378: The 30 Second Fat Loss Trick, The Brain Shrinking Myth, Does Weed Lower Testosterone & Much...

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness show, the 32nd Fat Loss trick. The brain shrinking myth. Does weed lower testosterone? Natural remedies for hot flashes? Do exogenous ketones actually put you into ketosis? And much more.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

Power.

Speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movements. Get out there. When you look at all the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy.

All the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

I'm pumped, Brock. I'm pumped. My muscles are all pumped.

You're always pumped. You're the most pumped guy I know.

Veins everywhere. I'm Venus.

You're Venus. Venus.

Venus. Venus. Hey, you know what I did? I did a blood flow restriction workout this morning. This is Bodyweight Wednesday. I'm making that up now. It's Bodyweight Wednesday. Actually, it's working.

It's like Taco Tuesday, Body Weight Wednesday.

It's working out pretty well. I've been lifting the kettlebell on Mondays and Fridays, and then I've started to do more bodyweight stuff on Wednesdays because I feel like a three days a week of kettlebells has been punishing me to the extent where I'm starting to feel like some stuff kind of loc. You know, use your hamstrings and your hips quite a bit. It just feels like I'm fatiguing those almost too much. B. I just dig body weight training and kind of miss doing some, you know, some swings and dips and. Or not swings, pull ups and, you know, dips, push ups, stuff like that.

Yeah, moving through that full range of motion is really, really satisfying. It feels so good to just use your body in different planes and different levels and all over the room or the floor or the backyard or wherever you are.

Just like Rocky IV out in the snow.

Just like Rocky iv. Are you hanging from the rafters, doing sit ups from the beach?

Yeah, I built a rafter. I built a rafter next to my Sylvester Stallone poster. I also, on Saturdays, I'll talk about this. I've been doing once a week, one single set to failure. And it's completely isometric, meaning that I have this newfangled fancy machine somebody sent to me. I'm going to do a podcast with this guy pretty Soon. But it's called a Peak Fit Pro, and it allows me to do an isometric contraction. But basically what it does is it ties to your phone app, right? So you set your phone so that your phone will beep once you drop off to about 60% of your initial maximum force produced. And then you just go balls out. What I've been doing is a bench press, deadlift, squat, shoulder press, pull down, right? Just five lifts balls out, and you're just trying to generate as much force as possible. Nothing's moving, right? So for like the deadlift, you're just ripping the bar off of the little force plate that it comes with, and it's tracking that on your app. And as soon as it beeps, you're done. The longest I've been able to go is like 75 seconds, and that's it. And then I, you know, I walk around, I rest, I blow a little smoke out my ears, then I come back and I do like the squat. So it's actually. It's so hard. It only takes like 12 minutes, but it's so hard I almost feel like I need to dial back and do a little bit of body weight stuff. So it's a good way to get the strength of a thousand stallions, though. Yeah.

Now, I have one question about this. When you say balls out, what do you mean exactly?

It means that I need new underwear.

That's what I thought.

But actually, the one thing I was going to mention about the bodyweight training, though, is I also related to a product that I'm researching and developing for Kion, the company where I'm now doing all my new supplement formulations and fitness gear, et cetera. I'm researching and implementing blood flow restriction in all of my training, and that is why I'm pumped. Because I did my whole body weight training workout using a product I'm working on developing for Kion.

Is it a top secret one? Can we talk about it?

Kia, It's. It's in the top secret Batman labs right now. We can't. We just need to leave people waiting with bated breath and I don't know what's.

Don't tell anybody.

What's better, baited breath or balls out? I'll. I'll try to use both as much as possible on today's show.

Luckily, they don't mean the same thing. So we're okay?

Yes. I hope.

News flashes.

Brock, have you pulled any all nighters lately?

Nearly. When we were in Peru, I had to do a couple of not all nighters. But some awfully early mornings that made it feel like an all nighter.

Okay, well, I found a great little piece of research because if you happen to know that an all nighter is coming down the pipeline, like maybe you've got a bachelor party or you're going to Vegas or you have a baby, like any of those.

Yeah, that's probably the best one.

Fun scenarios. New study that came out in the Frontiers of Physiology journal and Frontiers of Physiology. Frontiers of Physiology.

It really does need to be read in a big voice.

If I had a journal about anything, I'd say frontiers. Like if I ever launched a journal like the Frontiers of Bow Hunting, the Frontiers of Blood Flow Restriction Training Frontiers.

Frontiers of New Underpants, Frontiers of Balls.

Out with Bated Breath. Anyways, though, this study basically looked into how to mitigate some of the deleterious effects of sleep deprivation. Specifically the fact that as I've talked about before on the show, sleep deprivation can cause insulin resistance along with issues related to hormonal regulation of appetite, as well as circulating levels of free fatty acids and also metabolic rate. And so while there are a host of things that can be used to combat the effects of sleep deprivation, and this would include things like nutrients or nootropics like piracetam is a good one, especially if combined with something like a choline lsd. Actually, microdosing with LSD is another one that seems to work very, very well in a sleep deprived state. But this latest one does not involve any fancy supplements, but instead looked at the effects of high intensity interval training to attenuate insulin resistance in sleep deprived men.

Oh, that makes sense.

Yeah. So what they did was they had them do a high intensity interval training session the day before. They basically had an all nighter, 24 hours of sleep deprivation. And, and there was a significant effect in regulating insulin resistance. And in this case, the actual workout that they were doing was 8 to 1260 second intervals at about 100% power output. So a pretty tough workout. But ultimately it turns out if you've got, let's say you've got a big night on a Saturday, either in the day on Saturday or during the day on Friday, do one of these high intensity interval training workouts past the point where you're using what we would call the creatine phosphogenic system.

Yeah.

Which is the predominant system, up to about 30 seconds. Like go past that, go up to about 60 seconds. And it turns out that it has a pretty good effect at mitigating the effects of sleep deprivation.

So it really does make sense because we've been, we've known for a long time that high intensity intervals can like do really help with insulin sensitivity. It upset right away and we know that it lasts a long time. So really that's kind of putting like two and two together.

Yeah.

So did they look at whether you could do it afterwards?

They didn't look at whether they could do it afterwards. However, I just interviewed a gentleman and I'll release this podcast sometime in the next month or so. And it looks like when sleep deprived, one of the better types of workouts to do is actually an aerobic session. Like a low intensity, chronic kind of cardio, steady state aerobic session to mitigate some of the deleterious effects of sleep deprivation if you're already sleep deprived. So this would be like going on a hike, for example. So we all know how good we feel, you know, after a night in Vegas when we can, you know, pull things together and go on a hike. That's what everybody wants to do. So.

Well, it's probably a smart move, but yeah, probably not the top of the list for most people when they get home from Cirque du Soleil.

Not that many of our listeners are doing all nighters in Vegas anyways.

No, they're much more creative than that.

However, many of them probably do have babies, are probably more likely, as we've.

Alluded to, or studying really hard because. That's right, a lot of smart cookies out there.

Yeah, I pulled a lot of all nighters in college.

The thing is though, I will link to this study over in the show notes where I'll link to all the studies@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 378 and if you want these hot off the presses, go to our Facebook page or our Twitter page and I'll also link to those over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 378 because I try to stay on top of the research and tweet this stuff out as soon as it gets released. Tweeted. Or Facebook it or whatever you call.

Yeah, whatever you call Snapper. Snapper snitch.

That's right. I snap it. So here's another very interesting one. I just interviewed Eve Harold, who wrote a great book, and I'll link to this book in the show notes. It's called Beyond Human. It's all about anti aging and nanobots and organ and kidney and heart transplants, but in a. In a way that seems almost more scalable to the general population. It's a super interesting book. Just came Out. But there is.

A paper, or I guess an article based on a study that was done on the brain. And it turns out that we're doing a lot these days. When I interviewed Eve, we were even talking about injecting stem cells into cerebrospinal fluid to enhance neurogenesis or to stave off aging of the brain. But this article goes into the fact that it appears our brain, to my delight, actually shrinks a lot less than what we've originally feared and that many established facts about brain cells have been actually shown by modern science to be misconceptions. So, for example, significant loss of neurons is a normal part of aging. We've accepted that in science for a very long time. But it turns out that you only lose, like, 2% of your neurons across your entire lifespan. Like, your BR doesn't shrink that much at all as you age.

Where does that myth come from? Where did. Why were they so misguided?

You know, apparently in the findings that suggest that we lose 1% of our brain cells per year. Right. Like, that's the. Yeah, that's sort of what people have assumed. Which, if you do the math, it would mean you'd lose 35 to 55% of your peak brain cells over the course of your lifetime, and.

Terrifying.

That was based off of studies on animal brains back in the 50s. And it turns out that using more modern techniques that adjust for shrinkage of the brain, meaning that older brains get smaller, but they actually retain most of their neurons. They just get more densely packed. It's actually only like, 2 to 4% loss of neurons across the lifespan.

That's great.

I know. So your brain doesn't actually shrink. The article goes into a lot of other things. I recommend folks go read it if they like the brain. But here's one that's also quite interesting. It turns out that it's also a myth that alcohol abuse causes widespread major brain cell loss. So now I have to come up with another excuse to my children that, you know, for the reason that they shouldn't have a full glass of wine like mom and dad do with dinner, I'll probably have to move on to another organ.

I think the fact that they're nine years old is probably a good enough excuse at this point, but.

But it's not. You can't just tell a kid you're young. You can't do that. Like, I don't. I don't use that approach with my children. I have to give them a scientific explanation. And in the past, I've told Them they need to wait until their brain's done growing. I suppose I should tell them they need to wait until their liver is done growing.

There you go.

But alcohol abuse harms the fatty insulation, the white matter that surrounds the axons of the neurons, and that impairs neuronal functioning. So I suppose I could tell them make them stupid the next day at school, but it doesn't actually lead to cell death. So you don't actually kill your brain cells when you're drinking. And so if you've been telling people that or thinking that yourself, that's not really the case. What you do get is a reversible myelination deficit. And remember, the myelins are comprised of oleic acid, which you get from olive oil. Another very important component of those membranes is dha, right? Which you get from, like, algae and fish oil and things like that. And so I suspect that in conjunction with any type of heavy drinking and all nighters, and in addition to doing some really hard bicycle sprints, you'd want to chug some olive oil and get your hands on some algae, some chlorella or spirulina or fish. So it turns out that I suppose salmon and a hard bike workout are in order if you're gonna go party nice.

So it is reversible then? Because at first I was gonna say, well, that's just potato, potato. If it's not killing cells, but it's making them function badly or not function at all, that's sort of the same thing. But this is totally reversible.

It is reversible. Drink away, kids.

I'm like two weeks into my non drinking phase here, and you're not making it easier for me to maintain this.

I also have been drinking extremely sparsely since the new year. However, last night Jessa served wild salmon, and I got my shipment of Pinot noir from Fit Fine Wine, which does this wonderful biodynamic organic wine. And whenever I have a steak or a nice filet of salmon, salmon, I. I have to have a glass of wine. It's. It's almost like a palate cleanser. There's something comfort foodie about it. So I did have a glass of wine last night. I felt freaking fantastic.

I went out last night with a couple friends and it's really cool, actually, when you're not drinking, how it forces you to be a lot more creative with the. The drinks you order. Instead of just having a beer or a vodka or something like I normally would have, I actually had a coconut cream hot chocolate. And I know that sounds really silly when everybody else is having a beer or a glass of wine and I was having hot chocolate, but it was dang good. And I never would have ordered that regularly. So it's kind of fun to push yourself out of the normal zone.

You make my seltzer water with a shot of cranberry juice sound really boring.

Yeah, well, that's what I was tempted to get. But then I just looked down the list and was like, can you make this without alcohol? And they said, sure, it's good.

Amazing.

Anyway, we totally went off on a strange tangent there. Yeah, let's get back to the brain.

Let's talk. No, let's talk about tights, actually. Sure. Okay. That's the next thing I want to mention. Compression tights. A lot of people wear compression tights. I took my kids to a basketball game the other night and you know, one of the point guard for their school team, he was wearing these compression garments. And I was explaining to the kids.

As all fathers do during a basketball game, that the compression garments that the basketball player was wearing were not going to assist him with performance or his vertical jump or anything like that, but they would help him, for example, feel better at practice the next day because they can improve recovery from muscle damaging exercise. However, the research goes back and forth on the effects of compression garments on recovery. And this latest study that was in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research investigated the efficacy of compression garments on recovery. And they did find them to be efficacious. But they also found that they're only efficacious if they're tight enough. Like a gradated compression, that's really tight. And so what that means is that if you just go out and you buy compression gear, but you can't feel that it's pretty dang tight, like, almost like it's forcing blood up the extremities. It's probably not doing a lot for you.

Exactly what it's doing.

Yeah, it's probably not doing a lot for you from a recovery standpoint. But the cool thing about it is if you get, you know, if you get yourself like a. You got to spend some money, like you got to buy gradated compression gear that's. That's pretty tight. Made from a pretty good fabric.

You know, there's a few companies out there that do something like two times you. That's 2 xu. They do a good one. Zen, I think Zen Saw is what it's called. They do a good one. There are others out there.

Pro Compression, I think it's called. I've got some of those there. Basically, like, you really have to struggle when you're putting it on. If it's too easy to put them on, it's. It's probably not doing any. Any job. It should be really. You should work up a sweat getting your compression gear on.

You got to be like a fricking co ed pulling on tight jeans before you head out to the club.

Bouncing around on your back on the bed.

Exactly, exactly. You got to be like my wife pulling on her leather pants before we go out on a date. I watch her doing that and feel. Feel horribly for go, Jessa. I like the after effects. However.

The thing with the compression garments is if you get. Here's a little aside on compression garments, you can wear them when you're doing. If you're a cold thermogenesis person. If you're doing a cold bath or something like that and actually stops a lot of the lymph fluid backflow that can occur during cold water immersion and make the cold water immersion even more efficacious for recovery. And so you can literally just like, pull on compression tights or compression top and wear them in an ice bath. But the big picture here is get good compression gear, and if you do, it actually can improve recovery. So there you have it. Especially if you're a rugby player, which is what they were in this study.

Hey, just before we move on, since you brought up cryotherapy and cold treatment and stuff, we got a lot of emails after our last Q and a podcast, episode 377. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 377, you'll see that we talked a lot about cryotherapy and cold water and cold therapy and stuff like that. And a lot of people were alarmed at how much. And this is a quote you hated on cryotherapy. Yeah, I don't feel like we hated on it. I think we just sort of pointed out that it's not particularly beneficial for certain circumstances.

Yeah.

Do you feel like addressing that at all?

No, because I pretty much summed up what I wanted to say, which is that cold water immersion is more effective. This. The research does not lie. And I'm sorry, I have many friends who run these cryotherapy like clinics where people pay to come in and do cryotherapy. And that's great. If those people don't want to get wet or don't like to get their face underwater or they're in a real hurry, don't like the mammalian dive reflex or they're in a real hurry. Or maybe that facility has some other things, right? Like. Like they've got some recovery boots and infrared sauna. It's like one of those places you go for, like the full meal deal, you know, like a nail salon for. For biohackers.

Right.

But ultimately, I mean, I can't say that that it's more efficacious than cold water immersion. And I feel bad because whenever I go to a city, it seems like somebody who owns one of these cryotherapy units will reach out to me and they're super nice. And I go. And a lot of times I do go and I'll use the cryotherapy just to do, you know, to. Basically for a cool Instagram photo.

It does make a good photo.

It really does. But I mean, honestly, like, if I'm in freaking San Francisco, I'm gonna go jump in the bay and do a little swim and get my head wet and get all the advantages that I know come with cold water immersion long before I'm gonna, like, you know, go to downtown San Francisco and check into a cryotherapy chamber. I'm sorry, I listened to the research. That's just the way it is. So if you have a cryotherapy chamber, if you're a business person whose business relies upon that, great. But my advice to you is to not base your entire business around cryotherapy, but to add other things if you're going to do that, like float tanks and infrared and recovery boots and a lot of these other things. Because you're not going to get guys like me sending tons of business to just a pure cryotherapy chamber. Because frankly, people are going to save a lot of money filling up their bathtub with cold water. So there you go, kids. There you go. I'm sorry. I speak the truth. Here's one. Kettlebell swings. Kettlebell swings. I talked about how kettlebell swings were causing some issues with my back, but now I'm going to pull kettlebells back. I'm going to leave the cryotherapy chambers under the bus, but pull the kettlebells out from under the bus. Because this was a randomized controlled trial in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research that looked at the effects of kettlebell swings on lumbopelvic pressure pain thresholds. And what they found. No, what they found was that kettlebell swings actually create a reduction in muscle sensitivity to noxious pressure, which means they reduce the pain in low back patients and they can actually be an efficacious way to decompress the spine and to reduce low back pain. In this case, they did eight 20 second rounds of kettlebell swings with a 10 second recovery period. Which would be. What would that be, Brock?

8 times 20 to battle set, 160 to batta set.

Oh yeah, that's, that's the, that's the correct answer. It's about a set 20 seconds on, so four, 10 seconds off eight times through. Now I think that the reason that kettlebell swings have kind of been aggravating my back a little bit is because I'm training for that 101 and a half pooed what's that? 53 ish pound snatches in five minutes. Which is far different than like kind of a moderate to light kettlebell swing for low back pain. So it's, you know, it's all on the weight. I actually feel fantastic when I do kettlebell swings with a weight that I feel like I can manage. But these swings, I, I fight them and, and sometimes my low back hurts more after than, than it does it feel good. So ultimately.

So they just qualified it as a moderate intensity. Is that what they called it?

Yeah. They weren't using a super heavy weight in this study. The journal's like 20ft back behind me, hidden in my stack back there. I've got the abstract over here though, while we're recording. And I don't have the exact weight in front of me, but I don't think they were using a very heavy weight at all. These are like low back pain patients. So it's not like they were using the gorilla from Onnit. Right?

Yeah, it's unlikely they'd load them up too much if they're already in pain. But the movement is the important part, I guess.

Right? Exactly. But basically it turns out that kettlebell swings are a good exercise for low back pain rehabilitation or management of low back pain. So among all the other benefits of kettlebell swings, including beating out just straight up sprinting when it comes to fat loss and metabolic rate increases. So have your kettlebell around. Plus a kettlebell fits under a desk a lot more easily than a treadmill.

Yeah, well, you don't have to actually have a specific kettlebell. Like I use these things called power blocks as a kettlebell because you can basically grip it the same way and get the, the same sort of thing. It doesn't look as cool, but I.

Mean you could use a frickin briefcase. I mean. Yeah, anything. Yeah, or a bleach bottle a child.

Fill it with cement.

A bleach bottle filled with cement. That's the next thing you're gonna see for sale. I already have those big five sporting goods. Okay. I've got a, I've got one other that I wanted to men this idea that if you take antioxidants after exercise, supposedly it blunts the hormetic response to exercise and actually does more harm than good. And so in the past I've always said if you're going to take curcumin, high dose vitamin C, vitamin E, any other type of antioxidants, that you should save that antioxidant supplementation for a different time of day than your actual workout if you don't want to impact fitness. Now in the past, the only real exception to this rule has been molecular hydrogen. And I haven't even released yet the, the podcast that I recorded with Molecular Hydrogen Foundation. But molecular hydrogen, meaning the use of hydrogen rich water, these are like actual, usually they're hydrogen tablets that you dissolve into a glass of water. They're also hydrogen water generating machines and that actually has a very potent anti inflammatory effect while also triggering the upregulation of different antioxidant enzymes like glutathione and superoxide dism mutase and catalase and some other very cytoprotective proteins in the body. And it turns out that molecular hydrogen does not blunt the hormetic response to exercise when used as an anti inflammatory in that way. And up until basically I saw this other study I'm going to talk about, I figured that was really the only way that you could fight off the inflammation from exercise without blunting the hormetic response.

Yeah, yeah. Hydrogen's everywhere these days. It's like at the A4M conference last year in Vegas. Like the hydrogen is like the, the new sliced bread or the new pizza pop.

Yeah, I've, I've personally been using it for about five weeks. I'm, I'm kind of trying out a few different brands based on the podcast I did with this guy. And as I do with anything, I'm kind of feeling things out and testing things in the trenches before I, I let all of you, all of our listeners know my final thoughts on molecular hydrogen. But ultimately aside from molecular hydrogen, it turns out based on this most recent study entitled Impact of Polyphenol supplementation on Acute and Chronic Response to Resistance Training, that certain polyphenol blends can be an effective strategy to increase antioxidant capacity without limiting the hormetic response to exercise. In this study, they actually were assessing squat, leg press and leg extension and maximum strength increases. Also the acute and chronic adaptations specifically to strength training. And in the past, things like vitamin C and vitamin E, like I mentioned quercetin, acetylcysteine. A lot of different things have been shown.

To blunt the hormetic response to exercise to keep you from getting mitochondrial adaptations or improvement in hypertrophy or improvement in satellite cell proliferation. A lot of things you'd want to have happen after you exercise. But in this particular study, they found that a specific blend of polyphenols was able to provide an antioxidant effect without blunting the hormetic response to exercise.

We actually talked about this back in July.

Not the same study. We actually talked about a subversity.

Yeah, I was going to say this study came out in like November of 2017, I think in the article we talked about subversity specifically. That was like a green tea extract, I think. Yeah. So green tea, we know is something you could consume post exercise that is not. That's going to quell inflammation without blunting the hormetic response to exercise. In this study, the exact blend that they used, they used Camellia sinensis, which is. That's basically a green tea. I have it growing up in my kitchen right now.

It's it. In addition to one other plant I'll talk about on a podcast someday, I'm growing as part of my 2018 gardening hobby. So Camellia sinensis, which is essentially very similar to green tea, which has some epigallocatechin in it, egcg, some caffeine, et cetera. And they took this and they put it in a capsule form and essentially it's like a green tea polyphenol blend, more or less. And they actually found that this was a very effective antioxidant. So it turns out that yet again, green tea and this specific egcg and the full paper is available for free online, so I'll link to it over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 378 but it turns out that it's a great little post workout recovery.

Technique, whether you're using whatever Matcha green tea or some kind of a tea extract or a blending in green tea or anything that's got green tea. And I would be careful if it's got a whole bunch of other things thrown in there because the whole bunch of other things that you're going to find in a lot of these, like high orac. High antioxidant compounds may not be doing you any favors if consumed right after exercise. But it turns out that a really good, high quality green tea extract or green tea blend is definitely the way to go for post workout supplementation.

I'm sure I said this back in July when we talked about this before, but I really gotta get on the green tea bandwagon.

Well, I've got.

So good for you.

I've got a ton down here because chef David Boulay over in New York City, one of my friends, he travels to Japan several times per year and brings back these bags of green tea from the mountains of Japan that literally would. They. They'd probably cost me about 200 bucks a bag. He sends them over to my house. You can just like eat the leaves and they're. They're amazing. But like I mentioned, I'm. I'm kind of getting more and more into this concept of ordering less and burning less jet fuel, getting things to my house and instead growing as much as I can.

So that's. That's what I'm doing. I'm growing. I'm growing me some green tea. So there you have it.

Special announcements.

All right, before I. I give you guys some discount codes on some killer products and then Q A.

Look for me at the end of January at this in. In la, I'll be in Costa Mesa speaking at an event called Cal Jam C J A M, which is like a mashup of rock music and chiropractic physicians, which we all know is well known.

Everybody's been clamoring for that.

Can I adjust your back and play you the jazz flute, sir?

So it kind of sounds like a delicious spread.

It does. Cal Jam. Cal Jam with some peanut butter. I like that. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Cal Jam. Tm Heard here first. Anyways, though, in addition to Cal Jam. And by the way, you can just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Cal Calendar and anywhere and everywhere I'll be including all of my races, Spartan events. I'll be competing in everything. Places I'll be speaking. That's all over at the. The BenGreenfieldFitness.com calendar. But I've gotta.

If you go right now, it may be a little sparse, but hang on because a lot of stuff is about to be confirmed and it's gonna blow up.

Yeah, my. My speaking. My speaking. What do you call it? Tour. About to get in the tour.

Your tour de force.

Yeah. Anyways, though, Pirathrive. Remember when I interviewed the researcher Thomas. What was his last name? I forget. Some dude. Some smart dude. Anyways, he talked about liposomal vitamin C blended with ginger and turmeric and curcumin and a few other compounds in terms of the effect on lowering blood sugar, the anti inflammatory effect, the effect on bloating and digestion. Like this host of effects. When you actually wrap your head around how to get this stuff in an absorbable form because a lot of these components are notoriously non absorbable or unabsorbable or just hang around the gut rather than producing systemic effects. Well, he helped to provide the research for and developed this supplement called Purathrive. Purathrive P U R A Thrive. It's a good name. Yeah, it is a good name. They're giving everybody 15% off. All of our listeners, 15% off, 30 day, 100% money back guarantee. This stuff tastes really good too. It's like addictively good. Yeah, exactly.

You can't go wrong with all those ingredients.

Yeah. Purathrive.com BenGreenfield Purathrive.com BenGreenfields so if you want to quell inflammation and heal up the gut a little bit, and it's even got like DHA and a vegan form in there, so no fish died to make pura thrive. You get Thomas DeLauer. Yeah, Thomas DeLauer. That dude. So check it out. Purathrive.com BenGreenfield automatically 15% off while you're at it. Also, you can go and get your crotch shocked. So acoustic sound wave therapy, this is something that I personally do. I've been doing it about three to four times a year. And what you do is you go in and you get a 20 minute treatment that is essentially using acoustic sound waves and they blast these things at your crotch and it breaks up plaque in old blood vessels and it makes them more elastic and it stimulates the growth of new blood vessels, thus giving a man a stronger erection or better orgasms, or for a man who has ED or something like that, it gets rid of that. And then for women, earmuffs kids. If parents. You don't want to explain this to your children, but otherwise. But you should keep it on, explain this to your children. In women, they just toss a condom over the thing and shove it up inside you and do the same thing for women too. Same thing breaks up all blood vessels and gives you better orgasms. And I think it's great. I think it's better living through science because in the past I've had to just like basically do the splits over CD player. So yeah, yeah, this works way better.

I Think this is great for people with ed. I mean, there's all kinds of great medications out there for helping with that, but this is like a something you don't have to pop an hour before or 45 minutes or whatever it is before having your sexy time. This is like an actual solution that lasts for months or years.

I just wrote an article for Men's Health where they sent me. It's online, actually. They sent me five different Chinese gas station dick pills and had me try them all and see what happened. And I mean, most of them just made me feel like my heart was going to explode. And I get cold, clammy hands. They're just like, they're nasty, these pills. And of course we tested them and mostly they're just like caffeine and ephedra and freaking like.

Sildenafil, the active component in Viagra. But anyways, the, the thing is, yeah, the timing, right, you have to time it so that you, you get it right. Right when you know you have to, you have to take them like right when they're gonna hit your system perfectly.

And just hope the somebody doesn't drop by for a visit, like right at that time and interrupt your sexy times. Then you have to sit with a book across your lap.

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Listener. Q and A.

Hey, Ben and Brock. Randy, 61 from Los Angeles. So I recently read an article about a study that seemed a little too good to be true. Basically, the subjects did a sprint, one sprint of 30 seconds. I think it was on a bicycle in a fasted state.

And.

And this resulted in weight loss.

I'm assuming they did it every day or every other day.

And that's all they had to do. The concept being that sprinting in a fasted state increases leptin receptors, which makes your body believe that your leptin levels are high. Therefore, it blunts your appetite and raises fat metabolism.

So this is fascinating to me, and I wondered if you guys knew anything about this particular study or this concept and could let me know what your thoughts are because, hey, I got an extra 30 seconds to spare.

So have you heard about this, this study, or this article? Have you read about this thing?

Yeah, I have.

Yeah, me too. And I agree, it did sound too good to be true.

Well, I mean, it's.

So.

So the. The actual article itself was based on a test on sprint exercise. I can link to the original exercise. They looked at sprint exercise and whether it's what's called a leptin signaling memetic. A leptin signaling memetic. So a little background here. The hormone leptin is an appetite suppressor, and obesity in a lot of people is very much correlated to leptin resistance, kind of like insulin resistance, except you're just resistant to that hormone leptin. So the body no longer relax to leptin and your appetite is not suppressed anymore. And so, yeah. Sad trombone music so this study suggests that sprinting could kick off the same cascade of signals as leptin does, like causing a drop in appetite. So it not only burn calories and bump up the metabolism a little bit, but also suppress the appetite. So they studied this and what they found was that most of the signaling pathways that are activated by leptin in muscle are also activated by sprint exercise in muscle. And so that means that sprint exercise might actually act as a leptin mimetic and might even lead to increased leptin sensitivity along with, of course, all the other effects of exercise. Go ahead.

Sorry. By mimetic, you mean like something that basically mimics leptin. So it's not actually kicking off leptin, but it's making something that's. That mimics the effects of it.

Kind of like. What would be another example, like a calorie restriction mimetic. A lot of people are talking about that these days. Get all the benefits of calorie restriction without necessarily restricting calories as much as you normally need to. Things like exogenous ketones and metformin and bitter melon extract and rapamycin and things like that would all fall into that cat category. So this would be like a leptin mimetic using exercise rather than a supplement as a leptin mimetic. And what they found was, I mean, more or less 30 seconds of intense exercise, like a bike sprint, actually does increase leptin signaling and cause better leptin sensitivity. And that only happens, however, in the absence of. Of the hormone insulin, which means that it needs to be done in a fasted state. So 30 seconds of sprint exercise in a fasted state can actually significantly improve leptin sensitivity and act as a leptin mimetic. And in this case, they use what's very similar to what's called, like a. A wingate protocol, which is just, you know, it's an ungodly difficult test, but it's essentially just like 30 seconds of incredibly hard exercise on a bicycle after a decent warmup period. And so as long as you're doing something like that in a fasted state, it appears that it does indeed lead to increased leptin sensitivity. Now.

Okay, now. Oh, wait. Can I interject? Yes, for a sec here. I think we need to define what a fasted state is.

That's in Laboratory studies, typically 8 to 12 hours of overnight fasting without food. So you don't have to.

But it doesn't have to be overnight. It just has to be 8 to 12 hours of not.

I suppose if you're a glutton for punishment, you could do it during the day as well.

Sure.

Yes, exactly. Weirdos. Yeah. It doesn't have to be like a full on, like, you know, like, Jesus, ask. I'm gonna Go wander around the desert for 40 days and then come back and do a 30 second sprint on the bike in case anybody.

Who's this Jesus fellow you're talking about?

I know we brought him up in last week's podcast too. One of my, one of my favorite, very popular guy. One of my favorites anyways, though. So here's the deal though. There is zero evidence from this study that this actually leads to fat loss. Right. So people like, oh, it's a 30 second, you know, fat loss trick. Well, technically, yes. If you resist the urge to pat yourself on the back and go do your 600 calorie butter, coffee and egg and slabs of giant bacon after you've done your sprint exercise in a fasted state. And if you actually are at either a calorie deficit or.

Regular or negative calorie state, there's a lot of other things that need to be in place for something like this to actually work. But as we've seen over and over again in other fasted state studies, it does look like it's something that could be efficacious.

For at least controlling appetite.

So there's that.

So as a way to maybe extend your fast, so you're getting to the point where you've been like eight or 12 hours and you're like, oh, I'm starting to get really hungry. If you wanted to extend that fast.

Without, oh, you're saying like to control hunger rather than just like to increase leptin sensitivity. Yeah.

So your goal is a 24 hour fast and at 12 hours you're like, oh, I gotta eat something. You do 30 second sprint instead, right?

Yeah, I could totally see something like that working. Like I'm hungry. And I think we all know that. Honestly, I've been hungry sometimes in the evening, like around 6, 6:30pm and I'll go do a workout and then I'm like, I don't eat dinner till like 8:30pm or so and I'm fine. So. So yeah, absolutely could be used as, as a, as a hunger suppressing mechanism for sure.

And that would be where the fat loss comes in.

Right. I just don't see the bodies in the streets, so to speak, when it comes to fat loss. But ultimately, you know, I, you know that that's why there are other components of fitness you want to hit. Right? Like if you want to train your VO2 max, you got to exercise hard for about, about four minutes. Bursts of exercise, lactic acid tolerance rather than 30 seconds hard one time would be like 20 seconds on 10 seconds. Off eight times through. Like that kettlebell swing protocol. You still need to lift heavy, you still need to lift explosive. I've woven a lot of these concepts into the program that I wrote called the Look Good Naked Longevity Program. And I'll link to an article that I wrote about that in the shownotes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 378 like all the things you'd want to addition to just doing 30 second sprints for those of you who want to kind of like use this, but then also utilize some other protocols as well. So I'll link to that one word.

Of warning, don't just jump off the couch and do the Look Good Naked and Longevity plan. Maybe work up to it a little bit. It's not for the faint of heart for the most part.

It's actually, it's quite scalable. It's only like 30, 40 minutes a day.

Yeah, no, it's not the duration. It's often the intensity.

Oh, yeah, well, the intensity is all scalable too. Right. Like 30 seconds hard for one person is different than 30 seconds hard for another person.

So, yeah, it's just, it's surprising how people don't understand that their hard doesn't have to match their buddies and they blow themselves up and then they can't work out for the rest of the month.

Yeah. Speaking of not working out for a month, let's talk about weed.

Hey, what's up, Ben? This is Brian Stanton from Philadelphia. Big fan. So I had a question on CBD and sexual health, and I'm looking at this study in the Journal of Molecular cellular endocrinology from 1979 way back, and it's called the Effects of Cannabinoids on Testosterone and Protein Synthesis in Rat Testes Leydig Cells in Vitro. So what the researchers found is that THC and to a lesser extent, CBD actually inhibited testosterone production in these rats. So this seems like pretty bad news for anyone using marijuana or cbd. I've started using CBD myself after hearing about it on your podcast. It's pretty great. But the study is giving me pause, so I wanted to get your thoughts on it as well as any other research you might know about. And I look forward to your answer. Thanks, Ben.

So testosterone is kind of the. Nah, that's not a good intro. Do you have something?

Let me see. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, here we go. Okay. So basically we know. We have known since the late 1970s, as Brian has so intelligently alluded to, that high. Rats cannot have good sex Dude, I think that's the biggest takeaway. Yeah, bummer, rats. Bummer. This is actually something that's. That's been looked at quite a bit. The effects of cannabinoids. So the 1979 study was called the effect.

Cannabinoids.

Cannabinoids.

Cannabinoids.

What did I. I'm high that I.

Struggle with that word every single freaking time.

Time.

It's one of those annoying things.

Remember that one podcast that we did where I made my edibles? My homemade edibles.

I'll never forget that.

I put reishi and kratom and curcumin and black pepper extract and copaiba oil and all these synergistic modulators into it. And also THC and cbd. But I miscalculated the dosage just a little bit. Each edible contained 100 milligrams of THC, not 10.

I thought it was 200 instead of 20.

No, it was ridiculously high. It was 100. 100 is a lot. And I ate one in the morning because I wanted to see what a day on thc, you know, what all these so called functional potheads feel like all day. So I had one and I went to record the podcast and we got like halfway through the podcast. Do you remember this, Brock? Yeah, yeah.

I was like talking away. I made a really good joke and there's like silence.

My voice slowed. I started to slur my words and I wanted to see what would happen. So I literally put on a heart rate monitor, wandered upstairs, crawled into bed, and slept for the next 12 hours. And when I woke up, I looked at the heart rate data and there were periods of time while I was passed out in bed that my heart rate got up to 180. Isn't that crazy? I had like ventricular tachycardia.

And meanwhile I was sitting there wondering if he had died or something. And eventually Jessa actually messaged me on Skype and said that you had gone to lay down.

Yeah, to lay down the bag full of Cheetos, eyes rolling back in his head. Anyways, though, this original study looked at the effects of cannabinoids on testosterone and protein synthesis in rat testes Leydig cell in.

Vitro. Meaning like basically in a test tube. And what they found was that when you take cells out of a rat's testicles and you put them into a test tube and you basically bathe them in thc, lo and behold, they down regulate some of their testosterone production. I don't know about you, but if I was a cell and a testicle, and somebody grabbed me and shoved me into weed soup. And my. I might also not get too horny. I'm not doing anything. Yeah, so that was the original study. And there have been other studies that have occurred since then looking at the endocrine effects of marijuana. And it's very interesting because. And I'll link to a whole host of different studies, but.

There'S research that goes back and forth. So, for example, it's been noted in a lot of studies that thc, high doses of THC can be an endocrine disruption. Meaning the way that they work is they block gonadotropin releasing hormone secretion from the hypothalamus. So up in the control center of the brain more than down in the testes, as they found in this rat study. We find that in human subjects who are using THC in relatively high amounts chronically, that blocked GNRH secretion leads to lowered luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone, which means that in women it would downregulate fertility, and in men it would lower testosterone production. And furthermore, there are at least a half dozen studies that have shown that thc, not cbd, by the way, thc, one of the more psychoactive components of weed, has been shown to inhibit several different enzymes needed in testosterone production in. In the testes, testicular enzymes. But again, these were all in vitro, very similar to that rat study. Right. Where they'll just like take testicular enzymes and kind of like bathe them in THC soup, which again, around a nice pot. I am willing to be a test subject at least once to take a THC bath to see what happens. They do wine baths, some of these fancy spas. They should start doing weed baths now, do it subcutaneously.

Would that work?

I don't know. They actually. You know what? Testosterone cream or THC creams actually do work. They work fantastically. If folks go and listen to that podcast that I did with Tim Moxie from Botanica Seattle, they produce a lubricant, a sex lubricant called Bond that is a THC based sex lubricant. And Jessa and I use it and it really is like a high for your crotch. So it absolutely can be used topically.

So you have to rub it up in your B parts.

You rub it up in your pea parts.

I said B. Oh, I thought you said P. Parsis.

Which is more upsetting? Actually. No. Which one's more upsetting? I think they're both upsetting.

Yeah. Anyways, so, interestingly, though, there's also a pile of studies that show that cannabis does not lower testosterone levels. And specifically, these studies were more like in vivo studies with chronic marijuana use that showed no significant effect on hormone concentrations in either men or women.

Women.

And so the question of whether marijuana lowers testosterone levels, we know that high dose THC applied to testicular cells in a test tube definitely lowers testosterone production. We see the research going back and forth when it comes to smoking or vaping or using marijuana edibles and rubbing.

On your pea parts and rubbing on.

Your pee parts for THC suppression. Same thing with gynecomastia or an estrogenic effects like man boobs. There's a lot of talk about weed and its estrogenic effects. Again, the studies that have actually shown an estrogen like effect were done on isolated cells taken from rats inside test tubes, not on actual humans.

And that's likely because it's been classified as it was a Class 1 substance for the longest time. Now that it's getting legalized all over the place, hopefully we'll see more tests that are actually done on humans rather than in test tubes.

Right? Yep, Yep, exactly. So most of the studies, as I'm going through the research, most of the studies that I can find that do hint that there might be a deleterious effect on hormonal production, specifically on that gonadotropin releasing pathway from, you know, like the higher level control centers causing the body to produce lower levels of testosterone were A, in men and B, high levels of THC taken chronically somewhere in the range of 10-30mg per day. Which means that if you're using, let's say, an indica blend of marijuana to help you relax at the end of the day, and maybe you're smoking half a bowl or you're taking a few hits off of a vape, or maybe even you're consuming an edible that might be a very low to moderate dose, like a 5 milligram edible or something like that.

Yeah, I take a 10 milligram capsule or indica oil sometimes when I can't sleep.

Right, exactly. Those do not appear to have much of an effect. I would still make sure you're getting a good organic source. I would make sure if you're an athlete, you're being very careful if you're competing in a doping sanctioned sport, because that would be frowned upon and would get you banned from sport in many situations. The only thing that's acceptable right now based on WADA classifications is just cbd no other component of weed is considered to be acceptable. And frankly, when it comes, luckily I'm.

Not fast enough to be worrying about that.

Yeah, well, when it comes to sleep, I mean, CBD is where you're gonna get most of the positive benefits anyways. And then the other very interesting thing is that in women it appears that cannabis actually increases the physiological response to sexual stimulation and has a beneficial hormonal effect, specifically on sexual parameters in women. So for women in hormones and specifically sexual health health, cannabis appears to be extremely beneficial. In men. A high dose chronic THC use, although the effect is reversible, can have a deleterious impact on testosterone levels. And lower amounts really don't seem to be much of an issue at all.

Now, is it reversible or is it temporary?

It is reversible. It is reversible. Meaning like once you stop, your testosterone levels can start to go, go back up?

Oh yeah, that's what I meant by temporary. You don't have to do anything. You don't take an antidote, it just returns to normal.

Although the liver is going to convert THC to 11 hydroxy THC, which is a lot more significant in terms of how long it lasts in the body. So if it's an edible, that's probably going to have a little bit more of an effect than vaping or smoking, which will get out of the system.

Interesting.

A little bit bit more quickly. If, for example, you found that.

THC affects your sexual performance or affects your testosterone, probably edibles would not be the best thing for you. Now I have a pretty comprehensive article where I go into the effects of marijuana on athletic performance, on muscle growth, on hormones, on testosterone, on appetite, on weight gain. It's called the effects of weed on exercise. Is marijuana a performance enhancing drug drug? And for those of you who want to take a deep, deep dive into some of the research that I've done on this, I would go and read my article and I'll also link to a lot of the previous research that I mentioned that has been done on cannabinoids and on testosterone. But ultimately I would say if you're a tiny little rat testicle cell in a test tube and weed soup, be careful. Otherwise A, use yourself as an n equals 1, b, smoke or even more preferably vape versus using an edible. If you're concerned about long term buildup in the system, keep your dosage under 10 milligrams a day. Try and as you should do with something like caffeine or most supplements really, aside from creatine and a few others like fish oil or multivitamin. Taper off during certain points of the year, go without weed or without THC during certain points of the year. So you can indeed kind of push the reboot button on some of those receptor sensitivity components. And yeah, keep me posted on how that goes for you, Brian.

And always, always distrust anything from the 1900 and 70s.

I'm wondering if the products Keto Burst that say they put you into ketosis is real ketosis, this coming from the liver and the blood, or is it a false state of ketosis? Thank you.

Are you familiar with this Keto Burst product?

Keto Burst? No. It's a great name. What was that other thing that we named earlier?

It was something.

I think this is why we're not millionaires, because we forget all our good ideas.

I think you came. Was it the hydrogen enriched water thing? The compression tights? The kettlebell swings? What do we talk about that you made up? We talked about the Purathrive supplement. I forget. Anyways, maybe I need to.

It's a million dollar idea and it's gone.

No, I need to quit smoking.

Oh, wait, we recorded it.

Oh, we recorded it. We can go back. Maybe we will do that. We can go back anyways, though. Keto Burst. I wish I could remember. Didn't we name. We made up a name for something and it wasn't. It wasn't pea parts. Anyways, Keto Burst sounds great. It. That. That's a. That. That sounds like a gum. It sounds like a gum or something you might see in like a Pokemon movie. Like the Keto Burst character.

You know, that gum that had like the gooey inside and you'd bite into it and it would like squirt like gel into your mouth. That's like. That'd be a good idea actually, for ketones. Like you chew the gum and it squirts ketones into your mouth.

Mm, that's disturbing. They call it Keto Squirt.

Anyways, before this digresses. Ketones, exogenous ketones. That's a horse we've kind of beaten to death on this podcast. But these exogenous ketones, so they don't, contrary to popular belief, work as a magical weight loss supplement. They can help to get you into a higher state of ketosis. When you consume an exogenous ketone, they can get you into that state where you're utilizing ketones for cognitive effects or for an energy effect or for an appetite regulating effect. But they're not going to necessarily burn fat off the body, unless you actually are in a state of calorie deprivation, for example. Now, they do help to sustain weight loss by regulating hormones that affect weight. Like.

For example, there's this hormone called cholecystokinin or cck, that gets released by your intestines after you eat, and that's responsible for stimulating fat and protein digestion and it inhibits the emptying of the stomach and that reduces appetite. So it turns out it's a really good regulator of food intake. And it turns out that both the consumption of exogenous ketones as well as being in ketosis can raise levels of cck, meaning eating a ketogenic diet or consuming exogenous ketones can really help you avoid food cravings. So that's one thing that exogenous ketones can actually do, along with just an overall appetite suppression. It turns out they may have a little bit of a blood sugar stabilizing effect as well. I've written before about the longevity enhancing effects of exogenous ketone supplementation because of that calorie restriction mimicking effect that, that we brought up earlier. And so there's a lot of benefits of taking these exogenous ketones as far as whether or not they actually work to get you into ketosis. Yes, not only do they put you into a state where your ketone levels are elevated at 1 or 3 or even when I've used a ketone ester above 7 millimolar, but they can do so without you needing to go into quite as significant a state of carbohydrate deprivation or calorie deprivation as you would need to do without having those exogenous ketones around. However, you can also jack up your ketone levels with these exogenous ketones and not be in a state of calorie deprivation, not be in a state of carbohydrate deprivation, meaning that your blood glucose levels are high at the same time as your ketones are high. And essentially the only benefit that you're getting from them at that point is a little bit of a cognitive boost, possibly an effect on decreasing the rate at which telomeres shorten via that longevity effect.

Possibly an increased ability of the body to be able to burn ketones, and definitely an ergogenic effect like high blood glucose and high blood ketones. If you were to eat a carbohydrate rich meal and also take exogenous ketones, you're going to have a lot of different.

A lot of different forms of fuel on board to burn for energy and I've done this in the past. I did it before like a tough mudder, and it was like fricking rocket fuel. But at the same time, it's not the state of ketosis that our hunter gatherer ancestors would have been in when hungry, out foraging or hunting. And low in liver glycogen, low in muscle glycogen, and thus high in ketones because they were burning so much of their own fat for a fuel, that high levels of ketones were also being produced, thus giving them an alternate source of energy for their diaphragm or their brain or their liver. The only way that you can get into that true state is, as you would guess, fasting, calorie deprivation.

Longer aerobic exercise sessions without quite as much fuel, or the use of these exogenous ketones, but in the absence of high amounts of carbohydrates or even high amounts of calories, period, including protein. So.

What the idea is, it's false ketosis if you're taking exogenous ketones and not restricting calories or not restricting carbohydrates.

It's true ketosis, actually, if you're in a calorie deprived state, a fasted state, and you're using these to just enhance. Enhance ketosis even more. I mean, it's really as simple as that.

Yeah, well, it really almost comes down to. And one of the reasons why I chose this question for the podcast was because it almost comes down to more of a.

More of a metaphor, almost of like, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's there to hear it, is it. Did it still fall? It's like if you're. If you're peeing out or breathing out ketones, if you're able to measure a high level of ketones in your blood, even though. So you've had a scone and a latte in the last hour, is that still ketosis? It really comes down to almost semantics at that point.

Yeah, it is ketosis, but it's ketosis in a state of high blood glucose, which could actually be deleterious to the body. I don't think we have enough studies out there, but it's very similarly eerily close to diabetic ketoacidosis. Yeah. Yeah.

That's one thing that scares me about all these exogenous ketone things, like people pounding them repeatedly, like doing it once for a tough mudder like you did isn't a big deal, but doing this on a daily basis, that is like ketoacidosis.

Yeah.

You're putting yourself into a terrible state.

However, I've been doing for breakfast taking some of these exogenous ketones and I do a little Fruit Loops coconut. Put them on my. Put them on my keto squirts.

I do a little bit of coconut milk and a little bit of coffee, a little bit of stevia, a little bit of nut butter and some ice. And then I blend it up with this ketone salts and it's like having like a mocha chocolate peanut butter ice cream for breakfast. And did the calorie. I did the calorie. Count on. It's like 250, 300 calories. And I'm not hungry till like 2pm so it's almost like I. I gotta be careful because I don't lose too much weight. Yeah.

I mean, there's no carbohydrate, very little carbohydrate in what you just described, so.

Although if you, if you toss just a little piece of a frozen banana in there, it definitely like puts it over the top. Just saying.

Damn.

Yeah, I'm just saying I'm probably gonna die.

Die.

I'm gonna die. Honestly, I'm gonna die and get fat from that morning smoothie.

Something's gonna make you fat, right?

Exactly. I mean, why not die and then get fat? Honestly, that's the deal with exogenous ketones. That's what we're gonna find out anyways, though hopefully that helps with it and what I'm gonna do, because we have really treated this topic quite exhaustively on previous podcasts with folks like Dominique d' Agostino and Mark Sisson and, and Veach and all these folks. I'm going to put a link to all of those in the show notes for you. So for any of you who want to take the deep dive into ketosis, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 378 hi Ben, this is Margie.

I have a nutritional question regarding reducing or eliminating menopause symptoms such as hot flashes and lady part dryness with flax seeds and soy lecithin granules. I've been eating three tablespoons of fresh ground flax every day for a month and have noticed an improvement along with softer hair and my facial skin tone is better. I want to add 2 tablespoons of soy lecithin as well. I have also taken a daily dose of evening primrose for years and still do. Am I on the right track? Is this a good idea for daily consumption or Weekly? I am 54, entered menopause last March and am in super terrific physical shape. Thanks so much.

I've been looking for, for some kind of a solution for my hot flashes for years now. The only thing that I've been able to find is that if I don't eat that 36 ounce ribeye steak before I go to bed, I tend to not wake up with the hot flashes around 2am and when I do have the Thanksgiving dinner or the ribeye steak and then a big old slice of apple pie and ice cream before bed, I, I, I don't wake up with hot flashes.

Those aren't really hot flashes. That's meat sweats, I believe is what it's called.

Oh crap.

The meat sweats.

Ah, I thought they were, I thought.

They were meat spilling sinus cavities.

Disappointed now. I actually thought I had hot flashes. I can stop.

Remember that Simpsons episode?

Which one?

The when Homer enters the steak eating competition?

No.

Steak filling sinuses?

No.

Must keep, keep eating.

But I haven't watched that many Simpsons episodes. I've watched a lot of Family Guy episodes back in the day. I don't watch anything now. I'm an old fuddy duddy now. I mean I watch like YouTube videos on like guitar tabletures. That's, that's about the extent of my.

You just read a book every day like some kind of nerd.

I do read a book every day. That's probably why I don't watch much anyways though. Anyways, Margie, so the ground flax.

Ground flax is basically very high in lignans, which supposedly convert in your intestines into substances that tend to balance female hormones. That's kind of like the idea behind taking them. However, the research, I'm sorry, that's been done on flaxseeds and there's really great papers you can go look up at the Mayo Clinic and Beyond and including PubMed. There's really no good, good peer reviewed clinical research behind flaxseeds or flaxseed oil or flaxseed powder in easing hot flashes in postmenopausal women or also in breast cancer patients. The two populations where they've done most of these studies on flaxseeds. Now, flaxseeds do contain lignans and there is evidence that lignans may promote fertility or reduce paramenopausal symptoms and may help to prevent breast cancer. However, the biggest studies that have been done specifically on ground flaxseed show no significant decrease in hot flashes specifically. So if you're looking for something for hot flashes, I can't Say that I was able to find any evidence for flaxseeds to be beneficial for that, although they may help out a little bit with balance of hormones such as estrogen or progesterone, especially in perimenopausal women, and to a slightly lesser extent in post menopausal women. Now, the thing with the soy.

This.

Is the part I'm interested.

Yeah. And soy being a remedy. So when it comes to soy, very, very similarly, it's like an estrogen mimetic, I suppose you would say, because we've just been using the word because we've been using mimetic so much. And many menopausal women have looked into soy as a sensible alternative.

For hot flashes and for menopause. And they've actually done some studies on this too. They've done some studies on soy and compared it to estrogen therapy, hormone therapy, et cetera. And when it comes to soy, basically there's research that goes back and forth for soy.

For example, in Asian countries, where soy is a dietary staple, women do tend to get fewer hot flashes than women in the US but then when you look closely at soy's effect on menopausal symptoms, the results are pretty mixed. So there was a study in Italy in 1998 that found a 45% reduction in hot flashes in women consuming a soy protein compared to a 30% improvement in a placebo group. But for every positive study like that, there's other studies that show zero soy related benefits. There was another study in 2002 where women were consuming 100 milligrams of soy isoflavones, which is like an extract of soy. And they did experience a significant decline in menopausal symptoms like hot flashes and mood swings and sleep difficulties.

It declined. Meaning it got better.

Yeah, it got better. But then they had another study where they used the same amount of soy supplementation. There was zero relief compared to a placebo pill, like a. A dummy pill, basically. So the research, I suspect this is due to genetic individuality and the fact that some women may find that soy works for them and some women don't. And there's probably a lot that we don't know when it comes to specific SNPs associated with soy metabolism that causes them to help. But all of the studies that were showing benefits from soy, I can tell you, they were conducting with pills containing soy isoflavones. And so if you're looking for a pill or if you're looking for something to use, you would want to use like a concentrated source of soy isoflavones versus just like eating a bunch of tofu or soy milk or whole soybeans or edamame or misu or tempeh or something like that. I would just, you know, and again, these studies are using somewhere in the range of around 100 milligrams of soy isoflavone. So that's what I would experiment with. And if it doesn't work for you, then it doesn't work for you. And you're probably not one of those people who would be sensitive to soy as an alternative remedy for hot flashes. There are some other things that have been studied kind of interestingly for hot flashes, though.

And I want to point out the fact before I fill you in on a few of those, that hot flashes in research have been shown potentially to be to offer like a protective effect. Like they found that women who experience hot flashes in menopause have like a lower risk of developing breast cancer and stroke and heart disease. And that like hot, miserable moment is somehow protecting you against something, you know, and so it's kind of like a catch 22, right? So, so that's the difficult part.

So it may be kind of like a fever. When you get a fever, it's actually part of the immune system doing its job.

Right, Exactly. Now, we do know that caffeine and alcohol and I know a lot of menopausal and postmenopausal women do have that big fishbowl sized glass of wine at night. Is that why you know who you are if you're listening, in that spicy food, sugar, all of those can actually exacerbate hot flashes. But a few things that seem to work as far as a little bit of research that have been done on hot flashes, acupuncture therapy, some of the research on that looks pretty good. And in terms of herbs, chasteberry is another. Chaste berry is actually really good for both men and women at balancing hormones a little bit. Black cohosh is another as a supplement. And maca root is another that has a little bit of research behind it for hot flashes. And so acupuncture, maca root, chasteberry, black cohosh, trying soy isoflavones and seeing if they work for you, and probably not on the flaxseed powder, just because I couldn't really find much research at all on that one would be a few of the things to look at. And then also understand that maybe instead you should just kind of of figure out ways to get through the hot flashes. You know, you could use Like a chili pad in the bedroom, which is like something that goes underneath the mattress that kind of like generates cool water while you sleep.

You know, things that, that assist with getting back to sleep after you wake up. Like, you know, like CBD or passion flower extract. Things like that could help out a little bit too. Relaxing you after you wake up. If you want to like have your cake and eat it too. Too. Have your hot flash and eat it too.

Those are a few though that I could actually find. Okay. Research behind. So hopefully that's helpful. I'll put links to a few of these in the show notes if that helps you out. But yeah, unfortunately I would say that I can't give you a definitive answer. Flax and soy may help a little bit if you're using soy or I'm sorry, soy may help a little bit. Flax. Not if you're using soy. Use soy isoflavones. And ultimately.

Just don't eat too much spicy food and a big glass of wine before bed.

Bummer. But good stuff still.

Yes. And try some keto squirts. Yes. Okay.

Oh, I thought of what the other thing was. It was the book of the month club that we came up.

The Book of the month club.

Yeah, the fresh books.

Oh, fresh books. That's right, freshbooks.

Sadly, that name is already taken.

Keto. Well, should we give something away?

Absolutely.

All right, so this is the time on the show where we pick one review off iTunes. If you leave a five star review on iTunes and not always five star.

We'Ve given it away to the ones.

That are really good. We have any review on itunes and you hear your review read on the show, simply email GearreenfieldFitness Systems with your T shirt size and we will get a handy dandy gear pack right out to you. And so today's itunes review is called well worth the time investment by Tahoed North. You want to take this one away, Brock? Yeah.

Tahoed north says I've been a Ben Greenfield podcast listener for several years. For me, the real test of the value of a podcast is whether it impacts your life in a good way way and stimulates positive change. In the case of Ben Greenville Fitness podcast, both occurred for me. After listening, I have. I'm going to take a deep breath before this long list. I have changed and improved my training, diet recovery, mental acuity, sleep relationships and overall health. And these are real and impactful changes and they have caused a significant improvement in my quality of life life. And now he drops the mic here.

He or she.

I guess. Did I mention that I'm 67 years old?

Wow.

I highly recommend you listen to the podcast. Choose what applies to you or choose what apply what might work for you and follow through. You won't regret it.

That's pretty impressive. 67 years old. I like it.

Training, diet recovery, mental acuity, sleep, relationships, overall health.

Is that, is that the same if he or she is a male or a female?

No, it doesn't.

67 years old.

Tahoe north could really go either way.

Maybe he has some hot flash recommendations. She has some hot flash recommendations from Margie. Well, either way, thanks for the note. Tahoe D. North. Thanks for the review. For everybody else listening in, we'll get some great show notes up for you over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 378 if you have questions, if you have comments, head on over there and leave them. We'll link to everything, all the research we talked about, the 32nd fat loss trick, the research on weed and testosterone, exogenous ketones, natural remedies for hot flashes, and a whole lot more.

In the meantime, keto squirts and freshbooks.

That's right.

That you can rub on your pee parts.

That's right. All right. More earmuffs, kids. Brock, thanks man.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Go to Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

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