Q&A 455: Is Erythritol Bad For You, Strength Before Cardio or Cardio Before Strength, The Best Way To Use Olive Oil & Much More!
22 Apr 2023 · 68 min
Ben Greenfield answers live questions on erythritol and cardiovascular risk, why you should do strength training before cardio, and how to use olive oil. He also covers stem cells, electrolytes, and managing Hashimoto's through diet and gut healing.
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In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life Show, Is erythritol actually bad for you? Strength before cardio or cardio before strength. The best way to use olive oil and a whole lot more.
Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.
Hey. So one of the biggest issues when it comes to aging, aging poorly that is, is what's called senescent cell accumulation. Senescent cell accumulation. Senescent cells are often referred to as zombie cells. They're not all bad, as a matter of fact, they serve a purpose, just like inflammation serves a purpose. But if they remain in your body long after their functional lives, they can waste your energy and resources. And, and senescent cell accumulation can contribute to things like slower workout recovery and joint stiffness and discomfort and the kind of sluggish mental and physical energy you might associate with middle age. Now, senolytic ingredients, or so called senolites, are these evidence backed molecules that help your body naturally eliminate senescent cells. So we're talking about things like fisetin, Piper Longumin, Synactiv, and a whole bunch of other research backed ingredients that help combat senescent cell accumulation. So this new product, you don't have to take it very often. A couple times a month you pop a few capsules and it nukes your senescent cells. That's a good thing. It's called Qualia senolytic. They pack nine vegan, non gmo gluten free senolytic ingredients into one formula. And that provides you with the most complete senolytic support of any formula that currently exists on the market. And they're going to give you 100 day money back guarantee and an additional 15% off if you go to neurohacker.com that's N E U r o Hacker. That's and use code Senoben. That's s e n o benohacker.com and that's how you can get your sen essence cells, those zombie cells, nuked. You're probably familiar with the fact that the average adult should get seven to nine hours of sleep each night. I realize that's not always possible. More and more people are forced to make lifestyle changes to get more deep sleep especially. But the good news is that quality matters just as much as quantity. So when you're in bed sleeping, you want the quality of the sleep, even if you're not able to be in bed seven or eight or nine hours, to be as high as possible. The first half of the Night is when your deep sleep window occurs. And that's when things start to drop. Your heart rate, your breathing, your blood pressure, your muscle activity, your body temperature. And since that temperature drop is such a crucial aspect of the deep sleep stages, finding ways to activate that sleep switch can help to increase your levels of deep sleep. So that's where this thing called Sleep Me comes in. Sleep Me is the system that circulates cold or hot if you need it as like an alarm clock water to circulate underneath your mattress. So it's a hydropower, temperature controlled mattress topper that fits over your existing mattress. No matter what kind of mattress you have to give you your ideal sleep temperature. I'm pretty straightforward. I just set that bad boy 55 degrees and sleep all night. And occasionally I'll switch it to warm water if I need an alarm and, and don't want a blurring alarm clock. The warm water function is amazing. You've probably heard of sunrise alarm clocks that make natural sun. This is like. That works just as well though it's weird. Warm water just wakes you up and makes you not feel tired like you do when an alarm breaks you out of your sleep stages. That might not be ideal for getting broken out of early in the morning. So it's called the Dock Pro system. This new system that they've made, it's super slick. It'll even tie to your phone. You can set schedules. It's really cool, I guess literally and figuratively in this case. So here's how you can save up to 25% on the purchase of any new sleep system from Sleep Me. And this offer is available exclusively for my listeners only for a limited time. Sleep Me, Bengreenfield. That's Sleep Me.
Bengreenfield. And that's how you can get that ultimate discount on the Sleep Me. Enjoy. Lucy probably saw that smart drug movie called Lucy. It was like that other one called Limitless. Well, there actually is kind of sort of the equivalent of a smart drug and it's called Lucy. It's an oral nicotine company, a modern oral nicotine company that makes nicotine gum and lozenges and pouches for folks who want the best, most responsible way to consume their nicotine. It's an adult product. You pop one, you get focus, you get clarity, you get better word recall. And they taste amazing. And they aren't chock full of frankenfuels like a lot of these gums out there are. So the lozenges I think, like the cherry ice one's amazing. I really like the pomegranate gum. Those are probably my two top flavors. I use them in moderation, as you should too, because this product does contain nicotine and nicotine is an addictive chemical. But if you want to experiment with how you feel on nicotine, one of the old school nootropic brain enhancing compounds that's out there and you want to do so without doing things like, I don't know, smoking, you should check out Lucy's products. So you go to Lucy Co Lucy L U C Y C O and you can use promo code BEN20BEN20 use promo code BEN20 at checkout at Lucy Co and you're gonna get a big disc so check them out. Nicotine gum, nicotine lozenges, nicotine pouches, but clean ones. So Lucy Co and use code BEN20. Well folks, welcome to today's show. Today's live Q and A on Twitter Spaces. We do these a couple of times a month. If you happen to follow me on twitter@twitter.com something something, I believe it's Ben Greenfield. You will be able to hop on and ask your questions live as we record these episodes. In addition to that, these are the times when I get a chance guest free to be able to fill you in on some of my own thoughts on the latest news, flashes and health, fitness, biohacking, spirituality and life optimization in general. All the show notes for today's show are at BenGreenfieldLife.com 455 Now I have to admit, normally you might notice a notorious absence of this I have A podcast sidekick, Dr. J.T. wile typically joins me, but he's having some Internet issues and apparently is a luddite and doesn't know how to fix his Internet. So it's just me solo today. But that's okay. I am as the old what's what's the show with with Kim Jong Il where he sings about being ronery. I'm roanery today. I believe it's American something something with the puppets. Anyways, I'm a little bit sleep deprived. I just flew in from Sedona late last night, got to bed about 2am and got got up at 5am to chop wood and carry water so to speak. Carry wood, chop water. I don't know. I had a fantastic, fantastic event down in Sedona. Some of the replays of that you can find on my Instagram channel. Did a breathwork workshop at the wonderful Shine down in Sedona as well as a VIP dinner catered by me and my family in which we chopped and cooked and boiled and baked for about 10 solid hours and served 30 VIP guests. A fantastic dinner. We had a little pickleball meetup at the Orchard in Phoenix. Fantastic little pickleball facility there. Now I am home here speaking to you in case any of you want the full calendar of where I will be next coming to your city, you can go to BenGreenfieldLife.com calendar. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com calendar. I could probably give you a quick preview here though. I'm going to be headed down to Hawaii here in a couple weeks to do some bow hunting and also we'll be headed down to California to take my sons through a little kind of miniature Navy SEAL hell week for civilians to bring in their 15th birthday with a bit of a rite of passage. I'll be mostly doing some private events throughout April and the next big public event that you might be able to take part in is coming up in London, the Health Optimization Summit in London. I'll link to that if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com 455 fantastic event over there. We're also going to have a separate VIP event at a place called Hum2n, so check that out. The other thing I should mention to you in case any of you are interested is I am actually in the process of selling my complete 10 acre biohacked health oasis here in Spokane, Washington to move across the border to Idaho to be a little bit closer to my aging parents. So if you're interested or you know someone who is interested in picking up a home that's been completely optimized for air, light, water, electricity, building, biology, guest house, greenhouse, barn, goats, chickens, pool, cold pools, biohacking elements, obstacle course, the works, even a luxury tree fort. You can check out all the details at biohackspokanehome.com that's biohacked spokane home.com the home is going to be available starting summer of 2024, giving you a little bit of time to check it and make some plans. And I will have seller financing available on that. So that's interesting. But let's go ahead and get on to the even more pressing issues. And that is today's news flashes, including whether or not erythritol is actually going to kill you. You might have seen the study that has a lot of people who are sugar phobic or low carb or keto or like to use alternative sweeteners running for the hills. The title of this paper was the Artificial Sweetener Erythritol and cardiovascular disease. Now, you may have seen the headlines come out that erythritol is significantly associated with cardiovascular events. Now I'm going to walk you through this so that you can better wrap your head around this and also be able to have a fantastic chat at your next cocktail party about whether or not the erythritol is actually a big deal, because everybody seems to be talking about this one. Sugar alcohols in general. So this was a recent study. It appeared in the journal Nature, and it investigated correlations between various what are called plasma metabolomics, sugar alcohols most notably. And the primary sugar alcohol that was investigated in that study was erythritol. They specifically wanted to see if there was a link between erythritol and cardiovascular disease. So here's what's important for you to understand about this study. Erythritol is something that you may often see added to food products, particularly food products that are using alternative sweeteners, many drinks, a lot of ketogenic products, a lot of health products, and health supplements in general. You know, if you look at the label of your protein powder, your, I don't know, your anti aging powder, your energy drink, et cetera, you might note that erythritol is a primary ingredient. Even gum has erythritol. Now, what a lot of people don't realize is that your levels of erythritol inside your body, what would be called your plasma erythritol, that can indeed be derived by you chugging erythritol or putting some form of erythritol into your gaping maw. However, you can also endogenously produce erythritol yourself. Your body has the capability to produce erythritol from either glucose or fructose. That's very important for you to understand because erythritol can naturally occur in in many fruits, for example, it can appear as a food sweetener and your body can make it. So what this study looked at was two different cohorts, one in the U.S. a little over 2,000 folks in the U.S. and one in Europe, about 800 people or so in Europe. They followed them for three years. They did not actually look at the intake of erythritol or other carbohydrates. They simply looked at the level of erythritol in the body. So from the get go, it's not clear in this study how much of blood erythritol was derived from actual erythritol intake. And how much of it came from the body's own endogenous production of erythritol. Now, what this correlation analysis found was that the folks, or the highest quartile of blood erythritol levels displayed significantly more cardiovascular disease events and a higher cardiovascular disease risk than the lowest quartile of blood erythritol levels. Now, it's well known that correlation does not necessarily imply causation, and the authors of the paper acknowledge this fact. But what the headline news picked up and what you may have seen was that the erythritol sweetener may increase your risk of heart attacks and stroke. Now, that's a very alarming conclusion, but it's unfortunately very misleading and it's quite typical of media sensationalism in need of more careful analysis and attention. Right, so red meat is going to kill you. What was the source of the red meat? What was the context in which it was consumed? Did it come slapped in between two buns and a greasy bag of french fries? Or was it grass fed, grass finished red meat from a local regenerative agriculture facility? Or were the eggs that you're consuming accompanied by French toast and waffles and maple syrup every morning from, you know, from chickens that were fed corn and grains their entire life? Or are your eggs from a backyard chicken that was eating insects? There's a lot of subtle variables that media typically tends to ignore, and this is a perfect example of that. So what this study found was that, yeah, high erythritol levels were indeed associated with higher incidence of heart attacks and stroke, but it did not discuss the relevance of endogenous production of erythritol from glucose and from fructose. There's a conversion pathway in the body. It's called the pentose phosphate pathway. And you don't need to necessarily be that familiar with physiology to understand this. But basically what that pathway allows for is for the body to produce endogenously erythritol from glucose consumption or fructose consumption, meaning that excessive intake of sugar or excessive intake of glucose, fructose or starch can in fact lead to the same high blood levels of erythritol that the news headlines are leading you to believe would be had from consuming erythritol from exogenous consumption of erythritol. So this positive association between plasma erythritol and obesity and cardiometabolic disease, or only indicates that high blood levels of erythritol are indeed associated with those events, but it doesn't mean that the erythritol came from your diet or came from those, say, health foods or energy drinks that you were consuming. So elevated blood erythritol is, in many cases a mere marker of excess intake of caloric sugars. And what's kind of shocking and somewhat paradoxical is that many people who read these news headlines might quit consuming foods that are low in sugar or low in glucose and fructose, eliminate dietary erythritol from their diets, and actually cause an increase in endogenous production of erythritol due to excess sugar consumption and this dysregulated pentose phosphate pathway that can be triggered by a diet that's rich in sugars. So that's the first very concerning part of this study, is it doesn't differentiate between exogenous and endogenous erythritol consumption. Now, there are, in addition to that, many benefits that have been looked at when it comes to erythritol, including its antioxidant potential improved what's called flow mediated dilation, which can lower blood pressure and improve cardiovascular health. It is non glycemic, it's non caloric, meaning the majority of erythritol consumed is excluded, secreted in your urine, unmetabolized, it has no impact on blood lipids. It doesn't seem to cause GI distress in most people unless they have something like small intestine bacterial overgrowth. And it has a beneficial effect on oral health. Namely, it can reduce plaque and reduce the pathogenic oral bacteria that can also be associated, again, paradoxically, with cardiovascular disease. So the issue here is that they simply didn't differentiate between the exogenous and the endogenous erythritol consumption. And thus the only thing that you could say about this study is it might justify the need for a future study that actually looks at consumption of foods that are rich in erythritol, or consumption of products or supplements that are rich in erythritol, or consumption of erythritol itself and the long term impact on cardiovascular disease risk. At this point, I highly suspect that what they're seeing in this study is high levels of blood erythritol induced by high starch and high sugar, or high glucose and fructose intake, and not the actual consumption of low sugar or low calorie foods that have erythritol added to them. So you don't need to throw all your erythritol out into the trash or give it to your enemies to cause them to drop dead of a heart attack. You instead simply need to pay attention to the research. I do recommend that you pay attention to an upcoming podcast I have on heart health and cardiovascular disease in general with the folks at at Fountain Life, a place where I went through a pretty rigorous cardiovascular disease testing protocol. I would also recommend you go back and listen to the previous podcast I did, which you can find@BenGreenfieldLife.com HeartHealth that's BenGreenfieldLife.com HeartHealth in which I visited a facility in California and did every test that I think a guy in their middle age or a woman arguably in their middle age could do to see what the status of their ticker is, meaning we looked at nitric oxide production, we looked at EKG scores, we looked at plaque scores, we did a calcium scan, we did a whole battery of tests, even like an ultrasound electrocardiogram to look at everything that's going on in the heart. And that would be a good one for you to listen to if you want to go beyond just a basic blood panel of lipids, for example, to assess cardiovascular disease risk. So hopefully that kind of opens your eyes just a little bit more to this idea that the erythritol study is something that needs a lot more investigation before we blame erythritol for heart disease. So I'll link to that study in the shownotes in case you want to take a gander at it@bengreenfieldlife.com 455 the next thing I wanted to mention was a very interesting article written by a friend of mine, Brady Homer. He actually checked out some of the research on whether you should do cardio before weights or weights before cardio. And this is something that I think a lot of people get confused about. This so called interference effect of training or the fact that sometimes your endurance adaptations might be inhibited by strength training or vice versa, your strength adaptations might be inhibited by endurance training. So what he looked at was basically the idea of training sequence and whether an optimal training sequence actually exists. Because there was a recent article that came out in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research on this so called interference effect. So I'll explain this to you. There's two terms that you need to be familiar with, concurrent training and interference effect. So concurrent training, performing strength and endurance training within the same workout or within the same workout program is known as concurrent training. And many people who want to engage in more effective or more time hacked or time efficient training, including Myself will often combine endurance protocols with strength protocols. Like my workout this morning, for example, I had a single set to failure for chest press, deadlift, squat, shoulder press, row and pull down. And in between each of those sets, I was doing two minutes on the airdyne bike and then one set of like a, like a core type of plank esque activity. And that's a perfect example of concurrent training. Now the other term that you need to be familiar with is what's called the interference effect. And there's a long standing debate in exercise physiology about the existence of this so called interference effect. So the interference effect is the idea that endurance training might inhibit or impair the adaptations to strength training, or that strength training might inhibit or repair the adaptations to endurance training. For example, could cardio actually kill your strength training gains or inhibit hypertrophy? The impact of endurance on strength is a pretty well investigated area. What happens is endurance training generally improves your aerobic capacity, your red blood cell volume, your mitochondrial density and number, and the activity of all the aerobic or what are called oxidative enzymes. But it can reduce muscle size or reduce muscle cross sectional area, which of course is readily apparent if you look at some say the body morphology of a marathoner versus a sprinter. Now strength training in contrast, that increases the level of glycolytic enzymes which are responsible for burning more sugar instead of fat to generate ATP. Strength training also recruits more muscle fibers than endurance training. It increases muscle strength and muscle cross sectional area. It doesn't do a whole lot for mitochondrial capacity or for blood vascularization or capillary development. But there are definite benefits, of course, that cannot be denied to strength training. Now the thing is that what I've just described to you dictates that the molecular pathways that mediate the adaptations to endurance versus strength training are in competition. So some people have hypothesized, rightly so, that performing both strength and endurance training at the same time or during the same workout or in the same workout program would require sacrificing the adaptations to strength. So there was a recent meta analysis that was done and this appeared in the journal Sports Medicine. And what this recent meta analysis suggested was that concurrent endurance and strength training actually does not compromise muscle hypertrophy or maximal strength development. Then what Brady gets into in his article, which I'll link to@BenGreenfieldLife.com 455, is does the order matter? So if you can increase aerobic fitness and strength by doing both endurance and strength in the same workout, does the order matter? Like Cardio before weights or weights before cardio. Well, there was another recent meta analysis that was published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology, which actually gives us the answer. So what they looked at was 19 studies, and each of those studies looked at the training sequence, meaning endurance followed by strength or strength followed by endurance. And they looked at the impact on VO2 max or maximal oxygen uptake and strength. Now, some of the studies looked at, or actually all the studies looked at both orders of training, right? Endurance training before strength training or strength training before endurance training, typically in people who are training two to three times per week. Now, first of all, when it comes to your maximum oxygen capacity, what's called your VO2 Max, which is arguably a pretty good indicator not only of overall aerobic fitness, but also of longevity, right? There are certain things associated with longevity. Grip strength would be one, walking speed would be another. The ability to get up and get down from the ground using as few limbs as possible would be another. Well, VO2 max is also pretty well correlated with overall longevity or decreased risk of mortality. So what they found in this meta analysis was that for strength, particularly lower body strength, which is what they look at a lot in these studies, the training sequence actually matters. Performing strength before endurance is superior for increasing lower body strength. That was especially notable in older participants or female participants. But in general, amongst most participants, performing strength before endurance is superior for increasing lower body strength. So if your goal is to maximize strength, then you should not exhaust yourself with cardio beforehand. Like if you're doing Tabata sets, high intensity interval training, you know, steady straight training, whatever, you should save your cardio for after your strength or in a different workout than your strength if your goal is to maximize strength development. Now, if your goal is Instead to improve VO2 max or aerobic fitness, it doesn't appear that the order of the training matters at all. Cardio before strength or strength before cardio. Now, there are a few things that Brady brings up in this article that you should pay attention to. One is residual fatigue, meaning that if you're doing high load strength training before your endurance training, then that can leave you so fatigued that your performance and your adaptations might suffer. So you might not get as good an aerobic response if you're going super high load with the strength training. Conversely, like a long run or a long bike ride, for example, might also leave you too tired to complete a strength training session afterwards, in which case it's best to separate your strength and endurance training. Based on the research by right around three hours. And in that case, fatigue won't be a limiting factor, especially if you are fueling after your workout. And again, I'm not one of those guys who's into like dropping your bar as soon as you you finish a set at the gym and going straight into your post workout nutrition and hunting down desperately the closest whey protein and fructose infused shake you can find instead for most people, just by eating ad libitum, you know, based on your appetite, your body's completely ready for the next workout within 24 hours. The only case in which you really need to prioritize post workout nutrition is if you're trying to get swole and put on as much muscle as possible, or if you're going to work out again within the next eight hours. But in most cases the post workout nutrition window is a little bit too emphasized. That's really the main thing to understand is that if there is an interference effect, it's likely very small when it comes to endurance versus strength training. And overall, what you should remember and this is a big takeaway if you want to maximize strength development, do strength before cardio. If you want to maximize aerobic fitness, then it doesn't really seem to matter. And overall you aren't hurting yourself by combining strength and cardio in the same session. So I get that question a lot and hopefully that clears things up for you. Okay, so another interesting article that I came across that I thought was super helpful because this gets confusing to a lot of people is the idea of olive oil. And there's two different types of olive oil that I think confuse some people. Extra virgin olive oil versus regular olive oil. So let's get into this extra virgin olive oil or evoo, let's call it evoo so that I'm not having to use too many syllables in today's podcast. So evoo. Evoo is basically the creme de la creme of olive oils. It's got very high nutritional value, so it's made without heat or chemicals that are typically used to produce the other cooking oils, which is why it isn't typically lumped into the same deleterious category, say like canola oil or many forms of like safflower oil or sunflower oil. EVOO is simply made by crushing up olives into a mash and then spinning or kneading the mixture to separate out the oil. So it's often labeled as cold pressed to signify that it's produced at low heat. So in general, the healthiest oils are minimally processed and and EVOO definitely fits that bill. It also contains a high amount of polyphenols, which are naturally occurring phytochemicals that have antioxidant, anti inflammatories and even prebiotic properties, meaning it can, it can feed the good bacteria in your gut. It's got vitamin E, it's got vitamin K, and in addition to that, a lot of very heart healthy monounsaturated fats, including oleic acid, which is also one of the fats that are used to comprise the myelin sheaths in your neural tissue along with dha. So I mean, extra virgin olive oil and fish or fish oil are two of the best things to consume for a healthy brain. In addition, they found that evoo has very, very good cardiovascular benefits and anti carcinogenic benefits. So evoo is also, though, very strong in flavor. As a matter of fact, when I interviewed TJ Robinson, I interviewed him recently about vinegar. That was a fantastic podcast. I'll link to that in the show notes. But I've also interviewed him a couple of times about olive oil. And he says the best test of a good olive oil is whether you cough when you consume it. And that is because a good olive oil is very high in what's called oleocanthal. It's kind of like this peppery flavor that makes you cough when that oil hits the back of your throat. And that can be the sign of an olive oil that's very high in these antioxidants and polyphenolic compounds. EVOO also has, and this is contrary to popular belief amongst many, it has a pretty decent smoke point, meaning it can handle somewhat high heats up to about 350 degrees Fahrenheit. So if you're, if you're cooking with EVOO, you definitely want to avoid heating it to the point where you see the pan smoking. But it can handle a lot of baking and, you know, a little bit of broiling and some of the stovetop cooking without it getting degraded that much. So it's got a slightly lower smoke point than regular olive oil, but all of the powerful polyphenols and antioxidants and extra virgin olive oil can actually help to protect it during the heating process if you're using it during cooking. But I would not actually exceed about 350 degrees or so if you're using extra virgin olive oil. Now, regular olive oil is different. So regular olive oil or olive oil isn't marked as extra virgin olive oil and is often just marked as pure olive oil. That's a mix of unrefined Virgin olive oil made by pressing the mashed olives a second time, and then olive oil that's slightly more refined with heat and chemicals. Now, olive oil has a lower phytochemical content compared to extra virgin olive oil, but it's still very high in oleic acids, very high in monounsaturated fats, and has also been studied to be an everyday cooking oil that's actually pretty heart healthy. Now, as a guy who's working on a cookbook right now and who's done another cookbook, I can tell you that the one thing I don't like about extra virgin olive oil is that it has a very strong flavor that drastically affects the flavor profile of whatever meal that you're preparing with it. In addition to that, olive oil, not extra virgin olive oil, holds up better at higher temperatures, meaning you can go all the way up to 470 degrees before you reach the smoke point of a lot of olive oil. So it has a much higher smoke point, even though it's slightly lower in polyphenols compared to extra virgin olive oil. The fact that it has a higher smoke point and it doesn't drastically affect the flavor of what you're cooking, if you're into the flavor profile, dictates that having regular olive oil on hand is also a good idea. It's not going to be something you would lump into the same category as canola oil, etc. Although, and TJ Robinson and I get into this when I interviewed him, a lot of olive oil is not actually pure olive oil. It's often cut with canola oil. Sometimes it's stored in plastic. Sometimes the container that is stored in is clear, allowing it to get exposed to light and heat. So you do need to be careful. You still want in a glass, slightly dark or translucent bottle. The takeaway here is that if you're cooking and you want to use olive oil, you want all the heart benefits of olive oil, but you don't want the intense flavor of extra virgin olive oil or you're cooking at above 350 degrees. You should go for pure olive oil or, and I think this is a good one to have on hand because it has a lot of the same benefits, but I think it's a little bit less refined avocado oil. So if you have in your pantry avocado oil for the slightly higher temperatures and then extra virgin olive oil for the slightly lower temperatures, you've got two of the best oils around and you don't have to mess around with all the texture issues and the flavor issues of like a coconut oil or a macadamia nut oil. Both of those are good oils, but they've got different flavor profiles. Now the other cool thing is that extra virgin olive oil. Another good reason to have it on hand is that it's amazing for skin, for moisturizing, and for topical personal care product use. Matter of fact, when I travel a lot of times I'm lazy and I don't take a lot of my personal care products on the road with me. But when I get to a hotel, if it's a hotel with a restaurant, I'll often call down to the restaurant and ask them if I could have some extra virgin olive oil. And I'll use that as my moisturizer. I'll put a little bit in my hair, I'll smear it on my skin, and sometimes I'll, I'll tell, I don't think it's a little white lie. It's technically true. I tell them that I have some allergic issues with the lotion that's in the bathroom, so I would like extra virgin olive oil. If you categorize allergic as me simply not wanting to smear frankenfuels on my body, that's technically the truth. So anyways, I thought it was a really interesting article and I've kind of scratched the surface of what this article gets into when it comes to olive oil versus extra virgin olive oil. But you can, you can check out the article@bengreenfieldlife.com.
It was a good one that appeared on the website mindbodygreen. This podcast is brought to you by a very intelligently formulated mineral. It's called Elementi. It's spelled element, like L, M, N, the letter t. And you can go to drinklmnt.com BenGreenfield to check it out and to get a free gift when you pick up these minerals. But the fact is a lot of people walk around with chronic electrolytes deficiencies and don't realize a you lose a ton of sodium, especially if you're doing like sauna or an athlete. Up to seven grams a day. That's difficult to replace with say like salting your food. You almost have to salt it to the point where it becomes kind of puke factory. But when you taste these tasty, tasty electrolytes, citrus flavor, watermelon flavor, even got like a chocolate flavor. They got like a kind of like a hot cayenne peppery flavor. They're amazing. I even mix them with cocktails sometimes or like these keto Drinks I've been having, they're so, so versatile. On an airplane, just take a plain bottle of water when you're kind of thinking, gosh, should I get one of those sugary ginger ales or Cokes or whatever? No, just drink water, put an LMNT in it. You feel great when you fly too, so you get that. They're designed by my friend Rob Wolf, who's a real health leader, real smart guy, smart formulator. He's been using them for a while. He's a biochemist, New York Times bestselling author and Navy Seal resilience committee member. And he works with a lot of really, really smart folks and US Olympians, NFL, NBA, NHL athletes, the special forces, a bunch of tech leaders. This stuff is big with the Twitter crowd, like Dick Costello and a whole bunch of people. Using lmnt, you can even make a dynamite no sugar margarita with their citrus salt flavor. So there's that too. Not that I endorse high amounts of tequila, but I'm just saying. So here's how you get a free gift, like I mentioned. Drinklmnt.com BenGreenfield that's Drinklmnt.com BenGenfield and you can try this stuff for yourself. Make your margaritas, use them on the plane. Use them when you get up in the morning in a big glass of water. They're just absolutely versatile and amazing. So check them out. Drink lmnt.
So here's the deal. You've probably heard of earthing or grounding, and clinical research has shown that this stuff works. Getting in touch with the planet. The problem is we can't all walk outside in our bare feet like dirty hippies. Maybe you work indoors and you have difficulty getting access to the earth or the ground. To earth or ground. And so you're missing out on all the electrons you absorb when touching the planet. Those electrons neutralize free radical damage. They squelch inflammation. They restore healthy endocrine function. They enhance cellular gating and circulation, which improves the cellular uptake of nutrients and oxygen and hormones and maximizes the removal of cellular waste. The list goes on and on. But what this company, ultimately Longevity, has done is they've created all these mats. Mats for your mattress, for your pillow, blankets, things you can stand while you're at your desk. They originally designed them for sleeping, but they can be used anywhere you can travel with these ground therapy mats, including the ability to be able to put them on your bed while you're sleeping at, say, like, a hotel. If you want to be grounded, give you six to eight hours of uninterrupted grounding and more time means more beneficial electrons means greater results. It's a full body grounding process which maximizes the electron transfer way beyond what you get from just your feet. So you get healing electrons at the time when your body does most of its healing and repair if you're using the sleep mat, which means during the entire night of sleep. So over 20 peer reviewed research studies have been published on the health effects of grounding. We're talking inflammation, sleep pain, stiffness, circulation, wound healing, hrv, vagal tone, serum electrolytes, thyroid function, blood viscosity, blood glucose, even things like depression and anxiety and tiredness and fatigue and mood are all affected by grounding. Ultimate Longevity is the place to go for grounding products. Here's the URL to visit for an exclusive offer. Ultimatelongevity.com Ben that's where you can get grounding mats for your mattress, your pillow, your blankets, whole bunch of valuable grounding and earthing tools to help you bring down inflammation, jumpstart healing, increase energy. So this is how you can biohack your relationship with the planet Earth. Ultimatelongevity.com Ben is where you want to go.
I'm often asked what is my go to Desert island supplement? If I could take nothing else. Well, it's essential amino acids. I've been using them for almost a decade now, so you probably know that the human body is mostly water. What you probably don't know is that everything else in your body is 50% amino acids. They're the building blocks of life, essential for health, fitness. They naturally boost energy, they build lean muscle, they enhance athletic recovery, they stave off the appetite even if you're eating a low calorie diet or you're fasting. They're fantastic for pre workout, for during the workout, for post workout. And the essential amino acids that I use are backed by over 20 years of clinical research. They're in perfect ratios. They essentially match what your body needs and what the muscle composition of amino acids actually is, which a lot of other amino acids do not do, especially branched chain amino acids, but many other essential amino acids as well. So this is the stuff by Kion Kion Aminos have the highest quality ingredients, no fillers, no junk, rigorous quality testing. And they taste all amazing with flavors like lime berry, watermelon, probably my favorite mango. They're amazing. You just put a little bit in water, you can add them to smoothies. They are one of the top supplements that my wife and I take each day and again. It's been a staple of my diet for years and years and I swear by this stuff. I've had friends start to take these and literally report that they feel like they're on some kind of a steroid. Now there's no steroids in the kion aminos, of course, but it is amazing how you feel when you step up your intake of essential amino acids and I'm shocked that more people don't know this secret. So kion aminos, you can get 20% off monthly deliveries, 10% on one time purchases, and it's very simple. You go to getkion.com Ben get K-I-O-N G-E-T-K-I-O-N.com Ben to get my fundamental supplement for fitness, recovery, appetite and much, much more kion aminos. Check them out. You got to get on the essential amino acids bandwagon. You will be absolutely shocked at how you feel on these things. So getkion.com Ben another very interesting compound that I want to get into before we turn to a few live questions with Q and A from Twitter spaces, is astaxanthin. So astaxanthin is often found in many oil like compounds. As a matter of fact, the fish oil that we do at Kion, we use astaxanthin and also rosemary oil as two of our protective compounds to keep the fish oil from degrading or becoming rancid. Now this recent study that I looked at, it really caught my eye because so many people are spending a long period of time looking at computers or looking at screens. And I'd seen some indications in the past that astaxanthin can have a neuroprotective impact on the eyes. But this recent study looked at a diet containing astaxanthin, not necessarily taking astaxanthin supplements, but just a diet that was rich in astaxanthin. And they found that if you get around 9 milligrams of astaxanthin a day, that it has a significant impact on visual acuity and the ability of the eyes to be able to hold up during work induced visual stress, namely looking at computers and looking at screens. So if you look at the average astaxanthin supplement, typically it's around 1-2mg. So you'd have to take more than what you'd find in a lot of astaxanthin supplements. But if you're spending a long period of time looking at screens, it actually appears that athiaxanthin could be a pretty good addition to your supplementation protocol. Now, furthermore, when I interviewed Sandra Kaufman, who wrote this fantastic book about anti aging, in which he rank categorize some of the more powerful and proven anti aging compounds out there, astaxanthin was near the top of the list. So there's a lot of other benefits to consuming astaxanthin. And for those of you who don't know what it is, it's basically a marine compound. It's produced mainly by microorganisms like bacteria and microalgae and yeast. And you'll find it in salmon, trout, shrimp, lobster, fish eggs, or are really high in it, anything that has like this reddish orange hue, unless it's farmed salmon that's been dyed. Usually that's due to the high astaxanthin presence in these fishy marine type of compounds. Now, oxidative damage and neuroinflammation are related to a pathogenesis of a wide variety of neurogenitor disease, including eye health. And what they found, not only in this most recent study, but in previous studies, is that astaxanthin is one of the most powerful ways to decrease the reactive oxygen species that are released in neuronal cells and that can cause things like mitochondrial insults, cell membrane damage and neuronal cell death. So there's a lot going for astaxanthin as far as its anti inflammatory and antioxidant potential. But for people who are working and using screens, I think that consumption of astaxanthin, especially getting up to the range of around 9 milligrams per day, based on what I saw in this recent study, is a pretty good idea. So it's not only great for longevity, but it's also really, really great for the eyes. There's a lot of other studies on astaxanthin for protecting against Parkinson's disease, neurodegeneration, als, cerebral ischemia, tbi, concussion issues. So growing body of evidence about the impact of astaxanthin on neuronal health. And I think that a diet rich in some of these dark reddish orange fish is a really good idea. And then I think throwing a little bit of extra astaxanthin on top of that is also a pretty good idea. So chalk one up to astaxanthin, chalk one up to extra virgin olive oil, and then don't throw out your erythritol. So those are most of the news flashes that I wanted to cover today. And again, you can check out more information if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com 455. So that all being said, now we're going to have some fun and I'm going to take some live questions from our fantastic audience on Twitter. So if you are on Twitter right now, simply raise your hand and I'll take you live and we'll take your question and I'll reply to it. So we got mesen, mesenchymal stem cells. I'm going to add you as a speaker. Go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah, so I'm not sure if everyone in the audience knows what mesenchymal stem cells are, but I first. So mesenchymal stem cells, I'm going to say MSCS for short. So I first learned about MSCS when Joe Rogan interviewed Mel Gibson back in 2018. Mel Gibson apparently took his 92 year old father down to Panama where it's legal to get injected with umbilical cord. MSCs, umbilical cord, mesenchymal stem cells that they take the MSCs from the umbilical cord and apparently, you know, Mel Gibson says his father just came back to life and then his father lived to the age of 101. And I think that the stem cells are probably the reason he did not die at 92. So that's how I first learned about MSCs. And so I've been obsessed ever since. I think that MSCs and exosomes are going to revolutionize healthcare. What's your opinion on that? Basically? Do you think this stuff is like super powerful?
Yeah, I think that MSCs and typically when you look at stem cells or stem cell sources that are higher in MSCs or stem cell sources that are perhaps lower in MSCs but combined with exosomes have great capacity for self renewal. You know, they maintain a high amount of what's called multipotency and they differentiate into other cells in a pretty robust manner. Stem cell sources that are really high in MSCs seem to have a really good impact on immune cells. There appears to be some research on suppression of tumor growth. They help to produce a lot of anti inflammatory and immunomodulatory immunomodulatory compounds like nitric oxide, prostaglandin, interleukins, et cetera. And they might even produce antimicrobial peptides which could allow them to have pretty good antimicrobial or antibacterial activity. You know, it's one of those things where I think that you can get a lot of the benefits of MSCs. By combining STEM cell sources that might be slightly lower in MSCs with exosomes, which are like cell signal molecules that can allow the stem cells to be a little bit more potent. But the fact that they can differentiate into bone cells, into cartilage cells, into muscle cells, into fat cells, and the fact that bone marrow, which is where humans typically store their MSCs, tend to deplete in their MSC volume or concentration with age and after certain injuries and disease, dictates that from an anti aging standpoint, if you are increasing your bioavailable pool of MSCs on a regular basis with something like a stem cell injection from a compound rich in MSCs. And bone marrow is kind of like the original source of MSCs, it's the most frequently utilized source. It can be a good anti aging play. For example, I go down to Dr. Harry Adelson's clinic and Park City, Utah. I've been doing this about every five years and I just do a full body stem cell treatment that includes getting bone marrow extracted from my hips, like this bone marrow soup combined with exosomes and now what are called V cells injected into my body. And I think it's one of the best ways to increase longevity and one of the best anti aging strategies that's out there. So, yeah, I'm a huge fan of bone marrow derived MSCs. In particular, you can also get some MSCs in amniotic fluid, umbilical cord tissue, you know, the Wharton's jelly and the umbilical cord blood. Those are also pretty decent sources of MSCs. Interestingly, I don't think I've released the interview yet, but I interviewed a guy named Adeel Khan and he talks about how if you're using MSC rich compounds for something like healing a joint, you, you still have to lay down a matrix on which those MSCs can build or grow. And I think what he recommended in that interview, which I'll release soon, was like a hyaluronic acid matrix. And I know some doctors will also use a placental matrix for this. So sometimes just injecting the MSCs by themselves into a joint or even just doing like a full body MSC infusion I think is not enough. Like typically I'd combine with exosomes or combine them with some type of matrix on which they can be laid down in the joint. But yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of mscs. And obviously since your handle on Twitter is mesenchymal stem cells, I assume you are too. But yeah, it's a great question. I'M a fan of them. I'm gonna bring Ben Williamson. Ben Williamson, unmute yourself. You can go ahead and ask your question, Ben.
Hey, thanks for taking my eye question, Ben. So for context, I stopped drinking a couple years ago and I just, just had a birthday and one of the things I do at my birthday is go around the table and do start, stop, continue with my friends from their perspective. And one of my friends who's an avid listener of yours was saying, you know, the gains you've gotten since stopping drinking or that I've experienced are particularly been around memory and access to memory in terms of long term access to memories that I can recall in a way that I would never be able to, you know, when I was consuming alcohol, even infrequently. But he prompted me to say you should take a look at different doing a 30 day fast to eliminate acute talks or accumulated toxins and just other unhealthy aspects of our daily living. And I wanted to ask you if you were going to recommend a 30 day program, be it, you know, like Whole 30 or you know, carnivore diet, something just to kind of show what's possible, do a 30 day biohacking experiment. What one would you recommend? Mid-40s, male.
It's an interesting question and brings up kind of a compelling topic around alcohol in general and that is its effect on memory. I mean we hear about THC and its impact on the production of reactive oxygen species and mitochondrial damage, particularly neural tissue. And I think that's, that's one of the impacts that THC can have on memory. I don't think anybody's going to deny the fact that recall and particularly short term memory is impacted by cannabis, particularly THC rich cannabis. But alcohol can have a similar impact on frontal lobe function and it can actually impair what are called frontal lobe mediated tasks and that can impair memory. Particularly long term and chronic alcohol consumption seems to disrupt the ability to form new long term memories and can impact the recall of long term memories or the ability to keep new information active in short term memory. Now a lot of times what these studies are looking at are kind of like higher amounts of alcohol consumption. That's one thing that I wish would be broken out more in research is the difference, difference between an average of five drinks a week and those five drinks all occurring on a Saturday evening versus say five drinks a week and those five drinks being spread out over you know, like a glass of organic wine with dinner each night. And some of the epidemiological data behind alcohol Consumption and longevity. If you actually break it out and look at it, it's not, you know, benders on the weekend. It's a very small amount of alcohol consumed on a daily basis. But sometimes, sometimes all the alcohol consumption in terms of the average number of drinks per week kind of gets all thrown into the same bucket. So the volume that you consume at any given time is important. But alcohol induced amnesia is definitely a thing. Anybody who's blacked out knows that. But even slightly higher amount chronic consumption of alcohol can impair the hippocampus. Now I think that that lays out a pretty good case for the, for not only modulating your alcohol consumption, but also considering some of these alcohol alternatives. Like, I have a podcast coming out soon on the use of ketones, particularly 1,3 butanediol. There's a company called Ketone Aid that's making these ketone alcoholic drinks like Pina Colada and Moscow Mule and gin and tonic and champagne. They even have a beer. And they give you a lot of the socially lubricating, relaxing, inhibitory neurotransmitter effects of alcohol without a lot of the side effects. And I've been using those quite a bit. I honestly am having a glass of wine maybe a couple nights a week now and have shifted to ketones, primarily in the evenings. I'll just take a can of ketones and pour that over ice, squeeze a little bit of lemon. Sometimes I'll put some electrolytes in there, like element or protect electrolytes, and make myself a little homemade ketone cocktail. And the cool thing also is it seems to satiate the appetite versus alcohol, which sometimes seems to make you want to eat a little bit. So anyways though, if you were going to do a, like a full body cleanup, like a detox protocol, a couple of things to think about. The first is I am a bigger fan of like long term chronic detoxification protocols spread throughout the entire year that keep you from having to do one big detox in say like January. And what I mean by that is, for example, you know, I have Wednesday detox days where every Wednesday I do activated charcoal or some kind of a binder. I use the, the quicksilver charcoal binder. And then I do a coffee enema, you know, usually about a half hour after the binder. And then I go do a deep sweat in the infrared sauna. And that's just like once a week that I get this full body cleanse. And I've been doing that for a few years. And I used to do like that whole like, you know, some kind of a big January detox fast type of event. And I really have found that, you know, when I test things like metal levels, toxin levels, et cetera, that I seem to be pretty clean when it comes to the need for detoxification. So that's one thing to think about. But let's say that you do need to do like a longer term fast or longer term detox. There's a lot of different options out there. Like there's the vegetable juice fast, there's a bone broth fast, there's like the elemental diet where you're just drinking liquid shakes. But I think that because it's a culture that has used body cleansing and fasting for such a long period of time, that Ayurvedic medicine and ayurvedic diets seem to work really well for a lot of people for cleansing. A while ago I interviewed a guy named Steven Cabral about this thing called Panchakarma. And Panchakarma is this pretty intense specialized diet that includes basically the consumption of a whole bunch of different things like ghee, olive oil, lemon juice, etc. And I mean, it's pretty intense. And usually that's only about five to seven days or so. But for example, on the first few days you're drinking warm ghee in the morning and sometimes adding a little bit of salt to that and then another ayurvedic detoxification compound that's a little bit of a laxative as well, called triphala T R I P H A L A And then for the next few days you're eating what's called kitchari. And kitchari, you can look it up, but it's basically a blend of lentils and bean sprouts and pretty easy to make. And that's what you, what you eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Although you're also adding in certain teas that are specific to your dosha, meaning you would get your dosha tested whether you're vata or pitta or kapha, you know, like a vada, you'd be drinking like ginger and cumin and coriander. For pitta, you'd be drinking cumin and coriander and fennel. For kapha, it's more ginger and cinnamon and clove. There's some different types of massages that are included, either self influence inflicted massage or going to a massage therapist who specializes in like ayurvedic detoxification massage. Then as you get close to the end of the panchakarma a lot of times you're doing like a high amount of olive oil, ghee and lemon juice to further cleanse the liver and the gallbladder. And some of the more intense forms of panchakarma even include things like high amounts of milk consumption followed by like vomiting or throwing up. And I think that's a little bit intense. I think it's a little much. But the idea of an Ayurvedic cleansing or detoxification protocol I think is really good. And even though it's not 30 days long, there's a guy in Boulder, Colorado, Dr. John Douillard, who has what's called a Colorado cleanse. It's a 14 day long. It's called a two week Colorado cleanse. I've had a lot of people do that one. I've done it a couple of times. And I mean, it clean cleans you out as clean as a whistle. And it's all based on this Ayurvedic approach. And when you do something like that and combine it with trampolining or vibration or rebounding, lymphatic massage, deep sweats in the sauna, some form of an enema, like a coffee enema, you can clean yourself up pretty well. So I think that Ayurveda would be the way to go if you want a pretty good done for you cleanse. And of course, there are other options like the bone broth cleanse, the vegetable fast, the fasting mimicking diet and elemental diet. They're all going to have a similar effect in terms of cellular autophagy and relieving stress on the gut and allowing for some detoxification to occur. But I think top of the totem pole would be an Ayurvedic cleansing or rejuvenation protocol. And that poncha karma one would be one to look into along with Dr. John Douyard's Colorado Cleanse. So that answers your question, Ben.
Yeah, it does answer my question. Thank you.
All right, cool, cool. We got time for one more question. We got another person who's interested in asking a question. You can go ahead and raise your hand and come on up. Okay, Troy, Troy, I'm going to add you as a speaker. All right, Troy, go ahead and ask your question.
Okay, Ben, you're a legend. I've been following you for the past three years. I just have a quick question. My partner has been dealing with Hashimoto's autoimmune disease for pretty much her whole life now. We've kind of looked up some different protocols for her but what would you say that the best, that the best diet is for someone that's dealing with Hashimoto's?
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Hashimoto's, basically it is a thyroid issue. And it can actually be a pretty significant issue because if you leave it untreated, you can, you can do a lot of damage to the thyroid. So it's also called chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis, and it's an autoimmune disorder. Your immune system produces antibodies. Those attack your body's own healthy tissue, and in this case particularly, they attack the thyroid tissue. And if you look at people who have hypothyroidism or low thyroid activity, there's some estimates that like 90% of that can be related to Hashimoto's disease. And, and it's not just the thyroid gland that's the problem. It's the entire immune system. It's an overreaction. The entire immune system. So your thyroid gland produces T4 and T3. And the production of T4 and T3 depends on the communication between the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. So normally your pituitary gland is releasing thyroid stimulating hormone, and that is the signal to your thyroid glands to produce T4 and T3. But with Hashimoto's, that doesn't happen because of the autoimmune issues and the fact that the thyroid gland is basically under attack by antibodies. And if you were to get like a, like a thyroid panel or a thyroid test and find that you, you had, say, like low T3, low T4, high TSH, et cetera, and you didn't see elevated thyroid antibodies, that would be an indication that Hashimoto's might not be the reason that you're having hypothyroid issues. In that case, it might be you aren't eating enough carbohydrates or enough calories, or your diet isn't rich enough in things like selenium and iodine, or perhaps you have a very, very high fluoride intake, or you're getting exposed to a lot of chlorine and other things that can cause some thyroid issues. But typically, if thyroid antibodies are elevated, it's a pretty good sign that this is autoimmune related. And you see like fatigue, depression, anxiety, you know, muscle aches, stiffness, swelling, almost all the things that you'd expect to see with, with the body kind of like slowing down, because thyroid is almost like the gas pedal for the body. And so if you step back and look at it. Well, what you'd want to do is actually decrease the intake or the exposure to compounds that could be causing the production of these antibodies. The main thing would be immune reacting foods. So some of the biggest culprits when it comes to hypothyroidism, one would be gluten. And a lot of people say, well it's not the gluten, it's the glyphosate on the grains. But in this case with, with Hashimoto's, gluten can be a big issue. In addition to that, just grain foods in general, especially grains that haven't been soaked, sprouted, fermented, et cetera, that can also aggravate the issue even more just because a lot of those also have compounds that can trigger this immune reaction. Vegetable oils, refined oils like safflower oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, corn oil, etc. Those can also be inflammatory and can trigger that immune reaction. If you look at a paleo autoimmune diet or a more intense autoimmune diet, you're also eliminating nightshades, seeds, nuts, most dairy products and a lot of soy. But for Hashimoto's, the like top of the totem pole would be gluten and grains. As far as what to avoid now, at the same time that you're avoiding those, you want to consume foods or compounds that help to support the thyroid. I'm a big fan of thyroid glandulars like desiccated thyroid glandulars like Thyro Gold is one product. Another one would be ancestral supplements. They have a full spectrum thyroid that includes not just what you get from Synthroid, which would be something like T3, but a full spectrum T1, T2, T3 and T4. So some type of thyroid glandular consumption I think is a good idea. And again, I'm not doctor, I don't want you to misconstrue this as medical advice advice, but these are just some things that I think are smart to think about if you're dealing with Hashimoto's. So in addition to thyroid supporting compounds like desiccated thyroid and eliminating gluten and grains, and if you really want to go all out, soy, nightshade seeds, nuts, most dairy, I believe those are the biggies. You'd also want to consume things that help to balance thyroid function. One would be fish rich in omega 3 fatty acids. I'm a big fan of like the collar of the fish. I'm a big fan of some of these. These like Aura King salmon is amazingly high in dha, it's called like the Wagyu of the sea. That's one of the best high omega 3 fatty acid fish. There are other fish out there, but like good clean, preferably wild caught fish or if fish is farmed, it's been fed a healthy diet. I like this company called Seatopia for stuff like that. I, I get sashimi grade fish sent to my house from Seatopia a couple of times a month and it's amazing clean fish, very high. In both EPA and dha you can buy like seaweed powders that you can use as a seasoning for food. It's like kemp, dulce, etc. Those are natural sources of iodine and secondarily selenium. Dr. Thomas Cowan, Dr. Thomas Cowan's vegetable powders. They have one that's a super duper clean seaweed powder that you can literally sprinkle on your foods throughout the day. That's also very supportive for the thyroid. Some research seems to indicate that probiotic rich foods like kimchi, kombucha, natto, which is technically a soy product, but it's fermented, so similar to fermenting and soaking and sprouting grains, it's less of an issue. Sauerkraut, fermented vegetables, those can help to repopulate the gut with good bacteria and help to heal the immune system. Sprouted beans and legumes and sprouted seeds again. Well, you want to avoid most raw consumption of seeds and nuts. Flaxseed, hemp seed, chia seed, a lot of those seeds that are high in omega 3 fats, those can be supportive during an autoimmune flare up or during an issue like Hashimoto's. Bone broth is also something I'm a huge fan of because so many autoimmune issues are linked to damaged gut lining. And if you look at bone broth and the fact that you're getting collagen, different amino acids like proline and glycine that are supportive for healing the gut. Nutrients that are good for the gut like calcium and magnesium and phosphorus and silicone. I'm a big fan of bone broth as well. And any of the foods that help to heal the gut, like glutamine, colostrum would be another one. Those would also be a really good idea. There's even a guy I recently interviewed out of Australia named Kyle and he has this thing called gut repair formula. And a lot of times people with immune system issues also have compromised gut. So in addition to supporting the thyroid and eliminating Foods that would cause thyroid damage, doing things that would actively heal the gut. It's also a pretty good idea. A lot of people with thyroid disorders are deficient in vitamin D. So not only sun exposure but also supplementing with a good vitamin D vitamin K blend. Because vitamin K K helps with the vitamin D absorption as does magnesium. That's a pretty good idea as well. Some adaptogenic compounds can help with autoimmune flare ups. Ashwagandha would be a really good example. Rhodiola and Rishi are also really really good as adaptogens. Then Maca would be another. So you can throw adaptogens into the mix as well. And then anytime that the body is dealing with autoimmune issues, typically you see and Dr. Neal Nathan talks about this in his book. I think it's called Toxic or Toxins. I forget the exact name but anyways he talks about cell danger response mode and the sympathetic nervous system response that the body can kind of get stuck in. And the need to do things like pay attention to high EMF environments, like a lot of exposure to WI fi, Bluetooth, et cetera. Light pollution like bright fluorescent LED overhead lights, sound pollution, air pollution, basically climbing, cleaning up the personal environment and paying attention to air, light, water, electricity. I have a whole chapter in my book Boundless about how to kind of clean up the personal environment because that will allow the body to heal if you down regulate a lot of the stressful components that are in the average modern person's environment. So those are the major things that I would think about when it comes to Hashimoto's. But basically you're trying to shut down the immune system flare ups, you're trying to support the thyroid, you're trying to clean up the environment and then you're trying to heal the gut while eliminating a lot of common food triggers. So that's kind of the basic overview as far as. As far as where I'd start. Is that helpful?
Troy, you're the man.
I appreciate you.
Awesome. Well, thanks for the. Thanks for the question. I'm going to put all the show notes over at BenGreenfieldLife.com 455 where you can also ask your questions, give more comments, give more feedback, look at some of the studies that I talked about and dig in a little bit more. If you're listening to the recording afterwards, pay attention on Twitter or you can get notifications for when we bring this thing live on Twitter. I also send out a newsletter every week in which I'll tell you where you can Go to participate in the live podcast and if you enjoy the show, leave a review. Leave a review wherever you're listening to the podcast. That really helps out the rankings, gets the word out and helps to support the show. So that all being said again, BenGreenfieldLife.com 455 is where the shownotes reside and I want to thank everybody for listening in. Have an amazing week. I am coming to London June 16th through the 18th and I'm going to be a part of the health optimization summit over there. And if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com calendar you can check out that event. Fantastic. Kind of like biohacking meets wellness meets massive health technology expo. But while I'm there, I'm gonna be in London with my whole family. We're actually gonna head to Italy afterwards and cycle through Italy. But I decided to put on a very special private intimate VIP event with me while I am in London. It's at this crazy place called Hum2n. Hum2n. Like human except for the two so Hum2n labs. They are a creme de la creme biohacking facility. I mean the best hyperbaric chambers, amazing selection of IVs, super nutrient cocktails, cryotherapy, red light therapy. We're basically going to party and biohack and do a Q and A with me and the fine proprietor of that facility, Dr. E, who's a wealth of knowledge in and of himself at that event. It's Monday, June 19, so it's going to be private networking, live Q and A, great food, great cocktails, mocktails, experiential biohacks, a variety of healthy gourmet foods is just going to be really amazing. You're going to get a swag bag too. Your swag bag includes super nutrient IV cryotherapy, red light therapy and hyperbaric oxygen that's worth £750 alone. Then you got the H2MN supplements. They're going to give you their brain sharpener and their super blend protein. You get a travel voucher to take you to and from the event, meaning using a company called Uno. They will bring you to and from from the event if you have trouble finding it or don't want to drive. So there's a lot more that are going to go into those Sway bag too. But right now I have to tell you, this thing is going to fill up fast. It's in London June 19th and you get there by going to BenGreenfieldLife.comHUM2N London. That's BenGreenfieldLife.comHUM2N London and that will allow you to claim your spot at this fantastic event. So BenGreenfieldLife.com HUM2N London.
More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed, and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today. If you liked it, or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. Means a lot.
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