Q&A 409: Biohacking Immunity, The Latest Muscle Building & Fat Loss Research, Should You Ditch Your Smart Meter & Much More!

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast, Biohacking, coronavirus. The latest muscle building and fat loss research. Should you ditch your smart meter? How to cool your body during sleep, beef organ capsules versus multivitamins and much more. Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Build. Welcome to the show. Jay, you got cabin fever yet, bro?

More than ever. Because I've been locked up for like two months now, so this is getting rough and more rough by each day.

Wait, why have you been locked up for two months?

Because I tore my meniscus. So I've been essentially at home trying to memorize. Yeah, yeah, so I had surgery and so I've basically just been kind of sitting around doing a bunch of reading. I still get to see patients via telehealth, which is what we move to anyway, so I was well ahead of the curve.

Interesting. So. So what are you doing now to keep yourself busy or to keep yourself from hacking up a lung or having your lungs spontaneously combust or implode or whatever happens? Right, this strange crown shaped sickness that's going on.

Exactly. Yeah. So other than social distancing. So like, I've been doing a lot of the stuff that I already do, which compared to the normative population is considered extensive. But I've added in a few extra things. I mean, predominantly one of the biggest things I've been doing to help kind enhance my immune functioning and my stress response is. And of course this sounds like the J. Wiles answer.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Before you tell me, are you a virologist or an immunologist? Because if not, you better not be telling me about any supplements or God forbid, any alternative remedies that go beyond vaccines.

Oh, that's, that's true. Okay. So what I've been doing is more for my stress response than anything. If you wanted to deduce what your stress response. Yeah, I think I can. I think I have the authority to talk on that, but maybe not on immunology.

But what have you been doing to manage your stress response, Jay?

I wonder. I wonder. So I heard an awesome podcast that was released not too long ago by a dude who talked all about HRV training. So yeah, no, I've actually. Plug, plug, shameless plug. But no, I've been doing, you know, just a lot more heart rate variability training. And really this is, this is kind of something I already do, but I've been adding in some kind of different breath work techniques. A lot of it's like Patrick McCown's oxygen advantage protocol. So a lot of really slow breathing protocols, a lot of hypercapnic. So I've been trying to like simulate some high altitude training, doing a lot of like slow diaphragmatic breathing. I mean I do a lot of that, you know, to, to begin with. But that's been kind of one thing that I've really added into my, my training is just a lot more breath work.

We could rabbit hole on this a little bit because I think it's incredibly important. And I, I have come to the same conclusion that the free and easy tactics that we can use to manage stress on a daily bas type of things that we can do to manage the robustness of our immune system. And so like breath work, for example, every, I've shortened all of my kind of hardcore afternoon or evening workouts to instead do. And I'm including my 12 year old boys with this, which is great because every day for a good 30 to 45 minutes, I'm teaching them breath work.

That's awesome.

They pop into the sauna with me, we sit there cross legged, we do the breath work, we finish up with cold and I think breath work, heat and cold. You know, we've talked about this in relation to stress, but you know, if we want to take a quick dive into this, maybe we'll belabor some of these coronavirus biohacks before we get into this week's Q and A and some of the news flashes. But I was speaking with Anders Olson, who, who developed that relaxator device that I use when I go on walks for CO2 retention. And he sent me over some really interesting information, like for example, the fact that a cold nose can increase the risk of virus infections. And when you exhale, the temperature inside your nose is raised and moisturized by about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit and 100% moist air is being returned from the lungs. So if you breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, the nose doesn't restore its warmth and moisture when you exhale. But if you breathe in and out through your nose, you warm the air. And he sent me over a study that showed that rhinovirus, which is known to cause colds and infections in the upper respiratory tract, multiply when the nose cools down. So the more you can do nasal breathing, which we've talked about as a tactic to control stress, anyways, the more you're going to warm the air and then you also get the nitric oxide release. And we know that nitric oxide has These really powerful antimicrobial properties. There's been one study going around showing that it is able to inhibit the replication of the SARS virus, which of course, belongs to the same virus lineage as coronavirus. And so this idea of nasal breathing is also going to amplify nitric oxide production. And so that's another important variable here. The idea of some of this breath work that involves CO2 retention, meaning like long, slow exhales or controlled exhales rather than force exhales. This idea of CO2 retention is also really interesting because that occurs naturally when you do nasal breathing naturally, when you incorporate some of these HRV increasing tactics like the long exhales. And it turns out that bacteria exposed to air saturated with CO2, their growth is limited. Carbon dioxide has been shown in another study that was in the journal Nature in 2019 to inactivate virus and bacteria. And it's also one of these ways that we can basically increase the Bohr effect, the dissociation of oxygen into tissue, so we're better oxygenated as well, which is just good overall for mitochondrial function. And so this idea of breathing through the nose and engaging in these CO2 retention breathwork tactics, I think is absolutely. It's not crucial, but I would say very recommended. And then, of course, of course, the other thing here is not to rabbit hole too much, but we know that shallow chest breathing activates baroreceptors in the chest that can cause a cortisol response and may not be all that great for managing inflammation. Whereas when you breathe slowly, you breathe through your nose and you breathe out for a longer period of time than you breathe in, you do more diaphragmatic breathing. And one of the things that people forget about when it comes to the diaphragm is it's kind of a component of the lymphatic. Yeah, like, basically, it acts as a pump for a lot of lymphatic fluid, because lymph fluid doesn't have a pump. So lymphatic fluid depends on deep breathing and muscular activity. You know, that's why people do things like, you know, trampolining and dry skin brushing and vibration platforms. People laugh at that stuff, but that's actually a really good way to move lymph around the body, as is deep diaphragmatic breathwork. So I think that the breathwork piece is really important. And if you want, I can fill you in on some of the other. Some of the other shit I've been up to at home.

Yeah, no, I'd love to hear about it. I want. I want to make another comment, too, because I think that a lot of people, when they engage in breath work, if they don't have a good educational background or experience with it or worked with a practitioner, a lot of times they engage in breath work that is too heavy or too deep. And what I mean by that is that they engage in a lot of forceful breathing instead of what I refer to as effortless breathing. And Patrick McCown in Oxygen Advantage, he talks about breathing so lightly that you don't. You don't even move the nose hairs within your nostrils. And I really like that tactic, too, because a lot of people will start to hyperventilate, be like, what the hell? This is not working for me. I feel amped up and kind of my stress response is actually flaring up. So I always just tell people, like, really go for an effortless breath. Like, really do not sit there and try to poke out your belly as far as you can or suck your stomach in, allow it to come. Just slow the pace of your breathing down and move it towards your diaphragm. And I always go nose in, nose out. Like, a lot of people will kind of argue one way or another, but I think you brought up some great points regarding nitric oxide, as well as just kind of like the tactic of utilizing kind of the resistance from the nose to help slow your breathing down. A lot of times when people go through the mouth, they end up breathing way too fast.

Yep. I totally agree. By the way, Shameless plug, for those of you who just want a complete chapter devoted to all these tactics that Jay and I are talking about, chapter three of my book, Boundless gets into all this. So if you're listening, you already own Boundless. Read chapter three if you're kind of stuck at home during the next few weeks because it teaches you a lot of these breathwork tactics. And in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 409, I'll link to everything we talk about, but I'll also put a link to Patrick McCown's book and Anders Olson's book, because those are. Those are really, really good for learning. Also the type of things that we just talked about. So I mentioned that when I'm doing this with my boys, Jay, we are doing it in the sauna. And I certainly think there's some myth going around that you can kill getting in a sauna. You would basically have to induce a pretty significant fever. Like, you'd have to get up to 101102 degrees Fahrenheit, which would be more the type of things that, like these hyperthermic chambers that in some European medical clinics are being used, would get you to or even something like an ozone sauna. However, we do know that even if you're not raising your core body temperature that high, especially in something like a, an infrared sauna, that high temperatures in the sauna are going to induce the production of heat shock proteins. And those directly have been shown to improve the function of the immune system and induce some amount of cellular resilience. So there's that component. There is of course, the lymph fluid component that we already addressed. You're going to get better lymph fluid circulation and in the infrared sauna, just because of the penetration of the actual light that is amplified to a little bit greater effect than a dry sauna. And there also may be an effect infrared, particularly not only due to the red light photon simulating sunset, but also if you're doing cold afterwards, there's a more significant drop in body temperature when you do the heat plus the cold versus when you do the cold on its own. So it may enhance sleep, which we also know is a really, really good tactic right now, doing anything you can to improve your sleep function. And then there was one study in the annals of medicine I found that showed that a regular sauna practice resulted significantly fewer incidences of the common cold, which is of course not coronavirus, but is more evidence that there's some kind of an effect happening with regular visits to the sauna on the immune system and of course, in the age of a quarantine. I realize this information right now only applies to people who may have access to a sauna at home. But I think that if you do have access to a sauna at home, or as we'll discuss, I think in a, we can even discuss it right now if you want to. No, we'll save it for the news flashes. I've got something I want to, I want to tell you about hot baths, but you could actually draw a hot bath and get, get some of the similar effects. And then of course, there's also a nitric oxide effect which we already discussed. Anything you can do that will increase nitric oxide production. I'm not saying papa Viagra every day, ladies and gentlemen, but you know, sunlight, heat, cold breath work, all of these things that improve nitric oxide production. Again, just because it can inhibit the replication of SARS like viruses. I think it's a, it's a prudent strategy. So that's another thing. And then of course, the cold. I mean, we know when we look at, you know, Wim Hof, who was injected with a pathogen, I think it was E. Coli, and was able to directly modulate the inflammatory response to cold using Wim Hof breathwork plus cold thermogenesis. I think that is a strategy that again, although there's not research on coronavirus specifically is beneficial for the immune system. And it's also been shown that as opposed to cold on its own or heat on its own, contrast, hot cold therapy can slash absences. In this case, they studied in Amsterdam business workers and found that absence of work due to sickness decreased by almost 30% in folks who were doing hot cold contrast every day. In this case just a hot cold shower. So there's some kind of an effect and they think it's because of an increased production of monocytes, white blood cells when moving from the hot to the cold water. But if you can implement a daily breath work like a Wim Hof esque routine or some of this intermittent hypoxic work or any form of breathwork that I talk about in my book, plus heat plus Cold, I think it's a prudent strategy. And in particular what my boys and I are doing is we're going through. We just figure we're stuck at home, so why not? We're doing a full three week course from the SOMA Breathwork Institute and I'll link to that in the show notes. But every day you wake up, you watch a video, you learn a new breathwork routine. And we're just weaving that into our sauna practice. And it's amazing for them, just as part of their homeschooling curriculum, I mean, they're learning, I think, a tactic moving your piranha through your body. I wish I'd have learned when I was a kid. And they don't even know this right now. But because that particular course that we're going through teaches things like the power draw where you're squeezing your perineum and your pelvic muscles, almost like a Kegel exercise where you'd stop the flow of urine and kind of trapping the energy up the spine all the way up to the top of the head. Head. They're going to be little multi orgasmic ninjas as well by the time they're 13 years old. Because of like being able to use that type of breath work. Once you learn things like tantric sex pays some pretty big dividends in that department too.

You're A great father.

I'm a wonderful father. Teach my kids when they're 12 years old how to have multiple orgasms. So another thing that, that I've been doing is I'm using an ozone generator right now. And ozone can play a really, really good role as far as. I mean, it's antimicrobial in general. It's antibacterial, it's antifungal, it's antiviral. There's a wonderful book by Frank Shallenberger, I think is his last name. Very quick read. If you have an unlimited Kindle account, you get for free. Otherwise, it's just a few bucks. But he's pretty much got the bee's knees. Books on ozone and the oxidation that occurs when ozone molecule is generated by one of these ozone generators. And in particular, what I did after reading his book was I went and researched all these different ozone generators. And I talked to some real experts in the field, particularly Dr. Matthew Cook, and hunted down an ozone generator called a Quantum 5 from this company. I'll put a link in the show notes. It's ozonegenerator.com or something like that. They gave us a discount code too. I'll put that in the show notes as well. But I bought one of these Quantum 5s. I've got it on the kitchen countertop. And I've been actually doing rectal insufflation of ozone on a daily basis. And it's wonderful for a variety of different health conditions. If you looked into ozone, it's absolutely amazing. But in particular, the antiviral properties are pretty impressive when you dig into the research on ozone. And so it's very simple. You flip on the generator, you fill this little bag that it comes with. And it takes about 60 seconds to fill the bag. And then you just insert the catheter into your rectum about 4 inches and squeeze the bag and stand up and you're good. Just walk, walk around and, you know, complete your day.

So that's weight is in there all day.

Also is rectal ozone. Well, the, the oxygen, you know, you, you, you kind of fart afterwards because the oxygen is still in your system. But. But the ozone goes straight into your bloodstream within about five seconds. Okay, so the ozone's gone, like it's straight into your bloodstream. And rectal delivery is the best way to do it. And this particular unit I bought the Quantum 5, which is again, you know, and because I bought it and then I read Frank Shallenberger's book, and he's like, this is the one you need to get. So, you know, based on my chats with some docs and also his book, I'm pretty confident I've got a good one. And it came with a bunch of attachments for ear insufflation, for limb insufflation, for wounds, et cetera. But I've just been doing, based on the advice of Dr. Cook, rectal insufflation of ozone on a daily basis. Now, one of the things that both ozone as well as anything, anything that you're doing that would increase your exposure to oxygen, you can create excess free radicals. And hyperbaric oxygen would be another example of that. So hyperbaric oxygen therapy is another thing. If you look at the World Health Organization In March of 2020, they actually reported that oxygen therapy is the major treatment intervention for patients with severe COVID 19. And they went on to say all countries should work to optimize the availability of pulse oximeters and medical oxygen systems. And when you look at the research again on hyperbaric medicine for treatment of inflammation and also for its antiviral activity, specifically via the induction of something called hypoxic inducible factor, it's impressive as well. So what I've been doing is getting in this Viteris 320 hyperbaric oxygen chamber. It's a soft shell chamber. This company, Hyperbaric Oxygen usa, they can send them to your home. I believe they rent them as well. But so I'm doing hyperbaric and I'm also doing ozone. But this also means I'm at risk for the production of excess reactive oxygen species. Right? And again, I know I'm all over the place here, but I just want to give you guys as many biohacks and just tell you everything I've been doing because I'm, you know, I'm stuck at home anyways. And in this strange situation, which as a kind of an immersive journalist and podcaster in the biohacking sector, I have access to a lot of this equipment. I know some of you listeners have the ability to be able to rent or hunt down some of this stuff. And I'll put links in the show notes to all of it, bit but because I'm doing hyperbaric oxygen and ozone on a daily basis, I want also to make sure that I'm controlling some of the production of free radicals. And so I have this, this unit on my desktop that I've talked about in podcasts before. It's called a nanov. A nanov. And it specifically is designed to limit production of free radicals and repair any type of DNA damage that occurs in response to things like ozone and free radicals. And so the, the company actually wrote me because they heard I was using hyperbaric and they said you should be if you're using hyperbaric as frequently as you're using it. Because for me it's like 40 to 60 minutes a day right now you should, when you're working at your desk, just flip on the nano V. So you're limiting the production of some of these free radical species or these reactive oxygen species. And so I've just got that thing on my desk, this nano V. I've got the, it's called the, I think it's just called the nano V. Actually they have some different models, but I think just their basic desktop model is fine. So I have that on my desk and I just flip that on when I'm working during the day and that's wonderful. And it's great for the lungs as well. So I'm doing that. Also a few other things that I would recommend. Back to training and you and I of course in podcast 408 really geeked out on blood flow restriction training training or so called Katsu training. And actually tomorrow I'm interviewing one of the lead researchers from Japan on how to intelligently weave blood flow restriction training into your routine. But I've replaced most of my, like I mentioned, I'm not doing a lot of hard, hard inflammation producing training anyways and I've instead substituted breath work, heat and cold for that. But when I do lift weights, I've been using lightweight and body weight with BFR bands because as you and I discussed in the last podc, you know, we don't want to contribute to inflammation in a cytokine storm in the presence of this virus going around. And it turns out that you can still get a satellite cell response to training and mitochondrial proliferation without a significant amount of inflammation when you simply use blood flow restriction bands and use lighter weights or body weight. So you kind of get to have your cake and eat it too without as much inflammation. So I've really shifted a lot of my training and I even posted that if folks follow me on Instagram, it's instagram.com BenGreenfieldFitness I recently posted my weekly training routine to that and I won't get into the full details of it now because it's right there on the Instagram post, but essentially it's heat, cold, breathwork, walking in the sunshine again for the nitric oxide and then brief bouts of this BFR training. I mean, that's really the lion's share of what I'm doing these days. And so I think it's smart to incorporate some of this BFR as well.

Yeah, yeah, I've been doing the exact same thing. A lot of my training currently it's been fairly limited due to kind of my, my mobility issues with my knee. But a lot of it's been BFR training, a little bit of kettlebell work and some sandbags. And for, for the most part, that's really kind of, kind of done it for me at home.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So a few other things. Hydrogen rich water. You know, I'm a big fan of. I have a big glass mason jar of, of baking soda, vitamin C and hydrogen rich water every morning. Anyways, and I actually recently tweeted an article from our friend Dr. William Seeds about the mild effect of baking soda on acid alkaline balance. And although it's very mild, it's enough of a shift to actually cause a state of alkalinity that could be beneficial when you consider that the virus seems to replicate in a more acidic state. Now, I, I do not argue that one can significantly alkalize one's body by eating alkalizing foods or by having copious amounts of baking soda, but there is a very mild shift. And in addition to that, you also limit the amount of minerals that your kidneys need to use to rebalance any acidity present in the diet. And so this idea of doing baking soda and vitamin C, and it's supposed to be about a 2 to 1 ratio of vitamin C to baking soda. If you read the book. And again, I'll link to this in the show notes as well. I know I'm listing off a lot of books. The book Forbidden Healing gets into the proper use of baking soda and vitamin C. But I do a 2 to 1 ratio based on that book of vitamin C to baking soda. But then the other thing with the hydrogen is that hydrogen has actually been shown to significantly suppress the cytokine storm and reduce oxidative stress and has been shown to significantly alleviate the symptoms of influenza and a few other viral infections. Not coronavirus specifically, but when we look at viruses and the way that they, that they work from a genetic standpoint, it seems smart to, if it's having that type of antiviral activity and some of these other viruses to do something like, you know, get some hydrogen water tablets from a, you know, website like Water and Wellness or I think Quicksilver Scientific has them and just put a couple, couple drops of those or a couple tablets of those in a big glass mason jar with some baking soda and vitamins, vitamin C. That's cheap medicine, right? That's, that's cheap medicine. And that's again something that I've been doing every single morning. And there, there's, there's some good studies out there on micro, microbiology and infectious disease research related to the use of hydrogen water. So sweet. Been working that in and then a few other things. I'm just kind of giving everybody everything I've been doing. So there are certain peptides that seem to have some pretty significant immune system modulating effects and also inflammation reducing effects. I think the best three peptides. If you go to the website of the Peptides Society, the International Peptide Society, and you connect with a physician who can prescribe you these peptides, you don't want to buy them from online websites because they're not pure and they typically are a little bit dangerous in my opinion because the amino acid sequences may not be what the bottle says on them. But if you can get your hands on good peptides, I recommend thymosin beta, which is amazing for the immune system. And then LL37 can inhibit the ability of a virus to attach to cell receptors. And so it's considered to be an antimicrobial often used for like food poisoning, giardia, gut issues, et cetera. But that's one you can have on hand, hand and then the final one is BPC157, one I've talked about before, amazing for injuries. But also it's a really, really good full body anti inflammatory. So I think a really good appropriate peptide stack to have on hand. And, and one that I've been using is BBC 157, thymosin beta. And LL37 is thymus and beta.

Is that TB 500?

No, it's a little bit different than TB 500. Oh, okay, all right. I'm sorry, did I say thymosin beta?

You did.

Okay, sorry. TB500 is thymus and beta 500. Thymosin alpha. TA1. Thymosin alpha, that's the one that's more for the immune system. Thymus and beta. TB500 may have some effect on the immune system, but it's, it's thymosin alpha is the peptide. I think it's called TA1 and you can ask your doctor about it. Again if you go to any of the folks from the Wild Health Physician Network, if you go to wildhealthmd.com they're also putting out a daily podcast that's fantastic. The Wild Health Podcast. Daily podcast on coronavirus updates from emergency room docs and MDs. But they also have a pretty good network of practitioners around the country in the US who are mostly well versed in peptides. So their website wildhealthmd.com or the website for the International Peptide Society would allow you to connect with a physician who can prescribe you the proper peptides for enhancing the strength of the immune system and controlling inflammation. Few other quick things from a, from almost like a medical standpoint because the lungs don't really have that great of a built in antioxidant system. I think that introducing selective antioxidants via the respiratory tract is prudent. And you can get these mask based nebulizers off of Amazon for like 30, 40 bucks. So there's a little mask you put on on and then you can get this glutastat from my friend Dr. John Laurance down in Sarasota, Florida. And again, I'll link to all this in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com 409 so you guys don't have to take mad notes here. But basically what glutastat is, it's a blend of glutathione and N acetylcysteine, both of which has been shown to be able to help when nebulized when breathing through the lungs and the nasal passages to help with acute respiratory disease. Diseases like sars. They can control oxidation, they can control inflammation. We know that glutathione in particular boosts white blood cell production, particularly via T cells or lymphocytes that are really at the, at the core of our immunity. And these white blood cells are the cells that can help to fight off viruses. So what I do, again, this is just stuff I do when I'm standing and work at my desk during the day, right. I'll flip that nanov on and then I've got this nebulizer mask that I'll put on for about 20 minutes, minutes a day. And it's got glutathione and N acetylcysteine in it. And I think that that's a fantastic strategy also. And then the very last thing is if you have pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, like I have one of these pulse centers, chairs and tables that I can sit on while I'm working on my laptop or you know, when I'm, when I'm meditating, when I'm journaling, etc. Those can actually induce Something called the Rouleaux effect. And, and the Rouleaux effect actually is almost like a clumping of blood cells that occurs when cells lose their positive charge. And what PEMF does is it positively charges the blood cells so they don't clump together. So you get better blood flow and better oxygen delivery. We know that viruses thrive in anaerobic conditions, right? In conditions without oxygen. So you can actually not only increase ATP production and blood flow via the use of these PEMF units, but by increasing your oxygen deliverability, you can keep yourself in less of an anaerobic state. And I think that especially when you're combining that with things like breathwork, heat, cold, et cetera, and some of these other methods that I've talked about, you know, you've got a lot in your back pocket there for the so called biohacking of the coronavirus. So that's kind of everything I've been up to. Instead of picking my nose and watching Netflix, I'm just kind of, kind of. And you know what? I feel amazing. I feel. And maybe, maybe part of it is I haven't been on airplanes or traveling airplanes, but I feel amazing. Actually, I've been waking up quite early just because I've found that with the number of folks reaching out to me, I've been doing tons of consults with people and people can go to BenGreenfieldCoaching.com to take advantage of that. So my schedule just jam packed talking with people all day long. So I've been getting up like about 4, 4:30am so I'm actually sleeping a little less than what I'm used to, like six, seven hours. But then I'm also, you know, dropping into that hyperbaric chamber in the afternoon for a quick nap. But you know, regardless of being on slightly less sleep, I feel absolutely stellar. So sweet. I think a lot of this stuff, when stacked together, it's. It' sit's doing something. So.

No, that's, that's good, man. I'm glad that you're feeling good. I actually have a couple questions for you because I wanted to clarify a few things. So. And this one of them is quite selfish and the other one is just one thing I've heard and I'd be interested to hear your take the first one when it comes to pmf, because that's something that I utilize especially for recovery. Let's say somebody has something like I have a flex pulse, like kind of a portable unit anywhere you would put it in particular for kind of helping to oxygenate or would it not really matter?

Yeah, the power of those portable devices is really low. It is, yeah. The only two devices, devices that I think are powerful enough aside from inducing a mild anti inflammatory effect or a mild sleep induction effect would be any of Dr. William Pollock's devices like his body balance or biobalance mat or really the like top of the line gold standard is the pulse center's PEMF unit. Just because the milligauss delivery you're getting is. I mean we're talking about like a hundredfold higher than any of these portable devices. So yeah, I can't say that you're going to get much out of something like a flex pulse. It's a good device for some other effects such as relaxation sleep, you know, slapping that thing over a centrally located injury site. But as far as the full body anti inflammatory, you know, dropping off that rouleaux effect type of thing. I think the full body larger units are better.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. The other thing I was gonna ask you, I was wondering if you've heard about this. Cause I've seen this kind of floating around and I actually ended up looking it up and I think Cleveland Clinic, don't quote me on that, but maybe Cleveland Clinic was the one who talked about this and they were finding that for the, for COVID 19 that it attaches or binds to ACE2 receptors. So that's protein receptors. And so I know that a lot of people here have been talking about how they've been utilizing, I'll say myself too, both nicotine and methylene blue for ACE2 downregulation. Is there any, you think there's anything to that? Like have you been doing anything in regards to methylene blue or nicotine?

I have heard that about methylene blue. I had not heard that about nicotine. Although you know, I have a little dropper bottle that I keep in my fanny pack that is basically nicotine and methylene blue. It's like, it's like my go to anytime I need a quick pick me up during the day. So I've been doing that anyways. I was doing it before this whole virus thing hit. Do you have any of that research that you could forward over to me perhaps via email And I could, you know, maybe I'll put together a post with the exact mix that I use in the future for methylene blue and nicotine. But I actually I had seen a little bit of the research on methylene Methylene blue that appeared to be kind of similar to what I saw in nitric oxide regarding the antiviral effect, but I hadn't seen it in combination with nicotine. That's a really, really good nootropic stack. Anyways, to blend nicotine and methylene blue. And the way that I do it is I order from blue boost. I think I forget. I'll link to it in the show notes. Okay. I think it's blue Boost nicotine. Pure pharmaceutical grade nicotine. And then pure pharmaceutical blade grade methylene blue. And then all I do is I take the methylene blue and if I put five droppers of that into the nicotine. So empty out five droppers of the nicotine, put that in a different bottle. Put in five droppers of the methylene blue. That would give you. In a drop, or I'm sorry, in 10 drops that you take out after you've mixed the five dropper fulls of methylene blue into the nicotine bottle. Bottle. It gives you about 100 micrograms of methylene blue per 10 drops. And that's like the sweet spot for methylene blue microdosing.

Oh, nice.

And. And it gives, it gives you a perfect amount of nicotine. Gives you about a milligram of nicotine and 100 micrograms of methylene blue. So that's, that's the way that I do it. The other way you could do it is you get these troches, blue trochees from the blue cannotine trochees. And those are a little bit higher levels of methylene blue. But. But that's like a melt in your mouth. Methylene blue nicotine CBD blue blend. And that, that's being sold now as a nootropic. So, yeah, that's what I've been using. That stuff's incredible ways to skin that cat. Yeah. The other thing I don't like about those is they just turn your mouth bright blue. Oh, they do. And to get that out, put a little baking soda and water. Another use for baking soda, and just swish it in your mouth and it washes right out.

Wait, so the, the, the dropper of methylene blue that you use does not actually turn your tongue blue?

No, I just put at the very back of the mouth. Okay. That was the thing. Cool. Yeah, we are. We're getting a little long in the tooth, so we should probably cover a few of these other, other news flashes before we jump into, into this week's Q and A. But I think that gives people plenty to play with. And if you have questions or your own stuff to add, just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 409 we'll link to all this stuff in the News flashes section and then also reply to your questions or your comments if you guys leave them over there. We like to help people out. So a couple other things completely unrelated to the virus. First of all, all I'm always kind of tweeting out these studies. Those are all going to be@twitter.com BenGreenfield A study came out in the Journal of Obesity on successful weight loss maintenance. So for those of you who are interested in fat loss and they looked at a ton of stuff having healthy foods available at home, breakfast timing, meal timing, vegetable consumption, decreased intake of sugar and fat, limiting certain foods, reducing fat in certain meals. Do you know what they found above all was related to successful weight loss?

I do, but that's because I read the study so I'll let you say it.

Yeah, increased physical activity. Yeah. And in particular, and I've talked about this before, the role of non exercise activity thermogenesis, which in exercise physiology is neatly abbreviated NEAT is far underestimated when it comes to its power for weight loss. Over and over above formal exercise sessions, visiting the gym, visiting the health club, step counts, squats, random push ups strewn throughout the day, having a pull up bar hung in the door of your home that you randomly do pull ups from as you're hanging, fidgeting, twitching, walking. When you have the option to walk or commuting or using your, you know, any other method aside from a car to transport your body using calories. You know this, this idea of low level physical activity throughout the day. I've always been a fan of and what I've always said is structure your day so that going to the gym is optional. Right? Structure your day so that you're moving all day long and the visit to the gym is either a the icing on the cake or B something you do because you're preparing for a big event like an Ironman or a spartan race or something that requires an unnaturally high level of beat down physical activity. But aside from that, that the importance of this non exercise activity thermogenesis cannot be underestimated. And for me, and for a lot of the clients who I work with, it's pretty simple. Minimum step count for me it's 15,000. For most of my clients it's 10,000. And that can be achieved through taking all your phone calls when you're out on a walk, manual treadmill at the office, taking the stairs whenever you can do that, going for a 10 minute walk after breakfast, after lunch, lunch and after dinner. Lots of ways that you can do this. But this study just once again shows that above all, it's basically moving throughout the day. It's the best thing you can do for stable, successful weight loss maintenance.

There it is, man. No, I think that'si think it's a greata great point to make because there has beeni haven't heard as much of this in the last maybe year or two years or so. But, but there was a point in time where there were a lot of food gurus, I'll say, or dietary experts, huge quotes who are kind of saying like, really, you know, physical exertion or exercise isn't a correlate or doesn't factor into weight loss or weight loss maintenance. And I think this is another one of those that are saying like, yeah, I think you guys got this one wrong and that's the food gurus who talked like I mentioned. But again, I think this drives the nail into the coffin here.

Yup, exactly. So let's talk about a few other little things that came up across my radar this week. Sleep restriction. Sleep restriction, we know can have an impact on everything from appetite regulation to the ability to be able to build muscle, particularly something called myofibrillar protein synthesis, which is a key variable in regulating skeletal muscle muscle mass. We know that one of the best ways to increase myofibrillar protein synthesis is with high intensity interval training. Okay, so what this study looked at was whether or not high intensity interval training in people who were sleep deprived. Right? About four hours of sleep a night for five consecutive nights could counteract the muscle loss that typically occurs with sleep restriction. Turns out that no huge surprise here, although some people who think that, oh, if you exercise a sleep deprived state, you might go full catabolic and lose muscle. It turns out that sleep loss induced reductions in muscle mass were directly inhibited via the use of high intensity interval training. Now pair this hand in hand with research that I reported a few months ago showing that short and brief exercise periods, this idea of micro workouts, like 10 to 15 minute workouts spread through throughout the day, can also maintain cognitive performance and alertness in a sleep deprived state. Right? So you could, you could take a modafinil or you could just like work in some burpees had a few points during the day. Turns out that based on that, if you're sleep deprived, you know, you can do these short, frequent micro workouts at a high intensity interval training kind of intensity at various points throughout the day. Right. Like maybe you've got one workout workout that's 100 burpees. One workout where maybe you're hitting a bicycle for a Tabata set, and one workout where you're doing a quick 15 minute blood flow restriction training session. Turns out that even if you are sleep deprived, you can maintain muscle with this utilization of high intensity interval training, preferably delivered via a micro workout strategy, which is, I know for a lot of people who might be sleep deprived right now, worrying, anxious, stuck at home, etc. You know, if you're stuck at home anyways, it's kind of a cool idea to. Instead of, you know, you know, taking that time that you normally go to the gym to work out at home for an hour or an hour and a half just to sprinkle workouts in throughout the day. I think it's a smart strategy.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Another win too, for high intensity interval exercise.

Yes, sir. And not that I'm endorsing sleeping four hours a night, but just saying, if you want to stay jacked when you're doing it, that's how to do it.

Yeah.

Journal of Strength Conditioning Research, one of my favorite journals reported that listening to fast tempo music delays the onset of neuromuscular fatigue.

Nice.

Well, that should not come as a surprise to anybody who has experimented with music to get a better workout. This. Just studied it and actually found that low and behold, high BPM fast tempo music can improve things like maximal oxygen uptake or reduced or increased time to fatigue during exercise. But when it comes down to it, I think there's a few important things to remember. As a takeaway from this study, we know that there's almost like this borrowing from medical semantics, this tachyphylactic response to music, meaning that when you're listening to the same favorite soundtrack over and over again, or using music for every workout workout, it becomes less and less effective. So the strategy I recommend is to have some good playlists, fast tempo, preferably on your podcast player or on your. On your music player, on your phone, or whatever you use during exercise. But save the music. Listen to podcasts, listen to the Ben Greenfield Fitness show, listen to audiobooks and other podcasts during your training, just to get yourself smart while you're training, or use its silence and use your training as meditation. And then when the going gets really tough, that's when you drag out the music. And for me personally, since I've quit listening to music during exercise and only pulled out music when the going gets really tough, or when I have a brutal workout planned. I have to be careful. I can almost induce rhabdo when I put music in.

Really?

Because I use it so few and far between that I just go ape nuts as soon as I get really good fast tempo music on. And I actually have, have, I'll, I'll link to it in the show notes. But I have a Spotify playlist and some folks may chuckle, but I absolutely dig it. It's, it's called the Epic Battle Playlist and it's just all the epic battle soundtracks from, you know, movies like, you know, Avatar and Braveheart, Lord of the Rings, Mohicans. I don't remember if Lord of the Rings. I actually don't think Lord of the Rings is in there. Oh, that's something like the Celtic Fluty stuff. Doesn't, doesn't motivate me quite as much. But I, I kind of like the stuff. Stuff that's more like what you'd hear, you know, while playing a first person video game. But anyways, the Epic Battle playlist I'll link to in the show notes and try, try that strategy if you're listening in. Don't use music for every workout, save it for the hardest workouts. And know that it can really delay the onset of neuromuscular fatigue. And that's because science now says science. Hashtag science, hashtag science. Then finally, finally. And this is what I was alluding to earlier, Jay. The hot bath thing. The hot bath thing. So at Luboro University, they recently investigated the effect of a hot bath on calorie burning and blood sugar control. So they compared an hour long soak in a hot bath to an hour of cycling. Then they measured the amount of calories burnt and they measured the blood sugar response. Cycling results resulted in more calories being burned than a hot bath. But the hot bath still burnt about 140 calories, which is as much as you'd burn during like a brisk half hour walk. They also noted that peak blood sugar after eating was 10% lower with the hot bath compared to the exercise session. So, you know, we've used cold in the past or recommended it in the past for controlling blood sugar response to eating. But it turns out that that heat and specifically hot water therapy may have a similar effect. And this makes sense when you consider that one of the key regulators of blood sugar control is heat shock proteins, right? And that's because they help the function of insulin and insulin sensitivity. So of course, because we know that a sauna can also increase the production of heat shock Protein. We could probably extrapolate these results to a sauna. There's also a second study that they did where they looked at the mechanism responsible for blood sugar regulation. And they noted in that study that it was associated with the nitric oxide response that was induced by the passive heating. And again, when we look at the antiviral effect of nitric oxide, you know, taking a hot bath in the evening these days, even if you don't have a sauna or even just, you know, waking up, filling up a hot bath, doing your thing, getting a hot cup of coffee. Coffee. Going to sit in that bath while you're going scrolling through your emails or your news feed or whatever else and then finishing up with a cold shower. Nothing wrong with that. I mean, heck, talk a little. Toss a little. Toss a little magnesium in there. So you're getting some magnesium therapy at the same time or some of those hydrogen tablets. Oh, yeah, you canyou can buy those from Water and Wellness, too. You can dissolve hydrogen tablets in your bath and absorb them straight in through the skin. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, you can work in a nice little. This is making me want to take a bath. Maybe bath tonight. You know what? I think I will. Maybe I'll take a bath tonight.

Instagram live.

Yeah, some candles, some Instagram. But. But yeah, so. So chalk went up for the hot bath. I I don't know how many listeners now after hearing this, are going to stop exercising and start taking baths instead.

Yeah, I just sold my sandbags and kettle bells on ebay. I'm done.

There you go.

Done.

Well, I think the special announcements are probably going to go by pretty quickly today, Jay, because nearly every speaking event that I have been booked to speak at for the next, I think, three to four months has either been canceled or rescheduled. Now, if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com calendar, the ones that are still happening are left on there. But it turns out that I don't have a lot of events that I will be at over the next few months, which deep down inside I'm kind of torn about. I'm happy because I'm at home with my family. And like I mentioned, I feel amazing because I'm not on, you know, like, airplanes and in airports anymore. But, you know, just opening the kimono, you know, when I get a keynote speech canceled, that's, you know, 20 to 40k subtracted from my income. So when I get bummer, 10 speech. When I get 10 speeches canceled over the course of three months, you know, I got to Do a lot more home yogurt fermentation and sprouting of seeds and eating a lot more rice and beans, because my income pretty much drops to, you know, the. The nickels in the hat. You guys contribute to the podcast by visiting the show notes and. And contributing that way. And then also, of course, I still own the supplements company Kion, and. And we're still, you know, shipping out. We're doing a lot of E commerce. You know, amino acids, our creatine or fish oil or colostrum, which is amazing for the immune system. That one's been selling like hotcakes. So I'm blessed in that I do have a separate side business that keeps me fed. But I'm a little bit torn about all these speaking gigs getting canceled, because that really is kind of my bread and butter, is my keynote speaking reasonably so. All right, here we go. Listener Q and A. You ready for this? Let's go.

Hi, this is Barbara. I want to ask a question about smart meters in my New York City building, which is possibly near a fault line. And it may have. It's an old building. It might have the metal conduits Dr. Mercola referred to. I'm not sure. But the installation of smart meters throughout my building has really affected my quality of sleep. There's gas meters in every apartment and a bank of electric smart meters in the basement. So I want to know what meters are best to ascertain the source of my major sleep issues and muscle spasms. And it may be spiking dirty electricity. So would I need both the Acoustometer 2 and the PF5, or would just one of those do for me? Okay, thanks.

Oh, man. This is a matter that is near and dear to my heart because during my last travel gig two months ago, my local power company, Inland Power, they came up and installed a smart meter in my home without asking.

Oh, really? They can just do that?

Yep, they can just do that. And I had not had a smart meter for the longest time, had the old school meter, and they came up and they installed the smart meter. And. And it's an issue. I don't know if it's just Washington state or what, but I was talking with Brian Hoyer, who's the guy who did the whole building biology walkthrough of my home, right? Tested everything for emf. Tested the flicker of the lights, you know, adjusted everything, everything from the placement of the beds to, you know, which outlets had dirty electricity filters in them. He's a wizard. He's a wizard. And I'LL link to that podcast in the show. Note. But he had another client in Washington state, and he was there doing a building biology analysis. And the utility company actually just so happened to visit while he was doing the EMF assessment, and they asked to shut off the power so they could do some work. And the woman he was doing the assessment for, she would have had a smart meter installed that day if Brian wasn't there. Because the person who came out to install the smart meter, he asked if they would be installing a smart meter, and he said, no, no, no, no, no, she already has one and they're just upgrading the equipment. So Brian walked out there with him, and she actually had the old school low EMF analog meter that he had already tested to be low emf. Yeah. And he showed the guy right there and, and wound up convincing him not to install the smart meter. But he told her to put up a sign on her existing meter with a legal threat. And I wish I'd have known that they were just walking around without asking permission, replacing analog meters with smart meters. And I'll get into what folks can do from a legal standpoint about this, but why should you even care? Why should you even care? So smart meters are a newer version of the electrical meter that you'd normally find, like, on the side of your home or your apartment. So they measure things like, you know, gas and water, electrical usage, but they transmit the readings wirelessly. So that means the utility company can transmit signals to the meter to do things like turn your power off or shut your gas off remotely. But it also means, of course, that they can track your usage, you know, for billing accordingly. Now, an analog meter, the old school meter, doesn't do that, doesn't have a transmitter. Transmitter. That's why the utility companies have pull up to your house, walk up to the meter, read it manually, and leave. Right. And so now that they've got the smart meters, that has taken that extra work for them out of the equation. But the problem is those meters produce what's called non ionizing microwave radiation. And your utility company will try to tell you that because it's non ionizing, it's not dangerous. But that could not be farther from the truth, because non ionizing microwave radiation easily penetrates the wall of a home or an apartment, like, far more easily than like a 5G signal does. And we know if you read a book like, you know, Dr. Mercola's new book, EMF, that directly breaks apart DNA molecules and damages cells, and it's a huge issue for Cell membranes. It's a huge issue especially, and I'll talk about this in a second, for people who are electro Hypersensitive and in 2005, 2011, there is a researcher by the name of Daniel Hirsch who wrote a response to a report by the California Council on Science and Technology. And the report was titled the Health Impacts of Radio Frequency from Smart Meters. And he found that the cumulative exposure of a smart meter is more than 160 times that of using a cell phone. That was exposure. That was exposure at several feet away from the monitor. Now, he did not measure, say, you in the kitchen, 20ft away from it, but regardless, it's producing a scary amount of emf. It's actually one of the highest EMF producers of any appliance that you could have around your home and way, way higher than what your phone produces.

That sucks. My smart meter box is on the side of my house, and it's right in the front room where my kid plays all the time.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. One of the worst, especially of a baby or like a pregnant woman. Woman on premises. One of the worst, worst things you can have around.

I'll tell you what I've done for it later after you give your, your advice, but hopefully I've done enough. But, man, that's. That's insane.

Yeah, I want to hear what you've done, but, but to know if you have one of these smart meters, you just go out, you look at it, and typically it kind of sort of can look a little bit like an analog meter. So sometimes you have to ask your utilities company. But if it's got like this big white sticker on it and a digital readout out, then typically it's a smart meter. And sometimes it will just say smart meter. Like, one of the more common ones is made by the company PG and E, and it'll just say PG&E smart meter. And you can also, of course, ask your utility company and hope that they tell you the truth. They probably will, because they assume that you want a smart meter for convenience, but what you really want is an analog meter. You can opt out. You can opt out, but you get charged a hefty monthly fee. I asked about opting out. They wanted $250 to remove. And. And then in Washington, they wanted $25 a month for me to have an analog meter. And obviously, I mean, I could think of worse costs for my health than $25 a month, but it still pisses me off. It's annoying. And so now I'm Researching whether or not one can get a physician prescription of what's called electro hypersensitivity to be able to convince the electrical company to allow you to replace your smart meter with an analog meter without the associated fee. Thus far I have been unsuccessful with that. But Brian Hoyer has had some people successfully do that, from what I understand. And he also told me there's a problem with opt out meters because some of the opt out meters, what they replace them with is kind of like a semi smart meter, meaning all they turn off is what's called the RF antenna and they're still a digital meter. So it's still producing a significant signal. So you actually have to, even if you opt out, make sure that they replace it with an analog meter, not just like a semi smart meter. Now some people, he said in his state of Pennsylvania have referred to the American with Disabilities act and said that that should apply to people who have diagnosed electro hypersensitivity. The problem is finding a physician who will actually diagnose electrohypersensitivity for you. So I mean, if you have a good functional medicine doc who's already aware of the issues with smart meters, you can do that. But it is a problem. And just for those who don't know, electromagnetic hypersensitivity, it's abbreviated EHS and it is a direct sensitivity to electromagnetic fields. For a very long time this was considered something to be like, say like fibromyalgia or adrenal fatigue, just kind of this woo woo kind of diagnosis. But if you look like I for example visited the website of Idahoans for Safe Technology and they have a really, really good full compendium of all the research done on electrohypersensitivity. And it turns out that there are direct genetic SNPs that cause an increased inflammatory response and also an impact on glutathione production in response to exposure to a lot of these non native EMF fields. They also have some really good peer reviewed studies on electromagnetic hypersensitivity on that website. And it turns out also that another gene that a lot of people have being homozygous for MTHFR that can significantly enhance your propensity to be electromagnetic. If I can spit it out, we'll just say EHR can really increase your and you'll know that you might have it if being on WI FI routers, mobile phone base stations, mobile phones, power lines, etc. Give you symptoms such as brain fog, headache, sleep disturbances, some people get muscle ache, muscle pain. It's a variety of issues and if you go, flip off your WI FI router, disable all the smart appliances in your home, make sure you're not near a smart meter, your phone's in airplane mode code, and you do that, and you feel absolutely amazing. Then you could probably convince your doctor to give you a diagnosis for EHS and use that, appealing to the American Disabilities act. Or go direct to your utilities company with that prescription or with that diagnosis from the doctor and at least try to go to bat. But I thus far have been unsuccessful. But I've got Brian Hoyer coming out in a month. Month. And we're gonna do a video. We're gonna go out to our smart meter and do an actual video and then put that on the Internet and show how high the EMF is that's being produced by my smart meter. And I'm gonna send that over to the utilities company, just show them. And I actually got another doctor to, to give me a diagnosis for electro hypersensitivity. Because I. I really think a human body and a human cell in general is electro hypersensitive. But I especially think that certain gen genetic SNPs can really increase your hypersensitivity to that. I'll put one link in the show notes to a really good article on metabolic and genetic screening of electromagnetic hypersensitive individuals. And it turns out that there are Everything from glutathione SNPs to methylation SNPs that directly influence your sensitivity to electromagnetic fields. So it's something that you really do need to consider. And I'll tell you some of the things that I recommend to folks who can't get their smart meter removed. But before I do, what did you do?

Okay, so I ended up actually buying what's called a smart meter guard. So it's actually like a Faraday cage that you put over kind of like the oval portion of the. Of the device. So I think that's actually where the RF signal is transmitted from. So I have one of those, which wasn't expensive. It was like, I want to say like maybe 60 or 70 bucks. So not horrible.

Where.

Where'd you get it?

I think like maybe like smart meter guard.com, something like that. But it's like a. It's like a Faraday cage. It's. They actually sell like the same company sells the, like the. I guess like a Faraday cage for your WI fi router as well. But the thing is, you have to have it open while you're using it or it will just shut off all Signal. So I actually bought one of these like a month or so ago and I haven't gotten any call saying hey we can, we can't read your smart meter anymore. So I'm assuming that means my indicator is not working. Exactly.

Yeah. So I'll ask Brian Hoyer, by the way, what he thinks of those smart meter guards.

Yeah, ask him about that. And you know, I actually have a couple blue shield cubes as well. So I've been utilizing the blue shield. So I have one up upstairs in my bedroom and then I have one downstairs in the front room right next to the smart meter. Because I mean that's where my son plays. That's where like all his toys are. That's where everything's at. And once I kind of, you know, started doing more readings, I have the tri field meter that I went out there and it was just like astronomical the amount of RF radiation coming off that joker. And I was like, man, it's like sitting literally right next to the couch that my son sits on all the time to read his books. And I'm like, I can't believe I've been letting him get microwaved by this stuff. So I've been utilizing some blue shield devices, I am thinking. And I'd be interested. We'll hear what Brian thinks about this as well. Well, I, I haven't fully invested in the RF shielding paint because it's so friggin expensive. But I've.

Yeah, the RF shielding paint. Painting the wall behind the smart meter, that actually is recommended.

Okay, that's what I was gonna go for. It's just, I didn't know if it was worth my money, you know, I mean, because that stuff's really expensive. But that's what I've been doing.

You can get a pretty big bucket of that paint off of Amazon for. I mean it's still expensive. It's about $300 for a 5 liter bucket of it.

It.

And I'll, I'll link to that in the show notes. But it wants to, wants to grab the, it's just called EMF protection paint. Yeah, but five liters. If you're painting specific areas like maybe where a satellite might be outside your house or, or, or smart meter or something like that. I, I think that you could probably get a lot of mileage out of, out of 5 liters of EMF paint. Right, that's.

And it sounds like it's well worth the investment investment too. I mean if it's gonna kind of absolutely destroy your health or my kids health.

Yeah, so, so there's a, there, there's a project for, for those of you who are stuck at home on quarantine. Just get yourself some, some EMR shielding paint and, and, and walk around your house. Just make sure you got a, you got a good air filter on when you're doing that. Yeah. So a few other things. Yeah, the, some of these personal protection devices like, you know, I, I have them scattered around my house, in particular the Soma Vedic and the Blue Shield, which can scramble a lot of these signals or replace them with more natural signals. The evidence goes back and forth on whether or not they actually work. They're not going to hurt you. And anecdotally, I have had multiple clients test pre and post inflammation and show a significant drop in CRP and a significant increase in deep sleep cycles when using these, as well as a drop in symptoms like the headaches, like the, the brain fog, like the eye irritation, etc. So I think if it's within your budget, it's worth it to get like a couple of these somavedic devices or one of the blue shield cubes and to put that in your house and just in a few rooms of your house. I got one in the living room, one in the bedroom, one down in my office.

Right.

The Defender Shield website is also fantastic. They've got a bunch of personal protection devices there for your phone, for your laptop, etc. You know, and, and I go through a lot of this stuff in my building biology podcast with Brian Hoyer, but I'm not opposed to the shielding paint and I'm also not opposed to of course, the, the WI FI router timers that you can plug your, your WI FI router into that will at least turn off the WI fi while you're at sleep, while you sleep during the night. So there's like a third of your life ideally where you're not getting exposed to the WI FI signal because it'll automatically, automatically turn off the router at say, 10pm and turn it on again around 6am A few other resources that people might find helpful in addition to my interview with Dr. Mercola and his book, as well as my interview with Brian Hoyer, would be one of the things that Mercola and I get into as far as personal protection strategies for as far as like supplementation that could help you with your exposure to emf. The big three would be a. There's a pretty steep influx of calcium that will shift the interior of the cell towards a positive charge and exposure to WI FI cell Phone signals, etc and supplementation with magnesium, like before you go to bed at night, that can assist with offsetting some of that calcium channel influx. So that's one thing. The next thing is we know that there is a downregulation of NF kappa B pathways, which are responsible for modulating inflammation in response to a lot of these signals. Signals turns out that like mild ketosis, modulating glucose intake, low level physical activity throughout the day, the type of things that would allow you to burn more fats would help. But I also, when I travel especially, and I'm exposed to a lot more signals when I travel, I'm not opposed to the use of ketone esters as a way to really upregulate the NF kappa B pathway. That would be like the HVMN ketone esters or the ketone AID ketone esters, which, which by the way, which I reported in the recent article I wrote on healthy cocktails, are wonderful as an alternative for alcohol in a cocktail as well. So they can kind of serve two functions. They give you like this feel good effect, very similar to alcohol without the toxic acetaldehyde buildup. So you could literally make yourself a Moscow mule. And when you put your lime and your ginger and everything in there, rather than using gin or vodka, you just put a shot of ketone esters in there.

There we go.

You can usually make ketone cocktails. So but it also helps with that inflammatory pathway. And then finally we know that anything that has sirtuin and NAD can directly repair the DNA that gets damaged by these signals. So sirtuin precursors would be things like blueberry powder, coffee berry, fruit extract, wine, dark cacao extract, you know, blueberries, blackberries, black currant berries, any of these type of things, you know, including things like resveratrol or pterostilbene, which I think is even more powerful than resveratrol. Those would all be helpful for the sirtuin component and then for the nad, if you weren't going to go and get like NAD IVs or something like that. I think right now the two best forms of NAD out there and the two that I have in my pantry are quicksilvers NAD Gold, which is a sublingual spray spray or a sublingual like a tincture. And then alive by nature, they make a little tablet of NMN that you dissolve in your mouth. I think either of those are wonderful for keeping your NAD levels topped off and hand in hand with sirtuin. It's one of the best ways to protect your DNA. I actually recently published on YouTube my full so called anti aging smoothie recipe.

Your $200 smoothie.

Yeah, I think it probably comes out to about 12 bucks a smoothie which that's not that bad. Yeah. Compared to buying an acai bowl, you know, the grocery store or whatever.

I could have sworn it would have been at least like 30 or 40 bucks. But 12 bucks, that's not bad.

No way. No way. Like 12 bucks is, is is high balling it. So I have if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Anti Aging Smoothie and I'll link to this also in the show notes@bengreenfulfitness.com 409 I have a full Amazon list of everything I put in my smoothie and if you scroll through the list like half of them are sirtuin or NAD precursors. So that'll help you guys with making a little breakfast tonic. That'll help to protect you. So long answer but short answer is yes, Barbara, you should try to get rid of your smart meter. Hey Ben, this is Logan. I wanted to ask you about supplementing with beef organs versus a traditional multivitamin and what gaps I might need to be aware of in my nutrition. I've been doing it now for about six weeks and feeling great on it. I just wanted to get your take on what I might need to be aware of. Thanks. Love the show. I love this question because it's so often that organ gets referred to as like you know, nature's multivitamin. Right. And we know that in our early ancestors diet that things like organs and glandulars were a staple. They were almost like a superfood. And there's even a little bit of interesting research from a guy named Dr. Ron Schmid who showed that radioisotope labeling studies in animals has shown that when eaten organs and glands selectively travel to the corresponding organs and glands in high concentrations. So when you look at a company like, like let's say ancestral supplements that's making like lung organ complex that may help with lung support. When you look at they've got brain complex, they've got thyroid complex, they've got thymus complex, they've got prostate complex. But there's some, not a lot of evidence but some hypothesis and a little bit of radioisotope labeling studies that show that these may actually, actually directly assist with your organs that are related to the specific organs that you've consumed. And I think there's still not enough research behind that. But you know when you look at something like the doctrine of signatures, right, like pomegranates and tomatoes might be good for your heart because when you cut them open, they look a little bit like the atrium and the ventricles of the heart. You know, walnuts might be good for your brain because they're shaped like a little brain. The sweet potatoes we know can stay stabilize insulin function and they're shaped like a little pancreas, you know, the avocados for the testicles. Like we go on and on. But I, I, you know, I, I'm, I'm kind of a, you know, I'm, I'm a hopeless romantic. I kind of like this idea that, you know, nature is smart and certain things that we see in nature that are shaped or that are related to certain functions of our body may actually have some crossover effect. Now when you look at organ meats, they are more densely packed with just about every nutrient than anything. Kale, blueberries, phytoplankton, algae, anything. So we know that they've got heavy doses of B vitamins like B1, B2, B6, folate, B12. We know they've got phosphorus, iron, copper, magnesium, iodine, zinc, selenium, sodium, calcium, potassium, A, D, E and K. Not a ton of vitamin C, but just about everything else. They've got a ton of arachidonic acids, acid and the omega 3 fats, EPA and DHA. So they've pretty much got nearly everything except arguably vitamin C that most multivitamins are going to have in them. And when you look at something like, you know, the ancestral supplements, they have like an organ complex, it's a blend of liver, heart, kidney, pancreas and spleen. I mean you're covering a lot of bases, bases with something like that. And you know, there's also a lot of bioavailable heme based iron, coenzyme Q10 in that blend and then a lot of enzymes as well. So you're covering a lot of bases. I think you could make a pretty strong argument that consuming organ complex capsules rather than a multivitamin is going to cover many of your bases. Now when you look at a multivitamin, like one that I often recommend is Thorns. Multivitamins. Yeah. There's some stuff in a multivitamin that you're not going to find in organ meats, like vitamin C is one example. The multivitamin I recommend from Thorne, they have green tea phytosomes in there, right? For promoting fat burning, they've got Meriva curcumin for helping with a healthy inflammatory balance and joint mobility. They've got like a nighttime blend of magnolia and philodendronic in the multivitamin PM formula to help with sleep. Right. So there's like some plants and herbs and spice extracts that are thrown in there that are often thrown into many multivitamins. And you could say that that differentiates a multivitamin from something like just consuming organ meat capsules. But you could, of course, cover many of those bases just by, you know, drinking some tea, putting some herbs and spices in your food, etc. So I'm, I'm not opposed to, to substituting for a daily multivitamin, something like an organ complex. I would be careful doing both, honestly, because when you look at these vitamins like A, D, E and K, if you're doubling up, those can be toxic in high amounts because they are stored in the body. So I would be cautious doing both in high amounts, but I would not be opposed, especially if you're testing and tracking your blood, looking at things like inflammatory markers, crp, thyroid function and endocrine function, et cetera. You could totally do an organ complex. Throw a little ascorbic acid or vitamin C with baking soda in a morning glass mason jar of water like I was talking about earlier, and you'd probably cover a lot of your bases. So I think there is something to it, Although I have yet to see research on the exact composition breakdown if anybody is listening. And you've, you've like, been able to plug like organ complex capsules into something like chronometer or something like that and, and get a direct printout of all vitamins and minerals and been ablemaybe a little project for one of our listeners and then been able to compare that to a multi. I would actually be fascinated toto see the results of something like that.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I actually ended up ditching my multivitamin probably about, I don't know, three or four months ago and started utilizing some ancestral supplements. Organ complex. And also I got some heart and some brain. And one of the things I love, like, if, especially if, if I need like an afternoon pick me up, like, cognitively, if I'm lagging a little bit, I'll take some brain. And so I think it's, it, it kind of speaks back to what you were saying that I, I'd like to think that there are some, I mean, there's some key elements to actually taking the organ of the thing that you're looking to enhance that's effective. I mean, one of the things I know, especially with brain is that it is chock full of phosphatidylsterine. And that is like one of the things that I utilize a ton for HRV enhancement, but also too just cognitive enhancement. And so I think there's a lot to this and for me it has actually made a huge difference. A lot of times when I would take a multi even thorn, like it would make me feel somewhat, a little bit, I would say maybe almost nauseous, especially if I didn't take it with food and it just didn't feel great. And then now if I take the organ supplements, I feel like a million bucks. So I'm definitely a believer.

Yeah, yup, I agree. And then one other thing I should note is that when I was telling you guys about some of the discounts that we have from sponsors, I figured thisthis would fit in right here. In addition to ancestral supplements, I'm a huge fan of Paleo Valley. Paleo Valley has a really good organ complex and then they also have, if you throw these in with your organ complex, they just launched a new beef stick like grass fed grass finished beef stick that, that they flavor with all organic spices. My kids have just been punishing those during quarantine because they got huge levels of omega 3 fatty acids, glutathione, conjugated linoleic acid, which is wonderful for both kids and adults for enhancing things like fat burning and mitochondrial function. And they stepped up and gave all of our listeners a 15% discount. So if you wanted to try an organ complex, Paleo Valley has a discount all put it in the show notes. But it's pretty simple. You just go to paleovalley.com Ben that gets you 15% off. And they actually have a pretty stacked organ complex. So that might be a good one to look into. But if you get that one, throw some, throw some beef sticks in there too. So those, those aren't gonna be the same as eating just organ meats, but man, beef sticks plus organ meats and you're off to the races.

Winning combo.

All you need. That's all you. Well that and the anti aging smell. And that's all you need.

Ben hello there, my name is Tim Shea.

I have been struggling with sleep issues.

For many years and have tried many things.

At the moment I'm looking at two devices. One of them is the chilipad which cools the body and the other is ebb sleep which cools the brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex. I'm curious if you have an opinion about the efficacy of one over the other. Thank you very much for listening. The chilipad and the ebb, you use either of those, Jay?

I have an ULER system. Yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty much, yeah.

It's kind of the same as Chilipad. They're the chilipad have been in contact with them. There was some discussion about their devices possibly being high in emf. They pretty much retooled all their devices to be low EMF. But what it does is it circulates 55 degree cold water under your body while you are asleep. And this is just based on the concept of thermoneutrality, which is the range of ambient temperatures within which metabolic processes and natural thermulation or thermoregulation is achieved by the body during say a night of sleep. And the microclimate during sleep that appears to be best particularly for enhancing deep sleep is, is that of a pretty cool environment. Specifically if you can get like anywhere in the 55° to 64° Fahrenheit sleep temperature of your actual sleep surface, it can directly enhance sleep and the recovery and repair that occurs during sleep. And it's just one of those so called zeitgebers. Right. We know in the mammalian brain there's a master clock located in air called the scn, the suprachiasmatic nucleus. And part of that is driven by body temperature fluctuation, particularly a drop in natural body temperature at night. So what the chilipad does is it circulates water through a mattress pad during a night of sleep. And they've even got a function on there that'll, that'll make it like a little bit warm as you're gradually waking up. I don't activate that function because I'm concerned I might pee my pants when my, that's actually my alarm. Alarm goes off. Yeah, yeah, it's great. It's great alarm clock. Yeah.

Peeing my pants due to the warmth.

Burn on the inner thighs jacks you wake. But, but yeah, this, this idea of circulating cold water under the bed absolutely backed by science. And I think if you can afford one and the other cool thing because I, I like to punish me a ribeye sometimes at night. I don't get a lick of meat sweats when I'm sleeping on the chili pad, which is amazing. I guess that would also apply to, to women who get the night sweats from, you know, from pms, but it really, really helps. So yes, I'm a fan of the chilipad, but if you're looking at the prefrontal cortex. So the idea behind this is that if you look at the forehead, specifically the frontal cortex, that's the area where you get a lot of activity during periods of sleeplessness and racing thoughts, which typically happen when you're trying to fall asleep at night. Night, or when you're trying to stay asleep. Like if you wake up at 3 or 4am and you have that racing mind. And they've shown in studies that that is caused by increased metabolic activity in the frontal cortex of the brain or it leads to increased metabolic activity in the frontal cortex of the brain. Now this researcher named Dr. Eric Nofzinger published a clinical study in the journal Sleep that showed that when you can cool the forehead, it leads to a direct reduction in the metabolic activity in the frontal cortices of the brain. So they then took that research and this company called EBB developed this forehead worn device that circulates cold water across your forehead while you are asleep. And I have used one, I have tried one out. My complaint with it is as a side sleeper, I have difficulty getting it to stay on during a whole night of sleep. But what I have found is if I wake up during the night and I put it on my head and then just as I'm falling back asleep, as it's kind of shut down my frontal cortex, I just kind of slip it off or allow it to naturally fall off as I roll to my side, it does actually work work. So there's something to be said for this idea of cooling the head. And in this case I think they use close to something like 60 degrees Fahrenheit, but they've tested it, it's safe. I have yet to measure it for EMF production. I'm going to do that when Brian Hoyer comes out. But I've owned one for about two months and I think there's something to this idea of head cooling. But I'd be remiss not to mention that if you cannot afford something like a head cooling device like an EBB or a fancy sleep system like a chilipad. There was another study that found that for falling asleep and staying asleep, you can actually vasodilate all the blood vessels in your extremity and get a significant drop in body temperature by simply going to sleep with limited clothing on and not pulling too many covers on, et cetera, and wearing a good breathable warm sock, like a smart wool sock. And so you just basically put on a pair of socks before you go to bed and that will help to keep the rest of your body cooler, kind of counterintuitive. Right? You're warming your feet, but you're cooling the rest of your body. And they've shown that that can nearly triple the decrease in, in sleep latency, the amount of time that it takes to fall asleep. So even if you can't do a chili pad or an ebb, you can literally just pull socks on, like smart wool socks, Good, breathable, warming socks. And that's actually a trick that works. So there you have it. Nice.

Cool. Have you been using your ebb with the chilipad or did you turn off the chilipad to see if this one has.

Well, I, I. What, what would be cool? You know, sorry, eb, but what would be cool is if, if chilipad, like, you know, added a, an extra hookup to their device. So you didn't. Because the problem with the app is it's yet another device to keep next to the bed.

Exactly, exactly.

Just kind of adds up. Related to the EMF we were talking about earlier, like, right. How many things you want plugged in next to your bed? So, yeah. Anyways though, speaking of bed, I wonder how many listeners we've put to sleep with this super long podcast we've been going, man, I'm hoping we gave you guys some good info and we're gonna put all the links and stuff over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com we love it when you guys leave reviews. So if you go to Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this podcast, you know, give us a star. Leave something nice. It actually really, really helps with the ranking of the show. It's kind of like leaving a review on Amazon for a book. It's one of the best things you can do for the author. One of the best things you can do for a podcaster is leave a review. So please, please, please, if you get a chance, leave us a review. Review. We occasionally read the reviews on the show and give cool away when your review is read on the show. And Jay, did we have any reviews this week?

Oh, we do that.

We want to read. We do.

We've got, we've got a standout. Yeah. From all right, Greg Rad 84, who entitled this. Yeah. Ultimate favorite. He says. Or she says. I don't know. Greg could be a female too, right? Says best, best podcast in the world for health optimization. This podcast is provided to me with a wealth of knowledge to improve my health based on real, up to date science.

Thanks.

Radical, Greg.

I like it. Yeah, I don't, I don't know how much real, up to date science there is for me saying that if you eat prostate from a cow that your prostate will get healthier. But you know, sometimes we just throw some ideas out there and see what sticks. So and again, again, we always encourage you guys to make this into a conversation and go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com 409 if you have your own research to throw in or you know, things that you want to add in the equation, like if anybody's found a good comparison of organ capsules versus multivitamins, et cetera. In the meantime, what was the name of theof the person who left that review? Jay Gregrad 84 alright Greg Rad Email gearngreenfieldfitness.com Let me know your T shirts and size and we'll get you a sweet goodie pack sent out. T shirt size and a mailing address please. And in the meantime for everybody else, thanks for listening in. Jay. I'm gonna go shoot some ozone up my ass using this brand spanking fancy new ozone generator and then go about my day farting ozone dude.

Man, I'm just gonna stick with my breath work so you let me know how that goes.

All right, have an amazing I'm doing breath work work. I'm just doing it up the ass too. There you go. All right folks, have an amazing day. BenGreenfieldFitness.com4:09 are where the shownotes reside. We spend a lot of time on those, so hit them up and stay healthy, stay safe, stay sane. Don't get too big of a Cabin Fever episode and we'll talk to you next week. Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything, everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every other episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes, use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.