Q&A 459: Ben's Take On The New Fat Loss Drug Craze, Foods That Look Like The Organ They Heal, Lung Health Hacks, Toilet Pooping Tips & Much More.

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life Podcast, my take on the new fat loss drug craze. Foods that look like the organ, they heal, lung, health hacks, toilet pooping tips and much more.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

Well, folks, I'm back. I'm back from my extended tour of Europe. I went over there to speak at the fantastic Health Optimization Summit in London. I managed to escape the UK without having one single serving of fish and chips. Don't know how I pulled that off. And then I went to Italy. I took my family to Italy and we rode our bicycles through Tuscany for 12 days. We rode anywhere from 25 to 40 miles a day. And despite eating cake or torte, I believe they call it torta cake for breakfast, gelato most days for lunch, and many, many servings of pasta for dinner, I think I've lost about seven pounds. People say that they can tolerate the carbohydrates in Europe, sometime the wheat in Italian pasta and bread better than they can in the us. And look, yeah, it's true, they don't breed the wheat over there for high yield crop in the same way that they do in the us. So you see a little bit less gluten concentration, there's a little bit less glyphosate, and rampant herbicide and pesticide usage, which may also make the carb intake a little bit friendlier to the gut. And I think there's something to be said for the fact that many people when they are vacationing in a place like Italy, are also under less stress. And so there's probably a little less sympathetic activation of things like leaky gut syndrome, digestive issues, et cetera. So there's something to be said for all of that. But I think there's also something to be said for the fact that exercise trumps just about any macronutrient ratio, meaning when you're on the back of a bicycle for anywhere from three to five hours a day, followed by copious amounts of walking and the ungodly number of push ups and pull ups and burpees that I put me and my sons through before each day of cycling, the carbs had absolutely no chance. So if you want to go on a tour like that, by the way we structured it as a combined cooking class and cycling tour of Italy, we went through a company called Ciclo Posse, C I C L O P O S S E. I think it might be cicloposse.com or cicloposse.it or something like that. But I'll put a shout down a link to them in the show notes. They got a fantastic organization, they rented us fantastic touring bikes. We had a chase van which was great because about 20 years ago when my wife and I first did this trip as a, as a post honeymoon vacation, we transported all of our stuff on bike panniers and backpacks and literally had like 60 to 70 pound bikes that we hauled up every single village which is on the top of a freaking mountain in Italy. And that, that was laborious. But this time we had a chase van meaning new hotel or egreturissimo or anywhere else that we pulled into for the day. We had a van that was able to drop off our luggage and follow us along and even supply us with extra water along the way or make sure we didn't miss turns. They gave us an app that we loaded up with GPS markers that allowed us to stay on track when we were doing the unguided portions of the trip. And it was fantastic. Highly recommend a cycling tour of somewhere in Europe to add to your bucket list. So that's what I've been up to and I will link by the way to that company. Go to BenGreenfieldLife.com 459 if you want all the show notes for today's episode. But of course in my absence I've been stocking up on some new things that I want to talk to you about, some new news flashes. And so today's episode I got a whole lot for you and I'll also be answering at least one listener Q& A. And if you want to ask a question for the podcast, very simple, just go to BenGreenfieldLife.com and you'll see a little spot right on there where you, you can ask your podcast question. You can also ask anywhere on social media. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, et cetera. I have no clue what my handles are. That's probably bad and does not lend itself well to self promotion, but I'm sure if you google me, you can find me. So that being said, let's jump in. All right, so let's start off with something that Wired magazine did a story on some time ago and it kind of came up on my radar once again is this idea of the so called doctrine of signatures. All this means, and you've no doubt heard about how like walnuts are good for your brain or pomegranates are good for your heart, or avocados Fellows are good for your hairy little testicles or kiwi fruits also. I suppose that would be more relevant to the hairy aspect of gonad supporting foods. You know, this has been an idea bandied about for quite some time now. What Wired magazine wrote an article on was the idea of this theory, the so called doctrine of signatures. For example, some time ago there was something called bloodroot which had a red extract and it was theorized to fix problems with blood. And there was another one called saxifrage which breaks apart rocks as it grows, so that must relieve kidney stones. Right. And then venomous bites would be covered with viper shaped seeds called elkanets which supposedly help for snake bites. And the coiled shoots of this herb called Scorpius could take care of scorpion stings. And you know, it's something that human beings have turned to some time, you know, lending themselves to the intelligence of nature, so to speak. And it's called the doctrine of signatures. As a matter of fact, I interviewed a really interesting guy named Dr. Thomas Cowan. He even talked about this stuff that he called Insulin of the Heart. I'll link to that episode in the show Notes. It was a fantastic episode about heart health. Anybody who cares about their heart, I think should read Human Heart, Cosmic Heart by Thomas Cowan, and also the book Understanding the Heart by Stephen Hussey. I've learned more about the heart that goes just beyond allopathic medicine than any other resource I've ever discovered from those two titles, Understanding the Heart and Human Heart, Cosmic Heart. And so Thomas talked about this stuff called Insulin of the Heart, Strophanthus. And it actually looks like all these dark red vessels springing up from a bush that you find in nature. And it turns out to have a fantastic effect on things like tachycardia and heart electrical issues. But there are some other foods that pop up. Walnuts, of course, walnuts are one that you see talked about as something that could be good for the brain because they look like a brain. Well, it turns out that it's pretty impossible to deny walnuts similarities to the human brain in terms of shape and texture and composition and even the so called bi hemispheric aspect of the shape of the walnut. But walnuts also have a diagram, disproportionately high amount of specific fatty acids like EPA, DHA, omega 3, alpha linoleic acid and choline that the brain requires for optimal health. And studies have actually shown that walnuts do indeed support the development of more than three dozen different neurotransmitters within the brain. They contain a host of neuroprotective compounds like gallic acid and melatonin and folate and polyphenols. Interestingly, many of the brain fueling compounds that walnuts contain are the same type of compounds that I recommend to people who are doing things like microdosing with plant medicine or using a host of these different nootropics or smart drugs out there, because you can think of that as driving the Ferrari of your head. That's what you want to call it. I suppose some people might have a Prius in their head. Probably I would fall into that category more than I would the fine Italian race car of the brain industry. But yet you're pushing the gas pedal down pretty hard, and so you want to keep the fuel tank full when you're using these type of compounds. And foods rich in choline and rich in some of these brain supportive compounds like fish, fish oil and walnuts, would certainly fall into the category of smart foods to include in a diet for anyone who's pushing their brain hard or using these type of smart drugs or nootropics. There are other things that would fall into the category of the doctrine of signatures, though, that I haven't talked about as much before on the show. Flax seeds. Those are really interesting. So if you look at epithelial tissue under a microscope, the epithelial tissues in your body, those produce this slippery protective mucus coat known as the glycocalyx, incredibly important for proper vascular function. And so if you look at these epithelial tissues, particularly inside your vessels, like your arteries and your veins, the little shapes that you see very closely resemble flaxseeds. Now, I know I sound like somebody on quackery.com or whatever talking about flaxseeds and how they look like cells, but nonetheless, stick with me here, because it turns out that ingesting flaxseed oil has been shown to speed wound healing by stimulating collagen synthesis. And so when we see ancient ayurvedic texts that herald flaxseeds and these oils that they produce for healing the skin, for fighting fatigue, and it's a powerful anti inflammatory, it turns out that the mechanism of action is via support of these glycocalyx compounds in the body. And the lignin content in flaxseeds, that's a major class of phytoestrogens, very biologically, biologically similar to our own. Human estrogens turn out to have an impressive effect on inhibition of the formation of colon cancer, breast cancer, skin cancer, and lung tumors. And it's all based on the effect of these compounds on the epithelial tissues in the body. So it turns out that flax seeds are good also. Now, any of these hard seeds, I recommend soaking them in water to produce kind of like a mucus slippery gel. I personally, when I'm consuming things like flaxseeds, I grind them in a mortar and pestle or in a nutribullet. With chia seeds, I soak them in water. So seeds, like many of the plant based compounds that don't have teeth and claws and nails and sharp objects coming out of their heads, have other plant defense mechanisms that need to be rendered digestible. But if you do things like that, even to these hard flaxseeds and chia seeds, you'll be less prone to find them in your poop a couple of days later and more likely to enhance their bioavailability. Pomegranates would be another one. Now, the deep red juice of the pomegranate has been clinically studied to increase health and vitality of blood. I consider it to be one of those artery scrubbing type of foods, which is actually important in this era of people doing tests like the ones I've been talking about recently on the show, such as AI based diagnostic imaging of the heart, calcium scan scores, CT scan scores of the heart, et cetera. Well, many people are finding even fit athletes that they have high plaque scores, high calcium scan scores. And it turns out that pomegranates have been studied as one of these artery scrubbing foods that can enhance the diameter of blood vessels, increase blood flow and reduce the potential for plaque buildup to occur. They also, similar to flaxseed, support your epithelial tissue. These thin layers of cells that make up connective tissue that line the inside and outside of vessels. So pomegranate, whether eaten whole or whether juiced, is fantastic for the blood. And it turns out that it is a little bit bloody looking. You know, if you've ever paid your $22 for your fresh pressed, cold pressed pomegranate juice at the local juicery, you know what I'm talking about. And of course, you always got to bear in mind if you're eating things like that, you know, beets, pomegranates, et cetera, you aren't bleeding in your stool. You're simply seeing the effects of some of these red compounds coming out the other end. And there are a lot of other foods. Sweet potatoes are shaped like a pancreas. It turns out that sweet potatoes actually help with balance of the glycemic index, you know, the fluctuation of blood sugar levels throughout the day, and also help you to produce the hormone insulin that helps to regulate your body's glucose and sugar levels. It turns out that carrots are good for your eyes. A lot of guys have asked me, well, carrots are good for erections, based on this doctrine of signatures. No, if you slice a carrot, however, you can see that it looks a little bit like an eye in that sliced carrot. And it turns out that carrots contain the beta carotene that help your body produce vitamin A, and that vitamin A assists with your eyes staying strong as you age. Avocados, yes, they support the gonads not just in men, but also in women, probably due to their high levels of folic acid and bioavailable natural folate can, for example, reduce a woman's chances of getting cervical dysplasia. That's a precancerous disease that's contracted in the uterus. And it turns out that avocados are chock full of other micronutrients that help with proper fertility and sexual function. So let's look at grapes, for example. Grapes. You look at them, they look like all the alveoli, the little clusters of sacs within the bottom part of the lungs. Well, grapes look like the alveoli in the lungs, but grapes actually contain a chemical called proanthocyanidin, which can support lung function and even help reduce the risk of asthma. And that's relevant to something else that I'll talk about later on in this podcast. And that is the whole wildfire season. Some of the things that we can do to support proper lung function. If you look at mushrooms, lion's mane mushroom looks like a brain and actually similar to a walnut. Supports neuronal growth and neuroplasticity. Other mushrooms are packed with vitamin D. And if you slice a mushroom and turn it sideways, it actually looks like an open an ear. And it turns out that the vitamin D that keeps bones strong and highly functioning is the same type of vitamin D that supports the teeny, tiny bones that help your ears to receive sound. So that's interesting. Olives support the ovaries. Tomatoes help to support the heart, which is interesting because if you cut a tomato or a pomegranate, it actually looks a little bit like the ventricles and the chambers within the heart. Anybody who's taken an anatomy class can see that if you. If you cut open a heart lengthwise, you know, across the middle, it can actually look Very similar to what it might look like if you were to cut into a pomegranate or a tomato. I know there's a lot of medical students who are saying, no, Ben, it doesn't look anything like the interior of a pomegranate and tomato. However, if you squint. No, I'm just. I'm just kidding. They actually do. Tomatoes contain lycopene, and that helps reduce your chances of getting heart disease. We've already talked about pomegranates, and I think that just based on the mere fact that they're red, that's enough of a doctrine of signatures clue. But I think they also bear somewhat of an anatomical resemblance to areas within the heart. So those are just a few examples. But I don't know if anybody's on this whole doctrine of signatures bandwagon. I don't think that you can set up your entire medical protocol based on fighting cancer with broccoli. However, there are a lot of clues that nature gives us that I really like. Probably one that I think is a stretch, but that still makes me smile, pun intended, in this case is that bananas are good for your mood. And if you turn a banana sideways, it looks like a smile. And bananas actually have tryptophan, which gets converted into serotonin, which is a happy chemical that can boost your mood and make you feel happier, I suppose. Unless you turn the banana in the other direction, in which case it's a frown. So that kind of shoots down, that theory. However, I like the idea of it. And yellow is a happy color, isn't it? So, doctrine of signatures. Now you're a little bit more caught up on that for your banter at your next. Your next cocktail party. Useful facts about fruits and vegetables. So let's move on and talk related to this idea of things like the pancreas and insulin and glycemic index to these new fat loss or weight loss drugs that it seems everybody and their dog are asking about. Ozempic is one example. Ozempic is all over the news lately. So it's a weight loss drug. And it's gained popularity not only amongst people who have, say, obesity and diabetes, but, I mean, celebrities. I had a friend who took some and injected it, and we were out to dinner. He didn't eat anything except, like, half of a. What do you call those? Those eggs? A.

I'm forgetting, when you cut an egg in half and you dress it up real nicely and it's on the tip of my tongue, it's not a poached Egg. It's not a scrambled egg. It is not eggs Benedict. And now I'm completely blanking. They're appetizers at restaurants and it's driving me nuts that I can't remember the name of the egg. I need to eat more walnuts, apparently, and fish oil. Nonetheless, this guy couldn't eat without getting nauseous. And so that made me think a little bit about the power of these drugs. But the way that they work is they're called a GLP1 Agonist. So Ozempic and related compounds, some of which fall under the broad name semaglutide, belong to a class of medications called GLP1 agonist. GLP stands for glucagon. Like peptide, it's a hormone that's released from cells in your intestines and your colon after you eat. The way I like to think about glucagon is that it stimulates the release of insulin, which is your blood glucose lowering hormone, and inhibits the release of glucagon by the pancreas. I think of glucagon as in stomach growling. The G, it makes you hungry, it elevates blood glucose. So if we are triggering these GLP1 receptors, they help to increase the feelings of fullness and satiety and they reduce hunger, they can reduce food intake, and they can even make you nauseous when you're exposed to the type of foods that would normally make your stomach growl and make you salivate. So it's really interesting. Now, these synthetic GLP1 agonists like semaglutide, ozempic is the other name for that they make mimic the effects of GLP1. But they have a longer half life in the body than GLP1. So they have much longer lasting therapeutic effects, meaning anywhere from 150 to 190 hours that these things last in the body when they are injected. The native hormone that your body would produce only lasts a few minutes. So we're talking about once or twice a week, maximum, an injection of this stuff that just crushes appetite. Now, the concern that you'll hear more bandied about when it comes to the way that, for example, doctors are now talking about semaglutide or ozempic is that, yes, very powerful reduction in food intake, huge loss of body weight, but the weight that you lose can be from lean body mass. So you'll see a lot of people, particularly people who are against drugs in the pharmaceutical industry in general, saying don't go near the things because you're going to lose weight but yeah, it's going to reduce your lean muscle and your strength and that could potentially have a lifespan lowering and a overall life functionality damaging type of effect. Now, you know this reminds me of metformin, right? Metformin is a very, very powerful blood glucose lowering agent, but technically it can reduce the.

Creation of mitochondria a little bit. It might result in a little bit of reduction of lean muscle, might result in a little loss of VO2 max. And I think the main people that need to worry about with that would be elite athletes. That's the only population that I think may need to be concerned about those effects of metformin and may need to opt for more natural alternatives like say berberine or bitter melon extract or Ceylon cinnamon or apple cider vinegar. But when it comes to something like semaglutide or these GLP1 agonists, the fact is that you can mitigate, and a lot of physicians are doing this with these patients. You can mitigate a lot of these lean mass loss effects by lifting weights and by eating adequate protein or supplementing with amino acids or both. A proper use of these supplements would indeed involve lifting weights and shifting your macronutrient ratio towards higher protein intake and also arguably consuming anywhere from 20 to 40 grams of essential amino acids or collagen or both on a daily basis. And I think when you do that, you can stave off a lot of the muscle loss. The body is very, very plastic. As a matter of fact, there's a study that goes all the way back to 2008 and it's been repeated in similar studies that shows that on as few as 800 calories per day, human beings can maintain and in some cases even build lean muscle if they load the muscles and they lift weights. So the same could be said for some of these drugs like Ozempic or Mounjaro. You can, if you eat adequate protein and lift weights, experience the fat loss and the appetite mitigations effects that you're looking for. But you just need to make sure that you adjust your diet and your activity levels accordingly. I would not get on these type of drugs without shifting towards a higher protein intake, higher amino acids, collagen intake and lifting weights. Now, that all being said, I think the one that's going to shatter the industry is called retatrutide. Now, retatrutide is technically a. Well, you can classify it as a peptide. Sounds like a peptide, right? It's a glucagon, like peptide 1 receptor. So it's a GLP1 agonist. But unlike the other ones that are out there, it seems to have a mechanism of action that results in a fat loss effect that blows away anything else out there, including ozempic, semaglutide and some of these other agonists. So that one's called retatrutide. R E T A T R U T I D E I recently tweeted this, mark my words, that it's going to be like a huge moneymaker for the pharmaceutical and the peptide industry. I currently, as I alluded to in my Italy story, despite eating 3,000 to 4,000 calories, I a day can barely keep on weight. I personally would never get on one of these because I frankly often forget to eat, don't eat enough food, am incredibly active, take like 20,000 steps a day. So I don't fall into the category of somebody who would start on one of these compounds. However, this retatrutide is, I think if I were going to take something like this or recommend it for weight loss, it has very impressive dose response effects and huge weight reduction that even, even blow some of these other ones out of the water. People often ask me if I use any of these peptides for lean muscle gain or for fat loss. I do occasionally use a combo I'll tell you about shortly. Not necessarily for the fat loss because again, I don't have to worry about that, but sometimes I do like to have a little boost in the ability to gain muscle, especially if I'm exercising fasted, restricting calories, etc. Just because I don't want to eat a ton of calories or get the gastric distress or the time spent with meal prep. And so the combo that I use and recommend for that is one peptide called CJC ipamorelin, which you would take in the morning, and then another peptide called Tessamorelin which you take in the evenings. This is typically five days on, two days off and you do a couple of 12 week cycles each year. I've interviewed folks like Jay Campbell, pretty good peptide guy, on my podcast. He has one company called Limitless Life Nootropics. I'll link to that one in the show notes@bengreenfieldlife.com 459 he's got those peptides. I believe peptide scientists have them. Dr. Friends of mine like Dr. Matthew Cook at Bioreset Medical in San Jose or Dr. Craig Conover at Conover Wellness in South Carolina, they've got access to peptide protocols if you do a telemedicine type of consult with them. And this Tessamorelin and Ipramarelin. It's a great combo because it supports your own natural growth hormone production. Also seems to help with sleep, crushes appetite, helps with fat loss, helps with lean muscle gain, assists with your workout capacity. And so occasionally I do use peptides and so if you ask me about my peptide protocol, it would be a couple of cycles per year of those two. I also like one called 5Amino 1 MQ, which I also interviewed Jay Campbell about, which is fantastic for strength and power production again, even in a slightly calorically deprived state. And then there are these newer peptide bioregulators. I interviewed Phil Micans about these and I'll link to that podcast as well. It turns out in Russia they've done extensive research on decreased all cause risk of mortality across all chronic diseases in human beings, meaning makes you live longer no matter what. And it turns out that these peptide bioregulators, taking them as little as 10 days in a row a couple of times a year, can improve organ function and decrease all cause risk of mortality in human clinical trials. Most of the research you'll find it's like written in research or Russian on all these fringe Russian websites. But they've been using this stuff and researching it for years and we're almost like behind the curve on these Russian peptide bioregulators. But the cool thing is whereas many peptides require the needle phobic person to break out the insulin syringe and cringe and inject themselves, many of these peptide bioregulators can be taken orally, which is really interesting. So that would be an example of the type of peptide protocol that I use is I'll use a couple of cycles of Tessamorelin and CJC a couple of times a year, these peptide bioregulators for a 10 day cycle a couple of times a year and then the 5amino 1 mq. I also just take that occasionally before a hard workout that that's an oral one, it's a capsule and I get that one from the, from the Limitless Life website as well. So that's my take on these, on these weight loss peptides, not against them. They seem pretty powerful. Just make sure you keep your protein up and make sure you lift weights and you should be good to go. Let's, let's turn to another type of I suppose longevity based discussion. I just finished a fantastic book and I'll give you the background for this. I discovered a website that I'll link to in the show notes, but it is basically a complete database of all of the different drugs and compounds out there that are so called anti aging or longevity enhancing compounds ranked by efficacy. So this website which is free to use, it's called Drug Age, the database of aging related drugs. It allows you to look at lifespan change, both average and median as well as max lifespan change of everything from, you know, aspirin to N acetylcysteine to resveratrol to pretty much any drug or many of these natural compounds that are out there and see what actually has good research behind it. The this is the first super helpful resource that I found that really does tell you what you might be wasting your money on versus what might be a good idea. Right? There's great resources out there. Brian Johnson, who I interviewed has that blueprint protocol where he's logged a lot of the compounds that he uses and he's very research based. So many of the things that he uses I would support. There's another researcher named Sandra Kaufman who I've also had on my podcast. She has a book, you can find it on Amazon. I'll link to our podcast discussion as well as Fantastic where she rank prioritizes based on seven different variables. I believe it's seven the usefulness of everything from astaxanthin to resveratrol to nad to spermidine, etc. But this website is very comprehensive and allows you to dig in and see the studies and the research for yourself for all these different life extension observations. So a few of the ones that seemed very effective. Spermidine, low dose aspirin, which seems to mimic many of the same effects of intermittent fasting in terms of cellular autophagy and cellular cleanup. L. Carnitine, which many people in the exercise industry are using. I don't use it, but many folks are now reporting using it very efficaciously for muscle gain as an injectable compound, which is interesting. And then one that really leapt out was rapamycin. Rapamycin. Now I recently read a book on rapamycin. I was so blown away by that book that I have actually decided to experiment with a little bit of rapamycin dosage myself. Now rapamycin, it's a bacterial byproduct that was first discovered by the isolation of soil samples from an area called Rapa Nui on Easter island, hence its name. And it stands for, or it founded the term mtor mammalian target of rapamycin. So it acts as what's called, called a protein kinase. It assists the control of excessive cell growth, proliferation and survival. It's what would be called an MTOR inhibitor. Now in high doses, and this is where it's gotten a bad rap. People like, oh, it's going to suppress your immune system, bro, and you're going to be sick all the time. Because it is indeed used clinically in the treatment of cancers and for immune suppression to help prevent the rejection of things like organ transplantation. However, in low doses, and there's an entire book about this, I'm not going to belabor this too much because I literally have the guy who wrote the go to manual on rapamycin coming on my podcast soon to talk about this. But the go to book on it describes its effects on a host of parameters beyond longevity, like brain health and blood sugar control and libido. And they've done a lot of experiments, many of them animal experiments on it. But similar to those peptide bioregulators I was talking about from Russia, very interesting effects across a wide range of creatures and across a wide range of effects, it seems to increase the levels of a gene called NRF2. This is one of the same reasons that people will use ketones or go into ketosis. And this correlates with the activation of autophagy and a reduction of cellular senescence. Something that you've probably heard talked about quite a bit lately in the whole longevity and anti aging sector in increased level of senescent cells seems to contribute to age related pathologies and loss of function. Therefore selective removal of senescent cells would improve physiological function and extend longevity. And rapamycin seems to act on that. It seems to significantly improve heart functionality and studies that they've done on dogs particularly. And it turns out you don't even need a prescription to use this stuff. And no, I'm not talking about some off label dark web pharmacy. There is a generic brand version of rapamycin that I found upon reading this book and consulting with the author of the book that I already have an order on the way to my house of because again, it ranks high in that drug aging resource that I gave you and it's one that I've seen enough safety profile data on and I'm convinced enough by the studies I've seen on it that I actually want to begin to take it as an anti aging play. The brand that I've ordered is called Rapapro. It's from the website Anti Aging Systems. I'll hunt down a link and put it in the show notes for you. But Rapapro, I believe it's somewhere in the range of and I gotta Double check the dosage in the book, but I think this one is 5 milligrams a day. 5 milligrams a day for the effects that you'd be looking for for something like rapamycin. So Rapapro is something I'm going to start using. And that same company, Anti Aging Systems, is associated with that guy Phil Micans, who I talked about, who talks about those peptide bioregulators. So I believe you can get those peptides, those peptide bioregulators also from that website. So if you want to kill two birds with one stone, you can get your rapamycin and get your peptide bioregulators and voila, you're going to Benjamin Button yourself. So anyways, that's the latest on the whole anti aging piece. And then one other thing that I wanted to share with you, I guess really related to a few things that I've talked about just now is peptides can be confusing. Meaning if you order them, if you never order peptides. A lot of times you get a bottle to your house and it's powder and it comes with this stuff called bacteriostatic water. And you're supposed to draw some water out of the water with a syringe and then inject that into the peptide powder and mix it in a certain ratio that gives you the amount that you want. So let's say there's, I don't know, let's do a little math here, make smoke come out our ears. Let's say there's like 5 milligrams of one of those peptides I talked about, say a Tessamorelin and you want a milligram a day of dosage, that would be a five day worth of dosage in the bottle. Well, you know, if you were to put let's say 5 milliliters of bacteriostatic water into that bottle that has 5 milligrams of tessamorelin in it. If you were to draw back one milligram of that water after mixing, that would give you, based on simple math, your 1mg dosage of something like Tessamorelin.

Problem is there are a lot of different dosages and a lot of different sizes of these bottles and a lot of different milligrams in the bottles and a lot of different dosage recommendations. So there is a new peptide calculator that I found that's free to use. It's online called Pepcalc. I believe it's Pepcalc app. You can download it and all you put in is the amount that you want to inject on a regular basis, the amount of water you mixed it with that you want to mix it with, it tells you exactly how many ticks back on the insulin syringe to pull Lifesaver for a lot of those people who are so confused about peptides and peptides dosages. So it's called peptide calculator at Pepcalc app. So fantastic resource. Just came across that one. So that should also be pretty helpful for you.

And that covers a lot of what I want to tell you about anti aging and longevity. I suppose the last thing is that one person did write into the show and it was Michael Ranker and he said, ben, can you update your age reversal article that you recently wrote with added priorities or ratings out of 10 on how important each of these things are. Now for those of you who may not be familiar with that, I recently wrote an article in which I talked about this so called Rejuvenation Olympics website where they rank prioritize all of the different individuals who are engaged in reversal of aging or control of aging. And there's this test that you can get, it's based on DNA methylation. It's called a pace test. And there's a company called trudiagnostics. You can order this test for your house. Very simple to do. It's a blood spot test and then it gives you your rate of aging. For example, my rate of aging right now is 0.73. Okay. That means for every 365 days, I only age approximately 266 days out of those 365 days. So what I'm doing seems to be working. More importantly, I feel really good. I've got almost no joint joint pain. I feel like I can crush workouts. My libido's through the roof. So I feel really good. And I can test that based on this simple blood spot test case and kit. And I'll I'll link to this article in the show notes. But in that article I talk about everything I currently do. For example, I talk about how I don't over exercise. I'll tell you about why that's important in a minute. But I use single set to failure training three times a week on something called an ARX machine. And then three times a week week I train in what's called a Vasper, which combines cold with blood flow restriction with full body exercise. That's basically my protocol when I'm at home and everything else is walking and pickleball and tennis with the family and playing Cornhole and bocce ball and all manner of yard games. But three times a week I do the strength training for around 20 to 25 minutes. Three times a week I do that vasper workout, which takes 20 to 25 minutes. And that's my exercise protocol. I talk about how I also engage in temperature, temperature, stress, meaning four to five times a week I use a sauna. I do a deep sweat in a sauna, typically while I'm listening to a podcast or an audiobook. And I have one of these big sanctuary saunas. It's made by a company called clearlight. It's big enough for me to do yoga or kettlebell swings or stretches or elastic band exercises inside of. So I don't just sit there in the sauna staring at the wall or reading a magazine or dicking around on my phone. I instead make those sauna sessions count. I get really hot in there and then I finish with three to five minutes of really intense cold. I keep my cold plunge at about 33 degrees and I finish with that icy cold dose in the cold bath. And I typically am in the cold bath. Don't laugh. Usually during the summers and often in the spring and the early fall, anywhere from three to four additional times per day. I've already been in my cold tub. Let's see, I'm actually recording this podcast late, it's about 7pm But I've been in my cold tub four times already today. Just brief forays. I'll stay in there one to three minutes and pop out. And I think that's a much, much better way than shivering your butt off for like 10 minutes. But anyway, so I do hot and cold stress each day. I take a nap nearly every day. Sometimes it's a nap, sometimes it's a meditation session, sometimes it's using one of these light sound stimulation machines. Like there's one called the Brain Tap that I really like. But I do that because it allows me to kind of get an extra sleep cycle because I get up at an ungodly hour. Most mornings I'm up anywhere from from 3:45 to 4:45am and I don't go to bed since I have a family and I'm hanging out with my kids and my wife. I usually go to bed 9:30, 10:00pm and so if you do the math, I'm sleeping six, six and a half hours per night. But I catch up on my rest with that 20 up to a 60 minute siesta or meditation session, which I typically program after lunch. And I've just set up my schedule such that I don't really do a lot of work between about 1:30 and 3pm in the afternoon, allowing me time to slip in, do a nap, get out, jump in the cold, plunge, do some stretching, catch up on a few things, and then get back to work. And so that's the way I organize my sleep cycles. I also talk, and there's way more detail about all this stuff in terms of the tools I use and everything. But I also, I also walk. And I walk 15 to 1,000, 15 to 20,000 steps a day. A lot of people are like, how do you. How do you do that? I do most my podcast walking. I do most of my calls walking. I walk to the grocery store. I barely will rent the car or use an Uber when I travel unless I got to go anywhere more than about three miles. I walk copiously up and down stairs anywhere. And so for that, I use a manual treadmill in my office. I actually have one that's very interesting. I haven't talked about much on the show. It's kind of a new addition to the office, but I interviewed this guy, this Swiss inventor, several years ago, and he would live in Korea for certain times of the year and walk out in the Korean rice paddy fields. And he found that when he would return, his feet would feel strong and supple and stretched, and his hip and knees and low back pain would. Would be vastly reduced. When I interviewed him, he was talking about this line of shoes that he had created called, called Kybun K Y B U n Shoes that were patterned with materials very similar to these Korean rice paddy fields. And he also had these standing desk mats you could stand on during the day to get that same foot cushioning and strengthening effect. But I found out a few months ago his company made a treadmill. And the treadmill is literally like walking on soft rice paddies. It's a manual treadmill. So it doesn't have a lot of EMF and WI fi and, you know, big electrical soup and a whole bunch of noise that I'm introducing into my office. It's literally like walking on air. It's fantastic. I think it's called. I don't think it's called a kaibun. I think it's called something weird like a walk. I'm looking at it sideways right now. Walk elution. Walk elution. I'll link to it in the show notes. But, man, that's been a game changer because now all the walking I'm doing every day during work. A lot of times I'm dictating, using my standing desk to reach over and work on the computer. That's huge for me in terms of daily movement throughout the entire day because even though I have a quote desk unquote job, I can actually simulate the primal movement of our hunter gatherer ancestors, you know, by simulating what I'd be doing when gardening or hunting or spending time outside. But I'm able to do so during the entire workday. I also engaged in regular detoxification. I still do once a week, some kind of like, like a day where I'm doing infrared sauna with a coffee enema with, with rebounding up and down a trampoline. My. I'm a huge fan of cleaning out the body each week. I even do weird hippie things like dry skin brushing on those type of days. And we'll do lingam steaming. Google that if you don't know what it is. But I will literally sit and read while steaming my nether regions. And so I'm big into regular detoxification. I talk about the supplements that I use, you know, like, like NAD and spermidine and C60. And I look at all the research, done a lot of these longevity compounds, and I reveal my, my stack in that article. I will occasionally do stem cells. I'm going back down to Park City, Utah to do some stem cell injections here in a couple of weeks. I do ozone treatments and I do regular IVs. As a matter of fact, I order IVs from that doctor I mentioned, Dr. Craig Conover. He ships them to my house and they're push IVs that I can administer on myself. And I still do one of those about once a week. And I've really focused lately also on oral health. Coconut oil, pulling tons, tongue scraping, water pick, flossing. And work with Dr. Aniko loud down in Phoenix for the whole holistic dentistry piece. Because it's shocking how much oral health is related to heart health, to Alzheimer's risk, and to a host of other factors that dictate that. For example, when I wake up and walk into the bathroom, I'm squirting ozone oil and silver spray into my mouth and swishing that around in my mouth for 10 minutes. I'm doing tongue scraping with a copper tongue scraper. I'm wearing one of the of Dr. Loud's mouth alignment devices during sleep for better oxygenation during sleep. And I've really become very, very into mouth care, obviously a lot there. And I barely even scratch the surface in terms of what I talk about in the article. But to come back directly to Michael's question, how important are these things? How much do I rank prioritize them? Well, I would say of everything that I do, if I were to chunk these into categories for movement, I would say the very heavy single set to failure training. If I could pick one form of exercise to do the rest of my life, that's it keeps me strong as a ball with very limited risk of injury. It's one single set for the squat, the deadlift, the chest press, the row, the pull down and the shoulder press. And it takes me about two to three minutes per set. I am gassed by the end of each set. But it's the best training protocol for like a longevity based strength training protocol I've ever found. For temperature, I would say my frequent forays into very cold environments. I just always feel good when I do that. For sleep, I would say that programming my day and altering my day and my routine to get a daily 20 to 60 minute siesta or meditation session, not only because it lets me reset my body and my brain in the middle of the day, but also because it enables me to wake up very early and by 10am complete more than what most of the world finishes in an entire workday and do so well. Nobody is bugging me and the house is quiet. So I would say that for the, for, for the sleep hack, for the work, I'm going to have to say the manual treadmill, like a manual treadmill has just made working all day long, whether it's in the winter or on a rainy day or any other time when I'm tied to the desk, a game changer. For detoxification, I would say regular use of the infrared sauna, you know, four to five weeks, that deep sweat. And then as far as supplements go, honestly, at this point I'm gonna have to say my favorite supplement bar none is nad. Right now I put on an NAD patch when I'm on a long haul plane flight. I use one by a company called Ion Layer. Ion Layer. I will sometimes use a NAD suppository from my friend Dr. John Laurence at Mitozen. When I get to my final destination, when I'm traveling to get the equivalent of a full NAD IV the entire night that I sleep. And I supplement most days with this stuff called NAD3 made by BioStack Labs. And NAD is helpful for DNA repair, for longevity, for helping you out if you're sleep deprived. For mental function, for a host of issues that make that probably top of the totem pole for me. From a supplement standpoint, I would say like second place to that would be the kion aminos. But those are well known by most people who follow me as my go to Swiss army knife of supplementation. So I'm going to throw nad in there and then I think for oral health it would be five to 10 minutes of some type of coconut or olive oil pulling in the morning. And as far as these injections and IVs and things like that, I am going to have to say at least once a year some type of of stem cell infusion literally makes you feel superhuman for a solid month afterwards. So I'm going to have to go buy stem cells and like a full body stem cell infusion or IV or something like Dr. Harry Adelson's full body stem cell protocol as being the go to for that. So hopefully that helps you rank, prioritize. Although I spell out a lot more in that article, Michael, so I hope that helps you out a little bit. All right. I hinted at this in my introduction, so I'm not going to leave you hanging or in this case, straining. I am in the process of building a new home. I am actually selling my home in Spokane. Newsflash. I'll link to it in the show notes. But the home that I thought I'd die in, that I built to be my dream home with a garden and a barn and goats and chickens and off grid and, you know, air, light, water, electricity, all full building biology on nine acres of beautiful forested land in Spokane, Washington. I'm moving. I've got land in Idaho and I want to start a farm. So I'm literally moving and starting a farm. Yep, cows and, and more goats and more chickens, but lots more farmable land. And it's the place that I'm off to next anyways, though. So I'm selling my home in Spokes Spokane. If any biohacker out there wants a new home, let me know. And anyway, so this new house, one thing that I'm selecting right now are the toilets. You know, fancy Japanese toilets with the fancy little, what do you call it? The bidet to spray your butthole after you defecate. And as a discussion that occurred with my architect recently.

Indicated, I am looking into the height of said toilet seat. Right. Like in the past, a lot of people use this contraption called the squatty potty to put you in the ideal posture for defecation. Well, there's actually something to this. There is a host of medical research Going back all the way to the 1500s, that indicate that the invention of the flush toilet might actually be unhealthy and lead to a lot of the constipation, hemorrhoid and defecation issues many people have to deal with on a regular basis. Now, the ideal posture for defecation, and this is from a standard medical textbook from the 1960s, is the Squatting position with the thighs fixed upon the abdomen. Now, if you look at the height of most toilets, whether it's a wall mounted or a standard toilet, you are usually at a knee angle that is, that is nowhere near the 90 degrees or more that would be necessary for you to actually be in a state in which the colon isn't kinked, so to speak. Now, if that anal rectal angle is not proper and is not at least 90 degrees, that puts upward pressure on the rectum and keeps feces inside. Whereas in a squatting posture, which anybody has probably experienced, if you squat up on the toilets, eat, which of course can be dangerous and get your feet messy or be unhygienic or whatever, but anybody who has tried that, find that sometimes the poop just kind of falls out of you. And it's amazing. And also it reduces the amount of straining that can cause pressure in the abdomen, causing the veins that line your anus to swell, resulting in things like hemorrhoids and bleeding. And they've actually done research on this. There was one fascinating 2003 study that I came across in the book or in the, in the journal Digestive Diseases and Science, in which a doctor had several dozen patients defecate on a 16 inch, not on, into a 16 inch toilet, a 12 inch high toilet, and just squatting over a plastic container. Now, what they found in that research, when they measured bowel movements, and don't ask me how they did it or how they. They use a little timer in there, I would not want to be that, that research student who got stuck with that job. Nonetheless, they found that when squatting, it took subjects about 51 seconds to move their bowels. That's pretty quick. That's in and out of the bathroom real quick, 51 seconds versus 130 seconds when sitting on a high toilet. And then as they move from sitting to squatting, they rated the experience as far easier as well when it came to the ease of defecation. Now, what they found in a study just last year, in this study in which a group of Japanese doctors looked at these same findings, in this, they actually filled the rectums with a Contrast solution. And then they released the fluid from a squatting or a sitting position while being filmed with X ray video. And the image analysis showed that the anal rectal angle increased from 100 degrees to 126 degree when the subjects move from a sit to a squat. And that result in far less straining, recorded abdominal pressure, and the ease of defecation. When they had that knee angle that was actually even higher than 90 degrees, I mean, pushing up above 100 degrees. And so what I'm getting at here is if you don't have a squatty potty or you're building a new home, or if you're looking at the actual height of the toilet, it turns out that for most adults, somewhere in the range of 14 to 16 inches is how high your toilet seat would be. So there you have it. Measure your toilet seat should be 14 to 16 inches if it's not. But get one of these squatty potty devices. They even have a portable one you can travel with. I fold it up and put in my suitcase sometimes because those hotels, gosh darn it, have very, very high toilets in many cases, unless you're in Japan, apparently. But I also will sometimes squat on top of the toilet seat. But hey, if you're building the house and you have the option, the flexibility, and you want to ease the anorectal angle 14 to 16 inches. And I'll link to this article how bathroom posture affect squatting help as well in the show notes. So it's some fantastic research. All right, so I want to give you one other tip here as a part of this podcast, because it is wildfire season, and that means that people are really, really interested in asking me a lot of questions about the same type of things one would worry about if they had, say, chronic obstructive pulmonary pulmonary disease or copd. Right? You hear a lot of things with COPD or reversal of some of the damage from smoking cigarettes. You'll often hear people tell you to increase your antioxidant consumption. Something to be said for that. You know, maintain hydration, exercise in an environment where you have air purifiers. But then there's some other things that I think folks don't talk about as much that I'm going to recommend to you right now in terms of healing your lungs after smoke attack exposure or doing things that would help you out quite a bit. So first of all, supplements in terms of the antioxidant or the vitamin category that have been researched and shown to help reverse lung damage, whether from cigarette Smoking, whether for someone with copd. Though I'm not a medical physician, a licensed physician, I don't want to take this as medical advice or in exposure to wildfire type of issues. I'm going to give you the full list here. Here's what to take. Bromelain. Bromelain is something that's often used for soreness. It is what's called a proteolytic enzyme. It can break down inflammatory byproducts in the body. That's one to look into. The next would be coenzyme Q10, the same thing that if you take statins, your body is going to be stripped of. That's also important for mitochondrial and for cardiopulmonary function. Okay, that's the second. I'm going to give you six here. So that's the second. It's Coenzyme Q10, number three. I briefly mentioned L carnitine in terms of the reason that many people are using it for longevity or for muscle gain. But and here's another good reason to use it if you're exposed to pollution or wildfire or you've been a cigarette smoker. Also seems to help with lung repair. And by the way, I'm not going to talk about grapes, but we already covered that. N acetylcysteine, same thing related to glutathione, very powerful antioxidant. And that's another one that you can use in supplemental form. The last two would be vitamin E, but you want a full spectrum vitamin E with what's called mixed tocopherols and tocotrienols. There's a company called Designs for Health. I interviewed their main researcher, Guy, Dr. Barry Tan, on my podcast several years ago. I still use that supplement on a regular basis because it's also fantastic for heart health. It's called Annatto A, N, N, A T, T, O. For the vitamin E. Take that, not synthetic vitamin E and then some type of whole food source of vitamin C. The one I like for that is a company called Jigsaw Health. I put a scoop of in my water every morning. It's called the adrenal cocktail. So Those are the six to take for the lungs. Bromelain, coenzyme Q10, L carnitine, N acetylcysteine, annatto and vitamin C. Consider that to be your first aid kit if you're exposed to a lot of pollution. Now the other ones I would consider would be a very good air purifier in every room. I've got three air purifiers in my house and also a whole house air purifier setup. So I am extremely cognizant of air quality and I will often, if I'm traveling in polluted areas, call ahead to the hotel and ask them to put an air filtration unit in the room. And you'd be surprised at the number of hotels that have air conditioned or not air conditioning air filtration units that are standalone that they will put into a room for you. And in a pinch, if you're in a super polluted area, you can do the old trick where you buy one from Walmart and return it later. Anybody who works at Walmart is going to sue me now. But anyways, the air Doctor is the brand that I use and I got three of them set up in nearly every room or in the major floors of my home. So super good air purifier in every room. For the diet, include a lot of citrus fruits and omega 3 fatty acids from seafood. Right? So fish, flaxseed and chia seed would also qualify. We've already discussed those and also their importance for epithelial support. And then citrus fruits, Arguably you could throw pomegranate in there as well. Also for the effects on the epithelial tissue that I already talked about. Good, clean, pure water intake, you see that recommended all over the place for copd, for cigarette smokers, for exposure to wildfires. Turns out that's also a very good idea. Take it seriously. There's actual research behind hydration and its effects on supporting lung function. Because wildfire smoke, for example, inhalation causes microscopic particles to get trapped in your lungs. And there's a working theory that water may help flush these particles from your system. You're not going to drink water into your lungs, but it turns out that hydration helps to support lung function. And as a matter of fact, if you make a hot liquid tea with slippery elm and marshmallow root in hot water, those two herbs help to support and moisten and relax the fragile tissues in your mouth and your throat and your lungs. You may have heard of a neti pot before or a nasal spray. Those are good. But I think the next level up, and I discovered this during the COVID pandemic and recommended it to a lot of people. Using a nebulizer. This is a small mask that you put on your face. You can get a nebulizer for pretty cheap on Amazon. You put a little bit of liquid into the little nebulizer container. Some people use hydrogen peroxide, some people use use n acetylcysteine the one that I recommend though is Glutathione. There is a product called Glutastat by a company called Mitozen. If you've got lung issues, if you have upper respiratory tract infection, if you've been exposed to wildfire, if you've been a cigarette smoker, you can just breathe this glutathione vapor for about 10 to 15 minutes a day. It's fantastic. And Glutisat is the product that I like. Same company that makes those nad sticks suppositories I was talking about. It's called Mitozen Glutastat and you nebulize with that. I also highly recommend that you use eucalyptus oil in an essential oil diffuser in as many rooms of the house as possible during wildfire season. That's the one that has that nice sweet smelling spa type of aroma that you'll often experience in steam rooms at an overpriced health club. Same stuff, eucalyptus. And then finally, even though this is one that's a little bit harder for people to wrap their heads around or get access to, it turns out that there is some evidence that acupuncture may help with pulmonary function and the recovery of the lungs after exposure to wildfires. So acupuncture, that's obviously something that you gotta do your research on and find a licensed acupuncturist. But there is some evidence that it may be helpful. I've actually seen acupuncture work fantastically for my son for allergies. So I believe that it could help for things like lung function and recovery of the lungs from exposure to air pollution. But that's another one I'd throw into the mix. That's kind of like my stack. And I'll write all that out in the show notes. If you guys didn't take notes or you want it all written for you in one place. There are other things that you'll hear people talk about that you could do, like rinsing your sinuses with a neti pot, for example, or using ginger, or you know, practicing deep breathing for cleansing or even wearing an N95 face mask. Right. A lot of the type of, type of things you heard people talk about during COVID But what I just told you I would say would be the best of the best in my opinion as far as some research based compounds and strategies that would help with lung function during this problematic time of the year. So you know what? I think that's about all that we have time for today. I've got about an hour in here and I just absolutely love it when I can talk with you, when I can load you up and feed you through the fire hose with some research. And one thing that I would ask of you besides just grabbing any of the shownotes that you want from BenGreenfieldLife.com 459 is leave a kind review if you can. Just that quick 10 seconds it takes to give a star or a thumbs up or say something nice like he's chock full of bro science and talks about how pancreases help your penile function or whatever. But it's still a decent podcast anyways. Give it a ranking, give it a review wherever fine podcasts are found. And again, the shownotes are all at BenGreenfieldLife4BenGreenfieldLife.com 459 I really like to put together really great show notes for you. Big thanks to my team for helping me out with that. And anytime you visit the show notes or you leave the podcast a rating or review or even just tell your friends about it helps a ton. I do this for you. I do this to help you look, feel and perform better and so I hope this has been helpful for you. You can also go to the podcast show Notes and leave your question again. BenGreenfieldLife.com 459 got a lot of good interviews and episodes coming up for you down the pipeline, so stay tuned. And in the meantime, I'm Ben Greenfield. Have an amazing week.

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. And 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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