recap/history/1775224185561-C0DMdUqF73Q.json

{"id":"1775224185561-C0DMdUqF73Q","videoId":"C0DMdUqF73Q","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0DMdUqF73Q","title":"The Best Vitality & Health Protocols | Dr. Rhonda Patrick","type":"youtube","topicCount":28,"segmentCount":649,"createdAt":"2026-04-03T13:49:45.561Z","uploadDate":"20260323","chunks":[{"title":"Intro & Short Burst Exercise","summary":"Dr. Andrew Huberman introduces Dr. Rhonda Patrick, acknowledging her pioneering role in science-based health education, and briefly previews the massive benefits of short 'exercise snacks'.","entries":[{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: There's a lot 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 outsized effects on, on health outcomes. So for example, individuals that do on the high end, so they're doing, you know, three 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 nine minutes a day, okay? That's associated with a 40% reduction in all-cause mortality, 40% reduction in cancer-related mortality, and 50% reduction in cardiovascular-related mortality.","offset":0,"duration":36},{"text":"Host: Wow. Nine minutes a day. Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.","offset":36,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is 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.","offset":54,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: 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 discuss the things that science says you can do to significantly reduce your cancer and cardiovascular risk, including how to reduce visceral fat and arterial plaque.","offset":81,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":105,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: We also discuss omega-3s, and why prescription sources of omega-3s may be the cleanest and most cost-efficient way to obtain sufficient omega-3 intake. We also discuss the importance of prioritizing regular resistance training and HIIT workouts over protein. You still need protein, but emphasizing the exercise component is crucial.","offset":128,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: And we discuss fiber, micronutrients, and why short-term fasting can be beneficial. Dr. Rhonda Patrick is a true wealth of knowledge, and today, she generously provides us a masterclass on how you can design and adjust the exact health protocols to meet your specific needs.","offset":150,"duration":21},{"text":"Host: 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 zero-cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors.","offset":171,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: And now for my discussion with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Welcome back, Dr. Rhonda Patrick.","offset":193,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Excited to be here.","offset":199,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: 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, 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.","offset":200,"duration":42},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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, education, helping people love science and get healthier.","offset":242,"duration":12}],"startTime":0},{"title":"Competitive Jump Roping Background","summary":"Rhonda shares her background as a competitive jump roper, discussing the cardiovascular and bone density benefits of the activity.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Well, thank you. Well, 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 you're clearly very fit. I learned before talking to you today that you were a competitive athlete, you were a long jumper or triple jumper?","offset":254,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I was a long jumper, but I would say my real competitive athleteness comes from my jump roping.","offset":276,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: Okay.","offset":282,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I was on a professional jump roping team.","offset":283,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Professional?","offset":285,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yes. Yeah, it was, it was we would compete, so my friend and I started the team when we were in second grade, and it was called the San Diego Sand Skippers. And 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 so I was on a team and every year we would compete in Boulder, Colorado. There were 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 used to get out of school, um, you know, get out of school free card, and my partner and I would go and start workshops at other schools and help them start jump rope teams. And the idea was cardiovascular health, healthy heart, and yeah, so so that's really, I would say my, my real roots with being a competitive athlete.","offset":286,"duration":65},{"text":"Host: Awesome. I love skipping rope. Is it okay to say skipping rope or jumping rope?","offset":351,"duration":4},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, okay. Skipping rope, jumping rope.","offset":355,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: 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 Weck and others online are, you know, stuff that's getting people out of the standard, you know, curls, bench press, um, 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.","offset":356,"duration":37},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 weight-bearing aspect as well for building bone density, and I think that earlier for me, you know, I was doing it as 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 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.","offset":393,"duration":45},{"text":"Host: Well, I'm certainly going to get back to jumping rope now that we resurrected it in this conversation. And I have to say, um, bone density measurements aside, you have awesome posture. I notice people's posture.","offset":438,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Oh, really?","offset":451,"duration":1}],"startTime":254},{"title":"Vigorous Exercise Routine & Brain Health","summary":"Rhonda details her weekly exercise routine, which includes high-intensity interval training, rowing, running, and Tabata. She outlines the immediate benefits of vigorous exercise on executive function, serotonin, and impulse control.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Yeah, I didn't even mean to put you on the spot here, but yeah, when I walked in, I was like, if you've ever interacted with Rhonda in person, which I have, you have amazing posture. And these days, good posture is rare, so who knows, maybe the things are 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?","offset":452,"duration":39},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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. Ben Levine, who is a, you know, probably one of the world-leading cardiovascular exercise physiologists. He's at UT Southwestern in Dallas. I just want to shout out his name because I've really learned a lot from him.","offset":491,"duration":27},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 five 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. It's really good for improving your cardiorespiratory fitness, which I think is one of the best markers for longevity. We can talk about that.","offset":518,"duration":51},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 mixed 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.","offset":569,"duration":45},{"text":"Host: How many days a week are you doing that?","offset":614,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I do my my longer HIIT 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.","offset":616,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: What's the rest between sets? Sorry to get granular, but people will wonder.","offset":635,"duration":4},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Um, what's funny is I typically rest about two minutes between my sets. I I recover pretty quick. Um, and my 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 two minutes. So I usually that's my recovery time. And so the first 30 minutes of 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. So it'll be like, you know, where I'm I'm getting my heart rate up, so I'm mixing in the rowing machine and then I have like maybe I'm doing cleans, but they're lighter, so it's like more reps, but lighter load, right?","offset":639,"duration":50},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 because I'm doing it with my girlfriends, and we kind of chit-chat a little bit, and so um, but it's 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.","offset":689,"duration":43},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So that's another, you know, two hours a week. So now I have four hours a week of just doing a lot of that sort of CrossFit, HIIT type of training. And then I mix that in with my more like runs that I do, which are I would say are still they're still considered vigorous intensity, they're just not quite as high-intensity. And I do probably I run like maybe six miles a week, so maybe maybe 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 um, you know.","offset":732,"duration":59},{"text":"Host: Do you enjoy running?","offset":791,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 um, you know, it's a nice time for me as well just to kind of do that with him. 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 kind of family time too.","offset":792,"duration":34},{"text":"Host: Weight vests on the run or hike?","offset":826,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 a lot of workout throughout the week.","offset":828,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: Sure.","offset":842,"duration":0},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But it's like you said, it's non-negotiable for me, and and times when I'm like like today, so I you know, I had a long drive and so I got on my Peloton and I did a 10-minute, you know, I did a 10-minute Tabata back-to-back, so it was like two back-to-back Tabatas, right? So it was it ended up being 10 minutes, it was like 30-second recovery in between the two Tabata sessions, 2:1 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.","offset":842,"duration":38},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 air squats, I'll do high knees, jumping jacks, and I repeat for 10 minutes and 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, it's 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, they there's been studies showing that you have an improvement in executive function by like 14%, which is pretty big.","offset":880,"duration":62},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I think it was like a 50 50-millisecond improvement processing speed or something, which doesn't sound a lot, but it actually 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 was 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 HIIT workout, right? When 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 high-intensity, you know, vigorous intensity exercise that really increased plasma serotonin, which has been shown to associate with brain serotonin, those studies have been done.","offset":942,"duration":69},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 than that, and impulse control is one of the the the big things that serotonin plays a role in, and so those 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 of check my social media, check my, you know, and um, 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.","offset":1011,"duration":68}],"startTime":452},{"title":"Sponsors: Our Place & Lingo","summary":"Huberman reads sponsor messages for Our Place cookware and the Lingo continuous glucose monitor.","entries":[{"text":"Host: I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, Our Place. Surprisingly, toxic compounds such as PFASs or forever chemicals are still found in 80% of non-stick pans, as well as utensils, appliances, and countless other kitchen products. As I've discussed before on this podcast, these PFASs or forever chemicals, like Teflon, have been linked to major health issues such as hormone disruption, gut microbiome disruption, fertility issues, and many other health problems. So it's very important to avoid them.","offset":1079,"duration":33},{"text":"Host: This is why I'm a huge fan of Our Place. Our Place products are made with the highest quality materials and are all PFAS and toxin-free. I particularly love their Titanium Always Pan Pro. It's the first non-stick pan made with zero chemicals and zero coating. Instead, it uses pure titanium. That means it has no harmful forever chemicals and it does not degrade or lose its non-stick effect over time. It's also beautiful to look at. I cook my eggs in my Titanium Always Pan Pro almost every morning. The design allows for the eggs to cook perfectly without sticking to the pan.","offset":1112,"duration":35},{"text":"Host: Right now, Our Place is having their biggest sale of the season. You can save up to 40% sitewide now through April 12th. Just head to fromourplace.com/huberman. Again, that's fromourplace.com/huberman to save up to 40%.","offset":1147,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: Today's episode is also brought to us by Lingo. One of the most important factors in your short and long-term health is your body's ability to manage glucose over time. Glucose directly impacts our brain function, mood, and energy. You want your glucose relatively stable across the day, without big peaks or valleys. This is why I use the continuous glucose monitor and app from Lingo by Abbott. Lingo provides minute-by-minute glucose data directly within the app, showing you how your glucose responds to food, exercise, and stress. This information can help you make smarter choices to support your health both now and in the long term.","offset":1165,"duration":42},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":1207,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: 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 hellolingo.com/huberman for more information. Terms and conditions apply. Again, that's hellolingo.com/huberman.","offset":1225,"duration":19}],"startTime":1079},{"title":"Phone Distractions During Workouts","summary":"A brief discussion on the importance of compartmentalizing gym time and leaving smartphones behind to avoid digital distractions.","entries":[{"text":"Host: 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 um the effects of exercise and just generally. I'm curious, do you bring your phone or feel compelled to check your phone during workouts? 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?","offset":1244,"duration":35},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Oh, I don't bring my phone to my workout at all. Like I don't No, 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 on no notifications because I don't want to be bothered. But I don't I don't really check my phone. Um I I don't really like checking things like social media for me, it's just a distraction and and frankly, I think it's terribly 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. Um, 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.","offset":1279,"duration":45},{"text":"Host: But in real life.","offset":1324,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, so that's IRL as the kids say.","offset":1325,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Yeah.","offset":1328,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: That's in real life, and um, yeah, phones phones for me are not something that I bring to my workout.","offset":1329,"duration":6}],"startTime":1244},{"title":"Heavy Weight Training & Mental Toughness","summary":"Rhonda breaks down her strength training regimen, explaining how working down into heavy singles and doubles builds mental fortitude and enlarges the anterior midcingulate cortex.","entries":[{"text":"Host: 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 uh 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, um maybe you could just tell us what low reps is for you and then the um seems like the ever-present 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.","offset":1335,"duration":41},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 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 leg the weight goes down if I'm doing if I'm cleaning it because it's hard to clean. It's also the hard like it's the thing that I hate doing the most.","offset":1376,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: Cleans.","offset":1405,"duration":0},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Oh yeah, cleans with front squat because it's really hard, and um 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 cleans since, you know, February 2024. So I'm pretty new to it and 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 endurance junkie, like I like I used to like to go on 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 because it was so hard and I I just didn't want to do these cleans, you know, 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.","offset":1405,"duration":72},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But anyway, so um, I do a variety of if I'm doing if I'm going heavier, then it, you know, depends. Sometimes we'll start off as 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?","offset":1477,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: You're doing singles.","offset":1491,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: We do.","offset":1492,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Okay.","offset":1493,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I know yeah, yeah. And that's the hardest. It's the hardest. But then there's there's like my coach will be 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'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 dead deadlifting. I think I'm pretty good at at pulling that weight up, lifting that weight up.","offset":1494,"duration":45},{"text":"Host: That's with the straight bar, hex bar? Mixed grip? There's so many variables, but yeah.","offset":1539,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 are 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.","offset":1542,"duration":40},{"text":"Host: 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 am 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 into singles on multi-joint like real 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 ornery, but very credentialed strength training folks have been online recently saying that as people um pass 35, that they shouldn't do squats, that they shouldn't do deadlifts, and certainly shouldn't do them heavy because it because of this whole thing of, you know, you can do higher reps and take it 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.","offset":1582,"duration":70},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: It's hard. It's so hard. And it's the part that I'm like all about let's like the last 30 minutes where it's HIIT and and that's hard too, 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 do 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? 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. It hasn't yet. I still I still dread it, but I do it and um 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.","offset":1652,"duration":53},{"text":"Host: That's your base. Yeah.","offset":1705,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah.","offset":1706,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: You love it.","offset":1707,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":1708,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: 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 midcingulate cortex. This brain area that is hyperplastic 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 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 to get mentally stronger.","offset":1716,"duration":44},{"text":"Host: And I think um having something that you really despise that you know is good for you seems to keep this anterior midcingulate cortex volume either increasing or the same, and that's actually the thing in these so-called superagers that is the strongest anatomical correlate 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 uh easier because it's still it's going to be so much more beneficial.","offset":1760,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Well, I have a coach who can tell when it's getting easier and she will definitely up the weight. I I mean, it keeps I mean, it keeps going up. And so it doesn't 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.","offset":1781,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: Awesome.","offset":1804,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But um and I haven't gotten injured, so that's also, you know, knock on wood.","offset":1805,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Yeah, no, knock on wood. I um thank you for rounding out that picture. It's super inspiring for men and women, you know. So.","offset":1809,"duration":7},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 could ways I could improve, but I'm posting it, you know.","offset":1816,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Well, and the fact that you're working down into triples, doubles, and singles, I think is 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 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, and VO2 max, which is great, but it's 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 the of the health strata as it were.","offset":1826,"duration":34}],"startTime":1335},{"title":"Protein Intake, Diet Composition & Fasting","summary":"Rhonda explains her approach to protein consumption and how intermittent fasting and portion control helped her reduce visceral fat. They also discuss avoiding ultra-processed carbohydrates.","entries":[{"text":"Host: This is 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, that's 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?","offset":1860,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":1878,"duration":55},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And the only thing that really helped me stop that, but 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 grams per kilogram body weight, which is","offset":1933,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: Per kilogram.","offset":1956,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Per kilogram, which is probably a little bit less than the pound.","offset":1957,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: You know, it's it's a kind of a throwaway statement a gram of quality protein um as defined as something with, you know, lots of the essential amino acids and uh so forth per pound or per lean pound of body mass. Um, 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.","offset":1961,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 grams per kilogram body weight or even a little bit above that. And what I found what was happening is that I was actually gaining gaining more weight because I think I was consuming more calories at the same time besides if you're getting it from whole foods, right? Like that's just kind of naturally going to happen.","offset":1984,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Uh and so I had to slide down um. But I'm still like I said, I'm still getting within that range of like probably on average maybe 1.3, 1.4 grams 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 ultra-processed foods in the first place.","offset":2008,"duration":45},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Probably not the answer you were expecting, but it's really um for me like 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.","offset":2053,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: Sure.","offset":2065,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You know, that perimenopause phase, very different than someone who's 37 maybe.","offset":2066,"duration":5},{"text":"Host: I don't know the answer to that. I 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.","offset":2071,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You shouldn't feel that way.","offset":2084,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: 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 you burn tons of calories, you're basically rucking like nine hours a day, right? Then 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.","offset":2085,"duration":34},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I do eat oatmeal too, it it does satiate you. These days, because I really kind of more focused a little bit on I did want to 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 mignon, like I like grass-fed steak as well. Yum.","offset":2119,"duration":39},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 greens because they're the most most micronutrient dense. And so these days I'm eating a lot of sautéed collard greens that are pre-prepared, has garlic and onion, and I'll put that, you know, I have that with my meal or I'll have some, you know, sautéed kale, sometimes I'll have a salad with it. But the portions are smaller, and like I said 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.","offset":2158,"duration":33},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I haven't eaten as much. Sometimes I'll eat the high protein oats. They have those high protein oats that have have you seen those? They're pretty good.","offset":2191,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: No, I eat oatmeal, but I like protein foods, I like vegetables, I like fruit. I feel very lucky to like those foods mainly.","offset":2199,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah.","offset":2205,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: 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 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. I get kind of sleepy afterwards, it just so I it sounds like we eat pretty similarly, although I probably eat more starches than you do.","offset":2206,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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-prandial inflammatory response because some of those foods are a little more inflammatory. I mean, they have a lot of additives and stuff that are affecting the gut, gut permeabilization, you're leaking lipopolysaccharide into the bloodstream, right? That's activating the immune system.","offset":2230,"duration":21}],"startTime":1860},{"title":"Gut Permeability, LPS & Cardiovascular Risk","summary":"A deep dive into how refined foods and saturated fats can cause leaky gut. Rhonda explains how gut-derived lipopolysaccharides (LPS) can enter the bloodstream, trigger systemic inflammation, and lead to atherosclerosis by forming foam cells.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Yikes. 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 macrophages 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.","offset":2251,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Well, let me clarify.","offset":2279,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: It squares with my experience. I'm not challenging, no no no, I'm not challenging, it squares with my experience. 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.","offset":2280,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So we have about a gram of LPS in our gut, like that's on average because, you know, lipopolysaccharide is the outer component of a cell membrane of a gram-negative bacteria, right? And 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 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?","offset":2296,"duration":27},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":2323,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Now the type of meal does matter. So what 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 inflammation, it's bad, it's hard on the gut. But the post-prandial 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?","offset":2343,"duration":36},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Well, there's also cytokines that are somnogenic 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.","offset":2379,"duration":21},{"text":"Host: So 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?","offset":2400,"duration":7},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I think the the the big deal with it 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 ultra-processed 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,","offset":2407,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: 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 Kerrygold butter and she loved it. So then we would do this thing where we'd we'd we'd do that. Um, we won't do that anymore.","offset":2424,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I mean, a little bit's fine, but like I mean, there's there's studies showing that it does, like saturated fat is hard on the gut. Like I said, it's a sliding scale. Like meals in general do it, but it's like you 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","offset":2437,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":2464,"duration":9},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 nocebo 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, gluten gluten sensitive and so they were enrolled in this study and um these individuals were separated into two groups. One group was 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 response, 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.","offset":2473,"duration":38},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So it was thought that this is a nocebo 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. Um in addition to like the lethargy, so we're talking about I was talking about in the context, that's why it sparked my, you know, interest as like you were talking about feeling tired after a meal, and I do think that is part of that reason for feeling sleepy.","offset":2511,"duration":34},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But you know, what's interesting about LPS, you talked about injecting it to mice and I have 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 over baseline, right?","offset":2545,"duration":33},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So high amounts of inflammation, which makes sense. LPS is activating the immune system, 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 in the brain, crossing the blood-brain barrier and affecting the way we feel.","offset":2578,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 is the biomarker for a classical biomarker for inflammation, I would argue it's not that sensitive, but nonetheless it is a biomarker for inflammation.","offset":2603,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":2627,"duration":29},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 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 ApoB protein. So ApoB 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.","offset":2656,"duration":38},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 donating 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 lipoprotein. You probably heard of small dense LDL, right? Like that's a very dangerous type of LDL particle. And that's one that's kind of been donating along getting rid of triglycerides and um whatever. If you think about a train with cargo, it's donating the, you know, dropping off the cargo.","offset":2694,"duration":40},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so um when it's time to get recycled back into the liver, what do you know, the ApoB 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, macrophages, which are as you mentioned, it's like the first line of defense against something like a bacterial invader, right? Come and chew it up, right? Gets rid of the problem. So macrophages 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 macrophage stuck to that lipoprotein LPS, you know, complex and you get the formation of a foam cell. You've probably heard of a foam cell. It's the beginning of atherosclerosis.","offset":2734,"duration":57},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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's actually not a very good thing because you're you're basically, you know, slow dripping in that inflammation that inflammatory signal and it's wreaking havoc in our arteries, on our brain.","offset":2791,"duration":22}],"startTime":2251},{"title":"Sponsor: AG1","summary":"Huberman reads a sponsor message for AG1 foundational nutrition.","entries":[{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":2813,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":2844,"duration":34},{"text":"Host: 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 D3K2 with your subscription. Again, that's drinkag1 with the numeral one.com/huberman to get six free travel packs and a bottle of vitamin D3K2 with your subscription.","offset":2878,"duration":25}],"startTime":2813},{"title":"L-Glutamine, Gut Health & Immune Function","summary":"After a brief recap on the vagus nerve and LPS, Rhonda shares how L-glutamine supplementation can support gut health and supercharge the immune system, particularly during times of high physical stress or pathogen exposure.","entries":[{"text":"Host: 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 vagus, no fever. So there's 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 some threshold level of of of LPS. Um, thank you also for reminding us","offset":2903,"duration":35},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I have a coach who can tell when it's getting easier and she will definitely up the weight. I I mean, it keeps I mean, it keeps going up. And so it doesn't 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.","offset":2938,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: Awesome.","offset":2957,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But um and I haven't gotten injured, so that's also, you know, knock on wood.","offset":2958,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Yeah, no, knock on wood. I um thank you for rounding out that picture. It's super inspiring for men and women, you know. So.","offset":2961,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 could ways I could improve, but I'm posting it, you know.","offset":2967,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Well, and the fact that you're working down into triples, doubles, and singles, I think is 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 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, and VO2 max, which is great, but it's 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 the of the health strata as it were.","offset":2977,"duration":9},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So that was kind of always in the back of my mind. And then in my postdoc I did my postdoc with Dr. Bruce Ames and my colleague Dr. Mark Shigenaga 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.","offset":2986,"duration":29},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 it'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?","offset":3015,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Like cause 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 we're lacking, there's not a ton of them there. The ones that I have found more compelling...","offset":3033,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: ...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.","offset":3052,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Like when I mean endurance athletes I mean these guys that are like out 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're they're more prone to respiratory infections.","offset":3074,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 versus the ones that weren't doing it. And then I went back to my, \"oh I know that glutamine's really important for T-cell activation\" and I was like \"I'm going to take this because being being a mom and having a child that's bringing everything home like a vector, you know.\"","offset":3092,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You're like desperate.","offset":3113,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: You're the experiment.","offset":3114,"duration":0},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 literally was like worried. Um and and then I started taking glutamine. Now I take it just I only take 5 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.","offset":3114,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: All at once? Because it can be a little hard on the gut.","offset":3139,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: No, no, not all at once. Not all at once, I usually do it like in fives. So I do 5 grams, 5 grams, 5 grams and you know I have to with the 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-okay with that because placebo effect is real, as long as I'm not getting sick.","offset":3140,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":3168,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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...","offset":3187,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: It's an abnormal growth, so anything that's associated with... mTOR, I saw the recent study on taurine, which scared a lot of people because taurine's in a lot of energy drinks but that was an in vitro study. Uh, yes, I was going to ask, you know, um is there increased cancer risk if you're supplementing with glutamine because cancer cells love glutamine.","offset":3209,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Okay, 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 in a tumor in my colon, the first site that the glutamine is seeing, maybe the liver as well since that's also the next step.","offset":3228,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But um 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 one?\" 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.","offset":3248,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 reasonably low. So hopefully people will be more aware.","offset":3272,"duration":13}],"startTime":2903},{"title":"NAC Supplementation & Oxidative Stress","summary":"Huberman and Rhonda discuss using N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) to fend off illness, and caution against taking high-dose antioxidants daily as they can blunt beneficial exercise adaptations.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Yeah 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 mic we were talking about NAC, n-acetyl cysteine. Um I take it once a day 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.","offset":3285,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: 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 percent area, um I don't remember the exact number now, we'll put a link to the study, down to maybe high 20s.","offset":3309,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: Which is pretty impressive. And an ER doc came on this podcast, Roger Seheult, who um and said he was a big proponent of of n-acetyl cysteine for people that are around sick people. Do you take NAC?","offset":3329,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So my only concern with taking it 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 would be generating oxidation, right?","offset":3342,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":3363,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: To get the adaptation.","offset":3375,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 high dose 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.","offset":3376,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Most of the time it's vitamin C and vitamin E. Vitamin E alpha-tocopherol, when I say high dose usually it's 400 IUs, just to give you a reference point the RDA is like 24 IUs, so we're talking high dose.","offset":3399,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":3412,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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-tocopherol which also has other effects of um lowering another type of vitamin E in the body called gamma-tocopherol which is anti-inflammatory and I think that has something to do with inflammation actually can increase the the PSA, right?","offset":3425,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So anyways um the point here is that with NAC my only concern would be you know blunting the the oxidation that you're getting from beneficial because I know you're highly active.","offset":3453,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: I'm training hard, I don't want my train to be short-circuited from NAC. I'm perfectly happy to only take NAC if I'm feeling run down or exposed to um illnesses around me.","offset":3464,"duration":10},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So that's one that's one 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.","offset":3474,"duration":8},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Like so although if smokers take it, I think it has the opposite effect where again it's like the cancer the pre-cancerous 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?","offset":3482,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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?","offset":3499,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so that's kind of and it's not that you don't want some antioxidants it's just like you don't want to overdose on taking too much NAC 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'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 oncogenic and lead to cancer.","offset":3516,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Well reductive stress is is like the opposite of that, so it's like too much of the 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 instead of having this like slow leaking effect of these pro-oxidants 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, and it's off, right?","offset":3544,"duration":31},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 NAC.","offset":3575,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: Great. I don't cold plunge in the 6 to 8 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 NAC under conditions where I'm run down and and that's also when I'll take glutamine. If you take L-glutamine regularly, I I personally observe that I get stronger at a steady state of starch intake.","offset":3592,"duration":23}],"startTime":3285},{"title":"Late-Night Meals & Cardiovascular Reset","summary":"Eating too close to bedtime keeps the body in a sympathetic state. Rhonda outlines new data showing that stopping eating three hours before sleep allows blood pressure to dip, significantly lowering cardiovascular risk.","entries":[{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":3615,"duration":8},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, there's there was a new study on on eating starches and improving sleep.","offset":3623,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":3629,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: I'll hear from marathoners and ultra-people and people are doing a million things and 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 then they'll have some rice or some pasta, they're like \"oh I slept like a baby\" and they were having it at lunch!","offset":3641,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: And I just think that that the brain doesn't shut down well when you have high levels of cortisol. And the cortisol-starch thing is an interesting one.","offset":3654,"duration":10},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I'm so glad you brought this up because I think um this is something that I did want to talk about really and it has to do with stop eating three hours before bed for that very reason. So there was a new even a new, but there's been several studies now really showing that this is important for that cardiovascular reset, right?","offset":3664,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 it that's activating the sympathetic nervous system as you're eating.","offset":3683,"duration":9},{"text":"Host: As you're eating, yeah.","offset":3692,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah and even as you're digesting, so you have to think about it, like you digest it what it takes like five or so hours to fully finish a meal depending on the meal. Yeah, so if you're eating, you know, right before you go to bed you are you are you are not in that parasympathetic activity, you know, part of the part of the you know cycle that you want to be in.","offset":3693,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 this is interesting, they they had their blood pressure measured for starting in the mid-afternoon all the way throughout the night. So it's the first study that really not just one endpoint looking at blood pressure but just measuring it continuously.","offset":3714,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 three hours before bed versus the group that did not stop eating three hours before bed their blood pressure dipped like lower, so you get that you know that baroreflex dipping, right?","offset":3738,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So this is like part of the parasympathetic activation as you know very important for 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.","offset":3757,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So it's really pretty significant, yeah. And it really isn't 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.","offset":3779,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Although I think in that study I don't know that sleep was really it was subjective and I don't think it was really 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 stopping eating 3 hours before bed really does seem to improve sleep.","offset":3795,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But this parasympathetic activation, you know, you don't want to have a meal right before you bed because you want you want to be in the rest and recovery part, right?","offset":3812,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: 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's a it requires energy, anything that requires energy raises body temperature and your body's doing work.","offset":3818,"duration":318},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: It's an awake event, right? It's an awake... you don't eat 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 activated 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.","offset":4136,"duration":32},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":4168,"duration":7}],"startTime":3615},{"title":"Cortisol Regulation & Hormetic Stress","summary":"They clarify the misunderstood role of cortisol, explaining the difference between chronic stress and the beneficial, acute cortisol spikes generated by hormetic stressors like exercise and fasting.","entries":[{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And that's what you want, right? I mean so cortisol is circadian dependent as you know, I mean in the more like early morning of early hours of the morning that's when you want it to peak, right? 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 soapbox for me but so with the with the cortisol activation um people don't realize this...","offset":4175,"duration":3025},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: ...you know obviously it's a hormone and it's binding to diff two different receptors. There's the glucocorticoid receptor and then there's the mineralocorticoid receptor and both of those uh 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?","offset":7200,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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, bright light exposure as you mentioned, like that's very important for that cortisol awakening response.","offset":7219,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But you can also ex like like intensity intensive 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 Mattson's lab showing that, you know, the types of of stressors that are beneficial, these hormetic stressors like exercise, like intermittent fasting...","offset":7238,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: ...perhaps even cold exposure, like these types of exposures change the receptor density of these 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 not a big spike you're getting a slow drip of it.","offset":7260,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so what happens is when you have that type of stress you're increasing the glucocorticoid receptors and you're decreasing the mineralocorticoid 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 hormetic stressors like like intermittent fasting, like exercise.","offset":7281,"duration":26},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 genes, 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 your 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.","offset":7307,"duration":29},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You know cortisol represses inflammation, right? It 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 all the genes that it's supposed to activate or deactivate, you want it to be doing what it's supposed to be doing.","offset":7336,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: It's supposed to regulate, we're supposed to have the cortisol, you know, activation response. So um anyways 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, HIIT and it's activating my cortisol.\" Well that's fine, it's like, you know, I mean I guess if you do too much HIIT, right?","offset":7350,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You could 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 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.","offset":7369,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: 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 this stress hormone, stress hormone, and people saw pictures of people with Cushing's disease, which is, you know, a drastically elevated cortisol and the moon face and the excessive visceral fat and and yeah this this sort of um fearmongering around cortisol was particularly directed toward women.","offset":7389,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: 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 in a very appropriate way uh that I appreciate um 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.","offset":7418,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: 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!\" But then the they the message got contorted, right? As it does, yes. Yes! And then it became \"women shouldn't train fasted.\"","offset":7442,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: And then we had uh Lauren Colenso-Semple 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.\"","offset":7459,"duration":-2990},{"text":"Host: 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 uh 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.","offset":4469,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah.","offset":4483,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: And peripheral dopamine and probably, I'll go on record here, 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.","offset":4484,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: So this then you know because 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.\"","offset":4498,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":4515,"duration":20}],"startTime":4175},{"title":"Visceral Fat, Fasted Training & Insulin Resistance","summary":"Rhonda details the dangers of visceral fat, explaining how it acts as a toxic endocrine organ that aggressively drives insulin resistance, NAFLD, and cognitive fatigue, even in individuals who appear lean.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Um it sounds like you train fasted?","offset":4535,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 for 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.","offset":4538,"duration":27},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: One reason is because it really did help me lose the belly fat, which is 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.","offset":4565,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":4579,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Um you will if it is a longer session you will take an import 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.","offset":4602,"duration":11},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And I and 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 when I'm like \"I don't feel good like I'm going to I'm going to take it easier\" but I still train, I just you listen to your body and I think that's a pretty easy I think rule of thumb.","offset":4613,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Sometimes people like to complicate things, you know, I don't know there's lots of reasons why I don't we don't need to get into that.","offset":4629,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: I have theories, yeah I have theories but they're not important right now.","offset":4636,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: No, it's not important, yeah. So so yeah I do I do train fasted and it is um for me it is 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? Because when I was 30 I mean like I didn't have to train fasted. It was it was easy to keep, you know, the the belly fat, the visceral fat lower.","offset":4639,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 fat that we see.","offset":4662,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 almost like an endocrine organ I mean because it is secreting hormones, it's secreting inflammatory factors, it's metabolically active, it's constantly breaking down triglycerides.","offset":4674,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":4695,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: Wow.","offset":4703,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 if you want I mean we can we can get into that. Yeah, it's so with the visceral and like I said, you know, visceral fat is something if you really directly want to measure it you do a DEXA scan.","offset":4704,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 inches or above are considered to have a higher amount of visceral fat. Men that have a waist circumference of 40 inches or above are considered to have a higher amount of visceral fat.","offset":4722,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: It's also that belly fat, like you 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.","offset":4739,"duration":26},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so as women transition to perimenopause, you know, the the years before menopause and menopause it the 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?","offset":4765,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 interval training also really powerfully can do it.","offset":4784,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But also being in a caloric deficit and I think when you start to get the combination of both, that's what really worked for me. It's crazy how quickly you can gain it based on your diet as well. So it is different from the subcutaneous fat in many ways. I mentioned it's secreting these inflammatory molecules, it's you know hormones, but it's also constantly breaking down triglycerides into free fatty acids.","offset":4809,"duration":30},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And the location of it is very dangerous because it's right surrounding the liver, right? It's this deep organ fat. And that's very close to the portal vein and so you're constantly getting this sort of mainlining free fatty acids to the liver.","offset":4839,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And visceral fat is very different from subcutaneous fat because it doesn't respond to insulin like subcutaneous fat does. In other words when you have a meal, you eat a carbohydrate meal and you basically your body increases insulin to help take it up glucose into your liver, muscle, adipose tissue.","offset":4853,"duration":614},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Lipolysis shuts down, right? It's like \"okay no longer am I going to break down these fats, it's time to use this energy\", right? Visceral fat doesn't respond to insulin so it just keeps going, right? And these free fatty acids because they're going right to the liver um it's essentially antagonizing the insulin receptors.","offset":5467,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So it causes insulin receptors to become more resistant to insulin. And this is part of why people with high visceral fat... by the way you can gain visceral fat without gaining a pound.","offset":5481,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And we can talk about those studies like people people are skinny and can have high amounts of visceral fat. You've heard of like lean metabolically unhealthy but lean individuals, those people exist and so you can have a high amount of visceral fat but not really look like you do.","offset":5493,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So um when you know obviously the insulin resistance is a problem for many reasons but it also plays a role in those energy crashes that you experience, right?","offset":5511,"duration":8},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And that's kind of like some of the first signs of insulin resistance actually have to do with what you're feeling. So we talked about lethargy, right? So you know the inflammation that's being generated from these this visceral fat constantly making these, you know, pro-inflammatory compounds are an it's an energy sink, right?","offset":5519,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So you do constantly feel tired, but also because your cells are becoming insulin resistant, when you have a high glucose meal and you're not responding the body kind of overcompensates and produces more insulin. So it's like \"I we got to get this blood glucose out of our system\", right? It can cause a lot of damage if it sits around there.","offset":5535,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so you make more insulin and then what happens is your you your blood glucose goes way low because it was like this overcompensation, right? And then you feel a crash, you feel like this crash and that signals to the, you know, hypothalamus part of the brain \"uh I need energy\", right? So then you you sort of crave, you get those cravings for those calorically energy dense foods.","offset":5553,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: What I'm talking about is like the experience of, you know, insulin resistance. And what's interesting is that you can cause someone to gain visceral fat and their brain can become insulin resistant. So we think a lot about insulin resistance in the muscle, liver, your brain also can become insulin resistant quite quickly actually.","offset":5573,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So um insulin's very important in the brain for a lot of reasons, as you know. But you know a couple of the things relative to what we're talking about or relevant to what we're talking about would be one is it does act on the hypothalamus and help, you know, tell it to basically stop eating, be satiated. Like \"I took a meal in okay like I'm going to be satiated.\"","offset":5593,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But it also plays a role in energy storage and telling the body how to store the energy. And so when your brain becomes insulin resistant, it's not doing that and so you're not being satiated so you eat more and you're storing the fat more viscerally.","offset":5612,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And there was a study that was published actually quite recently I covered this in a in a recent newsletter. It was a really interesting study because it was healthy young men and researchers put them on a little bit of a calorically dense, so it was like they were eating 1200 to 1500 more calories a day and it was high saturated fat high sugar. So it was a processed foods ultra-processed foods like, you know, ultimate, right?","offset":5628,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: That's a lot of extra calories.","offset":5652,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: A lot of extra calories for five days. It is. But what happened was their they did cause their brain to become insulin resistant and they didn't gain weight, but they gained visceral fat and they started gaining fat around their liver and that's something that happens as well because visceral fat is surrounding liver, you're getting a lot of free fatty acids and they're going right to the liver so the liver has to store it, right?","offset":5653,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So you get this non-alcoholic, you know, fatty fatty liver. But and that happened after five days. I mean without gaining weight!","offset":5676,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: In otherwise young healthy...","offset":5684,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah! But you know they were eating a lot of calories extra calories.","offset":5685,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Yeah that's like a 1200 that's like a half a pizza extra above your maintenance calories per day.","offset":5689,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And it's probably what they were doing and they were eating lots of well they were eating like saturated fat and refined sugar, so Doritos and French fries. You know I mean obviously if you're going to do the study you want to kind of do it to a high degree where you're going to see some change, right?","offset":5695,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So so maybe like maybe it's not going to happen in five days if you're if you're only eating 500 more calories a day but over time you will be gaining it visceral fat, right? So it's it's not going to be the same degree. It's something to be concerned about, it's something to think about and also because you can gain it and not really even know it like, you know, without gaining a pound.","offset":5709,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And there other things that cause it not just, you know, eating too many calories or diet composition. I mean you mentioned cortisol, I mean chronic elevated cortisol makes you store the fat around around, you know, visceral fat. Sleep loss, I mean there's also studies showing that you take healthy men, sleep deprive them for a couple of weeks I think 4 hours they're getting 4 hours of sleep a night they can start gaining visceral fat.","offset":5732,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I mean pretty rapidly with only like a pound gaining a pound of weight. So again it's like not necessarily something that you're going to see on the scale but it's happening, right? And it's affecting your short-term mood, I mean how you feel, your energy, it's affecting, you know, the way you're eating it's a vicious cycle because you start to eat more calories, right? And then it just becomes this vicious cycle of that you start to gain more visceral fat.","offset":5754,"duration":19}],"startTime":4535},{"title":"Sponsor: Element","summary":"Huberman reads a sponsor message for Element electrolyte drink mix.","entries":[{"text":"Host: I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, all in the correct ratios, but no sugar. Proper hydration is critical for brain and body function.","offset":5773,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: Even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish your cognitive and physical performance. It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes. The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, are vital for the functioning of all cells in your body, especially your neurons or your nerve cells.","offset":5791,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: Drinking Element makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes. My days tend to start really fast, meaning I have to jump right into work or right into exercise. So to make sure that I'm hydrated and I have sufficient electrolytes, when I first wake up in the morning, I drink 16 to 32 ounces of water with an Element packet dissolved in it.","offset":5807,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: I also drink Element dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. Element has a bunch of great tasting flavors. In fact I love them all. I love the watermelon, the raspberry, the citrus, and I really love the lemonade flavor.","offset":5826,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: So if you'd like to try Element, you can go to drinkelement.com/huberman to claim a free Element sample pack with any purchase. Again that's drinkelement.com/huberman to claim a free sample pack.","offset":5842,"duration":12}],"startTime":5773},{"title":"Sleep Deprivation, Cortisol & Metabolism","summary":"A discussion on how sleep deprivation chronically elevates cortisol, disrupts nocturnal metabolic recalibration, and acts as a rapid driver for the accumulation of visceral fat.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Such an important point that you can either not be gaining much or not gaining any um total body weight but gain visceral fat. I think that's um first time I've heard that and it's a vital message for people to hear because this visceral fat sounds like one of the major health hazards we need to worry about.","offset":5854,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: You mentioned elevate chronically elevated cortisol, sleep deprivation, will increase visceral fat. Once again I know I'm beating a drum here um almost to death, but having high cortisol early in the day and low cortisol in the evening is the definition of not chronically high cortisol.","offset":5872,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: The definition of chronically high cortisol is somewhat elevated or elevated cortisol in the morning, but especially in the hours before sleep and I I actually have a theory that is not a stretch that one of the main reasons why it's so detrimental to our mental and physical health in the short and long term is because of the ways it disrupts sleep.","offset":5889,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: And so and we can't tease those apart. No! You can't do a study where you spike cortisol late in the day even if you can fall asleep just fine after the end of a really stressful day the sleep is different. And people say \"well life has stress\" and I totally agree. I mean Lord knows I've experienced life has stress.","offset":5908,"duration":15},{"text":"Host: But getting that last hour of the day doing things to push down on cortisol push down on stress lower heart rate not eating in that certainly that last hour before sleep ideally 3. Um I feel like that small change can make a an outsized positive difference.","offset":5923,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: That's interesting like the the correlation between the high cortisol affecting your sleep and maybe that's also like they they're related and so the sleep loss really does make you... we know, we know from, you know, you probably know who the researchers are that have done those studies on sleep loss and it affecting appetite, right? I mean...","offset":5938,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: Oh everything gets disregarded. I mean I don't want to take us off course, but I think you might find it interesting there's a beautiful study where they look measured metabolism during sleep. They basically had people breathe into a tube um during sleep, they had a mask on and it turns out that the brain cycles through all the different forms of metabolism during sleep.","offset":5955,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: There's a phase of sleep where you're essentially running on sugar, there's a then there's like it almost looks like somebody's ketogenic at one... basically the the middle of the night when we're so should be at night when you're sleeping is is kind of a test run of all the systems but they get recalibrated.","offset":5969,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: And it's so important. I actually think, you know, most of the negative effects of alcohol that people talk about, yes it's a poison, it's a class 1 carcinogen, um as classified by the World Health Organization on a... I think most of the negative effects of drinking are because of the negative effects of alcohol on sleep. I'm not telling people drink in the morning, but uh you know...","offset":5988,"duration":21},{"text":"Host: And so I think that if you get your sleep right you're not 90% of the way there, but you're halfway there. Yeah. I really do believe that. And then getting your sleep right makes you do a bunch of other things.","offset":6009,"duration":8},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Right, you're more you're more more motivated to exercise for one.","offset":6017,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: More motivated to exercise, your food choices, I mean and on and on. The the problem with talking about sleep is so important is people will get sleep anxiety so we tap dance around this. It's like \"oh we don't want people stress.\" Learn how to fall asleep, learn how to fall back asleep. These no one gets it perfect, yes you'll survive like with one poor night's sleep or an all-nighter, you're not going to die, like you know just get good at it on average right?","offset":6020,"duration":20}],"startTime":5854},{"title":"Intermittent Fasting, Ketosis & Mitigating Sleep Loss","summary":"Rhonda shares her intermittent fasting structure, highlighting how ketosis benefits the brain. They also discuss how a bout of exercise can effectively offset the acute insulin resistance caused by a poor night of sleep.","entries":[{"text":"Host: That's what I'd say. Could you tell us what the structure of the intermittent fasting is for you? Does that mean skipping breakfast, skipping lunch, skipping dinner because I know a number of people are sort of getting drawn back to intermittent fasting after a couple of years of it getting beat up on as like not the best way to lose fat or it is a I think it's a terrific way to do the sorts of things that you're describing and I'm learning today more about the the positive things it can do um for insulin sensitivity and so forth.","offset":6040,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: If you're on a bout of intermittent fasting are you doing it by the clock? Are you doing it by feel? What does it look like?","offset":6069,"duration":5},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: For me it it really does depend on the day and I really do try to stop eating 3 hours before I go to bed. It doesn't always happen, you know, with family obligations, social obligations, but it's the habit that's important, right? So intermittent fasting, you know, it's more than just one intervention as I mentioned, it's a behavioral tool that you can use to limit your calorie intake without actually having to count all the calories, which some people like to do, some people don't, right?","offset":6074,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So it's a tool, but also it's really important for a metabolic switch. As you mentioned insulin sensitivity the metabolic switch is something that Dr. Mark Mattson coined and I love it because I feel like, you know, thinking about intermittent fasting in that way makes it a little more clear as to the benefits of it. It depends on the meal you have and how much exercise you do, right?","offset":6098,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But on average let's say 11, 12 hours to deplete your liver glycogen levels. And once that happens you do start to burn fat and use fatty acids as fuel and make ketone bodies so you go into ketogenesis, right? And that's a metabolic switch. Metabolic flexibility you're you're going from using carbohydrates as fuel to using fatty acids and making ketone bodies as fuel.","offset":6121,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And that's something that, you know, throughout human evolution was ingrained, right? Like we didn't always have access to Uber Eats and Instacart and you can just out of swipe you get food, right? You I mean there were many times when, you know, people had to not eat because they couldn't forge their foods, maybe the time of year or they couldn't hunt their food because they didn't get a win or whatever I don't know.","offset":6144,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So this metabolic flexibility is something that's really ingrained in our in our our DNA in a sense, right? Um one of the reasons I like to do that is the ketone production and why is that, you know, ketones are really clean they're clean a clean way to burn energy. So they generate less oxidative stress, less oxidative products, but they also are energetically favorable in that it takes less energy to use them to make energy than glucose does.","offset":6169,"duration":29},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So it takes more energy to use glucose as energy than it does ketones. But they're also a signaling molecule, so it's a way for the body, you know, to signal to other parts of the body like \"hey this is a stressful time, there's no food, I'm you know burn I'm in ketosis, um let's let's make you stronger\", right?","offset":6198,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Because that's kind of what evolution wants, like if you're not able to find or eat food you have to be stronger to be able to do it, right? And so that's that's kind of at the I say core of of this metabolic switch and why it's important and I think that I really like Mark Mattson being the pioneer in this and as a neuroscientist really looking at the benefits in the brain as well, you know.","offset":6218,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: These ketones like beta-hydroxybutyrate are activating, you know, growth factors like brain-derived neurotrophic factor in the brain, as you know, it's very important for, you know, learning memory, you know, synapse formation and stuff this hugely important for neuroplasticity. So it's activating beneficial compounds like that and again, um it it's not going to happen if you're never going into this metabolic switch.","offset":6238,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And there's other ways to get there. So you can limit your your food go into this ketosis, right? Where you're basically depleting your liver glycogen. Or you can exercise a lot, right? So your energy expenditure goes up. So there's there's different ways to get to this metabolic switch. It doesn't necessarily have to be intermittent fasting.","offset":6259,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: Got it.","offset":6281,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And I'm telling you this because you're I want to tell you why I'm I'm sort of back back on the intermittent fasting and by the way it's not for everyone like I said, I mean I think that you can find other ways to get this metabolic switch and um for me intermittent fasting works. And so what I do typically is I will do most of the time my fasted my...","offset":6282,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But I mean, obviously we don't always want to be in a calorie deficit, but we always don't want to be constantly eating either. And that's why it comes down to I think the simple rule for people like if they're going to do some sort of metabolic switch, some sort of intermittent fast, it would be like okay let's try to at least stop eating three hours before bed.","offset":6297,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Because then you're at least going to be extending that fast somewhat by three hours, right? So I think that's and plus you're getting that the cardiovascular benefits that are really seem to be important.","offset":6315,"duration":11},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And then not eating at night, so there's all these studies that have come out of Israel, I think it's is it Jacobwitz, Jacobwitz and Freud are two researchers. Um, I mean Satchin Panda I remember years ago showed me one of the studies it was like published in science showing that if you have the same exact meal, same calorie intake, same composition macronutrient composition in the morning, the afternoon, in the evening, the insulin response is like com is different.","offset":6326,"duration":34},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Like you're the most insulin sensitive early in the morning. As you start to go towards the evening, and particularly three hours before your natural bedtime, you see your your melatonin levels naturally rise, right? And as you know, you know melatonin is important for the onset of sleep and preparing the body for sleep.","offset":6360,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But it's also preparing the other organs for rest and recovery, including the pancreas which is making insulin. And so you're not making as much insulin when it's closer to your natural bedtime because of the melatonin levels that are rising.","offset":6379,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so you don't want to be eating, particularly a carbohydrate rich meal, but a meal, you're not going to be as as insulin sensitive in the last three hours before sleep.","offset":6394,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Yeah, when you're starting to get into that melatonin rising phase of of you know, of your cycle. Yeah, it's interesting. I I think when people hear, okay you're most insulin sensitive in the morning, that would be the time to eat your biggest meal.","offset":6404,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: But then people say, wait but then I'm trying to fast before and I'm trying to exercise and like how do I do this? I think that's where for them the confusion comes in and it to me it's very simple. Uh, just because your insulin sensitivity is highest first thing in the morning doesn't mean you have to eat right away.","offset":6423,"duration":15},{"text":"Host: I mean it just means avoid eating too close to bedtime, right? Sometime during the day. And also if you exercise fasted or after a small snack, it was kind of interesting what Stacy Sims said, not everyone should exercise fasted. She said especially a lot of women don't like to do that. She didn't say eat a meal.","offset":6438,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: She said like have a scoop of whey protein with some I think she said with like some almond milk in it. And and you couldn't believe the response on the internet. It was like vindication, right? And I get it, it was like it vindicated people's experience, like oh thank you thank you.","offset":6456,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: And it it told me something really important about the kind of sociology of what we do, which is when something validates people's experience they they love it. But it doesn't mean that the things that work for other people don't work.","offset":6473,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: And I think that that's the part that gets lost. And so if a study shows that insulin sensitivity is highest in the morning, but you can only exercise first thing in the morning, what do you do? You know, so uh, you do the best you can, right? I think is what it comes down to.","offset":6490,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: In fact I meant to ask you earlier and it's this is a good time to uh, to talk about this. Uh, you've described that if you are slightly sleep deprived, so not four hours per night or an all-nighter, but if you've only slept five, or let's say you're getting an hour or two less than your normal ration of sleep, there's some pretty significant inflammation that's that that occurs, that's not good.","offset":6506,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: But I've heard you cover that exercising can actually offset some of that inflammation. This answers a a important and common question which is if I have to pick between sleep and exercise, what do I do? Um, and it sounds like if it's one night poor sleep, exercise. But you but you don't want to make it a habit. That's do I have that right?","offset":6531,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah. I mean so this this data a lot of it actually comes from you can cause even acute insulin resistance after like a night of of sleep deprivation, certainly after two to three nights of sleep deprivation. And you know, again a lot of that's coming down to some of the things we've already talked about.","offset":6549,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And um, but exercise can help basically negate a lot of that. And I learned that first hand through experience when I was wearing a continuous glucose monitor uh, and when I was a new parent, of course you're not getting enough enough sleep.","offset":6569,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so that's I learned it before I actually dove into the science about it, I I learned about it through my own data, where I was, you know, I wasn't exercising as much, and particularly in the first month you really like you're kind of in a cave as a new mom, you don't really you're not really exercising much at all.","offset":6586,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Evolution wants the the baby to survive.","offset":6597,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You're recovering too. I mean childbirth is a very it's a very traumatic process on your body. And so um, I noticed that my my glucose response was like it was pre-diabetic. And I was like what is going on? And um, and that's when I started looking into the literature.","offset":6600,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And happened to be around the same time when I was then starting up my at the time I was doing spin classes, and then it was very clear to me, it was like I do these high intensity interval training classes even just twice a week, and it was like almost completely negating what I had seen previously of my my glucose being my fasting glucose being really high, and also my postprandial glucose being higher than than usual.","offset":6618,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so um, I looked into the studies and there's now you can you can find many studies out there and it really I mean obviously exercise is one of the best things you can do to improve insulin sensitivity and to also bring glucose into your cells, right?","offset":6641,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so that's part of what you were talking about with you're more insulin sensitive during morning, least during evening, and I also mentioned that. But guess what? There's levers you can pull that like change the equation, and exercise is a big one, right?","offset":6660,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: If you're if you're exercising you're becoming more insulin sensitive, you're increasing more glucose transporters on your muscle, that's causing glucose to go in easier, right? There's so there's lots of ways around some of these rules that we hear about.","offset":6674,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But with the with the sleep loss, it really is it's interesting because people like when they don't get sleep, the last thing they want to do is work out. And obviously like you don't want to do like the hardest thing especially if you're really like sleep deprived a lot, but it really does help negate the inflammation and the insulin insensitivity that can happen after even just a single night of sleep, and there's studies out there showing that.","offset":6688,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And then there's also these longitudinal studies that have been done looking at you know, people so obviously a poor sleep is a problem, you know, in the United States, I mean a lot of people are are sleeping fewer than seven hours a night. And um, but there's studies out there that have looked at people that sleep either shorter, so fewer than seven hours a night, or they're sleeping more than ten, right?","offset":6716,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So you don't want to be on either end of the spectrum and usually like sleeping long there's like other disease states associated with it, right? But um, so people that are sleeping, you know not getting enough sleep, they have a higher all-cause mortality than people that are getting at least seven to nine hours of sleep. And the same for like more than ten, they have a higher all-cause mortality than people getting between seven and nine.","offset":6736,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But if people exercise, if they're meeting the physical activity guidelines right now, which is 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise and 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity exercise...","offset":6757,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: Right, well because the guidelines are helpful, but they're just guidelines because I mean doing the sort of workout that you're doing, working up to doubles and triples and singles on compound lifts and then doing uh cardio like getting your heart rate elevated and then doing addition of that and then you're hiking. I mean that it's just uh I think the guidelines are a good jumping off place for people to think about.","offset":6769,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Well, we can talk about that because there's a new study that kind of throws that on the head. But but the point is is that if they if people were exercising within the guideline range, that they basically and if they weren't getting enough sleep, if they were getting fewer than seven hours of sleep per night, that they they basically had the same mortality rate as people that were getting enough sleep.","offset":6791,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So it's offsetting some of that unhealthy stuff, the insulin resistance, you know, the inflammation that we know, you know, can lead to diseases and early mortality.","offset":6809,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: So find the time to exercise folks. But of course periods of time like after a new child, or new job, or particularly stressful time, I don't know any human being, I don't care how driven, okay there's probably Goggins and Cam Haynes being probably exceptions and a few others, you know, I don't Ken Rideout and a few others.","offset":6819,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: But people who everybody else um seems to have periods of time where they need to just back off a bit. I know I certainly do, and that I feel like I'm doing pretty well for myself despite, you know and and I think that it's important that people not hold themselves to a standard that is going to make them sick or injured or miserable beyond. Yeah, you also want to continue to enjoy health promoting activities, right?","offset":6842,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Right. I mean you gotta say like what's your goal, like your goal is to be healthy, to be happy. If you're taking it to this extreme where you're trying to just go to the extreme, like go hard, go home, and it's you're sacrificing your happiness too, I mean that then that's a problem, right? Because that's part of the equation happiness is part of that health equation.","offset":6866,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: Health is a daily and lifelong thing, but sometimes it means taking a day off. I think that's what people don't say um, and I think it's in a time when perhaps a lot of people aren't exercising enough, so promoting that no days off thing can be helpful. But for those that are already sort of you know forward center of mass, you know coming off the accelerator can be really useful.","offset":6886,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah. Well I also want to just mention because you know we we talked about my you know, I I work out a lot and I'm sort of addicted to it, but like not everyone has the time and motivation to to go spend an hour block of time working out.","offset":6907,"duration":18}],"startTime":6040},{"title":"VILPA, Exercise Snacks & Cardiorespiratory Fitness","summary":"You don't always need an hour at the gym. Rhonda reveals how just a few cumulative minutes of Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity (VILPA) per day can drastically reduce cancer and all-cause mortality.","entries":[{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And this is where I think the people can sigh a sigh of relief, because there's now so much emerging data that have been coming out you know, over the last decade on these short burst of physical activity that add up.","offset":6925,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: They add up and people aren't really thinking about them in you know counting towards adding up to to their physical activity you know requirements for the for the week. And so there's these a lot of studies now there's on something called vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity VILPA studies. Have you heard of those?","offset":6940,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: Are these the exercise snacks?","offset":6958,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: They're unstructured ex they're unstructured and not everyone likes the word exercise snacks, I mean I kind of like it, but the unstructured exercise they're they're they're the moments in your life where you're taking advantage of everyday situations to get your heart rate up to move.","offset":6959,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so that could be I'm playing with my new puppy and I'm sprinting around with my new puppy. I'm you know chasing my grandkid around playing tag or my child. I'm sprinting up the stairs to get to my office. I'm running to catch the bus. I'm moving, right?","offset":6975,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so um, researchers and there've been several studies on this now, researchers use accelerometers rather than just relying on these questionnaires which are as you know, you know extremely unreliable. I mean it's very hard for people to to remember how much exercise you sit here asking me about my exercise I mean there's only so much you know that you can be accurate with when you're trying to recall that.","offset":6992,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So these accelerometers are are worn people's wrist and they're and they're measuring like fast movement, the movement, right? And so thousands and thousands, like hundreds of thousand participants, there's a lots of data now showing that people that are doing these like short bursts at least a minute long but up to three minutes, right?","offset":7011,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Where they're getting their they're moving, I'm saying they're getting their heart rate up they're actually not measuring the heart rate in these states they're moving faster with intent, right? They're they're jogging or they're um you know, they're not of course there's the cases where they're actually exercising, but but the short burst of it um they're doing the things that I just mentioned and it's having outsized effects on on health outcomes.","offset":7032,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So for example individuals that do on the high end so they're doing, you know, three 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 nine minutes a day, okay this type of activity, and it's considered more vigorous because of you're the intent to move, right? That's more vigorous, even though they're not measuring heart rate.","offset":7057,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: That's associated with a 40% reduction in all-cause mortality, 40% reduction in cancer related mortality, a 50% reduction in cardiovascular related mortality. Wow. Nine minutes a day. And this is even in people that don't identify as exercisers, so they're not the kind of people like you and I that go and intentionally set out time to go to the gym.","offset":7079,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: They're people that just they're just take they're they're doing those things, right? They're playing with their grandkids or their kids or their puppies or whatever. And so um, these moments they add up. And I'm I'm citing one study, but you know it was a dose dependent effect even doing three minutes a day, you know there's a study in women showing you know three and a half minutes a day, I mean they were having pretty profound benefits on all-cause mortality and cancer related mortality as well.","offset":7102,"duration":26},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And multiple studies now have shown this. I mean this is like one study after another after another. I mean it is undeniable that these short moments of you know getting physically activity active do add up.","offset":7128,"duration":10},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And structured exercise snacks can be part of that, like maybe you don't have a puppy, maybe you don't have a kid yet, maybe you work from home and you're not taking the you know maybe your situation's different than what I described, but you can take these moments to do exercise snacks.","offset":7138,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And that can be a minute long and it can be like there was there's studies showing that more two two studies and I'll talk about one, showing that getting up and doing 10 body weight squats every 45 minutes over a seven and a half hour work day is better at regulating blood glucose levels than a 30 minute walk, right?","offset":7154,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So you get up and you do 10 body weight squats. Pretty easy. I mean and it's also very good to break up that sedentary time. So being sedentary means like you're not moving, that also is an independent risk factor even if you do exercise for things like cancer being the big one.","offset":7173,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Although I would say if you're doing a lot of exercise you're doing pretty good, but I just like to mention that as well. I would say being sedentary is a disease, actually. That's that's something I mean people aren't thinking about it.","offset":7188,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Even in the absence of what uh Lane Norton calls energy toxicity, like even if somebody is uh at maintenance or below maintenance calories, if they're sedentary, that's that's problematic.","offset":7198,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: We do have data for one measuring cardio cardiorespiratory fitness, which is a marker of cardiovascular health, being physically fit, right? Obviously the gold standard of that would be measuring VO2 Max, your maximal oxygen uptake during maximal exercise.","offset":7210,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: A lot of studies do not actually directly measure VO2 Max, they'll do, you know, maybe sub a submaximal treadmill test or they'll estimate it, right? There's a calculation out there you can do kind of what you're if you have like an Apple watch or some sort of fitness tracker what they do is which is you know it's looking at the distance that you run and the amount of time it takes, right?","offset":7226,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So like a 12 minute run would be an example people do that, you you run as fast as you can and maintain that pace for 12 minutes, you're not going all out obviously.","offset":7246,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: You see how far you can get.","offset":7260,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, yeah. And then and there's a calculation out there that's done to kind of estimate your VO2 Max, and so some studies are a lot of studies are actually doing sort of an estimation of cardiorespiratory fitness.","offset":7261,"duration":10},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So cardiorespiratory fitness um is really important I think for you know marking your health and longevity. And you know, if you have a low cardiorespiratory fitness, most of the times you are not physically active, right?","offset":7271,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And there are studies showing that if you don't have any you know diagnosable diseases, so you're not insulin resistant, you don't have cardiovascular disease, you don't have cancer, all that stuff, right? You're not um obese, but you have a low cardiorespiratory fitness, it is as bad or worse in terms of your all-cause mortality, you know, predicting mortality, than having cardiovascular disease, or smoking, or having hypertension, or these things that we know that are really bad for health, right?","offset":7283,"duration":31},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So being sedentary, as I'm saying it's low cardiorespiratory fitness, I guess it's not exactly correct, it's a little bit of I'm stretching it a little bit. But cardiorespiratory fitness is a marker of I would say fitness.","offset":7314,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so um, that's why I think being sedentary is a disease. And people with a low cardiorespiratory fitness, I mean if you go anywhere above that, you know if from low to like low normal, that's associated with a two-year increase in life expectancy.","offset":7328,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: If you go from low to um high normal, you know that's like almost a three-year increase in life expectancy. And if you go up to high then you're talking about a five-year increase in life expectancy compared to where you were at the low. But again, I'm not talking about VO2 Max, I'm talking about cardiorespiratory fitness.","offset":7346,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And it's it's really important. Here's another reason why I think that it's it's really bad. So these studies were done, by the way cardiorespiratory fitness is improved by aerobic exercise in general. That's great.","offset":7364,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And then you know if you add if you add in high intensity interval training in there mix, that also really helps because there are some people that don't respond necessarily to just doing cardiovascular...","offset":7379,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Slow steady state.","offset":7389,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Mm-hmm. Yeah, about 40% of people don't respond, so mixing in the high intensity is good. If you're physically active and doing that that's great, if you're doing these short bursts of physical activity also good, because it's a little bit of a high intensity you know exercise, right?","offset":7390,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: A min a minute running around chasing your grandkid or your puppy or your child, you know that's that's that's a hit.","offset":7406,"duration":5},{"text":"Host: Taking the stairs is amazing. I was traveling for a team...","offset":7411,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Sprinting up the stairs.","offset":7413,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Going sprinting up the the stairs or if you're carrying a lot of luggage in the airport like going up the stairs or down the stairs. It's wild when you go to the airport, I I like to notice this, um nobody takes the stairs.","offset":7414,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, because they're there right.","offset":7427,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Down or up like the escalators are there. And I'm always like oh this is a great opportunity to get some extra steps and some extra work but I realize that's me. Um, but it's just it's striking.","offset":7428,"duration":9},{"text":"Host: Um, and if you're in DC ever, you know, they have these long stairwells like go um up from the from the public transport and that's a workout, you know. And and I'm always like, oh free workout. Like you know like get it in my day. I mean it sucks to arrive a little bit more sweaty than you would otherwise.","offset":7437,"duration":15},{"text":"Host: But I just think if this were an experiment, and we were looking at mice, and we were videotaping from above, I always think of myself like which mouse am I going to be? All the mice are going up the automatic elevator. It makes sense why they would want to do that, but these opportunities for exercise are clearly there.","offset":7452,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: I I feel like this is also I I would be remiss if I didn't do a quick shout out to Steve Magness. Do you follow ever see his content?","offset":7466,"duration":8},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I've interacted with him, yeah. Um, on Twitter I've interacted with him, on X.","offset":7474,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Yeah, I've never met him but um people should I think give him a follow. He's a very accomplished runner in his past, a running coach I believe as well, and um and a scientist, and I think has the best take on sort of measuring VO2 Max.","offset":7476,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: It's kind of interesting you know he has a theory which I think is strongly backed that most measures of VO2 Max are not measures of VO2 Max at all. But one of the best measures of cardiorespiratory fitness is how fast can you run a mile.","offset":7494,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Hmm. And he says people are generally surprised how easy the easy stuff should feel and how hard the hard stuff should feel. So I want to just credit Steve for saying that. So I try and keep that in mind around my cardio and do some high i do a less of what you do I I confess, um some high intensity interval training Tabata type stuff and then some a lot of walks, a lot of hikes.","offset":7505,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: Yeah. And I haven't formally measured my VO2 Max in a while but I think he just nails it with that because I think people think the 30-minute jog on the treadmill where you get sweaty and you're like ah like that's accomplishing what you want but actually there's a much easier path to better health, which is what you do and more or less what Steve is describing as well. Uh does that square with your your experience?","offset":7525,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, I think so. I mean I do I do mix in quite a bit of probably more more high intensity interval training. But um, you know, I don't feel like if I felt like it was like if I didn't feel good I would I would toggle down the the pedal right I wouldn't keep keep going on it.","offset":7546,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So I think you have to again just listen to your body, you know you don't want to overdo things. And I am I mean there are people out there that are really like endurance athletes that are, you know, like that's not me. I'm a committed exerciser, I'm not an I'm not necessarily an athlete, uh but but yeah so that would that's those different I think levels here and Steve is obviously athlete.","offset":7561,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: Anyway, I've learned from him around this topic. It's been it's been helpful.","offset":7581,"duration":6}],"startTime":6925},{"title":"Sponsor: Function","summary":"Huberman reads a sponsor message for Function Health lab testing.","entries":[{"text":"Host: I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function. Last year I became a function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. Function provides over 100 advanced lab tests that give you a key snapshot of your entire bodily health. This snapshot offers you with insights on your heart health, hormone health, immune function, nutrient levels, and much more.","offset":7587,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: They've also recently added tests for toxins, such as BPA exposure from harmful plastics and tests for PFASes, or forever chemicals. Function not only provides testing of over 100 biomarkers key to your physical and mental health, but it also analyzes these results and provides insights from top doctors who are expert in the relevant areas.","offset":7610,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: For example, in one of my first tests with Function, I learned that I had elevated levels of mercury in my blood. Function not only helped me detect that, but offered insights into how best to reduce my mercury levels, which included limiting my tuna consumption, I'd been eating a lot of tuna, while also making an effort to eat more leafy greens and supplementing with NAC, N-acetyl cysteine, both of which can support glutathione production and detoxification. And I should say by taking a second Function test, that approach worked.","offset":7629,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: Comprehensive blood testing is vitally important. There are so many things related to your mental and physical health that can only be detected in a blood test. The problem is blood testing has always been very expensive and complicated. In contrast, I've been super impressed by Function's simplicity and at the level of cost. It is very affordable.","offset":7653,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: As a consequence, I decided to join their scientific advisory board and I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring the podcast. If you'd like to try Function, you can go to functionhealth.com/huberman. Function currently has a wait list of over 250,000 people, but they're offering early access to Huberman Podcast listeners. Again, that's functionhealth.com/huberman to get early access to Function.","offset":7671,"duration":25}],"startTime":7587},{"title":"Creatine Supplementation: Muscle & Brain Health","summary":"An extensive breakdown of creatine monohydrate. They explore its traditional use for muscle volume and dive into emerging clinical data showing its profound ability to offset cognitive deficits caused by sleep deprivation or brain aging.","entries":[{"text":"Host: I want to ask you about creatine. Yeah. I'm 50, I started taking weight training and running when I was like 16 maybe, yeah. And I started taking creatine because back then I was skinny I wanted to put on muscle.","offset":7696,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: I think creatine was sort of first discovered or released back then when I was maybe 18 or something like that, something like that, 18 19. Um so I've been taking a long long time, 5 to 10 grams.","offset":7708,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: But the original protocol, which nobody does anymore, but I confess I still do it because I enjoy it was to take 5 grams three to five times per day, there was this loading phase and you would mix it with a little bit of grape juice because the idea was you were supposed to spike your insulin and then you get more into the muscles, and then you had a maintenance dose which was 5 grams per day.","offset":7721,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: Um, and the idea back then was that you need to do a washout every 20 weeks or so where you just stop taking it, you urinate out a bunch of water and then you reload. And I confess I've continued to do this minus the grape juice, but occasionally I'll do the grape juice thing.","offset":7745,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: I don't think that there's any real merit to the loading phase maintenance phase idea, but back then and still now I feel like creatine has maybe feel great, um stronger, um I did I wasn't aware of the cognitive benefits.","offset":7761,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: They weren't being studied back then.","offset":7774,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: They weren't being studied back then, but what are your thoughts on why creatine suddenly has become this like banner supplement. It's like supplement of the year, we should start a supplement of the year thing, right? For a while I think vitamin D and melatonin came first, um and we'll have to figure out what years those were.","offset":7776,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: Then I feel like creatine got supplement of the year for 2026 is unless something else comes along. So creatine, supplement of the year 2026 even though it's been around for a long long time. What do you think happened?","offset":7796,"duration":11},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Well, so first I want to talk about your loading phase night like that was really for the studies that were being done, right? Because if you're taking 5 grams a day of creatine it takes about three to four weeks for your for your muscle creatine stores to become saturated, and researchers aren't going to do a study where they wait that long.","offset":7807,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So the loading phase really was just...","offset":7824,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Oh, so that's what inspired it.","offset":7827,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, it was it's in this isolated bubble of in the experimental protocol, but like in the real world you have three weeks, or if you're like an athlete and you hadn't you know taken the creatine you don't have your creatine stores up and you have to quickly rapidly like increase your stores.","offset":7828,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: Got it. I was just amazed at how quickly it worked. I I might be a hyper responder, but I legitimately put on I realize some of it was water or most of it was water, but somewhere between probably 4 and 8 pounds of of water in the muscle mass. I don't want to call it lean mass because it's you know it's water in the muscle.","offset":7841,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: Um but I just was I was like, oh my goodness this is crazy, you know. And um and then people thought maybe it was a steroid, it's not a steroid, maybe it's bad for your kidneys, turns out it's safe for your kidneys in most everyone. Um pretty remarkable molecule.","offset":7861,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah. I mean obviously creatine is stored as creatine phosphate in our in our cells, we make to some degree like between 1 to 3 grams of creatine a day, our liver, our brain also makes it. It's used to make energy and so your muscles if you're working out, you're really consuming a lot of energy, right?","offset":7873,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: It's very energetically demanding, so having the creatine stores higher in your muscle is beneficial because one, you're going to be able to increase your training volume, right? So it's not like creatine is anabolic in the sense that protein or amino acids are, right?","offset":7892,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: It's not like directly affecting muscle protein synthesis, it's just helping you train more, getting more reps in you know in whatever it is training training your training volume's going up, and because your training volume's going up then you're obviously putting more stress on your muscles which is going to lead to increased muscle protein synthesis and you know obviously there's water probably as well.","offset":7907,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: That said, you know you asked me you know what happened. So I got interested in creatine back in 20 when I started basically weight training. You know, I've obviously had heard about it forever, never took it. And as I started to get into resistance training, I was like I better start taking this.","offset":7928,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: This is I'm I'm in this world now and started doing some research and taking it. So I was taking the 5 grams a day because that's really what most of the studies show creatine monohydrate that's obviously the most well researched form of creatine, and I was taking 5 grams a day because I was interested in improving my my training volume and and getting the the benefits of it, right?","offset":7944,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Um and then I had Darren Candow on the podcast. Uh, that was in 2024 I think it was, and um once I had started getting into the creatine research, I the brain stuff started his brain stuff had been coming out over the past you know few years and that's for me become very interesting.","offset":7967,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I remember the first time I heard about it years ago it was like, oh it's it's helping improve cognitive function in older older you know people.","offset":7987,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: Yeah. The phosphocreatine system seems to be somewhat um biased towards forebrain structures. You know I mean obviously it's in lots of brain areas, but that there might be a heavier reliance on it for brain areas that are associated with strategic planning and you know working memory and yeah, if you if you were to sort of just map the the sort of density of usage of the phosphocreatine system you'd you'd see a frontal bias for sure.","offset":7994,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Okay, interesting. Interesting. Um well anyways, that's kind of where my interest in in you know kind of diving deeper, anything that's helping the brain is interesting to me as I know it is to you as well.","offset":8015,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And um and so I learned a lot from this podcast I did with Darren Candow, you know researches creatine and collaborates with a lot of different researchers that are doing you know research on the brain and muscle and you know lots of the bone turns out it's beneficial for the bone as well.","offset":8028,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But the brain it's interesting we also make creatine in the brain, but um it's not like so it's kind of like the muscle, right? You're not just going to if you take creatine and you don't work out, you're not going to you're not going to get any increase in lean mass, right? It's not going to do much of anything because you're not putting in the work.","offset":8046,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I think the same goes with the brain as well, where it's like researchers started to find out that well, you can't just take creatine and it's going to enhance cognitive function, it's in the background of stressing the brain, right?","offset":8061,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You're stressing your muscles by workout, same goes for the brain. It's like in these situations of stress, whether that's sleep deprivation, whether it's you know a traumatic brain injury. I mean I would argue you know there's a lot of psychological stress, depression, constantly using your brain like you and I right now in this conversation we're we're learning, we're thinking, I mean it is stressful on the brain, right?","offset":8074,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So I mean I am obviously speculating here and taking taking I'm extrapolating, right? I'm not saying that there's studies showing that but it does seem as though that that's when creatine seems to shine in the brain.","offset":8099,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And you might go well your brain makes it and it's true, your brain does make you know again it's I think between 1 to 3 grams or something, I'm not exactly sure how much but it makes its own creatine.","offset":8113,"duration":10},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And it's kind of resistant to taking up the creatine that you're supplementing with, um particularly because for one the muscle is very greedy. So when you're getting to that 5 gram range muscles are really consuming it if you're working out in particular, right? Your muscles are kind of consuming that because that's they're very greedy for it, right?","offset":8123,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Uh and there have now been I think a handful of studies showing that when you start to get above that, there was a study out of Germany showing this and it's a small study. This needs to be replicated, like this is all new you know emerging data.","offset":8142,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But that study showed that once you start to get to you know 10 grams, then if you look by MRI you can start to see that creatine levels are increasing in certain brain regions and perhaps in the brain regions that you were talking about. And they're going higher than than what you would get from just your brain normally making its own creatine.","offset":8154,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So the 10 grams of creatine a day, which is now what my baseline is, is based off of that.","offset":8175,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But there's studies now showing that um if you're in this sort of stressed state, your brain is stressed, like first sleep sleep deprivation for example, you're sleep deprived for 21 hours, and your brain's not working very good after not sleeping for 21 hours, right?","offset":8181,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I mean that's obviously when I have a when I travel internationally I never really sleep good on a an international flight and so I'm like not if you were to come find me after that flight I'd be like not working very good cognitively, right?","offset":8196,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: You and everybody else.","offset":8209,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Right. Well some people can sleep great on a plane, but I'm not one of those people.","offset":8210,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So um there have now been at least one study showing that if you give someone it's like something like 0.35 grams per kilogram body weight of creatine, which comes out to a lot. I mean it's like 20 25 it depends on your body weight, right? Like 20 25 grams perhaps even more.","offset":8213,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: I mean I'm 100 kilograms, that's a lot of creatine.","offset":8231,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, so it would be a lot. So for me it's more like 20 25 grams, right?","offset":8232,"duration":4},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But if you give individuals that high dose in that you know sleep deprived state, that their cognitively not only performing normal, but they're performing better than their baseline.","offset":8236,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And that of course generated a lot of interest. There've been studies coming out since then showing that okay, if you give older adults with mild cognitive impairment perhaps mild you know early stage Alzheimer's disease again 20 grams, you're giving them the 20 gram range of creatine it's improving their cognitive function.","offset":8249,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Why is that? Well creatine is important to make energy and when your brain brain cells are stressed out, right? I mean like energy energetic demand goes up and if you have more creatine it's going to make things easier.","offset":8267,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: There's also some inflammation that's being generated in that stressed state and it seems as though creatine is also...","offset":8282,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: Uh, I'm going to interrupt there. I don't think so. I'm not trying to just be complimentary. You know, I paid close attention to the data and it seems like in certain fields like math and physics, people tend to peak with their contributions early. There's a reason why the Fields Medal is only given to people, you know, like I think it's 40 or younger. My dad's a physicist, so he can check me on this one.","offset":8295,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: But biologists, at least the ones I know that took good care of themselves, they're known to make great discoveries, be cognitively sharp, intellectually strong well into their 70s and 80s. I mean Torsten Wiesel, who co-received the Nobel Prize for brain plasticity and vision, he's still alive and he... I think he still runs. He's in his late 90s. And he paints and he's sharp. So I just... I made a point to only interrupt here.","offset":8321,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: People can check the data on the previous portions of the podcast, but I actually think that cognitively, um, using biologists as an example, it's possible in aspects of life where you're building a base of data to pull from, which is what biology really is... just an example here... to get cognitively stronger and stronger with age.","offset":8352,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: Right. I... this is a theory, but I see you as that. And I'm again, I'm not just saying it to be complimentary, although it is a compliment. It seems like you're picking up steam, you're thinking about things you're not forgetting things from way back when, you're building on the concepts and knowledge from way back when. So I find it reassuring that biologists in particular seem to have this, you know, up-and-to-the-right trajectory for cognition.","offset":8375,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: It's interesting. My... my late mentor, Dr. Bruce Ames, was every bit of that. I mean, you know, he passed away a little over a year ago and he was 96. But, you know, some of his most... he claimed some of his best work was done, you know, in his late 80s.","offset":8400,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: Right. You don't see that in math or physics.","offset":8413,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. So it's interesting. And you know, I don't know exactly the difference. I mean, I don't know how much learning goes into math and physics as you're... as you're... like, I just don't know. But like with biology and, I mean, we're constantly learning new things and reading new papers. And then I think even just the novelty of learning new things, I mean that's brain-derived neurotrophic factor, right? Like you're... you're... you're increasing synaptic connections and neuroplasticity and you're keeping your brain younger in that way too, right?","offset":8414,"duration":29},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So, I think the learning process is super important whether it's biology or whatever you're passionate about, right? Like you learn new languages, whatever... like the learning process itself is something that is so important for brain aging as well. Um, and yeah, so I would agree with you. But brain aging in general, yeah, I mean, I'm obviously chronologically aging and there is some degree of aging going on in my brain.","offset":8443,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But, you know, so that's I think where the creatine craze has come from is the interest in... and I've definitely played a role in some of this, you know, by talking about my experience and being super interested in it because it's felt good for me. And I've noticed this experience and this is completely anecdotal again.","offset":8467,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But in addition with the small studies... and they are small. Like I don't know if you've looked at them, but they're... you can... you can poke holes in them...","offset":8488,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Subject numbers and that...","offset":8498,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah, they're small sample sizes. But it is kind of a consistent trend line where we're seeing more studies come out and show the same thing, same thing. And it's like, okay, to a certain point, maybe there's something here. I think that more research is going to come out on it. And I feel great doing it. So I mean, and even to the point where if I don't have my 10 grams and it's only five, like I'll notice.","offset":8499,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: Oh, yeah?","offset":8524,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah, but again, it could be that placebo/nocebo thing where, who knows, who knows. But you know, let's just say it is real, you know, for me, I got to have... I got to have my 10 grams of creatine for my brain. Um, you know, who knows, I may in five years be like, I was wrong. We'll see new data come out, but I don't think so. I think we're going to have... I think this is like the next... a lot of people doing creatine research, it's the new thing. They're really because there's been a lot of work on exercise physiology and...","offset":8525,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: Yeah, the safety data are there, so it's not like they have to get a lot of, you know, human subjects clearance.","offset":8556,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: The safety data is there. The safety data is there. I mean, it's the most well-studied, you know, one of the most well-studied supplements out there. Like you said, you were taking it when you were 18 and it was studied back then. Yeah, and it's just been studied the, you know, for all the years that you've been taking it. So, I mean, if it was unsafe, like we'd really know. And again, I don't want to get into all the data on the safety, but I think that it's pretty solid that it's... now, of course, like if you're going to go like mainline 50 grams a day, I mean, I don't know, that's a little much...","offset":8562,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: Someone on the internet will do it. People dry... what are they? Dry scoop. I mean, people have died dry scooping energy drinks. I mean, there's always a moron or two out there that are going to take things to the extreme and harm themselves doing something that no one else is dumb enough to do. But I think we look at the center of mass for things.","offset":8593,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: You know, as we're talking about creatine, I want to talk about some other supplements, but it occurs to me that if there's some data, ideally from animal studies and humans, and something is safe, I think the question nowadays because of how broadly health and supplement and other kinds of information goes in the world... I think the question that everyone should ask themselves is, okay, do I want to be in the experimental or the control group?","offset":8613,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: That's how I think about it. So like, if there's a study about creatine, or some new molecule... I'm going to ask you about magnesium in a moment, right? Um, I look at the safety margins on magnesium... okay, that... I'm comfortable with those safety margins. So that should always be question number one. And then it's, do I want to be in the experimental or the control group?","offset":8642,"duration":21},{"text":"Host: And I think that these days people are who are against supplements or against something, they'll say, well, the effect isn't nearly as big as you get from exercise. Totally, absolutely. But that's not really what we're talking about. People love this in the cannabis and alcohol thing. Whenever I make a point about alcohol or cannabis, they'll say, well, alcohol's worse. I'm like, yeah, like, and? You know, I mean, these are two separate entities.","offset":8663,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: So I think that people should just ask themselves, are you comfortable with the safety margins and do you want to be in the experimental or the control group? And then, of course, there's the, can I afford to be in the experimental group if I do something? But those are really the only questions. No one's saying that creatine's better than anything else or worse than anything else.","offset":8690,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Right.","offset":8712,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: But somehow the messaging gets all messed up. And then all these news articles get generated about what creatine is and it isn't. And I find it like, um, kind of frustrating because that's... the issue is not whether or not creatine is better than exercise and good sleep. Question is, do you want to be in the experimental or the control group and can you afford to be in the experimental group?","offset":8713,"duration":27},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Right. I like that. I like that framework, especially if it's like, well, we know it's safe. Okay, so I can potentially be in the experimental group because that's question number one you have to have that answer first, right? At least in my book. But yeah, I mean, there's flaws with all sorts of studies, and creatine studies included, right? And people make all sorts of claims about it. And you know, you got to tone it down a little bit. I mean, it's not like the best performance enhancer ever. But it seems pretty good at, you know, improving exercise volume, recovery as well. I mean, that's also something that's been shown. And then helping with the stressed-out brain.","offset":8740,"duration":37}],"startTime":7696},{"title":"Omega-3s, Cell Membrane Fluidity & Epigenetic Aging","summary":"Rhonda highlights Omega-3s (EPA and DHA) as the ultimate low-hanging fruit for resolving inflammation, keeping endothelial cells flexible, and demonstrably slowing down epigenetic aging clocks.","entries":[{"text":"Host: On the basis of our last conversation some years ago on this podcast, I started taking Lovaza, which is a... as you know, a prescription Omega-3. So very high concentration Omega-3 because I was getting it from, you know, standard sources and I thought, well, I'm hitting 50 and my Omega-3 and I want clean Omega-3, I don't want it contaminated with mercury and other things. So I'll take Omega-3s in the form of Lovaza. It's available generically now so it's pretty inexpensive. And I have to say my blood profiles were pretty good, but they improved pretty dramatically when I started taking Lovaza. So I'm grateful to you for encouraging the Omega-3 path.","offset":8777,"duration":44},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Have you ever had an Omega-3 index test done?","offset":8821,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: No.","offset":8824,"duration":0},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: To measure the...","offset":8824,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Oh, oh, if it's on the function test, then it would be in normal range. I know it wasn't flagged, but I don't recall what the what the level was.","offset":8825,"duration":9},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. You want to be in the high index, not the low, right? Well, obviously if you're taking it, you're not going to be in the low. Usually it's around 2 grams a day to get you from low to high. And I do think that's one of the low-hanging fruits in terms of like something powerful and having an outsized effect on your health that people can do that's not that much effort. It's not like exercise. Exercise is effort.","offset":8834,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: Or eating salmon. I don't like fish.","offset":8857,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: No. Yeah, and you know, a lot of people don't like fish and also there's now microplastic contamination in our seafood sources. There's the heavy metal, PCBs, contaminants. I mean, I still eat salmon, but like, you know, it's not like it used to be. So there are other cleaner ways to get your Omega-3 levels higher. And Omega-3 is very important for cardiovascular... it's one of the most important, I would say the most powerful naturally occurring dietary compounds for suppressing inflammation and resolving inflammation would be a better way of putting it, right?","offset":8859,"duration":34},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I mean, and that's, again, at the core of aging. And if you look at any sort of measure of aging, whether it's even these epigenetic aging clocks, they're very sensitive to inflammation and that's why there's so many studies coming out now showing Omega-3 can slow this biological aging as measured by these epigenetic aging clocks. And that's I think even in randomized controlled trials showing this that it's doing that.","offset":8893,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And that leads to functional outcomes as well. So like even if you're only slowing the clock, let's say by three months, um, you're still having outcomes like where, for example, three months slowing the epigenetic aging clock by Omega-3 only is going to get you like, you know, 16% lower pre-frailty. Or if you add in Vitamin D and resistance training because a study showed a synergy between the three, then you're talking about like lowering the chance of invasive cancer by 66%.","offset":8921,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: 66%?","offset":8951,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah.","offset":8952,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: So Vitamin D, resistance training, and Omega-3.","offset":8953,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. And this was... this was... the trial was actually out of Switzerland, I believe. And it looked at Omega-3, Vitamin D alone, or resistance training alone. And the only thing that actually slowed the aging of the clocks was Omega-3. Now, I'll say that with a caveat, okay. The baseline exercise in this Switzerland group, 88% of these people were physically active, like doing exercise. So adding, you know, 30 minutes, three times a week of resistance training on top of that didn't slow the clock more. And I wouldn't expect it to, to be honest, when you're already physically active and that's your baseline.","offset":8955,"duration":40},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Clearly they weren't eating enough Omega-3 because that did slow the epigenetic aging clock. Other studies have shown if you're vitamin D deficient, severely vitamin D deficient, like African Americans for example, who are obese or overweight, if they add in Vitamin D and supplement with 4,000 IUs a day for six weeks, they can actually slow their epigenetic or reverse their epigenetic aging as well. So I think it again, it's all like where you're starting from.","offset":8995,"duration":31},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But the point is that the Omega-3 alone did slow the aging of these clocks. Um, you add in the resistance training and vitamin D, those alone didn't do it, but when you add it with the Omega-3 there was synergy. So it kept going down. And when the three combined, it slowed the epigenetic aging by like 3.8 months. But that translated to like 66% less likely to get invasive cancer. Um, and then the pre-frailty was the Omega-3 alone and there was another marker I can't remember, I covered this in a newsletter a while back.","offset":9026,"duration":36},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But like, you know, this and this isn't the first study to show this with Omega-3. Um, Omega-3s are really... I'm so sorry, Andrew, you got me on one of my favorite topics.","offset":9062,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: No, no, it's great. I mean, I'm excited because I take Lovaza, I take Vitamin D D3. I take a lot. I take 5 to 8,000 IUs per day and I get sunlight. People actually ask me, this is just a quick window into the messaging around sunlight... some people will say, if I take Vitamin D do I still need sunlight?","offset":9072,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: And you know, a big part of my messaging is trying to tell people sunlight does a bunch of other things, but I take Vitamin D at that level, I take the Lovaza, and of course I resistance train. And the Lovaza move, and actually increasing the Vitamin D, was on the basis of, yes, blood work but also our prior conversation. I feel much better. Much better.","offset":9094,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. I take about 5,000 IUs a day as well. And I do get sunlight. And I agree with you, sunlight's important for... sunlight's not in Vitamin D production is not the only thing that sunlight is doing, obviously. You've talked in great depth about that.","offset":9119,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: I'm going to go into the grave... I actually want a little window over my grave, it'll be a little macabre, so I can get morning sun. I'm just kidding folks. When I'm in the ground, I'm in the ground. No, I think the Omega-3 literature has been greatly assisted by your messaging around it because it got pretty confused out there for a while. There was the usual pushback that comes after supplement of the year is released... it's a joke folks... is the, \"Oh no, it's actually bad for us.\" You know, there's always a few of those. And then we eventually arrive at sanity again and go, no, the bulk of studies point in the direction of this being healthy.","offset":9136,"duration":39},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Right. Randomized controlled trials showing it improves cardiovascular health, lowers the incidence of cardiovascular events including heart attacks and strokes, right. These are the gold standard. We've got the observational data. We have now looking at the molecular events... epigenetic aging. We know that it's really good at resolving inflammation. Because you want your immune system to be active, but you don't want it to be overactive. You want it to be active and then turn off, right.","offset":9175,"duration":33},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And so the Omega-3 fatty acids like DHA and EPA which are in Lovaza are what the metabo- they're when they're metabolized, they're forming these molecules: resolvins, protectins... these things are resolving inflammation. And so I think that it's just it's one of the easiest ways that you can you can increase your anti-inflammatory response. And exercise obviously being another very powerful one.","offset":9208,"duration":29},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But the Omega-3s, it's always easier to take a supplement and so like I have my parents taking it, you know, anyone that I care about it's like, you know, easy, easy, done. You know, take your 2 grams a day. I say 2 grams a day because Lovaza is prescribed at 4 grams a day. You know, so 2 grams is pretty on the conservative side, and that's really what's been shown by Dr. Bill Harris and some of his colleagues that can basically you can take someone from a low Omega-3 index of 4% up to a high Omega-3 index of 8% by supplementing with about 2 grams a day.","offset":9237,"duration":40},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So, and by the way, there's all sorts of data on that front with the Omega-3 index and I think we talked about this last time, but you know, five-year increase life expectancy if you're on the high end. You're talking about 90% reduction in sudden cardiac death. Brain weight in children if pregnant women are taking... yeah. Yeah.","offset":9277,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I mean, it's important throughout the lifespan. It's, you know, from in utero development throughout childhood all the way through adult life and into old age. You know, these Omega-3 fatty acids are... I'm talking about the resolving of inflammation, but they're also very important for they're incorporated into our cell membranes. DHA and to some degree EPA.","offset":9300,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And that has a very important role in the fluidity of our cell membranes. And this is important for if you think about our endothelial cells lining our vascular system, our arteries, you want them to be fluid and more flexible, right. That's very important for being able to respond to a stressful situation. In fact, the stiffening of our heart with age, you know, the collagen that's surrounds our pericardium that's surrounding our heart, our myocardium... like that's that increases the risk of a heart attack, you know, a cardiovascular event. You want your cells to be more flexible.","offset":9321,"duration":39},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So that's what, you know, these Omega-3s are also doing. That's why they're also really important for cardiovascular health in addition. And the brain as well. I mean, all of our transporters, all of our our receptors, right, they're embedded in the cell membrane. And the fluidity of that membrane is important for the structure and function of these things.","offset":9360,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And that's why Omega-3 affects dopamine, serotonin, right? It's why it's affecting- it's not the only reason inflammation is also, but part of the reason is because it's changing the way our cell is like, you know, structurally composed. And if you think about trans fats, like they do the opposite, right. They stiffen the cell membranes. And that's why it's like the worst thing you could do for your cardio- one of the worst things that you could do for your cardiovascular health is eat a bunch of trans fats. Smoking is another one, smoking's terrible for your cardiovascular health.","offset":9380,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: Do people still eat trans fats?","offset":9411,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: No, I think they're banned.","offset":9413,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: I feel like trans fats got executed in 20- when was it that trans fats got executed?","offset":9414,"duration":4},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: When they all became... I think it was 2018 when they all were like...","offset":9418,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Yeah, they were sentenced to death.","offset":9422,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: No, it's- the point is that we all know trans fats are bad for our heart, but we don't think about why. And the researchers doing it know, I mean it stiffens your cell, your endothelial cells.","offset":9424,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: With donuts, right? As in like if you go get a donut, isn't a donut have a bunch of fried food?","offset":9436,"duration":5},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: There's pro- probably some amount of trans fat that's like below the threshold of being...","offset":9441,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: It's the only bad food I miss. The late-night donut.","offset":9448,"duration":4},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I had so much margarine as a kid. My mom used to buy it by the tub, I remember. It's like this she used to go to Costco and get like this big yellow tub of margarine. I remember those tubs. And everything was cooked in it and I mean it was like on our toast and...","offset":9452,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: This was a battle in my home. Actually, I'm going to resurrect some family battles. The butter-margarine battle was a battle. Butter won.","offset":9466,"duration":11},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah, it doesn't taste the same. But you know, that was the craze, it was the low fat like the fat was bad and butter was bad and margarine was good. And it turns out, no, trans fats are really bad. Um, but the point I was trying to make was to help contrast for people to understand sometimes when I talk cell fluidity people are like, what?","offset":9477,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: No, it's good that people... I mean, I think it's very important that people understand some of the cellular molecular underpinnings of protocols because I strongly believe that understanding mechanism, even just a little bit, or striving to understand it embeds the information for people, makes it more likely that they'll do the behaviors and gives them a logic to work from when they have to make choices because life isn't perfect. That's... I know that to be certain.","offset":9495,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I completely agree with you. It's certainly for me, but I hope that if people kind of understand somewhat of the why, it's motivating to try to adopt the healthy habit, but also I think it helps them remember like why it's important, right.","offset":9523,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: And it's how the brain learns. It's the secret is context. Way to remember something is context. People always say, \"It's stories.\" No, it's context. And anyway, you and I know that to be true from our background.","offset":9539,"duration":16}],"startTime":8777},{"title":"Magnesium Forms, Sleep & Systemic Functions","summary":"They contrast different forms of magnesium (Threonate vs. Bisglycinate) for sleep and cognition, and lament the lack of large-scale clinical funding for basic nutrient trials.","entries":[{"text":"Host: If I may, I'd like to ask about magnesium. I'm very bullish on magnesium, in particular Magnesium Threonate before sleep. For sleep, I take AG-Z because I helped them build it. It just has a bunch of things like Magnesium Threonate and Saffron and Tart Cherry, the things that um have either been shown or are, you know, gradually amassing research data... the other people... studies out there to support that it can facilitate either transition to sleep or sleep, but Magnesium Threonate and Magnesium Bisglycinate to me are interchangeable with respect to sleep.","offset":9555,"duration":41},{"text":"Host: But Magnesium Threonate, I'm aware there's some studies that maybe there's some cognitive benefit. So magnesium obviously could be split into a number of things, but maybe we just start there with Threonate, Bisglycinate. I have a feeling that you're aware of some additional differences between them and I'd like to know what you prefer for sleep or for cognitive benefits and then maybe we get into the other magnesiums.","offset":9596,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. I think so if we if we're comparing Magnesium Bisglycinate or Magnesium Glycinate depending on how many molecules of glycine are attached to the magnesium compared to Magnesium L-Threonate. Um, the main difference here and this is based on very limited amount of data, a lot of it animal data with respect to the Magnesium Threonate, is that that form of magnesium is supposed to get into and cross the blood-brain barrier more readily and get into the brain better.","offset":9619,"duration":35},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And in the brain, it's you know helping facilitate neurotransmission, etc., right, helping improve cognitive function. So whereas Magnesium Glycinate or Bisglycinate, you're having the magnesium attached to the glycine... glycine also is great to take for sleep. So I like to take Magnesium Bisglycinate or Glycinate for sleep. And so that I would say if you're if you're interested in more the cognition aspect...","offset":9654,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: Well, the studies I think you're referring to, the Guosong Liu's data... you know, show some in mice, some cognitive enhancement or at least some offsetting of cognitive decline. Those are different but related, obviously. In anticipation of today's discussion, I was able to find one study seems okay, it's not a huge sample size, showing a positive reports on sleep quality after Magnesium L-Threonate.","offset":9685,"duration":36},{"text":"Host: So the studies are starting to show up. But there aren't a lot of studies on magnesium for specific outcomes in humans. And I think it's because it hits like what, 3,000 plus pathways?","offset":9721,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: There's a lot of pathways. Yeah. It's a cofactor for many enzymes.","offset":9735,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: So if you're taking Bisglycinate before sleep, are you taking it half hour or 60 minutes before sleep?","offset":9739,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I'm usually taking it I would say like a couple of hours before bed. You know, sometimes I add a little bit more magnesium in the mix, depends on the day and if I exercise more because you do sweat out magnesium. And so if you're pretty athletic, your requirements can go up by even as much as 20%.","offset":9745,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But yeah, the Magnesium L-Threonate, it's interesting I very recently got interested in experimenting with it. You know, there's a little bit of human evidence as well that it improves cognition, not strong, but again, it's that you know we just don't have a lot of people researching it. And we have the animal data, the animal data's a little stronger, don't have a lot of human data, but it seems to signal it might be important, it might help with cognition, right.","offset":9764,"duration":27},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And so I kind of got interested in experimenting with the Magnesium L-Threonate, which I haven't usually- that it's a new thing for me. I've been doing Magnesium Glycinate for a while.","offset":9791,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: I think the study actually looked at the Magtein... Yes, I have no financial relationship to Magtein, I only want to be very clear. I just mentioned that because that's a common one out there. And as far as I know, I'll double check, but they weren't paid by Magtein, but...","offset":9801,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I think the Magtein did fund the study.","offset":9815,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Oh, they did?","offset":9817,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah.","offset":9818,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Okay. All right. Well, we'll put a link to it.","offset":9819,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Doesn't discredit it. Unless unless there's some, you know, bad things going on which I like to think not. I mean, you know, it's supposed to be done independently, I mean, when they pay for a group to do- I mean by law they're supposed to blind the data and not bias the outcome. I mean, that's what one hopes that's what they do.","offset":9821,"duration":15},{"text":"Host: Yeah.","offset":9836,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. And I think to the most part, you're probably okay, but it is something to consider if there is a potential COI, right. Um, but yeah, so I don't know. So that was the first part of your question was the difference between the Glycinate and Threonate. And then the concern that I might have, which might be something you're not thinking about is, okay, well, I need to fulfill my magnesium requirements, right?","offset":9837,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And so our daily magnesium requirements, again based on our gender and our physical activity, it's a range, it's a sliding scale. So you know women 300-350 milligrams a day, men 350-400 milligrams a day, really depending on how physically active you are. And this is just, you know, your daily requirements to have enough magnesium to run repairing DNA damage, to run you need magnesium to make energy to utilize energy, you need it for neurotransmission... like it's there's so many different important functions in our body that require magnesium to work.","offset":9859,"duration":37},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: To make Vitamin- to convert Vitamin D3 into the active steroid hormone. And this, this to me is like to some degree vindicating, but also I'm super annoyed by it because you know we have all these different studies out there on Vitamin D supplementation and is it important? And I mean there's so many negative data out there, well it doesn't do what we thought it's not doing anything.","offset":9896,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But half the US population doesn't get enough magnesium. And so those enzymes that are important for converting the D3 that you're taking into the active steroid hormone are not working properly. Um, so anyways, I'm not going to go on that tangent, but I'm just saying magnesium is doing a lot of things. So if you are taking the Magnesium Threonate and let's say it is getting into the blood- sorry, the brain more readily, then the concern would be well then not enough of it is around for you know DNA repair in other organs and stuff. And so you might want to get another source of magnesium. It's all theoretical, right, and like that's not I would- there's no data on that. So just mostly because no one's looking at it. No one's investigating it.","offset":9924,"duration":47},{"text":"Host: Yeah. Not a lot of incentive. It's funny when people will always say, well, there's no incentive because the drug companies can't make a lot of money on it. And I sometimes that's true. But I have to chuckle because as a scientist, I will tell you folks, and- like I wish I could just like paint this across the sky, but then I'd get accused of being like a chemtrail person or something. Um, the reason there's no studies on BPC-157... the reason there's no like RCTs on a randomized control on different forms of magnesium and large sample size is because we barely have enough money to fund the current research.","offset":9971,"duration":40},{"text":"Host: Like, I- I'm not trying to get make this political, like we just had a 1% increase in the NIH budget but like there isn't an infinite amount of money to run studies. And so scientists are if they already work on magnesium or or it becomes interesting to them because it came up in a screen of pathways, people aren't- there are not a lot of scientists sitting around going, \"Oh, like maybe I should study- compare Magnesium Malate, Bisglycinate, Threonate in sleep in 2,000 subjects male, female like pregnant and perimenopausal...\" like, no, no, there's no money to do it.","offset":10011,"duration":33},{"text":"Host: So that's where I get back to: is it safe, do you want to be in the experimental or the control group, can you afford to be in the experimental or the control group? Yeah, I feel like that's like all we've got. And I'm only I'm chuckling out of it's a sort of like a laughter of pain because I get where people are coming from, but the drug companies are not like avoiding studying magnesium because there's no money to make, it's because what would that even look like? What endpoint, what disease?","offset":10044,"duration":32},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah, anyway. You're not going to cure you know cardiovascular disease or cancer by taking a magnesium supplement. I mean, the- these nutraceuticals, these vitamins and minerals, they're they're about prevention, really. And and and giving your body the right nutrients that it needs to do and function properly. You know, whether that is getting enough sleep... you know, when you're when you're stressed, when your cortisol goes up chronically, you're depleting magnesium. You know, it's it's- it's very like magnesium's being used to deal with that stress, right.","offset":10076,"duration":34},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So there there's a reason that we need things like magnesium and you know, Vitamin D, it gets converted into steroid hormone changing 5% of our you know our genome. So it- yeah, it's different. It's not like a pharmaceutical where you're you don't need this you know to function optimally but it- it's the whole like, okay, I'm sick and now I need this you know or I'm overweight, right, we got the GLP-1s, right, I'm fat, I'm obese, and I need to you know help fix that. And so that's kind of a different paradigm than specific endpoint type stuff.","offset":10110,"duration":40},{"text":"Host: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think that's super important for people to hear that. Oh, by the way, I should just say uh for your for your sake um and for the listeners, I divide supplements into basically four categories: food replacement, like whey protein or a protein bar, obviously. Sort of general support, specific effects, and then experimental maybe.","offset":10150,"duration":33},{"text":"Host: And so I think what we're talking about here with magnesium is kind of combination of maybe helps with sleep, um specific effects that you're aware of like required and you're trying to top off, you're trying to make sure that you're covering a deficiency.","offset":10183,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yes. Yeah. You're trying to make sure you're getting enough of the magnesium, exactly.","offset":10199,"duration":5}],"startTime":9555},{"title":"Multivitamins, CoQ10, Urolithin A & Sulforaphane","summary":"Rhonda reviews the other key supplements in her routine, citing recent trials on multivitamins for memory preservation, Urolithin A for mitochondrial repair (mitophagy), and Sulforaphane for detoxifying airborne carcinogens.","entries":[{"text":"Host: Are there any other things that you take that are just trying to make sure that you're not deficient anywhere, um or for specific reasons? We've talked about a few along the way here: Glutamine, Vitamin D, Omega-3s, Creatine.","offset":10204,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I take a multivitamin and that is to cover my bases because, you know, there's there's a lot of things in a multivitamin. You have to find a obviously a good quality one. But, um, and anyone that tells you that multivitamins are useless, they're wrong. I'm going to tell you that, they're wrong. Because I think now we have pretty strong data, three very large randomized controlled trials part of the Cosmos trials... have you heard of these studies?","offset":10218,"duration":42},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And it's really I think pretty clear that in these studies, older adults, so we're talking 65 years and older that are taking a multivitamin supplement for, you know, was it a year, I think it was. Um, it could be two but I think it was a year. And it was by the way, Centrum Silver. It was like your standard, you know, anyone could afford to get it at Walmart type of vitamin.","offset":10260,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Um, and after a year of taking this multivitamin, it globally reduced brain aging by about 2.1 years, from three trials globally reduced brain aging by 2.1 years. Battery of tests that are done, right. I mean it's you know I'm just talking about general here. And it also reduced episodic brain aging by 4.9 years.","offset":10284,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So that would be, you know, as people probably already are familiar with that listen to this podcast, you know episodic memory, that's the part of memory that's involved in like remembering events and and people and like experiences... am I right?","offset":10309,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: Yes, sequence of things.","offset":10323,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Sequence of things. Yeah. And so, you know, that's a big effect for just a daily multivitamin, you know. And so for that reason, you know, I mean I've been taking it before these these studies came out, but my parents, you know, anyone that's older adult should be taking a multivitamin. So that's another one that I take. Um, and I take it to cover my bases as well and obviously not an older adult and who knows it might not have the same effect on me, but um, you know, it's one of those that it's it's not harmful if I'm you know it's a little bit of an expensive urine, fine, but I know it is covering some of my bases in terms of some of the micronutrients in it, right.","offset":10324,"duration":46},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: The other ones that I take in besides the one that you mentioned, which is Vitamin D, Omega-3, I do Creatine, Magnesium. I do Magnesium Glycinate. I should look into the Bisglycinate because I definitely would like another molecule of glycine, I like it for my sleep.","offset":10370,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But I also sometimes take another form of magnesium, which is it's like a mixture of Magnesium Malate and Threonate I think are the main- and Glycinate is also in that. But sometimes I take that for sleep. And then I take Ubiquinol, um, for mitochondrial health.","offset":10387,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: You like the data on that? Obviously if you're taking it.","offset":10411,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: It's- there's stronger data I think on Ubiquinone, which is the oxidized form, it's more stable. There's just when I say stronger I mean more data.","offset":10414,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Do you take Coenzyme Q10? Co- Q10, excuse me.","offset":10425,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So Co- CoQ10 is Ubiquinol.","offset":10428,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Okay.","offset":10430,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. And so and so I'm taking the reduced form of it which is Ubiquinol, the the more stable form would be Ubiquinone.","offset":10431,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: Are those trademarked names? because I take Coenzyme Q10. I'm guessing if I took a closer look at the bottle I'd see the Ubiquinone...","offset":10438,"duration":8},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: It's Ubiquinone, yeah. Ubiquinone. The Ubiquinol is a little bit more bioavailable, but yeah. So I'm pretty convinced that that helps with mitochondrial function. Um, you know, it's not like you could always have more data, right? So we'll just leave it at that.","offset":10446,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: The other one I take is now I'm taking Urolithin A in the form of Timeline. I'm taking Mitopure, by the way I have nothing to do with these companies. But there's now I've just been over the years increasingly interested. So Urolithin A is something that is formed from a type of polyphenol that's found in some fruits, um like pomegranate being the main one. I think raspberries may also have some, I think walnuts also, but it's ellagitannin is the polyphenol.","offset":10465,"duration":32},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And these ellagitannins get metabolized by the gut microbiome and the metabolites that are formed, one of them is called Urolithin A. And so Urolithin A is a compound that seems to stimulate the process of mitophagy, which is a very specific form of autophagy that's that's only for mitochondria.","offset":10497,"duration":26},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And you know that's been shown in- there have been randomized controlled trials showing this in humans. It does stimulate mitophagy um blood cells as well as a muscle biopsy. But that's a an important cleanup process for for how our mitochondria repair themselves. There's no repair enzymes, right, like they're you know part of that repair process is mitophagy where they're getting rid of selectively can get rid of parts of a mitochondria that are damaged. So it's really like a rejuvenation.","offset":10523,"duration":31},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And some of this the clinical data I would say is emerging, more needs to be done, but it seems to in some cases improve endurance performance, which makes sense because they rely heavily on mitochondria, but even also um help with the immune system and this whole inflammaging. So it helps keep immune cells, it seems like it's helping keeping immune cells quote-unquote younger. So again, emerging data, but it's I'm in that I'm like I'm the experiment group. It seems to be safe and I'm not taking too high of a dose. So that's another one that I'm supplementing with.","offset":10554,"duration":51},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: The other one that I'm taking also is uh a very- of a form of, I'm going to call it Sulforaphane, but it's not Sulforaphane, it's the precursor to Sulforaphane, glucoraphanin because that's more stable. And so I take something called Avmacol, um, which the reason I take that one is because there's oh it's 13 now and a new study just came out 13 studies using that that form.","offset":10605,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Um, and Sulforaphane is also one of those plant phytochemicals. It's formed- it's found in cruciferous vegetables as you know we've talked about this before, so I'll I'll try to leave it make it brief. But um, so glucoraphanin is in in these cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, broccoli sprouts are really really great source of it. And it- when the plant is crushed, you know like when you eat it, eat broccoli or chew it, whatever, an enzyme is activated that converts glucoraphanin into Sulforaphane.","offset":10628,"duration":31},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: The reason I take it is because I've been now convinced by I would say the limited number of human studies, clinical studies, but also the totality of evidence looking at cruciferous vegetables in general and then also animal data, that um it's really important. It's probably the the best naturally occurring dietary activator of a stress response pathway that is important for detoxification. And that that pathway is the Nrf2 pathway. I'm sure you've heard of that pathway.","offset":10659,"duration":33},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Sulforaphane is a very very powerful activator of that pathway and what I mean by pathway is that gene is turning on and turning off many many other genes. What we know about it is that it's very important for activating the the detoxification genes that are involved in detoxifying things that are that are harmful to us.","offset":10692,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And so the classic studies that have been done, some of them most of them in China where air pollution is very high, is that if you take, you know, this broccoli sprout Sulforaphane extract, you can start to excrete compounds that are found in air pollution like benzene that are carcinogenic, right, and you can start to excrete it after 24 hours by like 60%.","offset":10713,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: Great. What about plastics?","offset":10739,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So that's my- that's my thing. That's why I'm taking it, my whole family. Because the same enzymes that are activated by um by the the Sulforaphane that detoxify benzene... so basically you're detoxifying it what I mean is you're basically making it water-soluble so you can excrete it through urine.","offset":10740,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Okay. The same ones, that's exactly what BP- the those enzymes do to BPA. They make it water-soluble and help you excrete it through urine. There's no human data showing this yet, I want someone to do the study. But we do have animal evidence where, you know, animals are given a high dose of BPA and Sulforaphane and it protects against the toxicity.","offset":10763,"duration":26},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I basically think that it's someone's going to show it and it's going to be clear because the the enzymes that are, you know, involved are activated by this, you know, by Sulforaphane and that's been shown with benzene and acrolein excretion, right. So why wouldn't it be BPA? Never know.","offset":10789,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: The mechanistic logic is there.","offset":10803,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So that's another reason why also it increases glut- it's been shown in human studies to very powerfully increase glutathione in both the plasma and the brain. And that's also through the Nrf2 pathway. It activates the powerful antioxidant pathway.","offset":10804,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: It also deactivates phase one biotransformation enzymes that are involved in um turning a pro-carcinogen into a carcinogen. So those are things like you're eating, you know, you're grilling your meat at a high temperature and you're getting heterocyclic amines, right. I mean these these things can be harmful.","offset":10823,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But our body can deal with it and we had a cancer doc on here recently and I was scared to ask him the question because I didn't want the answer, but I did want the answer of, you know, the char on meat and he's like it's pretty pretty serious carcinogen. That's real. I mean the occasional thing isn't going to be a problem.","offset":10846,"duration":19}],"startTime":10204},{"title":"Microplastics, BPA & Detoxification","summary":"The conversation shifts to the ubiquity of microplastics and endocrine disruptors in clothing and everyday items, and how certain pathways may help the body excrete them.","entries":[{"text":"Host: You'll be relieved to know and this is not a promotional that the can that you're drinking out of, these are intentionally BPA, BPS, and PFAS-free. We had- we had that tested. We'd be happy to send you the results.","offset":10865,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I already know, I already knew about that.","offset":10877,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Yeah. Because I know that you and I are both- I am wary of of the BPAs and um and the rest. I think it's wild that 10 years ago people like Charles Poliquin were saying, \"Don't handle receipts.\" and you know, and everyone's like, \"This is really kooky.\" or actually back then no one even heard what he was saying it was such a niche thing.","offset":10879,"duration":21},{"text":"Host: Then people were very I think disparaging of people saying beware of receipts. Now I think um the microplastics um and the BPA BPS um PFAS concern is is really taking hold more broadly and I think that, you know, the tables have turned.","offset":10900,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. And really obviously you can't eliminate them completely. It's impossible. They're everywhere. They're everywhere.","offset":10920,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: Clothing I heard was the main...","offset":10926,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: It's the main source of microplastics in the ocean, right, because our wash- we're washing our clothes and there's they're like this shirt that I'm wearing. I mean, it's it's got microplastics in it for sure. Um, and and so every time you're washing your clothes you're all the microplastics are coming out and getting into the ocean.","offset":10928,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And also then when you put your clothes in the dryer and if your dryer is ventilating anywhere in your house, the microplast- you're breathing those in, the microplastics.","offset":10949,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: They sell these traps. When I did the episode on microplastics I found out that online you can, I think it costs, it's not cheap cheap, but it's like concerning they last a while. I think they're somewhere with refill somewhere in the neighborhood of I want to say something like $70, but it traps supposedly traps the microplastics in the wash- in the washing machine. And in Europe I think this is actually built in or is required in an- in a number of countries. Like they're way ahead of us.","offset":10957,"duration":30},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: They're always...","offset":10987,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: They're way ahead of us on a number of things. I mean, on a few things they're really they're far behind, I must say with respect to health, but on on many things they are way ahead of us.","offset":10988,"duration":11},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. Well, clearly with the Switzerland people in Switzerland being 80% like 88% of them being physically active, they're way ahead of us on that.","offset":10999,"duration":7}],"startTime":10865},{"title":"Sponsor: Martina","summary":"Huberman reads a sponsor message for Martina yerba mate.","entries":[{"text":"Host: I'm excited to share with you that Martina, the yerba mate drink that I helped create, is now available at Sprouts Market nationwide. Longtime listeners of the Huberman Lab podcast know that yerba mate is my preferred caffeine source. It provides a smooth energy lift without giving you the jitters, and it has many other benefits such as helping regulate blood sugar, improving digestion, mild appetite suppression, and more.","offset":11006,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: Martina is my absolute favorite of all the yerba mate brands out there, and believe me, I've tried them all. The flavors are fantastic. I drink at least three cans of Martina every single day. You'll often see them on the table during our podcast recordings. I absolutely love the product and I'm proud to now have it sold at Sprouts Market.","offset":11035,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: Also, there's a great new offer. They are giving away a free can of Martina to anyone who buys it at Sprouts and sends in a photo of their receipt. To learn more about how you can get a free can of Martina, go to drinkmartina.com/offer. Again, that's drinkmartina.com/offer to get a can of Martina for free at your local Sprouts Market.","offset":11059,"duration":25}],"startTime":11006},{"title":"BPC-157, L-Carnitine, Alpha-GPC & Nicotine","summary":"Huberman and Rhonda trade thoughts on experimental compounds like BPC-157 and L-carnitine, and discuss Alpha-GPC as a healthy alternative to the current youth craze of using highly addictive nicotine for focus.","entries":[{"text":"Host: What is your threshold for you and what do you think is kind of reasonable levels of what's actionable for you? Like, how do you set that? I think it will help people kind of understand how you're approaching stuff.","offset":11084,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: What's actionable in terms of improving what I'm interested in improving my health like or...","offset":11101,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: Yeah, like I mean, without picking any specific example, like when you look at the literature and you see, let's say let's take BPC-157, it's kind of a fun one because everyone's excited about this now except the physicians um who don't like working with peptides besides GLPs or other FDA-approved peptides, they're like freaking out online. Heard from them all the time.","offset":11107,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: Compounding pharmacies just got the green light that they're going to be able to do basically whatever except sell Retatrutide, which is under patent. Um, so there are many many animal studies on BPC-157 showing accelerated cartilage growth, nerve growth after injury and on and on and on. And angiogenesis. So there's some potential cancer risk there, right?","offset":11132,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: But basically zero human data. There's one study weak study self-report. There's actually a clinical trial where they I'm not making this up folks is BPC enemas, very high dose it for a uh for a for some sort of bowel disease or bowel inflammation. And the study was like I don't think the study was completed or something like that. Don't ask me why, no I'm not making this up. Um, but that's pretty much the only human data that I'm aware of. Um, but tons of people injecting and swallowing BPC.","offset":11162,"duration":28},{"text":"Andrew: Have you experimented with... um, L-carnitine? Because of the mitochondrial effects, because I was able to find some good studies on sperm and egg quality, on mitochon... which are thought to be downstream of mitochondrial health.","offset":11190,"duration":15},{"text":"Rhonda: Right.","offset":11205,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: That's the idea.","offset":11206,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: Right, it's downstream. If you can improve mitochondrial health, fertility... which is why NR is now involved with fertility, seems to be improving fertility. It's right, if you can improve mitochondrial health, then you're going to improve fertility, sperm health, right, egg health, right? Um, yeah, L-carnitine, a lot of those studies came out of my mentor's lab, Bruce Ames, so he was he looked at the combination of L-carnitine and alpha-lipoic acid improving mitochondrial health.","offset":11207,"duration":22},{"text":"Andrew: Hmm.","offset":11229,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: And came up with the supplement that it's it's called Juvenon now, but it's L-carnitine with alpha-lipoic acid.","offset":11230,"duration":6},{"text":"Andrew: It's a pill.","offset":11236,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: It's a supplement, yeah. And um, so yes, I have experimented with that, and in fact, my husband takes it, but I mean, I just can't take so many supplements.","offset":11237,"duration":11},{"text":"Andrew: Right. Yeah.","offset":11248,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: You know, so we have our... yeah, but it is, you know, you can find you can find evidence that it improves mitochondrial health, so...","offset":11249,"duration":6},{"text":"Andrew: I was just curious.","offset":11255,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: Yeah, it's just a matter of again, like what what are you what are you looking for? I I feel like I'm doing a lot of high intensity interval training too and I'm taking the Urolithin A. That's a lot, you know, I'm doing a lot of stuff to optimize mitochondrial health. I mean, at some point you have to like not can't do everything there is.","offset":11256,"duration":18},{"text":"Andrew: Sure. No, of course not.","offset":11274,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: But yeah, L-carnitine...","offset":11275,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: And it's budget limited too.","offset":11276,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: I don't know that it's going to help you live longer either. Now, it might help with your exercise recovery a bit, right? It might help improve mitochondrial function. I mean, maybe it's going to help with depleting some of the NAD stores. I mean, if you can improve mitochondrial health then, you know, you're improving things like on a small scale, right? So... mitochondrial health is at the core of everything.","offset":11277,"duration":21},{"text":"Andrew: I started experiment... I've started experimenting with it, but I take it in injectable form. It's going to shock some people. You can get away with taking much lower milligram count. Otherwise you have to take a lot of it because a lot of it just isn't absorbed if you take it orally. And then I was told that if you take it orally, you also have to do something to offset the increase in TMAO, and that worried me. So I figured, needles don't scare me, I'll just inject it.","offset":11298,"duration":26},{"text":"Rhonda: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, the TMAO thing... I mean, so not it depends on your gut bacteria whether or not you're metabolizing the L-carnitine into TMAO. There's actually a lot of complexity involved in that whole thing. But you can get your TMAO measured. So if you were supplementing with it... I mean the same goes for choline, you know, like if you're worried like choline can be converted into TMAO.","offset":11324,"duration":21},{"text":"Andrew: I'll take Alpha-GPC before a workout sometimes or if I need to... um, if I ever need to focus late in the day, I don't want caffeine because it impedes my sleep, but I'll take Alpha-GPC because this is kind of a cool effect, Alpha-GPC actually will improve your REM sleep. It's not a huge effect, but you'll notice you'll get more REM sleep. So it's one of the few things I've found that can increase energy late in the day, do a workout or or work if I have to work later into the day, still sleep just fine and actually sleep better.","offset":11345,"duration":30},{"text":"Rhonda: What is work later into the day mean for you? Like working until like eight, nine o'clock or...","offset":11375,"duration":3},{"text":"Andrew: Yeah, well I do that um often, but but I don't like to work out after 2:00 PM, because I like caffeine before I work out. But I'll do some cardio in the afternoon or something. But if I really have to push push push, or if I've traveled and I really need exercise and I want to get a 6:00 PM workout but I also want to fall asleep at 10:30, I'll take some Alpha-GPC.","offset":11378,"duration":22},{"text":"Rhonda: I used to take that like, I don't know, it's been maybe like ten years. But... um, it's interesting, I might try experimenting with that again. I'm always looking for things that I find a little bit safer, like I don't do the nicotine as you know...","offset":11400,"duration":15},{"text":"Andrew: It is shocking how many young people are taking nicotine now.","offset":11415,"duration":3},{"text":"Rhonda: Oh, I know.","offset":11418,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: Yeah.","offset":11419,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: I've never tried it.","offset":11420,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: First of all, it's highly addictive. Forget the blood pressure and the vasoconstriction, that's all bad, you know, I think the the big issue is that if I take it... um, I start getting this spasm in my throat when I don't take it, and that's because of its... I have a friend who works on these pathways and it's because of the activation of the muscarinic receptors. So so on smooth muscle you start getting a tick and kind of a clearing of your throat, and then you take more nicotine, you feel fine. So I didn't want to become dependent on it. And um, I don't I don't like it. I think it's I think it's a a bad habit that a lot of people are going to be seeking to quit later.","offset":11421,"duration":34},{"text":"Rhonda: A lot of young people.","offset":11455,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: Older people might benefit from it because of the cognitive enhancement, but that's a whole other story.","offset":11456,"duration":4},{"text":"Rhonda: Well maybe the Alpha-GPC and the Creatine and Magnesium L-Threonate.","offset":11460,"duration":4},{"text":"Andrew: Alpha-GPC is is very is very helpful for if you need to really lock in for a few hours and do something physically or or cognitively.","offset":11464,"duration":7},{"text":"Rhonda: How much do you take?","offset":11471,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: I take 600 milligrams. You can take up to 900, but I do just fine on 600. So I think I just take it in pure form and in capsule, any of them out there that come from a reputable brand is like going to work.","offset":11472,"duration":12},{"text":"Rhonda: What about like before a podcast or something like that, does that does it have any effect or what?","offset":11484,"duration":4},{"text":"Andrew: Oh yeah.","offset":11488,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: It does.","offset":11489,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: Oh yeah, it'll put you into a... you know, I mean if you feel like you want to be heightened focus, but I rely on water, caffeine, electrolytes, and good good sleep. There's this wild study, we don't want to go... I don't want to take us too far off track here, um but there's a study out of WashU recently, really really talented researcher. I want to bring him on this podcast. He does brain imaging, and he compared um essentially the effects of drugs for ADHD versus a good night's sleep, and basically found that there's no focus enhancement of Adderall, Vyvanse, Ritalin type drugs. They mainly looked at Ritalin. All it's doing is increasing alertness to the level that you would get after after a good night's sleep. It may be that these drugs just increase alertness which allows you to dial in focus, but if you're sleeping well and enough, you make up the gap and people with ADHD might just be having some serious sleep defects. So, you know, it it speaks to this thing like, I don't know that there's a single drug that can actually increase cognition and focus. Most of them probably just get you in the plane of alertness that allows you to dial in your focus. Some people be like, \"That's BS,\" they take Modafinil, but this is just another form of increasing alertness.","offset":11490,"duration":65},{"text":"Rhonda: Well, reducing anxiety I think things that are anxiolytic help with that as well, and I think I was talking about... I don't know if I was telling you or someone else before the podcast, one of the reasons why I also like that metabolic switch with the ketosis and the beta-hydroxybutyrate, and sometimes I'll take exogenous ketones too, although if you take them in a fasted state it kind of shuts down the lipolysis. But anyways, is because it increases GABA. The beta-hydroxybutyrate increases GABA and for me it's beneficial because I am the phenotype where like, you know, I can have other things going on in my mind that it's... I don't want to say it's anxiety but it's more of that anxious phenotype, if that makes sense. And so the the increase in GABA really does um help me with focus because it's quieting down, I think...","offset":11555,"duration":46},{"text":"Andrew: I actually think that a lot of people who are very intellectually engaged, which clearly you are over many many years and very physically active and healthy, there's a lot of capacity there and unless there's something to really absorb all that capacity, you can get multiple tracks going, and we sometimes think of that as anxiety or even ADHD, some people will say it's ADHD. I don't I don't necessarily think it's that, but it's an uncomfortable state to be in, and it's so pleasurable to be like where all one's resources, physical or cognitive or both, are harnessed. It's a it's a very pleasant state. Earlier you were saying the GABA increase from the ketosis, I think more and more we're just realizing that people have differing levels of excitatory to inhibitory balance in the brain. And so some people like things that bring GABA up, some people like things that bring glutamate up, broadly speaking, and finding that sweet spot is where you go, \"Oh, like I'm alert but calm.\" And that's that's what we want.","offset":11601,"duration":53},{"text":"Rhonda: Right. That's what it does for me. Alert but calm. And for me I'm like, and I noticed that with... there was a few years ago I really experimented with a ketogenic diet. I just can't do that type of diet, but I did experiment with it and that was the one of the main things that I noticed is like, \"I'm alert but calm,\" and it's like I liked it.","offset":11654,"duration":18},{"text":"Andrew: Well then don't take nicotine, because the reason people like nicotine is it's a stimulant that calms you down. So I do think that one of the reasons it's so habit forming is because I know of nothing else that puts you in that plane of focus of alert but calm that is reasonably low cost, that is legal... I've never out- I'm come clean, I've never done amphetamine or cocaine, so I'm not... I wouldn't want to and clearly that's a path to destruction. So the reason so many young people are taking it is because it gets them right in that plane of alert but calm, but it has all these negative effects that go with it.","offset":11672,"duration":33},{"text":"Rhonda: Yeah, and that's why I've stayed away from it, because I know I'd probably love it.","offset":11705,"duration":4},{"text":"Andrew: I've asked some young folks who ask me about nicotine, \"How many milligrams are you taking?\" They'll say \"nine milligrams.\" I'll say \"How many times per day?\" and they'll say \"eight times per day.\" I'm like \"Oh my god,\" like that's crazy!","offset":11709,"duration":10},{"text":"Rhonda: But they didn't start there. You just quickly get there. You adapt.","offset":11719,"duration":4},{"text":"Andrew: Yeah, so I you know, I don't want to sound like that curmudgeon that's like \"Don't drink and don't take nicotine\" and this kind of thing, but it's a it's a slippery slope. Right. Yeah, I mean there's a very slippery slope.","offset":11723,"duration":10},{"text":"Rhonda: Right. Yeah, I mean if there's other things that you can do that maybe it's not going to be as potent, but like...","offset":11733,"duration":4},{"text":"Andrew: Alpha-GPC.","offset":11737,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: Alpha-GPC, for me I like doing I like my metabolic switch and my ketones.","offset":11738,"duration":5},{"text":"Andrew: Nice. Well, I'll be curious to to hear how you feel on the Alpha-GPC.","offset":11743,"duration":5},{"text":"Rhonda: I remember liking it. I I don't know why... I think I stopped taking it because I got pregnant was probably what it was, and then I just... it's one of those things where you just forget. You go back to the basics and then like the... yeah.","offset":11748,"duration":13}],"startTime":11084},{"title":"Q&A: Nattokinase, Glass Bottles, Seed Oils & Sauna","summary":"In a rapid-fire Q&A, Rhonda fields audience questions covering nattokinase, the surprising microplastic content in glass water bottles, her stance on seed oils, and her personal hot tub and sauna routine.","entries":[{"text":"Andrew: Yeah. Different experiment. Before I came on here, I did put out a call for some questions to the world.","offset":11761,"duration":7},{"text":"Rhonda: Okay.","offset":11768,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: Rapid fire Q&A from the land of X and Instagram. Oh this is the... these are the students of the class, of your class, and this way I think about it. Actually, I wanted to ask about this, so I'm so grateful that this person asked about Nattokinase for improving blood lipid profiles. Is it something you're interested in or have experimented with?","offset":11769,"duration":20},{"text":"Rhonda: It's not something that I've experimented with, and I've been more interested in Natto than Nattokinase. I know some... I really would have to say I don't have enough data to really have an opinion on it.","offset":11789,"duration":12},{"text":"Andrew: Okay. Well, I don't have enough data to have an opinion on it, but I take it anyway. Lot of questions about things we already talked about, so cold plunge, um etc. But an exceptional number of questions about microplastics. And I know we touched into it, but on a scale of one to ten, ten being like you're really concerned, how concerned are you about microplastics for mental and physical health, longevity, just broadly speaking?","offset":11801,"duration":24},{"text":"Rhonda: I would say I am less concerned about microplastics than I am about not getting the right nutrients and micronutrients from from our foods, because our body can detoxify at least some of the chemicals associated with them. The microplastics themselves, I mean, I guess it's not... we don't really know what they're going to do long-term, but I'm concerned enough to try to avoid... to sorry, limit my exposure to them as much as possible.","offset":11825,"duration":26},{"text":"Andrew: So you don't drink out of plastic water bottles.","offset":11851,"duration":2},{"text":"Rhonda: I mean, I try not to as much as possible. I mean, you know, I definitely have to at some points, but um, I try not to, yeah. And when I do, I just realize it's the habit, and you kind of have to let go. I mean, I know some people that like don't drink, like they're like \"they're going to get their water from their food, their fruits while they're traveling,\" pretty extreme.","offset":11853,"duration":20},{"text":"Andrew: Yeah, that's... yeah.","offset":11873,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: But I think mental health is important, so I mean it's like is the stress of avoiding the microplastics worse than the actual little bit of microplastics you're being exposed to? It might be.","offset":11874,"duration":11},{"text":"Andrew: TSA is going to hate me, but I lost a bet two days ago to a member of our podcast team. He bet me, we bet, that um, I said one couldn't bring a Mountain Valley Spring Water bottle through security at the airport, and he said you absolutely can, and I said \"There's no way,\" so I made him a bet and I lost. He brought it through.","offset":11885,"duration":22},{"text":"Rhonda: Full of water?","offset":11907,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: Full of water. You tell them it's for medical reasons. You don't have to state what they are. They open the cap, they take a sample out, they test it. So there's a time constraint and it's going to create more jobs for TSA. Um sorry, that was sort of a joke, sort of not a joke, TSA's been, you know, in tricky circumstances lately. And he showed up at the at the gate with it and was like \"Here's your water.\" You absolutely can bring water through in glass vessels or whatever vessel, but they're going to test it and it helps if it's a commercial vessel, it's not like your own glass water bottle.","offset":11908,"duration":36},{"text":"Rhonda: Can I pause for a minute because you mentioned a specific brand which I also when I when I...","offset":11944,"duration":4},{"text":"Andrew: Oh yeah, and no I don't make money from them.","offset":11948,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: Same, I I drink when I'm traveling that's that's the brand that I go to. And there are there was a study that came out showing that there's actually a larger um volume of microplastics within this study from glass bottles versus plastic bottles, which was a very shocking finding. Um, so there was more microplastic number coming from the the glass bottles. It turns out this was a study out of France, there was a study out of France and also in the US. It's the paint on the lids... you mentioned the lid and so it's the paint on the lid that's contaminated, getting contaminated in the bottling of the whole bottling of this, you know, water, that is getting into the water. But I do want to mention that the size was was shown to be larger from the glass bottles versus the plastic, so the microplastic size was larger. And as you probably know, larger microplastics are not well absorbed through the gut epithelial cells. So when you're, you know, taking them in in the gut, they're coming out they're being excreted through your your feces. And um, less likely to be taken up into your gut and then get into your body, and that's actually well known. And so I'm actually more concerned about the size of microplastics... um, and it wasn't like the huge orders of magnitude difference between the the water from glass versus the plastic. It's so counter-intuitive you think \"Wait, what? Why is it...?\" so it's the paint that's on the lid.","offset":11949,"duration":76},{"text":"Andrew: Interesting.","offset":12025,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: Anyways, I just want to mention that I still drink when I'm traveling, I still go for the glass, not the plastic because of the size of the microplastics and knowing because the size was much bigger... um, that it's very I would say more data is going to come out on this but I would be surprised if you're absorbing more of the larger particles because it's known that you absorb the smaller ones.","offset":12026,"duration":19},{"text":"Andrew: Thank you for that. And if you want, you can now take your glass bottle through security full. Seed oils. The dreaded seed oil debate. Where do you land on this?","offset":12045,"duration":15},{"text":"Rhonda: I try to avoid them... um mostly because one, if you're avoiding seed oils you're going to avoid a lot of the processed packaged foods that they come in, which I know are terrible for you. Two, because I think that cooking them or heating them, I mean, is more of my concern because they are, you know, polyunsaturated fatty acids which are very prone to oxidation. And when you're heating something that's prone to oxidation, you're accelerating that whole process. I don't want to consume oxidized lipids. I've seen I've looked into that literature and the last time I looked into it was I think 2024. At that time I was pretty convinced that if you are heating and reheating, you know, oils like they do in fast food for sure you're increasing inflammatory markers, that's been shown. And I think also when you're really having a higher level of, you know, omega-6s and stuff around, I'm not as concerned because I'm getting a lot of omega-3, but it does also re- increase your Vitamin E requirements as well, because of the oxidation of these polyunsaturated fatty acids. So do I think it's like like the worst ever? I mean, you can find all this data out there showing that, you know, if you replace, you know, saturated fat with some of these seed oils there's improvements in lipid profiles. But at the end of the day, the question is really what if like you had olive oil instead or avocado oil instead? Would it be even better? I think possibly. So if you're really trying to go for the optimal, I avoid them as much as I can for that reason. But I think there's a little bit more hype when it comes to the seed oil. But if that makes sense, you know, I'm kind of that's my that's my take.","offset":12060,"duration":102},{"text":"Andrew: Makes sense to me, for what it's worth, I stick to olive oil and small amounts of butter and that's because I also think seed oils taste terrible. How come no one talks about that? But anyway. And olive oil and butter are delicious.","offset":12162,"duration":14},{"text":"Rhonda: It's been so long since I've actually like I mean had the you know seed oil but yeah.","offset":12176,"duration":5},{"text":"Andrew: Ugh, you know, and no one can convince me that they don't taste bad to me. So then the debate just kind of falls away. How often are you doing the sauna nowadays? And what does the top contour of that protocol look like?","offset":12181,"duration":13},{"text":"Rhonda: So I've taken a little pause on the sauna right now, but typically I'm doing... I was doing it like, I would say five nights a week. And I say nights because I usually doing them in the night. And it was mixed a mixture between either getting in the sauna or hot tub. So I like I like getting in the hot tub head out under the stars there with my husband, it's like our time. So yeah, usually it's like 20 minutes and temperature-wise, you know, I don't go that hot, I honestly I'm like 180.","offset":12194,"duration":30},{"text":"Andrew: Five nights a week is great! Gosh, I I need to get back on a five-night-a-week sauna or hot tub protocol.","offset":12224,"duration":7},{"text":"Rhonda: I know, I need to get... I do like the hot tub especially, I don't know, there's something about being outside and... I think now there's just there's evidence that the the benefits are really like the same. It's the deliberate heat exposure, right? You're getting the... you're getting that through the hot tub or through the sauna.","offset":12231,"duration":14},{"text":"Andrew: Creatine for kids. Like young kids, like younger than 16. Um any data and or ideas about this, good or bad?","offset":12245,"duration":9},{"text":"Rhonda: Yeah, so there is data in the literature showing that if you give younger younger children that are doing like for example sports like soccer, it does seem to improve their agility and it seems to be safe. I do give my son 2.5 grams of Creatine, so a day.","offset":12254,"duration":18},{"text":"Andrew: Cool.","offset":12272,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: So that's how I feel.","offset":12273,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: There's no better um indication of how you... of how one feels than what they're willing to um deliberately give their kids. I don't know where this stems from, and we can cut it if you want, but this um someone asked why did you single-handedly ruin bananas for this person? Uh, do you- did you ruin bananas?","offset":12274,"duration":17},{"text":"Rhonda: So I used to put bananas in my smoothies and there's an en- there's an enzyme that is produced in bananas that break down polyphenols, particularly ones that are found in blueberries, and the reason I was getting my smoothies was one for the greens but two for the blueberries because the polyphenols have been shown to improve cognition. Love blueberries! So... um sorry, don't mix the blueberry with the banana smoothie, because it it has been shown to decrease the the polyphenols which are important.","offset":12291,"duration":26},{"text":"Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, well the alcohol industry will come for me someday and the banana industry will come for you and um, I think we're safe for a while. Should we ignore studies that have less than X number of subjects? I think that's a really good question. Like obviously it depends, but when we're talking about human studies, where's the the line for small study versus large meaningful study for you? Obviously how strongly it's powered, but how do you think about that?","offset":12317,"duration":29},{"text":"Rhonda: Well I'll tell you when I was first looking at the sauna literature, all the studies that I were looking at were like N of 10 or smaller. And it's really the aggregate of those studies and then looking at like animal data and then you start to, you know, you start to look at observational data and the totality of evidence, and you put together this picture. I don't think you should ignore studies that are small, I think that it's part of the story. I think we're getting a little too caught up in \"It's got to be the randomized placebo-controlled trial, it's got to have lots lots of participants,\" and I mean that's great if we have that data, but we don't always have that data. and I don't know that we will always have that data with everything that we're interested in in understanding, right? So the way I look at it is if it's like just one study with an N of 10, okay, interesting. Um, like with the Creatine, right? Like I mean these studies have been small sample sizes. Now there's more than one, but you know at the end of the day, it's still very I would say in this, you know, pilot study phase where you have just small studies. So I I do not ignore them, but I also don't hedge all my bets on them either. I do know that there are a lot of people that were criticizing me on my sauna, I mean back in I you know 2014, published an article on Tim Ferriss's blog, went on Joe Rogan's podcast and talked about, you know, the benefits of sauna, and and I had people that were going \"Your studies... your sample sizes are too small.\" And now we have so much data that's come out since then really kind of validating everything and showing even more benefits. You kind of have to look at the totality of evidence and what is you're what endpoints are you looking at and how can you gather, you know, data from different sources whether it's clinical studies, observational studies, or animal studies, and and try to come up with the bigger picture, right? But then also don't be too confident in your statements.","offset":12346,"duration":106}],"startTime":11761},{"title":"Conclusion & Final Thoughts","summary":"Huberman thanks Dr. Patrick for her rigor and generosity in sharing actionable health protocols, and provides sign-off information for the podcast.","entries":[{"text":"Andrew: I'm very gratified to know that pretty much every other question you addressed the answer to in route to where we are now in the podcast, truly. And um, I'll leave them up so you can see them later if if you choose. Cold plunges notwithstanding um, Vitamin D um, exercise in all its contour, specificity, fasting, um magnesium, lots of questions about supplements which we covered, Creatine, lots of questions about inflammation, longevity... and so I just have to say first of all on behalf of everybody thank you so much. This was really an incredible tutorial and so much of it is actionable. And as you are known for, it was incredibly thorough in terms of setting the context within mechanisms of what we know, what we still don't know. And um I also personally want to thank you, because when you speak I learn, and when you speak I also learn things that change my behavior. And that's a whole other level. Uh, since our last conversation I can think of at least four and probably as many as a dozen things that I do on a daily basis as a consequence of that conversation. And just the gut-inflammation health brain-body axis uh conversation that um we had earlier, I'm going to listen to this again and take notes, because um there's just so much there and the metabolic flexibility thing as an input that can come from multiple sources, just on and on. So thank you for doing what you do. Thank you for being you, for being first-in and still going and doing things with such rigor and and really so much grace. It's just awesome. People love you... um, I certainly do and appreciate you and and it's just um it's a wonderful thing for me to have a colleague like you and you really set the standard. So thank you so much for coming here and doing this marathon and um, can't wait to do it again.","offset":12452,"duration":109},{"text":"Rhonda: Thank you so much, Andrew. It's it's really been great. I learn so much from you as well, and appreciate everything.","offset":12561,"duration":5},{"text":"Andrew: Thank you. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. To learn more about her work, please see the links in the show note captions. If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero-cost way to support us. In addition, please follow the podcast by clicking the \"Follow\" button on both Spotify and Apple. and on both Spotify and Apple, you can leave us up to a five-star review. And you can now leave us comments at both Spotify and Apple. Please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode. That's the best way to support this podcast. If you have questions for me or comments about the podcast, or guests or topics that you'd like me to consider for the Huberman Lab Podcast, please put those in the comment section on YouTube. I do read all the comments. For those of you that haven't heard, I have a new book coming out. It's my very first book. It's entitled \"Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body.\" This is a book that I've been working on for more than five years and that's been based on more than 30 years of research and experience. And it covers protocols for everything from sleep, to exercise, to stress control, protocols related to focus and motivation, and of course I provide the scientific substantiation for the protocols that are included. The book is now available by pre-sale at protocolsbook.com. There you can find links to various vendors, you can pick the one that you like best. Again, the book is called \"Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body.\" And if you're not already following me on social media, I am Huberman Lab on all social media platforms, so that's Instagram, X, Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And on all those platforms, I discuss science and science-related tools, some of which overlaps with the content of the Huberman Lab podcast, but much of which is distinct from the information on the Huberman Lab podcast. Again, it's Huberman Lab on all social media platforms. And if you haven't already subscribed to our Neural Network newsletter, the Neural Network newsletter is a zero-cost monthly newsletter that includes podcast summaries as well as what we call protocols in the form of one to three-page PDFs that cover everything from how to optimize your sleep, how to optimize dopamine, deliberate cold exposure... we have a foundational fitness protocol that covers cardiovascular training and resistance training... all of that is available completely zero-cost. You simply go to hubermanlab.com, go to the menu tab in the top right corner, scroll down to \"Newsletter,\" and enter your email. And I should emphasize that we do not share your email with anybody. Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. And last but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.","offset":12566,"duration":15}],"startTime":12452}],"entries":[{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: There's a lot 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 outsized effects on, on health outcomes. So for example, individuals that do on the high end, so they're doing, you know, three 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 nine minutes a day, okay? That's associated with a 40% reduction in all-cause mortality, 40% reduction in cancer-related mortality, and 50% reduction in cardiovascular-related mortality.","offset":0,"duration":36},{"text":"Host: Wow. Nine minutes a day. Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.","offset":36,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is 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.","offset":54,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: 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 discuss the things that science says you can do to significantly reduce your cancer and cardiovascular risk, including how to reduce visceral fat and arterial plaque.","offset":81,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":105,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: We also discuss omega-3s, and why prescription sources of omega-3s may be the cleanest and most cost-efficient way to obtain sufficient omega-3 intake. We also discuss the importance of prioritizing regular resistance training and HIIT workouts over protein. You still need protein, but emphasizing the exercise component is crucial.","offset":128,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: And we discuss fiber, micronutrients, and why short-term fasting can be beneficial. Dr. Rhonda Patrick is a true wealth of knowledge, and today, she generously provides us a masterclass on how you can design and adjust the exact health protocols to meet your specific needs.","offset":150,"duration":21},{"text":"Host: 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 zero-cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors.","offset":171,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: And now for my discussion with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Welcome back, Dr. Rhonda Patrick.","offset":193,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Excited to be here.","offset":199,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: 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, 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.","offset":200,"duration":42},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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, education, helping people love science and get healthier.","offset":242,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: Well, thank you. Well, 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 you're clearly very fit. I learned before talking to you today that you were a competitive athlete, you were a long jumper or triple jumper?","offset":254,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I was a long jumper, but I would say my real competitive athleteness comes from my jump roping.","offset":276,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: Okay.","offset":282,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I was on a professional jump roping team.","offset":283,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Professional?","offset":285,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yes. Yeah, it was, it was we would compete, so my friend and I started the team when we were in second grade, and it was called the San Diego Sand Skippers. And 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 so I was on a team and every year we would compete in Boulder, Colorado. There were 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 used to get out of school, um, you know, get out of school free card, and my partner and I would go and start workshops at other schools and help them start jump rope teams. And the idea was cardiovascular health, healthy heart, and yeah, so so that's really, I would say my, my real roots with being a competitive athlete.","offset":286,"duration":65},{"text":"Host: Awesome. I love skipping rope. Is it okay to say skipping rope or jumping rope?","offset":351,"duration":4},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, okay. Skipping rope, jumping rope.","offset":355,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: 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 Weck and others online are, you know, stuff that's getting people out of the standard, you know, curls, bench press, um, 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.","offset":356,"duration":37},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 weight-bearing aspect as well for building bone density, and I think that earlier for me, you know, I was doing it as 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 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.","offset":393,"duration":45},{"text":"Host: Well, I'm certainly going to get back to jumping rope now that we resurrected it in this conversation. And I have to say, um, bone density measurements aside, you have awesome posture. I notice people's posture.","offset":438,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Oh, really?","offset":451,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Yeah, I didn't even mean to put you on the spot here, but yeah, when I walked in, I was like, if you've ever interacted with Rhonda in person, which I have, you have amazing posture. And these days, good posture is rare, so who knows, maybe the things are 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?","offset":452,"duration":39},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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. Ben Levine, who is a, you know, probably one of the world-leading cardiovascular exercise physiologists. He's at UT Southwestern in Dallas. I just want to shout out his name because I've really learned a lot from him.","offset":491,"duration":27},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 five 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. It's really good for improving your cardiorespiratory fitness, which I think is one of the best markers for longevity. We can talk about that.","offset":518,"duration":51},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 mixed 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.","offset":569,"duration":45},{"text":"Host: How many days a week are you doing that?","offset":614,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I do my my longer HIIT 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.","offset":616,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: What's the rest between sets? Sorry to get granular, but people will wonder.","offset":635,"duration":4},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Um, what's funny is I typically rest about two minutes between my sets. I I recover pretty quick. Um, and my 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 two minutes. So I usually that's my recovery time. And so the first 30 minutes of 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. So it'll be like, you know, where I'm I'm getting my heart rate up, so I'm mixing in the rowing machine and then I have like maybe I'm doing cleans, but they're lighter, so it's like more reps, but lighter load, right?","offset":639,"duration":50},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 because I'm doing it with my girlfriends, and we kind of chit-chat a little bit, and so um, but it's 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.","offset":689,"duration":43},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So that's another, you know, two hours a week. So now I have four hours a week of just doing a lot of that sort of CrossFit, HIIT type of training. And then I mix that in with my more like runs that I do, which are I would say are still they're still considered vigorous intensity, they're just not quite as high-intensity. And I do probably I run like maybe six miles a week, so maybe maybe 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 um, you know.","offset":732,"duration":59},{"text":"Host: Do you enjoy running?","offset":791,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 um, you know, it's a nice time for me as well just to kind of do that with him. 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 kind of family time too.","offset":792,"duration":34},{"text":"Host: Weight vests on the run or hike?","offset":826,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 a lot of workout throughout the week.","offset":828,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: Sure.","offset":842,"duration":0},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But it's like you said, it's non-negotiable for me, and and times when I'm like like today, so I you know, I had a long drive and so I got on my Peloton and I did a 10-minute, you know, I did a 10-minute Tabata back-to-back, so it was like two back-to-back Tabatas, right? So it was it ended up being 10 minutes, it was like 30-second recovery in between the two Tabata sessions, 2:1 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.","offset":842,"duration":38},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 air squats, I'll do high knees, jumping jacks, and I repeat for 10 minutes and 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, it's 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, they there's been studies showing that you have an improvement in executive function by like 14%, which is pretty big.","offset":880,"duration":62},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I think it was like a 50 50-millisecond improvement processing speed or something, which doesn't sound a lot, but it actually 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 was 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 HIIT workout, right? When 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 high-intensity, you know, vigorous intensity exercise that really increased plasma serotonin, which has been shown to associate with brain serotonin, those studies have been done.","offset":942,"duration":69},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 than that, and impulse control is one of the the the big things that serotonin plays a role in, and so those 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 of check my social media, check my, you know, and um, 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.","offset":1011,"duration":68},{"text":"Host: I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, Our Place. Surprisingly, toxic compounds such as PFASs or forever chemicals are still found in 80% of non-stick pans, as well as utensils, appliances, and countless other kitchen products. As I've discussed before on this podcast, these PFASs or forever chemicals, like Teflon, have been linked to major health issues such as hormone disruption, gut microbiome disruption, fertility issues, and many other health problems. So it's very important to avoid them.","offset":1079,"duration":33},{"text":"Host: This is why I'm a huge fan of Our Place. Our Place products are made with the highest quality materials and are all PFAS and toxin-free. I particularly love their Titanium Always Pan Pro. It's the first non-stick pan made with zero chemicals and zero coating. Instead, it uses pure titanium. That means it has no harmful forever chemicals and it does not degrade or lose its non-stick effect over time. It's also beautiful to look at. I cook my eggs in my Titanium Always Pan Pro almost every morning. The design allows for the eggs to cook perfectly without sticking to the pan.","offset":1112,"duration":35},{"text":"Host: Right now, Our Place is having their biggest sale of the season. You can save up to 40% sitewide now through April 12th. Just head to fromourplace.com/huberman. Again, that's fromourplace.com/huberman to save up to 40%.","offset":1147,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: Today's episode is also brought to us by Lingo. One of the most important factors in your short and long-term health is your body's ability to manage glucose over time. Glucose directly impacts our brain function, mood, and energy. You want your glucose relatively stable across the day, without big peaks or valleys. This is why I use the continuous glucose monitor and app from Lingo by Abbott. Lingo provides minute-by-minute glucose data directly within the app, showing you how your glucose responds to food, exercise, and stress. This information can help you make smarter choices to support your health both now and in the long term.","offset":1165,"duration":42},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":1207,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: 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 hellolingo.com/huberman for more information. Terms and conditions apply. Again, that's hellolingo.com/huberman.","offset":1225,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: 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 um the effects of exercise and just generally. I'm curious, do you bring your phone or feel compelled to check your phone during workouts? 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?","offset":1244,"duration":35},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Oh, I don't bring my phone to my workout at all. Like I don't No, 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 on no notifications because I don't want to be bothered. But I don't I don't really check my phone. Um I I don't really like checking things like social media for me, it's just a distraction and and frankly, I think it's terribly 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. Um, 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.","offset":1279,"duration":45},{"text":"Host: But in real life.","offset":1324,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, so that's IRL as the kids say.","offset":1325,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Yeah.","offset":1328,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: That's in real life, and um, yeah, phones phones for me are not something that I bring to my workout.","offset":1329,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: 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 uh 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, um maybe you could just tell us what low reps is for you and then the um seems like the ever-present 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.","offset":1335,"duration":41},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 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 leg the weight goes down if I'm doing if I'm cleaning it because it's hard to clean. It's also the hard like it's the thing that I hate doing the most.","offset":1376,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: Cleans.","offset":1405,"duration":0},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Oh yeah, cleans with front squat because it's really hard, and um 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 cleans since, you know, February 2024. So I'm pretty new to it and 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 endurance junkie, like I like I used to like to go on 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 because it was so hard and I I just didn't want to do these cleans, you know, 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.","offset":1405,"duration":72},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But anyway, so um, I do a variety of if I'm doing if I'm going heavier, then it, you know, depends. Sometimes we'll start off as 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?","offset":1477,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: You're doing singles.","offset":1491,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: We do.","offset":1492,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Okay.","offset":1493,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I know yeah, yeah. And that's the hardest. It's the hardest. But then there's there's like my coach will be 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'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 dead deadlifting. I think I'm pretty good at at pulling that weight up, lifting that weight up.","offset":1494,"duration":45},{"text":"Host: That's with the straight bar, hex bar? Mixed grip? There's so many variables, but yeah.","offset":1539,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 are 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.","offset":1542,"duration":40},{"text":"Host: 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 am 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 into singles on multi-joint like real 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 ornery, but very credentialed strength training folks have been online recently saying that as people um pass 35, that they shouldn't do squats, that they shouldn't do deadlifts, and certainly shouldn't do them heavy because it because of this whole thing of, you know, you can do higher reps and take it 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.","offset":1582,"duration":70},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: It's hard. It's so hard. And it's the part that I'm like all about let's like the last 30 minutes where it's HIIT and and that's hard too, 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 do 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? 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. It hasn't yet. I still I still dread it, but I do it and um 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.","offset":1652,"duration":53},{"text":"Host: That's your base. Yeah.","offset":1705,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah.","offset":1706,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: You love it.","offset":1707,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":1708,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: 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 midcingulate cortex. This brain area that is hyperplastic 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 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 to get mentally stronger.","offset":1716,"duration":44},{"text":"Host: And I think um having something that you really despise that you know is good for you seems to keep this anterior midcingulate cortex volume either increasing or the same, and that's actually the thing in these so-called superagers that is the strongest anatomical correlate 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 uh easier because it's still it's going to be so much more beneficial.","offset":1760,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Well, I have a coach who can tell when it's getting easier and she will definitely up the weight. I I mean, it keeps I mean, it keeps going up. And so it doesn't 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.","offset":1781,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: Awesome.","offset":1804,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But um and I haven't gotten injured, so that's also, you know, knock on wood.","offset":1805,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Yeah, no, knock on wood. I um thank you for rounding out that picture. It's super inspiring for men and women, you know. So.","offset":1809,"duration":7},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 could ways I could improve, but I'm posting it, you know.","offset":1816,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Well, and the fact that you're working down into triples, doubles, and singles, I think is 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 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, and VO2 max, which is great, but it's 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 the of the health strata as it were.","offset":1826,"duration":34},{"text":"Host: This is 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, that's 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?","offset":1860,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":1878,"duration":55},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And the only thing that really helped me stop that, but 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 grams per kilogram body weight, which is","offset":1933,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: Per kilogram.","offset":1956,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Per kilogram, which is probably a little bit less than the pound.","offset":1957,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: You know, it's it's a kind of a throwaway statement a gram of quality protein um as defined as something with, you know, lots of the essential amino acids and uh so forth per pound or per lean pound of body mass. Um, 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.","offset":1961,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 grams per kilogram body weight or even a little bit above that. And what I found what was happening is that I was actually gaining gaining more weight because I think I was consuming more calories at the same time besides if you're getting it from whole foods, right? Like that's just kind of naturally going to happen.","offset":1984,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Uh and so I had to slide down um. But I'm still like I said, I'm still getting within that range of like probably on average maybe 1.3, 1.4 grams 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 ultra-processed foods in the first place.","offset":2008,"duration":45},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Probably not the answer you were expecting, but it's really um for me like 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.","offset":2053,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: Sure.","offset":2065,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You know, that perimenopause phase, very different than someone who's 37 maybe.","offset":2066,"duration":5},{"text":"Host: I don't know the answer to that. I 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.","offset":2071,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You shouldn't feel that way.","offset":2084,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: 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 you burn tons of calories, you're basically rucking like nine hours a day, right? Then 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.","offset":2085,"duration":34},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I do eat oatmeal too, it it does satiate you. These days, because I really kind of more focused a little bit on I did want to 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 mignon, like I like grass-fed steak as well. Yum.","offset":2119,"duration":39},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 greens because they're the most most micronutrient dense. And so these days I'm eating a lot of sautéed collard greens that are pre-prepared, has garlic and onion, and I'll put that, you know, I have that with my meal or I'll have some, you know, sautéed kale, sometimes I'll have a salad with it. But the portions are smaller, and like I said 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.","offset":2158,"duration":33},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I haven't eaten as much. Sometimes I'll eat the high protein oats. They have those high protein oats that have have you seen those? They're pretty good.","offset":2191,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: No, I eat oatmeal, but I like protein foods, I like vegetables, I like fruit. I feel very lucky to like those foods mainly.","offset":2199,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah.","offset":2205,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: 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 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. I get kind of sleepy afterwards, it just so I it sounds like we eat pretty similarly, although I probably eat more starches than you do.","offset":2206,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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-prandial inflammatory response because some of those foods are a little more inflammatory. I mean, they have a lot of additives and stuff that are affecting the gut, gut permeabilization, you're leaking lipopolysaccharide into the bloodstream, right? That's activating the immune system.","offset":2230,"duration":21},{"text":"Host: Yikes. 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 macrophages 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.","offset":2251,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Well, let me clarify.","offset":2279,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: It squares with my experience. I'm not challenging, no no no, I'm not challenging, it squares with my experience. 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.","offset":2280,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So we have about a gram of LPS in our gut, like that's on average because, you know, lipopolysaccharide is the outer component of a cell membrane of a gram-negative bacteria, right? And 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 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?","offset":2296,"duration":27},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":2323,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Now the type of meal does matter. So what 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 inflammation, it's bad, it's hard on the gut. But the post-prandial 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?","offset":2343,"duration":36},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Well, there's also cytokines that are somnogenic 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.","offset":2379,"duration":21},{"text":"Host: So 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?","offset":2400,"duration":7},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I think the the the big deal with it 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 ultra-processed 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,","offset":2407,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: 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 Kerrygold butter and she loved it. So then we would do this thing where we'd we'd we'd do that. Um, we won't do that anymore.","offset":2424,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I mean, a little bit's fine, but like I mean, there's there's studies showing that it does, like saturated fat is hard on the gut. Like I said, it's a sliding scale. Like meals in general do it, but it's like you 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","offset":2437,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":2464,"duration":9},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 nocebo 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, gluten gluten sensitive and so they were enrolled in this study and um these individuals were separated into two groups. One group was 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 response, 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.","offset":2473,"duration":38},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So it was thought that this is a nocebo 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. Um in addition to like the lethargy, so we're talking about I was talking about in the context, that's why it sparked my, you know, interest as like you were talking about feeling tired after a meal, and I do think that is part of that reason for feeling sleepy.","offset":2511,"duration":34},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But you know, what's interesting about LPS, you talked about injecting it to mice and I have 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 over baseline, right?","offset":2545,"duration":33},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So high amounts of inflammation, which makes sense. LPS is activating the immune system, 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 in the brain, crossing the blood-brain barrier and affecting the way we feel.","offset":2578,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 is the biomarker for a classical biomarker for inflammation, I would argue it's not that sensitive, but nonetheless it is a biomarker for inflammation.","offset":2603,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":2627,"duration":29},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 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 ApoB protein. So ApoB 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.","offset":2656,"duration":38},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 donating 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 lipoprotein. You probably heard of small dense LDL, right? Like that's a very dangerous type of LDL particle. And that's one that's kind of been donating along getting rid of triglycerides and um whatever. If you think about a train with cargo, it's donating the, you know, dropping off the cargo.","offset":2694,"duration":40},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so um when it's time to get recycled back into the liver, what do you know, the ApoB 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, macrophages, which are as you mentioned, it's like the first line of defense against something like a bacterial invader, right? Come and chew it up, right? Gets rid of the problem. So macrophages 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 macrophage stuck to that lipoprotein LPS, you know, complex and you get the formation of a foam cell. You've probably heard of a foam cell. It's the beginning of atherosclerosis.","offset":2734,"duration":57},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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's actually not a very good thing because you're you're basically, you know, slow dripping in that inflammation that inflammatory signal and it's wreaking havoc in our arteries, on our brain.","offset":2791,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":2813,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":2844,"duration":34},{"text":"Host: 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 D3K2 with your subscription. Again, that's drinkag1 with the numeral one.com/huberman to get six free travel packs and a bottle of vitamin D3K2 with your subscription.","offset":2878,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: 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 vagus, no fever. So there's 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 some threshold level of of of LPS. Um, thank you also for reminding us","offset":2903,"duration":35},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I have a coach who can tell when it's getting easier and she will definitely up the weight. I I mean, it keeps I mean, it keeps going up. And so it doesn't 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.","offset":2938,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: Awesome.","offset":2957,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But um and I haven't gotten injured, so that's also, you know, knock on wood.","offset":2958,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Yeah, no, knock on wood. I um thank you for rounding out that picture. It's super inspiring for men and women, you know. So.","offset":2961,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 could ways I could improve, but I'm posting it, you know.","offset":2967,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Well, and the fact that you're working down into triples, doubles, and singles, I think is 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 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, and VO2 max, which is great, but it's 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 the of the health strata as it were.","offset":2977,"duration":9},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So that was kind of always in the back of my mind. And then in my postdoc I did my postdoc with Dr. Bruce Ames and my colleague Dr. Mark Shigenaga 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.","offset":2986,"duration":29},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 it'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?","offset":3015,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Like cause 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 we're lacking, there's not a ton of them there. The ones that I have found more compelling...","offset":3033,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: ...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.","offset":3052,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Like when I mean endurance athletes I mean these guys that are like out 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're they're more prone to respiratory infections.","offset":3074,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 versus the ones that weren't doing it. And then I went back to my, \"oh I know that glutamine's really important for T-cell activation\" and I was like \"I'm going to take this because being being a mom and having a child that's bringing everything home like a vector, you know.\"","offset":3092,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You're like desperate.","offset":3113,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: You're the experiment.","offset":3114,"duration":0},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 literally was like worried. Um and and then I started taking glutamine. Now I take it just I only take 5 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.","offset":3114,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: All at once? Because it can be a little hard on the gut.","offset":3139,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: No, no, not all at once. Not all at once, I usually do it like in fives. So I do 5 grams, 5 grams, 5 grams and you know I have to with the 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-okay with that because placebo effect is real, as long as I'm not getting sick.","offset":3140,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":3168,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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...","offset":3187,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: It's an abnormal growth, so anything that's associated with... mTOR, I saw the recent study on taurine, which scared a lot of people because taurine's in a lot of energy drinks but that was an in vitro study. Uh, yes, I was going to ask, you know, um is there increased cancer risk if you're supplementing with glutamine because cancer cells love glutamine.","offset":3209,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Okay, 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 in a tumor in my colon, the first site that the glutamine is seeing, maybe the liver as well since that's also the next step.","offset":3228,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But um 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 one?\" 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.","offset":3248,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 reasonably low. So hopefully people will be more aware.","offset":3272,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: Yeah 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 mic we were talking about NAC, n-acetyl cysteine. Um I take it once a day 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.","offset":3285,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: 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 percent area, um I don't remember the exact number now, we'll put a link to the study, down to maybe high 20s.","offset":3309,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: Which is pretty impressive. And an ER doc came on this podcast, Roger Seheult, who um and said he was a big proponent of of n-acetyl cysteine for people that are around sick people. Do you take NAC?","offset":3329,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So my only concern with taking it 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 would be generating oxidation, right?","offset":3342,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":3363,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: To get the adaptation.","offset":3375,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 high dose 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.","offset":3376,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Most of the time it's vitamin C and vitamin E. Vitamin E alpha-tocopherol, when I say high dose usually it's 400 IUs, just to give you a reference point the RDA is like 24 IUs, so we're talking high dose.","offset":3399,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":3412,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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-tocopherol which also has other effects of um lowering another type of vitamin E in the body called gamma-tocopherol which is anti-inflammatory and I think that has something to do with inflammation actually can increase the the PSA, right?","offset":3425,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So anyways um the point here is that with NAC my only concern would be you know blunting the the oxidation that you're getting from beneficial because I know you're highly active.","offset":3453,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: I'm training hard, I don't want my train to be short-circuited from NAC. I'm perfectly happy to only take NAC if I'm feeling run down or exposed to um illnesses around me.","offset":3464,"duration":10},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So that's one that's one 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.","offset":3474,"duration":8},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Like so although if smokers take it, I think it has the opposite effect where again it's like the cancer the pre-cancerous 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?","offset":3482,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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?","offset":3499,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so that's kind of and it's not that you don't want some antioxidants it's just like you don't want to overdose on taking too much NAC 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'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 oncogenic and lead to cancer.","offset":3516,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Well reductive stress is is like the opposite of that, so it's like too much of the 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 instead of having this like slow leaking effect of these pro-oxidants 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, and it's off, right?","offset":3544,"duration":31},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 NAC.","offset":3575,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: Great. I don't cold plunge in the 6 to 8 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 NAC under conditions where I'm run down and and that's also when I'll take glutamine. If you take L-glutamine regularly, I I personally observe that I get stronger at a steady state of starch intake.","offset":3592,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":3615,"duration":8},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, there's there was a new study on on eating starches and improving sleep.","offset":3623,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":3629,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: I'll hear from marathoners and ultra-people and people are doing a million things and 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 then they'll have some rice or some pasta, they're like \"oh I slept like a baby\" and they were having it at lunch!","offset":3641,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: And I just think that that the brain doesn't shut down well when you have high levels of cortisol. And the cortisol-starch thing is an interesting one.","offset":3654,"duration":10},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I'm so glad you brought this up because I think um this is something that I did want to talk about really and it has to do with stop eating three hours before bed for that very reason. So there was a new even a new, but there's been several studies now really showing that this is important for that cardiovascular reset, right?","offset":3664,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 it that's activating the sympathetic nervous system as you're eating.","offset":3683,"duration":9},{"text":"Host: As you're eating, yeah.","offset":3692,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah and even as you're digesting, so you have to think about it, like you digest it what it takes like five or so hours to fully finish a meal depending on the meal. Yeah, so if you're eating, you know, right before you go to bed you are you are you are not in that parasympathetic activity, you know, part of the part of the you know cycle that you want to be in.","offset":3693,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 this is interesting, they they had their blood pressure measured for starting in the mid-afternoon all the way throughout the night. So it's the first study that really not just one endpoint looking at blood pressure but just measuring it continuously.","offset":3714,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 three hours before bed versus the group that did not stop eating three hours before bed their blood pressure dipped like lower, so you get that you know that baroreflex dipping, right?","offset":3738,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So this is like part of the parasympathetic activation as you know very important for 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.","offset":3757,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So it's really pretty significant, yeah. And it really isn't 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.","offset":3779,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Although I think in that study I don't know that sleep was really it was subjective and I don't think it was really 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 stopping eating 3 hours before bed really does seem to improve sleep.","offset":3795,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But this parasympathetic activation, you know, you don't want to have a meal right before you bed because you want you want to be in the rest and recovery part, right?","offset":3812,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: 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's a it requires energy, anything that requires energy raises body temperature and your body's doing work.","offset":3818,"duration":318},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: It's an awake event, right? It's an awake... you don't eat 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 activated 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.","offset":4136,"duration":32},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":4168,"duration":7},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And that's what you want, right? I mean so cortisol is circadian dependent as you know, I mean in the more like early morning of early hours of the morning that's when you want it to peak, right? 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 soapbox for me but so with the with the cortisol activation um people don't realize this...","offset":4175,"duration":3025},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: ...you know obviously it's a hormone and it's binding to diff two different receptors. There's the glucocorticoid receptor and then there's the mineralocorticoid receptor and both of those uh 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?","offset":7200,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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, bright light exposure as you mentioned, like that's very important for that cortisol awakening response.","offset":7219,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But you can also ex like like intensity intensive 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 Mattson's lab showing that, you know, the types of of stressors that are beneficial, these hormetic stressors like exercise, like intermittent fasting...","offset":7238,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: ...perhaps even cold exposure, like these types of exposures change the receptor density of these 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 not a big spike you're getting a slow drip of it.","offset":7260,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so what happens is when you have that type of stress you're increasing the glucocorticoid receptors and you're decreasing the mineralocorticoid 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 hormetic stressors like like intermittent fasting, like exercise.","offset":7281,"duration":26},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 genes, 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 your 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.","offset":7307,"duration":29},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You know cortisol represses inflammation, right? It 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 all the genes that it's supposed to activate or deactivate, you want it to be doing what it's supposed to be doing.","offset":7336,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: It's supposed to regulate, we're supposed to have the cortisol, you know, activation response. So um anyways 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, HIIT and it's activating my cortisol.\" Well that's fine, it's like, you know, I mean I guess if you do too much HIIT, right?","offset":7350,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You could 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 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.","offset":7369,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: 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 this stress hormone, stress hormone, and people saw pictures of people with Cushing's disease, which is, you know, a drastically elevated cortisol and the moon face and the excessive visceral fat and and yeah this this sort of um fearmongering around cortisol was particularly directed toward women.","offset":7389,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: 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 in a very appropriate way uh that I appreciate um 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.","offset":7418,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: 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!\" But then the they the message got contorted, right? As it does, yes. Yes! And then it became \"women shouldn't train fasted.\"","offset":7442,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: And then we had uh Lauren Colenso-Semple 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.\"","offset":7459,"duration":-2990},{"text":"Host: 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 uh 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.","offset":4469,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah.","offset":4483,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: And peripheral dopamine and probably, I'll go on record here, 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.","offset":4484,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: So this then you know because 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.\"","offset":4498,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: 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.","offset":4515,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: Um it sounds like you train fasted?","offset":4535,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 for 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.","offset":4538,"duration":27},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: One reason is because it really did help me lose the belly fat, which is 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.","offset":4565,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":4579,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Um you will if it is a longer session you will take an import 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.","offset":4602,"duration":11},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And I and 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 when I'm like \"I don't feel good like I'm going to I'm going to take it easier\" but I still train, I just you listen to your body and I think that's a pretty easy I think rule of thumb.","offset":4613,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Sometimes people like to complicate things, you know, I don't know there's lots of reasons why I don't we don't need to get into that.","offset":4629,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: I have theories, yeah I have theories but they're not important right now.","offset":4636,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: No, it's not important, yeah. So so yeah I do I do train fasted and it is um for me it is 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? Because when I was 30 I mean like I didn't have to train fasted. It was it was easy to keep, you know, the the belly fat, the visceral fat lower.","offset":4639,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 fat that we see.","offset":4662,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 almost like an endocrine organ I mean because it is secreting hormones, it's secreting inflammatory factors, it's metabolically active, it's constantly breaking down triglycerides.","offset":4674,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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.","offset":4695,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: Wow.","offset":4703,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 if you want I mean we can we can get into that. Yeah, it's so with the visceral and like I said, you know, visceral fat is something if you really directly want to measure it you do a DEXA scan.","offset":4704,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 inches or above are considered to have a higher amount of visceral fat. Men that have a waist circumference of 40 inches or above are considered to have a higher amount of visceral fat.","offset":4722,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: It's also that belly fat, like you 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.","offset":4739,"duration":26},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so as women transition to perimenopause, you know, the the years before menopause and menopause it the 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?","offset":4765,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: 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 interval training also really powerfully can do it.","offset":4784,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But also being in a caloric deficit and I think when you start to get the combination of both, that's what really worked for me. It's crazy how quickly you can gain it based on your diet as well. So it is different from the subcutaneous fat in many ways. I mentioned it's secreting these inflammatory molecules, it's you know hormones, but it's also constantly breaking down triglycerides into free fatty acids.","offset":4809,"duration":30},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And the location of it is very dangerous because it's right surrounding the liver, right? It's this deep organ fat. And that's very close to the portal vein and so you're constantly getting this sort of mainlining free fatty acids to the liver.","offset":4839,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And visceral fat is very different from subcutaneous fat because it doesn't respond to insulin like subcutaneous fat does. In other words when you have a meal, you eat a carbohydrate meal and you basically your body increases insulin to help take it up glucose into your liver, muscle, adipose tissue.","offset":4853,"duration":614},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Lipolysis shuts down, right? It's like \"okay no longer am I going to break down these fats, it's time to use this energy\", right? Visceral fat doesn't respond to insulin so it just keeps going, right? And these free fatty acids because they're going right to the liver um it's essentially antagonizing the insulin receptors.","offset":5467,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So it causes insulin receptors to become more resistant to insulin. And this is part of why people with high visceral fat... by the way you can gain visceral fat without gaining a pound.","offset":5481,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And we can talk about those studies like people people are skinny and can have high amounts of visceral fat. You've heard of like lean metabolically unhealthy but lean individuals, those people exist and so you can have a high amount of visceral fat but not really look like you do.","offset":5493,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So um when you know obviously the insulin resistance is a problem for many reasons but it also plays a role in those energy crashes that you experience, right?","offset":5511,"duration":8},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And that's kind of like some of the first signs of insulin resistance actually have to do with what you're feeling. So we talked about lethargy, right? So you know the inflammation that's being generated from these this visceral fat constantly making these, you know, pro-inflammatory compounds are an it's an energy sink, right?","offset":5519,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So you do constantly feel tired, but also because your cells are becoming insulin resistant, when you have a high glucose meal and you're not responding the body kind of overcompensates and produces more insulin. So it's like \"I we got to get this blood glucose out of our system\", right? It can cause a lot of damage if it sits around there.","offset":5535,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so you make more insulin and then what happens is your you your blood glucose goes way low because it was like this overcompensation, right? And then you feel a crash, you feel like this crash and that signals to the, you know, hypothalamus part of the brain \"uh I need energy\", right? So then you you sort of crave, you get those cravings for those calorically energy dense foods.","offset":5553,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: What I'm talking about is like the experience of, you know, insulin resistance. And what's interesting is that you can cause someone to gain visceral fat and their brain can become insulin resistant. So we think a lot about insulin resistance in the muscle, liver, your brain also can become insulin resistant quite quickly actually.","offset":5573,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So um insulin's very important in the brain for a lot of reasons, as you know. But you know a couple of the things relative to what we're talking about or relevant to what we're talking about would be one is it does act on the hypothalamus and help, you know, tell it to basically stop eating, be satiated. Like \"I took a meal in okay like I'm going to be satiated.\"","offset":5593,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But it also plays a role in energy storage and telling the body how to store the energy. And so when your brain becomes insulin resistant, it's not doing that and so you're not being satiated so you eat more and you're storing the fat more viscerally.","offset":5612,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And there was a study that was published actually quite recently I covered this in a in a recent newsletter. It was a really interesting study because it was healthy young men and researchers put them on a little bit of a calorically dense, so it was like they were eating 1200 to 1500 more calories a day and it was high saturated fat high sugar. So it was a processed foods ultra-processed foods like, you know, ultimate, right?","offset":5628,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: That's a lot of extra calories.","offset":5652,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: A lot of extra calories for five days. It is. But what happened was their they did cause their brain to become insulin resistant and they didn't gain weight, but they gained visceral fat and they started gaining fat around their liver and that's something that happens as well because visceral fat is surrounding liver, you're getting a lot of free fatty acids and they're going right to the liver so the liver has to store it, right?","offset":5653,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So you get this non-alcoholic, you know, fatty fatty liver. But and that happened after five days. I mean without gaining weight!","offset":5676,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: In otherwise young healthy...","offset":5684,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah! But you know they were eating a lot of calories extra calories.","offset":5685,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Yeah that's like a 1200 that's like a half a pizza extra above your maintenance calories per day.","offset":5689,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And it's probably what they were doing and they were eating lots of well they were eating like saturated fat and refined sugar, so Doritos and French fries. You know I mean obviously if you're going to do the study you want to kind of do it to a high degree where you're going to see some change, right?","offset":5695,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So so maybe like maybe it's not going to happen in five days if you're if you're only eating 500 more calories a day but over time you will be gaining it visceral fat, right? So it's it's not going to be the same degree. It's something to be concerned about, it's something to think about and also because you can gain it and not really even know it like, you know, without gaining a pound.","offset":5709,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And there other things that cause it not just, you know, eating too many calories or diet composition. I mean you mentioned cortisol, I mean chronic elevated cortisol makes you store the fat around around, you know, visceral fat. Sleep loss, I mean there's also studies showing that you take healthy men, sleep deprive them for a couple of weeks I think 4 hours they're getting 4 hours of sleep a night they can start gaining visceral fat.","offset":5732,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I mean pretty rapidly with only like a pound gaining a pound of weight. So again it's like not necessarily something that you're going to see on the scale but it's happening, right? And it's affecting your short-term mood, I mean how you feel, your energy, it's affecting, you know, the way you're eating it's a vicious cycle because you start to eat more calories, right? And then it just becomes this vicious cycle of that you start to gain more visceral fat.","offset":5754,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, all in the correct ratios, but no sugar. Proper hydration is critical for brain and body function.","offset":5773,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: Even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish your cognitive and physical performance. It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes. The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, are vital for the functioning of all cells in your body, especially your neurons or your nerve cells.","offset":5791,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: Drinking Element makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes. My days tend to start really fast, meaning I have to jump right into work or right into exercise. So to make sure that I'm hydrated and I have sufficient electrolytes, when I first wake up in the morning, I drink 16 to 32 ounces of water with an Element packet dissolved in it.","offset":5807,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: I also drink Element dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. Element has a bunch of great tasting flavors. In fact I love them all. I love the watermelon, the raspberry, the citrus, and I really love the lemonade flavor.","offset":5826,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: So if you'd like to try Element, you can go to drinkelement.com/huberman to claim a free Element sample pack with any purchase. Again that's drinkelement.com/huberman to claim a free sample pack.","offset":5842,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: Such an important point that you can either not be gaining much or not gaining any um total body weight but gain visceral fat. I think that's um first time I've heard that and it's a vital message for people to hear because this visceral fat sounds like one of the major health hazards we need to worry about.","offset":5854,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: You mentioned elevate chronically elevated cortisol, sleep deprivation, will increase visceral fat. Once again I know I'm beating a drum here um almost to death, but having high cortisol early in the day and low cortisol in the evening is the definition of not chronically high cortisol.","offset":5872,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: The definition of chronically high cortisol is somewhat elevated or elevated cortisol in the morning, but especially in the hours before sleep and I I actually have a theory that is not a stretch that one of the main reasons why it's so detrimental to our mental and physical health in the short and long term is because of the ways it disrupts sleep.","offset":5889,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: And so and we can't tease those apart. No! You can't do a study where you spike cortisol late in the day even if you can fall asleep just fine after the end of a really stressful day the sleep is different. And people say \"well life has stress\" and I totally agree. I mean Lord knows I've experienced life has stress.","offset":5908,"duration":15},{"text":"Host: But getting that last hour of the day doing things to push down on cortisol push down on stress lower heart rate not eating in that certainly that last hour before sleep ideally 3. Um I feel like that small change can make a an outsized positive difference.","offset":5923,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: That's interesting like the the correlation between the high cortisol affecting your sleep and maybe that's also like they they're related and so the sleep loss really does make you... we know, we know from, you know, you probably know who the researchers are that have done those studies on sleep loss and it affecting appetite, right? I mean...","offset":5938,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: Oh everything gets disregarded. I mean I don't want to take us off course, but I think you might find it interesting there's a beautiful study where they look measured metabolism during sleep. They basically had people breathe into a tube um during sleep, they had a mask on and it turns out that the brain cycles through all the different forms of metabolism during sleep.","offset":5955,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: There's a phase of sleep where you're essentially running on sugar, there's a then there's like it almost looks like somebody's ketogenic at one... basically the the middle of the night when we're so should be at night when you're sleeping is is kind of a test run of all the systems but they get recalibrated.","offset":5969,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: And it's so important. I actually think, you know, most of the negative effects of alcohol that people talk about, yes it's a poison, it's a class 1 carcinogen, um as classified by the World Health Organization on a... I think most of the negative effects of drinking are because of the negative effects of alcohol on sleep. I'm not telling people drink in the morning, but uh you know...","offset":5988,"duration":21},{"text":"Host: And so I think that if you get your sleep right you're not 90% of the way there, but you're halfway there. Yeah. I really do believe that. And then getting your sleep right makes you do a bunch of other things.","offset":6009,"duration":8},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Right, you're more you're more more motivated to exercise for one.","offset":6017,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: More motivated to exercise, your food choices, I mean and on and on. The the problem with talking about sleep is so important is people will get sleep anxiety so we tap dance around this. It's like \"oh we don't want people stress.\" Learn how to fall asleep, learn how to fall back asleep. These no one gets it perfect, yes you'll survive like with one poor night's sleep or an all-nighter, you're not going to die, like you know just get good at it on average right?","offset":6020,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: That's what I'd say. Could you tell us what the structure of the intermittent fasting is for you? Does that mean skipping breakfast, skipping lunch, skipping dinner because I know a number of people are sort of getting drawn back to intermittent fasting after a couple of years of it getting beat up on as like not the best way to lose fat or it is a I think it's a terrific way to do the sorts of things that you're describing and I'm learning today more about the the positive things it can do um for insulin sensitivity and so forth.","offset":6040,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: If you're on a bout of intermittent fasting are you doing it by the clock? Are you doing it by feel? What does it look like?","offset":6069,"duration":5},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: For me it it really does depend on the day and I really do try to stop eating 3 hours before I go to bed. It doesn't always happen, you know, with family obligations, social obligations, but it's the habit that's important, right? So intermittent fasting, you know, it's more than just one intervention as I mentioned, it's a behavioral tool that you can use to limit your calorie intake without actually having to count all the calories, which some people like to do, some people don't, right?","offset":6074,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So it's a tool, but also it's really important for a metabolic switch. As you mentioned insulin sensitivity the metabolic switch is something that Dr. Mark Mattson coined and I love it because I feel like, you know, thinking about intermittent fasting in that way makes it a little more clear as to the benefits of it. It depends on the meal you have and how much exercise you do, right?","offset":6098,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But on average let's say 11, 12 hours to deplete your liver glycogen levels. And once that happens you do start to burn fat and use fatty acids as fuel and make ketone bodies so you go into ketogenesis, right? And that's a metabolic switch. Metabolic flexibility you're you're going from using carbohydrates as fuel to using fatty acids and making ketone bodies as fuel.","offset":6121,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And that's something that, you know, throughout human evolution was ingrained, right? Like we didn't always have access to Uber Eats and Instacart and you can just out of swipe you get food, right? You I mean there were many times when, you know, people had to not eat because they couldn't forge their foods, maybe the time of year or they couldn't hunt their food because they didn't get a win or whatever I don't know.","offset":6144,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So this metabolic flexibility is something that's really ingrained in our in our our DNA in a sense, right? Um one of the reasons I like to do that is the ketone production and why is that, you know, ketones are really clean they're clean a clean way to burn energy. So they generate less oxidative stress, less oxidative products, but they also are energetically favorable in that it takes less energy to use them to make energy than glucose does.","offset":6169,"duration":29},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So it takes more energy to use glucose as energy than it does ketones. But they're also a signaling molecule, so it's a way for the body, you know, to signal to other parts of the body like \"hey this is a stressful time, there's no food, I'm you know burn I'm in ketosis, um let's let's make you stronger\", right?","offset":6198,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Because that's kind of what evolution wants, like if you're not able to find or eat food you have to be stronger to be able to do it, right? And so that's that's kind of at the I say core of of this metabolic switch and why it's important and I think that I really like Mark Mattson being the pioneer in this and as a neuroscientist really looking at the benefits in the brain as well, you know.","offset":6218,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: These ketones like beta-hydroxybutyrate are activating, you know, growth factors like brain-derived neurotrophic factor in the brain, as you know, it's very important for, you know, learning memory, you know, synapse formation and stuff this hugely important for neuroplasticity. So it's activating beneficial compounds like that and again, um it it's not going to happen if you're never going into this metabolic switch.","offset":6238,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And there's other ways to get there. So you can limit your your food go into this ketosis, right? Where you're basically depleting your liver glycogen. Or you can exercise a lot, right? So your energy expenditure goes up. So there's there's different ways to get to this metabolic switch. It doesn't necessarily have to be intermittent fasting.","offset":6259,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: Got it.","offset":6281,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And I'm telling you this because you're I want to tell you why I'm I'm sort of back back on the intermittent fasting and by the way it's not for everyone like I said, I mean I think that you can find other ways to get this metabolic switch and um for me intermittent fasting works. And so what I do typically is I will do most of the time my fasted my...","offset":6282,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But I mean, obviously we don't always want to be in a calorie deficit, but we always don't want to be constantly eating either. And that's why it comes down to I think the simple rule for people like if they're going to do some sort of metabolic switch, some sort of intermittent fast, it would be like okay let's try to at least stop eating three hours before bed.","offset":6297,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Because then you're at least going to be extending that fast somewhat by three hours, right? So I think that's and plus you're getting that the cardiovascular benefits that are really seem to be important.","offset":6315,"duration":11},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And then not eating at night, so there's all these studies that have come out of Israel, I think it's is it Jacobwitz, Jacobwitz and Freud are two researchers. Um, I mean Satchin Panda I remember years ago showed me one of the studies it was like published in science showing that if you have the same exact meal, same calorie intake, same composition macronutrient composition in the morning, the afternoon, in the evening, the insulin response is like com is different.","offset":6326,"duration":34},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Like you're the most insulin sensitive early in the morning. As you start to go towards the evening, and particularly three hours before your natural bedtime, you see your your melatonin levels naturally rise, right? And as you know, you know melatonin is important for the onset of sleep and preparing the body for sleep.","offset":6360,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But it's also preparing the other organs for rest and recovery, including the pancreas which is making insulin. And so you're not making as much insulin when it's closer to your natural bedtime because of the melatonin levels that are rising.","offset":6379,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so you don't want to be eating, particularly a carbohydrate rich meal, but a meal, you're not going to be as as insulin sensitive in the last three hours before sleep.","offset":6394,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Yeah, when you're starting to get into that melatonin rising phase of of you know, of your cycle. Yeah, it's interesting. I I think when people hear, okay you're most insulin sensitive in the morning, that would be the time to eat your biggest meal.","offset":6404,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: But then people say, wait but then I'm trying to fast before and I'm trying to exercise and like how do I do this? I think that's where for them the confusion comes in and it to me it's very simple. Uh, just because your insulin sensitivity is highest first thing in the morning doesn't mean you have to eat right away.","offset":6423,"duration":15},{"text":"Host: I mean it just means avoid eating too close to bedtime, right? Sometime during the day. And also if you exercise fasted or after a small snack, it was kind of interesting what Stacy Sims said, not everyone should exercise fasted. She said especially a lot of women don't like to do that. She didn't say eat a meal.","offset":6438,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: She said like have a scoop of whey protein with some I think she said with like some almond milk in it. And and you couldn't believe the response on the internet. It was like vindication, right? And I get it, it was like it vindicated people's experience, like oh thank you thank you.","offset":6456,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: And it it told me something really important about the kind of sociology of what we do, which is when something validates people's experience they they love it. But it doesn't mean that the things that work for other people don't work.","offset":6473,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: And I think that that's the part that gets lost. And so if a study shows that insulin sensitivity is highest in the morning, but you can only exercise first thing in the morning, what do you do? You know, so uh, you do the best you can, right? I think is what it comes down to.","offset":6490,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: In fact I meant to ask you earlier and it's this is a good time to uh, to talk about this. Uh, you've described that if you are slightly sleep deprived, so not four hours per night or an all-nighter, but if you've only slept five, or let's say you're getting an hour or two less than your normal ration of sleep, there's some pretty significant inflammation that's that that occurs, that's not good.","offset":6506,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: But I've heard you cover that exercising can actually offset some of that inflammation. This answers a a important and common question which is if I have to pick between sleep and exercise, what do I do? Um, and it sounds like if it's one night poor sleep, exercise. But you but you don't want to make it a habit. That's do I have that right?","offset":6531,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah. I mean so this this data a lot of it actually comes from you can cause even acute insulin resistance after like a night of of sleep deprivation, certainly after two to three nights of sleep deprivation. And you know, again a lot of that's coming down to some of the things we've already talked about.","offset":6549,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And um, but exercise can help basically negate a lot of that. And I learned that first hand through experience when I was wearing a continuous glucose monitor uh, and when I was a new parent, of course you're not getting enough enough sleep.","offset":6569,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so that's I learned it before I actually dove into the science about it, I I learned about it through my own data, where I was, you know, I wasn't exercising as much, and particularly in the first month you really like you're kind of in a cave as a new mom, you don't really you're not really exercising much at all.","offset":6586,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Evolution wants the the baby to survive.","offset":6597,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You're recovering too. I mean childbirth is a very it's a very traumatic process on your body. And so um, I noticed that my my glucose response was like it was pre-diabetic. And I was like what is going on? And um, and that's when I started looking into the literature.","offset":6600,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And happened to be around the same time when I was then starting up my at the time I was doing spin classes, and then it was very clear to me, it was like I do these high intensity interval training classes even just twice a week, and it was like almost completely negating what I had seen previously of my my glucose being my fasting glucose being really high, and also my postprandial glucose being higher than than usual.","offset":6618,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so um, I looked into the studies and there's now you can you can find many studies out there and it really I mean obviously exercise is one of the best things you can do to improve insulin sensitivity and to also bring glucose into your cells, right?","offset":6641,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so that's part of what you were talking about with you're more insulin sensitive during morning, least during evening, and I also mentioned that. But guess what? There's levers you can pull that like change the equation, and exercise is a big one, right?","offset":6660,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: If you're if you're exercising you're becoming more insulin sensitive, you're increasing more glucose transporters on your muscle, that's causing glucose to go in easier, right? There's so there's lots of ways around some of these rules that we hear about.","offset":6674,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But with the with the sleep loss, it really is it's interesting because people like when they don't get sleep, the last thing they want to do is work out. And obviously like you don't want to do like the hardest thing especially if you're really like sleep deprived a lot, but it really does help negate the inflammation and the insulin insensitivity that can happen after even just a single night of sleep, and there's studies out there showing that.","offset":6688,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And then there's also these longitudinal studies that have been done looking at you know, people so obviously a poor sleep is a problem, you know, in the United States, I mean a lot of people are are sleeping fewer than seven hours a night. And um, but there's studies out there that have looked at people that sleep either shorter, so fewer than seven hours a night, or they're sleeping more than ten, right?","offset":6716,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So you don't want to be on either end of the spectrum and usually like sleeping long there's like other disease states associated with it, right? But um, so people that are sleeping, you know not getting enough sleep, they have a higher all-cause mortality than people that are getting at least seven to nine hours of sleep. And the same for like more than ten, they have a higher all-cause mortality than people getting between seven and nine.","offset":6736,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But if people exercise, if they're meeting the physical activity guidelines right now, which is 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise and 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity exercise...","offset":6757,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: Right, well because the guidelines are helpful, but they're just guidelines because I mean doing the sort of workout that you're doing, working up to doubles and triples and singles on compound lifts and then doing uh cardio like getting your heart rate elevated and then doing addition of that and then you're hiking. I mean that it's just uh I think the guidelines are a good jumping off place for people to think about.","offset":6769,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Well, we can talk about that because there's a new study that kind of throws that on the head. But but the point is is that if they if people were exercising within the guideline range, that they basically and if they weren't getting enough sleep, if they were getting fewer than seven hours of sleep per night, that they they basically had the same mortality rate as people that were getting enough sleep.","offset":6791,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So it's offsetting some of that unhealthy stuff, the insulin resistance, you know, the inflammation that we know, you know, can lead to diseases and early mortality.","offset":6809,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: So find the time to exercise folks. But of course periods of time like after a new child, or new job, or particularly stressful time, I don't know any human being, I don't care how driven, okay there's probably Goggins and Cam Haynes being probably exceptions and a few others, you know, I don't Ken Rideout and a few others.","offset":6819,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: But people who everybody else um seems to have periods of time where they need to just back off a bit. I know I certainly do, and that I feel like I'm doing pretty well for myself despite, you know and and I think that it's important that people not hold themselves to a standard that is going to make them sick or injured or miserable beyond. Yeah, you also want to continue to enjoy health promoting activities, right?","offset":6842,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Right. I mean you gotta say like what's your goal, like your goal is to be healthy, to be happy. If you're taking it to this extreme where you're trying to just go to the extreme, like go hard, go home, and it's you're sacrificing your happiness too, I mean that then that's a problem, right? Because that's part of the equation happiness is part of that health equation.","offset":6866,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: Health is a daily and lifelong thing, but sometimes it means taking a day off. I think that's what people don't say um, and I think it's in a time when perhaps a lot of people aren't exercising enough, so promoting that no days off thing can be helpful. But for those that are already sort of you know forward center of mass, you know coming off the accelerator can be really useful.","offset":6886,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah. Well I also want to just mention because you know we we talked about my you know, I I work out a lot and I'm sort of addicted to it, but like not everyone has the time and motivation to to go spend an hour block of time working out.","offset":6907,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And this is where I think the people can sigh a sigh of relief, because there's now so much emerging data that have been coming out you know, over the last decade on these short burst of physical activity that add up.","offset":6925,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: They add up and people aren't really thinking about them in you know counting towards adding up to to their physical activity you know requirements for the for the week. And so there's these a lot of studies now there's on something called vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity VILPA studies. Have you heard of those?","offset":6940,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: Are these the exercise snacks?","offset":6958,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: They're unstructured ex they're unstructured and not everyone likes the word exercise snacks, I mean I kind of like it, but the unstructured exercise they're they're they're the moments in your life where you're taking advantage of everyday situations to get your heart rate up to move.","offset":6959,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so that could be I'm playing with my new puppy and I'm sprinting around with my new puppy. I'm you know chasing my grandkid around playing tag or my child. I'm sprinting up the stairs to get to my office. I'm running to catch the bus. I'm moving, right?","offset":6975,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so um, researchers and there've been several studies on this now, researchers use accelerometers rather than just relying on these questionnaires which are as you know, you know extremely unreliable. I mean it's very hard for people to to remember how much exercise you sit here asking me about my exercise I mean there's only so much you know that you can be accurate with when you're trying to recall that.","offset":6992,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So these accelerometers are are worn people's wrist and they're and they're measuring like fast movement, the movement, right? And so thousands and thousands, like hundreds of thousand participants, there's a lots of data now showing that people that are doing these like short bursts at least a minute long but up to three minutes, right?","offset":7011,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Where they're getting their they're moving, I'm saying they're getting their heart rate up they're actually not measuring the heart rate in these states they're moving faster with intent, right? They're they're jogging or they're um you know, they're not of course there's the cases where they're actually exercising, but but the short burst of it um they're doing the things that I just mentioned and it's having outsized effects on on health outcomes.","offset":7032,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So for example individuals that do on the high end so they're doing, you know, three 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 nine minutes a day, okay this type of activity, and it's considered more vigorous because of you're the intent to move, right? That's more vigorous, even though they're not measuring heart rate.","offset":7057,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: That's associated with a 40% reduction in all-cause mortality, 40% reduction in cancer related mortality, a 50% reduction in cardiovascular related mortality. Wow. Nine minutes a day. And this is even in people that don't identify as exercisers, so they're not the kind of people like you and I that go and intentionally set out time to go to the gym.","offset":7079,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: They're people that just they're just take they're they're doing those things, right? They're playing with their grandkids or their kids or their puppies or whatever. And so um, these moments they add up. And I'm I'm citing one study, but you know it was a dose dependent effect even doing three minutes a day, you know there's a study in women showing you know three and a half minutes a day, I mean they were having pretty profound benefits on all-cause mortality and cancer related mortality as well.","offset":7102,"duration":26},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And multiple studies now have shown this. I mean this is like one study after another after another. I mean it is undeniable that these short moments of you know getting physically activity active do add up.","offset":7128,"duration":10},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And structured exercise snacks can be part of that, like maybe you don't have a puppy, maybe you don't have a kid yet, maybe you work from home and you're not taking the you know maybe your situation's different than what I described, but you can take these moments to do exercise snacks.","offset":7138,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And that can be a minute long and it can be like there was there's studies showing that more two two studies and I'll talk about one, showing that getting up and doing 10 body weight squats every 45 minutes over a seven and a half hour work day is better at regulating blood glucose levels than a 30 minute walk, right?","offset":7154,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So you get up and you do 10 body weight squats. Pretty easy. I mean and it's also very good to break up that sedentary time. So being sedentary means like you're not moving, that also is an independent risk factor even if you do exercise for things like cancer being the big one.","offset":7173,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Although I would say if you're doing a lot of exercise you're doing pretty good, but I just like to mention that as well. I would say being sedentary is a disease, actually. That's that's something I mean people aren't thinking about it.","offset":7188,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Even in the absence of what uh Lane Norton calls energy toxicity, like even if somebody is uh at maintenance or below maintenance calories, if they're sedentary, that's that's problematic.","offset":7198,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: We do have data for one measuring cardio cardiorespiratory fitness, which is a marker of cardiovascular health, being physically fit, right? Obviously the gold standard of that would be measuring VO2 Max, your maximal oxygen uptake during maximal exercise.","offset":7210,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: A lot of studies do not actually directly measure VO2 Max, they'll do, you know, maybe sub a submaximal treadmill test or they'll estimate it, right? There's a calculation out there you can do kind of what you're if you have like an Apple watch or some sort of fitness tracker what they do is which is you know it's looking at the distance that you run and the amount of time it takes, right?","offset":7226,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So like a 12 minute run would be an example people do that, you you run as fast as you can and maintain that pace for 12 minutes, you're not going all out obviously.","offset":7246,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: You see how far you can get.","offset":7260,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, yeah. And then and there's a calculation out there that's done to kind of estimate your VO2 Max, and so some studies are a lot of studies are actually doing sort of an estimation of cardiorespiratory fitness.","offset":7261,"duration":10},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So cardiorespiratory fitness um is really important I think for you know marking your health and longevity. And you know, if you have a low cardiorespiratory fitness, most of the times you are not physically active, right?","offset":7271,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And there are studies showing that if you don't have any you know diagnosable diseases, so you're not insulin resistant, you don't have cardiovascular disease, you don't have cancer, all that stuff, right? You're not um obese, but you have a low cardiorespiratory fitness, it is as bad or worse in terms of your all-cause mortality, you know, predicting mortality, than having cardiovascular disease, or smoking, or having hypertension, or these things that we know that are really bad for health, right?","offset":7283,"duration":31},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So being sedentary, as I'm saying it's low cardiorespiratory fitness, I guess it's not exactly correct, it's a little bit of I'm stretching it a little bit. But cardiorespiratory fitness is a marker of I would say fitness.","offset":7314,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And so um, that's why I think being sedentary is a disease. And people with a low cardiorespiratory fitness, I mean if you go anywhere above that, you know if from low to like low normal, that's associated with a two-year increase in life expectancy.","offset":7328,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: If you go from low to um high normal, you know that's like almost a three-year increase in life expectancy. And if you go up to high then you're talking about a five-year increase in life expectancy compared to where you were at the low. But again, I'm not talking about VO2 Max, I'm talking about cardiorespiratory fitness.","offset":7346,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And it's it's really important. Here's another reason why I think that it's it's really bad. So these studies were done, by the way cardiorespiratory fitness is improved by aerobic exercise in general. That's great.","offset":7364,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And then you know if you add if you add in high intensity interval training in there mix, that also really helps because there are some people that don't respond necessarily to just doing cardiovascular...","offset":7379,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Slow steady state.","offset":7389,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Mm-hmm. Yeah, about 40% of people don't respond, so mixing in the high intensity is good. If you're physically active and doing that that's great, if you're doing these short bursts of physical activity also good, because it's a little bit of a high intensity you know exercise, right?","offset":7390,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: A min a minute running around chasing your grandkid or your puppy or your child, you know that's that's that's a hit.","offset":7406,"duration":5},{"text":"Host: Taking the stairs is amazing. I was traveling for a team...","offset":7411,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Sprinting up the stairs.","offset":7413,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Going sprinting up the the stairs or if you're carrying a lot of luggage in the airport like going up the stairs or down the stairs. It's wild when you go to the airport, I I like to notice this, um nobody takes the stairs.","offset":7414,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, because they're there right.","offset":7427,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Down or up like the escalators are there. And I'm always like oh this is a great opportunity to get some extra steps and some extra work but I realize that's me. Um, but it's just it's striking.","offset":7428,"duration":9},{"text":"Host: Um, and if you're in DC ever, you know, they have these long stairwells like go um up from the from the public transport and that's a workout, you know. And and I'm always like, oh free workout. Like you know like get it in my day. I mean it sucks to arrive a little bit more sweaty than you would otherwise.","offset":7437,"duration":15},{"text":"Host: But I just think if this were an experiment, and we were looking at mice, and we were videotaping from above, I always think of myself like which mouse am I going to be? All the mice are going up the automatic elevator. It makes sense why they would want to do that, but these opportunities for exercise are clearly there.","offset":7452,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: I I feel like this is also I I would be remiss if I didn't do a quick shout out to Steve Magness. Do you follow ever see his content?","offset":7466,"duration":8},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I've interacted with him, yeah. Um, on Twitter I've interacted with him, on X.","offset":7474,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Yeah, I've never met him but um people should I think give him a follow. He's a very accomplished runner in his past, a running coach I believe as well, and um and a scientist, and I think has the best take on sort of measuring VO2 Max.","offset":7476,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: It's kind of interesting you know he has a theory which I think is strongly backed that most measures of VO2 Max are not measures of VO2 Max at all. But one of the best measures of cardiorespiratory fitness is how fast can you run a mile.","offset":7494,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Hmm. And he says people are generally surprised how easy the easy stuff should feel and how hard the hard stuff should feel. So I want to just credit Steve for saying that. So I try and keep that in mind around my cardio and do some high i do a less of what you do I I confess, um some high intensity interval training Tabata type stuff and then some a lot of walks, a lot of hikes.","offset":7505,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: Yeah. And I haven't formally measured my VO2 Max in a while but I think he just nails it with that because I think people think the 30-minute jog on the treadmill where you get sweaty and you're like ah like that's accomplishing what you want but actually there's a much easier path to better health, which is what you do and more or less what Steve is describing as well. Uh does that square with your your experience?","offset":7525,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, I think so. I mean I do I do mix in quite a bit of probably more more high intensity interval training. But um, you know, I don't feel like if I felt like it was like if I didn't feel good I would I would toggle down the the pedal right I wouldn't keep keep going on it.","offset":7546,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So I think you have to again just listen to your body, you know you don't want to overdo things. And I am I mean there are people out there that are really like endurance athletes that are, you know, like that's not me. I'm a committed exerciser, I'm not an I'm not necessarily an athlete, uh but but yeah so that would that's those different I think levels here and Steve is obviously athlete.","offset":7561,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: Anyway, I've learned from him around this topic. It's been it's been helpful.","offset":7581,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function. Last year I became a function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. Function provides over 100 advanced lab tests that give you a key snapshot of your entire bodily health. This snapshot offers you with insights on your heart health, hormone health, immune function, nutrient levels, and much more.","offset":7587,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: They've also recently added tests for toxins, such as BPA exposure from harmful plastics and tests for PFASes, or forever chemicals. Function not only provides testing of over 100 biomarkers key to your physical and mental health, but it also analyzes these results and provides insights from top doctors who are expert in the relevant areas.","offset":7610,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: For example, in one of my first tests with Function, I learned that I had elevated levels of mercury in my blood. Function not only helped me detect that, but offered insights into how best to reduce my mercury levels, which included limiting my tuna consumption, I'd been eating a lot of tuna, while also making an effort to eat more leafy greens and supplementing with NAC, N-acetyl cysteine, both of which can support glutathione production and detoxification. And I should say by taking a second Function test, that approach worked.","offset":7629,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: Comprehensive blood testing is vitally important. There are so many things related to your mental and physical health that can only be detected in a blood test. The problem is blood testing has always been very expensive and complicated. In contrast, I've been super impressed by Function's simplicity and at the level of cost. It is very affordable.","offset":7653,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: As a consequence, I decided to join their scientific advisory board and I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring the podcast. If you'd like to try Function, you can go to functionhealth.com/huberman. Function currently has a wait list of over 250,000 people, but they're offering early access to Huberman Podcast listeners. Again, that's functionhealth.com/huberman to get early access to Function.","offset":7671,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: I want to ask you about creatine. Yeah. I'm 50, I started taking weight training and running when I was like 16 maybe, yeah. And I started taking creatine because back then I was skinny I wanted to put on muscle.","offset":7696,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: I think creatine was sort of first discovered or released back then when I was maybe 18 or something like that, something like that, 18 19. Um so I've been taking a long long time, 5 to 10 grams.","offset":7708,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: But the original protocol, which nobody does anymore, but I confess I still do it because I enjoy it was to take 5 grams three to five times per day, there was this loading phase and you would mix it with a little bit of grape juice because the idea was you were supposed to spike your insulin and then you get more into the muscles, and then you had a maintenance dose which was 5 grams per day.","offset":7721,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: Um, and the idea back then was that you need to do a washout every 20 weeks or so where you just stop taking it, you urinate out a bunch of water and then you reload. And I confess I've continued to do this minus the grape juice, but occasionally I'll do the grape juice thing.","offset":7745,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: I don't think that there's any real merit to the loading phase maintenance phase idea, but back then and still now I feel like creatine has maybe feel great, um stronger, um I did I wasn't aware of the cognitive benefits.","offset":7761,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: They weren't being studied back then.","offset":7774,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: They weren't being studied back then, but what are your thoughts on why creatine suddenly has become this like banner supplement. It's like supplement of the year, we should start a supplement of the year thing, right? For a while I think vitamin D and melatonin came first, um and we'll have to figure out what years those were.","offset":7776,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: Then I feel like creatine got supplement of the year for 2026 is unless something else comes along. So creatine, supplement of the year 2026 even though it's been around for a long long time. What do you think happened?","offset":7796,"duration":11},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Well, so first I want to talk about your loading phase night like that was really for the studies that were being done, right? Because if you're taking 5 grams a day of creatine it takes about three to four weeks for your for your muscle creatine stores to become saturated, and researchers aren't going to do a study where they wait that long.","offset":7807,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So the loading phase really was just...","offset":7824,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: Oh, so that's what inspired it.","offset":7827,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, it was it's in this isolated bubble of in the experimental protocol, but like in the real world you have three weeks, or if you're like an athlete and you hadn't you know taken the creatine you don't have your creatine stores up and you have to quickly rapidly like increase your stores.","offset":7828,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: Got it. I was just amazed at how quickly it worked. I I might be a hyper responder, but I legitimately put on I realize some of it was water or most of it was water, but somewhere between probably 4 and 8 pounds of of water in the muscle mass. I don't want to call it lean mass because it's you know it's water in the muscle.","offset":7841,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: Um but I just was I was like, oh my goodness this is crazy, you know. And um and then people thought maybe it was a steroid, it's not a steroid, maybe it's bad for your kidneys, turns out it's safe for your kidneys in most everyone. Um pretty remarkable molecule.","offset":7861,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah. I mean obviously creatine is stored as creatine phosphate in our in our cells, we make to some degree like between 1 to 3 grams of creatine a day, our liver, our brain also makes it. It's used to make energy and so your muscles if you're working out, you're really consuming a lot of energy, right?","offset":7873,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: It's very energetically demanding, so having the creatine stores higher in your muscle is beneficial because one, you're going to be able to increase your training volume, right? So it's not like creatine is anabolic in the sense that protein or amino acids are, right?","offset":7892,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: It's not like directly affecting muscle protein synthesis, it's just helping you train more, getting more reps in you know in whatever it is training training your training volume's going up, and because your training volume's going up then you're obviously putting more stress on your muscles which is going to lead to increased muscle protein synthesis and you know obviously there's water probably as well.","offset":7907,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: That said, you know you asked me you know what happened. So I got interested in creatine back in 20 when I started basically weight training. You know, I've obviously had heard about it forever, never took it. And as I started to get into resistance training, I was like I better start taking this.","offset":7928,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: This is I'm I'm in this world now and started doing some research and taking it. So I was taking the 5 grams a day because that's really what most of the studies show creatine monohydrate that's obviously the most well researched form of creatine, and I was taking 5 grams a day because I was interested in improving my my training volume and and getting the the benefits of it, right?","offset":7944,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Um and then I had Darren Candow on the podcast. Uh, that was in 2024 I think it was, and um once I had started getting into the creatine research, I the brain stuff started his brain stuff had been coming out over the past you know few years and that's for me become very interesting.","offset":7967,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I remember the first time I heard about it years ago it was like, oh it's it's helping improve cognitive function in older older you know people.","offset":7987,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: Yeah. The phosphocreatine system seems to be somewhat um biased towards forebrain structures. You know I mean obviously it's in lots of brain areas, but that there might be a heavier reliance on it for brain areas that are associated with strategic planning and you know working memory and yeah, if you if you were to sort of just map the the sort of density of usage of the phosphocreatine system you'd you'd see a frontal bias for sure.","offset":7994,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Okay, interesting. Interesting. Um well anyways, that's kind of where my interest in in you know kind of diving deeper, anything that's helping the brain is interesting to me as I know it is to you as well.","offset":8015,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And um and so I learned a lot from this podcast I did with Darren Candow, you know researches creatine and collaborates with a lot of different researchers that are doing you know research on the brain and muscle and you know lots of the bone turns out it's beneficial for the bone as well.","offset":8028,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But the brain it's interesting we also make creatine in the brain, but um it's not like so it's kind of like the muscle, right? You're not just going to if you take creatine and you don't work out, you're not going to you're not going to get any increase in lean mass, right? It's not going to do much of anything because you're not putting in the work.","offset":8046,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I think the same goes with the brain as well, where it's like researchers started to find out that well, you can't just take creatine and it's going to enhance cognitive function, it's in the background of stressing the brain, right?","offset":8061,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You're stressing your muscles by workout, same goes for the brain. It's like in these situations of stress, whether that's sleep deprivation, whether it's you know a traumatic brain injury. I mean I would argue you know there's a lot of psychological stress, depression, constantly using your brain like you and I right now in this conversation we're we're learning, we're thinking, I mean it is stressful on the brain, right?","offset":8074,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So I mean I am obviously speculating here and taking taking I'm extrapolating, right? I'm not saying that there's studies showing that but it does seem as though that that's when creatine seems to shine in the brain.","offset":8099,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And you might go well your brain makes it and it's true, your brain does make you know again it's I think between 1 to 3 grams or something, I'm not exactly sure how much but it makes its own creatine.","offset":8113,"duration":10},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And it's kind of resistant to taking up the creatine that you're supplementing with, um particularly because for one the muscle is very greedy. So when you're getting to that 5 gram range muscles are really consuming it if you're working out in particular, right? Your muscles are kind of consuming that because that's they're very greedy for it, right?","offset":8123,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Uh and there have now been I think a handful of studies showing that when you start to get above that, there was a study out of Germany showing this and it's a small study. This needs to be replicated, like this is all new you know emerging data.","offset":8142,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But that study showed that once you start to get to you know 10 grams, then if you look by MRI you can start to see that creatine levels are increasing in certain brain regions and perhaps in the brain regions that you were talking about. And they're going higher than than what you would get from just your brain normally making its own creatine.","offset":8154,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So the 10 grams of creatine a day, which is now what my baseline is, is based off of that.","offset":8175,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But there's studies now showing that um if you're in this sort of stressed state, your brain is stressed, like first sleep sleep deprivation for example, you're sleep deprived for 21 hours, and your brain's not working very good after not sleeping for 21 hours, right?","offset":8181,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I mean that's obviously when I have a when I travel internationally I never really sleep good on a an international flight and so I'm like not if you were to come find me after that flight I'd be like not working very good cognitively, right?","offset":8196,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: You and everybody else.","offset":8209,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Right. Well some people can sleep great on a plane, but I'm not one of those people.","offset":8210,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So um there have now been at least one study showing that if you give someone it's like something like 0.35 grams per kilogram body weight of creatine, which comes out to a lot. I mean it's like 20 25 it depends on your body weight, right? Like 20 25 grams perhaps even more.","offset":8213,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: I mean I'm 100 kilograms, that's a lot of creatine.","offset":8231,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah, so it would be a lot. So for me it's more like 20 25 grams, right?","offset":8232,"duration":4},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: But if you give individuals that high dose in that you know sleep deprived state, that their cognitively not only performing normal, but they're performing better than their baseline.","offset":8236,"duration":13},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: And that of course generated a lot of interest. There've been studies coming out since then showing that okay, if you give older adults with mild cognitive impairment perhaps mild you know early stage Alzheimer's disease again 20 grams, you're giving them the 20 gram range of creatine it's improving their cognitive function.","offset":8249,"duration":18},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Why is that? Well creatine is important to make energy and when your brain brain cells are stressed out, right? I mean like energy energetic demand goes up and if you have more creatine it's going to make things easier.","offset":8267,"duration":15},{"text":"Dr. Rhonda Patrick: There's also some inflammation that's being generated in that stressed state and it seems as though creatine is also...","offset":8282,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: Uh, I'm going to interrupt there. I don't think so. I'm not trying to just be complimentary. You know, I paid close attention to the data and it seems like in certain fields like math and physics, people tend to peak with their contributions early. There's a reason why the Fields Medal is only given to people, you know, like I think it's 40 or younger. My dad's a physicist, so he can check me on this one.","offset":8295,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: But biologists, at least the ones I know that took good care of themselves, they're known to make great discoveries, be cognitively sharp, intellectually strong well into their 70s and 80s. I mean Torsten Wiesel, who co-received the Nobel Prize for brain plasticity and vision, he's still alive and he... I think he still runs. He's in his late 90s. And he paints and he's sharp. So I just... I made a point to only interrupt here.","offset":8321,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: People can check the data on the previous portions of the podcast, but I actually think that cognitively, um, using biologists as an example, it's possible in aspects of life where you're building a base of data to pull from, which is what biology really is... just an example here... to get cognitively stronger and stronger with age.","offset":8352,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: Right. I... this is a theory, but I see you as that. And I'm again, I'm not just saying it to be complimentary, although it is a compliment. It seems like you're picking up steam, you're thinking about things you're not forgetting things from way back when, you're building on the concepts and knowledge from way back when. So I find it reassuring that biologists in particular seem to have this, you know, up-and-to-the-right trajectory for cognition.","offset":8375,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: It's interesting. My... my late mentor, Dr. Bruce Ames, was every bit of that. I mean, you know, he passed away a little over a year ago and he was 96. But, you know, some of his most... he claimed some of his best work was done, you know, in his late 80s.","offset":8400,"duration":13},{"text":"Host: Right. You don't see that in math or physics.","offset":8413,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. So it's interesting. And you know, I don't know exactly the difference. I mean, I don't know how much learning goes into math and physics as you're... as you're... like, I just don't know. But like with biology and, I mean, we're constantly learning new things and reading new papers. And then I think even just the novelty of learning new things, I mean that's brain-derived neurotrophic factor, right? Like you're... you're... you're increasing synaptic connections and neuroplasticity and you're keeping your brain younger in that way too, right?","offset":8414,"duration":29},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So, I think the learning process is super important whether it's biology or whatever you're passionate about, right? Like you learn new languages, whatever... like the learning process itself is something that is so important for brain aging as well. Um, and yeah, so I would agree with you. But brain aging in general, yeah, I mean, I'm obviously chronologically aging and there is some degree of aging going on in my brain.","offset":8443,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But, you know, so that's I think where the creatine craze has come from is the interest in... and I've definitely played a role in some of this, you know, by talking about my experience and being super interested in it because it's felt good for me. And I've noticed this experience and this is completely anecdotal again.","offset":8467,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But in addition with the small studies... and they are small. Like I don't know if you've looked at them, but they're... you can... you can poke holes in them...","offset":8488,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: Subject numbers and that...","offset":8498,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah, they're small sample sizes. But it is kind of a consistent trend line where we're seeing more studies come out and show the same thing, same thing. And it's like, okay, to a certain point, maybe there's something here. I think that more research is going to come out on it. And I feel great doing it. So I mean, and even to the point where if I don't have my 10 grams and it's only five, like I'll notice.","offset":8499,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: Oh, yeah?","offset":8524,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah, but again, it could be that placebo/nocebo thing where, who knows, who knows. But you know, let's just say it is real, you know, for me, I got to have... I got to have my 10 grams of creatine for my brain. Um, you know, who knows, I may in five years be like, I was wrong. We'll see new data come out, but I don't think so. I think we're going to have... I think this is like the next... a lot of people doing creatine research, it's the new thing. They're really because there's been a lot of work on exercise physiology and...","offset":8525,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: Yeah, the safety data are there, so it's not like they have to get a lot of, you know, human subjects clearance.","offset":8556,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: The safety data is there. The safety data is there. I mean, it's the most well-studied, you know, one of the most well-studied supplements out there. Like you said, you were taking it when you were 18 and it was studied back then. Yeah, and it's just been studied the, you know, for all the years that you've been taking it. So, I mean, if it was unsafe, like we'd really know. And again, I don't want to get into all the data on the safety, but I think that it's pretty solid that it's... now, of course, like if you're going to go like mainline 50 grams a day, I mean, I don't know, that's a little much...","offset":8562,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: Someone on the internet will do it. People dry... what are they? Dry scoop. I mean, people have died dry scooping energy drinks. I mean, there's always a moron or two out there that are going to take things to the extreme and harm themselves doing something that no one else is dumb enough to do. But I think we look at the center of mass for things.","offset":8593,"duration":20},{"text":"Host: You know, as we're talking about creatine, I want to talk about some other supplements, but it occurs to me that if there's some data, ideally from animal studies and humans, and something is safe, I think the question nowadays because of how broadly health and supplement and other kinds of information goes in the world... I think the question that everyone should ask themselves is, okay, do I want to be in the experimental or the control group?","offset":8613,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: That's how I think about it. So like, if there's a study about creatine, or some new molecule... I'm going to ask you about magnesium in a moment, right? Um, I look at the safety margins on magnesium... okay, that... I'm comfortable with those safety margins. So that should always be question number one. And then it's, do I want to be in the experimental or the control group?","offset":8642,"duration":21},{"text":"Host: And I think that these days people are who are against supplements or against something, they'll say, well, the effect isn't nearly as big as you get from exercise. Totally, absolutely. But that's not really what we're talking about. People love this in the cannabis and alcohol thing. Whenever I make a point about alcohol or cannabis, they'll say, well, alcohol's worse. I'm like, yeah, like, and? You know, I mean, these are two separate entities.","offset":8663,"duration":27},{"text":"Host: So I think that people should just ask themselves, are you comfortable with the safety margins and do you want to be in the experimental or the control group? And then, of course, there's the, can I afford to be in the experimental group if I do something? But those are really the only questions. No one's saying that creatine's better than anything else or worse than anything else.","offset":8690,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Right.","offset":8712,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: But somehow the messaging gets all messed up. And then all these news articles get generated about what creatine is and it isn't. And I find it like, um, kind of frustrating because that's... the issue is not whether or not creatine is better than exercise and good sleep. Question is, do you want to be in the experimental or the control group and can you afford to be in the experimental group?","offset":8713,"duration":27},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Right. I like that. I like that framework, especially if it's like, well, we know it's safe. Okay, so I can potentially be in the experimental group because that's question number one you have to have that answer first, right? At least in my book. But yeah, I mean, there's flaws with all sorts of studies, and creatine studies included, right? And people make all sorts of claims about it. And you know, you got to tone it down a little bit. I mean, it's not like the best performance enhancer ever. But it seems pretty good at, you know, improving exercise volume, recovery as well. I mean, that's also something that's been shown. And then helping with the stressed-out brain.","offset":8740,"duration":37},{"text":"Host: On the basis of our last conversation some years ago on this podcast, I started taking Lovaza, which is a... as you know, a prescription Omega-3. So very high concentration Omega-3 because I was getting it from, you know, standard sources and I thought, well, I'm hitting 50 and my Omega-3 and I want clean Omega-3, I don't want it contaminated with mercury and other things. So I'll take Omega-3s in the form of Lovaza. It's available generically now so it's pretty inexpensive. And I have to say my blood profiles were pretty good, but they improved pretty dramatically when I started taking Lovaza. So I'm grateful to you for encouraging the Omega-3 path.","offset":8777,"duration":44},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Have you ever had an Omega-3 index test done?","offset":8821,"duration":3},{"text":"Host: No.","offset":8824,"duration":0},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: To measure the...","offset":8824,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Oh, oh, if it's on the function test, then it would be in normal range. I know it wasn't flagged, but I don't recall what the what the level was.","offset":8825,"duration":9},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. You want to be in the high index, not the low, right? Well, obviously if you're taking it, you're not going to be in the low. Usually it's around 2 grams a day to get you from low to high. And I do think that's one of the low-hanging fruits in terms of like something powerful and having an outsized effect on your health that people can do that's not that much effort. It's not like exercise. Exercise is effort.","offset":8834,"duration":23},{"text":"Host: Or eating salmon. I don't like fish.","offset":8857,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: No. Yeah, and you know, a lot of people don't like fish and also there's now microplastic contamination in our seafood sources. There's the heavy metal, PCBs, contaminants. I mean, I still eat salmon, but like, you know, it's not like it used to be. So there are other cleaner ways to get your Omega-3 levels higher. And Omega-3 is very important for cardiovascular... it's one of the most important, I would say the most powerful naturally occurring dietary compounds for suppressing inflammation and resolving inflammation would be a better way of putting it, right?","offset":8859,"duration":34},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I mean, and that's, again, at the core of aging. And if you look at any sort of measure of aging, whether it's even these epigenetic aging clocks, they're very sensitive to inflammation and that's why there's so many studies coming out now showing Omega-3 can slow this biological aging as measured by these epigenetic aging clocks. And that's I think even in randomized controlled trials showing this that it's doing that.","offset":8893,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And that leads to functional outcomes as well. So like even if you're only slowing the clock, let's say by three months, um, you're still having outcomes like where, for example, three months slowing the epigenetic aging clock by Omega-3 only is going to get you like, you know, 16% lower pre-frailty. Or if you add in Vitamin D and resistance training because a study showed a synergy between the three, then you're talking about like lowering the chance of invasive cancer by 66%.","offset":8921,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: 66%?","offset":8951,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah.","offset":8952,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: So Vitamin D, resistance training, and Omega-3.","offset":8953,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. And this was... this was... the trial was actually out of Switzerland, I believe. And it looked at Omega-3, Vitamin D alone, or resistance training alone. And the only thing that actually slowed the aging of the clocks was Omega-3. Now, I'll say that with a caveat, okay. The baseline exercise in this Switzerland group, 88% of these people were physically active, like doing exercise. So adding, you know, 30 minutes, three times a week of resistance training on top of that didn't slow the clock more. And I wouldn't expect it to, to be honest, when you're already physically active and that's your baseline.","offset":8955,"duration":40},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Clearly they weren't eating enough Omega-3 because that did slow the epigenetic aging clock. Other studies have shown if you're vitamin D deficient, severely vitamin D deficient, like African Americans for example, who are obese or overweight, if they add in Vitamin D and supplement with 4,000 IUs a day for six weeks, they can actually slow their epigenetic or reverse their epigenetic aging as well. So I think it again, it's all like where you're starting from.","offset":8995,"duration":31},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But the point is that the Omega-3 alone did slow the aging of these clocks. Um, you add in the resistance training and vitamin D, those alone didn't do it, but when you add it with the Omega-3 there was synergy. So it kept going down. And when the three combined, it slowed the epigenetic aging by like 3.8 months. But that translated to like 66% less likely to get invasive cancer. Um, and then the pre-frailty was the Omega-3 alone and there was another marker I can't remember, I covered this in a newsletter a while back.","offset":9026,"duration":36},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But like, you know, this and this isn't the first study to show this with Omega-3. Um, Omega-3s are really... I'm so sorry, Andrew, you got me on one of my favorite topics.","offset":9062,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: No, no, it's great. I mean, I'm excited because I take Lovaza, I take Vitamin D D3. I take a lot. I take 5 to 8,000 IUs per day and I get sunlight. People actually ask me, this is just a quick window into the messaging around sunlight... some people will say, if I take Vitamin D do I still need sunlight?","offset":9072,"duration":22},{"text":"Host: And you know, a big part of my messaging is trying to tell people sunlight does a bunch of other things, but I take Vitamin D at that level, I take the Lovaza, and of course I resistance train. And the Lovaza move, and actually increasing the Vitamin D, was on the basis of, yes, blood work but also our prior conversation. I feel much better. Much better.","offset":9094,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. I take about 5,000 IUs a day as well. And I do get sunlight. And I agree with you, sunlight's important for... sunlight's not in Vitamin D production is not the only thing that sunlight is doing, obviously. You've talked in great depth about that.","offset":9119,"duration":17},{"text":"Host: I'm going to go into the grave... I actually want a little window over my grave, it'll be a little macabre, so I can get morning sun. I'm just kidding folks. When I'm in the ground, I'm in the ground. No, I think the Omega-3 literature has been greatly assisted by your messaging around it because it got pretty confused out there for a while. There was the usual pushback that comes after supplement of the year is released... it's a joke folks... is the, \"Oh no, it's actually bad for us.\" You know, there's always a few of those. And then we eventually arrive at sanity again and go, no, the bulk of studies point in the direction of this being healthy.","offset":9136,"duration":39},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Right. Randomized controlled trials showing it improves cardiovascular health, lowers the incidence of cardiovascular events including heart attacks and strokes, right. These are the gold standard. We've got the observational data. We have now looking at the molecular events... epigenetic aging. We know that it's really good at resolving inflammation. Because you want your immune system to be active, but you don't want it to be overactive. You want it to be active and then turn off, right.","offset":9175,"duration":33},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And so the Omega-3 fatty acids like DHA and EPA which are in Lovaza are what the metabo- they're when they're metabolized, they're forming these molecules: resolvins, protectins... these things are resolving inflammation. And so I think that it's just it's one of the easiest ways that you can you can increase your anti-inflammatory response. And exercise obviously being another very powerful one.","offset":9208,"duration":29},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But the Omega-3s, it's always easier to take a supplement and so like I have my parents taking it, you know, anyone that I care about it's like, you know, easy, easy, done. You know, take your 2 grams a day. I say 2 grams a day because Lovaza is prescribed at 4 grams a day. You know, so 2 grams is pretty on the conservative side, and that's really what's been shown by Dr. Bill Harris and some of his colleagues that can basically you can take someone from a low Omega-3 index of 4% up to a high Omega-3 index of 8% by supplementing with about 2 grams a day.","offset":9237,"duration":40},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So, and by the way, there's all sorts of data on that front with the Omega-3 index and I think we talked about this last time, but you know, five-year increase life expectancy if you're on the high end. You're talking about 90% reduction in sudden cardiac death. Brain weight in children if pregnant women are taking... yeah. Yeah.","offset":9277,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I mean, it's important throughout the lifespan. It's, you know, from in utero development throughout childhood all the way through adult life and into old age. You know, these Omega-3 fatty acids are... I'm talking about the resolving of inflammation, but they're also very important for they're incorporated into our cell membranes. DHA and to some degree EPA.","offset":9300,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And that has a very important role in the fluidity of our cell membranes. And this is important for if you think about our endothelial cells lining our vascular system, our arteries, you want them to be fluid and more flexible, right. That's very important for being able to respond to a stressful situation. In fact, the stiffening of our heart with age, you know, the collagen that's surrounds our pericardium that's surrounding our heart, our myocardium... like that's that increases the risk of a heart attack, you know, a cardiovascular event. You want your cells to be more flexible.","offset":9321,"duration":39},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So that's what, you know, these Omega-3s are also doing. That's why they're also really important for cardiovascular health in addition. And the brain as well. I mean, all of our transporters, all of our our receptors, right, they're embedded in the cell membrane. And the fluidity of that membrane is important for the structure and function of these things.","offset":9360,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And that's why Omega-3 affects dopamine, serotonin, right? It's why it's affecting- it's not the only reason inflammation is also, but part of the reason is because it's changing the way our cell is like, you know, structurally composed. And if you think about trans fats, like they do the opposite, right. They stiffen the cell membranes. And that's why it's like the worst thing you could do for your cardio- one of the worst things that you could do for your cardiovascular health is eat a bunch of trans fats. Smoking is another one, smoking's terrible for your cardiovascular health.","offset":9380,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: Do people still eat trans fats?","offset":9411,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: No, I think they're banned.","offset":9413,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: I feel like trans fats got executed in 20- when was it that trans fats got executed?","offset":9414,"duration":4},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: When they all became... I think it was 2018 when they all were like...","offset":9418,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: Yeah, they were sentenced to death.","offset":9422,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: No, it's- the point is that we all know trans fats are bad for our heart, but we don't think about why. And the researchers doing it know, I mean it stiffens your cell, your endothelial cells.","offset":9424,"duration":12},{"text":"Host: With donuts, right? As in like if you go get a donut, isn't a donut have a bunch of fried food?","offset":9436,"duration":5},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: There's pro- probably some amount of trans fat that's like below the threshold of being...","offset":9441,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: It's the only bad food I miss. The late-night donut.","offset":9448,"duration":4},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I had so much margarine as a kid. My mom used to buy it by the tub, I remember. It's like this she used to go to Costco and get like this big yellow tub of margarine. I remember those tubs. And everything was cooked in it and I mean it was like on our toast and...","offset":9452,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: This was a battle in my home. Actually, I'm going to resurrect some family battles. The butter-margarine battle was a battle. Butter won.","offset":9466,"duration":11},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah, it doesn't taste the same. But you know, that was the craze, it was the low fat like the fat was bad and butter was bad and margarine was good. And it turns out, no, trans fats are really bad. Um, but the point I was trying to make was to help contrast for people to understand sometimes when I talk cell fluidity people are like, what?","offset":9477,"duration":18},{"text":"Host: No, it's good that people... I mean, I think it's very important that people understand some of the cellular molecular underpinnings of protocols because I strongly believe that understanding mechanism, even just a little bit, or striving to understand it embeds the information for people, makes it more likely that they'll do the behaviors and gives them a logic to work from when they have to make choices because life isn't perfect. That's... I know that to be certain.","offset":9495,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I completely agree with you. It's certainly for me, but I hope that if people kind of understand somewhat of the why, it's motivating to try to adopt the healthy habit, but also I think it helps them remember like why it's important, right.","offset":9523,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: And it's how the brain learns. It's the secret is context. Way to remember something is context. People always say, \"It's stories.\" No, it's context. And anyway, you and I know that to be true from our background.","offset":9539,"duration":16},{"text":"Host: If I may, I'd like to ask about magnesium. I'm very bullish on magnesium, in particular Magnesium Threonate before sleep. For sleep, I take AG-Z because I helped them build it. It just has a bunch of things like Magnesium Threonate and Saffron and Tart Cherry, the things that um have either been shown or are, you know, gradually amassing research data... the other people... studies out there to support that it can facilitate either transition to sleep or sleep, but Magnesium Threonate and Magnesium Bisglycinate to me are interchangeable with respect to sleep.","offset":9555,"duration":41},{"text":"Host: But Magnesium Threonate, I'm aware there's some studies that maybe there's some cognitive benefit. So magnesium obviously could be split into a number of things, but maybe we just start there with Threonate, Bisglycinate. I have a feeling that you're aware of some additional differences between them and I'd like to know what you prefer for sleep or for cognitive benefits and then maybe we get into the other magnesiums.","offset":9596,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. I think so if we if we're comparing Magnesium Bisglycinate or Magnesium Glycinate depending on how many molecules of glycine are attached to the magnesium compared to Magnesium L-Threonate. Um, the main difference here and this is based on very limited amount of data, a lot of it animal data with respect to the Magnesium Threonate, is that that form of magnesium is supposed to get into and cross the blood-brain barrier more readily and get into the brain better.","offset":9619,"duration":35},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And in the brain, it's you know helping facilitate neurotransmission, etc., right, helping improve cognitive function. So whereas Magnesium Glycinate or Bisglycinate, you're having the magnesium attached to the glycine... glycine also is great to take for sleep. So I like to take Magnesium Bisglycinate or Glycinate for sleep. And so that I would say if you're if you're interested in more the cognition aspect...","offset":9654,"duration":31},{"text":"Host: Well, the studies I think you're referring to, the Guosong Liu's data... you know, show some in mice, some cognitive enhancement or at least some offsetting of cognitive decline. Those are different but related, obviously. In anticipation of today's discussion, I was able to find one study seems okay, it's not a huge sample size, showing a positive reports on sleep quality after Magnesium L-Threonate.","offset":9685,"duration":36},{"text":"Host: So the studies are starting to show up. But there aren't a lot of studies on magnesium for specific outcomes in humans. And I think it's because it hits like what, 3,000 plus pathways?","offset":9721,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: There's a lot of pathways. Yeah. It's a cofactor for many enzymes.","offset":9735,"duration":4},{"text":"Host: So if you're taking Bisglycinate before sleep, are you taking it half hour or 60 minutes before sleep?","offset":9739,"duration":6},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I'm usually taking it I would say like a couple of hours before bed. You know, sometimes I add a little bit more magnesium in the mix, depends on the day and if I exercise more because you do sweat out magnesium. And so if you're pretty athletic, your requirements can go up by even as much as 20%.","offset":9745,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But yeah, the Magnesium L-Threonate, it's interesting I very recently got interested in experimenting with it. You know, there's a little bit of human evidence as well that it improves cognition, not strong, but again, it's that you know we just don't have a lot of people researching it. And we have the animal data, the animal data's a little stronger, don't have a lot of human data, but it seems to signal it might be important, it might help with cognition, right.","offset":9764,"duration":27},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And so I kind of got interested in experimenting with the Magnesium L-Threonate, which I haven't usually- that it's a new thing for me. I've been doing Magnesium Glycinate for a while.","offset":9791,"duration":10},{"text":"Host: I think the study actually looked at the Magtein... Yes, I have no financial relationship to Magtein, I only want to be very clear. I just mentioned that because that's a common one out there. And as far as I know, I'll double check, but they weren't paid by Magtein, but...","offset":9801,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I think the Magtein did fund the study.","offset":9815,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Oh, they did?","offset":9817,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah.","offset":9818,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: Okay. All right. Well, we'll put a link to it.","offset":9819,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Doesn't discredit it. Unless unless there's some, you know, bad things going on which I like to think not. I mean, you know, it's supposed to be done independently, I mean, when they pay for a group to do- I mean by law they're supposed to blind the data and not bias the outcome. I mean, that's what one hopes that's what they do.","offset":9821,"duration":15},{"text":"Host: Yeah.","offset":9836,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. And I think to the most part, you're probably okay, but it is something to consider if there is a potential COI, right. Um, but yeah, so I don't know. So that was the first part of your question was the difference between the Glycinate and Threonate. And then the concern that I might have, which might be something you're not thinking about is, okay, well, I need to fulfill my magnesium requirements, right?","offset":9837,"duration":22},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And so our daily magnesium requirements, again based on our gender and our physical activity, it's a range, it's a sliding scale. So you know women 300-350 milligrams a day, men 350-400 milligrams a day, really depending on how physically active you are. And this is just, you know, your daily requirements to have enough magnesium to run repairing DNA damage, to run you need magnesium to make energy to utilize energy, you need it for neurotransmission... like it's there's so many different important functions in our body that require magnesium to work.","offset":9859,"duration":37},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: To make Vitamin- to convert Vitamin D3 into the active steroid hormone. And this, this to me is like to some degree vindicating, but also I'm super annoyed by it because you know we have all these different studies out there on Vitamin D supplementation and is it important? And I mean there's so many negative data out there, well it doesn't do what we thought it's not doing anything.","offset":9896,"duration":28},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But half the US population doesn't get enough magnesium. And so those enzymes that are important for converting the D3 that you're taking into the active steroid hormone are not working properly. Um, so anyways, I'm not going to go on that tangent, but I'm just saying magnesium is doing a lot of things. So if you are taking the Magnesium Threonate and let's say it is getting into the blood- sorry, the brain more readily, then the concern would be well then not enough of it is around for you know DNA repair in other organs and stuff. And so you might want to get another source of magnesium. It's all theoretical, right, and like that's not I would- there's no data on that. So just mostly because no one's looking at it. No one's investigating it.","offset":9924,"duration":47},{"text":"Host: Yeah. Not a lot of incentive. It's funny when people will always say, well, there's no incentive because the drug companies can't make a lot of money on it. And I sometimes that's true. But I have to chuckle because as a scientist, I will tell you folks, and- like I wish I could just like paint this across the sky, but then I'd get accused of being like a chemtrail person or something. Um, the reason there's no studies on BPC-157... the reason there's no like RCTs on a randomized control on different forms of magnesium and large sample size is because we barely have enough money to fund the current research.","offset":9971,"duration":40},{"text":"Host: Like, I- I'm not trying to get make this political, like we just had a 1% increase in the NIH budget but like there isn't an infinite amount of money to run studies. And so scientists are if they already work on magnesium or or it becomes interesting to them because it came up in a screen of pathways, people aren't- there are not a lot of scientists sitting around going, \"Oh, like maybe I should study- compare Magnesium Malate, Bisglycinate, Threonate in sleep in 2,000 subjects male, female like pregnant and perimenopausal...\" like, no, no, there's no money to do it.","offset":10011,"duration":33},{"text":"Host: So that's where I get back to: is it safe, do you want to be in the experimental or the control group, can you afford to be in the experimental or the control group? Yeah, I feel like that's like all we've got. And I'm only I'm chuckling out of it's a sort of like a laughter of pain because I get where people are coming from, but the drug companies are not like avoiding studying magnesium because there's no money to make, it's because what would that even look like? What endpoint, what disease?","offset":10044,"duration":32},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah, anyway. You're not going to cure you know cardiovascular disease or cancer by taking a magnesium supplement. I mean, the- these nutraceuticals, these vitamins and minerals, they're they're about prevention, really. And and and giving your body the right nutrients that it needs to do and function properly. You know, whether that is getting enough sleep... you know, when you're when you're stressed, when your cortisol goes up chronically, you're depleting magnesium. You know, it's it's- it's very like magnesium's being used to deal with that stress, right.","offset":10076,"duration":34},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So there there's a reason that we need things like magnesium and you know, Vitamin D, it gets converted into steroid hormone changing 5% of our you know our genome. So it- yeah, it's different. It's not like a pharmaceutical where you're you don't need this you know to function optimally but it- it's the whole like, okay, I'm sick and now I need this you know or I'm overweight, right, we got the GLP-1s, right, I'm fat, I'm obese, and I need to you know help fix that. And so that's kind of a different paradigm than specific endpoint type stuff.","offset":10110,"duration":40},{"text":"Host: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think that's super important for people to hear that. Oh, by the way, I should just say uh for your for your sake um and for the listeners, I divide supplements into basically four categories: food replacement, like whey protein or a protein bar, obviously. Sort of general support, specific effects, and then experimental maybe.","offset":10150,"duration":33},{"text":"Host: And so I think what we're talking about here with magnesium is kind of combination of maybe helps with sleep, um specific effects that you're aware of like required and you're trying to top off, you're trying to make sure that you're covering a deficiency.","offset":10183,"duration":16},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yes. Yeah. You're trying to make sure you're getting enough of the magnesium, exactly.","offset":10199,"duration":5},{"text":"Host: Are there any other things that you take that are just trying to make sure that you're not deficient anywhere, um or for specific reasons? We've talked about a few along the way here: Glutamine, Vitamin D, Omega-3s, Creatine.","offset":10204,"duration":14},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I take a multivitamin and that is to cover my bases because, you know, there's there's a lot of things in a multivitamin. You have to find a obviously a good quality one. But, um, and anyone that tells you that multivitamins are useless, they're wrong. I'm going to tell you that, they're wrong. Because I think now we have pretty strong data, three very large randomized controlled trials part of the Cosmos trials... have you heard of these studies?","offset":10218,"duration":42},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And it's really I think pretty clear that in these studies, older adults, so we're talking 65 years and older that are taking a multivitamin supplement for, you know, was it a year, I think it was. Um, it could be two but I think it was a year. And it was by the way, Centrum Silver. It was like your standard, you know, anyone could afford to get it at Walmart type of vitamin.","offset":10260,"duration":24},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Um, and after a year of taking this multivitamin, it globally reduced brain aging by about 2.1 years, from three trials globally reduced brain aging by 2.1 years. Battery of tests that are done, right. I mean it's you know I'm just talking about general here. And it also reduced episodic brain aging by 4.9 years.","offset":10284,"duration":25},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So that would be, you know, as people probably already are familiar with that listen to this podcast, you know episodic memory, that's the part of memory that's involved in like remembering events and and people and like experiences... am I right?","offset":10309,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: Yes, sequence of things.","offset":10323,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Sequence of things. Yeah. And so, you know, that's a big effect for just a daily multivitamin, you know. And so for that reason, you know, I mean I've been taking it before these these studies came out, but my parents, you know, anyone that's older adult should be taking a multivitamin. So that's another one that I take. Um, and I take it to cover my bases as well and obviously not an older adult and who knows it might not have the same effect on me, but um, you know, it's one of those that it's it's not harmful if I'm you know it's a little bit of an expensive urine, fine, but I know it is covering some of my bases in terms of some of the micronutrients in it, right.","offset":10324,"duration":46},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: The other ones that I take in besides the one that you mentioned, which is Vitamin D, Omega-3, I do Creatine, Magnesium. I do Magnesium Glycinate. I should look into the Bisglycinate because I definitely would like another molecule of glycine, I like it for my sleep.","offset":10370,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But I also sometimes take another form of magnesium, which is it's like a mixture of Magnesium Malate and Threonate I think are the main- and Glycinate is also in that. But sometimes I take that for sleep. And then I take Ubiquinol, um, for mitochondrial health.","offset":10387,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: You like the data on that? Obviously if you're taking it.","offset":10411,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: It's- there's stronger data I think on Ubiquinone, which is the oxidized form, it's more stable. There's just when I say stronger I mean more data.","offset":10414,"duration":11},{"text":"Host: Do you take Coenzyme Q10? Co- Q10, excuse me.","offset":10425,"duration":3},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So Co- CoQ10 is Ubiquinol.","offset":10428,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Okay.","offset":10430,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. And so and so I'm taking the reduced form of it which is Ubiquinol, the the more stable form would be Ubiquinone.","offset":10431,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: Are those trademarked names? because I take Coenzyme Q10. I'm guessing if I took a closer look at the bottle I'd see the Ubiquinone...","offset":10438,"duration":8},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: It's Ubiquinone, yeah. Ubiquinone. The Ubiquinol is a little bit more bioavailable, but yeah. So I'm pretty convinced that that helps with mitochondrial function. Um, you know, it's not like you could always have more data, right? So we'll just leave it at that.","offset":10446,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: The other one I take is now I'm taking Urolithin A in the form of Timeline. I'm taking Mitopure, by the way I have nothing to do with these companies. But there's now I've just been over the years increasingly interested. So Urolithin A is something that is formed from a type of polyphenol that's found in some fruits, um like pomegranate being the main one. I think raspberries may also have some, I think walnuts also, but it's ellagitannin is the polyphenol.","offset":10465,"duration":32},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And these ellagitannins get metabolized by the gut microbiome and the metabolites that are formed, one of them is called Urolithin A. And so Urolithin A is a compound that seems to stimulate the process of mitophagy, which is a very specific form of autophagy that's that's only for mitochondria.","offset":10497,"duration":26},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And you know that's been shown in- there have been randomized controlled trials showing this in humans. It does stimulate mitophagy um blood cells as well as a muscle biopsy. But that's a an important cleanup process for for how our mitochondria repair themselves. There's no repair enzymes, right, like they're you know part of that repair process is mitophagy where they're getting rid of selectively can get rid of parts of a mitochondria that are damaged. So it's really like a rejuvenation.","offset":10523,"duration":31},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And some of this the clinical data I would say is emerging, more needs to be done, but it seems to in some cases improve endurance performance, which makes sense because they rely heavily on mitochondria, but even also um help with the immune system and this whole inflammaging. So it helps keep immune cells, it seems like it's helping keeping immune cells quote-unquote younger. So again, emerging data, but it's I'm in that I'm like I'm the experiment group. It seems to be safe and I'm not taking too high of a dose. So that's another one that I'm supplementing with.","offset":10554,"duration":51},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: The other one that I'm taking also is uh a very- of a form of, I'm going to call it Sulforaphane, but it's not Sulforaphane, it's the precursor to Sulforaphane, glucoraphanin because that's more stable. And so I take something called Avmacol, um, which the reason I take that one is because there's oh it's 13 now and a new study just came out 13 studies using that that form.","offset":10605,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Um, and Sulforaphane is also one of those plant phytochemicals. It's formed- it's found in cruciferous vegetables as you know we've talked about this before, so I'll I'll try to leave it make it brief. But um, so glucoraphanin is in in these cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, broccoli sprouts are really really great source of it. And it- when the plant is crushed, you know like when you eat it, eat broccoli or chew it, whatever, an enzyme is activated that converts glucoraphanin into Sulforaphane.","offset":10628,"duration":31},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: The reason I take it is because I've been now convinced by I would say the limited number of human studies, clinical studies, but also the totality of evidence looking at cruciferous vegetables in general and then also animal data, that um it's really important. It's probably the the best naturally occurring dietary activator of a stress response pathway that is important for detoxification. And that that pathway is the Nrf2 pathway. I'm sure you've heard of that pathway.","offset":10659,"duration":33},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Sulforaphane is a very very powerful activator of that pathway and what I mean by pathway is that gene is turning on and turning off many many other genes. What we know about it is that it's very important for activating the the detoxification genes that are involved in detoxifying things that are that are harmful to us.","offset":10692,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And so the classic studies that have been done, some of them most of them in China where air pollution is very high, is that if you take, you know, this broccoli sprout Sulforaphane extract, you can start to excrete compounds that are found in air pollution like benzene that are carcinogenic, right, and you can start to excrete it after 24 hours by like 60%.","offset":10713,"duration":26},{"text":"Host: Great. What about plastics?","offset":10739,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: So that's my- that's my thing. That's why I'm taking it, my whole family. Because the same enzymes that are activated by um by the the Sulforaphane that detoxify benzene... so basically you're detoxifying it what I mean is you're basically making it water-soluble so you can excrete it through urine.","offset":10740,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Okay. The same ones, that's exactly what BP- the those enzymes do to BPA. They make it water-soluble and help you excrete it through urine. There's no human data showing this yet, I want someone to do the study. But we do have animal evidence where, you know, animals are given a high dose of BPA and Sulforaphane and it protects against the toxicity.","offset":10763,"duration":26},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I basically think that it's someone's going to show it and it's going to be clear because the the enzymes that are, you know, involved are activated by this, you know, by Sulforaphane and that's been shown with benzene and acrolein excretion, right. So why wouldn't it be BPA? Never know.","offset":10789,"duration":14},{"text":"Host: The mechanistic logic is there.","offset":10803,"duration":1},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So that's another reason why also it increases glut- it's been shown in human studies to very powerfully increase glutathione in both the plasma and the brain. And that's also through the Nrf2 pathway. It activates the powerful antioxidant pathway.","offset":10804,"duration":19},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: It also deactivates phase one biotransformation enzymes that are involved in um turning a pro-carcinogen into a carcinogen. So those are things like you're eating, you know, you're grilling your meat at a high temperature and you're getting heterocyclic amines, right. I mean these these things can be harmful.","offset":10823,"duration":23},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: But our body can deal with it and we had a cancer doc on here recently and I was scared to ask him the question because I didn't want the answer, but I did want the answer of, you know, the char on meat and he's like it's pretty pretty serious carcinogen. That's real. I mean the occasional thing isn't going to be a problem.","offset":10846,"duration":19},{"text":"Host: You'll be relieved to know and this is not a promotional that the can that you're drinking out of, these are intentionally BPA, BPS, and PFAS-free. We had- we had that tested. We'd be happy to send you the results.","offset":10865,"duration":12},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: I already know, I already knew about that.","offset":10877,"duration":2},{"text":"Host: Yeah. Because I know that you and I are both- I am wary of of the BPAs and um and the rest. I think it's wild that 10 years ago people like Charles Poliquin were saying, \"Don't handle receipts.\" and you know, and everyone's like, \"This is really kooky.\" or actually back then no one even heard what he was saying it was such a niche thing.","offset":10879,"duration":21},{"text":"Host: Then people were very I think disparaging of people saying beware of receipts. Now I think um the microplastics um and the BPA BPS um PFAS concern is is really taking hold more broadly and I think that, you know, the tables have turned.","offset":10900,"duration":20},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. And really obviously you can't eliminate them completely. It's impossible. They're everywhere. They're everywhere.","offset":10920,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: Clothing I heard was the main...","offset":10926,"duration":2},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: It's the main source of microplastics in the ocean, right, because our wash- we're washing our clothes and there's they're like this shirt that I'm wearing. I mean, it's it's got microplastics in it for sure. Um, and and so every time you're washing your clothes you're all the microplastics are coming out and getting into the ocean.","offset":10928,"duration":21},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: And also then when you put your clothes in the dryer and if your dryer is ventilating anywhere in your house, the microplast- you're breathing those in, the microplastics.","offset":10949,"duration":8},{"text":"Host: They sell these traps. When I did the episode on microplastics I found out that online you can, I think it costs, it's not cheap cheap, but it's like concerning they last a while. I think they're somewhere with refill somewhere in the neighborhood of I want to say something like $70, but it traps supposedly traps the microplastics in the wash- in the washing machine. And in Europe I think this is actually built in or is required in an- in a number of countries. Like they're way ahead of us.","offset":10957,"duration":30},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: They're always...","offset":10987,"duration":1},{"text":"Host: They're way ahead of us on a number of things. I mean, on a few things they're really they're far behind, I must say with respect to health, but on on many things they are way ahead of us.","offset":10988,"duration":11},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: Yeah. Well, clearly with the Switzerland people in Switzerland being 80% like 88% of them being physically active, they're way ahead of us on that.","offset":10999,"duration":7},{"text":"Host: I'm excited to share with you that Martina, the yerba mate drink that I helped create, is now available at Sprouts Market nationwide. Longtime listeners of the Huberman Lab podcast know that yerba mate is my preferred caffeine source. It provides a smooth energy lift without giving you the jitters, and it has many other benefits such as helping regulate blood sugar, improving digestion, mild appetite suppression, and more.","offset":11006,"duration":29},{"text":"Host: Martina is my absolute favorite of all the yerba mate brands out there, and believe me, I've tried them all. The flavors are fantastic. I drink at least three cans of Martina every single day. You'll often see them on the table during our podcast recordings. I absolutely love the product and I'm proud to now have it sold at Sprouts Market.","offset":11035,"duration":24},{"text":"Host: Also, there's a great new offer. They are giving away a free can of Martina to anyone who buys it at Sprouts and sends in a photo of their receipt. To learn more about how you can get a free can of Martina, go to drinkmartina.com/offer. Again, that's drinkmartina.com/offer to get a can of Martina for free at your local Sprouts Market.","offset":11059,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: What is your threshold for you and what do you think is kind of reasonable levels of what's actionable for you? Like, how do you set that? I think it will help people kind of understand how you're approaching stuff.","offset":11084,"duration":17},{"text":"Dr. Patrick: What's actionable in terms of improving what I'm interested in improving my health like or...","offset":11101,"duration":6},{"text":"Host: Yeah, like I mean, without picking any specific example, like when you look at the literature and you see, let's say let's take BPC-157, it's kind of a fun one because everyone's excited about this now except the physicians um who don't like working with peptides besides GLPs or other FDA-approved peptides, they're like freaking out online. Heard from them all the time.","offset":11107,"duration":25},{"text":"Host: Compounding pharmacies just got the green light that they're going to be able to do basically whatever except sell Retatrutide, which is under patent. Um, so there are many many animal studies on BPC-157 showing accelerated cartilage growth, nerve growth after injury and on and on and on. And angiogenesis. So there's some potential cancer risk there, right?","offset":11132,"duration":30},{"text":"Host: But basically zero human data. There's one study weak study self-report. There's actually a clinical trial where they I'm not making this up folks is BPC enemas, very high dose it for a uh for a for some sort of bowel disease or bowel inflammation. And the study was like I don't think the study was completed or something like that. Don't ask me why, no I'm not making this up. Um, but that's pretty much the only human data that I'm aware of. Um, but tons of people injecting and swallowing BPC.","offset":11162,"duration":28},{"text":"Andrew: Have you experimented with... um, L-carnitine? Because of the mitochondrial effects, because I was able to find some good studies on sperm and egg quality, on mitochon... which are thought to be downstream of mitochondrial health.","offset":11190,"duration":15},{"text":"Rhonda: Right.","offset":11205,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: That's the idea.","offset":11206,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: Right, it's downstream. If you can improve mitochondrial health, fertility... which is why NR is now involved with fertility, seems to be improving fertility. It's right, if you can improve mitochondrial health, then you're going to improve fertility, sperm health, right, egg health, right? Um, yeah, L-carnitine, a lot of those studies came out of my mentor's lab, Bruce Ames, so he was he looked at the combination of L-carnitine and alpha-lipoic acid improving mitochondrial health.","offset":11207,"duration":22},{"text":"Andrew: Hmm.","offset":11229,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: And came up with the supplement that it's it's called Juvenon now, but it's L-carnitine with alpha-lipoic acid.","offset":11230,"duration":6},{"text":"Andrew: It's a pill.","offset":11236,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: It's a supplement, yeah. And um, so yes, I have experimented with that, and in fact, my husband takes it, but I mean, I just can't take so many supplements.","offset":11237,"duration":11},{"text":"Andrew: Right. Yeah.","offset":11248,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: You know, so we have our... yeah, but it is, you know, you can find you can find evidence that it improves mitochondrial health, so...","offset":11249,"duration":6},{"text":"Andrew: I was just curious.","offset":11255,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: Yeah, it's just a matter of again, like what what are you what are you looking for? I I feel like I'm doing a lot of high intensity interval training too and I'm taking the Urolithin A. That's a lot, you know, I'm doing a lot of stuff to optimize mitochondrial health. I mean, at some point you have to like not can't do everything there is.","offset":11256,"duration":18},{"text":"Andrew: Sure. No, of course not.","offset":11274,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: But yeah, L-carnitine...","offset":11275,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: And it's budget limited too.","offset":11276,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: I don't know that it's going to help you live longer either. Now, it might help with your exercise recovery a bit, right? It might help improve mitochondrial function. I mean, maybe it's going to help with depleting some of the NAD stores. I mean, if you can improve mitochondrial health then, you know, you're improving things like on a small scale, right? So... mitochondrial health is at the core of everything.","offset":11277,"duration":21},{"text":"Andrew: I started experiment... I've started experimenting with it, but I take it in injectable form. It's going to shock some people. You can get away with taking much lower milligram count. Otherwise you have to take a lot of it because a lot of it just isn't absorbed if you take it orally. And then I was told that if you take it orally, you also have to do something to offset the increase in TMAO, and that worried me. So I figured, needles don't scare me, I'll just inject it.","offset":11298,"duration":26},{"text":"Rhonda: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, the TMAO thing... I mean, so not it depends on your gut bacteria whether or not you're metabolizing the L-carnitine into TMAO. There's actually a lot of complexity involved in that whole thing. But you can get your TMAO measured. So if you were supplementing with it... I mean the same goes for choline, you know, like if you're worried like choline can be converted into TMAO.","offset":11324,"duration":21},{"text":"Andrew: I'll take Alpha-GPC before a workout sometimes or if I need to... um, if I ever need to focus late in the day, I don't want caffeine because it impedes my sleep, but I'll take Alpha-GPC because this is kind of a cool effect, Alpha-GPC actually will improve your REM sleep. It's not a huge effect, but you'll notice you'll get more REM sleep. So it's one of the few things I've found that can increase energy late in the day, do a workout or or work if I have to work later into the day, still sleep just fine and actually sleep better.","offset":11345,"duration":30},{"text":"Rhonda: What is work later into the day mean for you? Like working until like eight, nine o'clock or...","offset":11375,"duration":3},{"text":"Andrew: Yeah, well I do that um often, but but I don't like to work out after 2:00 PM, because I like caffeine before I work out. But I'll do some cardio in the afternoon or something. But if I really have to push push push, or if I've traveled and I really need exercise and I want to get a 6:00 PM workout but I also want to fall asleep at 10:30, I'll take some Alpha-GPC.","offset":11378,"duration":22},{"text":"Rhonda: I used to take that like, I don't know, it's been maybe like ten years. But... um, it's interesting, I might try experimenting with that again. I'm always looking for things that I find a little bit safer, like I don't do the nicotine as you know...","offset":11400,"duration":15},{"text":"Andrew: It is shocking how many young people are taking nicotine now.","offset":11415,"duration":3},{"text":"Rhonda: Oh, I know.","offset":11418,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: Yeah.","offset":11419,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: I've never tried it.","offset":11420,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: First of all, it's highly addictive. Forget the blood pressure and the vasoconstriction, that's all bad, you know, I think the the big issue is that if I take it... um, I start getting this spasm in my throat when I don't take it, and that's because of its... I have a friend who works on these pathways and it's because of the activation of the muscarinic receptors. So so on smooth muscle you start getting a tick and kind of a clearing of your throat, and then you take more nicotine, you feel fine. So I didn't want to become dependent on it. And um, I don't I don't like it. I think it's I think it's a a bad habit that a lot of people are going to be seeking to quit later.","offset":11421,"duration":34},{"text":"Rhonda: A lot of young people.","offset":11455,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: Older people might benefit from it because of the cognitive enhancement, but that's a whole other story.","offset":11456,"duration":4},{"text":"Rhonda: Well maybe the Alpha-GPC and the Creatine and Magnesium L-Threonate.","offset":11460,"duration":4},{"text":"Andrew: Alpha-GPC is is very is very helpful for if you need to really lock in for a few hours and do something physically or or cognitively.","offset":11464,"duration":7},{"text":"Rhonda: How much do you take?","offset":11471,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: I take 600 milligrams. You can take up to 900, but I do just fine on 600. So I think I just take it in pure form and in capsule, any of them out there that come from a reputable brand is like going to work.","offset":11472,"duration":12},{"text":"Rhonda: What about like before a podcast or something like that, does that does it have any effect or what?","offset":11484,"duration":4},{"text":"Andrew: Oh yeah.","offset":11488,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: It does.","offset":11489,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: Oh yeah, it'll put you into a... you know, I mean if you feel like you want to be heightened focus, but I rely on water, caffeine, electrolytes, and good good sleep. There's this wild study, we don't want to go... I don't want to take us too far off track here, um but there's a study out of WashU recently, really really talented researcher. I want to bring him on this podcast. He does brain imaging, and he compared um essentially the effects of drugs for ADHD versus a good night's sleep, and basically found that there's no focus enhancement of Adderall, Vyvanse, Ritalin type drugs. They mainly looked at Ritalin. All it's doing is increasing alertness to the level that you would get after after a good night's sleep. It may be that these drugs just increase alertness which allows you to dial in focus, but if you're sleeping well and enough, you make up the gap and people with ADHD might just be having some serious sleep defects. So, you know, it it speaks to this thing like, I don't know that there's a single drug that can actually increase cognition and focus. Most of them probably just get you in the plane of alertness that allows you to dial in your focus. Some people be like, \"That's BS,\" they take Modafinil, but this is just another form of increasing alertness.","offset":11490,"duration":65},{"text":"Rhonda: Well, reducing anxiety I think things that are anxiolytic help with that as well, and I think I was talking about... I don't know if I was telling you or someone else before the podcast, one of the reasons why I also like that metabolic switch with the ketosis and the beta-hydroxybutyrate, and sometimes I'll take exogenous ketones too, although if you take them in a fasted state it kind of shuts down the lipolysis. But anyways, is because it increases GABA. The beta-hydroxybutyrate increases GABA and for me it's beneficial because I am the phenotype where like, you know, I can have other things going on in my mind that it's... I don't want to say it's anxiety but it's more of that anxious phenotype, if that makes sense. And so the the increase in GABA really does um help me with focus because it's quieting down, I think...","offset":11555,"duration":46},{"text":"Andrew: I actually think that a lot of people who are very intellectually engaged, which clearly you are over many many years and very physically active and healthy, there's a lot of capacity there and unless there's something to really absorb all that capacity, you can get multiple tracks going, and we sometimes think of that as anxiety or even ADHD, some people will say it's ADHD. I don't I don't necessarily think it's that, but it's an uncomfortable state to be in, and it's so pleasurable to be like where all one's resources, physical or cognitive or both, are harnessed. It's a it's a very pleasant state. Earlier you were saying the GABA increase from the ketosis, I think more and more we're just realizing that people have differing levels of excitatory to inhibitory balance in the brain. And so some people like things that bring GABA up, some people like things that bring glutamate up, broadly speaking, and finding that sweet spot is where you go, \"Oh, like I'm alert but calm.\" And that's that's what we want.","offset":11601,"duration":53},{"text":"Rhonda: Right. That's what it does for me. Alert but calm. And for me I'm like, and I noticed that with... there was a few years ago I really experimented with a ketogenic diet. I just can't do that type of diet, but I did experiment with it and that was the one of the main things that I noticed is like, \"I'm alert but calm,\" and it's like I liked it.","offset":11654,"duration":18},{"text":"Andrew: Well then don't take nicotine, because the reason people like nicotine is it's a stimulant that calms you down. So I do think that one of the reasons it's so habit forming is because I know of nothing else that puts you in that plane of focus of alert but calm that is reasonably low cost, that is legal... I've never out- I'm come clean, I've never done amphetamine or cocaine, so I'm not... I wouldn't want to and clearly that's a path to destruction. So the reason so many young people are taking it is because it gets them right in that plane of alert but calm, but it has all these negative effects that go with it.","offset":11672,"duration":33},{"text":"Rhonda: Yeah, and that's why I've stayed away from it, because I know I'd probably love it.","offset":11705,"duration":4},{"text":"Andrew: I've asked some young folks who ask me about nicotine, \"How many milligrams are you taking?\" They'll say \"nine milligrams.\" I'll say \"How many times per day?\" and they'll say \"eight times per day.\" I'm like \"Oh my god,\" like that's crazy!","offset":11709,"duration":10},{"text":"Rhonda: But they didn't start there. You just quickly get there. You adapt.","offset":11719,"duration":4},{"text":"Andrew: Yeah, so I you know, I don't want to sound like that curmudgeon that's like \"Don't drink and don't take nicotine\" and this kind of thing, but it's a it's a slippery slope. Right. Yeah, I mean there's a very slippery slope.","offset":11723,"duration":10},{"text":"Rhonda: Right. Yeah, I mean if there's other things that you can do that maybe it's not going to be as potent, but like...","offset":11733,"duration":4},{"text":"Andrew: Alpha-GPC.","offset":11737,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: Alpha-GPC, for me I like doing I like my metabolic switch and my ketones.","offset":11738,"duration":5},{"text":"Andrew: Nice. Well, I'll be curious to to hear how you feel on the Alpha-GPC.","offset":11743,"duration":5},{"text":"Rhonda: I remember liking it. I I don't know why... I think I stopped taking it because I got pregnant was probably what it was, and then I just... it's one of those things where you just forget. You go back to the basics and then like the... yeah.","offset":11748,"duration":13},{"text":"Andrew: Yeah. Different experiment. Before I came on here, I did put out a call for some questions to the world.","offset":11761,"duration":7},{"text":"Rhonda: Okay.","offset":11768,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: Rapid fire Q&A from the land of X and Instagram. Oh this is the... these are the students of the class, of your class, and this way I think about it. Actually, I wanted to ask about this, so I'm so grateful that this person asked about Nattokinase for improving blood lipid profiles. Is it something you're interested in or have experimented with?","offset":11769,"duration":20},{"text":"Rhonda: It's not something that I've experimented with, and I've been more interested in Natto than Nattokinase. I know some... I really would have to say I don't have enough data to really have an opinion on it.","offset":11789,"duration":12},{"text":"Andrew: Okay. Well, I don't have enough data to have an opinion on it, but I take it anyway. Lot of questions about things we already talked about, so cold plunge, um etc. But an exceptional number of questions about microplastics. And I know we touched into it, but on a scale of one to ten, ten being like you're really concerned, how concerned are you about microplastics for mental and physical health, longevity, just broadly speaking?","offset":11801,"duration":24},{"text":"Rhonda: I would say I am less concerned about microplastics than I am about not getting the right nutrients and micronutrients from from our foods, because our body can detoxify at least some of the chemicals associated with them. The microplastics themselves, I mean, I guess it's not... we don't really know what they're going to do long-term, but I'm concerned enough to try to avoid... to sorry, limit my exposure to them as much as possible.","offset":11825,"duration":26},{"text":"Andrew: So you don't drink out of plastic water bottles.","offset":11851,"duration":2},{"text":"Rhonda: I mean, I try not to as much as possible. I mean, you know, I definitely have to at some points, but um, I try not to, yeah. And when I do, I just realize it's the habit, and you kind of have to let go. I mean, I know some people that like don't drink, like they're like \"they're going to get their water from their food, their fruits while they're traveling,\" pretty extreme.","offset":11853,"duration":20},{"text":"Andrew: Yeah, that's... yeah.","offset":11873,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: But I think mental health is important, so I mean it's like is the stress of avoiding the microplastics worse than the actual little bit of microplastics you're being exposed to? It might be.","offset":11874,"duration":11},{"text":"Andrew: TSA is going to hate me, but I lost a bet two days ago to a member of our podcast team. He bet me, we bet, that um, I said one couldn't bring a Mountain Valley Spring Water bottle through security at the airport, and he said you absolutely can, and I said \"There's no way,\" so I made him a bet and I lost. He brought it through.","offset":11885,"duration":22},{"text":"Rhonda: Full of water?","offset":11907,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: Full of water. You tell them it's for medical reasons. You don't have to state what they are. They open the cap, they take a sample out, they test it. So there's a time constraint and it's going to create more jobs for TSA. Um sorry, that was sort of a joke, sort of not a joke, TSA's been, you know, in tricky circumstances lately. And he showed up at the at the gate with it and was like \"Here's your water.\" You absolutely can bring water through in glass vessels or whatever vessel, but they're going to test it and it helps if it's a commercial vessel, it's not like your own glass water bottle.","offset":11908,"duration":36},{"text":"Rhonda: Can I pause for a minute because you mentioned a specific brand which I also when I when I...","offset":11944,"duration":4},{"text":"Andrew: Oh yeah, and no I don't make money from them.","offset":11948,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: Same, I I drink when I'm traveling that's that's the brand that I go to. And there are there was a study that came out showing that there's actually a larger um volume of microplastics within this study from glass bottles versus plastic bottles, which was a very shocking finding. Um, so there was more microplastic number coming from the the glass bottles. It turns out this was a study out of France, there was a study out of France and also in the US. It's the paint on the lids... you mentioned the lid and so it's the paint on the lid that's contaminated, getting contaminated in the bottling of the whole bottling of this, you know, water, that is getting into the water. But I do want to mention that the size was was shown to be larger from the glass bottles versus the plastic, so the microplastic size was larger. And as you probably know, larger microplastics are not well absorbed through the gut epithelial cells. So when you're, you know, taking them in in the gut, they're coming out they're being excreted through your your feces. And um, less likely to be taken up into your gut and then get into your body, and that's actually well known. And so I'm actually more concerned about the size of microplastics... um, and it wasn't like the huge orders of magnitude difference between the the water from glass versus the plastic. It's so counter-intuitive you think \"Wait, what? Why is it...?\" so it's the paint that's on the lid.","offset":11949,"duration":76},{"text":"Andrew: Interesting.","offset":12025,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: Anyways, I just want to mention that I still drink when I'm traveling, I still go for the glass, not the plastic because of the size of the microplastics and knowing because the size was much bigger... um, that it's very I would say more data is going to come out on this but I would be surprised if you're absorbing more of the larger particles because it's known that you absorb the smaller ones.","offset":12026,"duration":19},{"text":"Andrew: Thank you for that. And if you want, you can now take your glass bottle through security full. Seed oils. The dreaded seed oil debate. Where do you land on this?","offset":12045,"duration":15},{"text":"Rhonda: I try to avoid them... um mostly because one, if you're avoiding seed oils you're going to avoid a lot of the processed packaged foods that they come in, which I know are terrible for you. Two, because I think that cooking them or heating them, I mean, is more of my concern because they are, you know, polyunsaturated fatty acids which are very prone to oxidation. And when you're heating something that's prone to oxidation, you're accelerating that whole process. I don't want to consume oxidized lipids. I've seen I've looked into that literature and the last time I looked into it was I think 2024. At that time I was pretty convinced that if you are heating and reheating, you know, oils like they do in fast food for sure you're increasing inflammatory markers, that's been shown. And I think also when you're really having a higher level of, you know, omega-6s and stuff around, I'm not as concerned because I'm getting a lot of omega-3, but it does also re- increase your Vitamin E requirements as well, because of the oxidation of these polyunsaturated fatty acids. So do I think it's like like the worst ever? I mean, you can find all this data out there showing that, you know, if you replace, you know, saturated fat with some of these seed oils there's improvements in lipid profiles. But at the end of the day, the question is really what if like you had olive oil instead or avocado oil instead? Would it be even better? I think possibly. So if you're really trying to go for the optimal, I avoid them as much as I can for that reason. But I think there's a little bit more hype when it comes to the seed oil. But if that makes sense, you know, I'm kind of that's my that's my take.","offset":12060,"duration":102},{"text":"Andrew: Makes sense to me, for what it's worth, I stick to olive oil and small amounts of butter and that's because I also think seed oils taste terrible. How come no one talks about that? But anyway. And olive oil and butter are delicious.","offset":12162,"duration":14},{"text":"Rhonda: It's been so long since I've actually like I mean had the you know seed oil but yeah.","offset":12176,"duration":5},{"text":"Andrew: Ugh, you know, and no one can convince me that they don't taste bad to me. So then the debate just kind of falls away. How often are you doing the sauna nowadays? And what does the top contour of that protocol look like?","offset":12181,"duration":13},{"text":"Rhonda: So I've taken a little pause on the sauna right now, but typically I'm doing... I was doing it like, I would say five nights a week. And I say nights because I usually doing them in the night. And it was mixed a mixture between either getting in the sauna or hot tub. So I like I like getting in the hot tub head out under the stars there with my husband, it's like our time. So yeah, usually it's like 20 minutes and temperature-wise, you know, I don't go that hot, I honestly I'm like 180.","offset":12194,"duration":30},{"text":"Andrew: Five nights a week is great! Gosh, I I need to get back on a five-night-a-week sauna or hot tub protocol.","offset":12224,"duration":7},{"text":"Rhonda: I know, I need to get... I do like the hot tub especially, I don't know, there's something about being outside and... I think now there's just there's evidence that the the benefits are really like the same. It's the deliberate heat exposure, right? You're getting the... you're getting that through the hot tub or through the sauna.","offset":12231,"duration":14},{"text":"Andrew: Creatine for kids. Like young kids, like younger than 16. Um any data and or ideas about this, good or bad?","offset":12245,"duration":9},{"text":"Rhonda: Yeah, so there is data in the literature showing that if you give younger younger children that are doing like for example sports like soccer, it does seem to improve their agility and it seems to be safe. I do give my son 2.5 grams of Creatine, so a day.","offset":12254,"duration":18},{"text":"Andrew: Cool.","offset":12272,"duration":1},{"text":"Rhonda: So that's how I feel.","offset":12273,"duration":1},{"text":"Andrew: There's no better um indication of how you... of how one feels than what they're willing to um deliberately give their kids. I don't know where this stems from, and we can cut it if you want, but this um someone asked why did you single-handedly ruin bananas for this person? Uh, do you- did you ruin bananas?","offset":12274,"duration":17},{"text":"Rhonda: So I used to put bananas in my smoothies and there's an en- there's an enzyme that is produced in bananas that break down polyphenols, particularly ones that are found in blueberries, and the reason I was getting my smoothies was one for the greens but two for the blueberries because the polyphenols have been shown to improve cognition. Love blueberries! So... um sorry, don't mix the blueberry with the banana smoothie, because it it has been shown to decrease the the polyphenols which are important.","offset":12291,"duration":26},{"text":"Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, well the alcohol industry will come for me someday and the banana industry will come for you and um, I think we're safe for a while. Should we ignore studies that have less than X number of subjects? I think that's a really good question. Like obviously it depends, but when we're talking about human studies, where's the the line for small study versus large meaningful study for you? Obviously how strongly it's powered, but how do you think about that?","offset":12317,"duration":29},{"text":"Rhonda: Well I'll tell you when I was first looking at the sauna literature, all the studies that I were looking at were like N of 10 or smaller. And it's really the aggregate of those studies and then looking at like animal data and then you start to, you know, you start to look at observational data and the totality of evidence, and you put together this picture. I don't think you should ignore studies that are small, I think that it's part of the story. I think we're getting a little too caught up in \"It's got to be the randomized placebo-controlled trial, it's got to have lots lots of participants,\" and I mean that's great if we have that data, but we don't always have that data. and I don't know that we will always have that data with everything that we're interested in in understanding, right? So the way I look at it is if it's like just one study with an N of 10, okay, interesting. Um, like with the Creatine, right? Like I mean these studies have been small sample sizes. Now there's more than one, but you know at the end of the day, it's still very I would say in this, you know, pilot study phase where you have just small studies. So I I do not ignore them, but I also don't hedge all my bets on them either. I do know that there are a lot of people that were criticizing me on my sauna, I mean back in I you know 2014, published an article on Tim Ferriss's blog, went on Joe Rogan's podcast and talked about, you know, the benefits of sauna, and and I had people that were going \"Your studies... your sample sizes are too small.\" And now we have so much data that's come out since then really kind of validating everything and showing even more benefits. You kind of have to look at the totality of evidence and what is you're what endpoints are you looking at and how can you gather, you know, data from different sources whether it's clinical studies, observational studies, or animal studies, and and try to come up with the bigger picture, right? But then also don't be too confident in your statements.","offset":12346,"duration":106},{"text":"Andrew: I'm very gratified to know that pretty much every other question you addressed the answer to in route to where we are now in the podcast, truly. And um, I'll leave them up so you can see them later if if you choose. Cold plunges notwithstanding um, Vitamin D um, exercise in all its contour, specificity, fasting, um magnesium, lots of questions about supplements which we covered, Creatine, lots of questions about inflammation, longevity... and so I just have to say first of all on behalf of everybody thank you so much. This was really an incredible tutorial and so much of it is actionable. And as you are known for, it was incredibly thorough in terms of setting the context within mechanisms of what we know, what we still don't know. And um I also personally want to thank you, because when you speak I learn, and when you speak I also learn things that change my behavior. And that's a whole other level. Uh, since our last conversation I can think of at least four and probably as many as a dozen things that I do on a daily basis as a consequence of that conversation. And just the gut-inflammation health brain-body axis uh conversation that um we had earlier, I'm going to listen to this again and take notes, because um there's just so much there and the metabolic flexibility thing as an input that can come from multiple sources, just on and on. So thank you for doing what you do. Thank you for being you, for being first-in and still going and doing things with such rigor and and really so much grace. It's just awesome. People love you... um, I certainly do and appreciate you and and it's just um it's a wonderful thing for me to have a colleague like you and you really set the standard. So thank you so much for coming here and doing this marathon and um, can't wait to do it again.","offset":12452,"duration":109},{"text":"Rhonda: Thank you so much, Andrew. It's it's really been great. I learn so much from you as well, and appreciate everything.","offset":12561,"duration":5},{"text":"Andrew: Thank you. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. To learn more about her work, please see the links in the show note captions. If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero-cost way to support us. In addition, please follow the podcast by clicking the \"Follow\" button on both Spotify and Apple. and on both Spotify and Apple, you can leave us up to a five-star review. And you can now leave us comments at both Spotify and Apple. Please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode. That's the best way to support this podcast. If you have questions for me or comments about the podcast, or guests or topics that you'd like me to consider for the Huberman Lab Podcast, please put those in the comment section on YouTube. I do read all the comments. For those of you that haven't heard, I have a new book coming out. It's my very first book. 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And on all those platforms, I discuss science and science-related tools, some of which overlaps with the content of the Huberman Lab podcast, but much of which is distinct from the information on the Huberman Lab podcast. Again, it's Huberman Lab on all social media platforms. And if you haven't already subscribed to our Neural Network newsletter, the Neural Network newsletter is a zero-cost monthly newsletter that includes podcast summaries as well as what we call protocols in the form of one to three-page PDFs that cover everything from how to optimize your sleep, how to optimize dopamine, deliberate cold exposure... we have a foundational fitness protocol that covers cardiovascular training and resistance training... all of that is available completely zero-cost. You simply go to hubermanlab.com, go to the menu tab in the top right corner, scroll down to \"Newsletter,\" and enter your email. And I should emphasize that we do not share your email with anybody. Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. 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