Q&A 469: The New, Science-Backed Way To Keep Your Metabolism Elevated, Best Biohacks For Addiction, Healing Joints Fast Using Modern Medicine & Much More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life Show, the new science-backed way to keep your metabolism elevated, best biohacks for addiction, healing joints faster using modern medicine, and much more. Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life Show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this. BEN GREENFIELD] Hey, folks. Welcome to the show. I'm feeling invigorated here at about 5:00 p.m. in Spokane, Washington. I just did my 100 soleus push-ups. You'll learn what those are and why you might want to add them to your vernacular later on in today's show. I have this goofy necklace on. A lot of people have been asking about this new little thing I wear around my neck. It's not a commercial, but it's made by this company called Airestech, A-I-R-E-S-T-E-C-H. I've actually caught a lot of flak for little social media videos I have of me talking about their stuff because it's kind of woo, right? They say, "That's an attenuator within a microprocessor that diffracts EMF and cancels it using holographic technology, blah, blah, blah." So, look, I always look into things before I promote them, and they do have some clinical and scientific trials that they've run on this stuff showing significant decreases in stress measured via sympathetic and parasympathetic tone like your HRV. They've shown differences in the activity of red blood cells, so-called erythrocytes, in a positive direction. They've shown that the brain is shifted out of some of the beta brainwave modes that are a stress response to the phone and into a more relaxed setting. And look, you could probably tear apart these studies, small sample sizes, inadequate controls. Look, the reason I wear it is because I feel less stressed when I'm using my phone. That might even be placebo because I'm wearing my pretty Sacred Geometry overpriced necklace. But whatever you want to say, that's the necklace that I'm wearing. So, everybody's asking me on social media, "What's the necklace?" That's what it is. Shownotes are at BenGreenfieldLife.com/434. 69. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com/469. And, we're going to do a Q&A. We got some great questions that came in. If you want to ask your question, go to BenGreenfieldLife.com. We're going to do some news flashes. I'm going to open up my water. Shameless advertising. This is ketone water. Ketone water. It's basically water that's fairy-dusted with a tiny teeny amount of ketones. I get it from the same company I get my alcohol-mimicking compounds. This company called KetoneAid, they make Moscow Mules and gin and tonics and the like out of ketones rather than alcohol. It's good. It keeps your appetite satiated and doesn't have any caffeine or anything in it. So, there you have it. That's what I'm drinking. That's what I'm wearing. Alright, let's jump into this week's news flashes. Well, you may know this, you may not know this. I just got back from a 3-week hectic tour of India, fantastic country. Hello to all my Indian listeners. I spent a lot of time in taxis, on airplanes, in hotels waiting, podcasting, meeting, sitting. But several people commented that whenever I didn't have to be in a chair, I was up and moving around. And that's true because I orchestrate my day in such a way that whether or not I can make it to the gym at the beginning or the end or the middle of the day, I'm moving so much during the day. That the gym becomes an option, not a necessity. So, there's a kettlebell back here behind me on the floor of my office, which you can't see because there's also a green screen behind me. There's a pull-up bar installed in the doorframe of a couple of rooms in the house. There are exercise bands and all sorts of jumpy trampolines and stuff like that. The house is like a jungle gym. So, me and my family and kids and other people who are over can just move. Whenever. And this is important because it does keep the metabolism elevated and perhaps more importantly, the glucose stabilized in a surprisingly effective fashion. And this has been on my mind recently, probably just because of all the sitting that I wound up doing in India and the fact that I did use a lot of that time to move. Even on the airplane, I was doing these so-called soleus push-ups, which we'll get into in a second. But I'm going to put in the show notes some really interesting studies that I've come across recently. For example, one is called "Too Little Exercise and Too Much Sitting: Inactivity Physiology and the Need for New Recommendations on Sedentary Behavior." So, I want to walk you through some of the stuff I found was very interesting and hopefully relevant to you. So, what they found was for people who sleep 8 hours a day, so usually you got 16 hours left for domestic duties, work duties, et cetera, for a hypothetical physically active adult, a 45-minute exercise session of risk walking prior to work ensured that the minimum level of exercise that's recommended was achieved early on in the day. But then, when they look at these people and they see them sitting at work, sitting during lunch, sitting on the computer after lunch, sitting during the drive or the commute home, sitting at dinner, maybe sitting and watching some TV after dinner, they find that that physically active session of 30-45 minutes still turns you into what this research article deems the the active couch potato or the exercising couch potato. And the reason for that is based on a term called inactivity physiology. Inactivity physiology, that's been a term that's been in exercise research since the early 2000s. Just as I was finishing up my master's degree in exercise physiology, this term was coined. So it looks into the potential role of sedentary behaviors in the development of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases like heart disease or diabetes, for example. And so the premise is that different things happen physiologically when you are in an actual seated position, not even a standing position. This is why a lot of people honestly have shifted to standing workstations. I'll get into why that might not be the best answer here momentarily. But what they highlight in this paper is that there are studies that have used what are called radioactive triglyceride tracers. These are like fat measurers to examine the metabolic effects of not standing, the metabolic effects of not standing on the leg muscles like the deep quadriceps muscles or the muscles responsible for postural support. They found that when you sit, those muscles lose quickly more than 75% of their ability to be able to siphon off the fat that's circulating in the lipoproteins in your bloodstream. Okay, that's just the simple act of standing upregulates what's called lipoprotein lipase activity. That's what's responsible for oxidizing fat. And that when you're in a, a position that requires postural support or specifically your legs are supporting you or contracting in some way, that enzyme gets upregulated. And it turns out that even if you exercise the beginning of the day or the end of the day, that exercise session is not enough to keep the lipoprotein lipase levels elevated the rest of the day. You need steady tiny contractions, specifically the leg muscles, in order for that to happen. So, what they found was that, for example, this was in rodent models, they found that if these rodents did very high-intensity exercise training, like the level that say an athlete or a CrossFitter might be doing, that you did see an increase in the lipoprotein lipase activity for an extended period of time afterwards. But even this didn't occur in the slow-twitch muscle, just the fast-twitch muscle that was being used for that intense exercise. And so, those are some of my takeaways from this first paper. Basically, it comes down to the fact that, man, some really cool things happen when you stand. And when you sit, as far as your metabolic physiology goes, it's really not that great of an idea. Now, I should note here that there are times when I do recommend that you sit. Let's take eating, for example, right? You want to eat in a parasympathetic, mindful, and relaxed state, not when you're driving 60 miles an hour down the highway sucking down your expensive superfood smoothie, or not when you're, say, like at a cocktail party or a buffet standing around chatting, grabbing those little things off the napkins that I get embarrassed because I never know how to eat them. I don't know what to do with the toothpick. I don't know whether to dip it in the sauce that everybody else is dipping it in that's on the plate that the person brings around. I don't know where to throw it away. And I got this thing that I half ate and realized I didn't like now sitting in my hand awkwardly in a napkin as I try to chat up somebody. Those things are so awkward for me. I think I need some etiquette coaching. But nonetheless, you also should be careful with that type of feeding. Your position actually affects your digestion. I don't know if you knew this, but eating when you're standing empties your stomach faster. The food moves into the intestine before getting broken down adequately. You get less of a release of the hormones that are responsible for making you feel full. And, they've actually looked into this and found that eating in a standing position results in digestion of food at a 30% faster rate, which you'd think might be a good thing. But, what that actually does the same way as eating too quickly can do this, it makes you feel hungry more quickly after eating while standing. So, that would be an example where I'd say, "Well, yeah, don't eat while standing so you burn extra calories." Or, as my mom literally used to say, I'm not making this up, she would eat eat standing and say, hey, if I eat it while I'm standing up, it's calorie-free. Of course, she didn't honestly think that, but it reminds me of that funny thing that she used to say. So anyways, that is the first paper. The second one was called Sedentary Behavior as a Mediator of Type 2 Diabetes. Sedentary Behavior as a Mediator of Type 2 Diabetes. And I'll link to all these in the show notes for those of you tinfoil hat-wearing freaks, jarred large glasses and pocket protectors and magical necklaces who want to dive into the shownotes and get more details. But this was a review paper, and it looked again at this enzyme lipoprotein lipase. And again, that's the enzyme that binds to circulating fats when it's present in what's called the vascular endothelium, right, your vascular system. And it's essential for hydrolyzing triglycerides, for breaking down fatty acids. So, what they found was that even small partial reductions in LPL activity on a regular basis could cause as much of a 5-fold increase in the odds ratio for death and cardiovascular disease. And these metabolism-related conditions weren't studied, they more looked at the heart health and at the mortality. And again, the LPL activity is directly correlated to that. You often hear people say, well, Your grip strength is correlated to longevity, your walking speed, your VO2 max. I would say based on some of the stuff I've been reading, we may even want to throw in the activity of lipoprotein lipase, probably because people who have elevated lipoprotein lipase are moving in a more ancestral primal way, you know, mimicking the farming, gathering, fence building, hunting type of activity that human beings were immersed in for so long prior to the post-industrial era in which we're relegated to sitting. Which isn't assisted at all by our access to hyperpalatable foods 10 feet away in the refrigerator. So, it turns out that metabolism in your slow twitch muscle is very key because that when you're doing low-intensity physical activity during the day is extremely surprisingly effective at increasing LPL. We often hear about going into the gym and lifting weights and sprinting and doing high-intensity interval training, But this slow twitch muscle, when there's tiny little contractions occurring during the day, is significantly effective at increasing the low-level LPL activity that you want during the day. So then we get to the third paper, and this one was called, uh, Exercise Physiology Versus Inactivity Physiology: An Essential Concept for Understanding Lipoprotein Lipase Regulation. Now, what they found here was that you could actually prevent the reduction in lipoprotein lipase activity by maintaining what they call non-fatiguing contractions during the day, non-fatiguing contractions. So again, we're not talking about hitting the gym. As a matter of fact, they found that downregulation of lipoprotein lipase activity that you get when you're sitting at your desk when you're inactive could be reversed with one single session of treadmill walking. And in this case, they were doing it intermittently with rest over each hour, just like hopping on the treadmill that might be at your workstation or nearby and walking, or going into the, the stairway at the office and just going up and down the stairs a couple of times and coming back to work. So it turns out that the lipoprotein lipase activity, when you look at the actual genes could eventually long-term be downregulated, meaning the more sedentary you are, the more your body almost forgets to keep lipoprotein lipase activity upregulated. Now, of course, as the old Chinese proverb goes, the best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago or today. Don't use that to defeat yourself and think, "Well, I've been sedentary for so long, there's no use now." You can retrain the body, but it's important to realize the more sedentary you are, the less and less you become able to activate this lipoprotein lipase. That's why consistency is very important. That's why long strings of injuries or improper training can eventually lead to a host of metabolic diseases just because you're relegated to sitting and recovering so often. So, the last thing that's interesting is that they show that non-exercise activity thermogenesis, right, how many calories you burn when you're not exercising, can account for a huge percentage of your 24-hour metabolic rate. Now, that's highly variable between individuals. Your metabolism metabolism is. It can be thyroid hormone related, it can be testosterone related, et cetera. But again, it highlights the fact that moving during the day, especially when it comes to your metabolism and your reduction of risk for things like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, is so important. So now we get to the kicker. I know I've teased this out a couple times. Last paper, a potent physiological method to magnify and sustain soleus oxidative metabolism improves glucose and lipid regulation. I realize that's a mouthful. But here's what they looked at. They found that when people do brief bouts of these so-called soleus push-ups during the day, it's one of the best ways to upregulate lipoprotein lipase. And they actually showed that it was fantastic at controlling blood glucose. What I love about this is you can be sitting at dinner doing this. You can be sitting on an airplane doing this. You can be sitting in a car doing this. As a matter of fact, on my trip home from India on the airplane, airplane. I had a backpack on top of my feet and I was doing this weighted using my backpack as weight. What's a soleus push-up? Well, I hate to disappoint you, but it's a little bit more boring than what you might think. It's literally a seated calf raise. I— exercise people have to make themselves sound smart, right? So, they call it a soleus push-up, but it's literally a sitting calf raise. Ideally, you're supposed to kind of do it quickly like quick raise up and then lower down a little bit slowly, then quick up and then lower down slowly. But, that's all it is. And, you could literally do hundreds of these during the day. It kind of becomes like brushing your teeth when you sit down, you start doing Soleus push-ups. I almost automatically do them now when I'm sitting down. And sure, you could do standing calf raises while you're at your desk, you could walk, you could drop and do some push-ups. But, what I think is cool is the Soleus push-up is a perfect example of how little it actually takes. It's almost like a twitch for the calves, how little it actually takes to normalize blood glucose and oxidative metabolism and even upregulate this lipoprotein lipase activity without doing a whole lot at all. So, there you have it. You're welcome. We're just going to stop there and send you all off to do your soleus push-ups. Moving on. So, there is this drink that I've talked about in the past called Feel Free. It's a blend of kratom and kava. And, because kratom when used in high doses or consistently or someone might start drinking it and not know this, kratom is addictive. And, a lot of people actually got addicted to this Feel Free stuff and were throwing back 5, 6 bottles a day, which I never recommended. I said basically limit yourself to a maximum of serving a day and serving is a half of a bottle. I might have 1 bottle a week right now of that stuff because I'm aware of the issues with kratom dependency. It's almost like an opioid, and I'll get to that in a second, acting in a similar fashion. It's not as problematic, I would say, as a traditional opioid pharmaceutical, but a lot of people get addicted to it. There's even an entire thread on Reddit of people, it's called the Quitting Feel Free thread, that is full of people who are sharing all the ways that they got addicted to Feel Free and the things that they've done to get off of it. I stumbled across a fantastic thread on there about getting off of kratom specifically, but this is something that's very interesting no matter what you're addicted to. So, the first thing it looked at or the first thing listed here, and this is just a stack that you do, is vitamin C. And I thought, "Well, gosh, why would they list vitamin C?" And then, I looked into the research on this. They've actually shown in in vitro studies in humans that a powerful antioxidant like vitamin C when taken in high concentrations, and I'll get to what those concentrations are in a minute, actually inhibits the enzymes that are responsible for degrading opioids and increasing endorphin levels. So, it's almost like making an opioid less effective, taking some of the edge off of it and making you less dependent on it. Now, the protocol for megadosing, that they've been sharing in this thread was that you got to take at least 5,000 milligrams, so 5 grams a day of vitamin C. Here's the issue. If you take more than about, I would say, maximum of 2,000 grams of vitamin C at a time, you're going to be running to the toilet with a little bit of explosive poops, or your stomach's at least going to be a little bit upset. So you got to break that into multiple doses during the day. Like you could take, for example, 1,500 milligrams 3 times a day, maybe a little bit more than 1,500 milligrams to hit that 5,000 milligrams. But that's the first thing. 5,000 milligrams or 5 grams of vitamin C. By the way, liposomal vitamin C is easier on the stomach, and there are companies that make liposomal vitamin C. I have some. It's by Jigsaw Health. Jigsaw Health makes liposomal vitamin C. But anyways, that's the first thing is get on vitamin C. So you're doing 5 grams a day of vitamin C. The next is magnesium glycinate. And this one's interesting. People talk about magnesium for sleep and for constipation and for relaxation and for cramps. Magnesium glycinate is a form of magnesium that does a pretty good job at crossing the blood-brain barrier and having central nervous system effects. So, a lot of people, they find success with taking around 400 milligrams of magnesium glycinate a day, 400 milligrams of magnesium glycinate a day. So, you got magnesium and vitamin C as the first two. Then, there's an interesting one. It's an amino acid. You don't hear people talk about this amino acid much, but it's called agmatine. Agmatine, it's an amino acid that supposedly helps with anxiety and depression, but people use this to help get them off both kratom and opioids. The general dose is around 1,000 milligrams twice a day. Now, I've never purchased agmatine. I've never used agmatine, but apparently, it works like gangbusters for opioid and for kratom dependencies, addictions, and withdrawals. I think one of the ways that it works is its interaction with dopamine, and I think it reduces the dopaminergic response to things like that. Not 100% sure. I didn't have time before the podcast to look into the mechanism of action, but agmatine, A-G-M-A-T-I-N-E. And I'll link to this whole thread in the show notes for those of you who want to take the deep dive. The next one is black seed oil. Black seed oil is very interesting. As a matter of fact, I have a bottle of so-called black cumin, nigella sativa, black cumin seed oil, And, I learned about this stuff when I interviewed a guy named Andreas Becker from Andreas Seed Oils. And, it's kind of like people say that bone broth will raise the dead or colostrum is a superfood or spirulina will solve all problems known to humankind and cause world peace. You hear a lot of people say this about black seed oil. A lot of people don't mind the flavor, but I use a little bit like about a tablespoon or so in my salads or on top of my food a few times a week because I still have some bottles that Andreas sent me for that podcast. And apparently, it helps with kratom and opioid dependencies and helps you get over that more quickly. I don't know if it's having a detoxification effect. I don't know if it's having a satiating effect. Again, I'm not sure what the mechanism of action is, but the next thing is black seed oil. And I'll talk more about seed oils here later on in the podcast and that black seed stuff that I use, but that's interesting as well. Next, we get to something called DLPA, And this is really interesting. This is also an amino acid, D-phenylalanine. You may have heard it before, D-phenylalanine. So, it is a synthetically made amino acid that slows the action of the enzymes that destroy endorphins, feel-good endorphins. So, when those endorphin-degrading enzymes are eaten up by DPA, it allows for you to have a significant increase in endorphin levels in the body. And so, the type of things that you might normally depend on for high endorphin levels like opiates are replaced by this DLPA. And a lot of people swear by this not only as a way to naturally enhance mood. It kind of— reading about this actually made me want to try dosing up with slightly higher doses of D-phenylalanine just to see its effects on mood overall because apparently it's a real feel-good amino acid. And I couldn't find a whole host of deleterious side effects or anything like that. When it comes to DLPA. You actually find it naturally in protein-rich foods like eggs or meat or yogurt, for example. But the dose in this case, the dose in this case is 500 milligrams twice a day, 500 milligrams twice a day of DL-phenylalanine. And if you take it with opioids, apparently it increases the strength of the opiates. So you need to be careful. You'd want to take it while you're simultaneously tapering off whatever it is that you're addicted to. So, that's DLPA, another interesting one. So, the last thing I want to mention is N-acetylcysteine, also an amino acid, also something the FDA seems to be making increasingly unavailable. You can still find it in certain supplements. There's one called GlyNAC. I'm pretty sure it's made by BioStack Labs, GlyNAC is, but it is a very potent antioxidant. It optimizes your production of glutathione and actually the repletion of glutathione as well. So, I've actually been using it since I got back from India because of the pollution I encountered there. I've also been using this, holding this up for the camera for those of you watching the video version. This is a nebulizer. I have been nebulizing liquid glutathione and then taking N-acetyl cysteine as a supplement because of its potent antioxidant activity and because it can help so much with pollution. You couldn't afford liquid glutathione. The next best thing is a half-half mixture of hydrogen peroxide and saline water, by the way, which I actually did when I was in India. But anyways, I get this stuff called Glutastat, company called Mitogen, Dr. John Laurance's company. And I put a little bit in the bottom of the basin here, and you just put it around your mouth and tighten it up, and you can bang away at emails while you're nebulizing glutathione. It helps to break up mucus. It clears congested lungs and sinuses. But the deal with NAC is that it may actually help to reduce some of the oxidative stress and damage and the detoxification of the body from the opioids or the kratom that you've been on and are dependent on. So, dosing for NAC is 600 to 1,200 milligrams, 600 to 1,200 milligrams daily. I do like that this thread does throw in some other things that I think are helpful. Exercise, yes. If I feel an urge to consume something that I know I'm dependent on, exercise fixes that almost immediately as does I know you aren't going to want to hear this, a cold bath. And, that's actually listed in this article as well. Cold water immersion is a game changer when it comes to dealing with some of the moody issues you might have when you're withdrawing or tapering off of a medication or a supplement. Sauna, same thing, whole host of feel-good endorphins from that 30 minutes in the sauna, 2-minute cold shower type of protocol. I tell everybody who's just feeling down in general, dude, get out in the sunlight, get exercise, and then do some kind of hot-cold practice.. And that alone can be incredibly beneficial. But what we just went over are some of like the deeper biohacks in terms of the supplements that could help out with this. I'm not a doctor. Don't misconstrue this as medical advice. Speak with your physician before you actually begin tapering off any type of antidepressant, opioid, et cetera. But I thought this would be super interesting for you considering how many people seem to ask me questions about this kratom addiction or feel free or things along those lines. So, the other thing you can do is my hack. Sometimes I will travel. For example, I did this in India because I just didn't know what I could take with me. Turns out later I could have taken just about anything with me, but I left almost all my supplements at home because I just didn't want to fuss with it. And so, 3 weeks with basically a multivitamin, I used the Xtend-Life multivitamin, some magnesium before bed, and what else? I had some digestive enzymes. That helped me for 3 weeks just realize, "Okay, those 40 other things I take when I'm at home, I can get by without." I like to live my life by the rule that if you put me on a desert island or send me out to camp or hunt without all the things in the pantry and all the supplements, I would be fine without sweating bullets every night and gritting my teeth and feeling as though I had to flag a helicopter to get my kratom. Just think about that. Use your desert island rule, right? Or as Anthony de Mello says in his book "Awareness," I don't know if you know this quote, you want to be able to walk through your house, your life, your environment, everything, look at anything that's there and say, "I do not depend on you for my happiness. I'm happy with or without you. I do not rely upon you for my happiness. I can be happy whether or not you are in my life." And, he even goes so far as to say that you should say that to people, which I think is interesting because sometimes I'll think, "What if my wife died? God forbid, what if one of my kids died or both of them die? Would I still be happy?" Well, it depends on your definition of happiness. If it's smiling and being joyful all the time, no. But, if happiness is satisfaction and enjoyment and purpose as Arthur Brooks says in the new book that he co-wrote with Oprah, which is a good book, by the way. I don't for the life of me remember the name of it. But anyways, back to the person thing. You need to be able to even think, "Gosh, if this person wasn't in my life, would I still be able to have a good outlook on life and to be contented?" And if the answer is no, you might even be dependent on a person. It's okay to be, I think, in a way dependent on people but not so much that you feel as though your life would be destroyed if they weren't in your life. I think the only thing I would say that my happiness truly depends upon if it's an outside source would be God. God would be the one thing, my belief in a higher power would be the one thing that I would say if I didn't have God in my life, I would be unhappy. And, that's actually my definition. Here we go getting all esoteric. My definition of hell. I don't know if hell is going to be a bunch of people dancing in a fire pit with little demons poking them with pitchforks or whatever. I think the ultimate definition of hell is you're just eternally separated from the only source of happiness that human beings can infinitely rely upon and just left to your own volition. Just imagine if God and absolute morality were sucked out of this planet. Well, people might get along, some people might get along for a little while, but eventually somebody's going to steal something, somebody's going to consolidate wealth, somebody's going to hurt somebody, fights will break out, wars, selfishness. I don't think humans are inherently good. In the absence of God. I think we are inherently a little bit selfish. And so, I would say the only thing that would make me truly unhappy would be if you took God out of my life because in my opinion, that's the definition of hell. But I digress. In addition to the thread that I just shared with you, there is also a fantastic website. It is called survivingantidepressants.org. I realize that a lot of people are dependent on antidepressants and this is an extremely helpful website. It goes into just about anything that a human being could be addicted to, and it tells you how to taper, how to dose, how to identify withdrawal, how to identify relapse, the different things to deal with like restless leg syndrome or the things that creep up as you're tapering off something and how to get rid of that, how long you can expect withdrawal symptoms to last. Helpful forums where people are having discussions about this stuff. Probably one of the best websites I've ever found for people who are addicted to something, anything, and want to get off. Well, not anything, like a substance and want to get off of it. So, if I go to, for example, let's say SAMe. A lot of people talk about SAMe as a powerful neuroactive amino acid that can help people if they have been, say, taking too many smart drugs. But can also produce withdrawal if you're going off of it after regular use. And so, it's got a whole thread in there like, "Here are the things that would act like SAMe but are less powerful that would allow you to gradually taper off of it. Here are things that could help you to feel good in the absence of it like a little bit of St. John's wort, for example. Here are the things that it shouldn't be combined with." And, it's just a whole thread on one single molecule and it goes on and on and on. But, The website's very helpful and I wanted to name that as another resource that I will put in the shownotes for you at BenGreenfieldLife.com/469. And then finally, I would be remiss to talk about addiction and not give a head nod to nicotine. Just let me know if you look around you and you or someone who you might happen to be looking at in the gym, at the office, whatever, could possibly have a nicotine pouch in their mouth or be chewing on a piece of nicotine gum or sucking on a lozenge or, God forbid, going outside and smoking a cigarette. They might even have a patch on. Who knows? Nicotine is highly addictive. I don't mind it. It's a great focal aid and it even appears to allow you to kind of get by towards the end of the day with a little bit of nicotine without disrupting sleep because it's got a much shorter half-life than caffeine. The problem is it's highly addictive and requires increasingly high doses. I don't want to tell you how many of my friends walk around with one of those 10 to 20 migs in packs that they got from the gas station in their back pocket or they're just mowing through all the different gums or pouches out there. Here are a few tips for that. Great paper or article at GreenMedInfo on this, by the way. The first is black pepper extract. I think that's the very best. Smelling black pepper, tasting black pepper. There's even this pen called the Füm pen, F-U-M. It is an essential oil vaping pen that comes in a variety of flavors including a very flavorful Maple black pepper blend, that's great because you're both getting the mouthfeel of vaping and the smell of black pepper simultaneously. And yes, I've gotten a few weird looks when I whip that thing out on an airplane to "vape" and several people look nervous that I was going to get thrown off the plane. But, if they made that illegal, they'd have to make chewing gum illegal because there's no vapor, there's nothing in it, it's just an essential oil. I don't even think they call it a vape pen, it's like an essential oil inhalation something or other to get around any issues. I don't know what I can even say as a podcaster without them getting upset. But anyways, the fume pen is incredible for black pepper. You can also get black pepper essential oil and just put a little bit on your upper lip and smell it. And, that alone can dissolve tobacco cravings. And, it doesn't involve taking much of magic mushrooms like that one Johns Hopkins study that's looking into psilocybin for tobacco. Addiction. Lime rinds, chewing lime rinds. Who knew? Wash them first, but apparently that helps. Lavender essential oil, not as powerful as black pepper, but that's another good one. I also like that one for sleep. People tell me that the ancient knights, like the Knights of the Round Table type of era, whichever era you call that because I'm not a historian, they would use lavender as a fragrance, which is interesting, a little little bit of extra knowledge in case you run out of cologne but you still got your lavender you've been using for your nicotine addiction handy. Just dab a little bit of that in the pits. St. John's wort, which I already mentioned, apparently because of the effect that has on serotonin, it can also really help with abstinence from nicotine and smoking. So, we've got black pepper extract, chewing on lime rinds. I don't know about that one. I'll try anything once though. Lavender essential oil and St. John's wort. For tobacco. And I think that fume pen for me, it's like, that's what I recommend anybody. It's obviously not free, but that thing's amazing. So anyways, that's about all I have to say for everybody out there who's addicted. Everybody's addicted to something, right? Like, I'm addicted to the sauna, the cold plunge, exercise, my family, right? There are certain things that I might have difficulty saying that Anthony DeMello quote to in my life, to be honest with you. Like, could I actually I don't know, as a fitness junkie, walk into the gym and be like, I'm not dependent on exercise to be happy. I could never exercise another day in my life and I would still be happy as a clam. Gosh, I mean, like the truth about that, what I tell myself, at least the story I tell myself, is that if I were relegated to a wheelchair because I got hit by a bus or something like that, I would very quickly find something else that satisfied that urge to somehow make me or the world better. Besides exercise. I would, of course, do soleus push-ups if I could, but I would write, I would do art. There are things that can still bring happiness. I think sometimes we get stuck in our routines and assume that everything in our routine gives us happiness when in fact it's just doing something that's giving you the happiness. So, just something to think about. Alright, let's move on to our listener Q&A. Listener Q&A. Here we go. Alright, the first question comes in from Bob Bead. Bob, if this is the same Bob, here's a funny story. I used to lead triathlon adventures in Thailand. Every year, I'd go and race in Phuket in this triathlon and then stay there a week because the next following week, they'd have a half Ironman in Thailand in the south of Thailand, the Andaman Sea. And, I would take about 15 to 20 people. Couple, individuals, families, et cetera. I would set up the hotels. I would set up the longboat transfers. I would set up the foods and the restaurants. And, I just took a whole bunch of people from America who met me in Thailand and they paid. I think I had about a 20% fee on the top. So, I made a little money and at least paid for my time in Thailand. But Bob, I believe, joined me on a few of those trips. I think Bob might have even married a girl from Thailand. If it's the same Bob. Hello, Bob. Hello, Bob. That might be the name of a movie also. Bob says, "Dealing with arthritis in both my knees and my right arm. Do you have any suggestions?" Well, some time ago, over— no, not over 100 episodes ago, around 100 episodes ago, I did a whole episode, 384, on the best biohacks for joint health. I went over super slow training and isometric training. Instead of doing plyometric or explosive training. I went over the anti-inflammatory diet book by Monica Reinagel, uh, one of my friends back in the day. I went over fish oil and omega-3 fatty acid intake. I went over topical painkilling cream made of capsaicin. I talked about swimming and non-impact-based exercise. And you could, of course, delve into that show if you want to pair it with this show. I'm not going to talk about a bunch of stuff I've already podcasted about. So that's episode 384. But there's been some advances in regenerative medicine since that episode that I think are interesting. For example, I couldn't play pickleball, I couldn't play tennis, I can't even run to my mailbox 2 years ago. My left knee was constantly swollen, constantly in pain, and now my knee is at about 90 to 95%. I play pickleball, I play tennis, I run. I'm getting ready to do this Spartan Deca race down in Austin in June. So, Why? Because I got intraosseous needling of a joint that every doctor told me was so arthritic that I'd never be able to do any of those things again. There were a few doctors that even refused to do surgery on me, a few orthopedic surgeons, because they said the arthritis was so bad that it wouldn't fix anything anyways and it might make the problem worse. But, I went down to Dr. Matt Cook's office in San Jose. I had them do intraosseous needling, which is basically— think of it like aerating a lawn. You're doing poking teeny tiny holes in the two articulating surfaces of the joint. And then, you're patching that up with, I think in this case, they use stem cells and placental matrix to literally regrow cartilage. Now, of course, I've probably had 6 additional stem cell treatments in that knee. I'd much rather that than surgery that's possibly not even going to work. I'd much rather that than be so debilitated I can't walk. But that intraosseous needling protocol was incredible. So that's one thing. Uh, if that's too expensive, there's also platelet-rich plasma. This is where they draw your blood, they spin it in a centrifuge, they separate out the platelets, and they concentrate them into plasma, which is the liquid part of your blood. Then they take the platelet-rich plasma and they inject that into the tissue. And the platelets don't stick around for very long, but the anti-inflammatory proteins and the signaling molecules and the growth factors that they draw into the area can help to improve symptoms of arthritis. And, there's a few decent studies showing a reduction in arthritic pain and management of arthritis, osteoarthritis in this case, from platelet-rich plasma. I said osteoarthritis in this case, by the way, because I believe that rheumatoid arthritis, which is more of an autoimmune condition, is much better addressed through dietary modifications. People have swelling, joint pain, et cetera, who start onto something like say the autoimmune paleo diet, Shout out to author Mickey Trescott. I think she's got the best autoimmune paleo diet book on Amazon. Sometimes their joint pain will go away overnight, and it's elimination of wheat and soy and dairy. And most plans out there make it feel like you're just eating cardboard all day long. But Mickey's actually tested a lot of her recipes. I have the book. I've recommended it to many of my clients, and that's a great book for the rheumatoid arthritic component. But obviously, if the joint's damaged and degraded, it's damaged and degraded. The other thing to think about from a nutrition standpoint, I remember when Mark Sisson walked up to me in Malibu at a coffee shop and he said, Ben, the game has changed for me. I have some of the strongest, best-feeling joints I've had in my life. And so, what are you doing? He said, I'm now taking 40 grams of collagen a day. I think that's a fantastic recommendation for arthritis issues. It's not necessarily going to heal stuff, but it will certainly help out with joint health and many people report help out with joint pain as well. I personally, and I realize this sounds like the fox guarding the henhouse because I own a supplements company that sells essential amino acids, I think essential amino acids are even better than collagen. I bounce back and forth. I had 20 grams of collagen in my smoothie this morning, but I also had 20 grams of amino acids. So, my rule is every day, however you combine them, 10 grams of one, 30 of another, 40 of one, 0 of another, or 20-20, whatever. I try to get 40 grams of collagen and/or essential amino acids, not branched-chain amino acids, essential amino acids, all 9 essential amino acids every day. And, I think that's fantastic for the joints. So, that's another recommendation for you. Stem cells, there's a lot of different stem cell options out there, but there's 2 newer ones that I would look into. So, you've probably heard about embryonic stem cells, right? Pluripotent stem cells mean they can turn into any of the couple of hundred different stem cell types in the body. And then, there's adult stem cells, which you would find from, say, your own stem cells you get from fat or bone marrow. And people will use those to treat osteoarthritis or heart failure or neurological disease. And they have shown that they could regrow cartilage in mice by guiding skeletal adult stem cells to produce cartilage instead of bone. That might have been what I actually got injected into my knee now that I think about it. But then, there's two others that are really interesting. One is iPSCs, induced pluripotent stem cells. So, these are the discovery of a Japanese researcher you may have heard of called Shinya Yamanaka. He's done a lot of longevity studies. He found that adult stem cells from almost any part of the body could be genetically reprogrammed back to an embryonic state avoiding ethical concerns about harvesting embryonic stem cells. Because that is an issue while guaranteeing an almost unlimited supply of these pluripotent cells. So, iPSCs, I think that's one very interesting form of stem cells to look into. And then, the other one is called vESCs, very small embryonic-like stem cells. So, these are tiny little pluripotent cells and they're something that a lot of regenerative medicine doctors are now using. I believe even my friend who I talked about, Dr. Matt Cook at BioReset, in San Jose uses them. Avi Herskowitz is another really good guy in the San Francisco area, by the way. I have a podcast with him about this stuff and he's really great at this as well. And then, you have what's called autologous micro-fragmented adipose tissue. So, you can think of this as fat-based PRP. It's abbreviated AMAT or M-FAT, great name for marketing. So, what they do is they take a small amount of your fat usually from your belly or your butt via liposuction, minimally invasive procedure. They wash it, they chop it into small pieces, gross, that's the microfragmentation, and then they inject it into the area needing treatment because fat has stem cells but also has what are called pericytes, which are vascular cells that act kind of like stem cells. And there are some studies showing promise for these new autologous microfragmented adipose tissue cells for back pain, for rotator cuff injuries, and for osteoarthritis. They've actually done research in academic medical centers showing that microfragmented fat can significantly improve osteoarthritis pain and function regardless of the patient's age or weight or stage of arthritis. So, that's interesting. They've even found that when they compared it with PRP combined with something called hyaluronic acid that the autologous micro-fragmented adipose tissue, if I can spit that out, I'm just going to say the MFAT. The MFAT was just as effective. So, that is another one to think about, the, the M-FAT. And these are all things you would ask a regenerative medicine doctor about. So, that, that's a small list, but then there's also a couple of different type of surgeries that are new that treat small localized areas of cartilage damage. This would probably fall into the same category as the intraosseous needling that I talked about. One's an autograft transplantation surgery, an osteochondral autograft transplantation surgery. This is where the surgeon will take cartilage, articular cartilage from a healthy part of, say, your knee that's healthy because it wasn't bearing all the weight, and then they use that cartilage to repair the damaged knee cartilage. And this would work if there's just small areas of arthritis in the knee, for example. The other one is called matrix-induced autologous chondrocyte implantation. Matrix-induced autologous chondrocyte implantation. You may have to take some notes during this podcast. So this is a very common technique for repairing knee cartilage. They've shown an 80 to 90% success rate on it. A two-step procedure. They remove a small sample of healthy knee tissue, then you wait a month because they got to grow the cells in a lab on what's called a collagen matrix or a scaffolding. And then, when that's ready after a month, when it's ready, the implant is trimmed to fit the cartilage defect and then secured in place with a fibrin glue. That's pretty cool. And they're now in experimental stages. They're using 3D printing for the cartilage and the bone reconstruction, meaning you could skip that first step. So at Mayo Clinic, they're doing a bunch of research on this right now and setting up the effectiveness of this matrix-induced autologous chondrocyte implantation. But I think that one's probably the most intriguing. It's really interesting. Um, so anyways, hopefully that gives you some stuff to think about as far as regenerative medicine. And the rate at which that field is expanding is crazy, probably because people who have money are getting old and they still want to play pickleball. I, of course, should give a head nod to turmeric. A lot of people talk about it. A lot of people say that it's poorly absorbed. Well, it is poorly absorbed, but that's great if you're using turmeric for anti-inflammatory activity in the gut. But, if you want the turmeric to act systemically and you want the effects of curcumin as far as joint pain management, you need to make the turmeric bioavailable. And there's a water extraction method that will result in the formation of what are called tumorosaccharides, tumorosaccharides. And the studies on that are really interesting. There's one study that found it reduced tenderness, crepitation, swelling, and effusion related to overuse of the joint. They found another one that showed that it protects against degradation of cartilage, meaning it would almost have like a preventive effect at decreasing cartilage cell destruction. They've shown that it can help gene expression of type 2 collagen, super important for the joints. I think tumorosaccharides are kind of like a rocket fuel for the joints. Now, that is the main active component in this stuff called Flex. I, if I'm injured, take 3 Flex in the evening on an empty stomach before bed. I really like it because it's combined with proteolytic enzymes, which can help with swelling and pain. And then they've also got what's called IU Flex in there. And IU Flex is a blend. It's actually this plant called haritaki, haritaki. But they've done some really interesting studies on this haritaki extract. The so-called IU Flex is what it's called in the nutrition supplements industry. And they've looked at it for the management of symptoms of osteoarthritis in the knee and seen efficacy as early as 14 days into using it. As far as management of osteoarthritis and reduced discomfort. So, Kion Flex is basically proteolytic enzymes, IU Flex, hydrolase, which helps to break down some of the things that cause soreness, and then these tumorosaccharides. Yes, I realize it's another shameless promotion. I helped to formulate that along with my friend and co-founder of Kion, Angelo Keeley. Shout out to Angelo. And I think it's just the best joint supplement product out there to look into, especially if you combine it with essential amino acids or collagen. So, that is everything I do. Combine this with what I told you in Episode 384, but hopefully that gives you some things to think about when it comes to managing joint pain. Next question comes from Donna. Donna says, "Could you recommend a dirty electricity filter to plug my grounding mat into?" Donna's high-tech. Dirty Electricity Filter. You hear people talk about these. I have one in every room of my house, and it's because dirty electricity is a problem. Dirty electricity in most homes is the highest source of EMF radiation that causes things like brain fog and irritability and even some nervous system issues during the day. It's just basically causing depolarization of the cells that puts you into a state where you're really aren't very relaxed. So, dirty electricity also goes by the term dirty power or electrical pollution, and it's based on this fact. Think of this as though unusable power gets stuck in your electrical wiring. So, the wiring in your home and your office and most buildings is designed to use 60 Hz AC electricity, 50 Hz if you're in Europe, 60 Hz in the U.S. So, this worked really well when originally designed since nearly all electronics are designed to consistently draw that type and amount of power.. But the issue starts when we have all these new smart home appliances and modern electronics that demand more or less or varying amounts of that same power. And in the electronics industry or people who speak that speak, that's called high-frequency voltage transients, high-frequency voltage transients, inconsistent use of power that causes erratic power surges during the day. And that unusable dirty electricity sits in your wiring and it radiates EMF radiation. So basically what you have to do is you have to manipulate the way that devices draw power. You could convert the 60 Hz AC current into a low voltage DC current. You could use higher voltage AC. You could draw power intermittently in short bursts by turning the electrical current on and off. And sometimes that's thousands of times per second. And any of those would kind of disrupt the normal flow of standard 50 or 60 Hz AC. But it also causes these massive spikes and surges in power, and that causes even more of this dirty electricity. So, this would be your laptop charger, fluorescent light bulbs, laptops, dimmer switches. A whole lot of more of those are needing much more or less electricity than the 120 volts that would normally come out of the outlet. And so, the way that they do that is they'll put a transformer that changes the voltage. That's like the black box or the small round black tube you'll see in the middle of charging cables, or they'll use some kind of a rectifier to change the AC to a DC current. Now, that's, for example, what I have as a solar panel transformer in my home. And, I realize I'm getting boring, I'm getting deep into the physics of this. But basically, you can measure this, you can measure with an AM radio. That's the dirt-cheap way to do it. You could get literally cheapo simple handheld radio with a built-in speaker from Amazon, you turn the AM dial all the way to the left and that's going to be at 530 kilohertz, okay, if you turn the AM dial all the way to the left. Then, turn the volume on the speaker up and go somewhere outside your house like your backyard and you should hear almost no static. And then, go back in your house and hold it near the walls and you'll hear static. And, the louder and more sporadic the static, the more likely there is to be a dirty electricity issue in your home. You can also use a dirty electricity meter. And, I have one of these. I have what's called a Gramm-Stetzer meter. You can literally walk around your house with that thing and find the areas where there's dirty electricity. You can get them on Amazon. They're not that expensive. And so, that's called a Gramm-Stetzer meter. There's another one called the Greenwave Broadband Meter. And, it takes in a really wide range of frequencies, but it filters out the normal 50 to 60 hertz that's not dirty electricity and then it displays that amount. In millivolts. So, you can walk around your house and what you're looking for is a reading of 300 millivolts or less, 300 millivolts or less on a GreenWave. If you're using the Gramm-Stetzer meter, that's measured in what are called Gramm-Stetzer units. And, for that one, you're looking at readings that are under 300. So, 300 is kind of like the magic number either for your Gramm-Stetzer units or for your millivolts, you're looking at something below 300. Most people in most homes and most buildings can skip all of this because most of these places have a high amount of dirty electricity. Hence, we talk about dirty electricity filters. All you need is one of these in each of the outlets in your home that happens to be connected to a specific breaker. So, if I've got like 4 outlets in my office but my office is only fed by one breaker from the electrical panel, I only need one dirty electricity filter in my office. And so, you could talk to the electrician about this or, I mean, honestly, if you have one in each room of the house, you're going to hit most of the issues. So, there's one called a Stetzerizer and it'll transform dirty electricity back into the 50 or 60-hertz power that can be safely used by your electronics and it filters out everything else between the range of about 4 and 150 kilohertz, which is the most dangerous form of dirty electricity in your home's electrical wiring. So, that's one brand that's good. It's called a Stetzerizer. Stetzerizer. I'll spell that in the shownotes, but that's one dirty electricity filter. The one that I have is not a Stetzerizer, it's a Greenwave. I got a bunch of these plugged into my house and that uses what's called electromagnetic interference or EMI filtering. And, that basically filters out the transient voltage electricity in the wiring of your home. So, those don't affect the 50 to 60 Hz electricity, but they filter out all the dirty electricity and all the spikes and surges. So right now, I am literally standing on a grounding mat that's not plugged into the wall of my office, which would allow me to be grounded, but is instead plugged into the backyard because my office is on the ground floor. So, it's just a little wire that goes out through my office door, plugs into the backyard, and I'm grounded. Just like I was outside barefoot. But in my bedroom, it's plugged into a dirty electricity filter that is then plugged into the outlet in the bedroom. And so, that's the way that I would set up a grounding mat is you just plug it into a dirty electricity filter. So now, when you're standing on your grounding mat, you're not at risk of getting a lot of these power surges or dirty electricity in your home passing into your body through the grounding mat. Some people even say standing on a grounding mat is worse than not being on a grounding mat at all if the grounding mat isn't plugged into a dirty electricity filter. And, I think that they could be onto something there. So, if you don't know what grounding or earthing or dirty electricity is, I probably now sound like an official orthorexic freak to you. But, if you think about it, this is not hard to wrap your head around. You're getting exposed to frequent power surges when you're in the average home or office. So, you plug in dirty electricity filters to fix that and the things that you use normally during the day get plugged into that filter. And that's it. That's simple. Oh, and by the way, if you have a dirty electricity filter plugged into one outlet in a room and all the other outlets are powered by that same breaker, then you could plug stuff into the normal outlets without plugging into the dirty electricity filter anywhere else in that room. And the dirty electricity filter is filtering all the outlets, so you're good to go. Save you a little bit of money there in case you're planning on buying 120 filters for the 120 outlets in your home. Great question. That one got a little nerdy, I realize. Alright, we got one more. Martin says, "I'm intrigued by these seed oil products from your podcast with Andreas Wecker of Andreas Seed Oils. But given that almost all biohackers and functional medicine practitioners I've read or listened to say to stay away from seed oils, will you provide an update?" Well, that's a great question. So yeah, I interviewed this guy named Andreas Wecker. And Andreas's theory is interesting. He feels that a lot of these fats, even fats taken from seeds in the proper way, are not as bad for you as the fats that have been exposed to chemical processing and heat and pressure that would allow those fats to be more fragile or more oxidized or full of what are called hydroxy nonenols, which can affect the protein structure in your body. I think he's onto something. I think that endless intake of sunflower oil and safflower oil and canola oil that's been heated and pressurized and probably stored in plastic and sometimes used to fry food so it's heated over and over again is not great for your cells. And, I think it's almost worse than sugar, frankly. Yes, I'm one of those guys who would rather have sugar and go work out and get the glucose down or walk or do soleus push-ups than I would to have seed oils because those hang around in the body for a longer period of time. I think they're worse for inflammation. So, what Andreas does, and this is the same guy who makes that black seed oil that I talked about, is he starts off with these organic seeds, freshly harvest them, and then he uses hydraulic and cold— I'm sorry, he does not use hydraulic and cold expeller pressing, which he says could fracture or damage the seed oil. He does not use solvent extraction to add undesirable chemicals. Which would cause a seed oil to prematurely oxidize or turn rancid. And refrigeration could prevent that but could also essentially cause your oil like clump up in the fridge or, you know, or basically sometimes you want to travel with your oil, sometimes you aren't able to keep it cold. So what he did is he developed an extraction method using certified organic non-GMO seeds and a cold pressing technology that's different than cold expeller pressing. And then, he seals up all these oils in miron glass bottles that are light protective and then ships them out. I'll link to the whole podcast I did with him in the shownotes because I just went over the summary of what he does pretty briefly. But, he has some really cool oils. He's got a milk thistle oil and a fennel seed oil and a coriander seed and a flaxseed. He's got pumpkin seed. He's even got kava extract oil. And, he has these different bundles that you can get like an immunity bundle for his oils and He's got a pet bundle. And, I actually really like his oils. They're not inexpensive and I would say the only issue is you can't cook with them. They're really fragile. They're the unicorn tears of oil. So, I'm okay with these because of the way that they're extracted. If you're going to cook, I would still recommend you use coconut oil or ghee or macadamia nut oil or extra virgin olive oil or just lard or animal fat, all of which is going to be much more stable for heat. But, for cold stuff, salads, putting a little bit on something you've already cooked, et cetera, these Andreas Seed Oils are pretty fantastic. I think I only have 2 bottles left. I had a bunch of bottles when we did the podcast. I think I still have a little bit of the hemp seed oil and the pumpkin oil. But, check out their website if you're listening in. I think it's worth trying them if you want some kind of oil around for salads and for toppings and things like that that's healthy. And arguably, like their black cumin oil, I keep seeing more and more research on this black cumin, nigella sativa seed oil, and the fact that he has stuff that's super high quality. I checked their website. Right now, you can get a bottle for about $40. That bottle is going to last you easily 1 or 2 months and doesn't need to be refrigerated. So, it's worth at least trying or checking out, particularly if you're addicted to all the things we talked about earlier. So, yeah, that's the deal with Andreas Seed Oils. I think it's a cool company and I think that that is an example of a seed oil that would not be harmful. I would put extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil in that category. And then, all the people who know a lot about food will tell me that those are fruit oils, not seed oils. But, I'm pretty sure the avocado is just a giant seed. I don't know. I could be wrong. If you planted it, it might grow an avocado tree. Anyways, I'm getting outside my area of expertise, so I'm going to shut up now. So, if you have questions that you want to ask for the show, you can go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/469. If you have questions or comments or feedback based upon the things I've talked about, be it about your metabolism or addiction or the biohacks for arthritis or these seed oils or dirty electricity filters, anything like that, leave your questions, leave your comments, leave your feedback, leave this podcast a rating or review. That helps out a ton. With the mysterious algorithms that dictate whether or not I can stick around the podcasting world. So, that helps. And I just want to thank you for being an amazing listener. I hope that you've learned a few things to make your life better. Till next time, I'm Ben Greenfield. Have an amazing week. Do you want free access to comprehensive shownotes, my weekly roundup newsletter, cutting-edge research and articles, top recommendation from me for everything that you need to hack your life and a whole lot more, check out BenGreenfieldLife.com. It's all there, BenGreenfieldLife.com. See you over there. Most of you who listen don't subscribe, like, or rate this show. If you're one of those people who do, then huge thank you. But here's why it's important to subscribe, like, and/or rate this show. 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