Joe Rogan Experience #2420 - Chris Masterjohn

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>> Hi Chris.

>> Good. How you doing?

>> Very nice to meet you.

>> Nice to meet you as well.

>> I have enjoyed your content online for a few years now. So, uh, it's really solid stuff. And I thought what better day

stuff. And I thought what better day than to bring Chris in right after everybody [ __ ] up their diet.

>> Yeah, that's right. Um, well, I just want to tell uh public health message that you did not get sleepy because the turkey was high in tryptophan.

>> So, that's a weird one. That's a weird myth that's persisted for a long time.

>> I mean, the weirdest thing is the origins of it. Apparently, it came from researchers in the not I'm sorry, not researchers, journalists in the 80s who

were trying to come up with a reason to explain why everyone was tired on after Thanksgiving meal. And uh they just

Thanksgiving meal. And uh they just looked as far as oh turkey has tryptophan which is an amino acid that the is the precursor to melatonin which is a you know you could call it a

sleeping chemical. It's like makes you

sleeping chemical. It's like makes you get tired at night. That must be why. Um

but it turns out that a turkeyy's not that high in tryptophan. Like even whey protein is higher in uh tryptophan than turkey is. And then b tryptophan doesn't

turkey is. And then b tryptophan doesn't make you tired. Um, yeah. I I dare anyone to go out and have uh like a just a slice of turkey for breakfast and see

if it knocks you out.

>> It's overeating. It's like so obvious.

>> I mean, people are eating tons of stuffing, tons of sides. They're they're

eating so much food. You're gorging.

It's a gorging day.

>> Yeah, for sure.

>> Yeah. I mean, it's not good.

>> Yeah. And if you know if you if you look at uh like a lion in the wild, one thing that you'll notice is that they are on the prowl when they are hungry. They're

alert, their bodies revved up and then they have a feast and they just fall asleep. And the reason is that we're,

asleep. And the reason is that we're, you know, our and you even see this in physiology. They call the

physiology. They call the parasympathetic parasympathetic nervous system the rest and digest system. And

that's because we are biologically wired to be alert when we need to work to get our food. And then we're wired to, you

our food. And then we're wired to, you know, eat that food, feel like we've gotten our fill, we've done what we need to do, and we can now we can rest and take a sleep.

>> Yeah, it's normal. I mean, there's a great video of these uh lionesses, these uh female lions after they've hunted and killed and ate all this food and they're just lying there like this with these

enormous bellies just like it's just like your uncle on the couch watching football just >> Yeah. I you know and I think one uh so

>> Yeah. I you know and I think one uh so one thing that I think we should talk about today is I've been in nutrition research for 21 years and I'm you know I

think the the crowning thesis of my work so far is that we really want to be thinking about mitochondrial function at the root of all health and disease. And

so I think an interesting way to see sleep is it's like why do we have to sleep eight hours a night? And I I think with dreaming, there's obviously other things going on there, but deep sleep,

the one of the primary things that's happening is you need to give your mitochondria rest because your mitochondria are what produce all the energy that you need for, uh, for

producing everything in your body, for maintaining it, for repairing it, uh, and for distributing it properly, and for keeping it going across the lifespan. And so your mitochondria are

lifespan. And so your mitochondria are going to essentially take a nap, take a rest. They don't go off cuz you die, but

rest. They don't go off cuz you die, but they really turn down the volume of the work they're doing, but then you take your metabolic rate way lower than that.

And so you can build up the reserves of energy that you had used up the day before. Um, and so it's, you know, that

before. Um, and so it's, you know, that that can explain a lot of recent findings that are coming out as well because there was that recent study where they looked at sleep deprivation

with creatine supplementation. And so

they randomized people to either drink a placebo drink or drink 20 grams of creatine through the night and they kept them awake all night. And they had them do brain puzzle quizzes. And when the

subjects were getting the 20 grams of creatine, they did way better on the brain puzzles, but they also complained about being tired a lot less. And so the

conclusion is creatine is somehow acutely preventing your brain from uh suffering during sleep deprivation. And

the rationale there is, you know, mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell or the power plant that's producing the energy. Creatine is like the power

the energy. Creatine is like the power grid and it distributes that energy throughout the cell. Um, and so if the purpose of sleep is to restore the energy that you used up, but then you

intervene by putting creatine in there, now you can keep that energy going and you can go more hours before you need to get rest and restore that energy because you've increased your capacity to

distribute it.

>> That makes sense. Um, that that is an interesting thing because it's fairly recent that people have talked about this, right? I mean, you used to be

this, right? I mean, you used to be people only thought of creatine as being a muscle thing uh to to help you recover and help you build larger muscles. But

then over the last, I would say year or two, I started hearing talking about cognitive function and maybe even more than a couple years, but about how it improves cognitive function. The sleep

thing though, it's very recent, right?

>> Yeah. The sleep thing was uh in the last year. Okay. There is some literature on

year. Okay. There is some literature on traumatic brain injury where 20 grams of creatine for six months doubles the rate of healing.

>> Wow.

>> Um >> that's incredible.

>> But it's Yeah, the the the field is in its infancy. But I I think that I

its infancy. But I I think that I actually almost a decade ago did a podcast on just creatine. I called it more than a performance enhancer because

there's if you just look at where it's distributed in the body, almost every cell and every tissue has the creatine system. And so it really is this and if

system. And so it really is this and if you look at the literature they'll say well it's more important in certain cells like it's really important in your muscles because your muscles have this

very polarized sometimes they're at rest sometimes their energy demand is going through the roof. Um and it's really important in uh like long cells. So, for

example, your retina is part of your central nervous system, and it's this really long cell that's uh coming from the brain into the eye. And uh creatine

helps move energy back and forth. But if

if you just look at where instead of where is it most important, you just like where is it? It's like almost every cell in your body has creatine. And it's

helping distribute the energy that the mitochondria make throughout your whole body. And that includes pumping stomach

body. And that includes pumping stomach acid. It includes uh sperm uh swimming

acid. It includes uh sperm uh swimming up the vaginal canal. And so if you if you just look at where it is, you would think that creatine would help a lot

more than muscles. Um and it just turns out that all you need to do is start studying it to start seeing those effects.

>> Is there any studies on creatine improvement of eyesight?

>> I'm not sure there not that I know of.

But >> does that kind of make sense, right? I I

mean it makes complete sense like you would uh when it comes down to it your your ability to produce energy is producing maintaining and repairing

everything in your body. So you would expect to see anything that does improve your energy metabolism improve literally everything. So it'd be kind of shocking

everything. So it'd be kind of shocking if you had no effect on that. Um but I'm not sure if if there are good uh trials done on that. I haven't seen them. Um,

speaking of improving eyesight, uh, I started doing red light about, I guess about a year and a half, two years ago.

Got a red light bed and, uh, completely stopped whatever macular degeneration I was going through and reverse some of it. So, I don't have perfect vision, but

it. So, I don't have perfect vision, but my vision's better. Like, it's it's definitely better. And it's not just

definitely better. And it's not just through the red light. It's also it's got to be some of the supplements that I'm taking. One of them uh I take uh a

I'm taking. One of them uh I take uh a supplement from Pure Encapsulations. No

affiliations with them. I just buy it.

It's uh called macular support and uh let's see what's got in there. It's got

luteine and a few other supplements that have been known to >> Yeah, that'll do it.

>> Is that it?

>> Well, yeah. I mean, so with the red light, it is very interesting. Whenever

you think of red light, you want to think of your mitochondria because the main thing that we know about red, near infrared, and far infrared that they're doing is they're actually going straight

into the mitochondrial engines that produce the energy and helping them produce more. And they're also ordering

produce more. And they're also ordering the water structure inside the mitochondria to make those engines uh produce energy more easily. And there

was a study a few months ago that it's it was just like a one-day study, but it showed that blasting people in the chest with red light improved their eyesight when it was measured the next day. And

they covered their eyes to make sure that the red light didn't go into the eye. And and so the the conclusion is,

eye. And and so the the conclusion is, you know, it's not a clinical study, right? And it's not like a one year, how

right? And it's not like a one year, how does it, you know, does it really improve your eyesight over one year? We

don't know. But it shows proof of principle that red light is doing something systemically that does not have to go to your eye that does improve your vision. And to me that makes sense

your vision. And to me that makes sense because your vision is going to be improved by anything that acts directly in your eye to improve energy production. But you've

got coordinated energy metabolism going on through your whole body. Like your

liver is doing tons of stuff to try to make your eyes healthy and make your brain healthy and so on. So it makes a lot of a lot of sense. But that so I I don't doubt at all that the bed is uh

part of that. But the lutein and zeazanthin are well known to accumulate in the macula where they have a very specific role in uh protecting against

macular degeneration. And actually the

macular degeneration. And actually the the best source of those is um egg yolks from chickens that are fed um anything that has them. But maragolds

are super high in them. So if they feed the chickens maragolds, they get super high levels.

>> And um the egg yolk has fat that helps them get absorbed. So in terms of I mean this is you could take this with some eggs but um but u >> but I would should feed my chickens marolds.

>> Yeah, if you have chicken >> if you have chickens and if you're and if you're spending your money on a on a lutein zeizanthin supplement, you might you might be able to get a maybe the maragolds are cheaper. So

>> maybe I'll just double it up. Um, so

this is all the ingredients. Does this

stuff make sense as something that would help uh support eyesight?

>> It does. I mean, the the vitamin A is going to uh that's going to depend on your genetics in terms of how good are you at converting beta carotene into the

into the form of vitamin A that we need, which is most abundant in liver and egg yolks. Um,

yolks. Um, >> it's dependent on genetics.

>> It's Yeah. So there's you need uh beta carotene is this big and if you chop it in half you get vitamin A >> and so you have an enzyme in your

digestive system that does that but that enzyme is dependent on a lot of things going right. So you need to have good

going right. So you need to have good zinc status, good iron status, good thyroid status and all kinds of stuff like that. And actually seed oils uh

like that. And actually seed oils uh decrease the conversion. So if you if you take that with canola oil, you're going to get less vitamin A out of it than if you take it with, you know, eggs

and butter. Um, and then vitamin A

and butter. Um, and then vitamin A activation is also dependent on mitochondrial function, too. So I, you know, but it makes sense. Vitamin A is great for your eye. Vitamin C is a great

antioxidant. Anicylcysteine, great

antioxidant. Anicylcysteine, great antioxidant. the glutathione, the Cetria

antioxidant. the glutathione, the Cetria stuff. I'm I'm kind of

stuff. I'm I'm kind of um I think it's I think it's a little bit of a over overhyped in terms of some

you know, another type of glutathione I think would have worked fine.

>> What's the best glutathione?

>> Well, is it liposal?

>> The best glutathione is the glutathione that you make yourself from protein that you eat. Um, but if you're going to

you eat. Um, but if you're going to supplement with glutathione there, I don't if you're talking about bang for the buck, I just think straight

up glutathione is is good. Um, and there are studies suggesting that there's marginal absorption benefits for certain special types, you know, but then they charge three times as much for that

type. And it's like, well, am I getting

type. And it's like, well, am I getting three times more glutathione out of it?

Not really. So, you know, some people swear by liposomaal glutathione. If

some, you know, if you swear by it and it, if it does its thing for you, great.

>> Do you think it's like 10% better?

>> Um, I think the jury is out on whether there might be 10 20% better value for those things. So, if I'm if I'm going to take

things. So, if I'm if I'm going to take glutathione, I'm just going to take glutathione.

>> Got it. Okay. Um, is this what you're saying about producing your own glutathione, that's the same thing as like vitamin D, right? It's way better when your body produces it.

>> Um, if it does.

>> Yeah. I mean, I I don't think there's anything wrong with getting vitamin D from food, but you don't The thing is,

you do need sunlight, right? So, it's it you at least need to get 30 30 minutes of sunshine in the morning, which is not going to give you vitamin D, and then you need to get like 10 or 15 minutes of

unprotected sunshine in the afternoon um to get you get vitamin D from that, but you get other benefits from it as well.

So, I I wouldn't say that there that it's necessarily better to get the vitamin D from the sun than from a vitamin D supplement or from eating fish

or from eating cod liver oil, but you don't want to you don't want to say, "Well, I don't need to go out out in the sun. I'm just going to take vitamin D."

sun. I'm just going to take vitamin D."

Then you're not going to get the benefits of the sun because the sun gives you other benefits.

>> Got it.

>> Yeah. Is there anything that you can do?

Say if you live in Seattle and you're in the winter, it's just raining constantly. Is there a tanning bed that

constantly. Is there a tanning bed that gives you some of that?

>> Yeah, I I do think that there is um there is some risk of tanning beds. I'm

not 100% com I when I lived in New York, I would try to spend 40 minutes in the afternoon sunshine for threequarters of the year and during the winter, the UV

index just wasn't high enough. And I I get eczema in the winter because I'm not getting enough sun. And so I would use a tanning bed not to get tan, but I'd use

like 2 3 minutes at a time just because it just had a systemic effect in like preventing the eczema that I would get in the winter.

>> I think you have to be careful with it because there there is some concern that it's that people are just if they're tanning to tan, they're they're going to wind up with uh too much damage to their skin.

But what I would do is um for morning sunlight I think you can get like a lux meter app and just some people are some people they think that it's there's no

sun outside but actually it's like a hundred times or thousand times brighter than indoors and their eyes are adjusting and so it's like cloudy or overcast but there's still a lot of value in going outside. So, I would say

if you use a lux meter and it's like under 10,000, you could get a um like a light therapy light at home to use to just like turn it on and not look

straight into it, but kind of have it going into your eyes. Um and then for vitamin D, uh you could you could do

like tanning bed, but just try to really keep it minimal, like go in go in for two or three minutes. It's not like you're trying to tan. You're just

>> What I was getting at is there are different kind of tanning bed that's maybe >> Oh, there are Yeah. So, there are there are uh different ratios of wavelengths

and the ones that have more UVB or the ones that are going to give you more vitamin D. So, if you're act if you're

vitamin D. So, if you're act if you're just going to a tanning bed place, you um probably the pe the staff there tell them that you want like mixed wavelength

that gives you a mix of like surface tan and and deep tan. I think that's how they cuz they don't know the vitamin D science. So, um I think that's how you

science. So, um I think that's how you have to get the the bed that gives you more >> to tell them I want a mix of surface and deep. That's funny. Um, speaking of red

deep. That's funny. Um, speaking of red light and speaking of um, uh, therapy in that helps your mitochondria. What is

your thoughts on methylene blue?

Methylene blue seems to be a very controversial supplement. Some people

controversial supplement. Some people think it's amazing and it's a panacea for all that hils you. And other people are like, what are we doing here? Why

are you putting dye in your body? Your

piss is coming out blue. This is weird.

Where what school of are you in?

Methylene blue is something that could do wonders for your mitochondria if you need it and could really hurt you if you don't.

>> And I think that there are there are certainly a lot of people raving about it on the internet and it's because there are it's a mix of things. So there

are people that are treating themselves for a problem in their mitochondria that they don't know that they have and then they get an outsized voice because they're the ones raving about how much it helped them. And so there's like

selection, you know, if some you don't get if people didn't get a benefit or if they just felt a little worse, they don't go raving about on the internet as much.

>> So that's part of it. Uh there is also a part of it is that when you get up to a dose of around 10 milligrams or so per day,

>> um for perspective, in clinical trials of Alzheimer's are using 200 milligrams, but you can buy like a 0.5 milligram on Amazon. Um, so a lot of people are using

Amazon. Um, so a lot of people are using like 0.5 milligrams, but once you get up to 10 milligrams or so, you're getting some degree of pharmacological anti-depressant effect because it's an

MAO oxidase uh monoamine oxidase inhibitor. And so I do think that there

inhibitor. And so I do think that there are some people who are they're like, "Oh, I feel so much better." And it's like, "Yeah, bro, you're taking an anti-depressant."

anti-depressant." So that's that's part of it. But if you look at what it actually does, it is a very non-specific

rewirer of how your mitochondria produce energy.

And if you can think of it like let's say there's a main road in the city and it's the best road and that's why everyone's on it, but it's blocked and then they set up detours. People are

they're going to help the traffic because that road is blocked. There's

you actually can't get through there.

And so the side roads that would take you somewhere are actually better because they're not blocked, right? So

in the context where you need the detours, the detours help you. But if

the main road was not blocked and they start putting up detour signs and people start going out in the side roads, they're not going to get to their destination faster. They're just getting

destination faster. They're just getting tricked by the the mess, the chaos that was created by people putting up detour signs that they didn't need. So

methylene blue is something that goes into your mitochondria and sets up detour signs all over the place. And

>> how does how does it do that?

>> Um, so it uh all right so what your mitochondria do to produce energy is they extract they you know you have a

molecule like carbohydrate or an amino acid from the protein that you ate or fatty acid from the butter you were eating. You got to break that apart. You

eating. You got to break that apart. You

got to take out the energy and you got to synthesize ATP with it. The ATP is the general energy currency of the cell.

So mitochondria produce usable energy from food in the form of ATP.

When they do that they have a bunch of different uh path bunch of different pathways through which electrons flow.

And methylene blue is able to grab those electrons and put them somewhere else.

So it they call it a redux cycler. So

it's taking an electron here, it's shuttling it over there, it's taking electron here, it's shuttling over there. And so if you have this very uh

there. And so if you have this very uh let's say the normal way for your mitochondria to produce energy has a main road where the electrons just flow straight through. Methylene blue is

straight through. Methylene blue is coming in and it's just um you know taking that electron over here, it's throwing it in over there and so on. So

if you've got a road that goes like this and you got a blockage right here and methylene blue is just taking something out there and it's putting it over there, you actually wind up getting better energy with it. But if you don't

have a blockage, you're just creating random chaos in the mitochondria. And

there in animal experiments, what they've done is they've said, "Okay, let's give these animals inhibitors of their mitochondria at specific locations

and see what methylene blue does." And

if you don't have any inhibitors, and if the animal is genetically healthy, then you add methylene blue, they get less ATP. So the the mitochondria is less

ATP. So the the mitochondria is less effective at converting food to usable energy. But if they do have an

energy. But if they do have an inhibitor, their ATP production goes down. You add methylene blue, it goes

down. You add methylene blue, it goes back up. Right? So if if there's a

back up. Right? So if if there's a blockage to get around, methylene blue helps. So I think what's important if

helps. So I think what's important if you really want to make sure that people are using methylene blue, right, is to um actually do mitochondrial testing

that will tell you whether those specific blockages are there. I ran a biochemical optimization program uh a while back and one of the clients that I had in there, he tried methylene blue

and he only got up to a half a milligram or a milligram and he's mood was worse, his fatigue was worse, he had more anxiety, a bunch of problems that you

know I the dose was too low to say it was doing a pharmacological messing with his neurotransmitters and so I think it was just making his mitochondrial function worse. And so the mitochondrial

function worse. And so the mitochondrial testing that we did on him showed that, you know, he was not a candidate for methylene blue. And he actually had, you

methylene blue. And he actually had, you know, some really weird uh like his mitochondria were best at using a specific amino acid, cyine, and uh for

energy, kind of weird and idiosyncratic.

And in his case, it was interesting because he had actually gravitated to a steak only carnivore diet. and he didn't feel like it fixed him, but he felt like it, you know, took the edge off. Like he

was 50% better on the steak only carnivore diet. And

carnivore diet. And >> 50%'s a lot.

>> Well, it's Yeah, it's a lot, right? But

he wanted the other 50%. That's why he was coming to me. Yeah.

>> So, um, so what was, you know, and the figuring this out didn't get him to 100%, but it got him to, you know, to get days with 75%. because um you know

because he could use strategic cysteine supplementation to mimic the benefit he was getting from the steak uh but he would be able to you know be still in the fasting state because his workouts were better in the fasting state and

things like that. Um so so figuring that out allowed him to you know get from 50% to 75%. But the methylene blue was was

to 75%. But the methylene blue was was putting him down at uh 5% instead of 50.

You know >> can I ask how old he was?

>> Uh he wasn't that old. he was in maybe 40. I I forget exactly but 40 give or

40. I I forget exactly but 40 give or take 5 years.

>> And is that an age dependent thing like mitochondrial dysfunction is it more common in older people?

>> Uh for sure. So what I mean I would argue that mitochondrial dysfunction and aging are the same thing. Um and you know there's a bunch of theories of aging but if you take them all you can always ask the question why. There's

like the information theory of aging, like why is the information not not being carried out correctly or the oxidative stress theory of aging? Why

are you making more oxidative stress?

And I actually think I actually think it's way more simple than anyone is thinking about it. It's mitochondrial

energy production is producing everything in your body. It's repairing

it. It's maintaining it. And it's

putting where it belongs. That means

that mitochondria produce the energy that they need to produce everything in the mitochondria, right? And so if you have a little gap in your energy production like let's say you get I

think one way to think of aging is well I've just I've suffered through so many cumulative insults like I got sick uh so many times I got injured so many times I

had days where I didn't eat optimal nutrition so many times and I think what all those things are are doing is like well you know you that period of overtraining that you did your

mitochondria were were forced to help you give you the energy for, you know, that the extra set of squats that you did. And they had

a little bit left over for themselves and they got, you know, a half a percent worse at producing energy. And so that sets up a vicious cycle because now now

that they could not repair themselves as well, now they get a little bit of worse. what get a little bit worse. And

worse. what get a little bit worse. And

what you see um in the literature is that as people age starting around age 18 through age 70 to 80, you're losing your

mitochondrial function at an average rate of 1% per year. So by the time you're 70, you have half the energy that you started out with that baseline.

And that I I I think what explains that is is just the vicious cycle of the mitochondria got they lost a quarter percent here or a quarter% there and

they just started repairing themselves less effectively because they're the engines fueling everything including that. And so but you know the good news

that. And so but you know the good news is that age only explains 25% of mitochondrial function. So it's the

mitochondrial function. So it's the average that's going down at 1% per year. average person is half producing

year. average person is half producing half the energy at age 70 than they were at age 18. But the spread around that is

huge. And what that to me the way that I

huge. And what that to me the way that I spin that is that means that 75% of this is under your control. You're going to you're going to go in a downward trend, but you're in control of whether you

know you're way undersshooting that trend or you're way overshooting it.

What you want to do is make your mitochondrial function as good as it can be at any given age so that that downward trend will, you know, it'll be

a lot slower and you can get to age 70 and you're not docked 50%, you're just docked 10%.

>> And I think that's what's happening when you see some of these 70-year-olds who who uh you know are more fit than a lot of 25 year olds, you know.

>> Yeah. Interesting. So what are the primary factors uh in regards to being able to maintain your function?

>> Well, I think that everyone has idiosyncratic things and I think mitochondrial testing is is very important. But if I were to pick five

important. But if I were to pick five things that just everyone should be doing for their mitochondria. A lot of it does look like health advice you might get somewhere else, but it it

actually is the best stuff, right? So we

mentioned creatine and I think creatine is really important because it's not in the mitochondria so much as it carries forth the mitochondrial energy of the rest of the cell that also feeds back in

the repair functions for the mitochondria. And so I think creatine

mitochondria. And so I think creatine optimizing your creatine status is super important. And I think that

important. And I think that there everyone who's not eating one or two pounds of meat per day should be should probably be taking creatine. And

you can think of it as uh if you're eating red meat and you're eating it rare, you can air on the side of one pound. And if you're eating and I I

pound. And if you're eating and I I would include it's red meat salmon, which is like a reddish fish and is actually quite high in creatine. Um, if

you're eating white meat, white fish, and you're eating uh eating it well done, you want to air on the side of two pounds because you you're lose they don't have as much creatine, then you cook the creatine out of them and you wind up with much lower dose.

>> We should probably say salmon you're talking about wild salmon versus farm salmon, which has a dyed pink skin.

>> Um, well, it's not the red color. I

think it's coincidence that it's that it's I think the red color is coincidence. It's just a helpful way to

coincidence. It's just a helpful way to think about it. But um it it probably is the case at least like every Atlantic uh

farm salmon that I've seen is you can tell that it's uh it's well if you look up in a database it's way higher in fat.

Um but you can tell by looking at it that it just doesn't have that lean uh look that wild salmon has. So, I think creatine is a function of the lean

tissue mass and um and it might be the case that wild salmon are doing a lot more uh swimming. Um like maybe the wild environment is encouraging them to use their muscles in a way that increases

their creatine synthesis. That wouldn't

be surprise wouldn't surprise me.

>> Um I have tried to steel man the case of could there be a vegan diet that would make you not need to supplement with creatine. And what the steel man that

creatine. And what the steel man that I've got for you is you'd have to be eating a half a kilogram of tofu and a half a kilogram of quinoa per day. Um,

and that's not typically what and that might rip a hole in your digestive system, but that's not >> my stomach. Just saying.

>> Um, so I I think that um I most vegans should probably just supplement with creatine. Call it a day there. Um, so

creatine. Call it a day there. Um, so

that's creatine. I we mentioned uh sunlight. So sunlight is when you wake

sunlight. So sunlight is when you wake up in the morning. I said before that your mitochondria have not gone to sleep literally, but they've really slow down.

It's like they're on a nap. And there's

a transition when you wake up where the mitochondria have to say, "Oh, you've woken up. Now I need to I need to wake

woken up. Now I need to I need to wake up and I need to start producing more energy." Um, and sunlight going into

energy." Um, and sunlight going into your eyes, being translated into your brain is the signal that actually tells

your brain to organize that. And so what happens as a result of that is that signaling helps your mitochondria adapt and start producing everything and it

actually helps them adjust. And if you don't have the morning sunlight, you are you're going to have your mornings full of suboptimal energy metabolism that is

initiating that that vicious cycle of aging is that's what I believe. Um, and

then it's and then it's also the case that the red and infrared light from the sun is very beneficial to the mitochondria. The best time to get that

mitochondria. The best time to get that would be in the morning. Um, when you go out in the afternoon, you've got to deal with like, can I get two hours of this without getting burned? But if you go out in the morning, you can stay out

there for one or two hours and you can get a lot of red and infrared light without worrying about burning uh burning wavelengths. And then the I

burning wavelengths. And then the I think the beds and other devices at home are great. And where you want to start

are great. And where you want to start thinking about that is I'm getting benefit from red and near infrared light, but I'm getting more I know that I could get more benefit if I got more

of it than I'm able to get through sunlight. So start make start getting

sunlight. So start make start getting those wavelengths with sunlight as your base and then do whatever you want on top of that with whatever seems to be working well for you.

Then nutrition would be number three.

And you every nutrient is needed for everything in your body. But your

mitochondria are are using all kinds of nutrients. And the there's this idea

nutrients. And the there's this idea that floats around in society that nutritional deficiencies are a thing of the past. But if you just look at

the past. But if you just look at surveys, 93% of Americans are getting less than they need of at least one

nutrient. 30% have verifiable blood

nutrient. 30% have verifiable blood markers of at least one nutritional deficiency and 6% have blood markers verifying more than one nutrient

deficiency. And I think those are all

deficiency. And I think those are all underestimates because when you're just looking at the official stats on like how much of each nutrient should you eat, there are way there are a lot of people that have needs for way more,

right? So I think those stats are

right? So I think those stats are grossly underestimating how many people need to get better nutrition. So, I

think everybody should be getting better nutrition. Um,

nutrition. Um, and to kind of high level what that looks like, I think some good rules of there's

lots of ways to skin a cat, but some good rules of thumb are different people will do better with more plants or more animals, but to when you do eat animals, you should be eating

them nose totail. Uh, so at least try to work in liver, at least try to work in bone broth or, you know, something like that. The closer to nose totail you can

that. The closer to nose totail you can eat your animals, the better. Do try to diversify across proteins because there's just different uh vitamin and mineral profiles in different um types

of protein. Like if you can eat

of protein. Like if you can eat shellfish, eat some shellfish. If you

can eat fish, eat some fish. You can eat dairy, eat some dairy. And the more you diversify across those proteins, the better. Most people don't eat enough

better. Most people don't eat enough protein. Good rule of thumb would be at

protein. Good rule of thumb would be at least a third of your plate should be protein. But if it's if you're talking

protein. But if it's if you're talking like eggs and dairy products, you got to double that because they just the amount of space they occupy per

uh unit of protein that they're giving you is is uh you know a third of your plate is eggs is not going to give you enough protein. Um and then I think try

enough protein. Um and then I think try to eat as broadly as you can from different types of carbohydrates. If you

have to leave out something, leave out grains. try to eat whole unprocessed

grains. try to eat whole unprocessed foods. Um, and try to eat most of your

foods. Um, and try to eat most of your try to eat 80% of your foods cooked at home or prepped at home or whatever instead of eating out. Um, and make sure your digestion is in good order. And

those are kind of the, you know, the broad basis of nutrition.

>> Yeah.

>> Um, and um, exercise is is a very interesting one.

Um, so if you exercise is incredibly important to the signaling that produce mitochondria, but why is that? It's

because you need mitochondria to produce energy for the exercise that you're doing. So I think a lot of people are

doing. So I think a lot of people are too reductionist when they look at what type of exercise should you do for your mitochondria. If you try to do a study

mitochondria. If you try to do a study that says like I'm trying to get more mitochondria in my skeletal muscle, what's what exercise gonna do it? you're

going to do you're going to see endurance exercise outperforming other things. And that's because endurance

things. And that's because endurance activity requires more mitochondrial function in the muscle. Um, if you're doing like hypertrophy or strength training and you're doing short sets,

your muscle is burning a lot of glycogen, it's less dependent on its mitochondria. So, you're not going to

mitochondria. So, you're not going to see the mitochondrial function there.

But that doesn't mean you're not improving mitochondrial function because now all that really means is the liver is stepping up to assist the muscle.

Like if if you're doing sprinting, your muscle's burning through tons of carbohydrates. It's making a lot of

carbohydrates. It's making a lot of lactate. If that lactate is not being

lactate. If that lactate is not being metabolized in the skeletal muscle, it's going to the liver to get converted back to glucose. So your liver now you're

to glucose. So your liver now you're training your liver's mitochondria when you're doing strength training, you're doing hypertrophy. Um so I think the

doing hypertrophy. Um so I think the right way to look at it is just you should be exercising all the things that are functions that you need to keep. And

that means endurance, it means strength, it means mobility, it means agility, it means balance, it means propriception, it means being able to respond to your environment. I think to, you know, to

environment. I think to, you know, to some degree like just playing a sport that has other people in it is important because if someone's throwing a frisbee and you need to react to that, you're training mitochondria in your brain that

are able to energize the systems that provide your reaction time. And I think cognitive um you know exercise for your brain is things like me working on your

memory and on your uh creative synthesis and all all those different aspects. And

I I do think that a lot of people are thinking about this when they're 25.

They're like, I don't care if I can memorize a string of 25 numbers. But

you're going to care if you can't remember anything when you're 75, you know? So, I I think that we we need

know? So, I I think that we we need really need a broad um thought about this. But but by the way, do you know

this. But but by the way, do you know what athletes live the longest from the pro from the pros?

>> Let me guess.

Baseball.

>> It's actually gymnasts and pole vters have have eight years on the general population. Um, and if you if you look

population. Um, and if you if you look at there was a study that came out earlier this year and it tallied up all

of the pro sports players from all of the countries who had the dates of their death published and who were who were notable enough to have been had an

article published about them. And so

they had many hundreds. I forgot I forgot the exact sample size, but they were able to um statistically adjust the the mortality rate to the general population

from which the athlete came. So you know if it was a Greek athlete, they were adjusted to the mortality rate of Greece when they when they died. Um like how

what you would expect after adjusting for location and age and so on. And in

the male athletes, you had gymnasts and pole vultters with eight years on the population. And

you've got cyclists who and of course you've got sumos. Sumo wrestlers are 10 years below. And you have a lot of

years below. And you have a lot of sports like that have high injury rates that are especially a lot of stuff that has impacts to the hands, martial arts

and things like that where probably the sport itself and its impact on training your body's energy systems is positive but just the injury rate is is taking

you out. So you're you're kind of like

you out. So you're you're kind of like not you're kind of in the middle. You're

very close to the general population.

um cyclists only have two years on the general population. And so what what I

general population. And so what what I thought was interest I think a few things are interesting about that. So

first of all there's a a lot of people in the longevity space are taking most of their information about how they should train for longevity from people who specialize in cycling. Right. So,

well, I yeah, I'm not going to name names, but there's, you know, a lot of there's people out there who are, you know, that's where it's coming from. And

I, you know, it makes a lot of sense that cycling is, you know, it's good for cardiorespiratory fitness. There's a lot

cardiorespiratory fitness. There's a lot of data that having good cardiorespiratory fitness is a key factor for longevity. But when you look at a study where gymnasts and pole vters have six extra years on the cyclist and

the cyclists only have two extra years on the general population, I'm like, huh, what? you know, it's not all about

huh, what? you know, it's not all about the cardiorespiratory fitness. And so,

what I think about there's it's, you know, it's an observational study. You

can't prove cause and effect, but it just does make you think. And the way that I think about that is a few things.

So, first of all, the commonalities between gymnasts and pole vters, they're it's definitely not height because gymnasts tend to be short

and palters are tall and so the height cancels out. Um, definitely their fit.

cancels out. Um, definitely their fit.

They do both have, it is interesting that they have, you know, cyclists have a good lower body and gymnast and pole vters have a good upper body. So, I do

think that's interesting that it does make you it does make you wonder if you could skip leg day, but I don't I don't advocate skipping leg day, but um but to

me, like what I think is actually going on here is um I I think that functionality of movement throughout the

whole body to facilitate um very uh to facilitate the kind of skills

that they have um is is training it's training at things that are getting left out when you just make sure that your heart and lungs are able to support your

running or your cycling and I think that some of those involve are probably related I don't know what they're not dying of so presumably they're getting less heart disease or

getting less cancer and they're getting less neurological disease because that's what people are dying of right like the average if you get far enough for someone to analyze why you died. Um, you

know, they're like diabetes and hip fractures and things like that are hitting younger people. But in general, if people are dying because they got old, they're dying of heart disease first, cancer second, and neuro like

they outlive those two things, you get this diverse spread of things that people die of and neurological diseases becomes pretty heavy. So I think cardiorespiratory fitness is probably

the biggest thing in preventing heart disease. But cancer becomes very

disease. But cancer becomes very interesting because there was a there was a a study in rodents that showed that stretching

prevents tumor growth. And I thought this was wild. I first heard uh about this on one of Huberman's shows. And so

I looked up the study and I was like this is wild because I happen to know some other things about immune function.

So one uh thing is that when when in tea cells which are important both to prevent infections and are also important because they attack you during

autoimmunity and they're also important because they kill cancer.

For tea cells to be activated, what they do is they don't have enough energy themselves. So they push off the local

themselves. So they push off the local environment and that pushing off creates um motor proteins inside that generate

the energy to activate the T- cell. And

what cancers do is they modify their extracellular environment to compromise that because it's harder for the T- cell to push off of it. Now, I know another

thing from Crohn's research, which is that the best way to cure Crohn's disease besides some of the drugs that they're on is a liquid diet. And the

recent research on how the liquid diet works is that it removes the pressure in the intestine that is pushing out and is causing inflammation to activate and attack the body. Right? So, I'm

synthesizing these three things and I'm like, this makes a lot of sense that the relative proportions and how stretched out and like what is the quality of your

joint tissue and things like that probably has a lot of severely underappreciated uh causation in terms of cancer and

autoimmune disease.

So I think it would be very interesting to see if actual like functional mechanical activity like if you optimize for functional mechanical activity such that

you can swing around from acrobat uh from a trapeze and flip around in the air and swing on rings and push yourself up and stuff like that.

Does that pay forward into better immune function because your body is more properly structured? I can't prove that,

properly structured? I can't prove that, but I think it's very interesting to think about for for for those two exercises. Um, and then

exercises. Um, and then it is very interesting to me that gymnasts and palters both spend a lot of time upside down and they don't

stay upside down for very long, but they just they repeatedly are upside down quite a bit, right? And so

this is just again this is all just hypothesizing interesting ideas, right?

So one interesting idea is that uh vibration plate is the sedentary man's gymnastics

and that you know t flipping upside down um is better at circulating body fluids than walking and like a vibration plate

is better than walking. But actually

spending time upside in the upside down state and flipping around is actually very good for circulating the fluids in your body. I don't, you know, I can't

your body. I don't, you know, I can't prove any of this, but it's all very interesting to think about. But what I can, what I kind of conclude from this is you don't want to get sucked into

just optimizing V2 max or something like that. You really want to The lesson from

that. You really want to The lesson from the gymnast is like, what are all the things that a gymnast can do that I can't do? And I should be able to

can't do? And I should be able to approximate them in the best way that I can. And I take that a little bit more

can. And I take that a little bit more more literally. So I I actually do like

more literally. So I I actually do like uh I am trying to convert all my workouts into like what's the gymnastic version of this? Um

>> and you think it's because of flipping you just >> I think they're both involving coordination, explosive movement, >> right? And I I think the skills I think

>> right? And I I think the skills I think that Yes. So I think this the skill

that Yes. So I think this the skill training is is big for spilloff into neurological disease because but I'm just trying to connect them to

the three things. So I like like I I I'm not sure exactly what they have lower rates of death from. We we need more studies to to see that. But the um but

the body mechanics I think is a very interesting possible explanation of why they'd have lower rates of cancer. And

the what you just said I think is a great explanation of why they would have lower rates of neurological disease. And

I think it's kind of like you know if you look at I think another thing that people mistake in the longevity space is they spend too much time thinking about

rever like reverse engineering uh 100 backwards. What do I want to not have

backwards. What do I want to not have lost by that time and not enough time just being in peak function? Because if

you look at bone mass, for example, bone mass goes uh up until you're in your mid20s, maybe 25 to 30. There's a little bit difference with men and women, but

then it just goes down after that. And

if you want to have good bone mass when you're 75, the like the most important asset you could possibly have is to have really good peak bone mass when you're 25, right? So, I I really think that

25, right? So, I I really think that like >> it's just like I said before, you might not think memorizing a string of 25 numbers is important at any age, but you

know, if if you're going to have really awesome peak memory, that gives you a lot of room to decline later on.

Whereas, if you're trying to reverse engineer like what you don't want to be able to not remember when you're 75, I think you're just setting the bar way too low, right? So, if you're if you're

20, you should be thinking about like what are all the sports I can't do and not, you know, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with picking a sport, but

but I do think it's it would be good for everyone when they're young enough to do so to just try a different sport once a year. And maybe they don't love it, they

year. And maybe they don't love it, they don't fall in love with it, but maybe they learn something like, "Oh, I didn't realize I couldn't do that." So, for example,

I did uh last year I did a little bit of BJJ and I did a little bit of boxing and I was like, "God damn, like my feet don't move like they used to." Um, in

boxing and in in BJJ, I was I was getting a little dizzy doing forward and backwards and I was like, "I don't spend enough." This is before I started

enough." This is before I started thinking about the gymnast being upside down. I was like, "I don't spend enough

down. I was like, "I don't spend enough time being upside down." So I was like, so I bought some mats and then now I just, you know, I do I do one forward and backward roll every day no matter I don't do BJJ right now, but I just do

one forward and backward roll every day as part of my morning routine. Um, but

I've also switched like I was like, why would I overhead press when I could try to do um I can do wall push-ups now? I

my hope is by next year I'll be able to do handstand push-ups, but I've I'm working on a handstand right now, so we'll see how that goes. But um I I think just

cuz you can focus on one thing you can really miss out that like oh my favorite workout activities don't I mean this is how many people are doing all their favorite workout rout activities and

forgetting that they don't have any rotation >> they don't have any side bending you know like like if if you would just you just like try a different sport and be like oh what am what did I not realize I

wasn't able to do at all and and then pick that and put it in your workout.

Um, you know, cuz if you got a great programmer, then maybe your workout is perfect. But I think most of us are can

perfect. But I think most of us are can like we gravitate towards some of the exercises that we think are good. And

even if even if you think you're mixing it up, like CrossFit, CrossFit managed to eliminate rotation from everything like that. Like every sport that

like that. Like every sport that involves throwing a ball involves rotation right?

>> Well, they they do sometimes. They throw

the ball sideways against a wall.

There's there's some rotation in >> maybe they worked it in. When I did CrossFit, the ball throwing we did was small wall balls and it so it was like >> depends entire I think it depends entirely on who's teaching it. But if

you're doing windmills, >> windmills are kind of a form of rotation. There's a lot of ab exercises

rotation. There's a lot of ab exercises they do that are rotational.

>> Yeah.

>> All right. So that maybe that wasn't fair, but um but my point is that like a lot a lot of a lot of people are not doing any rotation, right? Um, and

and so I I just I just you just want to tap into that that diversity of like what functions am I not exercising when I exercise them?

>> When we're talking about skills, we're talking about the neurological system and the cognitive system synergistically in a dance. Um, when you talk about old

people and one of one of the things that happens when cognitive function declines is you you lose your ability to do puzzles and one of the ways to stave that off they believe is like do

crosswords do a bunch of different things you're con chess do something that's actively making your mind fire and work. Wouldn't it just make sense

and work. Wouldn't it just make sense that a skill versus just a workout, just bench pressing and squats and stuff like that, but it's an actual skill where you

do like Muay Thai, hitting pads or even light sparring that you're you're thinking as as well as exercising, which is very different because you're you're

con you're you're consciously aware of your opponent's movement. You're

calculating it. You're you're you're trying to time things. There's a whole dance going on between your body and your mind that doesn't really exist in straight workouts.

>> So that alone I would think would fight off a lot of the age related decline in physical activity or physical function.

>> Yeah, I think there are you mentioned a couple things in there. So I think it's a separate thing to have a skill and to have strategy and to have reaction time, but I but I think you definitely want to

be hitting all those bases. So, I think it's it's good to have a general checklist of what should you be exercising and see that it like takes strength and h and break it down into

the different planes and then also take skill, strategy, reaction time, agility, quickness, balance, power. Um, and you

have to find a way to, you know, it's hard to work everything at once, but you got to find a way to um maybe maybe you cycle through switching your focus, but you find like

what is if I if I worked on really being able to jump rope without tripping my feet up last quarter? Um, how am I going to take that

quarter? Um, how am I going to take that skill and not lose it? And you so for for me for example like I really focused on jump roping when I realized how

horrible I was at it when I was forced to do in boxing. Um and so I I would very intensively tried to get good at jump roping and now I don't want to work

on it anymore but I've just taken in like okay every morning I have to do 50 uninterrupted jump ropes just in the course of my warm warm-up >> just to kind of keep whatever skills that you've developed.

>> Yeah. just to just to make sure that like I'm not losing the basic capacity to do that that coordination.

>> Yeah.

>> And if I start to then I realize I have to work on it more.

>> Yeah. Um new things I think would enhance that even more maybe than things that you're very comfortable with and things you're very efficient at. Like

say if you're an athlete in whatever sport and you say, you know, I'm going to try jiu-jitsu or I'm going to try martial arts. like something completely

martial arts. like something completely new like that where you're working out but you're really thinking because you've got to like really concentrate.

It's not like a natural movement to throw a sidekick. You have to really concentrate on picking your knee up, twisting your body and all that jazz.

Like I think stuff like that would, you know, just keep everything firing. You

know, >> I think you Yeah, I I mean, I think you should do a mix like you always want to be pushing yourself to a new um to new achievements, but then you also I think

you want to structure things so that you don't lose the ones that you that you did, >> right?

>> Like I I think a lot of us go through life just making achievement, losing it, and we're like treading water and going nowhere.

>> I when I really got into jiu-jitsu, I stopped doing any kickboxing for a long time. And every now and then I would

time. And every now and then I would just hit the bag and just like, "Oh, I still can do it." But then um I started training Muay Thai again. And it was

kind of shocking how long it took me to get like the flow back to like where it really like comes off smooth. Everything

seemed like a little labored and it was just disheartening to like oh I don't really have these skills like I have to like reacquire them. You know, I know how to do it. I've done it. But it's

just like right now everything's a little the pathways are filled with mud.

You know what I mean? It's not clean.

It's not nice and sharp. Everything is a little funky. And you know, but if you

little funky. And you know, but if you want to get good at jiu-jitsu, you don't have time for two hours of Muay Thai a day. You just don't. You know, so it's

day. You just don't. You know, so it's like you got to pick your poison. You

got to pick what you like, what you don't like.

>> Yeah. I Well, I I think you have to decide what your goal is and what your metric is. like you there's no way that

metric is. like you there's no way that anyone is going to be good at like seven you know going to be elite level at any two sports or like great at any seven

right so I think you have to say like okay do I want to be really good at my Thai and that and that's you you don't have to do that to have healthy aging >> right

>> but there are things that you do at Muay Thai that you do have to be able to do to have healthy aging so if you're just thinking about it from the perspective of how do I know that I'm engaging in

healthy aging. I think you you don't you

healthy aging. I think you you don't you don't want to say like, oh, I need to be I need to be as good as I ever was at my tie. You just have to say, okay, like

tie. You just have to say, okay, like what am why am I bad at some of that?

And is that something that I need in general? And I think often times by

general? And I think often times by doing something like that, you can think about it and you can realize, oh, what I'm what I really can't do is I'm not agile anymore or I really can't like

shift my weight quickly anymore or I really can't like my reaction time is slow. like I I just keep getting hit in

slow. like I I just keep getting hit in the head because I don't move it. You

know, if you're realizing those things, then I think you got to you have to find some way to train those because you need those for everything. And it's just it's easy to not challenge yourself in life and don't realize what you're losing.

So, you do have to challenge yourself with something you're not able to do to figure out what you're weak in. M yeah,

>> one of the things I wanted to bring up, you brought up earlier, um you were talking about martial artists and perhaps like injuries

uh accumulating over time and you lose some of your function because of that like you mentioned hands uh hand injuries. Um, is that something that

injuries. Um, is that something that people need to take in consideration that maybe they don't that maybe just physical damage like in terms of getting

hit and uh physical damage perhaps from overtraining? Um, physical damage

overtraining? Um, physical damage certainly from cutting weight. You know,

a lot of these guys cut weight and they're basically on death's door 24 hours before a fight, which is, I think, completely insane and the most avoidable uh damaging thing about martial arts

competition. And yet, it's ubiquitous.

competition. And yet, it's ubiquitous.

It's like almost everyone does it.

>> Yeah. I I I mean I think there is a degree of subjectivity to it. If you're

you know if your idea of what a life well-lived is is to win an event that might have you die in the next 3 years

then you know how are you going to argue with that that value uh that someone has adopted? But if if you are thinking

adopted? But if if you are thinking about it from the perspective of how do I stay healthy through how do I live a long healthy life then injury prevention

has to be your number one consideration not your number two. I think even if you were just trying to see say like how how can I be the strongest I could be, you

would still need injury prevention to be number one because you know how many people take 3 months off from a lift that they were working on and wind up 6

months behind where they had been when they start again as a result of that injury. And where would they have been

injury. And where would they have been if they spent that 6 months getting stronger? And if you're going to do that

stronger? And if you're going to do that every two or three years, like that's taking a lot like a huge toll off um even the skill that you could develop and and your maximum capacity at that.

But like I was saying at the beginning, I I do I really think that the simplest explanation for why mitochondrial function declines 1% per year and gets

cut in half by age 70 is just this. Like

when I was injured, my mitochondria were completely obsessed with healing from that injury and a little bit came out of the account used to repair the home base.

>> That's what I was getting at. Yeah. So,

for someone who's had like a like a say a martial artist who's had broken hands, broken ribs, knee surgery, shoulder surgery, a lot of these guys have gone through a bunch of stuff like that.

Like, so each one of those things is taking a small toll.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. That's not something that people consider. You can you think, "Oh, you

consider. You can you think, "Oh, you recovered from that injury. Now you're

100%." But you're 100% with the tax of having recovered from that injury.

>> Yeah. And a And a lot of people aren't necessarily fully recovered from the injury either.

>> Oh, many many aren't. Yeah. Many many

aren't.

>> I you know, I I talked to to to a guy once who was um you know, he got injured in marathon running and

he he thought he was recovered. I

thought he wasn't recovered and he was thought he was there was some kind of metabolic stuff wrong with him because he's getting sick all the time. I'm

like, "Bro, you didn't recover yet.

Like, what are you doing going out and doing all that running?" Like,

>> what was the injury?

>> I don't remember the spec I forgot the specific injury, but uh one of one of the common running injuries.

>> Yeah. One of the things that's really common in MMA um is someone getting knocked out and then getting knocked out again because they come back too

quickly. Uh it happened recently in a

quickly. Uh it happened recently in a big fight. Um uh and it's just

big fight. Um uh and it's just there's there's a thing that happens with these guys where they just want to get back in there and get a win. And a

lot of times they're like, I'll be ready. I won't get hit again. I know

ready. I won't get hit again. I know

what I did wrong. I'll I'll be better this time. But they're more vulnerable

this time. But they're more vulnerable now. Like they can get knocked out. I Is

now. Like they can get knocked out. I Is

this just neurological damage? Is this

this just a function of the concussion?

Or do you think it's a function of the concussion, the recovery from it, and the diminishing capacity of the body because it had to recover from that traumatic injury?

>> I think it's all of those.

>> It's But that too, right? So, it's not just the fact that you got knocked out and your brain is more vulnerable now.

It's like, no, no, no, your body's more vulnerable. You're probably not as

vulnerable. You're probably not as strong as you were. You're probably not recovering as quickly.

>> Yeah. I mean, the the brain is it's a small part of the body, but it's massively outsized in terms of the energy that it consumes. And so think about if think about if you're you know

if you're actually healing the ability for it to like if it's just sucking even more disproportionate energy from the body and just think about how much the rest of the body works to support the brain. Like the liver is working all day

brain. Like the liver is working all day long to make the brain get enough energy.

>> Um so yeah there's there's no way that healing from a brain injury is not taking a toll systemically. That's

impossible. But to accelerate or enhance that, creatine you think would be a very good option.

>> Um, I mean, creatine is one of the ones that's been demonstrated to do that and it and it's been studied 20 grams a day.

I don't think anyone really knows like do you need 20? Is 30 better? Could have

have been done with five, but the most of the brain research is being done with doses around 20 grams. And there's the thought is that the you know the muscles are going to take first dibs and you

need to have a high dose to get it to the brain. We don't there's a lot we

the brain. We don't there's a lot we don't know about that but you know as a default like if I was healing from a traumatic brain injury I would I would take the creatine and then I you know I

think when if you have something that's this serious you do want to like know what your limiting bottlenecks are. So I

think actually doing mitochondrial testing is that's like one of the applications would be like oh now it's really important that I have a six-month window where I need to maximize

everything I can and so you know testing to understand your unique needs I think would be would be um a way to supercharge that process when it's

needed and I think that there are and you know so to take this back to to like what can people do in general I think methylene blue you mentioned is is one of those ones where like I

wouldn't even take I personally wouldn't even take it without testing showing that I need it but CoQ10 is an interesting one because CoQ10 is actually made in the body and it is

found in food and so there you know methylene blue was a lot of people emphasize that it was the first um it it was the first drug uh so it's like the

first uh you know example of of pharma on basically. But before that, it was

basically. But before that, it was actually patented as uh something that would turn your clothes blue but wouldn't come out in the wash. That that

was the patent on methylene blue. Um you

know, whereas CoQ10 uh you eat food, it's there. Your body makes it itself.

it's there. Your body makes it itself.

And >> what kind of food is it in?

>> Heart is the best is the And so I was saying before, you should be eating nose to tail. Like if you're going to eat

to tail. Like if you're going to eat meat, you should be eating heart. Um I I personally most of my meat is actually a blend of

um it's like 60% ground beef and the rest of it is a blend of liver, heart, kidney. And there are some other mine is

kidney. And there are some other mine is just liver, heart, heart, and kidney.

There are some other companies that I've seen uh recently come out with ones that include spleen and adrenals and very small percentages. Um, but that's I I do

small percentages. Um, but that's I I do strongly believe in a food first, pharma last approach. And that doesn't mean

last approach. And that doesn't mean like I'm against pharma, but it means that even with supplements, like if you can meet a need with food, you should meet the need with food. You should use

supplements in a strategic sense, not as a replacement for a bad diet. And those

supplements should, you know, what you would do next is say like, okay, I'm really having trouble um getting enough whatever nutrient. Maybe I'll supplement

whatever nutrient. Maybe I'll supplement to compensate for that. But I think you should go on down the line with, you know, other things that are like supplements of things that occur

naturally in your body that uh are of course safe to be in your body because they're always going to be there. Maybe

you can supplement with that to help um break a vicious cycle of aging or to stimulate um a virtuous cycle of healing that um

you know I would once you're getting all your nutrients and you're trying to do that from food I would I think that you could start playing around with that stuff but even then so CoQ10 is a great

example I would I would try eating more heart before I would try supplementing with 400 milligrams a day of CoQ10 for example Can I ask you this? Does it

matter if it's chicken heart, beef heart? Does is there a superior?

heart? Does is there a superior?

>> Um, I don't think we have enough data to say that. So, CoQ10 is one of those

say that. So, CoQ10 is one of those things where the nutritional databases are not that I mean, you're not even going to find it in USDA database, but there's published literature, but I have not

seen all the different hearts compared.

>> So, how do we know the CoQ10 is in heart?

>> Well, wherever it's been measured in heart, it's there. So like the representative examples of heart that were used were like an order of magnitude higher in CoQ10 than anything else.

>> And is but we haven't >> I'm sorry.

>> Oh I mean we just haven't seen all of the different hearts compared to each other.

>> Is it uh dependent upon how it's cooked like whether it's rare well done?

>> I think you lose some during cooking but you're but it's I forget how much and I don't think it's all of it. So it's I think it's you're all I mean you're

always the more gently you cook your food the better off you are in every conceivable case. It might not always

conceivable case. It might not always taste the best >> except for parasites of course.

>> Um I mean you don't need to make a steak well done to avoid >> well not not steak but pork.

>> Right. Right. Yeah.

>> Other things especially some wild gain.

>> Yeah. I mean right. So taking that taking that into account, the nutrient value of the food is always going to be highest when the when the food has been cooked relatively gently. Um but but

anyway, so so CoQ10 is is interesting because it it's hard to argue against taking it from the literature because there's dozens of clinical trials. Uh

quite a bit of it is in heart disease.

It looks pretty promising in various forms of heart disease. um you know but if you look at that literature what you

see is a dose response where at 1 to 200 milligrams per day of CoQ10 the average person's glucose insulin and blood

pressure looks better than not taking it but the average person at 400 milligrams of CoQ10 is actually having worse blood

pressure glucose and insulin than they were without taking it and the vari ability around that is huge. So, one

person is probably going to be worse at 100 milligrams, whereas another person might get their best at 400 milligrams. But it's like if you looked at the literature and you you would say where is the sweet spot where the average

person is going to be doing really good, it would be 100 to 200 milligrams a day.

But I think there are I've seen a lot of edge cases on either side where some people get miracles and some people get

uh I wouldn't say catastrophe but just they just get worse off. So um a lot of people complain about insomnia. They

complain about their heart racing or heart palpitations various things like that. Over

stimulation feeling like the lights are too bright or the sounds are too strong or whatever. just hyper sensory

or whatever. just hyper sensory awareness.

>> It's not common, but it's but it's I mean all the people the uncommon stuff always ask me about it. So um

>> at higher levels >> or >> no at no just like at 100 milligrams like there are just hyper sensitive people out there.

>> Okay.

>> And then >> and is this rare or is this like >> I don't know how common it is. So what I mean what I can tell you is that

across the trials you see some people reporting GI side effects which is super common. You don't

see a lot of this mentioned but you never know if they were looking for it.

Like a lot of times the side effect list is dependent on what side effects they asked about.

>> Um is this something you take with food or without food?

>> It would be better to take it with food.

And is the side effects is it dependent upon when they take it like whether it's morning or evening?

>> Uh I think for some people that have complained about insomnia they have thought that it was worse when they took it in the evening.

>> Makes sense, right?

>> Yeah. So maybe increase function if you took it early or maybe increase energy levels. Um, well, you know, okay, so I

levels. Um, well, you know, okay, so I think let me set the stage for this with just kind of like I think this really helps explain like what should you

actually be thinking about to know that you're healthy. Um, and I think we

you're healthy. Um, and I think we struggle a lot with like I think the I think the medicine just thinks that being healthy is just not having a

disease. Um, and I think we as kind of

disease. Um, and I think we as kind of the you know wellness community or whatever struggle to come up with a good definition for health. And I think a like a a really good definition of

health for me is you should you should be abundantly supplied with all the energy that you need to fulfill the um goals that you're trying to fulfill. And

you should be adaptable enough to be able to handle things changing that were out of your control or your own purposeful changing.

And I think the north star for you to see when to know that you are healthy is that your energy to anxiety ratio is

very high and your libido is very strong. And so I I

strong. And so I I when you start losing you use energy not only to produce, maintain, repair everything but you also use it to distribute everything. And so

one of the things that you do with like the last 10% of energy you make is help determine where all the energy goes. And

so a lot of people think that like if their mitochondrial function is declining, they should feel tired all the time. But that's not necessarily the

the time. But that's not necessarily the case. It might be that you're just

case. It might be that you're just losing the energy that you need to actually help uh the mito, you know, the mitochondrial chemical energy um to help

control how you use energy. And so it you are wasting it as anxiety and you and that's coming out of productivity.

So it's like you look at you look at how much energy did I have yesterday and what did I get done? the if if if the answer is, well, I felt wired all day,

but I wasted most of it thinking about why my wife insulted me and then worrying about how I was going to pay the bills and so I didn't actually get

any work done. Like, that's a good sign that you're you are losing control over where your energy is going. So, you're

not you're just that's not good. That's

not that's not healthy. Healthy is you have a you have abundant energy to put towards productive things.

And so you should see from that that you feel energized when you need to be alert. That your anxiety levels are very

alert. That your anxiety levels are very low that your libido is very high and you you know you can adapt that to on an age dependent manner. But um and that

you are able to sleep very deeply. And

if all your energy is keeping you up at night and then the next day you're sleepd deprived, like it's your biggest problem is you're just not putting the energy to where it's where it's supposed to go. So I think when you're looking at

to go. So I think when you're looking at something like that, you could say, "Oh, maybe CoQ10 is just increasing their energy." But to me that

energy." But to me that >> they lost a little bit of energy and they lost the energy that they needed.

Like they lost the top 10% of their energy and then they that that made them not be able to control where the next 20% went. And so it spilled over into

20% went. And so it spilled over into their heart was racing or it spilled over into they couldn't fall asleep at night.

>> Right.

>> But I've also, you know, there I've also seen other edge cases where people get miracles from CoQ10 that you also are not going to find in the literature. Um

so I had this >> what kind of miracles?

>> I'll give you one example. So um in the program that I had I had a client named Jacqueline and she lost her period at 28. So she you call that amenorhea, but

28. So she you call that amenorhea, but you know, she described it as I I hit menopause way way too early. She didn't

have her period for 10 years. Um, so we did mitochondrial function testing on her that showed that like you have a a specific need for a lot of CoQ10. And

what was crazy was she had gone to functional medicine practitioners, did homeopathy, all kinds of, you know, just she just went to whatever she could find and nothing ever changed that. What's

crazy is that like functional medicine practitioners often give bagfuls of supplements to to their co to their patients and you know so she had gotten like normal doses of CoQ10 the past like

1 200 millig but based on the testing that we did we said like you should you should probably experiment with 7 800 millig >> wa >> so um which you know by the way is above

where people the average person's glucose and insulin gets worse um but two weeks into taking the CoQ10 she got her period back. Wow.

>> After 10 years.

>> That's crazy.

>> After 10 years. Yeah. That's nuts.

Crazy.

>> So I I think the I think CoQ10 is a methylene blue. I'm a little bit more

methylene blue. I'm a little bit more hardcore like you really got to do the testing where whereas CoQ10 I'm kind of like you know you should play around with it. Like you very well may benefit

with it. Like you very well may benefit from one to 200 milligrams a day. But my

food first pharma approach says you are you eating heart?

>> Did you eat heart today?

>> Right.

>> Yeah.

>> Well that completely makes sense. And it

also completely makes sense that it would be more bioavailable in food.

You'd absorb more of it.

>> I think that's, you know, that could be part of it. But then it's just it's just also there's so much other stuff in the food, you know.

>> So it's like people get obsessed with whether they should be taking this thing or that thing, but that thing if you got it from that food gave you 36 other things.

>> Right. Right.

>> Um and it's just >> and they work together.

>> Yeah. And Yeah. And they work together and they can also become imbalanced. So

I think a lot of mitochondrial energy metabolism is the the bottlenecks that people can have is kind of like uh jammed up traffic and a lot a lot of

times you can meggose something and the main problem of mega dosing that for anyone would be it would be imbalance with something else but if you got a blockage in that something else now you've just got like a like a train

wreck happening in your mitochondria because you're activating one pathway that's that has to flow through the next one where you had your blockage. package

and it's you know like that. So you can go online for example and find communities where people are raving about highdosese thamin and the RDA the government recommended amount of thamin

to get is around like 1.3 milligrams. There's people out there who are like oh everyone should be taking 2,000 milligrams per day. Um, but I, you know, I I saw one case where this happened

before I, I knew the person, but they had fatigue so bad that they couldn't get off the couch and they, so she was rate self-rating her energy at zero. And

a practitioner said, "Oh, you should really try this highdose thamin." So,

she went on, 1100 milligrams a day. So,

not 2,000, but but big, right? And a lot of people get miracles out of this and they are vocal. They make communities on Facebook and so people get the idea that

everyone who tries it is benefiting from it. But um she her energy did improve a

it. But um she her energy did improve a little bit but she developed a new completely new motor dysfunction problem. Unsteady gate. It just kept

problem. Unsteady gate. It just kept getting worse the whole time she was taking the thamin. Um she had an existing problem with dizziness that got a lot worse. And a major issue for her

was that she had to to clear out the thamin. But the mitochondrial testing

thamin. But the mitochondrial testing that we did on her basically showed that like it explained it because it's because she, you know, had a block in the pathways that would be most

sensitive to megaosing that supplement.

And so, you know, winding that back and renourishing those other pathways helped her. I do think that a lot of people if

her. I do think that a lot of people if they're going to go into the wild wild west of megga dosing random supplements should do their own testing of glucose

ketones and lactate at home. A lot of people test their glucose. Not a lot of people test their lactate, but I'm 100% confident that that woman had she

had the practitioner said, "Try the thamin and see what it does to your lactate. and if it goes down it's good

lactate. and if it goes down it's good and if it goes up it's bad. M

>> I think she would have stopped it after the first few days and the new onset motor dysfunction never would have happened and so maybe she wouldn't have done mitochondrial testing with me until months after that but it wouldn't have

been a big deal because she had this real time indicator of mitochondrial dysfunction that she tested herself at home that showed her oh I'm trying this you know out of left field thing let's

see am I getting a stress signal out of it or am I getting the signal that my mitochondria are calming down and are more happy with their function which is really what lactate is telling you. And

you know, lac lac most people who do lactate testing do it in exercise. And

what you see in exercise is when your body's under an incredible amount of stress, you see lactate levels go up in the blood. Um, you know, halfway through

the blood. Um, you know, halfway through a pro basketball game, lactate is through the roof, right? Well, you know, if I took if I take thamin and the next day it looks like I'm halfway through the basketball game when I wake up,

that's a sign that something is out of whack in my body, right? Um, so but you know to go back to like if they if the perspective was you might need more

thamin. So you should try adding some

thamin. So you should try adding some nutritional yeast to the dishes that you want to impart a cheesy flavor to which is what nutritional yeast tastes like cuz nutritional yeast is really high in

thamin. Then that probably wouldn't have

thamin. Then that probably wouldn't have happened because the dose would have been a lot lower. She would have gradually gone into it much more gradually. but also whatever those

gradually. but also whatever those blockages were would have the other nutrients assisting them so the thamin wouldn't be so out of balance. So it's

not just that you absorb it better or whatever. It's also just the food going

whatever. It's also just the food going food first really helps um correct for errors that are a problem

with your expertise. Um Warren Buffett once said that a diversified portfolio is great protection against ignorance.

He said it doesn't really make sense if you know what you're doing, but if you don't know what you're doing, you really should diversify. And so that that's

should diversify. And so that that's what food does. Food is a diversified portfolio. And if you don't have the

portfolio. And if you don't have the expertise to run around taking different uh things that you don't if you don't understand the biochemical pathway of

the thing you're mega dosing, you are not a candidate. That's that's like, you know, buying an ETF and you don't even know what an ETF is, >> you know, like it's like give that to

your financial advisor. Um and so I yeah I think that food first pharma last is the food first part of that is really just a protection against but I like I

do have the expertise and I still do food first because I know that my expertise in in my own body is incomplete and so you know I might know a thousand times more than the average

person about what thamin does in the body but thin is doing things in my body and I don't know what they are. So I'm

not going to I'm not going to assume I know everything just because I have >> right >> like you know topnotch expertise in the field you know >> right >> um when you're talking about uh

methylene blue and CoQ10 and the benefits on mitochondria is what are the what's the mechanism and are they similar is it are they interchangeable

>> they are not similar and they're not interchangeable so CoQ10 is and I you know ask me if you want me

to go into even more detail but if you extract energy from food and then you need to carry that energy through a pathway CoQ10 is about twothirds through that pathway and it's just it's like if

you were going down a road and you had to take a shuttle across the river to get to your next destination and then you go get on the next train or something like that. So CoQ10 is just part of the transport pathway as the

electrons uh come through that are taken out of food to ultimately convert to ATP. Methylene blue is um you know if

ATP. Methylene blue is um you know if CoQ10 is like the main ferry, methylene blue is is this guy running around waving his hands in the air. Oh, you

know what methylene blue is like? It's

like those those fake taxis at the airport um where where like you're trying to go to the taxi line and they come right up to you and they're like, "Excuse me, sir. Do you need a taxi?"

But it's like the shady taxi where so methylene blue is like the is like an army of the shady taxis. Um and they're like don't take the ferry come over here. Right. And so if the ferry is

here. Right. And so if the ferry is blocked meth methylene blue would be great because you know if there's no taxis left um you want the you'll take the shady way cuz you got to get

somewhere. Um, so methylene blue is it's

somewhere. Um, so methylene blue is it's operating on the outer edges of of the main pathway and it's giving you alternatives, but the mitochondrial

pathway that you were born with is the one that is best. It's the most efficient one. So like I was saying

efficient one. So like I was saying before, methylene blue is great if you have a blockage there and you need a detour. It makes you worse off if you

detour. It makes you worse off if you don't. CoQ10 is it's it's the reason you

don't. CoQ10 is it's it's the reason you can overdose on it is because it's like, okay, there's a river and you got to get a ferry going across it. Well, what what happens if there's 10 fairies or there's

50 fairies or there's 150 fairies? At

some point, they're going to be running into each other and you're just going to clog up that. You at some point putting more vehicles into any pathway just makes things worse with the traffic that results. And if you have too much

results. And if you have too much traffic, you get accidents. and you know train wrecks and car crashes and your mitochondria aren't good for you.

>> Would CoQ10 have a similar benefit in terms of like red light therapy, increasing mitochondrial function? Like

>> I think they could be synergistic.

Um CoQ10, by the way, it also helps you make more mitochondria and that's called mitochondrial biogenesis.

Exercise also helps you make more mitochondria. And I do think that you

mitochondria. And I do think that you like so you should never take CoQ10 as an excuse to not exercise because exercise is very specifically putting the mitochondria where they

belong to meet the adaptation that you are stressing. So that's you know that's

are stressing. So that's you know that's bio mitochondrial biogenesis number one.

Um but CoQ10 will help with that. You

don't always want mitochondrial biogenesis. I do think like testing is

biogenesis. I do think like testing is another case where where that that might be a case where like you could use a highdose CoQ10 to try to stimulate more mitochondria if testing shows that

you're you don't have enough and that's your like limiting bottleneck. Um,

but the a like the average person whose CoQ10 levels are just a little lower when they where they should be. It

really is just acting as that kind of like you open up the biochemistry textbook, you see the place of CoQ10 in the mitochondrial energy production pathways and it's just doing the the

basic textbook thing of helping you move those electrons along on the path to convert food to ATP.

One of the things you brought up earlier was seed oils uh impeding the absorption of certain nutrients. Um it's seed oils are a weird thing because you know so

many people pushed against them and said, "Hey, these are essentially industrial lubricants that have been converted to food oil for profit and it's not really the best stuff that we

should be consuming." And then you have a bunch of online contrarians that say, "Oh, there's nothing wrong with seed oils. This is all nonsense. There's no

oils. This is all nonsense. There's no

data. There's no studies." And uh I don't understand that that thought process. And uh when you know what

process. And uh when you know what they're made with with hexane and all the the whole [ __ ] disgusting process of making them versus pressing olive

oil, like it's it to me it just seems so obvious that one of them you should probably avoid. And then when it's

probably avoid. And then when it's connected to all sorts of uh inflammation and all sorts of various issues and what you were talking about earlier impeding the absorption of

certain nutrients.

What do you think is going on? First of

all, why are people defending seed oils?

And what is the real problem with seed oils in a human diet?

Seed oils make your tissues more vulnerable to damage and they don't damage your tissues. And

so one of the problems that has caused a lot of controversy and I think the reason there's so much back and forth over this is that it takes the right

type of study to see seed oils making your tissues more vulnerable to damage because you need the enough time for the

damage to play out and you need people who are more vulnerable to the damage.

And we've been talking a lot today about how aging is increasing that tissue damage. Like everything is your repair

damage. Like everything is your repair capacity goes down as you grow older because your mitochondrial energy production is going down. And one of the

things you want to look at is what do seed oils do to you by the time you're 75? And you don't just want to look at

75? And you don't just want to look at what do seed oils do to you when you're 25 because you might not be seeing the capacity for the increased vulnerability

of tissue damage. Another thing is the trials have to be long enough both because it takes time to see the process of tissue damage

uh play out and also because we know from long trials of seed oils that short trials are useless. And there are a lot

of the people who are talking the la loudest in defense of seed oils are looking at trials that last seven weeks long or 12 weeks long and they're

ignoring trials that were done in the 50s60s and 70s that were 5 to eight years long. And I'm just like

years long. And I'm just like you know by all means analyze the shorter trials but do it in the light of what we know from the longer trials. And

the most important of the longer trials was the LA Veterans Administration hospital study. And this was the primary

hospital study. And this was the primary paper on it was published in 1969. So it

takes us back in history. But there was a period between World War II and 1970s where there was a lot of motivation in

the research community to do these grand tri randomized control trials of nutrition. We don't have that anymore.

nutrition. We don't have that anymore.

And I I think it's because scientists love to to in their collective imagination to say that what they're doing is they're just carrying

forth a linear path of addressing knowledge gaps left from the previous literature and just making a linear progress in science. But they're they're

really not because the incentive structure is to publish a large number of papers in high impact journals on a yearly basis as your university reviews

get done. And so if you're going to s

get done. And so if you're going to s and then there's other incentives too because you have to get grants with preliminary data. So you have shorter

preliminary data. So you have shorter studies that you then say, "Well, I'm going to do a longer study now." And it keeps the grant cycle going. And then

the people who write the grants want to see things getting published out of those papers. So for you to be like,

those papers. So for you to be like, "I'm going to do a 12-year randomized control trial of seed oils is it's going to be hard to get the people, you know, get all those box checked. Like you

might not be publishing a paper for a while." So what the LA Veterans

while." So what the LA Veterans Administration hospital study showed was that they randomized people to seed oils or

traditional fats and the in the first two years you had a little bit of a heart disease benefit but then it wore off over time and so the heart heart

disease mortality basically by the end of the trial was just kind of flat.

But the cancer was the same for the first two years. But then at the 2 to 5 year mark, it started diverging and you see, oh, it looks like there's something there. The 5 to sevenyear mark, it's,

there. The 5 to sevenyear mark, it's, you know, traditional fats down here and this gap starts widening where seed oils are up here. And then by the end of the

study, total mortality was kind of flat the whole time, but it just started to diverge at the end of the study to favor seed oils causing more death. And this

study was the longest and it was also the one where the the only trial ever done with seed oils where the people the mean age was 65. So the people were older than in every other trial. And one

of the important things about being old is that's that's what makes you able to get cancer. There are some childhood

get cancer. There are some childhood cancers but in general people start getting cancer when they live long enough to not die of heart disease first.

So doing the trial in older people for longer is what allowed you to see that the seed oils seem to be able to cause cancer. And what the author's conclusion

cancer. And what the author's conclusion was was that because the total mortality was just starting to diverge at the 8-year mark and because they had a plausible reason for it that the cancer

was exploding. They said we have

was exploding. They said we have ultimately left the question of whether these oils are toxic unresolved and the one thing that we need is instead of the

previous goal of the trials being 5 years long that the trials be done well in excess of 8 years. Okay. So

scientists think that they're just like looking at the old derured and they're saying oh what what was the gap in the knowledge that we need to solve next?

Well, I'm telling you, they concluded in 1969 that the gap in the knowledge was we need a trial that's long a lot longer than 8 years. And what did we get? 7 to

12 week trials. It's kind of like that uh that uh who was it Peter Teal or someone had a tweet that was like we they promised us flying cars and all we got was 180 characters or something like

that. Whatever that quote is, you know,

that. Whatever that quote is, you know, they prom they they promised us well in excess of eight-year trials was the next thing we needed to study. and like you know 50 60 years go by and all we've got

is these sevenweek trials and 12-we trials. Um now we also know why seed

trials. Um now we also know why seed oils would take a while to have such negative effects because it actually takes you four years just for your

tissues to start looking like the seed oil you're eating. Like if you switch from butter and olive oil today and you go on corn oil, it's going to take four

years for your tissues to fully look like the corn oil. And then once that happens, you've got secondary effects.

So you start getting your vitamin E levels depleted much faster, but it takes a while for the vitamin E levels to go down in order for other um effects, other results of that like the

the increased vulnerability to the uh tissues being destroyed. All that stuff is like you you're you're not even starting to see it until five, six years

go by. Um, and so that I think that's

go by. Um, and so that I think that's the big reason that there's so much controversy is that for whatever reason there's some people who just don't want to look at the that the older trials

that were very long and they're spending all their time looking at these very short-term trials. Um, and you know, is

short-term trials. Um, and you know, is there a motivation behind that or is it just laziness? I'm not sure.

just laziness? I'm not sure.

>> I think it's tension. I think part of it is tension. Yeah, it's a big part of it.

is tension. Yeah, it's a big part of it.

Part of it is justifying the contrarian position um with these short-term trials because then you could dunk on people and get attention.

>> Yeah, that I mean that makes a lot of sense. Like every everyone has to get

sense. Like every everyone has to get attention somehow if they want to make it in this world.

>> Well, that's a side effect of this influencer culture, you know, and uh it's one of the things I really appreciate about your work. Um you are very evidence-based and you you know, I've been paying attention to your stuff

for a long time. It's you're you're never hyperbolic. It's always very

never hyperbolic. It's always very rational. It's very balanced. And uh I

rational. It's very balanced. And uh I think that is really important because there's a lot of people that they make these uh videos or they have social

media posts and it's insulting, inflammatory, and they're doing it for attention and they're doing that, you know, that kind of behavior for attention along with science. They're

they're adding the science into it. But

it seems like the science is just a vehicle for them to get attention.

>> Yeah. Well, I mean that's that's unfortunate because there there is health hanging in the >> I know. I know it is unfortunate, but it's also common. You know, it's really common. You know, you see it in all

common. You know, you see it in all sorts of uh different disciplines. You

know, you see it in our archaeology. You

see it in everything. There's people

that want to dunk on their opposition and that's part of how they're getting attention is by insulting people and you see it. But when you see it in

see it. But when you see it in nutrition, it's just it it's really weird, you know, because it's not necessary. And the the people that are

necessary. And the the people that are getting attention, whether it's Andrew Huberman or yourself, a lot of people that are just doing evidence-based stuff and being really rational about it, and

that's how they're getting attention.

And other people are seeing them and going, I need to dunk on that guy in order to elevate my social profile. And

the seed oil thing is a weird thing to defend. It just

defend. It just just on the way that it's manufactured.

If you just watch the process and go, "Do you want to eat that? Do you want that or do you want butter?" Butter

seems way better. It seems way more normal. Seems like your body would

normal. Seems like your body would accept butter a lot easier than it would accept this [ __ ] insane process where you're dumping a bunch of chemicals into

this this goop, this nasty [ __ ] that you're pushing out of rape seed oil and you're calling it canola oil. You know

how many people think canola oil is corn oil cuz corn is canola. You know, you think of corn, oh, corn oil must be good for you. It's vegetable oil.

for you. It's vegetable oil.

>> Well, it is it is funny that they named it after a con.

>> It's [ __ ] weird. There is yeah there's a there's an article not not by me but by someone else called the great canola and it's about uh how how canola oil is a con but it's

>> they name but anyway >> that's a good way to put it because canola oil is a con because many people I've seen canola oil where they have a

[ __ ] image of a corn of an ear of corn. Have you ever seen that on the

corn. Have you ever seen that on the label? I don't look anymore labels, but

label? I don't look anymore labels, but >> but this was >> it's been a while since I bought a bottle.

>> If there's something you could find that shows that cuz I I hope I'm not having a false memory, but I'm pretty sure there used to be a canola oil that had like an ear of corn on it. Um, it's rape seed

and it's a it's a industrial lubricant and that's what they used to use it for and it's it's a byproduct. It's a weird funky thing that they have to pour a bunch of [ __ ] into just to take the

smell out of it. Just to take the rancid smell out of this weird oil that you're cooking with. Yeah, you can you can buy

cooking with. Yeah, you can you can buy coldressed seed oils. They, you know, it's not what most people are eating food with.

But I still think that the the fundamental problem with it, it's not just the processing. It's also, if you look at ancestral human diets, no one

ate fatty acid compositions that looked like that because the reason that they usually use hexane to extract it is because it's actually difficult to

extract using purely mechanical methods.

So, you know, olives can be pressed into oil, >> right? That is a type of seed oil,

>> right? That is a type of seed oil, right? If you thought

right? If you thought >> No, olive is a fruit oil >> or a fruit. But avocado, is that a fruit as well? Avocado oil.

as well? Avocado oil.

I Yeah, avocado oil is is pressed out of the avocado, >> right?

>> Because avocados are flesh is super high in fat.

>> So, it's just the the pit inside of it is the seed.

>> Yeah. I don't I don't think they Yeah, I don't think they make oil out of that.

>> So, it's a fruit oil. So,

>> whether it's olive oil, well, the high heat ones are avocado oil. That's one

that people like to cook with, right?

>> Yeah. Well, okay. So,

>> are there any issues with that?

Um, so cook cooking with an oil, one issue is the smoke point because the oil is burning at its smoke point. Um, and

that probably is more of an indication of flavor than it is of health, but it is generally going to correlate. Like if

the oil is burning, you're more likely to have damage to the oils. And

consuming damaged oils is bad for you.

Um, but there's but there so there's the smoke point, there's the fatty acid composition, and there's the solvents and other chemicals left over from the processing.

And I think all of those are an issue.

But the fatty acid composition is like we seed oils has become the common thing to you to use as a nickname for it. But

it's um but what you're really thinking about is that they're high in polyunsaturated fatty acids or PUFAs.

And those polyunsaturated fatty acids are just like it it happens to be most things most oils that are currently on the market for for food consumption

that are very high in polyunsaturated fatty acids are what we call seed oils.

Right?

>> So that's you know that's why we we call it that way. But the the the actual fatty acid composition like if you go back to any oil that was easy for

humans to produce before say a 100 years ago then you don't see those like there you

don't see pe uh a strong tradition of large consumption of rape seed oil um going back because or cottonseed oil or corn oil because It's I mean try

squeezing a corn kernel. It's it's not that squeezable. Um and so when you have

that squeezable. Um and so when you have these very small hard things that's why you wind up get you wind up getting solvent extraction but you had

to do the solvent extraction because it you was not easy otherwise to get oil out of those things. The solvent

is a whole another thing. I was in a lab once where someone had us analyze residual hexane in foods and

they just bought a bunch of grocery store foods and I was I was kind of managing the data analysis while someone I worked with was doing the hexane

measurements. But let me just say that

measurements. But let me just say that if it's extracted with hexane, it's got hexane left over. And we saw something that was not hexane. We didn't know what

it was, but it was some chemical solvent that was massive in the uh pump spray oils. And I after I saw that, I was

oils. And I after I saw that, I was like, I'm never using a pump spray oil cuz they cuz they like you could put olive oil in like a mechanical spray bottle. That's fine. But like Pam and

bottle. That's fine. But like Pam and those other ones, they they're using chemicals to to make the the spraying work. And it's there's something that's

work. And it's there's something that's some chemical solvent that's just like way like massive proportions in it. So

after I saw that, I just stopped stopped using that. I won't go near those.

using that. I won't go near those.

>> Yeah, I don't go near those anyway. But

um what about uh grape seed? I know

grape seed is one that people like to cook with because it has a high smoke point.

>> Yeah, I I would put grape seed oil in the category of a seed oil that I wouldn't consume in high quantities.

>> And is hexane an issue with that as well?

Uh, not I mean not if it's cold pressed.

I mean you can get like organic coldressed grape seed oil that is not solvent extracted. It's not RBD.

solvent extracted. It's not RBD.

It's uh it's, you know, not heated, >> but you still have to deal with the polyunsaturated >> fatty. Yeah. I mean, it's it's very

>> fatty. Yeah. I mean, it's it's very you're you're paying a lot to get a high quality product, but it's still like, you know, there might be studies out there about some therapeutic benefits of some of the components of the grape seed

oil, but I don't I wouldn't want to make those fats be the major oil in my diet because I think you're just overload.

Like, it's high in antioxidants and so you're going to get benefit. There's

going to be beneficial things in it, but I don't think that those fats are what you want to be your main fatty acid consumption.

>> What What about if you were searing a steak in grape seed oil? Would that be an issue?

>> I mean, the less of the oil that that's there, the the less of an issue it is, you know, if you're just coating the pan with it and it it's convenient because it doesn't have a high smoke point, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

>> And I wouldn't be healthy fats. I

wouldn't want to be consuming like a tablespoon or upwards of grapeseed oil a day.

>> I so uh I think we would agree that the issue um with saturated fatty uh assaturated fats and just the in the zeitgeist

saturated fats we have demonized since uh whatever that study was with the where the sugar company bribed those scientists. Was it the 50s, the 60s,

scientists. Was it the 50s, the 60s, wherever it was where they spent >> it started uh it started back then the the kind of the the crowning turning

point was 1984 when Time magazine had uh a picture of a frowning face made out of eggs and bacon and it and the cover said, "Hold the eggs in butter. Uh

cholesterol has been proved deadly and our diets will never be the same." And

>> we got to pull that photo up. That's so

crazy. They really did that.

>> Yeah, they they actually they they reversed it a few years ago where they they took the same image but they made it a smiley face and they were like, "Now we know eggs are good for you."

>> Oh god. But meanwhile, how many lives did you ruin with your shitty advice? Um

it's so stunning.

>> Yeah, you can look. You can see the two right there.

>> Yeah.

>> Can see both side by side.

>> Crazy.

>> Um >> Yeah. So the one cholesterol is the

>> Yeah. So the one cholesterol is the upper left hand corner.

>> Yeah. At the upper leftand corner is the new one and the one on the right is the 1984 one.

>> Scientists labeled fat the enemy. They

were wrong. Yeah. You didn't print the whole thing. They got [ __ ] bribed and

whole thing. They got [ __ ] bribed and not a lot of money. That's what's really crazy. It ruined society. Ruined diets

crazy. It ruined society. Ruined diets

for what? $50,000. So for $50,000, people started eating margarine and and eating seed oil and not eating butter and not not consuming cholesterol, which

is, you know, the building blocks for hormones. It's such an important aspect

hormones. It's such an important aspect of the human diet. And when you tell people that like I tell people I eat mostly meat, they go, "What about your cholesterol?" I just take a

cholesterol?" I just take a I don't know what to tell you. Go read.

I just can't, you know, I can't sit there and tell you that higher LDL cholesterol is actually associated with longer lifespans. It's like there's

longer lifespans. It's like there's there's a lot to this whole cholesterol thing. And I think it's kind of been

thing. And I think it's kind of been [ __ ] around with by the mainstream media reporting on these sort of ancient narratives. These narratives that not

narratives. These narratives that not ancient, but you know, these narratives that were set up in the 50s and 60s, whenever it was in the 80s, the Time magazine thing that people just repeat.

They don't look into it. They just

repeat it over and over again and they're really worried like I'm trying to eat less less red meat. Like why why you trying to eat less meat? Well, it's

you know cholesterol like oh boy.

>> Yeah. I Well, I do think that you don't you don't want to see your blood cholesterol going crazy high because that can be a sign that you're not you using it well, right? like uh if your

cholesterol is turning over and it's being used to make bile acids to support your digestion, it's being used to make uh adrenal hormones and sex hormones, it's being used to make testosterone,

it's being uh used to make brain sinapses to support your memory, like all those things uh that cholesterol does are incredibly important. But I

think a lot of people their cholesterol going up can be a sign that they're not using it properly. And so I think that's why you do see

uh you know there like it it is true that if you take people at a certain age um you can see inverse correlations between cholesterol levels and

mortality. But if you take people who

mortality. But if you take people who are younger and you look at who's going to get heart attacks later, you do see that higher cholesterol when you're younger prospectively predicts a higher

risk of heart disease later. And I don't think that's because cholesterol causes heart disease, but I think it's because it's a reflection of your overall

metabolism being more slow in terms of actually using up the cholesterol. Makes

sense. That's and that also but it's interesting though that if you look at the mechanisms of how does chole like how does cholesterol cause

atherosclerosis the cholesterol is inside a lipoprotein which is like a spherical container for the cholesterol. It's got a bunch of

the cholesterol. It's got a bunch of fats soluble vitamins and other things in it. But the outside is uh fatty acids

in it. But the outside is uh fatty acids uh specifically in the form called phospholipids.

But the what happens that drives the atheroscllerotic plaque is that the fats you get from seed oils that are carry that are on the outside of it get damaged. And when they get damaged, the

damaged. And when they get damaged, the immune system recognizes it as a toxin that could hurt the blood vessel. And so

the immune system gobbles it up and sequesters it. And that that

sequesters it. And that that sequestering is like a quarantine. Um

and that's that's what the plaque develops from. And so that's why like

develops from. And so that's why like even though you see perspectively that if your cholesterol is higher that that predicts that you're more likely to get

heart disease later in the randomized controlled trials you saw something quite different when they used seed oils to lower the cholesterol. So, the

Minnesota Coronary Survey was another uh it was I mentioned the LA Veterans Administration Hospital study that was these were the two double blind randomized control trials that were done

of seed oils. The Minnesota Coronary Survey was very big. It was the only one that included women and it wasn't as

long but um but it was way larger.

And back when they published the results, it looked like there was an 8% increase in the risk of heart disease with the seed oils, but they mentioned

that they measured actual atherosclerosis and they didn't report it. So decades

later, like I think it was about 10 years ago, researchers noticed this and they said, "Well, these the guys that did the study are dead, but I wonder if the atherosclerosis results are around."

So they did some digging and it turned out that in the basement of the house that the lead investigator lived in, who had died a long time ago, uh there were

boxes of data that had not been published from that study and they included all the atherosclerosis measurements. And what they found was

measurements. And what they found was that the seed oil group had double the atherosclerosis.

Not only that, but every 35 milligram per deciliter drop in cholesterol was associated with something like 30% more heart disease. And so the original

heart disease. And so the original results didn't look very they didn't look good for cettos. They looked bad, but they didn't look that bad. And they

you weren't statistically significant.

But it was because there was a lot of uh you know people were coming in and out of the of the trial. It kind of weakened the results. But this you know the the

the results. But this you know the the atherosclerosis results and the correlations that that were buried in those boxes show that when you look at the data from that angle like the seed oils look a lot worse. And I think what

you're seeing there, this is one of the reasons why there's so much um material to work with to to make controversy out of this is that you see that people with

higher cholesterol when they're younger are more likely to go on to have a heart attack. But when you use seed oils which

attack. But when you use seed oils which lower the cholesterol in the blood but increase the amount of these easily damaged fatty acids that carry the

cholesterol and they get damaged and they drive the atheroscllerotic plaque.

That's why you see this this divergence like that correlation exists there but not everything that you do with your diet to change it to try to make the correlation work in your favor does you good.

>> Right.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. I I'd read that. Um I'd read something about that and also something about there is uh there's a profound difference between someone who consumes their cholesterol like say if you're on

just a seed oil free um just vegetables and meat with healthy fats like those kind

of carbohydrates or or those kinds of uh proteins and fats without complex carbohydrates without consumption of a lot of grains without that there's a difference in the the results that they

were having in terms of the impact of cholesterol >> in general you are going to have higher cholesterol if you're eating less fiber

>> right and is it in in it all dependent upon the activity level of the person like you're talking about using the cholesterol >> I yeah I think I mean this this is a

great tieback to the things we were talking about before Because the clearance of cholesterol from your blood is driven by the mitochondrial energy

production that gives your brain the signal that you are in a state of abundance and should put that cholesterol toward good things. And you

have a bunch of hormones that communicate that. Leptin, insulin,

communicate that. Leptin, insulin, thyroid hormone are all involved. But

what is ultimately driving this is your brain, especially in the hypothalamus is taking information in that says, are you getting enough food

for me to consider this a state of abundance where I ramp up your digestion, I ramp up your libido, I ramp up all these things. Um, and we tend in

nutrition science to think that this is about calories or it's about carbs. And it is about those things. But if you are half as

those things. But if you are half as good at mitochondrial conversion of food to ATP

as the next guy over um you know is your hypothalamus going to going to give you full credit for the food you ate in terms of calculating your state of abundance? It's not. It's

going to dock you by half. And this is because the hypothalamus takes all these signals and then it looks at inside the hypothalamic cells. It looks at okay how

hypothalamic cells. It looks at okay how well do I convert that those food molecules into ATP using my mitochondria. And if it's 50% dropped

mitochondria. And if it's 50% dropped it's going to dock you in your state of abundance. And it's going to say you

abundance. And it's going to say you know actually you ate all the food but you didn't get all the energy and so we're just going to let things stagnate and the cholesterol is going to go up in

the blood. your sex hormones is going to

the blood. your sex hormones is going to go down. And you know, you can get you

go down. And you know, you can get you can look at that and say, well, there's an a age you're going through andropause. There's an age dependent

andropause. There's an age dependent decline in testosterone and adrenal hormones and stuff like that. And then

you can do hormone supplementation therapy, but what you're not actually fixing and that but that can also be kind of a negative feedback loop. Like

if you're supplementing everything that your cholesterol would turn that your body would turn cholesterol into, that also is going to slow cholesterol turnover because your body's like, "Oh, I don't I don't need like I don't need

to turn that into testosterone if I'm supplementing with it." So, I think that we what we're missing in the whole discussion is thinking about how do we

how do we ramp up mitochondrial energy production? How do we prevent it from

production? How do we prevent it from declining and aging so that the body so the brain can rightly perceive that I am in a state of

abundance and it is rational to turn to ramp up this metabolic rate.

I think there are you it's when you have a marker like this it's not like every single case of high cholesterol represents a failure to convert it into anything good. Some people just produce

anything good. Some people just produce more cholesterol or they absorb more cholesterol. And I don't think those are

cholesterol. And I don't think those are all equal in terms of their heart disease risk or their health implications.

But sluggish metab like high cholesterol is in general a sign of sluggish metabolism under the average cir the average set of circumstances. And a

really interesting thread that uh got left behind in 1976 is uh Broa Barnes wrote this book called Solved the Riddle of Heart Attacks in 1976.

And his perspective was all about thyroid hormone. And he argued that

thyroid hormone. And he argued that people who died of infectious diseases were hypothyroid.

Um we allowed them to live longer. Now

all the hypothyroid people are getting heart disease. The reason he thought

heart disease. The reason he thought that is because thyroid hormone communicates to your whole body that you are in a state of abundance. And so if your brain thinks that you're not and

you add thyroid hormone in, now your whole body is receiving the the false signal that you are in a state of abundance. and you feel better and many

abundance. and you feel better and many things improve and you can argue about whether that's good or bad, but you're intervening at the point of the communication instead of at the point of actually creating the abundance. But

thyroid hormone does signal uh take up cholesterol from the cell, move it along, do things with it. And so

no matter whether you're hypothyroid or not, people were up through the up until the 1970s, they were lowering cholesterol and they were lowering heart disease risk by just putting everyone who had high cholesterol and thyroid

hormone. And the reason they stopped

hormone. And the reason they stopped doing it is because uh some practitioners got overzealous and they killed a few people because they overdosed them. Um but Bro Barnes argued

overdosed them. Um but Bro Barnes argued that you well we don't have to be overzealous and overdose them. We could

just be rationally dosing thyroid hormone. I my perspective is different

hormone. I my perspective is different from Bro Barnes. I you know I take what he said. I think there's a lot of value

he said. I think there's a lot of value to it. But I say like why is thyroid

to it. But I say like why is thyroid communicating the state of abundance?

It's because your mitochondria are doing a great job produ converting your food to ATP. Now, you don't have to have a

to ATP. Now, you don't have to have a mitochondrial dysfunction to have low thyroid hormone because you're not in a state of abundance. You can just not eat any food. So, you know, if you look at

any food. So, you know, if you look at the metabolic consequences of starvation, you just don't eat any food.

Your thyroid hormone will go in the gutter. Um, so there are people out

gutter. Um, so there are people out there who just aren't eating enough.

Like, that is a thing. But that it's also just natural in the process of aging that we're all getting progressively dysfunctional mitochondria and that we can intervene at any point to have at least 75% of control over

that. And so we want to step up the game

that. And so we want to step up the game and you know work. So I if there's two things that people take away from this from me today I would want it to be

always think about your mitochondria first and when you're thinking about them always go with a a food first pharma last approach. So naturally

create a state of abundance in the best way that you can and then move on to other things after you've done that.

That way if you're going to intervene with testosterone replacement or thyroid hormone or statins or whatever I mean statins are mitochondrial toxins are kind of counterproductive from a mitochondrial energy production

standpoint.

Um and on that note, you know, so statins for the the debates of statin associated myopathy are are the rates of them are debated. The rates at which

statins cause diabetes debated, but it's there. And it's because statins actually

there. And it's because statins actually inhibit your CoQ10 synthesis, but they also inhibit other things in the mitochondrial energy production engines that you can't take a supplement for. So

there's just no way around that. Statins

will decrease your mitochondrial function. So I think by not thinking

function. So I think by not thinking about mitochondria first, it's like instead you take these people with mediocre mitochondrial function um their

LDL in their blood would get taken into their cells. would do valuable things

their cells. would do valuable things with it if the state of abundance was present because not only does this all the signaling say do something that with the cholesterol but the way you actually

get cholesterol into the cell is to burn through a bunch of ATP with motor proteins that actually move it from outside the cell to inside the cell in order to facilitate that turnover. So,

we've got a situation where we know that everyone could improve their mitochondrial function, but instead of doing that and then saying, "Okay, do we really need a statin?" We just say, "Oh, go straight for the statin." And now you're hurting the mitochondrial

function even more. And you're saying, "Well, it's a it's the ROI is good enough because I'm lowering their cholesterol and they won't get heart disease." And yet, their mitochondria

disease." And yet, their mitochondria aren't doing as great, but that's okay because we lowered the cholesterol. I

think that's totally backwards. You

should you should always be trying to optimize mitochondrial function first.

You should always be doing that with natural foods before you try anything else. And then and then move on. Like

else. And then and then move on. Like

just set this the foundation. Set a good foundation and then build your house on top of it however you want. I'm not

saying never do never use any pharmaceuticals. I'm just saying, you

pharmaceuticals. I'm just saying, you know, put if you're going to put if you're going to build your house out of pharmaceuticals, do it on a good foundation, >> right? Do make an educated decision.

>> right? Do make an educated decision.

What what can be done to increase thyroid function?

The first thing is you actually want enough food and you want good mitochondrial conversion of the food to ATP. But there's other things that could

ATP. But there's other things that could be important to having good thyroid function as well like having if you just look at what is thyroid hormone. So

thyroid hormone is made from the amino acid tyrrosine which you get from the protein in the food that you eat and then you add iodine to it. So if you don't have enough protein, you're not going to have good thyroid function. If

you don't have enough iodine, you're not going to have good thyroid function. So

those are the those are the the you know step one basics of the 101 of the nutrition that I need to have good thyroid hormones.

>> And is iodine from supplementation or from food?

>> You can supplement with it, but I again I always believe in food first.

>> And what's rich in iodine?

>> The the uh there are many things that can be rich in iodine, but it's highly dependent on the soil. So a potato for example from

the soil. So a potato for example from one part of the United States could be uh a hundred times richer that than um a potato from another part of the country.

So that's a problem. Seafood is reliably high in iodine because the rainfall just facilitates the minerals just falling into the ocean. So it's, you know, a lot of the places that are low in iodine,

it's because the pattern of evaporation causes the iodine to evaporate into the clouds, but then like the cloud pattern goes around some mountain and it never drops back down on you. And so you get these areas of the country where they're

just on the wrong side of the mountain and they just get, you know, progressive decline in the iodine. So, I do think that it's good for people to eat just some seafood because like if you eat one

or two pieces of fish per week, for example, or you eat a little bit of seaweed every day, that's going to cover your bases. Whereas, like in if your

your bases. Whereas, like in if your food comes from one area, you might be able to get enough iodine just eating whatever you want and in another area you won't. Um, I personally

you won't. Um, I personally add in a/4 teaspoon of kelp powder to my to my food prepped meals per day. It's

just always in there. It's got a little bit of flavor, but I just mix it into everything, so you don't even taste it.

It's like it's just I like I fortify my own >> I fortify my food myself instead of letting the government do it. Um, but

you know, so that that's one way to do that. And then there are some things

that. And then there are some things that increase your iodine requirement.

So, uh, women with big big breasts, for example, can need much more iodine because iodine the breasts are a sink for iodine. Part

of that is just the nature of the tissue and part of it is very logical because if you do have a baby, you are going to start feeding the baby the iodine. And

so that might be part of why that's prepped. But there's some evidence that

prepped. But there's some evidence that a lot of breast problems are solved by extra iodine. So fibrocystic breast

extra iodine. So fibrocystic breast disease, for example, there's some support for getting you 10 15 times the normal amount or even 50 times the normal amount of iodine. And I think

that's because some women with very large breasts just they just, you know, 98% of it goes there.

>> Um, and then there are also like the less the more toxic your living environment is, the more iodine you're going to need because there's a lot of

bromine that's in synthetic uh materials for couches. It's flame retardants. So

for couches. It's flame retardants. So

all kinds of paint and uh materials that are used in household living can be a source of environmental bromine. And

then fluoride. If you drink fluoridated water and you brush your teeth with fluidated toothpaste, it's going to increase your need for iodine as well.

>> So there are there's a bunch of reasons that people might want to Well, I'll say this. I think it's crazy that every time

this. I think it's crazy that every time I've seen a a woman who's on thyroid hormone and I've seen and I've, you know, had them get iodine data, their iodine is

low and they've never gotten it tested before. And I just think, you know,

before. And I just think, you know, there's these medicine has these myths about nutrition that like we solved all the nutritional deficiencies 100 years ago, so we don't need to think about it.

But they did these dumbass things that made that like nullified that. So, for

example, the reason that we didn't have iodine deficiency anymore is because they fortified salt with it. They said,

"Everyone eats salt, so let's just put the iodine in the salt." And so, everyone got had fortified salt. But

then what did they do? They came along and they said, "Don't eat the salt. It's

going to give you a heart attack, you know." And so, what they didn't realize

know." And so, what they didn't realize was when they told people to not eat the salt, now they're not getting their iodine. And now you know so there are

iodine. And now you know so there are some places where there's like I talked to one cardiologist who works out in the Midwest and he says I see people walking in with a you can see the lump in their

throat now and um and they have a goer which is just like the a goiter is a very hungry thyroid gland where it's like I don't have any iodine where's the iodine just starts growing to try to

find it and you wind up with you can feel a lump in your throat not see anything but if it gets really really bad you can see a bump in the neck and if it gets insanely bad. You can have like a grapefruit hanging from the neck.

That doesn't happen anymore. But that

but you know this cardiologist told me like I actually see people with goiter now >> but no one's looking for it because they don't think people get goer anymore. And

so most they just most of them just walk around with a lump in their neck until they find me. He said

>> that's wild. The the no salt in the diet is so wild.

>> Yeah.

>> That that one is so crazy.

>> And then there are there are other things too like you you the supplement that you're taking has glutathione in it. Well, selenium is a mineral that

it. Well, selenium is a mineral that helps you use glutathione to protect your thyroid gland from damage. And

there are a number of trials that show that selenium lowers the ant the autoimmune antibodies that occur in Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which is a type

of autoimmune thyroid problem. And the

reason it does that is because it's helping glutathione protect the thyroid from damage because producing thyroid is a very messy process. But that also, you know, if you look at what that would

imply, it would also imply that all the other antioxidant nutrients are very important in the thyroid as well because vitamin C

and zinc and copper, manganese, and a whole suite of iron even, you know, too much iron is bad for you, but you need iron to protect yourself from oxidative

stress. So all of these things are

stress. So all of these things are helping prevent tissue damage in the thyroid gland which helps prevent the immune system from going haywire trying to deal with that damage.

And so all of those things are are important for thyroid hormone.

>> One more thing I wanted to talk to you about is you brought up arthereal I don't know how to say that word right.

Arthereal sclerosis. Um what is the supplement? Nattokynise.

supplement? Nattokynise.

>> Yeah. And akinase is an enzyme that helps break down blood clots.

And atherosclerosis is what it really is is the immune system quarantining damaged particles. Those particles are

damaged particles. Those particles are damaged because you loaded them with seed oils and then your mitochondrial function declined and you lost your defense against the damage and then you

got, you know, progressively more seed oil damage that and the immune system is trying to protect the blood vessel from it. That's what the plaque is. But that

it. That's what the plaque is. But that

plaque is highly inflammatory. And

>> this is a crazy statement. So plaque

that people have always considered to be from most people will tell you it's from cholesterol. If you you ask the average

cholesterol. If you you ask the average person, you you believe it's really from seed oils.

>> Um I'm not alone in this. So if you >> No, I don't think you are. If you go back, so if you go back to 1984 when we saw that Time magazine picture, the other thing that was going on

politically and scientifically in 1984 was the NIH consensus conference that said that they had proven they like Time magazine cover was a reaction to the NIH

consensus conference where they said we as the scientific community now certify that we are in consensus that cholesterol is the cause of heart disease. And that's why Time magazine

disease. And that's why Time magazine ran with that that with that cover. Um,

>> was Fouchi running the NIH back then?

>> Fouchy >> because that's when the crisis that was so Fouchy was not running this, but that was uh I think possibly also the year

that Fouchy took over at NIDA.

>> Oh, okay.

>> Yeah. It's, you know, it's sidebar, but um there's a very interesting study that looked at um the average age of principal investigators of studies.

Principal investigator means like the the guy who ran the lab. And so since 1984, the average age of an NIH funded

principal investigator has gone up by one year per year.

And so that looks like the one group took over the money in 1984 and then they've just been giving themselves grants ever since and now

they're really old. That's what that looks like. Um but but anyway, so yes, I

looks like. Um but but anyway, so yes, I think I believe you can fact check me on this, but I believe Fouchi took over NIDA where he got where he became very

in control of a lot of NIH money in that same year. So, so it's really weird the

same year. So, so it's really weird the way these years work out. Like, you

know, like 1913, you got Federal Reserve, you got World War I, you've got all these changes to the structure of the government. Like, they picked this

the government. Like, they picked this year out of history and it's all there's always these big massive big things all happening in different areas. But

anyway, so there was something in the air in 1984. Um, maybe it was maybe it was self-fulfilling prophecy from Orwell, >> but anyway. Um

>> so the >> okay so so so the chair of the NIH consensus conference in 1984 was Daniel Steinberg. Daniel Steinberg passed away

Steinberg. Daniel Steinberg passed away a few years ago but he was kind of there were three big names that came out of that conference and Steinberg was one of

them and the others were Brown and Goldstein who won the Nobel Prize in 1985 the next year for you know you can see how they hooked up their Nobel

Prize. So they 1985 they got the Nobel

Prize. So they 1985 they got the Nobel Prize for discovering the LDL receptor which is the thing that brings cholesterol from your blood into your cells and all the drugs that work on

this are targeting that receptor. So

that became the springboard for all the drugs that people are on for cardiovascular disease now. So this is kind of funny that the Nobel Prize was it was probably in the fix in 1984. you

know, that was the other thing they were working on, but because there's no way that would have happened if the 1984 consensus conference didn't happen. But

the point I want to make is that Daniel Steinberg agrees with me. I I didn't come up with this idea myself. I mean he's dead now

but you know for for decades he was one of the people who believed that because it was his lab that discovered that the

pufas which are seed oil fats have to become damaged on the outer membrane of the LDL particle for it to get taken up by the immune system.

That was his discovery and he's the guy that chaired the conference that led to the Time magazine cover. So I'm not pulling this out of my ass. I'm pulling

this out of my having read Daniel Steinberg's papers. Um,

Steinberg's papers. Um, and so he was, this is how olive oil became the darling of the Mediterranean diet, which is, you know, the so the

Mediterranean diet is kind of funny. Um,

because it's not that B, it's very loosely based on what they eat in the Mediterranean. Um, and it's really just

Mediterranean. Um, and it's really just kind of like a branding thing where they said like, "Okay, well, this diet is good enough for us to say eat this, this, this, and this, and we're going to call it Mediterranean." Um, but anyway,

uh, the so what happened was after the LA Veterans Administration Hospital study showed in 1960, well actually they published it a few years later. So

somewhere in the early '7s, it's kind of looking like seed oils cause cancer. And

so they're looking at that and they're like, "Well, maybe corn oil is not the best." And they're like, "Well, we

best." And they're like, "Well, we already told people to eat the corn oil because they can't eat the saturated fat, so we can't tell them go back to the butter. So what are we going to tell

the butter. So what are we going to tell them to eat?" And they were like, "Well, olive oil is a nice balance. It's kind

of in between the two. It's not

saturated fat. Um, but it's probably not going to cause cancer like we're worried about this." Um, and so olive oil is

about this." Um, and so olive oil is kind of born out of that. And

Steinberg's perspective on promoting olive oil as being good for heart disease was, you know, the Steinberg is is saying,

I'm worried that that the real problem with these lipoproteins in the blood causing the plaque is actually the seed oils that we're telling people to eat.

>> And so, yeah, we can use cholesterol as a marker for that, but I don't know that I want to be telling people to eat corn oil. So, what am I going to tell them to

oil. So, what am I going to tell them to eat? Because I'm going to have egg on my

eat? Because I'm going to have egg on my face, pun intended, if I, you know, if I tell them to go back to eating eggs and butter. So, olive oil is this happy

butter. So, olive oil is this happy middle ground where maybe we can consume a lot of we can consume olive oil to our heart's content and it's not going to um create the tissue damage that drives the

plaque, but it's also not going to ramp up the cholesterol. And so, we can just navigate the middle that way. And I you know I the reason that no one

appreciates this is because medicine thinks in binaries. So I I have this saying

all medical diagnoses are false but some are useful. And I I take this from a

are useful. And I I take this from a saying in statistics which is all models are false but some are useful. And what

that is is an appreciation that once you impose a model on the data, you're now biasing it towards the way you think about it. And you know the and so it's

about it. And you know the and so it's like it's a reality distortion filter to make the data more usable. So if I can use the model to try to predict something and I see it's true, I might leave details behind,

>> but I'm focusing on the things that help me make those decisions. So, a medical diagnosis is a hypothesis that the patient will respond to the treatment that they're given. And you test that

hypothesis by giving the patient that treatment and then you see if they get better and if they don't get better, then you take them off the treatment.

That's why, you know, some things they just people just stay on the drug they're put on. But look at how they they treat depression or epilepsy. They,

you know, they epo epilepsy, they just put them on one benzone, it doesn't work, they put them on the next one, they keep rotating until they find one that that stops the seizures.

depression. They put people on one anti-depressant. Oh, it doesn't didn't

anti-depressant. Oh, it doesn't didn't work. We'll put them on the next one.

work. We'll put them on the next one.

They just rotate through it because they're they're just looking at it like they have a model that's predicts their hypothesis that they'll respond. They

didn't. So, they switched them on to the onto the next approach. So because

medicine cares about triaging decisions about what to do for for treatment, they say I only need a model that helps me do that and I can

ignore all the other details. But what

happens is you leave these historical threads behind like the fact that the chair of the conference that proved to put in your magazine that

everyone had to change their diet because of the concept that they said was proven that is now the basis for the drugs that I'm going to prescribe you.

the fact that he had these, you know, that he also showed that it was seed oils in the membrane of the LDL particle that drive the plaque doesn't matter because that doesn't change whether I'm going to give you a statin,

you know, and so and so if it doesn't change how I'm going to treat you, it doesn't matter.

Which means that I could ignore it if someone asks me what you should eat, >> you No, but but but the problem was when they did the randomized control trials with the seed oils, they were like, "Oh,

it doubled the atheroscllerotic plaque.

What do we do? Put it in the box in the basement." Um, you know, and so there's

basement." Um, you know, and so there's all this this like, "Well, yes, those details are true, but Master John, get out of my hair. I don't want to I don't I can't handle the truth, you know?"

>> Right. Right. Right. And so, how does nano kynise >> Oh, yeah. Right.

>> Because I I brought you way off track.

Sorry. No, I did it. I I did it. Uh,

okay. So

the pro when you get a when you get a heart attack or a stroke from atherosclerosis

it is not because in all in like 98% of cases it is not because the plaque oluded the blood vessel and stopped the blood flow. In fact, usually when a

blood flow. In fact, usually when a plaque develops, it it develops backwards. Like it it just um so your

backwards. Like it it just um so your like let's say this is your blood vessel. The plaque's going to bulge out

vessel. The plaque's going to bulge out this way instead of this way because your body tries not to narrow the blood vessel because you do need the blood flow, right? So it's almost never the

flow, right? So it's almost never the case that the plaque is just squeezing the blood vessel shut. happens is the inflammatory process inside the plaque which is especially driven by the seed

oils oxidizing in there and going rancid. That's not the only factor but

rancid. That's not the only factor but it's one of them.

That process degrades the collagen that covers the plaque and it makes micro tears and the micro tears and the

collagen get healed by scar tissue that gets laid on top of it.

And so when you get narrowing into the blood vessel, it's because you're building up scar tissue on top of like it keeps breaking and you keep building scar tissue on it. But if it breaks and

you get a blood clot that is big enough in the acute moment to block the whole artery, that's that's what usually causes most heart attacks. Nattokinase

is an enzyme derived from natto, which is a Japanese fermented soybean paste that is also incidentally very high in

vitamin K2, which helps you protect against calcium deposits that weaken the plaque and make it more likely to rupture. So actually just eating natto

rupture. So actually just eating natto would be better. This is food why food first works, right? Right.

>> Um if you had K2 and nattokinus, you'd be even better off. But the nattokinise helps break apart blood clots. So if in some people you might just have a

predisposition because you've got systemic inflammation where like you just clot more easily or you might have someone who's got a genetic defect in the ability to degrade clots and so

their baseline clotting is higher than normal. If that's the case, then they're

normal. If that's the case, then they're even more likely to get a heart attack or a stroke when the plaque ruptures because their baseline predisposition to

clot is higher. And then on top of that, um, if you've got someone with really bad atherosclerosis, they might be clotting all the time. Like any every day might be a new day where they can have a heart attack. And so in both of

those cases, nattokinise is going to, uh, degrade the clots as soon as they occur. And it's going to lower the total

occur. And it's going to lower the total clotting. And the downside risk of that

clotting. And the downside risk of that is, you know, maybe you bleed too easily if you get cut. But the upside potential of that is if you're one of the people who are a candidate for any one of these

days now, you're going to get a heart attack or a stroke, having taken n 20,000 IU of nattokinise that day may have prevented you from getting a heart

attack or a stroke because the clot formed and you degraded it more quickly.

>> Fascinating. Listen, this is a lot to take in. Um um but let's do this again,

take in. Um um but let's do this again, please. and tell everybody where they

please. and tell everybody where they can find you and where you are on social media and your website and all that.

>> Um, I write a newsletter at chrismasterjohphd.substack.com

chrismasterjohphd.substack.com and you can look into my mitochondrial testing at mito.me.

>> All right. Thank you very much. This is

really fun. I really appreciate it. I'm

glad we did it. All right. Bye

everybody.