4 Experts Share Secrets to Biohack Skin : 1188

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. So when someone says you're a locust because you believe how your looks matter, how do you defend yourself against that terrible, terrible comment that people might throw your way?

Interesting. What I've observed since 2011 working with thousands of people is there's actually the subset of people that I've observed and as a researcher I love to observe, and there's actually men and women that I've seen aged 60 to 90 that show up as more beautiful than someone in their 20s and 30s, even though they have overt signs of visible signs of aging. It's the way that they carry themselves and there's very specific things that they do in their lifestyle that give them energy and it actually they're living basically a life with body, mind, spirit, energy, practices, family unit.

I'm marveling at the strength of the media training you received to completely dodge the question so effortlessly. Have you thought of politics?

Definitely not.

So back to defending yourself as a lookist. How are you going to do this?

I look at people in a certain way. What I'm actually looking at when I'm seeing someone is the brightness in their eyes. I'm actually observing for signs of oxidative stress status. So do they have overt signs of inflammation around their eyes?

You're going to use science and facts to defeat lookism. Okay, well that works because looks at look is actually completely a fantasy of victim minded people. Here's the deal. How you look does matter, even if you wish it didn't. And I've been obese, I've had really bad skin. And even in those situations, it doesn't affect how good of a person you are. It doesn't affect whether you're a moral person, whether you have high integrity, but it does affect how people judge you before they have a chance to think. Because your operating system automatically judges all of reality for a third of a second before it shows it to you. That's just facts. And that's one of the reasons that you might consider taking care of your skin to the best of your abilities. And I know I've spent a lot of my life not as healthy as I am now, but to pretend it doesn't matter is a very weird, just mental gymnastic yoga pose.

So many people do it right, especially the super crunchy granola type of individuals out there, they take such good care of themselves in various aspects, but they're not looking after their skin. And in fact, when they're using products that they think are clean. They actually don't realize that some of the ingredients are actually full of rancid oils.

So what we're talking about here, just to be really clear, is we're talking about not makeup and stuff like that, but we're talking about having healthy skin as an organ, which affects what you could call beauty or handsomeness or attractiveness or the glow or whatever. So what I'm suggesting, and I think what you're saying here is let's have healthy skin. But most of what people do for their skin is bad for their biology, from what I've seen. And I mean, even in my fertility book, like 10 or 12 years ago, I'm like, if you can't eat it, you probably shouldn't put it on your skin. Because, you know, there's stuff in a lot of skincare products that honestly, I wouldn't rub on top of my dog.

And those formulations change so often.

Oh, talk about this because, like, you had it checked out last quarter and it was really safe. And then what are companies doing now?

Yeah, it's really interesting because I connect with people. I love to see what products they're using and actually looking at the ingredients of every single product they use. So I have my Bachelor's of Science in Nursing, then I have my Gen Chem, Organic Chem, and Biochem. So I love to have my finger on the pulse of some of the trends. Get this. I have seen ingredients, including BPA and even tin as ingredients in skincare that are being marketed.

They're adding tin.

They're adding tin.

Tin is a toxic metal.

Yeah. As well as I've even seen DNA. And these are in some of the biggest brands that are marketed to younger individuals. But, like, what DNA is that?

Not a vegan?

Is it an animal? Oh, definitely not a vegan.

I know that was a joke. But even vegans eat plant DNA. And like humans, healthy humans eat animal and plant DNA.

I'm also seeing more canola oil because.

When someone says there's DNA in there.

I was like, well, what is it?

There's DNA floating in the air in this room. That's not mine, because you're in here too. And, like, we'll just have to deal with that.

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's interesting to see the shifts. So what happens is I noticed that these big skin companies that previously were actually pretty good. However, they were somewhat clean, but actually not providing the results and performance that people are. Are really seeking. And then the formulation shift. And I've seen that quite a bit over the last six months to a year. And I think it's just, you know, companies, they get bought, they're wanting to increase their margins. And actually every quarter I go through every single ingredient, every single product that I offer. And most people don't do that.

Oh, when you say products you offer, these are other brands that you just carry on your store.

Yeah, I work with a number of.

You can have a shout out on. On the podcast. What's your URL for your store?

The school of radiance.com radiance.com.

Cool. All right. And so you go through and you review because the ingredients change.

Because I care.

Well, yeah. And sometimes they're not disclosed. Like, one of the companies that I'm well known for working for, like, I haven't been able to review anything other than what's printed on, on the labels. And I know the labels have changed, but I have no idea what's going on. Yeah, so it gets, it gets like that with food companies too. It's really good this quarter. And then next quarter you start getting hives from it. And like, oh, look, they added more protein in the form of some Latin words. And you look it up and they're putting like locusts in there, like actual bugs, because it raised the protein count. But they don't tell you on the front label. So skin care is even worse because it's not regulated, which is good, because if they regulated it, you could only put gasoline on your skin.

It is all about being a more conscious consumer. And I know that's what this community is all about. So it's not just about your skincare. It's about your hair care. It's about your personal care products, what you're washing your clothes with, what you're washing your dishes with, what you're cleaning your home with. So the angle about being a biohacker isn't just about buying all this technology. It really is about making good decisions as often as you can to reduce that oxidative stress status.

Okay. You convinced me, and I think our listeners, that if you take care of your biology using core biohacking techniques like cold plunges, EMF blocking grounds.

Yeah, we'll all ask what my basic recommendations are too.

Okay, well, those are. I think we talked about each of those, didn't we? Already?

We missed a couple.

Okay, tell me the other ones that we didn't talk about that are just like foundational to being a healthy human, which give you healthy skin.

It really comes down to purification.

Okay, master list, give me the Bullet points.

Air, water, lighting, electromagnetics, irregular detoxing. So with your air, making sure that your air is purified in your main living area to reduce VOCs when you're cooking as well as while you're sleeping. And I. Yes, I pulled the air purifier from the main living area last night into my room because I noticed that the air quality here is a little different than what I'm used to. A little bit more pollen.

Oh, there's a ton of pollen here.

And I noticed it in my eyes as I was washing my skin. So when we're caring for our skin, doing our cleansing, actually touching your skin, doing lymphatic drainage actually really helped me last night to mitigate that as well as some other things. But air purification is so key. I even have it in my car too.

Oh, you put an air purifier and.

Travel with an air purifier.

And so I have two spare guest bedrooms. Rachel stayed over, and I didn't know it, but apparently you stole the air filter from, like, the media room, which is great because that was the one bedroom that doesn't have an air filter. Cause right now my studio has one. Slash, office. My bedroom has a whole house. 1. The kitchen has one. Like every room has a large air filter, probably enough to filter four times the house that I have. Because you feel so much better.

Absolutely. And your skin looks better and you sleep better.

Right.

So purifying your air is super key. The next thing is water. Drinking purified water. So many things that we can do with water. We can structure it, we could remineralize it, we can add different nutrients to it. Bathing and consuming purified water is super key. However, there are various different levels of water purification. So there are some readers that we nerded out about last night that I was able to share with you as well. So purified water with what you're consuming, what you're bathing in will make a big difference. Lighting is really key. So one of the things I love about here is you've swapped out all of your LED lights. Well, with the exception of one or two.

I missed two.

Yeah.

And this is something I do too, as well. So it's about having as much control as you can can in your environment so that when you go in the world, you can handle a little bit more oxidative stress than when you're home. When you're sleeping, you're spending more time recovering because you're in a more purified environment.

Changing the environment around you and inside of you so you have more control of your own biology.

Kind of what biohacking is.

Oh my God. Right? Yeah. But it's neat because you're an aesthetic nurse. So you're looking at this through the lens of skin health.

Yep, that's my angle.

Radiance. And of course how it looks. But it's not just how it looks, it's actually how healthy it is as an organ in the body and validating the core biohacking technologies saying, look, no, they actually do work, but you have.

To stick with the core ones for purification.

Yeah. In other words, if you slather some expensive stuff on your face, but you have rancid oils and bad air and bad water, this stuff isn't going to work.

You're wasting your time and money. Same with even investing in rejuvenation. So in my last paper, the whole intention of it was to obviously support the biohacking community, to understand which biohacks are going to best support the skin, in my opinion, through reducing oxidative stress, basically purification at its finest. And also disrupting the esthetics, cosmetic dermatology, plastic surgery industry a little bit to get them up to where functional practitioners are also running. Because I noticed when I did this, when I first met you, 20, I think it was like we first met in 2012, 2013, I started to employ biohacking. I was in two car crashes. Thank goodness. I had been looking after myself to support recovery. So it's always being ready to always be radiant. So the biohacking, when you reduce your oxative stress sinus, you're going to be better able to manage stress and stress is a sign of being alive, right? Absolutely. Key.

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Three dumbest things that Guys do to Their.

Face okay, one of the dumbest things, let me think. So the first dumbest thing is just using bar soap and water either so many people where guys just don't care. And I tell you, I've done Husband Wife Faceless day and the quality of the skin from the husband and the wife is drastically different. If I do a facelift on a woman who's the same age as her husband, that facelift is going to last literally twice as long result wise as the guy she has estrogen.

We don't have estrogen to have soft fluffy skin for men.

So that seems like the quality of the collagen in the skin as well. And it's just the fact that if you take care of your skin, your skin is going to be healthier and it's going to be tighter and that collagen is going to be less denatured and tighter and the quality of that skin is going to definitely give you the longevity of your result.

I have it on good authority that the bar of soap forgets it was by your butt. By the time it gets to your Face. So it's okay.

I suppose you could be moving bacteria from down there to your face too, but that I've not seen forget.

So there's, there's no embarrassment or anything like that. I, I mean, okay, so no bar soap on your face. By the way, I even, I think I told Trevor, our mutual friend, that one time, and I thought she was going to come across the table and choke me. It evokes this violent thing. And at the time I might have kind of done that sometimes, but what guy has it? I use proper cleanser and all that crap now, mostly because my team yelled at me to make my face look all nice. So I take better care of my skin and it works. It makes a huge difference. And people are saying, Dave, you look so much better. Like I got a haircut and I washed my face. So there you go.

The second thing I would say is guys will be too aggressive with their skin, you know, so they scrub their skin too much. You've got acne and they over wash their face. They use alcohol based toners and astringents. One thing that we have realized is that our skin contains a microbiome just like our gut. And that microbiome, that there's trillions of bacteria living on the surface of your skin as well. And we are just learning just how important they are, you know, are they important as your gut microbiome to your overall health? We don't know. I mean, I'd say probably not, but we don't know. But we do know that that's there. And when we do, when we're overly aggressive with skincare, you know, scrubbing our face too much, you know, I know guys who use pumice soap on their face, for God's sakes, then you can really disrupt that microbiome. And those bacteria, like the bacteria in your gut, are super important for keeping that skin nice and healthy. So that would be the second thing I think that guys do that definitely will ruin their skin.

Okay, I had a problem with that. I had one of those clarisonic brushes a while ago and I have like a patch of rosacea here that I've mostly IPL'd off. Just from over. It kind of felt nice to my brain. Like my pores were so smooth and dewy and what? I don't know. But I don't use that much anymore, so. Because over. So there's over exfoliating, washing with your butt soap. And what's the third one?

Third one would be not protecting your skin from skin cancer. Now this is something I know that, you know, this can be. And we may be differ on sunscreen, you and I may. And that's okay. I'll just tell you where I'm coming from. You know, I'm a board certified plastic surgeon. I have seen people come into my office, they say, hey, I've got this little dot on my nose. And they go to see a dermatologist, they get Mohs surgery, then they come back to see me afterwards, and half their nostril is gone, or part of their eyelid is gone, their eyelids pull down afterwards. And so, yes, you know, I've got dermatology friends of mine who they put on sunscreen and then sit in a basement all day and they still put their sunscreen on. I'm not that type. I do believe that there is a lot of benefit to getting sun, especially early in the morning, you know, circadian rhythms, a lot of stuff that, you know, you have been a big fan of. And I think that there's therapeutic benefits of the sun too. You know, I mean, I live in Michigan and gosh darn it, every February I gotta get out of here and I go down south into the Caribbean and we get some sun. But at the same time we also, you know, I have seen the horrible complications of skin cancer. And I do believe it's important to protect your skin whether you do it physically, whether you do it with a mineral based sunblock, whatever you need to do. In general, I think that there's a happy medium there. You know, I know there's some people. I have a friend of mine who, you know, I did his podcast, he's like, hey, I put lard on my skin. That's all I put on my skin. And I'm like, not a big fan of that. And then I got dermatology friends where, like I said, they'll slather on sunscreen if they're gonna be inside all day. I think that there's a happy medium there where we can protect our skin yet still get the benefits of the sun at the same time.

There's definitely some, some serious biohacking benefits to sunshine without sunscreen. And collagen thickness increases with a small amount of sun exposure, but a large amount damages stuff. So there's probably a healthy dose. But it seems like most of the sunscreens you can buy have a warning label that says, warning, this product can cause cancer. So how do you get around that?

I question some of those. I mean, for me, the way I look at it is there's Two. So, you know, when you look at sunscreen, you've got chemical and you've got physical sun sunblock. So chemical sunscreens are absorbed into your skin. When the sun hits your. The rays hit your skin, there's a chemical reaction that will neutralize basically those effects. And yes, there's a question of whether that may create some free radicals during that, in that process. There are certain chemical sunscreens that I'm not a fan of. Oxybenzone and octinoxate are believed to be hormone disruptors. They're also believed to potentially disrupt the coral reefs. And so I'm. I recommend people avoid those. But there are other sunscreens like Megazoril Excel, like Avobenzone, and the physical sun blocks like zinc oxide and titanium dioxide that I do believe in general are safe. And once again, I am completely understanding that, that there is, I think, a therapeutic benefit to the sun. It's trying to, once again, reach a happy medium there. Because once again, you know, I am afraid for one of my favorite actors, Hugh Jackman. I think he is the most talented person in Hollywood. And he has had multiple skin cancers taken off his face at some point, hopefully not, but at some point, one of those may be on his eyelid or his nose or somewhere that could permanently disfigure him. My favorite singer of all time, Jimmy Buffett, recently died from skin cancer. So I'm very well aware of the dangers of it, and I really believe that we have a happy medium there somewhere where you can get the benefit of it, yet not necessarily get the potential harmful harmfulness of it, too.

Sunburns are bad, no matter what, that we can all agree on.

And, and that's free radicals and inflammation, you know, that will damage your skin from both of those.

One of the things I've noticed over the past 12 years, I don't eat any omega 6 fats other than if they're found in beef or something. So nothing canola, nothing soy, nothing safflower, grapeseed, Even avocado oil? Nope. Maybe a tablespoon of olive oil on. On some days. And that means my cell membranes, especially in my skin, are saturated. It's really hard for me to get sunburned. It's like I have natural suntan. And this is something that I knew, I first noticed actually 15 years ago from cutting Omega 6s, and I just found a study. It popped across my desk this morning. Not in preparation for this, just randomly. And it was showing that consumption of omega 6 fats inhibits melanocytes. Which are the things that give you a tan in response to sun. So it, it feels to me like there's a nutritional component that also makes you more susceptible to the sun and that people who have healthier cells probably handle sunlight and maybe benefit more than people who, you know, eat corn dogs and live indoors all the time and come out for 20 minutes to get sunburned. So it's very nuanced. Which is why I like your book actually, because you're going through and you're making things as simple as you can. What are the three dumbest things that women do to their skin?

I think number one, if from what I see is the exact opposite of what guys do, they over treat their skin. So I get people who call me or who message me or patients of mine who say, you know, my skin is so inflamed, I'm breaking out and stuff, what should I apply onto my skin to make it better? And the first thing I tell them is what are you putting is and what are you putting on your skin? And they give me a list of all these products and the first thing I tell them is, look, get off of all the products first and go back to the basics. You know, go back to cleansing, go back to using an antioxidant serum every morning and then really limiting to, that's all you do in the morning, at night, apply a cleanser. If you want to apply a, an anti aging cream like a Bakuchiol or retinol, then feel free to do that. But get rid of all this other stuff. Get rid of the fragrances and you know, any of these products that are filled with fragrances, you know, look at what are the ingredients of these products. Because most likely the reason why you're inflamed could be that you're using way too many products on your skin.

Yeah.

And so that's one of the things I recommend in my book is, hey, look, let's get to the absolute basics. You don't necessarily need certain things like toners. You know, you don't need to apply a moisturizer to your skin. You know, if you've got oily skin, then why are you applying a moisturizer over it? You don't need to, you've got natural moisturizer. And so it's really getting with those basics a lot of times. And then we do that. And then people find that their skin looks better afterwards because they have been actually over treating it and putting on unnecessary products and chemicals and fragrances that would just irritate Their skin.

Okay, so number one, too many products with too many weird chemicals and especially fragrances. If you can smell your skin care stuff, it doesn't have actual essential oils in it, then it's probably the wrong stuff.

Even essential oils can be irritating to the skin. And so there's some people who think, oh, well, they're just essential oils. And I tell them, look, they can be irritating as well. And when you have other fragrances, you know, the problem is, is you don't know what's in those. Fragrance. When they say fragrance, that could be basically a company's proprietary information. They don't have to share that with you. And so that's something just to keep in mind. Ideally, when you're looking at skin care, you know, some people think, well, natural essential oils, let's just put essential oils in skincare. But that can also be irritating too. So just go fragrance free. That's usually going to be your best bet. So the number two thing I would say is relying too much on procedures and thinking that too much, you know, thinking that a little is a. Is. Is a good thing. So a lot is an even better thing. And that's what we see all the time. Whether you're dealing with Botox, whether you're dealing with injectable fillers. I mean, you know, all these people with pillow faces out in Hollywood, you know, once again, I wrote one of these seminal papers on 3D aging and the fact that we want to add volume, but the amounts of volume people are adding now, it's just absolutely insane. And it's making people look just not like real people. So that would be the second thing is actually overdoing the procedures that you think are going to make you look younger. And in the end, you know, there are people who are actors and actresses in Hollywood who are in their 20s and they look like somebody who's 50 trying to look like they're 20 because they've had so much work done.

Wow. Okay. So overdoing work and then overdoing cleansings. And the third dumbest thing, I think.

The third dumbest thing is not paying attention to your diet. You know, one of the big things that people don't realize is that the quality of your diet profoundly affects the quality of your skin. And there are studies that are being done showing that the health of your gut can really impact the health of your skin. And it's the gut system skin axis that we are just learning more and more about. So, for example, there are skin conditions like you mentioned, like rosacea, eczema and acne that have definitely an origin a lot of times in the quality and the health of the gut. So doing something very simple like eating fermented foods, taking a daily probiotic can actually make huge impacts on your skin. You know, there's so many people who go through life thinking that, oh well, I can eat fast food, I can eat, you know, all this sugar, but if as long as I use my skincare process, I'm going to look young. And that just is not the case. You know, the, the way I describe it really is that that's, you know, the, the foundation of youth and anti aging is going to be what you put in your mouth.

Does undereating affect women's skin?

I think it does. You know, and, and like you, I'm a big fan of intermittent fasting and I was definitely influenced by your fastness way book. But at the same time I do think that the problem with, with fasting is are you going to get enough protein so under eating.

Thanks for saying that. It's such a big concern.

So, so that's, I think, you know, when you're trying, when especially as women get older and especially as they go through menopause, you know, protein is so, so important and, and eating sufficient protein. So you know, you, you definitely the benefits of intermittent fasting, you know, I think are huge. You know, you really with hormesis, with autophagy, and the fact that that can really help with your skin, but at the same time, collagen is a protein and you need to get enough protein in order to support the collagen. I think that's so, so important. And the problem is, can you get enough if you're intermittent fasting every day? So in my book, what I start with people, we have a 21 day jumpstart. And for first week we don't have them intermittent fast at all. And the weeks two and three, we have them intermittent fast but just two days out of the week to kind of start them up. And that way they're still eating a lot of protein for the rest of the time and then focusing really when they intermittent fast and they refeed actually on foods that are actually gonna help promote autophagy as well.

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I wanted to educate listeners about glutathione. It's something where if you go way back in time when I had heavy duty mold toxicity, I got some IV glutathione, some early really bad tasting liposomal and it really helped me get my brain back and when I travel I'm all over the stuff. So what is important about glutathione? What do we know today we didn't know 20 years ago.

So we knew 20 years ago that glutathione was important to us. But what we did not know is how can we deliver to our body effectively. We were injecting IVs, we were taking the liposomal form of glutathione and it was actually Improving levels, but not the reason we think it the way it was. We thought it was absorbing correctly because we had infusing into the blood. If you're taking by mouth, it was absorbing slowly, and we are seeing the results. But in actuality, it was not absorbing at all. It was breaking down the glutathione and the amino acids that were created were reabsorbing and they were recreating those glutathione back into a system using those amino acids. So it was working, no doubt about it, but not the reason we thought it was for or by being merely absorbing slowly. Now we know that part, that it was not absorbing at all. It was actually breaking down and reconstructing again. But now we have a technology. We have a technology that can change that whole process and don't have to depend on body to absorb it. Keep in mind, I mean, the last 15 years ago, we were not doing gene testing. Now we're doing so much gene testing, we are finding out people have all these mutations that their body is not able to reconstruct or deconstruct glutathione. Then what happens?

Wow. Okay. So how many people in the population have a hard time either making or recycling glutathione?

Well, we have a very small database right now. Right. For the last 15 years. What we have found out that people have those gene mutations. They're roughly about 20, 25%, which is, it's actually a big number. But at the same time, on the flip side, 70, 75% of the people have no issues. They can take glutathione whatever forms they want to take it and still get benefit out of it.

I. I find that I have problems with sulfur metabolism because of my comt genes. So even though I probably shouldn't have too much sulfur, I also consider not have enough. And I've taken things like msm, which is a thing that can help because it has extra sulfur in it. Even collagen is a high sulfur protein, and glutathione is high in sulfur. Can you talk to me about sulfur versus glutathione? And how would you know that you need glutathione?

Oh, boy, you're right. If somebody has a gene defect, what you'd expect was comt those patient populations will definitely benefit from some sort of glutathione formulations. But the simple test today is you can do a blood test and literally check your RBC levels of glutathione if you measure whole blood. What we do know is the whole Blood level of glutathione is actually not good for us because what we are measuring is the both plasma and the red blood cells. The plasma levels of glutathione has a very short life in your body, so it's about 14, 15 minutes. So it's not a true test of your true glutathione levels. If you measure the RBC levels, I think you'll get true levels of glutathione in the RBCs and we can do those testings. In fact, we are working on test kits right now where we'll be able to do at home test kits for glutathione. It's not ready yet, but we are working on that right now because as you might know with the lab testing, it just takes a long time to get the FDA approvals. But once we have that, we'd be able to measure blood spot tests at home and check your levels of glutathione.

Wow. No one has that yet?

No.

Interesting. I've seen some glutathione. I've seen it measured in labs. So far it's not red blood cell though. What are they measuring? Plasma?

Whole blood. They're measuring whole blood.

What's the difference between red blood cell versus whole blood glutathione.

So the whole blood is plasma and the red blood cells, the plasma half life is very short. So when we want to measure glutathione, we spin the blood, take the plasma out and just measure the red blood cells. If we just measure that part has a little bit longer life in your body. So we give you a little bit better marker as to what your body levels are.

Okay, what are the times of day that someone would want to use glutathione?

So the glutathione is actually used, I mean, from external sources. The life is very short. The best product that we have in our market that we have right now, it stays in your body for anywhere from four to six hours, eight hours. If you repeated use, make it to 12 hours. So if you're using it, twice a day would be ideal. So morning and evening is. Most of people will use it twice a day, morning and evening.

Okay, morning, evening. What is the best way to use it? And this is something that if people saw the last podcast that they might have picked up on. But this is like groundbreaking stuff. So I'm give a little bit of history before you answer that. We talked earlier about like stinky, bad breath, rotten eggs, liposomal. We've talked about iv and there's Precursors and taking vitamin C. There's all kinds of different ways that I've tried like that. And almost any of them I noticed, like, if I'm flying, I have less jet lag or, you know, if I. I have some. A toxic thing, I have less dark circles and things like that, or less, less acne or something because of the, the toxin effect. But I don't know how to stack rank, which ones work better, which ones get glutathione into my cells or my brain or my liver. So what is the best way that you have found for people to get their levels in, in a way that works systemically?

So, Dave, I'm biased because I have a product now, so it is the best. But again, I've made Liposome technology products in the past. I used to make the IV Glutathione for 20 years plus, and I stopped making all those products when I discovered the topical version of the Glutathione 15 years ago. And it took me 12 years before I launched the part to the open public because I had to make sure that it was not just better than the other products out there. It is far more superior than anything that's out in the market today. So after my research today, we do know that topical absorption of glutathione is there. It is proven. We have done human trials on that to back it up. And it is by far the best technology that we have today. To deliver glutathione completely intact without getting denatured, your body has to reconstruct them again.

All right, softwave, there's another thing you can do for your face. Tell me about softwave. This is the one I did on Instagram.

Yeah.

So this uses ultrasound to work in the first couple of millimeters. And you're really stimulating through the ultrasound technology, more collagen production. So the audience knows that collagen is this huge molecule. The fibroblasts are the cells that make it in our body. And it's going down, we'll say, after our late 20s, 30s, and through diet, through just its production in the skin. You want to do what you can to stimulate it. So basically, all the tech I have, the millions of dollars of tech we have in the office that you've been to in West Lake Hills is all meant to stimulate that in a way to get a response for skin tightening, more production. Those are the things like. And this is another non invasive way to do that. So there's really no downtime with it as you experience.

Yeah, it, it was it was actually really cool. I went in the afternoon and you smeared some numbing stuff on and, and went to town and it, it, it felt hot but not, not unbearable. I mean it, it was, it was noticeable but it was well within tolerances. And then the next day maybe a little bit puffy. And then after that it was nothing.

But it was yeah, super low downtime with something like that. And you know that's another, you know, non invasive way to get a, an improvement. And for everybody listening like these are ways to just help yourself. They're not meant to be completely standalone. Draw a line in the sand therapies. Because it's not like that.

It's.

Nothing's going to do that.

You can't just go in one time and everything's done. It, it's kind of a composition sort of like I want to, I want to play music so I just have drums. It just, it's not going to work. No.

And some way more involved.

There's also other technologies that people use similar to softwave. I don't know, compare it with lasers or ipl.

I'm glad you thought of a brought up laser. So lasers have been around forever, right. So there's IPL which is really meant to manage. We'll say pigment.

Yeah, I've used ipl. Right.

So you know, I like IPL and we've used it for you. I think I've steered away from ablative lasers for the listeners because those damage the skin. The target is the water basically the chroma force water for like a CO2 laser. So that's an ablative laser. Other lasers, you know, work in microns. So 1 millimeter, 1,000 microns. And just like pages of the book, you can dial up how many microns you can, you can take away. But that's really damaging. You're like you're doing a controlled burn. So I am not a huge fan of controlled burns or anybody burning me. So I've steered away.

I've seen people who look great a year after a laser and then five years after things are not good. I've also done laser micro needling where using a laser just heat up like tiny little spots. And that seemed to be effective without causing a lot of damage to the skin.

Yeah, that's better than a global just.

Yeah. Kind of potato peeler laser.

Yeah, I, I just. Because you're, you know, you, you create fragility over time in the skin when you use something like that.

And that's with laser ablation. IPL is different. That Targets the pic, just the red stuff. And I needed IPL because actually a while ago, you know those vibrating facial brush things like a Clarisonic. The one of the early Clarisonic employees worked for me when I was running Bulletproof and she was like such a fan. And now she runs Thrive Cosmeceuticals and she's just a great employee. I remember she came when she decided to go. She's like, dave, this is the best job I've had. But now's my time. I just got on Good Morning America or something. So I think right now Thrive is probably bigger than Bulletproof. So congratulations, Chris. That's awesome. And what you're going to find is if you do that exfoliation stuff. That's awesome. But I was just doing it every day because my skin looks good. And after a while I got redness.

And so the IPL got rid of.

The redness from me over exfoliating because I had a cool brush from closer. Yeah, right.

So you have to. With exfoliates, especially like retinols and things like that, you have to be judicious based on their strengths because you will build up. You're basically burning yourself over time.

Should I be using like Retin a cream?

You can, you know, I like things that are going to increase the barrier hydrate the skin. Ectoins are really popular right now. Things like some of the C60 things that are going to help the Skin60 topically. It's a LiPo C variant. It's like C60, but for the skin topically. All the biohacking for skin care is much, much more advanced now. So I see a lot of Runway for that for both preparatory and just for longevity treatment of the skin.

I do believe there's a lot we can do topically, including like the. The one skin stuff. I had them on the show a couple of times talking about the science of that one peptide OSO1. I think that stuff works pretty well. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I agree. I think those are the most exciting things. And I always, you know, like, you understand about me. I remain curious about anything that's going to help our clients have longevity and their skin have longevity. So we look at those and try to get the best in class, if you will, for our treatments, for preparation and then certainly for post therapy.

Morpheus 8 Good or bad.

So anything that, you know, I. I consider it to. It creates an injury. It opens the skin, allows you to deliver molecules effectively.

What is it?

So it's a microneedling Device that uses radio frequency.

So a needle goes in and then a little radio frequency comes through the end of the needle, essentially. Like an antenna.

Yeah. And pops back towards the face plate. So it's bipolar radio frequency. So, you know, I've used that since 2018. I think it was the first person in Austin to have it. And I do like it. I think it's good for texture, pore size, things like the acne scarring.

I haven't done any of that that I'm aware of.

No, that's a. That's like, you know, what is part of a treatment plan that, you know, makes sense. Anytime you poke a hole in skin anywhere on the body, it's going to stimulate the response to heal and promote more collagen synthesis. So that's really. If you want to, you know, make it baseline, that's what it's really there for. And then when you open the skin, you can add more molecules and biohacking molecules are all over the place that we can add.

Right. No kidding, right? Okay. I have a lot of listeners of the show who've lost weight, like I have, and I. Sometimes they stop me in the street, like, Dave, I lost 50 pounds. I lost 100 pounds. And guys, I always appreciate it when you even just see me just like, tell me my work helped you, because it makes me happy. And. But they ask about loose skin all the time. And right now, the no cut facelift, or I guess you call mine a no cut butt lift. That's right. I think I still have a little extra skin back there. It seems like it would take a lot of treatments to get rid of the amount of skin that I probably have, what, 16 inches, 16 square inches of extra skin from being as obese as I was. I mean, I'm a 33 inch waist. I was a 46.

Yeah, you. It's amazing what you did with your abdomen. And then the laxity really appeared in your love handle here.

You're kind of lucky it didn't all like hang down in the front. I'd rather have. I'd rather have a. A spoiler than a front spoiler.

And to Dave's credit, he did not want me to do a open procedure and excise that tissue and make like a, you know, a mustache incision on his backside, basically, and give him a butt lift. But you can repeat the procedure I'm describing because it works and it takes skin without leaving a scar. Now, it takes longer to get to the endpoint, obviously, but it doesn't disrupt his blood flow. Really? His lymphatic drainage and leave a visible scar that then creates problems with energy in his body. So anything that I can do to help somebody get to that endpoint without visible scarring.

Should I get a bbl? Talking about bbl.

Oh, Jesus.

Oh, the bbl. We have the BBL King in town. It's not me. I'm the Brazilian breast lift guy. So I take out old implants and I put the fat there.

Okay, got it. So, but talk to me about bbls. I know they're the most dangerous procedure. That's not something you do.

Oh, right.

Nothing you recommend.

Yeah, so it's funny I wouldn't get one, obviously, but so it's been around for ages. And many years ago when I was working in one of the societies, there were deaths and they found deaths in Miami and la. And it was basically from, we'll say fat being injected in the wrong areas. It was getting into the bloodstream via the veins and going to the heart and people were dying. So we wrote a safety paper about how to do it safely and the instrumentation and it's been much, much more advanced now to where you just are putting fat in the fatty layer and not in the muscle layer and obviously avoiding the large blood vessels around the bottocks. And it's, it's a really, it's not a complicated or unsafe procedure to have performed. It needs to be done in the proper setting by the properly credentialed providers.

So I have not researched bbls. I, you know, you see all this stuff on TikTok and so where do they get the fat for that?

Yeah, so when I take fat out to do the breast, it's the same as when we take it out to do the buttocks.

Where do you find it?

Inner outer thighs.

Okay.

Love handle areas, abdomens. So when you're doing a buttocks treatment, you start with the patient laying flat on their back and do their abdomen and or other, you know, spots that you get to, if you're doing anterior thighs or something like that. And then you turn them over because the patient has to be in the position on their tummy. Because you're going to finish by injecting the fat in the buttocks. So then you're going to contour the entire waistline. Like where were you taking skin out of yours? You had already lost them fat. But there you would take out all the fat. So you would already give the impression that the buttocks has a better contour.

So you'd pull the fat out of the low back and stick it in the butt. Got it. So that would be like a corset kind of effect. And you're saying that when it's done properly today, it's not unsafe. So women, if that's what you want to do, you could. Yeah. What are the downsides of that?

I think, you know, the recovery period is always the thing that bugs everybody. You really can't sit on it for the first several months.

Wow. It's just laying your.

So they sit on their stomach or they have. I was giving a talk at a meeting in Columbia, in Cali, Columbia, and the, the. They had a, like a, A pool toy that had your butt cut out of it. And you would sit at it like you were sitting in the. The floaty at the pool.

It might just be more biologically useful to do your squats. I mean, am I. I don't want to sound judgy here, but.

Well, I do surgery for a reason.

If you eat enough steak, not plant protein. Sorry. And then you do a meaningful amount of targeted work on your butt, you can generally grow a butt for sure.

I mean, over time. Everybody should understand you're gonna lose muscle mass over time. I think Dave's already talked about on the show many times, you wanna eat a lot of protein and lift heavy things.

There you go. And now you just put the king of BBL out of business. All right. Have you ever had someone get a no cut facelift who just hated the results?

I have had folks who I've told that a facelift, a traditional facelift, or a no cut facelift would not give them the amount of change over time they wanted because their skin is already kind of aging at a more rapid rate than anybody can deal with. So if you did a facelift, that person would age out at a facelift within two to three years, probably. And a no cut really is a much less aggressive treatment, obviously. So the appearance change is not going to satisfy that person specifically. But I would give them the concept, like you're trying to remove, like we discussed in your case, skin over a period of time to keep up with what's happening. Because aging's a dynamic process. It's not going to stop. And if someone's aging at a much more accelerated rate, maybe their telomere length is not good, maybe their epigenetics is poor, maybe they didn't pick their parents. Right. Maybe they eat a terrible diet, they live in a place with mold. All these different factors contribute to how they age more rapidly.

You're listening to the human upgrade with Dave Asprey.

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