The Best Vitality & Health Protocols | Dr. Rhonda Patrick

There's lots of data now showing that people that are doing these like short bursts at least a minute long but up to three minutes they're moving faster with intent and it's having outsiz effects on on health outcome. So for example individuals that do on the high end so they're doing you know 3 minutes of this short burst of an unstructured type of exercise snack and they do it three times a day. So it's a total of 9 minutes a day. Okay, that's associated with a 40% reduction in all-c causeed mortality, 40% reduction in cancer related mortality, a 50% reduction in cardiovascular related mortality. Wow. 9 minutes a day. Welcome to the Hubberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and opthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Dr. Rhonda Patrick, a biomedical scientist and leading public health educator. For over a decade, Rhonda has been one of the most trusted voices in building science-based health protocols. Today, we discuss what the latest and best research says we should all be doing to improve our health and vitality and avoid disease. Rhonda shares with us her exact exercise, nutrition, supplementation, and sauna protocols. And we get really detailed about the mechanisms and logic behind each one. We also discussed the things that science say you can do to significantly reduce your cancer and cardiovascular risk, including how to reduce visceral fat and arterial plaque. Today's discussion truly leaves no stone unturned. We discuss how eating can increase inflammation, believe it or not, ways to support your gut health, creatine, vitamin D, why broad vitamin and mineral and fiber support is crucial, as well as the different forms of magnesium and each of their unique effects. We also discuss omega-3s and why prescription sources of omega-3s may be the cleanest and most cost-sufficient way to obtain sufficient omega-3 intake. We also discuss the importance of prioritizing regular resistance training and hit workouts over protein. You still need protein, but emphasizing the exercise component is crucial. And we discuss fiber, micronutrients, and why short-term fasting can be beneficial. Dr. Dr. Rhonda Patrick is a true wealth of knowledge and today she generously provides us a master class on how you can design and adjust the exact health protocols to meet your specific needs. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however part of my desire and effort to bring zerocost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Welcome back, Dr. Ronda Patrick. Excited to be here. It's been a while. I'm so excited. There's so much to go into. And I'll start off the same way I started last time because it's even more true. Thank you for being first person into this public science health education business. I don't know if everyone's aware of it, but you were the first person in, which is why I didn't say first man in because the first person in was and is a woman. and you've done a marvelous job of educating people on science, how to parse papers and data, health practices, and um you know, the rest of us are just trying to follow in your wake. So, thank you very much. I just want to thank you for being first. Oh, man. Thank you so much for that. And also, thank you for doing what you do. I mean, you really do a great service for science, communication, um you know, education, helping people love science and get healthier. Well, thank you. Well, uh you're the pioneer. It's not always easy being a pioneer, but we all benefit. So, let's jump in at exercise because um lately you've actually been posting your workouts, which is awesome. And uh you're clearly very fit. I learned before talking to you today that uh you were a competitive athlete. You were a long jumper or triple jumper. I was a long jumper, but I would say my real competitive athleteness comes from my jump roping. Okay. On a professional jump roping team. Professional. Yes. Yeah, it was it was we would compete. So I my friend and I started the team when we were in second grade and it was called the San Diego Sands Skippers. It was part of the International Rope Skipping Organization which was actually started by her uncle but there's jump rope teams all around the world and you know now I think there's a new name but like it got taken over by the Universal jump rope team or something like that. I don't know exactly what it is but um so I was on a team and every year we would compete in in Boulder, Colorado. There was competitions for all kinds of, you know, jumping rope and um I would perform and start jump rope teams around the school around different schools in San Diego. So I I used to get out of school um you know get out of school free card and uh my partner and I would go and and start um do workshops at other schools and help them start jump rope teams and the idea was cardiovascular health, healthy heart and uh yeah so so that's really I would say my my my roots with uh being a competitive athlete. Awesome. I love skipping rope. Is it okay to say skipping rope or is jumping rope the Okay, skipping rope. Jumping rope. And actually, it's a great opportunity for me to ask you what your thoughts are about um exercise that isn't just linear, right? I know like real jump ropers can do crossovers and um and these days I'm seeing a lot more about rope flow. I think it's David Week and others online are, you know, stuff that's getting people out of the standard, you know, curls, bench presses, lunges, you know, and getting movements that are more just, for lack of a better term, across the body. Do you think there's something to that in terms of real physical benefits? I mean, I imagine there is. Sure. I mean, I wouldn't be the expert to be able to give you a good answer on that, but I do think that jumping rope in general has unique benefits in addition to obviously it's a great cardiovascular exercise. You're getting the weightbearing aspects as well for building bone density. And I think that earlier for me, you know, I was doing it as a a young girl. So important, right? because you're kind of banking that that bone density early on, which is important because at some point, you know, menopause will hit and and uh estrogen goes down and and so you start to lose more bone. But um yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of benefits to jumping rope beyond what I'm describing as cardiovascular benefits and bone benefits that someone else could answer. I'm certainly going to get back to jumping rope now that we, you know, resurrected it in this conversation. And I have to say, um, uh, bone density measurements aside, you have awesome posture. I noticed people's posture. Oh, really? Yeah. I didn't didn't mean to put you on the spot here, but yeah. When I walked in, I was like, if you ever interacted with Rhonda in person, which I I have, you have amazing posture, and these days, good posture is rare. So, who knows? Maybe the things uh are related. I imagine they probably are. Bone health and posture and so forth. In terms of the sorts of exercise that people are more familiar with, what's your routine look like? and what sorts of things in your routine are non-negotiables and where's the place for experimentation and kind of what you're exploring now. So for me, exercise is part of my personal hygiene as you and I were discussing it. It really is a non-negotiable. I absolutely have to do exercise just like I have to brush my teeth. And um you know I kind of got that from Dr. Dr. Ben Lavine, who's a probably one of the world leading cardiovascular exercise physiologists. He's at UT Southwest in Dallas. Just want to shout out his name because I've really learned a lot from him. But the non-negotiables for me really are getting cardiovascular exercise and getting my my resistance training. So, building muscle, maintaining muscle strength as well. So, my routine for me, I work out probably about 5 to six hours a week. And those workouts, I largely am doing a combination of high-intensity interval training that's not necessarily like the Norwegian 4x4 where I'm going as hard as I can for one minute or four minutes and then recovering for three minutes and doing that four times. That's really, you know, the Norwegian 4x4 is a hard workout. Um, it's really good for improving your cardior fitness, which I think is one of the best markers for longevity. We can talk about that. Um, I do a lot of, you know, it's a it's a mixture of doing, you know, rowing machine, getting on the assault bike, and then doing mix it in mixing it in with lifting weights, doing some deadlifts, you know, doing squats. Um, so it's really for me a non-negotiable to to do my my vigorous intensity exercise is what I would call it. So, you're really kind of getting your heart rate up to, you know, 80% max heart rate at at points. Not always, but especially during the intervals. I would say that's a non-negotiable for me. How many days a week are you doing that? I do my my longer hit workouts. So, I have four days a week where I'm doing at least an hour. So, two of those two of those sessions are more of a CrossFit type of training where I'll do the first 30 minutes will be strength training. So, I'll just be lifting heavier with like, you know, fewer reps. What's the rest between sets? Sorry to get granular, but people will wonder. What's funny is I typically rest about 2 minutes between my sets. I I I recover pretty quick. Um, and my co I do it with a coach and my coach usually tells me that I'm spot on. I'm like ready to go and it's been about 2 minutes. So I I usually that's my recovery time. And so the first 30 minutes is strength training and that'll be like deadlifts. It'll be you know squats. I'll be cleaning. I'll be doing front squats. Sometimes I do barbell or back squats, right? like it's a mixture of different types of strength training. And then the last 30 minutes is more of a high-intensity interval training session session. So it'll be like, you know, where I'm I'm getting my heart rate up. So I'm mixing in the row machine and then I have like maybe I'm doing cleans but they're lighter, right? So it's like more reps but lighter load, right? So um that's I do that twice a week and that each is an hour session. And then I do also twice a week about an hour and 20 minutes of it's also more high intensity but I have more recovery time cuz I'm doing with my girlfriends and we kind of chitchat a little bit and so um but it's a very similar we do you know rowing machine assault bikes we do the skier you know Rogue has that skier and then we mix it in with you know chest presses and we do you know assisted pull-ups and we do you know lighter squats with like larger you know more reps. Mhm. So that's another, you know, two hours a week. So I have four hours a week of just doing a lot of that sort of CrossFit HIT type of training. And then I mix that in with my more like runs that I do, which I would say are still they're still considered vigorous intensity. They're just not quite as high intensity. And I I do probably I run in like maybe six miles a week. So maybe maybe at at my max, but these days I'm mostly running probably four like four miles a week. So um those runs tend to be like sometimes they're two miles, sometimes they're three miles. And you know, you enjoy running. I do. I do. And I think it's important as well. And sometimes I'll run with my husband and we just kind of like chill out and talk. And you know, it's it's a nice time for me as well just to kind of do that with him. Mhm. Um and then on weekends I'll probably do like a hike with my family and sometimes we'll do like a sprint up the hill and you know, but it's more just enjoyable time in nature. Um still moving but you know it's it's kind of family time too. Weight vests on the run or hike. No, I don't not I mean I'm kind of wanting to experiment with that but not really. I'm just kind of sometimes we bring our puppy and you know so it's it's more about the experience I think than like I'm like I get I get a lot of workout throughout the week. Sure. But it's like you said it's non-negotiable for me and and times when I'm like like today. So, you know, I had a long drive and so I I got on my Pelaton and I did a 10-minute you know I did a 10-minute Tabata back toback. So it was like two backto-back Tobatas, right? So it was it ended up being 10 minutes. It was like 30 second recovery in between the two Tbata sessions. 2 to1 ratio, 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. But like I have to do something every day and if I'm traveling or I have like an early podcast or something, I'll I'll just jump on the bike and I have to get that blood flow. Sometimes I'm in my hotel room and I don't want to go to the gym. I don't have time and I just in my room, you know, I do I do the air squats, I'll do high knees, jumping jacks, and I repeat for 10 minutes. I'm getting my heart rate up and I'm, you know, I've got sweat on my brow. Like I'm not it's not like the most intense workout, but it's so important for me. You know, there's there's a variety of brain benefits that have been shown with even just 10 minutes of this vigorous type of intensity of workout you do, you know, where you're I mean, you probably have seen this this data where it's like just 10 minutes of this vigorous type of exercise, you're immediately increasing neuronal connections. Um, there's been studies showing that you have an improvement in executive function by like 14%, which is pretty big. I think it was like a 50 millisecond improvement processing speed or something which doesn't sound a lot but actually it translates to a big improvement in executive function. So my brain works better, I feel better, you know, better mood. Um there's even studies that have compared impulse control after various types of intensity of workout. So like there's one study that compared a more low intensity versus moderate intensity versus high intensity. So, you're talking about like walking versus maybe, you know, jogging slowly where you can still have a conversation versus like you're doing a HIT workout, right? You're on. When you're on, you're not really talking because you're going as hard as you can during that interval. And it was the highintensity, you know, vigorous intensity exercise that really increased plasma serotonin, which has been shown to associate with brain serotonin. The studies have been done. And serotonin is very important for, as you know, for impulse control. I mean a lot of people think about serotonin with respect to mood because we have these selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors SSRIs that are used to treat you know depression major depressive disorder but serotonin as you know does so much more more than that and impulse control is one of the the the big things that serotonin plays a role in and so the studies showed that plasma serotonin increased in the higher intensity group and that correlated with improved impulse control. So, of course, for us now in the modern day society that we live in, we're constantly being bombarded with, you know, social media and all these things and like you have to be able to kind of like filter that out and not like just go with the impulse like check my social media, check my, you know, and how many likes did I get or whatever. You need to just be able to focus. And so that for me, you know, serotonin is important and so I like to get that vigorous intensity exercise as well. 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This information can help you make smarter choices to support your health both now and in the long term. The CDC estimates that more than one in three American adults has pre-diabetes and that many of these people don't know they are living with pre-diabetes. Visibility about how your diet and activity affect your glucose can be the first step toward informed conversations with your doctor and making smarter daily choices. If you'd like to try Lingo, Lingo is offering Huberman Lab listeners in the US and UK 10% off a four-week plan. Just visit hellingo.com/huberman for more information. Terms and conditions apply. Again, that's hellingo.com/huberman. I love that you mentioned other other functions of serotonin because, as you point out, it is so heavily associated with this mood aspect and certainly has a role there. But um the impulse control piece is I think is a non-trivial aspect to uh the effects of exercise and just generally I'm curious, do you um bring your phone or feel compelled to check your phone during workouts or are you able to just say I'm compartmentalizing now this is the workout. You might put on music or check maybe text here or there if you need to, but are you able to compartmentalize or um do you struggle with the the phone during workouts? Oh, I don't bring my phone to my workout at all. Like I don't Now I do have a watch that I wear that you know if there's like an emergency I'll get a text message. Oftentimes I put it on silent like I on no notifications though cuz I don't want to be bothered. But I don't I don't really check my phone. Um, I I I don't really like checking things like social media. For me, it's just a distraction. And frankly, I think it's terrible for people's brains. Even though like my business kind of depends on it somewhat, I think I think social media is not really good for people to be honest. Uh, so I don't really check my phone or bring my phone to my workouts. My workouts are I like to chat with my friends when I'm working out with them and that's fun. Yeah, that's in real life. Yes. as the kids say. Yeah, that's in real life. And um yeah, phones, phones for me are not something that I bring to my workout. Great. Yeah, I've um been experimenting with not allowing the phone in my gym and just the workouts go so much better. And I find that the mental and physical resetting aspect of working out just seems to be enhanced. But um sounds like you were already there and I'm just arriving. So, I have a couple other specific questions about your workouts because for my own interest and I know many people will wonder for the dedicated weight workouts. Are these whole body workouts? And you said low reps. Uh maybe you could just tell us what low reps is for you and then the uh seems like the the everpresent question is to failure, close to failure. I mean, um just to, you know, round out that that portion of the of the workout picture. The workouts that I'm doing with my strength training workouts with my coach, you know, it it really depends. Most of those workouts are they're they're multi- joint workouts. So I am most of the time doing you know some either front squat, back squat or I'm cleaning it as well, right? Which obviously the lake the weight goes down if I'm doing if I'm cleaning it cuz it's hard to clean. It's also the hard like it's the thing that I hate doing the most. Cleans. Oh yeah. cleans with front squat because it's really hard and for me I mean for others who've been doing it for years I'm sure it's like you know they love it but for me it's very hard. I've only been doing clean since, you know, February 2024. So, I'm pretty new to it. And so, it's mentally like I have to overcome that challenge. Which, by the way, once I started doing all this sort of weight training, I've always been an endurance junkie. Like I like I used to like go long runs and you know, races and stuff like that. So, for me, that's like my safe spot, right? That's what comes easy to me. uh weight training and resistance training, strength training, definitely not something that I've done my whole life. I'm so glad that I started doing it, but very very challenging for me. And so I would say the biggest effect was on my brain and the ability to handle stress better where it was like unbelievable cuz it was so hard and I I just didn't want to do these cleans, you know, and and and these front squats. Um and then the rest of my day was not as hard. And that to me was like the biggest surprise for this type of training. But anyway, so um I do a variety of um if I'm doing if I'm going heavier then it you know depends. Sometimes I'll start off it's like okay we start off we do five reps and then we go down to four and then we go down to three and then we go down to one. Right. You're doing singles. We do. Mhm. I Yeah. Yeah. And that's the hardest. It's the hardest. But then there's there's like my coach like it's just one. It's just one. You know, sometimes we'll do like six, five, and then we do four twice and then we do three twice, right? And so it all depends, you know, also on the day there's some days where I'm just like, you know, can we do lower reps and like lighter weight, right? Where I'm just like it's this is the day for me. I I'm I'm stressed. I'm not I'm not here. Like so you kind of have to modify your workout, right? According to how you feel that day. Um, but I would say that those the majority of my strength training workouts are or deadlifting. You know, I love deadl dead deadlifting. I think I'm pretty good at at pulling that weight up, lifting that weight up. A straight bar, hex bar. I do a straight bar script. There's so many variables. Straight bar, straight bar. And um it's the same deal with that. Like most of the time with strength training, we'll do, you know, we start off at like five or six and then work our way down. And then I I usually do a drop set after, you know, any of those sessions where I'll do 10 and then it's like a lot lighter, right? So those those are typically my strength training sessions or multi- joint. Sometimes I'll do accessory sessions, you know, where I'm working. I do, you know, the dips um or the Bulgarian, you know, the Bulgarian split squats. I mean, just the accessory stuff that you're working the like smaller stabilization muscles and stuff like that. I love that you call Bulgarian split squats accessory, smaller muscles. For a lot of people, that's the compound work, which is just I have to say I I'm inside I'm just like so delighted because I mean obviously uh weight training is something that's caught on broadly for men and women now. But I don't know many women, and I know they're out there, but I don't know many women who are uh working down to singles on multi- joint, like real mult multi- joint, like you know, deadlifts, cleans. I know they're out there, but it's not that common to see in gyms. And uh this is going to no doubt spark a debate because you know some of the older slightly orinary but very credentialed strength training folks have been online recently saying that as people um past 35 that they shouldn't do squats that they shouldn't do deadlifts and certainly shouldn't do them heavy because it is because of this whole thing of you know you can do higher reps and can go to failure and still get hypertrophy. But what I love is that you're not necessarily talking about hypertrophy. Maybe some hypertrophy, but this is about strength. This is about building more strength and triples and doubles and singles. That's awesome. It's hard. It's so hard. And it's the part that I I'm like all about. Let's like the last 30 minutes where it's hit and that's hard. It's a different kind of hard, but for me the strength training is the hardest. And there's definitely a mental component, right, where I do not want to do it. It's like you talk about with cold plunging, right? like you you just it's so unpleasant and you don't want to do it and like you do it and it's like that mental toughness that you're building right I that's what I experience when I'm doing these you know strength training exercises that I'm doing and and I don't know if it's going to get easier maybe it will hasn't yet I still I still dread it but I do it and uh I'm proud of myself for doing it but it is it's definitely hard and I am getting stronger I think mentally and obviously physically as Well, but um have to add in the aerobic as well though. I think that's really important. That's your base. Yeah, you love it. I love it. And I do think cardiorespiratory fitness is very important, you know, for for long-term health as well as, you know, obviously building muscle and strength. Well, on the one hand, I want for you as a friend to for you to hate the heavy work less. On the other hand, I don't because of this literature. I'm sure you're familiar with it, but uh the anterior mids singulate cortex, this brain area that is hyperlastic throughout the lifespan, which is rare for a brain area and it enlarges um when we do things we don't want to do. I mean, it's so clear it's not just about doing hard things about it's about doing the hard thing you hate. And and for you that sounds like the the heavy compound movements for me. Yeah. I don't like the cold plunge, which is why I do it. I don't think it's magic. I just think it's a it's a surefire stimulus that I hate to make get mentally stronger. And I think um having something that you really despise that you know is good for you seems to keep this anterior midsulate cortex volume either increasing or the same. And that's actually the thing in these so-called super aers that is the strongest anatomical coralate that we have. So on the one hand I hope it gets easier on the other hand for your sake I hope it doesn't get easier because it's still it's going to be so much more beneficial. I have a coach who can tell when it's getting easier and she will definitely up the weight. I I I mean it keeps I mean it keeps going up and so it doesn't it it gets easier in a sense but it doesn't right. So I mean I think that's that's the whole point is you're building strength and you keep making it heavier and it becomes harder again because now it's heavier. Awesome. But um and I haven't gotten injured so that's also you know knock on wood. Yeah. No, knock on wood. Um, thank you for rounding out that picture. It's super inspiring for men and women, you know. So, it's not easy to post on social media because obviously I'm a newbie, so I have all sorts of, you know, things that I can ways I can improve, but I'm posting it, you know. Well, and the fact that you're working down into triples, doubles, and singles, I think is um something that I'm trying to do more of. And I think um this notion that you can get hypertrophy with higher reps if you take it to failure. Sure. I I totally agree. Read the studies. totally agree with the data, but not everything is about hypertrophy. I think that's what people forget. It's not all about growing muscle. Um, NVO2 max, which is great, but it's just it's not all about um the top contour. And I what I love about the way you approach everything is you're you go through multiple layers of of the the health stratus as it were. This probably a good opportunity to talk about protein because I have a very specific question about protein. We all hear one gram of quality protein per pound of body weight or lean body weight. sort of what we're kind of what's thrown at us. By doing the heavier weight training, do you notice that your protein appetite has increased? Like appetite specifically for protein foods? I don't know that I have. You know, I interestingly have been doing a little bit more intermittent fasting in which you know people think about intermittent fasting, they think about it as just one thing, one intervention. I think it's two. there's a behavioral aspect to it where it's a tool to sort of lower the amount of calories you're taking in. The other one would be this metabolic switch. But so I've actually since I don't know September, maybe last September of 2025 been been doing more intermittent fasting. And what I mean by that is just really just eating less. And um the reason for that is because I noticed that everything that I was doing which was you know I'm I eat healthy I exercise a lot and yet I was sort of gaining more fat in the the belly section right the visceral fat and the only thing that really helped me stop that put the put the brakes on was getting more in a caloric deficit. Um, so maybe my drive to do that kind of is skewing whether or not my appetite for protein would go up. But I personally am on the scale of 1.2 to 1.6 g per kilogram body weight, which per kilogram per kilogram, which is probably a little bit less than the pound. You know, it's it's a kind of a throwaway statement. gram of quality protein um as defined as something with you know lots of the essential amino acids and uh uh so forth per pound or per lean pound of body mass which is something I think I and many other people shoot for but I'm curious how religious you are about the you know getting a certain protein amount or per meal basically it wasn't working for me in terms of like I was really trying to get aim for like the higher end of the for me you know 1.6 six grams per kilogram body weight or even a little bit above that. And what I found what was happening is that I was actually getting gaining more weight because I think I was consuming more calories at the same time is if you're getting it from whole foods, right? Like that's just kind of naturally going to happen. Uh and so I had to slide down. Um but I'm still I'm still like I said, I'm still getting within that range of like probably on average maybe 1.3 1.4 g per kilogram body weight. And it's really it's really worked well for me. But like people are different and you have different goals, right? You know, like I'm gaining muscle mass and I feel like all my training is like the most important thing. And I think that we need generally speaking, I think people should become more obsessed with training and less obsessed with protein. Like the protein will complement the training. And as you mentioned, if you're training perhaps your appetite for protein will increase and so you'll start to eat, you know, more protein and less refined carbohydrates. I already wasn't eating a lot of refined ultrarocessed foods in the first place. Probably not the answer you were expecting, but it's it's really u for me like I I just focusing on getting more protein was was not working for my body um in terms of but then again I'm 47 years old. You know that per menopause phase very different than someone who's 37 maybe. I don't know the answer to that. But I I um I do know that I hear from more and more people these days that they are having a hard time getting that one gram of protein per pound of body weight. It feels like a lot to them is what they're saying. They feel like they're kind of forcing themselves to do it. You shouldn't feel that way. Exactly. So, I'm actually really pleased with your answer. Not because I have an agenda here, but because I and many other people seem to feel like unless there's a lot of resistance training or tremendous demands like hiking, you know, while backpacking where if you burn tons of calories, you're carrying you're basically rocking like 9 hours a day, right? That um they have a hard time getting that much protein down. Um and I think that's also the case if people are eating starches. Like I eat rice and oatmeal and some breads and things like that. Not a lot of bread, but you know, it sounds like you eat starches. I do eat oatmeal, too. It does satiate you these days because I really kind of more focused a little bit on I I did want to calorically restrict somewhat without, you know, being unhealthy. Obviously, you can take every stressor to a bad unhealthy place, right? You don't want to starve yourself. You don't want to like not eat enough food. But, um, my my meals are mostly like healthy protein. So, I have homemade turkey burgers. eat a lot of I eat a lot of those and then I eat chicken, you know, I pasture-raised chicken. I do I do still eat wild Alaskan salmon and then I'll um also mix in some like filet minion like I like grass-fed steak as well. Yum. Those are my protein sources. And always I pair it with greens. So or like some sort of vegetable. Most of the times it's it's greens because they're the most most micronutrient dense. And so these days I'm eating a lot of sauteed collard greens that are like pre-prepared has garlic and onion and I'll put that, you know, have that with my meal or I'll have some, you know, sauteed kale. Sometimes I'll have a salad with it, but the portions are smaller. And like I said, I I also do a little bit of intermittent fasting. We can talk about that as well, but that's kind of these days what I'm doing for my meals. I haven't eaten as much. Sometimes I'll eat the high protein oats. They have those high protein oats that have you have you seen those? No, I eat oatmeal, but I I like protein foods. I like vegetables. I like fruit. I feel very lucky to like those foods mainly. And then the starch for me has to be very clean. I like oatmeal, rice, homemade pastas I'll eat. Like if I go out, I'll have sometimes I'll have some homemade pasta or a sourdough bread or something. But I find that most starches that are out there in the world have a bunch of other junk in them. And I just feel lousy, get kind of sleepy afterwards. So I uh so it sounds like we eat pretty similarly although I probably eat more starches than you do. It's the more processed types of carbohydrates that as you mentioned it's like you typically you don't feel good after you eat them and you know part of that's the post prenial inflammatory response because some of those foods are a little more inflammatory. I mean a lot of additives and stuff that are affecting the gut gut permeabilization you're leaking lipopolyaccharide into the bloodstream right that's activating the immune system. We used to inject I don't do any animal experiments anymore and I'm actually grateful to not do them. So I didn't like working on animals but it was what we did until I decided to work on humans. But we used to inject LPS um to stimulate an inflammatory response to kind of prime a regeneration response that you could get through macrofasages and things like that. And so LPS is a very potent way to generate local or even systemic inflammation. I think um hearing that some starches will stimulate LPS that's uh interesting. Squares with my experience. I'm not challenging. No, no, no. I'm I'm not challenging. It squares with my experiences. I'm one of these I never get stomach aches. I never get headaches. If I do, something's badly wrong with my stomach or my head. But if I eat certain starches, I'll be like, "Oh, like I feel lousy and I'm wondering if it's this." So, we have about a gram of LPS in our gut. Like that's on average because you know lipopolyaccharide is the outer component of the cell membrane of gram negative bacteria right yeast we have a lot of bacteria in our gut gram negative bacteria right trillions of bacteria in our gut so um when when we eat food typically like our gut epithelial cells they we have a tight junction that's holding them together when we eat food they transiently open and then close like it's kind of a normal response right um the the I would say the opposite end of the spectrum of that would be like celiac where they eat gluten or something, it opens up and stays open and so you get like a ton of LPS leakage into the system which causes massive inflammation. It just happens with meals in general. You do get somewhat of a LPS response from a meal. Now, the type of meal does matter. So, when I when I say refined carbohydrates, it's not necessarily like healthy, you know, carbohydrates like vegetables. It's like you're eating something that is refined sugar typically with saturated fat. So those types of foods really cause like LPS response. You know, it's it's it's inflammation. It's bad. It's hard on the gut. But the postprandial inflammatory response essentially is that LPS getting into the system activating the immune system which draws the energy. I mean, it's like it's very energy consuming to activate your immune system, right? Which why that's why when you're sick, you're so sleepy, too, right? Well, there's also cytoines that are sologenic and promoting sleep, but like activating your immune system requires a ton of energy. And so when you're constantly activating the immune system, you know, that's an energy sink, right? And so you do feel tired. And that's why a lot of times after a meal, you're feeling kind of lethargic. Do protein foods uh of the sort that you listed off before um do they cause less uh opening of the tight junctions of the gut? I think the the the big deal with the the opening of the tight junctions in the gut is, you know, I mean, eating eating a big meal will do it. Eating a very like ultrarocessed food meal will do it. Interestingly enough, just eating a bunch of saturated fat without a fiber matrix. So like like butter, you're just like eating butter. Don't ever do that. But like if you just eat butter, that's been shown. My niece when she was little, now she's all grown up, but when she was little, I uh I taught her how to eat like a little bit of KY Gold butter and she loved it. So then we would do this thing where we'd we do that. Um we won't do that anymore. I mean, a little bit's fine, but like I'm I mean there's there's studies showing that it does like saturated fat is hard on the gut. Yeah. Like I said, it's a sliding scale. Like meals in general do it, but it's like you would it's like you would think the healthier foods that you're eating like whole foods, you're getting less of that LPS response. And then of course there's gluten and that complicates the whole story especially for people that are celiac right because that's which is a small percentage of people are actually celiac right but a lot of people seem to believe and I believe them that when they eat gluten they feel worse than when they don't eat gluten I'm sure there's some people that are sensitive to gluten that do feel worse and then I'm sure some of that's the noibo effect right that's been shown with gluten in in particular did you have you seen that study where people there's been so so there were people that think they're, you know, glut gluten sensitive. And so they were enrolled in this study and um these individuals were separated into two groups. One group was getting given the gluten bread with gluten and the other group was given the bread without gluten. And the people that were given the bread without gluten had a terrible, you know, abdominal like they were bloated. They felt terrible. I mean, it was all and there was no gluten in the actual bread, but they thought there was. So it was thought that there's a noibo effect where it's like the opposite of a placebo effect where you just you you've got that phenotype where you think things negative are going to happen and you can make them happen. You can change your immune system, you can change your brain signaling and you know so probably a combination of both with that regard in addition to like the lethargy. So we're I was talking about in the context that's why it sparked my you know interest is like you were talking about feeling tired after a meal and I do think that is part of that reason for feeling sleepy but you know what's interesting about LPS you talked about injecting it into mice and I've also done experiments injecting LPS into mice. There have been studies where people have been injected with an amount of LPS that is, you know, similar to what you would find your gut releasing into your bloodstream or a placebo control, which in this case was saline. And individuals that were injected with the LPS, high amounts of inflammatory markers like TNF alpha, I mean, we're talking like up to 50% increase o over baseline, right? So high amounts of inflammation, which makes sense. LPS is activating the immune your immune system is like there's a foreign invader, right? It's not a foreign invader. It's just the food you ate that caused transient gut permeability. And those individuals also feel depressive symptoms and feelings of like social withdrawal. So the inflammation is affecting the brain, right? These inflammatory factors are getting the brain, crossing the bloodb brain barrier and affecting the way we feel. And we know now that inflammation plays a big role in major depressive disorder and depression. Not in all cases, but there's a subset, right, where it's really like it does. It seems to play a big role. In fact, interestingly, there's been some studies showing that people that are that don't respond to SSRIs are have very high amounts of C reactive protein. So, this was the biomarker for a classical biomarker for inflammation. I would argue it's not that sensitive, but nonetheless, it is a biomarker for inflammation. And so, people that um don't respond to SSRIs have high amounts of inflammation, which kind of raises this question of is there like this subset of depression that's really inflammatory driven, right? Um interesting. So, so the LPS is affecting not only our our energy levels but also our mood. And then you know there's there's also evidence that so we know that LPS binds to LDL particles through lipid lipid interactions. And in fact, it's kind of part of the adaptive response. It's why you don't want to ever go get your cholesterol measured like after right after you're sick or had a very stressful event, something that causes inflammation because you will increase VLDL production increases and LDL production increases and it's sort of an adaptive response to bind that LPS to prevent it from you know causing more damage and so it actually binds to LDL particles on the apo protein. So apo B is a protein that is on these lipoproteins and it's a a very important protein because that is what's used by the LDL receptors present on our liver to recycle LDL particles. And so what happens is these these LPS particles are now bound to you know our our lipoproteins and our lipoproteins are still doing their function right they're going around and they're they're they're giving you know triglycerides and and fatty acids and to some degree cholesterol to our cells that need it right we're constantly making new cells and repairing and we our cells need that as they donate triglycerides and fatty acids they get smaller in size the lipoproteins you probably heard of small dense LDL right like that's a very dangerous type of LDL article and that's one that's kind of been donating along getting rid of tro triglycerides and um whatever if you think about a train with cargo it's donating the you know dropping off the cargo and so um when it's time to get recycled back into the liver what do you know the apo proteins obscured by that LPS and it's not recycled and so it gets lodged into the arterial wall and because there's an LPS bound to this you know small dense LDL particle macrofasages which are as you mentioned it's like the first line of defense against something like a bacterial invader right it comes and chews it up right gets rid of the problem so macrofasages come in because they're seeing this signal of LPS and think it's a foreign invader when it's actually just a small dense LDL particle bound to LPS that came from the gut tries to engulf it but it can't because it's not bacteria and you get the macrofase stuck to that lipoprotein LPS you know complex and you get the formation of a foam cell. You probably heard of a foam cell. It's the beginning of atheroscerosis. And so this is where gut health and the food we eat is sort of it's linked to cardiovascular health, right? Gut permeability, getting that LPS into our circulation. It's actually not a very good thing because you're you're basically, you know, slow dripping in that inflam inflammation, that inflammatory signal and it's wreaking havoc in our arteries, on our brain. As many of you know, I've been taking AG1 for nearly 15 years now. I discovered it way back in 2012, long before I ever had a podcast, and I've been taking it every day since. The reason I started taking it, and the reason I still take it, is because AG1 is, to my knowledge, the highest quality and most comprehensive of the foundational nutritional supplements on the market. It combines vitamins, minerals, prebiotics, probiotics, and adaptogens into a single scoop that's easy to drink, and it tastes great. It's designed to support things like gut health, immune health, and overall energy. And it does so by helping to fill any gaps you might have in your daily nutrition. Now, of course, everyone should strive to eat nutritious whole foods. I certainly do that every day. But I'm often asked, if you could take just one supplement, what would that supplement be? And my answer is always AG1 because it has just been oh so critical to supporting all aspects of my physical health, mental health, and performance. I know this from my own experience with AG1 and I continually hear this from other people who use AG1 daily. If you would like to try AG1, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to get a special offer. For a limited time, AG1 is giving away six free travel packs of AG1 and a bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your subscription. Again, that's drink AG1 with the numeral one.com/huberman to get six free travel packs and a bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your subscription. Thank you for explaining that so clearly because I don't think anyone has ever explained how exactly gut health is signaling cardiovascular health or pushing or pulling down on or raising cardiovascular health. As a neuro guy, I think about the vagus nerve as the primary conduit between gut and brain and it I was recalling that LPS injected into the gut is how you actually experimentally induce a fever because the and if you cut the Vegas no fever. So there's this there seems to be something about the way that the gut communicates with with the brain and other organs that is critically dependent on the uh some threshold level of of of LPS. And thank you also for reminding us that LPS is present in the gut because we have yeast in our gut, some amount of of yeast. You mentioned tight junctions and the way I think about tight junctions, please correct me because I'm going to get some or all of this wrong, is that essentially uh they form like a a cellar fence in the gut and that transient opening or partial opening of these is a normal process. But it sounds like after a meal some bacteria when you say leaks out into our system, it's literally going into the bloodstream. So now we have bacteria circulating and if some of that is small enough to get across the bloodb brain barrier that's another way that bacteria can start to cause inflammation at the at the brain level. It's LPS which is like the outer component of bacteria that have died. Um actual live bacteria getting in. I don't know as much about that perhaps as well, but I know that the LPS is getting in and I do know that the LPS, you know, activating the immune system and stuff and the resident gal cells and stuff in the in the brain um does break down the bloodb brain barrier. It's like the early like we know neuroinflammation is really some of the early parts of breaking down of the bloodb brain barrier which is the early stages of neurodeenerative disease. it is how the gut is gut health is linked to the brain and to neurogenerative disease as well. So, um it's the inflammation I think that's really um it's it's really powerful in terms of it's it's a driver of the aging process in general like this inflammation inflammaging you've you've heard of inflammaging you know I think I think now it's pretty clear to me that is if you're thinking about the molecular events that are leading to these hallmarks of aging which lead to the phenotypes and you know frailty and the diseases right like type two diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, like go upstream of that and the inflammation is at the core of it. And so we hear this word inflammation a lot and it's like what does it mean? You know, and it's a lot it means a lot of things. It's not just the gut. The gut is a a component of it, but there's other things as well, right? I mean, you can have stress, um, you know, any emotional stress like that can lead to inflammation. Um, not getting enough sleep, right? There's a lot of things that can that can lead to inflammation and um so it is kind of an important point to think about is is really like trying to have your inflammation low, right? And how do you do that? I'm going to take three different jumping off points here, all related to what you said. So, um don't think I'm a random uh subject generator here. We will get back to fasting, I promise. Lately, you've posted a bit about glutamine as a potential tool to perhaps buffer the immune system under times of stress. I've also been interested in uh llutamine as a way to reinforce tight junctions in the gut. I don't know if that literature is robust or not. I have to say I started taking llutamine years ago in times when I was working a lot, not sleeping enough because someone told me it would help me not get sick. And indeed, I didn't get sick as much as the imaginary control experiment that I never got to do. Meaning, I don't know if it helped or not, but I continue to take uh llutamine uh when I'm feeling run down. I take a couple of other things, too. But could you tell us about how or if or how llutamine is important for gut health and if and how elutamine might be helpful for reinforcing the immune system? There's not a ton of evidence in terms of like what's in the scientific literature supporting these statements, but there is some, you know, and it's enough to kind of go, well, I'm going to try to maybe experiment with it. So, you know, I first became interested in in glutamine because when I was doing my graduate research, I was doing a lot of cancer metabolism studies and I would do nutrient withdrawal and I would, you know, remove glucose from cancer cells and see what would happen. And it's like, okay, well, I would get I would remove glucose from from, you know, lymphoma, cancer cells in the petri dish, and a lot of them would die, but they wouldn't all die. And it was like, why aren't they all dying? Turns out, well, they had glutamine there. So, glutamine was enough to sustain them. Um, and and so glutamine can be converted into many things. So, glutamine can be an amino acid, right? It's amino acid. Glutamine can be converted into the um the KB cycle. So it can be converted into intermediates that are used to make energy by the mitochondria and glutamine can be converted into glutamate, right? Neurotransmitter, right? So there's a lot of pathways and different fates for glutamine. So I um became interested in in that because it was like oh glutamine's important for the survival of these cancer cells. Um then I was doing a lot of activating immune cell studies as you know my my graduate adviser uh is an immunologist by training and so I was also doing that. Turns out glutamine was essential for the activation of immune cells. So that was kind of always in the background of my mind. And then in my postto I did my postto with Dr. Bruce Ames and my colleague Dr. Mark Shaganaga was doing a lot of gut work and this is why I know a lot about the LPS and the gut like it's from him like brilliant guy. He's now a photographer, like not in science at all, but brilliant guy and did a lot of really amazing experiments looking at, you know, gut permeability and things that can help buffer, you know, gut permeability. And one of those things were glutamine. So glutamine can get converted into these intermediates that are used by mitochondria in the gut epithelial cells. And so that's like an easy source of energy as well for the gut. Now, these are all animal studies, right? So take it with a grain of salt, right? cuz at some point, you know, in my in my opinion, animal studies are are really important for understanding the mechanism behind why things work and we need human studies, you know, as well. Looking at the totality of evidence is important. It's the human studies that were lacking. There's not a ton of them there. The ones that I have found more compelling, um, not necessarily, I mean, with the gut health, it's it's, you know, it's sparse with humans. um I found more compelling with respect to glutamine and human studies was the immune system. And this is where I started putting connecting the dots, right? Where I started coming across this literature of these endurance athletes who do get a higher amount of respiratory tract infections, you know, like when I mean endurance athletes, I mean these guys that are like outr running marathons all year. Like they're just constantly training for a marathon, right? And so they're really like they're putting a lot of demand, right? energetic expenditure is happening at a really high rate. So, um they are they're more prone to respiratory infections. And there's a few studies out there showing that if these athletes take a higher dose of glutamine, I think it's like 30 grams or something high like that, that they had a lower incidence of respiratory tract infections than ones that weren't doing it. And then I went back to my, oh, I know that glutamine is really important for T- cell activation. And I was like, I'm going to take this because being being a being a mom and having a child that's bringing everything home like a vector, you know, you're like desperate. You're the experiment. Yeah. Exactly. And I never used to get sick ever. Like I would never get sick. And then all of a sudden I was getting sick like three times a year and I was like, do I have cancer? Like what's going on? Like I I literally was like worried. Um and and then I started taking glutamine. Now, I take it just I only take five grams on a daily basis, but if if my son's sick, if there's any exposure, if it's like during the season, if I'm traveling, I go up to 15. I go up to 20 at once because it can be a little hard on the gut, right? Not all at once. Not all at once. I usually do it like in fives. So, I do five grams, five grams, five grams. And, you know, I have to with a caveat of I do that, but I also take a lot of creatine as well. And so, I don't know which one or both, but like I really don't get sick. I'm not getting sick and even even if it's brought home in my house, I'm not getting sick. And maybe it's a placebo and you know what, I am a-ok okay with that because placebo effect is real as long as I'm not getting sick. Um, so I do think I think with the glutamine, you know, it's not something that I would feel comfortable saying that it's there's a lot of evidence. It's overwhelming and with confidence that it's improving gut health and it's improving immune, you know, it's going to help give your immune cells energy particularly if they need to be activated, you know, upon exposure to any pathogen. But I feel like it's worth experimenting with. Um perhaps maybe if someone has colon cancer, that would be more of a concern because I did mention that cancer cells, cancer cells love everything, anything that's good for you, right? Folate, I mean, if you don't have enough folate, you can cause double stranded breaks to your DNA which lead to mutations that lead to cancer. But if you have cancer and you take a bunch of folate, you need folate to make new DNA and so they like the folate, right? So it's like it's an abnormal growth. So, anything that's associated with drug mtor I saw the recent study on torine which scared a lot of people because torine's in a lot of energy drinks but that was an in vitro study. Um yes I was going to ask you know um it is there increased cancer risk if you're supplementing with glutamine because cancer cells like glutamine. So my personal opinion I'm obviously not a medical physician. This is not a prescription. It's just my opinion. I I personally am not scared of getting cancer from taking glutamine. If I had a colon tumor and a tumor in my colon, the the first site that the glutamine is seeing maybe the liver as well since that's also the next step. But uh barring like having a tumor already in my liver or in my colon, those would be the only, you know, types of situations that I would be worried about taking glutamine. I don't think it's going to cause cancer. Right now, I guess the question is like what if you don't know you have? Well, hopefully the cost will come down on whole body MRIs. actually the cost is coming down on whole body MRIs that hopefully more people are able to get those. It's not just such a high-end exclusive thing in the near future. Kind of like blood draws used to be like like panels of blood testing. You only got them if you really needed them. Now the cost of blood draws is really low, So hopefully uh people will be more aware. Yeah, I I will take a tablespoon of glutamine once or twice or three times a day if I'm feeling run down. You mentioned being exposed to pathogens from vectors of different sorts. Before we went on, Mike, we were talking about Knack an acetylcysteine. Um, I take it once a day uh consistently, but I'll take it three times a day if I'm traveling a lot because I'm around sick people when I travel, especially in winter. Um, or if I feel like I'm getting run down. And there the data are pretty interesting. There's at least one study showing that it reduced flu transmission um where people were deliberately exposed to flu. I think it took the number of people that contracted flu compared to the placebo group somewhere from the high 70% area. I'm don't remember the exact number now. We'll put a link to the study down to maybe high 20s which is pretty impressive. And an ER doc came on this podcast uh Roger Schwelt who um and said he was a big proponent of of analysteine for people that are around sick people. Do you take knack? So my only concern with taking on a daily basis is it is a pretty powerful antioxidant and you know I think that we need to understand like antioxidants and the opposite which should be generating oxidation right like it's not it's not like oxidation is bad it's bad when it's constant slow drip oxidation that's damaging you know other parts of our body DNA proteins lipids some oxidation you want like if you're exercising right there's a burst of oxidation to get the adaptation to get the adaptations and so my concern would be for one maybe timing it around your exercise so not taking it close to when you're exercising and these studies come out of you know studies that have been done with highdose vitamin E plus vitamin C I haven't seen a lot of vitamin C studies alone that are blunting exercise adaptations there's maybe one at a high dose most of the time it's vitamin C and vitamin E vitamin E alpha tcopherol when I say high dose Usually it's 400 IUs. Just to give you a reference point, the RDA is like 24 IUs or something. So we're talking But a supplement can be 200 to 800. So it wouldn't be hard to blunt that exercise effect by accidentally. Yeah. I don't take vitamin E. It spiked my prostate specific antigen, which I was told is a is a known effect among urologists. The select trial was done. So the select trial was um was looking at selenium and vitamin E and if it could slow the progression of prostate cancer and it turned out that um the opposite was found and it was really kind of due to this high dose of alpha tcopherol which also has other effects of um lowering another type of vitamin E in the body called gamma tcopherol which is anti-inflammatory and I think that has something to do with inflammation actually can increase the PSA right so anyways Um, the point here is that with Knack, my only concern would be, you know, blunting the the oxidation that you're getting from beneficial because I know you're highly active. I'm training hard. I don't want my train to be shortcircuited from Knack. I'm perfectly happy to only take Knack if I'm feeling run down or exposed to um illnesses around me where I feel like that's when I take it, but it's mostly because of I wasn't familiar with the flu influenza data. That's interesting. I was just it's good for lung health too like so although if smokers take it I think it has the opposite effect where again it's like the can the the precancerous cells are using it to their benefit you know we used to think antioxidants oh it's so good you know just more more more and it turns out it's not the case right like and that's why a lot of these other types of hormetic stressors or plant phytochemicals they're actually generating an antioxidant response endogenously in our body by activating these antioxidant pathways which are so much more powerful than what you would get from an antioxidant, right? And so that's kind of it's not that you don't want some antioxidants, it's just like you don't want to overdose on taking too much knack and too much vitamin C and too much vitamin E because there's also something called reductive stress. So we know about oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is when you're, you know, you're you're again, you're causing these these reactive oxygen species to damage things like your DNA, for example, and over time eventually that happens in a part of the gene that can be encogenic and lead to cancer. Well, reductive stress is is like the opposite of that. So, it's like too much of the um reducing equivalents like the, you know, the NADH, the NADPH, the you know, so and it also has negative effects. So you kind of don't want to go too far on either ends of the of the spectrum, but also you want to instead of having this like slow leaking effect of these prooxidants where that are happening from eating a bad diet, from you know inflammation, things like that. You want it to be a short burst where you switch it on, you have the adaptation, it's off, right? And the adaptation the adaptation happens in the recovery period, right? When you're, for example, if you exercise, that's a big burst of reactive oxygen species that is beneficial and you want it, right? And you don't want to blunt those adaptations. And so that's that's kind of my concern with daily dosing of Knack. Great. I don't cold plunge in the 6 to8 hours after uh resistance training for exactly the reason you're talking about. Yeah. I want the inflammation. I want the increased blood flow. I don't want to short circuit that. I'm perfectly happy to only take Knack under conditions where I'm bit run down and and that's also when I I'll take glutamine. If you take llutamine regularly, I I personally observe that I get stronger um at a steady state of of starch intake. And I don't like dropping starches too low because I get weak. And I also can't sleep as well if my starches are too low. I just am too wired. Yeah. There's a there was a new study on on eating starches and improving sleep. Yeah. And I'm so grateful for that because for several years I talked about that on the podcast and people said, "Oh, you know, he's gorging himself with pasta and then passing out and that's the worst time." I wasn't saying that. I'm saying that if you're not if you're running like crazy, I'll hear from marathoners and ultra people when people are doing a million things. They'll say, "I'm not sleeping well." And they're exercising like crazy. It's like, "Well, when was the last time you had a bowl of pasta?" Like, "Oh, no. I don't eat pasta." And they're like, and then they'll have some rice or some pasta. Like, oh, I slept like a baby. And they were having it at lunch. Yeah. And I just think that the the brain doesn't shut down well when you have high levels of cortisol. And the cortisol starch thing is an interesting one. I'm so glad you brought this up because I think um this is something I did want to talk about really and it has to do with stop eating 3 hours before bed for that very reason. So there was a new even a new stud but there's been several studies now really showing that this is important for that cardiovascular reset right your parasympathetic activity is supposed to go higher. You're in your rest and recovery phase, right? When you're eating food, that's the sympathetic activity, right? You're that's activating the sympathetic nervous system as you're eating. Yeah. Yeah. And even as you're digesting. So, you have to think about it like you digest what it takes like five or so hours to fully finish about depending on the meal. Depending on the meal, right? So if you're eating, you know, right before you go to bed, you are you are you are not in that parasymp sympathetic activity, you know, part of the part of the, you know, cycle that you want to be in. So um there was a new even a new study that I shared like I don't know a couple days ago even showing that if you stop eating 3 hours before bed. So these people were actually um it's interesting there they had their blood pressure measured for starting in the mid afternoon all the way throughout the night. This is the first study that really not just one end point looking at blood pressure but just me measuring it continuously I don't know if it was every 15 minutes or something like that but um it was found that their during sleep if they had stopped eating 3 hours before bed versus the group that did not stop eating 3 hours before bed their blood pressure dipped like lower. So you get that you that barrerow reflex dipping right? So this is like part of the parasympathetic activation as you know very important for you the blood pressure to go down. heart rate went down like you know much much lower and that reset is so so important for cardiovascular health. I think what was found was it was something like um translated to like 20% lower risk of cardiovascular events like heart attacks. So it's really pretty significant. Yeah. And it really is an easy thing to do to think about stopping eating you know 3 hours before you go to bed. Like that's that's something I think that is not that hard to implement and it will improve your sleep as well as your cardiovascular health. Although I think in that study I don't know that sleep was really it was subjective and I don't think it really was improved more but other studies have found that as well that sleep does improve. I know Satchin Panda he's been on my podcast your podcast he's had studies showing that it seemed like stop stop eating three hours before bed really does seem to improve sleep. But this parasympathetic activation, you know, you don't want to have a meal right before your bed because you want you want to be in the rest and recovery part, right? So, yeah, I think people hear uh and I understand why the nomenclature and the buzzwords of, you know, fight or flight for sympathetic and rest and digest for parasympathetic, but yeah, the evidence shows eating stimulates the sympathetic nervous system. It's not a stress event, but it it's a it requires energy. Anything that requires energy raises body temperature and your body's doing work. It's an awake event. It's an you don't put it while you're sleeping. Yeah. And that's why these phrases, while I don't demonize anyone for creating the, you know, fight or flight. Well, I mean, there's ways that you want your sympathetic nervous system to activate that are not about fight or flight. Like I actually think if people just got the first hour of their day more active and energized, bright light, exercise, caffeine if you're me and Lord knows I'm grateful that caffeine exists in the first hour of the day or first hours if you can't manage that because of schedule and then the last hour of the day was strongly parasympathetic. I mean everything would get better without having to think a ton about exactly how you're doing that because on a given day you just do what you can and that's what you want, right? I mean so cortisol is circadian dependent as you know. I mean, in the like early morning of early hours of the morning, that's when you want it to peak, right? The part of the awakening response, like you want it to go up. And it's it's interesting. I I the reason I'm going on this is because it's a little bit of a um soap box for me, but so with with the with the cortisol activation, um people don't realize this, you know, obviously it's a hormone and it's binding to two different receptors. There's the gluccocorticoid receptor and then there's the mineral ocorticoid receptor. And both of those um when cortisol binds to it, they go into the nucleus of the cell and they're changing the expression. So they're activating genes and deactivating genes like 20% of the human genome. It's a large percentage, right? And this is on multiple different organs. So it's it cortisol has a very important role and you want that peak. You want that spike, right? That's what you want. And then you want it to shut off. And there are things that can activate it obviously like in the morning going out bright light exposure as you mentioned like that's very important for that cortisol awakening response but you can also like like intensity intense exercise can switch it on. Um, but what's interesting and so can intermittent fasting that it what's interesting is there's studies from Mark Matson's lab showing that you know the types of of of stressors that are beneficial these hormatic stressors like exercise like you know intermittent fasting um perhaps even cold exposure like these types of exposures change the receptor density of the receptors. So if you if you look at what activates cortisol in a negative way, chronic stress, let's say emotional, financial, psychological, um chronic sleep deprivation, right? That bad type of stress, you're getting you're not getting a big spike, you're getting a slow drip of it. And so what happens is when you have that type of stress, you're increasing the gluccocorticoid receptors and you're decreasing the minocorticoid receptors. There's a different biological response in the brain, in the hypothalamus, but also in, you know, other organs as well when you're when you're activating cortisol through a beneficial type of stress, the hormatic stressors like like intermittent fasting, like exercise. Um, I believe probably deliberate cold exposure as well where um it's a different biological response. And also, if you think about it, you know, you actually want cortisol to do its, you know, function. You want it to change the expression of that's what it's supposed to do, right? The problem is is when you have that slow drip, then you know, not only are you're you're increasing they're changing the receptor, you know, activation, but also they become resistant to the cortisol and so you're not getting the benefits. You know, cortisol represses inflammation, right? It's it suppresses the immune system, but like so you're not getting that anti-inflammatory effect from cortisol. It's being disregulated. And that's what you don't want. You don't want cortisol to be disregulated in terms of like the genes that it's supposed to activate or deactivate. You want it to be doing what it's supposed to. It's supposed to regulate. We're supposed to have the cortisol, you know, activation response. So, um, anyways, I that's something that I kind of want to clear in people's minds because I feel like a lot of people get worried about, oh my gosh, I'm doing, you know, HIT and it's activating my cortisol. Well, that's fine. It's like, you know, I mean, I guess if you do too much HIT, right, you can always take something to the extreme. Okay, with that caveat, obviously I'm not talking about that, but with that caveat, like you do you you want your body to be able to turn it on and then turn it off and have the adaptation, have the response, right? And like I said, it's a different biological response than than the chronic type of cortisol activation that you get with the bad types of stress. Yeah, I guess same goes for intermittent fasting. And maybe you could share with us what your intermittent fasting protocol is. I know that recently cortisol has been like increasingly demonized as the stress hormone stress hormone and people saw pictures of people with Cushings disease which is you know a drastically elevated cortisol and the moon face and the excessive visceral fat and and this this sort of um fearmongering around cortisol was particularly directed toward women and this entered the health fitness space because I think in an appropriate way I'll just be very direct here I don't like I no longer tap dance around who said, you know what, in a very appropriate way, um, that I appreciate, uh, Dr. Stacy Sims came on the podcast and she said, "Listen, some women shouldn't train fasted because they don't feel well when they train fasted and their cortisol is too high and so forth." That captured a lot of people's experience. A lot of women in particular, but some men certainly were like, "Yes, oh my god, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." But then the they the message got contorted, right? as it does, right? And then it became women shouldn't train fasted. And then we had Lauren Keno Simple on this podcast who's a, you know, trained as a PhD. She has a background in nutrition, physiology, strength training coach, etc. And she said, "No, listen, you can train fasted or not fasted as a woman or a man. It's kind of your preference, but that we don't need to fear these cortisol spikes." And forgive me for going long here, but I think it is important that people hear this um again, which is there's also this idea that deliberate cold exposure increases cortisol, but when you look at the data, it definitely increases adrenaline. And peripheral dopamine and probably, I'll go on record, it probably central dopamine, although we don't have as good evidence for that yet, but there evidence points to the fact that deliberate cold exposure lowers cortisol. So this then you know because and again I think Stacy appropriately said a lot of women who want to use cold shouldn't go as cold but the message got contorted and it became women shouldn't do deliberate cold exposure because of the cortisol increase. And so part of the reason I'm going long here is I'm trying to correct the narrative on her behalf. She said do what works for you, right? And that's what Lauren's saying and I'm guessing um that's what you'll say as well. Um, but I just need to get that out there because the message has gotten totally pretzel twisted up and cortisol is neither good nor bad. You want it high in the morning, you want it low at night. Um, in general, um, it sounds like you train fasted. I listen to how I feel. That's exactly what I do. So, what what your podcast guest and and the researchers are talking about is exactly. There are times when I wake up in the morning and I'm like, I need to eat something before I work out and I do. Um, but I oftentimes do train fasted one because I am practicing intermittent fasting again. But I do it I'm not like starving myself. And like I said, the reason there's multiple reasons I do it. One reason is because it really did help me lose the belly fat, which is the visceral fat, which is like the worst kind of fat you can have. And we can talk more about that. Um, but the second reason is I love the cognitive benefits I have in the morning with it. And it's the main reason I do it. And so there are many times what I do train fasted, but I am not out running 15 miles. Most of my my like I said my sessions are about an hour long. And am I taking a little bit of a performance hit with the high intensity? Probably. Probably yes. But it's not much to matter for me. And you do burn a little bit more fat if you train fasted. I mean that's known. Um you will if it is a longer session, you will take an performance enhancement hit. That is also known, right? So, I think it really does come down to like what is your goal? How do you feel? And and then you kind of go with that. And I I completely agree. Like there are times when, you know, I'm on my cycle and I feel fine and I'm working out just fine. And there are time other times that I'm like I don't feel good. Like I'm going to I'm going to take it easier. I still train. I just you listen to your body. And I that's a pretty easy I think rule of thumb. Sometimes people like to complicate things. You know, I don't there's lots of reasons why. I don't we don't need to get into that. I have theories. Yeah, I have theories, but they're not important right now. No, it's not important. Yeah. So, so yeah, I do I do train fasted and it is um for me it is helped me tremendously change my body composition. Like I said, I'm in a different part of my life than perhaps a 30-year-old woman is, right? So, when I was 30, I mean, like I I didn't have to train fasted. It was it was it was easy to keep, you know, the the belly fat, the visceral fat lower. Um, hormonal changes are do play a role in the way your body, so estrogen plays a role in telling your body how to store fat. So subcutaneous fat would be the kind of fat that you can just like pinch, right? The the fat that we see. The visceral fat, that's that deep fat that's lining your organs. It's often belly fat, you know, and it's lining the intestines, the liver, you know, it's it's it's it's an it's almost like an endocrine organ. I mean, because it is secretreting hormones. It's secretreting inflammatory factors. It's metabolically active. It's constantly breaking down triglycerides. It's associated with double the increased risk double the risk of early death. Um people that have high visceral fat have 44% higher chance of having cancer. Many different types of cancers. Wow. It's huge. It's huge. You know, and and of course insulin resistance is the number one problem with visceral fat, right? And I'd love to to talk about that, but um if you want I mean we can we can get into that. Yeah. It's it's so with the visceral fat and like I said, you know, visceral fat is something if you really directly want to measure it, you do a DEXA scan. But you know, for the average person that isn't going to go out and do a DEXA scan, waist circumference is a proxy. It's used in a lot of studies. So women that have a waist circumference of 35 in or above are considered to have a higher amount of visceral fat. Men that have a waist circumference of 40 in or above are considered to have higher amount of visceral fat. It's also that belly fat. like you can you can you just know right um interestingly like 70% of women over the age of 50 have high visceral fat 50% of men over the age of 50 do you know again coming down to women go through menopause estrogen plays an important role in telling the body you know to store the fat subcutaneously rather than viscerally deep around organs and so as women transition to pmenopause you know the years before menopause and menopause it their estrogen goes down and that does change the way the body stores fat. And any woman that's going through either of those stages knows it. And it's also why you see often women over the age of 50 with more belly fat, right? I mean, that's something that I think it's it's hard to deny, but um it's it's one of the reasons why I kind of went back to practicing intermittent fasting because there's a there's a couple of ways that you can really powerfully lose visceral fat. and one of them is doing aerobic exercise, high-intensity…

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