Episode #428 – Full Transcript

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Transcripts

May 1, 2021

From podcast: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/qa-428/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:02:23] Filling You In

[00:08:24] News Flashes: Does having sex before exercise impair performance?

[00:13:44] Human Taste Buds Can Tell The Difference Between Normal And ‘Heavy' Water

[00:18:27] Cool New Website: alzdiscovery.org

[00:23:00] About Blood Flow Restriction Training

[00:28:16] Podcast Sponsors

[00:35:54] Dr. Jack Kruse Vitamin D & Leptin Protocol

[00:45:38] The Craziest, Most Dangerous Biohacks Ben Has Done

[00:53:15] Supplements to Enhance BFR Training

[01:04:13] How to Exercise with A Pacemaker

[01:10:42] Closing the Podcast

[01:12:25] End of Podcast

Ben:  In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Should you have sex before exercise? Heavy water versus light water, reviewing nootropics and smart drugs effectively, blood flow restriction for muscle gain, and much more.

Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show.

Alright, alright, alright. It is me solo today. My usual podcast sidekick, the great, Dr. Jay T. Wiles could not join us, and so it is just yours truly. However, I will, since this is a live Clubhouse recording, be bringing folks to the stage for Q&A after we get through today's news flashes. And so, if you have a question in mind and you're here live, then you can of course prepare said questions that you sent hyperintelligent so that when I bring you up onto the platform, or the stage, or the throne, or whatever they call it in Clubhouse these days, you can wax poetic. In addition to that, if you're listening to this podcast when it gets released on Apple, or Spotify, or Samsung, or wherever fine podcasts or unfine podcasts like this are found, and you do ever want to join in a Clubhouse Q&A, then A, what are you waiting for? Join in. If you subscribe to my newsletter or tune into me on Instagram, we'll always send out the notif about when these live recordings occur, although it's usually Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m.

And if you're not part of Clubhouse, because from what I understand, Clubhouse is still closed and invite-only, you suck, ha-ha, neener, neener, neener, you don't get to be on and ask a question. However, you can still go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com and leave your question via audio there for future show and we can always roll with one of those. Typically, this is the part of the show where myself and my sidekick engage in witty banter about what we've been up to lately. However, I really don't have him to witty banter with. So, let me fill you in on a couple of things. A, I have gotten stitches for the first time in my life. I nearly cut my thumb off. And you're going to laugh about how I did this. I have a plan. I am working on an article for all of you about healthy ice creams, how they taste, what the bases are used like coconut, or avocado, or banana, or rice protein flour sprinkled with unicorn tears, or anything else of the kind. And as a result, I've had to do some really painful, in this case literally, research on ice cream.

So, I'm trying out all these ice cream flavors, and analyzing ingredients, and getting ready to make this amazing article for you. And one particular brand of ice cream, I won't name them and throw them under the bus on today's show, I use a banana base. Turns out banana takes a hell of a long time to thaw out when used as a base for ice cream. They sent me all sorts of wonderful flavors like strawberry, and peanut butter, and mint chocolate chip, and chocolate, and I took it out about 20 minutes before dinner to thaw. By the time I finished dinner, it had still not thawed. And yeah, I know the hot spoon trick for ice cream where you heat up a spoon, and you dip it in there, and get your ice cream that way. But in this case, I chose to use one of my super sharp, recently sharpened Cutco knives to try to carve the ice cream out of the container. And the knife slipped, and really, just like chopped through the tendons in my thumb, the nerves in my thumb.

I had just finished taking a survival and first aid course. And so, all this was fresh in my mind. I elevated the wound above my heart, kind of gave myself a little hand tourniquet, and got it all dressed and wound up in the hospital, getting stitches. And I've been throwing everything in the kitchen sink at this thing to get it to heal, colloidal silver, and PEMF, and nerve healing frequencies from my BioCharger and all manner of little biohack. So, I'm curious to see what the doc says when I go in tomorrow night to have the stitches removed, either A, he's going to say that my thumb is a Frankenstein-esque monster from my little biohacks that I've been throwing at it, and it's never going to be the same for the rest of my life. Or B, he's going to say that it healed up quite nicely. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed except for my thumb, which I'm not crossing to find out what goes on with that.

And then, the other thing I want to let you guys know, if any of you are interested in it, I've gotten very into home defense, into protection, into self-defense. And you might even call me a little bit of a prepper at this point in my life if you look at all the gold cryptocurrency, the stuff buried in my backyard and my safe, the little bank accounts I have over in Singapore. I'm trying to be smart just with life in general, as far as preparation. I wouldn't say I'm a prepper. I don't think the world's going to hell in a handbasket, but I think it is good to be prepared for any curveballs that life may throw at you. Some of you may be familiar with a Navy SEAL or former Navy SEAL named Tim Kennedy. And I went and took his Sheepdog course since the last Q&A episode, and it was fantastic. My wife and I both took it. They taught everything from situational awareness, like I personally can't walk through a parking lot anymore now since having taken the course without seeing the 18 different threats that are in the parking lot and what everyone's doing in their cars or out of their cars, and where potential threats, entrances, exits are, et cetera.

We did about eight hours of jujitsu over two days, but it was jujitsu with things like knives, and guns, and learning how to strip weapons out of people's hands when you've got them in a chokehold on the floor. Completely nonviolent of course. Use your imagination. And then, we also did a ton of shooting, close quarter shooting, primarily using Glocks and, gosh, fired off probably about 300 rounds or so each day over the course of a couple of days. Probably got lead poisoning. I'm not joking. Actually, when you do that much shooting, you want to pay attention to your heavy metals afterwards. So, I've been doing some sauna, and I'm probably the only person who took the course and finish it up in the next day. Did a coffee enema to get rid of all the lead in my system, but I did.

And so, anyways, it was called a Sheepdog course. Really cool. And I now know how to handle a firearm in close quarters, choke someone out and strip a knife off of someone who's trying to stab me. So, those skills, I hope, never come in handy, but it's good to know either way. And so, I'm still practicing with the Glock, and also much of the chagrin of anyone who is uncomfortable with the Second Amendment or with ownership of guns. I also have a quite handy Colt Carbine, semi-automatic self-defense rifle that I'll be jumping into next for my defense training. Plus, this is just kind of like shooting a bow. Some of this stuff is just a little bit meditative to learn to use, and sight, and handle. And I think it's good to be able to responsibly use a weapon, even if it's just for hunting, not self-defense, but I do think that most of the issues that we see these days are more an issue with people, and morality, and anger issues, and loneliness, and a lot of other issues that go above and beyond tools that one can implement such as a gun. I have no issues with guns. I have issues with people who shouldn't have guns having guns and using them irresponsibly. So, that being said, hopefully, it doesn't get me canceled off of Facebook or wherever this podcast shows up.

Anyways though, after talking about violence and chopping thumbs off and ice cream, let's talk about sex, baby. Shall we? We're going to jump into today's news flashes. After which, you can of course raise your hand and we can get into this week's Q&A.

Alright. So, interesting study that came out just this month. This is the age-old question that I'm sure–especially, it seems like more men ask this question than women, although it's, of course, relevant to any female athletes and exercise enthusiasts as well. And that is the topic of sexual intercourse before exercise, and whether it has a helpful effect, a null effect, or a detrimental effect. And it turns out that a journal wound up doing a small study, admittedly small study with 50 men, physically and sexually active men. And what they wanted to study was whether sexual intercourse could harm athletic performance along debated topics and sports competitions were first invented. And also, a topic with a relative lack of solid scientific evidence, getting to see what I did there, solid scientific evidence. Oh, yeah. I'm going to definitely pun the hell out of this one.

So, anyways, these physically and sexually active men, what they did were weight training sessions, three different weight training sessions. All sessions were at the same time of day and they tested their maximum weight for five repetitions of the squat with total of five sets. So, five by five max rep squad. That's not a routine for anyone who's faint of heart. That's pretty tough to throw weight on your back that's close to your maximum weight. Do five reps, do five sets of that. But then they also measured their performance in that, either after participating in sexual intercourse the night before or abstaining from sexual intercourse the night before. And they actually measured the duration of the sexual intercourse with a stopwatch. I don't know if anyone would like to guess about how long the mean duration of sex was before I reveal it to you, but it was, drumroll, please, 13.8 minutes, plus or minus three and a half minutes.

So, that was the average amount of time that physically and sexually active men were engaged in sexual intercourse. I have no clue if that includes foreplay, if that's simply mean time of thrusting or what exactly they were measuring. But anyways, what they found was that the mean lifted weight when these gentlemen were abstinent was about 109 kilograms. And if you'd like to know what that is in pounds, just so you guys know the quick math there is you multiply by 2.2. And so, they were doing about 240 pounds or so. Now, after they had had sex, same workout, and they isolated for issues like being fatigued, et cetera, these guys were recovered all that jazz. So, it actually dropped, their maximum weight lifted, dropped, and dropped significantly by almost 10 pounds. So, to 107 kilograms, which I believe is–what's 107 kilograms come out to? Approximately for 109 kilograms was about 240 pounds. So, we had 235 pounds-ish, somewhere around there. So, 5 to 10-pound drop in squat performance.

Now, I don't know about you, but I would say that unless you're an elite athlete, if you have the choice between abstaining from sex or engaging in an enjoyable activity and your maximum squat dropping by 5 to 10 pounds, I don't know about you, but I'm just fine having sex if I can't do my max squat quite as heavy the next day. It wasn't that significant, especially considering these gentlemen were engaged in sex for about 13 minutes. If you are in your exercise session, for example, for the physical benefits that you might derive from it, the metabolic benefits, well, you could say, “Hey, I squatted 5 to 10 less pounds, but I also exercise for an extra 13 minutes last night.” So, it could be all awash unless you're a professional athlete.

But I mean, if you are one of those people doing, I don't know, triathlon, CrossFit, Spartan racing, anything else which you want to just show up and be just absolutely stellar the next day, maybe you should abstain, or–and here's where my mind goes. All the evidence that I've seen on increases in testosterone, increases in kind of like aggressiveness, libido, et cetera, seem to correlate to know ejaculation sex. Meaning, I wish they'd have tested a third group in which they had sex without ejaculation because if any of you guys have tried that, I guess it's an ancient eastern practice of a no ejaculation for like a month, which I did a couple of years ago. Oh my goodness, you feel like you want to just, pardon the expression, just like rip somebody's head off by the time you've gotten through the course of a month of that. So, maybe the rule is here, A, don't have sex if you really want to perform well and exercise the next day. B, do have sex if you don't care and you just want to enjoy yourself. And C, if you want to be an absolute animal, have sex, but fellas, don't ejaculate. So, there you go. And I'll link to this study, as well as everything else that is discussed during this podcast episode if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/428. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com/428.

So, sexual intercourse, out of the way. We know about how that pairs to exercise. A couple other things that I want to get into, heavy water versus light water, and this is quite interesting. Many of you may be aware of this, but technically speaking, not all water on our planet is made up of H2O molecules. Yes, you can curse under your breath your high school chemistry professor for lying to you, but it turns out that almost a century ago, they discovered this hydrogen, what's called an isotope. It's called deuterium. Deuterium is kind of like hydrogen chemically, but a typical hydrogen atom has one proton, a single proton in its nucleus. But deuterium has a neutron in addition to that proton, meaning that it's like hydrogen, but it's way heavier, has a greater mass. So, they call water that contains hefty amounts of deuterium in it heavy water. Now, heavy water has about 10% greater density than regular water. It bonds similarly, it acts similarly, you can drink it similarly. It's harmless, not going to be poisonous for you to drink it.

But the problem is that the larger twin of hydrogen tends to gum up your molecular machinery, particularly in your mitochondria. And I have some podcasts where I get into the extreme science behind this, particularly with Robert Slovak, if you go to listen to any of my podcast episodes with him. We really get into the chemical differentiations between these isotopes and how it can deleteriously affect mitochondria when you're consuming water that is heavier in deuterium. One of the best ways to elevate levels of deuterium in your body is to consume water in the form of eating plants that have been sprayed with pesticides like glyphosate, herbicide, pesticides, et cetera. And also to eat a lot of starches and sugars because your body makes its own deuterium-depleted water when you're burning fats for energy. The process of beta-oxidation kicks off some water, and that's naturally deuterium-depleted water.

But if you're mitigating starches and sugars, eating organically, et cetera, you probably have decent deuterium status. You can actually buy deuterium-depleted water. It's very expensive, in my opinion. I think that it will become increasingly affordable, but you can also drink deuterium-depleted water, and many people will purchase it. For example, that same guy I interviewed, Robert Slovak, on his website Water and Wellness, he sells giant jugs of deuterium-depleted water. And you can mix, say, like 20 ounces of a regular glass of water you might drink in the morning with several ounces of this deuterium-depleted water. And then, you can do a special test over time. And I did this and it's nice. You can watch the deuterium levels, and this is measured via special breath test, decrease as you drink deuterium-depleted water, and it's actually very good for you metabolically to make sure that deuterium isn't building up in your system.

Well, this latest study in communications and biology found out that taste-testing experiment, people were able to actually differentiate between regular water and water that had higher levels of deuterium in it. The test subjects reported that the greater proportions of heavy water were perceived as tasting slightly sweeter, which is interesting because deuterium is actually something that your taste receptors, your sweetness taste receptors can detect that, although none of this has been studied, that makes me wonder if when we're consuming, say, like non-organic produce or herbicides, pesticides, et cetera, if the increased sugariness or sweetness of that and our interaction of our taste receptors in it contributes to a desire for sweeter compounds. And this is way out there. No science behind this, but maybe like a mild propensity to be addicted to, say, like non-organic foods or foods that are heavily sprayed.

It's an interesting thought pattern. But nonetheless, it turns out that our taste receptors can actually differentiate between heavy water and light water. I don't know if that's very useful at all, but this study at least caught my attention because, mark my words, if you look at, let's say investment areas in the health or fitness or nutrition sector, or what you might see as being the hot thing that's talked about over the next several years, kind of like CBD has been big, keto has been big, I don't know what else has been big, I don't know, veganism, cold thermogenesis, breathwork, whatever, I think deuterium-depleted water is going to be one of those things that we see people talking about more and more. And as it becomes increasingly affordable and accessible, people are drinking it a lot more, too. So, that was interesting. And it turns out that your own taste buds can actually tell the difference between regular water and water that has higher levels of this deuterium in it.

Okay. Couple more things that I want to mention in today's new flashes. Cool new website I discovered, drumroll, please–and I'll link to this one in the shownotes. And I also promise I will quit saying “drum roll, please” because I overuse that phrase. The website alzdiscovery.org, as in alzheimersdiscovery.org, they have developed a fantastic website that rates things that you consume that are good for your brain or might be good for your brain. And another one of my favorite websites, examine.com, they arrange them based on evidence, potential benefits, safety, et cetera. They develop this for Alzheimer's patients, but really, it's a fantastic way if you're into things like nootropics, smart drugs, ways to enhance cognitive function. You can feed just about anything through their algorithm.

And what they've done is that they've matched up all the rigorous scientific studies on FDA approved drugs, herbal supplements, vitamins, rated the strength of the scientific evidence in terms of the number of multiple, say, randomized control trials or human clinical studies on any of these different compounds, and identified which things that either stave off Alzheimer's or dementia or also as many things that stave off Alzheimer's and dementia's do, things that just make your brain work better, which are the best. Everything from like intranasal insulin to alpha-GPC, to phenylpiracetam, to molecular hydrogen, they've got it all listed there. And so, as I'm prone to do, I figured I'd just go to the website, and I fed a lot of the things that I've experimented with through the website.

First of all, if you look at the things that have the most evidence behind them, the highest amount of evidence for cognitive function is actually estrogen and ginkgo biloba. A lot of guys don't realize this actually, how good estrogen is for your brain. Like a lot of men who are on aromatase inhibitors who are taking testosterone, that's bad news brain–or bad news brain–shows where my brain is. Bad news bears for cognitive function to suppress your estrogen, if you're a man, with chemicals or pharmaceuticals. Estrogen is actually very good for your brain. And it turns out that on this website, men having decent levels of estrogen was actually highly protective against Alzheimer's and dementia. And then, ginkgo biloba is an interesting one. That's one that's kind of a cool supplement. It's very good for memory.

If you look at those, instead of those with the highest evidence, those with the highest potential benefit coffee and caffeine, no surprises there, a green tea was very high. Intranasal insulin actually had pretty high potential benefit. I haven't personally used intranasal insulin, but that's interesting. Lithium was up there, modafinil was up there, NAD was up there, nicotine was up there, DHA from fish oil was pretty high. And then something called benfotiamine, that's an interesting one. It's a relative of thiamine, better known as vitamin B1. And you guys may recall when I interviewed a biohacker from down in Australia a few weeks ago named Lucas Aoun. We talked about how many people, when they start taking a special form of thiamine called Thiamax–and I'll link to that one in the shownotes. It's kind of like a cousin of thiamine. They feel like their cognitive performance and their energy goes to the roof because a lot of people have difficulty with adequate thiamine levels. And it turns out that that's one that's really safe and effective as a cognitive performance aid.

I bought some of that after interviewing Luke and tried about three capsules a day for a month or so. I really liked it. I'm still just married to cup of coffee and nicotine, maybe some of that Qualia Mind. And then, because I am one of those guys who microdoses, meaning that throughout any given month, I use trace amounts of LSD, trace amounts of psilocybin, and trace amounts of Wachuma, which is kind of like a cactus extract, I think that those plant medicines used in responsible small doses just kick the pants off about any nootropic that I've used. I didn't keep using the thiamine, but I just wanted to try it out and see what it was like. But anyways, this website's super interesting. So, for those of you who want to bookmark it, or go check it out, or maybe feed some of the own nootropics or smart drugs you might be experimenting with through the website to see how they rate, it's alzdiscovery.org. And I will also link to that one in the shownotes. So, that's pretty cool.

And then, finally, last thing I wanted to mention was blood flow restriction training. Now, I've talked about blood flow restriction training in the past. So, this is accomplished by wrapping elbow straps or almost like a tourniquet type of device up above the bicep and then above the knee, and you restrict the blood. You don't completely occlude blood flow. You still get some amount of venous return. But some of the blood is restricted to the muscle. And so, you get swelling in the muscle, you get a lactic acid accumulation in the muscle, you get this massive growth hormone response afterwards. And the swelling within the muscle, when you tourniquet a muscle group prior to training it, you get pooling of blood around muscle tissue, and that causes this accumulation of metabolites in the muscle cell. It forces fluid into the muscle cell causing the muscle cell to swell.

And when the muscle cell swells, that triggers these things called mechanosensors within the muscle cell membrane. When those mechanosensors get triggered, it elicits anabolic pathways like the mTOR pathway that cranks up muscle protein synthesis, which promotes muscle growth, or staves off muscle loss. That same cell swelling can also result in an increase in things like brain-derived nootropic factor, insulin-like growth factor, something called vascular endothelial factor, which results in better blood delivery to muscles and to your brain. And it turns out that because BFR training preferentially activates fast-twitch muscle fibers, it's also very, very good for things like building muscle and hypertrophy. Many studies have shown this is an excellent way to train when, say, you're rehabilitating a joint, or if you're, say, like a senior who wants to stave off sarcopenia and can't lift extremely heavy weights, et cetera.

So, I have a few podcasts that I'll link to in the shownotes that I've done on BFR training, also known as Kaatsu training, if you go through the Japanese phrase. Well, there's something else that induces muscle swelling in a similar manner. And this is something that some athletes have used for some time, kind of like some athletes who use glycerol as a water loading tactic, okay, to drive more glycogen or to drive more water into tissue, say, before you go out and do like a hot and heavy bike riding race or, say, like an Ironman triathlon where you want to hack your body and get by with drinking less water. Well, there's a compound called betaine. You may be familiar with that name. You find in beets in pretty high amounts, B-E-T-A-I-N-E.

Now, betaine helps your body maintain hydration by protecting the cell against dehydration, by increasing cellular water retention via very simple process, that same chemistry professor who you're cursing for not telling you about deuterium. They probably did tell you about osmosis, right? And that's how betaine works. It works as an osmo light, right? It contributes to the influx of fluid into the muscle cell, inducing muscle cell swelling, which stimulates muscle protein synthesis and decreases protein breakdown in muscle cells resulting in muscle growth. And it's actually been studied to play a role in triggering muscle growth at an intake of about 2 to 6 grams a day. Okay. So, if you go into Amazon to look it up and buy-in betaine powder or betaine capsules, you're looking for about 2 to 6 grams prior to a training session in order to get the benefits.

Well, it turns out that if you combine it, which a lot of bodybuilders are doing now, and this study just appeared in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research, wasn't a study as much as like a paper review of the combination of betaine and BFR training. Could be a very, very good way to build muscle quickly when all you have access to are lighter loads, such as if you're traveling, or again if you're injured, or if you're a senior, or if like me, you have stitches all over your thumb and you can't lift heavyweights. I've actually been doing a lot of BFR training. I don't have betaine. Don't laugh. I've actually been using sildenafil, which is basically Viagra, which acts kind of similarly to betaine for this.

So, I've literally, just to experiment with this protocol, been taking Viagra and doing blood flow restriction training, and you get this massive pump that lasts all day long. I don't know if it's as powerful as betaine. I didn't have any on hand in my supplements pantry, but I did have some Viagra. So, I took Viagra, did blood flow restriction training. And if you're a guy or a girl who wants to build muscle, or maintain muscle, or get more toned, or, say, more swole without really heavy weight lifting, combining blood flow restriction training with anything that's like a blood flow precursor-like betaine, or, say, like citrulline, or arginine, or Viagra, could be a pretty good strategy for you. And just for me, subjectively, it results in my muscles being quite, quite full for an extended period of time. As a matter of fact, I got a massage the other night. My massage therapist said, “Dude, your muscles feel like they're full of fluid, almost like edema.” And it's probably because I was doing blood flow restriction training combined with a vasodilatory agent like Viagra. So, there you have it. Now, I'll link to that paper as well about blood flow restriction training and betaine for enhanced muscle growth in the shownotes at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/428.

Well, folks, this is the time of the show in which I give you some cool discounts and deals. And I don't record these live because sometimes I record the Clubhouse Q&A podcast a week or two in advance before it is released on this particular podcast feed. And as a result, sometimes the commercials are a little bit more time-sensitive than that. And so, this is the time of the show when I want to give you access to some things that are as time sensitive as possible. So, here we go. First off, this is it. This is the magical moment. My brand new, pretty unique, kind of weird cookbook is ready. Why do I say weird? Because it's just chock-full of all these crazy and unique mashups of molecular gastronomy, and biohacking, and superfoods along with recipes from my wife, from my kids. It's an epic bounty of mouthwatering taste bud entertaining goodness. And I think the luscious photos spread throughout are pretty darn cool as well. It's a beautiful cookbook. It's big, it's beautiful, it's chock-full of all the crazy unique recipes you hear me talking about making on Instagram, and podcasts, and articles.

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Sofia, let's go ahead and bring somebody up on stage. Who's the first brave person to go?

Chris:  Hey, Ben. Hi, Sophia. How are you?

Ben:  Hey. What's up, Chris?

Chris:  Yeah. This is so cool. I never thought I'd be able to talk to you, Ben. This is awesome. Hey, I got a quick question.

Ben:  Yeah.

Chris:  I was watching some of Dr. Kruse's–since you've been talking about biohacking health, you guys seem to be on similar pages. What are your thoughts on his vitamin D protocols, or rather his leptin protocol or redox?

Ben:  Yeah. Go ahead. Any clarification on it?

Chris:  No, no, no. I'm just curious if you had any thoughts on it or whatever. I downloaded this app that he recommended, and it tells you based on [00:36:45] _____ skin, how much you weigh, your height, and all these other things, how much sun you should be getting. And something that was really concerning was that about 80 days out of the year, apparently, no vitamin D is–I'm in Massachusetts. And I was curious if you had any issues with this, because it seems like you're probably at higher latitude than I am.

Ben:  That's a great question, Chris. And really, Jack is an interesting guy. He's been on the podcast before, for those of you who aren't familiar with him. He's a neurosurgeon who had some interesting protocols. He wound up losing a lot of weight, kind of dealing with his own obesity, discovering a lot of interesting things in the process. He thinks outside the box. He's somewhat controversial in the health world just because of some of his ideas, and honestly, I think to a certain extent the way that he presents some of his ideas. But I think he does have some good ideas. For example, vitamin D. Basically, he believes that since we use vitamin D or use photosynthesis to make vitamin D to protect us from the higher amounts of poor electron-dense foods, he calls them, that we might eat in the summer, or when we're near the equator, that the idea is that the more that you're consuming, say, like high carbohydrates, high sugar foods, or the more that you are eating a summer type of diet, the more important that vitamin D becomes.

And I mean, he's pretty bullish on vitamin D in terms of everything that it does, which it actually is–it's a very important hormone. It facilitates our intestinal absorption of things like phosphorus and calcium. And so, it's definitely responsible for a lot of our bone health. If your levels are above about 50, if you get a blood test, that's associated with low leptin levels, which is how it ties into his leptin protocol because leptin is a potent appetite and circadian rhythm regulating hormone is dependent on adequate levels of vitamin D. And so, that's why it's part of his leptin protocol, which I'll explain momentarily. It's a natural antibiotic, vitamin D does. It helps to clear or help white blood cells in clearing infections. And it does that by stimulating immune cells to make this protein called cathelicidin in your skin. And that doesn't happen in your gut, but it works when your skin gets exposed to UV and infrared light, which is why just supplementing with vitamin D, or even arguably using something like a transdermal vitamin D ointment, it's not as good as, say, like getting out in the sunshine.

Vitamin D can assist with normalized blood pressure because it inhibits this hormone called renin that your kidneys produce. And interestingly, because in the summer, in the warm months, we tend to eat more fruit, which is high in fructose, the interesting thing is that the kidneys have to process more uric acid. When you're consuming more fructose, that can lead to a higher elevation of systolic blood pressure. And by having adequate vitamin D levels, you can also allow yourself to be able to process fructose better with less of a stress on the kidneys. There's some evidence that low levels of vitamin D might be associated with the onset of heart disease in some people. There's some evidence that in autoimmune diseases, higher vitamin D levels might be necessary because the gut gets broken down in people with autoimmune diseases. They tend to be DHA depleted, and vitamin D can help with basically like a leaky gut. It's linked to being able to strengthen the enterocytes of the intestinal lining to make the guts less leaky, something like colostrum might do.

And so, that's basically a lot of the arguments that Jack would make about the reasons vitamin D is important. And I do agree with him that if you are eating a higher carbohydrate, higher fructose diet, adequate exposure to sun, UV light and infrared light can actually be protective in that environment. And similarly, I personally, when I travel and I'm in like a tropical locale or an area with a lot of sun, or even when it's summer or late spring near my own home, I'm actually okay with shifting to slightly higher fruit consumption. Like just in the past month, as the sun started to come out a lot more and the weather's gotten warm, I've started to put a handful of wild blueberries, which arguably have a decent amount of fructose in them into my morning smoothie because I actually include just a few more fruits in the summer and during times of exposure to higher levels of sunlight because it allows you to adapt your diet to the season, and that little bit of extra vitamin D actually helps you process that.

So, that's part of Jack's protocol. And then, in addition to hefty amounts of cold thermogenesis, and sunlight exposure, and high intake of DHA from things like shellfish and fish, he's also a big fan of making sure that you address leptin resistant, a little leptin-resistant. Anybody who's gained a high amount of weight in particular and then lost that weight, or yo-yo dieting, they tend to have more resistance to this appetite-regulating hormone leptin. And to regain leptin sensitivity, Jack has several recommendations. First of all, eating breakfast as early as possible when you rise, and including plenty of protein with breakfast, not doing long periods of fasting or working out in a fasted state, especially right before breakfast, spacing out your meals, but still eating three meals a day and not doing an OMAD, one meal a day based diet, and then doing a lot of darkness and making your sleep area like a cave, especially as you get close to about one to two hours before bed to also improve leptin sensitivity.

And basically, it's a lot of the things that you would do for enhancing your circadian rhythmicity, but it's in the absence of doing a lot of fasting and fasted workouts in the morning, and instead, kind of like resetting your leptin sensitivity by getting up, getting lots of light exposure, eating good high protein breakfast, saving any workouts, hard sessions, et cetera, for later on in the day when you're well-fed, getting in a good circadian rhythm alignment for sleep, particularly with respect to darkness, getting adequate amount of vitamin D and sunlight during the day, like I talked about earlier. And I actually agree with a lot of Jack's reasoning on a lot of these issues. Whereas I think he can tend to be pretty out there and a little bit controversial, and kind of like dogmatic in some of his approaches. I would say like, gosh, a good 80% of what Jack says is actually pretty spot on if you actually dig into the science behind it. And I see more people get healthy, and optimized, and lose weight, and have better mitochondria help from his type of protocols than I do get, say, like hurt by his type of protocols. So, yeah. I'm a fan of Jack and what he does. And yeah, I think especially optimizing your leptin levels and optimizing your vitamin D levels, that is quite a bit of benefit. So, that's where I stand on Jack Kruse. I don't know if that answered your question, did it?

Chris:  That was a very thorough answer. I appreciate it. Thank you very much, Ben.

Ben:  Awesome.

Chris:  And it seems like it's what people should focus on if they are not at a probably right weight, and then probably should focus on intermittent fasting and other biohacks and stuff like that. But thank you so much, Ben. I appreciate it.

Ben:  Yeah, yeah. No problem. And you're absolutely correct. As with anything, like let's say a strict carnivore diet, or a vegan-based plant and juice cleansing protocol, or a period of heavy lifting, or a period of like easy sauna and massage and walking in the sunshine, you never want to get married to one specific dietary and exercise protocol and think, “Oh, okay. This is working really well right now. Therefore, this is exactly what I do for the rest of my life.” Right? It's like once you fix leptin insensitivities, maybe you do try some fasting and early morning aerobic workouts before breakfast and maybe try two meals a day instead of three meals a day, and maybe don't beat yourself up with quite as much, say, cold thermogenesis. And as with anything, the body responds really well to seasonal cycling, to fast feast cycles, to heavy lifting followed by recovery periods. And so, just never get–anybody listening in, never get myopically married to one specific protocol because the body responds really well to fluctuations in protocols.

Alright. Well, let's go ahead and bring somebody else on.

Bryce:  Hey there, guys. Hey, Ben. How are you? Thanks for having me up. Bryce Wild. Ben, you might recognize me or know me from some of the stuff. I know you know about nutrients, The DNA Company. My question is twofold, actually. What are your thoughts around insulin-sensitizing using specifically the 8-hydroxy-dihydroberberine? And then, the second part is, what is the craziest biohack that you've done that did not work?

Ben:  For the second part of your question, I actually get that quite a bit, and I really wish I had a better response, but I've never really, say, like messed myself up that much with just about any biohack. I mean, literally, like maybe chopping my thumb off while thawing out ice cream while making a healthy ice cream article. I'm actually pretty safe. I'm pretty cautious. I was always that kid who would practice somersaults for like two weeks on the ground prior to attempting a flip on a trampoline so that I had everything in working order and had done all my research and knew exactly how the body would feel. I've always been one of those guys who's cautious to a certain extent with just about anything I do as far as the research.

Even like one that I caught a lot of flak for before, people like, “Oh, wait, what are you talking about? You're the guy who injected stem cells into his dick.” But I mean, still, I actually did a ton of research before that on all these studies on erectile dysfunction and Peyronie's disease in men who had gone through a similar protocol prior to putting myself a healthy man without any of those issues through that. In this case, it was for magazine article that I was working on. And so, even stuff that seems like I'm kind of cowboying a little bit, I'm actually pretty careful with a lot of this stuff. And so, I've never broken a bone. This is the first time in my life I've gotten stitches. I have rarely been in the hospital. I've never gotten surgery, unless you count that full body stem cell protocol that I did. So, I really have not done that much to my body. I've steeped myself in research quite a bit. And yeah, I do some stuff like, I don't know, whatever, sound healing protocols, or energy medicine, or charging up my water with that Infopathy device that supposedly carries information from pharmaceuticals or supplements into the water that you're drinking almost in a homoeopathic way that many people might consider to be woo-woo or unfounded by scientific evidence. Yet still even with that stuff, if there was any hint of extreme dangerousness or threat to myself, or something that might take me away from being able to protect and provide for my family, I'm actually pretty careful.

And so, I can't say that I've done anything that crazy again aside from almost chopping off my thumb while cutting ice cream with a knife. But the second part of your question is interesting, dihydroberberine. I talked about that with Shawn Wells recently on a podcast. That's one of his favorite anti-aging supplements, one of his favorite supplements overall. It's a glucose disposal agent or called a GDA. And berberine has been used in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine for decades. I actually think it's quite interesting. I got interested in it when I began doing a lot of plant foraging around my home and discovered I have a lot of a plant called Oregon grape extract growing near my home. And I can dig up Oregon grape root and shave off that grape root and get this dark yellowish-orange substance that chemically is actually quite similar to berberine as far as glucose disposal agent.

And so, this stuff that you might pay 60 bucks a bottle for at the supplements out, I can dig up for free in my backyard. And so, I'll make teas and stuff out of it. And I actually don't even use berberine. For me for a glucose disposal agent, I'll use apple cider vinegar, or any good bitters or digestif the same as you might get at a bar. Like when I'm out eating at a restaurant and I'm asked about a cocktail I want, I'll often just ask for a selection of house bitters on ice with some soda water and a squeeze of lemon, and that is a perfect glucose disposal agent cocktail that you can have when you're out at a restaurant. When I'm at home, I'll do something similar, but usually with like apple cider vinegar and lemon and the like, and maybe some of this shaved Oregon grape root extract or Oregon grape root extract tincture that I'll make at home.

I also use Kion Lean, which is a supplement that I developed for my supplements company Kion, which uses chromium and bitter melon extract, which in my own internal testing against the diabetic drug metformin seemed to do just as good a job lowering my blood glucose as metformin, and as berberine, and as Oregon grape root extract. And so, I know it sounds like the–what do you call it? The fox guarding the henhouse from you, talking about a supplement that my company sells, but I actually really, really like bitter melon extract as well. That's what's used in Okinawa, Japan, for example, as a bitter or digestif prior to a meal to control blood sugar. And then, of course, lifestyle modalities like cold thermogenesis, or some burpees, or a good workout prior to a carbohydrate-heavy meal is probably one of the most overly cold, particularly one of the most powerful glucose disposal agent practices one can do in the absence of any supplements or drugs.

But anyways, dihydroberberine is a very bioabsorbable form of berberine. Berberine itself has also been chunked to be comparable in doing some of the same things that the diabetic drug metformin would do for you. It helps with glycation. Meaning, it reduces the formation of glycation end product. So, you could also use it prior to a meal that might contain vegetable oils, or if you've accidentally eaten a snack pack that has a bunch of canola oil, then you look at the label and you're like, “Oh, crap, these chips had bunch of canola oil.” You can take berberine. That helps to reduce the formation of advanced glycation end products. It also helps with healthy lipid metabolism, things like cholesterol, triglycerides, et cetera. Problem is berberine has to be converted by your gut bacteria into dihydroberberine. Okay. Dihydroberberine that gets oxidized to berberine after gets absorbed in your intestines.

So, when you supplement with dihydroberberine, it sidesteps that rate-limiting step of microbial reduction, and what you get is an approximate five-fold increase in absorption of dihydroberberine compared to berberine. And studies, animal studies, admittedly, but studies nonetheless demonstrate that dihydroberberine is like four times more effective than berberine at reducing body fat and improving glucose tolerance at a dosage of about 150 milligrams taken twice a day. So, because I have all these other things, I, believe it or not, get Kion Lean for free from my own company. Dihydroberberine is not a staple in my own protocol, but it's certainly one that is an effective glucose disposal agent, and I think way better than berberine. So, it fits into your protocol. I certainly think that it's something that can be quite good for a variety of different needs. So, yeah. I like dihydroberberine. And maybe to answer your second part, I should just get it and take like four times as much as is recommended, and then develop some kind of a bloody bowel disorder. And that way, I'll have a response to the second part of your question that's a little bit sexier than cutting ice cream with a knife. But anyways, great question, Bryce.

Bryce:  Hey, thanks for all you do, man. I appreciate it.

Dr. Mehdi:  First of all, Ben, I have a friend in the audience who recommended me to join the room. No offense, I had never heard of you until this room and loved all what you had to share. Now, I would like to ask a question based on your BFR or occlusion training experiments you had done. So, my question is as we know the protein synthesis and satellite cell formation that happens after BFR workouts, but have you ever, in your experiments, tried combining BFR training with beta-hydroxymethylbutyrate or liquid HMB? And what did you find with those effects? Because I have tested those two and I'd like to see if you had something similar.

Ben:  Geez, you guys are asking me some pretty smart questions. I have not combined HMB with blood flow restriction training, but HMB is interesting. I mentioned in a podcast a couple of years ago a study that combined the supplement, HMB, beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate, is what that is, with ATP for pretty significant enhancements in gains, in strength, and lean muscle mass, and it may work quite similarly when combined or when stacked with creatine. So, HMB is going to get formed naturally when your body breaks down amino acids, particularly the amino acid leucine. And that has honestly–and again, I feel like I'm being self-promotional here, but it's kind of influenced my decision to just continue taking on aminos rather than adding HMB into a strength training or a muscle gain type of protocol.

But HMB does have decent evidence behind it for being able to assist with muscle gain or muscle maintenance. When combined particularly with ATP, with creatine, it seems to work much, much better. But I mean, if you're getting adequate amounts of amino acids, particularly leucine, it's questionable whether you actually need to supplement with extra HMB. I suppose if you are on a calorie-restricted diet or restricting protein, that HMB might be a way to do that with even fewer calories, even though something like essential amino acids don't have that many calories in them anyways. It also might be interesting for the purposes of reducing muscle wasting where muscle atrophy might be accelerated, such as during bed rest, or cancer cachexia, or something like that. And the dosage range is about 1 to 3 grams or so for that kind of like anti-catabolic effect. Usually, you take it about a half-hour or 45 minutes before work out to allow the blood levels to build up. And it does have some pretty decent effects on that.

And I would say that again, like if you're protein-restricted, not getting enough amino acids that you want to build muscle, or you're calorie-restricted and fasting and want to build muscle, HMB combined with creatine and ATP or the use of just like a hefty amount of essential amino acids could be something that would help you out in that case. It's not like top of my totem pole as far as supplements go, nor have I really combined it with something like blood flow restriction training, particularly because I'm just noodling here about the mechanism of action. Unlike betaine, which I talked about earlier, Viagra or any blood flow precursor that's going to assist with the cellular swelling that you get from blood flow restriction training, HMB is going to work more to reduce the rate of muscle breakdown. And considering that with blood flow restriction training, the mechanism of action via which you're building muscle is not muscle breakdown as much as muscle swelling and accumulation of metabolites, I'm not quite sure those two really logically marry as the best workout stack. But I don't know. Have you tried it, Dr. Mehdi?

Dr. Mehdi:  It's perfect hearing this from you because I actually ran an experiment with a person who had never worked out before intensively. But what we did was–because research has also shown that occlusion training combined with regular heavyweight conventional workout amplifies the occlusion training results, right? So, using occlusion training as a finisher versus using occlusion training alone, right? So, like you just said, HMB is for muscle healing, the recovery process, the protein synthesis. So, what we did was we combined creatine, HMB, and conventional heavyweight. And what we would do would be we will train him for strength, 25% of the workout. We'll train him for hypertrophy, the remaining 25% of the workout. And then, the last 50%, we would go into occlusion training where we would try and really get that blood flow restriction and metabolic waste accumulated. And then, at the end, the HMB and recovery process.

So, trying to combine all these three elements in these three levels, we found very, very promising results. And I was also wondering–it was really nice hearing you say combined with creatine because this is really the key if you are combining it with heavyweight workouts because we–like full disclaimer, I'm part of an occlusion training company where we are the world's first who have integrated it safely in clothing. So, you don't have to wrap tourniquets around limbs and so on. Full disclaimer, we were doing it due to that. We were testing our new product that is safer because a lot of people are using their mom's Pilates bands around vital axillary arteries.

Ben:  Right.

Dr. Mehdi:  Yeah. So, we're trying to make it safer to come in public, but definitely combining it with heavyweight workout. We found [00:59:31] _____ that this was significantly better, as studies show as well.

Ben:  That's interesting. I have a few quick thoughts, and then I think we're going to take one more question. First of all, Sophia, you should get Dr. Mehdi's contact details and have him reach out to me because I actually would like to get my hands on the research that he's doing, and perhaps even link to it from the shownotes so that we can have that in the shownotes, if people want to explore what Dr. Mehdi is doing in terms of both the BFR research and the HMB research. Second, that's a brilliant idea to be able to develop some type of clothing or something that allows people to more safely, effectively, and quickly do what a lot of people complain about when it comes to BFR training, which is two things. A, takes a long time to put everything on and know if you're doing it right in terms of the straps. And B, some people get nervous that the straps are too tight, too loose, how do you adjust them. And granted these Japanese Kaatsu training devices allow for you to very precisely dial in the millimeters of mercury that is around each joint, yet those are also, for some people, prohibitively expensive.

And then, the last thing is the idea of you working blood flow restriction training. And you can also, when you get my contact details from Sophia, fill me in on this suit or this clothing that you're developing because I'm very interested in that. I wasn't aware that that was being developed, but it reminds me of another interesting thing that those of you listening in who are into exercising might actually like, and it's right at this same alley that I've been messing around with, and it's incredible. Many of you are familiar with electrical muscle stimulation training. And there's a company called Katalyst that has produced a suit. And you just pull on this suit and it ties to an iPad, and a trainer on your iPad walks you through a full electrical muscle stimulation workout without you having to put all these electrodes on and everything because they're embedded within the suit.

There's no wires, so you're not messing around with all these wires as you're trying to exercise and do athletic movements. I've got my hands on a unit two weeks ago. I've done four workouts with it. It's a little bit soreness-inducing because electrical muscle stimulation bypasses your brain as the central governor and causes the muscles, including muscles you may not have used much in the past to contract with a great deal of force. So, you wind up being sore afterwards because you're using a lot of muscles and training a lot of muscles you might not have otherwise trained. But it's also really, really interesting in terms of the endorphin release that you get afterwards in terms of how it, like blood flow restriction training, can be combined with other lifting modalities or cardiovascular training modalities. And so, this sounds like it falls in that same alley, and also makes me wonder if the exercise suit of the future is an exercise muscle stimulation suit that's aligned with the electrodes to stimulate the muscles that also blood flow restricts the muscles as you're training. And gosh, that would be an interesting stack. Maybe that sound eventually related to Bryce questions, how I'm going to kill myself with some type of biohack.

So, anyways though, yeah, Sophia, get my information or give Dr. Mehdi my contact details. And if he sends over that study and stuff, we can put that in the shownotes and he can fill me in more on this suit that he's developing. So, all wonderful things. Very cool. Alright. Well, let's take one more question. What's up, Mike?

Mike:  I'm doing good. Thanks. It's interesting you had told about that. I'm doing it right now. Actually, I have a bad knee from a meniscus operation I had about 10 years ago. It's always giving me trouble ever since. And what I've been doing lately, I'm doing it right now. I'm using the Kaatsu and I'm using Russian stim, and I've been doing it like 15 minutes. I do like once, sometimes even twice a day maybe for the last six weeks, and no question about it, it's definitely helping my knee. I found a couple of studies on it. Now, [01:03:22] _____ with muscle stim with the blood flow restriction. So, I definitely agree with everything you just said.

Ben:  Yeah. Cool. It's definitely good for that. So, what's your question, man?

Mike:  No, it wasn't really a question. I just chimed in. I follow all your stuff, your podcast, and everything you do. I'm 58. I've been up fitness train. I've owned a gym for over 30 years. So, I thought I follow [01:03:48] _____. You're doing a great job.

Ben:  Nice. And you've got a great accent. What is that, Texas, California?

Mike:  No. People may [01:03:55] _____ from New York. I'm born in The Bronx.

Ben:  Yeah. I'm joking. That's a pretty unmistakable Bronx accent.

Mike:  Oh, thanks. I hope that's a compliment. I'm not sure.

Ben:  No. I love it. Alright. Well, let's go ahead and we can toss in one other quick question here.

Bob:  Hello.

Ben:  Yow. What's up, Bob?

Bob:  Hey, what's up, Ben? I met you once, or a few times at Paleo f(x). I've been following you for years. Excited to talk to you. And all preferences with–I know this is not medical advice show or anything like that, but first off, I'm a type 1 diabetic, but I went from doing some triathlons, I lift heavy and stuff like that to having a pacemaker. If you were to have a pacemaker–I have two questions. If you were to have a pacemaker, what would be some of the hacks that you could do? Because I know I can't do like PEMF and stuff like that just because of the magnetic fields. And the other thing is with the pacemaker, can I test my heart rate variability, or does that just throw it off? I don't know if you know that.

Ben:  Yeah. It will definitely impair signaling to what are called your sinoatrial node pacemaker cells, like you actually have your own built-in pacemaker cells in your heart. And if you're stimulating those with a pacemaker in any of your HRV data, similar to if you run like a beta-blocker or a calcium channel inhibitor as a medication, it's going to impair the results that you get, and you probably should not be relying on heart rate variability as kind of like the primary way to assess things like recovery, intensity during exercise, et cetera, simply because the pacemaker is basically interacting with the SA node of the heart in the way that the vagus nerve is supposed to be. And so, it's something that I would be careful with.

I would also, with pacemaker in the heart, speaking of the vagus nerve, I would really be focusing on ways that you can really improve vagal nerve tone. So, vagal nerve tone is just the activity of the vagus nerve. An increase in the vagal nerve tone is going to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Higher vagal tone typically means your body can relax faster after stress, but it also means you can modulate the balance between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system better by improving vagal tone. And some of the things we've already talked about, like cold thermogenesis, for example, and omega-3 fatty acids or high DHA intake, that's great for vagal tone, so is meditation, so is like chanting, singing. And we can mute Bob for now just while I'm getting into this. Chanting, singing, humming, gargling, diaphragmatic breathwork, even things like socializing and laughing, regular massage therapy, exercise, particularly like aerobic exercise, all of that really helps to improve vagal nerve tone, and those are all things that I would be thinking about doing.

As far as exercising with a pacemaker–I mean, you're right, I'm not a doctor and you really need to make sure you listen to your doctor's advice when it comes to exercising with a pacemaker. I would definitely–beware of your exercise environment. I think a lot of people with a pacemaker are not aware of the effects that things like–not just high voltage power lines, but even like a home that's full of smart appliances, microwave ovens, TVs, electrical generators, et cetera. They're not as big of an issue as like high voltage power lines or things like that. But I would try to mitigate EMF in your personal environment as much as you can because that is going to influence calcium influx into the cells, including the pacemaker cells in the heart. And I would bear that stuff in mind.

So, I would go low EMF, I would pay attention to your vagal nerve tone as far as your actual exercise intensity rather than using heart rate or heart rate variability to guide you. You can use breath and rating of perceived exertion. And you may also, as I recommend a lot of people do–and I've got a big podcast on heart health coming up with Dr. Stephen Hussey, who just wrote a great book called “Understanding the Heart,” which might be right up your alley, Bob. High-intensity interval training, especially in people with pre-existing heart issues, or calcium deposition in the heart, or even heart pacemaker issues, they really don't seem to respond well to voluminous endurance training or high-intensity interval training. Versus a couple of elements I really like for people with heart issues would be following the advice of a guy like Dr. Doug McGuff and using more of like a super slow body by science-esque approach to weight training, which would involve super slow sets of like 30 seconds up, 30 seconds down for one set to failure for each body part or each general move like a chest press, shoulder press, pull down row, leg press, and then also low-level aerobic training.

So, someone who's concerned about heart health might do, say, like on–if we're going to split it into days of the week, you might have one day that is all, say, like sauna, cold thermogenesis, walking in the sunshine. And then, the next day might be sauna, cold thermogenesis, super slow training. And that might be how you alternate Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and then Sunday might be a big breathwork session and a massage. And so, that's how you could piece together kind of like an exercise program that would be really, really good for the heart, and especially in people with pre-existing cardiovascular conditions, allow for fitness maintenance without a lot of risk while also working in a lot of the things that are actually good for the heart and good for blood pressure, like super slow training, like low-intensity aerobic training, like sauna, like cold, like sunshine if you're able to do those walks in bare feet or wearing shoes that are grounded or earthed, getting a little bit of grounding or the earthing effect of the electrical potential that the earth can help with regarding your heart.

And so, that's kind of like how you'd adjust things based on heart health in general. And then, EMF mitigation would also be important along with a lot of other things that can help to improve vagal nerve tone. And that's where I'd start. And I'm honestly super excited about this podcast that I have coming up with Stephen Hussey because we're going to geek out for a while about his book “Understanding the Heart,” and that might be a good one for you to pick up and read as well, Bob. Again, it'd probably be right up your alley when it comes to heart health. So, I hope that's helpful to a certain extent. Again, not medical advice. I'm not a doc, but those are just some things I think about at least.

And you know what, I guess that's probably almost all the time that we have today. It was kind of weird doing this without my usual podcast sidekick Jay T. Wiles, but we made it through, nonetheless, without all the witty banter and with me just talking my ass off and taking some questions from you guys. So, here's the deal. As we wind up on a close here, again, when this podcast comes out, all the shownotes are going to be at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/428. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com/428. And then, the best thing you guys can do to help this show out is go leave a review, leave a ranking, spread the word to your friends. I love to do this to hunt down cool information, share it with you guys, answer your questions. I do what I do to just help people out, and I love to see people getting healthier, fitter, discovering themselves physically, mentally, spiritually, eating ice cream, hopefully, without chopping any appendages off, and finding new uses for Viagra for muscle gain.

So, all sorts of avenues I love to dive into, and hopefully, I've given you guys some cool ideas and things to think about today. And I want to thank everybody for coming on the show. Thank you, Sophia, for being a moderator today. And again, subscribe to my newsletter at BenGreenfieldFitness.com. I'll let you guys know as soon as we do the next Clubhouse Q&A. And in the meantime, I'm wishing everybody an amazing, amazing Wednesday. Go out and live your life's best purpose, make great impact, do the very best things that ever God has put on your plate for today, and have a wonderful day and a wonderful week. Until next time. I'm Ben Greenfield signing out. Bye, everybody. I love you.

Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the shownotes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over at 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 hormone, sleep, digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please, also, know that all the links, all the promo codes, that I mentioned during this and every episode, helped to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. When you listen in, be sure to use the links in the shownotes, use the promo codes that I generate, because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.

 

 

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Listener Q&A:

Dr. Jack Kruse Vitamin D & Leptin Protocol…37:15

Chris asks: What are your thoughts on Dr. Jack Kruse's comments on Vitamin D or leptin protocols?

In my response, I recommend:

The Craziest, Most Dangerous Biohacks Ben Has Done…45:35

Bryce asks: What are your thoughts around insulin synthesizing using 8-hydroxy-dihydroberberine?

  • Bonus question: What is the craziest biohack you've done that didn't work?

 

In my response, I recommend:

Supplements To Enhance BFR Training…53:17

Dr. Mehdi asks: Have you ever combined blood flow restriction (BFR) training with beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate (HMB)?

In my response, I recommend:

How To Exercise With A Pacemaker…1:04:15

Bob asks:  If you had a pacemaker what hacks could you do? And would a pacemaker throw off heart rate variability (HRV) measurements?

In my response, I recommend:

 

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