Video summary
Dr. Rhonda Patrick addresses the pervasive issue of microplastics, defining them as particles ranging from five micrometers to 100 nanometers in size that are ubiquitous in modern environments due to plastic degradation accelerated by heat and oxygen exposure. These particles enter human bodies primarily through oral ingestion via contaminated food and water, but also significantly through inhalation; sources include synthetic clothing fibers released during washing and drying cycles, tire wear debris, and atmospheric particulates brought down by rain. The transcript highlights that while wastewater treatment plants filter pathogens, they do not remove plastics, leading to contamination in drinking water supplies and soil fertilizers derived from sludge. Consequently, avoiding microplastics entirely is nearly impossible, as even non-plastic packaging often involves plastic piping or processing equipment, making exposure a systemic issue affecting everyone regardless of lifestyle choices. The health implications extend beyond the physical presence of particles to the associated chemicals leached during digestion and absorption. Dr. Patrick discusses endocrine-disrupting compounds such as Bisphenol A (BPA), BPS, phthalates, and "forever chemicals" like PFAS, which mimic estrogen or bind to hormone receptors, disrupting reproductive health by affecting sperm morphology and testosterone levels in both humans and animals. Furthermore, emerging research indicates that microplastics accumulate in the brain at rates 10 to 20 times higher than other organs, potentially bypassing the blood-brain barrier via inhalation of nanoplastics or crossing through a compromised gut lining. This accumulation is particularly concerning given studies linking high levels of these particles in post-mortem brains with dementia and Alzheimer's disease, suggesting that chronic inflammation caused by microplastics may accelerate neurodegenerative processes. To mitigate absorption and promote excretion, Dr. Patrick emphasizes the critical role of dietary fiber, distinguishing between fermentable fibers found in fruits like apples and berries—which create a viscous gel to encapsulate particles—and non-fermentable fibers that speed up intestinal transit for fecal elimination. For specific toxins like BPA and phthalates which are water-soluble but require enzymatic conversion via the Nrf2 system, she recommends consuming cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli sprouts or taking supplements containing sulforaphane to activate Phase 2 detoxification enzymes that facilitate excretion through urine and sweat. While saunas can help eliminate heavy metals like aluminum through sweating, they are less effective for water-soluble plastic chemicals unless supported by adequate hydration and enzyme activation; however, beta-glucans from oats have been shown in animal studies to enhance the liver's ability to clear "forever chemicals" that otherwise persist in the body for years. Dr. Patrick concludes that while perfect avoidance is unattainable due to environmental ubiquity, a holistic approach combining exercise and whole-food nutrition offers significant protective benefits against intestinal permeability ("leaky gut") and systemic inflammation. She advocates for high-intensity interval training (HIIT), such as the Norwegian 4x4 protocol on assault bikes or rowing machines, which boosts mitochondrial function, increases lactate production to support brain health via BDNF, and improves cardiovascular fitness essential for longevity. Ultimately, she argues that exercise acts as a powerful "forgiver" of dietary indiscretions by enhancing metabolic flexibility and gut resilience, allowing individuals to maintain an 80/20 balance where they prioritize whole foods at home while permitting occasional consumption of ultra-processed items without derailing their overall health trajectory.
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what have you been interested in
recently you're always learning new
stuff yeah I think most recently I've
had a real interest in Ultra processed
foods in plastic microplastics their
Associated chemicals what they're doing
to human health that's that's been my
latest Obsession okay
microplastics teach me about them what
are they what do they do so
microplastics I mean we're all familiar
with plastic you know if you take a look
in your refrigerator or your pantry I
mean almost everything is packaged in
some kind of plastic
container plastic breaks down over time
right so things that can accelerate that
breakdown would be like heat exposure
exposure to oxygen and so that breakdown
sheds plastic particles into whatever is
being contained in that plastic
container food beverages whatever so um
microplastics they sort of vary in size
anywhere between five mic so five
microns or micro micro millimeters to
100 nanometers in size and when they're
like five micro microm millimeters
that's like something that would be
equivalent to a size of like a grain of
rice you can see it when you get down to
the 100 nanomer range I mean that's like
a thousand times smaller than a grain of
rice so you're not going to see it right
and that's honestly those are actually
technically nanoplastics but we all just
kind of call them microplastics just for
Simplicity um and these
microplastics are getting into food um
as we consume whatever food they're
contained in whether it's a beverage or
you know uh disposable food you're
digesting it and they can be absorbed
right now not all of them are absorbed I
think I think you know it's there's some
studies saying that we we basically
consume anywhere between um you know
hundreds to thousands of particles a
day so how much of that we absorb not
all of it you know fraction of it but
it's a lot of particles that we're
absorbing every day and um you know the
these microplastics are in our water so
water is contaminated with them if you
think about water treatment plants you
know wastewater treatment plants are
treating the water for pathogens right
viruses bacteria they're not treating
them for Plastics that are getting into
the water and our water sources are
contaminated for a variety of reasons to
mention if you if you're you know
turning on your faucet and getting water
through the sink often times the water's
trans transported through these pipes
that are made of you know PVC which
breaks down the you know there's plastic
in that and it breaks down over time and
sheds microplastic into your water so
water is another source of course if
you're drinking bottled water out of
plastic bottles um that's another added
source of microplastics as well and so
um micr Plastics themselves are there's
a growing body of evidence in terms of
what they're doing to human health and
we can talk about that but there's also
chemicals that are associated with them
right how like just how prevalent are
these things like how difficult is it to
avoid microplastics it's impossible to
avoid I mean the fact that it's in our
water source is kind of indicative of
that um unfortunately it's not just in
our water but it's in our soil so plants
are taking that up um it's it's in the
soil um because it's it's it's
essentially you know runoff from you
know rain and stuff it's in
microplastics and and plastic chemicals
are everywhere so they they're in the
air and so when rain you know so that's
so small that they can go up with
precipitation they're they're in the air
because um the M the main source from
the air is actually our clothing so our
clothing polyester nylon the stuff that
I'm wearing for sure I'm not wearing
100% cotton uh when you wash it it gets
you know into the oceans when you dry
your clothes the dryer is you
know atomizing your microplastics and
pushing them into the atmos into the air
and tires are a big source so tires
aren't 100% made of rubber they're
Rubber and a bunch of plastic you know
stuff and so cars on the road shoes on
our you know the the rubber Sho um soles
on our shoes all that stuff has plastic
and all that stuff is getting into the
air so the major source of microplastics
are oral ingestion which we talked about
and then inhalation that's how they're
getting into our bodies so when it rains
that stuff you know it the the rain
brings the microplastics into our runoff
right and that then gets into the soil
it gets into our our sludge you know
this is like fertilizer that's used so
it's it's pretty much ubiquitous it's
everywhere you're you're not going to
avoid it not to mention I mean
I guess even if you were to try and not
consume any condiments or Foods or
anything like that made out of plastic
you're going to do a huge service you're
going to reduce greatly reduce the
amount of microplastics you're consuming
let's say you have air filters you're
trying to filter the air but you're not
going to filter it everywhere you go
right you're in your car you're walking
around on the street especially if you
live in a metropolitan urban area it's
very very difficult to eliminate
microplastics what's the sort of levels
that we get osed to how much does that
get down into being absorbed because the
Earth's a big place it feels to me like
the atmosphere has got loads of room in
it I don't know how much of the air that
we get exposed to even in downtown New
York is going to be filled with
microplastics I wonder I'm going to
guess that there's on the triage list of
stuff to worry about there's probably
other stuff up there carbon monoxide
high levels of carbon dioxide stuff like
that that might be a problem uh but yeah
like in terms of how we get exposed and
what are the sort of levels that we get
exposed to what do we absorb it so it
does depend on of course your lifestyle
so it depends on what you're eating you
know what you're consuming where you
live how polluted it is right like
that's that's that's a obviously if you
have air filters in your home which is a
big one if your drier you don't want
your dryer to ventilate in inside of
your home that would be like a huge
source of microplastics that are
concentrated inside your house so you
want to ventilate of course outside of
course but then that contributes to the
microplastics in the environment right
which ultimately makes its way back into
our food and our um you know the air we
breathe outside but it you know there's
a lot of studies trying to to quantify
how much microplastics that we are
taking in Daily and there's been a
variety of studies and and some of them
have said well there's a credit card of
plastic a day that we
consume um and that was a very I would
say Sensational headline that was it was
published in a peer-reviewed study but
it turns out when you're trying to
really quantify the gram weight of
microplastics is very challenging
because they vary in size I mentioned 5
micrometers to like 100 nanometer in
size and so it depends on what your what
Your source of microplastics are when
you're trying to quantify that and so a
lot of studies that have looked at some
of these you know in gram weight how
much are we consuming used microplastics
that are found in the oceans so in the
oceans a lot of that's coming from our
clothing run off from our from our um
washer washing our clothes and um it's
not necessarily the same size particles
that we're consuming if we're drinking
water from a tap or we're eating you
know or we're we're drinking water out
of a bottled you know bottled water with
made of plastic so it's not really a
credit card in plastic that that really
isn't I would say accurate again it
comes down to you know it could be
thousands of particles a day absorbing
wise there have been studies in animals
okay not humans that showed that animals
absorb up to 2.5% of those particles
there are a variety of factors that
actually can help
you blunt that absorption so
microplastics um really the the the
major one is size so as you get smaller
in size like
nanoplastics those can be more readily
absorb through your um intestinal cells
because of the size it's really easy for
them to kind of pass the the membrane of
your cell I'm going to guess that if
you've got a leaky gut of some kind or
you've got a more permeable gut wall is
that a risk factor for this it is yeah
um presumably I mean there's not a ton
of evidence on that but it makes sense
it you know the question is you know I
mentioned heat breaking down the
microplastics well heat can break them
down into nanoplastic size so you don't
want to microwave any food in plastic
you don't want to cook with any plastic
utensils and you don't want to drink out
of something that's going to have a hot
beverage poured into it because that's
going to rapidly you know accelerate the
breakdown into smaller particles so for
example a lot of Togo coffee cups are
lined with with plastic to prevent the
leeching of the beverage into the the
cup the paper cup and so when you pour
hot water into that you can rapidly
break down those you know Plastics into
small size as well as chemicals so you
think maybe up to 2.5% of what we
consume per day we might absorb well
that's from animal studies so who know
who knows something like in that range
um but the other thing that's really
interesting that actually can effect the
the the way you absorb these
microplastics is Believe It or Not
dietary fiber um because so there's two
types of fiber there's fermentable fiber
you know this is what the bacteria in
the distal part of your gut this is the
colon um they're fermenting into a bunch
of short chain fatty acids to regulate
your immune system and do all sorts of
beneficial things for your gut then
there's also non-fermentable fiber this
just moves stuff through your intestines
right well the fermentable fiber which
is found in fruits and vegetables that
um is fermented into like this viscous
gel that encapsulates microplastics and
nanoplastics and stops them from being
absorbed the non-fermentable fiber just
like the stuff that moves you know Foods
through your through your intestines
also just moves the microplastics as
well so you're going to be excreting it
through feces more rapidly so those two
um those are two ways that fiber
actually is beneficial
for basically inhibiting the absorption
of microplastics and nanoplastics where
do plastics go in the body is that do
they congeal in certain places uh yeah
so there's been again there's this is
like an emerging feel there's a lot more
evidence on the chemicals associated
with plastics which we can talk about
but um there's been a variety of studies
actually a lot of them coming out um
2024 last year some new ones coming out
this year showing that
microplastics seem to accumulate in the
brain 10 to 20 times more than other
organs and this was a study out of San
Pao Brazil where there's um moderate air
pollution I mean it's not like Mexico
City but it you know there is there's a
significant amount of air pollution
there and I mention air pollution
because you would think well why are
microplastics accumulating 10 to 20
times more rapidly in the brain than
other organs they've been found in the
heart they've been found in the liver
and the kidneys and the lungs of course
you're breathing it in
um in the in the testes reproductive
organs everywhere placenta but why are
they accumulating so you know heavily in
the brain and it's not really known it
hasn't really been investigated but I
think it has to do with the fact that
we're breathing in these particles in
addition to consuming them orally from
our foods and Beverages and things like
that
because I mentioned microplastics are in
the air right they're in the air we are
breathing them in they get into our
lungs but so the bloodb brain barrier is
supposed to protect chemicals from
getting into the brain and you would
think well if anything job yeah you'd
think it'd be like less microplastics in
the brain than in the lungs right um and
also particle size plays a role so again
particle size if you have a nanoplastic
it can more readily trans transverse
across the blood brain barrier because
it's smaller in size similar to what's
happening in the gut but when you
breathe in something it's a direct rout
to the brain so it it bypasses the
bloodb brain barrier and and and this is
because you're ol factoring neurons when
you when you smell something there's a
direct connection to the central nervous
system and this is why a lot of drugs
that are administered intranasally are
done so because they are trying to
bypass the blood brain barrier so I
think what's happening is you're getting
a combination of both oral consumption
and you're getting the nanoplastics you
know in circulation because once the
these things get into
circulation there's really no point of
there it's kind of beyond the point of
return right they're going to organs and
they're there like I don't know how
they're going to get out of the organs
once they're there you know this isn't
something that we're excreting unless
it's at the level of the intestines when
we're eating it consuming it then like I
mentioned if the fiber is there you're
excreting it but once it gets into
circulation it's going to organs so um I
think the combination of you know the
the breathing it in and eating it is why
you're getting it in the brain 10 to 20
times more and here's why that's a
problem because um in that same study um
they looked postmortem at people that
had dementia like Alzheimer's disease
and those individuals that had dementia
and Alzheimer's disease had 10 times
more microplastics in their brains than
people that did not have dementia and
Alzheimer's disease 10 times more so of
course this is a correlation you can't
necessarily say this is causing it right
microplastics are causing um Alzheimer's
disease but there are animal studies
that have shown that microplastics in
the brain can cause inflammation chronic
inflammation and we do know that plays a
big role in brain aging dementia and
Alzheimer's disease I wonder if you
would be able to run a study where you
had people who for one reason or another
were breathing in cleaner air compared
but what still eating the same sort of
diet compared with people eating the
same sort of diet but breathing in less
clean air so people that maybe lived out
in in the countryside but were still
eating food that was wrapped in plastic
so you have that which is the systemic
through the mouth one but then you also
have the sniffing a line of plastic from
your daily breathing equivalent that's
coming from the people that live in
Cosmopolitan Metropolitan City something
like that that' be really interesting to
try and to try and split that out I
guess uh well you mentioned before the
the sort of types of plastics that we're
talking about I've heard about what have
I heard about bpas heard about those
what else are we worried about bpas
anymore or is that like yes yeah okay so
so the so the bisphenol a is a chemical
that is put into CL plastic um it's you
know it's a chemical that's
that's it helps with durability
robustness um flexibility right so those
chemicals would be bisphenol a BPA um
phalates are another one then there's
BPS which is the replacement for a BPA
so you'll often hear BPA free and just
got BPF or BPS in instead B it's the
Delta rate equivalent of getting around
the weed law it's like ah this isn't
this isn't cannabis this is Delta R you
go well I mean functionally it does the
same thing but you've just changed some
molecule that means that legally it's
not an issue exactly it's it's
essentially a good marketing strategy
because people I know I have many
friends that thought BPA free was like
oh this is healthy but you have to
realize no there's still plastic like
you can put hot water into a BP BPA free
mug that's has plastic in it and you're
still going to get microplastics and
you're still going to have the other
chemicals like BPS so these chemicals
are called endocrine disrupting
chemicals because they disrupt disrupt
the endocrine system so BPA BPS um you
know these are these are chemicals that
are often referred to as
xenoestrogens because they mimic
estrogen in the body and they bind to
estrogen receptors they bind to Androgen
receptors and they can block the
activity of them or they can enhance the
activity depending on the dose of the
chemical and so that has a a lot of
effects on hormones you know I mean so
so there's there have been a variety of
studies looking at how BPA BPS um to I
mean there's there's fewer studies on
BPS CU it's newer but it seems as though
it's doing something very similar to BPA
what about BHT I've heard about that um
I don't know as much about BHT I think
this was the thing that vany
Hari popped Kelloggs for having on the
inner lining of their America seral bags
that they didn't have this particular
BHT in the Canadian version uh saying
they didn't have the red 40 they didn't
have the blue three they didn't have the
yellow four and they didn't have this
particular type of plastic additive that
was on the inside uh helps with
preservation of the food makes it last
longer does something else maybe it's
cheaper I'm not too sure um so what who
are the big culprits what are the big
ones BPA is one of the biggest ones um p
ps is now you know coming along because
there's a lot of companies that are
manufacturing and marketing BPA free um
phalates are a big one those are also
found in a lot of like personal hygiene
products and cosmetics shampoos
deodorants creams everything like
anything personal hygiene and um and
then there's there's also the forever
chemicals
P those are also found in a variety of
of um things that are water resistant
oil repellent you know anything like
that M um well so the the the these
chemicals so I mentioned I mentioned
hormones you know they're disrupting
testosterone so um there's been a
variety of studies looking at for
example urinary BPA exposure and
testosterone levels and you know there's
an association with higher urinary BPA
exposure higher urinary BPA you know
excretion and lower testosterone again
because these things are affecting you
know they're affecting hormones through
feedback loops because they're binding
to these estrogen receptors these
Androgen receptors and this is something
that microplastics themselves are you
know leeching in so if you have
microplastics accumulating in your
testes for example I mean there was a
study it was a small study was done that
found 100% of this of people and they
also tested dogs um 100% of both people
and dogs had microplastics in their
semen like not a single
sample that didn't have microplastics in
semen and it was also this was also
associated with um disrupted morphology
so the structure of sperm and also
motility so the ability to move and swim
right so this stuff is sort of
fundamental right it's affecting our
like our reproduction it's it's it's
kind of and it's everywhere it's
ubiquitous so um it's it's it's not
something to ignore you know there's
obviously a lot of other lifestyle
factors that important being you know
maintaining a healthy weight and
exercise and all that but on I I do
think this is a growing issue it's
affecting hormones um BPA is also
affecting the brain so a lot of studies
on brain development but also like
studies looking at you know just
correlations between High BPA levels in
adults um neurodevelopment is a big one
because developing you know fetuses like
like like males that are develop
developing boys that are developing it's
affecting their neurodevelopment so
women that have higher urinary BPA
levels are six times more likely to have
a child diagnosed with
autism and also it's affecting the
sexual development of boys so the AGD is
getting impacted right um there's yes
exactly so um it's both the Ango the
anogenital distance so that would be the
distance between the anus and um and the
the penis right glad that you said it
and so that's shorter right it's it's
these plastic chemicals like phalates in
particular is a big one also BPA is
affecting the you know the anogenital
distance but it's also affecting
phalates in particular are affecting um
undescended testicles is a big one I
mean it's it's really common now if you
talk to like parents like how common it
is to have a boy with an undescended
testicle and also hypospadia so that's
that is the um in boys it's the Ure slit
where urine comes out of it's like
further back on the on the penis and so
it's
basically you some some boys have the
entire physiology yeah so you your
stream isn't normal right you might have
to sit down to to urinate because the
the slit is like further back on the on
the on the penis this is a big thing
that thit are it's affecting sexual
development because these hormones are
really important they're signaling
during right development how organs
you're a male or a female exactly they
are and so you know this is a this is
a I think it's a growing problem I think
we have enough evidence now to be
alarmed about it there should be some
conversations about it because you know
it's not like we're going to have a
randomized controlled trial where you're
going to give a pregnant woman BPA in
phalates right that's unethical so
you're never going to have that gold
standard we're going to have to look at
this observational data which at the end
of the day is of course always
but there's a lot of it and we there's a
lot of animal data showing causation in
animals showing how it's happening and
we have to kind of connect the dots and
say look like this is something we need
to be concerned about these chemicals
are affecting human development you know
and they're affecting adults they're
affecting cognition you know it's how so
what what's the impact of plastic on
cognition yeah I mean again it's
correlate correlation but there have
been studies looking at high BPA levels
again it's always urin Ary because we
excrete BPA through our urine that's how
we detoxify it and um so high urinary
BPA levels is associated with you know
decreased cognition decreased memory
scores decreased learning so again
correlation because you could say well
people are consuming packaged foods
which are Ultra processed and that also
is associated with bogn is it what that
consuming or is it what they're
consuming is contained within right but
we do know that BPA can cross the blood
brain barrier it can disrupt neuronal
signaling again when you look at the
animal data and you have a mechanism
that's very plausible there you start to
connect the dots and go wow there's
plausibility here we can understand what
it's
doing we have human data that's
correlating it so you know we need to
start to think about these things like
there's only so much that you
can you know that you can do um without
of of course being unethical and
designing an experiment right we just
learned about the way that microplastic
are making their way into our bodies yet
another reason why staying on top of
your health is vital which is why I
partnered with function they run lab
tests twice a year that monitor over a
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wisdom that's function health.com slod
wisdom is there a sex difference between
how men and how women are susceptible to
Plastics are certain types of plastics
more are they making different kinds of
impacts and obviously women can be
pregnant so I guess developing children
in the womb that's one thing but yeah
What's the sex difference story it does
it does seem like males tend to be more
susceptible God damn it I knew it knew
it you know male males in general like
like during development it's a like they
seem to be more vulnerable to a lot of
different environmental stresses
including you know like acetam Menin and
there's all kinds of studies where
you'll find oh this is happening in a
male you know fetus like a male that's
developing not not the female female
privilege but but yeah again we
mentioned all these reproductive effects
in in men right um it's it's and also
autism affects I mean men is like twice
men are twice as likely or boys are
twice as likely to be diagnosed with
autism than than girls so 12 times more
likely if you've got a ton of
microplastics in you I don't know though
I'm not sure about that but but I mean I
I also don't do maass very well but
anyway um yeah it is it's I mean what is
it what's it saying males a Nature's
play thing that there's just more male
variability there's more male
variability in terms of IQ in terms of
height in terms of all all of these
different things and um every fetus
starts off as female as well right um I
think there's some kind
of there's some kind of sex there's I
mean first of all the sex is determined
by the male sides of the sperm right um
and I'm not exactly sure that I would
say it starts off as female but like it
depends on what you're this not the
reason why men have got nipples you need
to have all of the you need to have all
of the individual bit like this is where
we need to go I'm pretty sure someone
shat GPT it someone shat GPT it and tell
me whether or not I'm right I feel like
I might be right here um but okay sex
differences how does it impact men and
women differently and and it it also
goes with like you know a lot of these
plastic chemicals like BPA are also
affecting um ADHD not just autism and
again it seems like boys are more
susceptible to that but these plastic
chemical do affect women as well uh you
know it's also something that's
affecting fertility it's
affecting egg like so there's been
studies on in um invitro fertilization
and women that have high levels of BPA
they have like 50% less viable eggs so
it's not like these plastic chemicals
aren't affecting women as well um and
cognition in general I mean it's
affecting both both sexes right it's not
just men but it seems as though like
sexual development really it seems to be
targeting males especially the phalates
what about testosterone levels energy
energy production stuff like that so
testosterone levels as I mentioned um
there there seems to be because you've
got
BPA and some of the other chemicals they
are endocrine disrupting they are
binding to estrogen receptors they are
binding to Androgen receptors um and
Depends depending on the do this will
affect you know the hormones that are
that are signaling to the hyp phalic um
pituitary gonadal AIS right the hpg axis
where testosterone is produced and so
ultimately what happens is there's like
these feedback loops that are important
in order to make hormones like
testosterone and so that gets disrupted
and then the hpg axis is disrupted and
so you don't make as much
testosterone again a lot of this has
been worked out in animal studies when
you look at the human data it's okay men
with higher levels of BPA also have
lower levels of t testosterone um so the
question is you know like okay well what
can we do about it right like you want
to try to avoid some of these Plastics
plastic chemicals well let's actually
before we get into that you've sort of
touched on them a few times but just do
a rundown for me of the most common
places that people are getting exposed
to the highest levels of microplastics
yeah so the the most I would say common
places one is drinking out of bottled
water like bottle plas plastic bottles
right like a lot of people drink out of
plastic bottles um that would be a big
Source tap water that's unfiltered so
tap water again also has
microplastics unfortunately our oceans
are contaminated so microplastics are
also found in a lot of fish and
particularly they accumulate in the
digestive tract of fish so if you're
eating shellfish or clams or oysters or
anything where you're eating the whole
digestive tract or sardine whole whole
sardine then you're going to be getting
microplastics heat is a big big one okay
that I would say that is one of the main
you know culprits when you're combining
that with plastic so a lot of your Togo
coffees that you're drinking from
Starbucks Starbucks anything like that
is going that is a huge one because
you're you're you know there's been
studies looking at BPA leeching into
liquid when it's when heat like boiling
water is applied it increases increases
the leeching by 55 times which is huge
it also increases microplastic you know
breakdown right because you're breaking
down the plastic itself no you're
getting more you're making the plastic
smaller which allows it to be permeating
through the gut more effectively exactly
exactly I can't tell you how many like
to-go coffees I've had in my life and
you know another big Source now this is
like new coming out I mean this there's
been a couple of studies that have come
out on this is tea bags
because you're adding hot water to tea
and the tea bags themselves are made of
either um polypropylene they're made of
nylon or they're made of interestingly
cellulose which you would think wouldn't
have microplastics but I think they they
must be mixed there must be a mixture of
stuff in there and there's this new
study came out you know really just a
couple of months ago showing that you
can get anywhere between Millions to
billions of microplastic particles per
milliliter
I mean per milliliter how many how much
is that compared with the normal sort of
that's a that's a lot show a lot okay
it's a lot what I'm getting at is you
know I you know there's not that I I
think what's happening is the the the
heat is breaking the plastic down these
tea bags are made of plastic and so um
you know consuming these tea bags again
when you're getting to goatee it's like
I I now I'm like all I can think about
is like I'm consuming a plastic tea but
you have to remember there's a lot of
studies at least with green tea showing
that green tea has huge benefits for
cognition it it delays dementia might
even offset the microplastics you've had
to consume yeah yeah so I mean clearly
people are drinking tea out of probably
tea bag so it's not like yeah at least
with green tea it seems like there's
some there's some benefits right but um
so so those are some of the major
sources um and then there's also it's in
our salt um and then air right so like
that that's another one if you're living
in a polluted place if you're again you
know internally venting your dryer dryer
ventilation in your house that's another
major source and then another one would
be also to consider would be black
plastic so I know you're like what this
is this is kind of some new data coming
out black plastic is often made from
recycled
electronics and you mean bits of plastic
that a black I mean black utensils like
your black spat
or black plastic you know forks and
knives or your your black plastic lid on
a coffee to go coffee cup black Sushi
the bottom of a sushi container bottom
of like a rotisserie chicken if you've
ever bought a rotisserie chicken from
the grocery store that black right black
plastic it's often made from recycled
electronics and recycled
Electronics often have chemicals in them
that are added to prevent fir from
starting like they don't want
Electronics Starting Fire they add these
brominated flame retardants which are
carcinogenic they are not supposed to be
in food they're noted they're not you're
not you don't suck on your electronic
they're not supposed to go in your mouth
right so these um black these black
Plastics have very high levels of
carcinogens that are normally not even
found in regular Plastics that were you
know in in things that were consuming
and there was a study out of the
University of Plymouth that found black
utensils black toys for babies you know
they're putting in their mouth they
contain between 30 to 40 times the safe
limit of these brominated flame
retardants and other carcinogens and
endocrine disruptors in them than and
than then safe so um that's another sort
of and think about it if you're buying
like a rotisserie chicken or like you
get a Togo F or whatever soup and it's
in like a black container you got the
heat that's the added Factor on top of
that right so that's another major
source what about thermal stuff yes um
so again we mentioned the phalates right
um which are in personal hygiene
products and that's something I do want
to mention because you might think oh
I'm looking at the ingredient list and
there's no phalate on there but there's
two different chemicals that are very
very sneaky because they mean they're
salades and they're in a lot of personal
hygiene products one is fragrance if the
word fragrance is in the ingredient
ingredients list that means there stades
and
parfume not perfume but parfume that is
another chemical that means there stades
so you really want to look for phalate
free personal hygiene products again
very important especially for um people
that are considering conceiving because
those the chemicals that are associated
with the sexual you know disrupting
sexual development in boys and then the
other one is receipts and this is a
really big one because maybe not for you
and I
right receipts are they're thermal paper
and so essentially they're coated with
BPA
because there's a thermal reaction that
happens when heat is applied to the BPA
it prints it prints text on the receipt
without actual ink so that's how it
works and if you ever see like a white
coating on the receipt like that's
that's BPA so the BPA in like Plastics
at least is kind of contained in a
plastic Matrix like this is just it's
Pally liberated yes exactly it's it's
like free-for-all on the receipt and um
so there's studies looking at people
that handle a lot of receipts they like
when I was in the airport stuff and
stuff like that yeah I was in the
airport on coming coming here and you
know I the guy that was like handling
the receipt he's like do you want the
receipt I'm like no and I saw him take
it out and put it in the trash and like
I thought about there's this huge line
of people you're doing that 500 times a
day exactly and I looked at the guy and
I was like I was like hey dude you know
I just want to tell you that these
receipts are lined with endocrine
disruptors that disrupt hormones and he
goes you mean wish somebody had recorded
this oh my God this lady who's going
through the airport I met this lady
earlier on today and she started ranting
and raving about the receipts said it's
sort of covered in this magic dust
that's killing me or something like
that's I couldn't I couldn't help myself
I felt like it like I couldn't not say
something right and he looks at me he
goes you mean like testosterone I was
like yes test testosterone it's been
show it's been correlated with a
decrease in testosterone it's like you
need to wear nit trial gloves so bottom
line is BPA um it's lined on the
receipts uh nitr gloves can stop people
from absorbing it so people that are
like you know basically any kind of
cashier anyone that's handling a receipt
multiple times a day highly recommend
they wear Nitro gloves latex doesn't do
that also if you wear cream or um hand
sanitizer it it's been shown to incre
increase the dermal absorption of BPA by
a h hundredfold
off some people are like I don't want to
get my hands on the I don't want to get
Co or whatever right how many 100x 100x
absorption think about how how many
times these reg I've seen I've seen them
do it you know and then they touch the
receipt so I think I think this is like
something that not really talked about
and here I am worried about my like
onetime exposure so you know for people
out there it's like you can op career of
working in Target or something like that
so the first time that I ever learned
about receipts uh you won't know who
this is but Owen Shroyer who is Alex
Jones's sort of second in command I went
for dinner with him when I first moved
to Austin forever ago him and a bunch of
other people there was a couple of girls
at the table with us as well just
downtown in Austin and the receipt came
out and I was like oh this I'm sort of
new here I'll I'll get the meal that' be
like nice it' be a nice thing for me to
do so I did it and as I'm going to get
the receipt out one of the girls that
sat around the table like hits my hand
away I'm like what she's like what are
you doing as if I was about to walk out
into open traffic I'm like I was going
to going to take the receipt and I was
going to put the tip on she's like are
you crazy you going to touch that I'm
like so it kind of does show that The
Fringe Insight from three years ago some
of that stuff ends up being a bullseye
and sort of percolates around now I'm
not saying that all of it is but some of
the stuff ends up being legit right it
is it's definitely legit and it is a
concern
particularly for people that are
handling them daily multiple time
multiple times a day and I don't know
that I've really I've seen a couple
people wearing gloves at cash registers
like they've got um special ones that
are like finger things have you seen
those I've seen those individual so
maybe just the sort of your first two
fingers in your thumb or something
rather than having to W swey gloves all
day and I imagine that's well I mean
sign well it gets through latex as well
it gets through latex yeah BPA is like
it's it's fat soluble and stuff we can
talk about ways to get rid of it but
like you know what about final final
thing I guess on sources you mentioned
clothing going through the dryer I don't
know what this t-shirts made of it looks
a little bit shiny maybe there's some
polyester in it I
know that the brand of pants that I
tried a you not 15 different types
of pants uh until I settled on these are
bamboo cotton but I'm like is that what
about the what about the elain liner
around the top what about the way that
this is stitched AC there's probably an
dermal absorption in an area that I
really don't want there to be too much
of it how much are we getting leeched in
from the thi the clothes that we wear
yeah that's a great question so again um
it's not the BPA and those chemicals
most of the time you might have like
forever chemicals and some of that as
well right like especially if it's like
a not maybe not the underwear but like
like a coat or something that's anything
that's
waterproof type thing yeah but I guess
you I suppose the one advantage of
outwear being higher in Forever
chemicals is that by virtue of it being
out ofwar there's usually some layers in
between you and it right um when it
comes to you know undergarments or even
just like our shirts and clothing it the
dermal absorption is not the major sour
from from clo clothing it's not the
major way that like BPA and these
chemicals are getting into our system um
with that said if you're sweating if
you're working out if there's a lot of
friction like sweat heat that opens
pores right so you can increase some
absorption somewhat there's no real data
on this is just me like thinking about
mechanism right I guess as well you know
one of the weird quirks of gym kit
especially the sort of gym kit where
people sweat is that it's polyester sort
of fitted t-shirts
leggings things like that that people
are then moving friction which is going
to liberate something you're sweating
that's heat there's water paws are open
larger aperture for whatever it is to
get in exactly so I mean I still like
we're not panicking not yet yeah you can
go you have to choose your battles right
you have to choose your battles I do
think that yeah maybe some people can
wear cotton athletic wear there's not a
ton of it out there like it has to be
100% natural fiber so you mentioned B
bamboo that would be a natural fiber
mention bedding as well stuff like that
bedding as well exactly if you're like
sweating in your bed and also just like
your breathing like your face is right
there every night I mean so if you can
get like a 100% bamboo sheets are like
really soft as well so I mean that would
be I mean again you can start to go down
the rabbit hole believe me I've been
there but I think for most 99% of the
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one elephant in the room when we're
talking about this which is an obviously
everybody including me is now thinking
right okay where are the places that
I've got plastic in my life well I've
switched all of my Tupperware out from
plastic to Glass I use glass water
bottles or I use like an aquatru reverse
osmosis thing that's good that goes into
a glass cff and I'm using like like a
yeti cool blah blah blah but the food
that we eat even the best
quality
steaks they unless you're going to the
farmer's market and he's chopped it off
the cow and put it in wax paper it's
wrapped in plastic right I work with ped
Mones and make amazing beef the my
favorite beef in the world it's the
tastiest
stuff arrives to me wrapped in plastic
so like what have you got any idea when
it comes to packaging packaging of
vegetables you know even the organic
double washed spinach that's in one of
those sort of big tray things with the
plastic across the top and it's all
around the sides how much how big of a
deal is that um yes exactly I've gone
down that rabbit hole so I'm glad you
you brought it up uh you know when it
comes to like meats and stuff I mean
exactly unless and even if you're like
out hunting it like you're going to
you've got a lot of meat you're going to
store it in your freezer and you're
going to vacuum seal it and it's going
to be in a plastic vacuum sealed bag
right like it's not it's unavoidable um
the the reality is is that if you if you
can the the more the plastic breaks down
over time so time oxygen heat these are
all a factor in the breakdown of
plastics to our food into our food and
also um
the chemicals associated with them so if
you're you know just if the plastic is
only on your meat for a short period of
time or it's in the freezer at least
it's a little more stable as opposed to
if you've got a bottle of Avon in Dubai
that's been transported via truck two or
three or four different Journeys and
it's been hot and it's been cool again
then it's been hot and then it's been
cool again then finally it gets into a
fridge and you go ah it's been in the
fridge it's cold exactly go exactly what
about the rest of the supply chain Bingo
exactly so I mean this is the way I
think about it and you know when it
comes to like the vegetables and all
that stuff the same the same goes I mean
like I when I get my vegetables I I
rinse them off because you do you can
rinse off some of the stuff that's not
quite absorbed but you know don't you
don't want to put it in a plastic bag
and store it in your refrigerator if you
can like I just put like a paper towel
down and put the vegetables on top of
that if you're if you're getting like I
buy blueberries they come in a plastic
container like what are you going to do
you rinse off the blueberries you kind
of hope for the best it's not like the
blueberry berries have been in that
plastic container for years right
obviously blueberries been in that for
that long or else they'd be dead right
so so so you have to have some piece of
mind and realize okay we do live in a
plastic world at the end of the day you
know it does come down to the breakdowns
of this plastic and so you know the
things that you want to avoid are like
you said the bottled water the heat
touching the plastic um you want to get
a reverse osmosis filter so reverse
osmosis you mentioned aquatru that's a
great counter
yeah I have a lot of friends that use
that cuz it's a countertop you can what
do you use um I'm actually in the
process of getting an inhome like full
system you you using Greenfield for that
no you know his dad makes one of the
most advanced water inh home water
things oh no I didn't know that yeah
it's like actually absolute like father
like son biohacker Wonder so the company
I can't remember I have to look at my
phone but the company that I was going
with are they store the water the water
stored in um stainless steel instead of
plastic J like drugs um oh so you're
getting it delivered you're not getting
it no no no what I mean is like like the
so the housing the tubes and then like
you know they have there's like the
storage containers that are like part of
the system okay right I don't know
exactly how it work so they're remapping
the whole house to have no plastic in
the pipes um
no no no no just the just the filtration
that's well actually I mean in a way
it's just that what's coming through my
showers what's going to come through
because filtration is going to be at
close to the last point exactly exactly
understood understood well Ben will be
listening so I'm sure he'll he'll he'll
tell me whether or not well the one
thing to consider with reverse osmosis
filtration is it does so the great thing
about reverse osmosis is it filters out
not only microplastics but it filters
out nanoplastics it filters out really
really really tiny tiny um particles and
chemicals including Trace Elements and
Minerals need what's your F this is a
good this is a good question um what is
your favorite remineralization
[Music]
protocol presuming that you use some
sort of Reverse Osmosis System so that's
what I that's what I was looking into
and um there are some systems that will
remineralize the water after it's been
filtrated so you don't have
to think about think about it or add
something back which is kind of annoying
um however you can add something back
particularly if you've already got a
system in in use and you haven't done I
think most people the the most realistic
solution that people will get will be
some sort of tabletop type solution
rather than rep Plumbing their entire
house so there's a variety of drops that
you can add to your water that are in
like a glass container that will remize
the you're talking like magnesium
potassium um you know lithium maganese
just a lot of the trace elements that
are that are you have any Bron that you
like do you know um well I haven't
gotten any of those but there's also a
mineral supplement you can take and I do
know of a good one from Pure
encapsulations it's called it's called
mineral 50 or pure 50 and there's a one
with without iron depending on you know
a lot of men don't want Iron and it
really is it's essentially all the
minerals that are filtered out of of
water from reverse osmosis and it's just
one like tablet that you take a day yeah
I me I I you know I was a partner with
aquatru I think there's still maybe you
can try for the people that are
listening you can maybe try
MW2 uh as a code I'm not on commission
but um I was a partner with aquatru for
ages they also make air doctor I'm not
sure so a doctor is a carbon
and there's two types of filter for your
house again just a standalone unit that
does it's called ideal living as the
company they also did this I didn't
realize you may have looked into this
atomizers you know you put essential
oils into them uh the process that that
goes through also pushes a ton of stuff
that you don't want into the atmosphere
um uh Yankee Candles and candles and
stuff like that also liberating a ton of
stuff that you don't really want I
remember
ogs of the channel will remember that
where we very very first started this
podcast in my house in Newcastle the I
had a candle Obsession for a while and
the ceiling of this room had accumulated
so much Su that it looked like it was
moldy it was a really nice house really
nicely decorated room and we got on
the internet for 6 months more more than
six months like a full year before I had
to pay decorators to come in just to
paint the ceiling so that people the
internet would shut up my point being I
was I went through like a candle a month
or something and I was like huh that's
on the SE that's in my lungs like not
good right yeah I this is this is I'm
glad you brought that up so obviously
there's air filters like a high quality
HEPA filter which is a great one that
does filter out the microplastics you
know vacuuming also can disturb and
bring microplastics in the air some
vacuums have um he filters on them as
well you know but but a lot of things to
consider but you mentioned air quality
and air pollution and and chemicals that
are in it and that's another so that so
the other area is you know can you get
rid of any of these chemicals like BPA
how do you how do you excrete them or
some of the things you know some of the
things that you're breathing in right so
that that's the the next question I I
actually think before that before we get
into how you get them out of you can you
just do a run through of best tactics
for avoidance like super simple this is
what we know I know it's going to be
imperfect I know that everybody with
health anxiety is just their heart
ratees you know 20% higher than it
should be what's the 8020 on avoiding
Plastics in consumption I do I think
there's imperfect avoidance right it's
you're not going to avoid it 100% but I
think the I would say the top things to
consider and try to implement in your
life would be one get a high quality
reverse osmosis filter whether it's
countertop or whole house system that's
first and foremost um number two avoid
drinking as much as possible out of
plastic bottles also cans do are lined
with um plastic lining as well um so
consider that as well um number three
avoid heating plastic so really like the
Togo coffee mugs is a big one bring
bring your own you know mug like this
here Yeti I I bring yetis to I bring
them when I travel and I ask them to can
you put my latte in this mug and they do
it I just had an idea there I've become
addicted keep where you are but I become
addicted to Dutch Bros coffee and I kind
of need to tell the internet about it uh
it's phenomenal I wonder if there is a
way I was watching them make it because
when you go and go through the
drive-thru you can actually see the
process of them going through it a lot
of the time when they make an iced
coffee an iced latte they're pouring it
between almost what looks like a
cocktail shaker the steel
thing pouring it between that and
pouring it between cup I haven't done
this yet but one of the things that I
thought about cuz the cup is typically
filled with the ice then they pour the
hot liquid over the ice and that's what
cools it I was like huh if I said rather
than you pouring it from the steel thing
into the plastic could I just get you to
do two steel things side by side put the
ice in that one cool it down and then
pop it into the plastic thing for me
obviously the gold standard would be to
take your own cup but if You' say that
you don't have that I also have to
assume that iced drinks are going to be
better even if you get a splash of hot
hitting the cup that you don't you can't
get them to do some fancy cocktail trick
with it's going to cool it down more
quickly so it's not going to liberate
for as long for as to as small exactly
and if you think about it if you're
getting an iced cup of fill-in the blank
you know that's
plastic the the beverage isn't in that
cup for that long right so the breakdown
it's like it's not really happos to you
waiting for 20 minutes for it to become
a consumable temperature yeah or as
opposed to like bottled water like you
said it's like how long has it been in
there and heat it's been in how many
trucks has it been on and warehouses has
it you know gone through before it's
been in that refrigerator that you think
is cold um so you know and I do want to
mention another thing with coffee but
I'll get back to the imperfect avoidance
we've got uh reverse osmosis not
drinking tap water second up is avoiding
bottled water third one is avoiding
heating plastic which would include
Tupperware reheating meals meal prep
companies stuff like that I'm going to
guess yes yeah all that because that's
you know they're putting a lot of stuff
in plastic right um and then I did
mention like like canned soup is really
bad because it's in a it's in a can
that's lined with BPA and the soup goes
in hot it goes in hot oh when they fill
it yeah so there' have been studies that
have compared people that get canned
soup to like soup made in glass okay and
um it increases like BP urinary BPA by
1,000% which is is insanely High have
you do you know what the inside of tetra
packs are like those sort of more
cartton things do you know what I mean
by Tetra pack I don't know what's in it
but I'll tell you this and this is what
I want is going to get back to
BP there's something called polylactic
acid that you can line I think you can
line cans with it I know you can line to
go coffee mugs like some I know Blue
Bottle Coffee lines it with polylactic
acid rather than um like BPA plastic so
polylactic acid why not replace the
that's not that's not liberated in the
same way that's not that wouldn't impact
us it's it's an organic it's not it's
not
plastic polylactic acid it's like an
organic compound okay yeah so I mean you
have to make sure that you know with
anything sometimes companies will mix a
little plastic in there and you never
really know right like that's always the
supply chain of your plastic let alone
your food let's just let's assume that
everyone's like you know credible and
yeah doing the right thing yeah
polylactic acid I don't know why like
Starbucks and all these companies and
cans everything should be lined with it
because it's you know it's it's healthy
it's Health going to I'm going to look
into that for for neonic okay so what's
what's next up after this soup heating
stuff Tupper I mean dear God please just
replace all of your Tupper wire with
glass exactly and also um your utensils
like don't don't use spatulas that are
made of plastic wood w wood is fine yeah
wood um you know also Teflon like
have you want have stainless steel or
you want to do cast IR or ceramic right
like you don't want things that are
coated because like you just never know
what's in that coating I saw a
comparison image on Twitter of one of
those the non-stick pans but one of
those that's you've used for two and a
half years and it's got loads of
scratches in it and that causes all hell
to break loose and be liberated into the
food absolutely I mean think about the
scratches like that stuff is going
somewhere like where's it going right
going into your food right it's going
into you so that's another um heat is a
really big one a really and also
microwave popcorn so the inside of bags
the inside of the bags of microwave
popcorn are lined with forever chemicals
forever chemicals they're called that
past because it takes our body like two
to five years to get rid of them and
they are carcinogens they're they're
terrible and so and they're you're
heating it up right the popcorn's
heating up so popcorn popcorn bags is is
um another one but I think uh you know
in terms of that and then you know with
respect to like the
foods obviously like if you can like
shrimp eating whole sardines anything
like microplastics are in the digest of
track of those Foods so like limiting
you just don't want to eat shrimp like
every day huh what are
um what are capsules z0 capsules for
supplements what's that made of what are
those you know like a capsule like a
like magnesium steroid like any type of
creatine capsule or something where it's
in a a it's capsulated as opposed to
just raw tablet is that what it is is it
gelatin typically it's usually not
plastic I was just looking at it and
thinking I bet that someone somewhere
has realized that we can make it 50%
cheaper if we use some sort of but it's
typically going to be like a gelatin
thing usually a high quality supplement
would be yeah I I haven't I haven't seen
the plastic ones but I don't you know I
don't go around to the the first place
that I've identified that doesn't have
Plastics in so far so I can breathe a
side of relief around all of the T
tablets that I take every day I think if
you're doing those things though that's
like the the majority of of trying to
decrease from the dryer right and then
have a have a help it filter filter in
your house like what you like to use I
mean you can use like like there's a lot
of different there's like high high
quality medical grade ones that are a
little more expensive which are great
but for people that are just like like
say they live in a condo or like they
have a small flat or something you know
getting like a honey well HEPA filter
like for each room they're really not
that expensive and they do filter out a
lot of particulate matter um that you're
you know breathing in including
microplastics so I mean that's a pretty
I think feasible option for Good Start
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so if we've got that's how to avoid them
this is where they come from how
possible is it for our bodies to
actually get rid of them what are the
ways that we can speed this up actually
first question is it possible to test
can I go and work out how how many
microplastics are in my body um that's a
good question so I've had people
emailing me about test their developing
for for for measuring microplastics in
circulation you have to remember once it
gets into circulation like that's when
it's going to other organs right I
haven't seen any validated tests on
actual microplastics yet but there are
tests on the chemicals associated with
them so like BPA phalates forever
chemicals and the test that I use is
from vibrant Wellness they have a really
yeah they have a really great um toxin
Panel test total talks yep and so they
do everything like all those chemicals
and others they do like microt toxins
they do heavy metals and uh you know I
don't have any affiliation with them but
I think they're just they've got a great
the same one that my that my doctor
Gabrielle lion it's the same one that
her team suggested and it came back and
everything was red so uh yeah I
can vouch for the fact that it's
accurate right so that would be you know
the testing wise now um again with
microplastics I think we're going to
start to see a lot of tests come out now
that this is Brian Johnson's trying to
develop one he was tweeting about it
recently I mean he's tweeting about a
lot of things at the moment um but yeah
he was tweeting about some microplastics
test interesting yeah there's there's a
variety of companies and I'm sure
vibrant Wellness is probably going to
add that to the list um as well okay so
that's how we find out how can I get rid
of them I got too many microplastics in
my body how do I get rid of them yeah so
microplastics we kind of talked about a
little bit getting rid of them and that
really the main source is excretion
through feces and that happens with
dietary fiber so if you are eating a lot
of fruits and vegetables that does
increase the chances that microplastics
are going to move their way out through
feces is that only microplastics that
you're consuming along with it or is it
able to pull microplastics sort of
detoxify them from your body I think
it's I think it's in general to be
honest
because if you think about like fiber
what does it do it moves stuff through
your body it doesn't necessarily have to
be something that you just ate right
like it could be something that you had
hours before so if you're getting like
fiber daily fiber right like thinking
about getting your total daily fiber I
think that's something that is important
because it's moving the it's moving it
out of your body so you can't absorb it
through both ways like the the ways of
just moving it through but also you know
with the type of fiber that's found in
things like you know berries and apples
so these are pectins like inulin all
this all this type of fermentable fiber
green bananas resistant starch like that
stuff makes viscous gel-like substance
in your gut which encapsulates
microplastics that you're not absorbing
them so really I think it's just like
more important to focus on the daily
fiber intake versus like with a meal so
is that the the biggest mover daily
fiber intake do you think I do and this
is all animal data like there's this is
all new there's no real human data yet
on on that area in terms of like
excreting it through feces and
absorption intestinal absorption um but
I do think like it's it it makes sense
like why wouldn't it translate right so
um that's something that I think is
important oh the other thing this just
came out this is interesting also animal
data so forever chemicals I mentioned
forever chemicals those take two to 5
years to excrete to get rid of I say
excrete to to detoxify get out of your
body they stay in your body forever
that's why they're called Forever
chemicals um unlike bisphenol a which is
it has it's in your in your body for
like up to four or five hours you know
any from two to 5 hours this this really
kind of daily excretion and it's
excreted through urine but there's
studies showing that the they're called
um beta glucans and they're in oats and
they're in mushrooms but the study used
oats the beta glucans which is by the
way a fermentable type of uh fiber they
were they actually caused excretion of
the forever chemicals pasas in animals
which is something that doesn't happen
so they increase the um excretion
through it's this whole mechanism that
affects like your your your liver your
your bile acid and liver and cholesterol
and all this like fancy stuff that you
know might be confusing to explain but
essentially that's been shown to um
increase the excretion of forever
chemicals so I've actually been adding a
lot of
um oats in fact I had some oatmeal this
morning because I'm like oh my gosh this
isn't incredible like the reason why I
also think it's happening in humans is
because there was a human study not with
oats um but it was it's a drug that's
used to lower cholesterol and it does
the exact same thing that oats the beta
the beta glucans and oats do it was
shown to clear forever chemicals and
people wow so I'm like oh okay add the
Dots here what about sauna sauna so
sauna um so I'm talking about excreting
things um through through urine or feces
right so so bisphenol a and a lot of
these plastic chemicals the primary root
of excretion is through urine and there
is a way I think that we can excrete
them sauna you're excreting mostly is
through sweat and there are a lot of
toxins that we're exposed to that we do
excrete through sweat a lot of those are
heavy metals so for example um cadmium
and aluminum so aluminum is associated
with Alzheimer's disease they are more
readily excreted through sweat than
through urine and so when you get in the
sauna you really you can you can excrete
a little bit of BPA it does it does come
out through sweat as well however the
majority of excretion um chemicals that
are being excreted through sweat are
things like some heavy metals and things
like that so that um is important for
excretion of a lot of you know compounds
that are detrimental to health but when
it comes to BPA for example or phalates
so the way so the the these compounds
are they're soluble and in order for us
to get rid of them we have to make them
water soluble and there's an enzyme that
does that and that enzyme is activated
by a system in our body called the Nrf2
system it's a system that's a major
transcription factor that basically
turns on a lot of genes turns off a lot
of genes so what it does is it activates
something called The Phase 2
detoxification enzymes these detox a lot
of harmful compounds in our body the
major dietary activator of this system
is a compound called
sulfurane which is something that you
can produce when you eat cruciferous
vegetables like
broccoli broccoli um is a good source
actually the younger plant broccoli
Sprouts have a hundred times more of the
precursor to make sulfur called
glucoraphenin um so you basically this
suhane compound is made when the plant
is like broken so when you bite it chew
it right that's when you start to make
the suhane so broccoli Sprouts have a
really really high concentration of that
precursor there have been a variety of
studies that um have looked at sulfurane
and giving it to humans and it it
activating this system and causing the
excretion of harmful compounds that we
breathe in so they're been studies in
China where air pollution is terrible
and people are breathing in for example
Benzene okay benzene is a known
carcinogen it's also in addition to air
pollution it's found in cigarette smoke
any plant burning material fires right
so this is very relevant to people like
in Southern California and Los Angeles
where there's a lot of wildfires and the
air quality is very bad there's Benzene
in the air okay Benz is a cinogen so
there have been studies in China more
than one study showing that
consuming sulfurane about it's like 40
about 40 micromoles of
sulfurane causes the excretion of
benzene to increase within 24 hours by
60% so this is really big you can't
supplement sulur aine you can and I do
supplement with it so um I take a
supplement called avmacol and that
supplement has been used in a lot of
different clinical studies because it's
very it's a they've got a very reliable
source of glucoraphenin and the and the
enzyme myosin is very unstable it's
sensitive to heat so if you heat
broccoli up really hot you're actually
like degrading a lot of the sorine that
you're going to someone's eating
broccoli raw would be optimal optimal or
just lightly lightly cooked like like
lightly cooked so this company has been
very delicate with how they've they yeah
they're they um they've got so I what I
I take two of their advanced advanced
avmacol which has about gosh it's like
68 micro moles or something per per
tablet and so it only so actually taking
one tablet of that was equivalent to
study on Benzene excretion so I take two
tablets a day and the reason I do that
is because I also want to increase
glutathione which is a antioxidant a
very powerful antioxidant in our body
there have been clinical studies showing
that people taking sulfurane increase
their glutathion levels in their plasma
and also in their brain so in the brain
I mean it's it it's hugely important for
cognitive function for brain aging
everything like that so I take anywhere
between two to four AMAC calls a day
because that's and by by the way I have
no affiliation with them their um their
stabilization process is really great
it's in a tablet form versus like a
capsule so capsules are cheaper to make
but they retain water and water degrades
the my myosin enzyme so dancing through
this mine field is basically impossible
isn't it it there's a lot to consider um
but when it comes back to the sulfurane
and BPA there's not direct evidence
human evidence that it's causing the
excretion I think it's doing it because
there's an animal study showing that if
you give animals sulfurane and then give
them a toxic level of BPA it doesn't
induce tox toxicity two sulfurane
activates these very enzymes that cause
BPA to be water soluble and excreted
that's known three we have all this this
you know data human clinical data
showing that sulfurane causes the
excretion of other harmful compounds
that also have to be converted to be
water soluble like Benzene and AC for
example so I think there's a lot of
evidence suggesting that sulane would
help with excretion of BPA you touched
on something there I don't know whether
you've got any advice or whether you'd
feel comfortable but a lot of people
will have been directly impacted by the
F in LA or indirectly just by it's
happened around them they've been more
stressed and they've been breathing in
this air which presumably is still
probably going to be in the local
ecology is there anything how worried do
you think that people should be about
what's being liberated into into the air
and if you were someone that's being
worried is there a particular protocol
or some things that you would consider
over the next few weeks and months to
try and just help yourself get back to a
good place of Health I do and you know I
have um several friends that have been
you know impacted by the the LA fires
and I've kind of talked to them about
some of this stuff so um first I've I've
you know avoiding going outside or
wearing a mask if you're like there in
the thick of it right when it's like
really really bad air quality but um
having a HEPA filter inside one um and
two the sulfurane so I've I've now told
several friends that they should be
taking um avmacol again I don't have any
affiliation with them they just there's
multiple clinical studies using their
formulation very reliable and um so you
know taking anywhere between two to four
a day to increase the excretion of a lot
of these harmful compounds that are in
the air now that's not going to cause
you like the microplastics that you're
breathing in you're not going to sulur
Frane isn't going to help with that it's
going to help with the chemical aspects
of it the microplastics themselves like
because Plastics are burning and lots of
stuff particulate matters in the air
that's where you get the HEPA filters
that's important um to help with the the
breathing in that air right so I hope
that we haven't caused too much um
health anxiety for people with that I'm
aware that there's a number of vectors
everybody can get worried about how much
is oh my God I got not even the food
that I need to be worried about it's
what it's wrapped in and I had this
story a funny story from a friend that
was telling me about he goes to a
farmers market and he wants to get raw
milk and the raw milk's in glass bottles
and it's got a a cap on it you know
there's at no point there any plastic
anywhere near it and he asked the farmer
about how they get the milk from the
cows and there use an automatic pumping
machine which runs it through plastic
pipes he's like that's warm milk going
through a plastic pipe even the most
psychedelic Progressive farmers market
in the world where you think you know
this is basically you might as well have
pumped the cow into a steel bucket and
poured it into this it's like yeah some
plastic pipes were in between I I can
add to that story that's that's going to
freak you out even more so bring it on
so no one's worried enough we're talking
about forever chemicals right and how
humans don't excrete them for like years
well it turns out these forever
chemicals are because they're in our
water source right again Wastewater
plants aren't treating for them so
they're concentrating in things like
sludge that's used on a lot of
non-organic Farms but the non-organic
Farms are a very close proximity to
organic farms what's a non-organic thumb
well I just mean not not not organic
right they're right okay so organic
farms are not technically supposed to
use sludge right right so which includes
like Wastewater as fertilizer waste
water and the sludge knows that this is
the boundary of the exactly it gets into
the soil and it leeches here right and
so so it's it's actually contaminated a
lot of like Organic Farms as well and um
there was a consumer report study a
couple of years ago
that went and sampled a lot of dairy
products off of shelves like grass grass
milk you know the organic grass milk and
just a lot of different varieties of
milk why were they targeting milk well
it turns out forever
chemicals um cows do excrete them unlike
humans cows excrete them through their
milk so when you are eating yogurt or
milk or cheese I mean these are all
things where you're like you have to
consider are there forever chemicals in
in my dairy product because this
Consumer Report found that lots of
products including the organic ones had
much much higher levels of P than are
considered safe obviously this is your
sort of one of your many new uh pet
research obsessions how big of a deal
across the entire repertoire of things
that people need to be worried about
about how highly do you rank the
Plastics microplastics andic disruptors
I do I do rank
them highly I think the highest would be
you know
exercising consistently you know five
five days a week not being overweight
obese trying to trying to eat a more
Whole Foods diet but that includes like
it's up there after after those things
because I do think there's Insidious
damage that's happening we are
accumulating them in our organs we're
starting to now unpack that this is
actually affecting human health and
there are a few High Lev things that we
can do to minimize our exposure that
we've discussed focusing on those few
high level things the water filters you
know trying to not heat the plastic
trying to like minimize the single-use
Plastics that you're using it's not
going to be you know 100% but minimize
it as much as you can you're doing a lot
if you can do that right I do think that
like you don't want to become a manic
person about it because chronic stress
is bad for you so so that's like you
have to kind of like draw the line and
live your life like I've kind of done
that myself where it's like okay like
I'm not I'm not it's it's imperfect but
I'm going to do what I can and I know
that that's going to have a good impact
especially if I'm exercising and I'm
eating healthy and I'm trying to do all
the other things that are like the most
important getting my micronutrients so I
like doing those things you know at the
end of the day it's going to be okay
okay you said you would do some research
into ultr processed foods as well I have
been learning about this grass gas
loophole thing is
this the pebble at the top of the
Avalanche that sort of wrecked the
American food system is that why there's
a big issue um no a short answer good I
know it's it can be confusing so so
you're talking about generally
recognized as safe grass and that's you
you mentioned loophole but let's take a
step back before the loophole there was
just grass there was the generally
recognized as safe and this has been
around since like the early 1900s and
it's essentially thing things can go
into the food our food supply that are
generally recognized as safe so it was
meant to be you know for things like
vinegar or salt right like not these
chemicals that we have to have a lot of
testing and FDA has to look at all this
testing well um generally recognized as
safe back then was something you did
have to submit to the FDA for review and
then FDA would look over whatever data
you gave them if you're a manufacturing
company and they'd say okay it looks
like it's safe the loophole um it came
about out and I think it was like the
late 1990s like
1997 and that was like that basically
said okay you manufacturers no longer
have to submit anything to the FDA for
review they can just review it
internally decide whether or not it's
safe so it kind of gave and there's a
lot of controversy over this there's a
lot of you know you give a lot of
freedom to manufacturers who obviously
have a conflict of interest because they
want to sell their products and they can
kind of decide whether or not something
is generally recognized as safe um with
respect to the the ultr processed foods
in general you know there's processed
foods and then there's Ultra processed
foods right like what what what's the
difference different so processed foods
typically like this is minimal
processing this is something like making
oats something where you want to
increase the bioavailability of
bioavailability of nutrients which you
know oats increases the bioavailability
of some of the minerals and stuff um or
chopping and freezing fruits and
vegetables like frozen fruits and
vegetables that you can buy in the every
food has some form of processing in it
unless you're eating it actually Roar
from the ground exactly so it's very
minimal
right the the old Ultra processing ultr
processed foods or UPF as there
sometimes you'll see them called
upfsi um the purpose of these Foods is
convenience it's taste improving taste
improving texture imp you know flavor
improving appearance colors shelf life
shelf life exactly um so so so what ends
up happening these YP of foods end up
having a lot of calories they're a lot
of added sugar they have a lot of
chemicals that may make it taste really
good texture really good they'll have
additives um that will extend the shelf
life and they'll have a lot of colors so
you can find them in candies cereals um
you know a lot of junk food cookies
chips crackers already flavored yogurts
protein bars I mean there a lot of
there's a lot of packaged types of foods
like this is you know fast foods already
prepared meals that you buy long list of
ingredients you know there's over 10,000
chemicals that's in our food system in
the United States 10,000 chemicals that
are in our foods like that's a lot of
chemicals they're not all coming in
through grass I mean these are chemicals
like a lot of the um for example the the
food coloring so you mentioned earlier
and the podcast red number three red
number 40 yellow number five number six
blue number one like these food
colorings have been around for a long
time in our foods and just recently now
the FDA has banned red number three from
our Foods in the United States because
it's a carcinogen it's a known
carcinogen and you know this is um I
think they have like two years or so to
to actually manufacturers have two years
to get it off the shelf so until like 20
27 or something like that but you know
these food colorings are not only known
carcinogens they also known mut so those
are things that damage DNA it's a
precursor for something to become a
carcinogen they also there's a lot of
human data um that it affects the brain
these colors affect the brain they cause
and exacerbate hyperactivity impulse
control so um and how robust is the
evidence on this I would say there's
varying it it appears a lot of the
studies are done in children and
Adolescence and there's lots of data out
there often times the randomized control
trials that are done give all of the
colors so it's not just like one but
they give all of the colors and children
seem to have varying sensitivities to
them so there's individual variation but
it's pretty robust that a large subset
of Children and adolescents are affected
by these and if you think about by these
colors that are in all the foods that
are targeted to children and Adolescent
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modern
wisdom so we made a capsule version of
newtonic and we got rid of the caffeine
and the althan we added in some bopa
manary and Ginko baloba and um I real I
didn't realize but colored capsules were
around in the '90s it's like huh
capsules the most boring thing in the
world what could we do to make them a
little bit more visually exciting turn
them into sort of a marketing material
also create a little bit of an
expectation effect in there as well why
don't we use colly capsules that' be
great it's like well pills red pill if
we make a red pill people are going to
think that the jokes write themselves
Matrix we did this Matrix theme and
we're that on the lawn shoot and Harry
the guy that runs the Ops for newtonic
came up and he's like mate got some uh
but some good news and got some bad news
about about the capsules it's like
what's up they look great he's like yeah
yeah yeah they colored with red 40 I was
like right you're telling me that the
productivity Focus product that we've
tried to design has something that's
been linked to ADHD in children in it's
it's literally encased in
ADHD causing color yeah he's like but
but we've got these um vegan capsules
okay that's interesting let me have a
look he gets them out I was like
that's brown that's brown that's a brown
color what we have here on set is this
beautiful sort of bright red thing cuz
red 40 turns things bright red uh so we
had to get custom beetroot colored
capsules that was the way that we got
around because I wasn't prepared to do
the brown one I wasn't prepared to do
the red 41 so we ended up having to get
we've got like some absurd number of
empty beetroot colored capsules waiting
to be filled for the next however long
that we keep on selling these things but
that was what we the hoop that we had to
jump through in in order to be able to
sort of skirt around trying to avoid red
for even in just the coloring of a
capsule it's crazy precisely I mean
there are ways around it right like
beetroot um spinach turmeric like these
can color things and and you can find a
lot of healthier quote unquote healthier
they're still processed foods when you
talk about that get more into that in a
minute but you know there are at least
you're not having chemicals that are
known carcinogens that are known to
disrupt cognitive function to be you
know to disaster Bay and play a role in
impulsive control um impulse control and
impulsivity and like not being able to
focus and pay attention right trans fats
were in there too weren't they this is
incredible this is incredible because
trans fats were actually added through
the original grass generally generally
recognized as safe they were they were
added in like the early 1900s something
like 1911 they were added to our food
supply and you know
remember trans fats there was a big push
for trans fats you know dating I mean
certainly back into like the 1950s was
like when it really started to become
sort of popular but even before that
they were added to our food supply
because they were thought to be the
quote unquote healthier
alternative because they didn't raise
they they were they weren't saturated
fat and therefore didn't raise LDL
cholesterol okay but the problem is is
that so trans fats they all have the
their fatty acid chains that have double
bonds between the carbons okay saturated
fat doesn't have any double bonds and
this is really important
because it changes the structure of the
fat when it's incorporated into our our
cells so we we eat fat and it's broken
down into fatty acids these fatty acids
get taken up into new cells that we make
in our body all of our cells that we're
making that are new red blood cells
neurons um the cells that are aligning
our blood vessels and Our arteries their
endothelial cells
the reason this is important because
fatty acids that are taken up into those
cells are making up the membrane okay so
a cell if you think about like a cell as
a circle has this membrane and the
membrane is like movable it's flexible
um so and you want that to be flexible
because that's how we transport
nutrients into the cell there's
Transporters there's receptors that bind
to hormones they bind to
neurotransmitters the cell needs to be
flexible for those things to happen to
be correct it it affects the function of
the cell
so when you have um trans fats so
saturated fat is like a single Bond same
with unsaturated fat single Bond it's
bendable it's bendable it's like able to
to to bend and move right trans fats
have these double bonds and make it
really stiff like they it doesn't move
it's a very stiff structure so when they
get incorporated into our cell membranes
it stiffens our cells it totally changes
like the flexibility of it and when that
happens in the the endothelial cells
line our blood vessels and Our arteries
it causes them to become stiff so our
blood vessels can't dilate as well like
vasod dilation right it causes
cardiovascular disease it affects
hypertension it's hugely hugely bad for
the heart and you know this is something
that it took so the FDA I think it was
like in 2006 they started to go M maybe
not so good and finally in 2015 they
like okay we're going to take this out
this is is no longer allowed in the food
supply you know but we got to give we
got to give manufacturers some time to
get it off the shelves so finally in
2018 it was off the shelves we're
talking a hundred years over a hundred
years that this stuff was in our food
supply causes cardiovascular disease it
didn't it it doesn't take that much time
to figure out yes cardiovascular disease
takes decades to develop but does it
take 10 decades to figure that out no
you know so that was like a trans fets
is like the the the the golden example
of you know how things get into the food
they're thought to be safe and it takes
how many decades before we realize oh
they're actually responsible for a lot
of deaths while that that was still in
food in 2017 it yeah it is it is and you
know the the the the trans fats um you
know thankfully they're out of our food
now but there's other chemicals right I
mentioned there's 10,000 chemicals in
Foods so the ultr processed foods um
another one that's really a big one is
nitrites so nitrites are in not
nitrites okay glad you mentioned that
let's discuss so right brilliant
nitrites are found in processed Meats
right so they're a preservative they're
found in bacon in you know ham lunch
meats hot dogs like things like that
right they can be converted you know
when we digest them and they can be
converted in our gut to nitrosamines and
these are car cens and this is why
processed Meats has been classified sort
of as a carcinogen because there's
there's bacon bacon with yeah especially
when you're cooking it at like a high
temperature you can convert it to the
nitrous amines as well so nitrites bacon
with
nitrites um can be unhealthy because of
the you know if your Bacon's got
nitrites in it well there's a lot of
labels out there on bacon that says it's
uncured so cure they usually cure it
with nitrites okay so uncured C bacon
would be nitrate free well the so here's
the question and it comes back to
nitrates often times the bacon is this
the BPA BPS thing all over again um not
necessarily not necessarily I think
there's a silver lining the nitrates you
know are something that's found in
plants they're in vegetables they're in
Greens they're you know all over in
nature they can also be converted into
um nitrites and then ultimately n amines
however vitamin C prevents the
conversion so vitamin C is also found in
plants so packaged together so that's
why when you eat you know a lot of
plants or like beets have a lot of
nitrates you know beet beet beetroot
juice extract is high in nitrates but
it's also high in vitamin C and when you
have the vitamin C there it converts the
nitrates into nitric oxide so if I have
a baraca while I have my bacon exactly a
lot of vitamin C
while you're
baconers Bally shifts it toward nitri
good for your blood vels it's AAS of
dilator right um there are a lot of
Bacons that will say say no nitrites but
they'll have like celery powder I don't
know how much vitamin C is in celery
powder extract my I would assume not
that much but make sure you're like
eating some pomegranate with your bacon
or something high in vitamin C okay that
helps the conversion so there's yeah
what about the concerns without sugar
exactly yeah so we talked about there's
a lot of chemicals in foods and you know
there's it's 10,000 chemicals so you can
figure out how many of those may be
detrimental to health I would say one of
the biggest problem with ultra processed
foods is the added sugar and when we say
added sugar we mean not sugar like if
you if you're eating an apple right it's
got like natural sugar in in that that's
bound to a fiber Matrix we're talking
about adding table sugar like sucrose
glucose and fructose 50% mixture of each
into it um foods have tons and tons of
added sugar process Ultra process foods
have tons and tons of added sugar and
that's part of the hyper palatability of
them right it's it what what's make them
taste
good lot there's a lot of Downstream
problems with the added sugar right on
the brain on overeating so there was
actually a really good study that was
published a couple years ago out of the
NIH from Kevin Hall's lab and he took
the same group of people and gave them
either an ultr processed foods diet or a
Whole Foods diet and these diet he gave
the same same group the same diet so
like the same people had each diet with
a wash out period and then they measured
a bunch of things right so you're not
looking at a lot of individual
variability here right it's called a
crossover trial design so he gave these
um so what so what happened is these
these two two groups so the Whole Foods
versus the ultra process right same
number of calories in in the food same
number of um uh same amount of sodium
same amount of energy density there were
not similar amounts of added sugar so
the ultra processed foods had like 50%
more added sugar fiber was the same but
only because they gave the ultr
processed food group drinks with like
Metamucil or something right like they
had to give them fiber because
essentially processed foods have no
fiber right and then um protein was
mostly similar there was a little bit
more in the Whole Foods Group than the
ult processed foods group but the study
basically gave these people like again
equivalent amounts of like calories and
stuff and so so the total sugars were
the same so the fruits and stuff had
sugar but it was the added sugar that
was different right um he gave these
people the these meals that they came
into like a a metabolic Ward to eat you
know and they and they and they were
basically given 60 minutes to eat their
meal so they could eat as much as they
wanted or as little as they wanted so
they didn't like make them eat a certain
amount the point was to see if they were
going to over consume overeat right
turns out when they were eating the
ultra process foods people on average
ate 500 calories more um than eating the
Whole Foods diet so this was 500
calories
more um per per um per week and so they
ended up gaining 2 lbs more on well that
they actually gain two pounds if they're
eating Ultra processed foods and they
lost two pounds if they're eating Whole
Foods and this was from zero from their
baseline from their Baseline yeah and
this was for for the two week that the
trial happened so if you think about
that's a pound per week they were
gaining that's four pounds a month so 4
* 12 is 48 that's 48 pound it couldn't
have been 500 calories a week if they
gained a pound it was 500 calories per
two weeks yes no that's that also can't
be right 500 calories per meal sorry yes
they were eating 500 calories more per
meal but they were gaining two pounds
more per two weeks or one pound per week
yes so it was a 3,500 Surplus per week
yes because it was 500 per meal y right
so so they were eating you know
overeating and the question is why were
they overeating right and there's
probably a lot of reasons for that you
know one is they weren't having they
weren't being satiated so refine added
sugar basically disrupts hormones it
disrupts the hormones that are involved
in satiation like leptin um Gins a
hunger hormone so like those things were
being disrupted in those individuals um
and it you know the question is is like
if you're eating a refined sugar diet if
you're eating a lot of ultra processed
foods you're probably eating more of the
foods right why is that well you're not
being satiated for one two um even
though there was less protein in the
ultr processed foods it seemed as though
people were eating more almost to get
their protein needs oh that's so
interesting yeah have you heard of the
protein leverage hypothesis is no it was
Steven Simpson Simpson I think was the
one of the main scientists involved in
in this hypothesis and essentially um
what it is is that your body like needs
a certain amount of protein per day to
like maintain physiological functions
and um so so he hypothesized that no
matter what if you were eating foods
that were low in protein you're were
going to overeat because you had to like
maintain this amount of protein that
your body really needs right and so him
and some his colleagues have done some
randomized control trials sort of
proving this hypothesis where it's like
you can give people lower protein same
you know everything else but they will
over consume if they have the lower
protein just to kind of like get up to
that protein need so that's another
possibility again if you're eating a lot
of ultra processed foods they're low in
protein protein is satiating for one
right that's also something to consider
but it does seem as though like there's
like it's interesting there might be
this protein leverage hypothesis that
might be partly explaining some of this
as well because it's like your body is
wanting to meet the protein needs um for
just maintaining a lot of different
physiological functions that require
protein how much good research has been
done that that study sounds pretty
impressive but is primarily the
mechanism that I think most people come
to agree on when it comes to ultra
processed foods hyper palatable calorie
dense easier to eat more and per bite
tends to be more calorific so it's
easier to gain weight multiple different
ways that it's easier to gain weight
when it comes to the ultra processed
foods what's in them how they affect us
outside of the palatability and the
calorie density what else is going on
that seems to be evidence-based that's
something that we should be concerned
about yeah well I think that part of
part of it is that people are consuming
more of the of it because they're not
satiated right that it's disrupting the
hormones which I mentioned so that is
the one thing to consider is that the
biggest mover in all of this um for
weight gain I would say it is because
like weight gain really is comes down to
like eating eating more calories and
right calories in calories out makes
makes a big difference um but there's
other factors at play here that I think
really come down to the added sugar
right so added sugar affects so many
different things in the body um
everything from you know hormone
production to cognition so hormones
testosterone I know you're interested in
testosterone there was a pretty classic
study that was done that showed that um
men and it this was a huge age range and
you know we're talking young men that
were like 17 all the way up to like
older adults so young adults middle-aged
adults older adults if they consumed 75
grams of added sugar so that would be
like a medium-sized doughnut and the
coke okay not out of the like people do
that all the 75 G sounds like so much
but when you put it in terms of a
doughnut and a coke that's it it's not
right there's there's a lot of Americans
eating a standard American diet and
eating donuts with Coke or donuts with
coffee and a bunch of added sugar in
their coffee right so it actually is
something that I would say is pretty
practical in terms of what people are
consuming and we can actually talk about
what people are consuming in terms of
added sugar but 75 gram of added sugar
and um this caused a 25% decrease in
their circulating testosterone within a
2hour range so it's obviously transient
M but nonetheless 25% less that's
significant you're chipping away at that
grazing throughout the day yeah exactly
and imagine if people are eating I mean
if that if their whole diet is nothing
but Ultra processed foods right so
you're talking you know in that study
with Kevin Hall they actually calculated
how much it costs to have the Whole
Foods diet versus the ultra processed
food diet and it was $45
more um a week for the ultra sorry the
Whole Foods diet M so that that's
significant it adds up over like a month
right so we're talking what $180 a month
it's expensive to be healthy for a lot
of people that makes a difference and so
it's like economically you're people are
economically incentivized to eat ultr
processed foods because they're cheaper
there's also this is CI mean's whole
thing and vanny Harry's as well about um
whatever the food stamp system is called
oh right um snap yes snap the uh the
sorts of foods that tend to be available
on Snap right trying to eat in a more
healthy manner on that is very difficult
more difficult so what you mentioned
there about what are Americans eating
typically what what are they putting in
their bodies I mean it's it's B for
processed foods so so the the refined
sugar or I'm calling it refined sugar
it's really added sugar is kind of
interchangeably but you know ultimately
people are eating 133% of their daily
caloric intake is coming from added
sugar that's a lot if you 2,000 calorie
a day if you just consider that like on
average that's a lot of coming from
sugar in fact um guidelines so the the
guidelines for like the strictest
guidelines suggest no more than 5% of
your total um daily caloric intake
coming from added sugar so that would be
like no more than 25 grams a day 5%
people are eating 13% of their total
calorie intake from added sugar so added
sugar is also affecting probably what's
happening also is there's there's
there's a mechanism there it's hyper
palatable it tastes good you know people
want things that taste good but there's
an addictive aspect there as well and
that's that's been shown in certainly a
lot of animal studies but also some
human data as well so there's been
studies showing that if if people eat
add a sugar it activates dopamine reward
Pathways in the brain in the striatum
more than like eating fat for example so
there was a study that compared fat
versus added sugar and so it's
activating these dopamine reward
Pathways animal Studies have found that
it's activating dopamine reward Pathways
um much like addictive drugs do but to a
much milder degree of course so what I'm
what I'm saying is that you can have
addictive drugs like cocaine
methamphetamine nicotine will will
activate these dopamine reward Pathways
and parts of the brain sugar activates
them too to a much milder degree of
course but you know in animal studies
they'll they'll keep going back for the
sugar like this addictive thing right
now again you got to take the animal
studies at the grain of salt because we
are not rodents but there is human
evidence that these pathways are being
activated in our brain with um added
sugar and there's also evidence that if
you look at people that are obese you
know the obesogenic diet is largely
consists of a lot of added sugar well um
people that are obese have a lower
density of dopamine 2 receptors D2
receptors um really indicative of
something called tolerance so what
happens if you keep activating the
dopamine reward pathway is that your
body as a adaptive response a feedback
to it goes ohes I don't need so many
dopamine receptor because I had a lot of
that signal coming in right um but what
ends up happening is when you have fewer
of those receptors then the little bit
of dopamine that you have you're not
feeling it as much it's you need more
and more right and so you know you kind
of Connect the Dots here and I would say
certainly we need more evidence in the
human Arena on the you know potential
addictive properties of added sugar um
however what we do have is a lot of
animal evidence and you know some human
evidence and I think that it really
indicates that there is it's affecting
reward Pathways it's affecting our
dopamine system and that's you know
unhealthy how legitimate are the to
cancer when it comes to ultr processed
foods and sugar I you know there's a lot
of ways to get there so I'll give you
you know obviously when you when you
talk to a scientist like the the most
robust evidence is well we need a
randomized control trial we need to
prove causation right well you're never
going to get that because it takes
decades for cancer to you know rear its
ugly head and that's like too expensive
of trial but the evidence that we do
have um you know for one
people that are uh
obese tend to eat more added sugar I
mean that's a fact the obese people are
eating added sugar as a proportion yes
yeah ex because they'll eat more of
everything over they're eating they're
eating more process ultr processed foods
which are higher in added sugar don't
have a fiber Matrix you know the way
sugar is metabolized when you're when
it's packaged in with fruit is very
different than uh added sugar in Ultra
processed foods which has no fiber
Matrix and um so what happens when it
has a fiber Matrix is it slows the
metabolism of it it really slows it down
it's not this big bolus for one your gut
isn't seeing a big bolus of it which
causes you know it actually causes
intestinal permeability and that causes
inflam inflammatory um molecules to
leech into your bloodstream inflammation
is a major driver of Aging cancer um it
causes damage to DNA so all those things
happen right and there have been studies
that have shown that men young men that
consume it's like 20 o of um a sugar
sweetened
beverage a day for three weeks okay
these are healthy young men they're
consuming like like a big like Coke
right something like that after 3 weeks
their inflammatory bar biomarkers go up
like a
100% like a 100% so that's causing
inflammation in healthy just healthy
young men again inflammation is
something that is involved in driving
cancer um we know that obesity is very
intimately linked to cancers there's
like 13 different cancers that obesity
is known to play a role in there's just
a lot of evidence that lifestyle factors
like um eating ultrapress foods like
being overweight obese like these are
factors that can dramatically reduce
cancer incidents if they are you know
reduced if you reduce your Ultra
processed foods if you re reduce your
added sugar and and lose weight like
these are things that are that are known
so um I do think that it's pretty pretty
strong link and again it's multiple ways
that it's happening it's not just like
you know there's there's through the
Obesity right mechanism but it's also
causing you know there's the insulin
sensitivity and insulin production and
just all sorts of things that are that
are at play here I think it's important
to separate out the Obesity side from
what else is going on
because lots of people that listen to
the podcast will probably have a good
indication of well where's my body
weight at and I probably go to the gym
and I do all the rest of the
stuff what else is happening how else
can I motivate myself to pick the
healthier option even if I know that my
waistline isn't going to be the
determining factor for this I'm not
obesity isn't that much of a risk for me
so what is it that could be happening so
I think it's interesting to sort of
break it apart like that I guess another
area that I'm particularly interested in
is brain health and energy levels
when it comes to the impact of the ultr
processed foods the added sugar stuff
like that and that's probably one of the
biggest areas that it it also has an
impact on you know
so if you're if you're eating a lot of
added sugar then you know you can have
higher than you can basically be on the
high end of the normal range for blood
glucose levels so you're within the
normal range but on the higher end right
so you're not diabetic so you might
think oh I don't have diabetes I'm fine
I'm still within the normal range but
there are studies showing that people on
the high end of the normal range have
increased atrophy in the hippocampus
part of their brain that's involved in
learning and memory and they have higher
atrophy in the amydala part of their
brain that's involved in emotional
regulation compared to people on the
lower end have you know blood glucose
levels in the lower end of the normal
range so that's an association study
right um there's also angry and
forgetful right um but but again
Association study there's also other
studies showing that higher blood
glucose levels are associated with
increased like 54% Risk um increased
risk for vascular dementia so so glucose
what it's doing when you when you have a
constant intake of
glucose and that glucose let's say
you're not exercising enough to have
that glucose get get disposed into your
muscle which is really where you want it
right you want it to go get taken up
into your muscle exercise really helps
with that when you exercise you cause a
lot of glucose Transporters to come up
to your muscle which opens up the gates
to allow glucose in you want it to go to
your muscle instead of your adapost
tissue if that doesn't happen if you're
not exercising enough the glucose will
stay around in your bloodstream and what
happens is yes there's an insulin
response and all that metabolic stuff
but there's also something that happens
that that's called the mailer reaction
and it's where glucose reacts with
lipids it reacts with um DNA in your
body it reacts with proteins and damages
them and when it reacts with proteins
like for example collagen lining your
your pericardium surrounding your heart
your myocardium surrounding your heart
lining your blood vessels it causes the
collagen to become stiff it changes the
properties of the protein it makes them
stiff kind of like trans fats actually
that's a really good analogy didn't
think about that but it's really kind of
the similar thing it causes your blood
vessels to become stiff it causes your
um the the tissue surrounding your heart
to become stiff and that plays a major
role in the stiffening of the heart with
age which affects you know it affects
cardiovascular disease risk right um so
you're you're talking about just an
accumulation of these this this mailer
reaction what happens is it it forms
something called Advanced glycation end
products and that's what is basically
stiffening the proteins like collagen
which are around forever you don't your
your collagen surrounding your heart and
it's there and you know you don't want
to make it stiffer right so um that's
something to consider as well as the
fact that um it is affecting cognition
and the Brain as well so we talked about
brain aging it causes inflammation so
for example I mentioned the the study of
of men that consumed the the sort of 20
ounce sugar sweetened beverage and they
had 100% increase in their inflammatory
markers after 3 weeks well
inflammation essentially is is those
molecules are getting into the brain
crossing over the bloodb brain barrier
and they're getting into the brain it
was thought for a long time that
inflammatory molecules don't cross the
blood brain barrier but that years ago
was debunk we now know a lot of cyto
kindes and inflammatory things are
crossing the blood brain barrier and
when they get into the brain they are
doing a variety of things for one
they're affecting mood immediately and
we know that for a fact we know causally
you can take a healthy person and inject
them with lipopolysaccharide which is
something that's it's found in our gut
it's it's a component of bacterial
membrane so we have a lot of bacteria in
our gut makes up our microbiome when you
have leaky gut intestinal
permeability lipopolysaccharide gets
into your circulation refined sugar does
do that um you can inject normal PE
normal healthy people with
lipopolysaccharide or placea which is
saline and it causes massive
inflammation okay like like what I just
talked about with the sugar sweetened
beverage and those people then end up
getting depressive symptoms so it plays
a role in Co their their mood
but if you blunt that inflammatory
response with something like um EPA
which is a component of Omega-3 it's one
of the omega-3 fatty acids it doesn't
cause the depressive mood so
inflammation does affect mood we also
know that when you have a high
inflammatory state which I just gave a
lot of evidence for in terms of added
sugar um it changes the metabolism of
tryptophan tryptophan is an essential
amino acid we get from our diet it's in
proteins um it it's a precursor for
serotonin serotonin is a
neurotransmitter that's involved in
cognition executive function it's
involved in
mood what inflammation does is it causes
tryptophan instead of being converted
into serotonin it causes it to be
converted into something called
curine which is involved in inflammation
it's basically your your body your body
is going oh I'm inflamed I've got a
pathogen okay there's no pathogen it's
actually just added sugar too much added
sugar right constantly um and and so
your body thinks it's a pathogen and so
it's trying to then um make anything it
can to activate immune cells to take
care of the pathogen right but the
problem is is that it's not a pathogen
so curine um helps with that whole
activating the immune system but also
what it does is as it's metabolized it
can form something called quinolinic
acid which is a
neurotoxin and it's also associated with
depression so you're talking about
inflammation now affecting you know key
metabolic processes that are important
for cognition executive function mood
and dampening those processes right so
you're you're you can immediately have
an effect on cognition I mean you you
get like a quick sugar high but but boy
does that go away pretty quick right I
mean it's like you immediately start to
feel like that sort of if you wanted to
reliably make your mental performance
bad having a doughnut and a a Coke an
hour before you were supposed to do
something important is probably a pretty
good way to do it exactly it's almost
like when you're sick how you feel right
you feel fog brain foggy because your
your inflammation your immune system is
activated you mentioned a couple of
times today about leaky gut
permeability at a high level what can
people do I've heard it I've heard the
words I kind of understand what it means
it's kind of in the name what can people
do to rebuild the gut and make it less
leaky well you know leaky gut is kind of
the the common word the the real it's
intestinal permeability and essentially
what it is is you have tight junctions
that are holding your um your
endothelial cells at line your intestine
together and they sort of open up right
and allow basically they allow you know
these LPS and and and cyto kindes and
stuff to go into your your circulation
and cause inflammation um essentially
there's a variety of factors that can
increase intestinal permeability
obviously there's genetic factors that
play as well people have Celiac I mean
that's a big problem and Crohn's disease
inflammatory bowel disease like all
those things are sort of chronic issues
that do cause intestinal permeability
but generally speaking um an obesogenic
diet so the worst thing you can do is
have a diet high in a lot of fats
particularly saturated fat combined with
refined sugar so think like ice cream
right like anything that's really high
in saturated fat plus refined sugar um
can cause intestinal permeability
obesity itself can play a role in that
as well um binge shrinking is another
one chronic stress so psychological
stress anything like relationship stress
Financial stress emotional stress work
rated stress itself release stress
hormones causes intestinal permeability
there have been studies on that they
they took people that were about to give
a presentation when you're stressed in
fact if they would have measured mine
before the podcast they would have been
like oh she's got intestinal permability
got the corticotropin releasing hormone
but but stress also does it so really
again it comes down to um fiber plays an
important role in preventing intestinal
permeability for a couple of reasons one
70% of the energy used by your gut is
called butyrate butyrate is made from
bacteria in your gut by fermenting that
fermentable type of fiber I was talking
about so things that are high in pectins
that's a type of fermentable fiber that
be berries or apples with the skin on it
or inulin so onions asparagus or um the
mushrooms so the beta the the beta
glucans mushrooms
oats basically eating a lot of
fermentable
fiber increases beuty rate production
really helps keep your gut healthy and
prevent intestinal permeability but I
think the main thing really is you want
to you want to make make sure you're
eating Whole Foods so fruits vegetables
lean meats poultry fish like a Whole
Food's diet Ultra processed food diet
increases intestinal permability and
then you also want to um make sure that
you're you're getting that that
fermentable
fiber as well right because you want to
give yourself the butay production so
those are those are I think some of the
ma major drivers
of you know preventing intestinal
permeability lots of people are going to
be hearing about this and have been
eating processed foods forever everyone
has an idea in the back of their mind
that when you're faced with the apple
and a Twinkie that the Apple's going to
be better for you but you know some
people have been moving through
different levels of wealth some people
have been moving through different
levels of convenience some people are
sort of really understanding their
health Journey other people are on the
road so much that they have sort of
these
limitations no one's going to be
militant about it all of the time
inevitably you're going to go to a
sports match and like what are you going
to do this like you're not you haven't
pre-cooked your rice and beef and taken
it in with you so what are the best ways
to mitigate the impact of ultr processed
foods given sort of a typical way that
people are going to exist in the world
how much can it be offset I mean I think
I think to answer your question is like
you're it kind of goes back to the
imperfect avoidance right like you're
going to do what you can and most of the
time when you're at home in an
environment where you can eat Whole
Foods do some meal prep on weekends you
know do what you can to kind of make it
more convenient for you to have Whole
Foods you're going to you're going to do
that and then when you're traveling or
you're going out to have fun at a
stadium or whatever you're going to live
your life and have fun and like have
have the Ultra pess Foods right because
if you're if you're 80% of the time
doing it the right way you're really
doing you're doing good um I think
exercise to to really answer your
question is it's the it's the forgiver
of all s most of our sins basically so
you know if you are if you are
exercising and it is a part of your
personal hygiene you do it you're doing
it almost every day to some degree you
are you are mitigating you know so the
added sugar component right you're
getting glucose and bring it in into
your muscle you're improving cognition
in so many different ways exercise plays
a role in in improving cognition not
only in the short term but in the long
term and your um you know exercise also
increases butter rate product um beate
producing bacteria independent of of
diet so exercise is actually a stress on
the body on the brain on the gut and it
actually very very trans causes
intestinal permeability but as an
adaptation like exercise does
adaptations it does cardiovascular
adaptations your brain adapts
everything's you know adapting um your
your gut actually increases the
production of butter rate producing
bacteria so that the next time you
exercise guess what you have more butter
rate around to like really help help the
um your gut be more robust so I think
that there's like you could just come up
with like every explanation why exercise
is going to be beneficial for X Y or Z
unhealthy thing that you do and it's
going to be like okay at the end of the
day I am I am getting that exercise I'm
doing I'm really doing a good job is
there a particular type of exercise who
I'm going to guess that you're going to
tell me it's high intensity again well I
mean I think it depends on on what
you're what you're looking for right I
mean so if you're looking to build
muscle mass and strength and increase
testosterone more we're going to talk
about compound lifts right like doing
multi-joint compound types of exercises
like squats and deadlifts and you know
rows and overhead presses shoulder
presses on and on like that's going to
help you robustly increase your muscle
mass increase your muscle strength
function and testosterone like those are
things that are known to affect all
those things so um you know if we're
talking about improving cognition in the
short term like you want a quick pump
like let's say you want to remember
something then we're talking a
high-intensity interval training session
short like not you don't want to like
because you can you can do a you know an
hourong hit workout and you're just
drained after it right um but there's
studies showing that even like a
10-minute hit workout will boost
cognition in memory recall actually
there was an interesting study where um
doing 30 minutes of it wasn't
necessarily high high intensity but you
know you're like 70% Your your max heart
rate so you're you're you're moderate
getting to the high level doing that so
learning something and then doing the 30
minute cycling workout and then having a
test after like on your memory recall it
boosts memory recall so if you really
like it's a little hack I use it all the
time I used it today like I go through
some of my material do do my workout in
my case I only had 10 minutes so I did a
10-minute high-intensity workout my
favorite is the back toback tatas I do
16 you know intervals but um you know
that's something I use to to boost
cognition in the short term but there's
just just so much data out there on
aerobic exercise high-intensity exercise
improving cognition increasing the
number of brain cells in the brain there
was one study I think I mentioned it
last time on the podcast this was an
older adults they did aerobic exercise
for a year they increase their their
hippocampus by like 2% usually they're
atrophying okay they increase the size
of it by 2% amazing so I I do think like
yes if you're someone who likes to like
you know gain muscle yeah exactly you
want to you want to gain muscle great
there resistance training is good for
the brain too and there are studies on
that as well but if you want to really
have brain benefits and really um you
want to have your cardiorespiratory fit
Fitness improved you have to add in some
aerobic exercise in there the most time
efficient way to do it would be hit
because let's say you're like I'm not
going to go run 10 miles a week like I'm
going to be lifting weights I only have
so much time in the day right that's
where the the high-intensity interval
training comes in because it's very time
efficient right not only that when you
are when you're getting into that
high-intensity vigorous exercise type of
workout that's when you're making a
metabolite called lactate we've talked
about this when your body's working so
hard that it has to use glucose um
without using it through a the
mitochondria basically it's like you're
not you don't need oxygen you can't get
oxygen to your mitochondria quick enough
to use glucose and so you're making it
you're making energy without the
mitochondria and that makes lactate as a
byproduct turns out it's not a byproduct
it's an active metabolite that's like
amazing and it's getting into the brain
it's um it's been shown to increase
brain Drive neur NE Tropic Factor right
that's a very important neurotropic
factor that can improve short-term
memory long-term memory it's it staves
off brain aging it makes you feel better
it's involved with like neuroplasticity
you know being able to adapt to changing
I mean it just it goes on and on like
you can't like you you want this stuff
right and so lactase out there it's a
signaling molecule telling your brain to
make it it's an adaptation because your
brain is working hard while you're
working out and so your your body's more
all of the Bros that just want to do
sets of eight to 14 are going I need to
sign up to Barry's boot camp I'm gonna
I'm going to be sweaty I'm GNA have to
do all of this work but you convinced me
last year and I've been doing the
Norwegian 4x4 as much as I can remember
and as much as I can tolerate since then
and that's a really good workout for
cardiorespiratory Fitness right
improving your V2 Max which is really
important for longevity like that's a
big longevity marker I mean if you just
think about like sitting here talking
having this conversation it requires an
amount of oxygen to like breathe in and
be able to utilize right as we get older
like even that becomes hard so you
really want to have a high level you
want to like build it up as much as you
can because you're going to be pulling
on it and going down as you age right
things like walking to your car have you
ever seen like an older person out of
breath just by like walking to their car
right so you V2 Max Norwegian 4x4 so
this is 4 minutes of like the maximal
intensity that you can sustain for that
four minutes this is sustainable
intensity and then you have a uh 3
minute recovery total Light extra
exercise and then you go back at it
again and you do that four times assault
bike after a year of testing I've come
to believe that the assault bike is the
best place to do it it's it's actually
it assaults you like it's so hard I it's
it's well the reason the reason I say
assault bike is that with this what you
need is to be able to go very slowly
very easily so you don't want something
you need to strap into or strap out of
so a rowing machine is kind of a little
bit ungainly when you've then got to go
slow uh the same I guess a ski you can
pick up and put down quite easily but uh
running on a True Form it's speeding up
slowing down in that way is just so
difficult and doing it on a static bike
a Carol bike or something else fantastic
but you do have to work a little bit
harder because it's just the lower half
of your body right so my choice my
preference is bike Carol bike great
assault bike kind of easier to be harder
if that makes sense it does um but yeah
I've I've tried I agree I I I like I
think the bike well actually think the
bike is harder than when I do the rower
I on my 3 minutes off I actually just
end up like not really doing anything
cuz I switch off with my husband and
he'll be on so it's like I actually get
four minutes offtime but yeah but it
also it does improve cognition in the
brain that's another you know there's
some some research on on that as well
where like at least if you're you're
being time efficient and it doesn't have
to be the Norwegian 4x4 like like some
you could do a minute on a minute off do
that 10 times or you could do tatas
right 20 seconds on 10 seconds off all
of these protocols H have been shown to
improve V2 Max they've been shown to
improve cognition um also like
mitochondrial function so yeah Norwegian
4x4 you're going to get a little bit
more of a boost because it is a longer
interval but you have to do something
that you're going to consistently do
right I I thought I found the 4x4 to be
quite uh easy to stick to I it's
definitely miserable because four
minutes is a very long time at a high
intensity but there's a bit of me when
I'm doing 20 on 10 off to batter unless
it's a really demanding movement that
just think I can't I'm not I can't work
hard enough I can't Sprint fast enough
in this 2 second period And I can't
recover enough in the 10 seconds to that
Cadence for me maybe it's just a
psychological thing that Cadence doesn't
quite seem to work in the same way I get
it you know so I when I when I'm really
time strapped I do I do my tiata which
is a 10-minute one and I agree it's I
typically crank up the resistance and
stand while I'm doing it because I
really have to get my heart right up I
don't find that 10 seconds is enough
recovery so my performance goes down on
subsequent intervals for sure but I do
find when I do a 20-minute hit workout
so I have 20 seconds on 20 seconds off
and then I have a little bit of time in
between my you know sets stations right
so I find that my performance goes up
because I have a little bit more
recovery time and and that I really do
like that 20 minute I mean 20 second on
20 second off 20 minute workout is kind
of like a a go-to if it's like it is
because you know like you said it's like
the 10 recovery is really it's just not
enough and I do notice that my next you
know five intervals are not as as as
hard yeah sucking on water trying to get
it to go through uh what are you working
on next what else have you got in terms
of a research area what are you going to
be focused on for the rest of the year
um I'm looking into creatine and its
effects on the brain and I mean
obviously muscle but like
non I would say popular effects it's a
very interesting there's a lot of
interesting data out there on Creatine
and also how it affects the methylation
pathway so a lot of people are sort of
obsessed with this it's methylation is
used in your body for a lot of different
biological systems and a lot of people
think of methyl folate well I need my
methyl folate because I have an
MTHFR where I'm not making methyl groups
as much and this and that well actually
our body makes
creatine and you know that's something
that we we do make but it requires a ton
of methylation to do so so if you give
yourself exogenous creatine it frees up
the methylation because your body has
the creatine now and it doesn't have to
keep making as much and so I'm very
interested in the effects of cre no
one's talked about that very cool I
think Tim Ferris is currently he has
been practicing trialing uh 10 to 15
plus grams a day to see what that does
from a cognitive Health perspective it's
an interesting yeah there's some some
interesting data on there like 10 grams
a day I take five but there's also
studies on there studies that have come
out on five grams a day for like
cardiovascular health improvements so
again um I'm actually getting having a
researcher on on my podcast and um let's
see about a couple weeks who who does
creatine research and knows all about
that the other thing I'm doing I'm very
interested in is exercise and cancer
both prevention and treatment so there's
now a lot of clinical research on using
exercise as an adjunct treatment to
cancer how effective it is in improving
cancer survival improving you know the
the basically lowering the cancer
recurrence risk right so like it coming
back and also improving like a whole
host of like side effects of chemo like
your mood nausea like guess what when
you exercise along with the chemo people
think it I don't have energy to do it
but it turns out they actually feel
better big surprise to those of us that
exercise it's not that much of a
surprise I mean exercise is you know
there's studies out there now that have
compared exercise to like classical
ssris right and they're as good if not
better at treating depression did you
see what the top rated category of
exercise movement was in that one of
those studies was dancing with with
music oh no I didn't see that yeah so I
I think it was it came out at the same
time but it wasn't the same one uh but
yes when you compared it and they then
ranked all of the different modes of
exercise I think one of the things
especially to do with uh dancing that
you have is this sort of inherently
pro-social intimate collaborative
partner-based thing that's going on
which is probably doing all sorts of
stuff that's oxytocin that's serotonin
as well suppressing like there'll be a
ton of things going on right that must
have been an observational study there's
actually been randomized control trials
comparing a lot of a lot of them are
running they do running for the exercise
or biking um but like in that sense it's
like you're really comparing the two
right and and in in that sense but um
yeah there's so many things going on
right you're getting the endorphins
you're getting you're getting the canono
or another one that you're making with
exercise that affect your mood um you're
getting serotonin oxytocin as well all
the good things Ronda you're great I
really appreciate you I love I love
getting to speak to you so creatine
exercise and cancer we need to talk
about toxic mold and mot toxins we can
do that next time that you come on but
where should people go keep up to date
with all of the things have you got any
more PDFs going out yeah I've got so
I've got a podcast right I'm I'm I'm on
all the places Spotify and YouTube and
apple podcast but I also have a website
as well foundy fitness.com my podcast is
called found myfitness and I've got some
free reports out there I've got a new
one on it's called how to train
according to the experts and uh you can
find that at how to trinu guide.com and
it's essentially like all the experts
I've had on my podcast that are you know
in exercise phys iology so it's how to
train to improve V2 Max it includ
includes protocols how to train to
improve U muscle mass muscle strength
how to um improve body composition so
that's all all the protocols that you
need and sort of a lot of like science
explanations as well how to train
guide.com I've got bdnf protocols so
that can be found I downloaded that one
straight after our episode last year
what where's where can people get the
bdnf one bdnf protols.com and that's a
lot of protocols for improving brain
health and um you know cognition
basically if you want some exercise
protocols or polyphenol protocols that
are out there that are shown to increase
cognition improve cognition that's
another one as well oh and I have
another one that you might be interested
in it's the omega-3 how to choose an
omega-3 supplement and it's basically
got a list of like eight or 10 different
supplements that are like quality low
oxidation and like how to choose a
supplement and that's at omega-3
guide.com so that's another one yeah
people can go and PDF themselves up
Ronda I really appreciate you thank you
appreciate it too Chris thanks so much
thank you very much for tuning in your
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