Colin O'Brady x Dr. Mark Hyman | Episode 3

Hey, Colin, it's great to see you, man. How you doing?

Oh, well, I'm doing good. As you can see, I'm on the bike. I've got a, I'm one month from my Race Across America world record where I'm going to try to ride 3,000 miles in under six days, me and my best friend Lucas.

Is that all?

So you've caught me. I'm in my last big training block and we had this scheduled, I don't know, a couple weeks ago, but I looked at my coach's training program and he had a 16-hour ride for me today.

Oh, jam. That's crazy.

16. So, I started at 4:30 a.m. Oh, wow.

Well, I've heard of a walking desk, but this is kind of ridiculous. I've never done a biking podcast before, but this is always a first.

Here we are getting sweaty. I'm like, I don't know, 11 hours into this day.

Holy cow. That's amazing. Yeah.

Getting the miles in. It's great to be here with you, my friend.

It's so incredible what you're doing. You know, you, you, this first serve may be the first podcast or a video ever recorded while you're training for a bike race that I've ever done for sure. And you've done so many firsts, you know, it's amazing. You're breaking records. climbing mountains, you just tried to go across Antarctica and had a kind of a catastrophic event there, which almost took your life, which we talked about before. But you're kind of doing a little bit safer route this time on asphalt. And there's no crevasses hopefully, maybe a few potholes. And, you know, what we're doing in sort of this series is to look at how we can support you to perform at the peak level to win the world record of crossing America the fastest ever on a bicycle. And we're doing that by looking at your biology, not just your training hours, not just your number of minutes in the seat or how many miles you rode or what power you do or what your VO2 max is, but actually also your lab work, which is really amazing. So we've used function and functional health to track all your data over the last almost, God now, six, seven, eight months, right?

That'S right.

We've learned a lot. We learned a lot about what's going on with you. When we found a bunch of stuff just to refresh people's memory, we found a lot of things that were going on. Like when we started looking, we found you had like a lot of inflammation, maybe post-exercise you had some nutritional deficiencies, you had a little borderline thyroid function, you were low in a lot of nutrients like iodine, iron, vitamin D. Your liver was a little off and and you had a sort of a genetic condition that sort of affects your liver function. And all that really can affect your performance. And, you know, you're an elite athlete. You've, like, won 10 World Records, climbing mountains, crossing Antarctica, you know, rowing across the Drake Passage from Argentina to Antarctica. Just crazy. And. And yet, you know, even someone like you on function Health panel, we're finding stuff that is actionable. that can meaningfully impact the quality of your life and hopefully help you break another, yet another world record, which is pretty cool. So, you know, you kind of followed some of what I said. I can tell from your labs that you're not listening to everything I'm telling you to do.

I probably missed a couple days.

Like taking your vitamin D, which is so important, you know, vitamin D, you know, we think, oh, but it's important.

It just started back on it. It just started back.

Okay, good, 'cause I yelled at you about this. You know, why, you know, and just to help you understand, like, what we're doing here for everybody is we're trying to optimize, you know, his biology to get Peak performance. But for all of us, you know, whether we're a professional athlete, whether we're breaking world records, whether we just want to be a. A business athlete and be performing at work, or whether we just want to be active in our life and do what we want to do, we need to optimize our biology. And most of us have no clue what's going on under the hood. And that's what function's about. It's about helping people know what's going under the hood, how to optimize. their biology using deep insights from all the medical literature, from top medical scientists, from doctors, from people like myself to help kind of tune yourself up. And we're finding amazing stuff and everybody we're testing. But for you, it was really, it was, I was not sort of expecting to find anything, but we found a fair bit and we've been tuning you up over a while. We've been giving you the right dietary stuff, the supplements and so forth. And, you know, I just, I just wondered how, based on the things that we did and found last time about optimizing your nutrient levels, like your iron levels, vitamin D and so forth. how you find your performance. And, and getting back to that vitamin D thing, I just, before I, I let you roll, the vitamin D thing is so important, Colin, because your muscles depend on vitamin D to function. And so you're, you're basically all about your muscles right now. So if your muscles aren't firing at full capacity, your performance is going to be low. Now, for a guy like you, it's, it's, it's, it may not be as noticeable because you're so fit, but it's still going to maybe add a few extra minutes to your performance probably every day. So that could be a big impact for you.

I'm trying to stay on top of everything and it's funny because the way you've teed this up, it's like, as a professional athlete, how is his body doing? We found some stuff. And also, although I'm disciplined and I'm on this bike for 16 hours a day, and I can commit to that, sometimes just like every other person, I miss my supplement routine. I'm traveling a lot. I got out of my flow. So, I'm only human too, but doing my best and we'll definitely get back on that. In terms of how I'm feeling, it's been interesting. Last time we spoke, it was February. It's May now. I was coming back from Antarctica and this really traumatic accident that happened over there that we found in my blood work. you know, spiked cortisol levels, some hormone, hormone stuff, and really using that period to recover. But I need to recover quickly because I need to ramp up into this training phase. And so the last few months, really getting my body back and getting strong, you know, overall, I felt really well, but I've had some dips. You know, there was a moment kind of late March. Um, where I was feeling just my energy wasn't quite there. I felt like I was overreaching a little bit in terms of training. One of the things, I don't know, is anecdotal of course, but you suggested some mitochondrial support and I started taking MitoQ maybe four or six months ago. And I felt that's one of the things I feel like I've had a big shift in my energy levels. Like, yeah, I feel like I'm recovering better, you know, cellular vitality is there. So that's something that, you know, as that's come into my body, not something I've ever, you know, spent and obviously been aware of mitochondria. I'd be interesting from the doctor's perspective, but being able to take that MitoQ on a daily basis, that's the part that really felt my energy stores from a supplement standpoint. I felt a big difference there. I don't know if we're seeing it in the labs or not, but I definitely anecdotally have felt that, which has been great in terms of recovery and.

Higher energy levels consistency. That's right. And we talked about that, like how do you, how do you increase performance? And one of the things that, that really matters for performance is how your mitochondria working, which are the little factories that make energy and they take food and oxygen, they burn them, they create ATP, and you have to create a lot of ATP to ride your bike across America and and you deplete it if you're burning so much, you're going so hard. So taking nutritional supplements that can optimize your mitochondria like the Mitochondria Q or CoQ10 or other things that we suggested for you can be really, really effective. And I think, you know, that's one of the things that I did recommend for you was taking some mitochondrial supplements, the amino acids and adrenal support and things that can help actually you just fix the energy deficits that come and optimize your flow. So that's good. Have you noticed anything else based on taking the supplements or doing the change that we recommended from looking at your function labs?

Yeah, I think that the iron and the iodine that we found was pretty interesting. That was not something I had thought a lot about, I guess. And I know I love from the doctor's perspective, but it's kind of, I think we've balanced those out a little bit from where we started nine to 12 months ago. I mean, in general, I kind of felt this energetic dip coming back from the, you know, physical and emotional trauma of the crevasse ball. And then really, over the last couple of months, being steady on my training, being steady on my recovery, and then taking what we have from a few rounds of function labs and your advice, nutrition, supplements, Etc. You know, I'm feeling a month out, I'm honestly feeling as fit as I felt in, you know, I'm 39 years old now.

Some might say, happy birthday.

Some might say that I'm, you know, on the, the back nine of Elite endurance performance. But when I compare some of my numbers on the bike to what I was doing as a professional triathlete 10 years ago, you know, in my Watts and my power numbers versus my heart rate, I'm riding strong, if not stronger than I was. 10 years ago. And I've got to believe that at least some of that has to do with, you know, the work that we've done to really look under the hood and optimize. It's been fascinating to see where I was deficient and using those function panels to really tweak and optimize because at this, you know, the world record level, it's those one, two, 3% gains that make all the difference.

Right. And this is not like doping or like illegal stuff. This is really just like looking at your biology, like, The thing that I noticed was, you know, the iodine was low and, you know, a lot of Americans, don't eat iodized salt anymore. They eat, you know, sea salt or whatever. And, and so they're not getting iodine and they don't eat seaweed. So they don't, and then many people don't eat fish. So a lot of people are low in iodine and iodine is the molecule you need to make your thyroid hormone. And if you're low in that, you're not making thyroid hormone. And you do actually have, you did hack in the original test, had a sort of borderline slow functioning thyroid. and, and you probably are, you know, so healthy, you may not have noticed it, but it was. And now it's much better. So your iodine levels are better and your thyroid levels have come, you know, to back to normal. And, and that's great. And also your iron was quite low. And iron is really important for, and by the way, your thyroid is so important for just your, it's your generator. It's like your, your governor on your engine. So if your thyroid is low, you're just gonna have, you're gonna hit a wall faster. You're not gonna have the energy you want. And with the with iron, you know, you, you were, you know, under a lot of stress, burning a lot of, through a lot of, you know, RPMs and you might have used up a lot of red blood cells, but your iron was low and we, by giving you the extra iron, you're, you're now your ferritin level, which is the iron stores, which was quite low, was that, it's actually totally normal. And, and so you're, you have a lot more to draw on and a lot more energy store. So I think those are really important and your inflammation levels have come down and everything looks a lot, a lot better, on your, on your lab test. So there wasn't really anything that jumped out at me this time, except the fact that I could tell that your, your vitamin D was better, but not great because you're not consistent with your vitamin D level taking your vitamin D. But that's okay. Your level is 35, normal, but the range on the lab is 30 to 100. It really should be more like 50 to 75. So you're definitely down a few points. But again, getting that up is going to help you and also help your immune system because as you're stressed, you know, it's not necessarily great for your body. I mean, you're training and you think that's great, but. over training also, it creates an immune stress, can make you more likely to get sick. So you wanna get your vitamin D level up. And the other thing we noticed is your, you know, your, you know, your, your levels of, you know, cortisol were pretty good this time. Your, your cholesterol was up a little bit, but that, that can also be because of, of stress. When you have high stress levels, it goes up. And the other thing that we see with stress and this, you know, we know, for example, race car drivers, when they, when they go around and laps for a race, their cholesterol will be higher afterwards. We also know that with stress, testosterone goes down, right? So even though you're at training and it's good, but you're doing something that's really not normal. Like people normally don't train at this level. You know, you go for an hour bike ride, you don't go for like a 16 hour bike ride as fast as you can, like in one day, right? And that's why I love you, 'cause you do all this crazy shit.

But- One question I have along those lines is, this. This might come out in a couple weeks, but the day we're recording this, it's. It's May 16th. The race across America starts on June 15th. So essentially, we're one month out. And what I've noticed from all my world record efforts, and I haven't had the benefit of function labs, I'm so glad I do now, but there's always this moment for me where you're, like, in this last big training block. you know, like I'm pushing big days. Next week, I've got the 15 people that are coming out to support the project, as well as my partner in the project, cycling Lucas, coming out to do a week-long big last training camp. And then the first two weeks of June are, you know, kind of a taper period to get ready. One thing I've noticed in myself, and I'd be curious, the more scientific approach to it, is there's like this edge that I find where it's like pushing super hard versus not pushing it too far, overreaching, over training. And I kind of found myself, you said it about immune system, but I'd love to go a little deeper on that because I'm curious, like, is there anything we can do sort of preventatively going, hey, we're in this last big push here because a lot of elite athletes, you know, we hear this all the time. you know, track and field athlete getting a stress fracture two weeks before the Olympic Games.

Yeah.

You know, someone getting a flu or a cold that they can't kick five days before the biggest performance of their life.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so I'm always a little bit cagey and nervous in this final month. Like, I'm fit, I'm strong, I'm on my bike for 16 hours and I'm fine, but I know that I'm right on that edge.

And so, yeah, yeah.

Is there anything we can do to think about. really, really dialing in where that's preventively immune support.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. There's a few things. The first is take your freaking vitamin D. And by the way, by the way. But by the way, no, you're kind of late because it takes a few months to build up. So what I want you to do is I want you to double down. I want you to take 15, 000, which is a lot for the next. month to fill up your tank. And we'll, we'll check it again just to make sure we're not too high because you want, when you're doing that levels. But, you know, they've done studies with young, healthy guys. They've done 10, 000 units a day for three months with no adverse effects, no toxicity. So we just want to fill up your tank. So your vitamin D level's high because when your vitamin D level is as low as it is, you're much more prone to infection.

That's good. Is it good to spread that over.

The day, those 15, 000 or. No, no, no. You can just take it all once. Yeah, just, it's just like, it's fat storage and you can, you can even take 50 thousand at once. There's this prescription vitamin B that's 50,000 a week. So you can take, you know, as much as, as, as you want in a day at once. So it's not a problem. The other thing I would say is, yes, there are things that we can use that are adaptogenic, immune supportive herbs and, and making sure your nutrients are okay. So you're taking your multivitamin, you're getting your zinc, you're getting your salinem, you're getting your vitamin C. But there are the whole cocktail of things that help support immunity that are part of the adaptogenic cocktail I gave you already, the HPA But also, I'm gonna give you an immune supportive cocktail of herbs to take as a preventive. So you've heard of echinacea, I'm not gonna give you that, but there's things like that that can really be helpful, andrographis and other herbs that I'm gonna send you in the new report after we talk, giving you what to take. 'Cause I think you're right. We see, you know, there's this sort of a boost to your immunity if you go from sedentary to exercising, but if you over-exercise, it's a stress and you will get increased oxidative stress, increase inflammation and more likely to get sick if you're overtraining. So, I think you're trying to break world records, so it's a very different thing, but you're right. A lot of people get in trouble because they don't actually take care of all the things that we're taking care of. So, that's what's so great about function. You can kind of see what's happening. You can see where you're off. You can kind of tune things up. And like I said, whether you're an elite athlete trying to break your world record or you're just wanting to live a healthy life and be highly functional, It's a great way to know what's going on under the hood. And I think it's kind of cool because you've done a lot of world records, but we've never had the chance to actually do this together.

And to kind of collaborate. This is amazing to have this level of data. It's funny, I've been comparing, you know, last time I was on the bike, like I said, really in meaningful way was when I was racing for the US national team in triathlon and I stopped racing in 2015 to take on all these big adventure challenges. And there's a lot of things that have happened in the last 10 years. Bikes have gotten faster, wind tunnels, aerodynamics, but this level of knowledge of not the external, but the internal body is, I mean, it's a game changer. It's truly a game changer. And I know we're kind of, this conversation skews a little bit or feels like it skews a little bit towards elite athleticism, but this is obviously so broadly applicable. for optimizing. And, yeah, the fact that I can go into a quest lab a few days later, a week later, whatever, have such a deep snapshot of what's going on in my body, it's incredible. And, I mean, I, I literally, I'm almost, I look back and like, how did I train? How do I try to optimize my health without this?

Yeah, it's hard to imagine. It's totally true. And, you know, you're right. It helps everyone work, your work, your mood, your energy, your productivity, your able to just feel good. I mean, you know, I sort of, I laugh at, you know, a lot of how, how people live their lives. It's like, you know, they want to wear the nice clothes, they get the nice skincare products. They know, like, they want to know they can look good on the outside. It's like, it's like, it's like having a race car and just paying attention to the paint, you know, like, rather than the, and the engine. So, like, you got to look under the hood. And for most of us, we don't really look under the hood that often. We go to our doctor, we get a panel of labs. is hasn't changed in 50 years. It doesn't really reflect what's going on. I mean, it's useful if you have some serious disease and you have leukemia or you've got renal failure or liver failure or like something horrible. But most of the time, those labs are going to be normal or pretty normal, and they're not going to be that informative. And that's really why at Function Health, we created a panel of over 110 biomarkers that really gives you a deep dive into your metabolic health, your immune health, levels of inflammation, nutritional biomarkers, toxin biomarkers, or cardiovascular biomarkers or hormonal biomarkers so we can really see what's going on with you in a dynamic way. And it's like, you know, you, you want to know what's going on in your dashboard. You want to have a dashboard for your health. Like, you have a dashboard in your car, you know, when you're running out of gas, you know, when your tires.

Need pressure, and I'll tell you everything. Check engine light. Like, where's the check engine light on the human? Right? It's like, we need to. It's been amazing. I mean, when I get it back, like, it used to be, you get this PDF with all. I mean, I know you look at those PDFs. It's easy for you. I look at that, I don't even know what this is. But now, when it gets sent to me, I get a text message on my phone, your labs are in, I click the button, and I can see really clear graphs. These have gone up, these have gone down, these need to change. Like, it's amazing. Probably worth mentioning at this point that Function Health still has a very long wait list with the beta, but if you listen to this, you could use functionhelp.com/markx, to us.

Isn't it MarkXcolon100 to skip the line?

You have it right there in front of you.

I think it's functionhealth.com and you can use the access code MarkXcolon100 to skip the line. So that's the promo code.

There we go.

Mark times colon 100. That's a scary bit of math right there.

I mean, I'm waiting for you to keep threatening to say you're gonna show up in the middle of Kansas and ride beside me.

I'm working on it. I got your itinerary. I'm working on it. I went for a ride yesterday. I train. I'm training.

You were just on a big bike trip yourself. I'm.

I was. I was. I went to Minorca, but I I, to be honest with you, I was thinking about you yesterday because I was riding my bike. It was beautiful here in the Berkshires, and I was thinking, damn, because this young guy just kind of went by me pretty quick, and I was like, damn, I'm gonna need an electric bike. So, yeah, it's amazing. So I encourage everybody to know what's going on in their health. I mean. this series with you has just been so helpful because it shows you like even with someone you think is extremely healthy, there's always stuff to find, there's always things to tweak, and there's always ways to improve your how you feel and your energy and truly learn what's going on. And that's the beauty of function health. It sort of it allows you to get access to this without having to go through your doctor, without having to go through insurance at a really affordable price of 499 a year for twice a year testing. And you get a dashboard and a whole host of insights from experts to tell you exactly what's going on, what it means, what to do about it, how do you correct it yourself, when you need to see doctor and it's great. So I think, you know, you've been the beneficiary of this, but I think, and, you know, like, like you said, there's about 200,000 people on the wait list. You want to skip that and join, just go to functionhealth.com and use the early access code MarkXCollin 100. Skip the line and you can get right in and, and hopefully learn a lot about what's going on. And maybe you too can break a world record.

That's right. I'll say one last thing, which is, projecting forward, but I think I'm really fascinated about our next conversation because what we'll do is we'll get a set of labs right before I start. Then I'm gonna go ride 3, 000 miles, and we're gonna get a settle out right when I finish. Yeah, that's the next conversation we have. Hopefully we'll be a celebrating a new world record. But from the doctor's perspective, from the function Health perspective, it's all about recovery.

Right.

It's going to be this month. Body has gone under extreme stress. What are we facing? And maybe that stress, it's not the kind of stress that everyone sees, but we all go through periods of emotional, physical stress in our life and having function as a tool to say, Hey, how can I snap back the fastest? What does my body need? So, I'm very curious to see what we'll find and what we'll be discussing on the backside of this big effort in a month.

Me too, man. I can't wait to see and I know you're gonna crush it. I'll definitely be the on the other side to pick up the pieces. And I'll send you a note of what to take for your immune system because definitely you want to be on something.

Perfect.

Thank you, my friend. Always a pleasure, buddy. And don't forget your vitamin D because.

I can see you're not listening to.

Me on the lab test. Got it. All right, man. Love you. And good luck with your training. Good luck with your.

Just another five hours today.

No big deal.

I'm running in the home.

Five more hours. All right, have fun. Watch a good movie, baby. All right, bye, God. Bye. .