Biohacking Your Brain With Precision Medicine, Genomics, Psychedelics, Advanced Nutritional Strategies & Much More!

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness podcast, some of these plant medicines is more like getting in a race car and getting there. And while that may sound appealing, if you imagine someone who is crawling to this destination, they've never seen a race car and you try to put them behind the wheel of it, that's a very dangerous situation.

The benefits of some of these things that might be relied upon as a fast track to a certain goal are certainly in some cases undeniable. And yet there's something to be said about the journey itself. Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show. Today's episode is on biohacking your brain using medicine. We kind of went into all sorts of little rabbit holes on this podcast with the doctors from Wild Health. I honestly wish we'd had like four because, because we kind of. I exposed you guys to a lot of stuff on this show that I think is really going to get your wheels turning in terms of ways that you can optimize cognitive function. But because it's such a, such a vast, deep area, you know, they're like everything we talked about, we could have spent hours more just talking about that one thing, you know, whether it's neurotransmitters or red light therapy or anything else. And so a, I unpack a lot of this stuff that we talk about in my book Boundless. So that would be a great accompaniment, especially the first four chapters of Boundless, the podcast that you're about to hear. They're also putting on a fantastic event down in Lexington, Kentucky on biohacking the Brain that we discuss in today's show. It'll be available both online as well as if you're like me, because I'll be there, you can attend in person. And so that's all going to be in the show. Notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com wildhealthbrain One thing we did not talk too much about on this show, but this is fantastic for your vagal nerve function and for your brain. And that's cold therapy, cold thermogenesis. We are running a huge cold thermo challenge. If you didn't hear yet, if you've been living under a rock, we have thousands of people around the globe right now signing up for our huge, if I can overuse that word anymore, cold thermogenesis challenge at Kion. If you go to getkion.com coldthermo you'll get a free download of the comprehensive book Cold thermo Unearthed where we tell you everything you need to know about cold exposure. How long, what temperature, what supplements to take before after, how to pair it with food, how to pair it with fasting. Daily videos from experts who have been previous podcasts guests like Scott Carney is one guy who wrote the book what doesn't kill you and he's doing a really good video show. I'm doing one on how to biohack your cold exposure practice. We got a live Q and A with Wim HOF method instructors. It's all in there@getkion.com ColdThermo it starts August 3rd so get in soon. Get K-I-O-N.com forward/cold thermo and then this podcast is also brought to you by something called Glow Glow. Glow is a compound that you can eat that beautifies you from the inside out. It's got five times the moisture of hyaluronic acid from the Tremella mushrooms that are in it which helps to hydrate the skin. Plant based bamboo silica to help support collagen production. It's got different components in there to help repair skin and protect against sun damage, to smooth fine lines to produce collagen. Really really great compound for beauty from the inside out and it in a refreshing raspberry lemon flavored beverage. So this stuff is called Organifi Glow and you get it@organifi.com Ben that's Organifi with an I. Organifi.com Ben I think you're really going to dig this stuff. So check that out and that'll get you 20% off your order@organifi.com Ben. All right folks, if I sound a little bit congested right now, it's not because I have the flu or the cold or the shell. We call it the the unnamed pandemic that's sweeping the globe. I actually because this podcast is going to be focused on biohacking your brain and optimizing mental function. I just snorted an Amazonian herb up my nose. If you heard my podcast with Dr. John Laurence, we talked about this Zen spray and I just took a couple of huffs of that. I would basically describe it as smoking a cigarette up each nostril right before you hop on a podcast. So that is why I may or may not sound like I need to do the one hole nose blow and clear my sinuses before I even introduce my guests Mike and Matt. Officially. Fellas, is that okay with you that I just snorted nicotine? Does that fall into the category of of healthy things to do for one's brain.

I think it's perfect. I'm going to, I'm going to picture you with two cigarettes hanging out of your nostril the entire time because that's the image that immediately came to my mind.

You know, not, not to get too, too crass early on in the show for everybody driving around in their minivan with their children right now listening in. But I rem when I interviewed Aubrey Marcus, he described tampons as pussy cigarettes based on the, the potential toxicity of tampons. So there's another visual for you. I'm not wearing a tampon, but I did indeed spray Zen up my nose. So that being said, let's just, let's just call it a show. And there, my apologies to everyone for, for, for anyone who now needs to explain pussy cigarette to their children. But let's, let's go ahead and turn to the topic at hand. Dr. Mat and Dr. Mike Mullen are my guests today. They have been on this show before. These guys are the head honcho docs at Wild Health, which is a national network of physicians who are well versed in precision medicine, in using genomics and really good quantification to do targeted and personalized medicine. As a matter of fact, most of the time when I'm making referrals out to physicians for my clients or for people who do consults with increasingly I'm finding myself sending people over to Mike and Matt and the entire Wild Health network, which is@wildhealth.com just because these folks are trained so well and I trust them. And you may have heard my first podcast with Matt and Mike about precision medicine and exactly what it is. If you want to wrap your head around that, then I would listen to that show. And then I interviewed them again when we really dug into genomics in a podcast entitled why your DNA is worthless. And I will link to both of those episodes if you just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com WildHealthBrain that's where you'll find the show notes for today's show and everything that we discuss. BenGreenfieldFitness.com WildHealthBrain and the reason that the pretty link is BenGreenfieldFitness.com wildhealthbrain is because we're going to talk all things brain optimization, brain biohacking and a real medical based precision genomics approach to upgrading the your brain. On today's show, Matt Dawson. Matt, hello.

Hello Ben. How are you?

I'm well. That's the rollicking voice of Matt Dawson. For those of you listening in who need to differentiate him with Mike. Matt is a precision medicine physician. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. He has a castle there that I have visited before for an event and a wonderful thing going on down in Lexington. He's the co host along with Mike of the Wild Health Podcast and has been obsessed with for a very long time. He has a real background in athletics and actually got scholarships to play a couple of different sports in college, but instead chose the path of being a physician instead of a full on jock. And since then he has lectured in over 20 countries. He's trained thousands of physicians through live lectures and online education. He's created textbooks. He is a trainer of doctors and is just really focused on performance optimization on all levels. Brain, body and even spiritual optimization, which I really respect. And we may even have a chance to delve into that a little bit on today's show. And then Mike Mullen is on the other side of the country. He's in Bend, Oregon. He also is of course steeped in precision medicine and is the other person whose voice you will hear if you ever listen into the fantastic Wild Health podcast. He completed medical school in South Carolina, trained in emergency medicine in Salt Lake City. He's done a bunch of ultramarathons, a lot of mountain performance sports, and he also is very well versed in this whole topic that we're going to tackle today about biohacking one's brain and using precision medicine to upgrade things like mental clarity and cognition. So fellows, welcome back I suppose to the the third appearance, which means that you guys are are officially becoming extremely popular guests amongst my audience and hopefully they're not sick of you at this point.

Thanks. I hope not. And I really like your description of me choosing not to go down the athletic route even though you had had nothing to do with my lack of talent.

It was a choice, right? The only reason that Matt is not in the NBA is because he decided to be a doctor instead. So you know what, before we actually turn to the topic of the brain, I know both of you guys are kind of on the front lines of COVID right now and you actually, I mean, you're still practicing, if I'm not mistaken, at some points in the emergency room and on the front lines of emergency care. And a little while back on one of my channels, I believe it was on my Facebook page, we released a video where you guys were talking about some of the cool ways that you figured out how to do more mass testing. And how to scale testing for Covid. But I'm curious about anything that has developed on the front lines of COVID for you guys right now in terms of especially this whole idea of scaling testing. And I also know that you're working with a lot of corporations or businesses in order to allow them to be able to test employees. And I don't think this thing is going away anytime soon. So what's the latest on what you're up to on that front?

Sure, yeah. I mean, we're not into Covid because we want to, but it's kind of been thrust upon all of us. So when this pandemic first started, we immediately realized we were in a good position to help translate what was going on for people. Instead of the hysteria around the cable news, we changed our podcast to really focus on translating the signs and the evidence, the treatments that are coming out, what are the risks? But then when we started talking about it, we very quickly also thought, what can we do? What can we do to help not just talk about it? And we happen to have a lab. We have someone who has a PhD in infectious disease. And we started doing COVID testing. We did. We're doing the CDC gold standard test. We wanted it to be available for our patients because they had a really hard time getting it initially. So we started out that way. But then as things started to open back up, we were a little nervous about things opening back up with where we were. And we thought a very important part of opening back up was screening, doing testing, a lot of people, businesses. For example, you mentioned the Castle. So the Kentucky Castle is a property in Lexington. And there we test our employees every week to make sure we don't have an asymptomatic person coming in, make sure we don't have a meat packing incident where 1,000 people are infected because you had some asymptomatic people. So we started helping businesses screen just to make sure they didn't have these asymptomatic spreaders coming in. And we also were helping businesses with initially, if someone was to have a headache, for example, even if they have migraines and it feels like a migraine, the guidance from the CDC for a while with any symptoms was two weeks of quarantine. And it's tough to run a business with the amount of colds and sneezing and headaches and then people being out for two weeks. So the CDC said you could get two negative tests if you thought it was just a headache. And you get two negative tests and you can Go back to work. So we're helping businesses both kind of increase their safety with the screening and also getting these negative tests when people don't actually have Covid, they just have something else because other things are continuing to happen. So that's what we're doing with testing right now. You mentioned kind of the mass testing. For a few months, we've been really kind of beating the drum about pooled testing as a way to really increase capacity. And finally, just last weekend, the FDA actually approved pool testing. So that is going to really help our country be able to scale up to the level and do the amount of testing that we really need to identify these people who are spreading and don't even know they have it.

With pooled testing being for those who aren't familiar with that. What?

Sure. So say you have 300 employees you want to test.

Wait, do I need to know math for the explanation you're about to give.

You do you have to be able to add and divide a little bit?

Proceed.

300 employees is 300 PCR tests. That's some pretty simple math for you. But if these are asymptomatic folks, then our prevalence may be 1%. So let's say only three people have it. Instead of running 300 tests, what you could do is divide those 300 into 30 pools of 10. So you take 10 swabs, and you run one test for those 10. If all 30 of those pools are negative, then all 300 are negative. But on average, you want to have three pools that are positive because you have three patients that are positive. So then you go back to the samples that you already took from the patient. And in those 30 people who you haven't ruled out, you run those 30 individually. So you still get a yes, no answer for every single person in the 300, but you've ran 60 tests instead of 300. So we've been pushing this just because it was such an efficient method and we have such limited resources with reagents and swabs. And now, just about two weeks ago, the FDA and the White House started talking about it, and now there is a FDA emergency use authorization for it. And our lab actually will be submitting our FDA UA4 in the next day or two. So we hope to be doing that. I mean, we're already doing. Over the next month, we're contracted, we'll be doing 50,000 tests. So we're doing a lot of testing for a lot of businesses already. But having that pooled option will really help to scale tests even more. And we won't be having to listen to the news every day of these 7 and 8 and 10 day wait times. I mean, our lab, we're turning them around the next day. But we think if we don't do pool testing in the next few months, all the lead times will be a week, which is useless. Like, it is completely useless to find out a week later if you had this or not.

Right, right. And with, with pooled testing. And I even think that this got picked up after you guys were kind of ahead of the curve, because I think it actually, just a couple of weeks ago, kind of hit the news headlines. I saw that NPR did a story on it, and I'll link to that in the show notes for people who want to learn more about pooled testing. The, the actual testing itself. When you're doing that pooled testing, is that the blood spot antibody test or is this the nasal swab that you guys use for that?

No, it's the actual nasal swab. I mean, if we want to identify these asymptomatic people who have it, the antibody test, as you know, just tells, have you had it in the past? And that's a bit of a delay. So what we really want to catch is, is people tend to be most infectious right before their symptoms. But that's tough. Those people in general aren't being tested. So we want to identify those people. So it's the nasal swab PCR that we're talking about here.

Okay, got it. Am I mistaken in that the nasal swab test has progressed to the point where you actually do not need to shove it all the way up into the gray matter of your brain and come out with little pieces of your brain tissue dripping off because you've shoved it so far up your nose.

Yeah, I mean, initially I was teaching people to do this by putting. You put your hand on the back of someone's head, and then when you feel the swab tinting out the back of their head under your hand. And that's far enough, but it depends on who you ask. So the CDC still says nasopharyngeal, so it's way back there. But the science, if you look at it really, it seems like saliva and kind of a buccal swab is just as good. So technically, we're still doing nasopharyngeal, but if you don't get way back there, it's probably good enough. I mean, their saliva kits have been FDA approved as well, so it's getting less horrific as we speak.

Okay. Got it. And if a someone who is involved in a corporation or business hears this podcast and is interested in getting pooled testing done for their program, they could just go and contact you guys. Just go to wildhealth.com and let you guys know.

Yeah, for sure. There's just a wildhealth.com there's a tab. We technically aren't doing pool testing until we get our FDA eua, but we'll probably actually have that within the next week. So by the time this comes out, you know, we'll probably have it. If not, I mean, technically, what quest is the one that has the FDA EUA right now, but we're doing individual testing and then we'll be doing pooled probably in a few weeks, just whenever the FDA gets back to us.

Okay, great. Cool. And I know that on your guys podcast, for those of you who pooled testing kind of went over your head, or you still need to wrap your head around it. If you go to wildhealth.com, they've done a few podcasts that really get into the nitty gritties of pooled testing. But warning you, you probably need to be a better mathematician than I am to fully wrap your head around this idea of extrapolating the amount of COVID infections from a pool and then testing a smaller number of individuals. But it's a fascinating concept, so I just wanted to touch on that. That's obviously not the. The main thrust of today's show, but I know you guys are up to that, so I just wanted to. To check in on the front lines of COVID and so. So now let's turn to the topic at hand, brain optimization. I know this is something you guys are passionate about. I mean, as we'll discuss later on in the podcast, you're putting together almost like a little bit of a small private summit at your castle down there for physicians to talk a little bit more about brain biohacking and optimizing mental function. But when it comes to that topic, we actually haven't covered it much on the previous podcast that I've done with you. Although I know that you guys have a pretty comprehensive approach for optimizing mental function. Because if I'm not mistaken, at Wild Health, you have different tracks that you'll get people onto, you know, such as a brain track or a, you know, anti aging track like we talked about in the past, or, you know, any number of different tracks. And when it comes to the brain optimization track that you would put people on, I would love to discuss your approach for optimizing mental function for your patients or for your clients. And so I know that you guys are very much into testing as one of the first things that you do, actually gathering data. And so I would imagine that would be a good place to jump in is, you know, when somebody comes to you and they're wanting to optimize cognitive function or, or identify areas of cognitive decline or dementia or Alzheimer's risk or anything like that. Are there any specific tests that you're running specifically to assess cognitive function?

Yeah. So where do we start? So we do have specific brain optimization tracks and we're excited to kind of jump in and talk about that. But we also have a strict kind of no biohacking before the basics rule when we're talking to people. So we really do start from the beginning, like you mentioned, gathering information. So every patient, we take their DNA, look at their genomics, their blood work, some questionnaires about their exercise, sleep, try to get a really full picture. And we've actually developed these health scores to really help categorize and show people where they're deficient and taking that holistic view to start, not just immediately jumping into the brain. We think is really important because we may find when we're looking at the score, for example, that their sleep score is really low. And we really need to focus on that before some of the more advanced things. So you have to kind of graduate from the holistic optimization and meet some parameters before you can get into the tracks.

Before you give someone a vial of stem cells from a one armed monk in the Himalayas to nebulize, you're starting with the basics.

Exactly. So in whichever track, so even if you're picking the longevity, weight loss, gut, health, whatever it is, you got it be able to graduate some. You got to be able to do some work and meet some defined objectives in the scoring system to be able to do that. And Mike, maybe you could talk specifically about that scoring system because I know you developed that.

Yeah. So we kind of, we noticed that our patients wanted more numbers. They wanted to have a better understanding kind of numerically of where their health is now and then what the potential is for improvement. And it also sort of helped us estimate how long it would take patients take to get patients optimized. So, you know, sometimes some people come to us and, you know, they could be like you, Ben, and already be optimized and be ready for the tracks, or they could come to us and there's, you know, there's lots going on that we need to work on. So we developed this wild health scoring system. It takes into account things like cardiovascular disease risk, looking at LDLP and Lp, PLA2, insulin resistance, inflammation. It also looks at insulin sensitivity, at cancer risk, sleep, diet, exercise. We assign a scoring system to this and you have to get to a certain point in order, order to be considered optimized. Which usually takes, like I said, anywhere from zero, but that's unlikely, usually from two to six months. And then once we get there, then that's when we get to start playing with the cool stuff with the different tracks.

Okay, got it. So in terms of actual tests that would be specific to brain function, I guess where, where my mind was going was, you know, using something like, you know, like, like a Dutch test to assess neurotransmitter balance or, you know, looking at something that might indicate brain inflammation or compromised blood brain barrier or anything like that, or even, even genetic tests to identify, you know, risk for Alzheimer's, dementia. I mean, some, some real specific things related to cognitive function. Once you've gotten some of those basics out of the way, are, are you doing anything that would be specifically considered, you know, test flavored for brain analysis?

Yeah, absolutely. So we look at both your genotype and your phenotype. So what I mean by that, you gave a great example there of, of the genomics to start. So some of the first things we measure is, for example, Apoe4. Everybody knows that it increases your risk of dementia, your susceptibility, traumatic brain injuries, cardiovascular risk. And we know we can mitigate those risks. But it's also really important to never, like we've talked with you about before, look at a specific SNP in isolation. So you want to come up with an optimization plan, considering the blood test, the lifestyle, and then other SNPs as well. If we're talking about brain function and dementia risk, risk for somebody other than just that. Apoe4.

Yeah, when we think about Apoe4, it's probably associated with Alzheimer's through a combination of inflammation, reduced lipid transport, reduced clearance of amyloid beta plaques. But there's actually at least 15 other Alzheimer's related SNPs. Like for example, there's CLU, which is related to lipid transport, or CD33, which is related to the immune response. Actually, in fact, the immune response is a really interesting area for Alzheimer's. So if you look at, at tnf, or tissue necrosis factor, this encodes for a cytokine, which is an inflammatory signal, and this one's additive to the effect of APOE. So patients with a TNF and with APOE 3 have a 1.6 times increased risk of Alzheimer's. Where people with an APOE 4 and a TNF have a 6.6 times increased risk for Alzheimer's. There's numerous other examples of this with TNF being what? Again, TNF is tissue necrosis factor.

Tissue necrosis factor. And so if you have that and the APOE four, six times higher risk if you have elevated levels of tnf.

Correct.

What would cause elevated levels of tnf?

Genetics. So this is. This is a polymorphism that leads to an increased production of tissue necrosis factor. So you've got a greater inflammatory signal and increases the inflammasome in the. In the brain, basically.

Okay, got it. So. So you're definitely looking at the. The APOE factors. And for those who aren't familiar with apoe, that just stands for apolipoprotein E, and that's the protein involved in the metabolism of fats in the body. And it, you know, it's just part of the fat binding proteins called the APO lipoproteins. And there are. There are specific. I should be having you guys explain this. Anyways, the. The APOE gene is something that can be expressed in different ways. And the E4 variant has been implicated heavily in things like Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's disease, and impaired cognitive function, and is pretty clinically significant. If you test and you have that gene, when it comes to you probably wanting to do quite a bit from a dietary and a lifestyle standpoint to address any risk factors for Alzheimer's or dementia, it would be. The APOE4.4 genotype would be the one that would put someone most at risk. Correct, guys?

That's right. Yeah. So APOE OE4.4 is like a 12 to 15 times risk of Alzheimer's just by itself.

Okay. Okay. So you look at that, you would look at any potential considerations when it comes to autoimmunity, which could also contribute to inflammation in the brain. What about something like neurotransmitter balance? Are you guys assessing that at all?

To some degree, we're looking at neurotransmitter balance from a genetic standpoint, and then we look at it more phenotypically based on how the patient is likely to respond to things like cognitive behavioral therapy, which actually, I think we can probably talk about a little bit later. The Alzheimer's disease risk, though, is interesting because there's so many different SNPs that are related to it. But once you get Past the prognostic part of it, there's actually some genetics that are related to therapeutic benefit. So there's this really interesting. I know you've heard of Ketoflex 12, 3, right, Ben? This is like sort of this concept of, of keto type diet where you don't eat for 12 hours at night and then you don't eat three hours before bedtime. And it's very popular in Alzheimer's disease.

Keto Flex 12, 3.

Yeah. And if you think about Alzheimer's disease as a metabolic disease, which has definitely been argued and I think has some validity to it, the idea of ketosis makes some sense. Right. It should offer some benefit if you're basically feeding the brain ketones instead of glucose. Right. But studies are actually showing that just like metabolically, some people benefit from ketones more than others, that it actually. It's actually true in the brain as well. And neuronal ketone utilization and cognitive response to ketosis varies based on specific genetic factors. So specifically, there's a protein called insulin degrading enzyme, another one called Interleukin 1B. Both of those SNPs correlate with insulin levels and a clinical response to ketones in Alzheimer's disease patients. And what's amazing is if you've got the wrong genes, you're actually not just not going to have an effect cognitively from ketones. You actually have a worse effect cognitively. So eating ketones means your cognitive function actually decreases in all.

You guys can test for that gene?

Yep, yep. Very easily.

Can anybody listening in if they've done a, let's say a 23andMe analysis? Because I have a lot of listeners who are, you know, not only using ketone salts or ketone esters or using some form of nutritional ketosis, who this might be a news flash for.

Yeah, and you know what's really interesting, Ben, is this guy is interested in the concept of actually applying this to a healthy population. So, so we started testing ourselves and Matt and I actually have the genetics that we respond well to ketones. And I will tell you personally that when I drink ketones, it feels like I'm using methamphetamine. Not that I have that much experience with methamphetamine, but asking our patients about this too, and it really does seem to correlate. So those who have higher levels of IL1B or lower levels of IDE actually seem to have less response cognitively to ketones. And I'll tell you, the SNP's real quick, just, just so if your listeners are interested, so IDE, the SNP is RS 2251101 and if you've got a T there, specifically homozygous TT, you'll have lower insulin levels, increased ketone body metabolism and thus cognitive improvement. With ketone use for IL1B, it's RS1143627, that's a T. And then RS116944, that's a C. And you'll have also decreased insulin, increased ketone body metabolism and cognitive improvement as well. So that's really interesting.

Now just so listeners know, we do transcribe these shows so if you just want to go and check out the transcript, pull up those genes and you can see whether you have the T or the C variant.

This is really cool because this is basically, this is basically where we start getting to use genomics as a predictive model for who's going to respond to a specific, specific neuro optimization tool such as ketones.

Yeah, and just as full disclosure, ketones work well for me, but not as good as meth. Like Mike said, it's definitely not that strong of an effect. And we can do this with other genomics too. I mean things like bdnf. If someone has lower expression of that than lion's mane and black coffee and high intensity interval training, we'll recommend those things even more than we would for other people. And we look in total at about, we look at thousands of different SNPs and there's lots of others, the COMT and others that are important. But your question though too about testing I think is a good one because what we're trying to do here is we're not just interested in expression of genes. If we're going to improve your brain functioning and optimize it and really understand your potential for optimization, we also have to test not just the genomics but your actual baseline functioning as well. And so we definitely do some tests for that.

Well, Matt's alluding to is something called CNS Vital Signs, which is the cognitive battery that we've kind of landed on to test for cognitive. And this is basically a 30 minute test. Your provider can order it for you, you can do it at home on your computer, you can do it in your doctor's office. Measures everything from, you know, attention, working memory, processing speed.

Which one is that called again?

CNS Vital Signs.

Okay.

And the cool thing is that it's so easy to implement and to retest so we can actually look and see are we getting efficacy from the interventions that we're doing and also the report that it gives you allows you to personalize the intervention so that you can attack each one of these domains of concept to perform it separately. Like, say, for example, you do the CNS vital signs and it says your complex attention is an issue. Well, you might be a great candidate for neurofeedback. If it says that your cognitive flexibility is a problem, then maybe we need to personalize a nootropic regimen for you. If working memory is the issue, then, and processing speed is an issue, then maybe we need to do something like brain HQ for example, and actually have you practicing those elements as well.

Well, one thing that we know is good for the brain is ketosis, at least for some people, as we've established on this show. And I've actually been experimenting with a few different compounds in my morning smoothie. One is called a keto base. A keto base, it's basically just magnesium beta hydroxybutyrate, sodium beta hydroxybutyrate, and calcium beta hydroxybutyrate in a really good flavor. They flavor this stuff with monk fruit and cocoa powder and it's called an exogenous ketone base. You add it to any smoothie or water or coffee or anything like that and it just shoves you straight into ketosis without actually tasting like rocket fuel like a lot of these compounds do. And it's made by my friends at Perfect Keto. When I make that smoothie, I've been topping it off with their keto butter. They have an almond butter and jelly and a snickerdoodle flavored keto nut butter. Yeah, you talk about crack. That stuff is fantastic. So I make a keto smoothie, then add keto nut butter to it. So keto is made possible by these folks at Perfect Keto and what they're doing is they're giving all of my listeners 20 off. So you go to perfect keto.com bgf20 for 20 off perfect keto and they're going to throw free shipping in there. So perfect keto.com bgf20 may I recommend to you the exogenous ketone base in like a chocolate or a salted caramel flavor and then add the snickerdoodle or the almond butter and jelly nut butter in in and you have a recipe for a fantastic, fantastic smoothie. Perfect keto.com bgf20 and then the other sponsor for today's show, this stuff is also actually fantastic for neural inflammation and for combating excess oxidative stress. Improving sleep, helping to recover from workouts. That's molecular hydrogen. And the folks at Water and Wellness make these really great hydrogen tablets with a really high ppm of hydrogen for each tablet that you dissolve in water. It's called Active H2. I've been putting two of those in a morning and in an evening glass of water. And then they also have the Quinton Marine Plasma over there. Pretty much the best way to replenish electrolytes, over 78 different trace minerals and elements straight from the ocean to help to restore your mineral balance. Those two products alone from Water and Wellness are fantastic. But that website is chock full, full of all sorts of other ways to make your water healthier and to upgrade your water, so to speak. They're going to give all my listeners a 15% discount off of anything from their website and it's waterandwellness.com greenfield that's waterandwellness.com Greenfield will automatically get you that 15% discount. So enjoy your new water experience. That CNS vital sign test and I'll link to that in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com wildhealthbrain is that something that will work on any desktop or laptop computer? Will it work on a, on a phone or what's the actual platform?

The platform is a website and I think you have to have a provider order it for you. I don't, I'm not sure about this, Ben, but I'm not sure if you can go on it just as a consumer and you use it, but it's on any laptop. Like I did it the first time I ever did one was on a plane on my laptop, like connected to the Internet plane. So it was not a problem.

Right. What about any of these popular brain apps that spit out results, you know, something like a Brainscape or a Lumosity or even like there's one that I've recommended in the past, very simple, called a CNS tap test, which just measures the number of times one taps with the right thumb and the left thumb on the phone. Any of those more consumer level apps that you guys are implementing at all?

Yeah, I think they have, I think they have some benefit. I think the CNS Vital Signs is really nice for us because it attacks all of those things at once and it's standardized. The one that I like, Ben, is the, is the Brain hq which I mentioned earlier, which is basically sort of like a brain exercise app. It'll give you feedback specifically on categories like, kind of like you mentioned, like, you know for example, attention or processing speed, for example. The reason I like Brain HQ is it's been so well studied. So there's been like, I think over a hundred studies looking at Brain HQ in terms of its efficacy, and some of them have shown like 100% increase in auditory processing speed. I mean, pretty impressive data behind that app. So that's the one that I lean towards. But I think from just like, getting started with this, a lot of these consumer level tests at least. Least can help you create a good baseline.

Got it. Okay. And we could. We could talk about testing probably for a couple of hours. And I, of course, know that my audience. Yes, you guys, you're listening in. I know how you think. They also just want to cut to the chase and say, okay, so how do I make myself smarter? What are the things that I could do, what are the things I can buy, how do I eat, etc. But yet, before we jump into that, I have a couple of other questions for you. One I had already alluded to, which was the neurotransmitter piece, because, you know, even for me and some of the coaching that I do, I'll often have people run a Dutch hormone test, a Dutch hormone urine test. And on that test, now, the folks at Dutch include neurotransmitter metabolites. And so, you know, the brain uses things like dopamine and noradrenaline, as does the entire autonomic nervous system. And they'll use organic acid markers to reflect your body's production of the those neurotransmitters, not specifically levels in the brain, because the urine really reflects what might be in the body, not directly in the brain. Yet they'll look at these metabolites like Homo vanillate being a metabolite of dopamine, or Phenomenalite being a metabolite of norepinephrine and epinephrine, and then give you an approximation of whether or not you may be deficient in certain neurotransmitters based on the results of that test. Do you guys mess around at all with that type of neurotransmitter testing?

We do a little bit. We run the Dutch test, and we look at exactly what you're talking about. I think, Mike, you can give your experience in this. My experience in it has been that when we do see something off with dopamine metabolism or something else, most of the recommendations that would come along with that are things that we're probably already talking about with patients, like increasing meditation, decreasing stress, all the things that we know that we need to do. We generally don't really write a lot of prescriptions or really try to mess around with changing that too much because it's so complex. I mean, if we see somebody that has really low, probably really low melatonin, and they have poor sleep, and we get that from the organic acids test, maybe we'll talk a little bit about supplementing with that. But in general, the neurotransmitters, I mean, Mike, can give your experience, but they have been super proscriptive for me. We can tell people when they're out of balance, but it's kind of general recommendations of what to do from that.

Yeah, generally the main thing that I've seen is if Homo vanilla is elevated, which would indicate low levels of. Or if it's low, which would indicate low levels of circulating dopamine. Or if vanilla, what's it called? Vanilla mandalate. If vma, if that one is low, it could indicate low levels of norepinephrine and epinephrine. I'll often see this in people who have that cluster of, you know, other things like high cortisol, typically some kind of mineral deficiency, low vitamin C intake, and just a general, you know, adrenal fatigue esque type of scenario, even though I don't like to paint with that super broad brush just because it can be used as a catch all term a little bit too much. But I think that those levels can give clues as to some things that might be going on from more of an adrenal or an HPA axis standpoint than direct brain deficiencies and neurotransmitters per se. But I think it's an interesting test nonetheless. And I like that test anyways, just because it's so darn good for hormone analysis in my opinion. And then the other one that I wanted to ask you about was related to something you alluded to earlier, which was the link between immune function and the brain. And the reason I wanted to ask you about this was because I recently read a really good book called the angel and the Assassin. The angel and the Assassin. Fantastic. I actually listened to the audiobook version of it, but it explores the link between a woman who had an autoimmune disorder and how that was activating microglia and how the brain was essentially going into self destruction mode with this activation of microglia due to the immune system issues. And this book gets into the treatments to basically reboot the microglia, like neurofeedback and intermittent fasting and transcranial magnetic stimulation and gamma light Flicker therapy with these red lights. And it's actually pretty intriguing because they're able to make a pretty big impact on autoimmune related brain dysfunction. So when you guys are doing initial testing for the brain, if you are looking at immune system factors, are there specific markers that you have found to be pretty reliable indicators that an immune system issue might be affecting cognitive function?

There's not that I can think of. I mean, that book's sounds fascinating. So I'm going to get that book and check it out and dive into that. Really honestly, what I'm thinking about most is the references in that book. I want to take a look at the references and the science and see if there's something there we can use because we're really not testing immune function per se with lab tests for optimizing the brain right now.

Okay.

We do use some immune tests though that I would say do directly correlate. So for example, just the basics like high sensitivity CRP is definitely something that we're looking at. We're also sometimes looking at some of the CDs or the TNFs. But the one thing I would mention, Ben, that I think probably does correlate really nicely is gut testing. So what we do do on just about all of our patients is microbiome testing. And as you know, leaky gut or gut inflammation in the colon leads to immune response that you can see all throughout the body. So while those, while those cytokines and those inflammatory signals can be transient and they can be sometimes hard to catch in serum, the inflammation in the gut is fairly consistent. So when we see a chronic inflammation in the gut, that is our first hint that there is probably some degree of an inflammatory response that is also getting to the brain, attacking the blood brain barrier. And then when you combine that with the genetics, where we know some people already have this predisposition to inflammation within the brain, that becomes a fairly strong signal. Signal that this is somebody where inflammation is going to be a big issue that we're really going to need to have to focus on.

Yeah, that's fascinating. And actually, I believe it was Science magazine that recently published a pretty intriguing article on what they call the psychobiome. Right, not the microbiome, but the psychobiome that really highlights some of the intimate connection between the microbes and the bacteria in your gut. And for example, neurotransmitters. We know that microbes can convert tryptophan into serotonin and that's implicated in depression or other psychiatric disorders potentially. Or they can turn Tryptophan into kynurenine, which would also result in the formation of products that could be toxic to neurons if bacterial balance is somehow affected. Another really common one is gaba. A lot of people are restless at night or have anxiety and certain lactations. Bacillus strains are specifically associated with GABA production. And I'll hunt down that article and link to it in the show notes. But yeah, I mean, if you're not testing the gut and you're assessing cognitive function, then you're missing out on a.

Huge, huge piece of the puzzle, 100%. And we've been working with longevity for our gut stuff. And one of the reasons we like them is because they send us a giant CSV file on all of our patients. For people who don't know what that is, it's a giant Excel file that tells us the predominance of every single strain found in their gut microbiome. So we actually pull that into our algorithm and pull out specific strains that have been just like you were just mentioning, that correlate with specific findings, which is, which is really helpful in actually sort of diving into this on a, on a very particular level.

Yeah, I love longevity. I interviewed Joel Dudley and Chris Mason and I'll link to that one in the show notes about their unique flavor of testing the gut. And so for anybody who likes to poop into tubes, you'll love that interview because we geek out on longevity's approach. Now I would like to turn to the fun stuff now. If you find that someone needs some fine tuning, obviously it goes without saying that if you find an immune system disorder, you're going to tackle that with some type of an autoimmunity diet, controlling inflammation, etc. Or if you find that it's a sleep related cognitive issue, you're going to a certain assess basic sleep hygiene and those things that, you know, I've covered before that, those type of approaches on other podcasts. But when it comes to brain optimization modalities or strategies that you guys find yourself recommending repeatedly or finding great value in with your clients or with your patients. What, what is it that you're doing in the brain optimization track that you're finding is really moving the dial in execs who you might be working, working with for cognitive function or in people who just want to be smarter, so to speak.

Well, you hit the nail on the head when you talked about being personalized to what the deficit is, because once we've measured where we go from there, it kind of depends on the person and their goals. And what we found, most people kind of fall into one or two buckets. They either want to enhance their performance, like the executive you mentioned, or they want to prevent decline if they've got risk factors or family members that have had dementia. So the tools are really the same in both. Both groups. It's just when we apply them and how. So there's things like peptide personalization, nootropics, BDNF boosters. I mentioned earlier, the neurotransmitter balance, like you mentioned, a lot of times it's simple things, though, like breathing exercises and meditation. And that may not come completely from the lab test, but from talking to the patient as well. If you ask for things that really move the needle, for a lot of people, those two things, as reluctant and as unsexy as they are, those make a big difference. We actually have a different track in the brain optimization, although there's a lot of overlap with mindfulness. And when it comes to mindfulness, we're really excited about a new thing called therapy genetics. I don't know if you've heard of this. It's similar to pharmacogenomics, but therapy genetics, there's some evidence that things like the circumstances, CBT, for example, work better if people have certain SNPs related to OPRM1 or CHRM2. And that can really affect how they respond to different therapies. But whether we use these things, I mean, we use things like peptides pretty sparingly and things like breath work and mindfulness a little more broadly. And I know, Mike, you're a really big fan of neurofeedback and feel like it's good for pretty much everyone that's in the brain optimization track. That's probably one that we go to quite a bit.

I've been using Mindlift recently, Ben. I don't know if you've heard of this. It's a neurofeedback tool that's basically built off of a muse with an extra electrode. And you use it on a tablet. And you basically play a game on the tablet, except you're not using your fingers or your thumbs. You're using your brain waves to play this game.

No kidding. And you can use it with the muse, correct?

Yeah. So it's a combination of a muse with a second electrode that you put on one of the hemispheres in a few different locations that kind of connects to where the power port goes into the muse, and then you just basically pull a gel on it, stick that one electrode on Your brain and then it's using the Muse. But you play this game with your brain waves basically. So if I get my theta and my high, my low beta in the right place, then this figure on the screen starts running faster and then, and when they get out of the wrong place, then it starts running slower again. So you're constantly getting this positive feedback when you get your brain waves in a certain place based on the protocol and what you're trying to improve, basically. And it's just so simple. But it's like meditation on steroids because the negative feedback when I meditate is when I realize that my thought has gone somewhere else and I bring myself back to the center, whatever my center is. That's the positive feedback is realizing and then bringing back. This machine is doing it for you. It's giving you immediate positive and negative feedback based on whether what your brain waves are doing. So it's really, really powerful, I think.

So that one's the mind. That's called the Y M Y N D L I F T. I have a muse hanging around here somewhere and I know that the Muse, I think I was talking with Dr. Mercola about this. If I recall properly, it doesn't actually produce an appreciable amount amount of pulsing emf. And so for those of you concerned about frying your brain with with emf, it's actually not that significant. However, my previous experiences with neurofeedback have been at places like the Peak Brain Clinic in LA where you know, even though I I purchased their equipment and brought at home and have used home based neurofeedback, it takes like 15 minutes to hook up all the electrodes and pull the gel on your head and everything. So if the Muse headband could be used for something like that, that's fantastic.

I've been doing it daily and it takes me about a minute to set up. One day it was being kind of finicky and it took me about five minutes, but it's pretty quick. And then the programs are like 12 to 20 minutes. So you can easily fit this into a day.

Hmm, interesting. Okay, I'll link to that one in the show notes. Okay, so those are some of the tools, something like mindlift. And the other thing I wanted to ask you about when it to comes comes to wearables would be anything else based on tdcs. These V light photobiomodulation, the red light headsets, those are quite popular. Now. What other tools are you guys finding yourself turning to frequently besides something like the Muse combined with mind Lift for neurofeedback.

Yeah. The Vielight is something that we've had patients use as well. There's not a lot of other gadgets. There are a lot on the market. And so we have kind of a list that we can kind of go over with people and the way we approach a lot of them where there's not a lot of great evidence one way or the other. We feel like with neurofeedback there is good evidence, but some of the ones that are newer and there's just not the evidence. We usually kind of do in one experiments with people, we talk about how it could work and then we let people try it out and we just try to help them come up with an objective measure. Is this actually working for you or not? Because you can spin tens of thousands of dollars on all the different gadgets and all the different medications. So we try to target it and then if we're just not sure if we think, hey, it could be beneficial, maybe there's more benefit than harm, then we'll try to do Some n of 1 experiments with folks and help them, help them figure it out. Even the neurofeedback. We think it's important to have a coach like we partnered with a company that really is deep into neurofeedback and they help our clients who are doing neurofeedback to do that. Because that's a whole area of science where even if you're doing it by yourself with, with the mindlift, it's good to have somebody kind of coaching you and going over your results over time.

So you guys are not really using any of these other headset wearable, even yourselves. Experiment with anything personally, because I'm fine with anecdotal n equals 1. I'm a doc. I tried this. I don't recommend it for all my patients, but it's helped me a little bit.

I tried Halo for a while. I think Matt tried it too.

And both of us did the tdcs.

Yeah, that's the TDCS headphones. One that. That kind of has like the little spikes that sit on your scalp. And it's never really got.

I mean, my head tingled, which was great. And so I felt like it was doing. Something happened.

Your head got tickled?

Yeah, but my squats didn't double the weight or anything else, so. So I think things like Halo sport, there is some good evidence for that. So that is one that actually I will freak.

But we've already established, Matt, that. That you were going to play in the NBA So you might be one of those highly trained individuals who's a non responder. All joking aside, I have used that halo before and I actually have found that prior to musical practice or instrument practice just because it supposedly elevates the activity of motor neurons or the recruitment of motor neurons or for more complex activities such as say learning the kettlebell snatch, which I use it for a little bit of. Little bit while I was training for my rkc. It does actually seem to be beneficial in cases like that. I loaned it to a friend at one point who did one of his typical obstacle course training workouts and he couldn't move for like two or three days. Like rhabdo esque type of symptoms because. And apparently he was a real TDCS responder because he was recruiting muscles that apparently he just hadn't even tapped into before. So there's something to it. But I will like to see a little bit more research on that device. Specifically, what about the Vielight? What about photobiomodulation or the use of these gamma wavelengths or alpha wavelengths via these head worn devices that also include a nasal probe.

I thought about the Vielite in metabolically deranged people previously, specifically looking at them because it can be a proton donor, right? So theoretically you can kind of bypass the, the mitochondrial transport chain. But typically if there's a metabolic derangement, I'm focusing more on that and not looking for a device to skip past the initial optimization. So I think there's probably a place for it. I do think it's a bit of a niche in my opinion.

Okay, all right, got it. Anything else regarding specifically wearables?

Yeah, the wearables, I mean they, again, we're very supportive of them one by one. I mean the way we approach them is looking at the evidence and then if our patient wants to wear them, we support them and just kind of help them through the journey with it. But in general, honestly we do stay away from a lot of wearables just because like I said, it just adds up the finances of it. I mean the one thing that I've had the most success with when it comes to a wearable, and I've tried a lot, is is not something that is really highly advanced, but it's just really good. Noise canceling headphones like the cocoon, it's really comfortable and can play specific tones, different kind of whole tones or just something as simple as raindrops. I really use that as a biohack in the afternoon if I've had a really cognitively difficult day and I need a little bit of a reset.

So that one's called the cocoon.

The cocoon, yeah. It does measure some brain waves and it gives you. And it can tell you kind of what you're responding better to, which of the kind of music or sounds. But I've kind of trained my brain to around 2 o' clock or so in the day when you're at your lowest cognitively and you're reaching for that cup of caffeine or something else. If I put those on and a really good dark mask, like a mindfold mask, those with the headphones. My brain is trained now, but there's a specific sound on the cocoon. If I turn that on, my brain just basically shuts off for 15, 20 minutes and it feels like I've got a night's sleep. So that's, that's just something for me. But that took a little bit of training to get to that point where I could do that and have that restored of 15 to 20 minutes. But. So I don't know if it would work for everyone. But that's just something that is just not a super high tech thing, but has really made a big difference for me. Me.

And is that available to consumers, this cocoon?

It is, yeah. Yeah, it's. And it's spelled K O K O O N. It's. Yeah. If you just Google that, it'll pop up. It's really nice, comfortable pair of headphones. Got some little electrodes on it and yeah, it just works really well for me.

Okay, Gotcha.

Sleep device. So it can tell you how you're. It's meant to be worn before you fall asleep and then it monitors your sleep stages while you're asleep. But. But in my experience, it typically falls off because it's a large headphone. The one thing that I did that did come to my mind, Ben, though, is the Oura ring, which I think most people would not really think of as offering neurocognitive benefit, but they've actually got a pretty cool new thing on the Oura ring now on the app where you can meditate with it.

Yes, the moment function.

Yeah. So it's monitoring your heart rate variability, your resting heart rate and your skin temperature, which I've found has correlated pretty well with quality of meditation sessions, where basically you see a drop in your resting heart rate, you see an increase in your HRV and a increase in your skin temperature due to the dilation of blood vessels and the neurotransmitter release. So it's sort of interesting from that standpoint. And actually I just really like it because it's got great sounds for meditation. There's a few guided meditations that I think are okay, but the. The Rainscape is one of my favorites, for example.

Okay, gotcha. By the way, the Cocoon sounds a little bit similar to one that I've been experimenting with called the Power Mask. That one's made by silent mode and comes with an app that walks you through Breathe up and Breathe down cycles. I also like it because even though it has Bluetooth capability, it allows me to just hardwire straight into my phone just because I'm not a huge fan of using Bluetooth too much much. And. And that. That one sounds a little bit similar to the Cocoon. And obviously these might be a little bit more oriented towards just, you know, sleep. Although I suppose. Yeah, when. When you. Never mind. I suppose you do use them quite a bit for breath work and medic and meditation. I use mine in the hyperbaric chamber, for example, quite a bit. Which. Which kind of leads me to something that I wanted to mention. I. I did recently publish an article on how to stack a lot of these modalities for things like meditation or for brain hacking, so to speak, combining things like the nucalm with the Apollo sound therapy device with like a Circadia Fisher Wallace with Hyperbaric with pemf. For those of you who do really want to geek out, I have an article I recently wrote about enhancing meditation with a little bit of better living through science. So I'll link to that in the show notes. For those of you want to really explain, explore some of the. Some of the cool tools, so to speak. And I may also be down there at the event that Matt and Mike are putting on, and I'm going to unpack a whole bunch of other little tricks I've been experimenting with when I. When I come down there. And we'll. We'll fill you in on that shortly. But I would be remiss not to also ask you guys about compounds, whether it be peptides, which you briefly alluded to, whether it be nutrients supplements, smart drugs. I know both of you guys are even somewhat versed in the utilization of things like plant medicines. And so I would be curious to hear about some of your biggest wins when it comes to optimizing cognitive function using some of those strategies.

Well, I think so. There's a lot there. There's a lot of possible places to go with that. I think the first thing that came to mind then was something that I Can't really call as a win, but something that I think Matt and I share a lot of interest in, and that's the. The idea of plant medicines. You know, I mean, if you look at the. If you look at the literature from 40 years ago, I mean, it's just so suggestive of a really remarkable benefit. You know, anything from everything from, like, dependence disorders with alcohol, tobacco, and opiates. There was that recent study with psilocybin at the end of life. There's the ongoing research with MDMA and ptsd. And I was actually rereading the Psychedelic Explorer's Guide and thinking about plant medicines. I did a research review recently, and I found this study. I don't know if you've seen it, Ben. It was from 2019. It was on microdosing. It was basically just a survey because you can't really do anything more than survey research right now in this realm due to the legality. And they studied 300 different movies, microdosers, and something like 90% had an increased mood, 60% had less anxiety, they were drinking less, they were using drugs less. Like 15% got off their psychiatric meds. I mean, obviously, survey data.

So survey data and a lot of confounding variables, meaning that I know a lot of people will start using microdosing and stop coffee or stop alcohol or at the same time make some pretty significant dietary changes because they're spending so much fricking money on microdosing. And so, you know, there's a lot of. A lot of confounding variables. But, you know, for me personally, having lived a pretty healthy lifestyle and also done some washout periods where I'm not using anything else, where I try out some microdosing and then come off it and assess results subjectively, I think that there are some definite things that are occurring from a neuroplasticity level or from a cognitive optimization level. However, as you guys alluded to earlier when you mentioned the basics before the biohacking, I have had a lot of folks who are hot under the collar to microdose approach me who have in no way gotten their sleep in order, their inflammation in order, the EMF in their environment in order, their relationships or emotional status in order, and you cannot psilocybin your way out of some of those situations. So that's where I think a little bit of the danger lies. But I think for a healthy dialed in person, meaning dialed in spiritually, emotionally, physically, environmentally, et cetera, that kind of stuff cannot just be the icing on the cake. But Possibly even more than that.

Yeah, we have to be careful what we talk about as physicians with medical licenses. Because I mean, while some of the plants are legal, like you've talked about the Aztec Dream, herb and hape, most of it is illegal. Even though it's illegal. I mean, the science is very compelling. We know indigenous people have been using this for thousands of years and now we're really starting to study it at places like John Hopkins. So I do think it's one of the most interesting things and potentially something that could really make a big difference, positive in the world. But like every medicine, you said plant medicine, like every medicine, there are risks. And I want to stress that, I mean the analogy that I use with plant medicine and is I think we're all kind of on this journey in trying to get to a certain place, whether you call it enlighteness, enlightenment or peace or contentment. And as we're trying to get there, there's multiple ways to get there. And I look at someone just kind of stumbling through life randomly and they make some good decisions and get good feedback, bad decisions, bad feedback. That person is progressing, but it's kind of like they're crawling. Whereas if you give them something like meditation, a tool, or they find spirituality and prayer, maybe that's like walking to the destination. And then if they have a guide, someone, maybe they have a good community or they have someone who's wiser and can help them guide, maybe that's riding a bike. Whereas some of these plant medicines is more like getting in a race car and getting there. And while that may sound appealing, if you imagine someone who is crawling to this destination and then they've never seen a race car and you try to put them behind the wheel of it, that's a very dangerous situation. They may get there faster or they may crash and burn. So that's why I think people talk about having a guide that maybe is driver and you're the passenger. And my hope is that we do the science and we get to a place where our decisions around this stuff and how we regulate it and the guide rails we put up for safety, I hope that they become reasonable and evidence based. Because right now, now if you even if you go to try to find that guide, you just have no idea if they have the experience, skills or compassion needed to keep you safe while you're trying to get the benefit. But I do feel really optimistic with all the research being done that we're going to get to that place where we can hopefully harness the incredible potential but also just protect people from the dangers as well.

Well, as annoying as it is for some people to hear, the benefits of some of these things, things that might be relied upon as a fast track to a certain goal are certainly in some cases undeniable. And yet there's something to be said about the journey itself. Not the plant medicine journey, but the journey of doing the hard thing of going and getting on a diet that causes you to engage in some amount of. Of self control, discipline, awareness and intuition versus getting a gastric bypass surgery or learning how to recruit muscles with your actual brain while squatting or deadlifting, or doing a clean versus using an electrical muscle stimulation device that tortures you for 20 minutes and then, you know, kind of drops you off all sore like. Like there. There are some definite advantages to building character through doing the hard work work and actually engaging in the long and sometimes difficult journey to achieve a cognitive goal or physical goal or a spiritual goal or anything else. Even if some of that stuff can be fast tracked, I always find that the long term stick when it comes to character development or ego disillusion or anything else typically involves combining that with the hard work or even if that kind of stuff isn't appealing to you or accessible to you, realizing that you can often get similar results through doing the hard work.

Yeah, 100%. And that's why we have kind of the objective measures and the scoring system. And that's why if someone wants to go immediately to the plant medicine in that world, I would strongly recommend they really have a mindfulness practice. They do a lot of the work prior because it's important. It's not going to stick. They may have a peak experience, but yeah, the discipline you gain from putting in the work. Those two things in my mind have to have to go together.

Yeah. And what about the slightly more legal side of things that you guys could speak to, such as peptides or even synthetic alternatives to plant medicine, such as say ketamine or something like that. Are you guys using any of that in your practice?

We are, yeah. I mean, with peptides, we frequently will prescribe peptides. Again, we try to do it a little more sparingly than the things that benefit everyone without the downsides, just because there's not a ton of literature out about them. But some of our patients have responded really incredibly to Dihexa, for example, especially if they have BDNF SNP's that mean their BDNF in general is low. They'll respond well to Dihexa.

Dihexa being A transdermal peptide applied to either side of the neck. Is that the one you're referring to?

Yes, exactly, exactly.

The.

Yeah, there's. There's a oral form as well, but yeah, most people use the transdermal.

Yeah, that's actually. It's a fantastic nootropic.

Yeah. And there's plenty of others too, like C Lock and cmax and some of those people have really good results with. But those in my mind are similar kind of to the plant medicines like we talked about. There are downsides to any compounds. They just need to be monitored so you can get good results, but some people don't get results and so they shouldn't spend the, the money and take on the risk at the same time.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Now, I know we're getting a little bit long in the tooth and we've really only scratched the surface of all the things one could do, so to speak for cognitive optimization. And I know that you guys are putting together an event down there in Lexington at the Castle. Can you fill me in on that? Because from what I understand, it is pretty focused on biohacking the brain or optimizing method function.

Yeah. So, I mean, it's a little up in there as to how much is going to be in person versus online just because we don't know what the safety is going to be like right now we're hopeful and we're planning to have in person, like, we're really hopeful that you're going to be able to make it out. There's not any travel restrictions. And then we've got some other really incredible folks coming as well. And it's going to be, we hope to have it in person because we want to be experiential. So when we talk about like sauna and cryother therapy, we didn't talk about that at all today, but we talk about the benefits of the brain. We want to then get in a cold tub and get in a sauna with folks. So it's going to be a very small event. The first day we're going to be talking about wild foods. We didn't talk much about food today, but just incredible, incredibly nutritionally dense wild foods and some wild plants that are medicinal. We're not only going to talk about them, but we're going to go on a wild foods walk and forage for some food. And then that first night have a wild foods feast. And. And then the second day you mentioned plant medicine. We've got a couple really expert guests coming to just talk about that a little bit. And we're not going to do plant medicine tonight, but when we talk about breath work, for example, we're actually going to have a breathwork session, a group session that night. So it's a small in person group. And then we're also going to stream it. It's also going to be online. So there's either option if you don't feel safe traveling, or it's not safe to travel. If you go to wildhealth.com to register for the conference, there's going to be an online option and an in person option as well.

Okay. Yeah. Well, for those of you listening in yours truly, because I like to refer to myself in the third person, does indeed plan to be there, should there be airplanes that are flying? I will be there, actually. And so you guys can plan on me actually being there and teaching some of my own biohacking stacks and my own flavor to cognitive optimization. That does go beyond just snorting nicotine up your nose prior to recording a podcast. And I think it'll be a fantastic event. I, deep down inside wish that the pandemic wasn't putting such a hamper on being able to put together events like this. But as you guys alluded to, you know, the whole online component and the streaming component can be useful for people who can't make it down there to Lexington for the event. And that's September, was it? 26th?

26Th and 27th, yep.

Okay. And wildhealth.com would be the best place to go to learn more about that.

Yeah, we'll put a big link up there and we'll also. We haven't talked about this ahead of time or anything, but we'll put a discount code if people just put the word ban in when they register as well.

Great. Okay, cool. Well, we'll. We'll toss in, I don't know what, like a free packet of lion's mane or something?

Sure. Actually, we get. We've got incredibly fresh lines, man, here. So at the feast, I'm sure we'll have some lions mane. I'm eating it most days right now. It's in season here.

Right? Yeah, me too. I actually just was with Dr. Matt Cook down in San Jose and we spent several days down there and we literally got a giant shipment of Bel Campo ribeye steaks and sweet breads and some. Some chicken and beef in. You know, all the restaurants are pretty much closed aside from a little bit of outdoor dining. We. We took out the Drag, the Traeger Grill, and we pretty much did meat. And then they, I don't know where they were buying it, but they literally had paper bags full of lion's mane in the refrigerator. So we were sauteing lion's mane in olive oil or butter with some, just some sea salt and black pepper and a little bit of turmeric and eating meat and lion's mane literally breakfast, lunch and dinner and just reheating leftovers. And it was nothing short of amazing. And I felt pretty neuroplastic coming back from that, kind of like a, a neuroplastic carnivore. So that's incredible.

I, I actually grow lion's mane on my property and that's probably, that's where we'll do the wild foods walk and things. But I found a nearly unlimited supply about 30 minutes from, from me. So I can't tell you exactly. It's a secret because I don't want to lose my supply.

But I was gonna say I, I will, I'll give you some money under the table or Venmo you to dehydrate that stuff, Vitamix it and toss it in some Ziploc bags up to me here in Washington because I've yet to find some good lions main sources up here. So anyways though, you guys, there, there are so many little rabbit holes that we could dive into when it comes to biohacking the brain and so many much more that I know is going to occur at that event coming up at the end of September in Lexington and so much more that you guys have available on your website. So I'm going to link to everything that we discuss. You know, the, the mind lift and some of the articles on the psychobiome, the pooled COVID testing books like the angel and the Assassin. My own article I wrote on, on advanced biohacking stacks for enhancing meditation, the cocoon, the silent mode, all that. I'll link to everything@BenGreenfieldFitness.com wildhealthbrain which is where you can also get into more information on that brain biohacking event. What code did you say folks can use? Matt? Was it Ben?

Ben, yeah. That's probably pretty easy to spell, so that's a good one to use.

Okay, yeah, last time I checked, I can spell it. And that'll all be over@BenGreenful Fitness.com WildHealthBrain Matt and Mike, as you usual, it's been a fascinating and fun discussion.

Thanks, Ben.

Can't wait to see you in September.

All right, folks. Well, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Matt Dawson and Mike Mullen signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week. Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to join generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes. Use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.