nicer person to myself.

[575] Yeah, I think there's real benefit in those things, whether it's MDMA or psilocybin.

[576] I think there's real benefit in a lot of them.

[577] And I think there's definitely benefit in macro, but I think there's benefit in micro too.

[578] I know a lot of people that microdose and they just feel like an elevated mood all throughout the day.

[579] I don't think you're going to get these sort of transformative, life -changing experiences where you transcend whatever it means to be a person and get a chance to look at yourself and look at the way you interface with reality in a different way.

[580] but I think what it does do is it alleviates a certain amount of anxiety and tension for people and it allows them to have a more enjoyable experience just in like regular everyday life without being intoxicated that's the key it's like it doesn't change the way you you your motor functions are doesn't change your visual well it just actually improves your visual which is really weird um I forget who the the scientist was but he did um study um um um um on being able to recognize whether or not, it was like edge detection and being able to recognize the changing in parallel lines.

[581] And he did it, see if we can find out who this scientist was, but he was a very straight -laced scientist, he wasn't a whack job.

[582] And his joke was, it seems like you can detect reality better when you're high than when you're not high.

[583] Because people that were on psilocybin, we're able to detect, so if you have two parallel lines and they will move one slightly off parallel.

[584] The people on psilocybin were able to detect it quicker than the people that were sober.

[585] I believe that for a number of reasons.

[586] Well, first of all, psilocybin at a basic level, when we think of it as like a drug, but it's like in many ways it's a lot like the so -called SSRIs, like Prozac Zoloft and those things, and that they work on serotonin.

[587] It mainly increases serotonin, but different receptors than things like Prozac and Zoloft.

[588] The ability to, that would be, we call it a psychophysics experiment, They'd vary that ever so slightly, as you described.

[589] The thresholds for that are going to be different for different people, but if anything that can more narrowly tune attention is really going to help.

[590] I was surprised to learn this.

[591] I'd be curious what your thoughts are.

[592] I'm not a cannabis smoker.

[593] I just never really liked it.

[594] But I had a guest on my podcast named Paul Conti.

[595] He mainly works, he's an MD, mainly works on trauma, incredible trauma therapist and has written about trauma, the book on trauma that I think is the one in my opinion.

[596] And then we got into a discussion about, like, different substances and do they have application?

[597] So we talked about ketamine, et cetera.

[598] I asked about alcohol, just by way of comparison.

[599] And he said there are basically zero therapeutic uses for alcohol, right?

[600] Therapeutic.

[601] Right.

[602] But then I asked about cannabis.

[603] Now, this isn't something he does in his own clinic.

[604] He does talk therapy, not drug, not drug therapy, although he's a psychiatrist, so he can prescribe things.

[605] And he said, you know, cannabis is interesting, and it may actually have some therapeutic potential.

[606] But the main effect of cannabis is to narrow attention.

[607] and focus.

[608] It actually can increase attention and focus.

[609] Now, the problem is it's not a very good filter.

[610] So people can narrowly attend to just video games or just to their anxiety if they're already anxious.

[611] That's a problem.

[612] But when it comes to psilocybin, psilocybin seems to increase creative thinking, new, kind of new rules and algorithms about what could be an answer.

[613] So I'm not aware of how it might directly impact visual perception unless it narrows focus.

[614] But most of the drugs that impact serotonin are going to increase focus to some degree or another.

[615] And that can be good if what you're focusing on is pleasant.

[616] It can be really bad if what's you're focusing on is really unpleasant.

[617] I knew people, I'm sure you don't, who just smoke weed and they have a panic attack.

[618] Yeah, the smoke weed thing is a weird one because it just, it's like many things.

[619] It's completely dependent upon the individual.

[620] Like, their individual genetics, their biology, whatever it is that they've had in their past.

[621] I know people that smoke, marijuana and they're high functioning.

[622] And I know people who smoke marijuana and they don't get anything done.

[623] And I don't know if they're related.

[624] Those two things are related.

[625] I think people who generally have drive and discipline, marijuana gives them a break.

[626] It gives them a nice little, just a little rest stop.

[627] And I think that's probably beneficial.

[628] And I also think it makes you a little kinder, a little more compassionate, a little more sensitive, which is probably very beneficial to someone who's hyper -focused.

[629] Like people that are like type A personalities are trying to get things done all the time.

[630] You smoke a little pot and you're like, what am I doing?

[631] Let's fucking relax a little.

[632] And then you get back to it.

[633] You're all right.

[634] I think there's a great benefit to that.

[635] But I should also say that it's very popular in the jiu -jitsu world.

[636] Oh, yeah.

[637] I always thought that had something to do with the kind of creativity part of it.

[638] Like that you can't plan jiu -jitsu.

[639] You have to improvise.

[640] It's like jazz.

[641] In a lot of ways.

[642] There's definitely that, but it's also the focus thing, that you're only thinking about that.

[643] Like, while you're rolling, you're really only thinking about rolling.

[644] While you're smoking cannabis and then rolling, you're hyper -focused on it.

[645] And physical strength, you feel fine, you don't feel lethargic or anything like that.

[646] No, not at all.

[647] I actually enjoy it.

[648] I actually enjoy it when I lift weights, too.

[649] Oh, I haven't tried that way.

[650] Yeah, I feel it.

[651] Like, I feel it in the fibers.

[652] It's almost like I'm more aware.

[653] of like what's going on instead of like this uh blunt sort of um you know you know almost like distance from uh each individual muscle fiber which i am normally normally i'm just trying to warm up and then i warm up and then i start getting going then i you know lift light first and then i work my way up to what i normally use but when i'm high it's like i could feel like where it connects to the bone it just i feel everything it just makes you more sensitive about what you're actually doing and for um martial arts techniques particularly for striking i feel like i incorporate leverage better into things i'm i i have better balance in terms of like not trying to execute a technique when i'm off position you know and it just makes me just more aware of like what's going on with my body and that's super powerful we had the the nerd in me once say in neuroscience they call that interoception Like, people vary tremendously in their awareness of their internal state.

[654] You can know if you have a higher, low degree of interoception by trying to count your heartbeats without taking your pulse.

[655] Some people can just do that.

[656] It's a skill you can build up over time.

[657] This is great for some people, but some people are highly anxious.

[658] It sucks to have a lot of interoception.

[659] But we know, of course, that the mind muscle connection is really powerful.

[660] And it's not just mind muscle connection as a whatever they call bro science thing.

[661] The reality is that from peer -reviewed studies, But if people focus on the contraction of a muscle during resistance training as opposed to moving the weight, right?

[662] Something that's hard to measure if they're actually doing it.

[663] The strength and hypertrophy gains are much greater.

[664] I think it's like a 15%.

[665] We need to, I had Andy Galpin on the podcast and he would know the exact number.

[666] But I always wonder about this, like in gyms where they're mirrors and people are watching themselves lift in the mirror.

[667] I mean, you're exterocepting.

[668] You're not focused as much as you could on the actual feeling.

[669] So, you know, there's always a weighting between extroception to the out, everything beyond the confines of your skin and interoception.

[670] And if cannabis allows more interoception, you can imagine that those workouts would be more effective in that way.

[671] But isn't there a benefit to observing yourself in a mirror because you make sure that you use the proper technique?

[672] Absolutely.

[673] I mean, right.

[674] I mean, you always see those people like shoulders hunch and they're, you know, they're making a mess of themselves.

[675] Overworking their strong parts.

[676] And, you know, I mean, some people walk in the gym and it's clear they've never actually looked at like, you know, the love.

[677] or half of the mirror, right?

[678] That's the sad thing.

[679] That's so sad.

[680] It's so weird.

[681] The Skip Leg Day thing is a cruel joke, but it's a cruel joke in the right direction because there's nothing worse than an imbalanced physique, I mean, where someone has done a lot of work to try and create something.

[682] It's so bad for your body.

[683] It's like having small legs on a large upper body is so unhealthy.

[684] Every, you're like, for sure, your lower back's going to be fucked.

[685] Well, structurally and also just neurology, you know what, again, as a neuroscientist, You think the nerve to muscle connection is what contracts fibers.

[686] And if you think about somebody who's, you know, big upper body, small legs, that person, the neurons in their brain that represent their body are also completely contorted.

[687] Now, but what do you think about a person, like, I bring him up all the time because he's so odd, John Jones.

[688] Like, John Jones has the smallest calves of any man I've ever seen who's an elite athlete.

[689] And obviously, he's an elite athlete.

[690] He's one of the greatest fighters of all time.

[691] and even now, while he's worked his way up to heavyweight, so he hasn't fought in two years because over that time he's been building himself up, and now he's like a legit 255 pounds, he's fucking huge, tiny calves.

[692] Well, what's going on there?

[693] What's really interesting is if you look at elite sprinters.

[694] Is that real?

[695] Yeah, so look how short the muscle bellies are on his calves, but if you look at elite sprinters, Olympic sprinters, they'll have big legs, but if you look at, and sometimes they'll have big, bulging calves, but their calves are very short.

[696] That's actually going to lend itself to sprinting.

[697] You don't see many Pachial calves on sprinters.

[698] Interesting.

[699] Not good ones anyway.

[700] But he's not a sprinter.

[701] No, but he's got a lot of explosive power from what I understand.

[702] Oh, yeah.

[703] I mean, I'm not a, I'm not a knowledgeable about MMA.

[704] Pretty much everything I know about MAA.

[705] I've learned from you and from Lex.

[706] So look at him there.

[707] Even at 255 pounds, I mean he's.

[708] Yeah, he's got tweezers down there.

[709] These very small calves, which is, it's really unusual for someone who's built the way he is.

[710] But his explosiveness out of those calves is probably met by that short muscle belly.

[711] Well, he's not the fastest guy, you know, and his whole thing is he's the best at controlling distance because he's very tall, especially for light heavyweight, not going to be as tall for heavyweight, but he's fantastic at controlling distance.

[712] And if you're a person who wants to maximize your, like you have a certain amount of weight you can be.

[713] You could be 205 pounds and that's it If you want to be championship weight At 205 pounds he's got the perfect physique So he's really long Long arms and legs Long arms and legs So you can't get close to him And he's a fantastic striker And he uses those arms and long legs In a great way with his wrestling And his submissions Because he has fantastic leverage He's really like the perfect build for fighting How tall do you say he was?

[714] Is it 6 plus?

[715] I think yeah John's 6 3, 6 4 Is he back in it?

[716] I know he had a steroid pop but is he back oh yeah no he's back that was a long time ago that that's the steroid pop is a weird one man you know he he he kept six four that's so he's skinny yeah for six four two and five pounds exactly he kept um he you know I don't know what I don't know what happened but the the story was that he got some tainted supplements right which may or may not be true the problem is he I'm sorry I I just laugh when this one, last time we were talking about the Deca burrito, the Olympic.

[717] I mean, anyway, sorry, go on.

[718] I just couldn't help but chuckle.

[719] But some guys do get tainted supplements.

[720] That's a real issue.

[721] You know, one of the ways I know it's a real issue is we didn't get steroid that, what happened?

[722] We didn't get steroids that showed up in on it supplements.

[723] But when we're initially starting out, we used this third party company.

[724] that would mix our ingredients, and they would mix ingredients for other supplement companies as well.

[725] You know, it was a company that packaged stuff for you.

[726] And so we did third -party tests on some of our stuff, and we'd find vitamins in there that weren't supposed to be in there.

[727] And then we just trace them out, so we realized, oh, they're getting it from the vats.

[728] Like, these guys aren't cleaning the vats properly that they used for the previous supplement.

[729] Now, if you're getting a lot of cheap stuff, particularly if you're getting stuff that's made overseas, that's the same companies that are making steroids.

[730] So they're making, you know, wherever it is in China, what have you, they're allowed to do that or whatever, it's not regulated.

[731] So there's guys that are buying off -the -counter real normal supplements that are supposed to be steroid -free that have steroids in them.

[732] Now there's also unscrupulous companies that will add steroids to their products just to make them more beneficial, just to make them more functional.

[733] And that's true too.

[734] So there's a guy named Tim Means.

[735] He got busted with tainted supplements.

[736] And if you look at Tim, he does not at all look like a guy who takes steroids.

[737] I mean, not at all.

[738] And he was just taking some normal stuff that he bought from some health food store.

[739] And it turned out he popped for a very small trace amount of this stuff.

[740] Previous tests is nothing.

[741] And then this tiny small amount, which would indicate that, and this is what they said about John as well.

[742] the problem with what John did was like John tested negative and then he tested positive but the positive amount was so small that like it's almost like he's getting off of it so he would have to be on it for a long period of time like he'd have to be on it for weeks in order to reap any benefit but meanwhile it was less than that time ago he was negative and now he's got this trace amount in his system so there's a lot of things that seem to lean towards the idea of that he was accidentally dosed, that he took a tainted supplement.

[743] However, do you know, more plates, more dates?

[744] Yeah, Derek.

[745] Derek.

[746] Yeah, like Derek a lot.

[747] I was really pleased to see him on here.

[748] Love that guy.

[749] Yeah, he's great.

[750] He's great.

[751] And I love his show, and he's super, super knowledgeable.

[752] And he calls bullshit.

[753] But he calls bullshit on a lot of guys in the UFC.

[754] And he goes over there specific blood work.

[755] And what he was concerned with was more the testosterone to epitestosterone ratio.

[756] He said it was off, way off, and not normal.

[757] And also the amount of testosterone that John had, the free testosterone system, he also felt was so low that it seemed to indicate that he was coming off exogenous hormones and that, you know, there's maybe some masking going on or whatever.

[758] But it was enough to make John ban him.

[759] he blocked him on social media which Derek goes that seems to indicate you know I hit a sore spot yeah the blocking the blocking move implies a worry at the very least yeah Derek goes deep yeah he goes really deep he went over Polo Costa there's like quite a few guys that he who Paul Costa is another guy who's built like a bodybuilder he's like a freak specimen and he kind of calls bullshit on him too he calls bullshit on a lot of these guys yeah well and the lines have become really blurry because there's, you know, it used to be, if anyone was taking any exogenous androgens, they were, quote, unquote, on steroids.

[760] But now, of course, there's TRT, which is up to 200 milligrams per week.

[761] But you can't do that in MMA.

[762] It's not legal.

[763] No, that's not allowed.

[764] I've looked over the list for Duncan French sent me the list that they have for UFC athletes.

[765] It's interesting.

[766] I still want to sit down with Jeff Novitsky sometime.

[767] Jeff's a very interesting guy.

[768] Yeah, I mean, he would definitely have a conversation with you about this.

[769] He's also a guy that is really honest about.

[770] what they can and can't catch.

[771] He's like, there's a real, and also honest about the list of banned supplements, if you go to the USADA website, the amount of shit that you can't take because it's tainted, it's crazy.

[772] Like, it's like hundreds of supplements.

[773] Yeah, or because it works.

[774] Yes.

[775] You know, last time I was on here, we talked about Tonga Ali, right?

[776] Yes.

[777] And there are now additional papers showing that, yeah, it raises testosterone and estrogen a little bit in parallel with that.

[778] It, you know, it looks like it's not going to cause people to flag red on in most leagues but but the increases are not what one sees with you know what about turkestrone turkestrone hasn't really been looked at by it's not on the list that i saw but it's supposedly pretty fucking effective yeah it works through this estrogen blocking mechanism and it seems pretty effective Derek sent me some i'm yet to take it yeah but there are things that are short acting that like for instance women uh in a lot of women sports they'll use low dose oxandrolone anavar right which is dh -hthydr testosterone it doesn't convert to estrogen that's the stuff that makes your hair fall out exactly and makes beards grow and it also hardens people up it gives them that really dense look and people will take it before workouts because it immediately makes you feel or pretty quickly makes you feel kind of aggressive and like you want to train not angry aggressive but you want to move your body but then it also blunts and a lot of doctors prescribe it for this reason it reduces sex hormone binding globulin shbg there aren't a lot of things out there that can reduce shbbg SHBG is what prevents testosterone from being free testosterone.

[779] And I asked a Tia, Peter Tia, like, what's the healthy level of free testosterone that a normal person should have, normal male should have?

[780] And he said it should be about 2 % of your total testosterone.

[781] And there aren't a lot of tools to do that.

[782] So if someone has a testosterone of, you know, of a thousand and their free testosterone is five, that's bad, right?

[783] You'd expect it to, you know, be up in the 20s.

[784] So, you know, as the oxandrolone anavar can adjust that, but it also can crank up liver enzymes.

[785] But it's very fast acting.

[786] So a lot of athletes, especially female athletes, will take this in the short run and then, you know, train with it, cut with it.

[787] That's how they get the, like I have this theory.

[788] And again, this is just theory.

[789] A lot of these female CrossFit athletes, they get those turtle shell abs.

[790] Some of them might have low body fat to begin with.

[791] But sometimes you'll see a look and you just have to, you know, you're projecting.

[792] But it's like, okay, they're taking something.

[793] thing.

[794] They don't look androgenized, but they look like they're definitely taking something.

[795] Well, I could speak for the Jiu -Jitsu world, and especially in competitions where they're not testing.

[796] There's a lot of girls that are taking things.

[797] I have a friend who used to date a girl who's a competitor, and she started doing steroids, and he started getting weirded out.

[798] Well, it clitoral enlargement's a real thing.

[799] She didn't get that yet, yet.

[800] This was quite a few years ago, but he was just weirded out that she was like taking testosterone and just to try to you know, be better at strangling people.

[801] But it's really unregulated in a lot of ways.

[802] Like it means some jiu -jitsu competitions test, but they kind of test in the realm of the old UFC testing where it's really just an IQ test.

[803] Because if you're smart, you know what to take and when to get off of it and when to cycle off before you weigh in.

[804] And, you know, it's not that big of an issue.

[805] But these, in -between competitions is where they're making all their gains, right?

[806] So in between competitions, what USADA does is they do random drug tests throughout the year.

[807] And Derek says even that, like, you can get away with it.

[808] He explained what they're testing for and why you can get away with it in multiple videos, and I don't want to fuck it up because the science of it, I'm sure I'll butcher.

[809] He's very skilled at all that.

[810] I mean, I think the testosterone replacement therapy part has also contaminated the public discussion.

[811] Like, I really appreciate it that years ago you just kind of outed with it.

[812] You're like, yeah, you know, TRT.

[813] But.

[814] Yeah, I've been telling people from the moment I started taking it.

[815] I'm not ashamed of it.

[816] No, why?

[817] Well, not only that.

[818] Like, I'm interested in all kinds of things that make my body function better.

[819] And I'm also interested in telling people.

[820] I would never take something and not tell people that I was taking it.

[821] If it was good, I'm like, if it was good, why wouldn't I tell you?

[822] And if it wasn't good, why would I take it?

[823] Like so if I'm taking something and it doesn't work, I'll tell you that.

[824] I'll tell you doesn't work.

[825] But if I'm taking something it works, like I don't understand this fear of expressing, you know, what supplements you're on or what, what things you're taking.

[826] It's very bizarre to me. Yeah, I don't know what part of human psychology that reflects either.

[827] I mean, I think that, I mean, look, it's clear that testosterone, whether or not it's replacing or maxing out or whatever, not maxing out like super physiological doses.

[828] But to raise testosterone, through injection or whatever of sippionate in reasonable dosage with the doctor you feel better effort feels good you recover quicker etc there are limits to that right you can convert to estrogen it has to be done properly but that's very clear yeah you don't want to have hyperphysical levels no those are dangerous no you get people retain water they get puffy they get really emotional they get gyna comastia I mean there's all sorts of issues and then there is this issue that there's a pre -existing prostate cancer it can make it worse but I don't think there's any evidence that it can cause prostate cancer actually probably the opposite.

[829] If estrogen is too high and testosterone is too low, that's actually worse for prostate health.

[830] I mean, young guys don't tend to get prostate cancer.

[831] They can, but it's pretty rare.

[832] But in general, as it relates to sports, it's tricky because, like, for instance, last time I kind of walked around this issue, but this time I'll just say it.

[833] I mean, I don't like basketball anyway, enough that I would worry that.

[834] I know someone who's a professional basketball player, and I asked him about steroids.

[835] And he said, well, if you get injured, you can take up to 200 migs a week, which is considered a TRT dose.

[836] But that's actually a pretty big dose.

[837] That's a one typical one -mill injection.

[838] That's a significant difference.

[839] Wait, wait, hold on.

[840] One -millimeter?

[841] So the typical dosage of testosterone is 200 milligrams per mil per mill.

[842] So one -c -c is how many milligrams?

[843] One -mill.

[844] One -mill.

[845] So these guys are taking two?

[846] No, they're taking one of those a week is what they're allowed to take.

[847] That's fucking huge.

[848] Right, because most people are either break it.

[849] We talked about this, I think, before, but breaking that up into some smaller injections.

[850] amounts is probably better to just keep androgen levels more reasonable what's a normal level that people take per week a hundred to 200 milligrams per week is pretty typical typically spread out like two tenths of a cc so you right so if you're thinking cc is like someone might divide that into so half a cc on monday half a cc on Thursday right that's a that's a reasonable thing but that's still a lot it's still a lot I mean half a cc yeah I could so five on a yeah you'd be raging.

[851] Yeah, exactly.

[852] Most typical now people will take somewhere, it pays to think about it in milligrams.

[853] People will take somewhere between, you know, 10 and 40 milligrams every third day or so, right?

[854] You just think about that.

[855] 10 and 40, really?

[856] Yeah, somewhere between 10.

[857] Yeah, because some people, you know, came into it with their testosterone at 650.

[858] And when you talk about replacement, you know, nowadays, people will prescribe.

[859] 40 is so hot.

[860] 40 milligrams every three or four days.

[861] That's still 120 milligrams, you know, per week or so.

[862] It seems a lot.

[863] 40 on Monday, 40 on Wednesday, 40 on Friday.

[864] I take 1 .5 every four days.

[865] 1 .5.

[866] Yeah, like if you look at a 1CC.

[867] You take the little.

[868] Yeah, a little tiny, it's like that amount.

[869] That's 30 milligrams every four days.

[870] Yeah, but you probably have net.

[871] 1 .5 is 30?

[872] Okay, wait, we're telling you, is it 0 .15 or 1 .5?

[873] 1 .5.

[874] So, like, you know, like if 1C