Ari Whitten ┃The Biggest Myths About Aging (and the Science That Debunks Them)

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Have been culturally conditioned to believe that stress is extraordinarily
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harmful to their health, and we all accept this as true.
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We all accept this as a given. It is repeated
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again and again and again in media and by health
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experts of all kinds, to the point where we've had
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it for so many decades we all accept it as
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a sort of unbreakable, unchallengeable truth.
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What a feeling exhausted isn't an inevitable part of getting older,
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but the result of beliefs and habits you can actually change. Today,
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I sit down with Ari Witten, founder of the Energy Blueprint,
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to explore the science of mitochondria, stress, circadian rhythms, and
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why many of our assumptions about aging may be doing
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more harm than aging itself.
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And I'm really thrilled to be here today with Ari Witten.
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Welcome Mari, Thanks so much for having me pleasure to
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be here so.
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Ari is the best selling author of The Ultimate Guide
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to Red Light Therapy and Eat for Energy, How to
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Beat Fatigue and Supercharge your mitochondria for all day Energy.
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As the founder of the Energy Blueprint, Ari is a
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renowned natural health expert who takes an evidence based approach
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to optimizing human energy. With a Bachelor of Science and
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Kinesiology certifications from the National Academy of Sports Medicine, as
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a corrective exercise Specialist and performance enhancement specialist, and a
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Master of Science degree in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine,
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Ari brings a wealth of knowledge to his field. For
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the past twenty five years, Ari has been a tireless
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researcher dedicated to staying at the forefront of scientific advancements
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in health and energy enhancement. Is deep expertise encompasses mitochondrial health,
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circadian rhythms and sleep, nutrition, gut health, light therapies, fitness
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and hormetic stress, making him a leading figure in these areas.
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Eight years, Area has developed the Energy Blueprint, the most
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comprehensive program in the world focused on overcoming fatigue and
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boosting energy levels. This flagship program has transformed the lives
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of over ten thousand individuals, while his free courses and
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masterclasses have reached over two million people, often often delivering
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life changing results. So this summit, it's all about beliefs
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and how many of us have what are called limiting
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core beliefs of various kinds that we just inherited, got
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conditioned into us from our childhood and so forth, or
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from the culture, and get continually reinforced, often by the culture.
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And we know from modern neuroscience, with the phenomenal of
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neuroplasticity and neurogenesis and so forth, we can change our
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beliefs and in the process rewire our brains. And so
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today we have each day of the summit has focused
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on different areas of our life. Today is focused on
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longevity and healthy aging, and so many people associate aging
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with just decline, like you know, I mean, I've been
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guilty myself, even though I'm very involved in the body
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of mind work for a long time, and really in
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the healthy aging these days, especially since I'm seventy four,
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But in the past I've caught myself saying things like
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youth is wasted on the young, old age sucks, you know,
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these kind of things. So there's a lot of miss
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about about old age. And for me, something shifted when
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I started hearing people talking about things like well, you know,
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sixties and new forties, seventies, the new fifty. That was
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encouraging and I embraced those ideas readily. But I wonder
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if you could talk about some of the beliefs that
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get in our way of healthy aging and that could
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be really debunked because they're not necessarily true.
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Yeah, there's a number of them that come to mind.
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I'll give you a sort of maybe i'll mention too
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very briefly, and you can decide where we go from there.
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One of them is that we have an idea around
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how our bodies decline with aging, and how our brains
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decline with aging, and we attribute a lot of this
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to this thing called aging, right, and that you know
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it's old age, and once we get to X Y
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Z age, you know this is normal to happen. And
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what I found in digging into a lot of this
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literature and working with many people over many years and
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pairing the two sort of seeing the intersection of where
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my experience working with people is meeting up with the
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scientific literature, is that I would say at least half,
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if not much more, of what we attribute to the
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aging process is actually the process of essentially atrophy of
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the capacity of various systems of our body. That we
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are losing capacity and performance in different systems of our
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body as a result of disuse, as a result of
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adequate challenge and stimulus to those systems of the body.
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They decline as we age, and we attribute that to aging,
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but it's actually the product of our behavior, our environment,
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our way of life. So that's one. And the belief
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there is again just how much we are culturally conditioned
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to believe and to expect that aging is doing all
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of these things to our body when in fact it's not.
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The other thing that I think is a really big one,
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and maybe depending on what kinds of messages you teach
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to your audience might be controversial, and that has to
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do with attitudes towards stress. So most people, almost everyone,
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particularly those who have grown up in North America over
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the last several decades, have been culturally conditioned to believe
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that stress is extraordinarily harmful to their health. And we
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all accept this as true. We all accept this as
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a given. It is repeated again and again and again
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in media and by health experts of all kinds, to
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the point where we've had it for so many decades
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we all accept it as a sort of unbreakable, unchallengeable truth. Right,
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And there's a couple interesting aspects to that. Number One,
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the research shows that most typical kinds of psychological stress
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that most people experience in their life aren't remotely as
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harmful as most people believe them to be when it
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comes to how harmful they are to their health objectively speaking.
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And the other aspect is understanding that your beliefs about stress,
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about the harmfulness of stress and what that does to
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your physiology, actually interface with how stress affects you. And
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there's a large body of research essentially showing that to
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the degree that we believe that experiencing stress is bad
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for our health, we actually amplify the adverse effects. We
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essentially create a sort of no sebow effect that makes
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the stress actually much worse for us than if we
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were to have encountered the same objective circumstance, but we
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didn't believe that stress was as harmful to our health.
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So those are probably the two big areas that jump
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out to me.
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Well at harbind answer, we certainly agree with what you're
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saying about stress. And we've all been in many programs
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shown Kelly mcgonagall's great Ted talk, and she has a
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great book kind of turning the tables around our attitudes
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and stress and points at research that actually demonstrated that
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it's our beliefs about stress that impact us rather than
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the stress itself, and that that you know, stress is exercise,
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you know, if we don't put stress on the muscles
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and bones atrophy, right, So we need we need physical, emotional, psychological, mental,
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spiritual stressors in our life to grow. Absolutely, but unmanaged
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stress can be quite harmful obviously, which I'm sure you
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could would agree. So, and where this can have impact
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is the systemic inflammation that is really at the root
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of most of the chronic illnesses that have our healthcare
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system and break down and so forth. And so this
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really gets down to cellular health. And I know your
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work focus is a lot on the intersection between energy
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production and healthy aging, and so you're talking about mitochondrial health.
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So I wonder if you could give us a little
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bit of a tour. I don't know how far down
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the rabbit hole will go there in this other biology,
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but something about mitochondrial health and its impact or its
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importance to healthy aging.
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Yeah, I mean, we can go very deep there. So
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let me give you a brief sort of intro to mitochondria.
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We all learned about mitochondria in grade school or junior
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high school and in high school biology course, and you
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go even deeper when you go into more advanced college
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level biology physiology courses and then biochemistry courses at the
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graduate level or at the undergraduate graduate levels, and you
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learn about mitochondria. And the first thing that we learned
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is really that this is the powerhouse of the cell.
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This is one of many organelles in the cell. We have,
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you know, the nucleus over here, we have lysosomes, we
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have the gold Gi apparatus, and the endoplasmic reticulum, and
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we have the mitochondria. And the mitochondria the thing we
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have to remember for the multiple choice exam, that's the
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powerhouse of the cell. That's the thing that produces ATP.
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And for the most part, you know, it's still kind
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of framed as that basic thing. Even at more sophisticated
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levels of biology and biochemistry and physiology courses, they're framed
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largely as as mindless energy generators that sort of just
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take in carbs and fats and pump out energy in
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the form of ATP, And of course that is a
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very important part of what they do. They are supplying
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virtually all of the energy to virtually all of the
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trillions of cells in our body, from our muscles to
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our heart, to our intestines, to our skin, to our eyes,
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to our brain and so on. But in recent years,
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and really the last twenty and especially the last ten years,
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it's been found that mitochondria do much more than that,
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and they are not just mindless energy generators, but that
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they actually play a central role in regulating our metabolism.
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A researcher here in San Diego where I am now
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at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine,
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runs a lab for mitochondria medicine there called his name
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is doctor Robert Navio, and in his words, the mitochondria
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are the central hub of the wheel of metabolism. And
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this word metabolism is something that many of us often
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associate with weight loss, and you know how fast our
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sort of metabolism is running. But the word metabolism actually
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refers to the totality of all of the biochemical reactions
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that are occurring in your body. So what he's saying
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is mitochondria are at the central hub of everything that's
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happening in your body. And that's really what this body
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of literature has shown over the last couple decades is.
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Mitochondria are involved in immune health, and mitochondria are involved
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in regulating readox balance, the balance of oxidants to antioxidants
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in the cell. Mitochondria are involved in our resilience and
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our ability to respond to stressors of all types. Mitochondria
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are central in the process of aging itself, and mitochondria
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are also instrumental in regulating how our bodies are responding
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to the environment. They are essentially like the canaries in
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the coal mine that are the most sensitive environmental detection system,
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the most upstream thing in our body that's sort of
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picking up signals about what's going on in the body,
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what's going on as far as how that human being
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is engaged in the world around them and in response
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to those signals, and it can pick up a huge
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variety of signals. It is determining essentially whether your body
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is in energy mode or in defense mode what doctor
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calls peace time metabolism or wartime metabolism. And at the
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center of this picture is something called the cell danger response.
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And basically what this is you can imagine being in
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your kitchen preparing dinner. You're chopping vegetables and things like that.
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Somebody breaks in. A criminal breaks in, holds a knife
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for a gun up to you and says, you know,
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give me all your valuables. If you've got to deal
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with that threat, you can't just keep chopping vegetables and
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cooking dinner and going about your business as normal. You
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have to deal with that threat. And what mitochondria do
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is they're sort of the first thing that are detecting
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those threats, and what they do in response to it
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is they turn down the dial on energy production and
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they shift resources towards defending against the threat. That's the
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cell danger response. So this obviously hugely relates to our
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energy levels in the sense that to the degree we
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are having our cells, our mitochondria are tasked with having
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to organize resources to defend against threats, they are turning
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down the dial on energy production, which means you as
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an organism will have subjectively much lower energy levels. You
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are likely to experience fatigue or low energy as a
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result of that. And this is the central thing that
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goes on in terms of regulating our energy levels. We
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need to understand it mostly as a story of to
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what degree we are having to defend against threats in
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lieu of operating in peace time metabolism. So that's sort
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of the big picture of what mitochondria are doing in
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our bodies.
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For various reasons. My understanding is that mitochondria throughout the
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body and all the cells in the body. And my
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understanding is there's a higher concentration of mitochondria and the
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cells in the brain, the eyes, the heart, and women's ovaries,
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but they're in every cell in the body. And that
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due to bious negative impacts poor nutrition, uh, poor poor
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hydration on a sleep, not enough exercise, as well as
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being in unmanaged constant strust that being in that war
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response all the time or that not in the peace zone.
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That mitochondria can atrophy, they can become weaker, they can
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die off. And on the other hand, my mitochondria can
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be repaired and uh, and we can increase, we can
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have new mitochondria. Is that is that accurate?
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It's mostly accurate. The one minor detail is that they're
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not in every cell of the body. We do have
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some types of cells with without mitochondria. Red blood cells
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are a good example of that. But most of the
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rest of what you said is highly accurate, and it
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is it is the case, so there's sort of three
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ways that we can think about as far as how
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mitochondria can not be healthy. One is they can become
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dysfunctional as a result of let's say nutritional deficiencies. Right,
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if you're missing certain cofactors for your mitochondria to pump
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out energy efficiently, Let's say certain types of fatty acids
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b vitamins, co Q ten alphaalopoic acid PQQ, things like this.
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If you are let's see if you have a seedy
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all Carnatine is the other one I was thinking of.
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So if you have deficiencies and certain things like your
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mitochondria are not going to pump out energy as efficiently. Now,
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another layer of this story is the extent to which
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they can accumulate damage. And this could be for a
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couple reasons. It could be insults to that system are
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causing them to accumulate damage. So let's say heavy metals,
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nutritional toxins you mentioned, you know, inflammatory cytokines, oxidative stress,
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things of that nature can start to damage the mitochondrial
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membranes and physically damage the structure of them. At the
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same time, we have mitochondrial cleanup processes. So people listening
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to this have probably heard of the idea of autophagy.
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It's a sort of cellular cleanup and recycling of damage
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cell parts. Well, mitochondria do this as well, and this
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is a process called mitophagy. And this is something this
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cellular cleanup process happens particularly when we are in a
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fat sid state and during the sleep period overnight. And
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if you are not sleeping very well, if your circadian
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rhythm is not healthy and you're not spending enough time
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in the fasted state in a state of deep sleep
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with a strong circadian rhythm, you're going to impair that
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process of cleaning up the damage. So, through a combination
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of imbalances there, we've got too much insult to the
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system that are causing damage. We've gotten not enough mitophagy
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happening to clean up the damage. We can accumulate damaged
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mitochondria over time. And the other process, which is sort
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of going back to what I was speaking about at
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the beginning of this conversation, is that as a result
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of disuse, as a result of inadequate challenges to our mitochondria,
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they can atrophy and they can shrink and shrivel up
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and literally die off. And the way to think about
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this as much the same as if you've ever broken
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a bone and you've got a cast on your arm
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or your leg. Eight weeks later, you go to the doctor,
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they saw off the cast. You look down at your
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leg and it's half the size of the other one
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because your muscle's atrophied from disuse. That same process happens
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at the mitochondrial level. It's just we're not as aware
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of it because visually we can't see it. It's happening
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at the microscopic level inside of our cells. But it's
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been shown that the average seventy year old has lost
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about seventy five percent of their mitochondrial capacity, and that
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is a combination of two things. One is the actual
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energy production capacity of the mitochondria that are there shrinks
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by about fifty percent, and the number of mitochondria that
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are even present is also cut in half, so we've
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lost half of them mitochondria, and then ones that are
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still present are much weaker than they were in our youth. Also,
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going back to what I said at the beginning of
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this conversation, we know that that process is not just
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a normal product of aging, because we can find seventy
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year olds who are lifelong exercisers and they have the
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same mitochondrial capacity as young adults do. They do not
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lose seventy five percent of their mitochondrial capacity. So that
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tells us this is not a product of aging per se.
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It is a product of modern lifestyles.
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Wow, fascinating and quite an alarm bell there went off
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for me beinge being seventy four. I'll ask you later
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about testing. Hopefully I'm somewhere in the middlicause I have
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been a lifelong exercise and doing a lot of things
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today to hopefully support mitochondrial help. But let's talk about
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how we can enhance mitochondrial help. We're going to talk
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about some of the things that you very much talk
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about and promotes teeth light therapy and the focus on
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circadian rhythms, and you kind of already reference for masis
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with the issue of providing the necessary stress. But let's
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talk about nutrition to begin with. So, what are some
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of the basic principles of nutrition, What are some of
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some of the antry nutrients and the common diet that
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could damage a mitochondria. What are some of the basic
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principles of nutrition that can support mitochondrial health. And then
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you know, in our diet, and then what is the
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role of supplementation with all that? So I know that's
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a broad subject, but maybe you can zero on some
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of the key principles for it.
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I mean, we could probably spend five hours on those
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questions exactly. So I'll try to keep it very succinct,
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because I know you have a number of other topics
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you were hoping to talk about. So there's a number
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of different ways in which nutrition will interface with mitochondria specifically.
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So one of the ways is that what we eat
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impacts our gut health, and there is a microbiome mitochondria axis,
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gut mitochondria axis. So we've got we've got that function happening,
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and there's a number of specific mechanisms through which that happens,
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things like short chaineatty acid short chain fatty acids that
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are produced by certain bacteria in the gut, as well
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as things called euro lithins produced by certain bacteria and
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the gut in digesting certain nutrients, and there's a few
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other mechanisms as well. Those are sort of Here's another
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one that I can add to this list briefly, which
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is to the extent that you have gut permeability. You're
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now going to have LPs, lycopoly sacharides or endotoxins leaking
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through the gut blood barrier, and when that happens, that
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becomes a source of toxicity for the mitochondria. So there's
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ways we could optimize the gut mitochondria axis. We also
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have the fact of you know, simply consuming toxins themselves
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is going to impact on mitochondria. We also have certain
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nutrients that our mitochondria require in adequate amounts to function.
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All these cofactors that I mentioned a few minutes ago,
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we also have how our diet influences our body composition
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and overall metabolic health. So once we're influencing that picture,
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now we're influencing the whole biochemical meal. You that our
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mitochondria are essentially being bathed in all the time, Our
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blood sugar l levels, are triglyceride levels, the amount of
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fatty acids we have in our bloodstream, and simply you know,
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the extent to which our diet is contributing to poor
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body composition and excess body fat hugely influences that picture.
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Because just having high blood sugar itself chronically is toxic
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to mitochondria. Right, So we have that body composition mitochondria
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access and one other one I'll mention is maybe circadian rhythm.
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So in addition to light influencing the circadian rhythm, our
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nutrition also heavily influences our circadian rhythm. And we actually
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have two we can think of it as sort of
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two categories of clocks in our body. We have the
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central circadian clock in the brain and a part of
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the brain called the super chismatic nucleus, and that is
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primarily responsive to light inputs. And then we have peripheral clocks.
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This is a more recent scientific discovery, but we have
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peripheral clocks in essentially all of our different tissues. We
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have it in our liver, in our skin, in our intestines,
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in our muscles. We have all these peripheral clocks. And
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we have circadian clock genes that are responsive to and
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that are tied to the central circadian clock in the brain,
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and these peripheral clocks that are scattered throughout our whole body,
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and in all these different tissues are hugely responsive to
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nutrition inputs, not so much to light inputs. So we
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need to optimize both layers, and we want to link
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those two things, the central clock, the light inputs, and
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the meal inputs, so feeding and fasting windows become very
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important as well. So that's probably the brief overview if
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you if you want to go deeper into any of those,
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we can. But that's sort of how I would broadly
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describe some of the links.
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Yeah, and I really encourage people to check out your
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work and your website and silver because we can go
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so deeply into these areas. And and from my own exploration,
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there are a lot of things about common beliefs we
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have about water, healthy things to eat. Even if you're
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you know, a really health oriented, diet oriented person, it's
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more complex than that. Some of those things actually produce
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anti nutrients that can be harmful to the michondria. And
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but you know how to balance all these things out.
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But suffice it to say, our nutrition is highly impactful
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for mitochondrial health.
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And I will say, you know, to maybe add one
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layer to the story of nutrition, I will say that
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I think a lot there's a lot of.
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A lot of there's an issue of a lot of
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diet rus who are financially incentivized to over complicate nutrition
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and the story of nutrition and we are as a
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culture obsessed with finding the next big diet craze, and
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there's a lot of people again who are financially incentivized
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to capitalize on that culture. Where if you are the
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one who successfully puts out the next diet that everybody
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becomes obsessed about, you know, you can you can make
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many millions of dollars doing that. But the side effect
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of a culture and a sort of operating system that's
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that's oriented in this way is that number one, we
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tend to greatly over complicate good nutrition, and number two,
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we have an endless variety of diet gurus who end
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up pathologizing different food groups and making people think that
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certain foods are very bad for them. And at this point,
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you know, we're in an era now that every conceivable
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food group, everything other than water, has been demonized by somebody.
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You know, you know, I never thought I would see
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the day where even just vegetables would be demonized, and
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now we have, you know, certain diet camps that that
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are convinced that they're the green vegetables are full of
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plant toxins that are going to kill them, and and
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and the gap between that and the actual body of
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scientific literature on consumption of those foods and health benefits
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and disease rates. It couldn't be more stark of a contrast.
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So we can become obsessed, you know, we we have
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people putting forth the idea, you know, every everything you've
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been taught about diet is wrong, and really it's lectin
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that are killing you, and you know, making people think
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that eating too much lentils and beans and broccoli are
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the things that are killing them. No, it's not lentils
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and beans and broccoli that have made us obese and
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diabetic and diseased. We know what it is. It's hyper palatable,
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rewarding processed food. And that is the introduction of a
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modern Western diet, a modernized processed food based diet, or
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a standard American diet. We can look all over the
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world and we can track it. When countries become modernized
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and westernized and they introduced more processed foods, they become
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obese and diabetic and their metabolic health gets destroyed just
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like the rest of us. It's not because certain whole foods,
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you know, are killing them. The reality of good nutrition
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is if all you did, if you knew nothing other
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than just my only rule is I'm going to eat
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unprocessed whole foods and you did nothing else beyond that,
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you would be seventy five percent of the way to
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an optimal diet. That's the majority of eating a healthy diet.
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And a lot of people have obscured that again by
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demonizing different food groups and making people think it's about
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the right macronutrient ratio or low carb or low fat,
448
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or if it's vegan, or it's carnivore, or it's keto
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or whatever it is, or it's lectins that are killing you,
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and anti nutrients and things like that, and those kinds
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of things might be relevant to particular individuals, but it's
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probably less than five percent, maybe less than in many
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cases less than one percent of the overall picture of
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good nutrition.
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What a transformation isn't joked about thinking differently, but feeling differently.
456
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Science shows us that true change happens when we align
457
00:32:06.079 --> 00:32:09.559
not just our minds, but also the neural networks in
458
00:32:09.599 --> 00:32:13.200
our hearts and guts. This heart mind connection is the
459
00:32:13.279 --> 00:32:17.519
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That's incredibly helpful because it is really easy to get
475
00:33:21.440 --> 00:33:25.240
confused by all this information, the plethora of information out there,
476
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as well as to really have this just be another
477
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:30.920
source of fear and stress, and having fear and stress
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around your food is not helpful. I'm sure that's not
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helpful for mitochondrial health either, and.
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That's part of the danger of the side effect of
481
00:33:39.640 --> 00:33:43.119
all this demonization of food groups is it leads to
482
00:33:43.200 --> 00:33:48.960
a lot of psychological burden on people and eating disorders.
483
00:33:49.039 --> 00:33:52.799
And you know, it's worth saying that many thousands of
484
00:33:52.799 --> 00:33:56.799
people in the US die every year from eating disorders.
485
00:33:56.799 --> 00:34:01.880
So we need to be cautious with the demonization of foods,
486
00:34:01.920 --> 00:34:08.079
particularly when we're demonizing foods that are the scientific literature
487
00:34:08.159 --> 00:34:10.719
have shown very clearly to be associated with good health.
488
00:34:12.480 --> 00:34:16.599
So before we move on to talk about light therapy
489
00:34:16.719 --> 00:34:20.679
and talk more about circadian rhythms and hormosis and so forth,
490
00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:25.360
I wonder if you could just say something about supplementation. Now,
491
00:34:25.519 --> 00:34:27.960
you often hear that if you eat a really healthy diet,
492
00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:31.039
you don't really need additional supplementation, and some of it
493
00:34:31.079 --> 00:34:34.639
is going to run right to you anyway. But then
494
00:34:34.719 --> 00:34:37.199
a lot of people point that there is some reasonable
495
00:34:37.280 --> 00:34:40.719
level of targeted supplementation that could be helpful, especially if
496
00:34:40.719 --> 00:34:44.239
you want to target target mitochondrial health or really optimize
497
00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:47.360
your cellular biology. So I'm just curious about your thoughts
498
00:34:47.360 --> 00:34:51.119
on the whole phenomenal supplementation when it comes to mitochondrial
499
00:34:51.159 --> 00:34:53.440
health and overall anti aging or healthy aging.
500
00:34:58.039 --> 00:35:01.280
It's a very broad question. I'll just say, maybe I'll
501
00:35:01.320 --> 00:35:04.199
address this sort of first point of people saying, you know,
502
00:35:04.320 --> 00:35:07.360
if you eat a good diet, then you don't need supplements.
503
00:35:10.440 --> 00:35:14.440
I am fully in favor of optimizing your diet to
504
00:35:14.480 --> 00:35:18.719
be as nutritious as possible. Having said that, there are
505
00:35:18.719 --> 00:35:21.760
certain things that you can supplement with that you can't
506
00:35:21.800 --> 00:35:24.440
get in your diet, you know, or that no matter
507
00:35:24.480 --> 00:35:28.840
how nutritious your diet is, you wouldn't get those things.
508
00:35:30.360 --> 00:35:34.599
So you're not going to get spirillina or chlorilla in
509
00:35:34.639 --> 00:35:38.239
your diet naturally. And you know, those are foods that
510
00:35:39.519 --> 00:35:44.159
and supplements that have tremendous benefits. There's a sizable body
511
00:35:44.199 --> 00:35:47.480
of research showing that, for example, spirillina has some pretty
512
00:35:47.679 --> 00:35:50.960
amazing benefits for a number of different things like metabolic health,
513
00:35:52.000 --> 00:36:00.239
improved physical performance, and many many other things. Now, let's
514
00:36:00.239 --> 00:36:04.280
say black human seeds, you know, have certain benefits for
515
00:36:05.320 --> 00:36:11.679
you know, Hashimoto's hypothyroidism. If you know, just eating a
516
00:36:11.760 --> 00:36:14.760
nutritious diet doesn't mean you're getting black human seeds or
517
00:36:14.840 --> 00:36:19.039
black human seed oil, right, so like, And these are
518
00:36:19.079 --> 00:36:23.039
just two examples of probably five hundred examples that we
519
00:36:23.079 --> 00:36:28.239
could give of specific compounds that one might supplement with
520
00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:33.719
that wouldn't be found in the human diet. If you've
521
00:36:33.760 --> 00:36:38.800
got gut permeability, is it smart to take some glutamine
522
00:36:38.840 --> 00:36:44.199
supplements and to take some colostrum. Yeah, obviously. If you
523
00:36:44.400 --> 00:36:50.239
are exercising and you want to optimize your performance or
524
00:36:50.320 --> 00:36:53.719
enhance your muscle recovery or support muscle building, is it
525
00:36:53.719 --> 00:36:56.880
smart to supplement with weigh protein? Is there good evidence
526
00:36:56.920 --> 00:36:59.559
to support that as a strategy that is helpful in
527
00:36:59.599 --> 00:37:02.440
those dies? Absolutely?
528
00:37:02.760 --> 00:37:03.559
Can can.
529
00:37:03.679 --> 00:37:07.760
Is it possible to consume adequate protein without the supplement
530
00:37:07.760 --> 00:37:11.840
of way protein, Yeah, but it's easier with way, so
531
00:37:12.320 --> 00:37:14.920
you know, is it easier with creating? Yeah, you know,
532
00:37:14.960 --> 00:37:17.760
and there's a large body of evidence that supports that.
533
00:37:17.920 --> 00:37:22.840
So I don't see a strong argument in favor. I mean, basically,
534
00:37:22.920 --> 00:37:26.400
it's just an ideological argument. It's not one that's based
535
00:37:26.440 --> 00:37:29.960
on science where we can say, hey, in this study,
536
00:37:30.039 --> 00:37:33.559
the people who chose to not use way protein and
537
00:37:33.639 --> 00:37:38.199
not use creating and not use spillina outperform the ones
538
00:37:38.199 --> 00:37:41.440
who did use them. We don't have any research like that.
539
00:37:41.559 --> 00:37:48.920
So I don't see any compelling argument based on science,
540
00:37:49.320 --> 00:37:51.400
you know, other than just sort of a philosophical or
541
00:37:51.440 --> 00:37:57.920
ideological argument to not use supplements that have proven benefits.
542
00:37:58.519 --> 00:38:01.320
I'm a fan of supplements. I sell supplements that have
543
00:38:01.360 --> 00:38:04.400
proven benefits. I don't see a compelling reason why you
544
00:38:04.400 --> 00:38:07.280
wouldn't use stuff that has good benefits.
545
00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:11.519
Is it also true or is there research demonstrating Sometimes
546
00:38:11.559 --> 00:38:15.639
you hear that even eating healthy, whole organic foods that
547
00:38:15.679 --> 00:38:20.880
are available sometimes may not be as full of nutrient
548
00:38:20.920 --> 00:38:23.920
as they once were because the top soil depletion, overall
549
00:38:23.960 --> 00:38:27.360
soil depletion, of modern farming methods and so forth.
550
00:38:27.679 --> 00:38:30.519
Yes, it is true, and it's also true, you know,
551
00:38:30.559 --> 00:38:33.400
so you can look at the this has been quantified,
552
00:38:33.440 --> 00:38:36.760
and you know it goes down to quantification for specific
553
00:38:36.840 --> 00:38:41.079
micronutrients and minerals and vitamins and how much they have declined.
554
00:38:41.119 --> 00:38:43.679
So let's say, in a head of cabbage or lettuce
555
00:38:44.159 --> 00:38:48.119
from the nineteen fifties versus one now, it's declined by
556
00:38:48.599 --> 00:38:51.519
thirty or forty percent in terms of the content of
557
00:38:51.760 --> 00:38:57.119
magnesium or potassium or you know, vitamin C content and
558
00:38:57.320 --> 00:39:00.880
xyz fruit things like that. So that search does exist,
559
00:39:00.920 --> 00:39:05.519
and it's true. It's also true that conventional agriculture has
560
00:39:05.719 --> 00:39:12.119
lower levels than organic agriculture. So you know, on the
561
00:39:12.159 --> 00:39:17.199
whole there might be a specific example where conventional apricot
562
00:39:17.239 --> 00:39:21.440
and an organic apricot had basically the same but as
563
00:39:22.960 --> 00:39:26.199
in general, what you will find is that organic produce
564
00:39:26.360 --> 00:39:32.320
tends to have higher levels of micronutrients. And as a
565
00:39:32.320 --> 00:39:34.800
result of that, what that means is that we have
566
00:39:34.880 --> 00:39:37.719
to eat more volume of those foods to get the
567
00:39:37.760 --> 00:39:40.880
same level of micronutrients that we would have got that
568
00:39:40.960 --> 00:39:44.239
are you know, parents or grandparents would have got fifty
569
00:39:44.320 --> 00:39:49.000
or seven years ago, and that is also potentially a
570
00:39:49.039 --> 00:39:52.000
compelling reason to supplement with micronutrients.
571
00:39:53.159 --> 00:39:54.840
Well, let's shift a little bit here and talk about
572
00:39:54.840 --> 00:39:57.719
I know you promote the use of the science and
573
00:39:57.760 --> 00:40:00.960
the use of red light therapy, maybe other kinds of
574
00:40:01.000 --> 00:40:03.199
light therapy. I'm not sure, but I know you're associated
575
00:40:03.199 --> 00:40:05.320
with red light therapy, So could you talk about what
576
00:40:05.360 --> 00:40:08.239
are the benefits of that in terms of our mitochondrial
577
00:40:08.239 --> 00:40:09.280
health and healthy aging.
578
00:40:09.920 --> 00:40:14.239
We generally have been taught to think about light as
579
00:40:14.280 --> 00:40:18.159
sort of you know, light and darkness. We don't generally
580
00:40:18.199 --> 00:40:21.320
think about light at least, we are not brought up
581
00:40:21.519 --> 00:40:27.880
to think about light as interacting with our physiology. Maybe
582
00:40:28.079 --> 00:40:31.920
in recent years, people have started to become aware of,
583
00:40:32.199 --> 00:40:37.920
for example, circadian rhythm and how light, whether it's blue
584
00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:41.880
light and you know, bright outdoor light from the sun,
585
00:40:42.760 --> 00:40:45.239
getting that into the eye, how that interacts with the
586
00:40:45.239 --> 00:40:49.960
circadian clock, and how that influences health. There's growing awareness
587
00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.320
obviously around vitamin D and ultraviolet light from the sun,
588
00:40:54.760 --> 00:41:00.519
and what this means is that light is bio active.
589
00:41:02.119 --> 00:41:06.360
It's not just that light affects plants and causes photosynthesis.
590
00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:12.519
Photons of light also interact with human physiology, and red
591
00:41:12.519 --> 00:41:16.719
and near infrared light are another really important layer of
592
00:41:16.760 --> 00:41:19.760
this story, just as important as the vitamin D story
593
00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:25.239
or the circadian rhythm story. And part of the sun spectrum,
594
00:41:25.280 --> 00:41:29.119
about twenty percent on average of the sun spectrum is
595
00:41:29.159 --> 00:41:33.840
in what's called the red and near infrared range, and
596
00:41:33.920 --> 00:41:38.800
this is the range of from the visible red light,
597
00:41:38.840 --> 00:41:42.840
which is in the six hundred six hundreds in terms
598
00:41:42.840 --> 00:41:46.119
of nanometers. So if somebody wants to look up on Google,
599
00:41:46.239 --> 00:41:50.280
do a Google image search of the electromagnetic spectrum, you'll
600
00:41:50.280 --> 00:41:52.400
see this. You'll see this spectrum all the way from
601
00:41:52.840 --> 00:41:56.559
gamma rays and X rays to radio waves. And then
602
00:41:56.800 --> 00:42:00.159
part of this spectrum is the visible light spectrum. And
603
00:42:00.199 --> 00:42:02.159
then we get out of the visible light spectrum and
604
00:42:02.199 --> 00:42:05.119
go into the infrared range, which are invisible to the
605
00:42:05.159 --> 00:42:11.000
human eye, but we can feel as heat. Photo biomodulation,
606
00:42:12.320 --> 00:42:14.920
which is also called red and nearin forred light therapy.
607
00:42:15.119 --> 00:42:18.920
Photo is light, bio is biology, and modulation is what
608
00:42:18.960 --> 00:42:23.360
it sounds like. We are using light to change biology,
609
00:42:24.559 --> 00:42:29.239
and red and near infrared light are particularly effective at
610
00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:34.400
doing this. So red and near infrared light are unique
611
00:42:34.440 --> 00:42:38.159
in that they penetrate deeply into the body. So for example,
612
00:42:38.199 --> 00:42:46.280
blue light or green light, or ultraviolet light, even infrared
613
00:42:46.360 --> 00:42:49.679
far infrared light in asana, it's actually a widespread misconception
614
00:42:49.760 --> 00:42:52.559
that that infrared penetrates very deeply into the body. It
615
00:42:52.599 --> 00:42:57.199
doesn't actually, But red and near infrared light uniquely penetrate
616
00:42:57.519 --> 00:43:04.119
very deeply into the body, and that turns out not
617
00:43:04.280 --> 00:43:07.639
to be such a coincidence. Okay, we're wired essentially to
618
00:43:07.960 --> 00:43:14.840
allow that particular part of the light spectrum to penetrate
619
00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:20.320
through our skin and go down into the greater depths
620
00:43:20.360 --> 00:43:22.760
of tissue into our body. It can penetrate up to
621
00:43:22.800 --> 00:43:26.840
a few inches deep into our body, and that those
622
00:43:26.920 --> 00:43:30.639
light photons in the red and neur infrared range are bioactive.
623
00:43:30.719 --> 00:43:34.320
They interact with our physiology, and they interact with our
624
00:43:34.360 --> 00:43:39.519
physiology through a few different mechanisms. One of them is
625
00:43:39.639 --> 00:43:43.760
very centered around the mitochondria. They interact with essentially a
626
00:43:43.960 --> 00:43:48.760
what's called a photo acceptor. It's like a receptor for photons,
627
00:43:49.400 --> 00:43:54.800
and cytochrome ce oxidase is the name of this receptor
628
00:43:54.840 --> 00:43:59.840
on the mitochondria. So photons of light literally are caught
629
00:44:00.079 --> 00:44:04.639
chondria in your cells, in your skin, in your fat tissue,
630
00:44:04.719 --> 00:44:07.639
in your muscle tissue, in your bones, in your tendons,
631
00:44:08.039 --> 00:44:12.000
even in your brain, and in internal organs. In many cases,
632
00:44:12.039 --> 00:44:15.960
if the light can penetrate to them, they will be
633
00:44:16.079 --> 00:44:21.079
they will hit this photo acceptor on mitochondria, and as
634
00:44:21.119 --> 00:44:23.599
a result of this, it will trigger a process that
635
00:44:23.760 --> 00:44:29.079
enhances mitochondrial energy production. So this is kind of mind blowing.
636
00:44:29.119 --> 00:44:32.559
We're used to, again thinking of light photons interacting with
637
00:44:32.679 --> 00:44:35.719
plants in a similar way that sort of does this
638
00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:38.920
whole photosynthesis process that's really important for plants. We're not
639
00:44:39.039 --> 00:44:41.360
used to thinking of light photons doing that to our
640
00:44:41.400 --> 00:44:45.360
physiology inside of our cells. And it's of course it's
641
00:44:45.400 --> 00:44:51.400
not photosynthesize photosynthesis. It's a process that stimulates energy production
642
00:44:51.719 --> 00:44:57.440
bio mitochondria, and that's actually just one of the key mechanisms.
643
00:44:58.800 --> 00:45:01.480
One of the other key mechanism that's really important in
644
00:45:01.480 --> 00:45:12.639
this process is triggering something basically a cascade of growth factors.
645
00:45:13.960 --> 00:45:18.760
So we have certain growth factors in our tissues, and
646
00:45:18.800 --> 00:45:21.760
there's tissue specific growth factors. So in our muscles we
647
00:45:21.800 --> 00:45:25.719
have IGF one insulin like growth factor one. In our
648
00:45:25.760 --> 00:45:32.239
brain we have nerve growth factor NGF and BDNF brain
649
00:45:32.320 --> 00:45:37.079
derived neurotrophic factor, and we have many many other growth
650
00:45:37.079 --> 00:45:41.480
factors TGF, beta, veg F, v g F in our
651
00:45:41.480 --> 00:45:45.360
blood vessels, and we have lots of other tissue specific
652
00:45:45.639 --> 00:45:49.800
growth factors. In our skin, we have growth factors involved
653
00:45:49.800 --> 00:45:55.480
in stimulating collagen production from fibroblasts, and we have this
654
00:45:55.559 --> 00:46:00.199
whole web of Depending on what tissue you're looking out
655
00:46:00.239 --> 00:46:02.599
of the body, there are certain growth factors that help
656
00:46:02.800 --> 00:46:09.199
those cells grow and repair and regenerate damage. One of
657
00:46:09.199 --> 00:46:12.840
the other key mechanisms besides stimulating mitochondrial energy production is
658
00:46:12.880 --> 00:46:18.519
basically red and urinefread light act to stimulate this cascade
659
00:46:18.599 --> 00:46:21.760
of growth factors in a tissue specific way. You shine
660
00:46:21.800 --> 00:46:25.079
it on the brain, it will lead to the increase
661
00:46:25.239 --> 00:46:28.280
in NNGF and BDNF. You shine it on your muscles,
662
00:46:28.559 --> 00:46:32.000
it will increase IGF one and so on and so forth.
663
00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:34.039
You shine it on your skin, you get an anti
664
00:46:34.119 --> 00:46:40.079
aging effect from stimulating collagen production. You shine it on
665
00:46:40.119 --> 00:46:44.400
your thyroid gland and you can help regenerate those cells.
666
00:46:44.440 --> 00:46:48.639
So it creates a regeneration effect in those tissues. Along
667
00:46:48.719 --> 00:46:52.000
with that. Paired with that mechanism is that it's also
668
00:46:52.039 --> 00:46:57.000
been shown to stimulate stem cells, the release and proliferation
669
00:46:57.239 --> 00:47:02.519
of stem cells, which are also involved in local repair.
670
00:47:02.639 --> 00:47:05.039
So you can shine light on a particular area that
671
00:47:05.400 --> 00:47:08.960
stimulates local stem cells in that area to become more active.
672
00:47:09.320 --> 00:47:12.960
Those stem cells will also be released into circulation, where
673
00:47:13.199 --> 00:47:16.719
as a result of that, they can find cells and
674
00:47:16.800 --> 00:47:18.960
tissues in the body that are in need of repair
675
00:47:19.000 --> 00:47:25.079
and regeneration and help to do that. So that is
676
00:47:25.199 --> 00:47:31.480
probably the more important mechanism rather than the stimulation of
677
00:47:31.480 --> 00:47:35.159
mitochondrial energy production, which is an effect and it's helpful,
678
00:47:35.480 --> 00:47:40.199
but it's shorter lived, whereas the second, the change in
679
00:47:40.280 --> 00:47:44.360
growth factors and stem cells, is a much longer lasting response.
680
00:47:44.440 --> 00:47:49.480
It can last not just minutes, but days, and some
681
00:47:49.559 --> 00:47:53.840
studies show even longer up to weeks. So what we're
682
00:47:53.880 --> 00:48:00.079
really doing with this is stimulating cellular repair and regeneration
683
00:48:00.800 --> 00:48:05.440
and this and the important part of that is that
684
00:48:05.719 --> 00:48:11.199
basically all of our cells we are engaging repair and
685
00:48:11.239 --> 00:48:16.519
regeneration processes pretty much on a daily basis, and we
686
00:48:16.559 --> 00:48:20.639
accumulate damage and we need to engage in repair and regeneration.
687
00:48:20.719 --> 00:48:24.199
We accumulate damage, we need to engage in repair and regeneration.
688
00:48:25.079 --> 00:48:30.559
And if that process is not being well balanced, meaning
689
00:48:30.639 --> 00:48:34.880
if we're accumulating more damage then we're regenerating and repairing,
690
00:48:35.920 --> 00:48:40.920
then we start to accumulate tissues that are and cells
691
00:48:40.960 --> 00:48:44.639
that are damaged and become dysfunctional. So the more that
692
00:48:44.679 --> 00:48:48.840
we can amplify and enhance that repair and regeneration side
693
00:48:48.840 --> 00:48:51.800
of this balance, the more we can help our cells
694
00:48:51.800 --> 00:48:54.760
and our tissues maintain a youthful state for much longer.
695
00:48:55.119 --> 00:48:58.239
And this is why this therapy a lot of people
696
00:48:58.280 --> 00:49:02.800
are have been skeptical of it for many years because
697
00:49:02.800 --> 00:49:06.440
there's so much research. There's over seven thousand studies now
698
00:49:07.000 --> 00:49:11.559
showing so many different benefits on different systems of the body.
699
00:49:12.519 --> 00:49:14.960
You can use it for healing diabetic ulcers, you can
700
00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:18.159
heal it for use it for healing athletic injuries and
701
00:49:18.199 --> 00:49:22.079
for arthritis. You can use it for healing bones. You
702
00:49:22.119 --> 00:49:24.599
can use it for enhancing immune function. You can use
703
00:49:24.599 --> 00:49:28.960
it for hashimotos hypothyroidism. It's been used in fighting Alzheimer's
704
00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:34.039
and depression. It's been used for enhancing muscle performance and
705
00:49:34.119 --> 00:49:38.199
muscle recovery. And you know, you accumulate this vast body
706
00:49:38.239 --> 00:49:40.760
of evidence. And I'm not even scratching the surface of
707
00:49:40.800 --> 00:49:44.519
the list I'm giving you there, but every system of
708
00:49:44.559 --> 00:49:47.199
the body, you know, showing some type of benefit in
709
00:49:47.239 --> 00:49:51.119
response to red and you're infrared light therapy. People say, well,
710
00:49:51.239 --> 00:49:53.840
this is snake oil. You know, how could something have
711
00:49:54.039 --> 00:49:57.480
beneficial effects on so many different systems Because we're all
712
00:49:57.559 --> 00:50:03.719
used to thinking of rug rugs pharmaceuticals that are targeting
713
00:50:03.760 --> 00:50:07.880
a specific disease and a specific mechanism of a specific disease.
714
00:50:07.920 --> 00:50:11.119
So the idea of a therapy that can be so
715
00:50:11.320 --> 00:50:17.840
beneficial for so many different problems kind of arouses some skepticism.
716
00:50:18.320 --> 00:50:20.880
But when we understand the mechanism of what's going on,
717
00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:24.280
that really what it's doing is, you know, pretty much
718
00:50:24.320 --> 00:50:26.679
all the cells in our body, almost all the cells
719
00:50:26.880 --> 00:50:32.920
have mitochondria and are involved in repair, have a need
720
00:50:32.960 --> 00:50:39.079
for repair and regeneration processes, and by stimulating those growth
721
00:50:39.119 --> 00:50:43.760
factors and by stimulating stem cells, we are allowing the
722
00:50:43.800 --> 00:50:46.880
tissues to repair and regenerate better and we're keeping them
723
00:50:46.920 --> 00:50:50.559
in a youthful state. So those just by doing that
724
00:50:50.639 --> 00:50:53.920
in a universal way, we can help almost anything in
725
00:50:53.960 --> 00:50:54.400
the body.
726
00:50:56.440 --> 00:51:02.280
Wow, really fascinating. So is a near emperla nearer thread
727
00:51:03.559 --> 00:51:06.800
light photons? Is this part of the normal solar spectrum
728
00:51:06.880 --> 00:51:09.559
if we lived in outdoor life we would get sufficient?
729
00:51:09.800 --> 00:51:12.559
Or is this something that you really need to concentrated
730
00:51:12.960 --> 00:51:16.000
therapy of red light and for a near thread types
731
00:51:16.039 --> 00:51:18.960
of saunas or treatments that can do it in a
732
00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:21.000
concentrated way for to have impact.
733
00:51:21.360 --> 00:51:24.559
Yeah, it's a great question. So the reason it's this
734
00:51:24.679 --> 00:51:30.280
is not a coincidence that we evolved this way. It
735
00:51:30.400 --> 00:51:37.400
is directly the product of our ancestors for many hundreds
736
00:51:37.440 --> 00:51:41.679
of thousands of years, and probably the ancestral species before
737
00:51:41.719 --> 00:51:45.920
that for millions of years evolving on this planet under
738
00:51:45.960 --> 00:51:51.880
the sun. We evolve to not just have these photons
739
00:51:51.960 --> 00:51:54.840
of light from this giant ball of fire in the
740
00:51:54.880 --> 00:52:00.800
sky just sort of be innocuous and not affect us,
741
00:52:00.840 --> 00:52:04.960
but we evolved mechanisms through which it can affect our physiology.
742
00:52:06.760 --> 00:52:10.320
The light affects vitamin D, we depend on it for that.
743
00:52:10.400 --> 00:52:13.159
The light effects our circadian rhythm, we depend on it
744
00:52:13.199 --> 00:52:18.000
for that. The light activates our mitochondria to function in
745
00:52:18.039 --> 00:52:21.639
a certain way and stimulates growth and repair processes in
746
00:52:21.679 --> 00:52:27.639
our cells. None of this is a coincidence. So it's
747
00:52:27.719 --> 00:52:30.880
not just that, hey, we discovered this technology that does
748
00:52:30.920 --> 00:52:33.400
this weird thing in our human physiology. No, this is
749
00:52:33.840 --> 00:52:37.840
directly the product of the fact that our species has
750
00:52:37.880 --> 00:52:41.159
evolved for hundred hundreds of thousands of years in connection
751
00:52:41.199 --> 00:52:43.920
with the Sun. Twenty percent of the Sun's energy is
752
00:52:43.960 --> 00:52:47.960
in this range of red and neurinefred light. And of
753
00:52:48.039 --> 00:52:51.760
course it absolutely has many of these effects that I've
754
00:52:51.800 --> 00:52:58.639
just described now four specific purposes, for targeted purposes to
755
00:52:58.960 --> 00:53:01.480
let's say, use it on a particular wound, on a
756
00:53:01.519 --> 00:53:06.320
sprained ankle, on a cut or a diabetic ulcer, or
757
00:53:06.480 --> 00:53:11.679
a broken bone, or a for applying it to muscles
758
00:53:11.719 --> 00:53:15.000
to enhance performance or to enhance recovery or something like that.
759
00:53:15.159 --> 00:53:19.360
Or you have a ligament tear in your joint, or
760
00:53:19.400 --> 00:53:23.679
you have arthritis or something like that. We can use
761
00:53:23.760 --> 00:53:27.360
devices in a targeted way where we apply a more
762
00:53:27.440 --> 00:53:31.840
powerful amount of light directly to those areas to get
763
00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:36.639
more light, a larger dose of light in this range
764
00:53:37.360 --> 00:53:41.400
penetrating to the deeper tissues to deliver an effective dose
765
00:53:41.679 --> 00:53:42.880
exactly where it's needed.
766
00:53:44.719 --> 00:53:47.039
Are there risk with red light therapy? I one need
767
00:53:47.079 --> 00:53:49.000
to a process with any caution.
768
00:53:50.480 --> 00:53:54.960
To the extent you're engaged in. Using lasers, as in
769
00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.199
contrast to LEDs, there's much more risk. It's much easier
770
00:53:59.239 --> 00:54:02.719
to use laser, especially high power lasers, and cause harm,
771
00:54:03.719 --> 00:54:09.280
cause excessive thermal heating of the tissues, and injury via
772
00:54:09.400 --> 00:54:13.519
that way. I definitely wouldn't recommend anybody play with lasers
773
00:54:13.599 --> 00:54:15.559
at home. You know, if you're going to do lasers,
774
00:54:15.559 --> 00:54:19.639
you should get it done by a trained clinician who
775
00:54:19.719 --> 00:54:25.360
is certified to use that laser. With LED devices there's
776
00:54:25.440 --> 00:54:29.480
much less risk, but like most things, you can overdo it.
777
00:54:29.519 --> 00:54:32.880
You can overdo the sun, you can overdo exercise, you
778
00:54:32.920 --> 00:54:37.159
can overeat and make yourself sick, and so it's it's
779
00:54:37.199 --> 00:54:42.079
similar to that lasers much easier to overdo and cause harm.
780
00:54:42.280 --> 00:54:47.079
LED devices are much more analogous to something like doing
781
00:54:47.079 --> 00:54:50.880
a workout or you know, getting sick from overeating. If
782
00:54:50.920 --> 00:54:55.159
you really meaning the safe range is very large, it's
783
00:54:55.280 --> 00:54:58.880
hard to overdo it and create any kind of noticeable harm.
784
00:54:59.519 --> 00:55:02.519
The only many times that that tends to happen are
785
00:55:02.559 --> 00:55:05.719
people who are in a very fragile state, people who
786
00:55:05.760 --> 00:55:12.840
are very chronically ill, oftentimes bedridden, people with severe chronic
787
00:55:12.920 --> 00:55:15.880
fatigue whose systems are very fragile, people who tend to
788
00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:19.039
react negatively to many different types of foods and many
789
00:55:19.039 --> 00:55:22.440
different types of supplements, people who tend to react to
790
00:55:22.559 --> 00:55:25.760
doing physical activity. If you have lots and lots of
791
00:55:25.840 --> 00:55:29.440
negative responses to lots of things like that, it's possible.
792
00:55:29.480 --> 00:55:32.920
I've certainly seen it to have negative reactions to red
793
00:55:32.920 --> 00:55:36.400
and neurine for etilite therapy, and it becomes much easier
794
00:55:36.440 --> 00:55:40.960
to overdo it. But for otherwise healthy people, I've seen
795
00:55:41.000 --> 00:55:46.280
people do ten times the doses that I would advise
796
00:55:46.519 --> 00:55:50.400
and not experience any noticeable side effects. Doesn't mean I
797
00:55:50.440 --> 00:55:52.800
advise them to do that, but it means that the
798
00:55:52.880 --> 00:55:54.000
range is very safe.
799
00:55:55.800 --> 00:56:00.119
So you've mentioned circadian rhythms quite a bit already, so
800
00:56:00.159 --> 00:56:02.039
I don't want to spend too much time there because
801
00:56:02.079 --> 00:56:06.159
I still want to talk about this phenomenon formasis and resilience,
802
00:56:07.960 --> 00:56:11.079
but circadian rhythms and their relationship with aging. So you
803
00:56:11.119 --> 00:56:13.199
mentioned we have two circadian clocks. So we have this
804
00:56:13.239 --> 00:56:16.519
one principal circadian clock that's impacted by light, and then
805
00:56:16.599 --> 00:56:19.639
we have all these other peripheral circadian clocks that are
806
00:56:19.679 --> 00:56:22.519
impacted by nutrition. But let's stay focused on light for
807
00:56:22.559 --> 00:56:25.800
a moment. The importance of exposure to natural light and
808
00:56:25.960 --> 00:56:29.440
morning they're having regular sleep and waking routines, and how
809
00:56:29.480 --> 00:56:31.440
that impacts overall health and aging.
810
00:56:32.880 --> 00:56:35.880
So we have a central clock in our brains, in
811
00:56:35.920 --> 00:56:38.519
a part of the brain called the super chismatic nucleus.
812
00:56:38.599 --> 00:56:44.480
It is uniquely responsive to light photons in the blue
813
00:56:44.920 --> 00:56:48.920
wavelengths and to some extent the green wavelengths, but especially
814
00:56:48.960 --> 00:56:54.639
the blue. This is if this sounds like a strange concept,
815
00:56:54.679 --> 00:56:58.639
you know blue wavelengths of light. Just walk outside and
816
00:56:58.880 --> 00:57:02.159
look at a sunny, blue sky and now you understand
817
00:57:02.159 --> 00:57:05.199
what blue light is. Those are the blue wavelengths of light.
818
00:57:05.440 --> 00:57:10.639
Blue visible light. That particular part of the spectrum is
819
00:57:10.679 --> 00:57:15.280
what our circadian clock has evolved to be uniquely responsive to.
820
00:57:16.679 --> 00:57:18.400
And if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense,
821
00:57:18.440 --> 00:57:20.360
because if you go out at night, you don't see
822
00:57:20.400 --> 00:57:23.159
a blue sky. Right you go out in the day,
823
00:57:23.199 --> 00:57:26.400
you see a blue sky. Night, not so much. After
824
00:57:26.440 --> 00:57:29.719
the sun goes down, we have an absence of blue light,
825
00:57:30.400 --> 00:57:36.679
and so that became the signal to our brains to
826
00:57:36.719 --> 00:57:40.800
tell us when it's daytime and when it's nighttime. So
827
00:57:43.519 --> 00:57:47.760
those blue light photons are essentially a signal that is
828
00:57:47.800 --> 00:57:52.480
interpreted by your day by your brain as it's daytime,
829
00:57:52.599 --> 00:57:56.039
it's the time to be awake, active, alert, and energetic.
830
00:57:56.880 --> 00:58:01.920
And then the absence of that triggers a whole cascade
831
00:58:02.079 --> 00:58:05.519
of other neurochemicals in the brain and hormones that are
832
00:58:05.559 --> 00:58:10.360
linked with that that help activate that. So we have
833
00:58:10.400 --> 00:58:13.679
a cortisol response that is linked with that. It is
834
00:58:13.800 --> 00:58:17.079
linked directly to the circadian rhythm. In the morning, after
835
00:58:17.079 --> 00:58:19.320
we wake up, we have a big spike of cortisol
836
00:58:19.760 --> 00:58:22.199
and this is on what's called the diurnal curve. So
837
00:58:22.679 --> 00:58:25.639
goes up very strongly in the mornings, and then it
838
00:58:25.760 --> 00:58:29.800
goes down throughout the day, and then it stays very low.
839
00:58:29.920 --> 00:58:32.079
It's supposed to stay very low in the evening and
840
00:58:32.119 --> 00:58:34.639
at night, and then spikes again. The next morning, So
841
00:58:34.840 --> 00:58:38.719
that hormone is directly tied into a circadian rhythm, and
842
00:58:38.760 --> 00:58:43.199
many other hormones are too, including some people that people
843
00:58:43.239 --> 00:58:49.559
are not really aware of. So thyroid hormone is, testosterone is,
844
00:58:52.400 --> 00:58:57.159
melatonin is very strongly, and melatonin and cortisol are supposed
845
00:58:57.159 --> 00:59:00.920
to essentially go on opposite paths. When cortisol is low,
846
00:59:00.960 --> 00:59:07.440
we want melotone and high and vice versa. So all
847
00:59:07.480 --> 00:59:10.639
of those hormones and many different neurotransmitters in the brain,
848
00:59:10.679 --> 00:59:15.159
and there's a long list of other specific cellular biochemical
849
00:59:15.199 --> 00:59:19.719
mechanisms that are also triggered by this signal that originally
850
00:59:19.760 --> 00:59:23.559
starts with light hitting receptors in the eyes and feeding
851
00:59:23.599 --> 00:59:27.079
back into the circadian clock. We have this whole cascade
852
00:59:27.400 --> 00:59:35.000
of changes in our biochemistry, neurochemistry, and hormones that facilitate
853
00:59:37.039 --> 00:59:41.360
the activation of Hey, it's daytime. Time to be awake, active, alert,
854
00:59:41.400 --> 00:59:45.719
and energetic. Okay, when the sun goes down, we have
855
00:59:46.239 --> 00:59:50.480
the opposite cascade. It's the time to relax. It's the
856
00:59:50.519 --> 00:59:54.519
time to unwind, and it's time to prepare for the night,
857
00:59:54.679 --> 00:59:58.119
prepare for sleep, and it's time to repair and regenerate
858
00:59:58.159 --> 01:00:02.039
the damage from the day have the whole cascade of
859
01:00:02.079 --> 01:00:06.880
those processes and the associated hormonal and biochemical shifts that
860
01:00:06.960 --> 01:00:14.199
facilitate all of those changes. So the circadian rhythm controls
861
01:00:14.360 --> 01:00:18.920
a lot about human physiology. It's really really important. And
862
01:00:19.480 --> 01:00:22.519
if I've done my job well in sort of painting
863
01:00:22.519 --> 01:00:30.119
the picture of those cascades, if you have a non
864
01:00:30.199 --> 01:00:33.320
optimal circadian rhythm, if you are your circadian rhythm is
865
01:00:33.360 --> 01:00:38.159
not getting the signals that it needs to function in
866
01:00:38.199 --> 01:00:40.800
the right way, in a robust way where it's saying
867
01:00:41.000 --> 01:00:45.719
okay daytime, nighttime. If it's getting mixed signals or it's
868
01:00:45.760 --> 01:00:49.800
not getting strong enough signals, all of those cascades of
869
01:00:49.880 --> 01:00:54.559
biochemical processes that I just described will also be disrupted
870
01:00:54.639 --> 01:00:58.880
as a result. And this is a bit of a digression,
871
01:00:58.920 --> 01:01:01.639
but a common miss stake in thinking that many people
872
01:01:01.719 --> 01:01:07.559
make is they go to a blood test and they
873
01:01:07.599 --> 01:01:10.800
get a hormone level, you know, or they see their
874
01:01:10.800 --> 01:01:15.280
biochemistry and they think, oh, this thing's off and that
875
01:01:15.320 --> 01:01:17.760
thing's off, and this hormone is off. My cortisol is this,
876
01:01:18.000 --> 01:01:22.000
my melatonin is this, My testosterone is this, my thyroid
877
01:01:22.039 --> 01:01:26.519
hormone is this, And they try to do very targeted
878
01:01:26.599 --> 01:01:30.360
interventions for those that biochemistry. But we need to understand
879
01:01:30.480 --> 01:01:34.599
that what's upstream of a lot of the biochemistry and
880
01:01:34.639 --> 01:01:40.000
a lot of the hormones is environment and lifestyle. And
881
01:01:40.199 --> 01:01:42.760
this is again a very common mistake in thinking. People
882
01:01:42.840 --> 01:01:46.840
think the biochemistry is what's controlled them, controlling them. The
883
01:01:46.840 --> 01:01:51.760
biochemistry is the level of causation. The biochemistry is downstream
884
01:01:52.079 --> 01:01:57.119
from environment and way of life. So we need to
885
01:01:57.239 --> 01:02:01.840
understand that optimizing our scadian rhythm is incredibly important for
886
01:02:01.960 --> 01:02:05.840
all of those cascades. And then by influencing our sleep,
887
01:02:06.760 --> 01:02:10.159
this other dimension of you know, how we spend a
888
01:02:10.199 --> 01:02:13.159
third of our lives. We know you know from recent
889
01:02:13.199 --> 01:02:18.280
books from Matthew Walker and from Michael Bruce and from
890
01:02:18.519 --> 01:02:23.800
many other sleep experts that sleep is incredibly important to
891
01:02:23.880 --> 01:02:27.119
our overall health. If you have a poor circadian rhythm,
892
01:02:27.679 --> 01:02:30.320
your sleep quality is going to suffer. If your sleep
893
01:02:30.400 --> 01:02:37.639
quality suffers, everything about your health suffers. So a couple
894
01:02:37.760 --> 01:02:42.239
things that we must do to optimize our circadian rhythm.
895
01:02:42.519 --> 01:02:45.840
One is, of course, bright light early in the morning,
896
01:02:45.960 --> 01:02:49.719
ideally the first half an hour of the day, first
897
01:02:49.960 --> 01:02:53.960
hour maximum, but ideally the first half an hour of
898
01:02:54.000 --> 01:02:58.079
the day. We want to be going outdoors getting outdoor
899
01:02:58.199 --> 01:03:00.840
light in our eyes. If that's not possible, then you
900
01:03:00.960 --> 01:03:06.719
use a SAD seasonal affective disorder bright light lamp or
901
01:03:07.000 --> 01:03:11.480
sometimes called the happy lamp, and you want it to
902
01:03:11.480 --> 01:03:13.360
be ten thousand lucks, and you want it to be
903
01:03:13.440 --> 01:03:17.239
white light. But I prefer natural light whenever possible. It
904
01:03:17.320 --> 01:03:19.960
is possible to do it even on an overcast day,
905
01:03:20.079 --> 01:03:24.239
but you need more time outdoors. If it's real sunny
906
01:03:24.280 --> 01:03:26.599
and bright, you might only need two or three minutes.
907
01:03:26.760 --> 01:03:29.000
If it's an overcast day, you might need more like
908
01:03:29.039 --> 01:03:33.000
ten or fifteen minutes in that environment to get a
909
01:03:33.159 --> 01:03:38.000
robust signal into your circadian rhythm. It's daytime, okay, time
910
01:03:38.039 --> 01:03:44.719
to get active now. Conversely, when it's evening, we need
911
01:03:44.760 --> 01:03:49.800
to block out the blue light and give a strong
912
01:03:49.920 --> 01:03:54.239
signal to our circadian clock that it's nighttime and the
913
01:03:54.280 --> 01:03:57.800
time to relax and prepare for sleep. And both of
914
01:03:57.840 --> 01:04:00.000
these things are a big problem in the modern world
915
01:04:00.519 --> 01:04:05.280
because most people do not spend time outdoors. They're spending
916
01:04:05.320 --> 01:04:08.599
their time indoors and in their house and then driving
917
01:04:08.599 --> 01:04:14.920
to work and then being in an office, and then
918
01:04:14.960 --> 01:04:19.719
at night you're spending your time indoors in room lighting
919
01:04:20.599 --> 01:04:25.199
watching TV or looking at screens your computer or cell
920
01:04:25.199 --> 01:04:31.639
phone screens and then going to bed. Now, if you
921
01:04:32.880 --> 01:04:35.639
what we need for a robustir Katian rhythm is not
922
01:04:35.920 --> 01:04:42.880
only strong blue light in the morning and the absence
923
01:04:42.880 --> 01:04:46.679
of blue light an hour or two before bed, but
924
01:04:47.039 --> 01:04:51.079
we also need a big differential in the light intensity
925
01:04:51.119 --> 01:04:54.280
that we're getting during the daytime and the nighttime. And
926
01:04:54.360 --> 01:04:57.679
the big problem in the modern world is that when
927
01:04:57.679 --> 01:05:02.159
we spend all of our day indoors in indoor lighting
928
01:05:02.440 --> 01:05:05.800
looking at screens, and then in the evening we are
929
01:05:05.880 --> 01:05:09.440
still in indoor lighting looking at screens, we have very
930
01:05:09.519 --> 01:05:12.800
little differential in terms of the light intensity that we've
931
01:05:12.840 --> 01:05:19.280
been exposed to. And the less that differential is, the
932
01:05:19.320 --> 01:05:23.000
weaker the signals into your circadian rhythm are, and the
933
01:05:23.079 --> 01:05:26.400
less robust of a circadian rhythm that you will have.
934
01:05:27.039 --> 01:05:30.199
And as a result of that, all of those cascades
935
01:05:30.559 --> 01:05:34.639
that I described of daytime and nighttime, and the biochemical
936
01:05:34.679 --> 01:05:38.760
and hormonal processes that correspond to those are all weakened
937
01:05:39.559 --> 01:05:42.480
and made less robust. In response to that.
938
01:05:44.000 --> 01:05:47.400
Wow, well, I know we're beyond your available time, and
939
01:05:47.440 --> 01:05:49.519
I'm going to have to get you on my podcast.
940
01:05:49.880 --> 01:05:51.719
A number of times, so we can explore some of
941
01:05:51.760 --> 01:05:54.000
these topics and even more depth than you've shared with
942
01:05:54.079 --> 01:05:57.480
us today. You've been incredibly generous with your time, your expertise,
943
01:05:57.800 --> 01:06:00.719
just because I mentioned the problem of formation to our audience.
944
01:06:00.960 --> 01:06:03.679
You start off our interview talking about how the miss
945
01:06:03.719 --> 01:06:08.679
around stress and so we can intentionally stress systems with exercise,
946
01:06:08.800 --> 01:06:13.880
with fasting, with with thermogenesis, with cold exposure, things like this,
947
01:06:14.000 --> 01:06:16.719
and that can create a positive effect as that there
948
01:06:16.760 --> 01:06:17.360
to say.
949
01:06:17.920 --> 01:06:20.840
Absolutely, this is very much at the center of my work,
950
01:06:21.000 --> 01:06:25.960
and I'll mention very briefly. You know, I alluded to
951
01:06:26.000 --> 01:06:28.960
it with regards to mitochondria when I was talking about
952
01:06:29.960 --> 01:06:32.760
when I was talking about how seventy year olds who
953
01:06:32.760 --> 01:06:37.480
are lifelong exercisers maintain the same level of mitochondria capacity
954
01:06:38.320 --> 01:06:40.840
as young adults do, and that is a direct process
955
01:06:41.440 --> 01:06:46.760
of a direct product of hormetic stress. Basically, what this
956
01:06:46.800 --> 01:06:49.719
principle boils down to is use it or lose it.
957
01:06:50.280 --> 01:06:53.639
And there are many, many layers of this, you know.
958
01:06:53.760 --> 01:07:00.960
One interesting little story I'll mention here is there's something
959
01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:05.719
in our bodies called brown fat, brown adipose tissue, and
960
01:07:06.639 --> 01:07:10.440
brown adipose tissue is in certain parts of the body.
961
01:07:10.440 --> 01:07:13.960
It's on kind of our back, around the ribs in particular,
962
01:07:14.039 --> 01:07:19.280
and it functions as an internal heater. And for many years,
963
01:07:19.280 --> 01:07:23.079
for many decades actually, it was thought by scientists that
964
01:07:23.480 --> 01:07:28.320
this brown fat only existed in babies, in human babies,
965
01:07:28.360 --> 01:07:31.760
and it didn't exist in adults. That it was as
966
01:07:31.800 --> 01:07:37.639
a normal developmental product. You know, this internal heating mechanism
967
01:07:37.719 --> 01:07:41.400
that sort of burns up energy to produce heat to
968
01:07:41.480 --> 01:07:45.280
keep you warm when it's cold, exists in babies, and
969
01:07:45.320 --> 01:07:47.760
then as they grow into adults, it just naturally goes
970
01:07:47.800 --> 01:07:53.480
away on its own. And then they started measuring humans
971
01:07:53.679 --> 01:08:00.079
who don't live in indoor, climate controlled environments their whole life,
972
01:08:00.199 --> 01:08:04.679
where we're precisely controlling the temperatures in a comfortable range,
973
01:08:04.719 --> 01:08:08.599
but humans who spend some time outdoors, and we discovered, oh,
974
01:08:08.679 --> 01:08:12.760
actually adult humans have it too. And what that is
975
01:08:12.760 --> 01:08:18.920
is a story of atrophy that when we don't stimulate
976
01:08:18.960 --> 01:08:22.720
those tissues, the tissue literally shrinks and shrivels up and
977
01:08:22.800 --> 01:08:27.159
dies off. And that happens to our muscles, it happens
978
01:08:27.239 --> 01:08:30.680
to our mitochondria, it happens to brown fat, it happens
979
01:08:30.720 --> 01:08:34.279
to our bones. The main cause of low bone density
980
01:08:34.279 --> 01:08:39.199
and osteoporosis is lack of weight bearing activity. It happens
981
01:08:39.279 --> 01:08:42.000
at the level of our heart, it happens at the
982
01:08:42.079 --> 01:08:44.720
level of our brain. And this has to do with
983
01:08:44.760 --> 01:08:50.560
something called cognitive reserve capacity. If you challenge your brain
984
01:08:50.760 --> 01:08:55.319
to do cognitively demanding things, it grows physically more robust
985
01:08:55.359 --> 01:09:01.000
structure and enhances its function. If you don't do cognitively
986
01:09:01.039 --> 01:09:04.760
demanding things, and most people after their twenties, they stop
987
01:09:04.840 --> 01:09:08.479
going to school unless they're involved in a particularly cognitively
988
01:09:08.520 --> 01:09:12.840
demanding job. Most people's level of cognitive demands in their
989
01:09:12.840 --> 01:09:18.760
life drops off dramatically after their twenties. Most Americans don't
990
01:09:18.800 --> 01:09:24.760
read a single book a year. And you to the
991
01:09:24.800 --> 01:09:28.439
degree we're involved in sort of just mindlessly scrolling on
992
01:09:28.479 --> 01:09:32.359
social media and watching you know, silly reality TV shows
993
01:09:32.720 --> 01:09:36.920
instead of actually using our brains to do hard stuff
994
01:09:38.039 --> 01:09:43.239
that's challenging, our cognitive reserve capacity shrinks. Well, turns out
995
01:09:43.239 --> 01:09:47.880
that cognitive reserve capacity is a major factor in whether
996
01:09:47.920 --> 01:09:52.760
you get dementia and Alzheimer's disease. The shrinking the atrophy
997
01:09:52.800 --> 01:09:56.079
of your muscle tissue is a major factor in whether
998
01:09:56.119 --> 01:09:59.760
you get syclopedia and physical frailty as you get older.
999
01:10:00.279 --> 01:10:03.680
The shrinking an atrophy of your mitochondria is a major
1000
01:10:03.720 --> 01:10:07.920
factor in many things. But let's just say energy and
1001
01:10:08.000 --> 01:10:12.279
how much energy and fatigue or fatigue you have as
1002
01:10:12.319 --> 01:10:16.039
you get older, and so on and so forth. This
1003
01:10:17.039 --> 01:10:20.479
principle is at play in many areas of life, of
1004
01:10:20.520 --> 01:10:24.520
our lives, and this is actually a major factor in
1005
01:10:25.079 --> 01:10:29.279
aging and disease processes. More broadly, this is a subject
1006
01:10:29.760 --> 01:10:31.600
of the book that I've been writing for the last
1007
01:10:31.680 --> 01:10:35.439
year that will come out in twenty twenty five. What
1008
01:10:35.560 --> 01:10:41.439
you're called, I can't divulge that yet, but a good one.
1009
01:10:41.840 --> 01:10:43.760
All right, Well, we'll be looking well, well, this has
1010
01:10:43.800 --> 01:10:46.399
been incredibly illuminating. Thank you so much. Are you been
1011
01:10:46.439 --> 01:10:49.239
incredibly generous with your time and expertise. Where can people
1012
01:10:49.359 --> 01:10:50.560
find out more about your work?
1013
01:10:51.359 --> 01:10:53.880
You can go to my websites, the Energy Blueprint dot
1014
01:10:53.920 --> 01:10:57.159
com and Humanoptimization dot com.
1015
01:10:57.199 --> 01:10:59.880
Wonderful. Well, thank you so very much, and I look
1016
01:11:00.079 --> 01:11:02.359
forward to further conversation so we can explore some of
1017
01:11:02.399 --> 01:11:04.199
these things in an even greater depth. Thank you.
1018
01:11:04.720 --> 01:11:06.680
Likewise, thanks so much for having me on fleet.
1019
01:11:07.119 --> 01:11:12.119
Okay, be well, thank you for joining me on the
1020
01:11:12.199 --> 01:11:16.520
Radical Responsibility podcast. Remember, real change happens when we commit
1021
01:11:16.600 --> 01:11:20.279
to our growth, face our challenges with compassion, and stay
1022
01:11:20.319 --> 01:11:23.399
open to transformation. If you found this episode help lil
1023
01:11:23.399 --> 01:11:25.720
I encourage you to subscribe and help us spread the
1024
01:11:25.720 --> 01:11:29.760
message of healing and personal empowerment. Until next time, stay grounded,
1025
01:11:29.880 --> 01:11:32.960
stay present, and stay true to yourself. Take care,