How To Test Your Fat Burning Efficiency, The Ultimate Guide To Preventing Alzheimers, Cold Thermogenesis, Fasting & More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness show, how to test your fat burning efficiency. The ultimate guide to preventing Alzheimer's, cold thermogenesis. Five pieces of gear for becoming a stronger swimmer. And how to keep chlorine exposure from damaging your body. Does oil of oregano kill? Probiotics and much more. He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield. Power, speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movement. Get out there. When you look at all the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy, all the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. So, Rachel, what did you ask Santa for for Christmas?

I actually asked Santa for flights back to Australia and I got them.

You're going to Australia? Back to Australia?

I am.

Really? When are you doing that? So that all of our Australian listeners can be lining the Runway of the. Do they have airports in Australia? Is that the way they do things down under?

They definitely have airports. And I would love to see some welcome home, Rachel signs.

Nice people. People dressed up as koalas.

Yes, please bring it. I can't wait. I AM Coming back January 1st, actually flying on New Year's Eve, the 31st, and getting in on the 1st, and then I'm there for three full weeks and it's summer and I can't wait.

And for those of you listening in, if Rachel sounds tired on any podcast recorded during January, it's probably because she's going to be up at like the ungodly hour of 5am or whatever while I'm over here at 11 or noon podcasting on my end. So just an FYI, you may want to send Rachel some coffee. Some high grade high octane Australian coffee.

Yes, please.

Yes. I asked for a ukulele.

No way.

Did you get it? I don't know, because it's before Christmas when we're recording this and I'm a huge fan and we're actually going to talk about some methods of enhancing cognition and brain performance in today's discussion on Alzheimer's. And I've always been a fan of music and in particular the brain derived neurotrophic factor, the BDNF that gets released that causes neuronal growth and dopamine production and all sorts of cool things in response to music. It's most powerfully produced when you are actually playing and producing music versus just listening to music. And I've always been a huge fan of strumming on my guitar in the evenings, but I travel so freaking much and that guitar is so freaking.

So hard to carry around.

Yeah, I want one of those little ukulele. So I asked for a ukulele and a travel case for Christmas.

Guess what? Weird, weird. Serendipity. I got a ukulele for Christmas.

Are you kidding me? I already got one.

Yeah, and Jake got one, too, but he doesn't know yet, so I can't wait to practice.

This was totally unplanned. Just for those of you listening in, Serendipity. Amazing. All right, well, in future podcast episodes, you may be treated to a ukulele duo.

Yes.

News flashes. So, for news flash number one today, Rachel, I actually have very bad news for those of you listening in over the holidays.

Oh, no. What is it?

So, a new report and a new TED Talk that I will link to in the show notes for this episode on calorie restriction and fasting and what it does for your brain. And this was actually quite fascinating when it comes to cognitive challenges created by fasting, because we've talked about fasting before on the show to shut down inflammation, to cause what's called fat cell apoptosis, to cause basically the body to turn over everything from gut cells to skin cells. Fasting kind of like renews your body. It's really interesting. And I know people are probably cringing and trying to set down their raisin mint chocolate chip holiday cookie right now. But anyway, so this newest research shows that fasting can actually stimulate the production of new nerve cells created by stem cells in the hippocamp. So what that means is that fasting stimulates the production of ketones, which we've talked about quite a bit on the show before. And I actually just wrote a monster podcast on how to get into. Or a monster article on how to get into ketosis on BenGreenfieldFitness.com, if anybody wants to check that out. But this ketone production that occurs in response to fasting increases the number of mitochondria in the brain neurons, and. And it increases the production of new nerve cells in the brain. And what they found is that this is directly correlated with improvements in learning and memory ability.

Fascinating.

Yeah. And in particular, one of the diets that they recommended based off of this report was what they call the 5:2 diet. Now, I'm not a fan of diets, by the way, because I think that diets suck all of the enjoyment out of eating.

Totally. Yeah. Not super sustainable either.

However, let's call this a strategy, not a diet, shall we?

Lifestyle change.

The 5:2 strategy. All it comes down to is you've got five days of the week where you just eat your normal. Kind of like you meet your total daily energy expenditure, right? You don't really heavily restrict calories and you don't eat a lot of calories. But then on two days of the week, what they recommend is a mild fast where men might eat 6 to 700 calories, women might eat 4 to 500 calories. And the author of that study recommended that as a good strategy for fasting. Now, that's not the strategy I use.

Yeah, that doesn't seem too hard.

I do a 12 to 16 hour intermittent fast every day.

And what's the difference? How are they going to impact differently?

I don't think there's much of a difference. I really don't. I think that the end goal for any of you listening in should be simply expose your body to certain periods of time where it goes for a long time in a state of calorie restriction or not constantly getting snacks shoved down the hatch. So I mean, that's the big takeaway message. But I should mention and again, I'll link to this study and the TEDx talk over in the shownotes at BenGreenfieldFitness.com340 if people want to check it out. But a few of my clients, and you know who you are, if you're listening in and you're probably going to hate me, you may notice that you actually have a Saturday at lunchtime to Sunday at lunchtime fast on January 2nd. So after all of the New Year's and the holidays are over on January 2, which is a Saturday at noon, all you do is you eat lunch on Saturday and then you don't eat again until Sunday at lunch. You can have water, you can have coffee, you can have green tea. So I'd also challenge our podcast listeners and I'm personally going to do this to try that. Try, try kicking off the new year with a 24 hour fast.

Boom, I'm in.

Yeah, it's actually smarter too. There you go. Smarter, Grumpier. So another thing that I wanted to mention, another study and I'm actually going to. Usually we go over like about three studies when we have our news flashes, but because it's been like three weeks since we've recorded an official Q and A episode, I've actually got Five little snippets for folks today.

Oh, my gosh. There's so much going on.

I want to tack those onto your podcast Bill, when you receive your podcast Bill in the mail. So this was a study on the effect of cold thermogenesis, particularly on your gut bacteria. And for this study, what they did was they kept one set of mice in a room at about 6 degrees Celsius. And I'm not going to try to, in real time during a podcast, convert that to Fahrenheit, but it's cold. It's cold.

That works for me. Six degrees Celsius. And all of our Australian listeners, boom.

You know it right away. And then they had another group kept at 22 degrees Celsius, which is basically like room temperature.

Yes.

And they saved all of these cute little creatures feces and they collected blood samples from them. And what they found was that, as would be expected, as we all know from cold dwelling creatures, that you get an improvement in metabolism and you get an improvement in insulin sensitivity and fat burning and all these things that we know already that cold thermogenesis and cold exposure is good for. But what they also found was that the cold dwelling mice experienced a shift in their gut bacteria. They actually grew a specific microbiome that was unique to being in a cold environment. Wow. And since we know that the gut bacteria is responsible for everything from producing, like, neurotransmitters for your brain to help you sleep better, to be more motivated, and we know that the gut microbiome is responsible for, like, the strength of your immune system, all sorts of cool stuff. It turns out that cold thermogenesis may not just be improving your metabolism, but also improving the health of your gut, which I think is pretty cool.

I feel like we're getting to a point with cold thermogenesis where we say, what can't it do?

Yeah, exactly. And it's one of those deals where fluctuations in environment, period, not just cold. I don't want people to think we're obsessed with cold, but fluctuations in environment, period. Being hot, being cold, going outside, rolling around in the dirt, which is why I love mud runs. And basically getting exposed to environment, getting out of your fricking temperature controlled house and going out and doing things, or getting exposed to things that make your body antifragile. To borrow the title of the excellent book by Nassim Talib. It's all good for you. And it turns out that it affects your microbiome too. So hooray for being cold. The next thing that I think is absolutely fascinating was this brand new study that they reported in the journal Cell about personalized nutrition. There's been a lot of articles about this one recently, but this was a study that they did over in Israel. And what they did was they took a big, big group of subjects and they fed them different varieties of meals, you know, bananas, cookies, things that would normally you would expect, caused some pretty significant blood sugar spikes, some pretty significantly elevated blood glucose levels. And what they found was that there was a huge difference in what's called the glycemic response among people. And these differences were based off of people's genetics and their individual body types. What I mean by that is that in some people who would eat a banana or a cookie, their blood sugar would go up significantly, very high in a manner that would cause, you know, things like inflammation, conversion of sugars into fat by the liver, all. All the unhealthy things you'd expect in response to blood sugar. And in some people, that didn't occur at all. And. Go ahead.

So how is it different to sort of organizing your diet around your genes with genetic testing?

Well, this is. This is basically shedding light on the fact that there definitely is something to that. Okay. They found that a big, big actually was not only related to genetics, but also related to something we just talked about, your microbiome, the bacterial status in your gut. So it turns out that depending on the status of your gut, and we know that, for example, there is such a thing as the obese microbiome. Right. Like some people have bacteria in their gut that are associated with fatness, and some people don't. And part of that could be related to how high your blood sugar spikes in response to a meal.

Fascinating.

So the researchers took this one step further and they actually created an algorithm and they're also working on basically like a phone app where you eat a food, you test your blood sugar, you input the blood sugar response into the app, and it ends up generating, like a specific dietary recommendation for you based off of what you're eating. And so what I'm gonna do in the show, notes, because you can actually sign up to get a notice. Once they've released this algorithm and this app to the public, you can sign up to actually take part in some of the studies this really cool group out of Israel is doing now, right now on the website it says registration to the study is currently limited to pre diabetic Residents of Israel, 18 to 70 years of age, which kind of sort of hones down the number of listeners to this podcast to a pretty small group. However, hello to all our Israeli listeners, Big Wave. But ultimately, if you go there, you can put in your email address and you can eventually become a part of this study if you want to get like a glucometer and stool samples and all the things that would allow you to be a part of some of these really cool studies. And eventually also to get a notice once the app and the algorithm and everything gets developed and released to the general population. But it's just one more clue that, that there is no. And again, this is why I don't like diets. There is no one diet that works for everyone. Individual genetics, your microbiome, your blood sugar response to specific foods, all of these are going to influence your diet. And I'll link to this article because it's absolutely fascinating for anybody who is either a nutrition nerd or doesn't have any better way to spend their time, it's fascinating to see the individualized nutritional response to foods, I think.

Do they have any sort of ETA on when the app's going to be released?

It doesn't exactly say on the website. I couldn't find any timeline and there are a lot of Israeli letters on the website that I don't quite understand because I don't speak. I don't speak Israel, even though I have a Jewish name. But anyways, it's worth checking out for those of you who like this kind of stuff who get turned on by diet.

Awesome. What else have you got?

Couple other things. Couple other things. Ashwagandha. Brand new study on Ashwagandha. Now, ashwagandha is one of my favorite little compounds. So basically it's known as an adaptogen. So Ashwagandha is this shrub. It grows primarily in parts of Asia and it's classified in Indian Ayurvedic medicine as what's called a rejuvenator. And so specifically, what it does and what it's been shown to do in many research studies is to decrease the stress hormone cortisol to cause a slight increase in testosterone and also an improvement in cardiovascular performance. All of these things in the past have already been proven in clinical studies as a result of using ashwagandha. Now, in this most recent study, what they looked at was the ability of Ashwagandha to increase muscle strength and also muscle recovery in response to a resistance training program. So what they found was pretty significant. For example, in the group that used Ashwagandha, they found a 15% increase in testosterone. Wow. They found a 2% extra decrease in fat loss, A significant improvement in muscle recovery over a 10 pound increase compared to the group that wasn't using Ashwagandha that was using a placebo, over a 10 pound increase in leg extension strength, 20 kilograms, which would what be over a 40 pound increase in bench press and also a significant increase in the production of lean muscle mass. And what I thought was really interesting because creatine is something that I've talked about again and again. I've said anybody who's training for strength, power, et cetera should use creatine. It's just the most proven supplement on the face of the planet for this type of stuff. Ashwagandha more or less kicked creatine's butt when it comes to what it can do. Now I already use Ashwagandha is in a couple of things that I use. Now the form that they use was this form of Ashwagandha called KSM66. And about two months ago I interviewed this Chinese adaptogen formulator named Roger Drummer and we talked about that specific form of Ashwagandha, this KSM 66. It's basically a commercial high concentration Ashwagandha water extract that's been standardized to have a high amount of what's called a new word we haven't used on the show before, withanolides. Withanolides. That's one of the primary active ingredients that you find in ashwagandha. So for example, Tian Qi, which is like the little smart drug packet that I use sometimes, that has ashwagandha in it. The CBD that I recommend at nighttime for sleep, that has ashwagandha in it. You can go out and find a lot of different supplements that have this form, KSM 66 form of Ashwagandha in it. But it turns out that if you're not already using ashwagandha, especially if you're doing strength training or training for power, muscle gain, et cetera, you should consider using it. And like I mentioned, they've done other studies for cardiovascular endurance as well. And just so you know, for dosage, most of the studies are using dosages of about 500-1000mg of ashwagandha.

And so are you actually saying that people should stop using creatine and start using ashwagandha?

You could use both. I mean, I don't want to necessarily recommend because I know I get called out on this a lot, you know, of, of being the guy who says, well, there's like 20 different pills you should Take every day. Now, you know, it's just a matter of walking a fine line between better living through science and also, like, taking every supplement on the face of the planet. But I'd have to say, I mean, since I've already recommended, you know, I tell people, you know, the few things that I take every day is I do a multivitamin, I do a fish oil, and I do creatine. Right? Like, I take those three things every morning. That's just kind of like my protocol, my supplementation protocol. And then in the evenings, I take the cbd. And that CBD already has Ashwagandha in it. So this doesn't really change anything I'm currently doing or recommending. All it does is, is show that, hey, there's even more benefits than we knew of for Ashwagandha. So cool stuff. And I'll put a link in the show notes to the actual study. And then finally, when it comes to strength and power and everything else, Kettlebells. Do you have a kettlebell?

I don't, but we've talked about it before. I don't.

Okay. So the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research just released a study in which they compared a kettlebell high intensity interval training to sprint interval cycling. And what they found was that a specific circuit of four different kettlebell exercises, I'll tell you which four exercises they were, basically was just as good as or better than doing high intensity sprints on a bike for maintaining your cardiovascular endurance and your VO2 max. So why is this important? Because many times people who have Achilles tendinitis or plantar fasciitis or some kind of a knee issue, or they've injured something related to running or cycling, they want to maintain VO2 max. They want to maintain cardiovascular endurance, but can't run or can't bike or perhaps can't swim. So kettlebell training can be a way to increase your VO2 max to maintain endurance without actually aggravating some of those areas. So I actually have, because I subscribe to the Journal of Strength Condition, I'm holding in my hand right now the actual paper. And I tore this sheet out of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research because I'm going to film a video for the Ben Greenfield Fitness YouTube channel that demonstrates how to do each of these exercises. But for those of you listening in who want to jump the gun and try out the workout that they gave the subjects in this study, what it was was they used 20 seconds of kettlebell exercising followed by 10 seconds of recovery. And they did this for four minutes. And some of you may realize that this is what's called a Tabata set. And they did three times through this Tabata set. So the exercises that they did was they did 20 seconds of a sumo squat with a kettlebell, and then 10 seconds of recovery, and then another 20 seconds of sumo squat. And then they did the kettlebell swing. They did 20 seconds of the kettlebell swing, 10 seconds of recovery, and then another 20 seconds of the kettlebell swinging. And then they did 20 seconds of a kettlebell clean and press, and then 10 seconds of recovery and another 20 seconds of kettlebell clean and press. And then finally they did 20 seconds of a kettlebell Sumo deadlift, 10 seconds of recovery, and a final 20 seconds of a Sumo deadlift. And that was the so eight different kind of like, stations going through these. Four minutes of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. And that was the actual routine that they used in the study. And they saw some really significant improvements in the cardiorespiratory and the response to that particular protocol.

And the good news is, if you're working out at home, a kettlebell is a hell of a lot cheaper than a stationary bike, Right?

That's right, actually. And it takes up a lot less space as well. Yeah, you could. You could put it in your office, you could keep it in. You could do a kettlebell swing in an airport bathroom if you wanted to.

Take one on the plane with you.

If you wanted to take a kettlebell on the plane. I have seen somewhere they, they have kettlebells you can fill with water.

Oh, wow, that's really.

Yeah, I haven't seen those lately, but I know they exist. You could probably do a Google search for water kettlebell. So there you go. Something to spend your Christmas gift cards on. A brand new kettlebell. So, that being said, what do you think? Shall we jump forward to our special announcements?

Let's do it.

Listener q and a. Hi, Ben and Rachel. This is Steve. I'm an apprentice body improvement trainee, and I'm trying to figure out what tests I should be ordering and taking so that I can help put my body into a good state for reducing fat and building muscle. Thank you. You know, I have to admit, I don't actually know what an apprentice body improvement trainee is.

I don't know either, but I guess I don't know.

Sounds fancy.

Steve, jump in on the comments and let us know what that is.

You could probably get a pretty big Alphabet letter soup after your name if you too were an apprentice body improvement trainee.

All right.

Yeah, I may have to research that. But I can tell you a little bit about testing your fat burning efficiency. Yes, I can definitely tell you that. So there's this idea of metabolic efficiency. Metabolic efficiency. So it's based off of this idea. Your body relies primarily on two sources of energy, carbohydrates and fat. So very quick physiology 101. Some of you might yawn, but carbohydrates get quickly converted into energy. Your body can store 1500-2000 calories worth of carbs in the form of what's called glycogen. And that typically gets depleted after anywhere from one and a half to three hours of exercise. But fats get more slowly converted into energy. And most people's bodies have a pretty infinite store of fat, like literally tens of thousands, thousands of calories of fat, even on a pretty lean person. So this idea of metabolic efficiency, or fat burning efficiency, is an actual measure of how well your body utilizes the fat as an energy source. And the idea is that especially if you are an athlete or if you're somebody trying to lose weight, you can get yourself to the point where you're primarily burning fat and you're conserving a lot of that glycogen that is less available, that's a little bit more precious to have around. It's much more finite. And so you hear about these crazy exploits of some endurance athletes who have built up huge amounts of metabolic efficiency, like Sammy Inkonen, who has been on the show before, who rode from the States to Hawaii, I believe it was with his wife, which I do not recommend is the healthiest thing to do for your marriage. But they somehow did it. And he would go, he would row for like something like eight hours at a time without eating because of the huge amount of metabolic efficiency that he had. There's another guy who did a 12 hour summit of Mount McKinley and he had one energy gel the whole time because he had. He'd gone into a lab, measured his metabolic efficiency, his fat burning efficiency, and I'll explain how to measure in a lab. And it was just through the roof. This guy's name was Killian Journey. And I may be pronouncing that wrong, could be Jornet, but I like Journey. It makes me sound French. Sounds fancier anyways, though. So, yeah, I mean, like, if you're a runner, you could carry less food weight. If you're a backpacker, you could pack fewer food calories if you, if you were to actually get into the state of metabolic efficiency. Now, I used to run a Series of personal training studios and gyms here in the Coeur d' Alene and Spokane area. And I had metabolic testing carts at all my facilities. And what a metabolic testing cart is, is it measures the carbon dioxide that you produce and the oxygen that you consume as you are exercising on, say, a treadmill or riding a bicycle. And the gas, it's called indirect calorimetry. And when you're collecting the gases produced during exercise, not the gases out your butt, the gases out your mouth, they, they, hey, I've been asked that before. They're like, what do you mean gas during exercise?

It does sound like a fart.

People do produce a lot of gas during exercise anyways though. There is basically a direct correlation between carbon dioxide produced oxygen consumed and the amount of fat versus the amount of carbohydrates that you burn. And when you get a metabolic efficiency test, there is what is called a crossover point. And this crossover point is the point at which you shift from primarily burning fat into burning a significantly greater amount of carbohydrates. And if you are metabolically efficient, that crossover point will occur at a much higher intensity, right? So you can train your body to shift into carbohydrate utilization at a much higher intensity than it normally would. And that's really the gold standard way to test your metabolic efficiency is you would go to your friendly Google search engine and you would look for, you would do a search for metabolic testing and then the name of your city. And when you contact the metabolic testing facility that you find, you want to check and make sure that they don't just do resting metabolic testing, but you want to make sure that they do exercise metabolic testing and tell them that you specifically want to know where your crossover point occurs. You specifically want to get a test for your metabolic or your fat burning efficiency. And that would be the gold standard way to test. Now, that being said, there are some other things that will influence your ability to burn fat efficiently. So for example, one thing is something that we already brought up, and that is how efficient your body is at burning fats and producing what's called acetyl COA in the process of burning fats, and that acetyl COA gets converted into ketones. And so if you measure your ketones, because let's face it, your probably can't afford to go into a laboratory every day and measure how you're doing during that exercise session with your metabolic efficiency.

That was going to be my question. If you do do metabolic testing, how long should you, I mean, you have to get Multiple tests done, right. To see if you're getting better, how long should you wait in between? And then how expensive does that get?

Yeah, so a test is going to cost you anywhere from 100 to $200. And you would generally do something like that. Let's say you were training for a backpacking trip or a triathlon or something like that. You would repeat the test every four to eight weeks. Okay, so. But there are things you can do at home as well. So for example, ketone breath testing. I'm a big fan of using this device called a ketonix. You can test your ketones via urine, but that once you're. Once you have begun your foray into getting efficient at burning fats, you will find fewer and fewer ketones in your urine because your body is actually utilizing them as a fuel. And so urine is not the best way to test for ketones. Blood is very good. And breath I like because it's less invasive and because like, I'm an author and I type, I don't like to have little wounds on the ends of my fingers all the time when I'm testing for ketones. So I like this device called a ketonix and we'll link to that in the shownotes. But it's a very simple, easy to use breath testing device for ketones. So that would be one thing that you can use is that one more.

Reliable than blood or same as.

It is the same. It is the same as blood. Yeah. Not more reliable, but the same. And even though it's the initial investment in it, I forget the exact cost on the ketonics, but the initial investment is more than what you'd spend on. I believe it's about $150. So that's more than what you'd spend on a blood monitor. But considering that the blood testing strips are like two to four bucks a piece, it pays for itself after a while. So that's one thing is you want to measure if your body is doing a better job every day getting into keton ketosis. And ideally you would be able to stay in a state of ketosis most of the day. And that would be a good indicator of fat burning efficiency. Another test that you can do is whether or not your blood glucose is staying low. And you could go to your local drugstore and you can get one of these blood glucose monitors for pretty inexpensive. And the actual strips are much cheaper than the ketone testing strips for blood glucose. They come out to anywhere from 25 cents to a dollar depending on how Many you buy. But when you're looking at blood glucose, your fasted blood glucose should ideally be at 90 or below. And that's a very good sign that you're doing a good job burning fats. But you can also actually get a blood sugar lab test for what's called hemoglobin A1C, HbA1C. And your HbA1C is a three month snapshot of your facet blood sugar levels. And that should be below 5.5. Below 5.5. And there is a blood sugar test that you can do where you just go into the lab, they'll test your blood glucose, they'll test your hemoglobin A1C. I'll link to it in the show notes. But it's just like a standalone test. So rather than spending a bunch of money and getting a fancy test that tests for everything on the face of the planet, you can just get a blood sugar and hemoglobin A1C test if you wanted to just do that one.

Helpful.

Yes, helpful. And then there's also the sex hormone test and thyroid hormone test. Now the reason that I recommend that if you really want to see how well your body is equipped to either build muscle or burn fat, that you get these tests is because your testosterone, your insulin like growth factor and your. There's one other. Oh, dhea. DHEA is another one that would be tested on a sex hormone panel. Those are all indicative of your ability to both burn fat and build muscle. And if suppressed, that is going to affect your fat burning efficiency. So remember that it doesn't just come down to how many fats and how many carbs you're burning in a lab via your gases, but also your actual blood hormone values. And then the other one, the other hormone to look at, that's not a sex hormone, but that is a hormone that is directly correlated to your metabolism. And the total number of calories that you burn during the day is the thyroid hormones test.

Hmm.

So I would recommend that gold standard, you get your blood glucose, your sex hormones and your thyroid hormones tested. That would be a 1, 2, 3 combo to see how well equipped your body is to burn fat or to see like maybe why you're not losing weight, for example.

Right? Yep.

And then finally, if you really want to take a deep dive, there are a host of different amino acids that if have a deficiency in them. And we talked about this a little bit in the podcast with Dr. David Minkoff. They can affect your metabolism and they can affect your ability to be able to burn fat or to build muscle. And there is a test called an ion panel. And an ion panel, there's one called the metametrics ion profile. You could get that for yourself from one of these online testing facilities like Direct Labs, for example. And I'll link to all these tests in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 3, 4, 40. But that will test organic acids, fatty acids, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, all these little micro things that a lot of these basic blood tests won't measure becauseand that's not something I recommend for everybody. But if you've tested everything else and it's all good and you still can't lose weight, and you still can't make yourself fat burning efficient, you can't get into ketosis. Like, you may want to actually measure some of these smaller micronutrients to see if you have any deficiencies in those.

Okay, I probably have a dumb question, but I'm going to ask. So these are all dependent on being on a ketogenic diet and burning fat as fuel and not carbs.

They're not necessarily dependent on that. They're testing your ability to be able to get yourself into a state of fat burning efficiency, which is not necessarily synonymous with, with ketosis. Right. You don't have to be in ketosis to be efficient at burning fat.

Burning fat.

However, the production of ketones or the level of ketones that you produce is directly correlated to the amounts of fats that you're burning. And so some people, everybody is theoretically in ketosis. It just depends on what your definition of ketosis is. Some people have levels of ketones circulating in their bloodstream that are at 0.3. Other people will be at levels that are 3. And so the higher the number of ketones that you produce, the more indicative that is that you're burning a higher amounts of higher amount of fat as a fuel. But that doesn't mean that you need to be eating like an 80% fat based full on ketosis diet to get yourself into a state of fat burning efficiency, all it means is that ketones are one corollary to how many fats that you're burning. And if you don't want to walk around with a gas mask on all day measuring carbon dioxide produced and oxygen consumed, then breath ketone testing with something like a ketonics device can be a good way to kind of keep your finger on the pulse of how well you're doing at burning fats.

Right. Okay, thank you, Ben. That clears that up?

Yes. So the only thing that we're still fuzzy on is how we can become an apprentice body improvement trainee. I want that. It just sounds cool. So, Steve, if you get a chance.

You gotta let us know. Yeah.

Leave a comment in the shownotes@bengruthelfitness.com 340. Explain that one to us because it sounds like it'd just be a darn cool thing to announce at a cocktail party. Hey, Ben, Brian Hardy here from Toronto, Ontario. Quick question. When it comes to Alzheimer's disease, things like dementia, cognitive decline with age, what would be your optimal protocol from diet, lifestyle supplementation, and various biohacking devices for reversing something like Alzheimer's? I know medical science says that there's no treatment for Alzheimer's, but that we know that there are many things that can improve the situation. And so if you or a loved one were to be diagnosed with, what would you do? And, yeah, looking forward to hearing the answer. Love the show. Love all the work that you do. Keep it coming. Peace.

So this is a personal question for me as well, Ben, because my dad has got early onset Alzheimer's.

Yeah. And frankly, there are a lot of things that can be done for early onset of Alzheimer's for people who have Alzheimer's and dementia that fly under the radar that a lot of people don't talk about. But I must begin my response to this question with the medical disclaimer. I'm not a doctor. This podcast is not meant to manage a disease. Do not misconstrue anything that I am about to say as medical advice. Because it's not. This is simply what I would do if I knew I had a high genetic risk for Alzheimer's, if I had pre Alzheimer's, if my mom, you know, or my dad started to come down with Alzheimer's. Like, these are the things that I would highly recommend. And frankly, even if you're not interested in or concerned about Alzheimer's, the cool thing is that most of these things are, you know, shall we say, biohacks for improving cognitive performance.

So just everyone can benefit.

Everybody can benefit everybody who wants to get smarter. So now, the other thing I want to say before I delve into this is I'm going to make a lot of recommendations, but I don't necessarily feel that everybody needs to jump out and go, like, you know, buy all these biohacks and supplements and stuff like this. This is just like what I would do if myself or a loved one had Alzheimer's, because I would want to pull out as many stops as possible, because I know that it can be a sad and a frustrating and a confusing disease to have to deal with. And modern medicine does not provide a ton of very effective solutions for Alzheimer's.

Good. Let's get into it.

Okay, let's start here. You gotta understand a little bit about the actual cause of Alzheimer's. So what Alzheimer's is, is it's frankly the most common form of dementia. There is no known cure. It worsens as it progresses. It eventually leads to death. And most often it gets diagnosed in people who are older than 65. But what we're seeing is a lot of people getting diagnosed with Alzheimer's earlier than that, possibly due to dietary factors, possibly due to inflammatory factors from our modern industrialized environments. But ultimately, it's a growing issue. And the current treatments that are out there, the current kind of like dyed in the wool, modern medical treatments that are out there, they tend to only help with the symptoms rather than stopping or reversing the progression of Alzheimer's disease, which would ultimately be the holy grail. Like, that's what we would want to achieve. And there are some studies that I'll talk about here in a second that have discovered some definite reversals in terms of the progression of Alzheimer's when specific strategies are used. And we'll talk about those strategies in a second. But basically, the cause for Alzheimer's. So there's a few different theories as to what actually causes Alzheimer's. So one is just basically what's called the cholinergic theory. So a lot of smart drugs and nootropic compounds out there, even like that chimera coffee that we were talking about, they have choline or choline precursors in them. So there's this neurotransmitter, this excitatory neurotransmitter in your brain called acetylcholine. And the cholinergic theory of Alzheimer's disease is that Alzheimer's is caused by reduced formation of the neurotypical neurotransmitter acetylcholine. And there's certainly some evidence to point out that that may be true, that an eventual deficit in the body's ability to produce that neurotransmitter may partially be responsible for the progression of or the onset of Alzheimer's disease. But there are other theories as well. And I suspect that Alzheimer's is kind of like a cluster of a lot of these theories. So another big theory is the amyloid theory. So you may have heard of this concept of what are called, called beta amyloid deposits or what's basically like, it's like plaque formation in the brain. So you get widespread neural inflammation when you have a lot of these beta amyloid deposits. And the idea here is that you get these amyloid formations in the brain from these protein buildups. And part of that is just due to natural aging, but part of it is due to inflammation. Inflammation that could be caused by dietary factors, inflammation that could be caused by neuronal cells dying. And anything from lack of sleep to high amounts of sugar can cause this beta amyloid plaque buildup. So there's a lot of different ways that beta amyloid plaque can build up. But the idea is that these amyloid deposits can actually cause Alzheimer's disease by shutting off some of the neuronal connections in the brain. So that's more of like an age related process directly related to inflammation. That's why some people will say that Alzheimer's is partially just like a disease of too much sugar, like an insulin issue with the brain. And part of that is because of the beta amyloid, the plaque buildup that can occur in the brain.

Are they the two major kind of theories around causes?

Well, there's another one called the tau theory. So these proteins in your brain, called tau proteins, tau proteins, and there's a theory that those start the disease cascade because those protein threads pair with each other to form what are called neurofibrillary tangles. So when you look at Alzheimer's disease, you'll tend to see these tangles in the brain that essentially collapse neuronal transport systems and cause cell death in nerve cells in the brain. Now these type of neurofibrillary tangles can also be caused by high amount of inflammation. And one of the ways that that inflammation primarily occurs is via sugar. Big, big fluctuations in blood sugar. And that's why lower sugar intake, higher fat intake, and even the use of like a ketosis based diet is one of the primary dietary strategies proposed for controlling Alzheimer's. So and there's a few other smaller theories. You know, that tau theory, the amyloid theory and the cholinergic theory are three of the big ones. But there's also the idea that oxidative stress, just basically, again, that would be environmental stress from pollutants, from toxins, you know, anything from mold to fungi to bad air, bad water, WI fi signals, all this stuff can eventually cause a lot of oxidative stress in the brain. So that's another theory. And another one is that you get myelin breakdown in the brain so myelin breakdown would be related to you not having enough oleic acid or enough dha, two of the primary components of the myelin sheaths in your brain. And when those myelin sheaths break down, the brain actually not only is unable to propagate signals as well, but it also causes a release of iron when those myelin sheaths break down. And iron can cause further oxidation in the brain. So you can see how a lot of these theories are kind of like wound together. And that's why I say it's probably multifactorial and that Alzheimer's is basically an issue where it's a lot of these things kind of playing together. Ultimately, as far as fixes for Alzheimer's go, what I would do if I or loved one had Alzheimer's is there's a fascinating paper, fascinating paper that was published in late 2014. The title of the paper, and I'll link to it in the show note, is Reversal of Cognitive Decline, a novel Therapeutic Program. And what this paper looks into are a bunch of case studies of people who adopted a specific cluster of therapies, all designed to reverse or control Alzheimer's. And the list of therapies is quite extensive. But it's also pretty easy to wrap your head around if you listen to what I just said and you understand some of those, those underlying causal factors of Alzheimer's. So I'm gonna go through some of the actual therapies that they used in this study. And the very interesting thing is that they noticed significant improvements in working memory, significant declines in the onset of Alzheimer's, not only early Alzheimer's, but also late Alzheimer's. They notice improvements and they notice some reversals, which is kind of unheard of in modern medicine when it comes to Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's, but they were actually able to significantly influence Alzheimer's using some of these factors.

Okay, so what do we got?

So in this particular paper, first of all, they covered diet. And as you would imagine, not only a low glycemic index diet, but also a low inflammation diet and a low grain diet all seem to have some influence. And so if I had Alzheimer's, I would switch to a low inflammatory diet, meaning a diet low in sugars. Soy, wheat, dairy, commercial meat, all those things that most of us know would contribute to inflammation. But I would also switch to a more plant rich, high fat, ketogenic based diet.

Why is that? Why?

Well, as I discussed in our recent paper@BenGreenfieldFitness.com on how coconut oil, in the absence of Short chain fatty acids can actually cause inflammation. The problem with a lot of high fat diets that lower blood sugar is they don't include fiber and butyrate and short chain fatty acids. And all of those must be present in order to control the potential inflammation that can happen when you're consuming things like MCT oil or the long chain fatty acids from coconut oil. Because you'll find coconut oil and MCT oil and ketogenic diets many times recommended for Alzheimer's and also for cognitive performance, but they must, must, must be accompanied by high intake of plants and fiber. Okay, now the best example of a diet like that that I can give you and I'll link to a podcast that I did with this gal in the shownotes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 340 is something like the Wahls protocol. Dr. Terry Wahls, who is someone who developed Ms. I developed a very plant rich based ketogenic diet that is rich in fats, that is low in sugar, that is low in inflammatory compounds, high in anti inflammatory compounds, but also very plant and fiber rich. And the title of her book is called the Wahls Protocol. But that would be a perfect example of a plant based ketogenic diet. So in addition to that, one of the things that they used in this particular study was like an MCT or a coconut oil. Now I would actually take this to the next level, and again, I recently talked about this in my article on how to get into ketosis is I would actually go straight for the specific form of coconut oil or extract of coconut oil that is highest in ketogenic medium chain triglycerides. So there are different types of fats found in coconut oil, but one is called C8. C8 is very quickly and easily absorbed by the body and it's specifically very easily used by the brain to generate ketones. So an example of that would be the company Bulletproof Coffee produces this form of mct that's in C8 form called brain octane oil. Brain octane oil. And so that's something that, you know, if I had to choose between like coconut oil or MCT oil or this brain octane oil, I would choose a C8 source. It's not cheap, but it would be the most potent of the oils to use. And they used an oil even though they used a coconut oil in these studies, I would actually use more of something like an isolated C8 brain octane oil.

Okay, crazy thought here. If you lived in a place that had an abundance of coconuts on Coconut trees. Would you just eat the coconuts?

Well, you'll get the fiber in the short chain fatty acids, you'll get a lot of the lauric acids, but you'll get less of that C8 than if you kind of engaged in. I know that that sounds like a very natural approach, what you just talked about, Rachel, but I am, you know, when, when we're talking about disease that can be incredibly disabling. I would cut straight to the whole like better living through science approach and biohack it, you know, and go straight to the ca. That's what I would personally do. Even though coconuts are more natural in this case, I would, you know, kind of like, I would recommend curcumin as a very potent neural anti inflammatory agent versus just, just turmeric. Turmeric, right. So you go straight to the most potent extract of what it is that you're trying to get.

Great.

So, okay, so from a dietary standpoint, we have a plant based ketogenic diet. The use of a C8 form of an oil as part of that diet, something like this brain octane oil. And then finally, I would recommend to enhance the formation of ketones even more so that the brain is having to rely upon sugar as little as possible. I would recommend the use of any of these exogenous ketones that are on the market these days. Now, I won't kick this horse to death because I just wrote like a monster article@bengreenfieldfitness.com and we'll link to that in the shownotes. But it talks about all these different ketones and they're typically in a powder or a liquid form that you can consume that shove your body very, very quickly into ketosis, which is incredibly therapeutic for Alzheimer's. So there's one called keto canna, which stands for calcium, sodium keto cana. There's one called keto os, which is a blend of MCT powder and ketones. There is, let me think, there's. Those are the main two, keto can and keto os. But I'll link to that article in the show notes because that would definitely be a component I would include with, with a diet. So I'll talk about next, I'll talk about some of the supplements that they used in this particular paper and that you'll see in many cases in other studies. There's a huge variety of studies. I'm going to link to a bunch of them in the show notes that have looked into some of the particular supplements that I'm about to talk about. So one is EPA and dha. So there's several studies that show that the Administration of omega 3 fatty acids via EPA and DHA may prevent a lot of the cognitive decline that occurs with Alzheimer's. One of the issues with EPA and DHA is that you'll get it from fish oil. But fish oil tends to be easily oxidized. So if I were using fish oil to control something like Alzheimer's, I would make sure that it was packaged along with some of the things that can control oxidation of fish oil. So what you'd specifically be looking for to do that would be a fish oil oil that is packaged with or taken along with vitamin E and what are called mix tocopherols. Both of those can limit a lot of the oxidation of fish oil that can occur with fish oil consumption. Fish oil would definitely be indicated and has been researched as something that can help with Alzheimer's, but you don't want to take it in the absence of antioxidants. So a perfect example of an actual brand, and this is the actual brand of fish oil that I purchased personally use anyways, is super Essentials fish oil. It's fish oil that has astaxanthin mixed to cofferols and vitamin E already in it. So the fish oil does not become oxidized because, again, as you know now, oxidation is one of the issues that can contribute to Alzheimer's. So you want to consume a fish oil, but you want it packaged with antioxidants. So another thing that I would recommend taking and that they looked at in this study is an herb called Bacopa. Bacopa is something that I've recommended before for, like, when you have a hangover or when you've done a lot of airline travel or when you've been in any other situation where you've produced neural inflammation. It's an herb that can shut down neural inflammation. The main thing that you want to do with Bacopa, and this was another thing that they used in this study that I'm talking about, is you want to make sure it's organic. So you can get organic Bacopa, for example, off of Amazon, but you can get it in a pill form, you can get it in a powder form. You could put it in coffee, you could put it in tea. But an organic Bacopa extract, that's B, A C, O, P, A, that can also assist with the neural inflammation that would contribute to Alzheimer's. So the next thing would be anything that supports mitochondrial health. Now, in this specific Study some of the things that they looked at for, for mitochondria to optimize mitochondrial function is coenzyme Q10, alpha lipoic acid, something called PQQ N, acetyl, cysteine, acetyl L, carnitine, selenium, zinc, resveratrol, ascorbate and thiamine. Those are all things that can assist with optimizing mitochondrial function. Now, at the risk of, or to avoid getting too complex with the number of pills that you might be popping to control something like Alzheimer's, what I'd recommend for this would be there's one specific supplement out there that contains most of these. It contains PQQ Alpha lipoic acid. It's got some vitamin C, some pantothenic acid, and most of the compounds that I just talked about. And that one is called mitogen. Mitogen. It's what's called an advanced mitochondrial support stack. It's made by a company called Axon Labs to simplify things and to kill as many birds with one stone. That's the form of mitochondrial support.

Can you overdose on any of those?

You can, you can overdose on water, but basically you would take that according to the recommended dosage, which in that case would be three capsules. Okay, so you're getting about. It's about 1,600 milligrams, milligrams worth of their mitochondrial support blend, something like that. So that one's called Mitogen. So another thing that they used in this study was vitamin C. And specifically what they used was a little bit higher dose vitamin C. Again, to control some of the inflammation that can occur with Alzheimer's. For vitamin C, I would recommend there's a very absorbable form made by a company called American, American Nutraceuticals. American Nutraceuticals. And vitamin C has been shown both alone and in combination with vitamin E to prevent the oxidative damage that can occur in something like Alzheimer's. So in this case, they were using about 500 milligrams of vitamin C. So the one thing that I would say as far as vitamin C goes is that this mitogen stuff that I just talked about, it has 500 milligrams in it. So I'm not entirely convinced that taking extra vitamin C over and above that would be entirely necessary. But they did use quite a bit of vitamin C in this study as well. So that would be another thing to consider including. But if you wanted to simplify, you could just use that mitogen stuff instead of adding in extra vitamin C if you're trying to budget and try to use as little as possible. Okay. The next thing that they used, and I know this is a lot of stuff, but again, like I mentioned earlier, if I wanted to pull out all the stops with Alzheimer's, this is what I would do. They used a blend of vitamin D and K2, vitamin D and K2, and both of these have also been shown to assist with Alzheimer's. Vitamin D deficiencies are associated with significant impairments in cognitive performance. And so vitamin D, when you take it, can cause calcification unless it's accompanied by vitamin K2, which is why I recommend a vitamin D, vitamin K2 blend. Go ahead.

I'm going to ask the same question here. And can you explain what the difference between getting the right amount of sun and taking a vitamin D tablet is?

In most cases, with about 15 to 20 minutes of midday sun exposure, you can get significant amounts of vitamin D. You aren't necessarily getting the vitamin K2, but you are getting the vitamin D. And if you can get out in the sunlight every day, you know, depending on where you live, that could be a decent corollary to doing this like a vitamin D, vitamin K2 blend. But if you aren't able to get out into the sun, it's definitely something that I recommend doing like a vitamin D, vitamin K2 blend.

Great. Thank you.

The next one that they went over in this study was a prebiotic probiotic blend. Now, the reason that they did a prebiotic probiotic blend was because probiotics tend to do better when consumed along with a prebiotic, like inulin, for example, which is also known as chicory root. So that's something that you would consume along with a probiotic. And that's what they used in this study was prebiotics combined with probiotics. An example of that would be what I use when I travel is a shift shelf stable probiotic that does not need to be refrigerated. That is a mix of prebiotics and probiotics. The name of that one is Caprobiotics Advanced. Caprobiotics Advanced. And that would be a perfect example of a prebiotic probiotic blend that they found to be efficacious in the case of Alzheimer's. I suspect it's because your gut flora, as we mentioned earlier, is intimately tied to neurotransmitter production. That's probably why this actually had a difference or produced a difference. But I would recommend something like this, cow probiotics Advanced for something like that. It's a blend of inulin and then a bunch of therapeutic grade probiotics. So that would be another one. And I'm not done yet because there are a few other things that did in this study. They use creatine. Okay. So I would recommend about 5 grams of creatine per day. Creatine has some very significant effects on cognitive performance and neuronal health. So I would recommend that reduction of these amyloid plaques can be achieved through the use of two different compounds. One is curcumin. And so about one to two grams of curcumin per day from a very absorbable curcumin source would be advised. I like the stuff made by the company Exos. It is curcumin phytosome form and curcumin phytosome is basically a very absorbable form of curcumin. A lot of curcumin is notoriously unabsorbed absorbed unless it's in this phytosomal form. So curcumin phytosome and then ashwagandha we already talked about. The cool thing is a lot of the other compounds they used in this study, including cytacholine and resveratrol, you can find those along with ashwagandha in that Tian Qi stuff that I talked about. So that would be another thing that I would include would be like a blend of ashwagandha, cytocholine and anything that that acts very similarly to resveratrol and.

Tianchi, something like that. Would you want to be taking that every day?

Or in the case of Alzheimer's or in the case of wanting to get as much cognitive performance as possible, shut down brain inflammation as much as possible? Yes. Again, I know that there are folks out there who right now are thinking, gosh, this sounds like a lot of stuff, but we're talking about something similar to like let's say cancer. Right. If you can deal with cancer. Cancer. I would have no problem popping 30 pills every morning if I had cancer. And I knew that each one of those had specific action against some of the things that are associated with cancer. So I mean that's what we're talking about is how many stops you want to pull out. And if I or loved one had Alzheimer's, I'd want to pull out as many stops as possible.

Totally.

A few other things that they had in the study or in this, you know, these case studies of multiple individuals. One is magnesium. Magnesium can also have some anti inflammatory effects and it can also. Basically there's a causal relationship between low magnesium and what are called your hippocampal neurons and neural degeneration. So magnesium has been shown to be helpful in the treatment of dementia. And even though there is not any studies that currently exist on magnesium in Alzheimer specifically, it's. It seems like a very good idea to supplement with magnesium based on the evidence that's out there. And the other cool thing is that magnesium can help with sleep when taken before bed. And one of the things that they did in this particular study was they not only ensured that the patients with Alzheimer's were getting at least eight hours of sleep per night, but they were also testing for sleep apnea to ensure that they were actually achieving proper deep sleep cycles. So I have a podcast that I did with a gentleman from sleep medicine group where they will ship sleep apnea testing devices to your house to see if you have sleep apnea. But I would not only rule out sleep apnea, but I'd also use magnesium prior to bed. And the other thing that I would use prior to bed would be something else that has been significantly studied when it comes to neurodegenerative disorders and Alzheimer's disease. And that would be cannabinoids, like a CBD rich cannabinoid. Like I mentioned, that CBD stuff that I use, it's got ashwagandha, it's got CBD in it, it's got magnesium in it. So, you know, again, kills a lot of coffins. But I would include that before bed. And there are a few others, a few other things that they've looked into. First of all, zinc and copper imbalances have been shown to contribute to Alzheimer's issues and particularly low levels of zinc. There's a very absorbable form of zinc called zinc picolinate. It's made by a company called Thorne. And that would be another one to consider, including because of the zinc copper deficiencies or the zinc copper ratio issues that have been shown to be an issue with Alzheimer's. And that was something else. I did this in this study was they optimized what's called the zinc copper ratios and you can do that by using something like a zinc picolinate. So the last actual a supplement that I'd recommend in addition to the. And I've made an entire list of like the ultimate supplement stack for Alzheimer's that you do along with like this ketogenic diet and this again, be it for Alzheimer's, be it for dementia or be for if you just wanted to use every step possible to optimize cognitive performance or to decrease your risk of getting Alzheimer's. The last one would be a mushroom. They did not use this particular mushroom in this paper that I'm talking about, this reversal of cognitive decline paper. However, there are enough studies that have been done on this particular mushroom extract that if I were concerned about Alzheimer's, I would use it. It's been used for everything from dementia to Parkinson's to senility to Alzheimer's, and that is lion's mane mushroom. Lion's mane mushroom.

What does that do?

Lion's mane mushroom can limit the formation of these amyloid plaques and it can also increase blood flow to the brain. There are a couple of clinical studies that have shown pretty promising results of it against dementia and against Alzheimer's as well. So it is one that I would include. Would be a good extract of lion's mane mushroom. There are some different ones out there. Four Sigma Foods would be one that I'd recommend that does like a good dual extract. Lion's mane, but that's like a mushroom fungal extract that. That I note, kind of flies under the radar, but would be also a smart one to include in the ultimate supplement stack for something like Alzheimer's.

Okay, question. Would you do any sort of lab testing prior to dosing on this massive stack?

Yeah, so the testing, I'm going to put a list in the show notes of what are called memory tests that you do. So there's. There are what are called facial recognition tests. And BBC on their website actually has a very, very good facial recognition test. There's an IQ test as well. That's a very, very good online IQ test. There is a tap test, which is a good way to test your central nervous system strength. And then there's also something called an N back test, which tests your memory recall. I'll put a link to each of those tests along with a couple other tests, cognitive tests that can be used to gauge your responsiveness to these different protocols that I've just talked about. And those are things that are free that you can find online, but that you can easily use to kind of see how well your body is responding to some of these things.

Awesome. Yeah, fascinating.

Okay, so the next thing that I want to get into are actual what I would term like biohacks or gear that you can use. So we had a podcast with a gentleman who produces an intranasal light therapy device that has shown some promising results when it comes to optimizing blood flow to neuronal tissue. That one is called the violite. It's something that you would use for, I believe, the time frame that we talked about on the show is something like 20 to 45 minutes per day. But it's literally just what it sounds like. It's light therapy via your nose. You actually wear this device and it improves blood flow to the brain via intranasal light therapy. That is one device that I would own and that I would use if I were concerned about Alzheimer's or dementia or if I wanted to improve cognitive performance. So that's one thing. And they did not use this particular device in that study that I was talking about, but it is something, something that I would consider. Now what they did do was what they called brain stimulation. Now, all this refers to when it comes to brain stimulation are these different games out there that are cognitive training games. I'm going to put a link in the show notes to a list of studies that have been done on specific cognitive training, video games and apps for enhancing neurocognitive performance. For anybody who just wants to get smarter or for anybody who wants to ensure that they're engaged in the practices that can keep Alzheimer's or dementia from progressing, this would be everything from Lumosity to Brainscape to N back apps. There are a variety of different cognitive training apps that you can use, but these would be things that you would definitely include as part of a protocol, like spending anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes per day engaged in cognitive training. So we've got cognitive training using apps and a lot of these online tools. We've got intranasal light therapy. Now there is also this hyperbaric oxygen therapy concept. Now hyperbaric oxygen therapy can slow down the progression of Alzheimer's disease and that has been shown in studies. So hyperbaric oxygen therapies. Hyperbaric oxygen changes chambers is where you increase the, the amount of oxygen and the partial pressure of oxygen that's in the air as you lay in this chamber. These can be expensive. These can be 15 to 20 thousand dollars to actually purchase. Like a device that you would use at your home.

Now sounds expensive.

There are. I've got an article coming out in a couple weeks@BenGreenfieldFitness.com that shows you for about $1,000 how you can create a hyper oxygenation device, like a mask like device that you can wear on your face and you can use that at home. So you're talking about 1 15th to 1 20th the cost of buying a hyperbaric chamber. But frankly, if I really wanted to pull out all the stops, I would consider the use of or finding a facility that allows me to use hyperbaric oxygen. And the cool thing is you could combine a few of these things, right? Like you could use intranasal light therapy therapy and hyperbaric oxygen at the same time. There are some companies where you can purchase these hyperbaric oxygen therapy devices as well. And some of them are a little bit less expensive because they're designed for home use. I have interviewed a guy named Alex Terrace on the show before, and he runs a site called Health Hacks, reviewed@healthhacksreviewed.com He has a variety of hyperbaric devices and also what are called PEMF devices. We'll talk about PEMF devices in a second. But There's a code, BenGreen15 you can use on his website, and it gives you anywhere from a 5 to 15% savings on infrared saunas, hyperbaric chambers, PEMF devices, you name it. So you could save a little bit, but ultimately this idea of exposing the body to high amounts of oxygen. Oxygen, preferably via a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. But you could also use what's called an oxygen therapy device, an oxygen concentrator is what it's called. You would want to include a protocol like that or have access to something that's going to hyper oxygenate the air that you're breathing so that you can use something like that each day. Yeah, so that would be another thing. Almost done with biohacks and little tools that you can have around your house. But. But another one is pemf, pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. Now, there are some very, very interesting studies that have been done on improvements in cerebral blood flow using electricity. Shockingly, there are even studies that have found that a pun, the amount of cell phone, pun intended. The amount of a cell phone level EMF exposure that, that you get from a cell phone can actually protect against or reverse cognitive impairments in mice who have Alzheimer's. Now, there are also studies that have been done on transcranial electromagnetic treatment, which is also a form of electrotherapy to the brain. However, as I've talked about on the show before, a lot of these electromagnetic field treatments like cell phones, transcranial electromagnetic treatment, et cetera, that's a pretty high intensity amount of electricity. And even though it may improve blood flow to the brain, there's a risk for cancer when you do something like that. And so it's like a trade off. Right? So that's why I'm a fan of using some of these lower intensity systems. And there is in particular a form of electromagnetic frequency called PEMF pulsed electromagnetic frequency. And there is a specific pulsed electromagnetic frequency device that is designed to be worn on the head. Head or that can be worn on the head. And it's called an ICES device. So pemf, via what's called an ICES device, can get you a lot of the blood flow benefits that you would get from electromagnetic frequency without the potential carcinogenicity of using like electrodes and things like that on the brain. So it's called an ICES device. That health tax review website that I talked about, they should have this device. You may be able to find it in other locations as well, of course, but it's called ices and I'll link to more information about that as well as some of the studies that have been done on PEMF for improving cognitive blood flow as well. And again, this is something you could use to enhance cognitive performance, limit dementia or also treat Alzheimer's. So a few different uses for something like that. And then the last one that I wanted to mention is I recently had a podcast with the folks who created this device called the Quantlet, which is a wrist worn device that both cools the blood to lower oxidative stress and inflammation, but then also introduces light to the wrist that enhances nitric oxide production. And when you get the vasodilation that occurs with this increase in nitric nitric oxide production, it can increase blood flow to the brain. And so even though they haven't done any studies with this Quantlet device because it's new and Alzheimer's, both nitric oxide production as well as exposure to some of these infrared frequencies and the drop in inflammation that can occur in response to that, have been shown to help with Alzheimer's and dementia. So that would be something I'd certainly consider using as well as a biohack to have around.

Okay, questions? Light therapy, does it matter? Because I mean also human charger is light through the ears and there's intranasal and there's light on the wrist. Does it matter kind of how you get exposed to it?

It does. The intranasal light therapy and the frequency that they use with something like this violite device, it was designed more for what's called photobiomodulation and what that means is enhanced blood flow. Whereas something like the human charger, which is an in ear light therapy device that is more designed to simply simulate sunlight, right? To say like beat jet lag or enhance wakefulness, but it's not necessarily designed to increase blood flow in the same way as for example, this intranasal light device. So yes, the form of light matters and that's why I'd recommend something like this intranasal light therapy versus the in ear light therapy.

And then second question, because that's a ton of stuff with lots of money, which, if you had to choose one, which one would you go?

Which, which biohack would I go with? It's tough to say, but I would say that, that the one right now that combines a few of these different things all at once would be something like the, the quantlet, the wearable wrist device. But it's really tough to say. It's one of those things where I'd ideally like to have a PEMF device, I'd like to have a quantlet and I'd like to have some kind of hyper oxygenation therapy. But yeah, I mean it can be expensive and it can seem unfair that you can literally buy your way into some reversal of Alzheimer's dementia and it can be expensive, but, but ultimately, ideally you pull out all the stops and you introduce all this stuff, that entire supplement stack that I just talked about, along with all the biohacks, along with the plant based ketosis based diet, the use of exogenous ketones, and you use all of this as a therapeutic program. So I know it seems like a lot, but again, you'll see some people to use cancer as an analogy again, who are just like, you know, taken 30 different supplements using a lot of different protocols and who have through natural methods been able to slow down or reverse cancer formation. And you could potentially. Again, I'm not a doctor, this is not to be misconstrued as medical advice. This is just what I would do if I had Alzheimer's, if I had dementia or if someone said, hey Ben, make yourself as smart as possible in a year flat, here's an unlimited budget. These are all things that I would do right off the bat.

Okay, awesome.

So yeah, all that stuff and we'll put as many notes as possible in the show. Notes. But Brian, that's what I would do. Hey Ben. Hey Rachel. I'm calling today for my 15 year old son. He is a competitive swimmer and they swim two hours a day, five to six days a week. And I'm really concerned about the chlorine exposure so I'd like to know about the potential dangers of that. Maybe if there's any tests we could run to see if he's potentially toxic and if so, how do we detox that out or are there any supplements to counteract some of that. Also, he swims with folks who are a little bit older than he is, you know, 16, 17, 18 year old olds who are a lot stronger and possibly would like to know some workouts or exercises that would be great for a swimmer not to bulk up, but to get a lot stronger and faster in the pool. Thanks a lot. Love the show. Keep doing what you're doing.

So two part question there, Ben.

First up, two part question.

When it comes to chlorine exposure, chlorine.

I love me some chlorine. Actually. I treat my pool with natural enzymes. I try to limit my chlorine use. So I have an ultraviolet light in the hot tub and it uses what's called ozone therapy and enzymes to clean the pool. And then my cold pool or my endless swimming pool because I keep it so cold. I do use chlorine in that, but only trace amounts. You need very, very little chlorine when you keep a pool cold because that limits the amount of algal formation and the ability of things to grow and to ferment in your pool. So, so ultimately though, I have done some pretty extensive podcasting on how to reduce the risk from swimming in chlorinated pools drinking chlorinated water. I've got a whole podcast on chlorine water filters and an article on how to keep swimming pool chlorine from destroying your body.

Oh, I love it.

I will link to all those because I don't want to go over stuff that I've covered extensively in like hour long podcast before. But the big picture is that you want to a shower immediately before and after you get into a chlorine based pool because the organic matter that's on your skin, sweat, hair, urine, anything that has nitrogen in it, it can create an agent that's even more toxic than chlorine called the chloramine. And so if you can shower with soap before and after exposure to chlorine, use a good soap like a chemical free soap like Dr. Bronner's for example, example. That will help quite a bit with the production of chloramines. You want to make sure that you also get antioxidants into your system. They did an interesting study called Antioxidant Administration Reduces lung injury from Chlorine Exposure. And in that study, a research team exposed lab rats to chlorine gas and then they gave them a high dose ascorbic acid, which is just basically vitamin C and then N acetylcysteine and that significantly reduced the respiratory damaging effects of chlorine. So you can use like a high dose vitamin C. You can use N acetylcysteine. There are a variety of different, like, antioxidant cocktails that you can use, but a vitamin C appears to be the most potent when it comes to limiting the damage from chlorine. So doing like high dose vitamin C either before or after you swim, or using something like N acetyl cysteine or both can help with limiting the damage to chlorine. And then also, it appears that breathing as much fresh air as possible can also help out quite a bit as well. And this is something that the physician who I interviewed about chlorine exposure recommended. And that would just basically be like, don't go straight back to your office, try and get outside in the fresh air. Because it appears that breathing the high amounts of oxygen, kind of similar to what we talked about with Alzheimer's, can limit some of the oxidative damage that occurs in response to chlorine exposure. So again, that just totally skims the surface. But I will link in the show notes to all the podcasts that I've done on truly limiting damage from chlorine and also some of the best chlorine water filters out there.

Okay, second part question. Workouts or exercises that can make him stronger and faster? Go.

That's a great question. Now, I love to swim. When I moved into the forest, it made me really sad because I used to live right by the river and I used to run down to the river in my Speedo, my running shoes with my goggles over my head. I would run through the neighborhood. There's about two blocks I had to run through and people just got used to me running through the neighborhood in my Speedo. And I would jump in the river and I'd go swimming and I would run in my Speedo back home. And I loved it. And when I moved to the forest, I literally, it cost me a lot of money and it was a significant expense, but I actually had a giant hole dug in the forest and then had a crane bring a 19 foot endless pool up and drop it into the middle of the forest so that I would have water to swim in.

Classic bend.

Yeah, and that's what my cold water pool is called, an aqua fitness pool. And I go out there and swim a couple of times a week. I'm a huge fan of swimming. And, you know, I was an Ironman triathlete for 10 years. And one of the things that I found was if we, of course, you know, sometimes you can't make it to the pool or sometimes you want to increase pool strength when you can't get to the pool or it's too cold outside to swim. So ultimately there are a variety of studies that have been done on the type of strength training that works well for swimming. So starting way back in 1986, they did one study that found that an explosive strength training regimen that that consisted of three repetitions for three sets of a variety of different back and arm strengthening exercises increased 50 meter freestyle performance by about 7%, which is pretty huge. They did another study in 2007 that again used more explosive training combined with isometric training, which is where you're like holding a position for an extended period of time like a polygon pull up hang or a squat hold. And they found that this also significantly improved swim strength. There was another study they did in 2009 in which they used five repetitions with maximal load over three sets. Another study in 1994 where they did three sets of an explosive based strength training that included about 6 to 8 reps. Another study in 2012 where they did. What did they do in this study? That one was circuit training. And they actually found no benefit from the circuit training at all. Circuit training being like longer sets that are taking like 60 seconds to do 10 to 20 reps, et cetera. All of the studies that have shown any benefit to improving swimming performance have been a high intensity, low volume, short duration strength training, very quick, explosive strength training. Probably because swimming is not very strength based, it's more neuromuscular based, it's more speed based. So if you are going to strength train, you want to do very short, powerful, explosive strength training in the pool, what's called high intensity, low volume training. And I have a podcast that I recorded about six months ago with some folks who wrote a very interesting paper in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research about improving endurance performance and triathlon performance. And we talk quite a bit about this concept of high intensity, low volume training. So we'll link to that in the show notes. But ultimately it comes down to just a small number of times per week doing explosive strength training. And don't waste your time with like circuit training or old school like bodybuilder style training, because that does not make you a better swimmer. All the studies that have been shown to strength training and swimming have been short, explosive stuff.

All right, Anything else?

Yeah, a few other things for when you can't get in the pool. There's this device called a Vasa trainer. I have one in my gym and it Is a cable based device that simulates the type of resistance that water produces. What's called isokinetic, meaning the harder you pull against it, the harder it pushes back against you. And you lay down on your stomach on this thing, it's like a bench and you swim and there's two cables, hand paddles, and it works really well. Like I could put that next to my bike and do like bike swim sets. If I don't want to go outside to the pool, I can just lay down on that and like do five sets of 100 meter super quick sprints and that's it and not have to get wet or shower or anything like that. So that one's called a Vasa Trainer. I like that as one of my top pieces of gear for becoming a stronger swimmer. And the cool thing is, allows you to focus on your actual form. Keeping what's called a high elbow and getting into the pole position very quickly. If you're a swimmer, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There are also paddles. I recently had a guy who's training for Ironman over to my house and I was showing him a couple of paddles that I have out by my pool. And they are paddles that train your hand to be in the correct position during the swim stroke. And there are two different paddles that I recommend every serious swimmer or Ironman triathlete or anybody who wants to get better at swimming have. One is called the agility paddle and that trains your hand to be in the correct position at the beginning of the stroke. And then there's one called the freestyler paddle and that teaches you how to use your forearm just as much as your hand when you're swimming. So the agility paddle and the freestyler paddle, the next thing that I would recommend is that you have something that provides resistance when you swim. Now for me, with that endless pool, I actually have a tether that wraps around my my torso. So I'm swimming with like this elastic band attached to my waist. But you can also get a drag suit, which is a suit that literally just, just what it sounds like. It like expands. It's really sexy. It's like this baggy suit that you wear when you swim. They make them for both men and women. They have little pockets in them that fill up and basically it makes it harder to swim. It's like you're swimming in your clothes, but it's called a drag suit. I recommend that they also make a parachute that you can drag behind you. That one's kind of cool for open water swimming to increase the amount of resistance that you're pulling behind you. When open water swimming, it turns an open water swim set into resistance or strength training for swimming. So I recommend that. And then the last thing that I recommend as far as gear goes, because it allows you to focus on your form without having to worry about breathing. That's a front mounted swim snorkel. They make these swim snorkels that are designed for freestyle swimming and they're really cool. You put them on, they attach on the front and so you can breathe through these front mounted swim snorkels and you can focus just on your kick or just on your pole without having to worry too much about turning your head to breathe. Because that complexity is something that a lot of times can make you forget to work on your hands or work on your feet. And you can, even if you wanted to hack a swim snorkel, you can get what's called a cardio cap and you can put that on top of the swim snorkel. They make these custom fitted cardio caps that go on top of these front mounted swim snorkels and it limits the amount of oxygen that can go in and out of the swim snorkel. So you can actually do what's called hypoxic training when you're wearing one of these front mounted swim snorkels with a, with a cardio cap on top of it. So you can kind of take things to the next level with your, with your front mounted swim snorkel if you want.

Also sounds very attractive. Attractive, Very attractive options here.

Yes. And no discussion of swimming would be complete without me recommending to your son, Jason, my number one recommended swim training book on the face of the planet. Most of the triathletes I train use this book and I highly recommend it for everything from swim sets to swim form, et cetera, to swim drills. You name it. It's called the Swim Smooth Book. The Swim Smooth Book. Awesome book. Best book I've ever read on swim training, swim form, et cetera. And it's written by a couple of open water swimmers, so it's very relevant for like triathletes as well. So yeah, that is the one that I would recommend. So now you know how, how not to die from chlorine and how also to be a complete rock star in the swimming pool. Hello. I know all of oregano is very potent. My question is though, because there's so much information back and forth on the Internet, does it kill probiotics? And if I want to take probiotics, how far apart do I need to take it from all of oregano? But I appreciate it. Thank you.

So that sounds like a pretty straight up question, Ben.

Oil of oregano, have you ever taken oil of oregano?

No, but I've read everything you have on it.

It's got some gag factor to it. Most people put it in water. It's not necessarily like a, a daily tonic that I personally use, but a lot of folks who have like yeast or fungus or candida infections like oil of oregano can knock that stuff out. And it's also incredibly potent as like an antiviral and an antibacterial, which means, like, if you're going to be in a crowded space, like on an airplane or a bus, or you've been like, you know, you've got kids running around your house with the sniffles, you just basically have some oil of oregano in a glass of water and it's pretty potent. But of course, because it's so potent, one of the concerns out there is whether or not it will actually kill good bacteria. Because the way that oil of oregano works is its active component is called carvacrol. Now, a lot of oil of oregano that you buy at the grocery store has very, very low carvacrol content. You want to make sure whatever oil of oregano that you're using actually has a higher than about 6,75% Carvacryl content that allows it toto actually have an extremely high amount of efficacy when it comes to fighting off a cold or protecting yourself from bacteria or killing off yeast or fungus or whatever. So anyways, what Carvacrol does is it breaks down the cell membrane of bacteria, works on both gram positive bacteria as well as gram negative bacteria. And when you knock out the cell membrane of bacteria, you eventually allow the influx of various compounds like, say, calcium, that can readily kill bacteria. So it's not really the oil of oregano that's killing the bacteria. The oil of oregano is weakening the bacterial wall, the membrane, and then the other stuff, like calcium, for example, will influx into the cell and kill it. Okay, anyways though, does it kill good bacteria? Well, the fact is, even though research has definitely shown oregano oil is quite potent against bacteria, there is no study that has actually been done on its effect against what would be called good bacteria, say, like probiotics. There's no studies that have, say, given a group of subjects probiotics and then oregano oil, and seen whether or not those probiotics actually died. However, it's kind of interesting, most of the searches that you do for this on the Internet of whether or not not oil of oregano can kill good bacteria, they reveal this fella that did an N equals one study on yogurt. And what he did was he made yogurt at home and put about 10 drops of full strength oregano oil, which is like, enough to cause burns on your skin that's really, really potent oregano oil. And he made up a milk and a yogurt culture, which as we all know, is just, just chock full of good bacteria and then tested to see whether or not those cultures grew and whether or not he basically was able to make oregano flavored yogurt. And you know, theoretically, if oregano oil kills all organisms, including the beneficial ones, then the yogurt cultures will die and the milk that you use, the yogurt is just going to stay milk. But if the oregano oil does not kill the good bacteria, then the cultures will thrive and you will wind up with oregano flavored yogurt, which sounds disgusting. So anyways, so his experiments, which he repeated multiple times, allowed him to create a delicious oregano flavored yogurt. And it did not kill the bacteria or the culture in that yogurt. And so it appears that the carvacrol and oil of oregano may be selective in terms of the type of bacteria that kills. But again, this was an N equals one study, not a clinical study, not controlled. And full disclosure, the name of this fellow, if you find him on the Internet is Gary Greenfield. He is actually my dad, who's a big health nerd, and he's done a lot of these little N equals one studies. And so it's kind of funny because if you look anywhere on the Internet or on the efficacy of oil of oregano against good bacteria probiotics, it's, it's his name that pops up everywhere based on this, this yogurt study that he did. And I remember, I remember when he did this a few years ago, did.

He do that when you were young?

He was like, I made oregano flavored yogurt, Ben, and it didn't kill the yeast.

And you were like, no, thanks.

That reminds me, actually, it's his birthday today.

I need to call Happy birthday, Gary.

So anyways, it doesn't appear that it kills good bacteria, but again, I can't say that for a fact because it's, you know, that wasn't a controlled study. It was just my dad. So anyways, though, so this so far has been a marathon podcast. Hopefully those of you listening in have not yet tuned out because you're full of Christmas cheer and wanting to get as smart as possible over the holidays. And hopefully we've given that to you thus far. But we ain't done yet.

Nope.

Are we? No.

It's my favorite part.

It's time to do a giveaway. Time to do a giveaway before we do a giveaway. If you are about to tune out because you don't want to win, cool stuff, you got to hit the show notes BenGreenfieldFitness.com340 and be sure to forward this this particular episode if you know of anyone who who is interested in Alzheimer's, dementia, things of that nature, or if you have questions, leave them in the comments section for this episode. But that being said, this is the time of the show when we choose an itunes review. See, one of the ways that you can really spread the good word about the show is by going to itunes, doing a search for the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast and leaving us five stars and a nice review. And today we're going to read a review. And if you hear your review read on the show, all you need to do is email gearreenfieldfitnesssystems.com that's gearreenfieldfitnesssystems dot com and we will send you a cool Ben Greenfield Fitness beanie, nice little tech T shirt, and also a BPA free water bottle if you hear your review read on the show. And so we've chosen a review today. It looks like it is from californiagirl8208 who says obsessed with Ben Greenfield to the great annoyance of my husband. And you can go ahead and take this one away, Rachel.

All right. Ever since I discovered this podcast a few weeks ago, I've been binge listening to these episodes to the detriment of all my other old favorites. Even. Wait, wait, don't tell me. I have a Master's degree in Applied Anatomy and Physiology and I'm a sports therapist and find that Ben is very knowledgeable about all the topics he discusses with his wide variety of guests. He clearly does his homework and asks asks well thought out questions. I find the information overall very helpful, with the exception that it occasionally borders on scaring us all into thinking the reason for our dysfunction is that we don't all own a $2,000 vacuum cleaner or expensive air and water filtration systems. However, I have learned so much from him that I can accept the fact that most of his guests, like any other program, have something to sell as well as Ben himself. So I take everything with a grain of salt and fact check things independently.

Good call. Good girl. That is exactly what I recommended in my birthday post that I wrote actually was like, I will say stuff, but that doesn't mean it applies to you. For example, I on this podcast recommended what, like 20 different things for Alzheimer's. Like a million.

A million.

That doesn't mean I recommend everybody and their dog go out and take Bacopa and lion's mane.

It's just for the people. I'm not finished yet.

Oh, okay. Go ahead.

The mere fact that he brings such an array of topics to my attention is really taking my practice in person.

So, first of all, my apologies, California Girl 8208 to your patient, loving husband. And as far as your review, I love that you point out the fact that you do need to fact check things independently and take anything you hear with a grain of salt, because it doesn't mean it's meant for you. I don't think everybody needs to go out and put a Vasa trainer, swim trainer in their basement or run through their neighborhood wearing a drag suit with goggles on their head. But what we try to do is provide you with the information that you need to go out and educate yourself and figure out what's going to work for you.

That's right. It's not the word of God.

That's right. It is not the word of God.

It's the word of God.

I can simulate the voice of God due to my nice expensive rode microphone.

It's kind of godly.

That's right. Very godly. All right, so anyways, at the risk of getting blasphemous, we better stop there. But ultimately you can access the show notes BenGreenfieldFitness.com 340 where you'll be able to get everything from the study on Ashwagandha to all of our recommendations for Alzheimer's and cognitive performance, previous podcasts on swimming pool chlorine, and even how to make wonderful oregano flavored yogurt that you can impress all of your friends over the holidays with.

Delicious.

Or you could just do eggnog and.

Cookies like a normal person.

So as a matter of fact, I can hear my wife upstairs in the kitchen because today is our Christmas Eve, which means that we'll be gathered around the fire tonight with the boys, having some snacks and just basically hanging out. They're gonna open their gifts. They got little skis, which I'm super excited about.

That's adorable. Why do you guys have Christmas.

Ellie, bomb down the slopes because tomorrow's Christmas. Christmas Eve is with her family and the next day, Christmas day is with my family. Family.

So we get like three Christmases. You're a lucky man.

And family couldn't get any better. So.

Well, Merry Christmas, everyone.

Yes. Merry Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas, Rachel.

Merry Christmas, Ben. I hope you have a wonderful time with your family.

May your ukulele bring joy into the hearts of children.

May our ukuleles bring joy to the hearts of children.

That's right. And you will, I guarantee at some point on a future show hear rollicking ukulele tunes. But in the meantime, thanks for tuning in. Have a healthy week. And this is Ben Greenfield and Rachel Brown signing out from the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show. Later.

Bye.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance performance advice. Sa.