Episode #390 – Full Transcript

Affiliate Disclosure

Transcripts

Podcast from: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/390-nicotine-healthy/

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast: Is nicotine healthy? How long does stem cell therapy last? A new way to fast, zero gravity beds and much more.

He’s an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America’s top personal trainor 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.

Brock: Hey, Ben! Do you smell something weird? I smell something strange. It kinda smells like liver. Is that possible?

Ben:    Liver. Yes, not patté and hopefully, not fatty liver. But as you and I were just chatting before we hit “record”, I am, indeed, doing a liver cleanse this week.

Brock: It smells like a delightfully clean liver.

Ben:    Yeah, I’m venturing down into to the den of satanic hedonism this weekend in Vegas to watch UFC. UFC 229 is coming up.

Brock: I thought you’re going to that island that’s called Hedonism where everybody basically, I think it’s just like an orgy sort of island.

Ben:    I think there are multiple places like that. I’m sure a whole bunch of single listeners’ ears just perked up, including Montigo Bay Jamaica. I think that it’s like a couples’ resort. It’s not how those resorts work like sandals resort in Jamaica. I think it’s just one joint swingers’ compound.

Brock: I think so, yeah. Sounds sensible, right?

Ben:    I don’t know about this hedonism island that you allude to but as a happily married man of 15 years, I’ll probably not visit that place anytime soon.

Brock: I didn’t allude to it. I came right out and said it.

Ben:    Yeah, I don’t know how we got on that from liver, but…

Brock: You said you’re going to Vegas.

Ben:    That’s right. I’m going to Vegas to see UFC 229. I have some seats.

Brock: Of course, ‘cause your show is shooting down, too.

Ben:    Right next to the cage, I’ve got seats. I don’t think I’m going to go out of my way to go see Celine Dione but my wife and I are gonna watch Guys Speed Each Other Up. The thing I’m doing, though, this week is I’m cleansing my liver. I’m doing a liver cleanse. I just finished competing in Spartan World Championships where I won the title of the World’s Fittest CEO. It’s assuming you judge the world’s fittest CEO by how well they crawl under barb wire and carry a sand bag.

Brock: I do. How else would you?

Ben:    Yeah and I figure out I got a few days to settle my ass or at least a few days where I don’t need to work out super duper hard. So what I’m doing is this is just very passive cleanse that I’m actually liking it quite a bit. I just finished breakfast and for breakfast and actually also for the majority of my meals for lunch and dinner, too, I’ve been eating chichory and drinking celery juice. Those are kind of the two main components of the cleanse aside from not eating red meat, not drinking alcohol, not consuming caffeine, aside from the caffeine I’m shooting up my butt every morning as part of the cleanse, which I guess, makes a little bit more than a simple cleanse as I’m doing a coffee enema every morning. I’m drinking Epsom salts at night which tastes like ass.

Brock: Like sea water.

Ben:    No. Way worse than sea water.

Brock: _____ (0:04:09.5)

Ben:      Yes.

Brock: _____(0:04:12)

Ben:    Yeah. Sea water but I’m mixing it with acacia fiber. So basically, what this means is I wake up every morning feeling as though I’ve been clinching my ass rolling in bed for the past 8 hours.

Brock:            It’s kind of a curse.

Ben:    Yeah. So anyways, I’m gonna test my liver enzymes. I published…I don’t know if you listened to my last podcast, my solo episode.

Brock: I sure did.

Ben:    What are we gonna call those now? The solosode?

Brock: The solosode.

Ben:    Yeah. So I’m a little bit concerned about my liver enzymes so I decided, “What the heck, I’m gonna try this liver cleanse” which is, I know is bouncing all over the place but let me spell this out for folks.

Brock:            Bring it home, Ben.

Ben:    Chichory. Tell you what that is in a moment. For most of my meals, celery juice, which is a fantastic liver cleanse. It just involves me juicing about 5 stalks of celery at the same time I’m heating up my chichory tea. So that’s very simple.

Brock: So like a shot of celery? Doesn’t sound like you can make much juice.

Ben:    No. It comes out to about maybe 8 to 12 ounces or so by the time I juice at all.

Brock: Really?

Ben:    And I mix that with malolactic powder because part of this cleanse is supposed to involve drinking copious amounts of apple cider. But I don’t like apple cider and I didn’t want all that sugar and so I am using malolactic instead, which is just a powder that you get off Amazon. It tastes like apple cider but it actually does a pretty good job at enhancing several phases of the liver detoxification pathways.

Brock: Wait, just to clarify: Not apple cider vinegar and not fermented apple cider that would get you drunk but like just juiced apples.

Ben:    Just juiced apples, yes.

Brock: Okay. That does seem like a lot of sugar.

Ben:    Yeah. It’s part of the detoxification protocol developed in Europe, in Switzerland, actually, by one of the fellows who developed a lot of protocols that we’ll be following when I take a whole bunch of people over to Switzerland next year. We’ll put links to that in the show notes, by the way, if anybody still wants to get in. I think there’s a waitlist but it’s at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/390  where we’ll spend like 2 weeks up in the Swiss Alps hiking and detoxing. But anyways, so there’s the malolactic powder that I’m mixing with the celery juice. Drink that, eat chichory, do a coffee enema every morning, do the Epsom salts with the fiber source, which can be psyllium husk, it can be acacia, it can be triphala, just anything that kinda gets the bowels moving the next morning.  And that’s really it aside from just omitting anything that would be considered slightly acidic or something that would require more processing by your liver such as alcohol, anything like Tylenol….

Brock: or something

Ben:    Right. All those marijuana edibles that I eat entire chocolate bars of every night. All of that is out the window. So it’s about a six-day liver cleanse and the last day involves a few other little protocols, basically, just like a longer fast and more of the Epsom salts and I know we’re really geeking out here but a castor oil pack placed on the gallbladder and liver area, and then you finish up and then I’ll hop in a plane to Vegas and go…

Brock: Scooby-Doo. BG on liver break backed up with _______ (0:07:43.7)

Ben:    Fantastic things I’ve done with my liver.

Brock: One more question. Before you get to chichory. So this one of those cleanses that you just basically are increasing the amount of waste that you’re putting out. This is like on a different kind of level, right?

Ben:    Yeah. It’s a different kind of level. It’s really weird. I was laying in bed last night and I could feel my liver. This sounds really odd but it was almost like it was twitching, like contracting. It’s very odd.

Brock: I do think it has those kinda muscle fibers.

Ben:    Well, it could have been my gallbladder. Liver produces bile and gallbladder stores the bile so my gallbladder might have just been churning on bile. I don’t know. Something is happening down there on my upper right quadrant.

Brock: (whisper) Something’s happening.

Ben:    Can’t tell you that. So chichory is essentially one pot meal of split mung beans with a little bit of Basmati rice and then there are a whole bunch of different herbs that you put into that as it’s simmering on the stove. I literally made myself enough for the entire week so I just have to do this once. But you mix things like cumin, fennel and coriander, ginger, turmeric. I put some fenugreek in there, black mustard seeds, and then, I used, especially for the sophora thing, which is actually good for the liver and is enhanced by the presence of the mustard, I put kale and cauliflower and some cruciferous vegetables in there as well. You simmer all of these with a little bit of coconut oil and coconut cream so it’s got of a little bit of a creamy texture and I think that makes it far more palatable. And then you simply serve with a little bit of fresh lime and a little bit of coconut yogurt and some sea salt to taste and that’s it. It’s actually pretty pleasant. I could get used to this. I’m not sick of it after having eaten it already this week like 8 times.

Brock: I did in the coconut yogurt that sounds very similar, though, a lot of stuff today when I was in Peru last year.

Ben:    Oh, really?

Brock: Yeah. ________ (0:90:49.8)  like very fancy beans and rice.

Ben:    Peruvians must have fantastic livers. So yeah! Anyways, if I combust some pile of explosive diarrhea during today’s podcast episode or my liver turns gray and falls out, we know why.

Brock: We know why.

(news flashes)

Ben:    That’s pretty good!

Brock: News flashes

Ben:    You know I’ve thought in the past about how maybe it’s a little bit gimmicky, how we have like the music and the radio announcer voice in between each of the little sections of our podcast but at the same time, it’s kind of old schooly.

Brock: Yeah. I feel like it’s, we’re like 1950’s radio drama.

Ben:    It breaks things up well, I think. I kinda like it. Yeah, it’s like what era did you say? 50’s?

Brock: Yeah, I said 50’s but it could even be 30’s, maybe.

Ben:    Yeah, 30’s.

Brock: Come back to like War of the Worlds.

Ben:    I don’t know. I don’t listen to radio much on 30’s.

Brock: You missed out.

Ben:    You know, I remember back in the day like all the podcasts used to have like barrage band sounds.

Brock: They’re all the same ones.

Ben:    And music in them, almost like creative comments and they use the same music. Some podcasts like ours, they’ll kinda have little music interludes and a radio announcer voice. Maybe someday I’ll get rid of that but for now, I think it’s kinda fun.

Brock:            It’s fun.

Ben:    If it annoys you and you’re listening in, just leave us a comment over at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/390.

Brock: And then, of course, go to hell, ‘cause we don’t care what you think.

Ben:    Yeah. We may not fire our radio announcer. Anyways, this is the part of the show where we talk about interesting things that came across my plate this week and one I thought was just gonna be a silly article like…Have you ever seen the Sit and Be Fit on public television – the Sit and Be Fit workout which are probably also on youtube? Just go to youtube and do search for “sit and be fit” if you want to be entertained by a ridiculous workout. Anyways, though, this article is about how to sit on a chair properly. It has this very pleasant older woman who is demonstrating via this wonderful animated GIFs….

Brock: She’s pretty damn fit-looking, too like she’s _____ (0:12:06.7). I’ve listened to her.

Ben:    Yeah. She’s a hot old lady. Anyways, Jean Couch, age 75, she’s a percher. She teaches people how to sit in chairs without back pain and I though some of her tips were really good. We’ll link to this. We go to www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/390 but 3 of them are potent tips shared in that article. If I can describe it to folks listening and may not have time to go read the article. One is when you sit on a chair, you want to sit on edge of the chair which allows you to keep your pelvis from tucking under your spine and keeps your back from being in a C-shape. So essentially, what you wanna do when you sit on a chair, you move yourself towards the edge of the chair so that you’re as close as possible to having your knees below your hip sockets. So when you are leaning back on a chair, your knees are at or above the level of you hip sockets and you want the level of the knees, if you draw a horizontal plain from your hip sockets out to where your knees are, to be just a little bit below the level of the hip sockets and one of the best ways to do that is you simply, when you sit on a chair, kinda push yourself just a little bit more towards the edge of the chair.

Brock: So you have the whole chair but you only need the edge.

Ben:    Pretty much. Yeah. We’ve made like half the chair useless with that tip. The next thing that she does is she recommends you build a perch. So this kind of reminds me of a mother bird getting food into the forest and gathering sticks, leaves and branches.

Brock:            (whistles)

Ben:    Great sound effects, Brock. You’ll do a good mother bird. Also chew up your food and spit it in your girlfriend’s mouth before she eats. Anyways, you perch and the way that you do this is you find a pillow or you could take like a blanket or a jacket or shirts or a roll-up yoga mat or whatever and when you’re sitting towards the edge of the chair, you make yourself this wedge-shaped pillow. What that allows you to do is it tilts your pelvis forward so you’re just slightly elevated above the chair. So again, your hipbones are kinda falling back and resting towards the back of the chair. But that wedge is almost keeping you pushed towards the front of the chair just slightly and most people have some kind of a coat or something that you can just roll up and put behind you. If you’re at a restaurant, you can probably just ask for a whole bunch of napkins and do it that way. You build yourself this little bit of a perch that I guess the best way to think about this is  you put it just a little bit underneath the back part of your butt cheeks to tilt your pelvis forward and it’s a great idea. I’ve actually been trying a lot of stuff since reading the article and most of it works like your back feels far more comfortable. And then the last one is when you’re sitting in your car or you’re sitting in an airplane or anywhere where you really are relegated. You can’t sit towards the edge of the chair when you’re in your car or else your boobs are gonna be stuck in the steering wheel and your chins are gonna be pushed in the dash board.

Brock: You’re steering with your chin.

Ben:    Right! So what you do is you take your shirt or your jacket or your wedge or your yoga mat or whatever else is up in the car that you can use. Small child would probably work.

Brock: Sure! Small animal?

Ben:    Yeah, or an animal, yeah, a bird. You would actually put the cushion that you create right in the middle of your midback or in the midback from pillow, blanket, sweater or whatever. And then you elongate you’re spine by just kinda stretching your back over that pillow and you’ve turn that painful slouchy chair or car seat or airplane seat into a really comfortable support but also you keep yourself from slouching; you keep your back from again, turning into that notoriously damaging C-shape that you don’t want to have. Those are the 3 tips: sit at the edge of the seat; build a perch; and put some kind of a cushion behind your midback when you’re in a car seat or an airplane seat.

Brock:            I took away a fourth thing from her images. If you look at the way her legs are positioned, she has them sort of out in front of her so she is not increasing that flexion that’s happening in your hip flexors. So she’s actually like opening up a little bit by keeping her legs more or less straight and one often straighter than the other, too, which kinda mimicks that way that we always talk about the Captain Morgan stands – when you’re standing on your desk, you should have one foot up occasionally. It served the same idea.

Ben:    Yeah. A ball of ram in your hands. So Check out that article. And then another one that I like is this new study on express weight training. Have you heard about this?

Brock: Yes.

Ben:    And you said you that it found that you can build strength in just 13 minutes. So this was pretty interesting. What it looked into and this would not be a way to build a copious amounts of athletic performance to allow you to go and compete in the crossfit games, for example. However…

Brock: Or a bunch of muscle like gain a bunch of muscle mass either.

Ben:    Yeah. Exactly.

Brock: This is the only way to build strength which is great.

Ben:    Yeah. Build strength, not hyperthrophy. That’s a good point. These folks weren’t actually building muscle. What they did in the study was they took a whole bunch of young men and they had one group complete 5 sets of each of the different exercises that they use – common exercise like the bench press, the lat pull down, and the leg press and a set of any of these exercises simply require the participants to lift 2 failure. And please note that they were lifting 2 failure. That’s important. One group did 5 sets of each exercise to failure with 90 seconds of rest between exercises. They’re at the gym for about 70 minutes.

Brock: Pretty standard. That’s the general way most people do it, including me.

Ben:    Yes. And then the second group was asked to complete 3 sets of each exercise and for them, they were at the gym for about 40 minutes. But the final group, they only had them do one set of each exercise and it took that group about 13 minutes. So they did this for a relatively long period of time. They’re there for 8 weeks and they’re working out for 3 times a week and they did before and after measurements of muscular strength. They also measured muscle size and muscle endurance. Neither of which seem to be significantly affected but after the 2 months of training, after this weeks of training, all of the groups were stronger including the group that did just one set. And in fact, the group that did just one set gained as much strength as the group that did 3 sets and even the group that did 5 sets. The caveat is that the group that did 5 sets definitely had a significantly greater amount of muscle mass development. So they gained better size. But when it came to strength, it turns out that these brief forays in the gym can do just fine in terms of allowing you to maintain functional strength. I, personally, did a kind of a variation of this quite a bit when I travel. Probably, the difference between me and the group in the study is that I’m in the gym a little bit longer. Probably closer to, by the time I’ve warmed up and everything, 20 to 25 minutes because what I do is a single set to failure for 5 different exercises – the chest press, the pull down, the shoulder press, the seated row and the leg press. But I do super slow training, which means that I’m doing any of those given exercises for about 2 to 2 ½ minutes and further more I finish off each set with a quick kinda partial range of motion series of explosive reps so that I completely exhaust the muscle and (and this is important) I use my fast-twitch muscle fiber so I’m hitting those and not just the slower twitch fibers that I use during the super slow training. That’s kind of the variation that I use – a little bit more of super slow approach but I’m still doing just one single bleeding lactic acid ______(0:20:29.1) eyeballs and ears set to failure and then I’m done. And this study backs up the fact that that really does allow you to maintain strength but also hack your life so you’ve got more time available. I think it’s good for people to know that you don’t have to spend that much time in the gym. If your gym is your getaway ______ (0:20:53.5) meditation for the day, go into the gym for an hour and put in an audio book or the nudge-nudge-wink-wink Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast ‘cause this is definitely a podcast that’s longer than 13 minutes. If that’s your meditation, fine. But if you just wanna get in and get out quickly, please note that a single set is all that it really takes.

Brock: Hey, let me ask you this: When you do your workout or when you tell somebody to start this workout, how would you determine what weight to start with? What would you load up the bar with, let’s say for a chest press single set?

Ben:    You know what? My method is pretty rough around the edges but the way that I do it is I do the first rep and If I can’t do the first rep with really good form moving super slow, if I’m already arching my back, for example, on that first rep, then I reach down to little pins on the weight stack and I decrease the weight by a plate. And some of those machines have the micro adjustment little knob that you can turn that’ll decrease it 5 or 10 pounds. I do a little bit tweaking on that first rep. If I can maintain perfect form on that first rep, and I can also sense that I’m not gonna be completely toast within like 30 seconds or after one or 2 reps, then I’ll keep the weight where it’s at but yeah, it’s a little bit of kind of a foggy science but the more that you do this style of training, the more you get used to just kind of knowing whether you’ve got way too much weight loaded or not enough. And then the other thing that you can do is you can strip set. As you go through the set, if you get to 3 reps, and you’ve had maybe 60 seconds of time under tension, you know that you won’t get 2 to 2 ½ minutes of time under tension. You can just decrease the weight a little bit. That’s why I like to do this type of workout on machines ‘cause it’s very simple. The chest press to reach down and just the machine keep going versus with dumbells, where you gotta go rack them or the barbell where you gotta remove plate, tab plate, etc.

Brock: That was a good measure ‘cause the time under stress is probably the most important thing anyway, so instead of thinking about it in terms of weight, just think about what you can lift for 2 minutes without stopping or your form falling apart.

Ben:    Yeah. And if you wanna read the whole book about this, if you need to read the entire book to learn how to super slow train, I think it’s necessary ______ (0:23:18.9) book. It’s Body by Science by author Doug McGuff. Great book on that one.

Brock: All right. I’ll stop bugging you on this book. Move on.

Ben:    The last thing was a simple method of fasting that produce some pretty profound body fat and metabolic results. In a nut shell, what this study did was they simply had people delay their morning meal – their breakfast by 90 minutes. And then eat dinner 90 minutes earlier. Right, so they’re creating, in a sense, a compressed feeding window for the subjects during this 10-week study. So you call this time-restricted feeding, which is a form of intermittent fasting. The participants were split into 2 groups – the group that, of course, ate meals as they normally would eat meals just sprinkled throughout the day and then another group that waited an extra 90 minutes to eat breakfast. Let’s say you have your breakfast at 10:00 A.M. instead of 8:30 A.M. And then, they move their dinner back so instead of having dinner at let’s say 7:30 P.M., you’d have dinner at 6:00 P.M. What they found was a significant response in fat. As a matter of fact, the researchers found that people who changed their mealtimes lost an average more than twice as much body fat as the control group with this simple switch. What I like about this is a very simple switch for reduction of body fat via this compressed feeding window. You simply take whatever time you normally eat breakfast and even if you can just try this for a week to see what happens. Just shift that breakfast time forward by 90 minutes and yeah, that might mean that you’re having breakfast at your office while you’re working and breakfast might be whatever – a smoothie or a handful of nuts and berries or say like maybe a cup of coffee with some super foods or mushrooms or oils or something like that blended in so that it’s something that you can eat while you’re working and then for dinner, you simply have dinner earlier, which, of course, also requires some shifts in your schedule. Let’s say you go to the gym normally in the afternoon or in the evening after work, or maybe you would actually have dinner and then get some things done, play your kids, hang out, read, do whatever it is you can do and then go to the gym at let’s say 7:00 because you had dinner earlier. It requires some switching of some of your schedules but ultimately, it’s pretty significant – the amount of fat loss that occurred by the introduction of this compressed feeding window and I think this is a very logical and simple way for people to wrap their heads around it because that’s all they did in the study – delay breakfast by 90 minutes and then have dinner 90 minutes earlier.

Brock: So I wouldn’t suggest this for most of people who are listening to this podcast right now are probably already doing a compressed feeding window. They’re probably doing like 16-18 hour overnight intermittent fast. Now you don’t wanna add this on top of that.

Ben:    I’m gonna interrupt you. I don’t think most people are doing 16-18 hour. I think most people are probably doing a 12-16 hour. But think about the 16-18 hour. That usually requires completely skipping breakfast in most cases because you’re not eating till noon or 1 P.M. in many cases if you’re doing that type of fast. These folks are still eating breakfast. They’re just eating breakfast later.

Brock: Yeah. Ok sure. So if you’re already doing intermittent fasting, though, like if it’s 12 hours, this isn’t necessarily on top of that. This is for people who aren’t already engaging in some sort of intermittent fast.

Ben:    Yeah. Exactly. Anyways, ruling to the study…

Brock: I just wanna hope _____ (0:26:56.2) we were running off and be like “Well, I’m eating for like 6 hours. Now I guess I have to chop another 3 hours off of that.

Ben:    Right. Another way to think about this is just have an 8-10 hour compressed feeding window whenever you normally, just try to spread all your meals within about 8-10 hours, preferably not between midnight and 8:00 A.M., try and chew something more conducive to Circadian rhythmicity. Have all your meals between 10:00 A.M. and 6:00 P.M., for example. The only other thing I should throw in there is that in our household – the Greenfield household – I have sacrificed the health benefits and the Circadian rhythm benefits of an earlier dinner for the social and happiness benefits of having a family dinner ‘cause by the time my kids finish Jujitsu and tennis and piano and post-school activities, by the time I finish all I have to get done during the day, by the time my wife has actually gotten done with the goats and the chickens in the yard and everything we’re doing, sometimes we just don’t have the time to sit down together as a family until 8:00 or 8:30 P.M. for dinner. And yes, that’s not ideal because ideally, you should have your dinner done with about 3 hours prior to bedtime and ideally, you should have this compressed feeding window but I also…in our household, family dinners are a must. That’s the time when we gather around and we play table topics and we play some game together like Pictionary, which I find annoying ‘cause I have to stop every 2 minutes and permitting to draw something. But we really prioritize this time when the whole family can get together at the end of the day. We can’t do it at breakfast because everyone’s running around, getting ready for the day, getting ready for school. Lunch time, the kids aren’t here and lunch has become an afterthought for me anyways and I’m working through lunch and so dinner turns out to be the meal that allows us to have this family dinners that, in my opinion, are one of the things that kinda keeps our family together and all on the same page and lets us catch up on each other’s lives and not be like ships in the night throughout the entire week. For those of you listening in, who feel like this could disrupt family dinners, for example, I personally think the importance of family dinners and a good social relationship with your family trumps any metabolic issues that might arise from having a slightly later dinner.

Brock: And in fact, even in that study, they said in the questionnaire after the study was done, that the respondents indicated that social eating and drinking opportunities were negatively impacted even by this 90-minute thing.

Ben:    Right.

Brock: It’s a problem.

Ben:    Exactly. So don’t do this if it means you gotta sacrifice beers with the boys in the evening. It’s not worth it.

Special Announcements

Ben:    So this is the part of the show where I give everybody amazing deals that you can’t get elsewhere. Don’t fast forward this because we’re actually going to give you some pretty good deals. And even extra tips like chichory that I mentioned can be _____ (0:30:04.4) that coconut cream and coconut oil you kind of include is you’re simmering the split mung beans and the rice with all the spices and herbs. Well, coconut cream is actually a really good thing to have around. It’s extremely high in B vitamins and vitamin E. It’s got a ton of selenium and phosphorous and magnesium in it. And coconut milk is, of course, quite popular but coconut cream is creamier, it’s more thick, it’s a little bit more rich and you can get really good high quality coconut cream that comes from ethically sourced (I guess this means that they didn’t kill any humans or small animals or pollute sea water or anything like that)

Brock: I can see that primates I think that are in danger here.

Ben:    Yeah. They didn’t take down any monkeys. So they used ethically sourced organic coconuts in the Philippines and these are incredibly pure coconut extract. They only have coconut extract and water. No carrageenan or preservatives or anything like that. I order this. I order about once a month from this company called Thrive Market. What Thrive Market does is they carry a whole bunch of food and snacks and vitamins and supplements and personal care products and eco-friendly cleaning supplies but they give you about 50% off on average what you’d normally pay at like the fancy grocery store like say co-pay check.  And then they also have about 70 % of the catalogue comprised of things you can’t find on Amazon like a really good clean organic stuff that is kind of like a step above when it comes to health and everything from organic the way that is ethically sourced, the way that it’s shipped, packaged, everything. You can actually get 25% on your first order to Thrive Market. In addition to that, what they’re giving all the listeners is $60 of free groceries, free shipping, and a 30-day trial. So a ton of goodies from Thrive Market and may I recommend the coconut cream and sugar. And if you’re a clean-up your liver like me, very simple. Just go to www.thrivemarket.com/ben and you can be off to the races. Get the coconut flake cereal, too while you’re over there. That’s just amazing.

Brock: And the sprouted popcorn.

Ben:    Yeah. So try www.thrivemarket.com/ben. I also, while I’ve got everyone’s mouth-watering, want to fill you in, that’s ______ (0:32:45.0) the baby bird, the baby bird….

Brock: The mama bird throwing up.

Ben:    Mama bird throwing up and then a disgusting salivary sound that you just made.

Brock: I hope nobody has that…what’s that called? The hyperphonia? No

Ben:    Yeah. The ability to be able to sense. How does that go again?

Brock: It’s when you absolutely, irrationally hate the sound of mouth creases – misophonia.

Ben:    Misophonia

Brock: Sorry, everybody with misophonia.

Ben:    Yup! That’s why I’m not chewing my gum right now. So cud and coconut curry bowl with brown rice, sweet and spicy Udon noodles with fried eggs and vegetables and seared chicken and roasted potatoes with kale salad and creamy Calabrian dressing are just 3 of the meals that are on the menu this week at Blue Apron. So what Blue Apron does is they deliver all these farm-fresh ingredients and step-by-step recipe cards to your door and you choose any of these recipes, you cook them. You can make them in as little as 20 minutes. My kids make these meals. They ship them straight to the house and they’ve got all sorts of these fantastic chef-designed recipes like the ones that I just talked about. For those of you who do things like the whole 30 diet, for example, they’ve got a whole 30 approved menu. They do have healthy stuff and they make it incredibly convenient. Speaking of family dinners, you may not have time to cook them because you’re off whatever, at soccer practice. You can get home and have one of these meals that’s ready to rumble in literally 20 minutes. Everybody listening gets their first 3 meals free. Very simple, get to www.blueapron.com/ben. Another thing you can eat is this stuff called Omax. Have you tried this yet, Brock? Omax? O-m-a-x.

Brock: No.

Ben:    So it’s called Omax. What they pride themselves on is they make the purest omega 3 supplements. So meaning that a lot of fish oil you’ll get fish burps and in many cases, that’s because of saturated fats and toxins and PCBs. They remove all these stuff with the special distillation process that they use at Omax. So all your left with are these ultra pure omega 3 fatty acids and you even have this cool thing to do called the freezer test challenge where if you freeze a lot of other fish oils they get cloudy and that’s just all the filler but the Omax 3 gels, they remain totally clear. They actually have one, too, that’s like this really cool CBD-infused omega 3 fatty acid.

Brock: Really? Wow!

Ben:    Yeah. It’s really good for night time relaxation like theanine, CBD, I forgot what else is in it. But anyways, it’s called Omax 3 Ultra Pure. It’s the one that’s just completely pure fish oil. What you get is a free box of Omax with any purchase from Omax. They’re just gonna give you a free box that they’ll throw in there. And to do that, you go to www.tryomax.com/ben and you get a free box of their Omax 3 Ultra Pure with any of the purchase there. So it’s O-M-A-X – www.omax.com/ben.

Brock: www.tryomax.com/ben, in fact.

Ben:    I’m sorry try, – T-R-Y, www.tryomax.com/ben is the URL. And the last thing is…probably is something that you could eat…it is clean enough to eat if you really wanted to…it is a deodorant. And the primary ingredients are coconut oil, arrow root powder, a little bit of sodium bicarbonate or baking soda and then essential oils. And the one that I use is Cedar Fresh. If you smell me, anytime you see me, those of you out there up in a meeting or conferences or stuff, if I smell like a wonderful flavorful forest like the council of elves running around on it, it’s because I’m wearing this deodorant. I’m not eating it. I’m just wearing it. It’s called Cedar Fresh. It’s an organic plant-based natural deodorant and I get this…What’s so funny?

Brock: You smell like BO in forest.

Ben:    Yeah. I smell like a horribly detoxing liver and cedar. That’s what I smell like right now. This is same place I get my toothpaste, same place I get my body wash. It’s Onnit. A lot of people don’t realize we have this fantastic personal care products over there and you get 10% off of all those stuff – the toothpaste, the deodorant, the body wash. Really clean stuff and again you can eat all your personal care products. If you’re stuck on a desert island and if for some strange reason, on that desert island all you had was your personal care products, I’d recommend you also look fishing pole but you could eat them. Go to www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/onnit. That saves you 10% off of any purchase from Onnit. The only little things for today’s news flash is that I should probably mention or just a few events that are coming up right around the corner that I know are not full yet. One is an event I’m teaching at for like docs and health care practitioners…I know we have a lot of people in Kion U going to this Kion U is the Private Mastermind that I run for coaches. You can check it out over at www.getkion.com. This is a place where you learn business building tips, where you learn a lot of more kind of like cutting edge scientific health concepts. It’s called the Live it to Lead Conference. It is Peak of the Devil down in Vegas, which means I get to be in Vegas.

Brock: You spend a lot of time there.

Ben:    Twice in the last few months. I know.

Brock: And you’re not gonna go see Celine.

Ben:    No. Anyways, check that out. I’m also speaking at the American Academy of Anti-aging Medicine in Vegas in December.

Brock: Come on, man.

Ben:    We’ll put a link to a lot of these places where I’ll be speaking over in the show notes at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/390 for those of you who are docs and don’t wanna go to crazy events in Vegas. I’ll be also in Chicago, racing the Spartan race in Chicago. I will be speaking at the Biohacking Conference the day before that, October 16th, up in Toronto, Ontario. And then I will be also speaking at David Bouley’s Chef Dinner, November 13th in New York City and the day before that, I’ll be over in Boston racing the Spartan race in Boston. So all sorts of events there that you can join me in. I realized that sounded like a lot but should you not have memorized any of that, just go to www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/390. We’ll put all of that into the extremely roebuck show notes that we worked on for you, guys and I think that’s about it.

Listener Q & A

John:   Hi, Ben! Several different bed and mattress companies promote this zero gravity beds. Do zero gravity beds or incline beds improve sleep quality or impact core muscles in a negative way? Also, can disconnecting the bed plug remove the electricity to improve sleep? Thank you much, John.

Brock: I honestly have never heard of gravity beds before.

Ben:    Really? You’re under a rock? ______ (0:40:25.8) stuck on my gravity beds

Brock: Apparently. According to John…yeah, I’m living under a rock but I’ve had gravity boots. I’ve had inversion tables. I’ve never tried a gravity bed.

Ben:    Well, they were developed by NASA. So we automatically know that they must be well-researched and efficacious. That’s pretty much like of you want to claim that anything is worth someone’s penny or in this case, many pennies, you tell them it was developed by NASA or that it came from Russia or Japan. Right? Those are the best ways to lend instant credibility to anything you say. And ideally, it’s NASA researchers working with Japanese and Russian researchers to develop something.

Brock: That’s the try factor.

Ben:    That’s the try factor so that’s why you could ensure that you get instant credibility. The zero gravity position are, all joking aside, it actually was something that NASA came up with. They invented this neutral body posture for astronauts to sit in as they would launch a space crafts into orbit. So astronauts, of course, encounter zero gravity as a space craft changes speed as it orbits and that’s necessary to keep the atmospheric pressure from pulling the space craft back in. And the centrifugal force that is used to accelerate the space vehicle works to offset gravity and so they call this zero gravity and NASA created a zero gravity sitting position to alleviate the compression forces of pressure on the spine and the body of astronauts during the space shuttle take offs.

Brock: And that’s ____ (0:42:08.9) the lazy boy position like the recliner position, right?

Ben:    Yeah. It is. It’s popular in a lot of these massage beds or relaxing beds that you’d sit in before you get your massage. There are some companies that have developed special beds like a lot of pulsed electromagnetic field companies (PEMF companies) like Teemer or Pulsed Centers that develop these beds that you sit in that kind of blast your body with PEMF frequencies, which are great. I like those for decreasing inflammation, increase blood flow, you sleep better. But the original came from NASA and then bed manufacturers and some of these biohacking device manufacturers realized the benefits of zero gravity would have if you somehow figure out a way to work this into a bed or something that you wouldn’t necessarily find in a space ship. So the zero gravity position…what it does is it releases pressures of gravity from the body by distributing your body weight evenly. So in most cases, it’s an adjustable frame that allows for your legs and your head to be raised at a different angle to reduce back pressure and increase circulation. And so in a zero gravity position, the angle of the thighs and the torso get aligned and the upper body and the head are raised just a little bit. The knees are slightly bent and if you can’t picture it, just go to Google on images and type in “zero gravity” and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. What they found is that this results in less back pain and less neck pain because a flat bed adds pressure to your body’s natural S-shaped spinal column and once you eliminate that flatness and you evenly distribute pressure, you actually can get relief of any pain or the production of soreness and discomfort on your back and your neck when your laying flat on your back. They’ve also studied this for snoring and they found that the head gets slightly elevated in this zero gravity position. The airway is open. It prevents the tongue from slipping back during sleep. So if you have sleep apnea or you snore, then this is something that can help with that. So you actually get better specifically rapid eye movement sleep cycles or REM sleep cycles when you do this. They found that it takes on you the pressure of a hard muscle so people who have heart issues, that have cardiovascular incidents, that had heart attacks, you get better flow of blood through the heart. And so the zero gravity position could be good for people who are concerned about cardiovascular issues. People who get heart burn and acid reflux, often, they just should not be eating so much damn food before they get into bed at night but laying in zero gravity… if you do decide you just wanna stuff your gaping maw and then stumble up the stairs and into bed, it does elevate the upper body so stomach acids don’t come easily back up. So it could help to ease heart burn and acid reflux. Although, again, I think there are other underlying reasons for that and you should fix a few things before you rush out to buy a zero gravity bed to fix your heart burn.

Brock: Probably.

Ben:    You get less swelling ‘cause the legs are elevated obviously, get better breathing, especially for people who have allergies or asthma. They have used zero gravity beds for this and tell them that people breathe better in those types of situations. Sleep, overall, appears to be somewhat improved in terms of actual sleep cycles and Circadian rhythmicity. So these zero gravity beds, actually have a lot going for them and there are companies that sell them. I’ll put links in the show notes. Probably one of the more popular ones is called The Ghost Bed. And it’s an adjustable zero gravity bed. You can literally push buttons on it and get the bed to be exactly at the angles that you want to be at. And they sell like this curvaceous base that allows you to adjust it to your needs. And compared to some of these like $10,000 organic mattresses, they’re not that expensive. I mean like, I think it’s about $3,000 to get the whole kit and caboodle – the whole zero gravity base and the zero gravity curved mattress. There’s another company on Amazon called the Zero Gravity G-Force. Same thing…they’ve got like this big like California kingstyle adjustable bed. That one even has a massage option on it. You get a zero gravity that way, too.

Brock: Put the beds in the old motels where you put a recorder in and it goes zzzzz….and it shakes like hell.

Ben:    Next your heart shake hot dum. Exactly. There is also a company called Dynasty Mattress that has a pretty good one. I don’t sleep on one even though I do have one of the pulsed center’s PEMF tables that actually is a zero gravity table. I sometimes nap on that so I can double up and get pulsed electromagnetic field therapy at the same time that I’m napping. I’ll put a link to my podcast with pulsed centers in the show notes. But I don’t have one of these beds. What I have is something called an intelli bed. It’s like it’s naturally intelligent bed listening to us. The intelli bed does….

Brock: It does Math.

Ben:    It uses gel. It uses gel and it’s this double layer of gel. A lot of people ask me what kind of mattress that I sleep on. It’s called a gel matrix that I use. They blend gel with foam so it’s very supportive of the body but it feels like you’re laying on a memory foam. It’s actually a firm surface but it feels like you’re laying on memory foam. They call the technology they use in that dynamically adaptive cushionings. So it kind of adapts to your body when you lay on it like a typical foam mattress does but it’s about 3 times more firm than a foam mattress. They had a bunch of sleep scientists work for the company to develop this. Admittedly, the mattress that I sleep on is more expensive than any of these zero gravity beds. I think the total for my actual mattress was something like 7k.

Brock: Really?

Ben:    So that’s a little bit more expensive but I mean, they’ve got like this cooling technology fabric in it. It’s got a 20-year warranty. They use copper and fused latex. It’s a pretty nice bed. I’ve laid in some of these zero gravity beds and the angle of your body is cool but, man, I mean these intelli beds can’t be beat. And I just wanna point at the elephant in the room here. It’s also incredibly difficult to have sex on a zero gravity bed. I’m just saying.

Brock: Somebody’s bent on the wrong direction.

Ben:    Yeah. And some of them are like I mentioned, they’re motorized and have the ability to like flip a switch so they can kinda go flat. But ultimately, I like the intelli bed. If you like to own nice things, I think the intelli bed is top of the totem pole. I think these zero gravity beds are pretty cool. I’m actually building a guest house on the forest behind my house and maybe I’ll get a zero gravity bed for that just so that people who come over or if I ever wanna go sleep on a zero gravity bed after I’ve been traveling a lot or something went wrong in my legs, I could. But yes, it’s an interesting question and ultimately, to answer John’s question, yeah, they can definitely help. John also asked if unplugging them can help to remove the electricity to improve sleep. Yeah, anything they have plugged in your bedroom that could be unplugged while you’re asleep, it’s a good idea. But what I do in my own bedroom is I just have these things called dirty electricity filters and anything that’s plugged in in the bedroom is plugged into one of these dirty electricity filters so it pretty significantly limits any amount of electrical pollution and I did this big podcast with the building biologist in my house.

Brock: Yeah. That was cool. That was fun.

Ben:    And he definitely found with his little testing monitors that these dirty electricity filters did, indeed, keep me from electrical pollution. So there you have it. That’s the skinny on zero gravity beds.

Brock: You know what I’ve been sleeping on recently that I just absolutely love and is really cheap?

Ben:    Bed of nails?

Brock: How did you know? It’s exactly what I was gonna say. Put some plywood, put some nails in it…boom!

Andrew:Hey guys! My name is Andrew. Ben’s podcast with Tyler W. Lebaron and the recent hydrogen water generator give away that you did has gotten me really interested in hydrogen water. In the podcast, you guys mentioned that the antioxidant effect of the water doesn’t blunt the hormetic effects of exercise. Could you explain a little bit more of what you mean by that to me and whether or not hydrogen water would counteract any adaptations to say, muscle hypertrophy or endurance training? Thanks for the podcast.

Brock: So, apparently, I can’t say hydrogen-rich water.

Ben:    Yeah. I don’t want to necessarily credit an enormous amount of redundancy considering that as Andrew alluded to, I interviewed Tyler Lebaron, the director of the Molecular Hydrogen Institute and a friend of mine and we geeked out on this for like an hour. So I’ll link to that podcast in the show notes. If you really wanna take a deep dive into molecular hydrogen. But in a nutshell, what it is is molecular hydrogen or H2, also known as diatomic hydrogen. It’s a tasteless, odourless gas. Kinda like my own gas – it’s tasteless and odourless. I’ve tried many times. It doesn’t taste. It doesn’t stink ‘cause it’s gas. I’m like a little baby. You know a baby at a certain age, they’re very young and it doesn’t stink?

Brock: No.

Ben:    I’m like that with my gas. I guess you don’t. You’re not a father.

Brock: Yeah.

Ben:    But I can tell you…

Brock: I avoid baby’s poop at all cost.

Ben:    When babies are very young, their stool does not smell that bad at all. It’s not sulphurous and nasty and I think they’re just so freaking clean when they first pop out.

Brock: Okay.

Ben:    Doesn’t stink. Anyways, what H2 does is it mediates what’s called the nerve 2 pathway, which is an inflammatory pathway. That can regulate your levels of glutathione and superoxide dismutase and catalase and all these really beneficial indigenous antioxidants that you create. And in addition to that, very similar to, say, nitric oxide or CO or H2S or these other gaseous signalling molecules that are found in our body, it can modulate protein phosphorylation and gene expression and signal transduction and that’s the mechanism via which it provides a lot of its anti-inflammatory effects, anti-allergy effects. It’s got some pretty cool what are called antiapoptotic effects, which means it can limit excess cell death. One of the things that Tyler Lebaron and I talked about in that podcast episode was the fact that unlike many antioxidants like especially antioxidants like synthetic vitamin C or synthetic vitamin E, molecular-rich hydrogen, specifically when you drink it, when it’s been dissolved in water, it can actually allow you to decrease inflammation and recover more quickly without blunting the hormetic response to exercise, meaning, when you exercise, you would want, for example, satellite self-proliferation to occur so that you can repair muscle cells so they grow back bigger or stronger or so you get the muscular effects of the workout that you’re doing. And when you dump too many antioxidants in the body, the inflammatory pathways necessary for that mechanism to occur gets shut down. The same could be said, for example, for the response to training in terms of the build-up of mitochondrial density. You can blunt that when you take a whole bunch of antioxidants or you’ll take a 20-minute ice bath after a workout. Well, there are some anti inflammatories and antioxidants that don’t do that. Green tea polyphenols is one example. Ketone esters are another example and hydrogen-rich water is yet another example of something of that can ease inflammation, ease pain, it can assist with sleep. There’s a lot of really interesting studies behind it.

Brock: How about curcumin? Does curcumin do it?

Ben:    It does not blunt the hormetic response to exercise. Curcumin would actually blunt the hormetic response to exercise like that based on any of the studies that I’ve seen, you would want to time your turmeric or your curcumin intake for several hours after your workout and not pop something like that right after workout.

Brock: Yeah. Sorry for interrupting.

Ben:    There are other companies and I’ll put links in the shows notes to a few other options. There’s one company….ahh…totally blanking on the name of it but I’ve got a bunch of their pans up in my refrigerator right now and they do hydrogen-rich water infused with fermented beet juice. This stuff has some really good research behind it for things like nitric oxide production. That’s a really potent way to get hydrogen-rich water again. Kinda spendy but I’ll put some links on the show notes to some other options but even you just have like the tablets that you travel with and/or a hydrogen-rich water generator can be a really cool way to get some of these benefits. I asked Tyler about this after our podcast and he definitely dacked up the fact that conventional antioxidants can mediate the benefits of exercise training and there’s some pretty good research behind that but there’s zero studies that show that molecular hydrogen would impair exercise performance or training adaptations. And at the same time, there are several clinical studies that demonstrate pretty significantly that H2 can improve exercise performance and enhance exercise-induced training adaptations. And you do definitely get a mild increase in free radicals but those serve as signalling molecules to the body when you consume the H2. So, it ultimately, is probably one of the better forms of water, in my opinion, that you could be drinking. So I’m a huge fan of it and hydrogen-rich water is kind of one of those biohacks that I buy, use, and drink on a daily basis. In addition to my chichory and my coffee enemas.

Brock: Of course. Yeah. I can attest. I’ve met Tyler at the 8th 4M Conference a year or so ago. And dude, he’s fit. So if he’s using this stuff, it’s working for him.

Ben:    Yeah. He’s fit and he’s smart. He’s also the same guy who informed me when I was staying next to him at a conference having lunch that I was making a big mistake by taking 5 grams of creatine a day because creatine is only absorbed in maximum at like 2 grams. So if you….

Brock: Spread it.

Ben:    Yeah. I still use 5 grams of creatine a day but just like have just the basic creatine monohydrate powder on your kitchen counter and when you have a glass of water, put 1 ½ or 2 grams into the water, preferably warm, stir it up and drink it that way rather than taking all your creatine at once like in the morning or pre workout.

Gate:   Hey, Ben! Gate here. In the last years I’ve gone from smoking cigarettes to vaping to snuff touches and then, more recently I’ve discovered the stuff called ZYN, which is known tobacco nicotine patches and I was wondering what your thoughts were on them and what your thoughts for nicotine in general. Whether it’s all good or all bad and when it’s to be used and not used. Thanks.

Ben:    I think I need to go take a big drag on my cigarette before I reply.

Brock: mmm…You smoke in parliaments.

Ben:    Do you make a cigarette sound effects? Are you all right to do that along with your bird?

Brock: poooh…Could you hear that?

Ben:    That’s pretty good!

Brock: It’s me blowing a smoke ring. Poooh…

Ben:    I like that. Well, cigarettes we, of course know, have been proven time and time again to be….

Brock: To be awesome!

Ben:    Really good wiith the cowboy hat, after sex, …

Brock: If you wanna look sexy.

Ben:    Everybody shove a pack of cigarettes around to keep you lean…But contrary to common opinion, because it’s been thrown onto the bus along with cigarettes, nicotine is not a carcinogenic substance. I should know that if you already have a tumor, there are some evidence that nicotine may actually play a role in angiogenesis to tumors. Meaning, if you already have a tumor, it’s probably not a good idea to be using nicotine so if you have cancer, don’t rush out to buy habitrol gum. The same could be said, for example, for protein. I’m a huge fan of protein for its anabolic benefits, its appetite taste shooting benefits. The fact that the amino acids in it connect these neurotransmitter precursors but if I already had a tumor, I would eat very, very low amounts of protein because it could allow for tumor growth. But I mean, with nicotine, unless you already have a tumor, it’s not carcinogenic in the least. And it actually has a lot of really good things going for it that I can fill you in on right now.

Brock: So before it’s not a tumor.

Ben:    Yeah. Before filling you in on this, I should know, too, that I probably consume close to 3 to 4 milligrams of nicotine a day whether via nicotine lozenges like dissolved in the mouth pre workout, which I actually love. Nicotine gum, I chew on nicotine gum, usually a couple of pieces a day. And then you’ll occasionally find me like if I’m out in a dinner and it’s a late dinner and I wanna be up like all a lot of times, I like a nicotine toothpick sticking in my mouth. I’m also a big fan of writing in my book with a nicotine toothpick and a cup of coffee. It’s a writer’s best friend. That’s a great one to combo. If you’re a bad ass, you’ll have big black cup of coffee and nicotine toothpick hanging up the corner of your mouth, just a good look.

Brock: Yeah. That’s a good look. That’s very dirty Harry of you.

Ben:    Yeah. I’m old dirty Harry.

Brock: You don’t use the nicotine spray at all? That psshhh…thing?

Ben:    No. I don’t use a nicotine spray. I know what you’re talking about. It’s available for sale in Canada but you can’t even buy it in the US.

Brock: Oh yeah…that’s right! It’s a Canadian invention.

Ben:    Yeah. It’s not impossible to get. I mean, I have Canadian friends, I could get import, I just don’t.

Brock: It’s like it freshens your breath while you’re getting your hit at nicotine.

Ben:    While you’re becoming addicted to nicotine, you have a wonderful breath. That is something that I should know before I get into the benefits. You do need to be careful. Nicotine is addictive and just like when you try to quit smoking cigarettes, when you try to quit nicotine and you get strong cravings and increased appetite and sleep disturbances and a little bit of irritability and restlessness but I think that if you use it in moderation and you’re already aware that it could be addictive, like me, I limit my use because I’m aware of the addictive potential so I’m just careful with it. Like I mentioned, you’d wanna be careful because it could be an angiogenic type of substance if you already have a tumor. And then there is some evidence that for adolescent users…This is the same reason like I don’t like my kids smoke weed, in addition to the fact…nor my wife and my kid doesn’t like weed or the smell of it…it could impair the prefrontal cortex in adolescent users. And when you impair the prefrontal cortex, you, of course, limit cognitive performance and they’ve shown that nicotine use during adolescence, in studies, can increase the risk of cognitive impairment later in life. They’ve shown the same thing with marijuana. And most of these studies, you’re seeing these type of effects in anyone who is a user under about the age of 25. I didn’t go near nicotine at all until I was…

Brock: That’s what’s wrong with me.

Ben:    36. I didn’t touch marijuana because I was well aware of its ability to affect gray matter and cognition, etc. I was I think 32 when I first _____ (1:02:47.6) marijuana. I could say the same thing for alcohol in liver formation prior to the age of about 18. There are certain situations you won’t use one of it until you’re grown up.

Brock: When did you wait to lose your v-card?

Ben:    My v-card? My virginity?

Brock: Yeah.

Ben:    Aahhh.

Brock: 37?

Ben:    No. I was 15 but I can also proudly say that my wife and I actually waited till we got married to have sex. I’m proud of that because it was very hard to do. We’re madly in love. We just wanted it to be special.

Brock: Weird!

Ben:    Yeah. So we waited.

Brock: You’re old school.

Ben:    Yeah. We’re old school. We’re Christian Baptists, Fundamentalists, Puritans. Yeah. Anyways, though, back to nicotine. Nicotine increases wakefulness motivation, alertness, creativity. It’s been shown to increase activity cross both hemispheres of the brain. So in folks who like microdose of LSD, you can actually get some of the same type of what are called bilateral neocortical activations via the use of nicotine. And it also increases your alpha brain wave state so you get better attention, better creativity. If you’re an athlete, you’re better able to enter into the zone. In addition to that, it has been studied and proven to improve your fine motor skills and also your short-term memory, your long-term memory, and what’s called you working memory. So it can actually improve your ability to multitask, which is very interesting and significantly helpful, I think, for a lot of people. It’s been shown to help with ADHD and ADD symptoms. It acts as a neuro protective, meaning, it can reduce inflammation in the brain. It stimulates what are called cholinergic receptors in the brain. And by doing that, it can act as a neuro protective but it also, via similar pathway, blocks estrogen. So it has anti estrogenic effects which is also important especially, for example, man who wants to have more free testosterone availability and lessen aromatization of testosterone and estrogens, nicotine could help with that as well. It has been studied and shown to be beneficial for treating Alzheimer’s, for treating Parkinson’s and for treating Tourette syndrome – 3 different neurodegenerative conditions. And for all those seems to act primarily upon what are called acetylcholine receptors and so it’s something that actually pairs quite well for similar reasons with any type of nootropic or smart drug. It is very good to include in some of those stacks, let’s say Qualia or Alpha Brain or Ciltep – none of those have nicotine in them but you can literally just use nicotine gum, nicotine spray, whatever, and have that at the same time as you have a nootropic or smart drug and it seems to enhance the effects. It also acts to lower inflammation, reduces TNF alpha production and cytokine production. It can assist with patients who have inflammation due to ulcerative colitis as well. All of the caveat there ____ (1:06:00.2) you should be careful ‘cause a lot of these gums and lozenges, they do have things like artificial sweeteners or toxins or preservatives in it that could aggravate your gut if you already have a pre-existing gut condition especially so you’d wanna be kinda careful to choose pretty clean sources of nicotine if you’re gonna do something like that. In addition to that, it’s been shown to reduce pain. So people who are on nicotine screw their pain much lower after surgery. It can be protective against ulcerative colitis like I mentioned but also enhance the production of intestinal mucosa. It actually can increase the thickness of mucus in the colon. That’s with slightly higher doses. Those as close to 5 milligrams, which could make you kinda jittery and be a incredible pick me up, but even small amounts that seem to have the same anti-inflammatory effect, it can help in weight loss and insulin control probably because it’s a potent appetite suppressant like chewing on a little bit of nicotine gum is a potent appetite suppressant. But it also seems to be able to increase metabolism via what are called melanocortin MC4R receptors, meaning, you could actually see a little bit of bump up in metabolic rate because it has that angiogenic potential I talked about earlier. Yeah, if you have a tumor you’d wanna avoid it but because it can increase growth of tissues in blood vessel capillaries, it can help with tissue repair. These are few of the benefits of nicotine but I mean, the real big picture here is I’m a fan of it. You have to be careful because it can be addicting and you need to be careful for your young and you use it. It pairs quite well with a lot of other nootropics and smart drug-like compounds. In the show notes, if you go there, I’ll put a link to the Pixotine nicotine toothpicks that I own and use with like a cinnamon flavors, for example. I had my personal assistant go through and kind of do a spreadsheet analysis of which of the nicotine gums is the lowest in preservatives or artificial sweeteners or chemicals. The brand Habitrol appears to be the best and so I’ll link to that one in the show notes. There are also these nicotine lozenges. And again, same thing, a lot of these lozenges are really big. The bigger they are… Niquitin makes these ones that are really small so they’re almost like tiny little mints and they have less of the artificial sweeteners and preservatives in them. So for gum, I’d go with Habitrol; for lozenges, I’d go with Niquitin; and then for toothpicks, I like this brand called Pixotine. I’ll link to that stuff in the show notes. Most of those, I think all of those, you could grab off Amazon. So there you have it. Nicotine with asterisk is healthy.

Brock: I’m gonna throw in one little warning there: If you weren’t a smoker, you haven’t experimented with nicotine before, go easy at first. I’ve seen a couple of people do a couple of sprays of that stuff that I was talking about and get really sick. So don’t go a whole hug until you know how you can handle it.

Ben:    Have you ever done the snooze – nicotine snooze? Under the lower lip, like in a party or anything like that?

Brock: I do the party. My uncle used to carry those around. He’s a farmer.

Ben:    Those things are potent and you get slightly dizzy and then you’re just like on fire for like an hour, an hour and a half. Those are pretty crazy.

Brock: It’s like chewing tobacco at the same time, just gross and such a huge hit of nicotine.

Ben:    Yeah. Exactly.

Scott:   I have a question about the stem cell therapy. I love the podcast with Dr. Adelson. My question regards this whether this is a permanent or temporary effect. Seems to me that it would be permanent i.e, after the therapy you’re essentially rolling back the clock on the treated area such that it is newer tissue and if taken care of properly, it essentially added years to your life in that area. The problem I have is at the end of the podcast, Dr. Adelson said that this has…this affects his patients for years and indicate that a lot of them come back and see him. He expects to see them in the next 3 to 6 years. That mean indicated to temporary effect that needs to be re-treated to obtain the same benefits. But based on all of the theory you described, again, that didn’t truly add up that it’s a temporary treatment. I would love some clarification. Thanks and love the podcast.

Brock: I have this exact same question, Scott – good question. Dr. Adelson did talk about people coming back occasionally and getting treatments again and again so that raised that same “huh?” in my head.

Ben:    Again and again. Yeah. So I took a little bit of a dive into the studies on how long stem cell therapy can actually last because they have actually looked into this. There was one study where they took a whole bunch of patients who got treated with bone marrow concentrate, which is exactly what I did when I did that full body stem cell make over at Dr. Adelson’s clinic. And they followed them for 30 months with laboratory and radiographic and MRI studies. Every single patient after 30 months were still receiving therapeutic benefits. There’s another study at the University of Paris and they followed over 500 patients for 18 years after bone marrow stem cell treatment. And in that study, they showed that of all those patients, only 15% of them needed to actually go on to receive any type of additional hip treatment, hip replacement, hip surgery, anything like that. So 85% approximately, of those patients, the stem cell seem to stick with. And again, that was for 18 years. There’s another study where they did…

Brock: But then, this is a brand new treatment, isn’t it?

Ben:    No.

Brock: Or maybe only in the US.

Ben:    Yeah. Only in the US. Exactly. Thank you for asking that question, Brock.

Brock: I could hear everybody out in the audience go like “18 years!”

Ben:    Yeah. There is another study where they looked at knees and this, I believe, is also European study. They found an average of 6 years of pretty much complete reduction of knee pain and they looked at everything from complication rates to knee function scores to just  _____ (1:12:43.8) patient satisfaction. For those patients at the period that 6 years at least. I’m not saying all the benefits disappear after 6 years but that was how long they followed people on that study. Another more recent study followed…this is a 2015 study in the journal Cell Transplant. They followed over a thousand patients for about 4 years and they found that 63% of the patients maintained their improvements in pain and function and 91% of the patients had at least 50% improvement in function. So that showed that we’re using benefits at least as long as 4 years in that study. There are other studies. There’s one in Korea where they had patients and they followed them for about 2 years after stem cells were injected into their arthritic knees and what happened after 2 years was the majority of the patients in that study had pain that had decreased by over 40% and they also had an increase in cartilage production that was very significant – that was over 20%. There was another study in Iran (of all places) where they’d again, had a bone marrow stem cell injections into the hip joint, the knee joint, or the ankle joint and they noted that after a 30-month case study follow-up, all the stem cell treatments lasted for the entire 30 months. In most cases, we’re seeing that these treatments aren’t something like botox that last maybe 6 months or a year at maximum but we’re talking about many years. In some cases, up to 18 years. Dr. Adelson, when I reached out to him, sent me some other studies on these ______ (1:14:41.0) stem cell availability. One study looked at following up patients for about 600 days and they found significant survival of the stem cells and efficacy of the treatments after that period of time. There was another study in which they did like a 90-month follow-up on meta analysis where they followed up patients in a whole bunch of different studies and some of the studies were up to 90 months. And they found that there was a significant increase in outcome of anything the patients had had done for up to 90 months. And then one final study that I noted looked at folks for up to about 48 months and found that they had significantly improved what they call histological and radiological outcomes and then also improved arthroscopic scored healing rate. So essentially just like the function in this case of the knee in knee osteoarthritis after stem cell injection. And then I can also tell you this some personal experience that my dingdong still getting to act like I was 15 years old.

Brock: Nobody wants to know that.

Ben:    And I got my stem cell injection – my first one. I guess, it’s been about 4 months. That steph only still with me. I talked about like acoustic soundwave therapy and the effects of that last about a month and are pretty profound but the stem cells just haven’t ever seem to have worn off. I think that this isn’t one of those things where it’s some type of conspiracy theory by stem cell docs to get you to come back over and over again for a protocol. It seems to last a pretty significant period of time. I don’t know if it’s permanent, permanent but based on the stem cell theory of aging, the fact that you’re indulged in stem cell availability seems to decrease as you age. Just having more stem cells available for your body to draw upon seems like, if you can afford it, a good idea. And what I’m doing now is I just get them systemically injected via IV 1 to 2 times a year because I have all my stem cells when I was 35 years old stored by the US Stem Cell Connect down in Florida and I can just get those injected and then those will basically migrate to whichever areas of the body where they are most needed for repair and recovery. So even if a full body stem cell make over does not last forever, you can harvest and store your stem cells and just inject them on a regular basis to just keep that stem cell availability elevated.

Brock: So why do you think these people are coming back to Dr. Adelson on regular basis? He was mentioning I think, farmers, in particular were coming in with like bad shoulders and stuff for multiple treatments.

Ben:    Yeah. I don’t know. I think maybe he’s doing different joints at different times. He’s never expressed to me that anybody who does this full body stem cell makeover has to come back in for touch-up stem cells or anything like that. I guess if you re-injured in areas, something like that – strained your knee or got into a car accident or something and you had a more acute need for an immediate stem cell injection, that will be a case where maybe you’d wanna go back in for some touch-up work. I think the idea is this is supposed to be for life, doing something like that – full body stem cell makeover. It’s not cheap, you know. If you did a full-meal deal like I did – the cosmetic procedure, I did the sexual procedure, and I did the musculo-skeletal procedure. I think all in, you’re looking at north of 40,000 to do something like that but you know, some people spend that much on a car. I’ll spend that much on my body.

Brock: Yeah. I guess that’s a good point. If they’re not doing the $40,000 version, they’re doing with $2,000 version for their shoulder that tends to be or it’s the biggest problem in their life then maybe they’re coming back for the other shoulder, the knee or something.

Ben:    Yeah. Exactly.

Brock: Ultimately, Harry needs to work on his sales speech.

Ben:    Yeah. Well, I will link to his clinic and his stuff and the US Stem Cell clinic as well where I have my stuff stored along with where you can buy your nicotine gum over at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/390.

Brock: Some great questions today.

Ben:    Oh and we need to give something away. You wanna give something away?

Brock: We sure do.

Ben:    Okay. This is the part of the show where if you’ve gone to i-tunes and you’ve left us a review, preferably a 5-star review, although that’s not required, and you said something interesting, and you heard your review right on the show, just let us know your T-shirt size, email it to [email protected] and we will send you…why am I yawning right now? That was crazy.

Brock: ____ fall asleep. Wake up, man.

Ben:    I think that was because I was talking too much and I’m giving off oxygen. We’ll send you a gear pack, a PCBBPA free water bottle.

Brock: And PCPE free.

Ben:    Yeah. I wanna have PCVs in it either. And then also a really cool tech T-shirt for your workouts. Same one I wear to the gym quite often. It’s because I like to shamelessly plug my show.

Brock: Have you ever noticed when you get really sweaty and you lay on the bench of the bench of the gym with that shirt? It actually leaves the logo on the bench.

Ben:    No. But I never lay on the benches. That’s good to know.

Brock: You should check that out when you’re doing like bench presses or something if you’re really sweaty, get up and look at the bench, it’s like a sweat outline of the BG logo.

Ben:    Amazing! Free advertising.

Brock: There you go.

Ben:    All right. Well, it’s this cat, Brett W. He rode in and he left his 5-star ____ (1:20:33.1) as my go-to podcast. What do you think, Brock? Do you wanna take this one away?

Brock: Cue on it, throw in the parts that are in quotation marks? So it’s authentic? Let’s try. It’ll be good.

Ben:    All right. So basically, it looks like Brett left a review and made fun of everything I happen to say a lot.

Brock: Just all the things you like to throw in on a regular basis.

Ben:    Yeah.

Brock: Okay.

Ben:    Let’s not make it complicated. Just read it.

Brock: Okay. Ben is one smart cookie constantly offering a copious amount of information from his gaping maw for his listeners. Further, he pushes his guests to get into the practical brass tacks often recruiting only those who have techniques and products that work like gang busters for which he, in turn, offers us sweet discounts. All told, Ben’s show is a fantastic source of knowledge and consistent part of my weekly routine.

Ben:    Ideas a lot of those things like gaping maw….

Brock: You do. He nailed it.

Ben:    Brass tacks, gang busters, copious, sweet discount codes…Yeah. That’s a pretty sweet review.

Brock: Nailed it.

Ben:    Thanks for the copious amount of information, Brett, and just getting down the brass tacks. I’m gonna say that this podcast is done and if you follow everything that I talked about in the show, it’s gonna work like gang busters for you.

Brock: That’s ‘cause your one smart cookie.

Ben:    Check out the episode for some sweet discount codes. That all being said, Brock, have an amazing week. Go eat yourself some chichory. Get yourself coffee enema.

Brock: Yeah. And then shove it off like gaping maw.

Ben:    That’s right. Shove it off like gaping maw. We’ll be back next week but in the meantime, stay tuned for an amazing episode coming up this Saturday on DNA and genetic testing and head to www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/390 for all the show notes. We’ll catch you on the foot side.

 

 

Oct 4, 2018, Q&A Episode 390: Zero Gravity Beds, How Hydrogen-Rich Water Works, Is Nicotine Healthy, and How Long Does Stem Cell Therapy Last?

Have a podcast question for Ben? Click the button at the bottom of the page (or go to SpeakPipe), or use the Contact button in the free Ben Greenfield Fitness app.

News Flashes [00:10:07]

You can receive these News Flashes (and more) every single day, if you follow Ben on Twitter.com/BenGreenfield, Instagram.com/BenGreenfieldFitness, Facebook.com/BGFitness, BenGreenfieldFitness.com/Snapchat, and Google+.

Special Announcements [00:29:44]

This podcast is brought to you by:

-Blue Apron – Go to blueapron.com/Ben to get your first 3 delicious home-delivered meals for free!

-Onnit – Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/onnit and save 10% on your purchase (the discount is built into the link).

-Thrive – Go to thrivemarket.com/Ben  to get 25% off your first order at Thrive Market! We suggest grabbing some coconut cream!

-Omax – Go to tryomax.com/Ben today to get a box of Omax3 Ultra-Pure, FOR FREE! Their fish oil has CBD in it – yum!

Click here to follow Ben on Snapchat, and get ready for some epic stories about his morning, day and evening routine!

Ben's Adventures:

– October 14 – 16, 2018: SPARK BioHacking Conference, Toronto, Ontario. The 2018 SPARK Bio-Hack Conference features a series of talks by leaders across a range of fields with an eye on optimizing human performance, recovery, and longevity. Researchers, medical specialists and other biohacking experts will share provocative, informative, and inspiring presentations meant to amplify your life. Registration is now open, secure your spot here.

– October 11 – 14, 2018: 2018 RUNGA California Immersion Retreat, Napa, California. Runga is going to Napa! Join me, my wife, Jessa, Joe DiStefano and a small, intimate group of like-minded individuals for a weekend-long getaway. We’ve rented a beautiful mansion located in one of the most iconic countrysides in America– Napa Valley. We’ve thought of everything that you could possibly need to gently “press the reboot button” on your body and completely tune in to your heart, mind, body, strength, and spirit. Join the waitlist!

– October 20, 2018: Toyota Park Stadium Sprint, Bridgeview IL. For the first time, Spartans will run through the home of the Chicago Fire Soccer Club, a Major League Soccer team and the Chicago Red Stars, a National Women’s Soccer League team.  Register here!

– November 2 – 4, 2018: Live It To Lead It Health Centers of the Future Seminar, Las Vegas, Nevada. Create the life you want, the marriage you want, the family you want—all fueled by a practice that radically changes the lives of your patients. this three-day event, you’ll learn the latest medical discoveries in cellular health, get a marketing plan for scaling your practice and find ways to build residual passive income. Join me!

– November 10 – 11, 2018: Fenway Park Stadium Sprint, Boston MA. Spartans are invited to participate in the Fenway Sprint over two days, November 10th and 11th. Gain unprecedented access to previously closed off areas of America’s Most Beloved Ballpark. Join me!

– November 13, 2018: New York City, NY. Join me in Chef Bouley's Test Kitchen for “The Ultimate Anti-Aging Diet – The Perfect Foods To Eat Your Way To Longevity”. Get your ticket here!

– December 2-8, 2018: RUNGA Retreat, Dominican Republic. You're invited to join me at RUNGA in December 2018. Join me in the Dominican Republic, one of the most beautiful places in the Caribbean, for this retreat. In all RUNGA activities, RUNGA invites you to come home to yourself. To see everything you'll be getting into, just click here. Use code BEN when you register so you get your gift when you arrive! I'll be there, too. Join the waitlist here.

– December 13-15, 2018: World Congress 2018 Hosted by the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, Las Vegas, Nevada. If you attend any conference this year, make it the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine’s 26th Annual World Congress. The fact is, in an era of andropause, low drive and deteriorating men's health, it's shocking that both practitioners and the public aren't aware of ancestral wisdom and modern scientific and medical tactics that can be used to optimize male physiology. It's time that changed, and I'll be teaching exactly how to make men, men again. Join me!

– April 6-7, 2019: FitCon Summit, Salt Lake City, Utah. FitCon® encourages everyone to Find Their Fit. It does not matter whether it is powerlifting, Crossfit, bodybuilding, roller derby, or even axe throwing. Be sure to visit the Kion booth in the expo!

-View the Official Ben Greenfield Fitness Calendar Here

Giveaways & Goodies [01:20:15]

-Grab your Official Ben Greenfield Fitness Gear package that comes with a tech shirt, a beanie and a water bottle.

-And of course, this week's top iTunes review – gets some BG Fitness swag straight from Ben – click here to leave your review for a chance to win some!

——————————————

Listener Q&A [00:39:50]

As compiled, deciphered, edited and sometimes read by Brock Armstrong, the Podcast Sidekick.

Zero Gravity Beds [00:39:59]

John says: Several mattress companies promote these zero gravity beds. Do zero gravity beds (or incline beds) improve sleep quality or impact muscles in any way? Also, can unplugging these beds remove the electricity to improve sleep?

In my response, I recommend:
Normatec Boots
Zero Gravity G-Force Beds
Ghost Bed
Intellibed
My podcast with PulseCenters
Dirty electricity filters

How Hydrogen-Rich Water Works [00:50:27]

Andrew says: After your recent podcasts and the hydrogen water generator giveaway, I have become really interested in hydrogen water. In your podcast with Tyler Lebaron, you mentioned that hydrogen water's antioxidant effect does not blunt the hormetic response of exercise. Can you explain a little bit more of what you mean by that? Would hydrogen water counteract adaptation to muscle growth or endurance training?

In my response, I recommend:
My podcast with Tyler Lebaron on Hydrogen-Rich Water
Kangen countertop water ionizer
H2Bev molecular hydrogen drink (use code: BEN for 10% discount)
–HRW molecular hydrogen drink – use code: GREENFIELD to get a free promo package with your first purchase of the tablets, including a ‘to go' stainless steel double walled gasketed vacuum bottle, a branded phone back ring and a branded USB, value $30!

Is Nicotine Healthy [00:57:51]

Gabe says: In the last year I have gone from cigarettes, to vaping, to patches, and most recently have been using non-tobacco nicotine patches. I was wondering your opinion on using those and using nicotine in general. Is it all good, or all bad? When should it be used or not used?

In my response, I recommend:
Nicotine toothpicks I use
Nicotine gum I chew
Nicotine lozenges (Niquitin)
Nicotine Spray

How Long Does Stem Cell Therapy Last? [01:09:39]

Scott says: I have a question on Stem Cell Therapy. Is the treatment a permanent or temporary effect? It seems to me that it would be permanent since you are essentially rolling back the clock on the cells. But at the end of your podcast with Dr. Adelson, he said that people often come back to him in a few years – which makes it seem temporary. Can you clear this up?

In my response, I recommend:
My stem cell podcast with Dr. Harry Adelson
Dr. Harry Adelson's clinic
US Stem Cell Clinic
A good paper on stem cell treatment
–Another paper on stem cell, free.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ask Ben a Podcast Question

One thought on “Episode #390 – Full Transcript

  1. Robin Maisel says:

    I also have elevated liver enzymes. I would love to receive a link to the liver cleanse you are using that involves chicory, etc. Would you be able to send along the protocol?

    Also, how do I know you’ve replied to this? Can you shoot me an email letting me know so I don’t have to keep checking.
    Much appreciated!!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *