How Plaque *Really* Happens, The Latest On Alcohol & Longevity, Weightlifting vs. Body Weight Training, Exercising (With A Time Crunch & Family Obligations) & More! Solosode #477

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast, how plaque really happens, latest on alcohol and longevity, weightlifting versus bodyweight training, exercising with a time crunch and family obligations, and much more. Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this. Ben Greenfield: Well, howdy. My hair, my hair for those of you watching the video version of this episode seems to have a life of its own today. And, I'm proud of that. I am often asked what I do to maintain this massive mane. Kind of turn my head sideways, you can see what that looks like. My approach is not necessarily steeped in science although it did have some really scientifically informed conversations about this when I interviewed Dr. Cameron Chestnut, a friend of mine. I'll link to that in the shownotes, which are all going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com/477. BenGreenfieldLife.com/477. But let's face it, I don't have time for pedicures, I don't have time for manicures, I don't have time to go in and do microneedling and facial follicular transplant, blah, blah, blah. I need something sustainable. I can do. So, here's my bastardized version of hair growth therapy self-inflicted at home. I derma roll my scalp once a week. I actually derma roll my whole face and even my neck and my scalp once a week. And, that's because once a week I do a clay mask. I think clay masks are really, really cool. They seem to reduce wrinkles. They seem to improve tone. I think there's something to them. I use this stuff from a company called Ollitora. It's even got 4-day-old goat colostrum or some crazy stuff like that. It's unicorn tears, you name it, everything's in there. But, I smear that on my face, I dermaroll and I smear it on my hair, go stand in front of the red lights and check some emails, go shower it all off a half hour later. But then, I also— maybe this is more of the bastardized part, I just have one of those fine-tooth combs, the ones that kind of sort of hurt a little bit if you press them into your scalp. And I comb my hair with that every morning based on the idea that that would improve blood flow in a similar fashion as a derma roller but obviously much less expensive than burning through 10 derma rollers a month. And then, I clean my face and I put my moisturizer and serum and all this stuff on, but then I've got all that stuff left over on my hands, right? All that expensive stuff I put into my face. And so, I smear it into my hair right after I've combed my hair with the sharp-tooth comb. There's probably some cosmetic surgeon out there laughing their ass off at my way of keeping healthy hair, but it seems to work. Honestly, my hair seems to be getting bigger and thicker and longer as I get older. I mean, I'm 42 and look at that. I don't want to be narcissistic or something like that showing off my lion's mane, but it seems to be working. Knock on wood, I'm probably going to start going bald tomorrow after doing this podcast. The hair or the face stuff I use, by the way, is I go back and forth. I use this stuff from Olitora, the same company that makes that clay mask. And then, I use this stuff from Young Goose because it's got spermidine and NAD and peptides and all these things that theoretically could help hair to grow too. So, that's what I do. And, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Alright, let's jump into today's show. Hey, like I mentioned, all the shownotes for all the research and the reviews that I go through and anything I mention in the Q&A, we make the shownotes juicy. They're at BenGreenfieldLife.com/477. Unlike my traditional method of recording a podcast these days, which is by or while walking. I don't walk when I am recording these solo episodes for you, frankly, because I'm talking a lot. Usually, if my guest is talking a lot, I can walk, I can listen to them, I can ask some intelligent questions here and there. But, if I can take a picture of you of my work desk here, it's like I've got this huge thick book over here I'm going to be reading you a study from and I've got a pile of articles over here and I got Post-it notes with stuff written on them here and I got my show notes in front of me. It'd be hard to walk and record this episode for you, but I usually walk when I'm recording. And, I've just dug into a little bit more research. I was recently reading an article on Joe Mercola's website. It had some good citations in it as well. And, I just wanted to remind you why walking while you're working, why walking while you're taking phone calls. Who was I listening to this morning? Daymond John. My friend Gary Breck interviewed Daymond John. Daymond's like, "Yeah, just save all my phone calls and walk 8 miles." sometimes in a day just doing all my phone calls and my Zooms. And, I actually liked hearing him say this because I have the same philosophy. He's like, "Why do people insist that they have to see your face on a Zoom call? Why couldn't your phone be in your pocket and you're out doing your Zoom call with your phone in your pocket fully present still?" Albeit or arguably the other A-word, arguably more present based on what I'm about to tell you. And, we live in this era where you got to be parked in front of the computer staring at the camera. And, I realize that sometimes it can make a more personal connection when you have the video on, but even most of the health consults, my calls with clients, my calls with my teams, et cetera, call me old school. I don't know what it is, but I just like to be active and standing and walking around and phone in pocket. And, I just don't like to be sitting there hunched over the computer on a phone call. And yeah, you could put your phone in video mode and hold it on a selfie stick or in your hand while you're walking around bouncing around. But long term, you're probably going to get shoulder tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome holding your quarter-pound iPhone up while you're walking everywhere. Anyways though, so why walk? Well, a meta-analysis published in the British Medical Public Health Journal studied or reviewed 13 studies with several hundred participants. And of course, no surprises here, they found a significant increase in energy expenditure, total daily energy expenditure in people who walked during a day of work versus sitting or even standing, right? Like, standing trumps sitting for increasing metabolic rate and fat oxidation. Walking trumps standing for increasing metabolic rate and fat oxidation. And I think it's fine to kind of go back and forth between all three during the day. But when you combine that with the fact that this is, this is also fleshed out in the research, your non-exercise activity thermogenesis, also known as NEAT in exercise physiology, burns more calories overall long-term over the course of the week than any workouts that you do. That kind of makes sense, right? Because if I eat a cookie after dinner and I want to exercise off that cookie, I have to go on about a 1-hour walk to burn that, let's say, 350-calorie cookie. But if I'm mildly physically active during the day, standing, walking, taking little Pomodoro breaks, like, you know, my sons are homeschooled and, you know, every half hour I have them or advise them at least to stop and do jumping jacks and some push-ups here and there, you could increase your calorie burn by around 100 extra calories every hour. And if we're looking at just like the average 10-hour day, well, there's 1,000 calories right there that you've burnt, thus earning yourself at least 3 of those 350-calorie cookies if you're one of those people who eats to train and trains to eat. But anyways, so energy expenditure goes up. Another study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine had people measure their energy expenditure while working, or they measured their energy expenditure while working, the researchers did. And, what happened was in just 20 minutes, their energy expenditure increased from 72 calories, just basic energy burn to sustain life, breathing, reading emails, watching mindless videos on social media, et cetera. They were burning 72 calories per hour. When they started walking at a very slow speed, 0.4 miles per hour, folks, that is not that fast, 0.4 miles per hour. I mean, if you think about that, that would mean if you if you were to head out for a walk right now and you were to walk for a full hour covering 0.4 miles, think about that, that's not that fast. Well, their metabolic rate increased to 191 calories. So, every hour they were burning more than 100 extra calories. And so, the researchers concluded in that paper that walking while working 2 to 3 hours a day could increase, and this was British, so I'm going to use the non-freedom units, 20 to 30 kilograms within a year. 20 to 30 kilograms within a year. I don't know how many stones that is, nor am I positioned right now because I don't have a calculator in front of me to do the rough math. But I mean, we're talking like what, over 40 pounds in a year of weight loss just by walking a couple hours, not the whole workday, but a couple hours during the workday. And then we look at the cognitive benefits, right? There was one study published in the journal Comprehensive Physiology, and I'll quote what it says to you. Aerobic fitness spares age-related loss of brain tissue during aging and enhances functional aspects of higher-order regions involved in the control of cognition. More active or higher-fit individuals are capable of allocating greater attentional resources toward the environment and are able to process information more quickly. So, this is probably because walking, moving, has been shown to increase what is called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF, which I like to refer to as Miracle-Gro for your brain. Just a brisk walk, short walk, 10 minutes can significantly increase BDNF, which then can increase your focus and your cognition. And again, like, when I'm recording a podcast with one of these super smart cookies, like these physiologists and scientists who I need to interview, I can keep up with them way better when I'm walking on my treadmill versus when I'm sitting. My brain is more turned on. I mean, try it sometime. Next time you have some high-pressure phone call, try it and see how it affects your brain. I think it helps a ton. I think you can make a pretty strong case for walking treadmills being a good expense for a business. Maybe you'll try this out and you'll trip and fall and you'll lose that high-pressure job that you were applying for. I don't know. But exercise does improve cognitive function acutely while you're doing it and long-term through epigenetics, right? Epigenetics is how cells control gene activity without controlling the DNA sequence. I'll say that again. It's how cells control gene activity without changing your actual base DNA sequence. In other words, exercise turns on genes and it specifically turns on genes. And this is based on a study in the journal Frontiers of Psychology that results in better cognitive health. In addition to that, that same exercise increases gray matter volume in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus of the brain. The same stuff that you're shrinking when you're smoking weed, well, you can grow it back when you're walking. I don't know what I just made an argument for there, but I think it was smoke weed at night, walk during the day, something like that. Anyways, when you are increasing higher gray matter volume or when you're making higher amounts of gray matter volume the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus of the brain, that is very effective for preventing cognitive impairment and any other behavioral problems that might be associated with brain atrophy. And yes, I'm joking. Don't smoke weed and then go walking the next day to grow your brain back after smoking weed. It doesn't quite work like that. But when you are moving during the day, you are able to stay more focused. Inducing epigenetic changes that stave off cognitive impairment long-term. You're burning more fat, you're burning a significantly greater number of calories. What's interesting also is you are increasing the number of ketone bodies in your bloodstream, particularly one called beta-hydroxybutyrate, which also increases BDNF levels. So, go to Amazon, do a typey search. I guess it's past Prime Day for treadmill walking desk. You can get tiny ones for your office that are manual, that are inexpensive, that are $300, $400, that aren't even motorized. Mine is admittedly kind of expensive. I use this one, I got to remember, Walkolution. It's like the word walk plus O-L-U-T-I-O-N. I'll put a link in the shownotes, but I can run, I can sprint on it, and it's got foam, a foam belt so that my feet are getting strong and supple and spread. My toes are spread while I'm walking on it and it's whisper quiet so I can do calls on it without annoying people. And again, if I want to go on a run on it, I can go on a run on it. I'm even crazy. It's got a bar on it and I'll sometimes stop and do dips. So, my goal if I've got 8 hours and I'm locked away in my office is to walk out of the office and have the option, not the necessity, to go to the gym or go play some tennis or go on a hike because I'm just so cooped up. I move a lot in the office. So, let's get this podcast over with so I can move. I'm joking. This is fun stuff. I love sharing this stuff with you guys. So, let's keep going. Let's get into this big book I have on my desk and why I brought this big book into the podcast recording today. This book is called "The Longevity Leap." Huge thanks to my friend, Siim Land, smart dude, "A Guide to Slowing Down Aging and Adding Healthy Years to Your Life." Well, the first chapter I read was Chapter 18, which is all about coronary artery calcification and heart disease, because probably from 20 years of doing hardcore endurance exercise, I have a little bit of coronary artery calcification myself. So I'm constantly looking at, at ways to reduce that. And the reason also that I flipped to that section in Sims' book is because of this new paper that came out called the LDL Cumulative Exposure Hypothesis: Evidence and Practical Applications. So, the cumulative exposure hypothesis, what is that exactly? So, what this was, was it was a recent review published in the journal Nature Reviews Cardiology in which the group of authors reviewed the low-density lipoprotein, the LDL, that could build up in the artery walls and the cumulative exposure hypothesis, which I'll explain briefly, and the implications for that related to cardiovascular disease caused by the buildup of plaque in the arteries, which is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. So the way that this works is that that plaque is caused by the progressive trapping of the cholesterol-carrying LDL and other apolipoproteins like ApoB. You've probably heard of that one. That's also problematic within the arterial wall. So, over time as more and more LDL particles become trapped, atherosclerotic plaques grow and that increases your risk of having a cardiovascular event, especially if that plaque is growing in certain regions. And I'll tell you how you can test which regions it's growing in and whether it's stable or unstable here momentarily. So, that's why there's an argument that maintaining low levels or at least stabilized or low to medium levels of LDL over time could reduce the potential for these atherogenic lipoproteins including LDL that promote the formation of fatty deposits in the artery. Uh, and so, uh, the, the idea here with the cumulative exposure hypothesis is that the amount of the plaque burden and the different things that are leading up to that plaque burden accumulating can cause over time arterial wall injury that eventually creates a plaque burden that puts you at high risk for having a heart attack. My wife hates it when I use this word for guys, a widowmaker. And, I only use that word because I actually have the majority of my own plaque buildup in part of my heart called the LVA, which is the widowmaker or would cause a widowmaker if it were to be an issue. So, what did this review found? Well, it's probably going to be shocking to you, but Basically, this long-term arterial wall damage accumulates with the following: long-term high blood pressure. Okay. So, take your magnesium, do your breathwork, do some sauna, increase your levels of nitric oxide including avoiding mouthwash and fluoridated toothpaste which decrease the bacteria in your mouth that help to convert nitrites in food in the nitric oxide, move, exercise, et cetera, live a low-stress lifestyle. Blood sugar dysregulation, that was also a biggie. No surprises there. Smoking and vaping, back to the weed thing. Smoking and vaping. This is why I'm very concerned when I see like 13-year-old kids vaping now, nicotine and other people vaping many other compounds. Leading, leading cause of plaque formation, or one of the leading causes. Weight gain, poor blood clotting mechanisms, which is interesting because In a westernized diet, we eat a lot less vitamin K than you might have seen in, you know, a more natural, say, ancestral diet. We eat a lot less fermented foods, grass-fed butter, fermented dairy. You don't have to eat all those things. I mean, you don't have to have a neighbor with a goat and go out and do the raw goat and churn it in your kitchen with your sleeves rolled up and then fermented on the countertop and then try to get to work. You can just take a vitamin K supplement. And then finally, consuming oxidized oils. I know a lot of people say seed oils are not a problem, but this study showed oxidized oils were one of the issues. So it's pretty obvious what the fix is, right? Control blood pressure, control blood sugar, avoid smoking and vaping, maintain stabilized weight, use things that help to support proper blood clotting like vitamin K. And I would also say natokinase would also be way up there. Look into that one if you haven't yet and you're concerned about plaque. And be careful what kind of oils that you're using. So why this book? Well, chapter 18, coronary artery calcification in heart disease, had a few interesting things in it. So first of all, you can test for the amount of coronary artery calcification that you have. It's called a CAC score. This would be the normal calcium scan score that your doctor might order. It's a CT scan. The problem is, and I'm going to read this right out of Tim's book, a 2020 study found that of 1,741 patients with the CAC score of 0, meaning doctor says, "Yo, you're okay, checks out just fine," 6% had non-calcified plaque and 4% had calcified plaque detected with what's called a computed tomography angiography or CCTA. Those of you who've been listening to the podcast for a while may have heard me talk about how the type of heart scan I got when I discovered that I had plaque even though my calcium wasn't that bad, my calcium scan score wasn't that bad, was called a Cleerly spelled with two Es, Cleerly CT angiography. That's the one that really shows you how much plaque that you have and where the plaque resides. Problem is that test also comes with a massive dose of radiation. So, A, don't get it too often. B, take a bunch of potassium iodide after you take it, like 130, 140 milligrams of potassium iodide has been shown to reduce the cumulative damage of radiation. Take it for about 2 weeks after you get a test and don't do the test that often. Well, if you can't do the test that often, how do you keep track of plaque efficiently? There's another book called Prevention Myths. I'm going to interview the author pretty soon, but they talk about what's called a CIMT, carotid intima-media thickness score, where you can do an ultrasound of the neck and get a pretty decent idea of what a CT angiography would tell you. With a non-invasive, non-radiation-involved ultrasound of the neck. There's a website where you can find some practitioners around the U.S. It's called vasolabs.com. And so anyways, what I'm getting at here is that you got to measure for the plaque. And then I also thought it was interesting, Sim List the Things, in addition to what I just told you, this book is very research-based. That's why it's like freaking— it's not as big as my book, but it's pretty big. So anyways, uh, here is what's himlas for the things that increase, uh, coronary artery calcification. Hypertension, we already covered that. Diabetes, that would be the blood sugar dysregulation. Smoking, we covered that. Obesity, we covered that. Visceral adiposity, that's an interesting one. That would be where the actual fat resides. This is something you measure. You may have heard of this before, it's called the DEXA scan, kind of measures where the fat is. And the visceral fat's the one that's most associated with this coronary artery calcification. Higher HbA1c levels, that's kind of synonymous to the blood sugar dysregulation issues, higher ApoB levels. And interestingly, by the way, I think one of the best ways, if you can get your doctor to write a script for it, to decrease ApoB levels in addition to just some of the basic lifestyle measurements, you know, like not eating too much food or too much sugar or too much vegetable oils, is PCSK9 inhibitor. I'm on one. It has dropped my ApoB levels. It has dropped my Lp levels. It's dropped my small LDL particle levels. Twice a month, I do an injection. I use one called Repatha. Super simple, pretty safe. What else? Kidney issues, fatty liver disease. We'll talk about that momentarily because I'm going to tell you whether you should juice or blend fruits, and that's related to fatty liver disease. A low HDL, sleeping less than 5 hours a night. Anybody? Chronological age. Well, thank you. As you get older, your risk increases. That's not surprising. Very high phosphorus levels. That's interesting. High amounts of too much vigorous exercise. Guilty as charged. I did that for a long time. Low magnesium intake. And that's because magnesium helped to balance the calcium that could get pulled into the arteries. That's an important one, like taking a magnesium supplement before you go to bed at night, taking anabolic steroids, not that any of my listeners do that, and heightened cortisol reactivity to stress. Heightened cortisol reactivity to stress. The chapter in this book related to calcification is like 20 pages long, but it's interesting because he even says, I have it underlined here, one of the causes of hypercalcemia promoting calcification is low magnesium status. And in addition, cheese consumption has been seen to be associated with lower odds of calcification because guess what? Cheese has a amount of vitamin K2, which helps to stabilize those clotting factors. And hey, natto, nattokinase. You may have heard of natto, the Japanese fermented soybean dish. That's very rich in K2. But one of the enzymes in natto called nattokinase also has an effect on coronary artery calcification. So, you know, after I read this chapter, I thought, gosh, I used to have natto. I used to like order it and make it. I needed to start doing that again. I got into it when I used to race triathlons in Japan, which is probably how I got all this plaque. And so, natto, chalk one up to that. So anyways, that's what I wanted to tell you about this, this study and what it kind of got me thinking about when it comes to the things we need to think about if we want to take care of our tickers over time. So hopefully that was interesting and informative for you, and you can check out Sam's book. I'll link to it in the show notes. Go to bengreenfieldlife.com/477. I don't even know if it's out yet. Sometimes these books say for early release or early author release and they're ugly and they have typos in them and the graphics are kind of crappy, but this one looks pretty complete. I think it is for sale already. Another new study. This one was kind of cool. So, a lot of people have been, I don't know why, in the health sector, you might not have heard about this. It's kind of one of those fringe things, but a lot of people have been saying, "Oh, olive oil is bad for you. It's just as bad as oxidized fat." Same thing people say about fish oil sometimes. And yeah, I'll admit if you leave your olive oil out in the refrigerator in the cupboard next to the oven, it's on the sunlight, it's getting heated and oxidized all the time, it's in a clear plastic bottle. Yeah, it could be bad for you. Same thing if you heat up your fish oil or let it sit on the porch for 3 days in the hot summer when it got delivered to your home by Amazon or they didn't package the fish oil properly and the fish oil capsule has a lot of oxygen or light or heat that's been introduced to it. Yeah, fish oil could also be bad for you. But I think you can make a case for, for healthy olive oil and healthy fish oil. So this was a prospective cohort study in Italy where they showed that a high intake of olive oil was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality and the risk of death from cancer and cardiovascular disease. There's that biohacker, uh, Bryan Johnson, who's trying to live forever. He sells olive oil now. He might be on to something. I haven't bought his olive oil, I think he actually calls it snake oil or something like that. I think he's trying to be funny, but in his defense, not only did this study show a reduced all-cause mortality and reduced cancer mortality and reduced cardiovascular disease mortality and just about any other mortality— I was going to say that word again, mortality— but there was a dose-response effect, meaning at 30 grams of olive oil per day, you had the lowest all-cause risk. 30 grams might sound like a lot of olive oil, but that's like a shot glass, right? That's like putting half a shot glass on your salad at lunch and half a shot glass on your salad at dinner or dropping a full shot glass in your morning smoothie, which I've done before. It's not that bad actually. So olive oil consumption seems to be really highly protective. Now, this is probably because olive oil can improve blood lipid levels. It's got about depending on the olive oil, 65% to 80% monounsaturated fat. It's relatively low in saturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids, so it could reduce a little bit of that LDL. Again, don't take this to mean that I think that getting your LDL as low as possible is good, but controlling it I think is a good idea, especially based on what we've been talking about regarding plaque. But in addition to that, there's a lot of polyphenols and flavonols in good olive oil, and those can do things like increase nitric oxide levels, thereby promoting vasodilation and helping to control blood sugar. There's also evidence that olive oil can reduce insulin resistance and fasting insulin levels, and so it can help out with controlling blood sugar. And then I dug into some of the other more recent studies on olive oil, and, uh, I'll link to these in the show notes, but one looked at the anti-atherogenic effect of olive oil, exactly all those things that we were talking about. And there are specific polyphenols and something called alpha-tocopherol in olive oil that can assist with staving off the onset or the progression of atherosclerosis. In addition, atherosclerosis is characterized by chronic low-grade inflammation, right? That's one of the reasons that the plaque can build up and that the damage can occur. And the cardioprotective effects of extra virgin olive oil are mostly attributable to its high content of polyphenol molecules. Now, here's what's important for you to know after learning all that. Olive oil has to pass the cough test really for you to know that it's got the amount of flavonols and polyphenols in it that you're looking for. I had a whole podcast about this. I'll link to it in the shownotes with this guy named TJ Murphy. And, he said there's a pretty good chance most of us are buying fake olive oil in the U.S. There's an estimation that a whopping 80% of all extra virgin olive oil on the market today is fraudulent, meaning it's cut. They cut the pure pressed olive oil with cheap oils like soybean and sometimes manufacture a totally fake product by combining vegetable oils with dyes and artificial flavorings, slapping a label on it and calling it olive oil. Those bastards. And then, you might have good olive oil, but it's bottled in plastic and left in the heat and past its expiration date on the grocery store shelf. So, you're getting oxidized fats. So, why do I say the cough test? Because if you take a little bit of olive oil and you drink it and it hits the back of your throat and you cough, that spicy cough reflex is often a sign of the high polyphenol and flavonol content. Good extra virgin olive oil is not only supposed to be a little bit spicy and have a little bit of a kick to it, but it should also be stored in glass bottles that you can't see through. The grass, opaque, non-transparent, translucent, whatever you want to call it, that's the type of olive oil that you need to get. And, you can find olive oils like that. Thrive Market, they do a good job. It's a good place to order olive oil. Primal Kitchen, they've got good olive oil. Call me a crazy highfalutin rich westernized olive oil snob, but I actually am part of an olive oil Olive Oil Club, meaning I get 3 bottles of olive oil delivered to my house every quarter from a different area of the world. I interviewed the guy that runs that club and it's incredible. It's great olive oil. I usually run out of it before 3 months is up, so I got to order more. But ultimately, if you are able to take a shot of really good high-quality extra virgin olive oil per day, you could make a case that you're doing some really good favors for reducing not just risk of cardiovascular disease and atherosclerosis but all-cause mortality. So, yay, yay spicy pizza. Okay. So, let's keep talking about food. Hopefully, I'm not making you too hungry here. Shout-out to my friend and former podcast guest, Dr. Luis Nicola, for alerting me to something that was new to me. I've always kind of said and thought that if you juice fruits and you blend fruits, that the glycemic index goes up and it raises your blood sugar higher than if you ate them whole, based on the idea that if you eat them whole, you're eating them more slowly, they have more water content, they have more fiber, which is a silly idea especially when it comes blending versus eating because blending has just as much fiber, it's just blended for you. And same for fruit juice, right? It's going to increase your glycemic index and make it more sweet. Well, there is a great newsletter I subscribe to from Alan Aragon called Alan Aragon's Research Review. And Luisa wrote a great paper in there about the fact that these are actually myths. So first of all, Ben Greenfield, MD: Blending your fruits not only does not make them raise the glycemic index, raise the blood sugar, and cause blood sugar dysregulation, but it actually, because the blender does a better job than your teeth in your mouth do at blending and chewing and grinding up all the seeds and the skins and whatever else is in that fruit or berry that you're consuming, it's actually got a lower glycemic index when you blend your fruit and you liberate more antioxidants, more flavonols, more polyphenols, more seed components, et cetera, than your teeth do. So if you've been chewing your fruit or avoiding blending fruit because you think it's going to raise your blood sugar, that's actually not true. And this isn't just like Louisa saying it. I went and looked at all the studies. I'll put links to them in the show notes. And it turns out that blending is not bad for your blood sugar. Well, of course, juicing must be, right? Because you're getting rid of all the seeds and the, you know, and the skin and a lot, a lot of these components that you would think would cause the sugar to be released more slowly. But that's also not true. They've done studies looking at the effects of consuming 100% fruit juice on glycemic control. Not only have they found that regular consumption of 100% fruit juice is not associated with increased risk of diabetes, but it has a neutral effect on glycemic control. Meaning if you measure fasting glucose, hemoglobin A1C, which is a 3-month snapshot of your glucose, fasting insulin, a measurement called HOMA-IR, basically neutral effects and lack of potential for increasing diabetes risk. Now, it's important, and, and Luis also points this out, it's important to differentiate between 100% fruit juice And you've seen this before, the fruit-flavored beverages, right? Like the Hi-C pouches that your kid's getting out of the soccer game that contain sometimes no fruit or trace amounts, added sugar, high fructose corn syrup, you know, added ingredients, you know, etc. Like those you would want to worry about, like fake fruit juice. But just like drinking fruit juice and blending your fruits, not a problem with a caveat. Remember how I mentioned nonalcoholic fatty liver disease? Well, Well, fructose is interesting in this respect. Fructose actually is something that is processed a little bit differently than glucose. So hear me out on this. I won't go super deep into the science, I promise, but just enough so, so you understand this and so you're not eating 12 apples. Fructose is metabolized primarily in the liver. Glucose is metabolized throughout the body. Excess fructose can slightly lower metabolic rate. And reduced calorie burning. And that can occur in, in addition to that excess fructose having a higher potential to raise your triglycerides if you're in a state of caloric excess. Meaning once your liver glycogen stores are full and once your muscle glycogen stores are full, excess fructose is very easily stored, especially as visceral fat, which we've already established is bad news bears. So, you could, in somebody who is burning 2,000 calories per day between exercise and their metabolic rate, feed that person through a helmet with two straws on it and two bottles of Coke on top of the helmet, 2,000 calories of Coke a day, and they're not going to gain weight. They're not going to get poisoned by fructose. It's not going to be that nutrient-dense. I guess maybe there's some other things in the Coke like colors or additives that could cause issues, but the fructose is not going to be a problem at all. Same thing with fruit juice, right? I could, you know, sit your butt down and just mainline apple juice and pear juice and berry juice and mango juice and pineapple juice into you all day long. And until I get so much juice into you that I've put more calories of juice into you than the total number of calories that you're burning, the fructose isn't an issue. The problem with fructose and why it's gotten such a bad rap, especially from soda, for example, is that most people are not at a caloric deficit, and many people who are not at a caloric deficit are also consuming a high amount of fruits, fruit juices, processed foods with added fructose in them, high fructose corn syrup, etc. But, and I act on stuff like this, right? I started adding a giant handful of blueberries to my morning smoothie after reading Luis's article and going into the studies and realizing, oh, she's right, this isn't going to have an impact at all on my blood sugar levels. I mean, I could probably also have a cup of pineapple juice right next to it and it wouldn't also have an impact. So, I mean, granted, it will shift your— I'll get a little bit scientific here. It will shift your RQ higher, meaning eating a lot of fructose or any sugar in the morning or any other time of day is going to shift your body into a state of slightly higher carbohydrate oxidation. The fat oxidation. And if you're trying to train your body how to burn fats and how to be less reliant on sugars as a fuel, that could be a problem. But for most active people like me, after I've done like an hour of kettlebells and cold bath and sauna and all that jazz in the morning, a handful of blueberries in my morning smoothie, well, I'm getting pretty orthorexic if I'm concerned about what that might do to my ability to burn fat the rest of the day. Yeah, I don't have a loaf of bread with lunch and, you know, a 24-ouncer of juice next to my smoothie, But, I think tossing— you can make a pretty good case for tossing some of those berries into your smoothie because it appears the blender is making them healthier than your darn mouth. So, yay for science. Alright. So, also a yay for science. Here we go. The French will be happy about this. Up to 2 to 3 glasses of wine per day has been shown in a new study to be protective Against Cognitive Decline. This was a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine evidence on the association between wine consumption and cognitive decline and to analyze whether there was any link. This search retrieved 6,055 articles and they included 16 in the systematic review. They included 12 in the meta-analysis. These were articles published between 1997 in 2019 across 19 different countries, probably including France. And this showed a protective effect of wine consumption against cognitive decline. A protective effect of wine consumption against cognitive decline. Well, that's interesting because if you actually look at other systematic reviews and meta-analysis, you'll see repeatedly that that comes up daily low quantity drinking. This is a cohort study on alcohol and dementia risk was associated with lower dementia risk compared to infrequent higher quantity drinking. So, glass of wine with dinner every night like I often do versus binging on the weekend, the former actually be— the former be pretty good for your brain. Former actually appears to be pretty good for your brain. Research on wine and cognitive function, another study called the Paquid Study, P-A-Q-U-I-D JQUID showed that drinking between about half to a full glass of wine per day was associated with significantly lower risk of Alzheimer's disease compared to not heavy drinkers but compared to non-drinkers, making a case that when it comes to brain health, having a little bit of alcohol on a regular basis without binging could be better for you than not drinking at all. And I'm not going to spend too much time on this because I did like an hour-long podcast a few months ago. I'll link to it in the show notes. Making a case that small amounts of alcohol consumed regularly without binging is pretty good for you, not only for the reasons I just mentioned because of its effects on cognitive health, but also because it sparks the production of endogenous antioxidants like, say, superoxide dismutase or glutathione peroxidase. And so, yeah, I drink a little bit. I drink maybe 4 or 5 days a week. I honestly don't drink as much when I travel. So, sometimes I won't drink for 2 weeks and come home and have a glass of wine every night with my wife for a week and haven't been drunk in 15 years. And, I feel like that's a pretty healthy way to drink. Pay attention to the quality just like the fruit juice. High C pouches are different than fresh pineapple juice and big California cab full of 72+ different herbicides and pesticides and sulfites is different than that nice New Zealand or France or Italian biodynamically farmed wine. With a high amount of antioxidants and a low amount of sugar and low amount of pesticides and herbicides. So, don't laugh, but I'm also part of a wine club. Yes, I am part of an olive oil club and I'm part of a wine club. The olive oil club is called the Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club, 3 bottles of olive oil once every 3 months. I want to say 3. Yeah, once every quarter is— No, I'm sorry, 4 months. A quarter is 4 months. Do your math, Ben. And then, I get 6 bottles of wine a month from Dry Farm Wines. I do not drink 6 bottles of wine a month. I probably personally drink 2 bottles of wine per month, I would say. And, my wife probably drinks 2 bottles of wine per month. And then, between the dinner parties that we throw, all that wine is usually gone at least 5 or 6 days before the next box arrives. And so, we just drown ourselves in tequila as we wait for that next box of wine to arrive. Anyways though, So, folks, alcohol despite it being controversial and despite you needing to tackle this on a case-by-case basis depending on your own social, familial, emotional, psychological, and physical history with alcohol, you don't need to be afraid of it when it comes to damaging your brain, especially when it comes to microdosing in small amounts. Something else that kind of backs up what I'm saying was a really kind of cool summary of a case-control study in Chinese older adults. They were looking at what kind of things you do in your life could increase your odds of becoming a centenarian, someone who has reached the age of 100. And they studied a lot of adults, a lot of old Chinese people, 5,222 older adults with an average age of 94. This is a prospective case-control study that they did over a long period of time. They're using data from what's called the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity survey. And they looked at dietary diversity and, speak of the devil, alcohol consumption and exercise and BMI and smoking. And then, they did a follow-up over several years and they found that the people with a few specific lifestyle components had a 33% higher odds percentage of— I think that was redundant what I just said. But anyways, they had a pretty freaking big chance of becoming a centenarian. So, what were these things that were the most important? Never smoking. Okay, never smoking. So, I don't think there's a hormetic effect of smoking like there is with alcohol. Exercising regularly, Greater dietary diversity. Heads up to those of you who every salad every day is a cucumber, a tomato, and some lettuce. Branch out. Kohlrabi and sauerkraut and kimchi and turmeric and ginger and garlic and red onion. And go ape nuts on those salads, folks. Eat a wide variety of foods. Dietary diversity. Don't just eat ribeye steaks. Eat liver and heart and kidney and pancreas and chicken and gizzards and tongue. Don't just have a blueberry smoothie, have a raspberry and a black rasp smoothie and a lingonberry smoothie and a cloudberry smoothie and that little orange one from Finland. What's it called? Now, I'm going to blank on it. It's fantastic. I'll remember it later. Anyways, you get what I'm saying. Dietary diversity. Eat a wide variety of really good healthy foods close to nature. I think I just may have pissed off some carnivore diet people, but that's okay. And then, there was no association detected. This is interesting. For alcohol consumption. Hmm, kind of interesting, especially based on what I just told you. And BMI. And that's interesting too, because BMI, like, if you have a high muscle mass percentage, which some of these people probably did if they were exercising regularly, it's not as accurate. Like, you'll be— you'll have a high BMI sometimes, and it's just muscle. So turns out the most important things to pay attention to, based on a really big, long, long study in Chinese people who lived a really long time over the age 100 was don't smoke, exercise regularly, eat a wide variety of foods. It's kind of interesting they didn't get into like social life and community because you hear about how important that is, and maybe they just didn't look at it in this study, but I would have a hunch that that's pretty important too. I'll put a link to the whole study in the show notes if you want to read it, but, you know, maybe not want to smoke, continue to exercise frequently, to not be afraid of alcohol, to maintain muscle and to continue to eat omnivorously with a lot of different things in my diet. Honestly, here's my tip for you if you're weird like me. I always have a book next to my bed that doesn't make me think about business and self-improvement and all the things that might stress me out before bed. One of the most common books you will find at my bedside is cookbooks. I read cookbooks and I read them with a little pencil or pen and I'll circle and underline and fold over pages. And then, at least once or twice a month, and those of you who follow me on Instagram sometimes see this fleshed out, I cook something new. And, as a result of that, I'm also usually trying out new food ingredients. My next big one coming up, which I'm already ordering prosciutto and preparing to make foie gras and getting my loin for, not Not my loin, but tender loin from a cow. My loins will be ready too though. And phyllo dough with real butter, I'm going to make Beef Wellington at the end of this month. See, so you learn cool stuff. And yes, I read myself to sleep with cookbooks. So, we have time for a couple quick questions here as we approach the latter parts of today's Q&A. Brady. Oh, and by the way, if you want to ask a question, go to BenGreenfieldLife.com bengreenfieldlife.com/477. I think there's a place in the shownotes where you click to ask a question. I should know this, but I'm pretty sure it's there. Okay. Brady says, "My wife is having a baby." Congratulations, Brady. "August 15th, and I have a 70.3." Those of you don't know what that is, it's a half Ironman because 70.3 kilometers is half of 140.6 kilometers. September 15th, Ben Greenfield. Any tips on how to train while also tending to your wife/child and also trying to sleep in? Well, this is how I quit my job. No, seriously, this is how I quit my job. I was a personal trainer. I'm going to do the super quick story for you. I was a personal trainer. I had a couple of gyms. This was 17 years ago. I was training clients. I was super successful. I was the guy that all the doctors and the local medical community would send their patients to. I was the person you came to and nothing else was working to lose weight. I trained all the big-name marathoners and triathletes and swimmers in the local city, an awesome gym. I was really expensive. I applied all of my love for intellectual firepower and science into designing the programs for my clients. And, because I partnered up with people in the medical community. I had access to the best of the best medical equipment to test their blood and dial in their diets. And, I was pretty good at what I did. And, in 2008, I was voted as America's top personal trainer. So then, I started traveling because I was on the COVID of all these fitness magazines and Fitness Business magazines and personal trainer magazines. I got invited all these conferences to go and speak. And, I was on planes all the time and then training clients. And, my wife became pregnant with twin boys. And, at the same time I was doing all this, I was racing Ironman triathlons a lot. I was racing for different organizations that would sponsor me and I was pretty fast and I would win races and podium. And, I was an age grouper, not a pro, which is a little different, But, I was pretty good and I had a special way that I trained to allow me to be that fast to qualify for Kona Ironman every year. And, my entire first book, my New York Times bestselling book called "Beyond Training" was all about this way that I would train. And, it was all based on two different ways to increase your aerobic endurance. And, the idea is that there's two different different pathways to trigger mitochondrial density. And one pathway that promotes favorable endurance adaptations is called the PGC-1α pathway. Do you know what that stands for? Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor G coactivator 1A. Alright, it's PGC-1α pathway. That can cause an increase in mitochondrial density and oxidative enzyme activity and it can act separately than a different pathway. So the way that you activate the PGC-1 alpha pathway is with continuous voluminous endurance training that takes a really long time and has you training like 20, 25, 30 hours per week. It's got a lower risk of injury. It's how a lot of the pros train, and it involves about 80% of your time spent training aerobically and about 20% of your time spent training anaerobically. You can also trigger those same enzymes via what's called the calcium calmodulin kinase pathway, the CaMK pathway, or the adenosine monophosphate kinase pathway. And this is done with high-intensity interval training, very short bouts of exercise, really hard fasted morning fat-burning sessions, et cetera. So, it's kind of like two different ways to build endurance. Obviously, the disadvantage of the latter approach is it hurts like hell because you're going balls to the wall a lot even though it's over more quickly and there's a higher risk for injury, but it's a time hack, right? So, when my friends would swim 4,000 meters in the pool, I would get in and I would swim 10 by 100 all out with short rest periods of 30 seconds in between. And then, I will be out of the pool and out starting my bike workout while everybody else still had 40 minutes left in the pool. And, I would do my long marathon runs in about 75 to 90 with just— it would be like, I would literally like load up music tracks onto my music player and do like a 4-minute track that was hard and a 4-minute track that was easy and just do intervals for the whole freaking run. And even my bike rides were like, you know, just besides one really long ride I would go on 4 weeks before race day, they were all short and intense. In addition to that, much of my training involved loaded training because I had twins. Right? Double jogging stroller, bike trailer. And this was later on after the story I'm about to tell you. So, I would just do workouts with the kids all the time, go on fitness walks with them on my back, dropping and doing push-ups, carrying them, climbing fences. So, I incorporated my kids quite a bit in the workouts, but I also did really high-intensity interval training that got me in and out of the gym and out of the session in a short period of time. And that's what my entire book Beyond Training is about, And, the reason I said that got me wealthy or helped me quit my job is when I was traveling around all these conferences, I didn't know anything about internet marketing or affiliate campaigns or launching products online. And, when I was at one of these conferences, I listened to this guy on stage talk about how to make an information product, how to package up all the ideas inside your head and then sell it online as downloadable videos and PDFs and probably the type of thing you, if you're listening and if you ever bought a course online, that's what that is. But, I was just total analog. I just train people face-to-face in the gym. So, after I left that one conference where I was speaking about how to make money with gyms and this guy was speaking about how to make money with information products, I thought, "What the heck? I'm going to try this out." So, I spent 7 months. I'd get home from the gym at around 8:00 or 9:00 PM. I'd have a quick dinner with my wife, then I'd just lock myself away in my office till 2:00 AM and just work on this program. And, and so long story short, as I launched it, it went really well. It made a decent amount of money. And I realized, hey, you know what, I'm going to have twin sons in like 3 months. I could be at home writing, podcasting, blogging, you know, doing some online coaching and consults, doing a lot more, frankly, of what I do now. And because I wanted to be a kind of a present stay-at-home father, I decided to close the chapter of my life that was training people one-on-one in a gym. And I started doing a lot more of what I do now. But my very first program I created was like how to do an Ironman. My tagline, my copywriting was like cross an Ironman finish line with a big smile on your face and half the time of your friends who don't have time left over for their friends and their family and their social life. And anyways, it was called the Triathlon Dominator. I actually haven't checked in a little. I think you can still get it at It's probably at triathlondominator.com. It's old, but it would still work. And then, make your kids as much of a part of the workout as you can. Anyways though, you say any tips on how to train while tending to your wife, child, and also trying to sleep in, trying to get to sleep in? Don't worry about the sleeping in part because that ain't going to happen, bro. You have made the life decision to do a half Ironman with a newborn child. And, if you value your relationship with your wife, you're going to be doing it on short sleep. Don't worry, you'll survive. I did it. You just do really hard workouts. You recover really well. You make them short. You make them punchy. You trust the process that your body can build endurance in two different ways. You go out there and you race and you take care of your wife and you make that little baby a part of the workouts by putting them in strollers and trailers and let your wife go out to dinner or out shopping while you do your long bike ride in the living room with the stroller or the crib next to you as you take care of the kid. You do a lot of treadmill runs. Again, you're babysitting while your wife gets some free time. And maybe if you do enough babysitting while your wife gets some free time, she'll let you sleep every now and again. But yeah. Prioritize your wife and your kid, dude. The race isn't that important, but you can do it. I did. I raced with newborns and all the way up until my kids were 6 years old. I qualified for Ironman every year and I still got a lot of quality family time in. So, last question is from Glenn who says, "At age 69, is high-intensity interval training with body weight and vigorous walking enough?" Well, that's an interesting question. You may have heard me interview the Turner twins, these guys who were identical twins, and they compare how one twin responded to bodyweight exercises while the other twin did the same number of weeks and exercises but weighted, and they both had pretty similar results. But if you look at the research specifically, and I'll link to that episode with the Turner twins in the shownotes, it was actually a pretty entertaining one because they also compared vegan versus omnivore. And I forget the other experiments that they did, but it was interesting. So this has been studied. Uh, there was a study that was published in the Journal of Aging Research, and this was in seniors, and they found that if you look at resistance training and bodyweight training, it's a combination of both that results in the most significant benefits for muscle mass, strength, and functional performance in older adults. You also have to consider the fact that weight training is more highly associated with improvement of bone density Improvement of insulin sensitivity, probably because as Dr. Gabriel Lyons talks and writes about, muscle is kind of like a metabolic sink for glucose and you can build more of it with weight training versus bodyweight exercises. You could make a case if you're doing really, really high-weight bodyweight exercises, you might be able to keep up, but usually not. Weighted exercises help to build more stability often more balance. But to tell you the truth, if you look at the actual research, if you weight train, if you bodyweight train, or if you combine weight training with bodyweight training, it's the combination of weight training and bodyweight training that— and this is specific to seniors— allows for the most amount of muscle and also the metabolic effects found there. In. So, this is kind of how I train. I'll tell you exactly how I train. We'll wrap it up with this because this will be helpful for you, but also include some helpful links for you, Glenn, as well backing up what I'm telling you about bone density and sarcopenia and combining weight training and bodyweight training. So, I work out with my sons, River and Terran. We work out 5 days a week and then we use the weekends for things like tennis and pickleball and rucking and hiking and and paddleboarding. And, granted, that's still working out. We do formal workout 5 days a week. Right now, what it looks like is 3 days a week, we do full-body exercise training, all multi-joint: deadlifts, squats, kettlebell swings, overhead press, Romanian deadlifts, floor press, some loaded exercises, some sandbag stuff, pull-ups, loaded pull-ups, leg raises, you name it, right? So typically we've got anywhere from 5 to 7 different exercises that we're doing either AMRAP style or EMOM style, every minute on the minute, or sometimes just superset style, large amount of density. And we're working out like 50 to 60 minutes on weights Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And then on Tuesday and Thursday we do breathwork, sauna, cold, and high-intensity interval training, meaning like this morning we did a 20-minute Wim Hof session in the sauna, we did a 4-minute cold plunge, and then we did 6 30-second efforts on the Aerodyne with 3 minutes recovery after each effort. So, Tuesdays and Thursdays are heat, cold, breathwork, and HIIT cardio. Monday, Wednesday, Friday is weight training. And now, you may ask, "Well, Ben, where's the bodyweight training?" So, in addition to that, On any given day, I probably do about 50 to 100 push-ups and around 50 pull-ups and around 100 bodyweight squats because back to what I was talking about just staying active all day, I just like whatever. Hey, after this podcast, I'll probably go out in the backyard and I'll do 20 squats, 20 push-ups, and 10 pull-ups. And so, I just kind of weave a lot of the bodyweight stuff in throughout the day. As just a natural part of my day, which for all the reasons I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast is great for keeping your metabolism elevated as well. And so, that's exactly what my own program looks like right now. And I mean, keeps us super fit. I could do that the rest of my life. It's pretty sustainable. So anyways, hopefully that helps to answer your question, Glenn. I should say I could do it for the rest of my life, but I change stuff up all the time because when I travel, sometimes I'm just a half hour a day with blood flow restriction bands cranking out push-ups and squats and lunges in the hotel room. And then, I might have someday where I visit some fancy biohacking facility that I'm advising and they throw me on something that makes me sore for the next week. So, I'm like single set-to-failure exercise tool or sometimes I'll be out hunting and I'm just hauling an 80-pound backpack around for 5 days. So, it just depends. But, for the most part, that's just a glimpse into the type of training that I do. And, for context, I'm 42, I'm 6'2", I am 186 pounds and I am 7% body fat. And, I feel pretty strong and I just raced a Spartan and I feel like I got some fitness and some strength. And, I think a big part of it is just consistency, consistency, consistency. So, hopefully that helps. All the shownotes are at BenGreenfieldLife.com/477. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com/477. BenGreenfieldLife.com/477 where you can also leave your questions, comments, your feedback. Thank you so much for listening in. And, last thing I should say is check out my brand new membership website. It's incredible, golifenetwork.com. Check it out, golifenetwork.com. You're going to love it. I'm going to leave it there because when you visit that website, you'll see exactly how you can just basically have me and all your favorite health experts on the face of the planet in your back pocket all day long. golifenetwork.com. Alright, thanks for listening. I'm Ben Greenfield, but you knew that. Over and out. Do you want free access to comprehensive shownotes, my weekly roundup newsletter, cutting-edge research and articles, top recommendations from me for everything that you need to hack your life and a whole lot more, check out BenGreenfieldLife.com. It's all there, BenGreenfieldLife.com. See you over there. Most of you who listen don't subscribe, like, or rate this show. If you're one of those people who do, then huge thank you. But here's why it's important to subscribe, like, and/or rate this show. If you do that, that means we get more eyeballs, we get higher rankings. And the bigger the Ben Greenfield Life show gets, the bigger and better the guests get, and the better the content I'm able to deliver to you. So hit subscribe, leave a ranking, leave a review if you got a little extra time. It means way more than you might think. Thank you so much. 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