India's Air Pollution and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

At that last day, when I walked off that podcast, that was not planned. Yeah, that was not. That was not a stage event. My team's telling me you want to, like. Yeah, cool, Cool.

Thanks.

That was our last podcast, I think, on day three, and we were flying to China the next morning, and I had become just overwhelmed with the pollution. Like, I just was at the end of my road.

You were breaking out with rashes like your eyes. I mean, all of us were dying. Like, we were really feeling it.

It was actually really emotionally stressful because the PM2.5 levels when we were there, I think they averaged around 75 to 120, depending upon the city we were in, and that's equal to around three to five cigarettes per day. As we got more and more in the Indian culture and talked about this topic, it just became increasingly clear that it's really a representation of this more systematic problem where they're literally breathing death and everyone is so normalized to it that they couldn't even see it anymore.

All right, you guys, let's get into the topics. This is you, Brian, on this Monday morning. I'm kind of hoping that one day we can do a podcast episode where you're in hbot. Wouldn't that be fun?

Yeah, that's a good idea.

We should put the mic inside the.

Mask or something like the little lav mic. HBOT's kind of insane. So you did this really rigorous protocol. I think you did an hour and a half every day for something like 60 days. And here are some of the the results that you experienced. You wiped out inflammation in your body. You boosted your telomeres, which was an incredible longevity marker. You improved your microbiome, you reduced dementia risk, and you improved your whole body skin dramatically. What is hbot?

So when we started this project, we were trying to evaluate all the interventions that were in the scientific literature. And what we are basically trying to ask is, you know, you hear a lot of things about what people are doing for health and wellness. Popular things like cold plunge and nad drips and vitamin infusions. And, like, these are, like, the things that people talk about. And we wanted to go to the scientific literature and say, what does the evidence say are the most robust therapies to actually move markers that predict longevity? And HBOT was on that short list. But HBOT for longevity is not in this category, where the evidence is airtight. You can just say, it's tried and true. It's really still emergent. And as recent as a study in 2020 out of Israel, where It kind of puts us on the map with telomere elongation. But still then people were as all things in science, it wasn't like it was this panacea. There were still some disagreement on whether or not it was study was done well, whether it's robust, et cetera. So we decided to put hyperbaric oxygen therapy to the test. And so Mike put together a protocol for this. We got a two atmosphere chamber, so two ATA. And we had a protocol where we did 90 sessions. I'm sorry, 60 sessions in 90 days. Each session was 90 minutes and it was 20 minutes oxygen on, five minutes off. You're going from high oxygen to low oxygen repeatedly. And that increase to decrease creates nice signaling mechanisms within the body. And I mean Mike, you chime in here, but I think when we were going over the results, I'll just actually read the results off. I think we were all really surprised and I think we would probably say it has been the most efficacious therapy we have done since starting blueprint for the entire body. So, so let me just read this off. Uh, yeah, so we had a 300% increase in veg F that leads to increase, you know, to new blood vessel growth. Um, yes, the measurement for systematic inflation inflammation called HSCRP was not even detectable in my body. So this test couldn't even find levels of systematic inflation in my body. Uh, we had dramatic improvements in my microbiome. A thousand percent increase in, in Akkermansia. 250% increase in short chain fatty acid. 290% increase in ambuterate. So like dramatic improvements. We had a second company do an analysis on my microbiome where they found, looking at over 200,000 papers on the microbiome using AI tools, they couldn't find any dysbiosis. So there was no disease signature in my entire microbiome which put me in the, in the top 10% of all microbiomes I've ever sampled with that signature. So very, very rare. It reduced a dementia marker by 28.6%. And then we had other improvements in muscle oxygenation. I need to follow up with the VO2 Max test on a lab grade system to see what happened to that. And then we had a telomere measurement. Well actually I'll pause on telomeres and we'll come back to that. But yeah, those were the whole body results. Mike, what's your take on those results?

I mean the results were pretty impressive. They especially around inflammation and the microbiome. Those, those two Areas for me were beyond any anything microbiome, for sure. Like the most impactful intervention I've ever seen, inflammation. Given that we're starting from someone who is already at a baseline level of inflammation that's quite low, and then going to an even lower level is just pretty insane in such a short period of time with really no other intervention other than. Other than hbot. So, yeah, super, super impressed.

Yeah. So the other thing that. That was interesting is we didn't measure skin rejuvenation, we didn't do a biopsy of the skin. But in several studies, this was the data that was seen. 12.8% increase in collagen density, 144% increase in elastin elastic fiber length, and a 41% increase in blood vessel count, which.

Which is insane because you've started calling this HBOT skin, by the way. HBOT stands for hyperbaric oxygen therapy for anyone listening at home. So essentially flooding your body with oxygen. Um, but yeah, you've coined this HBOT skin to the point where last. Last week we were meeting up with Ari Emanuel, the CEO of wme. I believe he started that company. Um, so you saw him and you were like, that's HBOT skin. And he was like, yep, I love hbot. Isn't that crazy?

Yeah, it's true. And even with Talmadge, So my son Talmadge started doing HBOT the house. And I can tell, I can definitely. There's a signature for. I can see it in the skin texture and color and tone. And that was definitely a thought in mind initially. But it's. I think HBOT is probably the most significant skin glow up of any therapy out there. Better than any laser, better than any machine. And like, when we started looking at these various skin therapies, people, of course they. They start with fillers and look at things like lasers and Botox, et cetera. But I think HBOT probably is the most efficacious skin remodeling therapy in the world. Its whole body, it's not just part of the face. So that was really surprising to me. It dramatically improved my skin quality.

It's wild. I know a lot of people do it for fun. Like here in la, there's plenty of places you can go. When I've heard you talk about it, though, it's actually pretty specific specs that you want to hit. So walk us through what to look for if you want to do hbot. Cause you have it at home, but obviously a lot of people can't do that. So how do they get access to hbot?

Yeah. This is one of the challenging things about hyperbaric oxygen therapy. One is it's very time consuming. So over a, yeah, a 90 day period, you're spending over 70 hours in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. And that's just a lot of time in life. And so if I couldn't pair this up while working, I just couldn't have done it. I don't have that amount of time in the day. So the fortunate thing is I had a chamber where I could actually sit in a chair and have my desk in front of me and work for the entire time of the therapy. The benefit of that, of course, is that like the picture you showed Kate, I can do meetings and I can write and other things. I could work in other ways. And also when you're in a chamber, this one had, it maintains a oxygen concentration inside the chamber of 21%. So that's atmospheric levels, levels of oxygen. So you're not, you don't have a hundred percent oxygen in the chamber, which creates risk of fire. You're breathing a hundred percent oxygen in the mask, but in the chamber itself is 21% oxygen. So in that sense it is safe to have electronics in there and then work. But I think a lot of people challenge because one, you have to go to a place to do this. So by the time you drive there, get there, do it. It's like at least a two and a half, three hour fare. And then Mike, do you wanna talk through the difference between most of the soft shell chambers? You know, just like 1.4, 1.2 ATAs and the a hundred percent oxygen environment they have versus the, the a hundred percent oxygen we have through the mask.

Yeah, so the important thing here is that you're getting to a deep enough levels, which means enough, you're getting high enough pressure. And sometimes we talk about like when you're going into a chamber, you're actually diving. That's because the pressure increases as you go further down when you dive. But for, for the purposes of longevity, we really want to be above 1.5 atm. So 1.5 atmospheric pressure and ideally at 2. That's where the most recent study that Brian was talking about out of Israel was at 2.0 ATMs. So we want to be able to get to two ATMs. The challenge is you really need a hard shell chamber to do that. There aren't any soft shell chambers that go that high. The highest soft shells are usually about 1.3 to 1.5. So it's important that you have a chamber that will take you deep enough, and then you also want to make sure that you're getting that 100% oxygen. Now, the challenge with the oxygen is if you just have that like ambient in the air, you're exposing all of your skin and most importantly your eyes to those high levels of oxygen. And that actually can cause cataracts. So what we want to do instead is make sure the oxygen is being delivered through a mask where you can breathe in and actually exhale through the mast so that extra oxygen is actually being shot out of the chamber as opposed to staying in the ambient air causing the cataracts.

Does it matter if you're lying down or sitting up, or is that just personal preference?

Personal preference. But I think if you're sitting up, it's easier to do things as opposed to lying down. So a slightly larger chamber gives you the opportunity to watch your, you know, do something on your phone or work on your computer in Brian's case. So sitting is, I think, advantageous as well.

And then it's also, it's also the case that 90 minute sessions do have advantages over 60 minute sessions. So if you can do 90, it's better. I mean, I guess, let me qualify if you're looking for recovery. And there are certain indications where 60 minute sessions are efficacious, and then 90, there's others, for example. So we're going after longevity benefits, and that's really in the 90 minute range.

And there is some truth to doing it.

It's important to remember that there are medical indications for HBOT that are, that are not necessari the same protocols as what we're talking about here. So we're talking specifically about longevity. And I think it's also worth mentioning that there's probably a spectrum like Brian jumped in at a much higher level on the spectrum of doing, you know, 60 total sessions over 70 hours in HBOT over three months, which is a lot. But there is probably some benefit to less. We can't quantify that as well because we don't have the research. But probably some HBOT is better than no hbot. The question is, at what point do you really hit that inflection point where you are getting the maximum benefit, that we think we're likely near maximum benefit at this point.

And so, yeah, I was gonna say that. Can you do too much? Like, if someone's like, hey, I want to go absolutely crazy on hbot, is that a problem?

Yeah, theoretically, you could cause too much oxidative Damage. So one, we haven't talked about how HBOT works, which if, if you don't mind, I'd like to just like go over it real quickly. It's actually causing oxidative damage to your body. So like the, the high levels of oxygen that get dissolved into your, into your serum, not even attached to your red blood cells, deliver extremely high like 15x levels of oxygen to your tissue. And high oxygen is actually bad, at least if it, even for short periods of time it can be quote unquote bad. But in this case what it's doing is it's upregulating your body's natural systems to reduce all the damage that high oxygen is doing. And then because we're only doing it for a short period of time, we're pulsing that high oxygen now the upregulation lasts longer and you now have this regeneration activity in the body that otherwise wouldn't have been there if you hadn't have deliver that stimulus. So it's sort of like a hormetic response to actually something that is like quote unquote bad for you. So in this case it's super interesting, but you could potentially do too much. If you were doing it say all the time, you wouldn't give your body the ample opportunity to sort of recover and have that regenerative process. So that's why we chose a protocol where it was basically like around five days a week, two days off, not every day. And then after that length of that protocol, we've sort of backed off and pulsing it afterwards.

Yeah, that's, that makes a lot of sense. So you can do it too much, you should be careful. And then the other thing I want to mention is, Brian, I think I've heard you say that it's possible that these H1 machines, if you don't know where you're going and you're not going to a reputable place, you're actually not even getting the full advertised oxygen amount potentially. So just the importance of otherwise people are just wasting their money and time it sounds like. Right, so like making sure they go to a reputable place.

Yeah. One thing we, we discovered is we had an oxygen concentrator initially with our system and we measured the oxygen concentration and it was around 89 to 92% I believe. And we expected it to be 100. And so we got rid of the oxygen concentrator and we got medical grade oxygen cylinders. So we found a local company to deliver the cylinder and then we got an attachment to feed it through the mask. So I'D say, I'm not quite sure. I don't think there's evidence that compares the various levels of oxygen, you know, from 89 to 92 to a hundred percent. But we did the. A hundred percent. Yeah. Then. Then also, like Mike was saying, be wary of a hundred percent oxygen in chamber that has negative effects potentially. And then the frequency that, you know, if you do one session per week, it's not as good as if you're doing them in proximity. So if you want to achieve the benefits of hbot, then you'll need to contemplate, you'll need to make sure you align whether you're doing a lower atmospheric chamber, 1.2, 1.4 range versus 2, and then 100% oxygen versus some lower grade. And then whether you've got it in a mask or whether you have an environment. And then the protocol, the number of sessions. So for some things, indications 20 sessions are fine. We did the full 60. So all those are variables that you want to contemplate if you want to be efficacious. The protocol we did, you know, with the 60 sessions in the 90 days, really did achieve, basically, I think it was about on point with the benefits we've seen in literature and maybe exceeding in some areas. So it was a good outcome in that we did a research search, we tried to assess where the areas we thought we'd improve. We did take these baseline measurements for the, to capture the, the potential benefits and we did see them. So overall, I think I'm very happy that we did this test. I'm very happy we were as quantified as we did and we saw a really dramatic before and after snapshot.

Cool. Um, next topic, which is somewhat related, is that the air quality in India, we, we recently went to India, I think it was in December, and it's the opposite of hp, because the pollution there was so bad that we almost canceled the trip last minute. And I think sometimes like the, the levels were hundreds of times higher than the recommended PMI. Is that what it is? PMI limits? Yeah, yeah.

PM2.5.

PM2.5. Yep, yep.

PM PM2.5.

Yeah. Which is wild that people are living in this pollution every single day. And I think, Brian, you said that after you and Mike were doing the. A look at the literature that actually potentially is that pollution caused more shortening of life than cancer did. So that India might even be better off solving pollution for its country rather than trying to go after something like cancer. So what happened? Why was it so controversial?

Yeah, so we decided to go to India. Last year we decided to do India and China because we wanted to seed don't die in those countries. And we had up until that point only really been present in, in small groups of people in the United States. And so I had a few friends in India and we said, let's go, let's do this. And so they lined up this trip for us where in I think three days, we did two cities. We initially we were going through Delhi, but we decided not to do Delhi at the last minute because the air quality was so bad that we skipped Delhi and then. But yeah, we did three days and we, in that time duration, I think we did something like five podcasts, you know, four, four media interviews, three or four private events. Like it was just an absolute blitz. And in making the trip, we wanted to have a discussion with the country on a health topic. And so we were evaluating various things which we could talk about. And air quality came up as one that was on our radar. And as we started looking into it days before, I looked up at a bunch of the air quality data and I got so alarmed, I called my friend Kate, I called you, and I was like, I think we need to cancel this trip. Like, it is really bad. I mean, I knew the air quality in India was bad, but like, not to this level. And so I talked to my friend and he's like, you know what? It's fine. The hotel we're staying at has air purifiers throughout the hotel. It's all monitored. It's on these screens. You're fine. And so we went there and once we'd landed, it was just an entirely different, different world. Like, I guess it's one thing to see, see high levels of, of toxins on a, an air quality map, but when you're there and you're breathing it, you can just smell and feel the, the pollution in your nose and lungs and throat. And it was a shocking arrival. So, yeah, we got there and it just like, as we got more and more in the Indian culture and, and talked about this topic, it just became increasingly clear that it's really a representation of this more systematic problem where they're literally breathing death and everyone is so normalized to it that they couldn't even see it anymore. And so just like, first for context on this, like, the PM2.5 is, is a marker of a health danger. It's 2.5 micrometers. And this particular thing is identified because it's small enough to bypass the nose and the throat and get into deeply into the lungs and even the bloodstream and maybe even to the brain. And it carries these toxins, these nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, carbon monoxides that come from industrial pollution, vehicle emissions, smoke. And it causes all kinds of things. It can put you at risk of lung disease, cardiovascular damage, neural generation. And like you're saying, Kate, if they actually, India would do better for their population to address air pollution than solve all cancer, it would actually extend lifespan more. So being there in person, it was actually intense, like much more than I had imagined.

When you said, like they're breathing death and they're normalized to it, it makes me think about how in America you're eating death and you're normalized to it like that. Our culture is just so. So, yeah, I guess like a note that this really isn't about India's inability to solve pollution. It's about the things that are right in front of our eyes that we can't see, that we learned to live with. So many people we interacted with were just unaware of the situation. And so they weren't checking for the quality every day. They weren't having purifiers in their homes, they were exercising outside. It was just one of those situations where we started poking at something and it was like, oh no, there is. It's like the more people learn about it, the scarier it is. And actually this wasn't being talked about or solved at all. And so I think within that couple of days we. It was like it blew up in India. Like the whole of India was talking about this topic. And from the COVID of all the major publications there, it became a really, really big topic.

Yeah. For context on this, it was actually really emotionally stressful because the, the PM2.5 levels when we were there, I think they averaged around 75 to 120 depending upon the city we were in. And that's equal to around three to five cigarettes per day. And for. So for someone who is like monitoring health, as meticulous as I am on a daily basis, like every single calorie, every single movement, and then to basically imagine myself, you know, smoking, cleaning up smoking of the day, it was such an incomprehensible concept to me that it was extremely emotionally upsetting. And you know, again, we had imagined that we'd be there in certain environments with air filters, but that just wasn't the case. We arrived and our, our hotel was. Did not have air quality controls, it did not have filters like we had thought. So, yeah. And so that at that last day when I Walked off that podcast. That was not planned. It was. That was not. That was not a stage event. I was. That was our last podcast, I think on day three. And we were flying to China the next morning. And I had become just overwhelmed with the pollution. Like, I just was at the end of my roller coaster.

You were breaking out with rashes, like your eyes. I mean, all of us were dying. Like, we were really feeling it.

And there was like, basically in an outdoor setting. So they had this, this trans. This, this outdoor transportation.

Like a marquee where it looked like it was inside, but actually it was like there was no separation between inside and outside.

Yeah. So you're basically just outside 125pm 2.5, which is like, you know, multiple cigarettes. And I just couldn't do it. And I was. Yes, I passed the end early. I didn't even. I thought they were going to cut it out. I didn't think they would even show me because we actually wrapped the podcast because I said to him, like, hey, I gotta. I gotta step out. And then I jumped back in and we actually wrapped the podcast.

Yeah.

So, like, I didn't want to be rude to my host. And so I thought they were just gonna cut that out and like, just finish the podcast and it'd be a lesser amount of time.

Yeah.

And yeah, like that turned out to be like the. The inflection point of what really got the whole country to talk about this. And even now, like, it's a continued conversation, so really started a. A necessary conversation, like you were saying, Kate. The last thing I'll say about this is when we came back to the U.S. so we're traveling back from China, two weeks on the road and I get to lax and I see obesity everywhere. Like, obesity. It seems like everyone's overweight. And so that's like America's equivalent of air pollution that the obesity in the United States. I forget we looked up the numbers, but it's like a shocking percent of Americans are obese. And where I'm so normalized to obesity, I just don't see it anymore. And so, yeah, every country has their own thing. So this is not picking on India. This is just like topics of conversation were normalized too.

Yeah. And I feel like it's a really nice parallel because in both situations it's impossible for the individual to overcome the systematic things. Like when there's just food, like food deserts all over America, access to high quality food is so impossible. And then also, like, very addictive tactics are placed right in front of you. It's so hard to resist that.

Yeah. So Mike, what would you say for people all over the world that are listening to this, how should they think about being aware of air quality and what things can they do to improve their health amidst air quality challenges they may face in their region?

Yeah, I mean, so first thing I wanted to say is that this isn't isolated to India. Air quality is an issue all over the world and we've actually been having a lot more trouble with it in the states recently from all the, mostly from the wildfires in the west. But LA has had its own challenges with air quality on a chronic basis from traffic and from regular types of smog. But the levels of air quality we're seeing from the wildfires has been pretty insane levels up in like the two, three hundreds locally and even, you know, sort of like traversing across the country in the northern part of the country from the California, Oregon, Washington fires. So it's definitely a concern for sure and something that people should be thinking about. It's also worth noting that like most of local governments, like in school systems, they don't really have good criteria for when to avoid air quality. Like most of them will tell you above 150 you should be, you know, consider not exercising outside. Whereas, you know, Brian's worried about like sitting outside at 125. Right. So the criteria are probably not quite stringent enough. So the first thing I would recommend is actually measuring and having a way to check on air quality in your local area. So two ways you can do that. You can have a monitor that you set up at your house, like an IQ Air or you can find there's, you know, IQAir has the ability to look at other people's monitors so that you can see what the air quality is outside, but then also tracking what your where your house is to make sure that your filter is working appropriately. So tracking is the first thing that's always first. Right. Measurement. But then after that, what can you do to improve air quality? Well, you can improve the air quality in your home, which is probably the most important first step. And the way to do that is to make sure that you have an adequate air filter with your H VAC system, ideally one that is a MERV 13 or above, which is just like the level of filtration that happens. That means it's going to catch those small particles that get down into your lungs, those 2.5 particles. And then ideally some carbon filters in the house too that can pick up some of the more activated Chemicals that can be in the air from smog and things like that. So adequate air purification. You can also add additional air purifiers in your house like Dyson iq. Air makes one, molecule makes one. Those are all great. Then when you're outside, the choice of going outside is something you should be thinking about. So you really shouldn't be exercising outside. If the air quality is greater than 100 of PM2.5, that's at least my recommendation. You might get different recommendations from different, different, different sources. But I wouldn't do it above 100. In fact, I don't really work out outside exercise outside above like 70 generally. And then if it's above 150, I'm usually wearing a mask. And that would be an N95 in order to catch those, those 2.5 particles. So sort of considering like where you're exercising, what you're doing outside when you're, when you're going outside and making sure you have some sort of implement to prevent yourself from breathing in that air. And then finally, the other thing I would say is there is some mechanistic reason to think about certain supplements. If you are exposed to these, to high air quality, like if you're, you know, you're going somewhere where there's going to be high, poor air quality, or if you live in an area where there's a local fire or something like that, you need to worry about that. Something that picks up reactive oxygen species and manages those, like N acetylcysteine or glutathione could be really helpful. And then anti inflammatories. Because really what's happening is these, these pollutants are getting into your lungs, into your bloodstream. They're causing inflammation and they're causing reactive oxygen species. And that's what's leading to the plaque development and the damage to the blood brain barrier and the inflammation in your brain. So really we want to reverse those reactive oxygen species with things like glutathione or antioxidants. And we want to reduce inflammation. So obviously we can do that through lots of other lifestyle choices. But as far as supplements go, things that reduce inflammation and manage, manage any oxidants, those are the big ones for me.

Yeah. And it's also, I think for those of you who are thinking about this like the, it's really important to talk about systems because when topics like this come up, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. And so let me just explain really simply how to do this. This, this does require some investment. So be mindful so inside my house, basically, we maintain perfect air quality 24 7. And so we monitor the air quality in every single room. And we use. There's various devices you can use. Mike mentioned one. We have IQAir, we have a few others as well. And then I have the IQAir air purifier. I also have two other versions we're trying right now. I have the commercial grade one. And then we just monitor the air quality with those systems going 24 7. So once you set this up in your home and you change your filter in your home H Vac system to a MERV as high as you can. Mike mentioned 13, which is about the cap of what most H Vac systems can actually accommodate. I think a lot of them will tell you 11 or below. So just take the highest MERV filter you can and then once you get your air quality monitoring in place and your filters in place, it's running without you thinking about it. So it's not something you have to think about on a regular basis. So this is one way where you want to solve your health with habits and systems. In the same way you want to say you're going to bed at a certain time every single night and never change that the air quality is the same one. So if you just identify the area of focus, build systems, then you can just put it on autopilot. And so that way you reduce health stress and you run on systems more effectively. Then a reminder for all of you out there listening to right now, write down your plan for the coming days. Map out what time you're going to go to bed, what days you're going to exercise, what things you're going to do when you exercise and make some commitments that you know. For example, you're not going to eat fast food, you're not going to eat junk food, you're going to try to eliminate sugar from your diet. So write these things down, commit to these behaviors. Don't ever let yourself decide in the moment what you're going to do, because you're very likely to cave to that moment. So make a plan, commit to it, and then when that moment arrives, you're going to have more strength to follow through on your being your best self. So hopefully that's the outcome of this conversation we're having in the podcast. And like previous episodes, let us know in the comments below. Like, is this working? What things do you want us to change? I'm very excited about this. I think we're going to have a good time. We've been wanting to do this for a long time and just trying to find the right format. And I think this is has a lot of potential. So let us know what you think.

All right, cool. Thanks, guys.