Longevity Scientist: "5 Grams of Creatine Is Useless!" Do THIS to Reverse Brain Aging!

Today's guest is an expert on nutrition, longevity, and preventing deadly diseases.

If we compare men 50 years ago to men now, they have 50% lower sperm count and they have up to 30% lower testosterone levels.

Early in her research career, she discovered she carries a gene that triples her risk of Alzheimer's, sparking an obsession with how genetics, diet, and chemicals decide how fast we age and how soon we die. 100% of the semen samples from the men had microplastics in them. They're in the kidneys, they're in liver, they're in the heart, they're in the brain, they're in the testicles, they're everywhere.

Now, she's the go-to scientist Joe Rogan, Huberman, and half of Silicon Valley call when they want to know what's actually going to make them live longer.

Your body is really resilient. You just have to give it the right tools and do the right things to make it resilient.

In this episode, we'll expose the chemicals quietly castrating American men. Explore why testosterone and sperm counts are collapsing and investigate whether the modern world is genuinely poisoning us or the problem is the choices we make every single day. Do you fear that your grandkids will be infertile?

I don't know that I necessarily fear that they're going to be infertile, but I kind of do.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick, welcome to the Jack Neil podcast.

Nice to be here. Thank you so much.

Yeah, it's great having you here. Um, a good place to start, Rhonda, the data on Gen Z men is pretty terrifying. Uh, and before we get into what are the actual habits and factors causing the decline in young men's health, I want to understand some of the statistics. So, biologically speaking, do you think we're raising the least masculine generation of men?

Well, I mean, masculinity obviously encompasses a lot of things, psychological factors. If we're just looking at pure biology, if we're looking at hormones, testosterone, you know, we're looking at fertility, sperm production, I would say those end points do not look good. So if we compare men 50 years ago to men now, generally on average they have 50% lower sperm count than men 50 years ago and they have up to 30% lower testosterone levels than men 40 to 50 years ago. That to me is concerning. And like I said, I don't know that that's the definition of masculinity, but certainly um when it comes to biology, it's an important factor.

And I guess um on the sperm count portion, you said sperm counts are down 50% over the last 50 years. In 2024, researchers, they were studying dogs and they found microlastics in 100% of the testicles that they tested. Then they thought, well, if it's in dogs, it's probably in men as well. Did they find microplastics in men's testicles?

There have been a couple of studies. There is one study out of China in 2024 that sampled I think it was around 40 men and 100% of the semen samples from the men had microplastics in them. There was another study that was a little bit smaller in the US and that was biopsies of of testicles. For whatever reason, men were going in and getting a biopsy and 100% of those samples of the testicles uh also had microplastics in them. So, so microplastics are making their way to reproductive organs. They're making their way they're in they're being incorporated into sperm and semen and they're affecting the structure, the function, the number of sperm in in men. So, it is a bit of a problem.

I guess just gut instinct when you hear there's microplastics in men's semen is like that's probably not good but like why is it actually bad?

So like I mentioned um microplastics themselves are disrupting you know the the function of sperm. They're disrupting the shape of them. Um, I mean, if you can imagine a tiny tiny little plastic fragment, um, it's probably not going to be a good thing for what's called the morphology, the shape of the sperm, the motility, its ability to move, which you need uh for a sperm to meet an egg, right? It needs to be able to move a long distance and do it well. Um, it also isn't good for making sperm. So the plastics themselves are disrupting sperm function, disrupting sperm production, but the chemicals that are in those microplastics are probably what I think is even more concerning when it comes to affecting sperm. So these are chemicals that many people have probably heard of. For example, bisphenols, bisphenol A, BPA or the replacement. I do quotes because you'll see oftentimes different products marketed as BPA free and you might think, "Oh, this is healthier." Turns out it's just replaced with another type of bisphenol, BPS, which is as dangerous, if not more, than BPA. Another very dangerous plastic chemical is phthalates, P-H-A-L-A-T-E-S. Um, these chemicals are what are known as endocrine disrupting chemicals, EDCs. Endocrine disrupting chemicals. Sometimes they're called endocrine disrupting hormones. They are disrupting hormones including testosterone by a variety of ways. One, they can mimic hormones. Um, two, they can disrupt the ability of hormones to function. So, hormones have to bind to receptors and they will block that from happening. And three, they can actually disrupt the actual production of the hormones. So they can do any or all of these. And what happens is things like BPA and phthalates are in everything and we can talk about this from our water to our food to the air we breathe, everything. And when they make their way into things like you know semen and other organs, um they are they are disrupting testosterone. There's studies showing for example men with the highest levels of phthalates. So phthalates are something that you'll find in foods that have been packaged in plastic. They're found in just our personal hygiene products. Everything from shaving cream, lotions, shampoos, like all that stuff. Okay. So men that have the highest level of phthalates have 20% lower testosterone level than men with the lowest level of phthalates. And then BPA also has been shown to affect sperm. And when when I say testosterone, testosterone is very important to make sperm, right? So when you lower testosterone, it's going to have the downstream effect of also lowering your sperm count, right? So these things are very related. And so I think those are two big problems when it comes to your question was how are microplastics disrupting, you know, sperm production? And it's the plastics themselves and it's the chemicals that come along with them.

And I guess too, is it possible that men are passing microplastics to women through sex?

Well, microplastics are in semen and so, you know, that is getting obviously passed along to women. But there's no evidence that that's being like absorbed into women and getting into their circulation. And that's the real concern is like when you're actually just ingesting them, it gets into your circulation getting into other organs. What is happening though is that when when the semen you know when the sperm is you know meeting an egg like you have those chemicals there right so it is disrupting one, you know, you might not even get a fertile embryo like all that the whole process of reproduction is has been shown to be impaired by microplastics. So it's not necessarily like the concern I have for women's exposure to them, it's the food and everything and the water and the air we're breathing, all that stuff that's their big concern. But um, there's no real study that has looked at oh what are the consequences and there's not a study that I've seen that's looked at that.

And presumably women would also have these microplastics and perhaps they're, I don't know the exact term, but like ovarian fluids?

They're in ovaries. Um, the microplastics have been found in almost every single organ in the human body from ovaries, they get to the placenta, they're in the kidneys, they're in liver, they're in the heart, they're in the brain, they're in testicles, they're everywhere. They're in they're in all of our organs. It's it's a concern. Um, and it's just it's a ubiquitous problem because plastics are everywhere and we we don't see these microplastics and nanoplastics. We don't, you know, really see the chemicals, but but they're there and we're breathing them in and we're ingesting them and they're getting into our body and they're sort of doing this insidious damage over time, right? That something that you can't look in the mirror and see, but it's going on inside your body and that's what makes it so insidious. It's, you know, it's accumulating with time and you don't really know what's happening.

Outside of the plastics, uh, and the chemicals that they're passing along, are there other things destroying men's fertility right now?

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Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that have been evidence-based to be shown to disrupt, you know, testosterone levels and also sperm production and sperm function. I would say aside from endocrine disrupting chemicals of which we've talked about plastic chemicals, there's also another category which would be the insecticides, pesticides. These are things that are sprayed onto our crops um so that we can grow large amounts of food to feed a big population of people. So the one that's probably the most associated with lowering sperm number is what what's officially called Roundup, glyphosate. So these organophosphates have been shown in multiple studies to be um disrupting hormone production and sperm production as well. But aside from that, so those are the endocrine disrupting chemicals. Obesity. Obesity is a big factor and the numbers are quite staggering in terms of how much obesity rates have risen over the past, you know, 50 years, 60 years. And so if you if you look between 1990 and 2021, obesity rates in children and adolescence have dramatically grown. So in children, obesity rates have risen by about 40% since 1990. And for adolescents in boys, it's about it rose about 46% and in girls about 50%. So you know obesity is now a big problem starting in childhood, not in like your 40s or 50s right? Obesity causes damage to sperm in many many ways. One, it's you hor it's creating hormones, things like estrogen that are disrupting you know sperm production, testosterone production, all these feedback loops that happen. Inflammation, oxidative stress, these things also damage sperm DNA. There's a lot of heat that's generated too in the in the scrotum area and that's also a problem um so I would say obesity is another major major player in this story in terms of of you know sperm sperm count and quality going down over the last you know few decades. And the other thing would also be I do mention heat exposure. So doing I've talked a lot about the benefits of deliberate heat exposure like using a sauna or a hot tub. That is something that does tank sperm number and also their their structure and motility. Um, because in order to make sperm, you have to have a lower temperature in that scrotum area than it has to be lower than your core body temperature. And when that switch gets flipped um, you start to basically you're not making as many sperm. But it is reversible. It goes back to normal once you take away the heat stress after about two to three months. And studies have shown that as well. Also, another factor I think unfortunately is exogenous anabolic steroid use, you know. So, people that are using exogenous testosterone, anabolic steroids, um, men that are using that, that also, as you I'm sure know, tanks your production of testosterone in the testes, your natural production, your endogenous production of it. It can be reversible. Um, it's not always. So, unfortunately, like some men that are using it, they may not ever have normal sperm production again, um, their sperm may not be as good quality. So, while you might hear that it is a reversible phenomena, it may not always be. And I think that's also a part of the story because, you know, younger people are using exogenous, you know, hormones and steroids. And so, something to consider as well. Um, so those are some of the factors, you know, that I think are are playing a role. A big one really is the endocrine disrupting chemicals and the obesity. I think those are the two top top things that are playing a role.

That's interesting because I mean there's been a rise in, I'm sure you've seen it, uh online, this trend of looks maxing and a big part of it that's being discussed is the usage of TRT and peptides. And I've sat down with a few of these guys on the podcast and I asked them like, "Do you are you currently infertile?" And they're like, "Yes." And I'm like, "Do you have like a problem with that?" And they're just like, "Well, it's temporary." Is that accurate that it's just temporary until they get off of the dosages they're doing or what's like the real science there?

I think the real science is it could be temporary, but it's like it's like a Russian roulette. Are you going to be the one that it's not? Also like what dose are you doing? How long are you doing it for? Like there's a lot of factors that play into that it's temporary answer. And if you don't know all the factors that are important for it to just be temporary, like maybe you only can be doing it for like a few months. If you do it, I mean, there's there's and then what dose you're doing, right? So like those things need to be part of the equation if you don't want it to be a permanent thing. And again, people are different. People respond to to drugs differently. They respond to diet differently. They respond to vitamins differently. Right? So keep that in mind as well. Like this this is you are taking a chance here with your future fertility if you are going to be doing this looks maxing which I mean don't do it. That's ridiculous, honestly. You know, like if you're a young guy, first of all, if you're a young guy, your testosterone should be fine. It should be good. And there are things that you can do and we can talk about that to to kind of help optimize that to the degree that's like normal.

Um, like why why do you have to start taking testosterone? Like you want to get cut, you want to like I I don't know, you know, it's it is there there could be a pretty significant trade-off. And if you think just because you read online that it's temporary, again, like it's not always, you know, so are you going to be the person that it's temporary or are you going to be one that's not temporary? We'll uh discuss later in this interview some of your uh remedies and recommendations for like boosting testosterone with what we're given. But um, yeah, it is really fascinating because I mean their argument is we can't even reproduce to begin with unless we look good. And we there's so many different chemical disruptors to make our testosterone uh low that we might as well go on peptides TRT to uh look more masculine, you know. But, uh, I do want to ask, since the average 18-year-old today has the testosterone of a 60-year-old man in the 1980s, why do young men today have such low testosterone levels? And what are the stats there? And maybe what are some of the things that don't apply to sperm count that apply to this?

I do think the same things that are causing the sperm to go down are the same things causing testosterone to go down. And I think one of the major drivers is in particular I think it's it's the phthalates in these plastics that are being ingested and um I say that because you know there's even evidence that a pregnant woman when she's pregnant and she's exposed to phthalates whether it's from her lotions and creams or she's eating you know foods almost all like you go to the butcher and you get meat and it's like plastic's like around it like it's vacuum sealed. And you can't escape it. Like it's everywhere. It's in your food. It's on top of our vegetables. You you know, like so um you you know women that have higher levels of those phthalates while they're pregnant, the phthalates are getting across the placenta and they're going into the developing fetus and into the testes and they're disrupting testosterone production early early in development and that's affecting the sexual development of men. So it's causing what's called hypospadias. Do you know what that is? where like the urethra slit on a on a on a man's like penis is like further back. Um, so it's kind of like it's not, it's it's basically not, you know, up front enough. So it affects it affects the ability of sperm to like be able to like be shot out and go like it's going to affect future fertility basically. Um, the other thing it's doing is it's causing undescended testicles, which is now pretty common in boys. That also affects um fertility as well as testosterone production.

What are un- just?

So basically your testicles um you know undescended means they're not coming down. So one of them will like kind of stay up and when that happens it's inside uh it's inside more and so it's it's being exposed to a higher temperature instead of coming down where it's cooler and so if that doesn't get corrected and even if it does get corrected, there still could be some loss in you know testosterone production and fertility. So all this is to say that e that the the phthalates and these plastic chemicals are affecting testosterone starting early in life. They continue they continue on and so men that are being exposed to it, I already cited this study, you know, these men with higher phthalate levels have 20% lower testosterone and this is like a big wide raging you know, age range study, young men, old men, across the board, it's affecting everyone, you know, even young men. So um that's another thing that I again, I think these plastic chemicals are really big, you know, play a really big role in that. The other thing that also people underestimate is sleep. And I know a lot a lot of young people, you know, I mean, they they're night owls. They stay up. They're they want to work. They want to be efficient, productive, maybe they party, all the above. And so, they're not getting the at least seven hours of quality sleep per night, which is really the minimum of what you need. There was a study showing that young men, these were college students that that got 5 hours of sleep for a week, their testosterone levels like dropped by like 15%. You know, after one week. So, prioritizing sleep, like I think people are not getting enough sleep. That's also playing a role. Refined sugar and ultrarocessed foods is another thing that's playing a role in decreasing testosterone levels. So, again, this comes back to and it's all tangled in with the obesity equation, right? Okay? Like cuz when you're eating a lot of ultrarocessed foods and a lot of refined sugars, it leads to obesity, right? So there was um a study looking at young men given a really large bolus of of sugar, refined like added sugar, 75 grams. It's kind of like a donut and a Coke or a Big Mac and a Coke or something like that, a lot a lot of sugar, right? But it it tanked their testosterone by like 20% like within a couple of hours.

Really?

Yeah.

Just one dosage.

Just one dose. Now it goes back up, but like, okay, you're eating sugar throughout the day, all day, every day, right? Like it's gonna start to

Adjust your baseline. Yeah.

Right. That's going to be your new baseline. It's going to be lower. You're going to have lower testosterone levels. Right. So I think that's another and I'm now rattling off things that are contributing. I think again, a really big factor here is unfortunately the endocrine disrupting chemicals and at the top of the list, phthalates and BPA. But um, you know, there's the obesity equation also plays a role in testosterone. And then, you know, the sleep and the refined sugar are pretty big ones as well. And those are some of the main, I'd say lifestyle factors that are I think playing a role in people having in men having lower testosterone.

I've heard you talk about grip strength before. Uh, like what can you tell about a person by their grip strength? Why is that such an important indicator?

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Yeah, I mean, so I mean, testosterone is doing a lot, it's a hormone in men and it does a lot of things and one of its things that it's important is in muscle, muscle mass and muscle strength, right? Grip strength is often a proxy for your overall muscle strength in other parts of the body as well. And um, interestingly, it's also used as a way to gauge whether or not like you're going to have functional independence as you age. So you can do you can do everyday activities without needing help, right? So it's an important marker of like functional independence. And then also some studies have looked at grip strength as a proxy for your overall mortality. In fact, there was one study, a large study that was done that showed people with the lowest grip strength had a 70% higher all cause mortality than people with a higher grip strength. So again, going back to that like functional independence, overall muscle strength, the grip strength is used as a marker for your overall health status and even can predict, you know, somewhat like if you're going to die early.

Studies show that young men today have significantly weaker grip strength than the same age group did decades ago. Uh, like is this the statistically weakest generation of men today? And what are the stats on that?

Yeah, it's an interesting question because, you know, decades ago men were doing a lot more with their hands, you know, they were they were carrying things more, right? So, you're you're walking places, you're carrying groceries. Now, we have grocery carts. Now, we have Instacart. You don't even have to get off your couch. We used to carry men used to carry babies and kids before all these strollers. I mean, tools, water, you know, we used to do that. We used to practice that grip strength, right? A lot of times carrying things, physical labor. I mean, if you look at if you look at the I would say private sector because the military, you're still doing a lot of physical type of labor, right? But the private sector back in like the 1950s, over 50% of jobs required manual physical labor, like you were physically doing things. Now in 2026, it's like less than 20%. So we have created this environment for men and women that is it's basically facilitated our not having to get up and do any work, right? We sit in front of a screen, we you know, we're at our computer, we're sitting down most of the day, we're not walking around. I mean, you know, decades ago, men were walking to work, they were walking to the store, they were moving around all day, they were doing short bouts of what I called exercise snacks, just you you know, naturally throughout their life. And, you know, they were carrying wood and and they were doing farming and doing things around the house. And so like they just were constantly moving and we don't do that now. And I think now we have like we've we we have to, you know, go to the gym to get that sort of physical activity that men used to get throughout the day. And if you're not going to the gym, which a large percentage of men and women don't, then you are going to have a weaker grip strength. you're going to have overall lower muscle mass, overall lower muscle strength because you're not using your muscles. You have to use your muscles. Um, and so you can recreate some of that. I mean, you should be doing resistance training at minimum twice, two to four times a week, things like deadlifts, right? I mean, farmer carry, like you want to do hangs, like you want to you want to work that grip strength like you would be carrying something, right? Rocking. Um, you want to also get your aerobic exercise, like you want to walk around, particularly after meals. I would say do exercise snacks. You get up and do some body weight squats. I mean, there's studies showing that you do 10 body weight squats every 45 minutes throughout like a 7-hour work day. And that's better at improving your glucose regulation than going on a 30-minute walk. So, get up and do 10 body. Like, how easy is that? You know?

Right? That's much easier than a walk. Why? Why is that?

Because you're you're doing you're putting more stress. It's more of a vigorous type of exercise. And when that happens, you produce your body produces something called lactate. And lactate causes these transporters on your muscle to bring the glucose in better.

That's one of the reasons why. So, so doing something more like doing a quick exercise snack, like a one minute, two minute like sprint up the stairs is like better than going for like a longer walk. And so that's again, there's this whole like vigorous exercise is is really underappreciated in terms of its metabolic, not only metabolic benefits, particularly metabolic, but also brain, overall mortality, like there's so many things and it's like you can be more efficient. You just have to like the whole thing is like exercise is good because you're stressing your body and so the stronger the stressor, which is the case when you're doing something more vigorous, whether it's body weight squats, weighted squats, you know, versus walking, the adaptations that your body has to deal with that stress is what's the benefit, right? So your body is like, "Oh my gosh, this is like stressful. I mean, my my lungs are like mo like working hard. My heart's working hard. My muscles are working hard. I better like get those things stronger so that the next time I see this kind of stress, I'm better at dealing with it, right?" So those are the adaptations and I that's a very general way of explaining it. But the whole point is that it's like the stress is stronger, therefore the adaptations are better and that's why when you go a little bit harder, you're going to have a better effect.

So I'm guessing you're not the biggest fan of like slow long cardio in comparison to short bouts like a HIIT workout.

I mean, walking is better than sitting, right? But like the really low intensity kind of stuff, like if you're jogging, if you're doing that kind of cardio, I think that's considered more vigorous. Like because you're you're jogging, that's that is still like a pretty strong stress. It's the walking, the 10,000 steps. I'm like, okay, the 10,000 steps is better than no steps. It's better than sitting. Okay, I'll I'll say that. But if we're going to like if we're going to aim to achieve something, why don't we try to like go for the right thing, right? I would say 10 minutes of a vigorous intensity workout is better than 10,000 steps.

Data data is clear.

If you don't feel it, like it's probably not working that well.

It Yeah. And you feel it after 10 minutes of like a HIIT workout. You'll feel you'll feel great. You'll be smarter. And there's studies showing it too. H.

So, I mean, all this is to say that men, you know, 50, 60 years ago, they were doing they were getting resistance training, like a low grade of it throughout the day, every day, right? And so, that's probably why their grip strength was stronger because now in order to have a grip strength, you have to work it. Like, you have to we've engineered this problem where we need to go to the gym, we need to do deadlifts, we need to do hang, right? We need to hang, we need to like do pull-ups, chin-ups, whatever. Um, but but men didn't have to do that like 50 years ago. They were doing it. They were carrying stuff. They were they were doing it throughout.

They literally didn't go to the gym. That's like a new modern invention.

They didn't have to. They didn't have to go to the gym. Like we we've now created this environment where we don't have to move. Like we work from home. We can order our food that's delivered to us. I mean, you literally don't have to move. Like you could pro I'm sure someone on YouTube's going to do this experiment where they're like, I'm just going to sit, I'm literally going to be bed rest and just sit and like have everything just delivered to me because that's that's how life is now. We have we have made it where things are a lot easier, luxuries, whatever. But at the end of the day, we also have these new problems where we have to like go out and move because it's so important for our health.

And then on the I've heard this study referenced before. I can't remember if it's you that had said it, but it's something along the lines of the amount of skeletal muscle in someone's body is a good determinant for like all cause mortality. Is there something along those lines?

Yeah, muscle mass also is very important for looking at all cause mortality. Mass and strength both, right? And so, you know, there's some studies that that will show the more muscle mass you have, I mean, you could have up to an 80 70 to 80% lower all cause mortality. And and that really does have to do with protecting against frailty, right? I mean, because when you once you are frail, it's like the start of the decline. And anyone that has an older grandparent or great-grandparent or, you know, parent, you've probably seen that where it's like one fall and then it's just spiral down, right? Spiral down. And so, more muscle mass, you know, more muscle strength, you're going to be less likely to fall. You're going to be less you're going to be more independent. you're going to be less frail and so and so you're going to you're going to you know be be more robust as you you know charge through the through the last decade of your life. So muscle mass is very important and so is strength and they do decline with age, you know, especially as you start to hit older age, like 65 really starts to accelerate. So the more you can bank into your muscle mass and strength earlier, the better because then you're going to be pulling from it anyways. you might as well bank as much as you can so that you you know.

And the easiest time to build it is, I don't know, ages 16 to 30, I or ages 16 to 25, I'm guessing. Uh, and it's actually pretty resilient, like how much you can hold the mass. I think they did a study, it was like they took athletes who had a physique and had them only work out once a week and they were able to maintain it pretty well.

So that age range, you do like peak muscle mass is happening and it is easier to gain muscle mass and you can get away with more.

So, yes, that is that's a true statement. But I don't want to I don't want to ignore the fact that you can you can still add muscle >> at any age, right?

And even more strength. Like there was a study in 90-year-olds where you can actually add muscle strength better than muscle mass. Um, the study in 90-year-olds where they were doing resistance training, I don't remember how many times a week, but they were able to increase their strength by like 90%.

And this was after just like a couple of weeks. So that's like I mean incredible, right? For someone that's 90. It's never too late. If you're listening to this show and you're you know in your 20s, like yeah, get after it, like this is the time, like this is like it's it's going to be the best and easiest right now. Um, but but don't be discouraged like as you hit 30, 35, 40, you can still do it. And I'm still gaining muscle mass and strength and um, so.

As far as cancer, uh, cancer in people under 50 is rising every year. Colon cancer in young men, uh, breast cancer in young women. Why would we be getting cancer younger now than before?

Hey, quick question. How many different AI tools are you using right now to run your business? Cuz if you're like me, you're probably using ChatGBT for brainstorming, Claude for emails and copywriting, some chatbot service for customer support, and probably an AI voice agent to make your calls. And that's why our team switched over to High Level. It saves us so much money, and it's super convenient having all the AI tools for our business in one place. Like with their AI Studio, you get voice agents that answer calls and book appointments 24/7, a chatbot that responds to leads within seconds, and with just a simple prompt, you can create a website, a lead funnel, social media posts that are all connected to the same CRM. So, if you guys want to stop paying for a dozen different AI tools to run your business, just go to jagnil.com/highlevel or scan the QR code on screen. Again, that's jagnil.com/highlevel if you want to run your entire business with one AI platform. But anyway, guys, back to the podcast. Hey, really quick. Do you have a 401k, a Roth IRA, or happen to have a lot of money in crypto? Because you're definitely going to want to hear about this. See, the biggest supporters of this podcast right now are the guys over at iTrust Capital. And when they first reached out to me and explained what they did, it literally sounded like a cheat code. See, with their platform, you can convert your existing 401k or Roth IRA into one that lets you buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, and over 80 cryptocurrencies while maintaining the same tax-saving benefits. Now, of course, you can start a new IRA with them if you're bullish on Bitcoin and want to save on taxes if you ever decide to cash out. But if you're someone who already has a lot of crypto and you're worried about it getting hacked or stolen, iTrust also offers a PCA account, which is institutional grade level custody, meaning your assets are fully insured, ultra secure, and never sitting on any risky exchanges. So, if you guys want to get access, just go to jackneil.com/itrust or scan the QR code on screen. Again, that is jackneil.com/itrust or hit the first link in the description for an easy $100 bonus. But anyway, back to the podcast. Why would we be getting cancer younger now than before?

Yes, cancer, boys. It's scary. Like, it's the one it's the it's the it's the disease that you really want to try and prevent as much as you can because once you have it, it's particularly because it's usually caught later. You don't know you have it. It's one of those things where they're just growing inside you. So this cancer in at a at a younger age, I have a lot of ideas why I think cancer is happening, you know, earlier and in younger people and I think they're pretty evidence-based. I'm going to I'm going to go back to the obesity, you know, answer because again, you know, children are are obese, adolescents are obese. Talking about, you know, 40% of children or no, for there an increase 40% over, you know, back in like the 1990s. So, you're having inflammation and you're having, you know, oxidative stress and all these things that are causing cancer happening not in your 40s or 50s now are happening when you're a child. Um, obesity is associated with 13 different types of cancer and 40% of all new cancer diagnoses in the United States each year are attributed to obesity. That's like half, like half of all of cancers right now are attributed to being obese. That's a lot. So when you think about obesity um happening now in children, what's happening is your the inflammation and the oxidative stress, what that means is it's able to damage your DNA and for the most part, cancer is an age-related disease. There are some genetics that can lead to childhood cancers, but by and large, cancer hits at like 50, 60, 70, 80, right? Like it's an a it's an age-related disease that's most of the time when you're getting cancer, except for now it's happening in our 50s um and that is because, you know, you get damage and it happens, but it might not be in the right part of a gene that can cause cancer. So it's kind of a statistics game. It happens and then as it keeps happening year after year after year after year after day after day after day, right? Eventually it's going to happen in the right part of the genome where a cancer cell crops up. And even then, when it's one cancer cell, not a big problem because we have our first line of defense, which is our immune system. Our immune system recognizes this cell. Hey, this is not a normal cell and it kills it. M. The problem is is that obesity, what happens is not only does it increase the things that damage and initiate the cancer, it it increases growth factors like insulin, IGF-1, hormones, estrogen, you know, this is very obviously relevant for breast cancer um these growth factors and hormones allow cancer cells to survive even when they otherwise maybe would die and obesity suppresses the immune system. So what you have going on here is like the perfect storm for cancer and it's starting earlier in life, right? And that eventually that perfect storm, one of those tumor cells is going to slip through, it's going to make it, it's going to survive and then it divides and it makes two more and those two divide and it's exponential growth and then you get, you know, over five, six years, you have you have, you know, a breast tumor, you have a colon cancer tumor. So obesity, I think is is a big big driver of why younger people are getting cancer. Now, the other thing is diet and it's also very diet and obesity are very much intertwined, right? Because you can eat a very poor diet and it can lead to obesity. So diet, ultrarocessed foods, high refined sugar, you know, added sugar foods, these these types of foods are also playing a role in colon cancer in particular. Um, so, you know, there are studies showing things like if you're eating processed meats, there's things in meats, nitrites that can form nitrosamines. They damage colon cells and you know, they're carcinogenic basically. If you're, you know, eating all these ultra processed foods which takes away the fiber. So the food matrix, if you're eating a whole food, you know, even if it's like cheese, like when you think of fiber, you always think of like vegetables, but like food matrix is in whole foods. And young people are not eating enough of fruits and vegetables. They're not eating enough whole grains like quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, you know, oats. Um, 95% of Americans don't meet like the fiber intake, which is like it's like 14 grams per thousand calories you take in. Why is that important? Why is fiber important? It's probably one of there's pro it's probably one of one of the most well-studied macronutrients in terms of preventing colon cancer. There's so much evidence, like you can't ignore it. Um, fiber does a lot of things. One, it moves stuff through you quicker. So, when you have chemicals in your food like nitrites or heterocyclic amines, like those are found in meats that are charred. So, if you char broil your meat and that blackened taste, you know, that some people like, there's something in that called heterocyclic amines, which are carcinogenic. When you eat that food, it sits in your gut. When it sits in your gut in the colon, it damages it. It can cause that mutation that can lead to cancer, right? Fiber moves stuff through you quicker. So, it's not sitting around in your gut and like being able to damage those cells. It's getting it out. It's like in and out, in out, right? The other thing is there's different types of fiber. So, there's insoluble fiber, which is moving it through you, and then there's soluble fiber or what's now called fermentable fiber. That type of fiber is it's basically fuel for the gut bacteria in your colon, the gut microbiome. A lot of beneficial bacteria will eat that soluble fiber and they form a viscous like coating around the gut. It prevents those chemicals. It's like a barrier. It's like a wall. It's preventing the chemicals from being able to physically damage your colon cells. The other thing it does is it prevents your colon from being able to absorb microplastics and nanoplastics. Fiber is one of the best defenses we have against absorbing both microplastics and nanoplastics. So, it's really um important for helping us prevent a lot of the damage that's being done by these toxins, these chemicals, whether it's plastics or, you know, some of these things that are in our ultrarocessed foods from damaging our colon. And so, I think that diet also is a really important factor here. Alcohol is another one, especially when it comes to um breast cancer and also colon cancer, but but breast cancer in particular. So a woman's lifetime risk for breast cancer on average is one in eight. So if you have eight women in a room, one of those women is going to be diagnosed with breast cancer within her lifetime.

If you add obesity into the mix, that's going to increase the chances to like one in six. You add in alcohol, you're going even up, right? So all these factors, they compound, you know, and you if you start out with a one in eight chance, like by golly, you better be doing everything you can to lower your breast cancer risk, not increase it. And so obesity, losing weight is the biggest thing. You know, not consuming a lot of alcohol also really, really important when it comes to lowering your risk for breast cancer. So I think those are three important, I would say diet, lifestyle factors that are playing a role in younger people getting cancer earlier and earlier.

You said increasing fiber leads to you being more resilient against uh some of these different toxins going in your body. Like what are the main I guess foods that people are not eating to have proper fiber intake and then how much fiber should they be getting?

Fiber again, there's multiple types of it. So if you're just wanting the kind of insoluble fiber that moves stuff through you quickly, which does also play a role in preventing your body from absorbing plastics, but also, you know, chemicals from being able to damage your colon, that's found in like every fruit and vegetable and whole grain. Okay. I would say fruit and vegetables are great. Whole grains are like oats, really, really good. The the the fermentable fiber is really something unique to fruit. Skins of berries, um mushrooms, onions, artichokes, oats, resistant starch, like green bananas or potatoes that are cooked and then cooled. This

is like you're getting this fermentable type of fiber that is a very different type of than just the move stuff through you make you poop kind of fiber, right? This is the stuff that's feeding the gut bacteria and making that gel, that viscous gel. And so you want to you want to be eating berries, you want to be eating mushrooms, you want to be eating like artichoke or onion, garlic, you want to be eating m um oats, you want to quinoa, you know, like those sorts of things have the fermentable type of fiber. You know, the other thing that that's doing is when the gut bacteria are eating, I say eating, they're fermenting it, right? Not only is it making a viscous, you know, barrier in your gut, it these these bacteria are like little chemical factories or like little pharmaceutical factories inside your gut and they're making compounds called shortchain fatty acids. Things like butyrate, things like acetate, propionate. These things are getting into your circulation and they are acting as signaling molecules to the rest of your body. It's a way it's a way for the bacteria in your gut. It's so interesting like these bacteria in your gut can communicate with other organs in your body including the immune cells. And so what happens is when your when the gut is is fermenting these and making these short- chain fatty acids, it's causing your immune cells to make a very specific type um of immune cells. First, it's causing them to make T- regulatory cells. These are cells that are very important for preventing autoimmune disease. You know, preventing your your body from attacking its own tissue. And the other thing they're doing is it's causing your immune system to make cytotoxic tea lymphosytes. These are killing cancer cells. So again, fiber is at this is at the core for helping you prevent colon cancer. So through many different ways and another way is that it's actually increasing the production of a type of immune cell that kills cancer cells. So you ask how much fiber to get. It's like literally it's about, you know, the men and women differ based on their body weight. It's also, you can think about it based on how many calories you consume. So you're supposed to get 14 grams for every,000 calories you consume. I think on average like you know 25 to 30 gram is a good place to be

>> and people are not getting that. So

>> the common expression is uh an apple a day keeps the doctor away. What would be your fruit that you would recommend?

>> Apples are great. The p pectin so the skin of fruits. I mentioned skin. I only mentioned berries but apples is also another skin that has the fermentable type of fiber as well. And mine would be blueberries. Mine would be blueberries. And we talk about why I'm like obsessed with blueberries. But

>> I'd love to talk about that. I do want to ask like why do you think maybe this is I don't have the data to support this but at least in my life and the guys I know they're not eating fruit like why do you think people aren't eating fruit as much anymore? Um because me personally like I when I was younger I was able to eat fruit without like any type of averse reaction but uh then like I don't know makes my mouth itchy now and I hear about all these pesticides in it like uh I'm just kind of I've been told things about the carnivore diet and just eating steak and guys don't need fruit because when they were uh in the olden days they would just hunt animals and women would pick berries. Like I I hear that kind of sentiment like why do you think guys aren't eating fruit?

>> I think I I think all those reasons. I think people people are scared of fruit because they they think that it has too much sugar and they don't realize that the fruit is very different than added sugar because it has the food matrix. It slows the glucose response. It also has a lot of beneficial compounds. So many. It has micronutrients like vitamins and minerals, but it has these polyphenols and flavonols and like all these compounds we haven't even discovered yet that are like doing beneficial things like improving cognition. I mean, literally. So, um I I think that it's it's unfortunate that people aren't eating fruit. Fruit is good for you and like eat seasonally. Like that that was also something that people if if you want to eat like your ancestors, like that's that's what was done too, right? Like guys were eating fruit. I mean, give me a break. Um, the carnivore diet I think has become popular. Men love meat, you know, they love meat. So, like, of course, you're going to want to like find a justification in your brain to like eat more meat and only eat meat. Like, give me a break. Like, who? Yeah. And, um, you know, restrictive diets when you go from like a standard American diet or like, you know, restrictive diets can really help. And that is a very, very restrictive diet. One, you're going to eat fewer calories. There's going to be benefits in that in and of itself. And that's just anyone that tries to argue otherwise it's just not true. You you you're going to calorie restrict when you're eating just meat. Like you just can't eat as much. Like you're not eating as much, right? It's not as diverse. Um is it good long term like 10 years down the road? I don't think so. You're going to you're going to have micronutrient insufficiencies and deficiencies and that will accelerate aging. Like that's something I studied in my posttock. There's magnesium like there's not like you're not going to get magnesium from from muscle meat. Now, maybe if you started doing organ meat, you'll get a little bit more diverse, but still you're not going to get enough of a lot of these really important micronutrients. So,

>> I view it as the most effective way to have an elimination diet and figure out like what are the actual factors that I have food sensitivities to, um, but like I want to ask with all the pesticides and different things in our fruit and vegetables, like where do you where do you get fruit at?

>> Yeah. So unfortunately, especially conventionally grown vegetables and fruit, they're they have not only pesticides, but they have forever chemicals. Like these are chemicals that are staying around in our body for quite a while. Um years, not just, you know, like BPA has a pretty quick halflife. Like you're excreting it every few hours, but you're constantly exposed to it. So it is a concern. The pesticides are a concern. Obviously like organic is better, but you still have to wash the vegetable. You have to wash it really good and that does help. What also helps give me peace of mind is there are so many long-term observational studies looking at people eating fruits and vegetables. I mean countless indefensible thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of them, okay? showing that people that eat fruits and vegetables have a lower all-c cause mortality, lower cardiovascular mortality, lower cancer, everything, lower Alzheimer's disease, like if it was so bad and and this is like, you know, pesticides have been around for a while now. So, we're talking we're talking, you know, at least like even in like starting back in what was it like the 1960s when they had when they had the DDT. They've they've like phased out and like come in with new ones, you know, but like at the end of the day like there's nothing there's nothing but benefits. nothing but benefits. Now, you'll maybe find this one study that some carnival dug up and it's like so what? Like you can't counter like literally hundreds of thousands of studies like showing benefits and then so that that does help with like it's like well if it was so bad and that is because the fiber it is like like is because the polyphenols is because the micronutrients because there's so many beneficial things in these you know fruits and vegetables that are happening that it outweighs the negative amount of like the little bit of pesticide That's that's really like my you know my take on it. Um so you know that's that's the way I view it. I think that it's overwhelming in terms of like the benefits.

>> And before we get into some things like daily habits for people to avoid. I just want to understand a little bit more about you. Like what would you say is the most important part of your backstory to understand why you care about people living long, healthy, happy lives?

>> That's an interesting question. Um, for me, I know that there's quite a few habits and lifestyle factors that people can do that they're not doing that can have an outsized effect on their health and their well-being. And for example, vitamin D deficiency insufficiency, 70% of the US population. Omega-3 fatty acids, 90% of the US population, you know, magnesium, 50% of the population. These are easy things that when I say easy, people can take a supplement. It doesn't get easier than taking a pill. Not a lot of effort. I'm not asking you to go to the gym, although I do ask you to go to the gym. I'm just saying I know that small habits, these little small habits can lower your risk for, you know, Alzheimer's disease, dementia, cardiovascular disease by quite a lot. It can, you know, lower your all-c cause mortality. We're talking 5-year increase in life expectancy, like things like this, you know. So, it's frustrating that this information is out there in a in a time where we have access to so much information so easily, so readily, and yet people are still not doing it. They're still not they don't have the information. And so, to me, it's like, well, I want them to have that information. Like, that's that's huge. That's huge. Um, so that's a big I think a big driver for me. And it's still, and I've been talking about this for 10 years, and still it's like we still have these, you know, rampant insufficiencies in some of these important vitamins and minerals. And that's just the start of it. Like there's so many things that can be done to improve the way you age, to lower your disease risk, and but also to improve your your cognitive function and your well-being and your mental health, make you feel better, like to give you more energy. So, I mean, all these things are important, right? If you had that information, why wouldn't you want to share it? Was there a deficiency that maybe you had uh that maybe you solved and had a big big impact on your life or maybe like a close family member had that you were like, "Oh, you just need an iron supplement." And you just saw it made all the world of a difference. I think omega omega-3 fatty acids were one where I mean it's I've I've seen changes in family members in their in their blood biomarkers and it's just like night and day. I mean doctors are also just like keep doing what you're doing. Um, so I think that was a big one. And also not only for blood biomarkers, but um, my dad has Parkinson's and I got him on omega-3 years and I mean he's had it he's had it for about nine years now and really hasn't progressed much. And I had I immediately got him on a really high dose of omega-3 and his neurologist is like keep doing what you're doing because this is amazing. And so I think that also is a a big you know reinforcing I would say factor that hey these things make a difference in and not only preventing disease but like slowing disease pro progression particularly when it's a bad disease like Parkinson's.

>> And then on the omega-3 uh would you say that the average omega-3 supplement that someone has in their cabinet is effective? Um, so omega-3, unfortunately, supplements in general are a pretty bad it's it's not regulated. It's not FDA regulated. People are just kind of making stuff and, you know, it it may not have enough omega-3 in there. It may not be good quality.

>> Do you think they should be?

>> I I go back and forth on this. I don't really want I don't think I want them to be regular. I don't want to have to like get a prescription for it for sure. like I want to just go get my vitamin C and all that. So, I do like that I can just have that freedom, but it would be nice to have a middle ground where it's like, hey, you can't just like go produce these things in China and have a bunch of heavy metals and cadmium and like no active ingredient in it. Like, I feel like there should be some like repercussions. There's not. There's not. I mean, so that that I, you know, I think that I'd like to see some kind of middle ground area where that we have some some more, but we have third-party testing and that's what I use. So, the omega-3s in the cabinet, not ideal. You want them refrigerated because you want to you want to lower the oxidation. Omega-3s are very prone to oxidation. Being exposed to oxygen can cause them to be damaged and cause them to be um oxidized. You don't want to really consume oxidized lipids, oxidized fat. But um so you want to get put it in the fridge instead of the cabinet, but also want to make sure that you're getting a good quality supplement. So you want to look for third-party testing and making sure that they have the amounts of omega-3 that says on the nutrition facts because by and large people don't have those amounts and uh you want to make sure it's not, you know, it doesn't have a bunch of contaminating factors like mercury, PCBs, right? So and and third-party testing exists and you can find good quality supplements. You just have to look up the third party testing and say, "Oh, these brands have been have passed the test." Right? I I like I like to use a um Consumer Lab. Consumer Lab I don't have any affiliation with them, but they're basically like you pay a yearly fee. I don't remember how much it is, but they they third party test everything from protein supplements to, you know, regular fish oil supplements to tea, everything. So like anything you're going to be consuming, they do they go off and they go out and get all these like supplements out of the grocery store shelf and test it and say, "Hey, is this really legit?" So it's nice. It's nice to have that data.

>> Yeah, it's really fascinating. I'm kind of rethinking that we talked about methylene blue before this podcast and I'm like it'd probably be more efficacious if I put it in the refrigerator, right? Since it's antioxidative.

>> Yeah. I mean, I don't know that methylene blue I don't Yeah, I mean,

>> but there are some things that have to be like in different temperature environments.

>> I would say that that omega-3 is unique because it really does have it really it's very prone to oxidation. So, that would be one that really should be refrigerated. But um the methylene blue probably already in and of itself is antioxidative. So it's like probably a little more protected if it's not in the refrigerator.

>> But then the question is where's your source of methylene blue? What's in it? Because none of this stuff is reg. And that's the problem with these peptides. I there's so much hype now. Um and my biggest concern isn't that they don't work. I mean peptides work if it's legit a legit peptide. The problem is like 99% of all these peptides are being sourced in like China and you know they're full of all sorts of contaminants. There have been some studies looking at that. So unless you're like getting a GLP1 from like a physician that there's a couple of compoundingies in the US that are making you know GLP1s for like some of the big guys but like all these like BPC 157 and all the repair and Wolverine and all that like these are this is like the wild west man. This is like um the concern is like what are you injecting? You know what are you injecting? But it's the age-old problem. It's the same problem with supplements. There's so many studies out there now showing that supplements, you know, a large percentage of them don't contain the active component of what's said on the nutrition facts or they have a little bit too little. Some of them have too much like melatonin. Some melatonin supplements have like a hundred times more than what's said on the nut. Can you imagine like like giving that to a kid or something? It's got 100 times more melatonin. It's just not

>> I believe that because I've taken melatonin and some days like I felt like I slept for two days, you know?

>> Froggy when you wake up and you're just like what?

>> Right.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I believe it's it's more e like effective to uh like micro dose melatonin too, right?

>> Yeah. You don't want a really large dose of melatonin for that reason where like you're it's hard to clear it from your system.

>> You know, you're going to wake up really groggy. So, so doing doing you know I I you know it's some some researchers will say less than 3 milligrams. I think 3 milligrams is fine, but you you know some there was at least one study showing like the microgram range, but there's a lot of studies that have looked at 3 milligrams and that's been pretty good. So, we have colon cancer rising 3% every year. Testosterone dropping 1% every year. Uh based on grip strength, we're raising the weakest generation of men in history, and their sperm counts are down 50% over the last 50 years. Aside from a few of the things we've talked about, just big picture, if a guy is listening to this right now and wants to fight back, what are some everyday items quietly poisoning young men?

>> Everyday items quietly poisoning young men? I mean, water, food, air. I mean, those are everything.

>> Your phone. Yeah.

>> Um, yeah. So I think unfortunately the water is a big source of some of I mean if we're talking about microplastics and associated chemicals it's coming from water and it's coming from our food and um it's coming from the air we breathe and so things that you know to consider I mean do you want to hear solutions or do you want to talk about that later? I think I would say if your question is just identifying what they are.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious of what they all are because I I'm actually not sure how air is bad and like how you would even optimize for that. Yeah.

>> Yeah. Okay. So, water, microplastics, nanoplastics, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, you know, we got all sorts of stuff in our water, right? So, and that's that's like a big source of of microplastics and stuff in our in our system. So, that would be one getting a water filter. A reverse osmosis water filter is great. Any activated carbon water filter is good to be honest. um to food, right? So, we're the more ultrarocessed and processed foods you eat, the more you're getting a lot of these plastic chemicals, particularly if you're eating out, if you're having to go because the food is being put into plastic hot, that's dramatically increasing the breakdown of microplastics and their chemicals into your food. In fact, there was a study showing that like heating up food or or beverages causes like 50fold more plastic chemicals to go into the the food and beverage. And it's the same the same with microplastics. So, Whole Foods, cook your own food. You know, I I don't I don't know how else to say that. To go coffees, big big big source. People going out and getting their coffee to go. Plastic cups. You may think, "Oh, it's in a paper cup." No, it's lined with plastic. So, you're putting this hot beverage into that plastic and it's again, you're drinking plast microplastics and you're drinking um you know, the chemicals.

>> What if you're just drinking like an iced coffee? Is that okay? Have you watched them make the iced coffee? If they don't put the ice in first, I would I mean, so essentially the shot of espresso goes into the plastic cup.

>> If you have a bunch of ice there to buffer it, it's a little better, right? But yeah, it's you're still getting the iced. It's better than getting hot, right?

>> It's better if you're like you need to get your coffee, you're on the go, you're traveling, for sure. Even on a cold day, I would say if you can't drink it in the mug or bring your own mug, which is often what I do. Do I bring my own? Like I'll bring like a Yeti mug and have them make it. Most of the time they'll do it. Sometimes they're like, "Can't do that. I got to do the I got to pour it from here to there." And I'm like, "That defeats the purpose."

>> You bring a Yeti to Starbucks.

>> I do.

>> I I do. I bring it with me. I travel in the airport. I bring it to the airport. I have them make my, you know, latte or whatever in most of the time they'll do it. Like I said, certain businesses, it's kind of random. I don't know if it's the people working there. They're like, I don't want to deal with this. You know, I don't know. Po possibly. But I do. I bring my own my own my own uh Yeti mug because I it's like I can't do it. Like it's like a pro like all I can think about is I'm drinking plastic and like BPA, right? So, um that's another thing I think people aren't realizing is slowly like poisoning them. And then again, all the foods and to- go foods you're not thinking about like that stuff is hot. It's going into your it's going into your food. Anything that's acidic or spicy in a plastic container. So salad dressing in those little plastic containers or your condiments that are in plastic. If you get hot sauce or ketchup, it's full of plastic and they're chemicals. Like this is stuff people aren't thinking about, but it's there because the acidity is doing kind of what heat does. It's causing it to leech into the to your condiments. So that's another thing. I mean, not to drive you crazy, but like you know, it is something to think about.

>> Do you bring your own sauces when you go out? I usually am just not using the sauce or um like I like to I when I buy my own condiments I get for I go for the glass, you know? So it's like glass and salsa, glass and the ketchup. Like Primal Kitchen makes a lot of nice and they have a lot of glass um things.

>> Um sometimes I'll just like deal with it. I'm like, "All right, just live this once. You're going to like you got to live life." I like I want this dressing on my salad or whatever. Uh if I'm on a long flight, but um oftentimes I'll just pass on it because I'm like, "Oh, it's like full of plastic."

>> Right. I remember the sentiment about

>> So you I I do want to close the loop really quick. You said water.

>> Food.

>> Yeah. Water, food, air. So what's air? Yeah.

>> Air. Yes. So we are breathing in tons of microplastics. And this can can segue if you want to talk about the brain and microplastics in the brain. This is why I think they're in there majority reason why. Um so plastics are our whole like environment is like made of plastic, right? I mean plastic is like you I'm sure this even table that seems to be wood. I mean plastic is on our couches. It's you know tires that are driving on the the highway and the road. It's not just rubber. It's plastic polymers mixed in there. The friction is making microplastics in the air. Carpet, upholstery, clothing, um, everything. You know, you wash your clothes and then you turn on the dryer. All those clothes are made of plastic polymers and it's going into the air. So, particularly in urban environments, there's particulate matter. You've heard of that air pollution, plastic particles are in that particulate matter. So, we are breathing them in all all the time. And, and the more of the urban the environment, the more you're breathing it in. So, um, I have hepailters like in every room in my house to filter out the air and the microplastics. And that's a a solution at least while you're at home where you're sleeping and you want to, you know, you're spending a lot of time at home, you want to be able to filter that air out.

>> But, um, people aren't realizing that. And then, you know, clothing, all these clothing that we're wearing, I would say that's less of a concern. Although, some of the athletic clothing, you're sweating in it. your the chemicals from the plastic are like you know you do absorb especially when you're hot when you heat yourself it opens up your pores to take in stuff better. There's a dermal barrier. So the majority of you know these toxic chemicals like plastic chemicals are getting in our body because orally we're we're inhaling it. Inhaling it essentially bypasses the bloodb brain barrier. It goes like straight. It's like a straight gateway to our brain essentially which is why a lot of drugs are delivered like I worked at a a children's cancer like St. Children's Research Hospital which is pediatric cancer and the big problem with you know a lot of these like brain cancers like leoplast or medoblasto that like kids will get is you can't get the drugs the cancer drugs to their brain because of the bloodb brain barrier and so you know the bypass for that is like we're going to make drugs that you inhale you breathe it in because it gets into the brain right so we're breathing in these plastic particles guess what it's getting into the brain

>> and so um

>> that's another thing and the clothing I mentioned I be like less like not as much of a concern but it's still something I would say to answer your question that you know quietly poisoning you um would be that as well

>> the water portion a lot I I remember hearing this sentiment about like there's plastic in the water and it's lowering your testosterone and my solution was uh like drink out of I I think I had a reverse osmosis filter for a bit and and I saw some counter thing that was like, uh, this isn't as nutritious as typical water. Uh, so I got vitamins put in it. It's like, it's still not good enough. So, we've just opted for drinking like glass water bottles, like a can of water, uh, occasionally plastic water bottles, but is that pretty much just as bad as drinking tap water in your view?

>> So, aluminum cans are lined with plastic,

>> right? and that plastic is leeching into that water or beverage and that's definitely not a great thing. Same with plastic. So plast drinking water out of plastic bottles, you know, because these bottles they're like they're going they're on ships to get here. They're on you know you know these big trucks and it's hot and like who know like the temperature is right. You get it cold when you're like getting it from the store but it wasn't always cold you know. So the these there's plastic in them. In fact, there you do drink you get more plastic particles from drinking out of the plastic bottle than you do from from um tap water. But there's a lot in tap water. Reverse osmosis. I mean, it is it is better. It's better. You can add minerals back. You can take a mineral supplement, which is what I do. That's the biggest concern. If you're eating a diverse diet, if you're on a carnivore diet, yeah, okay, like you're not getting enough. But like if you're eating a diverse diet and you're taking like a like a multivitamin, a lot of those trace elements and stuff are in those as well. So, I would say reverse osmosis is is the king when it comes to to drinking water because you're getting rid of the nanoplastics, you're getting rid of all the chemicals, you're getting rid of all that stuff. Forever chemicals, the PAS, they're in tap water. So, that is um I would say the gold standard. And yeah,

>> did they find microplastics in glass water bottles?

>> Yes. So, microplastics are also in glass water bottles as well. I know it was so heartbreaking for me. But um and it wasn't actually the first study to show that. There's I did a deep dive into that. There's other studies showing that as well. It comes it's coming from the paint on the lids.

>> So there's paint on the lids and during the manufacturing and bottling of it. I mean, you know, all these little things are like we can't see them, but they're like coming off and getting into the water. The saving grace for me is that the studies have looked at the size of the microplastics and compared them to like microplastics in water coming from a plastic water bottle. The size is bigger from the glass bottle because it's coming from paint than the plastic bottle which is coming from the plastic itself. And that makes a big difference in the ability of your gut to absorb it. So it's it's actually you actually don't absorb all the microplastics that that are getting into your gut. a small fraction of them actually. And the more fiber you eat, guess what? Less you're absorbing. Um, the bigger the plastic particle, the less likely you your gut is going to absorb it. It's the smaller particles, the nanoplastics, which is what you'll find in plastic water bottles that are really easily getting across these gut epithelial cells and the barrier that they make. So, size matters. And I do think that um is something. And I so when I'm traveling I do still when I get to my hotel one of the first things I do is I instacart glass water from glass because I can't I just can't drink out of plastic. It's really hard for me to drink. Um I I don't have like I have some I know some people that really have gone far and they're like when they're traveling they get all their water from fruit. Like there like I can't do that. Like I'm not that extreme. Like I will drink out of a plastic bottle if I have to but I prefer not to.

>> Right. But glass water overall better than tap water you would say?

>> Um I would say yeah.

>> Okay. Interesting.

>> Yeah. But particularly, you know, it depends on where you're at too. Like

>> you know, I spent six years living in Memphis, Tennessee. They have these really great aquifer like natural filter system there. The tap water there is actually pretty clean, right?

>> So, let me let me modify my statement and say it depends. If we're talking about Southern California, yes, definitely better. If we're talking about somewhere with somewhere that has a nice natural aquifer that's filtering water naturally through the ground, um maybe maybe better to drink that than than the glass certainly, but then the plastic.

>> Does sleeping next to your phone kill your sperm?

>> I've been really interested in this question, not only sperm, but just like is it going to give you brain cancer? Right. Um and I I would say the no. I would say no. But I would also say only because I would caveat it because we're we're now in the year 2026. And so I let's let's look at what the data shows. Okay. The probably the best evidence that has linked mobile phones to sperm count was this really big study out of Switzerland. Have you seen this study?

>> Okay. There's a very large study out of Switzerland and it looked at mobile phone use and sperm count and it found that guys men that use their phone 20 times a day had like you know 20% lower sperm count than men that use their phones less than once a week. First of all, who uses their phone less than once a week? Like I want to know

>> probably high testosterone people

>> like Right. Yeah. But um so that was the main finding from that study. That study then went on to look at location of the phone.

>> So like if your if the phone was in the trouser like did that affect sperm count? It did not. It it it was just having like using the mobile phone a lot like having it like around you a lot. So it wasn't like location really mattered. Um but then it went on to even compare 2G to 3G like to 5G, right? No, actually it only compared 2G to 3G to I think maybe 4G.

>> And what what was found in that study was that it was really the 2G that was causing the the that was associated with the low sperm count. As they went up to like the 3G, they weren't seeing any effect on sperm count. And um there have been follow-up studies now that have also looked at that and some some in cell culture studies where they take sperm semen put it in a like petri dish expose it to 2G they expose it to 3G or 5G and then they look and see how it affects you know morphology and function and all these things. And it turns out that because as we like went up to 5G, the radio frequency and like that sort of transmission is much more efficient instead of like constantly searching and searching and searching. It's really quick at getting it. And so you're you're the sperm are not being exposed to that radio frequency as much, right? That EMF um radiation uh radio frequency as much. And so I think now 5G is much better than the 4G. And in fact, there's even studies that have found that if you look at like the year 2000 to like 2006 or something like that where it was 2G, like that's where you see the big sperm count drop. But then like as it gets to like 3G, 4G, you're not seeing the same effects. So it's a bit nuanced. I think to be careful, it's best to probably not sleep with your phone right next to you. I mean, these days the problem is no one has a landline and so if there's an emergency, you want to be able to answer that call. So maybe like have your phone on but maybe like far from you and have, you know, your call list with the emergency numbers that can punch through or whatever. Or just get a landline. There are landlines now that you can get um that you can have a contact list. Like I I have a kid and so like this is like a big thing that there's like like a tin can phone where like we have all the the classmates um where it's like you have a it's a landline and the classmates are on your you know you have a contact list and no one can call that to your phone unless they're on your list. You can always call 911 but you no one can there's no spammers, no predators, like no none of that can happen. And so that's kind of cool as well. I think that it doesn't have to be just kids that use them. I think adults can get them too because then you can only have people on your contact list that can call you in the middle of the night and they're probably not going to call you in the middle of the night unless there's an emergency. Um my point is that I do think it's better to be on the safe side. I'm not convinced that there's still not an effect. Um but I do think it's a bit nuanced where it's like now oh there was this robust effect particularly when it was 2G. So we have to kind of like keep that in our perspective here where you know there's a difference now right like we're not it's like our transmission is much more efficient right and that's kind of part of the problem where it's like constantly putting out that signal and that's the damaging signal right

>> right I'm kind of I I want to understand this so me personally I sleep with my phone on airplane mode uh because I can tell a difference if there's like some frequency or something moving like I I I just sleep better Um, like you could ask my wife. I'm like, "Uh, hey, is your phone on airplane mode?" And she's like, "No." I'm like, "Okay, can you turn airplane mode on? Like I can't sleep." Um, and like works very well. Maybe that's just my experience, but like how does the 2G 5G, you're saying that since the networks are faster and the frequencies transmit faster and they don't have to keep searching that that's

>> better for you? Like I'm I'm kind of confused on that. Yeah, it's it's basically you're not being exposed to it as much, right? When it immediately finds the it's not like transmitting that signal like like hitting your brain or your testicles, right? It's like it picks it up efficiently. Does that mean there's no effect? No, it doesn't. It doesn't mean that. I'm just saying I don't think it's as bad as the 2G was. I think you know you know people that are using those Bluetooths and things that are like always like constantly next to their brain.

>> Do you wear AirPods?

>> I do sometimes and I have to like go back to like the old school. I just haven't I just haven't cuz I got a new phone. My other phone I my older phone I was plugging in I was plugging in the the old like earphones but now I have to get the new ones because the the plug-in thing is different, right, for the new iPhone. Um, but yeah, I don't wear AirPods a lot. I wear them occasionally like like on a 25 minute run, you know, where it's like I and it's like very I I don't wear them a lot. I don't think you should wear them a lot. I do kind of worry a little bit because it's just right next to your brain. But again, this is all like it's all the un like we don't have enough data on it. I think I think the data that has linked mobile phones to sperm, a lot of it is is coming from that 2G era where they're looking they're looking back at like the 2000s and and you know, so but that doesn't mean I don't think there's no concern at all. I just think it might not be as bad as it was.

>> Now, we discussed hot tubs uh and how those can lower men's sperm count. Uh, do you think weed is killing young men's fertility?

>> I know for a fact that tobacco smoke does, which is interesting because our grandparents were probably smoking a lot back in the day and yet our the sperm is still lower now. Um, there's a few I think it's more nuanced with cannabis to be honest. I I have come across studies over the, you know, years and like the stuff just kind of comes to my radar. I like to read new studies when I'm drinking coffee in the morning. There's studies I've come across from like in like the fertility clinics looking at like infertility problems and stuff and it seems like there is an association with cannabis use and like sperm morphology.

>> It's not as clear, but I would say for someone that's wanting to conceive, definitely cut that out.

>> Definitely cut that out. Um, if I were to just go on opinion here, because again the data is very nuanced and we don't have enough of it, I think it's probably affecting sperm.

>> We've talked about plastics, but I want to understand a different type of plastic. I What is black plastic and why is it so dangerous?

>> Black plastic? Well, it's dark. It's black. Um, black plastic is something that came on my radar, I don't know, probably like year and a half, two, two years ago maybe. And it came on my radar from like this study that was talking about how black plastic has all these flame retardants in it. Flame retardants are carcinogenic. Um, it's something that firemen are unfortunately exposed to a lot. And the reason these black plastics have flame retardants in them is because they're often made from recycled electronics. Electronics, flame retardants are added to electronics to prevent fires, right? And so when you have I mean it's a great thing to recycle, of course, great for the environment, but when you're recycling electronics and then putting it into like plastic that's going to be used for food or for cooking, then that's a whole other problem, right? We don't want to be consuming carcinogens. We don't want to be consuming flame retardants. And um you'll see, you know, everything from plastic utensils like forks and stuff like, you know, that people have at birthday parties or parties. The bigger problem here is the cooking utensils, the black spatulas, the black spoons, things that are going to be heated up because when you heat up, it's the it's the it's the same common denominator with everything. when you heat it, you're going to, you know, leech the plastics and the chemicals into your food or whatever you're consuming much more, right? Um, the other problem is, and this really was like a bad like moment for me because I had eaten so many rotisserie chickens in my life, but like when you order those rotiss, you think you're eating healthy, like I'm getting like, you know, nice good piece of protein. The bottom of that chicken's like black plastic, thin black plastic, and the chickens put in it hot. So you're talking about like not only getting microplastics but the the brminated chemicals. The brminated chemicals are the flame retardants which are carcinogenic. So that um is a problem. Now the study had identified the levels of these brominated chemicals that were getting into food. It has now been retracted like they they had overestimated. So, but it's still a high amount and that's why I'm not citing the amount anymore because now it's not actually um it's been retracted in terms of like that number. They did a statistical error, but um

>> was that recently?

>> Yeah. But the point is is that is that it's the these plastics still have these, you know, brominated chemicals in them. And the only, you know, the only thing is is that maybe it's not 30 to 40 times as much as safe, but maybe it's like 20 or 15, you know, whatever the number is, like if you're daily consuming this stuff, if you're using black spatulas and you're eating to- go food that has black plastic and it's being heated up, that's a lot of exposures. you know, it adds up. So, it's something that I'm still very concerned about and I think that it's time to phase it out, honestly. You know, like we have all this information now. The problem is it's cheap. The black plastic is like cheap. Like I I I've talked to like some people that are um you know, friends with restaurant owners, like some friends of mine that have friends that are restaurant owners and like they are trying to convince them to stop using it and they're like, "No, it's cheaper."

>> So, they're incentivized to use it. So, black plastics are derived from like recycled electronics. And then I should really know the answer to this. My dad used to work at a plastic bottle factory when I was younger. Uh, but like what are normal plastics derived from?

>> Um, I mean, well, plastics are made from some of these. They're polymers. Sometimes they're made from recycled things. Not all plastics are recycled. Um, but they're they're made from it's a variety of different things, right? I mean, there's so many different types of plastic polymers, but that's what's making up plastics themselves. Um, and if you're just asking like if some if some of the other plastics are recycled, they are. Like these water bottles, the thin flimsy ones like they're made from and unfortunately recycled plastic is is less stable. Um, and so it's like leeching more plastics easier. So, it's good for the environment, not great for us.

>> Recycled plastic is less stable.

>> Yeah. Like you know that flimsy plastic water bottle. Like

>> that's interesting because I guess since the invention of plastic, we would just see more and more recycled plastic over time. So, it just gets weaker and weaker. That's interesting.

>> Yeah.

>> The flimsy plastic is the worst. It's like the one that's like leeching everything.

>> How about styrofoam?

>> Styrofoam also has chemicals. I think it might even have some some of the forever chemicals on it. It's not good. Especially putting hot liquid into it,

>> right? Interesting.

>> Yeah. All that stuff. I mean,

>> is there one statistic you've seen about plastic? Like, have you mapped out maybe um just since we started using plastic to all the different ways that end our life quicker? Like, have you looked at anything like that?

>> I mean, these studies are really it's like a growing field. And I think the thing that is the statistic that was most compelling to me is the the microplastics in the brain that so there was a study out of Brazil and they looked at a variety of different organs. All of them had plastics in them but the brain had 10 to 20 times more plastic particles than any other organ. And to me it was completely shocking because I know that we have this thing called

The blood-brain barrier to protect our brain from this very thing, right? From chemicals and toxins and all sorts of stuff getting in there. And so that was a very shocking statistic and also a very eye-opening, I think, piece of data because, um, it really highlights how this is a problem. The plastic is ubiquitous. It's getting into our body and it's getting into our brains.

And that same study also looked at post-mortem, so people that had died, people that had died and had Alzheimer's disease, and it looked at people that died that did not have Alzheimer's disease. And it found that people that had Alzheimer's disease, when they did biopsies of their brain, they had like 10 times more microplastics in their brain than people that did not have Alzheimer's disease.

And we also know from many studies that air pollution is probably, now I would say, one of the like top environmental causes of Alzheimer's disease. Air pollution being particulate matter. There have been studies out of Mexico City where air pollution is really bad. They're finding amyloid beta plaques. This is like, this is supposed to be happening when you're like old, and it's associated with it's a pathological feature of Alzheimer's disease. It's disrupting the synapses, you know, the connection between neurons. It's how neurons like form a memory. It's how they're talking to each other, right? It's disrupting those. They're finding it in the brains of babies. So, babies that have died for whatever reason, unfortunately, post-mortem, they've found amyloid plaques in these brains, you know, of babies living in Mexico City where air pollution is bad. It's crazy.

So, um, getting back to that story, you know, we're breathing in these plastics, and I think that that is why we have 10 to 20 times more plastic in our brain than we do in any other organ because there's two ways to get there. One, nanoplastics that get through our gut, get into circulation. Nanoplastics can get across the blood-brain barrier. But then we have this whole other way of breathing. No one's shown this. It's kind of just a theory, and I'm sure someone's going to show it. It makes perfect sense, you know. So, we've got two ways to get it into our brain.

And I think, you know, knowing just knowing what we know, there have been studies in animals looking at microplastics in the brain. What are they doing? They're causing inflammation. Plastic in your brain. It's causing inflammation. Inflammation is a known driver. It's called neuroinflammation. It's a known driver of Alzheimer's disease, of dementia. And so when you're having this low-grade, starting as a baby, plastic in your brain, and it's just, you know, decade after decade after decade, like that stuff's going to add up, right? It's going to accelerate the, you know, Alzheimer's disease. It's going to accelerate brain aging. It's going to, it also affects, you know, neuroinflammation affects mood. It's it's also involved in depression. I mean, there have been studies showing that you can literally like just inject a healthy, normal young person with bacteria, like not even bacteria, but like the outer membrane of bacteria. It's called endotoxin. It's something that we release into our bloodstream when our we have gut permeability or leaky gut, as it's called. Um, and you can cause depressive symptoms in a normal person compared to injecting them with just like a saline placebo control. So, we know inflammation, like just acutely, can cause depressive symptoms. And so you don't want to have that chronic neuroinflammation going on because not only is it accelerating brain aging, not only is it, you know, making you have a higher risk of age-related, you know, neurodegenerative diseases, but it's affecting your mood. It's also affecting cognition. When you have inflammation going on, guess what? You're not sharp.

That inflammation is a huge energy sink. Like, whatever energy is going on, like that's why when you're sick, like you're so tired because like activation of your immune system, the activation of your immune system requires a ton of energy. And so it's being triaged to that activation to fight off the pathogen, like your body wants you to survive and not die, right? And so the energy is being triaged away from your brain and it's going to activate your immune system. The same thing is happening, you know, when you have low-grade chronic inflammation going on. And it is kind of like this cause of what people call brain fog. Brain fog, uh, in my opinion, is it's like chronic low-grade inflammation that people have.

It's caused by excess visceral fat tissue. It's caused by excess fat, obesity, visceral fat. It's caused by, you know, eating tons of refined sugar, gut permeability causes inflammation, you know, it's caused by poor diet. It's caused by microplastics. It's caused by not getting enough sleep. So many things can can lead to inflammation. Yeah. So that's that's like what's causing my brain fog. It's like, oh my gosh, where do we start? Right? I mean, there's so many things that can be causing it. This chronic inflammation is a is a, it's a big pro. Being sedentary, you know, sedentary and obesity, like these things, particularly the visceral fat, and because it's really, really increasing those inflammatory cytokines.

Let me know if I'm getting this right. I'm trying to understand. But so essentially, like eating a donut lowers your testosterone theoretically. Uh, like these small one-time, uh, habits aren't that bad for you, but it's just when you develop them consistently, like everything stacks up. And then just having excess fat or having microplastics. Like, are those microplastics flushing out of your body, or are we just having them so consistently that eventually they stay? Like, it seems like there's short-term problems that hurt you, then there's habits that build that keep you in that lowered state, and then there's like long-term storage of excess fat and visceral fat that just cause long-term damage. Like, as far as the plastics go, are they cycling out?

You're thinking about this, right? Um, let me start with your sugar question. But yes, when you eat like 75 grams of sugar, testosterone goes down like 20, 25%. It's transient. It'll go back up. You're right. If you're like having a donut once and you're cheating, whatever, you know, it's the it's the habit. It's like the daily, like then you're also eating your cookies, and then you're also like all the ultra-processed foods and all the, all that adds up. Microplastics, when it comes to microplastics, they bioaccumulate. They, there's no, once they get into circulation, there's no point of return. There's no way out. They don't get excreted. They accumulate. They bioaccumulate. Chemicals, the chemicals associated. So, these microplastics are bad for multiple reasons. One is they themselves are causing inflammation, and that's the problem with the bioaccumulation because they're going to continue to do that. Um, the second problem is the chemicals that are on them, that are in them, right? They're they're also damaging things, but those do get excreted. They get excreted through urine, um, or feces, depending on which chemical we're talking about. BPA goes through urine. Forever chemicals stay a lot longer. They go through feces. But, um, so, so you do excrete those chemicals, but the plastics themselves, they stay.

Um, for now, the best way we can defend ourselves against them, I think, is one, doing the reverse osmosis filter, the air filter, trying to limit our intake of food that's in all the plastic because that stuff is, you think you're getting this great salad, it's like in the plastic, and the plastic's like shedding, adding particles. Now, you know, maybe you go to the grocery store and you get a plastic, you're traveling, whatever, you get the plastic salad. Okay, it's probably not been in that plastic for that long, so maybe not the worst thing, right? It's the hot food, the hot food and plastic for sure. Try to eliminate that as much as possible. So you want to try to eliminate like drinking water out of a plastic bottle, like all those things we talked about. But also, I think the fiber because you, if you are getting it, like you want to like give your body like the best chance it has to not absorbing it because that's where you really can make a difference. Once it's in the system, once it's in the blood, I mean, there's some people wanting to do, you know, plasma exchange and all that, but like we don't really know how much that makes a big difference. And it's constantly getting into your blood. How many times are you going to do that? Okay, one day, great. Tomorrow you wake up and like the next day, and then you're being exposed to plastics constantly.

I guess the goal is to make yourself just as resilient as possible, and you don't see it as like, oh, just do this fast and that will get rid of it, right?

I, I love how you said that. Make yourself as resilient as possible because your body is really resilient. You just have to give it the right tools and do the right things to make it resilient. Like, for example, the fiber, right? Like if you are eating the fiber, you're not going to be absorbing as many microplastics or nanoplastics. Um, if you're eating broccoli or broccoli sprouts or cruciferous vegetables, like, you know, cabbage or kale or cauliflower, bok choy, all that family that has a chemical in it that gets converted into something called sulforaphane that is able to help increase the excretion of some of these chemicals, benzene for one, and air pollution. I think BPA, um, because it's the same, the same enzymes that are involved in excreting benzene also are involved in BPA. And so, you know, studies have shown that sulforaphane does excrete the benzene. I just think that needs to be shown. So, um, I think that if you give your body the right nutrients and you do the right things, I mean, exercise, you're causing the whole thing of, you know, part of exercise is that you're causing inflammation and oxidative stress because you're working your body, and your body adapts and it upregulates. You've got hundreds of genes that are anti-inflammatory and antioxidant. Way more than taking methylene blue. Like that pales in comparison to what your body can do in terms of antioxidant capacity. Glutathione is the most beneficial antioxidant in the brain and body, and, you know, exercise can help activate that. Sulforaphane also does that as well. So, if you, if you're doing these things, you'll have your body is is making and activating all these beneficial anti-inflammatory and antioxidant pathways because it dealt with that inflammation and and that oxidative stress that you generated from exercise. But it also stays active for like days, you know, 48 hours or so. Like, so like you're you're protected for a period of time. And so you can make your body more resilient. The more you give yourself the right foods, and the more that you engage in the right activities, and stay away from things that like excessive alcohol drinking, binge drinking, you know, that's a terrible thing for colon cancer as well. Try to do the, try to, you know, engage in the right habits, and that's going to make you more resilient because, guess what? Like, we are going to be exposed to this stuff constantly. Like you're talking about, well, maybe I should do the carnivore diet because like all the vegetables and fruits are full of pesticides. That's the wrong way to think about it. You know what? These fruits and vegetables have the compounds that activate glutathione. They activate our stress response pathways. We like evolved eating them. And and in fact, like there's many different, I'm talking about sulforaphane as one example because it activates a master pathway in our body called NRF2, which activates detoxification enzymes. When you eat, you know, broccoli or broccoli sprouts, even better, it has 100 times more of this compound I'm talking about, um, the precursor to make sulforaphane. It's called glucoraphanin. It is the strongest dietary activator of this pathway that activates phase 2 detoxification enzymes that make your body detoxify benzene, acrylates, I think BPA, um, heterocyclic amines. There are studies showing that people that eat a bunch of charred meat, they have a lower colon cancer incidence if they also eat broccoli. If they don't, they have a higher one. It's negating some of the bad effects of like charring your meat because the phase 2 detoxification enzymes. The other thing it does is it deactivates something in our body called phase one biotransformation enzymes. These are the enzymes that convert these like procarcinogens into carcinogens in our gut, in our body. And you want that not active, right? And so when you eat the right foods, like our body can handle stress, like our body is strong and resilient. We just have to give it the tools and and and, you know, put the stress on it that we're supposed to. That comes from eating a diverse diet full of plant phytochemicals. The phytochemicals doing a lot of great things in the body. Exercising, right? Like that's something that we talked about. You used to, we used to do it just part of life. Now we have to make time for it. Like it's non-negotiable. Like you want to be resilient because you can't eliminate plastic. It's not going to happen. Like it's just impossible, right? But you can do what you can to like lower and minimize your risk, but you can also do the things to make you more resilient. And so I love, like, you, you got me on my like thing. I love that you said resilient because I, I think that that's the take-home here is that we are resilient. We just have to give our body the right tools to, um, make it resilient.

Yeah. I think that we're taught, at least, uh, I don't know, just in school nutrition class and commercials. I mean, that's pretty much the average person's, uh, health education, like that it's not about resilience and like it's just like eat your fruits and vegetables and don't think about it. Uh, and then people hear this negative sentiment about fruits and vegetables, so they just turn away from it completely, and they never get the resilience portion. Uh, I can say at least in my own life, like I struggle with an allergy to fruits and vegetables, something called oral allergy syndrome. Uh, and when I took, I think I drink, uh, a friend of mine, he's like an intense carnivore. He was like, "Well, Jack, it's because you're not drinking, um, enough raw milk. You're not eating like raw, uh, meat." Something like that. And I did try raw milk, and then I ate fruit, and it had way less of a bad effect. So, I know that this is a very real phenomenon. Uh, I'm just curious of your thoughts on raw milk in general, though.

Well, I mean, you're getting a lot of different probiotics in there. So it's like a lot of allergies originate in the gut, right? I mentioned that the gut is responsible for making something called T-regulatory cells. Like, like these things all play a role in allergies, in autoimmune disease. Like, so there's a big, big correlation between allergies and gut health. And so if you're giving yourself the probiotics and the beneficial bacteria and stuff in something like raw milk, there's other sources of of that as well, then it makes sense that you would have less of an allergic response because you're really just supplying your gut with the right bacteria, um, so that it's now able to ferment that vegetables and those things in the right way, right? You're you're giving it the right bacteria that maybe wasn't there.

And I guess when I was a child as well, uh, like children are often more resilient in general to a lot of different things. Well, I mean, I I guess there's the case that people say that they grow out of certain allergies, and then there's the case where people.

It goes either way. It, it goes either way. I mean, some people do grow out of some allergies, but, um, as as an adult, you know, gets older and their gut, if they have poor gut health and gut permeability, allergies can form because the gut permeability is essentially allowing them to form. So, it can go both ways. But I think, you know, the thing with fruit and vegetables is that people think about it as, I've made a case for fiber, and I think that I don't even think that the carnivore people are thinking, they they think fiber is just about like making you poop, and it's really not. It's really not. It's a, like you're literally like protecting your your body from absorbing all these chemicals and like microplastics and stuff. The viscous stuff that's made, like you're not getting that with meat. You're not.

Fiber is the thing that makes you full as well, right?

It is satiating. Yes, it is satiating. And I'm saying fiber. There's different types. We talked about it, right? But also when people think about fruits and vegetables, they only think about the vitamins and minerals. It's the phytochemicals. Those are the things that I'm talking about. This is the sulforaphane, the resveratrol, the curcumin. These are things I'm just mentioning ones that people have heard about. There's, I mean, literally thousands and thousands and thousands of them. So many we haven't even identified. Ones that we have identified. I mean, it's, they are activating genetic pathways in our body like we were meant. There are gene sequences of DNA that have been identified like little short, like 12 repeats of like nucleotides that get active when you eat certain phytochemicals. Like that's amazing. It's amazing. And it's like the fact that we have a sequence, like it's got to be in a certain sequence, and they're in all these different pathways that are involved in making stem cells, in increasing autophagy, the clearing out of stuff in our body, in, you know, inflammatory, antioxidant, everything that's part of what I would say resilience, right? Stress response, the response to stress, adaptations to stress, right? We have like these genes have this very specific sequence in them, antioxidant response element, it's called, and it's like a very specific sequence of DNA that's activated by things like polyphenols and blueberries, by sulforaphane and cruciferous vegetables, um, by like some of these compounds in like, you know, turmeric and root, fruit, root vegetables and stuff. Um, it's, it's found in like citrus. I mean, it makes sense, right? Like we're supposed to eat these things. It's activating genetic pathways in our body. They're meant to be turned on. And, um, you know, blueberries, there's study, there's so many now randomized control trials that have tested blueberry powder to like placebo powder, and literally like a cup of blueberries a day improves cognitive performance. It, it improves processing speed, memory. I mean, and this is like, how easy is it to eat a cup of blue, blueberries are so good. They're so good. They're low sugar, low glycemic. They've got the fermentable fiber in it, and they have the polyphenols. Like, you just can't lose. Like they have everything. They have everything, and they make me feel better when I, like, it's affecting my mood as well. So, I love to eat blueberries. Just don't eat them. Don't mix them with bananas. Bananas have a compound in them that break down polyphenols. So, you won't, it won't be as effective. Which is funny because like nearly every smoothie place like on the planet when you get a blueberry smoothie, it's like got a banana in it.

So, so blueberries make you smarter?

Yes.

Bananas make you dumber, or they cancel?

No, they just, they, they break down the polyphenols. So, they're not making you, they're not working as good, right?

They're just not working as good because it's the poly, you want the polyphenol to be intact. You don't want it to be broken down because then it's not going to work. But it's the polyphenol that's activating those genetic pathways. It activates one in the brain called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF. The same thing that exercise increases, particularly vigorous intensity exercise. And so, you know, BDNF is essentially, um, it's, it's doing so much. One, it's causing new neurons to grow in your hippocampus, the part of your brain involved in learning and memory. It's, it's involved in something called neuroplasticity. So neuroplasticity is very high when you're younger and it goes down as you get older. And it's essentially the ability of your brain to adapt to a changing environment. And, you know, changing environments are happening. When we think about changing environments, we're probably thinking about, yeah, I mean, like, you know, now we're in this, it's very different than it was 10 years ago. And yes, that's a changing environment, but also like a day-to-day, like our biology inside, what's going on. Sometimes you eat that donut. There's an environmental change in the brain. Your brain has to adapt to it, right? And so it's very, like, it's involved in, um, in that. It's involved in learning, in memory, in synapse formation, in long-term potentiation, everything involved in cognition. So, um, the fact that blueberries can increase that, like a cup of blueberries is pretty, I would say, powerful. It's pretty powerful. Exercise does it too, but you got to put in the work.

Are there any foods that reliably boost your testosterone?

Foods that boost testosterone? Yes. So, I would say at the top of the list would be oysters or shellfish. Um, foods that are high in zinc. Zinc is required to make testosterone. Um, only about 15% of the population doesn't get enough zinc. So, it's not like, like half the population, but it's enough. I mean, there have been studies showing that, for example, men that are that do have low zinc to start with, when they supplement with like 30, 30 or 40 grams of zinc a day for a couple of weeks, they can double their testosterone levels. So, it's not if you're already getting enough zinc, you know, maybe it's not going to make the hugest effect, but that would be a food. Also, keep in mind, you don't want to like mega-dose zinc. When you start to get over like 40 milligrams a day, it disrupts the zinc-copper ratio and it can deplete copper, and that is not good. So, you don't want to like mega-dose on zinc every day because you want to make sure you're having the right amount. You want to make sure it's not depleting your zinc. So, that's also important to keep in mind. I would say another food that might increase testosterone would be fatty oily fish like salmon, mackerel, because it has vitamin D in it. But even better would be supplementing with vitamin D because there's not, I wouldn't say enough of it in the fish, but you asked me about foods, so, um, vitamin D is also very important. Vitamin D gets converted into a steroid hormone like testosterone, estrogen, or steroid hormones. Vitamin D also gets converted into one of those. So, it's very important for many different biological processes, is regulating over a thousand genes. Some of those genes are involved in testosterone production. So, if you're not getting enough vitamin D, you're not going to be making testosterone efficiently. And there are also studies showing that people that are vitamin D deficient, men that are vitamin D deficient, when they supplement the vitamin D, they can raise their testosterone levels to a, um, higher level. I don't remember off the top of my head the number. Um, so, that would be another consideration. And then I would also add in that for foods, I would say that dark leafy greens, because or almonds or oats, anything that has a lot of magnesium. Magnesium, half the population, US population doesn't get enough magnesium. Magnesium is required for those vitamin D dependent, you know, enzymes to make vitamin D into the steroid hormone. So, what happens is this cascading effect. If you don't have enough magnesium, but you're taking vitamin D, you're not going to be converting that D3 into the hormone, the vitamin D hormone without the magnesium. It's not going to be doing it efficiently. So, you need both. And so, magnesium is something that's found in dark leafy greens because magnesium is at the center of a chlorophyll molecule. Chlorophyll give plants their green color. So, it's kind of an easy way to think about magnesium. And that's why people are not getting enough magnesium is because nobody's eating directly for greens anymore. No one's eating that. Um, another food I would say, I would say do not go low fat. And actually, like even, um, eating a nice, a nice amount of saturated fat is good because saturated fat is a precursor to make cholesterol in the body, and cholesterol is needed to make steroid hormones, including testosterone. So, a good, I would say, a good kind of saturated fat, if you can tolerate it and you're not lactose intolerant, would be whole fat yogurt. Really good source because you're getting also probiotics in there. It's good for the gut. Cheese is another one. Um, cheese has a food matrix. In fact, there's studies that have compared cheese to butter, which is also a saturated fat. And cheese does not raise LDL like butter does because it has a food matrix. Yet again, that food matrix is very important. When you remove it, it's processing foods a bit. And so, it's, it's important to have that food matrix. And so I think that would be another food that, um, would be important to consume.

Would be fat, and particularly saturated fat. I guess when we think about the 80/20 here of like cognitive function and living a long time, uh, would you say it's food 80%, exercise 20%, and then when you think of testosterone, is that also food 80%, exercise 20%?

I would say no, that's incorrect. I would say, I would say that exercise is the king when it comes to cognition, preserving cognition, and also aging well, and and and lowering all-cause mortality and mortality from cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease, like every disease. Exercise is the king. It forgives a lot of sins, to be honest. It forgives even poor sleep. You can, there's studies showing that people that, you know, sleep fewer than seven hours a week, they have a higher all-cause mortality than people sleeping normal seven to nine hours, unless they exercise. They can get away with sleeping fewer than seven hours a week and still have the same mortality risk or rate as, yeah, exercise is so powerful, so powerful. Um, food is important. You can't, you can't, you know, exercise your way out of obesity. It's very, I mean, like, you don't burn a lot of calories. You're not exercising to burn calories. You're exercising for the adaptations in your heart, in your lungs, um, in your brain, right? I mean, you can reverse aging in your brain and heart. It's amazing. So, you're exercising for those adaptations, but the food is important because obesity and obesity does accelerate the aging process. It accelerates everything. You know, you're going to get diseases earlier for everything, right? Um, so, I think they're both important. I don't know that I would say food is 80 and exercise 20, though. I think I think it's more like, I think, yeah, it's, it's more like 50/50, 40/60, exercise being the most important.

Really?

Yeah.

Huh.

Yeah.

And I, I, I guess I'm saying as well, uh, maybe we should say deficiencies versus exercise. Like, would you say Jack, supplement with these five supplements, or would you say Jack, workout for 45 minutes?

I would say workout is still the key.

Really?

Yeah. Workout is, it should be a part of your personal hygiene. It is, it is like the most powerful thing that we you can do to improve the way you age and the way and your mood and your brain function, everything, like, yeah. It's there's nothing more powerful. You're never going to pill it up. It's, it's, it's, it's changing. I mean, there was one study, Mike Snyder's lab out of Stanford, you're changing like 500 different genes like just with a one workout. And that's just genes, like you're changing your heart, your lungs, I mean, so many things. Your muscles, your brain, everything's working and everything's adapting and it's, it's really, you know, you're getting blood flow to your eyes. It's improving eye health. You're getting blood flow to your brain. Like all that stuff is happening. So I would say that exercise is really the most important and powerful thing you can do for anything. When it comes to testosterone, um, resistance training is important. You can increase testosterone by, you know, doing exercise, even even like a short bout of high-intensity, you know, interval training workout. But I would say, um, ultimately, yeah, your foods import are important there. You have to get the zinc, very important. Um, eating the fat, you have to have, you have to make cholesterol. Your body makes cholesterol, but you have to give it the precursors to make, and that's saturated fat. So, you, this whole low-fat diet is good for you, like that was a lie.

That was a lie.

Big, big lie. Um.

Do you think fasted exercise is also a lie?

Fasted exercise is nuanced. It depends. So it depends on how, what type of exercise and how long the exercise is and what and what you're looking for. What's the output? So, for example, if you're, if you're wanting to have better adaptations in your mitochondria, those are the energy producing cells in mo most of your body, right? Um, sorry, energy producing organelles in the cells in most of your body. Um, if you exercise fasted, you get better adaptations. It's going to happen more powerfully. But, you know, you're going to take a performance hit. So, you can't like go for a run longer than an hour and you're going to take a big performance hit. So, I would say that like if you're doing a short 20-minute, 30-minute run, you could burn more fat and get better adaptation. Studies have shown this doing it fasted. If you're wanting to do weight training, you don't really necessarily want to fast. You'll probably get a performance hit. But, um, you know, if you are doing intermittent fasting and the only time you're working out in the morning is in the morning, if you can train, it's not a big deal. I would say you could just do like a little protein shake or something that's not like super high calorie. But, um, I don't know that you, you know, if your goal is to lose more fat, you will, you will burn more fat if you're, if you're training well fasted, if you're particularly aerobic exercise, but again, it's all nuance and it depends on the outcome you're looking for, right?

When the big lie is to exercise to lose weight and lose fat, for sure.

Yes.

It is for building muscle and to feel good. It's exercise is for causing your lungs to like adapt better so that your like VO2 max and your cardio risk rate of fitness improves. It's to make your heart, um, you know, not shrink and not get stiffer with age. It's to make your brain make more synapses and work better and protect against, you know, neurodegenerative disease. It's to make your muscles, you know, gain muscle mass and strength. It's so your immune system, your immune system changes as you, you exercise. So that you exercise because you are fundamentally changing your biology in a beneficial way to make you age better in every possible way and feel better in the now, acutely. I mean, it doesn't get better than that. Like, it's like the best thing you could do for both right now and there's no trade-off. The trade-off is good, right? It's not like you, most of the time you're doing something, chewing your nicotine gum or taking a Zen, and you want to cognitively be sharp. There might be a trade-off, right? With the exercise, the the whole thing is like, it's making you, it's actually improving cognition. It's been shown. 10 minutes of a, you know, short intense workout improves cognition. Um, it, it actually improved cognition by like 14% just after 10 minutes, and you're getting the long-term health benefits, right? So, it's a win-win.

As far as exercise in your workouts that you prefer, you've talked about a protocol that reverses cardiac aging. Uh, what's a 45-minute workout you can do that'll make your heart 20 years younger over time?

A 45-minute workout done maybe five to six times a week. All right, let's talk about this. Um, you can reverse the aging of your heart, and it's, it's very, very powerful. So, there was a study done by Ben Levine at UT Southwestern in Dallas, and, um, he took 50-year-olds that basically didn't go to the gym, didn't exercise, but they didn't have any disease. Put them on a pretty intense exercise workout program for two years. And this was compared to a, you know, placebo group, sham control group. These guys were, they thought they were getting a treatment. Um, so they were doing like stretching, yoga, they did a little bit of resistance training, but enough to just like make them think they were getting the active treatment, right? Placebo is very important because the placebo effect is very real. You can change your biology. So, this two-year program was progressive. It wasn't like starting out day one, we're going to exercise five hours a week, even though you've never worked out, right? Like, you can't do that. So, it was progressive. They worked their way up. After about six months, most of these adults that were 50 years old were exercising about five hours a week. And the majority of this exercise, they were doing like 30 minutes of jogging a day. They were doing, um, once or twice a week, they were doing a high-intensity interval training workout called the Norwegian 4x4. It's basically four minutes of going on a stationary cycle as hard as you can and maintain that pace for four minutes. So, you're not going all out, and it's depends on the person's fitness level, right? So, like some people, they're, they're as hard as they can go for four minutes and maintain is different, right, than another person's. But the point is, they're pushing it throughout that four minutes, and then they rest for three minutes, and they repeat that four times. Rest and recover. So, they're going very, very light. They're letting their heart rate come down. So, they were doing that. They started out doing it one time a week, and then they went up to two times a week. They were doing that, and they also did some resistance training. But by and large, a lot of their workouts were more in the intense. They were doing more vigorous intensity exercise. And after two years, the structure of their heart had reversed by 20 years. The aging of their heart had reversed by 20 years. So, their 52-year-old hearts looked like 32-year-old hearts in terms of the structure. And that's very important because, um, as you age, your hearts, your heart shrinks and it gets stiffer with age, and that affects your cardiovascular disease risk. It also affects the ability for you to work out. So, um, they were able to essentially reverse that aging by 20 years in just two years. And that's incredible. Um, pretty sure most the people that did that program are still doing it because it's a very big motivator to hear that you reversed the aging of your heart by 20 years in just two years. And, um, so I would say the workout protocol is essentially, you know, you want to be doing at least, you know, about 30 minutes of of some kind of like cardiovascular aerobic exercise where you are, you're moving fast. So, jogging is considered even moving fast, faster than walking, right? You're getting your heart rate up. Some cases, you could be 70% max heart rate, maybe 80%, right, for 30 minutes, five times a week. And then in addition to that, you're doing at least one time a week a more intense workout, a high-intensity interval training workout, like a Norwegian 4x4 type of workout.

One time a week, you said?

Yeah. Um, they started out, they were doing one time a week, and they were also doing two. It was like mixed in. So I would say at least once a week would be good. If you could do twice a week, better. Um, I do that kind of thing, you know, twice a week. Um, that would be something to consider. And then they were doing some resistance training because you have to have your muscle mass and strength as well. But and that was like, you know, pretty minimal. I think it was just twice a week they were doing doing some like 30-minute bout of resistance training. So, like an hour, an hour a week.

I want to ask about the, like, it seems as though to me that everyone's chasing the next longevity trend, and a lot of people are missing the fundamentals. Don't get me wrong. But like I look at Brian Johnson's $2 million protocol, uh, peptides, cold plunges, uh, red light therapy. If you could only do one thing to extend your lifespan, what would it be?

It would be none of those, for sure.

I guess outside of outside of exercise and eating right, what would it be?

Oh, it would be, it would be deliberate heat exposure.

Sauna. Yeah. So, cold plunging doesn't really have a lot of longevity benefits. It makes you feel good, increases norepinephrine. It may brown some of your fat if you stay in long enough, that could have a metabolic benefit, but really negligible when it comes to weight loss. And so deliberate heat exposure from like saunas, while it does transiently kill your sperm count, um, it's very beneficial for the heart and for the brain. So, um, it's mimicking moderate intensity exercise, and it's additive with exercise. So, there's studies showing that if you, if you do exercise, aerobic exercise, and then add a sauna after that, compared to just exercising alone, you improve your VO2 max even better, and a variety of other, like blood pressure is improved even better, lipids are improved. So, you're improving a lot of parameters involved in cardiovascular health, um, by adding just 15 minutes of a hot sauna after your your aerobic exercise. And then there are also studies showing that adding it after a resistance, resistance training workout seems to also increase proteins in the muscle that are involved in anabolic signaling. So, that study didn't directly measure like lean body mass or muscle mass, but they measured like proteins that are known to be involved in increasing muscle hypertrophy. And so, um, and then there's just so much evidence coming out of Finland where, you know, a lot of the sauna researchers are doing research because, you know, saunas are ubiquitous in Finland. Almost everyone has one at home, and there are also public saunas that are very, you know, accessible for people. Just studies showing that using the sauna, you know, four to seven times a week lowers the risk of sudden cardiac death by like 63%. Um, people that use it four to seven times a week have a 50% lower cardiovascular-related mortality, a 40% lower all-cause mortality, 66% lower chance of dementia compared to people using it one time a week. I mean, and then there's all these like intervention studies that have come in and said, "Hey, yeah, and the biomarkers are also changing in the right direction." As I mentioned, VO2 max is going up. Cardiorespiratory fitness is one of the best markers for longevity. Um, people that, you know, have the highest cardiorespiratory fitness have a five-year increased life expectancy compared to people with a low cardiorespiratory fitness. And on top of that, if you have a high cardiorespiratory fitness, having an elite one still gives you a 20% lower all-cause mortality compared to those with the with a high. So, there's really like, you just, there doesn't seem to be a limit, right?

Does it boost HGH?

Yes. Yeah. So again, um, it is a type of stress, like exercise stresses the body. Thermal stress is a type of stress, um, particularly heat stress. And so, so doing a sauna, and depending on like the protocol, so the more stressful it is, the more growth hormone boosting effect you'll get. So, for example, if you go in, if you go in the sauna for like, you know, 20 minutes, get out, rest for five minutes, then go back in for another 20 minutes, like that's going to boost it even more than just doing once, right? So, there, there are studies that have pushed the limits on that. Like they're, they're like repeating, repeating, repeating bouts of it, and like you can get up to like a six-fold increase, but that's like really, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go there. It's like a lot of stress, thermal stress from the sauna. They were doing it like over and over and over again the same day.

There's also, this is what a friend told me. Uh, I've been to Finland and it seemed to be the case, just at least anecdotally, like there's a lot of bald guys or guys with male pattern baldness in Finland. And some people argue it's because of the increase in the HGH from the sauna use. Like, does that?

I don't know. That's weird. That doesn't. I.

Does HGH cause baldness?

I don't know anything about that. I have no.

I have nothing in my brain is connecting growth hormone to baldness, but I've never looked into that.

There's also things about like, uh, jiu-jitsu fighters also have a higher rate of, uh, baldness, and then just people with higher testosterone in general, higher HGH levels like lead to baldness. And I mean, that scares me a bit, but at the same time, it's just like, I think people with high testosterone are doing jiu-jitsu. Like, it's kind of one of those correlative causal things.

Yeah. And also, um, there's also things to consider like in Finland, it's a very, you know, genetically contained population, right? And they have certain genes, like in Finland, they have a very high level of ApoE4 alleles, so they have a high, you know, risk of cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's disease, even though they have a lot of do a lot of sauna use there. So, there could be some other gene that they're is like related to, you know, male pattern baldness that they have, like that's also a consideration.

There's like these sorts of studies, like it's too, like, well, it could be a million other things as well.

Well, you think there's very few trade-offs at the end of the day with the sauna.

I think the biggest trade-off is the sperm, and it, and it, but it's completely reversible. Like studies have shown that that, you know, it's, it's like, it's totally reversible. So, if you are wanting to conceive, like you have to stop doing the sauna or like hot tubs, like months before, at least three months before, it's just necessary. But if you're not, then, you know, or if you've already had kids, you know, it's not, it's not a really big issue. It doesn't lower testosterone.

Sus, there are shown to boost it.

Not really.

Yeah. Not really.

Okay.

Yeah. Growth hormone. Yes.

I'm curious too with, uh, some of these different protocols, like you've been on Joe Rogan's podcast, you said 10 times. Uh, you've been on Chris Williamson's show, Steven Bartlett's show. When these guys text you after you're done filming, like, what's a common question they ask you? Or like, what are some things that they're looking into, and you're like, "Oh, maybe like this is good, this is good. Are you sending them stuff?" That kind of.

I mean, I would say over the years, it's been a variety of things, everything from sauna, heat exposure to cold exposure. Does cold exposure blunt, you know, muscle adaptations, exercise adaptations? Um, yes, it does. Um, particularly like muscle hypertrophy if you do it around resistance training. Um, questions about improving cognitive function, like what are some things I can do, you know, to to to make myself smarter that's not going to like have a trade-off, a bad trade-off?

Is carnivore diet really good long term? Is it healthy long term? My conclusion was.

We don't really know. Uh, I don't think so, but that's a, that's a another question that's definitely come around.

What do you think of Brian Johnson's diet?

His diet?

Mhm.

Um, he's like mostly vegetarian, right?

Right.

Yeah. I mean, I, I think that it's hard to do it right. Uh, if you are obsessed like he is and are really probably fastidious about making sure you're getting the right amounts of all the amino acids, you know, then it might work. I mean, there's now enough evidence showing that like vegetarians and vegans can gain enough muscle mass. A lot of times they have to end up supplementing, but I think I think it's like easier to just eat some, you know, animal protein, you know, some meat. Most people need a balanced diet, not just strictly carnivore, strictly, uh, vegetarian, not strictly just supplements. That makes sense to me.

Yeah. I, I tried a, I tried vegetarian diet when I was actually vegan. I tried that like, I don't know, how long ago. I lasted like, I don't know, how many months, maybe like five months, less than six months. I, my hair was like falling out. My my hair was falling out and and I've always had like really thick hair and I like the having that thick hair and I just was like, I'm done. I'm done. Um, and I was I was experimenting with it because I was worried about cancer and like, you know, IGF-1 and all that stuff. And then I just like dove deep into it and realized that the problem isn't the meat consumption. The problem are the other habits that go along with it. Because yes, you can, if you're eating a lot of animal protein, have a.

Lot, you can increase something called IGF-1, which is increased in response to protein intake, particularly protein that is from animals. IGF-1 will allow cancer cells to grow, grow even when a die signal is around. So, it's like one of those things like obesity. Obesity increases IGF-1 as well.

But if you are not obese, if you are exercising, if you're not drinking excessive alcohol, if you're not smoking, if you have, if you don't have any of these considered like unhealthy lifestyle factors, then you have the same cancer incidence as vegetarians. You have the same all-cause mortality as vegetarians. And for me, realizing that was like, "Thank God I could eat meat," you know, because, um, you see a lot of these studies that kind of scare you and they go, "Eating meat's like smoking, you know, four packs of cigarettes a day." I, I don't know, four pack packs a week or whatever. Like it's something where it's like it's like as bad as smoking. And, um, I, I know I've talked about omega-3 in that in that in that case, but not having enough omega-3. But like in this incident, it was very clear that was only the case if people were had one of those unhealthy lifestyle factors along with eating meat. So they were obese, they were smoking, they were doing drinking excessive alcohol, or they were totally sedentary. Like, you don't want to be like a couch potato and just eating a carnivore diet, right? You don't.

It seems like everything is poison. And to reiterate the point, uh, that we agreed on earlier, it's just about consuming stuff that might have tiny bits of poison in it. Making yourself more resilient overall as far as like making yourself more, uh, resilient, more able to not get sick, live longer, uh, better cognition. Like, what is the one deficiency women have that men usually don't? Oh, well, that would obviously be iron. I mean, and that is it is a problem. I mean, your immune, you need, you need iron. Your red blood cells need iron. Um, I would say females that are working out even have more of a deficiency because you do lose more iron also through like hemolysis and stuff like red blood cells like will die and lyse and so you lose more iron that way. Iron is important for immune function, for the brain. It's really important for the brain. Myelin making. Myelin is the sort of white fatty substance that coats axons. So, it's really important for electrical signals, signals to go fast, right? So, processing speed. So, iron would be one. And in fact, um, iron would be would be something that women should really focus on. Of course, eating red meat is the best dietary source of iron, and not a lot of women are eating enough red meat. I think, particularly the premenopausal women. Once you hit menopause, then your iron, like, it's not a concern anymore. You're kind of like in the in the dude category, right? Like, you don't need to be concerned about supplementing with iron or, you know, really trying to focus on getting enough iron from your diet.

So, dumb male question. Uh, like, is it simply because women don't eat the same amount of meat that men do? Plus, like, your period would make you low in iron. Menstruation is the big reason for it. Yeah, you're losing a lot of iron each month that, you know, men are not. It's not happening to men, and it's not happening to women that are in menopause. So, like, that category of women, their iron is not a problem for them. They're not like deficient in iron. They're the same as men because they're not menstruating. So, the biggest cause of iron deficiency in women is menstruation, and they're not realizing it because they're not getting iron tested every month, and so they're just eating normal. And really, what they should be doing is during, particularly during that time, is they should be eating a lot of red meat during that week. Um, if not supplementing. I supplement.

That's fascinating that, like, you would assume that men need more meat for some reason, and women would need more fruits, but it seems like it's the complete opposite. It is. And in fact, men should not supplement with iron. And in fact, that's like a really bad thing because when you, when you are someone that has enough iron and you're supplementing with iron, you can free iron is very reactive. It's, it's like a reactive oxygen species thing. So, it's, it's damaging things, and it can get in the brain, and like free iron is associated with Alzheimer's disease. So, like, you don't want to be just all willy-nilly like dosing the iron. Um, it can be, it can be harmful, particularly, like, again, in men and post-menopausal women that aren't losing a lot of iron through blood. Now, you know, some men even like have there's a very, I would say, pretty common gene variation, um, hemochromatosis, where they basically are more susceptible to iron overload. So, you're like, you're actually getting more iron, and people with that sometimes even have to donate blood to like get rid of the iron. Um, and again, like, unless you did a genetic test or get your iron levels measured, you wouldn't really know you have that, but it is pretty common. I mean, I've seen quite a few people have that.

This might be too political, so I'll cut it out if you'd like me to, but like, do you think birth control is affecting women's iron levels? Like, why is, why are women struggling with iron so much these days? I mean, I don't, I know, I know that oral con, you're talking about oral contraceptive. Are you talking about like IUDs or all forms of? Yeah. When I hear the word birth control, I think about oral contraceptive. Yeah. So, I know there are, God, it's been so long since I've looked into that in terms of like, it affecting, um, some vitamin. I know B6, I think it also affects like, like, like it was B6, I think that got was lower. Um, somehow I don't remember exactly how. It's been so long since I've read that, I don't remember how it affected iron. Um, but, um, you know, the thing is, is that it also can affect like hormones too, right? Like, there, there are some long-term consequences with with oral contraceptives.

I wanted to ask you about placebo. Bo, how does taking a daily multivitamin make you smarter? Is it just placebo? No, it's not. In fact, it's been compared to placebo. So, I think 10 years ago, this big study came out, and it was like talking about how multivitamins are useless. Not only are they useless, they're harmful, and nobody should be taking them, and it's just expensive urine. And, um, back then, I was like fighting those studies, and I was fighting them, fighting them, fighting them. And then 10 years come around, full circle, now there's like large randomized control trials comparing multivitamin use to a placebo. And what do we know? We know, well, in older adults that are given a multivitamin, it was actually a standard Centrum Silver multivitamin, like the most, like, cheap available multivitamin that you find in any store. They were given it for three years, and after that three years, a battery of tests were done on cognitive function, and also like things were looked at in the brain, looking at brain aging, and it turns out after taking that multivitamin for three years, they had lowered their global brain aging by 2.1 years compared to those given the placebo, and they had lowered episodic brain aging. So, episodic memory is the kind of memory that's involved in remembering experiences, you know, like experiences that you're having. And so they lowered this episodic brain aging by almost five years. It was 4.9 years compared to placebo. And these were three large randomized control trials that were done. They're called the Cosmo studies. Well, just recently, like a couple of months ago, another arm of this Cosmo studies came out looking at multivitamins. This was a two-year study. So, individuals were given the the multivitamin for two years, and then or a placebo, and they looked at biological age. So, they looked at these epigenetic, you know, aging tests, and found that that taking the multivitamin essentially, it slowed epigenetic aging by about 5.7 months. And you might go, doesn't sound like a lot. Like, I don't care about. But you have to realize that that was two years it did that. And so you take that vitamin for two years, and then two more, and then two more, and then two more, and two more, and two. It adds up. That 5.7 months is going to keep going, right? Doubling and doubling. Right. So you're.

So you age 25% slower. Slower. Yeah. Exactly. And so I think that, you know, it's globally affecting aging, and it's also affecting the aging of the brain. And why is that? Well, because multivitamins are filling the nutrient gaps, the micronutrient, the vitamin and mineral gaps that we're not getting from our diet. And that was the whole point that I'd argued 10 years ago, talked about why, you know, what these vitamins and minerals are doing in the body and how they're affecting aging and that how we're not getting enough of them from our diet. And it makes sense that you would, you know, get benefits by taking a a vitamin and mineral supplement to fill those gaps. And so, um, I think that I'm, I feel vindicated in a way as well, but it's, it's the easiest thing that you can do to protect your brain and to to help yourself age, right? I mean, is take a multivitamin. I have everyone on my family taking it. Like, from my kid to like my parents, right? Like, everyone's taking a multivitamin because nobody can eat the perfect diet. It's really hard. It's really hard.

Another one that you were the first person I ever heard talk about this, uh, is that you said something along the lines of, you said creatine can actually make you smarter, and that people aren't taking enough creatine for it to be effective. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, I became really interested in creatine a few years ago when I started getting serious about resistance training, and so I was looking into the studies and said, "Okay, what dose do I need to take for muscle?" Right? I wanted to basically, what creatine is doing. So, creatine is stored as phosphocreatine. It's basically helps your body make energy and replace the energy quicker, right? So, you're making energy quicker, and and so when you're working out, you're using a lot of energy, and so you want to replace that energy quick, right? And so what creatine does is it increases your exercise volume, so you can do more work. It's not growing your muscles bigger like protein does, right? It's just you can do more work, and that work that you're doing can then increase your muscle mass and strength, right? And so it turns out that every study that I came across, it was like five grams a day was really essential for that. Was like the limit for muscle. Like, once you reach that five grams over the course of about three to four weeks, you saturate your muscles. Now, you might remember some of these studies back in the day, they do these loading studies. They load you up with 20 grams and then they give you the five because the studies aren't going to be three to four weeks long. But if you're just a normal everyday person taking five grams a day and you've been doing that for three to four weeks, your muscles are saturated, meaning like they've gotten all they can take in. And so, um, that's where I was at. I was taking five grams a day, and then I started to really come across these studies that would, you know, talk about creatine going into the brain. Creatine seems to be helping with, you know, effect, you know, sleep deprivation. And then it was like, what is going on? So, I started to dive into this research, and then I had Dr. Darren Cando on my podcast. He's a pretty great researcher at the University of Regina, um, in Canada. And I like dove in, and it was very clear that creatine is not only important for energy, you know, replacing energy in the muscles, it's doing it in other tissues as well, including the brain. And, um, so what studies have found is that muscles are very greedy, and when you take in five grams, that five grams is predominantly going into your muscle, particularly if you're working out, right? If you're not working out, the creatine, you know, it's not really going to make your muscles bigger. Once you get up to 10 grams, there was a study out of Germany showing that 10 grams, now you start to get spillover into the brain because your muscles are satisfied. It's starting to get into the brain. The study in Germany found that like creatine levels were increasing in the brain, um, after supplementing with 10 grams. And then other studies started to come out looking at when the brain is stressed, when it's under stress, like sleep deprivation. So, people that were deprived of sleep for 24 hours, when they were supplementing with a high dose of creatine, um, when I say high dose, it was based on their weight, but ultimately it was somewhere between 20 to 25 grams that they took.

They were able to not only, you know, perform better than they would have, you know, if they were sleep deprived, so they also were performing better than their baseline level before they were sleep deprived, which was crazy. Um, it was a very small study. Nonetheless, other studies have come out looking at other types of stress on their brain. So, one being dementia, mild cognitive decline. Those people that are given 10 or even 20 grams a day for a period of time, I don't remember, few weeks, they also perform better on cognitive tests as well. So, other studies again showing like, if you're if you're stressing the brain, and there's another sleep deprivation study, but ultimately, the take-home here is that if your brain is stressed, it needs more creatine, and giving it more creatine because the energy, right? Stress is very energy consuming, and so you want to be able to replace that energy quicker. You make creatine in your brain, but you're only making like one to two grams, and when you're stressed, like you're going to need more than that, right? The same goes when you're stressing your muscles with force, with work, working out, you need to make more energy. Um, my rationale is like, we live in a world now where there's lots of ways to stress your brain. There's financial stress, emotional stress, relationship stress, I mean, work stress, right? I mean, there's sleep deprivation, all that stuff. So, I sort of, and this is totally my extrapolation of, you know, the the data that actually are stressing the brain. I feel like my brain's constantly being stressed all the time, like with work, with learning. I mean, it's very cognitive demand when you're trying to learn a bunch of science, being a mom, being a wife, like there's a lot of things going on, right? And traveling and sleep. So, my baseline now for creatine is 10 grams because I want it to get into the brain, and it could be totally placebo, but I feel the 10 grams, I don't get that energy slump like in the afternoon, later part of the day that I used to get. Like, I'm just going to even kill throughout the day, and I, if I don't have my 10 grams, I notice it. It could be placebo where I'm like, I didn't get that, you know, who knows? It's working, it's working, right? And it's so, and it.

Have you tried a higher dosage than 10? Yeah. And so when I travel, and, um, I am, or if I don't get enough sleep, when I'm traveling, I usually don't get enough sleep. When I'm going to other time zones, definitely don't get enough sleep. I go up to 20, sometimes even 25 grams. And like, I went to China recently, completely different part of the world, right? And I had to, like, the next day, the next morning after I arrived in the evening, and then the next day, I had to give a talk. I mean, you got to be on game. You got to be ready, right? Um, and so I did, I did my 20 grams, and it seems to help with my jet lag and help me like be able to be me mentally, you know, cognizant and functioning peak. Again, it could be placebo where I'm thinking I'm just going to get it, and that's fine because creatine is pretty safe, and I don't do 20 grams every day. I do it in certain situations. So, yes, I do go above 10 grams. My baseline is usually 10, and there's only certain scenarios, like if I'm sleep deprived or I'm traveling, when I go up to more than that, but it, it seems to work for me, and, you know, it's like, I said, safe, and I feel like if it's placebo, it's fine. I don't think it's placebo, but I'm just, I'm just saying that it could be.

Since we're close to the end of the interview, uh, I do want to ask you because, like, my sister, uh, is a researcher, neuropharmacology, neuroscience. I am, I've had a lot of people on this podcast that are super of the scientific mind. Uh, then some people that are super like spiritual in essence, I guess, if you want to, uh, divide those two groups a bit. What is your take on just like, what is placebo? How important is it? Like, how do you think about some of this stuff spiritually? Do you consider that? Just kind of open the floor to you on just like your takes on, uh, like, is it all really just, let me look at the data, or is there other factors that you consider? Yeah, I think that there's, I do look at evidence for sure, but you, the, the, the mind is very powerful, and there is enough evidence now showing that, where placebo effect is a very real thing. You can change your immune system. You can make dopamine, produce dopamine, that changes your immune system. Immune system changes can change a lot of other things going on in the body that are beneficial. And so you can really have a beneficial effect if you believe something is going to be positive. And some people are very, there's even genes that are associated with the placebo effect. There are people that have those rose-colored glasses on. They see the positive in things. They're more able to to experience that placebo effect. And and and it is, it does, it does change your biology. There's also something called the nocebo effect, which is the opposite of the placebo effect. And there have been studies showing that as real phenomena as well. And that is where you think something negative is going to happen to you, and you can actually make it happen. You can increase pain. You can, like, those things can happen. So, um, and there are genes also associated with that. And that would be the pessimistic kind of personality, right? So, if you, if you think you have a gluten sensitivity, and you're given a food that you think has gluten in it, but it doesn't, you can make yourself have pain, distension, bloating, even though there's no gluten in it, right? It's a very real phenomenon. There's, there's studies on it. When it comes to spirituality, I mean, that's a whole other question versus placebo. And, you know, as someone, I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school for gosh, like, I mean, all through elementary and all through high school, right? And, um, kind of drifted away, became very analytical. And, you know, there, there are moments of, like, I spent a lot of time in graduate school looking at mitochondria under electron microscopes, at the very, like, fundamental level, looking at them under, you know, microscopes, and how, just learning everything I could about them, and just like all the proteins that are made, and the more I started to learn about it, it's like, this is like crazy system. And then you start to look how, like, you know, other animals have similar things like that, there's this common template. And, you know, there are moments where, like, I remember just going, this, this is like so complicated. Like, it can't be random. Can't be random. Um, but it wasn't until I became a mom that I really kind of found God again. And for me, you know, for a lot of people, spirituality can be a lot of things. It can be God. It can be another type of experience. Um, but I don't know if that's the question you were asking me. Um, but it is, I think, you know, finding, finding, I think spirituality and, um, you know, like, you can, you can think maybe like, God did this for me. Like, that's something people do think, and I think that can be related to a placebo effect as well, where you're, they can be related. I think when you think this powerful thing is happening to you, and you think it's good, you can make it happen. And maybe that's how it's supposed to be. Like, I don't know. It's pretty awesome. I think so. Um, but yeah, back to the spirituality thing, you know, I think that for me, I, the more the more I learn, and the more I observe, and know about the complexity of the human body, um, I go back to to God, and, um, that for me is my, my spirituality.

I think that was great. Um, it, it is fascinating to me, cuz as you were talking about the fruit and just like how many like genes, uh, fruit unlocks, I don't know if that's the right termage, but like I was like, "Wow, this sounds way more complex and intelligent than just like a pill that someone would take, you know, like just what's in an apple, you know?" Um, it's, it's really crazy when you start, like, the mo more you start to learn about it, you realize, like, you mean vitamin D that we make from the sun, has like that in and of itself, have this sequence of DNA that only recognizes vitamin D, well, the hormone that vitamin D gets converted into, right? And it's very, it's, it's just like, wow, this very, it's a very specific sequence of DNA that, you know, these all these different genes get turned on by that one, you know, vitamin D steroid hormone. And, or again, you, this food that you take in, it's like, wow, this, like pathway gets activated. It's a very specific sequence of, it's like very. It's just so crazy. Um, and it, to me, it's just like, wow, how can this all be like by chance, you know?

You said that when you had, uh, your son, you turned toward God a little bit. When you think about everything with screens, sleep, microplastics, hormones, pesticides, what scares you the most about the next 10 years for young men? Well, I think I'm, I'm scared of the endocrine disrupting chemicals and their effects on hormones, and, you know, particularly during development. I think it's a very sensitive time. I'm, I'm concerned about the effect on fertility, but I'm also very concerned about screens and, um, their effects on mental health. And it's, it's, I think it's kind of like the new smoking. I mean, like kids, it's really, really bad. The social media screen time. I mean, it's like this, it's almost like the ultra-processed foods, you know, where it's like hyper stimulating. You know, we have these hyper palatable foods that taste really good, and they're like activating all these reward pathways, and, you know, I mean, like, they're habit-forming and addictive, and in ways that we don't even understand. And the same goes with these screens. I mean, like, they're like, they're so addicting, and they're stimulating things, and, um, it, it's, it's kind of scary for many reasons. One, I think, you know, socialization and like being able to talk to people and like, if you see, if you see like young people now, they're always on their phone. Always, you know, even when they're like with a friend with their friends, they'll be sitting there with their friends. Like, I remember like when I would go to the mall with my friends, like we were talking, we were talking, we were making up games and playing, and like now you go to the mall, like when I go shopping, and I see these like young adolescents, they're all on, like, they're so, they're all on social media, whether it's TikTok or Instagram, I don't know what it is, but they're like, just sitting there in a group, not even talking to each other. And that's, that's a little concerning to me. And then there's the problem with like comparison and social comparison and depression, and all these things are now showing up, and like, particularly girls, adolescent girls are very prone to it. But there's studies showing that if you can delay, like a phone, like a child from having a phone, like the longer you wait, like the better, the better they perform cognitively, like later in life, the better, like emotional stable they are, less depression they have. I mean, there's so many different benefits, mental health benefits. Um, so those are the two things that I think I think about the most. But I also think about how resilient humans are. And going back to that, like, I feel like, you know, we are really resilient. We do adapt, and I think we will. I like to have that optimistic sort of look on, well, we'll find a way. You know, we're going to, I think we'll figure it out. Um, whether or not it's like, like I talked about these like phones that a lot of the moms are doing, and, you know, going back to like the old days where we would talk on a phone, and, you know, it was in the kitchen so the parents could like hear, and you, you know, it was, you were talking to people. Um, it wasn't like a screen, and all the social problems that can happen, you know, aren't exacerbated because you're like, like looking at someone's social life on a on a screen, right? And also, you're like more nice to people. Like, you're like, it's so easy to be mean to people when you're making a comment, and you don't see them. You don't know that they're a real person. You don't like have empathy. Like, it's so, it's hard. Most people, like, when they like look into the eyes of someone else, like, I'm looking at you right now, I feel empathy, right? Like, I'm trying to imagine how you feel. And, and you just don't get that feeling when you're looking at a screen, right? Even if it's someone you know, and you're looking at a video or whatever, like, you don't feel that empathy. You don't, you don't relate to them, right? And so I feel like, um, that's another thing that concerns me too, is just like, like not, like losing empathy. We're just like, we're all interacting with the with the screen, right? And not.

And we see all this negativity as well, and that almost trains our behavior. It's like, oh, this is how people treat each other, you know, tons of hate comments, like, this is normalized, right? And I mean, that's, I mean, the whole, then there's a whole other problem with the algorithm, the nasty algorithm, right? Where it's like, of course, a company that has a site that you know, social media or whatever the site is, they want to keep you on it, right? I mean, that's their, that's their goal. So, algorithms are going to make it where it's going to be something sensational. Usually, things that are sensational are things that are negative, unfortunately. So, that again, polarizing. And I do feel like we live in a lot more polarizing world than when I was a kid. Like, I don't remember people having so much animosity towards each other for their different beliefs and stuff, because people do have different beliefs, like, and I think that's okay, as long as you're not like wanting to harm someone, you know? I mean, it's okay to have different political views, and, and it doesn't feel like it's okay now in this, in this world. Like, it's, it's, I think a big byproduct of our digital world that we live in, right? Our, our digital, I don't even know what to call it, but it's like we've like, we like have these digital, like lives now, right? Like, especially us, like, we're on YouTube, we're on social media and YouTube, and, um, it's part of our business, but, you know, everyone else is also on there, and so like, they have their lives in real life, and then they have their digital lives. And, and so, I, I, I just think that that digital life has really polarized a lot of a lot of things. And, um, it's unfortunate because happiness is also really important for your well-being today, tomorrow, but also for your well-being and your longevity, and the way you age later in life. And, um, I think we should probably focus a lot more on on how to be happy and how to appreciate the little things in life, and the things that we do that maybe aren't like that rewarding, but still important, and to appreciate the people that are in our lives, that are our friends, our family. Um, and just knowing that at the end of the day, like life goes on, life, life goes fast. Um, any parent knows that because you watch your kid, like, we all look the same for like a while, but your kid, like, they change rapidly year to year. And so, it really is eye-opening as a parent. You start to see how quick life goes. And everyone says, "Oh, it goes so quick." Um, you've probably even heard that, even though you're not a parent. Um, and, and so you start to realize that life goes quick, and these friendships, if I don't, if I don't put in effort, if I don't put work in, they're going to go away. And, you know, when you get old, like, you don't want to be alone. Like, that's like, that's the worst thing, you know? And so, having social relationships and being happy is a very important part of all the things that we've been talking about today, like living a healthy life. And that's something we didn't talk about. I do think it's important to realize, you know, there's all these studies of the Blue Zones and the the populations of people that live the longest, and they have these great social networks and these great social, um, connections, and they're out, you know, with their relatives and with their friends, and, and that is the opposite of being on a screen. And, um, we're going in that opposite direction. And I think that, you know, especially for Gen Gen Z and like younger people that are have grown up with it, like literally, like you've grown up with this digital life, right? Look at the phones and social media and, um, that whole, that whole world. I think it's important to, to, to realize that the dopamine that you feel when you look into someone's eyes, like the, the endorphins, the touch, like holding hands, like, like these are important feelings, and they're important things for humans. Um, and, and so we should try to take time to, to have relationships in real life and do things with people and put our phones away, um, and enjoy the time with them, because there will come a day when you look back and you don't want to regret, right? Like, I spent so much time worrying about the social media things and all that stuff, and I neglected the the people that are the most meaningful and that I cared about and that cared about me, right? So, anyways, that was kind of a sidetrack rant, but I do think it's important just for young people to, to kind of realize that I think that screen time, as we call it, um, you know, the social media life, it's, it's, it's really, um, kind of toxic. I say that with like, a business that like is like relies on it, but I think that I honestly think that I would love people to get off, take, take breaks and get off social media and get off their screens as much as possible, and, and try to interact with like your friends and your family, like experiences. There's nothing more rewarding and nothing that's going to make you happier than experiences with the people that you love, right? So.

I think we'll definitely see a big divide in society of people that kind of go toward more what you're saying, like kind of rejecting phones a bit, spending more time with people, uh, rejecting like modernity, and then we'll see some people maybe the other half lean fully into it, uh, and go deeper down that rabbit hole. An interesting study I saw last night, uh, and I don't mean to be political by saying this, like 60% of liberal women said that politics was like the number one factor they considered when choosing a partner. Um, it's really interesting. I don't remember the exact stats, but there's definitely a higher amount of men that, uh, consider themselves conservative, and a higher amount of women that consider themselves progressive. But like, ultimately, if that is told, like, if it's told to people, you want to have similar beliefs to the person you're with, and then men and women have completely different beliefs, like, just kind of leads to people not having kids and having families.

I think the bigger problem is the way people date now comes down. It, this is part of that equation, which is the swiping dating apps. And because you're looking for characteristics, what are their, what do they look like? What are their views? Right? But when you, like, when I was like dating, this none of this existed. I mean, like, you had to like go out and meet people, and it's not like that's not the first thing that you're thinking about someone's political views or like any of those things that you're swiping and like looking at, right, as on the list of things to consider to date. And I say this as I've never used a dating app, so like, maybe I'm not even communicating this right, but you get the gist of what I'm saying. Um, what I'm saying is that I think that when you, again, when you're like, when you meet someone and you're in person with them, let's say you're at a bar, whatever. Um, you know, like the first thing you're question you're going to ask them isn't going to be like, "Are you Republican or Democrat?" Like, right? No. No. You're going to talk to them. You're going to get to know them. You're going to be like, "What are common?" Let's, let's not focus on the, like, "What are our common denominators?" Like, "Oh, you surf. I like to surf." Like, "Oh, you know, like, you like to play tennis. I play tennis." Right? You're going to like find things. Oh, you like science? I love science. Like, you're going to.

You're looking for the green flags, not avoiding the red flags. And then, and also, like, when you meet a person, you start to get a feeling for their, who they are, their personality. You either like have a chemistry or you don't. And if you have a chemistry, guess what? Like, sometimes you even like, I know couples that are opposite political beliefs, and they're totally happy. So, it's not like the only, it doesn't have to be the only deciding factor, right? And I just, the point I wanted to make was, I think that again, getting away from the screens in every possible way, including, and if not even more important in, like finding, finding a mate, finding someone that you're going to, you know, date and eventually maybe marry. I mean, if we could just get away from those dating apps, I think, I mean, I, I mean, I know people, there's great stories too, right? Of course, like always. But, but, um, there can be, it, it can be a filter in the wrong way, right? Okay. And you'll never, you'll never know if you don't get out and talk to the person and see who they are.

I think that's very important. Um, I wanted to ask, when you think about where everything is going, is it, is this like a legitimate fear? Like, do you fear that your grandkids will be infertile? I, I don't know that I necessarily fear that they're going to be infertile, but I kind of do, if that makes sense. I think, um, about predominantly, I think about the effects of these plastic chemicals, like phthalates in particular, on on men, and even in, like, on a developing baby, right? When you're just like a fetus inside of your mother's, like, you know, uterus, like, the, the fact that those chemicals are having such a profound effect on sexual development, even then, which can then lead to infertility when you're adult, is scary. So, it's like, wow. Like, the decisions that you make when you're pregnant, and not even knowing, it's not even decisions you make, just not even knowing that the decisions you're making are affecting your developing baby is scary, because because these chemicals, like phthalates, are so ubiquitous everywhere. And, um, there are animal studies showing that like some of these chemicals can have generational effects. No human studies showing that. But going back to the phthalates, because that's the studies showing are so powerful that you can, your mother, your mother exposes you to it, not even knowingly, right, while you're in her belly, and then you end up being infertile because of that. Like, that's terrifying. So, that worries me, you know, that worries me a lot, I think.

So, it's generational, and does it increase generationally? Animal studies have found that you can expose pregnant, like female mice to these plastic chemicals, like phthalates, and it can then be transmitted not only to that generation but the next. There's no evidence of that in humans. And so, um, it could, like, there could be some, it's changing, like DNA epigenetically, that's going to be transmitted to the next generation, which is kind of what's been shown in animals and in rodents. So, it's possible that it's also happening, like, that in humans. We don't have evidence of it, but we do have evidence for sure that it's happening, like, you yourself aren't making that decision. Like, your mother is exposing you while you're a young boy, and, um, that's going to affect your, your, your fertility later in life. Even if you make all the right decisions, you might be, you know, you might have really low fertility or might be infertile. Women, girls that are developing in their, in their mother's womb, you have, you make all the eggs that you have for life when you're in there, right? So, whatever you're exposed to in there is going to affect those eggs. And that's also something to consider, because if there's epigenetic changes happening, in other words, it's not mutating the DNA itself. It's like the things that are sitting on top of the DNA, like methylation, right, that are changing. Some of those things can get transmitted to the next generation. Some of those epigenetic marks can stay. Um, but, you know, other factors can affect that as well. Obesity, like, there's been, there have been studies showing that, you know, obese in mice, for sure it happens, like, you, obesity can affect, like, the next generation. So, not only, not if you're, if an obese father mouse has a female daughter mouse, that daughter mouse can then have another mouse that has like, you know, type 2 diabetes and things like that, even without being exposed to like high-fat, high-sugar diets. So, um, those transgenerational effects happen in mice. In humans, we know that at least sperm DNA, if you look at sperm DNA from like obese men, there's all kinds of genes that are affected that affect like metabolic health, brain function, things like that. And if those same men go on a like weight loss or like they have bariatric surgery, the genes change back. So, it's definitely affecting, you know, obesity and things like that are also affecting sperm. Same with these endocrine disrupting chemicals. Um, so, yeah, I am concerned that, I mean, I'm, I'm concerned for my son. I'm concerned for the future generations that, you know, I'm like, I know a lot of people, like millennials, friends of mine, that that have to do IVF, that have done IVF to have a baby. Like, it's already affecting, you know, my generation of of people where they're they're not able to have, they're having problems. Infertility problems are so common.

Is there a dark side of IVF that people aren't really talking about? I know that for women, like a lot of the hormones they have to take, there, it doesn't come without a risk, you know? So, like ovarian cancer, breast cancer risk goes up a little bit. So, I would say, yeah, there's definitely a trade-off. And then, I guess, like, if you had to, like, if you were going to do a fertility protocol, what would be the things that you would make sure to include and make sure to cut out, like, both men and women? So, first of all, I would start way before conception, like epigenetic stuff is real, as I just mentioned, right? So, if you're obese, first thing you have to do, try to lose weight. I mean, that's ideal, okay? Um, exercise also changes epigenetic things in a positive way, so you want to really make sure you're exercising, and you want to probably start this, like, I mean, ideally years before, but at least a year, I would say, would be would be a good starting point. And then you want to bank up on all these micronutrients too. You want to make sure you're getting like magnesium, folate, very important for women. You want to be supplementing with the prenatal for like a year before, you know, consum, this is all ideal, okay? This is the ideal situation. I'm not saying that you can't. I mean, humans are resilient. So, if you haven't done that, don't freak out. Um, prenatal also has like a lot of the methyl folate, which is really important for, um, a lot of preventing neural tube defects as well. So, um, both, both couples, again, weight loss, exercise, women, we're adding in the prenatal, we are going to try to stop, like, as, like, eliminate and reduce as much as we can the plastic chemicals. So, you want to get the reverse osmosis water filter. You want to make sure you're not drinking out of the cans a lot or the plastic water bottles a lot. All the hot stuff, hot food, everything we talked about, hot food and the, you know, plastic stuff. Um, receipts. You don't want to handle receipts a lot. Um, particularly, particularly when you are pregnant, and that is because these receipts are coated with BPA, bisphenol A. That's the white powdery stuff on the receipt. It's thermal paper. And so when heat is exposed with the BPA, it causes the the printing. So, it's not actual ink. It's BPA. It's just coated on there. And it increases BPA. It gets absorbed through your skin. Particularly if you have any lotion or cream on before handling it, then it's like a hundredfold more absorbed into your skin. And people that are handling receipts on a daily basis, if you're a cashier, register, please, please, please wear nitrile gloves. You are getting exposed to a very high amount of BPA on these receipts. Um, and so nitrile gloves protect you from that. Latex does not.

Would you get a shower filter as well? Shower filter, I would say less important. Like, you're not. It's, yeah, I would, to we're talking optimal here, but if we're talking about the hierarchy here, I would say, like, and you're on a budget, water filter that you're drinking, top for sure. But yeah, I would, I would, you could go, go there because, you know, some of these chemicals can be absorbed through the skin. It's not the heat. If you're doing like a hot shower, that will increase the absorption more, but it, it's, it's more, it's minimal compared to what ingesting is doing for sure. Um, and then I would definitely try to eat whole foods. Prioritize the whole foods and get, you know, lower the the ultra-processed foods. Anything in a package, like the chips and the, all that stuff, all the ultra-processed foods, the cereals and all that stuff. And then, um, try to get a lot of the greens and the fruits and the blueberries, like all that stuff. Like, this is like setting your epigenetics up for good, right?

Alcohol consumption. I would, I would stop. I would try to stop like at least six months, like no alcohol, six months before conceiving. That would be ideal. I would say like four months is fine. Um, both men and women. And then as you're starting to conceive, then you want to like cut the coffee down. Caffeine can can, um, affect early, early implantation. So, you won't even know that you're having like a spontaneous miscarriage because it's like so early. So, you want to cut down, cut out caffeine, both men and women. And do everything else that I'm saying, the vitamins, fish oil, magnesium, multivitamin. Um, make sure you're taking all the prenatal for like a year before, you know, consum, this is all ideal. Okay, this is the ideal situation. I'm not saying that you can't. I mean, humans are resilient. So, if you haven't done that, don't freak out. Um, prenatal also has like a lot of the methyl folate, which is really important for, um, a lot of preventing neural tube defects as well. So, um, both, both couples, again, weight loss, exercise, women, we're adding in the prenatal, we are going to try to stop, like, as, like, eliminate and reduce as much as we can the plastic chemicals. So, you want to get the reverse osmosis water filter. You want to make sure you're not drinking out of the cans a lot or the plastic water bottles a lot. All the hot stuff, hot food, everything we talked about, hot food and the, you know, plastic stuff. Um, receipts. You don't want to handle receipts a lot. Um, particularly, particularly when you are pregnant, and that is because these receipts are coated with BPA, bisphenol A. That's the white powdery stuff on the receipt. It's thermal paper. And so when heat is exposed with the BPA, it causes the the printing. So, it's not actual ink. It's BPA. It's just coated on there. And it increases BPA. It gets absorbed through your skin. Particularly if you have any lotion or cream on before handling it, then it's like a hundredfold more absorbed into your skin. And people that are handling receipts on a daily basis, if you're a cashier, register, please, please, please wear nitrile gloves. You are getting exposed to a very high amount of BPA on these receipts. Um, and so nitrile gloves protect you from that. Latex does not.

Would you get a shower filter as well? Shower filter, I would say less important. Like, you're not. It's, yeah, I would, to we're talking optimal here, but if we're talking about the hierarchy here, I would say, like, and you're on a budget, water filter that you're drinking, top for sure. But yeah, I would, I would, you could go, go there because, you know, some of these chemicals can be absorbed through the skin. It's not the heat. If you're doing like a hot shower, that will increase the absorption more, but it, it's, it's more, it's minimal compared to what ingesting is doing for sure. Um, and then I would definitely try to eat whole foods. Prioritize the whole foods and get, you know, lower the the ultra-processed foods. Anything in a package, like the chips and the, all that stuff, all the ultra-processed foods, the cereals and all that stuff. And then, um, try to get a lot of the greens and the fruits and the blueberries, like all that stuff. Like, this is like setting your epigenetics up for good, right?

Alcohol consumption. I would, I would stop. I would try to stop like at least six months, like no alcohol, six months before conceiving. That would be ideal. I would say like four months is fine. Um, both men and women. And then as you're starting to conceive, then you want to like cut the coffee down. Caffeine can can, um, affect early, early implantation. So, you won't even know that you're having like a spontaneous miscarriage because it's like so early. So, you want to cut down, cut out caffeine, both men and women. And do everything else that I'm saying, the vitamins, fish oil, magnesium, multivitamin. Um, make sure you're taking all the prenatal multivitamin for the guy, prenatal for the girl. Um, and definitely the fish oil for both as well. And for men, I would also be adding some zinc, and I would add vitamin C. I would add, um, ubiquinol for sperm.

health, mitochondrial health. NAD, you could do nicotinamide riboside, not while you're pregnant, but like for sperm health. This is the guy for for sperm health. Anything that improves mitochondrial function is going to improve your your sperm.

Um, >> very briefly, do people who have kids live longer? >> Yes. Um, there are studies showing that people that have kids live longer and in fact even women that that breastfeed, the more times they breastfeed, the lower their their breast cancer and ovarian cancer risk goes down. So quite beneficial for women to to not only have a baby but to breastfeed them.

>> Questions here. Uh one I just wanted to ask you and this is something I I kind of came to when researching your stuff. She's very health conscious as well. And I was, does it ever concern you like the nocebo effect with all these uh different health experts and maybe you speaking on YouTube as well that like uh I'm telling people that something is bad so and they're not going to take action on it, but when they do it they're going to think it's more bad so they're going to have like more negative consequences. Like do you ever think about that?

I do try to give positive takehomes along with the negative for sure because yeah I do worry about that. I know that it's not good to just like tell everyone all this negative stuff like you need positive and there is positive even with the plastic chemicals right like you can we can excrete them we can increase their excretion by eating things like cruciferous vegetables lowering our exposure to them I mean so just knowing exercise all these things they have beneficial effects they even have beneficial effects on all that stuff right because you're just you're increasing everything good all the it's stress response pathways like your body is able to handle stress better and that's why you want to give yourself the beneficial type of stress because we're going to be exposed to all kinds of stress constantly. So the the more resilient you are, the better you can handle it. And so I think that's a positive takehome is that you can handle these stresses. Um, don't freak out so much about it. Try to do what you can minimize your exposure to some of the chemicals, plastic chemicals and plastics and things like that. But just know that that even if you are exposed to them, like we're pretty resilient and and if you're doing the right things like exercise, like you are able to handle stress better. Your body's like able to do it. And if you're eating the right, you know, foods like some of these vegetables and and polyphenols, that's also activating a lot of these beneficial pathways that are detoxifying things more readily, faster, right? So you're getting rid of them faster. So, um I think that's the positive note here is that like you your bodies are so great at like you can detoxify things. You can um fight off, you know, inflammation and oxidative stress and you know, you just have to uh give your body the right tools to do it. And I think that's the underlying theme and message I'm trying to communicate.

>> I think as well when people watch health podcasts, they should really be conscious of like I'm not going to just watch Dr. Rhonda, tell me that all these things are poison and not take any action on it. You know, like they have to actually see uh like, okay, let me double check. Is she right about this? Okay, then let me actually do it. And otherwise, I probably shouldn't watch the podcast if I'm not in the mood to take action about my health, you know? Um >> cuz I think a lot of people watch these things and they just make themselves anxious. Uh and they kind of have that uh nocebo effect without actually doing the things. But >> right, >> overall I think everything in this podcast is super helpful so far though. Uh but for the young man listening right now who feels nervous about his health and doesn't know where to start, if you could just give him one piece of advice for his health, what would it be?

>> One piece of advice. I mean, I think if you're eating a diverse diet with vegetables and fruits and healthy meats, lean meats, and you're exercising and getting enough sleep, you're doing it right. I think I think, you know, that's all the other stuff is just added. I think it's really really about that. It really is about the fundamentals.

>> Great. Well, and then I'll just add this to what's the worst piece of health advice you've ever received?

>> When I was in graduate school, I was very stressed out. And if you're under if you're undergoing psychological stress, that affects your gut. It actually causes gut permeability. >> I didn't know it at the time, but I was getting all these like gut problems where I was getting like bloating and distension and pain and and like it was just like I didn't I thought I had IBS. I didn't know what was going on. So, I went to see doctors and they couldn't figure out. It didn't seem like I had any of those things. Um, I even had like an endoscopy where they were like looking at my colon, nothing. Right. And I think the worst piece of advice I got was we can't figure out why you're having gut pain or gut problems. Um, but you could take an SSRI or you can take an anti-convulsant and that'll help with it. And I was like, absolutely not. No, I'm not going to take an antidepressant or an anticonvulsant, which is going to help with the pain in my gut. And then I figured out it was stress and really kind of dialed in my diet better. Uh, and it went away. Thankfully, I didn't get on SSRIs, but that was the worst advice I'd got.

Yeah, I I really do think that the whole like commit to walking on a treadmill for one minute thing uh or five minutes or doing a squat uh doing a few squats, putting on your clothes to the gym, just the small steps. I think that's always super powerful. And I think something people miss too is like if you're not working out regularly now, you're practically committing to being out of shape for the rest of your life. you know because it is something that you have to maintain daily and if you do decide to take SSRIs like you are committing to doing that for life instead of trying something else first you know um I I really don't think people think about the long-term consequences of these things but

>> and also like I'm sure a lot of most people brush their teeth every day >> right >> like why do they brush their teeth they don't want cavities they don't want their like >> you don't want to get you know periodontitis and things like that Right? Like it is absolutely the same with exercise. Like you absolutely should be exercising every day just like a personal hygiene part of your personal hygiene like brushing your teeth because you don't want to get cardiovascular disease. You don't want to get upper respiratory tract infections that are going to kill you. You don't want to get Alzheimer's disease or cancer. Like that is why you exercise is not to lose weight because you don't want to get those diseases like cavities. I would take a cavity way over getting cancer, right? And yet you brush your teeth every day and not exercise every day. Think about that. Think about it. And it doesn't even have to be much. It doesn't have to be much. Like 10 minutes a day. There are studies showing that people that do three minutes of like about of exercise three times a day. Like when I say about like moving fast, like running up the stairs, sprinting up the stairs, you know, running around chasing your grandkid or your kid playing tag, whatever. If they do that three times a day, so a total of nine minutes a day, they have a 40% lower all-cause mortality and a 50% lower um cardiovascular related mortality and a 40% lower cancer related mortality. Um even in people that don't identify themselves as being exercisers, so they're like, "Well, I don't go to the gym. No, I'm not an exerciser." Even those people get those benefits. So, it doesn't take much. And really, it should be a part of the personal hygiene like like everyone that I know that brushes their teeth and so many people that I know that don't exercise every day. Like do something like do something. And those moments that you do add up like you know like I have a kid. I run around and play soccer sometimes. I'll I have a puppy. I'll like run around and chase the puppy and do frisbee and like those moments all count. They all add up and they count. So don't don't don't ignore like those moments of like getting your heart rate up.

Well, everyone, uh, this has been your guest, Dr. Rhonda Patrick. This is the Jack Neil podcast. Where can people find you?

Um, I have a YouTube channel. I'm I've got a podcast on YouTube called Found My Fitness where I talk about all these things and interview guests that are experts in the field of nutrition, fitness, mental health, well, you know, physical um fitness, everything from, you know, aging to mental well-being and brain function. So, they can find me there. Found my fitness.

>> What's one episode that people will want to watch after watching this one if they made it this far?

I think a good episode would be the one on creatine with Dr. Darren Kandow is a really good one or the one with Dr. Ben Lavine on the kind of exercise you need to reverse heart aging and reverse aging in general. Those are two really good episodes.

>> Perfect. Well, see you guys.