#502 - Dr. Rhonda Patrick

[0] Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

[1] The Joe Rogan Experience.

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

[3] Hello, Rhonda.

[4] Hello, Joe.

[5] You're the only person that's ever come in, sat down, and said, oh, this is good.

[6] I'm getting a cortisol rush.

[7] He said you're getting a cortisol rush from the feeling of about to do a podcast.

[8] Yeah, actually, I could have gone in a little more detail, but I was like, oh.

[9] Yeah, you know, so that feeling of anxiety, you know, that like you get.

[10] get, before you get on stage, I mean, you're a comedian, I'm sure you're really familiar with that.

[11] You actually are expressing a chemical called dynorphin.

[12] And this is an endogenous chemical in your brain, and it binds to something called the Kappa opioid receptor.

[13] It's kind of like the counter of the endorphin, which binds to the mu opioid receptor.

[14] So the endorphins are the feel good.

[15] Well, its nemesis is the dinorphin, which is that anxiety -like feeling.

[16] So, but here's the interesting part.

[17] that anxiety like feeling that you feel before you're going to do something that you're really that you care about or that's kind of anxiety provoking for me public speaking does it I get it right before I'm going to do it you know give a talk or something or do a podcast in front of you know 500 ,000 people so that dinorphin binding to the capo opioid receptor what it does is it upregulates the mu opioid receptor so that after you get that anxiety feeling you have a better endorphin rush because you upregulate the mu -opioid receptors which bind to the endorphins, the feel -good ones, and you actually become sensitized to them.

[18] So there's a biological mechanism by which having that anxiety actually does you good.

[19] So it's kind of like a stress at first, but then later on, you feel better and you're more relaxed.

[20] That's amazing.

[21] You know, that's interesting because one of the best feelings ever is after you compete.

[22] Like when you fight, One of the things that people get addicted to is you get addicted to the rush, for sure, the adrenaline rush, and you get addicted to just the challenge of competition being life magnified on such an incredible scale that everything else seems kind of pale in comparison.

[23] But the big addiction, I think, is the feeling that you get after you compete, especially if you win.

[24] There's just an amazing feeling like life is incredible.

[25] You just, you, like, the ground feels better under your feet.

[26] The colors and the trees look better.

[27] Everything looks better for a couple days.

[28] Yeah, no, I totally know what you're talking about, and there's a biological mechanism for that.

[29] And it's interesting because it's also the same mechanism that occurs when you are working out really hard.

[30] I mean, it's painful while you're doing it.

[31] But the more pain you experience, the better of the rush.

[32] It's the endorphin high people talk about.

[33] It's actually that that mechanism is anxiety -inducing, stress inducing is an important factor in that because of this mechanism I talk about where you upregulate those receptors that bind to the endorphins and you become, and you're sensitizing them, so they become more sensitized to them.

[34] So it's, uh, heat does the same thing.

[35] Heat, uh, stress.

[36] So, you know, exercise capsacin, so eating spicy food, it's painful while you're eating it.

[37] But what happens is there's, you're upregulating those, those mu opioid receptors and you're sensitizing them to the endorphins, which is why you feel really good after eating spicy food.

[38] Oh, that's what that is.

[39] Yeah.

[40] I never knew what that was.

[41] That's interesting, because I always thought it just tasted good, like a kind of a weird, cool, good, spicy taste.

[42] And I'm sure there's dopamine responses and all that stuff involved.

[43] I mean, there's complex mechanisms and things going on in your brain, but when you're eating or when you pleasure, when you enjoy a certain taste of a food.

[44] But this particular mechanism where you've got this dinorphin and endorphin, you know, connection, it's really interesting.

[45] And I think it's something I discussed in a recent article that I wrote about the son.

[46] So I hope, you know, people find it interesting because I think it's interesting.

[47] It's not something people know about.

[48] It is.

[49] It's gotten some really good responses, too.

[50] I've read it, and I've read a lot of the responses.

[51] People found it pretty fascinating when you were talking about it on the podcast.

[52] But it's kind of almost like the yin and yang of life is what you're talking about here.

[53] It's like you need to have some negative in order to feel some extra positive.

[54] Right.

[55] No, the, are you familiar with Hormesis?

[56] I know, I've heard the term, but I couldn't describe it if somebody asked me to it.

[57] Like, so what it means, you mean?

[58] Yes.

[59] Okay, so Hormesis, what it really refers to is having a little bit of stress, something that's a little toxic for you, something that's a little stressful on your body.

[60] I mean, exercise for sure is that heat is a little stressful things in some of the foods we eat, like the EGCGs in green tea or polyphenols and some of the fruits and also in red wine.

[61] These things are actually a little bit toxic to our body.

[62] And what happens is that this induces stress response mechanisms in our body, the activation of a whole host of genes like, you know, antioxidant genes, glutathione peroxidase, things like, you know, heat shock factors, which do a variety of different things.

[63] So a little bit of stress activates this whole stress response mechanism in our body, and then what happens is now we can deal with stress better.

[64] So it's kind of like interesting to think about adding a little bit of something that's toxic to, you know, get a better response.

[65] That's fascinating.

[66] You were talking about that last time we were here about mycotoxins, that in fact, mycotoxins in a small dose might induce that sort of a response.

[67] Yeah, I mean, I totally made, I was hand -waving.

[68] I haven't read anything, you know.

[69] Get you allowed to do that one year.

[70] I was hand -waving.

[71] I'm like, well, actually, maybe it makes sense that in a small dose.

[72] I mean, obviously, you don't want something that's, like, very toxic and going to kill your brain cells or anything like that.

[73] But things in small doses, and I was assuming that maybe mycotoxins could possibly have a little slight hormatic effect.

[74] You know, like I said, that was just me theorizing, you know, so.

[75] Isn't it fascinating, though, that that is sort of the way, like, especially when it comes to exercise, that you need to experience this, like, intense hardship in order to get this wonderful.

[76] feeling of accomplishment, this endorphin rush, and this, I feel so good after I work out.

[77] Like, I make all my best decisions after I have a really good workout.

[78] It's just like my body has a perspective.

[79] I have a better perspective.

[80] If I haven't worked out in a couple of days and I'm stressed and then I have to make a decision, oftentimes I don't trust my judgment.

[81] Oh, yeah.

[82] I'm the same way.

[83] I'm absolutely addicted to the feeling and the physiological changes that occur with exercise.

[84] And there are a lot of them that are occurring, you know, in the brain and elsewhere.

[85] But it's the same, you know, it's, what's really kind of fascinating recently, you know, you know about inducing neurogenesis when you work out.

[86] That's kind of well known where exercise induces the growth of new brain cells.

[87] BDNF is one way, IGF1.

[88] These things can, you know, you grow new brain cells.

[89] And so growing new brain cells has always been associated with learning and memory.

[90] It's like, oh, you grow new brain cells.

[91] And they've shown that that neurogenesis, in adults at least, is associated with new learning and new memory.

[92] But what they found recently, and I found this really interesting because it kind of changed the way I think of it, is that when you grow those new brain cells, like when you're exercising, heat stress does the same thing, actually, so getting in the sauna.

[93] When you're exercising, your heat stress in your body.

[94] I mean, your core body temperature is elevated.

[95] It's, you know, very similar.

[96] So what happens is you grow new brain cells and these new brain cells have to make new connections with other neurons.

[97] And so what ends up happening is that other connections that you made with So the connections you make between neurons, these synapses that you form memories.

[98] It's things that you can remember, right?

[99] I mean, you form these synapses, and that's like a piece of information remembered, or in some cases it's an experience that you had that you remember.

[100] Well, you actually change those synapses, and some of them go away, so you kind of forget to make room for a new neuron to make a new.

[101] So it really is interesting how also you have this connection.

[102] It's a balance where you're forgetting things, like you're totally, disconnecting some connections between old neurons that you had previously made for whatever thing you had learned and you're making room for this new neuron that just was born to make a new connection and learn something new.

[103] So you have that balance.

[104] Again, it's just, you know, it seems like a very important biological mechanism, this mean and Yang, where it's like there's stress and then there's the response to the stress, which is good.

[105] And, you know, there's things like, you know, forgetting things, but so that you can learn new things.

[106] I mean, It's kind of important.

[107] Can you imagine if you remembered everything you've ever, you'd go insane.

[108] Yeah, I have a real problem with that.

[109] I have a real problem with having too much information in my head and then forgetting things that other people remember.

[110] And they'll remember it like it was this big important thing.

[111] And I'm like, what?

[112] Did we really do that?

[113] I don't remember that.

[114] And it's just because I've had too many experiences.

[115] Like there's too much stuff where if you go back to talk to someone you went to high school with, people that don't leave that are stuck in that town and they can remember.

[116] Remember when we were 17 and we did that crazy thing?

[117] You're like, no, I don't fucking remember that.

[118] Like, how do you remember that?

[119] Like, you got to get out of town, man. You've got to make some new connections in your brain, son.

[120] Yeah, no, that's, you're referring to what's called episodic memory, which is the type of memory that's associated with experiences.

[121] And that's, there's a lot of different things that can regulate that.

[122] One would be like a very strong emotional response, like your amygdala is activated.

[123] So if something, you'll probably remember things that are, fear -inducing or something that's really exciting, like really, really exciting to you, you know, those sorts of things can solidify those types of connections.

[124] So, also serotonin plays a role in that, by the way.

[125] Does it really?

[126] Yeah, I've been doing this other paper that I've been working on, I've been looking at the role of serotonin in brain function and dysfunction and also behavior, but it seems like serotonin plays a role in executive function and specifically in episodic memory.

[127] so any episodic memory that has a big rush of serotonin would it be because what would what would cause that specifically what would make a serotonin rush in a memory yeah I think I mean there's a lot of different things there's serotonin release is happens to a variety of different factors but one one could actually be a very potent something that's very potent that's very potent that you're experiencing do you know does that make sense where it's like it's not just your everyday stuff that you kind of block at, like it's just routine, but it's something just novel and...

[128] Would that be like the day you find out that Kennedy got shot, or the day 9 -11 happened, or the day, like, extreme events?

[129] Yeah, what response would that be?

[130] I think that would be the amygdala response, yeah, where your amygdala gets activated.

[131] But I think for the serotonin, it's more of...

[132] They've done a lot of studies where they've looked at kind of like depleted, it and what happens what happens when you don't have when you can't make it you just your episodic memory is bad well that's the thing with people who do MDMA with people who party too much and do ecstasy is the the crush afterwards is their serotonin being depleted right that's a big part of it what's the mechanism of action of MDA i i always forget we could pull it up um well mdMA supposedly has some function with rushing serotonin to your system, and it gives you this gigantic, let's see if it gives you a induced euphoria, sense of intimacy with others, diminished anxiety, mild psychedelia.

[133] Psychedelia is a weird word.

[134] It doesn't seem like it should be real, but it is.

[135] Many studies, particularly in the fields of psychology and cognitive therapy.

[136] They use it a lot lately.

[137] It's been used a lot for PTSD, which is interesting, because, I've only taken it once.

[138] I took it once a long time ago.

[139] I never took it again.

[140] I never had a desire to take it again, although I had a very positive experience with it because the downside, the next day was just brutal.

[141] Like, I couldn't read.

[142] I remember I was in a coffee shop and I was trying to read a magazine and I couldn't focus enough to read a paragraph.

[143] You couldn't focus?

[144] There was nothing going on.

[145] My brain felt like a dry sponge.

[146] Wow.

[147] So something, things that happen when you release a lot of serotonin, you know, into your synapses, is that your body, because it's too much, there's more than, you know, it's supposed to have, you'll start to downregulate other receptors.

[148] And there seems to, there's like a negative feedback.

[149] So what would happen then is the next day, you're not going to be as responsive to that serotonin.

[150] And that's, that's something that's a big problem with some SSRI drugs and things like that, where, you know, you're basically preventing the serotonin from being re -metabolized.

[151] taken back up.

[152] And so it sits around in these synaps for a lot longer than it's supposed to.

[153] And they've shown that the consequence to that is you actually downregulate serotonin receptors, which is what, you know, serotonin receptor responds to the serotonin that you're releasing.

[154] So you can't respond to it, then, you know, what's the point?

[155] So there's a lot of these feedback mechanisms that occur, you know, and I don't even know all of them.

[156] It's very complex.

[157] Yeah, it's listed in Wiki under the long -term effects that it causes a down -regulation of serotonin reuptych.

[158] take transporters in the brain.

[159] The rate at which the brain recovers from serotonergic.

[160] Mm -hmm.

[161] Serotonergic.

[162] Serotonergic changes is unclear.

[163] One study demonstrated lasting serotonogic changes.

[164] Tenergic.

[165] Tenergic.

[166] In some animals exposed to MDMA, other studies have suggested that brain may recover from the damage.

[167] But a lot of people that do it, they take 5HTP to try to juice up their serotonin.

[168] They take it while they're doing MDMA and then they take it afterwards.

[169] You have to be really careful when you're combining multiple drugs that are affecting like serotonin, for example, or that pathway, because then you can end up getting something called, I think they call it serotonin syndrome, where it's like people that are taking SSRIs have to be really careful and not take a bunch of tryptophaners, you know, because then you can induce like a toxicity that's pretty dangerous.

[170] And I forget it what all the, you know, what all the actual effects of serotonin syndrome are, but they're not good.

[171] Yeah, not good at all.

[172] That's an issue with people also that are taking 5HDP.

[173] Yeah.

[174] If they're on a serotonin SSRI and they take 5HTP, you can get this serotonin syndrome.

[175] Yes, yeah.

[176] You know, the other thing about serotonin, I mean, we always think about it as being a brain, you know, neurochemical, right?

[177] A neurotransmitter in the brain.

[178] But actually, the majority of the serotonin in your body is not in your brain.

[179] It's made in your gut.

[180] Really?

[181] Yeah.

[182] So I actually just published a paper.

[183] It was published the last time I was on this podcast, actually, my paper.

[184] I didn't know it was, it came out in press the day that I was on this podcast.

[185] But so there's two different genes that they're that convert triptophan into 5HDP.

[186] Okay.

[187] That's the rate limiting step where you convert triptophan into 5 hydroxytriptophan.

[188] And that's called triptophan hydroxylase.

[189] Okay.

[190] And there's one enzyme called triptophan hydroxylase.

[191] L. That's localized or located outside of the blood -brain barrier.

[192] And it's predominantly found in the gut, but it's also found in the pineal gland, which is actually separated by the blood brain barrier.

[193] It's not, it's close to the brain, but it's actually separated.

[194] And it's also found in some of your T cells and placenta tissue.

[195] But, and then there's tryptophanhydroxylase 2, which is the brain form.

[196] And that's found in the dorsal raffae part, the mid part of your brain.

[197] and there's also some expression.

[198] So your gut has neurons in it as well, enteric neurons.

[199] That enzyme, that's the neuron one, there's some of that also in your gut, but mostly it's the other enzyme.

[200] So there's tryptophanhydroxylase 1, chptophanhydroxylase 2.

[201] They both make serotonin.

[202] So serotonin made in your gut actually causes GI inflammation, and they've shown this in, like, mouse models.

[203] Because what happens is serotonin made in the gut activates T cells.

[204] and the T cells have a receptor to it on their cell surface, and when they respond to serotonin, they proliferate and grow more.

[205] And so if you're making, if you have a bunch of serotonin in your gut, you can get GI inflammation.

[206] And, you know, this is, I think this has also been documented with people that take too much 5HTP, as well as people with colitis and such.

[207] They've done mouse models where they knock out that enzyme, triptoven hydroxylase 1, that makes serotonin in the gut.

[208] and it completely ameliorates that the inflammatory, like, you know, symptoms in those mouse models.

[209] So the other enzyme in your brain, so this is where my paper comes in.

[210] I'm sort of, it's a theoretical paper, but I found a mechanism.

[211] So a theoretical paper means I didn't actually do any experiments on mice.

[212] I didn't actually do a clinical trial.

[213] I just, I found an underlying mechanism, and I explained it all and found all this stuff that was buried in the literature and put it all together.

[214] It's actually my first theoretical paper that I've ever written and published.

[215] Yeah, thanks.

[216] So what I found was that these two enzymes for tryptophan hydroxylase both have what's called a vitamin D response element in it, which is a tell -tel sequence that vitamin D, when vitamin D binds to a vitamin D receptor, it recognizes that and it can turn on a gene or it turns off a gene.

[217] And when it turns on, gene does what it's supposed to do and turns it off, it's almost like it's not there.

[218] What I found with it is that, so the sequence itself of this vitamin D element can determine whether or not it's going to turn it on or off.

[219] And I found these two different enzymes.

[220] Uptopin hydroxylase had different response elements.

[221] One was an on signal and one was an off signal.

[222] The one in the brain was an on signal.

[223] And the one in the gut was an off signal, suggesting that vitamin D was regulating the production of serotonin in opposite directions in different tissues.

[224] So you needed it to make it in your brain.

[225] But if you had enough vitamin D, it would shut off the gut one, not completely, but it turns it down.

[226] so that you're not making as much serotonin, you don't have as much GI inflammation.

[227] And then I related this to autism because, I know I'm getting way out there, but it's pretty cool.

[228] So autism has been on the rise.

[229] Like right now, the most recent CDC report that came out said that one in 68 children have autism.

[230] I mean, it's been, it's risen like 600 % since the 1970s.

[231] Like, it's astronomical, like how much it's risen.

[232] So they can't really, they haven't identified a genetic cause.

[233] like 70, over 70 % of autism cases have not been linked to a genetic mutation, which means, to me, something in the environment seems to be going on.

[234] There's something that is, you know, interacting with possible genetic mechanisms that's causing, you know, this autism rise.

[235] And, you know, vitamin D is one thing that's been, people getting adequate vitamin D has been on the decrease the same time that autism rises, autism's been rising.

[236] And so I came up with this, this.

[237] theory that low vitamin D during pregnancy and also during neonate when your young child can lead to serotonin deficiency in the brain.

[238] And what happens is during the brain, during fetal brain development, serotonin is critical to guide neurons to where they're supposed to go, to make them proliferate.

[239] You know, it's an important differentiation factor to help them make the kind of neurons they're supposed to make.

[240] It plays a very, very important role in regulating brain structure and morphology.

[241] What vitamin D in particular, because vitamin D3 was the one that you were harping on last time?

[242] Right, vitamin D3.

[243] So vitamin D3, the way it works is you can make vitamin D in your skin, so you can convert it into D3.

[244] Yeah, so UVB radiation, you need UVB light, and it converts something in your skin called 7 dehydro cholesterol into vitamin D3.

[245] And then this gets released into the bloodstream, goes.

[246] to your liver, where then it's converted to 25 hydroxy vitamin D, which is what people, it's a major circulating form of vitamin D, and that's what you get measured when you go, you know, get your vitamin D levels measured.

[247] And then it goes into your kidneys and gets activated to an active steroid hormone.

[248] And it's called 125 hydroxy vitamin D. So vitamin D gets converted into an active steroid hormone.

[249] And once it's converted into that active steroid hormone in your kidneys, what then it does is it binds to a vitamin D receptor in different tissues in your body, including your brain, and it does this thing where it turns on or turns off over a thousand different genes in your body.

[250] So it's regulating a lot of, you know, different processes.

[251] One of them is the serotonin.

[252] So I basically came up with this theory that, you know, women were not getting F -itamin D and the child's brain was then becoming serotonin deficiency.

[253] It was changing the structure of the way the brain was developing.

[254] And they've seen now that autism actually seems to be occurring in utero.

[255] And they're finding now, they've been doing these studies where they're finding now there seems to be a good, strong environmental component.

[256] And they haven't figured out what it is.

[257] So I'm hoping that people will start.

[258] I'm not an autism researcher and I'm not a neuroscientist.

[259] I mean, I know a little bit about it.

[260] But what I did was I kind of just took a step back and started putting all these things together and came up with this hypothesis.

[261] And I also found things like estrogen can activate that same gene in tryptophenidroxylase.

[262] So estrogen can protect you.

[263] If you have low vitamin D, you can still make that.

[264] that serotonin from tryptophan because estrogen activates that same gene also so and then the whole gut inflammation thing autistics have this and I think that they're you know they have high gut inflammation because they have too much they have too much serotonin going on in the gut that's a common thing with it's common with autistics wow that's interesting that's fascinating so it's pretty interesting I totally forgot why I got on this I totally tangent well we were talking about serotonin 5HTP yeah yeah yeah cells in the gut right so that that's another thing where it's like 5HTP, the first thing it does is it hits the gut, and you've got that enzyme in there that can, well, in the gut, so 5HTP actually bypasses a tryptophen hydroxylase part.

[265] It's now the next step, which is to be decarboxylated into serotonin.

[266] So you can actually convert it.

[267] If you take too much of it, you'll convert it into serotonin in your gut before it gets to your brain.

[268] So it's something to keep in my, 5H, serotonin does not cross the blood brain barrier.

[269] 5HTP does Wow So if you're converting the serotonin immediately in your gut Then it's not going to get to your brain So there's complex mechanisms Does tryptophan cross the blood brain barrier Triptophan does get transported into the brain Yeah and we talked about this a little bit last time Where it competes with branched chain amino acids To get transported into the brain So what happens is Lucine Isolucine these things actually win they both because they're the same they're going through the same transporter triptophan is a very rare amino acid in proteins it's much less abundant than branch chain amino acids like lucid and is it a myth the triptophan turkey thing the that correlation between eating turkey and getting tired after you I don't think that getting tired after eating it is a myth I think it it's a myth that it's due to triptophan because actually so the pineal gland So the pineal gland converts serotonin into melatonin, okay?

[270] And the penile gland is not, it's not part of the, it's separated by the blood -brain barrier.

[271] So that competition, you know, for the branched amino acids getting into the penile gland is, we're talking about something different.

[272] So, you know, you probably are getting a little bit of tryptophan being converted into melatonin, or serotonin, and then melatonin when you're eating turkey.

[273] But turkey has a lot of branched -chain amino acids as well so it's most like you just a fat fuck it's most likely yeah exactly you know but you said it not me stuffing and all the other stuff that goes along with it um the t -cells i want to get back to that real quick because you were talking about the elevated t -cell count now is that something that would help people that have HIV um would uh a lot like a high dose of 5 htp help people who have HIV that have low T -cell counts?

[274] Does that make sense?

[275] Is it the same thing?

[276] I've never thought about that.

[277] I mean...

[278] That's an issue, right?

[279] With AIDS patients?

[280] Yeah, I mean, well, there's a lot of issues, but yeah, they definitely do have low T -cell.

[281] I don't know.

[282] That's a really good question, Joe.

[283] Actually, I'm pretty impressed.

[284] That's interesting.

[285] It's possible.

[286] But it seems like 5HTP, you know, being converted to serotonin.

[287] Does serotonin have an effect on T -cell counts?

[288] Yeah.

[289] Only gut level serotonin?

[290] Um, no, it has an effect on peripheral blood T cell counts.

[291] Yeah.

[292] That's why it's actually a pretty fascinating question.

[293] I, I, uh, I don't know the answer to, but certainly something that I think I'll probably look into after this.

[294] Yeah, that seems like we have some, we have a supplement that we sell that is, uh, hold on, it's in this box right here.

[295] That's 5HTP, L -Tryptophan and a couple other things.

[296] It's called New Mood.

[297] Yeah.

[298] It's, uh, basically, oh, you got one right here?

[299] Yeah.

[300] that's um as a five htp supplement that was originally created it was originally when we first came up with it uh allegedly my friend and partner allegedly likes to do ecstasy allegedly and he came up with this uh they called it roll off and the idea would be when you came off of you know when people do MDMA they call it rolling and when you're off the MDMA you know you're like Well, that was the nutritional boost that you needed to get your brain to produce more 5HDP or to produce more serotonin, rather.

[301] Actually, what's really interesting as I look at this is that you have vitamin D3 in it.

[302] Yes.

[303] Which really surprises me because whoever made this connection for putting the vitamin D in with the L -chipan, I'm pretty impressed because that until my paper was published in February, no one had known that vitamin D can regulate.

[304] I mean, I'm sure, I don't know, whoever made that connection, that's interesting, that's interesting that you were able to figure out to put vitamin D with L -tryptophan because I haven't seen any supplement on the market that's done that.

[305] I mean, I don't know if you, whoever did this new, but because triptophan, you know, you need vitamin D to convert triptophan into serotonin.

[306] So that's actually pretty, I'm interested.

[307] Well, my partner, Aubrey, who's also my good friend, is very, he's very diligent when it comes to the research involved in any of these supplements, and he's also been a freak about vitamins and nutrients, like his entire life, his mother's a maniac when it comes to that stuff.

[308] He learned a lot of it from her and then extensive research.

[309] But, yeah, I mean, we made sure that we weren't putting something like that out.

[310] We wanted to make sure that we had all the bases covered.

[311] Yeah.

[312] No, that's kind of cool, that the vitamin D's in there.

[313] I wouldn't have expected that.

[314] The pineal gland is a fascinating gland.

[315] The fact that that is what creates so many different elements that regulate mood and that also now, I don't know if you're familiar with this, there's always been this thing about dimethyltropamine, which is the psychedelic drug that's produced by the brain.

[316] It's also produced by the liver and the lungs.

[317] Well, they've found recently, like within the last year, evidence that it's produced by the pineal gland.

[318] It's always been like this big sort of, there was anecdotal evidence, but there was never real hard evidence until they actually show that in live mice, the pineal gland is producing dimethylptamine.

[319] And that's the third eye.

[320] I mean, the pineal gland, you know, in reptiles.

[321] So it's producing it when you sleep or?

[322] Well, it's producing it during different periods of stress, during REM sleep.

[323] But they, you know, it's hard to get a brain, hard to get a mouse to sleep, or you got a fucking big saw mark on its brain or an opening in its brain.

[324] and you're testing its pineal gland.

[325] Right.

[326] You know, so the amount of evidence they have about humans about when and where is kind of limited, but now they're making these correlating, they're making a correlation based on, you know, the mammal based on the mice, but they're trying to do more studies on human beings, more accurate studies.

[327] Yeah.

[328] And trying to come up with more accurate ways of testing, especially during different stages.

[329] Because the hypothesis is, The theory is that when during heavy REM sleep and during periods of extreme stress when your body believes that it's going to die, like if you're under extreme physical trauma, like people that have had extreme physical trauma, you know, and they have that go to the light moment, the idea is that that's a dimethythotryptamine rush and that the reason why they have these intense afterlife experiences and I came back and it was amazing.

[330] I got to see my mother and I went to this place and God was there.

[331] You can get there if you take psychedelic drugs.

[332] I mean, you can get there right now.

[333] A healthy person can have almost the exact same type of experience with psychedelic drugs.

[334] And it's just a crazy psychedelic drug because your own brain makes it.

[335] So the dimethylopamine that you produce in the pineal gland crosses over the blood -braid barrier and starts affecting things like in your brain?

[336] Is it binding to different receptors and stuff in your brain?

[337] That would be a question for someone far smarter than me. Okay.

[338] The drug, Iahuasca, I'm sure you've heard of that.

[339] Yeah, I mean, I've heard of dimethylptamine as well, and I just am not a well -versed in the whole field.

[340] Well, it's just a crazy drug because it's the most potent psychedelic drug known to man, and it's the one produced by your own brain.

[341] So it's really weird.

[342] Is it produced, like, is it like from melatonin, or is it completely different?

[343] Completely different.

[344] But it's very similar to melatonin in its chemical structure.

[345] It's related.

[346] like they're close it's weird I mean because melatonin you know regulates the sleep wake cycle and circadian rhythm so you know I'm just I'm wondering if it's very similar and structure to melatonin would it have any role in that as well circadian rhythm it could I think they're all connected I mean they tried it like okay this is the when you look at any of the studies that they've done on the human mind and the studies that they've done connecting various hormones and things like, whether it's dimethyltropamine or melatonin or tryptophan, I think it's probably pretty safe to say that it's kind, I mean, we know a lot about that stuff or they know a lot about that stuff, but they're not entirely certain about all the different effects that these regulating hormones have on the brain.

[347] Is that safe to say?

[348] Oh, yeah, for sure.

[349] It's very complex.

[350] I think they're probably the most ignorant about dimethylophthalmine.

[351] Yeah.

[352] Because it's, you know, it's been thought of as a recreational drug for a long time.

[353] So people aren't studying as much, probably.

[354] Well, the only guy that I know that's had grants to study it and has been allowed to study it by the, what is it, the food and drug administration?

[355] Or who regulates, I guess it would be the FDA that would regulate that.

[356] Yeah.

[357] Now, in terms of, like, the recreational drugs, I, you know, I don't know.

[358] I think it's the FDA because dimethylptamine is a really weird one because although it's illegal, it's in so many different things.

[359] It's impossible to get the source is illegal because dimethylptamine is in like a thousand different plants.

[360] It's in grass.

[361] Wow.

[362] I mean, you could get grass.

[363] You could literally get phalaris grass.

[364] You just go mow a lawn, a filaris grass lawn, take the bag of that shit, bring it to a lab somewhere and you got DMT and you have a Schedule 1 drug.

[365] It's just bananas.

[366] My cat, well, she passed away recently.

[367] She was, she liked to go outside and chew her some grass.

[368] Like, I mean, it was like, and she would, she would get real crazy about it, too.

[369] It was like, you know, like, you want to see something really crazy?

[370] You want to see a jaguar trip out?

[371] Pull that video of a jaguar tripping out on DMT.

[372] Jaguars in the Amazon find these DMT rich plants and they chew them and eat them and have psychedelic experiences.

[373] And they have a different, apparently they have a different, way of processing things in their stomachs than we do because they're primarily carnivores so they don't have the same gut enzymes and things like here's the here's the jaguar up what plays for you then we'll discuss it but it's so crazy because this jaguar like they do it actively it's like something they do on a regular basis and they've observed them many times they'll eat these grasses and these uh plants rather and then they just trip their balls up cats like jaguars eat leaves when regurgitated they cleanse their digestive system like catnip some plants induce other effects this jaguar is first of all of the commonest rainforest vines it seems to cause playful kittenish behavior yeah but could something deeper be happening that cat is seeing all kinds of shit right now they're the king of the jungle i mean I mean, the jaguar is in the real jungle.

[374] Yeah, the brain's fascinating.

[375] I mean, it's, biology itself is pretty complicated.

[376] Yeah, look at this jaguar.

[377] His eyes are dilated.

[378] There's the same exact plant that people use in ayahuasca rituals.

[379] So this jaguar is eating it, and he's lying on his back.

[380] It's pretty fascinating stuff.

[381] Like so much of weird nature, there is still so much.

[382] to know.

[383] The, um, the, the, the, the human gut produces monoamine oxidase, which makes dimethyptamine, uh, it doesn't, it kills it in the gut so that if you consume grass that has, uh, DMT in it, you're, you don't have a psychedelic trip.

[384] But I don't know if a cat has the same gut enzymes.

[385] Yeah, I don't, I'm not sure.

[386] Yeah.

[387] Yeah, no, your gut, your gut has a lot.

[388] I mean, it's making neurotransmitters or, you know, it's, there's, there's, there's neurons down there doing stuff and there's a connection between the brain and the gut as well.

[389] But it's just so, the The whole thing about the human mind is so fascinating, where someone like you, who is just sort of putting together all these different things that you found in different books, and you go, well, hey, look at this combination of things is going on, and the vitamin D and vitamin D depletion.

[390] And then here we have this issue with autism, and autism has to do with inflammation, the gut, and then it has to do with vitamin.

[391] I put together a lot of stuff, and I explained the male dominance and all this.

[392] And really, my goal was, look, maybe I'm right.

[393] on, you know, maybe I'm wrong on some of these things, but, you know, I'm definitely right about some, some of these things here.

[394] I'm interjecting it, interjecting it into, you know, the world, the scientific world for all you people that actually do research on autism and do research on serotonin and all this because I don't.

[395] I mean, that's not what I do.

[396] And I think that that's, it's good to have theoretical papers like that sometimes where it's like you get someone who can make all these connections where there's tons of stuff buried in the literature.

[397] And I had a mechanism.

[398] I had a specific mechanism.

[399] mechanism that explained it.

[400] And you kind of just say, here, now, if you think this is interesting, follow up on it.

[401] And actually, we started collaborating with a group that does do research on one of these, you know, looks at serotonin and does vitamin D research.

[402] And they were just jumping out of their chairs.

[403] They were so excited.

[404] And so now they're doing experiments.

[405] And have already found positive data, which is really nice and reinforcing.

[406] But so that's, you know, that was, that was my goal is to kind of just make these connections, big picture, you know, find a mechanism.

[407] Finding a mechanism.

[408] Finding a mechanism.

[409] mechanism by which vitamin D regulated serotonin was amazing and putting it out in literature.

[410] But the whole vitamin D thing, vitamin D3, is important.

[411] And I think it's something that most people are, 70 % of the population is not getting inadequate, you know.

[412] 70%.

[413] 70, yeah.

[414] Actually, we have, someone reach out to me on Twitter after the last podcast, an artist.

[415] And he was like, look, I really like what you're doing.

[416] and, you know, I've been wanting to make a cool infographic.

[417] Just basically summarizing everything I ever talk about with vitamin D. It's like all in one graphic.

[418] And he did it for me. And if you want to pull it up, it's on foundmyfitness .com.

[419] Oh, yeah.

[420] Forward slash vitamin D. No, vitamin hyphen D. And it's a freaking awesome infographic where this guy's name.

[421] Oh, his name's Jason Wright.

[422] Jason Wright.

[423] Right on, Jason Wright.

[424] Yeah.

[425] So he made this infographic where it's like, Basically, I talk about how vitamin D regulates a thousand different genes in the body.

[426] Yeah, here it is.

[427] So it starts off here.

[428] It's got this guy with all these like chromosomes in him with telomeres because vitamin D is important for telomere length.

[429] Ooh, I want to talk about that too.

[430] Oh, totally.

[431] And then if you scroll down, it's like, look, he's showing, oh, 70 % of the U .S. population does not have adequate levels.

[432] I thought that was really cool.

[433] I like how we made the graph too.

[434] We see 10 people.

[435] Yeah, exactly.

[436] Three of them have it.

[437] Right.

[438] And seven of them don't.

[439] Right.

[440] And then it goes on it.

[441] And this is like your tag cloud where it's like all the things that like go wrong when you don't have enough vitamin D. That's incredible.

[442] Isn't that awesome?

[443] So and it's like learning impairments, you know, reduce serotonin, increased cancer risk.

[444] All I mean, nine, over a thousand different genes in the body.

[445] So they scroll down more.

[446] And it shows a telomere because it actually DNA repair enzymes are regulated by vitamin D as well.

[447] So if you're not getting enough vitamin D, you're going to have, you can see that break in your DNA.

[448] You're going to get damage to your DNA.

[449] And then as you keep going, it shows you.

[450] oh, all the factors that regulate your vitamin D. Like how sunscreen blocks UVB, so you can't make it with sunscreen, melanin, which is an adaptation to prevent UVB, you know, rays from burning you, actually also blocks your ability to make vitamin D. And body fat regulates it.

[451] So all these different, body fat regulates the bioavailability of it.

[452] So it has to be released into the bloodstream.

[453] We get converted in active hormone.

[454] Age, age regulates it.

[455] Seven -year -old makes four times less vitamin D. from their skin than their former 20 -year -old self.

[456] All these things.

[457] Living in the northern latitude is another thing.

[458] People that live in like, I think it says above 37 degrees north, with the exception of the summer, they cannot make any vitamin D from the sun.

[459] Wow.

[460] So the solution is vitamin D supplement.

[461] And, you know, this is just a really awesome way to put all this great information, you know, show it with graphics, people like that, and it's easier for people to understand.

[462] And I go into, you know, what your level should be and all that.

[463] But I was really stoked because I've been wanting to do this for a really long time.

[464] And I have no artistic capabilities.

[465] Yeah.

[466] No, that's so cool.

[467] Someone just reaching out to me and wanting to help was like, you know, it was really cool.

[468] So.

[469] Where is it on your website if you were looking for it?

[470] I think if you sign up for my newsletter.

[471] That's how you get it?

[472] Yeah, yeah.

[473] I think that's how you get it.

[474] Your website's getting crushed right now.

[475] It's really hard to even.

[476] get to is it took me five chances to get to wow yeah so so yeah that that's the uh the cool the vitamin d that's very cool yeah totally the telomere length thing the reason why i wanted to get to that is because i had emailed you about the supplement that i had read about called t a 65 and i had read about it because my friend bobby uh he uh emailed me about it and uh his dad was taking it.

[477] That's bad Bobby for folks on the message board.

[478] B -A -A -A -A -D, B -O -B -B -Y.

[479] His dad was taking in.

[480] His dad started experiencing vision improvement.

[481] And I was like, that's fucking crazy.

[482] And so, like, what is this TA -65 stuff?

[483] So I go on to Google and I Google TA -65.

[484] And there's all these crazy claims and a lot of people are selling it.

[485] And, you know, there's a lawsuit against it because there was a guy who was working.

[486] for the company, a former executive who is suing them because he says that it might have caused him to get cancer.

[487] And, I mean, the idea is what they're saying, this is the company that sells it.

[488] This is the correlation between cellular aging and telomere length is rooted in solid research.

[489] Telomeres become shorter every time a cell divides and when they are lost, cells can no longer reproduce.

[490] The enzyme telomeres, telomerase, how do you say it?

[491] Ptolemares.

[492] Talomeres can lengthen telomeres, possibly slowing or reversing degenerative diseases in one study mice genetically engineered to lack functional telomerase.

[493] Telomerase.

[494] Telomerase.

[495] To lack functional telomerase showed brain degeneration and shrunken testes, but those effects were reversed when the enzyme was reactivated.

[496] And such findings have sparked a lot of hype and encourage a cottage industry of companies that assess.

[497] a person's biological age on the basis of their telomere length.

[498] But T .A. Sciences has taken the buzz further and they sell a pill called T .A. 65, which it says can shorten, can lengthen, excuse me, short telomers.

[499] Yes.

[500] All right.

[501] Tilemers, yes.

[502] But let me explain.

[503] Please, too.

[504] I mean, so complicated, but I think I can, I think I can shed some light.

[505] I think I can.

[506] So, this is all right.

[507] You know, telomeres, you know, every cell in your body has 46 chromosomes, with the exception of your gametes, which have 23.

[508] But these chromosomes have your DNA.

[509] They're wound up with these histone proteins, and that's where your DNA is.

[510] And at the end of these chromosomes are your telomeres.

[511] The problem is that these telomeres have a funny structure where their DNA, it's a repeat of TTAGGG.

[512] And there's like this structural defect in the DNA of the telomere where there's a big overhang.

[513] and like one of your strains of DNA is longer than the other one.

[514] And so when the cell divides and it's got to copy its entire genome with all those 46 chromosomes to make a new cell with all that same DNA, there's a little gap there at the end because it's like, oh, my God, I don't have anything here.

[515] How do I make the new DNA?

[516] And so what happens is the next cell then has a little bit shorter telomere because there was that little gap that didn't get filled.

[517] And this is happening successfully over multiple generations year after year after year each time it gets a little shorter, each time it gets a little shorter.

[518] And that becomes a problem because these telomeres are actually protecting your DNA from damage, you know, oxidative damage from unwinding and also from your chromosomes when your cell divides, they protect your chromosomes from fusing together and like getting all these funny abnormal translocations, which lead to cancer and other problems.

[519] So you don't want that to happen.

[520] And the problem is, is that you, most of our cells, with the exception of our stem cells and our lymphocytes, don't express this enzyme called telomerase, which is able to actually rebuild the telomeres.

[521] It's actually able to rebuild the end where that telomere little gap where we can't make it.

[522] So it's really cool.

[523] It's like, well, here's this great enzyme that can rebuild it.

[524] But why is it only in our stem cells and why isn't it in all of our cells?

[525] The gene is there, but it's just not activated.

[526] It's, you know, silenced.

[527] And the answer for that is, well, if you express too much telomerase and all these other cells, what happens is you can make a cell immortal.

[528] And cancer cells have actually developed.

[529] They're so smart.

[530] Cancer cells are like the smartest thing ever.

[531] They've developed this capability to reactivate that enzyme to become immortal.

[532] But the really ironic thing is, is that it's the critically short telomeres when your when your telomeres get to a really really really short stage they go into this crisis where it's like oh my god what do i do what do i do you know and they either die or they you know go into this senescent state where they don't divide or they somehow can reactivate this telomerase and at that point if they reactivate this telomerase you can if you if this is a damaged cell that already has mutations and stuff you're like boom okay we're gonna we're going to keep you going now.

[533] So it's kind of paradoxal that the short telomere length is what actually can reactivate the telomerase to make it become immortal.

[534] And make cancer?

[535] Yeah, well, if you already have mutation, yeah, if it's already like an abnormal cell because you've already gotten damage and stuff to it, yes, exactly.

[536] You can take a precancerous cell and say, here, keep going, grow more.

[537] So this is, the telomerase is in stem cells because your stem cells aren't dividing that much.

[538] They're usually just around waiting to they have to come out and divide and make more of a certain cell type and then they go back into just waiting around.

[539] So they're not constantly, you know, dividing, meaning they're not constantly get at risk for more damage.

[540] And I can explain that later.

[541] But anyway, so the telomerase and the mice, this is kind of cool.

[542] So you talked about these telomerase deficient mice.

[543] Well, mice actually, it's really weird, they express telomerase in all their cells.

[544] Their telomeres don't get shorter and yet they only live two years on average.

[545] And so in order to try to understand the biological mechanisms by which telom are shortening what those effects are, you have to genetically engineer them to not express that telomerase.

[546] And what happens is over multiple generations, it takes like three, three or, when you get to generation four, you know, then you start to see progeria types of effects, where now these mice they're born, this is the fourth generation of not having this enzyme, it takes like that long to actually get the telomeres to a really short level where it starts to have projury effects and they start to prematurely age their tissues start to you know break down and they have all these sorts of aging effects and so what they've shown is they can reactivate telomerase at that point after four generations and it reverses those biological effects so the tissues become younger the stem cells you know are you know active and and making replenishing populations like they're supposed to so it's kind of cool it's like here you have this pro aging mouse, you reactivate the enzyme, and it literally reversed the aging in these mice.

[547] Would that have a possible benefit to children that have progeria?

[548] So it depends on what type of perjuria.

[549] There's certain ones, like there's Werner syndrome, which if you pull up, if you just Google Warner Syndrome and image it, W -E -R -N -E -R -W -R -N -E -R -W -N -R.

[550] you know, short telomeres.

[551] So you basically, you can't rebuild your telomeres and it's excessive telomere shortening.

[552] And what happens is, yeah, if you click on the one with the two pictures of the women, um, by the time they reach puberty, like 15, no, not that one.

[553] there was, if you go back, there's, there's, yeah, it's like Filipino woman there, I think.

[554] Left hand corner.

[555] Perfect.

[556] Yes.

[557] So, like, she ages normally up until the age of about 15.

[558] and then after 15 she's 40 years old in that right hand picture 40 I mean she looks like she's like 80 right or 90 yeah she looks pretty old so um in that in that case it'd be interesting to see if having telomerase could help rebuild the telomeres but like I said because of the potential danger of allowing a precancerous cell to become immortal I think there's been a lot of there's a lot of people are careful about that and that's why it's not like it's not like like on the market right now where you're just...

[559] But people are selling it.

[560] Yeah.

[561] This is the thing, this TA 65 stuff, and this is the lawsuit, is that this guy who worked for them is saying that he got cancer.

[562] So the thing with reactivating telomerase is if you are, if you generally are healthy, you don't have a lot of, you know, your C -reactive proteins low, you don't have a lot of inflammation, a lot of damaged cells, then a lot of precancer.

[563] cells, your immune system is getting rid of them.

[564] You know, reactivating telomerase in a normal cell is not really a bad thing.

[565] It's not going to make it a cancer cell.

[566] It's going to make it immoral.

[567] It's going to help, you know, it not have critically short telomeres.

[568] The problem is reactivating it in a cell that has a bunch of damage in it.

[569] And so to me, you know, measuring, looking at how much damage is in your cell, like we can do that.

[570] I do that right now in people.

[571] I take their blood cells and I look at DNA damage.

[572] Look at mine.

[573] Check them out.

[574] Yeah, you have to come.

[575] You can't.

[576] What do you have to do?

[577] You'd have to come down to the Bay and the Bay Area and sign a consent form.

[578] That's it?

[579] Just like you sign a consent form when you do a podcast?

[580] Yeah.

[581] Different form?

[582] Kind of, kind of like that.

[583] Just to be a part of my trial.

[584] So what do you do?

[585] So what I do is I take blood.

[586] Well, I get an MD to take it for me. And so they draw the blood.

[587] and then I take the blood and I centerfuge it through this gradient where I can then isolate just the peripheral blood mononuclear cells, which are like mostly B &T lymphocytes.

[588] That's in some monocytes.

[589] So I don't have any red blood cells or platelets or any of those neutrophiles.

[590] I don't want those or macrophages or things like that.

[591] So when I take those peripheral blood mononuclear cells and I look at the amount of double -stranded breaks in the DNA.

[592] So I can actually measure that.

[593] I can quantify that.

[594] And not only do I look at those double -stranded breaks in the DNA, so the double -stranded breaks, I think we talked about this a little bit last time.

[595] So just normal living.

[596] It's just, it's so, it's so like, here's aging for you in a nutshell.

[597] Just normal age, living, your metabolism, your mitochondria are generating oxygen radicals, which, you know, gets your DNA and you get enough of these oxygen radicals to cause a strand break.

[598] And then you get them in parallel, you have two strand breaks.

[599] UV radiation does the same thing.

[600] But let's just forget about all the outside stuff.

[601] Like forget about carcinogens, UV smoking, all that.

[602] Just normal, you know, living does this.

[603] And this happens every single day, you know.

[604] And so your body has to repair that damage.

[605] And I talked about those enzymes that are magnesium dependent and how magnesium is important for DNA repair enzymes.

[606] And 45 % of the population doesn't have enough of that.

[607] well, I'm looking at people that are obese and those people usually don't have a really good diet and they're most often magnesium deficient.

[608] Well, I don't want to say deficient because it's not like a clinical acute deficiency.

[609] It's like they're inadequate.

[610] Okay.

[611] They're inadequate levels of magnesium.

[612] They're not taking in, you know, enough magnesium, which is 400 or so milligrams a day.

[613] They, so I look at their DNA and their strand breaks.

[614] And then I have this because I think that they're not getting enough magnesium.

[615] I don't, I'm not actually measuring their magnesium, someone else that I work with can do that, but I haven't, we haven't found, you know, necessary to do that yet.

[616] Then what I'm doing is I'm measuring the capacity that their body has to repair a known amount of damage that I induce.

[617] So I look at their baseline damage, see how much damage is there, and then I induce damage with an radiator, and then I measure over time the ability of their own enzymes to repair that damage.

[618] And what I'm finding is that if I look at someone who's lean or obese based on BMI, then I'm seeing there's differences.

[619] I'm seeing that people that are obese, like have a BMI of 30 or so.

[620] They have a lot more of this damage in their blood cells.

[621] And not only do they have a lot more of this damage, their capacity to repair this damage is impaired.

[622] So, and it makes sense to me. You know, you're looking, you're talking about people that are eating poor diets.

[623] They're eating very macronutrient rich diets, you know, They're eating a lot of processed foods and junk food, and they're not getting their micronutrients.

[624] Their essential vitamin zinc, magnesium, these are required for like 300 different, you know, enzymes to work in the body.

[625] And so I'm measuring one of those, and that's DNA repair, which is important to prevent cancer.

[626] So anyways, what were we talking?

[627] We were talking.

[628] TA 65.

[629] That's right.

[630] So I went on this whole, so that's aging.

[631] That's part of aging in a nutshell.

[632] and there's other points of it I can we can get back to later in the conversation.

[633] But so TA 65 is, I was actually really impressed because I read a couple of the studies.

[634] So TA 65 astragalus root, some Chinese herb or something or that's what it's from, I believe, from when I read.

[635] And I think I'm saying it, right, the astragalus root.

[636] So it has the capacity to activate telomerase.

[637] And there's two different papers that were pretty good.

[638] One paper was a clinical paper where they looked, they gave people varying doses of TA -65, and I don't remember the exact doses, but they did a dose response.

[639] And they looked at a couple of things.

[640] A, they looked at the activation of that enzyme telomerase, and B, they looked at telomere length.

[641] So they started the trial baseline, measured telomere's activity.

[642] and then they gave people these TA -65 various doses of it.

[643] And what they found is that in a dose -dependent manner, the TA -65 increased the telomerase activity.

[644] And not only did it increase telomerase activity in the very high doses in a subset of people, it actually increased the length of their telomere over baseline.

[645] I've never seen this before.

[646] Usually when you're doing, you know, a lot of other things that affect telomere length, vitamin D is one, one of them.

[647] Vitamin D, the way vitamin D affects telomer length is totally different than the way TA -65 does, because vitamin D is preventing DNA damage, inflammation, things that accelerate telomere shortening.

[648] TA -65 is literally rebuilding the end of your telomere.

[649] So it's possible to actually start and end up with a longer telomere, as opposed to, you know, other nutritional factors that regulate, just delaying the attrition of it.

[650] Does that make sense?

[651] Yes.

[652] So that over baseline, they had, like, like a 40%, I believe, from reading that paper a while ago, a 40 % increase in telomere length.

[653] That's incredible.

[654] It was incredible.

[655] It's incredible.

[656] So then I went and read the other study, which was the mouse study.

[657] And actually the woman, the lead investigator on that, I'm very familiar with her work.

[658] I was really close to doing a postdoc in telomere in a telomere lab because I've been very interested in telomeres for quite some time.

[659] So I had been familiar with her papers, like her publications.

[660] And I was like, when I saw that she was, it was from her lab, I was like, oh, it's, I know, I'm familiar with her work, you know, she's pretty good, I'm pretty thorough.

[661] And so her paper, what she did was she took that same mouse model that I was talking about, where they, over successive generations, they knock out that telomerase enzyme and they, over, you know, three or four or five generations, they start to get these mice that have really short telomeres that are aging, their tissues are aging quicker.

[662] And they gave those mice, like third or fourth generation mice TA 65.

[663] And what they found was that giving those mice the TA 65 was able to rejuvenate their tissue, you know, their tissue started to look younger, very similar to telomerase reactivation, not as robust, which isn't surprising.

[664] I mean, you're talking about reactivating the entire enzyme versus something that's just, you know, able to activate it.

[665] But they, the mice didn't get cancer.

[666] They didn't get any types of cancer.

[667] So, but like I said, now, Now, if you were to take a mouse model, knock out their telomerase enzyme, inoculate them with cancer cells.

[668] So give them cancer cells and then react, then given the TA -65, they're probably going to do that experiment.

[669] I mean, that's the logical thing to do next, just to make sure, to really prove that it's pretty safe.

[670] So, bottom line is, I was impressed with TA -65, actually surprisingly so.

[671] And, you know, personally, I, you know, I think there's always that risk.

[672] It's like, well, if you have a lot of precancerous cells, there's no telling.

[673] I, you know, obviously, if it was a big issue, more people would be coming down with cancer.

[674] I wonder how many people are taking this stuff.

[675] I've only heard of a couple of people that I know they're taking it.

[676] I've read some folks online on a message board that I go to that say they started taking it, but I don't know enough of them.

[677] About how many are, I don't know how many people are taking it either.

[678] that that would be my one concern though is that having a bunch of precancer cells reactivating telomerase in those cells then pushing them giving them the fuel they need to then make more cancer cells that's a possibility the people that own the company they're what the guys the whole thing is really really odd I don't know exactly what happened because apparently there was like some sort of a physical altercation with the guy who was suing them and they're suing him because they're saying saying that they lost $2 million in sales because he said that he got cancer, which is, and they're also saying that if he had cancer, he had it before he started taking TA65.

[679] How the fuck could you ever know that?

[680] Right.

[681] Well, but that's the thing.

[682] That's the thing.

[683] If you have cancer before taking it, I'm not saying this is going to happen.

[684] I'm saying theoretically reactivating telomerase could push those cancer cells to full -blown pre -cancer cells to full -blown cancer because now there's immortalizing them and letting them survive and propagate and proliferate.

[685] Yes.

[686] So here's the question and here's the big one.

[687] Is there a diet a thing that you can do?

[688] The word is always, oh, you need to have a, you know, cancer cells can't grow in an alkaline environment.

[689] But I've heard that's horseshit too.

[690] That this idea of alkalizing your blood and having a diet that makes your blood or your body alkaline rich is horse shit.

[691] I'm totally not familiar with any of that.

[692] Never heard of that before?

[693] I've heard of people wanting to alkaline their blood.

[694] I didn't know why I never really followed up on it and I certainly haven't heard about the cancer connection to it.

[695] So that's new to me. I've definitely heard of other things people are trying to do.

[696] Well, you can go alkaline cancer and one of the first things that pops up is myth.

[697] The acid alkaline myth.

[698] What I've read, that's counteractivity.

[699] That's counteract.

[700] this is that if you did alter the alkaline of your body, like the variables are so small that if you alter it in any sort of a shocking way, your body just is fucked.

[701] Like, it's not good.

[702] Right.

[703] No, it's true.

[704] I mean, I think with the exception of the gut, where you're trying to actually make a little more, you want these different gut bacteria to make more acidic, you know, to be more acidic and make more, you know, acidic type of environment to get rid of the bad bacteria, which can't grow in that type of environment.

[705] But all the other stuff, I think, yeah, there's slight changes and pH.

[706] And, I mean, you're talking about activating these things, immune systems sensitive to this sort of stuff.

[707] I mean, it's like all of a sudden you start activating your neutrophils and, you know, they don't know why they're activated, but when they're activated, it's just like, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, and they're firing all kinds of crap cytokines, which are making, you know, reactive nitrogen species, which are damaging your DNA and your lipids and your protein.

[708] So it's like, you know, there's things like that going on.

[709] You don't, you know, yeah, anyways.

[710] Well, this, this, this, this, this, the critique of it was saying that foods don't influence the blood pH.

[711] And they were saying, this is, I'll just read what it says here on this guy's website.

[712] It's proponents of the alkaline diet have put forth a few different theories about how, acidic diet harms our health.

[713] The most ridiculous claim, more ridiculous claim, is that we can change the pH of our blood by changing the foods we eat and that the acidic blood causes disease while alkaline blood prevents it.

[714] This is not true.

[715] The body tight, this is all reference to, I'll give the guys website.

[716] It's Chris Cressor, C -H -R -I -S -E -R - dot com.

[717] This is not true.

[718] The body tightly regulates the pH of our blood.

[719] blood and extracellular fluid, and we cannot influence our blood pH by changing our diet with references.

[720] High doses of sodium bicarbonate can temporarily increase blood pH, but not without causing uncomfortable GI syndromes, symptoms, rather.

[721] And there are certainly circumstances in which blood is more acidic than it should be, and this does have serious health consequences.

[722] However, this state of acidosis is caused by pathological conditions such as chronic renal insufficiency, not by whether or not you choose to eat a salad or a burger.

[723] In other words, regardless of what you eat or what your urine pH is, you can be pretty confident that your blood pH is hovering around a comfortable 7 .4.

[724] Yeah.

[725] So all that, you know, oh, you need to make your body alkaline and cancer can't exist in an alkaline environment.

[726] Horshit, right?

[727] I, you know, I just don't know enough about that stuff, honestly, to say, definitively, if it's, you know, I really don't.

[728] I know that things in vitro, you know, when you're looking at cancer, if you're talking about growing cancer cells in a dish and changing that, you know, environment, environment is one thing, but I don't know, yeah.

[729] Yeah, I don't know either.

[730] That's the problem.

[731] God damn it.

[732] Well, I mean, it's something, if you want to email me, I'll look into it.

[733] Yeah, I will.

[734] Yeah, it's just, it's a matter.

[735] matter of me not having dug into something like that.

[736] Yeah, but that's like, it's one of those things that just gets repeated over and over again.

[737] By the way, this is, apparently this myth busting is, there's a bunch of different websites that say that it's horseshit.

[738] So, and a bunch of different doctors with references about the, this whole alkaline thing.

[739] Here's a cancer myth number one that cancer doesn't feed on sugar.

[740] Almost every new patient He says, well, ask me about this.

[741] A theory is prevalent on the internet That sugar will influence blood sugar levels, Feed cancer, and cause it to spread.

[742] The truth is you can't really control blood sugar By what you eat, the body's complex system processes What we eat and manages to keep blood sugar level stable.

[743] Is that true?

[744] That doesn't make sense.

[745] Well, I mean, you're obviously when you're eating sugar, You're inducing an insulin response, which then you take the sugar up into your cells So that regulates the blood sugar levels Unless that doesn't, unless you're type 2 diabetic or something that's not working, then, you know, then you can't regulate your blood sugar levels normally and that's not good.

[746] It's saying the exception to this, of course, is people with diabetes who don't have the proper insulin regulating systems, but if you apply the theory that sugar can affect your insulin levels and feed cancer, diabetics with cancer would all be dying of their cancer.

[747] What?

[748] What?

[749] Yeah, exactly.

[750] What kind of fucking quote is that, Dr. Holin?

[751] Who are you?

[752] You fucking weirdo.

[753] That doesn't even make any sense.

[754] He's an oncologist, too.

[755] He specializes in gastrointestinal and esophageal.

[756] Asophagealian.

[757] Esophageal cancers says, at worst, these myths may lead vulnerable cancer patients to try untested treatments or procedures.

[758] You know, the thing is, is that cancer cells do acquire this capability to become glycolytic, where they're in.

[759] instead of using glucose to convert into pyrube and go into the mitochondria and use this whole mitochondrial metabolism oxidative phosphorylation to generate energy, they become, they use this whole pathway that's called glycolysis, which it's a much shorter pathway, and they're using it to generate, you know, that's how they're using it to generate their energy.

[760] So I think that probably plays a role in people coming up with all these different theories and things that manipulating the glucose and all that, what it can do.

[761] I know that, you know, I did a lot of work manipulating nutrients and cancer cells in grad school.

[762] And, you know, getting, if I had, this is in vitro, first of all.

[763] If I do it in vitro, and I take a, if I take a cancer cell and I take away their glucose, but they still have all these glutamine, they have, you know, these other amino acids, and they were fine.

[764] They'd grow slower, but they wouldn't die.

[765] If I took away their glutamine, they would die within like 24 hours.

[766] And it's, you know, for me to think about cancer cells, well, not only do they need energy, ATP, they need nitrogen source to make new nucleotides for new DNA and also new amino acids.

[767] They need, you know, molecules like to build lipids for lipid or, you know, lipid membrane.

[768] So it, there's a lot of, you know, just taking away the glucose is one thing, but there's a lot of other, you know, macromolecules that are really required for cancer proliferation that are also important.

[769] So, you know, taking some of the stuff that we're learning in science and immediately applying it, I think, in some cases, can be a little dangerous, you know, just because we don't exactly understand how all these mechanisms are working together.

[770] So I'm a little, you know, cautious about taking some, something that we're learning in science and immediately applying it to yourself, especially if you have cancer.

[771] It's so fascinating.

[772] I mean, if you think about, like, the last time I was here, I was talking about the folic acid, you know, and, and how that's, that's a perfect, you know, example where, you know, folic acid is great for you if you don't have cancer because you can build new DNA.

[773] But if you have cancer, taking a lot of it is not great for you because you build new DNA and that's what cancer cells are doing when they're dividing.

[774] So, you know, that's, and there's another example of that with another micronutrient, one of the vitamin E's.

[775] So, actually, this would be a transition into, to some of the off -it stuff because he was talking about that specifically.

[776] Oh, that doctor, that stuff that I sent you?

[777] Yeah.

[778] This is, so we'll definitely get into that.

[779] I would love to in a moment.

[780] So just to let everybody know, it seems, you know, if you're not interested in doing any of the research, it seems that almost everyone who's done any research on this alkaline diet thing says it's horseshit.

[781] But they do say that these foods, that they're suggesting that you eat to keep an alkaline -rich diet are very healthy for you.

[782] So in that sense, it's good for you because it's going to provide your body with the nutrients that it needs, especially if you're nutrient -deficient, you're much more likely to be unhealthy.

[783] If you're much more likely to be unhealthy, your immune system is going to have a harder time dealing with any host of different diseases.

[784] But that this alkaline thing of your body, your body basically hovers between 7 .35 and 7 .45.

[785] Your stomach is very acidic with a pH of 3 .5 or below so it can break down food.

[786] And your urine changes depending on what you eat.

[787] And that's how your body keeps the level and your body steady.

[788] But this idea that you're going to regulate the alkaline of your body with food and that you're going to keep your body in an alkaline state horseshit.

[789] Well, there's a lot of those sort of like myths going on.

[790] In fact, recently I think I saw on your Twitter, you posted something, I don't know, a couple days ago about kale.

[791] and it's really kind of it's kind of these people are doing more harm in the sense in some cases so you know kale kale in the cruciferous family like broccoli cabbage brussels sprouts these things they have something in them called glucosinolates okay and glucosinolates can get they get cleaved by an enzyme called myracinase which is in the plant and it forms.

[792] something called isothiocyanates.

[793] And isothiocinates are very, they've been shown to be very potent anti -cancer agents.

[794] So they activate, it's actually a part of that hormesis I was talking about because these are generated in the plant as a natural defense mechanisms.

[795] It's one of their natural defense mechanism against bugs.

[796] It's like a natural pesticide in a sense.

[797] They produce it to keep bugs away.

[798] Isothiocyanates are, for us, activate a variety of different genes that are involved in stress resistance, including tumor suppressor genes, which actually kill tumor cells.

[799] And so, and they've shown this.

[800] They've shown this, you know, quite a few times that if you, if you give mice, like, you know, mice that have cancer, isothiocinates, they will kill the cancer cells.

[801] And the whole isothiocyanates thing also competitively binds to the iodine transporter and the thyroid.

[802] So here comes this whole, oh my God, you can't eat kale or cruciferous because it will screw up your thyroid and cause hypothyroidism, right?

[803] So the thing is, though, is these isothiocinates, they appear to competitively bind to the same transporter that iodine does to get into the thyroid.

[804] Now I was looking for the paper where they showed that, and it's like 1948, because what I wanted to see was a dose -dependent manner of giving them, you know, these isothiocyanates or kale, and show how much of it, you know, competes it with iodine, how much, you know, doesn't.

[805] Well, I couldn't get access to that paper.

[806] But what I did find is that when you give these mice, isothiocyanates, a lot of them that kills cancer cells, but it doesn't cause any thyroid problems.

[807] Which leads me to me to believe is that the isothiocyanides probably very, very, very small degree of competitive inhibition of getting iodine into your thyroid, which if you don't, if you aren't low in iodine, wouldn't be a problem because you're not, you know, so if it's just very small amount of it competing with it to get it to get iodine into the thyroid, it's not going to be a problem unless you're really, really deficient in iodine and then any small amount you need.

[808] So in my opinion, and for me, I love getting isothiocinates from from these cruciferous.

[809] And by the way, the enzyme myrosinase that converts the glucosinolates into is hyacthiocinates is heat sensitive.

[810] So if you heat it, it will generally inactivate it, not completely, but it does inactivate it for the most part.

[811] And so you're not getting as many of those isythiocyanates, which is probably why people started to say, oh, boil your kale, or I personally want the isothiocyanates because the data is so strong showing that these things kill cancer cells.

[812] I mean, it's a well -known fact that these things...

[813] So, this idea that raw kale or any of these raw, raw, was the other...

[814] There's another one.

[815] Okay.

[816] There's, yeah, Brussels sprouts, but then there's another...

[817] So that's that story.

[818] But the idea that those are bad for you.

[819] Yeah.

[820] Seems bullshit.

[821] Well, yeah, that's what I'm just...

[822] I mean, to me, it, you know, hormesis, okay, it depends on what you're defining as bad for you.

[823] Or you're saying, hormesis, it's activating a bunch of genes that are tumor suppressor genes that kill cancer cells.

[824] I mean, it's good for you.

[825] These isothiocinates are good.

[826] Good for you.

[827] If you don't, if you're not, like, completely deficient in iodine, which most people aren't, I mean, I think there's some problem with women in their 20s or 40s.

[828] But if you supplemented iodine while you were taking these iso...

[829] Right.

[830] And most...

[831] Isothiocinates.

[832] I so thiosinates.

[833] They're very...

[834] I've been talking about these for years, like, how awesome they are.

[835] I want them.

[836] Like, I want them in my body.

[837] I want my isothiocinates.

[838] You almost swore.

[839] I'm telling you.

[840] You got close.

[841] You said it.

[842] So, because they're fucking awesome.

[843] It kind of irks me because I'm like, I see all this stuff and it's like, no. You know, don't not, you know, don't not eat your raw kale because you want to get things like isophthaloicine.

[844] There's chemicals in these plants that are, yes, they're, you know, they're slightly toxic, but they're inducing stress response mechanisms in our body that are good for us.

[845] They're fighting off all the bad stuff that we're making in our body every day.

[846] You know, it's a good thing.

[847] Pre -cancerous cells are always happening.

[848] You want tumors depressor genes are genes that when there's something's wrong, like you have, you get that DNA damage I was talking about, something happens or a mutation happens in a cell.

[849] It senses it, you know, and it activates this whole response pathway where it's like die and it kills the cell.

[850] So having something that activates those pathways in your body like isothiocyanase is a good thing.

[851] it's you know and and personally I want more of them so all this stuff about this poorly researched bad conclusions um so the thing is when you look at the when you look in the literature um the the the if you're trying to look at the effects of isothiocyanates on thyroid function there's not a whole huge literature on it like I said I was looking for the experiment to prove to me I wanted to see how much competitive inhibition there was.

[852] I think they're also called IC3s.

[853] I see threes on the iodine transport and the flower word.

[854] I couldn't find it.

[855] I saw a review article where they referred to it.

[856] I looked to the reference.

[857] Go to the reference.

[858] It's some other review.

[859] It's just there's no, I wanted to see the data, and I had to dig, like, dig until I got to 1948 where they did this competitive binding essay.

[860] And then I found, you know, other papers talking about, oh, it's only an effect if you have low iodine, which made me think, well, I can't see the data, but what I think makes sense is that only if it's such a low competitive binding, that it's not, you know, it's not like if you eat this, you're going to not get iodine.

[861] It's that if you already are at that point where you don't have it, any little bit you don't get makes a difference.

[862] And I know, and I know this because the mouse models where they're not even looking at thyroid function, they're looking at the effects of isothiocyanates on killing cancer cells.

[863] those mice have no problems with becoming hypothyroid, and they're giving them large doses.

[864] So to me, I'm like, okay, well, that would have been a side effect they would have noticed, you know.

[865] So this is just completely theoretical, and it doesn't work.

[866] It doesn't work in practice.

[867] What doesn't?

[868] This idea of getting hypothyroidism from...

[869] I think if you have normal levels of iodine, you're fine, but if you're like one of those people that is iodine deficient, it may affect you.

[870] because if there's a small amount of, it does seem to compete with iodine transport, but I think it's a very small competitive amount.

[871] It's not like all the iodine.

[872] It's not like all or nothing, like all of it's getting in or not getting in.

[873] I think it's a very small amount that doesn't get in.

[874] But if you're not, if you're getting your iodine, you know, it doesn't, does that, are you following?

[875] Totally, totally, totally.

[876] Okay, so that, I hope people can follow that because I really.

[877] There's so much of that online, these.

[878] days.

[879] There's so much contrarianism.

[880] There's so many people that want to debunk anything that comes out.

[881] That's the thing.

[882] And the other one is this oxalic acid.

[883] I think you kind of confused the two.

[884] Well, that was the one that Dave Asprey had talked about.

[885] That's why the oxalic acid, yeah, with kale.

[886] That's why I brought that up.

[887] It was kale.

[888] He had said that he had to boil kale because of oxalic acid and drain the water.

[889] Okay, so let me tell you about that.

[890] The oxalic acid, I think there's a little bit in kale, but it's mostly in spinach.

[891] Oxelic acid's in spinach.

[892] Much stronger.

[893] and spinach, right?

[894] That's the highest quantity.

[895] And what people are saying on the internet from what I could see on this whole echo chamber thing that happens is that you need to boil your spinach, I guess, or in some people they're saying kale, because then you're going to inactivate this oxalic acid, and now it's not going to bind up minerals like magnesium and calcium.

[896] And they're saying that this is a problem if you don't do this, because then you're going to get kidney stones.

[897] Right.

[898] So I was looking in the literature and I found a really cool experiment done by this Japanese group where they took spinach, raw spinach, they boiled it, they fried it, they frizzled it.

[899] I mean, so they did, you know, various different temperatures.

[900] And then you make it into a powder to give to these mice that are magnesium deficient.

[901] They put them on a magnesium deficient diet and they fed them either the raw spinach, the boiled, the frizzled, fried.

[902] And they measured magnesium levels in their blood, in their bone.

[903] and they measured calcium levels in their blood and bone and also in their kidneys.

[904] And what they found was that there was no difference in the magnesium and calcium levels and the bone and also in the serum, whether or not you boiled, raw, fried, whatever, frizzled.

[905] However, sorry, no, the calcium levels, there was a difference from frying it or frizzling it, but the raw and the boiling were the same.

[906] And basically the conclusions were it doesn't affect absorption, Boiling or raw, it's the same.

[907] You're going to absorb the same amount of magnesium and calcium.

[908] There were magnesium and calcium in the kidney.

[909] They did have them in the kidney, and it was a little bit higher concentrated versus the control.

[910] But it wasn't causing, you know, kidney stones and things like that.

[911] And there was no difference between boiling or not.

[912] So if you're going to make the claim that, you know, having oxylic acid causes, you know, kidney stones and you need to boil it, well, maybe you need to say don't eat it.

[913] But I don't think that's the case.

[914] I don't think any of that's the case.

[915] So having oxygacin on your diet, from consuming it in raw form, not bad?

[916] I think it's, it, you'd have to consume a massive, massive amount to, to cause something that would be like kidney stone.

[917] So what do you mean like eating it every day, all day for a year?

[918] No, I mean like eating like pounds.

[919] Pounds.

[920] Yeah, every day.

[921] Yeah, every day.

[922] Okay.

[923] That's beautiful.

[924] I'm not, here, here's the bottom.

[925] I have not convinced to myself that I have to boil any of my spinach or kale before I eat it raw.

[926] I actually put it in a smoothie every morning.

[927] I make a smoothie with kale, raw kale, raw spinach, tomato, carrot, avocado, banana, almond milk, some berries, and protein powder as well.

[928] Anyways, I haven't convinced myself that eating raw spinach in my smoothie every day, you know, and I put, you know, I put a nice amount of it.

[929] It's not pounds of it, but.

[930] I haven't convinced myself that I'm doing any harm.

[931] And this is obviously not just based on the way your body reacts, but based on the research that you've done.

[932] This is based on the little bit of reading that I've done on those.

[933] The isothiocyanates, I'm definitely convinced that, you know, the oxalic acid, you know, because it does bind minerals, it's a chelator, you know, there may be some cases where kidney, you know, can accumulate in the kidney.

[934] But I think that from my reading, that's a really, really large, dose and I haven't convinced myself yet.

[935] I'm not saying it's not possible, but I haven't convinced myself that I need to worry about it.

[936] So the idea that you're getting some sort of toxins from the vegetables because the vegetables are trying to prevent predation.

[937] Right.

[938] Nonsense.

[939] No, you are getting taught.

[940] I mean, but nonsense that it's bad for you.

[941] It's, it's, it's, it's, there's, they're activating hormesis, so it is kind of toxic for you.

[942] It kind of, it's, but it's activating stress response pathways that are ultimately, it's like, okay, a little bit of bad for you, activating a pathway really, really good for you because now you're turning on hundreds of genes that are involved in DNA repair that are involved in glutathione peroxidase, getting rid of oxidation that are involved in, you know, making, I mean, making sure cancer cells die.

[943] So to me, you know, you are getting a little bit of these toxins from these plants, absolutely.

[944] But your body's counteracting of these toxins is incredibly beneficial.

[945] Your body is pretty amazing and it is pretty beneficial the reaction to some of these toxins.

[946] So the point being that the incorrect correlation that people have made between the very low toxicity between these plants, kale, broccoli, whatever, and them being something that you should avoid consuming unless you boil them, that's just not.

[947] In my opinion, it doesn't make sense.

[948] It doesn't make sense.

[949] It doesn't make sense to me either.

[950] So I think people can take something little and it becomes.

[951] becomes sensational and they're like, oh, it's very sensational because what's good for you is bad for you.

[952] But if you do this little thing, it becomes good for you again.

[953] And I think that it's a good marketing tactic in some respects.

[954] Do you know what I mean?

[955] There is one case.

[956] There's a study that you could find on a pub med site about oxalate nephropathy due to juicing.

[957] And this patient with oxalate induced acute renal failure that was attributable to a consumption of oxalate -rich fruit and vegetable juices obtained from juicing.

[958] We described the case and also review the clinical presentation of 65 patients seen at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota from 1985 through 2010 with renal failure and biopsy -proven renal calcium oxalate crystals.

[959] The cause of renaloxalosis was identified for all patients, a single cause for 36 patients, and at least two causes for 29 patients, three patients, including our index patient, had presumed diet -induced oxalate nephra.

[960] How do you say that word, nephropathy?

[961] Yeah.

[962] In the context of chronic kidney disease, identification of calcium oxalate crystals in a kidney biopsy should prompt an evaluation for causes of renal oxalosis.

[963] Bleed, bleed, bleed.

[964] So what do that mean?

[965] Yeah, I mean, it sounds like these people, how many of them were that had the, from the juicing?

[966] Let's see, 65 patients from 1985 to 2010.

[967] It's a long time.

[968] And to have 65 patients.

[969] And all of them were from juicing?

[970] Actually, single cause for 36 patients and at least two causes for 29 patients.

[971] So two causes?

[972] Yeah, the single cause for the 36 patients, they believe was juicing.

[973] So there was one, an n -of -one that they knew it was juicing.

[974] Okay.

[975] And the other one, there's two causes.

[976] And the other one, there's two causes.

[977] So about three.

[978] Yeah.

[979] So to me, it sounds like, like I said, you know, you're, there's always going to be cases where you can't, you can probably cause that to happen because it does bind and chelate these ions.

[980] Especially in juicing, perhaps, because you're taking such a large quantity of vegetables and breaking them down to a juice.

[981] Would that make sense that you get more?

[982] oxalate or salt acid?

[983] Maybe so.

[984] If you juice, like, think about, like, what, like a 16 ounce glass of juice, how many vegetables have to go into that juice or to liquefy it down to.

[985] I make smoothies for the most part.

[986] I don't juice.

[987] Occasionally, I buy a cold press juices, but most of what I do, I just blend them.

[988] You like me. I don't juice either.

[989] I actually have not ever juiced.

[990] I make smoothies as well.

[991] But, you know, there, it sounds to me like there can be cases where you're getting a really concentrated amount of this and you're doing it every day because there's people out there that go extreme and no matter what they do, they go like to the extreme.

[992] And, you know, because you can, you know, the oxylic acid or oxal, the anion of it, the oxalate can bind, does bind to these metal ions.

[993] It chelates them and, you know, it absolutely could accumulate in your kidney.

[994] So.

[995] But you You would, so the real key is the thing that we've always been taught to eat a balanced diet.

[996] I think most people are not going to that extreme.

[997] Right.

[998] And I don't think most people have to be under a fear that they can eat raw spinach.

[999] That's the thing.

[1000] I don't think you need to fear eating raw spinach.

[1001] I think maybe just don't be a dumb ass and like, you know, go way, way, way overboard.

[1002] Right.

[1003] So, you know, eating some raw juices is probably really good for you.

[1004] eating nothing but raw juices all day, all your life, not so good for you.

[1005] Right.

[1006] You need animal protein or some other form of protein.

[1007] And yeah.

[1008] There was another guy.

[1009] I know of a guy who, Brock Lesnar was actually the UFC heavyweight champion who ate nothing but meat.

[1010] He was a fucking crazy person.

[1011] And he got diverticulitis.

[1012] And he had to get 12 inches of his colon removed.

[1013] Pretty serious operation.

[1014] It's really interesting that some, you know, I don't know how much of a degree of this.

[1015] This is dose -dependent, but there's bacteria in your gut called putrefaction bacteria.

[1016] And I call that because of the bacteria that make that really nasty smelling fart.

[1017] It's like hydrogen sulfide.

[1018] It smells like pure hydrogen sulfide.

[1019] And those bacteria, the putreification bacteria, they actually use, like, sulfate and nitrate as their source of energy.

[1020] And they convert it into, like, for example, hydrogen sulfide.

[1021] But they need, so it's basically what we're.

[1022] do with oxygen, they do that with these sulfate.

[1023] And they make it into hydrogen sulfide.

[1024] It's like us converting oxygen to water.

[1025] That's how we make ATP.

[1026] They do this by converting sulfate into hydrogen sulfide, and that's their energy, this putreification bacteria.

[1027] Well, they need these I guess cofactors to do this, and that's heem.

[1028] Heem is in red meat.

[1029] And so some people that eat really, really large doses of red meat, like what happens is you're giving those bacteria heme and they start to make hydrogen sulfide and the thing with hydrogen sulfide so you'll make first of all you get putreification of bacteria so you'll have nasty smelling farts like hydrogen sulfide farts and also hydrogen sulfide competitively binds to enzymes in our gut cells that make energy so they actually so it goes hydrogen sulfide goes and binds to these electron transport chain enzymes that make ATP in our gut cells and competitively inhibits them from actually being able to reduce oxygen to water to make ATP.

[1030] So then your gut cells start to like starve down there and starts to break down the gut mucus barrier.

[1031] Anyways, it's totally tangent and I don't know how I got on that.

[1032] I guess the meat, the high meat diet.

[1033] Right.

[1034] The diverticulitis that people got from eating only meat.

[1035] Yeah.

[1036] So like I said, I think it's a dose, you know, really dose dependent thing because eating a little bit of meat it depends i mean you know your own body if you're eating tons of meat and you start smelling these hydrogen sulfide smart farts and that's not good right probably not not good so if you smell a guy's farting like that you should talk to but it's like it's not it's not the kind of fart that you know it's the it's the pure those ones that like oh good god yeah it's that it's that one yeah stuff's going on yeah those are bodybuilding farts if you're It makes sense because they eat a lot of red meat, right?

[1037] Just, well, a lot of protein, period, you know?

[1038] Is it affect other types of protein?

[1039] No, it's it's what gives red meat the red color.

[1040] Yeah, it's specific to red meat.

[1041] So the more red meat, the more horrible farts.

[1042] Pretty much.

[1043] That makes sense.

[1044] It's like, who do you think about having the worst farts?

[1045] It's always guys with big guts.

[1046] You know, like if someone farts on an airplane, you always look at the guy with the gut.

[1047] It's very difficult.

[1048] to figure out who's farting on an airplane.

[1049] It's one of the reasons why people are so sneaky about it.

[1050] Sneaky airplane, farters, you know who you are.

[1051] But the guys with the big guts, they're usually the culprit.

[1052] It's, I mean, that's the putification bacteria.

[1053] Putrification bacteria.

[1054] I mean, they're named for a reason.

[1055] Yeah.

[1056] They're pretty nasty.

[1057] It makes you want to throw up.

[1058] It does.

[1059] So, off it.

[1060] This is, you know, my friend Brian Callan, who I love dearly, but he's, fucking ridiculous and he's one of those guys that will get on this tangent and listen to one person say something and then spout it out as if it's fucking gospel and he hit me with this peter offett guy is that the guy's name paul maybe pa whatever the fuck doctor off it whatever fuck his name is and he he listened to this guy and without debunking it online at all and i i did it real quick i did a real quick debunking of it and found a bunch of people who called bullshit on all of his claims.

[1061] I mean, while these studies were from 1942 and it's just like so much of what this guy had said was horseshit.

[1062] One of them often claimed that a study, what this guy was basically saying was that taking vitamins and taking antioxidants can actually cause cancer.

[1063] And, you know, Callan, of course, never wants to be wrong.

[1064] So he's telling me, no, no, no, no, no. All studies confirm this.

[1065] I'm like, what the fuck they do, man?

[1066] So I sent him all this, this, you know, I barraged him with all these debunking sites and he backed off finally.

[1067] But for fucking days, his Twitter was all about don't take antoxone.

[1068] Oh, so you convinced him.

[1069] No, he fucking called me up.

[1070] He's like, dude, I'm really worried about you.

[1071] You're taking into antioxidants.

[1072] You're taking vitamins.

[1073] I'm like, the fuck are you talking about?

[1074] We need to dive into this.

[1075] I mean, so I, first of all.

[1076] It angers me. What was the name of the book he wrote?

[1077] It's, do you believe in that?

[1078] It's called, I'm a cunt.

[1079] That's his book.

[1080] I'm a cunt and I'm trying to make money.

[1081] Because I think that's what's going on with a lot of these fuckheads.

[1082] These contrarians, with these people that make these articles, I don't know how many of them are just idiots.

[1083] I don't know how many of them are like Brian Dunning, where they just sort of, they're mentally deficient.

[1084] There's something wrong with the way they're thinking works.

[1085] And I discovered that in communicating with Brian over three hours.

[1086] I'm like, oh, there's something wrong here.

[1087] And I don't know what it is.

[1088] And I don't want to know what it is, but you're not normal.

[1089] You're not healthy.

[1090] Your correlations are not healthy Just in discussing buildings falling His way of looking at things is unhealthy It's not correct I don't know if that's what this guy's doing I don't know if a lot of ice people are doing things I think they're just trying to get attention They're like kale's gonna kill you Fucking kale's gonna kill me Everybody knows that people are loving kale these days People are finding these health benefits scales I talk freely and openly About how I drink kale salads Or kale shakes rather a regular basis and how I feel great when I take them.

[1091] So, and then, you know, people will send me these fucking things.

[1092] So I retweet some of them and then I'll find contradictory articles.

[1093] I retweet those.

[1094] So this off -it fucking thing just drove me up a wall.

[1095] Because I started reading all the people that call bullshit on this guy and all these people that say that he's kind of dangerous, that the things he's saying are kind of dangerous because they're easily refutable, but he's trying to sell them.

[1096] He's selling them as fact.

[1097] Yeah.

[1098] Yeah.

[1099] So let me, let's dig in here because I really, I was, first of all, I wasn't familiar with the guy until you brought him to my attention.

[1100] And actually, my advisor, my postdoctoral advisor, he's an 85 -year -old, like, world -renowned scientist.

[1101] He knew who the guy was.

[1102] And he was like, you're going to crush him.

[1103] Like, he really doesn't like this guy.

[1104] I mean, he's familiar with his whole, everything he's doing.

[1105] Well, that's why I was so angry at Callan, because if you go online, there's just a fucking slew of reputable people that think this guy.

[1106] guys are not.

[1107] So I didn't read his book, but I listened to the podcast and I took notes on what he said.

[1108] And I'm ready.

[1109] Let's go through some of this because I think it's really important.

[1110] First of all, this guy makes huge overgeneralizations, doesn't understand mechanism.

[1111] That's clear to me. So the first thing, the first thing he says is that, you know, we should have, if we're going to look at the effects of supplements, we need to do randomized controlled trials.

[1112] We need to hold all drugs to the same standard.

[1113] We need to do randomized controlled trials.

[1114] So randomized controlled trials are like the poster trial for pharmacological interventions, drug interventions.

[1115] And what they are is basically you get a population of people, you split them into two groups, and you're going to have either your drug blah, blabinol, or placebo.

[1116] And you're going to give, you know, whichever group one, drug blah blah, blah, and the other group of placebo.

[1117] And you don't know who's getting what.

[1118] They don't know who's getting what.

[1119] And then you're going to look at some clinical endpoint like heart attack or mitochondrial infarction or something like that.

[1120] And And it's really a great design for that sort of thing because, you know, when you start off at baseline, everyone in the trial has same levels of drug, blah, blah, and all in their blood.

[1121] Guess what?

[1122] Zero, because we don't make drugs.

[1123] We don't eat drugs.

[1124] You know, it's not something that we're, you know, eating on a daily basis.

[1125] This is a pharmacological drug that's been designed with a certain mechanism of action to act on a certain thing to do a certain thing, right?

[1126] Like, you know, statins, for example.

[1127] So, you know, you can do that where you have this randomized control trial for a certain X amount of time and you look at the effect on heart attacks and you don't have to measure anything, you know.

[1128] The problem is, is that you can't apply that same thinking for nutrition research because everyone has different levels of vitamins and minerals in their body.

[1129] People eat different diets.

[1130] You mean, you have people that are, you know, have inadequate levels of things, are deficient in certain things, have optimal levels of certain things.

[1131] And so if you just take this random group of people, put them into two groups and then give them a vitamin supplement and then try to look at some clinical endpoint like heart attack, well, guess what?

[1132] You're going to have people that were severely deficient and whatever you gave them, they're still severely deficient.

[1133] Or you're going to have people that have total adequate levels and you're giving them a vitamin.

[1134] They already have adequate levels up and you're trying to look at some clinical endpoint.

[1135] You can't do nutrition research with the same mind frame, whereas we're looking at, we're going to do the same type of trial that we do for drugs.

[1136] You know, that's just you can't do that.

[1137] You can't do that.

[1138] You have to think about the way you control and design a clinical trial.

[1139] And when you're doing nutrition research, where you're looking at the effects of vitamins and minerals, first of all, there's two very different things going on.

[1140] When you have a pharmacological drug, you're giving it to someone because they're already falling apart.

[1141] Okay, they're already falling apart and you're trying to help them not fall apart as fast by giving them something, you know, that blocks X or Y or Z, like cholesterol synthesis for one statins.

[1142] With vitamins and minerals, these are things that are important for preventing you from falling apart.

[1143] These are things that we require, these enzymes we need, you know, co -factors for enzymes that we need to do like hundreds of different physiological functions, thousands of different physiological functions, you know.

[1144] So we're talking about a different start point, right?

[1145] It's not, like you give people vitamins when they're falling apart.

[1146] No, they need to be getting their vitamins to make sure they don't fall apart, you know?

[1147] And so the whole randomized control trial using that, that's, so he kept saying this.

[1148] Like, we need to hold vitamins to the same standard as drugs.

[1149] We need to have randomized control trials.

[1150] And that's how we, you know, determine whether or not they're effective or their efficacy, basically.

[1151] But like I said, you can't do that.

[1152] You have to measure people's vitamin and mineral levels.

[1153] Let's say you're looking at vitamin D at baseline to see how efficient they are for one this is going to determine the dose that you give them you know if you've someone's like 12 nanograms per milliliter and you give them 400 iUs a day they've even shown in that annals of internal medicine paper that doesn't work they're still going to be deficient at the end of the trial because you know 400 ius a day raises your blood levels by like five nanograms per milliliter so you can't that you're just not the way to do nutrition research the difference being that given someone something that's completely alien to the body but could be beneficial like a drug or giving them something that is absolutely essential to the body that is necessary and is a part of normal everyday diet, that you can't look at the two of them the same way.

[1154] That the drug may help people, but the reality is you're introducing something that's completely alien to the person's system in order to benefit them.

[1155] Whereas with vitamins, you are just regulating or measuring what is essential to the human body.

[1156] And pretty much has been established that vitamin B, vitamin D. vitamin C, all these different things, various aspects of nutrition are essential to human health.

[1157] That's one aspect of it.

[1158] So you can't look at a drug the same way you look at vitamin.

[1159] You can't.

[1160] And also, like I said, people already start off with varying levels of these vitamins.

[1161] So when you're randomizing them into two different populations, you don't know.

[1162] Some of these people could be very deficient.

[1163] Some have plenty of vitamin K or whatever you're looking at.

[1164] So you need to measure them at baseline.

[1165] Get a deficient population.

[1166] You need to get a pocket that's low because the whole point of, you know, giving someone a vitamin supplement is to bring them up to an adequate level.

[1167] It's not to like have some effect on top.

[1168] It's not like a drug where you're, you know, blocking some receptor and having some response.

[1169] No, you're taking vitamins and mineral supplements because you're not getting everything you need from your food and you want to get yourself up to an adequate level.

[1170] And so what you need to do is start off.

[1171] You need to measure people's levels at baseline, start off with the population that's inadequate.

[1172] Give them a vitamin mineral supplement to get them to an adequate level, and then you can measure something.

[1173] So it's really important, and I think I even talked about this last time, is quantifying these levels.

[1174] Well, this is the reason why.

[1175] You can't, you know, starting off with the population of people that has enough vitamin D, and you're trying to look at the effects of vitamin D on cancer incidents, well, guess what?

[1176] You know, they already have enough vitamin D. They're already in this adequate range.

[1177] Or conversely, if they're really, really, really deficient, and you're looking at the effects of vitamin D and cancer incidents, and you give them a dose that still makes them, they're still deficient, well, guess what?

[1178] We don't know how vitamin D is affecting cancer instance from that one study because they're still deficient at the end of the trial.

[1179] You know, so the conclusion is, oh, my dose was inefficient, was inadequate to bring them to an adequate level of vitamin D. That should be the conclusion, not, oh, vitamin D doesn't affect cancer incidents.

[1180] Which is what people tend to do, they'll, you know, you have to sell your story to get it published.

[1181] You know, you do all, you do years and years' work of research.

[1182] and you find this negative data, and it's like, well, you've got to sell it somehow.

[1183] So you're not going to sell it by saying, oh, well, didn't give them an adequate dose, and they're still not up to adequate level.

[1184] So that's really the one first thing about Offit and so many others, including the people that wrote this whole Enough is Enough Editorio.

[1185] They were looking at randomized control trials.

[1186] Most of the time they started off with people, didn't measure anything at all at start or throughout the follow -ups And, you know, it's like, well...

[1187] Well, the enough is enough was even worse because the enough is enough where they were studying, two of the things they were studying were heart attacks in people over 65 and dementia, delaying the onset of dementia in people who are over 65.

[1188] Like, Jesus, fucking Christ, you're talking about people who are dying.

[1189] Right.

[1190] And you're giving them vitamins and saying, ah, didn't stop them from dying.

[1191] Right.

[1192] You're dealing with completely broken human beings that are like on death's door.

[1193] they're forgetting shit they don't know where they are and their hearts failing and like ah vitamins don't work so to say vitamins don't work in those two circumstances is ridiculous and their other circumstance showed a slight improvement with vitamins and yet they still came to conclusion that vitamins don't work because that's the most salacious title right they vitamins and minerals are important to prevent disease they are important to prevent disease you know it's not it's not like if you're already falling apart and you're you've already been deficient for years and years and years and years and years, guess what, it's much harder to patch things up, much more difficult.

[1194] You've already acquired so much damage.

[1195] You've acquired so many different things that are going wrong that trying to patch it up later is really difficult.

[1196] And so, you know, in those studies also they did things where they were giving it to cancer patients.

[1197] And like I said, or smokers, they were looking at the effects of beta carotene or vitamin A in smokers.

[1198] And the thing is, is that smokers are a, different breed because, I mean, they're taking in, you know, poison every day.

[1199] And what happens is their lungs, they have a very oxidative environment.

[1200] So when they take vitamin, beta carotene, which is part of the vitamin A family, this beta carotene gets cleaved because they have oxidative stress and stuff going on.

[1201] It gets cleaved into some of these cleavage products, which actually damage DNA more and can accelerate cancer.

[1202] And, but the thing is, is that that's specific to smokers.

[1203] If you give the same dose of beta carotene to a non -smoker, guess what?

[1204] That doesn't happen.

[1205] They don't get those cleavage products and it doesn't start damage their DNA more and it doesn't accelerate cancer.

[1206] So, you know, you have to really, the context is so important.

[1207] Like, you know, you can't just say, oh, vitamin A is bad for you.

[1208] No. Well, if you're a smoker, it's a, you know, this is a certain context where, you know, there can be problems with taking high doses of beta carotene for that reason where you're, you've got all these oxidative, you know, stress things going on.

[1209] And so they cleave the beta beta carotin to certain cleavage products that normal people don't get.

[1210] You know, so context is very important.

[1211] And this is something that so many people so often ignore, including off it.

[1212] You know, another, he basically states that, and he says, it's clear and consistent that antioxidant supplements are bad for you and can give you cancer.

[1213] And he gives two examples.

[1214] The one example, he says, is the prostate cancer study.

[1215] And the second example, he says, is because.

[1216] you need pro -oxidants around in your body to prevent cancer cells.

[1217] It kills cancer cells, right?

[1218] Okay.

[1219] So it's kind of like, well, it's kind of a big overgeneralization, and it really shows me his lack of understanding, his lack of understanding of mechanism, either because it's too much work to look into it, because it's a lot of work, or, you know, just because he doesn't care.

[1220] It's, you know, so let's start off with the first part.

[1221] He says, you know, vitamin E can cause prostate cancer.

[1222] This is, this is huge.

[1223] There was a huge, huge study called the select trial, where they took the selenium and vitamin E cancer prevention trial.

[1224] Selenium is also important.

[1225] It's a co -factor for about 25 or so different proteins that are, one of them being glutathione peroxidase and synthase and all these different antioxidant genes.

[1226] And it's been shown to selenium, high selenium was correlated with low cancer incidence.

[1227] So they thought that would play a role in prostate cancer.

[1228] So they did this big trial where they got like, something like 30 ,000 men is pretty big.

[1229] And they gave them supplements.

[1230] They gave them either vitamin E. So vitamin E is actually, there's a whole family of vitamin E. It's not just one vitamin.

[1231] There's actually eight different forms of it.

[1232] And alpha, beta, gamma, delta.

[1233] And there's, the present is either tukophorols or tukotrinols, triunals.

[1234] And the major forms are alpha and gamma tukophoreal.

[1235] Okay.

[1236] And these two different forms of vitamin E, the alpha and gamma tecoferol, they're antioxidants, but they actually have separate functions.

[1237] So the alpha tecoferol is a very potent antioxidant.

[1238] So it's very good at, you know, getting oxygen, reactive oxygen radicals that's generated by like normal metabolism.

[1239] These things damage your DNA, but they also damage your lipid, like bilayer of your membranes.

[1240] Cell membranes.

[1241] What happens is vitamin E is fat soluble, so it gets in those lipids.

[1242] bilars and it prevents that oxygen radical from damaging it.

[1243] And what happens is if you don't have that happening, your lipid membranes get stiffer and stiffer over time.

[1244] And this is part of aging where they become rigid and it's hard to transport metabolites into your cells.

[1245] It's hard to transport proteins in and out.

[1246] It just screws up stuff.

[1247] So it's important to have, you know, something like alpha tachycopherol prevent that from happening.

[1248] It also prevents your proteins from being oxidized, which causes problems.

[1249] So that's really important to have, you know, and you actually need to get it from your diet.

[1250] The vitamin E's, you have to get from your diet from plants.

[1251] We don't make it ourselves.

[1252] The gamma form actually is also an antioxidant, but it's an anti -nitration one.

[1253] So nitration is formed from your immune system.

[1254] Just normal immune function like fighting off things creates reactive nitrogen species.

[1255] So these nitrogen species also do the same thing as oxygen species.

[1256] They damage your DNA.

[1257] They damage your lipid membranes.

[1258] They damage proteins in your body.

[1259] So having both alpha tecoferol and the gamma tecoferol, they're doing two independent functions is important because they're making sure you're not getting those oxygen or nitrogen -reactive species damaging crap in your body, basically.

[1260] And that's important to prevent cancer, to prevent, you know, a lot of diseases of aging.

[1261] So proteins that become oxidized or get nitrated aggregate, and they can form, you know, things in plaques in your brain, they can cause neurodigener diseases.

[1262] So it's important to have, you know, these antioxidant mechanisms in play to prevent that from happening as we age, okay?

[1263] So, with that said, the alpha tecoferol, and you can see how complex this is, you know, the alpha tecoferol is the major form in your tissues and in your bloodstream.

[1264] But the problem is, is that when you take really high levels of it, so the RDA is like 22 .4, I use, when you take really high, like 10 times that, like 400 I use, what happens is it depletes your gamma levels, okay?

[1265] And this has been well known for, like, over a decade.

[1266] Multiple labs have shown this, including the lab I work in.

[1267] They showed it many years ago before I even joined their lab.

[1268] So, you know, taking high, high levels of alpha can be bad because it depletes the gamma, and the gamma has a separate function from the alpha.

[1269] It prevents that nitration.

[1270] It also is an anti -inflammatory inhibits cox enzymes, which are involved in generating prostate glands.

[1271] So what they did was they gave men.

[1272] either alpha tachauferol, 400 I'd use, so 10 times the RDA, maybe even more than 10 times, and selenium, okay, so they give them either alpha tachauferol, selenium only, or both alpha tachofal and selenium or the placebo.

[1273] And then they looked, they followed up, they did a couple of follow -ups to look at prostate cancer incidents, okay?

[1274] So the first study was about a five and a half year follow -up, and this was published in like 2009.

[1275] And what it found was there's no effect.

[1276] Taking vitamin E had no effect on cancer incidents, taking selenium had no effect.

[1277] But what you can see if you look at the data is they measured their alpha and gamma levels at baseline.

[1278] And then at five and a half years, what happened was those men taking 400 IUs depleted their gamma tukofrol by like 45 % at the end of the follow -up, which is like crazy.

[1279] That's not good.

[1280] And then the second follow -up, what it found is seven and a half years later, they found that, oh my goodness, the men taking, you know, 400 IUs of alpha tocopherol had a 17 % increase risk of prostate cancer.

[1281] And then they went on to say, oh, my goodness, 400 I use of vitamin E a day can cause prostate cancer.

[1282] However, the men taking the selenium with the vitamin E didn't get it.

[1283] So the men taking that alpha tocopherol by itself, but took ones that took the selenium with it, didn't get it.

[1284] So the selenium protected, and they didn't know why.

[1285] So another study then recently came out from the same.

[1286] This is all the same big cohort of people found that only the men that were severely deficient in selenium to start the trial that took the alpha decaferol were the ones that had the increased cancer incidents.

[1287] So I started thinking about this.

[1288] Well, why is that?

[1289] Selenium also is important, like I said, it's important for like 25 or so proteins.

[1290] One of them is important for preventing nitration, reactive nitration products.

[1291] So I was like, wow, well, this makes sense.

[1292] You're taking high levels of alpha tachauferol, depleting your gamma levels, which is important to get rid of nitration damage, right, which damages DNA, causes cancer, things like that.

[1293] And yet you can give someone the selenium or if they're not deficient in the selenium that doesn't happen.

[1294] And one of these selenium proteins also does that.

[1295] So the bottom line is, does taking, you know, normal levels of alpha tachauferol, like 22 or 30 IUs a day, deplete your gamma levels?

[1296] No. Is it good for you?

[1297] Like, is it going to prevent your, you know, lipid membranes from oxidizing and your DNA from getting oxidized?

[1298] Yes.

[1299] You know, is it going to give you cancer?

[1300] No. It's actually the opposite.

[1301] It prevents cancer.

[1302] Is taking high, high levels of alpha decoferral dangerous?

[1303] Well, it can be, yes, because it depletes your gamma.

[1304] So, you know, taking high levels of alpha tecophoreal is not a good thing because it can deplete your gamma.

[1305] But that's only if you're also selenium deficient.

[1306] It's very, very, very common.

[1307] complicated.

[1308] It is not simple, and it's not as simple as taking vitamin E is going to give you cancer.

[1309] No, there's a whole host of complex mechanisms that are at play here.

[1310] And the reality is, you know, if you want to, 60 % of the population doesn't have enough alpha tecoferol, okay, 60%.

[1311] So if you, if you, you know, want to supplement with it, just don't be dumb.

[1312] Take a, take a lower level of it, and supplement with the mix.

[1313] You can buy a mixed tachopharols together.

[1314] So they get the alpha, the gamma, the beta.

[1315] What is a good source of that?

[1316] Um, so avocados, pecans, walnuts, plant, plant sources.

[1317] I like to get my, I have almonds also.

[1318] So I also, I get my, my vitamin, mostly from, from plant sources.

[1319] And also, I use almond milk, uh, unsweetened almond milk in my smoothies.

[1320] Like I said, I make a really big smoothie every morning, which has all these different micronutrients.

[1321] Unsweeten is the key, really.

[1322] Right.

[1323] I have a friend who said, oh, the almond milk's amazing.

[1324] I'm not drinking milk anymore.

[1325] It tastes so good.

[1326] I go, okay, okay.

[1327] What is it?

[1328] What kind of flavor is it?

[1329] And he goes, vanilla.

[1330] I go, look at the fucking label.

[1331] Right.

[1332] I go, what does it say as far as grams of sugar?

[1333] Right.

[1334] It's 19 grams of sugar per serving.

[1335] Yeah, you have to get the unsweetened.

[1336] You have to get the unsweetened.

[1337] But it has a lot of magnesium in it and a lot of the mixed vitamin E. So it's a good source.

[1338] So vitamin E supplementation, in your opinion, you should probably just get it from diet to make sure that your levels are normal, healthy levels, and then it's the balance of the different types of vitamin E's.

[1339] Yeah, I prefer getting it from diet.

[1340] There are mixed to cofferals that you can buy that are low.

[1341] It's not like a 10 times the RDA, and they're mixed.

[1342] So you're getting the gamma with the alpha.

[1343] Do you know of a good source for that?

[1344] I think there's Swanson brand may have a good one.

[1345] Is that what you mean by a brand?

[1346] Yeah, like a brand.

[1347] Yeah, and then, you know, I think that might be a good one.

[1348] I can't recall off the top of my head, but they are pretty reliable in general.

[1349] So in a sense, he oversimplified things, but there is a, danger of taking too many vitamins when you're taking vitamins like a vitamin E that could potentially, if you're taking one form of it, that could potentially deplete your absorption of the other form.

[1350] Exactly.

[1351] If you're taking a really, really high dose of vitamin, the alpha to cough for all, vitamin E, there could be a potential danger in it depleting the gamma form.

[1352] And how would anyone know whether they're taking alpha or gamma?

[1353] If you just have a vitamin E. If you have a vitamin E container and you look on the back of it.

[1354] It'll say, it'll say, like, alpha to copherol, it'll say the sort, like, it says alpha or gamma.

[1355] Most supplemental forms are alpha.

[1356] And that's because that's the predominant species found in tissues and plasma.

[1357] So, you know, we thought it was like the most important.

[1358] But we found that gamma is also really important.

[1359] But you can buy mixed tocopherols.

[1360] You know, you can buy mixed tachoforals.

[1361] Okay.

[1362] So that is just one thing that he brought up that was incorrect.

[1363] Well, that, yeah.

[1364] So that was one.

[1365] He made, he said the data is clear and consistent.

[1366] And for one, that's anything but clear.

[1367] I mean, there's lots of complex things going on.

[1368] And he said that, you know, it's clear and consistent that supplemental antioxidants cause cancer.

[1369] Well, there's also other studies showing that, you know, these people, in the case of prostate cancer, if you look at their blood levels of alpha, tachofal, and gamma, those with the highest levels of alpha and gamma have the least, you know, prostate cancer incident.

[1370] So there's inconsistencies and, and there's inconsistencies terms of what exactly is going on, and we're still really understanding all the, trying to understand all the mechanisms that play.

[1371] But he also made the overgeneralization that taking supplemental antioxidants is bad because you need pro -oxidants to kill cancer cells.

[1372] And that was like the second part of his, why supplemental antioxidants are bad.

[1373] And, you know, this is another example of context.

[1374] So, you know, if you don't have enough of the alpha, gamma to copherols, then you're going to have increased DNA damage.

[1375] You're going to have, you know, things that cause mutations.

[1376] And what happens is you're going to accumulate that over time and that's going to lead to cancer.

[1377] So not having enough of this vitamin E is not good.

[1378] Like I said, 60 % of the population doesn't have enough.

[1379] But the flip side is, is that if you already have cancer, then taking supplemental vitamin E, what happens is because it prevents that oxidation, then you, you, you, you, there's mechanisms in your body that induce cell death.

[1380] When you have oxidation, when you have this damage to your DNA, tumor suppress your genes get activated and may kill the cell.

[1381] So what they've shown is that in mice, if you take mice that already, if you give them cancer and you give them supplemental vitamin E, you can attenuate that whole pathway that activates the cell, the death of these cancer cells.

[1382] But that's not the case if you take a mouse that doesn't have cancer and you give them vitamin E. It actually prevents the DNA damage.

[1383] So this is a case where you're looking at context.

[1384] So if someone that doesn't have, you know, that is not, doesn't have cancer on their body, you want to make sure they're not causing DNA damage, which is happening, you know, every second by making sure they have enough of these antioxidants.

[1385] But on the flip side of that, you know, if you already have cancer, taking a bunch of supplemental, you know, vitamin E is not a good thing because you can attenuate that pathway that is important to kill cancer cells.

[1386] So it's another thing where it's like context is so important.

[1387] You need to differentiate between people that are normal, healthy, and people that are trying to prevent themselves from getting cancer by preventing these things that cause cancer, which vitamin E can help prevent, versus talking about someone that already has cancer.

[1388] So it's just incredibly responsible to make a simplified version of these incredibly complex processes that are going on.

[1389] In my opinion, it's a big, big overgeneralization, and it's probably, you know, because diving deep into this stuff is it takes time and it's complex and you need to understand how some of these things are interacting and working, you know, so it's much easier to be like, oh, you read the study, the conclusions and oh, yep, that's it.

[1390] That's the thing that people love, too.

[1391] They love when someone can break it down in a clear sentence.

[1392] Antioxidants can cause cancer.

[1393] Well, let me get on Twitter and let everybody know that they're being an idiot.

[1394] Right.

[1395] I mean, people love doing that.

[1396] They love saying things like that, like nice, clear, concise.

[1397] easy to digest you know high alkaline diet kills cancer oh I didn't even know I'm just gonna fucking I don't think there was any possible way I could boil that down into like one sentence didn't seem like you could biology is very complex and trying to oversimplify it isn't necessarily doesn't necessarily mean you have a good understanding of the complexities this is certainly going to be a podcast that requires a notepad yeah you're going to have to do a lot of Yeah, you know, the whole alpha tecoferol and gamma tecoferol, it's something I think is important for people to understand.

[1398] You know, it is alpha tecophorol is the major supplemental form.

[1399] And the last study I saw said something about like 11 % of the population takes high levels of alpha tachauferol.

[1400] So, you know, you have a certain percent of the population that's going overboard.

[1401] and they probably don't know about the effects that's going on, you know, the depletion of their gamma on how that can be bad.

[1402] So I think it is important for those people to realize that.

[1403] But on the flip side, you know, someone like Offit, his solution to that is he wants to have high -dose vitamins FDA regulated so that people like him who have an MD can prescribe them.

[1404] And so that's his solution to, you know, high -dose vitamins.

[1405] And, yeah, it's, if you think about it, first of all, you know, who's going to define what a high dose is?

[1406] Is it the RDA?

[1407] Because if you look at something like vitamin D, you know, but right now the RDA for vitamin D is like 600 IUs a day.

[1408] And 70 % of the population doesn't have enough vitamin D. And taking 600 IUs a day, if you're, you know, deficient isn't going to get you to an adequate level.

[1409] So that's not a good level.

[1410] What is a good level of vitamin D?

[1411] If 600 is not an accurate level, what's an accurate level?

[1412] So, you know, in a couple of studies that I've read where people that were deficient in vitamin D took 4 ,000 IUs a day for a year.

[1413] That was enough to get them up to 30 nanograms per milliliter.

[1414] It took a year?

[1415] It took a year.

[1416] Holy shit.

[1417] And well, they did.

[1418] They measured it after a year.

[1419] So it's possible if they had done some time points maybe in between.

[1420] that it could have raised their levels, you know, higher than that.

[1421] Was it a slow absorption into the body or something?

[1422] Like, why would it take so long to get the levels?

[1423] I'm not saying it's going to take a year.

[1424] It's just the way the study was designed.

[1425] I see.

[1426] They measured it a year later.

[1427] So it's, you know, it's possible that didn't take a year.

[1428] But the study was that they looked at it a year later after taking a year of 4 ,000 IUs a day.

[1429] But that was enough.

[1430] I think generally speaking, you know, people that are.

[1431] supplementing between 2 ,000 and 4 ,000 IUs generally tend to have adequate levels if they're not severely, severely deficient to start with.

[1432] If you're severely, severely deficient, it can take longer to get up to an adequate status.

[1433] What are the other things that Offit said that you didn't think were accurate or were problematic?

[1434] Yeah.

[1435] So he also said that the data is clear and consistent that supplemental vitamins don't do anything.

[1436] There's no positive benefit from them.

[1437] That's what he said, no positive benefit.

[1438] And like I said, to his credit, I haven't read his book, so maybe he goes into some specifics that I'm not aware of.

[1439] However, to say that supplemental vitamins have no benefit is like, really?

[1440] You know, I mean, they've done, they've even done randomized controlled trials showing that omega -3 fatty acid supplementation lowers all cause mortality.

[1441] So, you know, supplementing.

[1442] And he actually refers to omega -3 fatty acids as an antioxidant, at least in that podcast he did.

[1443] So, you know, that's one thing, vitamin D supplements, people that are that have supplemented with vitamin D to 1 ,500 IUs a day.

[1444] I don't remember how long they did that for, but they had a 17, it was many years.

[1445] There was a 17 % decrease in cancer cancer risk and there was a 30 % decrease in cancer mortality and like a 40 % decrease in cancers of the digestive system including colon cancer so that's one for vitamin D let's see what's another one there was another study where they looked at multivit women that took multivitamin and but this was not a controlled trial this was they did questionnaire and found out like how many how frequently women took multivitamins and how many times a day, or how many days a week they took them, and what they found is that the ones that took vitamins on a daily basis had the longest telomeres, they measured telomer length.

[1446] So that's another one, magnesium.

[1447] So we're talking about, you know, taking supplemental vitamins helps you fill some of those nutritional gaps that you're not getting from your diet.

[1448] And the reality is, is that we're not getting a lot of those vitamins and minerals from our diet.

[1449] We talked about this a little bit less time.

[1450] Is it possible to eat a completely healthy, healthy diet and get everything you need?

[1451] Or do you need to supplement?

[1452] I mean, is it possible?

[1453] That's a good question.

[1454] I don't know.

[1455] I mean, like things like vitamin D. What would you have to do?

[1456] I mean, I know it's in milk.

[1457] You'd have, well, yeah, for vitamin D, you'd have to really be living in a place that was exposed to the UVB during winter and summer.

[1458] And you'd have to be out in the sun for 15 minutes, you know, because getting it from fish, well, maybe, fish has a good, good bit of it.

[1459] But you'd have to eat fish every day.

[1460] And also to get the omega -3s, you'd have to eat fish, like, every day.

[1461] The omega -3 fatty acids are another big one.

[1462] And you'd have to eat quite a bit of fish, right?

[1463] And certain fish, like salmon.

[1464] Like salmon.

[1465] Like fatty fish.

[1466] Right, exactly.

[1467] You'd have to eat, like, fatty fish.

[1468] So I think it would be really difficult.

[1469] Like, I personally, I agree with Offit and that goofball Dunning.

[1470] In some instances where, you know, you should try to get all your micronutable.

[1471] nutrients, much as you can from your diet.

[1472] I agree.

[1473] And, you know, and, you know, case and point, I do my smoothie.

[1474] I, you know, I definitely try to eat my greens and healthy, healthy meats and fish.

[1475] I really like fish.

[1476] But I do supplement.

[1477] You know, I take omega -3 fatty acids.

[1478] I take vitamin D. I take a multivitamin, which has my, you know, selenium and some of my trace elements, my iodine, and what else do I take?

[1479] I also take a B complex, even though most people aren't, they don't have low levels of the B vitamins due to like fortification and stuff now.

[1480] I actually take a B complex because it's really kind of interesting, but we, our lab has shown that, well, it's partly shown this that as we age, I talked about how your lipid membranes get more rigid, and a lot of, so this includes your mitochondrial membranes.

[1481] They get more stiff, and over time, what happens is metabolites and stuff can't get transported it as easy.

[1482] And also what happens is these proteins, they bind co -factors like B vitamins are really important for a lot of proteins in the mitochondria that are necessary for metabolism to generate ATP.

[1483] And these proteins require B vitamins.

[1484] And a lot of them are embedded in the membrane.

[1485] So when the membrane gets stiff, the protein binding constant changes to that B vitamin.

[1486] And it's been shown that you can overcome that, meaning you actually can overcome that it's messing up that binding constant because it screws up the structure of the protein by increasing the level of B vitamins.

[1487] So what level do you do you recommend?

[1488] Like what, uh, what's, what's the USDA RDA and what do you think should it be?

[1489] For B vitamins, you know, I don't, there's no telling what it should be.

[1490] There's just no empirical data to show, uh, how much more you would need to overcome that.

[1491] I have a B complex and I just can't recall off the top of my head what all the, because there's so many of the, of the B vitamins.

[1492] Do you know what the name of your.

[1493] complexes that you take?

[1494] Right now.

[1495] Right now, I have one from Vitacost, but I've been switching over to Swanson brand because I...

[1496] Spell that?

[1497] Swanson?

[1498] Like...

[1499] S -W -A -N -S -O -N.

[1500] They're pretty reliable.

[1501] They've been around for a really long time.

[1502] They generally have some reliable supplements.

[1503] For Omega -3, I like Nordic Naturals.

[1504] They're really good.

[1505] And Nordic Naturals, that's a fish base.

[1506] Fish oil.

[1507] So there's some...

[1508] oils, here's the Swanson.

[1509] It has 25 milligrams of riboflavin, which is 1 ,471 of the U .S .RDA.

[1510] Thyamine?

[1511] Thymin, which is B1, it has 25 milligrams, which is 1 ,667 % of the U .S. RDA.

[1512] Vitamin C, it has it as well in the B complex as vitamin C, which is interesting.

[1513] Yeah, that's interesting.

[1514] 833 % of the U .S. RDA.

[1515] And the other big one, vitamin B6 is 1 ,250 percent, and vitamin B12, 2 ,083 percent of U .S. RDA.

[1516] That's interesting.

[1517] I've always found that interesting when you look at some vitamins, you look at multivitamins, and, you know, you know what the RDA is, and you see their percentages.

[1518] We're fucking off the charts.

[1519] They have 2 ,000 percent of the U .S. RDA of B12.

[1520] Yeah.

[1521] You know, that's a lot.

[1522] They're just saying the U .S. RDA is a knucklehead.

[1523] I mean, that's what they're saying in their company.

[1524] Well, look, fuck them.

[1525] In the case of the B vitamins, you know, like I said, most people aren't deficient in them and they haven't really shown any toxicity in taking too much of these B vitamins, and they are water -soluble, so you end up to pee -ing them all that.

[1526] I personally am taking them just because I've seen, you know, some of this data where it shows that some of these proteins that are, when your lipid bilayer is kind of more rigid and gets, screwed up over time and also when you're you know oxidation does that or eating rancid fat things like that changes some of the structure of those membrane proteins that require B vitamins and like I said I don't know how much more you need there it'd be cool to do a study to figure that out but it's not a dangerous one because they're water soluble it's not it I haven't seen any data that shows it's a dangerous one for one because they are water soluble and you pee them out what are the fat soluble ones that we should be careful about overdosing the alpha tachoforol is one which is E right right Like I said, the whole interplay between the gamma and alpha, you know, is a...

[1527] So gamma ticophryl, alpha tachryl, all the E's, those are fat soluble.

[1528] Right, E. Also, those you should be careful.

[1529] Vitamin D, you can, you know, you can take too much.

[1530] You know, if you take...

[1531] The toxicity levels that I've seen have been shown at like 10 ,000 I use a day for some time.

[1532] Anything over that, and actually I think it even is quite higher than that, but that's the limit of toxicity.

[1533] What about omega -3s and omega -3s in plant -based form versus in fish form?

[1534] Great question.

[1535] So if you look at the, so omega -thrus 3, there's EPA, there's DHA, and ALA.

[1536] So the major plant form, like flaxseed, oil or flaxseed, walnuts, for example, have ALA.

[1537] okay and that's they don't have EPA or DHA now you can convert a very small percentage of ALA into the EPA but it's like 5 % of it it's very inefficient conversion and women may be able to do a little bit better of a conversion I can't recall off the top of my head what their number was but the point is is that if your only source of omega -3 is flex or you know walnuts you're not getting your DHA.

[1538] You hear that vegans?

[1539] Yeah, that's really, the vegans, if you're vegan, really, I, I just, microalgae oil, I mean, the phytoplankton, or essentially are what making these omega -3s, the fish eat the phytoplankton, it gets concentrated in the fat, microalgae oil, I recommend for people that are vegetarian, vegan.

[1540] Microalgae oil, and, but when you're eating microalgae oil, what totally constitutes vegan?

[1541] Is there any sort of animal protein in microalgae oil?

[1542] I guess you're, you know, well, they're phytoplankton.

[1543] So if you're vegan based off of philosophy where you don't want to eat like any type of creature.

[1544] Yeah.

[1545] Phytoplankton is kind of a creature.

[1546] It is.

[1547] It's kind of a creature.

[1548] So I guess that could be a problem.

[1549] But if you're doing, if you're a vegetarian or vegan for, you know, health purposes and there's not like a philosophical component where, you know, you have a problem with eating these phytoplankton.

[1550] of plankton then well should i mean vegans shouldn't they avoid i mean there's certain probiotics that are i mean that's a creature too true bacteria it's living life forms yeah yeah that's a good point i don't know they move i mean they're they're active they're active they're absolutely just because you can't see them i mean you're basically eating little tiny turtles or something you know whatever so the little moving thing right you know i don't know what the philosophy because i don't have a lot of vegan friends to really know cut those people out of your life it's very important i don't have anything against them i don't either but i like fucking with them so but the omega the dha and EPA are really important they're really really really important and so you asked can you take too much i mean for one you know EPA is a very it's got a very potent anti -inflammatory effect which is you know important for a variety of different mechanisms you know inflammation chronic inflammation over time can lead to a lot of age -related diseases and DHA as we I think even discussed last time that's a really important component of your cell membranes particularly in the brain like 40 % of it so I take a lot of I take a lot I take a lot too how much do you take a day so well it depends so you have to look okay you got your fish oil container and on the front it says like 1 ,000 milligrams or if mine says 2 ,120 or something and then you turn around in the back and you look at the break the breakdown okay how much EPA how much DHA and then there's other fish oils mixed so on my container it says like 200 or 2 ,100 and something and I turn on the back it's got 800 milligrams of EPA and 600 milligrams DHA so and then all the rest is just fish oil stuff so I actually calculate how much I take based on those components the EPA and DHA because that's important that's what's important to me so I take about six pills of those a day and a serving size i guess a serving size is two so i took a little bit more than that i take 10 pills yeah yeah okay and you're that's pretty cool i've done that i mean i've done that in the past it has a big impact on joint health yeah it has a big impact for uh for grapplers for jihitsu people we're always getting sore knees and sore elbows it's a big issue and even sore backs and it has a huge impact on that.

[1551] No. The anti -inflammatory reaction.

[1552] What is the anti -inflammatory?

[1553] What is the actual mechanism, the anti -inflammatory mechanism involved in fish oil?

[1554] So the EPA is the major part.

[1555] So you can actually buy EPA, like just, you know, there's companies that'll sell.

[1556] If you're really just looking at the anti -inflammatory part of the fish oil, you can buy EPA.

[1557] It's a little more expensive.

[1558] But what it does is it inhibits that whole arachnodonic acid pathway, which, produces prostaglandins so it's like it's like upstream where it's it's inhibiting the production of erectinotic acid and then prostaglandins which activate cox and like all you know you got this whole cascade of inflammation going on it plays a major role in that there's probably other mechanisms that i haven't even read about you know other things going on as well uh that i i'm not even sure you know feedback mechanisms stuff like that but that's the major way that EPA does and they've even shown that like taking two grams of EPA a day can lower can like reduce your C -reactive protein levels oh gosh I don't remember the exact amount by how much it was but it was pretty significant where it's like it really you can measure it lowers inflammation system like systemic inflammation how many thousand milligrams are in a gram you just said it one one thousand milligrams are in one gram so two thousand milligrams is two grams yeah why don't they just call a gram why they have to call it a milligram yeah I I usually it gets to a thousand yeah it's like it's much you easier.

[1559] Yeah.

[1560] Why are you confusing me?

[1561] Maybe because people aren't aware of the whole metric system and stuff.

[1562] So if they see two grams, you're like, oh, that's nothing.

[1563] That's just two.

[1564] Well, we people get confused because we go ounces all the time with so many different things.

[1565] That is confusing.

[1566] I mean, I don't understand why we use the metric system in some cases.

[1567] In some cases, we don't at all.

[1568] Like leaders.

[1569] Oh, it's a leader.

[1570] Well, how many courts is in there?

[1571] Oh, fuck.

[1572] I don't know.

[1573] Yeah.

[1574] Why is there a court in a leader?

[1575] What are you doing to me here?

[1576] Well, in the lab, we do everything, milliliter, liter, I mean, so...

[1577] Gallons when you go to the gas station.

[1578] I don't even, yeah, I don't even, that, I always have to Google how many...

[1579] Inches.

[1580] Well, try fucking, I'm 90 centimeters.

[1581] What the fuck is 90, how tall is that?

[1582] I don't even know.

[1583] You know what I mean?

[1584] If someone, like, tried to guess someone's height in centimeters, like...

[1585] Yeah.

[1586] So, is your fish oil that you take, is it, um, both EPA and DHA?

[1587] That's a good question.

[1588] I take, uh, this Carlson's, Carlson's, I've taken that before.

[1589] Do you take the lemon?

[1590] flavored one in the bottle or do you take them in pills?

[1591] I take both.

[1592] I bring the pills with me when I go on the road.

[1593] I take the lemon in the bottle at home.

[1594] Ah, okay.

[1595] Yeah, there is something to be aware of with the omega -3 fatty acids and that's because they're polyunsaturated fatty acids.

[1596] They're very prone to oxidation.

[1597] So keeping them at four degree, well, keeping them in the fridge, sorry.

[1598] Yeah.

[1599] lowers that, that oxidation process and also just smelling it, you know, take a sniff of it and make sure it's not rancid smelling when you're taking, when you're taking it.

[1600] Because that's one thing with the omega -3 fatty acids.

[1601] I mean, like I said, I take a lot of omega -3 fatty acids, and I think they're really important.

[1602] But I think it's important to be aware that they can go ranted, and if they go ranted, consuming them can be not as good.

[1603] Yeah.

[1604] And when you leave them in the refrigerator, how long are they good for it?

[1605] When you crack open that bottle, I've always given it a two -week window.

[1606] If I don't drink it in two weeks, I throw it out.

[1607] Is that?

[1608] I don't use the bottle anymore, but the bottle is more open to be oxygen so that is one thing to be aware of with the bottle and that was go with the pills i do that was something that i think that was part of the reason why i switched to it that and i think i got really sick of that lemon yeah it gets kind of it's kind of much yeah so it's easier to just not taste anything and you swallow the pills but then you're dealing with the gelatin as well right it's just gelatin is not good i haven't convinced myself that it's doing my charm but who knows maybe i haven't dug deep enough what about krill oil how do you feel about krill oil um i haven't done much reading on the krill is that that has vitamin a as well or that's caught i'm thinking i'm conflating cod oil cod liver oil was the one that they always gave us when we're kids and everybody's like well get that away from me i don't know if i've ever tried it like the taste i think i've had a pill and i couldn't really tell you know i actually think i have krill oil here hold on a second yeah but you know taking taking the omega three and just popping it open every once in a while and smelling it is a good idea i recommend doing that because you can smell what rancid fat smells like So that's what I like to do.

[1609] You know, every once in a while, I'll just grab my omega -3 pill out of the fridge and take some scissors, cut it open, and smell it.

[1610] And if it doesn't smell rancid, it's still good.

[1611] Yeah, I've got some krill oil here.

[1612] Tell you about that.

[1613] Is, well, krill oil, I don't know what's supposed to be the benefit of krill oil overfish oil.

[1614] It doesn't have a lot of DHA or EPA in it.

[1615] No?

[1616] I mean, it says 75 milligrams of DHA and 130, milligrams of EPA, and that's two soft gel servings.

[1617] So you think that fish oil is probably a better choice than cruel oil?

[1618] Well, I don't know if there's also one gram of krill oil.

[1619] So it says one gram of krill oil, maybe there's something in there I'm not aware of, because I really, I just haven't done a lot of research on it.

[1620] But I'm looking at the DHA and EPA specifically.

[1621] If you're taking this to get DHA and EPA, I would say this is not a very high amount.

[1622] So you think that if there is something good about krill oil, you should probably, what is it?

[1623] Why is there these things?

[1624] Crill oil radically better than fish oil?

[1625] Hmm.

[1626] Blood sugar regulator?

[1627] I don't know anything about it, unfortunately.

[1628] Maybe there's some other reasons.

[1629] Maybe there's something else.

[1630] Yeah, like I said, I'm completely ignorant on that.

[1631] It says here in this website, krill oil actually influences your metabolism and genes to improve.

[1632] The reference study found that although both fish oil, and krill oil contain omega -3s.

[1633] They differ greatly in how they affect the genes controlling your metabolism.

[1634] Crill oil enhances glucose metabolism in your liver, whereas fish oil does not.

[1635] Crill oil promotes lipid metabolism, whereas fish oil does not.

[1636] Crill oil helps regulate the mitochondrial respiratory chain, whereas fish oil does not.

[1637] So DHA does do those things.

[1638] So when they're saying fish oil...

[1639] So what are they talking?

[1640] They're talking shit.

[1641] Well, I'm not sure.

[1642] I'm not sure.

[1643] I'm not sure I'm following.

[1644] I'm not either.

[1645] Because DHA does regulate lipid metabolism.

[1646] And also, so DHA and EPA, in addition to the anti -inflammatory effects of EPA, and in addition to the lipid membrane part of the DHA, these fatty acid molecules are signaling molecules that actually bind to different DNA regions in your gene.

[1647] and activate them, much like vitamin D does.

[1648] And DHA and EPA do this.

[1649] So DHA can activate genes.

[1650] So, you know, if they're talking about, and it's been shown to activate mitochondrial metabolism genes.

[1651] So when they say krill oil can...

[1652] Does, and fish oil does not.

[1653] They're just incorrect.

[1654] It doesn't make any sense to me. You have to be specific.

[1655] What is it you're talking about DHA?

[1656] Because they're in both, you know, what else is there?

[1657] Yeah, this is an article from Mercola.

[1658] Is that a good website?

[1659] You know, Mercola is.

[1660] hit or miss I think he does have a lot of good every once in a while there's something you know it's both I haven't spent a lot of time reading his stuff but I do think he does he does have some good information but sometimes he so it doesn't sound like krill oil's bad but it does seem like fish oil is probably more beneficial or provide well there's other things in here too yeah so the point is you have to be specific if you're saying just krill oil well You're talking about other things in the krill oil because if we're talking about gene activation, DPA and DHA is doing that.

[1661] DHA is activating genes.

[1662] You know, that's what it's doing in addition to what it's doing for your lipid membrane.

[1663] Yeah, this is so confusing after reading what you said because it's saying some studies have shown that krill oil may be 48 times more potent than fish oil.

[1664] It means you'll need far less of it than fish oil is confirmed by a 2011 study, 48 times more potent in what sense, though?

[1665] What are we talking about in the krill oil?

[1666] I just don't understand.

[1667] I don't either.

[1668] That's the problem.

[1669] And people have mortgages.

[1670] They have jobs.

[1671] They have children.

[1672] They have dogs to feed.

[1673] They have a plant to water.

[1674] They don't have fucking time to get in all this stuff.

[1675] You have to, you know, it's, I feel bad for people.

[1676] I mean, it's hard enough for me. Like you're a person.

[1677] What's talking about?

[1678] I mean, no, it's because it's craziness.

[1679] It's craziness.

[1680] And the reality is understanding mechanism, like what I'm saying mechanism, I'm talking about DHA can activate, you know, promoters in certain genes to increase the expression of mitochondrial metabolism genes that's been shown.

[1681] And so when you say krill oil is better, can do that in fish oil, can't, that makes no sense to me. You need to tell me what specifically is in the krill oil that's not in fish oil because, you know, DHA and EPA are in fish oil.

[1682] Right.

[1683] Are we talking about a concentration dependent thing?

[1684] I mean, is there more DHA and EPA in krill oil?

[1685] I don't know, actually.

[1686] Yeah, I don't, yeah, I think this is something that's going to have to be really studied in length.

[1687] And I would love to see you dive into all these claims.

[1688] But there's quite a few claims online about the benefits of curle oil over fish oil.

[1689] But it doesn't, one of the things is saying, cool, cool oil contains as a tax, oh, boy, try this one.

[1690] A. S -T -A -X -A -N -T -H -I -N.

[1691] Say it again.

[1692] A -S -T -A -X -A -N -T -H -I -N.

[1693] Yeah, that's a multiple.

[1694] You're not familiar with it.

[1695] A unique marine -sourced flavonoid that creates a special bond with the EPA and D -H -A, which allows direct metabolism of the antioxidants, making them more bioavailable.

[1696] Does that make sense?

[1697] No. Does that sound like malarkey?

[1698] Possibly.

[1699] It doesn't make sense in that.

[1700] God, that it really is the issue, isn't it?

[1701] There's just so much to try to sift through, find out how to separate the wheat from the shaft, as it were.

[1702] It's, you know, with the DHA and EPA, the really important thing, in my opinion, is getting it, getting enough of it.

[1703] Like, getting, you know, taking a good bit of DHA and EPA, because most people aren't getting.

[1704] getting any of it and all this other stuff um i'm just not sure how significant it is maybe it does increase bioavailability of a little bit i don't i don't know if it really makes a big difference uh so so for the folks that are taking the or they're getting their omega threes just completely from a plant source what can they do if anything to try to i really think the microalgae oil is the best i mean i would i would i would I would recommend taking the fish oil, but I guess they won't do that.

[1705] Some cases, vegetarians won't do that.

[1706] So the microalgae oil is the next best thing, in my opinion.

[1707] And like I said, I don't really know much about the krill oil.

[1708] But I do know that these DHA is very important, as is EPA.

[1709] So for a variety of different reasons.

[1710] Well, I'm going to send you some of these studies on the krill oil to see if you, unless you get bored, reading it and you can't do it it's there's just it seems like there's just such a boy it's such a mess it's such a there's so many different supplements than just going into all the contradictory arguments the back and forth about all these different ones it can be incredibly taxing what's the I mean your website is a great resource of this if people want to go to foundmyfitness dot com and try to figure out what what you've already sort of described and you've already explain, but how does a person start?

[1711] I think a really good resource that I like is the Linus Pauling Institute.

[1712] So if you go to the Linus Pauling Institute, they are pretty good about writing a very it's a scientific research institute that's associated with Oregon Health University or Oregon State Health University, something like that.

[1713] But they do a very balanced review on a variety of different supplemental vitamins and vitamins and minerals and essential fatty acids and that they give you both sides and now if they go into the krill they may sometimes they'll go into things like that but generally speaking i really like the linas pauling institute it's it's a good it's a good resource if are there places where someone can go where they can you know like say like you just you're not sure what you need like we were talking about like various levels of vitamins and getting them tested it is Are you like a standard place where you could go where you could, you know, like someone who lives in the middle of nowhere can find a place and get their blood tested?

[1714] I mean, I think one of the companies that I am familiar with is Wellness FX.

[1715] And I have no association with them other than I did a couple of guest blog posts for them where I, for free, wrote about vitamin D and magnesium.

[1716] And they actually, I think they're pretty much in almost every state now where you can go onto their website and they have a, a variety of different assays they'll do.

[1717] Well, they'll measure different vitamins and minerals and the omega -3 fatty acids.

[1718] They'll measure different things to see a reactive protein.

[1719] And you can go to any, enter your address and go to like a lab corp around near a spy or whatever and get your blood drawn.

[1720] And then they'll give you the data within a couple of days.

[1721] They'll help you interpret it.

[1722] They have a variety of different physicians and nutritional people that can help you interpret what your blood results mean.

[1723] So like I used it myself.

[1724] We also got a test for my mother -in -law to use, and she lives in Mississippi.

[1725] So, you know, and it's pretty much, I think it's pretty much everywhere now.

[1726] So I really like them.

[1727] And obviously, you can go to your physician, your primary health care provider, but they may not measure everything that you want, like, omega -3.

[1728] And they also might give you some of that.

[1729] All you need to do is eat a balanced diet.

[1730] Right.

[1731] How many times have I heard that from a physician who looked like shit?

[1732] You know, like overweight position, I mean.

[1733] sloppy loose skin all around its face like, dude, you're melting.

[1734] Right.

[1735] You're telling me what to do?

[1736] Yeah, so, but the wellness effects is pretty cool.

[1737] You know, I really like them.

[1738] But the nutrition thing, I think it's making its way into medicine, and that's part of the reason why people like Offit, who is an MD, you know, these people, they've been trained very differently.

[1739] They haven't been trained in understanding preventative medicine, understanding how these complex micronutrients are interacting with different, you know, proteins in our body and how that's important to prevent different diseases.

[1740] You know, they have, so they're not, they're not thinking about it from the same frame of mind, you know, as, um, as people like me that are PhD researchers or nutritionists and there's a variety of other, uh, I guess, naturopathic doctors maybe have more.

[1741] There's a whole, you know, variety of different.

[1742] Naturopathic gets lumped into homeopathic sometimes accidentally.

[1743] Yeah, they're different.

[1744] Yeah, completely different.

[1745] I've been guilty of it myself.

[1746] Yeah, I think I have as well.

[1747] I confuse them.

[1748] a way where anything homeopathic I think of as horseshit.

[1749] Isn't homoeopathic like that crazy thing where they like dilute things to like crazy amounts where you can't even there's like no active compound if you if you Google it or look at the Wikipedia of what is the official turn?

[1750] Sorry.

[1751] Homeopathic.

[1752] They have their own measuring system too I think.

[1753] It's like they'll take a compound and they'll dilute it like a million And it's like to the point where there's like no biological activity and they give it to people.

[1754] I'm pretty sure that's homeopathy.

[1755] I didn't realize that until recently.

[1756] Yeah.

[1757] Repeatedly diluting a chosen substance in alcohol or distilled water followed by forceful striking on an elastic body.

[1758] What?

[1759] Dilution usually contains, continues well past the point where no molecules of the original substance remain.

[1760] Is that?

[1761] So, okay, let me tell the story.

[1762] So I recently had my wisdom teeth removed.

[1763] and my oral surgeon gave me this case of pills that was Arnica.

[1764] It was like a plant.

[1765] Well, I thought, well, no, it was homeopathic, which really makes it nonsense.

[1766] There is some antimicrobial activity and things like that in Arnica, the real Arnica.

[1767] But the homeopathic on it goes like sugar.

[1768] It's water.

[1769] Yeah.

[1770] It's water, literally.

[1771] But I didn't know is homeopathic at first.

[1772] I just thought, oh, yeah, it's just Arnica.

[1773] And it wasn't until, like, my husband looked at it.

[1774] And he's like, do you realize this is homeopathic?

[1775] I was like, what's that?

[1776] I didn't really even, I knew homeopathic was kind of crazy.

[1777] And we looked it up, and it was like, mind -blowing.

[1778] I couldn't believe that they were giving, I don't even think he knows.

[1779] I think he probably made the same mistake I did where I just thought it was just Arnica.

[1780] This is for anybody defending homeopathy.

[1781] Homeopathy, this is on Wikipedia, this is all with references, lax biological plausibility, and the axioms of homeopathy have been, have been, refuted for some time, the postulated mechanisms of action of homeopathic remedies are both scientifically implausible and not physically possible.

[1782] Although some clinical trials produce positive results, systematic reviews reveal that this is because of chance, flawed research methods, and reporting bias, which is pretty common.

[1783] So there you have it, homeopathy really.

[1784] Yeah, I mean, anytime someone says homeopathy, they usually are wearing crystals and they know someone one who's a channeler.

[1785] Right, right.

[1786] So, no, getting back to my wisdom teeth, that's kind of a cool topic.

[1787] I had to get them removed because they were, like, impacted and causing problems and pain and such.

[1788] So I did some research.

[1789] I was like, God, if I have to get my teeth removed, there got to be some kind of benefit from it.

[1790] And I found that our wisdom teeth have something called dental pulp stem cells in them.

[1791] And these dental pulp stem cells.

[1792] So this stem cell research is like a whole, I'm really excited about the stem cell research field and where we're going with that.

[1793] But anyways, our wisdom teeth have dental pulp stem cells in them that can actually form other tissues in our body, like bone cartilage.

[1794] And they even showed recently they've taken dental pulp stem cells from people with impacted wisdom teeth, taken them out and transplant them into mice that had damaged motor neurons.

[1795] And it was able to differentiate into neurons, neural type cells and help replace that.

[1796] So I went and And looked online to see if anyone was banking because they do cord blood banking where you can bank your core blood.

[1797] And indeed, there was a company that, it's a couple of companies that are both associated with cord blood banks as well.

[1798] But they bank the dental pulp stem cells that you can, when you have your teeth removed, they send you a kit with like buffered saline solution.

[1799] Your oral surgeon will stick the teeth in them.

[1800] And then they ship it off back to the company and they preserve it in liquid nitrogen.

[1801] They kind of do very minimal processing.

[1802] They don't actually remove the stem cells.

[1803] They keep it in the tissue, the dental pulp tissue.

[1804] they freeze it in liquid nitrogen so that you can, you know, later use it if you need it.

[1805] So it's actually really cool because you can, you know, use this if you have damaged cartilage, bone, possibly Parkinson's disease where you need to replace damaged motor neurons.

[1806] So I thought that was pretty cool.

[1807] It's like a benefit for it because getting your wisdom teeth removed is not fun at all.

[1808] Yeah, that is fascinating though.

[1809] Primary teeth from children also.

[1810] So in the children's teeth, you know, they're losing their primary teeth.

[1811] and you just throw the teeth away.

[1812] They have a really rich source of dental pulp stem cells.

[1813] Wow.

[1814] So you can, you know, your child loses their tooth and you can bank it where you freeze it.

[1815] It's like $625 for the whole processing and then to store it, it's like $125 a year.

[1816] I personally think it's a great investment if you have kids and they, you know, losing their teeth.

[1817] Or also if you have your wisdom teeth and you have to get them removed.

[1818] Yeah.

[1819] Why not?

[1820] My daughter is about to lose her for its tooth.

[1821] so that's perfect yeah the company that I went with I can I can give it to I I actually talked to their cell biologists I was on the phone because I read through all the procedures in these scientific papers to see exactly how you process it in the optimal way and the best way to have the best viability after you thawm and so I was like getting on the phone I'm like okay do you do this do this and so I went with this company because I spoke with one of their cell biologists and they had done the things that I thought were the best so anyways the whole stem cell field is cool Yeah.

[1822] It's, you know, what's really cool is that they can take fibroblast cells from your skin, like skin cells that we sloth off like every day.

[1823] And they can add four different transcription factors, like four different genes that they can add by like a viral and add virus to them.

[1824] And they can reprogram them to become these pluripotent stem cells in your body, meaning they can form any type of cell in your body.

[1825] So you can take a skin cell and you can make it, you know, know, into a brain cell, a liver cell, a heart cell.

[1826] I mean, this has huge, huge implications for regenerative medicine, but I think also just for extending lifespan.

[1827] What did you think about this latest study where they took mice?

[1828] And did you read about this where they took young, the blood of young mice and they reintroduced it to old mice?

[1829] Yeah.

[1830] So that, was that a recent study or was that?

[1831] Yeah.

[1832] It was the recent findings.

[1833] Because I've seen other studies that were not super recent, but what they did was they took like bone marrow cells.

[1834] They did a bone marrow transplant and took, which obviously bone marrow forms are blood cells from young mice and transplanted them to old mice and the mouse, the mice like lived longer.

[1835] Yeah, this is, this is recent.

[1836] It's from March 6th, or May 6th rather.

[1837] They actually took an injection of young blood.

[1838] So they took the blood of, excuse me, they took the blood of young mice.

[1839] They injected it into, to old mice, and they had tremendous benefits, including regenerating different cells, brain cells, tissue cells.

[1840] Oh, really?

[1841] Brain cells as well?

[1842] Yeah.

[1843] I mean, it makes sense that you'd regenerate different blood populations because you have, you know, stem cells, young stem cells in the blood and stuff that are...

[1844] It improved the performance of elderly mice in memory and learning tasks.

[1845] Wow.

[1846] That's pretty cool.

[1847] It's crazy.

[1848] Structural, molecular.

[1849] Do you send me that paper?

[1850] Yeah, absolutely.

[1851] Yeah, that's awesome.

[1852] Yeah.

[1853] I mean, this is the stuff I'm really excited about now is this, you know, the stem cell research and reprogramming, you know, where the epigenetics is a really cool part where you can reprogram your cells to basically be younger.

[1854] You know, they're finding now that, that, so epigenetics, I think we talked about this a bit last time, refers to changes in gene expression.

[1855] and, you know, things like methyl groups and acidulation groups will sit on top of your DNA and turn genes on and off.

[1856] But now what they're finding is they're trying to look at patterns of methylation, like in your DNA.

[1857] So they've already solved the human genome project where they know genes.

[1858] And now they're trying to look at the methalome, the human methalome.

[1859] And they've been able to, over the past, you know, a few years, they've been able to identify that there's patterns of methylation in your genes that happen with age.

[1860] And they've even been able to like systematically identify.

[1861] So they've taken blood from people, various ages, like from 19 to 101.

[1862] And they've been able to identify the age of the person, the chronological age of the person, based on their methylation patterns, like with 96 % accuracy.

[1863] And they've been able to do this, like within four years.

[1864] I think they'll be four years off, you know, plus or minus four years.

[1865] So they can take someone's blood cells, look at their methylation pattern, and say, you're 50 years old and the person will be between 50 and 54 or 46 and 50 you know so I think that's pretty freaking amazing that they're so and the thing that's really cool this is I'm on this kick this epigenetics kick where they've been able to now also look at the cancer cells like in a person they'll take a tissue a tumor sample and then a tissue from the same person another you know non -tumor tissue, and they'll look at the methylation pattern, and they'll see that the cancer or the tumor tissue ages by like 40 % based on the methylation pattern.

[1866] Wow.

[1867] And, yeah, so it's like the cancer cells aging rapidly.

[1868] So what's really interesting is now they're looking at what genes these are, what genes these methylation patterns are happening around, and they're finding it to like DNA repair, mitochondrial metabolism, antioxidant genes, like everything we've been talking about in this whole podcast, things that affect DNA damage and metabolism, all these things, methylation patterns are happening clustered around these genes.

[1869] And the cool thing about it to me is that if we're figuring this out, then we can figure out how to reprogram ourselves to be young and extend lifespan.

[1870] And I really think that we're getting close to doing this.

[1871] So, I mean, if you think about, I'll give you an example, like stem cells.

[1872] Stem cells also have methylation patterns that are very distinct to stem cells.

[1873] And there's certain genes that are, when a gene is methylated, it's not being expressed.

[1874] There are certain genes that are not expressed in stem cells for a reason, because when they get expressed, they cause the cell to stop dividing.

[1875] And you don't want your stem cell to stop dividing because stem cells are what's repopulating the tissue.

[1876] And they found that, like, a certain gene is methylated in young people.

[1877] So when we're young, our stem cells have, you know, this gene's methylated.

[1878] But as we get older, the gene, the methylation goes away.

[1879] So there's enzymes that actually are called demethylase that take off the methyl groups.

[1880] And this gene becomes active.

[1881] and then the stem cell like stops dividing.

[1882] It's like you lose.

[1883] You're basically losing your stem cell.

[1884] And then, you know, more stem cells you lose, the worse off you are.

[1885] You can't replenish your damaged tissue and all that.

[1886] But what they found was that the thing that activates that thing that takes off the methyl group is something called NFCAPA B, which is an inflammatory.

[1887] That thing is activated by inflammation.

[1888] NFCAPA B. Inflammation activates NFCAPA B, and then it activates this whole pathway of demethylase that take off methyl groups.

[1889] So what I'm thinking is that inflammation, is a chronic signal.

[1890] It's a way that I've been able to link environment and the way, when I say environment, I just mean like damage, constant accumulation of tissue damage, the DNA damage I was talking about.

[1891] Environment to epigenetics.

[1892] So it's like you have a chronic signal of inflammation.

[1893] It's activating these demethylases.

[1894] They're taking methyl groups off of DNA.

[1895] And now you're expressing genes that are usually not expressed when or more young in stem cells that stops the stem cell from dividing.

[1896] So it's like a really cool link between.

[1897] you know, environment and epigenetics that, you know, as it relates to aging, which we know that environment regulates epigenetics.

[1898] So to me, it's kind of cool because as we're figuring out these programs, what that means is I think that we'll be able to reprogram our cells to become young.

[1899] That's incredible.

[1900] How long do you think it's going to be before that happens?

[1901] I think that we're getting really close with, I mean, if you look at, like I said, with the stem cell research that we're doing now where we can take us we can even take a renal epithelial cells that we excrete in our urine and make it into a pluripotent stem cell we can make it become a you know a cell in our liver so I think with you know the advances we're making with that in combination with this learning the looking looking figuring out the human epigenome where we're looking at methylation patterns and figuring out what's happening with age you know I I think we're going to make huge strides in the next decade.

[1902] I mean, hopefully if research, if funding doesn't go down, you know, it's been going down the drain.

[1903] Hasn't been?

[1904] Yeah.

[1905] Oh, yeah.

[1906] I mean, funding is hard.

[1907] It's really hard.

[1908] Getting funding in science.

[1909] But why is it with something like anti -aging?

[1910] It would say like, boy, if there's something to be made where there's money to be made, it's funding anti -aging research seems like, God, that's the way to go.

[1911] Well, there is the National Institute of Aging.

[1912] funds a lot of the aging research.

[1913] And there's also some private foundations that are funding it.

[1914] But the reality is that, you know, these, we're funding it with taxpayer dollars, right?

[1915] I mean, there's not a lot of money for research in general, period.

[1916] I mean, you'd think that cancer one would be another, right?

[1917] I mean, the NCI is funding a lot of cancer research.

[1918] But the problem is that it's hard to get funding.

[1919] And the things that are funded, here's what I see is a big problem.

[1920] The things that are funded by these big institutes are typically things that are already been proven.

[1921] They're not as creative.

[1922] You know, they're the things that people feel are already solid.

[1923] So it's like, oh, you're already published on this.

[1924] Yes, we're going to fund you on that.

[1925] You know, as opposed to someone that has this very creative idea.

[1926] It's very risky.

[1927] It's like, well, I'm not going to, you know, there's all these other people that are trying to compete for this money.

[1928] Giving funding for something like that is risky.

[1929] So they don't fund a lot of creative research, which, unfortunately, is what makes leaps in science.

[1930] This mice thing is so fascinating because they show that after four weeks, stem cells in both the areas of the muscle and the brain, got a boost of activity, and were better able to produce neurons and muscle tissue.

[1931] And then they also discovered that injecting the old mice, or rather the young mice with old blood, was a huge setback.

[1932] It was a huge setback When conjoined to an older mouse So the, you know, bringing the old blood into the new mouse The creation of new cells in the young mouse slowed And old blood seemed to cause premature aging Yeah Incredible It is incredible I mean it's But how long before people start Fucking doing something gross Like taking a person Stealing their blood Introducing it to their own to stay young I mean it's really vampirism Yeah I mean For sure Oh wait now I remember that Someone has read this I think I remember that study now I'm going to grab another water real quick Yeah please this one right there Well this study It was published on In the Washington Post The article was published on May 4th And the study Two of the studies published online The Journal of Science Came out Let's see here.

[1933] Yeah, one of them was from Stanford, the Stanford group.

[1934] Well, apparently they've been working on this for quite a while, but the results of the blood results have been pretty shocking to a lot of people.

[1935] I think a lot of it comes down to, you know, like I said, there's these, if you look at the epigenome, the methylation patterns in these stem cells, these young stem cells, even young cells in general, They're very different from old ones.

[1936] And that affects the way, I mean, if you're looking at epigenetics, you're talking about regulating a whole host of genes, like hundreds of different genes.

[1937] And so if these things are being differentially regulated when you're young versus old, then, you know, taking someone's young blood and transplanting into the old, you know, person, old transplantee would make sense because now you're, you know, you're basically taking all those patterns that we've been able to identify.

[1938] And gene expression, things are now going back to young.

[1939] So it's like now you're not expressing genes that are, you know, causing your stem cells to senes.

[1940] You're not expressing, you're expressing more things that are involved in DNA repair and things like that.

[1941] Yeah.

[1942] So.

[1943] This is incredible what they were able to do.

[1944] They actually had more endurance.

[1945] They navigated mazes faster, ran longer on treadmills, and they easily outperformed their control peers.

[1946] That's awesome.

[1947] Who are only given saline.

[1948] Yeah.

[1949] So it's like a definitive response.

[1950] Right.

[1951] But it's such a creepy one.

[1952] I think, but I think this is something that we can do with the reprogramming of our own, like, skin cells into, like, pluripotent stem cells.

[1953] Right.

[1954] And the, yes, yeah, that's really fascinating.

[1955] It's the same concept, but you don't have to get someone's young blood.

[1956] You're doing it to yourself.

[1957] And haven't they been able to come up with artificial blood cells?

[1958] Isn't that another thing that they've been working on?

[1959] That sounds familiar.

[1960] I don't know.

[1961] Artificial heart cells as well, I think.

[1962] Like, yeah, you know, I just, I'm not, I don't remember exactly the studies and the mechanisms.

[1963] It's just so much, well, although it is difficult to get funding, there are so many different, yeah, artificial blood.

[1964] Wow, patient ready.

[1965] This is from the dash scientist .com and it's saying that, wow, this is incredible.

[1966] In the midst of news that engineered organs are being implanted into animals and people, researchers announced the creation of artificial blood for transplant.

[1967] This is a very recent, too, April 16th.

[1968] It's nuts.

[1969] We live in strange times when it comes to these things.

[1970] Like every day or so, it seems like some new study from somewhere in the world is popping up that shows this incredible breakthrough.

[1971] The Young Mice study, this study, the artificial blood story, study.

[1972] If they can engineer some sort of a super potent blood and introduce it into your body, I mean, it's similar to, like, what the cyclist did when they were blood doping.

[1973] They would take their own blood, pull it out, inject it back into their body, so they had more blood or EPO, which stimulated.

[1974] Red blood cell production.

[1975] Yeah.

[1976] That kind of stuff is just, it's so trippy, the idea of sort of hacking and retweaking the components of the human body.

[1977] I agree.

[1978] But I do think it's really cool.

[1979] I mean, I know when I first, when I first got into the biological sciences, so I was a chemistry major in college, I did research using these nematode worms.

[1980] see elegant worms that have like a 14 or 15 day lifespan and they have a lot of the same genes that we have but I could like inactivate one of their genes and literally double their lifespan so they went from living like 14 or 15 days to like 30 days and so this was actually it was you inactivate insulin growth signaling insulin growth factor and what happens is it this this growth factor then usually when it's active it keeps this FOXO gene which is a transcription factor outside of the nucleus and doesn't allow it to perform all the functions that usually performs which is involved in a bunch of stress resistance like hundreds and hundreds of genes and so when you get rid of that IGF1 signaling in the worms FOXO gets activated and all those genes involved in stress resistance get activated and the worms live twice as long.

[1981] So it's like literally a genetic program in these worms that's controlling the way the age.

[1982] So when I first, I remembered that hit me, it was kind of like, holy crap.

[1983] Like, that's pretty cool.

[1984] Like, being able to reprogram the way you age.

[1985] It's just such an amazing time with all this stuff, because it seems like we're around at just the right time to catch this just incredible percolating of all these new studies and all these new things that are being developed.

[1986] It's just such a strange time to, like, try to pay attention to all of it.

[1987] And, and watch it all happen.

[1988] It's so exciting.

[1989] It must be really exciting for you because this is like your field of study.

[1990] Oh, no, it's great.

[1991] I mean, I think we're definitely going to live longer.

[1992] How long do you think you're going to live?

[1993] Oh, in my lifetime?

[1994] I don't know.

[1995] Without, you know, kind of Chrismic.

[1996] Oh, without, you mean, just like.

[1997] Yellowstone erupting or asteroid impacts.

[1998] I don't know.

[1999] I'd like to be a centenarian.

[2000] That's it.

[2001] A hundred?

[2002] Good with a hundred?

[2003] Yeah, you know.

[2004] But when, what if a hundred comes around?

[2005] and they've got shit locked down where you look like you look now at 100.

[2006] And then I could go for 200.

[2007] Well, I feel like I'm happier now than I was when I was younger.

[2008] I'm smarter.

[2009] I understand stress better.

[2010] I understand all sorts of emotions.

[2011] I understand management.

[2012] Management of my body of my hormones.

[2013] Management of my feelings.

[2014] Management of my energy levels.

[2015] Stress.

[2016] Relaxation techniques.

[2017] Stretching.

[2018] all that different stuff.

[2019] I feel like I'm just way happier and I said that old expression, youth is wasted on the young, you know, like I understand life better.

[2020] I'm better at it now.

[2021] I'm better at being me. It was like it was an awkward thing when I was younger.

[2022] I'm way more relaxed and easy with it now.

[2023] I feel like at 200, I'd be a goddamn wizard.

[2024] I would have shit down to a science.

[2025] I would have the amount of errors that I'd make as far as, you know, everyday average things that you fuck up you would fuck up almost nothing every day would be like you could learn new things you could challenge yourself you'd constantly be learning languages like I never understand the people that say like oh I get bored I wouldn't even want to live past a certain days like I don't know but I never get bored there's always new things to learn new things to study the new things that there's the world is so big there's so much to learn It would be awesome to just have time to sit around and learn how to play at the piano, learn how to speak a new language.

[2026] And I'm always sitting around reading about science, which I really enjoy doing.

[2027] But I agree.

[2028] I mean, there's so much out there to learn.

[2029] You might get to a point if you're 200 years old.

[2030] You might abandon science totally and just fucking go down some totally different road.

[2031] You might be a sculptor.

[2032] You might, you know what I mean?

[2033] I mean, you could live several lives.

[2034] I certainly hope that I'd still be active.

[2035] You know, like I, when I lived in San Diego, I used to, I was a surf, I was a surfer and surf instructor.

[2036] And I used to serve.

[2037] You instructed people?

[2038] I used to teach an all -girls surf school in La Jolla, La Jolla.

[2039] I love La Jolla.

[2040] Yeah, I used to live two blocks from the beach, so I'd walk to the beach before class.

[2041] It's on fire right now.

[2042] See all that stuff about San Diego?

[2043] No. You haven't seen?

[2044] My family's there.

[2045] Oh my God.

[2046] San Diego is experiencing crazy fires right now.

[2047] No, I had no idea.

[2048] Huge tornadoes of fire, 100 feet high.

[2049] Well, I haven't gotten a phone car.

[2050] So that's a good idea.

[2051] I mean, good sign.

[2052] Well, I mean, the fire departments down there are on top of it because they have to deal with this stuff every couple of years.

[2053] You know, there was the big one a couple of years ago.

[2054] I was scheduled to go down and do a show and there was these big fires.

[2055] And it was so crazy.

[2056] I wound up doing the show, but I said, I had, I donated all the money to the Red Cross.

[2057] I'm like, I can't.

[2058] You mean, there was so many people lost their houses.

[2059] I just felt like it would be so gross to go down there and just make money.

[2060] Yeah.

[2061] I remember back in like, I think it was like 2002 or something when we had a really big fire in San Diego.

[2062] And I was actually out surfing.

[2063] I was in the water.

[2064] And it was really weird because there were all these pelicans and all these birds flocking to the water.

[2065] Like, you know, I'm sitting out on my surfboard looking out on the horizon waiting for the wave.

[2066] And it's like the apocalypse.

[2067] Like birds were just coming to the water, right?

[2068] And it's like, what is going on?

[2069] So I get out of the water and there's just.

[2070] ash falling like because my my car was I was in La Jolla Shore at the time my car was in the parking lot and there was just ash like all over the cars and parking lot but it was like the feel that moment where I was sitting on my board and all the birds like came to the water like I had this almost like oh my god it's a nuclear warfare something that you know that eerie moment like you have you ever had one of those or you just get this eerie feeling where it's like it's the end of this is it you know and anyways that fire burned a lot of really close to where my dad lives actually I've been evacuated twice out here.

[2071] Really?

[2072] Yeah.

[2073] Yeah, my neighborhood came really close two times to giant fires.

[2074] I mean, we have fires that are so bad out here one time.

[2075] While we're doing it, and this was the time I got evacuated, I was filming Fear Factor, and I drove from Los Angeles to Tihon Ranch.

[2076] Tahone Ranch is about an hour and a half outside of L .A. And as I was driving near Simi Valley, which is about 40 minutes from here, Seamy Valley is where the fire kicked in.

[2077] And then from there, for the next 50 minutes of driving, there was no fire.

[2078] Well, when I got to work, we started filming.

[2079] We were doing the show.

[2080] And then when we were done and we left, the fire had reached us.

[2081] So the fire had reached, you know, an hour of driving.

[2082] So we're talking about somewhere around 60 plus miles And the entire right side of the road was like a Lord of the Rings movie It was like I was expecting a demon to ride a flaming horse It was insane For an hour, an hour of driving All you saw to the right side of you was flames It was amazing The only thing separated was the highway And flames were jumping the highway And you know they had tried to keep the fire as far away from the roads And far away from structures but it was so out of control that it traveled 50 miles plus in a few hours.

[2083] I mean, in a place like this, like L .A. or San Diego, where there's a lot of dry, you know, brush and, like, what kind of mechanisms do they have to, I mean, they obviously know this can be a serious problem.

[2084] Is there any sort of like...

[2085] There's not much they can do.

[2086] I mean, they try to stop it.

[2087] They create fire breaks.

[2088] They drop repellents on it.

[2089] They drop this red stuff that squashes the fire, like, in certain areas.

[2090] But this fire leaps.

[2091] The problem is these things cross highways.

[2092] The embers fly through the air.

[2093] They land on dry brush and boof, they're off to the races.

[2094] We're running out of time.

[2095] You wanted to promote something.

[2096] What do you got going on?

[2097] What's your iPhone app?

[2098] I do.

[2099] I have a new iPhone app.

[2100] It's found my fitness, and it was just released like early this week.

[2101] And it's basically you can get my podcast where I talk about my information.

[2102] And also I have a news section where I give a new news stories, and it's a community section.

[2103] If you've ever used Reddit or Hacker News, it's based on that.

[2104] So it's like that.

[2105] Yeah, I'm trying to make an interactive community.

[2106] So if you download my podcast, it would be really cool.

[2107] Right now it's new, so it counts as twice to download.

[2108] Beautiful.

[2109] And also foundmyfitness .com is where you can follow me. I've got a bunch of gadgets on there.

[2110] You can click to download my newsletter, follow me on Twitter.

[2111] I also have a Patreon campaign where I'm giving, you know, I'm trying to do these podcasts and I have a couple of milestones where I'm trying to do one, you know, two podcasts a month or four.

[2112] So I'm asking people to donate, or not, it's not really donate to pledge 25 cents a month to help me reach my milestone so that I can help give you the context that you need and the mechanisms for how science and health and nutrition, all these things are interacting.

[2113] That's about as reasonable as you could ever ask.

[2114] 25 cents.

[2115] Yeah, I'd really, I'd like to have a lot of people just doing 25 cents a month because it's, you know, it's less than a cup of coffee.

[2116] What?

[2117] One minute, one minute to go.

[2118] All right, we got to wrap this up.

[2119] So found my fitness at Twitter, found my fitness, found my fitness .com.

[2120] All the information is there.

[2121] Thank you, Rhonda Patrick.

[2122] As always, you're amazing.

[2123] These conversations are so enlightening and so educational.

[2124] I mean, I got to go back over it 30 or 40 times to really absorb it all.

[2125] But really, really appreciate it.

[2126] Let's do it again in a few months.

[2127] Awesome.

[2128] Thank you so much.

[2129] All right.

[2130] Thank you to everybody tuned in.

[2131] Thanks to our sponsor.

[2132] Thank to this week.

[2133] Thanks to stamps .com.

[2134] Use the code word, J -R -E, and save yourself some money.

[2135] lots and lots of cool guests next week i'll tell you about them all later i'll see you soon steve maxwell's coming back next week uh Alex Ross from sharkworks .com we're going to have a lot of fun see you soon bye